#we've really extended my knowledge

[annabelle--cane]

ran a poll like this about a year ago and wanted to redo it with slightly edited options:

no need to specify what option you picked if you don't want to!

[ravens-two]

PAC: How will 2025 be like

This reading includes:

the general energy of 2025 for you

advice and an affirmation for the year ahead

The extended reading includes:

relationships in 2025

career in 2025

moodboard for 2025

Disclaimer: this is just for entertainment purposes, and as a pick-a-card reading it may not resonate for everyone.

Edit// because I somehow messed up and copied the wrong title for this pac 😭😭

TIPS | BOOK A READING WITH ME | PATREON | LINKTREE | SUGGEST A PAC TOPIC

Pile 1

Queen of Wands, Chariot, High Priestess

Tend (maintenance, encouragement, guidance), Unicorn, The Flame

"I drive fast, wind in my hair/ I push you to the limits 'cause I just don't care" - burning desire by lana del rey

Pile 1 your 2025 is certainly fiery. You're done being afraid, you're done always feeling like you can't actually achieve what you want, like you're not good enough. Those times are over, because you're entering 2025 with the intent of actually shaking things up. This year you're going after what you want and it doesn't even matter if you want multiple things because you're moving in multiple directions all at once. It seems like you've finally managed to find a way to keep yourself organized (be it keeping a journal or just using your time in better ways) and that's what allows you to go after so many different things. But, it's always important to remember not to sign up for too many things, pile 1. In the end you're only human and you can't do everything. Choose more intentionally.

With your song of the year being Burning Desire and with you having both the Queen of Wands and the High Priestess you're going to be irresistible this year, pile 1. I'm not sure if this is a glow up appearance wise - like you could be trying a new skincare routine that helps to clear your skin, you might lose or gain weight - or you might be changing up your style, dressing in a way that feels more authentic to who you are, or it could simply be your attitude, you carrying yourself with more confidence and sensuality. No matter what it is, you're definitely magnetic. Other people can't look away from you.

I also see you being filled with energy to dedicate yourself to many things and projects. This might not apply for everyone (at least in the same way) but I also see a lot of creative energy here. This year you might finally want to dedicate yourself to your artistic pursuits/hobbies whatever they may be (drawing, painting, dancing, writing, journaling, knitting, whatever it is). I also see you pursuing knowledge, if that makes sense, you want to try out new things and get more general knowledge - maybe you're reading the classics, watching documentaries, going to concerts.

Another thing that's really getting my attention about this year ahead for you is that you have no fear. Like, absolutely no fear at all. You're willingly to try anything once. I feel like in the past you've always held yourself back (if you have prominent Pluto or Saturn placements this might be even more relevant), and you're just sick and tired of it. You want to free yourself and so you're going into this year with the mentality of trying things, of being brave despite the anxiety and the fear. I'm really proud of you, pile 1.

Your rune for the year is Dagaz. Dagaz is the rune of sunrise and it represents new beginnings. This just continues the theme of empowering yourself and conquering your fears. Dagaz is very much a rune of hope. The night might have been long and dark, but the sun always rises and this year the sun is rising for you. New things, new situations, new people are coming into your life and by the end of the year you'll be a much different person than you were at the beginning of the year. I also see a lot of healing for you this year.

Your affirmation for 2025 is "I love and accept myself". Once again I feel like this ties super well to everything we've talked so far, especially the glowing up and confidence part. By loving and accepting yourself with all your flaws and shortcomings you're helping yourself to grow into a beautiful butterfly.

check out the extended reading on Patreon

Pile 2

Fool, Six of Swords, Six of Pentacles

Oak Tree (power, courage, strength), Bee, The Box

"Well, what we really need is a femininomenon" - femininomenon by chappell roan

Pile 2, you're in for a brand new beginning this year, it almost feels like a reinvention. A bit similar to pile 1, you're also tired of the things that were wearing you down last year (maybe even before that) and you're releasing yourself from them this year. You're letting go of the things that no longer serve you, which is commendable, because it takes so much strength. I see that for some of you this might be about walking away from a relationship(s), from a job or even from a place. With the Fool and the Six of Swords here you could very well be moving homes or even countries. Honestly, the energy for you pile 2 is as if you've always lived inside a box, following strict rules and being a "good girl" [gender neutral] but now you're absolutely done with that. You've decided that it's time to see what's outside the box. What does the world look like without the binds and the comfort of the box? Actually, now that I think about it this could also be very relevant for anyone that's moving out of their parents' house for the first time. It's an experience that's both exhilarating, freeing and terrifying.

No matter what, you're very decided to face things head on. You'll take care of the problems and unexpected complications as they come up. You know you're strong enough to solve these problems, to finally be free. You're going to be your very own femininomenon this year.

This is a huge year of growth for you pile 2, even more than pile 1. I really feel like a lot of people who pick this pile are young people becoming independent for the first time.

Your rune for the year is Tiwaz. Tiwaz is a rune of victory and sacrifice. It's almost saying that you know that things will be hard, you know you're going to have to work hard, sometimes you'll want to give up, but at the end of the day it's worth it because you come out victorious. Honestly, a part of this victory is recognizing how strong and capable you actually are.

Your affirmation for 2025 is "I am in harmony". So, what this tells me is that 2025 might be a bit chaotic for you with these many changes happening so you'll need to find moments of calm and harmony, find a safe ground to touch down when things seem like they might sweep you away. On the other hand, this also feels like you can finally breathe after you finally release yourself from all these problems and restrictions that were weighting down on you so heavily.

check out the extended reading on Patreon

Pile 3

Six of Wands, Ten of Swords, Nine of Swords

Broom (energy, clearing, freshening), Swan, The King

(an instrumental song) - verdes anos by carlos paredes

Pile 3, your energy is very interesting. You're the only pile that got an instrumental song for their song of the year which immediately gave me a vibe of peace and not letting the problems disturb you. By the way, if you've never heard this song I would definitely recommend it - it's by a Portuguese guitar player and the title means Green Years (as in still being green/young). You know, I think that this is a year of giving yourself grace and being gentle with yourself. Not everything will be perfect or go exactly as you dreamed it would, and that's perfectly fine, because in the end you will be okay. I do get this sense that you're already in this mentality and that's where the peace comes from. You have a belief that despite how wrong or how hard things are now it's just inevitable that everything will be fine.

The energy in your tarot cards is nothing if not interesting. There's a lot of anxiety and a sense of loss almost with the Ten and Nine of Swords, but on the other hand you also have victory and recognition with the Six of Wands. For some you this might be referring to some situation where you're taken advantage of, someone steals your work, or maybe it could even be about cheating or a betrayal for some of you. But! But, in the end this thing will work in your favor, maybe your boss notices that your coworker has been taking credit for your work, or maybe you finally recognize that a relationship or friendship wasn't as healthy as you wished it was.

2025 will be a year of clearing energies for you. As much as the Ten of Swords is a betrayal and deep pain, it can also be about the ending of a painful situation (even if that ending might be painful as well). I will also say that after this situation ends and the pain ends, some anxiety might set in because you're not used to being in a good place. You might constantly be looking over your shoulder trying to see where the next bad thing is coming from.

All in all, I think that this year you should focus on taking things slowly and patiently. Don't ever think that something is the end of the world, because there will be a solution for everything. As it is a year of clearing energies you might find yourself losing people or things, remember that no matter how unhealthy those situations might have been it's perfectly normal and healthy to grieve those losses.

Your rune for the year is Gebo. Gebo means gift and it's a rune that talks about exchanging gifts and favors with other people. The Norse people saw it as a way of creating stronger bonds with others, so this year you're being called to ask for help from loved ones. Believe me, this helps your relationships grow and get stronger.

Your affirmation for 2025 is "Everything I need comes to me at the perfect time." Once again you have this idea of solutions (no matter how unexpected) coming when you need them most. This might be a difficult year for you, pile 3, but believe that in the end you'll look back and see how much you've grown and much better your life has gotten.

check out the extended reading on Patreon

Pile 4

Tower, Eight of Swords, Wheel of Fortune

Sage (wisdom, purification, harmony), Golden Egg, The Nectar

"Are we brutal hearts that break the night in two?/'Cause I just want this night with you" - use me (brutal hearts) by diplo

Pile 4 you have a very interesting energy because I got a lot of information just from the photo that represents your pile alone. It seems that summertime will be either the most significant part of the year (like a turning point happening for example) or the happiest part of the year for you. In general, I see a shift in your life, it's like suddenly the world is slightly tilted instead of being straight just like the horizon line isn't straight in your photo.

But let's get into your tarot. The Tower definitely supports this idea of a turning point and a shift in your life. With the Eight of Swords here too, to me it almost feels like you think that things are going to happen in a specific way but then something very unexpected happens and now suddenly your life is completely different. The only "specific" example I'm getting is of someone thinking that they're going to start university studying a specific degree in a specific place, but suddenly the results come out and you didn't get in. Maybe you got in a different place or in a different degree that ends up changing the plans you had until now. No matter what it is in specific, the idea is that suddenly your life isn't going according to plan. For some of you this might either be a big relief or a big disappointment (it will, of course, depend on your circumstances). But more importantly, you should know that this will be for the better. There was something "rotten" in your trajectory and this is like course correction.

Aside from that, I also think that this will be a very important year of self-discovery and healing from past patterns for you. Unlike the figure in the eight of swords that's blindfolded and incapable of seeing, you'll be able to see yourself better. It's like you're more self-aware, both of your flaws and your strengths. Be careful though not to pay too much attention to all your faults and shortcomings because that isn't healthy either and it will definitely hurt you in the long run. As always, moderation is the answer.

No matter what this is a very important year for you because there are a lot of things happening for you - maybe a lot of firsts.

Your rune of the year is Laguz. Laguz is a lake and in general is a rune connected to water. To me this is very funny because the sea is very prominent on the photo for your pile. Laguz though is a card that talks about healing and deep reflection - two things we already touched upon so it confirms their importance this year. But I like this healing side of Laguz for you because it shows that you're recovering from the things and the ailments that have been bothering you (for some of you these might even be physical). Laguz has a rune of water also represents going with the flow, being very fluid and flexible - these are probably very important qualities that you'll be called to embody this year.

Your affirmation for 2025 is "I am willing to change". Pile 4 this is almost funny how in sync your whole reading is (at least up until now). This is confirmation again that there are a lot of changes coming for you this year, but it's also a reminder to remain flexible. Don't get too attached to any outcome, things will work out as they should and you will be fine.

check out the extended reading on Patreon

[ballroomeddie]

re: oliver deleting his insta stories and photo dumps.

listen, complaining online is your prerogative. i'm about to do just that.

i find it strange that people are upset with oliver for how he chooses to promote the show.

1) he's never (to my knowledge) said anything negative abt the show. if anything, he seems really passionate abt it. he's spoken, at length, abt how lucky he feels to be a part of it, and abt how he trusts the writers' and directors' vision.

