#like reading this play and acting in it changed me so deeply and fundamentally

[trans-labyrinth]

thinking about her a lot today

why we have a body, Claire Chafee

[lunar-years]

okay. at risk of being too harsh on Ted...

I genuinely do not think he's a very good coach. And I do not mean that just in the obvious "well he doesn't even know anything about the sport he's head coach for" way, even though like, yeah, duh that really is a crucial point. I mean it in like, he's genuinely not as good at managing and delegating and working alongside his fellow coaches! The way he acts and the ways he manages the team so rarely feels...collaborative? I've been thinking about it a lot after reading posts from other blogs about how he constantly brushes off/ignores Beard's advice and also sends Jamie mixed messages and stuff and it's like. YEAH. It's all very "Ted makes the final decision" about everything and that's deeply goofy because Ted literally knows the least about the game out of all of them!!

We see him ignoring Beard's advice to bench Roy, and ignoring that Beard is actually trying to help the team win, as it is their job to do, until Beard finally snaps at him in s1. When he decides to reject Jamie he doesn't pause to consider it or discuss it with anyone, and even afterwards when he does have the coaches "take a vote" it feels...very performative? Like no matter what they said, it was always going to be Ted's decision in the end, and if they disagreed with what he'd already decided he wanted to do, he was just going to do it anyway.

Then he gets in Jamie's head about being a team player and passing the ball a to the point where it's actually hindering Jamie's role on the team and the strength of his performance. And even though Roy recognizes that, rather than going to Ted about it and making different suggestions, he comes up with the whole signal thing which in hindsight sort of feels...very much like Roy trying to package his complaint in a way that will be digestible to Ted's approval? Like, "oh we'll give him the signal so he doesn't feel bad about playing the way we need him to play. but ONLY when we give him the sign don't worry we'll still control it!" Instead of just being like Ted, look, I don't think your strategy for Jamie works at all and here's what we need to do instead.

It almost feels like none of the assistant coaches really feel comfortable questioning Ted's judgement...because he doesn't foster a space for them that welcomes that kind of feedback from them. Even with the Zava thing, he doesn't listen to Jamie, and Roy and Beard don't question it, BUT Roy offers to individually coach Jamie. Because Roy knows what's happening with Zava is bullshit, and he'd rather pull Jamie aside and deal with the problem himself in the way that he can, rather than talk to the head coach about how it's bullshit. And the ONE time Beard and Roy go off and try something against Ted's wishes (showing the Nate video), it massively backfires and they scramble over themselves to apologize while Ted feels even more vindicated in never valuing their input. It's like a never ending cycle of bad management. and the WORST part is that Ted will TELL them he wants to know their thoughts and hear their strategies, but then he doesn't follow it or he just goes off and does his own thing, so it results in like...a level of unintentional condescension, I think.

At the end of the day, I do not think Ted has bad intentions or is going into this stuff intending to walk over the other coaches, but it happens because his purpose and goal for the team is fundamentally misaligned with what the other coaches value. Ted wants to make the team better by changing the culture at Richmond (at least until he checks out and loses interest in even that) and Beard & Roy (& Nate) want to focus on helping them win matches. I also DO think there's something in all of this that could have been a very compelling major factor in Nate's downward s2 spiral. I've always said that to me the most lackluster part of Nate's arc was not his redemption but his downfall--which had a basis that was severely under-explored onscreen. When he leaked Ted's panic attacks, it felt so severe and sudden a leap because there wasn't enough to back up Nate's headspace throughout the season, even thought the basis is THERE. The foundation for Nate feeling ignored as a coach and having his input constantly undervalued is THERE. They just don't ever let the characters properly explore it, or god forbid allow Ted to reckon with how he's ostracized all of his coaches to some extent.

[bobbole]

Playing with dolls: the Corinthian and "this dream people call Human Life" - part I

Written for The Sandman Book Club

Since at The Sandman Book Club we are re-reading The Doll's House, and since the first chapter of this story marks the entry of the Corinthian, I would like to dwell on some of the distinctive traits of this character, how he is the embodiment of one of the great symbols of American and Western pop mythology (the serial killer) and how the netflix adaptation, while excellent, has completely deprived him of precisely those elements that made him so distinctive, while enhancing other important aspects.

Murderer vs. Killer, or when killing is a "work of art"

In The Dreaming, the spin-off series immediately following the canonical Sandman, there is a panel that I think is emblematic in defining what the Corinthian is, even before his being nightmare, black mirror, etc

Judging Cain like he's on Dancing with the Stars

There is a passage in which the Corinthian states that Cain is definitely a murderer, but not a very good killer. This because the word murderer here is linked to a primordial concept of homicide. Yes, Cain is the first murderer, but his act is something instinctual, part of his nature. Cain kills because he cannot do anything else and murder for him is an inevitable act, demonstrating his being part of a story from whose narrative he does not escape.

For the Corinthian, on the other hand, killing theoretically is not in his nature: he is after all a nightmare, which must terrify, unsettle, reflect the deepest fears and secrets of the human subconscious. A means to an end, not the end itself. For the Corinthian, killing is a deliberate act by which he tries to carve out a space of his own within a predetermined story.

The serial killer is a planner: in the Corinthian mind, an artist too. Even the fact that he appears on the scene not already in his nightmare function but primarily in that of being ready to kill a young man leaves no doubt about it: the Corinthian, in the way he perceives himself, is first and foremost a serial killer/artist.

This is not Vogue: comics vs show

In the netflix Sandman, episode one, the Corinthian has sensed that Dream is free. He wipes off the blood from his eyes and stands up, sensually stroking the head of his...victim? It would be better to say a model without eyes. Death here is not horror: there is something glamorous about this scene that irritates me deeply, not least because we are watching it from a spectator's pov, comfortable in our chairs. We are in a hotel room but the space is open, and the screen of the devices from which we are watching the episode gives us

1) an escape route

2) a way to dilute the horror of the scene (there is always hope if there is an escape route)

This Corinthian is elegant and sensual. He could disturbs us, if he wants, but definitely he's not scary.

Let's compare the netflix scene with the comic. First, fundamental change: the reader's pov, which coincides exactly with that of the Corinthian. We do not see the Corinthian in the panels, and we will not see him until after a long time. We look at the scene through his eyes, we read the words through his voice. From this perspective, it's as if behind the glasses, together with him, we were there, an active part of this crime.

Paradoxically, this scene should be less scary than the one in the TV show. There is no blood and the boy still has his eyes. But we perceive his terror, we see him tied up and helpless like a doll. We see his pimply face making ugly grimaces of fear (in the netflix episode the victim's face is perfect). There is no hope for this boy and while he begs for mercy in vain we brandish, together with the Corinthian, the knife that will kill him. There is no sensuality, there is no seduction, there is no sex here (better, sex and death are the same thing but I will return to the relationship between death and sexuality in the second part of this little essay). We are in a room with no escape, the scene in front of us is dirty, not at all glamorous, in which we readers are actively participating. This Corinthian is fucking scary.

The waking world: a big doll's house to play in

This title takes on a different meaning depending on the various characters involved in this Sandman story. From my point of view, I believe that the characters who most of all are linked to the concept of a doll's house are Unity and the Corinthian.

Unity appears near an old doll house, and her clothes are also similar to those of an old doll

Unity was literally a doll for most of her life: her condition was caused by an external event and external people decided about her life, including her motherhood.

The Corinthian doll and the surrealist doll of Hans Bellmer: both obscene and disturbing toys

The Corinthian, on the other hand, is a sort of doll maker and the dolls are the human beings he kills and whose physiognomy he transforms with his knife.

This last thing is perhaps one of the elements that most differentiates the netflix Corinthian from the one in the comic. The Boyd Corinthian is almost a romantic character, a bohémien eager to savor human life in every sense, moved by contrasts and ambiguities that make him decidedly more similar to the Second Corinthian of the comic than to the First. He looks at humanity with a curiosity that is sometimes almost paternalistic: ruthless, but not cruel. He embodies a type of socially well-integrated serial killer, the "unsuspected type", who knows how to contain his impulses when necessary. Most important, with him sex is not always synonymous with death.

The Corinthian of comics, on contrary, never escapes this binomial: in him, sex and death are always intrinsically linked because they are the same thing. He is always cruel and brutal, seeing humans as meat to be cut. Humanity is nothing but fresh clay in his artist's hands: shaped dolls to play with in his new dark stories.

