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eirikaanemo · 3 years

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Venti falls in love with an Inazuman rebel. The rebel has no vision, but what they do have is a belief that everyone has an inherent right to live freely. How does Venti know about this rebel in the first place? I honestly have no idea...

Visionless Visionary

Venti x GN!Reader

1.8k Words

Warning: Minor character death mentioned, prayer (if that bothers you)

Disclaimer: I knew next to nothing about Baal when I wrote this, so it may not be an accurate representation of her character.

Inazuma is a mess. That is just a fact now. Baal has suddenly become violent and a danger to her people. So many had done nothing but hold a vision she had bestowed upon them in the first place. And because of that, she struck your cousin down. You can still remember the thump of his lifeless body hitting the ground and the steady tap, tap, tap of Baal’s shoes as she walked away.

She seemed completely unaffected by her actions. You were anything but. The scene played over and over in your nightmares for weeks, and continues to haunt you. So when the rebellion reached out to you for support you were happy to assist. You found out he had just joined their ranks and that’s why he had been targeted.

However, you don’t have a vision so there’s only so much you can do. Of course they always welcome financial support and you gave it to the best of your ability. But you knew there had to be more you could do. So you spoke to some people and it was agreed that you would go to Mondstadt and position Barbatos for his support for your cause.

He hadn’t been seen in centuries, but he was the god of freedom, right? If anyone could help them, it would be him. So with the rebellion’s blessing you took your savings and made the long journey to Mondstadt.

Finding lodging was fairly easy. The people of Mondstadt were more than willing to help you. Especially once they found out what you were there to do. ‘Such a great and admirable cause,’ they said. ‘May Barbatos bless you!’ And all you could do was hope he did.

You prayed every morning and every night for help for your people. The heavens seemed quiet, but you didn’t let that dissuade you. Surely your sheer persistence would make a difference, you reasoned. And so you kept on.

One night, rather early on, you ran into a bard not long after your evening prayer. He had been not too far from the statue and you were captivated by the beauty of the song he played. It was ancient Inazuman and for just a moment you were able to forget and be caught up in the memories of better days.

When the song ended you were disappointed and tried not to pout. Judging from the laugh the bard let out when he saw you, it must have still shown on your face. “Did you like the song?” He asks. “I know I didn’t play for long. Would you like to hear another?”

“I would love to,” you admit. He smiles and simply starts on another song, this one also of Inazuma origin. From there he transitions into a more Mondstadtian style, singing The Ballad of Freedom. You know it well, as it’s a favorite of many of the rebels. As the last note fades he turns back to you.

“What brings you here, I wonder. Has it to do with your country being torn asunder?” He inquires.

“Yes,” you reply. “I’ve come to ask Lord Barbatos for his assistance in our cause. We fight for freedom from Baal, who has become nothing but a tyrant. As for me personally, well, she killed my cousin right in front of me. Her only reasons being the vision she bestowed upon him herself not many years ago and his belief that what she was doing was wrong. No one should have to suffer that.”

“Indeed, it seems you have a need. Your cause is just and swords you thrust. But the archons don’t just help everyone, so prove to him you’re worthy of some.”

“But how do I do that?” You question the cryptic bard.

“You’ll see in time, dear friend of mine!” He winks and you find your face warming. “Though I have a question if you don’t mind. Is the assistance you’re seeking a vision like mine?” He taps the glowing turquoise vision sitting on his belt by his hip.

“No,” you shake your head. “After what happened to my cousin, I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with a vision. For me they’ve been nothing but trouble.” He nods in understanding.

“I see how that would be. I must take my leave for now, we’ll see each other later anyhow.” And he’s off into the night.

He’s right that this is far from the last time you see him. And he’s right that you start noticing the tests that Barbatos has set before you. More and more people seek your help in one thing or another, especially since the one they call “honorary knight” left to Liyue. There’s much to do, but you’re happy to help them.

Eventually you stop helping them because it’s a test and start helping them because you want to; because it’s the right thing to do. You help Lisa organize the library. You help Barbara clean the cathedral. You help Amber keep watch. You help Venti with his performances from time to time. You stand in for Diluc’s barkeep while he recovers from an illness.

Days and days have passed and your relationship with Venti grows and grows. You notice more and more things about him that you rather like. His laugh. His eyes. His hands. His music. His sense of humor. His optimism.

Really, everything about him is amazing. You try to deny it at first. But you know deep down that you’re falling in love. And you’re seeing some hints that he might be too. Lots of them, because he’s started flirting with you almost constantly.

However, as your relationship grows, your hope dwindles. It’s been weeks! You’ve helped so many people and have prayed so many times. And yet you have not received an answer. Not even an acknowledgement that he has heard.

When you express your concern and discouragement to Venti, he is very concerned. “I’m just not sure how much longer I can stay,” you explain. “While I would hate to return empty handed, I can’t stay here forever.”

“Try just one more time, for me?” he asked you, looking a little guilty despite not having reason to be. It’s not like he was keeping Barbatos from speaking with you. As if he could sense your hesitance he sweetened the deal. “If you do, I’ll give you a kiss!” He wiggled his eyebrows at you and flashed you a mischievous smile and you felt a warm blush bloom on your face.

“Alright,” you grumble good-naturedly. “I’ll try one more time.” His resulting cheer and more cheery smile were nearly enough to have made you do it by themselves.

That night you approached his statue, feeling unreasonably nervous compared to the nights before. “Lord Barbatos,” you prayed. “I seek thy assistance for my people’s cause. We seek the freedom thou dost represent. Someday may we all be free to live our lives reasonably, but as we please. This is my vision, my hope. Please, if it be thy will, let thy winds be not still. Guide us to better days, for this is what I pray.”

You stay there for a long moment, waiting. Then, the wind picks up and you hear a voice from it. It seems vaguely familiar but you can’t quite figure out why.

“Your diligence and passion for your cause has secured my blessing,” the winds whispered. “My winds will be at your back and support your cause. However, if you accept a vision despite your fears, you will be able to do far more. The wind will whisper secrets to your ears. All plans spoken will be carried to your ears.

“You need not fight with it. Trust in me, that I will not strike you down for accepting this gift. In your time here in my home I have found you to be a friend to us so I will be a friend to you.”

You feel tears come to your eyes. “I accept,” you whisper. This will be incredibly valuable.There’s no way you could turn it down. And this is the kind of god you can trust and accept a vision from. He is as kind, generous, and benevolent as his people.

After a moment of silence, the winds calm and a gleaming turquoise vision lies before you, dangling from a necklace like a pendant. It’s smaller than some others you’ve seen and is hidden easily when you slide it over your head and under your shirt. That will be invaluable when you return to Inazuma. It would be most suspicious for you to return with one after everything that’s happened.

You take another moment to catch your breath and wipe the tears from your eyes. Then you take a particularly deep breath to steady yourself and make your way back to Venti. “How did it go?” He asks, and you smile in response.

“It went very well,” you said, pulling the pendant out to show him your new vision. “Now we match! Now… I believe I was promised a kiss?”

The smile on his face at your teasing words could have lit up a room, if you were in one. He took your hands in his and tugged you closer gently before leaning in and pressing his lips to yours. It was a pleasant kiss, chaste but lingering and sweet.

He giggled at the face you made when he pulled away. You joined it, adding your laughter to his. Between the blessing and his kiss you felt like you were on top of the world. Then you remembered something that brought you down from your high.

“Venti, you know this means I have to leave now, right?” You inquire.

His face fell to a serious and thoughtful expression before it softened and he sent you a small smile. “Yeah, I know. You know I love you, right?”

“I know,” you respond softly. “I love you too.”

He nods. “Then I’ll wait for you. So don’t take too long, okay?”

“Of course, I’ll do what I can,” you reply.

Your parting is sad, but hopeful as he waves you goodbye until you’re so far away that he can’t see you. He sings nearly nothing but sappy love songs for the next week. He misses you, but knows you’ll be back. His winds won’t let anything happen to you after all.

When you return to Inazuma you find that all the rebels with anemo visions had their power boosted, the ships sailed swifter with the wind behind them, and the information the wind brought you gave you many victories. The struggle was still difficult, but the help you had obtained made a serious difference and soon enough you were headed back to Mondstadt.

You are headed home. After all, home is where the heart is.

tag list: @clouds-rambles

#eirika writes #venti #genshin venti #venti x reader #genshin impact x reader

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techouspeaks · 4 years

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Healin Good Precure Final Verdict and thoughts on Tropical Rouge Precure!

First off, sorry I haven’t been around that much to even talk about Healin Good. First, I just kinda lost interest in doing reviews for a while and then some personal snit just had to be thrown in when I really wanted to discuss somethings. So this review is kinda gonna be slightly unorganized but I’ll do my best and I’m really sorry about Precuruary again not being this year. This past year has been whoo! Just yeah...Anyway! I will try to be more active when I can be but I can’t make any promises right now. So onto the review!

I know every year I’ve said that each precure seems a little better than the previous ones in some aspects. Like for example, Star Twinkle I felt was a little better than Hugtto in terms of overall enjoyment and characters, but it lacked developing the plot and the lackluster in the personality of the princesses. They could have had each princess have the certain traits expected from their signs such as Virgo being a perfectionist and Aries being hot tempered.

Than again, maybe it’s cause I just think anything is better than Kira Kira! lol! I know I get a little harsh with that series. Given the other series that came before and after, can you blame me? There are better series than that. (In my opinion, anyway.)

Healin Good, I can definitely say this was a good ride for both plot, character, music and animation! Yes, the designs for the cures were a little lack luster and I still can’t help but get Cure Flora vibes from Grace, but eventually, I got used to it. In fact, while I know it was the anniversary of Yes Precure 5 Go Go!, I almost felt like they should have just made that into a separate movie and have Healin Good meet Go Princess since the cures there have a lot in common!

But of course being their own thing. They’re not copies of the GoPre girls, but they share definitely some things in common such as Cure Grace and Cure Flora’s flower theme, Cure Sparkle and Cure Twinkles love for fashion and star themes and Cure Fountain and Cure Mermaid for the water themes.

In terms of plot, it wasn’t like the most amazing plot ever, but it was decent and coherent. It was a serviceable plot that did the bare minimum and not be too crazy and outlandish and the morals at least made more sense unlike Twinkle. There was no getting grumpy dog people to learn to smile and be happy.

Yes, the one thing that doesn’t make sense is how Cure Earth came to be and I will admit she as well as Fountain are the least interesting girls. I know people love Fountain/Chiyu! For me, blue cures have interesting stories but a personality that doesn’t fit it. They’re okay but I always feel like they’re just the cool kid that’s typically the responsible role model and nothing more, with the exception of Cure Marine and Cure Beauty, the later fits that role but she also has a bit more to her in terms of personality. The backstory for Fountain/Chiyu doesn’t make sense either. She sees the horizon line between the ocean and the sky and wants to jump that high. Then at first she’s just sees high jump as fun, which annoys a rival of hers and thus she’s pressured to like it more than just a school thing. It’s weird and almost complicated...

Cure Earth/Asumi is sorta a motherly kind of character since she’s in her 20s in appearance, but still a fish out of water. I’m glad they didn’t make her a teen so she had to go to school with the girls and she’s like the first adult main cure (Like I get Cure Flower, ancient cures and the Hugtto Cures, but I’m talking as in the main team member and not a side character type thing.) Which is nice, it shows that yes adults can be heroes. I mean we had adult superheroes all the time and the teen was just the less experienced side kick.

As for personality, she’s a bit of a blank slate but I love her design! I know Green Cure and all wah, but hate to say it, the more people complain that there isn’t a green cure in every season, the more I’m kinda glad cause people get sooo uptight like they’re whitewashing a character or something. Like stop! It’s just a team color for Pete’s sake! Like even if they did her as a green cure, she’s kind of bland in personality so would you be happy with a green cure that’s sorta the blank slate?

I’m not saying she’s bad. She can be funny and it can be enjoying to watch her understand feelings and things since while an adult physically, she was basically born out of a whim and only knows how to talk and understand the basis of the Healing Garden as well as Princess Latte and Queen Teatinu. Shoot, she couldn’t even eat on her own.

My two favorite characters by far have to be Nodoka aka Cure Grace and Hinata aka Cure Sparkle. Hinata is just a fun character. She’s emotional, got a go getter attitude and I like the fact she’s into fashion but isn’t over the top annoying or particularly snobby, kinda like Cure Twinkle but different that Cure Twinkle has more of a professional attitude and higher skills, while Cure Sparkle is a bit clumsy and overly excited about everything. She has insecurities and flaws but thanks to Nodoka and Nyantoran, she gets over these rather quickly.

As for Nodoka, I know people are disappointed that her illness turned out nothing more than Daruzen, I don’t blame them for going this route. Yes, it kinda gives an unrealistic impression that the disease just simply needs to jump out of someone and they’ll be okay. I can’t help but think it might have backfired especially given the time since we had the you know what virus. So many kids were watching their families get destroyed and while, yes, it would be good to teach kids to stay strong and fight through it and that it takes time for people to recover fully, it could also be too overbearing for them as well if they happen to have a loved one who is sick or they themselves and are just constantly reminded of the suffering.

Put it short, there’s kind of no best way around it. You can either do it this way and there might be some kids that think well the virus can just jump out or do it the other way and risk kids getting depressed and anxious, which would be bad as depression and anxiety in kids has risen a lot since 2020. For me, I think kids are smarter than we give them credit. They are gonna be aware that stuff in cartoons/anime works differently than in the real world, so I feel like the route they took was better. It was already risky having the main character be sick and being put in the hospital to begin with.

With that being said, Nodoka is a good character for more reasons than her being sick and fighting an illness. She wants to be supportive because she needed support. Just because her illness turned out to be some alien germ from another dimension, doesn’t make her desire to help any less meaningful. She did suffer a lot, fought through pain and suffering through an unknown amount of time. Just cause she healed miraculously doesn’t make her suffering not real and her inspiration and influence on others less so.

Bottom line, it doesn’t matter how she healed, she still suffered, got inspire by those who helped her and thus inspired those to work hard on getting better. The message is still there.

But there is another thing that makes her special and that is when Nodoka told Daruzen off! That alone was the most inspiring thing ever done in a Precure series in a LONG time! It’s not just her standing up to a bully. She stood up to her abuser! And yes, I do like Daruzen and at first I thought they would be a cute couple, but I will admit when Daruzen took things too far and as someone that’s been sexually harassed and known people who were forced on, I can’t push forward with the ship or Daruzen for that matter.

When Daruzen needed help, Nodoka pushed him away and then he outright made her feel bad about it. “I thought you were about helping others.” This is a tactic used by abusers, taking advantage of the kindness their victim usually has and congrats to Rabirin for being the best partner to a Precure.

Nodoka holds no responsibility for Daruzen. He used her thus abused her, he caused so much pain not only onto her but to those around her. Put it short, Nodoka doesn’t owe Daruzen anything! That to me is one of the most important lessons to teach anyone especially young kids. It’s good to teach others to be kind and forgive folks, but if you don’t want to than don’t especially if they have done nothing but hurt you. Your health including mental health comes first above all else. It’s not selfish especially if the one needing help was selfish first and didn’t think about you in the long run.

