#not my most coherent meta but its a good starting point I think

[stagefoureddiediaz]

The birth and resurrection of Buck

Have a meta to tide you over until the episode airs!!!

The imagery that the writers and the crew (and cast but they’re doing what they’re directed to do so I'm not including them here) have been utilising in relation to Buck and Christian symbolism is pretty interesting - and especially in relation to the resurrection of Christ. 

We’ve seen so many references to it now that its almost like the universe is screaming at us or something! This is not fully comprehensive as I am sure there is more and I've not got time to do the level of in depth analysis I'd like to (I'm trying to get this out before 6x10 airs!), but this is the major points in relation to Buck and the resurrection. Putting it below the cut because its a bit long 😎

Buck is a saviour baby

We all know Buck was born to save his brother and that has had a profound impact on who he is and how he views himself - he has made saving people his entire personality. In Christianity Jesus was born to save the human race from sin and spent his life saving people through his preaching and miracles etc. Even Bucks name ties him to being a saviour - Evan means 'Gods gift' or 'Gods messenger' playing into the idea that God gave the Buckleys a gift (which they then didn't appreciate) and he then used Buck to spread his message (which we are only now truly getting to see the extent of) which leads me on to;

Travelling Buck

The bible details Jesus travelling preaching and spreading the word of God. These travels are an important part of the story and actually stem back to his birth - Mary and Joseph have to escape from Bethlehem and spend time in Egypt before returning to Nazareth

We see Buck escaping his parents and heading out on his own travels - sending postcards back to Maddie. Bucks travels are an important part of his own story - he didn't use his travels to preach etc in the way jesus did but he did use them to

St Christopher and the tsunami

I have a slightly unorthodox view of the st Christopher and the tsunami connection - but hear me out. So most people refer to Buck as being the embodiment of st Christopher in the tsunami arc because he carried Chris and got him to safety - all totally valid and definitely a legitimate way to read it. I However think there is a second way to view it because yes Buck saved Chris etc etc carrying him like St Christopher carried Jesus, but if you think about it metaphorically, things can look a little different.

Think about it this way - Eddie and Shannon have a baby and name him Christopher - then Shannon gives Eddie the St Christopher necklace - to protect him and remind him he has a family to come home to. Now Eddie carries that necklace around with him like a talisman.

Fast forward to the Tsunami and Christopher is dropped off with buck by Eddie to get him out of his loft - Buck is metaphorically drowning in his depression etc over not being able to return to work etc. The show was blatant in its use of the tsunami as a metaphor for the tidal wave of grief and depression both Buck and Christopher (and Eddie to a certain extent) were experiencing for differing reasons (Buck identifying himself through his job and feeling there is nothing else for him and Christopher the grief of losing his mother) - theres a reason he is they are the only two directly caught up in the wave! Buck directly refers to Christopher saving him - up on the fire truck "we saved each other" and then Eddie tells Buck its time for Christopher to "do the same [save him] for you" and then we get Bucks voiceover about the life raft that gets you home - implying that it is Christopher (and Eddie though his words) carrying Buck home (to safety.

We get to see it in action again in Eddie begins - Eddie is buried in rising water - yet the thought of Christopher (and Buck) leads him to safety - to saving himself. The story of St Christopher talks about the water swelling and rising - much like the Tsunami of course, but also like the rising water Eddie battles through to get back to safety - to his family.

It is this reason that I would argue Christopher is the embodiment of st Christopher, and not Buck, although they are in many respects interchangeable.

While we're on the subject of St Christopher, it is worth mentioning that he is not only the patron saint of travellers, but also of things related to travel and travellers—against lightning and pestilence in particular, obviously we had the pestilence shown through Covid - and the separation of Christopher from Eddie and Buck as a form of protection and now the lightning is coming out to play. I think the fact its Eddie connected to Buck on the ladder is more significant than it just being about Buddie - it also connects into the st Christopher of it all - Eddies necklace forms that direct connection to Christopher, and Eddie is going to be connected to Buck via a rope (I love layers connections like this!) thus connecting him to Christopher as well!

Maddie

Maddie as a name means 'from Magdala' - the place Mary Magdalene is from. Mary Magdalene has had a bad rap over the years - there is very little evidence that she was a prostitute - it is likely that another Mary (the most common name for women of the time) was conflated with Mary Magdalene and thus she becomes known as a prostitute. Mary was considered Jesus's most faithful follower, and the one who understood him best - she is considered to have taken care of him and financially supported his ministry. We could attribute all of these same characteristics to Maddie herself - she is the one who has taken care of Buck, she has supported him - one could say that giving him the Jeep and some cash so he could travel is that same as providing financial support (Bucks ministry being the fact that he needs to travel to find himself and end up in LA, so giving him the jeep sets everything in motion) and Maddie is also the one who understands him best (Eddie is on his way to superseding her but shared childhood trauma edges in her favour right now!) Mary Magdalene is the one who witnesses the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus - ergo Maddie being the one at Bucks bedside when he wakes isn’t that much of a reach for us to make.

A couple of other snippets before we get to the resurrection itself;

Jesus was 33 when he died - Buck is 33 (approximately) in Canon at the time of the lightning strike 👀

Jesus was resurrected on the 3rd day - we’ve been getting all the 3’s - literally all of them - this season and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Buck is in a coma for 3 days (and if I'm right about this i'll be flinging myself into the sun over it!)

Also we haven't talked about the Taylor of it all - Taylor is Judas! Let me explain, Judas became Jesus's closest apostle, but he is also separated from the other apostles, through his dislike of the way Jesus went about certain things - he's the only Apostle to question Jesus outright right and he betrayed Jesus - which lead to his crucifixion.

With Taylor she has always had this antagonistic side to her - she questions Buck (without understanding or reason), and she is technically the closest to him (by virtue of dating him not because she is actually the closest person to him) whilst also being separate from everyone else in the show. It is Taylor who betrays Buck and leads to the higher ups semi blacklisting Buck in the aftermath - similar to the way Judas's betrayal of Jesus allowed Pilate to arrest and ultimately kill him. In the same way that it was essentially predetermined that Judas would betray Jesus, it was predetermined on the show that Taylor would ultimately betray Buck (and the 118). Its important to remember that Buck feeling like he's been black listed etc as a result of Taylors actions is a key part of his spiral in season 6 - it is the catalyst for so much of what has happened thus far and part of why he was so determined to prove himself captain material and for his decision to try the age of absolutely and say yes to everything!

As an aside to this Judas is often depicted in Christian imagery with red hair - just like a certain reporter we all know and hate!!

The Resurrection

So we've all been screaming over the imagery of Buck hanging in the air and subsequently being lowered to the ground and into the arms of Bobby and how it fits into Christian imagery of Jesus being removed from the cross Like this one - 'Deposition' by Caravaggio

Deposition is one of the more famous paintings depicting this moment, but Christs removal from the cross is often depicted with the presence of ladders and the pose they have Buck in is also a commonly used one in the depiction of Christ's removal from the cross

such as this one by Rembrant;

or this one by Rubens

in both instances Christ is removed from the cross and into the arms of Joseph of Arimethea and we see the women of Christ (I hate that term but there we go!) both Mary Magdalene and his mother Mary in these paintings. Joseph was granted permission to bury Jesus - a feat normally undertaken by the father of the deceased. The fact that Joseph of Galilee wasn't present (when Mary was) suggests that he was already deceased.

you cannot convince me that this;

wasn't inspired by the above art! there are a couple of really interesting things about the fact we have Bobby very obviously in the position of Joesph of Arimethea. Joesph of Arimethea is taking on the role of father figure to Christ and we know Bobby has taken on the role of father figure to Buck. I'm also willing to put money on the person we can't see being Hen - thus representing the women. This will also likely be accompanied by Maddie being at Bucks bedside (and we might possibly see Margaret there as well in some capacity even if I start growling!!)

The thing with the crucifixion, deposition and subsequent resurrection is that they are the key turning point in the bible - they are the moment when the work Jesus has undertaken up to this point gains its importance and status - without his sacrifice at that moment, it is very possible Christianity (and Judaism and islam as well for that matter) may not exist!

If we break it down in 911 terms and look at where Buck is at right now and where he is headed it all ties in very interestingly with Jesus.

The pipeline is essentially the same

Jesus; betrayed - crucified - removed from the cross - resurrected.

Buck; Betrayed - crucified - removed from the ladder truck - resurrected (and in a coma before waking up)

We know Buck isn't going to actually die - that wouldn't serve the same purpose for the show that Christs death did in the bible. The outcome is the same though. Buck is going to die - temporarily and its going to land him in a coma, but hes going to die. and that is so important. Buck is at apoint where he needs to shed the 'Evan of it all. the saviour label is so firmly attached to Evan and at this point in time Buck cannot escape its clutches - he even leant into it with the sperm donation. Now though hes discovering leaning into hasn't actually helped or made him feel better.

Buck is still stuck with this saviour label attached to him - only the risk is that now its becoming attached to Buck as well - not just to Evan (Connor knows Buck from before - when he was still Evan remember). Bucks choice to become a sperm donor means the lines are becoming increasingly blurred between Evan and Buck. In order for Buck to learn and grow - for him to be able to move on and essentially become who he wants to be - who Buck is, he needs to not be Evan anymore, so that means some form of rebirth.

This is where the coma storyline is such a great narrative device as a representation of the resurrection - in his coma Buck will get to see who Evan would've been - without the Buck of it all. He'll discover that it's not all its cracked up to be in his head - that thats not who he is, who he wants to be or who he'll ever be and being that won't make him happy. It won't be straightforward, nor will he get there immediately (healing isn't linear but Buck is on that road finally), but he will be carrying that knowledge with him and that will help him figure out that Buck is loved and wanted in a way Evan never has been (with the exception of by Maddie), that he isn't spare parts in the way Evan is and he will be able to be resurrected as Buck.

We need to remember that Christ was resurrected 3 days after his death and then appeared to certain people (in particular the apostles but also to others) during the next 40 days. This is why I'm expecting Buck to be in a coma for 3 days.

This is in no way as coherent as I'd like it to be - I think I'll have to revisit when I'm not feeling quite so insane about the episode tonight!!

I don't think I've written this much on religion since I was in RE classes at school!! I find the use of religious imagery in modern media really interesting and 911 is really going all in with it! Anyway I hope you found it interesting and I'm sure I've left out a lot of stuff, but the important points are all there I think!

feel free to drop thoughts opinions etc in the tags or comments - I can't wait to read everyone else's good thoughts and ideas!

[radiantmists]

like. shorter version: grizzop is a funky little dude who cares so incredibly deeply about his family and friends, who’s dedicated himself to making the world better, and who just has a lot of swagger. his struggles against prejudice and the shortness of his lifespan are extremely compelling.

he also uses his faith to justify the fact that violence is nearly always his first answer to a problem; he never questions whether he might be wrong and sometimes seems genuinely convinced that he’s better than a good chunk of the people he meets, including occasionally his own friends.

i’m not saying you can’t love him, especially when violence and the black-and-white nature of good are sort of baked into the setting, but whenever i see people act like he’s some exemplar of virtue i just... Yikes.

[tobi-smp]

Ive seen a lot of your posts and i find many of the things you say to be facinating and eye opening when it comes to the dsmp.

But when it comes to your character or story critical posts it feels very... hateful? Hateful isnt exactly the right word because its clear you enjoy the dsmp. But perhaps frustrating and annoyed. Its like you expect these random minecrafters to be professional story boarders and directors?

I feel like a part of this fandom has forgotten that the story originally started on improv. Sure, the story could be more balanced since its scripted now.

And dont get me wrong its important to talk about flaws! But I feel like you and other people are putting these mcyts on a high pedestal. These people aren't in an animation studio trying to develope this detailed plot where something mentioned in season 1 will make sense in season 6. They're just friends who one day decided to make a story. Sure some of them take the story more seriously than others, but should everyone be held up to the same standard?

I think we should just let the silly little minecrafters do their silly little roleply.

1: I treat the dream smp like I treat all of the other media that I consume, because I find meta analysis And Critique fun.

critique is actually what I have the most fun writing, because I’m a very adhd and autistic person and it can be difficult for me to get my thoughts to flow into a coherent idea without a point of Focus. I’ll have a dozen ideas that I’m chewing on for hours, days, weeks, months, or even years that suddenly click in to place with the right Idea, the right wording, the right trigger thanks to thoughts I’ve had digesting a new lore stream or to someone else’s post. and that’s a really rewarding process for me.

I don’t critique because I hate the dream smp, I critique because being involved in this media and this fandom made me Feel Something and I want to unwind what that is. and getting at the bottom of those feelings means being honest. and that’s fun ! I enjoy being able to do that and I enjoy watching Other People do it too.

I Can get worked up and emotional, especially in the direct aftermath of a stream, but that’s a part of what makes it fun. getting worked up over something that’s ultimately harmless and picking apart what it makes you Feel is a really low stakes way of sharpening your analysis and capacity for self reflection, as well as just being, you know, Entertaining For Some People.

and what I Feel doesn’t have to be negative either, I’m just more likely to post a critique because, like I said, I am fantastically adhd. people know me as being very well worded, but trying to do analysis when I’m really invested in something is like trying to do crossword on a trampoline. my dms get my stream of consciousness in that regard fjkldaslkjadfs

2: the idea that we shouldn’t critique the dream smp because it’s done by amateurs has always been a take that reads as diminishing the quality of not only the dream smp, but of non-published media.

yes it Is a good idea to temper your expectations for what is realistically possible for these people in this context in this medium, because there Needs to be margin of error for live media. the dream smp has challenges that tv shows simply do not, and that’s part of what makes it as special as it is.

but to say that we’re not allowed to Think about it, that we shouldn’t take it seriously as a creative work and should just instead sit back and let it wash over us because it’s a Silly Little Minecraft Story just overtly devalues the story that’s being told and the work that’s gone into telling it.

some of the best stories I’ve ever experienced have been independent work from either a single creator or a small team of creators posted on the internet, often times from people just starting or who are new to the medium they’re telling it in. The Dream Smp Is One Of Those Stories.

I’m not comparing the dream smp to a blockbuster or something that’s been carefully crafted with millions of dollars and hundreds of hands like Arcane. I’m comparing the dream smp to Itself. to what it’s Already accomplished through it’s story telling and through it’s medium with the Exact Same limitations that it has now (minus the horrendous scheduling issues, which is out of the creators’ control but still something that could’ve and still Can Be better worked around).

the dream smp has some of the most compelling storytelling I have ever been a part of and it’s Because of its medium, not despite it. and that’s Exactly why I’m as invested as I am, Exactly why I’m not just going to turn my brain off and say that it’s just a silly little minecraft story.

every time I see someone say that it’s Just A Minecraft Roleplay and we shouldn’t think about it that much I remember quackity saying that this was the most fulfilling work he’s done in his entire 8 year career, and it can’t help but read as disrespectful to me. or at least as Misguided.

it’s Okay if you don’t like critical analysis. I do it because it’s fun and makes my engagement with a piece of media I like Better, and nobody else has to do if it that isn’t true for them. but this idea that people get that critical analysis Must stem from hatred, Must stem from impossibly high expectations, Must stem from a place of disrespect is a strange one that I think we as a fandom need to drop.

[tweetsongs]

why orv rewrote my entire brain (and why it’ll rewrite yours, too)

(note: this is as much a rec post as it is a way for me to try to get down my [brain go vrrrrr] feelings about orv in a coherent way that i can actually use to talk to people about it without sounding absolutely unhinged. it will still sound unhinged, because me, but at least it’ll be ORGANIZED)

what is orv?

orv, or omniscient reader's viewpoint, is a korean webnovel written by author(s) sing-shong. it is currently complete at 551 chapters, and currently has an in-progress webcomic of the same name that’s in its early arcs.

what’s the plot about?

orv is about kim dokja (kdj), a 28-year old social maladroit who works as a contracted drone for a gaming company and spends all his free time reading webnovels. specifically, he’s been hyperfixating on an extremely long, deeply unpopular apocalyptic survival game webnovel for over a decade, to the point where he is the only reader who’s still reading the ongoing 3000+ chapters as they update. the story begins when the author announces the end of the novel and the beginning of the epilogue, and as a reward for being the only reader to make it this far, gives kdj a text file for the entire novel.

this file comes in handy when the apocalypse actually happens in the exact same way as it did in the novel, and kdj is the only person who has inside knowledge of what’s going on. to survive, he must make alliances with the ‘characters‘ from the original novel, and get through the survival games in order to reach the unwritten epilogue.

okay, this sounds cool, but i think i’ve seen a lot of other works with similar premises - what makes this one special?

you’re not wrong! orv’s plot initially starts off as a sort of reverse-isekai/dungeon crawl webnovel, a genre which has grown very popular in east asian media in the past few years. for the first few arcs, there’s a lot of worldbuilding, game mechanics, and a protagonist who gets overpowered skills as a result of his epic gamer reader skills. if you start orv and specifically enjoy the first seventy or so chapters, i’d recommend searching up other manhwas/mangas in this genre!

however, past the first few arcs, orv takes a hard turn into more complex themes and narratives, delving into more meta elements and grappling with so many plot threads that it would honestly make this post unreadable if i tried to organize them. suffice to say, while the first few arcs are fun and in-line with other works of this genre, it becomes more of a interrogation of its own genre and of webnovels and the act of creating media in general as it goes on. if deconstructing tropes, metanarratives up to your nose, and 4D chess-style time and multiverse shenanigans are your thing, orv is probably right up your alley!

that’s fine and all, but you’re neglecting the most important part - does orv have good characters?

oh, my sweet child. of course orv has characters! BOY DOES IT have some characters. orv has one of the most richly filled and developed casts i’ve seen in media in a WHILE, and nearly every character (of which there are a LOT, this is 500+ chapters, remember) has some kind of arc. there are some characters that are done with less justice than others, an inevitability of having a cast that large in a story that weighed down with shit that needs to get done, but even they usually have some sort of development. rarely does orv have one-note characters.

