#only for the plot to completely vindicate them in the end

[spamalie]

i think the main issue with that ruby mermaid movie is that they tried to half-ass shrek. you can’t just half-ass shrek

#it feels like they have two completely different things going on with the family conflict and the mermaid conflict #and the place where they converge is just Well it’s messy and weird #there were a lot of times her mom/grandma said something and i went ‘i wonder where they’re going with this’ #only for the plot to completely vindicate them in the end #maybe it’s just because i don’t love the idea of an entire intelligent species being inherently evil but it’s just like… all kinds of wrong #best case scenario they were trying to go for the mermaids representing a privileged group? but it’s not conveyed very well at all #i feel like if they scrapped the ‘lol what if ariel evil’ thing they could’ve had a decent narrative about mother daughter relationships #or on the other end of the spectrum they should’ve just gone full balls-to-the-wall disney satire #like with the villain actually being a parody of a disney princess instead of a generic antagonist in an ariel skin #and maybe Uh. scrapping the lamp shading about grandma being royalty because this is maybe not the movie to do that in #idk as it is it’s way too easy to compare to better movies that were made BY the studio they were trying to make fun of #it’s just not a great look #and it would’ve gone over a lot better if this movie had been able to stand on its own without all the hype over the antagonist

[rose-tea-and-strawberries]

#JusticeForYuu

Warning: long rant coming up. Mentions of PTSD and Trauma.

So I recently read this manhwa called ‘Ashtarte’ and let me tell you, compared to other manhwas that I’ve read, I’ve never felt more vindicated or satisfied by the way it handles trauma and forgiveness.

Basically, the main character is a young princess, about ten or eleven or twelve I can’t remember, who has spent her entire life being treated like nothing by her entire family for no pretty much no reason at all. Trust me when I say that the neglect and emotional abuse she undergoes is awful and after a while, she realises that she doesn’t deserve to be treated that way. She mentally and emotionally emancipates herself from them and makes a family with her small handful of servants that live with her in her broken down house (let me tell you, they all love and protect her so much. Her mother figure/ best friend/ maid is the absolute GOAT), telling them that she won’t waste any tears on her bio family anymore. And when her bio family beg for forgiveness after she makes a very obvious effort to ignore and stay as far away from them as possible, she tells them that if they want her to even consider forgiving them for all the pain they put her through, they need to wait 10 years just like how she spent ten years all alone, trapped in that house, waiting for someone to love her. Even after the 5 year timeskip, she still doesn’t give them the time of day whilst they send her letters and mountains of gifts (that she never opens) and when she meets them again because of some obligatory family thing, she tells them point blank that there’s a chance that she’ll never forgive them and there’s nothing that she wants from them so just leave her alone and just walks out as they all suffer in their guilt.

And, let me tell you, as someone who has read a lot of female lead manhwas, I’ve never seen a FL not forgive a neglectful family - either they end up forgiven after an apology that lasts for like one chapter, or the MC gets her revenge and completely ruins them, or it’s an isekai story so now that a new person is possessing the main character, they finally decide to show interest and since the new character is either scared of them, is trying to gain their favour or has never undergone their horrible treatment of the host body, they just get off scot-free (A Match Made In Mana is a good example of this. Like the romance. Hate the fact that the older brother only started treating her right when another person isekaied into the main character - same thing with There Is No Place For Fakes)

Now what has this got to do with anime Disney boys you ask. Let me get to that.

Now I’m the kind of person that can hold a grudge - not that much in real life but very much so when it comes to fictional characters. If I was Jo March, I wouldn’t even be in the same room as Amy March after she burned the manuscript for at least a year. There are some characters that I just can’t stand because they never get the full consequences for what they put others through and I hate that so much (I’m not going to name names because a lot of them are fandom favourites and I don’t want to start a war). 

What I’m trying to say is that why can’t there be a Yuu that doesn’t forgive the overblot gang/dorms for what they put them through? Because you have to admit that they way that they treated this homeless, magicless human with absolutely nothing to their name and that is, in every instance, at the bottom of the food chain was awful. And I’m not talking about the overblots - they were clearly in the midst of a mental breakdown and weren’t in the right state of mind. But how would you explain everything that they did pre-overblot? When they are fully conscious of everything they did. Riddle even admitted after his overblot that he knew that he was being harsh but he still did that stuff anyway.

I know that we have to forgive everyone for the sake of the plot since we need Riddle in Book 2, Leona in Book 3, Azul in Book 4 and so on and so forth but when I remember the torment that Yuu faces, I just want to tell them all to take a hike. 

I know that these boys had horrible lives. I know that these are deeply traumatised individuals and that them overblotting was the only way for them to heal. But guess what? Going through trauma doesn’t excuse giving trauma to someone else? As Jake Peralta once said:

Confession Time - I was the anon that sent this: https://www.tumblr.com/shiny-jr/716948600309137408/hi-i-just-want-to-say-that-ive-read-all-of-your?source=share

And I still stand by what I said.

I just find it really annoying that when I search for angst fics it’s always the boys’ trauma or unrequited love or death or break ups - or maybe even something mentioning an overblot but I’ve never once found anything about the boys asking for forgiveness for what they did to Yuu prior to the overblots because once, just once, I want to read someone asking Yuu to forgive them and for Yuu to be selfish just once and say ‘no’

I know that I portray my fem!Yuu as this person that’s so sweet and forgiving and kind and soft and gentle but that’s because I’m obsessed with the dynamic of this sweet sunshine bubbly girl being a breath of fresh air to these villainous boys (and also because I kind of took some inspiration from my favourite princess, Snow White, and I based her a bit on Wendy Darling because I wanted her to be that ‘mature young girl’ who is very motherly but is still very much a fun-loving, imaginative child) but I just want a Yuu that is given the respect that they deserve.

I want a Yuu that actually experiences PTSD because of the treatment that they’ve undergone. I want them to hate the fact that their experience in NRC has changed them. I want them to hate that they’ve developed claustrophobia and a fear of the dark after they were forcefully imprisoned in Scarabia, I want them to hate how anything can trigger a PTSD-induced flashback, I want them to hate how Riddle’s jabs at their character and parentage still ring in their head after all this time, I want them to hate how whenever they’re submerged in water, all they can remember is what Azul, Jade and Floyd put them through in their attempts to get their home and family back. I want them to hate how often they get nightmares, how any second could be the day they finally get killed by any of these magic users who are far more powerful than them. I want them to look in the mirror and despise every single scar that litters their once unblemished body. I want them to hate how they had to ask the people who stripped them of their home and the only family they had in NRC for help in Book 4 because now they are indebted to them and they have no idea when Azul would want to cash that.

I’ve seen fics that have Yuu go through heatstroke during the marches in Scarabia and, as someone that not only has had heatstroke before but also had a really scary fainting experience I headcanon that as well so how about a Yuu that turns down Kalim’s invitations because the sight of Scarabia reminds them of the hostility that they faced when they were the most vulnerable. How about a Yuu that tries not to hate Kalim because he’s a genuinely nice person and was the only one to welcome them with kindness but can’t help but feel bitter whenever they hear the housewarden excuse Jamil’s behaviour when they still remember how they were locked up against their will.

This fic by linawritestwst and this fic by the-hearteater portray what I’m talking about really well. (taxonomize our differences by Jemimimi does a really good job of illustrating how being in Twised Wonderland affects Yuu’s mental health - there’s an incredible scene where Yuu has a panic attack and teaches Grim how to help them out of it. I nearly cried because their sense of self worth is so low and suicidal tendencies are so unstable that in multiple points of the story they try to get other students to kill them and Yuu my baby 😭)

When I go through the Rollo x reader fics, the majority of them are either yandere or the usual fluff. But Rollo can actually be a good friend for Yuu to have. Whilst their mentalities are different, they both agree that magic is dangerous - with Yuu being a victim of said magic. I honestly think that, if he wasn’t written as the big bad of the event, he could’ve been a really good ally that would understand Yuu’s pain of not only facing overblot after overblot but their helplessness of being surrounded by magical individuals and not knowing whether they’ll be able to survive another day.

Everyone’s always like #Crowley Slander (which he rightfully deserves, I am thisclose to punting him) but don’t forget everything the boys did. I see fics where they stand up to Crowley for Yuu but the most they do is reference the overblots but never that they did horrible things as well. Crowley may have told Yuu to stay behind during the winter holidays but Jamil was the one who imprisoned us and prevented us from contacting our friends for help. Crowley may have made Yuu stay at Ramshackle (although to be fair Ramshackle is kind of the safest option - who knows what would happen to Yuu if their magical self was in an actual dorm, especially all of the female Yuus. I think living in isolation is kind of the best option for them when the universe is out to get them. Plus, the ghosts are amazing company.) but Azul was the one who made us homeless and had a shady business (that he still has even after the overblot). Crowley may have been blackmailing Yuu with food, shelter and money but Leona was the one that was sabotaging the students and Vil was the one that tried to point blank kill an innocent child in cold blood after making his childhood trauma and personal one-sided rivalry everyone’s problem for the weeks leading up to the VDC.

Everyone only treated them with respect after the overblot incidents - so they literally had to put themselves in danger and nearly die for them to be treated as not a nobody. When Riddle made those completely uncalled for jabs at Yuu, an innocent bystander, nobody said or did anything. Not Trey, who enabled Riddle’s reign of terror and quietly observed the suffering all of the Heartslabyul students (and then had the gall to tell adeuceyuu not to get angry at Riddle because of course tragic backstory = forgiveness), not Cater, who canonically has a hidden side so Yuu has more of a reason not to trust him, not any of the other card soldiers - no Ace, the one everyone writes off as a stupid tactless jerk that does badly in school and only causes trouble, was the only one that had the emotional intelligence to realise that Yuu’s feelings were hurt and was the only one who cared to do something about it via sucker punching the tantrum-throwing tyrant.

(I can’t remember if Deuce did anything but he already stood up for us during the egg debacle so it’s okay he’s still my number one love)

(Also: Riddle is known to be incredibly strict with his dorm. It’s been said that Heartslabyul has the best academic record because of Riddle’s incredibly high standards. He also doesn’t take excuses from anyone even if they aren’t even in the wrong - which is seen when he exiles adeuceyuu from the dorm during the Mont Blanc Tart Incident where Trey tells Riddle that he was the one who told them to make the tart for the party and Riddle says that it was still their fault for not knowing the rules beforehand because of course a first year would have memorised all 810 rules by their like third day and it would be perfectly normal of them to ask a senior for advice on what to do. My question is: how many dyslexic students or anyone else with learning disabilities do you think Riddle has sent crying? How many students with less than stellar family backgrounds joined NRC only to find that they were sorted into a dorm that had a leader who not only holds their abusive mother’s teaching methods on a pedestal but is more than ready to hurl insults at anyone that disagrees with him? How many times had Trey seen an innocent student receive unfair treatment and kept quiet about it despite it being his job as a vice dorm leader and upperclassman to look after them?)

I know that so many people want Yuu to overblot or go through their villain arc so that the boys can be put in that place but why do we even have to go that far? If Yuu did have magic they would have overblotted ages ago but even so why do they need to have a mental breakdown so that others could see where they went wrong? Remember an overblot can kill its host and Yuu doesn’t need another near death experience. 

I want Yuu to be like Ashtarte and just have a small circle of friends and family in Ace, Deuce, Grim and the Ramshackle ghosts and tell everyone else to bog off. I want Ace, Deuce and Grim to be like the maid, Leona/Loena - different translations have different spellings (she is such a protective mama bear I love her so much. She literally calls out royalty to their faces, is ready to throw hands with the entire world and is willing to risk her own life for Ashtarte’s happiness) and act as Yuu’s guard dogs to prevent anyone from coming near them. Ace, Deuce and Grim have been there since the beginning, they’re Yuu’s ride or die besties that know what they’re going through, they’re platonic soulmates who can clearly see the emotional turmoil on weighing down on them. I want them to witness how Yuu is affected by their PTSD with their panic attacks and nightmares and bouts of depression and dissociation and then doing their best to learn how to help them. I want Yuu to refuse to step foot in another dorm and just go to NRC for classes and then disappear into Ramshackle. I want Ace and Deuce to run interference in case anyone approaches their friend because can’t you see that they don’t want to talk to you, who’s not afraid to stand up to anyone be it teachers or upperclassmen because haven’t they done enough damage. 

Yes, Ace is a jerk but he’s not a mean bully of a jerk. He’s just a stupid tactless teenage boy who just needs to be humbled once or twice - he’s completely harmless unlike Sebek and his humanphobic bigoted butt who should definitely keep his comments to himself because Yuu already has enough troubles without someone reminding them of how inferior their species is.

I want these boys to feel guilt - not because of their overblots but because they were actually horrible people before they tried to kill a defenseless, magicless human. I want Yuu to not only lose trust in the main characters but also with everyone else because they never know who would hurt or betray them next - who would be like Trey or Rook and enable bad behaviour, or who would be like Azul and take advantage of their weaknesses, or who would be like Jamil and pretend to be their friend and then stab them in the back. I want a Yuu that’s tired of being manipulated and used by everyone and is just done with everything.

As much as I love parental!Staff, you have to admit that canonically, they’ve done a pretty bad job of looking after Yuu so how about a Yuu that doesn’t trust adults because they’ve shown no interest in actually being someone that Yuu can open up to. Also, Azul was able to get away with everything he did was because he had Crowley in his pocket - who’s to say that he doesn’t have other adults under his thumb as well? (We know he doesn’t but how can Yuu be sure)

I want Yuu to be friends with Neige because he seems like such a sweetheart and I really don’t like how I see fics putting him down just to make Vil look good. As I mentioned above, Snow White is my favourite Disney Princess and sharing a spot with Pooh Bear as my favourite Disney character so a darling boy that is inspired by her would be an awesome friend to have - and he has never caused Yuu physical, verbal, emotional or mental harm.

Don’t get me wrong. I know that this is making me come off as a hater but I just want some justice for Yuu. They deserve absolutely nothing that they go through and I want happiness for them.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, I may have been listening to Numb Little Bug a tad bit too much.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst yuu #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader

[voxofthevoid]

Ch 248 is once again a mixed bag for me. On the bright side, it has a development I've been looking forward to the most since Sukuna left Yuuji's body—Sukuna acknowledging the effect Yuuji has on him. Until now, he's mocked and belittled Yuuji, deeming him weak and boring, except that the specific brand of vitriol Sukuna reserves for Yuuji has made it very clear that his beef with Yuuji is a lot more personal than his conflict with any other character. There's a pettiness there, a kind of irritation that's borderline childish, that wouldn't be present if Yuuji didn't well and truly get under his skin.

