#reimagined? parallel universe? who knows

[jils-things]

holy shit this golden rose theatre murder mystery is a lot to take in. bless you truth and inference universe

[dramaticals]

DRAMIONE FIC RECS + WHY YOU SHOULD READ THEM — 100k+ words edition

hogwarts: a home by coralcollective — reimagined horcrux hunt. draco is so down bad for hermione and the smut is crazyyy. theo/hermione friendship. pansy is the breakout character and you'll love her. there's nsfw art and inappropriate use of the malfoy signet ring. please check the tags! (it says incomplete on ao3, but it's only missing epilogues so don't be afraid of starting it)

word count: 372,978

chapters: 67/70

the commoner's guide to bedding a royal by olivieblake — god, this fic!!!! it's a modern royal au and the ensemble of characters make this whole world feel so alive. it's inspired by will/kate and harry/meghan and it's sooo cute. theo and daphne were the breakout characters and i love them dearly. if you're looking for a lighthearted romcom-esque, occasionally angsty (because duh!) fic, this is it!!! i probably read this in two days which is insane considering the word count, but that should just tell you how lovely this whole fic was. there's a second part to this if you're itching for more afterwards (and it's just as good!)

word count: 503,570

chapters: 45/45

draco malfoy and the mortifying ordeal of being in love by isthisselfcare — honestly if you haven't read this yet..... this is god tier. a CLASSIC. this should be taught in the schools. hermione's a magical researcher / healer and draco's one of the best aurors out there. he's assigned to protect hermione because she's in the midst of a big discovery. hermione's not happy about it and draco isn't either. slow burn!! idiots in LOVE!! forced proximity!!!!! EMBEDDED ART!!! honestly this is the fic that made me want to learn how to bind which is so serious and if you haven't read this yet you need to.

word count: 199,548

chapters: 36/36

the disappearances of draco malfoy by speechwriter — this is my new canon. it's a deathly hallows rewrite where draco accepts dumbledore's offer to fake his death and go into hiding with the order. enemies to friends to lovers. i honestly can't even remember what happened in canon because this is IT for me.

word count: 289,780

chapters: 33/33

this world or any other series by olivieblake — includes clean (book one) and marked (book two). anything by olivieblake should be a must-read, i swear to god. this one starts as a year 6 slow burn. draco and hermione are assigned partners for potions and it all snowballs from there. olivie writes so beautifully and her characterizations for hermione / draco are so good. slight warning for marked: this destroyed me and i pretend it doesn't exist, but it's still a must-read.

word count: 118,892 & 178,268

chapters: 31/31 & 39/39

rights and wrongs series by lovesbitca8 — you want fluffy dramione? read the first two parts of the rights and wrongs series. you want dark and heavy dramione? read the auction, an alternate universe of the fluffy dramione, where voldemort wins and they all get auctioned off to death eaters. please check the tags for the voldy wins au! all three were chef's kiss and coming from someone who isn't a fan of dark aus, reading the first two helped me get through the auction because you know where draco's coming from / what's in his head. you can just read the auction without reading the first two parts unless you like catching parallels and having more depth / context (which i very much love).

word count: 174,911 & 160,297 & 325,876

chapters: 36/36 & 24/24 & 41/41

[haine-kleine]

when I attempt to analyze Todoroki Touya's character, I get a distinct feeling Horikoshi's spreadsheet for him before chapter 290 looked like this:

'DABI IS TODOROKI TOUYA (hint at him being Todoroki Touya as much as possible) (make something up for his backstory later)

that's not how you write a secret evil relative subplots. the goal shouldn't be making the reveal as dramatic as possible. especially in the corruption 'break the cutie' type of stories. to make the readers feel for this character, you shouldn't be dedicating your time to teasing them with the possibility of the reveal, you need to also tell the actual damn story.

and Horikoshi just. forgot to do that.

to make the reveal hold any weight and not just serve as a delayed gratification clickbait after years of teasing the readers, you have to establish who the character actually was before they became the villain. if you don't do this, the reveal alone won't do anything to make the audience sympathize with the character, because by that point it will be too late to sway the established opinion with an angsty backstory alone.

Arcane tells a very similar story of the family conflict, but to have the audience be interested in the sisters reunion, to have them feel bad for Jinx despite the horrible acts she commits, you have to first see Powder, the troubled unfortunate and insecure child who loved her sister. only once we are emotionally attached to that innocent and unfairly suffering character, we will start questioning her motives and our emotions once the corruption starts.

if you show the before as a sympathetic character, the after becomes painful not only to the in-universe characters affected by what their once close person had become. if you show the after and hold off the before until after the characters have already reacted to the identity revealing event, your audience will react with 'cool motive, still murder', because they never developed any emotional attachment to said character, no matter how much you make them cry in the flashbacks.

loose reimagining of the family arc under the cut.

and it was so stupid to skip this step because Horikoshi didn't even have to do much. the first point of view we have on the Todoroki family history is Shouto, the youngest sibling who had been isolated from the rest for most of his life. he didn't know much about his siblings, but let him know something! especially with how closely his and Touya's stories are paralleled by design, he should know about Touya the most out of anyone, and Touya is the sibling he should be most curious about.

think about it from Enji and Shouto's pov. Touya was the heir Endeavor created for fulfilling his dream, and after Fuyumi he wasn't planning on having more kids. it was Touya's incompatibility with his own quirk, the eugenics experimentation failure, that is the only reason Natsuo and Shouto even exist. and Shouto is the chosen heir, perfectly fulfilling all conditions demanded by Enji. so he trains him like he wanted to train Touya, but that's not all of it. while Shouto is genetically fit to be a perfect replacement for the role Enji had prepared for Touya, his father had never emotionally connected with him the way he did with Touya. and he made sure Shouto was aware of that, because he talked to Shouto about Touya.

Shouto, who had been miserable because of his father for most of his life, knows that Touya was the older brother who should have been in his place, and he escaped that place. he stopped his training and left the dojo to live a normal life, together with his siblings. and Shouto wanted to have that life more than anything. he begged his father to let him join his siblings, he wistfully observed them through the windows, he imagined what his siblings are like, he asked his mother about them. and the entire time, the sibling he knew the most about was Touya, his eldest brother whom he had to replace as father's training dummy.

there's so much space for depth in there! you can do so much by briefly sharing the intensity of Shouto's complicated feelings, by giving a bare glimpse of his rumination about his siblings. just don't lump them all together into a faceless blob of happy children that unhappy little Shouto wanted to join, because their history is so much deeper than that.

inserting the flashback of Enji talking to Shouto about Touya during the Sports Festival arc would have been the best way to set up the intrigue. just a bare glimpse of Enji using Touya as the example little Shouto was failing to follow, cut to Shouto observing his three siblings through the window.

and that would be enough to connect the initial story threads of the Todoroki family and nudge the readers in the right direction. Iida also has an older brother who is a hero. with that example in mind Shouto not mentioning Touya at all would be suspicious enough to have people start questioning the mysterious older brother's identity, because surely, if the number one hero, who trained Shouto to be the most proficient hero in his class trained his older brother as well he would be a licenced hero already?

then, the lack of said brother's presence in the story starts to become glaring. the simple mention for Enji having trained Touya and telling Shouto how good his brother was with his quirk, separates him from the faceless group of Shouto's civilian siblings who are out there doing their boring civilian stuff and not necessarily needed to be in this story about kids becoming heroes. Touya being dead is a reveal put away for later, but to drive up the intrigue, he needs to be a ghost haunting the narrative. make it inconsistent and confusing, make characters talk about him and omit saying anything outright.

then you can use Natsuo as a red herring by not introducing the siblings by names when they visit Rei together. he's Shouto's older brother, he is weirdly hostile to Endeavor, he lives away from the family. well, this checks out. but wasn't this weirdly anticlimactic?.. also didn't he say he doesn't do well in hot temperatures?

later, during the Todoroki family dinner arc introduce Natsuo by name and confuse the readers even more, because the new brother turned out to not be Touya whom we have been anticipating to meet since Shouto had first talked about his family. make Shouto, who is still adjusting to being able to interact with his siblings, start asking about their childhood. he wants to express that happiness he feels about being together with them, so he wonders out loud if Touya also felt this happy when father allowed him to play with Fuyumi and Natsuo more. his brother and sister's faces turn weirdly grim at that remark. Fuyumi offers some stories from their childhood, trying to lighten the mood. that's the readers first proper glimpse at Touya in the flashbacks. Fuyumi talks about him always being on his computer, how impossible it was to drag him outside to play. Natsuo reminisces how the slightest stretch of intense activity was enough to have him fall to the ground and refuse to get up. Fuyumi talks about the time Touya and herself made 8 years old Natsuo carry both of them. Natsuo proudly reports that he didn't even break his back. the atmosphere in the room is light and comfortable, Shouto listening to their stories with undivided attention, his eyes glistening. after a moment of idle silence, Natsuo glances at him. he tells Shouto how usually it's hard to read his face, because he is so unexpressive. but he remembers when Shouto was little he was a total crybaby, just like Touya was.

with the picture of Touya the child painted and the question about adult Touya up in the air, Enji can join the dinner. Natsuo storms off and Shouto follows him and Enji, not understanding what caused his chill older brother to act like this. Fuyumi attempts to hold him back, to no avail. she doesn't want Shouto to hear what Natsuo has to say to their father. she also is no longer sure that keeping him in the dark is the correct decision. she sighs, 'mother, what should I do?'. she is too young for this.

insert Midoriya into the family dinner if you want your dramatic storytelling, and have him timidly ask Fuyumi why did their older brother not join them for dinner. cut to Shouto hiding behind the door, listening to Natsuo's shouts about Enji abandoning him and Fuyumi, stealing their mom and Shouto from them, ruining Shouto's childhood. 'but you know what you will never be forgiven for, not even in hell?' Natsuo asks, tears streaming down his face. cut to-

'Touya is dead', Fuyumi tells Midoriya, his pleasant smile frozen on his face, eyes growing wide.

cut back to Shouto, hyperventilating behind the palms covering his face. he doesn't even notice sliding down the wall. he barely registers the heavy footsteps of Enji going back in his direction and he can't be bothered to care about his eavesdropping being discovered. his mind is still echoing Natsuo's words on repeat.

'you can play hero all you want, but you know what you really are is a murderer'.

boom. hook, line and sinker. no need to have the characters spell out who thinks what, the '[Natsuo thinks that] Enji killed Touya' was so stupidly unnecessary it turned a mystery drama thriller Todoroki subplot into a Law and Order episode. let the characters speak their minds and reach their own conclusions! when they learn something horrible, don't send the good and righteous character rushing to correct their assumption. let Shouto be actually curious about what happened to the members of his family, let him learn their different perspectives! dont make the Todoroki Touya reveal into a singular event, an award for the readers who have been arguing about it for years. turn it into something that holds weight for the actual characters inside the story, a mystery, an investigation with the reveal being at the finishing line the characters themselves need to reach, not an inescapable event that will happen despite the characters' actions.

letting Dabi interact with the non-Enji Todorokis wouldn't have ruined the mystery, it would have given much more depth the all the characters, defined the actual drama they are going through, given them more individuality by allowing them to have different opinions on the situation instead of joining them into a Frankenstein mindless blob of 'family' taking their collective 'responsibility'.

make Dabi and Shouto's first meeting an uncomfortably long moment of staring, Dabi looking at Shouto with sad condescension, Shouto being visibly confused by the villain's loaded expression. make this about the characters themselves, and not about the readers being smart enough to connect the only villain with a flame quirk to the only family of flame quirk users.

let Natsuo and Dabi meet, make Dabi kill Hood for attacking his brother because his father was too late. make Natsuo question the villain's identity together with the readers, make him and Shouto join their efforts to unfold the mystery of what had happened to their older brother.

the question should never have been 'is Dabi Touya Todoroki?' asked by the author to his readers. it should have been 'what does Dabi being Touya Todoroki mean to the characters associated with him?'. and it should have been answered by the characters themselves.

[olivieblake]

I know it's SO silly to avoid posting spoilers on a fic that was written almost a decade ago but @wonniesverse asked about what happens in chapter 35 or 36 or whatever of Marked (you know the one) and I am putting my answer under the cut!!! it's unfortunately kind of a short answer lol

hi! i am so sorry if i've got the wrong account but i had just recently read the clean and marked dramione series you wrote on ao3, and i was genuinely FLOORED. yep it's me lol this was the first fic i had ever genuinely cried for, the way you expressed hermione's and draco's relationship so well. the fic was written so long ago - in 2016 - and you might have forgotten about it, ahahahah pls but i had one question i simply couldn't ignore for the life of me: when snape used the time turner, he went to another parallel universe, right?

sorry to interrupt you here, but no! he used the time turner to go back in time, within the same universe, in a time loop. as with the events of book 3, there is still only one universe and only one timeline—there are briefly two harrys and two hermiones in the book because they're the ones who used the time-turner, but in this case, only snape went back, so he's the only one who is experiencing both the current timeline and the rewritten past.

so the new universe's hermione and draco could feel the phantom original universe's draco and hermione's experiences, so the original universe must still have been existing and operating alongside the new parallel one, meaning that the original hermione and draco were still there (please correct me if i'm wrong!).

so again, there is only one timeline, but them being able to feel the echoes of other decisions and other lives was meant to be sort of ineffable. magic!!! etc etc

but i was wondering, if that was a separate timeline, what happened to the original universe's draco and hermione if they still existed? i know draco died in the original universe, but i was curious how the original universe's hermione (master of death) lived after that, and if she ever found joy again, or if she only talked to the ghost of draco forever, and i also wonder how theo fared in that original timeline. there are so many other questions i'd like to ask, but i'll keep this as short as i can.

I made a joke in this week's not writing video that the oversaturation of multiverse media has led to some confusion so yeah, the timeline is disrupted and written over, like—oops maybe this is too Aged a reference—but it's like when you record over an existing VHS and the original footage is simply lost. but there is also the concept of a palimpsest, which is what I wanted those echoes of another life to feel like

as for what would have happened if that timeline continued: what the story suggests (the reason snape went back to begin with) is that the timeline is hopeless—draco is dead and can't be resurrected, hermione maybe never moves on, she allows absolute power to corrupt her absolutely. but that was the point of the story, that the pressure point that re-starts the time loop each time is that draco dies and everything goes irreparably wrong from there. you are of course welcome to reimagine something else! but that was the point of writing a story that resets to canon; I was trying to resolve and explain all the places where something doesn't make sense, like whenever an adult makes a terrible and illogical decision

the way that you wrote of hermione's heartbreak truly tore me apart, and i cried unabashedly when i saw draco died. draco loved her so much and she loved him, so to kill one of them would be utter torture, and i hope the original hermione got to find peace or at the very least see draco in the afterlife. theo was so strong too - even though he wished he could be selfish and talk to draco too, he knew he couldn't take even the ghost of draco away from hermione, so he gave up his chance. i cannot even begin to describe how this story broke my heart and mended it again, and i'm happy that at least the hermione and draco in the other parallel universe got their happy ending, but i also worry about the original hermione and draco too. if you've read until here, thank you so so much for just indulging and entertaining this silly question of mine, and i wholly understand if you don't feel like reading this question anymore. nonetheless, regardless of if you read or reply to this message, i just wanted to let you know that this series was truly of the best i have ever read, and i thank you so so much for that. again, if this is the wrong account, i apologize! but the fic was written in 2016, and the author said this was her tumblr account, so i found the best match i could <3

hahahaah it's so funny to me that you would have any doubt that this was me... I still pretty much write endings that people get mad

but thank you so much for caring this much about the story and I'm so glad you enjoyed it!!

[lovely-peace]

Ugly lies

Summary: Now that you are over, you wouldn't catch him hung up on somebody that he used to know.

Pairing: Sirius black x slytherin!reader

Warnings: toxic friendship, toxic relationship, insecurities, reader and sirius are ex lovers, not me writing another fic to this song, after just writing the other one-

Wanna know the whole story? This is only a parallelism of another story. It's called Loving Lies, of which the prologue is here reimagined from a different point of view. Wc: 2.4k

Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over

"You're looking at him again."

I quickly lowered my gaze to my food. I poked at my food until I realized that I wasn't hungry at all. Phina sighed.

"This is getting pathetic. He wasn't even a good boyfriend, was he?" her voice sounded so distant.

"Why didn't you invite me go your game?" I asked him.

He looked away. "You wouldn't have liked it anyway."

I looked up again. There he was sitting. He was laughing with his friends, who were probably telling the best jokes in the universe. Unlike mine.

"Didn't he often just leave you alone? Didn't take care of you at parties?" Cassie quietly joined phina.

"Do you want to leave?" My voice was shaking as I stared up at him.

He sighned. "Told you you wouldn't like it. At least let me enjoy it."

My heart stopped for a moment when I thought of him. All the things he had done. But weren't we such a good match?

If only he had cared about me.

"He forgot my birthday." My voice didn't sound like me at all.

"Why are you that mad at me? What did I even do?" His voice was so so loud.

"Forget it." I hissed at him.

"So you know it's pathetic. Eat instead of looking at Sirius' lips."

But had me believing it was always something that I'd done

"Are you that indifferent to me, Sirius? At least look at me!" Why was I even talking to him? What was my goal?

Here I was, sitting in a party, throwing my self-esteem out the window again. A beggar woman. That was me.

"Please leave me alone." Sirius turned away from me, his drink almost spilling over.