another note i want to make on this is that there are A LOT OF COOL GIRLS in this book, and pretty much all of them get their arcs in unique and interesting ways! orv tends to introduce characters in terms of tropes or stereotypes (the nice girl, the innocent child, the hardened warrior) and then slowly builds onto those foundations in ways that make them immensely interesting and complex. i’ve agonized about how to talk about the characters without going into a long spoilery spiel, but suffice to say that they are EXCELLENT.

okay, and what about their relationships?

i want to start off by saying that orv does NOT have any romantic relationships within its main cast, so despite whatever you see in the fandom, don’t go into it expecting romance! what we do have is a massive cast of complicated relationships, often completely separated from their relationship with the main character. the main relationships in orv are platonic ones, and much of it is spent on ruminating on found families and rebuilding broken relationships.

this being said, the emotional core of the story is built upon the (ambiguous) relationships between the trio that makes up the three main characters of the novel: kim dokja, yoo joonhyuk, and han sooyoung. their relationship is not stated to be romantic in any directions, but their interactions are what builds the backbone of the story’s themes, and they serve both as interesting individuals with interesting relationships with each other as well as points of analogy within the larger themes of the story. i will say that there is romantic coding in all of their relationships at various points, though i WANT TO REITERATE THERE IS NO EXPLICIT ROMANCE NOR LOVE TRIANGLE BULLSHIT HERE.

are there any caveats you have about reading it?

definitely! i don’t like to make recs without acknowledging the shitty aspects of a media, and orv definitely has places where it falters. here are a few trigger warnings/general irritations i had with the book:

while it’s not a romantic novel, there are some teases about romance between characters that are obviously not here for romance in ways that can get pretty eye-roll-y at times.

there are some implications of sexual assault in the early chapters that seem to serve little purpose beyond it’s affirmation of the early arcs’ grimdarkness. it’s not prevalent and gets dropped later, but it’s an aspect of its genre that i dislike

there are so many arcs in the novel that explore so many different genres that i’m pretty sure that everyone will have an arc that they’re not as interested in

the translations that are available online are of varying quality, as there was a change of translators in the middle of the novel. this means that some names and terms will change in spelling out of nowhere, which can be pretty jarring

if you’re not used to the prose of webnovels or translated east asian novels, it can take a few chapters to get used to the different style.

this is a big one: there are some transphobic elements in the novel - specifically three characters/bits that stand out particularly egregiously. there is a villain that is implied to be genderfluid that is treated pretty shittily by the mains, a group of minor villains that fall into the predatory transes stereotype, and a character that is a trans woman who, by a mix of bad narrative framing as well as translation error, is misgendered for a while. while the transphobia does drop off as the novel goes on and the trans woman, rocky beginning aside, has one of the best character arcs independent of her gender identity in the novel (as the authors realize that transphobia might not be great), it’s still perfectly valid if these portrayals turned you off. it certainly made me, an nb, annoyed when i was reading!

all of this sounds really interesting, but why should i allow orv to rewire my brain?

okay, if the past few paragraphs didn’t make you perk up already, here are some more miscellaneous things that made me read this stupid book three and a half times:

the book’s VERY fun to read. like, it gets heavy, and there’s a lot of complex themes in it, but it never gets bogged down in them, and it’s always a delight to just, sit down with it.

it’s really funny. like, EXTREMELY hilarious in both expected and unexpected ways. there’s a reason why the fandom tag has so many memes in it

the pacing is super brisk in a way that i internally refer to as ADHD catnip, and you never feel like the book really overstays its welcome on any particular arc. it’s why the book is so bingeable, despite its length

most if not all of the book’s arcs and themes, both character and plot-wise, are resolved in satisfying ways. i’ve read this book multiple times, and i’ve never felt like the book really missed any steps on what it’s trying to say. a great accomplishment, considering just how much it has to say

a reverse of one of my caveats: the book is so long that there’s almost certainly going to be some arc that you dislike, but similarly, there’s also almost bound to be an arc that you LOVE. do you like survival games? this is that! murim novels? has that! scifi? yep! historical fantasy? got it! this is a sampler plate of genres, people.

the book never takes itself or its plot mechanics too seriously OR too lightly, somehow managing to strike a perfect balance in tone that’s both self aware of how ridiculous it can get at times, and never undermines the emotional stakes of the characters

for all its darkness and tragedy, it’s never CYNICAL. orv feels like a distillation of how much FUN consuming media can be, and is a love letter to every person who’s ever loved a story. it rejects cringe culture and gatekeeping, and is an affirmation that every work of art that you’ve ever loved is valuable, if only because of the fact that you love it. 

tl;dr psych! this WAS my tl;dr of how much i love this novel. please read it i am on my fourth reread and going bonkers

[metamelonisle]

my kirby's epic yarn review bc i couldn't fit it in the google reviews

i found this game at a Big Lots for $7 in 2012 and i think that is the greatest insult to any game ever. also this game singlehandedly led me to one of my closest friend groups and led me to a strong interest in physical crafts which has gone on strong even today so i have very strong positive opinions toward this game.

Oh, you wanted me to talk about the game itself. Let's just say this game EARNED all five stars to start things off.

Epic Yarn is a solid platformer with absolutely gorgeous visuals. Like. I cannot possibly articulate with any string of words or letters how PRETTY this entire game is. More on that later. The level design is fairly good and each level has a coherent theme with good use of antepiece (which is like a tutorial of a task to introduce it) and setpiece (the actual task) to showcase the mechanic of the level. No part of the game feels like it's too difficult to proceed or like there isn't any clear direction of where to go. You don't feel like you're being led by the hand to the goal, but you don't feel too lost. It's all and all a very refreshing game.

The game is extremely beginner friendly, to the point that my older sibling, a person who is normally very aversive to games and has little experience or skills with most platformers, was able to pick it up fairly quickly and clear the game with me, having much fun while doing so. This game stands out as lacking a health or lives system, which makes the game very easy and relatively stress-free to play. It's the sort of game you play to feel good after a bad day, or just to unwind, like a warm bowl of chicken noodle soup when you're under the weather, or a warm fluffy blanket on a cold winter night.

The story is rather simplistic, but it fits rather well with the aesthetic. Yin-Yarn is an evil wizard who wants to take over Patch Land, and Kirby and Prince Fluff have to stop him! The game's story is primarily told through lovingly animated cutscenes resembling a pop-up storybook, and the calm and comforting narration makes the whole experience feel akin to a bedtime story.

The music of Epic Yarn is quite varied, and all of it is wonderfully composed. Each track has an entire music team's worth of love packed into it, and it shows. From the peaceful piano of Kirby's Pad, to the mystical and adventurous violin of Fossil Reef, to the jaunty steel drums of Meta Melon Isle, the music of the Kirby series is a good portion of its appeal, and for good reason. This title pulls out all the stops for a one-of-a-kind musical experience.

The character design of the game works quite well for how simplistic it often is, which is arguably one of Kirby's strong points as a franchise. Prince Fluff's design of being remarkably similar to Kirby lends well to his identical playstyle, making him suitable for a second player, not to mention absolutely, cheek-pinchingly adorable. The design of the enemies, allies, NPCs, and bosses are all extremely clever, cute, or both, with the 3rd and 4th bosses standing out in particular.

And to address the beautifully crafted patchwork elephant in the room: the visuals and design. This game is gorgeous with a capital "G". This game, in terms of file size and coding, is one of the largest Wii games, and for good reason. All space on that disc is put to excellent use to show off the most impressive visuals I've ever seen in any video game. The entire landscape feels like a grand artpiece put together by a team of master quilters and knitters and even though the world is plush, it feels so distinctly alive. Patch Land feels like the sort of world one would dream about as a child or read about in a bedtime story, and the visuals and music portray this EXPERTLY. There is an incredible amount of love put into this game, and it shows in every aspect of its visuals and music. This game knows exactly what kind of experience it wanted to be, and went all in with it.

All and all, this game is a beautifully unique masterpiece with solid gameplay, good music, and a wonderful aesthetic. Definitely worth more than $7.

[manic-pixie-dream-dude]

GIVE ME ALL YOUR VARIPUNZEL THOUGHTS!!! THEY NEED META!!

THEY REALLY DO!!! THEY REALLY REALLY DO!! I tried my best to sort out my thoughts into something that could at least be called coherent but uh. It got super long lmao, so! please enjoy: Varian, Rapunzel, and the insanity they sparked within me

Individually:

To start, these two are my favorite charas in the entire series. The other characters I enjoy the most when they're interacting with each other but Var and Raps are fun even on their own, or just when they're talking to their Animal Sidekick.

Varian is such a good character and you can tell by how he shines even though he only appears in 3 episodes of S1. ONLY THREE. He's a delight to have onscreen, and he's got so much depth as a kid who's done nothing but fail yet still remains optimistic and resilient through it all. His development into the antagonist is very natural, being as he's only ever had his dad as his family and was avoided by everyone else, you can't help but sympathize and root for him. His personality is just… dorky little shit who’s well-meaning but just the slightest bit unhinged. I love him lots. His skepticism about magic is funny (and a nice contrast to Rapunzel's usually magical view of the world) but I like to think that, because of Rapunzel, he eventually does believe in it.

As for Rapunzel, I adore what they did with her character. Fleshed her out and gave her flaws that made her so human. Obviously, the "princess stressed about her role" trope isn't anything new but the way it's tackled here is great! She's only been out of that tower for several months and immediately thrown into duties and expectations all at once but still hangs on to her sense of wonder and curiosity, much like Varian.

--

Together:

from the first ep, I just found their interactions SO cute. They start off with Varian being so... LIKE THAT when he meets her, amazed and infatuated cus "WOAH THE PRINCESS IS HERE SHE SOUGHT ME OUT" and he's obviously trying to impress/seem cool. I love how Varian literally gets on one knee and exclaims "look at you!" to Rapunzel.

(and his fixation on her hair, being interested in its qualities and later using it as a sort of plushie, is insanely endearing).

And Raps was so excited and interested about his field of study, compared to how weary everyone is. The girl lets herself be strapped to the equivalent of a torture bench ffs.

They're both nerds! Rapunzel is shown to be super well-read and a dork in her own right, (usually being an art nerd while Varian is a science nerd) and I can so easily imagine them rambling to each other and sharing their interests.

It’s really cute how Varian matches her energy and almost juvenile excitement/optimism/persistence about everything while still grounding her because of his personality, both when he's just her friend and when he's her enemy.

Even in their later interactions, I like how Varian still seems to care for her, until his anger and fear for his father wins over (I like the idea that the "I used you" line was more out of spur of the moment frustration rather than genuine malice.)

Their dynamic in general is insanely compelling to me with its potential, I do function on my own fanon chain of events but even canon gives us a lot of it, both when they're friends or enemies.

when he IS antagonistic, it's dramatic and heartbreaking and FUN. I like their banter in S1 the most but S3 as well, even if sometimes the writing for it is a bit meh lmao. Varian going all out on the whole villain thing makes way for endless entertainment, especially when he slips into Dork Mode in the middle of it.

What's more romantic than undergoing a corruption arc in tandem with the MC’s hero arc and having both your destinies tied to the point where your downfall is her becoming, and you're both set up to be a perpetual motion machine of chaos and balance?

I enjoy their rivalry more in S1 and their friendship more in S3, and I think I'm not alone given how their interactions have been gif'd to hell and back. After everything, they've obviously grown much closer.

All I'm saying is that Disney are cowards have missed their opportunity with these two.

--

Canon:

Some cute similarities I’ve found is that both get bonked on the head by their equipment, both have a knack for making Rube Goldberg machines, and both draw (and have drawn one another).

It's also so sweet how she always encourages him and her joy around him and his interests makes him bashful, like when she sees him at the science fair and goes "Hi, Varian!". It's so cute.

And there's also the entirety of The Alchemist Returns. This being one of Many favorite scenes:

something I personally found really 👀 about them is how Rapunzel KNEW what Varian's plan was. She knows how he thinks, and he prepared for it cus he knows how she thinks. This mutual understanding of each other's thought process is VERY Inch Resting, esp since that moment could’ve easily been written so Cass figured out his plans as a show for her strategic thinking but no! Raps knows him well and vice versa.

And If I may skip ahead a bit, There's also their relationship in S3. and Yknow, I'm actually not done watching S3 yet (I know, I know) but from what I've seen, the number of Fond Gazing scenes is delightful. Also, I'm forever thinking of this moment:

I'm sure there would be a lot to say about them in S3, and I might return to add my thoughts once I'm done w it, but for now...

--

Complaint (oh boy):

Rapunzel is, everything considered, the only person who's ever really respected him and is his friend. Varian only has his dad and her (and debatably Cass and Eugene, though in S1 they still seem to have a 'this is my friend's friend so I'll be nice to him' approach).

She doesn't use him or undermine his sorrow, she gets him. Which is why her dislike near the end was so. Confusing. She canonically values promises (to quote: "I never break my word. Ever.") so her having to actually break a promise, and to him, she'd surely understand and sympathize.

I personally find it… Odd. that her reaction was hatred. At first, at least. Raps is an empathetic person, her whole schtick is inspiring villains/criminals to reform. Seeing her friend in the process of becoming one and, for once, not knowing what she’s supposed to do or how, should’ve made her distraught and feeling helpless. I could see her tipping into anger during the automaton fight, where everything sort of snaps as it dawns on her that she can’t save everyone here by talking it out or being nice.

I wish their development nearing the s1 finale was based more on the pain of having to go against one another rather than anger. Varian has to save his one family member, Rapunzel has to be a princess (and I don't think it’d be a reach to say she’d go to similar lengths to save any of her loved ones, let alone her only loved one).

Also, I'm gonna bitch here for a second and say: you're telling me he was helping her figure out more about the rocks and we don't see a SINGLE scene of her sneaking out to study the rocks with him? Or any mention of them communicating afterward? I really wish we had more screentime with those two but since we didn't, I’ve chosen to believe that they did interact often in the 6-month duration of S1 and were good friends. [the whining of a harrowed shipper]

Another thing, It struck me how... Present, Varian was in her thoughts, even after S1. We didn't get to see much of him or their friendship but she obviously cared, that much was implied. Cared enough that his cries echoed in her nightmares even though, at that point, he hadn't shown any resentment towards her. He's her guilt and the reminder of her destiny, that she can’t stay as simply ‘Princess Rapunzel’. Because of him, for him, she becomes more.

Also, because of this noticeable presence, his subsequent absence is damn near palpable in S2. When I was watching, I was just wondering to myself if we’d see wanted posters for him sometime soon, if he’ll still manage to follow them, even if just in spirit. It’s why him appearing as her fear/sadness felt so right to me, I almost stood up and cheered

episodes after the storm, where Rapunzel doesn't think to check in or visit him herself, feel so SO out of character. This has been noted before, but there are times when the writing feels like it's fighting AGAINST the characters just to ensure the plot goes in a Specific Way even if it would make sense for it to go differently.

(Though It's beyond me why they had to have Raps get a note from Varian when THAT episode could've gone similarly if Raps went by her own volition.)

To me, if they allowed the characters to lead the plot based on their own internal logic, morals, etc, Varian and Rapunzel arcs would’ve been more involved with one another and we would've gotten a deeper bond than what we did get in canon. It’s why I also think it makes waaay more sense for Varian to have been seeking out the moonstone as well. He's connected to them in his own way!

AND WHILE WE'RE ON THE TOPIC

--

Moonstone Varian (oh boy part 2):

I’ll say this now and I’ll say it with my finger pointed up so everyone knows I mean it: Varian being the one to speak of her destiny while black rocks sprout around him in her dreams, being the only one to translate and understand the scroll piece, and his colors being LITERALLY CALLED MOONSTONE BLUE, the fact that Varian wasn't her "other half" or the Moonstone holder was BULL.

Moon Cass vs Moon Varian is a whole ramble of its own so I won't get into it too much (my thoughts could be summarized here and here). Just know, it should've happened. Their arcs should've been switched.

I mean… his design, man…. In s1 it’s a stark contrast to Rapunzel; blue and pink, dark and light, simple and intricate. Plus, him being the only one with Eccentric Hair besides Raps… C’MON MAN.

But the dream thing is what I’m really hung up on, it’s as if he's set up as knowing more, or at least trying to learn more. He's the first one shown to have a connection to the Dark Kingdom, he's the one who relates the rocks to Rapunzel and the Sundrop, it would've made so much sense if he broke out in s2 and followed the rocks as well.

They could've both had the same goal, making way for a slowburn enemies to rekindled friendship arc.

Keeping them separated when it would make sense to weave their arcs together was dissapointing. Disney knew they'd be too powerful 😔

--

TL;DR: They're an amazing pair with lotsa canon set up and had the potential to become something more but the writers did my boy Varian so dirty and I'm gonna be redirecting my bitterness about it into drawing them kissing. The End.

[troquantary]

Didyme, Part 2: Something, Something, Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Continuing from here, and we’re doing sub-parts for this bit. I’m genuinely surprised I had this much to say. (And fun fact, I almost lost the entire goddamn post, but fortunately I was copy-pasting into Word just in case. Not today, Satan.)

2.1. What Canon Tells Us

Didyme’s murder by Aro (and with Caius’ apparent assistance, either during or afterwards), is only mentioned on the page in Life and Death, the 10th Anniversary gender-swapped version of Twilight. Edythe/Edward mentions it briefly when discussing the painting of the leaders Carine/Carlisle brought back from Volterra, but it’s just background information with little narrative weight. I bring it up just to highlight Caius’ involvement and knowledge -- I’ll get back to that.

Now, here’s the “canon” backstory we have to work with. Per the illustrated guide, Didyme was Aro’s younger sister, and he turned her at some point after meeting Marcus, Caius, and Athenadora. Interestingly, the Guide doesn’t say anything about Aro returning to Didyme out of brotherly love; apparently he just wanted to see if she would have a powerful gift like his, only to be underwhelmed (”disappointed,” according to his Guide entry) by her actual ability -- she made people happy just by being around them. Then she and Marcus fell in love, sharing “the strongest romantic bond of any of the Volturi” (from Marcus’ Guide entry), and this prompted a suddenly very single Aro to seek out his own mate, Sulpicia. The Guide says Didyme “distracted” Marcus from Aro’s goals, and that the pair eventually made plans to split off on their own, leading Aro to murder Didyme so he could hold onto Marcus and his valuable gift. Although nothing written so far suggests that Aro even liked his sister, the Guide does state that Aro “truly loved her” and that his grief upon killing Didyme was genuine.

