#the themes and characters are wildly different

[ree-dee-art]

Honestly, I must admit that I'm not too fond of fan artists changing/headcanoning Harry and James to be as desi/dark skinned. I personally think the Dursleys are far more despicable due to hating on someone not because of skin color/racial prejudice(because then they would've no doubt hated Kingsley), but because someone is not their definition of 'normal'/ looks & acts not to their standards. It's already stretching it with race changing Hermione and making her a big target of wizard prejudice on muggles. And it also kills the prejudice Lily faced, because she's still fair skinned.

Initially, I was just going to respond to this by encouraging anon to go touch some grass.

However, I feel somewhat compelled to respond, because there is just so much to unpack in this single nonsensical message.

Firstly, I honestly don't get a whole lot of asks or messages in general, so receiving this one out of the blue was a bit wild for me. The nature of fandom itself allows for and embraces a plethora of different interpretations and headcanons for any given character. In many ways, this is the beauty of fandom--to take a beloved character and ask "what if?" I have no problem with someone having a different interpretation of a character from my own. What confuses me is this person's method for expressing their opinion. Why are you anonymously sending this to a stranger? Why not make a text post on your own blog about it? Like...what is your goal here, anon? I'm an artist who draws what I enjoy, and sometimes I share these drawings in the hopes that someone else might enjoy them too. Not your vibe? Not my problem. Go find some white Harry artwork to appreciate, there's plenty out there. Were you hoping I would change my own interpretation and headcanon of Harry or Hermione to fit your own? Lol, tough luck. No one is stopping you from drawing your own pictures.

All of that aside, your reasoning for your preference of having characters like James, Harry, and Hermione not be POC is incredibly confusing to me. You said you believe the Dursleys are "far more despicable" for hating Harry not because of skin color but because he didn't match their "definition of normal." I have a few follow-up questions regarding this (wildly inane imo) take:

1. Does this mean you believe the Dursleys hypothetically also hating Harry because of the color of his skin is in some way less despicable than them hating him because he can do magic?

2. What exactly do you think racism is, if not "hating someone because they don't match your definition of 'normal?'"

3. How does Hermione being black and muggleborn erase the discrimination Lily faced for also being muggleborn? Do you know that intersectionaily exists?

Some of the most interesting creations I've encountered in the HP fandom (fics and art) explore the complexities in the intersections between racial discrimination, white supremacy, and pureblood fanaticism. And there truly is so much to explore in these themes (for example: ways in which Harry could have been separated not only from his loving family, but also a part of his culture. It also allows for interesting and more complex ways for Harry and Hermione to bond and relate to each other in their friendship, etc).

For me, more diversity within these characters (whether it be race, queerness, or anything else) allows for much richer storytelling and much more interesting characters. If that's not your jam, then perhaps my work isn't for you.

However, I will say--this message is very much giving "only white characters and muggle discrimination allowed!!!" and I encourage you to ask yourself why that is the only context for these characters you feel comfortable with.

But seriously, go touch some grass.

[vanfleeter]

My Love II: Chapter 1

A/N: Welcome to the second series! Characters: Jake Kiszka, Josh Kiszka, Sam Kiszka, Danny Wagner, Sara, Nora Warnings: 18+ || Gore. Vampires. Blood. Blood drinking. Murder. Death. Angst. Adult Themes. Fear. Anger. Worry. Jealousy. Allusions to sexual violence. Physical violence. Smut. Mentions of sex.

SARA’S POV

My hearing was blocked out by the sound of my heart beating wildly in my chest as I ran from Sam’s house, leaving Jake behind. I fought with myself internally when I got to the end of the driveway.

Do I go back? Do I keep going like he told me to?

I didn’t want to leave him. The image of him writhing in pain never leaves my head as I trudge on through the woods towards Josh’s home. He must have known I was coming because he’s throwing open the front door and racing out to me. His mouth moved but my ears were still ringing from my heart beating, preventing me from hearing a single word he was speaking to me.

“Jake…” I heaved as I bent over.

Josh’s hands drag me up to the front door and inside before he’s sitting me on the couch.

“What happened?” He asks. “Where’s Jake?”

“I don’t know..”

“What do you mean you don’t know?!”

“He got shot–”

“Shot?! By who?!”

“I don’t know, I never saw their face.”

“And you just left him?!”

“He told me to run, Josh. He told me to run and to come find you.” Why is he mad at me? I’m only following what Jake ordered me to do. I didn't want to leave but he gave me no choice.

What if he’s dead now? What if this person killed him?

I could feel my stomach churning and everything we did tonight come rushing back at me like a semi truck barrelling down the road. Rushing out of the room, I go to the bathroom and heave all of the contents from my stomach into the toilet. Which wasn’t very much.. I can feel Josh’s hands as he pulls my hair back away from my face. Once I had finished, I sat back on the floor and leaned against the wall. Josh wiped my face clean with a wet washcloth, staining the pure white cotton red with blood.

“Did he say anything else to you?” Josh asks as he sits cross legged in front of me.

I shake my head. “He just told me to run and find you.”

“And you’re sure you didn't see who did this?”

Again I shake my head. “I don’t know.. But whoever did most likely has Sam too.. Josh, I think he’s back in his ripper phase. The house was trashed and there was blood everywhere..”

“Shit..” Josh mutters under his breath before standing to his feet. He helps me stand too before he’s tugging me from the bathroom.

“Do you know of any enemies?”

“Sara, we’re well over five hundred years old, I wouldn't be surprised if we did. But who would it be? We don’t have time to sit around and guess. If they already have Sam and now Jake, they’ll most likely be after all of us.”

“Why not just take me out too? We were both right there.”

“Maybe they weren't aware that you're one too.”

Josh brings me into a different room, one with walls covered in relics from all different centuries. I hear him chuckle at my awe and I tilt my head down to look at him. He smiles and leans up against a bookshelf. “We’ve saved a lot of this from our past lifetimes. About five hundred and thirty years worth of stuff.”

I looked around the room again until my eyes landed on a painted portrait of a man dressed in a long black robe. His hair fell in the same wavy, brown locks over his shoulders. The brown color of eyes still look how they do now.

“Jake was supposed to wear his kolpak hat that day,” Josh says as he walks up to stand behind me. “But per usual, he refused.”

“When was this painted?” I ask as I dared to run the pad of my index finger along the worn and raised canvas.

“Ummm.. Sometime around 1524? We were thirty when they painted our portraits.”

“He looks thirty,” I say, examining the detailed facial hair grown out on his face. “Has he ever grown it out like this since?”

Josh shakes his head. “Nope, just his usual mustache and the small scruff on his chin.” He sucks in a breath before turning on his heels and walking away. “Anyways.. Not what I brought you in here for,” He says. “Come..” I follow him through the room and towards a different door, which leads down a short hallway to a different room. “I fear we have a vampire hunter in our midst.”

“Why now?” I ask as he reaches for a notebook and flips through the pages.

“There could be many reasons why now,” Josh says. “We have made enemies throughout our five hundred years on this earth.”

“So what do we do?” I ask.

He drops the notebook onto a table and his eyes flash to mine. “We will do nothing.. I will take it upon myself to find my brother.”

“I will not stand aside and let you do this on your own.”

“He is my brother..” He says. “And so is Sam. This is my problem.” He grabs another notebook and starts flipping through the pages.

“He’s my problem too..”

Josh’s eyes flash up to me as he pauses his hand. He keeps it steady against the worn pages of the notebook but his eyes only show anger, a war raging within them. “It is my duty to keep you safe–but only my duty to save my brothers. It has always been that way and that way it will stay. You only came into the picture a few years ago and you are still new to this dynamic and this new life of yours.” He slams the notebook shut and drops it down onto the table. “Do not think just because you are my brother’s lover that you can just come in here and declare your involvement. If anything were to happen to you..again–Jacob would never forgive me, nor would I forgive myself.”

“So that’s it? I don't do anything?”

Quick as lightning, Josh has me pushed against the wall. “Does everything just go in one ear and out the other? I need your help but not to save my brothers.. I failed once in protecting you and look what happened..” He steps back, releasing his hold on me and drops his hand to his side. “I will not fail again..” He goes back to the shelf and retrieves another notebook. “Grab a journal and start reading.” He orders.

This is how I’m supposed to help? Reading fucking journals?

“Shut up..” I hear him grumble. “I said start reading..”