"Why are you acting like this? I know I may have hurt you, but that doesn't mean I can't make it up to you!" my voice sounded pathetic.

Why was I like this? I was usually better than this, why was I begging like this?

"We're over. Let it go." His voice was getting harder and harder. "Go back to Whisky and tell her how much I sucked."

He looked at me with hardened eyes.

"But it's your fault we're apart."

My body shuddered. Something was breaking me from the inside and I wanted to cry.

"Are you serious?"

He snorted and looked away again. "You cheated on me." he reminded me, as he had so many times in the last few days.

"After you treated me like a decoration for weeks." I whispered and looked at the floor.

"What did you say?" his eyebrows drew together and I couldn't bear to look at him.

"Forget it." I hissed and disappeared to my friends.

After being bumped into by several people, I made it to Cassie and Phina who gave me disappointed looks.

"What?" I was irritated.

"You've got something there." Phina said, pointing to her cheek.

As I wiped my cheek, it was wet.

And I don't wanna live that way

"I'll let it go."

Cassie gave me a worried look. "That's what you said last time."

I shook my head. "I'll stick to it this time."

Phina yawned. "Heard it all before." She looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "Get a grip."

I wanted to punch her, but I refrained from doing so. Just lean back and enjoy the music. But I found it so hard to lose myself in the crowd.

"I'm going to whisky." I stood up. "She'll get lost otherwise."

"Yeah, yeah." Phina waved her hand at me. "Just don't get lost yourself."

I swayed around in the crowd while my eyes searched for the Hufflepuff girl. Did she miss me?

Probably not.

I walked slowly near the bar where I had left her last time. She never wanted to dance and at some point I had stopped trying to get her to.

But then I saw him. He was standing far too close to her. So close that she leaned back a little, as if she didn't like it.

Was this his way of getting revenge? Maybe.

In any case, I wouldn't put up with it.

"Sirius!!!" I shouted sounding like I saw him for the first time this evening. Good.

I ran towards them, trying to hug him, but he dodged me. But if he wanted to play this game, I could too.

"Could you please let go of me?" Sirius' eyes were narrowed as he looked at me and I did the face he always liked.

"You're so cold, Siri!" I said the horrible nickname before letting him go.

Sirius rolled his eyes in like he hated me. "I wonder where that comes from."

I tried to shake his look of. "Come on, Sirius, you can stop pretending to hate me. You know it was nothing serious with him!"

He snorted and wrinkled his nose. "I know it wasn't serious. You were making out with three other guys that week, and those are just the ones I know of."

What? How could he say this in front of her!

I glanced briefly at whisky, only to get a horrified look, then focused back on Sirius. "You broke my heart! You can't blame me for wanting to have some fun!" The words sounded pathetic.

"I don't know how much 'fun' you've had during our relationship, and honestly, I don't want to know." Sirius hisssd, turning away from me. To her.

"Where were we? Oh yes, preparing for the party! Yes, we had a lot of fun, and I'm glad you're enjoying it. Have you danced yet?"

I snorted. "Oh, please, Whisky and dancing?" I felt the alcohol in my system. "Come on, stop pretending you're actually interested in her; it won't make me jealous!"

He didn't even turn around; he didn't find it necessary to look into my eyes. "Did I talk to you? No, I didn't. And unlike you, I don't talk to people just to use them, so shut up!"

I felt like vomiting as he spouted this lies. Lies, lies, lies. And to make it even worse he asked her again. "Have you danced yet?" She shook her head slowly and I couldn't stand looking at the scene before me. How she let him toy with her and me.

I could hear his devilish smile as he spoke, even though I was right behind him. "Would you like to dance with me?"

As he extended his hand towards her I sharply inhaled. "Sirius, you're acting ridiculous, don't you realize? I mean, why are you asking her when I'm right here-"

"CAN'T YOU SEE THAT I REALLY WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU??" his yelling breaking my mind, my thoughts and my voice.

And as I looked at my friend I couldn't keep the words inside of me.

"I hate you!" I screamed. Turning away and running from this sad, pathetic scene. From her lovingly gaze at him.

Reading into every word you say

I tried to pull myself together in the restroom like phina had told me. Crying about him? That really wasn't necessary! Wasn't it?

My hands were shaking as I tried to reapply my mascara.

And then she came in.

I cleared my throat and looked away from her in the mirror. "There you are. I thought I had lost my best friend to that wannabe Casanova."

I saw her looking at my face and starting to look unsure, almost a little angry. "I thought you were -" She started, but I tried laughing her voice away.

"Those crocodile tears I pulled out? They were just for show." I went for my make-up again to cover up my lies. I sighed playfully as I had done so many times before.

"But now I have to redo my eyeliner! Well, hopefully, he feels guilty now and comes begging for my forgiveness!" He won't.

"I thought you weren't feeling well. I thought you needed my help!" Her voice trembled almost as much as mine. But she really had no reason to. No, she had to like what was happening, didn't she?

"Come on, Whisky, it's not a big deal. I'm just trying to get back together with my ex-boyfriend; after all, he broke my heart!"

The words were so easy to say. Like I was following a script.

"And he's just as terrible. I mean, asking you to dance in front of me? He's trying to use you against me, that bastard! You should be much more upset about it!"

"I don't think-" She looked at the floor.

And I laughed.

Not because what she said wasn't true. No, rather because it was true.

"Please, Whisky, as if he ever really wants to have anything to do with you! He was a jerk to you from the moment we first met; you just don't interest him!"

I could see her slowly falling apart. I suppressed my pity and my gloating.

"Whisky, please don't cry again. I don't mean it in a mean way; I'm just being realistic." I wasn't being realistic at all. I was probably the bad girlfriend in the script.

When I heard her tears, I hugged her. "I just want to protect you. He will only take advantage of you. I don't want to see you hurt, especially not because of him. Isn't one broken heart because of Sirius enough?"

Something inside me turned as she nodded and cried in my arms. I hated comforting her now. To help her when she had nothing to cry about.

"Come on, that's enough crying now; you'll ruin my dress." I finally tried to push her weak little arms away.

After an infinitely long time, she let go of me and washed her face.

I took her arm as if to prove something. I didn't know what. "Come on, we can leave. By now, he should feel guilty enough."

And I went ahead. As I always did.

I just wanted to put the thoughts in my head to sleep. Switch off and live. But that was so hard.

"I really need a drink," I whispered to the girl who was clinging to me. She nodded like a doll.

James was sitting at the bar with Peter, discussing something. James smiled like he did before every 'prank'.

"Bartender!" I shouted, ready to play along.

"What can I get for our snake?" James asked with a sugary voice and a fake smile.

I didn't let his remark show. "Your humor is still in the basement, Potter."

"I think it's yours that's in the basement, considering you took that as a joke. I was quite serious." he retorted.

I placed my order and made my way to my friends. They were both sitting in the same place.

"It took you a long time." Cassie gave me that worried look again.

Phina gave me a little look and shook her head again. "You're lost again."

I was silent this time.

"She has your order." Cassie said and laughed when she saw Whisky standing there. I laughed along contrivedly and made my way back to her.

She smiled as she held out my lemonade. "Here."

The drink was a little darker than normal. And in this poor lighting in a party, that shouldn't have meant anything, but I knew James. And Sirius, too.

Their drink was a normal color. And it upset me. That disgustingly normal color.

And then I did it.

You said that you could let it go

"Omg, I just don't understand you! Your best friend is in there and you're out here laughing like nothing happened!" Suddenly he acted like he cared what I did. I would have loved to hit him.

"And here I thought you were following me to apologize." A lie. I never believed that.

Sirius took a sharp breath. "Are you even listening to me? Your friend was just humiliated in front of everyone, why don't you go in and see her?"

I took a deep breath and tried to sound strong.

"Just because something stupid happened to her, and she's hiding in the restroom, doesn't mean I should let it ruin my fun too. Fuck, if we hadn't swapped drinks on a whim, I'd have the green hair, right? I can be thankful for that; that would've been the worst!"

"What do you even like about me?" I asked him as a joke, but there was so much more to the question.

He laughed. "I loooove your hair."

His voice got louder. So unbearably loud. "Is it always just about you? Wait, I know it is, I've been with you long enough. You're one of the most selfish and narcissistic people I know! There's your reason why I don't want anything to do with you!"

I laughed like a psychopath.

"Now I'm the bad one? Oh please, Sirius, don't make a fool of yourself! I think we both know why her hair is now this disgusting green. You and your friends wanted to dye my hair because you know how much I care about it!"

I knew that would hurt him. Because it was about her. "Your actions have consequences, Sirius. You know you're to blame for her crying her eyes out in there."

But he didn't say anything in response. No, he just looked down and confirmed what I had known for so long.

My thoughts and feelings were all over the place and I wanted to puke.

The sharp bang afterwards woke me up. I slapped him. "Are you going to check on her now?" he said, so unbearably calm and composed.

"You know what, Sirius? Fuck you, seriously!" I spat out the words.

"Instead of apologizing to me for this prank, I'm now supposed to clean up your mess!"

"She has the green hair, not you. She's your friend; I don't think she wants to see me. Besides, it's the girls' restroom." Sirius said, almost accusingly.

"That's your problem. I don't have to cling to my friends all the time like a parasite; I'm allowed to have some fun too!"

I ran away from him. Away from her. From these so unfair people.

And I wouldn't catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know

"Stop staring at them." Phina's voice was so annoyed.

I poked at my food until I realized that I wasn't hungry at all. Phina sighed but didn't say anything.

My fork pierced a piece of chicken that I used to love to eat and now loathed. How did it come to this?

How did I let it come to this?

I looked up again. Looked at my former best friend, who was now sitting by his side.

And when I saw the sparkle in his eyes, I remembered.

"I don't love you." he had told me.

He never said anymore.

So it was no surprise that he didn't mourn me.

Yes, it wasn't even a surprise that he was now dating my former best friend.

[stargazeraldroth]

I will never be normal about the family of the First Humans in my Hazbin Hotel AU. I will never be normal about it. I really took this AU and said "Family angst to the MAX". Also this may or may not contain spoilers about Hazbin Hotel, so be warned about that when reading this.

Since we don't know much of anything about Eve in Hazbin Hotel's canon universe, the Eve included in this post is obviously how I imagine her character. Also, there are some major changes to the relationships between some of the characters. For starters, Vaggie and Lute are sisters, but they're also direct creations of Adam's.

Let me explain.

So in this AU, Adam and Eve became a thing shortly after Lilith ran away to be with Lucifer. And in this AU, they were only able to have Cain and Abel before Eve ate the Forbidden Fruit and ultimately died (I might elaborate on the whole Garden of Eden story in another post). But they'd talked about having daughters and Eve was especially excited to have little girls. Clearly, that never ended up happening. So how does this tie into the story? Because Adam made Vaggie and Lute with the idea of them being the daughters he and Eve were never able to have.

(To take this a step further, this AU started as a Reimagine series where I went over how I would've done it all, so there were also name changes. Vaggie and Lute were two characters who got their names changed; Vaggie's name became Evelyn [originally Evangeline but I thought that too long and didn't roll off the tongue as well] and Lute's became Edith, with Vaggie being named after Eve and Lute being named after the Garden of Eden. And if you want even MORE angst with that idea, Adam sometimes called Vaggie "Eve" as a nickname because of how much she reminded him of her. There's nothing romantic there, I just wanna clarify that in case anyone jumps to conclusions. The changed names aren't important to the post, I just wanted to mention this little background fun fact from before I decided to make it a regular AU)

I may not have diddly squat about Cain and Abel in this aside from the fact that they exist(ed), but BOY do I have a lot to say about these four. First, let me just start with the parallels between Eve and Vaggie in this AU:

Both someone Adam swore to himself that he'd protect at all costs

Both fell from grace and are in Hell

Both of them are on the opposing side (for Eve this'll rely on the post I eventually make about the GoE story, but the gist is that she was completely unwilling; Vaggie saw no other way)

Both of them fell in love with demons

Like... Vaggie reminds Adam of Eve so much that sometimes, it physically hurts. In this AU, Vaggie wasn't left to die in Hell, she got attacked and left behind. Adam thought she was dead, which was part of why he pushed to move up the date of the next Extermination and why Lute is so set on revenge, wants to kill ALL demons, etc. And Adam doesn't care about sexuality- he doesn't care if Vaggie's bi, pan, lesbian, ace, etc. In this AU, he only cares because Charlie's a demon (and the daughter of Lucifer, but that's another thing). The way Adam sees it, he's been losing everyone he loves to temptation and sin. He believes he lost Lilith to Lucifer's seduction (even if he was an angel at the time, he eventually became a demon), he lost Eve to both Lilith & Lucifer and the Apple, he lost Abel to Cain's jealousy and wrath, he lost Cain to his inner darkness, he originally thought he lost Vaggie to the demons, and then he thought he lost her to seduction (even though Charlie didn't do anything like that). And this- this is why Adam's both so close to Lute and why he smiles when he dies in this AU. He died believing that he failed everyone he cared about except Lute, even though- in the back of his mind- he told himself he still failed her. Because he wasn't going to be able to make it back to Heaven and stay with her.

Y'all. I don't know WHAT made me decide to focus so much on these four... but this is what I got. This is what happened. They're devouring my brain.

[ultraericthered]

MASTER NARIX

"Every heart will return to the light, once all darkness is expunged!"

Time to ellaborate on this beautiful bastard! Master Narix is the overarching Big Bad of the third and final trilogy/"chronicle" in the whole KH Divergence Saga, the Hearts In Chaos Chronicle, debuting in KH4 after having been set up by the secret epilogue of KH3, then serving as the chief antagonist in The Missing Links and one of the main antagonists/final bosses in KH5. The founder and leader of the Luminous Vanguard who dissolved the Dandelion Guild and its unions ages ago, Narix and five of his followers chose to enter a state of time stasis once it became clear to them how impossible the task of eliminating all the darkness and Darklings brought into the World by Darxomnious was, so they'd await the day when Luxu fulfilled his mission and the World was cleansed of that evil, at which point the Vanguard would return to construct a new World order.

Narix has long believed that the majority of hearts are naturally weak and susceptible to darkness that begets dark powers that defile the World, and that only the strongest and purest of hearts should set the course for the World and its denizens. Envisioning a reality where darkness no longer exists, light conquers all Worlds, and he reigns supreme as the light’s oppressive guardian, Narix arrogantly looks to use blight to tear down and reconstruct Kingdom Hearts from within its innermost heart, and will eradicate all that would get in his way.

Since the character concept of Master Narix only solidified fairly recently, most of what I can say about him here are some tidbits:

Quite obviously, I designed Narix as a Contrasting Sequel Antagonist to Xehanort by nature. Xehanort was a former Keyblade Master turned darkness supremacist, Narix is a non-Keyblade wielding Master who's become a light supremacist. The quote up there is even a direct parallel/reversal of Xehanort's famous line "Every light must fade, every heart return to DARKNESS!" And it really ought to be stressed how equally dangerous a light supremacist out to erradicate darkness from the World would be, as not only is, in a wise king's truthful words "the World made up of light and darkness, you can't have one without the other 'cause darkness is half of everything" so the removal of darkness would bring only imbalance and instability, but as has been established before, approaching the task of fighting darkness in a violent, hate-filled, stubborn and self-obsessed way only further feeds the darkness and begets more of it, which Narix is actually smart enough to know since he exploits that with the "blight" power and think it a worthy means so long as the ends he aims for can justify them. He's like Master Eraqus’ moral absolutism and ideals of light supremacy taken to the furthest extremes possible.

"Now wait a minute!" I hear some of you asking "You said back in this post about the Star Wars sequel trilogy "Apparently a whole lot of folks just think having this one guy serve as the overarching main antagonist, direct or indirect, for two trilogies and then having a completely different guy from right out of nowhere with no link or connection to the previous guy nor anything from the last six installments step up as the main antagonist for the third and final trilogy is perfectly fine storytelling so long as the second guy comes off sufficiently Big and Bad enough or whatever.", but how is what you're pushing with Narix any different?"

There are three major differences. 1. Yes, KH Divergence reimagines the whole Kingdom Hearts saga for 25 years as a trilogy of trilogies, and yes all of those trilogies are intertwined to connect with each other in some way, but they are not CONNECTED in the same way Nomura likes to do; while they share the same universe, cosmology, history, themes, and basic common elements across them all, each chronicle is still more or less its own complete story than can stand on its own even if you did not experience the other ones, with even the handling of continuity being kept as newcomer-friendly as possible in the way most game series' are. 2. Narix keeps with the running theme of "darkness begets more darkness". Darkness in the hearts of people begat Darxomnious, who begat darkness in Luxu, whose actions led to circumstances that begat darkness in Narix, whose actions led to circumstances that begat darkness in Xehanort, whose actions begat darkness in Vanitss and Maleficent and Braig and Ansem the Wise and many other villains, essentially putting the whole series as it began in motion, and so in the series' present day narrative the arc with Xehanort begets the arc with Darxomnious which begets the arc with Narix. It's cyclical by design. And 3. Xehanort still factors into the last trilogy as the one who created Evanessé. When you get down to it, Xehanort was THE chief antagonist of the first trilogy - the KH Trinity, or the Door To Light Chronicle - and of KH0.1 (BBS) but was just part of the Big Bad Ensemble in the second trilogy (playing second banana to Maleficent and Darxomnious in the second and third games of it), and a posthumous Greater Scope Villain behind one of the antagonists in the final trilogy. So you can't say he ever stopped mattering here.

