#the thing about shitty romance novels is that they introduce such interesting concepts and just REFUSE to engage with them

[doodle-dog-diary]

Doodle Gets Radicalized by Shitty Bad Chinese Historical Romance Novels:

Episode #503: Marriage, Social Mobility, and Reason Number One Thousand Seven Hundred and Fifty Three on Why the Patriarchy Can Get Fucked

While reading another SBCHRN today, came across a saying that went something along the lines of "a man should marry a woman of a lower rank, but a woman should marry a man of a higher rank". (That said, it's still not really acceptable to marry too far outside your station, e.g. a peasant woman marrying a wealthy official would be seen as, like, a gold digger)

Which is interesting, bc this means that people ARE aware that marriage was the only way for a woman to improve her social standing back in the day. AND that there's a sort of unspoken social contract that since the system is already rigged against women in that way, men kind of have a moral obligation to uplift lower class women if they can.

Which is...nice?

BUT

THAT means the welfare of not-so-well-off women are basically hinging on rich men not being assholes. (I don't think I need to elaborate on why that's. Like. A lot to hope for.)

Which is BAD. The welfare of women relying solely on the goodwill of the men in their lives, in a time when being a woman meant having essentially no financial independence, little to no education, and very few rights, is like, really really bad. "Men should uplift women through marriage :)" is AT MOST a nice gesture, a nice thought to have, a safety net, but it CANNOT BE a replacement for a broken system that is inherently rigged against and actively punishes women for being women.

Oh whoops! It's 2 am! My consciousness is fading! Tune in next week for episode #620: Neither Your Evil Mother In Law NOR That Bitch Who Keeps Trying to Steal Your Man Is The Antagonist, Actually, The PATRIARCHY IS 🔥🔥🔥

Captive audience tag bc I refuse to suffer through this alone: @rt-nique @almostpsyche

[its-ashleyreads]

FInished: 05/05/2020

Love at First Like by Hannah Orenstein

Rating:  ★★★★★

Okay, so to preface this review I feel like I need to say that I don’t typically rate romance novels highly. Not because I believe that they aren’t deserving of high ratings but more often than not there is some problematic element that I just don’t jive with. That being said, this book definitely had a problematic element to it but it was dealt with in such a way that enhanced the characters and their development instead of being problematic for the sake of shock value.

Also, just a warning that I had a LOT of thoughts on this book so the review is quite lengthy. I’ll put little headers on each paragraph so if you’re only interested in thoughts on certain aspects you can scroll down and find them easily.

Summary

“Love at First Like” by Hannah Orenstein, is about Eliza, a 20-something jewellery store owner in New York who sells happily ever afters but can’t seem to find her own. One night after a train wreck of a first date she scrolls through Instagram and finds out that her ex-boyfriend, who said he wasn’t the type to settle down, has gotten engaged. Eliza does what everyone does after finding out their ex has moved on, she gets drunk. After drinking through the better part of a bottle of whiskey Eliza thinks it’s a good idea to go into the jewellery store, she co-owns with her sister and take pictures of engagement rings on her finger.

The next morning, she realises that in her drunkenness she accidentally posted one of the photos on Instagram and her 100K followers now believe that she’s engaged. Her first instinct is to take the photo down but after seeing the influx of sales, at a time when the business sorely needs them, she decides to milk it a little longer. With so many questions surrounding who she’s engaged to and no man in sight, Eliza and her best friend Carmen, decide to hold an audition of sorts for someone to play the groom-to-be. The audition turns out to be a complete bust but shortly after Eliza meets Blake. Blake is everything a girl like Eliza wants, he’s attractive, charming, and he owns a men’s luxury watch company; they’re a match made in heaven. They start dating because this is someone who Eliza can really see herself settling down with, but she hasn’t told him that she’s fake engaged, or that she’s planning to stage a fake wedding to drum up even more sales for her business. Throughout the book Eliza struggles with whether to tell Blake the truth, or risk losing him for good.

 Review *Contains Spoilers*

Eliza

When I first picked up this book it was in one of those 3 for £10 sales and I needed a third. The premise sounded ridiculous and unrealistic and I thought it would just be an easy read that I rolled my eyes at, like most chick-lit. I was so pleasantly surprised by this book. I thought this was going to be a 1/5 but somehow, I’m giving it a gold star and a 5 out of fucking 5.