Apparently Caius’ role in all is was something Meyer thought up later, because none of the leaders’ Guide entries mention him being in on it. (You can’t see me, but I’m staring pointedly at Part One.)

2.2. Fuck Canon, Actually

(This just seemed like the funniest place for a cut. Continued below~)

I’ll be honest with you, person who’s persistent/unfortunate enough to still be here: very little about this murder scenario makes sense to me. I’m going to start with the “disappointing” nature of Didyme’s gift and that it was supposedly much less useful to Aro than Marcus’, because that’s just...stupid, frankly, and there’s no way Aro would have missed the inherent utility of Didyme’s gift. I don’t even have to read into anything to get this idea -- the Guide itself shows us how useful it is! It says right there in Marcus’ entry that Aro went off to turn Didyme, and returned with his sister, “along with the first members of the guard -- vampires who were drawn to Didyme’s aura of happiness.” That is a direct quote.

Just -- I practically shrieked when I read that. You’re telling me that Didyme’s gift was the stated reason their coven got its first subordinates, and I’m supposed to believe that Aro thought that was disappointing? Fuck off! Fuck off!! Even if Didyme’s happiness aura isn’t as powerful as Corin’s opium haze, well, Aro doesn’t have Corin yet, does he? He has every reason in the world to want to keep Didyme around, drawing other vampires to his cause -- even if most of those vampires aren’t gifted or skilled enough to join the guard, it’s still good PR.

At this early stage in the Volturi’s rise to power, it isn’t a good time to lose Didyme -- or any of his inner coven, really. Yet Aro apparently considered her disposable enough that he killed her. I can’t square this with what we know about Aro: that he’s still coherent despite holding god-knows how many people’s lives in his head; that he’s very intelligent; that he’s cunning, charming, and persuasive. Aro, once he learned they were thinking about leaving, would have tried to talk to Didyme and Marcus and done everything in his power to convince them to stay just a bit longer, until the Volturi’s position was more secure. And maybe he did; the timeline of all this is hazy, but nothing in the Guide suggests that Aro jumped straight to duplicity and murder. Clearly, though, whatever negotiations or arguments he presented failed. So what does their desire to leave the Volturi at this critical stage say about Didyme, or Marcus for that matter?

2.3. What It Says About Didyme and Marcus (Mostly Headcanon)

Brace yourself, because we’re into full headcanon territory now. To follow me, please refer to @therealvinelle ‘s meta about the larger mission of the Volturi and why they’re necessary, because I’m starting from the perspective that the Volturi are ultimately a force working in vampires’ and humans’ favor. While Meyer and the Guide would have you believe that Aro’s just power-hungry, actually looking at the impact of the Volturi and the benefits of enforcing secrecy shows that his broader vision isn’t just world domination, but establishing a world in which vampires and humans can both thrive and endure. There’s no way the rest of the inner coven was unaware of this goal; we know Aro talks a lot, so he’s certainly talked his coven’s ears off about this.

Now, we know very little about Marcus and what he was like before he was all dead inside. Based on what would be a logical balance of personalities, with Aro as lead decision-maker and Caius as ruthless enforcer, it seems likely that Marcus was originally the voice of reason and/or mercy. I also think Marcus would have had a strong sense of duty. The Guide says that Aro was the first friend Marcus had as a vampire, and I believe that Marcus cared about him very much and was committed to the Volturi. I think he would have been genuinely conflicted about leaving, especially considering the stabler, safer world the Volturi have been striving to build, and which they haven’t yet secured. Again, it’s a very bad time for any of the leadership to split off -- but in the end, Marcus and Didyme are going to do it anyway.

What for, though? Why leave? @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin has an interesting take on that question here: that Didyme saw that she and Marcus would be locked into the Volturi life and a thankless existence for eternity and tried to opt out while she still could. I like it a lot, it’s a great post and that scenario makes sense, but the tone of it feels...too forgiving. Maybe that’s because I’m evil. But the way I see it, given the magnitude of the Volturi’s mission, and its (at best) very tenuous grip on power at the time Marcus and Didyme plan to leave (they haven’t even defeated the Romanians yet), jeopardizing the entire operation so that they can pursue their romance unburdened strikes me as...well, fundamentally selfish on some level, so much that I find myself side-eyeing Didyme and Marcus for it. Although to be clear, it’s not the desire to live their own lives apart from the Volturi that I find selfish, just the timing of their departure.

Honestly, I’d like not to vilify another female character if I don’t have to. Given everything I’ve just said, I see Didyme in much the same way as I see Bella: not a bad person, but someone with definite selfish tendencies. At best, she’s likely short-sighted or naive if she doesn’t see how leaving the Volturi at this stage is fucking them over in a big way. However, I hesitate to read into the happiness aura as a straightforward indication of Didyme’s fundamental goodness; I think she probably was kind, charming, and delightful to be around, hence the nature of her gift -- but that capacity for selfishness is still there. (I’m certain Meyer wants us to take her gift as proof of Didyme’s goodness, to reinforce how evil Aro is for killing her...but I think I’ve made my disdain for what Meyer wants me to think pretty clear.)

2.4. MURDER MOST FOUL

I am not saying it was justifiable or okay for Aro to murder his sister. I’m really not. It’s actually better, from a character standpoint, that it isn’t okay -- that Aro has to carry this with him for the rest of his life while Marcus sits in the throne next to him, reduced to a husk, so that in effect Aro has lost them both after all. It’s got that Greek tragedy element @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin​ mentioned in her post. (Even better from that standpoint, the Guide implies that Aro found Chelsea relatively soon after killing Didyme, which compounds the tragedy.) I mean, it’s terrible, and it hurts me because I love Aro, but it’s compelling stuff.

What I am saying is, I can see how their insistence on leaving might have deeply hurt and offended him. And that brings me to my issue with the calculated murder scenario the Guide gives us -- I still think Didyme’s gift is too valuable for Aro to throw away by killing her in cold...venom (or whatever), even as the price for keeping Marcus in the fold. Plus, there’s the fact that Aro does love Didyme, and I imagine her gift makes it very difficult for people to think of harming her...when they’re calm, anyway.

Yeah, the only way I can really see the murder happening is if Aro killed Didyme in the heat of an argument about her leaving, possibly even by accident -- except you can’t accidentally kill a vampire, can you? It’s a very deliberate process wherein you have to dismember them and burn every piece, which also means it probably takes long enough that any irrational, overwhelming rage would wear off before you were done. But now that you’ve started....

I mean, at that point it would certainly be awkward to put your half-rubble sister back together, and Aro would be in a whole other load of shit even if he did. It’s possible, given what we’re told, that Aro could have lashed out and yanked Didyme’s head off before snapping out of it, only to realize that his sole option now is to finish the job. If he doesn’t kill Didyme now, she and Marcus won’t just leave, they’ll be sworn enemies of Aro from then on. And thanks to Didyme’s gift being the draw for a lot of the guard, and the inherently bad look of a leader who would brutally attack his own sister, a chunk of the guard would probably leave with them, destroying Aro’s plans. No, the only way to salvage it is to follow through.

Then Aro has to call in Caius for help with the cover-up, because it wasn’t actually planned and it’s just pure luck that no one walked in on the murder as it was happening.

And maybe Aro learns a hard lesson about learning to let people walk away, leaving the possibility open that they could be drawn in again. Because if Aro had just waited, he would have found Chelsea, and with her gift he could have had Marcus and Didyme back again.

Assuming everything didn’t fall apart as soon as they left, of course. But that’s a whole other what-if scenario.

[autisticcassandracain]

top 5 dc storylines / arcs? this is me asking for recommendations honestly

OH HELL YEAH LET'S GO

Robin: Son of Batman #1-6: Listen. I did a whole meta post about how good it is. I CANNOT recommend this enough. It's the best version of Damian's redemption arc there has ever been, probably the best version of Damian's character period, it's a modern comic series that actually uses Talia in a way that's pretty good, Maya is a FANTASTIC character, and the way it examines redemption as a concept is brilliant. Like half of this arc lives in my head rent free there's SO many brilliant moments in here I can't even list them all. Please read this.

Blue Beetle (2006) Reach Arc: The Reach arc is what superhero stories should be, namely an extremely fun romp against a stupidly overpowered enemy showing you just how badass our hero is while providing meaningful character development and giving the side characters some real time to shine. Everything leading up to it was great as well, and this is a perfect finale. From the top of my head I think it's the first 25 issues? No promises though.

We Are Robin #1-6: Less a coherent arc than like, the stuff pre-Robin War that I actually really like. Robin War itself sucks and the stuff afterwards is decent, but the first six issues are where this series truly shines. I was very skeptical going in, but found myself pleasantly surprised at the examination on what the Robin mantle actually means, as well as the depth of the characters. If you're interested in Duke Thomas or Robin as a legacy mantle, I highly recommend reading this.

Who Is Donna Troy?: A single-issue arc that's famous for all the right reasons. Dick Grayson does detective work to figure out where Donna Troy came from. It has a very unique style, brilliant plot progression, and actually made me pretty emotional. It later got some sequels that were deeply mediocre imo and completely missed the point of what made this issue so good: its solid focus on character, and a departure of the traditional superhero form for a detective story. Other storylines keep giving homage to this or outright ripping it off and every time I'm like, no, you will not be Who Is Donna Troy, stop trying to be Who Is Donna Troy. It's in New Teen Titans (1980/volume 1) #38.

hnnnnng there's really tough competition for this spot but I'm going to give it to The Shiva Arc (and everything leading up to it) in Batgirl (2000). The actual arc itself is short, only about two issues long, but for full effect you have to read what leads up to it. I think this is the part of Batgirl (2000) that's the best, and this arc in particular is a fantastic examination of Cass's character with some very memorable visuals (the panel of Babs sitting, paralyzed, staring at a still image of Cass's murder haunts me). It's actually also a great use of Shiva's character, and one of the few times that her being beaten doesn't feel like a cheap way to up the stakes/show how cool a hero is; although I do have mixed feelings on the elements introduced in her character in this, but still, I feel like they had potential if they'd actually been expanded upon (which, sadly, they weren't). The things that really hold this one back is a) the fact that the colourist insists on colouring Cass yellow, and b) the orientalism, which is of course inescapable in Shiva's character (her name is Lady Shiva, and she's very much not Indian), but I do feel like this was one of the most egregious examples of it. If you want to read this, just start reading Batgirl (2000), you'll hit it naturally.

[loopy777]

RE: WIPs game: do I even want to know what Dicebenders is is it another scam how many times are the Gaang gonna get arrested for scamming

No, this time it's me scamming people. XD The dice in question are the RPG Dungeons & Dragons kind.

For a while I was doing a screencap webcomic in the style of "DM of the Rings" and "Darths & Droids" with another creative fan named Captain Boomerang. I was the scriptwriter and selected the screenshots for each panel, and Capt-BA would assemble the comics and improve my scripts (a process that did frustrate me a little, as I felt locked out of the revision process, but I did like the results. I just felt like I wasn't holding up my end of the partnership a bit). I wrote a story bible explaining the characters and storytelling rules, planned out the adaptation of the entire AtLA premiere, and had less detailed plans for the rest of the series, but we only got 6 comics in before Capt-BA went on a trip and never returned to the internet. I did manage to re-establish contact with her long enough to get permission to continue the comic, but the problem is that I have no image-editing skills whatsoever.

If I could find comic-making software that I know would do what I want and be easy to use, I wouldn't mind dropping some money on it, but everything I've looked at is trying to do lots of things I don't need. I only want a way to import existing pictures into comic grids, and then easily add dialogue bubbles. That's it. But the stuff I've found is more about image-editing than comic assembly, and it takes me an hour to put together a dialogue bubble that looks good. So I have 3 scripts that were never produced, which along with the planning docs are what's in that WIP folder, and I don't ever see myself going beyond that.

Besides, someone else already managed to complete something like this, and while I'm not a fan, I don't need to be. At this point, Dicebenders is dead. I'm glad I tried it, and it's a shame it didn't work out, but I'm happy with the other projects I've done instead.

I am squatting on an empty Tumblr for it, though.

Anyway, to share something new, here's the first section of the Story Bible I wrote to make sure Capt-BA and I were on the same page in terms of characterization. The rest of the bible details the plotlines for full series.

AVATAR: THE LAST DICEBENDER

BIBLE

Premise- A small group of players attempt to run a fantasy martial arts RPG that winds up essentially becoming the Avatar saga, or something very close. The main point of the series is comedy, based mostly on ridiculous links between Avatar and RPG's. Sometimes the humor will be in the vast difference between what happens in the comic, and what happens in the cartoon with the same screenshots. Other times, the funny will come from the unexpected ways they converge.

SPIRITUAL PREDECESSORS

DM of the Rings- The original, and my personal favorite. It's a good showcase of how to run a single quest together, while using narrative jumps to skip to the good bits.

Darths & Droids- A similar project, this stands out from its predecessor in two main ways. The players and GM are more friendly with each other, and are more or less having fun with each other. There is also a running, coherent storyline in both the game and in the lives of the players.

Benders & Brawlers- This is actually an existing attempt to do Darths & Droids with Avatar. This is helpful as an example of what we DON'T want to do, retell the Avatar story in a completely straightforward manner, with RPG players behind the characters.

CHARACTERS

None of the characters will be given real names. The players shall always be referred to by their character names, although this can be done in a teasing, ironic manner. When the characters are speaking, their dialogue bubble must always be attached to an image of the character.

The Gamemaster- The GM is a female in her early teens. She is a geek, and a bit of a social outcast for it. Nevertheless, she's trying to make that work for her, although she's not quite mature enough to make it happen yet. She has just discovered RPG's, and in her enthusiasm has gone all out in starting her own campaign. The only problem is that she doesn't know how to recruit players, so she ropes her best friend and little brother into playing with her. This is the GM's first campaign, so she'll a little in over her head. She knows the mechanics of play, and what she's supposed to be doing as GM, but doesn't have the fine skill in crafting an engaging RPG experience. Still, she wants to do her best, is willing to learn, and has a positive attitude about the whole thing. The GM has a strong crush on the Sokka player, but the only way she can express it is by having all the female NPC's flirt with the Sokka character.

Katara- Female in early teens, and the GM's best friend. Katara's player was friends with the GM from when they were both in grammar school, so while they have grown up into wildly different personality types, they are fully loyal to each other. Katara is popular, and outgoing, and doesn't care or know about geek stuff at all. She's only playing the game because the GM begged her to. At first, Katara is clueless about RPG's, and frequently questions or ridicules the mechanics of the game. She never quite gets into the idea of role-playing, but quickly takes to the idea of meta-gaming. She'll have her character act like a righteous do-gooder, because completing missions and fighting bad guys earns XP. She hoards items that will boost her stats. She'll advocate abandoning a mission/plot if it doesn't pay out enough rewards. Katara's player also can tend towards trying to Mary Sue her character, but this is inconsistent and usually shot down by everyone else.

Aang- Male in junior high, and the GM's little brother. He plays simply because his sister has cajoled him into it, and there are hints that he's getting some kind of reward or payment for it. He abuses his position by forcing the GM to give him what he wants in the game, even if it breaks the rules- access to the restricted Airbender class, the ability to bend all four elements, overloaded stats, an Avatar State that protects him from dying, a magic super flying cow ride, etc. However, it's important to note that Aang's player isn't a jerk. He's just immature, and like all kids, just always goes for what he wants via the easiest path, and doesn't realize that he may be causing trouble or hurting feelings. He's enthusiastic about trying out this RPG thing, but he has trouble coming up with any action beyond attacking or retreating. He's also hyper aware that the GM and Katara are girls. He is too old for cootie concerns, but thinks that girls are fundamentally different creatures with their own incomprehensible concerns. Having a big sister, he doesn't find this a big deal, just part of life. Aang's player is too young to be a geek. He likes cartoons and sports and fantasy and school-dramas. He also tends to follow whatever his sister likes.

Sokka- Male in late teens. This guy is your quintessential RPG player. He has is own top-quality dice, he's played campaigns and systems of all kinds, and knows the tropes of the hobby cold. He's a huge geek for all things geeky, but roleplay is easily his favorite. He's a social outcast, but he's made friends among his fellow geeks, and thinks life is just fine. Sokka's player joins when he meets the GM at the comic/games shop they both frequent. The GM was buying some sourcebooks and material to support the fantasy martial arts game she's running, and Sokka noticed, asked about it, liked what he heard, and got permission to join the game. What Sokka doesn't realize, because he is a geek and neither has experience with it or realizes it's even possible, is that the GM is sweet on him. This manifests in the character Sokka's canon luck with the ladies, only kicked up a notch. *Every single* female NPC flirts with him, whether it's appropriate or not. Sometimes player Sokka notices and tries to roleplay it, and sometimes he's just plain confused. Sokka has a few quirks. His best set of dice are his Lucky Red Dice, which always roll high when he needs it, but have been tested and proven to be fair dice. He also mandates that every character he plays use a boomerang; he was turned into a geek by the first video game he ever played, a Legend of Zelda title, and his favorite weapon from those games are the boomerang. Each of his characters has a unique, named boomerang.

Zuko- The GM's favorite NPC. She created him to be a compelling, dramatic character, with a complicated back story, moral struggles, badass loner personality, angst about his existence, a darkly noble quality, and a cool scar. The GM intended Katara to get to know Zuko, for her to try to woo him away from the side of evil, and perhaps to even have a romance with him. The PC's, however, couldn't care less about him. To them, he's just another mini-boss, and the fact that most of his character development is happening "off screen" means they don't realize that he's recruitable. A frequent gag is Zuko delivering a stirring monologue while no one pays attention.

Iroh- Background NPC. The GM tries to use him to give (ignored) hints to the players.

Toph- (tentative) A male munchkin gamer who picked a long list of weaknesses in order to get superbending. Toph's player is a friend of Sokka's player, brought in after an "incident" with his old group, and causes some initial resentment in the group when tries to show the n00bs how its done. Cowing Toph's player is a major victory for the GM.

Momo- NPC, but maybe make him a talking sidekick who gives the players hints when the GM is really exasperated?

