#i'd love to make a second post explaining all my choices here

[astrophileous]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I need anything fluffy (and I mean the most stomach churning, toe curling, quiet screaming fluff please 🥴🩷) for professor!spencer because I am actually frothing at the mouth DO YOU FEEL ME🗣️‼️ (mwah ily kith kith)

I might have written two blurbs for this request and I might have driven myself crazy trying to determine which one I should post so here's to wishing I didn't make the wrong choice 🤞 this one is special for you avis I hope you enjoy it MWAH 💖

Warning(s): gn!reader, I imagine reader being in grad school but you can imagine reader in college as well--that just means there's gonna be an age gap in there, if professor-student romantic dynamics isn't your thing you shouldn't be reading this, profanities(?), established relationship

This blurb was written as a part of the "Zara's Birthday Bash and Road to 1K" celebration.

Zara's Birthday Bash and Road to 1K Masterlist / Criminal Minds Masterlist

Have a good day, my love.

You grinned giddily at the text message popping up on the screen of your phone. Without wasting another second, your thumbs moved swiftly over the keypad as you typed in a response.

You too, honey. See you tonight at dinner <3

"What are you so smiley about?"

You quickly shoved your phone into the pocket of your pants before looking up towards the owner of the voice. Gladys stood to your left with a quizzical tilt to her eyebrows. Her eyes assessed you from head to toe before they landed back on your face.

"I'm not smiley. Who's smiley?"

"You are." Her eyes squinted. "Something smells fishy."

"You should check your bag. Maybe you accidentally threw your cat's wet food in there again."

"That was one time!"

Gladys scampered after you as you made your way into the lecture hall. Akbar was sitting on the third row when you walked in, immediately scooting over to make room for both Gladys and you to slip into your respective seats.

"Hey, did you guys hear?" Akbar asked as soon as you and Gladys plopped down next to him.

"Hear what?" Gladys asked.

"Apparently, some people are saying that Professor Chuckie is hitched."

Gladys' eyes grew comically wide. "He's what?"

Your brain was working in overdrive, trying to decipher whom exactly Akbar had meant by Professor Chuckie. Between him and Gladys, the two of them had a tendency of coming up with dozens of ridiculous code names for every single person they ever encountered in life, to the point where you were constantly struggling to keep up with them all.

"Who's Professor Chuckie again?" you eventually asked.

"Chuckie? From Rugrats?" Gladys hinted.

Your frown deepened. "Who?"

"Oh my God, (Y/N)." Akbar sighed. "You know the man. Fluffy curly hair like Chuckie from Rugrats."

After swimming in a pool of confusion for the next few minutes, Gladys eventually took pity on you and blurted out, "It's Professor Reid, (Y/N). Professor Spencer Reid from Criminology department?"

Your stomach dropped to the floor.

How did they—

"A buddy of mine was at the criminology lab today and told me that everyone was talking about it," Akbar explained. "The Spencer Reid is married. It's a huge news."

"Damn right, it is." Gladys scoffed. "Why are all the fine men in my life already taken? I hate it here."

Akbar rolled his eyes. "Right. As if you ever had a chance with him anyway."

As your two friends proceeded to bicker with one another, you felt yourself sinking deeper into a temporal abyss as your brain tried to process what Akbar had just said.

Spencer Reid is married.

Everyone was talking about it.

A lump formed at the base of your throat as you faced Akbar again, "Hey, how did they—how did your friend find out that Professor Reid was married?"

"He showed up to work with a ring this morning."

Your heart was racing inside your chest. "That's it? Not a very conclusive evidence, isn't it? Maybe the man just likes his jewelry."

"Nah, I'd bet my money that he's hitched," Akbar said. "My buddy told me one of the students tried to ask him about it and he just kinda smiled and nodded. Never really answered the question, though."

"That does sound kinda sus," Gladys opined. "Makes me wonder what kind of person managed to bag a specimen like that."

You hummed distractedly in reply, too busy mulling over everything to actively participate in the conversation your friends were having. Your professor strode into the hall barely five minutes later, and before long, the class officially began, forcing you to shake off any irrelevant thoughts about Professor Chuckie and his ring from the deepest corners of your mind.

Today was the day every group in class had to present their last progress report before finals rolled around. As soon as the fifth group finished their presentation, you walked to the front of the class with Akbar and Gladys following closely behind.

Akbar stepped towards the desk, trying to connect his PC with the class projector. He fumbled with the cable for a few minutes before he sheepishly glanced at you and Gladys. "I don't think it's gonna work. Either of you brought a laptop today?"

"I brought mine," you announced. "Wait here."

You ran back towards your table to grab your laptop before connecting the device to the projector. As soon as the desktop of your laptop appeared on the big screen, the entire lecture hall suddenly erupted in a round of synchronized gasps.

Gladys was staring at you, a clear sign of shock on her countenance. "(Y/N)?"

"Dude," Akbar muttered breathlessly. "What the hell?"

You swept your gaze repeatedly between the two of them and the rest of the class, confusion dawning inch by inch with every second that ticked by. "What? What's going on?"

Akbar nudged your shoulder, gesturing you to look behind towards where the projected screen of your laptop was being shown to everyone in the room. Your mouth instantly ran dry when you realized what had the whole lecture hall so stunned for the past few minutes.

It was a picture—the one you had set up last week as the wallpaper of your PC desktop but somehow had managed to completely forget about—of you and Spencer lounging on the living room couch of your shared apartment, holding up your hands to show off the identical bands encircling your ring fingers. Spencer was smiling big towards the camera with a protective arm wrapped around your shoulders while you peeked behind his neck with a portion of your face concealed behind his untamed curls.

It was a sweet photo to commemorate the most important day of both of your lives, taken merely hours after you exchanged vows at the city hall and entrusted each of your own hearts towards the other person to keep, nurture, and love.

And now, that same photo was up on the wall of Room 2404 as an impromptu spectacle for your entire Data Analytics class to see.

From behind the desk, Professor Clegg cleared his throat. "So, (Y/N). You and Dr. Reid, huh?" He peered at you from behind his glasses, not the slightest hint of a smile on his lips, but a brightly twinkling mirth in his eyes. "I guess congratulations are in order."

You exhaled a tired breath and replied, "Thank you, Professor."

Once your presentation was over, you retired back to your seat and discreetly typed in a message as another group came forward to present their work. You threw your phone into your bag after hitting send, trying to ignore the whispered demands of your two friends as they badgered you for answers.

Across the campus, Spencer's phone dinged with an incoming text.

He pulled out the device promptly, failing to contain his smile as he read the message you had just delivered to him.

Thanks a lot for the heads up 👎 Looks like there's no need for me to keep my own ring hidden in the wallet anymore >:(

[corviiids]

i loved your answer to the ooc question... penny for your thoughts on the Core of ren and goro? 👉👈🥺

rubbing my little bug hands together i dunno that i can capture all my whole... mental Akeshu Bible... in one post... but here are some notes on what i'd consider one of the most key points for each.

basically the way this works for me is ill have like a central piece of understanding sitting at the core of how i work with a character, and then let instinct guide their dialogue/behaviour from there.

i wrote a thesis again. two in fact. jesus christ

goro - sincerity is mystifying, dangerous, and impossible, but alluring.

can i talk about light yagami for a second. are we all going to be okay with it if i do that. that's going to make this easier for me to explain

i think light yagami and goro akechi have almost nothing in common once we get past the most obvious similarities - the cynicism borne of shattered once-upon-a-time idealism, the willingness to turn to radical action, the bad hair. anyway the difference i want to point out arises from another key similarity which i think only exists on the surface - the "evil underside true self" counterpart to the "pleasant preppy perfect boy" persona. looks the same. but the difference is that light never struggles with that falsehood, and akechi clearly does.

what i mean by that is i think to light, his perfect persona is nothing more than a simple disguise, albeit one he's been wearing a while without knowing why. he doesn't really have a fractured sense of self, because it's clear that the light yagami who is kira is the True self. the light yagami who is just a nice young man is mostly a falsehood to the point light sees him as a character to be played. (ok this is also an oversimplification but go with me for now. okay. that's the basic of it. just accept this for the sake of argument. this aint about him)

goro is very different. i think in the lead-up to the interrogation room, goro understands himself in a similar way, but after the interrogation room that perception is called into question. okay, i think about the interrogation room scene a lot, because i really didn't like goro's behaviour in that scene when i first played it, i thought it was a very cheap and superficial way to reveal his identity as the traitor by making him act as cartoonishly villainous as possible. and tbh i dont want to give atlus too much credit for creating a super nuanced scene there so what im about to propose is probably unintentional. but anyway, i eventually came around to it because i decided that that cartoonish villanousness must be a choice to goro. at that point in time, goro's perception of himself is akin to light's understanding of kira: black mask/shido's assassin/evil motherfucker is "the true goro", and pleasant boy detective prince is nothing but a mask.

and here i would like to bring up a complicating factor which makes light and goro very, very different. light wants to live. he refuses the shinigami eyes because he wants to exist in his new world to rule over it indefinitely. goro's plan on the other hand has a fixed timeline. goro is aware, and tells us in the engine room, that once his public reputation is shattered, he has nothing. goro's plan involves outing shido by outing himself. ergo, goro's plan is to take shido to the top and then torpedo them together, leaving them both with nothing.

what does this mean? light yagami's mask protects kira - light's true self and a man who wants to live. goro akechi's mask serves the black-masked assassin, but the black-masked assassin serves shido, a role which is just as deceptive as the detective prince. which means goro akechi's disguise protects a self that isn't real, either. it feels disingenuous to say that the version of akechi who exists to be shido's attack dog is his true self. so that goofy villainous smile in the interrogation room is, to me, goro convincing himself that that evil face is who he really is, not realising it's another facade he's playing up - but while the prince's audience is the public, the assassin's audience is goro himself. after that whole thing goes down, i think it becomes clearer that that evil face was goro pretending to himself that he's just a straight up villain who doesn't care about anything because that's easier than conceding that you might feel some complicated way about the self-loathing and bitterness you've been nurturing since childhood.

but wait, there's definitely also truth to the black mask. there's no way to deny that the akechi who attacks them in the engine room had a ton of truth to him that the detective prince lacked. but, wait. goro doesn't perfectly keep up the facade with the detective prince, either, because there are definitely times where he's being honest even when he's being the pleasant boy.

okay, where does that leave us? light has one layer of falsehood (light protects kira), but goro has at least two (detective prince protects black mask protects ???) so what the hell is goro hiding? where's the true self? is the version of akechi who showed up in the interrogation room the black mask, or is it shido's assassin? are those two different guys who overlap? does this mean everything the detective prince said is suspect? we don't know which one is true, but we know they're both lying.

okay. why? what's wrong with him? i should get to my actual fucking point maybe?

this is the central thesis of his shadows in palacefic btw. rather than being divided into a relatively clean true/false like light, goro's true self is split between his personae. every time you talk to any version of goro akechi, you're getting some lies but you're also getting some sincerity. i think goro doesnt know who he is because he doesn't see any particular use for having a real self at the end of the day, only masks he can use to achieve his ends.

