#no story begins and ends by itself

[mhaynoot]

JANG HAYOUNG AND HER RELATIONSHIP WITH KDJ / DKOS IS A REFLECTION OF KDJ’S OWN RELATIONSHIP WITH YJH INCLUDING THE IDEALISATION OF THE PROTAGONIST IN THE STORY AND LEARNING TO LOVE BOTH THE STORY AND THE ONE YOU GOT TO KNOW AND IN THIS ESSAY I WILL-

[everymadara]

Chapter 661

[carcarrot]

OH MY GOD A YEAR AGO TODAY .

[roseofcards90]

I genuinely think Princess Tutu is underrated af or at least not talked about as much as before

We talk a lot about characters being stuck in loops and in the narrative but Princess Tutu takes that to the literal level where the characters are literally breaking out of their own tale, and at the end manage to carve their own happy ending as their authentic, true selves (adding onto the fact that it’s based on a real life ballet which feels even more meta). They betray the own author’s expectations of what he was writing at the time. They pretty much just say “fuck you” at the end and the author is like “welp didn’t see that coming lol”.

They’re constantly changing throughout the story, ever dynamic and subverting expectations (like now Fakir turns out to be a descendent of Drosselmeyer, or how Rue turns out to not be the Raven’s daughter at all) how Mytho in the beginning was a soulless husk of a prince in episode 1, but in episode 26 he’s a fully autonomous and emotional human being who decides to save and completely love the girl whose tale was that she would never be truly loved by anyone else except her father and the prince. Rue’s seemingly surface level love of the prince is now revealed to be a long standing devotion to Mytho ever since she was a kid, staying by his side when he was emotionless and when he was the prince of crows. Fakir, whose stubborn will to protect Mytho as his knight and fulfill his destiny to be a reincarnation of the deceased knight in the tale, know strives to write his own tale and begins to love other people separate from the prince (Ahiru and Uzura and the people in the town). His refusal to acknowledge his own emotions and ignore Mytho’s own feelings of wanting to get his heart back now serves as the fuel for his motivation to rewrite the story to have a happy ending for everyone, instead of an inherent obligation to harshly protect him from the world. It can be said for every one of the main characters where they were merely archetypes of what the story wanted them to be, but over the course of the series, they break out of the very structure that shaped them as characters.

And the biggest one of all is that the reason the characters could break out of the story in the first place is all due to one duck that was first introduced into the tale, whose wavering ambition became resolute as she finally accepts her fate to be forgotten and be unable to change back into a human. Not in a tragic way though of what the author wanted, but in a way where she could be content with her life and be remembered by the very people whose lives were changed and impacted because of her utmost compassion and kindness at the heart of her character.

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

I'm thinkn.. what does ps8 Kuron and Lance's relationship look like after lance wakes up? of course Kuron is Lance's Little Guy TM but also they never really got the chance to truly bond and become friends, and now Kuron is. y'know. being Kuron.. and lance is full of grief and trauma and also The Horrors

i feel like at first its gonna ba at least a little awkward lol

It'll be really fucking awkward for both of them indeed!! But not nearly as awkward. The timeline and the story ideas are not clear but like i feel like there is some shit going on during Lance wakes up and he takes a long time (maybe i'll bring my quintessence ideas for this? Maybe) and when he wakes up he isnt exactly There at first. So like by the time Lance wakes up, Kuron has already had a lot of his character development

And yeah Lance and Kuron is a bit complicated relationship cause like i have said Kuron is grateful for Lance for actually saving him, but also he's a bit angry and most importantly confused cause just why? Why all this? Why now? How did you? What happened to you? And just this confusion that is plaguing since he got his new body.

Meanwhile Lance genuinely cares about Kuron but also is y'know. Busy. Not to mention Lance kinda expected Kuron to be like he was 'used' to be, or rather the rosy eyed version that was Kuron was 'a sweet sensitive guy who can do no wrong and Did Not deserve That' (which isnt wrong but also) (also same with Allura)

But this is something that can be talked out, and it might take some time and development for both of them but by the end i think it's just hugs and a big healing moment for both of them and it would be like a promise to bond and stuff

That being said this isnt exactly final, cause like i said i am still trying to figure out the timeline and story plot and everything so this is very much going to change

[wren-likethe-bird]

wren rambles about the borderlands movie in tags

[dreamofmourning]

[loverboybrightsideghost]

filmed acting (like TV/films) is very interesting to me, and one particular reason is the fact that scenes of a story are often filmed out of order, for a variety of reasons. i wonder how it changes or affects an actor's preparation or understanding of their character to film that way.

[palismet]

thinking ab the similarities of luz and hunter and how they are so different in their experiences and yet so alike.

they are both so desperate for acceptance. for acknowledgement of who they are, who they want to be – for love, given without terms, unconditional. to be seen, in the light that is all their own, without being asked to cut off corners, pieces of themselves that aren't ... acceptable, by most, that would be easier if they weren't there.

their stories are different and yet their hearts are the same. they want to be strong, brave, enough to get through the next thing, and the next, and the next – still holding on to a hurt that makes them. that changed them, fundamentally, so long ago. how it still changes them today. how there is no separation, even still, even here, in the light of the human world, bright enough to dream by.

so can you see it, the way they are tectonic plates, shifting up against one another, holding up and together entire worlds? the weight of responsibility, of what it means (and what it is) holding on to hope. what it takes from you, and how you have learned not to talk about it, because who else would understand? and how would you hold yet another piece of it, too heavy for your hands?

the earthquakes that would result in them butting heads. the way the story has always led to the parallels of things. the way brothers and siblings will eventually come to this point, the event horizon of hurt and hope. the way the bones of it have always been lying in wait, to return to this, right here - what becomes of us now?

the way it was always going to come to this. the story doesn't know any other way. so it will do it again, it will do it over, and over, and over - until it can get it right.

