#loss of humanity my beloved trope

[sillyangstfic]

Ya know what's a concept I love and was deeply dissapointed was explored in the show: the miraculi having side effects on the wearers. Specifically where the longer you wear it, the more like the animal of the miraculi you become (both physically and behaviorally).

The lost potential screams at me the most when I look at the conflict with Lila Rossi. Imagine, during one of Lila's many month long absences due to her lies, Marinette manages to rekindle the friendships with her classmates and help them grow in successful miraculous users. During these several months, each of the classmates start having side effects and by the time Lila is back they're all quite different. For starters, they're all way closer as a group due most the miraculi animals being very social (aka herd/flock mentality). Second, their respective instincts and senses are turned way up so know they can all see danger coming a mile away.

Imagine the shared confusion when the classmate they all loved and missed starts causing their instincts to just scream "DANGER" as soon as she steps into the room. No matter how friendly she seems or the good memories they have, their senses recognize her as a danger to their group.

Chloe has be physically stopped from throwing Lila out of school because how else should she respond to a wasp in her hive. Marinette is very tempted to just listen to her insticts, walk right up to Lila, and rip her throat out with her mandibles (ladybugs are quite opportunistic voracious predators). Adrien keeps swatting away all of Lila's attempts to touch him and hisses at her when she pushes. Same goes for Juleka except its more of a low growl. Those whose animals are traditionally prey animals (Rose, Mylene, Ivan, Alix, Max, Kim, Zoe, and Nathaniel) all feel very nervous around her, feeling the intense need to either avoid her or just placate her. Marc and Felix, on the other hand, watch her like hawks and keep a look out for any threatening behaviors. Luka and Nino tend to coil into themselves to make themselves seem smaller and keep her away. Ironically, Alya is the one who feels the most hostile since her instincts not only see Lila as dangerous but also as a rival fox (their quite territorial creatures).

It doesn't take long for the entire group to realize that Lila's full of shit but decide to just not say anything since it's not like they can just expel her and, learning from what happened to Marinette, letting her tell her stories as she pleased was the best way to keep her harmless. They also collectively agree that none should ever be alone with her and always have someone follow Lila whenever she tries to go for one of them.

Alya deletes all her interviews with her and comes up with bullshit excuses regarding the blog crashing and stalling any attempts for a retake of the interview. Everyone refuses to sit with her, citing that they don't wish to bother her physical condition. Lila can tell something is wrong, but she can't tell what.

I don't know how or what the build up would be, but at some point Lila will go after Marinette again due to her closeness with Adrien and I would have loved to see a final showdown between Rena Rouge and Volpina. Not just cause their both foxes, but also to explore that animalistc side to the miraculi. I want the reason Volpina looses because she doesn't have the instincts and ingenuity of the fox that Rena Rouge has. Volpina has not specialized eyes to see in the dark, no fangs to bite through rope, no enhanced hearing or smell to track her enemies down, and no predatory instinct to see the fight through. In fact, I don't want this to be a fight at all. I want this to be a hunt, have it start out as a fight before is escalates to Lila pathecially running away as Alya hunts her down in her own natural element.

Bonus: I'll keep it vauge since I'm not sure how comfortable with gore you are, but I have this particular visual of Rena Rouge with blood dripping from her mouth as she stands over Lila detransforming with a noticeable bite on her neck. Volpina cockily gloating her supposed victory and only realizing her loss when she feels Rena Rouge rip a part of her throat out. Lila would eventually recover but, even after the miraculous ladybug heals everything else, she still has to be hospitalized (the blame put on a violent sentimonster/different akuma) and still has that scar potruding from her neck. Alya and the class are equally disturbed at the fact that they all feel nothing towards this, the guilt at not feeling any guilt, the proof that they're becoming some other than human.

So basically magnus archiving mlb characters? Fun fun fun

For the Chloe thing specifically, I would like to mention that specifically when wasps enter a beehive they surround it and buzz, the friction causing enough heat to kill the wasp. That said, I think Chloe would do this by constantly getting into Lila’s space and trying to emotionally and verbally suffocate her

For the ladybug lore you’ve just dropped, oooooh I need more Marinette beats the shit outta her problems. Violent Marinette rights

With the more skittish animals, bunny, snake, butterfly, etc, I think it would make sense for them to literally run away from Lila and feel viscerally uncomfortable if forced to be in close proximity to her

More on snake boy Luka, because I am snake fact man, let’s say due to his past relationship with Marinette, Lila goes after him. Now, snakes bite for one of two reasons, either they feel cornered and are trying to get you to back tf off, or they see you as food. Either Lila gets a short bite from Luka (a tag) or he sees her as food and goes on the hunt. I think that I prefer him as a constrictor, so again like Chloe he’s crowding Lila, but different in that it’s offensive rather than defensive where his instincts tell him to wrap around her until she can’t breathe and stops moving altogether

For Adrien, cats refuse to be around people they don’t like, and will chase out other cats who come into their territory who they don’t like. Polite sweetheart Adrien, who sees Lila for the first time in months and snarls at her. Adrien who does everything he can to make her feel unwelcome in class, who leaves scratch marks on her when she gets too close

Also the ultimate Alya kill (or maim, ig)!!! Yes!!! As said with Marinette, I think she should get to bite Lila. 10/10 because the implication of that scar is that she dies, right, Alya bites her jugular and she bleeds out. The magical ladybugs bring her back, but the power in Rena’s act keeps it concaved and turns it into a scar

Gore starts below:

Ok more Alya bec now you’ve got me researching how fox’s hunt. They pounce at like a 40 degree angle, and typically swallow rodents whole. The force of a fox’s pounce will break through snow, or into a den of a burrowing animal (after finding it through scent). Foxes hunt larger prey by dashing from hiding spot to hiding spot while staying hidden until it can dash out in a final chase. When foxes fight eachother, they actually do bite the neck. Put it all together and you get:

Lila feels watched, no matter where she goes. Sometimes she catches glimpses of something, but she doesn’t know what it is. A stalker? A wild animal? A weird akuma? Whatever it is, it’s getting closer. Eventually, she locks herself in one of those model trailers we sometimes see in the show, only for Rena Rouge to jump hands first through the roof onto her. Hawkmoth senses her distress, and he sends an akuma to her before Rena can finish her hunt. Volpina uses her powers to get away, but soon finds her illusions can’t fool the nose of a fox. The next time Rena strikes, Volpina has no clue she was even near. Rena rips out a chunk of her neck and swallows it whole. Volpina bleeds out, staring at sharp, blood covered teeth.

Later, when the magical ladybugs repair everything, Lila is still missing a chunk of her neck, though the wound is now cleanly healed. She doesn’t know why, but she can never quite look at Alya the same

[harrysfolklore]

charles and his childhood best friend but he's secretly in love with her pretty please

childhood friends to lovers is my favorite trope 🥺 i hope you like this

MASTERLIST | MY PATREON

liked by charles_leclerc, lilymhe and 102,625 others

yourinstagram perks of your best friend being a formula one driver: you get to travel to cool places to see him work

📸 by my love @boyfriendsusername

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charlesfan1 the most beloved non wag is coming

charlesfan2 “📸by my love” charles was found fuming

↳ charlesfan3 no bc he refuses to admit he’s in love with her (we all know it)

lilymhe i can’t wait to see you 💗 ♥︎ by author

charlesfan3 is her boyfriend going to the gp?? bc is he is we’re getting pissed off charles again lol

↳ charlesfan2 brazil gp flashbacks 😭

landonorris Don’t forget about me and come say hi ♥︎ by author

↳ yourinstagram will do landoeeee 🫡

↳ landofan1 love this duo

charlesfan4 why does she have to take her boyfriend? 😫 actually can she break up with him and just get with charles ?

↳ charlesfan1 you guys are so disrespectful sometimes, they’ve been best friends since forever you shouldn’t be projecting a relationship between them when there isn’t

boyfriendsusername 😍😍 ♥︎ by author

charles_leclerc About time, I miss you a lot ❤️

↳ charlesfan2 MARRY HER

↳ yourinstagram same hereeeee

↳ charlesfan3 she replied to charles’ comment but not to her boyfriend’s. see? she’s in love with him

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yourinstagram cooking breakfast because running over my ex with a truck is not the right thing to do

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charlesfan1 PAUSE. SHE BROKE UP WITH THAT DUDE??

charlesfan2 okay sucks for her but i bet charles is jumping up and down 😭

francisca.cgomes It’s his loss 💗 Ilysm ♥︎ by author

↳ charlesfan1 she’s so loved along the wags she just needs to become a wag herself

carlossainz55 Sending you a big hug, nena ♥︎ by author

↳ carlosfan1 carlos what are you doing here charles would have your head if you ever try something with her

charlesfan3 ITS TIME FOR YN AND CHARLESSSSS LOVE STORY

charlesfan4 it’s kinda insensitive that you guys celebrate that she broke up with her boyfriend and the comments about how she should get with charles… she’s a human being who just had a breakup and charles is literally her best friend and nothing more

charles_leclerc I don’t think it’s a wrong thing to do. Actually, I can run over him with my Ferrari if you want, I know a thing or two about driving cars at a really fast speed 🤷 ♥︎ by author

↳ charlesfan1 CHARLES WTF 😭

↳ charlesfan2 HE HAS NO CHILL

↳ charlesfan3 we knew he always hated him

↳ yourinstagram 😂😂 love you, charlie

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charles_leclerc When your best friend is obssesed with all things aesthetic

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charlesfan1 LOVE OF MY LIFE

charlesfan2 he’s really the hottest man alive

landonorris Can she be my best friend too?

↳ charles_leclerc No

↳ charlesfan1 😭😭😭

leclerc_pascale ❤️

charlesfan3 he looks so boyfriend so i think he should be yn’s boyfriend

yourinstagram you look cute through my lens 🥲

↳ charles_leclerc I always look cute what do you mean

↳ charlesfan1 stop flirting in front of us

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f1gossip Charles Leclerc and YN out in Monaco tonight

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charlesfan1 BOYFRIEND AND GIRLFRIEND

charlesfan2 they’re both so pretty. they would make the hottest couple on the grid

charlesfan3 why don’t they just get together ffs 😭

↳ charlesfan1 streets say (and ny street i mean people from monaco) that charles has been smitten over her since they were kids but she always dated other guys

↳ charlesfan2 this must be true like we’ve seen it

charlesfan4 something in the air is shifting people maybe they’re finally confessing that they’re in love with each other lol

↳ charlesfan1 LETTUCE PRAY

charlesfan5 why is this comment section full of weirdos they’re FRIENDS

↳ charlesfan2 stfuuuu

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yourinstagram back on my tifosi era ❤️

view all 5,033 comments

charlesfan1 YEEEEES

charlesfan2 imagine being charles’ best friend and traveling with him for races

↳ charlesfan1 babe that’s not his best friend that’s the love of his life

lilymhe IT WAS SO GOOD TO FINALLY SEE YOU ♥︎ by author

↳ yourinstagram i literally LOVE you 🤍

↳ charlesfan1 just become a wag already

charlesfan3 see charles was all smiles today because her (ex)boyfriend no longer tags along

landonorris When will the two of you confess to each other

↳ landofan1 LANDO😳

↳ charlesfan1 WTF IS HE CALLING HIM OUT

↳ yourinstagram you’re so weird i never know what you’re talking about

↳ charlesfan2 of course yn is playing dumb

↳ charles_leclerc ???

