#I forget the original plot of the story at this point

[blueteller]

Hello!:D Before I ask like—maybe one of the most persistent questions endlessly bugging my mind, I just wanna say I love your posts sm and I love you for it (>v<)♡

I have noticed that there are side characters that stand out the most compared to other side characters, even if they have limited screentime.

And one of those characters is none other than OgCale.

I can even go as far to say that he's one of the most popular characters ever in the fandom, his popularity can surpass some of the main cast's despite having very little screentime and it's actually pretty fascinating. In other transmigration/reincarnation stories, people don't usually care about the original owner of the body the MC currently possesses—and I get why. But Og!Cale? Heck, he's widely loved by many fans!

And so my question is—

Why is Og!Cale so popular and loved in the TCF fandom? There are other characters out there who may have far more intriguing backgrounds and personalities than him, and yet *gestures to the fandom* several fans absolutely adore him (myself included, hehe).

First of all, thank you for your kind words! I'm very happy you enjoy my posts 💖

As for the matter of OG Cale… Why is he so popular and beloved in particular, despite being one of many great side characters in the series? Excellent question! I actually had to sit down and think about it for a little while. I came to the conclusion that it boils down to three major factors.

Number one, the build-up.

OG Cale was a mystery since the beginning. When Cale transmigrated, the question of what kind of person he really was kept coming up. There were obvious contradictions, such as despite being a troublemaker he only went after gangsters and thugs. He allegedly had a bad relationship with his family, and yet they all cared about him very much. He was meant to be an alcoholic trash who threw and broke things when drunk, and yet his alcohol tolerance was incredible and he always missed when he threw bottles, never actually hurting people.

Basically, OG Cale was suspicious. He was hella sus since the start, and that built intrigue around his character. That isn't the only reason why people love him, of course. Many fans got spoiled about him straight away, before reading the whole story, so that can't be all there is to it. But that's definitely where the interest began.

Number two, the subverted expectations.

Don't forget, OG Cale isn't the only "Cale" who's beloved by the fandom. When we got first introduced to our MC, there was this unspoken first impression that he was a typical, what TV Tropes calls, "Audience Surrogate". You know, the type of protagonist who mostly has no personality, solely for the purpose of being a self-insert for the audience. Not to be confused with "Mary Sue " – that is a type of character who definitely has a defined personality. Although both protagonist types serve the same purpose, the latter has more to do with how the overall story is written, and how everybody acts like they're the center of the universe, and how things only happen around them, or directly because of them.

Cale, Kim Rok Soo, was in "danger" of becoming either type of MC at the beginning of the story. Because of how he was trying to sell us the idea of how totally normal of a guy he is, and how he just wants to be left alone in peace, that's all, he swears. I've seen both Audience Surrogate MCs and Mary Sues who claim the same thing at the start of the story yet become the focal point of the plot regardless, and yet fail to show any kind of character development or growth whatsoever – because of the author's bad writing.

In Cale's case, it was revealed as far from the truth as you can get. He quickly subverts those issues before they can become real concerns. Not only does he have a defined, flawed personality and showcases growth, but so do many other characters. And the writing behind Cale's character is so effective, that real people love him about as much as the fictional characters who keep him company in the story.

What does it have to do with OG Cale?

Well. Do you remember when you said, "people don't usually care about the original owner of the body the MC currently possesses, and I get why"? Let's explore that "why" for a little bit.

Where Cale could be expected to be an empty Audience Surrogate character, if TCF was poorly written that is… OG Cale could have ended up as a Blank Slate.

That is, a one-dimensional character whose only role in the story was not to be missed. Which is what happens to most "transmigration victims" in isekai. (The fact that OG Cale is the actual transmigrator in this case instead of our MC makes all of this more fascinating.) In some cases, the "original" was objectively a terrible person; be it a petty crook, or a serious villain, or someone with a rotten personality who used to abuse their privilege, letting the righteous protagonist take over and make things better for everyone. Sometimes they're completely innocent, a tragic victim who passed away prematurely, and the newcomer isn't stealing their life as much as simply slipping into a no-longer-occupied identity, while the original souls reaches a peaceful afterlife. Heck, sometimes the "original" expresses blatant consent before their passing, absolving the protagonist of all guilt regarding their transmigration.

You see, OG Cale could have easily been one of those characters. Written specifically to make create an empty spot for the MC to take over and become the starting point in their journey. And that's exactly the first impression we get! "A generic villain who gets beaten up by the protagonist". No friends, no loose ends, seemingly a worthless noble who does not contribute to society. Whose family only "puts up with him" because they're too nice to throw him out. Someone who kept such distance with everyone in his life, no one even noticed the "original" was gone.

…And yet. He is NOT a Blank Slate at all. Not in the slightest.

To quickly skip over all the reasons why OG Cale was so important to the plot: he was never a generic villain, nor an innocent, tragic victim. Instead, he is THE REASON for the plot. The how and the why of the current timeline. And he's not even dead! He is doing just fine in Kim Rok Soo's body, living a good life. Filling the empty spot left by Cale. I don't think I've seen this kind of plot twist in ANY other isekai! It's really amazing! This is exactly THE best subversion of this trope that I have ever seen. And I love it.

The third and final reason? OG Cale embodies another trope called "The Greatest Story Never Told".

Basically, the kind of life OG Cale lead when he was young – sacrificing his reputation for his step family without anyone knowing, and the deal that he made as he was at the brink of death… Those choices makes him someone who is not only a heroic figure in his own right; he's an unappreciated heroic figure. And that? That is EXTREMELY compelling to any audience.

People like heroes. People also like angst. Hero with angst has double the appeal (which is why so many broody heroes and anti-heroes exist). A heroic figure who has a tragic backstory and never gets the full credit for their sacrifice? People eat that up. I eat that up like candy myself! One of the many reasons why I enjoy time travel stories so much.

Moreover, OG Cale is in fact the only currently alive hero in TCF timeline who has never and will never get that heroic recognition – unless Cale reveals the truth to the Henituse family, which has long become extremely unlikely. Of course it makes OG Cale ripe for all sorts of fan scenarios, be it an AU where he and Cale are twins, where OG Cale goes back in time to save the world himself without Cale's transmigration, where he and Cale are the same person with combined angst… OG Cale has enough complexities to BE a protagonist in his own right. Fans recognize that, subconsciously or not. It makes him great character to write fanfics about.

I'm sure there are many more reasons why fans love to love OG Cale, naturally (his personality and his looks for example). But I think those 3 are the main ones:

Despite his shallow public persona and terrible reputation, he was built up properly as a mysterious character with great depth, and it stayed a mystery for a really long time in the story, which made the fanbase's interest in him grow exponentially.

Just like Cale, he was a clever and plot-relevant subversion of expectations, and an excellent take of what could potentially happen to the "original" that got swapped with a transmigrating protagonist.

He is a tragic heroic figure who's never got credit for his sacrifices, which makes him very compelling to explore in fanfictions.

I hope this helps! Let me hear other reasons why you guys personally love OG Cale 🙂

[timote-shalome]

Me: *watching Stranger Things S5 Ep 1*

“Like, what do you mean Steve isn’t a bisexual hurt bbygirl with meanie parents and doesn’t have game nights with the kids in his big empty house and doesn’t have sleepovers with Robin and he isn’t in love with Eddie who came back from the dead as part monster with a split personality that’s also in love with Steve?!?!?!?!”

Me: *turns off TV*

[ghostprinceiii]

Just unlocked the Empyreum housing district, and while one part of me is rp-walking around enjoying the vibes and looking at peoples gardens, another part of me is monkey-style smacking at my keyboard to search up 'ffxiv get rich quick schemes'

[evandore]

i was looking at my shelf with my kloet dolls and i was like hmmm thats an awkward space if only i had made approximentally one more doll to fill it up . oh well its not like theres any more majorly plot significant characters that complete the main group . sad !

[icypolargirl78]

can't reply to your comment to me, but yeah, i agree.

gonna be entirely honest. it's been a while since i last touched that part of idw (though i'm slowly working my way through a re read of it) so i completely forgot that the issue is call "all hail optimus" lmao. but yeah that does make it a little better in retrospect.

i actually find a lot of post phase 1 optimus to be really interesting because he slowly kind of spirals into become exactly like phase 1 megatron. at least in some ways. he treats his soldiers terribly, colonizes a planet that he was originally on decently good terms with (or as decent terms as one can be considering all that happens in phase 1), and his blackmailing of soundwave is probably one of my favourite plot points.

i really enjoy idw1 optimus because he struggles through the hero worship that zeta prime set him up for. the parts of the story where he realises that the title that he holds, the title of prime, is one rife with corruption and that he's carrying on a legacy of murders and other colonisers.

i really liked that he went back to being just orion pax after phase 1 ended and all the times that characters called him optimus and he corrected them was nice. it really did feel like he was trying to distance himself from the primacy.

of course dark cybertron took a hard left turn considering how orion chooses to go back to the title of prime after his battle with nova but i do appreciate that barber took the time to actually write optimus as someone with issues. he's a war time leader and in peace, even peace with violence, he struggles and does a really shitty job of actually trying to be the good guy that he claims to be to everyone around him.

part of me is just kind of salty that optimus dies a hero in idw1. because as much as barber does a good job of making optimus just the worst, he still gets to have that self sacrifice scene at the end and the knowledge of that kind of taints any negativity that the story views op through before. because i know on re-reads that optimus is just going to have the scene where he sacrifices himself to save the universe and everyone else is going to go back to worshiping him as a hero, which i think undermines the whole point of showing that he's a terrible leader in peace time.

of course that whole situation really only happens because of the rampant crossovers that happen in the series so who knows if that's what the writers originally intended for him to go through.

Don't make a post about how IDW Optimus is the Optimus the fandom always asks for, don't make a compilation of all the times he fits the exact personality traits/themes that people write about in fanon, don't talk about how most of the things the fandom wants from a complex Optimus are canon with IDW Optimus, don't make a list of all the ways IDW OP's story addresses the fandom's most common complaints about OP being boring or over-idolized, don't try to convince people that instead of daydreaming and making AUs and headcanons of a more problematic/deep Optimus they could read IDW and have a canon, in the flesh version of Optimus that's literally CANON with art and shit telling a story of what they thought was just headcanon/theories/alternate interpretations, don't--

[writer-logbook]

Random pieces of advice about worldbuilding and plot.