So to see Sukuna take a moment in the middle of battle, complete with arms on his hips and a goddamn pout, to reassess himself, his ideology, and his enemies and their goals, all to figure out why Yuuji irritates him and then to see him conclude that it's because Yuuji has indomitable will that he can't stomp down? It's sweet, sweet vindication. Sukuna's immediate resolution to tear that will down with, again, a kind of personal vendetta we rarely see from him marks the exact kind of fight I want out of Yuuji vs. Sukuna.

And Yuuji himself has been a sight to behold despite his relatively fewer scenes so far, from his final moments with Higuruma to the reveal that he can use RCT. His greatest strengths so far have been how quickly he grasps CE usage and now attuned he is to his body. The two combined is what's made him so lethal despite the lack of a CT or even advanced techniques like simple domain. RCT fits quite neatly with the kind of power progression he's shown so far, and combined with his natural durability and sheer resilience, it'll make him even more of a monster.

These are elements I'm very happy with. However, this chapter confirms Kenjaku's end and sets up Sukuna as the final villain, and that's... underwhelming at best. I'm not complaining that Sukuna isn't a particularly complicated villain; it's refreshing and suits how he's presented himself from the beginning. But part of what compensated for one villain being like that was the other being a mad scientist with a pretty cunning mind who kept plotting and planning with every tool in their arsenal. You could trust Kenjaku to keep things interesting while they sought the chaos they dearly wanted, and even the merger coming from them would've had certain meaningful implications because not only is it a dream they strived to fulfil for centuries, but it's also a way to see them finally "let go" of Tengen after exhibiting some fascinating attachment behaviors with her. That authority passing on to Sukuna is about as impactful as Yuuta killing Kenjaku—that is, not at all.

The Yuuta+Rika vs. Sukuna fight that's currently being teased makes me wary for similar reasons. It lacks the buildup Gojou vs. Sukuna had (battle of the strongest, i.e., clash of two immense fucking egos), and another contest of raw power sounds about as appealing as watching paint dry right now. Maybe it'll surprise me, but I'm not holding my breath.

To compare this to Shibuya, the emotional component that made its climax so compelling is almost entirely missing from this fight. It's there in Yuuji facing off against someone who took Megumi and Gojou from him, like how he fought the curse that took Nanami and Nobara from him, but overall, the deaths feel hollow and the stakes are so impossibly high that they start to feel like nothing at all.

I can't even fully capture what I'm feeling. It's not that I'm not looking forward to the upcoming chapters; I am. It's not even that I think the plot and climax are unsalvageable; they are, to an extent. But by this point, the plot fumblings and wasted potential have added up to a looming shadow I can't ignore even when there are parts I'm genuinely excited about.

#jjk 248 #jjk leaks #jjk spoilers #jujutsu kaisen #ryomen sukuna #itadori yuuji

[daenerysies]

Honestly, I think the Alicent stans are gleeful about what the show did to Alicent's character because now they can fully indulge in their dislike of Rhaenyra (all Targaryen women because apparently, they're all evil whores who don't fit into the image of a perfect Westerosi Lady), prop up Alicent's "suffering" as something aesthetically pleasing, and fixate on Alicent being a repressed lesbian "betrayed" by her crush and how Rhaenyra is a spoiled brat who abused poor baby Alicent. Don't even get me started on the constant comparisons they make between Sansa Stark and Alicent Hightower. "ALICENT WALKED SO SANSA STARK COULD RUN!" The theme is not only worrisome but nauseating.

that seems to be the case, doesn’t it anon? i think it feels vindicating for them, due to the whole ‘she spent her entire life suffering in the name of duty and honor, she deserves a conciliation prize’ like you mentioned (maybe there’s some deeper trauma that needs to be looked into for some of them idk) as if said 'prize' doesn’t end up costing her her entire family. the way they’ve written her in the show just screams the glorification of abuse. she’s allowed to physically, mentally, and emotionally abuse her own kids in their eyes bc she too was abused, every misdeed she commits is because she was abused, etc. she isn’t allowed to just want her son on the throne despite the set-back it would do to women, she has to have some sort of sob story to make her seem more sympathetic bc women can’t just be against other women without reason (eye roll) or be antagonistic in general without reason. the queer plot-line was also not needed seeing as it was doomed to fail from the start and its existence dives deep into queerbaiting and even racist territory; subsequently, they decided to make the velaryon’s black and then completely sideline laena, rhaenyra’s actual queer love interest, in order to uplift and pair the sad white woman with her instead (which is strange since it seems like most rhaenicent shippers loath rhaenyra, but i digress). she’s not a complex character; she’s one-dimensional, inconsistent, AND the result of hypocritical writers not being able to understand that victimization doesn’t automatically mean interesting.

it also feels like half the time her stan's can’t decide if all of her suffering is bc of the men in her life, or if it’s *somehow* all rhaenyra’s fault that she was put in that position. the show has attempted to switch the power dynamics at play by aging alicent down and rhaenyra up, but it doesn’t work simply bc alicent still has more power than her as queen consort (and still spends around 10 years without otto's influence bullying and ostracizing rhaenyra, which is not how a mother terrified for her children's lives would act in the face of their would-be murderer). furthering that, the lack of critical thinking skills is blatant in this fandom and shows when they attempt to vilify the targaryen's (especially the women, yikes) because they only do so to uplift their own boring favs. show!alicent, and by extension, both media's versions of helaena, are passive characters who conform to and uphold the patriarchy, they’re the perfect type of women for incels and pick-me’s to glomp onto to ‘prove’ they’re not misogynists (see? we DO like women! (only if they’re submissive and don’t fight back ofc)).

the only comparisons between sansa and alicent would be their show characters. only the latter half of got for sansa makes any since comparison wise. she too was a character that was further victimized to make her seem more interesting and righteous in the show writers efforts to make her qitn (and also to further the bullshit mad queen dany plot line). sansa is still quite a compelling character without adding in an unnecessary rape plotline, but if they hadn’t included it the only similarities between these two women are that both are apparently redheads (nope) and bastard-phobic (debatable). that right there is where any and all similarities end. in reality, alicent is the cersei to rhaenyra’s sansa, not the other way around.

the fact that many consumers (especially the women) seem to like the adding of an abuse storyline to these characters is so gross, and really telling of how the media has construed the reaction one should have to gender-based violence (or benevolent sexism). they condemn and pity these characters for what they go through, but in the same breath, praise the writers for adding ‘nuance’ to these women’s stories. worrisome indeed.

#asoiaf #fire and blood #hotd #got #hotd critical #anti alicent hightower #rhaenyra targaryen #laena velaryon #helaena targaryen #sansa stark #daenerys targaryen #anti rhaenicent #anti alicent stans #faye answers #anonymous

[obnoxiousselfdiagnosedneurosis]

A symptom of having been in the online Naruto fandom for a few years now and having Sasuke as my favourite character means that I’ve been incessantly exposed (at the very least, on Tumblr) to arguments about Sasuke not receiving his due justice, being condemned by the narrative for expressing anger at the crimes committed against him and his family, and how the ending of the Naruto manga completely dropped the ball regarding any and all of its political plot threads, leaving the status quo intact, and the only change regarding Sasuke in particular is that he is now complacent with it.

These are arguments that I entirely agree with! And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with their frequent discussion, seeing as Naruto is a very popular manga and new fans will take the place of the old ones. It doesn’t surprise me that the discourse hasn’t slowed down, because new people are discovering it and will want to chime in. This is fine and natural.

But for me, from the perspective of someone who’s been here a while and has seen talk of this happen over, and over and over and over and over again, it understandably gets a little... exhausting. Especially since, as far as I’ve seen, the discourse rarely goes outside of “here is how Sasuke was wronged, here is how the shinobi military industrial complex is fucked up”, and so it feels like I’m seeing less interesting conversations regarding it and more parroting the same universally agreed upon ideas over and over.

It’s just... boring. Because even when the discussion goes outside of “this is why it’s wrong” and enters “here’s how it should have gone” territory, I rarely see it go anywhere beyond “Sasuke should’ve remained angry” “Sasuke should’ve never gone back” “Sasuke should have rejected—“ etc, etc. Sasuke and the Revolution discourse rarely goes beyond Sasuke’s personal vindication regarding Konoha. And to me, it’s just... is that really as far as our imagination extends? Is Sasuke’s anger really the most important thing to focus on? Should anger be the main driving force behind changing a world that is undoubtedly unjust?

My answer to all of those questions is, obviously, no. And I’m writing this to explain why, to propose an alternative to the vindication tunnel vision there happens to be regarding Sasuke vs Konoha/Shinobi System discourse, that I believe even the ending of Naruto (barring chapter 700 and onward to Boruto) provides a solid basis for.

First let’s talk about chapter 699, and Sasuke’s decision not to stay in Konoha but to journey around the world instead.

Now when people talk about Sasuke’s journey, they mostly focus on the part where he calls it a “journey of redemption” and so a lot of discussions concerning whether or not he should have stayed in Konoha revolve around that line and its reasoning. It’s all “he doesn’t NEED redemption” or “oh please journey of redemption is bullshit, stay in Konoha to heal with your friends”.

Which is a damn shame because what he says in the panels above? Before the “you have nothing to do with my sins” thing? Is significantly more interesting. In fact, I consider it a monumental statement for him to make, indicative of his development; it’s the culmination of all he’s been through to get him to this point.

This line is Sasuke recognizing his own limitations related to the volatile emotional state he was nearly constantly in beforehand; Sasuke’s view of the world was incredibly selfish. It was selfish in the sense that his own goals mattered before anything else, that anything slowing him down in his hurry to reach them was an obstacle; it was an incredibly unhealthy view of the world, one that ended up making him hurt himself and others. That his goals are sympathetic and understandable doesn’t really change the reality that he did put himself in danger and was a danger to those closest to him. When we meet him for the first time in Shippuden, at Orochimaru’s hideout, he says word-for-word:

“I don’t care what happens to me or to the rest of the world, so long as I can get my revenge. Nothing else matters.”

And even when the truth about Itachi is revealed to him, this doesn’t exactly change. It’s only his range of targets that expand, and what he did to get to those targets in the 5 Kage Summit arc are unarguably his lowest points in the entire series. While there is a double-standard regarding how Sasuke’s anger and hatred are treated in the narrative, it’s not incorrect to say that his laser focus on them were ultimately harmful in the end, and that to grow he could not continue to rely on them indefinitely.

In fact, Sasuke is always shown to be at his best when he’s not so angry his view of the world is only concentrated on what he alone can see. Sasuke when observant of others is kind, has compassion and understanding and a willingness to prioritize others’ safety: we see this when he protects Team 7 all throughout part 1, and when he protects Team Taka in the Killer B fight. When he’s not clouded by his own rage, Sasuke also has a better willingness to learn: when Itachi left him after their fight against Kabuto, he went out of his way to learn more about the village he’d come to justifiably despise, to understand Itachi’s own point of view, and to learn the point of view of those that had built it. Sasuke in general is someone who doesn’t accept things so readily and is constantly questioning things even when he’s set his mind to them, and he is also someone who does have a clear idea of justice: needless human suffering on a large scale is something he’s disgusted by (see how he reacts to Itachi before he learned the truth and to Orochimaru). When he’s truly of the mind to sit down and listen, that potential is increased tenfold. He came out from under the Nakano Shrine after speaking with Hashirama and the other Hokage seeing the shinobi system as something that causes needless human suffering on a large scale, and though he’s not quite at the ideal point yet, the idea to do something about it (to dismantle that system) is there.

And now here we are, chapter 699: Sasuke’s anger is no longer his main driving force, and he is learning to accept love back in his life, and what does he say? That he’s going to look at the world, now, with new eyes. That he’s going to take advantage of this new healing state of his, to properly observe the world because his perception of it isn’t obstructed by his unhealthy vengeance fixation anymore. Sasuke, who already has the capacity for compassion, who already has a sense of justice, who knows how to listen and observe, is now going to take the time to use these foundations to build himself a more expansive perception of the world. He’s showing willingness to look outside of himself!

Now before I talk about the point I really want to get to, I want to talk about anger. I know anger is often portrayed as something awful in many stories (including this one), as something that is a personal failing next to those who can just endure what is thrown at them with little complaint, and that it’s a narrow view of it. Anger is a very useful emotion, and sometimes a necessary one: anger helps you perceive injustice done to yourself or others, anger can help you prevent people walking all over you and help you to recognize that you’re not getting something that you deserve. I’ll never condemn anger.

And I don’t condemn Sasuke’s anger! I am very firmly in the “Sasuke was right” camp; I don’t think he has to kiss up to a government so cowardly it wiped his people from the face of the Earth in the dead of night, I think a system that can justify a crime that outrageous while it continues to perpetuate itself needs to be entirely dismantled. And I believe that though there are limits to how seriously you should take this shounen animanga, the fact that these plotlines were introduced in the first place as well as every other time shinobi militaristic violence was clearly shown as being evil but were given shitty resolutions means that it is both normal and in fact encouraged to point out that these introduced plotlines were given really, really shitty resolutions.

Though while anger and pointing out how wrong things are are incredibly useful, when you really want to start talking about revolutionary action, incentive to change the world, I think that anger alone is insufficient.

Specifically in Sasuke’s case, as I’ve said above, Sasuke’s anger is ultimately selfish. He sees how he himself was wronged, and that’s great, but like... he’s also not the only one who suffers under the shinobi system. He’s not the only one it’s brought incredible wrong toward. Even when he demonstrated growth during the 4th War and was willing to expand his own knowledge to better understand why Konoha exists as it is, he wasn’t sharing what he’d learned with others, he wasn’t reaching out to build connections, to build solidarity— he was working on his plan entirely alone.

(And yes, we can talk about how the narrative purposefully makes the villain characters seem more unreasonable though they have justified feelings on why the system cannot continue as is, but again, as I’ve said at the start, we’ve had those conversations at length already.)

I believe genuine change, the desire to see a better world, has to fundamentally come from the desire to see people in a better place, not from vengeance. I think to get there, you need to see how other people live aside from yourself, you need to work at helping them see their lives becoming better as well. “No one’s free until we’re all free”, etc. I think your outrage at injustice has to extend to everyone outside of yourself, and your fight against the injustice be also a fight for them.

As I’ve demonstrated, Sasuke in chapter 699 in the space where he can actually work at doing that, to work at doing direct, radical action. Travelling as he wants to do will introduce him to more people, to more perspectives, to more ideas on how to meaningfully combat the injustices of the shinobi system and to directly help people to escape suffering the worst of it.