So as much as I think that Daruzen X Nodoka could have been cute, I can’t help but applaud Toei for going this route instead. Especially these days, I feel it’s really important teach kids that it’s okay to think of what’s best for you, including putting a limit on helping people and setting boundaries. I’ve known even family members and friends that were in this situation where they had to stop helping someone, because that person took advantage of them and they had to put their foot down, cause they had to finally think of their own health and well being. It’s not selfish. It’s important to take care of yourself first!

Speaking of mascots, all the mascots are useful including Latte, which is the main mascot that is in peril the most since the villains make her sick. However, she is far from a passive pup as some people pass her off as. She does know when to put her paw down and even in the midst of her suffering, she does try when she can to help. Even go as far as refusing Nodoka’s care until she and Rabirin settle their differences to work together. She also has the ability to sense when the earth needs help and is the only animal that can do this. She also refuses Cure Earth’s/Asumi’s overly servitude towards her, showing she knows when to speak out about her own well being. True Latte doesn’t get too much to shine but when she does it’s rather welcomed.

Normally with mascots, I don’t care for them since they tend to be typically one note. The mascots for Healin Good are all memorable with their own personality and they grow along side their respected cures. The only mascots I know that grew a lot was Yes! Precure 5/Go! Go’s Coco, Nuts and Milky, Go Princess Precure’s Aroma and Puffu. Mofurun only showed much growth in the movie where they became a cure. Though Mofurun is still more useful than the mascots in Kira Kira. (Yes, I will always take the opportunity to slam on that series!)

Speaking of Kira Kira...Oh boy. Well I was a little excited to finally have an ocean themed precure series with a mermaid, my excitement kinda dropped when I noticed the transformation compact and transformation. I’m gonna go a head and review the first episode since I watched it.

I’ll first start off the with positives and move on to what I wouldn’t say are horrible things, but more so my overall concerns with it.

First, like others, I’m glad we got a lead cure that isn’t pink for once. This is a first since Splash Star Precure, whom I don’t think Cure Bloom counts. I mean in the first season, she kinda is pink, but then when she becomes Cure Bright her colors change so I kinda count her as being mix color, while Cure Dream was the first official Pink Cure.

I also like that while Manatsu/Cure Summmer is another happy go lucky type, she does have a bit more zest and isn’t the overall cutesy happy go lucky cures we’ve come to know. She’s different from Cure Star and Cure Yell, in which she’s happy go lucky in a more of a hot headed sense, than the cute, been bullied but still brave kid which was Cure Star and Yell.

Manatsu/Summer reminds me of Lina Inverse from Slayers and other similar red head characters from that era, which makes sense she is a red head. (Least Manatsu is).

The transformation and battle scenes are better too. I was worried that because the pact and start of the transformation looked so similar to Kira Kira, I was worried it would be exactly the same but it’s different enough it seems. My only gripe is that maybe Cure Summer’s final pose at the end for her transformation sequence could have been a bit more dramatic. Her pose look lack luster compared to the rest of her transformation.

The animation in Cure Summer’s attack is amazing but the 3D part of is a little distracting somewhat. I feel like the sun could have been done in 2D. Other than that, animation is gorgeous! Bright and colorful with nice detailing within the characters and background.

I also can’t help adore Cure Coral/Sango’s design and character. She hasn’t appeared that much, but already I kinda already adore her! She’s so precious and I can tell she’s already gonna be a fan favorite among many! I also like how she seems sweet and quiet but isn’t shy either. She’s rather just down to earth, just doing her own thing but still being polite. Refreshing take especially on a purple cure!

Now onto my issues with it. Starting with a bit too many similarities to Kira Kira such as the transformation pact and the overly energetic, silly theme. I don’t mind silly when it’s balanced out right. For me, it’s a bit too crazy and kinda the issue I had with Cure Princess and sometimes Cure Marine. I get that it’s about motivation VS procrastination. I hope they work it out to teach kids there’s an importance of both. Just teach that you need a bit of balance. Right now, it’s just not. Manatsu kinda gets on my nerves a little bit and then you have Laura...

I kinda have mix feelings about Laura. On one hand, I do relate to her. She’s a little vain and I like the fact that despite being a main character, she’s actually quite selfish! Her whole desire to do this mission is out of hope that she’ll be the next Queen, which apparently, the current Queen isn’t her mom I guess, but she’s chosen to be in line and she seems to want to be Queen simply for the selfish reason to be praised and adored, not cause she wants to help her people. I like this for the fact that it makes her far different from Cure Milky/Lala, whom many have said she was probably a little too responsible for her age, but I digress, Lala/Cure Milky is one of my favorite cures.

What I’m concern is the fact that Laura will outshine the cures and take over the spotlight especially when she becomes a Cure. There’s no denying this will happen especially since it’s been confirmed the Midseason Cure is called Cure Le Mer, which is her last name. She seems to already outshine the mascot for the series Kururun, who is the first mascot to not meet the lead cure in the first episode because the poor thing barely gets any screen time!

I noticed this especially when the products for the series came out that Kururun is barely in any of the merchandise. I guess after focusing so much on the mascots for three seasons, having at least one be the token mascot to save all humanity, they decided “Eh, lets just make a mermaid the star seller and just have the mascot be squeezed in for those who want a stuffed animal.”

I get that the Midseason cures tend to take over the spotlight anyway, but I don’t always agree. Cure Scarlet and Cure Earth kinda grew along side the other cures. Taking time for both them and another Cure or character to shine as well. With Laura, because she’s already part of the group, hopefully won’t outshine the cures, but being how much they merchandise and show her off, it’s looking a bit bleak for anyone who isn’t Manatsu/Cure Summer when Cure Le Mer takes the stage.

I also fear since the series was announce that Asuka/Cure Flamingo maybe too much like Cure Chocolate given how her design is similar. I love her design, her’s is my favorite design of the bunch, but you can’t deny she looks like Cure Chocolate with longer hair. I hope they give her and the other cures more personality and growth especially before Laura becomes a cure.

Other than those gripes, I don’t hate it and do like some things about it. Maybe I’m just used Healin Good’s more relaxed theme that I’m kinda skeptical for this more wild, eccentric series. Maybe it will grow on me in time. Hoping it does since as said, been wanting an ocean themed Precure series with mermaids in it for a looong time!

Without further a due, I give Healin Good Precure 8 out of 10 stars. Won’t rate Tropical Rouge Precure until the end of the season. Seeya in the next review!

8 Stars Level: “Great!”

#Healin' Good Precure #healin good precure #tropical rouge precure #precure

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prompt-master · 4 years

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Would you be willing to share how you might rewrite Yukizome, Sakakura, and Munakata to make them likable characters (if not ppl Bc there’s a big difference)???

ahhhhhhh this ask got me so stupidly excited that I was like wavin my hands around. I think about how to rewrite their characters OFTEN. very often. I’m gonna go with likeable character over likeable people because I think they work better where they’re actually not that likeable people.

The one I think about the MOST is Munakata. He was SUCH wasted potential and I partially blame the medium for that (a single season anime is too constrained for future, it needed more time and care to be a proper story). But Munakata is actually so close to being a compelling character but they made some MAJOR mistakes with him. This ended up getting really long and more like a 3 page ADHD ramble essay. SO IM VERY SORRY to anyone who cannot read this but TYTYTY if you did because these ideas make me very happy! Oh it’s only about Munakata btw because of how long it got

The thing about Munakata is that he is designed to be a foil to Naegi. In fact a majority of dr3 future FOCUSES on this foil dynamic. It is Naegi’s hope vs Munakata’s hope. The World’s hope vs The FF’s hope. And more importantly it is True Hope vs Corrupted Hope.

This is a fantastic concept...so why didn’t it work in canon? I think that the biggest most glaring issue with Munakata’s hope is his logic. Munakata is meant to be a logical man, although with corrupted morals that lead him astray. Yet in canon his logic is laughably infallible. For example as a major figure in the FF and someone who wants to spread hope....why would he tell Naegi to kill himself? More importantly why does he continue to try and slaughter Naegi? The issue here isn’t from the fact that he wants him dead but from the fact that he is under the IMPRESSION that this entire game is being broadcast to the world.

Think about this for a second. In Munakata’s eyes he is going to kill the Ultimate Hope, an international symbol of a better life, live on TV. He doesn’t just want to kill the Ultimate Hope..he wants to do it BRUTALLY as a MAJOR FIGURE OF THE FF. IMO this should have happened later on as the game furthers the emotional turmoil in Munakata’s head and he eventually snaps and gives in to the desire to kill Naegi despite the fact that this is live. And then there should be CONSEQUENCES for that. I wanted so badly a realization where Munakata realizes that he is hurting the Ultimate Hope in front of what he believes is the entire world.

Another issue with Munakata’s logic is saying things such as...implying that the HPA KG was...just a game. I mean...people DIED. it's not hard to see how wrong that logic is. you can't say “this is the real world now” when what Naegi experienced WAS the real world. I think that this could be fixed through a bit of world building. DR3 Future is rather isolated from its world. We don’t really know much about the world and its dynamics. I think it would make perfect sense if the general public viewed the HPA KG as a tv show, they got numb to the sight and even those untouched by despair had a hard time connecting that these are REAL people suffering. With this previously established Munakata expressing that the KG was not real would make a lot more sense and play into his corrupted idea of hope.

There is also Munakata’s connection to his other friends. Now I’ve talked about this before but the game was clearly designed to BREAK Munakata and Naegi. This way the FF would die, both the FF and World’s hope would be broken, and upon seeing this Mitarai would have no choice but to deploy his own forced hope. So it makes perfect sense that Yukizome’s death would break him (in fact if she hadn’t died in that way, her NG code was designed to be Munakata’s fault). But something about it felt...superficial. Again I think this is the mediums fault but it almost feels as though Munakata just forgets about Yukizome until later. I think they should spend more time establishing his pain and what he has lost and why this pushes him to kill. In his eyes if she can die then nothing else matters. It should be THE breaking point, not the first push. I do like the betrayal he feels towards realizing she had despair but it needed more time to fester.

And his relationship with Sakakura also felt weak. In all honesty it was hard for me to feel as though they were ever friends. Sakakura is written as though he just follows Munakata like a loyal dog and Munakata just orders him around. Establish their relationship more! Why are they such good friends? Why is Sakakura important to him? And more importantly why did Munakata decide to cruelly gut Sakakura knowing he was about to confess? This is because he believed that Sakaura was despair and that his confession was more manipulation, but they didn’t show this well at ALL. Munakata just comes across as a major a-sshole who does not care. I also personally found it distasteful that when changing his heart Munakata only seemed to cry for Yukizome. I understand that was his love interest but Yukizome at the end of the day killed herself. Sakakura however was an unnecessary betrayal he took into his own hands AS HE HIMSELF KILLED HIM. He should have more guilt over that! Not just in that moment where he runs to Sakakura, but ahead of time as well! Maybe even DURING his rampage they could have shown him having moments of guilt but he is so absorbed in the idea that all despairs have to die that he doesn’t even realize he has become despair in the name of hope.

A BIG weakness on Munakata’s part comes with interacting with other characters. He is a man who should know how to take charge, lead, and doesn't know what to do when things are getting too crazy even though he THINKS he does. Munakata is heavily flawed, OBVIOUSLY flawed, but many of the interactions with him are as tho his rampage isnt a big deal. There should be reasons for this! Why do people trust Munakatas guidance so much? I dont know! All ive seen from him is that hes insane! Maybe even pieces where around others hes a lot nicer so you can understand why they follow him, even though hes ready to gut Naegi alive with a flaming katana. His interactions with others feel like the writers just wanted to see the next big evil thing they could think of, but for Munakata’s character this doesn't make sense because he was appointed a high status in the foundation for a reason. Maybe even have people say they disagree with some of his methods but at the end of the day he gets the job done!

There is another major missed opportunity here and it's why Muanakata wants Naegi dead so badly in the first place. The remnants. Hiding terrorists in the apocalypse is a PERFECTLY valid reason to want someone dead and think they're a bad guy! But I think since Naegis initial arrest was already so hostile and violent we get the sense that the FF is simply just...crazy.

And let’s think about what Munakata WANTS from Naegi. He does not just want Naegi dead he wants something worse. He wants Naegi to suffer first. He thinks that Naegi doesnt understand his own personal pain. He thinks that because Naegi protected the remnants he must also not care about the suffering the remnants caused. He wants Naegi to feel despair and then die. This is important to his corrupted hope. He thinks the suffering must be shared in order to understand who must die, but he is creating a cycle of pain. Tie this back to the broadcasting issue. He wants Naegi to break for everyone to see. I think..and this is just a concept..I think it would have been a great idea for Munkata to force Naegi to watch the despair video so that he has no choice but to understand.

AND themes are majorly important to Danganronpa. And I don’t think its a stretch to say that there are parallels between Munakata and Naegi. In fact I would say that there are aspects of the og trio in this new trio. I think it would have been really cool if they showed how our favorite trio could have ended up if they had been corrupted as well. But the parrellels dont stick strongly. I think it would have been cool to show a past where Munakata’s idealism lies more strongly than Naegis. As the student council president there was a time where he himself had to use his words to solve problems. Perhaps he learned that sometimes his words made things worse. Munakata does not have Naegi’s talent of emotional intelligence. He is a man of action over words. So he interprets this as WORDS being the problem rather than understanding he does not have these skills. Especially when the apocalypse breaks out, it becomes all action over words. So he sees Naegi who is all talk as a genuine threat who will let everyone die through his “weak ineffective” idea of hope.

Another parallel could be drawn from the fact that they both have hope based careers. Their job is too keep things hopeful. Maybe Naegi stays safe doing public broadcasted speeches, while Munakata is on the field weeding out despairs. This would cause Munakata to feel as though Naegi is doing no real work yet getting all the credit for being a savior.

Munakata constantly complains that Naegi does not know true pain. But he and we as an audience have followed Naegi through his entire process of trauma. We know he is in the wrong. But what do we as an audience know about Munakata’s suffering? We are shown almost nothing! There are some implications, but for how intense he is implications are not enough. We need to see his suffering. We should see how he has witnessed death. Yukizomes death is not nearly enough for this because he talks as though he has suffered for years. How can we as an audience understand that when we have never seen it? How can we understand Munakata when he is outright denying Naegi’s trauma that we KNOW existed with no proper justification for his reasoning?

I also believe that Munakata should have died. It actually upsets me a bit that he was PLANNED to die but didn't. He should have died protecting Naegi after all that suffering and relentless brutality he offered him. Munakata again is a man of action over word, and protecting Naegi with his last breath is the perfect way to show how in the end he changed. Especially when all he wanted initially was for Naegi to die. I find that much more satisfying than just…...walking off to who knows where.