Narix's name is derived from a double meaning. Like the other Lost Masters names, it's a play on one of the seven deadly sins (Avali = avarice/Greed, Fura = fury/Wrath, Gorgeyo = gorge/Gluttony, Jelus = jealousy/Envy, Ecaed = acedia/Sloth, Luxu = Lust); as Narix's sin is Pride, his name refers to Narcissism. The NAR in his name, with how it's pronounced like that, is also pulled from the word "Lunar", as in the moon, like Kingdom Hearts itself. Additionally, it felt right to put the "X" letter at the end of his name. Xehanort had it as his name's first letter (as did Xemnas), both Darxomnious and Luxu had it somewhere in the center of their names, Narix has it at the very end.

His hair being brown is also a deliberate choice. Sora was a brunette hero whose nemesis was silver haired. Now we have Ephemer as a silver haired hero whose nemesis is brunette. It's poetry, it rhymes! And the weird styling of it where it goes up into double pointed ends is meant to call to mind rabbit ears. Yes, rabbit ears. It's another reference to the whole "lunar" connection: the fabled Moon Rabbit.

Design-wise, Narix is meant to invoke vintage Final Fantasy villains, primarily the evil Emperor Mateus from Final Fantasy II. This would also work coming off of Xehanort, who was either a straight-up Disney Villain (Master Xehanort in KH0.1/BBS), a Disneyfied Final Fantasy Villain (Terra-Xehanort/Ansem), the Disneyfied Final Fantasy Villain so re-Final Fantasified that he becomes fittingly an in-between "neither Disney nor FF villain" KH Villain (Xemnas), or a crappy Shonen villain from a crappy Shonen manga/anime (Master Xehanort in every game since BBS in Nomura's KH Canon).

Speaking of, Narix's motivation should ring familiar. He wants to clean the universal slate so that darkness is no more, the World is pure and bright with the light of Kingdom Hearts always shining over it, and he remains bound to Kingdom Hearts' inner heart in order to forever safeguard that light and reign over all who have hearts in an oppressive way, "to stop the weak from polluting the World with their endless darkness - to dictate their destinies." Yeah, THIS is the sort of antagonist such self-righteous and fascistic motives actually works with as opposed to shoehorning them onto an established immoral researcher who has historically fancied the darkness. Xehanort started out believing he could "tear down a tyranny of light". Narix wishes to instill a tyranny of light. And the way he seeks to do so is truly insane: he wishes to dismantle and reassemble Kingdom Hearts itself from within its inner heart (to clarify, Kingdom Hearts' "outer heart" is what birthed the World. It's "inner heart" is what birthed every other World and keeps it tied to this KH multiverse) so as to eliminate all darkness across the multiverse, all costs be damned. In doing so he ironically creates an evil force called “blight”, light that’s been perverted to the point where it works in tandem with darkness.

Whatever else can be said about him, Narix is definitely a man of strong ideals and convictions. And one prominent ideal of his is his absolute abhoring of Keyblades. The events of Waning Way, learning more about the Keyblade War, and what occured with Luxu all served to make him swear off the weapon, believing such a weapon to not be fit for human hands. He passed this belief down to his followers in the Vanguard as they cracked down on Keyblade Mastery. The reason the Guardian Keybladers in KH0.1 is such a small and secretive order? Yeah, this would be the reason.

(And seeing how out of hand Keyblades got it Nomura's canon, I can honestly kind of sympathize!)

Now, don't confuse Narix for a Frollo or Emperor Belos type of evil, bigoted, hypocritical religious fudamentalist villain who have openly unpleasant personalities that we can all recognize as being evil beneath the superficial charisma - Narix is a very convincingly affable, charming, parental and seemingly noble individual, which makes it all the scarier to see his more pompous, self-obsessed, and even cruel side come out, especially the more he dabbles in blight and darkens his heart and soul. Narix can also be quite humorous and snarky, not in "lol weird and random" way like the Master of Masters, nor even like Xigbar, but in a more "Ardyn Izunia" way.

For Narix's English voice, I had to think of a VA, namely one who's a big name in anime and video games, who was a super veteran in the industry for years now and would be officially middle-aged by the end of the 2010s yet has a voice that retains this youthful quality to it, capable of performing the smoothy, silky, mellifluous voiceover that the character would need. Who could that be none other than the one and only Johnny Yong Bosch. A sampling of how he'd sound:

The nature of Narix's main power, "blight", is quite insidious: the Masters and lower mages of the Vanguard use their staves to steal light from other people's hearts and transfer it into the veins of creatures of darkness, creating this power where the darkness and light intermingling with each other causes one another to go totally out of whack. It effects the new "Demi-Deterged" Heartless so that rather than be attracted to the darkness of people’s hearts with the instict to prey upon those hearts, they seek out darkness and attack it in violent ways that prove dangerous to the hearts they come into contact with and destructive to the very fabric of the World itself.

While the full stories and scenarios for the Hearts In Chaos Chronicle entires are incredibly hazy to me overall right now, one of the things I can see very vividly is the Final Boss stage for KH5. Basically, the final world brings us back to...well, The Final World, right to Kingdom Hearts' doorstep, at which point a fucking enlarged, Demi-Deterged Chernabog starts tearing up the place and becomes the Climax Boss. And then comes the Final Boss, which is, I shit you not, essentially the one famous Kamina line from Gurren Lagann - "the Drill that will pierce the heavens!" An enormous tower-like contraption that is trying to drill its way into Kingdom Hearts to reach the inner heart, and three competing factions for light, darkness, and nothingness are all trying to make it work in their favor. Stage 1 of the fight pits Ephemer and friends against all the strongest "miniboss" tier enemies in the game all at once. Once that's cleared, Stage 2 is against Neodarkness and his powers of darkness. Clearing that gets you to Stage 3 against Evanessé and his powers of Nil. Clearing this advances you to the penultimate stage where of course it's Narix who's the last one standing. The final phase is triggered when the blight at last becomes too much for the unhinged Narix, filling his heart with darkness, becoming darkness itself! Defeating Dark Narix finally brings the whole thing down, freeing Kingdom Hearts and keeping the multiverse still in order. A completely broken Narix still insists on the rightness of his cause and how he could've improved all Worlds, at which point Maleficent enters the scene to zap him with her newly restored dark magic, obliterating his heart and physically transforming him into a basic Darkling who fades to the Dark Realm.

.....Hold on, I feel like I might've heard this story from Disney before.

A character model for Master Narix, and a close-up of his face.

[twinhood-2dot0]

A Shallow Dive Into: Justice League of America

Good morning Alex, and sorry, this must be getting boring. I usually have a topic ready days prior but this week was pretty hectic. I was gonna write code to analyze Spotify's top tracks and report my findings but sadly I don't have the time to write the code and write a blog post about it so I'm fishing my draft for the Justice League shallow dive I'd scrapped and finishing it up :P.

What's the Justice League?

DC had a team of superheros called the "Justice Society of America". After comic books fell out of popularity, the team was pretty much abandoned, and later reimagined in the form of the Justice League and also revived, but in a parallel universe. The Justice League at it's conception had the big shots Batman and Superman, Wonder Woman, A new Flash and Green Lantern (versions of whom who appeared in the Justice Society), Aquaman, Martian Manhunter but the roster has expanded exponentially since then and spawned sub-teams such as the magic based Justice League Dark, Justice League International consisting of superheroes from countries that are not America and Justice League Incarnate for the multiverse to name a few. The popularity of the Justice Society spawned other teams such as the Teen Titans, Young Justice, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers (Yes, DC did it first, just like everything else).

Meet The Cast

Superman - The (super)man, the myth, the legend. Kal-El is an alien from the planet Krypton (named so because the writer liked the element Krypton???). He landed on the farm of a couple, Jonathan and Martha Kent in Smallville, Kansas. His powers include: Flying, very durable body, super-strength, super-speed, frost breath, heat vision, super-vision (x-ray, telescopic yada yada). He can photosynthesis, but not under a red sun, they remove his powers, Krypton has a red sun, so Kryptonians are normal on Krypton, except I think Supergirl learnt to fly on Krypton in Injustice so idk, maybe just inconsistencies. Batman also has red sun in his possession to stop Superman if need be. Do not ask me how that works.

Batman - See: My last post

Wonder Woman - Princess Diana is the daughter of Hippolyta, the Greek mythology one. Although in DC, Amazons live on an island named Themyscira, where no men are allowed, and everyone is immortal I think so there is no need for reproduction. Wonder Woman is bisexual but her main love interest is a man, sadly. This origin story was concocted by a super-feminist and considered them the superior sex so he made an island without men cuz men suck I guess. I’m really sorry but I know very little about Wonder Woman.

The Flash(es) - The Flash is more of a mantle than a character. It has been carried by like 6 people at this point, those being:

Jay Garrick - The first Flash. Please forgive the origin story, it was 1940. He, in a lab, tipped over a beaker of HARD WATER, and the fumes of it gave him super-speed. He’s too old for me to know much about, sorry.

Barry Allen - Ah, the most iconic one of them all, FOR OLD PEOPLE!!! He was the Flash in the Justice League back in the Bronze and Silver ages, and was killed off in 1985, in Crisis. He returned in 2008. Just let Wally have some peace man, he’s been tortured because of Barry’s existence. Bartholomew Henry Allen’s (why is it legal to name people that) mother was killed by [SPOILER] when he was a kid and his father was wrongfully arrested because there was no evidence. Barry became a CSI to prove that his father did not commit the crime. He sadly died in prison before Barry could prove his innocence. Anyways, onto how he got his powers. This one is better tho. While working in the forensics lab one night, he was struck by lightning and doused in chemicals, giving him superspeed, because lightning, I guess.

Wally West - Nephew of Barry Allen’s girlfriend at the time Iris West, he was a huge fan of The Flash who just so happened to be his uncle. One day Iris took Wally to visit Barry’s crime lab, and guess what, lightning does strike twice. Barry revealed his identity and mentored him as he became Kid Flash. As Kid Flash he was a founding member of the Teen Titans. Again, I’m very salty that very few Teen Titans adaptations have him despite him being a founding member. Then, as he neared his 20s and still going by Kid Flash for some reason, Barry dies in his fight against Anti-Monitor. He is forced to step up as The Flash and struggles with carrying on the legacy. He has a psychological block on his speed because he was scared to outshine Barry, but with new threats forcing him to overcome the block, he becomes the fastest Flash ever and has the best connection to the Speed-Force, the force that gives the speedsters their powers.

I won’t go into details about the rest of the speedsters, there are far too many, but I will list some of them. Bart Allen, grandson of Barry Allen. Tornado Twins, twins of Barry and Iris. Johnny and Jesse Quick, Father and Daughter who get superspeed by speaking a formula, 3X2(9YZ)4A, don’t ask Wallace West, Barry’s nephew who got his powers the same way Wally did. Wait. Wallace? As in Wally? Wait what? Yeah, so remember how Wally was wiped from existence? Wallace was brought in to replace him. He’s Wally, but African-American, younger and just a less fun character.

Green Lantern - This is also a character with multiple characters having the same name. The Green Lantern Corps is basically an intergalactic police department. Each of them have a ring that lets them create anything, limited only by their imagination, and superspeed and breathe-in-space-thing. The first Green Lantern I know nothing about, Alan Scott, got an actual green glowing lantern and made a ring with it. The rest, however, were approached by a premade ring and selected for their indomitable will. Oh yeah, there’s also a whole rainbow of Lantern Corps. Yellow is their main enemy led by a former GL. I know too little about them too except Alan Scott is the Jay Garrick of GL, Hal Jordan the coolest the Barry, and Kyle Rayner the Wally. The others I don’t know much about, but they are John Stewart, Guy Gardner, Simon Baz, Jessica Cruz, idk why there’s only 2 female GLs and both took till the 2010s, and Sojourner Mullein.

Martian Manhunter - I know far too little about him too, but he’s a Green Martian, who was a criminal on Mars, his race was wiped out, I think, and is trying to reform on Earth. He has transformation powers, intangibility, and telepathy and a heck ton more, even wiki collapsed the list, even Superman doesn’t have a list that long.

Aquaman - Super-speed underwater, super-strength, super-durability, trident, talks to fish, weak telepathy, largest nation on Earth. Oh, right, origin story. Arthur Curry's mother was the Queen of Atlantis but his father is human, so he’s half Atlantean and half-Human so Atlantis people hate him but he gains their respect. I know too little, sorry again.

Those are the main members of the JL of America (There are a lot more). And there’s Cyborg too I guess but I consider him a Titan so he’ll be in part 2 if there’s ever one.

Alex, I'll see you on Thursday -Alia

[karekuat]

top three favorite stories?

Oooo this is an interesting question

1) Alice in Wonderland (and every reimagining or reference of it)

I dunno why, but both the aesthetic and narrative themes of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass have been my favorites since I was a kid. I'm very big on reality vs dream themes and the wordplay and poems. Always an all time favorite for me and I am super happy whenever I pick up on references to it in other media

2) Bloodborne

While I'm a fan of all the Souls games and their lore (tho I don't know much about Sekiro to be fair, just the DS trilogy and Elden Ring), Bloodborne hits all the personal marks for me in both gameplay and narrative. The hubris of humanity in search of knowledge and/or power, the cosmic interference with various great Eldritch beings with a bunch of different motives and feelings. The idea of wanting to ascend oneself and committing atrocities toward other people in the process, covering up misdeeds and failures, guilt and regret and revenge, literally everything to do with Yharnam's society.

3) Alien / Aliens

It's just a good ol anti-capitalist horror/thriller. The parallels of the second movie (Aliens) with Ripley and Newt and the Xenomorph queen with her eggs is something I could probably dissect for hours and I just love the whole thing regarding the Xenomorphs just being creatures that want to survive, mixed in with them being parasitic and involving a capitalistic sci-fi scene.

Honorary Mention:

4) The Call of Cthulhu

I wouldn't say the story itself is one of my favorites cuz honestly while it's one of the founding pieces of "Lovecraftian" Cosmic/Eldritch horror, I didn't find the story to be as mystical or horrific as people hype it up to be.

It's also a story that needs recognition of the time period and author, who was of course a raging religious homophobic racist white supremacist. That being said, it's because of the historical context I find the story to be really profound in like a subversive way for me personally. The whole idea of Cthulhu being this creature older than the earth itself and connected to the nature of the universe, bringing the end of humanity (which is described as humanity devolving into lust and murder etc etc), who's followers and prophets tend to be: black and indigenous and queer people.

Obviously the idea of POC worshipping some primordial sin creature is scary! For a white man! Oh the horror! But that's kinda why I like it, and it's the fact that I didn't find it horrifying or mysterious for these reasons at all that I enjoyed it. It's just a personal thing for me, and the aesthetic of Cthulhu as a creature is pretty cool.

(Obviously a huge racism TW for anyone who is thinking about reading it)

I'm not great at describing my feelings toward the Cthulhu mythos, especially since I'm hesitant to admit I like the story behind it because I don't want people to think I'm like a Lovecraft Stan™ or whatever (cuz critical thinking on this site isn't real), but I could probably write an essay on the journey of Eldritch horror and what it means to me personally hfjkfjdjjf

[alivetranspoetry]

The Girl in the wind

The name of the wind reimagined:

In one of my favourite books I saw myself, a girl kindred with magic who's cunning and name proceeds her. Who's musical talent know little to zero boundaries and who's life of love is spent dedicated to the one someone special.

The girl in the wind would have hair down past here and a voice that shattered glass. She would make friends, she would have stories a plenty and in surpassing expectations she would kill god as it were.

Let's all be clear here for just a minute now. I am not the girl in the wind for if nothing else the amount I have sinned as the girl I picture to be blissful and pure. She reeks of femininity. Her path reaching infinity, teaching infinitely I make attempts to access or suppress myself with the girl in the wind as my ideal. I am no girl in the wind.

I am no girl in the wind. I am a bitch in a blizzard, similar in effect but you get a much different picture. I'm so painfully bisexual and engaged to my one true love like a fucking Disney princess. My music ability knows definite bounds as I cling to the fact I played saxophone at a high level years ago and while I sing well I'll never shatter glass with it and I'll still always be working to make my song sound right. I have no magic that I learned at no university and I have no stints like that which Patric Rothfus pictured in his book before I changed it for this poem.

The life of a Blizzard Bitch is much if not too different from that of a Wind Girl. So much so that they run parallel

"She's perfect" people would cry at the sight of her.

"She's still going" I've heard people mumble at me.

She spins chemicals and potions into being with a practiced hand.

I clumsily pour drinks at house parties when I'm too drunk to taste the difference.

She fought god and won.

I deny it's existence in the monotheistic sense

We bitches of the blizzard always look a little wind swept, ski width and as though balance is attainable but just out of reach. The real me started off as an engineer which the girl in the wind never would be. Not because she can't but simply because she has better things to do. The real me got her first pair of boobs at 18 and never looked back at the boobless life whereas the girl in the wind grew hers the common way and lastly the girl in the wind lives in a book in my mind whereas I stand here telling her story.

But maybe...

Just maybe I'm like the original book. He was witty and drank. He was cunning but foolish and he was often fucked (not in that way) but like really fucked.

[twistedtummies2]

Sinister Sevens - Sandman

With the recent release of “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the world’s favorite webhead and his cavalcade of colorful villains have been on my mind a lot lately. I considered doing a full countdown of my Top 31 Favorite Spider-Man Villains, and perhaps one day I will, but for various reasons I don’t want to go into right now I decided against it. However, I thought it would be fun to look at the different portrayals of some of Spidey’s Rogues that have appeared over the years.