“Are you reading my mind?”

“Can’t help it when even your brain won't be quiet either..”

I huff and grab a journal before flopping down into a chair and flipping open the cover. Beautiful handwriting covers the pages and it was only then as I read each entry that this was Jake’s journal. I run my fingers along the delicate pages, tracing each letter he scribed in ink on the paper. His use of languages fluctuates between each entry. One entry he’ll be speaking in English, then another he’ll be writing in Spanish, and then another in Polish.

Maybe I should start learning Polish.

“It would help..” Josh says.

I lift my eyes and narrow them at Josh. His lips are turned up slightly on the right side in a smirk. “Get out of my head.” I say.

“Would if I could, but you’re so loud.”

“I know you can choose not to listen, so choose it.”

His cocky smile grows bigger and he turns his attention back to the journal in his hands.

“Exactly what is it that I am looking for?” I ask as I place my arms crossed over to the journal and tilting my head to look up at Josh.

“Anything that he writes about potential enemies.. Jake recorded a lot of our past in these journals. He once told me that if we were to live for eternity, that people should be privy to our past, read of our lives and of our journeys–friends and family that we have had to watch from afar as they grew older and eventually passed on to whatever life is before them on the other side, past lovers we had to part with because we could not bear witness their timely deaths at an old age, the bloodshed we have caused, the enemies we have made–who very well might still seek us out.”

I shift my body in the chair, intrigued with what their past had been like. “Did he ever write about how the three of you were turned?” I say three because I already have an idea on how Danny was turned, due to his anger towards Sitovo and the immortality that she forced upon him.

“Probably in the journals he kept around the 1500s. I’d say–1530? But enough of that, we need to find potential enemies and make a list.”

Suddenly the door to the room is flung open and Nora bursts inside and dragging a bleeding Danny on her shoulder. Josh is flinging the notebook closed and tossing it onto the table before rushing over to aid Nora with Danny. I stand carefully from the chair as I watch them both bring him over to a couch that rests beneath the stained glass window.

“What happened?” Josh asks as he rips Danny’s shirt apart revealing his bloody back.

“It happened so fucking fast, Josh, I don’t even think this person was human..” Nora says, her trembling with fear. “One minute we’re..you know..and the next the room is being broken into and Danny’s nailed with several bullets to his back. I fought them off as best I could, incapacitating them long enough to throw on clothes and get us both the hell out of the house.”

“Fuck..” Josh mutters. He gently runs his hands along the wounds on Danny’s back, which didn’t feel so gentle to Danny as he groans in pain, flexing his one fist that hangs off the couch. “We have to get this out.” Josh says.

“Who this fuck is doing this?” Nora asks.

“I don’t know,” Josh says. “But they have Sam and now Jake. They want all of us, by the looks of it.”

“But why? I don’t understand.”

“One of us did something at some point pissing someone off–I’m assuming, and they’re after all of us.” Josh heads for the door of the room. “Try not to let him move, I’ll be right back.”

I watch Nora as she kneels down beside the couch and gingerly brushes Danny’s curls away from his face. She gently kisses his cheek and he whimpers, his body slightly shaking from the pain. “You’re going to be okay,” She says. “Josh is going to help you.”

JOSH’S POV

My heart pounds in my chest as I gather all of the tools I will need to remove all of the bullets from Danny’s back. Seeing how much pain he is in can only make me imagine how much pain Jake must be in. And Sam–god, Sam.. Back in his ripper phase? What if this has to do with him? What if whoever is coming after us is because of him?

Rolling up the tools in a cloth wrap, I quickly make my way back to the room and make haste at relieving Danny from this pain. Pulling the sleeves of my shirt up my arms, I slide on a pair of gloves and grab the metal forceps from the bundle of tools.

“Danny, hold still for me. I know this is going to hurt but the less you move, the quicker this will all be over.” Danny only groans in response so I make haste to remove the first bullet by his shoulder blade. Digging into his skin, he starts to holler and tries to move all the while Sara and Nora restrain him. “Hold him..” I demand as I pull out the first bullet and drop it into a plastic container.

The process to remove every bullet is slow. They’re embedded so deep into his back that it makes it hard to even find them. But gradually I make it further along and within the hour I’m removing the final bullet and dropping into the container. He’s passed out by now, no doubt from the pain and the amount of vervain swimming through his veins that these bullets were laced this. You would think after five hundred years we would have grown used to the toxicity of vervain.

Wrapping up his back and using the three of us, we manage to bring him upstairs to one of the spare rooms and lay him in bed.

“He got lucky..” I say as I collapse into one of the reading chairs along the wall. “There was one super close to his heart. Had it been a centimeter over to the left, he’d be dead..”

“Oh Danny..” Nora moans as she clutches his hand in hers.

“We’ll let him rest,” I say. “He won’t be awake for a long while.. In the meantime, Sara and I have a lot of reading to do.”

��You have got to be kidding me…”

“Stop your complaining..” I say to Sara as I stand up from the chair.

“Stay out of my head.” She growls.

“Come on, I may have narrowed down precisely to what we should be on the lookout for.”

Scouring the journals on the shelves, I pull every single from the years spanning Sam’s ripper phase. Approximately from 1898 to 1903 when we managed to stop him in Michigan. There’s a journal for each year, so six total. I split them up, three to each of us and we started reading.

Coldwater, Michigan.

12th of June, 1903

It has been three days since we tracked Samuel to Michigan. For the past six years we have been chasing after him, trying to stop him from terrorizing another town and more people. His body count has gone to the hundreds and we know that it will not stop unless we put an end to it.

We tracked all the way here to Coldwater after receiving word of bodies being found drained of blood and ripped apart. We knew it to be Samuel, he is the only known ripper in America. We have not figured out why he suddenly snapped and became who he is, nor will he tell us. His emotions have been turned off making him nothing but a shell inhabiting a monster.

We initially thought he had turned them off due to the death of his first ever love. She was human, of course, which is forbidden within the coven, but oh Samuel did love her. Her name was Edith and she was beautiful. Every man who ever laid eyes on her instantly fell in love with her. I will admit that I had to, but Edith only ever had her eyes on Samuel. Her heart belonged to Samuel and his heart belonged to her. He made the decision to turn her, should she make the choice herself and she did. Though come the summer of 1898, Edith was murdered by her own kind. A man who coveted her, wanted her all to himself. He even offered her father a large sum of money so he could marry her. Little did he know that Samuel already promised a better deal, one her father could never refuse. We had never been privy to this information, but it was then that the man took it upon himself to harm Edith. He attacked her in her own bedroom in the middle of the night. He forced himself upon her as she kicked and she screamed, clawing at his body to remove him from her. No one came to her aid, for no one was home. By the time Samuel had come home from a business trip to Savannah, she was already gone.

He blamed himself for her death, saying he could have saved her had he not made the trip. I had never seen him so distraught. From that night, he ripped through the town out of fury. He hunted down the man who took Edith’s innocence and her life and he had gotten his revenge on him. No one could find his body because I had handled the aftermath of Samuel’s fury. I took every individual body part and threw it into a burning fire.

Then he disappeared for months after that. We had no inclination as to where he would be until reports had started coming out about mysterious deaths of people all up and down the east coast. We followed the trail inland until we made it here to Michigan.

His last victim, Robert Duvaul, was unsuspecting of Samuel’s terror on the town. He left behind a wife, a former lover of mine.

Vivianne Duvaul.

Closing the journal, I stand up from the table and pull Sara from her chair and out of the room. “What is it? What did you find?”

“I know exactly who took Sam and Jake..” I say.

“Who?”

“Vivianne Duvaul,” I say. “One of Jake’s former lovers and the wife of Samuel’s last victim on his ripper rampage.”

“Former lover?”

I stop walking and turn back to face Sara. “Don’t be jealous. She was simply a fling during his period of sleeping around.”

“Who said I was jealous?”

“Your face,” I smirk. “Now come on, the sooner we find her–”

‘The sooner I can kill her..’

I snort, shaking my head, unable to resist the urge to respond. “Yeah, you’re jealous..” I’m earning a slap to the back of my head and I can’t help but to smirk. Less painful than what she can really do.

JAKE’S POV

The pounding in my head is the first to signal to me that I’m awake, followed by the dull pain in my abdomen. Peeling my eyes open, I find myself in a room of concrete walls, and when I try to move I feel the cold metal of cuffs wrapped around my ankles. I start to tug on them but my strength is gone.

