adrihoney-blog1

[bookwyrmpendragon]

Hot tip: The best way to get me to not want to watch or read something is to do the thing where you go "Well, you know this classic story you love and means a lot to you? Well this is like that but BETTER!"

[applestorms]

the misa post

adding a lil additional note here because this thing SPIRALED the fuck out, even more so than some of my usual essays. therefore, i will be going back to my roots by breaking this post down into two sections: misa and sexuality, and misa and romance/death. skip to whatever section, if you wanna. or don't. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

misa and sexuality:

honestly, the way that misa engages with her sexuality in DN is such a fascinating topic in and of itself. i really have quite mixed feelings about it because while yes, to some degree the art and story does sexualize and objectify her, there is also an element of agency to it that i don’t often see people talk about…?

like, idk. misa is a model, she does act, her job primarily involves working in front of cameras. she’s selling her Image and her body and she’s well aware of how to market the appeal— we literally see her doing this during yotsuba, when they’re trying to free matsuda after he runs around like an idiot and gets caught.

i actually think it's quite interesting that she specifies being against nudity here but alright with swimsuits and lingerie— full nudity implies sex work, something that in the mainstream might be considered "dirty" or somehow less/not worthy of respect (even if that's utter bullshit). yet lingerie is fine, despite having similar implications of sexuality, blocking off the most private areas and thereby allowing profit off of the same concept but without the associated disapproval. you could read this panel as misa simply knowing her boundaries and what she is and isn't comfortable with— but i think it's interesting that you could just as easily read this as misa knowing what boundaries she is and isn't allowed to have, if she is to market herself as effectively as possible and maintain her public image.

off the top of my head i can only think of two major examples where it’s clear that misa is super overtly being sexualized by forces outside of her control/with no particularly meaningful justification, at least in terms of visuals. this panel, which managed to sneak in a panty shot:

which, weirdly enough was actually kind of foreshadowed by sayu earlier in the chapter:

(sidenote1: does light really not have any other fucking chairs? further evidence that he doesn't really connect with people pre-DN, if he's not really prepared to have any guests in his room. anti-social weirdo.)

and, of course, the classic torture cover from chapter 33:

though i must admit, it is difficult to find any image of a character getting tied up like this that doesn't have some implication of sexuality. bondage torture is just a classic like that. though the camera certainly doesn't help, L— and neither does the fact that light and soichiro are not put into an equally objectifying, sense-deprived contraption like this, and instead just get normal ass bare cells.

in many other cases however, misa herself is the one flaunting her sexuality, typically as a means of trying to appeal herself to light but sometimes i think you can definitely read it as misa just. dressing the way that she wants to dress because it's cute? like, okay, in terms of trying to appeal herself to light we've got this classic panel from after the timeskip ft. a particularly homosexual light moment:

but there's also plenty of misa moments that just look like this:

girlie is chilling. literally kicking her feet, stalking her crush in bed with her supernatural death god girlfriend.

to be clear, this is not to say that death note isn't sexist or has particularly fantastic writing for its female characters. rather, what i'd like to point out here is that there are different levels under which we can view and analyze misa's sexuality:

the base level, of a girl who is comfortable with her body and fine with wearing revealing clothing

the level above that, involving the fact that misa's job revolves around selling her image, of which her sexuality is a key factor

and then the uppermost meta level, surrounding the fact that misa is a character in a story not only written and illustrated by men, but sold in shounen jump, meaning that she is thus filtered pretty significantly through a quite literal male gaze

it both can be and is true that misa is simultaneously objectified for her body on multiple levels and a pretty fucking horny person herself (or at the very least, willing to push that for the sake of her own goals)

remember, misa is the one pushing for their "alone time" here.

just. idk. i suppose my main point here is simply that i think this is a topic that deserves to be looked at with more nuance. there is credence to both the claims that misa is sexualized in DN and that misa herself has agency in how she chooses to dress and present herself, and i don't think you can cleanly separate those two aspects without losing something significant.

honestly, when it comes down to it, my personal take is that the real problem of sexism in DN is less about the particular ways in which individual female characters are presented/traits they are given, and more about the broad strokes of how women in general are treated... if my post on that particular subject ever ends up seeing the light of day, i guess i'll link that right about here. anyways,

misa and romance/death:

if there is one thing that her parents dying, almost being killed by a stalker, and making contact with a shinigami teaches misa, it is that love is something you kill and die for.

i really don't think that you can separate out "death" from "love" when it comes to misa, not only in terms of general themes, but also when it comes to how she personally views the world. i mean, just look at rem and gelus— death literally loves her, and in the process of loving her, allows her to cheat her way back to life. ryuk calls light a better shinigami than the actual shinigami, but honestly, if anyone fulfills that role, it's misa— she's the one whose life gets cut down until others stock it back up, who has so little regard for life (both in terms of others' and her own), who gambles her time again and again and does whatever she wishes, when she wishes, how she wishes.

it's that second point in particular that really gets to me here. throughout the story, misa shows herself to be equally detached from both the world and herself— she kills without care, gives up half her lifespan without a speck of a second thought, throws herself into dangerous situations and pushes for what she wants even when she knows it's stupid and probably going to get her caught. i'm slightly tempted to say that death's love for misa is the only mutual love she ever has, but that has some implications that i don't think quite fit. misa doesn't get a kick out of killing, she is not (overtly, or very explicitly) suicidal in the sense that she constantly expresses a yearning to kill or be killed. it's more of a toned down attachment than that, which... kinda gets into my next point, on misa's relationships. namely, with two very important people: rem and light.

in terms of rem... i struggle to analyze this relationship sometimes in the context of canon because at times it just feels like there is so little to work with. but perhaps that also fits, in a way...?

one thing that i think the musical really got right about rem is the fact that she has some of the most genuine feelings of love in the entire series, just in general but also specifically in terms of how other characters treat/approach misa. again, misa is a person whose job revolves around people loving or being attracted to her. i have a very hard time believing that the person who tried to kill her was her first or her last stalker, but even without getting to that level of intensity, much of the love surrounding misa is superficial, distant. she is beloved for the image she fits and the role that she plays, but very few people (if anyone) are even capable of getting close enough to recognize the self she hides under that mask (assuming, of course, that she ever lets that core part of her out).

rem is perhaps one of those few people, seemingly having watched misa for years alongside gelus before breaking that parasocial divide and meeting her idol in person. yet, it's also that very period of watching that puts a strain on their relationship, in my mind...

to put it bluntly: apologies to any and all remisa shippers, but i simply Do Not see there being much canon evidence that rem's love for misa is in any way mutual. not only do i struggle to think of any notable scenes where misa displays even an inch of affection or care towards rem, but misa is also kind of horrifically apathetic to rem's death, iirc. i mean, in a way, she's basically the cause of it— in failing to remember L's name upon getting her memories back, she pushes the first domino in the line leading up to watari, L, and rem's deaths.

misa basically treats rem like just another stalker, accepting her love so long as it is somewhat distant or gets her what she wants.

but, like. as shitty as that is to think about, it does kinda fit that misa would treat genuine love this way. at no point does she push back on or try to change rem's mind about this, or even really say fucking anything in response to rem's overt romantic/threatening overtures about how she'll kill anyone who tries to hurt her. i'm kinda inclined to view this as misa's attempt at kindness, accepting the love of her fans for what it is but never pushing it in either direction. she neither demands rem's love, nor attempts to dissuade it— it is what it is, and what happens, happens. and if it results in rem's death, or results in her own... at least it all happened out of love.

now, in terms of light... i was gonna make this its own post but it's on topic, so i might as well just add it here.

it is simultaneously so, so sad and yet also so, so utterly fucking funny that misa is perfectly designed to be everything that light absolutely hates. like, to just list it out cuz i literally have too many points to simplify this down into proper paragraphs rn, misa is:

uncontrollable. supposedly, misa is a perfect little devoted disciple of KIRA, willing to do anything and anything for him as thanks for getting justice for her parents' killer. but like... we all know how this actually works out. misa does whatever the fuck she wants, usually with the thin justification that it'll help KIRA in some way, and light is left behind to deal with the clean up.

stupid. no, not really— but she at the very least presents herself as such, as a ditzy, silly little girl, willing to do anything for love even if it hurts her. really, all this proves is that she wears a mask, just the same as light, though in the process she manages to also reflects to his own sins back at him. misa plays stupid so that she can justify doing stupid things without having to feel bad about it (or get emotionally attached at all?)— light plays god, a being above human morals, so he can do horrifically immoral things without having to feel bad about it. equal and opposite, in the worst possible way.

powerful. and pushy. the only person more stubborn than light yagami is misa amane, etc. etc. just like KIRA, she is a key pawn that light must rely on logistically, but is disgusted with all the same. misa is not a god, not in the way that KIRA is— she's just another filthy criminal, uncaring about the horrible acts she has committed. but she fits herself into his plans in just the right way that he can't quite come out and condemn her directly, and therefore is stuck quietly stewing in his dislike of her instead.

a liability. related to this is the fact that she is essentially unkillable, at least as long as rem is alive. many of the points behind her being uncontrollable apply to this one as well.

feminine. in a way that light dislikes, but also cannot ignore. she's cute and hot in a way that light is supposed to like, if he is to fit in w/ his Just A Typical, Good, Respectable Boy routine, but also drives him up the wall— pitting his desire to be "good" against his desire to be a "boy," essentially. (this point in particular is taken from THIS POST, big thanks to shydroid3000 for the beautiful yotsuba light analysis!!!)

possessive. controlling, in a way, which is again ironically exactly like light himself. light Hates being controlled because it means there may be factors outside of what he has power over, a trait which becomes increasingly relevant in the latter half of the story.

untouchable. even after rem's death, light can never quite get into the right position to kill her. she's almost too effective, causing light problems (e.g. yotsuba) and fucking things up, but never in such a way that he can easily place the blame on her shoulders alone. she is useful, a necessary evil, outliving multiple gods.

and, above all else, ultimately...

(sidenote2: it's kinda interesting to compare misa to L in this regard, actually, especially in terms of why light gets so attached to L but hates misa so viciously, despite L also being quite a bit like light? i guess you could say that misa reflects back the parts of light that he doesn't like as much, or even more specifically that she reflects KIRA back at him, where L matches/opposes light in terms of what he sees to be his better traits— his intelligence, his social power, etc. something to consider.)

to follow up on the sentiments of this post: misa does not love light. she relies on him to fill the hole in her life, in her, as a quick fix to avoid having to engage with the deep-seated grief that haunts her, an answer to the horrifying question of why she is even still here, alive, so long after her appointed bell has already stopped ringing.

to tie this all together, then... i suppose it's fitting that both love and sexuality are are so essentially Empty when it comes to misa amane. ultimately, she is a character defined by a misery she never allows herself to show to the world, a girl stubbornly sticking to the first reason she managed to find for living. again, just like light, she is a character that never grants herself the ability to truly grow up, stuck in the same childish, immature cycles of thinking and methods of presentation she came up with when her life first failed to end. a tragedy in her own right, unable to even remember the face of the one being that genuinely loved her at the moment of her own true death.

born on christmas, dead on valentines. how fitting.