[broodwolf221]

cole—spirit or human? 

this, like all my meta, is just my personal feelings or interpretation: I am not trying to claim any kind of objective correctness, or to dismiss those who feel otherwise. I remember conversations about cole being somewhat strained so I'm hoping ppl aren't going to be super weird on this post. 

so—cole. I've played both routes and I actually enjoy both of them, but I'm strongly inclined towards making him more of a spirit, and my reasoning comes down to three primary aspects: 1) respecting cole’s autonomy and his choices up to this point, 2) acceptance of an “other” way of being as equally valid to a “human” way of being, and 3) making him more human feels weirdly to me like asking him to replace the real cole in full rather than be himself

1—respecting his autonomy.

cole states early on that he became more of who he was and less human, and that it lets him help. that's a choice he made. on a personal level, even though he's just pixels, I find it deeply uncomfortable to unmake the choice he made about his nature. I understand that he's shown as happy and fulfilled regardless of which path you choose, which is part of why I like both, but this is why I prefer the spirit path: making him more human feels, to me, like the inky is making him more… palatable. or like the game is giving a “comfortable to the player” option. I felt this way when I first played dai when it was new, and I continue to feel this way now

he is happy in both and that's nice, and i like that there's no strong delineation of a right v. wrong choice. at the same time, i've always gotten the sense that cole wants to be more spirit—maybe not because it brings him joy or satisfies him, it could well be that he just believes he will be more useful/functional as a spirit, but even making "bad" decisions (which i don't think this one is, but for the sake of argument) is an individual's right and part of their autonomy

2—acceptance of an “other” way of being as equally valid to a “human” one

in a watsonian, in-text view (which does tend to be my approach), I think it's very important to accept the personhood of spirits, even when they're so fundamentally different. spirit!cole forgets things, can erase negative experiences, etc.—there's a lack of what we'd see as typical growth and maturity going on there, but I'd argue that we can't really effectively apply human (or “mortal” ig, bc elves, dwarves, qunari…) norms to a spirit. 

cole as a spirit of compassion is the way a spirit is supposed to be. the way a spirit is supposed to be is not the way a mortal is supposed to be. and to me, it does feel like his preference throughout the game is to act as a spirit. he stays "pure" and "clean," and that allows him to help without becoming corrupted or changed. it's tempting—and not wrong—to view this through a human lens and to find it unhealthy for him, but i tend to defer to solas' explanations of how spirits are in this case. they can easily be corrupted because they are a Single Thing. that is their nature. wisdom is wisdom; changed by perception, expectation, memory, or pain, it becomes something fundamentally different. spirits are malleable in a way mortals are not

3—replacing the “real” cole 

tbf, this one isn't really supported by anything in game, just a personal discomfort. but he “became” cole after the young man's death. honestly, I find that a little uncomfortable, but I can understand it: the textual “simplicity”/purity of spirits makes sense of that kind of reaction to compassion’s “failure,” its inability to help the real cole (according to its own standards where help=fix: it did help the real cole by being there) 

so, to me, it reads a little like you're confirming that direction when you have cole become more human. ik it's not presented that way, but yeah, personally just makes me uncomfortable bc it feels like I'm encouraging cole to view himself as a replacement of the real cole 

spirits can come back, but they are the sentiment that gave rise to it in the first place, not the individual being itself. compassion taking on cole's name in the first place feels like that to me, but becoming more human feels like it's taking it a step too far. bc then cole becomes a young man who's taken on the face and name of a dead man and it's… it's a lot. for him to grapple with down the line, for the people around him, for everyone. but as a spirit, that kind of behavior feels more like a way of recognizing and respecting the being that came before 

and of course, cole isn't 100% either—he's more human or more spirit. so it's fair to say that it'd still be a sign of respect and acknowledgement of the real cole even if he becomes more human, it doesn't turn automatically into a Bad Thing, and the complexity can honestly be fascinating to explore, bc i imagine as more-human he will develop some complex feelings about all of it

[inhonoredglory]

i dont know if you partake in any of the doctor who comics at all - i certainly dont. i like keeping my sanity safe (its a mess of strange stories and paradoxes from what ive been able to tell. as are most comic series). but recently there was one that elaborated a bit on rose and the metacrisis’s life post journeys end, and its one of the few pieces of media we have for them. i didnt care enough to read the whole thing, the only interesting part to me was apparently they had a little girl named mia, and ive been thinking abt that dynamic nonstop since. cant decide how realistic it is for them, but on the otherside augh its so sweet. anyway, i just wanted to ask how you feel about rose and the metacrisis in general, and whatever that entails. curious abt ur thoughts on them!

- armin anon/lesbian anon/whatever you feel like calling me lol

OMGG my anon (of many names lol)! OK first off, I drafted some of this way back but forgot to add on and post, so in the words of our beloved Doctor,

🌹 But onto the DW comics and Meta-Crisis/Rose!!

I only recently started reading the comics, starting with the ones about Gabby Gonzalez by Nick Abadzis, and I have to admit:

They make me yearn pretty fucking hard to run away and travel with the Doctor. There's some killer art by Elena Casagrande that feels so much like the Doctor we know and love (that kindness, that earnest love.... god!! my heart and soul!!).

But I warn ye (any readers of this post), DO NOT TOUCH Volume 2 by Robbie Morrison. He takes Ten blatantly out of character, making him out to be an arrogant bastard who belittles his companion and is flippant in the face of suffering. (Morrison watched too much Eleven, methinks 🙈)

I haven't read the Rose/Meta-Crisis comic yet (part of the Empire of the Wolf series), but I did see the important panel from that series, showing Rose's daughter Mia:

I think the Meta-Crisis settling down to have a family with Rose is pretty in-character and very much what the Tenth Doctor would have wanted, as much as it hurt him.

Because Ten fundamentally felt unworthy of Rose.

💔 The Doctor's Trauma

Rose was strong and compassionate and amazing, and Ten had done so much, seen so much, experienced so much tragedy and guilt. He's a man wrecked by PTSD, depression, shame, and self-blame. He felt like it wasn't fair to her that she'd sacrifice her life to someone who would go on living and changing and becoming a different person, while she grew old and died in a world without a home and away from everyone she knew.

He didn't want her to become like him, homeless and without the love of friends and family, because to be him is to be alone. And he didn't want that for her. Because he wanted her to be happy, not just momentarily, but for the rest of her life.

Ten is a man who loathes taking life, and it weighs on him every time someone sacrifices who they are because they love him.

It's no surprise Ten's entire decision about the Meta-Crisis took place after Davros massively guilt-tripped him into thinking it was his fault that all those people died. (It wasn't.) But Davros played on Ten's depression and trauma, manipulating Ten into thinking he had done unforgivable things to the people he loved. (when in fact those people died because they were inspired to be selfless like him, or were killed someplace beyond the Doctor's reach)

I've actually been doing a lot of research on Ten's trauma (including invaluable insight from Judith Lewis Herman's famous book Trauma and Recovery). This journal article about Major Depressive Disorder speaks so deeply to Ten's character, especially post-Time War and post-Davros:

"Guilt promotes altruistic behavior via acting out reparative tendencies, whereas shame reduces altruism by means of increasing social and interpersonal distance."

This explains so much about Ten's choice to sacrifice his own happiness and ask Rose to take his Meta-Crisis as her life partner. He's pushing her away, isolating himself. He's rejecting the people he loves the most because he's in a very, very dark place.

🖤🤍💜 An Asexual (Meta) Reading

There's so many reasons that Ten felt he couldn't give Rose the life she wanted (his trauma, his values). There's one angle I've been sifting around in my head in the past couple years, and it's more of a headcanon than anything: For me, because of the way the Doctor's character has been established since 1963, the Doctor's own asexuality is an almost meta-conceptual reason why the Doctor in general can't have a "normative," family life.

He couldn't say "I love you"—not because he didn't love her. (He loved her more than he ever loved himself.) But also because he knew what saying those words would mean: the expectations, the responsibility, the behaviors he felt she deserved to have from him because those words carry so much weight in human culture. All those things he could not give her.

But the Meta-Crisis could. I personally headcanon that the Meta-Crisis is not asexual like the Doctor. (Just like John Smith may not have been asexual either.) The point of both John Smith and the Meta-Crisis is showing how much they differ from the Doctor—and I think sexuality is one of those differences. It's why it was so easy for John Smith to imagine a traditional life, why it was so easy for the Meta-Crisis to promise his entire world and his entire self to Rose on that beach.

🌹 The Meta-Crisis and Rose Tyler

Which brings me back to the Tentoo himself. He was born in battle and he can die, but what does that exactly mean for his life with Rose? It's fascinating because to imagine the Doctor feeling mortality and knowing he cannot cheat death anymore—that's a horrific, terrifying thing.

There are actually two Big Finish Audios that explore this traumatic realization for the Doctor, and what that does to him. (They're both one-shots from Jackie's POV and narration, and you can listen to them here: Part 1, Part 2).

It makes Tentoo lean into his Ninth-era darkness, a ruthlessness to villains driven by the fear that he cannot protect Rose because he is not indestructible. But luckily for him, there are people he loves around him (Jackie and Rose) who keep him from that darkness.

Additionally, the Big Finish stories lean into the fact that Tentoo and Rose aren't sitting idly by. Both of them work for Torchwood and are growing their own TARDIS to continue to defend the Earth.

They don't settle down into a domestic life, at least not right away, and I think that suits them both. We know how much Rose didn't want the life of eating chips and watching telly. But listen to what RTD's Doctor Who has always tried to say: How deeply important the everyday things are, how much the Doctor, for how amazing they are, craves for a life of simplicity and the stupid little things that define humanity.