“It’s no use..” A voice speaks beside me. “I’ve tried..”

“Sam?”

The sounds of chains clicking and dragging along the floor indicate the person moving. But as my eyes adjust better to the dark, I see that it’s not Sam, but instead a woman.

“You don't recognize me, do you?” She says.

“Should I?”

She scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Of course you wouldn't.. I mean, it has only been one hundred and twenty one years. Ada Eastman, if that rings a bell at all.”

Ada Eastman. I roll the name around in my head for an answer as to who she is. “Did we sleep together at some point?” I ask.

She shrugs her shoulders, “Once or twice..” Of course.

“Why are you here?”

“Same reason you are,” Ada says. “She wants me dead..��

“What did you do?”

“I made Sam into the ripper..” She says.

“Wait.. What? No..” I say, shaking my head in disbelief. “He lost control after Edith died..”

“She was murdered because of me..” She says as she moves her body to sit more comfortably on the floor. “I made that man so obsessed with her to the point that if he couldn't have her, no one could.”

“But why do that to Sam? What did he ever do to you?”

“I loved Sam..”

“Even though you were sleeping with me..”

“You were such a good distraction..” She says. I roll my eyes and lean back against the wall. “Bet you still would be now..”

“Don't even think about it.”

“Come on, Jakey..” I grimace at her use of that damn nickname, and I move further away from her. “Remember how much fun we used to have? You were so sexy when we fucked after we fed. Don't you remember?”

It was May of 1903, a month before Edith’s death and Sam’s torment on Coldwater, and I’ll admit the sex was pretty good. Whenever we fed, I fell into bed with Ada. The adrenaline still coursing through our bodies as we fucked on the satin sheets of her bed. It would be destroyed by the time the sun had risen the next morning, sometimes even broken.

“Oh you’re thinking about us..” Ada giggles and I shake my head.

“It’s in the past, I moved on..”

“Believe me, I know,” Ada sighs. “Sara’s pretty.. Sad she’ll have to spend eternity without you..”

“I won’t let that happen..”

“Says the man who’s chained to a wall..”

Locks click on the door and I look over to see it being pushed open. Sam walks through, looking completely unscathed and in one piece. “Thank god, Sam…” I sigh in relief. “You’re okay.. Please get me out of these..”

He glances at me briefly before making his way across the room to Ada. He pulls her off the floor and unlocks her chains. “What are you doing?” She says as she tries to pull away from him. “Let me go.” He starts to drag her back to the door as she begins to kick and claw at him.

“Sam, what are you doing?” I say as I stand on my feet. He continues to ignore me as he pulls Ada from the room as she continues to struggle against him and scream. “Sam!”

“Let me go!”

“Sam, what are you doing?! Sam!”

The door slams closed behind him and all I can hear is Ada’s screams slowly becoming distant as he takes her farther away. That was not Sam. That was not my brother. What the hell happened to him while he was away and why is he helping Vivianne?

@losfacedevil @writingcold @edgingthedarkness @i-love-gvf @katuschka @josh-iamyour-mama @sammysstolenbirks @asendingtothestarsasone @hollyco @musicislove3389 @its-interesting-van-kleep @katiegvf @tinydancer40 @gretavangroupie @lizzys-sunflower @fleetingjake @takenbythemadness @godly-sinsx @psychedelectable @dancingcarbon @oliverfuckingreed @cheersdannyx2 @piratejtk @katuschka @musicislove3389 @takenbythemadness

add yourself to the tag list in my master list!

[tracing-rivers]

The Devil Wears Prada movie is a psychological thriller camouflaged as a chick flick

The Devil Wears Prada book is an anticapitalist manifesto camouflaged as an airport novel

Hope this helps

[chaosmenu]

no one knows pain like a transfem roman believer with entirely ambivalent feelings towards romencken

[mejomonster]

I’m relieved to find out when i finish case 3 in silent reading the translation still has a part 4 AND extras ToT

like god i admire priest SO much. i think in many ways the writing choices in silent reading are SO ballsy. especially now that i know what publishers push toward regarding standard/norms look like all other novels don't deviate dont be brave or unique. like i know priest self published online THEN gets a print deal but like. to decide you as a public commented on author with a HUGE following where ppl buy your chapters? is gonna write THIS? 

its brave i think. its brave to trust an audience to read 77 chapters of truly fucked up crime story thats main point IS TO critique the world and justice and human nature. before you get into the romance danmei readers most wanted. to make readers both feel bad for and terrified of a little girl. to remind readers every poor immigrant with a bad life who dies is a TRAGEDY and a horrible loss that society has too much allowed. to remind readers that the justice system fails to bring many people closure or help. 

(babes below the cut turned into a MEGA meta on zhoudu and their completely different views on the world)

and THEN of course the LEADS priest decides to write arcs for in this. its ballsy to write a lead the other lead thinks might be capable of being a killer. to write a man objectively with as many red flags as. fei du as THE lead. like? think of 2ha and the people who hate mo ran too much to try it even just hearing of mo ran lol. fei du objectively in some ways is HARDER to empathize with and view as 'an ordinary relatable man'. mo ran when you take that hes been abused is mainly just a kid who wanted to help people typical xianxia hero style and gain power for revenge on REALLY cruel people in a really cruel Fucked up world he lives in thats painted as so much worse than our real earth world. 

fei du? well he outwardly is pretty so i guess like the strangers he meets people tolerate that. but the little we get of our past lets us know he killed animals with his hands (and again its as BRAVE a writing choice as the lead in kdrama Flower of Evil who’s raised by a serial killer and trained to be like him and unable to empathize with others and he fights so HARD to be a good person but he’s no one’s definition of a safe guy to trust - but somehow he met his wife and had a daughter and loves them so dearly and he IS and has always been a good man and good kid who went through awful stuff because people were afraid of his inability to emotionally connect and his abused background). Fei du is like HIM. Fei Du self harms to an intense degree, trying to curb impulses trained in him from a young age and a natural propensity mixed with a raising teaching him and Hammering into him that death is the only absolute to feel comfort in. He could’ve become a murderer, an abuser, in the sense of his father pushing him toward it and so many things could’ve affected it - like luo wenzhou simply being not there. Fei du is fighting before anything else, himself and his own fears about himself and who he is and who he even wants to be ultimately. Mo Ran gets cursed and becomes an evil emperor, and without that was a brute revenge okay-with man (and a black lotus trope so honestly more tolerable as a violent rage fest reading-norm wise). But fei du? is just an ordinary modern man working in an office who thinks it would be nice to choke someone and watch them break down hopeless. Who’s probably felt and thought everything su luozhan did (now i’m losing track... there’s things to be said for mo ran and his abuse making him cruel and lash out like fei du and su luozhan too...but moving on for now). fei du is a realistic ‘monster.’ or an almost one. he’s a man who if taken for all he is, much of society would want removed and taken away, or see as an inevitable evil of a rich man who can’t be stopped by most. he’s like Flower of Evil’s lead and the bad rich kid who lashed out and killed people, combined into one. 

priest makes him understandable, because priest is amazing at writing very good characters and depicting them and showing their nuances and evolution. and also because luo wenzhou loves him unconditionally. luo wenzhou chooses to love the hurting child, and in doing so comes to see fei du for all the multitudes of value he has as a person, for the treasure he is in ALL of himself with the bad and the good as a whole. (sort of like Flower of Evil main characters sister always loved him and saw him as her little brother needlessly hurt by the world, or the wife who eventually realized the man she loved was part of it and is real its just hes more than she knew before - luo wenzhou is both in one). and because luo wenzhou can see him, all of him, and love and appreciate all of it even EVEN when it horrifies him? even when he thinks and knows its beyond the scope of acceptable or normal, even when he’s hearing fei du lose himself in a viewpoint of the world that is so FAR from luo wenzhous ability to understand or view it. luo wenzhou STILL thinks - how do i reach out so we connect and meet halfway, even if i have to wade into that dark and try to understand, even if i have to explain the regular world like its fantastically rare and incomprehensible to him until he gets how other people like me feel. luo wenzhou thinks: no matter who he is, in fact with ALL of who he is, i’m going to go up to fei du and connect to him, we are going to eat and be okay, we are going to carve out a life together and feel whole and safe and connected there. and so for all fei du is, when we are given luo wenzhou’s fathomless endless care for him it’s impossible not to also open our hearts to fei du. to assume no matter how different he is from us or feels things, or how inhuman or whatever, he’s a an amazing individual and worthy of being understood and accepted into our care too. because luo wenzhou’s viewpoint is hard to fight. even if we think luo wenzhou were wrong, if we didn’t get sucked in, we can’t fight the fact luo wenzhou unconditionally feels this and it won’t change, it will drive the story. 

