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courfeyracs-swordcane · 4 months

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Who are the ballad brothers I have seen you tag them on a variety of posts and I am intrigued

THREE MONTHS LATE BUT HERE WE GO!!! I also did a post about this ages ago which I’ll link HERE but! There’s been a lot of development since then!!!

This is going to get long. Sorry in advance. (Also I’m keeping it to just the Ballad Brothers themselves (and co) but lmk if you also want to know about the saints! They’re not at all relevant to the main plot (two and a half exceptions) but they live rent free in my head)

TLDR. Little guys took up residence in my head when I listened to music in the car and it’s become a whole scifantasy worldbuilding exercise.

Anyway!

KYRIE ALEIDIS BALLAD

- she/her

- 29 years old

- 5’11 (and a half)

- Massive Fucking Tech Sword

- Enneagram 8w7 if you’re an enneagram guy

- she is YOUNG she’s FANTASTIC she’s GOD’S FAVORITE and she’s NEVER GOING TO DIE

- The main character!

- She is the city (symbolic) and her name is god

- Former sword-for-hire/star player/golden girl/mascot/diversity hire (whatever you want to call it) for evil organization(tm) Rekah’s Finest

- (named after St Rekah of the Guard)(think somewhere between the CIA and the Pinkertons)(National guard type of thing that staged a very quiet coup/government takeover about a decade before Kyrie was born and is gradually got to the point where they’re running the city-state where this all takes place as a police state)

- current renegade and aspiring vigilante

- she fucked off the minute she turned 18 to join the metaphorical army/become a cop (same difference)(except there’s also regular cops and they kind of suck shit) and very quickly became very good at it!

- wound up as essentially the Special Little Guy they have as the face of the organization doing a lot of like. Public outreach and shit. Also doing a lot of assassinations inside and outside of the city

- A few years before the story starts she Realized Some Things about how her and Alonzo were orphaned and quit her job EXTREMELY publicly and extremely dramatically and left with nothing but her Massive Fucking Tech Sword and the clothes on her back and fucked off to go hide/live in a massive tower monument at the center of town

- It’s… legally difficult to get her out of there due to the historical site preservation regulations so she’s just been kind of vibing there ever since

- Theoretically. She’s trying to take down the RF and get them Out Of Her Damn City

- In practice she’s one singular burnout and has no idea how the hell to go about doing that so she’s mostly just hanging out in the tower and evading arrest

- She’s a fuck boy dirt bag piece of shit (etc etc etc) and I love her for it

- She gets no bitches despite being a local celebrity with one of The Fanbases Ever (she would do numbers on scifantasy Twitter) bc She’s So Sucks <3

- (no bitches except she does have a weird homoerotic thing going w her roommate/childhood best friend who’s kind of a reincarnation of St Ely who built the city and lives in the tower)(she’s not looking at it)(she’s got bigger problems called Avoiding Confronting Any Emotion bc if she looks at any of them she’ll have to process all of the Guilt she has irt. Pretty much abandoning her baby brother on the streets to go be a hero and then Never Contacting Him Again)

ALONZO BALLAD

- he/him

- 25

- 5’4

- two regular guns

- Kyrie’s aforementioned baby brother!

- Enneagram 3w4 which if you were friends w me 2019-2021 you’ll know exactly how much that says everything you need to know about this guy (derogatory)

- Most repressed mfer on the planet and a neurotic little freak

- Considers himself to be the only guy in this found family with a braincell. (Untrue, even if you don’t count An)

- His first instinct in a lot of situations is Improv Theater. (Seeing his sister for the first time in more than ten years? Better wear a hood and prepare a whole dramatic reveal about it. Ran into the guy he kissed at the office holiday party while trying to get his expense account wrangled for an upcoming assignment? Time to launch into an extended bit about how he’s so sad and poor and he’s gonna starve and freeze to death all alone on the street and Only They have the power to help him. please.)(they think it’s hilarious but jfc what’s wrong with him)

- The main issue with him is that he gets his apartment and all of his necessities directly from his employer, so his first priority at all times is Preserve His Job At All Costs

- He thinks of the way he lives as self care. I think of it as masochism.

- His main idea of a Life Plan from the ages of 15-his early 20s was Look At What His Older Sister Did And Then Do It Too

- (his main idea of a life plan from the ages of 3-20 was Don’t Get In Trouble Ever or They Will Come And Kill You To Death)(these are not especially compatible philosophies.)

- So he’s a sword-for-hire (gun for hire. And not even a fancy tech one. They’re not trusting any more Ballad brothers with any more expensive technology.)

- This is not working out well for him. he’s not overwhelmingly good at the job. He doesn’t find any purpose in killing people. He doesn’t even like blood.

- He is, however, very good at following orders. But only when he wants to.

- He’s also very good at Lying To His Boss’s Boss

- They keep sending him to try and assassinate Kyrie as like. Kind of a power move? Trying to show her that they’ve got her only family at their beck and call and they can make him do whatever they want

- Unfortunately Alonzo has no interest in killing her so those missions pretty much just wind up with him going to hang out in the tower and shoot shit for a couple days and then going back and turning on the big sad wet eyes for his report to tell them that he did his best he really did but she’s always been stronger and he just couldn’t take her— but he’ll do better next time he promises 🥺🥺🥺

- Kyrie had been their best guy for several years and Alonzo is, in all other regards, the perfect employee (turns in all his paperwork ahead of time, does every other mission very efficiently and never gets caught, goes to all the company mixers even though everyone can tell he’s exhausted, always has his uniform meticulously clean and pressed) so this is plausible, and they go “aww okay better luck next time :) go get some rest :)”

- Also he’s lowkey a hostage here. What are they gonna do? Fire him? No they need him for leverage

- It drives his immediate supervisor who knows EXACTLY what’s going on up the fucking wall. We will get to them.

- Gets Fucking Shot With A Cheater Bullet (very small timed action grenade) on an assignment midway through the story and his first instinct (instead of going back to the office where they have like. Actual doctors and medical equipment to deal with that) is to head to St Ely’s tower, where they have his sister and his kind of boyfriend and also his sister’s roommate who can sew and his childhood buddy Jonesie down the street who knows first aid

- He’s not thinking especially straight due to the Panic and also the Blood Loss from the Bullet In His Ribcage and he’s got a whole emotional thing about how he wants to die at home w his people— and then it goes off and he Fucking Dies. Whoops!

- He gets better his boyfriend (for real now lmao) is an aspiring necromancer and God’s Pet Freak (there’s a lot. Behind that. more later) and he very pointedly doesn’t believe in magic or saints or anything but also his chest cavity did very much get exploded and he’s fine now (besides the lingering Effects) so like.

- He deals with this by 1. Contacting his supervisor who lets the higher ups know there’s been An Incident. 2. Going back to work as soon as they’ll let him (like three days later). and 3. Getting himself transferred to the security division and becoming Ari’s dad’s bodyguard so he doesn’t have an excuse to go hang out at the tower anymore and he doesn’t have to look at any of those emotions he can just Focus on his Work <3

- Obviously that does not go well for him.

SENECA “ARI” FINCH

- they/them/any

- 25

- 5’2

- Enneagram 5w6

- Mad scientist

- Nepo baby

- Front desk intern for the RF financial department

- Aspiring necromancer

- God’s Pet Freak

- If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you raise a child in one of those beige instagrammable influencer houses. It’s this.

- Their dad is the puppet city governor for the RF (Kyrie wants him dead so goddamn bad)(he’s kind of a useless twink but he’s an easy guy to blame for all this shit)

- Their mom died when they were like 8 of something pretty regular and they have since dedicated pretty much their entire life to Bringing Her Back

- (No they were not especially close or anything why do you ask?)

- TECHNICALLY their dad, knowing their passion for Science (and not much else about them) got them a cushy RF job developing biotech to make the cool individualized tech weapons

- In practice, they got their funding and their fancy work lab and immediately proceeded to squirrel just about everything useful from it downstairs to their own personal lab in the basement (not on the floor plan) where they don’t have to worry about things like “supervision” “safety regulations” “proper ventilation” “their job” etc

- They are still doing their job but they’re getting it done in like. Two days out of the month and spending literally all the rest of their time on the necromancy

- It’s gotten to the point where they’re not even clocking in upstairs anymore so they made them take a couple shifts a week at the front desk of the financial department just so they have something on record to pay them for

- They’re okay with this! it’s fun to switch it up and there’s snacks in the breakroom

- I cannot emphasize enough how much they Do Not Leave the horrifying unventilated unethical science basement. there’s a couch in the corner and a sink and an employee bathroom in the stairwell what more could they need.

- One of the early plotlines is centered around Getting Them To Go Outside (really outside, not just to the regular parts of the RF building) and like. Idk. Maybe seeing a leaf or smth would be good for them)

- where they also wind up meeting and hanging out w Kyrie and El, doing some upkeep on Kyrie’s fancy sword, and being Absolutely Fascinated by St Ely’s Tower (there’s some generally buried Magic Shit that perks up when them and El are in the room together)

- BECAUSE!!! (And this is why they haven’t succumbed to the Fumes in the horrifying unventilated unethical science basement, or the gas leak in there from the pipe main running through the middle of it that they’ve been siphoning off of, or any of the experiments they do on themself bc they can’t get any other test subjects and also bc they wouldn’t trust anyone else’s testimony as to What It’s Like) the magic, which is how Ely built the city (and how all of the other saints Did Their Things as well but that’s a whole other can of worms) is a vapor that lives underground and speaks no human language but saw this little freak trying to defy the laws of nature from their hole in the ground and took a liking to them

- It can’t bring their mom back bc she’s been dead for fifteen years and it never met her so it wouldn’t even know where to start

- But it likes them! It follows them around and keeps them alive and helps with their experiments :)

- (they remind it of Saint Ely, who was a similarly tiny passionate freak, but that’s also a whole other can of worms)

- Ari is not aware of this in the slightest.

- Their second arc is getting Disappeared from legal existence (very easy. They live in a basement and barely ever leave it and don’t really talk to people), realizing that they are in fact mortal and could potentially die someday, and trying to contact their dad to make sure he knows they’re okay. (Doesn’t work. They’ve been disappeared and are no longer allowed past the front desk.)

- Their third arc (during the communal breakdown era. Kyrie’s abandoned by god arc where she decides to run away from her problems in a literal sense and Alonzo’s evil arc where stops speaking to everybody and dives headfirst into his job at the war crimes factory) is deciding that the same thing happened to their mom and the necromancy isn’t working because she’s NOT actually dead which means she’s out there somewhere and they can find her! :)

- That is not even a little bit true. :(

EL (no last name)

- he/him (woman)

- Doesn’t really have an age. They don’t really exist in time in the usual sense

- 5’0

- Enneagram 9w1

- Lives in the tower

- Just kind of showed up there one day as a kid and has been living there ever since

- There’s a nearby convent of some kind that fed and clothed them growing up (same place that looked after Kyrie and Alonzo after they were orphaned)

- Kind of a reincarnation of Saint Ely. not in so many steps bc again. Out of time and who knows how long he’s been there but like. He’s back for more but he’s a lady with an ounce of common sense this time. It’s unclear how much he’s aware of this part of it. He knows the tower is important, and he knows restoring the murals inside of it is important. I don’t think he knows why.

- only guy in this found family who’s even remotely capable of coping with the idea of death (he already did that)(kind of psychopomp coded about it)

- Kyrie’s best friend and second in command so much as she has a command. Weird homoerotic gay thing going on there. I assume there’s some of the traditional St Ely brand of devotion but like

- (And by traditional I mean I don’t think that’s a widely known thing about Ely the Saint but it is one of the more prominent things about Ely the Guy)

- Spends most of his time restoring the tower and the murals inside that nobody has seen in years

- (That’s a whole thing)(different can of worms)

- This is @nosongunsung11’s guy so I’ll tap them in for the details but I think that’s the basics!!

AN “PUNK” JANG

- they/them (lesbian)(in gender moreso than practice)

- 35 but they’re lying about it. actually 33

- 5’5

- Enneagram 1w2 😬

- Twin fancy tech rapiers

- The previous Special Little Guy/Mascot/face of the RF

- Ran away from home, changed their name, and lied about their age to join up when they were 16 and they’ve just kind of been going off that ever since

- Went by Punk for a while towards the beginning of their career bc they were 16/17 and it Sounded Cool and it would up becoming almost like their callsign (that’s what Alonzo calls them bc he was very much an enjoyer when he was a kid. They were like Spider-Man to him. Blorbo from the news.)(and he continues to call them that bc he’s a little shit.)

