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mittensmorgul · 3 years

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You posted something about Crowley and it made me think: was having Dean really what he wanted? I think he was definitely attracted to both Dean and Cas and probably seduced Cas just to get Dean’s attention. Was Dean Crowley’s Lisa in the sense that he liked the idea of Dean and moped after their summer of love ended, but would the real Dean not Demon Dean have satisfied him in the long run? Especially since we saw Demon Dean became a frustration. Was Crowley really looking for love?

Hi there!

I've posted a lot of things about Crowley, and I think the most recent thing I reblogged may have been a fanfic with the premise that Crowley helped Cas get back out of the Empty, with an endgame relationship tag of Crowley/AU!Dean (fiat mcgee, aka the altchester huntercorp dean), so I don't know if that's the post you're referring to or not.

But I kind of like that comparison, of Dean being Crowley's Lisa, because Lisa was what Dean needed during that year. She legitimately cared about him, but also recognized that their relationship was not meant to be. They could've been friendly exes if Dean hadn't been driven to protect her by literally extracting himself from her life in every way imaginable.

And I don't mean comparing only Dean's time as a demon to his time at Lisa's...

I do think Crowley had multiple motives for his relationship with Dean. Remember the whole MoC arc started when Crowley was at a dangerously low point and desperately feeling his lost humanity, trying to recapture it however he could. And Dean happened to be conveniently adjacent.

We know Crowley's M.O. He seeks power, but in a practical way. He seeks his own security, and never wants to find himself at the whim of someone more powerful than him. I mean, this is why he chose to help TFW from the start way back in s5. He gave them what at the time was the most powerful supernatural weapon they knew of to stop Lucifer. It didn't work, but he proved he could be a valuable ally when it suited his needs.

Crowley has always, therefore, been drawn to Powerful Things That Could Be Useful To Him. He's alluded to his "warehouses" multiple times in canon, and we know he was the one who bartered for his own security with Ramiel by giving him the Colt (in addition to the lance of Michael that was the gift presented to him by all of Hell in an official capacity, the Colt was Crowley's personal gift). That's how he ended up in charge of Hell in the first place. He didn't want the job, per se, but he didn't want some other demon getting it and destroying the stability and security he'd built for himself, either.

And Dean? If Dean was fully on Team Crowley? Well, that would've been the sort of power play that could've made his power base into an unshakable throne. The fact Crowley seemed to develop legitimate feelings for Dean, even as a demon who was powerful enough in his own right that he could refuse to submit to Crowley's rule. I think it broke Crowley's heart a little bit that as a demon Dean didn't really seem to care about ~anything~ really... that the thing that had made Dean so personally captivating to Crowley (as opposed to his prowess as a potential warrior/defender of his throne) was effectively gone.

I don't know that it was a "my one true love has forsaken me" so much as-- as you said re: Dean and Lisa, too-- lamenting the loss of what could have been while acknowledging what it actually was. Maybe not a grand romance of the ages, but genuine care at a moment when Crowley had been at his own "most human" in the narrative.

I mean, I can see that without Dean's influence in his life at that relatively vulnerable moment, Crowley could very well have slipped all the way back into being the demon he'd always been. To an extent, the narrative kept trying to force him into that role, too. He was still trying to hold on to his power base, not because he particularly wanted it, but because anything else would've likely led to his own death. It seems like there's only one way to lose the throne of Hell, you know? And I hate that for him.

Do I think he was actually ~in love with Dean~? I think he had genuine feelings for Dean, yes. I believe he genuinely mourned the fact that Dean didn't and couldn't reciprocate those feelings. While he was a demon Dean didn't really ~have~ those sorts of feelings. Everything was just about having a good time and satisfying needs and desires. And then his humanity was restored (because of Crowley's direct intervention to make that happen) and he sort of knew that Dean would be lost to him after that, and did it anyway. I think there was at least some element of genuine care for Dean mixed in there with his purely practical acknowledgement that Demon!Dean was not the asset to his own power base that Crowley had hoped he might become in time.

So while I think he was at least partly motivated by his own personal security in gaining Dean as an ally and even friend, I do believe he genuinely had warm feelings in a very human way for Dean, too. Was it love? Was Crowley "looking" for love specifically? I don't think he would've been averse to that if Dean had reciprocated his feelings, but I don't think he was specifically looking for it. I don't think it was a primary motive for everything he did with and for Dean.

I mean, after that, Crowley's whole arc with Rowena, about his abandonment by her having become a central point to his character arc, and both his and her respective thoughts and feelings about Love as a concept really add nuance over the next few seasons. It goes back to 8.23 and Crowley's "I deserve to be loved!" So it's impossible not to credit his relationship with Dean as an exploration of that concept, as well.

So much of Supernatural is centered around themes of love-- what we do for love, what is worth sacrificing to save what you love, and every variation of love under the sun. When a character's arc is framed around his having been denied love and what he was willing to do to seek revenge for that, it's impossible to say he wasn't seeking to be loved, you know?

I just think his entire relationship with Dean came about at a time he was exceptionally vulnerable, and that he actually grew as a character as a result of his relationship with Dean. And we'll see that growth between both him and Dean right through to the end of s12, when it was all tragically cut short.

(though I do love and support Mark Sheppard for deciding he was done playing a character stuck in narrative limbo and playing second fiddle to Lucifer because of Eugenie's weird obsession... so yeah, I'm righteously irked on his behalf and on behalf of all the rest of us who should never have had to deal with Lucifer instead of Crowley at all... his entire character was just squandered and it's a crime, okay?)

If Crowley had lived, or returned, I feel like he would've been starting again from a much healthier standpoint in his relationship with Dean, too. I appreciate the tag for them "mostly civil exes" because that's really what their relationship became by s12. Not even getting into the point that I personally was hoping that Lucifer was just dead after Amara ripped him out of Cas in s11, and it felt so far beneath Crowley to attempt to use Luci for his own ends in s12 that I found that entire arc to be contrived and ridiculous, too, after the fact when the reasons for it came to light. It's just... not the point of this post. :'D

#crowley #worst ship on the show #that's my tag for them since the start in s9 really and it's meant lovingly like...#we were all waiting for dean to have a canon relationship with a male-presenting character #just not THIS one even though I appreciate it... so that's not meant meanly you know?#in the good alternate version of s12 lucifer would've been dead and crowley would've had to deal with his emotions

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hellsbellschime · 4 years

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1I feel for Jamie so much. Right now he resents himself, what he has become. It is not how others see him, I disagree. It is how he sees himself. He tried to kill Bran, but he saved a million people. His reckoning with what he did to Bran has not come yet; for all he knows so far Bran is dead, and not by his own hand. Meeting him again will be a great moment for him (arghhhh, the show took that away from us!) He has come to the realization that what he has become was because of Cersei. Therefore

2 he chose to leave her and not return yet in search of himself. He is going through an identity crisis, not exactly a redemption arc, because his crimes are frankly, at least as I see them, not that great (apart from what he did to Bran and his reasons for it that are seriously messed up). In this he is very similar to Jon, not Theon. I also do not see how Theon can redeem himself by saving Jeyne. Jamie did not actually kill Bran, but Theon killed those boys. What Theon did is hugely evil.

3 He destroyed WF and created a power vacuum in the North that allowed for the Bolton coup. Had Theon not attacked WF there would actually be no RW. Indirectly, Theon is responsible for the murder of the Northmen at the Twins, of Robb and Catelyn. So no matter if he regrets it or not, no matter if he feels remorse, his crimes are much more heinous than Jamie's. He might redeem himself by sacrificing for the Starks but it won't undo anything. So in my opinion there's a stark contrast here.

4 Jon and Jamie save lives; they are not perfect and have made mistakes, sometimes grave ones, and there's a lack of morality in Jamie highlighted by having sex with Cersei in the Sept. But is his lack of morality inherent in him, or is it acquired after so many years of addiction to his toxic sister? Theon by contrast chose to kill when time came to decide. He chose to do harm, unlike Jamie. Sorry for the rant, I just had to put this opinion out there and give another twist to the dialog.

I mean, I don’t think it’s fair to blame Cersei for who Jaime is. She is definitely a nightmare, but even she thought that Jaime’s reaction to Bran catching them was inappropriate and too much. So how can she be to blame for what Jaime did to him? And Jaime didn’t have sex with Cersei in the Sept, he raped her in the Sept. Not to mention, if Theon is indirectly responsible for everything that happened at the RW then Jaime is indirectly responsible for literally everything horrible that has happened in the series. He may not have successfully killed Bran, but that was his intention, and if indirect responsibility is in consideration then he’s responsible for the murders of thousands of innocent children and smallfolk in general now.

For me Theon has done hugely evil things, but the potential for his redemption is different because he has actually lost his sense of entitlement whereas Jaime has not. Theon’s only hope for redemption now is that people won’t see him solely as the man who did all of those terrible things, and that even though he’s done so many terrible things he can still do something good for someone. And that’s why his narrative arc means something for me. He’s saving Jeyne Poole who is essentially a nobody. She’s not anyone important to him, he has no emotional ties to her, and he’s not going to go down in the history books for coming to the rescue of Lady Jeyne Poole. She’s expendable and no one really cares about her for her, which is why the fact that Theon is risking his life to save her is actually so meaningful. There’s no glory in it but it’s the right thing to do, and it will mean literally everything to her. Theon began his journey in a similar state of mind to Jaime, he was arrogant and believed that he deserved a lot more than he got in general, and especially when it came to the respect of other highborn people. Now Theon has suffered enormously but has also genuinely changed. He’s not the person he was before because he doesn’t want to be that person, and he’s doing the right thing because he actually wants to do the right thing. He may be beyond the point of redemption, but that doesn’t mean that all of the choices he makes don’t matter anymore, and for me I think it’s more meaningful to have a character who is making choices that aren’t being made in exchange for something else, but are just simply their own choices. And it’s especially meaningful for Theon’s character arc that he’s making the much harder choice because it’s the right choice, even though there is a very strong possibility that he’ll just suffer horribly and die and ignominious death as a reviled asshole instead of gaining any favor with anyone else besides Jeyne.

Jaime on the other hand is still in the glory and respect phase of his emotional development. Contrast the fact that Theon is saving Jeyne with the fact that Jaime is trying to save Sansa. Saving Sansa WILL bring whoever does it glory, whoever does that likely will go down in the history books as saving the lost princess of Winterfell, and it will be especially memorable and attention getting if it’s a Lannister who does it. There are thousands of people he could save now, but he’s not saving them, likely because there’s nothing in it for him. Jaime wants to keep his promise to Catelyn but it’s because he wants to be known as someone who does keep promises, it’s not because he actually cares about keeping promises. Even now he’s broken his promises to people a hundred times, but because people don’t know that he’s made those promises and because it’s not something that will actually make him look better and he doesn’t care that much about something that won’t change his image in the eyes of others. Theon’s perspective on what matters and how people see him has evolved, but Jaime’s hasn’t yet.

That’s not to say that it’s impossible for Jaime to evolve in the future, but the problem is that all of his motivation to change is external. Even when it comes to his dream about his mother, he’s not doing that because it’s what he himself wants, he’s driven by the idea of other people seeing him in a different way than he wants to be seen. He’s still extremely invested in the perception of others but he’s not actually putting in the groundwork of just being a decent person to everyone and earning his reputation through that. And that is truly how all of the best characters have earned their reputations for being good people in Westeros. He and Theon are different because they’ve both done evil things, but Theon has an understanding that the things he’s done are evil while Jaime still excuses himself. Theon murdered two innocent children, but the brutal reality is that the world won’t care or even really remember them. But what’s different now is that Theon cares and remembers them, and it haunts him even though the smallfolk are seen as mostly dispensable by highborn people. Jaime tried to murder Bran and threatened the life of Edmure’s baby, but in his mind it’s still the ends justifying the means and these are things that he rationalizes and excuses by saying that he was somehow forced into these choices. That’s not to say that Jaime is incapable of change or finding some measure of decency, but his motivation for his own behaviors and decisions is entirely different than Theon’s, and he’s much further away from becoming a truly decent person than Theon is.

#theon grejoy #jaime lannister #asoiaf #Anonymous

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dioptre-hertz · 4 years

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Pathologic 2 ending thoughts

i don’t really use tumblr much anymore, but i recently finished Pathologic 2 and i have thoughts on the ending, which i felt was somewhat incongruous with the rest of the game’s themes and ideas. and tumblr felt like the right place to put a long-form post about it. so, here i am, haha!

MAJOR spoilers for Pathologic 2 below, obviously. this post will probably only be interesting to you if you’ve already played the game, so if you haven’t, be warned! hehehe!

okay, so. i have a lot of thoughts about the ending stuff, but basically it boils down to: i think the ending as presented would have been a good ending for a different game.

quick summary: towards the end of the game, Artemy learns that the Polyhedron, a physics-defying tower and architectural wonder, is rooted into the ground with a long metal spike that pierces the Living Earth. destroying the Polyhedron would therefore open a gaping wound in the Earth, spilling rivers of blood that could be used to mass-produce a cure for the plague. however, doing so would not only destroy the Polyhedron, but also kill the Living Earth, and by extension the Kin. alternately, Artemy can choose to preserve the Polyhedron, which would prevent the Living Earth from bleeding out and dying; but it would come at the cost of the lives of everyone in the town, since the plague would then be unstoppable.

so, the ending choice is principally about this: you have to choose between preserving the magical wonders of the world, the Kin and the Polyhedron and the Living Earth, but at the expense of the actual living humans of the town; or, you save the town and all its mundanities and its ordinary people you've worked so hard to protect, but at the expense of your cultural heritage and all the magical, impossible things of the Steppe. do you choose a world that is dreamlike, enchanted and strange, even if there is no place for regular humans in that world; or do you choose an ordinary, realistic world, one in which there is life for common folk but not for magic and fairy tales?

here’s what irks me though: this dichotomy is not at all what the game is about. or, to be more precise, it never felt to me personally like this was what the narrative was setting up. the choice as presented is fine in a vacuum! there’s nothing wrong with telling a story that creates this kind of clash between magic and realism, and asks you to choose between them. but it doesn’t feel congruous with the rest of the game’s story. let me elaborate.

so, part of what’s going on here is that the game is asking you to make a sacrifice. as the game itself repeatedly tells you: “you can’t save everyone”. either the Kin, the magical steppe creatures, and the Polyhedron are destroyed; or, the ordinary humans of the town are destroyed. you can’t protect both. Pathologic 2 goes to great lengths to show you that you are not a magical fantasy RPG hero who can complete every quest, rescue every NPC, overcome any obstacle and get the Perfect Ending. that’s the whole point of the overly punishing hunger and exhaustion mechanics; that’s why you die so easily in combat, why you’re always running out of time, and why the game is perfectly willing to punish you for every single mistake you make. it’s not a game about being the chosen one, who has magic powers and is uniquely capable of saving the day. right?

except... it kind of is precisely that, if you think about it. Artemy’s story is very clearly a traditional “chosen one” narrative! he is the sole inheritor of his father’s legacy, he is the town’s only menkhu, and so much of the story revolves around his spiritual journey. over the course of the game, Artemy undergoes a coming-of-age of sorts, reconnecting with his heritage, unlocking the secrets of being a menkhu, brewing magical tinctures that slow down and ultimately cure the plague. multiple characters make it explicit that Artemy is important - Foreman Oyun, Aspity, Isidor, and various minor characters of the Kin (like Nara) all talk at length about how Artemy is special, and his role (should he embrace it) is to lead the Kin once he is ready. and the entire conflict with Rubin revolves around the fact that Rubin isn’t the “chosen one” the way Artemy is!

this whole plot thread reaches its climax when Artemy ventures into the Abattoir to seek answers. there, he undergoes a series of harrowing spiritual experiences. several really important things happen here, and i want to focus on two of them.

firstly: upon reaching the central chamber of the Abattoir, Artemy is tasked with performing “surgery” on three seemingly random objects: a candlestick, a fingernail coin, and a spindle of thread. he has a metaphysical conversation with the odongh he meets there and then “connects” these objects into a living, beating heart, and the heart speaks to him. this scene is either hallucinatory or supernatural (or both), but it doesn’t matter which; the point of the scene is that Artemy has finally learned to read the Lines, learned to see how seemingly disparate objects can be spiritually connected into a singular whole. he takes three items that appear to have nothing in common, and he forges a beating heart out of them, a living thing. as Artemy himself learns:

This system isn't symmetrical. It's not just "Nerves, Bones, Skin." Or "Nerves, Bones, Flesh." Or "Spirit, Hair, Blood." Any triad is correct.