there’s the choice priest made, to make an ‘ordinary’ enough hero of a story (a policeman - legal official solving crimes - who is almost superhero like in his original desire to help people and bring justice, who still ignores wounds and tries to be Larger than Life and do More than the average man, trying to save even with his very real human faults of a nepotism parentage and a short temper in his youth and a naivety he had to lose). he’s old but not jaded, he’s realistic and skilled now but still driven to give out justice, still hurts in his heart when he can’t help someone enough. and it all kicks off with a kid named fei du, and luo wenzhou wanting to heroically bring him justice and closure and save him like Superhero savior of the Cosmos young luo wenzhou did... and failing. failing. failing and having the realization he WILL fail people, legal justice is sometimes impossible or has dead ends and horrible things happen with no resolution and no one saved, and still wanting to care about fei du, wanting to do his best to help him even when it will Never ever be enough. Fei du will NEVER be saved. can not be saved. the damage has already been done (and after the basement scene, luo wenzhou realizes even into adulthood, even once fei du’s dad was in a coma, luo wenzhou still couldn’t even protect fei du from Himself, yet another way luo wenzhou can never be that Cosmic Superhero, not even that local guardian to one single boy, he loves fei du unconditionally and that does NOT mean he’ll ever be enough to protect him or undo the damage). 

but luo wenzhou tries anyway. and its in that trying, that is so worth it. it’s not the outcome, its the act of trying, the ‘ceremony’ and how it means he cares. how it means he views fei du as worthy of it (and he really views by extension so MANY worthy of it who he also can or can’t help to varying degrees, and it rubbed off on fei du, because now hes the kind of man who also finds it awful a poor young man named He zhongyi dies and is willing to go to any lengths to try and get justice for him, for any particular person). Anyway, the point is luo wenzhou is an understandable hero typical of his story type. His heroics are the super-detectives who want to save everyone, his failings are the cops like Lee Dong Sik in Beyond Evil who take their small tasks seriously and are aware they may never save their world or Do Enough and justice can fail but they’re still making Their Choices every day, their baggage and damage and aged lessons coming along. He is an ordinary enough choice for a lead. His most remarkable trait in my mind, that makes him stand out, is his decision once upon a time to care about fei du unconditionally. its a choice a parent makes when they adopt, a bodyguard makes in a fantasy tale when they decide to dedicate their life to their ruler, in a realism grounded story like Silent Reading real life red flags just usually keep such a decision from being made.

Take Flower of Evil - its normal for the wife to be suspicious her husband is a killer and investigate it before ultimately picking his side. Take Beyond Evil - Juwon is younger and has fucked up, but Lee Dong Sik makes fucked decisions he doesn’t expect of the younger, makes the choice to cross lines he feels the younger shouldn’t and maybe no one should but he’s too far gone to quit his path now. Luo Wenzhou sees fei du, the teenager, making death threats and you can’t abandon your own kid. But it’s not his kid, its a stranger like su luozhan who’s killed something, lashing out and feeling unlike other humans and without any real parent who gave them unconditional love (maybe fei du had his mom once a week when she was alive but with health issues and spousal issues and dad’s nonstop threat of a presence on them, fei du was not getting that secure unconditional love environment). its a stranger completely, and luo wenzhou just decides to love him anyway. 

So why’s he a brave writing choice? to use a character like luo wenzhou who does decide to love someone like that unconditionally. before the romance even starts. he’s not fei du’s family, he’s not fei du’s mentor until he Chooses to be, he’s not fei du’s lover when he makes the decision or long time spouse (like in Flower of Evil), he’s not a man who’s got enough shared experiences to understand fei du’s perspective (in fact it terrifies luo wenzhou the gulf there is between each other’s experience and view of the world). but luo wenzhou, the man that he is, chooses to love fei du unconditionally. 

it makes sense for his character of course, because priest is good at writing characters. while luo wenzhou fits the relative norm for his genre, it also makes sense his particular life leads him to a choice i rarely see in these stories. He’s an idealistic naive rash ‘hero’ rookie cop. He sees a child cope with the death of his mom and his world shatter, look at him with an intense resolve that BEGS Luo Wenzhou to BE the hero that can give fei du justice. Luo Wenzhou, the rookie who think himself Hero of the Galaxy, has been dealing with petty crime and this is one of (or possibly the FIRST) time anyone has given him the responsibility and Ability to attempt to serve justice on this scale. This is his first opportunity to SOLVE a possible murder, GIVE someone closure, and truly change their life on such a scale. Of course heroic-dreaming Luo Wenzhou, thinking himself important and inhumanly capable of anything to help someone, takes up that look fei du gives him and decides “then I will give you the justice you need. I will resolve this for you.” A character like him? what other choice would he make.

And fei du is both the first time the world gives him the chance to be the Big Hero Savior he wanted to be, and the reality check that he can NOT be that Hero. That such a heroic feat is impossible, is unreasonable, is not something anyone will be able to live up to forever without fail - especially him, who turns out is lacking much of what he needs to succeed. But even if he had ALL the tools to succeed: even if Luo Wenzhou had ALREADY been a Captain, with rich influential and politically powerful allies, and had been able to legally adopt fei du and take actual political action against fei du’s dad? Even if he HAD all that, luo wenzhou would not have been able to save fei du - from the pain of his childhood, from the loss of his mom, the mystery was too hard to be solved at the time (or luo wenzhou of stubbornness i believe would’ve found a way to solve it), or from fei du’s own self hatred and self harm (just given how privately fei du keeps part of himself - he kept so much from luo wenzhou and probably always would’ve). 

So even with everything, Luo Wenzhou would’ve failed. And at least failing then, as a rookie, he learned he WASN’T superman, he wasn’t infailable and Enough to save people inherently, and took the experience that he’d have to WORK and struggle and fight every single TIME to truly try and save people with him as he was promoted and gained power. That failure made him a better savior for future victims he’d help: because he’d be self aware that failure was possible, and helping others was going to be a struggle and require All his dedication every time, and is never a guarantee. 

Luo Wenzhou picking fei du changed their lives. He failed fei du (and always would have) and in doing so it made him a better person to help people moving forward. and in the moment he chose to try and save fei du, an impossible thing with no Real Guarantee (as Luo Wenzhou would learn later and not ever promise so freely with certainty again), fei du DID see him as a savior. As a hope. As the first guardian angel in his life, the first belief that ANYONE outside of himself could help him. Could fix anything in his life - could explain why his mom who loved him would choose to leave him, could explain if it was his own fault for not loving her ‘enough’ or being too monstrous or if it was someone else’s fault, who could take his father to justice for the awful things he’d done when to fei du his father was the god of his world able to kill and do anything and make fei du do Anything no matter how awful. For the first time, fei du truly had a hope in something able to HELP him. And Luo Wenzhou failed. And fei du experienced both a temporary believe in the kind of “justice is served to the evil, help is provided to the innocent” that children usually simplistically learn at first but he never did (because his father didn’t teach him that but that the predators do what they want). and then experienced a cold harsh horrible shock that it WAS a lie, that the person telling him to believe it - luo wenzhou - was wrong. that fei du’s view of the world was “correct” and the false hero he’d believed in, luo wenzhou, was a fool who believed falsehoods and couldn’t do anything real. that no one Could help fei du. 