- (They wound up naming themselves after Saint Anjane of Strength not because they believe in any saints but because they desperately wish they did and this way at least they can pretend they know what it might feel like to have that kind of faith.)(in a fun and funky coincidence, they’re actually very very similar to Saint Anjane herself. El has some Complicated Emotions about this.)(long story. It’s Saint Ely’s Monument but it’s also the closest thing he has to a grave— he pulled it out of the ground so he could be alone w/ Anje’s body after he got to her execution too late to talk her out of it)

- Got shunted when Kyrie showed up and was infinitely more personable due to her heroics in SciFantasy 9/11 (long story. Building exploded.) and general bright-eyed and bushy tailed unjaded Disposition

- And by shunted I mean promoted to middle management in the Murder Department

- They’re fine with this it’s significantly less work on their end

- They do make sure after that to have everything they need for basic living separated from the job though

- Only guy in this found family with their own actual apartment. And basic cooking skills. And healthy sleep schedule.

- When Alonzo gets into the Murder Department they wind up as his immediate supervisor!

- Exciting prospect at first! He’s a high profile assignment (hostage) and also an easy assignment (does all of his paperwork on time, completes his missions Quietly and Efficiently, doesn’t really do anything interesting at all)

- Less exciting prospect once they actually work with him. He’s a little shit and a motherfucker and he knows exactly what he’s doing

- They can’t stop covering for him at this point without doing a hell of a lot of paperwork and jeopardizing their own job so they’re stuck now

- Also. unfortunately. they got attached. They’re not the step-older sibling, they’re the older sibling who stepped up.

- They’re the one who arrests Kyrie at the beginning of the story and kick off the whole first half of the plot, but they also wind up putting in their two weeks after Alonzo Gets Fucking Killed and then immediately goes back to work

- They do it significantly better than Kyrie tho they keep their apartment and their bank account and return most of their uniforms so the rf doesn’t have any reason to come after them besides Aiding and Abetting (and also trespassing. On the protected historical site that is St Ely’s monument. But that’s the least of anyone’s worries here.)

- They wind up kind of taking charge of the. whatever the hell these guys are doing. during the Communal Breakdowns arc. they would really prefer not to be doing this but somebody has to. So.

- Also during that arc they wind up facing off with Alonzo and boy howdy is there a reason they got assigned as the rf’s Special Little Guy and he didn’t, bc he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell even with them holding back

AND THAT’S THE MAIN CAST! Thank you for coming to my ted talk! (Get it?) I’ve hit the image limit on mobile so I’ll come back and add the before/after pictures in a reblog bc I had fun making those

#THANK YOU FOR THE ASK BLUEBERRY I AM SO SORRY IT TOOK ME SO LONG #ballad brothers #please disregard the world’s Shittiest Low Effort Backgrounds on the art I slapped them together in like ten seconds #Kyrie ballad brothers #Alonzo ballad brothers #Ari ballad brothers #El ballad brothers #An ballad brothers

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genderbinaryisforlosers · 8 months

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in honour of posting chapter 4 of Stars Maligned, please enjoy this AITA post i wrote in-character for the events of the au

AITA: I told my friend he should pursue what makes him happy rather than what's expected of him?

I (3900, A) recently had a conversation with a friend of mine (4200, M) who we will call Robin. Robin is a very selfless person and it's caused him some problems in the past with giving up things he wants for other people. The main thing is he was pressured into marrying someone (we'll call her Sparrow, 3400, F) by his family. The first time I saw him after the wedding (quite a while after, the craziness with the borders recently means we didn't have a chance to meet up sooner) he seemed miserable and I was really worried about him, so when we had a private moment I told him what was on my mind. I don't see the point in staying in a marriage that makes you unhappy with someone that doesn't care about you and family's approval is not the be-all end-all, especially with how they treat him. I and several other friends have made it clear in the past that we would happily support him if he ever needed to cut them off, but he doesn't even seem willing to consider that it might be for the best.

Anyway, after I expressed my thoughts he challenged me to a duel? He said I'd wounded the honour of both himself and his wife and that if I didn't apologise he would have no choice but to engage me in combat. This seemed totally unfair to me but I really didn't want to fight him over this so I wrote an apology letter - I really put effort in, like I said I did not want to fight - but it seems like he was really set on duelling me because later that day he sent our mutual friend Raven (2700, M/A) to issue the challenge. AITA?

EDIT: You all seem to be being obtuse on purpose. I waited until we were alone to say my piece to Robin, I obviously would never say in front of his wife that he didn't love her, I don't know why you are all fixating on that.

EDIT 2: Alright yes at one point I had feelings for Robin and it didn't work out but I don't see how that's relevant. There are more reasons than infatuation to step in with someone’s love life. His family only rushed him into marriage so quickly because there was supposed to be another wedding that was called off. And since I played some small role in that (long story) I suppose felt I owed it to him in some way.

[comment: truestpinkpeony (OP)]: Okay, answering some questions since apparently you're all incapable of working from "limited information" (I told you a lot but okay).

1. No, I am not the same user who posted "WIBTA if I objected at my friend's wedding (I am the best man)?" I was not the best man. Not even a man.

2. Sparrow seems like a perfectly nice person but she and Robin have nothing in common. She also didn't choose to marry him, there was pressure from her family as well. A lot of you have assumed that I have it out for her or want her out of the picture because I'm in love with Robin (I'm not, we had feelings for each other but that's behind us) and that's not true. I'm sure there are also things she could be doing that would make her happier, I just don't know her and would obviously not comment on the life choices of someone I don't even know.

3. If I didn't apologise after the initial challenge, obviously YTA, that is not what I'm asking. I did apologise and Robin still challenged me to a duel, that is what this post is about.

4. The cancelled engagement was neither his nor mine, and I was not in love with either of the fiancées. Again, people seemed determined to read this in the worst faith way possible. Maybe the parties in question were better off not marrying each other, regardless of how hurt or petty they felt in the immediate aftermath?

5. To the person who asked if there's a history of duelling in our friendgroup, not exactly? But before Robin got engaged there was an incident where my friend (henceforth known as Cardinal, 3100, F) challenged Robin to a duel which then became a duel between Robin and Raven? IDK it's complicated but it all worked out. EDIT: That duel was nothing to do with this duel or Robin's marriage so it's not relevant. Stop asking to hear more about it.

[comment: bilberry_pie_x]: The first duel was over an aborted love confession from OP to Robin.

[comment: truestpinkpeony (OP)]: WTH. Take this comment down and DM me!

[comment: truestpinkpeony (OP)]: Since you will not stop asking about the cancelled engagement, one half of the couple in question is now happily married to somebody else and the other half passed away.

EDIT: NO I DID NOT KILL HIM. I was not even in the room yet.

EDIT 2: I will not be answering any more questions about this.

What are these acronyms?

WIBTA if I poisoned my best friend's crush because he (crush) challenged them (friend) to a duel.

All relevant information contained in title.

[comment: surf_n_turf]: We know that's you Cardinal lol.

#stars maligned #acofaf #a court of fey and flowers #dimension 20 #ruehob #delloso de la rue #kp hob #my writing #things i made

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eelfuneral · 1 year

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After dealing with my emotions surrounding the season finale and looking at the situation from an objective point of view, I have a very strong suspicion that we have not seen the last of Tech. From both a marketing and storytelling standpoint, it makes the most sense to have this be a misdirection. This post runs a bit long, so I am going to elaborate under the cut.

First off, let’s talk marketing. Star Wars is a huge, merchandise-driven franchise, and The Bad Batch is an extremely successful part of it. It is so successful, in fact, that it remained relevant and popular while the Mandalorian, an absolute juggernaut of a show, was airing! I have also heard, anecdotally, that Disneyland has a hard time keeping Bad Batch merch in stock because it is so damn popular. Tech himself is a fan favorite and major money maker, and D/LF knows this. He is such a fan-favorite that he was frequently featured as the focal point for social media marketing for season 2, and his adorable armor is practically designed to make action figures of him sell. My point is, it wouldn’t make financial sense to kill a main character that sells so much merchandise off so early in the run of a series. Bear in mind that we are only on the second season of the show!

So why bother with leaving the audience on a cliffhanger where Tech appears dead? Two words come to mind: social media. Having a fan favorite’s fate be left up in the air is a great way to generate debate and discussion across social media platforms and keep your show trending for a long time. Trending topics have more eyes on them and often spark the curiosity of people who did not know about them before. Contemporary show runners know that a social media presence is yet another way to advertise a show, and TBB’s has been heavily marketed via social media anyways.

Having Tech’s death be a fake-out also makes sense plot-wise. First off, we didn’t see a body, and television shows often do this when they want to hint that a character may not actually be dead. This is especially true in Star Wars, where characters have survived immolation, explosions, and being cut in half. Big, main character deaths in Star Wars don’t tend to happen until the very end, and we are not quite there yet. We also don’t see much of Tech’s fall, meaning that he could have gotten dislodged from the tram car by an obstacle like a tree or fallen into water.

Second, Hemlock, a character who has been established as a dishonest manipulator of clones, was the one to break the news of Tech’s “death” by giving Hunter Tech’s goggles. As many others have established, Tech’s goggles are the most delicate part of his kit and they have an intact strap. They also sit underneath his helmet, so they would likely have to have been physically removed via human intervention. Hemlock would also see Tech, an enhanced clone, as an irresistible test subject, and Hemlock having Tech gives the writers an easy way to get into the facility where Omega and Crosshair are being kept. If I were a writer who wanted to have one of my super-soldier characters get captured and later help other characters break out of a laboratory with him, then I would go with the genius hacker/engineer.

Having Tech survive would also give us a nice parallel to the first two episodes of season 2. Tech fell and sustained a serious injury from being crushed by a box in a way that could foreshadow his current predicament. A big deal was also made about having a seriously injured Tech rescue Omega, so having a similar thing happen with higher stakes in season 3 would be a nice callback, and Star Wars LOVES callbacks.

Finally, Tech appearing to be dead, seeing the horrors of the Empire’s experiments, and returning to his family would bring additional emotional weight and character development. Losing Tech and then having him come back and tell them about what is happening to other clones just might be the push that Wrecker and Hunter need to join Echo and Rex in their fight against the Empire. Since we are in the very middle of the story, the stakes will have to be raised even further to get to the climax in the final season, and having The Bad Batch actively fight the Empire would be a good way to build up to that. Additionally, this kind of a plot would further reinforce how close this little family is by showing how lost they are without each other and how intense their emotions are when reunited, and that would make whatever happens to them at the very end (happy, sad, or bittersweet) that much more poignant.

And about those tweets from the Kiner Brothers: don’t take them as confirmation of anything. The score is one of the last things that gets added to television shows, so it is very unlikely that they have seen season 3. They also would not tell us over Twitter if they knew Tech’s fate, because they likely would have had to have signed an NDA and The Mouse is infamously paranoid about leaking spoilers. They also reiterated that they are not in the writers’ room in a recent Q&A.

#tbb spoilers #tbb Tech #tbb speculation #tbb Meta

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ask-andante · 11 months

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Hi, I've decided to officially end this blog.

It took a lot of time thinking about it (tbh i was even thinking about it before the anon) and discussion with close friends and I think I am done.

This blog was used to help me get through various parts of my life, and it can no longer serve that purpose. It's done its job wonderfully and helped me cope and even make a friend circle after isolating myself for a few years. I never thought I'd ever have an actual friend group, but it's something that was made possible VIA this blog.

It hurts a lot to end it, I won't lie, I'm like actually mourning it rn but I've started to develop a sort of resentment towards the blog and plot askblogs due to Mental Illness and I think I just cannot keep holding onto this blog anymore. So, I decided it's best to let it go before I hate it. I doubt I'll come back to finishing it after posting the plot outline, seeing as it's all out in the open, but you never know.

The doc contains the outline with a header to jump to where this blog left off. I got pretty far in so I feel extra down about tossing in the towel here, but that's just how it is. I've tried many ways to salvage my motivation, lowering art quality being the main one as art is my job now and it's no longer the escape it used to be, but I don't think the workload itself is the issue.

