#so for the sake of the future where this gets taken out of context | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nanfrost · 3 months

Text

A dive into Vertin's core aspect of her character and it's impact through the story: Part 1

This would be a character analysis with mix of speculations, headcannons and eventually just straight up heading to fanfiction levels territory, so if you were expecting a more cannon analysis, you have been warned.

With that said however, for those who are still interested, welcome to my insanity! This was something that I have been working with a friend of mine who you may or may not know as @acesw for the past week, and we are finally satisfied with it enough to post it! A lot of the ideas that are present in this came from them, while I offer my own interpretations and expanding on those very ideas through my writing. Without them, this analysis likely will have never come to fruition, so I can't be thankful enough for having them go on this journey with me, and also to just have as a good friend. Go check them out, they have really neat ideas and is a genuinely creative and artful person!

Now with that outta the way, time for the main event you are have been waiting for, our one and only beloved Timekeeper herself, and the emotional roller coaster that we have prepared for her. Please do enjoy.

Background context:

Vertin is an incredibly interesting and compelling character in many ways. Her ability to care for other people to a great extent whether she knows them for long or not. Her compassion for everyone around her, her empathy, her willingness to open her heart and listen to others when it matters. All these traits make up who Vertin is as a character and is a large part of why so many people fall in love with her and the story; to not only see more of her but to see where her story will go.

However, there is one part of her character that stands out the most to us, a core aspect of her character that makes up most, if not all her major decisions in the story up until this point, and will be the main subject of this entire analysis.

And that is Vertin's incredible sense of selflessness.

From going out of her way to save Regulus and not let her be forced to be taken in by the Foundation. Her attempts at getting through to Schneider, to understanding and showing her immense compassion even in the heat of moments. Choosing to stay behind in the Walden to fend off the Manus while the others escaped, and most crucial of all, her conscious decision to bury all her trauma inside herself to prevent others from worrying about her. Hell, even her entire motive and drive to seek the truth about the Storm and a way to stop it stems from her desire for freedom and the future of everyone.

All of this is in some way driven by Vertin's selfless nature, always prioritizing the sake of others above herself, to the point of risking her own life if it means she could protect those around her.

She's someone who will go out of her way to connect with others, even when knowing that the pain of losing them will never fade away, to give them comfort and help them if she can no matter what.

It is an incredibly beautiful part of what makes Vertin such a compelling, lovable, and admirable character and person, but at the same time, it also represents Vertin's biggest issue about herself.

That Vertin isn’t just selfless, she is selfless to a fault.

Vertin will prioritize saving everyone above herself, or rather, she would prioritize and save everyone but herself. For Vertin intrinsically has no sense of self-value nor self-worth; in other words, she has no self identity, for her entire life is valued based on other people, not herself. This can bring a lot of self-conflict, as well as possibly even harming others when reaching a point where every step taken is crucial.

And this serious of posts will detail and explore this aspect of her, its ramifications upon the character, and to not only show the ugliest and most painful parts of it, but to also show a path that Vertin might possibly take in the story to confront this part of herself somehow. In other words: welcome to Vertin's suffering builds character arc.

What can we tell from canon?

Where do we start seeing the decision making? We already start seeing them in the first 2 chapters. In summary:

Chapter 1 - Vertin continuously is left with decisions that she has to make on the fly, starting from deciding to try to see if Regulus can survive the storm and choosing to stay behind the Walden and risk getting harmed by the Manus Vindictae for the sake of her team as well as helping Schneider.

Chapter 2 - Vertin finds herself having to choose between keeping her silence and “joining” the Manus, and when she initially refuses, Arcana has her answer questions that bring unsatisfactory answers, leading her to harm Schneider. But when she does say she’ll join, she is first tasked and eventually manipulated to “kill” her.

Now, that’s all fine and dandy and does communicate that she is a very altruistic person and a selfless individual, but how is any of that bad or problematic? How does that correlate to her not having any sense of self-worth? Chapter 1’s ending is the first instance we get to see just how far Vertin’s selflessness goes, by her decision of staying behind to grant Sonetto and the others time to escape. Because of Vertin’s sacrificial play, Druvis and the majority of Manus didn’t pursue Sonetto's crew as aggressive as they would have, giving them time to properly make their runaway. Not only that, but both her and Schneider were kept alive, albeit captive.

There, Vertin’s selflessness is shown in a good light, being an admirable trait of hers that was crucial in progressing the story. This is the only instance in the story so far that has highlighted this trait of hers in a positive light, which is then contrasted by what happens in chapter 2.

Here, that aspect of hers that so far has been so boldly displayed as a good thing; saving Regulus and her team, is now flipped on its head, showing us that sometimes, being selfless simply isn't enough.

Vertin was put into a situation where she needed to make a choice, to either join Manus or reject their offer. When she chose the latter, Schneider was put into danger. And as each question Arcana asked piled on to her and the pressure started to rise further, Vertin went back on her words, choosing to stay with them.

This is so she could ensure Schneider’s survival, a selfless choice she makes for the sake of a person she had barely known. It was also here where Vertin’s naivety blinds her of the situation she was in.

That no matter what she chose, Schneider wasn't going to make it out of this.

Schneider had already betrayed them, but even before that, she never truly believed in them in the first place, only soaking up to them for her own personal goals. She was the one who lied to Manus about her identity, to pretend to play along with them until she bided her time, and now she was captured right in their hands.

It doesn’t take much for one to come to the conclusion that Schneider was a dead woman walking.

Yet, Vertin did not see this. For her view of the world even at this point was too naive, warped by her own perception and belief. A belief that by giving herself up, by throwing her own agency away will somehow lead to other people’s lives improving. That somehow, someway, by disregarding her own safety, the safety of others will be secured.

Vertin is living in a highly warped perception of the world, thinking and believing that if she alone suffers, no one else has to.

Green Oranges serves as a reality check to Vertin, albeit one that Vertin was unfortunately in too much emotional distress to properly realised.

However, it’s important to note that the game was rigged from the start. Regardless of what Vertin would have chosen, Schneider was going to “die” there either way. So although we witnessed the consequences of Vertin’s selfless choice, it would be unfair to call it her fault. So for now, this chapter only serves as a warning to Vertin.

That even if her selflessness is admirable and has paid the way to many good results, her complete lack of care for herself is not, and is leading her to believe in a false image of the world. A flaw that she will continue to neglect until it becomes far too late to remedy.

Chapter 3 and 4 are the harder ones to allocate, mostly because Vertin isn’t the main focus and rarely appears in the story at all except for flashbacks or dreams. But it still serves a very important role in giving us another facet of this character trait that Vertin exhibits.

That this selflessness of hers doesn’t just affect her, but also the relationships she has with the people around her, and specifically, her crew and Sonetto.

We were told that before Vertin was put to sleep, she had acted relatively the same as she always was, carrying out her duties until she was forced to be sedated and put into the coma we saw her at the start of Chapter 3. We knew that Vertin had set up plans in the form of Lilya and the bill she made with Madam Z, but this was something that wouldn’t be known by us or the other characters until much later.

For the entirety of her time spent before the events of 3 and 4, Vertin kept herself closed off, ensuring that she wouldn’t worry her new friends and even more so, Sonetto. But as a consequence, this results in nobody truly knowing what Vertin was thinking or trying to do prior to going comatose.

Sonetto, Vertin’s closest companion, someone who knows Vertin the longest and has been with her the most, wasn’t even privy to what Vertin’s plans were. She was left struggling to figure out what she should do to help Vertin, while also battling her own inner turmoil.

Druvis, Sotheby, Regulus, APPle, all of them were also victims of this. They had no idea what Vertin was planning, nor was even given any hints; they were left to their own devices and in turn, the influence of the Foundation. Vertin may have tried to help them by not getting them involved with the Foundation matters, but this ironically only led to them being drawn into the organisation because of their desire of wanting to help Vertin.

If Madam Z hadn’t come in to give Druvis the push she needed, Constantine likely would have gotten things to go her way. If it wasn’t for the collective efforts of Z and Vertin’s crew and so many others, Vertin likely wouldn’t have been freed.

These two chapters showcase the loyalty and trust that her friends have in Vertin, but it also highlights the issue of Vertin always trying to hide things away, to always keep herself emotionally closed. Even if she had good intentions, it still led to less than favourable outcomes that could have very well ended badly for all of them had things gone differently.

With that, we have gotten a rough understanding of Vertin’s character up until this point. Vertin’s selflessness can be an good thing to posses, but because of her disregard of her own well-being and her naive belief that only she needs to make sacrifices for the good of everyone, it is ultimately an unhealthy outlet for Vertin’s way of coping with her trauma. Not just internally, but externally as well.

From here on, I will be diving into my own personal headcanon of where the direction of the story might go, with the purpose of having Vertin’s character be pushed slowly towards a breaking point that will force her to confront this very part of herself, and perhaps, come out learning something from it all.

Speculation: Vertin’s breaking point

Before we get into it however, there is one thing that must be noted here so that the events that will transpire would make more sense.

That being how exactly could the story push Vertin’s character to her limit, when she herself is a naturally strong and composed person? It’s quite simple really, in fact, the answer was already given to us all the way back in Chapter 2.

Vertin’s one crucial weakness that even she might not even realise, that being her overwhelming compassion for those she cares about.

Throughout chapter 1 and 2, we have seen how Vertin deals with stress. How she is able to mentally process the situation around her in a logical and composed manner, allowing her to come to the best possible solution in a short time without letting her emotions run rampant.

And during her confrontation with Arcana, she continues to showcase her composure when faced with a difficult situation and choices. That is until Arcana began to shift her hostility towards Schneider, and we start to see the cracks forming at her surface.

Vertin is capable of dealing with high stress situations, however, when that situation involves other people, especially those she has come to know or care about, this mask of calmness starts to slip as she reveals how she truly feels.

That Vertin cares too much to see other people get hurt, knowing she can do something about it.

But this wasn’t enough, Vertin might be faltering, but she still tries to keep a calm level head, even when each question gets more and more personal for her. But it was okay, so long as she answered truthfully and picked their side, things will “somehow” work out.

This dream is then shattered by Arcana’s mission given to her; to kill the girl she had chosen to save by throwing her agency away.

Here, the mask falters even more as Vertin slips further into emotional distress. This is the rare time, and really one of the only times you get to see Vertin raise her voice, far from her monotone voice she always has. It was getting to her.

This is then exacerbated from her shooting Schneider. Even if it was not by choice, Vertin was still the one who pulled the trigger, the one that held the gun against Schneider, and the one that killed her; a girl who she had come to care a great deal about in such a short time.

Here, the mask completely falls as Vertin expresses just how much this breaks her heart. The only instance in the game where Vertin ever shed a tear for something or someone.

So it’s clear now that the biggest strength to her character that Vertin has; her love and compassion for others, is also her biggest weakness. A weakness that can be exploited and used to push Vertin past and even beyond her breaking point.

So let’s do just that.

The narrative will go like this: Vertin and her crew are tasked on an important mission of some kind, where they are given more control and permission to decide and do more so long as Vertin is the one making those choices. This puts Vertin into a position of power much higher than she usually assumes, which will first add a layer of stress over her as she carries out her mission.

Then, the story will sprinkle in a variety of different decisions that Vertin has to make, some big and some small. All of them have some kind of effect on the people around her or their situation. This further adds stress to the girl, now having to juggle the responsibilities of making the difficult choices and decisions that no one else can, because she was their leader, the one assigned to do the job.

At first, things do start to look better as her crew tries their best to assist her, and the situation starts to look more promising. It would be here where a wrench would be thrown, completely sending the whole mission into disarray.

Something completely unexpected occurs, causing chaos and mayhem to follow suit. Vertin tries to assert the situation and find a way to stabilise the people, her crew doing their best to help. However, in their task of ensuring the situation doesn’t derail any further, her crew subsequently split off from her, leaving the girl alone to her own devices.

Here, we begin the start of Vertin’s downfall.

Now without her crew or Sonetto’s help, Vertin is now forced into a situation where she needs to continuously make quick and decisive actions on the fly, all to ensure that things are kept as stable as possible. This leads to her going out and helping as many people as she can, trying to resolve as many issues as possible by herself so that others can focus on their safety.

However, not every situation can be resolved peacefully nor gracefully.

Gradually, Vertin is faced with more and more difficult choices, ones that require her to choose one side or the other with escalating stakes and tension. No matter what she chooses however, people still get hurt, lives are still put in danger. And Vertin, being the girl that she is, can’t bear to see it happen.

So she tries to find ways to choose both, to save both parties so long as she can help it. Even if it meant having to risk her own safety, Vertin cannot bear to choose one and let the others perish. She can’t allow that to happen.

So she gives herself up to the task of saving people. To abandon her own safety and subsequently her own agency in order to ensure that others will live. So that everyone can make it out even if she doesn’t.

If only she is the casualty in all this, it is the result that Vertin can accept, a result that Vertin can be at peace with.

What she doesn’t realise, or perhaps she isn’t willing to see is that she’s forcing herself into a corner. By placing so much emphasis on saving, by abandoning her own safety and subsequently her own position of power, Vertin has left a chain of command with no real leader, and the situation starts falling into chaos.

But she can’t see it, Vertin isn’t able to recognize this because she’s so intensely focused on the people around her who are suffering right that moment. Her composure is slipping, as she watches as people’s lives are being destroyed and perished rapidly before her eyes, and she can’t seem to make it better no matter how far she keeps going. This only furthers her careless act of selflessness, forgoing more and more of her own life until it was the last thing on her mind.

Eventually, things reach a boiling point where Vertin, alone, is faced with an obstacle that directly threatens her life and countless others. She now faces a choice, whether to prioritise her own safety over the lives of dozens of people, some strangers, some whose faces have grown familiar to her, or throw her life away again with the blinding hope that things will work out.

If she chooses to run, choose to save herself, Vertin can never live with herself. For a girl like her, who has made it her life to save anyone she can, and so running away can never be an option for her. So naturally, without a second thought, Vertin chooses to throw her life away in exchange of saving everyone’s lives.

A decision that will haunt the girl for the rest of her life.

By the time Vertin awakes, she finds that she is still alive, unscathed at that. But only a moment passes before Vertin notices the countless bodies of those that died, and the destruction that was wrought about around her. At first, she was confused, then the memories started to flood in.

The memories of the moment she chose to throw her life away, chose to give herself up for the sake of others. And in that instance, someone did the same for her, pushing her out of death’s way as they sacrificed themselves for her. Someone she personally knew and cared about.

In the end, Vertin faces the result of her sacrifice; nothing but lifeless corpses, an utter wasteland filled with bodies with no souls left in them; and she alone survives.

But she might as well be dead, life completely leaving her quickly dulling eyes, a single thought consuming her mind.

This was her fault.

She chose to give her life away, to disregard her own leadership, her role and her worth all for the sake of others.

Because she was too selfless, too kind to ever let herself bear the guilt and burden of letting innocent people die when she could have saved them. And she thought that by sacrificing herself, she can do just that.

She never accounted for the fact that someone would save her.

That someone would prioritise her life over countless others, to choose to sacrifice themselves for someone like her. To give their life for Vertin.

Vertin kneels, her arms and hands shaking as her eyes froze still. She can’t bear to look at the scene before her, her stomach rising to her chest.

For she has finally seen the reality of the world around her, finally acknowledges something she has willingly and selfishly ignored for all this time.