Like Spider-Man himself, his villains have been reimagined and reinterpreted in various forms of other media: television, feature films, and video games have all been fertile ground for the wall-crawler and his many adversaries. However, amidst all that constant reinvention, the success rate of how many of them are actually TRULY great tends to fluctuate. I usually find that after someplace between six and eight, everything becomes pretty blase. Therefore, I decided that for these countdowns, I’d make them a few quick “Sinister Sevens,” hitting right in the middle. I’m going to start by talking about the five central villains who appear in “No Way Home,” then I might go on to do other characters in the future. With that in mind, let’s begin with Flint Marko, a.k.a. Sandman. Sandman is, I would argue, one of the quintessential Spider-Man Villains. In many ways, he is a perfect example of how many Spidey Villains function: a lot of power, but not much in the way of brains. A big chunk of Spidey’s Rogues Gallery, when you really look at it, is essentially made up of common hoodlums, who just so happen to have incredible abilities or gadgets that allow them to be dangerous. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because you can see that element paralleling with Peter Parker in a couple of different ways…and thankfully, over the years, the Sandman has developed. While he’s always been, at his core, a nasty thug who just so happens to have superhuman abilities, he’s been given a sympathetic side in the comics, and even a select few adaptations: allowing him to keep the basics of what made him work when he started out, but giving him more depth and interest. Today, we’ll start this event by looking at My Sinister Seven Portrayals of Sandman!

7. Daran Norris.

Norris is an actor with a history of playing Spidey characters: I know him best for being the voice of J. Jonah Jameson in “The Spectacular Spider-Man.” Long before that, though, Norris voiced a couple of characters in the Neversoft Spidey games of the early 2000s. In the second game, “Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro,” Norris played Sandman, who was one of the more prominent villains featured in the game. He seemed to be Electro’s second-in-command, as he was the only villain (if I’m not mistaken) fought twice in the game, and repeatedly popped up throughout the adventure to cause trouble. As far as portrayal goes, Norris’ take on Sandman is pretty definitive: a loudmouthed tough-talking goon whose incredible strength and bizarre abilities are ultimately what make him dangerous. That goes for most takes on ol’ Sandy, but it’s the prominence the character has in the game that gets him his marks here.

6. Chris Latta.

Latta voiced Sandman in the classic animated TV series, “Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.” The show featured Spider-Man teaming up with X-Men members Iceman and Firestar, and usually other members of the Marvel gallery of heroes, to face a variety of villains from across the Marvel universe: Magneto, Kingpin, and even Count Dracula were just some of the nasty no-good-nicks featured. In “Spider-Man Unmasked!” the trio face Sandman, who - quite by accident - ends up finding out that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Sandman then stalks Peter, trying to find out more about his life, and figure out ways to exploit his weaknesses on the battlefield so he can continue crime unimpeded. Again, Latta’s portrayal of the Sandman is fairly standard, but it’s not necessarily bad; once more, it’s really the story involved that makes this particular depiction so much fun, as we get to see Sandman using his powers not only for grunt force, but also for more sneaky purposes as he finds various ways to spy on Peter and ambush him. The only downside is that the way Spidey and the gang finally deal with the whole “Sandman knows the secret identity” issue is…kind of disappointingly easy, to be honest. Even by Sandman standards, he’s tricked pretty darn simply, and it makes an otherwise cunning adversary suddenly seem abominably dimwitted. Then again, as I said, it’s largely the sheer level of power Sandman has that makes him a menace, and that’s depicted here in spades.

5. Fred Tatasciore.

Tatasciore is another actor who has played several Spidey Villains. He tackled Sandman in the game “Spider-Man: Friend or Foe?” This game has actually been a favorite of mine for a LONG time: using character designs inspired by the Sam Raimi films, but set up in its own unique universe, the game focuses on Spider-Man joining forces with various heroes AND villains of the Marvel universe in order to stop a diabolical scheme orchestrated by Mysterio to - you guessed it - take over the world. And, of course, one of those villains is Sandman. Like many of the other characters (not all, but many), Sandman is first encountered as a boss, being mind-controlled by Mysterio. After defeating him and snapping him out of it, he agrees to help out in return for a lighter prison sentence later. Unlike some of the other villains, such as Green Goblin, Venom, and Doc Ock, what surprises me is how harmoniously Sandman manages to cooperate with Spidey: while he insists he and Spider-Man are NOT friends, he doesn’t seem to have the same aggression and vicious spite the other villains have. He often seems more grouchy than outright nasty, and one gets the feeling that he really is a criminal for other reasons than the rest: of all the bad guys we get on our side, he seems the most likely to have a chance for redemption, and the least antagonistic.

4. Dee Bradley Baker.

Baker first voiced the Sandman in the animated series “Ultimate Spider-Man;” he would later reprise the role in a LEGO game. The LEGO portrayal is pretty decent - a sort of more humorous spin on the more typical depiction of the character - but it’s the animated series version I REALLY like. This version of Sandman was a much more sympathetic and fascinating depiction: instead of a brutish thug, this take on Flint Marko depicted him as a mental patient who, after being turned into the Sandman, relocated to a remote island. There he has spent much of his life in loneliness. When Spider-Man and his allies arrive on the island, Sandman actually tries to befriend them, but as the story goes on, his more vicious side is shown. The character would become a recurring foe later in the franchise. While just as dangerous and powerful as ever, this was a more sad and complex take on the character compared to others, and at times could be downright creepy, which is pretty unusual for Flint Marko. It all works well, in my opinion, and makes for one of the best takes on the character in animation.

3. Dimitri Diatchenko.

Another video game portrayal. Long before “Into the Spider-Verse,” the video game “Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions” played with the idea of a multiverse based around various alternate worlds in the comics. In the game, Sandman appears in the “Amazing Universe” (which you could call “Spider-Man Prime”), as one of a few villains that take on Spider-Man must face. Thanks to the machinations of Mysterio (yep, him again), Sandman ends up obtaining a fragment of a powerful magical artifact, which he uses to infuse his own consciousness into every single grain of sand in a quarry, planning to use the newfound reach of his power to - you guessed it - take over the world. (Or at least New York City.) However, stretching himself so far has caused Sandman to go slightly loopy, effectively developing multiple personalities; Spider-Man has to get to the “core” of the villain - his original, chief persona - and try to find a way to remove the power and defeat Sandman. In this version, the madness is treated as a more humorous than horrifying element, and the way Sandman’s abilities affect his chapter of the game leads to some fun imagery and challenging encounters. In terms of gaming, this, so far, has probably been his crowning glory, and actor Dimitri Diatchenko does a dandy job applying the necessary grit and toughness the character needs, while never making him TOO serious.

2. John DiMaggio.

“Spectacular Spider-Man” is my personal overall favorite take on the Spider-Man universe, and - like most fans - I feel absolutely cheated that it never got a third season. Make no mistake, what we got with the two seasons we ended up having was GLORIOUS, but there was still so much more the show could have done and might have been, and it sadly never got reached. For me, many of these characters were the definitive portrayals, and John DiMaggio’s Sandman is no exception. This take on Flint Marko appeared as a recurring antagonist even BEFORE gaining his sandy disposition, as a member of Tombstone’s Enforcers. Like many of the Enforcers, he later ended up taking on a different career all his own, as an encounter with Otto Octavius and Norman Osborn led to Marko becoming Sandman. Again, this Sandman wasn’t a hugely complicated character, but that was actually part of what made him interesting, ironically: this Sandman wasn’t as ambitious as a lot of the other villains on the show, less worried about the game and more the score, so to speak, and with few delusions of grandeur. He was very “down to earth,” if you’ll pardon the expression, but still an arrogant cad, at the same time. His ego was frequently his downfall, as he was so sure of his own strength that it would lead to him getting careless and failing to notice certain strategies, yet he still proved to be a constant thorn in Spidey’s side, and a true force to be reckoned with.

1. Thomas Haden Church.

While John DiMaggio is perhaps the definitive Sandman, in my eyes, Haden Church takes the cake for just how much they do with the character. He’s powerful, of course, and can be pretty monstrous at times, but this portrayal also makes him much more sympathetic, as well as more of a personal opponent to Peter Parker. In “Spider-Man 3,” it’s revealed that Flint Marko was actually the one who shot Uncle Ben, but it’s also revealed that the event was a total accident, and that Marko has a daughter, who he’s trying to find money for, so she can have a life-saving operation. These elements make the character much more complex than the arrogant mook he’s usually portrayed as. Church’s Sandman is still a hoodlum, but he’s a hoodlum with a soul, and that makes him so much more interesting compared to other takes on the character. Church reprised the role in voiceover (and via archival footage) in “No Way Home,” and while Sandman was a relatively minor player there compared to some of the other villains, he was still fun to see in action once more, and once again his sympathetic and complex elements were pressed, which helped to keep him from getting lost in the crowd. In two movies awash with antagonists, Church stands out as a highlight in both, and that earns him top marks as My Favorite Sandman.

[myhahnestopinion]

THE AARONS 2020 - Best TV Show

It was prime time for TV in 2020, with many more free hours to fill. I managed to get through a lot of my backlog in fact, finally getting around to watching shows like The Strain. It’s a show about a deadly disease that tears society apart because a lot of arrogant people think they are exempt from quarantining. The disease turns people into vampires, so it’s technically escapism. Here are the Aarons for Best TV Show: 

#10. The Plot Against America (Miniseries) - HBO

It’s not TV, it’s not HBO, it’s real life. The Wire-creator David Simon’s penchant for illustrating the human fallout of institutional failures made him a perfect collaborator for HBO’s Plot Against America, an adaptation of Phillip Roth’s alternate-history novel. Following a Jewish family in New Jersey navigating the increasingly-fascist America of a hypothetical Charles Lindbergh administration, the show is a terrifying warning of what happens when hatred and conspiracy theories are allowed to accumulate political force. Notably, while the book ends with history back on the right track, the closing moments here are left ambiguous. The show was a limited series, but in many ways, The Plot Against America is ongoing.

#9. Mrs. America (Miniseries) - FX

Its interests are married to The Plot Against America, but Mrs. America traces the country’s rising extremism from a more historically accurate perspective. The miniseries centers on political activists in the 1970s on opposing sides of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, but its dialogue isn’t a strict dichotomy. The episodic format is expertly utilized to build out intersectional ideas from the likes of Rose Byrne’s Gloria Steinem, Uzo Aduba’s Shirley Crisholm, and Margo Martindale’s Bella Abzug, detailing the difficulties in building a diverse coalition, and the dangers of a single-minded one. Drawing parallels to current debates, its compelling centerpiece is how conservative Phylis Shafley (Cate Blanchett) successfully defeats the Amendment; voting against your own self-interests, Mrs. America says, is as American as apple pie.

#8. The Outsider (Miniseries) - HBO

Societal collapse comes from within in the two shows mentioned above, but the threat in HBO’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 2018 novel is decidedly an “other.” King clearly had his mind on modern manipulations of truth when crafting the ingenious premise: a man is arrested for the murder of two young boys due to irrefutable DNA evidence, only to provide an air-tight alibi for the crime. To match King’s procedural prose, HBO brought on The Night Of’s David Price, who layers the original work with meticulous mysteries. The Outsider has all the pulpy jolts expected of the author, but the show’s true horror lies in its overbearing grief, best brought to life by Ben Mendelsohn’s Detective Anderson. To say more would be to spoil its secrets; you’ll want to be on the inside.

#7. Perry Mason (Season 1) - HBO

Just like the famous fictional attorney, HBO can’t seem to lose, with Perry Mason marking its third entry on this list. The reimagining of the long running court drama actually takes place before the character’s illustrious law career; here he’s a down-on-his-luck private eye caught up in a scandalous child kidnapping case. The result’s a gangbusters production of old-fashioned moody noir: political corruption, femme fatales, and a more morally-complicated Mason, as played by The Americans’ Matthew Rhys. The lavish period details and character-actor cast, including Shea Whigham, John Lithgow, and Tatiana Maslany, will help draw viewers in, but, I’ll confess, I was already hooked by the season’s chilling opening moments.

#6. Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (Season 1) - NBC

Dour seasons have dominated this list thus far, but Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist sings a different tune. It’s a lovably oddball premise: an accident during an MRI causes a young woman, played by Jane Levy, to hear other people’s thoughts in the form of popular music. It’s all karaoke, but, emphasized by the presence of Skylar Astin, a worthy inheritor to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s musical-comedy crown. The tracklist, workplace antics, and love-triangle drama all exist in a comfortingly familiar network TV realm, but the show takes additional steps for inclusion with stories highlighting Zoey’s genderfluid neighbor (Alex Newell) and an American Sign Language performance of Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song.” During a year in need of shuffling off stress, there was no better time to queue up Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.

#5. What We Do in The Shadows (Season 2) - FX

FX’s expansion of the mockumentary feature film of the same name lit up some of the darker corners of its universe in the show’s second season, transforming mundane-seeming material into something completely, uniquely batty. Each creature of Shadows took their turn in the spotlight this season, from a middle-management promotion gifting energy-vampire Colin Robinson unlimited supernatural power, to undead Nadja befriending a doll possessed by her own ghost, to Matt Berry’s Lazlo forging a small-town persona as a bartender/volleyball coach to escape a vengeful Mark Hamill. As always, it was the sympathetic Guillermo (Harvey Guillén), a Van Helsing descendent desperate to become a vampire, who gave the show its emotional stakes, and the vampires within a different kind altogether.

#4. Stargirl (Season 1) - DC Universe

Shadows was lit, but few things burned brighter this year than Stargirl (perhaps too brightly for the flamed-out DC Universe). The superhero drama is one of several that will outlive its original streaming service - fitting, given its obsession with legacy. Based on a character created by DC Comics stalwart Geoff Johns after the tragic loss of his sister, the show finds a young girl taking on the mantle of a fallen hero after moving to a town run in secret by supervillains. With sprightly fight choreography and an unabashed embrace of its comic book lore, Stargirl outshines the overabundance of small-screen superheroes out there. Its highlight is the bright performance of lead Brec Bassinger; put simply, she’s a star, girl.

#3. BoJack Horseman (Season 6b) - Netflix

Throughout its run, BoJack Horseman garnered acclaim for routinely delivering unexpected pathos, and the final season kept it on that track until the end. ...Get it, because horses run on tracks? The unexpected porter of television’s legacy of antiheroes ended in much the same vein as its sister shows - with consequences finally catching up with its protagonist. No amount of fanciful animal puns could soften that painful catharsis, as the show finally trampled its tricky web of abuse through bittersweet means. The series closed out with an especially thoughtful scene, the kind viewers who looked past the wonky pilot years ago were regularly blessed with; to the very end, BoJack, you were a gift, horse.

#2. Better Call Saul (Season 5) - AMC

As good as Bad ever was and better than ever before, the fifth season of AMC’s spin-off completely upended the world of its eponymous lawyer while bringing Vince Gilligan’s universe one step away from full-circle. Saul Goodman found himself in way over his head, and viewers found themselves way on the edge of their seats, as his first foray into “criminal” lawyering swiftly dovetailed with an escalating drug war. Despite the emotional distress of watching fan-favorite character Kim Wexler placed in perilous situations, there are no objections to be had with the drama’s continued masterful storytelling. Ramping up the slow-burn storytelling, season five saw Kim and Saul’s relationship develop in rich and unexpected ways, while still keeping their final fates unresolved. Fans are thus waiting with bated breath for the show’s final call next year. 

#1. The Great (Season 1) - Hulu

Who could be the best but The Great? There was a minor television controversy this year over Netflix marketing The Crown as a historical drama despite its fictional interpretation of events; The Great has no such pretentions. An asterix adorns every title card of the show, letting viewers know that its take on Catherine the Great’s coup against Emperor Peter III of Russia is only “an occasionally true story.” The show indeed is not great for education, but it’s the most entertaining television of the year, locking stars Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult in a battle of wits and a fight for the country’s soul under the watch of The Favourite co-writer Tony McNamara. The uproarious comedy slyly collates leadership based in cruelty with leadership based in goodwill in the background of its quite bawdy escapades, a subtle bit of relevant political maneuvering that lets it successfully claim the crown this year.

NEXT UP: THE 2020 AARONS FOR BEST TV EPISODE!

[lany-d-flow]

Whisper Talk: Going Against Alternate Timeline Theories with a Theory, and Answering Questions Saying Otherwise.

Those who look with clouded eyes see nothing but shadows. -Sephiroth, Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

SPOILER WARNING

Pressing “Keep Reading” will bring you into spoiler territory for, well... Final Fantasy 7 Compilation and Remake, so this is your warning, all right buddy?

Also, this is one person’s interpretation of another work. What I predict may very well turn out to be untrue, and if you disagree with my prediction then that’s totally fine! (If you’d like, we could chat about it).

But honestly, I have spent the last few months thinking about this game in an unhealthy manner. I think having all of these whispers inside of my head with my frustration getting bigger is not going to move anything forward. So it’s time to wake up, get up, get out there and write thoughts about what is actually going on with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, while trying to clear up misconceptions that may be leading people astray. Perhaps the latter is the intention of the developers. If it is? Well, let’s move past the clouds and find the sunlight. 

All right, let’s mosey into this nonsense.

