#lis meta

[blogquantumreality]

Thoughts about Max and Warren in LiS

So as one does, I replay Life is Strange every now and then because of course I just can't help having my feels utterly trampled upon once more as I get sucked into the amazingly immersive world of Arcadia Bay through the eyes (and person) of Max Caulfield.

And if that wasn't enough I occasionally watch Youtube playthroughs as well because I like seeing the choices other people make playing this game. And it was after watching one such playthrough that I ended up having My Thoughts, Let Me Show You Them.

What I noticed on watching a playthrough of the remaster (I have the OG game and refuse to get the remaster myself, for various reasons) was just how pointedly awkward this scene really is:

Seeing Warren's facial expressions here (which aren't as clear in the OG game, to be fair - which is why I specifically chose this scene from the remaster to illustrate my point) just shows vividly how much of a boundaries problem he has when it comes to Max, and how Max (even if she writes in her diary that she's OK with Warren) is aware of this on at least a certain level.

First of all, she smoothly hands the USB flash drive out to him, not even halting momentarily to consider reciprocating the hug.

Second, Warren clearly knows he's done goofed because he awkwardly begins running his hand through his hair and clumsily changes the subject to his newly purchased car.

And this isn't by far the first time: later on, you can catch a glimpse of Warren peeking out in the general direction of Max's window, and when you stumble on him after that, he is flustered and tries to explain away his just sort of hanging around the Blackwell dorm in the morning instead of hoofing it to class.

I've never been totally sure one way or the other but I've also heard it said that a photo Warren keeps of Max and himself together is photoshopped and not real, which raises some more concerns about how appropriate Warren is with respect to Max.

Also, the Chekhov's Photo Selfie of Max and Warren together comes with some vaguely Nice Guy-ish dialog on Warren's side when it comes to him getting the photo taken and it does make me a little uncomfortable.

I'll wrap this up by saying I don't necessarily think Warren is evil or bad, but I do think shipping Grahamfield has a lot more work cut out for it than Pricefield does, and I for one don't really feel the chemistry is there for more than just friends.

Also, yes, I'm aware that this discourse has been done and worked over for many years now, but this is the first time I've really actually thought through and set down why this particular scene does make me uncomfortable.

[arcadiabaytornado]

Do you ever think about the fact that this is the first optional picture of Chloe Max can take in canon?

Do you ever think about how this is the first picture Max has taken of Chloe in five years?

Do you ever think about the fact that the first picture Max takes of Chloe is one where she’s framed by a golden sky? Despite the fact that Chloe herself is most tied to storm’s, in Max’s lens, she is tied to the sun. Which is, in fact, insane. 

Do you ever think about the fact that the first picture Max takes of Chloe is one on the cliffs? A place heavily tied to their childhood’s and the place where they decide their fates? 

Because I think about it a lot. 

[warpedpuppeteer]

It's interesting how Buck's love interests are all written in a way that ends because of the reason they meet/happen in the first place and then of course, we have Eddie.

Abby, who changes Buck's view of a healthy relationship but then turns around and ghosts him, making him wait for months on end and letting him realize she's not coming back on his own.

Ali, who meets Buck during a dangerous situation in his line of work and then leaves him for how dangerous his work is.

Taylor, who lashes out at Buck for using her as a fake date and saying she thought she could trust Buck to be a friend who then ends up using him for her career and chose to put his friends in danger.

Natalia, who's there to help him embrace and deal with his temporary death but it leads to their break up because of the constant talk surrounding death when Buck's not comfortable with it.

We can't confirm for Tommy till it ends but it's important to note how he offers to get Buck into his interests like flying and muay thai yet doesn't show effort with Buck's interests like dressing up according to the bachelor party theme despite Buck being stressed about it. And we also have the fact that the entire reason they got together was due to Buck's jealousy for Eddie which he then claims to be was for Tommy. Makes me think they are either going to end because of differing interests OR because of the jealousy issue popping up again.

Funnily enough, every scene above has an Eddie parallel:

Eddie co-parents with Buck and not only does this not stop after a dangerous event but Eddie also has Buck down as a legal guardian (healthy relationship - Abby).

Eddie is in the same dangerous line of work and they have each other's backs. This happens right off the bat too.(dangerous job - Ali).

The Lawsuit era and The Dispatch era - both where they "betray" each other but manage to work through it (betrayal/lie - Taylor).

Eddie doesn't pressure Buck to talk about his temporary death until Buck's ready and is more focused about him living than in his death (death doula - Natalia).