Vertin has always had some level of survivor's guilt within her. Starting from the breakaway incident, Vertin had likely always felt how unfair and cruel it was that only she got to live, when she was the one that was responsible for leading them here.

Sure, the kids went with her because they desired the same thing, but it was she who led them, she who gave them the spark of desire to want to venture out, and because of her, they were all gone.

Vertin has been carrying that guilt ever since, always masking it under layers and layers of self-imposed composure; a way to protect herself from the pain of the past, but as a way to stop people from getting too close to her, because she is afraid that something similar might happen again if that was the case. That if she were to let people know her, to get to care about her, that they too will suffer because of their involvements with her.

But Vertin was too kind, too good, too compassionate. Even when she emotionally distances herself from others, people still flock to her because they see just how kind she is.

Because even when she doesn’t show it, the girl cared enough to go out of her way to save them, so of course they would be grateful to her, of course they would feel immense gratitude and appreciation for her. Of course they would choose her as their leader and follow her.

And of course, one of them would throw their life away to save hers.

Vertin had abandoned all self-importance or self-value, believing that she, the lone survivor of a terrible tragedy, the one who shouldn’t have lived for the sins that she had committed; deserved no such thing. That someone like her should not dare to believe she had value, when all she had done was cause death to those she cared about. That was what she had believed in, what she had convinced herself to believe in.

Because of that, she ignored the signs. She ignored the warnings given to her by others, the warning that if she keeps going down this path of self-annihilation, that eventually she will be met with a fate much worse than death.

In her selfless attempt to save everyone and everything, she had selfishly taken away the people’s chance to save her. To save the girl who had suffered far too much and who had helped even more, even when she can’t see past her own warped perception of herself.

And now she is facing the consequences of that. She is now looking at the results of her blindness, the carnage that was her willful ignorance to herself and to others, and the irony of being the only one left alive through it all once more.

In the past, she was an unwilling player on a chess board designed for her to lose. Now, she was the girl who gave up her own King for the all her pieces, and in return, she lost everything.

Vertin facing this, her composure long since lost, finally breaks.

She slumps onto the floor, her body and mind utterly overwhelmed with every facet of emotions she could conjure within the darkest pit of her stomach, all while drenched in the blood of the people she was supposed to save.

The blood of people who knew her, who admired and respected her, who cared for her, who saw her as a friend, who saw her as family. All of them suffered at her hands, at her own selfish choice to forsake her life because she saw no other way; because she perceived that there was no other way.

And she can't bear all that guilt. All the pain and unprocessed trauma she had buried inside her now finally comes bubbling out of her, completely suffocating the girl. That lack of self-value that she harbours now replaced with unending resentment and pure unbridled self-hatred. Something she had always carried inside her that only got worse over time, and now, it finally had an excuse to be let out.

An existence that had done nothing but wrought pain and death to everyone it ever cared about. An existence that so readily throws its life away at the slightest of inconvenience, never caring about what others think about them, for they were too blinded in their own suicidal nature to ever think that they deserved to be cared about.

Vertin truly believes that she does not deserve to be cared about. She truly believes that she is the worst of the worst, an willfully ignorant murderer, so blinded by their own vision of the world that they refuse to see the reality as what it is. And now, they're paying their just price for it, a price they should have paid long ago.

Vertin knew better than anyone, that she was nothing but a murderer.

Part 2

#reverse 1999 #re1999 #r1999 #vertin #writing #speculation #borderline fanfiction #speculative fiction #angst #extreme angst #vertin's one long tiring day #oh Vertin my sweet rainy child #suffering builds so much character #oh god this is too much suffering for one sweet girl to go through #unhealthy way of coping with trauma #even more trauma #it gets dark very quickly #alternative timeline #headcannons

64 notes · View notes

surachibee · 5 months

Text

if you’ve been following a lot of my recent stuff, you’ve probably noticed (or maybe you haven’t, idk!) that I’ve been tagging a few art posts as ‘pitverse’. You’ve also probably noticed that I’ve provided no context to these posts what-so-ever! and that sucks! So to explain a bit, I present:

”surachi what the heck is pitverse”

Okay, first. ‘Pitverse’ is a working title. Maybe. It’s cheesy, but I kinda like it because it’s cheesy.

Anyways, if you’ve been following me for a while, you may or may not remember this art where I designed a bunch of pits that were loosely based on the different ending to the original Kid Icarus on the NES. Some took influence from different places (eg. the solider ending heavily drawing inspiration from Kid Icarus: of Myths and Monsters) and some were completely made up (eg. the farm ending’s design). It was fun! And it pretty much started this whole idea to begin with.

I’d draw some stuff here and there for it, but other than that I never really did much with the idea other than ‘oh hey look designs’. That is until it came up again a couple years later when I started to get *really* into oMaM stuff, which led to me coming back to the idea of a weird multiverse thing.

Thanks to a few friends, we talked about it and eventually it became like a four-swords adventure multiverse labyrinth thing. Pandora’s Labyrinth times twelve. So as it is right now, it’s like a hypothetical game where some new *evil big bad* takes a handful of Pits from different universes/timelines and plops them into some pocket dimension of different levels and challenges, and together, they have to find out what the heck going on.

Right now, I think I’m gonna try to keep it to three Pits for simplicity sake. Obviously, Pit from Kid Icarus: Uprising has to be here, that’s our guy. He’s also the protagonist! He’s left relatively unchanged in this AU. This also takes place in a post-game setting, so he’s already fought Hades. This applies to the other guys as well, even if their hypothetical “games” and adventures aren’t actually real (Factor) or heavily rewritten (Myth) here.

Good news is that Uprising Pit can still communicate with Palutena! But he’s the only one out of the bunch that can. (Would’nt that have been nice? Imagine all the work you could get done with THREE Palutenas [haha reference]). In this AU’s logic, Uprising’s world in the pocket-dimension what-ch-ma-have-it space is closer to the one where this takes place, so (Uprising) Palutena is able to establish a decent enough connection to at least communicate, though it’s not the best. The other Pit’s worlds are further away, so communication with their respective realms are off the table. This also causes other problems like occasionally “bugging out” and forgetting stuff since they’re so far from their original worlds. So Uprising Pit got kinda lucky.

Speaking of other Pits, there’s other Pits! Both of them draw inspiration from things previously done/involved in the franchise so they’re not entirely made up, but they do stray pretty far from their source material. Anyway..first, we have Factor! He’s heavily inspired by Factor 5’s rendition of Pit from their “Icarus” project back in 2007-2008 that was turned down. Here, this AU’s interpretation of the idea is a little more in line with the franchise’s overall light-hearted and goofy nature. (In this AU the Pit’s are taken from different points in time, so he would’ve been plucked from the future. I did this so 1. They all could look visually distinct from each other, and 2. the thought of Factor going “oh he doesn’t know about [x] yet” or Uprising Pit insisting Myth to NOT go after the wish seed in the future was funny.)

Next…there’s Myth! He’s based on Kid Icarus: of Myths and Monsters, and besides a few plot points he’s pretty much just a modern take on the character. He was easier to pin down because while the concept of Factor’s story was interesting, being banished from the heavens for some unspecified crime, it’s pretty vague in comparison. With Myth, there’s an entire game with a plot to go off of, even if this AU strays a bit from it.

That’s pretty much the basics of this AU! Just a couple of Pits going on an adventure getting into other-worldly shenanigans. I’m having a ton of fun with it and hopefully I can develop the idea more as I go along. Thanks for reading! There’s some extra footnotes and miscellaneous doodles below.

• This AU follows the idea that oMaM takes place in a different timeline than Kid Icarus: Uprising, hence it not being referenced (at least not on purpose, I’m looking at you aurum track accidentally having the same intro motif) or mentioned. Plus y’know, Sakurai not knowing it existed so there’s that. Might as well rework it into a weird explanation. (coping)

• All of these worlds take place in different timelines, so Factor isn’t an older version of Uprising Pit, nor is Uprising an older version of Myth. They’re all still Pit, and all of them have fought Medusa, but it had different outcomes (somewhat based on the endings) and at that point they diverged from each other. • I’ll probably change the naming of the Pits at some point. While they’re good right now, I’m not sure if I wanna keep Factor named after a company. Might have their names based off the titles of their respective games, so instead of “Factor”, “Myth”, and “Uprising” it’d be “Icarus” (based on the project’s internal name), “Myth”, and “Uprising”.

#surachiarttag #pitverse tag #kid icarus au

66 notes · View notes

novlr · 10 months

Note

do you have any advice for writing a story set in the future? like a story ab immortal characters that has a 100 year time jump where you can see the differences from say present day NYC to NYC in 2123 but its not outlandish or unrealistic

How to Write a Story Set in the Future

The future is a blank canvas, a place where anything is possible. This can be both a blessing and a curse for writers. On the one hand, it gives you endless possibilities to explore. On the other hand, it can be difficult to know where to start. Here are our quick tips:

Start with a strong idea

Decide what kind of future you want to write about and what role you want technology to play. Do you want to write about a dystopian future where technology has taken over? A utopian future where humans have solved all their problems using technology? Or has technology completely failed, and the future in your book looks more like our past?

Once you have a strong idea, you can start to flesh out your world and characters. Knowing how you want your future to look is the first step in knowing how to get there.

Do your research

The more you know about the present, the more believable your future story will be. Read books and articles about current trends, and think about how those trends might develop. You can also use your imagination to come up with new technologies and ideas, but they should be grounded in realistic development and fit within your story world.

There are some amazing non-fiction books to help you get the science right in your fiction, but you can also draw inspiration from the way that fiction authors tackle the subject. You can find a list of recommended non-fiction books to get you started in this post.

Be specific in your worldbuilding

When you’re describing your future world, don’t be afraid to get specific. What does the technology look like? How does it work? What are the social and political implications of this technology?

You don’t necessarily have to include all the minute detail in the content of your story, but knowing it for yourself, so it informs the way you write and what you can assume your characters know, will help you build out a stronger world.

The more specific you are in the world you build, the more immersive your story will be. But, focusing too much on the minute detail of your story will affect the pacing, so make sure you share only what is relevant.

Consider the time period

How far in the future is your story set? This will affect the technology, culture, and social norms of your world.

A world 50 years in the future will look very different from a world 2000 years in the future. Compare our current reality with the late 20th century vs the beginning of the 1st century, and you’ll see how big a part this can play in the way your story develops.

The rate of technological development in your setting is also important to consider. Will technology develop at the same pace as it currently does? Or will it stagnate or decline? If so, think of the reasons why this might be and how it fits into your plot.

Be creative

Don’t be afraid to come up with new ideas and concepts. The future is unknown, so let your imagination run wild.

But, with that said, there needs to be some logic to your ideas. If your future contains bio-engineered lettuce that gives people superpowers, there needs to be a reason for that. A cool thing for the sake of a cool thing will often break a reader’s immersion.

You want readers to be able to follow your ideas and believe in them. So making sure they fit and work within the context of your story is just as important as being imaginative.

91 notes · View notes

pacific-rimbaud · 10 months

Note

Thank you SO MUCH for your panville works. I find it therapeutic to read the caring and deeply loving dynamic you embed in them. Also love how you deal with Pansy's background and trauma. While she is by no means unprivileged, I think her wounds resonate deeply with anyone for whom parental love was unstable in childhood. Your writing inspires me so much. I hope you know the positive impact you have on fellow internet strangers. Fr I've reread a dress with pockets more times I care to admit and RoT is on its 3rd re read because it helps me deal with shitty days.

I have two questions regarding your own visualization of the characters in RoT that may fall out of the scope of the actual story (I imagine you might not delve into these too much even if you do have an idea of them in your head)

1. Do you imagine Pansy's mother's own trauma too, when you write? Like what are the wounds that made her such a cold/unloving parent to Pansy?

Ive been thinking of it as being classic objectification of pureblood women for future marriage. Like Pansy's mother never wanted to have a child but was forced to because she's a woman and that's her duty. Would you agree with this or is she a much more sinister character?

2. In what concrete ways would you say Pansy's strengths complemented Neville's weaknesses when they began dating? We see their relationship in a super specific context where they are in their late 20s but Pansy's growth got somewhat reverted to her teenage/younger years (so it makes complete sense we see her mostly being taken care of by Neville!!). But I ask because Harry's witty response to Pansy regarding Neville "deserving what he wants" made me feel a bit sad.

Like I get that Neville's a lot more emotionally sound than she is, but I guess it made me think about whether Pansy's life is "earned" beyond her trying to be better just for Neville's sake.

I imagine her fierce protectiveness of those she loves and her ability to set boundaries without taking people's shit must have been very attractive to a younger Neville?

Sorry if this question is too obvious. I think it hits close. I relate with Pansy's trauma and waking up one day as Neville's wife would indeed feel like heaven (thank you again Harry!). But I could not imagine being able to correspond to a love like that in ways that society traditionally categorizes as love.

Much love. Thank you again for sharing your beautiful brain with us xx

Thank you so much for reading! Truly so appreciative that anyone takes the time to follow a novel-length rare pair fic.

Answers under the cut!

Pansy's mother did not want kids. Full stop. Her father was indifferent to the idea, but definitely didn't want to marry Pansy's mother. My headcanon is that Pansy's mother had an ill-advised fling with Pansy's entitled rake of a father as a young woman, became pregnant, and was compelled to enter into a miserable, lonely marriage and raise a child she had absolutely no affection for. Pansy's father was interested when he chose to be, which wasn't often. Nonexistent or unreliable attachment all around. And so it's clear, this characterization isn't an excuse or attempted explanation for Pansy's cruelty as a child. I've known many casually cruel children over the years. It's not at all unusual. Heartbreaking and yet garden variety example: a few socioeconomically privileged kids in my son's class recently approached another group of children, some of whom have serious challenges at home, and told them that their mothers didn't love them as much as their mothers. Kids can be mind-bogglingly vicious people, even with the "right" parenting. They're kids! Their brains aren't fully cooked yet. Moving the empathy needle and fostering healthy culture in a school requires skillful adult intervention, which obviously was not happening at Hogwarts. Pansy's upbringing in this story is an explanation for why she struggles to be vulnerable, why she's so deeply haunted by a history of feeling unlovable, and why the prospect of motherhood in general and an unplanned pregnancy in particular carries a special horror for her. Basically what makes your second question a little tricky to answer....

...because she's such an unreliable witness to her own life in this. I love fanon Pansy more than anything. She's abrasive, sometimes filterless, terrifyingly perceptive, doesn't suffer fools. Which I just love so much. She's someone who cannot be other than herself, and that self is often pretty spiky. But if someone can get inside, she's also unrestrained in her tenderness. Once Pansy is on your side, you're ride or die. She'd do anything for you. Definitely would help you bury a body. And what I deeply love about Panville is that Neville gets to go further: he gets the innermost parts of her, which truly are so, so sweet and open and loving. She's an incredible partner. Neville has it made and knows it. And to try to answer your question, I don't tend to think about what they bring to the table, or whether anyone "deserves" anything, which is the error Pansy keeps making. I see them very much in the vein of, "I was in the middle before I knew I that I had begun." They're the catching feelings pair, whether it's friends to lovers or casual hook up to something more, because absolutely no way does she ever go into anything at all intending to be vulnerable. But he has the intuition of someone used to paying attention from the sidelines. He's curious. There's something there. He doesn't know what it is, but he'd like to. With enough patience, she unfurls. It's about the power of attentiveness and the inexplicable magic of deep connection. The payoff for Neville risking getting close enough to Pansy to peek inside is a spiky little wife who can't get enough of him in bed, has a full life of her own with passions and interests and relationships and is also deeply invested in their domestic happiness. She is profoundly, unswervingly in his corner. She sees and knows him. The payoff for Pansy risking her heart is this beautiful, kind, loyal man who adores her and whose sensibilities and preferences perfectly align with her own practical nature. He also happens to make great scones. Neither of them grew up understanding what they have was even possible, and I hope it's clear in the story that they both deserve every minute of it. 💜

#you asked I answered #remember one thing #panville #pansy parkinson #neville longbottom #long post

28 notes · View notes

adultswim2021 · 11 months

Text

Metalocalypse #27: “Dethwedding” | April 1, 2008 - 1:15AM | S02E07

Hey it’s been a little while since we got to watch Metalocalypse. In this one, Pickles brother Seth invites Dethklok to his wedding, which already advertises the fact that the wedding “features” Dethklok. His video invitation is hilarious. Seth is dressed in his Sunday best set against serene backdrops while he brags about his sobriety. Pickles is mortified to the point of despondency. The other band members just think it’s very, very funny.

