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mareastrorum · 2 years ago

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The Fool and the Soldier: Chapter Commentary

Chapter 5: Gift & Debt

On off weeks, I’ll be posting some commentary on the prior week’s chapter. Since this is a longfic, I expect that it will be helpful for keeping track of stuff, plus I might mention something you missed. Of course, this will include spoilers, so continue with that in mind.

These aren’t meant to be comprehensive! There is so much more going on that I’m not saying. Feel free to ask questions too, either in replies or asks. If it’s too spoilery, I’ll let you know. I’ll add them to the body at the bottom as I receive them.

See the directory for other meta posts.

Gift & Debt

What’s this?! We haven’t seen this card! But no worries, Jester makes the card about halfway through the chapter.

There’s a lot of toxic fandom discourse on what characters “deserve” and that eventually culminated into an intent to explore that in the story. This chapter juxtaposes a lot of the characters’ worldviews on what must to be earned/paid versus what should be given freely.

Luctus

The first thing I came up with for Luctus was the sensory perception: pain. It immediately came to mind when I looked up the latin word luctus, which means grief or sorrow. I didn’t feel that I needed to iron it out further for the emotion, so this was an easy fit.

Next was the school of magic. She wasn’t encountered in the stream, but her ability during the Lucien fight was a Slow spell with a dexterity save instead of the usual wisdom save. This wasn’t the only eye that had slightly different effects than a normal spell—Vigilan’s anti-magic cone dispelled magic rather than suppressed it until it passed out of the field (at least, sometimes).

Slow is an interesting spell. It’s transmutation, which is all about changing reality (and I had already decided on another Somnovem for that school). It affects a specific number of targets in a space. According to the PHB, wisdom is about being in tune with the world, particularly with perceiving it. Thus, a wisdom save for avoiding a Slow effect makes sense if the point is to resist a change to one’s own perception of the world. After all, if it was actually changing the space itself, then there wouldn’t be a limit on the number of targets, and it would be avoided or exited by leaving the area. So it changes the target, not the world. Makes sense for a level 3 spell.

But Luctus’s Slow required a dexterity save, which is the score for agility, reflexes, and balance. Dexterity saves are usually for dodging an ability, but not all the Somnovem’s abilities used that save, so it wasn’t about avoiding an eye’s gaze. There’s a couple ways to interpret that, like maybe it’s a stronger transmutation of the same effect, but it affects everything in that area, so it has to be dodged. However, Matt didn’t pull out any AOE measuring props to see who else he could get; Luctus looked directly at Fjord in episode 139, then Veth in 140. Matt also didn’t describe a beam or any projectile. They both felt a wave of grief and sadness, which imparted the effect. So I don’t think it was about dodging so much as it was about the character’s general speed and agility.

So I chewed on that for a while, until it suddenly clicked: dunamancy. Dunamancy has both chronomancy and graviturgy specialties. It would totally track to have either of those require a dexterity save rather than any other stat to resist a slowing effect. Once I had that, I came up with Luctus’s role.

And as I thought that over, I also had my fix for why Molly survived at Glory Run Road: Luctus used Cognouza to alter the timeline.

You might wanna check out those first two scenes in chapter 1.

Pieces

The first draft of this scene didn’t have the funky kerning and formatting. It was going to be very brief, only giving the reader a vague sense of what had happened to Lucien.

However, once I got used to testing out different types of formatting quirks, I decided to use that here to emphasize how disorienting it was for Lucien. Since this was third-person limited perspective, and his perception of the world would have been shattered, the text was as well.

Gems

I wanted to do a check-in with Nott because she spent so long in the early campaign keeping her backstory to herself, and she’s in the background for a lot of Fjord’s arc. Much of her dialogue makes more sense in a second watch of the campaign. She projected a lot of her issues onto other people, and she used that lens to decide what she should do for herself.

The actual events of the scene weren’t that important though. I almost cut it entirely and added a scene for Nott elsewhere, but I wanted Nott’s canon dialogue about not being good yet, but trying to do good. It’s such a big part of who the Nein are at every point in their story. Thus, I kept it.

Debts

This scene was so long originally. I think it was nearly 9,000 words at one point. Then I cut it, then it bloated again, then I cut it more, etc. I think this is the 5th or 6th major version of it.

I chose Fjord’s POV for this because his arc is coming into focus next and I wanted to lay some ground work about where his head is at. There’s also a lot of parallels between him and Molly that will come into play.

Gustav’s bail was always going to be a big scene in the early chapters because Molly would have been there to realize that Gustav knew about Kylre. However, then the origin comic came out, and I was like, wait, was Kylre the reason Lestera died? She wasn’t that old—no gray hair, no signs of illness, no weak constitution, etc. There’s no way to confirm it, but considering that nergaliids can passively feed off people, then Molly would have thought that was a possibility. No reason to be extra upset about it… unless Gustav knew all along.

Molly’s only really gotten angry a few times in canon, typically when other people are getting hurt. He didn’t show anger if people disagreed with him over plans or anything. In the comic, he dealt with his anger through choir practice, and that was honestly more fun for him than anything else, with his anger showing before he came up with an idea of what to do. He wasn’t even that angry at Kylre when he chased him down with the Nein.

But Gustav was supposed to take care of the carnival, he brought Kylre in, and he knew what was happening the whole time. Kylre’s betrayal was more straightforward, and it didn’t really harm anyone at the carnival (other than possibly Toya). It’d be like being angry at a wolf for hunting a person instead of a sheep. Instead, it seemed like Gustav put people in danger for coin, after all the lessons and mannerisms that Molly picked up from him.

So, yeah, Molly was pissed.

I also wanted to explore the Nein’s various moral leanings and perspectives of the world. Fjord and Caleb are more on the end of earning what you have—there’s an expectation of behaving a certain way under threat of punishment. Fjord would have gotten that from his time at the orphanage and as a sailor. Caleb learned that from growing up poor in a totalitarian regime and then training as a Volstrucker. It took a long time for both of them to shake out of that mindset in their respective arcs.

In comparison, Jester and Caduceus have kinder outlooks. They didn’t let outrage override their sense of fairness. It wasn’t like Gustav or the carnival had been rolling in funds, so it couldn’t have been just about money. So they stood up to the others and asked questions to get at the heart of why Gustav had done it in the first place.

Nott and Beau struck me as somewhere in the middle. Beau rebels against authority and has a powerful curiosity, so she’d be wary of the idea of meting out justice without knowing all the facts. Thus, I had her stop Molly (to protect him from getting arrested for murder) at the start, then hold him back until they got answers. Nott backed up Caleb, of course, but after the scene she just had about trying to do good, she’d feel uncertain about it while she does it. After all, how many people did she help torture and kill because she was scared of what the goblin tribe would do to her?

Taliesin said in a Talks that his concept of Molly was an unaligned character that broke traditional D&D alignment. Thus, Molly is not a good person. That doesn’t mean he’s evil, lawful, chaotic, nor neutral. He’s unaligned. He thinks he’s a good person and tries to do good—when he feels like it. He has a code that no one actually understands, but it makes sense to him, so who knows if he follows it? He likes mischief and causing chaos, but also wants things to make sense. He does what he feels like when he thinks he should, sometimes. Unless he doesn’t. But there’s rules to it. Maybe.

In short, he’s a two-year-old adult. Two. Years. That is not a lot of time to come up with a comprehensive, consistent view of what the world is, what it should be, nor how he should handle discrepancies. That doesn’t mean Molly isn’t capable of acting rationally or being persuaded to do something he doesn’t initially want to do. He listens to people, and even if he talks back, he’ll go with the flow.

That resulted in this scene, with half the group wanting to kill Gustav, and ending with them letting him go.

Easter egg: I had Molly’s swords get caught on the coat because it was Lestera’s. As discussed in the next scene, she wouldn’t have wanted him to kill Gustav, so that was added here as a symbolic show of her interference.

Stories

Molly drank alone to panic after he first got his Rite of the Dawn unlocked in Alfield, so I figured he’d try to isolate after what happened. Maybe he would have sought some comfort with Yasha because she’d trusted Gustav too, but she’s unfortunately not there.

