#who doesn't treat his inability to speak like it's a flaw

[pharawee]

I won't leave you. You're not alone, Name. You have me [...].

» BONUS:

Mom. I feel sorry for Name.

[hikaaa-bi]

one thing that i love about infinity train is how REAL the characters are, despite being in a fantasy setting, and the narrative of how experiences shape individuals. the way they speak and act are so realistic, their choices are understandable and their arcs are so well-written. all of the characters have glaring flaws they need to work on, but it's also clear that these flaws are the results of some kind of trauma or the way they were treated.

tulip was disillusioned with the world, angry and distant. and this is a direct reaction to her parents' divorce and her inability to cope with it. which is sympathetic, of course, it's a hard thing to go through as a child. the show also reveals that tulip blames herself for her parents' divorce, which can hit close to home for many people.

lake was similarly angry and defiant, even outright hostile in certain situations. again, this comes as a response to the way she was treated in the train, the way she was never granted her freedom and individuality, and how she was trapped in a role she didn't want to play. it's no wonder that many queer people identify so much with lake, because the rules of the train mirrors real life.

jesse has people-pleasing tendencies that reach the point where it actually hurts people. we've all seen protagonists who are people pleasers or eager to appear likeable to people, but usually it only hurts themselves. jesse's case is the prime example of "a friend to all is a friend to none". you can't please everyone, there are people you should oppose or ignore. otherwise, you end up hurting people who actually matters in your life.

simon and grace are straight-up villains, or anti-villains at the very best. grace is manipulative and cunning, playing on people's feelings and insecurities to serve herself. simon is controlling and somewhat egotistic, refusing to change his mindset, regardless of what happens. again, both these characters are shown to have reasons for why they became what they are, even if it doesn't justify their actions. grace grew up in an environment where she was neglected and felt lonely, and found out that her only sure way of making any sort of connection is to manipulate people. simon is implied to have dealt with someone's death before he got on the train, since he seems to have an idea of what funerals are like. that, paired with samantha the cat accidentally leaving him behind in a crucial and dangerous situation, he develops some very intense abandonment issues. again, both these issues can be very relatable to a lot of people, even if we aren't as bad as either of these characters.

min-gi was shown to be insecure and uncertain, but at the same time, arrogant and condescending. the pressure he recieved from his parents has fueled his gifted child syndrome while simultaneously making him depressed and burned out. ryan is probably the closest we have to a "conventional main character", hyperactive and quirky. but he is also not exactly perfect in all other aspects, as he wants to push things forward and refuses to give min-gi some time to think and make a decision. as a child who grew up with lots of other siblings, ryan struggles to prove himself to his family, since they don't seem to pay him much attention. both these scenarios are especially relatable to asians, but of course, anyone who may have trouble pleasing their parents and living up to expectations.

i just gave a character analysis of each protagonist, but my point is that while other cartoon protagonists tend to lean more on the heroic side, the characters in this show doesn't. in most other animated shows i've watched, the flaws a protagonist is allowed to have are either "heroic" flaws such as being too forgiving or being self-sacrificing, or shallow flaws such as clumsiness or being kind of an idiot.

but not in infinity train. the protagonists in this show aren't heroes, they are normal people. they don't have a magical destiny, they don't have to fight for the good of the world, they aren't the "chosen ones". their ultimate goal is to get out of the train (or in simon and grace's case, to be superior to everyone else, to "win").

so it really feels good when one of the characters does choose to do something nice. when tulip chooses to empathize with and help amelia, when lake bonds with alan dracula and jesse. when grace chooses to change for the better and face the consequences of her actions. when ryan chooses to stay with min-go despite getting a door, and when min-gi does the same later on.

i watched this show about a year ago, and it's still one of the best animated shows i've watched. it's so uncomfortably real sometimes, you stop and go "am i like that?" when a character does something wrong, you know that the show addresses it and their actions have consequences. the show doesn't hand out redemption arcs to everyone or sweep things under the rug like some shows *cough* steven universe and she-ra *cough*

there's a reason why a lot of people seem to relate more to villains than heroes, because villains are allowed to be flawed while also being sympathetic. infinity train managed to create a cast of protagonists who are exactly like that. they are more than heroes, they are people.

[grislyintentions]

How would you write Kujou Sara?

Meme || Accepting || @tiredstudents

With Kujou Sara, I think there's a lot of potential in developing what we don't see about her.

