#she is a unique character beyond all limits

[ms-all-sunday]

"nobody is born in this world to be alone" hits so hard because its at the height of the inciting incidents that lead robin to want to die and be afraid chronically of intimacy and love. I love that even though she's told this as a child and everybodys hopes are on her she fails fucking horribly at not wanting to die and continuing the research of ohara for the majority of her lifetime.

I love that it's made explict that she wants to commit suicide specifically to avoid abandonment and not out of any sense of selflessness but to specifically act incredibly selfishly (just like how usopp reacts negatively and cuts them off to avoid abandonment hello our bpd king & queen.) (I also love that they manipulate the inital reason to pretend theyre less neurotic than they are.)

I love that robin is allowed to exist and have struggled with this this badly throughout her entire life and she's not a failure or unforgivable. she's 28 and is allowed to have lived this long with these issues and she isn't a failure

i love that she finds her will to live only now. only when she finds friends who want to put so much effort into her and she accepts that help, finally. her scream of "i want to live" is so good in the dub, her final acceptance of help and love and

[genericpuff]

Are there any characters from LO that you actually like/don’t mind

I have a lot more appreciation for Minthe now with all the hindsight that Hades and Persephone are often way worse than she is. She still had a lot of issues on her own end that she didn't deal with well, and while I would have liked to see her actually develop properly beyond her struggles both internal and with Hades, I think the best thing we could have asked for was Minthe being written out of the story the way she was. At least then Rachel couldn't continue to use her as a punching bag (she just tagged in Leuce for that, sigh)

Helios is great, zero issue with him. This scene is a lot funnier and more relatable to read in hindsight:

like ofc Helios is gonna rat on her, he's the fucking sun who's been around for thousands of years, why would he put any more of his limited freedom on the line for macaroni art LMAO (and yes, Rachel herself confirmed that Persephone made macaroni art cards for Helios, it's like... yeah okay it's cute but Persephone and Demeter still hid a crime from Zeus, the sentimental value of the birthday cards have no bearing on that LOL)

Thanatos is also in the camp of "characters I appreciate more in hindsight and wish got better character development". Adding in the 'twist' that he was Hades' adoptive son after we just spent nearly two seasons watching Hades treat him like just a lowly employee who didn't deserve his respect was certainly... a choice. And I don't think I should have to explain why it was a very very BAD one LOL

Hephaestus is also great, I know he's an extremely minor character whose only real role was to delete the blackmail photos from Apollo's phone but, like. look at him???

amazing. precious. sweet boy. and it has absolutely nothing to do with my absent older brother issues why would you say that- (｡•́︿•̀｡) that said, there are still flaws in his design (his prosthetics especially because he's constantly wearing running blades for every occasion which I feel like Rachel only chose because they "looked cool" and were "easier to draw" but like. his poor hips and back, that's gotta be uncomfortable 😭) but even just his face on its own is ironically one of the most unique character designs across the entire cast, not for any sort of outstanding or creative reasons, you just can't possibly mistake or color swap him with anyone else LMAO and though I can't feasibly give credit to Rachel for writing a neurodivergent character - because I have no clue if that was her intention here, afaik she's never really talked about it - I can wholly relate to him being the introverted computer guy who just wants to be left alone with his work and his airpods, like that's literally just me LOL

And of course nothing Rachel could ever do would make me hate Demeter, I think it's so ironic and tone deaf that Rachel claimed she "didn't get" why Demeter was so hated by the fans and didn't "agree" with the comparisons to Mother Gothel, but like... Rachel literally wrote her that way. And while she did "resolve" it, it wasn't with any actual empathy towards Demeter's own side of things, it was just bandaids on top of bandaids and then going "yep! She's all better now! That's character development!" Out of all the characters who deserved better, she was the one who deserved the most 😔💓

[artbyblastweave]

Finished up Batman Beyond today. As much as I liked it, one thing that did jump out at me over the course of the show was that Dana Tan was basically an unreconstructed instance of "The Superhero's Girlfriend-" a love interest who's present in the narrative mainly to create tension between the demands of the superhero lifestyle and the loved one who's in the dark, but who has very little agency or role in the story beyond that, indeed, very little else you can have them do if you want to preserve that. The episode in which I believe she got the most focus, she spent most of it running for her life from a Rat Guy through the sewers.

There's a post about Spider-Man doing the rounds, which posits that part of why Mary Jane won out over Spidey's other long-term love interests was that because she wasn't originally intended to win, she had room to develop traits and dynamics beyond "superhero's put-upon girlfriend-"in fact, she had to, in order to present a plausible temptation away from whoever Spidey was quote-unquote "supposed" to be dating. I'm not a comprehensive Spidey reader, so I'm not going to go to the mattress for that read until I've read some more- but I do think there's some meat to that dynamic in general because of this show. Melanie Walker only shows up in three episodes and already she's got a ridiculously tangled family dynamic thrown into the mix, torn loyalties, the need to keep her head above water financially no matter what other goals she has, a cool hoverboard. Max Gibson's got an actual give-and-take back-and-forth with Terry and Bruce, the added interesting complication that she's trying to prybar her way even further into the game than either of them want her to but it's not like they have a way to make her leave. Dana is.... pissed that Terry is spending so much time with Mr. Wayne. Again. I mean, she's got a job to do, she clocks in at the start of each episode and does it.

This sort of harkens back to Invincible, where a major tenet of the first quarter of the book was that for logistical and ethical reasons, a superhero's dating pool is realistically limited to other players of the game- other people deep enough in the cape lifestyle that they can keep up and relate. Otherwise, your partner is going to spend most of the relationship stuck on the outside looking in, and even if they're nominally okay with the situation it's going to suck. Arguably, Amber in the comic fell into the pit of visibly existing mainly to demonstrate this, reproducing the dynamic they were critiquing. The show did a lot of legwork trying to make her more of an actively agentic character, but when the entire point is that a character in her position would have extremely limited agency there's only so much you can do to patch that. Then Eve rolls in, and it turns out you can do the exact same relationship beats about chronic unavailability, lack of communication and the like, but with a partner who's equally capable of showing up to all the big set piece fights and gorily eviscerating people in her own unique ways- a character who's consistently around in the story for reasons other than that she's dating the hero. You don't have to pick!

This got longer than I thought it was going to be. I do want to round out by saying that this sort of aligns neatly with something else that I've noticed- namely that a lot of post-10s cartoons also appear to have noticed this, and either hang back from biting off more than they can chew by committing to a romance subplot for their leads, or if there is a romance subplot they really aggressively commit to making sure the love interest approaches deuteragonist status in terms of airtime and agency. Hell, Steven Universe left the exact status of Steven and Connie's relationship ambiguous, and it still had a lot to say about the civilian girlfriend freezeout trope. Again- date other players!

[pangurbanthewhite]

Hey guess what it's time to talk more about Stray Gods.

Specifically about the concept of "reactive narrative" in video games and how I think Stray Gods executes it as gracefully as you can possibly execute on the concept.

I think a lot of people balk at how choice-based games do and can only change in a limited way based on your choices. Which is a shame, because only being able to change in limited ways is a hard rule of both hardware and the concept of a story.

I think the games that handle it best are the games that lean into that fact. They should flesh out those limited choices as much as possible rather than try to stretch them to their breaking point. They should accept the reality that there WILL be fixed points in the narrative and build around them.

Example - Pan will always turn up in your apartment early on in the game and lead you into the "tutorial" song that is "I Can Teach You". But, based on your choices, the song can sound entirely different.

And that's if you stick to one color exclusively over another. You can weave the choices in and out to create dozens of unique instances.