and yet. despite all that. despite that failure shaping them both. it also tied them together. for all luo wenzhou failed, he still decided Inexplicably to be responsible for it. Instead of taking the loss, he went on to keep helping fei du. Caring. With Tao Ran as a contrast, its clear how excessive those actions were compared to the norm. Luo Wenzhou dragged Tao Ran into helping him take Fei Du after school, so fei du was rarely left alone in an empty house, into taking him out for food so he’d eat when the help at his house didn’t cook, these are all the acts of a godfather or a makeshift caretaker. They’re more than a responsible police officer should’ve ever gotten involved in a victim’s life - the most luo wenzhou should’ve appropriately done, was maybe call child services and insist and fight that no matter ‘how rich older master fei was’ the child still was in an enviornment that needs either an after school program for some socialization and social support, or a caretaker to move in, or if at all possible to get to live with a different guardian. But Luo wenzhou, knowing what’s appropriate, couldn’t abandon that ‘idealic heroic’ persona he learned failed and was unrealistic, still trying adamantly to be it for fei du. Even failure after failure. He would’ve adopted fei du probably, possibly, if the person he��d been fighting for custody against hadn’t been so filthy rich he’d have never had a chance. (never mind the legal issues im sure would keep him from getting custody, but the intent was there). He took fei du in as much as possible for their circumstances, then expanded that to full on parenting. To checking fei du’s report cards, to making sure he ate right, to checking on his healthcare, to commenting on his dating life as he grew up into a playboy partier, to insisting he pick a career, to worrying how he adjusted when his dad died and he had to take the business, to giving him gifts for birthdays and just cause (both secretly and also full on remembering his birthday when others didn’t), to the simpleness of scolding fei du like a regular teen caught cursing when he’d threaten violent, the simpleness of taking the Extreme-ness of fei du’s worse personality moments and simply saying ‘well whatever fucked up stuff you did or want to do, come sit down and have dinner, come on and join me.’ i care about you. lets eat. i accept you into our little family of two no matter what, and every meal is a ceremony reminding you this is permanent and secure and always here for you. 

luo wenzhou can’t save fei du as a child, can’t save him as an adult from himsel, can’t save him throughout of a great many deal awful things. but he can give him a safe stable eternal home in the both of them, that is always ALWAYS there. always opening it’s doors, always mobile and coming to fei du when he feels isolated and abandoned and like he doesn’t even belong to the same world, it exists everywhere. it’s his. its a thing he never had before luo wenzhou. but it exists now. and it is THAT which luo wenzhou can provide. 

He can’t save fei du from the many horrors of the world, from the monsters within himself. But he can give fei du a home that exists no matter what horrors exist or happen, a home that fei du will always belong IN no matter how monstrous he is, no matter what he’s done or what happens. 

Maybe once upon a time the end of the week with his mom, had been the closest fei du had to that kind of ‘home.’ Some safe place where he was loved even with everything different about him, with the fucked up views his dad pressed on him, with the way he felt different from others and uncomprehending of the world. His mom, fleetingly, would be there with the house made ready for him, would be happy to see him and simply be with him. 

Luo Wenzhou carved out a home for him after that, when he lost that, and made it permanent. It exists nonstop, always, whenever fei du is with luo wenzhou. waiting for fei du when they’re apart, always open for him to return. 

wow i got distracted in zhoudu dynamic stuff lol. back to whatever the point was... priest writing brave. so. while i love all of zhoudu’s very grey area roles filled up and overlapping dynamic. i think the above portion explains well WHY it makes sense for them. Why their dynamic makes sense it would happen, from luo wenzhou’s perspective. why luo wenzhou would choose to do it, and how it would end with him and fei du connecting deeply. 

Because that’s the kind of man luo wenzhou is and that’s where he was in his life, in the perfect place to make 1 single heroic Ideal decision and fail, but still feel too attached to actually quit and cut his losses. He could never cut the loss that was ‘failing fei du.’ he had to keep providing the only consolation he could, a home for fei du, even if he could provide nothing more. To Luo Wenzhou he will always be Fei Du’s very mortal and flawed Guardian Angel who couldn’t move heaven to save him or help him, but still took the job as his life’s work. And to Fei Du he will always be that very mortal Guardian Angel who lied that he was Strong enough when he wasn’t, when angels don’t exist and he was just a man, when justice doesn’t exist only this lying flawed incapable Luo Wenzhou trying to act like there is still justice. But to Fei Du, flaws and all, it’s still his Guardian Angel despite it all. In his world there are no angels, no true heroes. But this person is trying to be one, in Fei Du’s fucked up world where none exist, anyway. Luo Wenzhou is still trying to be one for him. And that’s worth something because it has MEANING, the choice to try to be an angel in a world with NONE means something, its the effort that counts. It’s the ceremony of doing it, the act, that means everything. (As luo wenzhou’s final lines in i think chapter ~79 hammer home).

Their dynamic makes sense, for them. Of course it’s where they’d end up, how they’d develop. How they’d get so enmeshed and close and Bigger Than People to each other (both symbolic Roles to each other while being gravely aware their symbol is actually just a flawed human who will never live up to it). To Fei Du, Luo Wenzhou will always be a Guardian Angel and that IS just a weak human who will fail the job. To Luo Wenzhou, Fei Du will always be his charge to Save, even though saving him is impossible, even though he’s failed for 7 years, even though fei du will never let him and both of them are More Than Aware this mission is impossible. Luo Wenzhou knows fei du is not a charge, was never one - or only one for the first time until Luo Wenzhou first failed. 

Fei Du is a grown man who has done bad things, horrible things to himself, who views the world so differently from Luo Wenzhou his morality might not even be able to compare with his, who is a man he can’t fully understand but tries to reach out any try to anyway. Every single time. What a brave choice. To be commited to unconditionally loving someone and trying to understand them, even painfully knowing you never will. We may truly never be able to understand another person completely. But in these two’s case, they truly have such different internal worlds, it is a painful point for them both that they really never will exist in the other’s world and grasp it fully. 

Fei Du is brave too. He knows Luo Wenzhou is an ordinary man, who belongs to the world most people understand and accept as reality. He knows he’ll never understand Luo Wenzhou, will always see some of Luo Wenzhou’s beliefs as lies or falsehoods most people seem to believe or assume or operate based on that Fei Du will never ever understand or connect to or operate under unless he tries very hard to force himself to act unnaturally. In a way, it is like an Angel loving a Demon. In reality they both realize they’re not an angel and devil - Luo Wenzhou realizes he’s painfully human and incapable, Fei Du doesn’t see himself as a demon he just thinks all humans are truly this way or walking-corpses unaware of it and Luo Wenzhou is another deluded soul lying to himself or simply way too uncomprehending to ever see the ‘truth’ of the world the way Fei Du is Only capable of seeing it. But Fei Du sees his own awareness as monstrous, in that it makes him a monster to those ordinary people and their entire world framework. And yet to Luo Wenzhou, he’s not a monster for it, just another flawed imperfect person like Luo Wenzhou is. They put themselves into the Roles of Angel and Demon, while knowing its partly untrue but unable to stop living that way when it comes to each other. Fei Du can’t help seeing Luo Wenzhou as an angel, in the warped way he’d view one in his world - a deluded hero who’s incapable, but still the closest thing to any angel in Fei Du’s world could exist. Fei Du can’t help seeing himself as a Demon, even though it’s normal to him he can’t shake the awareness its how he’d be in Luo Wenzhou (ordinary people’s) framework of the world. And then they meet in the middle somehow. And somehow even existing in different realities cause they perceive the world SO differently, Fei Du somehow catches a glimpse of himself in Luo Wenzhou’s worldviews: an innocent. An ordinary man. Not a demon, not even different from others. But someone who could and DOES exist in Luo Wenzhou’s world where people who are hurt deserve justice and people attempt to give them it, where cruelty is not the norm and not comprehensible to the masses. Fei Du isn’t compatible with that world - he’s not comprehensible to them. But somehow Luo Wenzhou can look at him, and place fei du into that world. And for the moment they’re together Fei Du EXISTS in both worlds. Is brought into the world outside his, that he can’t be part of or relate to or understand, and see as if he’s like Luo Wenzhou almost. And he wants to be one of the people providing justice to those who are harmed, one of the people who views cruelty outside of the norm and combats it. Could he do this, view things this way, if Luo Wenzhou didn’t connect their worlds by being connected to Fei Du?