Jester to the rescue! This provided exposition about Molly’s thought process through the prior scene, and it showed just how much it rocked Molly’s view of a few things. Even so, he’s not angry at any of the Nein, nor did he hold what they did against them. His emotions were just running high and he’s having trouble keeping a grip.

I wanted to explore Molly’s and Jester’s relationship a bit. In all honesty, their personalities are very well suited to each other: they like having fun, they understand each other well, they’ve got each other’s backs, and they both prioritize helping people at their own expense. They also enable each other to their detriment, and their maturity is a bit stunted because of that. That said, Jester’s a romantic and Molly’s a hedonist. They have very different views of what relationships should be and what they’d want out of it, so the scene doesn’t stray from a platonic feel. Thus, I had them order different drinks, and neither would ever order the other’s for themselves. Despite that they showed some physical affection and even got caught on each other’s horns, it’s all in silly fun.

This scene also gives a lampshade to the naming convention to for the fanfic (which was discussed in a prior meta post): each of the chapters is named after one of the cards, and the reason is that they’re conveying a theme through a story rather than saying something outright. However, it’s not just for the readers. The characters also refuse to acknowledge certain truths, so they cope by telling stories (Caleb’s book, Molly’s cards, Cad asking Gustav for his story, etc.). Heck, even Molly does it, by telling stories about his time at the carnival instead of answering Jester’s questions outright—but it’s not Jester who doesn’t want to hear the answer.

Worries

Time for the terrible spellcasters to be terrible together. At this point in their arcs, Caleb and Fjord are also enablers for each other. The worst thing is, they rationalize their decisions as being best for the Nein or the world generally, not just themselves. Yes, they’re worried about Molly, but there’s also that tempting blood magic that might be useful somehow, plus whatever happens to Molly might affect their aspirations, etc.

I went with Caleb’s POV because he would be having a rough time with the events of the day. This was basically sandpaper on an old wound. He betrayed his parents and murdered them for the Empire. He betrayed Astrid and Eadwulf by attacking them and then by fleeing the Sanatorium without seeking them out to tell them the truth. Ikithon betrayed them by altering their memories and warping them into weapons for the Empire. Caleb’s only just started to truly grasp that he’s been fed Imperial propaganda his whole life. He’s been wrestling with the idea of whether his own judgment can be trusted and whether he can or should try to do anything about Ikithon or the Volstrucker. Then the group decided to let Gustav go when he wanted to kill Gustav, and it hit him fairly quickly that he’d made a rash decision that was rightfully overruled.

He’s a mess.

Then, along comes Molly (also a mess) to ask for a silly favor to borrow Frumpkin because he can’t sleep. That manages to pull Caleb’s head out of his own butt long enough so that he can get to sleep too.

It’s almost like they feel better about their own bullshit when they help other people…

Zoran Kluthidol

The first part of this scene about the hounds was in one of my earliest sets of notes from August 2022. It was one of the first scenes I wrote for the Tombtakers. I’ll discuss more of Zoran’s backstory in a separate meta post, but the key thing for this scene is that goliaths travel in herds and are fairly isolated from other communities. A lot of this scene came from my brainstorming about what sort of goliath would leave his tribe and wind up at the Claret Orders.

Once I came up with the basics for both backstories, I considered what Zoran would have thought about Lucien. Timing wise, I figured that Zoran would have already been at the Orders for a while when Lucien joined, and Zoran would have joined as an adult (because that’s when he would have left his tribe). Lucien would have joined as a pre-teen. Thus, Lucien would have been a tiny brat compared to Zoran, a fully-grown goliath.

Then I thought, what sort of person would Lucien need to be for Zoran to respect him enough to take up an offer to form a mercenary group and leave the Orders? (Reminder: Lucien died at 23, after the Tombtakers were active for at least 5 years—so he led them away when he was no older than 18!)

A fucking brawler, that’s what. Someone who could kick his ass when he had no right doing it. This scene helped me flesh out both of their personalities in that respect.

Thing is, an introductory scene can’t just be about the character getting his ass beat by a mostly-dead antagonist if the point is to show he’s not a pushover. Thus, there’s some bits to show that Zoran specifically enjoys hunts, not just fights, and he doesn’t care as much about the outcome as Lucien did. It also shows that he’s still someone to be feared and does as he pleases because of it.

(And captainsparklefingers nailed that Zoran snagged a bottle of Lionett wine from the storage room!)

Zoran is the other Ghostslayer of the Tombtakers, so his POV gives insight into that as well. He immediately clocked how fucked up it was for Cree to make Lucien an undead, and he’s intuitive enough to recognize several implications that stem from that. He also doesn’t take what Cree and Otis say at face value; he recognizes their biases and takes that into account. Finally, he’s got some reservations about the Somnovem and the Pattern, even if he enjoyed how it felt at the time.

But Zoran’s not the schemer. As fucked as the situation is, he’s more comfortable following the others’ leads. So, for now, he’s settling in for whatever insanity Lucien’s going to lead them into, and he’s well aware it’s going to be messy. That’s what’s fun, after all.

Senses

Another check-in with Lucien. There’s some subtle hints of what the Somnovem are up to. I also included a demonstration of Luctus’s ability to warp time. As she mentioned in her later scene, she had to “undo” some things, so the reader gets to see an example of that here.

Dream: Bait

The introductory poem is “To a Squirrel at Kyle-Na-No” by William Butler Yeats, an Irish poet and politician. He’s a fascinating historical figure that turned to some seriously questionable views about how the world should work in his later years, and I thought that was perfect for including here. I’m being vague about it because I think you should read it up yourself—and you’ll hopefully get a sense of why I thought, of all the poems I could have chosen, his poem about trying to pet a squirrel was appropriate here.

It’s fairly obvious that the overarching theme of this dream is bait. I had considered including scenes where Lucien hunted for small animals, but honestly, that would be a terrible idea for kids in the Savalirwood. Fishing would have been safer, and it gave an opportunity for some exposition from an adult.

Every other scene in the dream includes an example of using bait to lure someone to or from something. First was Cree distracting guards while Lucien snuck out of a house he robbed. (There’s a clue as to whose house it was…) Second was Lucien trying to bait the goliath into harassing Cree instead of him, but it’s too tempting to bother the tiefling that’s already so close to the water. Third was Lucien distracting vendors so Cree could nab wares at the market, plus acting as lookout for Greytraders that might have caught her otherwise.

Fourth was an unfortunate example of Lucien leading some thugs to his group when they were looking to snatch orphans and sell them off to the Mardoons or Jagentoths—slavers. The fisherman mentioned three sets of three are extra special: Lucien’s red eyes, purple skin, and horns (as noted when he spooked the baker); Cree’s a “half-beast” girl with gold eyes; and the half-orc is also a “half-beast” girl, but with blue eyes. Being good bait isn’t always a boon.

And now, look back at that poem. Hmmm. HMMMM…

The rhyme in the market scene is the last verse of a popular Irish song, “Molly Malone.” Cockles are a relatively easily-foraged shellfish that are a common street food in coastal towns, and they’re often used as bait for fishing. Mussels are another shellfish, found both at sea and in freshwater. While Shadycreek Run is a fair distance inland, it’s also a trade point between the rest of the Greying Wildlands and the Empire. While I doubt there would actually be hawkers wheeling barrows of shellfish to sell in the Run, there’s some obvious puns and references to prostitution in the song, which was also a thriving business in town. Plus it’s totally the kind of place that would have rumors of a ghost trying to sell wares.

Gifts

Then we go to Molly, who, as expected, is doing his best to not deal with what happened and is instead fixating on his name. Identity was a big thing for him, so it makes sense that he’d focus on that rather than process his feelings about Gustav or mourn Lestera a second time.