If every story is worth telling, there are some elements to take into account to make it right.

Every cause has consequences. A story is logical in one way or another. Whether you plan your story or go with the flow, if you ask about: the origins, reactions and actions to be taken following an event, the pieces somehow will ‘click into place’.

Everything has a cost. Magic system, war, life in general... Don't forget that resources are not unlimited. Consider the societal, social, natural, (magical, if need be) limitations.

Challenge the statut quo and the villain's motivations (if there's a villain in the original sense of the term) : Ask yourself why the villain wants to ‘change the world’ (and really question his legitimacy) and what the world should look like after the final confrontation. If we come back to the original point, it's that the plot didn't serve any purpose, being no more than a ‘historical aside’. Remember that everything happens for a reason, so make that reason a good one.

Make actual research about geography and climate: forest, desert and especially rivers can't pop out of nowhere, they must respect certain natural principles. For example, a river must have its source somewhere, often high up in the mountains. So it seems logical that a river should be close to a mountain. Be careful if you want to incorporate a map in your story !

Be careful when you rely on chance, fate or whatever you call it. I still can't work out whether it's worse than deus ex machina - especially if it's done badly. As far as I'm concerned, if you work well enough with the cause-consequence chain and have a good grasp of the limits of your universe, you won't need to rely on this kind of process. this one is actually pretty personnal, you have every right to disagree.

[linda-with-an-i]

Important things that RTD set up in his second run of DW and somehow failed to explain:

Why is Ruby magically able to cause snowfalls and why does she have 'a song in her heart' (or something along those lines)?

Why is Mrs Flood able to break the 4th wall?

Why is the Doctor able to hear non-diegetic music and what's going on with all the references with DW actually being a TV show?

Why was it important to mention that Belinda had a descendant, who the doctor met in 'Boom', that looked exactly like her if we're never going to explore the meaning of it again?

How is it possible that during Jodie Whittaker's era UNIT was gone, and just in a couple of years the organization is back with virtually unlimited funds and a whole avengers-tower right in the middle of London?

What happened with Rogue and how was he able to communicate with the doctor whilst still being trapped in superhell? (I reiterate that I don't like him as a character but I feel that this particular plot should have been resolved with Ncuti as the doctor as it would have been coherent with their story arcs)

Now that the doctor changed reality to bring back Poppy, what happened to the original Captain Poppy and the other space babies? Who were Poppy's original parents? And what happened to Bel's original life, wasn't it important as well? What about his housemates? How do we know that they weren't by accident erased from existence because the Doctor altered reality?

How tf is it possible that Timelords can't have children? The 10th doctor (who is written by RTD as well ffs) specifically mentioned a couple of times having children?!?! Make it make sense. 

The whole bigeneration concept. I understand the idea, but I feel a more in-depth explanation would have been nice.

I'm sure there are more plot-points I'm forgetting, so feel free to add more, but the point I'm trying to make is: why would you set up so much stuff, if all Disney+ is giving you are 8 episodes per series?

It's frustrating, because the premise of those ideas are very interesting but they would require more time and more episodes to explore those concepts with a satisfying conclusion. Not to mention that RTD2 has been filled with fan-service galore, way too many characters (old and new) and publicity stunts, especially in the finale.

And of course the main victims of what happened in the end are Ncuti and Varada, because they were brilliant in their roles, and they deserved better and they deserved more. I just hope that they're getting lots of love and compliments from the fans, at least as consolation.

I'm not saying it's 100% RTD's fault, but I think some decisions led to some lazy writing and the result is... not the best to say the least.

[yaleh]

are we talking about ep 115 gillion again. because im crazy about 115 gillion

i have to point out how during the first half of this episode he was the most level headed person on the ship, someone to fall back on when chip and jay didn't know what do to; he took the responsibility of figuring out how to split the crew after finding the news about the traitor even though he was the least personally affected by it. chip stayed in the black sea because he'd never get the chance to come back after this, and jay had obvious reasons to leave due to her affiliation with the navy and therefore the war, but gillion is solely support for them, from taking over the phone call (albeit. not very well) to stopping chip from going to find arlin by himself. and nobody else picked up on that!!!! chip said nothing at all before planning to leave yet gillion saw straight through him.

sidebar but its related trust— the albatrio are always trying to be honest with each other, but none of them are very comfortable talking without being prompted; theres always information being omitted between them, but at the same time none of them can successfully lie to each other anymore. which is such good development considering that during the first half of the campaign (and to many extents still now) there was always a point where one characters moral standings contradicted with another's. but even though gillion is quite unclear on where he is morally (to the camera And to himself) it slips through— “Even if it’s inevitable, I’m glad we got written in the same story.” "Despite what my oath says, I don't believe that." he doesn't know where he stands in the greater scheme of things but he knows where he is now and what he's fighting for in this moment is right. and back to 115 when jay asks gillion what he'd do in an ambush and it's like oh wait. oh wait. he was raised for this. because his whole thing throughout the campaign was just Haha i have a cool sword and can use lightning!! kapow!!! and everyone forgets he was a trained soldier who grew up in simulations of war. he was not meant to be here with chip and jay. had he stuck to the original prophecy, he was meant to be fighting fights only fallacies could justify, but instead the only direction he's following is wherever his crew is going and by god does the crew need him

tldr 115 has banger pc narrative + development moments id argue gillion was the most fundamental character in the episode even though he's the least relevant in the current plot

[arlos-warm-drpepper]

When people argue about Derek’s age, it’s usually either 19 or 23 at the start of teen wolf. And the reason for this is because of Derek’s canonically fake license, right? But then also Stiles claiming that Derek was “only a few years older” than him and Scott, and in the same scene, claiming that the hale fire happened 10 years ago. As a current 17 y/o, I would never describe a 23 y/o as being “just a few years older” this also would mean that the hale fire had happened when Derek was 13 years old, which is impossible because Derek was shown to be older before the hale fire when we had a flashback to the whole Paige situation. This means that there is no way the fire happened 10 years ago, whether Derek is 23 or 19. You could argue that this doesn’t mean that the hale fire didn’t happen 10 years ago, but rather that Derek was actually around 26, but a teenager would DEFINITELY not be claiming a man of that age to be “a few years older” and nobody would just be okay with a man of that age having romantic relations to a 16 y/o (Erica.)

Derek openly flaunted his and Erica’s fling in front of Scott and Stiles, and even kissed Erica multiple times in front of Isaac and Boyd. Do you think they would just have nothing to say about a grown man being with a child?

In conclusion, Derek hales age will never be confirmed or known, because not even Jeff Davis knew Dereks age. Derek was originally meant to be 19 in the pilot, which we know for fact, (even though that means he would’ve been 9 during the fire, which makes absolutely no sense at all) and Jeff Davis realized this, and also realized Tyler Hoechlin really did not look like a 19 year old, and tried to change his age in further seasons. The problem with this is that in his attempt to fix the continuity, he fucked it up more!!! And he had dug himself into a hole and couldn’t climb his way out, so he decided to just keep Derek’s age unknown and sososo vague. So when someone goes “well how was Derek 19 if the fire happened 10 years ago?” Someone else can go “well actually he was 26” and if someone goes “well then why did Stiles say he was a few years older? And why did nobody have an issue with him and Erica?” Someone else can go “well because he was actually 19” and when someone goes “well if he’s 26/19, why’d his ID say he was 23” someone else can go “well he was actually 23” because Derek’s age was never and will never be confirmed, consistent, or even real.

He even implemented the confusion about Derek’s age into the show. Making it CANON that Derek’s age just doesn’t really exist. Stiles asks Peter directly how old Derek was and he says something vague along the lines of not too young but not too old or something. It’s ridiculous.

But here are the FACTS that we know about Derek hales age

-He was young enough that nobody blinked an eye and his and Erica’s relationship.

-He was young enough that nobody questioned him hanging around a high school and a bunch of high schoolers

-he was a child when Kate was an adult (Kate had to literally age him down to get him on her side, and Derek didn’t even question why Kate was an adult)

-He was 18+ (could live on his own and stuff)

So next time you find yourself arguing about Derek’s age, stop and consider that it’s a moot point. You will never know his age, neither will the person you’re arguing with. His age will always be up for interpretation. And, taking this into account, it is useless to argue whether or not shipping Stiles, or any character, with Derek is moral, because Derek’s age does not exist!

I feel like a lot of you forget that these are fictional characters, and that in almost every story there are unexplainable plot holes that can be brushed to the side in order to enjoy a story despite it not making sense. Derek’s age is one of these plot holes, and like any other, it can be brushed to the side in order to enjoy his character, the story, and any ships he’s apart of. Thank you for coming to my ted talk!

[ajastu]

People complain about not being able to 'be mean' in datv, but like. You can be. Not in a 'sell people into slavery' way like you could in the other games, because narratively it just would not Work, but you can very well be mean. It just won't end well for you.

Like, okay. By virtue of being recruited by Varric and working with him for a year prior to the events of Veilguard, Rook cannot be, like....morally bankrupt? Because Varric wouldn't recruit them if they were, or would kick them to the curb if he realized they were soooo so chill with wanton murder and other such things (him and Harding kept getting distracted on their search for Solas because they kept stopping to Help People, after all) So. there are certain limitations to the choices you can make, but they Make Sense. And you can still be an asshole, in a way. Like...I think people maybe....forget? that you can get your Entire Team killed by just...not caring? A thing that you couldn't really do on a similar scale in the previous games? 'Oh you have to play the team therapist-' You don't, actually! You can ignore everyone's problems! The game doesn't stop you from just pushing on with the main plot! You can leave your companions to their own devices. It will not end well, but you can do it. Pretty much everyone will die and Rook may just end up being locked in the Fade with Solas forever, but it's an option that was Very Much Put Into The Game. But I don't think ive ever seen that ending mentioned in posts that complain about Veilguard being 'too nice'. And i'm not gonna make assumptions as to why that might be, but. Bear with me here.