except you can't actually kill your true self. it sticks around. so the most he can do is fragment it. but the consequence is the shards get stuck in his masks. every time he tries to put on a mask, a shred of truth peeks out. i think goro wants to not exist and not be known, but inside every mask he wears is a true part of him that desperately DOES want to be known, but can't allow it, but wants it, but is scared of it, but wants it, but hates it, but will die if it happens, but wants it.

what you end up with is a really self-contradictory guy where every time he talks, the things he's saying are simultaneously true and false. it's the worst with ren, because he's really interested in ren, but allowing ren to know him is suicide. light's really good at playing the part because he has no investment in the part, it's purely fake, and all his investment is in his true self. but goro is invested in each of his masks, because each of his masks contains part of him for real and there's no unified self to return to at the end of the day. so he struggles way more with the act than light does, because there's a part of him, however small, that really wants to drop the mask. but he can't, because there's nothing behind it, so there's nothing he can do

anyway when i write goro's dialogue and behaviour, it's not just writing a guy lying and playing a part because he needs the cover, it's goro injecting himself into mould after mould after mould and trying to keep a balance of how much he can reveal vs how much he needs to keep close to his chest. this is why he talks so fucking much, it's why his speech mannerisms aren't always perfectly polished, it's why the mask slips so often, it's why he's so cartoonishly evil at times, and it's why while light yagami is a popular guy who has everyone around him perfectly fooled, goro akechi is really only able to appeal to the subset of fans who are keen on his particular celebrity style while other people find him kind of annoying and disingenuous. when im writing akechi in xyz situation, it's a process of working out which mask he's wearing, what he wants to achieve, what he's hiding, how much he can or would slip, and what that slip might look like. i think this is heightened because of his circumstances, but i also think goro would be incredibly guarded and paranoid no matter what his circumstances were (although the murder might decrease a little).

tl;dr: goro akechi tries to do away with his sense of self but only succeeds in splitting it into a hundred million pieces covered in lies, each of which is desperate to be known but shies away with equal desperation

ren - in a distant relationship with the sense of self

idk that thats the right word but basically i think in true persona protag fashion, and as alluded to by beneath the mask / the power of the wild card / etc the relationship between ren's personae and his 'true self' is more complicated and detached than most of the other characters. i dont agree that the protags are true "blank slate" protagonists in the meta sense but i do think ren is a "blank slate" person in-text in that simultaneously he has extremely strong core values and beliefs which are absolutely immovable, and traits which shine through even in his limited speech, but the manifestation of his personality is a lot more malleable than say ryuji's is. ren is very flexible and wears a different mask depending on who he's talking to. i think that requires a level of detachment which manifests as basically centering his companion's character + needs in a given interaction over his own. this doesnt just come through in his dialogue but also in the way he internally reflects on what's happening.

the way this manifests most obviously in how i write him is that my ren (in texts especially but also in dialogue) has a tendency to omit his personal pronoun (in subject position).

that gives him kind of a laid-back vibe. he has a habit of omitting the first part of a sentence entirely.

he adds it back in when he's talking about something more serious, very alert, feeling uncomfortable, etc. it happens a lot when he talks to akechi because he needs to be very switched on during those conversations to keep up.

idk i know that for some people the joy of having a protagonist character is being able to make them into whoever you want them to be - so your ren might be extra flirty for example which i think is a really popular characterisation of him because it's fun and it has some basis in his dialogue, and it's a choice i went with for a while before i started shifting away from it. recently i've been way more interested in trying to reconcile this really strong-willed guy with a clearly rich and rebellious inner life with the quiet slouched character who says like 3 words every conversation and who really never reveals anything about himself. like, imagine he's a real person and not just a blank slate protagonist i can push and pull - how do i make his little mousy 8< self work with the fact that he's an international criminal without adding something on top that isn't already there in him? i think there's a way to do it and i think the way to do that is to have him internalise as much as possible. for everything he says, there are a billion things he doesn't say. that makes it really fucking difficult to actually portray him sometimes because his rich inner life can really only come through if we have access to his inner monologue, and if he's not the pov character we don't, but you know, i love a stupid fucking self imposed challenge. ren amamiya is like laying breadcrumb clues in his dumb ass 3 word dialogue options that im crawling over like weevils with a magnifying glass

but he DOES leave clues! so many of his dialogue options are sarcastic and dry or straight up goofy. so he's funny, he's deadpan, he can be impatient. but if you take that too far in dialogue, it gets overplayed, and he loses his taciturn charm, so you have to pull it back, because he's restrained, not overt. he's quippy, he's not wordy. he's a show-off, but in a self-assured way. he will never indicate in any way that he wants you to look at him. he'll just make sure he's so impressive that you can't look away. if he winks, it's like he's keeping a secret between you, not like he's putting on a show. he delivers one-liners only, not full jokes, and the setup and knockdown has to be in the same breath. if his thoughts can't be condensed into one sentence, two or three max, he doesn't say them, he keeps it to himself. whether his emotions show on his face depend on how well you can read him, and it depends who he's with, it depends how recently he's been joker, it depends if there's some extenuating factor in there that's going to make him crack. ren's more likely to crack if he's standing up for someone else.

his inner monologue is just as interesting to grapple with because my ren is pretty repressed. the more upset he is, the more he distances himself from how he's actually feeling. he's very good at deflecting people and he's also very good at deflecting himself - focus on someone else, focus on the environment around him, focus on some physical sensation, don't get too far into his own head, or else

tl;dr: ren handles himself with a mix of internalising and externalising by swallowing down everything he might want to say out loud but outsourcing and distancing from his sense of self to keep himself steady

[dontcallthedoctor]

TEMP CHARACTER THEMES!!!

HIYA, FELLAS!!! This is gonna be a loooong post, so strap in!!! (I've srsly been writing this post for four days end me)

Yesterday, I announced that Kinger had won the music poll and that he shall be next to get his own theme. Sadly, yesterday was also the day I realized I've been hit with musical writer's block, so it might be a short while before I come up with anything good—I REALLY wanna get something out for Halloween tho!!

Since people may be curious abt what's in store for the other characters, I thought it'd be fun to present my ideas to you all, and give u all a little insight as to how my dumb little music brain works lol

Obviously, I haven't written much of anything original for anyone but Pomni yet, so in the meantime, I've picked out some temporary themes for each respective character that I feel fit them well, and hopefully they'll give you all an idea what I wanna achieve with them musically! A lot of thought went into figuring out each character's respective musical identities, so I hope these example pieces resonate with you as much as they did with me!

That said, if you have other ideas as to how these characters' themes might sound, I'd definitely love to hear about them! Feel free to comment em below or DM me if you wish! Feedback is greatly appreciated!!!

Just as a disclaimer, barring ofc Pomni's Theme, NONE OF THESE ARE MINE, NOR DO I CLAIM AUTHERSHIP OF THEM! That out of the way, let's begin with...

Pomni: I briefly explained my process behind this one in the original post, so I'll elaborate a little more here for those unaware, alongside this slightly extended version of it (a whole twenty seconds YIPPEE)

Pomni’s Theme kinda ended up being a homage to the music of Danny Elfman. I came up with the melody one night just by playing around on my piano. It was this weird, off-kilter, sorta sad-sounding tune that really resonated with me, and thought it sounded perfect for Pomni, so it became her motif. My friend @pasta-yy worded it perfectly when they said it sounded like "Pomni-flavored despair" lol

It wasn’t until I decided to make it a full song that I realized “WAIT THIS MAKES ME THINK OF DANNY ELFMAN”, who I’ve always admired, so I took to his early work for inspiration. I’ll cite Simone’s Theme from Peewee’s Big Adventure as the main influence in terms of "musical flavor" for this one. It helped me find / flesh out the circus-y style I was aiming for!

This composition isn’t quite finished yet, but I plan to post updates on it the whole way! I’m really excited for you all to see where this one goes!

Someone said that Pomni’s Theme sounds like the opening theme from Laimin! Anmin! Suya Rhys Seikatsu (Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle), an anime I haven’t seen, but I kinda hear it in some parts, at least in terms of chord progression!

Ragatha: For the rag dolly, I envision a sweet, somewhat-haunting tune. Imagine if a music box melody was arranged for orchestra. Very lush, very beautiful, very mature first and foremost, but with an undercurrent of sadness. Like Ragatha herself, the pathos is well-camouflaged beneath the happiness and the optimism, but is still undeniably there and perfectly in line with what we know about her character so far.

This particular track is led by accordion, which I'm not entirely sure fits Ragatha, but everything else is a pretty good representation of what I hope to achieve with her!

Jax: Prolly my favorite thing about Jax is how differently he carries himself in relation to everyone else. He's maliciously annoying, self-aware, and ironically more of a jester than the character who's avatar is a literal jester. He embraces being stuck in the circus like it's his first choice, instead of something he's settling for. He's an intriguing character and i'm curious to see how he'll evolve (or de-volve if Goose's comments are anything to go by)

In writing this, I'm struggling to put into words how exactly I want his theme to sound, but this track is a pretty good encapsulation of it! There's a sort-of confidence in it it and a jaunty forward-momentum that carries through the whole piece. I think that vibe really suits Jax. There's also an air of non-chalance that parallels how lackadaisical he is with everything. I feel that, since Jax doesn't take much of anything seriously, neither should his music lol

It almost reminds me of the music Vince Guaraldi composed for the Peanuts specials. His character themes always had this hip, carefree vibe to them, especially tracks like Peppermint Patty, which will also be an inspiration on Jax's tune.

Gangle: In case anybody hasn’t caught on, Gangle is my faaavorite character from the show, and I really want to do her justice, so it took me a good while to figure out just what I wanted to do for her.

That being said, the genre I'm gravitating towards most for her (at least while writing this) is gypsy jazz. For those who may not know, gypsy jazz (or jazz manouche) is a French style of jazz that uses solely string instruments; mainly violin, guitar, and double bass. It's a beautiful genre of music, and I think it's a perfect fit for Gangle <3

I imagine something playful, gentle, unassuming, and a tad saucy, at least when she's wearing her comedy mask. For her tragedy mask, I think it'd be fun for the tone to turn dramatically sad, and have the music structure fall apart, much like her mask. I'd really like to integrate piano in some way to highlight her sensitivity.

If anyone has any other ideas, please lemme know in the comments or DM me if u wish! Gods know I could use some inspiration ^^

Kinger: And now we come to Mr. Poll Winner himself! I'm honestly really glad that Kinger won, because I have more confidence in the ideas i've come up with for him than I am for a great majority of the others.

Knowing what we know now, I see Kinger as a very sweet, sentimental, yet ultimately tragic figure, so like with Ragatha, that's definitely something that's going to influence how his theme will sound.

This is probably my favorite of the temp themes, and definitely the one I want to stick closest to when I start writing for him. Everything about it just screams "Kinger" to me and I think is a near-perfect musical summarization of his character; the plodding simplicity, the almost-dreamlike surrealistic quality to the melody, the subtle melancholia, the chord progression, all of it. I think it gels with Kinger exceptionally well, which is why I've included two versions; one light, one dark.