↳ charlesfan3 PLEASE 😭

charles_leclerc I look weird in that pic :(

↳ yourinstagram you look cuuuute

↳ charlesfan2 KISS KISS

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yourinstagram i’ve known and loved this one since he was this little. growing up, we talked about what he would become countless of times, and in every single conversation i told him that he was going to achieve every single one of his dreams. today he drives the monaco circuit for the 6th time, and i know this year will be his year and monaco will finally love him back 🏆

love you beyond words @charles_leclerc ❤️

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charlesfan1 AWEEEE

charlesfan2 THIS IS ADORABLE I CANT

leclerc_pascale ❤️❤️❤️❤️

↳ yourinstagram tysm for the picture 🥺

charlesfan3 JUST GET MARRIED ALREADY

landonorris Little Charles Leclerc

scuderiaferarri FORZA CHARLES ! 👏

charlesfan4 CANT YALL SEE THEYRE MEANT TO BE ???

↳ charlesfan1 the thing is we all can see it but they just can’t

charlesfan5 seriously if this ain’t love then what is

f1gossip Charles and YN’s romantic relationship will be confirmed any minute now

↳ charlesfan2 WHAT DO YOU KNOW

↳ charlesfan3 SPILL THE DEETS

charles_leclerc Thank you for being my biggest supporter and never leaving my side. I love you so much 🤍 ♥︎ by author

↳ charlesfan1 STFU STFU

↳ charlesfan2 YN WAKE UP

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charles_leclerc BEST DAY EVER ❤️❤️❤️

Thank you for everything, I love you all ❤️🤍❤️🤍

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charlesfan1 PRINCE OF MONACO DID IT

schecoperez Bravo Charles! 👏

charlesfan2 IM STILL CRYING

oscarpiastri Congrats bro 👊

pierregasly Bravo Champ!! Trop content pour toi!! ❤️

georgerussell63 Congrats mate !!

charlesfan3 HE DID IT FINALLY

charlesfan4 IVE BEEN CRYING FOR HOURS NOW

scuderiaferrari Bravo Charles !! So proud ❤️

yourinstagram im so proud of you, words are not enough. this was your dream and you achieve it, i love you so much

↳ charlesfan1 AHHHHH

↳ charlesfan2 ADDRESS THE RUMORS WE LITERALLY SAW YOU KISSING

↳ charlesfan3 JUST GET MARRIED

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yourinstagram when we were 15 i told him that i would be his girlfriend the day he won the monaco grand prix. i guess it's time 🤍

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charlesfan1 AHHHHHH

charlesfan2 JSDJOEHYSIJON I CANT BELIEVE THIS

francisca.cgomes 🥹🥹🥹🥹

charlesfan3 OMFG HOW IS THIS REAL

arthur_leclerc Finally ♥︎ by author

↳ charlesfan1 ARTHUR 😭😭😭😭

↳ charlesfan2 even their families were rooting for them I CANT

scuderiaferrari ❤️

charlesfan4 WE WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG

charlesfan5 THIS HAS BEEN THE MOST PERFECT WEEKEND EVER

carlossainz55 👏👏👏

charlesfan6 they were always meant to be but they were too stubborn to see it

landonorris I LOVE LOVE ❤️

↳ landofan1 PLEASEEEEE

charlesfan7 they have been in love for YEARS i cannot

charlesfan8 THIS MOMENT WAS LITERALLY PERFECT

charles_leclerc I’ve waited my whole life for this moment 🤍

↳ charlesfan1 IM CRYING AGAIN

↳ charlesfan2 CHARLIE DONT DO THIS

↳ charlesfan3 they’re so invisible string coded

↳ charlesfan4 MY FAVORITE LOVE STORY EVER

↳ yourinstagram 🥺🥺❤️

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charles_leclerc Lucky I’m in love with my best friend ❤️

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charlesfan1 AND IM CRYING AGAIN

charlesfan2 THIS IS PERFECT

pierregasly Adorable 🙌

charlesfan3 HANG THIS PICTURE IN THE LOUVRE

charlesfan4 SOBBING SO BADLY RN

instagram 🥺

scuderiaferrari ❤️

charlesfan5 every single soul was rooting for this relationship fr

charlesfan6 I LOVE THEM SM

charlesfan7 childhood friends to lovers 🥹

yourinstagram i love you so much 💗💗

↳ charlesfan1 took you decades to find out but it’s okay girl

↳ charlesfan2 i can’t get enough of this relationship

↳ charlesfan3 YOU FINALLY REALIZED

[nocandnc]

Ello! Ab that otp questions, is it alright if both Kafmina and OkoHoshi? 23 and 26 GUAHAH I crave a lil smthn sweet😭

My pleasure!!!

23) Who thinks they are not good enough for the others love? and who’s more afraid of loosing the other? Who thinks they keep messing up, only for the other to tell them they don’t need to worry?

26) Who kissed first?

Nuthin lil about this, so read below the cut~

23) Who thinks they are not good enough for the others love? and who’s more afraid of loosing the other? Who thinks they keep messing up, only for the other to tell them they don’t need to worry?

KafMina

Kafka has been down on himself for not meeting Mina's expectations for so long. Of course he wouldn't feel worthy of her romantically. He thinks he's constantly screwing up, and he does screw up sometimes, but Mina assures him each and every time that she won't be throwing him aside that easily - not when they're finally together.

Mina has always been a scaredy-cat. Only with Kafka is she truly brave. He's here now just like they always promised, like a dream. She's terrified of what cold reality she might wake up to one day when Kafka isn't Kafka but Kaiju No. 8, and she's the heroic Captain of the 3rd Division with a duty to slay him. But for now she'll keep the dream going, one romantic blunder at a time.

OkoHoshi

Okonogi cannot comprehend why the Vice Captain is interested in her. He could have any man or woman he wanted, so why choose the frumpy little nerd with severe myopia? But after a lot of reassurance from Hoshina and probably No. 10 in its own way, she comes to accept that yes, he really really likes her. Hoshina on the other hand is secretly insecure the whole time, because childhood trauma runs deep. What if she realizes that everyone who said he was a useless defect was actually right?? Okonogi has to do some reassuring of her own.

In terms of loss, you'd think the idea would hit Okonogi harder - she can't count the number of times she's cried out to him over the radio, tears spilling from her eyes far too easily. But the thing is, she knows this is how it goes. She knows there's a chance these soldiers, amazing as they are, might lose their lives in battle. Hoshina knows too, that he or his comrades could die at any time. But not Okonogi. Okonogi was far from danger, always safe. She had to be. There would never be a time when he couldn't hear her voice in his ear. He'd sooner die than let that happen.

26) Who kissed first?

KafMina

Mina, definitely. Several anime staff (Kafka and Mina's VAs included) have described Kafka as pure, and I agree - I don't think the idea of kissing Mina would ever occur to him unprompted. Not that he wouldn't want to, he just can't fathom anything beyond 'being by her side', especially when he wasn't even sure he'd make it this far.

I love those dramatic 'kissing my beloved to bring them to their senses' tropes, so in peak fanfiction land Mina first kisses Kafka to wake him from No. 8's berserk mode, helping him calm down and return to human form... but that's pure fantasy!!!

In a more natural setting I think Mina would simply kiss him goodnight after their first date (and make no mistake, she has to plainly tell him they're on a date) - it must seem so sudden to him, but she's been waiting so so so long, how can she not? Kafka is thrilled once the shock wears off, grinning into the kiss while they linger near doors of her high-rise.

Or if we still want more oomph, maybe she pulls him in for a surprisingly deep kiss just before battle when the other officers aren't looking. "For luck" she says, marching off with extra vigor while he's left in shambles.

OkoHoshi

I have spent an ungodly amount of time fantasizing about different 'first kiss' scenarios for these two, but to keep it short... probably Hoshina?

Maybe Okonogi gets caught up in a dangerous kaiju attack while he's on duty. Hoshina rushes in to save her, and for once he's not enjoying the fight at all because all he can think of is making sure she's okay. He stumbles over to check on her once it's all over, heart still racing from another close brush with death. Konomi is halfway through giving a status report when he suddenly cuts her off, mouth pressing to hers a bit desperately. To hell with potential workplace complications - life was too short to hold back anymore.

Maybe it's more of a quiet affair where the two of them are sitting cozily at a cafe together. Neither of them said it was a date, but there's no one they'd rather be with. Okonogi offers a fork-full of her dessert to the Vice Captain when he asks for a taste, only for him to lean over and kiss her instead. Konomi's fork drops to the floor.

Maybe Okonogi does try to kiss him first, because he's about to leave again and how can she possibly convince him to please, please, please be careful!? She yanks his face to hers in a panic - only he's already wearing his gas mask, so her mouth smashes against the industrial-grade PPE and now she's got tears in her eyes for a wholly different reason. Soshiro chuckles a bit behind the offending mask as she's still reeling. "...Let's give that another try once I get back, m'dear."

[cfcreative]

After your biggest self indulgent headcannon with the famed moon lesbians, I've wanted to ask you about your personal headcannons when it comes to the characterisation of both Aylin and Isobel.

In my experience in playthroughs, I feel like I got Aylin's character down pretty well. Bold to the point of recklessness, unyeildingly loyal to the ones she loves, loud and unapologetic but deeply rage full and stubborn.

But I'm pretty stumped on Isobel. I've tried getting extra dialogue from her before she's reunited with Aylin but I just feel like the one scene isn't enough.

What do you think about her character?

Oh, wow, my first ask! And about Aylin & Isobel, of all things. Genuinely delighted by this development.

(DISCLAIMER: I’ll never declare myself an expert on these characters. My reads on them are based on a healthy knowledge of writing, tropes, and speculations spinning off of personal experiences. Unless Larian has put it in the game or game related materials, it’s all headcanons. Cheers!)

I'll put a TL;DR up front (or my "thesis statement" if you want to get academic with it). Isobel and Aylin make each other "more human" primarily by being opposites in the way they express themselves. Aylin is bold, fearsome, and brash. Isobel is composed, sensible, and calculating (while “calculating,” tends to have negative connotations, I'm more leaning into it in a "she's a planner where Aylin is a do-er" way.)

I do hope you’re ready for a ramble, because I have been working on this on-and-off all day.

One of the most important things to keep in mind is Isobel was raised in a house in mourning.