So lets recap some changes. Munakata needs a proper display of his past traumas and his relationship with Sakakura and Yukizome. Munakata needs a proper display of his work relationships and the respect he has earned. Munakata needs to fall into corruption at a better pace, and have geniune reasons for his illogical attacks on Naegi. Munakata needs to care more for his friends. Munakata needs to deal with the turmoil of wanting to hurt Naegi while he believes the world is watching. Munakata needs to die for Naegi

This has gotten long...and I still have things to say. There is so much to make Munakata a good character. Future had a lot of potential and is amazing for a rewrite concept. As for Sakakura and Yukizome since this has gotten long feel free to ask for another round of this individually when asks are open again! If you read all of this somehow….TYSM

#ask #danganronpa #kyosuke munakata #dr3 #dr3 spoilers #analysis #???#sorry sorry sorry ahhhhh i have so much to say fuuuuihkhuhi

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notasiren21 · 4 years

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To those who want to kill themselves:

I’m not going to sugarcoat this at all. I’ll be gentle at times and then rather aggressive. And for good reason...

Because you deserve to fucking live.

I’m aware there’s blatant bullying, discreet and subtle bullying that makes you question if you’re just being sensitive and taking things too seriously (most of the time you’re not, trust me), neglect, familial issues, and then situational instances that pound into your heart and head consistently.

Believe it or not, but the cliché term of “it does get better” is true, just as long as you yourself is willing to check its validity and try.

I thought of several ways like drowning myself in the bathtub and hoping my fingertips would slip on the rims so I couldn’t pull myself up when my body got weak/ holding a knife to my chest while crying/ contemplating on just taking those three steps into the road when I was supposed to get the mail/ jumping off my balcony/ finishing off my oxycodone pills from a wisdom teeth surgery/ etc.

Maybe I’m a coward or was weak, but I could never follow through with it. Just left with that same bottle lying in a medicine basket somewhere or had a brief puncture mark on my chest that just broke the skin with the tip, whatever.

Crying myself to sleep almost every night because it was too much.

Honestly, I think being a coward and weak was the best thing to happen to me.

I lost a boyfriend from how much my anxiety and suicidal thoughts consumed me and had to tell my parents why I was dumped which led to me seeing their faces when I fessed up and said “I’m not happy, I’m not okay”.

It’s funny because I’ve had a cry for help several times through stuff I’ve written and published on fanfic sites, stuff I’ve given to my teacher to read senior year, literally telling my AP Lit class two years ago I was depressed and thought suicidal shit (only 8 of us in that class and teacher) and being told “it’s just like that sometimes, gotta shake it off”, “don’t let people’s words get to you”, “yea, same” and having a teacher pretend like she heard nothing.

That one time I was brave, and I was waved off.

I know there are times where you finally find your voice for that one split second and then you’re ignored, and you feel yourself rescinding back to mute and distant.

I know you’re plastering a smile on constantly to fool others because you’re afraid what will happen when they find out.

It sucks, doesn’t it?

When you hear so many voices in your head playing that record on repeat of the things you most want to forget. Having those nightmares occur where someone takes the final step to push you to your edge. Seeing the annoyed rolling of eyes or blatant show of disinterest of you.

Nine years of schooling, because after 3rd grade, I was just one of those girls who females decided to hate for breathing or asking a question. So nine years I was trying not to victimize myself in my head and justifying why everyone acted the way they did to me.

Teenage girls and teachers alike made my life hell. The girls never gave me the chance and teachers treated me like I was some lost cause that couldn’t even make it to merit roll and like my work was shit.

“Oh, you sure you can make it into the media production film? I don’t think you’ll be able to make shows like you planned. Maybe try for something else.”

“Your writing is, it’s okay. Try harder next time.”

I struggled with grades in high school and wondered if I’d even graduate.

I made the president’s list my first year of college. Got straight A’s. My English professors loved to leave excited feedback on my essays and were amazed how quickly I could conjure one up and fix my own mistakes before peer review.

My professors talked about me to one another and when I met the new ones, they already knew of me.

My history professor begged me to write a poem for a book he’s writing and publishing near 2021.

My creative writing professor attacked me with an email of compliments over a chapter book of poems I wrote where i took them in the order written so it was me at my worst, to me fooling myself, to me losing and falling back, to me trying for help, to me being the best I’ve ever been. >I also made him cry in a class writing experiment with less than 300 words.

(Idk maybe the bitch is that sensitive but he was chill)

My point is: fucking block out what other people say or do to you. Tell someone you trust you need help and stop kidding yourself.

And please, for the love of god, if it is really that bad then do not make yourself so naive into believing a friend or partner can take the brunt of it all and fix you.

It may work for some time, but if you’re still suffering, they will too and neither of you will win in the end.

I took to therapy and it worked. And I dropped all the toxic shit out of my life and moved on.

I may not use social media besides Tumblr or Discord, but I’m more present in life than I was before and not comparing myself to others anymore.

I dropped friends that made me feel bad and bashed things I liked or would cause issues and I have a peace of mind (as much as one can have one during a pandemic and such).

Get the help. Find ways to receive help if you can’t financially afford it. Find that courage to tell someone you trust that listens to you that you are suffering and need that professional help and to be taken seriously.

I was the first to walk the graduation stage of my 2019 class, and I thought I’d be the first of us to die because I couldn’t move past everything I’ve endured from a large majority of them.

I would’ve missed how positively my life turned around.

I would’ve destroyed my parents, little sister, and brother for being so selfish.

I’m the middle child, the good kid with a career in mind and the mediator of the family. And I’m used to not being the favorite but appreciated one.

My dad confessed to me that I was his favorite and I never want to hear it again.

You never want to hear a man you see as the strongest person you know say that while trying not to cry and keep his voice normal, you don’t want to hear “You were always my favorite” said in such a thick voice it brings tears to your eyes.

Your life matters.

This isn’t Sims where you can move on to the next household member. This isn’t like throwing LEGO R2-D2 off a cliff with that iconic scream only or lose a few coins. This isn’t a fucking game.

And I am so sick of hearing people treat it like some quest you get once in your life:

“You’ll be okay.”

“Cheer up.”

“It’s just a phase.”

Etc.

It’s all fucking bullshit. We live in a world that sugarcoats the severity of someone’s life when it’s presented in front of us while on the precipice of shattering.

You deserve to live. Anyone who tells you otherwise is the one who loses the right to be considered human or a person, not you.

Do not let someone dictate your life’s outcome because they don’t agree with you or like you.

And please, for all that is good in this world, don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re alright when you don’t feel it.

Hang in for one extra day to gather the strength and tell someone you need help.

Everyone acts so ashamed of it but it was the best thing that happened to me after being such a weak coward and now, I’m genuinely happy. And it was a lot of work to get here.

Want to know where all my angst and suffering had gone to? Just ask the characters in the books and fanfic content I’ve written. I’m sure they don’t appreciate it, but those stories wouldn’t exist if I gave up then.

And believe it or not, people will fucking miss you like hell if you killed yourself. It’s just too hard to see it right now and I was blinded before too.

Not everyone has the same opinion of you. Not everyone matters in your life.

You’re living this life singlehandedly by yourself while surrounded by others experiencing the same thing. Don’t let that opportunity go to waste.

And if you need distractions, indulge yourself in the harmless guilty pleasures like I do.

It can get better if you just open yourself to it.

It can get better if you get help.

You really must be so tired, isn’t it time you stopped pretending?

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prolestariwrites · 4 years

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Ten Years On [1]

Fandom: Nanatsu no Taizai/Seven Deadly Sins Characters: Escanor, Merlin Warning: Major character death, Angst Rating: T Part: 1 of 3

My first entry of three for @escalin-week Escalin Weekend 2020. Part 2 and 3 will be published this weekend.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

Ten years on, Liones is healed from the Second Holy War. The kingdom is thriving as it welcomes its new king and queen, the losses mourned but not forgotten, the people finding new hope and life in the peace that has settled over all of Britannia. Even Camelot, to the south, is rebuilding and renewing itself, Edinburgh now open and cleaned of death, the Fairy King’s Forest thriving with magic.

Escanor lives a very ordinary life, and for that he is glad. His days had never been ordinary: rather extraordinary, in fact, but he is a simple man who wants simple things and this new life, his third or fourth depending on one’s count, suits him just fine. He has an ordinary wife and an ordinary job and their ordinary home sits in an ordinary town. They are booksellers now, with their own store and everything, paid for by the pensions Meliodas had insisted to give to them for being Holy Knights one or two lifetimes ago.

It had been Merlin’s idea to buy a printing press, and now they publish writings as well. It was a way for her to push him to publish his poems, but she claimed it as selfish so she could put her own work into books. Soon they were well-known publishers of fine fiction and nonfiction, giving them an ordinary but comfortable life in their not-too-big not-too-small town where they raise their daughter.

This life is the easiest so far, his favorite, more so than prince or monster or bartender or knight. It is fitting, he assumes, considering this life was the most painful to create. He had stood on the battlefield, dying, giving his last words to Merlin. She was his sun and his moon, his stars, and he had to tell her, she had to know before he was gone from the world that she was loved. It was all he ever wanted, to love her, to look at her and see that she knew she was loved.

But Merlin had other ideas. It had pained him for quite a while to know she had given up Infinity to save him; after all, what is Merlin without magic? But she waves him away when he opines on the loss she must suffer to this day, telling him that she too always wanted ordinary. They gave up extraordinary together, on that day when she took the power of the gods and used it to sew muscle and skin and bone and breathe into his organs, making him whole.

Whole, and human. Both of them, completely ordinary humans.

They did what humans do: they married. Perhaps the day was just like any other, the ceremony the same, the dress and the cake and the hugs from their friends. Perhaps that night was the same, when they joined the way humans had done since the dawn of time. Perhaps their life is the same, mending socks and buying bread and arguing over whose turn it is to shut the windows. It is an ordinary life, but in its simplicity is something more, more than Escanor could have ever dreamed.

Perhaps there is nothing more ordinary than finding a baby in your arms nine months later. Escanor had cringed a bit at the bright orange hair and brown eyes, having hoped beyond hope that their child would be the image of Merlin; but she had been so pleased, and the moment the baby was laid in his arms he was shocked at the way it stirred something so wonderfully ordinary inside him as love. He had written his best-selling book that very night, hours upon hours of poetry describing the joys of the ordinary.

They had named her Avalon, and the three lived their lives in happiness. Fatherhood was a surprising talent of Escanor’s; he had retained some of the height and strength of the day yet the gentleness of the night, thanks to Merlin’s cleverness with magic. He was the perfect combination of both, a blend of prince and knight and friend. And like any other ordinary human, he thought that it would never end.

Human lives are fragile. Human lives are finite. Unlike the goddesses and demons and fairies and giants who enjoy years unimagined on the earth, whose powers work constantly by soaking up the energy of Briannia and healing all wounds great and small, humans work differently. Their strength is in their mortality, Merlin had told him once; for knowing it all could be gone makes them work harder, care more, invest all. Humans have inherited the earth because they are the only ones who could lose it. Escanor had chuckled at that, only partly understanding, because humans are mortal yet they win over the gods? It was extraordinary.

Today is not ordinary at all. It starts out the same: Escanor rises from the bed, alone, as Merlin often is up with the sun to write or check on an experiment or fill any orders before opening the shop. He washes his face and teeth before checking the kitchen, finding the bread he had left to warm on a little shelf over the hearth and the tea things laid out, his ritual every night so Merlin will have them waiting and ready in the morning.

He stares for a long time at the bread that has grown a bit crusty and the spoon that sits perfectly untouched next to the cup. He does not know how many minutes go by until he shakes himself, deciding to let the little tableau stay for now.

Escanor moves back into the bedroom, his feet quiet on the floor, and begins to dress. Usually he wears a pair of brown breeches and a comfortable linen shirt and a vest over all. Merlin teases him for his plain sense of style, but he reminds her if she wanted to be married to a man who could wear the latest fashions then she ought to have made him a bit shorter and less broad when she rebuilt his body. Of course, Merlin would not change an inch on him, so they leave the bold fashion choices to her.

Today is not ordinary. Today he wears black. Today he does not put on a vest, but a coat, and he does not fumble for the reading glasses he needs now that he is human. Today he must wear a hat.

The shop will not open today, so Escanor sits on his chair, looking out the window. He had spent many days and nights just like this with Avalon in his arms, ignoring Merlin’s warnings he would spoil the child if he did not let the baby sleep. But Escanor didn’t mind, thinking he would carry her forever if needed.

Where is Avalon now? He frowns for a moment, but remembers she is with Elaine. Yes, Ban and Elaine have the girl, staying with them at the Boar Hat. Ban is the proprietor there now, and even though he would not ordinarily approve of a girl of ten staying at a tavern, it is for the best, for now.

He watches the morning slowly unfold, wondering why the world is so quiet today. Do they know? Perhaps it’s his hearing, and he thinks he ought to see the doctor to check. He is getting on in years, after all.

A knock on the door breaks him from his thoughts. To his surprise, the Grand Master steps inside, but then Escanor remembers. It is a huge honor to be escorted by the Great Holy Knight, and as Howzer’s face turns to him with a sad kindness, Escanor remembers many things.

“Sir Escanor. I am so very sorry.” He strides forward, surety looking well on him. Escanor stands quickly as Howzer takes his hand. “This is a loss unbearable.”

“It’s fine,” he answers.

“Are you ready to go?”

Escanor nods. He lets the knight lead him out, thinking that Howzer will want to take care of him. They ride in the carriage in silence, until it becomes too heavy and Howzer begins to talk of things he remembers, the war they had shared. He is speaking of Istar when they arrive.

“Thank you,” Escanor says.

Howzer nods. “The others are waiting.”

Afterwards, it’s not so bad. Escanor sits at a table in the Great Hall and looks at his teacup. It is not unlike the one back at the house, the one untouched. Only this one has a fine mist rising from inside, and he watches it swirl with some curiosity.

The chair next to him moves and he looks over to see Ban folding himself into it. “You all right?” he asks.

There is a bit of whisky on his breath. Escanor nods. “I suppose I ought to—”

“You ought to do nothing but sit right there,” Ban interrupts. “You don’t do a thing until you’re ready, you hear?”

Escanor nods. “Good,” Ban continues. “I was sent over here to see if you’re hungry, but of course that’s nonsense. So let’s just pretend we are talking to keep the others off our backs, all right? Otherwise you’ll have Elaine and Elizabeth and Diane on top of you, and that’s a punishment you don’t need right now.”

“Of course,” Escanor replies.

Ban nods. He pours himself some tea, and Escanor spies the flask he pulls from his coat. A generous portion goes into the cup before he tops off Escanor’s as well. “There we are. That will help the bite.”

“Thank you.”

Ban drains his cup, but Escanor’s remains untouched. “It’s difficult, isn’t it?” he asks. Escanor glances over as Ban stares downwards. “Being human again, I mean. You and I, we were supposed to live forever. Merlin too, even though whether she was human or not to begin with I never really understood, if I’m being honest.”

It is startling to hear her name, but even more startling is Ban’s honesty. “Yes, it’s strange,” he agrees, not sure what to say.

“Our choices have been made long ago, and I would not take my power back for an instant, because it saved Elaine.” He watches as Ban pours another cup of tea, spiking it again generously before taking a sip. “You must remember that, Escanor. I would never, ever take that power back, even though it made me human. I would give up that immortality a hundred times a hundred to save Elaine.”

The words are registering, but they feel too distant to understand. “I’ll remember,” he says.

“Good.” Ban looks at him now. “We’ll keep Avalon for a while. She and Lancelot get along well, and it’s good for her to be around people. Elaine needs something to do anyway, seeing how the boy can’t stand to be mothered anymore.” He tilts his head a bit. “That all right with you?”