If I move onto future projects, you will likely see me post them on @aibouart , so feel free to check the art blog out and follow if you'd like. I am not abandoning the characters here, I will continue to draw them likely and RP them and whatnot. You can send asks OOC anytime, just know I may not be very active~

Anyways, here's the plot outline. Some things are not included in it despite having been planned because they were either up in the air on their specifics, or were late additions not added in yet (nast stops appearing in the outline some ways into it as they were a new addition to help give Andan another person to have a better dynamic with. They were planned to become friends < 3 )

Thank you for reading and for your patience, as well as everyone's continued support over the years. This blog was great as a form of expression and art, and great to get me socialising. I discovered many things about myself over the course of being here on Tumblr and this blog was one of the starting points~

If you'd like some minor additional content, you can go and read over old memes: @andanteooc

Or the related blog: @andanterelated

The related blog consists of memes I've reblogged tagging relevant characters.

You can feel free to send me asks to talk about the plot outline or anything else. I won't post any spoilers until tomorrow, or I'll just tag them "andante spoilers///" if you were interested in the doc to read at a later date.

Please note it is missing quite a few details as I used to log the combat or speech sections separately before actually putting them in the doc (the og was pasted from a tumblr page). I can answer asks about things that weren't addressed because of its nature, but will not repeat myself if it's been asked haha.

Thank you again. I initially started this blog with a goal in mind and succeeded in it years ago, so I think I can be happy that it went above my original goals.

#yeahyeahyehayehay #you can dm me too about it if u don't wanna use asks or it's too much to send #but fanmail works for that as well #just note i may be less inclined to respond to DMs as they're more personal in that way #but i will read them #unless you ignored the giant plastered warning on the doc then i will just like #ignore u #text #update #queuedante

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naranjapetrificada · 7 months

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I don't usually stay up for the new eps but it accidentally happened this time somehow? Anyway several immediate, off-the-dome thoughts, behind a cut so I don't ruin your scrolling:

Only having 8 episodes instead of 10 is really, really showing now

We were robbed of a scene of Ed and Stede dancing for even a couple seconds and I'm livid. My uncharitable take is that we could have spared a few seconds of the scene with Taika's kids (which was cute, don't get me wrong) to see them dance a bit

I don't have gifs or anything but Rhys did an excellent Devastated Face pulling Taika into the cabin like that, and I'm still processing that *that* was the inciting event for it

Taika did excellent bedroom eyes while the curtain was getting pulled around the bed nook but I guess we already knew he was good at eyes

Speaking of the bed nook, that really limited the cinematography options for a morning after scene didn't it? Rhys did some nice faces but honestly? It didn't feel as warm and affectionate as I was hoping and I can't quite figure out why yet

Actually relevant to my last point, but despite it being The Part of the Show Where They Fuck, did anyone else feel like there was a noticeable lack of casual affection in 6&7? Because tbh the main reason I wanted them to fuck was the eventual casual affection. I might do a whole separate post about this after a re-watch.

At least right now, I'm less bothered by the Izzy stuff I haven't been able to shut up about lately, maybe because there's more important stuff going on

Everything was set up for the "breakup" to the point where I wasn't surprised, and I'm also not worried given what's most likely coming in the finale

The most shocking moment to me was Stede setting that person on fire. With the Ned Low scene I could see how they were pulling the strings together, like that he insulted Ed and that people talk about the real Stede Bonnet introducing walking the plank. But he was so casual with throwing that cigar that even though it was undeniably badass, it was just so out of character (in a believable way, like the kind of thing that shows a character hitting a point of no return) that it totally took me by surprise (in a good way)

Now I actually do have to sleep but I'm super excited for a re-watch later!

#ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd s2e6 #ofmd s2e7 #ofmd season 2 #ofmd spoilers #our flag means death #stede bonnet #edward teach #ofmd meta

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schmeap · 2 months

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do people on this website post tierlists for fun idk does anyone care about my opinions on pokemon and miku probably not but I'm finally giving into the urge to be really annoying about music (not a music analyst) (doesn't know how to identify a lemotif) (Was in High School Marching Band)

Anyway gonna be real fuckin annoying about this one its called i talk about rankings that are mostly personal bias

Let's just go in release order lol

Songs linked in their "titles" (video embed limit is. less than 18)

DECO*27's Volt Tackle

ok so i have a confession. when this song came out, I knew it was going to end up pretty low on the list lol

Deconina (i can't. type that every time guys) is one of my favorite producers and almost every song he makes I nod my head at and go "yeah. that's a banger." But. BUT. He's started mixing his harder rock styles with his poppier hip hop styles and it comes to a head in this song. The bridge is really really distracting lol, feels like a different song and tone entirely from the kind of intense, battle like ferocity of the main part to a cutesy pop chant... It has a purpose, I'm sure, but there's something too dissonant about it for me to like.

The like, rest of the song is Deconina at his Deconina-est, I love the cute take on love (as he always does) with a pokemon flavoring... The visuals are also quite cute and fitting. It's really solid, but that one point holds it back from Funky Fresh, which is my baseline Very Solid.

Electrical Forecast by inabakumori

The second song, by a producer I don't follow nearly as closely as Deco. Uhh I did listen to lagtrain as homework before this and yes it bangs. It's always nice to see people using people other than Miku and Kaai Yuki actually has a real solid appeal to me.

This is a song that slaps. It bangs, even. I don't know enough about inabakumori to comment on its relevance to their personal stylings or themes but we were still in the romance period with pokemon puns and tie ins so I was already tempted to put it higher in the list. In actuality, every song does an excellent jobs integrating game sounds and puns so no extra points are available for that stuff lol

Taking the idea of catching pokemon is always dangerous, I think, because pokemon fans aren't really here to catch things, we're mostly interested in battles and the journey with our faves, not completing the pokedex (because it's hard, and kind of chore) at least, to me. This song feels like a journey through the tall grass, scouring the lands to find pokemon... I just like the inabakumori style man. It gets points for getting on the playlist, but not really speaking to me.

Mitchie M's What Kind of Future

Silly songs.......... my weakness and Mitchie M's strength oh no.........

Yeah Mitchie M really plays to his strengths, using cute visuals and nonstop puns to ooze a charm you can only get from haplessly indulging in the most whimsical of vibes. It was also quite surprising how well their TL team did with all the puns given some of them barely work lol.

"I love them all" is the type of pokemon fan I am, so that might also help explain why two of those songs are up so high...

Pinocchio-P Kills You with The Pokemon Inside My Heart

yeah i cried what're *you* gonna do about it huh

Im a pinocchio-p fan. I don't always like everything he puts out, but when he really hits its insane how hard he does.

1) i fucking love his little pinomikus... having them all in a costume is so fucking cute they're little slit eyed freaks and by far my favorite trademark a producer's ever had lol My favorite. is lapras...

2) This isn't the first song to fuck me up by him lol 2:30 Life Remaining also damaging as hell, so it wasn't surprising to see him go for a quieter angle but man when its something you grew up with, a nostalgia you could relate to, an experience you lived, its way worse. It's such a soft song, with an upbeat backbone, I've no idea how he got the music to scream "nostalgia" so hard but the reverberating "aah"s are so cool too...

Anyway this song would be the best song if I weren't horrendously biased. It should honestly be up their with the top two but it was funnier to keep it in the crying tier.

Battle! by cosMo@Bousou-P

I honestly did not like this song all that much when it first came out, but that was almost certainly because it was right after Pinochhio-P's lol

The high concept of people in the comments talking about some sort of Miku AI champion that was tired of winning got me more into the song now that I'm not directly comparing it to a song that spoke way more to me, there's just something a little unhinged about it in the way that cosMoBousou does well with machine intelligence/the meaning of digital media.

He also plays p well into his strengths with the breakcore fast bpm lol this song screams GO GO GO! I think it makes total sense why he'd go for a battle theme, and I really like the way the pokemon sfx are incorporated into the backing... drums? Unfortunately, I like battle songs not that much, and the lyrics leave a little to be desired because the story's a bit... confusing lol Maybe it's cheap of me to prefer nostalgia baits over whatever strange original story cosMo's thought up but that's how it is.

A little evil with Kasamura Tota's I'll Fly in the Sky with You

Another producer I've not heard of before! No one talked about this song either, in my circles, I actually missed it until I came back for Giga and Jin's. I passed over it on first watch, put it on in the background and said "yeah, that's a nice soft song," thinking nothing of it. Boy was I fucking WRONG

edit (not an edit I'm writing this all in one sitting), I LIED I *have* heard this guys stuff before!! Araki covered one of his songs lol ok I'm getting the sense their skillset is Violently Sad Songs and goddamn are they good at em.

Anyway this song's MV is adorable and uses mudkips status as an adorable fave as a double shot directly to your sadglands as it tells a story of a pokemon that stays the same to continue to fly with its friend. Its fucked up, and a little evil, and totally took me by surprise because I was a fool. Little Guys Deserve Love Too is something you don't always remember as pokemon fan and it takes the implication of evolution seriously its really some pokemon Mystery Dungeon type heartstring pulling that got me good.

Musically I love the quiet backing that really lets the vocals (the story) breathe, its a musical narrative. The back and forth between Luka and Miku is done really well, plus having it based entirely around an existing pokemon song really helps it achieve its heart punching effectiveness.

Also I have a horrible bias toward piano please don't look up at the tierlist and where I placed Marasy

(Hilarious it got a kids rating on youtube btw. Another youtube kids L, probably)

We couldn't draw miku at a fucked up angle this time guys: Giga's Gotchu!

lol yeah they had to sanitize this one's visuals a little bit, probably worked with a different artist than usual... It does show, a bit, in the kind of bouncy visual style Giga's used to being flatter and less 3D than usual. This leaves the music video a little lesser than the others that move... I also don't know if I've ever been a huge fan of Giga's recent animation style.

In terms of actual song: it's good! Giga puts his swing on classic pokemon motifs and it feels very him, with a nice mix of hip hop beat and electrical edge.

But uh, remember how I said before "catching pokemon is the weakest element of pokemon"? That point stands here, especially since the song itself is just simple and peppy. It's stylish as hell but doesn't give me a sense of journey or scouring like inabakumori's.

Sorry, but someone had to be last.

Jin's Secretly Miku the whole time: Juvenile

Trans miku real or whatever

I'd like to say this is the first full on deadass whole animated story. I should be right. Also I don't think I've followed Jin since Kagepro lol (but I did hear Neo, and I did scream really loudly at it!)

dude the eevee is drawn so fucking cute im rhhdghh im not even a huge eevee fan (too mammal) but man when he do the lil paw to cheer up their trainer it got me. I also really like the compassion of the story, the trainers just want to support each other even though they fight... It's like, that's kind of what pokemon is, it's not necessarily about winning, even if Every Voice on the internet Ever (including myself) tells you otherwise. Turns out all you need from a friendly rival to make them better is to lose against them and not let them speak (im joking.......)

I just realized I never looked up the lyrics, actually, but I totally got the emotions through the fantastic MV and the general upswings of the music. It's a bold swing to take a trainer through their whole journey, but both songs that try this hit it justtt right, actually. Building yourself back up after a loss is like, The pokemon story, because turns out you can't win them all. Plus it takes time to focus on the mundanity of the pokemon journey, the stuff you don't really think about in game but is the meat of any fanfic... depicting hanging out w your pokemon is a huge bonus points.

The music combined with the visuals made me cry what can I say, I don't cry easily so it deserves it.

Syudou's I'm a Ghost Type

I honestly don't know a whole lot about Syudou, not to say I don't know who he is, i do, i play pjsekai, but none of his "popular" songs really captured me.

I can mostly say the same for this one lol This is the first one where I have to actually explain the Funky Fresh tier: it means they play well to their strengths but they don't have a whole lot of staying power to me. This is where my pickiness starts kicking in, they just weren't swanky enough to make the cut.

The lyrics and visuals scream joy of ghost types though, I really dig how much energy is in the song... I think it's just personal preference for electric beats that puts the song the highest in Funky Fresh.

BIPPA!! Wonderful Opportunity with Go! Bidoof Group!

Wonder Opp never fails me they got my back every time. I was hoping for something silly happy peppy fun and oh boy did i get it. A feverish dedication to a silly not strong pokemon, a basic rat you can get in any route that the pokemon company loves making fun of, BIPPA!!

All these dumb mfs so relatable to the Len that wants to evolve for utility, to the Rin that loves him as he is, to Miku who thinks all pokemon have their appeals... I've seen some people say WonderOpp's songs border on just speaking over beat, but I don't really see what's wrong with that. The comedic timing is solid (Len getting shot down is so funny) and the setup is inherently funny, a team of bullies that go after Only Bidoof. Team Rocket but Bidoof.