And in contrast, in Fei Du’s world the cruelty is the norm, there is no one innocent only those harmed and those self aware enough they also cause it. There is no justice, only an attempt of power and control until the inevitable death. People like Luo Wenzhou cannot exist. In Fei Du’s mind, people like Luo Wenzhou can at most only be struggling helplessly against nature, hurting themselves by prodding other violent people, giving no justice because there’s no way to give it, just struggling to fight for an outcome that is impossible to provide. But because its Luo Wenzhou, Fei Du’s worldview shifts to accomodate him: Luo Wenzhou is a pathetic man fighting for an outcome that can never occur... but he keeps trying anyway. And because he’s Fei Du’s personal angel, even though angels can’t exist here in fei du’s view of the world? Fei Du almost wants to believe maybe there’s worthiness in someone trying anyway. To be like an angel. To do what nothing in his world does, want what can’t be achieved in his view of the world. And that’s where their worlds connect. Where Fei Du’s world connects to Luo Wenzhou’s and lets a sliver of Luo Wenzhou into his as something Possible. And is that why Fei Du wades into the water of doing work like Luo Wenzhou? Is that why he cares when a son dies and leaves a mom behind. In his world to care is illogical and pointless and has no use. But Luo Wenzhou IS in Fei Du’s world, and he cares. So Fei Du feels like... maybe he’ll care too, even if it is useless. He’ll let himself care still, like Luo Wenzhou cares. 

There is use in the ACT of caring. Even if it changes nothing. There is worth in the act of caring, even if it fails to save anyone or stop harm. Is that one of the themes of Silent Reading I wonder... its certainly a theme of these two’s relationship.

It’s the point of Luo Wenzhou trying to explain to Fei Du what their connection is. It’s the connection of their worlds - Luo Wenzhou in our usually normally accepted one, and Fei Du in his hopeless one. It’s also the connecting point of their personalities - through knowing each other they’ve both developed a level of caring. Caring despite finding it cannot save, cannot stop the awful things that have happened and will later. 

And so we get to a point where Fei Du cares about Luo Wenzhou, even though Wenzhou failed him and still does. Even though Luo Wenzhou will never fully understand him or the world he exists in. 

I never realized just how wholly separate their concepts of the worlds they exist in were till I wrote this damn. 

>>I keep losing the point in zhoudu meta lmao. Anyway back to priest. What I am impressed by (among many things), is priest writes that kind of dynamic as mentioned above. The ‘normal ordinary hero’ type Luo Wenzhou who can never connect to the kind of person/world Fei Du exists in, and vice versa. But somehow they meet halfway and see through the keyhole of the other person’s world anyway. Take one step in, while still being unable to enter the other’s world and abandon their own. It’s impossible. But it is. Because they choose to do it, no matter how impossible it is. 

And its this relationship that outside on paper on some novel summary is the tags idk older/younger, rich/gruff, cruel/heroic whatever. When I walked in once upon a time, with the impression from a tagged summary it was going to be a cold genuis with a fascination for analysing cruelty, and a heroic gruff type combatting him and helping him ‘grow a heart’ I did not expect this kind of deep relationship dynamic i actually got. I didn’t expect a relationship that’s part caretaker/child, part opponents striving to fight yet it’s to connect their irreconcilable worlds, part lovers who were already closer than usual lovers before the romance even enters the picture. I didn’t expect 7 years of failing each other, but still being unconditional care there. Fei Du is not just a ‘cold genius’ he’s given the traits of a man from a world where he sees himself as the ordinary monster of it, and he will never ‘grow a heart’ and come to see the world like Luo Wenzhou (I’m 70% through the novel but i don’t think he will). And Luo Wenzhou for all his physical actions is not a gruff man with a ‘warm heart’ a la some sweetie pie emotional warm hero. He was an idealistic idiot who got a reality shock he wasn’t Superman, who grew into a realist. He is a guardian angel who is not actually an angel and KNOWS he isn’t but can’t stop himself from trying to be for Fei Du, the first and only time he tried to be one, refusing to quit this mission even though it’s been lost a million times and it’s painful for both of them for him to keep pretending he’s an angel instead of a man. Luo Wenzhou’s warm emotional ‘hopes and ideals’ don’t touch Fei Du and ‘change him’ (although Fei Du trying to understand Luo Wenzhou’s pov at least does open him up to witnessing Tao Ran’s idealism and kindness even though he finds it naive). 

While their failures with each other certainly change them, they don’t actually change the core of each other - they are permanently too distinctly different people who see the world in an incompatibly different way. Growing up with Luo Wenzhou certainly influenced Fei Du’s behaviors, and gave him a peek into seeing the world differently, but he still ultimately exists mainly in his own world. Even with shared experiences together now, working together, it’s not shifting Luo Wenzhou into a person who sees the world as inherently cruel and monstrous like Fei Du, and its not shifting Fei Du into seeing justice as natural and possible. In some couple stories the worldviews would gradually mesh as the shared experiences grew - but no, not with these two. 

The beauty of their relationship is they Will exist in their separate worlds, their incompatible worldviews and interpretations of it. But they still connect. They still carved out this space of a home together, that exists in both worlds. That has a window to each other’s worlds where they ask the other to explain what that unimaginable window’s view means, how the hell the other person is interpreting it because they don’t see it the same way. This shared home, that lets them concieve of a world where the other person can and DOES exist in their world. Fei Du sees himself as a monster in a world where it’s natural, and where angels don’t exist let alone just heroes - but Luo Wenzhou is in his world. Impossibly. He’s there, he’s part of it, he’s relentless, and he always will be. In Luo Wenzhou’s world, Fei Du exists and is just as inevitably part of it as Luo Wenzhou is. Even though Fei Du can’t conceive of existing in Luo Wenzhou’s kind of world - luo wenzhou sees Fei Du WITH him there, dragging him in by refusing to accept that Fei Du couldn’t be there. 

Fei Du’s heart (in my prediction anyway lol) is not going to grow 3 sizes and decide justice is possible, is expected, and he’s an ordinary person who thinks like the others and feels wronged when he’s not given help and doesn’t instinctively think cold things. But Fei Du’s heart, despite himself and knowing Luo Wenzhou lied about being an angel in Fei Du’s world where none exists and failing him, holds a permanent space for Luo Wenzhou. A permanent part of him lets itself open the window to what Luo Wenzhou sees, and even though Fei Du simply can’t understand it, he lets the wind come in. Lets the idea drift through his own world: that for all justice is impossible, try to fight to do justice anyway. Try to conceive that people deserve it anyway, even if there is no way they do. Just humor the idea. Try anyway. It’s okay to try, even if the result will fail. Luo Wenzhou tries anyway, so you Fei Du can indulge in trying too despite it all. Fei Du’s heart has Luo Wenzhou in it, broken through the window and bringing the breeze, residing warmly in it and bringing all the ‘idealistic-fictional’ warmth from the world ‘other ordinary society thinks’ and decorates. Brings warm cooked noodles, shrimp, sweet candy so sweet its better than Fei Du’s world but here IT IS. Brings hope and determination and belief that doesn’t exist in Fei Du’s world, but here it is, in residence in his heart, with good smells that make him hungry, that taste like nothing that’s supposed to exist. And Fei Du thinks: its a lie, it can’t exist, it can’t be this good, it can’t be permanent... it must be an illusion or something that will crumble later. But its Luo Wenzhou... so Fei Du tries indulging the temporary goodness anyway, even if it WILL crumble. Like how Luo Wenzhou will still fail. Even so, even though this is nicer than any dinner in his world with his mom and dad had been, so much nicer he believes it impossible and a lie and just as hard to rely on as trying to grab the wind. He’ll still sit down and accept it for the experience it is. Because Luo Wenzhou brought it and said it was their home. And even if it makes no sense, somehow in their shared point of connection - this place where their worlds can almost overlap? It’s worth it to try. It’s the act of trying that’s important, not the outcome later. Not what’s possible or impossible. But that here, they can coexist somehow. That they tried very hard to carve out this home right here. They can be brave enough to believe the other sometimes about their other worlds, even if they can never move into the other’s. Try to go on faith on the other person, and try out the other person’s way of living in their very different world, even though it makes no sense. 