The kind of epic grief Kethric would have gone through upon the loss of his wife would have forever altered the way he acted towards Isobel, beyond making sure she was raised as a Selûnite per Melodia’s wishes. The Kethric we’re presented in game is a fairly controlled man. He's unlikely to be the kind of person who would show his young daughter how deeply his sorrow wounded him; he'd keep his weeping behind closed doors. What distraught adults forget is that children understand and see way more than they're given credit for. Young Isobel would be acutely aware of her father’s pain, and the fact that he hid it. She was a child coping with her own sorrow, and would have looked to her father's example of how to deal with it: she'd learn she was allowed to care deeply, but she could not present that to others. Melodia's death also likely motivated Isobel to become a powerful cleric relatively quickly—a powerful enough cleric might have been able to heal her mother, might have spared her and her father this agony.

The Thorms, being a family of power and privilege in Reithwin, would have been treated by most of the people around them with formal manners, which would be isolating for a child. Everyone in Reithwin would frame Isobel as Kethric Thorm’s beloved daughter, a child without a mother, the devotee of Selûne. They would treat her with respect tinged with pity, never really knowing her... which would be even more isolating.

That's why Isobel is struck by Aylin so immediately (you know, aside from Aylin being a tall blonde sculpture of a woman). Every one of Aylin’s emotions are BIG and outward-facing. Most people approaching “The General” or “The General’s Daughter” would default to near ceremonial conduct. Dame Aylin wouldn’t see the need! Aylin cares strongly about justice, and defending the weak against the wicked, and everyone knows that about her in ten minutes of meeting her, tops. Aylin is passionate and sincere in that passion. Isobel would have been drawn to that, despite the fact that her upbringing still dictates composure.

You can also witness the emotion/composure contrast in the way Isobel reunites with Aylin after Kethric is finally dead. Aylin falls to her knees, picks Isobel up, spins her around. Isobel is overjoyed, but also more reserved. Her emotions are not in grand gestures but in the trembling of her voice—she’s trying to hold herself together.

(If you haven't seen it, there's a Devnote that specifically states that Isobel's delighted by Aylin's demanding people shove off and let her do unspeakable things to Isobel in private. Isobel scolds her angel for acting that way in public, but once those two are alone...)

This is where I circle back on “calculating.” Because it's not just in reuniting with Aylin that Isobel has had to hold herself together. She's been doing that for months....

Imagine yourself in Isobel's position before the start of the game. One moment you’re in your comfortable, warm home, trying to work out how to reconcile your devoted father and your angel, the two people dearest to your heart. Then you blink… and open your eyes in a cold, dusty tomb. It reeks of death. So does your father, who is telling you your beloved is no more. His lips are curling up in an ever-so-slight smile as he delivers the news. The sheer confusion and panic most people would feel in that moment would be overwhelming.

Isobel could have panicked and fled, but that tomb is filled with bones and Kethric is now the Chosen of Myrkul. Where Aylin would charge in and through, inherently trusting her own strength, Isobel would need to craft a plan. Maybe she would play on her father’s emotions until she found herself in a position to run. Maybe she prepares haste or hold person under her breath, or unleashed a well-timed "turn undead." In any case, Isobel is able to pull herself together and escape in such a way that her father cannot follow. She finds a familiar place and sets up a bastion of protection there. Rather than fleeing the Shadowlands altogether, which is what most people would have done, Isobel starts gathering information. She needs to know what happened to her, her family, and her lover. She needs to know why there’s Sharran magic literally everywhere. She is alone, trying to piece together a confusing story she was part of, and somehow the driving force of after she was killed.

Harpers arrive to deal with the threat of Kethric Thorm like they did a century before. Jaheira would have been a legend even when Isobel was a child, but Isobel makes the very conscious choice not to tell Jaheira her true identity. She doubles down on that when Tav and their companions come through... unless they have proof of who she is beforehand. (In this way Shadowheart and Isobel are hilariously in contrast: the Selûnite is a much better secret-keeper than the Sharran.) So I think that all covers "composed, sensible, and calculating" with regards to Isobel, but when writing from her PoV I think you would have a very rich inner dialogue in line with the ideals Aylin outwardly expresses: Isobel wants to comfort and protect the weak, she's loyal to the ones she loves, and feels strongly and deeply. Once she and Aylin are together again, Isobel's presentation shifts. Where Isobel is a grounding force for Aylin (thinking about how Isobel would have had to explain to Aylin why she was upset Aylin went on a month long walk without warning), Aylin pulls Isobel out of that carefully crafted shell of hers (thus my statement re: making each other "more human.") I haven't yet written any (complete) fan fiction for these two but this fic on A03 (fair waring: it's smutty!) really altered my thoughts as to what Aylin and Isobel could have been like prior to Isobel's untimely death. While I love to joke about Aylin ALWAYS TALKING IN ALL CAPS, there's something to be said for writing her along the lines of a courtly knight-errant. Aylin worships Isobel in a way people worship Selune; she's Isobel's most fervent devotee. Isobel is swept away by love at first sight, but still needs to navigate her father's delicate emotions and her own responsibilities. I firmly believe anyone writing anything in the timeframe of the game or beyond it needs to consider their past, even if they have no plans of writing anything of the sort.

I could probably go on for another um... 13 or so paragraphs (😅) but it's proooobably better if I wrap this up. I hope this gives you some things to think about, and helps a bit with whatever you're working on!

[xx-vergil-xx]

Can I ask what pushed you to end Hounds the way you did? It's a fantastic ending, but I'm curious. I expected the Fates to revive Dream, or allow him to inhabit a new form (such as one made by Daniel, so that Dream becomes a dreamthing), etc. But instead, his death is made to have never happened. Which makes it partly feels like Hob's whole road trip journey was for nothing since he lost all those memories and connections with Matthew, the Corinthian, Delirium, Despair, Desire, Death, etc. (thank god he kept the farmhouse). But it's almost like he traded all those memories and connections for Dream. Unless I missed something while reading (I was crying very hard).

Again, fantastic ending, and I'm also glad it's a happy ending. But I'm curious as to why you didn't go in the other direction

howdy! thanks very much for the ask — an excellent query, one which i’m happy to answer

(verg of the future: this answer ended up long! there’s a short form at the top here and at the end <3)

in brief: he did make that trade you described! but not strictly for dream — it was the price of swapping genres!

an explanation:

what i had in mind while planning and writing was less the idea of erasure of prior narrative action and more a subversion of the expected genre, in particular the genre tropes that follow dream in the original arc of the comics, where his story is very classically tragic (with the understood weaving of hob into that tragedy, this being a dream/hob telling and all)

for reference, i also drew a lot of inspiration for hob’s road trip odyssey from the aeneid, an epic that is, yes, about the founding of rome but also (at least to my reading) a fundamental tragedy — the cost of founding rome is aeneas’ home, many of his friends, much of his core family, and the very end of the story is not some victorious depiction of the glory of rome to be (which we do get earlier in the book, with the ekphrasis on his shield) but aeneas, overcome with fury and loss, killing a man who begs his mercy. i’ve always felt that the aeneid, while certainly stepped in the expected amount of roman nationalism, is centrally about a single man and his singular suffering as an instrument of higher destiny.

i wanted to model hob’s arc around the aeneid (minus, y’know, some of the chunks that are strictly battle sequences <3) both because intertextuality is a huge part of how i wanted to handle hounds (story about stories, made of other stories, etc), but also because hob and aeneas are fundamentally parallel characters — nomads with exceptional ordinances, permanently displaced by the passing whims of higher powers, men who are made to reckon with both extraordinary wonder and extraordinary tragedy regularly while still, at their core, just being human. that’s what makes aeneas so compelling — he’s just a man. and so is our beloved hob — that’s his whole thing, his whole narrative function and his whole central ideal, humanity

so then, approaching hounds with both the thought of the sandman’s original tragic contours (see: the whole lead-in to daniel. christ above is the way that goes devastating to read) and the man vs fate core of the aeneid, i was considering a lot of things about how to mess around with both notions without gutting them entirely. i tend to dislike tragedies that become un-tragic without some sort of Serious Payment For It (not to say i don’t like happy stories because i very much do! but i get ticked off when high stakes get deflated too quickly) and i didn’t want to undermine the very real fact that the Fates are typically not versed in notions of empathy and/or leniency, and that dream and hob and those around them did experience and endure devastation and loss, and that death is a fact typically immune to argument.

the world of sandman is not one with easy answers, and to my mind there’s no such thing as a bargain with the Fates where you break even. for hob to get what he wanted, something had to be given, something dear and vital and real. there’s more to what hob actually gives the Fates than he verbally stipulates, which i tried to address largely via the corinthian and his perception of the situation, especially those last conversations with dream in the “swamp”. i have a lot of options about the corinthian in his function as “dark mirror” having a blistering clarity of understanding much of the time, which is why i foisted the onus of those complexities onto his dialogue, rather than hob, who (and i say this with love) is a creature of bias and often blinded to greater repercussions of his actions insofar as they extend beyond his immediate objectives/enjoyments, or dream, who can see the bigger picture but i think often really keeps himself from doing so when it comes to anything at all that’s personal (king of stories has a blindspot for his own). what hob gives the Fates actually costs him almost nothing, in the long run, if we operate with the idea that he cannot remember, nor is there any lasting effect from, his 600-ish heavily-relived years. there’s narrative and symbolic weight, of course — he gives them love as an oath and as nostalgia (sidebar: his driving force is an almost pre-nostalgia, a continual love of the moment as the moment is passing, but anyway) (cuff links), he gives them in a captured moment the lovely discomfort and simultaneous brilliance of being alive (the hook, the finger prick the blood), and he gives them a rich and complicated experience of humanity (those 600 years). but practically, what is actually taken from him that he doesn’t just get back?

only those few months — and in them, a web of real and known connections, all of which matter, and all of which change his understanding of and relationship to things like grief, and loneliness, and fear, and forgiveness. those are important changes, real changes, that would affect how he operates in the world going forward. that development is gone. he returns instead to the (of course, fought-for and hard-won) stasis of what was, which becomes what will always be. in making the Fates and their judgement more complex, he has actually made his own life less complex. now, i’m not going to sit here and argue that “suffering has inherent value” or some shit like that because i think that’s bullshit! pain is just pain. but he does lose experiences which would have shaped him in new ways, and, i think, good ways. even important ways

and he may well be shaped towards similar courses with dream (especially re: learning that lesson about loneliness — i think hob suffers from the curse of always, ultimately, being alone (immortality etc there’s so much discourse about this), and the road trip was in part about him learning that though it is the simplest path it is neither the sole nor the best path), but he certainly doesn’t learn them the same way, with the same faces, with the same acuity and clarity and intensity.

the thing with the Fates (to me anyway) is that you don’t ever just win. maybe you can get what you want, but it’s not easy (it make take a thousand repetitions of your lifetime until friction and the touch of your hands wears the sisyphean boulder down to a pebble — like the parable of the bird scraping its beak on the mountain), and it’s sure not free.