[internetskiff]

siiiighhh. While I've sort of lost steam when it comes to my Inscryption phase, it does sometimes come to mind. I think what I find so so fascinating about it's story is that at it's core it's basically just a spin on the classic videogame creepypasta genre. I mean.. >Game is uncovered on a buried floppy disk >Characters in the game are sentient and aware of the player >Several gruesome deaths tied to the game's development A lot of these are common haunted videogame creepypasta tropes. But what I like about the game is that unlike a lot of those stories, the game itself.. Isn't malicious or dangerous - all it wants is to be played. None of the characters want Luke dead. They need Luke to keep playing, either for the sake of play itself, or to forward a plan to bring the videogame to a wider market so they would have countless people to play with. It's in their nature to want this. They were just unlucky that their game is actually nothing but a front to hide the valuable, seemingly supernatural data from the eyes of the public. A lot of the characters even understand the data's nature, and want it to be either kept buried or wiped from the disk entirely. This is a haunted game that simply wants to be a game and nothing more. It doesn't want to take lives. Infact, the corrupting data within doesn't seem to want anything at all. It's basically a force of nature. There's no consciousness driving it except for those that dredge up pieces of it for their own purposes. It's a resource, and the characters are toying with it in an attempt to turn Inscryption into the game they think it should be. The characters are all definitely conflicting with eachother but none of them are quite evil. Selfish at most. The game isn't keeping Luke hostage - quite the opposite, it's dependent on him. Leshy kept up intrigue purely for the sake of making the game more interesting through his storytelling, and P03 needed to keep him invested enough to trick him into getting the game's steam page set up and ready for upload. They need Luke to function. They need a player.

[leonbastralle]

GAMES I PLAYED IN 2023 - SECOND HALF-ISH

here's part 2 of my little review of my 2023 games! somehow this is even more indie than the first half and honestly a lot of games w nonexistent fandoms on tumblr so be the change u want to see in the world i guess!

old man's journey: this is a rly short indie game with an interesting, though very repetitive puzzle mechanic that follows an old man as he goes on an important journey - literally but also figuratively by coming to terms with his past, and at some point the two end up being the same thing. the art style is truly lovely and unique, it gives me big children's book vibes, and the soundtrack is beautiful and touching and so is the story and the ending itself. as i said, the mechanic and actual gameplay could be expanded on, but i knew this going in and played it mostly for the vibes and in that it did not disappoint.

the last campfire: when i talked my wife into playing this i told her it's basically the pacifist puzzle version of dark souls and it truly is. you play as a little ember on their final journey to the last campfire, where all embers go when their light begins to fade. the path is challenging and a lot of embers give up. they become forlorn. it's your desire to help them, if they let you. this game is heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time, such a gentle and touching story with a cast of diverse, likeable characters. the puzzles are all in all pretty doable, though they can get pretty intense at times, but there is a story only mode to remedy that! this one definitely is going on my all time favorites list.

lemon cake: who were you before you wandered into this bakery? doesn't matter, because the ghostified previous owner is now holding you hostage as her successor. this is a little sim/time management game w a super cute style where you upgrade your bakery, cafe and garden to keep making new delicious looking treats and serving your customers in the best way possible until you are worthy of your predecessor's famous lemon cake recipe. this game, as games of this variety tend to do, gets a bit stressful if you want to serve all of your customers before they get angry and leave while also needing to keep an eye on your ingredients and ovens and displays. i really liked all the upgrade options that make your life easier, and i loved combining all the cute pastries into new menus every other day or so to keep customers happy. a bit expensive for the amount of gameplay you get out of it but definitely worth it on a sale!

the gardens between: this game follows a pair of childhood friends through their memories together as they prepare for the move that one of them is about to go through and the inevitable goodbye that will precede it. super touching game with a really cool and unique puzzle mechanic in which you manipulate time and objects at different times throughout the puzzles to get to the solution. can make you kind of dizzy because the levels are built like spirals so the camera does a lot of spinning, but i'm sensitive to this and was fine when i went slow and took breaks.

book of travels: hoooo boy this is a big one. this game is marketed as a tmorpg (because the servers are TINY) and it definitely makes it work. most of this game is just exploring around, doing little tasks and finding your way since the game doesn't tell you at all what to do, it's all up to how you play it. do you want to do some combat? figure out what the fuck happened in kasa, the closed capital? become a fisherman? just trade and collect cool looking things? the braided shore is your oyster and it is a beautiful one with the painterly art style and great music and ambiance. still in early access and therefore quite buggy sometimes, but definitely one of my faves w a lot of potential.

capybara spa: made by the same person as lemon cake, you can really see the similarities in terms of the cutesy style, but i think it's a lovely thing to look at. this is just a little clicker where you run a spa for capybaras and their little critter friends and keep levelling up to add more and more spa options and extras to give them the special treatment they deserve! i assume this game could get a bit overwhelming since there's a lot to keep an eye on at all times, but there are no time constraints and no punishment so you can take your time and get sucked in for hours, which this game is very good at doing.

tiny echo: in this point and click game you play as a funky little guy w an eye for a head who delivers letters to their spirit inhabitants with a minimal amount of puzzling involved. i mainly played it because i wanted to check out more games by the book of travels devs, and it was a nice experience, though it also doesn't really stand out for me. very short game, maybe a bit short for the price, but i played it from a shared library so skdjfhksdjf

cosmic wheel sisterhood: i got nothing bad to say about this one. you play as an exiled fortune telling witch who breaks after years of solitude and forms a forbidden pact. the cast of witches (and other creatures) is diverse, i liked both the characterizations and the interactions between characters (also a lot of them are very hot so that helps). the big mechanic of this game is that you use elemental energy to craft your own tarot cards from a selection of card backgrounds and elements and then you use these to tell people's fortunes, which in turn gives you more energy. depending on your selections, the cards will have unique names and different meanings, and i enjoyed seeing all the cards i or others could come up with. the story is intense and emotional, but to me, definitely in a good way. though there are several outcomes and so far i've only tried one. definitely replay value there. just be wary because despite including trigger warnings, they forgot one for cancer so be informed and do not be like me ADJHKAJSDHA

planet zoo: i tried this after i saw my wife play it because growing up i was crazy about zoo empire and zoo tycoon. i don't have much to say about this one because though you have a whooooole bunch of freedom in designing your zoo, the enclosures and even every single building, that freedom was a bit overwhelming for me so i never ended up rly getting into it. also not a huge fan of big capitalism expansion packs system, but hey. it definitely is a pretty, very neat game.

cats & dogs organized neatly: it's like static tetris. but with animals. you click on them and they bark and meow and you can SPIN THEM MANY TIMES as jazzy music plays in the bg. as you go you unlock more funky little boys n girls and they all have funny little bios and names. i broke my brain on some levels but didn't mind looking up some solutions in favor of the vibe! i enjoyed both of these and will definitely play the birds sequel that's set to come out this year! another german dev shoutout these were great games. they're very small and quite cheap but you can also get these on sale for like 2 euros KSJFHAKSFA

toem: truly the year of photography games for me, but i think vibe wise this one was my favorite. just a funky lil guy in a black and white world going on their first photography pilgrimage to toem, the famed natural phenomenon of their world. i loved all the little quests, the different worlds and the endless filter options and the soundtrack was great too. honestly greatly recommend, i don't own this game but i plan to buy it to replay!

pupperazzi: yet another photography game! this one's all about dogs, and it's delightful and wonky and just a good casual time with less story elements than the other mentioned photography games. not groundbreaking but great fun.

luna the shadow dust: this game follows a young apprentice mage back up the tower that he's grown up and studied in to face the consequences of his past mistakes. lovely art style, music, and puzzle mechanics, especially the use of light and shadow. i've wanted to play this one for a while and i'm really glad i did, i liked the story a lot even though it got quite sad.

alba: WAIT this one too is a photography game that i honestly might like even more because its story is so touching. you play as alba who is visiting her grandparents for the summer. the natural reserve on their island is about to be sold to be turned into a hotel, so her and her friend decide to start a petition to save it and help clean up the island and rescue animals in need as well as documenting the wildlife to change people's minds! truly one of the most heartwarming games i played in my life, 10/10 i cried at the sad part sdjkhksd

röki: this one's...a lot. the main character of this game, tove, lives in a little cabin with her dad and her very whimsical little brother who she's basically taking care of on her own because her dad has been incredibly depressed since his wife passed away. when a mythical creature attacks their house and abducts her little brother, tove has to enter a magical mirror world. there she has to help all the other mythical creatures in hopes of reawakening the forest spirits, who have been plagued by nightmare parasites, and finding a way to get her brother back. lovely puzzles and wintery vibes, but a truly heartbreaking story that gets more and more messed up every time she faces a nightmare parasite and with it, more of her past and the events that lead to her mother's death. despite the heavy undertones this is still a good game if you're ok with some tragedy and slight horror elements askjfhakjsfas

stardew valley: i forgot to add this one in the previous post bc i actually played it in early 2023. not my first time and will not be my last time either. still a queen among farming sim peasants and i'm looking forward to restarting our little farm w my wife after the next big update!

[sapphire-weapon]

Hi! I had a question, how much would you take into the consideration the statements of developers when talking about the analysis’s of video games?

For example, I was having a conversation with someone regarding whether Laura from SH2 was real or just another manifestation. The person that I was talking to agreed with all my analogy but then disregarded it because apparently one developer said she was real. I’ve also had this type of conversation within RE fandom where they constantly bring up developer points rather than reading the text and it is frustrating because there’s no way for me to sort of answer back to a developer statement. I don’t know how VG development work, but surely there’s hundreds of them all working together and many would have different interpretations/opinions, so is it worth just looking at the text than the opinion of one developer?

It depends on:

1. The publisher

2. The studio

3. The person who said it

If it's an indie game, you can pretty much take anyone's word as canon law. Like, SuperGiant Games only has 26 people total working on their games. If literally any dev says anything about Hades, it's as good as the information being in the game itself, because every dev was involved in every stage of production.

If it's something like The Evil Within, which was developed by a Japanese studio (Tango Gameworks) but published by an American publisher (Bethesda), I don't necessarily take Pete Hines's word as law (Bethesda's PR guy) because not only did he not actually work on the game, he doesn't even speak the language of the people who actually did.