2) he's, most likely, contractually obligated to promote the show. that is not to say that he only does promo out of contractual obligation, i'm sure he does some of it cause he wants to. with that out of the way; i think it's cool that he's found a way to do promo without compromising his mental health, his boundaries or his dignity. we've proven, time and time again, that we cannot be normal abt this man. so he's limiting how much access we have to him. as he should imo. being seen as a commodity first and human second must really suck. no one deserves to be treated that way. complaining abt how much he chooses to share of himself is entitled and inconsiderate behavior that would be wholly unacceptable if it were directed toward a non-celebrity.

3) oliver knows that fans screenshot everything he posts. his posts are readily available to anyone that wants to view them, even after they've been deleted from his social media accounts. him deleting/privating his posts ensures that he doesn't have to see people's comments. it probably sucks to have thousands of people opining on everything you do.

in conclusion, some of y'all are pissing me tf off. if you give a fuck abt him as a person, try extending him some grace. most people would have a hard time navigating the situation he's in. let the guy protect his peace, i beg.

ps. i'm not saying that people have to stop this uncharitable behavior. literally do whatever the fuck you want on your page. i'm just calling some of y'all weirdos.

[brummelliana]

I just played through CBML and... oh.. my god. I've been trying my best to not laugh out loud since it is almost 2 AM. I LOVED IT!!! I can't wait for the next game!

I've been scrolling through your Tumblr and you seem to know a lot about The Beatles. I've just recently started to get into the fandom. I'd just like to ask you for any book or film recommendations of the fab four? Like The Anthology book and the series or something like that. I would love to know more about them! They seem so interesting, yet so disturbing to an innocent eye..

God I don't know, my knowledge has been cultivated by so much stuff over the past 7 years. To be honest, I now just look up info I need rather than read or watch Beatles stuff for fun (besides what I mention later).

Tune In the extended edition is super super thoroguh, but it only goes up to 1962. That's right, 1000 pages (?) of just the beatles childhood and beginning of the band.

I haven't even read all my books, you know why? I spend all my time drawing bitch. I used to be such a reader. It does make it difficult when I know if I crack open a book it will be full of horrible events by these terrible naughty lads.

Just read any Biography that interests you, but keep in mind some biographers have their biases, or are less credible than others. I tend to enjoy ones that focus on a certain topic (like Beatles in Hamburg, or Beatles 1963) cause you'll have more specific information or anecdotes. The broader ones that are just about the Beatles, or about one Beatle tend to be of a similar length, and can't go into detail on everything, so tend to cover the same stuff.

I will say, don't rely on video essays or short form content (like tik toks!) for information, or at least don't take them as fact. There is a fair bit of fake info about these guys online, so be a critical thinker!

The most fun way to get a sense of the Beatle boys is to watch interviews and performances of the era. I've come to prefer straight up experiencing them from the source.

Watch the movies! A Hard Day's Night (especially considering my next game), Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, even Yellow Submarine and the Beatles Cartoon (peak).

Be careful though because post 60s Paul loves to be a fat lying slut and tells the same fucking stories over and over for literal decades. I used to have a cute little list of them.

The problem with documentaries is that they just turn into a really felatiatory circle jerk of people who really want to ride their dicks, which I find annoying.

The BeatlesVideos01 on youtube is a great source, they upload so many, there are a lot of gems of interviews and performances that aren't the most popular ones. KistuBeatles has a lot of great remastered videos.

Or right, Get Back. Watch get back, there's the beatles straight up existing for 6 hours. (even if its a very specific period for the group).

To be frank, I don't think I've watched Anthology all the way through, but I think I already heard the stuff they talk about in it, and it gets parroted in biographies cause it came out a while ago.

If you would rather look up info online (that isn't gen z slop), here are some websites I have bookmarked:

(this one has so many pictures, It was the biggest help dating all my photos)

Here's my personal as comprehensive as I can get archive of photos and videos and more!

Happy Beatling.

[yukimomodivorce]

The Ghosts in IDOLiSH7 are a Literary Device, Mostly

(an essay by me)

People are always asking me, "Robin, what the fuck is up with those ghosts in IDOLiSH7? How come this otherwise completely non-supernatural universe randomly has these two ghosts that show up and then never get acknowledged again? Is it just canon that ghosts exist and only Riku and Momo can see them?" and I am always telling them that I have an analysis about this I just haven't written it yet. But that ends today, as do all of these very pressing concerns about the i7 Ghosts™, because here I am, finally writing the analysis. This essay will have two sections, the first on the training camp ghost from part 3/third beat, and the second on the Re:vale house ghost from Yuki's third chapter of Re:member. So, spoilers for all of part 3/third beat in both sections, Re:member in section 2, and there's one extremely minor spoiler for part 4 in section 1 but it's honestly so predictable I don't think it even counts. Also, I'll reiterate this once we get to it, but just a warning that section 2 will contain discussions of depression, suicide and suicidal ideation, and a brief mention of self-harm, so please stop reading after section 1 if you don't want to see any of that! Another less important disclaimer about section 2 is that I am going to spend an entirely unecessary amount of time talking about Yuki. I am normal about Yuki. Okay. Without further ado, let's watch my spiral into ghost analogy insanity unfold!

Game translations: @seigyokus Re:member translations: @ takara_time (+ scans and editing by @ waitamomoment) Rabbit chat translations: @osakaso5

Section 1: The Training Camp Ghost

This first point applies to both ghosts, but I wanna start by noting that I think superstitions and beliefs like this are more common in Japan than a lot of other places, so yeah it is entirely possible that ghosts are just a canon and accepted thing in Idolish7's universe and this isn't really that strange of a detail for the series to include. However, I don't have any real background knowledge about if ghosts are normal in non-supernatural anime/etc. and I am not committing to that kind of research, so we'll have to leave the specifics of the ghost canonicity issue to someone else. But regardless of how canon they are, I think we've established well enough by now that the i7 writers don't put much of anything in the series without reason (re:vale band name you will always be famous. to me), and that definitely applies here as well - both of our ghosts are doing a LOT of potential symbolic work in their brief appearances, and that's what we'll be unpacking today, starting with the TCG.

The infamous TCG (training camp ghost) of Atami needs no introduction, but I'll give her one anyway. During the filming of the Friends Day special, upon following the shopping group home, she offers her services to Riku (inexplicably the only person capable of communicating with her) for the evening entertainment group's test of courage, terrorises several cast members throughout the day, and finally brings us Soma Saito's incredible cover of Dis One before probably being sent back to idol fan purgatory forever. Who is she? Where did she come from? I have several theories.

1.1: The TCG is the audience

While the 'ghosts are real in i7' possibility is there, I think it's also important to note in this case that the whole training camp is very explicitly being filmed for TV, and the biggest vibe I get from this episode of the anime is that the ghost is a part of the show, and we're seeing that show through the eyes of its in-universe audience. This happens pretty often in i7 (for example, when we see the groups talk to their fans during concerts), and generally the line between the real fans and the fictional ones can get pretty blurred (which deserves its own much longer analysis but I Am Not Writing All That), so everything with the in-universe audience here kind of naturally extends to us as the real audience. The TCG would probably be easy enough to manufacture with special effects as long as Riku and the driver guy were in on it, and it would make sense for the Friends Day producers to include it to keep things entertaining and be a stand-in for their viewers/fans of the idol groups - the ghost is specifically a female fan of male idols (Zero), and a lot of her interactions with the cast would qualify as self-insert material (e.g. Tenn singing for her and Riku looking directly into the camera to smile at her). And speaking of Tenn and Riku,

1.2 The TCG is Nanase twins angst

I think this connection is fairly obvious in their exchange here. You could make a case for the ghost representing either one of the twins. Like Riku, she's being pushed away by Tenn before she's ready to leave, told that it's necessary and for the best that they stay separated - after all, they live in different worlds. Like Tenn, she's leaving despite Riku's protests and part of her not really wanting to go at first, because she believes it's for the best that they stay separated - after all, they live in different worlds.

There's also the association with ghosts of being ignored/invisible, and Riku being the only person able to see or talk to her. Maybe it's because he's the only one who's able to reach her. Maybe he can see her because he understands her on some level - she was torn away from life like he was torn away from his brother, and she's now practically invisible to everyone else around her, like Riku probably feels to Tenn (and arguably the rest of his family in some ways). Maybe he wants her to feel seen, and he can make Tenn acknowledge her in the way he wants to be acknowledged by him. I might actually be going somewhere with this so bear with me for a second.

1.3: The TCG is monster Riku foreshadowing

So my first thought when I watched the Nanase twin angst portion of this episode was 'well obviously the ghost isn't real and Riku is just using it to talk to Tenn indirectly' because they are always having indirect conversations like this and it makes me insane, and I do still think that's the idea here, just not quite in the sense that Riku is making things up. Going back to the whole 'ghost is a stand-in for the audience' thing, and assuming that she's saying the things that Riku wants to say and Tenn is telling her the things he wants to tell Riku, then we could say that rather than Riku purposefully having the ghost speak for him, this is an extension of the monster effect. I guess in this scenario the TCG is a real ghost (and a figurative representation of the audience), and Riku is having the same effect on her that Iori says he has on everyone else. He unknowingly projects his desire to connect with his brother onto her, and she tries to help him. Really, the only times we see her after she follows the shopping group to their cabin are when she's helping Riku, with the test of courage and then with speaking to Tenn. This gets convoluted so I kinda doubt it's intentional? But it's fun to think about.

1.4: The TCG is the friends we made along the way

Riku spells this out a bit more explicitly in the game here, but the TCG represents the each of the groups in the series in a couple different ways. I guess one way you could interpret this is that the ghost is meant to be there to emphasise how extraordinary it is that they're all together, but I don't think that really holds up considering how often they end up working with each other throughout the series anyway. What's important here is the idea of the ghost itself, something that can be present and felt even when it isn't physically or actually there. Again, the ghost is the audience - a constant influence for better and for worse on these idols even when they aren't watching, even in their personal lives; and vice versa, the ghost is the idols being able to reach their fans without ever actually knowing them. More relevant to what Riku says, the ghost is the groups to each other - friends, mentors, rivals, pushing them forward even when they aren't standing side by side. You could even say the ghost is ZOOL, friends who aren't here right now but will be someday. Re:vale and Idolish7 as groups don't especially fit the ghost description, but they have their fair share of ghosts - Banri, Haruki, Tenn, Aya, Sougo's uncle. Zero. The list goes on, for Trigger and ZOOL as well, but I think the most important way the ghost analogy applies to this section of the story is with Trigger. Because during the imminent Arc Where Trigger Gets Cancelled™, despite leaving their agency and disappearing almost entirely from the public eye, they're still very much there to their fans and to their friends. So. I kinda forgot what I was saying but to sum it all up the ghost here represents everything that stays with you even when it's far away or after it's gone from your life. Mikanseinabokura and all that. And now that I mention it-

Section 2: The Re:vale House Ghost

Once again, a warning that this section has a brief mention of self-harm, as well as in-depth discussions of depression, suicide and suicidal ideation (which I'm gonna be talking about pretty bluntly the entire time), so please don't proceed unless you're comfortable with all of that!