Because here's the key: It wasn't the everyday things that bothered Rose. Like she told Mickey in "Parting of the Ways":

ROSE: But what do I do every day, mum? What do I do? Get up, catch the bus, go to work, come back home, eat chips and go to bed? Is that it? MICKEY: It's what the rest of us do. ROSE: But I can't! MICKEY: Why, because you're better than us? ROSE: No, I didn't mean that. But it was. It was a better life. And I don't mean all the travelling and seeing aliens and spaceships and things. That don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. You know he showed you too. That you don't just give up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away

Rose didn't hate the domestic, everyday life. She hated how life had no meaning.

She hated how people let things happen to them, without challenging anything or standing up for anything. She didn't want to travel as much as she wanted to live, to be something and do something with her life.

And that's the magic of Doctor Who, particularly RTD's era. Because you can be amazing and you can have meaning even without the Doctor, but the Doctor shows you how.

You stand up for what you believe is right and you choose to give meaning to what you do in life. You don't need to travel the stars to do that. You can make choices that give your life meaning right here and now. You can believe in something. You can find meaning in your place in the universe. You can give your enthusiasm and time to something that is important. Meaning and purpose comes from how we see the world, and that change in perspective is what Rose finds with the Doctor.

If Rose is with someone who can fill her life with meaning, who inspires her to see life as a beautiful adventure, then it really doesn't matter what she's doing with them. In The Impossible Planet, Rose was completely willing to settle down with Ten to "find a planet, get a job, live a life, same as the rest of the universe." Why? Because she'd be with him.

ROSE: This lot said they'd give us a lift. DOCTOR: And then what? ROSE: I don't know. Find a planet, get a job, live a life, same as the rest of the universe.

If I imagine Tentoo as a dad, I can't help but imagine him like Tennant himself. Kind, giving, selfless, and loving. I think Tentoo would be so afraid of letting someone hurt his child, because he hasn't had a family in so long, and he isn't the same man he was in those ancient days when, as a completely different man, he had a family.

He's a man still afraid of himself, still keenly aware of the inhuman things he's capable of. I think this fear would drive Rose and him closer together, like it did when he was Nine. But Tentoo is more self-aware now, more willing to grow and change and be different. Because he's the Doctor who was given a second chance, to live the life he thought he'd never have with the person he loves. He wants to be different to make this work.

I also think Tentoo would be the Doctor who passes on his title after he's gone. Not that I like to think about Tentoo dying one day, but let's be real: Where would his TARDIS go? As a half-human, I think Tentoo could imagine Mia taking on the role of Defender of the Earth when he and Rose have passed on. She would have been there to see it grow, and she would have been there when Tentoo and Rose first stepped out into the stars with this brand-new TARDIS. Because of his mortality, I think it would make Tentoo more open to sharing the secret, sacred things of his Gallifreyan people with the family he chose to start. He's not alone anymore, he has someone to share it with, someone who will pass it on after him and keep the world safe in his stead.

Which is all to say, I think it's a gift that Rose has the Meta-Crisis. Because when Ten regenerated and became, as he said, a completely different man, she was able to stay with the person she fell in love with and explore what that life was like, to have him with her for all of her life, and all of his.

[wutheringheightsfilm]

I'm wondering how the progression of wx will look in odd geometry compared to canon (as in, they get together sooner? different dynamics?), and if/how the elemental magic is used in complementing each other. sorry this is super specific im just like. what about the wangxian 👀

HOT DOG. well :) let me crack my knuckles here this is gonna probably be a long answer!! i'll go bit by bit here...

to be honest, odd geometry is a huge divergence from canon. i have four fundamental things that change the story in absolutely huge ways, being:

elemental magic (obvi)

wei wuxian wasn't raised in lotus pier/as part of yunmeng jiang

wei wuxian doesn't die at the siege of the burial mounds thus isn't dead for 13/16 years and have to be resurrected

i have the sunshot campaign begin later than it does in canon. at the start of the story, all of the characters are slightly older; as in, i've aged all of wei wuxian's generation up to be closer to my age (most of them are in their early 20s) and adjusted their older siblings/the older generations accordingly (so, for example, jiang cheng is 20, wei wuxian is 20, and jiang yanli is 22)*

*so this means that classes at the cloud recesses still would have happened when everyone was 15, but the sunshot campaign just doesn't begin until jiang cheng, wei wuxian, and lan wangji are 20

which, it is so fun to play around with the implications of all that but it's also challenging. SO, how all of this impacts wangxian...

so just by virtue of what's going on here (namely wwx not being dead for over a decade) they definitely do get together sooner. since wei wuxian wasn't raised in lotus pier, he doesn't attend the classes at gusu when everyone in his generation were teens, he doesn't meet lan wangji until they're both 20 at the wen indoctrination camp (which through a series of events, wei wuxian gets roped into sneaking into attend).

as for their dynamics, there's layers to this!

because of how wei wuxian has grown up, there are two things: 1) his personality is not the exact same as it is in canon--how could it be, when he's grown up in such different circumstances?--however, his core traits are the same: he's still inventive, clever, and creative, he's still extremely compassionate and cares deeply about justice, especially for those who are disenfranchised, he still has an extremely strong (to the point of, at times, it being debilitating) sense of duty and a habit of putting others before himself, and being secretive and at times repressive about his emotions. he just doesn't act as...idk, childish? as he might in the show or the novel. he's a bit more grounded, a bit more serious.

because of that, i think it's maybe a bit easier for lan wangji to be more open with wei wuxian, or to accept his friendship sooner. they aren't such polar opposites as they seem in early in the show/in the novel.

2) there are slightly different class dynamics here that actually make a huge difference: wei wuxian didn't grow up in lotus pier and was not raised within polite cultivation society. no matter how much of an outcast madam yu made wei wuxian feel by trying to alienate him from her "real" family, he still was generally accepted by Society at large and was looked at and mostly treated with respect. he still gets called gongzi, and within yunmeng jiang called da-shixiong,--though, of course, coming from some people it can be read as sarcastic... i highly doubt wen chao was calling him wei-gongzi out of any sort of respect--and is overall accepted. of course, people still try to ostracize him for his status, but the cultivation world at large doesn't actively bully him much (and in all honesty, they don't really bully him at all while jiang fengmian was still alive) until he does something they don't like. apart from a few scenarios, wei wuxian wasn't given the disdain that you might expect the son of a servant to receive---honestly, i sort of wish class was talked about more in regards to mdzs and cql because it really does fascinate me. wei wuxian occupies such an interesting space within the cultivation world and i wish people discussed it more.

in my fic, though, since he wasn't raised within lotus pier and was never brought into the yunmeng jiang sect, he doesn't have the fallback of jiang cheng and jiang yanli being able to officially call him their brother--not yet, anyway. he doesn't have a sect leader to point to and be like, "i've been accepted by someone of experience and reown" and have the support that can come from that. he and lan wangji have been raised in very different spheres, and it changes how they interact with each other. there's an extra layer of formality that they now have to chip through. it's no longer lan wangji being extra formal towards someone of exactly equal standing towards him, there's now an extra layer that they have to reckon with. of course, wei wuxian is still lan wangji's equal in every way that matters--they are still the same age, they are still both incredibly talented with their areas of cultivation and respective fighting styles, they both have a mutual respect (and eventually love) for each other etc etc, they just don't belong to the same circles of society and this has to be dealt with.

of course, when the sunshot campaign is over and wei wuxian will have assisted the rebellion against the wens in winning, his status changes. he will be respected, if not feared, because eventually the cultivation world will figure out what he's able to do and fear it being used against them.

which brings us to their elemental magic and how that affects their dynamic as well !! AHHH!!!

so, wei wuxian can control qi (i can clarify any questions you or anyone else might have about this if needed) and lan wangji's affinity is water. at the beginning of the story, wei wuxian pretends to also have an affinity with water, and claims he heals with it--this backfires on him hard during xuanwu cave, when he has to heal lan wangji's broken leg and obviously, as someone with an affinity for water, lan wangji would know what healing someone using water is like and this is not it.

ultimately, wei wuxian is a healer. that is his favorite thing to do, it is what he prefers to do---despite having the powers he does (which, for a while, even he doesn't fully understand), and the demonic cultivation he will be able to do, he doesn't actually enjoy using his qi controlling abilities negatively on people much. he will do it if he has to, and will definitely enjoy using it to enact revenge on people who deserve it, but at the end of the day, he just wants to help and heal people.

i honestly think this suits lan wangji's temperament quite nicely--they would make a very good team, what with lan wangji's habit of going "wherever the chaos is" and helping people out with resentful spirits and night hunts.

even in the original odd geometry from 5 years ago, they were never opposing elements--though that would certainly be interesting LMAO!!!

as a reward for getting thru all of that... i shall leave you with... A SNIPPET <3

(from chapter 5, time is the movement of grief. context: this is at lotus pier, post xuanwu cave) He looked up, and saw Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian moved over on the dock to make room for him to sit, which he did, cross-legged so he wouldn’t get wet. They sat in comfortable silence for a while, listening to the crickets. The golden light of the setting sun made Lan Wangji look devastatingly beautiful. It took Wei Wuxian’s breath away. When Lan Wangji turned his head and met Wei Wuxian’s eyes, there was nothing Wei Wuxian wanted to do more than kiss him in that moment. It was a startling thought. He looked away as calmly as he could. 