so yes, those months are lost. that’s a big part of the price. and we don’t know, at the end, how much of that thing he really gave ultimately comes back — his new relationship depths with deanna or cori or the other endless, those things aren’t seen. the main arc is resolved — hob and dream — but there are still pieces missing. he loses a piece of his human experience, he gets tossed back around through the wringer of his life (which is often distinctly not pleasant), and he is, as he ever was, a character with a path whose impetus and dictation rest heavily on external forces. even in attempting to channel his life elsewhere, he still has to bargain, and is still subject to the choices of the fates, and in some ways the story remains irrevocably a tragedy, in that one way or another it has loss in a central place. in the latter half of hounds hob really became my attempted version of an aeneas type — a man with a quest and a fated directive, a deeply human and flawed individual, who can alter the path and even irrevocably change the genre of his own narrative, but only at cost.

of course let’s be clear! some of all the actual rendering of this ended up as it did partly because i am not always a clean writer, and for that i apologize! but i did genuinely want that sense of gaps — of faces and voices given over to the gravitational well of the principal narrative arc of hob/dream versus the Fates. i think those things are gone. the narrative is forcibly re-centered around hob and dream, and in doing this — in shifting the story genre — other ties and bonds are not just cut, but unwoven entirely. when you change the kind of story you’re telling, the change is done at the expense of something else. kind of like how there’s a fixed amount of matter in the universe? you can’t create or destroy matter — to make something new you have to take from another place. (sidebar: wow i’m realizing something about my fundamental storytelling beliefs right now! laws of physics! anon your ask has really got my cylinders firing, and most sincerely thank you <3)

still, they might come back. though i didn’t write it as fully as i could have (i will freely admit there was a great deal of burnout at play towards the end there), i had a lot of thoughts re: repetition and density, namely that if you stack a thousand repetitions of a lifetime against each other it’s the equivalent of writing a word over and over and over on a page. when you erase it, the channels remain. language flows most naturally in the direction once etched for it. maybe hob learns those same lessons and knows the same people in the same way — maybe he and the corinthian find that odd patch of common ground, maybe he takes a long drive with delirium through rural maryland. maybe there are echoes. maybe even if it is gone what was still shapes the topography. maybe a kindness or a word exchanged still ring out when you can’t see them or remember them. while the milestones of our lives rippled the most visibly, i think we’re shaped a thousandfold ways by accumulations of small things we can’t distinctly remember. only a feeling of a thing, or the negative space it leaves.

well. tl;dr — i didn’t want to let hob get away without actually giving anything up, nor without his choice to bargain affecting others besides himself in equally irrevocable ways (sidebar: at his core is a selfishness that is both charming and ignoble — he wants to do a good thing for dream but also he makes a call that changes a plenitude of lives other than his own, and i don’t think he really asks, he just does — grey areas are his whole gig to me), because nobody makes a deal with the Fates for free, and changing genre has a price tag. it was my effort to make the tone of the whole beast more authentically sandman-esque, since sandman does a lot of that sort of water-muddying, especially when using understood narrative models/archetypes/etc etc

i am. sorry this was as long as it is! jesus! but i’m sending it off all the same. anyways, anon, thanks very much not only for your lovely kind words and the high honor of your tears (no pulitzer could mean more to me than knowing a thing i wrote really moved someone, seriously thank you) but also for giving me a blank check to go buck wild and ramble about my own damn writing and Things I Just Think <3 i hope you have a lovely day/morning/noon/night, and thanks a bunch for dropping by <3 <3 <3

[amazing-spider-man-book-club]

The Amazing Spider-Man #6

Published: November 1963

Containing: "Face to Face with...The Lizard!"

Introducing: Curtis Connors/The Lizard, Martha Connors, Billy Connors

Synopsis: Peter is sent down to Florida to get some photos on a mysterious figure, The Lizard, who is terrorizing the everglades, but soon must discover a way to help this new villain become human again.

Read alongside us here:

https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/The-Amazing-Spider-Man-1963/Issue-6?id=4028

@frankendykes-monster: There's something so humorous to me about naming a villain "The Lizard" after already having one named "The Chameleon". The off-brand model even if they share nothing in common. I had to look up when it was discovered that dinosaurs are more closely related to birds than reptiles but no luck unlike last issue's forcing me to look up how spiders communicate.

The introduction of The Lizard rings like a horror film, the setting in Florida couldn't help but make me think of The Alligator People (1959). Virtually all the tropes like the monster staking a claim in hostile territory and scientific mishaps and an ancient castle ooze charm, it's only the near ending when The Lizard wants to create more reptilian humanoids that you're forcibly reminded that this is a supervillain we're dealing with.

I have to wonder if The Lizard was originally intended to be a one-and-done given the character never returns during Ditko's time on the title but Curt Conners does. Much like Mysterio returning to his first costume, it's something that's only established as an ongoing threat when John Romita takes over. I have to say the character's design is probably the first Ditko one that's something of an acquired taste, had he worn a purple coat and had black eyes with white pupils like on the cover, it would have been more cohesive and threatening, though I'm not a giant fan of more animalistic subsequent designs decades down the line. This issue's title page is another all-time favorite of mine for how much it reads as a three-dimensional space. Ditko occasionally goes all-out, though at the same time I feel like we see way more of Spider-Man sans webbing in this issue (whenever the character is far enough away from the camera that drawing them would be too much of a hassle. Blah.)

I have to wonder what people reading this for the first time have to make of Liz Allen and Betty Brant being Peter's love interests, because if it wasn't a full-time thing last issue, it certainly is now. Betty's appearances in the live-action Spider-Man films have more or less been cameos, is what I'm saying. Given Liz's newfound interest in Spider-Man I think it's quaint if disappointing that it isn't until Civil War, over 40 years after this, that she discovers it's Peter under the mask alongside the rest of the world. Womp womp.

Probably the most realistic thing about this issue is Jameson accidentally starting a tabloid frenzy wherein he demands Spider-Man go down to Florida to fight The Lizard. It's ridiculous but plausible enough that I could see people actually read papers and developing a strong opinion on the matter.

@duel1971 : This issue may be my favorite so far. The story takes Peter out of NYC and down to Florida on J Jonah Jameson’s dime to get pictures of the Lizard. This leads to Peter and Jameson being traveling partners, a concept I would happily read a full-length story about but which is only touched upon briefly here.

Curtis Connors has one of the most well-realized supervillain origins we’ve seen yet in ASM. The tragic nature of the character feels iconic: the loss of an arm motivates him to recklessly experiment on himself and leads to a complete physical transformation that renders him a threat to his beloved family and, as the issue draws on, civilization itself. (Or at least Florida.) In addition, lizards being a natural predator of spiders makes the Lizard’s ability to physically outmaneuver and outmatch Spider-Man feel ordained by nature.

Some parts of the story feel a little clunky – in particular, I’m not sure what a serum that turned a man into a lizard would do to actual lizards. The story doesn’t seem to have a firm idea either, but apparently it would be very bad. I appreciated the attempt to raise the stakes, but found Curtis’s alienation from and eventual reconciliation with his family to be much more compelling.

[hauntedliz]

Tagged by the beloved @toads-treasures to talk about my writerly ways. :)

When did you start writing?

I've been writing for a very, very long time. I had so many spiral note books with drawings and little stories. I remember in first grade my friends and I wrote stories about us and our friends being superheroes. I was a writer and THE illustrator, and I still have the notebook where I drew all of us. Before that I would wander around recess just making up songs and after that I got way too involved in imaginary recess plot lines. My friends grew out of it, and I did not. So writing was the best option. It's harder now. It sounds dramatic, but I wonder if sometimes the burnout is too deep and it's all tainted. Other parts of me have healed since college, but this part still feels broken.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

I think the things I read are pretty similar to what I like to write: romance, fantasy, horror, mystery. Though I do read a lot of Star Wars content, and I don't know I could ever write in that world. I love it SO much, but I'd be so afraid to forget something or mess it up. I'm not really interested in other scifi at the moment.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

Emily Henry is one of my favorite authors right now. Her romances have all the fun stuff, but they also hit something deep in my heart. It's not just romance and fun tropes, there is something very human and personal there. I think Shirley Jackson's stories and incrdibly cool. The Magnus Archives altered by brain in a way that will not be undone. I can think of a lot of writers I'd be honored to get compared to from both published stories and fanfics.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

My writing space is wherever the mood strikes. I feel the most free at my job when I have some free time and can zone out into my thoughts. We won't think too hard about that. At home, my desk is kind of cluttered, but there are things I love all around. My bookshelf is to my left if I ever need inspiration or guidance.

I like cramming words onto notebook pages and writing in different directions to throw off my perfectionist tendancies. It can't be that important if I am writing it sideways, right?

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

One song. On repeat. As long as it takes. (Could be multiple, but usually one is THE muse)

Also talking to toad. I honestly work best with a partner.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

When I realize my themes have been recurring I am usually surprised at first, but then it makes sense. While making OCs with toad I realized just how often I inflict oldest sibling disease on my characters. Lots of sibling dynamics. Loss and grief come up a lot but that's not really an accident. There are lots of things to lose and be haunted by. I very purposely try to put parts of myself I struggle with in my ocs I think it's important.

"And I think I was always writing for myself, to sort through my loss and worry and tangled ambitions. Even now, I think about how effortless it is to lose oneself in words, and yet also find who you are." -Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

"Literature, for all of us, is a way that we rehearse life. And, of course, I don’t have that much life left. I’ve already experienced everything that one can experience. But kids who are ten years old, they have it all in front of them, and some of it is going to be very, very hard. When they read about people experiencing those hard things, they rehearse how they would react, feeling it without having to truly feel it yet. It serves a valid purpose for them." -Lois Lowry interview

What’s your reason for writing?

Fun.

See above quote.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

Seeing people get excited about my characters or the things I come up with makes me extremely happy. It doesn't matter if it's a keyboard smash or detailed list of things you liked. I don't forget kind words. I also like making toad use sobbing crying emojis in response to my ideas so that too.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Very little. Think about the story or the character, pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain. Otherwise I'd say always kindly, but with the occassional fist shaken in my direction for angst.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I'm really not sure. For a writer I sure haven't written much lately. I used to say my dialogue.

How do you feel about your own writing?

Depends on how much time has passed since I last read it. While I'm writing it? I hate it, my own words are so annoying. It's because I have read and thought about them a hundred times and the perfectionism really sours things. When I can seperate myself I think it can be really good. I mainly just wish I could finish it.

[pollyssecretlibrary]

"The Baron Takes a Bet", by Matilda Madison

I read this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review RELEASE DATE - Aug 22nd, 2024 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Beauty in simplicity is a very appropriate sentence to describe the plot of this book. It is very straightforward and easy to love. The second book of the “Gambling Peers” series by Matilda Madison opens with a young widow named Holly Smyth and her two seventeen twin siblings, Jasper and Katrina. Before agreeing to marry John, Holly was barely surviving the loss of her parents, the debts and the decay of the farm that her brother is to inherit. John was a gentle man who offered marriage on his death bed so he could help his beloved friends and give her a little hope in form of inheritance. Or that’s what Holly thought.