Like most things in Re:member, the RHG (Re:vale house ghost) makes me insane. Today I am going to attempt to form coherent thoughts about it and it is unlikely that I'll succeed, but try to bear with me. Though it isn't around for as long as the TCG, we have a little more info about the RHG - it's the ghost that haunts the shitty apartment Yuki and Momo live in together in their early days as Re:vale. Supposedly. All it actually does is slam the door of one kitchen cabinet and I don't think that this is definitive evidence of paranormal activity because most houses are just like that. It's all a little bit vague, but according to Re:vale, their house is definitely haunted by the ghost of someone who died in the kitchen, because when they move in there is a mysterious black stain on their kitchen floor. Momo introduces himself to the floor stain while Yuki stares at him in awe and blushes and shoujo filter flowers appear in his eyes. God I hate them. I think the RHG is just a figment of their collective imagination or maybe they're having one of those shared delusions or something. But that's really besides the point because this ghost exists for one very specific thematic purpose: the RHG is Yuki.

And on that note, let's go back and talk about Yuki for a few minutes (potentially hours) before we get to our actual analysis of the ghost scene. Mostly because I just wanna talk about him, but also because I do understand why some people think the 'Momo starts talking to ghosts' part of Re:member is kinda weird and random, and I think at least some of this is important to go over before we unpack it.

A consensus has already been established among Yuki scholars that our subject has autism (Kei et al. 2024). Today, I would like to propose an additional diagnosis: Yuki has depression.

2.1: "I lost my dreams, friends, and passion as well."

So, Yuki pretty clearly gets depressed when Ban leaves him. He loses interest in everything he used to care about, gives up on his dreams, blames himself for Ban's injury and disappearance, he's constantly sad, tired and irritable, and he lashes out at Momo (and Kujou, though there are some other pretty strong reasons for that one) and presumably everyone else he knows (I doubt he had a particularly good relationship with anyone else in the first place, but still).

He's grieving here, and it would make sense for him to react this way because of that fact alone. But I really don't think that's all there is to it, because he exhibits these symptoms (among others) long before Ban leaves him. He can't get out of bed in the mornings, he rarely leaves the house if he can avoid it, he has days where he can't eat or sleep, he's underweight and always tired and generally known to lack energy and be slow (or 'lazy') and in some cases listless and despondent. Ban even says that he wouldn't put it past Yuki to start slitting his wrists. And it's subtle, but there's one more really big one that really never goes away for him, even after he finds Ban.

2.2: "I don't need anyone to love me."

I'll get straight to the point. Yuki hates himself. Maybe only a little bit, maybe only sometimes, but it's there. Especially when he struggles with composing - he even says it himself in part 1 of his birthday photobook rabbit chat, almost immediately after saying that it made him want to kill himself but we'll get back to that part.

But it's really everywhere on what seems to be a mostly subconscious level for him, if you know how to look, even from the very beginning:

On paper, this line is just his frustration with being judged by anything other than his music, because it's something he cares a lot about and puts a lot of work into and he wants that to be acknowledged. But I think that if you take it in conjunction with some of the other things he tends to say, there's a little bit more to it.

I dont need anyone to love me. Yuki's songs are worthy of love. Yuki is not. There is nothing valuable about Yuki other than his songs, he has nothing else that deserves any sort of praise, and without them, he's just a useless burden with nothing to offer. He doesn't need anyone to love him - he doesn't understand why anyone would. And Momo does, and he's a good person, and Yuki doesn't deserve that when there's nothing he can actually do for him. And when that starts to change and he starts getting better at showing kindness to others and being there for Momo, he doesn't see it as learning to better express his feelings, he sees is as learning to feel affection and be a good person, because he believes that he is inherently not. As far as he can tell, Yuki is just naturally a bad person and a bad partner who isn't kind and isn't capable of love or compassion, not unless he tries to be. He knows, because he's heard it god knows how many times - even Chiba Shizuo blatantly tells him that neither of them can become good people - and maybe things are different now, but on some basic level it'll always be who he is.

Ok breaking character for a second, imagine you show up to your acting side gig and on the first day Keanu Reeves comes up to you and gives you $300 cash and then later he indirectly tells you that you're a nasty lonely egotistical failure. Now imagine you're Yuki and you have no fucking clue who Keanu Reeves is. He also shows you pictures of his top secret illegitimate son after talking to you for like 10 minutes and you have to lie to him about being straight. I think this is objectively the funniest situation to be in ever. Chiba Shizuo and Yamato both probably have depression also, but I'm not gonna spend any time on it, because every three months a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in Northern Queensland. I forgot what I was talking about. Anyway

2.3: Hey remember that one time Yuki just straight up tried to kill himself

Yeah, that one. As far as I know this is really never addressed or acknowledged again, so we're just gonna take the page-long gag from Re:member at face value and say that after Ban's disappearance, Yuki (almost) attempted suicide, and the only reason he didn't go through with it is because he couldn't find anywhere to hang the noose. And like, yeah you could say it's just because he thought Ban might have killed himself and he's always been the kind of hopeless romantic to be waxing poetic about how "I can't live without you," but at the same time, he had no apparent reason to believe this (even if Ban did have suicidal tendencies I doubt Yuki would've really known), and he was planning to go through with it (I know it's probably just for comedic effect but he left a will. He left a will. He's, like, 20, and surely not the kind of person who would just have something like that in order already). This is also emphatically not the last time or the only reason he thinks about it.

I told you we'd get back to the photobook chat! I think there's also a lot you can infer from all the times he says he'd probably be dead by now without Momo and he wouldn't be able to handle losing him, what with the whole "when you jump, you'd better take me with you" thing. But regardless, this really isn't just that one time that Yuki tried to kill himself. It's suicidal ideation, and it's something he consistently struggles with especially in the few months after Ban leaves him. It even comes up in how he sees the 'paranormal activity' his new apartment:

2.4: "It seemed as though someone had hung themselves there."

Yeah it's the ghost I'm finally gonna talk about the ghost. I'm done with my Yuki has depression rant we can talk about why the ghost is Yuki now. I guess it might be more accurate to say that the ghost is Yuki's depression/suicidal thoughts/Banri trauma/whatever, but either way I think it represents him and he might also be semi-consciously projecting onto it, and I'm gonna go through line-by-line and try to explain my interpretation.

I think if you want to there's definitely room to take the 'usual paranormal activity' super literally and say that Yuki was having outbursts and slamming doors at the time (which would also match up with him being startled by it). I think it's also important to note that this is happening around the time he mentions feeling suicidal and not being able to compose in the photobook chat, but the main thing here is that second line. Even though Momo is always so nice to him, he can't stop himself from getting mad and being difficult and depressed, and he can't return that kindness - he can't even be useful to him.

I've already mentioned how I think Yuki's conclusion about the stain here plays into his suicidal ideation, but let's look at it a little more thematically. It's the way that even though it's glossed over earlier in the manga, Yuki's suicide attempt and everything that accompanied it still follows him, and it hangs (lol) heavy in their house like a ghost. To Yuki, it's startling and eerie - it scares him, and he's expecting it to scare Momo once he sees that side of him too. And it probably does scare him a little, and he hesitates, but he doesn't scream. Again, there's room to interpret this more literally as Momo finding out about his attempt/ideation/depression, or just as him inevitably seeing how he gets on his worse days, but either way the outcome is the same. Momo is starting to know Yuki as a person instead of an idol, flaws and probable mental illness and all, and his first reaction isn't to shy away or start to hate him or want to leave. It's an introduction. He makes it clear that they'll both be staying here from now on, that he's willing to live with the 'darker' sides of Yuki, and to help him do the same. Another point on this that's up to interpretation (because let's be real they're probably never gonna deal with this stuff explicitly in canon), you could see the whole ghost thing as neither of them really being able/wanting to accept that Yuki's symptoms are actually a part of him (and this is veering completely into fanfic territory but now I'm just imagining both of them silently agreeing to blame the things Yuki does on bad days on the ghost) but we've had enough angst for one day.

Everything else lines up well enough with the ghost and Yuki, but it's really his reaction here that sells the whole thing for me. It's a simple gesture, but just by Momo greeting him, being by his side, waiting for him when he comes home, that constant reminder of all his darkest thoughts becomes just another mark on the floorboards. It's not gone, and it probably never will be. But at least now, he doesn't have to face it alone. And it doesn't look so scary anymore.

2.5: "Now I know joy, and the meaning of a smile."

I must confess that I lied to all of you earlier. I'm actually not done with my Yuki rant and also there's a good reason I've been ignoring all the parts of Re:member where he isn't being self-deprecating or trying to kill himself. The end of the ghost scene is only the beginning of the end of this analysis, and the end of this analysis is pretty much just me having a meltdown about Yuki. Also I'm running out of space for images so we're doing some of the quotes like this instead.

After losing Ban, I lost my dreams, friends, and passion as well. I could only feel a sting as the wind passed through an empty, gaping hole in my chest. But I breathed as best as I could, and he tried to clear the dirt out of that hole, filling it with his earnest words instead.

Yuki still exhibits a lot of symptoms of depression all the way through the series, like the low energy and the trouble eating and sleeping, and [redacted part 5 spoilers] makes me think there's definitely some sort of connection between his writers' block and his depressive episodes. He still mentions feeling guilty towards Banri in second beat, the suicidal ideation doesn't really come up explicitly but he kinda hints at it on a few occassions, and he's very adament that he was a bad person and still isn't really a good one. But it's like. I don't really know how to put this, but I guess it's not his default state anymore like it was right after Ban left (and possibly before that, too). For the most part, he really does get better, and these things become less intense and fewer and farther between. He would probably say that it's all thanks to Momo, and it is, but he also very much does it of his own volition. Momo refuses so desperately to give up on him, and because of that he makes that choice to keep going by restarting Re:vale with him.

Yuki allows himself to let someone else in and start to love again - his partner, his music, his life. Even while he's thinking that he's just a burden to those around him, he doesn't resign himself to his fate like he might have done in the past. He's determined to become a better person, someone who can be a source of strength for Momo just like he was for him. And in the end, he does, but it's not just that. Now he knows joy. Now he can genuinely smile. And now,

I want to hear them scream my name. The voices that called out had annoyed me in the past. But now, I'll smile, together with Momo, who'll be by my side.

Going back to what I said about some of Yuki's subconscious self-hatred coming through in the way he wants people to look at his music and not at him, I. Cannot finish a sentence. Do NOT think about Yuki learning to love himself and see himself as worthy of love because Momo loved him just that much in a way that he could accept. BAD IDEA. Okay. So. It's Ban's advice and Momo's fan letter that get Yuki to accept that his fans do genuinely love his music in the first place, and I think it's here that it really starts to turn into him accepting the idea that they love other things about him too? Or that he really starts to want it and be happy about it instead of just accepting it? Whatever. I give up. I don't even like Re:vale anyway

That day, I would play the guitar I'd almost thrown at Kujou, because I now knew the power of a song that could not be silenced. I would dry my tears, open the door, and say, "I'm home."