I figured Fjord would be optimal for that conversation because Fjord was the one who wavered about his last name, Stone. Vandran had argued to him that it was a good name, which tempered his distaste for it. However, once Fjord learned about Vandran in the stream, that threw it all into question again. Thus, of all the people in the Nein who would understand, Fjord’s best suited.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a heart to heart with Molly without a +0 to Charisma moment like him insinuating that Fjord should have seen Sabian’s betrayal coming. That said, Fjord is dense sometimes, and even then, he’d be used to Molly’s brand of arrogance to know better than to take it at face value.

I can’t recall the exact context (I’ll update this if I ever find the quote), but Taliesin once mentioned that he expected a party pet to “make an alligator so happy.” I immediately thought of that while outlining this stretch of time and saw that the pet vendor would be dealt with here. I planned to include it as Molly’s dialogue for one of Jester’s pets, then realized that she would probably goad him to buy the peacock, which he would definitely decline. Molly had also mentioned that the carnival had named a horse Winter’s Crest because that was when they planned to eat it if it lasted that long. That evolved into this section where Jester bought him the peacock and he suggested the Nein eat it instead.

Jester had more gold to spend at this point because Molly pitched in to buy Nott’s cloak and for Gustav’s bail. The Nein also had more coin overall because more guards had been killed at the Sour Nest. Thus, while Jester is still pretty broke, she’s doing a little better than she had been in the stream.

Bruises

Caduceus is still taking it easy, but he’s learning to enjoy the trip. I wanted to include a POV for him because I thought he would do a half-apology to Molly, and it’s fun to explore their relationship since it was a blank slate. We also got to see that Molly’s doing better after a few days.

More cards for Molly’s deck! These will absolutely be chapter titles in the future.

Tyffial Wase

Tyffial was the last of the Tombtakers that I fleshed out. It took a while to come up with her backstory, but once it clicked, everything fell into place rather easily.

In the Critical Role artbook “The Chronicles of Exandria - The Mighty Nein” there is a blurb about the Tombtakers based on Beau’s notes that were submitted to the Cobalt Soul, and Adon Zeenoth personally crossed out Tyffial’s name. I took that to mean that Zeenoth must have known Tyffial somehow. They’re both elves, but there was no indication about their ages in canon. But why would he personally censor records naming her? There had to be something he didn’t want people to know about her, but I had to come up with what that would be and why he would do it unprompted.

First, I tried to come up with what Tyffial would have been doing before she joined the Claret Orders. Nothing really came to mind, so I thought instead, why would an elf with a long lifespan join the Order of the Mutant and then defect to follow an 18-year-old (or so) to form a mercenary band? I had considered the route grayintogreen took where Tyffial was also from Shadycreek Run and grew up with Lucien and Cree, but I wanted to do something new. There’s not a lot of takes on the Tombtakers, so there’s a lot of possibilities that hadn’t been done yet.

Then I thought, well, what if she was bored? Elves live a long time. What if she joined the Orders out of boredom? Then she’d leave once she was bored of that, too. That would make sense, especially if Lucien comes up with exciting jobs, and we (the audience) knew that eventually took the Tombtakers to Molaesmyr. But a young elf wouldn’t get bored that quickly. Their sense of time passing would be about the same as a younger race until they started getting up there in years.

So Tyffial is fucking old. The Order of the Mutant makes sense because then she can adjust her abilities and her looks using mutagens. And that gave me a reason for her to know Zeenoth, an Archivist at the Soul: he’s covering up her tracks when she comes up with a new identity. He’s taken bribes before, so a bribe mixed with threat of violence would certainly keep him acting on Tyffial’s behalf.

Tyffial’s backstory will be explored over time in TF&TS, but there will be hints aplenty about just how long she’s been around. For example: what names does she use to refer to certain places?

I’ll note that I came up with this before it was revealed that Ludinus Da’leth was artificially extending his lifespan. I was so hyped when C3 started exploring that. More things to chew on.

Lucien & Luctus

Yet another look into Lucien’s relationship with the Somnovem. I don’t want to point out too many hints, but there were several. Is he needlessly paranoid or rightly distrustful? Time will tell.

Now Lucien has a body! Kind of. Curious that the Somnovem did that after he was defeated on the Material Plane…

#TF&TS #TF&TS meta #chapter commentary

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paperlit · 3 months ago

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We as a fandom moved way too fast past this:

And this:

#she has so much complexity that we as a fandom NEED to unpack and discuss #would kill for a book or chapter or snippet literally anything from her perspective #like yes she is a queen and icon with the best comebacks and sassy insults #but what is her lore?#thg #sotr #sunrise on the reaping #my post #thg sotr #commentary #maysilee donner #sotr spoilers #maysilee #merrilee donner #merrilee #merrilee undersee #sunrise on the reaping spoilers #suzanne collins #the hunger games

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hey-sherry · 2 years ago

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"And so I went into the studio," Jordan continued. "And it was very awkward, as I made sounds like 'mmm' and 'ahh'. And then I kissed my hand a whole lot."

But he got the job done, and now he just hopes that everyone playing the game appreciates all the effort he put into helping make it happen—and keeps his very specific but vital role in the game in mind as they play.

"You think about that," he said. "You mull that over as you run around, you little horny perverts, with your little perverted roleplays, you randy bastards. You think of me."

#baldur's gate 3 #sherlock holmes chapter one #sherlock holmes #Alex Jordan #no commentary necessary #(Alex is Sherlock's voice actor lol)

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graveyard-galaxy · 3 months ago

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The way physical violence was focused on and upped in episode 3 really got me thinking specifically about how Ashley actually responds to it. Because, like…

When we start in the flashback at the start of the episode, we get given a clear picture of Renee’s stance on using it as disciplinary action, and for all that she is shitty and cruel and neglectful and spitefully manipulative in every scene that she’s in, one line that she won’t cross with the kids that she’s barely parenting is hitting them, and she tells Andrew as much.

Albeit aggressively, but what she’s saying here is obviously that she doesn’t believe it will make a difference, and that she won’t allow that to be how Andrew is forced to parent Ashley for her. To be fair, it is quite in line with her general methods of getting what she wants usually through manipulation, but it is, perhaps, a single redeeming factor about her parenting style, and represents a line that shouldn’t be crossed.

(It’s also possible indicative of her own childhood, which is interesting considering what her mother had to say about Douglas’s father in the Renee and Douglas vision, but I digress. This isn’t a Renee analysis or apologist post.)

But another piece of backstory that these flashbacks give us is that, perhaps unsurprisingly, Andrew and Ashley lived with their grandparents for a few years, before their actual parents. Renee was kicked out and had no money, so of course Douglas’s parents were left with Andrew and Ashley for an unknown amount of years. And their parenting style was… different. Seemingly not as neglectful as Renee’s, and I do think we get the sense that even if Douglas’s mother is just as much of a doormat as he is, and refuses to stand up to her husband (and given the wife beating mentions, is possibly not in the position to) she does genuinely care about her grandkids. So at their grandparents there’s… parenting. Maybe not good parenting, but still some parenting.

Interacting with the swing in the yard, Andrew recounts a short memory of how exactly his grandfather tended to respond to him (or presumably Ashley) doing anything wrong.

Woohoo, the kids aren’t abandoned, but they’re still blamed for things that aren’t their fault, and they’re beat for their troubles too!

But seriously, this obviously goes to show that before Andrew and Ashley moved in with their parents, physical violence was on the table against them as punishment. Andrew certainly remembers it, and we can speculate to what degree that informs his response to Renee about hitting Ashley later, but in particular, it’s Ashley I’d like to actually focus on here.

I don’t think it’s too big of a logical leap to assume that if Andrew was beaten by his grandfather, so was Ashley, given said grandfather’s horribly misogynistic views and obvious tendency towards beating his wife. And as unfortunate as it would be, I have to wonder… Did Ashley actually respond to this? In some way did she, or perhaps more likely Andrew, ever figure out how to behave to avoid it?

Looking forward to the present day, physical violence hasn’t been properly levelled against her in a while. Andrew supposedly attempts to choke her out in episode 1, but she notes that he wasn’t squeezing hard enough to actually choke her. And they get up in each other’s faces, and they yell, and she has a vision about him straight up killing her, but to some extent all of this is just not quite that far, or a true ultimatum. Never is Ashley actually faced with physical violence as any kind of punishment despite it being noted all the way back in episode 1 that Andrew has physical strength beyond her, as he is able to keep trying to kick the door down where she notes she doesn’t at all have the energy.