The tribunal explains what American weddings are during one of their meetings. These scenes can be a pointless reminder that there is such a thing as the tribunal, and it also lends a false sense of gravity to the plot of each episode. It also serves what might be an accidental function of supplying future-proof context; let’s say there comes a day when the once-standard American wedding becomes an obsolete curiosity.

Or, let’s say this episode is being shown to a species of aliens who have no idea what a wedding is. You know the type of aliens I’m talking about: the kind that mock our god, oppressively holding up the Holy Bible and remarking “HUMAN PROPAGANDA”.* Just by satirically describing what a wedding is brings all those weirdos up to speed, even though it seems gratuitous. The tribunal actually declare that they will not intervene. Why would they? Dethklok’s just going to a wedding, for fuck’s sake.

*I am actually making a very specific reference to a circa-early-2000s episode of The Outer Limits, where a robot does this. I don’t know the title of the episode, but Heather Graham is in it.

Things are tense between Pickles and his brother. Seth immediately starts drinking again. He has scumbag friends who suck. Seth constantly asks for money. Dethklok perform a song with a little music video accompaniment (for us watching on television at least) featuring a married couple decaying and then eventually mutating into one another, getting all Cronenbergy. Dethklock get Seth a blender, which is just an item on his wedding gift registry. When Seth chews out Pickles for cheaping out, Pickles beats his brother up. Later, he feels bad, so he installs Seth as the head of Dethklok Australia, whose leader was recently assassinated by the Revengencers. Over the closing credits we see Seth thriving in his new position at the absolute expense of Sydney, Australia, which is practically in ruins while he surveys his land, doing a big smile like a tyrant would.

This one is very good. Metalocalypse’s misanthropic sense of humor really shines. The show will often show spectacular examples of gore and mayhem, but nothing is treated with grim incapability like family is...treated. With. Fuck. You know what the whole not ending your sentence with a preposition thing is lame and bad. It’s not that I’m bad at writing. I’m taking a stand.

The show has been taken down from HBOMax since the last time I watched it. It’s currently streaming on Adult Swim. At a glance it seems like it’s streaming in its entirety. It may or may not require a cable log-in. Actually, I’ll check in a private browser. Hang on. Okay. I did it. It played! It’s also on DVD, which is nice, but my copy’s digipak has shattered disc hubs so the discs are not fully secure in the box. Not good. Is there a way to fix this? Wait. Let me google it myself. Okay. Huh. I found something called “adhesive-backed spider DVD/CD disc hubs” that literally might be the exact thing I’m looking for. Wow. Well, you learn something extremely important like that every day, don’t you?

EPHEMERA CORNER

youtube

Robert Zunes In (2007)*

Remember when I was asking about the Robert Osbourne host intros? I’m guessing these are what that wiki was talking about! Either whoever wrote that got confused (these were taken from a ZUNE that Adult Swim gave away I guess with select episodes of select shows loaded onto them), or they repurposed some of those intros for the April Fools stunt. Neat! Thank you Kon for finding this and showing me them. Thank you.

*JOKE STOLEN FROM LONDON ARBUCKLE BECAUSE I DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO ASK IF I COULD USE IT

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #metalocalypse

7 notes · View notes

hard4josh · 9 months

Text

Eternity, Inazuma, and 17776: an essay about genshin

In Genshin Impact’s fictional continent of Teyvat, there are seven nations, each following a different ideology or concept, and ruled by an archon. For most of these nations, The concepts are pretty straightforward and flexible. Mondstadt has freedom, Liyue has contracts, Sumeru has wisdom, Fontaine has Justice, Natlan has war(but for consistency’s sake we’ll call it strength), and Snezhnaya’s concept hasn’t been disclosed yet, but from context and actions of the Snezhnayan interactions sprinkled throughout the game, we can assume that they, too, have something similar to most of these nations. These nations live in harmony. While they live by and worship a god that follows a concept, these concepts are mostly adaptable. They progress with technology and slowly take over the outdated concepts. This is Teyvat. Teyvat isn’t perfect, but they are growing.

This is Inazuma. Inazuma’s concept is “Eternity.” In Japanese, the word Inazuma means “lightning.” you might also know it from the anime, “Inazuma Eleven”

Inazuma is different from all the other nations, because it doesn’t adapt. The concept of eternity is to never change. Growth and change are as much of a blessing as they are a curse. By choosing to grow and pursue the future, we are headed toward a future where we do not have choice.

The developers of Genshin chose to reject this concept. By the end of the major Inazuma archon quests, it is left in a state where the good guys win and the concept of eternity is not redefined but extinguished. The Goddess of eternity is convinced by the heroes that change is a good thing, whether small or large. The world has to move forward, whether you like it or not.

It is the first and perhaps last time the developers will squash a concept under their foot. The Geo archon of Liyue learns that it is a good time to take a step back and retire, but the concept of contracts remains strong as a foundation of human life. The people of Sumeru actively seek out wisdom and intelligence to the point where it hurts the people around them, but ultimately learn how to channel and mold it without forgetting their ideals. And the Anemo archon of Mondstadt learns that while true freedom is unattainable, people still should hold on to it. Fontaine and Natlan have not been released, but it's easy to see how the concepts of strength and justice are righteous in their own way.

But Inazuma is the complete opposite. The nation of lightning is portrayed as shut off, tyrannical. Visions, the embodiment of someone’s ambition, are taken away. The Sakoku decree ensures that little to no outside advancements and trade can make it through. So why is this a concept? When Eternity is challenged and later pretty much destroyed, why was it an idea worthy of a nation in the first place?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BZs005Hbgs&t=17s

17776 is, according to Wikipedia, “ A serialized speculative fiction multimedia narrative by Jon Bois.” It’s set in a future where humans have stopped aging and giving birth, while microbots have been developed to stop any physical harm from coming to you. There is no global warming, and the sun stopped dying. Humans are now immortal, for reasons beyond their and our understanding.

It sounds dystopian, an impossible future. What about the advancements? The discoveries? What about answering the meaning of life and existence? Why would we gain immortality and make no attempts to learn anything about how it happened?

17776 answers in the only sarcastic ways it knows how. Humans simply got bored. There’s only so much to advance toward. Maybe it’s easier to make an invention that can put the remote to your hand, but when you’re an immortal being who doesn’t age or get hurt, walking up to pick up the remote has more meaning to it.

Sometimes I wonder what Heaven is like. Would it be a dystopian world where everyone's the same? Where nothing happens and we are mindless? Or is Heaven much more open, open to our emotional flaws, allowing us to have fun. When we are in heaven and we live forever, the question becomes how to keep ourselves from getting bored?

TIM: But I don’t think so. But I think about it. And I think, well, it can’t be. Because I’m like you. I kinda look at the big long life ahead of me that stretches out forever and disappears. And I get scared. And I think, “this can’t be heaven if I’m getting scared, right?”

TIM: And then I think, “Maybe this is Heaven, and Heaven is scary.”

------------------------------------

We’ve always reached for the stars. And when we reached the stars we aimed for galaxies and black holes. We’ve always tried making things easier, more convenient, and cooler. Maybe some people will always be like that. But maybe, in the future where most of our problems are fixed and we don’t have to worry about the sun exploding or aging, maybe then we can sit down, maybe play a game of football that covers the entirety of the United States of America.

This is Inazuma. Inazuma is a nation of personal trauma, of deaths that affected gods and their followers. It’s a nation filled with suffering, sorrow, and sadness, and that suffering made the God of Electro come down and enforce a single point of time for the rest of Eternity.

It’s not right, just like how it isn’t right to preserve our time today. There’s still so much to do, so many mouths unfed, rights squashed, and people killed.

Ambition is the thing that keeps us from falling into a completely dystopian world, where everyone's the same, because it keeps us wanting. But with ambition, we also want a world where everything is the same.

In 17776, we mellowed out. Humanity gets bored of control and technology and advancements and instead we embrace the life of pain and happiness. Humanity in 17776 are creatures of play, and will be creatures of play until the end of time.

And that’s hope. Hope for a better world, that we won’t be destroyed by ambition, that we find that sweet spot where nothing changes and humanity remains mostly happy. Hopefully.

#genshin impact #inazuma #17776 #eternity #raiden shogun #raiden ei

3 notes · View notes

silverhallow · 1 year

Note

I am strangely in the mood for a dark storyline. Imagine if Benedict had gotten Sophie Pregnant from their Sofa tryst? If the housekeeper discovered her pregnancy she would be dismissed without reference. Imagine Violet, Anthony's or even Hyacinths reaction to discovering Benedict is responsible for the Pregnancy. Also a pregnant Sophie in jail would also up all the sakes. Also, Sophie would have to confront her biggest fear, passing her trauma to her children. Oh, what is wrong with me?

okay so imagine this: (i'm gonna go below the cut because for various trigger warnings... cause this is gonna hurt)

Sophie wasn't even aware she was pregnant but it's the housekeeper that mentions that whens he's changed Sophie's sheets that she's noticed she's not bled in nearly 6 weeks and Sophie's horrified.

She hadn't realised and assumed she was late due to stress, though she's never been late in her life.

Sophie doesn't even get a chance to say her goodbyes as after her argument with Benedict was overheard... and the Housekeeper misses the context and incorrectly assumes, because of Master Benedict's clear infatuation with Miss Beckett that she's tried to blackmail him.

So the housekeeper throws Sophie out without a chance for her to explain the situation, and as she's thrown out she's thrown out straight into Lady Penwood's path and everything happens as part the book, with Sophie ending up in jail.

Where she cries coming to terms with the fact, everything has happened that she feared, she was her mother... she was pregnant and she was either going to be hung for theft or transported to Australia as a Criminal.

Wondering how bad it would be for her to terminate her pregnancy if she gets to Australia. was it safer there? or could she have Benedict's child, could she raise their child?

Would it be better to just end her life here, save her child from the future she knows they will have, from the life she has had... to leave the world behind and just... die.

When Benedict comes to the house the following day, Violet is none the wiser and when she asks the Housekeeper to bring her Sophie, she explains everything, that she discovered Miss Beckett is pregnant and that she overheard an argument between Benedict and Miss Beckett and fired her as she assumed Miss Beckett was trying to blackmail him due to the obvious nature of his affections for her.

Benedict lets out a howl of pain, as Violet explains that the child is likely to be Benedict's and that they were to marry and the housekeeper is mortified that she's thrown Benedict's fiancee out, and it's just then that his sister's who were already running through the house with the papers comes in and explains that Lady W saw Sophie being arrested yesterday.

Violet explains to the housekeeper that she's not angry before they leave and they get to Sophie in Jail and the poor girl is even more of a mess, stress all over her face, pain in her body as Benedict comes rushing into save her, his child...

Sophie weeps the entire way back to Benedict's as she tries to make peace with everything that's happened whilst she is happy that Benedict wants to marry her, the thought of ruining his family with a bastard, as even if they married, their child would be born early and everyone would know.

they would be disgraced and she didn't want to do that, she wanted him but she doesn't want to to ruin his family or his sisters, Benedict promises they will talk about this in the morning and he holds her, his hands over her stomach as they slept...

only when they wake Sophie's miscarrying, the stress of the events of the last week taken their toll on her body and they both weep at the loss of their child.

Benedict vows he wants to marry her and the entire family disappear to the country and they marry two weeks later when Sophie's recovered.

it takes them 6 months before Sophie falls pregnant again and they're constantly on edge throughout the entire thing and when Sophie goes into Labour early and their baby doesn't cry... Sophie's distraught and Benedict fears he is going to lose them both...

the entire family are worried that if they're going to lose them both and the relieve they feel when they hear those tired weary cries coming from Charlie's on day two...

The entire family sighs and celebrates.

#bridgerton #ask ash #darkest timeline #benedict bridgerton #sophie beckett #benophie #benedict x sophie #tw: miscarriage #tw: sucidal thoughts #tw: mental health #t

12 notes · View notes

the-dalish-dish · 9 months

Text

We're backish!

This blog hasn't been updated since 2017, and I personally have never interacted with it, despite asking my friend for mod rights when I was playing dragon age.

But that's about to change! I have semi-recently gotten super into cooking with my partner, and as such I'd love to get involved in this blog again, especially since I'm getting back into themed blog content.

And here we go! I'll start with an introduction and a recipe I enjoy.

On here I go by Alioth, which is the name of my main Dragonage OC. I might share some stuff about his story here and my art of him occasionally as well, but this is mostly going to be a blog that shares recipes I enjoy. I've been playing dragon age for a long time and I've always felt a kinship with the Dalish, who simply resonated greatly with the experiences I had growing up different, especially in the context of my life where I was raised Christian, by a devout stepfather, and I am now (and have been for a very long time) very very pagan.

I enjoy being a ray of sunshine in people's lives, and while I'm far from perfect, I strive to be better every day so I can always do that for the people in my life. My favorite color is yellow, and I prefer to bake than cook, but I enjoy both. If you remember me from the old days of Tumblr, that's ok, but I'm a very different adult than I was sub-21. I hope you're willing to learn the new me. I'm 26, turning 27 in November, and my favorite animals are hyenas and cheetahs. Dingos get an honorable mention though.

I'm living in a Celtic region of the world these days and as such my inspiration for today's recipe is one I think is important to know (everyone who wants to cook should make bread) and also is a fun way to do so. I noticed a lot of Celtic imagery in the Dalish storylines in the game, so I have taken that into account (though not all my recipes will have specific inspirations, some just FEEL Dalish to me, and I will add those as well or I will quickly run out of recipes to put on this blog....) this recipe isn't mine, and I will therefore be linking the blog post I found it on here in this post, but for brevity's sake and just in case the blog is ever removed, I will also post the recipe as well as a picture of it here. In the future, I plan to add my own pictures, and I will always tag those pictures as my own. I will also add my own recipes, which I will also tag accordingly.

Today's recipe is Celtic Knot bread, which is fun and tasty. I will post it in another post so you guys don't have to dig through an introduction to find it!

#introduction #mod Alioth #elfkin #dalish recipes #elvhen

2 notes · View notes

kingyoisland · 1 year

Text

Reading Chainsaw Man: Prelude

I’m up to chapter 17 in the manga I’ve watched all up too Episode 6 this is good context for like where I’m at. I’m still at the very beginning and here are my thoughts so far. I’m going to record my experience here so this is going to have spoilers because I’m talking about the manga.