[fridayyy-13th]

gonna be honest, feeling very conflicted about this episode, lads. i've been really hoping Protocol won't explain away the (NARRATIVELY IMPORTANT) mystery left at the end of Archives, i.e. Jon and Martin's fate, so seeing as they're the next thing Sam and Celia are gonna be investigating, this is kinda gonna be the thing that makes or breaks Protocol, for me.

i do think there's a solid chance Chester and Norris are the Jon and Martin from Protocol's universe, and that is something i absolutely would not mind. but i haven't actually made a post explaining why i think that, and i should probably do that before it's explained, just so i can mayyyybe say i called it.

(for the record, i'm pretty sure i came up with most of this before the series even officially dropped, when all we had was the ARG and the trailer. i haven't done much to connect this theory to the further information we've learned, so it's probably not fully accurate (if accurate at all). and quite a bit of it is kinda baseless conjecture; i'm just throwing my thoughts out there. just a little disclaimer.)

so!

in Archives, Jonah's primary motivation is fear of death. turning to the Eye is what allows him to body-hop as he does for 200 years, trying to create a world where his Patron reigns supreme, where he is seated upon its throne and cannot die. assuming his motivation is the same in Protocol, this new universe is (likely until recently) untouched by the Entities. if Jonah wanted to evade death, how could he do that without the help of an eldritch fear god?

easy—alchemy.

i'm not particularly knowledgeable about the subject as a whole, but i'm certainly familiar with the Philosopher's Stone (the symbol of which is also present in the OIAR's/podcast's logo, though it seems the OIAR is more focused on balance than on experimentation).

i also know that the seven metals used in alchemy (gold, silver, mercury, copper, lead, iron, and tin) are all components of computer chips. i've been thinking Jonah, or maybe his successors, saw that and began turning their research to how it could be utilized to extend—or preserve—life.

to cut to the chase, bc frankly it's hard trying to sound like i know what i'm talking about and this post would take forever to write otherwise, i think Jonah tried to Sergei Ushanka himself into a computer, because metal and plastic are a hell of a lot longer-lasting than a human being.

but he wouldn't shove his consciousness into some random motherboard without making sure it was safe, what do you take him for?? he is a man of academia. obviously he had to test it on others first, and then he'd do it himself.

cue the thought experiments the Institute ran on kids. the things the experiments quantify are empathy and obedience to authority, which to me screams that they were trying to find kids who were easy to manipulate into more dangerous experiments.

and who are two characters who were kids in the 90s, with circumstances that left them lonely, isolated, and who, even as adults, are desperate to please (whether a parent or a bad boss)? Jon and Martin.

i posit that Jon and Martin were both victims of these experiments, perhaps the first (and only) successful subjects, and Jonah uploaded his consciousness to the computer soon after. their records could have been stricken from the spreadsheet to hide that they'd even been part of the program, and given the Institute burned down soon after, and there were no survivors—it could have been assumed that they'd died in the fire. it isn't like they had the most doting guardians to worry over them.

...but Chester and Norris's voices are those of adult Jon and Martin.

best i can figure, Jonah's plan might have worked in the short term, but computers have had date/time hardware in them since the 80s, so they—and Augustus—are still aging. so they've been trapped in computer software since 1999, and now that Sam and Celia are digging into what happened, they're desperate to catch their attention and find a way out.

(and lastly, a fun little thought—given Jon and Martin were both born circa 1987, they would have been twelve in 1999. they didn't even get to be teenagers.)

[alaynestcnes]

“evidence upon evidence upon evidence” and it’s just chapter order and stuff like “oh jonnel is definitely the same as jon” (which is basically saying alysanne is the same as alys) or val being blonde means she could be redheaded in certain lights. it’s still all a REACH so no evidence for romance

Looks like you have some gaps in your jonsa knowledge so I’ll help you out a little 😊

A good place to start would be the jonsa compendium with at least 18 points of independent in-text evidence (not including the broader fun stuff like lotr lit parallels). We can also talk about the multiple allusions to Sansa being betrothed to a Targ (not including the ashford tourney theory already included in the compendium); here, here. Some other little tidbots I enjoy (a la 'blood of winterfell', jon/joff parallels, little in-text parallels, and too many others to mention) are in my parallels tag.

There are the BNFs/theorists who have speculated on jonsa; Alt Shift X and Adam Feldman have both found Jonsa to be significant enough to mention. They’ve been invited to have dinner with GRRM, and he has said Adam Feldman ‘really gets’ asoiaf. So, I kinda hold these theorists as just a bit more credible than whatever the twitter/reddit stans have to say.

And I know you brushed off the chapter analysis but let’s remember that GRRM has said that he is very particular about the sequence of scenes and chapters. So, it’s not absurd to say that the construction of the chapters is something that we should be paying attention to. Ignoring that is fine but don’t pretend like it’s Jonsas reaching, when it’s just your own blind bullheadedness. That being said, here’s an almost never-ending post analysing the in-text Jonsa parallels and references. And then here there's how whenever Jon or Sansa's chapters have a focus on love and marriage, then the other will almost always closely follow.

That's my little english lit seminar done, but I hope you're not too tired bc we've still got our AP hisory and political science class to go! GRRM has stated before that class is important (especially in relation to marriage) and he hates medieval-set stories where the highborn lady happily runs off with the stableboy. So, it's safe to say that Sansa will not be marrying any old glup shitto the fandom wants to pair her with. Her range of suitors is very, very limited. "Jonnel is definetly the same as Jon"...well, if the shoe fits? Like it just lines up too well, it's just a bit cheeky of GRRM to sow issues of northern succession in ASOIAF, all while providing a precedent for an inter-Stark union as a solution to a very similar issue. You could also make the case that Jonnel/Sansa is more of a foil for Jon/Sansa than a direct parallel (as instead of Jon marrying Sansa to supercede her claim, Sansa will choose to marry Jon in order to secure his position after Targ reveal). And really, is this anymore delulu than something like the Jon/Tyrion/Dany three heads of the dragon theories you see around?

Anywaysss this is just a fast and loose run down and better people than me have developed more comprehensive archives of the ever-extending jonsa meta universe, so please supplement your learning with some independent study: here, here, here.

So yeah…the evidence is a little bit deeper than Jon/Jonnel or Val/Sansa. I’m not trying to preach but calling Jonsa out on a lack of evidence or that we’re reaching for anything is giving very much illiterate on your side. If you wanna come into my ask and be a hater again pleassseeee at least do your research first. Next time there will be a quiz before I take anything you say seriously.

[iridescentscarecrow]

I saw on twitter that you caught up with mtefil and i'm so glad since so few people know about it. What do you like about it? Personally I love it's rendition of the fallen angels, so vile and pathetic yet human.

hello!!! i kind of regret keeping the small liveblog thread i did on my priv and not posting on main, since i ended up having a lot more things to say than i expected. i'm still sorting out my thoughts right now, and i want to go back and reread some stuff with context, but here's a quick summary of what i felt:

i like the fallen angels a lot too, but my favourite aspect of mtefil is probably the depiction of the sins, it's wonderfully clever. i think the order of my interest goes lust (aria arc specifically ) > sloth > gluttony > greed > envy.

for lust, i feel like i might appreciate it more than other people because i was very interested in the "agelessness" associated with "sexiness" vis a vis idolhood and the creation of aria as someone "bottomless", as these are themes consistent with some of my favourite things in fiction. asmodeus is one of the characters i ended up liking the most because of this. her inflicting violence onto priest as a expression of her love for sarah, and the propertyship there was very good. asmodeus is constantly seeking worth & dignity! her connecting with priest through like a shared sameness really got to me. i liked how imuri was the audience proxy for our knowledge that aria was actually priest's assaulter, it made for some really horrifying moments of tension, i was kind of shaking through it, also, i think it contributes to my idea that imuri is the protagonist (the first page of the manga is literally her painting) and priest is the "love interest" - also a fun concept because of how bel frames him as a romcom protagonist later on? but that's just extended thoughts. the ending scene of the arc with him fantasizing about imuri and then throwing up was very powerful to me, because i think the gendering of priest is essential to the series. him being disgusted with himself because he feels like a predator, and immediately giving up the caregiving role (of gendered labour) that he assumed over imuri earlier stuck to me.

i like how gender entwines with every aspect of MTEFIL, tbh. its very well planned, even if it does end up beating you over the head with its themes at time lol! the sins are one thing - most of the male ones are dimensions of patriarchal abuse, and the two female ones we've seen are leviathan with her ill fitting motherhood, and asmodeus, who like i said, is focused on Worth through sexual conquest. the church refers to the "father, the son" & the witches to "evil" feminine figures. a lot of the manga discusses how the witches are alienated & considered inhuman, and their struggle is a tussle over humanity. verge literally brought up "storytelling" !! and this makes sense because imuri's Role is the "femme fatale", that she constantly refers back to and describes herself with, and that's essentially story trope.

sloth was the depiction i was most impressed by when it came to inventiveness. i was reading through the files intently before he was revealed since they're all written very well, so when he showed up, i assumed he was writing the child's room ones almost immediately. the scapegoating of women, paired with the eternal childhood of it all and priest's own exhaustion is all very fun.

gluttony being a grooming allegory is honestly insane. i often feel like depictions of gluttony end up imagining it as a kind of Greed Lite - but with a focus on food, which is boring TBH. the manner in which the sin of taste is presented as experienced/practiced by the abused & the way this connected to leah's "forbidden love" as described by the files... i really liked leah in this arc. beelzebub talking with her and saying,, this is just human nature,, centering her shame... it made me feel very ill if i'm being honest.

greed is a typical depiction but the way it's fleshed out connects really well to the manga's themes, although im more interested in tachibana than the actual character of greed. i feel she represents it in a more nuanced way than him, although that's probably whats intended. the file about her with the line referring to "the womb" and the one file conversation she has with verge really sticks to me. she's obviously portrayed as the sole woman in a room full of men and the way she revels in her success when it comes to The Meritocracy fascinates me. i hope we get more of her

envy is probably the one i have the least thoughts on: leviathan as the state & the sea monster connect to motherhood is kind of apparent but i wish i had more to chew on with respect to how that ties to the sin of envy. but that's a minor nitpick, and i'll probably understand more later.

overall, i'm kind of happy with how these themes are being tackled in a shounen manga, and i had tons of fun with it. i wish it had more attention! i like priest a lot, i think he's incredibly well written but my particular tastes in characters mean that my favourites right now are imuri, asmodeus, leah, and verge. the latter is probably biased by the fact that i'm deeply invested in the weird yaoi he and dante have going on, it's so fun?

this is everything that i could think of for now, but i'm considering talking about newer chapters when they drop on my main, perhaps? thank you for the ask, it gave me the opportunity to go on about it a little :D i liked it very much!!

[tyrantisterror]

You seem to have been enjoying Baldur's Gate III a lot. Would you mind giving your thoughts on the individual companions? I'm just curious to see what your take on them is.