If it's something like Final Fantasy VII Remake, and it's Yoshinori Kitase talking, you disregard everything he says because he fucking lies. He lies for sport. He loves lying about his projects. Nomura is honest maybe half the time. Hamaguchi is generally pretty honest.

If it's Resident Evil, the actual literal only person whose word I would take as Word of God is Shinji Mikami -- and that's only for the games up to and including OG RE4. And that's because he was the creative lead in charge of the series from the time of conception (the first RE1 was literally all his idea) through the GameCube release of OG RE4.

Anyone else working on RE? Throw out their opinion. It's garbage. Because there are hundreds and hundreds of people working on those games, and several of them are always in development concurrently, and there's no one central figure overseeing all of it anymore. Directors, producers, developers -- all of them come and go from title to title, with no sense of consistency between them.

RE is too fuckhuge and labyrinthine and does not, at any point, ask or require its player base to look outside of the games to understand what's happening. There are series that do do that. Final Fantasy is one of them. If you don't read the Ultimania or some of the novellas that get released as supplementary material for the games, sometimes huge chunks of the plot will come off as total nonsense. RE doesn't do that.

And so, when these games are being made, the only things that the current development team use to craft the game and the story are the games that came before them. None of them are combing through marketing materials and interviews and manga adaptations and what the fuck ever else. They're looking at the other games.

So, in fact, RE's plot and characters actually make more sense if you ignore literally everything the devs say.

When it comes to RE, if it's not in the games or CGI movies, it's not canon.

Period.

It has to actually be in the games. I should be able to put a game in and find the exact quote a person is talking about. Because if it was that important to know and that universally agreed upon by the bulk of the people working on the game, it would be in the game.

[felikatze]

Do you feel Awakening's plot was let down by the need to be a male power fantasy, IE: kill lots of ugly people without remorse, get praised by everyone, all the woman want the avatar, ETC?

hmmmmm. good question. I don't think it's a power fantasy, per se - FE heavily ascribes to the design philosophy of "only beautiful people can be good", which is horrible for a lot of reasons, but I feel in this aspect it's plot structure is more hampered by the fact that it is a video game, and every chapter needs a Battle.

That's how you get basically every single generic brigand. There's a lull in the action, as characters talk, get to know each other, travel to the next relevant location. But you can't put any important battles inbetween, because those moments need to be slow - thus, an enemy who could just as easily be removed from the story without changing it.

In another game I like, Lord of Heroes, it's almost a running gag - the protagonist sees someone important, and wonders when they'll have to fight the next new guy, cuz We Need Boss Battles, even when the characters have no real need to fight each other. This is how you get comical misunderstandings only resolved after trashing each other, or your typical "I need to test your strength first" shtick.

These characters are engineered to be unimportant, for their deaths to mean nothing except some extra exp. It's just a problem baked into every FE game's chapter structure.

To compare to another SRPG, Triangle Strategy - you don't have plot unimportant combat in the story, ever. It's all optinal. Like yeah, there's bandits now and again, but the bandits are actually reoccuring characters, one of whom you can recruit, so they are made to be enjoyed as characters and sympathized with. The bandit characters even make good points sometimes! There's a part in the game where the main characters are involved in a black market smuggling deal, and bandits catch them transporting illegal goods. So, the bandit questions, what makes you rightous in this situation? Why is it right when you're doing it, but wrong when she does? What, because your goal is noble? What does it matter when you've sunk to the rock bottom of morality already?

However, Tristrat has an entirely different plot structure to FE. It also has a chapter system, but not every chapter includes combat. Some chapters only feature cutscenes, or exploration segments.

The game is just set up differently in a way that lets the plot breathe without forcing conflict. Combat gameplay isn't the main draw or a necessity. I'd fucking adore Tristrat if it had no combat whatsoever - It's the opposite of FE. Plot doesn't exist because combat needs to happen, no, combat only exists because the plot occasionally necessitates it.

Okay, this has been my triade on the disposable enemy archetype of Generic Brigand. To the next point - well, is Awakening a male power fantasy?

From the main plot? Not really. Like, yeah, sure, the avatar is the only person who can marry whoever. That's to give the player the opportunity to romance their favorite, I won't deny it. But the main plot itself doesn't have anyone fawn over Robin (besides Chrom). Hell, you could even go without finding out about Tharja's devotion to them if you benched her and never read her supports. Since her whole thing with Robin isn't included in her recruitment chapter at all. That utterly blindsided me when I played, cuz all I knew about her was "Robin simp." and then she didn't even simp robin in her first appearance.

If we're talking "recruiting lots of girls to your army constitutes a harem" then like, every FE game would be a harem. They're not. The game even forces you to be monogamous. I'd argue Fates is worse in this, because characters start falling in love and blushing profusely by A-support, even when they're already married, so everyone is Schrödinger's Cheating. In Awakening support chains, there's never really any romance outside of the sudden S support marriage proposal. I'll admit S-supports are well put together in recontextualizing the previous supports as falling in love, but all of them can also be left at A for a perfectly fine platonic dynamic between all characters.

Robin themself doesn't emphasize their own strength and intellect much, even if it is impressive in the world of the game. It's all about their bonds with others, how others give them strength and hope and all that good stuff. Robin is a well-developed character with positives and negatives. They're not just a blank slate. Hell, man, there's a whopping three choices you can make in the plot, and only one of them actually changes anything, and the first one is actually a choice for Chrom instead. Robin has their own thoughts and feelings and a great arc and if you ignore that in favor of "they're just me fr" then that's a you problem tbh.

You can argue till the cows come home about beauty standards and colorism in FE enemy design, fuck knows that I can freely admit a lot of Awakening enemy designs are racist as all hell, but that's sadly not unique to Awakening. Generic Brigands are ugly to signal that they're unimportant and morally corrupt and it's fine to kill them because only pretty people have morals. The only black people in Awakening are the shadowy desert cultists and the leaders of the "barbaric meathead" nation, so go figure what the game was trying to signal on that front. It's just shit design.

Awakening's finale actually makes me think of your typical fairytale hero story, and it's a great subversion of "the knight in shining armor kills the evil dragon to save the land." In that way, it's also a great subversion of other FE stories, since that summary is a lot of them in a nutshell.

Binding Blade did the subversion first though. Grima is just Idunn 2 (actual bastard edition) and I adore them for it (that much is obvious).

So like TLDR no, I don't think Awakening is a male power fantasy, because the main plot itself doesn't focus on romance or how awesome the main character is whatsoever. Less power fantasy, more "power of friendship" fantasy.

[alcohen]

on "real" vs. "entertainment" literature

i wrote this a while ago, when discussing this online as one does at 1am, like all well-adjusted people do. I do like my thoughts here though, so i figured i'd share.

~~

I personnally think that separating literature into "real literature" and "literature for entertainment" (and looking down on the latter because it fits into popular "tropes", therefore lacking integrity) is inherently a trap. Let me explain my point of view.

When I think of many, many pieces of literature that are now considered classic, I can't help but notice that they were, for the most part, actually popular with the readers of their time, and that's what ensured that we still hear about them today. Sure, there are some Van Goghs in literature, whose works only became well-known after the author's death, but these are exceptions. There's no canon without the people who appreciated it when it was first written, without an audience to share it. And what do people like? An interesting story. Sometimes it has depth to it (think Camus, L'Etranger), sometimes it's just a good plot without much philosophy behind it (think Pride and Prejudice)--and I'm not trying to be condescending here, I truly believe that both are equally valuable in their own way. What I'm trying to say is that fitting into a popular, well-marketable trope doesn't in and of itself define the worth of a piece of literature. You never know which story will crush your heart and soul and make you stay up at night, thinking of it.

Secondly, independently of the goal the writer has in mind, independently of their writing skills and the depth of the idea they want to convey, ultimately, a book has to be interesting to read. Think of Boris Vian and his Ecume des jours (sorry, don't know the English title)--he wrote a whole novel in which the daily life of the characters is jarring to read about, and still, we read, because the human story behind it keeps us interested. This is what makes good literature, in my opinion: the ability to captivate the reader. The ability to make the audience think, second-guess themselves, come back to the story, or maybe even be unable to come back because it was too emotionally impacting.

The last thing I wanted to address is writing a cliffhanger solely to sell a sequel. I think that the real question here is why we as writers (including myself here) tend to so eagerly condemn this? I understand being mad about it as a reader; however, as writers, why does it piss us off so much? I think that it has to do with our ego, our need to feel superior to other authors, and we find an easy prey: authors who sell well because they adapted what they write for the market. I honestly think that integrity is a secondary question here; it's about us, not them.

Once I understood this about myself, I decided that I don't want to appoint myself the judge of literature. Literature, as any art, can be good or bad; sometimes what I consider bad will sell well and resonate with a lot of people. Who am I to tell them they like the wrong thing? Who am I to say that what shook them to their core is mediocre? They'd probably say the same about my personal favourites, and I'd be rightfully pissed. At the end of the day, there is no measuring stick in art; I choose to uplift those whom I like and ignore those who do nothing for me.

[taxi-cab-to-slowtown]

Unpopalar Opinion:

Fanon is itself it's own form of canon.

I know a lot of people dislike fanon, especially when it gets characters just plain wrong, and when people who only know fanon target people for their canon interpretations of the character. Does Dick have elder daughter syndrome in canon? No. He does have it in fanon though. Fanon is itself a version of canon. Fanon is just as valid as canon... and both can be misused in fandom community.

To divest myself from DC even though this is clearly focused on fanon vs canon discourse which is so prevelent in a fandom that has so many different forms of canon and so many disagreements about character and their interpretations based on fanon and canon, let me start first with an example from a story that hold no baring to anyone here but me.

I'm a writer, I have a published book and am working on the sequel. I've spent years planning this book even before it hit the writing process and during that time I eagerly shared things about the story with friends of mine. Things as simple as character names as as complex as deep lore that will probably never end up on the page. There is a deep canon to this story written on scarps of paper and in notebooks and typed into hundreds of pages of google docs. The only people who know this story really are me, my three closest friends, and my ex.

That's now a lot of people, that's not a big fandom, and yet fanon exists for it.

One major fanon in the series is that one of the main characters has a house on the moon. This is incompatible with canon which has her owning a castle that was passed down through her family and living instead with her husband. The existence of this house on the moon does not line up with anything in the series and could never occur in canon and make sense. Yet, frequently my friends will reference this character's house on the moon in jokes and when talking about her character. This is purely fanon created by my friends, and it's just as valid a part of this character and our view of her as the canon elements of her character.