Thoughts:

DENJI DOESN’T LOOK 15 HE DOESN’T HE LOOKS LIKE AKI’S AGE AND AKI IS LIKE 23 WTF WHY

So here is my main issue like. I was starting to weirdly ship. Denji and Makima. I knew it was bad and toxic but I genuinely was like Makima is the only nice person ever to Denji and I was hoping in my heart of hearts maybe she’s a good person. Because we know nothing about her at all. At this time other then Aki also likes her and that she’s a good person, with bigger goals.

THEN I LEARNED DENJI IS 15 AND MAKIMA IS AN ADULT AND WAS TRYING NOT TO GAG IN MY MOUTH FOR WRITING THE LAST SECTION

Denji is by far my favorite character in the entire series. I love how he’s written and now his mentality makes a lot more sense learning he’s 15. I JUST WISHED HE LOOKED LIKE IT.

Aki idk I don’t feel really emotionally attached to him yet like Power and Denji. But he’s funny he seems like he’s gonna be my least Favorite character. But then again I thought that about Megumi who’s my favorite character in JJK. So who knows

Also I adore Kobeni like she has no. Not a single fucking hesitation. Like as soon as the demon was like “hey I want denji”

She basically said Bet. How specifically do you want me to kill him. Do you want him sliced up. I’ll skin him. I don’t care. Let me out.

But you know with tears in her eyes ya know.

Power gives me inosuke energy. She’s an inosuke Kinnie in my eyes. Kinda love her for it.

I’m interested in why pochita stuck around denji with how much Demons hate Humans. Did like wtf was up with pochita

I just have so many questions for the future and I’m more gettin taken on a ride which is nice. Like it makes me feel different for JJK and Demons slayer. Where there’s an end goal and everything that happens is just steps or parts of the journey to get their.

This feels like their is no end goal we’re just fallowing Denji. Almost slice of life. Pulling back the onion as he is. We’re just as naive as him to what’s going on and the position he’s in

It’s only the scenes with Aki and Himeno where it shows how they met and how they where partners did it really sink in for me that like. Wait yeah. This Job Fücking sucks and they all hate it. This isn’t like just fun action for acts sake. Idk if that makes sense but yeah

IT feels like watching a war movie and then those scenes happened and I’m watching a war documentary.

Himeno is runner up for second best character

I don’t know enough about Makima to like her and now that I know that she’s Fücking weird and sexually grooming a minor I’m gonna put her on the lower end.

Also Infinity Devil feels like cheating like wtf is that shit. Like come on really. The first time we meet Himeno is like their fighting a fish demon and it’s dead. Wtf Denji got the worst first offical job with the pieces ever.

Also Gun Devil is the funniest name for a Devil I have ever heard in my life. Because like. Infinity Devil exist. But nah gun Devil. I think it’s because the general public doesn’t know their is a infinity devil. Because if they did that would be all I thing any one should talk about

Like that devil would become crazy stronger then it already is because if the general public found out the very concept of infinity wants to eat and kill you. The human race would collectively pack it bags.

We had a good run.

Next your gonna tell me theirs a thinking about the endless void devil. Like wtf

I love it but certain devils are not strong because not enough know about them.

Also when like the bat devil dies. Is another one born. Because people are still scared of bats. Like. That doesn’t go away. People are still scared of bats. The only way this would be fixed is if no one was scared of bats ever again.

Back to the Aki thing like in my personal opinion I find Powers story more compelling and Power to be a better character at least right now. Because Power reminds me of Denji. And I also think why I really like their chemistry more then Aki and Denji’s. Idk how I really feel about Aki but I do no I’m not connecting the same as like Power and Denji. Which is weird for a main trio.

Sorry for mentioning JJK and demon slayer their the only manga I have finished and up to date with that are good and not just stuff I read because it was bad. But this never happens with me main trios of those manga. I usually am a sucker for all the main trio. I usually either have strong positive or negative emotions for characters

But I just feel nothing for Aki right now

Anyways, to end it on an interesting note. I love the fact that Denji gets along better with Demons then humans. Like no but like Denji has the most positive relationships with Power who’s a fiend and Pochita. Both Devils there his most positive relationships. I feel like Aki really is just a co worker to Denji not really a friend. Which what makes what he said when their first mission with the fiend seems so interesting. Idk I think that’s really cool.

But these are just my opinions. I hoped you found this somewhat entertaining. Um and I hope you stay because from what I’ve seen. People Live this series and for good reason. I just can’t wait for what I’m in for. Also this is basically my solution to the live tweet. Because I can’t really live tweet on tumblr so ya know. :D thank you for reading.

#chainsaw man manga #first reaction #blind reaction #csm manga #chainsaw man #csm

5 notes · View notes

berenices-commas · 1 month

Text

The Mimicking of Known Successes - 2023 - Malka Older

I’ve always enjoyed Malka Older. Not just The Centenal Cycle but pretty much all her writing. This one, though, did not grab me. To some extent because this just isn’t my kind of thing, and also because The Mimicking of Known Successes doesn’t quite live up to its own promises. This is both a murder mystery and a romance, and I’ll treat those aspects separately.

But first, I do like worldbuilding, so I’m going to talk about that. The image of a Jupiter bound about with planet-spanning habitation rings is a great one, maybe the best part of the book. But beneath the space gaslamp veneer, the society on those rings isn’t particularly interesting. The world of Infomocracy is wonderful, it’s teeming with people wrapped up in their own identities, communities, politics, and yet part of a gigantic, messy whole. Here, though, nobody really has an identity, and we get very little idea of what the broader society looks like. I think this is a longstanding problem in SF (I just finished reading The Caves of Steel) – it’s easy to create a future that seems so much flatter than our world.

Also, the premise where humans have rendered Earth uninhabitable and fled into space, and this proves that humanity Can’t Have Nice Things, has never really made sense and is by now a dreadful cliché besides. It’d be alright if it was just a contrivance to do the cool Jupiter thing, but the central philosophical question of the book revolves around the assumption that climate change will literally wipe out all (macroscopic?) life on Earth, and thus can’t really be taken seriously.

But anyway! The important bits. This is, of course, Sherlock Holmes in space, and that means this is a Conan-Doyle-style mystery. And here I confess that I just prefer the later approach to mystery construction where the story is a puzzle for the reader to solve. Of course, that’s very tricky to do right in a SF setting, where the reader lacks basic context, so it’s easy to see why Older opted for the earlier, thriller style. Here the focus is on the process of the investigation, on the aforementioned dodgy philosophy and the characters of the detectives themselves. And it does feel a lot like a Sherlock Holmes story, right down to the random attack by an exotic animal to keep things tense. But that’s not my thing – I just think it’s a waste of a good murder.

The romance... is fine? Mossa and Pleiti are cute together, and their connection feels real. But I wasn’t seized, I don’t feel particularly invested in the couple, and I imagine that after a few weeks I’ll never think about them again. I have high standards for loadbearing romances in fiction – they should be not just plausible but genuinely compelling, or what’s the point?

The end product is a novella which is certainly not bad, but not especially exciting either. In some ways this is perhaps the first true casualty of the “cozy” trend in contemporary SFF – Older is very definitely capable of better than this, but has chosen to write something without much weight to it for the sake of marketing. Or maybe she never considered the marketing aspect at all, and just thought a space Holmes story would be cool, I don’t know. Either way, I’m not thrilled by this new series.

#reviews #sff #the mimicking of known successes #malka older

0 notes

spinneryesteryear · 1 year

Text

Shadowbringers Reactions

- finally transcribing the notes I took while playing through 5.0 three years ago and posting them here so I can find them again later. For context’s sake, I played through SHB on DRK.

-- honestly, who DIDN’T already know that was G’raha Tia?

-- he’s like half my character’s height and several years younger. So tempted to channel my inner mom/big sister friend and ask him if he knows how much trouble he’s caused. Buuuuuut I also don’t want to be too harsh on him bc he seems lonely and desperate for help. (Sorry, G’raha, but if you have a crush on me, you’re outta luck bc Sidurgu is my husband and I’m not cheating on him for some mere catboy, no matter how adorable.)

-- so glad the first Viera we meet is professional and properly clothed. So glad.

-- thank u G’raha for actually giving directions. Now if only the quest markers were taken away and we had to fumble our way through an unfamiliar city like in Morrowind haha

-- I just met Moren but he’s adorable and I hope nothing bad happens to him (*hollow laughter*)

-- G’RAHA U LITTLE S*** I KNOW IT’S YOU DON’T LIE TO ME

-- I suppppooooooooose they could want use to theorize that it’s G’raha’s body puppeted by some ancient Allagan archmagus like that one girl possessed by Noah who appears in Mor Dhona after you complete the Crystal Tower storyling, but lbr we all know it’s G’raha Tia and nobody did that quest Noah gave anyway

-- NOOOOOOOO NOT POETICS AGAIN

-- that is not at all the voice I expected from Feo Ul but it seems fitting. Still don’t wanna make a pact, tho. I fear the fae, quite rightly

-- pixie duuuuuuuuuuust!

-- where’s my option to have Feo Ul tell my husband and kids I’m alive and well?

-- ngl I kept expecting making a pact with a fay to backfire on us horribly and so I was side-eyeing Feo Ul something fierce all the way to lvl 79 in anticipation of betrayal or sudden shrubbery

-- ARBERT I LOVE YOU

-- okay so like if dark knights can summon Fray can we summon Arbert as some sort of ‘inner light’ bc that would be awesome

-- my inn room looks like a train station

-- instant suspicion: meol is somehow cannibalism

-- Alphinaud may have better financial sense now but he’s no better at stealth

-- *wandering around Kholusia* imagine how embarrassing of a death it would be for a lvl 70 to die pecked to death by toucans

-- those red and blue jongleurs are going to be boss fights, aren’t they? I remember the twins from the Ghimlyt Dark

-- Alphinaud once again demonstrates a greater sense of justice than tact

-- I genuinely have no idea how we’re going to get out of this situation in Eulmore

-- Vauthry giving me Aldrich Devourer of Gods vibes here

-- just let me go full Fray on this fatty already

-- so, wait, just HOW did we get out of Eulmore without having to fight anyone trying to detain us?? Did they seriously not try to stop us in any way???

-- that’s *definitely* not the voice I expected to hear from a kobold (Ghen Gen)

-- well, a Sin Eater transformation is suitably horrifying. Why did I watch this cutscene right before going to sleep. Why. (Flashbacks to Nina & Alexander in FMA.)

-- so... are black mages and white mages wholly to blame for the flood or was it mainly due to another shard getting swamped with water? Also was the 7th calamity of ice, seeing what befell Ishgard? (HC: Nidhogg hijacked some of the Calamity’s aetheric fallout to blanket Coerthas in snow. He cnaonically controlls the weather and aether around the Aery, so why not?)

-- I SPLIT OPEN THE SKY AND RESTORED THE NIGHT AHHHHHHHHH

-- Ardbert making a cameo in the background like a lil warrior lightbulb

-- so apparently they’ve revealed the ‘true’ names of the Warriors of Darkness, after I went to the effort of memorizing their original names on the Source :|

-- so does Ran’jit mean beastmaster is confirmed as a future job? or is he just a monk with a pet flying snake?

-- YAAAAAS THANCRED

-- why do these villains thing they can beat me down so effortlessly when I do the duty on DRK and keep up my health just fine until the fail-safe OHKO kicks in (basically Zenos only defeated me the first time bc I went AFK for dinner)

-- the Crystal Exarch makes me like Allagan stuff for the first time

-- I distract myself from wanting to punch Solus in the face by mentally comparing his hi-poly model to the lower-poly models of everyone else around him (that cutscene with Varis was particularly jarring in this regard) and laughing to myself

-- okay so the pixies are just straight up fae folk, yikes yikes yikes

-- I laugh so hard every time the camera does its ‘pan from multiple angles’ thing to show off a character’s new outfit. Especially when it’s Urianger.

-- so in Urianger’s vision of the future the WoL apparently goes down next to Alphinaud and Alisaie and, man, it just makes my heart hurt to see the three corpses lying together like that. Especially since my character is the total mom friend and has reluctantly come to consider them both almost as her own kids.

-- it IS interesting that Urianger and Alisaie always address each other first/have the most interactions

-- Alphinaud be like ‘at LAST, someone else who cannot swim and can help me bear the brunt of Alisaie’s teasing!’ and Urianger be like ‘Imma just waterwalk’

-- I like Dohn Mheg

-- they’re really amping up the horror aspect with these Sin Eaters and Lightwardens, huh

-- so I’m guessing the Nu Mou are brownies or smth

-- brb sobbing over Seto and Ardbert

-- heck yeah, protective dad Thancred for the win. The unusual camera angles (for FFXIV) really sold how furious he was at Ran’jit

-- the fae defeating Ran’jit’s forces is such a mix of eucatastrophic and horrifying that I don’t know how to quantify or qualify it further

-- the fairies are genuinely fae in all of their eldritch rule-bound glory (or horror) and I am enjoying the novelty just as much as I wish to avoid them

-- ah, yes, Miinfillia makes a good addition to my collection of magical blond daughters (Sylphie, Rielle, Gatty, etc.)

-- so is Emet-Selch just throwing a tantrum or is he trying to manipulate us further. I’m assuming the latter. I’m also assuming the ‘Emet’ comes from the Hebrew ‘emeth’ ‘truth’. And I still want to punch him in the face. His rhetoric does not impress me.

-- I keep reading his name as ‘Emet-Selech’ to match the Biblical ‘Ebed-Melech’ but I guess that’s just the Catholic in me

-- Urianger going all-out Yu-Gi-Oh here, throwing cards at people like Seto Kaiba

-- I am greatly enjoying Urianger’s updated hi-poly model, i must say

-- Ardbert is #1 best bro, hands down

-- DON’T EVEN BREATHE IN G’RAHA’S DIRECTION, YOU ASCIAN CRETIN

-- nah, man, I’d greattly prefer to beat up Ascians again. It’s like annihilating worlds wins you few friends and less good will, wow.

-- does Thancred now have, like, Ascian radar? He’s the first to react when E-S pops up in our vicinity. I would not be surprised if Lahabrea’s possession of him had its lingering efffects

-- LAAAAA-HEEEE

-- Emet-Selch talks about conquering nations as his ‘halcyon days’ and then wonders aloud why we don’t want his commentary

-- “Uh... kupo?” Sorry, I had to do it. I don’t actually hate moogles quiiiiite as much as I pretend to, although I do hate them (I’m sorry, Sidurgu; I have failed you *sobs*) and I naively assumed humor would dispel some of the tension. Thancred’s reaction was great, too (hearkens back to his frustrated, “All right, who triggered the obvious trap?” in the Ala Mhigan Saltery.)

-- I will gladly bore you any day, Emet-Selch!

-- I prefer Lahabrea too, Thancred, Never thought I would see the day.

-- the Echo flashback of Ardbert and Lamitt meeting was so beautiful and pure in the most painful way

-- I shouldn’t laugh at Granson. He does have a sad past. But he’s trying to shard to be edgy, it just amuses me. Sid manages to be edgy even when surrounded by moggles and small children - AND there’s so much more to him than that. At least Granson has a nice coat.

-- getting real invested in this father/daughter relationship between Thancred and Mini-fillia here

-- I was genuinely moved by that funeral. I’m gonna have Thoughts when I finish SHB on how we as the Warrior of Darkness are embodying essentially their religion’s (benevolent) Angel of Death to restore order to the world and ensure souls pass peacefully to the afterlife. Because, like, I already got chills.