Eddie who has different interests than Buck (poker, basketball and UFC/MMA) but also manages to show interest and actively takes part in whatever Buck comes up with; he suggests their outfit for the themed party AND ends up staying there for Buck even when others leave (different hobbies & showing interest/taking part - Tommy).

Absolutely fascinating when you start noticing that Buck's relationships keep failing for one reason or another and then we have him and Eddie who face the same sort of situations but they still come out of it stronger together.

It's clear that there's a reason Buck is able to overcome anything when it comes to Eddie (that conversation with Maddie about being there for each other even at their worst 👀) and we've already established that everything Eddie looks for in a partner is already something he has found in Buck. So really, all that's left is for them to realize that hey, the one I'm looking for is right in front of me! 🤷🏽

And yes, it's been said to death (hah) but you don't find it son you make it. And Buck and Eddie have already made it.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I ABSOLUTELY ADORE YOUR SQQ HE LOOKS SO FUCKINH DONE WITH LIFE

The recipe for SQQ is: calm on the outside, screaming on the inside.

[xofemeraldstars]

bear with me for a moment im going all invisible string theory:

1. so you're telling me we had this dialogue at the beginning of the episode with buck comparing the cruise rescue (subconsciously actually meeting tommy and tommy risking everything for the 118 aka his family) to being struck by lightning and being dead for 3m17s

2. to then have the kiss happening exactly at 3m18s into the apartment scene at the end of the episode aka he was kissed at the 18th second the same second he was brought back to life??

3. not in this episode but another lightning strike parallel when he's wheeled into the hospital and they stop in the ER that's the moment they get a pulse but also the scene where buck kisses tommy in 7x06 after he shows up even tho he fought a fire for the last dozen+ hours cause he promised to buck he would make it!!

[nenoname]

Details in Stan's letter that still haunt me

(how long will I continue thinking about a two page letter that's technically not even that long because Stan's handwriting is fricking large? .....you don't need to worry about that.)

The bro code only shows up in the Lost Journal pages, and to me Stan's message feels like it purposely echoes Ford's "miss you" in the college photo (and for some reason the message doesn't appear in the website version of the photo?) ....or alternatively Stan simply noticed how distressed Ford was about this entire thing and wanted to support him in a way so he can be sappy but without the kids knowing, or both!

Stan's claim about the Oregon lottery contradicts what the Lost Legends website said about Tate McGucket's ability to predict the winning numbers!! ...but also breaking into the Lottery HQ is definitely a very Stan thing to do and it's not the first time small gags have been retconned

Despite spending most of his letter nonchalantly destroying him, the taunt about ripping a dollar bill in half is the only part where Stan is directly responding to Bill. Maybe it's the two of them having similar ways of thinking but it's rather specific considering Bill taunts the reader about it...

And after Bill spends an entire book calling Ford Sixer despite normally using a pretty wide range of nicknames for him, Stan then spends his letter mainly referring to Ford as Sixer, even though post-Weirdmageddon he tends to use a mix of nicknames. And it's not like he'd gotten to see Bill himself for long, let alone see him steal that childhood nickname (that is only used twice in the actual show btw!). Did Ford tell him what happened or...?

With all this and the website's "still on your mind" message, what I'm getting at is my tinfoil hat theory of Stan somehow seeing some of the pages the irl readers saw, even when it should be personalised to the specific reader, and he's been lying about it for some reason. Considering that the book flat out doesn't make an attempt at convincing Soos, I find it a stretch that whatever Bill was telling Stan via the book was an attempt to convince him either.

Wouldn't be the first time Stan's skimmed through a book and lied about what it meant to him.

(...Now I kinda wanna see a story about the family reading their versions of the book and making fun of it while Stan is improvising every single one of his pages and blatantly ignoring Bill's attempts to mock and taunt him)

But also I'm fascinated by the letters that only showed up on the website (aka the Soos+Wendy+McGucket+Pacifica ones). I'm assuming that Mabel had stuck them on after Stan's letter... but they were basically eaten by the book itself because seeing Stan's letter kick-started Bill's breakdown which takes up the rest of the book

[mxtxfanatic]

Let’s talk Yi City Arc! I’ve seen a few posts since my time in the fandom that talks about the Yi City Arc as unnecessary or out of place in the whole of the mdzs narrative. I’ve even seen some suggest that the disconnect is because Yi City was originally a separate story to mdzs, a sort of prototype, if you will, to explain it away. I, too, after my first read questioned the significance of this arc to the overall story. However, the Yi City arc and its placement so early in the novel is actually just a huge and very clever spoiler to most of the important plot points of the overarching story… if you know what plot points to look for, which an un-spoiled first-time reader would not. So let’s talk about those spoilers:

1) The righteous cultivation clans’ refusal to stand against evil—and, really, their indulgence of it—leads to the wiping out of an entire clan and a monastery as well as the deaths of two powerful cultivators unaffiliated with any major sect.