The main character, Eliza, is not someone I totally relate to, in fact her impulsivity is one of the qualities I hate most in anyone. As a dedicated planner and organiser, it’s one of my biggest pet peeves, but despite that I actually really liked Eliza’s character. Her bad/irresponsible choices in the beginning mostly just seem like a way to get the plot moving but I can still see how her character got to the place to make those choices. We’re given just enough backstory to understand how much her jewellery store, Brooklyn Jewels, means to her and how she would do anything to keep it from going under. Which is why when sales go up after the accidental engagement photo, I totally understand why she didn’t delete it, even if I don’t agree with it.

Secondary Characters/Friendships

I also absolutely loved that side characters like Carmen, Sophie and Raj all got to be real, fleshed out characters. Often, I find that secondary characters, in romance especially, don’t really get to have arcs or personalities other than whatever stereotype or trope they’re based on. Carmen in particular I thought was really well done. When we’re first introduced to her I thought she was just going to be a fun BFF that serves up one-liners to get laughs. Yes, Carmen can be a funny character at times, but that’s not who she is. Despite us only having small glimpses into this character, as we only see her through Eliza, Orenstein uses Eliza’s history with Carmen to show us how she’s evolved over the years in her career goals particularly. The second encounter we have with Carmen is almost entirely centred on her and her idea of an app that she wants to launch, where Eliza intones that previously “[Carmen] said she’d rather do excellent work for a company and collect a steady paycheck. [Eliza] never thought she'd strike out on her own.” (60) The rest of this encounter is spent with Eliza offering to provide business advice and support to Carmen as she knows how hard starting a business can be.

I absolutely adore Eliza and Carmen’s friendship because it doesn’t revolve around Eliza and her boy trouble. Their friendship is a two-way street where they lift each other up when they doubt themselves, like when Carmen was nervous about making a presentation to investors and Eliza went through it with her until she’d perfected it. And they ground each other when they’re becoming too idealistic, like when Eliza keeps stringing Blake along and Carmen reminds Eliza that he’s a person with real feelings who doesn’t deserve to be played with. Their friendship is so authentic and true to real life experience that I honestly want another book about just the two of them living it up in NYC.

Eliza as a friend in general, I found was quite refreshing. In a lot of romance the heroine tends to be quite selfish and shitty towards their friends, if they have any at all, but Eliza hit the perfect balance of caring for her friends and caring for herself; not being a martyr, but also not being greedy. I loved how excited she got about her friends lives and achievements, and how when she saw that Raj, a web engineer, was bar-tending between gigs she hooked him up with Carmen who was in need of exactly what he had to offer. I also like how it was mentioned that Carmen paid Raj because I think sometimes things like that get reduced to a friend doing another friend a favour, instead of the fact that Raj is a trained professional and deserves to be paid for his time and expertise.

Sophie

However, someone who did not deserve to get paid, was fucking Sophie. Let me clarify, Sophie deserved to be paid for the work she did at Brooklyn Jewels, but she did NOT deserve a $15K bonus right as their business was going through a tough time financially. This made me unreasonably angry, I had a full freaking meltdown because it was so ridiculous to me that she would even ask and even more so that Eliza said YES. Sophie needed the money to go through IVF treatments because she and her wife wanted to have a baby, fair enough. I personally don’t believe in going through that kind of treatment when there are so many kids in the world without families but whatever, to each their own. But what really irked me was the fact that Sophie, who is in her early thirties, had already attempted this method of conception and it didn’t work. So, she was willing to take a gamble with money that was greatly needed to help keep their business afloat because she couldn’t just wait a fucking year or two. Not to mention the fact that if she did get pregnant and has this baby only for her business to fail, then she wouldn’t have a steady income, health insurance, maternity pay and she would have also screwed her sister out of her dream. Luckily everything works out for the best, Sophie gets pregnant and Eliza saves Brooklyn Jewels, but it so very easily could have destroyed multiple lives. The fact that Sophie is meant to be perceived as the ‘responsible’ sister astounds me. When Eliza was trying to save their business by offering solutions Sophie kept shooting every idea down and her only contribution to that conversation was that she wanted to fire their only employee who got paid shit-all anyway. Honestly, I could write a fucking essay on why I hated Sophie but I guess I’ll settle for a really long paragraph.