“Yes, yes it’s fine. Good. Avalon… she needs to be around people.”

Ban nods. He pushes to his feet and pats him on the shoulder. “That should keep the vultures at bay a while longer. Sit and stare at your tea, and let Howzer take you home. I’ll send him in a half hour.”

Escanor nods again, thinking in thirty minutes’ time, he’ll need to go home. He’ll go home and retrieve the bread and wash the cup and sweep the kitchen floor in case there are crumbs. He’ll remove his coat and store it away again, and then review the manuscripts waiting on the desk that he has neglected the past week. He will have an ordinary evening at home.

#nnt #nanatsu no taizai #escalin #esclainweekend2020 #escanor #merlin #ban #howzer #fan fiction #sorry

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jellybeanbeing · 4 years

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An Ember in the Ashes, A Torch Against the Night, and A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir Book Review

I’m going to skip out on telling the synopsis because it would only make this post extra lengthy so if you haven’t read this series yet, go check it out!

Past Reviews:

https://jellybeanbeing.tumblr.com/post/174230855131/an-ember-in-the-ashes-by-sabaa-tahir

https://jellybeanbeing.tumblr.com/post/174705848336/a-torch-against-the-night-by-sabaa-tahir

https://jellybeanbeing.tumblr.com/post/175215237101/a-reaper-at-the-gates-by-sabaa-tahir

https://jellybeanbeing.tumblr.com/post/186834634051/a-reaper-at-the-gates-by-sabaa-tahir-updated

REVIEW W/ SPOILERS FROM EMBER, TORCH, & REAPER!

I am fully aware that I have already done four reviews centering around these books (Ember, Torch, Reaper, Reaper Updated) but I read them again and I HAVE NEW THOUGHTS. I’m just gonna dive right into my thoughts because it’s gonna be really long. I will separate my thoughts into different sections--main characters, side characters, romantic relationships, plot, analytical things--just to try and keep this review as organized as possible.

We shall begin with our main girl, Laia. Laia is a character who starts off as someone who is scared and doesn’t know what to do but she wants to do something. I think often we get stories of main characters already having a strong mentality and a certain unwavering strength inside them that helps guide them through their journey. Laia doesn’t have that in the beginning of this series. She’s constantly fearing that she’s going to fail and die. The only thing that is helping her get through Blackcliff, initially, are the voices of her family. And that’s why I think Laia is just such a great and relatable main character. She goes into becoming a spy to save her brother. She wasn’t going into it, thinking, “I’m going to save the Scholars.” That thought and ambition comes after she understands that she could do more and that saving Darin could lead to her saving the Scholars. She makes mistakes which I love, because people do make mistakes. Not everything she does or says is always right. I know I complained about this in my past reviews, but after this reread, I’m appreciating Laia and her journey more. She’s constantly being selfless, saving those she cares about rather than saving herself. In the second book, she’s finally starting to not doubt herself so much, and that’s because Elias gives her the strength and belief that she is strong. At the end of book one, we can see that Laia is breaking that surface of finding her own inner strength, but sometimes, our words aren’t enough to keep us going. Sometimes we need someone else’s words to keep burning. I also think that Laia is a character who thrives from the support of the people she cares about. When Keenan starts to belittle Laia and telling her she’s at fault for all the deaths, it makes her feel weak and stupid, and even Laia kind of sees it. After he leaves, Laia begins to recapture the strength she had and build on it. In the third book, we start seeing the leader in her. She’s becoming ruthless and strong without the words of her friends and family. She’s still tries to model herself after her mother, which is understandable because that’s who Laia looks up to, but I love that others around her tell her that, she’s not The Lioness, that she’s her own person and that she has a different strength. I think she’ll grow into that in book four.

Let’s talk about Elias now. I HAVE A NEW FOUND WHOLE APPRECIATION FOR HIS CHARACTER. If you read my past reviews about these books, you would know that I wasn’t fond of Elias as much as I was with Laia and Helene. I didn’t understand his motivations, his intentions, and why he was the way he was, but I understand his character more now. I think to really grasp onto who he is, you have to read the books right after each other because his emotions are linked so tightly together and the only way to get the true essence of them is to read the books all together. Elias is probably one of my favorite characters, if not, my favorite character of all time now. He’s someone who hates what he does and who he is at the beginning of the series, and we are slowly seeing Elias summon the courage to do something about it. All he wants to do is to able to love and care freely, and to feel true happiness for himself. At the end of book one, Elias finally gathers the courage to stop being the person he was, and start being the person he wants to be. His past continues to haunt him and he so badly just wants to right it, and not feel guilty. And I also think this makes Elias such a great and relatable character. We’ve often done things in our life that we regret or feel so much guilt for, and we try to find ways to relieve ourselves of it. We want to right our wrongs, and so badly want to become the person we strive to be. Sometimes, that’s a scary thing to do as well. Throughout these books, Elias is always put in a position where must become the person he doesn’t want to become, and if he doesn’t submit to being that person, it causes him and the people he loves to suffer the consequences. In book two, he’s constantly telling Laia that she gets to make her own choices and giving her strength. Elias doesn’t get to make his own choices, or if he does, they cause him great pain. I think this is a really heartbreaking yet selfless thing because if he can’t get to become the person he wants to be, he’ll help others become the people they want to be. In book three, Elias has to finally become the person he didn’t want to become which is someone who is cold and uncaring, but he does it because if he doesn’t then the people he loves will be in danger. We can a lot this push and pull throughout book three, and it’s such an emotional journey that Elias goes through. I have no idea where his character is going to go in book four.

Now for Helene. She’s still one of my favorite characters, but I understand her character dynamic more. Helene, in the beginning of this series, is already kind of a capable character who is strong physically and mentally but she has a lot vulnerability to her that adds to her strength. I’ve written an essay about Helene’s character two years back (not on this blog, but can post if someone wants to read it) so I’m going to take points from that. Helene is also a relatable and great character (you know what? A lot of the characters I talk about have a relatable factor to them). She is someone who has a deep love for the things she cares about. She’ll do anything in her power to protect them which even means allowing them to hurt if in the end they are still safe. We often have to choose between difficult things and sometimes they end up hurting others or ourselves in the process even when we didn’t mean to. Her love is a great strength but it’s also something that causes her great pain and consequences. Because she is someone bound to duty and the empire, and always wanting to do the right thing, her love often gets in the way of the task at hand. In the book one, her love for Elias grows into a romantic love and we can see that it causes her and Elias pain because they are now in this awkward stage with each other and they’re too afraid to confront them until Elias eventually does but even then it hurts them. At the end of book one, Helene lets Elias go and that’s a moment where her love overrules her sense of duty, and in book two, we know that this leads to consequences. Helene, in book two, now has to hunt Elias, knowing that it will tear her apart but she does it anyway because she was ordered to and her family’s lives are at stake. She captures Elias but let’s him go because she loves him platonically now. It causes for her mission to prolong and now her family’s lives are at stake but in the end, Helene doesn’t capture Elias because she senses that there is a threat to the empire, therefore risking her family’s lives and results in all but one of them to die. Her love and duty often pull her back and forth with the choices she makes. In book three, she becomes more bound with her love for the empire, but her love for her people becomes the thing that overrules. In book one, it was Elias. In book two, it was her family. Now in book three, it’s her people--the Martials. In the end, she sacrifices herself for her people and the arc from where her love began has changed and she gives into her heart. In book one and two, at the end, she choose to honor the empire and what it stands for. At the end of book three, she chooses to honor the love she has for her people. But it’s still something she struggles with and it’s evident in the scene at the end with her and Avitas. I think book 4 that will still be a present theme for her character but it become something where her love and duty don’t have to have a raging war inside of her.

There’s a blog post that I read a few weeks back and I think they do a great character analysis of Laia and Helene. It’s definitely worth the read and delves even more into their characters analytically than I do here, and is way more articulate and just so great.

Here’s the link: https://sezzums.tumblr.com/post/150038101601/lets-talk-about-laia-and-helene

Onto side characters, and I’m only really going to be talking about the more important ones because we really do have a lot of side characters.

Let’s first talk about The Nightbringer/Keenan. Oh how I hated him during this third reread. I mostly hate Keenan, and not so much The Nightbringer. Keenan is such a manipulative and cruel character. From the beginning up to the point where he is revealed, he was constantly belittling Laia and making her feel like she was nothing. I get that it was his way of getting the armlet, but what a piece of trash. How Laia fell for him is a fucking mystery because fuck Keenan. But The Nightbringer, I enjoy this character more. I think it’s because we got more depth and background to who he was/is. I love that his motivations for doing what he is doing has an actual and understandable reason behind all of his actions. It really builds upon the complexity that this world already has with its blurriness of who’s right and who’s wrong. While reading the books this time around, I felt the only times I could really sympathize and feel some emotion other than hatred towards Keenan was when he mentioned his family and his loss. It was because I knew what had happened and I thought it built so much on The Nightbringer’s character rather than leaving him to be this evil jinn. We got to see and understand some of the human emotions he felt/related to. I honestly don’t even have a clue as to what his bigger plan is, but I can just feel like it’s gonna fuck everything up and I’m not ready for it.

Now onto Keris Veturia/The Commandant. I hate how much I enjoy her character so much because she is such an evil fucking bitch, but she is written so so well. The complexity that her character gives and the many layers to her are so fantastic to unveil and to discover. Her motivations and intentions are still in the dark but I feel like it all stems from her mother and her death, then after the death of Arius, it was acted upon. There’s still so much more to her character and why she is a total bitch, and I just want to know. One thing that I love is the meaning behind Keris’s tattoo. It is so meaningful and makes you really question who she is and why she does the things that she does. I would really like to see Keris interacting more with Laia and Elias in the next book because I think it would be so interesting, especially because Laia and Elias are in such different stages in their lives than they were when under the rule of her. I feel like I don’t have much to say because her character is still so in the dark, but let me tell you, the moment she dies will be the day I scream with joy. I’m also hoping that it’s Helene who does the deed because I think it would be so much more impactful due to so much of the Commandant’s taunting towards Helene.

Marcus Farrar is the complete fucking asshole and I hate his guts so so much, but I will acknowledge the fact that his character was written pretty well. He isn’t the true antagonist of this series, but a lot of what he does has/had impact on all three central characters. Throughout these books, he constantly belittles and attacks and harasses Helene, he abuses Livia, he attacks Laia, he taunts and bullies Elias, and a lot of other fucked up shit. His character could’ve been left at that, but Sabaa Tahir molds his character into more of a three dimensional character. After the death of Zak, we start seeing a more human side of him. He openly expresses the troubled feeling he has with Elias after the Trial of Strength, and this is the moment where we feel pity for Marcus. We start to uncover the harder outer shell of his character and understand that he feels those intense and heart wrenching emotions. There’s a line in book 3 where it describes perfectly what I’m trying to say: “I take their darkness--that which Blackcliff found within them and nurtured... When I look back at the twins, they are boys once more, untainted by the world.” (449) It describes the twins so well and the potential they had to not be the vicious people they were. Throughout book 2 and 3, we slowly start seeing Marcus’s mental health deteriorate. The death of Zak still haunts him, and like a lot of the other characters, he wasn’t allowed to mourn for him, someone who has been at his side since birth. The scene in Reaper where he discovers Helene’s healing powers and he tries to get her to heal him was such an emotional scene. We go into Marcus’s head and see that a lot of his rage and anger comes from the loneliness that he now feels because of Zak’s absence and haunting. It still doesn’t excuse his character for all the shitty things he’s done, but with this we get a better understanding of his character. It makes his death at the end much grander and impactful, and not a waste.

Avitas Harper, my favorite side character ever. Fuck, I love him so much. I don’t know why, but I’ll try to explain to the best of my abilities. It’s definitely more difficult for me to form thoughts on how I have grown to love him because of how he was first introduced to readers. Right at the beginning, he’s torturing Helene to get information out of her, duties given to him by the Empire/Marcus/The Commandant. We all know that within this world it is “duty first, unto death.” I feel like, yes, first impressions are everything and while Avitas’s first impression is definitely not the best, his actions contrast from what we were first given of his character. With those pockets of moments, we were able to get a feel of his character because we really don’t get a lot of information about him for the majority of Torch up until the end. In the end, we begin to see more than just the shell of his character. We find out that he’s Elias’s half-brother and from there, you can draw similarities between the two with their motivations. I’m not saying they are the exact same because they most definitely are not. I just think he has a similar wanting as Elias and that is to be a good and kind person, but where they diverge in that is where I think Avitas still wants to do right by the Empire, like Helene, and Elias wants nothing to do with the Empire. We start to understand this at the end of Torch where he reveals that he only took the mission to follow Helene because he wanted to know who Elias was. When you go back and reread Torch, you start to really see and understand those moments that we did get of him where it challenged what he were given of his character at the beginning. Throughout Reaper, we see more of who he is, and it’s far from what his character was at the beginning of Torch. It’s still not a lot, but I think his true intentions and character are really starting to settle in. He’s just always so kind and level-headed and smart. I just want more of his character because I know there’s more to his character. All the ground work is laid out for him, and I’m ready to get that content.

And just a brief go-over with other side characters and my thoughts: Zak, would have loved to have had some sort of redemption arc because he had some goodness within him that I thought could’ve been explored more and I wrote somewhere where he doesn’t act out like Marcus does and so I didn’t understand why people pinned Zak out to be the bad guy but after thinking more, the fact that Zak knows and often sees what the evils that Marcus does and doesn’t do anything to stop it (like that scene in Ember where Marcus is attacking Laia and Zak just walks away, pretending that it’s not happening) is in fact why he is pinned with the same disdain as Marcus. Afya, my queen, what a badass she is and I love her, she is probably one of the most sensible and smart characters to exist in this world, also love how flirtatious she is and how the confidence in her just radiates. Musa, what a king, absolutely love him and how sassy and sarcastic he is, definitely one of my favorites and his character dynamic is something that I enjoy reading about because he’s got this front of being charismatic and humorous but underneath all of that, he’s a sad boy, he literally spoke what was on my mind every time he was on the page and that was usually to say things like “are you done talking? because we need to leave like now.” and “we don’t have time for a heart-to-heart right now, we can do that another time” like honestly, yes, not to mention that I would also sell my soul just to get a Musa/Nikla story because I am intrigued by their relationship. Demetrius, my forever favorite and I’m so fucking sad that he died, the only side-side character in book one that I got super attached to. Darin, a lot of Laia’s story centers around getting him out of prison, honestly, lackluster compared to a lot of the other side characters, but I do like the strength that he instills in Laia and the care that he has for her, I don’t know, I just feel like his character should be more because he does play such an important role in the book. Cook, an actual big shocker for me that she was Laia’s mom, like the clues where there but I was too stupid to piece them together, thought she was such an interesting character and wished we got more from her, she had this weird ability to not be caught or traced whenever she snuck into place and is it tied to some magical ability that she has because she did have Laia’s armlet before it was Laia’s, the reveal of who she was was really well done with the flashbacks and just the way that Mirra was a different person from Cook was so interesting, I loved how Cook express her regret for who she was as a person and what she had done. There are a lot of other side characters but these are just the ones that I have deeper thoughts on.