What other instances in her life shaped the immense unshakable loyalty she has towards the Raiden Shogun, even when she herself had doubts on whether she is doing the right thing by enacting her will with the Vision Hunt Decree?

Are there parallels to be drawn from her blind loyalty to her family and the Shogun with the Raiden Shogun's own inability to be foreward thinking? Yes.

What changes would the aftermath of everything transpiring have upon her? How will she herself have to change in order to faithfully serve by the Electro Archon's side whilst staying true to her own heart and her own conscience?

It is worth noting that she attributes her survival from a near death experience as a young tengu to the Electro Archon. In fact, Kujou Sara also believed that her salvation, as well as subsequent adoption into the Kujou Clan (fortunes in life) were due to her. This, coupled with the fact that there is still a sense of inequality (Takayuki not fully treating her the same way he treats his biological children), ensured that she looked into other avenues for support/acceptance. And the Electro Archon was there for her at her lowest. That's why she has such a strong reverence for her.

With Kujou Sara, I would love to explore her growth. I think she absolutely has the potential to finally realise that speaking her mind on subject matters (to the face of authority) is not always a bad thing, that she CAN be heard, that she doesn't have to follow all orders without questioning them or at least arguing for a better outcome. Her position in the Shogunate was bestowed to her not just for her ability to follow orders after all.

I think she has the potential to become her own person, instead of a 'soldier'. And similarly, she could become one of Ei's closest confidantes. Someone who can eventually see the archon as a person, as a being who is still learning, instead of a being without flaw. That is something I would like to see.

[lunar-lattice]

the likeliness of me ever revisiting Solaris Caelum at this point is low (for multiple reasons, the big reason ill mention in a sec but others include its length, the amount of work that would need to be put into it, the fact i need to rewatch the shows and rebuilds first and just my inability to stay focused)

but if i DID revisit it, it would get a "Rebuilt" version for the following reasons:

asuka and kaworu are a lil too chummy too fast so there'd be more conflict there initially; in a sense, this conflict would be the first hurdle for asuka to get over

asuka acclimates to the 'loop situation' too fast, in a rewrite this part is preserved as her outward feelings whereas her internal ones are more complex

asuka gets over her anger towards shinji too quickly, i feel part of her and kaworu's initial conflict would include this; kaworu understands this is a Different Shinji from the one who hurt her and doesn't understand why she doesn't whereas asuka is still too freshly hurt to get that

related to the above, just more development of the relationship of asuka and shinji. there'd be a subplot in which shinji perceives asuka's treatment of him as a rejection of his feelings (which would also be portrayed as just as messy as in the show; he has feelings for a lotta characters even though kaworu is endgame here)

just more development to all relationships! and more downtime for the plot to simmer

i remember i stripped out some of the more skeevy elements of misato's relationship with shinji which i DONT regret. but i think i'd change it a tad bit to imply in a reveal that she feels she cant entirely connect with him because she's an adult and he's a child (with the implication that the way misato connects with ppl is flawed and largely through sexual encounters; so this misato recognizes this way isn't appropriate for her and shinji's relationship but instead of finding a different way, just treats it as an impossible-to-cross barrier) this though might be a tricky line to walk so it'd be smth i see how it works in practice before publishing

just rewritten dialogue, it follows the show too closely and while this was in service of a theme, i feel it comes off as too clunky in practice

more development to the SEELE subplot (can it be called that? it was very small). just answer why SEELE saw fit to get kaworu on the chessboard early and how he feels abt this

speaking of kaworu: i'd like to make it so he's rather blase of a lot of things; this isn't him being completely cynical, he's just gone through the song and dance so much he has little reason to believe asuka's inclusion will change things (if anything he mourns that he might have trapped her with him accidentally but i do remember that from the og)

[helenekuragina]

much to be said about the young women in war and peace who show an active desire to be in society (natasha, hélène, lise, and julie) and how the men of the novel and, by extension, tolstoy, value their worth. in all cases the fate of each woman is determined exactly by how entrenched she is in society. andrei loved lise until she "joined society" and then he abandons her and rips her away from what made her happy. julie abandons her only true friend, marya, and ends up in a marriage where everyone can tell her husband doesn't love her except for herself. we don't even need to talk about the fate tolstoy thought hélène deserved. all of natasha's hardships happen as a result of her being enticed by that life, but she's spared once she retreats back into the safety of family and tradition

it's not some sort of groundbreaking statement to point out tolstoy's opinion of russian high society nor his opinion of women, really, but it's just interesting to look this idea of how the women are treated narratively in that regard. the madonna/whore complex is so rampant in this book, it's insane.