Recently I watched the Sasuke Shinden anime, and though it was still incredibly imperfect in its politics, it introduced the idea of Sasuke doing the closest thing to everything I am saying right now: it introduces shinobi being forced to fight in a human trafficking coliseum, and Sasuke being told by one of the characters, Chino, that being an inactive third party to injustice makes you just as guilty to it, which leads Sasuke in the end to free all shinobi forced to fight in the coliseum.

It also introduced the idea (and I was genuinely surprised that anything Naruto-related was actually willing to go there) of the Uchiha Clan, and by extension Sasuke, being victims but also being perpetrators of the same system that got them killed. In Shinden, they were hired by a feudal lord to deport another oppressed kekkei genkai clan called the Chinoike (that Chino is apart of) to a land unsuitable for any human to live in, and rather than help the Chinoike escape this fate, they simply carried out the mission order, which caused suffering for the clan. While I don’t think that that plotline was handled as well as it could’ve been, it really hammers in the point of it being important to learn about the position and suffering of others and to do something about it, because despite your own suffering, your participation in the system that perpetuates it still makes you complicit. And Sasuke accepts this! When he learns about the Uchiha and the Chinoike, he relates it to when Chino told him about being an audience to injustice making you just as bad if you don’t do anything about it. I think Sasuke Shinden is a good, if imperfect, snapshot into the very potential I’m talking about.

In fact, all of this is why I really believe it to be important that Sasuke travels and works outside of Konoha rather than within it; because as we’ve seen with Nagato and Amegakure, being apart of the Hidden Villages themselves, fighting in their wars and participating in their ranks, makes you complicit in the crimes they commit against the other smaller nations. Everyone we’ve seen fight in the wars, the Sannin, Kakashi, everyone in allegiance with Konoha and yes, including the Uchiha Clan, share responsibility in the crimes the village commits, even if they’ve personally suffered at its hands as well. Nagato, Konan and Yahiko are certainly justified if they don’t care that your war buddy died in front of you since you both had a hand in the destruction of their village for your military village’s interests.

This is also why on my blog, I am constantly advocating for the potential Team Taka represented. They were all shinobi working outside of the framework of the Hidden Villages, with little allegiance to them, and given that Sasuke in the ending is open to apologizing for his behaviour and accepting bonds again, they could’ve easily travelled together again in the ending and done just exactly everything that I’ve been talking about in this post. And they could’ve become closer than ever!

I think it’s telling, in a way, that what finally got to Sasuke in the end was genuine empathy; acceptance to realize there are other people around like him, that might share what he feels, and this is done through Naruto, someone who saw his own loneliness in him but that Sasuke rejected because he felt (understandably) defensive that anyone should get how he felt at all. Sasuke healing in learning that he can understand people other than himself, safely, is a big step into learning to properly observe and accept others, and then that’s another step that could lead into genuine revolutionary consciousness.

My conclusion here isn’t that any of this was something Kishimoto was actually going for. It’s that despite everything, there are already interesting building blocks in Sasuke’s canon characterization in place where you could create a meaningful story about resisting oppression and fighting for change, one that doesn’t surround a myopic, vengeful idea of it. I dont think of that as an interesting path for Sasuke’s character, especially since he already spends most of the series with nothing but vengeance in mind. I think he has the potential to do better, and we have the potential to write fix-it stories in which he does better than that.

#send post #the ground is soft and I'm ready to dig #really wrote 2k words of Sasuke in 2023... well. #I genuinely think this is the only proper Naruto ''essay'' I've ever written lol #edit: no I am not calling Sasuke Shinden canon #no I am not calling Sasuke Shinden canon #I am calling it an EXAMPLE for POTENTIAL that the anime+novelists provided #that I actually kind of like

[findafight]

Do you think Nancy after s2 truly never felt guilty about how she ended her relationship with Steve? Do you think she thought she was in the right because Steve told her it was okay? It really keeps me up at night how this is never addressed. Especially now with the knowledge of s4 that they both made fun of Steve in their relationship. I get he's Nancy's ex, but Steve saved both of their lives multiple times. idk, it just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. That's why if s5 only put the burden on Steve to make it up to Jancy/Jonathan, I really don't want to see it. :/

Also kinda wanted to see the aftermath of Jancy getting together from an outside perspective. I wanted to see how the school reacts to it. I think Steve tried his hardest to shut down any negative cheating rumors (probably also for his sake bc that would mean confronting his nightmare), but people would definitely talk. Especially Tommy and Carol. I would love to see what they would do to Jancy and Nancy specifically. Like, do they develop an even stronger us against them mindset. Is it that why Nancy seemingly only has Jonathan. The show mentioned two friends of Nancy in s2. What were their opinions? She was definitely close with them, given that Karen didn't question Nancy when she told her about sleepover plans. Speaking of Karen, what would she think about this. Steve spent Christmas with them, I think he was liked in the Wheeler fam, and then suddenly he's gone, and a week later, Jonathan is there. I want at least 15 episodes dealing with the aftermath lmao.

honestly...no, I don't thin Nancy feels really guilty for how she and Steve ended. They've never talked about it so there's no reason for her to conceptualize how shitty it would have been for him. If she's not confronted with that I don't think she'd feel like there'd be something to feel guilty for. One of Nancy's defining traits is her self absurdness, which is good for high stakes, life or death situations that require her to not hesitate. But it also leads to her not acknowledging/realizing (or, the show not recognizing) when she makes mistakes. She feels she's right, so, why would she feel guilty about it? She might be embarrassed about it though. Like it was messy, and so there were rumours about it and having people whisper about who she's dating/sleeping with would be embarrassing.

Jonathan I think would maybe feel bad about it, in the sort of abstract way that he knows cheating is bad because he knew Nancy and Steve weren't completely over, and he mentions it. But. I don't think it keeps him up at night? Like he also made the decision to go to Nancy, and kiss her, and then sleep with her, when he knew she was at the very least like a day out of a relationship. He doesn't care about Steve so it's not some betrayal, it's just an asshole move. I don't think Jon has to accept Steve's s1 apology, but I do not think Steve needs to apologize to him lmao that's so dumb let jon apologize to Steve for enabling cheating.

As for outsider pov. there's so many options! I'd love to see more of them. I'd say Steve definitely denies cheating rumours, partly because I don't think he knows how far they went? like he might think they kissed or had feelings realization or something, but not the extent? Tommy and Carol must've felt vindicated in their dislike for Nancy/feeling she wasn't good for Steve. Nancy's two season 2 cover story friends I want to meet them!!

Karen Wheeler....idk I don't think about her all that much but her perspective could be interesting! I think she'd maybe just be happy Nancy is taking charge or something...but yes give me 80's era sitcom plot about the aftermath of that lmaoooo

But I DO think Holly Wheeler is absolutely devastated by the break up. I think she's the og Steve stan he probably played dolls with her or something on the living room floor while waiting for Nancy and she's obsessed with him. She asks where he is and why he doesn't visit anymore and why can't he come over even though he and Nancy broke up (she's four she doesn't know what that means lol)

#findaanswers #Anonymous #stranger things #nancy wheeler #jonathan Byers #holly wheeler #stranger things meta #anonasaurus

[misscammiedawn]

Penlight - Spoiler Analysis/Review Post 1 (Nozomi Route)

Download Penlight (Pay what you like) from Itch.io here

My other Penlight reviews: Quick Review - Sayori (Part 1 - Doll) - Sayori (Part 2 - Alter)

Turq's reviews: Hiroko Robot - Hiroko Tickling - Nozomi Zombie

So I had reviewed the game Penlight before and wanted to give some more praise on its narrative choices and themes. I felt the best way to do that was to break down the routes I enjoyed and what I learned from them.

Before I begin I wanted to say much of the discussion here breeds in from @spiralturquoise and I going back and forth on this game for weeks. Turq is writing a post as well and though we share many viewpoints we come from different angles. We are also aware that we have our own biases and headcanons which we may present as fact, Nozomi being AroAce for example. This post represents a read of the game and we actively encourage people to have their own reads and share them so we may read them.

My posts are going to be plot overviews with analysis. Turq had a fantastic bit of commentary on my first post and I wanted to keep the conversation running.

This post is from the perspective of someone who either has already played and enjoyed the game or someone who isn't going to be convinced to play without having been spoiled first.

If you're on the fence, play the game, come back. It's a few hours commitment and so worth your time.

The post will be here when you get back <3

So as of the latest public release this is the route map:

It sort of looks like the map of Dracula's Castle.

Also this post and any future posts will only feature content from the public release. Nozomi Reversal route is actually polished as of writing for Patreon members with a better script and CG for the ending. This is using version 0.1602.1.

As you can see the game is pretty broad. The map is color-coded between the Brown (Nozomi), Blue (Sayori), Pink (Hiroko), Purple (Consequences) and Salmon (Villain) routes.

Ignore the green, those are just to highlight the latest changes to the map from prior versions.

So I thought I'd handle my Spoiler posts the same way. Brown, Blue, Pink, Purple and then... I think I'll skip Salmon. I have no real desire to play the villain routes.

Though I was happy to see this in the Q&A segment of the Discord:

I am glad this game continues to deny any attempt at vindicating unethical choices.

Anyway. With that preamble. Let's get started with Nozomi's paths...

To begin the Nozomi route Kyou will mention that he has been studying hypnosis and this will trigger Nozomi meeting with him at a cafe after school to ask about his experiences.

She admits that she has been into hypnosis for several years, fluctuating between shame and pride in her interest, admitting that she had not intended to practice in real life until she found herself volunteering for the hypnosis show during the previous cultural festival, an impulsive action that was driven by her repressed desires, she notes that she did not plan on volunteering until her hand was already in the air.

Nozomi regrets that she did not get a chance to bond with the senior who ran last year's show and is now admitting it to Kyou.

From the offset the power dynamics are skewed. Nozomi views Kyou as a stalker and knows he has no friends to practice with. But she is also quick to keep things even by admitting her fetish, overtly admitting she "gets off" on the topic, noting how giving this information to Kyou is a risk.

In showing too much of her hand, Kyou, who does not himself have a hypnosis fetish, despite his study, gets a window into her fantasies.

Nozomi enjoys hypnosis and is excited by it.

Nozomi fantasizes about giving up complete control.

But she is aware that such scenarios only exist within the realm of fantasy and she understands hypnosis enough to know that such a thing could never happen and because she knows this. Because she has found someone who knows how hypnosis works. Because she regrets not being able to make a connection with the last person she could connect about hypnosis with, she tells him she wants him to hypnotize him.

What comes next is the first hypnosis scene, which takes place in Kyou's home.

Every route of the game follows the same timeline for the most part. Most of them keep to a week or two time frame where some others stretch out over months. But the facts of the timeline are always true. Many of these facts will come into play later on but it's important to note them because the writing around these "canon events" is tight.

Kyou's father works until late and will always have a business trip to excuse his absence for weekends. I believe I have only seen him show up one time in the entire visual novel, referenced in text as Kyou speaks about his previous night.

So with an empty home Nozomi comes over and sets down the ground rules.

Sessions are to be discussed in full before approaching hypnosis. All sessions are to be recorded. All suggestions are going to be tidied up at the end.

Kyou performs a quick down-up with a simple number amnesia suggestion (albeit there is a blank choice for a future route where you break her consent at this time) before Nozomi realizes that she needs to go home for dinner and heads out leaving Kyou feeling that the scene had no adequate deescalation and he's left to feel things were left off without a conclusion or understanding with where he and Nozomi stand in their freshly ignited entanglement.

I want to get into the canon events a little more later on, but there is a level of beautiful dramatic irony that DeMille tends to take when it comes to how she approaches similarities in the routes and consistency of the characters or timeline, particularly in how Kyou's choices impact the characters. Hiroko is the most notable example as her tennis scholarship can be at risk even if the surrounding events of the week cause her to worry. Her emotional state mingles in with how she plays tennis, after all.

I explain this as each character is well written on their timelines and depending on how early or late you play Nozomi's route in your exploration, you may find that Nozomi's evening actions are more flexible than the other girls. With Hiro and Sayori there are external factors at play with their tennis, study club and cram school commitments. With Nozomi the amount of time she gives or refuses to give, with very few exceptions, is her choice alone. She also denies Kyou justifications, though they tend to mostly be around her not wanting to explain herself to friends and family. Sometimes we know from other routes why she is unavailable, sometimes we do not. It helps put the player in Kyou's perspective. Not knowing if they can trust if Nozomi is getting her fill and abandoning Kyou or if the pair are doing a poor job of planning their scenes to include deescalation, debrief and aftercare.

Kyou's confusion grows the next day when Nozomi refuses to associate with him at school the next day. A theme which grows larger in two of the routes. Feeling like he is a shameful secret, much like Nozomi's interest in hypnosis, Kyou is forced to wait until Nozomi returns for more sessions, completely in the dark as to where he stands.

When he asks for clarification on this topic Nozomi makes it very clear.

She has no intention of dating anyone.

From here you are given the option of either respecting her boundaries or pretending to. Pretending to locks you in to a bad ending from the Delusion route.

Agreeing will begin the divergence in the tree to chose from 3 options. From here on I'll be focused less on plot outlines and more on plot analysis as it is at this point the themes of the game begin paying off.

Trance: Kyou introduces a reinduction trigger and the pair explore the kink with increasing levels of thrill seeking. We get to see the risks of abandoning safe framework, the hurt that comes from compartmentalizing your kink and social lives.

Reversal: Nozomi is offered the penlight and becomes the dominant. We get to see how the girls must have felt under the penlight's sway and experience Kyou being unambiguously mistreated without the fallback of "it was his own fault"

Zombie: A massive abreaction happens and the focus of the story falls upon safety and mitigating damage in hypnosis scenes.

So let's do them one at a time.

Trance:

One of the biggest themes of this game is that hypnosis is a collaborative action that takes place with communication, trust and caution. As I had mentioned in the initial review post any of the endings which are considered "good" involve the penlight being broken as it represents a "one way" process of hypnosis, whether it be overriding agency, skipping communication/feedback or removing safety.

It's my personal view that the penlight represents the toxic elements of a hypnotic relationship and compress the timeline of damage from years into a single week. It's one of the few things that Turq and I diverge in from our reads. It's also why I think Turq's review of the Nozo-Trance route is going to be the definitive one, in the same way I intend my analysis on the Sayori-Alter route to be definitive when I get around to writing it. My history with the toxic elements of hypnosis all revolve around a lack of safety in hypnosis itself, after all and that is the lens I approach things from.

The reason I say that is because the Trance route is firmly based in the relationship aspects of hypnosis and how trust, communication and collaboration need to be established.