The “righteous” cultivation clans happily ignore that fact that the Jin Clan is amassing power through unscrupulous guest disciples, and it is only when Xiao Xingchen, an outsider, brings the crime against the Chang Clan to light do they bother to pretend to do anything about it. However behind the scenes, the Jin Clan assassinates their only real opposition, and the other clans, great and small, continue to do nothing as Xue Yang is released to commit another massacre. The Jin are never held responsible for their actions. Likewise, all the clans turn away from Wei Wuxian, an outsider, when he calls out the Jin Clan’s crimes against the Wen remnants and accuses them of amassing power via poaching vassal clans and attempting to steal his tools. Behind the scenes, the Jin work to undermine Wei Wuxian’s reputation before joining in to massacre Wei Wuxian and the Wen remnants. The Jin are never held accountable for this, which directly leads into the Xue Yang situation.

2) Xiao Xingchen has his reputation slandered by Xue Yang killing others using his sword.

After Xiao Xingchen kills himself, Xue Yang begins using his sword to enact “vengeance” on the remnants of the Chang Clan, who he considers as having “betrayed” Xiao Xingchen. Finding the signature of Xiao Xingchen’s sword on the slain bodies leads the cultivation world to believe that a disillusioned Xiao Xingchen is killing in revenge. In much the same way, Wei Wuxian is used as a scapegoat by the cultivation world whenever bad things happen, such as the presence of walking corpses or the mass digging of graves. In neither situation does any clan investigate the true events of the situations, happy to blame the easiest suspect and allow the unrest to continue. In both situations, Xiao Xingchen and Wei Wuxian are eventually found innocent of the crimes for which they are accused, and the true culprit is revealed.

3) Xiao Xingchen is betrayed by someone he considered close to him, which eventually leads to his death.

Xiao Xingchen, due to being literally blinded by his sacrifice, ends up running into, rescuing, and caring for his mortal enemy, Xue Yang. Taking advantage of Xiao Xingchen’s blindness, Xue Yang tricks him into murdering a bunch of innocents and his best friend, causing him to commit suicide. Wei Wuxian, similarly, is betrayed by a close friend he kept near, figuratively blinded by a former childhood friendship and the present debt he felt owed to said friend’s parents. This misplaced trust directly leads to his death.

4) Xiao Xingchen must give up his eyes for Song Lan to see again, because Baoshan Sanren is not magical.

This is probably the biggest spoiler of the entire arc, but by the time you get to where this information is relevant, you’d probably have forgotten that this was even said. Xue Yang blinds Song Lan after destroying his home, and to atone for this, Xiao Xingchen goes to his master, Baoshan Sanren, to beg for her help. However, Baoshan Sanren cannot make something out of nothing. Mxtx explicitly writes that tidbit into the narration. Song Lan goes up the mountain blind and comes down with eyes. Xiao Xingchen goes up the mountain with eyes and comes down blind. Song Lan was given Xiao Xingchen’s eyes.

Much later in the story, Jiang Cheng loses his golden core. Wei Wuxian offers the miracle solution of Baoshan Sanren “giving” him a new one. Jiang Cheng, obviously skeptical, questions Wei Wuxian up until the moment he must go up “Baoshan Sanren’s mountain” alone. Wei Wuxian descends, alone, looking pale and weak. Later, when Wei Wuxian is ambushed by the Wen, Wen “Core-melting Hand” Zhuliu touches him and is visibly shocked by a discovery that he then keeps to himself. Jiang Cheng emerges from the mountain with a new golden core, while Wei Wuxian emerges from the Burial Mounds with a new cultivation method wholly independent of the need for a golden core. The Yi City arc tells us why this is: “Baoshan Sanren” cannot make something out of nothing.