Love Interests

The problematic element in this book was definitely the ridiculously elaborate plot for Eliza to lure Blake into marriage to cover her fuck-up. As I was reading I marked three places where Eliza could have told Blake the truth in an organic way so that it wasn’t just like she was dropping a bomb on him. Despite my frustration with Eliza, her internal monologue again, made me understand why she wasn’t doing things how I wanted her to. Although, even though I understand her reasoning, it still doesn’t make what she did to Blake right, and I absolutely love how he couldn’t trust her again and that they didn’t get back together. I hate the ‘love concurs all’ trope and I’m glad that the author showed how Blake, who was clearly way more in love with Eliza than vice versa, couldn’t get past the fact that she used and lied to him. Part of me wishes that was how the romance in this book ended, with no happily ever after, maybe Raj pretending to be her fiancé to save Brooklyn Jewels, but no happy couple at the end.

The other part of me feels all warm and fuzzy because Raj and Eliza are unbelievably cute together. Orenstein could have fucked this romance up so hard, especially because it comes in so late in the story and Eliza was (kind of) on the rebound. But she takes the readers thoughts of, ‘Did Eliza really not notice her feelings for Raj until now?’ and ‘Is Raj just second place because Blake dumped her?’ and turns them into questions Raj uses to stand up for himself. Raj has clearly liked Eliza since they first met and I loved that he was willing to fight for what he believed he deserved. Raj and Eliza have such great chemistry as characters, but they were ultimately their own people who made their own choices, even after getting together. The way Orenstein wrote both Blake and Raj was a breath of fresh air. To see two male characters not being aggressive, but still standing up for themselves and not blindly bowing down to what the female love interest wanted, was something I don’t think I’ve ever read before. I think that comes from the fact that yes, Eliza is the heroine of this story but it’s not just about her. Like, I could tell while reading from Eliza’s point of view that there were other things going on in this world that just didn’t include her. So, while she was our main character, she wasn’t the main character of the world she was living in.

Representation

One of the things I loved most about this book was the casual representation. This was the truest to life representation I’ve seen in a romance novel thus far. Orenstein doesn’t make a big deal about her minority characters because they’re not minority characters, they’re characters who happen to be minorities. This book isn’t about race or LGBTQ+ rights so there’s no real need to dwell on those things, but she does acknowledge those parts of her characters in small ways throughout. This is how more fiction should be, because the more we normalize diversity in the media we consume, the less we’ll think of minority groups as ‘other’ (or so I hope).

Rating

Ultimately this book was not perfect. I definitely had problems with it (mostly named Sophie) but it was a fun read from beginning to end with some thought provoking themes which will stick with me for a while yet. Honestly, this book could have been complete garbage, but Orenstein’s writing and character development made me connect to almost every character (except for Sophie of course). I can’t wait to read her other works. 5/5. Brava!

[incorrectdanganronpaquotes]

“Ultimates Play” (a.k.a. Let’s Player AU)

Hey, Mod Snake here! So I realize that I’ve been sort of lax on my part in the 2K celebration. This has been mostly to the fact that I’ve been working on my senior thesis, and it’s been absolute hell trying to motivate myself to do anything with that nightmare hanging over my head. But now the thesis is officially over and I can finally get around to posting something I’ve been meaning to post for a while: an AU concept called “Ultimates Play!” The idea of this AU is similar to the Talent Development Plan ‘verse, except that the DR1, SDR2, and NDRV3 characters share a gaming channel on YouTube called ‘Ultimates Play’. Over the years since it started, the channel has evolved into sort of a Rooster Teeth-style project, with dozens of different series done by many different hosts. There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s just jump right in! 