The choices you make do not fundamentally change anything beyond the song, excluding the last choice. But those choices set the tone for what kind of story you are going to tell. Is it a story of how Grace, even when granted the powers of a god, still values her humanity and cherishes her human bonds? Or is it a story of how Grace, who begins by feeling adrift and out of place, immediately chases down any chance she has at belonging somewhere, at having a purpose? Is Pan a mentor or a source of suspicion? How big of a part does Freddie play?

Your thought processes behind making a choice, your reasons for choosing red over blue, do make a story unique as much as your choice to let Aphrodite "live" or "die". I think you have to accept that if you really want to get a lot out of these kinds of games.

Some scenes WILL always happen, and that's okay! That's good, even! Because differences in the journey matter just as much as differences in the destination! You might always wind up in the same place, but you will have told a different story in getting there. You'll be in a different headspace, you'll bring different baggage, you'll have had some different conversations which drive you to feel differently about characters along the way.

Freddie does always die, yes, but if you've spent the entire game flirting with her, expressing affection and admiration for her, traveling to find her in the Underworld leans so heavily into the Orpheus and Eurydice parallels. Orpheus becomes a dark mirror of Grace as much as Persephone.

Do you retrieve a Freddie that you love from the Underworld because of that love, or do you retrieve a friend as much out of spite, as if to prove that you can succeed where Orpheus failed? Is godhood worth her friendship? Is godhood worth her love? Are you making a sacrifice at all, or are you glad to be rid of these powers that you never asked for? Freddie returns either way, but your motivations have changed the story.

I'm getting a bit lost in the weeds here, but hopefully people get what I'm going for. The fact that, ultimately, Grace is going to wind up on trial against Athena, with the primary differences being whether or not Freddie is there driving the song, or whether it's Aphrodite in one body standing there vs. another, doesn't invalidate the choices and the uniqueness of the journey to get there.

And I cannot stress enough that the potential variation in any given song is so impressive. I'm genuinely kind of bummed that there's no way to listen to some of the versions I made, that I feel like really added to the story I was trying to tell.

And, most importantly, I think Stray Gods understood that this kind of variances gets infinitely more complicated and precarious the longer a game goes. 6 to 8 hours is almost certainly your upper limit possible. Anything much beyond that, and the variations you have to account for spin out into something approaching infinity. And, yes, they do and can get much less meaningful as a result.

IDK! I like this game a lot. I think it did some really cool and inspired things in really cool and inspired ways. And I think its understanding of how to use player choice within the narrative and hardware constraints of a video game is one of those things.

[scratchtovoid]

“Make it a son for a son”

There’s a new season two promo where we hear Matt saying Daemon’s infamous line for the first time. And it has me wanting to bring up something I see with the team black fandom.

(BOOK SPOILERS)

There’s an impulse within team black to distance the characters of team black but particularly Rhaenyra from B&C by presenting it as a rogue act committed by Daemon on his own.

Now, first the book does not tell us that. The book gives us little to go on beyond Daemon’s involvement and the obvious implication that Mysaria was his KL contact to set everything in motion.

The rest of the details are mostly speculation.

Rhaenyra’s involvement is limited to a letter from her husband promising that Luke would be avenged. We have no further details on what she knew or how she reacted. Which also gives the show lots of room to present Rhaenyra’s feelings about this revenge plot however they like.

But what I see often in this attempt to isolate B&C to a Daemon-plan not a team black plan, is a misunderstanding of Daemon as a character.

In a bid to defend Rhaenyra’s innocence in the act, Daemon can not just be the lone perpetrator, he is also the monster.

Except this is an intensely human act.

A personal attack.

He could have killed all of Aegon’s heirs in that moment. As well as TG’s two queens. That would be the political move. Taking out the other side purely for political gain regardless of the innocence of the children he attacked.

And this is where those arguments from even within team black fall flat to me.

Because this is not political. This is personal. This is a grieving parent and husband who has no control and could not prevent the initial attacks on his family.

It’s not only rage and revenge, it’s grief and guilt.

So when team black talks about this event and may even lean into the interpretation of Daemon being a monster. It actually takes away from the greater story of team black, part of what makes them unique in contrast to the greens.

The greens, and this looks to continue based on the promo which seems to suggest Otto wanting to use Jaehaerys’s funeral as a propaganda tool, are very politically driven.

Think about it, they’re acting on tradition, purposely wishing to limit the power of women. They use rumors at court as a weapon, look for deals to be made, deck their king out in symbols of legitimacy. They always have a political angle to the moves they make.

This does not mean they do not feel emotional! I’m not saying that. But team green always has this internal conflict of making the political move at the cost of the emotional gain.

And team black (but particularly Daemon) are the opposite. They will make politically bad moves to satisfy the emotional urge.

Look at Rhaenyra marrying Daemon in secret, yes there is a political angle, but ultimately that marriage was one for love. Or Rhaenyra imprisoning Coryls after turning on the dragonseeds.

And with B&C there is no political advantage! They gain nothing in terms of good will with the public or lords of the realm. They have no eliminated any threats. They actively let threats live!

So what am I getting at here?

I’m not justifying Daemon’s actions. But this is fiction. And sometimes I think it’s good to look at a story for more than just “right” and “wrong” or moral lessons.

I think GRRM asks such interesting character questions in the Dance.

What does it mean to do something in an act of pain that is clearly going to be detrimental to the other side?

What does it say about a person to do that?

I think team black specifically should be asking questions like that.

[kaibutsushidousha]

Thoughts on Solomon/Romani and Goetia?

A long time ago, Nasu wrote a character named Angra Mainyu. Angra was randomly chosen to have a greater spiritual purpose and because of that he never learned how to be human, but after unique circumstances in a Servant summon, he got the opportunity to have the mundane life he never had in his time, finally learn to be human, and because he valued what he took so long to obtain, he felt compelled to return himself to nothing so that the people he cared about wouldn't lose it.

Great narrative, right? Shame that it happened in the limited frame of the mind of Emiya Shirou, a notorious tsundere. Imagine how hard this same story would hit if it happened to a character much more expressive. Someone who, while not exactly honest because Romani was even more full of secrets than Angra, was super open about his joys and griefs, engaged intensely with everything without exception, and overall the symbol of positivity among the team.

Romani may be a pessimist and chicken at heart, but he's rivaled only by remake Roa in terms of being tangibly happy to be alive, and that adds so much weight to his conclusion.

Both to Solomon and Goetia, Romani represents the difference between knowledge and experience. Solomon never learned to be human because he lived his whole life doing as the voice of God told him to. He knew everything but never learned anything. He was a good judge of character, a good legislator, and a good administrator, but couldn't a good person because he wasn't a person at all.

Solomon lived his life on autopilot, feeling nothing about the many tragedies he saw. With the power to see past, present, and future, Solomon did nothing about the horrible tragedies within his sight but beyond his reach, because he objectively knew his choices were optimal. That's why Goetia disparages him as the heartless and uncaring king.

But Romani is different. Their core as a compulsive people-pleaser with a crippling fear of disappointing remains the same, but Romani is not self-assured like Solomon was. Romani needed to go out and see the world, learn things the hard way, try and fail, and accept being disliked. Every Servant not named Bedivere is vocally critical of him, but in his 10 years alive, Romani learned to live with that. He's someone who always tries his best but values the experience of his failures as much as his successes. That's why his final answer to Goetia was "There's nothing to feel angry about". The same answer Solomon would have given, but with completely different in terms of unspoken meaning.

Goetia already has his own post, so I don't need to extend his part much, but same deal. Goetia is mad at mortality because he knows it but never experienced it. Then after Ars Nova, he experiences it and suddenly gets what it's about. Mirror to Solomon as Romani valuing the world by experiencing it.