Yeah sure! The game's been rotting my brain for months now in part because of its character writing, so I can stand to gush about the companions a bit.

Before we get to the companions individually, I want to talk about them as a group, because one of the things that makes this game so impressive to me is its commitment to its core themes, and that extends to how the companions were crafted as a group. See, each of the core six companions have the following things in common:

The mindflayer tadpole that threatens to turn them into a monster against their will (i.e. the thing that gets them all together on a quest)

A personal history of being abused and exploited by someone they trusted

A Want that comes as a result of their personal history of abuse that is self destructive but understandable given their circumstances

A Need that comes as a result of their personal history of abuse that they have written off or ignored because their past makes them think fulfilling it is impossible

A point in their character arc where they will come into conflict with the player character if the player character tries to advocate for their Need over their Want. If the player values the Want over the Need, the relationship will initially go smoother, but end badly.

The overall theme of Baldur's Gate 3 can be loosely summed up in one of its major recurring songs, I Want to Live, and that's ultimately what each character's arc is a variation of: the desperate desire to live in a world that has been trying to kill your mind, body, and soul to the best of its ability. Got it? Cool, we can talk about the characters now that we've got this established.

Oh, and, uh, this game covers some... HEAVY themes, given that abuse is one of the common denominators between the companions. I'm going to try to be gentle in talking about it, but this will cover some of that subject matter, so this is your warning if you want to avoid that.

Companion 1: Astarion, My Bisexual Awakening

I'm going to start with the companion I feel is the most talked about/popular/overexposed I suppose, Astarion. I feel like anyone with even the vaguest knowledge of Baldur's Gate 3 probably recognizes Astarion at this point, even if it's just as "that annoying vampire twink I'm sick of seeing." There's already a growing "he's popular so he sucks" movement about Astarion here on tumblr and at the cesspool of hate known as Twitter, because of course there is, he's popular, ergo he must suck.

...

I think Astarion is one of the best written video game characters of all time.

There's this one great tumblr post that summarizes Astarion's role in the narrative really well, with the great punchline of "Astarion is kinda like if they sexualized gollum," which is not only funny but perfectly accurate. I can't really top that, so I'm just going to talk around some of its points a bit, but I highly recommend reading it yourself, it's more concise and well-thought out than whatever this ramble will be.

But, ok, so, "I Want to Live" is our theme, right? Astarion is dead. Dead to begin with, Marley style. He has been killed, at a young age, before his time. Sure, he was brought back to a sort of life, being a vampire and a member of the undead and all, but the life he knew is gone. All the pathos one can mine from being a vampire is played up here, for as Astarion himself notes, he's not even a full fledge vampire, but a vampire spawn - "All of the drawbacks, few of the perks." Worse, as a vampire spawn, he's magically bound to the will of the vampire that turned him - forced to live out his undead life as a slave to a sadistic monster that abused him in every way a person can be abused.

Which is why Astarion is the only companion who's entirely thankful for the mindflayers kidnapping him and implanting a tadpole in his head - because they broke that magic connection to his master, and gave him resistances to many of the stock vampire weaknesses to boot (hungry tadpole doesn't want its meat suit burning in the sun, after all). Astarion's life was so fucked that getting a brain-eating parasite was a unilateral improvement.

But while the magic connection is severed, the psychological affect of the abuse Astarion suffered lingers. His master made him use sex as a lure to bring victims to his lair, and so Astarion still believes that he has to offer people sex to "earn his keep" - that his body is a tool for others to use for their gratification, and if he refuses their desires he puts his life at peril. Astarion hates putting himself out to help other people not only because no one has done that for him during his long undead life, but because doing so puts his life at risk. Astarion is power hungry - his Want is to be as strong, no, stronger than his master, so that way he can never be afraid again. Astarion Wants to be a true vampire.

His need, however, is to find value in the life he has now. He needs people who love him for who he is, not what he can offer, and who will protect him the way he has needed protecting for hundreds of years. His need is to be shown that kindness isn't a weakness, that charity is possible, that power does not have to be gained through selfish and cruel means. You're shown this in the game's approval mechanic - while Astarion will disapprove of you putting yourself out on a limb for others and revealing sensitive information freely, he has a soft spot for whenever you help someone who, like him, is being exploited. Because while he'll protest otherwise, Astarion wants to believe kindness is possible, and that the horrible things he's suffered don't define him. Astarion may believe he's just a tool to serve others' desires, but that doesn't mean he doesn't wish to be more than that.

And I know the cynics among you are like "Oh, ok, so the cute vampire twink has a ludicrously tragic backstory. How is that original or good writing?" Because that's the thing, right? If there's an effeminate, brooding bad boy character that lots of teenage girls like in a piece of media, it HAS to be shallow wangst at its core. Every tumblr sexyman is just Edward Cullen when you cut past the bullshit, right?

Like, I know I'm not going to convince the "Thing popular so thing bad" crowd on Astarion's quality no matter how many words I write, but, like, there is a reason for the hype. Dude's got fucking layers! The different interactions with him you can have, the dimensions you can bring out of him by how you choose to engage with him, all paint this great tapestry of a character who takes the concept of a vampire and explores it to a depth few pieces of media have every plunged to.

And he's fucking funny! Dude's got some of the best lines in the game, and his voice actor didn't just give him a sexy sultry voice, but, like, shades of Tim Curry that make him endearingly weird and goofy and witty as hell while still being very sexy.

And yes, he's a sexy vampire, that's a big point in his favor and what most people are dwelling on. And I'm standing by the sexy part - listen, for the past few years I've been kind of wrestling with whether or not I'm bisexual, and the question was laid to rest the first time this fucker flirted with me in game. My heart raced, my cheeks flushed, I reflexively giggled and went "Whoo!" like a Southern Belle in need of a feinting couch. Every time he's flirted with me since has given me the fucking vapors. Thank you, Astarion, I'm bi for sure now. you solved that fucking riddle pretty decisively.

Let's move on.

Companion 2: Shadowheart, A Fellow Lapsed Catholic

Shadowheart is a bundle of contradictions. She's got some of the best quips and quickest wits in the game, and she's also a huge fucking dork. She is oozing with confidence about the role she's been assigned to play and is incredibly assertive in group social situations, but on her own she's a mess of insecurities and is constantly plagued with doubts about her worth. She's constantly preaching about the need to be pragmatic and self-focused, but loves it whenever you are kind and generous. Depending on your choices during the tutorial level, she can become the first ride-or-die party member you get, and she's also a miserable pile of secrets who is terrified of you discovering what she really is.

See, Shadowheart is a cleric of Shar, the Goddess of Darkness, which is both in a literal and figurative sense - that is, Shar is the goddess of night and the absence of light, but, like, also the goddess of loss, and sorrow, and hopelessness, and secrets, and lies. The Goddess of Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss, basically. Being raised to follow the goddess has plagues Shadowheart with guilt over the secrets she's had to keep, the cruelties she's had to inflict, and the distance she's kept from all people in her life as a result of the church's creed. If you're a nerd who comes into this game knowing who Shar is, you'd probably be immediately suspicious of Shadowheart when you find out her alleigance, because Shar's basically one of the more prominent evil gods whose followers are always fucking things up for everyone.

However, I did not come into this game knowing that, but I did come into it knowing what's it's like to be raised in a religion that teaches you that many of your natural desires for companionship are wrong and to feel guilt and paranoia over how your every action will be judged, for like Shadowheart, I am also a Catholic.

Shadowheart's Want is to become a Dark Justiciar, which is basically the Sharran equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition, and to fully prove her devotion to Shar's will. The way she talks about Shar is so thickly coded with the way children of abusive parents talk about said parents that's it's legitimately frightening to witness at times. Shadowheart doesn't blame Shar for hurting her, she knows it's her fault for disappointing Shar in the first place.

Shadowheart's Need is to leave the fucking Catholic church. Depending on your choices, she can accomplish this with the help of two moon-worshipping lesbians, at which point she dyes her hair a color that would piss off her parents Shar and proceeds to indulge in a somewhat hedonistic rebellion of self actualization that only a lapsed Catholic can fully comprehend. I love her.

Companion 3: Lae'Zel, The World's Most Loyal Toad

Ok, so, brief tangent: one of my favorite games of all time is Dragon Age Origins, and it is one of my favorite games of all time in part because it has Morrigan, one of the best characters in all of fantasy fiction, fuck you fight me. Morrigan is a divisive character in the DA fandom because she is notoriously hard to please if you're trying to be a good person - it was so prominent a criticism, in fact, that "Morrigan Disapproves" was put on a fucking t-shirt to play on/monetize the controversy.

But, see, the thing about Morrigan is that she's 1. incredibly complex and 2. designed to challenge your worldview, and to be challenged in turn. Morrigan isn't just an evil bitch, she has a genuine philosophy for why she behaves as coldly as she does, which in part stems from her awful upbringing by her cruel, selfish hermit mother who was trying to shelter her from an even crueller world that would see her in chains just for being a witch. Morrigan has been taught that love is a weakness others will exploit, that kindness is folly, and that everyone is out for themselves. And you need to contradict her on that - getting to know her inevitably involves fighting her on this point, and you proving to her that the cruelty she's been taught is wrong. If you are willing to listen, to argue, to truly understand this character, she grows because of you. It makes her character arc so fucking satisfying, when you get to the end of the game and she realizes that she does love you, she does want to be kind, and that even though she now feels more accutely than ever how love has made her weak, she can't be without it. It's so fucking good.

I bring Morrigan up because almost all the companions in Baldur's Gate 3 are on her level, in part because they are designed like her - to challenge you and be challenged in turn. And none of the core six are more like her than Lae'zel.

Which, sadly, includes the fan backlash part. A lot of fans of the game hate Lae'zel - she's too mean, they say, too hostile, to proud of her strange and callous worldview, too critical of our normal and kind outlook, too difficult to relate to.

These people are cowards.

If Shadowheart is Catholic, then Lae'zel is, like, Christian Reformed. A fundie. She's been training at Githyanki Bible Camp for years to be her lichqueen's perfectly loyal soldier, only to run into this minor snag of being kidnapped by Mindflayers, the ancestral enemies of her people, and infected with a tadpole that will turn her into one of them, the Worst Fate that can become a Githyanki. Luckily, she's read all of her people's Chick Tracts, and knows that if she can get to one of the Githyanki creches, they can use their special machine to pray the tadpole out of her brain and save her.

Lae'zel has drunk the metaphorical kool-aid of her people, but only to a point. See, Githyankis are viciously racist, but Lae'zel is REALLY quick to accept you and most of the other companions (not Shadowheart, though, as like a true Fundie, she cannot stand a Catholic) despite them not being Giths like herself. Yeah, she'll preen and posture about the superiority of her kind a bit, but she sides with you within seconds of meeting you, and from that point on she is ride or die until you give her a good reason to think otherwise. Lae'zel can be mean, stubborn, and arrogant, but she is above all else loyal.