-- a day in the life of Indiana Jones (again)

-- I just kinda figured that Y’shtola pulled some wacky magic trick out of her pocket as she always does and Flow’d herself to some random place again so this part didn’t even emotionally affect me other than, “Not *again*.”

-- called it

-- since AST has that Gravity spell I’m going to assume that’s how Urianger froze Ran’jit midair and also how Thancred and the WoL got back to the other side of the bottomless pit. Because we learned in Dohn Mheg that Rescue doesn’t work across chasms or on hostiles.

-- Thancred’s utter disdain for Emet-Selch gives me life

-- like why the heck does he want our trust so badly, anyway

-- at least Y’shtola got clothes this time

-- still kinda miffed at her for being reckless, even if my character just smiled and nodded to keep the convo and plot moving along

-- how do I get Urianger and Alphinaud to keep me alive during large pulls??? Maybe I”m just doing DRK wrong, idk man

-- primal!Hydaelyn theory confirmed

-- still emotional over the Night’s Blessed religion because it actually strikes me as, y’know, an actual religion

-- Y’shtola, looking at her massive pile of books: “Oh, no, I’ve become my mother...”

-- I look forward to returning to the Crystarium to speak to my no. 1 best bro, Ardbert (nope, not G’raha)

-- Estinien and Gaius’s wacky wild Garlemald adventures

-- great, Zenos is more yandere than ever towards us

-- no, Mini-fillia! stay with Thancred!

- holy crap

-- noooooo, poor Ardbert trying so hard

-- yes, thank you, sad lonely remix of the expansion theme

-- Lyna’s voice actor out here killing it

--oh, great, a tub of lard on a blimp. How does it take off with him on board? Or is it just a recording of his voice? The latter seems more likely

-- Thancred’s just concerned about Mini-fillia being worried - lol, don’t think I haven’t seen this I’m-totally-being-a-dad-without-realizing-I’m-a-parent behavior before with Sidurgu

-- Emet-Selch just lurking in the background like the terrible skunk man he is, ready to further the drama

- oh NOOOOOOOO NO NO NO

-- this is truly the most delicious and painful of angst

-- I’m just like constantly lowkey screaming over Thancred and Mini-fillia

-- my character yet again having to give parenting advice to a white-haired tank

-- yay, more hours of running around alternate dimension Camp Drybone

-- so like what’s up with Ran’jit’s darkened sclera?

- AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

-- oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh

-- NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

-- BRB I’M SOBBING

-- IMMEDIATELY followed by watching the Warriors of Darkness sacrifice themselves (again) to help stop the Floor by absorbing enough light to become top-tier Sin Eaters, holy crap

-- Ardbert begging Minfillia to let him sacrifice himself as well, holy crap I’m sobbing

-- THANK THE TWELVE

-- Alisaie dragging Alphainaud for stating the obvious for the benefit of the dullards

-- happy tears now

-- everyone else looks at you when you approach but Thancred and Ryne are still watching each other *clutches heart*

-- wait... Ran’jit didn’t die... is HE the Lightwarden? *dons tinfoil hat*

-- doing trials w/trust system would be wild

-- how appropriate is it that we fight Storge after this development between Thancred and Ryne?

-- Malikah’s Well is easy to tank tbh

-- how exactly is everyone continuing to exist as fragments a greater tragedy than murdering millions, Emet-Selch? Hmm? I don’t care how pretty your borrowed face is or how sad you sound, I’m not impressed.

-- welp, I knew something fishy was up with the meol from the start. How exactly do the Sin Easter produce enough to feed everyone, though?

-- so is Vauthry like a light-elemental primal now? is he tempering people?

-- he’s actually much less violent than I expected, however. He’s not calling for our heads, just that we be kept away from him. Huh.

-- okay, what’s up w/Ran’jit’s final words? is he talking to past Minfillias?

-- where are Vauthry’s Sin Eaters?? Let’s not make the same mistake we made outside the Vault and attack w/o checking where all of the big bad’s minions are

-- oh, look, he has a boob face like Edo Tensei Madara. How nice. Except this one has glowing eyes.

-- wouldn’t the manacutters work in this environment? Or does ‘abundance of light’ not equal ‘abundance of aether’? Oh, it’s for safety reasons. Seems fair.

-- Alphinaud has to give at least one (1) dramatic speech per expansion, doesn’t he? Or even per patch, maybe

-- Chai-Nuzz be like, “Did my wife just sign me up for this?”

-- hello, yes, I love the Chai’s

-- LALI-HO!

-- the dwarves kinda remind me of the Jawas from Star Wars, except with helmets and visible beards

-- if Norvrandt had trains, Jeryk would totally be a train fanatic

-- are we turning this giant Talos into a primal? That’d be the sort of thing we would totally do by accident *cough Susano cough*

-- I can’t help it, I crack up every time the shoebill running gag appears

-- G’raha, I remember what happened the last time an Important NPC had a crush on me. Don’t die on me now. You’ve let slip some alarming hints, and no matter how irked I am by your secrecy I don’t want someone else dying in my arms.

-- what am I gonna do after all this is over? Go home to Ishgard and see my husband and kids

-- SORRY G’RAHA I’M MARRIED

-- Mt. Gulg actually has a rather tasteful palace

-- DRK is great. Don’t know what that boss move does? TBN. Don’t feel like moving out of an AOE? TBN. Party member gets hit w/stack marker and you don’t wanna move? TBN.

-- Innocence gets me in the Catholic by giving me St.-Michael-depicted-in-art vibes and that kinda makes me uncomfortable in a ‘this is something holy that has been perverted’ sort of way

-- yes, mayor dude, trust the creepy dude in black robes who teleported into your chambers w/o warning and proposed drastic magical experimentation on your unborn child for political gain

-- but Urianger, you have no sleeves

-- G’raha, you’re trying too hard to lie, and Urianger’s emotion gives you away anyway

-- THE MUSIC AAAAUUUUGHHHHH

-- Emet-Selch w/a gun is just the most random thing

-- can we just harness our light, leap on him, and eat his soul like in Skyrim? Maybe his darkness would balance things out?

-- why does anyone like this skunk man anyway

-- he didn’t invest all that much time or energy in us. It’s not as if he joined us in fetch quests or dungeons or anything. (Editor’s Note: EW says hello.)

-- wait... how is Elidibus keeping Zenos’s corpse from rotting? Or is it ‘alive’ now that it has a soul to occupy it?

-- doing that Crystarium/Lakeland sidequest chain with the elf soldier who has PTSD right after waking up from the Innocence fight was an inspired, if accidental, decision

-- ngl, the healer role quests are actually kinda sad. Also, Giott is best girl

-- I love Feo Ul. The music when we finally remember to call their name made me smile, it’s so triumphant and joyful right after some sad and heavy story developments.

-- haha those two dudes watching Bismarck’s dive

-- lol Grenoldt is Gerolt with hair

-- Granson is TOO edgy

-- I love how they demonstrated that Tadric is evil with a think black scale moustache.He’s also an inferior black mage because his hat isn’t pointy enough.

-- who else finds it interesting that Voeburtite’s royalty are white-haired, white-skinned Xaela when the only one who fits that description in Ishgard is Sidurgu? Am I thinking too deeply into this?

-- Auri princess turns into quasi-Elezen Sin Eater. Yup. Makes perfect sense.

-- okay, Granson, you’ve finally grown on me. Brandon’s character arc had an effect on him. And Sul Oul was wonderfully patient with him. And we can turn Granson’s favored form of address right back on him, haha.

-- I hit 80 DRK in the middle of a FATE in the Tempest and first summoned Fray to fight some jellyfish. I’m 100% certain he was cussing me out for that.

-- so Ascians/Amaurotines speak the Alltongue, okay

-- the helpful robed giant is at once creepy and soothing, idk. I’m calling ghost shenanigans

-- yup

-- sad piano music like smth outta KH

-- soooo the Final Days phenomenon emerged from deep within the earth and hijacked the Amaurotines’ creation powers to give life to their worst nightmares? And their plan was to give *will* to the very earth itself? Hmmmm.

-- I wonder how efficient and/or beneficent the Amaurotine bureaucracy really was. The very title ‘Concept Clerk’ unnerved me. And this disdain for ‘cultivated individuality’ when all Amaurotines wear the same hooded robes and masks unless they’re official figures... Emet-Selch *does* know St. Thomas More wrote Utopia as a parody, right? These places that purport to be utopias seem to inherently devolve into dystopias of various sorts.

-- “To delight in disparity is a mark of the morally deficient.” *shudders*

-- “The eyes of the collective are ever watching and weighing your worth.” *shudders harder*

-- okay, creepy communist ghost Amaurotines, hiding their distorted worldviews behind civility and smug notions of equality

-- The problem with dialog choices is that sometimes you want to pick both. Yes, but also no. No, but also yes. Go not to the Elves for counsel.

-- Amaurot has a vaguely Art Deco, turn-of-the-century big city feel to it IMHO

-- I’m a max-height Roegadame at 7′3″ and I’m not quite half the height of these Amaurotines. I can only imagine what Lalafells look like next to the them. They must be the size of newborns, maybe toddlers.

-- ...*did* the Amaurotines even procreate normally? Did they design their own children? Have to apply for a concept permission slip to have children? I mean, children at least seem to have existed in their society, based on reactions the WoL garners, but my mind is swamped with other horrible potential implications

- so you can check out concepts like aetheric instructions and then make stuff. Is it just like a patent office, or do you usually need permission to make things?

-- who gets to pick which ideas further the greater good? That’s always a scary thought

-- as much as Amaurot instills a deep sense of dread in me, I’m actually rather enjoying it

-- the Addled Amaurotine’s design is going to try to kill me, isn’t it

-- oh, look, talking flans that poison me. yaaaaaaaaay

-- okay, which Amaurotine was responsible for these cubuses (cubi?), what exactly are they/what were they intended to be, and why are they infesting a public plaza? Do they just use them as free living aether sources? Do they have no ethical qualms with that?

-- were there no other sentient peoples during the time of the Amaurotines? And why can’t I stop mentally turning that name into ‘Ammonites’ or ‘Ammorites’?

-- gotta say, those glass-breaking and cocoon-crackling noises when we have an episode are pretty worrisome

-- Thancred’s not usually this openly sentimental, so his words in front of the Capitol hit the hardest. Plus, he’s the Scion I’ve trusted the most this expansion to be the sensible one, my fellow tank whom I trust as the Responsible Other Person in the party and whose judgment of the situation I rely on the most.

-- Emet-Selch’s amity is entirely dependent on us being exactly what he wants us to be, and players still love him?

-- whoo, Y’shtola being savage as usual

-- still don’t know exactly why Zodiark would offer the Amaurotines a refund of the souls he initially consumed, especially when all the supposedly lesser mortals would be a poor compensation. Appeasing a dictator leads to a black hole. What would Zodiark demand next? What then?

-- y’know, Emet, possibly people want to stop you for a reason. People don’t exactly WANT to be sacrificed to an evil god. He claims to be so superior but he fails to understand humanity. I don’t care how emotional he gets. I’d actually claim the Amaurotines were spiritually and mentally *lesser* for not having to deal with mortality the same as the rest of us.

-- we don’t have to be entrusted with the Amaurotine legacy. We just want to live.

-- let me punch him in the face

-- somewhere in the Sil or HoME the Ainur/Valar are described as “greater in majesty but equal in dignity” to other sentient souls and honestly that’s why I trust only good Catholics to write this sort of existential philosophy

-- yes, because magical power determines the worth of a soul. Emet-Selch is an ableist, plain and simple. Why can no one see this

-- move along, just an eternal child throwing a hissy fit, nothing to see here

-- the guy unable to manipulate aether actually got physically the closest to landing a hit on Emet-Selch; if that isn’t irony at its most beautiful, I don’t know what is

-- so I started crying when Ardbert offered me his axe and the main theme kicked in

-- Hades was fun, in the sense that we wiped several times but demonstrably learned. And I loved the chance to throw around my high-level spells and not cast a single Cure II

-- heck yeah Thancred

-- gonna assume he was chosen (in a Doylist sense) for that role with the white auracite for his inability to manipulate aether, ability to pull off crazy sword parkour, and his white coat literally being a beacon in Hades’s darkness

-- couldn’t help but hear Emet-Selch’s plea to be remembered in Mufasa’s voice

-- okay, this music with the admonition to “stand tall” is making me cry

-- I don’t condone your actions and behavior, G’raha, but I forgive you

--I’m liking the WHM AF4 gear, might not glamour over it for a while. No ridiculous stiff lace collar, no random uncovered shoulder, yes a floor-length skirt, no healer panties/bootyshorts/visible thigh. It’s great. I love the traditional AF1 gear, but this silhouette is very nice as well. It gives my character more of the motherly feel she’s earned.

-- hello, yes, I still love the CHai’s

-- we get washed out on the shore like Jonah spat out of the whale’s belly

-- the running saga of Alphinaud’s (and Urianger’s) inability to swim, haha

-- so, wait, Mt. Gulg is gonna fall one day and we’re just gonna leave it in the sky? If I learned anything from Lie Rock in Morrowind, it’s that mini floating moons are a BAD idea.

-- AAAAAAUUUUUUGGHHHHHH, Ardbert reuniting with his old comrades

-- yep, let’s quote “Answers”, not like it will make me cry or anything

-- aaaaand here comes the expansion theme to finish the job on my emotions

-- lol, Urianger refuses to learn how to swim, instead decides to learn magical waterwalking or how to part the sea like Moses

-- HAHAHAHAHA Thancred was going to have a drink but Urianger dragged him by naming all his drunken conquests so he just had water instead. Water. Pffffft.

-- Y’shtola has one move and that is: SAVAGE

-- despite his kidnapping of our friends and spying on us unseen without our consent, G’raha is GENERALLY an exception to that ‘Red Eyes, Take Warning’ rule

-- oh, yeah, what nonsense are Estinien and Gaius engaged in?

-- lol, Estinien is not the Leeroy Jenkins for once

-- so Imma assume Zenos got his body back and killed his dad? Ah, yep. Yay, we’ll get to deal with our yandere ‘friend’ again

-- dang, Gaius’s gunblade is as long as a DRK greatsword; I assume it has rifling for bullets? Is it feasible as a long-range weapon?

-- pls don’t let Zenos mantle Zodiark and the WoL mantle Hydaelyn

-- nice cliffhanger, Squeenix

-- Estinien watching this alll like ‘dude wtf’

-- I’m not the only one to theorize that Estinien still carries Nidhogg’s soul in some fashion and that he thereby can’t be tempered; pls let us have him in the trust system 2021, idec if he steals LB and yeets into AOE’s like ALisaie, I want the man who embodied the rancor of freaking Bahamut’s brother and survived on my side

-- gotta buy this soundtrack asap

-- had to troll G’raha by immediately popping back to the First. Had to.

-- y’know, I wouldn’t be mad if in a future expansion they gave fewer new lands and instead expanded the old ARR maps and unlocked flying for them

-- lol I REALLY need to hear the story of how Tataru and Krile strong-armed Estinien into working for them

-- Elidibus now on the moon like, “All my friends are dead.” I still wanna know why he wears white (and if it’s because he’s ‘Emissary’, what’s the importance of that title?)

-- how is the body Elidibus stole breathing on the moon??!! Or does he always just grab corpses and reanimate them? But if he revived Zenos’s corpse and revived this one, still how is it breathing? Does Zodiark’s moon have a thin atmosphere? or is it just another ‘aether’ handwave?