All of these characters are definitely flawed, some more than others, and that’s what I love. Not every character is a fucking rainbow or ray of sunlight. They make mistakes and from there, they grow. Under the circumstances that they are put under, they are tested to their limits to see and reach their full potential. There is a line that I love so much, that I feel captures the character’s journeys and what they are forced to go through because it is their fates. “Curse this world for what it does to the mothers, for what it does to the daughters. Curse it for making us strong through loss and pain, our hearts torn from our chests again and again. Curse it for forcing us to endure.” Reaper (448)

I wanna talk about the romantic relationships now.

Let’s talk about Elias and Laia first. I am really liking and appreciating their growth and relationship more now. I was never really attached to their pairing because I think I overlooked their whole progression. A lot of people say that it’s insta-love which it kind of is, but it falls a little bit farther behind from that trope. Sure, Elias thinks Laia is pretty from their first interaction, but I think he looks to Laia as someone he could save, and not in the “she’s a weak person and I’m a strong person so I have to protect her” but it plays more into his character and his want to change who he is. Elias helping and caring for Laia is one of the first steps into him grasping the courage to defying the person he doesn’t want to become. I mean, y’all ever watched a movie or TV show where a character is just shit on so much and you’re like “I want to be friends with that person so I can tell them how great they are”? I think that’s what Elias feels towards Laia along with his attraction to her beauty. It then slowly progresses when they have that night in his room. They talk to each other and reveal more about themselves. It gets rid of their ideation of each other. That kiss they had was built on lust. They found a connection between them and felt that spark. In book two, it begins to explore their relationship more. They spend quite a while alone travelling even though Elias is passing out half of the time, but they deal with hardships together, and from there, they get to know each other more. They are constantly supporting each other and building strength in the other person. While they are doing this, their attraction grows because they can lean and depend on each other without fear or guilt. They’ve found something in each other that draws them together, and together they are stronger. They are both characters who care a lot and sometimes too much, and that’s the best thing about them. Whenever they’re together, they feel safe and can freely express whatever they are feeling. Also, the fact that they both simultaneously dream about their future is wholesome as fuck. You can’t tell me that this couple doesn’t slap when it does.

Onto Helene and Avitas. They are also a couple that slaps hard. They have a more slow burn romance that is also the enemies to friends to lovers trope, and I love it. There’s a lot of discussion as to why people ship these two together and I think it’s completely valid. This is one of the more complicated ships because of how Helene and Avitas’s relationship starts. Throughout Torch, Helene constantly holds her guard up (as she should) against Avitas because of what she knows of him, and that is that he was her interrogator and that he works for the Commandant. As Torch progresses, she continues to be irritable of his existence but she slowly starts to become curious of his character and true intentions because of his actions don’t follow in suit of what an enemy or spy would do. There’s a shift in their relationship where Helene lets her guard down just the slightest bit when she talks about Elias to Avitas. The shift continues as the story progresses, but they never gloss over the fact that Avitas interrogated and beat Helene. It’s constantly brought up by both characters to emphasize that this relationship that’s forming, isn’t going to form so easily. It’s even brought up at the end of Reaper and at this point, the feelings that Helene and Avitas have for each other are clearly mutual romantic feelings. Slowly throughout Torch, Helene begins to put her trust into Avitas, and in Reaper, we get the sense that Helene now fully trusts him. She understands him more and from there, her feelings start to form because she feels that sense of comfort and security with him. I just really love that Helene is more of the hotheaded person and Avitas is more of the levelheaded person, and they balance each other out so so well. Also, the fact that Avitas never underestimates or undermines Helene, and is only there to support her and help her, and always lets her initiate intimacy or touching is the best fucking thing ever.

I read a great post about their relationship a year or so back and I constantly refer back to it whenever I write about their pairing:

https://elias-veturius-laia-of-serra.tumblr.com/post/175995984669/how-can-you-ship-helene-with-her-torturer-thats

Other side couples I want to quickly talk about (there’s only two): First is Helene and Elias. I shipped them during my second read if only for the fact that I’m a sucker for the friends to lovers trope. During my third reread, I didn’t really feel the romantic connection between the two. There is a sense of safety and security and comfort between the two because of how long they’ve known each other. But Elias never really has those romantic feelings as Helene does. It’s more of lust on his part. Onto Laia and Keenan/The Nightbringer. Now I was really surprised and confused that there are people who ship Laia with the Nightbringer. Like the dude literally destroyed her entire life and family with the intent of doing so because he gains something out of doing it. I don’t know, it doesn’t seem right to me. But with Laia and Keenan, I just can’t help but hate every fucking second that I have to read about their relationship in book one and two and the few scenes in book three now that I know who Keenan really is and what trashy things he’s done. I just hate it so much. He fucking manipulated her.

Really quick on the magic system(?): I don’t have a lot of thoughts on it but just like, why is it only a select few who have magic? I also really love it and find that it weaves its way throughout the story really smoothly and it makes sense.

One thing I want to touch upon because I just noticed it in my third reread but I love how Sabaa Tahir slips in the name changes subtly within the chapters to indicate the character’s feelings toward (mainly side) characters. For Laia, in the beginning of Ember, she always referred to Keenan as “The Rebel” or something of the variation, but as she grows closer to him, she refers to him as “Keenan.” In Torch, after she starts realizing how much power and confidence Keenan is taking away from her to subject her back into a more submissive role, she starts referring to him as “The Rebel” again. For Helene, she always referred to Avitas as first “The Northman” then “Harper” in the beginning of Torch. Later on. when her learning of his character grows and she begins to trust him more, she refers to him as “Avitas.” I’m sure there are more but I only caught those two this time around. Also, it’s probably irrelevant or not even that deep but hey, who knows?

Onto the plot of this series... I feel like this review is so fucking long already so I’m just gonna ramble about my favorite things/scenes in each book so as not to drag this on longer than it has to.

Starting with Ember! Honestly, this book is the one that makes me feel the most euphoric and sucks me in the most. The writing is just so fucking gorgeous and captivating. It also gets the job done, like there are so many books out there where the writing is really pretty but it has no purpose but to be pretty. The writing in Ember (and the other two) stays so beautiful yet still adds to the plot. This is such a great base book for what this series really becomes. If you really think about it, this book is sooo simple compared to the other two. It really makes you wonder how we got from the Commandant and Marcus being the biggest threats, trials to crown an emperor, and Laia wanting to save her brother to a magical jinn and a necromancer being the biggest threats, ghosts attacking people, and Laia now the leader of the Resistance, like we came a looong way. And I enjoyed every second of it. Anyway, back to Ember. My favorite scenes were the first introduction to Blackcliff (it just further encased me into the story and gave the readers a look into what cruelty Blackcliff is), the graduation scene (so much fucking euphoria and you can just imagine being there with Elias and Helene, hearing the crowd shouting and cheering and just feel the energy), the first nine pages of Elias during the Trial of Courage (makes me cry so much because this is where we really feel the regret and sorrow that Elias carries within him), the transition into the Trial of Cunning (THIS IS SUCH A STELLAR TRANSITION, like you could see the entire scene shift into the trial and it’s so fucking good), the Moon Festival (I mean, how can this not be anyone’s favorite scene when this is where we get the first wholesome and cute interactions between Laia and Elias, and excuse me, we would all love to know what Elias said to Laia in Sadhese), Helene healing Laia (this entire scene is so sad because Laia thinks she’s dying when she’s really not, and just her realization of what was happening, and also this is like an intimate moment between the two), Helene challenges Elias to a duel (the way this scene was written was so beautiful, and also the feeling of being so in sync with someone’s movements and thoughts is perfectly captured within this scene), the Trial of Strength (need I say why? It just brings me so much pain and makes me cry, and I miss you, Demetrius. You deserved better), Elias and Laia being stuck in Elias’s room overnight (the connection they have and this is where they have their first kiss), Cook’s story (the entire scene just gives me ‘almost empty diner while it’s raining outside’ vibes), and the Commandant’s visit to Elias (the first and really only interaction between the two that is filled with so much emotion and heartache for Elias).

Onto Torch! I always forget how sad and action packed this book is. I think it’s just that my burning rage and anger for Keenan overrides my memory that I forget the emotional journey our main three characters go through. But we get Helene’s POV! During my first read, I wasn’t sure if I would care for Helene’s chapters but now they are my absolute favorite. We also get that fucking line “You are my temple. You are my priest. You are my prayer. You are my release.” AND IT WILL FOREVER BE THE BEST LINE TO EVER EXIST. Really loved the sibling dynamic between Helene and her sisters, though it wasn’t a lot, I still loved it and it was relatable. Okay, but favorite scenes are: Elias and the Commandant’s fight (I’m just a sucker for really good written fighting scenes between two skilled fighters), Cain showing Helene the burned Illustrian house (this scene begins to make Helene question the Empire and what it stands for) the storyteller’s stage aka Mamie Rila starts a riot (the way Mamie Rila builds and builds with her story is magnificent, and you can feel the buzzing in the crowds and see the whole scene go down), Helene and Elias’s goodbyes (my heartaches so much for them because they are best friends and have been through so much together but they are tore apart and this is such an emotional scene because Helene doesn’t know that Elias is gonna die), when Laia tells Elias that she’s sorry for what happened to his family (the intimacy between them is so intense and you can feel the sorrow and guilt Laia feels along with Elias’s grief, god, it’s a good scene), Elias goes to say goodbye to Laia in the wagon (because of THAT line, it is perfection in all its glory), the black guard barracks scene with Helene and Avitas (Helene continues to question her love and honor for the Empire after witnessing the Commandant kill innocent Scholars, also we start to see Avitas for who he actually is and we start to feel the bond between Helene and Avitas form, and they also have a heart to heart talk about Elias), Helene at the Paters’ dinner (Helene is finally coming into her true form of being Blood Shrike and it’s amazing to see), the mention of Elias going to the cave (when you really think about it, it’s so goddamn sad), Laia and Avitas talk about Elias (the way everyone just loves Elias is so great), Helene helps Laia (their friendship is starting to form, ahhhhhhh).

Now for Reaper! I’m really surprised with how many people were dissatisfied with this one because it’s my favorite out of the three out right now. I think it’s because the characters are finally gaining confidence in who they are (not really Elias, he’s on another sad sad journey that ends with me crying). Also, probably because there’s really no annoying love triangle stuff in this, and I hate love triangles so much. I don’t know, it’s just that this book is so much grander and everything that happens is so climatic. Anyway, my favorite scenes are: the entire beginning scene in that abandoned house (the fact that we had to wait two years before this book came out and we got this amazing scene with all three main characters, after they were away from each other for so long was soooo worth the wait, also Elias and Helene with their first kind of conversation after not seeing each other so long, the way he was the only one who hadn’t called her Blood Shrike but then he calls her that, RUINED ME, Avitas letting Laia go, Laia and Helene’s very brief heart to heart about grieving, amazing beginning scene, really), every subtle flirtation between Avitas and Helene (because it’s sprinkled here and there and I LOVE IT and it’s so cute and natural and just amazing, especially that closet scene “you smell... not unpleasant” and when Helene gets dressed in front of Avitas and they have a little back forth, like god, just say that you guys like each other), Elias giving Laia the armlet (he’s so shy about it and it’s so goddamn wholesome and cute), Helene and Marcus visit the Augur’s cave/temple (Cain puts Helene in her place, basically tells her to check her privilege, like yes!), basically every scene with Musa (because he’s just the best, he’s hilarious, he’s my favorite type of character where they have a humorous upfront but they’re a sad person on the inside, also one of the most logical characters in this series), that steamy scene with Elias and Laia (I mean, obviously, but also, ended in a way that I was not expecting, also I’m waiting for the moment when Elias tells Laia what he told her the night in the wagon before he left her because when that moment comes, I will forever cry but also I don’t know if it’s gonna come in a super romantic scene or a super sad scene because it can go either way and I’m nervous about it), Elias finds out what happened to the jinn (this shows the true greatness that is this series because it blurs the lines of ‘who’s the real bad guy?’ and it’s makes this series all the more complex), Helene brings back the fleet (a great fucking scene, and it’s so atmospheric), Laia goes to meet the King of Adisa (Laia showing her great power and leadership, also we learn of Nikla and Musa and again, would love a story about them), Helene heals Avitas (it’s pretty clear in this scene that he really really likes Helene and it’s such a great confirmation scene), the entire ending battle scene (because Elias arrives and Helene thinks that he came back to save them but then he leaves and it breaks my heart, Livia gives birth, Marcus dies, the Nightbringer taking Helene’s mask, Helene thinking she was going to die alone and with so much regret, Laia and Cook coming to save Helene, Cook sacrificing herself, and everything about this last scene was such an emotional rollercoaster and I was sobbing my heart out), Helene and Avitas’s kiss (I LOVED IT because the emotions and feelings were laid out but then Helene had to shut herself out and I’m sad, I will also forever cry when Helene finally lets Avitas say her heart’s name because it’ll be so beautiful and again, it can go either way with this being a super romantic scene or a super sad scene), Helene and Laia’s last conversation (WE WILL FINALLY GET THE FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN THESE TWO THAT I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR).

Okay but my predictions for SKY: I think that Elias will use what he knows of the Wisp which is Keris’s mother to help Laia and Helene and the gang defeat Keris. Someone important is going to die and if it’s any of the main three or Avitas or Musa or Afya, I’m gonna cry so hard and for so long because no. Elias and Laia will have a happy ending because Elias found a way not to be Soul Catcher anymore and they can live the life they have been dreaming. As for Helene and Avitas, Helene is too stubborn to ever acknowledge her feelings for Avitas and what had happened, but it bothers her too much and too often so that she’ll confess her feelings and allow her to feel love, and Avitas will be there for her. I suck at making predictions but these are mine and please, I just want a happy ending for Laia, Elias, and Helene.

This has been long but if you made it this far, thank you!