The question is: do u all agree? ovo

Zooble: In searching for the right genre for Zooble, I've settled on what I call “aggressive lo-fi R&B”. Something that gives off swanky 90s “cool” vibes. Funky, mellow, bluesy, with a lil extra punch. Zooble is mostly low-energy but very much a plain-speaker, so I think this kinda music of music pairs nicely with them!

Amon Tobin’s Like Regular Chickens is another good example of what I'm going for. This one's very strange, kinda abstract, and prolly not most people's cup of tea, but I think it's neat and a pretty fitting sound for Zooble (maybe a little less intense in parts lol)

Caine: The logic behind Caine's theme is that it should be "annoying to everyone else, but he would love it". Something that he'd have no problem listening to every day on repeat, but nobody else can stand.

My first idea was really garish, campy carnival attraction music (more generally, Hammond organ music), represented in the first half. That stuck for awhile, but then I thought abt doing a pastiche of 80/90s sitcom intro type music, represented in the second half, which I think also works.

I feel like both could work, maybe even together, but I'm still undecided. I think wacky obnoxious organ music is PERFECTLY in line with Caine as a character, but the 90s route might be the more appropriate way to go, since it would to share some continuity with Digital Days from the credits (one of my fav songs from the soundtrack along with Not Alone and Somebody Real) We'll see what happens LMAO

Bubble: I’d always jokingly entertained the notion of making a theme for Bubble, but never put much serious thought into it until @mikiib asked for it, so here he is on this list.

The idea I settled on was “underwater Mario level?”, and the more I thought about it, i’ve decided that’s the direction i’ll probably go with Bubble’s tune. I imagine it being very "spacey" and floaty. Very peaceful and relaxing, but still rich with untamed weirdness, which is what makes Bubble fun :3

Mik also had the idea of using bubbly noises as percussion, which I DEF want to try! I've never really been experimental with percussion before so this'll be a fun opportunity to branch out!!

Other Characters: Last month I wrote a sweet militaristic-y march song for the Princess and the Candy Canyon Kingdom, but as far as other characters, I can't think of many I'd like to dedicate entire fully-fledged arrangements to, at least not presently. Maybe little ditties tho, that'd be fun!

I kinda wanna write something in tribute to Gummigoo since I really like him and think he deserves it. Something very ethnic and full of fun tribal instruments. I have one for Baron Mildenhall that I haven't posted yet, and I've got a spooky lullaby I wrote for Ghostly (as well as for @mikiib) that I'll probably post tmrw for Halloween. Martha might get one too, she seems fun :3

[major-comet]

The Music in RvB: Restoration Kinda Sucks. Here's how I'd fix it.

I gave this as a presentation the other night after my first re-watch of the finale, and it was a major hit so I thought I would share it with other people who think too hard about Halo fanfiction.

Red VS Blue has some truly fantastic music in it's 21 year history, and I think that the music here was pretty weak. Obviously this post has major spoilers for RvB19 / Restoration, so be warned.

So, under the Read More is a typed up and fleshed out version of my powerpoint presentation where I will dive in and not just bitch about the musical choices, but explain how I would fix things. This is...really long, but I hope you all enjoy my thoughts :)

This will be best enjoyed if you listen to the songs I'm talking about as a refresher. For your convenience, I have input links to the songs on Youtube when necessary

So what's the problem?

Since the development of the finale overlapped with Rooster Teeth getting shut down, it's very likely that they had minimal funds. (EDIT: Yes, the finale itself was done by the time the announcement rolled around. However, the decision was almost certainly already in the works at WB. RT was shut down in part for financial reasons. It’s all connected.) I personally think this was part of why Burnie/RT was/were [reportedly] so insistent on using stock music for part of the season rather than a whole soundtrack done by Trocadero - I'm not sure they had the money to properly compensate for a full soundtrack. And maybe it was just a stupid / dick move, and had nothing to do with money at all, but that's what I choose to believe if only because it makes me feel slightly better about it.

This means that besides the stock music, the new score by Carl Thiel, the Zero song for that cameo, and Waning Moon (the Barenaked Ladies song), all we have are four re-used songs from earlier RvB - these songs being the Trocadero Grifball theme, I Say Ooh and Round One by Jeff Williams, and Vale Deah by Trocadero. There's also a David Levy composition in there somewhere according to the credits, R U Ready, but I have no idea what it is or where it plays. It's bothering the hell out of me because it does not appear to be a reused piece as far as I can tell - at least not reused from RvB. If anyone has any leads on this please reach out, because it seems crazy that there's one random possibly original David composition mixed in there. I've checked Apple Music and Soundcloud, nothing by that name.

In this very Meta focused film, neither of The Meta's themes play in any shape or form - [When] Your Middle Name is Danger by Trocadero or Plagam Extremam Infligere by Jeff Williams.

Nor do any of the character themes, really. Most of the series' iconic recurring tracks are completely absent. Tex's various themes, Carolina's theme - hell not even Blood Gulch Blues or the iconic intro music.

Were there any highlights?

Of course there were!

Considering I was going into the finale having only been spoiled on Vale Deah, I was pleasantly surprised to hear the Jeff tracks! That was totally unexpected, and really lovely.

Speaking of, I thought the use of Vale Deah was a really lovely touch. Fun fact: that song was used for the end credits of the Season 1 DVD, so it really felt like a sweet full circle moment.

I think that using a Barenaked Ladies song for that very sweet scene of Caboose, Grif, and Simmons reminiscing about Blood Gulch by the fire was a very lovely choice, and quite honestly it was my favorite scene in the whole thing. The BNL have been close to RvB and RT since damn near the beginning, and it was very nice to hear them attached to the finale in that small way.

I should also point out that the composer for the season is Carl Thiel - known for his work on Hot Fuzz and the second and third Spy Kids movies. I think he did a totally fine job. I liked the bugles that were under Sarge's death, but the rest doesn't really stand out much. Perfectly serviceable.

So, now that that's out of the way, let's break down those four returning songs a bit more - shall we?

Grifball Official Theme - Trocadero

This was a really funny choice. It's such a quick bit, but I respect Burnie's dedication to get in one last Grifball joke. Obviously, I would have preferred to hear a different song for something else, but this was totally harmless.

Vale Deah - Trocadero

Lo-fi Hip-hop beats to get divorced to.

God that scene was heartbreaking. I love this song a lot - I think a lot of Trocadero's strongest stuff is the stuff that just feels kind of melancholy. It's something Nico does really well, and I think Vale Deah is one of my favorite examples of that. Like I said above, I think this song was used really well - if I had to pick a different track for that same scene I would probably choose Half Life. While it was written during the Blood Gulch era, it wasn't really used in the show until Seasons 12 and 13 - notably, a version of it plays under Kimball's rally speech to the troops after Doyle's death. I just really like it, tbh. There's absolutely other songs that could work, but I think having it be a BGC-era track served the scene really well.

I Say Ooh - Jeff Williams

My feelings about this are pretty similar to Grifball. It was cute, it was nice to hear, but I wish they had used a different Jeff track somewhere else. Ultimately, it's pretty harmless. It is kind of an odd choice though - I'm pretty sure Jeff didn't write it for RvB. This was a song that he composed that was used in two RT Shorts (live action sketches that RT used to do). I think it would have been nicer to use one of his RvB tracks for the introduction of Niner - could have been a cute spot to use a track like I Am The Best or Forge World or hell, Come on Carolina would have been cute.

Round One - Jeff Williams

...Actually, I have a lot to say about Round One, so let's get everything else out of the way first.

Other Scenes that *should* have had returning tracks before I talk about Round One for a billion years

Sarge's death should have been scored with a version of Rally (Sarge's Speech). My vision is a version of it that's just the string section - familiar, but not enough to be distracting, and absolutely soul crushing if you do recognize it.

The scene with Wash and Dr. Grey in the hospital needed a hint of what Nico so lovingly calls the "Wash Trauma Theme" - which is closely related to the Trocadero Meta theme, fun fact. I think Limited Duty from the scene in Season 16 where Carolina tells Wash about the brain damage could have worked pretty well there.

The scene at the end with Wash and Carolina talking about Doc and the Freelancers really needed something. I think one of the variations of the Shisno trilogy Carwash theme could have worked very well.

Obviously the big scene with Tucker and Sigma on the ship would have really benefited from [When] Your Middle Name is Danger or one of the many themes that incorporates it, but I'd also throw Soul Clef XI into the ring! I think it's so interesting that the work around they came up with for not being able to get Elijah Wood back was to have epsilon!Sigma take on a more Felix-y type of voice. Partly because Felix was an incredibly ambitious villain so he fits it pretty well, but more importantly that was a very smart voice to pick to fuck with Tucker in particular! I think that was really smart, and I think having some version of Felix's theme playing during that scene would have been really cool.

Bolt by Trocadero was never used in the series proper. However it was used in this ten year retrospective that they released alongside Season 10. I highly recommend giving it a watch, because watching it now that it's Over - RvB, RT, all of it - it's honestly kind of heart breaking. They're all filled with this deep optimism about the future of the company, and hindsight is a bitch on this one. They use it in a really sweet sequence at the end where they're showing a bunch of old photos. Anyways I think this should have played in the credits after Vale Deah finished. "We only want to have a good time."

Miscellaneous Trocadero Songs I would have liked to see them find a place for that I haven't already / will not mention elsewhere

Steady Ride (Gunmetal Green) - this is THE Grimmons song ever to me. I love it so much. Also fun fact: as of the interview Burnie did with Nico on the season 10 (I think?) dvd/bluray, this was Burnie's favorite Trocadero track. And you can tell when you watch the DVD cuts of the first 6-ish seasons - it plays all the time.

I like Good Fight a lot, not sure there was a great spot for it? but still would have been nice - It's used a few times as a Wash theme, I believe.

No One is my favorite Trocadero song and I wish it could've been there Somewhere. It was the elevator-music type song that played behind Vic in BG once or twice, I think was in the season 4 credits, and also played during the weapons demonstrations in the Meta VS Carolina Death Battle. I just like it a lot, lol.

Okay let's get back to Round One.

Why they shouldn't have used Round One for the big fight in RvB Restoration

AKA: The actual bulk of the presentation

Okay so we've got some pros and cons to this track. Starting with the Pros;

It's a song from an iconic scene - the 3v1 training room fight from Season 9

Tex and Maine are both in the fight

Was a great "Oh FUCK yeah" moment for the fans

Great track

Cons;

Not really a song for Carolina or the Meta (or y'know. Tucker. He's there too), and only kind of a song for Tex

Honestly the fight makes me think about York more than anyone else, since that's the fight where he gets hurt

Not a cool thematic moment besides just Tex being a badass

Started too late into the fight - it's sad that Carolina got a cool track when she (finally!) showed up, but Tex just got generic music. Show my girl some respect :(

So what would be better?

It has to be something that makes you think of at least one of the fighters. A track that's good for multiple would be better, but not required.

I think it should start when Tex first shows up, not when her armor changes. that’s a cool moment, but it still means most of the fight is working with Thiel’s score.