It’s a possibility in spirit. Andrew has the physical advantage and he could so easily use that against her, but it’s all presented as a game to Ashley in the first few episodes – one that she thinks Andrew isn’t actually trying at. She’s not even especially afraid of the prospect until the episode 2 Decay vision shows that he’s fully willing to kill her, and at some point in the near future too. That’s still an ultimatum more than it is a direct punishment, but it presents the idea to her that for all she thought he was playing around, no, Andrew would be willing to go there.

And then, this is followed through on in any Decay playthrough where Andrew is willing to grow a spine. He crosses the line that Renee set up, and that gives the moment a lot of narrative weight.

He slaps her, and her expression tells us a lot here. She wasn’t expecting something like this from him either, because of some combination of to not being a punishment she’s actually faced since childhood, Andrew never having gotten like this with her properly before, and how quick and sudden it is. This isn’t just a death threat or potentially far-off vision of him killing her; he’s actually done it now.

Their subsequent conversation is quite interesting too:

"What's with that look? You're the one who put violence on the table."

"...I-!! I didn't mean to............."

"Honestly it's all the same at this point."

Given the characters, we definitely shouldn’t necessarily take their words at face value, but even with that, I do think some part of Ashley is sincere here. When she held the cleaver to his neck, and when she offered a death threat, she still thought that she was just playing. This isn’t any different to Andrew taking his hands to her neck but not pressing hard enough to choke her, to her. She’s back-pedalling quite so hard to try and keep him, of course, this is Ashley we’re talking about… But I also don’t doubt that her sentiment is genuine. She didn’t exactly mean to.

And Andrew’s response tells us exactly why he’s so willing to cross that line. He just doesn’t care! Renee’s dead, so he doesn’t have to care about her rules and policies, and given how cynical he feels towards his life at this point, perhaps he wouldn’t care anyway. If this is a genuine way to get a response from Ashley, then he’ll try it, because for all that his mask of trying for normalcy is still up at this point, this is just between the two of them, where it!s always mattered the least, and as it is, that mask is quickly slipping.

I’d like to note this part of Ashley’s reaction as well, because, well… First we see that same shock as immediately after, but I’ve thought the exact same thing about that second frame, ever time I’ve seen it. With the background and the tears, isn’t this such a Leyley reaction? Such a Leyley expression?

Decay, especially Shots and Such which can follow on from this, is all about Ashley clinging to the Andy and Leyley dynamic to both of their detriments. It changes form as she feels she needs to adapt and find new ways to keep her Andy, but she’s constantly affirming whether or not she has Andy or Andrew because the violence and the hate all comes from Andrew to her, so when she’s continually trying to play Leyley, it keeps coming as a shock.

Andrew slaps her in the car, and she can only react as Leyley would. She never wants to be Ashley, because Ashley never fits into their games, and because Ashley has always been subconsciously rejected by Andrew. Being Ashley would mean facing what Andrew has done here rather than just making petty jokes about it for the rest of the episode and crying like I imagine she would have if her grandfather hit her.

But the cycle of violence only gets worse once Andrew continues to stew in apathy, and as perhaps he realises, that it does get a desired reaction from her. Ashley doesn’t respond in the long term to any threat that he throws, but she’s genuinely scared by the prospect of what him actually killing her means to her, and getting violent against her is a piece of that.

Part of what Shots and Such emphasises is that, even if it never works in the long run, Ashley does respond respond to violence, and that through out all of the ending, it remains Andrew’s way of fighting her.

This doesn’t exactly paint a happy picture of how Andrew regularly treats her. Er… Not that just about anything in Shots and Such is especially happy…

But it once again perpetuates the cycle of violence. Ashley gets actually violent now too, when she can. She makes sex painful for Andrew when she can, because that’s the degree of control she still has as someone who can’t a fight back when Andrew gets physical with her. She’s physically weaker, and with the bathroom lock torn down behind her, she has nowhere to hide. He beats her to short term avail to make himself feel better, and to keep her in line for tiny amount of time, and she gives that right back when she has her own opportunities.

And that’s all without actually talking about the scene of her getting beat.

Ashley’s a terrible person, but this scene is still very genuinely upsetting, because once again, something in her reaction comes across as genuine. She apologises profusely as her only way of even trying to get him to stop, and she goes back to the convenient story of being the scapegoat. She’s the problem, just like how he wants it to be. This doesn’t actually stop any of the heinous stuff she does to him after this point – if anything, it just makes her more desperate to try and exert control back when she gets the chance – but for a short while, it works. She shuts up and leaves him alone. She just makes cookies because that’s all that she can fathom that she’s good for.

Renee was right that hitting Ashley would never fix her behaviour. She was right after her grandfather had presumably done it to her as a young kid, and that was never the attention she needed, and she was right after Andrew crossed the line she set because she’s gone, and he has nothing left to lose. Hitting Ashley never teaches her any kind of actual lesson, save, of course, from how to act when people get violent with her.

All that’s learnt is how to behave in the short term to get the immediate beating to stop, and that’s enough for Andrew. Their push and pull has turned into violent fits against each other for control for just a short while, but he genuinely can’t care for it to be another way. After beating Ashley, he just once again reiterates that “I don’t care either way at this point” and that’s that.

It never fixes her behaviour, but it reinforces his. Just like his grandfather, Andrew becomes a wife beater, and he crosses Renee’s line for just a short moment of power and control. His spine is now like a gummy worm because he’s stuck in the easy cycle.

#this isn’t getting into the scene in decaying all along where Ashley slaps him too because he reacts kind of differently and the–#–circumstances are a little different given the tone and Ashley’s reasoning #I just think the through line commentary of violence as punishment is interesting this chapter #probably also ties into Andrew’s wanting to kick Julia’s teeth in during sex but once again I digress #that’s further than where I want to take this for no #tcoaal #the coffin of andy and leyley #tcoaal spoilers #ashley graves #andrew graves #long post #my analysis

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violetsorengail · 6 months ago

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fourth wing ch. 16

everyone else was cut off and then there's sgaeyl just mocking xaden the whole time. the dragons are like... having an emergency business meeting yet she still has time to whack his ass #girlboss

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wihellib · 6 months ago

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Bimet

Bimet had several sweet, intimate moments in Chapters 6 and 7. Honestly, to me, it felt like he had more than any of the other demons. And it surprised me that it was Bimet of all demons. I'm not a big fan of Bimet because of his extreme materialism, but I really want to like him after the last two chapters. He seemed genuinely fond of you, albeit in a slightly awkward/standoffish way. I also like that the MC seems to know how to handle him and even pushes back against him from time to time.

As a side note, the VA does an amazing job with his portrayal of Bimet.

Long post under the cut.