Azula- the GM's best favorite villain. Azula is the GM unleashed, letting her take out frustrations on the players in both combat and harsh taunting. Eventually the GM comes to like the character so much, she retcons mental health issues into the character's backstory, and has her pet NPC, Zuko, spare her.

[fictionadventurer]

Have you seen the new little women movie? If so what do you think of it?

My initial thoughts on the movie are here. I just rewatched it for the sake of answering this ask. My thoughts can be summarized as follows:

This is a beautiful movie. So much loving focus on the things and the textures. The clothes are extremely Pinterest-and-Hallmark-movie aesthetic rather than anything remotely resembling history, but it’s hard to mind when every character is wearing three different textures and patterns at all times and giving the eye so much to look at. (Also, I was knitting during rewatch, so the knitwear was especially satisfying).

But I’m still not sure it succeeds as a story. Much like the outfits, there are so many different bits and pieces layered together, with different textures and colors that make it interesting to look at, but I’m not sure they come together into a coherent whole. Individual scenes could be good, but it was hard to connect emotionally to any of the characters when the backstory was chopped up into so many pieces.

I found it easier to differentiate between the past and the present this time--I finally figured out that the golden light is for childhood and the blue light is for adulthood. Noticing that also made me like the ending more, which I’ll get to later.

I liked the dancing scenes a bit less. They were a little less joyful and emotionally uplifting than I remembered. I did find it interesting how Jo and Laurie’s dance at their first meeting turns into a sort of silent film for part of it, until Meg intrudes and brings them back into the real world by telling them about her hurt ankle.

I liked the Meg and John story less. Emma Watson just doesn’t seem very motherly or wifely. However, the ending scene of the silk subplot was very touching and one of the few scenes in the movie that showed the self-giving side of marriage.

I still wish there had been more focus on the virtue development part of the plot--the “Meg falls to vanity” scene falls kind of flat because Laurie is just scolding her for...wearing a fancy dress? In a way that makes it seem like he’s just scolding her for being feminine and liking pretty things. We don’t have the context to make it clear that she’s bending her morals for the sake of being liked. The scene does set up a contrast between Laurie-the-moral-guardian and Laurie-living-a-life-of-vain-pleasure in the very next scene, but it’s not enough to make the Vanity Fair scene work on its own.

And why didn’t the movie have more of Mr. March? Let us see the marriage that has shaped the girls’ ideas of what marriage is supposed to be.

I found it interesting that the devoted spinster Aunt March who believes in marriage as a purely economic concern rejected offers to enter Meg’s wedding dance twice. She keeps herself but missed out on the joy.

I found Amy and Laurie slightly more believable as a couple. Though when Amy has the struggle of “marry for financial gain or marry for love”, it’s rather too convenient that the resolution is that she decides she’s really in love with a different rich guy than the one she was going to marry solely for his money.

Beth was a lesser character than I remembered (both in terms of screen time and emotional impact). However, I did like her role in the story far more because she’s kind of key to some of the themes (which I’ll get to in a moment).

I still hate Jo changing her mind about Laurie. It makes her choice of Bhaer seem like she’s settling for second-best.

Now’s the point where I’m going to talk about the themes and the ending. Which was the primary reason I wanted a rewatch--to clarify my ideas about this movie’s message and resolution.

SPOILERS AHEAD. FAIR WARNING TO ANYONE WHO HAS NOT ALREADY BEEN FRIGHTENED AWAY BY THIS WALL OF TEXT.

This movie is about three things: Marriage, Art and Money. Money is necessary to survive. Marriage and art can both be a source of money, but they are also pursuits that should be entered into out of love.

This movie harps and harps upon the fact that marriage is an economic proposition. It’s the most stable way for a woman to get money. She also gets love, ideally. But where the movie falters is focusing so much on the getting part of marriage and rarely on the giving. Laurie wanted to marry Jo because he wanted to get her love. Jo’s “I’m so lonely” scene specifically has her say that she wants to be loved, but not to love--she wants to receive rather than give. I’m not sure there’s any indication that either Jo or Laurie ever give or give up anything when they finally do enter into matrimony. It seems that they just get who they decide they want. Amy gets a rich husband and gets a man who loves her, but what does she ever give up for him, aside from another man who she also did nothing to love?

The silk scene with Meg and John is one of the few times where we see a married couple giving to each other, rather than focusing on what they get out of it.

Art, too, is a love that can be turned toward money, and most of the characters have this out of balance as well. Jo loves writing, but she wants to be seen as good, and she mostly cares about the money that she gets out of it. Amy gives up art completely when she realizes she’s not a genius. “I’d rather be great or nothing” is the exact opposite of doing art for the love of it--what she cared about was getting praise rather than giving something of herself to the world.

Beth is the only one who understands the giving nature of both love and art. She performs for no one’s praise or payment--she plays because she loves music. She’s the one who gives up her time to bring the donations to the Hummels when her sisters are caught up in their own pursuits. When she gets the piano, her sisters are the ones who are caught up in admiring it as a thing, but she runs off (without any of her sisters even noticing, too caught up in the wealth in front of them) to thank Mr. Lawrence because she recognized the love behind the gift.

Jo starts to understand the importance of love within art after Beth dies. We have the lovely scene of Beth encouraging Jo to do her writing for someone--give of her art. When Jo returns to her writing, the camera beautifully focuses on the For Beth at the head of the manuscript--Jo is not writing this for money or praise, but out of love for her sister.

I like the ending much better than I did before. I can see the golden sunlit ending as the “real” end of the story, because I noticed the lighting trick. When Bhaer is leaving the March house, Jo is standing in the blue light, but Bhaer is in the golden light. It’s as if Jo sees that a life with him could provide the same level of happiness that she knew in childhood.

It’s still odd that her family has to convince her every step of the way that she’s “in love”. But because of the lighting trick, I can more easily believe that she really did want to spend her life with him.

That dumb scene with the publisher is what ruins everything. We had Jo writing her book out of love. We had Jo deciding to give Bhaer a reason to stay. But it’s derailed by this weird focus on money. Jo keeps insisting that she’s “selling” her heroine into marriage, and that she’s willing to sacrifice her artistic vision just because this ending is what sells. I feel like if they’d cut out all that stuff about the contract negotiation--which seems only to have been put in because Gerwig wanted to show off this bit of trivia about Alcott’s business acumen--the ending would have been a million times more coherent on a plot and thematic level.

I can believe that the sunlit ending at Plumfield is Jo reaching happiness by giving of herself to others. Everyone is using art to give to others--Bhaer is teaching music, Laurie’s teaching some kind of drama class, Amy’s teaching painting.

The shot of the gold leaf being stamped onto the cover of Little Women, which had seemed like the final stroke saying “this ending is fiction” now seems to be saying that “this is the way the story really ends.” It’s helped by the fact that after Jo gets the book in her hands, we cut to the image of a group of little girls playing pretend--it’s Jo being satisfied in her book not because it’s her achievement or a source of money, but because she knows it will inspire another generation of little girls. Thus we can have Jo achieving artistic and personal fulfillment by publishing the book and teaching at Plumfield.

If it wasn’t for that contract negotiation scene, there wouldn’t even be a question of what the real ending was supposed to be. There’s only one version that shows Jo prioritizing the giving part of art and marriage over any selfish gain, and I hate that the ending muddles it so badly for the sake of misplaced meta-feminism.

[tuiyla]

She-Ra’s like, really good, people

It’s been over a week since She-Ra season 5 came out and I binged it and this is not going to be coherent but I just want to rant about it a bit before writing some more structured metas. I deffo wanna write about Catradora and how I think SPoP is the true spiritual successor to the Avatar.

But first, let me just scream about how good this show is. I already started rewatching it, pretty much straight after finishing it, and I don’t rewatch tv shows often. The exception is Avatar (seen it like 15 times) and sitcoms. But She-Ra is so layered that I felt like I needed to watch it again just to appreciate the dynamics even more.

I already enjoyed the first season but it kept getting better and better. I’m not in love with the art style and it’s definitely for a younger demographic overall than my other favourite animated shows, but like any good kids’ show it balances tone well. It doesn’t talk down to its target demographic but also includes more traditionally mature themes in a digestible and entertaining way. Not all the jokes landed for me but as the series went on I learned to appreciate the tone and the type of humour She-Ra goes for.

It’s funny to me because this is definitely the type of show I would have rejected as a kid, with all the princesses I would have deemed it “too girly” and therefore not for me because screw gender roles. There’s a degree of internalized sexism to that, for sure, a rejection of the feminine because it’s always been seen as less somehow. But there’s also a truth that, at least in my childhood of the late 90s and early 00s, children’s media targeted at girls often had a poor quality to it, at least when compared to “boys’ stuff”.

She-Ra is not only a clever, heartfelt, complex story, it also transcends that binary of having to be either for girls or boys. I know most of modern animation rejects that as well, but She-Ra embraces so many traditionally feminine qualities while also going beyond gender roles and even the gender binary. This show is so queer, man, and I love it. It’s especially impressive when you consider the source material that was literally just the girly version of He-Man. I have no beef with 80s She-Ra, haven’t seen much of it, but this is such an upgrade.

That being said, I would have loved to watch She-Ra as a kid. I’m so incredibly envious of kids, aged around 10, who get to watch this show as they’re growing up. But I am so, so, so happy for them and for the future of animation that shows like She-Ra can be made now, that they’re being made. I’m going to go into spoilers soon, but just before that: She-Ra’s a perfectly enjoyable show in many aspects. I think the worldbuilding’s pretty cool, the story feels coherent and planned out, it’s lighthearted and so genuine. That’s the word that I ultimately choose to describe the series: genuine.

I feel like so much of TV aims to be dark and gritty nowadays, animation included, and though that’s slowly turning to dark comedy or a balance between fun and serious, it’s still the norm. At some point in the last decade, creators became terrified of being judged as cheesy. Even something like the MCU bathes in bathos to avoid being cheesy. But She-Ra proves that creators shouldn’t be afraid of being genuine, of basing characters and storylines on the simple power of love. Like, it’s such a cliché trope but I think that’s mostly because it has become stale.

Noelle Stevenson has talked about the importance of love in her story and I’m so grateful for that. Through, She-Ra, she’s truly proven how powerful love can be in a story and how it doesn’t have to be cheesy. It’s just so unabashedly genuine. The power of love and friendship literally saves the day several times but it’s always so genuine and more importantly it always makes sense that it doesn’t get boring. If the foundation wasn’t there, then I’d say “well this is just super cheesy”. But the show makes a point of building relationships and making them the focal point of the story.

Alright, so, spoilers because I need to talk about character arcs and THAT KISS and just everything. I really need to write more in depth about Adora and Catra and their relationship but for now I feel like it’s so important to appreciate how they’re developed. Everything from their shared childhood to their trauma with Shadow Weaver and the finding their way back to each other, it’s just *chef’s kiss*. It’s so well-written and believable. Ngl, I do have some minor issues with Catra’s redemption arc. Let’s just say that on a scale from Kylo Ren to Zuko, she’s definitely closer to Zuko. I also appreciate Shadow Weaver’s death scene and how it allows them to move on. I didn’t see that one as Death as Redemption and it shouldn’t be. Again and again the show made it clear that she was abuse towards both girls and nothing will negate that.

From what I can tell, the fandom really latched onto Catra, even when it wasn’t clear whether she’d get a redemption arc. I think that’s important, because unlike some characters in animation, Catra’s actions were almost always framed appropriately. There was always an understanding as to where she’s coming from, how she’s acting from a place of hurt, and yet her actions weren’t justified. They weren’t suddenly all okay just because she’s hurt, too. I especially loved in the season 3 finale when Adora was allowed to finally say no, to say that Catra’s actions were not her fault. That season as a whole was beautiful, like, episode three when Adora’s struggling so much and Catra has the opportunity for a better life but she still fails to choose her own happiness because she’s too bitter over SW and Adora? It’s poetic cinema. I love that angst, so well done.

It would be so easy to misfire in Catra’s storyline and either a) write off all the awful things she does because she’s just “misunderstood” or b) irredeemably stuck in her abusive environment with no hope of escape. They balanced quite well there and managed to handle such a complex character with delicacy. I’m quite happy with how Catra was portrayed because on the one hand, she’s painfully relatable to me and I assume to many others. The audience can see their own mistakes reflected in her character because we’ve all been too stubborn, done things out of spite, refused to acknowledge that we were wrong because we were hurting so much. At the same time, I always felt like the show gave me enough space to judge Catra’s actions and acknowledge that she was in the wrong. I honestly think I would have been a better adjusted teenager is if saw this show just before my angsty years, lol.

I’m going to write more about Adora at some other point but I love how vulnerable she’s allowed to be. Protagonists never used to be my favourite characters because they all seemed the same, with two major categories: the stereotypical male hero who can do no wrong or the angsty boi who can be shitty and the text still frames him as awesome. It’s only recently with series like The Legend of Korra and She-Ra that I go “damn, protagonists can be like that, huh.” Adora is a dumb jock who tries so hard and she deserves all the hugs in the world.

Also, Catradora? Breathtaking, amazing, groundbreaking. No doubt She-Ra needed shows like Adventure Time, LoK, Steven Universe and the likes to pave the way but still, it went there. I saw people be anxious about whether they were gonna be queerbaited, but I always, idk, knew? Trusted? That She-Ra would follow through. I didn’t wait six years for Bubbline to happen for Catradora to not get their big damn kiss. The series has been so effortlessly queer from the get-go that it just made sense that they were always heading there. I did see a gif of the kiss before watching s5 and ngl, that spoiler kind of bummed me out in a way that I wanted to be surprised. But even before I saw that I wasn’t worried. And the context of their journey in season 5? That cannot be spoiled by a simple gif. You have to experience that to fully appreciate it and that is the marker of good storytelling.

I understand that, though this should be the norm by now, Noelle Stevenson still had to be smart about how she approached the execs and she wasn’t sure this could happen. I cannot tell you how happy I am about what she said regarding how Catradora was so integral to the story that the execs couldn’t not allow it. That’s so brilliant, and it feels so natural in the story. Queer love saves the day and it’s not ambiguous, it cannot be censored because you lose a part of the story without it. You did it, Noelle, you funky little lesbian, what an icon. I can’t wait to see more stuff from her.

In other news, I appreciated other characters as well, like how all the princesses got to be different and awesome in their own unique way. Season 5 was great for so many characters, Mermista got so much to work with and Spinnerella and Netossa got so much more characterization than in previous seasons. Glimmer continued to be the third most important character in the story and I’m happy about all the relationships that also got to be canon. Good characters and dynamics all around, no wonder since the show is built on that.

Such a satisfying conclusion and one that makes you feel like this is just part one of a much bigger story. Such genuine, heartfelt moments, well-developed characters, complex themes explored in a respectful and digestible way, and such an unapologetically fun show. Melissa Fumero as a side character? Yes please. Catra’s new haircut? Heck yeah! She-Ra’s new design? Oh my.

I’m not even like, super into She-Ra, and I usually don’t write so much about things I only watch casually. But this show is so good and important that I had to rant. And I will write more about it eventually, but for now I needed to get all of this out. I’d give it a better structure but if I really get into I might never end up posting it so for now here, have this ramble of love. She-Ra, of all shows, deserves that.

[panharmonium]

you can be my ride or die: a staggeringly long essay about a deceptively short appearance

(aka, pan’s personal depository of notes about prince william of ealdor.)

now that my fic is long since done and posted, i can finally transfer this monster piece of meta out of my google docs and onto my blog, where it can serve as an unasked-for, absurdly detailed, beginning-to-end analysis of my obscure fave.

(whose line ‘yeah, and i’m prince william, of ealdor’ is still the funniest damn shit i’ve ever heard and also the most shocking burn arthur has ever received; i hope he thinks of it sometimes and remembers that humility is a virtue)

(the BRISTLING DISRESPECT!  the ZERO FUCKS GIVEN!  i love him!  please can someone else talk to arthur like this!  he needs it!)

disclaimer before we begin: i wrote this over a year ago, as a character check for myself during the very early stages of working on my fic.  i kept messily adding bits to it over the course of a couple weeks as i explored what i knew about this character and who i understood him to be, but at the time, i didn’t intend on posting it; it was just prep work for my own story-making.  it’s still essentially just a record of my train of thought as i pieced this character together - i’ve cleaned it up a bit now and added some recent links to make it more coherent, but it was never meant to be a posted essay, just a collection of notes for myself.  

be forewarned, it is more comprehensive than the things i’ve written about this character since, and it goes on for years.  if you are not interested in many, many pages of super heavy in-depth musings about a character who appeared in one episode, now is the time to scroll on by.  i promise i won’t mind in the slightest; i wrote this for my own purposes and don’t really expect people to read it - i’m posting it just to have it archived with the rest of my merlin stuff.

if you are interested in that sort of thing, however - hit the jump, and off we go!

i really love the episode where we meet will, though i’ve started to love it for new reasons since the first time i watched it.

the first time i watched season 1, 'the moment of truth’ was my favorite S1 episode overall, because it was the first time the Fab Four went off on an adventure together, and that was very exciting; and i also loved it because all the character stuff in that episode was so good; and i also loved it because look, all of us are suckers for that classic seven samurai plot, you know - i loved it in TCW, i loved it in the mandalorian, i loved it in merlin.  not gonna get bored of ‘simple farmers defend their homes with pitchforks’ anytime soon.  it is overall just a solid, self-contained plot with clear emotional arcs, and it sticks its landing well.  it’s a simple, strong story.

nowadays, though, i also love it because of will.

i. will whomst?

prince william of ealdor, that’s who!

will straddles a kind of weird place in canon, because he feels like a minor character to the audience but is very much not a minor character for merlin, who has known will much longer than the brief hour we get to spend with him and who has spent his entire life with will as his sole friend.

but, because will only appears once - let’s start with a round-up.  what do we actually know about him?

he’s a peasant farmer from ealdor, like merlin

his father was killed fighting for king cenred (as a foot soldier - these people are not wealthy enough or high-status enough to afford or be accepted into the knighthood)

his mother is either dead or absent

he’s painfully class conscious and doesn’t trust the nobility

he’s a “troublemaker” (the interpretation of which is...well, it’s left to the viewer’s discretion.  fandom seems to jump to ‘fun mischief and pranks,’ though i personally don’t get that vibe from this episode.  “troublemaker” in will’s case seems to mean more “doesn’t know how to keep his head down/can’t go along to get along to save his life.”  it means when he sees something that he thinks is Wrong, he absolutely will not shut up about it even when all his neighbors are sick of him and want him to just let it go.  it means he can’t stop rocking the boat even when rocking the boat makes everybody want to strangle him.)

he supplements his agricultural pursuits with carpentry.  you can see in his house big piles of hewn timber along one wall, as well as a grindstone and a shaving horse, and when he comes out of his house on two separate occasions he’s holding woodworking tools (mallet, chisel, etc)

he knows about merlin’s magic - for how long this has been the case, we’re not told.  it doesn’t feel like a new thing to me, but ultimately that’s guesswork.

he appears to have just one friend

that one friend is merlin

will loves merlin enough to die lying for him

merlin left will behind.

ii. it wasn’t what i wanted

so let’s talk about that.

merlin is asked “why did you leave?” twice in this episode, first by arthur and then by will.  he gives completely contradictory answers to the two of them, and it’s worth remembering, before examining both responses, that one answer is inherently more honest than the other, because merlin is only able to tell the whole truth to one of these people.

so when merlin talks to arthur, it goes like this:

“why did you leave?”