What John actually did was trick her and his own nephew and heir Gavin, uniting them forever by what’s called “marriage by proxy”. For those who don’t know, in this kind of union, the groom is actually acting as representative of the person who is actually married, in this case John for Gavin, who not only wasn’t in England at the time, he doesn’t know Holly at all. When our two protagonists discover what John has done to them, after the initial shock, they decide to have an annulment only to find out that the cheeky man that was John, had had the ceremony of the wedding following the laws of the Catholic Church, they will need the Pope to consent to the annulment… but that will take time, perhaps long enough for them to fall in love.

In the meantime they have to deal with their respective families and responsibilities, and they somehow naturally approach all that as a team, a perfectly matched team. What could have John foreseen that they couldn’t?

Matilda Madison writes some comfort books in my opinion. This is one of her best books, for it is about two very human characters with their flaws and insecurities, but none of them are too overdramatic about whatever burdens they carry on their shoulders. The plot is unveiled very slowly, although the romance doesn’t fall into the slow burn trope, nor does it go the fast lane. It has romantic moments with the couple that are incredibly tender and moving, beautiful, and sweet. The family moments made Holly and Gavin feel like a couple before they themselves realized. Navigating their struggles with aunts and siblings, their shenanigans… They say that sometimes family puts a strain on a couple’s relationship, in this case, they made them stronger. I devoured this book in two days and now I can’t wait for the next book!

[rruhlreviews]

Film Review - Jurassic Park (1993)

Jurassic Park isn’t just a science fiction thriller. It’s a marvel of innovation in film production. The special effects were groundbreaking for the time and are still better, in my opinion, than a lot of the CGI that has come since. The soundtrack is inspiring and nostalgic, and I knew it before I saw the movie because my mother liked the music so much. This being said, you can have the most sophisticated special effects and most visually attractive film in the world, but it will not have a lasting cultural impact without a good story and characters. At the same time, even the most compelling characters and highest stakes will fade without an element that sets them apart from all the other action movies. Jurassic Park exists in the best of both worlds, with a captivating story wrapped in a beautiful package.

Let’s start with the high concept. A theme park of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs. Everyone and their kids love dinosaurs. Would a story about a park that resurrects the early ancestors of mammals be as popular? Probably not. In this style of science fiction, the larger than life and the further removed from our current state of scientific advancement, the better. The film starts out with a strong sense of wonder to draw in the audience’s attention and get them excited about something that really is a long stretch of exposition and worldbuilding. The moment when the music swells and the animals are revealed— “They do move in herds.” —is something burned into the memory of everyone who’s seen the movie.

And then a flip is switched, literally—Wayne Knight’s character (whom I can only think of as Newman despite this being a completely different thing) shuts off the power—and the tone turns from whimsical adventure to survival horror. The stakes are high and just keep getting higher. The hurricane. The power outage. The computer system lockout. Then all the hunter dinosaurs have been evaded, and people can breathe—but then the velociraptors escape and form the final stakes and climax. Despite losses and injuries, the main characters survive and get off the island. The heart of the film is the characters. Several are larger than life: the billionaire Hammond, the dinosaur hunter, and the smart AND heroic duo of Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler. These characters, their skills and feats, and the speculative elements they represent are grounded into our world by the presence of the two children. The adults give up their money or safety to protect the children, and as the children are taught about the dinosaurs they see, the audience learns too. A necessary human element and emotional motivation is added to balance the thrills and physical dangers.

I have to mention the relevance of Jurassic Park to women in STEM. I’d hope this is a reason for its enduring beloved place in pop culture; it’s certainly a reason I like it more than other sci-fi thrillers. Ellie is just as competent as her male peers and even more willing to get dirty in the field. The little girl is the computer whiz. Jeff Goldblum’s character has the damsel in distress trope with the injury and the torn open shirt.

“God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man, man destroys God, man creates dinosaurs.” “Dinosaurs eat man... woman inherits the earth.”

As my favorite quote in the movie illustrates, order is broken and restored, and a safe environment for the audience to feel adrenaline and fear is maintained. It’s a satisfying thriller.

The superlative technical effects with the dinosaurs are at least half the reason for the film’s success, but if there wasn’t meaning below the animatronics, it wouldn’t have the impact it maintains in public consciousness. The dinosaurs aren’t just killing machines, they’re portrayed humanely as animals who’ve been stuck in an unsuitable environment, lashing out in boredom or simply fulfilling an environmental niche with no malice. The park fails because it’s operating for profit instead of concern for its animals or a genuine love of science. The heroes—paleontologists—serve as a foil to the greed that causes the plot problems.

Whenever you see a news report about a controversial (often, this means little understood) new area of research, especially in biology, someone inevitably brings up Jurassic Park as a warning. It’s synonymous for the theme of dangers of capitalism corrupting science. This has been a fear since the inception of the science fiction genre and continues to be relevant in our culture. Though the franchise has ironically expanded to a themed land at Universal Studios: Orlando, and its most recent Jurassic World series of sequels feels to have lost touch with the theme in favor of “let’s make a bunch of money with scary special effects and ignore the heart of the love of science.” A franchise either has a satisfying conclusion or keeps being extended long enough to become a parody of what it once meant, or something like that, at least according to me (let’s not get started on the Star Wars sequels and the butchering of the original trilogy’s theme of hope). To me, the original 1993 Jurassic Park remains the best, the quintessence of dinosaur movies. It carries the vital message that science is not the enemy but the creator of the grandeur in the opening of the film, and capitalist greed is the reason it becomes a deadly horror story. It is science that saves the characters and gives them the knowledge to survive and escape. As the film ends and the music swells once more, we see what joy and good science has achieved: a brave new world of animals saved from extinction.

[sophia-sol]

The Iron Children, by Rebecca Fraimow

This is the first time in my life that I have gotten to hold in my hands a real actual published book written by a friend of mine, and let me tell you, it is a GREAT experience and also this book lived up to absolutely everything I hoped for from it. Five stars, would collapse into a puddle of emotions again. And I say this without bias! I would have loved this book even if I didn't know Becca!

So The Iron Children is a scifi novella about cyborgs warriors and a robot nun and one squishy human traversing a treacherous landscape together in the midst of war, and also is about questions of identity and religious ethics and duty and kindness and freedom. I loved EVERYTHING about this, I adored all the characters, I loved the worldbuilding, I loved its careful pacing and the way it built on its ideas, I loved that it managed to pack so much into such a short book without ever feeling like it was overcrowded.

The book is told through three different POVs: the squishy human, Asher, who's a young nun-in-training getting thrown in over her head; Barghest, the leader of the cyborg warriors, whose dedication to duty is above and beyond the call of duty; and a character whose identity is a mystery until partway into the book but is definitely one of the other cyborg warriors. The first two characters get their POV sections in third person, but the mystery character's sections are in first person.

I have gone on record in the past as stating that I find it irritating when there's multiple povs and some of them are, for no reason, in a different person than the others.

BUT the key here is that there IS a reason in The Iron Children, and when there's a reason it works! It's got a destabilizing effect, to have one of the three in a different person than the other two; it shows that character as other, as separate. It works thematically! (Okay and incidentally it lets the name be hidden to allow a reveal later on as to which character this one is, which is convenient!)

And now let me go into the realm of spoilers because I have to to talk about everything else I love.

One of the things this book handles really well is the slow complexifying of the reader's understanding of the whole….situation. You start the book totally on the side of the Cesteli because those are the viewpoints you start in, and then you just keep learning more things. About the Cesteli, and about the Levasta, and about the experiences of all of our beloved characters with the social environments they've been immersed in. And the book ends with some significant disagreement between the characters on how best to respond and what's the right thing to do, and like…..I don't exactly disagree with any of them! Things suck and they're all just trying their best!

ALSO it's one of those books that manages to cram in all sorts of different fun tropes and things in order to further the serious philosophical points it's making, and I am always super here for this. Huddling for warmth in a cave! Mind-bonding and body-sharing! Life-changing field trip with your enemy!

But also I just. I really love the characters. Asher, desperately trying to be A Leader when she has no experience, getting her mind blown with ethical perspectives she's never considered, wanting to do right by the people she's responsible for, unable to ever sound like she's sure of herself. Barghest, BARGHEST, ilu Barghest, trying their very best to be perfect because anything less is unthinkable for them. Ester, an angry outsider who hates that she is actually having a good experience having her body experienced as normal instead of scary, in this context where for the first time ever she's not the only looming faceless cyborg, in amongst her enemies. Cascabela, inexperienced and desperately angrily grieving the loss of the one person they know and care for. And all the others too!

There were also just some really satisfying various small details, like:

The four arms of the cyborgs, how it alters their fighting style, how Ester isn't used to it despite having a cyborg body because she grew up without anyone experienced to teach her how to take advantage of what you can do with those extra arms.

How good barghest is at training through fighting! not having to say anything, but teaching through doing, with the body and the dynamics of a fight

referring to the clockwork bodies of the robot nuns as their habits!

the offhand referring to parables in ways that make it clear that everyone knows what's being talked about and that it's not a thing anyone would need to explain! ("the one about the woman and the rabbit, the first selfless act")

the space jews!

the moment when the party is split and Ester attacks Asher apologetically :(

"I could just become a horrible hermit on the world's worst mountain" Ester says at one point, and my immediate reaction was omg hi Frankenstein's monster

ANYWAY read this book!!!

[reinabeestudio]

Still thinking about the Rednecks (frozen Red, S!3v3n and Glitchy Red).... some random thoughts.... Namely, I don't think the original pokepastas are scary.

I mean, sure: a game directly interacting with you can be a scary concept. But considering how much the concept of 'the game is self-aware and knows about you' has been done the last decade, it isn't as impactful as 10 years ago or so. Add the trope of 'child-friendly media is actually not so friendly' because many kids like getting scared to some extent (as long as things ends nicely☝).

Anyway, my point is that I don't think these three are that scary (ok S!3v3n strangling his brother as revenge when it wasn't Mike's fault is kinda insane). Perhaps eerie within their own contexts but I always thought they were rather tragic characters.

One died slowly & unknowingly killing him and his Pokéteam after waiting atop of a freezing mountain by himself for years. His decaying body, mutilated by frostbite, probably forever frozen in time due to the low temperatures (<- assuming it's similar to Mt Everest)

The other one is a sentient glitch that can feel every bit of pain the players put him through, vengeful and holding a tranquil fury inside of him. Whose existence is deemed as a mistake—being left to rot inside a glitched cartridge and forgotten by the world (“Am I joke to you?”). It's no wonder he eventually snaps during the story.