Joy radiates from this song and who doesn't want to hold a pokemon in front of your friends and go "Look!! this is my favorite child!!!" I think that's the real essence of pokemon. Pick your faves and then be really annoying about them. That's why this is the best one.

Huh? Muddled... (Weird title... it's sfx, really) by Kuriyama Yuri

This project got me digging around in new producers libraries, quite fun. In this one I found Jitterbug! I love a good Meiko producer... But I don't particularly like their style, sorry to say.

I do like it though! It's fun, spooky and very stylized! I love the rhythm it gets into and the expressions on the people, even if I'm not entirely sure what's going on besides some good ol fasioned spooks. I think it accomplishes what it sets out to do, which is make a spooky ghost house experience song. Just doesn't appeal to me enough to rank it higher.

Orangestar's Encounter

Look. This is pure bias. But I also think it's good!

I've gone on record (no record. just talking to friends lmao) saying Orangestar's music feels like running alongside a ocean during a sunshower. All their music is kind of same-y but by god does it hit that niche so good for me, using vocaloids to go way above what any human would sound good. In this song the synthwave really elevates it to something I'd recommend a non-Orangestar fan, it really carries you up, gives the song a rising energy... just like Lugia.

Breath is a key of Orangestar's songs, besides being very high, there's a lot of running vocals and held notes, meaning singing them is again, very difficult (if you're trying to copy miku) and I think the breathlessness of the vocals and synth really works with the concept of a legendary encounter. It's always so cool when you finally run into the thing on the box... and in the surrounding media, everyone always oohs and aahs. The lyrics support this, but I'm not very good at reading, so I actually just skim them to make sure they aren't total nonsense lol

Eon Ticket by Marasy

I saw somewhere an author's comment about this song, something to the effect of "I always chased Latios and Latias"... So this is just a song about your faves, just like pokemon should be. It also has Kaito, which is *my* crypton bias.

Uhh I'm always back and forth on Marasy songs, I love him as a pianist, but his compositions don't always speak to me working with the others on em. But? I think this one hits nicely. It's a little toothless still, not as emotionally impactful as those on the top, won't make me scream in excitement but I do think this is one of my favorites in a while.

Kaito and Miku... it's always nice to have duets in this Miku focused project lol. I think the Eon ticket, Latios and Latias in particular was a good pairing for Marasy's flighty fluttering piano trills and runs, they're the kind of pokemon that dash around the skies like the music does. Part of what makes me rank composers higher in these miku songs is whether they play to their strengths or not, because you're already adding the twist of subject matter, and I think this does. I also think the framing device of the newscasters is cute

Party Rock Eternity by Hachioji-P

Ahh Hachioji, another name I know and don't really listen to on purpose... Rad Dogs goes insane though an all time fave (but I say that about half the VBS commissioned songs). Maybe that's why I biased it higher, because it's a style of music I really like. A lot of bias is probably involved in this lol (poison type fan)

I like the perspective of a rocket grunt a lot, leans extremely well into the harder rock of Hachioji's natural lean, but the lyrics don't really tell us much, it doesn't quite lean hard enough into character for me to give it a funky pass... plus I find it's missing a POP that makes it appealing. It's extremely pleasant, but I can't give it a pass.

Iyowa's Journey's Prequels, Journey's Traces

Hmm, I think the only producer I know truly nothing about, didn't even really recognize a song on their page. Doesn't matter since this song's extremely cute and appealing on its own.

The button mashing making up the backing track I almost didn't like but it totally grew on me, it gives the song more life. Visually the MV compliments the cutesy subject and the wonder of a child's first pokemon. But... it's just pleasant. It suffers the same fate as Party Rock Eternity before it, there's just nothing pushing it beyond musically, likely in part because I'm not as familiar with the composer. I like songs that go somewhere, and this one stays in the same place, which doesn't make it bad, it just makes it less interesting to me.

Esper Esper, Psychic Psychic! by NayutalieN

I don't listen to a whole lot of NayutalieN's stuff outside the Rhythm Game Staples (most of which I like, at least passively), but it's enough that I know generally what I'm getting.

Musically this song doesn't stand out to me all that much, I like the rising tones during the chorus, but it actually doesn't use as many of the kind of flourishes on the top of vocals I really like about Nayutalie's tuning. The sfx in blend with the background are also really fun but for me, theming tops out anything.

When I went into the song, I wanted a cute silly fun song about psychic type pokemon that LOVED psychic types. I wanted to see them clap. And they did! There's just so many psychic types doing the classic flip back and forth dance, and isn't that, really, what makes a NayutalieN song?

Kairiki Bear's Melomeloid

So Kairiki Bear I actually spent like, a day lying in bed listening to their entire lineup on their channel lol I wanted to determine whether I liked them as a producer or if I just really liked Bug. Turned out I just really liked Bug (and venom). That's to say, I wasn't expecting something standout in this song.

I was not disappointed, but I wasn't blown away either. That's ok, I think the most important part of Kairiki Bear songs are their texture, the rhythm of the vocals mixed with the instrument. I like Bug because of its punchiness, its extremely harsh tones, and Melomeloid's are a bit softer. It's good for a song about fairy types, but it doesn't make up that loss in musicality through the melody, which makes it average to me. But! I think it really hits where fairy types lie, a cutesy "I love you" mixed with the signature sharp, kind of off tune vocals with a harsh, present beat... It screams "cute but dangerous."

A Glorious Day for Miku Yuri by EVE (it's Glorious Day)

wh what if u were a dragon type trainer and and I was a fairy type trainer and uh uh hhhhh and we were rivals............

Um ok, I just have to say, before I talk about Eve or whatever. The fact that they animate Every Miku in Voltage's art run and place them in this mikuverse where they all fight together is like, dude talk about an excellent finale. Deadass that touch alone put this to its ranking by itself.

That's not to say the music's not pulling its weight. It's Eve, and though I think is one of his weaker compositions, not being able to play into his more off beat rhythms (and having to use miku) it's still got all the bones of an extremely solid hype journey song. But to be honest, I think the music is the weakest part of Glorious Day, even if its flow is perfect for the story they're telling.

But the story..... God I do love a fully animated MV, there's just so much they put in it to make a pokemon fan happy, from the sakuga of the battle and the possible red cameo. Plus YURI!!! I love miku miku relationships I just think this one has the most potential to live in my brain rent free, so it goes up a tier. As a pokemon fan, this one's got the most for me, even if as a vocaloid fan, I wish Eve would just sing all his songs forever lol

Uh anyway thanks for listening like and comment if you want me to do this for commissioned songs for sekai i guess

#vocaloid #project voltage #I'm not tagging anything else lmao #this is a rambling post #I just like music and have opinions ok #is that so wrong.................#miku compels me #actually it was probably pokemon that compelled me #btw i already have a ranking system for sekai songs #ive been sitting on this stuff for a while #just takes a long ass time to type #typed this out instead of doing my work tbh #oops

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naamah-beherit · 1 year

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On fanzines and the mess their current state is

Or: musings from a writer's biased perspective.

This post has been a long time coming, but always something else caught my attention and months passed as such. Finally, the time has come.

There was a zine wank recently. The mods proved to be quite ignorant how art works, kicked the artist, the artist went public with receipts, the mods insisted it wasn't like that, and the whole affair kept derailing with possibly another explanation for the kicking until at last the mods cancelled the zine. And it's just the latest wank of many. A zine here took money and never delivered the product, another zine there has a mod who hasn't read the book but only heard about it from their friends who, coincidentally, are the other mods. And so on, and so forth. Everywhere you look, there's a fanzine. Multiple fanzines in fact, sometimes at the same time. Which is understandable, given how old a concept of a zine is and how solid their foundations in fandoms.

Or, well, technically, because when I think about the zines of today, I can't help but realise they're gradually losing the connection to their roots.

(yes, this might be another post of the "old person yells at clouds" type. I'm fully aware of that)

I won't summarise a history of zines, because that's not the point here and also Fanlore has done a much better job in this article. It does serve as a good starting point, though, if you've never ventured past "zines are a thing that exist". The most important thing to keep in mind is: the zines used to be about much more than just art. And here lies some of my beef with them.

Nowadays, most if not all zines are art books. Worse than that: art books that refuse to acknowledge the fact, own it, and market themselves accordingly. I actually own an art book that was announced and sold as such (Ages of Arda Anthology), which to this day in all my fandoms¹ remains the only publication of that kind. And if the zines of today would have acknowledged their main focus is mostly if not only art, I wouldn't be writing this.

Alas, here we are. I participated in four zines. Additionally, I was one of the editors in one of those. It was the first English Hualian zine, actually, back in 2019 - unless another one somehow slipped my mind, but I don't think so. My 2019 was bad, but TGCF is the only thing I remember well from that time. I've also been traditionally published (three times so far), which is also relevant to the rant. I admit I don't remember how many check-ins we had for that one zine I was in the staff of. We had a word/size limit for the entries. As fas as I recall, that was the entry criteria. I might be missing details, though; I was hella depressed at the time. Like I said, bad year, few memories and 99% of them is TGCF.

But anyway, the other three zines I wrote for. I applied, was accepted, went through the process, saw it to the end. You know, the "usual" zine process. The one I've got Opinions™ about.

Let's start with submissions. x samples of works of y quality. Okay, sure, we all think without stopping to realise it's a tad weird to submit a selected portfolio of works for a hobby event as if it were a job application. It gets weirder the longer you think about it, because, as I once wrote, fandom is for fun. It's a hobby. Maybe I'm old and jaded, or an idealist, or an old jaded idealist, but I believe everyone has a place in something as deeply tied to the fandom as a fanzine.

Then comes what I've got a personal vendetta against: check-ins and deadlines. Sure, I know people create projects with specific time frames in mind, but dear gods, again, it's not a job. Nothing bad will happen if dates shift around a bit when there's no money involved. Maybe it's just me being bitter about putting fun, fannish activity into strict professional frames. again, I'm old and jaded. And dear gods, check-ins. Here's when my trad pub history comes into play, because in neither case I had to let the editorial staff know I was actually working. True, it might be a case for a story that isn't done yet, doubly so if there's a deadline looming over both an author and their editor, but when you submit something finished and aren't asked to revise&resubmit, you go over the editorial input, make the changes (or not if you're feeling brave, lol), send it back, go over the proof copy, submit possible adjustments, and that's it. Or at least that's how it worked for me for two magazines and a short story anthology.

What does it matter if someone writes a story the day before the zine submissions are due? If it works for them, then it shouldn't be an issue. Again, it might be just me, but standardising and project-managising a hobby activity doesn't really sit well with me. From my very biased perspective, I don't see fun in chasing deadlines and writing on the clock, but that's just me.

Zine being a project rather than fun activity also ties to it becoming a product. That means a zine has to sell to at least cover the production cost, and with the quality the organisers and the audience expect, the labour cost is basically non-existent. That at least remained from a fun hobby activity - people working for free, lol. It also enables situations when the same few highly popular artists partake in most or all zines in a fandom (often upon invitations, whose very existence makes my blood boil), leading to a reality where zines become an endless cycle of repetition. And don't even get me started on invitations that add to the marketing strategy of selling the zines. "Here are our wonderful, carefully selected artists, and here's everyone else". That's how I see it. Where has "we're all fans of the same thing" gone? Where's "share our mutual love for the same thing"? Instead, we get invited people and those who have to submit a CV-like application for a senior position.

You ruined a perfectly good fan activity, is what you did. Look at it, it's got capitalism.

And last but not least, art books that refuse to acknowledge what they are and the subsequent treatment of writers.

The longer I look at zines, the lower the artists:writers ratio is becoming. Sure, people like to look at art, because it's quite often easier and always quicker than reading. Sure, ain't nobody got time for reading these days. BUT. The growing disparity between respect and reception of works of artists vs writers is, well, growing, and by not giving writers an equal treatment and exposure in something as important to fandoms as fanzines doesn't help to improve the situation. Again, my opinion, but when seeing zine promos that have got approximately 20-30+ artists and 5-10 writers at most is not cool. This is why I say most of the zines these days are art books that refuse the name. And there's nothing wrong with that name, or with including only artists in something that's only about visual art. But when it's mixed for art and writing, then the least zine organisers could do is make the numbers equal. Again, we're all fans of the same thing, and no fan activity is better than the other when its outlet is meant to be varied. Also, where are cosplayers? Where are meta writers? Both of those have got a place in a fanzine as well and should be given a treatment equal to other expression of fannish love.