-- just discovered this galaxy-brain theory: the Amdapor gremlins are actually sin eaters, confused as voidsent by the Souce

DRK 80 -- *checks in on the husband* Hoo boy, looks like our daughter is definitely entering her teenage years -- Fray, I swear if you make me pay all these teleport fees for no reason... -- DUDE, IT’S *THAT* GUY -- redemption for the arrogant merchant guy who so spectacularly angered Fray? And in this wholesome way? Dark knight is best knight, confirmed once again

WHM 80 -- it’s Alaqa! I’ve missed her! (Yes, I actually cared about WHM 50 - 60, shut up.) It’s great to see she’s getting along with my other two magical blond daughters. -- ‘mister smashy branches’ is the best name ever; I will now call all treants that. Thank you, my magical blond daughter #1. -- secret wish: A-Towa Cant to reappear, just to complete things -- but I get girls’ day out w/smashing tree monsters and appeasing bloodthirsty forest spirits instead, so that’s just as good.

MELEE/PHYS RANGED ROLE QUESTS -- *starting the questline * Tbh, I like Lue-Reeq even less than Granson. *finishing questlie* He’s still a little idiot, but he’s trying now.l He gets headpats. Reeq >>> Kai-Shirr. -- ngl, seeing Ardbert charge out of the forest to Renda-Rae’s rescue during that roleplaying sequence just about brought a tear to my eye. I love him so much. He is #1 best bro.

CRYSTALLINE MEAN -- ALC/CUL deifnitely has the best story. Eismon and Thiuna are also faves, but Bethric was amazing. -- The MIN/BTN questline was also good. I felt like a paleontologist or zoologist for the day. -- clearly, the Loch NEss monster also employs glamours to hide itself -- FSH: The Importance of Nutrition (starring simultaneous Shakespeare and Star Trek references; Koji, you sly Fox) -- ALCH/CUL: Don’t Mess With The Alchemist -- LTW/CRP/WVR: Man Does Not Live On Bread Alone -- MIN/BTN: Life, Uh, Finds A Way -- The Mean capstone quest made me tear up, I admit.

BOZJA -- Bajsaljen has manificent whiskers. At least, I assume they’re whiskers. I’m also interested by an authority figure who’s a medic rather than a warrior... not that I expect anything to come of it, story-wise. -- The Gangos BGM is so good. -- Cid has such a good heart. He’s been one of our staunchest and most longterm allies, and imho he’s a little underappreciated because he is in fact so reliable. -- He’s also tiny compared to other Garleans. I suspect 1.0 limitations.

#FFXIV #Spinner plays games #Spinner plays FFXIV #Spinner reacts #blah blah blah

1 note · View note

the-library-alcove · 3 years

Text

So a while back, a fairly left-wing friend of mine was shocked at the thought of Left-Wing Holocaust Denial, asking how it could even be possible, how can the Left even deny the Holocaust given everything (quote: "why would the LEFT be in denial? After you read Elie Wiesel, you can't deny any of it. Same with Maus, Frieda Appleman-Jurman's memoirs, and all that. Also, Lois Lowry won a Newberry medal for Number the Stars"). So I've been chewing on this for a while now.

First, Right-Wing Holocaust Denial is straight up "denial that the Holocaust happened"--often with an undertone of "But we wish that it had and it was a great idea". They deny the number of deaths, or excuse the Nazis, or say that the Jews had it coming, or say that it didn't happen at all, that sort of thing. It's a very blunt, straightforward form of denial.

Comparatively, Left-Wing Holocaust Denial takes a different, more sophisticated form that functions on multiple levels--with an undertone of its own along the lines of "the Jews are exaggerating to try to portray themselves as victims"--and to talk about this form of denial, I have to explain what the Holocaust was.

So this gets a bit long, because what is being denied is long, but I will ask you to bear with me.

But, TL:DR:

Right Wing Holocaust Denial denies the body count and the atrocities...

Left Wing Holocaust Denial denies everything that built up to it, the centuries of Othering and murders, and the aftereffects.

The Holocaust, 1939-1945, was the culmination of literally centuries of anti-Jewish hatred from Christian Europeans, dating back well over a thousand years.

For one example, there were anti-Jewish riots in France in the 1020s in misplaced vengeance for the Islamic destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1009 CE. Decades later, the Crusaders butchered 99% of the Jewish population of northern Europe, beginning in 1096 and continuing for centuries, such that a population of nearly 100,000 in 1050 CE was reduced down to less than a thousand in 1350 CE, as genetic studies show.

Jews were vilified as "Enemies of Christ", and various forms of attack to whip up mobs against Jews became common enough to get names of their own: Blood Libel (the accusation of Jews stealing children and murdering them to use their blood) and Host Desecration (the accusation that Jews were stealing consecrated Hosts and "torturing" them in order to attack Jesus), among others. These resulted in thousands of Jews being attacked, harmed, killed, and expelled.

Pogroms, massacres, and expulsions were just part of the pattern; Jews were effectively second class citizens at best, confined to marginal parts of cities (the original ghettos), subject to ritual humiliation (there was a part of Carnival in Rome that featured "The Running Of The Jews" where the Jewish population of the city had to race and be beaten by the Christians and there are designed-to-be-humiliating carvings of Jews on churches), and so forth. Jews were the scapegoats of choice--a powerless minority made to do the dirty work (such as tax collection) by the powerful and then liquidated when the lower classes got upset, as a distraction (King: "It's not my fault you're hungry!" *motions to table laden with food* "It's the fault of those greedy Jews who I force to work as tax collectors! Go kill them instead of me!"). And that cycle further entrenched the hatred.

Martin Luther took this to new heights during the Reformation; initially, he was "nice", saying that the Christians should treat the Jews gently to get us to convert... and when we didn't, he got nasty, writing a book titled "On The Jews And Their Lies" where he outlined a "how to persecute Jews and make their lives utter hell so they'll convert" prescription of behavior.

And this all became deeply baked into the culture of Europe, in plays, architecture, pop culture, stories, and conspiracy theories over the centuries. Even after the ghetto walls were torn down in the early 1800s by Napoleon and Jews were allowed to integrate into mainstream society, that hatred did not go away. If anything, the resentment grew, culminating in outbursts like the Dreyfus Affair, where a French-Jewish artillery officer was made into the fall guy for another spy, because he was Jewish.

There was a "Jewish Question" in the countries of Europe. A political National Question that went, "What shall we do with these Jews who live in our lands who we do not want?" And many of the Jews desperately wanted to prove that they were Good Model Citizens, but it didn't matter. Some of us, seeing the writing on the wall, and that the Europeans would never accept us, started agitating for political separation and independence--Zionism.

During this time, the old religious-based hatreds were being ostensibly phased out, and it was the era of "scientific racism", so a new word was coined--"antisemitism", to replace the old "Judenhass", to sound more "scientific". More anti-Jewish accusations were created, such as the "Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion", which is a Russian-made forgery that is supposedly the record of a meeting of Jewish elders in their master plan to control the world; it was written to distract hatred away from the Czar and onto a scapegoat. (Essentially just an updated version of the kings' tactic of scapegoating the Jews from centuries earlier)

So the hatreds stayed, regardless of what new clothes they wore. After World War One, when the Nazis said that the blame for the loss and subsequent humiliation and economic collapse of the Weimar Republic was because of the "Jews stabbing us in the back", there was a massive population of people who were already primed to hate and resent Jews and just needed that excuse to focus that hatred. They passed laws that specifically stripped citizenship from the Jews on racial grounds, instituted blood purity laws--again, on racial grounds--and built up to the Holocaust, where the Jews were not seen as human, but as vermin, out to contaminate their pure race.

In the process, they killed nine out of ten Jews who lived in Europe. Their hatred to the point that they diverted efforts to fight the Allies just so that they could kill Jews. Local people hated Jews so much that they collaborated with their own conquerors, just so they could kill Jews. Because they hated us so much, had hated us for centuries. Their "Final Solution" to "The Jewish Question." This part is what the Right Wing denies.

And then, in the aftermath, nobody wanted the remaining victims. Literally, the British said, "We'll carve off part of our Empire to give to them rather than let them come here."

So, after centuries of hatred and marginalization, Europeans gave into their hatreds that they had been raised with and murdered us in our millions, and we were traumatized.

And some of us went to the USA--the few that the US was willing to take in--and many more, not having any other place to go, went to British Mandate Palestine with the hope of self-governance in the future Jewish territory... having learned that they could not trust non-Jews.

That is the Holocaust and what led up to it, and some of the aftermath of it.

Left Wing Holocaust Denial erases all of that, except for the Holocaust itself, which is taken out of context as a moral lesson.

The Left Wing Unofficial Narrative Of The Holocaust is that the Nazis arbitrarily picked several groups of fellow European Whites, the Jews being just one of them, agitated against them in order to make an Enemy, and then killed them in order to cement power. Thus, in this narrative, the Holocaust was thus an aberration brought about by demagoguery and propaganda. Thus, it is imperative to remember "Never Again", because it can happen to anyone.

According to this narrative, "Jews" are just White Europeans who practice a different Abrahamic Religion, and who played the aftermath of the genocide for undeserved sympathy points to get a colony of their own where they could become oppressors in turn, and that they are getting special treatment that ignores the other victims of the Holocaust.

In doing so, the Left needs to ignore...

...the racial aspects of the Holocaust and the decades and centuries before it--the blood purity laws, the specific "racial science" that Othered Jews, and so forth--in favor of a "Jews are White" narrative.

...that the Jews were specifically targeted by the Nazis for extermination, to the point of irrational, self-defeating fixation, whereas only the Roma were as targeted for complete eradication alongside the Jews--in favor of a "But what about the other victims too?" narrative.

...the Nazi obsession with hating Jews (which has not gone away) as a fundamental part of their ideology, and pretending that the Nazi hatred of Jews is no different than the eugenics and political oppression that other groups were victims of--again, in favor of a "Other people were victims of the Nazis too!" narrative.

...the centuries of hatred and victimization that preceded the Holocaust and culminated in it--in favor of a "Jews are just European White People" narrative.

...the trauma that happened when you've lost your homes, your families, your way of life, and your society, and nobody made any efforts to help you, and how it becomes apparent, after trying to fit in and integrate for decades, that you can be Perfect Citizens and the Christians will still hate you so we need to defend ourselves for our own sakes--in favor of a "Jews are oppressors and didn't learn the right lessons from the Holocaust" narrative.

So, TL;DR:

Right Wing Holocaust Denial denies the body count and the atrocities...

Left Wing Holocaust Denial denies everything that built up to it, the centuries of Othering and murders, and the aftereffects.

7K notes · View notes

asmosmainhoe · 3 years

Note

Can you write headcannons for this?

The brothers have been too busy to hang out with MC so they go to the purgatory hall and ends up spending the night cuddling with Solomon, and while all the brothers are freaking out trying to find MC Solomon sends a picture of them asleep on his chest with no context.

I’d love to see their reactions

All seven brothers would be great but if you don’t wanna could I get headcannons for Lucifer, Mammon, Satan, Beel, and Belphie?

MC spends the night with Solomon and doesn't tell the brothers

I had way too much fun with Mammon's part

Gender neutral MC

Warnings: cursing

Lucifer

Calm on the outside, but screaming on the inside

Tells his brothers to sit their asses down immediately and stop making such a fuss even though he wants to turn the entire house upside down more than anything to find you

Thinks about calling Diavolo, but 1) his pride refuses to get help and 2) he really doesn't wanna tell him about the fact that he lost one of the exchange students somewhere in hell

Imagine having to tell your boss that you lost a whole ass person

Then suddenly his phone bings and he looks at it, hoping that one of his brothers finally found your whereabouts

But no, it's just Solomon sending him a mere picture so nothing intere- back the fuck up

Is that you? Sleeping at the magician's side and cuddling?

Immediately goes to purgatory hall to get you back home and is careful to not wake you up while doing so

Of course he calls you in his office and confronts you about your disappearance

Honestly Lucifer's taken aback quite a bit by the fact that you did it because you felt lonely

He won't apologize for neglecting you, but will definitely make sure to give you more attention in the future

Mammon

OH BOY HE GOES APESHIT THE SECOND YOU DON'T RESPOND TO HIM CALLING OUT FOR YOU SO HE STARTS SCREAMING YOUR NAME MORE HYSTERICALLY

Storms into Lucifer's office and yells about how someone kidnapped you

By the time he's done explaining that you're missing, the entire Devildom probably heard about it thanks to his unholy screeching

Even his older brother's threats to hang him upside down if he wouldn't shut up couldn't make him...well shut up

Excuse me, have you seen my human? They're about this tall, clearly gay, but we haven't had the talk-

Finally calms down when he sees the picture Solomon sent him with you in his bed

Wait- you? Inside Solomon's bed? With Solomon in it? Mammon starts making a scene again

Unlike Lucifer he doesn't carry you back quietly, HE BARGES STRAIGHT THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE THEY DO IN THOSE CRIME SHOWS YOU KNOW FBI OPEN UP

The next day you're getting the scolding of your life like the time he told you that he's the only one who's allowed to safe you

Please don't think he's actually mad or anything, this man was so fucking worried and doesn't know how to handle this roller-coaster of emotions

Leviathan

Funny story hah he actually didn't even notice at all that you're missing

Found out about your disappearance through Mammon's concerned yelling a few rooms away from his

Stomps into the hall and demands to know wtf this fuss is all about, because he just wants to play his new game in peace and he can't do that if-

Oh shit MC's missing? Forget about the game, dude, we gotta find them

Blames his brothers for losing you and then his anxiety kicks in, because he starts blaming himself

Posts 749292871910 tweets on Devildomtwitter (or however that shit's called down there) about his search until Solomon texts him in the dm's

Levi's sin kicks in instantly and he becomes incredibly jealous

Quickly gets a hold of himself though, because thank the anime gods! You're safe!

Feels so fucking awful for not spending enough time with you SO HE MAKES IT UP WITH GAMING NIGHTS AND STUFF

Satan

Knows exactly that you're a grown ass person who can take care of themselves and you're probably out there somewhere probably buying stuff or so

But you're all alone and this is hell after all so he sends you a message just to be sure that you're doing fine

Gets really concerned once you don't answer his fifth text so he asks his brothers if they heard anything from you

One of them throws in a remark about how maybe you've been kidnapped and Satan just...like there's a dark, murderous aura surrounding him suddenly and a shadow over his face

"They wouldn't dare"

If someone's actually got the nerves to kidnap you out of all people then he'll make sure to live up to hell's and his reputation

Of course he's a lot calmer when Solomon's sends him the picture, but he still can't help to be angry the magician for not informing him sooner

Asmodeus

Makes a whole ass scene

Obviously he's not screeching and yelling like Mammon no one is, but he still turns the house upside down and puts his brothers into a high alert mode

Paces around the living room where they're all gathered and gestures frantically, demanding for an entire search party

Unintentionally sasses the brothers when they tell him to relax already

But how can you expect him to be calm in a situation like this one? You're the first thing he truly loves besides himself and now you're missing! Have some sympathy for fuck's sake!

Amso's full on crying after an hour or so and doesn't give two fucks about how smuched his makeup is by now

Let's out a relieved gasp and falls less gracefully onto the couch after he receives Solomon's text with a picture of you soundly asleep by his side

You're wrong if you think that he let's the magician off the hook

"You bitch! You could've told me they're with you sooner!"