Nozomi continues to treat Kyou as a trance dispenser in this route, disappearing when their scenes are concluded. She also intends for hypnosis to only work when they are in Kyou's home as a way to ensure it is secret from the world and no one can know the things that she is interested in.

This leads to the route being divided between scenes at Kyou's home where the pair slowly erode their safeties to introduce more and more exciting ideas into their mix and school scenes where Kyou is ignored by an increasingly standoffish Nozomi who refuses to acknowledge Kyou's existence outside of sceneplay.

Kyou even says it himself in narrative "I might be the one hypnotizing her, but it's really me following her suggestions around here."

When Kyou stands up for himself and says that he didn't even know if he needed to prepare for Nozomi's arrival her reply is nonchalant.

At the start of the route Nozomi was eager to be fully communicative of all things and yet as her comfort with this arrangement has continued she has assumed more and more that Kyou would be willing to go along with anything she wanted. The divide between them grows more as Kyou finds that his day-to-day life hasn't really shifted as much as he would hope.

So... if "good communication and mundane hypnosis" is part of the condition for a good ending, what is a condition for a bad ending?

Outside of the obvious outcomes such as being expelled or punished, a decent number of endings have Kyou given the responsibility of caring for another human being who no longer has agency.

The game is always clear that when collaboration breaks down but the hypnotic relationship remains then one party is having to do all of the work and it is not a good thing. There is no ending in the game where Kyou is willing to or enjoys having a mindless and controlled partner.

That's important to note because with the understanding of Kyou's comfort there we know that collaboration and a relationship (not dating, just a relationship) is what he desires and in this route he is not receiving that because Nozomi stonewalls him.

What's worse is that she's not even put any thought into the fact Kyou may feel this way.

But hey. It's not like he's a mind reader or anything...

Oh by the way the suggestions have subtext to them. We'll get to that a bit more with the Nozo-Reversal route.

From here Nozomi has Kyou say her trigger phrase (and almost crashes into the floor because there's no safety in place for how she flops) and Kyou has her come clean.

Nozomi is finding it increasingly more arousing how little control she feels she has when she is in Kyou's home and much of her fantasies involving hypnosis revolve around a complete helplessness.

The fact that the penlight is overriding her caution, repression and agency is something that she finds actively enticing and even the act of being forced to confess her "shameful" kink is alluring to her.

This squicks Kyou out enough that you are forced to make a decision on if you even wish to pursue a relationship with her. A sign that even the person enabling her fetish isn't fully accepting of it. A bad ending will occur if Kyou decides not to continue, but to continue he now finds himself on the slope and catering to her desires.

The problem is, they're not communicating.

Nozomi told him all of this under hypnotic compulsion. She is no closer to reconciling the shame from her sexuality but now she has revealed the depths of it to Kyou and he has taken it as instructions. In exchange Nozomi will try to include Kyou in her life more.

Kyou then goes online and begins reading ReadOnlyMind stories and learning what he thinks a hypnofetishist would enjoy and has come away from the encounter believing that Nozomi actively desires having her agency removed. The lack of communication allowed him to know what Nozomi desires and he has mistaken it for what she wants.

Further up the slope and with some dangerous new ideas of what their fun and games should be, Kyou visits Nozomi's home on Saturday and discovers that his post hypnotic suggestions still work on her outside of Kyou's home.

In every route Kyou is a believer of the "essential lie" of hypnosis. "No one can do anything under hypnosis that they didn't want to do."

That will come up a lot. The Delusion path is a thorough takedown of the idea in general.

Here it informs Kyou that Nozomi is eager to surrender her agency and removes another layer of safety. The rule that the suggestions only impacted at Kyou's home has eroded.

The pair commit to some kinky shenanigans and Nozomi's mother almost catches them doing some hypnotic rope play that is well handled in CG art and I shall not deprive you the enjoyment of seeking it yourself (the game is "pay what you want" on itch) but stands to show two things.

Kyou is having more fun like this and Nozomi is becoming increasingly comfortable with her desires and allowing for more risk taking.

Also there's a choice between spanking and tickling and I firmly believe that this is the most overtly erotic scene in the entire game. Kyou keeps testing her limits and whether it be via the penlight or Nozomi being free to explore her kink without any shame, she keeps on matching his challenge at every turn, seemingly enjoying every second of it, even when they court the danger of discovery.

Kyou even notes a few times that she never breaks scene at any point for her own comfort or security.

...I will save my personal commentary on hypnotee agency until Sayori's review... But I have thoughts.

At the end of the day in which Nozomi insists Kyou needs to head home, Kyou suspects he is being brushed off again because Nozomi had her fill from the scene and no longer wishes to be around him. She says that she has no more time for the weekend and will see him on Monday.

Kyou decides to press back and hypnotically forces her to come to him the next morning. They even stay up online to discuss their next scene.

Unfortunately Sunday is, in every single route of the game, Hiroko's tennis tournament and Nozomi must dedicate her day to being with her bestie and throwing her a karaoke party afterwards.

But her compulsion commands her to go to Kyou and so she does, abandoning her friend.

The next morning they have a roleplay scene that is increasingly high stakes and Kyou continues to press his advantages, unaware of the sheer power of the penlight. She even gets Nozomi to her underwear with very little effort.

Though the scene requires a little bit of management afterwards, Nozomi forgetting that her clothes are her own, it was an enjoyable experience for them both.

But then her phone pings and she is informed that she is missing Hiroko's game. She insists she has to leave and Kyou, not understanding the importance of this event, pushes back and assumes that she is once again ditching him because the scene is over and she does not want to deal with Kyou outside of their play.

There will eventually be a route where you get to hypnotically command her to stay but for now Kyou accepts that she has to leave.

Having let down her best friend, Nozomi withdraws and goes back to the former arrangement, scolding Kyou via text message for attempting to pester her during school and says that she needs to take some time to focus on study, leaving Kyou feeling abandoned again.

Something they both fail to do as they fail their mock exams hard and this leaves Nozomi feeling yet more shaken and wanting to retreat from kink.

However she believes that if they just "get it out of their systems" they'll be free from their obsessions. Leaning further into the slope that the pair are on.

The safety and sanity have long since vanished off of the horizon in their risk profile and consent has been on a broken foundation since the start.

What follows is a scene where they bring their kink into school hours. Creating an open trigger (with no safeties) that will reenact the tickling/spanking trigger from the weekend.

It goes poorly. Regardless of the effect Nozomi will feel it continuously for the full lunch hour and it gets worse with every iteration of the trigger.

That night the pair attempt to mitigate the damage and once again the thrill of the high is placed above the detriments it is having on their social lives.

So Kyou decides to escalate instead of deescalate.

This is not a good idea.

The scene escalates until Nozomi is on her knees wearing nothing but her underwear and unable to speak above a whisper, exclusively referring to Kyou as "Sir". The further into the scene the pair get the more Kyou shapes himself to become the type of hypnotist he believes Nozomi dreams of.

At this point you are given your final options for the endings:

Make me a cheese omelet - Become my girlfriend - Become mindless for me.

Nozomi actively resists the penlight and tries to physically restrain Kyou to prevent him snapping his finger or pressing her forehead to force her to be his girlfriend. This is the one boundary that you had to accept at the start of the route to allow things to get to this point. You literally cannot reach this moment without Kyou agreeing to respect that boundary and breaking it is a guaranteed bad ending. Either Kyou steals Nozomi away from her friendgroup and the pair will sink into their kink exploration with no allowances for their school, career prospects or external friends to interfere or Nozomi will succeed in stopping Kyou from robbing her of her agency and leave him for breaking her one rule.

The "mindless" ending is... dark. I'd rather not go over it as it doesn't make additional points other than having Kyou finally understand his penlight robs people of agency, which he does not learn in this route until the very end.

The omelet ending is a sweet and tender scene between the pair which has an ethical jumping off point.

The next day Nozomi slips and refers to Kyou as "Sir" during school hours and her friends instantly get on her case about it.

I should note here that Sayori knows Nozomi's fetish in every route. These little bits of characterization that remain constant through all of the routes really add flavor to certain interactions.

The true growth comes when Nozomi, seeing Sayori interrogating Kyou and thinking the worst of him, comes in and offers to invite her friends to Kyou's house to tell them everything.

Once there she discovers all the programming tied to being at Kyou's home kicks back in to both party's surprise. Kyou agrees to remove all suggestions so they can talk.

The subject of the penlight is raised and they finally realize that it is a bit special...

Kyou puts it eloquently here:

The penlight is destroyed leading to the golden ending of the route. Nozomi, realizing how much damage the pair had done in their chase of thrills, cuts off from hypnokink to focus on her studies.

After a timeskip she meets up with Kyou after exams and says she has been watching hypnosis videos again recently and asks if they can start exploring again without the penlight.

She accepts that she still does not want to date but she may end up treating Kyou as a trance dispenser again if she approaches without an arrangement and Kyou says he doesn't want to push her. The pair communicate and agree that they just want to explore out of friendship and interest.

Nozomi kisses Kyou on the cheek and it is clear an establishment of trust has been made and the pair will find something more healthy this time.

Now... I'm the type of person who enjoys watching "analysis" videos that just tell the plot beat for beat and I would need so many more hours to even attempt that for the entire game so I'll be more swift with the other two, especially as a lot of similar ground is covered. I'll likely do a more full breakdown of Alter route for Sayori but let's get through the other two a bit faster...

Reversal:

One of the main reasons I wanted to do Trance route in full and show off how the entirety of a route plays out is that the knowledge of how other routes play out help so very much with the retelling and expanding on the themes.

If Nozomi takes possession of the penlight then Kyou will become her plaything for the duration of the route. Her behavior is not altered, however. Her risk profile is, however.

In the Trance route Nozomi wants to put strict safety and restrictions on early play because she is afraid of being discovered and does not fully trust Kyou to play with her mind. She does not hold the same reservations in reverse, however. So what happens when someone who ditches scenes without deescalation is running the scene?

A constant "Bad" condition on any route is an open trigger/suggestion that bleeds outside of play spaces. We say a lot of that with the restrictions of Kyou's hypnosis only supposed to work within Kyou's home in the trance route and how things get worse when that restriction is tested and broken. In other routes one of the absolute worst situations is the impact of a suggestion exiting the scene and stretching out into the world.

God I should have started with Sayori...

As a sidenote, Hiroko's route actually has some mildly positive impact (at least not inherently BAD) of play stretching out beyond scenes. But Hiroko's routes are a little more light hearted than the serious lectures on communication, safety and abreactions that Sayori and Nozomi's routes deal with.

So Nozomi's first command is to perceive her as invisible and she runs off to her evening plans without closing out the suggestion.

As I said earlier, the suggestions are symbolic at times.

One of the most interesting things about this route is that we get to see what the girls experience with their time going under for the penlight. Most of the inductions involve Kyou starring at the penlight for a few text boxes and then waking up with no clue as to what happened.

Kyou also likes asking his hypnotee their opinion on topics and finds that they're always accommodating and accepting of his playstyle. Nozomi was remarkably good about all of the events that transpired in the Trance route after all...

Sorry, Kyou...

The penlight makes it so enjoyable to go into hypnosis that you cannot really advocate for yourself. Hypnotee Agency is not a thing in most of these routes and the Reversal route makes this clear. There is only one actual choice you can make in the entire route and it's only there because Nozomi tells Kyou to make it.

Incidentally the bad ending of the route (newly added as of this update) is unlocked by making the insignificant choice of "pat head" or "striptease".

Turq and I have a mild disagreement on this moment. I believe that when Nozomi sees that Kyou is willing to and incapable of stopping himself from getting naked for her she is so turned on (sexually or otherwise) by her level of control that she is pushed over the edge of morality. Turq's read is that she dehumanizes Kyou in that moment and loses empathy for him that leads to the good ending.

Odd that the sex-repulsed asexual has the read that she was turned on.

Anyway...

Nozomi continues to ignore Kyou at school and come to his house at night to brainwash him and selfishly steals him away for Hiroko's tennis match, asserting that she is going to take him with her for the celebration.

Funny. In Trance route Kyou subvert's Nozomi's agency to have her skip the tennis match, in Reversal route Nozomi subvert's Kyou's to force him to attend.

In this route she doesn't mind associating with Kyou with her friend group because she is in control and doesn't feel like the association will out her or be a mark of shame for her being a "freak" (her word, not mine).

She puts Kyou through a mortifying scene and bullies her friends around to get her way with making it happen, the power of the penlight having brought up some bullyish tendancies within her. She wants to check in that Kyou is okay but as before he is only allowed to agree.

During school she continues her unempathetic behavior and starts a big fight with her friends when they attempt to talk to Kyou and she continuously talks over him and at one point she even commands him not to say a word.

Nozomi's behavior is fairly toxic at the end of the fight, going as far as to pull a guilt tripping "I'm horrible" as a way to distance Sayori.

The controlling behavior and lack of communication, trust and safety bleeds out once again as she commands Kyou to tell her the truth about if she is a horrible controlling monster and he does.

He tells her she has not been fair. That she stopped cleaning up her suggestions the moment she took over. She took Kyou's stated limit (not wanting to sing karaoke) and instantly overrode it. She forces Kyou to hang out with her friends but does not extend him empathy or kindness. She just treats him as a toy.

Like. Literally. He tells her outright.

This causes Nozomi to get defensive and demand that if Kyou was so upset then why did he chose to continue obeying. We are then lead to the good end or bad depending on the earlier scene.

In the good end Nozomi breaks the penlight realizing what she has done and in the bad she becomes Miss Akemi and makes full use of the penlight.

The deprogramming scene that follows is actually remarkably tender and sweet with all the tenderness of someone's first hypnosis scene, checking back and forth if the other is okay, Nozomi knows she has gone too far and is so careful in this sequence.

To add in to how tender and connected the hypnosis scene is, this time there is no brutal cut between penlight and waking. We are in Kyou's perspective the whole time as his eyes slip closed and he follows Nozomi's voice through the experience. We get to see Kyou reacting to Nozomi's words and experiencing the delightful relaxation and trust he has in Nozomi during these moments. He wonders if he is actually hypnotized while agreeing in thought to go with it.

Eyes open and close for fractionation and each time the artwork fades in and out, Nozomi's expression becoming more serious and/or concerned as it continues.

Questions of if it's working become certainty and Kyou even notes "I can't resist" not because his agency is overridden but because he tests his eyes and knows he cannot open them and that's okay.

"I just want to listen."

This is by far the longest hypnosis sequence in the game and it is essential that this be the case as it is the thesis statement of the game being played out. We are not witnessing the trust and tenderness of a well communicated and safe hypnosis scene, we are experiencing it.