Her Want is to be a perfect Githyanki warrior, earning the respect of her queen and serving her endlessly in the Astral Plane. Of course, when you actually get to that creche she's pointing you towards early in the game, this all falls apart on her, because just like Fundamentalist Christianity, Githyanki culture is little more than a sham designed to uphold an evil and exploitative power structure where the rich drain the life and resources of everyone beneath them and declare it the will of the divine. In this case, that "drain the life" part is explicitly literal, as the Githyanki queen literally devours the life force of any gith that gets even a bit close to rivaling her in power. If Lae'zel tries to follow her dream, it will end with her queen eating her soul.

Lae'zel's Need is to not only break out of her culture's indoctrination, but to find a way to make her life worthwhile on her own terms. It's heartbreaking to witness, honestly, because unlike the other core companions, Lae'zel has no idea what a life outside of her Want looks like. What is she without serving her queen? What the hell does she want? If you've been taught God your queen is all that is good, then how the fuck you you figure out what good is when you realize she's actually evil?

And while she goes through this seriously traumatic existential crisis, she finds the energy to be invested in the struggles of you and your companions. When the other characters are going through The Shit in their respective arcs, Lae'zel is always quick to note that she thinks they are strong and deserve more than they're getting - even Shadowheart, that fucking Catholic!

Because the first word you'd ever use to describe Lae'zel, the one that most succinctly captures who she is, is LOYAL. She fucking rocks, I love her.

Companion 4: Wyll, The Unjustly Underrated

Almost no one talks about Wyll and it fucking sucks, man. I mean, we all know why (it starts with a Ra and ends in a Cism), but still it fucking blows dude. And yes, I include myself in this, anyone who's followed my blog can tell that Wyll's not the companion I fixate on the most.

But listen, I promise you, if the game let me take along four companions instead of three, Wyll... would be competing with Lae'zel for spot #4, and Lae'zel might win out because she's an angry girl, but... fuck I'm losing the plot.

Wyll is great though! He's severely underrated! He's one of the nicest companions you'll get, first of all, but he's not just a nice guy. Everyone's got layers in this, right? Wyll is nice, but he's also a bit arrogant - a glory hound, really. He's the only companion who's given himself a superhero name, and he routinely uses it. Dude wants to be fuckin' Batman so bad, it's wonderful.

He's also the most actively fucked member of the party. Everyone's got abusers in their past, but Wyll's is the only one who's followed him to your camp. Mizora, the devil he sold his soul too, frequently shows up to give him shitty tasks and shittier punishments, and is one of the most hateful fucking characters I have ever encountered in my life. Like, to put this in perspective: if you know me, you know that I have certain... preferences... when it comes to women. So if there was, say, a demon lady character who's also a bit of a dominatrix, and I fucking hated her guts, you'd probably be a bit surprised given, you know, my preferences.

But the way Mizora treats Wyll? The way she talks about him and to him? It's fucking heinous. She's not fun evil, she's evil evil, and she's got to fucking go.

It kind of reframes Wyll's kindness and cockiness as you experience it, because beneath the showy acts of heroism and the bluster, Wyll is a sad little dog in a burning apartment telling himself "this is fine!" over and over again.

Wyll's Want is to be a hero and make the sacrifice of his soul worth something. He has accepted that there is no redemption for himself, that Mizora preying upon his vulnerability in the past is something he can never recover from, that he cannot be free of her chains, and only hopes to use what time he has to do some good, even if it inevitably comes at the cost of his life.

His Need is to break out of Mizora's control, to wrest his fate back into his own hands, and to prove what has always been true: that he IS the hero he's selling himself as. It's a real Rango arc if you think about it.

Companion 5: Gale, The Friend With the Messiest Fucking Love Life You've Ever Heard Of Goddamn

Gale... kind of breaks the companion formula, a little bit? Like, for the other five core companions, there is a clear-cut situation where they were abused and exploited by an asshole - Shar exploited Shadowheart, Cazador the master vampire exploited Astarion, Mizora exploits Wyll, etc. Gale's fucked up traumatic relationship is a bit... messier, and harder to untangle, because by his own admission, he was not blameless in it.

Gale is a wizard, and like all good wizards in fiction, he's a bit of a mad scientist. He was so good at wizarding, in fact, that the goddess of magic itself, Mystra, reached out to him, and eventually the two had a little romance. Now, fans have gone back and forth interpreting this, with some saying that Mystra was grooming Gale from childhood and thus is as bad as Cazador/Shar/Mizora/et cetera. I feel that's kind of a bad faith reading of the character, one that's actively ignoring the concept of what an ageless immortal goddess is to try and fit it into a human context.

For nerds who know about the setting, Mystra is NOT an evil goddess like Shar. In fact, she's kind of a vitally important goddess to have around, as Magic is such an integral part of the reality of this setting that not having a god of some sort for it results in an fucking extinction event - which the characters in the game know for a fact because at one point in the past, a mortal wizard killed Mystra and made that extinction event happen. Mystra reformed, as gods do, and eventually things got back to more or less normal, but that doesn't do much for the shitload of people and creatures that died during the period of time where magic was dead.

And that's what ends up souring Gale and Mystra's relationship. Gale, being mortal, felt he had to prove he was Mystra's equal, and so set out to find a source of magical power not unlike that used by the wizard in the past who killed Mystra. And when Mystra saw Gale doing that, she freaked the fuck out because she thought she was going to get killed again - because the wizard who slew her in the past ALSO felt he needed to prove he was equal to a goddess.

Neither character takes the breakup well. Gale feels like fucking shit because he fumbled a literal goddess, and also got a piece of super destructive magic lodged in his chest in the process that's slowly killing him. And Mystra is worried that the super powerful piece of magic lodged in Gale's chest could kill her, and also about the cult using a very similar piece of magic (it's a big plot point for the game I won't go into it this is already too long), and so, in an act of cruel godly pragmatism, she sends D&D Gandalf to tell Gale to use his the magic murder ball in his chest to kill the cult, even though it'll destroy him in the process. "Hi sweetie, please kill yourself on my behalf, k thanx!" basically.

It's... it's a mess.

Gale's Want is to prove he is Mystra's equal by mastering the ancient magic he's found, and either win her back or, better yet, become a god himself and dethrone her. As I said, he's got a bit of a mad scientist in him.

Gale's Need is to move on from this relationship, talk things out with his ex, give her her dvds the ancient magic artifacts back, and move on with his life.

I like Gale. He's got funny lines, he loves his cat, he's a goofy nerd, and while his love life is a mess, his heart is mostly in the right place. He needs some nudges to do the right thing, but he's a good guy deep down, and I always love it when fiction shows a relationship that falls apart not because one person in it was "bad," but because the two people were just not compatible. Yeah, Gale fucked up, but you can understand why he fucked up, and he can understand it too if you help him own up to his mistakes and move forward. Also, he loves his cat, he can't be all bad.

Companion 6: Karlach, the Most Beautiful Woman I've Ever Seen

Karlach is my favorite companion in this game, which is why I saved her for (sort of) last. And, yes, sure, part of it is because of my aforementioned preferences with women...

she's so goddamn pretty

But it's also because of how she plays with those core themes I've mentioned. Karlach was sold into slavery as a teenager, where her devil master ripped out her heart and replaced it with an engine to turn her into a super-strong gladiator. She's been living in literal Hell for years, fighting every day to survive, and like Astarion she actually views being kidnapped by Mindflayers as a godsend since it freed her from her enslavement.

Unlike Astarion, Karlach doesn't have a long life to look forward to. That engine in her chest can't work properly outside of Hell, and it will eventually break, overheat, and melt her from the inside out. Karlach is the only companion who knows she's going to die soon whether or not the tadpole is taken out - no matter how this adventure ends, she will die.

At least, that's what she's told herself. Karlach's Want is to never return to Literal Hell, no matter what, because she's afraid if she does she will be taken as a slave again, and that there is no hope for a good life if she touches foot on that ground again. Following this want means she WILL die - either by the engine, by her enemies in the mortal plane, or by turning into a mind flayer (because while mind flayers can retain their hosts' memories, they are NOT the same being as their host).

And Karlach is convinced she's ok with this! No, really, she's fine! This is fine! She's got a few days left to live, and she's going to enjoy them! She is unfailingly kind and compassionate, always willing to help others, always cheery and taking the best view of her friends and people in need, a ray of fucking sunshine.

And beneath it all she's terrified and sad. When you get towards the end of the game, and Karlach feels how close the Inevitable End is, she reaches a breaking point where that happy facade snaps and it's... it's gut wrenching, man. It breaks your fucking heart, because as much as she's determined not to risk setting foot in Literal Hell ever again, she really doesn't want to die.

...

Karlach's Need is to go back to Literal Hell long enough to get that engine replaced. Her Need is to find hope, TRUE hope, not just a facade of optimism - a true belief that she can face the worst and come out of it ok, that she can survive, that she is not alone in facing the darkest shit this world can throw at her. Her Need is to find the strength to believe that she can live, even if it's hard, even if it's Hell to get there.

And Karlach is worth it. She is worth Hell.

Companions 7 - 10 Speedrun

I don't have as much to say about the four other companions you can get in the game, mainly because I already love these six so much that trying to take time to get to know four other weirdos who I don't get to recruit until halfway through the game just... like, there's a party limit of four characters and one is me, I can only take three of you along at a time, I'm prioritizing the one's who've been with me since all the goblin shit in Act 1, feel me? The rest of you seem real neat but I've got my nakama all set, we're good.

Halsin is the one I know the most of these four because he helped me at the tail end of the goblin stuff and he seems fine. He's a big nice hippie who turns into a bear and is into polygamy and carving wooden ducks. A lot of people thirst for him, but he's not my type - like I get the appeal but this is a case of Not My Favorite Pennywise Hentai But OK as far as I'm concerned. I like his subplot about restoring balance to the cursed forest, though. Felt like teaming up with Smokey the Bear.

Minthara is the companion that used to require you to kill a shitload of innocent people to recruit, but people found weird work-arounds that involved turning her into a sheep and so the developers sighed and released a patch where you could recruit her without mass murder using only slightly cheesey means. She is Genuinely Evil, but in a complicated way that's still fun from a character perspective. She's also a great comically serious character - i.e. someone who's so serious all the time that they end up being incredibly funny on accident just by their muted reactions to all the weirdness around them. From the clip compilations I've watched on youtube, her romance is basically a Lady Macbeth situation, and that's pretty hot. If it weren't for Karlach, I'd... romance Astarion, but if it weren't for Astarion, I'd... romance Shadowheart, but if it weren't for Shadowheart, I'd... romance Lae'zel, but if it weren't for Lae'zel, I might romance Minthara. Or Wyll. One of the two.

Jaheira is a character from one of the previous Baldur's Gate games, neither of which I've played, so I had no preconceptions or attachments to her going in this game. She basically becomes your surrogate mom as the game goes along, and I mean that as a compliment. She's pretty great and fills a nice emotional niche - I didn't use her that much because, again, I've already got six close friends to rotate out, I'm not going to ditch them for long periods of time to hang out with my MOM, but it was nice having her along for the ride a few times.