It kind of, in a way, reminds me of when people were like 'ummm why does it suck so much to play a fascist in Disco Elysium??' Because it sucks to be a fascist, Period. you know? Like. You cannot want to get a good ending in the game and then also choose to be an asshole of unimaginable magnitude.

(obligatory 'piss on the poor' disclaimer: I am not saying that people who have those complaints abt veilguard are fascists or anything of the sort, it was just an example that came to mind that i thought would convey my point more efficiently)

I love origins, but it kind of...I don't know, it trivializes the acts of violence you can commit by still, inevitably, leaving your character in the position of the Hero That Saves The World. There are no real consequences in the overall story arc. It's kind of just flavor, but it never feels like an actual consequence. The story will still end approximately the same way. And I mean...it makes sense, too. There's basically only one other guy who can get the job done, so the HoF is kind of Needed for the job, no matter how much of a monster u can choose to be. You can leave the world worse than you found it, but at least there is still a world left in the end.

With Veilguard, that is not the case. The thing that makes Rook special is not their background, or their skills, or the dagger. Anyone could take their place. They're just Some Guy! And anyone WOULD take their place if they suddenly decided to start selling people into slavery. Because no one on the team is going to just sit back and let them do it. Half of the factions wouldn't even cooperate with them. They'd probably get stabbed by a shadow dragon somewhere in a dark alleyway n dropped into the sea, you know?

What makes Rook special, what secures the good ending, is their inherent kindness and care for the world and other people. The connection they build with others, who, in turn, lend their support to them. (like. something, something, almost every companion having some sort of healing/revive ability? u know?) Its the commitment to doing the Right Thing. And that is, by definition, incompatible with the option of making evil choices.

You have to want to leave the world better than you found it if you want to actually do so. The game gives you the option to do that. It also gives you the option of saving the world without caring for it or the people around you. And it gets the job done! It doesn't leave the world worse off, but it doesn't leave it better, either.

At the end of the day, all art is political in some way. And I think it's good that Veilguard is a story about hope and the value of kindness, among other things. Considering the current....Everything, I think it's kind of tone-deaf to demand that the story let you be evil for evil's sake. Look around for a moment. We really need more hope and kindness in the world right now.

The previous games were not necessarily wrong or bad for providing those options. But they were also each a product of it's time. They also each told a different story.

Veilguard is not 'sanitized', or 'dumbed down', or whatever people like to say. The mundane horrors and violence of the world don't need to be spelled out or thrown in your face via slurs against your PC. Frankly, if certain bits of the game did not horrify you on some level just from the environmental storytelling alone, then maybe you need to think about why that might be. Maybe you just need to stop and actually process what the game is showing you.

Like, i might be getting a bit off topic here, but i will be the first guy (gender-neutral) to tell you about how much of a lasting impression the broodmother bit from dao left on me. But it wasn't just the sheer violence of the experience described by Hespith. It was, well...

It's not that it occurred, it's that it was allowed.

When you go through D'meta's Crossing, through blighted Minrathous with bodies piled in the streets and hanging from the improvised gallows? Hell, the very beginning of the game, with demons snatching people left and right? The horror here is not just that it occurred, it's that it was allowed. Do you get what i mean? The fact that these things aren't spelled out to you in the form of a poem or a dialogue tree doesn't mean that they're somehow 'sanitized'.

People complain the dialogue is over-explanatory sometimes (and okay, it is, but i can think of several good reasons as to why it would be, like keeping in mind players completely new to the franchise), and then completely miss out on things that are not spelled out to them directly, and then present the 'lack' of those things as a failure of the game. I'm just saying.

So, in conclusion. I don't think Veilguard is too nice. I don't think the game has to let you commit atrocities to be complex or to show the darker bits of the world. I think datv uses it's gameplay mechanics in a way that helps it drive the point of the story home. I think the choices the developers made were made with intent, especially given the limitations they were under. And i also think that many of the 'faults' that people like to complain about are not actually faults at all.

Veilguard is not a perfect game. It IS a solid one, though. It has bits that I wish the developers were allowed to work on more and under less stress. There IS room for constructive criticism (while keeping in mind, you know, the dev hell etc). Being 'too nice'? That is not one of the game's faults. I think people who complain about that just maybe missed the entire point.

[tonguetiedraven]

Rin was wrong about the Kyoto arc and most of you are too

But like Rin, you don't have to hold onto your assumptions.

With the slight resurgence in aoex popularity, I'm seeing a new rise in some fundamental misunderstandings about the characters and plot. I've been asked a lot of questions about a few certain characters over the years, and I've noticed that the base of the misunderstandings people tend to have with everyone originates in the Kyoto Arc.

What am I calling the Kyoto arc? Everything that happens in the second season of the anime and everything that happens after chapter 13 in the manga . (The point when the anime said let's go off and do our own wild thing and forget about the story and characters Kato is making! It'll be fun and totally not still be causing long lasting chaos over a decade later) and up to chapter 35. It's a 20 chapter arc, roughly. And honestly I think most of the manga exclusive Kraken arc should be included in the Kyoto arc because it is a direct continuation of Rin and Yukio's story line there, but I digress and we will get to that!

I am going to assume that you, the reader of this lengthy essay (I'm wordy and won't apologize for it, lol), are aware enough of the manga and Blue Exorcist to know that every episode in the first season of the anime after episode 16 is NOT CANON and does a poor job of depicting all the characters involved from Angel to Yukio. (There is no character with a Z, lol. So Yukio wins that role.) No one comes out looking correct in that. I know some people will argue that Rin is fine, but no. He is not similar to his canon hot headed, impulsive, loud, often violent/aggressive, and past avoiding self who would never have let his twin pull a gun on Kuro and would never have let Yukio leave after that without a fight. Sorry guys, they nuked him too. Just in a more pathetic victim way so people let it slide because he obviously needs to be protected from all the other meanies.

I am also going to assume you know character names. You can google them if you get confused  ദ്ദ�� ( ᵔ ᗜ ᵔ )

Anyway, back on topic. I'm going to go heavily into the start of this arc and more broad as it goes on. The initial area is where most of the misconceptions start and they kind of carry through from then on meaning the entire rest of the arc and arcs there are a few flaws in the understanding of character motivations and reasons and some just basic plot stuff.

In chapter 13 of the manga, we get this tremendous clip

Just before this moment the exwires have found out that their classmate is not a human and is powerful.

You'll notice Shima leaning against the railing there. That's because he has a cracked rib and probably a concussion. Konekomaru is now sporting a broken arm, and Ryuuji got strangled out enough to be choking on blood. Shiemi was hypnotized and controlled and carried around like a possession by a demon king who tried to eat her eyes and kept taunting about making her his bride all while she was unable to move or do anything. There is not enough written about the truly terrifying kind of assault that is for the youngest member of their group, and that's without the tangle of a relationship Amaimon and Shiemi have in it.

It is vital that everyone take a second to think about that. Izumo and Takara were not there. They stayed in the camp. They didn't pursue Amaimon, Shiemi, or Rin. They chose not to fight or try to help. The Kyoto Trio did (because Ryuuji/Bon is impulsive and ran after Rin and Shiemi to help and the others followed him) and it took all of thirty seconds for the Demon King Amaimon to knock them all out without even really putting any effort into his attack.

They manage to get out of the forest and back to the pictured bridge with Yukio leading them out while the forest catches dramatically on blue fire. (Remember that the Kyoto trio grew up hearing about how much the blue flames of Satan destroyed their home and killed their family members. Their entire life was irrevocably changed because of blue flames.) And Rin and Amaimon are wildly fucking shit up. They even yeeted Mephisto who is a much higher ranking king.

All that leads to the Paladin appearing, Arthur Angel, who orders the exwires to be interrogated and checked by medics. (Honestly a step up for True Cross. They almost never remember medics.)

The Paladin appears and then Mephisto appears, and he has Rin in tow. Rin who is entirely feral and tries to lunge for the exwires. The traumatized exwires see Rin try and attack them with an entirely demonic face. They do not know anything about his story or Shirou or even ow he got here, but they can easily see that he's tied to Satan because of the flames and now he clearly wants to hurt. Hurt them.

Now in Rin's defense, he's not in his right mind. Mephisto sheaths the sword and the demonic part is forced to retreat and Rin passes out until he's slapped awake. At that point he's the Rin we know again (the exwires still have no idea what the hell is going on) and Angel takes him into custody. Rin looks over and sees his friends bloodied and bruised and sees Ryuuji with blood on his mouth staring with an unreadable expression.

It leads to this shot:

Question for the group: Who is Ryuuji asking this to?

Not Rin, that's for sure. It's Mephisto, in my opinion. Ryuuji is asking, quite understandably, why the hell the child of Satan was put in a class of ordinary students and why none of them were told about it. They just had a Demon King attack their class of exwires all of which were struggling against a simple moth and had to reseal it instead of exorcising it. A Demon King that attacked them because he wanted to do something to the son of Satan and they had no extra protection against that. Enough so that four of them are injured or traumatized.

(Also, if you get strangled do not yell and IMMEDIATELY seek medical help. There are a lot of terrible conditions and long lasting effects that can occur with strangulation.)

So at this point everyone is made to split ways. The exwires will get a small update from Yukio, and Rin will get put on trial for his life. Neither party knows what the other is aware of, and as far as we can tell, Rin does not remember that he tried very hard to lunge at and attack the exwires.

That does not mean that Rin did not lunge for and try to attack them. Not remembering trauma you caused someone else does not erase that trauma.

There is also this moment, and you best believe I am also here to defend Shiemi because she deserves it.

Go girl. You're so right. There's nothing funny about any of this. Not your abduction, not how assaulting that entire thing was, and not the fact that he was feral and that you're feeling like a lot of this is your fault. (And it was not her fault.)

Rin's defense in most bad situations is laughter and ignoring whatever the uncomfortable thing is. This rubs everyone around him the wrong way almost every time. And that's their right. I also truly think he doesn't know what he just did and doesn't remember much past drawing the sword and he's scared, and he's able to tell the vibes are bad and he's in trouble, but doesn't really get why/how. He is a bit (a lot) of an idiot and we love him for that.