Goetia was really intent on having Mash as the one human who agrees with his vision, and the beginning of the story, Mash could have agreed, because although she knew a lot of history, she never experienced history. But 7 Singularities and any number of events later, she did, so history mattered a lot more to her than Goetia's dreams of deathlessness.

[asherisawkward]

I found Luz not caring about the demon realms history annoying. I get it. Some of it was made up, but most of it wasn't, just why the crusade was started. It seems a lot of the history she got was through word of mouth.

You figure a fan of fantasy would be excited to learn the history and culture of a magical realm, not just magic. I'm surprise a lot more demons and witches didn't get fed up with her. The only thing who seemed to have anything against it was Hunter, but I could be remembering it all wrong. Sorry if this comes off as a rant.

I absolutely get what you mean!! Luz, from what I remember of TOH, spent a lot of time trying to fit the Boiling Isles into her opinion of what a fantasy world should be. She doesn’t really listen to the laws or the cultural norms. I suppose that it makes sense to ignore the laws to a certain extent, considering they’re made by a witch hunter pretending to be a benevolent ruler, but she doesn’t even try to think about things critically. Especially in this day and age, you are supposed to research and analyze before you draw a conclusion, not just take the word of some criminal who doesn’t even off you any proof. I love Eda. She’s badass and creative, and I adore how she grows to care about others through the series. But she is a biased character to introduce a world through, and Luz doesn’t even question it. She hears Eda’s “oh, he just wants to control magic” and runs with it.

The biggest example of her complete dismissal of the Boiling Isles culture, laws, and norms would be when she continued to push to be in all classes. Not only does she lack the necessary knowledge to cast precise spells, but she is asking the principal, the teachers, and all the students to risk themselves for her fantasy. This isn’t some petty pickpocketing that she’s asking a few people to ignore. She asks to be allowed to violate one of the most important laws in the whole country—it has the death penalty, for fuck’s sake! Principal Bump could have been executed for allowing this; the teachers could have gone to prison! And the students who don’t turn her in, while unlikely to suffer so severely, are likely to be punished as well! How many people could have been hurt or killed by her thoughtless violation of the laws if Belos had been shown to be a bit more how Dana claims he was? (Because, all things considered, he’s not shown to be the harshest ruler ever.)

Additionally, it bothers me that she never bothers to explore any real cultures or traditions on the Isles. She “wants to be a witch,” but doesn’t focus on anything other than the magic of it. If it were Harry Potter world, where witches are exclusively humans with human culture but magic, I’d get that, but it isn’t. It is a whole other world where everything from childhood to the system of government is different. Her refusal to let go of her preconceived notions and just explore what the BIs is like comes off a little bit like a weeb in their mother’s basement saying “I want to be Japanese,” going to Japan, and then never exploring it beyond their notions of what Japan is like from anime. I love Luz, and it was incredibly impactful for me to see a fellow neurodivergent fantasy nerd on screen, but she has a tendency of treating the Boiling Isles like her escapist fantasies. It bothers me that it’s not really addressed.

Finally, this lack of exploration leads to limited knowledge on what the actual inhabitants of the Boiling Isles are like aside from a select handful. What beliefs aside from the Titan do people have? What rituals do they perform, holidays do they celebrate? What are the people of the Boiling Isles like? Part of what I love about Amphibia is the time it takes to world-build, to show us all the different ways that the world works, and how there are varied, diverse, and unique cultures that are a part of it. It makes Amphibia dynamic and alive. The Owl House doesn’t do that with the Boiling Isles, and I’m bummed about that.

I hope this is close enough to what you’re talking about, because this got me on a tangent.

[melfinawins]

My partner started watching the new season so I joined in. Oops?

The spoiler tag is at the top. I recommend not reading this until you've watched the entire season.

Well. That season was all over the place. Big lack of cohesion.

I wound up watching it because my partner did. And I just marathoned it.

I like all the long conversations, but it got taxing and too meandering by around episode 6. I kinda hit my limit with Mikey and Tina. I loved their interaction completely, but instead of it being a unique/special moment, they applied it to every fucking character on the show.

I liked that Claire told the Faks to fuck off. That was nice!

I loved Ted Fak and Sweeps/Gary's conversation. Got teary-eyed.

Loved everything to do with Marcus. I've said it before and I'm going to say it again: he's getting a star before all these other jokers. He's the only one who has balance. He has climbed the mountain of self-actualization and reached its peak.

Loved in the finale where the camera just recorded real life world famous chefs talking and being happy about food. I was so starved for a sense of joy, I rewatched that part over again because I just wanted to see happy smiling faces. But they kept showing Carmy's dumb ass.

Things I hated: nothing was resolved, only secondary storylines (Marcus, Nat). Literally EVERYTHING ELSE IS OPEN. We didn't even get Syd telling Carmy she wanted out (didn't have to resolve that shit, just fucking START THE PROCESS OF RESOLVING IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE), or Cicero being straight with Carmy. We didn't get Nat showing off the baby to her brother, we didn't even get Carmy meeting the baby. WE DIDN'T GET RICHIE FINDING HIS JOY AFTER LOSING IT-- HE DIDN'T EVEN GO TO THE WEDDING OR NOT GO--NOTHING. Like, the fuck? This show goes on and on about the heart, but we barely got any moments with the characters reminding us what we watched for.

I hate that Carmy passed down his abusive behavior and trauma he got from the EMP chef to Syd, so now her ass is panicking in a hallway when THE FORMER EC OF EVER IS DOING JAEGER BOMBS IN HER LIVING ROOM. Carmy ruined that for her. They didn't get trapped by a star, Carmy ruined that opportunity the moment he got out of that freezer. They were never going to get the star. It was always a shot in hell in the first place, but with Carmy at the helm, it was fucked from jump. HE SHOULDN'T BE EXEC CHEF OF JACK SHIT.

I'm mad that Carmy doesn't even realize how hard he's fucked literally everything. I know that's a part of the point, as EMP chef didn't give two fucks either, but I'm mad that Carmy let the trauma get the best of him and then fucking PASSES IT ON.

WHY DIDN'T CARMY APOLOGIZE TO CLAIRE. I feel like even with his traumas, it was overblown. Like, a lot. As a person who was raised by two Donna's, who fucked off and left the state like this fictional character did with like, 24 hrs notice, a person who would have also skipped their parents funerals had not they had to pay for it, ect, where are his motherfucking balls? CLAIRE FUCKING DESERVES BETTER. THIS MAN IS IN HIS THIRTIES.

This review isn't even about SydCarmy, because I'm just mad about the season in general lmao

Like, I hate Carmy right now. There are sooo many people depending on him to support their families and their way of life. He was so self absorbed this season that he imploded his restaurant over fucking menu choices. The damage may be too great. And he may have fucked it beyond repair. I kinda don't care about his head space, because Donna is/was shit, but she didn't fucking implode a restaurant full of people depending on her.

He's turning into his parents.

I said previously that his ass was on thin ice. I meant that shit. Like, I'm not rooting for him as of right now. He's done too much damage. It's like Syd said in the 2nd episode or whatever: this is a him problem, not a them problem.

And Donna can fuck right off lmao And no, being women who can experience and bond over childbirth doesn't heal fucking wounds, actually. As a person who has been in that exact situation, I skipped half the episode once Donna showed up. Because I also thought my mother with severe mental health issues could relate to her daughter giving birth. But then that shit didn't happen and once the baby has arrived, the story gets rewritten. Donna, in her current state, is incapable of change. Sorry not sorry.