It’s been months since the release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. After a long five-year wait for many fans, we got a piece of the story on the Playstation 4 in March and April 2020. It was exciting to see the capital of Final Fantasy 7, Midgar, be brought to life with state-of-the-art graphics. Treading through mako reactors, Sector 7 and Sector 5, the nasty Wall Market, Shinra HQ, hearing conversations of lively NPCs, exploring the subtle easter eggs and symbolism through visual storytelling... Goodness, so much of what this game had to offer was a delight! The developers put their heart and soul into fleshing out a section of Final Fantasy 7 that was, at most, 6 hours long. This level of detail cannot go unnoticed, and I’m sure it’s made everyone excited to see the reimagining of Gaia when we receive future installments!!!!

Oh, but wait... the developers introduced a new monster called Whispers, otherwise known as Arbiters of Fate, and... What purpose do they serve?! Why are these things in Final Fantasy 7 when they never had a role in the original game? Based on everything we saw in the story, they seem to be making sure the story of Final Fantasy 7 runs exactly as it’s supposed to. Without these ghosts, the story will not be 1:1. To make things worse, we have Sephiroth who’s from the future?! No wonder these Whispers are here, Sephiroth’s trying to rewrite history because everything he has tried before failed him!

So based on what we saw in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the developers decided to create a metaphor for the fanbase, and since we defeated ‘destiny,’ we’ve defeated the fanbase’s say in where the story goes, thereby giving the developers permission to change the story the way they want it. Wow, this is pathetic on Square Enix’s part. Final Fantasy 7 is an amazing story with layers and layers of complex themes, why would they try to form it into something else? Now we’re going to have time travel and alternate timelines in the plot and Sephiroth seems unstoppable now. Heck, the developers are probably going to make sure impactful moments in Final Fantasy 7 do not happen, so Zack and Aerith are probably going to survive. And they’re also ditching the Compilation? Can these people be trusted? 

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is ruined!!!

Still with me? Well, this is just some of the talk that I’ve heard based on the execution of Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s plot. I won’t try to list every possible thing people are talking about, but I think we get the idea of the impression that our game’s ending put on a lot of players. So I wanted to give my input on what I believe is actually going on with the story, as well as answer many questions popping up about the circumstances of our game’s characters.

So, do I think the developers are changing the story?

Short Answer: No, at least not in the way that many people think. They’re “changing” the story by putting in new elements, moments that tie with the rest of the Compilation, but the main plot points (Overarching plot, the main crisis, the internal plot, the emotional climax, etc.) still need to happen. This series is more than 2 decades old, and with time it has received: a movie, 2 books, a sequel, 2 prequels, and now a remake with existing materials to tie into the game. 

Long Answer: All right, if you’re still with me, thank you. I will do my best to explain all of what’s going on. I’ll give my input via understanding how the FF7 Universe works; in other words, what the Whispers are, how the Whispers work, how they’ve actually always been apart of FF7 and are now receiving an expanded role, and how Sephiroth and Aerith showing meta behavior makes sense due to the power that the Planet has given to the Arbiters of Fate (exposure = visions out of context). I will also be answering questions that one may bring up as proof of an alternate timeline/story change and argue what their purpose may actually be.

So, let's Talk about A Whisper

Wait a minute...

So, let's talk about the Whispers.

Let’s start by explaining what the Whispers are, what function they serve to the Planet, and how the Planet creates them in the first place:

Whispers are souls that act as arbiters of fate and have been a part of the Planet for as long as the Planet has existed. They know the fate of the Planet from beginning to end, and their function is to make sure that a specific destiny runs its course. They all unite under the will of the Planet, just like the Sephiroth Clones all act under the will of Sephiroth, which is probably the reason why they were given a cloaky look: the Whispers' function parallels the Sephiroth Clones' function and both act under the authority of something else. They cannot be seen by everyone, and to actually see their physical manifestation, you need to either be 1) deeply connected with the Planet, or 2) receive some form of physical contact from someone who has a strong connection to the Planet. This is established early in Chapter 2 of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Cloud meets Aerith for the first time, and at first glance she seems to be blown away by the wind. After Cloud and Aerith have an exchange and Aerith gives Cloud a flower, immediately after this we are greeted with an illusion of Sephiroth tormenting Cloud and more importantly, Aerith touching Cloud, allowing him to see the Whispers floating around the street. This follows the logic of my two points, as Aerith is a half-Cetra who’s been receiving visions of the past and future for years (her mural of symbolism in her Shinra HQ room was drawn when she received a vision as a child, though she does not understand the full context of what it means), and of course she ended up giving permission for Cloud to see the Planet’s protectors in action.

So how do the Whispers make sure destiny happens as intended?

Well, they do so by constantly observing the actions of the Planet’s people, sometimes in sight, sometimes not. If something happened that is off course, the Whispers immediately act to correct the course of said issue. We see this multiple times in the story. Some examples include: Aerith trying to leave the street where she meets Cloud, then proceeding to leave the street after meeting Cloud, following the Whispers’ intentions; Jessie getting injured in Sector 7 because destiny needs to make sure Cloud goes on the next AVALANCHE mission. If this didn’t happen, then Aerith and Cloud probably wouldn’t have met again; Surrounding the debris on top of Jessie to ensure her death takes place on top of the Sector 7 Tower (I’ll cover the speculation on her “survival” later); stopping Cloud from remembering everything about the Shinra Research Lab; stopping Hojo from revealing the truth of Cloud’s past (no way in Hell are they going to let the internal conflict unfold this early); reviving Barret from the stab wound that the Sephiroth remnant gave him; lastly, pushing Wedge down the Shinra HQ tower to ensure his death happens. Destined events either eventually happened, or they got delayed. This implies that the Whispers are nigh-omnipresent beings, especially given how many they are and how they were able to surround Midgar entirely, and their part of correcting destiny follows the flow of a river. As Red XIII puts it, “The flow of the great river that is the Planet, from inception to oblivion… For it is the will of the Planet itself”.

Cool. So how are the Whispers born? Where do they come from?

It’s actually a pretty straightforward explanation, and Aerith tells us in Chapter 18: Destiny’s Crossroads. Before the Whispers became Whispers, they were “Those born into this world. Who lived and who died. Who returned. They’re howling in pain.” This adds on to what Sephiroth said a moment ago: “All born are bound to her.” All Whispers were once living people, animals, etc. And all that are given life on the Planet are bound by something like a contract: You get made into an image and are given a physical life. In exchange, once that time’s up, you must return to the Lifestream and become a part of the Planet, being one of many who follow her will. You’re born, you live, you die, and you serve another purpose in a collective of spirits who are now tasked with making sure the flow of destiny is as it should be. By following all of this, we can conclude that 1) Everyone who lives on Gaia could eventually become a Whisper, and 2) since Whispers are a part of the Planet, they are formed from the Lifestream, the Planet’s lifeblood. This leads us into the next question...

How do the Whispers know the course of Destiny from start to finish?

Great question! The logical explanation to how they know is quite simple: the properties of the Lifestream. The Whispers are made out of Lifestream, and that gives them knowledge of the Planet’s destiny. I argue it is not farfetched to make this claim, as the Lifestream has shown time and again what it is capable of. Infact, let’s make an analogy of Lifestream manifestations via state of matter.

Lifestream: Its Three States of Matter and their Benefits and Side Effects

Mako is the liquid form of the Lifestream, Materia is a solid form of the Lifestream, while the regular Lifestream itself can be most equivalent to something of a gas/plasma, at least one that can be seen. Throughout Final Fantasy 7 we’ve seen what all of these forms can do. Mako is an extremely powerful energy source that powers all of Midgar through reactors, and is also what SOLDIERs are bathed in to possibly receive superhuman strength; Materia are jewels capable of all kinds of powerful magic; summoning fire, lightning, ice, creating shields, copying abilities of other living beings, healing, elevating other materia abilities, and most notably summon manifestations of powerful beings (Bahamut, Shiva, Ifrit, Odin, Knights of the Round). While the Lifestream itself? That’s all the souls of the planet with a consciousness that follows the Planet’s will. Some can appear as a physical manifestation, but they’re not quite solid, which is how Cloud’s buster sword moves through the Whispers as if he didn’t cut through anything. Use of the Lifestream can also create projections (think Aerith’s Chapter 14 resolution), allow access into someone’s subconscious under certain circumstances, and of course, give people visions of the past and future without any context as to how those events happen(ed).

All three forms of the Lifestream have side effects, too.

Materia can degrade the vitality and strength of the user. Think of it as a trade-off for borrowing the Planet’s lifeblood in the form of a jewel.

Mako can cause extremely intense mental breakdowns and break the psyche of those without strong mental resilience, which is why Cloud was unable to make it into SOLDIER. But he eventually received Mako exposure anyway. What happened? Oh yeah, he went into a comatose state not once, not twice, but THREE times. First during experimentation, second when he arrived at Midgar before Tifa bumped into him, and when he fell into a pool of Mako and washed up on the shore of Mideel.

Meanwhile, Lifestream side effects are non-contextual visions, loss of sanity similar to Mako (think Tifa before she entered Cloud’s subconscious), and if the Lifestream has something in it, infection! That’s how Geostigma came to be: Jenova cells from Sephiroth, Jenova, and the remnants were floating in the Lifestream, and when the latter destroyed Meteor, it also exposed humans to Jenova cells, turning into a severe disease that is deadliest toward hosts with emotional fragility. This is why Cloud has a “Geostigma episode” in Advent Children when he runs into an injured Tifa.

Even with all these side effects, the benefits are far too great to ignore. All this power from the Lifestream is why Sephiroth and Jenova wanted to siphon it for themselves in the first place. By siphoning the Lifestream resisting side effects, one can receive unparalleled powers. Sephiroth himself said it in the original game: 

“By merging with all the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form, a new existence. Melding with the Planet… I will cease to exist as I am now. Only to be reborn as a god to rule over every soul.”

Notice how the last quote aligns with what Sephiroth said in the Edge of Creation about the Nebula? 

“Our world will become a part of it… one day.” 

We’ll come back to that statement, I promise. But for now, based on everything I’ve told you, here’s what I think is going on in Final Fantasy 7 Remake:

Sephiroth is not from the future. His exposure to the Lifestream for the last 5 years gave him the side effect of non-contextual visions. Among these visions, he probably saw his master plan fail. Eventually he realizes that the reason he has these visions is because of the Whispers and more specifically, the Planet’s Weapon Arbiter. The Whispers are fighting against Sephiroth as he’s gained both a rough understanding of the future and the Lifestream’s powers by siphoning it up. So, his new master plan? Defeat the Arbiters of Fate and THEN continue with his original plan. Sephiroth being omnipresent makes sense given his control over Jenova and her shapeshifting, S cells that allow him to puppetize clones and Cloud, and being in the Lifestream basically giving him more power with one form of that being omnipresence. What’s going to lead to his downfall is ultimately his arrogance: he probably thinks that just stopping the Whispers is enough for him to win. So while the physical manifestation of fate is gone, Sephiroth still needs to meet the same criteria to win: get the Black Materia to summon Meteor, his ticket to siphon up all the Planet’s Lifestream, which means he also needs Cloud to give him the Black Materia, which then means that eventually Aerith will have to summon Holy and eventually become one with the Lifestream to beat Meteor.

See how all of this comes together without time travel theories that go off on insane tangents? It’s established that the Whispers know the course of destiny from past, present and future. But WHERE did it say that they can travel through time? WHERE did it say that Sephiroth can travel through time with the Lifestream? That kind of power would be an enormous retcon to the story and the functions of Gaia, and it would also lead to a really convoluted plot that can deviate from the main themes of the story (trust me, some theories out there are wild). We do know that Whispers are in a singularity and it moves like a river, which as @silver-wield cleverly put in a post about the story of FF7R, translates to:

The arbiters of fate issued a correction to Wedge and made him fall out of the window in the Shinra building. Which means fate cannot be altered, merely delayed, which then leads to a more painful end for not accepting that fate.

...Or perhaps shuffled up with ultimately the same necessary outcome, because the river of destiny was put on a different course but is still heading to the same destination. There are multiple works in the compilation that the writers and developers would like to tie together to the main story. What’s a way for them to execute this? By making a metaphor for the OG storyline and by beating it giving them permission to add new things? From a certain point of view, sure, but the developers never needed permission to do this in the first place. But the side effect of beating the physical manifestation of destiny was likely shuffling parts of the story of Final Fantasy 7, prequels all the way to the chronological sequels. One can make a case for this based on the explosion felt at Midgar when the Arbiter and Sephiroth were defeated in the Singularity. The glitters of light could also reflect this change. From all this I argue freedom came to be, and characters from the Compilation might make an appearance during the main story such as Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo. However, no matter what changes are present, the outcome will be the same. Cloud is not properly himself yet; he still thinks he made it into SOLDIER, he gets slight interferences from Jenova throughout the story (example: Cloud’s hand twitching when against Sephiroth at the Edge of Creation), he has the Buster Sword but still doesn’t remember who its original owner was, so his unreliable narration, downfall and emotional climax still need to happen. Aerith is the only character who can summon Holy and the only character who can call forth the Lifestream, and the only way she can call forth the Lifestream is by becoming one with it. How can she do this? There’s only one way: Death. Sorry guys, but if both Sephiroth and Aerith have prophetic visions of the future, there’s a chance that both know what must be done for themselves to get the upper hand. Sephiroth still wants to siphon up the Lifestream and become an omnipotent God, and the best way for him to do this? Summon Meteor. What does he need for this? The Black Materia. Who does he manipulate into giving him the Black Materia at the Northern Crater? Cloud.

My point from all this is that there are specific beats that need to happen to move the plot forward, no matter what new things they add from the Compilation. Using a different crisis for the overarching plot that isn’t Meteor is a retcon to the story, and why advertise Meteor and have it as the centerpiece of artworks and the title screen if you’re not going to use it in the first place? That’s just… really strange. We can add things in the middle of the plot to flesh out the main themes of a story while staying faithful to the outcomes. Adding something entirely different as a crisis like time travel in a game that has never been about time travel is out of place, unnecessary, and people are placing way too much faith in this being true while not looking at the bigger picture and function of Final Fantasy 7’s power tools. I believe the developers want you to think that the story is changing, that a happier outcome is in store for everyone. This all works with what Final Fantasy 7 did for many players in the first place: subvert expectations by placing us in an illusion with an unreliable narrative. We assumed Cloud made it into SOLDIER until we found out he never made it into SOLDIER and created a facade to conceal the truth that he was afraid to face. We thought Aerith was the love interest when the game kept making us appreciate her perky attitude until she ended up dying and then we discover in the Lifestream Sequence that Cloud’s romantic feelings, his whole reason for fighting, was for Tifa. We thought Shinra was the main antagonist of the game until shortly after going through Midgar, the main antagonist is Sephiroth. We thought we were fighting Sephiroth throughout the game until we find out that the real Sephiroth was encased in a crystal sucking up the Lifestream. We don’t actually fight him until the very end when he merges with Jenova and the Lifestream into Bizarro Sephiroth and Safer Sephiroth.

See where I’m going with all of this? The developers want to continue using red herrings and playing the theme of illusion by using different methods. The old methods will not work anymore, so they have to find a new way to subvert expectations in a way that gets us confused, excited, and uncertain what will happen until we actually play through the next installments. When that time comes, be prepared to get your heartstrings pulled, because reality hits our characters hard, just like it hits us hard. Think Biggs, Zack, Aerith are going to survive, and that Sephiroth is travelling through time to accomplish his devious tasks? Well, think again.

Now that we’ve gotten this far into this Whisper Talk, there are a load of questions I will need to address. So without further ado, Let’s mosey!!!

How is Sephiroth not from the future? His one-winged form from Advent Children Complete was shown in the final boss fight, the boss map looks eerily similar to Edge, and we saw multiple Sephiroths throughout the story. The game is heavily implying that Sephiroth is from the future and he wants to try to achieve victory a second time.

Well, for starters, First Class SOLDIERs having wings has been a thing for a while. Sephiroth was not the only SOLDIER to have a wing. As Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core showed us, Sephiroth’s comrades, Angeal and Genesis, were able to grow wings at will. They had different cells (G cells) which gave them a different ability, make copies of themselves, rather than control others who share their cells, sure, but that is NOT stopping any of them from growing wings at will. It’s something used across the board for all three of these really powerful SOLDIERs and it’s no surprise that this time around, they want to show Sephiroth using more of his abilities throughout the game.

Also, Sephiroth having one wing is nothing new. It’s part of his Safer form and is named on his track, One-Winged Angel. So, as an homage, they wanted the villain of the game to use a wing during his fight in Advent Children.

There’s also another way we can explain this. Sephiroth formed a body of his image in Advent Children thanks to Kadaj. And what purpose does Kadaj serve? He’s a strengthened remnant embodying Sephiroth’s cruelty. In other words, he’s another puppet Sephiroth can manipulate. And he uses Kadaj’s body + Jenova’s head to form his image. A clone and Jenova cells, or just straight up Jenova, allow him to shapeshift as that’s one of Jenova’s trademark abilities. So using this as an implication of time travel doesn’t add up.

When it comes to Sephiroth’s 70 alternative accounts, each of them have a straightforward explanation, including the one that confuses most people. Here we go, according to the FF7R Ultimania:

An illusion only Cloud can see:

Cloud has S cells injected into him. The same S cells are also Jenova cells. Jenova cells allow hosts to read the memories of those nearby, inherit the memories of other hosts, and give Sephiroth shapeshifting and puppeting abilities on those who have S cells. This is how Cloud created his SOLDIER facade thanks to Zack’s injection, similar memories and instinct to hide from the truth. What’s likely going on here is Sephiroth is able to make Cloud hallucinate thanks to said S cells, hence why it’s an illusion ONLY Cloud can see. We saw this during the Nibelheim flashback, meeting Aerith for the first time, after the Sector 7 Plate collapse when he was behind Tifa. This is another way of showing Sephiroth’s omnipresent power.