Another vital thing to understand about Rin is that he sees the demonic and violent parts of himself as someone else. He is not that demon. He is not the guy that tore apart the forest, everyone is wrong. He didn't lunge after his friends, someone else did that. He isn't out of control of his flames, that isn't him. That demon with the flames and frightening strength and burning anger isn't him. They've got it all wrong. He's just Rin.

That is a big part of Rin's story. Rin accepting that he is all those things. He is the human and he is the demon and he is all the things that comes with both of those things. He is right and wrong and kind and cruel and caring and callous and gentle and dangerous. He is Yuri and Satan and Shirou's son, and he is complicated and trying his best and slowly learning to accept what he is and isn't.

Anyway, they split ways for a shitty night. Rin's is unquestionably shittier, but again, the rest of the exwires don't get told what the hell happened.

Anime only fans will already be noticing differences, but wait, there's a lot more that was missed/ skipped over.

The Kyoto trio are all at the hospital for the next few days and get a call about the temple having been attacked. Shima's dad and Ryuuji's dad were said to have been hurt in it.

This is the second hint we get that Ryuuji is not on good terms with his dad, and the mere mention of Kyoto visibly upsets him. That'll be important a little later.

Rin goes back to class with the girls but is pulled out by Yukio for his own individual classes with Shura before anyone can say anything. The cram teacher then explains the following:

The entirety of their school is giving them instructions on what to do if Rin goes wild because the exorcist and teachers all think he will go feral again.

Rin does not know they're getting this instruction.

We then see what Yukio told them is basically: Yeah, my twin has flames. I don't because I was too weak. I get tested daily for it. The koma (a nickname for Kurikara because you can't exactly go around calling a stolen sword by its name or people will catch on) sword sealed him. I don't know why we were allowed to live when True Cross has a very loud 'no Satan or Satan offspring allowed' policy. Kay, thanks, byyyeeeeee.

So no one is happy and no one really knows anything. Just Yukio who has always known everything and had the biggest emotional, responsible, and mental burden of everything about his brother. He was left holding the bag again. Responsible for a class he's the same age as, mourning his father whose death he doesn't know the full story of, responsible for killing his own brother if he goes feral, now ostracized even more by a community of exorcist he already didn't blend in with, and now made to bear all this. Yukio is a king for holding out for so damn many arcs without showing how bad his mental health was getting with all that stress.

At this point we see Ryuuji is placing the guilt for Konekomaru and Shima being injured on his own shoulders (Konekomaru tells him it was his fault that they were injured) and Shiemi is realizing that Rin became her friend as he was revealed and that she was never as much of a support or friend to either of them as she thought.

Meanwhile Izumo who, and I cannot stress this enough, did NOTHING in the fight and was not part of most of this and has at this point made NO effort to be friends with anyone past cleaning a shirt Rin loaned her, is judging all of them visibly.

A brief interlude of Toudou being a creep and Rin showing he cannot follow orders from absolutely anyone and making Yukio and Shura frustrated at how unpredictable and manageable he is, and we're now given the mission to go to Kyoto and help there.

Ryuuji is just so blatantly shocked and not okay with the assignment to his home. Like I genuinely don't think we have a shot of Ryuuji looking more shook and shit gets wild in this manga.

Ryuuji does not want to go back to Kyoto. He left on terrible terms with his parents and swore he would not return until he had his meisters and rank. He defied his parents in even going to the cram school and now he's being forced to return a bit busted up and long before he was ready. If you do not have a bad family dynamic, you can't really get how devastating this is, but try and imagine it. It's a tremendous source of stress and frustration for Ryuuji, and the main thing he's dealing with through this arc. He has a lot of history with his father ignoring and denying him and trying to control him, and it is not a healthy dynamic. THAT is what drives Ryuuji in this arc. Kyoto, the temple, and his father. It is NOT Rin. Rin is at the bottom of his list of things to be thinking about right now.

This is essentially Ryuuji's arc, and it is, quite simply, not about Rin for him. Rin becomes a part of it, but not until later. At the moment, it is Kyoto and the shame and frustration and resentment about that which is driving him forward.

Shiemi is melting under her own self loathing at this point. She is hating herself and has never been confident and always been prone to thinking poorly of herself, and shown she is unaware of when relationships are abusive with how severely Izumo bullied her and continues to bully her.

(And I could write another essay on how fucking misogynistic it is that everyone flocks to team Izumo when she's slightly nice to Rin and blatantly ignores the Shiemi abuse because well Shiemi is annoying anyway. Check yourself and ask why you feel that way if you do. Why is violence and cruelty okay against Shiemi? Why is it forgivable in her case but not in others?)

We all board a train to Kyoto and see each other for the first time. Rin has zero ability to ever read a room (we love him for it even if he will occasionally kill us with second hand embarrassment) and is acting like he didn't try to kill them on their last interaction and like everything is normal and there isn't a big and awkward elephant in the room taking up most of the train space.

THIS GOES DOWN DIFFERENTLY IN THE MANGA THAN THE ANIME. The manga stretches this scene out to give three characters very important breathing room while the anime cuts this far shorter and mixes up the dialogue some, muddying the motives.

Rin, not reading the room, sees Shiemi and calls out happily to her. Shiemi utterly freezes and can't decide how she should respond or what she should say. She has, as far as we know, never had a friend outside of her family and the twins. She doesn't know how to interact with them and she is drowning in guilt of failing them as a friend. A lot of that is because Rin said she wasn't his friend to the Kyoto Trio and because Izumo is always telling her she's failing as a friend and saying she doesn't like her. Izumo is a bully at this point. I will not back down on that point and will continue to reiterate it. You do her incredible arc a disservice to pretend otherwise.

That leads us to the confrontation:

Ryuuji does not show any sign of anger until Rin talks about Kyoto. Then it's instant grouchy face Grouchy face and grouchy boy until one of the other two interject and then he swallows all that Kyoto frustration right back down and stomps off to sit behind Rin with Konekomaru -- who has been given a talk by their superiors on what to do if their classmates loses his shit and goes feral on them and who lost his entire temple and family to the Blue Night -- voicing his worry about Rin losing control of his flames on a tiny train where there is no where to go.

Rin visibly deflates and sinks back on his chair Izumo, the drama queen who would deny being one, enters and sees. Now Izumo has conflicting reasons for her next act. She has been ostracized and bully quite a lot in her younger life, and that is part of why she is now an ice queen. She sees Rin and wants to help him feel better and is no more in the know of what the others are actually dealing with than Rin, and I dare say that was her first and primary motive.

However Izumo cannot allow herself to do something solely out of kindness to help someone. That is a weakness she will not allow herself and dangerous. Kindness and helping gets you hurt or killed by stronger parties and she has sworn off that in all cases but Paku. (No one quite knows what magic Noriko Paku possesses, but man does she, lol.)

So Izumo sits next to Rin and waits until after the debriefing about why they're here (meaning Ryuuji is now even more upset because yep, it's absolutely his temple and their miasma and their secrets and their weaknesses being discusses and revealed and flaunted) and they chat a little about the fact that lots of people have demon blood (*cough* FORESHADOWING *cough*) and then, after getting flustered about Rin complementing her and thanking her and getting buddy-buddy enough to use a nickname, she goes cruel and decisive and makes a pointed jab at Ryuuji, who takes it in stride for a moment, and then Shiemi, who visibly deflates thinking even less of herself and that Ryuuji does not take in stride.

Izumo did a kind thing in sitting with Rin, however, the others did not do a cruel thing by not sitting with him. They simply chose to give themselves a little space from a situation they were still struggling with. The cruelest one in the moment before she spoke was probably Konekomaru, and even he wasn't talking to Rin. He was nervous and scared and talking to his friends about Rin. None of them owed Rin anything. They did not owe him their time or space or attention. They are allowed to recover from their trauma and physical injuries while not having him constantly shove his over-excited puppy-energy self in their faces constantly and make everything all the more difficult for them while they try and reconcile that guy with the feral monster that wanted to take a chunk out of them and who was not in control of the flames they've grown up terrified of.

We see the story mainly through Rin's perspective, all the more so if you're an anime only, but that does not mean Rin is always an honest and reliable narrator. He is unaware he tried to hurt them and unaware of their own trauma. He can't imagine any of their actions and reactions aren't centering around him at this moment because Rin too is going through a lot of trauma and stress of his own that they don't know about.

What I find over and over again in this story is that people excuse any poor or selfish or cruel act of Rin's because of trauma and not being perfect, but they will not excuse it in any one else. This makes for a frustrating unfairness in expectations, and frankly, turns the story boring. If no one but Rin can make mistakes, or you choose only to see other's mistakes and not Rin's, you are robbing the characters and Rin of their complexity and growth.

Izumo was kind in sitting next to Rin, and she was purposefully cruel at the exact same time. This is who Izumo is. Kind and cruel for quite a long time. Brave and selfish. Confident and self conscious. Guarded while slowly falling in love and denying it every step of the way.

So the train ride immediately goes to shit and they get loud with Ryuuji calling her out (reminder, she can call them coward all day long but she did not leave the circle and didn't fight and has not stepped forward once in any of their missions to work as a group or fight until she had to)

And Shure (in the manga) wakes up and makes them sit in a different car of the train with bariyons on their laps as punishment. Konekomaru continues to stress, Ryuuji tells him to chill, Shiemi continues to hate herself, and Izumo continues to be purposefully cruel.

The bariyons get aggressive and one pins Shiemi to the ground. Rin does Rin and burns it without warning, freaking everyone out because wow! Blue flames are just suddenly everywhere. Ryuuji interferes because again, his temple was devastated by Blue flames and he has no reason to think they can behave differently and he is nothing if not determined to protect and help his team at all times.

Shiemi realizes Rin still has control of them and tells everyone to relax, and they do.

The flames are put out and Rin immediately attacks Ryuuji.

Rin demands trust and honestly, I could understand if he was unaware that he'd caused mayhem in the forest and tried to lunge for them, but if he was aware then he has to be smoking those flames of his because there is no reason to trust him at this point. He's lied (he didn't have a choice but they don't know that and reasons do not negate that a lie happened and we are now in the lies arc) and he has shown he is dangerous and that Demon Kings kind of follow him and will attack indiscriminatingly. (It's not like they know Amaimon is not allowed to kill them.)