And when has Nat ever been that fucking dense? Anyone with eyes could see Syd and the rest of the staff are miserable. And she saw the numbers-- that place won't last a year if they don't fucking bring in the budget. What good is a star if the place is closed a week later? CICERO HAS PUT DOWN ALMOST A MILLION DOLLARS. If the storyline is to be believed, they would be making a nice dent in the loan if not for the daily changing menu. And for what? Recycled, uninspired food that Carmy is just regurgitating from his former bosses who actually put in the creative energy to accomplish it? Very 2014 of him indeed.

I usually really love dark seasons of shows, or the mid point of a movie franchise (think Two Towers of LotR). I was going in expecting it to be fucking really dark. But something that's really important when you're doing the midpoint of a story is giving the audience something to hold onto. You have to show the audience that though it's dark, the dawn will come. There needs to be hope, even if it's just a flicker.

Not the case here.

In this 3rd season, every time the story would show some positive moments in a tiny storyline, they'd reiterate how shit is fucked and possibly permanently. And the characters are unlikeable, but not in a Succession kind of way!

My hopes for the characters of The Bear is that they get the fuck out and find other spots at other places where they can self-actualize and be happy.

I hope Syd gets every one of her dreams and spending time with Carmey will seem like a drug induced psychosis from the stale waffles she ate in her freezer. I hope she and Luca fuck. I hope she, Luca and Marcus fuck. I hope she opens her dream spot with those two and they get everything that Carmy inadvertently sabotaged at The Bear.

I hope Tina goes if she wants to go around the world, even if it's just at Syd's new place. I hope the staff walks and goes with her. Honestly, I hope they all just go to a spot Syd creates. Syd has the potential to be Terry when she "grows up". All she did this season was babysit Carmy and put out fires that Carmy himself lit. Even if Carmy promises to fix himself, like, HE CAN'T BE TRUSTED. Because his "relapses" are fucked and terrible and severe. Even though we see him kind of get a catharsis from telling EMP chef off, Syd and the crew didn't see that shit and there's not much left of his word to them.

That's it for now. I got progressively more angry as I started writing.

I think that episode 1 of this season was one of, if not the best, hour of television I've watched in a long time.

I'm surprised that the season as a whole left me so disappointed.

Also, it's really funny that they got Thomas Keller to do a cameo, since Joel McHale is based off him lmao

[will-cipher-from-reverse-falls]

The Fall of Euclydia: Part 1.

Will had been walking- or flying- around his town: Euclydia. It was a 2D World with 2D characters and shapes of all kinds. From large shapes who could reach the top shelves too small shapes who could fit into a mouse hole, there were millions upon millions. But Will was different. He could see past the barrier. Beyond his world. He could see the stars. His Mother, Scalene, and his Father, Euclid, were always worried about him. They didn't think it was normal for their usually quiet little boy to suddenly start pointing out the stars. They didn't understand him. No matter how many times he tried to tell them, they never listened.

"Mom, mom, look at the stars!" Will would say, pointing up. But they never saw it like he did. "Willbur, there's nothing there..." Scalene said kindly. Will looked down sadly. Scalene picked him up. "Hey, it's okay! You aren't weird! You're just limited edition!" she told him. "My little star..." she mumbled fondly. "So you do believe in the stars?" Will asked, excited. Scalene chuckled. "Well, I don't exactly believe in them, but I'll take your word. Your unique. That's a compliment :)" Scalene said. Will's eye practically shone in happiness. "YES! YES! YOU BELIEVE ME!!!" he exclaimed happily, hugging her. Scalene hugged back, patting his head.

The difference between Will Cipher and Bill Cipher's past is that nobody believed what Bill was saying. But for Will, his mother took his word for it. Soon, she began seeing strange things too. "Will, do you see that?..." she asked, confused. She saw a circle in the sky. "Yeah! That doesn't look like a star though..." Will mumbled, interested. "Well, maybe there are more than stars...maybe planets?" she suggested. "Oh yeah! That looks like a planet! But why can you see it?" Will asked. "Maybe you just have to believe in it?" Scalene responded. "Something doesn't feel right though...why is it coming closer?"

That was the end of part one! Tagging these amazing people here:

@bill-ciphers-nightmare-blog

@askbillchiper

@doritodemon13

@baby-bill-rp

Respond in the comment! Reblog if wanted!

[davekat-sucks]

you brought up recently that the writers were going for the original feel of homestuck. I'd like to say what I think the feeling for Homestuck actually is. I am going to reference Act 5. 1. Almost every time something horrible happened to a character, they were eventually gifted something positive out of the experience. Example: When Terezi lost her sight, she was able to speak with her mom on prospit. 2. The character's relationships were clear, simple and didn't often change unless some major event happened. Example: During all of Act 5 part 1, Sollux is mad at Aradia and voices his frustration with her even when he apologizes to her, he gets angry with her. 3. The art style remanded relatively consistent. Example: Act 5's visual portrayal of the cast looked the same as the acts that came before. Hero mode had sharp edges and long limbs. Environments had a limited color palate. Talksprites were probably the most abstract art style at that time. 4. The characters main responsibility were tending to tasks involving the game so they always had something to actually do and they belonged in a team. 5. Bit by bit, the story would explore the character's unique powers and we could sometimes see how those powers worked with other's powers or aid. Example: Dave could travel through time, Terezi would tell him what to do. 6. The characters would be responsible for their actions, but because of their age or external forces, the audience could emphasize with them if they choosed to do so. Example: Scratch was manipulating Virska. Virska was also expected to kill for her lusus at a young age to keep her fed. 7. Information was given to the audience quickly. The pacing was extremely fast. Example: Some of the ancestors stories are a handful of sentences. (This has the added bonus of if there is a character in the cast that the reader doesn't like, the character won't be a focus for too long.) 8. We hardly ever saw characters that were not important to the story. The story only visually depicted characters that were actually going to have a role, making the world feel more condensed and smaller. More focused too. 9. The characters understood what was at risk and were at times pessimistic about playing the game. Even so, the cast usually leaned towards optimism. accomplishing their goals or fixing their relationships. The characters actually cared about their lives and what the rest of the cast thought of them. Example: Terezi at one point tells Sollux "1 W1LL H4V3 4 FUCK1NG BL4ST 4ND YOU C4NT STOP M3" in response to Sollux telling her that what they're doing is serious. 10. Chatlogs were as long as they needed to be and the conversations were engaging. Anything I missed?

I think you are pretty spot on with these. That's what the writing is like in the original Homestuck. I don't get that same feeling when reading HS2/Beyond Canon. One could argue that during that time, Andrew Hussie was just doing all this on the fly as it goes on. Perhaps it was that kind of freestyle that he is able to express it naturally in his way. He just writes what he likes without too much input or influence from audiences that read it.

[unloneliest]

IIIIIIIIIII want to know about the complex machinations of the soul (and the web of reasons underpinning your story and symbolism choices)

WAH thank you i have like such a complex web of thoughts spinning in my head this week. i'm gonna put it under the cut but i've been thinking a lot about places imbued with enough magic that i'm considering them somewhat of characters? particularly the Forest vs castles in general, but as applied in specific to the castle that my oc silas had been the prince of specifically.