Fanon is itself a form of canon and it can be wonderful. Some people need to see Dick as having elder daughter syndrome, even though he doesn't, because it helps them find a character they connect to. Sometimes it's easier to understand the fanon version of a character than the complex intricacies of the canon character that are ever shifting as the writers change and make mistakes. Comics especially have too much canon for any one person to know everything about every character, and fanon was formed out of fans connecting with and developing their own collective ideas and headcanons of a character.

It's actually beautiful.

The problem is when someone comes into a fan creation and says "this is wrong becuase xyz doesn't line up with qpr about this character." It does not matter if the "qpr" is canon of fanon, that fan is entitled to their own creation, their own formation of their story or art, their own development of the character.

A friend of mine pointed out that there is no such thing as an OOC character as long as the character does what is established for them to do in that art. If you want to ship Dick and Kory because they're together in canon or Dick and Wally because you think they have chemistry, you're valid. Any artform is valid whether it's based on canon or fanon, or anything in between.

I think we need to stop seeing fanspace as a commercial market and see it as a conversation. FTL has pointed this out more and more. We don't need to agree, we don't need to have everything allign to our thoughts about the characters because inevitably our interpretations are going to be different, we just need to respect those difference, and respect each other an our creations as what they are-- creative human expression.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Marketing Mishap

I have seen ELEMENTAL.

However, I cannot properly talk about it because my movie viewing experience was marred by two things: A very annoying audience (surprisingly, the *adults* and not all the many kids present, just my luck huh?), and out-of-nowhere bad news concerning a loved one... I plan on going back and seeing it again...

But, having actually **seen** this new Pixar movie... I can confirm, much like others are confirming... The marketing for this movie completely misrepresented it.

Now sometimes, that works out in a movie's favor. Sometimes it does not, and I feel that's the case with ELEMENTAL. The marketing department at the mouse seemed to think that merely saying "Here's the premise, here's some jokes, here's some pretty imagery" would get people rushing out on opening weekend. It is indeed a love story, but the mechanics and plotting were completely hidden by the trailers... The trailers said next to nothing about the movie's actual whole story.

The trades are already noting that this picture, along with ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE, are taking the top two spots (!) from this past weekend's #1 winner, THE FLASH. THE FLASH carries a "B" CinemaScore, while ELEMENTAL and SPIDER-VERSE both carry "A"s. Schools are out, too, in pretty much all of the country

Audiences dig the picture, and that may bode well for its second weekend, a weekend all to itself before INDIANA JONES 5 and RUBY GILLMAN (its more direct competition) release. While I don't know if it has a chance at making back its ludicrous $200m budget when all is said and done, the legs will indeed speak volumes... Much like they did for money-losing pictures like THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE (which enjoyed a near-10x multiplier back in early 2001, after a dismal opening weekend gross.).

I can see ELEMENTAL, should competition and movie ticket prices being so high that people have to be choosier and choosier by the month... Make at least 4x its $29m opening, which would at least bring it past $100m domestically. ONWARD will have been the only Pixar release to miss that domestically, and that was because it was literally cut right off by the pandemic one weekend in. ONWARD would've liked passed $100m in a not-COVID world, I reckon. Even LIGHTYEAR, awful legs and all, made it past $100m.

I remember once upon a long ago that $100m was a magic number for an animated movie to obtain domestically, and no not-Disney/not-Pixar movie achieved this until... THE RUGRATS MOVIE... In 1998. Nineteen-ninety-freakin'-eight... Kinda wild how $100m domestically is a "flop" these days... Really exposes how absurd box office and short-term gains are, doesn't it?

Anyways, I see a nice long life ahead of ELEMENTAL then. Another "flop" that could actually stick around... Like a lot of animated movies tend to do.

[writer-monster]

11 reasons why cap 4 should reintroduce Bucky Barnes as the love interest, an essay

to start this off, i am not writing this essay from a shipping place nor do i believe that this would have any influence at all over the upcoming movie. i expect nothing. this is simply something that i would personally like to see. (of course no hate to anybody who thinks differently)

here are 11 reasons why i think making Bucky into Sam Wilson's love interest in Cap 4 would be a good move for Disney.

-

1. on the Chinese film market - and why it's an irrelevant argument against the inclusion of homosexual themes in Cap 4

the Chinese film market is something that has been blamed for a lack of diversity in Hollywood films a lot lately. many people claim that this market with a lot of buying power has been responsible for the lack of gay and black representation in particular within Hollywood films.

and we have certainly seen Hollywood treating it as such, going so far as to cut gay scenes from movies for their Chinese releases, and vastly minimising John Boyega's (a black actor's) presence in the Chinese poster of Star Wars The Force Awakens.

[image ID: on the left is an image of the American poster for Star Wars The Force Awakens, featuring John Boyega prominently on the right-hand side. And on the right is the Chinese poster for the same movie, in which John Boyega is barely visible.]

so we know at the very least that Disney believes this through their own actions and efforts to self-censor for the different markets.

but Captain America 4 is a black-led movie, don't you forget. and Disney can't minimise Sam Wilson/Anthony Mackie in the movie or the poster because it's his movie and his poster. and no amount of creativity in the editing room can change that (thank God!).

so if by their own argument the film is already going to be either banned, panned or slammed in China... then what do they have to fear from making it a gay movie too?

-

2. oh, the queerbaiting

queerbaiting is an unusual cultural idea. and sometimes i find myself thinking that the term is far too easily used, but then all of a sudden i will stumble upon a movie or show that is so quintessentially cruel and overt in it's... well... queerbaiting that i will start to wonder what the hell kind of a bizarre relationship all these straight people seem to have with their friends. take Troy and Abed from Community or John and Sherlock from Sherlock as the perfect examples of this. (in which my reaction to the show's creators saying the show wasn't gay was to ask so then why did you make it so gay?!)

i felt that Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes in tfatws were getting quite close to this level of queerbaiting.

there was the field scene, the couple's counselling scene, the boat scene, the couple's counselling scene, Bucky going with Sam to face Karli when she told Sam to come alone, the couple's counselling scene, ALL the staring scenes, Sam checking out Bucky's ass here as they said goodbye, the "i would move in with him but" hidden scene, "Uncle Bucky" showing up at the cookout scene, the romantic walking off together into the sunset together ending scene, and the couple's counselling scene. did i forget anything? but i mean seriously, the couple's counselling scene!!! that thing they did with their legs and their crotches while staring deep into each other's eyes, would any straight guy willingly do that? do straight guys crotch-snuggle now?

[image ID: an image of Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes during the therapy scene with the quote, "Isn't anybody going to drag me into impromptu couple's therapy and slot my legs firmly between theirs before staring deeply into my eyes?"]

(yeah i stole this image from a buzzfeed article on the fan reactions to the couple's therapy scene. but given that they stole 80% of the content of that article from fandom tumblr, i think it's pretty even-steven.)

there's also the fact that people started talking about bisexual Bucky Barnes a lot after the tiger pictures line, and the lead writer Malcom Spellman responded to the talk of Bucky's bisexuality with "just keep watching". well we watched, Malcolm. but it's beginning to feel like you were just jerking us around.

-

3. the writing

seriously though, what else is Bucky Barnes doing right now in the MCU? his only remaining connection to anything going on right now is through Sam. there is literally nothing else established that's left for him to do that doesn't involve Sam. he moved to Louisiana to be closer to Sam (canonically), he hangs out with Sam's family (canonically), and Steve is presumably gone and is definitely not coming back for more adventures.

he has no villains or loose ends left. he has no other superheroes that he appears to be in contact with. he has no girlfriend or potential love interest, or even other friends or family. he is living in a tent that he has secretly set up in Sam's backyard and is mysteriously appearing from the bushes when it's time for dinner like a stray cat.

in my opinion there is no other meaningful and pre-established progression for Bucky's character that wouldn't just feel cheap.

plus, i don't think the general audience would be all that surprised if they kissed. i think a LOT of people picked up on all that tension. i think a lot of straight people picked up on all that tension too.

-

4. the chemistry between the actors & the chemistry between the characters

the original pitch for tfatws was essentially just this, it was the chemistry between Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie and their respective MCU characters of Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson.

now obviously Anthony and Sebastian are simply friends, and i wouldn't mean to imply anything more. but they are also not their characters.

Sam and Bucky's scenes together before tfatws were both limited and short, and yet audiences still fell in love with the dynamic between the two characters.

in interviews, these two actors are constantly slipping into character and flirting with each other and frankly it's adorable. plus it's really entertaining. i'd love to see that dynamic, unfiltered, in a movie.

because believe it or not the flirting is actually even more open in their interviews than it was in tfatws. and i'm leaving some links as proof.

this here is known as the "married" compilation

and here's a "lucky dip" selection of interviews - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,

and here's Anthony trying to get Seb to take his jacket off.

i'm just saying, why not let their chemistry shine? these two are so talented and so entertaining, especially when you put them in a room together. and can you imagine how absolutely hilarious and brilliant it would be to watch them navigate being a couple?

(and for those who bring up the "friends would be uncomfortable pretending to be dating" argument, i'm not here asking for a sex scene or anything. i don't think anyone would expect them to show any more intimacy (physical or emotional) while playing a couple than what they've already shown together in say... tfatws or in their own interviews. not that i actually expect anything regardless.)

-

5. if they were a man and a woman they would've gotten together in tfatws

i have no more to add here. just that... yeah, they would've.

-

6. and i'm not talking about the comics here, i'm talking about the MCU.

i understand fully that none of what i'm saying here falls in line with these characters from the comics. but the mcu itself doesn't fall much in line with the comics either, and these two characters especially are very different from their comics counterparts.

i'm not asking for these two to get together in the comics. tbh i don't think that it would work.

but the mcu Sam and Bucky are different and closer than their comics counterparts. they've got different histories, different backstories, and a very different dynamic. please rest assured that i am only talking about them in the mcu.

-

7. Bucky Barnes is believably bisexual. and Sam Wilson has never been proven to be straight in the mcu, nor has he had a love interest.

(now please continue to keep in mind that these points only stand for the mcu versions of Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson, and not at all for their comics counterparts.)

Sam Wilson has never had a love interest, which is crazy because have you seen that man! he has had two blink and you'll miss it moments of verbal expression of attraction to women, both in TWS. and that's the extent of it, through his entire history in the mcu.

Bucky Barnes has had a number of surface-level female love interests, but none of them even came close to the level of connection and chemistry that Bucky shares with Sam.

and i'm sorry SarahBucky fans, but i just don't think there's very much to their relationship either. i love Sarah, i really do. but it's Sam who shares all the meaningful moments and history and chemistry with Bucky. and i don't see what making her into a love interest would do for Sarah's character either, what would that add to her story?