Am I trying to turn back a river with a stick? Probably. But I'm fed up with zines that fail because someone embezzles funds, zines that prioritise the same group of people over and over again over a more diverse crowd, or claim they're welcoming to all forms of expressions but obviously prefer to include only fanart. I'm fed up with manufacturing zine after zine after zine just because they sell. I'm fed up with fandom becoming more and more of a structured professional endeavour instead of a hobby. I'm fed up with audience that constantly demands a faster and faster stream of, well, content. Neither of those is what fandom and fanzines should be like.

PS. not proofread. Sorry, I'm too dead to do that, so mistakes may get fixed within the next few days, 'cause they sure as hell are many.

¹ - I don't know anything about other fandoms, though. Like I said: it's all opinions from a very personal angle.

#fandom

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imminent-danger-came · 10 months

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Hello friend. At first, I thought it was a joke that there's a Lego show that people love. I've seen you post about it a lot so I figure it's just one of those things that maybe a couple people really really love otherwise, whatever. But I just sat that clip of that characters death and it made me realize I know nothing about anything ever lol. What is the Lego show about? What do you love about it? I'm just super curious

Well. Okay. My embarrassment aside, I totally get it—it is a lego show, but it's my lego show and I'll gladly tell you about it!

(my apologies this got a little long)

*inhales cigarette* I remember starting to watch lmk (Lego Monkie Kid) and not expecting anything except some very pretty animation—it's just legos, right? And then it completely blindsided me. Then I did some digging and realized it's a modern retelling of Journey to the West (jttw—one of the great classic chinese novels), and that half of the whole reason this show exists is to retell a familiar tale to the modern age. That's how the show opens, and that's how s3 ends.

And, at the risk of sounding a little deranged, I'm going to say that the show being legos is thematically relevant. It legitimately adds to part of the story they're trying to tell—and the story Lego Monkie Kid is trying to tell is legitimately very solid. It's super good. They completely blew me out of the water with season 4.

So. The first special and s1 isn't anything too unique on a first watch through. The characters are charming and the show is very pretty, but it's nothing I'd write home about (though, 1x09 is very good—in my opinion—and 1x10, the season finale, builds plenty of intrigue).

But here's the thing: legitimately so much is set up in s1 and you don't even realize it, and it's STILL being re-contextualized well into s4.

So, then the s2 special happens right after s1, and it's like, alright! The plot seems to be going somewhere! We get introduced to a few more antagonists and the status quo from s1 is already somewhat disrupted. But then the last half of s2 comes around. And they're all bangers. 2x05 Minor Scale is GREAT. 2x06 is pure game motif. 2x07 gives us backstory and continues the main protags negative character arc. 2x08 is one of my favorites in the whole show. By this point you realize how consistent the character writing is if you've been paying attention. 2x09 is the beginning of the end. 2x10 ends the season on quite the cliff hanger, and it's like. HOLY SHIT. WHAT IS THIS ABSOLUTE GEM OF A SHOW.

s3 is lovely, and the end of the s3 special has one of my favorite scenes in anything. s4 is so ridiculously good. Lmk honestly has what I would consider to be god tier pacing. They have 10 minutes to achieve their goal, and by GOD are they going to do exactly that.

But like, what do I love about the show specifically?

The animation. The characters. The themes. I kid you not a major theme in s4 of the show is the fact that every single thing you do leads to pain. Being the hero or the villain, it doesn't matter—you cause suffering and destruction with every step you take. You hurt the people you care about. No, seriously. I'm not kidding. THAT'S one of the main focuses of s4, and oh boy is it a wild ride. You get used to legos crying. I am unironically expecting s5 of this show to be a tragedy.

I can not recommend it enough!

(If it's your thing that is! I TOTALLY get not being able to look past the legos, and the fast pacing isn't for everyone.)

Anyways, here's a bonus gif of Mei to end off!

#I think lmk's body count is like. 7 or 8 at this point? depending on who you consider dead?#I'm going to be honest I don't even see the fact that they're legos any more. They aren't legos to me. It's an art style. AN ART FORM #anyways this has been ''imp goes on a long rant about legos'' (like she does every day). you are welcome.#I really ought to dial it back on my tumblr blog #But that lmk s4 special really rocked my shit.#tdp s5 trailer came out yesterday #I'm just like. THEY'VE OVERLOADED MY SYSTEM AND IT'S SUMMER.#WHAT'S A NEURODIVERGENT BITCH TO DO. anyhow #thank you for asking my beloved mutual!#asks #lmk #lego monkie kid

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death-limes · 7 months

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genuine question here: i just read something about “Latinx” being considered a slur (or at least incredibly offensive) by most actual Latino and Hispanic people. is that true? (since the whole point of the post is me not being sure, i’m just gonna use “Latino” as gender-neutral)

the main reason i ask is bc i’ve never heard that before for as long as i’ve known of the word itself, and because ive heard it used so often in formal/academic situations - even by Latino people - with no issue brought up in comments etc

most people talk about it as an attempt to “correct” the gendered nature of Spanish grammar itself, which is not what I thought the term referred to - grammatical “gender” is not the same as gender identity anyway, so that would be pointless and also quite stupid imo

I was always under the impression that the term was an attempt to be inclusive of nonbinary/gnc people of Latin heritage. i know that the masculine form is usually considered to be neutral as well, and for some words like “persona” the feminine form is actually neutral. but even then, there’s also a sort of movement happening to get rid of the “male-as-default” trend in several languages - even English - and establish truly gender-neutral terms that are not associated with any gender whatsoever.

of course since i’m not Latina myself, i’m in no position to really have my own opinion on the topic; i’m mostly just curious, and I don’t wanna offend anyone ofc. though I’m inclined to feel that the voices of nonbinary/gnc Latino people are the most relevant here, since they represent both identities in question.

#latinx #gnc #nonbinary #latino #latina

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commentaryvorg · 4 months

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The Great Ace Attorney Final Trial Commentary: Day 3, Part 4

This is an mini-commentary covering the final trial of The Great Ace Attorney (Resolve) in line-by-line detail. It’s written from a perspective of already knowing the full truth of things, so there will be spoilers for facts that only get revealed later on in the trial. This is not a commentary to read along with one’s first playthrough!

(This is the final part of the commentary. Check this blog to find the rest of the parts that came before this!)

Now that we’re below the readmore, I can add that this isn’t quite a commentary for everything going on in the final trial. It’s focused specifically on Kazuma and what’s going on in his head, only covering things which are relevant to him in some way (for the most part). I already had a lot to say about him in a big analysis post over on my main blog – but I have even more to say about him during the trial in even more detail, so here we are!

Last time, with the help of his best friend, Kazuma finally, finally got his head on straight about van Zieks and stopped being driven by his emotions. His emotional arc of twisted tunnel visioning and mental gymnastics that was most of the reason I wanted to do this commentary is basically over now, but there’s still some more of the trial left to go with some tasty Kazuma moments, so it would be remiss of me not to cover the rest of it anyway.

Kazuma: “The reason you’ve been summoned here to court today… is to testify about the jailbreak of the so-called ‘Professor’ ten years ago.”

Heh. “So-called”. Of course Kazuma would phrase it like that, because his father wasn’t really the Professor at all, damn it.

Kazuma: “If it turns out that you were involved in the plot to break Mr Asogi out of your prison, then of course… the consequences will be very serious. In all likelihood, a capital punishment.” Caidin: “Gads! Hold on there, laddie! All I did was—”

Kazuma really does like to threaten witnesses with capital punishment to get them to talk, whenever he can have it make sense. It almost works here, too! Alas, Stronghart jumps in to very sternly tell Caidin to think before he speaks.

Stronghart: “And Prosecutor Asogi… if you threaten the witness again, you will be held in contempt of court.” Kazuma: “…! My apologies, My Lord.”

And then he tells Kazuma off for doing this. To be fair, Stronghart’s obvious desire to hide the truth aside, threatening witnesses with capital punishment probably isn’t considered good courtroom etiquette.

(This isn’t just a sign of Kazuma’s more ruthless and desperate prosecutor behaviour – he actually does something similar from the defence bench at one point in 1-1.)

--- Testimony 5 ---

(As a reminder, I am using different testimony-numbering to the game’s chapter select, because the chapter select bizarrely treats it as if day 2 and day 3 are one continuous day, when they are not. Add two to these numbers to match those in the chapter select.)

Susato: “I really don’t think that Kazuma-sama’s father would have engaged in such negotiations.”

Aww! Susato never knew Genshin herself, but even then, she believes that Kazuma’s father wouldn’t have been the kind of person to do something like that, just like Kazuma does!

Vigil: “In order to hide his identity, he was forced to wear an iron mask over his head.” Kazuma: “Hideous treatment.”

Aww, Kazuma. Genshin being forced to wear that mask for so long really must have been pretty horrible and uncomfortable and dehumanising, and of course Kazuma has Opinions about that that he feels the need to briefly express here.

Caidin: “The witness stand is no place for tellin’ what ya don’t know for sure. I ken that much, I do.” Kazuma: “Then I presume you also know this. Not telling what you do know is a criminal offence.”

Kazuma is, again, low-key threatening the witness, less harshly this time so that Stronghart won’t object to it.

I also can’t help but wonder: is it actually a criminal offence, to hide the truth on the witness stand without outright lying? Kazuma should know that all too well himself, since he’s so very skilled at doing that. But then, he’d say anything here to try and convince the witness to talk.

Kazuma: “So you were just following orders, is that it? I’m afraid that won’t absolve you of guilt here.”

Kazuma definitely has opinions about this, too. So many of the people involved in his father’s death did it because they were “just following orders” (hi, Gregson) – that doesn’t make them any less responsible for their part in killing an innocent man. If you’re in a position where you’re given orders to kill a man, the morally correct thing to do is refuse to follow the orders, obviously.

(Something else Kazuma also knows about all too well.)

Ryunosuke: “You may very well be found complicit in murder, Governor!” Caidin: “………” Kazuma: “So that’s what it’s to be, is it? Even with the threat of conviction, you won’t break your silence.”

Kazuma must be getting so frustrated with all these people who simply refuse to give him the truth, even under threat of death. Stronghart really does (somehow) spur that much dogged loyalty in his minions, geez.

Kazuma: “As you know, Genshin Asogi was shot dead in Lowgate Cemetery after the escape. Tell me… was that part of the plan, too?!” Caidin: […] “Personally, I believe his death was the last part of the plan.” Kazuma: “WHAT?!”

Despite having got a decent hold of himself earlier, Kazuma’s getting emotional again. He can’t stand the idea that his father being shot dead in the cemetery was something as vile as a deliberate, premeditated betrayal.

Kazuma: “Who was it? Who shot my father in the cemetery that night?!” Caidin: “…I’ve no answer to that question.” Stronghart: […] “This court will not pursue the identity of the individual who carried out the order.” Kazuma: “Grrr…”

And of course he desperately wants to know this. Now that he’s finally escaped his tunnel-visioning on van Zieks, and especially now that they’re discussing the prison break in which his father would have hypothetically survived if not for someone shooting him, of course Kazuma wants to learn just who it was who took away that chance of him seeing his father again after all.

(You get this and the previous reaction by ignoring Vigil’s interruption that you’re supposed to pursue in order to progress. Sometimes there can be fun dialogue in these bits that’s easy to miss, because most first-time players would go straight to pursuing the other witness as the obvious way forward.)

Vigil: “I was betrayed by my superiors… in the name of my country.” […] Kazuma: “Just as my father was betrayed, it seems.”

Kazuma’s still low-key having Feelings about this. I wonder if he feels a certain amount of empathy towards Vigil, because he was also just a victim in this huge conspiracy (not to mention the whole PTSD-amnesia thing).

Kazuma: “…It all happened in that vast chamber of secrets that is Barclay, behind the high prison walls. I suppose nobody knows what really went on in the execution room now… Yes, it’s an unsettling mystery, certainly.”

This little speech seems really weird for Kazuma. It’s so unlike him to just be going “welp, it’s a mystery, guess we’ll never know”, as if he’s just accepting that. (Also, there literally is somebody who knows what happened – Dr Sithe sure does, even though she’s been forbidden from testifying because Stronghart Says So.) Where’s his determination to find the truth no matter what?

So I wonder if this is instead Kazuma deliberately trying to manipulate the witnesses – probably Caidin in particular – into letting something slip by presenting it this way. I just can’t wrap my head around Kazuma inexplicably acting like this otherwise. And hey, this does spur Caidin into offering up another opinion that then gives Ryunosuke an opening in his testimony.