The ending even has Nozomi accept the consequences of her behavior and make-up with her friends, admit her fetish which is one of the hardest things to achieve in any given run and Kyou is earnestly and honestly part of their friendgroup. Nozomi notes that she may wish to buy a pocketwatch in the future.

In terms of "good end" this is one of my favorite because Kyou gets to be friends with everyone, Nozomi comes to terms with her repressed desires and we get one of the most pure displays of hypnosis in the entire experience.

I am curious about other people's feelings on this one.

I'm running on fumes for the remainder so maybe I'll cover "Zombie" route later.

All I will say is that it is a route that is begun by Kyou having Nozomi imagine herself as a zombie, likely thinking of the Chinese Zombie trope of arms stretched outright and looking dehumanized. Nozomi takes it literally and tries to bite Kyou's flesh off.

This entire route is punctuated by abreactions and hypnotic safety. We are reminded of our fuck-up throughout the route by a giant bruise on Nozomi's character model (and lack of glasses for much of it) and it is the only route where all three of the main girls get involved with the experimentation around hypnosis right from the get-go.

With everyone clearly communicating and trying to accommodate for safety we still, in the mock stage hypnosis scene, get an abreaction despite every suggestion being very well laid out. It's almost weird how well packaged they are in this route and highlights how sloppy the suggestions are in the rest of the game.

The idea being that no amount of safety is going to cover everything. When we play with hypnosis we cannot possibly know every single thing about every single person we play with and mistakes can and will happen and we have to both own that and minimize the amount of harm we do by being tidy but also by talking out suggestions first and not springing them on people.

No matter how careful we are there will always be mistakes and it is better to deal with those mistakes before the scene than during it.

It's actually a remarkably good fable and makes a stunning point. I think that erasing all the barriers (Nozomi's shame of being discovered, Hiroko assuming the worst of Kyou, Sayori being involved enough to be the sane one in the room who has researched enough to know what is true and not attached like Kyou and Nozomi enough to not let things slide) and showing Kyou make sensible suggestions is the best way to approach this.

Even in the best possible timeline where there are no external factors and everyone is on their best behavior you can still mess up.

...and boy howdy we are going to mess up a lot in the rest of the game.

Next time I'm going to trauma dump on you all and type more than is necessary about Sayori's routes and reveal why my Penlight tag is "Sayori is best girl".

But for now... I have typed a lot and I do not wish to type any longer.

Eagerly awaiting Turq's post.

#camden posting #dawn posting #sayori is best girl #penlight #visual novel #hypnokink #I need a blended tag for when a post isn't solely authored in a specific headspace #media essays

[thelogbookproject]

If you could do any licensed TTRPG product, what would it be? Someone else's IP, completely redoing an already established one, anything!

It's complicated. This is a thorny subject for me -- I'm happy to answer, it's just messy.

See, I designed Legend of the Elements. At the time, it was a definitive answer to "What Is the AtLA RPG". Fast forward to when Avatar got an official PbtA RPG, Avatar Legends, and despite years of experience adapting AtLA to PbtA, I was never approached, considered, or asked to contribute in any way. I get why the corporation went with Magpie over itty bitty solo me, but it stung. What hurts much more: Avatar Legends is, imo, far worse than Legend of the Elements 2e (in development a year before AL's announcement). I kinda hate it. I didn't like Masks even before it. I won't get into it here or I'll never stop and I'll hurt my professional standing with people I like. Ask me some other time if you wanna know about that.

Anyway, I'm obviously bitter. A big part of coping has been recognizing how freeing myself from the IP allows my game to improve. This isn't unfounded! LotE was originally Avatar World, and about halfway through development I knew I had enough to actually publish and stripped off the labels, becoming Legend of the Elements, and it vastly improved the game almost overnight. So I'm hesitant about working with IPs in the best of cases. I've been stripping IPs off my designs to improve them forever now, and most of my games start with IPs I love that I want to improve by going beyond them. Media provides ideas, but IPs are just shackles on adaptation work.

Still, I do have answers.

If I get complete freedom to adapt and shape the game, ignoring existing products: Avatar the Last Airbender.

If I'm bound to the character constraints of the IP: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.

If I can play outside the plots and structures of the original to my own desires: Disco Elysium.

AtLA is, frankly, personal vindication. Plus my game is better and I want people to play it, for their sakes, but the answer here is driven by a desire for vindication.

She-Ra is so intensely character-driven that I don't think you can make a recognizable SRPoP game without directly doing the IP, and adapting LotE(2e) is actually perfect for it. I actually did it, only viewable on my Patreon or website, DTRPG (rightly) blocked it from sale. I would love to explore that further. As much as Thirsty Sword Lesbians is the Catradora game, I don't think a real She-Ra adaptation works without She-Ra herself in the rules.

I don't want to retell Disco Elysium, in plot, setting, or theme. But the underlying structures of what makes it what it is are eminently open to being worked with, and I have a vision. I have that vision right now, and it's in the early stages of being processed. Maybe it won't go anywhere, but that's what I'm excited about right now, so that's what I'm saying.

I have one more answer. All of those share one trait: I know how I'd do them. So if you want the deepest, truest, dark-of-my-soul answer for what IP I wish I could adapt but don't know how I'd even do it to my satisfaction: The World Ends With You.

It escapes me. I wish I knew how to do it. The firm #3 on my Personal Top 5 Games Ever list, I long for the day that I crack the code. Also: I know of, and respect, Vibe Check. It does capture elements, but it's not what I envision.

So that's my answer. Depending on circumstance, Avatar the Last Airbender, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Disco Elysium, or The World Ends With You.

#asked and answered #ttrpg #way too much thought #excuse the bitterness please #focus on the enthusiasm that drives me to be bitter about stuff instead

[xiakha]

FFXIVWrite2023 Prompt #20 - Hamper

"And you! Why waste your final moments in futile defiance?"

Really, it was unseemly to gloat so, especially when victory was such a foregone conclusion. In a sense, he felt as if he were bullying upstart children who hadn't learned their place after all this time. Nay, even children could be reasoned with, albeit in rudimentary ways. These mortals were like particularly stubborn livestock. His assured triumph was still as hard earned as wrestling with a herd of keraunoi.

He was awake. Wide awake, actually awake. The first time in decades, he wasn't going through the motions and sleepwalking through this encounter, rousing slightly only to deliver a snarky remark based on whatever tidbit he overheard. No, he was all there, all present. He was absolutely, spectacularly livid, and utterly rock bottom disappointed.

And yet the vindication that he was going to feel as the so-called Warrior of Darkness crumbled into a monstrosity of light was going to be so delicious. Oh but only if there was more of an audience for the drama about to unfold! The Miqo'te would turn, and the direct exposure to all of that light aether would start to turn her allies as well. They would have to choose to futilely fight and risk turning into sin eaters, or find a way to off themselves or each other while they still had a form of reason and self. This sort of desperation, especially among friends and allies, this was the drama that Emet-Selch lived for. If only he had popcorn. His rage burned so hot he could likely pop the kernels through sheer force of will, but he wasn't in the mood to conjure them up. No, the grim satisfaction of watching these so-called Scions turn on each other as they became corrupted by the light was enough.

And yet, the Miqo'te continued shuffling forward, dragging her sword behind her.

"Oh, weary wanderer, you've no fight left to fight, no life left to live."

It came out as a taunt, but there was pity. Pity and a little bit of confusion. Why bother expending the precious little aether she had left that wasn't corrupted by light already? And to do what? Swing her oversized sword once at nothing? Even if Emet-Selch let her drive the slab of metal through this body, it would be little more than an inconvenience. He'd just have to go fetch another.

He could see her soul bursting at the seams with light aether, but she held together like a particularly hardy glass bottle falling down a flight of stone stairs. Each step taken was miraculous defiance against the natural order. A bit of unease gripped Emet-Selch's heart in the same way it would if he were waiting for a particularly overblown balloon to finally pop as it bobbled against a pin. He might actually change his tune a little if she was actually able to swing her sword.

Ah, but the Light would not be denied!

The Warrior of Darkness, radiating light aether like a particularly tiny and purple star, crumbled to her knees long at last. The glass bottle that was her soul finally cracked, and the momentum would surely cause her to shatter. Now here was the grand reveal. The Lightwarden to end all Lightwardens, born from the Warrior of Darkness. The irony would keep him fed for millennia. Several Rejoinings down the road, when his work was complete, he would still look fondly on the moons of plotting it took to engineer this monstrosity.

...And yet, he could not deny that he also felt the peculiar wish to help her up, dust her off. She was---

No. She was not. A poor reflection at best. He let his livid hatred and cruel satisfaction blot out those thoughts. This was yet another betrayal on her part. Even if Xiao wasn't aware of it, Emet-Selch could sense how it was in a way a tiny little bit of spite left over from her.

"Rise up in madness and fury! Devour the vermin infesting the land which is righfully ours!"

One of the fools leapt at him, a distraction easily seen through. He needed but a moment, ah, the little Oracle of Light was still fit to run it seemed. Emet-Selch was tempted to see what would happen, would she be consumed with light as she attempted to seal, thus eliminating any and all hope that remained, or would she make it in the nick of time?

No, it was better if the little Oracle was helped along. With a flick of his arm, he tossed the aetherically impaired one aside and with the return motion sent a blast of aether through the girl's center of mass. It wouldn't kill her out right and deny her turning into a sin eater, but it would prevent her from reaching the Miqo'te.

And then what? Where would the hero turn to next? Emet-Selch nearly wanted to stoop down to see what kind of expression Xiao was making, but getting so close to the Lightwarden-to-be could mean getting caught in the blast. Oh, he would be fine, but it would be a pain in his slumped shoulders and neck to retrieve another clone body at this time, especially when he wanted to see all of this through without interruption. No, better to watch everything fall apart for the would-be-heroes from a safe distance.

Well then.

The fireworks were about to begin.

As Xiao spewed liquid light from her mouth, Emet-Selch could see with his aethersight the very last of her aether, the thinnest bits that were barely holding her very form together, were now crackling with light like the rest of her. The Warrior of Darkness erupted in a geyser of aether. Oh, how would she transform? What brilliant and terrible and monstrous form would all of that aether take on?

It dazzled so much that Emet-Selch had to shield his eyes. All of this brightness was probably a migraine he'd need to sleep off in the very near future. He might switch out to another body just for that.

...Wait...

That hair, that posture, that mask...

Cruelties upon cruelties if the Lightwarden took on the image of---

No. His aethersight was caught up with afterimages again. All of this damned light! It wasn't her. And in a way, this was just one last petty betrayal before the very end of her latest mockery, her latest broken husk of a form.

...And yet, and yet the impossible occurred. The glass bottle struck the final step, cracked as it was, and then bounced once more. And it bounced back whole. The cracks mended. Still very full of light aether, and yet...

A part of him wanted to retreat, to lick the wounds to his pride, to reset and revise. It wasn't supposed to turn out this way, but he could afford to wait the fifty or so years that it took for this iteration of Hydaelyn's defiance to pass back into the Lifestream. Who knows, maybe once this incident was over, the fools would return to the Source and accidentally trigger the Rejoining there on their own.

No. He had entertained this little farce for far too long. It ended here and now. No more would his plans be stymied by this poor retelling of Azem's fate.

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite #FFxivWrite2023 #emet selch #wordvomit #a short scene

[frumfrumfroo]

You mentioned that George Lucas said that TLJ was "beautifully done/written." Where do you think Mark Hamill's overall criticisms on that film (particularly how Luke was portrayed) stemmed from? His comments during the promotions really fed the fires of irate OT fans and an/tis...

He also had very high praise for the film and for Rian (he said it was the best SW film since ESB- on the red carpet irrc, I remember that being one of the first real ‘reactions’ we got). I think his struggle with it was entirely emotional and on that basis I completely understand where he was coming from.

#I think he was shocked how dark Luke's arc was and how little reprieve there was from that #and now that the trilogy is over I'm going to go ahead and say they did in fact fail the original characters #TFA lacked intimacy completely except for one scene where is was provided by Harrison Ford #TLJ was better but still lacking #for structural reasons mainly- but there could have been more with Leia #and tros is a shitshow which renders them all definitively sociopath plot automatons #there to bestow Worthiness and Legacy on Replacement Child Player Character Rey #the darkness of TLJ is only justified by the vindication of a new happy ending #Luke's Crait behaviour is only okay if he returns (AS PROMISED!) to see Ben again with tenderness and warmth #the Luke/Ben relationship is the most pivotal in the whole fucking mythic architecture and DLF didn't feel the need to address it AT ALL #not even in the EU do they act like they understand that Ben is their legacy and Luke is his uncle who basically raised him #the fact that there is no reunion for them is CRIMINAL and they fail completely to understand they have destroyed SW &the Skywalker legacy #and if they were not going to provide a resolution they should NEVER HAVE UNPICKED ROTJ'S ENDING #and featured the OT characters as cheesy cameos in their SWCU extruded movie product #about Captain Bland's Unproblematic Adventure #making them all failures with miserable lives and having it all be for nothing is fucking horrible and incredibly disrespectful #I'm still in disbelief they treated these iconic characters this way- but they're so fucking stupid they don't even realise #they don't even know they shit on them and ruined them #luke

[sepublic]

       After Agony of a Witch, it becomes an extra level of disturbing to see happy childhood moments between Eda and Lilith, when you realize that Lilith has likely been seething on the inside over any of Eda’s successes. That Grudgby photo takes a darker, almost sinister overtone because now Lilith isn’t just happy, now she’s SO smug and glad to defeat her brat of a sister and put her in her place, and it’s messed up imagining an older sibling hate their young sibling like this- A younger sister who looks so happy and innocent and proud of themselves.

        Even Lilith’s own triumph and victories are corrupted by the vindicated vitriol that’s strengthened each time; Now looking at that Grudgby photo, once sweet and adorable and nostalgic, once but a playful sibling rivalry and simply that, now it just makes me uncomfortable. Looking back now, it’s harder for Eda and the audience to enjoy her accomplishments, knowing Lilith is resenting and blaming Eda for them and eventually curses her because of this.

        Each victory is met and ruined with a spiteful comment and worsening relationship inside; That Eda has been forced into a newfound guilt and shame over this, because how dare you hurt Lily, and now you’re just contributing to the curse- And it’s not REALLY Eda’s fault of course, but still, it makes Eda question and doubt herself. It’s all been ruined with resentment, from Lilith then, and Eda now as she realizes what her sister has betrayed her over, what Lilith let get to her head and sabotage between the two!