It should be something with a note of thematic relevance - for example, the big moment right at the end of the fight is Tex reminding epsilon!Sigma that she's not based on the Director's memories of her failure this time; she's based on the memories of Grif, Caboose, and Simmons. And she Always kicked their asses.

Still needs to be a big "Oh FUCK yeah" moment.

While incorporating Carolina's theme would be nice, I think it's more important to get at least one of the others - but we'll do our best here. I think this is moreso a Tex v meta!Tucker fight in my heart than it is a Carolina fight.

So let's look over a few options, shall we? These are in no particular order.

Spiral - Jeff Williams

This is the song that plays during the Season 9 car chase when Maine gets shot. It incorporates Carolina's theme, because in PFL her theme is never too far behind whenever a Maine/Meta song is playing, which has always been interesting to me. It has all that freaky choral stuff that Jeff loved to use, and generally is just a great track.

Fragments - Jeff Williams

This plays during the Freelancer break-in in Season 10, and it just rocks so hard. Anything from the break-in would be cool because that was the last time Tex, Carolina, and Maine/The Meta were all in the same place, and of course was when The Meta was properly created. I think it was so sad that they used the instrumental of Round One, because the vocals are part of what makes the Jeff era of RvB soundtracks so iconic, and god this song delivers! Also this song has a kickass trumpet solo at the end.

Slingshot (from the Death Battle) - Trocadero

Man this song rules. This of course plays in the Meta VS Carolina Death Battle from Season 14. It's a very different energy from the Jeff picks, but it rocks so fucking much. This is a fight between Carolina and The Meta, and would of course be a callback to a (marginally) more recent - and extremely popular - episode of the show. If you haven't watched the Death Battle in a while you really should, it still kicks just as much ass now as it did back when I was in high school.

Literally any other song from the 3v1 Training Room Fight - Jeff Williams

This includes;

Round One (feat Lamar Hall)

Just the Bullfight part

On Your Knees

I just think the instrumental to Round One is the weakest choice from this fight tbh! Bullfight is my favorite out of the three, because it sounds the most Tex-y. The guitars are very her, and it incorporates part of her Agent Tex motif. And On Your Knees would have had the biggest "Oh FUCK yeah" factor. But honestly even just using the version of Round One with the vocals would have been way better.

EDIT TO ADD: a quick note - while it’s listed in the credits as Round One/Bullfight, that’s just how the instrumental is packaged on the OST. As far as I could tell in my two watches of it, they never actually make it to the Bullfight part of the track.

A Girl Named Tex - Trocadero

hold on, walk with me on this one.

I had a vision of Tex fighting meta!Tucker set to the "Yellow rose of Texas clad in black, lonely star tattooed upon her back. Double Tex she'll hit you like a truck. Double Tex and she'll mess you up." bit right after I watched 19 the first time and it's been haunting me ever since. (That bit starts at about 02:19)

This is her theme for the first chunk of the show - which just so happens to be the time period Grif, Simmons, and Caboose were primarily reminiscing about. It would have been cool as hell, and I can See the beginning of the fight in my head - the opening strums (what my brother so lovingly calls the Out of Mind music) when caboose is saying his line about how he brought back someone even worse than church, and then the fight starts! I can see it in my mind, it would have been so cool!

I just think there should have been more Blood Gulch era music in here.

100 Tex Battle - Jeff Williams

This doesn't get you any Meta points, but obviously it incorporates little bits of Tex's, and a lot of Carolina's theme. Twisting a Tex vs Carolina fight - obviously, Carolina vs all the Tex bots in Season 10 - into one where they're fighting alongside each other would have been really lovely and a cool full circle moment.

This song is really cool, it's such a good fight. I do think it maybe sounds a bit goofy at points for this fight, but still a cool option.

Okay so now let's go over my top three-ish picks

Ice Fight (or maybe the revelations suite?) - Jeff Williams

Jumping to the end of Season 8, we have a fight that involves Tex vs The Meta! And Wash, Doc, and all the Reds and Blues (barring Donut and Lopez. Hmm. Doesn't that sound familiar.) are there! Ice Fight rules so hard, it's so good.

And it has some of that narrative theming I was looking for! While yes, Tex does technically lose this fight - so does The Meta. And how does she lose it?

By going into the recovery unit.

The main reason I suggest the Suite instead of just Ice Fight is because I think having a touch of Red Vs Blue would have been really nice.

Mental Meta Metal - Jeff Williams

Genuinely my favorite track from season 10. If you let the song play the whole way through, it has Jeff's themes for The Meta, Carolina, and Tex in it. This plays the first time we see Maine in a fight in Season 10, and is also Sigma's first time in the field after we see him pondering Meta-stability in the classroom.

It incorporates elements from both Spiral and Plagam Extremam Infligere, which is kind of Jeff's theme for the Meta that he established back in Season 8. It also plays during the Freelancer Break-in when he's tossing Carolina off the cliff. The Latin on that translates to “to inflict an extreme blow”.

It also has a very strong statement of Carolina's theme, which could have been a great opportunity to bring her in with her theme!

Now, before I go over my final pick, let's go over what we need again;

We need a song with thematic relevance to the fight, that’s from an iconic scene, has a good energy to it, and would give fans a big “OH FUCK YEAH” moment.

Well, isn’t it obvious?

Agent Tex (/ Tex vs Tank / Hell's Angel) - Jeff Williams

The first instance of Jeff Williams’ Tex motif, later used in Hell’s Angel and Tex vs Tank, etc. I would add the opening strum commonly heard in the later iterations, but keep it generally the Agent Tex version which was used in the S8 Warehouse fight, as seen above.

This is like. The RvB scene ever. So many people saw this before they watched the show, and many more never even watched RvB - just this fight, since RT uploaded it separately from the episode because they knew it kicked so much ass. It also helped draw in folks who may have been fans of Monty Oum's other work. Fun fact: This was RT’s outro music for a really long time, too. So it really has history with the company.

Part of why I think this pick would work so well, beyond it just being Tex's theme for the Jeff Williams era, is that it would be so interesting in terms of narrative theming. The Season 8 warehouse fight was Tucker, Grif, Simmons, Sarge, and Caboose against Tex.

This whole sequence was Grif, Simmons, Caboose, Carolina, and Tex against Tucker.

This was one of the other scenes being reminisced about around the fire - you can see it as one of the clips shown during the scene. I think it would have been a really powerful moment, and a fantastic "FUCK YEAH" moment for everyone whose stuck around this long. This track is so good, and I really do think it would have been the perfect choice for this fight.

It's not even my favorite, if I was just choosing favorites I'd have picked Mental Meta Metal or A Girl Named Tex.

What have we learned? Why Were We Here?

Red vs Blue is a show with a lot of really fantastic music in it's book, and a really strong history of musical callbacks - particularly with the Meta's theme and how it's so closely tied to the motif Trocadero liked to use as "Wash Trauma" music. Making a clever callback to a song you've used before can help strengthen the thing you're trying to get across to your audience. I think it's somehing that Restoration really struggles with, which is pretty sad. But I hope you found my deep dive / analysis of what could have been interesting.

I'd really like to dive in and do a long reflection about the series as a whole, but as it stands this is around 3,000 words and if I get started on that, this post will never end. I'll probably work on that once i've actually Finished this rewatch.

Thank you for reading all of that!

[shadowshrike]

Ascended Astarion Appreciation Post

I'm not going to do a true analysis here because I feel like all the individual lines of spawn/ascended/neutral Astartion and how broad the interpretations of them can be depending on the context of your playthrough have already been discussed ad nauseam by the fandom. The stellar voice work only adds to the ability for a player to feel a connection with whatever narrative they like best. However, I want to throw my personal experience with his storyline into the ring because I feel it's rather unusual.

For my style of play, I initially only brought Astarion along on my 'clever evil' run. I had no knowledge of his storyline before I started and didn't do any metagaming to win his approval; I just brought him along because the 2 minutes I saw of him in my main run made him seem like a good fit for a Tav with selfish choices. This was a custom bard playthrough where I made everyone love me by being a great con artist, killed the few who might make my rise to power more difficult (like the Nightsong), and lightly manipulated our companions into giving me their protection while I only took on minor risk. Naturally, Astarion played well with this character. He was entertained by having a partner to 'play' with, one who didn't get put off by cruel comments or his lust for power and was good at pretending to be manipulated by the questionably charismatic vampire.

I expected the power lust and loss of humanity toward the end of his story. What I did not expect was that by doing an Ascended playthrough first, I would ruin my desire to reload for the Spawn ending later. After all, aren't you supposed to want to do the "Good" thing when your default gameplay style is Good-aligned?

What solidified it for me were two things. First, his response to the Gur. His reaction suggested to me that he was probably a power-hungry noble before he was turned, one who paid the consequences for his cruelty, jumped at the chance for an escape through Cazador when faced with the consequences of that cruelty, and then spent the next 200 years being tortured horrifically for it. From everything I gleaned through his half-retelling, his story was much like the victims of hags or devils. I felt bad for the disproportionate horror of his fate, but there was an odd sort of justice in it as well, one that had long descended into pure evil thanks to the creature he fell victim to.

The second thing that turned me from doing a full playthrough just to see the Spawn ending was, oddly enough, the confession where he explains he's been manipulating you and has accidentally developed feelings. Now, this is partly because I may have accidentally skipped part of the animation, but when I decided to reciprocate the 'heartfelt feelings' as part of my character's manipulation, his answering smirk seemed to say, "Gotcha. So all I have to do is act vulnerable, weak, and like I would be nicer if someone just loved me for once in my life, and they'll protect me forever. I can do that."

After that point, I could never take any statement he made about redemption seriously, especially not if he was particularly blunt about it. The nail-on-the-head speeches I'd seen from him on the spawn path seemed exactly that - too perfect. Like it was exactly what a good character would want to hear, and something a rather poor manipulator but one who specializes in making people feel loved (which Astarion is) would fall back on. That's not to say the words don't ring with truth - they really do thanks to the beautiful voice work - but in the context of his relationship with power and dependence, every word felt like falling back on old habits to manage his fears. Ones he may not even be aware of, truthfully.

Do I think that was the intent by the writers? Absolutely not. But the more I pressed on in the story and he never reverted to that overly sweet act after he realized my character was actually more interested in giggling with him over how to obtain absolute power, the more it felt like the whole 'poor victim' act, although absolutely rooted in some truth, was truly an act to him.

He was terrified, would always be terrified, and had no problem doing whatever he needed to do in order to keep that terror at bay. His desperation made him easy to manipulate. He begged for both the tadpole's powers and Raphael's deal, staying true to a character that would always take the risk as long as it didn't threaten his vanity like the astral tadpole did. He was clearly incapable of forming a healthy relationship with anyone and had no interest in actually working on himself. Still, he was a master at adjusting his behaviors just enough to make himself safer in his new 'goodish' environment by acting like he had come to appreciate goodness. Not that he was ever completely heartless, even on a selfish/evil run, but it became clear that he mostly wanted goodness for himself. He didn't want a lack of chains in the world. He wanted to be the one holding them.