💵💵💵💵💵💵💵

#what in hell is bad #whb #what in “hell” is bad?#whb bimet #whb rambles #whb commentary #prettybusy what in “hell” is bad?#prettybusy what in hell is bad #whb chapter #whb chapter 6 #whb chapter 7 #whb compilation

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holoska · 14 days ago

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after debating for weeks whether to stay very far away from the deltarune soriel discourse or let myself ramble about my faves like I want to, the latter has finally won out

I've had time to properly absorb the weight of all that happens at the end of chapter 4, and obviously I do feel for both kris and susie. that is The Point of the scenes being from their perspectives; after everything they just went through and all the worry they had for toriel's safety (for the second time in 24 hours!), the scene they come home to is maybe the most uncomfortable slap in the face possible. it sticks out to me that the last thing susie talks about before the dark fountain is sealed is her wanting tomorrow to be the same as yesterday and for everything to always be able to go back to how it was, and that's what greets them - a blatant, obnoxious sign that things are changing. even though the scene has a lighthearted side, its overall tone adds to the downcast feeling the chapter ends on.

having said that, as someone who has spent the past 9 and a half years being normal about sans and toriel, I'm still very very happy that this is a canon scene we got 💜

the fandom may be largely not considering their perspectives in the slightest (or worse, only viewing their perspectives from the most bad faith angles possible), but I for one love this for them!! as other very good posts have pointed out, toriel has been sorely in need of someone who's there for her - an awful lot of people in town saw the divorce play out and have something to say about it, the holiday family are closer to asgore than toriel, kris is her child and stuck in the middle of their parents' issues, and while she's friends with alphys, them being coworkers and alphys being kris' teacher likely puts a distance of sorts between them. but sans is new in town, someone she immediately connects with, who has no pre-existing opinions about her family and has seen firsthand what toriel has to put up with from asgore. in every universe, sans is exactly the kind of person toriel needs in her life.

there's less to work with from sans' perspective given how little we know about him, and I'm not all-in on sans being from deltarune just yet (more specifically I do love the theory, I'm just giving myself room to not be too disappointed if it doesn't happen), but the new version of it's raining somewhere else being named 'the place where it rained' emotionally destroys me forever. either way it drives home just how happy toriel makes sans in both worlds and I love that so so much :']

to be clear I'm not saying they did nothing wrong, their choices negatively impacted kris and susie and they were objectively disruptive and inconsiderate after kris went to bed. but I like that they're being messy and flawed, because it means this isn't just "my faves are getting closer in the background yippee" but that their relationship is potentially an actual part of the story, and that's how you get The Good Stuff!! we wouldn't have had meaningful character moments like noelle finally standing up to queen if queen hadn't tried to control noelle and just listened to her from the start, or susie comforting ralsei with her bloodied hand if he'd told her and kris every detail of the full prophecy the moment he met them and never kept any secrets. if all the hints towards a flower shop dark world turn out to be true then it's pretty clear the story is building things up to make those future character moments hit, and considering we still don't know what happened with the dreemurr divorce at this point, chapter 5 seems like a perfect opportunity to dive into all of that.

plus, as sweet as susie's bond with toriel is, I honestly think susie seeing this side of toriel needed to happen. a lot of the fandom's complaints about toriel right now boil down to her not being the "perfect mother" they thought she was, and what bothers me about that is toriel was never meant to be that kind of character. toby has said that she's not the classic video game protagonist's mother who sees you off on your journey and you can come home and visit any time, and nothing changes and she never has any substantial character of her own. in undertale she literally handholds frisk through the tutorial, she becomes the first boss in her attempt to protect them when every other human left her care, and once they leave she won't let them come back or even call her phone because she can't face seeing them knowing they'll leave again and likely be killed. she's more than just the mother figure of the game, she's her own person with likes and dislikes, hobbies and flaws, and a past and trauma she can't overcome until the best ending.

we've only seen the tip of the iceberg of her history in deltarune, but that same principle holds true: she isn't the perfect parent you return to after each day's adventure, who gives you butterscotch pancakes every morning and never has any real part in the story because that isn't the intent behind her character. she mentioned her loneliness back in chapter 1, kris has secrets and problems they aren't letting her in on, asgore is being relentlessly inconsiderate of her boundaries, and for all susie's praise of toriel being a good mother, I think that house of cards was going to fall eventually. my hope is that, like her blowing up at ralsei ultimately bringing them closer, susie being able to see toriel as the imperfect adult she is but one who does genuinely care might help them build a stronger bond in the end too.

I think I always knew that if soriel ever inched closer to being canon there'd be discourse about it, and toriel slander is unfortunately nothing new. people are just being annoying about it currently and it sucks when I genuinely love what's being built up here!!

anyway crossing my fingers for a scene where toriel invites sans to the festival before she gets thrown in the bunker/he gets sent to undertale/the roaring happens/all of the above 🤞

#holoska rambles #holoska plays deltarune #deltarune spoilers #soriel #toriel #sans #the second half of this post might be a bit 'I've connected the two dots' 'you didn't connect anything' 'I've connected them'#but it'd make a lot of sense to me if susie losing some of her idolisation of toriel could be a commentary on undertale fans #who think that toriel is nothing more than their perfect goat mum. the exact thing her character is a parody of #and considering how much deltarune is playing off of expectations from undertale I don't think that's beyond the realm of possibility #...likewise I could also be totally wrong about where chapter 5 will go ghdsjfdgh I just think that'd be a neat direction to take #anyway. fun fact before I started chapter 4 I was hoping we might get to see sans and toriel casually interact like in chapter 2 #and maybe just maybe toriel would offer to show sans around the festival since it's all new to him #and then I wrote that off as wishful thinking. too unlikely to happen for real #suffice to say what we actually got hit me like a bus and I am thanking the driver (toby) for it

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intoaneverythingbagel · 1 year ago

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the tragedy of war torn veterans and it's correlation to my hero academia

I think the conversation revolving izuku midoriya, and how he's been treated since the war ended is very, very interesting. The general consensus being that it's genuinely insane the mistreatment he's faced only a bit after the wars ending. He's a hero. He was beaten, bruised, mutilated and traumatized on live television for the entire world to see. And has received zero acclaim.

Most people are saying that it's genuinely fucked up, and yeah, I agree, it totally is. I mean, a 16 year old boy had to step up because a bunch of adults couldn't hold their own, saving the entire world, all while simultaneously losing himself and his quirk. He gave up his dreams, his sanity, and almost his life for peace; and yet he gets to relish in none of that. None of the fame, the acclaim that comes with heroism. Nothing.

Some have said that they find it to be unrealistic- "he saved the world, of course he's famous!- horikoshi is just bad at writing!" And yeah, he should be, but I don't think that horikoshi is bad at writing or that him getting acclaim is just something that isnt being shown. Horikoshi knows how to write fame, how to write stardom, we see it with hawks and Merko and most definitely all might. We even see it in the newest leaks (427) where bakugo and todoroki have fans- the new first years.

So why then? If horikoshi can write, and he knows how to portray fame, then why is izuku facing neglect? Well, as we know, mha has always been a show about how people with disabilities are treated. (I will go further into dept on this in a future post, probably today or tomorrow) being quirkless is seen as being less abled then others= disabled, and now that izuku has lost his quirk, he is back at square one- being disabled. Not to mention the physical strain the injuries he has faced leave him with. He will face life long repercussions from those injuries. He is literally a disabled veteran. And for a lot of disabled veterans, the reality of the situation is that you don't always get to be a war hero after all is said and done. You don't get the fame you deserve, or the acclaim, or the help you need! or any of that because no one wants to hear about the gory, sad, disgustingly depressing side of battle. They want the glamour, the starlight and shine.

They want the miracles, and izuku is no longer a miracle.

I think what horikoshi is trying to portray is that things really dont go back to normal right after the war ends, peoples hearts and minds aren't all immediately changed, and the mindset that has been pushed for decades about quirklesness and it's abled-bodyness will not disappear just because the hero was once quirkless, because at the end of it (at least in their minds) they were right, someone who is quirkless could never truly be strong.

So, my consensus on this debate is that horikoshi is trying to portray how a lot of veterans end up after battle. It isnt some glorifying, amazing thing. It's not this heroic adventure. It's war, and it's after and disgusting and horrific and so so scary and it kills people, and it's usually the real heroes who end up the most fucked. A commentary on how veterans are often discarded once not needed anymore. Shits deep.

#katsuki bakugou #bkdk #mha #mha spoilers #mha chapter 424 #mha chapter 419 #Mha chapter 427 #izuku midoriya #Izuku midoriya character study #character study #class 1a #war is hell #A commentary of peace #Izuku midoriya you will always be famous #my hero academia #boku no hero academia

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krismas-holiday · 3 days ago

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[ ROMBhack ]

[ More info/closeup of the sprites under the cut. ]

// Conceptually, this version of Ramb/Romb would join you in castle town after playing chapter 3...

As Ramb, he would offer you the ability to practice off-brand versions of ALL of the secret bosses; including his own where he would be wearing a funny version of his Romb form while attacking you with paper cut-out versions of his attacks. Future fights would be retroactively added so that you could return to your save with him in castle town and practice. The bullet patterns would be exactly the same, but the sprites would be changed to more accurately reflect the hitboxes.