And these are just the major parallels I remember off the top of my head. However, while a reread makes a lot of these parallels directly applicable to specific plot points in Wei Wuxian’s own story, I would argue that the biggest role the explicit paralleling is meant to play for a new reader is to make you question the dominant narrative of the main story. The narration tells us that Wei Wuxian is a bloodthirsty man who may as well be a demon, known for cruelty and vengeance. We see none of that from his character when he is resurrected. Then we get a mini-drama where a man with attributes Wei Wuxian directly relates to, with a story Wei Wuxian directly compares to his own life, is scapegoated by society, killed, then eventually vindicated. If nothing else, the Yi City Arc is meant to make you, as a reader, stop and go “Hey, wait a minute, what if Wei Wuxian isn’t the bad guy here???” And once you understand that, you should start questioning everything the prologue told you, just like the juniors start to question what they were told about Xiao Xingchen post Yi City in their group debrief.

[5ummit]

The Left-Handed Winter Soldier Myth

A theory has been circulating for years that the Winter Soldier is left-handed (or at least heavily favors his left hand and uses it at every opportunity) while Bucky is exclusively right-handed. I’ve tried to ignore it in the past, but it’s come back with a vengeance in the wake of the Thunderbolts trailer and I can no longer sit idly by and let this misinformation continue to spread unchallenged. Not when it's now being used as “evidence” that the Bucky we see in Thunderbolts is not actually Bucky but the Winter Soldier.

Luckily, this myth is easy to disprove.

Turns out there’s tons of examples of the Winter Soldier favoring his right hand (these are just a few I could grab that clearly showed his hands and weren't too blurry). I actually noticed while gathering these screenshots that the soldier rarely fires a gun and basically never uses a knife with his left hand, even when it might make more sense for him to do so as the metal arm is theoretically stronger and faster. Unsurprisingly, Bucky being right-handed means the Winter Soldier is too.

But just to be thorough, here are few counterexamples of Bucky using his metal arm when he’s definitely not the Winter Soldier. One of which even includes him killing people with a gun, something I've seen some Bucky fans also claim he never did in TFATWS and try to use as further proof that he’s the Winter Soldier in Thunderbolts, because their Buckybear is a sweet innocent baby who doesn't carry weapons and wouldn’t harm a fly.

I know I'm constantly beating this drum to the point that it's probably getting annoying, but it’s really easy to manipulate "data" to “prove” whatever you want. Just because something seems like it could be credible at first glance doesn’t mean it is. Please double-check other people's claims before you use them to inform your own opinions.

[qiu-yan]

thoughts

also wasn't sure what to do with the lan simp brothers so i guess they can sit on the side

[brujahinaskirt]

WAIT A SEC. I want to cut some credit to player drunkenness in rdr2 and how it works as a vehicle to reveal something about the main character of this story.

Usually drunkenness in games is played off for cheap laughs, and there are plenty of slapsticky drunken antics in rdr2 (LENNAY). But happy-drunk Arthur gives SO MUCH INSIGHT into his real personality, too -- even when he's being a giggling, property-damaging, cancan-dancing terror. When he's drunk, he forgets a little of his mean bastard enforcer mask, the primary role he must play in the gang, and his loving nature becomes laughably obvious.

[spoilers under the cut]

From his sudden determination to teach Jack mathematics to his declared affection for Hosea; from his worrying about Susan getting a break to his insistence that newer gang members are "one of us now"; from his innocuous little compliments tossed around thoughtlessly ("Mary-Beth! Sweetest outlaw in the West! Javier! Best-dressed outlaw in the West!") to his more genuine praise for Abigail's inherent goodness, drunk Arthur is a fuzzy but honest look at a truer Arthur, one who is not thinking about the part he must play in a criminal outfit. Strip that awareness of his station away, even if just for a while, and we wind up with an Arthur who is surprisingly fun-loving, sometimes downright silly, and who lives to fuss over and dote on the people around him.

My favorite moment, perhaps, is a tipsy interaction with Sadie in Horseshoe Overlook during Sean's welcome home party. Arthur meanders over to her, this woman who is not a gang member or a close friend at the time, but simply a grieving widow he doesn't know very well. And he and asks, loudly: "MISSUS ADLER. DO YOU NEED ANYTHING MISSUS ADLER. DO YOU WANNA DANCE WITH ME MISSUS ADLER."

And she just sounds so tickled when she says no thanks to this goofy-drunk gunslinger. And I think maybe, just maybe, watching big bad gang lieutenant Arthur slamming a couple bottles of whiskey and so transparently doting on everyone gave her some of the first laughter at the world she had in what must feel like a very long time.