(including a small snippet of a vague chapter intro:)

[batemanofficial]

since we're all gonna die i have something to share with you all. i did not care for the mandela catalogue

[batim-rewritten]

sup.

[deus-ex-mona]

petition for the animators to spare lxl from the ✨male gaze✨ p l s

[tovarischgrazhdanin]

not sure if i ever spoke of fnaf here, but i am following the franchise still, cus im too deep in the sauce to quit...

ive been really irritated by the new dlc coming out. i wanted to turn my brain off, but there was too much nonsense in contrast to sense, that it pissed me off. didnt expect the story to have such a first-draft feeling to it...

mainly, wth was up with circus animal merch a few months back? those characters didnt appear anywhere in the game, why was there merch of them then? did i hallucinate them or something?

[iturbide]

same anon as the not exaggerated joke but not joke about robbing plegia. God I love awakening, I really love chrom and robin and all that. But I am also facinated by Gangrel and Validar (and to a lesser extent Henry and Tharja (and also Mustafa and to an even lesser extent the various plegian officers you fight) Like there could have easily been an interesting exploration of any of those characters. Gangrel's a much less subtle example of how an ATTEMPTED GENOCIDE affected him. He went mad and is lashing out at those who both caused and did not take accountability. Like there's a lot there to unpack and look at, especially when you consider his general dismissal of the grimleal cult. Validar is one I really wish we saw more of (Validad wishful thinking in my brain). He was likely a part of the grimleal since before the war, being a failed vessel; how did he view the genocide, was he moved by what happened to other plegians, did that give him conviction, did he care at all? Did he see grima, or his own child as a means of retribution or even as a saviour for his people. There is so much that could have been done there. Also maybe Tharja and Henry should have more to say about their country being brutalised in 3 whole wars. Also also, please just acknowledge Mustafa he was so fucking cool and deserved a larger role in the story, I'd love them as a continuous antagonist/anti-hero who RIGHTLY points out the hypocricy of the ylisseans while still showing himself to be an empathetic and just leader. Fuck it make him in charge, put him on a council with Validar. Can you imagine the political debates between those two?

Anyway I'm gonna start reading Affectionately Yours to stimulate the part of my brain that awakening didn't

Look, I am deeply and utterly fascinated by Plegia. I have been for a long time. Roughly half my Awakening works on AO3 hinge on some extensive Plegian worldbuilding because Awakening really didn't bother with it and I'm too fascinated to leave it alone.

I have a lot of thoughts about Gangrel. I have a lot of thoughts about Validar. I have a lot of thoughts about who they could have been in different situations, and why they turned out the way they did. I honestly think that Gangrel could have been handled better in Awakening canon: I think his mother was killed by bandits when he was young according to canon? But imagine how much more potent his role in the story becomes if he lost his mother in the attempted genocide -- he was a direct victim, and that unaddressed trauma festered and turned him into the Mad King. (I have a whole post of backstory headcanons about that.) And I think that Validar is underexplored as a character, especially considering that he outright admits he's a failed attempt at creating a vessel for Grima, and what something like that would do to a person. (I have yet another post of backstory headcanons for him.)

Henry...Henry not really having something to say doesn't surprise me. Henry was a victim of basically every system he'd ever been part of. He doesn't have a stake in society, but he's culturally Plegian because it's how he was generally brought up. Tharja, though -- she I think should have things to say about the situation, because even if she does adopt a measure of disinterest in the general situation, that's her home. She's lived through these nightmares and been a witness to their aftermath. The fact that her being Plegian and how that's affected her was entirely squandered is an absolute crime.

and don't get me started on Mustafa. I love Mustafa so much. Mustafa gets a role in basically all my fics, I love him so much. He's in Affectionately Yours. He's in Cursed Fate. He's in both Crown of Shadows and Shrouded Throne. He's in my works in progress, he's in my backburner stories, he's everywhere. I absolutely adore General Mustafa and what he says about Plegia as a country, even though the game tries to pretend that people like him don't exist as soon as we finish out Chapter 11.

I have a lot of Plegia thoughts okay. And a lot of Plegia stories.

also please let me know if you have any issues getting into the fics, I locked them as a precaution against AI data scraping but I am 100% willing to unlock them if you want to read but don't have an account

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

realized ricky is not only canonically polyam, but rep for polyam survivors who are abused for being poly, and i am having a lot of feelings about that which i plan to write up a post about but also wow in hindsight it put some shit from an abusive ex-friend into perspective.

[laugtherhyena]

Sometimes i remember how long it took for Dra to get a full translation and think, wow, if it had a more speedy english translation back in the day (sorta like the one Sdra2 had) and i had my first experience with the game be as intended i don't think i would be writing -2+2 today