The last one, a guy filled with such deep, wrongly-processed grief and loss after an accident that costed the life of his most beloved friend. Seeking the power of IT to bring her back, he becomes a remorseless shell that will do anything to bring her back—or avenge her death. Losing much of his humanity on the way as he seeks that power. Which doomed his brother (in his eyes, the one that killed his friend) once he obtained it.

And like, I'm aware that's the point of most creepypastas: stories rarely end well. But I still think it's rather saddening, what these characters became due after tragedy strikes them. 'It's unfair' could be said, as childish as that thought is.

Anyway thanks for coming to me TED talk ✨

[summerf0x]

heyyy girl whenever you can- octopath traveler 2 for the ask game? Ok love ya bye

Favorite Male Character

It’s a very close race between him and Hikari, but I’d have to say Osvald V. Vanstein. A thing I take into account when determining a favorite character in rpgs is if their story is good and if they’re fun to play as, and he easily fills both of these categories. Primary magic users are always going to stand out in a cast that mostly relies on weaponry with a few spells of their own, so the combination of his three big spells with elemental barrage and advanced magic bring wonderful variety but still make combat feel balanced due to the setup required. His story is great as well, going from a hardened convict who’s been muzzled in a hellish prison for five years to slowly letting his walls down and letting go of his journey for revenge in favor of protecting his daughter and the other travelers.

Favorite Female Character

My starting character, Castti Florenz. As stated above, I like characters with a good mix of fun gameplay and good story, and she fulfills both of these categories. She’s a good mix of supporting others and dealing stupid amounts of damage (axe attack and drastic measures my beloved) and her concoct ability allows for many different ways to play. While the “character gets amnesia as a metaphor for loss” trope has been done and done again, it’s made even worse for her due to the literal loss of Eir’s Apothecaries. Despite that, she still fights for a brighter future. Her final boss is also one of the better, blending her gameplay and story well. While others are a bit too one-dimensional to be anything outside of a good fight (Mugen) or connect to the character’s story at the lack of a fun battle (Kaldena), Trousseau hits the perfect sweet spot between the two of these. Castti having to fight her fallen apprentice driven mad by the book of night and the perceived futility of the job that apocatharies do is really good for the story, and his own hazardous concoctions being a direct reference to Castti’s paired with the poison rain that will perminatly decrease your hp turning it into a battle against the clock as well, which also connects back to the story stakes with Castti having to stop him before the rain kills the people of Timberrain, plus the ending that has her make a cure for the effects of the rain with all the materials she gathered across her journey- Castti’s story is just really good. I like her a ton!

Least Favorite Character

Thurston. He’s fine on his own, but the fucking steam engine fight was so painfully unfun I managed to finish Ochette’s whole story quest before I went back, overleveled, so I could deal with him the easy way (and by easy way, I mean use max boost Call Beasts to break him before he could do anything funny).

Favorite Ship

There's a few that are pretty universal (Temenos and Crick, Castti and Malaya) and I do understand the merits of each of them. God knows how many "I miss my wife tales" jokes I've made about both of them. My personal favorite would have to be Partikari, one for the silly name, and two for the genuinely sweet way they interact throughout the game. Both of them have seen devastating hardship at a young age (Partitio was thrown into poverty to the point where he regularly had to eat weeds and Hikari fought in one of Ku's many wars at fourteen years old and beyond) but still fight to make a brighter future (Hikari wanting to end Ku's warmongering and Partitio wanting to end ALL POVERTY, which both of them end up accomplishing).

Favorite Friendship

I have two of these, actually. Thronè and Osvald and Castti and Hikari (go figure). Thronè and Osvald are two characters who have had their identity shaped by a long period of suffering (Osvald in Frigit Isle and Thronè in the Blacksnakes) who are slowly regaining their humanity as they travel with the others. They're also the only people in the main cast who have a literal collar around their necks (Osvald's prison manacles and Thronè's poison collar), and the postgame travel banters where she tries to get him to change his prison rags or where he attempts to order goulash are a really nice look into their relationship. My other favorite is Castti and Hikari. They were my first travelers and consistantly support each other across the game, Hikari talking to her after she regains her memories and Castti helping him before the storming of Castle Ku. They're in the same "weird brain" boat (Castti's amnesia paired with the rumors about Eir's Apothacaries and Hikari's curse that regularly attempts to possess him) and often try to comfort each other when their troubles rear their heads.

Favorite Quote

"I had to take one life away to extend a hand to thousands of others."

Castti says this after she kills Trousseau, in response to him making one last attempt to drag her down to his level. It really sums up her character, how she'll try and help everyone she can but is willing to put her foot (and apprentice) down if they're beyond help.

Worst Character Death (if any)

Claude. Ew. Why was he like that. I'm glad he's dead.

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment

Osvald chapter 4. I know, weird choice especially considering he's at his lowest, but it was the big moment his character needed. Up until this point his more emotional side had been reserved for a few travel banters you could easily miss if you didn’t have the correct character for it, and while chapters 1 and 3 did show what he thought and felt through internal dialogue, he was still putting up a cold front. Making him confront everything was a very satisfying moment, even more so considering the shift in his goals. Up until this point his game plan was get out of prison -> find Harvey -> kill Harvey -> kill self(?), so throwing Elena into the mix switches it up to get my daughter away from Harvey who will try and kill her for a magic ritual -> help her get her memories of me and Rita back -> find the rest of the moonshade order and get rid of them so they can’t hurt her again -> learn how to be a father again. Also, he has to fight his stone/blood construct that is HIS WIFE and he’s so sad the entire time about it and just when you think it can’t get any worse Harvey shows him his daughter, who has been brainwashed so that she doesn’t remember him. I said earlier that I wanted to see him on the floor, covered in blood, crying, and oh boy did chapter 4 deliver.

Saddest Moment

Castti chapter 3. While for Osvald I was watching like the “yessss… yes!” image, for Castti I was exploding into one billion pieces. We know very little about Eir’s Apocatharies, so seeing them as a happy community trying their best to help people across the globe when in Castti’s first chapter they’re rumored to poisoned an entire town already puts a massive sense of dread over the place. The slow signs of the plague creeping up on them (the animals eating less, the crops starting to wither) as well as Castti thinking she treated the sickness when it first appeared replicated the fabled “yelling at the screen to tell a horror movie character to not go into the basement out of fear for them” experience. The slow death of everyone from the families living in Healeaks to Andy and Randy literally throwing themselves over the fire to extinguish it as Malaya desperately feeds an unconscious Castti snowdrops before hauling her into the skiff so she can escape alive was… UAAGH. It was really well done and very sad.

Favorite Location

New Delsta! I love it’s design.

[restless-soulz]

original story ideas I’ll probably never write pt 6??

Three sisters and their mother live on a farm at the base of the mountains. the oldest tells most of the story, about their mother and the other sisters. the mother teaches the oldest how to collect, measure and cut the thread to sell or make into stuff. the mother gets weaker but still has a baby girl, who the oldest teaches to collect and measure, but cutting is her job, and another baby girl who they teach to collect. weaving is for all three, and their mother dies shortly after having the last baby. they are named the kindlies, for their friendly personalities, and they run through the greek myths. tbc.. they become the trios of ancient greece, the gorgons the fates the seasons. Astera - Stheno then Aglaia, Basiane - Euryale then Thalia,  Periboea - medusa then Euphrosyne, 

NEW STORY:

story about an entire family being isekaid, and separated when they're in the new world. the medieval setting feels old, possibly it to start with typical tropes but move past them, like the medieval thing is only in the wilderness but there are actually cities with machines and fast moving carriages, and instead of party or guild, it's a volunteer organizations with pat from the government or whoever is paying for the services and it's called teaming up or working.

i also don't like using cheats unless they make sense why for myself, for the rest of my family sure. there also won't be status screens i think, just skills and proficiency meters, and maybe a health and mana bar. mom and dad will be 40, i will be 17, k is 15, s is 14, d is 12, p is 11, z is 10. release everyone's perspective except mom and dads as separate books. mad will be one book with flipping perspectives.  

    ◦    dad will be a necromancer/healer, mom will be a witch who specializes in potions/cooking/spells and music magic, but can also throw a mean punch, they both fight well, dad with a sword and mom with a staff. They also get typical anime bodies and get to go through some body dysphoria and age dysphoria. 

    ◦    I'm the one that probably goes through the most trauma, and i also go through some dysphoria because possibly not human at first (small fish, but makes a deal with a sea witch ariel style to get a chance to get a walking body, cursed me anyway after i got the special treasure, but the spell hadn't fused my legs together so i took a small knife and cut the skin that few until only my legs stxayed with a few scales and stuff) but i actually get a skill that lets my body become what it actually is and use it, but the witches curse is still on me, making it hard to walk like i would probably be okay i think i'm gonna add in wings. but i'm a little too trusting but also have a lot of paranoia, have weird friends and average about almost everything. my thing would be that "i'm not strong or fast or really smart but i am creative and i can listen and be kind" very autistic coded, possible love interests? and a cheat, but also a bleeding heart. so reluctant op hero but beloved by the people, doesn't know if we should stay or go but wants to live normally and feels comfortable here.                               

 my curse would be because i'm naturally self isolating, my memories would fade with the loss of social and physical contact, within hours or days, and starts with faces and short term to not recognizing a fundamental part of my personality like losing anxiety and becoming more confident but also losing a part of myself. called Curse of the River Lethe

    ◦    K would be a typical hero protagonist that seems very op. she'd be super fast and pretty strong, i think she'd be good with both a sword and spear, probably take a position as a knight to the prince, to impress him? she'd go up the ranks by proving herself on missions and earning new skills a lot. i think the prince would be in love with me actually, but she doesn't know who i am yet (duh anime body change). and she's eventually promoted to captain of the guard but still wants to rise to hero because she. relieves she's one and keeps telling people that. make her pride bite her in the butt when something attacks and she can't make herself move. she also brings in the most of the tech from another world trope. wants to prove herself but also wants to go back home. her curse would be how her physical abilities dependent on how other people thought of her as a person, negative traits would sap her and positive traits would replenish, so she would have to be less argumentative and prideful and actually be nice to us also not annoying TikTok stuff. Called Downfall of Icarus

    ◦    S would be the awkward, cautious hero that sticks out no matter what. she does seemingly simple solutions to overly complicated problems that impress everybody, always hides her face out of embarrassment but it intimidates everybody. just wants to go home. the curse would be the more she tries to lie, the worse her appearance gets, even if she's wearing the latest fashion or proud of her outfit. can never tell a lie consciously. called  sometijng cool here

    ◦    D would be shōnen protagonist with never ending power ups because of "training". will be op and have cheat ability, just make him as a typical protagonist as i can and see how many that reels in before making him more realistic. wants to stay. curse is 

    ◦    P would be a magical girl in the city, a poor orphan found on the side of a road with a wand in her hand. she's foreign and attracts all sorts of people because she's cute, air headed and energetic, easily distracted but very complimentary. "guardian of (fun? sweets? princess?) everyone has a crush on her. wants to find mom and dad and stay here with all her new friends.