[Picture ID: Bucky at the cookout with Sam, Sarah, Cass and AJ. Bucky and Sam are looking at each other and smiling.]

and also there is the whole tiger pictures thing... again. which does strongly suggest that Bucky is bisexual whether this was intentional on behalf of the writers or not.

-

8. it's representation... AND it feels natural

marvel hasn't had a lot of queer representation that's been noticeably present in the MCU at the time of writing this.

there have been a lot of failures so far, from the bisexual erasure of Valkyrie in Thor Ragnarok to the wlw erasure in Black Panther.

there was queerbaiting almost identical to the bisexual Bucky baiting for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. when asked if he had considered featuring a gay hero in gotg2, director James Gunn stated that "We might have already done that. I say, watch the movie." after the movie's release audiences were understandably confused about the lack of queer representation. To which the director followed up his comments with, "But we don't really know who's gay and who's not. It could be any of them."

there is also Loki, considered by most fans after the airing of his six episode series on Disney+ to be both a poor attempt at both genderfluid representation and bisexual representation. with both attempts being summed up fairly well by the term "blink-and-you'll-miss-it". (also it's just terribly written and Loki doesn't wear any interesting clothes! fanficcers are a Goddamn blessing in this hard time!)

and let us not forget that Andrew Garfield was apparently FIRED for pushing for a bisexual spiderman. a bisexual spiderman within an interracial mlm relationship no less.

so for all these failures, marvel, why not allow us queer fans this? two brilliant and heroic men in a loving interracial relationship. two heroes that we can look up to.

now, one of the biggest detractions from the argument for representation is the idea of "forced diversity". and some poorly written characters certainly do end up feeling forced into the narrative. take Iceman in the comics for example, with Jean Grey just straight up suddenly telling him he's gay. like, marvel, sweetie, that's not how this works! and i don't know a lot of queer people who thought much of that "representation".

but the crux of the "forced diversity" argument is almost always that it feels unnatural within the story, right? and i don't think that anyone could say that about MCU Sam and Bucky ending up together, given these characters' existing chemistry and their history. they've both played characters in gay relationships before so we know that it's not outside of either actor's wheelhouse. and y'all know that Anthony and Seb can act, people. if it's in the script i believe that they'll make it seem like the most natural thing on earth.

-

9. it'd be a nice change

there's been an ongoing meme lately about "Disney's first gay character", the joke being that they continually announce gay characters without really ever including gay characters in their films.

this is to the point where Disney has formed a reputation amongst queer audiences of being homophobic.

if Sam and Bucky were to become a couple, then Disney could have its first actual gay character within a gay relationship. AND have him be in the lead of his own movie, no less.

it's also worth keeping in mind that there's likely an overlap between the people who were outraged by a Sam Wilson Captain America, and the people who'd be outraged by a gay Captain America. and if they were already not seeing the film, then i don't think much is gonna change that.

queer audiences would definitely love it, and the media attention would be guaranteed to be huge. i mean, simply look at the amount of media attention mere rumours of a character's queerness gets you and multiply that by a canon confirmation of said rumours.

but i'm pretty sure that Disney already knows this.

-

10. and yet, in truth, it's not about the representation

in truth i've never felt that i had any trouble relating to characters of any sexual orientation, race, gender, sex, body type, etc. (although that is not to throw any shade at all on people who do wish to see themselves represented) but for me, i think it's more about the story than the packaging.

and yet, a love story is still just a story. straight or queer, monoethnic or interracial. when two characters have chemistry and history and have sacrificed for each other time and time again, and they also can't keep their hands or their eyes off each other, then i'm pretty sure that that's a love story.

straight or queer, monoethnic or interracial, it shouldn't be about these simple labels. it should be about how well written the relationship is. it should be about chemistry, and history, and sacrifice.

because i'm fucking sick of all the hollow, forced romances in media no matter the genders of the participants. i'm sick of lazily written, shallow relationships where any two people sharing the same space for any extended period of time will simply fall in love. it's boring, it's repetitive, and as a writer myself it drives me up the wall!

romance stories suck! and everyone knows that romance stories suck. between twilight, and most of the entire YA genre, and love triangles (so boring), and romance used as poorly-written throwaway subplots in Hollywood movies, the world is in agreement that the romance in western media is simply dreadful. and yet we still want love stories. it's an entire genre that sits at the heart of the human experience (<3), and yet one which so few of today's best known writers seem truly able to capture.

i don't think that i'm the only one who feels this way, either. i suspect it's actually a large part of why fandom is so romance-centred in the first place, that we're all just starving for a good love story.

(btw i think fandom has a reputation for being something that as a whole that it is not. it has this reputation for straight up demanding things and harassing people until they get their way. while unfortunately there are a few people who do this, they're fucking annoying and i swear that they're far from the majority.

in my experience fandom is mostly about writing a five thousand word story at three am while drunk off your ass because it might make someone whom you've never met smile, editing it in the cold light of day, and then posting it. expecting nothing. sometimes getting nothing. and sometimes getting someone send you kudos or a comment so heartbreakingly wonderful that it makes you smile in return.)

-

11. so once again, it is all about the writing.

i want to see Sam and Bucky get together in the mcu, not because they would be a gay couple but because i genuinely believe that their story has potential to be an amazing love story.

and i know the mcu isn't about the romance. it's why in my personal opinion we haven't gotten a lot of good canon romances besides Peter Quill and Gamora. and i don't think that the mcu should be all about the romance either. i fucking love the action and the fighting scenes. i love the comedy. Captain America: The Winter Soldier had no romance and it was a fucking treasure, it was an amazing spy-action-thriller and it made my little gay heart dance. Thor Ragnarok had no romance, and it was an utterly brilliant comedic spectacle action film. not every movie needs romance.

but mcu Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes were doing couple's therapy and fixing a boat and walking off into the sunset together in tfatws. they were inseparable on the battlefield. they've got a dynamic. it's beautiful, it's romantic, and it's gold.

a budding relationship between them in the next movie would be a good way to explore both characters more without the narrative feeling too stilted and separate. at the end of tfatws, both Sam and Bucky fans found that their respective fave felt somewhat underutilised and that their characters were underexplored.

now, that problem would be even more difficult to remedy in a movie, because the plotline of a movie needs to be really tight to work (giggity). and we know that the central conflict of the movie is gonna be action-based (which is good), but we still need each character's personal journey and growth to tie into the main conflict. (which is another issue that some fans found with tfatws, that these characters didn't really feel connected to the action-based plot on a more personal level.)

if Sam and Bucky are already in a relationship, however, this whole dynamic changes. first, their relationship has already been set up for nicely since TWS and through tfatws and they would officially be the best-fleshed-out couple in the mcu. but most importantly, a relationship gives them a perfect vehicle to explore both of their pasts comparatively and connect them personally to the action-based plot.

do you want to establish that Sam is a little too trusting and naïve? then establish this through his relationship with Bucky, and through showing his placing his trust in Bucky. (rather than through having him sympathise with a villain who threatened to murder his sister and his nephews).

perhaps you want to show Bucky recovering from his trauma? show us how comfortable he is with Sam. they get along, they're enjoying each other's presence, we see more of Sam's life and of his family, and then let Bucky tell Sam something that's raw and dark and honest about his life as The Winter Soldier. something about a memory, one that he only just recalled. he's opening up. and maybe what he tells Sam is even something that sets up the future action-based conflict, to ground that in something real.

you want to explore that Sam has trauma too? do this through Bucky. he tells Bucky a story about his time in the military. in the form of a flashback, he shares his own story of loss to evoke before the audience the shared theme of feeling at fault even when you're simply a helpless bystander to an act of pure destruction.

then, action sequence! and it's directly connected to Bucky's time as the Winter Soldier. explore the grief of someone whose life the Winter Soldier tore apart manifesting into a villain perpetuating the cycle of pain. establish your villain.

Later, Sam is dragged into battle against this villain for protecting Bucky. But Bucky doesn't want Sam to protect him. He feels guilt for what he can't control and he doesn't want Sam getting hurt because of him. Bucky reminds Sam that he has a family, one who needs him and who loves him. He tells him to go home.

Sam reminds Bucky that he's a part of that family. And that sure Sam's a hero and his job is to protect anyone and everyone, but that he's doing it because he wants to. It's not simply to prove that he can, or to prove that he's not a bystander (this connects to Sam's trauma here), but that he's doing it to help people.

and this gets Bucky thinking about who he is and what he's doing here. is he a hero who stands by Sam's side? or is he an ordinary man who stands aside? or perhaps, does he stand alone? what does he stand for? Maybe Sam knows. But does Bucky?

Sam and Bucky fight off the villain again, and for the first time Bucky meets this adversary face to face. And Bucky recognises this villain, and has a flashback to the genuine pain that he inflicted upon them in the form of the Winter Soldier. Bucky freezes mid-fight, he almost dies, and Sam has to save him.

Sam chews Bucky out for almost getting killed because he was afraid for him. but Bucky takes this the wrong way and goes off to fight the villain alone, or perhaps to die alone, he's not quite sure.

He puts up a half-hearted fight. He apologises for what the Winter Soldier has done, and he waits for the killing blow, when Sam swoops down and he saves him. He asks Sam why he saved him and Sam calls him a moron. And then, Sam asks him what sacrificing himself would solve. He tells him that you can't choose your past but you can choose your future (connecting to his own experience of loss and guilt and grief). And that no matter what Bucky Barnes still has a future, whether that's as the Winter Soldier or the White Wolf or just some dork with a day job. And that he has a future as a part of Sam's family too.

Sam fights the villain, and it's toe to toe. He delivers a few good blows, but receives a fair few himself. And then the villain tears off his wings, first one and then the other, in a manner reminiscent of what the Winter Soldier did to him in TWS. Through Bucky's eyes there's a flashback to highlight the parallels. Sam gets back on his feet and he fights his best fight, but is now losing.

And then the heavily injured Bucky steps up and fights by Sam's side, and only together do they take down the villain.

"So... I inspired you, huh?" Sam teases with a smile, utterly exhausted. "With my heroism and-"

"You inspired me." Bucky said, equally exhausted. "Let's leave it at that."

Together, Sam and Bucky go back to the safety and warmth of their family. Sam fixes his wings. Sam goes back to being Captain America. And Bucky... he's around, but it's unclear what he's doing.

That is, until the very end. When Sam is in a fight, and suddenly Bucky shows up and helps him out.

"What are you doing here?" Sam asks.

"I've made up my mind." Bucky says. "I'm the Winter Soldier. But now I'll save lives, Sam. Now, like you, I'll be a hero."

Sam smirks. "So does this make you my sidekick, then?"