General Concepts:

As you can imagine, Chiaki was the one to set up the channel; in fact, the channel was originally called “Chiaki’s Gaming Corner”, and the channel URL still reflects this. Hajime quickly became involved in the editing process, since Chiaki would frequently fall asleep before uploading the videos. Chiaki then gradually began introducing her fellow classmates, who had become interested in the games during Class 77’s meet-up times (everyone involved refuses to call them “classes”), as hosts of their own series; before long, this spread to other classes entirely. And thus, Ultimates Play was born.

Junko in this AU is still technically in despair, but the passion for video games she developed after spending some time with Chiaki helps keep her Ultimate Analyst abilities occupied, preventing her from becoming bored enough to lash out at the world. She is still extremely competitive and aggressive, particularly towards Mukuro, but in general it is typically safe to be in the same building as her.

This AU uses the “Class 79” canon for the V3 kids, similar to the Ultimate Talent Development Plan, since the Tragedy doesn’t happen in this AU.

As the channel started to get big, the group decides they need a headquarters in which to stay; they end up building it a few blocks away from Hope’s Peak. Very few of them live in the building full-time, but the building is equipped with dozens of beds anyway just in case they all happen to crash there overnight at the same time. There are also multiple TVs, so that different students can record series at the same time.

The channel is one of the top 10 most subscribed channels on YouTube, due in part to the variety of content. Of the series, Chiaki’s and Ibuki’s typically have the most views, while Celeste’s and Hajime’s have the least views.

Even though Komaru isn’t technically an Ultimate, Makoto and Toko both begged Chiaki until she was allowed to join the channel.

Individual Series:

Makoto and Kyoko have “Detective Training,” in which they play mystery games together; typically these consist of point-and-click adventure games, although sometimes they’ll do other genres if there is a sufficient mystery element. Kyoko almost always figures out the entire mystery from the start, so she basically spends the whole time trying not to spoil the twists and puzzles for Makoto. Shuichi occasionally guest stars, but he’s too self-conscious around Kyoko to make regular appearances.

Sakaya and Kaede share a series where they play rhythm games like DDR, as well as general music-themed games like Rockband; they alternate off randomly between which one is the host, never appearing in the same episode.

Toko’s primary series is “Toko’s Shovelware Spectacular”, in which she plays the worst of the worst games on the iPhone and Android app stores. Komaru makes an appearance every time there’s a multiplayer game, or whenever Toko is so genuinely shocked by a game’s shittiness that she needs a second person to confirm she’s not imagining things.

Neither Togami nor the Ultimate Imposter have a consistent theme for their series (although they tend towards real-time strategy games); however, there is something of a running joke between them. Every time Togami uploads a video on a game, Twogami will then upload a video on the same game, starting off from the same place Togami left off and claiming to be the next installment. Togami is consistently infuriated by this, but he can’t figure out how to stop it. There’s a running debate in the comments about whether the ‘second Togami’ is actually a distinct entity or just Togami playing an elaborate practical joke; this, for Togami, is the worst part of the whole thing.

Ishimaru has a series called “Upholders of Justice”, in which he plays crime-themed games (GTA, Saint’s Row, etc.) while breaking as few laws as the game will allow him to. If you’ve ever seen the Saints Row the Third episode of Monster Factory, it’s sort of like that.

Hifumi and Kazuichi have a shared series called “Love Quest 3000”, in which they play dating sims together; this is ostensibly for the purpose of figuring out how to get better at real romance, but they have yet to achieve any success in this field.

Celeste has a recurring series on gambling games, such as video poker and virtual slot machines. To her eternal fury, they are by far the least-viewed videos on the entire channel; this may be because she always wins, or because her commentary consists almost entirely of A) ‘advice’ on how to win at gambling (which boils down to “be lucky and don’t panic”), and B) reiterations of how successful she is.

While Junko doesn’t actually have a standalone series, there is a playlist named “With Junko” on the channel. This is because, rather than star in her own series, Junko will occasionally crash episodes of other series and serve as a guest commentator for the episode, typically without the approval or knowledge of the players in question. HOWEVER, Junko does co-star in a regular series called “Rose and Thorns”, in which she and Mukuro play co-op games like Portal 2 and New Super Mario Bros. You can probably imagine how well their interactions go.

Hajime did an Undertale LP.