It’s a love story about yes, being seen as all of who you are and still loved unconditionally (something often appealing in fiction romance). But also like. Its this heavy reality of No, actually, you will NOT ever be seen completely and understood completely by another person. We are not Fei Du and we are not usually seeing the world and it’s ‘laws’ as so drastically different as him. But like him, when we meet people even as close as we may become, as much as we share, another person will truly never see and feel exactly as we do. Words are imperfect, people’s past experiences and personalities are all different, people can’t read your mind and see your history and feel your emotions. There is no perfect fullproof way to get someone to truly understand you completely. And that’s okay. You can be loved, you can connect, even when that’s true. There is worth in making connections, even if we will ever only be understood imperfectly, only partly be able to view the world or something the same way. Even if someone can’t understand why X is that way about you or why you can’t believe Y the same way they do (even when you try your best to). There is space in all of us to find a way to still love whole heartedly, to choose to Try to understand. There is power in choosing to try, and keep choosing to, even though it’s an impossible endeavor to ever fully accomplish. Like Luo Wenzhou, we choose anyway. Like Fei Du, we realize there’s worth in just the act of trying. Even if we are never fully seen, can never fully grasp the other, there’s care there. The care builds a space for us to connect. A space for us to feel close enough, safe and loved. 

[arosnowflake]

[Timmy Turner voice] I wish every Links Meet AU that uses Marin as a phantom to haunt and traumatize Link goes to hell no matter what

[raylangivins]

Haven’t really formulated these thoughts into any coherent observation yet but something something East of Eden’s depiction of religious guilt offers a sense of forgiveness that makes one understand why people find comfort in religion versus Brideshead Revisited’s depiction of religious guilt being this frustrating and off-putting obstacle that drives all the characters to an eternal state of melancholy.

[marciliedonato]

Don't ask:

- a man, his salary

- A woman, her age

- And a tumblrina (gn) who they voted for in the nge/moomin poll....

[marklikely]

misogyny has people in a death grip because how the hell did we end up in a world where people think billy is the most important defining characteristic of a black christmas movie

[anomalouscutie]

no offense i think “its fiction anything is possible!!!” is a really lazy way of trying to justify this narrative choice lol. fiction is used to hold up a mirror to reality and SAY things about it, theyre not entirely separate things (especially in p5s case i have no idea how youd think this game isnt trying to say anything about japanese society) and in this case atlus is saying “change from inside the system is possible if you just believe in yourself.” which is a flimsy message considering not only that we see the exact opposite occur IN GAME on multiple occasions but also in the case of the police force especially its just not applicable to reality? im not saying it doesnt show off makotos determination or whatever im saying its a poor narrative choice in regards to the themes of p5 itself.

IT MAKES ME SO MAD HOW BAD THEY FUCKED UP MAKOTOS CHARACTER BECAUSE HER AWAKENING IS ONE OF THE HARDEST IN THE SERIES ITS SO FUCKING AWESOME

[foldingfittedsheets]

So one thing I’ve noticed is that people’s DnD characters may vary but there is usually an underlying thread that they all have in common. This thread is typically related to what that person struggles with the most.

For instance, my betrotheds DnD characters: a bitchy warlock we had to bust out of two different pacts, a sassy barbarian, a reformed drow cultist, and a sunshine fighter cleric.

All these characters were wildly different but at their very core struggle was them grappling with their self worth. My betrothed struggles with their worth a great deal and even with different facets showing their characters all have that too.

Mine all tend to contend with different themes of loneliness and acceptance. Surprise, surprise, the little autistic gremlin yearns to have been met with more love and lasting friendships.

So we’re at breakfast. I am meeting a new friend of my betrotheds for the first time. It’s been twenty minutes since I’ve met this man. I say my theory. He laughs. He starts to describe a few of his characters but specifies that he often has healing aspects. He gives a very broad overview of their character arcs.

I ponder for a moment then said, “Would you like to have my assessment?”

He laughed, “Sure!”

“We’ve just met. It’s gonna get real.”

“Bring it on.”

“I think your struggle is that you feel you must offer something of value or service to people to be worthy of their love.”

His jaw dropped. His fork froze midway to his mouth. A potato fell. He stared into space as this sank in. Quietly he said, “Oh.”

[fabiansociety]

da2 isn't the best dragon age game *because* it's openly a tragedy, but being a tragedy forces a level of narrative coherence that the other games in the series don't have, and *that's* what makes it a better game.

okay, so. dragon age 2 runs on nested foreshadowing and a limited set of themes that almost every character and plot beat fall into: love is not enough, wealth is not enough, power is not enough, good intent is not enough. the problems you run into are structural, rather than individual, and your ability to resolve them as one person is strictly limited. the arishok is a central figure for this, because he prefigures every other tragedy and makes the game's thesis statement as clear as possible. he doesn't want to be in kirkwall, but he is compelled to remain until he gets back what was stolen. he doesn't want to lead a coup attempt, but he is compelled by qunari codes of justice to act. he does not want to die and fail his duty, but but he is compelled to by the other two impossible demands. every tragedy in kirkwall is the result of too many people with wildly different definitions of justice crammed into one place specifically designed to maximize human misery and suffering, and so you get a wonderfully nested narrative onion where each quest reinforces that idea, where there are no good options, just positions you can take — even the affinity system plays into that, where constantly gassing up your friends or constantly pushing them to change are equally correct ways to go, but ones that won't ultimately make a huge difference in their lives or characters, because no matter how much they like you, they're not under your control.

this coherence is even justified by the framing device. of *course* the moral of the game is "insisting on a dogmatic, narrow idea of justice destroys individuals and societies," it's a yarn being spun by varric the con artist to a chantry cop!

neither origins or inquisition play with that sort of narrative complexity. origins is a jaundiced hero's quest, certainly, but it's still basically a hero's quest; inquisition has a number of characters who question what you're doing and why, but the multitude of voices pulls the game in too many potential directions. DA2 was so constrained in its production that it pulled on decidedly ancient theatrical traditions, and it worked so, so well

[oldmanjenkins985]

So, I wanted to talk about something since MD Twitter in particular seems to be having some issues with a current trend in the MD fandom. That being the Panic AU by @candyasbestos (apologies in advance for the ping, just felt like maybe you'd wanna see this)

So I'd like to start right off the bat by saying anyone who is uncomfortable with this AU is completely reasonable for being that way. It's more so that uncomfortableness leading to disdain for the AU that I wanna talk about.

So, I'm a horror fan. I watch plenty of things on horror movies and play plenty of horror games. And what exactly does horror media try and do? Make the player horrified and uncomfortable. Seeing grotesque imagery which may make you wanna vomit. One of the games that comes to mind for something that's definitely meant to make people uncomfortable and not just scared is Fear & Hunger. It's a game with incredibly uncomfortable imagery, sometimes due to gore and other times due to sexual themes. And it's perfectly reasonable for that to turn people off, yet I've never seen anyone have the kind of reaction to stuff like that compared to the reactions some people have had to the Panic AU

And that's the thing with the Panic AU, it makes *N* uncomfortable. Uncomfortable with himself due to Nyx's influence on him. That is the entire point of the AU it seems. And Nyx himself seems to be some kind of representation of mental illness (pretty standard horror trope, I know). I'm not an expert in the subject despite dealing with it quite a bit so I won't name any specific mental illnesses it could be, but it's clear to me Nyx is some kind of urge of N's.

I've made plenty of characters like Nyx for my original works that are also meant to be representations of mental illness. Voices that whisper to you to do terrible things, creatures that make you feel worthless and shut down, etc. I make these not only because I find them scary but also as reflections of my own experience with mental illness. And it's that first point again that makes me question people's reactions to it.

People have said "It's grossly out of character for N" and stuff like that which...honestly that makes me think they only saw the initial wave of art and don't really know how N feels about the whole situation. But the other thing is that so many AUs have intentionally mischaracterized N because of what the AU is. And I'm not talking just swap AUs, I've seen plenty where N's character is wildly different because of the circumstances of the AU. And I see the Panic AU no different.

I also saw another comment of someone saying "We shouldn't normalize behavior like this" and again, I question whether the person has actually researched the thing they're talking about. Nyx, the thing that makes everyone uncomfortable, is very clearly the *villain* of the AU. He killed Uzi, he wants N to kill Thad, he's a horrid little creature. Are villains not meant to do things we disdain? Murder, torture, etc. It's prefectly understandable these things would make people uncomfortable, but isn't that what many villains do? There's plenty of media with torture scenes in them which make people uncomfortable, but that's the point! Hell, some kid shows have torture scenes. What about the Lich's design from Adventure Time? He's a rotting corpse! In a kid show! His design is clearly meant to make the viewer uncomfortable.