Also, if we're going to get really specific about the properties of Jenova cells, we can look at a source like FF7 Ultimania Omega:

Jenova's mimic ability Jenova has a mimic ability which allows it to read the memories and feelings of others, then adjust its appearance, speech and behaviour accordingly to imitate what it has seen. Jenova once used this ability to get close to the Ancients and infect them with its virus, which killed many of them.

This ability is not limited solely to Jenova itself, for those who have its cells within them passes it as well, though in an incomplete form. Immediately prior to the start of the game, when Cloud's mind was shattered, he ran into Tifa and seemed to immediately return to "normal"; this was because of the mimic abilities of the Jenova cells inside Cloud read her mind, seeing her memories of him, which were then combined with his own ideal vision of himself, fashioning a new personality for himself.

And there you go. Jenova's signature abilities are shapeshifting and illusion. It's mentioned in her backstory, It's shown in her boss battles, it's shown in Jenova-infected hosts, and it's even shown in her OST! The illusion aspect being something only Cloud can see makes sense, thanks to his Jenova S cells, so the developers are expanding this ability.

Black Robed Man:

Simple. These are Sephiroth Clones, also known as Remnants. Each of these puppets have S Jenova cells injected into them, which is what allows Sephiroth to create illusionary projections of himself via their bodies. They can also create an illusion of Jenova’s Lovecraftian forms. If predictions are correct, there’s a chance that a couple of them could end up becoming the Advent Children (more on that later).

Flashback:

Also simple. This connects to what was mentioned in Cloud’s illusion. Cloud knows events he should not thanks to his Jenova S cells, and flashbacks like, “Within my veins flows the blood of Ancients. This Planet is my birthright!” are events that will be featured later in the game in moments like the Kalm flashback. Moving on!

Unknown:

This is where people get confused. But believe me, the answer is MUCH simpler than most people realize. The Unknown Sephiroth is the last form of Sephiroth that we fought in Final Fantasy 7. Yes, the shirtless one. From here forward I'll call him SOLDIER Sephiroth. For reasons I do not know, they decided not to make him shirtless this time around (too sexy by far?) but believe me when I say that that Sephiroth is the same one we saw at the Edge of Creation. How am I so sure of this? Look back at how Cloud met that Sephiroth in Remake and compare it to what happened in the Crater. They have the same tunnel of light and Cloud’s visiting a persona of Sephiroth that exists in a dimension unaffected by time and space. The Lifestream gives Sephiroth the opportunity to pull Cloud's conscious mind into this dimension. Cloud being in the Singularity during the final battle of FF7R Part 1, and the Singularity containing Lifestream = ability to take Cloud to meet SOLDIER Sephiroth in a pocket dimension, the Edge of Creation. In OG, being exposed/near the Lifestream in the Crater allowed Cloud to visit Shirtless SOLDIER Sephiroth in another dimension and finish him off, with Aerith helping Cloud return his consciousness to the real world.

See?! It actually makes a lot of sense, only this time Sephiroth hasn’t been stripped of his God powers and is currently siphoning the Lifestream. So this time around, Cloud couldn’t beat down Sephiroth. The reason the FF7 Remake Ultimania labels this Sephiroth as unknown is because it’s following a narrative where it assumes you do not know everything yet. Final Fantasy 7 Remake has only covered Midgar, and there’s still many places and moments we have yet to explore. But the Ultimania is not going to cover them until they are published in the next installments, and why would it tell us unrevealed "secrets" of the story? So for now, it has to act as if this is a mystery. This is the same case with Zack being labeled as “Missing in Action” rather than dead in the Ultimania, because we have not reached that moment in the plot yet. But I’ll cover that a bit more on one of the next questions.

As for Sephiroth being prophetic in the Edge of Creation, it’s simply foreshadowing what we’ll eventually have to face. “That which lies ahead… does not yet exist” is telling us that the final battle still has years before it’s ready to be unleashed. As for the Nebula, “Our world will become a part of it… one day,” this is a more vague statement of what I quoted earlier:

“By merging with all the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form, a new existence. Melding with the Planet… I will cease to exist as I am now. Only to be reborn as a god to rule over every soul.” The Nebula that Sephiroth is staring at is stated in the FF7R Ultimania to represent Sephiroth’s wing(s). This same Nebula also has a similar shape to the original sketch of Safer Sephiroth. So, based on what SOLDIER Sephiroth told Cloud, we can conclude that Safer Sephiroth will one day be born and be the last fight for our team, maybe even taking place in the Edge of Creation. BUT it’s not quite time for that to happen yet, as Safer Sephiroth's physical body is still resting in a crystal at the Northern Crater. So there you have it!

Lastly, conceding the battlefield against Sephiroth, it is an homage to Advent Children and Edge, yes. That does not automatically mean that Sephiroth is from the future. We just fought arbiters of destiny who turned themselves into depictions of the three Advent Children. This is ultimately the developers' way of ending the game with an exciting boss battle and a somewhat familiar scene. It's just a manifestation of one of Gaia's locations while in the Singularity. Also, this whole boss battle was ultimately a fanservice-esque decision by the developers, particularly Co-Director Naoki Yamaguchi. They originally did not plan to have this boss battle in the first place, but they wanted to end this game on some kind of high note with the main antagonist. They could've ended the game with the Arbiter boss battle, and I think doing so would have confused less people, but the reason behind the Sephiroth boss battle has been spoken. We can conclude this: it was a Jenova/Remnant copy of Sephiroth using expanded abilities like his wing and absorbed some of the Whispers' power before this Sephiroth was defeated by the team and the Whispers were released from his grasp. There is no need to overthink this decision (but yes, I don't think it was entirely necessary).

But what about the Arbiters manifesting into images of Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo? Whisper Rubrum, Viridi, Croceo, and Bahamut SHIN are all representations of Advent Children’s antagonists and their bio says they are from a “future timeline.” Isn’t this proof that there’s time travel and alternate timelines going on?

Well, you are right about the enemy intel bio in Final Fantasy 7 Remake stating that these guys are manifestations of figures from a future timeline. BUT that does not imply that multiple timelines are forming. Technically speaking, we all live in one timeline that follows through a singularity. This is the same case for Final Fantasy 7, and the very place we are fighting these Whispers is called the Singularity. The reason the Whispers are forming into these creatures is because of their future knowledge. This is their way of shapeshifting into powerful foes that can defend themselves against the team. They are turning into foes that destiny will one day birth, but in the form of something akin to a Weapon just like the main Arbiter itself, and this is also the developers way of adding a homage and possibly a hint of the foes that will appear in the future. They are NOT the Advent Children themselves, otherwise there would probably show more personality, and they would also… look more like them. So what happened with “time” after defeating these Advent Whispers and the Arbiter Weapon? Well, it sharpened the curves of the river and put destiny on a new course, but to the same destination, hence the “set beginning and end” that the developers mentioned before. In the river’s new course, we’ll get new events that while still having original events that will all be more fleshed out. In part of this new course of destiny maybe there’s a chance that we will see the Advent Children themselves. How can I be sure of this? After speaking to a friend about it, the remnants we encountered give us a hint. Marco, #49, resides in Sector 7. Who was a teenager that resided in Sector 7 before becoming a remnant and then Advent Child? Kadaj, also known as the manifestation of Sephiroth's cruelty. Meanwhile, we have #2 in Sector 5, who shows strong features fitting for someone in SOLDIER. Who fits this category? Loz, also known as the manifestation of Sephiroth's strength. People have theorized that #2 is Zack, but I do not agree and will address that later. The only remnant candidate we have left is Yazoo, the manifestation of Sephiroth's allure. This makes sense as he’s the most silent of the trio, so the developers will keep his remnant in mystery for now. But there you have it. By Nomura stating, "Come back to me a few years later and ask me what remake means," what I believe he means by "remake" is write the original story of Final Fantasy 7 with characters in other parts of the compilation included. Hence, a shuffled story with the same necessary outcomes.

Okay, but didn’t the developers say that Final Fantasy 7 Remake is not canon to the Compilation, thereby making it a different story from the Compilation and proving the developers are ditching the original story in the process?

Let me tell you right now: if those lines were what they actually said in full context, then they were lying. How am I sure? Because throughout FF7R, parts of what happened in the Compilation are included in the story. Zack’s Last Stand was featured in a flashback; Hollow’s lyrics greatly parallel the lyrical version of Price of Freedom; one of Cloud’s old Shinra Military comrades was featured and mentioned Kunsel, from Crisis Core; and of course the big Arbiters being manifestations of the Advent Children.

For saying the Compilation is being ditched and is the bad ending, why include characters and homages specifically from the Compilation? If they really were, they wouldn’t put pieces of it into the story like this. All that was stated by Director Tetsuya Nomura was that FF7 Remake is not canon to the Compilation YET. Keyword YET. The story is incomplete and the developers need to see Remake through from start to finish before they can say it’s truly canon to the Compilation. And what have Scenario Writer Kazushige Nojima and Producer Yoshinori Kitase said about the story?

Does this sound like they’re ditching the Compilation to you? I think this should sum up how they are tying the series of Final Fantasy 7 into one big package, but there are some people saying that the team seeing Advent Children and the Planet 500 years later, followed by Red XIII saying it’s “a glimpse of tomorrow if we fail here today” as proof that what happens in the future is a bad ending. This is not entirely true. It makes sense for humanity to be gone 500 years later with the Planet living on because that was the life that the team was trying to save in the first place. What Red XIII told us was simple: that if Destiny wins, then the river of Destiny will run the same course, and that includes the events of On The Way To a Smile, Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus, and of course humanity being gone 500 years later. This is another case of the team receiving future visions without context, as I addressed before. They saw an event where they maybe saw people they knew, but do they know what leads to it? No. So what they assume about the outcome of the future and what’s good and bad may not necessarily be correct. They will find that out as the next parts of Final Fantasy 7 Remake are released.

Okay, but aren’t the characters free to do whatever they want now that they have beaten Destiny? As Aerith said, they have boundless, terrifying freedom.

They have freedom from the Whispers, and like Zack once said, “The price of freedom is steep.” They can begin their journey without the worry of the Whispers acting up if they do something that strays far away from what’s necessary. That doesn’t mean that they are not going to head to all the destinations we needed to reach in the original game. We will still probably have the flashback at Kalm since it’s the nearest town away from Midgar. We still need to pass through the Mythril Mines to get to other destinations. We still need to pass through Corel, Barret’s hometown, to get to the Gold Saucer where we will meet Cait Sith and reach Barret’s character climax. We still need to reach Gongaga and this will likely be a required place to visit because of how much more importance Zack is given in Remake. There’s also no working reactor in Gongaga so there’s a chance that yellow reunion flowers will grow as foliage. We still need to head to Cosmo Canyon, where Bugenhagen will teach us more about the Lifestream and where Red XIII will learn the truth about what happened to his father Seto. We still need to head to Nibelheim where a lot of confusion is going to rise within our team--specifically Cloud and Tifa--and also where we need to release Vincent from the Shinra Mansion. We still need to cross Mt. Nibel (we might get a flashback from Cloud) and head to Rocket Town to meet Cid and drink some goddamn tea. We still need to head to the Temple of the Ancients for the team to find out what needs to be done to save the Planet, and also the place where Sephiroth will manipulate Cloud and the team into giving him the Black Materia. We still need Aerith to head to the Forgotten City as it’s the only place she can use her prayer to activate the White Materia and summon Holy. We still need to head to the Northern Crater as that’s where Cloud will likely have his downfall and submit to Sephiroth….

We could keep going on with this, but I’m sure you see my point. New things will happen but there are important locations that the team needs to reach in order to come closer to their goal of stopping Sephiroth. The simple thing is that, from here on out, the Whispers will not intervene, giving us the illusion that things will change, but we most likely will learn the hard way that the necessary outcomes will still happen. So once again, the river is on a new course to the same destination.

Okay. You’ve talked about Sephiroth not being from the future, but what about Aerith? Her prayer stance in the opening cinematic looks eerily similar to her stance in the ending of Final Fantasy 7. Based on this, is she from the future/did she see the outcome of the Meteor-Lifestream-Holy Conflict?

No. What probably happened was the developers paid homage to that ending screen. What follows immediately after that is Aerith picking up a crushed reunion flower, symbolizing the non-reunion that Aerith and Zack could not receive in life, but eventually receive in the Lifestream. And once again: Aerith has received visions of the future, but without context as to why and how they happened. In a novella it’s mentioned that Aerith received a vision as a child and drew her mural of symbolism in her room as a result. We know she’s been receiving non-contextual visions for awhile, but being forced into a big responsibility by the Planet is something she needs to learn to accept, and that’s part of her character arc we will receive in the next parts of FInal Fantasy 7 Remake. There is no evidence she can time travel, and she doesn’t always know the Whispers’ intentions. When the team asked her what they were doing while surrounding the Shinra HQ Tower, she simply replied, “Who knows?”. She’s not omniscient. She has some meta knowledge and a big responsibility, but does not know how to handle this role yet. And that's where character development comes in for our Maiden of the Planet.

Cool, but why are people like Rufus and Hojo able to see the Whispers in the first place? And maybe Zack, too?

Actually, there’s a pretty straightforward explanation for this. As we know, to be able to see the Whispers, once again you have to either be heavily connected to the Planet or touched by a special person. Aerith spent a portion of her childhood in the Shinra HQ Tower. Who else was there with her? Her biological mother Ifalna. These two are both Cetra, one half and one full-blooded. Hojo likely spent hours upon hours with both of them, especially Ifalna, so receiving contact from them is not farfetched. Also, that gross f***** of a scientist does unfortunately play an important role in the plot and keeping the flow of destiny on course. As for Rufus? This man was a teenager when Aerith and Ifalna were living in Shinra HQ. It’s very possible that he ran into one of the two cetra and maybe received contact from them. If he didn’t? Don’t forget, this man is the president of Shinra throughout almost all of FF7. Even if the team opposes him, they still need him. He is very necessary to destroy the barrier that blocks the team from getting into the Northern Crater. Without his actions, the team cannot make it to Sephiroth. It’s that simple. And even though he can see the Whispers, how much does it matter? It’s only going to matter if the Whispers make a resurgence sometime in the plot. There you have it.

Okay, but why is Zack alive after his Last Stand? And why were the Whispers present during this? Also, what about the Stamp bag? Isn’t this proof of time travel and alternate timelines?

And here’s where the red herring comes in! He did beat the Shinra Army. And yes, the Whispers were present. BUT why were they present? Remember what was mentioned earlier? The Whispers are dead souls returning to the Planet, and if that’s the case they have been part of the Planet for a LONG time. This means that they were ALWAYS present through the course of events in the Planet. The reason we see them during Zack’s Last Stand is likely to throw one off at first, until they connect the dots with how old the Whispers actually are. And they are showing themselves in the Last Stand because this is an extremely important event that has to happen for Cloud’s next journey to begin. We didn’t quite get to see how the Whispers changed up the event, but they likely did form it in a way where the developers wanted to trick us. It's also left ambiguous if he can see the Whispers or not, although they do not seem to alarm him IF he can see them.

Now, about the Last Stand, If you compare Remake’s Last Stand to Crisis Core and Final Fantasy 7 OG, you’ll notice that Remake’s moment has similarities to the OG scene.

Zack walks, drops Cloud in a safe place, and defends himself against the soldiers in all three. So here's where the cutscenes get different:

FF7 OG: Zack fights against Shinra infantrymen. We don't see the troops, but Zack thinks he defeated them. Afterwards he heads to Cloud but immediately gets shot by a group of Shinra troops, and I mean shot. Afterwards, there is no dialogue between Zack and Cloud, Cloud grabs the Buster Sword and starts breaking down in the rain. Thus, his journey--nearly--begins.

FF7 Crisis Core: Zack confronts the Shinra army. He begins his monologue:

Boy oh boy... The price of freedom is steep. Embrace your dreams, and whatever happens... Protect your honor, as a SOLDIER!

We then proceed to battle the Shinra army. Eventually, the screen fades to black and we see Zack mortally wounded. The same group of Shinra troops from OG come over and bullet Zack to death. Eventually, Cloud wakes up in shock, and Zack parts Cloud his sword and last words:

For the both of us... You're gonna... Live. You'll be... My living legacy. My honor, my dreams... They're yours now.

Cloud then proceeds with a breakdown, and afterwards begins his journey, where he'll bump into a certain someone while in Mako comatose. Sheesh I hate watching that scene due to its deadly side effect.

Where does Remake stop?

Right in the area where Zack’s grave is, a cliff with a steep descent to flat land. It’s the same spot where Zack got shot by a Shinra infantryman who pursued Zack throughout his running away from Shinra Mansion; it's the same spot where Cloud placed the Buster Sword to honor his close friend’s wish; and the same spot where Zack declared, “For the both of us… you’re going to live. You’ll be… my living legacy.” The developers intentionally stopped us from seeing the outcome of that moment because it’ll either be the same place where Zack will die, or we’ll see his fate get delayed and placed somewhere else. 

I have also seen people argue that #2 is Zack, or if not Zack, then Zack’s corpse.

This is false.