With that, they get talking about how Genshin’s will was apparently a “weapon” that he used to bargain for the escape plot.

Ryunosuke: “You see, there’s an undeniable inconsistency here.” Kazuma: “What?! What inconsistency?” Ryunosuke: “Mr Asogi described this document as the only weapon he had left. And yet this will contains nothing of significance at all.”

Kazuma’s getting notably worked up, apparently one step behind again. Which makes sense, since he doesn’t seem to have been privy to any of the information Ryunosuke gathered about the Asogi Papers and the will being a weapon, so he’s frantically fumbling to piece this new story together in his head.

(Also, he just hasn’t had the chance to read his father’s will, while Ryunosuke’s been carrying it around this whole time, so maybe there’s some emotions about that bubbling forth here.)

--- Testimony 6 ---

Stronghart: “We complied with Asogi’s will as far as was possible. All of his personal effects were delivered to his family home in Japan. …As a courtesy to the homeland of the most notorious killer our country has ever seen.” Kazuma: “……… And we were much obliged. I can confirm that all of my father’s belongings arrived safely.”

Oof, Kazuma’s pointed silence before speaking says a lot here. No doubt he’s masking the contempt he must be feeling at the sheer backhandedness of Stronghart’s pleasantry there, because, well, he is glad they did at least return his father’s belongings. (Imagine if they hadn’t, and he’d never been able to inherit Karuma! Unthinkable.)

Kazuma: “…Yes, there’s no mistaking that it’s my father’s brushwork.”

It’s pretty adorable that Kazuma can be so sure of this even after ten years. But of course he would have read and reread every one of the letters his father sent to him during his time in Britain, especially after he was gone and it was one of the only remnants of his “voice” Kazuma had left.

Stronghart: “And this last will and testament was the man’s last ‘weapon’, was it? I think we can safely assume that the convict was merely prattling… knowing that his end was nigh.” Kazuma: “………”

Another pointed silence from Kazuma. He’s certain that his father was not the kind of man who would “prattle” like that, claiming he had something out of empty desperation without having the substance to back it up. But that thought is based entirely in his emotions, and he knows better than to try and use those to argue with now.

Ryunosuke: “So that would mean that you conversed with Mr Asogi?” Vigil: “Yes, certainly. Though there was precious little time before his execution was due.” Kazuma: “………”

Again, the game makes a point of showing us Kazuma’s silence. No doubt he’s having some Feelings about the thought of his father having so little time left alive. I enjoy that the narrative wanted to highlight that.

Vigil: “I can still recall his reply: ‘I’m guilty of the unforgivable crime of ending another human’s life, yes.’” Kazuma: “…!”

Of course Kazuma reacts to this. This is a totally different situation than the false confession in court done on the promise of an escape plan – this is privately, in confidence, between two men as equals. And it’s clearly not a confession to the five Professor murders, either. His father wouldn’t have been lying about this. But then, that means… he really did kill someone after all…?

(Vigil already told this to Ryunosuke and Susato when they visited him in the hospital a couple of days ago, but evidently he did not mention this part to Kazuma when he also visited that day.)

Ryunosuke: “His sword?!” Kazuma: “Karuma, the famous sword of the Asogi clan. …It bears the soul of my family.” Ryunosuke: “I, I don’t doubt it, but I wasn’t really getting at that…” (Forget it being the soul of the clan! Could the man have had a more obvious ‘weapon’?) Kazuma: “Have some respect, Ryunosuke.”

Aww, Kazuma still being so stern about the importance of Karuma. And of course Ryunosuke understands that and genuinely believes it contains the Asogi clan’s soul – after all, he carried it for months while thinking of it as Kazuma’s soul! He’s just capable of taking a step back and acknowledging that it’s a still bit much that a death-row convict was allowed to carry a sword.

(This is, of course, also important setup to remind players that Genshin had Karuma on him, so that they can figure out where he hid the will.)

There’s some more fun missable bits if you ignore pursuing Vigil here like you’re supposed to…

Kazuma: “My father had a passion for calligraphy. He found the profound black colour of sumi ink to be very soothing.”

A neat little tidbit about Genshin, which also explains everything we need to know about Kazuma’s calligraphy scroll in his cabin on the Burya. Evidently he took up calligraphy himself, knowing his father was passionate about it, as a way to feel closer to him.

Stronghart: “Despite the seriousness of his crimes, he was treated in a gentlemanly fashion until the end.” Kazuma: “When he was callously betrayed and shot dead in a dark cemetery in the middle of the night. …Yes, the gentlemanliness of it is overwhelming.”

Some very understandable savagery from Kazuma! He isn’t even able to make it quite as barbed as he’d like, because in that last sentence, he turns his head away, suggesting his emotions are getting a little too much and he’s trying to make them a bit less visible.

Kazuma: “So the document had disappeared… Are you suggesting… that the document my father had in his hand that night in his cell was…?” Ryunosuke: “The same document that Lord Klint van Zieks was writing moments before his death.”

Kazuma leans over his bench for the second half of that line, meaning he’s having some amount of emotional reaction. Probably at the realisation that his father was in possession of the last thing Klint wrote before his death, meaning he was very likely present when Klint was killed, and that confession of his to having killed one person might actually mean…

Vigil: “But what’s on that paper?” Asogi: “…A last will and testament.”

Naturally, Genshin was also extremely good at concealing the truth without actually lying, implying it’s his own will without explicitly saying so in his words so that they aren’t a lie. Like father, like son.

Ryunosuke: “It was the last will and testament of Lord Klint van Zieks!” Van Zieks: “No…” Kazuma: “WHAAAT?!”

Van Zieks reacts to this, of course – but Kazuma also has a strong reaction. It must be starting to sink in just how likely it is that his father really did kill Klint after all.

Stronghart: “Pursuing this notion of a phantom will nobody can attest to having seen serves absolutely no purpose.” Kazuma: “Objection! No, My Lord, that’s unacceptable.” Stronghart: “What did you say, Counsel?” Kazuma: “The last will and testament that Genshin Asogi had in his possession was that of Lord Klint van Zieks. All the testimony and evidence presented to the court has logically led us to that as a possibility. We have a duty… to pursue the line of reasoning to its conclusion!”

Look at Kazuma having his head on straight! Stronghart is trying to shut this down, and instead of getting emotional, Kazuma’s able to calmly argue for the objective reason why they ought to continue this. I’m not sure he would have been capable of that not so long ago.

Stronghart goes on to point out that they can’t pursue anything without any knowledge of what the document contained, which makes Kazuma falter somewhat. Meanwhile, Ryunosuke has figured it out, and with some encouragement from Susato to help him overcome his nerves, begins to make a speech.

Ryunosuke: “In all probability, the details in the will were related to the Professor case.” Stronghart: “The defence’s last statement is mere conjecture.” Van Zieks: “What are you getting at, man?” Kazuma: “Ryunosuke?!”

I love Kazuma’s reaction here. He has no clue what the will contained himself, but he can see from the look in his friend’s eyes that Ryunosuke’s definitely onto something big here that’ll give them exactly what they need to keep this going.

It’s very obvious from his inner monologue that Ryunosuke’s figured out the actual answer here, but if you mess around and pick something wrong, you get more fun dialogue:

Kazuma: “Come on, Ryunosuke! I know you! You’ve seen to the heart of all of this, haven’t you?”

Kazuma believes in his best friend so much and is desperately relying on him to be able to continue the trial where he can’t, hnnnngh these friends. I love the way that really, Kazuma’s the one who idolises and depends on Ryunosuke, despite that things seem on the surface to be more the other way around.

Kazuma: “A, a confession…?” Ryunosuke: “Regarding the mass murderer known as the Professor… and his true identity!” Van Zieks: “Objection!”

This isn’t supposed to be a van Zieks commentary, but guh. Ryunosuke hasn’t even explicitly said in as many words that Klint was the Professor, but Barok knows exactly what he is getting at right away. His body language looks so hurt and defensive, protectively clutching at Klint’s badge like that.

I will restrain myself from commenting on all of van Zieks’s reaction to this – again, this commentary is here to analyse Kazuma, not him – but fff, it’s so good. One thing I want to highlight is the way that, while almost all character animations end on a still frame, most of the ones used for van Zieks’s breakdown here don’t, lingering on a constant loop of heavy breathing, which gives a real sense of extra intensity to the emotion he’s feeling. This poor man needs so many hugs (that he would never accept).

Ryunosuke: “The killer that terrorised London a decade ago and became known as the Professor… The man believed to have murdered five members of the aristocracy… wasn’t Genshin Asogi at all.” Kazuma: “…! No… you can’t be suggesting…?”

Meanwhile, Kazuma’s still one step behind his friend. His shocked reaction here is obviously not at the fact that the Professor was not his father – instead, this is him only just figuring out who it really was.

(Something relevant to note about Kazuma is that, although he’s been so fervently determined this whole time to prove that his father was not the Professor and punish those who framed him, he’s never been shown to have any particular investment in the question of who the real Professor was. That part’s basically just irrelevant to him, unrelated to the people who decided to condemn his father to death. He probably never spent much time during his investigations thinking about the real Professor and trying to figure out his identity, to the point that it comes as a complete shock to him here.)

Kazuma: “I don’t believe this…”

A little later, after Barok’s scream of agony at the explicit reveal and him reluctantly informing us that Klint did indeed own a large dog, Kazuma can still barely believe it. He’s staring down at his bench, as if half lost in his own private world. I wonder if he’s starting to see the irony of this, that van Zieks has also spent the past ten years wracked with desperate denial over the possibility of his loved one being this terrible mass murderer, and that’s why he was so viciously determined to convict Kazuma’s father rather than face the truth. You and he really aren’t so different after all, Kazuma!

Kazuma: “My father knew that, and was using it to negotiate his way out of the unjust charges brought against him. But at the very last hour, those he’d bargained with betrayed him… slaying him mercilessly on foreign soil.”

Kazuma still has some Strong Words about his father being betrayed and murdered. (I wonder if he’d word things quite this way if he realised that the person who shot Genshin was in fact not a foreigner he’d bargained with but his compatriot and friend.)

Stronghart: “It’s ironic, really – and somewhat surprising – that the truth has once again been unearthed… by a Japanese.” Kazuma: “Once again? What do you mean?!”

Kazuma’s asking a question, but based on his emotional reaction here, he seems to have already realised it was probably his father who figured Klint out. (After all, his father was the greatest detective ever, right? Of course he’d be the one to find the truth!)

Susato: “So, in actual fact… Kazuma-sama’s father did…?” Ryunosuke: “He made the late Lord van Zieks meet the same fate…”

Unsurprisingly, it is not Kazuma who voices this realisation that his father really did go and kill Klint, even though he’s no doubt also figured this out.

Stronghart: “As soon as I heard, I hurried to the mansion. When I arrived, it was easy to grasp what had happened.” Kazuma: “And? What about the will?”

And Kazuma is immediately moving on from the murder part and focusing on something else, nope no need to think too hard about the fact that his father really did kill someone, gonna file that away to deal with later

Stronghart: “I was the only person who knew the true identity of the Professor. So… I resolved to keep it a secret and guard the secret to the bitter end.” […] Kazuma: “It was you, then, who pinned the crimes on my father!”

Kazuma has finally, finally found the right person to blame! Of course, it’s been pretty clearly Stronghart and not van Zieks for a while now, but there must be some satisfaction in hearing him clearly willing to just admit it at last.

(Even then, there’s an urgency to Kazuma here but not as much of the vicious hatred that there was with van Zieks. It really does hit different when it’s not the man he’s spent the better part of ten years desperately clinging to hating in order to cope with his grief. Which is to say, he’s able to be more rational about this!)

Kazuma: “But I just don’t believe that part. As far as I knew the man, my father despised such underhand dealings.”

Of course Kazuma saw his father that way! We’ve seen just how carefully he avoids ever telling a direct lie, which I strongly believe is because his father impressed upon him that one must always tell the truth. And even then, there’s so many underhand things Kazuma himself had to agree to in order to make it to Britain – he must have been torn apart with guilt at the thought that this is exactly the kind of thing his father would have hated him doing.

Still, Kazuma is only bringing up this argument – an emotional argument – about his father’s actions now, now that there’s no more deductions to be done and Stronghart’s basically just telling them everything. Kazuma was able to keep his emotions in check in order to follow the logic and find the truth, just like Ryunosuke encouraged him to do!