THANK YOU FOR ASKING COR I REALLY LOVED ANSWERING THIS!!!!!

[possibilistfanfiction]

Genuine question, how did you figure out or realize the whole being butch thing? What does being butch mean to you?

idk if it was like… figure out? more so just putting a name to something i’ve always felt or known about myself. i came out as a lesbian, then i came out as nb, then i was like well i want gender affirming care so that must mean i am Trans™️, & it’s like… none of those words or kind of… vibes (lol sorry) quite fit? i don’t feel like a cis lesbian, & i actually kind of despise non-binary as a concept (don’t send asks abt this i won’t answer them lol, do ur own thing if u love it that’s cool); i think for me personally Transness is a little too serious & intense & limiting to how i feel. & im a white afab person in a smaller body, & honestly…….. we are often the wooooorst demographic of trans ppl lmao so i just didn’t even rly like some spaces i was in. i got the most important gender affirming care i wanted, i moved & i got married, i got to work remotely etc

& so just sitting with all of that it was like. ok well a lot of neoliberal queer spaces piss me the fuck off; i’m not cis, but i’m not TRANS in the way a lot of ppl (very validly) feel; i do Not like nb. i’d read stone butch blues before, i have a degree in critical theory where i worked a loooot w queer theory, obviously i’ve written abt queerness for ages lol. so then i was just like ah. butch. dyke. YAH! sweet. 100/10 feels amazing i love it

& i think for me i love those words most bc they’re rooted in really radical belief that i have. they carry an ethic with them that, at its best & most intersectional ofc, i want to act on, all the time. i want to show up for people & be protective & tough & strong but i also so deeply want to be nurturing & nourishing. i want to allow myself to be nourished & cared for. i think it feels rly wonderful to have a word for transgressive gender that sums it all up bc people lived it before me. they made that very specific & particular space to experience femininity in a way that doesn’t feel like a noose.

i think also butchness is so expansive! something that never sat right w me abt the way we talk abt transness in the west is that i don’t think there are ‘pre’ & ‘post’ transition selves. like… i’ve never been Not Me? like i came out of the womb a dyke. all i did my entire childhood is run around in the mountains, catalogue leaves, play w my dog, read nancy drew, & avidly watch + play any women’s soccer i could. i loved to fish & mountain bike, i grew up in the desert so gardening to me was a miracle. i never cared abt gender at all beyond like ‘well i guess i’m a girl & the women i admire just won a world cup, they’re badass’ & that was it. i liked boys clothes bc they were practical & felt better, but i just. didn’t think about it. ppl called me a tomboy which was fine, i liked scout in to kill a mockingbird so whatever. but i never felt “non-binary” & i certainly never felt like a boy.

& i am… still just like that lmao. i hated my boobs, point blank day 1 lol, but that doesn’t have to mean i’m trans, or that i’ve somehow changed in a way that requires separation from who i’ve been my whole life. i HATE the language of ‘dead/lived’ name; i hate the weird expectation that u should allow the state to have all of ur gender stuff on record (no fucking thank you, y’all can keep my legal name & i will be flying under the radar lol). so i think western transness rly just. irritates me. doesn’t fit. hasn’t ever fit.

so butchness is like. i am 8 year old jude, i’m just older now. if this makes sense ur butch lmao but. it’s this rly free space to play w masculinity in a way that doesn’t necessitate western transness, & also doesn’t necessitate a separation from maternalism, which i fundamentally believe in. i don’t even rly think of my own care as “gender affirming” & more just like… essence affirming. i didn’t want top surgery so my body could be read as male; i wanted it so i could look like me. i want my clothes to feel & fit in a Very particular way bc that’s how i like them. it’s abt practicality, efficiency, comfort.

& lastly to me butchness has a remarkable space for tenderness that masculinity on its own just cannot hold. like. it’s abt being protective & strong, sure, but it’s in service of others. always always always. so sometimes that looks like communicating calmly, sometimes that looks like infinite small acts of service for ur friends or ur partner. when i think of settling into myself it’s more about returning to who i knew i was when i was a kid, when i was the only person my dog liked & how it felt to sit on the swings when the sun was setting after the monsoon; it’s allowing myself to love like that — caring, & quiet, & full.

ultimately to me butchness is about devotion, more than anything in the world. devoted to safety, devoted to community. no one is devoted the way dykes are bc it’s how we survive. it’s how we have always survived — the steadfastness, the faith, the joy, even thru suffering, to not be boxed in. to help each other. to be funny & kind & thoughtful & not reject the absolute best parts of womanhood for the sake of a western box. to demand care. it’s so beautiful. devotion.

tldr it’s the best

[gamesception]

Let's read rgu, chapter 15

Last time Miki & Utena refused to duel, so Touga(?) kidnapped Kozue and threatened to not return her unless Miki challenged Utena and wins, and now he's also saying they can't get Kozue back unless Utena fights for real with the power of Dios.

This is stupid. "I won't give Kozue back unless Miki wins, but you also can't have her back unless Utena wins". Utterly contradictory, completely muddled, and all to set up a duel with theoretically high stakes but also absolutely zero meaning behind it, because there's no real conflict between Utena and Miki to play out in allegorical conflict. This is literally Dawn of Justice tier writing, in that it's literally what happened in BvS Dawn of Justice, and for exactly the same reason - the good guys have to fight because cheap drama, but the writer can't think of any reason why, so I guess the bad guy just kidnaps and threatens a family member so they have to.

I've complained a lot about the manga being /different/ from the anime, not because the manga was bad but because I just liked what the anime did better. But this is different. This is just bad.

So they fight.

And Utena summons the power of dios

and miki loses

And Kozue is rescued.

But shock! It wasn't Touga who kidnapped Kozue, but Anthy! Presumably acting on the previously mentioned letter from EotW.

That's... kind of a twist, I guess. Though it could still be Touga's doing - he did fake just such a letter in the anime.

This doesn't really change my feelings about the entire set up. Whether it was Touga kidnapping Kozue or EotW acting through Anthy, either way there was still no actual reason for Utena and Miki to fight, so the fight itself - even if the art for it was very cool - feels meaningless.

Especially - and I'm sorry to keep doing this - but especially compared to the anime, where Miki's fights were some of the most meaningful in terms of characters and core themes - Miki's idealized fantasy of his sister projected onto Anthy leading up to the first duel foreshadowing Utena's own failure to comprehend how deeply Anthy was committed to being the rose bride, and in the second duel the way miki is distraction when Anthy doesn't explicitly reject Kozue's sexual advances leading to his loss reveals his fundamental failure as a prince & how he could never save Anthy. Just like he looks down on and rejects his sister for failing to live up to his childish princess ideal by being 'sexually impure', he'd fail to stick by anthy when inevitably confronted with her relationship with / abuse by Akio.

That's a lot going on! And not even all of it, like before the first duel, after talking with Utena, Miki parrots exactly her criticisms of the rose duels to the student council, and it comes off as childish since he's just imitating Utena rather than actually understanding the ideals he's professing, but that only highlights how Utena herself is just imitating her prince, and will inevitably have her own convictions tested.

And there's so little going on with manga Miki so far. If the manga had time for two more arcs, maybe we'd eventually fill in some more, actually flesh out and do something more interesting with these versions of the characters to fill up space if nothing else but I'm on chapter 15 out of 27, more than half way through, so I don't have a lot of hope for that.

Unless my source is incomplete, but if that's the case I'm /really/ not sure what I'll do.

Anyway Touga says something cryptic & leaves while Utena yells at him.

Unlike me, the scanlator must have thought all of this was very impressive and dramatic because the whole issue is scanned in double page spreads. It's certainly very well drawn, the panels are good, it would have been a cool fight scene if it meant anything. The art is fantastic.

As much as I actively dislike the scenario for this duel, and don't feel the twist at the end fixed it, at least it's maybe a reason to finally have a real conversation between manga Anthy and Utena? Please?

Changing Chuchu to look a bit more like his anime design. Honestly, I thought the manga design was fine, I liked floofier chuchu.

We are maybe getting that frank conversation though.

It's not much, but this does seem to be the first time manga Anthy is realizing Utena actually thinks of her as a person.

Anyway, Anthy has another EotW letter, this one for Utena, asking her to meet him in the rose garden. Akio reveal?

But no. It's Touga. Now I really am convinced that we're doing the 'fake letters' thing.