Ascending him was the obvious choice in an evil run. I would both be giving him the one thing he truly wanted and putting him forever in my debt...at least until his annoyance at having a debt outweighed his fear of being alone.

Becoming his spawn, on the other hand, was a hard choice. And probably the most satisfying narrative choice I made in all my playthroughs, good or evil.

For context, I had refused to use any tadpole powers in this run, giving it to him instead, so he could deal with the risk while being pleased by being handed more power. I didn't want to sacrifice anything personally while I was busy putting everyone in my debt. But here I was faced with a dilemma - did I have confidence that my character could still manipulate this vampire driven by fear enough to take the world if I let him turn me into a spawn so I could be immortal? Would the good and evil armies I'd raised to my name be enough to stop Astarion if he started to lose his utter devotion to me and made me a mindless thrall? If I said no or suddenly cast doubt on him, he'd certainly be enraged, given my prior support of him and his fear of rejection. Was the danger of angering him on top of losing that ascended vampire power worth my mortal freedoms? How long would that freedom even last if I said no, assuming he truly did end up exactly like Cazador, who would likely have just taken it from me in a rage?

Interestingly, this choice was made for me by the insight check that some people hate so much. When I saw he thought my character was still above him, that I had to degrade myself to be with him, I realized the man's leash hadn't gone anywhere. I could use him to get me the world. Yes, he would continue trying to manipulate me with empty promises, but I would continue manipulating him in turn by appealing to his petty vanity and insecurities. And together, we could have everything he ever lusted after with the only cost being a soul he was more than willing to lose.

I think the perfect cap to this was the ending. A romanced Ascended Astarion's ending was easily the most satisfying ending part of all the little character moments of all my playthroughs. The evil power fantasy was perfect. With the choices I made, it implied he was 100% as much my thrall as I was his (less literally in his case), leaving the corruption of his character beyond pure power lust open to interpretation. Add to that the satisfaction of his new unique dialogs near that end, and I was blown away. His confidence, for once, did not seem fake, though it was still informed by the fears that had driven him from the beginning. It was not his most healed or kind self (and how could he be either of those in any ending after 200 years of torture unless he was lying?), but his most free self, enjoying everything he ever wanted in a blaze of glory, relishing in his control, and fully giving himself to the newfound passions given by his second life.

Is he evil, selfish, and controlling? Absolutely. Will some hero inevitably take him out down the line when he gets a little too crazy with his powers? Probably. But such is the beauty and fun of the evil power fantasy.

It's unfortunate that playing this route, I can't enjoy how he is chained by the spawn route. I can understand what it is trying to do. Promoting the power of forgiveness, love, and support to allow someone to be their best self. It aims to apply human healing patterns to a supernatural creature in a cathartic way, one that has been successful for a great many people. But for me, it just doesn't land.

On runs where I care about his fate on a personal level, I hate to see him forced into a life where he loses all the things that have brought him joy, either now or when his lover dies. I don't want my choices 'for his own good' to mandate he forever sacrifices his own wants and needs. I hate how he tells you that you made the right choice after things have calmed down if you refuse to help him because what other option does he have? You've stripped him of hope outside of your protection. Without a cure, he's helpless at the feet of the Good heroes surrounding him who could end him in an instant if he's anything other than grateful and fawning for how much you've saved him. After the other route, that fate feels like dying a second slow death for a character so desperate for freedom and power, no matter how self-destructive it is. And since he basically says you did the 'right thing' when you have a high relationship no matter what end you choose with him, Good or Evil or in-between, it loses its power to me as a narrative anchor to any feel-good moments.

Personally, I like Astarion most as a character who is able to fulfill his base desires, ugliness and all. I think he's written in a way where he's well-suited to be both a victim and an awful person. I like the unique narrative of him being someone who is a bit of a monster and most fulfilled by being his worst self rather than seeking redemption, but appreciate that most people feel more fulfilled by a route where he's humanized and gets to heal through romance or a supportive friend.

I encourage everyone to find their own favorite variation of him. To me, he is one of the messiest characters who can have wildly different 'truths' depending on the context of your playthrough and your interpretations of his lines. Since he's a known liar and manipulator (and an unfathomably old one at that by human standards), there are a million and one different headcanons you can use to fill in the blanks on what he really means, who he really is, and what he really wants or needs.

I hope everyone out there enjoys whatever version of Astarion they like best. For me, I think I just might have to try a different variation on an evil playthrough. I want to see what other contexts I can get for his Ascension story and whether any of them hit as many satisfying narrative notes as my first.

[infizero-draws]

girl what do you feel about kris' and noelle's relationship in snowgrave i want to know

OK OK. first of all thank you for specifying "in snowgrave" because if you just said their relationship in general i would literally never stop talking.

second tho, im really bad at putting how i feel about character dynamics into words because often there's just soooooo much to be said and different ways of looking at it and i get overwhelmed if i try to make some all-encompassing analysis. so let it be known that whatever i say here is not the full picture and there's so much more i could say.

putting this under the cut because i already know im gonna talk for way too long:

that being said oughghghhgh. where to fucking begin. i'd say the most fascinating (and disturbing) thing about their relationship in snowgrave is the weird romantic undertones. the fact that you have to pressure noelle into the idea of riding the ferris wheel with KRIS instead of with susie, her actual crush.

one of the most overt symbols of this weirdness is definitely the thorn ring. i know it isnt the only ring you give to noelle to equip, but this is the one that's mandatory for the snowgrave route. in order to do the route, you have to make KRIS give NOELLE a RING. a ring that literally HURTS HER TO WEAR. if that isnt a metaphor for a forced relationship i dont know what is

however perhaps the most damning and obvious one is of course this option:

i would say something about this myself but @/sorrybutiforgothowtomakecontent's tags on another one of my posts really summed it up:

im also aromantic so this really resonated with me. but yeah just going back to the first point they make. you literally HAVE to say "we're something else" in order to do the snowgrave route, which seems to make it pretty clear that this kinda subtext was intended. snowgrave can only exist with kris and noelle being "something else" because that's literally what snowgrave IS.

my favorite way to view snowgrave is through the lens of an arranged/forced marriage. again, the ring. it just feels so gross, especially because it's not just a regular marriage but an abusive marriage. snowgrave is abuser simulator (2021). im sure i dont need to explain that part

but the thing is, SNOWGRAVE IS NOT JUST ABOUT NOELLE and that's what makes it SO BAD. not only is noelle being forced to go through all of this, but KRIS is being forced to be the one who does it to her! kris clearly is EXTREMELY upset about snowgrave judging from the constant opportunities to choose more "normal" dialogue and abort the route, and from afterwards when they meet back up with ralsei and susie:

kris, under no circumstances, wants to do ANY of this. but they literally do not have a choice. snowgrave isnt kris manipulating noelle, it is US forcing kris into manipulating noelle. no one is winning here. they're both traumatized, and kris physically cannot even talk to their friends about it or show the true extent of their hurt. it SUCKSSSSS

and when you consider the idea that kris and noelle's friendship may have become strained specifically due to dess' disappearance, and kris possibly having something to do with that with the bunker and whatnot..... well now you're just forcing kris to hurt their friend AGAIN, when in the normal route this could've been their chance to finally reconnect. ahghrhgrhghh

going back to the marriage stuff, it's just so uncomfortable to see these two forced together like this. noelle is in love with susie. we dont know kris well enough to know if they have a crush on anyone (or if they get those kinds of feelings at all), but that doesn't matter. the fact is these two are likely not romantically interested in each other at all, and they are being forced together BY THE PLAYER. and it's horrific. (and even if one or both of them felt that way, this is still entirely wrong. they do not get a choice here)

@/hellspawnmotel's tags on this comic of hers will always haunt me, bcuz like. yeah. this is it:

there's also the fact that kris is naturally kind of a goofball; they're a prankster, especially it seems when it comes to noelle, as can be seen with the stepping off the button thing or the many, many examples from their shared childhood brought up by noelle.

but in the snowgrave route, kris drops this entirely. all of the alternate dialogue options to abort the route, which are very likely FROM kris, are very genuine and apologetic. kris is scared they're going to lose their friendship with noelle completely because of what you're making them do, and it's like they panic and all of their usual goofiness and sass is just dropped for genuine emotion. it's really sad to see honestly, esp in a full snowgrave route where you know that their efforts will be in vain.

OH OH ALSO. can't believe i haven't mentioned this yet. the fact that NOELLE KNOWS SOMETHING IS GOING ON WITH KRIS. THAT'S one of the things that really makes me insane.

noelle goes through ALL THAT, seemingly AT THE HANDS OF HER FRIEND....... and yet. she knows that something is wrong. she KNOWS kris, and she knows that they don't act like this. you'd think she would instantly cast kris off, it would be the right thing to do, but she doesn't. because she knows that something is off.

i cannot stress enough the fact that noelle is the ONLY one who seems to have noticed just how strange kris has been acting. sure other characters comment on kris seeming off or doing something they usually wouldn't do, but it is NOELLE and NOELLE ALONE who takes such notice of it and decides to actually DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

"i have to figure it out" is a mission statement, it implies that noelle (at least in the snowgrave route), is going to actively try to figure out what's going on with kris, WHICH IS CRAZYY and i feel like not enough people are talking about. not even kris's own mother has fully realized something's wrong. like she says, noelle seems to be the only one who's noticed just how off kris has been acting, and the only one who might try to understand and help them. genuinely makes me insane thinking of where that might go in this route oaugurhghh

im gonna stop here because im exhausting myself but. in conclusion I LOVE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS GONE WRONG!!!!!!!!! FAVORITE TROPE EVER!!!!!!!!!!!! anyways read this comic (all 3 parts) and you'll get it

oh also "kris, why are you wearing my watch?" still makes me go fucking insane

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

What are some characters you'll like to see interact more that hasn't done so much in the series?

Oooo ok this is tricky and the second I post this I'll probably think of more!

I listed a few duos I'd like to see explored more a while back! I'm a bit lazy to go back and link to it now but I remember wanting to see more Dazai and Kyouka, Fukuzawa with young Yosano after she'd just been brought to the Agency, Aya and Akutagawa, and my favourite joke duo, Odasaku and Adam. Here's a few others I thought of:

Gin and Ryuunosuke: Please let them interact in canon. Please. They are literally siblings.

Margaret and literally anyone: Please. She has such an interesting set up. Where are we going with her? Can we elaborate on her situation? Her story? I just want her to interact with characters beside Nathaniel. I'd love to see her encounter Akutagawa again actually... could be really interesting.

Wells and literally anyone: Bring her back... I miss her... :'(

Mushitarou and Ango: ...me and the three other mushiango shippers crying for more of them... (but really I just think they're an interesting duo. *slaps both of them* these two can fit so much grief and regret)

Aya and Jouno: I'd like them to meet up again. I just think they could have a neat dynamic, with Jouno having faith in her without needing to know of her capabilities, simply because he knows she (and any civilian) would be underestimated. Also, both with the whole "justice as a choice" thing. Idk. Something there.