Rin knows he won't hurt them and thinks that should be enough. No one else knows that they can believe this at this point. Ryuuji explains that Blue Flames have killed a lot of his people and that he can't trust someone who endanger his family. It is once again Kyoto he is thinking about and Kyoto he is worried about. They are on a train to Kyoto where Blue Flames destroyed a lot and now they're bringing the one guy with Blue Flames there and he keeps flaming up so it seems like what little he still has there is going to be devoured by flames.

Rin says basically, sorry that happened but it has NOTHING to do with me. This is a naïve thing to say and while technically right, is missing the point of what Ryuuji said. I can't trust you because you haven't shown me I can trust those deadly flames with you and they have absolutely devastated my home before.

The fight amps up more -- and again, Rin was the aggressor. They're both hot headed but he's the one that grabbed Ryuuji, not the other way around, and in a fairly close way to how Amaimon had grabbed Ryuuji and that can't be helping things. The fight gets louder and Konekomaru bravely intervenes and grabs both of their arms and tells them to stop. A bariyon choses that moment to cause chaos and try to kill Ryuuji and Shura has had enough and kills it but kindly doesn't kill the exwires for interrupting her nap twice over and the conversation is left entirely unresolved.

And for the next long stretch, they will not have that conversation resolved. They get back, Ryuuji is immediately accosted by his powerhouse of a mom, Torako Suguro who is pissed, and finds out that his dad has been absent and that things are going south fast in Kyoto.

From this moment on, Ryuuji will have one goal and that is to find his dad and save what few temple members he can. He wants to reunite his temple--that has always been his goal--and his dad's failure to lead and potential at being the traitor in their midst is causing what few of his sect are left to fracture even more. He is around Rin a few times in the next chapter, but his mind is never on Rin or their drama. He is wholly focused on Kyoto and the drama here.

This is where a lot of people misunderstand him. He is not avoiding Rin, he simply has a much bigger priority, as he should. This is his family and this temple is everything to him. We find out that Tatsuma has thrown their reputation in the mud and that he has caused a lot of their sect to abandon the temple, and that he has fought Ryuuji's hopes and goals every step of the way, and that he was the first to laugh at Ryuuji (which we know is an immensely traumatic memory for him) and that Tatsuma is actively working to avoid Ryuuji, and that he was at the Keep during the break in, and that several members of the Sect absolutely think Tatsuma is the traitor.

And if he isn't the traitor, then he is still failing them and running away from his duties. What's worse, we see a few of the sect (Mamushi specifically) even place some of the blame of the failure on Ryuuji.

Rin is seen working with the Kyoto trio on some kind of chore after they arrive, and actively being ignored and mistreated by the teachers. They absolutely deserve ire for the way they treat Rin like he's already gone feral and refuse to let him help.

Rin is being ostracized and thinks everything happening here is about him. He thinks the others are ignoring him and that they're upset about him. They're largely just... Not. Izumo and Shiemi are put on helping the large volume of patients and from what we see, Izumo doesn't chat with Rin again after the bus.

Shiemi sees this as a way to not let people down (she thinks she let everyone down in the forest. That it was her fault and she isn't good enough or strong enough or just enough to be their friends. Probably partly because the one friend she thinks she has is a bully.) and dives hard into work. She still doesn't know what to say to Rin and freezes up a lot.

That leads to a fantastic scene in chapter 18 with Izumo and Shiemi in the garden and Shiemi positively sobbing about being a useless friend and not being strong enough to help like she wants and Izumo telling her she's really strong and able to talk about friends and her emotions without getting embarrassed and that she's stubborn and strong as a weed and Shiemi, who has clearly not gotten enough praise in her life just glows and determines to be as strong and stubborn as a weed.

It's a vitally important moment for both these girls. Izumo is kind and doesn't turn it cruel and sees how strong Shiemi is and helps Shiemi see herself as strong too. Izumo has done a lot to break Shiemi down but she is also, arguably, the one that did the most to build her back up too.

She dives back into her work to the point she inspires Rin to try harder on his own training because he is lazy and she isn't, and he admires that.

At this point Shima has decided that to keep going on his own path in the laziest way he can manage that ignoring Rin was too much work so they're just going back to before and acting like nothing ever happened. Rin is drunk and insults him in this with the list.

Rin confronts Konekomaru later and finds out what happened to Konekomaru's family and Konekomaru begs Rin to leave Ryuuji alone because he is dealing with a lot of stress. Rin (correctly for once) realizes that Konekomaru will absolutely be his friend if he can show that his flames aren't a danger. If he puts in the work to get control of those, he can be friends. Rin goes off determined to do that.

Ryuuji and Shiemi are now the only two who haven't had their Rin moment, and they firmly busy in their own stuff. Rin still thinks they're avoiding him because they're mad at him and blaming him for the Blue Night stuff and they're simply not. At no point does he ever really seem to get that he's assuming stuff incorrectly about all this either.

Ryuuji does some not at all stealthy spying and follows Juuzou to the Keep to find most of the staff unconscious and gets himself in the middle of the theft of the Impure King's last eye. Mamushi betrays them to Toudou and states that it is because of Tatsuma that she is. That he has failed them as a leader and conspired with Mephisto by giving away the sacred relic of their temple (Kurikara) and letting the son of Satan have it.

She is not entirely wrong, and she is not entirely right. She is very wrong about Toudou, but they both escape to cause more havoc elsewhere and leave Ryuuji to finally catch up to Tatsuma.

We have been building for several chapters at this point that Ryuuji and Tatsuma do not have a great relationship. There is a lot of frustration and confusion and hurt in it. A lot of history and pain and Ryuuji is trying to get his dad to tell him anything. To deny the allegations if they're not true and do something to help with the fact that one of their members just left.

Tatsuma refuses to. We later learn why and it sucks, but it doesn't lesson the hurt in this moment. Being unable to explain something does not mean that your actions, justified or not, did not and do not hurt someone.

Ryuuji, seeing his dad turn his back on him without even a hint of an explanation to all the terrible accusations and all the pain and trauma around them, pleading for some kind of explanation to anything, plays the only card he has left.

His father has already all but disowned him for the cram school, so he returns that. He warns that if Tatsuma leaves now and like this, he might as well not bother to come back because Ryuuji will no longer (can no longer) consider him his father.

Rin, who has kind of snuck into this dramatic meeting, overhears this and has a violent trauma induced reaction.

Now, Rin has trauma and it is entirely understandable why hearing those words would make him react dramatically. That does not excuse the violence he reacts with. You enduring trauma and having triggers and painful emotions does not give you the right to inflict violence on someone else.

And inflict violence Rin very much does. Once again flaming up some too, not at all in control.

This was not Rin's fight to get in the middle of. I will die on the hill that others do not get to determine what a child can and cannot do in their own parent and child relationship. Others can offer opinions and advice, but they do not get to order or dictate the relationship. They are not part of it and cannot possibly know what it is actually like. This is the same sort of mentality that tells people who have had to make the immensely difficult choice to go no contact with a parent that they should try and make up because it's hard to be a parent like it's easy to be a child and under the parent's control and guidance. Ryuuji has a lot of reasons to have made that ultimatum, and while we will learn a lot more about why Tatsuma has failed as a parent and leader, the reason does not absolve or eliminate the failures. He has failed Ryuuji multiple times and at this moment, tied by a cruel fate, he has to fail and hurt him again.

He did not have to choose to do it this way though, and do not forget that.

And Rin knows nothing about their relationship. He is putting his own reactions and motivations on Ryuuji who does not have them.

Rin is in the wrong in this moment. I will not back down from that either. Rin hurt his friend and revealed himself, and in the next panels defied Shura and continued to try and fight Ryuuji and make him understand that you can't disown your father because you can't take that back--

And it is in this fight that Ryuuji is first made aware that when Rin talks about his dad, he has not been talking about Satan. Rin was raised by someone else. They still don't learn the real story yet, we're not really told when or if they do get the full story about Shirou, but you can see him realize something happened to whoever raised the twins, and it was bad.

Rin gets knocked out and arrested and Ryuuji is sent to ice his swollen face and he will have the injuries Rin inflicted on him here through the entire rest of the arc.

And I am now over 5k words so I'll try and wrap this up some. I'm going to have to post the Yukio half on another post xD

Rin gets a letter that tells him that Tatsuma and Shirou were in cahoots about the sword (look, Mamushi was partially correct) but that the sword did not have Karura in it like it was supposed to. He also finds out that Tatsuma wants him to kill the Impure King. Mephisto then shows up and locks him away giving him a death sentence. Yukio has to leave with that knowledge to try and stop the rising Impure King before he infects and kills all of Japan.

Tatsuma goes and shows that he had made a pact with Karura and that the Suguro line has always guarded the secret that the Impure King was kept sealed under the temple by Karura. That were he to be reunited with his eyes, he would rise again. Toudou wants to get Karura so he did all of this to get Tatsuma to reveal Karura.

Tatsuma is stabbed through the back of the throat and Karura mostly devoured, and the Impure King is rising and reforming and going to poison everyone.

Shura gives the letter to Ryuuji and Kurikara and offers the camouflage ponchos to go break Rin out if they want, and Ryuuji and Shiemi are the only two who do not hesitate for even a moment to go and rescue him.

The jail freezes them and gives nonviolent Shiemi a moment to shine. She confronts her own self doubts and goes to find Rin and coaxes him back out, showing she knows he won't be a danger to her by embracing him and his flames. She realizes that her fears and self loathing caused her to only think about her own emotions, and not how he was feeling (something Rin could also very much stand to do) and she immediately switches to comforting and encouraging him.

Rin busts the prison with style, Konekomaru says he's ready to be friends, Shima and Izumo state they're only here on Shura's orders, and

Rin still doesn't get it. He still has no idea what Ryuuji is dealing with or why he's upset about any of it. He has spent this entire arc trying to find his dad and trying to help the sect, and failing every step of the way. He has tried to help everyone around him in any way he can and show that he can be depended upon and trusted.