Truth is not a set point, but an intersection and confluence of many small truths. Knowing this, I can match and connect anything.

furthermore, shortly after leaving the Abattoir, Artemy has a dream in which he returns there and speaks to the ghost of Isidor, his father. here, he learns a difficult truth: that Isidor intentionally brought the plague back to the town, believing - essentially - that it was necessary for the town’s growth. the decision seems monstrous. Isidor justifies it thus:

This town was… connected wrong. Its parts were tied with artificial seams—so different, so awkward. One could say that Simon, the Mistresses, and I held it all together by force.

So I tore it apart, so you can sew it all back, better than before. Because you're better, and smarter, than I am.

so here we have the high point of Artemy’s spiritual journey, the part of the story where he finally understands why things are the way they are, and what it is he must do.

and this is where things start going wrong, in my opinion.

because all of this, all of what we’ve seen, seems to point in one very clear direction: Artemy will find a way to connect the Kin, the Town, and the Polyhedron into a single coherent whole. it fits so perfectly! Artemy learns that there is a way to mass-produce a cure, but doing so would require him to destroy the Polyhedron and the Living Earth. it appears as though the Polyhedron, the Living Earth, and the Town cannot all coexist; something must be sacrificed. but this choice is presented right after we’re told that Artemy’s destiny is to “sew it all back, better than before”. it is presented once we’ve seen that Artemy can connect a coin, a candlestick, and a spindle of thread into a living, beating heart, no matter how impossible that may sound. knowing this, he can match and connect anything.

and yet, he... doesn’t. the game does not end with a solution that connects the Kin, the Polyhedron and the Town. ultimately, Artemy fails to sew it all back together - and it’s not just that he fails, it’s that the game itself seems utterly unconcerned with that possibility once it heads into its final act. the mere idea that there could be a solution that “connects things right“ goes unexplored. even if the game wanted to be pessimistic and suggest that it can’t be done after all, it should at least acknowledge the thought! the game does admittedly have a focus on the idea that “you can’t save everyone”; this is one of its core motifs. so, fair enough! but since it fails to address that cynicism, it feels less like a statement on the game’s part and more like a lack of awareness.

but that’s not all! there’s a second thing that really bugs me. see, there’s another major event that takes place in the Abattoir: Artemy finally has his fateful encounter with Nara, the Herb Bride who has haunted him throughout the game, insisting that their destinies are intertwined and that he will one day kill her. here, Artemy finally comes to understand what it all means. in the depths of the Abattoir, Nara is waiting for him; the other Herb Brides give Artemy a menkhu’s knife, and they task him with cutting open Nara’s body without killing her:

We know how to open things up. Our way. You know how to open things up. Your way. Do you want to know why the sand pest passes us by? Show yourself.

Cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living. You can do it, if you know the Lines.

Artemy follows through, and he converses with Nara even as he cuts into her flesh; they talk to each other right until the end, when Artemy retrieves a spindle of thread from her body, and she dies.

now, this scene is somewhat tricky to interpret; Artemy must show that he can “cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living”, but in the end, Nara does die. so was he successful or not? well, i would argue that he is; even though Nara dies, he proves that he is able to read the Lines with such precision that she can speak calmly with him until the very end.

more importantly, this scene is the high point of a recurring theme in the game: Artemy’s skill as surgeon.

on Day 1, the very first part of the game, Artemy is sent by his old friend Bad Grief to perform surgery on Piecework, one of the thugs in Bad Grief’s gang. Piecework has gotten in a fight and been stabbed in the gut with a lockpick; without Artemy’s intervention, he will die. you can choose to save him, flub the surgery and kill him, or ignore the sidequest altogether; in any case, this early quest introduces the player to the surgery mechanic and serves to establish Artemy’s unique skills as a surgeon.

on Day 11, the last day of proper gameplay, you have a repeat of this encounter. while pursuing the main quest for the day, you wind up in a pub, where a gang of local bandits have set up shop. they threaten you and order you to rescue one of their pals, who has been shot in the stomach and is about to die. here you again perform surgery to save a man’s life, but this time you don’t do it through the usual surgery minigame - it happens entirely through dialogue choices, and i’m actually not even sure if it’s possible to fail this interaction. in any case, you retrieve the bullet from the man’s stomach and inform his friends that he’ll live.

so what’s the point of all that then? well, the way i see it, the point of all this is to foreshadow a climactic conclusion: Artemy will remove the Polyhedron without killing the Living Earth.

the game spends a lot of time setting this up! on Day 1, Artemy saves a man by removing a long metal spike from his gut non-lethally; in the Abattoir, Artemy proves his spiritual growth by demonstrating that he can “cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living”; and on Day 11, the game throws yet another surgery vignette at you in a scene that frankly feels a bit out of place otherwise.

all of this feels, to me, like it's foreshadowing and setting up one very obvious result: Artemy, having mastered not only practical surgery but also the art of reading the Lines, of being a menkhu, is the one person who can remove the Polyhedron without killing the Living Earth! the game spends all this time explaining that in the Steppe culture, cutting open flesh, or the earth itself, is taboo: only a menkhu is allowed to do so, because a menkhu is someone who knows how to read the Lines, who knows how to cut in a way that will not harm the Living Earth. the culmination of the story, therefore, needs to be that Artemy puts this exact skill to use. that was the point of his character arc, right?

except... no, it isn’t. in the end, there is no way to surgically extract the metal spike from the Living Earth. the only two choices we are presented with are: botch the surgery, or leave it be.

...

in the end, i feel that the ending(s) of Pathologic 2 aren’t appropriate conclusions to the ideas, motifs, and overall narrative progression we’re shown throughout the earlier parts of the game. Pathologic 2 is in many ways brilliant, and i do not hesitate to call it a masterpiece, aforementioned criticisms notwithstanding - but that’s precisely why i cared enough to write all this down! it’s a story that gets into your head, really stays with you, and maybe that’s the reason why i have such strong feelings about the direction the story takes in its final act.

if you reached the end of this post: thank you so much for reading it! i hope you enjoyed my thoughts, and i hope you have a great day!

#pathologic #pathologic 2 #artemy burakh

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vaultsixtynine · 3 years

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the prime cantor has a vague, extremely lofty and esoteric goal that she's been pursuing for centuries, and it's the basis of like. pretty much Every Thing in the carillon and every decision the pc has made in her rulership of it. nobody really knows this, because she plays pretty much everything close to the chest, but besides [redacted, ancient event], she's had two major breakthroughs within the timeline that roz and co. live in, and they center around people that the prime cantor uses and discards when they can no longer be made to obey properly or she's tired of them.

anaïs (roz's mom) - veritable genius, highly conceptual researcher, high and abstract mathematics, heavy theory and calculation. useful to the prime cantor for gathering information, finding fundamental patterns, and building a strong understanding of basics that had been eluding her after centuries of stagnation. was ?killed? either accidentally or on purpose, and her death (and the circumstances/variables/effects thereof) was a keystone moment of understanding for the pc that had not had any equal for centuries. pc realizes a new direction she needs to take her country in, and starts pouring resources into r&d and general technology advancement to replace the dying magic systems (a consequence of choices and systems she made a long time ago, and on the whole intentional) - anaïs had been mistrustful of the pc and her intentions for her research for years, and much moreso after having roz; roz has a deeply veiled breadcrumb trail that she will one day follow to better understand her mother and the circumstances of her death, as well as her work, the potential consequences of it, and the responsibilities she's passing on to roz. anaïs was terrified of being unexpectedly taken away from her daughter by the prime cantor, and thus made concerted efforts to protect and hide information for roz, just in case. some of this has been destroyed by time or by roz's abusive grandmother, but anaïs was incredibly canny and a lot of her legacy still remains for her daughter to uncover.

stiffcollar - pc's despised secretary/bodyguard/bitch boy. he had no value to her and everything he did for her while in her service was basically pointless, because she ends up ritualistically sacrificing him to try to capture the same effects from when roz's mom died (?) - but it doesn't work, stiffcollar becomes... what he is now, and the cantor is tilted because she doesn't understand why he couldn't be useful for ONCE in his entire life. he is her tool in her system and she made him - hundreds of years ago, she made a society that would produce thousands of him, all useless and stupid and devoted to her - and it's unconscionable and deeply offensive to her that in half a millenia he's the first tool that she couldn't just dispose of after using (it's so unsettling to think of all the things - people - that may have slipped through the cracks in her flawless, ordered system -) - but even though he didn't die and even though she banished him from being anywhere near her because of that outrage that disguises a sliver of fear, him Not dying has given her new variables, new insight, and allowed her to start a whole new slew of living being rights violations in the three years since his un-death.

arkwright: latest 'recruit' (she didn't have a say in the matter), and in many ways intended to be a replacement for anaïs. aw is an engineer and an inventor whose main focus is flight, but her improvements to an archaic, thought-impossible design called a 'null engine' caught the prime cantor's eye. basically kidnapped and taken to serve as an advisor (???) / pet inventor for the pc, arkwright has begun to sense that this isn't just about an engine or a fat government commission and has started to be immensely careful and stall for time. she starts the narrative in this precarious position, making up materials requests (some genuine!) that take her to remote chords and get her out of the cantor's direct line of sight while she tries to get to the heart of something so much more massive and decayed than she was ever prepared for. she is Not as theoretical and calculation-exclusive as anaïs, and instead wants experiments, prototypes, and physical results, which is both good and bad. she's also less attuned to healthy magic (anaïs was much more closely aligned with non-carillon mathemagics after she had roz, bc reasons) and much More attuned to whatever it is that the prime cantor is affiliated with, due to her fucked up heart situation. again, both good and bad. probably mostly bad for her, in the long run.

#sorry i was actually capable of putting all these thoughts together and had 2 take the opportunity #long post #mosaic #the carillon #prime cantor #stiffcollar #roz #arkwright #why is dog absent from this post? shes a surprise tool that will help us later :^)

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cosmicjoke · 3 years

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Okay, I gotta talk a little about chapter 65 of AoT, and really some of the themes being put forth in general in this chapter. This is probably gonna be totally incoherent, because these are some big brain concepts that largely go over my head, I’ll be real, haha. But I’ll do my best.

I want to focus on Kenny’s conversation with his Grandfather, because it’s here that we get into some of the more broad ranging and world relevant themes of SnK, particularly dealing with issues of racism, xenophobia, isolationism, and concepts of homogeneity.

Kenny’s Grandfather talks about how the Monarchy doesn’t hate the Ackerman’s, but rather fears them, because they can’t be controlled. Because the Ackerman’s, along with very few other bloodlines that somehow ended up behind the walls, are all of different races than the majority bloodline, meaning, of course, the Eldians. And because of this, the power of the Titans doesn’t work on them. The Monarchy then comes to think of these other bloodlines as threats to the peace it’s attempted to cultivate among the people behind the wall, because their memories aren’t able to be wiped. So they end up using threats of violence, death, intimidation, and the like, in order to get these bloodlines to comply with their demands and keep quiet about what they know about the truth of the world and human history. Most bloodlines end up complying under duress, but the only two that don’t are the Ackerman’s and the Asians. They rebel and refuse, the Ackerman’s in particular giving up their position as the sword and shield of the Royal Government. Until the head of the Ackerman clan decides to not pass down any of his generations knowledge to their children, and offers himself up for execution in an attempt to protect the Ackerman’s from being purged. His efforts end up being in vain, though, as the Royal Government still finds itself unable to tolerate a group of people it can’t control, and thus the persecution of the Ackerman’s continues, until they’re driven to the fringes of society, forced to into desperation and poverty.

What’s really interesting about this is how it reflects so many real life situations throughout human history, and where concepts of tribalism and nationalism and isolationism come from. It’s usually because some governing power wants to control its population, its citizenship, and they do this by cutting them off from outside influences, indoctrinating them into a certain belief system and way of thinking. We see this, for example, in countries today like China and North Korea. This all is represented in AoT through the erasure of human history outside the walls, and the altering of historical texts to push the narrative that all record of human history older than 100 years has been lost. The ruling government, in this case, has forced generation after generation to be taught that humanity simply doesn’t EXIST outside the walls, thus stomping out any hope or ambition to get outside those walls, and interact with the outside world. If there’s nothing there to find, then why bother? Of course, it’s an imperfect system, given it’s essentially impossible to quell human curiosity and, as another prominent theme in SnK, the desire for freedom, to be able to choose for oneself and have agency over your own destiny, etc... Not only does the Royal Government employ these false teachings as a way of controlling the populace, but of course, also, the threat of the Titans beyond the wall. If the “reality” that there’s nothing left of humanity out there isn’t enough to stop the more curious and skeptical among the population, then the threat of a horrific and painful death should do the trick.