Bucky smiles. "C'mon, at least make me a partner." He says.

"How about co-workers." Sam says (in flashback, he remembers back to the death of his last on-the-job partner).

"How about friends." Bucky says, with a wry look.

"Bucky... I don't want to see you put your dumbass self in danger." Sam says.

"Oh, and it's ok for you to go running off into danger on your own all the time?" Bucky asks.

"Yes." Sam says stubbornly. "Absolutely it is."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not a dumbass?!"

"Sam, if you think I'm not gonna be watching your back for the rest of time... then you're the biggest dumbass I know. And I don't care if you need me or not, I will be there for you."

"Because Sam, you're more than Captain America. You're more than a good soldier. You're a good man. And I think sometimes, the world forgets what the difference is."

-

...or something like that.

(i only spent like 15 minutes on that. you know if i were actually writing this movie i would come up with something much better. and if anyone from marvel is seeing this, yes i can come work for you. i will make the time, let's do this thing right!)

-

finale

at the end of the day, whether or not the mcu chooses to make Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes a couple, it's their decision. and they don't owe me anything.

i'm just some random person on the internet. who thinks that Captain America 4 should #givecaptainamericaaboyfriend

[blorbosexterminator]

I believe a lot of fanfic writers would be massively disappointed if they were to try and publish their fanfics (having changed the most identifying characteristics to present it as original work). bc one of the reasons why we never say anything when someone's writing is full of spelling mistakes or bad grammar or, imo the most serious flaws - plots, characters, the low quality of the story itself, the themes, the subtext, the deeper meaning, etc - the reason, besides the whole participating in fandom communities and the fact it's free, is that we easily overlook some of those things because we get to read more about the characters we already love. I know my ff standards are fairly low. and who hasn't found themselves in a situation where they've read through everything they initially wanted to read and then started reading even the fics they first disregarded bc they can't get enough of their otp. do you know how many times I've scrolled past some especially cringy parts of fanfics, but I still love them. when you publish it, you immediately lose that aspect and most reviewers and readers won't be particularly generous. I just think publishing ff has a very high chance of being a mistake, and if publishing houses are approaching ff writers, I don't think they're looking for high quality and I wonder how much they'd invest in serious editing. IMO those who write ff and want to be published should consider working on an original piece of work, or at least reworking their ff significantly. thanks for reading through my message.

Again, I can't say I disagree at all. Fanfiction doesn't hold a grasp in all of those aspects you mentioned against actual published books [and of course nothing at all against the few of those books we would actually dare to call literature] and we allow it and are fine with it, not just because it's free and about the community and about the basic delight in sharing more of the characters we care about, but because none of those things are the primarily function of fanfiction. You don't judge Ikea and an apartment you're going to rent in the same mannar. Ikea isn't a house. At least to me, fanfiction is only about the source material. If there is a fic that has a well-thought out plot and decent prose, but the characters are mischaracterized and/or the dynamics are inherently misunderstood, then it still fails at being a good fic to me. Because, simply, if what I'm looking for is a good plot and decent prose, then I'll just pick any, even a mediocre, book [and it'll be better than said fic]. So not only does fanfiction fail by large at competing in those elements, in the average ratio of good to bad fics, it's also the fact that even a good fic that does all of those things decently still won't hold a chance against an actual good book.

It's the same from a writing's perspective too. It's not exactly about effort but what sort of effort it is. If I feel like it, I can just post a fic because I want it out without spending millenia editing it. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. But the point is, with fanfic I have the choice and it won't matter. And it's not just about the editing, the grammar, etc.

Anyway, yeah. They aren't looking for quality. It's still a capitalisic endeavor. Bad books, unfortunately, do sell. Fifty Shades of Grey made millions to an average fanfic writer. Doesn't make it a good book [and I doubt even a good fic before that]. And it's understandable with this current twitter and tiktok book market; honestly the things twitter authors write and tiktokers promote aren't at all that much better than fanfics. They are well aware of what makes them money, and if they're pursuing ao3 writers then they know the money they'll put in editing, they will get back tenfold. But if anyone thinks that's a win for fanfiction, they are mistaken. It's just an insane downgrade in published literature. And dare I say [while risking sounding like a Harold Bloom-like boomer] it's an insane downgrade in the generation/public's reading taste.

[i-did]

hi hello i couldn't sleep last night so i was scrolling thru all ur asks and stuff and ur opinions and analyses are so interesting!!! and then afterwards i was thinking about what u were saying about mlm smut and i'd also been thinking about such things a little bit recently bc like.....at a certain point it becomes quite clear that the vast majority of smut-writing is just imitation. like there's the sex noise verb list and all and the whole general mechanics of the sex and those things just .... replicate over and over. and the whole thing w people writing mlm vs wlw smut regardless of their own sexual orientation..... like i feel like a big part of that is just a self-perpetuating thing. like if u have not had sex and u r getting all ur (pleasure-related) sex ed from fandom (even if u do watch porn, that doesn't rlly tell u how to describe stuff? idk) regardless of What fandom , the majority is going to be mlm smut. which is itself majority imitation of other mlm smut, imitating and imitating back to whoever knows what the first smut fanfic was etc. there's just way More to mimic than there is on the women side of things. which then becomes a self-perpetuating thing, bc the mimicry continues and generates more and more. and---if there are fundamental misunderstandings of anatomy involved---those self-perpetuate as well. and maybe even exaggerate. and yeah. does this all make sense? idk i was just thinking about it. like all the stereotypes and stuff continue bc writers are getting their inspo from other writers rather than their own brains. or something. idk!!!!! it's just all... divorced from reality? bc words. or something!! i hope u get what i'm trying to say. just thoughts i've been thinking. anyway i think ur thoughts are cool. and ur writing. ok bye have a good day!!

Okay yeah this is kinda messy but hope u see this, uhh yeah I think you're right about the echo chamber effect fr about stuff. I think it's a mix of projecting too sometimes. talk more under the cut and also link to a video essay since I love video essays.

Here’s a video that sort of touches on this topic: 

“Gay fanfiction” by Sarah Z. (has CC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8E_C00dKwI

This video begins to talk about fetishization at the end, but also… not really. The words “gay fanfiction” is used as a catchall, when really gay fanfiction is largely mlm written by non-mlm.

Fandom is a largely women's space dominated by the female gaze in a media industry world that is dominated by men and the male gaze. I'm really glad women have this space to explore creativity and queerness, and I don't expect the female gaze to go away, but I am still ultimately bummed out I can’t read most fanfic or interact with most fandom spaces without having fetishization in my face. 

So about 80% of fandom is women, and most of those women aren't straight, but 90% of those women prefer mlm ships. Why don’t they prefer wlw ships? Well definitely part of it is the fact that queerbaiting is centered around white straight men, and then there is also the fact that women tend not to be written as well charcter wise. But the fact still remains that you get jerjean getting priority over Layla and Alvarez who are in canon just as much and are a canon wlw couple who actually interact as well as Alvarez could likely be a woc because of her Hispanic last name. Korasami doesn’t get nearly as much hype as zuko and saka, despite the fact that they are 2 fully dimensional characters who canonly kiss and hold hands, something the creators fought for and ended up having to sacrifice another reboot for. 

I do believe the fandom echo-chamber is largely responsible for… a lot of things, like you're saying. But what's interesting is that the complaints I've heard about visual porn from non mlm in the fandom space is that they can’t get off to it because its for the male gaze and misogynistic usually. But they also don't seem to notice how the mlm smut circles has the female gaze and is also… almost always mlm. If it was a pure anatomical not knowing thing, I get that, but I also think that leads to the question of “then why the male body for porn, and not your own? The one you know and are familiar with?” 

I know some people want to get outside of their own body for porn and don’t want to think of their own anatomy at all, but overall I'm still uncomfortable. If an anglo said “well I watch porn of only Mexicans so I don't self insert” I'm gonna be like … hhhh in a similar way. I understand people “like what they like” but I wish they also noticed said patterns in the first place. I understand the t4t tumblr porn circle, and how it's different from cis people who only watch trans porn. 

I actually wished that instead of fandom focusing on mlm ships where some asshole guy hits on bottom troupe charcter for top troupe character to save, was instead… a wlw character experiencing said shitty getting hit on and other wlw swooping in. what's interesting is fandom writes a lot about misogynistic experiences without often realizing it. Ive read fanfic where guys get called sluts for sleeping with people or called bitch for speaking their mind, these arent things men usually experience, but rather women. Fandom has a lot of internalized misogyny and also queerphobia imo. Women characters often get pushed to the sidelines and men become the canvas for female fans to project onto. 

There is this natural inclination to mlm. When people are talking about “gay shipping” or “gay books” or “gay feels” or even just “gay” mlm is what’s largely in mind. I honestly am kinda saddened by this because if gay fanfiction was really solely about writing more to feel represented, then you would see a lot of bi and ace and lesbian rep, but this isn't the case. Queer women are seriously underrepresented, and I want to hear their stories and read them in fanfiction as well as published. 50% of lgbt literature is mlm, and of that its largely written by women. Becky Albertalli, Rainbow Rowell, Maggie Stiefvater, are the YA big names and are all women writing mlm. Red white and royal blue is written by Casey McQuiston and Captive prince (which is not YA) is written by C. S. Pacat, who is non-binary, but is also TME and not mlm. These are all the big names in mlm lit, behind them is some gay men, but honestly their stories aren't preferred, they're not the right “flavor” for the consumers usually, who are largely women. In general YA consumers and authors are women, but I wish that they… just wrote about women too. I think there is a certain… snowball effect to the overrepresentation of mlm representing the whole LGBT community that leads to fetishization, as well as misogyny playing a factor in: less women characters being written well to write fanfic on, when they are written well they're taken less seriously or the audience struggles to relate to them, they're less marketable then men. 

Idk I never feel “seen” or “represented” by any of the books above, which don't address boyhood and manhood and queerness intersecting really, and AFTG doesn’t either. I relate to AFTG as a trauma victim who has experienced a lot of what many of the characters go through and have gone through in the EC as well as them just overall being very well written characters, but I don't relate to it as a mlm really. I've never seen like.. gay voice or being straight passing or femphobia or how boyhood can be affected from a young age by those around you sensing you're ‘other’ or if you didn't experience this you feel outside the mlm community. Let alone sub cultures like bear and leather and pup, at most you see the word “he's such a twink” in fandom which... i fr hate non mlm using that word because it's usually used to replace the f-slur essentially, used derogatorily or to call him “such a bottom” and stuff like that. It’s like a joke or an insult.