Rin has never opened up to any of them. Rin demands that they lean on him and listen to his advice and accept him entirely, and gives them nothing in return for that vulnerability and openness. He doesn't talk about his own life or emotions or thoughts. He keeps conversations light and easy and doesn't even tell them that he was raised by a guy that's now dead. He shoves himself in conversations and dynamics that don't concern him all the while demanding trust, and then will not let them in in return.

Ryuuji is seeing that so clearly now and it is hurting. How can you trust a guy who won't trust you back? How can you trust someone you thought was one thing who never showed you who they really are and still won't be open and real with you? Who has enough power at every moment to level half the world and is emotional and stupid and impulsive and won't be real with you?

Rin has been under a death sentence and told he had to keep his heritage a secret, but even outside of that, he really doesn't talk about himself. He doesn't open up to his friends like he expects them to open up to him. Neither brother is good at expressing themselves (and a lot of that is because they weren't raised to be that way. Shirou did his best but had a lot of limitations too.)

He demands they trust him wholeheartedly but will not trust them in return. Or he hasn't shown in any way that he does trust them.

This arc, at its core, is about lies and how those and trauma can and do make relationships messy. How even ancestral drama can go down the line and get us caught in cycles of it. But it also shows that we can do the work to get past them, and that it's messy and painful and loud and not always easy to see what's right and wrong while we do it, but we can get past it and move on together. We can make terrible mistakes and seek forgiveness and understanding and sympathy or empathy and try to do better. We can laugh in a field of disease and trust entirely on someone because we know we can even if the world is falling down around us and it doesn't make sense.

Neither Rin nor any of the exwires or Yukio are a villain in this arc. Even Mamushi and her cruel words and betrayal are not a villain in this arc. Everyone acts kindly and selfishly or in fright or confusion or in motives that are entirely misunderstood. They're all dragging their own emotional baggage with them and they're all getting tangled up and not listening, but they still strive on and strive to understand and talk it out when they can, because they care about each other and getting it right.

To act like it's as simple as "The exwires bullied Rin!" is naïve and robs Kato's story of so much richness and deprives the later arcs of so much character value she built starting here. Kato does a beautiful job of building all of her characters and giving them rich personalities and motivations and flaws and she shows us them through Rin sometimes, but she also gives them a lot of time without him at the forefront. She gives him flaws too, and a lot of wrongs, and that's why he's such a powerful and alive protagonist for our series.

You're free to dislike who you like and love who you like, but I do so encourage anyone who thinks the exwires were villains in this arc to really dive into the manga. Read through all the scenes and ask yourself why did Kato show that? Why is this character thinking that? Why did the character react that way? Kato gives us so much richness to dive into and to see so many people not do that and to take such quick and often incorrect or fragmented interpretations of the events is heart breaking and honestly robbing those people of a really good story.

Rin was wrong in assuming that everyone hated him and assuming that it was as simple as trust. He was wrong to try and force things and to try and force his own interpretations on others. It was only once he started to listen and hear what they themselves were saying that things got better. Now some of this is just the mess of the anime between season one and the start of season two, but a lot is just misinterpretation by the fandom. It can happen to anyone, but that does not mean it suddenly becomes factual because of that.

It's been at least six thousand words and I don't know if this came across as clearly as I wanted it to, but I hope it encourages those who haven't to dive in deeper. It's a rich arc with so many fascinating moving parts in it. I've barely brushed on Tatsuma, Juuzou, Mamushi, and Mephisto in this and their plots are all entirely interesting and add so much! Expect a Yukio and Izumo and possibly Shiemi follow up at some point, lol. Probably just as long though I'll try to be more concise.

If you read this far, thank you! You deserve to crash with the rest of the exwires in Toraya on a nice futon.

As always, look up my tag '#raven rambles' for more of my aoex meta and analysis.

[neokamui414]

I really like crossover fanfics and fan art, I really do. However I sometimes feel like some of the most popular fandom crossovers are also ones that perpetually fall into boring and predictable patterns while simultaneously and consistently ignoring/forgetting the most obvious and easy ways two or more fictional properties could be combined or crossed over.

And I think this is nowhere more apparent than the absolute proliferation of Danny Phantom and DC comics content here on this site.

Because you know what, I think there are some really cool and interesting things you could do with placing Danny and company in the world of DC or vice versa. The problem is that overwhelmingly I don't see any of those interesting ideas being done.

It's all the same variation of like three different plot points, all of which are exacerbated in their boring unoriginality and fandom cringiness by the fact that they also almost entirely revolve around the same flanderizations of DC characters that originate from people whose understanding of these comic book characters is entirely based off of watching the Teen Titans and Young Justice cartoons.

I am so so so so tired of seeing the same premise of Danny getting involved with Batman because he's a dark-haired light colored eyed superhero "twink" just like the rest of the male Robins. I'm tired of him getting adopted by Bruce, I'm tired of him being secretly Dick Grayson's long lost relative.

What's even worse is this crossovers frequent demonstration of what I think is the inexcusable sin of unoriginally using John Constantine, a character that I by and large think the vast majority of this website and it's user base just doesn't understand and probably never will. (this is a whole separate rant but the website that at one point had the majority of its user-base obsessed with an imaginary queer interpretation of one of the most aggressively mediocre and dude bro heterosexual paranormal TV shows to have ever existed is one that I think is fundamentally incapable of actually understanding or appreciating a legitimately compelling queer paranormal/urban fantasy character. The website that thinks Cas and & Dean were anything, whether that be a compelling romance, compelling characters or even in a good or enjoyable show, I think are forever incapable of actually understanding John.)

Do I think you could write an interesting story with John Constantine interacting with Danny? Yeah sure but I think that that would be entirely predicated on one's ability to actually write John compellingly, which is a dubious ask in the first place AND regardless it's still the most uninspired and boring interpretation of what you could do with "Danny interacting with one of the supernatural characters of DC"

Here are some actual recommendations for interesting crossovers and universe fusions :

*The fact that people want to have Danny Fenton interact with DC characters and Deadman and Secret are not the characters that immediately come to mind for fic ideas shows I think either the fundamental lack of creativity on the part of people who like this crossover, or just that they really don't know shit about DC comics....... Danny and Boston Brand would play off each other so well both comedically and as potential mentor and mentee. Greta and Danny would be ADORABLE together whether it is just friends or in a shippy dynamic.

* We need stories where Danny is interacting with The Spector, and the lack of them is just plain criminal in my opinion. I really could see a bunch of really cool stories where GhostKing Danny is put into conflict with the Vengeance of God. Or make him team up with The Specter have and have him fight Eclipso.

*we know the DC afterlife is incredibly complicated and interconnected with other mystical realms such as The Dreaming and Hell, maybe explore how that would relate to DP's conception of the Ghost Zone. Danny, Zachary Zatara and Kid Devil's bizarre interdimensional odyssey would be a great fic!

* if one has to put Danny in Gotham for some reason or another have him fight against the Gentleman Ghost, play around with the relationship with the glowing green ectoplasm and the green glowing liquid of the Lazarus Pits, and if you do that you have an excuse to make him interact with Jason Todd if you absolutely can't resist bringing in a member of the Bat family. Remember, Jason has the ability to summon forth magical blades under certain circumstances and as a character who has repeatedly died and come back to life he's the only bat that I think would actually have interesting interactions with Danny.

* but above all if you have to have Danny Phantom and company goes to Gotham as your story premise, I cannot emphasize this enough, HAVE HIM TEAM UP WITH RAGMAN!!!!!! I swear to God, have the snarky Ghost Boy interact with the character whose costume is literally filled with ghosts!!!!!!

*going back to the ectoplasm and Lazarus Pit idea, make Danny an avatar of The Black/ Rot. I would absolutely love to see him have to contend with the likes of Anton Arcane or come into conflict with Swamp Thing and Animal Man. Also having Swamp Thing present in the story would give a far more organic reason as to why John Constantine would be interested in this teenager with ghost powers.

So yeah I would kindly ask the people who are so insistent on producing crossover content of these two fandoms to actually do some interesting ideas.

And incidentally while we're on the subject matter, the fact that so much of Danny Phantom is directly inspired by Spider-Man and yet there's not really a lot of crossover between DP and Marvel properties is really really bizarre to me, especially because this website's user base purports to be such huge appreciators of the Spider-Verse films........

[yazthebookish]

Maybe I'll spoil you guys and talk about Gwynriel and ACOTAR5 and anything related to it overall. I recently finished my HOFAS reread and have some fresh thoughts. I'll let my thoughts guide me and some of these points I've already addressed in my insta stories yesterday. I just rather share a lengthy post here since I'll only tag under #gwynriel.

I often see arguments about how Gwyn and Azriel can't move the plot forward because the series is centered on the Archeron sisters.

First, that's not true because Sarah is following what she called "a traditional romance route". She's following the same patterns of Nalini Singh, Kresley Cole, and Lisa Kleypas where they publish multiple books in the same series following different couples.

This is fitting for a series like ACOTAR because it's romance-centered. And Sarah have already said that each couple is getting one book and there will likely be more books beyond ACOTAR6.

Saying that doesn't dismiss the importance of the sisters to the story, Feyre already has a trilogy centered on her. The spin-off just follows different characters including the sisters.

I won't try hard to convince people on this because I've already posted almost everything Sarah said about the spin-off series and what's it's about. So if the next book is not centered on an Archeron sister, that's for Sarah to bamboozle the fandom with.

One thing that stuck out to me is when I compared the ending of ACOSF with the scene of Bryce giving Nesta Gwydion and seeming like she left Nesta with a new quest.

First, this is what the text says, and this is Chapter 80, the very last chapter in ACOSF:

Succeeding in the Blood Rite didn't mean the training stopped. No, after she and her friends told Cassian and Azriel most of the details of their ordeal, the two commanders had compiled a long list of mistakes that the three of them had made that needed to be corrected, and the others wanted to learn from them, too. So they would keep training, until they were all well and truly Valkyries. Gwyn, despite the Rite, had returned to living in the library.

1. The Valkyries are not yet a unit.

2. SJM only and specifically highlighted that Gwyn, despite the Rite, returned to living in the library. It was like "hey, remember all the talk Gwyn did about wanting to leave the library after two years? Yeah that's on hold a bit but keep that in mind". She didnt even add Emerie or the other priestesses to that sentence.