some examples,

volume i, part one, vi.

and then, in volume ii, part one, ix.

it's devastating. lise truly never did anything to hurt anyone and narratively she's punished solely for the fact that andrei doesn't like her anymore. she becomes just a fridged woman for andrei to mourn and compare natasha to when she stumbles into society

volume ii, part five, ii.

there's an uncomfortable read to how this shows the perceived difference between julie, someone who allows herself to enjoy society, and marya, someone who hates moscow and is therefore seen as superior to julie. julie appears relatively little, but in each circumstance it's to highlight a "wrong" sort of woman compared to a "right" sort, even in the beginning when sonya sees her with nikolai

and speaking of sonya, let's get into the absolute blatant mess of dolokhov's stance on women and their morals 🧍‍♀️

from the original version, part three, xxiv.

this is right before his proposal to sonya. sonya, who is someone far outside society at this point (and is also, notably, a child...), especially in comparison to hélène, who he blames her inability to love him on her "impurity." tolstoy didn't hold back with dolokhov and his clear-cut madonna/whore complex. there are the madonnas, the women in his family and a young girl who has never been around anyone but her family, and every other woman is a whore

(this excerpt also leads into a lot of my thoughts about the dynamic between hélène and dolokhov and my conspiracy theory that their "Affair" was nowhere near what it was made out to be, but that's a post for another day)

this all brings us to natasha

volume ii, part five, xix.

pierre's opinion of women, like tolstoy's, deals in extremes. the second natasha is no longer an innocent child, she's a "vile woman," just like how he views hélène

i think i'll end by airing out some frustration about how fans of the men of war and peace excuse these ideologies rather than denouncing them? i'd rather see a fan of them talk about their complicated feelings about women rather than go "haha its because he likes boys" because as real as that is, that feels like the weirdest copout in the face of just ....... misogyny. like i think they're gay too but that's not an excuse to ignore their women hating LMAO it just seems like it would be more interesting to dissect that and make for a good character study

that's a lot of the fun in being a fan of this book today, the opportunity to give life and analyze a character in a way that the author never would have. we can look at his flaws and make something better out of them! death of the author babey it's our city now!!! anyways these women deserve so much better, but that comes at absolutely no surprise

[aithusar]

hiii sorry if you've answered this before but I just finished Longing of the Soul and would love to know what you had planned for the next chapters if you want to share... i took the afternoon off after some stressful news and have just been reading everything youve written and its exactly what I needed, ive been crying but in a nice way :') youre now one of my fav merlin authors for real

I am so sorry you've had bad news! I'm really glad that my fics could help in some small way and hope whatever has happened is able to resolve itself. I'm batting for you, anon <3

You know, you're actually the first person who's wanted to know what my plan for that story was. Unfortunately I didn't have any notes and my memory is a little fuzzier than it was, and I also didn't have a plan for the ending (which was a major factor in why I abandoned it) so I can't offer closure there, but the ideas I had left are below the cut. It's really long despite not having a conclusion, sorry!

It was going to be a couple more chapters before Merlin and Arthur finally saw each other again. Arthur grew much more isolated in this period because the knights and Gwen are both seeing and speaking to Merlin now, and despite Merlin always blaming himself and not Arthur, they can tell Arthur's done something. Arthur can't explain himself because that would mean revealing Merlin's magic. So he gets really lonely.

Arthur doesn't have anything against Merlin's magic, it's more inaction and inability to make decisions because of the grief of betrayal and how momentous the shock is. He's just... not really thinking about how magic is illegal at the moment and what that means for Merlin, and what it has meant for Merlin all these years. He's dealing with too much emotionally for him to devote the mental time and space to thinking about how it's affecting/is affecting Merlin (and yes, this is a bit selfish but was part of his character flaws).

Then. THEN. It's been 30 years since magic was eradicated in Camelot and the Council asks Arthur for a feast to celebrate the purge and the destruction of magic. He tries to shut it down but politically it's complicated what with Morgana waging a magical war against them and I was going to work out a few issues with some of the lords that would make it hard for him to say no outright. So he has to let something small happen, and he kinda tries to make it more about peace and ending deaths than magic, but he feels absolutely sick because it makes him really think for the first time about how Merlin has had to hide and fear for his life and could have been burnt at the stake. Mordred notices Arthur trying to shut them down.