    ◦    Z would be more of a slice of life than typical fighting protagonist. like school babysitters or studio ghibli. some adventures but not life threatening. 

each will have the same name published under and i will try my absolute best to try and make everything seem separated, and if people start piecing it together i'll drop the reveal crossover for each one and they'll start merging into one series until it ends in one book.

nature names like mom-hazel, S-olive, kami-willow, Z-clover, P-rose, ME-juniper, D-ceder, dad-alder last name moore.

NEW STORY:

a demon boy falls out of a closet and falls onto a girl with insomnias bed. no matter how hard he tries, he can't seem to scare her, none of the blood and gore tricks work, until he sneaks up on her, but that's not for a while. she reassured him he's still doing pretty good, but then she tells him that she watches all these crime stuff and she's a writer, so these types of things barely faze her. so it's slow burn idiots to lovers, they watch scary movies together and he's appalled she sometimes gets scared but usually not, just jump scares. anyway, he goes to school with her and she comes to the monster realm, and they fall in love.

NEW STORY:

there's this four story mall that goes underground and it's on a college campus off of a multibillionaire property's. I'm the daughter of the multibillionair, the house is huge and has different themes across the house and there are multiple ways to get inside. I get a dog but i can't have it inside except for my section of the house and outside.

it's an apocalypse and there's a factory underneath the mall making these creature dark things that my parents run or backed up the owners. they made like shadow dragons and other shadow animals. there's a giant amusement park on the property that has a basement for the factory and the servants kids have used it before there was a worldwide black out of electricity when the shadow monsters attacked. there's this roller coaster things that goes to the basement but the kids blocked the way so they only go not even half way down but still have fun. there's giant line for the cafeteria food but.

when i find a way inside there's nothing there at all. my dog is a tracker and sense the shadow monsters and gives us plenty of warning when something's there. there's an attack or something and the servants kids need shelter and there's this cove right next to the water by the horses who seem excited to greet me that goes directly into my house without even a door like cave floor to tile.

they're multi billionaires they can handle a little dirt. they cannot. all the adults are hiding in the mansion while i'm trying to figure how to get everything back to normal. i think i'm adopted. it's called mind benders. the tech that the billionaires own is like vr tech but bill ciphery dream demon way. like it make youre dreams into code and put you back into the dream to better experience the innermost thoughts and desires of your heart. 

 the shadow monsters are either peoples nightmares no that's different in exchange for the power to bring dreams to life using the tech as a base the shadow monsters are made and destroy the world along the way because people don't stop using it. in the empty cafeteria room, there's one thing in it. the drawing box where they pulled my adopted name out. i walk forward to open it and every single piece of paper is my name. how should i be able to stop the monsters?

the library idea where book keepers have reality magic with their books and words. i have natural ability for it and sometimes don't need a conduit of a book to bring something to life. my dog is actually a product of my powers. that's why they adopted me because things were already out of control and they wanted to see if my ability was genetic or somehow corral the monsters and stop. they have a live feed room about the the monsters are destroying places around the world.

NEW STORY:

Ms.Lanchems school for Young Ladies of Humility. Basically a school for learning how to be a maid/lady in waiting. they all learn the same thing but the Ladies focus more on one person to help and maids focus on multiple people at once. It teaches them how to teach their charges, do their jobs to look like they aren't messing up, pulling strings behind the scenes, learning codes.

Evelyn, Evie, is the firstborn of her father helping to raise her younger brother Stephen, Fen. Mixed race siblings, she looks like her mother brown hair, blue eyes, looks white, while Fen looks like their dad dark in every way. Their mom feared for their safety when they began to rebel against what she teaching in schools and started to threaten her. She was executed publically by radical rebels, and the king came down hard on them for killing her when he came back from military expansions. She hid the kids well.

There was a statue put up for her sacrifice because as soon as her death hit, all of her teachings had come to fruition and the economy boomed, literacy flourished and people realized their mistake. They didn't find Evie or Fen until a group of soldiers came across two children living on the outskirts of a school village, Evie in her final year of Ms.Lanchems and Fen in his 1st year of Magic Scholar training. They survived by hunting and trading furs, food, favors, and other goods. In the meantime, their father the king remarried and but had no heirs so the nobles were having the king foster their children in hopes of catching his eye to name them the heir, and he did name a family, Rostonair Siblings to be the best contenders for the crown with their many accomplishments. 

They bring Evie and Fen back to the palace, and it creates a divide. The female  ruler is in charge of in kingdom affairs and the male ruler is in charge of out kingdom affairs. Who would be named heir? The blood relatives or the children who've worked for years to be worthy of getting the position. The queen sets up a challenge, to divide the kingdom into half, have one pair of siblings each rule a half together to see how they do it. But give them a few years because they're so young. At the time of finding them, they were like, 15 and 11 The controversy starts at when Evie and Ares Rostonair are 21 and Fen and Hestia are 18. 

The story starts when their mother gives them to the Lanchem Orphanage. "Take care of each other and always raise your head and smile even when it's hard." It's hard at first, the other children berate them for being abandoned by their own mother. It's gets better when Evie can leave to go to school and Fen learns to go to the library by himself. Evie has a bad first day, ending with getting lost in the woods in the rain chasing Fen.

She finds a small cat (that turns into a dragon) that's hurt and finds a boy in the woods. He's the heir of Mountain King. He offers to lead her out of the woods if she tells him stuff about her. She tells him she can't because she's looking for her brother too. The cat backs her up and they go looking for Fen together. They have a bit of fun racing in the rain until Evie turns so sharply when Fen yells for her. Valley leads them out of the forest and tells Evie to come again he had fun playing with her, and it would be easy to find her again because she was always leaking magic all over the place.

Over the next few visits, she gets lessons on how to contain her excess magic and draw it from her surrounding instead, making her oceans of magic absurdly deep and controlled. Valleys people have a spiritual connection to the The Guardians, animal gods that protect the wild by giving the leaders special abilities to be Divine Beasts and change form. Valley chooses to be a leopard most of the time but can change size to be small. Lanchems teaches her about poisons, waltzes, ettiquite, strategies. She's done at 15 which is when Valley warns her that people have been following her. The people are guards who take her after her graduating class ceremony to the heart of the kingdom, about a week. They present her and Fen to the king who they recognize and he sees them and is like. Those. Those my kids. The queen is nice enough. Lots of tears.

But before they can be recognized, he gives them a lower palace to live in, which some think is shameful. He tries to give them maids and butlers but Evie refuses because she's been running the orphanage while in Lanchems and wants to get a head start on what she thinks will be a career as a lady in waiting. He gives her a a friend tho, Mara who was her friend at Lanchems. and Fen has a boy, Ryder, who he just met.  At her 16th birthday, they are presented to the kingdom as the royal prince and princess but not heirs.

They meet the other foster kids and the Rodonairs. Hestia initially has a crush on Fen. They subtly backhand them with noble language which Evie knows because Lanchems and Fen knows because Evie knows. And then Valley crashes the party as a leopard. He says the Mountain King sent him to be fostered at the castle. The family agrees and Evie jumps to hug him, he returns it.

Valley suggests playing a game, Evie and Fen immediately start pulling off their extra layers while the others watch in horror. "Haven't you ever played? You can't win with all those layers and he can start the game at any moment." Ready Go! They take off like rockets into the woods of the guardians and disappear while the other nobles struggle to keep up. Valley catches everyone until it's just Evie left and he pounces on her "Caught you~" Forward to moments of growing up and people realizing they’re really ducking cool 

Anyway, they're 21 and the queen suggests the separate ruling kingdoms without interference from them. Evie is in a courting relationship with a boy who berates her but she's convincing herself she likes him.

The challenge is just what Valley needs to separate them and get her to see how strong she is for herself. At first, it's a bit of a disaster for both sides. Fen and Ares are different people and so are Hestia and Evie. Evie and Fen discuss and decide that it's better if they switch roles every once in a while because they are very similar thinking and can fill in each other's weaknesses. Ares and Hestia tho, they argue a bit and decide and even more separated in and outer. Valley only really supports Even kingdom (Evie and Fen) There's a voting and Valley puts his vote first on Evie and Fen, and most everyone follows suit

[ohnominamino]

An Essay on Love in Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time

Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time is a movie about love in all its forms. From the love of family, friends, and neighbors, to the compassion we feel for people we have never met. The movie reminds us that love is something we continuously gain, lose, and choose, again and again. Which love is greatest? In my opinion, the answer to that question is left up to interpretation. In this essay, I will give my own personal interpretation on certain character interactions and what I believe we are meant to take away from their Rebuild portrayals. 

The character I will start with is one I’ve noticed the most outrage over from people who haven’t seen the movie and read out-of-context spoilers: Kaworu Nagisa. 

Kaworu is a beloved character among many Evangelion fans, especially those who are members of the LGBT+ community. He is a canonical love interest of Shinji Ikari and I want to reassure people that this final movie does not change that fact. However, it does not make the couple blatantly endgame either. This skirting around the couple might make some fans upset, and while their feelings are completely valid, I do not think they fully understand the difficulties faced by LGBT+ people in Japan, nor do they understand the way that romance is typically conveyed in Japanese storytelling. (I recommend watching “Is ‘Yuri On Ice’ Good Gay Representation?” by James Somerton for more about storytelling nuances.) 

What have we been shown about Shinji and Kaworu’s love? The good news is, anything you read into the original TV series and End of Evangelion is completely true for the Rebuilds— because Kaworu is the same Kaworu. This movie proves Evangelion is a single universe set on repeat, and that Kaworu and Shinji meet each other every loop, and in each, Kaworu is trying to make Shinji happy. Within the final movie, Shinji becomes aware of the loops and chooses to break the cycle and free Kaworu from his pain. 

What does the relationship between Shinji and Kaworu teach us? I believe the purpose of their love is to show the audience that first, in the words of Kaji, “love has no gender.” Second, I believe Kaworu’s love in particular is a warning about basing your own happiness solely upon another person. There are parallels drawn between Gendo/Yui and Kaworu/Shinji. Gendo could not exist without Yui, and so he was willing to destroy the world to be reunited with her. For Kaworu, it was not the destruction of humanity, but the destruction of himself that defined his tragedy. What’s important within the final movie, in my opinion, is that Shinji does not reject Kaworu’s love. With the insight he’s gained from remembering past loops, he sees Kaworu’s love and appreciates him, but he also sees his suffering and wants to ease it. He helps Kaworu into a new world where he can seek his own happiness and find balance in his life (something his father did not have). 

While Kaworu and Shinji are not seen as an explicit couple at the end of the movie, it’s significant to note that, when he sets Kaworu free, Shinji holds out his hand to Kaworu as a promise to stay together. Over the course of the movie, Shinji comes to accept his connection to others through accepting touch (in the form of hand holding and hugs from Rei, Misato, and Gendo); however, Kaworu is the only character in the movie who Shinji initiates physical contact with and that speaks to how much Kaworu means to him. This simple gesture, in my opinion, keeps the door open for Kaworu and Shinji to be a couple one day, after Kaworu has found more balance in his life. 