#an ember in the ashes #a torch against the night #a reaper at the gates #a sky beyond the storm #sabaa tahir #book review #an ember in the ashes review #a torch against the night review #a reaper at the gates review #an ember in the ashes series

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transfemininomenon · 4 years

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short answer: its a bad game

long answer: okay sit down i have so much to say about this game and full disclosure inevitably a lot of this is going to come to My Personal Opinion and ALSO full disclosure that i have not ever actually Finished dark souls 2 because ive on two separate occasions gotten half-way through and then given up because i just was NOT having fun FUCK shrine of amana piece of shit awful god damn fucking area what the FUCK were you thinking with that area with its heat seeking magic missiles and water and random holes in the world and millions of enemies an

its basically divided up into a few different sections - presentation & theming, quantity vs quality, how difficulty is handled in the game, and the gameplay itself, and how they all kind of go hand in hand with each other

on the subject of presentation & theming, THE big thing when it came to dark souls 1 is that the world is oppressive, dark, and Difficult. the difficulty of the game is put right into the theming of the game in that its a hard game while the WORLD is a shitty and difficult place in the story. but on the back of that is another theme which is that of yes the world is oppressive and bleak and feels hopeless - but you keep going Anyway and no matter how insurmountable something might feel you can and WILL defeat it

this is further built into the game through the covenant system as well as summonable npcs for boss fights. the game not only says that its okay to ask for help if need be, it actively encourages & rewards people for helping others with the covenant system. its not just a game that is Hard - its a game that’s scary and difficult and dark but also actively encourages you to seek help and to also BE the person helping others survive in a seemingly hopeless world. and that triumph of finally getting past something you were stuck on for so long feels SO good and becomes worth all the trouble

dark souls 2, meanwhile, buys right into the “dark souls is HARD casuals get OUT” mentality. literally the intro cutscene to the game is like “man youre gonna DIE youre gonna DIE so MUCH and youre gonna lose all your SOULS and youre gonna be so MAD”. in contrast with the original dark souls’ opening cutscene which establishes the base lore/story of the game while introducing different characters & future boss fights, the opening cutscene of dark souls 2 does nothing beyond “haha ur gonna be so MAD”

and it just really kills the vibe Immediately for me. it no longer feels like a really interesting story about overcoming adversity through determination and struggle. it just feels like well i gotta prove im Good and Kill The Boss

then there’s the issue of quantity vs quality. when it comes to both zones & boss fights, dark souls 2 by far went for quantity when it came to them and the actual quality of both suffered a Lot as a result. like, there’s a LOT of zones and boss fights in dark souls 2. a LOT. and yet i genuinely currently can, off the top of my head, remember around 5 by name, and none for any Good reason. a lot of the zones just end up blending together because there’s SO little actually memorable things about them

and the exact same is true with the bosses. many are reskins of bosses from 1, very few actually have much in the way of interesting mechanics or good design, and a lot of them are just so Easy. without even really trying when i was doing my attempts at the game id end up defeating some bosses in something like 10 hits without ever taking much damage. much like the zones there’s very few bosses i can even actively remember because they’re just SO unmemorable and boring. the bosses that i DO remember are only because they end up just getting reused as normal enemies, sometimes as quickly as the VERY next zone

which this ties into another one of my big issues which is how the game handles difficulty. when it comes to others games in the series the difficulty comes in ways that, while they may be frustrating sometimes, almost always at least seem Fair. if i die its PROBABLY because i fucked up, whether it be mistiming an attack, anticipating the wrong enemy move, or rushing into a situation im not prepared for. most of the time i die and i go yeah, okay, i see where i messed up, and that lets me bounce back in and do it better

the difficulty in 2, on the other hand, more often than not comes very cheaply. a big issue i have long complained about in terms of area design is there’s SO many random holes in the world for you to suddenly fall into, including a number of bosses where this is the case. then rather than having enemies actually have interesting or different moves to them the game tends to either send swarms of enemies at you or have them appear out of hiding and ambush you. very little when i die in that game do i ever feel like it was because i actually did something wrong and it always just feels cheap & unsatisfying

this is then weirdly paired up with bosses being so lackluster where most of them are just SO easy and require such little thought that even defeating those doesnt even give a big sense of accomplishment. there’s just so little Satisfaction to be gained from the game and SO much frustration

THE big thing with all of this is that all of those above three things i could forgive if the game itself was at least Fun but it just........... isnt to me. the game itself constantly feels SO clunky and slow, even compared to earlier titles - like demon’s souls of all games feels Better to play than dark souls 2 does. i never feel like i have the level of control with my character that i do with the other games and combat feels awkward and just in general not very fun

enemies tend to have really weird timing with their attacks, rolling feels weird, and it could just be the weapons ive tried in the game but none really ever feel Good. i tend to in soulsborne games go for Big Sword (except in bloodborne where i tend to move more toward dex builds on account if it being the one games where i actually Get parrying) and not even the act of swinging a Giant Sword around could ever make me happy in that game

exploration isnt fun because the areas arent interesting and the bosses suck................ it isnt fun to fight things because the game doesnt feel good and the difficulty always feels cheap.............. the theming isnt interesting and there’s nothing about it that draws me in or inspires me like various themes in the other games.................... its just overall nothing i really am interested in or want in a souls game and when the OTHER ones give me that in their own different ways there just really isnt any reason for me to want to play that game

this all isnt to say there arent aspects of dark souls 2 that i DO like - majula is a VERY good hub area and only beaten by the nexus on my list, and Lucatiel is my favorite character & storyline out of anything else in the whole series. she’s such an interesting and tragic character and her storyline better showcases the undead curse and the reality of how Terrifying and sad it is than any other storylines in the other games and its VERY good

those arent enough to make up for the issues i have with the game though so im going to long say that dark souls 2? sucks

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brightbeautifulthings · 4 years

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Serpentine by Laurell K. Hamilton

"'Contract workers, contractors,' Custer said, 'sounds like temporary office help. What happened to soldier of fortune, mercenary, and all the other cool names I remember from old movies?' 'Try putting soldier of fortune down on your tax return and see how well that works.'"

Year Read: 2020

Rating: 3/5

About: There are overall spoilers ahead for the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, so proceed with caution if you're not familiar. Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel are taking their first vacation together to Florida for Edward and Donna's destination wedding, where Anita will be the best man. Micah has been working for the Coalition there with a family under a terrible shapeshifting curse, or perhaps suffering from a kind of snake lycanthropy that no one has seen before. Despite their promises to Nathaniel not to let work interfere, the wedding plans grow tense when women from their hotel go missing. Fortunately, Anita would much rather fight monsters than attend a bridal shower. Trigger warnings: death, human sacrifice (off-page), child pornography mentions, body horror, abduction, violence, severe injury, guns, blood, alcoholism.

Thoughts: Let me preface this the way I do all my Hamilton reviews by saying that I'll never not enjoy an Anita Blake book. I've been with this series for so long and the characters are so close to my heart that I could read about them doing just about anything and be fine with it, and I'm happy to spend hours doing nothing much in particular in one of the most creative urban fantasy worlds I've ever read. That's not to say they all hit it out of the park, and the series has taken some unexpected turns, but it's always something I'm happy to come back to. I think people just enjoy complaining about them at this point, but it’s hard for me to imagine reading 10+ novels just to rage-review them all. Hamilton’s made it clear she’s not turning back, and it would be totally nonsensical for plot and character development if she tried.

But okay, in all honesty, this isn't one of the best novels of the bunch. There isn't a lot going for it in the way of plot, any brief character development is halting and forgotten midway through, and what could have been an absolutely AWESOME new creature in Hamilton's supernatural arsenal is harshly sidelined and gets barely any page time, which for me was easily the saddest thing about this book. Yes please, I totally want more Lovecraftian snake monsters in my fiction. Sadly, this is not the book for it. It's almost as though it were two separate novels inexpertly mashed together, one of the Florida snake case and another of the marginally less interesting Edward/Donna wedding drama. As deranged and terrifying as it is, the best parts of this book are when Olaf is on the page. He may be a murdering psychopath, but his interactions with Anita are always compelling and top-notch creepy.

I'm hearing a lot of echoes of my complaints about Crimson Death as I'm writing this review, and I think structurally they're very similar and don't work for just about the same reasons. People have complained about the gratuitous sex with Anita's harem in the second half of the series, but that isn't the issue here. There are maybe three sex scenes total, none of them memorable. In its place are the many conversations and endless emotional baggage that comes with having this many characters. Sometimes it feels like Anita can't even walk from one room to the next without encountering three lovers who need hand-holding, and Hamilton keeps adding characters well past the point where we need more. (I'm so uninterested in Ru and Rodina's issues, seriously.) The things that need attention just don’t get enough page-time, and it constantly feels like the editor needs to take a firmer hand. Even a below average Anita Blake book is still some of my favorite urban fantasy, but the sad part is that they could be so much better.

#book review #laurell k. hamilton #serpentine #anita blake #anita blake vampire hunter #urban fantasy #3/5 #rating: 3/5 #2020

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hellshire-harlot · 4 years

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rant time

So a lot of times when I get in my head, all it takes is one thing to completely set me off. I start crying and freaking out and everything else i’ve been bottling up comes out, too. I feel like it might help my stress to share some of the reasons I get so angry and sad.

I think a lot about why everything happens to me specifically. The pandemic, the virus slowly creeping towards my family, our financial situation, the horrible schoolwork I’m still forced to do. Not to mention the past traumas I’ve endured, like being forced into a mental hospital for two weeks over the notion that I was having vaguely violent thoughts as a coping mechanism, or being bullied to the brink of SUICIDE in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL for my political opinion and the teachers doing diddly-shit to stop it. I think about why this is happening to me, what I could have done to deserve this. I feel as though my childhood was ripped away from me before I got to have it fully. Yes, I did get to be a child for a while, but not for nearly as long as I should have. Sometimes I feel like I’m being punished, as though I sinned in some horrible way and everything happening is just a way to torture me. But it gets worse.

I get so angry, not just sad. I scream and I cry about the injustice of my situation. I’m being forced to learn skills I, someone pursuing a career in the arts, will have no use for, all while people are literally DROPPING DEAD IN THE STREETS DUE TO COVID. I have to stay inside all day and never see anyone I care about for more than a few minutes. I’m forced to have a political opinion because literally everything about politics affect me (a young, queer, neurodivergent woman) even though I’d rather not give two shits about it. I have to worry constantly about our financing and money, even though I have no control over it.

And then I start thinking about how wrong it all is. I, a literal fucking MINOR, shouldn’t have to endure the trauma of watching the death toll of this gods-forsaken country climb into the MILLIONS. I should be playing dodgeball in gym class with my friends. I should be making things explode in chemistry. I should be riding bikes at the park. I should be a FUCKING KID RIGHT NOW. but I’m not. Not anymore. Because all of that happiness, that boundless energy, was stolen from me. And I’ll never get that back. Do you have any idea how fucking heartbreaking it is to know that you’re older than everyone around you by like 10 mental years because of the fucked-up shit you went through? How hard it is to feel like it’s your fault your family is suffering because you’re the one who convinced them to have another child who is causing them issues? How hard it is to feel like this is somehow your fault that all these bad things are happening because you did something wrong? That’s what it fucking feels like inside my head. I don’t even remember what it’s like to be really happy anymore. The most I get is contentedness, and even that is only when I’m burying myself in another fucking world to escape the hell that is this one. And when I look at all my favorite fictional characters and spend three hours straight crying in my room because they’re practically the only things keeping me from killing myself and I wish they could be real even if it were just for a day because I would kill to feel their arms wrapped around me and their voice in my ear telling me that it’s gonna be okay, I realize that I don’t even feel human anymore.

I feel like just some creature who is barely sentient. I don’t do anything of value. I’m a parasite leeching off of the generosity of others. The world would be better off without me. I’ve spent the past four months romanticizing the idea of my own death, for fucks sake. I feel less than human. I feel numb and dead.

I just want things to go back to the way they were before. Before the mental hospital and before Tr*mp and before COVID and before my life fell apart. But I don’t even remember what a normal life feels like and that’s the most fucking terrifying thing I’ve ever come to grasp. The idea that I’ll never return to normalcy, that it will always be just out of reach, a fluffy halcyon memory in the pool of despair that is my existence, that’s fucking terrifying. And I get even angrier because I realize that I din’t deserve any of this.

I was a good fucking person before all of this happened. I helped people, I did good in school, I was the perfect little daughter of my perfect little family. And then the world started falling apart around me. I realize that I’m going to come out of this pandemic traumatized even more. I’ll never get over those trigger words “Pandemic”, “Virus”, “Corona”, “Mask”, “Quarantine”. I’ll never feel quite safe in large spaces without a mask, and even then, I’ll still be nervous. I bet I won’t even be able to look at a medical mask without having flashbacks. And what did I do to deserve this trauma? Nothing. Fucking nothing. I WAS A GOOD PERSON, GODDAMNIT. WHY ARE THESE THINGS HAPPENING TO ME.

I’ll never, ever recover.

In all the fairy tales and stories that my parents read to me when I was little, the hero always came out of their adventure improved in some way. Stronger, faster, wiser. But not me. All I get for my harrowing survival and endless fear is a life full of trauma and a stolen childhood. I don’t get to be a hero because all my life I’ve felt like a villain.

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kryptsune · 4 years

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Hi you are an amazing writer i was wondering if you have any tips on salvaging a story that was derailed by a brain fart cause uh i was writing a short story that turned out to be longer and harder to read for anyone thats not myself and now i cant barely look at it... so can i have tips or advice please?

🌼Sorry for the late reply on this I wanted to be able to take the time to give you my own personal advice. First of all, thank you for the kind words :D I am so happy that you enjoy my writing.

Tips tips tips. Well, there are a couple of things you can do and I have personally done myself. If you feel as though a story has gotten out of hand there is nothing wrong with that at all. I never planned to have either Felldritch or Wonderfell having their own fics in the first place but I enjoy writing for them so much that it was a logical progression. It is difficult for me to assess your personal investment in the project and from what I am reading it seems you no longer are passionate about it? The truth of the matter is that writing has to be something you enjoy in order to do stories. Sure you can pump out chapter after chapter but it won’t have that spark and why would you put yourself through that suffering in the first place? Sometimes stories are hard to read for others just because of their personality. I have a lot of friends that enjoy my work but haven’t read the story because it is massive. That is something I am keenly aware of often. Welcome to the Underworld is not for the faint of heart or for casual readers and I understand that. It’s not for everyone. I appreciate it when people at least try, however, it is a good way for me to gauge interest at the very least.

I will break this into 3 parts. The first will be revaluating your current story/project and the second will be things you can do that might make it easier for your readers if you still feel you want to continue it and lastly what you can do to possibly get that passion back if so you can “look at it again.” 1. Evaluating your project: As artists and creatives, we tend to latch onto our work because we put our own personal investment into it. I usually use the analogy that it is like our child and it can be difficult to care for sometimes and yet rewarding at others. This is the first thing you want to do if you are working on a project. Always evaluate. Do you enjoy it anymore? Do you feel stuck? Is it just not going the way you want it to? Writer's block maybe? All of these can be factors into why you may not enjoy it any longer.

I felt this with WTU for the longest time and now looking back on it...it was for the wrong reasons. I felt that no one wanted to read it after hours upon hours of writing and editing. It made me sad and I didn’t understand why. The thing is I have changed my mindset when it comes to this. It is hard for me to accurately gauge who reads my work without some kind of feedback but I have a goal. I set out to write an extensive and world built Fell verse and I am going to do it. It’s important to me and it is rewarding just to know that I can do a project as large as the three acts of WTU. Ask yourself why are you writing the story? What are your roadblocks? This will help you come to a decision.

2. Easing the Readers: If you read my writing you will notice I have a tendency to write a fair bit. Every chapter of WTU ranges from about 15-20 pages of text 11 point font in google docs. That is a lot. I actually have not gone and calculated the word count on it but yeah, a lot. There are simple things you can do however to make the reading a little more digestible for people.

a. Formating: I never had a problem with reading large blocks of text. That was how I was taught in middle and high school. That said others struggle with large blocks because it makes it difficult to read from a visual perspective (the irony that I am using block text right now). What you can do is break up your paragraphs more often. I have started to do this with older WTU chapters seeing as there are a lot of text blocks. It is a simple and relatively hassle-free way to make it easier.

b. Pacing: I am by no means the expert of fics however there are some things that I notice in fics that tend to pop up quite frequently. I am not saying to change these things by any means but to evaluate and possibly adjust when needed. PACING. I can’t tell you how many stories I have read with poor or confusing pacing. What I mean by this is that the story is either holding too long in a certain scene or there is no breathing room. WTU and a lot of my fics have dark undertones to them which creates drama and emotional payoff, however, doing this constantly and throwing problem after problem into a story is hard to swallow. The readers need a break. This can be anything from levity to simple character interactions. Not everything is fights or angst.