If you study any sort of regime throughout human history that utilizes terror as a means of control, one thing they often do is get rid of the smart people first. They cull intellectuals, artists, philosophers, etc... They kill them or censor them so that they can’t influence or impact the general populace with rebellious notions, or instigate in people any ideas that their government might not be treating them right. They want there to be no contention, no differential in thought, no real ideas or any sort of chance for clashes among groups. They want everyone to look, act, think and feel the same, because when that’s the case, fewer quarrels arise, fewer tensions, fewer instances of rebellion, fewer cases of people clashing with one another, for various reasons, which can lead to critical thinking and ideas forming, to thought patterns and beliefs being challenged. They want everyone to just sit quietly and not THINK. They also, often, will target minority groups, and cast them into a kind of scapegoat role, a target for the general populace to aim their grievances at, to blame all their problems on, directing their unhappiness away from the true source of their woes, that being the government itself. This is something we often see throughout human history. One of the most prominent and tragic examples is the Jews in Nazi Germany. Jews were, at first, skewered and debased through propaganda, painting them as the enemy of Germans, the great source of all of Germany’s plights and woes, essentially working the populace up into a frenzy of extreme feelings of bias and prejudice against them, before that escalated into gathering up and forcing them into cut off ghettos, away from the general population, before it took a much darker turn still, wherein they were gathered up and sent to death camps to be exterminated.

Within the world of AoT, the same thing happens to groups like the Ackerman’s and Asians, and whatever other, unnamed minority groups exist behind the walls. They’re persecuted, badmouthed, hunted and threatened into compliance, their ability to do business and make money, thus make a living, cut off and blocked. Pushed into a corner until they eventually start to die out.

It’s really fascinating, and brilliantly depicted by Isyama, how the Monarchy’s self-delusion leads them to believe they’re preserving peace and prosperity for the homogeneous population by hunting down and terrorizing groups of minority bloodlines and ethnicity’s and races, creating for these subsets of people a world and a life of endless suffering, and blinding themselves to their own, tyrannical exercise of power over a large population. Of course this sort of thing also leads to greed and a lust for power, a need for ever more control, ever more expansion of that power, which in turn leads to the very thing the Monarchy here claims to want to prevent, which is war. Even if the Royal Government, and the Monarchy, and the King, started out with somewhat noble intentions, it eventually morphs into a twisted and persistently corrupting power play.

There’s also the theme here of scapegoating an entire group of people, and holding them accountable for sins they themselves did not commit. We see in Historia’s memories of Frieda, and how she would at times begin acting like another person, how she became vitriolic and almost violent in telling Historia that she can “never cross the fence”, proclaiming that they’re all “sinners” and thus need to be punished by being imprisoned. This is where the original King’s philosophy begins to become deeply problematic and dangerous. In order to control the population, he’s forced each inheritor of the world’s memories to also inherit his philosophy, forcing each heir to labor under the belief that the Eldian’s are somehow responsible for the atrocities committed by their ancestors, and thus should continue to pay for them, even though not a single person at this point living behind the walls was even yet born when those atrocities were committed. The danger here is in the possibility of those people being held accountable for things they didn’t do, realizing the injustice of that, and in turn, growing angry and resentful for being made to suffer for crimes they didn’t commit. This in turn leads to a desire to hit back, to fight, to defend themselves, etc... This same scenario plays out on a smaller scale with the Ackerman’s, with the future generations of Ackerman children continuing to be hunted and persecuted, despite none of them having any knowledge whatsoever of the history of humanity or the world. It’s all a vicious cycle.

Further, this kind of attempt to play God, by dictating to an entire group of otherwise uninvolved people what they do and don’t deserve, and in turn deciding for them that they should be punished for things they did not do, is morally bankrupt. Deciding, in general, for an entire population, how they should be allowed to live is also morally bankrupt. And this exposes the Royal Government and Monarchy as corrupt, among about a million other things in story. Essentially, it’s a condemnation against the concept of any, one person having absolute power. That never ends well, for anyone.

Well, anyway, I’m just rambling at this point, lol. It’s just really fascinating and amazing how Isyama weaves all of these deep themes into his story, I think, and forces the reader to really think about these kinds of things.

Also, I missed the fight between Levi and Kenny! I’m glad they added that to the anime, haha.

I also noticed how Historia might have had an unintentional impact on what Eren later decides he has to do. She keeps going on and on here about being an “enemy of humanity” and wanting to “destroy everything”. And while Historia clearly doesn’t actually mean what she’s saying, and is only acting out in her frustration and anger at her douchebag of a father trying to manipulate her into sacrificing herself for his delusions of grandeur, what she also says to Eren about her “being humanity’s enemy, but Eren being her FRIEND.” is clear foreshadowing of what Eren later decides is his best and only course, to do whatever it takes to protect his friends, including killing the rest of humanity. This probably also ties into Eren’s choice to not reveal what he learns from his father’s memories, in an attempt to protect Historia. But I haven’t gotten to that point yet, so I’ll come back around to it later maybe.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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How Zack Snyder’s Justice League Leaves the Door Open to Restore the Snyder Verse

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This article contains Zack Snyder’s Justice League spoilers.

Let it be said that to the very end, Zack Snyder did it his way. In an era where superhero entertainment, and all other branded media, is shaped by what conference rooms think fans want, Snyder somehow pushed through a transgressive view of DC icons like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman that was brooding, unsettling… and memorable. Fans certainly haven’t forgotten Snyder’s self-described “deconstructionist” Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice or that it was meant to carry onward into Justice League.

It’s that diehard loyalty among true believers which did the seeming impossible: It made a media conglomerate walk back its decision to lighten and truncate a director’s vision. Almost four years after Joss Whedon dramatically changed the tone and tenor of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the Snyder Cut has debuted on HBO Max. And whatever you might think of it as a whole, it remains a pensive and superior work to what came before… and a seeming course correction from the direction the DC Extended Universe took after Snyder’s departure.

The marked improvement in Zack Snyder’s Justice League has left some fans demanding WarnerMedia “#RestoreTheSnyderVerse.” It’s certainly a loaded idea. But then folks said the same thing about releasing a Snyder Cut once upon a time. And the damndest thing about the four hour version of Justice League we now have is that it leaves breadcrumbs for everything Snyder originally had planned as a five-film saga—from Man of Steel through his original vision for a Justice League trilogy. Could it yet all come to pass?

Darkseid and an Anti-Life Superman

If you’ve watched the Snyder Cut, you got plenty of glimpses of the masterplan. It’s there when Cyborg has a vision of a world in ruins, with Wonder Woman dead on an Amazonian funeral pyre and DC’s ultimate space baddie, Darkseid, now on Earth, slaughtering Aquaman. Perhaps more chilling though is Snyder’s epilogue, created by reshoots, in which he returns to the Knightmare iconography from Batman v Superman. Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight is again in road warrior attire, and no less than Amber Heard’s Mera, Ray Fisher’s Cyborg, and Jared Leto’s Joker are his traveling companions. Meanwhile Henry Cavill’s Superman looms large as a force of evil coming to annihilate them all.

If you are unfamiliar with the backstory of Snyder’s original plan for the DCEU, this might be head-scratching. However, these are just fragments of the road not taken from Snyder’s original Justice League trilogy outline, as well as a possible backdoor in how to restore it. Snyder recently confirmed as much to The New York Times.

“It’s the fall of Earth,” Snyder said, “when Superman succumbs to anti-life… When Darkseid comes to Earth, in the movie that you’ll never see, the armies of Earth all unite again, as they did before. This time there would be aircraft carriers and Special Forces guys, all the armies of the world would come together, as well as Atlanteans rising out of the ocean and the Themyscirans coming off their island. That was our big finale.”

This vision for the future restored by the Snyder Cut is entirely in keeping with what we’ve previously learned about the arc of the DC cinematic universe under Snyder’s stewardship. As originally conceived, the climax of a Justice League trilogy was always intended to involve several things: Darkseid killing Lois Lane; Superman’s free will being destroyed by the Anti-Life Equation; and Batman and Flash using time travel to reverse this Mad Max apocalypse.

Now in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, we see hints of this with Superman cradling a dead, scorched body, crying in a way that implies it can only be Lois Lane. It’s part of Cyborg’s vision. That waking nightmare also shows Darkseid come and place his hand on Superman’s shoulder. Think Emperor Palpatine claiming ownership of Anakin Skywalker’s soul after the young Jedi helped kill Mace Windu in Star Wars.

It’s why Superman is evil in the final “Knightmare” sequence of the Snyder Cut’s epilogue. This sequence is also almost entirely added by reshoots filmed in 2020, with Affleck, Leto, Fisher, Heard, and Joe Manganiello as Deathstroke coming back for additional photography with Snyder.

Joker even lays out the endgame of Snyder’s Justice League trilogy when he asks how many universes exist where billions die because Batman doesn’t have the backbone to die himself? That’s because Snyder’s whole five film arc is supposed to lead up to the Dark Knight sacrificing himself for Lois Lane (and thereby Superman) thanks to the miracle of time travel.

For context, Snyder has personally revealed the “Knightmare” sequence in Batman v Superman—where Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen wakes Bruce from a nightmare to say, “It’s Lois Lane, she’s the key!”—was never a nightmare at all, but a vision the Flash implanted in Batman’s head.

“Flash travels from the [Batcave] in the future to the Cave in the past,” Snyder wrote on social media in 2018, “but he is ‘too soon,’ meaning he went too far back, also meaning he will have to step off the ‘cosmic treadmill’ one more time.”

The cosmic treadmill is a DC Comics device which allows the Flash to travel through time and to even commandeer another character’s consciousness. Bruce Wayne’s visions in both Batman v Superman and the Snyder Cut are not dream sequences, but actual events which will happen in Batman and the Flash’s future. Interestingly, the full breadth of this plot point was so radical that it likely played a role in Warner Bros. losing faith in Snyder’s vision.

“The original Justice League that Chris [Terrio] and I wrote, we didn’t even shoot,” Snyder said during a Q&A last year. “There’s a lot of it that we shot [but] the actual idea, the hard, hard idea, the scary idea, we never filmed because the studio was like, ‘That’s crazy.’ And we were so insecure at the time… we were just like, ‘I guess it is crazy. We’re fuckin’ nuts. There’s gonna be mass hysteria in the streets if we film this.’”

Batman, Lois Lane, and a Pregnancy Test

Zack Snyder’s Justice League leaves hints of how to restore that “hard idea.” The broad strokes are that the second Justice League movie would’ve been about the League versus the Legion of Doom (hence the scene of Lex Luthor revealing Bruce Wayne’s secret identity to Deathstroke in the Snyder Cut), and the third would be Lois Lane dying and Superman going evil. Batman and his crew of allies would then warn his past self through time travel, leading Batman to throw himself in front of the Omega Beams used to kill Lois… and there would be a radical added incentive to do so:

In the third film, Bruce Wayne and Barry were also meant to learn that Lois was pregnant with Batman’s child. Yes, Snyder’s original vision was for there to be a secret love triangle between Batman, Superman, and Lois Lane, and for the saga to end with Superman raising Batman’s son.

Snyder partially confirmed this as well in a new interview with Vanity Fair when he said about the first Justice League movie, “The intention was that Bruce fell in love with Lois and then realized that the only way to save the world was to bring Superman back to life. So he had this insane conflict, because Lois, of course, was still in love with Superman.”

That appears to be the hard idea jettisoned before the Snyder Cut was even filmed. But was it entirely thrown away? For eagle eyed fans watching Zack Snyder’s Justice League, there is a new scene where Amy Adams’ Lois Lane is making the decision to let go of her grief over the then-dead Superman and she rummages through her nightstand. If you look closely, there’s a pregnancy test sitting in her drawer.

The implication is Lois might be pregnant with Superman’s child. However, there is more than enough ambiguity for fans to see that the larger story threads for Snyder and Terrio’s original Justice League trilogy could still come to pass. Thanks to leaked outlines for Snyder’s trilogy making the rounds on the internet, we know Bruce Wayne was only meant to learn Lois was pregnant with his child in the third Justice League movie. It could still be so.

Movies

Zack Snyder’s Justice League vs. the Whedon Cut: What are the Differences?

By David Crow

Movies

Zack Snyder’s Justice League – What is the Anti-Life Equation?

By Jim Dandy

While we never see Affleck or Adams share a single scene together in the Snyder Cut’s four hours, it doesn’t mean a future sequel could not have added this detail, revealing in a moment of grief and loneliness between films, a mistake might’ve been made. It might be a queasy idea for fans of how the characters are typically depicted in the comics, but then that was originally Snyder’s intent before BvS disappointed. Who’s to say it didn’t happen off-screen… just like Superman’s Anti-Life corruption that we don’t see in the Snyder Cut, but which is heavily implied happens thanks to the Knightmare sequences.

In all honesty, it seems each of Snyder’s original key points for a five-film arc live on in the Snyder Cut. So could these elements be fully explored down the road like the “Restore the Snyder Verse” hashtag demands? In theory, yes. Technically Snyder’s version of Justice League isn’t canon; Whedon’s is. And there are already elements that indicate they’d be impossible to seriously reconcile. For instance, the Atlanteans in Zack Snyder’s Justice League can only speak in air bubbles (not underwater), and they all have proper English accents, including Mera.

In 2018’s Aquaman, by contrast, the Atlanteans have American accents and a decidedly less dour underwater kingdom. Still, there is no hard narrative reason why there couldn’t be two timelines. After all, Heard returned for 2020 reshoots with Snyder, reprising Mera’s posh Londoner accent, which was abandoned by Whedon and James Wan.

And honestly, continuity is overrated. There’s no narrative reason Snyder could paint his own proverbial universe away from other movies, just as Todd Phillips did with Joker.

Of course the larger issue is DC Films’ current leadership has rejected the Snyderverse as a future for their characters they’d like to invest in. Batman v Superman failed to gross $1 billion as the studio expected, but the more colorful Aquaman reached that number handily. Affleck, meanwhile, walked away from Batman. Walter Hamada, head of DC Films, even called the Snyder Cut a cul-de-sac just last December. And in his own recent NY Times profile, Snyder said, “This was going to be the last movie I make for the DCU.”

So actually discovering what happens when evil Superman descends from the heavens to threaten Batman, Joker, Cyborg, and the rest—and learning if Lois might be pregnant with Clark or Bruce’s child—will likely forever remain the province of fans’ headcanon. But hey, Snyder fans have a precedent now of making their headcanon a reality.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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hamliet · 5 years

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MXTX Ladies’ Week: Girls, Goddesses, and Ghosts

After writing about Scum Villain’s female cast here and MDZS’s here, it’s time to write about Heaven Official’s Blessing’s female cast... which is actually smaller than the other two in quantity but imo, in quality, is far greater. Most of the women do not die, and several have fantastic arcs. They’re allowed to be kickass, to make their own decisions, to be morally flawed, to be extremely feminine, to be emotional, to be ugly, and to even be villains--and the whole while, the story depicts them with empathy.