“things just...changed.”

“how?”

*silence*

“come on, stop pretending to be interesting and tell me.”

“i just didn’t fit in anymore.  i wanted to find somewhere I did.”

arthur has to drag this answer out of merlin, and it’s not because merlin doesn’t feel like sharing (i mean, come on, we know merlin; merlin wants to be in everybody’s business and he feeds off human connection like a starving man; he’d be thrilled that arthur was interested in his life) - the problem isn’t that he’s shy; it’s that he’s not exactly telling the truth and he’s trying to figure out how to do it in the least deceptive way possible.

i just didn’t fit in anymore.  i wanted to find somewhere i did.

that’s nice.  

it’s also a lie.  

it’s not a total lie, of course - there’s an element of it that becomes true, after merlin gets to camelot and realizes that working for arthur is “not totally horrible all the time” - that he sort of likes the excitement, and the newness, and being somewhere where nobody knows him and nobody will judge him - but that’s the reason he stays in camelot, not the reason he leaves ealdor.

by contrast, when will asks the question, merlin gives a completely different answer:

“why did you leave?”

“it wasn’t what I wanted.  mother was worried.  when she found out you knew - she was so angry.”

it wasn’t what I wanted.  

can we digest that for a moment?

merlin didn’t want to leave home.  

not that he isn’t enjoying himself in camelot now, of course - which he conveniently doesn’t mention in this conversation, because will is upset with him and merlin feels guilty that he’s been off enjoying his new life while will has been struggling at home alone - but at the point of departure, merlin didn’t want to go.  

his answer to arthur about finding a place where he belonged is certain-point-of-view bunk.  he didn’t just up and decide that he wanted to run off and find a place where he fit in better.  he didn’t leave because he wanted to escape a place he didn’t belong.  he didn’t set off in search of adventure and a new life.  it’s true that he didn’t feel like he fit in in ealdor, but that’s not what sent him packing.  he left because his mother found out that will knew about his magic, and she panicked and sent him away.  

iii. why did you leave

most fannish things i’ve encountered tend to interpret merlin’s departure in a much more generous light than i do, with merlin explaining to will that he’s leaving and will being unhappy about it but eventually understanding and kind of like...giving his blessing before merlin goes.  this is fine, of course, but it did surprise me, when i started dipping my toes into fandom, because i never interpreted events in this episode like that, and i don’t think it’s even a plausible read, not from the conversations we’re actually given.  the antipathy that accompanies merlin’s return doesn’t make sense under those circumstances, and moreover, from the way things actually unfold in this episode, we’re told, in order, the following three things:

1) the fact that will asks “why did you leave” tells us that he and merlin did not discuss it prior to the point of departure.  there’s no other reason for will to ask this question.  everything about will’s tone and body language in this scene indicates that he’s been stewing over this for a long time, that he doesn’t understand, that this is something profoundly difficult for him to address.  and while it might be nicer to think that merlin sat down and discussed things with will before leaving for camelot, that’s not the inference we’re being asked to make here.  

2) there is absolutely no way they wouldn’t have discussed it, if will had known that merlin was going to leave.  like - if your only friend in the world told you they were moving to another country tomorrow, there’s no way “why?” wouldn’t be the first question you asked.  there’s no way you wouldn’t have that discussion, at the most basic level, before separating.  it just wouldn’t happen.

3) so, given that information, the unfortunate, inescapable conclusion is this: will didn’t know merlin was going to leave.  merlin left without telling him.

everyone is free to continue to headcanon this in their own ways, of course.  but this is what we’re actually being told.

iv. we don’t want your kind round here

the fact that merlin vanishes without so much as a word to his best friend goes a long way towards explaining why merlin is so uncomfortable when he first sees will in the street.  

when they first encounter each other, merlin looks so apprehensive and wary, and the writers are playing it like ‘uh-oh, someone saw him use magic and now he’s nervous about it!!!’  but two seconds later, you realize that this can’t possibly be what’s causing merlin’s concern, because it’s made immediately clear that will already knows about merlin’s magic and isn’t going to say anything about it.  

merlin isn’t afraid of being outed, in this scene.  but he might, however, be afraid of the reception he’s going to get, given what we just discussed.

merlin just up and disappeared from home, and not so much as a letter since - we know will’s had a secondhand update, probably from hunith (“how’ve you been?!  i hear you’re skivvying for some prince”) but he very clearly hasn’t had any direct contact with merlin since before merlin left.  

merlin knows this was a big fuck-up.  he feels guilty.

(and to be clear - i think there is a lot to be said about just how merlin’s departure unfolded, and what stopped him from getting in touch.  it’s a complicated enough topic for its own piece, and it’s not quite within the scope of this essay, but suffice it to say for now that i don’t believe it stemmed from deliberate thoughtlessness or callousness on merlin’s part; it’s...deeper and more complicated than that.  honestly, i think merlin looks back on this as like...the first major mistake he ever made in his life, his...original sin, sort of.  and i don’t think he’s ever forgiven himself for it, either, but again, that’s a story for another day.)  the point here is that merlin didn’t necessarily want to cause harm, but he knew that’s what he was doing regardless - he knew that leaving without a word was the wrong thing to do.  and in this moment he feels rightfully guilty about all of it, and he’s afraid that his friend won’t welcome him home.

merlin’s moment of uncertainty is real, when will pretends to greet him with hostility.  merlin is afraid that will is angry with him for leaving him behind.

(and let’s not kid ourselves, will definitely is)

it’s a festering thing that keeps boiling to the surface as we progress through the episode.  it shows in the way will finally asks why did you leave, avoiding merlin’s eyes, the question laden with vulnerability.  it’s in the exchange “are you going to abandon them?”/“what, like you did?”  there’s real pain there, and confusion, lots of hurt feelings.

but.

despite all of that, will doesn’t freeze merlin out, when merlin comes riding back into town.  merlin is rightfully afraid that will might not want to see him, afraid that “we don’t want your kind round here” might be less of a joke than it ought to be.  and while all of the troubles that merlin is worried about are absolutely real and poised to cause friction later, the truth is that at that exact moment, when merlin comes walking up the road - none of it matters.  will has been nursing a collection of hurt feelings for months now, yeah, but in the immediate moment, when it comes down to it - he puts them aside.

they both do.  nerves, guilty thoughts, bruised feelings - they temporarily abandon all of that in favor of a momentary joy.  you can see how excited they are when they reunite.  how they start smiling at the same time.  how they laugh their way into that hug.  they’re so happy to see each other.

people get pretty worked up about ***That Time Arthur Finally Hugged Merlin!!!***, but i don’t know.  i think it matters to remember that merlin had people who knew how to hold him long before arthur was even a flicker of a shadow in merlin’s mind.

v. why are you being like this

so they reunite!

and then they fight. D:

but what really matters is how they fight, because even when they’re having an argument, they never let things escalate quite to the level of interpersonal nastiness, certainly never to the level of cruelty for cruelty’s sake - just a few hard truths and a pile of hurt feelings:

“i trust arthur with my life.”

“is that so?  so he knows your secret, then?”

...

“face it, merlin, you’re living a lie, just like you were here.  you’re arthur’s servant, nothing more.  otherwise you’d tell him the truth.”

the delivery in this scene is essential for understanding how these two interact with each other.  it’s so telling.  merlin and will are having an argument, and will is angry about everything we’ve already discussed, and on top of that, some prince is trying to round up a bunch of will’s neighbors for a fight that’s going to get a lot of people killed, and will sounds so sharp when he’s talking, up to and including the challenging “is that so?”  

but then when he sees that he’s touched a nerve there and merlin knows he’s right, his voice drops those edges and goes gentler, regretful, like - he and merlin aren’t all hunky-dory right now, but he’s not out to rub merlin’s face in it, either.  he’s not trying to “get back” at merlin for leaving him.  he’s not like...happy that merlin’s situation is shitty.  

vi.  if i broke it (would you quit?)

we mostly only see these two in a tense season.  they’re arguing with each other for almost the entire episode, and yet even in this at-odds state, there are little things that remind us of what they’re usually like - that they don’t want to be arguing, that this isn’t a natural at-rest state for them, that this isn’t what they’re used to.  they butt heads, but they keep swinging around back to each other, and trying again, and trying again, and trying again.  they never write each other off.  they keep trying to make it work.  

examples: merlin asking “why are you being like this?,” the implication being that will isn’t usually like this, that this isn’t how they usually act around each other.  the two of them together in the background of arthur’s pitiful training session, coming right off the tail-end of another argument and busying themselves with their own work, but still reflexively hanging in each other’s orbit.  merlin, even in the middle of a strained conversation, helping clean up the mess that the bandits made of will’s house, without asking or being asked, like it’s just the automatic, reflexive, natural thing to do.  merlin using will’s proper name when discussing him with other people, but always the diminutive when they’re talking to each other.  merlin following will every time will walks away; will doing the same when merlin’s the one who’s leaving.  that moment up in the hedgerow, with will’s embittered “you know why,” which sets them to arguing again, except instead of it pushing them apart, it pulls them closer together - will climbs right up into the hedge where merlin is standing so they can sit next to each other and talk.

like.  he’s angry!  but the instinct isn’t to storm away, it’s to get closer.

i love that so much.  i love how they’re starting to have another argument and merlin stands there and says “why are you being like this,” to which will, already upset, responds “you know why,” BUT -

but

will stalks up into that hedge and plops himself down right next to merlin, and merlin, without a moment’s hesitation, sits down beside him.

i love that.  they’re angry with each other, but their first instinct is still to close the distance.

i wonder, sometimes, how much of that is a function of them only having each other.  when you’re on the outs with someone, usually you can lean on your other friends, but what can they do?  it’s different when the person you usually seek out for comfort is the same person who’s pissing you off.  you don’t have anyone else to run to, so you can’t ever really storm off.  you have to learn how to hash things out.  you have to learn how to make it work.  you have to learn not to give up on each other.  

vii. she was so angry

the implied backstory for how merlin actually ended up in camelot is so painfully fascinating and, quite frankly, wrenching to think about, given how this episode eventually ends.

when will asks merlin why he left, merlin tells him, “it wasn’t what i wanted.  my mother was worried.  when she found out you knew - she was so angry.”  this is telling us that merlin’s departure for camelot was directly preceded by his mother discovering that will knew about merlin’s magic.  that is what ultimately prompted her to send merlin off to camelot.  of course there would have been other contributing factors - it’s evident that merlin’s situation in ealdor has always been precarious - but her immediate reason for sending him away was the fact that she found out that will knew about merlin’s magic, and she was angry and afraid to learn that merlin had been lying to her about something that put him at risk.

“i wouldn’t have told anyone.”

“i know you wouldn’t.”

but merlin’s mother didn’t believe that, or she wouldn’t listen to him when he tried to tell her, and she shipped him off to camelot anyway, despite the fact that camelot is arguably more dangerous for merlin than ealdor ever was.

the web of how this played out is such a tangled mess.  is it my fault, thinks will, before the episode even starts, desperately trying to figure out why merlin would abandon him like that.  it’s my fault, thinks merlin, at the end, knowing that if he had used his magic sooner, or come back alone, events would have unfolded differently.  it’s my fault, thinks hunith, realizing that the particular fear upon which she based merlin’s entire departure was utterly unfounded.

merlin doesn’t blame her for it, even though he has reason enough to be angry about it, by the end of this episode.  he understands that she was just trying to protect him.  but the truth of the matter is that she did make a mistake.  she was afraid for him, and she saw danger everywhere, and so she made a misjudgment.  

it’s the miniest of mini-arcs, but it’s there.  at the end of this episode, right after will drops the Big Damn Lie, merlin looks desperately around for the only other person in the room who understands, and the camera rests on hunith’s face for one lingering moment, as she realizes what’s happening.  when she’s exiting the house, there’s a shot where she pauses for a minute on her way out the door, staring back at her son's dying friend, who just offered himself up as a willing sacrifice to keep merlin’s secret safe.  

she and merlin are the only people in the room who understand the real import of that moment, the real meaning of that gesture.  they’re the only ones who know what’s happening, what it really means for will to say “i did it.”

hunith knows she misjudged that kid big-time.

viii. you can be my ride or die

so.  will.

why am i even interested in him?  what is it about this character that makes me want to write about him?

number one: i love him because he’s the only person we ever meet who cares exclusively about merlin.  

everyone else merlin has met up until this point is either a) as beholden to camelot and arthur as merlin is himself, or b) aware of merlin’s “destiny,” which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but does change the way people talk to him and treat him.  

it’s not that merlin doesn’t have people who care about him, but those relationships are not the same as the one he has with will.  merlin is obviously #1 in his mom’s life, of course - but, importantly, even hunith’s immediate reaction to merlin’s uncertainty at the end of 1.10 is to tell him that he has to go back to camelot, that arthur needs him, that he’s “the other side of a coin.”  this despite the fact that hunith has known arthur for all of five minutes and that merlin, in the moment where she talks to him, is in a lot of pain, and maybe it isn’t the most appropriate moment say, ‘hey, you absolutely must devote yourself to that guy i literally just watched lecture you about the evils of magic while attending your (supposedly magical) dead best friend’s funeral.’  

and when it comes to merlin’s camelot network, well - he’s #1 in gaius’s life, too, but gaius also is deeply concerned with the greater good, with the future emergence of albion, with what merlin is meant to become and do.  morgana and arthur - well, they don’t know merlin, first of all (really know him, all of him, the important bits) - they definitely like him well enough, and care about him in their way, but ultimately they’re royalty or pseudo-royalty and they have priorities that go beyond merlin, who, at the end of the day, is still a servant.  gwen comes the closest to being on merlin’s level, but she doesn’t know him-know him either, and as time goes on she gets more involved with the Crown, with arthur, and with the responsibilities all of that brings.  even merlin’s later friends all go on to have other missions - they absolutely all love him, but they all become knights, and they are as concerned about the well-being of the realm and the king as merlin is.  even merlin HIMSELF puts arthur’s life ahead of his own - he defines his worth by how well he can protect his prince.  

but will is the only person we ever meet who just cares about merlin - merlin the regular person, not the servant he pretends to be, or the legend he’s supposed to become.  not the fake, non-magical merlin facade (which is what almost everyone else needs merlin to be before they can condescend to be his friend) and not some destiny-laden figure out of prophecy, either.  will doesn’t know anything about destiny or prophecies.  he’s never needed to know about any of that stuff to care.  he’s always liked merlin.  just merlin.  just as he is.  

that matters.  all merlin ever does in this show is deny himself or be denied of the things every regular human being needs to thrive - love, acceptance, truth, safety.  he constantly puts or is forced to put other priorities ahead of his own interests, to a point where now, by season five, he’s spent years defending a regime that oppresses him, protecting kings who would execute him.  

will, in a display of true-to-character contrariness, upsets that entire narrative, because he does not care one whit about any of the things for which merlin is supposed to sacrifice his life.  will gives less than zero (count them: negative zero) fucks about arthur pendragon, and he doesn’t care about camelot, and he wouldn’t know what “albion” meant if he heard the word.  and it is refreshing - a blessed, beautiful, heartbreaking relief - to see one person in the world who only cares about merlin, for whom arthur pendragon, in comparison with merlin, isn’t the slightest bit important.  arthur isn’t even on the map.  he’s a non-entity.  he doesn’t exist.  

it’s a complete inversion of the way things are supposed to go, in this story.  you know how it goes - arthur is the once and future king, and merlin’s job is to usher in his reign.  "maybe that is its purpose,” gaius says, about merlin’s magic being meant to protect arthur, about merlin being born this way for that particular reason.  it’s merlin’s job to save arthur’s life.  it’s merlin’s job to teach arthur to be a better person, at his own expense.  it’s all for arthur.  i give my life for arthur’s.  his life is worth a hundred of mine.  what is the life of a servant compared with that of a prince?

will delivers the biggest fuck-you to that entire framework, because he doesn’t assess merlin’s worth based on what merlin can do for some random prince on the other side of the border.  merlin’s magic wasn’t purposed for anything, as far as will is concerned.  it doesn’t need to justify itself.  it just is.  it’s just who merlin is.  

and who merlin is has always been just fine.

ix. am i the only one wondering who the hell this is

for will, it’s people like arthur who need to justify themselves.  arthur with all of his power, arthur riding into little villages with his sword drawn, arthur and his bossing around and his “now, merlin!” conversation-interrupting.  will makes no allowances for wealth and couldn’t be less interested in royalty - his frame of reference isn’t you’re the once and future king and merlin exists to prop you up; it’s who the hell are you?  what gives you the right to be here?  what did you do to earn what you have?  