Chuuya and Atsushi: PLEASE. I need to see it so bad. Why have they not directly interacted yet? It seems intentional to me.

Naomi and Dazai: We get hints that Dazai actually teaches Naomi tricks and strategy advice. I'd like to actually see it!

Mori and Fukuchi: They were both at Tokoyami Island during the war! They may have actually met before this!!! I hope we elaborate on this soon. ...also I want both Fukuzawa's exes to meet and for there to be drama because it's funny to me. Bonus points if Mori shows up while Fukuzawa is still bleeding out on the ground. Old man yaoi showdown... (I am kidding :P)

Teruko and Natsume: These two authors had a real connection! Teruko was a student of his. I'd love if they pulled that into the series somehow!

Natsume and Agatha: OKAY, so this is based off irl Natsume's real exchange to Britain he went on. He hated it there lol. That's why I'm hoping for interactions between these two… and I hope they cannot stand each other. Maybe something happened between Natsume and the Order of the Clock Tower and they parted on bad terms. They meet again and the two are just all smiles as Agatha pours tea and Natsume rests his hands on his cane and they think of how much they wish they could laser beam the other to death. Idk. I like the concept tbh.

And these are just silly and self-indulgent:

Sigma and Tsujimura: if Sigma turns out to actually be Ian Fleming, I demand they meet and have a Bond-esque secret agent adventure.

Katai, Kunikida, and Higuchi: my dream crack trio that definitely makes no sense but I can't get it out of my head. I can't explain it ok I just think it's funny if Katai, after the Gin debacle, ends up with two overworked blond friends who check in to make sure that he is still alive under his futon. I need to emphasize though that Higuchi is far from her usual polite or professional and is just so done with Katai all the time. Katai still can't manage to make proper eye contact with her or have a full conversation. Nobody understands how they are keeping in touch or why. Also important you know that Kunikida and Higuchi have this weird frenemies dynamic where they are rightfully suspicious of each other for being on opposite sides but then feel like. A sharp pang of sympathy in their chests every time they hear about the crap the other has to deal with. They both shit-talk Dazai and can rant for hours. Katai is left standing there like 😥. It's basically just the "two teenaged boys" post, where Kunikida is the (comparatively) gentle "oh did you just wake up", Higuchi is the "OPEN UP FUCKNUGGET" and Katai is the guy who answers the door past noon still in his blanket. I know it makes no sense. Let me have this.

[rainbluealoekitten]

hey so i don't know you at all, but i saw on an old post that you did an IB eng lang+lit extended essay,,, and if you have ANY tips on choosing a topic for that i would literally appreciate it so much,, i have to choose my topic in the next 24 hours (procrastination </3) and i have vague ideas but no clue how i could structure them or what kinds of topics the IB prefers :/ literally any help, via dm or answering the ask, would be so so helpful ((( but no pressure ofc :] )))

omg hi babes, i'd be super happy to give my advice and i hope i'm not too late?

ok so you know the 3 categories i'm assuming? idk what your school is like but if you need more guidance on the ee in general, go to philpot's step by step guide

when you're told to pick something that interests you, DO THAT. you will spend MONTHS on this topic, researching and writing for hours upon hours, so you HAVE to be invested. even if you love love a topic, you might still struggle for a variety of reasons (my tips on this later on). regardless, you are on tumblr engaging in fandom and media for a reason. WHAT is that reason? what compels you? what themes, character dynamics, settings, motifs compel you? what shows, what books, what films? what about in lang and lit class? do you like ad analysis and the societal implications? do you prefer minute details that make a movie just so so good (e.g. lighting)? did you watch the dead poets society and you've been reading poetry aloud ever since?

the ib requires you to write about an "acclaimed" literary or non literary work, which gives you a LOT of choice. you could write about doctor who, for example.

i'll explain my process when i was picking my topic.

i have always liked greek mythology (like a LOT) and my favourite figure is akhilles. i decided i wanted to do something exploring his relationship with patroklos, but alas! i could not look at the iliad as it was not written in english originally, which didn't fit into either cat 1 or cat 2. so... why not the song of achilles? it's well known and acclaimed, plus would be more fitting for a dp level of literary analysis. but how to explore the characters? well... what else was i interested in?

what makes a character a hero?

this was the central question. i ended up changing the specifics of my question a million times which... don't do that. eventually, my question was (more or less), "how does miller conform to and subvert the characteristics of a hero through characterisation?" (that was not the question. i promise that the actual question was a million times better).

NOW. my extra note.

before you start researching and outlining, here is something i recommend you do before starting, based on my own issues. now, i did get a predicted (knock on wood) A, but after way too much deliberation.

make a list of your strengths and of your weaknesses. consider literary analysis vs diegetic and non diegetic sound analysis (idk if that's even what it's called but yk). consider time management skills. consider outlining skills. consider research skills. what do *you* need in terms of help and support from your supervisor? what do you need to do to help yourself? for example, i should have forced myself to pick a question from the start, before even starting research. this is an issue i have in other subjects too, and caused me a lot of grief for my history ia. i also asked my ee supervisor to help me come up with a realistic, step-by-step schedule bc i struggle assigning myself deadlines.

for the second part of your ask, structure is going to be super dependent based on your topic and category. i recommend reading examples similar to your topic (don't waste time reading ad analysis if you're doing poetry aha). i did mine with bg info on the classical view of heroes, then each bp was a different aspect (first conformity, then subversion). i have a friend who wrote hers on a feminist film and her bg was about feminist theory, with mentions of that time period, which then informed her fairly standard-structure analysis.

let me know if this helps in any way at all, and don't hesitate to reach out again if needed! i wish you the absolute best with the ee and dp more broadly :)

[galacticfracture]

Sanders Sides x MCR

Not necessarily art but it is a fun little SaSi related thing I decided to do! All for fun, so even though I took it way to seriously and made lists/charts, take my choices with a grain of salt~🌟

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Explaination: So, I have a playlist that's just entirely songs from MCR/Gerard way that was 75 songs, but went up to 88 while I was doing this. I one day came up with the idea that I should take that and connect every single song on it to at least 1 SaSi character~🪐

With that out of the way, if you want to find out who ended up sharing songs by listening to the mixes I made for them all, I will be linking them at the bottom of this! (So avoid the images of the lists/charts and look for the group of 6 images with different shapes; the mixes will be just under that.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, how I did this is I basically listened through this 5 hour mix atleast twice, and wrote out a physical list of all the songs. If a character came to mind and stayed there they were then written down~

Which is why some have 1 person and others have 2/3. The order they're in here is basically whoever came up first.

Who got what was entirely based on the vibe I felt!

A lot of Logan's were dictated by this, but lyrics did come into play sometimes. Remus got a lot of solo songs for that reason, while the others came from a mix of both. (Instrumental sound could influence stuff too.)

I wasn't really thinking of shipping with the pairs for the most part by the way, but I don't really mind if people go in with any on the brain~

Some of them came to mind at the same time. Other times, the second person was a choice made later on. Same with the groups of 3!

I also made some charts tallying up how many songs they had per 'album', and I did do a set for their solo and paired songs as well. (Sorry I just like forgot to add them before editing this???)

If a song was generally from around the same time and/or it had the same kind of sound, I usually included it under an album instead of the other category. (Except I don't think I counted Bury me in Black under Revenge for some reason???)

There were not enough trios for me to do a chart like this for them but I did type them out and literally, almost all of them were from bullets--

I spent an actual full day making these charts and physically wrote the lists out twice, so I hope someone out there enjoys this!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now onto the mixes~! I did originally try and do versions of the different album covers but as the sides: it did not work out-

So I just made simple ones using the shapes I associated with them all. (Some turned out better than others-)

Mixes: Roman Janus Remus Patton Logan Virgil

Please shuffle them by the way, I did not organize them in a specific order really~!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Feel free to share your different opinions/perspectives!! I'd love to read what you guys think and if wanted I can also provide the versions of all the lists/charts with out my answers!

(The next post I make will be art don't worry! Sorry this was so long-)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[thedissociatives]

Heeeyyyy, I'm so so intrigued by your hockey posting. I'd love to know more about Fedorov, like what's the lore, what makes him special? Have a nice day/ night <333

good morning/afternoon/evening anon! since you asked so nicely i'll try my best but i do tend to forget everything i know when i have to actually explain it. there is a lot of lore tho so i'm not gonna go over all of it (mainly the bits that interest me the most + some other stuff). i guess what really makes him special (at least to me) is the fact that we don't get players like this anymore. and i'm not talking playing style here (the impact of euro hockey players of the 90s on the nhl today is still so obviously there). a lot of his early career was directly impacted by cold war politics, and since those circumstances haven't existed for a while now, we don't get this insane type of backstories and lore anymore. i should also make it clear that i'm a massive nerd who sat in classrooms for years learning abt soviet stuff which i think definitely has an impact on who My Guys are

seriously there is a lot under the cut so be warned because i did get carried away with myself A Lot (i literally wrote over 1k words on this. sorry in advance)

ok so. sergei started playing "pro" hockey in the soviet union in the mid 80s (i don't think this is the place to explain whether these players were pro or amateur so will leave it like that), first in minsk (only for a year) before being picked up by cska moscow- the central army team. these guys made up most of the national team, which can probably be explained by the fact that their head coach also coached the national team (god that's a bit of a mouthful, but incredibly relevant). he wasn't the only rookie on the team that season; another kid (i think they were both like 16 at the time ?) called alex mogilny had also just arrived in moscow. they would become good friends. sergei would play three seasons for cska before being called up for the national team- he was going to the 1989 world championship. alex would be there, too, having already played on the team before. naturally, the ussr won gold (as they did almost every year). but that doesn't mean everything was good with the players. not long too after the tournament, some of the older players would finally get permission to play in the nhl, but for the younger guys it was looking like they had no way of getting out any time soon. in the days between the end of the championship and the soviet team's flight home, mogilny apparently approached fedorov and asked him to go to america with him- sergei said no, worried about what would happen to his family. alex would go anyway, disappearing for a few days before popping up in buffalo ready to join the sabres. (this might seem irrelevant right now but it's actually really not- i'm getting there now)

that same summer, sergei would be drafted in the fourth round by detroit. this choice may or may not have been influenced by steve yzerman telling them sergei was better than him. after a bit of back and forth, they got him to defect after cska played a series of games in north america. it literally sounds like the type of shit they write in spy films it was fucking mental. this made him only the second soviet to defect in order to play in the nhl i'm pretty sure (defo the second in like 18 months- funnily enough it was his bestie who was the first one. what a coincidence), but they weren't the first two from the other side of the iron curtain to do that. might be wrong but i think that honour goes to the stastny brothers. anyway. when sergei got to detroit he wore 91 because he wanted to "be like stevie" or some insane shit like that. which i literally think about all the time. like seriously what was that about sergei.