Beelzebub

Doesn't straight up panic like some all of them just because you don't answer his texts

Thinks you're simply busy with something so he leaves it be, but decides to check up on you after some times

Huh you're not in your room? Searches the entire house and only then, after he still doesn't find you, he gets worried

Belphegor is the first one he asks for help and not gonna lie Beel is kinda lost

Gathers all of his brothers in the living room to discuss their next steps

Lots of stress eating

Maybe you're with a friend? Maybe you're at RAD studying for the upcoming test next week? Or maybe...

No, Beel refuses to think that something might have happened to you, because he can't bear the thought of losing another loved one, another member of his family

Unlike the others he let's you stay at Solomon's for the night, because he doesn't wanna risk waking you up. You deserve the peace

Poor boy's gonna be so heartbroken after you tell him that you left, because you felt lonely so whenever he gets the feeling that it's happening again he sits by your side and just eats

Even if you have nothing to talk about he's still there

Belphegor

Another one who doesn't notice your absence, because surprise! He's taking a nap in the attic!

Has to be woken up by Beel and it takes some time for him to comprehend what his brother is saying to him

Please bear with him, his brain can't function right after waking up

Groans annoyed, because of the incompetence of his brothers

Like how can you loose an entire person?

Unlike the others he actually has a functioning brain cell and messages the residents of purgatory hall

If you're not here then you obviously must be with them

Has a mini heart attack when Simeon and Luke tell him that they haven't seen you

Then Solomon, that ass, sends him a picture with you two cuddling

Also leaves you be, because you deserve a break from all the chaos and because he's maybe to lazy to carry you all the way back home

Just like Beel he just stays by your side whenever he feels like you're again getting lonely

Like he simply falls down onto the bed or couch next to you with a blanket and a pillow

---

Masterlist

2K notes · View notes

nightferns · 3 years

Text

The Third Variant to the SootCraft Fundy and Wilbur family drama that Maybe Accidentally Started it

So yesterday me and @bigbraveboop came to the conclusion that C!fundy had an arc in early early L'manburg that we were kinda unaware of. And it cracks the case of... how the family drama started. And also is why is this exists

C!Tommy was the catalyst of the c!Fundy | c!Wilbur family drama in S1 and i promise i have proof

all /rp

So what does Fundy repeatedly say is his biggest gripe with Wilbur currently and multiple times after his death? Well:

“You were there for me for a very very long time and then when i needed you the most, you skedaddled fuck the out of my life and died. Because of what? L’manberg’s causes, huh? You thought that was- You thought that was justice? You thought that was good for me? You left me, man.’

“The dad that- my dad that exploded himself for the sake of a country, just for that country to be demolished in future hands?-"

“He put me to priority number 2, man. He put me in the second place.”

So its about L’manburg being more important than him to Wilbur.

Now lets dig deep, where did that insecurity start? Why did Fundy arrive at this conclusion? Why did he feel like this in the first place about his position in L’manburg and his Father?

We kinda assume it was always there or was because of Wilbur actually prioritizing L’manburg over his son/being negectfull. But no! Fundy was very confident in his realtionship with Wilbur and his position in L’manburg at the Start and we see tha change so!

I want to argue that this insecurity... didn't come from Wilbur or any of his actions or lack thereof. Not directly.

“Wilbur? I dunno, Wilbur’s a man of chaos, alright- due to the lore of the server, Wilbur may or may not have been the father of our nation, but- that doesn’t mean he’s for everything I do. That doesn’t mean he stands behind me, alright? Not necessarily...not necessarily.”

This is the first instance of Fundy doubting his connection to Wilbur helping things, i'd argue it still was a part of a lighhearted bit that isn’t to be taken too seriously in the context of the larger story but i realized something that made me change my mind, i mean it is still a lighthearted bit but it connects to a certain quote from uncle Innit:

“What would father think?”

And then that got me thinking and:

Part 1 aka Early L'manburg Fundy had different feelings towards Wilbur than Civil War Fundy

So how did Fundy act towars Wilbur early on?

Fundy: "Don't speak to me ma- hey that's fucked up don't talk about that. That's-"

Tommy: "Listen Th- you gotta kn- you gotta know you don't speak to the boss's son like that. Nevermind about- about the boss's wife to the boss's son in front of the boss's right hand man! You really gotta- You really gotta read the room Thunder."

Fundy: "Yea you don't. You don't."

JM: "fine ok let him do what he wants to do, i just don't wanna hear about it [..]"

Tommy: "Listen to me Fundy- Listen to me Fundy- he didn't mean that- he's just a bold man- he had- he had a little-"

Fundy [turning to JM]: "I will tell on you."

Tommy: " NO no no no Fundy- Fundy He had a little flirt with Dream- he had a little flirt with dream, he's- he's a- he's really new, he's learing his boundaries, he's over stepped them, alright, listen, but you don't have to tell Will, you don't have to tell no-one. "

[To JM] "Thunder you need to to calm your fucking- holy shit."

"-Please, please give him a rest."

JM: "no i- im sorry, im sorry, i'm sorry Fundy"

Fundy: 'I don't want this behavior again, alright."

JM: "no i wont- i wont-"

Fundy: 'Don't talk to my Dad OR my salmon Mother like that ever again, i will tell on you, keep it in mind. I have privilege to speak up against-"

JM: "i understand."

I will come back to the i have a privilege line later but first, from this we see Fundy being confident that Wilbur would take his side because he is his son. He is the “i will tell my parents about this” kid, alongside that he doesn’t feel like he has no imput in decisions, he doesnt feel insecure here he is in the position of power.

So again when did it appear?

Well,

Fundy: “I may or may not have scammed a bunch of people, including all of L’manburg people, um…”

Tommy: “You scammed L’manburg members?!”

Fundy: “But here’s the thing – I’m willing to pay you a part of the profit if you help me out here!”

Tommy: “Fundy…okay, can I tell you what’s happened from my point of view? The son of the President has gone around scamming the other presidential members, and as the Vice President whilst the President’s not on, this is my duty to make sure that this doesn’t pull apart L’manburg. And what you’re saying – what you’ve essentially just said is, ‘hey, can I bribe you?’“

Fundy: “…Can I?”

Tommy: “Jesus Christ…No, okay, we need to settle this now, ‘cause I mean if this happens on my turf, I’m gonna fucking take the blame from this from Wilbur, alright…so listen, Fundy, under no circumstances can you bribe anyone!”

Fundy: “I got two Netherite scraps?”

Tommy: “Okay, okay – explain to me what’s happened, please.”

[Fundy explains the conflict]

Tommy: “What would father think?”

Fundy: “Well, he always – he always sides…by me…obviously.”

Tommy: “Would he though? I mean, you’ve gone against the other members of the nation he fought to build.”

Fundy: “Well only because my loot has been stolen! Alright?”

Tommy: “This sounds petty, Fundy.”

Fundy: “Okay, okay, I can word this differently in my favor.”

Tommy: “No, okay, no – you’re not meant to say that out loud! Okay, I’m gonna ask Tubbo what’s happened, and then from there on we’ll – but please do not do any – we can’t have L’manburg falling out over this, alright?”

So here we see Fundy the president’s son being put in comparison to L’manburg the nation the president built for what Wilbur would prioritize for the first time, and Tommy sows the seeds that maybe L’manburg matters more to Wilbur than him, that Wilbur would choose the nation. this is also first time Fundy has been sort of excluded from the Whole of L’manburg.

and we see Tommy’s words affect Fundy,

Fundy: “We gotta list everyone who’s against me:”

“I killed Tubbo twice, I stole his bow. Tubbo’s probably against me.”

“Tommy has always been against me from the start.”

“Sapnap is against me because I killed his animals and stole them.”

“Punz is against me ‘cause I stole his bees.”

“Eret is against me ‘cause I went after Karl.”

“Karl’s against me ‘cause -- I just realized I’ve made a lot of enemies...I just realized I don’t have many -- I don’t have many allies on the server. There’s not many allies.”

“Who’s neutral? Niki! Niki is with me! Niki is friendly.”

“Wilbur? I dunno, Wilbur’s a man of chaos, alright...due to the lore of the server, Wilbur may or may not have been the father of our nation, but...that doesn’t mean he’s for everything I do. That doesn’t mean he stands behind me, alright? Not necessarily...not necessarily.”

“Quackity? Quackity’s definitely not -- no, listen, Quackity’s definitely not for me, okay. I called him a whore. There’s definitely -- there’s definitely many things Quackity has against me.”

so here is my argument... Fundy’s insecurity started with Tommy.

Part 2 Development Of Those Feelings (Uncle Tommy you’re not Helping)

Fundy, growing disillusioned with Wilbur and L’manburg, lead to this one coversation between Fundy and Wilbur,

Wilbur: Well the uh- the ballot entries have closed now.

Fundy: Who's in it?

Wilbur: Well it originally was just gonna be me and Tommy, me and Tommy tired to do it so- tried to do it so we will be the only ones running, then suddenly out of nowhere Quackity joins and enters himself on the ballot-

Fundy: Ok.

Wilbur: -so it's me and Tommy against Quackity and someone else.

Fundy: Who's someone else?

Wilbur: We don't know yet, he hasn't announced,

Fundy: Wait then- oh, so it's just a random… sneaky person who put himself in the ballot not announced who he is.

Wilbur: yeah, yeah. I mean if you wanna try and convince Quackity that you wanna run against your father.

Fundy: Yeah ok.

Wilbur: Wait, you- you wouldn't though.

Fundy: What if i win? What are- what are you gonna do?

Wilbur: Well then you'd be Vice President.

Fundy: but-What if i win?

Wilbur: Why do you want power in L'manburg so much?

Fundy: Why do you want power?

Wilbur: Because- i led the revolution, i'm your… i'm your president.

Fundy: That's history.

Wilbur: Wh- d- Do you not think i- i'm suitable to run for president?

Fundy: I think you are, but i think I am as well.

Wilbur: I don't know man. I don't- i think- i think you- i think you'd be s- i think you'd be getting into a fight you wouldn't want to start with me. You've only been on the positive side of me, you've only seen my nice side, because y'know? being my son you get- you get special- y'know? You won't ever see me going against you.

Fundy: Wait so you're a biased person going for presidency.

Wilbur: Biased to my son? Yes. But, if you're gonna run against me then i'm changing, i'll- i'll go guns blazing.

Fundy: I'll have a word with Quackity.

Wilbur: Fundy i… i've got- i've got- i've got a bad feeling about this. I think you're just gonna… you're just gonna get hurt.

Fundy: That will happen-

Wilbur: Fundy yeah- Yeah someone in my chat just pointed out, Fundy you started the civil war.

Niki: I mean technically Sapnap started the civil war.

Fundy: I mean- i mean technically- Yeah y' know, technically- and i'm gonna win it! It's fine! I mean what does he have on me, really?

Wilbur: I thought it was you fighting Tubbo?

Fundy: what?

Wilbur: I thought civil war was you and Tubbo?

Fundy: No, Tubbo's just a prick.

Wilbur: Sapnap's not even- not even part of L’manburg how is it a civil war?

Fundy: I don't know you brought it up!

Wilbur: Tommy told me- Tommy told me it was Tubbo and Fundy.

Fundy: Yeah no Tommy is a little bit delusional.

Wilbur: I think i've spoiled you.

Fundy: How?

Wilbur: I think you need to learn some manners.

Fundy: I dunno- power seems nice.

Wilbur: Fine, you can run against me, it won't end well for you but you can give it a go.

Fundy: Like i said i'll- i'll have a word with Quackity i'll think of my actions, see what will happen, i'm not saying necessarily that i'll go against you, then again i'm not standing beside you because you may or may not be the father of L'manburg

Wilbur: And you! The father of you!

Fundy: That's irrelevant. To-

Wilbur: No it's not irrelevant! It's very relevant to this!

Fundy: I don't- i don't think that's relevant to presidency

I’ll talk over Wilburs pov here in a little bit but focusing on Fundy,

He wants to run, other than everything we established before here Fundy wants to run to prove himself to himself, and we see the other part of this conflict more internally is,

(“[..] may or may not be the father of L'manburg- “ , “ That's irrelevant.” )

Well, here is the insecurity about Wilbur choosing L’manburg (here his position as president) over Fundy, the being second place to L’manburg part matters here becasue i think this is where Wilbur and Fundy fundamentally clash, so Fundy doesn’t want for it to matter to Wilbur, he doesn’t want for his position as son to have any influence over Wilbur here beacuse of this fear that that’s why he may be in the second place.

now let’s move on to,

Uncle Tommy ‘helps’

Fundy: “I’m wearing glasses…are you making fun of my eyesight?!”

Tommy: “Yes.”

Sapnap: “Your father would be very disappointed.”

Fundy: “Wh – disappointed for wearing glasses?!”

Tommy: “You got glasses, like what are you wearing…”

Fundy: “What do you mean?”

Tommy: “Sapnap, Sapnap, over here. Fundy, Fundy, Fundy, I’m really sorry to say this – I’m just here to publicly denounce you.”

Fundy: “…What?”

Tommy: “I just, I – yeah. You’re stinky, you’re shitty, the fur that’s sewn onto your skin, I look at it and I go (retching sounds) And whilst you’re a lovely guy, you’re actually not, you’re really…and all the viewers are like ‘oh no!’ But they can’t smell you. I can! Holy shit, you know? I mean you know, Sapnap…”

Fundy: “I showered two hours before the stream…”

Tommy: “I know, and that’s what makes it so remarkable, how you smell that terrible.”

Fundy: “I used coconut oil…it smells good…”

…

Tommy: “Fundy, I’m just here to kinda let you know that I – if you weren’t Wilbur’s son, you would be out of L’manburg, alright? Just remember – you need to keep that relationship with your father. I saw how asshole-y and bratty you were acting in the courtroom the other night. You need to pull your shit together young man.”

Fundy: “Being neutral is – is asshole?”

Tommy: “Yes. Come with me, Sapnap. Yeah, I’ve denounced you – well no no no, you were challenging him. You were challenging him.”

Fundy: “Denounced to what?”

Tommy: “I just – it’s just a formal way of saying you suck.”

(Tommy and Sapnap leave)

Fundy: “…They are mean…They are mean! Why are they so mean? That is so mean…”

Fundy: “Listen, it is one thing making fun of a person’s appearance…it is one thing making fun of a person’s blindness, but hey – don’t fucking make fun of my coconut oil! Listen dude…that shit smells tasty! That smells good! Man…that’s…god…coconut oil, man…dude.“

…

Fundy: “TNT their houses? That will just prove their point, chat. That will just prove their point. That will just prove their point…they’re just mean. They’re so mean. But it is okay, chat. It is okay. The reason why it’s okay…that’s actually true. Why is he talking to the enemy? Wait…wait a minute. Wait a minute! So let me get the story straight real quick.”

“Chat…just hold up a second here! Hold on a second! So Tommy is demoting me, right? And he’s saying you’re only in L’manburg because of Wil. So Tommy says…in theory, he would kick me out if he had the chance. But considering that, while he’s together with Sapnap…it leads me to believe…Tommy wants to destroy L’manburg!”

“Why would he do that? Why would he team up with Sapnap? He had no correlation with this conversation at all. What was the reason for that?”

“…Do we have another traitor in our midst?”