So let’s start with the mortals. This is again more a ramble than a direct meta.

The Humans:

Me, skipping happily into TGCF, immediately loving one character, and her dying like ten chapters in:

Yes, I’m talking about Xiao Ying. I also realize I said that most of TGCF’s female characters don’t get killed off, so I’m not leading off with a convincing argument (she is the only one who really does).

Little Ying’s role in the narrative is as a parallel to Xie Lian and a way to introduce the main themes of the story, which her arc encapsulates. A teenage girl who is noted to be physically unattractive, she’s introduced to us praying to Feng Xin for protection. The god who she prays to for protection from whomever is stealing the brides comments cruelly on her appearance, foreshadowing how corrupt heaven is, and Xie Lian quickly realizes that someone has tried to humiliate her already by cutting a hole in the back of her skirt, hinting at the theme of human cruelty and suffering. He is kind to her, and in return, she helps him prepare for his undercover mission to catch the bride thief, showing the the answer to her prayers is through her own work and kindness, and the connections she makes (with Xie Lian in this case).

The reader quickly learns that Little Ying might not be physically beautiful, but she has a beautiful heart, taking care of a scarred ghost who lives in the mountains (Lang Ying). Yet people turn on her and scorn her when she tries to protect Lang Ying, because humanity is often cruel to their own, and an orphan girl who is unattractive is a target. Yet, unlike the rest of the crowd gathered by the house where all the brides have been stolen away to, she wants to help. But her attempts to help, to save everyone, get her killed, and it’s noted that they do not actually help.

Softly, she said, “I feel as though my entire life, there weren’t many days where I lived happy.”

Xie Lian also didn’t know what to say, and gently patted her hand. Little Ying sighed, “Oh well, forget it. I might just be someone……born unlucky.”

This is something that repeats in Xie Lian’s arc as well: he often winds up hurting where he tried to help (as with Jun Wu, too), and sacrificing oneself is looked at, as it is in MDZS, with nuance in TGCF. Little Ying did not need to die. There’s a futility to human suffering in TGCF: it doesn’t bring a purpose, it isn’t glorious, and it doesn’t always make someone a better or worse person. It just is.

Yet it’s also worth noting that the story is asking: when society treats you a certain way because of things you cannot help, such as gender, appearance, and economic status, what power do you have to decide your fate? The answer is what brings comfort to Little Ying in her last minutes: she’s not alone. Xie Lian stays with her as she dies. Little Ying, too, made an effort to make sure others were not alone (Lang Ying). Suffering is unbearable, but if you’re not alone, there is comfort.

The Demons:

Two of the demon ladies are fantastic deconstructions of female character stereotypes: the crazed ex (Xuan Ji) and the evil seductress (Jian Lan).

(remember this meme? it plays into the crazy ex trope too)

Xuan Ji is the scorned woman who murders brides to vent her frustration at the world (and at Pei Ming, the lover who abandoned her). She is Little Ying’s counterpart in the first arc, in that while Little Ying is a Xie Lian parallel, Xuan Ji is a parallel to our main antagonist, Bai WuXiang, in that she’s determined to take out her misfortune on literally everyone around her. But she is in genuine pain, which the novel takes care to note:

Under her long hair, her tears started to fall as she said, “I’ve waited for him for centuries, what important matter does he have? Back then, in order to see me, he would cross half of the border in a single night, so what important matter could he have now? So important that he wouldn’t even be willing to see me once? An important matter? He doesn’t actually have one, right?”

It’s not portraying Pei Ming as a poor sad victim here; on the contrary, his treatment of Xuan Ji is condemned. She betrayed her army for him, and he doesn’t like her because, in many ways, he comes across as a chauvinist (at first. This is later unpacked too, but that’s for another meta).

“General Pei does not like strong-minded women, and Xuan Ji’s natural disposition is strong-willed. This is why they could not stay together for long. General Xuan Ji was unwilling to let go, so she said to General Pei that she was willing make sacrifices and change herself. Thus, she voluntarily abolished her martial arts and broke her own two legs. In this way, she did the equivalent of breaking both her wings and tying herself to General Pei. Despite all this, General Pei didn’t abandon her. He took her in and looked after her, yet, he still wouldn’t take her as his wife. Because General Xuan Ji’s long-cherished wish could not be fulfilled, she killed herself in hate. Not for any other reason, but only to make General Pei feel sad and aggrieved.

Again, harming yourself for the sake of someone else is not presented as a good thing in TGCF. The story does a good job of pointing out that both sides can be at fault; there isn’t a black and white, one is evil and the other good situation in the story. Because Xuan Ji then won’t give up and makes it her mission to torture and humiliate Pei Ming, which she does the former and tries for the latter on numerous occasions. Yet the conclusion to their arc is Pei Ming finally telling her:

...it was Pei Ming who abandoned Xuan Ji first, this female ghost also killed countless after, trying to kill them time and time again... looking like this, she was a little pitiful.

Pei Ming looked back at her, and in the end, he only said, “Xuan Ji, it’s time you wake up.”

“Wake up what.” Xuan Ji was confused.

“That you’ve become this way, I’m part of the reason, but a majority of it is by your own decisions. You’ve done so much but you can only move your own heart, I’m a steel-hearted man. Rather than love me, why don’t you go love yourself.”

He yanked back his robes from Xuan Ji’s hold, and left without looking back.

It’s not that he’s innocent in how he treated her (he isn’t), and it’s not that Xuan Ji’s pain isn’t real, but what we do with our suffering is the pivot on which everyone’s character arc in TGCF swings, and so just as Pei Ming finally decides to take responsibility for his actions, so does Xuan Ji. And after she finally lets go of her resentment, she is able to dissipate and leave the world, entering into a reincarnation cycle.

Jian Lan is originally portrayed to us as Lan Cheng, a vulgar-tongued prostitute who is the mother of a demonic murdering ghost baby, CuoCuo. Yet eventually the reader finds out she was actually a potential concubine for Xie Lian and, after the kingdom of Xian Le fell, she became a prostitute, and CuoCuo is actually the son of Feng Xin, one of Xie Lian’s best friends. Feng Xin promises to take care of them, but Jian Lan tells Xie Lian this in the end:

"having Cuo Cuo is enough for me. Who hasn’t made promises or swore to the mountains and the seas when they were young? Talking of affection, of love, of forevers. But, the longer I hung around in the world, the more I understand, something like ‘forever’ is impossible. It’s never going to be possible. Having it once was already good enough. No one can truly achieve it. I don’t believe in it anymore.”

It’s not that the story wants to imply that forever really isn’t possible (Hua Cheng and Xie Lian’s relationship counters this), but it also doesn’t invalidate Jian Lan’s choice.

“What you’ve said are all things of the past. What was love once doesn’t mean it’ll last. To be a charity case and a nuisance, I’m not interested.”

“Why would he think you both a nuisance?” Xie Lian asked, “Don’t you know the kind of person Feng Xin is?”

“You, His Highness the Crown Prince, you have never lived the common life, so of course you’d think things are that simple. He won’t now, and he won’t on the surface either. But once time gets dragged out, then nothing could be sure.

It’s her choice, and her choice not to risk trying love with Feng Xin again is respected by the narrative. Her choice parallels Xuan Ji’s, but unlike Xuan Ji, Jian Lan’s problem was never that she cared too much about a cast-off lover, but that she did not want to tell said lover the truth. Now that she has, her choices and her freedom to decide her fate remain. She too is not alone: she has her son.

The last demonic ghost character is Ban Yue, another Xie Lian parallel. She is an orphan girl, mistreated, and later a high priestess of Banyue. She states Xie Lian’s words “I, too want to save the world,” and says that she took his teachings to heart.

She’s noted to be very lonely, and after Xie Lian “died” saving her, she finds someone to cling to in Pei Su (Pei Ming’s descendent). Once they find out the kingdom of Banyue plans to destroy the city itself and everyone around it, Ban Yue opens the gates for Pei Su to slaughter everyone in the city--but at least the people outside it will survive. It’s a complex moral decision that doesn’t have an easy answer.

“You also said, ‘Do what you think is right!’” Ban Yue told him.

‘....what… nonsense! … Why did I keep saying those kinds of things… I’m nothing like that at all… am I??’ Xie Lian thought.

“But, I don’t know what’s right anymore.” Ban Yue said.

Xie Lian froze.

Ban Yue’s sulky voice buzzed from the pot, “I thought I was doing the right thing, but in the end it was me who opened the gates that let in the enemy who slaughtered my people... But if I didn’t open the gates, the Banyue people would terrorize the Midlands and hurt more people... I really wanted to do well as the Head Priestess. But, not only did I opened the gates, I killed them, and refused them human flesh. If they didn’t feed on human flesh they’d suffer, and I couldn’t relieve them of that suffering... It’s like no matter what I did, the result was going to be bad... I know I didn’t do things right, but can you tell me, where did I go wrong?”

Hearing her question, Xie Lian rubbed the back of his neck and said slowly, “I’m sorry, Ban Yue. The answer to that question, I’d not known it back then, and now… I don’t think I know the answer now either.”

The thing is, if Xie Lian hadn’t gotten himself “killed” saving her, the gates wouldn’t have been opened. Yet, if he didn’t sacrifice himself, she would be dead. There isn’t a right or a wrong choice; it’s complex morally. It also foreshadows what will happen in Book 2, when a flashback reveals to us that Xie Lian himself learned the hard way that there isn’t always a way to save everyone through the fall of his kingdom Xian Le.

The Goddesses:

My favorite female character in TGCF is YuShi Huang, or the Princess who Slit Her Throat. She’s not dead though; she’s a goddess whose quick thinking saved her family’s kingdom. She’s a Xie Lian parallel in that she is a laughingstock; Pei Ming is noted to have led a siege against her kingdom and have mocked her cruelly in her life. However, YuShi Huang, being the youngest of sixteen children, become the unlikely heir who saves her father and her kingdom, and later will grow to save those who laugh at her.

She has a kind, self-sacrificing personality like Xie Lian, but she does warn Xie Lian when she helps him by lending him her spiritual device to give his kingdom water that rain is a limited resource, and there’s only so much that he can do. She’s in other words a mite wiser than Xie Lian is at this point--if Little Ying can be seen as him in his childlike stage, trying to save everyone, and Ban Yue as his adolescent phase of character development when he’s started to question, then YuShi Huang can be seen as his parallel once he matures--which is why the reveal of just who the Lord Rain Master is comes very late in the story. Her wisdom is used to save and to heal what she can (such as smuggling Hua Cheng to Xie Lian), but she knows she cannot do everything.

She also foils Xuan Ji, in that both are from YuShi and were treated cruelly by Pei Ming in life. However, she ultimately saves Pei Ming several times, and when Xuan Ji passes on, she performs a passing service for the ghost. Pei Ming’s subsequent... embarrassment (schoolboy crush? It’s kinda questionable based on the explicit parallels with Xuan Ji, and Xuan Ji’s outright accusations of him liking her in dialogue with him) over how YuShi Huang saved him is also rather amusing.

Aaaand then there’s the other goddess. Ling Wen has the distinction of being the only complex MXTX character I struggle to like. (Jun Wu used to be on this list but. Writing him helped me like him. Not so much with Ling Wen--but I do think she’s a well done character so please note that my dislike is purely my personal opinion and not an accusation of narrative failing nor an implication that anyone should not stan her (by all means, do so!))

She’s a Jun Wu parallel in many ways, which is why she’s the only god who winds up on his side even after all he’s done comes to light. Her role in a corrupt and sexist court is also not unsympathetic: she’s often worshipped in her male form, so she adopts it, she was mistreated by the literature god before her, and she’s angry about it (every woman who’s seen men get promoted ahead of them in an office can feel this on a--hem--spiritual level). Her anger is justified, and it’s hilarious how the Upper Court cannot actually function without her and so her punishment for her crimes essentially amounts to “please just do your job.”

She’s also only character who does not have a close relationship with anyone, and this is almost certainly deliberate in response to the unfairness and the sexism and cruelty of the world and how it treats her, as a woman. She tells Xie Lian:

“Something like a genuine heart is made to be trampled...”

After a long silence, Xie Lian said, “You said ‘similar to him’. So, was General Bai Jing like this too?”

Ling Wen smiled lightly, “Why else would he be deceived by me?”

...

Xie Lian said, “… you wanted to help General Bai Jing in becoming a Supreme, and have him wake to his senses, right?”

Ling Wen gave a small laugh, “Your highness, don’t say it like I would do anything for him. After all, I’m cold-blooded and recognized no loved ones, so why would I do anything like that?”

Her closest relationship is with the Brocade Immortal Bai Jing, someone she transformed into an object. But if, as Xie Lian implies, she wanted to awaken Bai Jing again, it may imply that she might be lonely and long for connection after all, even if she is afraid to take the risks involved in human connection. Hopefully she’ll be able to connect again, now that the gods are incredibly grateful to her for doing the job none of them could do. Like Jun Wu, she has a chance.

#tgcf #heaven official's blessing #hob meta #tgcf meta #tian guan ci fu #mxtx meta #mxtx ladies week #ling wen #yushi huang #ban yue #xiao ying #jian lan #xie lian

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metasnkpotato · 5 years

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Eren Yeager, slave of freedom

Hello,

In falling on this quotation from Sartre in Being and Nothingness : 'Man is condemned to be free', I was struck by a lightning : couldn’t this sentence resume Eren’s biggest dilemma ?

I wouldn’t deal with this sentence in its precise context, because it's slightly different from the way I understood it under SnK’s lights, but the paragraph below is a quick resume about it for draw the basic idea :

Sartre, in posing man as necessarily free, particularly wishes to eliminate the figure of God as a paternal refuge and consolation of the human autonomy which falls to us. The fact that God created us would mean that we have an Essence before we even act, a purpose for being born. However, according to Sartre, to cling to this belief would only be a way to escape the responsibility we have for our actions from the very moment we are born. Because if it is so, it would mean that however we act during life, our Essence is already there, so we wouldn’t be free to sharpen it. To put the blame on God would therefore be an evasion to avoid our own heavy responsibility in existence. But the man cannot help but being free, and so he must assume.

The theme of choice and responsibility

Thus, Eren is free at any moment to make choices, but it’s impossible for him to be otherwise. As much because of his central position in SnK's history, his personal quest for freedom, and as well as his inheritance of the Attack Titan, known to have always seek freedom.