Remember why Zack was placed in a cryosleep tube in the first place? Because, like Cloud, he was considered a failed experiment by Hojo because the S cells could not turn him into a Sephiroth clone. Zack becoming a Sephiroth clone would be a major retcon to the story and how he was able to escape with Cloud in the first place. Zack becoming a clone would mean that he was never a failed experiment. And what would happen if he wasn’t a failed experiment? Cloud wouldn’t be able to escape and FF7 wouldn’t have happened. Could Hojo have picked up Zack’s dead body after his death? Maybe, but is there evidence that his corpse would still become a clone? That’s extremely unlikely in my personal opinion. We would have to assume that Hojo did another clone experiment this time around and the Shinra troops decided to take his body with them when they had no good motive or order to do so anyway. Their orders were likely  “shoot to kill” and that’s it. We don’t need Zack’s corpse to be remade into a clone, and we certainly don’t need him to be a clone if Sephiroth wants to do something like create an illusionary projection of Zack. Remember what happened in the Northern Crater? Sephiroth used Jenova to create an illusion of Tifa in order to trick the Black Materia holder into “helping” the team.

Lastly, that bag of Stamp's Champs, Original Flavor.

It’s interesting, isn't it? And Nomura told us to pay close attention to both stamps. This is probably the biggest case of an alternate timeline being real, but after thinking about it for a while, I argue that it's not proving an alternate timeline exists, but rather it's being shown to give focus to two different heroes. And how does this work in the FF7 world? Well, Shinra probably has simple rebranding of Stamp on a Shinra product. It’s not uncommon for corporations to rebrand their products into a different name (just look up Lay’s Potato Chips and you’ll come across Walkers, as shown in my poorly collaged photo). BUT there's another example to talk about, as a friend mentioned. Stamp's Champs are the "original" flavor. This original flavor and Terrier is being used to represent Zack in FF7, as he was once called a "puppy" by his mentors in FF7 Crisis Core. Now, that bag is calling to the original hero, who was Zack (could also be an homage to how Zack's design was originally assigned a "different" role in FF7 OG) up until he passed his dreams on to Cloud. So what this means is both Stamps are used for wither a different flavor or got rebranded after a certain amount of time passed, or the Stamp brand has the same flavor is different depending on the location in Gaia. Now for the second functionality for Stamp: It's being used as a red herring to mislead the players deeper in to the mouse trap. Remember Stamp’s original function in the context of Shinra? It served as a propaganda device for Shinral to promote its use of warfare for wealth to mislead the public into thinking Shinra’s deeds were for progress and beneficial for the Planet. It’s very possible that the developers are using Terrier Stamp as a propaganda device to trick the face-value players into thinking everything’s going to be different for the story until we're shown otherwise. And if it actually is an alternate timeline? It will not affect our team. As established previously, there is no time travel that our team is capable of, and the Whispers act on a fixed flow under the Will of the Planet and are almost omnipresent, so they must correct the course of destiny in the present and as quickly as possible. That alternate timeline would probably just be used to show us that no matter what we do, what’s set in stone needs to be kept in stone. So, don’t get your hopes up that Zack is going to survive, especially since he already passed on the Buster Sword to Cloud in the present "timeline" that we're playing.

But why is there a different Seventh Heaven sign shown during the ending sequence? Isn’t this proof of an alternate timeline?

Careful now. There’s a big possibility that what was shown during that shuffled sequence of events was the original Seventh Heaven bar. That’s right, there was a Seventh Heaven before Tifa’s in Sector 7. How do I know this? It’s a sidequest in Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core. Zack met an unnamed carpenter in the Sector 7 slums and helped name the bar. The canon answer in the narrative is to choose the name Seventh Heaven. So what’s likely happening here is 1) we saw a past event of the first Seventh Heaven bar being worked on, as the folks of the slums are building their homes together; 2) we are seeing the folks rebuild the Sector 7 slums, and perhaps to honor what was once there, the folks are building another bar and making sure to keep the original name Seventh Heaven, or 3) pretty much what I said before and it’s happening in an alternate timeline. Regardless, there’s a good chance that Crisis Core is being referenced here. And if it isn’t and it’s different events happening in an alternate timeline? Once again, our friends can’t go to that alternate timeline because time travel is not a power they have. So, it doesn’t really affect the main beats of our journey. What may happen, though, is our team will visit the Sector 7 slums later down the line, and they’ll have a reunion with a rebuilt home before settling the score with Shinra and Sephiroth. Until we see it, though, that’s just headcanon.

But why is Biggs alive? Aren’t Wedge and Jessie alive, too?

Biggs is shown to be alive, yes, but at what point of time and for how long? Also, even though he is shown to be alive, how is that going to drastically alter the story for our friends? He may stick around and have a minor role later, but he could very well die again depending on where the Destiny River is heading, and there’s likely very little he can do to somehow drastically change the story. Is he going to suddenly appear and sacrifice himself to make sure Aerith survives? Highly doubt it. See what I mean? Even if someone like him is left alive, he’ll either receive the same fate in a different way or just get a role that won’t change much of the main story. So, are Wedge and Jessie alive? Wedge, absolutely not. He was pushed down Shinra HQ Tower and there is no way he was able to survive a fall that high. There is no evidence that he “survived” after that fall as well. As for Jessie, we saw her gloves and headband on a dresser next to Biggs, but that’s it. Why would they place those next to him and not next to Jessie if she’s still alive and being taken care of? She was high atop the Sector 7 tower and it’s very unlikely anyone besides our team was able to run up and grab her on time. She was also in a worse state than Biggs and probably got crushed by the tower collapsing. In other words, she got crushed twice. Once when she set off her bomb and Cloud and Tifa bump into her; the second, when the plate dropped. What the glove and headband are, are likely nothing more than the remains of a friend who couldn’t make it. There may have been time for someone to pick up Biggs and that’s how he ended up in a bed, covered in bandages. As for more proof he’s the only one who survived? Wedge had 3 cats he held. Out of the three, only one named Biggums survived. The other 2 missing, I believe, are symbolism for the fate of the AVALANCHE trio. There you have it, three charming but minor characters who had written character arcs that got fleshed out in Remake, but don’t serve an extremely important purpose to the main plot points of the game (no offense to the trio, I do like Mr. Not-Charlie-Sheen and I wonder what they will do when the inevitable happens).

This is cool and all, but what about Sephiroth's line? "Seven Seconds till the end. Time enough for you, perhaps. But what will you do with it? Let's see." Also, this Sephiroth used more informal phrasing in the Japanese acript, such as "ore." He seems to be aware of what the future holds, too. So what do you make of this?

Ah yes, this moment, also one of the first pieces of script the writers thought of:

Well friend, I actually covered this topic before:

Seven Seconds Before the End: Theory vs. Context

While that post was made to debunk a theory, I believe what I wrote in it can easily be taken into the context of this post. That's one thing people constantly overlook about this line: it already has a given context. What do I mean by that? Check out the story log here:

In the world beyond, Sephiroth shows Cloud a vision of the planet seven seconds before its demise. Having strayed from the course destiny set for them, they strike out on a path toward an unknown future.

This is what Sephiroth was referring to: the end of the Planet. Unfortunately people are taking this line WAY out of context and using it to write theories that stray far away from the line's meaning in the first place. It's part of what Sephiroth is after, and it's part of what Cloud is fighting against. The team fought against the Arbiters of Fate because they believe what they saw was the end of everything for them without seeing the long-term outcome, while Sephiroth lured the team to fight against the Arbiters of Fate because he may have seen his failure, and believes that with the physical manifestation of the Whispers gone, he can continue his plan without any chance of failure. A part of the future, no matter what seems to happen, will involve making a decision seven seconds before the Planet's demise. What will cause the Planet's demise? Meteor. That is the main calamity we are trying to stop after defeating Sephiroth, and we need to defeat Safer Sephiroth and SOLDIER Sephiroth to make sure his will cannot block Holy from being summoned, as well as prevent Aerith from calling forth the Lifestream. So once again, this is from Sephiroth's rough understanding of the future, and it's a meta message for the players of what the ending of Remake might entail. It is NOT Sephiroth from the future suddenly sending his body/consciousness into the past in a really odd moment to give Cloud a warning.

Even with all this, the ending of Final Fantasy 7 Remake stated, "The Unknown Journey will continue." What do you have to say about this?

Yes, there is an unknown journey. This is a journey with new content to tie the rest of the Compilation together, like a possible story shuffle mentioned earlier. There's bound to be new and revised scenes in between the set beginning and end, hence "the unknown journey." I talked about this before, but for the developers to put something like "The same journeys from 2 decades ago will continue" is counter-intuitive to what they just showed us in the ending and would mess with all the anticipation for what's to come next. We have to think about this in a different perspective, and not the perspective of "oh, nothing is going to change." The developers need to keep people excited, and part of keeping that excitement is marketing a tease. It's pretty much how marketing works, too. A marketing scheme that only tells the literal facts without trying to juggle the consumer's emotions isn't going to interest the consumer that much compared to the marketing scheme that teases at the possibilities. As for the reason Yoshinori Kitase will then say that the team is continuing FF7R as FF7 has? He's in a different mindset during interviews like that. The game Final Fantasy 7 Remake is telling us things like a book, ending the events with a To Be Continued cliffhanger. Meanwhile, Kitase can state that FF7R will continue as FF7 because that's technically a vague statement. We know we'll get key locations and scenes, but we don't know how they'll get fleshed out. And we sure as heck don't know about any new scenes and how those are going to be executed in the next installments. In other words, think of a classic sandwich with a hipster rendition. The set beginning and end are the top and bottom buns, the protein is almost the same, maybe a couple spices added in there; and the unknown is all the new toppings added in your hipster-style classic sandwich. I know this is a strange analogy, but hopefully it gets the point across. So don't worry too much; Nojima, Nomura, and Kitase haven't shown us the new condiments yet!

Conclusion

If you're still here after reading through my wall of jargon, thank you! After all that I've written, I hope I was able to accomplish my goal: to ease your worries about the developers' plans with the story. And I hoped to do this by giving an in-universe explanation as to why certain things are happening. There is context to the Whispers' powers, and with the Whisper following a continuous flow of destiny, pieces of the future and past are scattered in that river. Sephiroth's been basking in this river for years now, so he got similar exposure as Aerith did and now has rough knowledge of what's to come. I think people who are clinging to time travel theories are taking the Whispers' powers out of context. We saw vague bits of the future; Aerith did, Sephiroth did, we did, and do you know who else? Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Red XIII. Heavy exposure to the Whispers gives visions as a side effect. They're not travelling through time from the future to fix things when they've always existed as dead souls who returned to the Planet; they're continuously moving around Gaia and watching folks--especially key players in saving the Planet. The flow of a river doesn't stop, it keeps moving through its closed course. Maybe it can change its course in a slightly different direction, or get shafted into sharper curves to delay the flow, but it will still head to its final destination no matter what. While we are in the current of this new course, we'll stumble upon some untouched terrain before we get to the set ending.

However, even if we know about the inevitable, that isn't going to stop us from feeling intense pain for our heroes.

Thus the journey continues.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go sit my ass down and drink some god-damn tea.

Special Thanks

@otp-oasis-heavenxearth (Also known as @magicalchemist)

For taking the time to read my rough draft and pointing out the goofs, bringing in your theory ideas, as well as helping me solidify my confidence in Final Fantasy 7 Remake's future. Seriously, if you haven't, check out her blog. She's incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to FF7 and looks through every different perspective while sticking to the facts. In other words, straight up awesome!

@silver-wield

For allowing me to cite your post, as well as being the first person that made me faithful the developers are staying true to their word with their direction of FF7R. Seriously, thanks! If you haven't, check out her blog. Her attention to detail is incredible!

[linenflower]

Tangled alternate universe

Little clarifications.

I thought about this idea while in the shower

My first language is spanish, I apologize for any mistakes

The history is a lot similar to the original with some changes

This could be cringy

This is entierly my imagination and I'm not flawless

Finally, this is my first time writing an idea like this

I was thinking in some kind of alternate universe, like a parallel timeline and I came up with something incredible.

So, what if when Rapunzel traveled back in time during the episode "No time like the past" she created a whole new series of events and a new chronology. When she lectures Eugene, his personality changes and he mentally grows in another direction. He values friendship and companionship more. He reflects more on his actions, he's a little less egocentric, he's still with Stalyan but they are still a couple of thieves.

By the time Rapunzel is 18, Eugene steals the tiara with his girfriend/fiancee (during the years and a new point of view, they have grown closer and they are a more mature couple, they really know each other, and as we saw during the series, Stalyan isn't really a bad person). The pair arrives at the tower, followed by Max, they are knocked out by Rapunzel, the story continues in a similar way as the original movie: the deal about the tiara and the lanterns. During the I've got a Dream song, Eguene and Stalyan want an island filled with money away from the Baron (In this timeline, both had escaped Vardaron and the Baron hoping to create a new and free life, the Baron hires the Stabbington brothers to bring the couple back).

Following the reveal of Rapunzels powers, during a midnight conversation, Rapunzel is amazed by the love displayed betwen Eugene and Stalyan. Her dream now is not just seeing the lanterns but also falling in love. Gothel confronts Rapunzel, mother knows best reprise, and all that. By the time they arrive at Corona, Eugene and Stalyan had become like big siblings to Rapunzel.

During the day celebrating, Rapunzel sumbles upon a handmaiden from the castle, their eyes meet for just a second, both felt something in their chests for just a second, the woman became lost within the dancing crowd. Rapunzel was left confusied, only remebering those beautiful hazel eyes in a light blue dress.

In the night, the trio saw the lanterns, Rapunzel praises and thanks Eugene and Stalyan for everything, she gives them the tiara, they refuse it. In land, Eugene and Stalyan argue about the tiara and finally being able to live freely. Stalyan says that they can now leave everything beyond but Eugene is hesitant. Suddenly the Stabbington brothers appear catching them off guard. Like in the movie, Gothel had manipulated the brothers, the boat setup happens, Rapunzel is brought back to the tower and the death sentence.

With the help of Max and the Snuggly Duckling gang, Eugene and Stalyan escape prison and head to the tower. While climbing the tower, Stalyan is able to enter but Gothel stabs her and closes the window. Stalyan tries to crawl near Rapunzel but Gothel stops her. Gothel then tells Rapunzel how Stalyan was willing to leave her with the tiara. Rapunzel starts to cry but Stalyan, seeing the end near tells her about being scared, about how she has been scared of her father in the same way Rapunzel is scared of her mother, but unlike her, Rapunzel was willing to stand up and build her freedom.

Rapunzel then confronts her mother, saying that if she doesn't let her heal Stalyan, she will cut her hair. Gothe agrees and sets Rapunzel free, she aproaches her friend and when about to heal her, Stalyan apologizes and cuts Rapunzels hair. Gothel panics and taking advantage of the situation, Pascal commits murder opening the window and pushing Gothel out of it. Eugene finally enters the room only to find her love lying in the ground. He starts crying, making Rapunzel do the same.

When the first of Rapunzels tears land on Stalyans face, a light starts to emerge from her wound. Fine yellow strokes of the sundrop comence to flood the room. Stalyans eyes open and she thanks Rapunzel for giving her a the leap to have strenght in herself.

The trio travel again to Corona so that Rapunzel can reunite with her parents. They hug Rapunzel and shortly after Eugene and Stalyan too. Smiles and tears are shed.

The history ends with Rapunzel narrating her history, now wondering about her life in this new happily ever after. Eugene is seen holding the tiara and running in the palace halls trying to escape Rapunzel, only to trip over the new princess' lady in wating. She then gives the tiara back to Rapunzel, making their eyes cross again. Rapunzel thanks her and both share a smile.

The end

Congratulations to those who made it this far!! Well, so that's it, my reimagination of Tangled. Fell free to comment, I accept polite critique. Imaginig this scenario was awesome and if any one is curious, yeah, I made all this alternate universe so that Rapunzel is single when she meets Cassandra. In the future I'll try to expand in the history, maybe create a real fic or something, but only if the college lets me. Anyone is free to base more tales, draws, comics, or anything from this.

That's all for now! :D

[mediaeval-muse]

Book Review

Confessions of the Fox. By Jordy Rosenberg. New York: One World, 2018.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Genre: historical fiction, queer fiction

Part of a Series? No

Summary: Set in the eighteenth century London underworld, this bawdy, genre-bending novel reimagines the life of thief and jailbreaker Jack Sheppard to tell a profound story about gender, love, and liberation.

Jack Sheppard and Edgeworth Bess were the most notorious thieves, jailbreakers, and lovers of eighteenth-century London. Yet no one knows the true story; their confessions have never been found. Until now. Reeling from heartbreak, a scholar named Dr. Voth discovers a long-lost manuscript—a gender-defying exposé of Jack and Bess’s adventures. Is Confessions of the Fox an authentic autobiography or a hoax? As Dr. Voth is drawn deeper into Jack and Bess’s tale of underworld resistance and gender transformation, it becomes clear that their fates are intertwined—and only a miracle will save them all.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: sexual content (as in sex acts, not the mere presence of lgbt+ people), blood, graphic depiction of top surgery, violence, racism, gender dysphoria

Overview: I didn’t know what I was expecting when I picked up this book, but something about it just hit all the right angles for me. I adore historical fiction that not only aims to imitate the aesthetics of the period, but also focuses on underrepresented identities, such as queer, non-white, and working or poverty class people; thus, it was inevitable that I would find Confessions of the Fox would be so engrossing. I do understand that this book might not be for everyone, as Rosenberg plays with a lot of academic ideas that usually fall in the realm of theory, but personally, I loved that this book wasn’t just about trans identity. While gender and identity and queerness were at the heart of this book, Confessions was also about archives and policing and commodities and so much more - things that were related and engaged the more academic part of my brain, but somewhat complicated for casual reading. Nevertheless, it was ambitious and smartly-constructed, so I’m giving it a high rating, even if I have quibbles here and there.