…

Fundy: “Listen, Tommy, here’s a really interesting theory, alright…here’s an interesting theory, Tommy. I got a little theory on my mind! Listen, boy, we’re part of L’manburg, you and me. Wil as well, Tubbo, all of us, alright? And we’re supposed to be a union! Now here’s the thing! Here’s the thing. If you said, due to Wilbur I’m still basically part of L’manburg – in other terms saying that if it was on your hands you would get me out of there, right, why would you excessively bring Sapnap, out of all people, for that conversation alone?”

Tommy: “Shall I explain to you? It’s because, Fundy, we fucking need votes, Fundy. We need votes! This Quack City guy, son of BadBoyHalo? He’s just – he’s just, like, oh my god. We needed votes. And listen, Fundy–”

Fundy: “You basically just lost my vote, and I feel like that’s your purpose!”

Tommy: “You’re in L’manburg! You vote for us already – you vote for your own father, don’t be an idiot!”

Fundy: “I feel like you’re trying to bring us apart, Tommy. I feel like your goals are not supportive towards L’manburg at the moment…”

Tommy: “From my perspective, Sapnap hates you, Fundy. Sapnap hates you. And if I go listen, if I had to tier list all of the members of L’manburg, Fundy would be in D tier. He needs to hear that.”

Fundy: “…Tommy, are you Eret?”

Post the court debate Fundy was more decided on running on his own,

“Honestly, I feel like everything just needs to change. Honestly, I feel like neither of the parties have done enough right to deserve leadership, to deserve presidency in the first place. I feel like a lot of shit needs to change.”

Fundy didnt want to endorse any of the parties, SWAG2020 was endorsed by Dream, and he belived POG2020 to be corrupt because of the bribing Karl situation, so he was more keen on running on his own, and then came the public denouncing situaion.

Obviously Fundy was hurt by this, especially considering Sapnap was his enemy, and Tommy’s words didnt do Fundy’s and Wilburs already shaky relationship many favours, but his behaviour both pushed Fundy futher away from the POG party, and started Fundy’s ‘traitor Tommy’ theory that he shared with Niki after which the Coconut2020 party was formed.

Part 3 Wilbur is a oblivious dumbass but it makes sense now.

now lets look at Wilburs pov of things, which means we are coming back to the privilege line,

-----

JM: "no i- im sorry, im sorry, i'm sorry Fundy"

Fundy: 'I don't want this behavior again, alright."

JM: "no i wont- i wont-"

Fundy: 'Don't talk to my Dad OR my salmon Mother like that ever again, i will tell on you, keep it in mind. I have privilege to speak up against-"

JM: "i understand."

So coming back to this quote, i belive Wilbur didnt realize Fundy had these doubts about thier relationship, because he was used to Fundy sharing his problems with him, and he was left kinda drifting in an ‘why is my son suddenly against me now??’

Wilbur didnt realize Fundy’s feelings about him had changed, as in Fundy no longer WOULD come to him if he had any probems, because Fundy used to come to him with problems, ("I will tell on you.") But Tommy’s first comment knocked him down and the debate and the Sapnap-Tommy situation had as well and the denouncement, (which Wilbur also knew shit about) because he was already insecure about his place in L’manburg and Wilbur. AND he wouldn't come to Wilbur like he used to because Wilbur was the point of his insecurity even if he wasnt the couse of it.

So we see Wilbur kinda be sad and confused and misstepping becasue of that,

Fundy: Wait so you're a biased person going for presidency.

Wilbur: Biased to my son? Yes. But, if you're gonna run against me then i'm changing, i'll- i'll go guns blazing.

Fundy: I'll have a word with Quackity.

Wilbur: Fundy i… i've got- i've got- i've got a bad feeling about this. I think you're just gonna… you're just gonna get hurt.

------

Wilbur: Tommy told me- Tommy told me it was Tubbo and Fundy.

Fundy: Yeah no Tommy is a little bit delusional.

Wilbur: I think i've spoiled you.

Fundy: How?

Wilbur: I think you need to learn some manners.

Fundy: I dunno- power seems nice.

Wilbur: Fine, you can run against me, it won't end well for you but you can give it a go.

-----

Wilbur: Wait, look who’s coming, look who’s coming.

Tommy: Uh oh!

Wilbur: My son. My boy.

Tommy: Your ex-son.

Wilbur: Yeah. Well, I mean, he’s still my son in blood, but, he’s just…

Tommy: You should put him up.

Wilbur: What d’you mean, put him up? What, for adoption?

Tubbo: For adoption.

Tommy: Yeah. You should see if Big Q will adopt him.

[They discuss Fundy’s Twitch Prime cape. He runs up on stage, to the microphone, and starts punching the air. He’s not in the same vc as them.]

Wilbur: What’s he doing, what’s he doing- what is this? What is this bit? What is he doing?

Tommy: What the fuck are you- no.

Wilbur: He’s just not- he’s not- he’s really upsetting me.

Tommy: Just- just- he’s not President is he? He’s got no manners, he has no manners. No etiquette.

Wilbur: Look, he’s supposed to be my son.

[Wilbur types in chat: “fundy talk to me” and Fundy immediately leaves the game.]

Tubbo: He is trying.

Tommy: Tubbo, you’re gonna get murdered, my friend.

Wilbutr: He said, he said, “I am here for the Presidencialcy-” He just left.

Tommy: And then he- [sighs] I’m so sorry you have to deal with him.

W: I don’t- I- It’s really sad, like I… Honestly, I- when he turned around to me and he said he wasn’t gonna vote for me, and then he decided he was gonna vote for the opposition, and then he decided he was gonna run against me, that was- one of those was the straw that broke my back. I’m not sure which one- I’m still contemplating which one was the- are you listening?

[Tommy has jumped off the podium to join Tubbo in the audience.]

Tpmmy: Yeah, I’m going down to Tubbo, I just- I’m just letting you vent, Wilbur, I want you to have time to vent.

Wilbur: Yeah I just- I miss me son! I miss me son! I miss when he was my boy! Do you remember when he was my boy?

Tommy: Yeah, I’m not really good at handling… People who are emotional.

Wilbur also didn’t know anything about the denouncement situation,

Sapnap: “Will you continue to have your son banished from L’Manberg if I vote for you?”

Wilbur: “My son. My- My son. Look, we’re talking about politics here, I don’t want to talk about my family, if that’s alright. … I would like to say, thank you, Sapnap, for the question, I very much appreciate it, but I’m not gonna be fielding responses about my family situation, thank you.” (Alivebur)

*Wilbur proceeds to step off the podium and cry*

Wilbur: “Fundy...!”

Besides that fundamenatally Fundys and Wilburs views about the presidency oppose eachother,

“Tommy, I’m- I’m- I’m- I don’t know what to do, Tommy, I’ve never not been President.”

Fundy sees Wilbur and L'manburg as two separate things that he has to unfiairly contest with and for

1. for Wilbur because of his fears, for a place among L’manburg members

2. Because He wants to prove himself to himself. he needs to know what Tommy said, isn’t true/he can thrive regardless without his fathers support he can still be a great member of L’manburg and even a president

Wilbur sees himself as inherently connected trough L’manburg with everyone to the point that he thinks that without his position he cant do anything for his loved ones/ he wont be usefull. he thinks of l’manburg as something he does FOR all of them including Fundy.

“My son… My son is tearing down the walls, in front of me! My son is tearing down the walls in front of me! The walls I built to keep him safe! I promised him this world, Tommy, I promised him this world.”

----

“Fundy was the closest thing I had to something I cared about in L’Manberg, when it all began. You know, when it started, the closest thing to anything I cared about was Fundy. Fundy was my, he was my, he was my boy! My rock!”

----

Ranboo: "I don't know if they actually needed me, but I was there.(about his work in the NLM cabinet)"

Wilbur:"I know that feel."

This why Fundy and Wilbur clash fundamentally here,

Wilbur: And you! The father of you!

Fundy: That's irrelevant. To-

Wilbur: No it's not irrelevant! It's very relevant to this!

Fundy: I don't- i don't think that's relevant to presidency

Part 4 Tommy WHY? (he is propably protective and and a tiny bit jealous )

----

Tommy: “Hey, you know about Fundy’s little rebellious stage he’s going through?”

----

Fundy: “You basically just lost my vote, and I feel like that’s your purpose!”

Tommy: “You’re in L’manburg! You vote for us already – you vote for your own father, don’t be an idiot!”

Fundy: “I feel like you’re trying to bring us apart, Tommy. I feel like your goals are not supportive towards L’manburg at the moment…”

----

Wilbur: Wait, look who’s coming, look who’s coming.

Tommy: Uh oh!

Wilbur: My son. My boy.

Tommy: Your ex-son.

Wilbur: Yeah. Well, I mean, he’s still my son in blood, but, he’s just…

Tommy: You should put him up.

Wilbur: What d’you mean, put him up? What, for adoption?

Tubbo: For adoption

---

Wilbur: He said, he said, “I am here for the Presidencialcy-” He just left.

Tommy: And then he- [sighs] I’m so sorry you have to deal with him.

[Tommy has jumped off the podium to join Tubbo in the audience.]

Tommy: Yeah, I’m going down to Tubbo, I just- I’m just letting you vent, Wilbur, I want you to have time to vent.

Wilbur: Yeah I just- I miss me son! I miss me son! I miss when he was my boy! Do you remember when he was my boy?

Tommy: Yeah, I’m not really good at handling… People who are emotional.

Besides Tommy genuinely wanting to get more votes during the dennoucemnt situation, his seconddary motive was well, he was protective over Wilbur, he noticed that what Fundy did during the debate hurt Wilbur, and kept acting bitter towards him from then on. ( “ I saw how asshole-y and bratty you were acting in the courtroom the other night.” / And then he- [sighs] I’m so sorry you have to deal with him.” )

the he a was tiny bit jealous point IS more up in the air but we can compare this to how Tommy acted towards Ranboo just after leaving prison, when he learned of the c!beeduo marriage.

Quotes from @/kateis-cakeis, @/findingjoynweirdstuff, @/ace-enderchest and my own transcripts, thank you guys!

#dream smp #dsmp #wilbur soot #fundy #tommyinnit #night's talk tag #dsmp analysis #night's meta tag

292 notes · View notes

the-badger-mole · 3 years

Note

So there's definitely the traits about Aang you don't like. If you had the chance, how would you have gone about making sure Aang got called out??

Any other changes about other aspects of the show that you would have done??

OOHHH!!!! There is SO much I would have changed.

Starting with Aang:

Aang should have been called out about not helping Katara with the chores. One of the lessons he should have learned on Kyoshi should have been importance of not leaving one team member to do all of the work (Sokka should have been taught this lesson, too, of course, but at least he was learning other lessons about respect for women in particular). I'm not asking for Aang to face consequences for the sake of making him miserable (although...). What I really want is for him to consider people other than himself in a way that actually leaves a mark on his character and doesn't just make his superficial reputation better.

In Bato of the Water Tribe, he should have been taken more to task over his selfishness in hiding Hakoda's letter. I feel like the danger he put Hakoda's mission in with that bone-headed move gets overlooked in favor of his sadness about the possibility of his friends wanting to take a detour to see their father. Aang gets half an apology for that, but only half an apology, and not to Katara- the one he's supposed to have a romance (???) with.

He should have been called out for lying his way out of actually solving the problem in "The Great Divide". Yes, it was a tough problem, but he's going to have to solve even harder ones as the Avatar. Not even lightly chiding him for taking the easy way out doesn't bode well for how well he's going to do at his job in the future.

The fact that he was instrumental in the deaths of several Fire Nation soldiers in the Siege of the North should have been the beginning of his understanding of what he's expected to do to end this war that's been going on for a hundred years. He should feel some guilt over the war that's been going on for a hundred years. Even if ultimately he's not centrally to blame for either, neither could have happened without him making the decisions he made. I can understand it not occurring to Aang on his own that he played a part in (lets be honest) millions of deaths, but it should have dawned on him through context clues what the world- what his friends!- expected of him. He should have been looking for a non-lethal solution to the Ozai problem from the beginning of Book 2 at the latest! The way his reluctance to kill Ozai plays out in the show makes Aang look inexcusably stupid, unbelievably short-sighted, and dangerously selfish.

He should have been brought to task for how he treated his friends- especially Toph- in the desert. Yes, it's understandable that he was upset about losing Appa, but he took his anger out on his friends. That's not ok. He should have apologized. We should have seen him apologize. It wasn't Toph's fault Appa was taken. She didn't deserve that.

Katara should have had more of a voice in her relationship with Aang. He forced kisses on her twice, and aside from avoiding talking to him about feelings, Katara doesn't get to tell him how she actually feels about him, about them, about the fact that he doesn't respect her enough to talk to her about how he felt before he even thought about trying to kiss her. I hate Kataang, and there is no version of that ship that I would actually like (at it's best it's boring), HOWEVER, there is a version of Kataang that could have been less infuriating, and it's the version where Aang realizes how selfish he's been with Katara and apologizes, and then actually puts in the work to be more respectful of her. Not to get the reward of her affection for doing something he should have been doing in the first place (*ahembrykeahem*), but because he actually sees the error of his ways and his need to change for himself. Then maybe, after Aang had put in actual work on himself, maybe his "romance" with Katara could have worked, and Katara would have actually had a chance to thrive after getting with him.

The war should have had more of an impact on Aang. As the Avatar, he should have seen more people suffering under the Fire Nation's campaign of imperialism. Sure he sees refugees and even spends a couple of days getting to know a pregnant lady, but it never seems like he makes the connection between the abstract evil of the war and the real world suffering it caused. It never seems to sink in for him how bad things are. Like not even for his friends. Not even for Katara specifically, the girl he allegedly loves.

There are more things I would have changed about Aang, but this is already long, so moving on!

As for the rest of the show:

I would have spent less time on Aang and his feelings and done more with the world building. There is a ridiculously small amount of time dedicated to the Water Tribe cultures. Most of Book 1: Water is spent in the Earth kingdom! Why??? Most of the main cast is from the Southern Water Tribe! Then there's the question of the Air Nomads. A total annihilation of a people group is incredibly unlikely. Closer to impossible. It hasn't even happened in our world, and the European colonist had raised murder and genocide to an art form. You mean to tell me that not only did the Fire Nation manage to murder millions of people to complete extinction, they did it in a day? Seriously??? I'm not buying it.

Speaking of the Air Nomads, even if they decided not have any other air benders in the show (but seriously, why not?), there was no reason not to explore their culture a little more. There could have been history texts in those temples they visited. Aang could have discovered some scrolls on defensive air bending forms. Guru Pathik could have been less racist given more time to explain at least a bit of the nuance of Air Nomad culture and philosophy. Aang has a 12 year old's understanding of Air Nomad culture and philosophy. What could you tell anyone about your culture or your religious beliefs at 12? Maybe you'd absorbed a lot by then, but to be able to accurately explain either to someone who didn't already know? Well, we get the bulk of Air Nomad philosophy from Aang- the kid who couldn't even acknowledge that his own people had killed in self-defense.

Toph, Sokka, Suki, and, yes Katara should have been given more development and had more care shown to their inner workings. Aang and Zuko have way more time devoted to them (though the time spent on Zuko had more plot impact than Aang's). The other members of the Gaang deserved more shine, too. Especially Toph.

Obviously, I think Katara and Zuko should have ended up together, but I've written so much about that, so I'm going to end this here, because it's late and I still need to get ready for bed.

#atla #anti aang #anti kataang #zutara #atla critical #atla rewrite #ask the badger mole

212 notes · View notes