The first time that he had to face such a burden, he choose the easy path and decided to put the weight on the shoulders of his comrades and especially Levi, which he then saw as a superior figure (we could even make an analogy with figure of paternal God here).

Nevertheless, freedom to choose is something very tormenting, because when it’s up to you, so the bad consequences.

And so the first time, Eren preferred to ran away from his freedom rather than assume it, as it were too heavy for his young shoulders to bear yet. But the outcome wasn’t good, and the story has structurally punished him for having fled from his responsibility by the death of Levi’s Squad. Only when he decides to take responsibility and take control of his freedom, the narrative is rewarding and allows him to save everyone he loves.

Counting again on his comrades to do the operation at Revelio, the outcome was successful, but mid-to-dark-tone.

And that's why Eren is decided in the current arc to sacrifice what is dear to him, i.e. the love of his relatives, because his probable purpose behind all he’s doing currently is in order save them. Because as Armin’s line points it in chapter 27 : 'People capable of changing things are the ones who can throw away everything dear to them. [...] Someone who can't throw anything away will never be able to change anything.'

So what would Eren had throw away actually ? Justice or freedom ? Well, Sartre would say that he sacrificed and saved both.

Freedom is something that Eren didn’t choose, a weight that comes with humanity

Eren, after the sea, reconsidered his definition of freedom. He always thought that freedom was about destroy the obstacles that are intervene in the realization of his desires. Nevertheless, he did understood in front of it that being free doesn’t just mean getting what you want. Nor destroy everything that is around your goal. He did that with Titans to reach the sea, and what did he get from that ? Despair.

As he tells Reiner during their discussion before he fires a war with Marley, he has no choice anymore.

He must now assume the weight of the destiny of the whole world because of his central position in its future or destruction as the holder of the Founder, and can’t help anything about it. But Eren isn’t forced by anyone to do what he does.

That’s why in fact, in regard to his new definition of freedom, he’s currently free. Freedom is what he has determined for himself to want, in order to save his beloved ones. From this choice of not being free since he's attached to a mission, he’s free to act and has then, no choice. And for being able to change things, to achieve his mission, he’s now able to sacrifice his sense of justice, a thing that was very dear to him.

To sum up, because it’s a bit twisted : for Eren, be free is being able from free-will to determine for oneself what one wants. It's then to force oneself to have no choice.

[Little disgression : This may be one of the reasons also hidden behind the discussion of Chapter 112. His two friends may indeed have a form of enslavement, Armin because Bertholdt’s memories, Mikasa her Ackerman’s instincts. By pointing that, he frees them and tests the boundary between determinism and free will in the deepest of themselves. He even explicitly said it at the beginning of the discussion :

]

As Kruger words pierced through time, through him and his father, for his beloved ones, he has to carry out his mission until the end. And once Eren has decided that, he have no choice but to keep moving forward, even if it’s implying becoming an innocent’s butcher.

What is admirable about Eren is that, despite this, he manages to continue to go ahead precisely, even though he's fully responsible for the fate of the whole world, enemies, friends, strangers included. Sasha's death wasn’t initially attributed to Gabi, who appeared to be a child without judgment due to the indoctrination she has suffered, but immediately to Eren who placed himself as the voluntary instigator of all this bloodbath.

It can be seen, moreover, that he understands what responsibility and free will entail in his discussion with Reiner. While Reiner tells him the breach in the wall Maria was his entire fault, Eren refutes this.

Reiner is a prisoner of this freedom too, and Eren tries to free him by proving the opposite. But Reiner is aware of his responsibility for everything that has happened, and unlike Eren, he doesn’t have the strength to bear it. Having to assume the horror of your own actions when you’re at the origin of it isn’t something that most men are able to do.

And Eren understands this, because he's the same as Reiner on that point. He has been burdened with a very complex story that didn’t was his when he was born, free of any history. But he has to deal with it even so.

Eren has somehow become a divine figure in SnK’s universe because of this stance of freedom.

He takes liberty entirely to his charge, to avoid burdening others with it. And by doing so, he’s paradoxically willing to take the burden of the destiny of all in hand, even if it means imprison himself by this charge. Thus, the notion of freedom in Eren is truly double-edged, because by being free of choosing for everyone, and saving everyone, it’s paradoxically himself he’s making a slave.

Eren is doomed to be free, and he can only move forward because he's like that, that's his essence as he said to Reiner in chapter 100 (’We were born this way’, to quote it). But if he manages to accomplish his mission, by freeing others :

‘You’re free now’, he would finally frees himself from that. And it would be both a vicious circle, both a virtuous circle.

He made that for justice :

by sacrificing justice (commit crimes against humanity), and he made that from other’s freedom by sacrificing his freedom.

Sadly, the freedom that Eren so longed for may never be his because of the price he sacrificed for, and that's why the manga wouldn’t end with 'I'm free' but with an address to a child , to the future. But the more precise conclusion will determine then, if this whole story was worth it and if being free by proxy will be able to compensate all the blood shed to achieve it. Or if, like Grisha, he will regret his choices.

In any case, considering that the most interesting SnK elements are the one that can be read with several lights, my guess for this one last panel would be this one (not like Grisha huh, just before). A bit bittersweet therefore.

Sorry, I hope this post wasn’t too messy and far-fetched even it really was , it lacked a bit of a guideline and it’s a lot of interpretation but I hope you've understood even with that, the intention !

#shingeki no kyojin #snk #attack on titan #AoT #shingeki no kyojin meta #snk meta #attack on titan meta #aot meta #shingeki no kyojin analysis #SNK analysis #attack on titan analysis #AoT Analysis #eren #Eren Jaeger #eren yeager

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whoispeytonjames · 4 years

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Why God is the Ultimate Villain of the Supernatural Series

Warning: The following article contains quotes and spoilers from the television series Supernatural. If you have not watched up until season 15, please stop reading now.

While sitting around the dinner table with my partner, his father, and his stepmother, it occurred to me that after 15 years, I am in the minority of television viewers who are still as in love with Supernatural as the day that it first aired. During a discussion of iconic television series, of course, I had to bring up Supernatural. What could be more iconic than a genre show that has lasted long enough to make God a villain? Considering that my comments led to laughter and a discussion on when shows have “jumped the shark,” I can conclude that my main point was missed. Looking back on everything that has happened in the past 15 seasons, it makes sense that God is the true villain in a show about the threat that supernatural entities pose to humanity. Canonically, God created Archangels, Leviathans, Hellhounds, Angels, Humans, Souls, Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. Considering all these entities have created a major threat within the show; it seemed fitting that God was revealed as being the shocking twist ending at the end of Season 14. By revealing himself as being a cold and manipulative author, as opposed to a caring and benevolent God, Chuck became the “big bad” of the entire series.

When Supernatural first aired, the premise of the show centered around the two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, traveling around the United States to investigate and fight paranormal entities and urban legends. With the inclusion of Christian mythology in season 4, the overarching plot line of the series shifted so that the brothers were now saving the world from the apocalypse. Viewers of the show saw the aversion of the apocalypse at the end of season 5 and creator, Eric Kripke's departure, as being where Supernatural should have sung its swan song and disappeared into the archives of American genre television. Yet, the fan base had some other ideas, and kept the boys around for another decade despite some unfavourable moments (The British Men of Letters, anyone?). We have seen the Winchester brothers fight everything from demons and angels to the Leviathans and The Darkness, so what could be next? Well, God, of course.

From a logistical standpoint, Supernatural is entering into its final season, which means that it's imperative for the writers to escalate the level of threat that the Winchester brothers face. Since the face off with the Devil in season 5, the writers have struggled with the task of creating a villain or situation more dire than the apocalypse. With being forced to up the ante each season, it's no surprise that Supernatural has chosen to end after 15 seasons. How can you end a long-running television show that satisfies the most loyal fan base? By ensuring that the final season presents the greatest challenge that the Winchesters have faced to date. The odds need to be firmly stacked against the heroes and the show needs to present a spectacle for the series finale that is novel for the viewers. By making God the villain, whom is an omniscient and nigh-omnipotent character, the writers are sure to deliver on all the earlier listed criteria. This poses Sam and Dean with the impossible task of trying to stop a foe that can expect their intentions; not to mention that killing God will overthrow the Cosmic Balance. Although God's sister, Amara or The Darkness, has the power to wound him, and Death has claimed to be the one to reap God at the end of everything, doing so would destroy all the universes that he has created and the creations within them. If the brothers are all about "saving people [and] hunting things" how can they possibly hunt down God without destroying all creation? That's a question that I will leave for the writers to answer.

Beyond presenting viewers with a powerful antagonist for the final season, the writers of Supernatural are also alluding to an underlying thread that could make God the ultimate villain of the entire series. The apocalypse, Raphael's civil war, Leviathans, Naomi's control of Heaven, the fallen angels, the Mark of Cain, The Darkness, the corruption of all the other universes, as well as Jack's birth and death can all be traced back to God. As I mentioned before, God is the creator of the perilous threats that have plagued the Winchesters over the past 14 years; but as his existence is that of an absent father, he has also allowed his two chosen ones, Sam and Dean, to clean up his mess. Since his abrupt leave from Heaven after his creations, namely Lucifer, didn’t meet his expectations, God lived among humans as Chuck, your average everyday Joe, who enjoys nacho cheese, playing his guitar, and living his life as an out and proud bisexual. When Metatron challenges his decision to leave as being a cowardice act, in "Don't Call Me Shurley," God responds by saying that he was "done watching [his] experiments' failures." Beyond his disappointment, Chuck wanted to stay hidden and allow humanity, the archangels, and the rest of his creations to take responsibility for their actions, claiming that, "No one likes a helicopter parent." This sentiment is later echoed during season 14's "Moriah," when he reminds both Sam and Dean that he may have created the "sandbox," but he has remained "hands off."

Although God has presented himself as an occasional ally to the Winchesters throughout the years, he has never dealt with any of the obstacles that have arisen as a consequence of his absence. Instead, he ensured that the Winchesters would be present to settle each of these dilemmas in his place. Thus, the Winchesters were instrumental in Chuck's grand manuscript, as they played the all important heroes in his "favourite show." Instances of Chuck's meddling can be traced back to his coupling of John and Mary Winchester. When Sam, Dean, and Castiel meet up with Cupid in "My Bloody Valentine," he reveals that Heaven doesn't care about human matches, unless they lend to certain bloodlines and destinies. Cupid goes on to clarify that, "the union of John and Mary Winchester [was a] very big deal upstairs, [a] top priority arrangement." This was to ensure the existence of Sam and Dean Winchester. Without them, the apocalypse would have occurred as the archangels had planned and the world would have been destroyed, as shown in Apocalypse World. This is precisely why Chuck declares this world's Sam and Dean as being his favourite in all the multiverse: they are his self-sacrificing heroes. In Apocalypse World, for example, there's destruction and constant chaos with no sense of ease. When the antagonist is always winning, it's uncomfortable and boring to a Western audience that constantly consumes the narrative of the hero's quest. This literary trope has battling forces of good and evil, with the hero prevailing in the end; and for 14 seasons, Chuck has been weaving together narratives that pit the heroes against villains of his own creation. With the curtain pulled back to reveal the Wizard of Oz and all his tricks, it's time to face the antagonist left standing: God.

Upon the realization of Chuck's puppetry, Team Free Will has been effectively left shattered. After all, Sam and Dean have been "just hamsters running in a wheel [their] whole lives," or heroes acting out God's plan. Even though both brothers had the strength to escape their destiny as Michael and Lucifer's vessels, they have still been playing into the roles that Chuck had written for them, fulfilling a destiny versus being having the freedom of choice. Mary's death aside, this knowledge has already created a rift between Dean and Castiel; as Dean views their whole lives as being a lie, and Castiel views life as having predetermined obstacles, with a choice of how you overcome them. Not only has the concept of freewill been destroyed for the Winchesters, but the notion of Chuck's interference has also torn apart the Winchesters' familial bond with Castiel. If freedom and family, by both blood and bond, is truly what gives the Winchester brothers the strength to continue to fight evil, then God has already proven his status as the ultimate villain of Supernatural.

Let the end times roll.

#supernatural family #supernatural final season #supernatural season 15 #supernatural fandom #article #writer #writers

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rosalind-of-arden · 5 years

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Paper and Fire Reread chapter 16

Here we are in the last chapter in the book. Let’s see what we find regarding Morgan, Wolfe, Santi, and other shiny and distracting details. Except Khalila and Dario; they are very interesting here, but I am going to leave them to you, @thegreatlibraryfangirl

So the pack lands in this underground tunnel that is definitely not a Translation Chamber. Keria sent them from a Translation Chamber, but without using the helmet. No one seems more sick from the process than usual. It would seem, then, that the Translation Chamber is more necessary on the departure end than the arrival end. And the equipment isn’t necessary, just helpful to the Obscurist. I know there’s more about this stuff in the next book, so I’ll be watching for it.

Morgan comforts Thomas again. These two are just so sweet together.

Morgan also defends Dario. She’s not as quick as Jess to assume that the betrayal was voluntary. After so much time in a gilded cage, she probably knows very well that it’s possible for someone to look perfectly fine when they’re really not ok at all. And Dario is visibly not ok now.

Wolfe and Santi don’t say anything for this first bit of the kids stumbling around finding and checking on each other. They were the first ones sent, and they both recover quickly from Translation, so they’re not still sick during this time. Santi doesn’t light a glow until the kids start looking for them. I’m going to conclude they were sneaking a quick cuddle in.

Wolfe’s excellent poker face again. When told his mother is dead, “his eyes looked flat, lightless, and utterly unreadable.” He takes a moment to process this news, but he’s not letting anything show, and then he’s back to business.

High Garda gun details: they have multiple safety switches and the cartridge can be removed. No checking for a round in the chamber though, so again, guessing energy weapon?

This bit with forcing the grate is kind of odd. I mean, yes, Thomas is the biggest of the group, apparently by a large margin, but Santi is a trained soldier in excellent shape and Thomas just got out of prison. Even if it’s mainly an issue of just putting weight on the thing, Santi would be able to add more force to it than Thomas.

It is noon when they get out of the tunnels.

Bit of time gap here: Jess sits alone outside his family’s house for three hours. It’s approaching night when Brendan meets him there, so let’s assume a few hours travel time and say 5:00? Then he’s with Brendan long enough to clean up and change clothes. Another hour? Location of the rest of the pack is vague: Jess tells Brendan “close”, and then when the action picks up again, “they’d picked up the others a few blocks back.” So depending on where exactly they were and whether everyone traveled together, we could probably allow a good 6 hours or so for everyone to talk to Dario about the betrayal, process various traumas, and maybe have another awkward lunch?