In Chapter 6, Arthur can again approach Sadie while drunk, and he encourage her to smile. Sadie hisses you're drunk; no woman likes being told this, and on the surface, this seems like a proper Antagonize line. But then Arthur -- who knows he is dying -- says, blearily, to this friend he met at her lowest point of grief and who seems to be in danger of plunging even lower in rage, "I just want you to be happy."

Drunkenness is not a liquid clarifier. Often times, alcohol garbles and distorts a person's personality. But with a character like Arthur, whose heart is so poorly matched with his 20-year lot in life, drunk-writing becomes a powerful tool. It's a quick, non-transformative way to believably peel off the snarl he wears around for a while (without him knowing it), letting players access an easy, silly, soft interior that sober Arthur is much more guarded about showing the gang.

[zeravmeta]

don quixote fgo is just so good, he is such a hopeful character and i absolutely think he's the standout from traum

what really strikes me about him is that traum is a story dedicated to broken ideals and unfulfilled dreams: the major players of each faction are all characters with failed ambitions and who wage war against panhuman history to achieve those dreams. kriemhild wants revenge on siegfried even after killing hagen, komstantinos wants to remake his old empire, johanna abhors that she is a living fictional character and wants to become a real person, all the nameless servants from each faction are dedicated to rebel not only because of zhang jue's influence but because they all, in some form, had unfinished business, dreams they never fulfilled. this even extends to moriarty himself, a younger version who's fixated on defeating holmes because his older version could not, and he follows through on it because he did not really understand the value of his own nemesis, a fact that ultimately left him defeated no matter how much he tried to control fate. All of these characters refused to face the reality of their failures, and honestly don quixote was the most guilty of this

he was originally a servant summoned in the atlantean lostbelt, and genuinely did try to rally heroes, but as he saw these legendary figures he adored be struck down he lost hope. it wasn't just that he was afraid, it was that the heroes around himself had given up even before him, a craven old man.

the thing is though that the reason don quixote and sancho ran is antithetical to the reasons that the other servants ran: they did it specifically to survive. sancho was able to convince don quixote to leave because she reminded him that it wasn't wrong or evil to want to live, and this was only possible because don quixote, despite being a servant, still thinks of himself as being human. even though he consciously understands himself as being a servant, his way of thinking and reasoning is undeniably that of a normal human

A big part of his too is that traum is also a singularity in which the names of heroic spirits have lost their meaning: the sheer volume of servants means that there is no singular standout hero, sure, but when kriemhild killed the lancer who was about to declare his name she called him merely a foot soldier because said name was worthless, in traum there is only the endless war of people slaughtering each other, and ironically a unifying peace in that.

names are the linchpins of heroic spirits: servants aren't the ghosts of dead people, they're the manifestations of what those legends meant to humanity, all codified by the names they carry. servants have to name themselves and have names for their noble phantasms which directly identify them because they are literal living legends. Yet in traum, those names and legends and meanings become all but worthless in the face of endless war as armies of these protectors of humanity are reduced to mere foot soldiers. there is a similar parallel to this when vlad goes to the righteous realm, and as he sees the army gathered he finds it entirely lacking because it's fully composed of singular standout heroes who are all used to essentially being the main character and thus cant function as a unit. Traum is a world where being a hero has no meaning.

but i think that's also why don quixote declares himself against konstantinos and challenged him: in this moment, he reclaimed the value of being a knight who fights for his ideals, that of a true hero

konstantinos throughout traum is presented as equally a legendary figure as charlemagne is, and yet his reason for fighting is incredibly simple: he's in love with johanna and wants to make her real to panhuman history, and to this end he'll continue the war in traum as needed for that end. kriemhild has an equal but opposite reason rooted in the same thing: love. she wants revenge against siegfried for having gone through with hagens plan, for not letting her in to his pain, he was too much of a hero for everyone that it led him to sacrificing himself even if it would hurt her. konstantinos wanted to be the perfect knight, and kriemhild wanted to get revenge against her own knight for being too perfect.