will, like gwaine after him, is acutely aware of the injustice of the reigning social system, and he’s not afraid to throw it in arthur’s face.  he knows that people like himself and merlin and all of their neighbors are unjustly disadvantaged from birth until death, and he knows they’re disadvantaged solely because the people at the top of the social chain are greedy lords who sow no seed but reap all the grain, who do no work but enjoy the greatest rewards, who steal from the people with impunity and call it divine entitlement.  will knows that he and merlin and all of their neighbors are considered no better than plow-beasts or war-fodder, and he knows that there is absolutely nothing they can do to stop the nobility from either taxing them into starvation or sending them off to die in a ditch - which makes him impossibly angry, and, unlike everybody else in his village, he’s not shy about saying so.

will is, at this point, literally the first non-villain to look at arthur and not immediately see some messianic pinnacle of human greatness - which is refreshing, to be honest, and fair enough besides!  he’s evaluating arthur from merlin’s side of things, after all, which nobody - including merlin - ever does, and while i love arthur as much as anybody - for the people’s hero that he could be, and for what he is, sometimes, if not frequently enough - the truth is that he’s not good for all of his people, not yet, and he’s not good for merlin, not the way things stand right now.  

will knows that.  he looks at arthur and sees a guy with a lot of power, who also happens to rule over the the least magic-friendly place in the five kingdoms, to whom merlin needs to lie in order to avoid the executioner’s block, and he sees merlin deluding himself into thinking that this supremely unequal, extremely unsafe situation counts as friendship.  

now, is will’s assessment of the situation a snap judgment based on personal encounters with an unjust social system and very limited knowledge of arthur as a person?  yes, definitely.  are there nuances to merlin and arthur’s relationship that he’s missing?  absolutely.

is he wrong?

not really.  and merlin knows it.

x. friends don’t lord it over one another!

i think about that line every damn episode.

over and over again, it comes back to me.  i hear it every time arthur gets On His Shit and invokes power he pretends not to have, every time i see more evidence of how this supposed “friendship” between him and merlin is inherently imbalanced.  it’s my favorite thing will says in all of 1.10, because it is so true and yet, most of the time, so unacknowledged as a dynamic.

we’re meant to love arthur and merlin together, and we do - i do; i do; when i see those moments that approach true mutual respect and care between them i am as swept up by the potential beauty of this friendship as anyone - but i still think about this line all the time.  it’s not right, the power dynamic between the two of them.  it’s not just about servants vs. royalty, though of course that’s a structural part of how it plays out.  it’s about the fact that, in a real friendship, one person can’t just whip out “you ever say anything like that again, and i swear you’ll join her in exile forever” to shut down a conversation and cow you into silence.  one person can’t just throw you in jail to spend a night “cooling off,” and they definitely can’t arrest you whenever someone levels a random accusation at you.  in a real friendship, it’s not one person who has all the power.  

but when it comes to arthur and merlin, that’s exactly what happens.  arthur gets to decide when he and merlin are and aren’t friends.  arthur gets to call merlin in or send him away.  arthur gets to make all the decisions about when to listen, when to ignore, when to trust, when to believe.  merlin can nudge, encourage, suggest, even defy, but ultimately, when you get right down to it, arthur is the king, and merlin is his servant, a dynamic which is compounded by the deadly particulars of merlin’s situation.  the relationship isn’t unequal solely because of a difference in social class, it’s unequal because arthur literally has the power of life and death over merlin.  arthur could (and would, as far as merlin knows) have merlin executed any day of the week, if he found out who merlin really was.  

that’s why when merlin tries to tell will that arthur is his friend, will snaps, “friends don’t lord it over one another!”  it’s not that you can’t care about someone who has more power than you, and it’s not that you can’t have some kind of relationship with them, but it is not real friendship if you think your “friend” will kill you when they find out who you really are.  it is not a real friendship if you have to pretend to be someone you’re not in order to preserve the relationship.  real friends don’t leverage impossible amounts of power to shut you up when you say something they don’t want to hear.  real friends don’t say things like “you’ll be a friend for life if you do [x thing]” to convince you to lie to their dad while they go out with a girl and thus get you clapped in the stocks three times in a row, and then turn around and show their appreciation by letting people raid and ransack your house multiple times, throwing you in jail at least twice, accusing (and once nearly executing!) your loyal long-serving mentor more than once - among innumerable other issues.  real friends aren’t “you’re my friend when i need you to be, but not when it’s inconvenient.”  they don’t have the kind of power to turn things on and off whenever they want.

i love that will is the only person who ever acknowledges this, across five seasons of this show.  i love that he spits it out immediately, without hesitation, the minute merlin tries to makes things sound better than they are.  i love that he says it unapologetically, to merlin’s face, because he says it for merlin’s sake, after all - the point of saying ‘friends don’t lord it over one another’ is to say ‘that guy doesn’t appreciate you the way you appreciate him/this isn’t reciprocal and he’s taking advantage of you/this isn’t the friendship you want it to be and i don’t like seeing you settle for this.’  will is that friend who watches you interact with someone and then later gets in your business like ‘EXCUSE ME!  I DO NOT LIKE HOW HE TALKS TO YOU!  I DON’T LIKE HOW HE TREATS YOU!'

will knows that merlin deserves better than arthur pendragon, even when merlin himself won’t concede that point.  merlin won’t advocate for himself, so will tries to do it for him.  merlin can try to convince himself that arthur is a real friend all he wants, but will knows what’s up.  he knows.  he knows where this is going, if merlin’s relationship with arthur is allowed to continue on exactly as-is.  will knows, from the very beginning, that this is a recipe for disaster.  

[addendum 2020: speaking from a post season-5 perspective...will understood where merlin and arthur were headed long before even we the audience did.]

xi. friends don’t lord it over one another [reprise]

you know what real friends do do for each other, though?

a) listen - even when they don’t like what the other person is saying

b) care - even when they’re angry

that’s it.  that’s what matters.  

we don’t need more than an hour of watching will and merlin onscreen together to see that this is how they interact with each other.  they’re arguing for most of this episode, and they’re both right, in different ways, but by the time they’ve had it out with one another, they both understand where their own arguments were wrong, too.  they listen to each other despite the fact that they’re angry, and despite the fact that they both have very strong feelings about their respective positions.  they care enough about each other to look past their personal injuries and accept where the other person is coming from.

merlin starts off this episode absolutely dead-set against using his magic to help ealdor, if there’s any chance arthur could find out about it.  but later, before he and will have even officially reconciled onscreen, we can already see that he’s been listening to what will’s been saying, that he’s come around to will’s way of thinking, because he tells his mother “if it comes down to a choice between revealing who i truly am and saving lives - that’s no choice at all,” hearkening back to will’s “are you telling me you’d rather keep your magic a secret for arthur’s sake than use it to protect your friends and family?”  and: “if arthur doesn’t accept me for who i am...well...then he’s not the friend i hoped he was” (you’re arthur’s servant, nothing more.  otherwise you’d tell him the truth.)  

merlin has been listening the whole time, even if he didn’t like what will was saying.

and the same goes for will, too.  he’s (understandably!) bitter about merlin’s situation, about the way merlin left, about the new life merlin built for himself while will was suffering in a confused limbo of abandonment at home - and will also obviously thinks the Farmers’ Resistance is a total disaster, a noble-spun farce that’s going to get good people killed - but even though he doesn’t trust the camelot contingent and couldn’t give fewer shits about prince arthur pendragon specifically, he trusts merlin.  he listens to merlin, even though they’ve been fighting.  he comes back because merlin keeps telling him it’s the right thing to do.

they both listen, even when it seems like they’re just arguing with each other.  and they both acknowledge where the other person was right, even when it means making themselves vulnerable.  will comes back to help his neighbors fight a battle against hopeless odds.  merlin exposes his magic to save people’s lives.  

they teach each other how to do the right thing.  they make each other brave.

xii. you just saved my life

let’s talk about being brave, then.

this kid jumps in front of a crossbow for a guy he doesn’t even like.

can we be clear about that?  will doesn’t even LIKE arthur.  he doesn’t particularly care about him.  he doesn’t accept him as the noble savior of all mankind.  he isn’t interested in defending the nobility, and he certainly hasn’t jumped on the camelot bandwagon.  just because he’s seen that arthur wasn’t planning on sending them all to their deaths without risking his own neck doesn’t mean will is suddenly going to start flying the pendragon crest from atop his house.

but he isn’t going to step back and let a coward shoot another man in the back, either.

arthur’s still a prince, yeah.  arthur’s still sitting at the tip-top of an unjust social system, benefitting from all kinds of privileges he didn’t earn.  arthur’s still a crappy friend to merlin.  heck, two seconds before that crossbow gets fired, arthur’s gone full-on inquisition-mode, interrogating merlin about sorcery, which, given that arthur can just go ahead and have merlin executed with a snap of his fingers, isn’t a great way to earn will’s respect or trust.  

but you know what?  when it comes down to it, will’s automatic, reflexive reaction upon seeing someone in immediate danger is to Get In The Way.  

it doesn’t matter that will doesn’t like arthur.  it doesn’t even matter that he actively dislikes arthur.  will doesn’t even think about it, he just moves.  instinctively.  automatically.  he isn’t going to let anyone standing right in front of him get murdered with their back turned, no matter how much he can’t stand them.  

let’s all take a second to remember and acknowledge something in arthur’s stead, since i’m not sure arthur will do it himself - arthur pendragon would have been dead right there if it weren’t for a dirt-poor peasant farmer from cenred’s kingdom who never had anything nice to say to a prince but still stepped between a pendragon and a crossbow in the name of doing the right thing.  without will, the story would have ended in season 1, episode 10.  albion itself owes its future existence to a young man with no surname who will never be acknowledged or recognized for anything he did, not for teaching the future king a lesson in humility, not for saving the prince’s life, and certainly not for the greatest and most noble move he ever made, because that gesture’s success is predicated upon its remaining a secret.  

this kid saves the entire World That Will Be.  the show would have ended before it ever really began, if not for our man prince william of ealdor.  

merlin knows that, and merlin never forgets it.  but i’m not so sure about everyone else.

xiii. yeah, don’t know what i was thinking

let’s talk about defiance.

this kid is dying, and he’s still full of piss and vinegar.  when arthur says, wide-eyed, “you’re a sorcerer,” will responds, “yeah.  what are you going to do, kill me?”  

what a power move.  what a thing to say.  

that’s not a question.  that is a no-fucks-given, shame-and-blame challenge.  

what are you going to do, kill me?  

merlin uses those exact same words during his confrontation with morgana in 3.02.  when he’s trapped - when he’s cornered and betrayed and angry - he reaches for the kind of defiance he once saw exercised on his own behalf, for a shameless bravery that burned itself into his brain.  for the kind of strength he wants to channel himself.

when it comes to holding your ground in front of the pendragon dynasty, merlin learned from the best.

xiv. and i’m prince william, of ealdor

let’s talk about names.

william: from wil (will or determination) and helm (protection, a helm)

hence the common translation of resolute protector.

which, given the events of 1.10, seems very fitting.

xv. i did it

let’s talk about lies.

because resolute protector rings even more powerfully true when it comes to merlin than it does for arthur.

at the time of this writing, i have four more episodes to watch before i’m done with season 5.  at this point, at the end of the show, merlin’s magic is still a secret.  merlin’s gotten involved in a lot of dangerous situations, risking his life in other ways, but the one danger he’s never had to really confront is the executioner’s block, because none of the pendragons know his secret.

and the reason none of the pendragons know his secret is thanks to our boy prince william of ealdor, who turns his own untimely death into a last-second rescue operation by telling the Biggest Damn Lie of his life and then doubling down on it when merlin tries to tell him no.

will is the one who secures merlin’s next five years of relative safety.  not from all of life’s dangers, of course; no one can do that - but when it comes to merlin’s greatest fear, the worst outcome, the prospect of being dragged out of his home in chains and murdered in front of an ogling crowd for just existing - will buys merlin’s escape from that fate with his life.  merlin remains hidden and unexposed to this very day because will died protecting his secret, because will lied to the prince of magic-hunting and invited upon himself all of the risk and scorn and danger and condemnation that a false confession like that entailed.

i honestly don’t know how to express clearly enough the enormity of that moment.  the momentousness of that gesture.  i called it a bold and tremendous lie in some other post somewhere, and i don’t know how else to capture what it was.  the thought of what it would mean, to be merlin, and to see someone throw themselves on the block for your sake, for your safety and your future and your freedom, when the rest of the world and every message you’ve ever absorbed says you don’t deserve to be safe, you don’t deserve to be free, you don’t deserve to exist.  

it is impossible to overstate how much that matters.  merlin carries that with him for the rest of his life.

xvi: i can’t fight you anymore (it’s you i’m fighting for)

let’s talk about love, okay?

this ep is called the moment of truth, right?  

so here are some truths about will.  in the time that we spend with him, we come to understand that he is the following:

a poor peasant kid with nothing to his name

a kid whose father is dead  

a kid whose mother is either dead or absent

a kid who “people are used to ignoring”

a kid who’s been making his own way through this backbreaking subsistence-farmer’s life with no grown-ups to hold him or help him or listen to him when he comes home at night

a kid who isn’t trusted to protect merlin’s secret, even by merlin’s own mother, whom will has known for his entire life

a kid whose only friend in the world fucked off to the country next door without a hint of warning or any indication that it was something that should matter to either one of them, making will think he misread the only meaningful relationship he’s ever had, because if merlin can just vanish to nowhere and not even bother to send a note, then either merlin wasn’t actually his friend to begin with or merlin was his friend at one time but doesn’t want to be anymore, both of which options are soul-crushing

a closed-off, heavily-armored, hurting kid who’s been unspeakably lonely for the past few months but also angry and ashamed at himself for feeling that way, because how stupid did he have to be, to think that he mattered to someone, that someone would ever want him or love him or need him or miss him, to think that this time would be different, that this time somebody wouldn’t leave him -

and even in this state - even in the midst of all this -

at the moment of truth, he still puts himself on the chopping block.  he still says, “you’ll have to go through me.”

he comes through for merlin.  of course he does.  the irony is bitter and beautiful - hunith sent merlin away precisely because she didn’t trust that merlin would be safe with will knowing about his magic, but in the end it’s will who gives up everything to keep merlin’s secret concealed.

not just to keep it concealed, even - to reverse merlin being outed.  merlin had already been exposed.  the deed was done!  the magic was seen!  it was all over - and then, miraculously, it wasn’t.  what will did was the only way merlin could ever have slipped safely back under the cover of secrecy.

will didn’t have to do that.  he didn’t have to lie about performing magic, and he didn’t have to save arthur, either.  it would have been better for will to let arthur die, in fact, and it would have been better for him to let merlin get caught, too, because ‘maybe then merlin would have to stay here with me’ - but will is so much better than petty revenge.  he’s so much better than anybody ever gives him credit for, merlin excepted.  

the fight will has with merlin doesn’t matter to him, in the end.  it was a complicated situation for both of them; will knows this.  if he weren’t dying now, he and merlin would have talked it out and made up - will knows that, too.  things could have gone a little smoother between them, maybe, and will still thinks going back to camelot is less than what merlin deserves, but it’s what merlin wants, and the mark of truly loving someone is when you want the best for them, even if it means you don’t get what you want for yourself.  so ultimately, when it comes down to it, the truth for will is this: he wants merlin to have a good life.  he wants merlin to be safe.  he wants merlin to be happy.  he wants merlin to be with him, too, but if he can’t have that, it’s no reason to withhold any of the other gifts he can bestow.  if one of those gifts is freedom, if one of those gifts is safety - it’s no choice at all.  

merlin is will’s one good thing.  merlin deserves everything will can give him, as far as will is concerned.

xvii. the only place worth being

this place has been boring without you.

what a thing to tell someone.

what a powerful thing to say to someone whose entire life up to this point has been a litany of ‘there’s something wrong with you,’ ‘you don’t belong here,’ ‘you’re cursed/broken/wrong/unnatural.’  what a dauntlessly loving thing to tell someone whose entire life has been the message ‘people like you deserve to die,’ over and over and over again.

what a singularly beautiful thing it is, for someone like merlin to hear ‘you are what makes this place worth living in.’

xviii: the only one worth seeing

likewise it’s good to see you again.

because it’s not just “it’s good to see you again;” it’s an acknowledgement that merlin is the last person will is ever going to see.  

and will is like, okay.

he’d rather be alive, yeah, but if he had choose - it’s good that it’s you.

xix: the only bed worth sleeping in (is the one right next to you)

the most devastating moment in this sequence, for me, is at the very end, when will confesses fear.

it doesn’t happen until everything else has been taken care of.  arthur’s been fooled, merlin’s been safely shuffled back under the cover of secrecy, everybody’s been taken in by the ruse and sent away, none the wiser  - all the necessary and important business has been dealt with.

only at the very, very end does will’s own predicament rear its ugly head.  only after everything else is done does he even allow himself to feel it.  he’s spent the rest of this sequence making jokes and roasting arthur and keeping it all together, but at the last second, when he falters, he comes undone for the only person he trusts, the only person who understands him, the only person in the world who gives a damn about him.  his defenses come down, in that last moment, for merlin - and it could ONLY be for merlin - when will says, “merlin, i’m scared.”

we don’t need anything else, to understand their relationship.  we’ve seen enough of will by now to recognize that he keeps the world at arm’s length, that even his walls have walls, that this is just not the sort of thing he would ever admit to.  confessions of pain?  acknowledging vulnerability?  never.  he’s not that kind of character.  we know he has a big heart - look at what he’s doing - but we also know he’s had a hard life.  he’s wrapped himself in layers upon layers of protection - snark and anger and deflection and sarcasm and still making jokes at the prince’s expense after being shot in the chest - nobody is allowed to see him open and undefended, never.

except merlin.

will is dying.  he is so young.  he has been so alone, for so much of his life, and he’s so young, and he’s dying.  he clutches for this lifeline like it’s the only thing he has, because it is the only thing he has - merlin is his only friend.  merlin is the person will loves best in the whole world.

merlin, i’m scared.

that is so unbelievably vulnerable.  that is so utterly naked.  that is totally defenseless, exposed, belly-up and barethroated under someone else’s burning gaze.

that is absolute trust.  will would never have said that in front of anyone else.  he would never have allowed anyone else to see him like that.

his confession is, like pretty much everything else he ever does, for merlin alone.

xx. your heart is on my sleeve

merlin, will keeps repeating.  merlin.

how much do you have to love someone, to make their name your last words?  how much do you have to care about someone, for that to be the only thing you can think to say, again and again, in your last terrified moments on this earth?

that’s a rhetorical question.  

i know how much.

xxi: i missed you too

i think, sometimes, about will, when i watch the later seasons of merlin, and about how he would feel if he could see what merlin’s life has turned into.

i sometimes wonder how he would feel, if he could see how merlin allows himself to be passed over, disbelieved, disrespected.  if he could see how merlin has started to define his worth in terms of how well he is able to protect Some Dude who doesn’t even know who merlin is, who keeps people like merlin trapped in the shadows of subjugation, hidden citizens in their own kingdom.  if will could see how merlin has laid his entire life down for other people’s enrichment, if he could see how little hope merlin now holds for his own happiness, if he could see the way merlin in S5 has given up on his own liberation -  

i don’t have to guess what will would say about it.  i know how he would feel.  if will could see merlin in season 5, his raging little heart would break.

i wish he were here to tell merlin exactly what he thought about it.  merlin does all this self-sacrificing for the sake of his “destiny”; whereas will would think that any destiny making merlin this miserable was a steaming pile of trash.  will would tell kilgharrah to get lost, and to take his questionable advice with him.  will would tell arthur to fuck off - he’s done it already, in slightly less explicit terms.  

does that mean i truly think merlin is supposed to abandon his mission and ditch camelot and run off to live his own life?  no.  merlin cares too much about making the world a better place to be truly happy with that kind of existence; he wants to change things for the common good; he wants to help the people he cares about.  but merlin, as he tries to fulfill his mission, is desperately missing will’s kind of support in his life.  merlin needs someone who is only here for him.  he needs someone who is going to get up in his face and remind him, “you matter.”  he needs someone to tell him, “you deserve better than this.”  he needs someone who isn’t afraid to tell destiny to fuck off, when telling destiny to fuck off is in merlin’s best interests.

merlin needs someone who is on his side.  

not camelot’s side.  not albion’s side.  not arthur’s side.  