With Nesta being left with Gwydion to find out why the 8-pointed star was tattooed on her, I don't think the next book will start with "hey Elain take this sword and deal with it". Who are Nesta's main companions now? Gwyn and Emerie.

I'll be back to the Valkyries but let's just talk about Azriel for a bit.

It is so painfully obvious to me that Azriel is being handed the Illyrian plot on a golden platter. How big or small of a plot it is depends on SJM, but it's important based on the fact that she fleshed out the Illyrian's origins and tied them to the crossover AND making Truth-teller the knife of Enalius.

That is a big deal for an Illyrian like Azriel.

And I quote my friend Lacie on this, it is very poetic for Azriel to be the owner of the knife that originally belonged to the person who freed his own people from the Daglan's clutches, perhaps because he saw his people are more than just slaves to the Daglan—how powerful would it be for Azriel, who loathes his own people, to parallel Enalius.

And for years some people were against Azriel dealing with this plot because he shouldn't make peace with his "abusers", its true his own family and some Illyrians failed him but he is condemning an entire population. Good people like Emerie and Balthazar. Even Rhys's mother, who had valid reasons to hate her people especially as a female, still made sure to make Rhysand connect with his Illyrian heritage and he even goes on to say that his mother didn't forget what they did to her but still loved her people.

If both Cassian and Rhysand (and by extension the author) continue to flag Azriel's hatred of the Illyrians as an issue—then it is a damn big issue for it to be addressed repeatedly.

Okay so to address my final point about Gwyn and Azriel and how they can move the plot forward.

Now I didn't detail out much about what the next book will deal with because that's another post (and I already have a post on that).

All of our theories and predictions are based on information that is available to us. Saying Azriel and Gwyn cannot move the plot forward does not make any sense because the central plot is tied to multiple characters, Archeron or not.

If SJM wants to make a character move the next book's plot forward, she can do it because she's in control of the story. She's in control of the narrative. She's in control of the characters.

The characters are puppets and this is an unfinished story. If some characters would add more value and make for a more interesting story before the others, she can decide on that. If she wants to make Eris the protagonist of the next book, she can easily do that whether the fandom wants it or not.

Let me give you an example of minor characters that pushed the plot forward and became main characters: Yrene Towers and the Hind. These kind of arguments could've been used for them in HOEAB or HOSAB and Pre-TOD. Before HOSAB/HOFAS and TOD, could we have predicted that they would have played a crucial role before those books? Not likely because they had minimal appearances and were not part of the main cast. This is what I'm talking about.

You can't know how a character will contribute to a story until you see how it all unfolds. We can make guesses on the information we have which is why I believe three characters are likely to join the main cast: Gwyn, Emerie, and Eris.

Why is it so easy to accept that Emerie might be sharing a book with an original character like Mor but it's hard to comprehend the fact that Gwyn could also share a book with Azriel? Because Emerie showed up in ACOFAS? To me that's not really a strong argument based on Sarah's writing and what we have in the books, she doesn't really pick based on who showed up the earliest. Here's a good example: Hypaxia, who showed up earlier, didn't even get her own chapters but the Hind did.

And there's one argument I recall about how I need to rely on Nesta to have a plot focused on Gwyn or the Valkyries in the next book. Nesta's arc is clearly not over based on HOFAS, but does that mean she's getting a POV? Not necessarily. I don't think she is. Gwyn is the perfect candidate for us to see what's going on with Nesta post-HOFAS and how they all deal with the Valkyries and whatever Sarah will set up with them.

There is this whole Valkyrie/Illyrian conflict that could be triggered as a result of the Blood Rite, with Ramiel definitely being an important location to explore in the next book, we also have the Pegasi and the Prison and the implications of the crossover. It makes sense to have an Illyrian and a Valkyrie POV to deal with some plots in the next book.

"Gwyn contributes to nothing" we can't know until the book is out. How sure are we that maybe SJM won't connect her to the crossover by making her mysterious father a Worldwalker? Or Prince of Hel? Or an Asteri? Maybe I'm right maybe I'm wrong.

"But Koschei! And the Human Queens!" Koschei will always be a background player pulling on the strings until the final book as it's obvious he is the big bad in the series, unless someone even worse is revealed. But no one is dismissing Koschei or the Human Queens messing around.

Literally what's the point of the story or the fun elements of surprises or plot twists if you need Sarah to list down everything that the next books will deal with. That's not how a story develops to me. I don't need to know everything in advance to just know how it will go. That's like knowing spoilers early on and checking off with each book what happened and what didn't happen. I feel like it's close to how a lot of readers were disappointed with not having enough ACOTAR in HOFAS, because Sarah implied half of the book would be set in Prythian. So by the time the book came out and it wasn't that, people were vocal about it.

In my opinion, SJM set a good foundation for Gwyn's arc to build up on in ACOSF and her arc is not over. We won't get mentions of her still carrying the guilt of her sister's death or not leaving the library after she said she's sick of being there for two years without us seeing resolution for that. She wouldn't be in Azriel's bonus chapter if she is not involved with him.

To conclude, my reread still affirms to me that the next book with an Azriel/Gwyn book. Azriel is clearly being set in the forefront.

[uriekukistan]

i wanna talk about this thing gege said

i’ve seen a lot of people saying that this is a bad way to write a story, and i couldnt disagree more. from a writer’s perspective, there is no reason to kill off a character if it’s not going to have impact.

in any case, i think this reaction points out two things i’ve noticed about the jjk fandom.

i. jjk fans prioritize enjoyment of characters over the plot

which is fine, i guess. i’m not gonna begrudge any readers the space to enjoy their fav characters. however, what i disagree with is the constant trashing of gege and jjk as a story because the narrative doesnt treat the characters as you want it to.

i mostly talk about these things from the perspective of someone who has been writing for a while, so i will take a second to acknowledge from the reader perspective. it’s easy to get attached to characters and see them as real people in your life.

but they arent real people. they only exist for the author’s intentions. every time i see someone complain that “x character only died because plot” i just think “yes?” characters exist for the plot. they exist to serve the narrative. they live and die for the plot, and that isn’t a bad thing. this is a story. that is how stories work.

with characters like gojo or choso, it’s easy to look back and see their character arcs and how their ends fit their purpose in the story, but i think people get so caught up in wanting to fuck the character, or fanon, that they forget their original purpose is to do what gege wants them to do.

this is a war against the most powerful, most evil sorcerer in history. of course characters are going to die, and of course it’s going to be characters we love. it’s honestly unrealistic to expect anything else.

and i think it’s really disrespectful to say so many rude things to gege because he is thinking about the story he wants to tell, and not the story that best suits your favorite character.

ii. few people want to feel anything from what they’re reading anymore

which again, is totally fine, but maybe read something else?

tragic stories have existed and enjoyed immense popularity for millennia. and theres nothing wrong with that. there’s nothing wrong with authors intentionally stirring up their readers’ emotions.

i wanna bring attention to the origins of the words “tragedy” and “catharsis”

“tragedy” is a genre that stems from greek drama based on human suffering and the terrible or sorrowful events that befall the main character. the intention of of tragedy is to invoke “catharsis”

“catharsis” is commonly used to refer to the purification of thoughts and emotions by way of expressing them. in terms of tragedy, this refers to arousing a negative emotion with the intention of expelling it so the audience can walk away feeling relieved.

for all intents and purposes, jjk is a tragedy. it’s meant to make you feel sad. that’s gege’s intention. yet every time people feel upset by a specific event, they call “bad writing.” if anything, according to what jjk is, it’s good writing if you feel sad.

i have seen some people say that jjk wasn’t set up this way, and i disagree so strongly that it’s hard to comprehend.

jjk0 ends with gojo having to kill his best friend, his one and only. tragedy. yuuta’s story is tragic too, having cursed rika and accidentally isolated himself just because he didn’t want her to die.

jjk starts with yuuji faced with execution just because because he wanted to honor his grandfather’s dying wishes. within a handful of chapters, there’s yuuji’s “death” and junpei, and there’s a clear set up of tragedy and repeated loss, despite characters giving their best effort.

i could get into how this relates to my interpretation of the themes of jjk, and sharing burden/responsibility to be stronger together, but that’s another point.

tldr; the point of this post is to say that gege killing characters and making readers feel sad is not bad writing or a bad narrative choice. it’s true to his intentions and the essence of jjk. if you don’t like that, then don’t read. but there’s no reason to disrespect gege and his hard work just because it’s not your cup of tea

[crescent-usagi]

Devin May Cry Netflix

Look. I've never played Devil May Cry, not a single game. I knew very little going into this show. But man this was a really good and fun show!

All I see is a bunch of negativity coming from the DMC fan base, and look I can accept you wanting an proper adaptation of your video game; but that doesn't mean you have to be an ass hat to this new continuity.

This is a non-canon story, if you want the original DMC then go back and replay the games! Complaining about the story being different in this is like complaining that Sonic 3 isn't the same as Sonic Adventures 2. Its not meant to be exact, its meant to take the characters and ideas and use them in a way to reintroduce them to a newer generation of people.

A Majority of complaints I've see are about Lady being the main character instead of Dante when that's blatantly untrue. God forbid a WOMEN be important to the story. Another complaint I've seen is Dante being weaker then his game counterpart. This Dante wasn't trained to fight by his father like he was in the games; he has no idea how his powers work until the Rabbit explains it to him. He didn't even KNOW he was half demon! Lets allow the character to learn and grow and get stronger thru the series. While Lady has been training and is in a special forces unit for fighting demons. Even though Dante has been fighting demons for a while he has mostly been relying on his extreme healing factor and speed rather than actual technique from what we can really see.

I also see people complaining about backstories. majorly that we don't fully get Dante's full story just the clip notes of it. But you have to realize the creators were only given 8 episodes to tell their story. unfortunately that means cutting things for time and Dante's back story at this point is not the most relevant to the story. We get Rabbit and Lady's back stories because they are relevant to the current plot of the show (Lady's is more so used a mirror to Rabbits). If we are to get another season it would most likely be focused on Dante finding and fighting Vergil where we would most likely get to see the entire back story from both boy's point of views.