(silas is a part of the adult generation of my story? the story covers quite a span of time. the adult gen is introduced as 18-21 year olds & the story later follows their teen children as time passes; it doesn't stay in detail for the entire span of their lives. there's dull moments that aren't worth focusing a book on & the juxtaposition of generations is much more interesting to me. it'll be released nonlinearly)

point a is the Forest.

so like. the original inhabitants of this world are, to the humans and comparable hominids, giants, though they did not of course call themselves this. they were twice the size of humans and had unlimited magical power until the gods who made them got pissed they were using their unlimited magical power and took them out, creating humans and others in the process, & leaving a handful of diminished giants behind - they would now age to death/had limits to their magic/could not still have children.

and the Forest was beyond massive to them. the Forest in the valley is large enough that humans can live in the canopy, build homes on branches. giant magical forest. you get the deal.

but part of the deal of the Forest is that like - rather than fading out, most of the remaining giants consciously chose what to do when they were nearing their end, and used their still considerable magic to become a part of the trees. it was irreversible, and an end to their previous existence, but a way of preserving themselves as a collective and they're still able to communicate and have an impact with some highly magical humans. this is a very alive awake forest, and it's an alive awake forest that once experienced the world & time very similarly to the way that humans do.

my character rohsi escapes a shitty situation and finds out she does have magic powers and like. when gaining access to them also discovers that she's Chosen by the forest? for her this is a hereditary type of magical connection, and not one that the forest always activates - not everyone in rohsi's family has been forest chosen but it's easier for the forest to have a chosen person with certain attributes and those attributes are present in rohsi's family (but not only her family).

rohsi's mother, szadeh, was supposed to be chosen by the forest but a diety laid claim first; it left the forest with nobody to work with it and had ultimately catastrophic consequences for szadeh.

rohsi having uniquely strong magic/being connected to the forest has been true for probably close to a decade, but i haven't previously had the details of magical functioning to the level that i now do? ANYWAYS. even though "rohsi has weird magic and a forest connection" has been true i haven't previously gotten in to the like, ways the forest exists and is independently.

so what i've been thinking about is like - different people's magic works in different ways - some people are seers, some have a great talent for a particular craft, some have magic that most easily takes form as light, some are healers, some have natural resonance with different pieces of nature. and different deities have different domains of power. different natural features all have ambient magic of their own, too. but entities like the forest exist somewhere between all of these things, especially when they're enough of entities to have opinions about what's happening around them and can attempt to influence what's happening.

what's the nature of a forest, this Forest, and its magic?

communication/connection. i'm thinking about pando, i'm thinking about mycelial networks, i'm thinking about thee decay exists as an extant form of life post. and i'm thinking about how a community of people with shared interests and goals chose to become a forest together, and how that'd impact not just them but the plants they were in community with.

a lot of the abuse that rohsi experienced growing up was her being isolated from others; how is community and communication a strength? how does the functioning of the central group of characters resemble & deviate from the strengths of the Forest? how does rohsi's inclination to work well with the Forest impact the way that she does magic even when she is not working with the Forest specifically? etc etc.

also in this vein: how many people live in the forest now, and under what circumstances? is the forest as an entity representative of the coalition of allied resistances working against the monarchy on purpose? how does the relationship to the land that people who inhabit the forest - none of whom are supporters of the monarchy - differ from the relationship or lack of relationship people in other locations have and how is that reflected in/an extension of their politics? how did i not notice that i was doing this on purpose to this degree????

point b is the castle, possibly called north hold.

it's actually kind of just slightly north of the west edge of the valley but like. further north than that is mostly forest, so it doesn't get counted as a Further North that you could be in.

i have several inroads to thinking about this castle in conjunction with the Forest? i've been thinking a lot about the relationships that wakeful locations have to people in general, and the ways that members of the monarchy are alienated from meaningful relationship with the land despite ostensibly being rulers of it.

silas, of the adult generation, is the inheriting prince of the northern throne. there are three castles, three rulers, in the valley, but they function as one state overall. there have never been borders or edges or separate citizenships between the three seats of power - they're just the three corners of a single region, each "needing" their own local castle/monarch. i'm still working out the details on the structure of the government. a lot of it was invented when i was 13. by a dream.

but. the thing is. silas, as prince. he does think he's doing what's best for the people. he tries very hard to. it's not something he would turn his back on on a whim; he takes the duty very seriously. he is a prince but also a born leader. he's possessive and protective over the people who are his, both the unknown people he leads and the friends he loves. he's the younger of two sons. he's the only son remaining. he's haunted by the question of whether his brother would be handling things better than him.

there is no easily backed heir if something should happen to silas, if something first happened to his mother the queen & whoever it is she's married to [i have yet to fully develop. silas' parents/family dynamic but he's inheriting from his mother. no only men can rule in my universe. anyone can do anything forever, including gender transition. babes there's magic]. his heir until he weds and produces one is his cousin, but there's no guarantee there wouldn't be conflict over that, because there's others with similar levels of a blood claim on the throne.

things have been peaceful. silas was the spare and his mother can't have more children. there was no reason to expect it might be a problem, that there's only him.

it is a problem, that it's only him.

i can't get into the entire details of the circumstances because that'd just add. the entire plot of the actual first book. to this ramble. but silas' family is killed and his own life is in jeopardy. and he leaves. he runs off into the desert. and i've been rotating what it would take to make him do that, because he wouldn't do it just to save his own hide. it would take something very significant to convince him that it wasn't right/possible for him to stay and fight for the people by fighting for the throne.

part of the tragedy of silas is that it might have been possible for him to survive and win had he been able to connect with allies that truly supported him in the moments between when he finds out his family is dead & when he flees with jay. (jay is my best boy. who i talk the most about of my ocs. a guard/soldier/?? on the specifics who deserts and turns his back on his entire life when he's sent after silas to kill him because he knows that it's the wrong thing to do and would rather devote himself to silas' cause. listen to me. their relationship is everything to meeeeee but i'm getting off topic)

silas, when he returns to the castle/finds out his family is dead? he goes first to his mentor, norna. who is evil. i realized i love a fucked up mentor/mentee relationship after rewatching phantom of the opera at new years. i'm making her a sexy about it. it's better when villains are hot. she's in magic academia. she's butch. and she started going grey when she was like. twenty. and she knew his brother and he's been trusting her and the things she tells him are memories and she's a huge part of why he compares himself so much with his (much older) brother who died. and she's fully been manipulating him the entire time.

norna is sooo slay to me. i know she's done a lot of things wrong but she's hot about it.

ANYWAYS this is all just like, context around the idea that the castle, silas' castle home, it's a character too. oh i have to make a detour.

the biggest cities in this story, they're all built. well. let me take another step to the side.

in the valley, humans do not call themselves the people. they call themselves the people of the roads. because the giants used their magic to create roads that will never, not ever, need infrastructure upkeep, and that connect the most important central locations in the valley. if enough soil forms on top of one of the roads it might become buried and plants may grow in the soil above it, but literally nothing can damage them. the whole damn valley isn't full of roads, but the giant's roads between castles have seriously impacted the pattern of human dwellings & communities within the valley.

the connected locations each have their own "ruins"; highly magical structures abandoned by the giants, either when they went into the trees or before that during the great unmaking by the gods. so whatever castle it is silas grew up in, it either is a repurposed dwelling of the giants, or it incorporates one of those in the structures that have been built up around what the giants left behind.

the magic left behind by the giants behaves differently from a forest that was once people; it's aliveness is different but it was still created to be an active sort of thing. there was intention put into it.

what is the essence of a castle? a castle is meant to enclose, protect, enforce. a castle has strict delineations between what is inside and what isn't. a castle is stone and is of the earth. when danger threatens, the people in the communities around a castle come in to the castle for safety and protection until it's safe to return to their places outside of its walls. it serves and protects the people; or, it is at least supposed to do this.

if the castle's magic was created by the giants, it would not have stayed awake in their absence. and in the absence of all the giants, the humans and other hominids left the valley completely; it spent several centuries uninhabited. great magical catastrophe that altered plate tectonics and all that.