okok can't not talk about the russian five so doing that now. since idk how much you know about hockey i'll do a better job on this bit. after sergei arrived in detroit, management must've figured they could get more russians. over the next couple of years they got vladimir konstantinov (who was drafted the same year as sergei) and slava kozlov to make the jump to the states. since i'm mainly talking about sergei i won't go into how they got those two but it's just as unbelievable as you'd expect. after the 1994-95 lockout, the wings traded for another russian- slava fetisov. if you ever want to learn about soviet hockey you'll hear a lot about this guy, and for good reason too. he won two olympic gold medals and seven world championships with the soviet union, and captained most of those teams. obviously adding a guy with that much experience winning was a smart choice imo, even if he hadn't won anything in the nhl yet. by now the wings had four russian players- why not add a fifth ? in 1994 the wings were embarrassed in the playoffs, losing to san jose. it just happened that sj happened to have two of the older soviets who had fought for the right to play in north america. one of them was igor larionov- probably the smartest guy to ever play hockey. it was his tactics (and refusal to change his style of play) that led to his team's success in the first round. and i guess detroit didn't ever want to deal with that again because they ended up trading for the guy in the first part of the 1995-96 season. the russian five first played together in calgary, where they played that style of soviet hockey that nhlers could never really wrap their heads around at the time. they walked all over the flames in their own building, and would continue to do the same to the rest of the league. the five would be a key part of the 1997 stanley cup-winning team, which was the first wings team to lift the cup in over forty years.

sergei stayed to win a few more cups, and then left the city. he signed w the ducks in anaheim, bleached his hair and moved out to california (i think we can all resonate with wanting to change our appearance and move thousands of miles away from where we've spent over a decade building out lives amiright). from what i can tell, this move was Not Liked by detroit's owners (honestly i can't see any other reason his number hasn't been retired there). he'd bounce around a couple more nhl teams before going back to russia to play on the same team as his brother, eventually retiring in 2012.

jumping to 2015, that year's hockey hall of fame inductees included sergei (and nick lidstrom, one of his detroit teammates and one of the best defencemen to every play the game). it was basically a 90s wings reunion. in sergei's induction speech, he did like everyone else and thanked a bunch of people who helped him out throughout his career. and, you know, it was all the expected stuff (hockey guys can be so predictable sometimes), but "to my captain, steve yzerman" still fucking gets me. it had been twelve years since he'd worn a wings jersey. my captain. i think you get my point but i'm gonna have to stop there because i can't carry on and be remotely normal about it.

oh and in 2021, after spending a few years bouncing around random jobs for the team, cska announced that fedorov would be taking over as head coach. he went back to the team where all this started. now i don't know how exactly he is with his team but i sure hope he learned enough from his days there as a player under tikhonov on exactly how not to treat your players. cska won back to back gagarin cups (the trophy awarded to the khl team who wins the playoffs) in sergei'd first two seasons behind the bench, and they're probably looking to make it a threepeat with the playoffs starting today (?)

[biolizardboils]

Hey again.

I was saving this for when I'd wrapped some other stuff up, but it's taking too long. I'm just gonna say it while the words are fresh in my head.

The two-month break I've been on? I think I'm gonna stay on it. As in, stay logged off except on special occasions.

There's still things I want to finish here. I will answer what's left at @ask-the-all-consuming-void and bring it to a proper ending; The Secret Thing it was gonna segue into will go up, even if only as sketches and drafts; And there's another project I'm still helping with behind the scenes. But aside from those… I want to maintain my internet presence a lot less.

I've learned a lot about myself since I left: most importantly the hyper-empathy, compassion fatigue thing, and that being terminally online probably does more harm than help. There's trying to be a good, vigilant person, and then there's overwhelming oneself about things they can't control, with info that isn't always accurate. I've been doing the latter in different ways for years; late April/early May was a big wake-up call. Lesson learned: I've got to find balance, and I won't find it here.

The second-most important thing I learned is that… the reason I "joined" the internet in the first place? It's pretty much been fulfilled. Has been for a few years now, actually.

I made this tumblr in 2015, but I got my real start on deviantART and WordPress in 2011. Don't expect links; what people post in their preteens can stay between them and God lol. But I'll tell you what got me to make accounts: my confusion as a new Sonic fan. The way people talked about them, the way they talked to each other… it hurt to see.

I got it in my preteen head to set a better example. To not let my love for something become disdain for others of its kind. To explain instead of assume. And to assure anyone who'd listen that it's not shameful to like Sonic, that those who do deserve better, and that they could still have it better someday.

And now, 13 years later… we do. The hurtful stuff I saw back then is nearly gone now. When it does pop up, it's easier to counteract than ever. People realize how silly and petty and wrong it was, and can call it out accordingly. People can live a little truer to themselves, now that that shit isn't everywhere anymore.

I think that, specifically, is all I really wanted. Everything else—the reinvigoration of the characters and their world, the downpour in avenues once closed off by "cringe" and "not enough interest"—have been wonderful byproducts. I've been gassing up Sonic Movie 3 as the final step, but it's really more of a victory lap.

After realizing that, I just… don't feel the need to post so much here anymore. My self-worth and sense of morality shouldn't rely on what I do or don't type. I don't need to document every thought or choice I make and why.

The cause I've performed for since middle school no longer needs my time and energy, if it ever even did. I can just enjoy things in relative silence, and spend myself in other ways. Ways I've taken too long to get around.

Sonic Unleashed is what set me down this path. I watched it go from rejected at launch, to just divisive, to respected and beloved. I still wonder if, had it gotten a fairer chance, the current Sonic renaissance could've happened sooner.

But dwelling on that won't change anything. I'd rather dwell on how, this year, I got to scream Endless Possibility with hundreds of other people, loudly and proudly. No fear of who's watching, no need to self-sabotage. It meant the world to me.

There was a con in my area on June 23rd. I wasn't planning on doing anything that day until I heard about it. There was someone in attendance who helped me put a symbolic bow on this part of my life.

I think he did a wonderful job :)

I have one last thing to say before I go. That'll be its own post, so I can put it in the public Sonic tags.

Again, the stuff I've left hanging here will get finished eventually. But for now, this is goodbye.

Moots, followers: thank you so much. I will quite literally remember you all in therapy.

--BiolizardBoils

[stupidphototricks]

Missing the moment (Aziraphale in S2E6)

I don't think I've seen this exact take before (apologies if it's out there and I missed it), but it's my interpretation so I thought I'd post it here to make my so-called blog less empty.

The thing is, not only does Aziraphale not officially say yes to the Metatron, he also doesn't actually say no to Crowley. He's confused and distracted throughout the proposal. Worried that the Metatron is about to walk in and see that Crowley isn't showing the excitement and gratitude that (he thinks) the Metatron might expect of a fallen angel who gets a second chance. Half-listening and mentally composing his argument while waiting for his turn to speak again, because he's sure that he can convince Crowley if he just explains it the right way. He doesn't seem to entirely tune into what's going on until Crowley puts his sunglasses back on, says "Good luck," and starts to leave.

It seems fairly well accepted that Aziraphale has some things in common with neurodivergent humans. Highly intelligent, lacking in social awareness, has a hard time adjusting to new ideas. To be clear, I'm 100% on Crowley's side in this episode, but I don't think he's literal enough here for an Aziraphale who already has too much on his mind right now to deal with nuance. Crowley never says, "If you take this job, if you go to Heaven, we're done." He doesn't say, "I love you. If you love me, come with me." Instead, he (sadly) calls Aziraphale an idiot and (angrily) kisses him, and at this point Aziraphale's brain is so scrambled that it's a wonder he can talk at all. He manages to say "I forgive you" (angrily, in response to Crowley's anger, which he probably won't entirely understand until he has more time to process), and then Crowley is gone and he's missed his chance to say anything else.

I sympathize with Aziraphale here, because I'm familiar with the sensation of life moving ahead faster than I can interpret it. Too often by the time I can analyze the context of one moment and decide what to do in it, the moment and the opportunity are gone. Inaction makes the decision for me, and I end up kind of pretending that what happened was what I intended all along. Not sure whether this is a neurodivergent thing or just a not-good-at-life thing, but I think Aziraphale has it too, at least in this extreme situation. Events are spinning out of control, there's a lot of astounding new information, and he can't figure out what it all means and what exactly he should do, what he wants to do, right on the spot. One entity assumes that his non-response means no, and the other one assumes that it means yes (or takes advantage and bulldozes ahead regardless), and Aziraphale is swept along in the current with no way of getting back to the moment when he could have made a real choice.

[total-drama-brainrot]

So I see you've asked for Rice Krispies song inspos, and I seek to deliver with TWO songs!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFARCTqtVWo

This one's Already Dead by KittenSneeze. It's a FNAF:SB song about Vanny constantly trying to fight free of Glitchtrap's control. Which seems fitting given Noah's circumstances. Especially the line 'I'm already dead since you got in my head'.

Particularly brutal given how Noah was the one to give Alejandro permission to hypnotize him in the first place.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfZEf4qM4UE

Here's Discord's Puppet, a MLP grimdark song about an immortal god of chaos keeping the one he loves as a puppet rather than letting her pass!

It's very much a song for the 'worst case scenario' ending. An Alejandro who's so victorious that all that remains on the outside is Alejandro's version of Noah, while the real Noah can do nothing but watch, if he's even still there anymore. For this one I think the last line is the most fitting, being 'It's your eternal shame.'

Noah has to get one last, futile quip in there. Even though Alejandro isn't listening because Noah is just singing so beautifully.

Ooooh, I'm absolutely here for it.

The first song is definitely fitting for Noah's internal struggle against Alejandro's control, especially Vanny's repeated bouts of self-doubt in herself. Since Noah knows that hypnosis, no matter how 'absolute' it is, isn't the same as full-on mind control (no matter how much he likens the two as the same thing, Noah knows he still has some semblance of autonomy, it's just greatly diminished), he's always going to have that nagging thought in the back of his head; "do I want to follow his orders?"

The answer there is a resounding no, of course. But the added punishment of his psychosomatic shock collar* as well as his susceptibility to obedience whilst under the trance doesn't really give him much of a choice regardless.

Also, those bridge verses where Vanny and Glitchtrap have their little back and fourth? That's so accurate to Alejandro and Noah's confessional confrontation in chapter two- especially the line "I hold the key to free you," which is exactly what Alejandro is holding over Noah; the freedom of his mind from post-hypnotic triggers.

Though Alejandro hasn't actually had the chance to make Noah do anything under his control. Yet.

As for the second song! I actually held a poll (though I've since deleted it) asking if people wanted the RK fic to have a 'good' or 'bad' ending, and the first option won by a pretty overwhelming majority. I won't spoil my intentions for the 'good end' here, but what I had envisioned for the hypothetical 'bad ending' was something slightly similar to Fluttershy's situation.

Though, in that 'bad end', Noah isn't exactly fighting back anymore like Fluttershy is. It's very dark, and very tragic, and I won't get into it here because I'd end up writing a whole essay on the vague plot I had floating around in my noggin.

I do like the imagery of Noah being a 'living puppet' though. It fits with Alejandro's whole ventriloquism/puppet master motif he had going on in "This Is How We Will End It", and the toy/doll imagery I used for Noah in the fic itself.