So here Arthur is a couple of weeks later, lonely, miserable, and everyone around him is merrily celebrating the brutal and merciless slaughter of sorcerers... sorcerers just like Merlin. Arthur's still not thinking in broader terms about how the ban has been wrong and all of its consequences; he's just thinking about Merlin, can't think about anything else. How he could have died. How many times he was probably nearly discovered. Arthur gets fantastically drunk. Back in his chambers later that night, George of course tries to get Arthur ready for bed and Arthur's so upset and so angry that he's not Merlin because he misses Merlin, and he's not there because Arthur sent him away because he lied about everything. Idk if many people noticed but George in the show actually wears really similar clothes to Merlin (including a scarf) but much more neatly. And anyway, Arthur actually gets a bit violent and yells at George and tries to take the scarf off. Gwen hears shouting and puts a stop to it, sends George away with an apology and then gives Arthur a piece of her mind. I don't recall exactly what was going to be said, but she was icy and furious, and it escalated to her yelling at him for the way he's treated her (including some hints Arthur will pick up on later when he's sober that Gwen's not okay), and for the way he's treated Merlin. At some point in the conversation Arthur finds out Gwen's been seeing Merlin and then that's all he can think about, asking her how is he. She doesn't really answer him except like "how do you think, given what you've done to him". I wish I remembered how I was going to end that scene, but that thing about Merlin was the pivotal point because Arthur's drunk and sad and he wants to see Merlin, and he knows that he's around the castle.

What's Merlin been up to in the meantime? He's very busy, actually. Seeing Gwaine, occasionally speaking to Mordred (they're not friends, but he'll humour Mordred if approached), going out with Gwen. He's up on a watchtower one night having a few drinks with Gwaine, who, for the first time, presses him about what happened with Arthur. After weeks of stewing in it more or less by himself and constant suspense of what Arthur's going to do with him he's tired of it all. And despite all his friends, he's also sad and lonely. He ends up telling Gwaine he has magic, and Gwaine accepts him of course and says Arthur's a fool, but it doesn't make Merlin happy. Leaves him a bit less weighed down, but the only person he really wants that reaction from is Arthur. And he betrayed Arthur by lying, and he's still hiding the dragonlord stuff from him. My recollection of Merlin's thought process from here is fuzzy, but that basically got Merlin onto thinking about Aithusa (which is why I had Merlin go to the dragon's cave and make that iron dragon) and how he failed her, and maybe he ruined his destiny but he can still try and help Aithusa.

So Merlin reads all the books on dragons and dragonlords and their magic and everything and anything that seems remotely useful. He just leaves the books out everywhere in his chambers because he's finally feeling passionate about something and is trying to ride that wave. In the end he sort of innovates this idea himself that although his magic doesn't work on dragons, he can command them in the dragon tongue, so if he commands Aithusa to obey his magic that might work. He brushes up on his dragon anatomy, because he has to work out how to spell Aithusa right again. And he sets out to the forest and calls her, and she comes, and he sings to her, for hours, in a blend of the old religion and dragon tongue, chanting over and over to convince her flesh to change itself. He can only work on really specific parts at a time and by dawn he's only managed to reduce her brow ridge or make her skull less broad or something really small like that, but he's done it. He can make her better. He comes back to the castle feeling more purposeful and happier than he has in months, since even before he told Arthur about his magic, and he goes into his room and... Arthur's there. Looking at all of his magic books.

Although I've just spoken at length about Merlin's POV I had no plans to write any of that in Merlin's POV, or maybe one chapter with Gwaine but nothing about Aithusa and studying. It's just important to me that I always know what all my characters are up to and how and why they are thinking/feeling something at any given time because it's a crucial part of how I shape their actions and dialogue, and an enormous factor in creating the story itself. They're all protagonists in their own lives.

So, Arthur, day after the feast, while Arthur and the reader are oblivious to Merlin's vivacious social life, his rediscovered passion for dragons and Aithusa, and Gwaine knowing about his magic. He crawls up to Gaius' chambers, checks Gaius is out, and plants himself in Merlin's room to wait for him because he has to speak to him. He doesn't know what he's going to say, he's just so lonely that he's drowning in it, and also miserable that Merlin could have died, but also a bit sick at how long and how easily Merlin lied to him for. And he walks in there and there's Merlin's magic books. Everywhere. On the desk, on the floor, on the bed, in the cupboard. Bestiaries and healing manuscripts and an ancient tome with Gaius' handwriting in it, and Merlin's annotations around the edges of the spells too, and dozens of books about dragons, and even a book on necromancy (from the Lancelot shade episode). And it sort of hits him that Merlin had this entire life he didn't know about, not just that he had magic and could have been caught, but that there was this entire world there and how much of his time and life Merlin dedicated to it.