so the people who became the monarchs of the north when humans returned to the valley, well. originally they were the ones taking care of this abandoned castle/city, and making it a place people could live again. they're the ones who rediscovered the magical functioning of the castle, who established a connection and reciprocal relationship with the castle's magic. they woke it back up. they kept the connection alive and passing through the generations just like the crown did.

the valley wasn't originally intended to be a monarchy.

but like. what's the essence of a castle! what's the nature of its magic, the way the Forest's is communication? to protect and enclose. without active magical connection to people inhabiting it, it has no way of knowing there's anyone to protect. and that connection is something that has to go both ways.

norna is able to convince silas - if not completely, thoroughly enough that he starts closing himself off - that he's at fault for his family's deaths, and that his closest allies have been given cause to believe this too. his doubt and his withdrawal, his closing of himself off, that means - without realizing it - he's separating himself from the castle's magic. he mentally undefines himself as prince - not wholly, but enough. and the castle's magic going to sleep affirms that partial belief until it's whole. and that's why he turns his back on the throne. he believes it to have turned its back on him first.

but it didn't. it just didn't realize there was anything left to protect.

and when i think about the castle, about it alive, i think about it having a heart, some underground and physical representation of it having an essence. and i know that's influenced by a Number of things - the song of the lioness quartet's dominion jewel/book four climactic fight, the phantom of the opera final caverny bit, the so you want to be a wizard book with worlds each having something like a heart, probably barbie and the magic of pegasus' whole thing about keystones but i cannot remember enough about that to be sure - i just remember that there was something about the keystone of arches. definitely some fics i've read set in magical universes.

a castle with a heart, a stone radiating light, a light that goes dark when it sleeps; some kind of visual representation of the moment silas loses that connection.

something crucial, here: there's a post about what the individual unit of a bee is. i can't remember who it's by or find the damn thing but it was talking about how like, we're a part of our ecosystems? how if you're trying to define the singular unit of bee, that unit is hive. and how we're not separate from what's around us. and with my story like. that's how it is with magic. it's a deeply magical world, and though everyone's internal wellspring of magic is of variable size and not everyone has enough internal magics to use their personal magic to influence the world around them, anyone can use the magic that exists in the world around them to do magic, especially in collective group magics.

a barn raising is a type of magic. and the way that barn is rasied will include magical steps to minimize the risk of a fire. and the reason that it works is because it's a collective magic, dependent on ritual.

run of the mill academic magic users (read: anyone with any kind of training)? they may think of themselves as solo magical practitioners, but they're adherents of a school of thought. the group they are doing magic with is themself and the person who taught them how to do magic, or the many people; if they're using a spell or anything of that ilk, it's them and the person who created the spell.

high level academic magic users have learned about how all magic is collective and learned to do magic where they're in relationship with something in the world that has ambient magic: a fire, a flower.

without connection to the castle, and when explicitly disowned by a major teacher of his? silas' magic starts acting up, starts not working.

all of this has been like. developing in every direction at once for me, recently. it's not just one thing at a time. thinking about the castle having a heart means thinking about why it does, and how that exists as a coutnerpoint to the Forest, and that means thinking about rohsi's magic, and how rohsi skips straight to high level academic magic user methods because she grew up magicless and was already used to only doing collective magic & applies that principle to individual magic easily.

thinking about the conditions under which silas runs away with jay and how terrifying the disconnection from the castle must have been for both of them means thinking about what might wake that castle back up.

and nait is jay's son (& the son of two other adult gen characters who are jay's best friends/marital partners, riamin & ymalis; marriage conventions aren't 1:1 with our world). and jay never got to have a family with silas. silas never got to know nait. but they're still so fucking similar, in so many ways. of course it's nait who wakes the sleeping castle.

and that's knowledge he shares, because it's something he learned how to do from rohsi, rohsi with communicative connecting magic, rohsi with ties to the Forest. it's not something he ever has to carry alone.

jay more than anyone is the one who lost silas. he spends the rest of his life grieving. ym was the next closest to silas, and rohsi and nait are both so like silas it hurts. they're raising their son and then suddenly the kids he brought home with him, too, and there's echoes of silas everywhere even in their kids growing up in his absence.

and then nait's waking the castle.

and he's just a fucking kid!!! and jay and ym and riamin are so worried the pull of what's happening in the world is going to eat their son alive, because it killed silas. it killed silas but nait can't be killed and somehow that means it might be worse for him, though at first it seemed a blessing.

but anyways. thinking about whether the heart of the castle is conflated with sovereignty, that's currently on my plate. i need to stretch this web and explore the other key castles, too.

and i need to think about point c: the river, and how all of this applies to her.

because good lord, i think i finally have the right angle to approach the river with.

anyways. this is. a lot of words. it stretches in every direction at once and i tried not getting too far off topic with background information but like. i feel so fucking dialled in to enjoyable to write & include but also spot on symbolic representations of the underlying values of varying political groups in the story & the themes of the narrative in general????????? which i did NOT feel before yesterday when i started having most of the culminating brain waves on this stuff. holy Shit.

also um. thank you for asking me about this. ilu <3

[molsno]

hajime hinata is such an egg. people like to say he's really masculine because he speaks very assertively by using 俺 as his first person pronoun, saying それは違うぞ instead of それは違うよ, etc but hinata is not a confident person at all and that's blatantly obvious to anyone who actually pays attention to him as a character rather than viewing him as like, a player stand-in.

having a massive inferiority complex is one of hinata's defining characteristics. he feels like a nobody due to having no talent - nothing to set him apart as unique - and his self-esteem drops considerably once komaeda reveals he never had a talent to begin with. his manner of speech is no doubt a cover for his deep insecurities. he's so deeply insecure that he did what he was told and gave up his entire self for a coercive operation to turn him into the height of privilege, the ultra-talented ultimate hope, izuru kamukura. in doing so, he became a hollow shell of a person, an emotionless husk who had no interest in the world, no purpose beyond what was assigned to him, no emotions, and no real personality.

finding out what became of him in the outside world, it's no surprise that anything remaining of hinata's pretense of confidence instantly melted away. he fell to despair instantly, seeing no prospect of ever being happy if he had to return to that world. this world, where he came to feel emotions, to be accepted and respected by his peers despite his lack of anything to make him unique, would completely cease to exist if he chose to activate the forced shutdown sequence. he would have to go back to being that empty, hopeless shell; a fate worse than death, as he would die without even the memory of his true self persisting.

it took speaking with nanami, who at that point was nothing more than a memory existing in his head, to make him realize that an alternative was possible, that he could create a better future with his own hands by outright refusing the limited options that other people have to offer. in a way, the scene where hinata shouts それは違うぞ！ alongside nanami reads to me as the girl inside hinata coming out to refute enoshima's assertion that she'll never be able to create a world where she can be happy.

basically, what I'm trying to say is, estrogen can save her.

[cosmicjoke]

I think your hatred of Zeke clouds your view of him. I don’t think he’s as bad as you claim. His childhood made him sincerely believe that his euthanasia plan was the best solution to the titan problem. Even Hanji admitted it was the best solution. Eldians could have lived out the remainder of their lives peacefully and not cursed their children to suffer.

Zeke is delusional, and like most narcissists, he believes himself unique or otherwise specially equipped to solve the worlds problems. And also like a true narcissist, other peoples thoughts and feelings and desires don't register and don't matter to him.

You really don't see the problem with what you just said here? "Eldians could have lived out the remainder of their lives peacefully and not cursed their children to suffer.".

You're literally advocating for genocide with this statement. And you're advocating for people having their agency totally stolen from them by a madman who, because his own childhood was sort of shitty, decided that everyone else should have to pay the price for it. You're condoning murder, by agreeing that it's okay for someone who isn't under direct threat from another person to decide whether that other person's life is worth enough to justify their continued existence.