But that's where the chapter ends. Sorry for all the complaining and not a lot of other commentary. I didn't much care for the manga Juri or her duel, and while I don't mind Manga miki I liked his duel even less. But the manga has been about Touga the whole time, so I'm actually looking forward to his duel / duels. There's enough going on with him - especially if he faked one or more of the letters - for a fight with Touga to actually mean something.

[drbased]

Pulling myself out of a symbolic state of mind has been a bittersweet journey, but in doing so I found true awe and reverance for my place in reality - in a way that's very hard to put into words.

For years my actions were 'meaningful' because they were part of a narrative - I would do something I was 'supposed' to do and thus be 'rewarded' by the 'universe' (in a way very much inspired by the mode of thinking popularised by the book 'The Secret' - either my mum has read this book or something inspired by it, because I grew up surrounded by this new-age thinking). This understanding of what life was made life exciting and mysterious, but also fundamentally safe, and was like emotional/mental crack for an ex 'gifted student' such as myself. I could, in essence, keep making 'correct' decisions my entire life and be continuously rewarded, as if life were a school and everything were a test. When things went wrong, instead of confronting the true nature of reality I would simply decide I was on the wrong path and had to get myself back on the right track. The 'right track' was simply governed by how much I was enjoying myself being there.

Under this reality, my understanding of cause and effect was, a you would imagine, ultimately shot to shit. I was never forced to face the burden of true responsibility for my actions. I treated luck as a reward for good behaviour. I treated bad luck as a sign that I needed to learn a lesson about 'life'. I was, in effect, emotionally stunted in a way that I felt 'above' reality itself - but also, I felt deeply, deeply vulnerable to the whims of the universe. You see, not a single one of my decisions was ever actually for the benefit of me, the actor in this story. I did things to receive a reward, and therefore I never understood the true value of why humans make decisions. I looked down on people who take stupid chances, knowing full well I lacked the bravery to ever risk anything for myself. Risk was out of the question, so knowing my true potential was out of the question; why push myself when all I need to do is look out for the next sign from the universe as to where I should go and what I should do?

I was, in essence, acting as sheep to the universe's shepherd; a perpetual child with no father god; held in line by the whims of a universe with an understanding of reality as fundamentally secondary to the true reality of the 'grand plan'.

This is the symbolic state of mind; there becomes a reality more important than you, than the people you love, than the birds singing in the trees. It is not good that you, as a person, personally choose to experience anything and then enjoy the fruits of your labour. You're blessed with good things when you do good things, which means you may as well be replaced by a robot programmed to make the right decisions. And in many ways I tried to do that; I tried to play 4D chess with the world, martyring myself and tearing myself asunder. My head is in shambles and I couldn't understand why for years.

I have begun the process of re-acquainting myself with the concept of want. I am allowed to 'want' things regardless of whether or not they result in 'bad' consequences, and consequently I feel infinitely more human (in my worst period, I used to regularly state I felt subhuman). I understand how I demonstrate love and value of myself not of getting things right in a a nebulous way unknown to me - but rather in taking action and risk; watching as my hands create real things in the real world in which I live. And... fuck, man. I'm starting to feel alive. I don't need things as as a 'sign' that I've been rewarded; I simply enjoy and experience them for myself alone. The meaning in my life now comes from what I CHOOSE. The whole timbre of my existence has changed.

I am here!!!

[msvorderofoperations]

More dream journaling

I was living with my family again, but we were in the midst of packing everything to move. We were moving because the home we currently were in was haunted...I think. Details were vague at this point, and there were definitely other factors in play. Once everything was packed away, we were deciding what to do to kill some time because the move was happening the next day. The idea of seeing a movie is floated, and we happen to be right next to a theatre.

We go to see a movie (I think it was TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, of all things) and as we're filing into the theatre, I see a content creator whose work I used to follow (The Spoony One, if you're familiar). And it also just so happens that a group meetup for the Rooster Teeth community is happening at the same time. After the movie is over, I get recognized by someone who is documenting the whole event. They then pivot the narrative to talk about my contributions to the community, which were not numerous but were very significant. I had fundamentally changed the meta of several of the games that the community played and/or created. I created a style of sign off in a community content driven show that a lot of people ended up using. I made a bunch of animations using assets provided by Rooster Teeth and other members of their forums that a lot of people found inspirational. It is worth noting at this point that none of the things I was being cited as influencing actually exist, but it carried a very powerful feeling of being real.

And after all of this deeply moving and happy reminiscing, I then run into a former friend that I cut off some years ago. He has changed very much as a person, but along the lines of why I had to distance myself from him. He is deeply bitter about the fact that I stopped being in touch with him, and has made hating me a big part of his identity and he has a whole group of people with him dedicated to the same. He doesn't even ask why I stopped hanging out with him, but just assumes that everything was done out of malice. But as he does in real life, everything he says and does is passive. Snide remarks and heckling are all he can muster.

Not wanting to put an end to the "this is your life" style presentation the Rooster Teeth documentarion has put together, it continues despite my former friends interruptions. It then moves to the times long before I joined the RT forums, where I had done things like enter robot fighting tournaments, been tech support for a lot of people, and built my own computers and laptops, all while being in elementary school. It even goes into how I railed against and maliciously complied with disciplinary efforts made by the schools I was in at the time that were downright dystopian. All of these things were done with style and panache that I absolutely did not have as an early child, much less as an adult in real life. As none of the people who will read this will know, I did not do any of the things being showcased in this dream, apart from cutting off my friend. I don't doubt there are a few people who miss my presence on the Rooster Teeth site, but I was first and foremost a lurker, and only posted very occasionally. And it was never anything as ornate and involved as the things being remembered here. All the same, I was deeply awash in nostalgia for the early internet, and this is something that has happened a couple of times in my recent dreams.

Once the whole remembrance had wrapped, I was asked to join in on the rest of the day's events. As I did, slipping back into old behaviours felt as natural as breathing and as comfortable as a pair of perfectly sized gloves. The entire time I felt so at home and complete that I began to wonder why I had ever left. In reality, I stopped being part of the community because the staff (in ways I was never able to confirm or really even investigate beyond hearsay and second-hand accounts) had mistreated a number of my friends. I will not go into details as I don't actually know for certain that these things happened, and this was many years ago at this point.

All while this is happening, my former friend is standing at the sidelines and endlessly shittalking. At this point I take him aside and go over why I stopped being around him (he was entirely passive about everything in his life and would never take any actions to improve or change his situation and I couldn't be around someone like that even in my 20s), and why I think he needs to move on from me to start growing as a person. He finally relents and leaves to do some reevaluation of his life.

The idea that having this single conversation and fully changing someone's life is egotistical to the point of narcissism, but I won't deny that the idea of getting closure on this whole thing felt very satisfying. And around this time, I woke up.

[sassydefendorflower]

hey rora 7, 17, and 37 (no pressure tho :smek: )

Roma!!! Hell yeah!!! (and put the pressure on -smek-)

7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?

That's an evil question and you know it ;D Well... let's see where I shall begin.

There is, of course, i am apart (everything is connected) - i put a lot of thought into the worldbuilding for that fic. The idea of the belief system of the person influencing their metaphysical connection to the universe and as such alchemy and alkahestry was something I created for this fic, even if it has since firmly morphed into a general headcanon. This fic is also doing some stuff politics-wise that I really like - some of it is more subtle, like the hints on how I imagine the Imperial Court System in Xing to function, and some of it is more overt: the real troubles of slowly changing a country and returning to peace after years and years of war.

I am also deeply proud of my worldbuilding in an undertaking of deconstruction - more commonly called the Eastern Liberation Front AU. Because in this I get to play around with background characters, their world views, and the workings of an anti-establishment movement. My POV character (mostly Ed) doesn't see the world in all it's complexities, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. If anything, this is something that allows me to explore Scar's backstory, Shou Tucker, and even Roy and Riza's relationship through a different lens - and with that comes a lot of worldbuilding and geopolitics :D

But I can also mix it up with a bit of DC! A Constellation of Complications is a cyberpunk space-noir case fic in which Dick Grayson, bar owner and spy, has to solve a series of cyborg murders. This fic was a lot of fun to create because it deals with the question "what is a human? what is a person? and what is a cyborg?" only to fundamentally decide: it is all arbitrary but the system is so broken, we have to act within it. The laws are unjust, society broken, and yet... our protagonists can't escape those definitions and secrets and consequences. Lots of fun with that worldbuilding for SURE!

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

-sobs in my pillow in sorrow-

I mean... the Eastern Liberation Front AU is right there. This AU is so large and detailed in my head... I could write a thousand fics about and it would still not be enough. Especially since the fandom doesn't seem to share my unadulterated joy about... Ed and Al as "terrorists" and enemies of the state.

But there is more! Of course! Roy and Riza reaching their goal and then having to deal with facing the consequences of their actions - in a way that respects the good they did since then, but really delves into the nitty-gritty of "some things are just unforgivable"... and that deals with how liking someone makes it hard for the people around them to acknowledge their faults and misgivings and that that's--- okay. This one is truly more a vibe AU than anything else...