Enter Merlin. Arthur says something about all the books and how he could be caught, and Merlin's like well, if anyone sees them, what are they going to do? Tell the king? Arthur, being Arthur, doesn't take that well, because he hasn't thought about the fact that it's his fault that Merlin has to fear prosecution, and has been for the past like three/four years. (Arthur's generally really slow to connect the dots on anything that requires emotional intelligence in this fic). He's the one putting Merlin in a position where he could be killed, and he says something along the lines of how he wouldn't hurt him.

I really wish I remember how the conversation reached the important moment because I had like this whole plan with a bunch of dialogue in my head and I know it took longer to get here, but Merlin gets angry about the imbalance that's always been there where Arthur wants to be friends but is happy to use his powers as king to interfere with their relationship when it suits him. (If you're wondering how this makes sense with Arthur having referred to using his power to help Merlin, it doesn't. Like I said this used to be longer, and it had a logical sequence. There was something about Arthur saying that Merlin was his friend and he wouldn't do that to him which kind of got this started, because Merlin's like you don't treat me like a friend because friends can't usually just order the other one to leave when they don't want to see them, referring to coming back from the cauldron. idk). Arthur tries to interrupt and defend himself, and Merlin uses magic to take away his voice for a few seconds and asks how it feels when your friend uses unimaginable power to stop you from speaking when they don't want to listen. He immediately returns Arthur's voice who's sort of in shock because he hasn't seen Merlin use magic since the cauldron, and also he'd never feared Merlin at all since the discovery and he's only just considering what it would have meant if Merlin had ever turned his magic against him, and how easily he could have hurt Arthur, and he never did. Arthur asks him why he did it, all these years, why he protected Arthur.

Merlin's quiet for a moment, and Arthur asks if it's because Merlin's in love with him. Merlin's a bit startled and ashamed and says no, that came years later. He did it because of who Arthur was, but also because it was his destiny, but destiny is all messed up now. Arthur can smell that he's getting close to some explanations for the first time in weeks since Merlin revealed everything and asks Merlin what he means about destiny, and Merlin is exhausted by the reminder of how much Arthur still doesn't know and he's kept secret, and they sit and have a very long discussion about Merlin's magic and life in Camelot.

I'm sorry to say that's as far as I had gotten. Merlin and Arthur's relationship was going to continue to dip back and forth a bit, with the reveal about the dragonlord thing being a bit of a setback, then about healing Aithusa, but that conversation in Merlin's chamber was a turning point for them and they were on an upwards trajectory. Arthur wanted to understand, and the more he learnt about Merlin and everything he'd done the more he sympathised with and was humbled by Merlin, and the transparency between them and amount of time they spent together made Arthur come more to terms with his feelings for Merlin.

What I was absolutely clueless on was how to fill in Gwen's arc, and the entire thing kind of crumbles without that. I had a vague idea that maybe she could strike out and find Morgana - I put in something about her being happiest as Morgana's maid in the last chapter I wrote, I think - and that would prevent the war, because having a friend would help Morgana heal. But Morgana was insane by then, and had literally tortured Gwen. That idea would perpetuate a lot of dangerous and hurtful stereotypes around the portrayal (or lack thereof) of black people's trauma, and how their own stories are pushed aside to service other people's. Sending Gwen, of her own volition, to be with and heal a woman who has tortured her and repeatedly tried to kill her? No. I wanted to fix the mistakes the show made with her trauma, not exacerbate them. Even without doing that to her it felt like I would have to end up making her step aside too happily for the sake of a gay relationship, which is misogynistic because that's treating my female characters like they're just things in the way of letting my male characters do what I want. Like Gwen doesn't have a right to be too hurt by her husband emotionally cheating on her because it's gay rep. And it wasn't my plan to write a polyamorous relationship either. Maybe I shouldn't have written it as a merthur story, but it was far too late for that. Besides, I still wouldn't know how to handle Morgana and prevent the battle of Camlann. Something with Mordred, but what?

I hope that's helped a bit, both in regards to finding out more and also, if not being able to find out the ending, at least understanding the directions my thoughts were circling in and where they got stuck. I'm extraordinarily flattered by your opinion of my fics, and that you cared enough to want to know more - thank you so so much - and very happy they could bring you some form of comfort. Best of luck anon with the news that you received. Sending you love and good wishes <3