Long story short, idk mang this was a ramble and I think I'm coning down with something. I wanna see more queer women rep and women authors writing about being a queer woman too. I think it's a complex web of fetishization and a bit of forbidden love yaoi culture (or it used to be in the BOYXBOY days) as well as misogyny on an industry level, creator level, as well as reader/consumer and fandom level. I don’t think it’s inherently wrong to explore other peoples stories and what we read has to be segregated, “only mlm are allowed to read and write mlm, only wlw are allowed to read and write wlw,” but I also think author’s intent and audience and background is telling, as well as overall statistics. Like about an hour ago I was looking for cookbooks in spanish or in english, and I was looking for some mexican food cook books, but I had to look for them using words in spanish because otherwise what came up was a bunch of “fiesta party, easy as uno dos tres authentic cooking!” and I was like… hm. Since I could tell they were marketing to anglos. (also the author’s last names were like michelle smith, james cooper, and this could be for a variety of reasons, but I trust Hispanic names more tbh and deadass would look at the authors pictures and if they had other books in Spanish or what their specialties were.)

anyways. not sure how to end this. uhm if anyone has any book recs (my to read list is like 500 books tho no joke) preferably not YA white mlm written by a white lady, hopefully queer women written by queer woman, LMK, I need more wlw and queer women stories on my list. I have a decent amount but always looking for more. I kinda wanna link my goodreads or my storygraph but I also don't want to get doxxed and it has my legal name on it so.

Also, I'm dyslexic and using spell check but if there's like some wild typos my b.

[arsenicpanda]

Thing is when it comes to ships, shipper goggles are such a huge factor that they cloud everything else. BH shippers see things one way JT shippers another, then there's (those few of us) who ship both BH and JT who see things differently again, when you're a shipper it's hard to see things objectively. Focusing more on BH, let's take last weeks episode, when JH had those flashes of memory BHs saw it as this massive conformation that he's still in love with Betty, I personally didn't see it that way, I saw shock and him looking slightly uncomfortable, and he was so relieved Tabitha texted him, he loves Tabitha and they make each other happy i believe that wholeheartedly, and his reaponse even in text form seemed so heartfelt to me. But let's say that the BH stans were right in theie interpretation, the part of me that ships BH can't celebrate that, because again as in S5 any hint of remaining feeling between them is from JH, Betty from what we've been shown on screen has no romantic feelings left for Jughead, so I cannot be happy with him ending in a relationship where he's with someone who doesn't love him the same way, or worse have him end up being someone Betty settles for when Archie and Veronica inevitably reunite, why would I want that when I can have Jabitha, a relationship that is mutual and I think beautiful, where both parties are equal and actually LOVE EACH OTHER. I'm not saying I'm not open to a BH reunion but I don't see how they can realistically write one now that does any of these characters justice. Also I like to believe I'm generally a good person but there's a small part of me like 0.005% that doesn't want BH to get back together simply because I find the racist way they talk about Tabitha and the way they act like JHs only purpose is to be Betty's security blanket disgusting.

You are correct, shipper goggles extremely affect how a person views a show, and, speaking in a general sense, I think that is both fascinating and frustrating. Fascinating because it can lead to such a diverse collection of reads on a text (regardless of medium), and frustrating because it can sometimes feel like people are being willfully obtuse about what is going on in a text. I have certainly predicted the future events in a series incorrectly because of my shipper goggles (*cough*atla*cough*), and, when that happens (as it has many times), I always like to look back and go “oh, what did I miss?” as well as “how stupid were the things that I missed?” because I am judgmental.

I find the disconnect with the end of 6x14 to be more tiring than anything, because it was very obviously a deliberate set up to go “oooo, look at this, could bh be returning? Or will we stick with jt? Tune in next week and every week after that until we finally address this!” and both stir up conversation on twitter as well as pull bh fans back into the show to increase ratings, which are certainly flagging (although, per Parrot Analytics, Riverdale has a 32.62x demand distribution, which is marked as “exceptional” and is a level of demand that only 0.2% of all tv shows in the market have, and it also ranks in the 99th percentile in the Teen genre ; additionally, while its current demand rank is #78, its peak rank during the past week was #38, so it’s doing pretty well for itself). And it did stir up conversation! That night bh trended and everything! And a number of people also talked about how the episode was disrespectful to Tabitha (which it was)! Their plan worked! Yes, it was disrespectful to Tabitha, and yes, if this is the set up for a bh reunion, it’s the worst possible set up for one, but it got people talking and possibly returning!

The cynicism of it all gets to me, the placement of buzz over story and character.

But, that aside, we’re basically back where we were after 5x10 aired and everyone had different interpretations of Jughead’s Betty hallucination and the bunker scene with Tabitha. And I hate it here, it’s so tiring. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t address the matter in the next episode, and we’re just going to sit on it for god know how long, and I am tired, let’s just commit to one direction and go, please, and do it in a non-bullshit way, one that doesn’t ruin Jughead.

As for your bit on Betty (man did I take a while to get here), I think there is wiggle room to interpret her as having interest in Jughead. I still believe that the close up of Kevin during the jt moment at the end of 5x18 was meant to set up a scene in 5x19 where Kevin told Betty about jt getting together that was cut for time and/or characterization, because why else would he be there? And, even though that moment isn’t there, I can’t help but at least want to interpret Betty’s relationship with Archie through that lens (as well as her rushing to save him in 5x17 and also a couple of other moments in that episode) for Betty/Jughead/Tabitha reasons. And we get some concern from her about Jughead in…5x07? That moment where Archie goes “Well, at least he’s got Tabitha” and her face in the reverse shot can be interpreted in multiple ways. And the mind reading scenes are a goddamn free-for-all, and of course chemistry is subjective, so that’s a factor in reading her scenes with Jughead as well. So, there’s room, basically.

I would argue that there are a couple of moments for Jughead→Betty in 5a, as well as a couple in 5b that shipper goggles can read in a romantic way, but I think that, once we get to 5b, and particularly those last moments in 5x14, we close the door on romantic Jughead→Betty and enter fully into Jughead→Tabitha and getting Jughead sober and in a place where Jughead and Tabitha can date without risk of Jughead’s Issues ruining it, basically. And then they have three episodes (5x17-5x19) of Jughead just supporting Tabitha and helping her in every way he can to kind of even out their relationship so that it’s equal, and it’s not just Tabitha supporting Jughead; they support each other. And after that, when we get to 6b (the Riverdale part of s6), it’s just a matter of who needs support in a given episode (Jughead’s hearing loss, Tabitha’s trouble with saving Pop’s, Tabitha brings Jughead Pop’s to eat, Jughead always does the dishes, etc, etc). They’re equal, and they clearly love each other; it’s just a matter of when we get that parallel to the Rivervale love confession.

(Although, in defense of bh, there’s also the bh makeout to save the world from 6x05 looming overhead, and, as with Betty, 6x14 is pretty much a free-for-all.)

ANYWAY

My interpretation of Betty is “I would like to believe she is settling for Archie because Jughead and Tabitha are dating each other and she doesn’t know how to slide into that, but, realistically, the intent is likely that she probably wants to be with Archie to some unknown degree but will break up with him for drama reasons involve her threat aura and fear of hurting people or something and then start dating Agent Drake, and then idk what will happen from there.” I think she and Jughead will have some more friendly interactions and we’ll either get a 6x05 parallel or a flash to their kiss in 6x05 during some important moment or something idk, idk, that one is super up for grabs.

But yeah, I agree, I don’t see a good way back to bh for multiple reasons, as I’ve said before. It would involve a mess of racist tropes and be deeply uncomfortable, and “Tabitha has tried to save Jughead 1384 times, but yeah, Jughead ends up with Betty” would be absolutely bizarre as a storytelling choice, so I’ve got nothing there.

Also, I have been fortunate to largely avoid seeing the more racist discussions of Tabitha and jt by bh fans because I filtered out every possible anti jt tag the second I started shipping it and unfollowed people who made that kind of post but didn’t tag it, but I have certainly have had the displeasure of seeing some of those posts in the past and heard about them from other jt fans, and it’s just so disappointing, isn’t it? The bh fandom had picked up on the racist way ba fans have talked about Veronica, but multiple people fail to notice when they dip into similar racist tropes themselves. Ah, how difficult it is to see the splinter in your own eye.

(Let it be known that jt fans are not innocent either; I have seen a few too many people across various parts of the internet who focus too heavily on how much Tabitha cares for and supports Jughead, and it can drift a bit too close to being all about how much a Black woman helps a white guy with no regard for reciprocity for my taste. The same can be true for bjt fans, just broadening Jughead to Jughead and Betty.)

As for that 0.005%, I get that, I do. A fandom’s behavior can often shape our opinions about a ship for the better and the worse, and the occasional spiteful desire is, I think, normal. Just don’t get carried away, y’know?

Anyway, that was long and rambling. I think I answered everything? Please tell me if I didn’t.

[wr1t3-my-wr0ngs]

Farewell, Chapter 2/2

It's a year before he sees her again.

The farm grows slowly, but as Lothal recovers and the Galaxy needs less and less resistance help to remove the remaining Imperial presence, Rex is able to spend more time with his hands in the soil.

He's planting Biituian Orange trees (they won't produce fruit for another three years, and the thought that he may never see their first harvest is not lost on him) when he hears a shuttle land by the house.

Wiping sweat from his brow and dust from his hands, Rex stands and makes his way over to greet his visitor.

Despite the cloak and their back being to him, Rex's heart jumps at the sight of Montrals beneath the grey fabric. When she turns, he can't help the smile that stretches across his face.

She smiles back, in a way he can't remember her doing since she was still a padawan: open and joyous and carefree.

One day becomes two, becomes a week, becomes a year.

She stays in fits and bursts, at first in the spare room, her things packed away neatly ready to be collected at a moments notice, the job of a Jedi never truly done. Over time they spread out; a toothbrush in the bathroom, her preferred blend of caf in the cupboards, until it eventually becomes her sabers next to his their bed, her armor by the bedroom door, his head tucked under her chin as they lay together beneath light sheets in the heat of a summer night.

It's not perfect; she has her duties; he has his. They argue and they fight, learn each others edges and curves in this new domestic world, learn to fit together as Rex and Ahsoka, not Captain and Commander.

On days when she doesn't have to go, when the fledgling Jedi order does not demand the assistance of their greatest Knight, she is in the fields beside him—directing the hired hands as needed, entertaining curious younglings that come to see for themselves two legends of the rebellion, dirt-stained and beautiful.

When she must go, her ships leave early in the morning, and despite the protest of his knees in the cold air Rex is always there to see her off. Leans in to press a kiss to her dark lips, his beard brushing her face, feeling her smile at the sensation. Watches as she climbs the ramp, her grey cloak swishing about her ankles, and stays there until her ship is nothing more than a speck in the sky.