Stronghart: “…It was extremely easy to make him comply. You see, he had one crippling weakness.” Kazuma: “W-What weakness?”

What is Stronghart talking about? Kazuma’s father was invincible, the greatest man ever; of course he couldn’t possibly have had any kind of weakness, that’s nonsense…! Oh, Kazuma.

Stronghart: “Isn’t it obvious? You… Kazuma Asogi.” Kazuma: “M-Me?!”

It’s so heartbreaking that this never even occurred to Kazuma. On his end, he adored his father so much that he unthinkingly chose to shape his entire life around finding justice for him, sacrificing anything and everything necessary – including his moral integrity – to achieve that. But it never once crossed his mind that his father felt just as strongly about him, and would have obviously chosen to make a similar kind of sacrifice for his sake.

(Maybe some of this comes from the fact that his father left him to go and study on the other side of the world for six years, so Kazuma has this unspoken sense that his father can’t have loved him that much, that obviously he must have cared about truth and justice and integrity more than his own son. I don’t believe Kazuma holds any conscious resentment towards his father for leaving him to study abroad, because he idolised him too much to feel like any of his decisions could have been wrong in any way. But still, it could have easily left him underestimating – and simply accepting, because he was just a kid – just how important he always was to his father.)

Stronghart: “…Perhaps you have no desire to return to your homeland, Asogi.” Asogi: “What?” Stronghart: “Though I hear you have a fourteen-year-old son.”

Stronghart’s no doubt bringing up Kazuma’s exact age in order to better emotionally manipulate Genshin here – but it is notable that he knows exactly how old Kazuma is in the first place. Evidently Genshin talked about his son a lot, to the point of mentioning things such as his exact age and when his birthday was! Gregson was abundantly aware that his colleague had a “young lad” back home in Japan, and it seems even Stronghart was able to piece this together from things Genshin had mentioned. Genshin really did love his son so much that he never stopped thinking and talking about him, even as he was living on the other side of the world! It really is possible to be so far away while still loving your son more than anything.

(Incidentally, this narrows down the possible range for Kazuma’s birthday. He was listed as twenty-three before his disappearance in January, and twenty-four since he reappeared in October. But for him to have been fourteen ten years ago before any of this stuff with Klint went down, his birthday has to be May at the latest. So it’s sometime between January and May, apparently.)

Asogi: “You… you scoundrel!”

I like that Genshin feels the need to curse at Stronghart for this. He knows that Stronghart’s bringing up his son in order to emotionally manipulate him, and he hates it. …But even as knows that, it’s still going to work on him.

Stronghart: “I only want to protect this country’s law and order, you understand.”

Very rich that Stronghart makes this Suspiciously Specific Insistence of his even to Genshin, who has read the will and is the one person who knows exactly what Stronghart is really trying to protect.

Stronghart: “So… what’s it to be, Asogi?” Asogi: “……… …Ka……… Kazuma… ………”

Hnggggh, my heart. Genshin really did want to stick to his principles and risk getting executed in order to make sure the truth came out, but as soon as Stronghart reminds him of how much he loves his son, and that he’ll in all likelihood never see him again if he goes through with this… suddenly Genshin can’t do it. He really did love his son more than anything, to be willing to sacrifice his honour and integrity, something he valued so much, for Kazuma’s sake.

(So that Kazuma wouldn’t have to grow up fatherless and grieving. Genshin was willing to make this sacrifice to save him from that… and yet, it still happened anyway.)

Kazuma: “He… he did it for me…”

Kazumaaaaa. Guhhh, his face here. He’s only just realising that, even though he was half a world away for six whole years, his father really did still love him so, so much. Just as much as Kazuma’s always loved him, to make such awful sacrifices for his sake.

So Stronghart confesses to being the Reaper as well, entreating the judiciary to keep it under wraps, and is about to end the trial when Kazuma interrupts to ask something to van Zieks.

Kazuma: “Of course, I know that you’re a highly accomplished prosecutor. So I find it hard to believe… that you didn’t have any doubts at all. That you never suspected your older brother.” Van Zieks: “…” Ryunosuke: “Yes, the same thought occurred to me.”

This had indeed occurred to Ryunosuke a little while ago – and it’s very remarkable that Kazuma has thought about it too! Look at him thoroughly being able to see van Zieks as a person, acknowledging his skill as a prosecutor and the humanity of the fact that surely, being so close to his brother, he would have noticed something off. Ryunosuke knows van Zieks well enough to see this after everything that’s happened – and, it turns out, so does Kazuma! He has spent months working as the man’s apprentice, and with the irrational hatred finally pushed aside, Kazuma is actually quite able to acknowledge van Zieks as the human person that he is.

After van Zieks and Stronghart both say some things in response to this, Stronghart is about to adjourn the trial again.

Ryunosuke: “Objection! Thank you… Kazuma.” Kazuma: “Me…?” Ryunosuke: “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have made this eleventh-hour discovery.” Kazuma: “What discovery?” […] Kazuma: “But… all I did was ask the accused one simple question!”

I love how Kazuma is totally bewildered as to how he was helpful – it really was just a coincidence that his question led to Stronghart letting slip something useful – but Ryunosuke felt the need to thank him for it anyway. Did you know, they are friends. Maybe this is a sign of Ryunosuke’s idolisation of Kazuma, in that he assumes Kazuma got this to happen on purpose, when no, he really didn’t!

And, of course, Kazuma has no idea what was said that was relevant, while Ryunosuke managed to pick up on that tiny detail (Stronghart mentioning that Genshin’s will had three pages and not two), because Ryunosuke really is a talented lawyer whose eye for detail is even sharper than Kazuma’s.

Caidin: “If I mind correctly, the third… was a message to his lad back in Japan.” Stronghart: “For legal purposes, we required only his will.” Caidin: “And we would’nae have wanted any… uncomfortable words aboot Britain to get back to Japan, eh. So it was decided that the third page ought’nae to be sent.” Kazuma: “Objection! How dare you make that decision?! I had a right to know what it said! To hear my father’s final words to me!”

Aww, Kazuma. He doesn’t even expect that third page to have contained anything important; he just feels like he deserved to hear what his father wanted to say to him before he died! (Especially after having only just realised how much his father loved him and was thinking of him even at a time like that.)

Man, if only that page had been sent, though. No doubt Kazuma would have figured out the riddle at some point, and found Klint’s will… and then this would have been a very different story indeed.

It appears that the third page not being sent was just a case of the concerns mentioned here and not any more sinister machinations trying to prevent Kazuma from learning the truth. I can only assume that the English people involved only knew the third page was a message to Kazuma and couldn’t actually read it. If Stronghart could read Japanese and read that third page himself, he would certainly have been likely to figure out where the will was hidden. So it seems that wasn’t the case.

(I was going to say here that it was presumably Genshin who told them that the final page was a message to his son, thus unintentionally causing his plan to fail, but on second thought, maybe that’s not it. Someone would have needed to translate at least the first page to the English people in order for them to comply with Genshin’s wishes to leave everything to Kazuma – and this probably happened after his death, perhaps with Mikotoba as the translator. So maybe Mikotoba was reading out the will in English, only he stopped at the third page when he saw it was a private message to Kazuma… and he mentioned that fact, and that’s why it didn’t get sent. It may not have been Genshin’s fault.)

Ryunosuke: “A haiku poem? Twist thy head…?”

Shout-outs to Mikotoba for translating Genshin’s haiku on the spot here and managing to get the syllables to match in English too.

Kazuma: “Father…”

Kazuma finally hears his father’s final words to him… and they’re not something sentimental like he might have been imagining after the recent revelation about his father’s reason for taking the deal. It’s just a few vague cryptic lines, which Kazuma must realise was his father trying to tell him something, only he can’t figure out what it is…!

(Valuing truth and integrity and never telling direct lies, and yet very cryptic and evasive. Yep, like father, like son.)

Ryunosuke: “It’s the ‘katana’ sword that was submitted as evidence earlier in these proceedings. The one worn by the prosecution counsel when he… confronted Inspector Gregson.”

I note your awkward pause there, Ryunosuke. Someone still doesn’t want to think too hard about the fact that Kazuma threatened someone at sword-point and actually swung at him.

There’s some missable dialogue if you examine the head of Karuma again after finding the will. (You even get an achievement for doing this.)

Ryunosuke: “Kazuma’s father certainly had a way with words.” Susato: “And he certainly thought up an ingenious hiding place, too. It seems almost playful at first, but I do wonder if over the years perhaps… the duties of the Asogi clan have actually called for such inventiveness.” Ryunosuke: “Protecting great secrets, you mean? Those sorts of duties?” (Well, I could believe that. Kazuma conducts himself like someone with the weight of his clan’s long and noble history on his shoulders.)

His clan’s long and noble history of hiding secrets while maintaining an outward appearance of truthfulness and integrity, indeed. It is some interesting musing that the existence of this hidden compartment inside Karuma suggests that this secretiveness might be a part of the Asogi clan’s legacy.

Ryunosuke: “What about Inspector Gregson then?” Stronghart: “…!” Kazuma: “And Dr Wilson. They were no criminals. You used them to achieve your ends… and then you had them killed!”

Interesting that Kazuma’s putting in a word in defence of Gregson and Wilson, the two men who framed his father. That was them committing a crime, and Kazuma of all people has certainly had some Opinions about that! It seems that here he’s approaching this from the perspective of: they wouldn’t ever have become criminals, if it hadn’t been for Stronghart using them as pawns.

Van Zieks: “This gentleman has an uncanny habit… of producing evidence at the final hour that had escaped everyone else’s attention!” Stronghart: “Nonsense…” Kazuma: “What is it, Ryunosuke?! What do you have?!”

Aww, Kazuma. He doesn’t even realise what the evidence could be (despite the one very obvious answer at this point), but he’s so sure that his friend has found something to miraculously turn things around!

Ryunosuke: “It was rolled up inside this.” Kazuma: “I-Inside Karuma?!”

Must be a pretty big shock for Kazuma to realise he’s been carrying the key piece of evidence that his father left for him by his side for all these years, and he had no idea.

Stronghart: “As I’ve explained countless times already, it was all done for the furtherance of law and order in London!” Kazuma: “Objection! Are you going to legitimise the murder of my father now, too?”

I’m sure Kazuma hates hearing anyone talk as if his father’s death was “for the greater good”. As if that would make it okay even if it were true and not just Stronghart bullshitting to save face.

It feels to me like Kazuma coming out with this doesn’t necessarily need to be about Genshin being shot – he ought to be just as angry at the idea of him being framed and falsely executed for these reasons. But they do go on to talk about specifically the part where Genshin should have survived but didn’t.

Stronghart: “Well, that was unfortunate. I had fully intended to send him back to Japan as we’d agreed.” Kazuma: “I don’t believe you! It was you, wasn’t it? You killed him!”

Ugh, Kazuma really wants to believe this. He finally knows who was truly behind everything, who was truly deserving of all of his hatred – he so wants it to be true that Stronghart was the one who shot his father dead on top of everything else, so that he can keep piling all of his hatred onto this one person and things don’t have to be any more complicated than that.

But in his desperation, Kazuma isn’t able to see just how unlikely that is to be the case. Stronghart has shown himself to be very notorious for never actually pulling the trigger himself. Of course he’d have got someone else to do it here, too.

Not that that makes him any less guilty of Genshin’s murder, nor any less deserving of Kazuma’s hatred for it, though. But on top of that, Kazuma’s also got to come to terms with the fact that it was his formerly-trusted family friend Jigoku who actually did the deed. Ouch.

It’s kind of a shame we don’t have Jigoku himself here for this reveal to see how he feels about it, because I imagine there’s a lot of genuine guilt and regret there. Based on the flashback, it very much comes across like Jigoku did not want to kill Genshin at all and was just pressured into it in the panic of the moment by Stronghart.

Stronghart: “He claimed to be the man’s friend, but when push came to shove, he pulled the trigger.”

Says the push who came to shove! Geez, what a hypocrite. None of this is at all Stronghart’s fault, you guys, it’s all Jigoku’s for being a backstabbing fake-friend. Totally.

Kazuma: “………”

We also don’t really see much of Kazuma’s reaction to learning this. There’s just this silence, as he leans urgently over the bench. I imagine that in true Kazuma style, he’s suppressing however he feels about this to deal with and process later, maybe, if at all. Oh, Kazuma. I wonder if he ever visits Jigoku in prison at some point in the future to confront him over this.

Kazuma: “So you coerced him, too? Using what happened in the graveyard!”