The thing is, despite their insistence on traum being the cruel reality of a war, both of them were holding onto rather idealized, almost romanticized versions of what a knight should be.

konstantinos knows and declares don quixote as being likely the most famous knight to have ever lived, but he dismisses him as a threat when actually fighting him. When he's about to finish him, he tells don quixote that he has to face reality as he's about to die. However, the story of don quixote was always that of an old man whom lost himself to his fantasies of chivalry and knightly idealism, and despite the troubles he caused still continued to fight for what he believed was honorable. Even if he had returned to reality in the end, there was still meaning to the outright silly journey of an old man knight long past the age of chivalry, of the old man who, despite his fear, still chose to rally an army and fight for the world he felt he had failed.

what traum needed was someone who did good not as a hero but as a human. almost every knightly character in fate carries grand ideals as to why they are knights, but the only requirement to BE a knight and a hero is the simple desire to do good for others, and don quixote is fittingly the most famous knight in the world because he's utterly obsessed with the great chivalric legends of old, yet still strived to do good in the way normal people do.

it's why charlie finds him so inspiring, as well

for all the non-extella link players, charlemagne as we see him in fgo is actually the fictionalized version of him from the tales of the paladins of charlemagne and not the actual karl der Große. He's even more fictionalized than johanna and don quixote himself, because while johanna might have been an erroneous account and don quixote a story book character, charlemagne is a full on sensationalized re-imagining of an already real person. but even if he may be a fictionalized person, what he represents is what matters the most, the same with any heroic spirit, which is why charlemagne considers johanna just as real and why the actual karl der Große saw fit to send him to traum

at the center of traum we ultimately find wakamori, who despite seeming cruel and mysterious throughout the entire plot, has shown multiple times that he's essentially trying to fill in bigger shoes than he can: He's obsessed with defeating sherlock and presenting himself as the ultimate evil, but he's still green at the end of the day, and I think this is in part what leads him to somewhat even respect don quixote

when he tries to taunt don quixote, he does so with the assumption that much like himself, don quixote is attempting to play the part he represents most: don quixote is surely trying to be the greatest most idealized version of a knight, the same way wakamori is trying to be the perfected version of himself, the true evil mastermind whom can finally defeat sherlock. But don quixote flat out tells him that conflict and even life itself has always had no inherent meaning nor any inherent roles to play, so much in the same way that he has no special value to his life tied to being a knight, wakamori's own value is not tied specifically to that of being sherlock holmes' greatest evil rival. There's a surprising empathy in this exchange I feel, because don quixote understands wakamori immediately where it took sherlock the entire story: there's nothing wrong with being a little delusional, but you have to treat them with respect.

wakamori ultimately fails because he believed that defeating sherlock would finally give value to james moriarty as the ultimate villain, unaware that sherlock holmes is the defining equal to james moriarty. there is no purpose to a story with an evil mastermind that doesn't have an equally great hero trying to stop him, and wakamori failing to understand that his own value as such is not diminished by not having ever defeated holmes is what ruins him: He didn't respect the story he was so enthralled by. shinjuku showcased a similar dynamic, but the difference between shinjuku and traum is that the older moriarty very much understood what it would take to succeed, and that would be to become the protagonist of the story, rather than the ultimate final boss.

the stories of knights and heroes and monsters and spurned loves and great detectives and evil masterminds are all in part defined by the meanings that people derive from them, from the ordinary good that they can inspire first and foremost. And even though don quixote may have been a craven old man who eventually gave up chivalry, he still tried to live a good life and do good the way any ordinary person would.

And that's such a genuinely hopeful and kind sentiment to tie to the concept of knightly ideals: you don't have to be grand to be a hero, and you don't even have to be a hero to inspire others.

[arcadiabaytornado]

Oh to know someone so well you can predict their future.

[asha-mage]

There is a lot about re: Fantaszio that I adore and that has captivated me but one thing I keep coming back to is the game over screen.

A tattered font reading "Fantasy is dead" splashed over a black screen with a soft voice whispering to you a different line asking in various ways, if you accept this outcome. "Do you yield to reality?" "Is fantasy truly just fiction after all?" "Will your tale end here?"

And then you sit there and ask yourself that question too. Do you give up? Do you surrender and move on and let the fantasy die? Do you accept bitter horrible reality, accept that to dream is wishful thinking, accept that it ends here?

And as you do you think of Hulkenberg standing in the crypt because she is a knight and she will not surrender when there is a duty to be done. You think of Strohl in that mine screaming defiance because even if his House is in ruins, and his people are gone, and his lands are ashes he is still a noble, and must seek justice for those who gave him their fealty. You think of Will standing on that tower small and alone in a country that hates everything about him and choosing to keep fighting because it's the right thing to do, even if it means dying.

And then you hit continue because fantasy, dreams, ideals are only dead when you stop believing in them.