Writing: As a former academic and lover of history, I very much enjoyed Rosenberg’s approach to genre, form, and writing. It would have been easy to simply write a story using modern aesthetic tastes, but Rosenberg goes out of his way to imitate the prose style of the 18th century. I loved the richness of the vocabulary and the complexity of the sentences, as well as the juxtaposition of the sacred and profane. It was refreshing to read such beautiful prose that the author clearly put a lot of love into, and if you want to be so immersed in a story that you feel like you’re reading a historical document, I think Rosenberg does a wonderful job.

I also really loved the way Rosenberg wrote about trans identity in the 18th century. There are passages, for example, where Jack’s attention wanders while being dead-named, where Jack expresses feelings of confusion or freedom when talking about his physical body, where he talks about the process of coming into being when he heard Bess use his name, etc. I thought these passages were the most beautifully written and impactful, and they stayed with me the most after I finished the book.

These 18th century “confessions” are accompanied by a number of footnotes, written by a character named Dr. Voth in the present day. In these passages, Rosenberg shifts his tone and style, thereby differentiating between past and present without having to constantly remind the reader that Jack and Bess’s story is told through something of a frame. I think the choice to have footnotes instead of chapters where Voth’s POV takes center stage was a good one - it more effectively created parallels between the 18th century story and Voth’s personal story, and reminded the reader that history (especially trans history) evolves as a result of a kind of archival work, collected in pieces by many different people. In that sense, form matched function, which I am always delighted to see in my novels.

That being said, I can’t say I enjoyed Voth’s voice all that much. This criticism is probably a personal preference rather than anything Rosenberg did wrong - I just think Voth’s voice felt a little too conversational, like he was talking to someone instead of writing.

Plot: Most of Rosenberg’s novel follows Jack Sheppard and Bess Khan as they discover Jack’s identity, evade arrest, and disrupt a horrifying commodity trade (so to speak). In my opinion, the plot points surrounding Jack’s personal journey were incredibly well-constructed; I felt that the evolution of Jack’s gender identity, the romance between Jack and Bess, and their evolution as criminals were all very compelling and touched on a number of engrossing themes, from gender to poverty to anti-capitalism. Granted, there were some areas where I think the pacing dragged, but part of me thinks this was due to the 18th century style and genre conventions, more than anything Rosenberg was doing wrong.

In Voth’s footnotes, we also get something of a personal story which includes Voth being coerced into working for an exploitative publishing company at the direction of his university administrator. As we go through the footnotes, Voth recounts conversations he had with these figures while also disclosing details about his failed relationships - with one ex in particular. While I did like the parallels that exist between the manuscript and Voth’s own life, there were some things that challenged my suspension of disbelief. For example, I would never expect an academic to record personal anecdotes and intimate confessions in footnotes for an academic project. Maybe that happens in academic circles outside mine, and I understand it needs to happen for plot reasons (just reading references to critical theory or secondary sources would be boring for most people), so this criticism is coming from a place of being too close to the setting surrounding the text, in a way.

I also think that there were some passages where sexual activity would be mentioned where it was not needed. I do understand, on some level, that sex and sexuality is an important topic in trans studies (and queer studies as a whole), and I don’t want to appear too prudish. However, I think random references to a character masturbating, even if they were making a point, were a bit egregious. I was especially put off by the story of a 15 year old masturbating (in the present-day footnotes), and though I understand the story was illustrating an academic concept and books should acknowledge that (many) teens do have sex drives, it was also a bit much for me, personally.

Characters: Jack, our primary protagonist, is interesting and complex not just because he struggles with his identity as a trans man, but also because he struggles with acting in ways that are not out of self-interest. Though he is a thief and thus acts in self-interest in understandable ways, he eventually uncovers an operation which involves the production of a drug-like substance (or something - that’s the best I can describe it). Bess demands that he destroy all samples so that the substance can’t be reproduced by others, but Jack wants to confiscate the samples for himself to make a huge profit. I liked that this conflict existed, not only because it showed Jack as having other challenges in his life other than his gender identity, but it also spurred character growth and emotional turmoil.

Bess Khan, a prostitute and Jack’s lover, was written in a way that respected sex work and provided commentary on race and policing. I really liked that she had a strong set of principles and desires that were larger than herself, and I liked that she was confident and forceful where Jack could be meek and unsure.

Other rogues were equally loveable and admirable. Jenny, another prostitute, was a nice example of women forming networks of support within the criminal underworld while also showing how white women (even prostitutes) are treated differently than non-white women. Aurie, a black queer man, was also a supportive friend to Jack who is frequently instrumental in his survival. There is also a wide variety of named and unnamed rogues who were non-white and/or queer in some way, providing a rich array of characters that dispels the assumption that 18th century England was homogenously white and straight.

Our main antagonist, Jonathan Wild, is a bit less interesting in that he’s mainly just corrupt. I personally didn’t care for the chapters from his perspective, though I do understand that he functions as an important, symbolic figure that embodies all the things Jack and Bess work against (capitalism, police corruption, etc.).

Voth, our modern day commentator, has his moments, but sometimes, I would waffle back and forth between finding him engaging and finding him pretentious. I understand that he is supposed to be flawed, and I sympathize with a lot of his plights - mainly the pressure from his university and the anxiety he suffers from. But also, I found his voice to be somewhat combative, and if the point was to make a complicated, likeable-sometimes-unlikeable-other-times character, then I think Rosenberg succeeded.

TL;DR: Confessions of the Fox is a beautiful debut novel that engages with trans identity and history, though it does so in a way that may be a bit too academic for some readers. But while it definitely demands much of your attention, Rosenberg ultimately delivers a rich, engrossing story that reaches beyond the historical and textual boundaries of the page and invites the reader to see themselves as part of a vast network that is constantly “making” and “becoming” itself.

[autumnblogs]

Day 32: Through the Looking Glass

https://homestuck.com/story/4116

So right out of the gate, we learn a few things about the Scratched version of the universe, aside from the obvious fact that the new heroes are the previous guardians. Everyone is a little more mature, and identities are a little more fully-formed.

Jane’s name is already set in stone. Notably, the definition between the audience and Jane is also a little clearer here than usual - the Narration implies a distinction between us and Jane. Could be because we’re not controlling her yet - but as we get into Act 6, we will find a lot of cases where audience participation happens as part of the mechanic of narration, and this distinction will be called to a lot more.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/4117

So let’s unpack Jane’s interests and relation to pre-established parts of the Homestuck Universe, and see if we can’t start making guesses about Jane.

First thing’s first is that while we could read Jane’s affinity for these mustachio’d funnymen as being purely an attraction, she roleplays like John does - as a bit of a prankstress herself, and one who dons a fake mustache for one of her disguises, Jane roleplays as these men immediately suggesting to us that she looks up to them, and wants to be like them, rather than that she’s attracted to them.

(Though she certainly could be.)

Second thing is that Jane’s position as the Heirress parallels her not to John, but to Feferi. Like Feferi, Jane is a sweet girl who is the heir to a position of abominable power, and because she is beholden to the shape of that power, as long as she remains wedded to that shape, she will not only struggle to do anything productive with it, but in the course of the story, be subverted into a villain, at least for a little while, and it’s clear from the way that Crockertier Jane’s situation is communicated to us that she is an accomplice to her own brainwashing, and that the actions she takes in that form are meaningfully hers.

On another note, I think it’s interesting that on this side of the scratch, the Condesce has reimagined her empire as a megacorporation.

https://homestuck.com/story/4120

What do we learn about Jake right out of the gate? He likes movies - adventure movies. Jake, like Tavros, the other page, loves to bluster about subjects that he actually has relatively little affinity for - and in both cases, their lack of affinity can largely be described as performing their culture’s ideal of public personhood - warrior virtue. While Jake has all of the outward signifiers of masculinity, and is actually a pretty brave and technically skillful fighter by the standards of the real world, up until the Hopesplosion, he is outclassed by a lot of his friends, and ultimately, the cases where he most embodies warrior-manhood, Jake is being forced into it by someone who wants to take advantage of him.

We benefit from most of this knowledge with hindsight. It’s not actually there in this opening section, but the main thrust of Jake’s interests is his love of adventure and his love of wrestling, and I’m principally interested in Jake’s physicality in addressing his interests - he’s a very physical kid.

https://homestuck.com/story/4121

We’re hot off the heels of Terezi’s fake choice, and a lot of conversation about free will and fake choices in Act 5 - and here we’re presented with one almost immediately. We can pick either option, but the outcome will be the same whatever we do.

https://homestuck.com/story/4124

I’ve always thought the Condescension’s relationship with Jane is deeply fascinating. There is something about the prospect of cultivating an heiress, someone to take over her legacy, that brings out something tender and maternal in her, I think, even if it only manifests in a twisted way. She’s a bit of an enigma to me.

https://homestuck.com/story/4126

Well, Jane is certainly interested in Foxworthy, so I rescind my earlier comment.

We’ve barely been introduced to her and she pretty much immediately starts showing off her paternalistic disdain for rural and vulgar people through the narrative’s language, and her nostalgia for Problem Sleuth characterizes her enjoyment of its sequel.

Jane has an aristocratic mentality, and conservative leanings in the media she appreciates, and the way that she appreciates it. If Andrew’s commentary that he continued to examine the themes he started with Feferi in Jane, I think what we should take away is that Feferi’s concern for the lowly comes with a heaping helping of...

Wait for it.

Wait for it...

Condescension.

B)

https://homestuck.com/story/4127

Jane’s disdain for the vulgar - low culture, low classes - also shows itself pretty quickly. In stark contrast to the other two leaders - John and Karkat - Jane isn’t much of a movie watcher at all (Jake gets that attribute in his session) and her attitude toward’s Jake’s movies is one of snobbery. Both of the other two movie watchers have a playfully self-deprecating attitude toward their own bad tastes in movies, but they still enjoy those movies sincerely.

Her relationship of passive-aggressive one-upsmanship also distinctly recalls Rose’s relationship with her mother, suggesting that Jane shares some of the underlying pessimism and mild hostility that Rose struggles with.

Also, as a symbol Swanson is a representative of the sort of anti-government animus that characterizes the politics of Trans-Mississippi America outside of the heavily populated West Coast, where the wedding of big business and state planning have created a lot of disaffection toward the distant and disinterested corporate landlords and bureaucratic apparatuses that govern huge tracts of federal land and private property in the west. Pawnee Indiana may not actually be on the other side of the Mississippi from Washington, but having grown up in Montana for at least a part of my childhood, Swanson’s politics are immediately recognizable.

Unfortunately, this anti-state animus has manifested not in the form of a renewed commitment to emancipation, but to the uniquely American, get-off-my-lawn form of Right-Wing populism practiced by the short-lived Tea Party, and smug “It’s just basic economics” Reagan-worshipping conservatives.

What I’m trying to say is, Jane would probably be a Ben Shapiro or Steven Crowder fan in the modern day.

https://homestuck.com/story/4136

Jane’s skepticism prevents her from listening to her friends when they tell her about the extraordinary things that they do, but it’s also not exactly a kind of scientific skepticism, and more of a dogmatic realism - she has a narrow vision of what the world is like, and is dismissive of ideas that are outside of her bubble.

Quick Note that while Jake makes only an off-handed remark about it here, he is sensitive to the hostile, toxic relationship between the AR and Dirk in a way that neither of the girls really is, and while that may seem uncharacteristically emotionally intelligent of Jake, I think he’s a lot more aware of his surroundings than he lets on.

https://homestuck.com/story/4142

Now as long as we’re talking about Right Wing Populism and comparing Jane to John there is an extremely potent assertion.

The USPS, and the idea of privatizing it, is as much a symbol of the war of corporatists and authoritarians against social democracy as anything is, and because of the way John is associated with Mail in general as a Hero of Breath, Jane is almost immediately setting herself up as a foil to John.

https://homestuck.com/story/4144

Calliope is so cheery that it’s easy to take everything she says in stride, and yet, with all the horrors Sburb has to offer, in terms of the way it destroys planets, and traumatizes its players, her optimism toward the game is at least disquieting.

Sure, the Null Session isn’t going to destroy the kids’ session, but her language is contrasted against both Kanaya’s and Karkat’s when they berated Aradia and Jade respectively. Both Karkat and Kanaya rue the effects of the narrative on their lives, but Calliope is a superfan.

https://homestuck.com/story/4156

I know I’m spending a lot of time ragging on her here, but like, as long as I am; Jane is sure openly hostile to her best friend, in a way that comes as kind of surprising even given the precedent that we have to work with.

https://homestuck.com/story/4160

Poirot is from Belgium.

I wonder if Andrew or Jane is the one committing that error?

https://homestuck.com/story/4168

Jake is full of little contradictions like this. Likes Adventure, terrified of monsters. Not even ambivalent about them, certainly not excited by them. It’s like the opposite of how little kids are usually super into Dinosaurs.

https://homestuck.com/story/4171

So what is the deal with Jake and his fascination with Blue Women? Aside from the metaphysical connection with Vriska and Aranea (and to a lesser extent, Jake), like... what’s the meaning of it?

I think a possible answer to the question lies in the process of the initial portraits becoming blue - leaving them out in the sun to fade - and the relationship between that, and the way in which he likes mummies and suits of armor, and so on and so forth - and even his stuffed trophies.

Maybe this suggests that Jake is, on principle, far more comfortable with the idea of a thing, than with the thing itself. Jake’s Blue Women are comfortably static. They have ceased to change a long time ago, and now exist, preserved in perpetuity, without the need to worry about adapting to suit them.

https://homestuck.com/story/4175

While a lot of Jake’s guesses are incorrect, he’s still clearly spending a lot of time pondering over the mysterious time shenanigans - he just hasn’t quite put it all together.

https://homestuck.com/story/4177

The same way that Dirk’s fastidious organization is equated to his complicated and demanding modus, and the way that John being a big impulsive himbo is equated with his inability to manage his fetch modus, constantly getting distracted from his goal by the card on the surface, Jake’s Modus has an enormous capacity, but most of it is preoccupied inefficiently.

https://homestuck.com/story/4184

The Autoresponder continues the conversation that Andrew has with the audience about the distribution of the self - Dirk does this more generally, but the particular thread the AR tugs on is the question of where a person’s self really stops - just as the question lingers in the air because of John’s disposition toward Davesprite, the question of whether the AR is really a separate person from Dirk, or a part of him, is posed continuously just by the fact that it exists.

https://homestuck.com/story/4192

To be fair to Dirk, who I will have a lot of kind-of-sympathetic-antipathy for, I had forgotten that it is, in fact, the Autoresponder who sets up this particular challenge for Dirk.

The parallels between Dirk and English are nevertheless being set up through this conversation nevertheless - by sending him the parts and getting him to assemble the robot, Dirk makes Jake complicit in his own humiliation, even as he attempts to build Jake up into an ideal partner.

https://homestuck.com/story/4196

Already we’re seeing indications that this segment of Homestuck will deal with different themes of growing up than the first half. Which is already kind of obvious, but we’ve moved decisively out of Part 1: Problems, and into Part 2: Feelings. The second half has moved out of the territory of other humans and their emotional situations as somewhat idealized problems (somewhat) and into this situation where everyone is a moving body, complicated and the characters are each others’ biggest obstacles, and their own biggest obstacles. That’s a bit of a reductive way of describing it, but I think it rings true.

https://homestuck.com/story/4256

While I am willing to concede that Dirk is not literally responsible for siccing the Brobot on Jake today, he more or less assents to AR’s sexual harassment and physical abuse of Jake.

In addition to his vicarious physical abuse, Dirk’s persona as the Prince of Heart calls him to suppress the uniqueness of the people who are around him, moulding them like clay into shapes that better resemble him. Jake and Jane need to be more like each other in his eyes - which is to say, they both need to be more like Dirk.

We also get some insight into Dirk’s sense of humor here - it’s not just about the irony. I think there is an extent to which at the base of the thing, Dirk’s sense of humor is about simultaneously denying and affirming a thing’s meaning - making fun of it while cherishing it. Having a thing be incredibly silly - while also being incredibly serious business. He cherishes the absurd.

I wonder if he’d like Kojima’s stuff.

https://homestuck.com/story/4257

The way that Dirk identifies with logic and reason recalls the sort of “enlightened by my own intelligence” New Atheist jerks who were known to prowl the internet in the early half of the decade, and to some extent, still do. Like Libertarians, these folks have often in the present day gotten caught up in Right Wing Populism. Maybe it’s something about the way that Right Wing movements increasingly identify as a part of counter-culture even though they advocate reactionary policies.

https://homestuck.com/story/4273

This is extremely silly, but Jake is in mortal peril all the time, and I expect even at the best of times he might be uncomfortable being touched.

https://homestuck.com/story/4284

Here we shall pause.

Sorry for the late post. Early work was quite busy, and once the rush was over, it was already quite late.

So the first Act of Act 6 has been very informative! Compared to the first Act of Homestuck, we’ve been introduced already to all our Dramatis Personae!

Tune back in tomorrow to here Cam Say,

Some variation on Alive and Not Alone.