If you were to unlock his secret boss fight, he would join castle town as Romb and offer the ability to play various (slightly modified) versions of the sword_hero games on the boards. Including modified versions of the secret ones... which would include the current mantle fight. Some would also contain extra fun secrets, or an endless mode board where you could get a high score.

#ramb deltarune #deltarune chapter 3 #*(you closed your eyes...)#*(next a tree ... was painted over everything.)#ramb secret boss #// developer commentary #// Funnily enough his colours are really close to Seam's colours.#// Sorry in advance for this image description I'm really out of it. Feel free to add a better one in a reblog if you feel the need.

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mc-cookies · 14 days ago

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Cannot get the transfemininity of Deltarune out of my head today, specifically Dess Holiday as a kinda tragic and beautifully transgressive perspective on womanhood. This was gonna be a tag rant on another post but I got sick of trying to cut it down short enough to fit in relatively few tags so I guess I'm just gonna throw it out there as an original post? This might get a bit long and tangent-heavy but god I need to get it out of my system at least a bit.

Okay so. Dess is so so so resonant to my experience with (trans)femininity, especially given her thematic connections to the Knight. Like. What if you were constantly told that, if you’re gonna be a woman, there’s only one way you’re allowed to do it. What if you were constantly compared to your sister and your mother and expected to end up becoming them rather than being your own person. What if you had to hide and downplay your interests because if you made them too apparent people would ignore your identity and write you off as a problem child and a bad influence. What if people criticized your clothes and your music taste as offensive and inappropriate. What if, when you changed too much of yourself in response to both self discovery and trauma, you ended up being removed from the narrative, from the only community you’ve ever known. What if your name became scandalous and everyone tried so so hard to forget you. What if they left you for dead, but never put up a gravestone under your name. What if you became something new, something mysterious that pokes holes in the logic of the world and challenges the basic social fiber. What if people used that as an excuse to frame you as a legendary villain, the monstrous beast, the antagonist in the story that they have told for time immemorial. What if you decided that maybe the world as we know it does need to end, to be replaced with something that can accommodate a boisterous and weird and confident and self-assured woman like you. ghhhhh i’m biting and tearing this is literally what it’s like to be a trans woman!!!!!

#ok i'm kinda just rambling here but bear with me ok #i don't think toby fox has ever identified their own gender in any public statements so this is pure speculation but like #i would be kinda surprised if they weren't some flavor of transfem? they just have such a good grasp on this stuff!#like throughout undertale and deltarune they constantly write really smart sendups of gender roles and cisnormativity and related tropes #and again i don't know them personally so i do not know what gender they are. but from the outside there's really a sense of like..#they write about these topics in a really personal and intimate way. the kind of thing that resonates on a level beyond the superficial #so if they're *not* trans and *not* fem it still at least seems like they are doing good work listening to people who are!#i'm just constantly impressed by the thematic depth of dletarune y'all. i would not have imagined it going like this when i played chapter #like i was still stupid back then! i did not expect this silly game to become deep commentary on isolation and dissociation and gender etc #idk what i was expecting but. this is good. this is real good there's SO much to sink your teeth into. which is why i'm biting and tearing!#deltarune #deltarune spoilers

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mareastrorum · 2 years ago

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The Fool and the Soldier: Chapter Commentary

Chapter 8: Spark & Blaze

See the directory for other meta posts.

Spark & Blaze

This was one of Jester’s cards. In the CR deck from the shop, this is “the card of Fire” and the description of Spark is, “Someone is responsible for this. Maybe you, maybe some asshole.” Blaze is “Sometimes there are consequences. Sometimes they hurt.” Thus, this chapter focuses on responsibility, blame, and consequence.

The Warden

I wrestled with this scene quite a bit because simply retelling the fight with Molly added didn’t seem like enough of a reason to include the battle. However, I wanted to demonstrate another reason Molly would be interested in the rite of flame, and I figured Molly would have absolutely eaten a bunch of the fruit in the grove. Adding that facet was a little flavor without changing too much and made for a more interesting introductory scene.

I added the flashback because the Nein took a short rest in the stream before going down into the grove and I wanted to include some exposition without spending too much time on it. Caleb did some identify rituals then, so I had him also identify the necklace Molly looted last chapter, which is an Amulet of Health. That bumped Molly’s constitution from 14 to 19, which adds 2 health per level, giving him 12 more hit points (17.3% increase). Notably, his hemocraft die is a d6, so that covers the average damage he would take from 2 rites and 2 amplified blood curses. His new max is 81. For perspective, he was already the highest HP over Yasha in 2nd place at 68. Now he’s more than double Caleb’s at 37 (the lowest). Of course, that meant Molly had a higher chance of not getting high from the drug fruit, but since it’s Molly, clearly that just meant he needed to eat more fruit. Which he did.

I debated whether Molly would keep the periapt. It saved him in this AU, but only because Lorenzo chose not to make a killing blow, and Molly is savvy enough to recognize that. After the fight against the marid, I figured he would give it to one of the support. The ruthless strategy aspect is that, assuming 2 people were making death saves and either could have had the periapt, it would be better to actively heal up a damage-dealer that didn’t rely on spell slots because they can keep doing damage. Being able to rely on an item to stabilize someone who is reliant on spell slots makes that easier. Plus that makes it less harrowing if the support goes down behind cover, where the healers might not be able to easily see/reach them for a heal. However, Molly offers it to Caleb first, which made sense because he is a wet paper towel. And because Molly thinks the dirt wizard is cute, but he’s not examining that too closely.

I don’t think Molly would have been a fan of fluffernutter in this context. He didn’t want to throw dynamite at the troll in Labenda swamp because he wanted to rob the troll first. Similarly here, the Nein didn’t know what they needed in the final room, so just throwing in an explosive might ruin whatever they were doing. While Molly might have been fine with thwarting Avantika, if there was loot, he wanted that too. But since that would have been a general repeat of Labenda, I figured I’d have him be thoroughly distracted by being high as a kite and lacking the attention span to sort out what was going on.

I actually went through the fight for a few reasons. First, Molly hasn’t had a POV for a fight he actually won yet. I didn’t want to give the wrong impression that perhaps that meant something on a meta level—it doesn’t, it just hadn’t been suitable for an earlier fight scene. Second, it’s fun to examine how some fights would have gone differently if Molly had also been there. Third, I hadn’t had much opportunity to show off Molly’s blood hunter skills.

Thus, the whole fight is shown from Molly’s perspective. Of course, he runs in ahead of the rest, which ends up separating him from everyone else once the hydra shows up. Molly has a rare moment of honest self-criticism, mostly because he’s not going to keep his facade of “I meant to do that” as well when he’s high and in the middle of a fight.

Molly running in also let me show off the yuan-ti’s abomination’s constrict and bite abilities, which would be a nasty combo back to back. If Caleb hadn’t slowed the abomination twice, the abomination would have been able to do 3 attacks each turn. Molly would have been fucked. That said, Molly occupying its attention meant that the ranged didn’t have to worry about rushing out of line of sight as desperately.

The Nein’s choices were mostly unaffected, but even small ones changed the balance of the fight. While the hydra was clearly the bigger threat, I felt confident that Yasha would help Molly out first, especially since it went after Avantika right away. With Yasha out of line of sight and focusing on a smaller threat, Caduceus didn’t use path to the grave until the very last hit on the hydra from Yasha, so the hydra didn’t lose as much health so quickly, which also meant that a different number of heads were lopped off and regrown. Other than that, the Nein’s actions generally remained the same.

That said, Molly’s curses helped a lot. Bloated Agony was the level 6 choice, and that did a bunch of necrotic damage to the hydra over 3 rounds. Even though it’s not an optimal spell to use on monsters with high constitution, I thought Molly would rather gamble it anyway, and it paid off. Even with a +5, it rolled like shit. Molly’s hemocraft save is only 14, but I rolled a 2, 8, and 7. (I used the same d20 for the hydra and Molly, so interpret that as you will.) The eyeless curse also prevented a ton of damage to Beau, who was knocked out in the stream.