Further, it wouldn't have ensured any sort of peace for the Eldians, because it would have rendered the limited Rumbling and the lingering threat of it impossible. You should read this post by @darkskywishes to understand why:

But basically, Zeke's supposed plan to protect Paradis is BS, because of his plan to sterilize the population. A generation is 25 years. Historia would have died after 13 years and needed to pass her titan on to her only child, who would have been 13 at the time of inheritance. Add her 13 years to Historia's of being able to activate the Rumbling. That's 26 years. Paradis needed at least 50 years to be able to build up their military adequately to compete with other nations. But because of Zeke's sterilization, no more Eldian children could have been born after at most 26 years. Paradis would have needed another 24 years for their military to catch up to the rest of the world, 24 years which they wouldn't have had, because, again, Zeke forcing sterilization on the Eldian population would have rendered it impossible to pass any titan down to anyone ever again, and so the Rumbling could no longer be activated to act as a deterrent against attack from other countries. Paradis and its remaining population would have been brutally and violently wiped out, as a result.

All this, assuming Historia would have even been able to give birth to the child she was then currently pregnant with, which, if Zeke had enacted his sterilization plan, doesn't actually seem possible. The baby would have died in the womb. And so Paradis wouldn't have even had those 26 years of peace. They would have had, at most, 13 years. Not even a single generation. Zeke literally just intended for Paradis to be wiped out and thought that would have been "mercy", because he considered life to be worthless, and death to be the preferable option.

Further still, Zeke never intended to pass his titan on at all, because he planned on forcing sterilization on the population before Historia could have gotten pregnant. Remember, Historia got herself knocked up before she was ever meant to, going against the agreed upon plan. If she had stuck to that plan, Zeke would have already forced sterilization onto the population before Historia could get pregnant. So, again, they would have had at most 13 years before the rest of the world decided to retaliate.

Beyond that, even, Zeke literally manufactured the circumstances that brought war and suffering to Paradis. Marley and the rest of the world had no interest in pursuing Paradis until Zeke convinced them that they needed to attack the island, and then, along with Eren, ensured that the rest of the worlds nations would join Marley in that attack. They CREATED THE PROBLEM.

And do you really think the rest of the Eldian's in Marley and elsewhere in the world, the people Zeke supposedly cares so much about, would have been spared further persecution and suffering from Zeke's deliberate manipulation of events to renew and intensify the already existent prejudice against them? Do you think the Eldian's suddenly being made sterile would have protected them from people's worsened prejudice, fueled by Zeke's and Eren's scheming? Don't be ridiculous.

And Hange "admitting" that Zeke was right doesn't prove anything. It doesn't remotely prove it was the right solution to anything. Hange was in a terrible mental state at that point, her self-blame for the situation worsened by Eren's bullshit claim that she had somehow "failed" to secure peace, when it was Zeke's and Eren's actions that caused the war to begin with.

Zeke did everything in his power to make the situation for the Eldian people worse, not better. He manufactured a reason for the entire world to descend on Paradis with the intent to destroy them. He left the Eldian's in other nations high and dry with no recourse and no way to protect themselves against the intensifying hatred for them. Whether Zeke genuinely convinced himself it was for the best or not doesn't matter, because his total inability to understand that he had no right to decide for people what their lives were worth proves he never cared about those people to begin with. He never considered them relevant enough for their opinions to matter. He never regarded them enough to even let them decide whether they should live or die. They were just a means to an end for his own glory.

Zeke's entire idea of "mercy" is to kill people without their agreement or consent, with no thought spared to their own beliefs regarding the value of their lives. That isn't what someone who cares about other people does. That isn't what someone who respects the lives of others does. That isn't what someone who wants to alleviate the suffering of others does. They don't try to impose their will on others. They don't try to control other people or dictate to them that their lives are worthless. They don't think they just get to decide what's best for everyone else and make the decision for them, especially over something so vital to their well-being, with no regard to their agency or will. The fact Zeke engages in this sort of behavior again and again puts the lie to his claim of wanting to end people's suffering, because he actively and purposefully causes that suffering, all to feed into his self-image of being some sort of savior.

And even if what you say was true, which it's not, but even if it were, it still wouldn't in any way, shape or form explain Zeke's blatant and breathtaking cruelty that he displays again and again, the naked enjoyment he derives from hurting others and making them suffer.

I'm not blinded by my hate for Zeke. It doesn't cloud my view of him. Zeke manages to earn my hate all on his own.

I don't get why it's so hard for some people to just admit that Zeke is a bad person. He's the literal definition.

[ainyan]

How important is your OCs relationship(s) to their story? Would it still make sense without it? Or is their connection to this other character integral to their development? (From @sundered-souls)

As much as I'd love to say that Kal'istae's story could stand without Thancred, the truth is, he is integral to her story and who she is, and their relationship is equally as important.

From their childhood together to their soul-deep bond to the love that they shared that made them both bloom beyond their natural limits, the relationship between Kali and Thancred is as vital to both of their developments as the trials to which they both have been set over the course of this journey.

Would Kal'istae still have been the Warrior of Light without Thancred? Absolutely. Would she still have been Kal'istae Miurani, the woman behind the Warrior? No. She would have been consumed, subsumed, completely by that persona, and the unique individual who fights against her Fate and seeks to subvert her Destiny would not exist, nor all the ripples that altered her canon from that laid down by the tale-spinners and story-tellers of Etheirys.

Thank you for the ask!

Curious about the process that brought you Kalicred? Ask!

[rhaenall]

Warning, this is super long but I think the reason so many people think of Shiv as the favorite is more about how "favorite" is defined and from what perspective we’re examining “favorite.”

I think there’s a pretty solid argument that, in-universe, the Roy’s generally see Shiv as Logan’s “favorite” where favorite means the child he “likes” most and treats “preferentially.” As a preface, Brian Cox has pretty consistently said Shiv is Logan's favorite in interviews. While fans and viewers are free to take or leave an actor’s extra-textual viewpoint as they wish, I think it has both been influential from a fanon perspective and provides a view into Logan’s thought process.

What I mean by that is that Logan probably thinks of Shiv as his favorite, partly because Logan's views towards Shiv are (at least initially) less complicated than his views towards his sons. As Shiv said in Episode 3x09, Logan thinks there’s something wrong with Roman and he has a dichotomous love-hate relationship with Kendall. By contrast, Logan thinks of Shiv as his little Pinky, there’s nothing competitive about the relationship because she’s not another Man coming to usurp him and he can’t comprehend the whole of her as a full and complex person due to his own misogyny. As the only girl, his relationship with her is inherently unique and, I’d argue, in some ways inherently limited by her gender. Shiv is someone he can afford to let in because she’ll never be a Son and therefore, will never really be a rival (or a disappointment as a Man).

I think we get a bit of a sense of this in Episode 2x08, where Logan seeks out Shiv’s assurance that he’s making the right decision about announcing Rhea. There’s a kind of emotional reliance there that Logan can show Shiv that I don’t think he could have really show Kendall or Roman by virtue of their being men. It’s not dissimilar to how he relies on Marcia earlier in the season. It almost gives the illusion of tenderness, but in other ways simultaneously dismisses Shiv as a potential Heir herself, even though that’s the whole paradigm she’s been operating under this season.  That reliance and psedo-emotional closeness (as well as Shiv being out of the company for the majority of her life) allows for their relationship to function differently then any relationship he has with his other children and potentially to connect with each other (see Shiv’s speech that same episode where it’s clear they really do get each other in a way).