         The whole thing becomes far less pure and fun and innocent, and just a painful dilemma where Eda feels like she has to quiet and suppress herself for Lilith’s sake, like she’s being threatened to not live life like she wants to; And when she did, Eda was retaliated and struck against. Even if Eda keeps going through with it, and of course she did and will; It’s all ruined because now she has to also brace herself instinctively for any emotional retaliation from Lilith.

         Eda’s no longer carefree, and she can only wince as she looks back at all of her happy accomplishments, which are now tainted with a retroactive consequence that makes Eda second-guess and doubt them, no longer look back at as fondly because she knows now what’s been building up because of it; And her older sister that she trusted ruined that for her, now even her own memories and past pride are no longer safe! They say you can’t change the past, but it feels like Lilith changed it for the worse with the revelation of her jealousy, with this horrid new implication.

         It really does feel like a betrayal that you never saw coming, but was stewing this entire time, and that just makes it so much more terrifying because you never know if this loved one is plotting and holding a grudge, and that every congratulations and happy smile is underscored with the realization that it’s likely fake and resentful. Now Lilith’s eyes are filled with envy, and it hurts to see every move become monstrous as you see her as a monster and a liar who’s pretending and faking everything, not as a loving and genuine sister! What was once content to be taken at face-value, must now be reevaluated, all of it, in a paranoid search for something hidden, in case it’s there and probably is, now that everything you thought was certain in life, is all a lie!

         Every close memory has had a twisted realization latched onto it, a hesitating “But...” that holds everyone back; A guilt-filled reminder that grabs you on the shoulder, a harsh and cold one that snaps you back to a cruel reality. Now it just hurts to look back, it makes everything that happened feel so worthless and empty and thrown aside, because it meant nothing to that person in the end! How many smiles hid malice? A few? Most? All? Did you mean any of them or were they complete and total lies through and through, each one?! The horrified realization and question- Do you hate me sister?

         You have to wonder... At what point did it all go wrong? When did it become fake... If any of it was ever real? And Eda’s displaying so much bravery to knowingly trust and confide in people like Luz and King, Owlbert and even Hooty- And it says so much of her courage and trust, in that sisterly faith, to bring Lilith along, even if things may not have been fully remedied, not quite yet. Even if there’s now a dark stain overshadowing it all, Eda still remembers the kindness- And what good Lilith has done since the confession, can no longer be ruined, because now we all know exactly where she’s operating from.

        Even Lilith’s past efforts to cure Eda, while worsened in hindsight, feel almost apologetic- So while the memories before the curse have been ruined, there’s that realization that something still stuck through in the end and afterwards, a remorse and regret ultimately from love and care and kindness that stubbornly persists... And it’s why Lilith is so dead set on curing the curse, even if she goes past Eda’s boundaries to do so in an almost selfish manner.

       There’s still something there, in spite of the realized evil and betrayal, a new understanding for both sisters... And it just contrasts with that stain of regret all the more brightly. That at some point, Lilith realized something was wrong, and began to change for the better... Even if in many other ways she worsened, the road to healing still somewhat began; And while Lilith has procrastinated since, it’s still the first step that’s the hardest to take, and she did it. And now she’s just made the next step, so...

        Maybe Eda can once again retroactively change these corrupted memories. She can brighten them with the realization of the kid she meets, while knowing that eventually, Lilith changes for the better as well. You can’t change what already happened, but knowing more, knowing the ending and making THAT better- It can add an overtone of hope to what was once just dark and despairing.

#the owl house #the owl house eda #edalyn clawthorne #the owl house lilith #lilith clawthorne #angst #meta

[delimeful]

let my mind reset (2)

happy holidays, i brought everyone's favorite gift: high tension plot & tragic backstories!

warnings: imprisonment, mentions of death/mass murder/genocide, involuntary drug use, antagonist original character, panic attack, flashbacks, mild injury, taser

-

Roman wasn’t sure how long he’d been stuck in the holding cell.

His first idea had been to mark the cycles on one wall, to gather his bearings by the sky’s map, but there were no window ports, no view of the universe outside at all. Not even the greatest Crav’n navigator could’ve worked without a single star to go off.

He knew he was on a vessel, at least. Unlike his crewmates, Roman was more than familiar with the difference between artigrav and genuine gravity. They didn’t really understand it when he attempted to describe the sensation, but then, they didn’t seem to get headaches from low-quality antigrav systems, either.

Gods above, his crew. He hoped they were safe, hoped that at least that Human was good for something and would keep them from venturing onto the same moon that Roman had been so underhandedly abducted from.

No, with any luck, they wouldn’t be able to get involved. The way he’d been abducted-- drugged and dragged off-- it reeked of black market smuggling. Whatever they’d nabbed him for, it was probably his species they cared about, not his crew. He tried not to think too hard about what that meant for him, but...

There wasn’t much to do but think, in a cell like this. He had enough space to take three strides, from one wall of bars to the next, and no more. Nutrient gel packs were dropped through the slot of the back wall with alarming irregularity. The neighboring cells were empty, and everything was alway eerily, lifelessly silent.

Roman wasn’t sure how long he’d been stuck in the holding cell, but it was long enough that by the time he heard a distant cacophony, he was instantly alert, scales prickling in anticipation.

The noises grew closer and closer, and a piercing, glowing alarm lit the connecting corridor moments before the door to the cell block was being slammed into. Roman backed up, trying to figure out what sort of internal invasion he’d gotten caught up in.

On the third blow, the door crumpled inward like cheap plating, and an undeniably Human figure stood in the empty frame, panting. Familiar eyes immediately locked onto his cell.

“Virgil?” Roman squawked in alarm. He took a daring step toward the bars, barely believing what his own mind was perceiving. Was this another dream?

“Roman! You’re alive.” Virgil’s shoulders slumped dismissively, as though he wasn’t the one who had apparently boarded an enemy ship to find him. Despite all the questions he had, Roman felt immediately and irrevocably offended.

“No need to look so disappointed,” he growled, making the Human’s face scrunch up unpleasantly.

“What? No-- Never mind. We can chat when you’re out of there.” Virgil hurried down the hall to his cell, gripping the lockbox as though he could pull it apart. “Where’s the key?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Roman hissed, attempting to glance over his shoulder to the open hall the Human had come from. It was empty, for the moment. “I haven’t even seen another person in this place, let alone the vital instrument to my escape!”

Virgil pulled back, freakish eyes strangely wide. “Seriously? You’ve been alone this whole time?”

There was something oddly strained about his voice, but Roman didn’t exactly have the luxury of attempting to interpret whatever the Human was implying at the moment. He felt his tail thumping the floor anxiously. “Can we please focus?”

“Right.” Virgil shook his head sharply, releasing his deathgrip on the lockbox. “Right, uh, maybe I can li-- ghk.”

Abruptly, the deathworlder seemed to freeze up, jaw clenched, limbs rigid, chest still. To Roman’s horror, he spotted a trickle of red spill from the corner of his lips. “Virgil!”

As though the spell had been broken, the Human staggered, and then fell forward, knocking clumsily into the bars and gripping them for support as his breathing started up again, twice as ragged as before. The overhead alarm went utterly quiet.

Now that Virgil had half-collapsed, Roman could see past him, to the door frame.

There was another Human standing there at the threshold.

They were tall, with pallid skin and rust-colored hair cropped shorter than Virgil’s, wearing well-fitted clothes, and with a finger on the trigger of a black, boxy weapon that Roman couldn’t identify. Thin, barely-visible wires connected it to Virgil. Virgil, who had taken four paralyzers at once and managed to keep fighting, but was barely stirring after one hit from this.

He opened his mouth to speak, not knowing what would come out, and his eyes caught on the emblem sewn onto the Human’s outfit.

He knew it.

It felt like his every scale was on end, unfiltered terror coursing through him.

“Found it,” the Human said, completely composed. Their free hand was raised up to an ear, pressing against the communicator there. “Ended up at the Crowned’s block instead of an exit. Should I take it to the reinforced cells?”

There was a pause as whoever was on the other end replied, and the Human glanced to Roman with nothing but ice in their gaze. “And the Crowned? … Of course. Right away.”

Clicking the comm off, they stepped forwards and yanked the wires free, ignoring the way Roman flinched. They poked at Virgil’s leg with the tip of their shoe, and then easily hauled their fellow Human to his feet. Virgil’s eyes went wide at the sight of them, but only for a moment. He immediately bared his teeth, gripped the other right back and dug his fingers in. “Let go.”

“Vicious, are we?” They muttered, unconcerned. “You can’t win, so don’t even try. I’ll be nice and warn you in advance: anything you do to me, I’ll double back onto your Crowned friend over there.”

At the gesture to Roman, Virgil went still, his hold loosening. There was something off about  that, Roman thought, but his mind seemed to be working through a thick fog, everything hazy and slow. The unfamiliar Human only nodded, as though they’d confirmed something, and pulled open the cell next to Roman’s before half-shoving Virgil towards it. “In.”

Still unsteady, Virgil stumbled heavily as the door was swiftly shut and locked behind him. The Human turned away, hand already returned to their communicator.

“I need two reinforced cells prepared for our lady. Clean up whatever’s left in them.”

They stepped past the shattered door, out of the room, and were gone. Roman felt his frozen posture thaw slightly, but there was no sense of relief. His pulse continued to race.

A cell over, Virgil leaned heavily against the bars, a sheen of sweat across his skin.

“That rescue attempt,” he said, voice rough, “went less than good.”

Ire rose in Roman hot and fast, like boiling water. It was as good a distraction as any. He turned to Virgil sharply, arms spread aggressively. “What were you thinking?”

“What?” Virgil asked, going still with surprise.

“You shouldn’t have come here. We’re both trapped here now.” He grabbed his own arm tightly, claws digging in. “This isn’t some low-grade smuggling ring you can slaughter your way out of!”

“Roman, I--,” Hurt, and then frustration flashed across Virgil’s face. “Come on, I came to help you--!”

“Oh, what a joke.” Roman snarled, his breath coming faster. “Help me? All you’ve done is gotten us both stuck in an even tighter trap.”

“I wasn’t trying to--”

“Oh, yes, I’ll believe that, coming from a Human,” Roman scoffed, ears flattening back aggressively. His head pounded in rhythm with the painful buzz of the artigrav.

Virgil stood up a little stiffer, eyebrows drawing in. Roman felt an odd vindication. The Human had certainly never made this harsh expression around Patton. “Me being Human doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

Roman’s laugh caught oddly in his throat, coming out bitter and shattered. “It has everything to do with this. You think it’s a coincidence that this is the first Human that we’ve run into since you? That they abducted me for no reason?”

Virgil stared at him, glancing at the open doorway the other Human had vanished through. “You know this place.” It wasn’t a question.

“I know these Humans,” Roman corrected sharply, trying to keep the chill from his bones as reality set in. It was harder, now that the heat of his anger was fading out.

“How?” Virgil asked, apparently doing his best to stoke those dying embers. He glanced at the door to his cell, assessing. “If you know something that could help--”

“Nothing can help us!” Roman snapped, breaths harsh and gasping. The walls were drawing closer, pressing down on him. “These Humans took everything from me! Everyone I ever knew, gone in a single night! I’m the only one left!”

There was no sudden ringing silence, no perceptible shift in the universe now that he’d admitted the truth. There was just him, and the Human, still in cells, still doomed.

“I’ve lived-- all this time for-- for them, and Humans,” his lungs were beginning to ache, “Humans can’t even-- won’t let me do that right.”

Virgil moved closer to the bars, slow and uncertain. “Hey. Roman, hey, easy. Roman, you have to breathe. Breathe, okay?”

His voice was lower, softer. Coaxing, like he was luring a small animal out of hiding. It was like watching a Human pretending to be an ally, like watching a Human using the voices of other victims, like watching a Human turn and slaughter his tribe-- his friends-- his family.

The past and present seemed to overlap, an insignia burnt into the Human’s clothes where it hadn’t been before. Roman snarled at him, but the noise came out choked and small, like he was a kit again.

Virgil-- his mother’s murderer-- the Human was still talking, the words echoing and rolling over each other until the noise was indecipherable. There was an undertone of urgency to its voice as Roman backed further away-- pushed himself deeper into the hidden crevice-- hid away like a coward.

When he finally blacked out, it was almost a blessing.

---

When he woke, his cell was different.

It was narrower, and composed entirely of thick, interlacing bars, no solid back wall to lean on. No food slot, either. The space was lit from above, and in the cell next to his, he could see Virgil pacing like a caged animal. The rest of the room was too dark to make out.

The moment he shifted to sit up, the Human’s eyes were on him. “Roman!”

Roman steeled himself, but Virgil was oddly muted, and he stayed firmly on the side of his cell furthest away. Even that meager distance wasn’t far enough to keep Roman’s pulse steady-- or enough to hide the bruised swelling on one side of Virgil’s face. “What happened to you?” he asked, pressing a palm to his own headache. The non-Human one.

Virgil’s hand drifted up to the injury absently. “Made some trouble when they were moving us.”

Roman stared at the injury for a moment longer. If this was how brutal these Humans were to one of their own, he didn’t even want to think about how they’d treat him.

“I called their bluff,” Virgil continued, as though Logan had connected their minds. “Whoever they answer to explicitly instructed them not to let you get hurt.”

“Not yet, at least,” Roman replied darkly.

Virgil just nodded, face tight with stress. “Not yet. That gives us time.” He paused, working his jaw for a moment. “If... if they’ve been keeping you here for this long, maybe we could find other survivors—“

“They’re dead, Virgil,” Roman cut him off, voice flat and toneless. His anger had burned out. “The bodies— I was the only one left to perform the wake afterwards.”

Virgil went quiet. Roman felt his mind slipping back to thick smoke and burnt flesh, and shook himself harshly, one loud rattle of his scales to try and ground himself. “How long was I out?”

“Not long,” Virgil replied, and then paused before Roman could demand a less vague answer. He pressed a finger to his mouth. “Hang on. Footsteps.”

There were a few beats of silence, and then a door slid open with a pneumatic hiss. For a moment, the hallway beyond was enough to cast a dim light over the rest of the room. Roman could make out rows of these narrow, empty cells, enough to hold more Humans than he ever wanted to see again.

It was the same Human from before, and Roman was surprised to find that their lip was split, though perhaps he shouldn’t have been. It was vindicating to see that Virgil had given as good as he’d gotten.

Any semblance of calm fled Roman’s body as the Human walked into the circle of light shining down over their cells, right up to the meager barrier between them. Human limbs were thin enough to reach through the bars, and the thought was enough to make him shift back, flaring up aggressively with every threat display he had.

“Don’t worry, your highness,” the Human said, their eyes rolling strangely in their skull. “I’m not here for you, not this time.”