Overall, I’m happy with how the fight turned out. Building suspense in this type of encounter is easier when we don’t see a hit point counter and just go off vibes, and Molly got all sorts of bad vibes from getting grappled/bit and being unable to see if Beau was alright.

The Lock

This scene is mostly set up for ongoing issues. In the stream, the Nein didn’t really understand what they were doing in the temple. They only knew it related to Avantika’s plan to release Uk’otoa somehow, but not that the orbs were keys and the temple had a lock. They figured it out eventually. (Too late.)

Why did Yasha look at Molly when he said he didn’t have any eyes on his head? Hmm…

I sure kept some boring exposition about schools of spellcasting. I sure did.

The Curse of Undeath

In Exandria, the Curse of Undeath has not had consistent rules applied to every character. Vax was a Revenant in campaign 1, Matt then posted a Lingering Soul class in 2018, and now we have Laudna as a Hollow One. Each describes a different physical experience with unique circumstances, abilities, and limits. That’s in addition to all of the various undead in D&D. Since Matt’s gone in so many different directions, while I am confident he would have made Lucien undead specifically to give Taliesin an adversary suitable for his Ghostslayer subclass, I genuinely have no clue how much the classic version of the curse would have come into play.

Thus, I added this scene to give the reader an idea of what would be expected of a ghost in this AU, as well as what Zoran has noticed. He is the only Tombtaker that would have an objective perspective on the Curse of Undeath in this context and the expertise to recognize signs of it. I wanted to include at least one scene of him breaking down his observations, and by now, there’s been about two weeks for him to do that. The audience also got an idea that Lucien can tap into class abilities—which ghosts cannot do. But there are limits.

There’s quite a few things that don’t match up. Something to keep in mind.

Jobs & Hooch

Another check-in with Caduceus, who is slowly settling. He’s not navel-gazing as much and is going with the flow much more easily.

With Fjord stepping more into a leadership position, Molly definitely would have given him a lot of sass. But Fjord’s also pretty good at manipulating people, and he’s sorted some of Molly’s hangups, so it doesn’t take too much to get that under control.

I came up with the idea for drug fruit wine forever ago. It was in the earliest outline, and I don’t recall why it came to mind. I kept it the whole time though, it was too good to pass up.

Rite of Flame

The Nein reached level 7 before arriving at Darktow, so I wanted to include some signal to the reader of that. I also wanted to explore how Molly tries to sort out his blood hunter abilities on his own at some point, so it was good timing here.

Molly has Caleb on the brain. Is he going to examine why? Absolutely not. He’s distracting himself with a fire sword.

Preparation

Another Cree scene! Hooray.

I did consider sending the Tombtakers after the Nein on a ship contracted with the Myriad. Assuming the canon timeline, they would have caught up at a very dramatic point. However, Lucien’s goal is to recover a body. Doing that at sea, in naval combat, while also keeping Cree alive (since she is the only one who would resurrect him) and somehow escaping any survivors? Probably not good odds compared to waiting to ambush in Nicodranas.

Odd, considering that Lucien was fine with running the Tombtakers and Nein out into a blizzard to try to make progress toward Aeor—twice. Hmmm.

While Zoran noted issues specific to the curse of undeath, Cree noticed that Lucien is not acting like himself. In the stream, she was very careful to completely back Lucien up whenever the Tombtakers encountered the Nein until the Immensus Gate, after they’d lost the rest of their group and Lucien still refused to kill them. Like, if Lucien had set off the intuit charges right then, Cree could have died too—she was willing to risk it to kill the Nein. It took that much for her to express disagreement in front of outsiders. So I figured Cree wouldn’t bring up these types of concerns in front of the other Tombtakers either, but she would in private.

So by this scene, the audience has a better idea of what Lucien has told the Tombtakers collectively. More pertinently, what he hasn’t told them, not even Cree.

Dream: Regret

I got a wonderful commission from @runmienn for this scene.

The rhyme at the beginning of the scene is “The Two Cats of Kilkenny” which is an anonymously composed limmerick about a cruel practice of tying two cats’ tails together and letting them fight to the death. Kilkenny is a town in Ireland, so it presumably originated there or around there. There isn’t a Kilkenny in Exandria, so I changed the first line to better match the story.

There is a character trait that I felt was very important to establish in the dreams: ruthlessness. A lot of people mix that up with cruelty, but they are not the same. Ruthlessness is deciding on a goal and moving there in a straight line. Obstacles either move or will be moved.

During the entire Aeor arc, Lucien never started a fight with the Nein until the final battle. That’s strange considering how ruthless Matt painted him. He slaughtered the drow that tried to stop him from taking the first threshold crest. He chased the Nein through the night and demanded everyone continue through the next day. He pushed the group through two blizzards. Lucien had his sights on a goal, and no one was going to get in his way or slow him down. So why not just kill them?

Yes, there’s the bit about liking the Nein. Lucien had those twitches and strange reactions when they tried to call out to Molly. But, again, I’m not using anything from TNEOL. Lucien never acted like he heard voices, let alone Molly, and if Molly had been speaking directly to Lucien, I doubt his reaction would have been confusion as much as anger if he truly understood that Molly could interfere with his control over his own body. I don’t find that to be a compelling explanation when Lucien’s personality was otherwise consistent.

But I grew up in dangerous places stricken by poverty. I’ve seen many iterations of people who act in similar ways. I was that kid for a while. The dialogue I used in the dream is a set of rehashed conversations I had with people in those places. Thus, in this version, Lucien didn't start a fight with the Nein because he doesn't usually start fights; he retaliates.

Would this have happened if Lucien wasn’t alone? Maybe; it depends on where he’d be and who was with them. Unfortunately for him, he got jumped by people that knew him, so they knew his habits. The goliath, the dwarf, and the black-haired boy were all the same kids from the earlier dreams. They were the ones that were recruited in the previous chapter.

That said, as with most bullies, there is a point where they decide a victim is too much trouble compared to other targets. Lucien would not have won if they all ganged up on him, but he’d have gone down swinging a knife, and even if he wasn’t experienced with it, it only takes one cut to lose a knife fight.

No one wants to lose a knife fight.

Of course, I figured that was also a good spot to introduce his willingness to use two weapons. He absolutely has to practice that though, and a pitchfork isn’t a good choice.

As a final note, Matt very clearly established racism against tieflings as part of his lore and that it was a thing in Shadycreek Run. There were very few things that Lucien told the Nein about himself (personally, not the Nonagon or the Somnovem), and that people weren’t kind to him because of his race was one of them. Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about the pressures of publishing and selling something for profit, so the fact that racism and graphic violence against children are not easily marketable features doesn’t affect my decision to include it in my story.

For the Empire

I couldn’t use this card to title the chapter and then not include this type of scene for Caleb. I felt this was an appropriate chapter to do it because of the holiday and it was a good point in his arc to address his backstory in a brutally honest lens.

I understand why a lot of fanon about Caleb focuses on forgiveness, and I am on the side that Caleb knows he can never be forgiven by the people that matter: the people he killed and everyone who hurt because of what he did. The Volstrucker were very clearly and intentionally based on the German Schutzstaffel. I respect Liam O’Brien a lot for choosing that sort of backstory and wrestling with how that sort of person can be a protagonist in this sort of game and what end they will meet.

This scene lays bare what Caleb did when he was a child. He was manipulated and abused by someone he respected. He felt that he was doing the right thing because his concept of “good” was intentionally molded into something useful for Trent Ikithon. But Caleb chose to kill. Being respected, powerful, and successful was more important to him than other people’s lives. He made that choice over and over and over.

I felt that was a far more compelling commonality that Caleb had with Lucien than any of the other similarities. That’s why I put these scenes back to back.