Super specific and somewhat cringe.... The five sacrifices get teleported to 1915 Europe instead when Father tries to teleport them to his lair - and now they are in our world, in the middle of a war, without alchemy (Shamballa-style). BUT what makes this AU way weirder and funkier and niche... the Truth basically sent them there with a "once you manage to find a way how to stop father sucessfully, i'll get you back but I really don't want father to eat me so.... have fun" and now the five sacrifices are immortal... (or something similar enough) and stuck in a different time/world. And then... this somehow turned into a Marvel/FMAB crossover? As in Roy and the Elrics are involved in the Super Solider Program, but the Elrics leave because they don't actually want to help any government at all, and they then just travel the world, join universities, and make low scale trouble until in 2014 the Avengers notice a similar heat signature from some files in 1915 and search for them to figure out what the fuck is going on.

Is this specific enough? :D

37. Promote one of your own “deep cut” fics (an underrated one, or one that never got as much traction as you think it deserves!). What do you like about it?

Hm... to stay on the FMAB train... Hero Of The People, the second part of my Eastern Liberation Front AU. It's the Shou Tucker incident but in an alternate universe in which Ed and Al never joined the military. Instead, they end up at Shou Tucker's place after one of their informants tells them about his library - they have to be sneaky because Roy and Riza are hot on their tails after Ed almost killed Hawkeye during an alteration in a train, and Nina is a breath of fresh air (but we all know how that story ends).

I like it a lot because it plays around with Ed being a lot more angry and unrefined than he is in canon - and yet he and Al still want to save little girls and learn how to change the laws of the world. They are the same, and yet their different story changed them and the world around them. Also... Scar's there and that encounter does indeed go very different than it does in canon.

I don't know--- I just have an eternal soft spot for that story and the world it is set in.

Thank you SO MUCH ROMA!!! <3<3<3

[ask me a question for fic writers]

[delku]

also, something i've generally realized about A LOT of work about born-with-a-quirk izuku is that they rarely fail to mischaracterize inko in order to force izuku back into the misfit box. time and time again, i see au work where the author says, "sorry inko, i know you're not like this, but you need to be for my story to work." what is your problem? seriously, think about what you're doing.

you're so eager to make sure your complete abberation of izuku's character reads even remotely like his true self that you forgo any consideration of why he's an outcast in the first place, of why he behaves the way he does at all - destroying inko's characterization to get there won't fix the holes you poked in the boat by removing that fundamental form of pressure. you can't seriously believe child abuse, or child neglect, or both would manifest the same way in him that anti-quirkless bullying did.

it's a completely different ballpark of abuse. when izuku faces bullying, he can come home to his mom and exist in a place where he is loved unconditionally, even if she doesn't have all the right answers to his frankly pretty existential and emotionally raw questions. if he can't come home to a loving family, he's going to grow up to become someone that acts pretty different.

do we know of any characters that went through that? coming home from school, where they were treated more or less amicably, to a home of terror? anyone at all? has he got red and white hair?

not to imply all child abuse scenarios play out as physically violently as shouto's did, but that's not my point. look at how shouto turned out. cold, withdrawn, reluctant to make friends, and deeply spiteful (but not necessarily hateful). some of that is likely inherent to shouto as a person, but a good portion of it likely isn't.

when you imagine izuku in a scenario where he gets no love or affection from his mother (with whom he lives), his character changes fundamentally. how is he going to trust other people when he can't trust his own mother? the way he trusts people in canon is weighed by his experience; he doesn't really trust aizawa at all at first and he has no reason to after what we saw in middle school.

he's a character who wants to see the good in everyone, and who wants to help everyone. we see him playing with his mother and how she cheers him on when he saves her. she helps him prepare for the UA test with the meal plan without even understanding why he needs it! is he really going to be the same person when you have her turn on him? is that characterization of him still going to be recognizable when you take such a big anchor from him?

but moreover i've talked before about how smearing (et al.) inko is misogynistic. it also just sucks in general and makes you look like a hack. "my story doesn't work unless i fundamentally change the main character's upbringing" is essentailly a barefaced admission that you're writing about an oc (especially in this series when we see the upbringings fairly often and they're completely foundational to their respective characters), and the extension "by making his mother abusive/neglectful" is further dragging yourself under that admission. you've swapped the character out for someone who looks the same and has the same name, who has a vague facsimile of the source characterization, but is entirely different otherwise. it's a changeling, and not only have you focused your energy onto a false pretense of an existing character, but you replaced his mother the same way.

ultimately, no matter how you write born-with-a-quirk izuku, he's going to be ooc. his quirklessness is absolutely fundamental to who he is, and changing that is removing an entire section of a domino sequence. now i want to be clear: changing inko to make deku seem more "in-character" is only going to make the situation worse. you're deviating further by doing this. there are better ways to make deku a misfit, trust me. doesn't he have some other eccentricities that people find bothersome? doesn't he keep detailed notes about people? doesn't he have a muttering habit? ...anyways.

also if you write some shit where she's nice to him like canon until he gets into UA and then she turns on him (for reasons out of his control) like. that shit sucks in particular. you know there's no goddamn reason for that when you write it. i've seen shit that isn't even aus do this. genuinely bottom of the barrel trash writing that makes phantom planet dp look like god's gift to series finales, like it sucks so bad it's unreal.

[a-stone-in-flight]

@orangeswithsquirrelfaces I'm CACKLING and losing my mind at the image of a lamp stealing quesadillas but goddamn did this fabulous reply get me thinking! plz scroll past now if u don't want to read a lengthy and semi-coherent post on evil lamps

wtf turns a lamp, of all objects, evil? sure, there are comical ways that wouldn't be out of place in a calvin and hobbes strip — maybe casting hungry shadows, refusing to turn off, hissing or screeching when parents aren't around.

or maybe like in a horror movie — the lightbulb singeing flesh, the lamp flickering ominously, not turning on no matter how many times the doomed side character desperately pulls the cord or flicks the switch when there's an unfamiliar presence in the room.

or maybe a symbol in a one-act play, the centerpiece of a chapbook poem, anchoring down feelings and thoughts, on or off with the character's distress or content, witness to salty tears and sweaty love and sleepy cuddles and susurrating slumbers.

because what is a lamp, when you get down to it? a manmade object that provides light. to soothe us, to illuminate our nights, once meant to be dark, meant to be silent, but now, so often, they're neither. heck, even this long winded response is being written late at night. lamps are a constant in any bedroom, a fixture of any home, from story to story, from film to film, always there, that unnatural, calming light.

so what does it mean to reverse that? to not only change but reverse the effect, the connotation, of one of our most pleasant and ubiquitous inventions. to make a lamp evil requires a new conception of evil. it's not evil like a storybook villain, not evil like a cackling ceo (fuck bezos btw), not evil like small acts of violence — it's evil in a way that's odd, off-putting, unsettling because it rips away a fundamental, reliable, uncomplicated comfort. as Amity said, what's the first thing you do after a nightmare? you turn on the light.

what if there's no light to turn on? what if the light itself betrays you? what if, in seeking reassuring reality, your concept of reality is further dismantled? what if it rips you apart just as much as tearing claws or piercing fangs, but more deeply, more insidiously, a corruption of that which humans have always sought — light.

And in the context of this show, it takes on a whole other meaning. From the beginning, the story of a plucky protagonist named Luz (luz! light! *flaps hands excitedly*) is a story full of light and love and hope and weirdness. The first spell she discovers, that fills her with glee at first and guilt later when she unknowingly hands over her greatest discovery to her greatest enemy, is light. And the finale, of course, had so so much light, almost a heavy handed use of it, in so many ways, and if I dwelled on all that then this post would be twice as long.

but let's talk about the Collector. that one scene that I jokingly captioned with that one post that I'm thinking abt now. think abt how the Collector, an immortal being of near-infinite power, clings to childhood, constructs a facsimile of a child's bedroom in a void, accompanied by their only friend. think abt the way he asks King for Francois, asks him to leave the light on, because at the heart of it they're scared, and they were made of shadows before. And then King brought them out and they clung to the light until Belos entered the darkness. how much pain that caused.

idek what I'm getting at here and this is probably very distant from op's intent (tho there is smth interesting and funny to dissect there) but they are sadly deactivated :(

oops this went on longer than expected. anyway tldr EVIL LAMPS 😍

characters of all time

[bestworstcase]

Something about redemption is how some mistake humanizing people who've done some damn bad things (slavers, abusers, the worst you can imagine). That is, they might change but for now we're getting into the head of who has been framed by the show as "the worst." A descenter claimed that it's because we're tired of the news humanizing monsters and letting them get away with awful crimes, especially when they're people in power who'd get far more than a slap on the wrist otherwise. 1/

2/ Sorry if that sounded too vague. It's just a thought. We seem to like uncomplicated, easy-to-hate villains because we desire catharsis we never get in real life. Villains who are shown to be human in tandem with being despicable seem to feel like it's Fox News trying to make a martyr out of a monster.

it’s the christian hegemony

um my feelings on ‘redemption’ are pretty negative because conceptually it centers forgiveness as the mechanism for emotional and moral change (and in fiction very often skips over the actual. changing. to go straight to the absolution-through-forgiveness and gag if i wanted to read a morality play i would just read a morality play you feel me?)—ANYWAY

the thing about having a problem with news stories “humanizing monsters” is that the. the monsters in question ARE, in fact, human; human beings who chose to do terrible, depraved, repulsive things yes but to deny the humanity of evil people is to suggest that humans don’t have the capacity for evil, which we do. every person on this planet has the possibility of evil inside them and it doesn’t do anyone any favors to pretend otherwise. and while there is a legitimate and very widespread problem with human interest pieces and basic empathy being weaponized in a propagandistic fashion, the issue is not “humanizing monsters” it is entrenched systemic and personal bigotry that affords humanity only to members of the hegemonic classes. gkdhshk we fix it by challenging the dehumanization of marginalized victims, demanding empathy and acknowledgment of personhood for the people harmed by this, not by trying to expand the categories of people who don’t get to be human.