Almost against his will, Roman’s gaze flickered to Virgil, who was standing stock-still in the middle of his cell, chest rising and falling only fractionally. The Human popped open the cell casually, and then waved when Virgil didn’t move.

“Come on, come on,” they chided, “you have a doctor's appointment to keep.”

Like the words were an igniting spark, Virgil took two running steps forward and launched himself at them.

It was barely a fight. The Human didn’t even hesitate, smoothly catching Virgil by the upper arms and twisting until he went down with a cry of pain Roman had never heard from him before. Even half-pinned to the floor, he continued to writhe and twist, a guttural hiss escaping him.

“Relax,” they ordered impatiently, shaking him once, “they know how to properly sedate here. Anesthetic and everything. You won’t feel a thing.”

Contrary to their attempt, Virgil’s struggles doubled in intensity, thrashing with a strength that seemed to surpass anything he’d displayed in front of Roman or the others before. “No! No!”

The Human swore offhandedly, grabbing something from a pocket. “Damn. Thought that would work, with reports on how you came in.”

In one simple movement, they wrapped their hand around Virgil’s neck, and waited as his struggles became heavy and leaden.

They were killing him, a tiny, panicked voice in Roman’s mind screamed.

He didn’t realize he had crossed the short length of his cell until he was already gripping the bars, rattling against them. “Stop! Let him go!”

The Human glanced up, eyebrows raising slightly. When they lifted their hand, the distinctive white square of a tranq patch was left behind, pressed firmly into the skin.

Not dead. Roman felt a shocking amount of relief, his scales drooping with the force of it. He just… didn’t want to see another person murdered by a Human, that was all.

The Human slung Virgil over a shoulder, recapturing his attention.

Right. Not dead. Just drugged into unconsciousness, about to be dragged off to who-knew-what.

“Wait!” Roman reached out, barely able to fit his wrist past the bars. There was white noise rising in his ears. “Look, it’s me you want, right? To-- To finish what you started, tie up the loose ends. That Human doesn’t have anything to do with this. So don’t do anything-- he’s not involved.”

“Oh, now that’s funny.” The Human laughed, the sound caustic, and leaned in. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, your highness. It doesn’t matter if he’s involved or not. Out here, the only thing a rogue Human needs to do to be targeted is exist.” They paused, mock-thoughtful. “Kind of like you, actually.”

Roman felt his entire being prickle with white-hot fury, a low growl rumbling in his chest. To say that his people deserved to be slaughtered for just existing… Human cruelty really knew no bounds.

“Speaking of,” the Human continued languidly, “I'll be back soon to show you to your own appointment.”

Roman felt his insides turn to ice.

“The boss has finally called for you.”

#sanders sides #wibar #lmmr #let my mind reset #ts virgil #ts roman #original character #writing #my writing #im not exactly happy with how this chapter turned out so im going to say please donnt be too rough on it #also the original character is not a side just 2 be clear #this chapter is a little heavy take care of yourselves #but also remember things get better! promise

[disfordevineaux]

Hello ! So if you finished watching season 4, could you share your opinion on it ? Did it meet your expectations ? Was the ending satisfying ?

HELLO! Yes, yes I have. Pretty much the second it came out I was watching it. I have pretty much been in a gif making coma for the last 3 days since its release, and I think the fact it's over has now just hit me.

I really liked s4. It was rushed, yes, but that's understandable considering the context. S4 was clearly not the initial plan. Not many Netflix aminated TV shows reach S6 or past that, so I have a feeling they were going for 6 seasons but had to cut it short. It's better than it getting officially cancelled. Which is most likely why season 4 was full to the brim with actions and character development. So I'm not mad at the quick end but I would have loved at least one more season to really flesh the development and plot points. No more so than the Devineaux development in regards to the new Julia and Chase dynamic.

Before I go into that I want to address the solo Chase-ness that was fantastic. Chase got his ass kicked like 5 times this season, once by a chair.

And was clocked by a frisbee for good measure too.

Oh, and landed on his car another time. The pain in his face... I- help this man.

But he got to kick some of his own asses this season too ofc.

Anyway, Chase really stood up and said ‘I am a Himbo’ this season and it filled me with joy. Just look. veryveryveryvery handsome as always I approve of this message.

Enough said.

Let me get on with the big thing I want to talk about. The Chase and Julia dynamic reinvention.

If I’m honest, it did feel quick, due to time constraints, but not out of nowhere. My expectations for Chase and his growth was blown out of the water. I was incredibly impressed with his physical display for admiration for Julia in the end. His way of officially apologising, (as someone said on a rb of one of my posts), Chase is a person of action and his grand gesture of giving Julia the spotlight, as well as a few glowing compliments and a callback and twist of what he used to say, was a great twist on just an ordinary apology. I adore how you can clearly see that he means it.

It was monumental, if a subtle display of respect that clearly struck a positive chord with Julia, and only could have with Julia. Just look at her face in the gif above, PURE. She clearly seemed as though she had decided to forgive his past transgressions after his help in her rescue.

Most definitely helping in her decision to return to ACME to be his partner again. Know she isn't alone and that Chase truly has changed for the best. I love how Chase was complete rapture that she had decided to return, even going for a hug. The guy really went from S1 striving to be stoic all the time, to allow himself to wear his emotions and expressiveness on his sleeves. Just, good vibes right there. It felt like the s4 Chase we got was always there but hidden by his ego and by himself deliberately.

Wholesome stuff my guys. My heart was FULL. I tell you. FULL. I slapped my hand to my chest in awe. He even asked: ‘But your academic career?’ and was happy to be finally able to hunt down real criminals with her, as, and I quote, a family. Adorable.

Don’t even get me started on the fist-bumping. I would throw myself into a pit of fire for them.

And those inside jokes? I could be here all day. Their dynamic now, if not nearly displayed a much as I wanted, was nourishing to my soul. Just LOOK

And that is just one scene.

After the first time jump of 3 weeks, they appeared to be finally enjoying one another company, a true team. Then after 6 months, it seemed even more natural, playful too. They trusted each other's abilities and opinions. Sharing their belief that Carmen was good as well as supporting one another as good partners should, especially Chase. They look so comfortable in each other presence it was immaculate.

They appeared content, and I loved that most of all. Chase was genuinely interested in Julia’s explanations and it was heartwarming to see. Julia appreciating it too. Watching them interact as close friends now was such a treat. The last 2-3 episodes, in particular, Chase even asking her to continue and adding onto her historical divulges. Awesome stuff. And Julia running into Carmen just as she was about to punch Chase’s lights out was pretty sweet too, as well as her getting one in on Cleo, GO GIRL GO. Julia this season had so much more depth. Loved it.

Also, finding out Chase’s name is in fact a self-given nickname was right on theme with the show. So many people with real names we will never know.

Back onto the expressions and his enthusiasm. I mean LOOK. This dude- AND THE CAT JACKET RETURNS!

He just loves his wordplay.

Anyway- The effect Julia had on him was profound and just fantastic to see. He wanted to be better. Chase will no doubt rub off some of his own flairs onto her in due time I'm sure.

Chase working with carmen and the small interaction we got were great as well. Still a little rigid, but full of intrigue.

Chase wanting to go and save Julia, because he earlier felt as though this was all his fault, was precious too. And the whole Tigress and Chase fight scene was amazing. He trapped her inside a casket, iconic. And Chase showing up as Julia is like ‘omfg Devineaux is that you?’ As he just all suave says ‘fashionably late as always’ and pushes his messy hair back like HOOO BOY you lovely little stinker I would die for you. He was ready to fight 1 v 3. No one has the same determination as a Devineaux. For an ordinary guy, he is really able to keep up with the best, if not behind a tad I MEAN UM. DUDE SLID DOWN THE STAIRS AND JUMPED RIGHT INTO A HOLE. No second thought THEN SWUNG HIMSELF OVER NO PROB? Who is this athlete of a man?

Like my man, you are not graceful at all please let carmen do it.

In the end, he really did save them both which was vindication, Speaking of vindication:

Okay, I really went off track and hardly said what I wanted to say. I got carried away with gifs. I think I said what I wanted to say? Right now my brain is still mushie.

To finalize: I was content with the end. Zack and Ivy joining ACME as Carmen has some time to go truly find herself was an interesting idea. The 2 year time jump at the end left a few holes but hey, I’ll take it. Shadowsan returning to his brother was so nice to see, and Player all alone in the restaurant kinda broke my heart. The entire storyline with Chase and Julia was absolutely, revolutionary. It was what we deserved, what they deserved.

I think my love for Chase really made me live for the scenes and moments we got of him alone and interacting with others. Season 3-4 really were his crowning glory. I'm proud of him.

Also, I want to mention the Zack/Turtle scene because I nearly died when I saw it the way the turtle wiggles and the way he rUNS I- okay goodbye.

#season4spoilers #im so sorry this post was so long and i dont think i even said what i wanted but oh well #i have so many inboxes to answer i #i do love em tho keep em coming #i am still in my gif coma as u can see by the 50000 gifs skjskdjs #sorry sorry #chase devineaux #carmen sandiego #julia argent #carmen sandiego netflix #carmen sandiego 2019 #disfordevineaux #disfordevineaux ask #cs chase devineaux #cs julia argent #chasulia #platonic and romantic #pick your poison

[lochnessies]

I feel like 3H discourse gets fucked over a bit by people not taking into account that characters will say inaccurate information (without it having to be a plot hole). Perspective is a huge theme in Three Houses and characters are going to make, sometimes, dramatic actions based off that misinformation.

yeah

Like, Dmitri accuses Edelgard of being involved in the Tragedy of Duscur, but, she was like, 12 when that happened. It’s a lot more likely that Edelgard was being experimented on or recovering from experimentation during that point in time considering that the Tragedy happens not long after Edelgard and Dmitri last see each other.

do i think edelgard was involved? nah. it’s one of the few things i genuinely believe her on. however, it isn’t unreasonable for dimitri to think she was somehow involved. i mean, faerghast is pretty standard medieval when it comes down to fighting. was sent to quell rebellions at like 14. that’s really young. and in the middle ages the standard age that boys trained to be nights was at the very least seven (glenn was 15 when he was full on knighted). felix says he learned to fight before he could write his own name and dimitri was already swinging swords at nine. not to mention she was in the kingdom and then not long after she leaves the tragedy happened. so it could also look like she was a spy even if she didn’t set lambert on fire herself.

then there’s the whole shit of her saying nothing. a whole nation gets wiped out and she has no plans to ever vindicate them. hell, even dedue says that her being involved in any way is unacceptable and he’s fucking pissed. is he delusional? is he being irrational and unfair to edelgard? she isn’t the victim here, dedue, his people, the kingdom royals and co. are.

Likewise, Setheth accuses Edelgard of trying to become a false goddess when that’s not even remotely close to her goals.

ok this part right here is the reason that this fucking thing took forever to come out (sorry anon). i have so much to say and i wanted to write it all but i decided to put in my edelgard essay instead. i then waited to post this answer but sadly it’s taking longer to edit than i planned and i feel bad so you’re going to have to wait for this bit. so if you stick around i’ll talk about that in depth in the essay but just know that i disagree with the op very much.

Edelgard makes a ton of false accusations and misconceptions about Rhea. She accuses Rhea of being a power hungry inhumane tyrant who has no regard for life outside her own when that just isn’t remotely accurate.

And then there’s Claude, literally the only major faction leader that cares to uncover the truth and nuances of everyone’s decisions. He’s literally the only faction leader to not act like his version of events is the definitive truth. He acknowledges that he and Edelgard are fighting for similar things: a system overhaul of Fodlan. He also doesn’t oppose the Church because he’s learned enough about it to want to keep it’s institution in place. That’s why he’s the only faction leader that can survive in every route (I’d consider Seteth and Rhea to share the role as Church Leader since Seteth leads the Church Route but Rhea’s the one actually in charge of the Church). Claude is also the only leader that doesn’t make any false claims about other factions. I said a while ago that Claude would make the best ruler and this is why.

ok this is fine

But going back to what I said earlier about discourse, this impacts discourse drastically because people can just pick whichever version of events they prefer and there’s probably a character who claimed it went that way. The plot also doesn’t seek to clarify events one way or the other in any route. So even if you’ve played every route, it’s up to the player to make judgment calls on who’s speaking out of their ass.

except it’s literally not. we are told what routes have correct information from the devs themselves. and unreliable narrators can be proven and disproven when you put their words against everyone else, their actions, and the lore.

Between all the relevant character and plot details the game hides behind supports, endings, and other easily missable content and the fact that no two characters interpret the series of events that happen in the plot the same way (due to coming from various background, being present for some stuff but not others, having different priorities and biases that will cause them to interpret different things in different ways, etc.), no two players are likely going to interpret the events of 3 Houses the same either.

just because two characters interpret the events differently doesn’t mean they’re right. for example, the agarthans think the crest experiments are good but edelgard and lysithea would say otherwise. but you wouldn’t say that twsitd’s perspective is valid just bc they see things differently.

and when i see players trying to excuse some of the most horrific things bc they don’t want their fave war criminal to look bad yes i will judge them. you can like whoever but don’t excuse shit like imperialism and racism and we will be fine.

So, if you want to talk 3H, please acknowledge that none of the characters should be taken solely on their word, especially when describing major things. With the examples I gave earlier of misinformation in the game, it makes sense that Dmitri would place the blame of the Tragedy of Duscur almost entirely on Edelgard because he doesn’t know about the Agarthans or Edelgard’s history with them.

ok but she’s still complicate if nothing else. that’s still terrible. like if she was planning to clear duscur’s name that’s one thing but she isn’t. the only way to do that is to reveal twsitd and we know she doesn’t since it is a shadow war that the people don’t know about since that would reflect badly on her for working with them.

It makes sense that Edelgard has a lot of misconceptions about the Church because once you start completely rewriting and erasing history (and the Church does openly censor literature, which is shown in Claude’s route), any possible “true story” is more likely than the story you’re giving. Alongside that, Edelgard is getting most of her information from the Agarthans and a very private source only accessible to the Imperial Family.

fair but choosing war at like 13 is an extreme jump. maybe wait till your brain fully develops and you have a better picture of the world around you

It makes sense that Seteth might assume that Edelgard is trying to become a false god because he’s been helping lead a religion based on lies for centuries.

she is. also the religion isn’t based off of lies. sothis exists. she’s in your head. a few details were changed to hide nabateans from a red canyon massacre 2.0. however, the values are the same. also he came to the monastery 20 years ago not centuries.