This also goes for fics that have none of the former as well. There are so many that are a slice of life and that is fine! Enjoy your cute fluffy fics that said if there is no conflict then what is the point of continuing to read the story? What is holding my investment? Sure the characters can be written well but the point of storytelling is connection. A perfect butterflies and rainbows story is all well and good but you can’t connect to it. That is not how life is. (I am pontificating a little bit but I am honestly really tired of having to explain to people that my fics are M for a reason. No NSFW stuff but rather real-life mental and psychological and emotional situations.)

c. Characters: This kind of also ties into what I was talking about before. A flawless character... is a boring one. Some of peoples favorite characters are the villains, why? Because unlike their heroic counterparts they feel real. They go through things and make their own path. If they just chose differently then things would be different. A lot of times (and no offense to fandom) I find that people make stereotypes of a character. It’s all surface-level stuff. Think about what makes you, you. What have you gone through that causes you to think a certain way or react to things? Our lives are made up of experiences and moments and characters are the exact same way. Most don’t realize this since I hint it throughout the story but everything tells a story. The character's costumes tell a story whether that be the place they live of their own personal style. Why does my Red wear a collar with a seemingly half-broken, fused, and burned chain link? I don’t know... you tell me.

It’s a storytelling technique called breadcrumbing. This is used to hint to some sort of plot or payoff. A foreshadowing at times. It is an incredibly useful and engaging tool if done properly. I would use my “why does Red do what he does” example but its been beaten to death so I will use Boss as my example instead.

Boss is the Head of Royal Guard having bested Undyne a long time ago but not everyone was happy with the change of the Guard and that is communicated in character dialogue. In fact, you can use this method to hint to character connections as well. Boss has claw marks in both his scarf and his left eye socket. So.... who could do that kind of damage? If you have read the story *mild Snowdin spoiler* Frisk meets Doggo. An Australian cattle dog-wolf mix that has no love for the current Captain. He was tossed out of the Royal Guard after altercation... maybe attacking a certain lanky skeleton perhaps? It’s not directly stated but certain visual ques could lead someone to that kind of assumption.

Intertwine your characters, their relationships, their life events. All of this will create far more dynamic storytelling and investment.

d. Planning: Returning back to potential writers' block... I find that something that personally helps me is outlining. I have all of my stories planned out from beginning to end while the middle can be moved around accordingly. That said in every single chapter I outline the main points I want to communicate. It helps with the organization but also keeping your thoughts on track. If you feel you need an extra chapter for character development then you can totally plan that out. Don’t be afraid to change things. It’s your story do what you feel is best for it!

e. Editors/betas/outside eyes: This is a huge one and can be a little challenging at first. It is helpful to have others look at the work. Those that you trust. Have them look for grammar or even pacing and character inconsistencies. It can be hard to get a critique on your work that you love so much however this makes you far better writer IF IT COMES FROM A REPUTABLE SOURCE.

I need to clarify this as you cannot please everyone. I have rejected critiques from my beta readers in the past, not because I think I know better but because even they can’t account for your overall thought process. What they think is superfluous may come to have a payoff later on and it needs to be in there for that payoff. That can be anything from character development to plot. You have to be strong in your conviction. Say yes and no when appropriate and always be kind to your readers. They are taking time out of their lives to help you with your work. The same goes for the betas. Be respectful and kind when giving CONSTRUCTIVE feedback and don’t be offended when the author does not agree.

3. Breaking the Block: Breaking any kind of block is not easy. In fact, it is a constant nuisance in any creative field. That said there are some simple things that you can do to help. The best example I can give is taking a break. That can range from person to person but generally, sometimes you work on something for so long you need to set it aside and look at it with fresh and new eyes. It is ok to take breaks, hiatus, or just work on something else for your own mental well being. Here are a few things you can do to utilize your break effectively. a. Don’t even look at it: Some people just need to get away from it all which is totally understandable. I would be farther along in my own fics if I did not break so much but I am determined to put my best foot forward even if it takes me longer. I am also an artist in the drawing and painting sense so I juggle that as well. If you notice my blog right now there has not been much going on in the way of writing because I’ve switched gears. There is nothing wrong with that but I pick my battles.

b. Work on another project: There is nothing wrong with working on something else just for a change of pace. We are not machines and therefore monotony breeds complacency or burn out in this case. One of the reasons I have 2 other fics is because sometimes I hop from project to project. I know not everyone can mentally do that but it helps me recharge for the main project that I feel worn out on.

People have also been wondering where TLC (Tender Love and Care) my Red X Frisk fic has been. The truth is that fic is my downtime fic. I do it when I am able to. In fact, as I work on my multiverse boys references lately I have been working on the second chapter of TLC because its a nice change of pace from doing something like Felldritch or the other two.

c. A little at a time: Any type of project can be overwhelming so taking chunks of it at a time helps compartmentalize it a little easier. Try to write as much as you can a day. It’s not much but by the end of the week, boom, your chapter is done.

You shouldn’t push yourself or beat yourself up either. I find that I always feel guilty about taking some leisure time because I could be creating more content but that’s unhealthy. Take the time you need and enjoy your games or books. I personally am enjoying the heck out of Animal Crossing right now.

All in all, I hope some of these tips help a little. Since I do not know what you are working on or why you feel the way you do about it. It is hard for me to give direct advice. What I can say out of all of this is enjoy what you are making. Enjoy the journey and the process. At the end of the day, it is your investment and if you don’t enjoy it what is the point?

It is nice to get feedback on things, trust me I know sometimes it feels like pulling teeth, and there are clear signs of burn out. We are not art machines, give it some time, reflect, evaluate, and you will find your way. If you really want me to dig deeper to give you specific con crit advice then you are free to DM me. My ask box is also always open!

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linkspooky · 5 years

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Medaka Box top 2-5 because number 1 is obvious

I LOVE TO TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH I LOVE MY FAVES. IF YOU EVER ASK WANT TO ASK ME WHO MY FAVES ARE FOR A SERIES FEEL FREE TO SEND ME AN ASK.

1. My love was Real - Kumagawa Misogi

No, shush I’m going to talk about Kumagawa Misogi. The only time he gets a chance to be number one is in popularity polls and my faves lists.

My favorite thing about Medaka Box out of all of Nisioisin’s works is that the weirdoes are not just weirdoes who are accepted as weirdoes, but they’re also challenged to grow more human.

What I really like about Kumagawa is that he gets his ass kicked constantly. You come to understand just how he developed his broken method of coping and seeing the world, but it’s also something he ultimately has to let go of. The story never lets him win and challenges him to grow. Which is why you end up rooting for Kumagawa because it’s far more interesting seeing him fail sometimes than the main characters succeeding.

Kumagawa’s just this insane person who seems to be doing whatever he wants, the embodiment of edgy loser characters, but at the same time he’s eventually revealed to be quite human. He’s grounded in basic human desires, he wants to be happy like everybody else, he wants to have security, to protect his friends. It’s that humanity in the character you get attached too. He’s a loser, not because he’s a monster, but because he has so many very human flaws. At the end of the day, for all his flashiness he kind of just acts like a regular good for nothing.

Underneath it all I see Kumagawa as a character whose broken in kind of an ordinary way. Nisioisin writes a lot about broken geniuses, people who are insane but also talented to some degree. Kumagawa is just like, an average ordinary guy underneath it all that’s been subjected to a shit ton of trauma and noen fo that trauma really made him better as a person and he doesn’t have some kind of special talent to balance it out. Normal people, ugly people, worthless people can be broken too, there’s no such thing as suffering beautifully. And yet, Kumagawa’s still trying to be a person, he’s trying to struggle and do better even though he’s not someone who would ever be the main character of the story. Which is why I think he’s grounded in something really relatable.

2. I don’t care what fictional characters call me - Ajimu Najimi

Ajimu’s great because she’s literally the most talented, all knowing character in the manga, but in the end she’s just as shitty as Kumagawa. Often I end up liking these two as a pair because they’re just so integral to each other’s character arcs.

Ajimu is a shitty person. You get all these reasons like she’s actually seven million terminals, or that she’s trillions of years old, but beyond that she clearly has a personality, and that personality is bad. She just doesn’t really care about anybody besides herself. She drags along other people with her whims.

She’s a mastermind but at the same time she’s kind of just a petty child. For all of her grandiose reasons for manipulating people along, it’s more that Ajimu doesn’t really want to live as a person. There are characters that Nisioisin made up that are like, actually not meant to be human but some incomprehensible entity. Like, the story goes out of its way to say that Yodzuru isn’t human. In Monogatari, oddities and aberrations are not meant to be human, they’re meant to be inhuman and different. But Ajimu always struck me as a character written to be human underneath it all. Her constant announcing of “I’m a non-human” is just kind of her running away that psychologically, she’s still pretty much a human despite her weird origin story.

Which is why my favorite part about her is how little she actually knows about being a human. She understands people like they’re toys to move around in her toybox, or roles in a script but you get the sense she doesn’t get them as like, thinking, feeling entities separate from herself. She doesn’t really understand love, or friendship or anything like that, and she doesn’t want to bother to learn anyway because she already knows everything. Ajimu literally has the script handed to her, and yet like Medaka says, she doesn’t know anything. She has to start all the way from the beginning.

3. So let’s get married! Marry me, Marry me, Marry me! - Emukae Mukae

I used to hate Yanderes until I met Emukae. One of the differences I noticed is that Emukae is definitely not written to be anybody’s fantasy. She’s her own character all throughout. Which is what i disliked about most yanderes to begin wtih, they were always obsessed with some dude, but like never as a flaw or a character arc it was supposed to be appealing and not ugly.

Emukae is very ugly when she’s introduced, and we get to see her just like Kumagawa work her way back into being a human being again. The reason she has to let go of her romantic feelings is because she was using them to entirely define who she was, which is why her personality appears so shallow at first.

By the end of the manga Emukae is probably the character besides Kumagawa who has changed and developed the most, and another thing is that she does this without really abandoning parts of her presonality. Emukae is still a minus towards the end, she’s still manic at times, she just doesn’t use love as a substitute for everything anymore because she’s learned to grow an identity outside of that. She’s kind of growing into her own person over the course of the manga instead of attaching herself to either Kumagawa or Zenkichi to define who she was.

4. I’ll become the main character - Zenkichi Hitoyoshi

Zenkichi is a send up to classic shonen protags and a subversion of them at the same time. He’s the guy who never gives up, who always makes friends, and who tries to earn everything with training, effort, and hard work. I admit a lot I like about Zenkichi is his foiling with Kumagawa (Kumagawa existing as his shadow, Zenkichi’s hard work is always rewarded, and Kumagawa’s is never rewarded).

However, there is something unique about the character himself. That is, getting stronger never actually gets Zenkichi what he wants. Despite being the main male lead, he almost never technically wins any fights. He wins against Munakata at the beginning but that’s about it. He’s actually usually the weakest character in the group and surrounded by super strong women.

What’s interesting about Zenkichi as a protag is that his arc isn’t about gaining strength, but actually letting go of the idea of gaining strength. He wins against Medaka in the end not by beating her in a fight, but because he’s better at making connections with other people than she is. He finds his place eventually in learning to make connections with others rather than building his entire life around protecting Medaka.

5. I’ll kill you - Munakata Kei

Munakata is fun, because he’s an interesting character concept. Every time he looks at a person he wants to kill them. Unlike Hitoshiki Zerozaki, rather than choosing to give into this urge he’s actually spent his whole life fighting against it. Which is what makes him unique, he’s basically every other serial killer that Nisioisin has ever written (a serial killer, but they’re lonely) but this time he hasn’t actually killed anybody.

Which under the surface makes him feel like much more of a normal dude. He’s actually a very human person who just happened to be born with a weird obsession with killing people. I guess one thing that makes me like this character so much is I’ve seen similiar attempts to make this character work with the same concept, but they all come off as unrelatable and weird.

Munakata is a fully fleshed out character. He wants to have friends, wants to fight for those friends. He sometimes get self righteous. He’s serious and straight laced. He’s overprotective of those friends. He just also happens to be constantly seeking out a reason to kill someone. Munakata is even mentioned to have a bad attitude on purpose. His showdown with Kumagawa is also one of my favorite scenes in the manga, with the two of them fighting with their contrasting philosophies.

It feels like the fact that he wants to murder every single person he meets is just an asterisk on his character, instead of having his entire character built around that fact. Which is fun. He’s actively resisting becoming the murderer who kills people for no reason because they’re obsessed with killing people trope, and it gives him a satisfactory arc over the story. Also, once again how normal he is is just fun, the second he did finally kill someone his first response was to just walk to the police station. What a dude.

#kaibutsushidousha #medaka box #spooky speaks #kumagawa misogi #ajimu najimi #hitoyoshi zenkichi #emukae mukae #munakata kei

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rt8815 · 5 years

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OC Ask Game

I was tagged by the amazing @illegalcerebral

I put a Keep Reading link because this is looong.

1) Name (and why you chose it if you like) McKinley Campbell Durand. I named her after McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters. However, the “in universe?” reason that will be given - which I haven’t written yet - is that McKinley and Campbell are family names from a few generations back.

Campbell comes from the Gaelic words for ‘crooked’ and ‘mouth.’ I just like the name. Here’s a post (that I had to rewrite because Tumblr’s a dick and wouldn’t let me edit the typos in the original. The rewrite had typos too! Blargh!) that discusses her first and last names. I thought it would be funny for her full name to consist solely of last names.

2) Fandom and how they fit into the story Criminal Minds. She works at a D.C. museum practically around the corner from the J. Edgar Hoover building (as indicated in “Let It Bleed”). That’s a tiny hint that it’s the National Museum of African American History & Culture, but I don’t think I’ll mention it very often, if for no other reason than I’ve never been to the NMAAHC and don’t want to describe it inaccurately.

The official story is that Spencer and McKinley met at the museum (again, in “Let It Bleed,” which is probably the least favorite thing of mine that I’ve written). However, they’d met once before, and texted a few times after that. Because my brain is all over the place, and because I’m telling the story in non-chronological order, I haven’t written their first meeting yet. The only details I’ve revealed thus far are that it was nighttime in a park, McKinley caught Spencer off guard and made him fall to the ground, and whatever they talked about set Spencer straight and lifted his spirits. Also, a swingset was involved. Beyond that, I’ve inserted McKinley into the plotlines and events of the show, with necessary alterations, and there’s a ton of domestic Spencer and off-duty team stuffs.

3) Do they have any family? Biological family: daughter Sophie and son Jason; her Mom (no name yet); maternal grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins; and her estranged father (no name yet). Chosen/found family: husband Spencer; the BAU.