So again, while I don't think anyone is in the wrong for being uncomfortable due to the AU, I think many of the criticisms are unfair. A piece of media which is specifically designed to make people uncomfortable should not be criticized for that very reason. Avoid it all you want, that's completely reasonable! Never feel like your reasons for being uncomfortable are unwarrented. But I'm just saying that if you were to critique Silent Hill because it's themes of mental illness and character depictions made you uncomfortable, and that was a *negative*, it just seems a little weird to me.

This is all just my opinion, obviously I'm not THE definitive person on the matter. And I'm not saying anyone who has the AU blocked or anything should check it out. I'm just saying, many people seem to be judging it unfairly.

[skeletonsloverockcandy]

One thing I’m seeing on this re-read of Dracula Daily that I’m already really enjoying, it’s all the little details we didn’t catch before

When we first started we didn’t know who Jonathan Harker was and to us he was just a silly little British man who was ignoring the obvious warning signs, so there was a comedic element to the dramatic irony of him going to Castle Dracula

But now that we know who Jonathan is and we care about him, it hits much harder all the subtle horror elements we missed while focusing on this good friend telling us about his travels

From the first entry, people picking up on the dog barking under his window and being like “is that Dracula? Does it start this early?” Being skeeved out by Dracula’s overly familiar letter to Jonathan, which at first seemed perfectly reasonable except for the name attached at the end, and picking up on all the terrible foreshadowing for what will be Jonathan’s living hell over the next month in his Castle.

And people this time picking up on the bravery of the wife of the innkeeper who gave him a crucifix, begging him to stay or wait, to not go to the castle, of the terror of knowing that Dracula was in correspondence with her husband to get the letter to Jonathan and the sort of subtle threat they must be under at all times, of the significance of “for your mother’s sake” knowing what Dracula does to children. She is no longer perceived as a random background character, but an active player forced to be a bystander who is trying desperately to help this ignorant soul in any way she can even if she knows it might be useless.

I love people realizing Jonathan is skeptical and off-put, but not enough to deter his mission. He’s not oblivious, just making an effort to remain open-minded to the culture and superstitions and beliefs he is not familiar with, since he’s aware it will be wildly different from his own (to the best of his ability for being an Englishman from the 1890s) and pointedly dismissing the things that might be red flags as an attempt to rationalize because nothing truly concerning has happened yet to provoke him to leave, and he doesn’t want to be deterred by something he’s getting worked up for for no reason yet, he couldn’t do his job otherwise and people are depending on him

Idk, I just like this deeper analysis and thought now that people are already familiar and attached to his character, and now know what happens, so they can properly point out when something is foreshadowing later events or themes in the novel, and they can pick up on it quicker

Even something as simple as people noticing the other meals mentioned in the first entry because of all the focus on Paprika Hendl last year makes me happy :)

I like that they are giving our protagonist more credit now, knowing the character he turns into later in the novel (a badass)

It is satisfying :)))

[crimsonmoonlight88]

Noa's Potential Love Triangle

"You like her--Soona."

"We were born within a sunset."

Okay listen, I never thought I'd be here considering a potential love triangle in this series, but here we are.

Now, I won't even touch on the interesting choice of having Mae of all characters ask this, but there are so many answers Noa could have given that ultimately tell the audience "yes, I like her."

Yes. Of course. I do. Sure. Maybe. Why wouldn't I? What, no! *looks nervous*

(I could go on all day.)

But no, he only says, very matter of factly, "we were born within a sunset."

So with that baffling response, I thought about it some more, and two things came to mind for what he might have meant:

They were born close together, like family, indicating his feelings are familial. (This jives with the actual vibe between them in the movie, imo.)

It doesn't really matter. They were born within a sunset and that (possibly) has some cultural meaning for their clan, like a sign they were meant to be together. Therefore, a relationship would be expected of them, no matter how they feel.

Now it could be one or both of these scenarios, but with the second I can see that playing into Noa's upcoming hero journey of becoming who he was meant to be. Interestingly, in this trailer we get:

Owen: Noa has to make a choice Proximus: Do you choose a human, over an ape? Owen: And only one will prevail. Proximus: Together, you will die. Noa: No, together--strong. *cues scene of Noa reaching for Mae on horseback and saving her*

From that trailer alone, you get a sense of what his choice will be. But in the movie itself, when Proximus lays this out for Noa, he does not choose. (Yet)

"Do you choose a human over an ape? Your sweet, little Soona or that stinking human?"

I think that's intentional for now, as I think the love triangle is potentially a catalyst for Noa, and Mae and Soona in particular, are meant to represent two different paths (and endings) for him. With this concept in mind, it could mean:

Choosing Soona means following the path that is expected of him, the one laid out since birth, the one he would have gone down had Mae not come into his life. Following the rules, following tradition, upholding his clan's legacy, and choosing for the world to stay as it is with apes dominating humans. (Apes, together, strong)

Choosing Mae means following the path that defies expectations, the new one that was forged because Mae came into his life. Questioning the rules, embracing change over tradition, upholding Caesar's legacy, and choosing for the world to evolve with human/ape coexistence. (Together, strong)

So Noa's answer of "we were born within a sunset" is not a yes or a no, just as Mae's response to "can ape and human live together" is not a yes or a no, because these characters have not chosen this "together strong" path yet. They are questioning everything they've ever known, are changed by this connection to each other, but they're still following their "expected path" at the moment.

Now I might be wildly off base with this theory of course, and I acknowledge that Noa could definitely become who he needs to be with Soona by his side--but I'm looking at this from the two path/two love interest narrative, along with many other factors. But I'll just finish with these quotes from Wes Ball.

"Her [Mae] whole journey is changed by meeting Noa, just as much as his journey has been changed by meeting her."

"These characters [Noa and Mae] have now saved each other, and they have a complicated connection. There is now a history and real feelings between the two, and that’s going to be important moving forward."

"Can apes and humans live together? Can we coexist? So that will be a continued theme throughout future movies, and if there’s any chance for peace between these species, it will probably be between these two characters."

"There's literally a door that opens at the end to hopefully many more possibilities. And the relationship between Mae and Noa and how they've changed each other, you know, is going to be crucial moving forward as they navigate the future together."

[muchtooold2]

I’ve recently discovered the part of the internet deeply devoted to defending Mystra in BG3 and I get she’s a long standing lore character but it feels like we played a wildly different game.

And I just know in my heart of hearts that if Mystra were male and Gale were female I wouldn’t have to keep reading some variation of “well it’s fine she did nothing to stabilize a ticking time bomb in the chest that would have wiped out an entire city because it needs to feed on the weave despite no real evidence this actually hurts her at all” or “actually it’s Gale’s fault he tried to return what he thought was part of her to her because he was an grown adult who should have known better despite the fact she did not tell him and he did not know it would have hurt her and is horrified to learn this in act 3.” Like, this isn’t me woobifying him. I love Gale and know he can be self-absorbed, his ego is big, and if left unchecked his personality leads him to become the literal God of Ambition. But he’s not like a power hungry schemer. His ambition and desire for knowledge (things Mystra likes!) got the better of him and since he is also insecure he decided to try to do an ambitious thing and prove himself to a goddess. He knows and admits that’s on him! But he (and players) are still allowed to be mad at the fact he’s kicked to the curb to maybe blow up a city to learn a lesson Mystra does not bother explaining until she’s literally forced to because he did not kill himself on her command. And people are allowed to find their relationship wildly inappropriate and toxic and abusive because based on the game you play, it is.

I don’t think it’s bonkers to say that in this situation, Mystra—a literal goddess who met Gale when he was probably somewhere between 17-22 years old—was wrong to have a relationship with him, that it was a toxic and abusive one and that is on her as the entity with more power in every way, that she was petty for letting him languish for a year and being willing to potentially let him kill a whole city while he was trying not to die by eating magic shoes, and that telling him to kill himself is a dick move. And people are like “well according to DnD lore she’s just protecting herself and she was only resurrected after he was a teen” are doubly annoying because bg3 doesn’t give a shit about the canon timeline considering Durge would be like…10 if they cared.

And I know it sucks if you like love Mystra in DnD lore and this doesn’t align with her or whatever but bg3’s themes of “hurt people hurt people” and “power over others is something easily abused if you’re careless” also applies to Mystra. With the sort of exception of Selûne, the game also feels pretty clear on the idea that gods Do Not and Cannot Care About You. The game you play is showing a toxic relationship (and I will say she is not as bad as some people say she is, like she is a goddess operating with some blue-orange morality) and if the genders were flipped we would not be having this discourse.