Jess’s dad has vanished. Someone from the Library got his Codex. If there wasn’t already Brightwell-Library collusion, here’s where it starts. We also get evidence of Brightwell-London Garda relationships with Brendan and Captain Harte. Assuming the British use the same rank structure as the Library, that’s a pretty high-ranking friend for the Brightwells to have with local law enforcement. But not high enough to get Liam off the hook. Maybe Callum started making these alliances in response to Liam’s death?

So this line from Morgan about telling Jess and Brendan apart: “Well. Not for me, of course.” Just her being sweet and romantic? Or as an Obscurist, can she perceive differences between the two that others don’t even sense?

Protective dad Santi! Has a gun pointed at Callum, gives Jess a choice on whether or not to shoot.

Do I sense fatherly jealousy from Callum here? He knows who Jess’s adoptive dads are and is not happy about it. And Wolfe and Santi aren’t any happier with Callum. Here’s Santi looking at Callum “as if he were a particularly unpleasant sort of bug he’d found in his stew” and Wolfe “staring at Brightwell with flat, dark eyes, like he wanted to take a bite out of him.” Wolfe snarking about Callum being “such an honest man.” And Jess sides with his adoptive dads: “he knew in his heart he’d choose Wolfe over his own father anytime.”

Now we have a “long ride” in a wagon to St. Paul’s. More time gap. Another hour or two? Getting kind of late now.

Wolfe vs. Santi, round what is it now, 8? Debating whether or not Wolfe will go rob the Serapeum. Winner is Khalila because Wolfe goes and hands her an opening. Score remains 6-1 Wolfe.

Glain has apparently forgiven Dario enough to hand him a knife. Interesting contrast with the way she treated Morgan.

Callum knows Morgan is an Obscurist. How? More evidence he’s already in league with the Archivist?

Morgan researched the London Serapeum. She says she did it just for this. Is that true? She also passed through London on her way to Alexandria, and if she did what Scholar Tyler suggested, she would have stopped by the Serapeum to try to erase her records there.

Khalila, Dario, Thomas, and Glain go to the reading room. Jess, Morgan, Callum, and Brendan go looking for the Translation Chamber. What are Wolfe and Santi doing here?

Protective dad Wolfe keeps Callum from bothering Khalila while she tags books.

Will Naomi be showing up again? And on which side? She seems to have a positive view toward Wolfe when she first sees him, but she leaves convinced that he’s working with the Burners, which would play right into the Archivist’s narrative.

So much backstabbing and counter-backstabbing here. If somehow Callum wasn’t committed to working with the Archivist, this would be what pushes him over that line: the Burners just stabbed him in the back, and Jess has chosen his found family over the Brightwells. Who can help Callum get revenge on both the Burners and the Wolfe pack? The Archivist.

Do we ever see Kate again? She’s the first one to put on the Translation helmet here. But I don’t remember seeing her in Philadelphia. Did I miss something?

Also, Kate tells Morgan to send them to the Serapeum. Morgan, obviously, does not do that. Does Morgan sense problems with the Serapeum and send them to a different spot? Does Morgan have very fortunately bad aim? Must watch next book for details on how this works.

As of the end of this book, Wolfe has recovered traumatic memories, walked through the prison where he was tortured, seen his partner give up everything he’d worked for his entire life, ran around two cities as a fugitive, returned to his abusive childhood home, had to deal with his complicated relationship with his mother, lost his mother, watched lots of books burn, recovered and immediately lost his entire career worth of academic writing, ran through a war zone, and watched a Serapeum burn. I may be missing things? Recovery time he’s had amounts to one awkward lunch date and one night with Santi in a place where he probably couldn’t really get comfortable. That’s a lot to deal with and not a lot of recovery time.

Santi, meanwhile, has seen Wolfe recover memories and fall apart, been forced to abandon him right after said memory recovery, uncovered conclusive evidence that he’s been working for an immoral cause his whole life, walked through the prison where his partner was tortured, sacrificed his entire career, fought against his own soldiers, ran around two cities as a fugitive, had to deal with his partner’s abusive mother, seen the place that caused Wolfe’s earliest traumas, had to try to strategically plan multiple impossible escapes, and tried to keep Wolfe in one piece without letting the kids see weakness through all of it. Same amount of recovery time for him as Wolfe.

And Morgan: escaped the Iron Tower, went through the prison, had half her friends distrust her, had to play caretaker for Thomas because Jess and Glain suck at it, ran around as a fugitive in two cities, was forced back into the Iron Tower, had to put a collar back on, was threatened with rape, fought with Jess, had to deal with Keria (must figure out what the relationship between those two was), watched the Black Archives burn, watched the Welsh destroy another city, conclusively saw that her partner’s family are all assholes, and has multiple factions plotting to enslave her. No real recovery time.

#the great library #paper and fire reread

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toaarcan · 6 years

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RvB 15-17 Condensed

The working title for this was “RvB 15-17 but not crap”.

Now, this might seem a little presumptuous to include Season 17 in this, which, at time of writing, has yet to be released, buuuut I’m basically mashing S15 and S16 into a single block which would make S17 actually the sixteenth season in this version. So the rewrite is that Season 17 happens a year earlier.

Now, I have my problems with RvB 15-16.

I don’t want to start off on such a negative tone, but I feel like I need to establish that before we go ahead.

While Season 15 was at worst, a mediocre RvB Season with tonal problems and inconsistent characterisation for our leads, Season 16 is all of those problems made worse. Like, it’s not Season 9 bad, but it’s still bad, and while I’ve mostly covered those issues in past posts, I haven’t really covered how much the setup for the climax is just plain stupid.

Like the setup for the finale, and thus Season 17, is as follows:

Atlus: Don’t do the thing.

Wash: Don’t do the thing.

Huggins: Don’t do the thing.

Carolina: ... Alright guys let’s do the thing.

[Time breaks because they did the thing]

It’s a little more complex than that, but not by much.

Now, I ummed and ahhhed over how to make this work for a while, but ultimately, I came to the conclusion that this is how I would do it.

For starters, 90% of Season 16’s plot is getting dumped. If not all of it. Legitimately all I’m keeping is the ending. Sorry, it’s not exactly a big loss.

Second off, I’m not heavily altering Season 15. While there’s definitely a good Season 5-13 tier plot that could be told with a fake BGC, this isn’t it, and attempting to alter that leads into a completely different set of stories. So Season 15 is mostly unchanged, just assume Temple is actually a competent villain and the plot isn’t driven entirely by the BGC being dumber than usual for a week.

So the timeline is now Season 15 -> Paradox -> Season 17.

We’re also scrubbing Wash’s injury from Season 15. It’s going to be an unnecessary complication for the lead-in to the next season anyway. If we’re going straight for the time paradox, then having Wash be injured is kinda pointless. Given that Season 16 ended on a warped Blood Gulch way before Wash ever showed up, there’s nothing to gain by having him out of action. He’s already imperilled enough by time being fucked.

“But wait,” I hear you say. “If Wash and Locus are with the heroes when they take on the Blues and Reds, surely they catch up to Temple quickly enough that the time machine doesn’t get turned on!”

Ah, but that’s the beauty of it. Whether the time machine is turned on or not is not the focus of the paradox here. And because that’s not a vital plot point, we’re free to have the characters just Travel At The Speed Of Plot, and arrive precisely in time for the actual climax.

You see, rather than changing history around Wash’s injury and thus fucking the timeline up, the key to the paradox is Church. Specifically, what happens when Church is removed from their history because someone pulled him into the present before the events of Blood Gulch really happened.

In the actual show, when Church appears in the portal, Tucker tells Caboose to pull him through, and Caboose refuses, instead bidding farewell to an extremely confused Alpha and allowing the portal to close. It’s a big moment for Caboose’s character, and it’s one of the parts of Season 15 which is pretty well-executed.

Obviously, I’m not going to overturn that and have him not have the growth. So, how does Church end up being pulled through?

“Tucker did it!”

Now, I’m not a big fan of Joe’s Tucker. In fact, that’s an understatement. I hate the way Joe writes Tucker, and I’d rather not fall into that same trap, so I’m going to explain in detail why Tucker would make this mistake.

1) Tucker just had Epsilon die on him. Inside his head. And at the same time, the other remaining pieces of Epsilon all faded away too. And Tucker didn’t even notice it was happening, by the time he realised what was going in, the fragments were gone and he was left in a very empty and very non-functioning suit of power armour. Given how heavy this armour is, with it non-functioning, Tucker was probably unable to move until his friends removed most of the suit, so he was trapped in a coffin that was emptier than it should’ve been.

2) Struggling to cope with his grief, Tucker does something frankly stupid and activates the Temple of Procreation.

3) A while later, Tucker is starting to recover from his friend’s death, when Dylan shows up and he finds out in short order that A) Someone is committing terrorist acts while disguised as him and his friends, B) The planet he sacrificed so much, and Church gave his life for, is being blamed and might be invaded, and C) Church might be alive. This effectively halts Tucker’s recovery.

4) The consequences of his fuckup with the Temple of Procreation come back to haunt him, and suddenly, something Tucker has always been proud of- that he’s a great father to Junior- is called into question because he’s now an absentee dad to a fuckton of Chorus babies, which deals a blow to the poor man’s ego.

5) Shortly after that, the fiasco where Temple manages to manipulate him happens, and it makes things even worse for him. He should’ve seen through it after Felix, but he didn’t. And now, Wash and Carolina are hurt because of him, and the message from Church was a fake.

6) Finally, after all of this, he’s face to face with Church, and he has the chance to save him, and while maybe he could follow Caboose’s example… there’s one key problem. This isn’t Epsilon, it’s Alpha.

Y’see, there’s a big difference between those two. As has been pointed out before, Epsilon was always kind of a total prick to Tucker. A lot of this can be chalked up to Epsilon’s knowledge of the BGC coming entirely from Caboose, who purposefully left Tucker out of his recounts of their many adventures.

But this isn’t Epsilon. It’s Alpha. Tucker’s best friend, Alpha. Alpha, who went off and died without Tucker being there. Without Tucker ever getting a chance to see him once again. They got separated and one year later, Alpha died, in denial about a fact that Tucker had figured out long ago. Maybe Tucker could’ve helped save Alpha if he’d been there. Maybe Alpha wouldn’t have had to leave the safety of Wash’s suit and end up vulnerable to the emp if someone else had been there to hold the Meta’s attention.

Tucker decides to save his friend. He’s at the end of his rope and after all the crap he’s been through on this journey, which he set out on because he wanted to save Church, he’s going to damn well save Church.

Additionally, by tying Tucker into the portal scene properly, there’s now a proper narrative throughline from the characters receiving Church’s message to the portal. Caboose has been covered, but Tucker hasn’t.

Time paradox.

Despite his best intentions and hopefully understandable motives, Tucker has just pulled Alpha-Church out of their history before it even got started. And given how much of Seasons 1-13 was motivated by Church in some form or another… well, they’ve just unmade themselves.

The final twist is that time isn’t rewound to Season 1. We don’t need to see that. Season 1 retreads aren’t needed. If they want to remake Season 1, they should just bite the bullet and do a full remaster of the early Seasons to clean up the audio, rather than forcing new Seasons of the show to ape it.

Instead, we see a Blood Gulch wherein the same amount of time has passed since S1E01, but with none of the elements that Church brought in having happened.

Tex never goes to Blood Gulch. She spends her time hiding from Freelancer and desperately trying to find her other half, whom she was ripped away from and now will never be able to reunite with.

Tucker loses his friend, and is left with Caboose, who already doesn’t like him.

Caboose, for his part, doesn’t get brain damaged by Omega, but he still has his air shut off and Church still convinces him to drink Scorpion fuel, so he’s not doing much better.

Kai probably gets deployed to Blood Gulch faster, since Blue team is undermanned. She’s stuck in an empty box canyon with the rest of them.

York lives on, not getting recruited by Tex, until the Meta comes for him. The Meta takes Delta and leaves York to die alone.

Wyoming is not sent after Tucker, and doesn’t get the chance to formulate the plan with Omega.

Junior is never born.

Because Wyoming’s plan doesn’t happen, Wash is left to try and combat the Meta without the aid of the Reds and Blues. He fails.

The Meta remains free to hunt down and murder its former comrades. Like Tex, it ends up searching endlessly for the Alpha, which it will not find.

Without the Project’s downfall, and without Epsilon’s activation, Carolina remains in hiding.

The Director remains in hiding, endlessly repeating his attempts to perfect his remake of Allison. He never finds the answer.

Chorus is destroyed by perpetual civil war, all according to Hargrove’s design.

And as the galaxy darkens, people who would’ve been friends die or are left alone to rot, and the Project that put them there tears itself apart until only Tex, the Meta, Carolina, and the Director remain, scattered to the winds and pursuing impossible tasks, Blood Gulch remains. Its purpose is lost without Alpha, and the Project is gone, but with no new orders, VIC perpetuates the “war” between Red and Blue teams, and so it goes on. Static. Unchanging.

Cue the ending, and the setup for the next season. A Blood Gulch without Church.

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theflashdriver · 6 years

Text

Held Together 2/?

This part was done a lot faster than I anticipated but I’m still pretty proud of it! Expect updates to slow down a little bit from now on.

While this situation had surely been jarring for Silver, now asleep within Marine’s hut (the first to ever do that successfully) Blaze was still coming to terms with the meshing of her two completely different lives. She sat by the ocean, feet dangling off the edge of the dock, in contemplative eye lock with her reflection in the water. What stood at the front of her mind was this; she had sacrificed herself to give him a better future… yet she had been the one to benefit. She had lived a life of relative luxury, sure there had been occasional altercations but that was nothing compared to the burning landscape where he had been left; scrounging to survive, fighting every day and never knowing comfort. She didn’t know for certain what his future was like now, but judging from his breakdown on the beach… it wasn’t the happy world he had told the others about. Was he sparing their feelings? Or was he scared that telling them could lead to an even greater cataclysm, something he’d be unable to stop. He had been suffering in the wake of her sacrifice, it had been for nought; it had been for less than nought! She clenched her fists, closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

On one hand she was the Princess of this dimension, the reigning monarch in a world that would crumble without her… but in the other she had come from a hellish future and had her tormentor sealed into her very soul. What had happened between here and there? Two theories came to mind, the first being that Iblis release in this dimension had prompted everything to exist as it did eventually leading her to be reincarnated, the latter assumed this world had always been here but she had been inserted into its narrative… perhaps rewritten how things were through her reincarnation, with that Iblis had been reincarnated to. Not as another being but as the very emeralds she guarded, their fates and being still bonded; released from her but sealed into another form. They were still crystalline in the future, in that sense sacrifice hadn’t been in vain; Iblis had been fully sealed. She held the two Sol Emerald in her hands; there were no more disturbances regardless of how far she held them apart. She had been back to the palace and checked, the grey emerald remained sealed away in her bedroom and yet Silver had arrived with some version of it.