Based on this, it also seems that for now at least, he’s kind of framing Jigoku in his head as another of Stronghart’s victims, a bit like he was for Gregson and Wilson earlier. Which is not untrue.

Stronghart: “He would have lost everything. …I merely reminded him of that.” Kazuma: “How do you sleep at night…?”

Some of Kazuma’s personal feelings shining through here. Of course he finds Stronghart’s manipulative nature and skirting of his own responsibility to be completely despicable. This is the very opposite of the principles of integrity and honour that his father would have taught him to uphold! All of that got a bit, uh, skewed here and there throughout the events of this case, but here at the end we finally have Kazuma with his moral compass right back where it always should have been.

Stronghart: “I saved Klint van Zieks from dishonour in his death!” Kazuma: “Objection! Whilst behind the scenes you systematically buried anyone who stood in your way. And then you made my father take the blame!”

Damn right – it’s hardly noble of Stronghart to “save Klint from dishonour” when he did so by thoroughly dishonouring somebody else who didn’t actually deserve it.

Kazuma: “Let’s not forget the others you had killed as well. Setting the defendant up as the Reaper to cover up the truth behind the murders of countless more!”

Look at him standing up for van Zieks being unfairly persecuted! It really didn’t take him that long to change his tune there, once Ryunosuke talked some sense into him.

(It’s also interesting to note that he’s calling van Zieks the “defendant” here, not the “accused” – the defence lawyer perspective! He did actually call him the “accused” just a little earlier when asking him that question about if he suspected his brother, but perhaps that was because that was a more Formal Courtroom kind of moment, so he stuck to the Correct Prosecutor Language. Here, though, speaking less as the prosecutor and more just as himself – van Zieks is the “defendant”, because he’s innocent and Kazuma knows that!)

Kazuma: “Objection! You’ve done nothing! It’s Lord van Zieks here who worked tirelessly and justly in court, whilst enduring the disgrace of the Reaper name!” Van Zieks: “…!”

Look at Kazuma not only standing up for van Zieks but sympathising with the burden he’s been carrying! He’s seeing van Zieks as a human person who’s suffered undeservedly! Just like he was always capable of doing all this time, if only he could have put his hatred aside for long enough to see it.

I love that van Zieks reacts to this, too, realising that his erstwhile “enemy” actually understands and cares about what he’s been through, more than he was probably ever expecting Kazuma to. These two are gonna be friends one day, dammit.

Ryunosuke: (Lord Stronghart really is a master of manipulation.) Susato: “You’ve conclusively proven his guilt. Yet he still manages to evade justice. I, I just don’t know what we can do…” Kazuma: “Ryunosuke…”

As Stronghart (somehow) manipulates the judiciary into cheering his name despite his explicit and reprehensible guilt, and Ryunosuke is pretty much just standing there thinking, not showing any obvious signs of having a plan yet… Kazuma still believes, or at least hopes, that his friend might just be able to pull out some miracle to save this. Aww.

(Which, he’s about to. But that’s a lot more down to Sholmes than anything to do with Ryunosuke’s talents this time.)

Ryunosuke: “The truth can also cause great pain. Sometimes even leave people on the brink of despair.” Kazuma: “And for that reason, there are those who feel the need to hide the truth. Who do it instinctively, even.”

Here’s one more line that looks like Kazuma might be vaguely alluding to his own PTSD-amnesia again, just a tiny bit.

There’s some interesting interactions between Kazuma and van Zieks in the defendant’s antechamber scene at the end, but I’ve already covered what I’d want to say about them in my big analysis post on Kazuma’s character, so I’ll refrain from repeating myself here.

One other notable thing in this scene is that Kazuma is the one who brings up the question of Klint’s second request that he didn’t mention in the will (that turns out to be about Iris). I imagine Kazuma’s the one to ask this because he’s thinking about the fact that his father agreed to honour this request, and wondering whether or not he managed to do so before his death.

As Kazuma leaves the antechamber with van Zieks – after encouraging him to not give up prosecuting now that he’s finally rid of the burden of the Reaper name – Ryunosuke has a little musing that seems like a good note to end this commentary on.

Ryunosuke: “Kazuma Asogi… It seems as though he’s really matured suddenly.”

Aww. This might have seemed a bit much from Ryunosuke at the beginning of the game, in which Kazuma gave the impression of being by far the more mature one of the two of them. But now, having seen the irrational mess that Kazuma was in court not so long ago… yeah, he has matured quite a bit, and quite suddenly too, now that he’s cast that part of himself away! Good on him. And good on Ryunosuke for noticing that about his friend.

#ace attorney #great ace attorney #the great ace attorney #the great ace attorney chronicles #tgaa #dgs #dai gyakuten saiban #the great ace attorney resolve #the resolve of ryunosuke naruhodo

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atopvisenyashill · 3 months

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Something came to me while reading your PactOfIcen'Fire meta, did someone thought to compare Jace and Sara to Rhaegar and Lyanna? I haven't read many things about Jace and Sara tbh so if they did I'm sorry for repeating it 😅

And not only that but i couldn't ignore but note that Serena and Edric..don't we have an Edric in the main books who's a bastard? I think is intentional to have named him like the Edric Storm in the main series

I'm so sorry anon, I meant to answer this like a straight month ago but tumblr glitched and didn't post it and I didn't even realize :((((

ANYWAYS. I have seen people compare them in the past wrt the pact, yes! there’s two comparisons here that are made between the two couples. there's the argument that jon himself fulfills the pact because he’s the son of a targaryen prince (rhaegar/jacaerys) and a stark daughter (lyanna/sara), and I’ve seen people refer to jace/sara as a proto rhael/ya. then there's the other comparison, where it's pointed out the pact is about a targaryen fostering at winterfell, not just wedding a stark. if you search “rhaegar pact” or "jacaerys lyanna" (search, not a specific tag, fyi) you’ll get all sorts of fun thoughts, but some of my faves are stumpy and starkcontrasts.

I do think there's a lot of parallels and anti parallels between the two couples, and I think those parallels are mmeant to catch our attention while the anti parallels are meant to make us think a little deeper about the context surrounding both couples. I'm bulletting this because it helps me organize my thoughts more clearly.

Similarities between Jacaerys/Sara and Rhaegar/Lyanna:

both couples expect to have a daughter - he daughter of Jacaerys and Sara was supposed to marry Edric Stark in order to tie the houses together, and Rhaegar expected Lyanna to have a daughter not a son (Visenya Snow truthers rise)

a kind of, "oh those crazy kids" vibe from both couples - Rhaegar and Jacaerys both spurning another woman (Elia/Baela) for a Stark maiden and eloping with her

Rhaegar and Jacaerys have minimal input in the wars they are involved in- Jacaerys because he dies early on and Rhaegar because he spends most of the war holed up at the Tower of Joy

Lyanna and Jacaerys are around the same age when their lives get upended - both are only 16 when they die. Very notable to me that Jon Snow is also only 16 when he "dies" in ADWD

Both Baela and Elia are quite beloved by their Houses. You could write pages of meta about Elia's effect on the plot and meanwhile Baela is her father's favorite, one of the last dragon riders, one of the only dragon riders to hit the ground with her dragon and live to tell the story (even if Aegon hadn't been murdered, it seems likely his injuries would have eventually killed him. man is fucked up by his burns and legs, whereas Baela recovers comparitively quickly), marries the heir to House Velaryon, and remains a staple at her half brothers courts for a very long time. AND both women experience infidelity in their marriages - not just the Jacaerys/Sara thing, but Alyn's affairs!

Mysteries surrounding the endings of these relationships - there's the obvious r+l=j thing and the fact that no one knows what the hell Rhaegar was up to during most of the war, but there's also the mystery surrounding Vermax laying a clutch of dragon eggs in the crypts of Winterfell and the baby metaphor here that Jacaerys stays long enough to leave a "child" with Sara just as Rhaegar stays long enough to leave a child with Lyanna.

Differences between Jacaerys/Sara and Rhaegar/Lyanna

the JS daughter is meant to solidify an alliance between the Targaryens/Iron Throne and the Starks/North, while Rhaegar is not interested in making an alliance, he is interested in his prophecy and his third head of the dragon

I think it's very relevant here that Jon is the same age as his mother and Jacaerys in ADWD - this is, imo, the key here that Jon does not fulfill the pact with his birth, but will be involved in the pact himself

Jacaerys and Baela are not actually married when he elopes with Sara Snow, while Rhaegar is not just married but has children with Elia

Mysterious surrounding the ending of the relationships - this goes in differences too because there is in fact a difference between an egg and a literal baby, lmao. This seems to me a pretty clear r+l=j hint, that jacaerys/vermax leaves a ~secret dragon~ with the starks, and jon is a secret dragon that Ned brings to Winterfell

What the hell does all of this mean? Well, I mean, your guess is as good as mine anon, lmao, but EYE think JS is meant to be another r+l=j hint, possibly a hint about the ultimate fate of dany's three dragons (don't ask me what, i have no idea), and an indicator for what jon's ultimate fate is - not as another Jacaerys/Rhaegar parallel but instead serving as the stand in for Jacaerys and Sara's daughter, who fosters at Winterfell and marries the Stark Heir.

Now to the second part!! Edric is a fairly common name but I have always wondered about comparisons between Edric’s so you’re not alone there!! I had originally wondered if Edric Storm and Edric Dayne had perhaps been meant to interact at some point and have larger roles, bc both touch on legitimacy issues (little Ned Dayne repeats the Wylla lie to Arya) and they both feel kinda set up to have had bigger story lines and are relatively isolated at the end of asos the way the starks are (to let them age). There’s actually lots of theories about little Ned Dayne specifically and his relationship with Arya, Ashara, and how he’s connected to the Tower of Joy storyline, and his connection to all that, plus his name connection to Edric Storm AND Serena's Edrics IS a fun one. It could mean nothing predictions wise, just George writing on a pattern. I recommend this meta here for some Targaryen naming patterns and how Rhaegar fits into all the typically feminine Rhae names. I think this is something similar to that - if an Edric shows up, it means the succession is about to involve a lot of bastards and usurpation and mystery!

Here's a clip of the Stark Family Tree, for the visual learners:

The main weird thing about this part of the timeline (besides Rickon's daughters being usurped, #JusticeForSansaAndSerena) is The Edric Of It All. Rickon dies before Cregan, and instead of Winterfell passing to Sansa, it passes to the next son, Jonnel (exactly the way the Aemon, Rhaenys, and Baelon situation goes). But when Jonnel dies without issue, Winterfell skips over Edric and Serena's children, because Edric died before Jonnel, and goes straight to Barthogan, then Brandon and his son Rodwell. This despite the fact that Serena and Edric have two sons of their own: Cregard and Torrhen (and aren't those some incredibly pointed names, just like Aemon naming Rhaenys after a conqueror!). I think when Sansa died, and then Jonnel remarried, Jonnel likely considered Edric his heir. I think what happens here is that Jonnel justifies his usurption by saying that since Rickon died before Cregan, his line should just be skipped entirely and go to the back of succession, and that all the living sons of Cregan should come first. But when Edric dies, Jonnel & probably Barthogan use this justification again by saying that since Edric is dead, his whole line goes to the end, and it goes to the next son, Barthogan. Maybe they even felt a bit guilty about skipping Cregard and Torrhen but they have to stick with this justification in order to keep their own place in the succession ahead of Sansa and Serena, the same way Viserys would never straight up say "the GC was wrong" because it would put his own claim at risk, or the way Aegon III is never able to change the line to say he descends from Rhaenyra because it would piss off the greens. So you have, in a strange way, Edric being usurped by his own brothers, just as Sansa and Serena are usurped (and maybe forcibly married) by their own uncles.

What's even more fun here, in addition to all the nonsense surrounding succession, a JS couple, and an Edric is that like I said, we have Edric Storm tied to legitimacy, Edric Dayne tied to the Tower of Joy plot, and...Edric Stark's brother, Brandon, the child of Lynara Stark who finally has kids who inherit, has a bastard of his own, Lonnel Snow! Just a coincidence, and George writing on a pattern? Again, yeah, maybe, probably, but there is some chatter regarding both Lonnel and Edric's possible descendants including that perhaps House Cassel is a descendants house of one of the two. idk but it's interesting!!

#asks #anons #getting on my soap box #gender politics in asoiaf #legitimacy in asoiaf #jacaerys targaryen #sara snow #edric stark #jonnel stark #serena stark #barthogan stark #jonsa meta #the pact of ice and fire

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