Minsc is the OTHER returning character from the previous games, and from what I can tell he's basicall Kronk from The Emperor's New Groove but with a funny accent. I like him, he's fun comic relief, and he throws a hamster at people while telling it to eat their eyes. I don't have a lot to say on Minsc, I just think he's neat.

At some point I might do a followup to this gushing about NPCs from the game, because goddamn the supporting cast is great too. Omeluum, Us, the Emperor, fucking Dame Aylin. Dame Aylin is so goddamn fucking cool, I want to read novels about her adventures, she rocks so hard. All glory to the Nightsong!

[jacquesthepigeon]

I just wanted to say I agree with the 'don't blame Marinette' post you made. Her choices in the S5 finale run completely counter to lessons we've SEEN her learn throughout the series. Why? Because making the bad choices helps stoke drama and extend the plot into more seasons. That's all.

I don't *like* the person Marinette is right now, but I don't hate her. I just want her to stop. I want her to realize what she's doing. I want her to recognize she's consolidating power 'To protect the ones she loves' of course, but that's how so many very dark tales begin. Will the writers let her? Probably eventually.

I mostly just hate that I can't ship adrinette right now. The girl chose to gaslight the boy 8 ways from Sunday 'to avoid hurting him' Girl, he's already hurt, you just want to dodge the conversation and pain you'd go through explaining it to him. Like I get it, but it's still a bad dynamic for a ship. One person having vital knowledge (not to mention actual life knowledge about the senti-thing) over the other... bad dynamic no matter who it is.

Yeah, others know too, but she's the protagonist so they all go silent when she says 'no, we won't tell him.' Protagonist's burden :/

The upside to this is you can still watch S1-3 Marinette where she learns how to do... *exactly not this* and be proud of that girl just fine. What S4/5? The show ended after 3, right?

I think mostly I'm going to just focus on Movie!Marinette. That's a girl you can get behind. Caring, heroic, brave, and willing to take the risks rather than seeking to mitigate them all.

I really just can’t get invested in anything from the later seasons cuz the quality took such a nosedive that it’s not even worth entertaining in my mind

The show doesn’t care to make things make sense so why should I at this point? It’s a futile effort

So while I choose to not to think too deeply about (or even acknowledge) certain newer details, it’s not like I’m going to argue with others about them. My frustration is purely in regard to people refusing to acknowledge who’s actually responsible for all of this.

Yeah, canon Marinette objectively sucks. Doesn’t change the fact that most of the characteristics that make her suck aren’t part of a thought-out character arc but rather the crew trying desperately to cover their own ass for their very poorly planned and executed “plot twist” finale.

[oh-snapperss]

Questions gathered from my reread through of mindwash because I am obsessed!

What was the incident?

What are Jumper’s powers?

Can I get some more explanation on Minute’s powers?

Why did Jumper have to leave after the incident?

Why are Pentar’s powers illegal (most so just wanna hear your explanation on this)?

How do Minute and Jumper’s piers interact?

What led E to leave after the incident?

Why do they need to cover up their identities?

Why does the wording make it sound like it’s safer for them to all stay separated, like they’re less likely to get found out that way?

What’s going to happen if it is found out they have powers?

What would E do if Pentar gets hurt on a mission while E is off in the other city (like if Pentar overspends again)?

What is the “other effect” of Pentar’s powers that is mentioned in relation to the incident?

(Also put a comment on the fic talking about everything I enjoyed as I read through it)

Feel free to answer as many or as few as you want!

ohhh these are some really good questions!!! i'll toss my answers under a readmore - but while i'm here thank you for the massive comment on the fic!!!!! i keep going back and rereading it cause it's just so nice :D

Keep in mind that a lot of this au I came up with on the fly while trapped in my own airport hell (which was genuinely somehow worse than Pentar's here) so forgive me if any of this sucks /silly

enjoy :)

link to mindwash

What was the incident?

Without going too into detail since if I were to write more for the au it would likely cover this, it happens on complete accident. Pentar, E, Jumper, and Minute are a vigilante team in a city that's about a half step from pure anarchy and during a fight or a heist or something Pentar loses control. We've seen E bring Pentar back - but in the wrong circumstances E can also help Pentar focus and amplify his powers. What happens is actually hinted at in the title of the fic. Mindwash, brainwash, whatever you wanna call it, Pentar accidentally controls a lot of people all at once, and it doesn't end well for anyone involved.

What are Jumper's powers?

More explanation on Minute's powers:

This is something I'm still kinda working out fully in my head, but it's definitely something to do with manipulating energy. I know that she can feed energy back into Minute especially to keep his powers lasting longer, kinda similar to E's but less... intimate. I think there's more to it than that but for now! That's what I have.

Another thing I'm still partially figuring out. Minute's abilities are probably the closest to a conventional superhero, with extra strength. He's the strongest fighter of all of them because of that, although Pentar's trained enough to almost match him. The big thing with Minute, is by spending a lot of hus energy, he's able to turn himself invincible for a short period of time. With Jumper's help, he can extend that field to his teammates or keep it up longer.

Why did Jumper have to leave?

Jumper's choice to leave had more to do with her personal feelings on the incident than a flat out she HAD to go situation. All of them were in a lot of danger once it happened with so many people upset by it and their own team struggling to process.

Why are Pentar's powers illegal?

With the vague knowledge of the incident this is somewhat self explanatory. I wouldn't say they're flat out illegal in Pentar's own city, but the misuse of them is certainly immoral and not something the general public is gonna enjoy seeing. Outside of the almost-anarchy city, he's gonna have even less approval if people knew what he was doing.

How do Minute and Jumper's powers interact?

whoops i kinda answered this one already

What led E to leave?

Mostly the knowledge that such a move as mass brainwashing was possible - they were a vigilante team, but no more powerful group was going to let that slide and both Pentar and E knew they were creating a massive target on their backs/were being watched by anyone who could track them down. E mostly left to protect Pentar, which lowkey would probably be the most painful fic to write given their codependency and how well their powers twine them together.

I think that this answers most of the rest of your questions or they're better left to interpretation, so I'll just answer one more!

What would E do if Pentar got hurt on a mission while he was in the other city(such as overspend again)?

This one is fun:) Pentar's actually gotten hurt on several occasions since E left... and he's not been honest to ECorridor about it. E knows and assumes that to be true, but isn't aware of the extent of it or lack thereof. As far as overspending goes, if Pentar were to do that in a fight, it's pretty much a guarunteed loss for Pentar and prime kidnapping or killing time for his enemy. Hopefully that never happens! But if it did E would be flying back to the city as soon as he realized Pentar was potentially in trouble. Surely that would never happen!

[kissmetwicekissmedeadly]

RELIGIOUS THEMES IN NAPOLEON'S ROUTE

(this is napo's main route, not his sequel! I haven't seen the sequel yet and im avoiding spoilers!)

You know, in my first read of napo's route i never picked on the religious themes. Im not a religious person so it's easy for such things to fly over my head, but i think this is interesting: the so called "unspeakable" that they committed in the chapter where mc let him drink her blood in order to save his life - turns out it's not only a metaphor for the taboo behind becoming (and sustaining the life of) something that's inhuman, it's also a direct metaphor for the sin of Adam and Eve. It's Leonardo who made me realize this. This is what he says after he examines the basket of apples and a knife left by Wellington (MC asks him to elaborate as he makes the connection to the forbidden fruit):

Then he goes on about how the person sending the thread sees the residents (including mc) as sinners for tasting from the forbidden fruit and extending their lifespans (in MC's case being an...accomplice, i guess)

Probably that's all there is to it! However im taking a deeper look into this just for the sake of it. MC doesn't seem knowledgeable about Christianity from what we've seen about her, but she's the one who calls what they did, the unspeakable. We have the collective sin of rejecting humanity out of greed, but maybe we also have Napoleon and MC's sin, the sin of two people, just like Adam and Eve. Then the mansion (or just subjectively the time and place they found themselves in) can be their Eden, and they overstayed their welcome (mc saving Napoleon's life in a taboo way and choosing not to time travel back to her timeline)...

As i said im not really knowledgeable on the topic! I would love to hear the opinion of someone who is!

[annabelle--cane]

absolutely no need to disclose which one you voted for, I'm just trying to quickly gauge what kind of lived experience and context people have with this topic

[tokiro07]

Ichi the Witch ch. 3 thoughts

[The Hunt Begins!]

(Contents: narrative establishment - flow; lore - exposition/speculation; philosophy - respect for life)

Go With the Flow

Ah, there we are! If chapters 1 and 2 were meant to establish the setting, themes and dynamics of the cast, then as I noted was missing before, chapter 3 is meant to establish the flow of the series as a whole. Though it seems like it's only a glimpse, having a lot of the legwork happen off-screen, this is clearly what the series is intended to look like going forward - Ichi learning the habits of Magiks, applying his prior experience and knowledge, then finally passing the trial

Since this one was meant to just be a tutorial, and because Ichi doesn't have the capacity for extended magical fights yet, this hunt was practically over before it began, which admittedly makes it not all that exciting as the first "battle" of Ichi's story. However, it does to a great job of establishing just how much of a threat Ichi is to the Magiks

Raiko never really knew that Ichi was there, and all of his planning towards fighting Witches in a grand display of power were thwarted without him ever realizing he'd so much as seen one. He saw what he thought was defenseless prey and the next thing he knew he was dead(?)

Obviously future Magik fights won't be this easy, but it was important that we got at least one in before dragging Ichi to the Witches Association, as otherwise the first three chapters would be almost exclusively exposition with no real action. While this brief hunt may not really capture a lot of people's attention, it will certainly do more to retain that attention than the alternative

Plus, it's not like there wasn't any exposition in this chapter

Breadcrumbs

Ichi the Witch's approach to worldbuilding seems to be answering questions with more questions. Raiko claims that he manifested in "this world," which suggests that Magiks appear fully formed without the need for parents or reproduction, but that begs the question of how. Are they random? Are they in response to some kind of stimulus? Are they born in that moment, or are they born in another world first and then come here?

This method always gives you more information than you had previously, but also gives you something to chew on, kind of like Undead Unluck revealing that stars or the days of the week don't exist. You can take that information at face value, but it's always clear that there's something more going on with it that's rife to be explored, and pondering those questions between chapters is always a great way to keep the audience engaged (at least if that audience is me)

The lifecycle of a Magik is further enlightened/obscured by the fact that Raiko doesn't seem to need to eat; he spent two weeks barbequing every animal he could find, but instead of eating them he just leaves them lying around cus he likes the smell. Do Magiks subsist on mana in the air? The pain wrought by their mischief? Anything? Whether they need to eat at all, at the very least this behavior paints Magiks in clear opposition to Ichi's Death for Death rule

Speaking of, can Magiks even die? Both of the trials we've seen so far have effectively been "take my heart," but at least in Uroro's case he clearly persisted afterwards, and plenty of trials seem to be non-violent (at least towards the Magik, such as holding a flame for an hour or walking through the wind for 1000 miles)

When a Magik is turned into a stone, is that tantamount to their death, even if only temporary until the death of the Witch that holds them? Or is it more like a Pokeball, and they can be summoned or otherwise interacted with at the leisure of the Witch? Desscaras has yet to summon any of hers despite clearly having a myriad of spells, is that because she doesn't like doing so, because Witches as a whole are opposed to it, or because they can't?