The days (weeks, sometimes the occasional month) that she is gone pass in a regular fashion, filled with the farm, friends, and sometimes a mission of his own. It would be a lie to say that he does not count them, does not miss her warmth in bed, or her half-awake shuffling to the caf maker in the mornings.

She's been gone for three days, and the sun beats down on the clone's neck as he winds his way through the open market, passing stalls of fruit and parts and various other things, having purchased his necessities and now just wandering, letting the idle chattering of the crowd wash over him.

From the corner of his eye, Rex spots the glinting of metal, and he finds himself standing in front of a jewelers stall, looking over a selection of bands and rings, occasionally dotted with a brightly colored stone.

The stall owner chatters away as he looks over the assemblage, more curiosity than actual interest when one set towards the back catches his attention. Brushed steel shines in the the afternoon sun, faint scratches and grooves that catch the light and remind the clone of worn lightsaber handles, utilitarian and elegant. Of course, the ring fits, and in the depths of his mind, he hears General Kenobi mutter about the force working in mysterious ways. The stall owner mistakes the smile on his face for joy at having found the perfect gift; Rex doesn't correct him and tucks the small box into his jacket.

His speeder bike hums as it flys over the grassy fields around his home, not an overly long ride, but long enough that by the time he sees the ranch in the distance, the sky is beginning to darken. When he arrives, the lights are on, and as he dismounts the bike he throws the bag over his shoulder while his other hand reaches for his hip, fingers brushing over where his service weapon used to sit out of pure habit, before the aroma of cooking stew reaches him and he relaxes.

Sure enough, standing in the kitchen, stripped down to her leggings and undershirt, humming along to the radio while mindfully watching over a simmering pot, is Ahsoka.

He takes a moment to lean against the doorway and drink in the sight of her, from the movement of her hips as she lightly dances to the sway of her rear head-tail. The music changes, and so do her movements, in time with the now slow staccato beat. Its when he catches her grin over her shoulder that he knows he's been caught in his silent watching, suspects that she knew the whole time.

Walking past the table, Rex sets down the bag, hardly pausing before he's behind her, hands on her hips and chin hooked over her shoulder.

"You're back early."

She leans back into his chest, and he can feel her smile where their faces touch.

"Surprised?"

He hums in response, and kisses her on the cheek.

"Its a good surprise, though."

They stand there for a few minutes, the music softly playing in the background as the aroma of stew fills the air. Rex eventually lets go and pulls of his jacket and begins setting the table.

The food, as always when Ahsoka cooks, is delicious — but Rex knows he could be eating rations in the rain, and it would still be the best meal he has had as long as he's sharing it with her. The conversation flows, and they swap stories of what their time apart held, why her assignment to Mon Cala was cut short, how the new farmhand is working out, no detail too small to be not of interest.

When the two are done, he clears the table, puts away the leftovers, and is halfway through washing up when he hears a soft gasp behind him.

He dries his hands and turns, only to be caught motionless at the wide-eyed and open-mouthed (wondrous his mind supplies) look on Ahsoka's face as she stares down at the Togrutan wedding bands in her hands, his jacket a heap on the floor.

Slowly, oh so slowly, she looks up at him.

His heart thunders in his chest, and suddenly he doesn't feel Thirty-Seven/Seventy-Four, doesn't feel like an old grizzled war veteran, forgets for a moment that he's a clone that outlived the purpose he was bred for.

In that moment he's Rex, just a man, feeling like a shiny standing for his first inspection, confident and nervous all at once.

It's her voice that sets time back in motion, (and it's fitting that it's his name from her lips that calls him back, knows he would follow has followed that call across the galaxy so long as it's her calling).

He finds his feet and walks over to her, answering that call, cups her hands in his holding onto the box together. And he couldn't stop this hope that has bloomed in his chest if he wanted to, the kind of hope that hurts for how full it makes you feel (he doesn't want to, made a choice a long time ago on a barren, frozen planet, to hope in Ahsoka Tano, and twenty-odd years haven't changed that).

She launches herself at him, all twelve inches of space gone in a moment, wraps her arms around his neck. And he laughs, lifts her off her feet and spins around, her shouts of "Yes! Yes! Yes!" the sweetest benediction he had ever known.

And he knows that she cannot stay, would never ask that of her, but the knowledge that she always returns, that it is him and his side that she has chosen to call her home is all the sweeter for it.

In the end, he's the one to leave.

Two years later, three years after the fall of Endor, with the scent of Biituian blossoms that will bear no fruit hanging in the air, he knows his time is up. He had hoped for longer, but it was a faint thing, knows the ins and outs of Kaminoan cloning too well to have truly fooled himself. Even if he didn't, he can feel it in his bones, almost a voice in the back of his head that become him to rest.

Of course he tells her, does not want this to be one more thing that the Galaxy pulls on her without warning. But from the way her hands grip his over the table, the sadness (but not surprise) that fills her eyes, he suspects that she already knew. Her grip tightens, and sunlight glints off the ring on his finger, matching the shine from the steel bangle secured on her right head-tail.

And he is sorry, so very sorry that he has to march ahead of her. But he is relieved, too. After so long wondering when and how and who would be his death (In battle? Friendly fire? An Imp, or a brother?), to finally know is as freeing as it is horrible.

They do not work in the fields that day, leaving the running of the farm to others, instead spending the day with each other, holding, talking, memorizing.

He can see her mask of composure cracking, so he pulls her close, trying to offer what comfort he can before he can't, not sure if he's making it better or worse, uncaring of the dampness that has collected in his shirt from her tears (more then aware of his own as they slip down his cheeks and into his beard).

He makes her a cup of tea, and hands it to her. Asks if she want to stay, (not to stay — never that, not even for this, no matter how much he doesn't want to be alone), because he understands if she doesn't, and even with puffy eyes, red from crying, she fixes him with a look. It calls him crazy, a idiot — her idiot, and even to the end his heart flips over itself at the thought — and she tells him as much.

Night falls and they settle into the couch, his head resting lightly on her shoulder, a blanket spread over the two of them keeping away the chill. Perhaps its childish, the way that he fights off sleep, despite having spent a day months, years preparing. Beside him, he can tell Ahsoka is still awake, knows that she will sit a vigil all night, and it is that knowledge more then anything that lets him slip his eyes shut.

As the darkness pulls him in, he swears he can feel the ghost of her breath on his skin as she whispers her farewell.

------

And because I feel really evil leaving it at this (even though this IS the end of this part of the story), take a sneak peek at part 3.

Its the feel of the planet, the taste of the air, burned into his memory in a way that few things are.

He knows beyond any measure of doubt where he is, when he is: it's the start of what would lead to the worst day of his life. Worse even, then finding out the news that Ahsoka had fallen to the hands of Vader.

Umbara.

But that's not right. It can't be right. Confusion swirls round in his mind, the memory of her smile crisp and clear and impossible. Not if he's right (he wishes he wasn't, but every sense is screaming that he's back, and after years of surviving on his intuition he trusts it).

His arms around her.

Impossible.

The sight of her markings, stretched and grown, as they stand before a dying fire at the end of the war.

Impossible.

Unless...

And his mind —the part that wants to believe, to hope— catches on to the flaw in this pattern of denial. If it was a dream, how could he know about this place? If it was a dream, how could he know about Krel, Dogma, the treachery?

Impossible.

He scrubs a hand down his face, jarred by the lack of a beard, familiar and foreign all at once, and the feel of cool metal scraping his skin.

He pulls his hands away to look at them and for the third time that morning his heart catches in it's chest because it's there. Solid and silver, and very very real.

[sirmaus]

“I agree, actually!

I used to be very focused on the goal of publishing and making a living from writing, and frankly it made me quite unhappy, constantly having the "is this marketable?", "am I following the rules?", "what will other people think of this?" and other similar questions in my mind as I was writing. It made me constantly start projects and then abandon them not much later, because I was always more focused on writing a book that could be published rather than writing what I enjoy.

So when I realised this, realised that what I actually enjoy is the process of writing a story, putting words to the ideas and characters in my head, I completely changed my approach. I opened a Word document and I started writing the story I wanted to write. That was three and a half years and 850,000 words ago, and I'm still going, working on #4 in a series of at least twelve. I don't intend to publish, I don't even try to make it marketable, I don't have beta readers or anyone else that critiques it, I don't follow the rules just because they're the rules. I just... write.

Turns out that writing without paying attention to the "you must do this or no one will ever want to read it" actually brings me a huge amount of satisfaction, because I'm just following one rule as I write: do I want to read this? I'm writing stuff that I can go back and read for myself, and enjoy reading it. I even got the first one in the series printed by Blurb, just for my own enjoyment, so I'd have a physical copy to hold in my hands. The others will get printed too, once I've edited them a little - which means fixing spelling, grammar and continuity errors, not major rewrites. Because it doesn't have to be spotlessly perfect in the hopes of catching an agent's eye. It just has to be this thing that I spent time on, completed, and now have pride in having accomplished.

And I think I've learned a lot about the craft of writing from this. Like if I compare the writing at the beginning of my series compared to what I've written this week, there's a very noticeable difference in quality. And this comes, not from immersing myself in the endless rules of writing, all the jargon and lists of what you must do in order to be marketable and hundreds of people's opinions on what constitutes a good story... but purely from getting words down on a page. Words after words after words, and as I write, I learn for myself what works and what doesn't. Maybe, one day, I'll pursue self-publishing. Or maybe I won't. I love writing so much now, much more than I ever did when I wanted to be published. And I think if I started going back towards "you must write for the purpose of getting published and making money", it would take away the magic of writing. Because right now, it is magic for me.

This approach isn't for everybody, of course. But it works for me, just writing what makes me happy, without really engaging with the literary community at all. You know, aside from posting on Reddit, where pretty much the only thing I seem to be doing is advocating for the joy of writing for pleasure rather than publication. Coz, yeah, you're right - only with writing does the focus seem to be on "you have to do this and this in order to be publishable". People can get into photography or painting or knitting, and do it just for the joy of creating something, without being pressured to making a lucrative career out of it. But it is possible to write a story and gain genuine satisfaction and fulfilment from doing so, without turning it into an obligation to get an agent and a publishing contract.

I feel like so many writers end up thinking they've "failed" because they spent all this effort on writing something and then couldn't get it published (or if they did publish, failed to become the next ~insert rich and famous author name here~). Nobody ever seems to say "well actually you did something pretty amazing just by writing an entire story, so be proud of having created something". And maybe more people should ask why they're writing... and really ask themselves whether getting published and getting famous is really what it's all about. Or maybe, just maybe, there's genuine fulfilment to be had just in writing itself.” - @FluffMephit (reddit)