An overarching theme is going to come up again and again: Anyone would do this. Anyone would if they were desperate enough. If they were cold enough, hungry enough, scared enough, lonely enough. Anyone would do horrible things with enough pressure. It’s just a matter of finding out what kind and how much. It’s just being a person.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a good Caleb scene if a monkey wrench didn’t get thrown in, so here comes Molly to flirt. That said, Caleb is absolutely not far enough in his arc for this to lead to anything, so he takes a turn for more sincere and deep emotions, which Molly was not prepared for. That said, Molly didn’t seem like the type to pine, especially since he’s been remaining intentionally ignorant of why Caleb’s on his mind a lot, so it doesn’t sour anything between them. They are singing entirely different tunes right now, they can’t make a melody.

Darktow

Ashley wasn’t there for this scene, so I wanted to fill in Yasha’s perspective since we didn’t really get any for that episode. Considering that the Dynasty hosts some of the more “monstrous” races, I figured she could know a little to give exposition, though she didn’t realize Wyatt was wearing a wig.

In addition, right now, Yasha is my only useful tool for getting Molly to address his dreams, so she is doing some heavy work. She’s got some of her stuff for her arc coming up, though, so she’ll get to have some spotlight in time.

Con Men

In the stream, the Nein did realize that they probably shouldn’t be the ones to turn in Avantika’s journal—after they stole it. They had quite a few leads to get help, but since they’d taken the journal in the middle of the night, they didn’t have any time to investigate those before the confrontation in the morning.

I thought that would be a fun thing to explore without derailing too bad. :)

I figured it would be reasonable for Molly to instigate that issue coming up earlier in the same evening after his experiences with Gustav. Thus, the Nein modified their plan a little bit to match, and now there’s a chance to see another way this all could have played out.

#TF&TS #TF&TS meta #chapter commentary

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l-in-the-light · 6 months ago

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"I'm sure he's got nothing to do with me!" says Luffy and I was waiting for him to say it. For him to hear all of this Nika lore and declare that, nope, I don't care, I'm not Nika, I'm not a liberator. It's just such a Luffy thing to do. But I know many fans actually will be shocked with Luffy's answer here or will just dismiss it. I have seen many opinions before that Luffy was always a liberator by choice, so becoming Nika is just natural course of events for him and he will have no problem embracing his role in the bigger scheme of things. Some even complained they hate that Luffy is Nika because they don't want Luffy to be the "fated hero" but instead a "from nobody to the king of the world" trope. But nope! Luffy just noped all of this himself.

Luffy is not a liberator and he's not an altruistic hero, he doesn't go from island to island aiming to save people, and if you think he wanted to, then please remember Fishmen Island and how unhappy he was with the idea of being a hero:

And now if you think Luffy changed since then because Dressrosa happened, then please remember what he asked of Momonosuke in Wano:

Yep, that's right. Luffy still *doesn't have any interest* in becoming a hero. If you think he's alright with that and changed his mind, then you're just not paying attention to him, sorry to say that. Luffy has been pretty consistent about this too and now he declared it yet again in Elbaf. It's the third time already.

You just think it's not a big deal because he so easily changed his mind in Fishmen Island, but it happened only because he had an actual reason to do that. Jimbei promised Luffy all the meat he wants. He gave him a *personal reason* to act like a hero, which is why Luffy agreed. And he did the same in Dressrosa. He wouldn't liberate that country if he didn't get attached first to Law and Rebecca (yes, in this order), and his crew to tontattas. They always do it for someone particular, for their friends. It's the same in Wano too, Luffy's constant motivation is Tama, Momo and Kinemon. He wants them to be happy, most of all, and he even says as much when he defeats Kaido: "I want a world where all of my friends can eat as much as they like".

There, he doesn't do it altruistically because he hates oppresion and villains who thrive on pain of common people and he can't stand seeing it. Yes, he probably thinks it's unfair, but he also grew up in Goa Kingdom, the very definition of unfair regime. He saves oppressed people only when they are his friends or has some other personal interest involved. He defeats the Marine base in Shells Town for Koby (and Zoro, later). He defeats Don Krieg so he can repay his food debt to Baratie. He defeats Arlong for Nami. He fights Wapol for Chopper (who saved Nami) and who he already considers his friend because of that. He fights for the Giants (Little Garden) and Vivi (Alabasta), Conis (Skypiea), Robin (Water 7 and Enies Lobby), Brook (Thriller Bark), Hachi (Sabaody) etc. Though, he does make friends rather easily, so usually it's not that big of a deal. But he isn't going out of his way to places he reads about in the newspapers that need to be liberated, he instead cares more for his own dream. He doesn't enter a certain island with the idea in mind that goes like "if I see some injustice here, I'm gonna bring this shit down". It's the other way around. He makes friends and realizes they're unhappy.

He wants them to be happy again and to live without regrets, and that's why he brings the shit down, whatever it is that makes people he cares about feel so unhappy. Because he thinks this is at least something he can do for his friends. Luffy doesn't think he can do a lot of things, he can't do much at all, but he can do one thing: beat up a guy when needed.

He knows how regret feels like ever since he believed Sabo died, he's not gonna sit there and do nothing next time something like this happens. That's why it's so important for him, to make sure his friends are happy. And that's why he beats up people and liberates countries. It's not for justice, he simply wants his friends to be happy.

But wait a moment, Luffy also wants freedom. Yes, he does. He wants to be the King of the Pirates, because for him it means to be free. And that's how he actually speaks about Nika as well:

He wants the freedom for himself. Isn't it funny that he thinks he already achieved it though?

And before you're disgusted by how selfish Luffy actually is, hear me out: Luffy is simply not a martyr. He won't die or sacrfice himself for the world to liberate it. He will instead die for the world if he thinks that will make his friends happy. Preferably though, he would want to survive and eat that meat with them, and be happy together.

Still, if you want him to be a liberator of a whole world it is actually possible, you just need to make it personal for Luffy, like I suggested. For example, put a person or multpile people who want to save/destroy the world (whichever option you fancy) on Luffy's crew. Luffy always cares for dreams of his crewmates and will always support them (because fullfilling their dreams will make them happy), so he would become a liberator if that helps them. But he would do it for them, not for the world.

Luffy is not a hero because he has a golden heart and a strong sense of justice. He's a hero when his friends are in danger instead, because instead of a golden heart, he simply has a big heart and makes friends wherever he goes. A martyr-like hero who sacrfices himself for people without caring for his own wellbeing is noble, but it's also not a healthy mentality, believe it or not. For starters, if you never care enough for yourself and are ready to throw your life away for a concept, what will happen with people who love you and care for you? Is it fair towards them to throw your life away without caring who you're leaving behind and how they will feel about it? Do you even care then for their feelings if your pursuit of greater good is more important to you? You can save the world and make people you love sad and unhappy, and like they don't even care anymore to live, because you were the one who made them happy and now you're gone. Did you save the world for them or destroyed it for them instead, as the result?

Luffy has his own interest in saving his friends too: so he's not alone again. Humans aren't selfless beings, but it doesn't automatically make us bad people either. And sometimes, while pursuing selfish things, we do something that appear to be extremely selfless. But at the bottom of it: we also do it for themselves, even if it kills us.

Tokyo Babylon taught me that every act is selfish, even if it appears like we do it for someone else: we simply want to feel better about ourselves then. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as we don't lose the sight of other people's feelings on our way. We can always share, after all, and that sharing is the bridge between the lone islands that people are.

Luffy, if he dies, will also say, just like Seishiro: "I didn't do it for you. I did everything by my own choice". For myself. Despite the fact it is also true he does it to make his friends happy. Being selfish and being selfless is like two sides of the same coin and both choices can end up actually hurting people. In the first case, because you care too much about yourself and too little about feelings of others, and in second case because you care too little about yourself and still too little about feelings of people that love and care for you. Can you spot the thing in common here?

#one piece #luffy #Luffy is not a hero #give him that meat he deserves it #but he wants to make his friends happy #one piece 1136 #one piece spoilers #very slight spoilers though #one piece meta #monkey d. luffy #monkey d luffy #tokyo babylon #altruism #paradox of altruism #psychology #one piece chapter commentary #commentary about the full chapter will appear later this was just becoming too long so it became a seperate post

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