Ichi notes that Uroro didn't turn into a stone, but I would argue that he did - it's just that his also had an entire ensemble around it too. The clasp on the cape clearly resembles Uroro's heart gem, which I took to mean that it was the same gem that Ichi had just stabbed in ch.1, with the rest of the outfit literally being Uroro's body cloaking itself around Ichi

Actually, since Ichi is a hunter and therefore inclined to wear the pelts of what he hunts, I wonder if he'll get unique outfits depending on the spells he casts...it is a bit of a shame that he didn't get to butcher Raiko...

Anyway, even if the gem in the outfit is Uroro's magic stone, it is still notably unique in that it has an ornate insignia in it rather than a chant as Raiko's does. Since Uroro grants the ability to amplify other spells, it seems likely that Uroro doesn't actually have a chant of his own (though I'm willing to bet he'll get one later)

I'm also curious if the chants are distinct from the names of the Magiks - I imagine so, since there's nothing stopping Ichi from just saying "Raiko" after hearing it introduce himself, especially considering that he was able to use both Lazud and Parthion without ever facing their Magiks. Presumably the chants are words in the Magik language that describe how their powers work, since again Ichi only needed to say the words themselves rather than the preceding command ("Pierce through all - Lazud" -> "Lazud")

Finally, there's the matter of the spells themselves. With over 3000 confirmed Magiks, there was always bound to be a ton of overlap between them, and Raiko gives us a good idea of how that overlap might look. He explicitly states that he wants to become the greatest of all Lightning Magiks, strongly suggesting that Magiks have categorical types

Dau, the spell to control water, is likely only one of many water-based spells, each having some way of distinguishing themselves from each other. Perhaps one allows the creation of water? Or the destruction of water? Stagnation? Location? Summoning? Integration? Absorption? Theft? Any number of verbs can be applied to any number of nouns, and each one has the potential to be its own unique spell given the framework that we know currently

The way that Raiko uses its lightning, it doesn't seem like lightning strikes in the traditional sense. The bird we see him fry in the beginning seems to just explode into electricity, which is confirmed later to have been targeting its blood to boil it from within. In other words, Raiko's power seems to be something like "the blood electrocution spell," whereas other Lightning Magiks may have things like "the magnetism spell" or "the static discharge spell"

How general or specific the spells are is up in the air right now that we can barely begin to speculate, but that's exactly what makes it so fun at this stage! When Undead Unluck started, I just threw out a bunch of "un" words to see what kind of things I could come up with, and while I guessed a few right and got the general gist of a few others, the final product was still far beyond anything I could have imagined on my own, both in scope and quality

Even if I end up being completely wrong about everything I've said so far in the last several paragraphs, the fact that this series is getting my wheels turning so much so soon is a great sign for how much I'll be able to engage with it going forward

Speaking of being wrong, I do want to note that there was one specific thing I said last week that was pretty much immediately debunked in this chapter

R.E.S.P.E.C.T

Based on Death for Death, I figured that the whole point of Ichi's approach to fighting Magiks was to demonstrate a flaw in the Witches' mentality, that since Uroro objected to how Magik culture was being treated the Witches must be callous and indiscriminate in hunting them

However, it would seem that to Witches, combat with Magiks is a fairly formal affair steeped in tradition, with each encounter being treated as an honorable dual against a worthy adversary. Even if they view them as monsters to be slain, there's a level of dignity that comes with facing them down and proclaiming one's name. It purports that the two are equals, even if diametrically opposed

Ichi, on the other hand, has no respect for tradition or the wants of the Magik. They're little more than glorified beasts, animals that happen to possess the gift of speech, and killing them is simply a matter of course. It's not about honor or glory, it's about survival, a primal need rather than a show of civility

Of course, there's still plenty of room for nuance in this. While the Witches seem to respect the Magiks as monsters to be battled with utmost caution, they also still view them as monsters. To protect civilians, killing Magiks is a Witches duty; it's effectively pest control. If there's a Magik, it's a threat, and it needs to be eliminated

But to Ichi? Magiks are living creatures. If a living creature kills to eat, that's simply what it needs to do, and it can't be held accountable for that. However, what it means to kill and eat is also a living thing, and therefore cannot be held accountable for its need to retaliate. Whoever wins was just more fit for survival, and neither is more morally justified than the other

In other words, when a Witch sees a Magik, they respect its power by dealing with it, but when Ichi sees one, he respects it by leaving it be until it proves itself to be a threat. Neither of them is necessarily wrong, but viewed from a certain angle, they're both flawed approaches, and I think both are going to need to be addressed down the line

Still, we're only on chapter three, so the nuance of these opposing ideas has only barely been touched upon, with minor analysis from the three core members of the cast. Once we start seeing more castmates, such as other Witches, Magiks and civilians, we should start to get a clearer picture of the dichotomy of this world's philosophy. I imagine seeing the teachings of the academy in Mantinel will be a great place to start

Until next time, let's enjoy life!

[necromancers-incorporated]

While we wait for part three of season one: all of my thoughts on Lena Kelley as of tmagp 20 (spoilers, obviously):

At first, it definitely seemed like Lena was going to be set up as the new Elias. There was this whole mysterious creepy boss vibe happening, especially with all of the subtle food things. Her conversation with Gwen in that first episode was very interesting for both of their characters, but if you look at that conversation while ignoring our knowledge of tma, Lena is being very reasonable. At this point (without tma) there's no conformation of horrors in this universe. Lena is literally just a manager, and her employee is practically threatening her. She has obviously got a lot of patience and is being more than reasonable to not give Gwen some kind of disciplinary action, which, in my opinion at least, definitely goes against the creepy evil boss act.

The whole thing with Klaus is very very interesting, for a number of reasons: first; it gives us a whole new depth to Lena. Why did she do it? Did someone make her? How did she fail so horribly at it? What did she stand to gain? There are so many questions here that make us wonder about her past, but she's clearly not close with any of the other characters and so we are left floundering. She's isolated and so is a mystery. We only get information when it is brought up in conversation or through a statement. Because of this, we have very little to go off of. Her isolation is a point I will come to later. The second thing that this whole Klaus situation does is put her in danger. She now has Gwen threatening to expose her, and it is only after this that she agrees to give Gwen the promotion, AFTER stating how dangerous it is, after warning her so many times. I think that Lena is the canary here. She's been down this path, she's seen what it does, and she is (from what we can gather) worse off because of it. What is really striking here is that on a surface level it seems like she's just gatekeeping informed from Gwen, but as we know after the Lady Mowbray incident, Lena has a protective streak. Retrospectively, we can see that, despite how she feels about Gwen, this protectiveness extends at least in part to her as well.

Another thing I find very interesting is that it seems like the only time she's ever shown is when she's in conflict with someone (apart from that one convo with Sam which I'll get to later), which links in nicely with her apparent isolation. She is always at odds with Gwen in one way or another, and if I remember correctly, aside from the Sam conversation, Gwen is always there when Lena is talking. Gwen is also the one that seems to be initiating these arguments. The only one you could say she didn't start was the Mowbray one, as Lena was the one to bring it up, but she was still the root cause. All of this marks Lena as someone who is constantly struggling, and I am very interested in seeing what her overarching battle will be.

Now. Her conversation with Sam. I have seen two interpretations of it so far, and they have been; "Lena is autistic and thinks this is normal" and "Lena is threatening Sam very subtly as a power play". From what we've seen, Lena is not one to threaten without cause. This would be the first instance of totally unprovoked hostility, unless, of course, she knows he knows something. That would be the only explanation for such threats.

Personally, I do headcanon Lena as autistic (there is more but that'll be a seperate post), and maybe it's me being autistic and so unable to read her, but she sounded normal. She sounded like she was just having a conversation. And to be honest, she's not wrong. Maybe it's a little unconventional only speaking to employees when they're in trouble, but I ask you to look at everything we know already:

Lena has had to kill people she's worked with before. She is actively sending out employees into situations where they could very well die. She is likely isolating herself for her own protection. She knows that people will die in this job. It's happened before. It makes total sense for this to be her outlook on the office and her employees. She's protecting them at a distance, subtly, so there's no way for them to know and get closer to her. Everyone is held t an arm's length because otherwise things get complicated. We see similar things happen in tma, like with the WTG cult, and it's common for writers to stick to themes and idea like that. One of the most relevant themes in tma is about loved ones getting hurt because they're too close and/or get in the way. It's very possible that a similar thing is happening here too.

Tldr: Lena Kelley has so much more depth than people give her credit for and I really want her character to be explored more.

[st4rshiptr00per]

look LOOK ok i was joking before but the more i think about it the more real Ms Flood being Iris/an Iris Wildthyme expy is to me like I've fully convinced myself at this point.

like i have SUPPORTING EVIDENCE it MAKES SENSE to me. its not gonna happen but also after that fucking finale i am willing to believe anything...

FIRST of all RTD took so much stuff from the books during his first run, including having River as she is originally written as a Bernice expy (proof he would take characters from extended universe media) and the whole time war coming straight from the eighth doctor adventures (proof he would take inspo from the EDAs). THEREFORE....iris originally being from the EDAs means shes within his purview. so its not impossible and im not TJLCing myself and you cant accuse me of such

point number two -> i think her introductory book (Scarlet Empress) has a lot of thematic resonance with this first season re: all the stuff about stories, narrative, audiences, observation, etc. been a while since i read it so its not as fresh in my mind but theres a Lot going on in that book about stories, and about the form of Doctor Who itself, about it being a cyclical, self-referential thing that endlessly iterates on itself. iris literally retcons herself into the doctors life by telling him about adventures theyve gone on together that he swears never happened, until he finds himself remembering them. the story comes from the POV of an unknown and unseen audience going through her various recordings and writings of the events. reality is created from fiction. reality is made slightly more fictional. the artifice of the Entire Series isnt necessarily addressed, but is sort of gestured at with nodding and eyebrow wiggling. all in all, very fitting, i think.

and as for what we've seen of Flood so far we can certainly check off addressing the audience, being rude in a familial sort of way, boozing it up, knowledge of TARDISes, and swag fur coat outfits. also VERY much of note is her suitcase covered in travel stickers of places the Doctors been, which is again totally in line with how Iris is written in Scarlet Empress, existing in a sort of parallel, not-quite-mutually-exclusive canon where she was the one who did all of the big things the doctors done, while acknowledging that he has also been responsible for the exact same events. and if you really want to get crazy you can take the Prominent Old-Style Double Decker Bus with Suspicious Numbering in that one post-apocalyptic scene in the Devil's Chord.

anyways if anything happens that could even make it look like im a tiny bit right i will become unmanageable.