(also frankly a society that can’t hold someone accountable for evil acts without stripping away their humanity first is a society that is deeply, deeply sick.)

as it pertains to fiction and fandom redemption arc #discourse the whole discussion inevitably plays out like this:

AGAINST: this character did horrible things and is irredeemable! 😡 how can you even suggest letting them off the hook?!

FOR: but this character has suffered so much 🥺 don’t they deserve forgiveness?

AGAINST: no!! fuck this character! they deserve to be punished for what they did! [optional: insert unhinged revenge fantasy]

FOR: but this character’s past suffering is already punishment enough! 🥺 they deserve a chance to heal

AGAINST: what about all the people they hurt, huh? HUH? why should those people have to forgive this character just because this character had a bad life?

FOR: but this character just needs love and then they can be a better person 🥺

on and on and on. in every fandom. about every character. even the laundry list of irredeemable wrongs the “against” side always comes out with sooner or later tends to sound the same. eventually someone on the “for” team will bring up zuko and everyone against will produce a list of all the reasons this character isn’t like zuko and could never be zuko. kshfbsh fundamentally both sides of this argument agree that forgiveness is earned through punishment/suffering and the point of argument is always, always whether the villainous character has been sufficiently punished.

fun game: every time you encounter redemption arc discourse—whether for or against—start mentally replacing “redemption” and “forgiven” with the phrase “try to become a better person.” like: does cinder fall deserve redemption? does she deserve to try to become a better person?

see how that changes the meaning of the question? how it reframes the discussion such that the villainous character is no longer a passive receptacle for redemption or punishment or forgiveness but an active participant in their own character development? and how by focusing on the agency of the villainous character we place the onus for moral change on them rather than on the heroes?

does cinder fall deserve to be forgiven WHO CARES WHY DOES IT MATTER—but if she wants to do better? if she decides to crawl out of the darkness she’s burrowed herself into, what does that look like? what does she do? how can she atone for the terrible things she did? how do her changing goals and different choices shape the world she lives in and what do the other characters do in reaction to that? what does healing mean to her? if the possibility of her joining the heroes arises, how do the characters navigate that situation and the countless fraught, painful, contradictory emotions that it’s bound to inspire? like—hfbfks i’m using cinder as an example here because she’s the locus of most of the redemption discourse happening in the rwby fandom, but these are general questions. fundamentally i just don’t care about the bizarre moral calculus of whether a character’s personal suffering does or doesn’t outweigh their wrongdoing and entitle them to forgiveness.

tbh personally i don’t—i never have—find any catharsis in uncomplicated evil villains; like, they can be really FUN? love a character who’s just a complete fucking shitheel for no reason. and it can also be very satisfying to watch heroic characters defeat them, but for me that satisfaction is no different from the satisfaction of watching a character overcome any serious obstacle. like, uh—i got the same sense of satisfaction out of jaune grieving in front of pyrrha’s memorial as i did out of blake and yang taking adam down, you know? it’s about the culmination of the emotional arc, irrespective of whether there’s a bad guy to defeat or not.

(and then there’s also the secondary issue a lot of stories have of like, is this actually an uncomplicated evil monster or is this a character who challenges a legitimately bad status quo but the story is written by neoliberals so they’re also going to like shoot a baby or something so the audience will know that challenging the status quo is something only #evil people do?—or the subtler but no less obnoxious variant of is this actually an uncomplicated evil monster or is this just some guy who has been designated #evil for having goals that don’t align with what the protagonists want? nothing will get me to sympathize with a villain faster than a narrative double standard or a narrative that is constructing a cartoonishly evil strawman because it wants to wibble about how challenging systemic evil is even worse than systemic evil.)

hdjfhdjs not to say that people don’t or can’t feel catharsis over seeing villains get their comeuppance because plenty of folks do! it’s just a very big Can’t Relate thing for me haha

i just go wild for characters who are interesting, and what interests me is emotional complexity and dynamic character development. morality doesn’t really… come into it except for characters who have fraught relationships with their own morality, in which case the fraught internal conflict is what interests me irrespective of the actual moral inclination of the character. (this is also part of why redemption discourse exasperates me SO much; all ethical bones i have to pick with redemption conceptually aside, making forgiveness the focal point and fulcrum of change just totally ignores all the interesting junk in favor of treating the character like a static object and it’s BORING.)

[zevranunderstander]

i dont really wanna start beef w this but the companions from dragon age inqusition are all so shallow in how they are written tbh?

like. in dao you had characters like zevran, who never expresses his real thoughts and emotions and who you could read as a completely diffrent person if you didn't put actual effort in getting to know him and who has so much complexity to him and his own relationship to his past is *so* interesting to explore. or anders, who slowly develops from a person who wants to help and do good into a deeply resentful and bitter representation of vengeance who sees no other way out than to commit a brutal act of terrorism. or alistair, who is almost a complete inversion of the "rightful heir returns home" trope, who is nothing like you imagine him to be when you first meet him. or isabela, who lies to you from the moment you first meet her and who starts to regret what she did and actually trust you enough to put her life in your hands.

i could go on forever with this, actually, but in the first two games, almost every companion has a very insteresting depth to them that makes them a fully diffrent person than you might expect them to be

and in inquisition, all characters feel lowkey shallow in comparison? first of all, almost nothing the characters do ties into the main story? the stories in dao and da2 would be fundamentally different without your companions, especially da2 is almost entirely character-driven. and the character quests in dai are literally just random, plot un-related stuff. like. its cool that blackwall was a grey warden or that the iron bull secretly is a spy, i guess, but what does it add to the plot of the game? what made it so cool that isabela and anders were lying to you was how *you* suffered their consequences. what they did didn't just tie into the main plot, *you* were associated with them and *you* had to deal with the fallout of their actions. and it's like, cool that blackwall has this dark past but there are no stakes for you in this. why *wouldn't* you sympathize with him and forgive him? the game tries to paint these moments as "*gasp* you lied to me!", but really, this is nothing like the betrayal you feel when isabela basically hands you out to the qunari and runs away and you have to work this out with her

and there is so little to discover about the dai companions, too? like, i think the only character i really like in dai is vivienne, because she is the only character that has some depth to her you can explore. i still don't think vivienne can hold up to most characters in older games, but she actually has motives and if you get to know her, you actually change your opinion of her a bit and while her character quest also has zero impact on the main plot, she still made sense to me as a character and didn't feel completely one-dimensional.

im mainly making this post, because dai was my first dragon age game and i found a lot of old fanart recently and back then i *really* liked dorian. and that got me thinking for a moment because now, like 5 years later, i don't really give a shit about dorian anymore? like, i played dao and da2 after dai and there is so little to his character. his whole plot basically revolves around him being gay, his only character traits actually seem to be that he's a genius mage and, more importantly, that he's gay.

and like, his character almost feels regressive to how sexuality wasn't even a topic in romance in dao and *especially* in da2? and dai almost post-adds homophobia and coversion therapy into a series that didn't really need to have a homophobia problem, just to be like "see? we're being deep and serious right here!", and his story is, like all character quests, very predictable and very generic? and aside from that, there isn't that much to learn about him. most of his other dialogue is either sassy disses of other characters or lore dumps about tevinter that aren't all that related to him

this also brings me to my next point. you don't have an actual group dynamic? like, yeah you can sometimes *ask* a character what he thinks of another character but there isn't much interaction between the companions? like, yeah, some characters are friends/like each other, like sera and blackwall or dorian and the iron bull, but? like, you don't really intiutively know what cassandra thinks of vivienne or what blackwall thinks of dorian or if they have ever even been in the same room or spoken to each other.