[greenqueenhightower]

Alicent goes to Rhaenyra to avoid shedding any blood, and the Rhaenyra she knew, the one she saw in the sept in 2x03 would have acceded to that. This new Rhaenyra, having amassed great power and now relishing in her newfound strength, does not cower at the thought of spilling Aegon's blood. It is Rhaenyra who believes she can have "all she wants" now that she imagines herself indestructible. Having lost all faith in the green cause, the Seven, and her expectations as Queen, Alicent becomes disillusioned with Rhaenyra herself. Rhaenyra can no longer talk of peace. Alicent's quest to find it as she preserves her and her children's lives fails. She's once again left alone to tread this difficult path of reconciling her duty to herself, her family, and the realm.

"A true Queen counts the cost to her people."

Alicent still is that true Queen, The Queen Who Ever Was, and she offers Rhaenyra the only way out, with the least possible casualties. But even in service to herself and her freedom, Alicent again shows altruism and is called to pay the highest price possible. She's destined to never be completely free and at peace, her inner torment always eating her soul as she drifts further away from the unattainable dream.

[ineffable-suffering]

Aziraphale, I love you. But you lied. And here's why.

Okay. I’m not gonna beat around the bush for too long. It’s time now for me to also throw my try at a personal Good Omens Season 2 Magnum Opus into the mix of already existing magnum op..i? Opusses? (Smited? Smote?)

If I’m honest, it isn’t fully my own magnum opus, as I read this meta not too long ago that made me go: „Oh! My God! That’s it!“ And I’m pretty sure a lot of other people have clocked this too by now. Of course I’m not saying it’s the objective truth but after having mulled it over for many endless nights and days, wading through the onslaught of coffee theories, body swap theories, The Metatron re-writing the Book of Life theories and many, many more, this is the one I think is most plausible and, if you look closely, most obvious.

And it goes as such: Aziraphale lied.

To all of us. All of them. And most of all, to Crowley. He lied to him. Well, he sort of did and also sort of didn’t. He certainly didn’t tell the truth. At least not all of it. I hear you ask: “OP, what the fuck are you talking about”. I answer you: Let’s start from the top and under the cut.

(Small note: this meta ended up being way too large for Tumblr, which is why I will redirect you to an external doc at the end of the post, where I have written it all down nicely and accurately. It's about 35 digital A4-pages long, just in case you want to save it for later.)

(Word count: 12.831 | Approximate reading time: 50 minutes)

Let’s start with a short recap of what happens before the Metatron crashes the bookshop party and everything goes to shit. The proper visuals for this are in my Tumblr post but I am absolutely convinced that right up until when the Metatron comes to take Aziraphale away and talk to him, the angel is fully ready to get into Crowley’s Bentley-chariot and finally ride off into the sunset (or Alpha Centauri-set or whatever). You can see it in his face and body language. You can see when the penny drops for him that a) Crowley loves him b) he loves Crowley and c) they can finally start their happily ever after. Aziraphale realizes this all throughout said Brielzebub reveal in the bookshop. And he’s such a lost cause once he does. 

I mean, look at that. Look at it. This (very shitty recording, sorry, I'm not tech-savvy enough to avoid the Amazon Prime screen recording blocker) is the very second Aziraphale realizes hat Crowley loves him. When he hears him suggest Alpha bloody Centauri as a getaway for Gabriel and Beelzebub, as Crowley has done to Aziraphale for so, so many times now. He finally understands what Crowley was trying to tell him with that all those times.

Aziraphale realizes this all throughout the Brielzebub reveal in the bookshop. And he’s such a lost cause once he does.

Right when Crowley suggest Alpha Centauri as a nice getaway spot to the two, Aziraphale looks at him and he gets it. That Crowley has loved him, has been loving him for millennia. Truthfully, they've both known that for a long while now. But there's a difference between knowing, wanting, craving and actually being able to finally have something. And that's exactly what we see on Aziraphale's face here. This is it. This is where it all starts working out for Crowley and him. This is were they can start their eternity together.

So from that second on, Aziraphale only has eyes for Crowley. He keeps physically pawing at Crowley with complete heart eyes, as if to say „Look, look, that’s gonna be us too! Finally!" He’s actually so smitten that he doesn’t even hear what Crowley is saying when he asks Shax if he can have back his apartment now because he’s sick of living in his car. (Also, what way to drop that bomb right in this moment Crowley, lmao). 