If I were to write an entire essay about Kaworu, it would be titled, “Out of the Coffin: How the Resurrection of Kaworu Nagisa Buries the Tragic Lovers Trope” because this movie truly does just that. 

Another potential love interest for Shinji for many years was Asuka; however, unlike with Kaworu, the nature of this relationship is not left up to interpretation by the end of the movie. Before her big final battle, Asuka tells Shinji, “I think I loved you back then” (regarding their time in middle school) and Shinji, during Instrumentality, tells Asuka, “Thank you for saying you loved me. I loved you too.” It is past tense. 

What does this relationship teach us? It’s a beautiful way of showing that we can love people, and grow and learn, and let go when we no longer fit each other. Letting go is an integral part of life. Whereas other Instrumentality scenes involve touch, Asuka’s, mirroring the ending of End of Evangelion, has a distinct lack of touch. Shinji sits with his arms around his knees and Asuka turns her body away from him. He gives her his thanks and he sends her off to find her peace. Asuka and Shinji teach us that it’s okay to grow out of relationships. You can appreciate what they were to you at the time they happened and move on. 

What about Rei? To be honest with you, this movie is less about Rei’s relationship with Shinji, and more about her relationship with the world. Rei teaches movie viewers about the simple pleasures of living. While Shinji is in mourning for the first quarter of the movie, Rei (as “Sokkuri”) is learning about crop growing and community, the wonder of babies and kittens, the joy of the bath after a long day of fruitful work, and the power of words and picture books. At the end of her life, she only regrets not having more time to spend with the people she loves. In Instrumentality, Shinji accepts her hand when it is offered to him, which I hope signifies he is ready to see life as she had come to during the final movie. 

Rei teaches us that we can love living and to not take our limited time for granted. 

Next, we move on to parent figures: Gendo and Misato. I think they both represent people ill suited to the role, who do the best they can despite it. Gendo, as mentioned for Kaworu above, is a warning about defining yourself by your relationship to another person (Ikari, afterall, is Yui’s name). He is also a lesson in how people mourn and how they can lash out. Misato, like Gendo, felt herself a poor parent, and while mourning the loss of Kaji, she gave up her child to be raised by other people, but, unlike Gendo, went forward to put all her energy into protecting humanity. Both of them reach out to hug Shinji within the movie and he accepts them where they are. 

While I wouldn’t say the movie shows that Shinji forgives Gendo, it does show his making an effort to understand and make peace with what others have done. For Misato, it is fair to say we can still hope for a better future, even when it feels like everything is crumbling around us. Her self-sacrificing love for her son and the whole of humanity is what enables Shinji to then save the people he loves (via the spear of Gaius). 

In the movie, we are also shown friendship. Touji, Hikari, and Kensuke are important members of their community who maintain open communication with those around them and respect others’ boundaries. They are patient and kind and represent the importance of being present. They teach us to meet people where they are and support them how we can, whether it’s giving them a warm meal or giving them space when they need it. 

There are many more characters that could be talked about, but today I am going to end on Mari. Mari’s love is physical. She enjoys being in people’s personal bubbles. She cuddles Asuka and helps trim her hair, she gets into Gendo’s space at college, and at the end of the movie, she reaches out her hand to Shinji to help him stand up from his seat. Upon first glance, some viewers might take Mari and Shinji’s final scene to be romantic, but the reality of it is this: We do not, and cannot, know what kind of love she is meant to represent in his life.

We do not know Mari’s relationship with Shinji because they hardly interact in the movie. She clearly cares about him, but in my opinion, it comes from a place of duty and compassion— Mari was friends with Gendo and Yui. She has been there since he was born. (If we take the manga to be canon, then Mari even had romantic feelings towards his mother. Her hairstyle and glasses are from Yui. At the end of the movie, Mari has changed her hairstyle, which to me implies she has moved on, and “getting” with Shinji would be a thematic break.)

Additionally, their conversation, while flirty, is very much one that implies they haven’t seen each other for a while. Mari is someone who is very physically affectionate. With everyone. If someone ignores that and focuses on the fact she gets into Shinji’s space and claims that’s romantic, they better acknowledge it’s possibly romantic with Asuka, who we see far more intimacy with. When Mari flirts, Shinji flirts back and her initial reaction is surprise, “Wow, you’ve learned to talk back!” Her purpose is clear. She is there to remove the DSS choker from his neck. 

Personally, I love that Mari is the one to close the movie, for the exact reason that we do not know her relationship with Shinji. For Mari to have an assigned role would be to say, “This kind of love is most important,” when the entire movie was spent showing us each love is of equal importance in the balance and building of our lives. (It’s wonderful to see those types of love embodied across the platform from Shinji at the end of the movie: Rei and Kaworu, who, just like in End of Evangelion, could signify the ability to connect with others and be loved.)

If you view Mari as a romantic love interest, then I think it speaks to the value that you as an individual give to romance rather than what the characters themselves are feeling. To me, Mari, the character who was created to “destroy Eva,” is a symbol of all love. When Shinji takes her offered hand and then pulls her to run into the new world, it’s a symbol of balance. The give and take of any kind of relationship. 

We are the product of every relationship we have ever had, from our parents to the people we once loved, from our friendships to any other person we want to stay connected to. Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time is a story about these relationships. It is a story about love. 

[the-starryknight]

Fic Rec: The Last of What the World Left You

Author: @xanthippe74 for 2021 @hpanimagusfest

Rating: T

Length: 25k

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Additional Warnings: Temporary Character Death, Past Minor Character Death by Suicide, Isolation, Animal Birth

Summary: If the wizarding world won’t give Draco a second chance, he has a plan to survive: live in his Animagus form, a carrion crow, in the Forbidden Forest. Not only does Harry Potter come along and ruin it, he’s radiating a strange aura of power. With nowhere to go and a Life-Debt to his mother that Potter insists on repaying, Draco puts himself into the hands of the reclusive Boy Who Lived. Will the bleak corner of Yorkshire where Potter makes his home be another dead end or an unexpected refuge?

This fic drew me in gently and kept me screwed to my seat as I kept reading Xan's gorgeous prose. This fic aches, with the kind of heartache that comes after a tragic loss and after the pain of war. We meet a Harry and a Draco who are each out of hope, ready to sacrifice everything to be angry and sad and alone. Instead, they find solace in each other. Here are just a few things I loved:

✮ Powerful and unusual characterizations of both Harry and Draco. Harry has this new power as the Master of Death and it scares him (and me, too). This has led him to isolate from everyone he loved. At first sight, Draco cuts through the wrongness, seeing him through his crow-Animagus eyes in a way no human could.

"As he stepped closer, I felt the magic pouring off of him, thick and molten. I flapped my wings once, but only managed to hop backwards a bit, as if I was caught in his gravity like a moon."

✮ Painstakingly believable enemies-to-lovers. These two men are so sad! They have so much anger towards each other, which they are all-too-willing to fling out. And yet they are so desperate to be loved again, and so, bit by bit, word by word, Xan has crafted a careful, balanced, equal relationship in which they can come to find each other.

"Whether he moved away from surprise or repulsion, he didn’t say anything about it, instead carrying the food to the cupboards. The gifts he took upstairs without opening them."

✮ Beautiful interpretation of so many beloved tropes. Only one bed, down-and-out Draco, MoD!Harry, sharing a safehouse, Hallows magic, pets, the life debt: each of these thoughtfully reinterpreted and presented in a way that feels so fresh and so true to this relationship.

"In truth, I didn’t want to be tempted, now that I knew that if I reached for him beneath the covers, he’d meet me halfway."

This fic is stunning, raw and emotional, rich in detail and utterly beautiful. It refuses to shy away from intense moments and the hard bits of living, and in doing so, felt so emotionally genuine from the first word to the last.

"Two months ago, I had found myself alone at the end of the road I’d been on since the war ended, out of good options and driven by despair. Somehow, the step I was about to take now felt much more momentous, more frightening, and yet I barely hesitated."

Read it on Ao3 & Reblog Xan's post here.

[loveoaths]

@brighterburn requested: 6 (senjuro), 13, 18! ♥

6. Name 3 things you love most about your muse/muses.

oh, senjuro, my baby boy.

1). he is so fucking normal. like he is Just A Guy and i think that's awesome in a series about people who can kill vampire demon god. i think a lot of my love for senjuro ( and demon slayer as a whole ) stems from my issues with the naruto manga. senjuro is what i wanted hinata to be: someone who tries to fit into this world of violence because that's what's expected, only to realize, no, i can't do this. i don't want to do this. they offer us key insight into the lives of normal people in-universe.

2). despite being so fucking normal and average in a lot of ways, senjuro is still beloved by a lot of people. his worth doesn't come from being a soldier. his worth comes from being someone who values and loves other people, who provides for them and supports them. people like him and the kakushi are the only reasons our demon slaying heroes can exist. that's fucking dope.

3). he is so goddamn insecure but he still tries his hardest. that's the true meaning of an underdog to me. he has no natural talent, no secret power, no nothing. he's just a human being trying his hardest to keep his family together, which is what most of us spend our lives doing. when his arcs on this blog come to fruition and he finally has a decisive combat win, it will be because of his sheer perserverance, dedication, and resourcefulness, and not because of a power up.

4). and a bonus: all of senjuro's flaws are also his strengths, and vice versa. his insecurities about his self-worth make him work harder. working hard without recognition makes him feel invisible. being invisible will eventually become his greatest strength in a key fight. the way those things flow into one another is just... chef's kiss.

13. Is there one trope you can’t stand?

uh . . . having trouble thinking of something at the moment, so i'm going to talk about a trope i love: sacrifice as selfish. so often sacrifice is held up as the most heroic action, but turning that on its head opens up more avenues of exploration. like, so you sacrificed yourself for the greater good. was it worth it? how much did you really change? who have you destroyed in the process? are there alternatives to sacrifice? what if loss was neither good nor bad, it just hurts? generally speaking i love turning any trope over in my hands to find the new ways to play with it.

18. What is one thing you’d wish to see more in the rp community?

reading comprehension. communication -- actual communication, not the uncomfortable dancing-around-the-subject stuff. a more communicative rpc is a better, more inclusive, and just plain more fun rpc. everyone can do their part to make it better. if you are someone who struggles with uncomfortable discussions, it may be worth it for you to dwell on why that is and take slow steps toward working on it. it will only benefit you irl and online as you age. i'm saying this as an old man who was bad at all these things when he started writing online back in elementary school.

and finally: i want more fun. years ago the rpc had events, dash zaniness, and just so much cross-over and fun. i miss that. the fear of stepping out of line has really robbed us of the beauty of cooperative writing. i wish we could get back there, but frankly i don't see it happening on a wide scale anytime soon.