People seem to be forgetting that the goal is to get another season to keep exploring these characters. I'm sure that in the first video game Dante isn't the same person he is in the last because he had time to grow. These 8 episodes are introducing us (and Dante) to EVERYTHING. He will (hopefully) grow in future season(s). People are expecting to much from such a short season. Unfortunate as it is this is how streaming services do things, as much as id rather we get 12 episodes or more we are only given 8 and they have to make due with what they have.

And the immigration analogy. So much about this is hated but its because people are only looking at it at face value. Yes, Rabbits plan is WRONG but that doesn't mean everything he stood for was wrong. letting in every demon is a bad idea. Yes. But dose that mean all those innocent Makaian's should be dyeing and suffering to the corrupt and gruesome ruling class of demons? No. I would BET that this idea will be working towards Dante (or maybe Virgil?) becoming the new ruler/king of Makai after defeating King Mundus. Perhaps after kicking out the American invasion and closing the door to hell behind them and sealing it he will be left (maybe with his brothers help) to restructure and try and repair Makai. (pretty sure he and his brother get trapped in hell in the games? could be wrong I've only watched one hour long video about the games so I could be misremembering.) I would expect Dante to grow and change as a character before this were to happen but again that's the point of multiple seasons. The perfectionists solution to immigration isn't to let everyone into another country; its to fix the situation they are coming from.

While no we don't need politics to be part of the show it is not our choice as viewers to make. This is what the Director wanted to go with so it's what we are getting, if you don't like it then don't watch it and just enjoy the games. This isn't the games, and maybe if it was a reimagining of something I cared about and grew up with I'd view it differently but as a new comer to the series I really enjoyed it and will be looking more into the franchise as a whole. This show succeeded in its mission to bring in new people to the fan base, just as the sonic movie did for its franchise.

I really hope we get another season and this isn't just left as a one and done show. Please look at this is in a new lens and not as a connection to the video games. Allow them to tell the story they want to tell. Maybe I'll re-watch the show and have different feelings in the future but after a first watch I really liked it. The animation and soundtrack are spectacular and really nostalgic for me as someone who grew up watching AMV's on YouTube in the 2010's.

I don't normally post my opinions about things online and just keep to myself but this felt important for me to talk about. If anything I've said was wrong or you disagree with any of my statements feel free to let me know, just please don't be a jerk about it, like I said I'm not overly familiar with this franchise and I only watched thru this season once so I could also be misremembering or just have rose tinted glasses from a first viewing. I don't really know how to end this now. byebyyyyyeeeeee <3

[duckyhowls]

House of the Dragon Fanfiction Clichè's to definitely avoid.

If you're interested to know 🤗

Okay, let's begin with the basics. Here are the top clichè things in a typical House of the Dragon fanfiction. Most of these pop up in around 98% of stories out there. And since you all always make the character female, that's how I will be addressing them in these clichès. Be mad 🤡

(1) Being the child of Rhaenyra, Alicent, or Daemon.

Just three characters, but the probability of at least one of them being your characters parent is around 87%. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't bother me all that much, but come on guys, give us readers SOME originality!

(2) Being a secret love child, typically of one of these men: Daemon, Cole, or Harwin.

Guys, this was cool back when season 1 first premiered. Now it just makes fanfiction repetitive. Like, the plot twists are just not hitting the spot anymore.

(3) Being one of Rhaenyra's "strong bastards"

This is so typical. If you are Jace's twin you earn extra cliche points. ESPECIALLY when it turns into a plot twist of not actually being Harwin's child and you're either Daemon's or you are Laenor's only true born. Like, come up with new ideas or just scrap it, on god.

(4) Becoming the dragon rider to either: Vermithor, The Cannibal, Grey Ghost or Seasmoke.

I know this is a big one. Personally, I've seen way more Vermithor than Cannibal ones, but I'd say it's an easy 50/50. Other times it's Grey Ghost, which is just utterly boring in my opinion (mostly because yall forget you have dragons half the time until it's important), or it's Seasmoke after Laenor "dies". Like, why can't you do something creative and maybe just claim an already existing dragon after a characters untimely demise? Every time someone makes their character claim Vermithor, I roll my eyes. Like, we get it, you want a big ass dragon.

(5) Laenor is a good, attentive father.

But only to the character for some reason, and dotes on her, but not the boys? Wake up, he's a cool guy but a pretty lowsy family man. He loved the boys, but he loved freedom more. He just wasn't built for that kind of life.

(6) Viserys just exists to be chronically dying background character.

Where is the interaction with anyone other than copying down already existing scenes? If you write a fic for example and claim he "adores" his grandchild via Rhaenyra (let's assume you are), then why is he just there and having zero interaction? Where is the bonding that backs up the fact he adores said character? Also, this guy was a very significant character in the entire show/book, and you guys just let him die in the background, like...

(7) Having your character have a Daenerys based complex.

For example, you give her more than one dragon. You USE Daenerys as a face claim (I can't stress enough how unoriginal this all is), and some fics even copy her quotes and the fact she can speak Dothraki. Then you give a BS excuse as to how she knows the language. So uncreative it's basically copywrite. It's even worse when you use Drogon as your dragon. You know, there is one fic I found through tiktok where the OC's name was DAENERYS, and her dragon was named DROGON. Like, grow up. Its obsessed fans like you make her character unlikeable. Stop it. It's cringe. Stop trying to be her.

(8) STOP USING CIRI FACE CLAIM ON FUCKING GOD.

Omg, we get it, she has white hair 🧍🏼‍♀️😭 But ya'll she looks like an alien that took crystal meth. The actress is pretty but the costume design in the Witcher for her was lame as hell. Too many authors use her. You know how many goddamn tiktok slide shows I've seen of people promoting their crappy books with Ciri as their faceclaim? I immediately scroll. Its almost as bad as Daenerys.

(9) Owning Dark Sister without actually having your character EARN the blade.

It just is either gifted to her for absolutely zero reason or she just has it in general. Like, how many times do I have to read about the sword being gifted to her by Daemon?! If you want the sword so bad, make your character go through obstacles throughout the story and EARN it. Its just lazy writing.

(10) Having absolutely zero interaction or connection with people outside of nobility/royalty.

Examples being the common folk (blacksmith, bakers, whores, etc), merchants, foreigners, soldiers, maids/servants, slaves, witches, humanoid creatures, the free folk, sailors, travellers, bards, theatre people, etc. I never see friendships or any sort of actual interaction outside of royal characters, and barely interaction with other lesser important Houses such as Redwyne, Manderly, etc. Its always just made up characters from House Stark or House Martell or something like typical like that. You guys barely write any outsider interaction - and brothel visits barely count! Where are the relationships outside of the castle walls?!

(11) Forgetting that the character has a dragon (if she has one, which is most likely a yes, don't lie)

You guys always forget you have a dragon and a close bond with said dragon. This is in EVERY SINGLE FANFIC. Make sure to write scenes here and there of your character spending time with the dragon. Its also good details if maybe your character talks about their dragon often like the way you losers would dote and yap about your cats and lizards or something emo like that. STOP FORGETTING YOUR DRAGON!

(12) Coming up with the crappiest and most non thought through Valyrian sounding names for characters AND dragons.

Examples of crappy names I've seen are: Daellya, Caellayna, Jaenarya, and Daenyares (again, stop trying to be Daenerys). Stop. They're shit. They're poorly thought through. Come up with something that sounds pronounceable and not an absolute tongue twister. It's not clever or cool. It's stupid and lazy. Dragon names that are stupid include: Haelyx, Onyxys, and sometimes even Valyrian names that are FOR PEOPLE. These names just sound so lazy and emo. Think of something that readers would remember, look back on, and not visibly cringe. I've seen someone name their dragons things like Daeron and Maegor before and I knew then I had to quit reading for the day.

(13) Forcing all the characters to like the reader.

Bro, come on, its so unrealistic. I saw a tiktok slideshow once of someone's fanfic. The caption said "everyone in love with my character" then proceeded to show every important person in the entire show. Mainly the hot ones. Newsflash! They're all hot. Like, stfu and let your character have enemies that aren't just Cole. Smh.

(14) Making the character a party girl in a medieval fantasy AU

Guys, this is a world where the only "rave" youre going to this weekend is a brothel orgy or a play in the streets that acts out political propaganda. Like, you ain't attending a Diddy party unless it's Larys' and we all know he doesn't have the funds or the legal right to throw a party at the Red Keep.

(15) Being Helaena's best friend, or being nice to her.

I love Helaena, but yall need to stop doting over her through your writing sometimes. Give it a break. She has her flaws too and I bet if ya'll knew her irl you'd be so awkward around her. I'm tired of pretending she isn't a complicated character.

(16) Helaena being written as an airhead or dumb vibes.

She's not an airhead she's just antisocial, amongst other things (towards family anyhow). Write her as unnattached, not a day dreamer. And also, even worse if you give her crappy riddles that sound like they're written by a 2 year old. Helaena has shown to be very aware and very smart.

(17) Normalising Cole, Otto, Daemon and Alicent hate.

We get it, their flaws outshine the good parts. But again, realism. Enough said.

(18) A stable boy romance phase.

Like bruh. Nobody asked for this. We get it, you like the Borgias, but nobody came to watch you smack lips with a dirty stable boy you just met and probably would forget about within 2 chapters. I wish I could say more, but its ALWAYS a stable boy.

(19) Aemond's "hmms".

Guys, he hummed probably 3 times throughout the show and you suddenly think it's a habit. Aemond is silent most of the time. He's a silent, calculative snake. I love him, but whenever I see you guys write "hm" I die a little inside. It's not a habit. Everyone makes that noise.

(20) Dragonstone and The Red Keep.

Why is it always a constant setting? Unless you're on dragonback or confronting Aemond at Storm's End, you're either at the castle in Kingslanding, or the one on Dragonstone! Like, you guys got so many other settings to take advantage of: the city, the beach, the Kingswood, small villages, other nobles castles, Essos, the mountain ranges, etc. Like its a fantasy world, come up with something even like secret hidden places or ruins and stuff.

Anyway, I am done yapping and being mad. If you guys have any other cliche things to add, I'd love to hear them in the comments. This also helps me avoid writing this stuff as a HOTD author.