Once the Metatron comes in, the first thing Aziraphale says is that they don’t need to talk because „he’s made his position quite clear“. He doesn’t even want to talk to the Metatron, because in his mind, he’s already made the choice. Actually, he made the choice way before the bookshop showdown. For starters, I’m convinced that the Jane Austen Ball actually never was for Maggie and Nina but for Crowley and him (you can read more about that here). And apart from that, for this whole season we have seen Aziraphale trying to advance his relationship with Crowley romantically and domestically and move them to the literal next base (our car!). And after everything he just witnessed with Brielzebub, the final nail in the coffin of ethereal-infernal romance being possible, his choice is absolutely crystal clear: It’s Crowley. It’s always been Crowley and it always will be Crowley. And now it can be Crowley. They can be an us.

The whole of Season 2 is such a massive learning curve for Aziraphale’s character, with him remembering all those important pivotal points of his past,  and this very moment is the peak, with him not only understanding that Crowley loves him (because he certainly knew for quite some centuries now) but accepting that love, letting himself have that love, being allowed to want that love and taking that love and starting their new and final chapter with it. Nevertheless, the plot clock ticks for them. The Metatron saunters into the bookshop, evil and stinky as Metatrons do, and urges Aziraphale to come with him with his whole Take The Coffee schtick, which I will get into later. And Aziraphale, immediately sensing there’s Something Up, does. Can’t really turn down someone as high-ranking as the the voice of God, after all. Even if you were currently already planning how you were going to elope with a certain red-haired serpent of Eden. 

he next time we see Aziraphale on screen, it’s so painfully evident on his face that he is neither happy nor excited. Not even the slightest bit. We’d know if he was, thanks to Mr. Michael master-of-microexpressions Sheen. None of the usual “Aziraphale is happy”-signs are there. No blinding eye-smile, no giddy wriggling, not giggles and gasps. No, when the Metatron tells Aziraphale to „go tell your friend the good news“, his expression looks like this:

I’m gonna go out on an entire limb here and say: That does not look like someone who’s absolutely tickety-boo hyped to tell his demon soulmate that he just got the juiciest promotion and that they can both be angels and live happily ever after in ethereal eternity now.

This, folks, looks like someone who knows exactly that the news he has to break right now, are going to be tickety-shit awful and very upsetting to said demon soulmate. And already, from that very short snippet of conversation, we can tell that Aziraphale isn’t really given a choice by the Metatron. Because while the Metatron does tell him that he doesn’t have to „answer right away“, he immediately follows it up by: „Go ahead and tell your friend the good news!“ Very distinct and definitive choice of words here. It’s “good news” because it’s already been decided. Because it’s already a done deal. There is no “yes, no, maybe”. This is the only choice he’s giving to Aziraphale. Because it’s ‘Coffee or death’. 

And he already gave him the coffee. 

***

Tumblr won't let me continue this over a certain character limit and I am not even remotely done yet – so, I feel like this is a good moment to redirect you to the continuation of this insane meta before we're in too deep. You can do so right here!

I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions about this once you've fought your way through it. Hope you have a good time with it!

[asm5129]

I’m playing the new life is strange game and apparently people are pissed at how it handles following up the original because OF COURSE THEY ARE.

The first game has two endings, one where Chloe survives and one where she dies.

Officially, neither is the “canon” ending, that’s been made repeatedly clear since the original game released.

But a bunch of people keep demanding more of the Max and Chloe story. It doesn’t matter that they’ve gotten comics about it and a prequel, they still want more. They don’t want to let Life is Strange be an anthology series.

So here, Max is back as the protagonist. But guess what? Chloe isn’t a main character.

Because she fucking DIED in one of the endings, and both are canon.

So even if you choose to play in the timeline where she survived, they had to write her out or they would have had to develop two different games, one with Chloe and one without.

So instead they made it an interesting character issue. Max is stuck in the past, in the trauma of the events of the first game while Chloe wants to move forward.

It was never going to be Max and Chloe living happily ever after. It couldn’t be.

That’s not an interesting game, and it flies in the face of the ending of the original.

This game is in many ways rooted in Max dealing with that trauma and like…that’s an interesting story.

But you’re mad because the story you wanted isn’t the story they made, even though that was literally never going to happen.

The LiS fandom is shitty sometimes

Very gatekeep-y

There’s a sort of notion that there’s only one way for a Life is Strange game to be Life is Strange, but the people that buy into that don’t seem to realize that their criteria is literally just the game that already exists.

Maybe I’d give more credibility to the current criticisms if I hadn’t had to deal with YEARS of so-called “fans” harassing me for being a legitimate fan of every LiS entry, rather than just the ones it’s most popular to like. I have had to deal with this toxic gatekeeping and backlash for fucking EVER so it’s hard to give much of a shit about y’all not getting exactly what you want here.