In her continuing effort to be the most meta human being in the universe, Ibuki has only a single ongoing series: “Ibuki Plays Danganronpa”. At no point in the series does she comment on the fact that her fellow Ultimates- and indeed herself- appear in the games; the closest she comes is her DR2 LP, in which she off-handedly remarks on the similarities between herself and Ibuki in the game. There is only one exception: every time game-Ibuki’s corpse is on-screen in Chapter 3, real-Ibuki goes absolutely silent until the scene changes or she turns away. None of the other Ultimates can figure out where the hell she got these games, and she refuses to provide a straight answer.

Hiyoko and Mikan, of all people, have a shared series entitled “Super Bestest Friends Play!”; it consists pretty much entirely of Hiyoko forcing Mikan to play the weird Flash games you find on various “gaming” websites (i.e. bootleg Frozen games and the like). Hiyoko uploaded the first episode without permission from the others, and promptly found herself being threatened with stabbing by Maki, who is always on watch to make sure things don’t get too upsetting for Mikan; every once in a while you’ll hear a soft click in the background of the episodes, at which point Hiyoko will immediately and urgently apologize to Mikan and suggest a tamer game. Also, every once in a while the situation gets shaken up a bit: on at least a couple of occasions Mikan very visibly starts getting aroused by the games in question, which freaks Hiyoko out more than anything else the other Ultimates have ever seen (this is the main reason they allow the series to persist).

Gundham and Sonia have an ongoing series in which they play horror games together. Gundham constantly pretends not to be freaked out by the jumpscares, even though he is. Sonia constantly pretends to be freaked out by the atmosphere, even though she’s not. They are exactly as adorable together as you can imagine.

Gundham also has a recurring Pokémon series, covering at least one game from every Generation. He makes a dedicated effort to capture one of every Pokémon, and at the end of each playthrough he hacks in any that he can’t obtain legitimately that Gen. His videos are each at least an hour long because he can’t make himself stop playing with his Pokémon. He also cites Pokémon-Amie as the single greatest innovation in the history of the franchise.

As more and more shows started appearing on the channel, Chiaki started putting out less and less content- which suits her just fine, since it gives her more chances to play games with herself and her friends, without having to worry about making entertaining commentary. Her only ongoing series at the time of the AU is a gaming news show, where she reports on announcements about games she’s interested in, as well as discussions about what she’d like out of future games. Hajime is a recurring guest star on the series.

Komaru has a series where she plays whatever games she happens to like at the time; most of these are Nintendo games, and almost all of them are on the casual end of the spectrum. Toko regularly drops in without warning.

Mitarai has an ongoing visual novel review series, which frequently devolves into tips about drawing and commentary on anime he likes or dislikes.

Himiko has a series of RPG playthroughs, many of them unfinished. The only playthroughs she will consistently finish are Final Fantasy games, since they’re Tenko’s favorites. She also did exactly three episodes of a Kingdom Hearts LP before abandoning it, citing the story being too confusing.

Maki has a recurring series in which she plays first-person shooters in order to test their accuracy. To the hastily-suppressed delight of Kokichi (and the well-disguised amusement of everyone else in the building), Maki usually turns out to be absolutely terrible at these games, being so used to real combat situations that she can’t adapt to the artistic license of most FPS’s.

Kokichi Oma has only one series, which is entitled “Kokichi Plays Minecraft”. The series is well over a hundred episodes long, and not a single damn second of that is from Minecraft. Instead, every episode is taken from a different game, with no apparent pattern; each episode has Kokichi acting as if he’s been playing this game for several episodes, as well as alluding to various incidents that happened previously in the game (which, of course, the audience doesn’t get to see).

Tsumugi’s series is literally just makeup tutorials for cosplayers. She doesn’t seem to realize that it’s otherwise pretty much exclusively a gaming channel, and no one else has bothered to tell her.

There are plenty of other series not listed here, including some that pop up without warning and only air one or two episodes before ending. In general, every character from the games has at least one recurring series, each with wildly different schedules. 

One series in particular doesn’t have a single consistent host; it’s called “Ultimate Date Night”, and the commentary role shifts between various couples within the group- Akane and Nekomaru, Himiko and Tenko, Sonia and Gundham, Kokichi and Shuichi- as they play various cooperative and competitive games together. There is also a spin-off series called “Double Date”, in which two such couples square off in team-based competitive games.