HIS side.  merlin’s side.

xxii: he still is

the thing about will, then, for me, is this: i can’t minimize him.

i can’t do it.  i can’t diminish that part of merlin’s life.  

i don’t think it’s possible to overestimate his importance, frankly.  merlin, when we meet him, has only ever had two people in his life.  that is such an...unfathomable experience, for many of us.  just two people.  just two people to know you.  just two people to love you.  just two people, for your whole life.

will wasn’t just some friend.  will was half of merlin’s world.

fannish pursuits that i have seen...the things where will appears are already so limited, and of course that’s completely understandable - it’s not like he’s a main character, or even a side character, by any means; i totally get that.  but - so much of what i see is him serving solely as a set-up for merlin/arthur, or otherwise being shoved out of the way as soon as arthur shows up on the scene, or showing up only to be a receptacle for discussion about arthur and merlin’s developing relationship - even will and merlin’s own ship tag is 90% merlin/arthur fics.

and there’s nothing wrong with this, ultimately; everybody should continue to write exactly what they want and enjoy exactly what they want; that’s the fun of fandom.  i mention these things here only because for me, personally, the whole point of will’s character is that merlin’s life is bigger than just arthur.  the most important relationship merlin had for most of his life had zip-zero-nothing to do with arthur pendragon, and it still has zip-zero-nothing to do with arthur pendragon, after will is dead.  

you remember will’s funeral at the end of 1.10?  arthur has an entire conversation (a horrible one, fyi) with merlin, and merlin doesn’t look at him once.  he answers arthur’s questions because he has to, but his eyes never once leave the pyre in front of him - not while he’s listening, not while he’s talking, not once.  not ever.  arthur comes, arthur chastises, and arthur goes, all without being granted so much as a glance, because this isn’t about him.  this is none of his business.

the whole point of will is that it is possible for someone to love merlin and not give a tinker’s cuss about arthur pendragon.  the whole point of will is that having someone love merlin without caring about arthur pendragon is, in fact, a good thing.  merlin needs somebody like that in his life.  he struggles when he doesn’t have someone like this around to advocate for him.  just look at where he is in season 5 - look at what his life has become, when it’s been years since he had an in-the-know friend.

merlin suffers when he loses this kind of support.  it’s easy to say that will is never mentioned again after 1.10, but there are real reasons why merlin wouldn’t be willing to explicitly mention him, and the lack of explicit references doesn’t mean we can’t still see him, if we pay attention.  we see the immediate impact of his death in merlin’s attitude shift in 1.11.  we see him in 2.02, when merlin names his fake tournament knight sir william and spends the rest of the episode roasting arthur to within an inch of his life.  we see him in the season 3 opener, when morgana levels her sword at merlin and the first thing that pops out of merlin’s mouth is “what are you going to do, kill me?”  we see him in gwaine’s intro episode, when merlin immediately cleaves to this class-conscious ‘people get sick of me too quickly’ stranger whose father was killed fighting one of the king’s wars.  and his absence is felt, more generally (as is lancelot’s) in how quickly merlin’s life starts to spiral out of control once the only two honest friends he ever had are gone.  their loss doesn’t have to be explicitly referenced for us to understand that merlin, without that kind of support system, is faltering.  we see it happening with our own eyes.

[edit, post-viewing-of-S5-finale: and we see where it eventually leads, too.]  

so, once again, as i said - i can’t minimize this character.  i can’t overstate the positive impact of merlin having somebody who was here for him and only him, who affirmed merlin’s value independently of arthur pendragon’s fate, who knew and loved merlin without caring about a “destiny” that ultimately, in the end, turned out to be a cruel joke made at merlin’s expense.  

if will had lived, i’m not sure we would have ended up in quite so dark a place.  we might have landed in some other tight spot, sure, but i can tell you one thing for certain - will would not have sat quietly by and allowed merlin to throw his life away, not for camelot, not for arthur, and certainly not for a parade of empty promises.

xxiii: where you are, there i’ll be

the bottom line is this.

merlin spent the first two decades of his life with one friend.

one.  

loved by one friend.  

one.

merlin had his mother, who was there for him from the beginning, whose love was unconditional, who was an “of course.”

and he had will, who chose merlin, who kept choosing merlin even after merlin told him the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Secret.  will’s presence in merlin’s life is the only reason merlin grows up believing himself to be deserving of love from people who aren’t his own mother.  his presence in merlin’s life is the only reason merlin knows how to have and be a friend.  his presence in merlin’s life is the only reason merlin is who he is - a merlin who’d spent his entire life without a single friend would not have been the same confident, optimistic, gregarious person who later walked into camelot and told arthur pendragon, “i’d never have a friend who could be such an ass.”

will mattered.  we don’t talk about him much, because he only appeared in one episode, but it wasn’t “one episode” for merlin; it was closer to twenty years of companionship, of elbows in ribcages and smirks exchanged across the room and someone to natter on at, a person to sit next to and walk beside, in every season and all sorts of weather.

will chose merlin, and he kept right on choosing him, until he breathed his very last breath.  that is enough for me to love him, to feel grateful that he existed.  i don’t care how rough he is around the edges.  i don’t care that he hates arthur pendragon’s guts, that he has a big mouth, that he speaks out of turn, that he has no tact, that he can’t suffer fools, that he has a chip on his shoulder the size of a minor planetoid and wings it at people’s heads when the mood is on him.

he loved merlin.  actual, magical merlin; merlin as he truly is, merlin in all his gifted, unnatural, beautiful imperfection.  

that is a desperately rare thing.  that is worth celebrating.

[gascon-en-exil]

I suppose you can call me "villain Dimitri anon" now, but I actively dislike Azure Moon for the narrative perks that you and other fans insist it has, but I can't see. What back and forth does Dimitri have with his retainers that aren't confined to supports? There's just Gilbert, Rodrigue, and Byleth ignoring the one-eyed elephant in the room.(1/2)

What support network does Dimitri have? A bunch of badly abused subjects at the end of their rope who don't have the guts to abandon him or give him a wake up call. Dimitri's redemption in the rain makes zero sense as the scene progresses, and outside of some lip service in a support, he's so cured of any trauma that not even getting the truth about Duscur fazes him. What's worse, this redemption is the main idea of the route. (2/3 now)

The back and forth is in reference to how the army in AM feels directionless and disagrees on whether they should liberate the Kingdom or rescue Rhea first. This gets references both in story cutscenes and in the exploration of dialogue of numerous characters, heavily reinforced by many of these same characters remarking on how off-putting Dimitri’s behavior is. This stands in contrast to CF never questioning Edelgard’s actions even as they’re far more systemically terrible with the work of Hubert and the Agarthans behind the scenes; even VW offers a number of scenes and exploration content of characters questioning and critiquing Claude’s actions. Felix’s mini-arc outside his support line with Dimitri is the clearest example, because he’s the loudest voice of opposition and because if you trigger their supports some of the dialogue changes to reflect that, while Rodrigue plays a predictable but workable role as the doomed mentor figure whose death forces Dimitri to confront how his obsession with revenge is hurting the people he loves.  This is all unfortunately somewhat undermined by Byleth’s presence and the need for self-insert romance, with them supplanting Dimitri’s established support network and worst of all leading to Dedue being killed off by default and then never re-integrated properly into the story lest his intimacy with Dimitri pose an obstacle to the expected lord/Avatar romance (that can’t even be pushed in the same way that Edeleth can in all routes, incidentally, because Dimitri can’t S rank m!Byleth). This is a genuine problem in AM, but curiously it’s one that I see brought up almost exclusively by fans of Dimitri and his route rather than those who hate AM and/or rail against Dimidue as an allegedly racist pairing.

None of the other Blue Lions gets a single meaningful word in in the main story cutscenes. You can get some character development for Ingrid, Sylvain, and Felix in monastery dialogue and DImitri's supports and that's it. Not to mention, gameplay-wise, dealing with Dimitri is just no fun, and there's no choice to get fed up and leave. With all of Crimson Flower's problems, at least you had to actively choose to go on that route. (3/4 now)

I wouldn’t say that’s all that different from how the other routes handle their chorus of minor characters, especially CF which again minimizes any sort of friction the Eagles might have with Edelgard even when she’s outright lying to them. There’s a reason that SS is sometimes cited as a better characterization showcase for the Eagles other than Edelgard and Hubert, particularly for Ferdinand who actually gets to be the contrarian #3 on that route. Gameplay is more subjective, although I’d rank being unable to instruct Dimitri or have him engage in monastery activities for four calendar months is more than offset by CF being exactly that many months shorter than AM or VW. Also, in terms of building characters Gilbert is far, far less of a pain in the ass than Jeritza, and I say that as someone who’s painstakingly gotten every character in the game to all ranks at S+ and all classes mastered over many NG+ runs. Having to pick CF is also an inconvenience that screws with the flow of Chapter 11 since you need to waste a battle weekend going to Edelgard’s coronation lest you miss out on instruction weeks or later weekends doing it at the start of the month. It’s kind of a moot point to argue about this anyway as the Deer have it the best when it comes to unit development, with neither of these restrictions as well as the longest route and no Part 2 exclusive to worry over.

Crimson Flower had a "big picture" war story, Verdant Wind had good character balance and exposed the truth about the player character. Azure Moon was just all DImitri. Not to mention, my own political philosophy and real-world history interests make me biased against Dimiri and his stance. (And no, I'm no fan of dictators, just not of a fan of Fearghus-style feudalism) (4/5)

I do like redemption stories. But I've seen them done better elsewhere. Dimitri's character is interesting, but his route isn't. All routes on Three Houses have problems that I nitpick about, but as thing stand, I can support Claude and Edelgard in achieving their ideals, i cannot in good conscience support Dimitri as king. Nurse him back to sanity, maybe, but put him in charge of other people's lives? No. (end)

Eh, SS is the route you’re looking for if you want the full story of Byleth’s origins and their connection to Rhea; VW’s endgame exposition dump is more about the true origin of Crests and Relics and general worldbuilding which is why I’d call it the big picture route over CF which kicks one of its major antagonists to an offscreen postgame. I also question why you single out the quasi-feudalism of Faerghus when that’s the established standard for all of FE and for most of the fantasy genre overall. Fire Emblem is notoriously reactionary when it comes to its politics, such that Dimitri’s solo ending suggesting the beginning of a participatory government might be the single most concrete move toward democracy of any lord in the series. Even as tiny a step as that is it’s more than can be said for Edelgard not delivering on her rhetoric of abolishing the nobility and...whatever she plans for the church (since she vacillates on whether she’s fine with the Seiros faith but only takes issue with the church or whether she thinks humanity has no need for gods, and the only CF ending that re-establishes the church has it run by the state which is some prime dystopian stuff). Claude similarly suffers in that his plans remain ongoing at the end of VW and lack any concrete shape beyond opening the borders and forcing people of different nations and cultures to interact and get along - a well-intended idea, but not one that will lead to serious change without a lot of work and oversight. 

Dimitri lacks such grandiose ambitions, and once he’s moved beyond his need for revenge his goals center around alleviating the suffering of the Kingdom and of his loved ones, but on a meta level that’s kind of all he needs to do. One of the reasons that AM’s story structure is more coherent and well-paced than that of the other routes is that it’s extremely well-trod ground for IS: “blue lord takes back invaded homeland from red emperor with the Power of Friendship” is the standard FE plot going back all the way to Marth, and Dimitri’s biggest deviation from that model is the somewhat realistic depiction of his struggles with mental illness. That’s probably why many longtime veterans of the series favor AM, because we know it’s the type of narrative IS excels at and we’re not expecting anything more politically revolutionary. Hell, the proto-democratic ending was as unexpected to me as Dimitri’s strong queer notes...which is why I prefer him over the other two incidentally, not because of his politics which are just fantasy boilerplate of a good king being restored to his throne, and there was much rejoicing, etc. There are gender-based readings of AM that I and others have made, not to mention people who enjoy the homoromantic push and pull of Dedue and Felix on Dimitri and how those relationships develop against one another, and I think it’s telling that those unconventional analyses of Three Houses’s most typical lord and most typical route are still more plausible than all the additional motivation and setup you’d have to throw in to make Dimitri a proper villain, or even just an antagonist for the length of more than one chapter.

[brightbeautifulthings]

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

"'What if sometimes there is no choice about what to love? What if the temple comes to Mohammed? What if you just love? without deciding? You just do: you see her and in that instant are lost to sober account-keeping and cannot choose but to love?'"

Year Read: 2014, 2020

Rating: 5/5

Context: It's hard to know where to begin writing a review for this book. I read it for the first time in graduate school in about five weeks (alongside everything else I had to do in grad school, so I don't recommend that), and it basically blew my mind. At the same time, it's hard to imagine tackling it any other way for the first time. Despite its difficulty, there are things obsessive and immersive and, appropriately, even addictive about it. Full immersion might be the only way to read it for the first time, and I obsessed about it for months afterward. Since I'm not on any deadlines, I took it more slowly this time (21 weeks) so I could enjoy the writing and the nuances without the pressure to finish. For my less coherent weekly updates in real time, see my blog posts. Trigger warnings: Everything, everything. Death (on-page), child death, animal death, suicide, suicidal ideation, rape, pedophilia, possible incest, child abuse/abusive households, graphic violence/gore, eye horror, severe injury, drug use, addiction, alcoholism, mental illness, depression, OCD, grief, racism, ableism, transphobia, sexism, inexplicable hostility toward Canadians.

About: If it's difficult to know how to write a review, it's equally hard to describe what Infinite Jest is about. It's about so many things, tennis, addiction, communication (failures), and entertainment among them, but I'll do my best. Beneath all the numerous characters, timelines, and subplots, the main plot is about a film so entertaining that it kills anyone who watches it, robs them of all desire to do anything but watch it until they die, and what a faction of Canadian assassins will do to possess it. The auteur is James Incandenza, a suicide whose son, Hal, is a prodigy at Enfield Tennis Academy. Next door to E.T.A. is Ennet House, a drug rehabilitation center where Don Gately, former thief and Demerol addict, is taking it day by day to stay sober. Though they don't know it, Hal and Gately are connected, and the deadly Entertainment and those who seek it draw their paths closer and closer together.

Thoughts: It's rare to find a book that is actually as smart as it claims to be, but IJ is--certainly much smarter than I am, despite all my attempts to make sense of it. It starts off strong and doesn't let up for several hundred pages, which is a huge achievement all by itself. Wallace excels at writing extremely polished sections that could almost function alone as short stories, and the first chapter is one of my favorites in all fiction. It's reassuring, I think, to start the book off on a strong note, in case we worried we were in for a thousand pages of tedious slog. It can be both, but it's often heartfelt, insightful, and funny as well, and the payoff is well worth the effort. I don’t know how Wallace manages to pack every page with so much meaning. Anybody can put tedious lists in their books or make reading purposely difficult (and I have attitude about writers who do this for no reason), but there’s nothing haphazard about this book, despite its size and varied focus. Everything seems utterly intentional. The conversations are really top-tier; Wallace has a great ear for how people talk, and it's a fascinating look at how communication works and doesn't work.

Thematically, I think the book succeeds on more than any other level, including plot or structure. If we could say this book is "about" anything, we would almost certainly start with the themes and not the plot, which is often secondary to whatever point Wallace is trying to make at the moment. It takes an in-depth looks at things like addiction, depression, loneliness, failed communication, sincerity v. irony, critiques of postmodernism and metafiction (while being very meta itself, at times), and the very specific selfishness of an American culture that insists on freedom even to the point of self-destruction. At times, it feels a little heavy-handed or like it was yanked right out of an intro to philosophy course, but I suppose something in a thousand pages has to be obvious if we're ever going to pick up on it. A lot of these themes resurface in his other work, from "This is Water" and "E Unibus Pluram" to Orin Incandenza's Brief Interview style Q and A (and he would be a perfectly fitting character in that book).