da2 obviously excels at the whole group dynamic writing, but also dao (which was way less character driven than da2) put a lot of effort in the dynamic characters had. like, banter in dao usually was used to show how 2 characters interacted with each other, like zevran's and wynne's interactions being about them trying to make eachother incredibly uncomfortable, or alistair and morrigan berating each other - it gave you a very clear idea of what it might be like when you all sit by the campfire and talk. you know stuff like that alistair doesn't trust zevran, that leliana tries to be friends with morrigan, that ohgren feels like wynne is looking down at him, etc. there is very little like that happening in inquisition and banter often is just one continuous joke, like vivienne and dorian making fun of solas' clothing and demeanor or sera making silly jokes to everyone she talks to and somehow you feel like these people just dont talk to each other at all when you aren't around.

say what you want about some characters in da2 hating each other for 10 years straight and still being in the same friend group but when you went to do a quest for merrill, she would be chilling with isabela or anders and varric would be playing cards or your family was up to some shit again, but it felt like all of these people would actually regularly hang out with each other? and in dai these people all live in the same fucking castle and you see them being away from their standart spot maybe once? there is one scene where they all play cards together but tbh for me it did the opposite of what the game wanted me to feel in that moment because i was confornted with "wait, dorian and blackwall really exist in the same world and in the same building? sera and leliana exist in the same game?"

like this game sucks at writing characters and tbh im bitter and i have actually zero hopes for dragon age dreadwolf bc dai feels like a cheap copy of the other two games that really is frustratingly mediocre in every way. like, there is really no aspect of inquisition that it actually excels at or a thing it does better than the older games and dreadwolf seems to want to go in the same direction like dai with the plot being suddenly all about solas and the end of the world and. tbh. i don't think they will pull this off in a way that won't genuinely frustrate me

[blind-alchemists]

Inquisition’s Codex on Pride Demons

Spoilers for: Tevinter Nights

I recently dug into blind playthroughs of DA:I on Youtube (an extremely funny activity, I promise you) and came across a guy who – in an effort to rp’ his character properly – reads all codex entries in the game. All of them. Without fault.

Anyway, after the prologue he read the one on Pride Demons and I immediately thought, ‘huh, that’s interesting; I wonder if it’s deliberate’. Like Mother Giselle saying the Chantry teaches that pride is evil. (I posted about it.)

The Codex entry in question:

The most powerful demons yet encountered are the pride demons, perhaps because they, among all their kind, most resemble men; as clever and manipulative as the desire demon, with a penchant for cruel irony that is almost human. While the demons of desire largely engage in the bribery of mortals, pride will use mortals' own best nature against them. Clever men outwit themselves. Strong men crush themselves. Humble men forget themselves. Jealous men fear themselves. They turn corruption and ruin into an art.

[source]

See? It’s interesting; a bit of a shame this is only a Codex Entry.

Anyway, let’s start taking it apart.

The most powerful demons yet encountered are the pride demons,

For one, there is the first part about pride demons being the most powerful (yet). I never really thought about it until now (or until I started my Nightmare playthrough), because the first boss Inquisition throws at you is a pride demon and on lower difficulties, it’s a joke – but looking back at Mother Giselle’s comment (“We teach that pride is evil”), it’s curious, especially if you take into consideration what roles Pride demons have played in earlier games. (Merill’s companion quest comes to mind.)

I’m not denying that Pride Demons may have the standing they have in the hierarchy of strong demons because of the Chantry’s teachings: Much in the Fade is about believing in something, so many people believing Pride demons to be the strongest will obviously give them a huge buff. On the other hand, it’s reasonable to me to assume Pride has always been a strong form of corruption and thus makes strong demons.

I could get into ‘Pride is one of the Worst of the Seven Deadly Sins & the writers obviously borrowed a shit ton from Christianity, so That Has Implications’ but …

(There is a quote I found when re-checking some facts: “It was Pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.” (St. Augustine), and Solas being set-up as being prideful in this context of the Sin Of Pride & Chantry = Christianity specifically makes me fear for the turn DA4 will take, and, … no, I’ll already said I’m not opening this can of worms.)

Anyway! Moving on.

perhaps because they, among all their kind, most resemble men;

It’s an icky part. Don’t the other demons and forms of corruption not also resemble humanity? Desire, Sloth, Despair, Rage, Fear, Terror? I’d argue all of these are more often – and deeply – part of human nature than pride is, but maybe that’s just the Christian Influence. (I think some of the writing has also been pushing ‘All Mages Are Arrogant’ narrative too much, especially with the Evanuris, since everything needed for setting up an interesting plot point featuring religious arrogance stemming from fundamentalism is right there, but I digress.)

Another interpretation is that “most resemble men” part is related to the way they act and think. While I do think every demon has some capacity for communicating, especially with mages, Desire and Pride have been shown to be the most “human-like” in that regard. Meaning, high intelligence that allows them to propose deals or try to divide people. Outside of Inquisition, at least; I think a quest involving such a demon would have done some small wonders for the plot.

as clever and manipulative as the desire demon, with a penchant for cruel irony that is almost human.

Now we’re getting to the parts that I find most interesting. Note the traits mentioned here: clever, manipulative, and cruel irony. Note also the comparison to Desire demons. And note the ‘almost human’ part (when has cruel irony ever been not human?).

Trickster archetypes are often set-up as clever and manipulative; I already said in another post that Solas, himself, doesn’t fit that. The Evanuris made him look like he did.

Sure, he’s clever, and maybe you could argue a good case for him being manipulative to some degree because he lies by omission and makes the Inquisition think he’s some he’s not, but I don’t think this part is necessarily about that: It is more about the nature of Pride.

Which doesn’t bode well for the future of Solas’ arc, since the following paragraph in the codex says this:

While the demons of desire largely engage in the bribery of mortals, pride will use mortals' own best nature against them. Clever men outwit themselves. Strong men crush themselves. Humble men forget themselves. Jealous men fear themselves.

Personally, I’m a big supporter of the ‘the greatest enemy you’ll ever face is yourself’ narrative because I have found it to be true. In the same breath, ‘your greatest strength could become your greatest flaw / your greatest flaw could become your greatest strength’ is an engaging way of setting up characters: Having a deep trust in the people you care for is a great strength … until you become so blind you deny their misdeeds, flaws, crimes, etc. Similarly, never trusting anyone at all is terrible for cooperating … until the new member of your group is a spy and you avoid getting your team killed because you never trusted the newbie to begin with.

In the context of DA:I, this takes on an especially interesting turn in the narrative. Through Solas, we know that Wisdom can be corrupted into Pride. Now, putting aside whether you think Solas is a spirit of Wisdom who took a body or not, the man’s name still means “pride”.

And while there is nothing wrong with being proud, Solas looking for the Red Lyrium Idol when he knows how much it’s going to fuck him up is a clear-cut sign of being arrogant. In DA:I, he’s shown himself to be wise and knowledgeable and reasonable, especially in the one banter with Dorian where he says Elvhenan wasn’t any less innocent than Tevinter.

He has also never been boastful about his abilities as a mage (mostly, anyway). But Pride, as the Codex Entry says, will use people’s best nature against them: Solas may think himself wise and knowledgeable and reasonable, and he may think he knows the dangers of Red Lyrium well enough, but despite knowing it’s going to fuck him up, he’s still going to use it. (He’s not happy about it – “I’d rather not have you see what I become” – but this is his regret about the lack of other options since his orb broke; this is not acknowledging that his pride makes him think he could handle it.)

It comes also down to what you interpret his motivations as, and what you think he’s going to do. I believe there is also an element of desperation to his actions, but, ultimately, he is named “Pride” and that will be his downfall.

(I know I said I’m not going there but: In Christian mythology, Lucifer is turned into a fallen angel because of his pride. It is, literally, his downfall. I can guarantee you Solas’ story will show parallels indicating his pride will ruin him – whether it is through the corruption of the Red Lyrium, or whether it is because he’ll fail to tear down the Veil as he imagines it, or whether it is because he has failed to consider the horrors that come after abolishing the Evanuris’ prison I can’t say. I can just guarantee you he will fuck up even more than he did when he raised the Veil and that’s what will cause regret to eat him alive.)

They turn corruption and ruin into an art.

There’s not much I have to say about this except that it’s kind of funny. Kind of, because Solas is an artist and if anyone knows how to turn something into art, it should be the painter.

But it’s also tragic because it’s not going to be one of his murals/frescoes that’ll show his corruption; it’s going to be Solas himself.

I don’t think corruption and ruin is an art form, and I don’t believe there is anything artistic about it; I think it’s just an allegory. Maybe also a little hint and nudge towards the elf named “Pride” who has a hobby of painting in-game, like his line about the Dalish chasing him away due to superstition and the jawbone of a wolf and his excessive knowledge about things no ordinary Dreamer or elf could know.

The breadcrumbs were there; we just didn’t think about picking them all up because what were the chances we’d get a supposed god as a companion? (In all fairness, DA:I being such a vast game where you can spend +30hs avoiding the main plot didn’t help putting all these subtle leads together.)

TL;DR: The Codex entry holds several interesting clues about Pride demons and, further, the nature of Pride (as a form of corruption). Applying that to Solas, though, makes his future arc in DA4 look very grim.