Other Headcanons:

At one point, Hifumi and Kazuichi definitely played Doki Doki Literature Club, and spent the second half of the series alternately screaming and crying. They were not ready.

For one April Fools’ Day, everyone on the channel traded series for the day; Makoto and Kyoko hosted “Love Quest 3000”, Celeste and Ishimaru hosted “Super Bestest Friends Play!”, Hiyoko and Mikan hosted the horror game series, Maki hosted “Detective Training” (with special guests Kaito and Maki), and so on. The only exception to this was Kokichi; the thumbnail for his video showed Mukuro as the host, but Kokichi introduces himself as usual at the start of the video and does his usual thing. Also, Junko cameoed on multiple series that day.

Makoto and Kyoko definitely played through Ghost Trick together, and Makoto cried multiple times throughout the game, particularly near the ending.

The only time anyone in the group has ever seen Junko legitimately cry is that one time when Mukuro beat her at Mario Kart 8. Mukuro has never let her forget that day.

Maki was banned from “Double Date” after her first and only appearance ended with extensive property damage and Fuyuhiko (who was on the other team with Peko) being rushed to the hospital with multiple broken bones.

Games Komaru has played include Super Mario Galaxy (finished, though not 100%), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (unfinished), Thomas Was Alone, and Miitopia.

Chisa regularly visits the Ultimates Play headquarters, bringing snacks and encouragement. Everyone is happy to see her, even Togami and Kokichi.

Himiko was the first non-Class 77 member of the channel; no one is quite sure how she ended up joining, least of all Himiko.

Let us know if you like this idea, and if you have other headcanons regarding this AU! Maybe you’ll get featured in a follow-up post or something; who knows? Anyway, hope you enjoyed whatever this was! 

- Mod Snake 

[kurozu501]

For me theres a variety of reasons why it ends up feeling forced. 

Part of it is definitely how late it is introduced. The two of them don’t even meet until volume 2 of the 5 novels. An entire volume where Sieg’s main relationships are just astolfo and chiron. An entire volume where he has a very compelling plot of “i don’t want to die.” with no thought to romance. Then the story has him meet Jeanne in volume 2 and suddenly he’s so ~stunned by her beauty~ and oh here we go. It feels obligatory. 

I think part of why the anime shoved Jeanne into the Siegfried sacrifice scene when she was never there in the original material was an attempt to fix that. They wanted to try and create a connection between the two earlier then the novels. Which might have worked, if they hadn’t also cut out all the actual bonding that was supposed to happen between them when they spent a night at the farmhouse. Instead they just force in this SEIGFRIED ASKED ME TO LOOK AFTER HIM bs and then have Jeanne drop him off at the farmhouse and be on her way. The anime increases all the novels problems by cutting what bonding they did have and instead just pushing this DESTINY concept on us in its place. 

Another reason why it feels forced and uncomfortable to me is the fact that Jeanne is a famous saint figure with a famous vow of chastity, and it feels like the writers are just completely ignoring and disrespecting that so they can sell the idea of sexy times with Jeanne through Sieg. Because you and I might know that it’s entirely possible to have a romantic relationship without sex but lbr, type moon doesn’t.

Bouncing off of that, the relationship feels very one sided to me. I can totally get why Sieg might develop an interest in Jeanne (she’s amazing) but i can’t really see a reason why Jeanne d’arc would develop a romantic interest in him. They have Laeticia be sort of an excuse for that, like oh she’s the one who fell for Sieg, and its affecting Jeanne? Maybe? It ends up being another thing working against the romance because its hard to even tell how much of it is genuinely Jeanne and how much of it is the teenage girl she’s possessing. Unless volume 5 pulls off a hell of a last volume save, they don’t actually use it to explore Jeanne learning more about herself, making the whole thing feel even more obligatory and just there for fanservice.  