She shook her head, fully aware that this spelt disaster in the immediate future. She had regained her best friend, the person she’d always been able to trust, and yet with him had come an omen of her world’s future. It would collide with his. She clenched her eyes and heaved a breath. It wasn’t fair but that was nothing new; she’d dealt with unfairness through both lives. Being born into a world where survival was nigh impossible but with a friend, born into a world where survival was simple… but she was bullied and friendless for so long. She had both safety and Silver, she wasn’t willing to give up either but both could be pried for her grasp… she didn’t know what would happen if he fixed his future, would things reset? Would the Silver she knew be gone again, would she have to find him and then try to remind him of their past? Was it a certainty that he’d remember, could she repeat the events of the beach with a new Silver? Probably not, her dimension would have to be destroyed to have a Sol emerald appear within his time. What if the future wasn’t fixed even after they fixed this current issue, what if they made yet another sacrifice in vain? Her heart couldn’t take that.

And what of her world? Was it destined to collide with Sonic’s? Or had she simply died at some point within his dimension, Sol emeralds on her person and thus spread within his world. It was unclear what had happened or how it had happened, just as it was when she had been from the future. Two hundred years of lava flowing through cities could destroy a lot of records. What was she to do? Just govern and hope it didn’t happen in her lifetime? Send Silver off and hope he sorted it, leaving her alone once again? Not as alone as she had once been but… she wanted him safe, it was what she had always wanted and eternally been denied. She was happy to be with him again… and yet his appearance heralded an immanent disaster. She now fully understood why he’d lied about the state of the future, it made his presence like the spectre of death. Her best friend was cursed in an irreversible way, his presence in the past an omen of danger in the future. She took her head in her hands, feeling a pulsing headache brewing. She hadn’t gotten sleep, she was thinking much too hard about this surely.

She looked back to her reflection, her face was the same but different. It was health she assumed, clean fur and a good diet. They had always been able to retrieve clothes but it was the things hidden behind the veil of golden cuffs and a purple gown, she felt her arm and felt muscle she hadn’t had. They’d been running on fumes, she had spent a day without sleep and felt her mind unravel while he suffered without food for his entire life. Subsistence on energy alone, sleeping among flames in a broken city. She clenched her teeth, she had no control over what had happened yet felt fully responsible; he had tried to seal away Iblis for her only for their positions to swap. This is what he’d wanted for her, but not what she wanted for him! He was supposed to be safe and happy, in a future where he could naively wander without worry.

And now what? Her kingdom, what she had been given in exchange, was to be destroyed as he returned to her? Should it not, should he succeed in whatever mission time had set him, he would be reset back to that future or worse… wiped from reality entirely. There was no winning, there was no-

“Oi mate, you’ve been lookin’ a bit down since this fella arrived. Is somethin’ on your mind?” A set of green boots was now kicking out to sea with her, looking Marine in the eyes and seeing a rare look of genuine concern Blaze couldn’t scold her for intruding on private thoughts. “You’re not the best for talkin’ about your bothers but this is takin’ the cake, you usually just look angry; you’re lookin’ downright sad today.”

Blaze composed herself, lowering her hands to her thighs and taking a deep breath. “Marine, you are my friend and though I don’t often admit it you are incredibly important to me. However Silver, the hedgehog asleep and drying in your house, was not only there for me when no one else was but was a ray of hope in a darker world. I lost him a long time ago but didn’t know I had. Today my memories of him resurfaced, I tried to sacrifice myself and give him a better life once upon a time. We lived a close life together, we were all the other had.” Blaze tried to explain to the young racoon, though she was certain there would be prodding questions.

Marine blinked twice, processing the information; “Wait, how did ya forget him? Did you hit your head or somethin’? You said he was a big part of your life, how could he be if you forgot him?”

“I… I’m not sure. I wasn’t always from here Marine, though I suppose I was in this reality… I was once from a future in Sonic’s world and crossed to another dimension, I believe it was this dimension. Whatever happened after that in his world I do not know but I was reborn here, I didn’t just wake up without memories and somehow become the Princess. I don’t know if this dimension was here before and I changed it or… regardless, what matters is I remember him and he’s here now but I’m scared he won’t be for long.” Blaze replied, trying to make things as clear as possible. “There’s a chance, well… more of a certainty that him showing up here means things will go wrong soon. This is bigger than the island, our whole world might be in danger along with Sonic’s own, Silver is at the centre of it all.”

“Oh that’s why you’re sad? Then you’re bein’ real stupid.” Blaze’s brows furrowed, ears lowered. Marine leaned back a little, realising what she had said; “What I mean is that you should go and spend time with him if you’re scared he’ll be gone right? Don’t spend so long worrying about when or if he’ll have to leave, live in the now not the future! That’s where ya are now right? He’s here and you’re here, why aren’t you with him right now? We’ve dealt with big problems in the past, it seems like every time someone from that dimension shows up here there’s some big tussle, so lets just enjoy peace while it lasts eh? Let’s have some fun!”

Blaze expression softened and she slowly rose, extending a hand to Marine and helping her up; “You’re probably right, I should enjoy whatever time I have with Silver. I think you’ll like him to Marine, he’s an-

“Gosh Blaze you’re talkin’ about him a whole lot, and with all these feeligs… do you love him or somethin’? I’ve never seen you like this with anyone, not even Sonic and Tails when they left. Never thought I’d see you with a crush, and he’s dangerous too? Or is it that danger follows him? I didn’t think you’d go for that type.”

Blaze ears lowered and brows furrowed once more, a harshness growing in her voice; “He was the one person I could count on in a world of terrors, the person who would care for me in ill health and comfort me. Of course I care for him more than any other. Do not mock the bond we have, it’s stronger than any other to ever exist. I died so that he might live in peace only to end up here in comfort! Do you understand how much that hurts!?”

Marine was taken aback but her eyes widened at the last sentence, “W-Wait a minute, you died? Like… actually died died? That’s how you came here, you had to die?”

Blaze’s brow softened, she refused to look Marine in the eye. This situation was strange, explaining it to an outsider would probe difficult… let alone explaining it to a child like Marine. She continued; “He tried to sacrifice himself for me but he couldn’t do it so I… I did it for him. I wanted him to be safe and happy more than anything. Instead I ended up safe and he ended up living in an awful world alone, when I was last there fire engulfed the city and lava ran through the streets. You’ve seen him; he’s clearly not from somewhere safe, he’s malnourished and unkempt. I just… I could suffer, I had resigned myself to eternal pain, I wanted him to be safe and happy.” Was this Iblis, even after it had been bested, destroying her life as it had theirs before?

Marine moved in and hugged Blaze, “Alright, alright; lets go talk to him then eh? I’m sure he’s feeling like this to right? He woke up, that’s why I came out to get you. We can go for a sail later alright? Show him the sights and stuff, would he like that?”

“I think he would very much, in fact… I think going around and seeing things with these new eyes would be nice. Reflecting on my last life I feel like I’ve taken this world’s beauty somewhat for granted. The little things hold more meaning to me now than they ever did, now that I know the price. The rush of water, the growing of flowers, the sky through-

“Yeah yeah sure sure, come on! Let’s go see your boyfriend eh? I’m sure he’s worried about you to.” And with that Marine began to drag the slowly boiling Blaze back toward her hut. It wasn’t that the idea shone a light on Silver she hadn’t particularly thought of prior, there had been times when to call him a companion even felt too impersonal, but more so that whether or not the love was there and returned he might be gone soon. It was hard enough losing him as a friend, let alone a… a closer partner.

They arrived, entering the ramshackle house (well, it was more like a single room with an attached bathroom) and finding the hedgehog fully immersed; spinning most every object in Marine’s house that wasn’t tied down… so mostly it was just junk painted like pirate ships with the exception of dirty cutlery and plates. He was surprised upon the door opening, quickly resetting the position of all the objects and looking down to them from Marine’s guest-hammock. Blaze looking to the Racoon could detect sinister intention, but she had momentarily been awed by his display. A voice called from above; “Um… hello down there!”

“Oi oi mate! Come get ya Sheila! She’s been up in arms worryin’ about ya!” Marine shouted up, much to Blaze’s chagrin… though she loosed a smile at his response. Blaze felt herself go red, she focused on the dirty dishes rather than daring to look to either of them. Fortunately his response eased her tension.

“…I’m sorry Blaze, I have no idea what your friend is saying. A-are most people like that? Have I learned to talk wrong?” The white hedgehog slowly floated his way down, landing in the daylight Blaze was immediately worried but she’d known things wouldn’t be great. She and Silver had never gotten the best food and that was more clearly carrying over, the hedgehog was more fur than meat, his gloves were torn and his boots even worse for wear than she remembered.

She looked up to him as he approached, a cool sweeping over her; “No no don’t worry, this is Marine. You’ll get used to it, that sentence was a little rough. How are you feeling?”

“I think I’m about back to normal, I’ve still got a bit of a headache but it’ll pass I’m sure!” He smiled, then looked down to the Racoon; “It is very nice to meet you Marine, I’m Silver. I’m from the fu-

“Oh I know mate, she’s been gabbing about you since you woke up. Talking about being from the future and destroyed worlds and her dea-

“Thank you Marine,” Blaze cut in, giving the racoon a long and hard stare. “Could you leave us for a moment? Perhaps go and get the ship?”

“Great mate, I’ll leave you two to it!” And with that she was off like a rocket, scared of incurring the Cat’s wrath. Now it was just the two of them, there was… a tension in the air.

“So,” He started, “Um… we got it out earlier but I’m very glad you’re alive and last night wasn’t all a dream. I’m glad you’re safe and I’m glad you remember me.”

“Likewise of course, I’m glad that you’re here and I remember you. While I am upset that things didn’t happen as we’d hoped… I am happy to see you again, there’s no denying that.”

At that Silver loosed a huge sigh, leaning back against Marine’s own hammock; “Oh I’m so glad! You have no idea how worried I was, I-I know we were close and stuff but I don’t know what your life is like now. I didn’t know if we were still close or if that stuff toward the end would make it worse or better or-

“Silver, Silver, relax. I’m here with you now and I have no intention of leaving you. I promised I would not again and I plan to stand by it.” She was blunt with him, knowing it was for the better; “While in this world my upbringing has been different from that of our past I’m still the same Blaze as I was, now even more so with these additional memories.”

Silver nodded, “Right right. What was your life like here though, I know you’re a princess but… what does that mean for what you do?”

“A lot of boring politics and people telling me what I can and can’t do.”

“But… But isn’t been the princess being the boss? Shouldn’t you just get to do what you want now?”

She cracked a smile, realising that showing him her world was going to be far more enjoyable than she initially imagined. “You’re so naïve, but… I understand; unfortunately that’s not how a government works. I need to meet with people and have various duties to attend, it’s not like I can wave my hand and everything is as I say. It’s quite isolate at the top, you become… unapproachable.”

He looked a little concerned at that… well this was Silver, he didn’t do a little concerned in Blaze’s experience; “You were lonely here? But there are more people right? It’s not just you and Marine, right? The people who tell you what you can and can’t do exist don’t they?”

Blaze stepped closer, “There are different kinds of loneliness… the type you must have experience was far worse than-

“No, like… you made a sacrifice you should have gotten to live happily. That’s not fair, I though…” Silver looked concerned and upset in his typical way, Blaze put a hand on his shoulder.

“I made that sacrifice so that you could live happily, me living at all is a shock… and you still living so poorly is aggravating. I was lonely as I was the only one with powers like ours, while that has happened lets not reflect too long on it and what we’d hoped when we split. The reality is that we’re back together and that I won’t let anything separate us again, now have you had anything to eat? I’m sure Marine will have something around here.” Blaze set off, searching through drawers and dressers attempting to ignore the various pirate paraphernalia.

“Oh I had some rings before I got here, I should be fine for a couple of hours or so.”

She continued to rake through drawers, finding what looked to be a box of cereal… high in sugar but it would do for a start. “We both know that’s not a healthy way of living, you’re practically bones with fur on top. We need to start you on a proper diet before you waste away any further. ” Opening her fridge she found a remaining splash of milk, she fused the two in a bowl and shoved it into his hands; “You’re going to eat now and keep eating, I can’t have you starving; food is easily available in this time and while I may not have much here to offer I certainly don’t lack funds for future meals.”

She turned to get him a spoon but by the time she turned back milky, sugary, masses were floating into his mouth. It wasn’t the most mannerly way of eating but at least he was eating it. She made a mental note to teach him some basic etiquette before taking him to the castle, just little things so Gardon wouldn’t turn his nose too far up. She turned on Marine’s kettle, a utility Blaze had insisted she include, and began to make some tea. Before she could turn back Silver had already long finished the bowl, now standing wide eyed and slouched at the same time. He was spinning the bowl in his psychokinetic grip much too fast, “I feel really full but also full of energy, is that normal? When I ate in Sonic’s time I just got sleepy.”

“With sugary cereal like that yes, don’t worry it’ll wear off shortly.” She turned back with the mugs, “Careful it’s hot.”

“A hot drink? Is… that’s a thing?” Silver sounded quite sceptical, “Are you trying to trick me?”

“Yes, I’m well known for my practical jokes.” Blaze deadpanned in response, sipping her tea with pyrokinetic abandon.

This prompted a laugh from him; “I’ve always liked your jokes though, you don’t make too many but when you do they never fail to make me laugh.”

She tired to ignore that, a small redness spreading… it was a complement she’d never heard from anyone else; “Speaking of temperature though how are you holding up? Going from burning hot to hypothermia to this must be quite strange.”

Silver nodded, the liquid leaving his cup and beginning to float through the air… he was trying to cool it with psychokiensis… that and trying to make drinking look cooler than it truly was, much to Blaze’s amusement. “It’s certainly colder and I’m not used to it but I think I like it a whole lot more than it being boiling all the time. Luckily I’ve got fur for that, haven’t looked for scissors in quite some time.”

“I noticed when I was resuscitating you, hopefully you’ll get to build yourself up a bit before you need a trim.” She wasn’t embarrassed by the memory, well… outside what he had asked her afterword, she would have done it for any of her citizens but was especially glad to have done it to him.

“Ah, right, that… yeah.” He went quite red, scratching it his quills. It was clear he remembered the kiss of life… now she regretted even raising it again, a tension was blooming and she’d have to put a stop to it.