By virtue of this unique relationship, I think the rest of the family (mostly Roman, Kendall, and Caroline) view Shiv as Logan’s “favorite” as well.  This is potentially evidenced in some of Kendall’s lines in Episode 1x02 (I say potentially because everyone is speaking from places of mixed motives haha). Thus, by certain in-universe metrics, Shiv is Logan’s favorite.

As viewers however, our view of “favorite” may differ from those of the characters in the show. If we think of Logan’s “favorite” as the child Logan lets in the most re the business, or thinks about the most, or spends the most time with, or brings into his inner circle most frequently – then the “favorite” may be Kendall.

I think it’s pretty indisputable that Logan has uniquely weird relationships with all of his kids but at least where Kendall is concerned there’s an intense kind of possessiveness involved. Putting aside how wild it is to tap a seven-year-old as the future CEO of a public company that will have a market cap in excess of $40b, Logan seems super interested in involving himself in basically every aspect of Kendall’s life. We see in the pilot episode that he’s always trying to get his kids in the company (and exercise some level of procession that way), but it extends beyond that with Kendall (see for example all of Season 2 and large parts of Season 1and 3 haha).

At least until the start of the show, I think the implication is Logan has been dedicated to molding Kendall in his image as his heir, largely without meaningful competition from his siblings. However, one of the things that I think keeps Logan from thinking of Kendall as being his “favorite” even though he holds the title of Heir, is that Kendall is a massive disappointment to Logan because he can never live up to that title. Part of this is just, no one can live up to Logan’s standard because it’s a constantly changing standard (he is after all a human gaslight) but the other part is that Kendall is, at his core, a vastly different person from Logan. They don’t think the same. And on top of that, because Kendall has been trying to absorb and learn how to be whatever it is Logan seems to want, he keeps either attempting to emulate Logan poorly because, as stated, they’re different people, or he tries to grow and do his own thing which Logan inherently dislikes either because it’s not Logan’s way or he views it as competition which is unacceptable from one of his children.

To me, in many ways, Kendall is Logan’s great contradiction – love and hate in equal measure with a toxic co-dependance swirling throughout due to the sheer amount of time and energy that’s gone into molding Ken to be more like Logan and Kendall’s desperate attempt to shove himself into a mold that doesn’t fit.

Now for how this further fits into the “favorite” discussion, I don’t think Kendall views himself as the favorite. I think this is in part because the grass is always greener and from where Ken is standing – Shiv’s pasture looks far nicer than his (and Roman’s but that’s a whole other thing). However, I also kind of think that because Kendall is so constantly in Logan’s orbit, he doesn’t really think about this favorite thing too much (or at least not in those terms).

From Shiv’s perspective though, I think she’s much more keyed into the reality that Logan’s view of her is not in fact “better” but a massive disservice to her potential and I think she does clock that there’s a connection with Kendall that she cannot be part of in a way that makes any favoritism she gets meaningless. All of which is to say, I think Shiv understands she’s in a unique position with her Dad as the girl and the baby, and that to some extent others view her as a Daddy’s Girl. But I think she also has identified that Ken is the one who’s got Daddy’s attention more than not and although she may be called the “favorite” in many ways, Ken gets to “matter” in a way she can’t.

 So all of this to say…I think Shiv is technically the “favorite” but that Kendall is practically the “favorite” or the one who “matters– it’s all about how you define it and which perspectives you’re adopting.

(Also, one final note on Logan’s feeling around Shiv – there’s also probably some deeply mixed-up subconscious association between Rose, the younger sister he lost and carried guilt about for forever, and Shiv, his only daughter (and the only child that seems to physically take after his side of the family) that may also be at play here. I’m still kind of thinking through how all of that fits together…)

WHO SEND THIS?€;&::&&: (/positive)

I appreciate it, I read it all. Really lovely thoughts and ideas.

I didn’t know about Brian Cox’s thoughts on this matter. I think I am only aware of Jeremy’s and Sarah Snook’ thoughts on their characters/season 4.

But yes I can definitely see why there is conflicting answers about the favorite.

Thank you, anon! This is Appreciated

[periwinklemoonlight]

I AM VERY INTERESTED I LOVE HEARING THOUGT PROCESSES AND ITS SO CLEAR HOW MUCH PASSION AND CARE WAS PUT INTO YOUR ZINE PIECE

AHH THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!! i have so many thoughts i dont know where to begin LMAO ill start with the outfit designs first!!

to start things off, every design has one specific colour in mind to represent that hermit! pearl - blue, gem - green, impulse - yellow, doc - black/gray, and grian - red! (everyone's nails are painted their colour) every design was deliberately punk-inspired, since during the king arc the soup group was a force of resistance against the monarchy's tyranny :P therefore, the soup group are the main focus of the art and their designs are intentionally made so that they stand out more from the other two, though i made sure they were all unique in one aspect or another :] let's go character by character now! (i'm including all my initial design sketches + some inspo photos too)

pearl - she's the lead singer of soup group, along with playing the electric guitar! her design features a double tank top + low rise big pant combo, moon motifs of course, and two distinct shades of blue! The darker one is seen throughout her hair and outfit, while the lighter one in her moth antenna is reflected in her guitar. the main inspiration for her look was avril lavigne, which is also what influenced me to add those fun blue hair streaks :D on her shirt i wanted to have a sort of skeletal moth/butterfly design!!

gem - the keytar! i wanted to make sure that gem and pearl's designs looked very distinct from each other, so i went for a slightly different vibe with gem's! her design is based more off of the plaid skirts, big boots, and fishnet looks i found while looking through early 2000s lip service magazine scans (as well as some hayley williams looks!!) :D additionally, shes got vine tattoos over her body to call back to her nature elf vibe this season!

impulse - the drummer of course!! for his look, i wanted to go a little more anarcho-punk (since its a much older punk style and hes the oldest member of soup group LOL), so his vest jacket has got a bunch of diy additions like patches, pins, paperclips, and chains, along with a bunch of spikes!! in my mind, the back of his jacket has probably got a whole lot more patches, spikes, and studs :] beyond that, i made sure to give him lots of piercings (though my options were limited since s9 impy has a beard lol), and stretched earlobes for fun!! ideally his pants would also have a lot more patches and fun bits, but since his legs would be entirely covered by his drums in the final piece i went for something simpler

doc - an opener and feature on the song! since he's not part of the soup group, his design is quite a bit simpler than the others in terms of both look and concept :] his look is monochrome save for his robotic red parts and green skin, but still looks interesting thanks to that fun leather jacket :D his look is purposefully more reminiscent of a 50's style greaser, i wanted to go for an older fashion style to make him look more intimidating/mature, as well as set him apart from the look of soup group since the perimeter was an independent nation in the king arc!

grian - another feature/opener! design wise? hes literally just green day i can't even lie like the pun was perfect and also the black shirt + red tie combo is iconic and also fits his look so effortlessly it had to be done LMAO also, if you look closely in the final piece you can see he's wearing eyeshadow! this of course is again because hes grian day /silly. but to be real, i think this style also fits him really well since the tie + spikes & studs combo gives the look that sorta rebellious vibe that was all over his videos during the king arc :]

AND NOW FOR THE INSTRUMENTS!! this segment is thankfully much shorter

pearl's guitar is of course a nod to my design for her and her moth wings! butterfly guitars are harder to draw than you'd think LOL

gem's keytar has got a vine design all over it to match her tattoos

impulse's drum set has got the soup group punk band logo! the logo design may honestly be my favourite part of the piece, i feel like i really nailed what i was going for :D

and thats it! i'll edit this post or rb with any details i missed if they come to mind! thank u for reading anyone who has made it this far <3