* I have so many notes explaining why Noah experiences The Static and The Shocks but I'm not sure if I'll have someone in-universe explain the phenomenon, since I've mostly been making up the plot as I go along (with certain ideas/concepts/scenes working as the backbone of this whole AU), so I'm hesitant to divulge that now if it's potentially going to feature in the fic itself.

[snotsloth]

Calling fellow Baldur's Gate fic writers! I would like a bit of advice on a characterization conundrum I'm facing. I'm currently writing an epistolary post-game fic between my Tav and Astarion. I'm currently working on my second chapter which is my first letter from Astarion and I don't know how much he should reveal about his current psychological and emotional state. A bunch of spoilers and more details under the cut.

A quick summary of the important facts. Brychan romanced Wyll and Karlach during the events of BG3. But he also had a very intense but platonic relationship with Astarion. Astarion did not ascend. He killed Cazador and freed all of his victims into the Underdark.

They all saved Baldur's Gate with the help of the Emperor. Once the Netherbrain and all the tadpoles were dead, Astarion's vampiric curses returned and he had to flee from sunlight. Brychan was about to run after him when Karlach's engine gave out. At the last minute Brychan and Wyll were able to convince Karlach to return to Avernus with them so that they could all search for a fix for her engine together.

But before he left, Brychan tasked Halsin with finding Astarion and giving him "true love's embrace" one of two rings that allows the wearer to cast a protective spell over the wearer of the other ring. (Brychan is a sorcerer and he frequently "breaks" magic rules mostly because he doesn't know they exist.)Though angry and brokenhearted, Astarion kept the ring. About two weeks later it magically produced a letter from Brychan, apologizing and explaining everything that has happened to them since their descent to Avernus.

Having had a few weeks to brood, Astarion is in a better headspace than he was directly after the battle of Baldur's Gate. He understands why Brychan makes the choice he did and isn't really mad at him any longer, buuuuuuuut he is still hurting.

Here's where I finally get to my question. How honest should Astarion be in his reply letter? At first, I let him bare his soul and be completely honest about his current mental state, but now I'm second guessing myself.

Like, yes, Brychan and Astarion were very close at the end of the game. They had a level of intimacy and comfort in one another that Astarion has never had before.

AND YET! He isn't "fixed," you know? He didn't just magically heal from 200+ years of trauma by killing Cazador. Plus, even though Brychan was forced to make a split second decision and didn't intend to hurt Astarion, he did. Leaving for the Hells right after Astarion's curse returned felt like abandonment, whether or not he meant it.

So with all that context, would Astarion put up a front? Would he wave away Brychan's concern and remorse and just be like, "I'm fine. Of course I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be? You assumed I'd fall to pieces just because you left? Please. I got along just fine before you came into my life. I can look after myself, you know."

Or should I stick with my initial instinct and let Astarion pour his soul into the first letter? I feel like it would make for better narrative tension if I didn't, and instead made a start contrast between what Astarion actually feels and what he allows himself to write.

I would love to know if anyone else has an opinion on it because the people I usually bounce writing ideas off of haven't finished the game yet. Please help!

Also, here's a link to the fic if you'd like to read chapter 1!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/50215084/chapters/126824515

[zenthejackal]

Book 6 Prediction Worry-Rant

...Oh boy. If someone told me the teaser would've caused me THIS MUCH anxiety, I would've just waited until the full trailer (or even worse, the full-on premiere)! I've been freaking out so hard since Thursday's reveal and only now have I gotten myself relatively under control. It also gave me some time to look at others' speculations and theories, so that always makes me feel better too. But now, I've got some questions about what will happen with this next book, and what it will really mean to be "emotionally wrecked".

Slight disclaimer: I heavily reference the info from the post made here by xadian-daydreams. I'm basing my ideas off of this, but all credit on retrieving this info goes solely to him (assuming him, sorry if I got it wrong!). I'll also have some references about Dark Magic from the Dragon Prince Wiki.

First off, I need to understand more about the real toll of Dark Magic. What we already knew was that using Dark Magic requires some form of sacrifice of a magical being, it leaves some form of corruption on the user (with physical changes depending on the severity), and that corruption can be used by Aaravos as a means of linking them together. The first use is a sort of 'jolt' to the body and results in nightmarish fever dreams but is remediable. Apparently, it amplifies the values/feelings of the user when casting it (according to latest Q&A). It has been constantly been referred to as a shortcut, or 'too easy to use', but isn't technically addicting; if you want to stop, there's no strong resistance to make you keep doing it. However, each time you use Dark Magic, it's harder to come back from it. Personally, I imagine this to your teacher's cheat-sheet for a test: at first you only use it to answer a really hard question, but then you keep using it because it's so much easier than relying on your own knowledge.

I need someone to explain to me: what exactly is the "corruption" of Dark Magic? Does it darken the soul to make it more evil, make you prone to the emotions you felt at the time of casting, or a very subtle way of "changing you from the inside out" without you realizing it?

The reason I'd like to know this first is because now we're looking at our 3 main protagonists: Callum, Rayla, and Ezran. First up is Callum, my personal favorite (yeah, that's right, I'm not ashamed to admit my bias). Going into the next book, the main questions that came up for me were:

How will Callum handle Dark Magic from now on, especially now that Aaravos is closer to him (magically and literally)?

Will it be easier for him to give into Dark Magic's temptation now that he's given into it a second time now?

How does Dark Magic affect the trust/friendship he's created over time?

Up until Book 5, I always assumed that Callum would never use Dark Magic again once he got Primal Magic; his one-time use was out of sheer desperation. Now that he's done it again (and after learning a bit more about his true character and motives), my main concern is that continued usage will continue to change him more and more until he's a very different person, someone Rayla no longer recognizes, let alone loves.

Moving onto Rayla, there was no real "progress" in the latest Q&A concerning her and the coins (writers refused to answer the REALLY juicy stuff), but there's still some things I still want to know:

If she's given a choice between her new and old family, who would she choose?

She has always been the one to be willing to sacrifice everything of herself for the good of others; how far will she go, or is there a line she will no longer cross?

How does she view sacrifice in relation to others, i.e. Callum? Is killing him when possessed his sacrifice or hers? Would she be willing to kill those she loves (not exclusive to Callum on this last part)?

Who does she ultimately choose above the other: Callum and Ezran or the world?

I realize that most of these questions center around Rayllum, but this is just what concerns me the most right now. I definitely want her to grow as an individual too, but this relationship between the two is something very special to me, mostly because of how much stronger they are when they're together! I really miss their chemistry!!

...Ahem, finally, we have Ezran. While he is still a great part of the main team, he is also now king. But we haven't really seen him act as one in the show as of yet; he's only really been ruling on-screen for about 2 episodes, gave into the bargain with Viren to try and prevent mass bloodshed, have a brief meeting with his council after the timeskip, and have some strong speeches concerning Xadia and addressing the dragons/archdragons. ...Okay, so that seems like a lot, but keep in mind, that 1) while there are powerful moments, they are still brief, and 2) all of this takes place over the course of 3 seasons so far, when he has begun his rule. I would personally like to see him act/struggle more as a king, mostly because I still see some naivety in his approach. He still acts a bit childish in his views, kind of like: "this is the right choice, so we'll do it" from a logical side. This view oversimplifies the world, and while he does address this in his powerful speech in Book 4, we haven't seen him really struggle with this notion. Your words aren't as strong if you haven't been hurt as bad, and I know that Ezran has a lot of hurt that he's been hiding. I want to see how he handles it. (No questions regarding Ezran, just speculation this time.)

The final cherry on top: can someone please tell me what "emotionally wrecked" could possibly mean for this upcoming book?!! Every time the writers bring it up, I get nothing but depression with a side of gloom and misery sprinkled on top! The only saving grace we do have from all this... negativity... is that it's coming in the second-to-last book, not the last. This also likely means that whatever horrible tragedies we'll face this book have the chance to be resolved/redeemed in the next one. Additionally, any character arcs/growth we go through will likely either continue over to the final book or will be resolved in time for another one. That being said, PLEASE TELL ME, WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH BY DOING THIS TO US?!! THIS SUSPENCE IS EATING ME FROM THE INSIDE OUT, AND I'VE HAVEN'T EVEN DONE DARK MAGIC YET!!!

...Whew, got that all out of my system. Please reply if you've got any answers or comments, especially with the last part (better to rip the band-aid off now). I love a good dialogue! Just please keep it friendly and civilized. Thanks for listening to my rant, and here's hoping for Dragon Prince's continued success!!!

[retirement-home-rumble]

just caught up on this tournament and I do want to say that you definitely are biased towards that one tie bc you reblogged the post multiple times saying you wanted a tie; so it’s not just tagging it “in this house we love tiesweeps” that makes people think you’re biased. also people saying “it’s not that serious, it’s just a tumblr bracket” goes both ways - like if it’s not that serious and we’re all just having fun then why should anyone care that the votes actually say it should NOT be a tie? like, weren’t you pretty “seriously” invested in this specific poll being a tie, enough to make an exception to the existing rule?

at the same time it literally would have been at most two votes that decided it (sorry to the other anon but their math was wrong). only 968 or 969 out of 1896 would show up as 51.1%. and while I am not in favor of tiesweeping it personally, it is your poll and you should do what you want & what makes you happy. but if you have thousands of people voting in these polls then you have to expect that a decent number of them might be upset if you do make that choice rather than following the rules.

I mean as to your first point, I reblog all propaganda I see, no matter what side it's for. Sure I miss some, but I try my best to get all of them. So along that same vein, if a post gets a lot of propaganda, of course I'm gonna be reblogging it a lot. It just so happened that most of the propaganda that one was getting was for a tie. If there had been tons of people reblogging it with anti tie propaganda, then I would have been reblogging that just as much.

Also, as to me saying I wanted it to tie: I have literally stated that I want as many polls to tie as we can. I also reblog all polls that are close to a tie when it's down to the last few hours, just to give people the chance to tie it if they want.

So combine those two points together, and it just happened to be that after I reblogged that post with the last call for a tie, that it got reblogged a lot by others. So of course I would then reblog their propaganda. And since it's been stated that I'm biased towards all ties, I don't think it's exactly fair to say I was biased specifically towards this one tie. Like if any others were close enough, I would have been just as invested.

Idk. I guess I just don't get people acting like I'm not allowed to be invested in and have fun rooting in my own tournament? When I make it perfectly clear that I love ties, maybe don't act surprised when I get excited about a potential tie?

Even then, I wouldn't have even said anything if it wasn't, as admitted by you, decided by less than 2 votes. I understand that some people could be upset by this, but it was a weird situation and it's impossible to please everyone.

I put out that second poll to try to make it as fair as possible. I've also been trying to share both sides of this (posting asks with people explaining their opinions about it and reblogging the propaganda against the tie) so that everyone can make their own choice. Yes I said I personally would like them to tie, but I didn't force anyone to vote. Everyone has their own agency here. I said I would honor the results of that poll, and people have voted for them to be allowed to tie.

Anyway, sorry for the long rambling answer. This whole situation has just been a bit exhausting and I really don't want to lose interest in this blog because, before this, I was having the most fun I'd had in forever. I felt like I actually had a purpose.