“W-We’ll be going a sail today, I figured that you should get to see some more of the island as well as experience some sea air in a more controlled environment. After that I’ll take you around town and to the castle, there’s a lot I want to show you.”

“Oh, that sounds great! I’m always scared of messing things up when I’m in Sonic’s past, here things should be a little safer right? I’ll get to see sights without being so worried about messing up.” He smiled, his cup of tea now empty he floated it and the bowl toward the sink; picking up on the context of Marine’s endless dirty dishes.

Blaze flinched for just a moment, but returned to her practiced neutral expression (used in most of her meetings) “Yes, we should be able to do most anything you want. Marine should have the boat ready so let’s-

As she turned to the door a hand caught her wrist, Silver was looking quite stern… she knew she’d been caught. “Is something wrong Blaze? Should I not be here, is it going to make things dangerous or-

“No Silver it’s nothing like that! I don’t want you to go!” She felt herself hiss a little, closed her eyes and breathed a sigh… she kept them closed; “Let’s just have today at least before we talk about these things, alright? I want to show you around without any worries of what is or may be. I want it to just be you and me with no worries about anything else. Just us, together in a peaceful place finally, in bliss together.”

There was a pause; “I want that too Blaze.” She opened her eyes, looking to him; “I-I’d like that every day if I’m honest, but today would be a good start to that right? I promise not to leave your side as you promised not to leave mine.” He went from holding her wrist to her hand, fingers gently entwined. Thumb over thumb.

“Yes alright, let’s start.” A smile was growing on her face she opened the door… only to walk right into Marine.

“Awlright, you two lovers done your kissin’ then eh? Holdin’ hands and stuff eh?”

Part 1

#silvaze #silver the hedgehog #silver and blaze #blaze the cat #sonic the hedgehog

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clonerightsagenda · 7 years

Note

Your commentary is so interesting, I love your AU and how much thought you put into it! Could you talk about Vriska's first scene (with Aranea and Meenah) or her arc in general, and/or about Play the Rain? Thank you!

Oh sweet, more opportunities to talk about myself. I am enjoying these more than I should.

This is another set that I can already tell will get long, so I’ll break ‘em up. Vriska’s arc in TLC is kind of a Big Thing, so let’s start out with her first scene with Aranea and Meenah, and I’ll work my way through the rest as I have time.

On this blog, I refer to GO!Vriska as the superior one, but in canon she still has a long ways to go. She has figured out that her other self is an asshole, and she’s got an inkling that her earlier behavior was not 100% excellent, but she stalls out there, possibly a victim of dreambubble inertia, possibly a victim of bad writing. I don’t really consider a character going ‘huh, maybe my past behavior was somewhat unsavory’ sufficient as a ‘redemption arc’. You need to do something about it. So a big focus when it came to TLC!Vriska was making sure she actually took action, and part of that involved lighting a fire under her ass. Unfortunately for Meenah and Aranea, they were the kindling.

The scene starts with Vriska and Meenah hanging out in the bubbles, watched over by Andrew Hussie, who is quickly replaced by our author self-inserts as part of the running gag and also because a grown man spying on two teenage girls dating has become increasingly creepy to me as I get older. I disapprove of Gill's overly aggressive tactics though, as you can tell from my tiny avatar. This was in early days, when I was convinced we were going to get a cease and desist letter at any moment. Now I figure no one cares.

In the conversation, I tried to highlight GO!Vriska's insecurities. Throughout the comic, Vriska adopts different personas as a survival tactic. I'll talk shit on her because she does terrible things that I feel the narrative never properly addresses, but it's not that I don't get why. She tries to play up the Mindfang thing to survive Alternia and her lusus. Later, she emulates Meenah to gain her approval, especially when her confidence is lowered by her pir8 expedition falling through and her one human ally dissing her. The fact that there's a significant age gap in this relationship doesn't help. I also find that creepy. Dancestors are like 19 right? 19/13 is Too Much, kids. I don't care how long both of them have been in the afterlife; brain chemistry remains a factor. Anyway, in their scene together, they're both falling victim to the tendency for dreambubbles to sap dreamers' energy, and Vriska's getting increasingly anxious because she feels Meenah's losing interest in her.

Then, Aranea shows up. Now, I detest her, but again, I can at least attempt to empathize. She's been dead for a long time, and rather like alt!Calliope, has had her perceptions of people skewed so she views them more as characters. (With her plans of healing the timeline, she kinda was trying to be a Muse of Space, anyway.) She hated being sidelined, and so she tried to do something about it. Allegedly her intent was good, but it quickly warped into a self-interested attempt to have her way no matter what the cost, doubling down on cruelties like mind control and murder whenever people put up a fight. Approaching the kids and offering her assistance with an explanation of her plan might've worked out fine, especially as they were scattered and looking for leadership. Instead, she went in guns a-blazing and paid the price.

On page 381, we get the hell out of there because we know what's coming, and that's pretty much the end of the self-insert gag. For the best.

As in canon, we use Aranea as a way for Vriska to see her behavior reflected back. It's less dramatic than seeing an alternate version of herself, of course, but it still prompts her to think about some of the mistakes she's made. It's less threatening when you're criticizing someone else. Still, she immediately backtracks and says they can come up with a new plan, eager to remain part of this crowd and maintain the most recent identity she has constructed.

ARANEA: Dancestor, consider this your next and most important lesson in 8eing a Serket.

We just had to lay the irony on thick here.

In canon, as I mentioned earlier, Lord English remains a sort of shadowy, not wildly intimidating enemy. He shows up with a bang in Caliborn:Enter, but after that you mostly get the vibe that he has to be defeated because he's the narrative's assigned big bad rather than because anyone has personal stakes. After all that buildup, most of the cast doesn't even confront him, and his demise is never clearly shown. Sort of anticlimactic. We wanted to re-establish him as a threat, which is difficult in a comic where it's almost impossible to kill someone properly. This scene, and the one with the puppet strings earlier, are our attempts to add a semi-horrorish vibe to the comic and go hey, this guy? He's a big deal. Plus, it's a fitting reference to the f8 Mindfang doomed Redglare to. Panel 391 is a direct reference. Aranea considers everyone else merely background characters, and the background characters kill her.

She does have one last... I hesitate to say "redemption" spot, but she does help free Meenah and Vriska when it's clear she's fucked. Whether that is out of genuine good nature or a desire to have one last impact on the story, you decide.

Then, Meenah saves Vriska, only to run out of time to escape the bubble herself. It's not an intentional heroic sacrifice (she would've followed if she could) but the Thief of Life does "give" life one time before getting doublekilled herself. This led to concerned musing on my part in the google doc that we ended up heroic sacrificing both Thieves. What sort of message were we sending about the class? That still bothers me a little, because I don't want to suggest the only way to balance out initial selfishness is to give yourself entirely. You should never be called upon to destroy yourself to prove your worth. Perhaps there was a better way to handle that, I don't know. To be fair, canon was laying the implications on pretty thick that Meenah was seeking a fight to the death against English, and so that's sort of a subversion of that (putting prudence before glory), but again. YMMV.

Despite me being the one to plan both sections, I wasn't thrilled about wiping out Meenah and Aranea not long after wiping out alt Calliope and doomed Roxy. I felt like we were really burning through the girl characters and I didn't want to give a bad impression. (We killed loads of dudes in Cherubquest, but then most of them come back.) Part of it is that we wanted to clear the dancestors off the board bc we didn't have the time or inclination to work with them properly, and Aranea and Meenah were the only ones with enough story weight that we felt they needed a bigger exit. It also seemed like a suitable ending for Aranea - she tried to take over the story, and instead she gets wiped out of it entirely. Though, to be fair, her influence did make an impact, so I guess she sort of got what she wanted after all. Also, there were in-universe reasons for most of those deaths. Doomed Roxy had to die as per the deal with Nix. Lord English was looking for Calliope(s) to kill. And there's no way he'd let Aranea's attempt to defy his alpha timeline slide. Meenah was more a casualty of us trying to get rid of dancestors/freeing Vriska's piece up on the board. Still, like I said, not wild about it, but I can’t see any other route I would have taken plotting-wise.

Ok, that's what I've got for this scene. I'll do more on the rest of Vriska's arc and Play the Rain later, I have to pace myself and also I have meetings.

#tlcstuck #dvd commentary #Anonymous

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ramajmedia · 5 years

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JJ Abrams Is Right - The Last Jedi Didn't Contradict Force Awakens

J.J. Abrams is correct in his assessment that nothing in Star Wars: The Last Jedi contradicts The Force Awakens. Released two years ago, The Last Jedi ended up becoming one of the most divisive films of the decade. Rian Johnson's subversive and bold creative choices proved to be a lightning rod for controversy, with many fans expressing their displeasure for how the film turned out. While a lot of viewers felt The Last Jedi was the kind of refreshing franchise installment Star Wars needed to remain viable in the future, several others were quick to complain that it ruined the series beyond repair. One of the more prevalent accusations directed at Johnson was that he retconned The Force Awakens to better serve his film.

However, an argument can be made that's a misconception; Abrams himself believes The Last Jedi didn't derail the trilogy's plan and simply continued the story The Force Awakens began. A lot of the perceived retcons seem to stem from the multitude of fan theories that emerged over the years, giving precedence to them over the information presented in the films themselves (or the filmmakers behind-the-scenes). Three major points of contention in The Last Jedi were Rey's parents, Supreme Leader Snoke, and Luke Skywalker. Stripping away all the wild hypotheses and speculation - and going just on The Force Awakens - it looks like Abrams is right and isn't just spinning things for PR purposes.

Related: The Best Movie Endings of the Decade

After theories purporting she was Han and Leia's child, Luke's estranged offspring, or even the granddaughter of Obi-Wan Kenobi, it was perhaps anticlimactic for some when The Last Jedi revealed Rey's parents were nobodies (the film doesn't bother to give them names) who sold Rey for drinking money and are now dead in the Jakku desert. It was the most difficult thing Rey could have heard at that time; she essentially spent her entire life waiting and searching for her parents, and they were dead the whole time. In a way, it mirrors the famous twist in The Empire Strikes Back, because the hardest thing Luke could have heard in that moment was Darth Vader is his father. Johnson eschewed Star Wars' penchant for making everyone related to each other, dug a little deeper, and came up with something much more impactful. He made Rey's backstory utterly tragic, with the buried trauma of being abandoned at a young age.

In fact, Johnson expanded upon a small, but important, passage of dialogue from The Force Awakens. Maz Kanata tells Rey her parents are never coming back; the belonging she desperately seeks is ahead of her, not behind. In retrospect, that was the first clue Rey's parents were insignificant to the larger narrative. It didn't matter who they were and it didn't matter where Rey came from. She's a hero because of the choices she makes, not because of her bloodline. That's a powerful message in The Last Jedi, and one that takes Star Wars back to its roots. The two films work in unison to make Rey's arc in the sequels to date incredibly poignant. By the end of The Last Jedi, she's with her "family" of the Resistance and finally found the place where she belongs. How her story concludes remains to be seen, but The Force Awakens and Last Jedi compliment each other.

Related: Star Wars Confirms Obi-Wan and Anakin's Force Ghosts Returned After The Last Jedi

By his own doing, Abrams will never live down Star Trek Into Darkness' infamous John Harrison snafu. It's for that reason the general assumption was Supreme Leader Snoke was a cover name for someone else. In the build-up to The Force Awakens, everyone had a theory about who Snoke was and where he came from, but none of them ultimately mattered. Snoke, of course, was killed in The Last Jedi's memorable throne room scene, sliced in half without so much a hint of backstory revealed. This was the character seemingly positioned to be the next Emperor, and it felt like Johnson had nonchalantly discarded him for the sake of a shocking twist. But what he actually did was cut dead weight that had run its course.

Few could have predicted this in 2015, when "Snoke is Darth Plagueis" theories were all the rage, but the sequel trilogy plan was always to bring Emperor Palpatine back. In the earliest days, Lucasfilm didn't know how exactly that was going to happen, just that Star Wars 9 would see him come back. So, Palpatine is the "big bad" of the entire saga, the individual thread that ties the three trilogies together. Snoke was always a placeholder, which is probably why the movies didn't spend too much time on him. Yes, this'll anger some who spent a lot of time invested in theories, but again, nothing in The Last Jedi contradicts any of this. Snoke's perceived importance was inflated by speculation, not by anything explicitly presented in the films. In fact, nobody involved with The Force Awakens claimed Snoke was anything more than... just Snoke. Regardless of who made Star Wars 8, getting rid of Snoke to make way for Palpatine was likely in the cards.

Related: Star Wars 9: Changing Rey's Parents is The Rise of Skywalker's Biggest Risk

Out of concern Luke Skywalker would overshadow the other characters, Abrams and Force Awakens co-writer Lawrence Kasdan relegated the character to the film's final scene, making a wordless cameo. Luke was still pertinent to the movie's plot (the map to Ahch-To is the MacGuffin), but he had vanished some time before the film's events. When The Last Jedi picked up, fans were shocked to find Luke a curmudgeonly old man, disinterested in training Rey or rejoining the fight, and believing the Jedi should end. His plan was to live out his remaining days in misery, cut off from the Force, until he ultimately had a change of heart and sacrificed himself to save the Resistance and ignite a spark of hope.

There's no denying the broken, weary Luke in The Last Jedi is a far cry from the idealistic protagonist of the original trilogy. Time can change people, especially when they experience such severe personal failure. Besides that, it's impossible for The Last Jedi to contradict what little Luke information there is in Force Awakens. All audiences knew was that Luke started a training temple, Kylo Ren turned to the dark side and destroyed it, and Luke went into exile after blaming himself. Abrams was the one who put Luke on Ahch-To and provided the broad strokes. Johnson filled in the specifics (namely, the Rashomon inspired flashback) and again built on the foundation Abrams set up. If Luke gallantly picked up the lightsaber and flew off with Rey in the first act, his exile would have been meaningless and contrived. Like he did with Rey's parents, Johnson made Luke's isolation count for something and made it the base for a compelling character arc that paid off in a rewarding manner.

While the TLJ Disowners out there are hopeful Abrams will retcon The Last Jedi in some form of course-correction, but the director's maintained he's honoring what Johnson did and continuing the story from there. Star Wars 9 is set to tell more of the story of Rey's parents, but it sounds like it'll be an organic continuation, much like what Johnson did jumping off Force Awakens. That's not going to please everyone, but then again, when something like Star Wars is involved, that's just a foregone conclusion.

More: Star Wars: Everything We Know About The Galaxy After The Last Jedi

source https://screenrant.com/star-wars-last-jedi-force-awakens-jj-abrams-no-changes/

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