The characters are some of my favorites in literary fiction as well, particularly the Incandenza family and Don Gately, and to a lesser extent Joelle Van Dyne (although Wallace typically doesn’t write female characters very well, and she comes with some issues). Hal and Gately couldn't be more different; Hal excels at everything he's ever done, and Gately has a record that includes accidental homicide on it. Hal is the hero of non-action, since little that happens in the book is engineered by him, while Gately is closer to the more typical hero of action, who defends the undeserving at great cost to himself. Yet their struggles with addiction are similar, and they both manage to be incredibly sympathetic characters. In my opinion, the book is always at its best when we’re with Hal or Gately, but I’m strongly driven by good characters. Despite being dead, James Incandenza's presence is also felt all over the book, from the Entertainment he created to his haunting ETA and sticking beds to the ceiling (probably the weirdest ghost I've ever seen in fiction). He's a tragic character in a book full of tragic characters. The others are too numerous to name, from the other tennis players at ETA and recovering addicts at Enfield, to the various bystanders populating Boston. We get brief glimpses into almost all of them, and while they may not all feel relevant at the time, most are memorable or heart-wrenching or slapstick funny, or all three. It's a book that contains multitudes.

That's not to say it's always on point though, and it isn't. There are a number of very serious problems with representation in this novel, and they're as bad as its detractors claim. A lot of the 90s humor aged very poorly, but that's not an excuse for some of the unabashedly racist depictions of African Americans, the uncharitable descriptions of Steeply's and Poor Tony's cross-dressing, or--however much I love him as a character--the fact that Mario Incandenza’s descriptions are ableist in just about every possible way. Wallace thinks he's capturing "voice" when he's really encouraging harmful stereotypes. The humor of the novel often doesn’t depend at all on these stereotypes and would in fact, be a lot more funny if I wasn’t spending so much energy cringing at it. So many of the little racist and ableist asides could have easily been edited out of the entire novel to make it less offensive. There are also sections where he seems at pains to be as gross as possible for its own sake. There are plenty of things grim or uncomfortable or flat out distasteful about this book, but sometimes the graphic violence kind of jumps out and stabs you in the eye, say, with a railroad spike.

If there are times when I was totally absorbed in the little tragedies of the Incandenza family or Gately's struggles, there are plenty more where it's like pushing something heavy up a hill. No lie, some of it is slogging through tedious minutiae and various experimental writing styles (some more successful and less offensive than others). Wallace has a gift for purposeful tedium; it’s at its peak in The Pale King, but he gives it a nice warm-up round here. The novel is difficult and meant to be, since Wallace maintained that some of the best pleasures are the ones we have to work for, and he's not totally off base. There's something very satisfying about living, for a time, in a book that spans a thousand pages, that demands focus and perseverance, and manages to give back (almost) as much as it takes. The book is always structurally interesting, but it starts to get more complicated toward the end as various characters and plots begin to almost slide into one another. I forgot how frustrating it was to near the end and realize--again--that it wasn't going to wrap up with any kind of satisfaction; the various plots slide, but they don’t meet. I thought if I paid closer attention on a second read that I would pick up more of the plot things I’d missed on my first, but I think the problem is that those answers simply aren’t to be found in the actual text. Of course, they can point us toward various conclusions, and the novel certainly encourages us to speculate and make connections, but I don’t think the actual answers are there.

That brings me to some of my final thoughts, for now. There's no doubt that this is a hugely successful book, and I believe it accomplished exactly what Wallace meant it to do. He jokingly referred to it as a failed entertainment, much the way Jim considered his lethal Entertainment a failure, but I have the sense that Wallace, unlike Jim, failed on purpose. The book purposely pays more attention to structure and theme than it does to plot or character, yet the plot and characters are hugely compelling for what we see of them. Imagine the book it could have been if he had paid equal attention to all of them. Wallace attempted to create a book that people wouldn't want to stop reading. Reaching the end certainly encourages us to begin again, as the first chapter is actually the last in chronology, but that trick only works the first time. By my second read, I realized that starting over wouldn't help me fill in any of those blanks or answer any of my questions, and I was content to let it go. On the one hand, IJ depends upon its structure to tell the story it's telling. On the other, think of the book it could have been if it spent more time telling a story and developing its characters and less time belaboring a point. It's one of the best books I've ever read, and the tragedy is that I think it could have been even better.

[thefools-journey]

To the Developers of The Arcana Game:

Warning, this isn’t going to be very nice. I will keep the swearing and personal attacks off this post but this is not going to be nice. Sorry, not sorry. I am a Portia fan first, a Devorak fan second, and ‘good storytelling’ fan all around. And I am not happy.

It has come to my attention that the lead writer of Portia’s route has released a tweet begging people to play her route, saying that it isn’t breaking even and that its completion is being threaten due to low fan interest.

Good.

It pains me as a Portia fan to say that but it is exactly how I feel. Good. I hope it doesn’t get finished, if what we have gotten the last two books is indicative of the final product.

Also, how dare you.

How. Dare. You.

I don’t even know where to begin at this point. Let’s start with this letter. You, Arcana devs, you are the reason that Portia’s route is failing, not the fans. Before the secondaries started, Portia was just as popular and just as anticipated as the boys, if not more so. You were the ones who squandered that enthusiasm. It has been obvious for books now that her route is generating less attention. That’s months and months of real time feedback. Yes, not all routes are going to appeal to all people. But. You saw she was struggling and rather than put a tenth of the attention, effort, and advertising into her that you put into Lucio or Muriel, you let the situation continue. You had options for dealing with the situation. Remember how you ignored her recent birthday? Remember how you just delayed her book in favor of Lucio’s without explanation? Remember how many posts on your twitter and BtS stuff go to Muriel and Lucio, not her? Remember how her brother is one of the most popular characters period and how you didn’t use that to her route’s advantage, either in advertising or story line? Remember how you decided to create all these extra backgrounds and new sprites when you knew she was struggling to “bring in revenue” and that she “wasn’t breaking even”?

No, wait, I take that back. 

Instead of letting the situation continue, you actively sabotaged her route for the few fans who were reading and enjoying it. Remember what you guys did with the Death book? Remember that big huge twist you spoiled in random newspaper clippings less than two days before you released the book? Remember that? Let me tell you, I still do. I remember being insulted that this route, alone of all the others, was spoiled so heavily in a bid for attention. The last two books in particular have been a mess.

No, seriously, let’s talk about them. It’s very, very clear from the decline in writing quality, which went from a very thoughtful, tightly focused story on Portia and the mundane, common folk of Vesuvia to an LSD trip less coherent than Alice in Wonderland, that major portions of her story were changed or just dropped in a bid for fan attention. Don’t believe me? I have an entire 3000 word meta-analysis on Portia’s route, character, and themes up through Book 13 over here. You’re welcome.

The most obvious and egregious example of changes forced into the route for attention is the masquerade dress introduced in Book 14. Why in the Star’s name would you add that dress in that manner in that context? Why would Portia, of all people, care about a pretty dress when the palace just got blown up and her brother was still missing? Why would Nadia care about said dress when her entire family has vanished? Why is Portia actively changing into a dress she acknowledges in text is beautiful and bulky and not made for running around in when she’s going to be running around the city? And to top it all off, if you had to have her in the dress, why in the High Priestess’ realm would you not give it to her after her bath scene where it makes sense? No, seriously, think about it. Portia wearing her new fancy dress to her aunt’s pre-masquerade party makes sense, not finding it on the cottage stoop. It’s a nice contrast and parallel to the outfit she was wearing for Tasya’s bribery dinner. Portia not changing out of the dress makes more sense than Portia changing into the dress.

That is only one example. I can pick out any number of out of character moments or pacing issues from this last book especially, and oh boy I will have a huge post on that, but here, have a few little things I noticed. Why was the cliffhanger from 14 not resolved at the beginning of 15? Why did we waste a quarter of the book finding Muriel for no reason? No, seriously, I love Muriel but he has no bearing on Portia’s story, much like Portia barely features in his or Lucio’s books. Why did Lucio reappear off screen? Why did Asra’s characterization and reactions flip flop from line to line? One moment he’s worried about Muriel, the next he wants to chase butterflies? What? Why was there no sense of urgency to anything the characters did or said since Temperance started? 

Also, perhaps most importantly, Book 15 is The Devil. Where was the Devil? Where? Where was Tasya? This is the rising action to the climax, writers. You know better than this. Everyone knows you know better and are better than this. We know you know better than this because Muriel’s route has a very similar scenario with damage to the palace and caring for refugees and it does miles better than Portia’s. We know you know better because this decline in quality has only appeared here, in the least popular route’s desperate search for attention, and has largely remained out of the more popular routes.

Here’s the gist of the situation, Arcana devs.

Once upon a time, not too long ago, I defended Portia’s route and explained how wonderful it was. I was so invested in her and where her story was headed. I defended it against complaints that it was boring or too similar to the primary routes or that nothing was happening in it. I didn’t care about the other routes because I was getting everything I ever wanted out of the game from her route alone. I even held off writing about my disappointments with Book 14 just in case that was a one time bump in the road. It was not. So now I speak.

I am glad that your mad scramble changes failed to generate any new interest in her story line. 

I’m glad because you stripped all the character arcs, themes, and meanings from the first half in exchange for fan service and attention in a last ditch gamble which thus far has failed.

I’m glad because now, maybe, you’ll look at this situation and realize exactly where you went wrong.

After all, the Star is a card of clarity and truth. 

-Mod Telos

[hamliet]

Reflections of Su XiYan in Scum Villain’s Female Characters

I did not realize it was MXTX ladies week until yesterday. :( So I want to do a post/meta on the amazing women in each novel (not without critique), so let’s start with MXTX’s first one!

Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, which while it may have more obvious narrative flaws than TGCF or MDZS (it sets up some plot points it kinda drops later, whereas TGCF and MDZS pretty much maximize every single aspect of potential), I actually think is just as rich, clever, and coherent thematically as MXTX’s latter two novels.

The plot points that are dropped, though, are actually almost entirely related to the set up the female characters as deconstructing the idea that they were just things for Original!Luo BingHe to collect. While it does do this to an extent with Su XiYan, Ning YingYing, and Sha HuaLing, it kinda… dropped the arcs halfway through for Ning YingYing and Sha HuaLing, and sets up but never really begins Liu MingYan’s and Qin WanYue’s. 

Su XiYan’s arc, though, despite it taking place in the past and being told to us, is entirely about refuting the role the men in her life ascribe to her... and all of the other female characters--all members of Original!Luo BingHe’s harem--represent a part of her. You could get, like, really Oedipal if you wanted to, but I’d rather not beyond simply saying it’s a pattern in stories that is definitely present here. Aspects of her story and character are reflected in each of the women who are love interests in Proud Immortal Demon Way. 

Our first refutation of how men treat and categorize Su XiYan is through her foiling with Ning YingYing. 

Shen Yuan notes that Shen Jiu sexually harassed Ning YingYing:

the original Shen Qingqiu had designs on Ning Yingying... [he] had dirty thoughts towards his lively and well-behaved disciples. Several times he tried to lay hands on them and almost succeeded at that.

Which is what the Old Palace Master did to Su XiYan:

He turned to focus his stare on Luo Binghe’s quietly sleeping face... nThe Old Palace Master gazed at him for a long while then sighed: “When you close your eyes, you resemble her the most. And also when you’re being cold.”

His eyes traveled over Luo Binghe’s face greedily. If he still had hands, he would have reached out to fondle as well.

However, the Old Palace Master never got anywhere with Su XiYan, because she fell in love with someone else and thereby refutes the idea that she’s his tool. In the original, Ning YingYing is rescued by Luo BingHe in the original. In the novel, Ning YingYing’s arc is about her discovering self-sufficiency. She doesn’t need rescuing from Luo BingHe; she can rescue herself, as is shown when she leads Ming Fan and the other disciples into a fight to protect Shen QingQiu’s honor after his arrest. When someone slaps her, she slaps back, twice--but Shen QingQiu gives her the energy. I would have liked (and think her arc was heading towards) her to grow to be competent on her own as well. 

Next, Sha HuaLing.  

Sha HuaLing represents TianLang-Jun’s assumptions about Su XiYan: that she was a deceptive seductress who would betray him for her own desires. However, in reality, like Sha HuaLing does in Proud Immortal Demon Way, Su XiYan betrays her race (for her, humanity, for Sha HuaLing, demons) for love. 

Sha Hualing was a pure-blooded demon, cruel and ruthless, cunning and artful, but fell irrevocably for Luo Binghe. After getting together with Luo Binghe, don’t even speak about killing for him; she even dared to do an outrageous thing like betraying the demons for him. 

Su XiYan, however, was never given the chance to fight back. In the actual novel, Sha HuaLing does much the same (betrays the demons), but Luo BingHe does not love her and she knows it. I think this is a good ending place for Sha HuaLing, assigned to fight against her father in the final battle (which she does), but we’re told rather than shown her development and we’re not told what led to this decision, which is a shame. 

Sha HuaLing is perhaps most directly foiled both in Proud Immortal Demon Way and in SVSSS by Qin WanYue. 

Qin WanYue, much like Su XiYan, is considered the perfect disciple of the Huan Hua Palace. Regarding Su XiYan, it’s noted: 

“That woman had shocking talent, was intelligent and sensitive when making decisions, and she had the aura of a tyrant. The Old Palace Master loved and cared for this private disciple. He thought of her as a pearl that should be protected in his hands and trained her to be the next Palace Master of Huan Hua Palace. No matter where he went, he would bring Su Xiyan along with him. The importance that he placed in her was abnormal.”

Qin WanYue’s symbol is a pearl that lights the way.

Luo Binghe picked up Qin Wanyue’s Night Pearl that had fallen to the ground and raised it high, as though it were a beacon. It awakened those who had frozen in place.

Not to mention in the original novel Qin WanYue loses a child in a miscarriage caused by someone else (Sha HuaLing) much like Su XiYan almost lost Luo BingHe when pregnant with him. Qin WanYue clings to Luo BingHe after the loss of her sister as something who might be able to offer her happiness. She’s not much different than Luo BingHe growing up parents and clinging to ShiZun: she who lost her sister and then clings to the person who saved her. But in her case, Luo BingHe does not return her affection, and I really had hoped/ expected her arc to end with her finding her own path.

Qin WanYue is also tasked with an action beneath her (much like Sha HuaLing): taking care of the Little Palace Mistress, the Old Palace Master’s literal daughter and hence another foil to Su XiYan. Her defining trait is her pettiness and cruelty, the latter of which Su XiYan is also said to have been capable of, as she began spending time with TianLang-Jun in an attempt to bring him down.

However, the mistress isn’t really set up with the potential for an arc like Qin WanYue is. 

From time to time [Qin WanYue] would cast a teary glance at Luo Binghe, as if expecting something...

[Sha HuaLing:] “how many times have you failed to seduce the lord yet still refuse to leave? If you don’t leave that’s fine, but you’re incapable of looking after even a single person. Her cultivation isn’t even as high as yours. You’re her senior martial sister. You didn’t stop her early and didn’t stop her late. All you did was to let her make this unreasonable scene in front of the lord. Who are you putting on this pitiful and wronged appearance for?”

Qin WanYue isn’t weak at all, but she puts on a weak act for Luo BingHe, hoping to attract a rescuer like she needed back then. I initially expected her arc to end with her accepting her strength and moving on form Luo BingHe (and from the little palace mistress). I still think it should have. 

And then we have Qiu HaiTang, whom I don’t think is set up as much for development as the others despite having more backstory on her. 

Still, Qiu HaiTang she was a woman mistreated and shamed by what had happened with her fiance Shen Jiu--just like Su XiYan was shamed for what happened with TianLang-Jun. 

“That’s right, if she hadn’t been so ill-fated as to fall for Tianlang-Jun’s wiles, she would have had such a bright and promising future and be a person of great renown today.”

“I don’t care what fantastic rewards are promised to me━having an affair with a demon and getting knocked up with a monster child is just plain disgusting. This kind of merit, I wouldn’t accept even if it was served to me on a silver platter.”

“Su Xiyan was probably too ashamed to remain, and thus ran away from the sect master.”

The thing is, all these roles--perfect disciple with great potential, brave enough to betray everything for love, endearing and caring, mistreated--none of these really capture the complexity and beauty of who Su XiYan really was... which is represented in Liu MingYan, the noted female counterpart to Luo BingHe, the main female lead. Liu MingYan conceals her face, which is too beautiful to be seen. 

Liu MingYan, like Si XiYan, remains mysterious; Shen QingQiu never sees her face uncovered, and the audience never really gets a clue as to what is going on in her head besides the mention that she cares deeply for her brother. Again, this is something I think could have and should have been developed more; she has the set-up for an arc with her conflict with Sha HuaLing being dazzled by her beauty and with her loyalty to her sect and brother, but it doesn’t go anywhere. She said to be “the number one female lead!” after all, and I think it’s entirely possible for her to maintain her aura of mystery and still... have an arc. Su XiYan did, after all, and she was dead before the novel began.

In the end, no one really can define whom Su XiYan was exactly, because she’s dead. What ultimately mattered, what defined Su XiYan’s legacy, was her final choice to save her son (and yes, it’s fair to critique that it’s again about a man, but it’s her choice). That’s why the story, in its penultimate chapter, has Shen QingQiu telling Luo BingHe: 

“Su Xiyan risked her life to give birth to you... 

“If I were in her shoes, I would not hesitate to drink [the poison for a fetus] regardless of how lethal it is. Then, after escaping from the water prison, I would absorb it all into my own body. Regardless of how agonizing and horrifying the process is, regardless of the price to be paid, regardless of whether it would be a painful death, I would never let this child suffer any harm.

“This is how I see it. You can take it as just an interpretation because there is no one who can tell you what Su Xiyan was thinking before she breathed her last. But if she really saw you as a disgrace, she didn’t need to do anything more. She could have just lowered you into the Luo River, on the coldest days of the year, in a harsh and frozen landscape━how could you possibly survive?... she also need not use the last of her strength and energy to put you in a wooden basin and push you away to safety…… You don’t even need to wait for someone to save you at all since you would have already become a wandering soul who met his freezing end in Luo River.

He’s healed, and he no longer needs to try to recreate his mother figure in over a thousand beautiful women like he did in the past. He can heal. 

Imo, it would have been even more powerful if the women then stepped out of these roles more completely, and became their own people. But I really do like all four of the main women I discussed here, and someday I’ll write more for them.