When you’re trying to understand some part of Three Houses, you have to think about where that information came from, what factors might be biasing that information, and that there might be some detail that shines a new light on that information somewhere else in the game that you’re missing. And that’s generally a good philosophy to have when processing any information.

yeah

That’s something I like about Three Houses. I like how you have to sort through a ton of biases and misinformation within the game to understand the story. If you let your own biases get away from you too much, you’re going to miss the larger picture. The game let’s you know exactly where everyone is coming from in some way and (almost) everyone is given a sympathetic eye in at least one route. And (almost) everyone is viewed as irredeemable in at least one route.

the only people who are portrayed as irredeemable are edelgard and rhea (and maybe dimitri if you count edel’s contempt for him in cf).

#asks

[forthisone]

Shadow and Bone Trilogy Book Review

Long, rambling, sometimes-capslock thoughts on the Shadow and Bone trilogy, having just a couple of hours ago finished reading the trilogy of Shadow and Bone, Seige and Storm and Ruin and Rising.

MALYEN ORETSEV IS TOO PURE FOR THIS WORLD AND I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL.

Fair warning: Major spoilers for the whole series and ending, entire focus on Mal/Alina 😅 I apologise for nothing.

I THINK THIS MIGHT BE THE FIRST TIME I’VE EXPERIENCED A SHIP I REALLY LOVE HAVE A HAPPY ENDING. Hooooooly shit. It feels good.

😭😭😭

Leigh Bardugo really served up everything I want to see! Give me all the tropes! All the angst! All the longing! AND with a happy ending?! *chef’s kiss*

I’m shook.

It feels amazing that for once in my life, something I ship has finally finished front and centre and I am absolutely here for it!

So let’s first clarify that I went in to the books just after finishing S1 of the Netflix show, already head over heels in love with Mal/Alina and rooting for them the whole way through. They are the reason I read the books. In the stories that I enjoy, I value love above all other aspects of the story; it’s just who I am.

The Pain of Siege and Storm

I admit, about 50% of this trilogy and the majority of Book 2 and early Book 3 was me in pain just wondering why they couldn’t be together and why they kept pushing each other away. Book 2 was an emotional rollercoaster ngl. I was frustrated that they spent so much time being miserable around eachother but were never allowed to be happy or give in to their feelings? They are best friends. Mal wants to support her. LET HIM SUPPORT HER. Let her confide in him and find comfort in him.

Endgame? Not Endgame?

This went on in a similar vein for some time and towards the end of Book 3, I was getting increasingly worried they weren’t endgame and this was indeed all leading up to Mal ultimately sacrificing himself... which obviously did happen...

But when Alina says “Bring him back to me.”, I just thought “THANK YOU. VINDICATION. THIS IS WHAT HAPPINESS FEELS LIKE.” and I knew we were home and dry and my god it felt good.

But I was so happy with the ending. It’s exactly what I wanted to happen, though I didn’t expect it... AND THEN IT HAPPENED. For them to go back to how they were and live the rest of their days in quiet happiness. Neither of them asked for this. They just belonged with eachother.

The last line of the book:

They had an ordinary life, full of ordinary things - if love can ever be called that.

HAPPY SIGH. YES.

More on this below.

People hate Mal?!?

I... don’t understand why so many fans apparently don’t like Mal. ?!?!????!? I had heard this before reading and went in to the books with trepidation. I was waiting for him to do something awful to justify the hate and... it just never happened. Is it just the way he behaves in Siege and Storm? Because I do accept he is slightly more problematic in the books than the show but Y’ALL KNOW HE WAS ONLY IN THAT PIT OF DESPAIR BECAUSE HE FELT LIKE HE WAS LOSING HER. She never really reassured him that much, if anything she confirmed his fears (from his pov anyway). And he was right to doubt her, because she was doubting her feelings too in secret, and he could feel it.

BUT. But he accepts it in Ruin and Rising. He grows into it. He accepts they can’t be together as they are. And he still stays, only to protect her, to keep her safe. He never asks for more than that. “You are my flag. You are my nation.” Roast me over a slow fire.

You will never, ever convince me not to root for the childhood best friend who loves her unconditionally and knows her better than anyone else and will die for her and will spend the rest of his days just being close to her, to protect her, even if that’s all he ever gets. This is the hill I will die on.

And then she comes back to him. 🤧🤧🤧

The Love Square

So, in terms of love interests for Alina:

Mal >>> Nikolai >>>>>>>>>>>>> Darkling

Wasn’t a fan of the love square here. I understand if she has feelings for different people, I respect everyone’s right to ship what they want, but I honestly had whiplash. One second she’s “in physical pain” missing Mal, next she is “drawn to” the Darkling, then wants to kiss Nikolai. I’m extremely monogamous and that’s probably why all this chopping and changing just felt really jarring to me.

I liked Nikolai as a character but I valued their friendship and I just wanted their relationship to remain platonic. I’m happy with how his storyline ended too. I hope he’s okay!

Mainly I did not understand why she was still drawn to the Darkling after all the loved ones he slaughtered in front of her. Fuck him, honestly (Ben Barnes I still love you though).

But this line near the end kind of summed it up for me, I guess:

Merzost. Darkness. You could hate it and hunger for it at the same time.

But I no longer care about any of this because my ship was endgame, baby! 😭😭😭

The Finale

I am glad Mal become more “important” in the end. That there was a magical bond between them. (I feel a little dumb I didn’t see it coming that he was an amplifier, because I did clock on to the jolts of light that happened when he grabbed her wrist and thought it was foreshadowing something).

I like even more that they agreed they would have found each other despite it.

“Maybe that brought us together, but it didn’t make us who we are. It didn’t make you the girl who could get me to laugh when I had nothing. It sure as hell didn’t make me the idiot that took that for granted. Whatever there is between us, we forged it. It belongs to us."

I was waiting for the scene in the conservatory the entire time and it was so perfect! Worth the wait! I can’t wait to see the aesthetics of it in the show. The flowers, the greenery... the lanterns. It was so pretty in my head!

I could pretend I wasn’t a saviour or a Saint, that I could simply choose him, have a life, be in love. That we wouldn’t have one night, we would have thousands.

It was a perfect ending for me really because I got both the angsty hero-sacrifices-himself-for-protagonist-and-greater-good scene AND the happy ending. I’ve honestly been spoilt 😂 My shipper heart has never been so satisfied.

The actual plot of the ending was a complete blur and I have no idea what happened other than Alina lost her power and the Darkling died and... some other people became light summoners? I think? I was so focused on whether Mal would live or not I couldn’t really process the rest! I will have to reread.

It’s a shame that Alina no longer has her power and that Mal lost some of his tracking skill in the end, but... I’ll take it for a happy ending where they spend the rest of their lives together as equals. It’s not like Mal stole her power from her. They both made sacrifices and in the end, they still won.

The shrieks of the volcra erupted around me as the Fold began to unravel. It was a miracle. And I didn’t care. The Saints could keep their miracles. The Grisha could keep their long lives and their lessons. Mal was dead.

I love that most of the book is all about her feeling the pull of her powers, feeling changed by it, drifting from Mal… but in the end, when it’s all done and over, she doesn’t care. She wants none of it. She chooses him. She wants him back. This is what I was waiting the whole series to read, honestly. Love conquers all, baby.

I just love that there were all these passages about their love not being possible because “they weren’t the same people any more” and the boy and girl from the orphanage were gone... and yet, it ends with the boy and the girl at the orphanage. Just like how it started. It's so obvious to me now that the whole story was about THE BOY AND THE GIRL. Every Before and After. It was right there all along.

THANK YOU, LEIGH BARDUGO.

My soul can now die happy.

I thought it was a really beautiful story.

Would happily reread. Will happily reread.

Im definitely going to continue with the other Grishaverse books too.

Can’t wait for more of the show because I’m honestly in love with the casting and this pairing and this series. Please, please, God, let it be renewed, and with the same cast, and covering the whole trilogy!

#shadow and bone #siege and storm #ruin and rising #grishaverse #mal x alina #mal and alina #malina #malyen oretsev #alina starkov #true north #book review #spoilers #sab spoilers

[rosequartzstarswrites]

20 Questions for Writers

Thank you @cheesyficwriter for the tag!

How many works do you have on AO3?

27

What's your total AO3 word count?

351,699

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

As of now, I have only written for Harry Potter; however, in February I began several LOTR/Hobbit WIPs that I have not yet published. The first one is due out at the start of September though!

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

In Another Universe: Hermione Granger is brilliant: she completed her PhD in Linguistics at 25, and is the youngest faculty member at the University. Ron Weasley, an unruly quantum physicist... well, he's getting there. But when Granger gets stacked with a project she hates and has to talk to other scholars at the University, their paths cross and become permanently intertwined in a way neither of them could've ever anticipated. (Slow Burn Multichap Muggle Uni AU) Rated T.

Rosebury Grounds: Lady Hermione Granger has been reared up in society, to marry well and be a good housewife, like any good Edwardian lady, but that's far from what she wants. When a handyman by the name of Ronald Weasley joins the house staff, utterly disarming her from the moment they first meet, he might just be the opportunity she needs to break loose and choose her own destiny.Lord Draco Malfoy has a secret— a secret he knows would cost him everything if it ever saw the light. But it's getting harder and harder to keep it from his father, because Draco keeps bumping into a pair of emerald eyes and a head of lush black hair, and he can't pretend his knees don't buckle at the sight. Which would be quite alright, if not for one small problem: it's not a woman they belong to.Two tales of forbidden love, set in Edwardian England. (Multichap Muggle AU) Rated M.

Something Growing: Hermione’s pregnant— and she’s freaking out. She’s always been good at everything, but she’s not sure that’ll hold for being a mother; however, when Ron gets home earlier than expected, she realizes she doesn’t need to be great at everything so long as she’s got him beside her. (Oneshot) Rated G.

Big in Japan: Harry Potter is a famous rockstar out on a world tour— but when one too many meet-and-greets threatens to drive him insane, he takes an escapade out into the streets of Tokyo, where he ends up at an expat bar with a captivating redhead that seems totally unaware of who he is, or why she should know him at all, for that matter. (Muggle AU oneshot) Rated E.

Teaspoon Vindication: After escaping Malfoy Manor, Ron comes to visit Hermione in her room at Shell Cottage, and does the one thing that may be the hardest for him— talking about his feelings. (Romione oneshot)

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try my best, though I don’t always get to all of them! My reasoning is that if folks are kind enough to tell me how much they enjoyed my writing, the least I can do is thank them for their lovely words. 

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

The Last Farewell! It’s a Wolfstar oneshot, set in canon universe, where Remus comes to Sirius’s grave to ask for his blessing (and forgiveness) to marry Tonks. It was angst central from the start and I even wrote it while listening to an angsty song.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

I generally write happy, fade-to-black endings, but if I had to choose I’d say Truth or Dare. This is a male!Hermione x Ron summer camp AU born of a game of spin-the-bottle/truth-or-dare that ends with them figuring out their feelings go beyond friendship. I say it is the happiest ending because I think the “boy figuring out he likes boys” scenario has been overdone in angst a bit too much, and the fact that the feelings are reciprocated and they decide to stay in touch would make me giddy if I was their age and in their shoes. Anyway, it’s just a sweet ending.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've written?

Not at all— I actually don’t like crossovers at all, so I have never even entertained reading, let alone writing, one. (No hate at all to those with imaginations large and strong enough to conjure up awesome crossovers— I am in awe of you all, they’re just not for me!)

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Never, luckily, since the Romione community is so lovely and supportive! But, though not outright hate, for a while I had an anonymous FFN reviewer who left reviews on every chapter of Rosebury Grounds saying that my title was a porn/sex act...? I was distraught and scoured Google to see if they really were right and this was some obscure euphemism I’d entirely missed, but turns out it wasn’t, and they had gotten confused with a vulgar but similar term. So I ignored those reviews but they kept coming and then eventually one time I found a 500 word very graphic description of the sex act in question in my reviews, so desperate was the reviewer (apparently) to get their (wrong) point across. Yikes. 

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes! I’ve written a lot and of many kinds— explicit, implied, just foreplay, fade-to-black, referenced... I’ve written both M/F and M/M. 

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No— I didn’t even know that was something I should worry about!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I speak fluent Spanish, so I’m planning on translating In Another Universe and Rosebury Grounds myself once I’ve finished the latter. 

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, the most I’ve done is beta from the plot-building stage!

What's your all-time favorite ship?

Gahhhh don’t make me pick! Romione (HP) is first in my heart because I see so much of myself and what I want in it, but Samfro (LOTR) is, to me, the truest depiction of love in all of literature, ever. I will forever come back to it.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

I hope to finish my Hogwarts Actually series that I started for Romionecom (hi, Discord friends!) inspired by Love Actually. I have it all planned out, translating all the relationships in the movie to HP pairings and friendships, and all I need to do is write— but I think I’ll come back to this periodically and unoften. Hopefully I’ll finish it!

What are your writing strengths?

I like to think that I write good and witty dialogue. I’m a theatre person, so I think my dialogue sounds mostly natural when spoken. I also have a good sense of beginning and ending, so most of my works/chapters start and end with a memorable phrase of some sort. I also have excellent grammar and spelling, so except for a few occasional typos, that makes the job of proofing much easier!

What are your writing weaknesses?

I think I sometimes write sentences that are waaaay too long and convoluted. I use words that are too big sometimes and just take approachability from my writing. Fanfic has been excellent to practice correcting this, though!

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

As a bilingual writer myself— don’t write dialogue in other languages unless you speak it well or get it translated directly through someone who speaks it well. Though I appreciate the effort, I can always tell when something was put through Google Translate, and that kind of dialogue most often ends up lacking the context clues/colloquial familiarity of real language speakers, and ends up sounding stiff and forced. 

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I’m not proud of it, but I used to write MCR RPF back when I was 13 or so. It was a very brief stint and I have since deleted the works in their entirety, since my principles have evolved to the place where RPF to me seems disrespectful and invasive. Plus, it was on Wattpad.

What's your favorite fic you've written?

Again, don’t make me pick please!! I truly have had a lot of fun with Rosebury and I think it is a testament to how much I love it that I was able to keep the idea on hold for a full six months before I started writing it. I love the Downton setting and the Edwardian dialogue is a lot of fun to me. But I also have a soft spot for the In Another Universe original oneshot I submitted to the RFF2020— that work awoke my love for Muggle AUs (which I like to think I’m most known for), inspired me to start work on my first multichap fic, and keeps me coming back to it anytime I have doubt in my ability to write swoonworthy scenes. It was the oneshot that started it all. 

Tagging: @accio-broom @be11atrixthestrange @folk-melody (and anyone else who would like to!)

#fanfiction #fanfic writer #rosequartzstars #hp fanfic #hp fanfiction #harry potter fanfiction #fanfic author