Finally, theres the matter of Astolfo. He and Sieg have an instant, intense bond. A dramatic first meeting where Sieg is exhausted and terrified, certain he’s about to die, only to be saved instead. Sieg falling into Astolfo’s life right when he’s in a shitty situation with Celenike and giving him someone he actually wants to dedicate himself to instead of his evil creep master. Lots of great adorable bonding scenes, from Astolfo calming him down with a hug, promising to grant his wish, sharing his own stories with him, encouraging him to live and find his own wish, etc. Chemistry. Astolfo and Sieg have tons of chemistry established before Sieg ever meets Jeanne, especially in the novels, and it makes the lack of chemistry between Jeanne and Sieg all the more apparent. 

I feel like if they wanted to make Jeanne/Sieg work, they really should have had Jeanne be the one to save him at the start. Just write it that Sieg manages to get outside the castle somehow and Jeanne happens to be nearby and saves him from the Ygg pursuers. If they had established it from the start, and actually given it time to grow organically through lots of interactions it could have worked. Instead the entire thing starts late, is rushed and forced in lots of ways, and then in the end wants to say that its some super special true love that can defy all logic for a carbon copy of FSN’s Last Episode when it hasn’t earned that. 

So I know not everyone feels this way, but from what I’ve seen, Sieg/Jeanne is generally disliked by fans of Apocrypha? Or at least, many people seem to agree that it feels forced, for various reasons. And from what I’ve seen and read I have to agree that I feel like Jeanne and Sieg’s relationship, as a romance, seems pretty forced.

The story wants us to believe that it is some dramatic tale of true love. They show us this by having Sieg and Jeanne met at the end of time or the other side of the universe or whatever, a direct parallel to Saber and Shirou at the end of Fate Route- love so strong and true that they are somehow reunited against all odds. But does is ever really feel like it earned that? The novels even say outright that Jeanne and Sieg have only known each other for a couple of days, and they spend a lot of that time dancing around with ‘are these Laeticia’s feelings of Jeanne’s feelings? Who knooooooowwwss~’, along with Sieg not really having enough experience to know what romance even is, let alone how to identify those feelings within himself.

And I think the weirdest thing to me is that on paper, they seem like a pretty solid ship? Sure, call it cliche, call it predictable, but as a concept, the idea of exploring Jeanne D’Arc as a young woman who died for her beliefs before she ever had a chance to consider or pursue love, and therefore not knowing how to identify it within herself, much less properly act on it, is a cute and potentially moving premise. Pairing her up with a young man who has pretty much nothing but his beliefs, and no experience in being human, feels like a strong premise. Jeanne helps Sieg learn how to be human, and in the process, learns more about herself, and over time they start to develop feelings for each other that they cannot really understand because they have no frame of reference- but the human girl that Jeanne is possessing understands, and has to help Jeanne to understand it too. 

This sounds like a good idea? It sounds like it could work? So why does it not work for so many people? I can only speak for myself, but even then, when I look at it all as a concept it seems like it should work and I’m not entirely sure where they go wrong. And I don’t want to say that it’s just ‘Astolfo’, because even though having Astolfo be the one to rescue Sieg and inspire in him the will to live just for the sake of living and become his Servant all kind of wreak of romantic subtext without even trying, there has to be more than just ‘they accidentally wrote a love interest in someone else’ (and not everyone who doesn’t ship Jeanne/Sieg ships Sieg/Astolfo, obviously). 

Is it the pacing of the story? With Jeanne being introduced before Sieg, Sieg being introduced late, and Astolfo meeting Sieg and bonding with him before Jeanne even finds out Sieg exists? Is their relationship just at a disadvantage from the get go? 

Does it have anything to do with relying on Laeticia as a filter for Jeanne’s feelings, while Jeanne’s actual thoughts on love and how it feels to fall for someone for the first time get sort of covered up by that? Are they telling us more than they’re showing, or are they just not showing us enough? 

Is it due to Sieg feeling like a ‘self insert’ to some people, an their relationship essentially being a surrogate or the reader to imagine Jeanne falling for someone like them? Does having a character who is literally a Saint make things feel weird? What about the romance fails to grab people as much as the story wants it to?

Again, I know not everyone finds Sieg/Jeanne forced or dislikes it, but @ the people who just aren’t feeling it, I’m really curious to know if anyone has any thoughts on why the relationship feels forced and doesn’t work.