4) As a child, what did they want to be when they grew up? When she was a toddler, McKinley wanted to be a pediatrician (a doctor just for kids?! Cool!) or an ophthalmologist (she’s worn glasses practically her whole life). As an older child she aspired to be an entomologist or herpetologist. In her teenage years she considered a career in forensic pathology or criminal psychology. While earning her BA in English, she discovered that Public History was her true calling.

5) Their greatest dream To be a good Mom. To inspire learning in others.

6) Their worst nightmare Losing her family; having to see her father again.

7) Strengths Empathy, insight/self awareness, forgiving nature but knowing when to cut her losses

8) Weaknesses McKinley struggles with imposter syndrome.

She can be very mean. I mean, downright nasty cruel, verbally. This is rare though because, and I’m paraphrasing a future bit of dialogue here, anyone whose behavior could arguably warrant such a response is beneath her notice and not worth the effort. She’s more likely to close the door on someone. When she’s removed a person from her life, she is done. They become literally nothing to her. McKinley will rightly claim that this is about self-preservation and boundaries, but she really takes it to the next level.

9) What would they chose between: morning and night, sweet and savoury, beaches or meadows, cities or countryside, winter or summer, Christmas or Halloween (sorry, Spencer!), movies or TV shows, action or rom-com, clowns or vampires, stars or the moon (both!), cocktails or pints [Neither. McKinley doesn’t care for cocktails or beer. Scotch, brandy, rum, and dry wines are her poisons. She’s been known to add Kahlúah to vanilla ice cream, Baileys Irish Cream to coffee (she wants to try Drambuie next), or make hot toddies when she has a cold (obviously not mixing any alcohol with any medicine)]

10) How do they relax? Reading, or having Spencer read to her; knitting; listening to her records or playing her guitar; exercising with Boogie so she’s exhausted enough to sleep that night; baking and cooking

11) What makes them angry? Injustice, apathy/indifference, ableism, willful ignorance

12) What makes them afraid? The awful things she’d possibly do under duress; her family getting hurt or worse; spiders and other bugs that bite and/or sting

13) What is a moment from their childhood that has shaped who they are? It’s not a single event, but growing up with an abusive parent has certainly had a lifelong impact on McKinley. You’ve heard the expression “once bitten, twice shy?” She’s “once bitten, there’s no twice because you no longer exist.” She’s working on that. It’s also cultivated empathy, though, and is part of the reason she volunteers in the hospital’s rehab wing.

14) Do they have a sense of humour? Intellectual humor, pop culture references, puns/Dad jokes, science jokes. Sometimes morbid.

15) What do they value in their friends/loved ones? Honesty and empathy

16) Do they have any pets? An Aussie Collie/Border Aussie named Boogie-Woogie. He’s her first child.

17) Worst memory? Probably the day Meadows shot her and she thought she’d never see Spencer and Penny again.

18) Best memory? The days Sophie and Jason were born. Minus, y’know, the agonizing pain of labor and delivery.

19) Do they have any tattoos? (If no would they get one?) Nope and nope

20) If you could write them into another fandom, which one would you choose? If I knew the MCU better, I’d love to write her in as a Stark Tower employee! She’d be an anthropologist and would study alien societies the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. have encountered. She’d naturally be drawn to Loki, initially in a professional capacity (they quickly discover they relate to each other on a personal level as well).

He’d first find her annoying: “Why are you pestering me, Mortal? Surely you’d rather interview my oaf of a brother?”

“No, not even remotely. He only ever wants to discuss battles he’s won. There’s so much more to Asgard and the other realms than that. I want - I need - to learn your literature, your science, your culture and history. You’re well versed in all of these subjects and you’re an excellent teacher.”

He stares at her impassively over his mug of tea, but his heart - that Judas of an organ - flutters slightly at the compliment. And how can he say no to a fellow scholar?

“I prefer your company to Thor’s too. You have this calming presence. Thor’s sweet but he’s also obnoxiously loud and brash and he always hugs me even though I keep telling him I don’t like it. And he’s constantly swinging his hammer around, which makes me think he’s overcompensating for something.”

Loki nearly chokes on his tea. Yes, this mortal is considerably more tolerable than others.

“Very well. Friday evenings at 6:00, my chambers. Arrive late and suffer my wrath.”

From that day forward, whenever Thor tries to hug her, he gets mildly electrocuted.

Did I accidentally sorta kinda write a drabble? Would anyone be interested in making this a collab? That’s what they’re called, right? (Can you tell I’ve given this some thought? Haha! I have even more details in my head.)

21) Do they like their job? (What else would they do if they could?) She loves it! Hmmm, what else…? A librarian maybe. Or animate and produce an educational cartoon series.

22) What is their sexuality? Demisexual

23) Do they believe in love at first sight? Soulmates? One true love? McKinley believes in “seeing the potential for a good relationship at first conversation.”

Yes, although she feels that term has become overused and poorly redefined.

People can find love again after it’s been lost.

24) What music do they listen to? Has that changed over time? I actually recently answered an ask about this. Yes, she grew up on what passed for country in the ‘90s. God help her, she had a boyband phase in junior high.

25) Can they cook? What food do they love? McKinley does pretty well in the kitchen. She loves a wide variety of food. She grew up in the south, so tons of carbs/comfort foods. She loves Thai, Japanese, and Indian food. She cooks up Middle Earth-inspired dishes (ha! nerd). She’s especially proud of a seed cake she bakes.

26) What are their hopes for the future? For her family to be healthy, safe and happy. To be debt free.

27) How do they react to being threatened? It’s a coin flip. McKinley might curl up like an armadillo and hope the predator gets bored and leaves, or she might kick the stool out from under them and cause their chin to slam into the bar and crack several teeth.

28) What is their love language? McKinley and Spencer both exhibit the Acts of Service love language, because just saying “I love you” isn’t enough. You ought to show it. She’ll randomly bake doughnuts for Spencer or play guitar for him in bed, and he’ll take care of laundry, dishes, and any other chores he sees need doing.

Quality Time is important for them too. Once a month, Luke and Penny babysit so Spencer and McKinley have a day alone together. It doesn’t really matter what they do. The point is it’s just them.

It caught McKinley by surprise how much she enjoys physical affection, given that she can be touch averse but holy moly she was more touch starved than she realized. She lives for snuggles and makeout sessions and playing with each others’ hair. When one of them doesn’t want to be touched, they hook their pinkies together.

29) What do they find most challenging in relationships? At work? In general? At work she struggles to gain her colleagues’ respect (think “Boy Genius” treatment except she has lady bits). In general, she struggles with trusting people.

30) What do you as a creator love best about writing this character? Giving her everything I wish I had but don’t.

Bonus: Include a link to your favourite work with this OC or write a small drabble.

October 12, 2021

Warm sunlight filtered through the curtains, gently rousing Spencer from a pleasant sleep. Just when he’d decided to get up, he felt the mattress dip behind him and his wife’s breath fanning over his ear.

“Who’s the birthday boy?” whispered McKinley.

Spencer smiled softly but feigned being asleep.

“Who’s the birthdaaay boooy?” she repeated, bouncing slightly.

“The good-looking guy to your left?”

“Happy Birthday!” she laughed, pressing kisses along his neck, suddenly shifting the mood from playful to sexy.

“Would the birthday boy like his birthday present?” she asked as she lifted the covers.

“Well, look at that - it’s already unwrapped!”

#oc appreciation #writing games #Criminal Minds #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x oc #oh god it's 03:15 why am i still awake?#why do i do this to myself #sleepy time for Rubes now

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mediaeval-muse · 4 years

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Book Review

Bride By Mistake. By Anne Gracie. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2012.

Rating: 2/5 stars

Genre: historical romance

Part of a Series? Yes, Devil Riders #5

Summary: Eight years ago, Lieutenant Luke Ripton made a hasty wartime marriage-in-name-only to protect a young girl from a forced union and left her protected in a remote mountain convent. Now, Luke is Lord Ripton, but he has been unable to obtain an annulment. Which leaves him no choice but to claim a wife he doesn't want. For nearly a decade, Isabella has waited like a princess locked in a tower, dreaming of her handsome, dark-haired prince. Her dreams are shattered when Luke reveals himself not as a prince, but an autocratic soldier, expecting her unquestioning obedience, which is something Isabella's fiercely independent nature will not tolerate. And while Luke and Isabella's fiery personalities clash at every turn, they remain bound to their vows, never expecting that the passionate fury they share could become passion of a different kind...

***Full review under the cut.***

Content/Trigger Warnings: attempted sexual assault, violence, sexual content, torture

Overview: When I started reading this book, I had the strangest feeling that I had read it before, but I didn’t remember how the plot went, nor could I find any record of a review, so here it is now. Bride By Mistake had the potential for a great story: a fiercely independent heroine, a journey to rescue an abandoned half-sister, love growing between two people who married to prevent one of them from suffering a worse fate, etc. I think I would have been on board if not for the hero, who I found hard to like. I didn’t feel like he respected our heroine at all, even after he opened up about his past, which made it hard for me to root for the relationship. As a result, this book only gets 2 stars from me.

Writing: Gracie’s writing seems to change between the first thirty or so pages and the rest of the book. The first couple chapters seem to rush through the narrative quickly, dumping a bunch of dialogue and a rushed flashback on the reader to set up the situation before getting to the main plot. Once we get to that point, the writing seems to flow a bit better, giving insight into what characters are thinking and feeling. Granted, it’s not a high literary style - Gracie’s prose is simple, and sometimes has a tendency to be repetitive (there’s a lot of observations of what the heroine’s legs and backside look like in her riding pants, for example, and we’re repeatedly told how Isabella isn’t pretty/not conventionally attractive), but I was able to immerse myself in the story, so I feel like it did the job.

Plot: Aside from the romance, the main plot of this novel takes place a number of years following a war. Our heroine, Isabella, and our hero, Luke, married as strangers during the conflict in order to protect Isabella (an heiress) from being forcibly married to her cousin, Ramon, who was after the family fortune. Because Luke was still a soldier, he left Isabella in a monastery for her own protection. Now, eight years later, Luke has been denied an annulment, and so he has come to Spain to collect his wife and return to England. However, before she leaves, Isabella insists on travelling to her family estate to retrieve her abandoned half-sister, who she fears might have been forced into becoming Ramon’s mistress. Meanwhile, Luke’s PTSD makes him anxious, and he constantly fights with her about returning to England so he can arrive in time for his youngest sister’s first come-out.

In terms of setting up a conflict, I feel like this book had potential. I liked the idea of Isabella doing the right thing by her sister, despite having mixed feelings about the favoritism that her father showed towards his illegitimate daughter. It nicely mirrored the family feelings Luke had towards his own sister, and the two protagonists had some good conversations based on those parallels. However, a lot of the middle of the book felt like an uneventful journey. Sure, the protagonists had personal conflicts, but nothing really built the anticipation for their arrival at the family estate. Instead, we get some silly things, like an inn having fleas and causing a whole debacle. I’m not against light, fluffy things like this, but I would have liked to see Isabella and Luke working together more to come up with a plan in anticipation of their showdown with Ramon.

When they finally do encounter Ramon and Isabella’s sister, Perlita, I found the character interactions to be both interesting and silly. I liked how Perlita and Isabella talked about their childhoods and came to respect one another, as well as how Perlita’s desires were quite different from what Isabella expected. It’s complicated and messy and utterly unsatisfying, but in a way that challenges the reader to think about accepting what other people want, even if it’s not “proper.” That being said, Ramon and Luke’s interactions completely transcended the bounds of reality for me. In one scene, Ramon and Luke threaten to kill one another over Isabella, yet once it’s made clear that Ramon would gain nothing by marrying her, everyone settles down and has lunch. Ramon and Perlita then invite the two to stay overnight, which seems preposterous given that the men almost came to blows and, as far as I could tell, still hated one another.

After they leave the estate, Isabella and Luke visit a family friend, and there, they encounter someone from Luke’s traumatic past. I found this part of the plot rather rushed and somewhat sloppy. Despite the trauma supposedly affecting Luke from the beginning, it felt like the details were dumped on the reader with barely 1/3 of the novel left, and so it felt hollow and inserted for a final bit of action. I wish this part of the plot has been more integral to the story, rather than having it all condensed into a few pages near the end.

I will caution readers that early in the book, we are shown a flashback that details how Luke and Isabella meet, and it involves attempted sexual assault. Luke, who is a soldier returning from an errand, happens to hear a girl screaming, so he goes to investigate. He finds a nameless Spanish soldier attempting to rape Isabella, who is 13 and has been stripped naked. While the soldier isn’t successful and his violence against Isabella isn’t overly graphic, we are subject to some descriptions of Isabella’s body, which, in my opinion, had a tendency to be uncomfortable. Descriptions of how she barely has breasts and no hips just shows me that Luke is taking note of these things, which feels icky. Thus, I wouldn’t recommend this book if you’re sensitive to plots involving attempted sexual assault.

I will also say that this book doesn’t do a very good job regarding representing Spanish and Roma culture. Every description of Spain and Spanish life seemed to be banal, from randomly eating churros to taking a siesta. The richness and complexity of Spanish culture isn’t really explored, which is a shame since Isabella’s Spanish heritage mainly seemed to enhance the idea that Isabella = Spanish = passion, contrasting with the frivolousness of English women and society. On top of that, there is a scene where Isabella and Luke are at a market, and they happen to witness some Roma people singing and dancing. Gracie uses the g-slur, though I don’t think it was used in malice. However, the dance is sensual and erotic, which causes Luke and Isabella to become aroused. It further lent credence to the implication that Spain is a land of passion for Luke, and though Spain is not overly exoticized, I do think implying that it is a world where passion can flourish is rather stereotypical.

Characters: Isabella, our heroine, is fairly likable in that she doesn’t let Luke push her around. She’s headstrong and confident, and on top of that, she has a strong sense of duty to her sister. I admired that about her, and loved seeing moments when she would defy expectations and show that she really is capable of handling things herself. The only things I found mildly irritating was her ridiculous innocence regarding sex and her tendency to be overly emotional. Regarding the former, Isabella has cringey moments such as thinking that sex with a man might be like sex between horses or other animals. I dislike it when virgin heroines are that naive because it’s not very realistic. Regarding her emotion, emotion itself isn’t a bad thing, but it didn’t endear me to her when these moods seemed to be connected to her childishness rather than anything substantive. For example, Isabella dramatically flees the scene and cries when she learns Luke requested an annulment, in part because she had been entertaining childish fantasies that he would sweep her away from the monastery like a knight in shining armor. She also gets extremely upset and yells at Luke for not being happy that she is a virgin, which would have been ok if it were mostly about honor, but the scene also involves a discussion about Isabella’s ignorance about sex and what it entails. It just felt like all her passionate moods were in some way framed as juvenile, and I wasn’t really into it.

Luke, our hero, is hard to like because at best, he’s a gruff ex-soldier who expects obedience from his wife, and at worst, a misogynist. I could have been on board with an ex-soldier who approaches marriage as a commanding officer would, but then learns that the two are very different and a partnership is more fulfilling. Luke, however, doesn’t seem to be open to the idea. At least early on, whenever Isabella would do something, he would think things like “He was going to show her tonight who wore the pants in this marriage.” While he never hit or raped her, the idea that he would “show her who is boss” left a bad taste in my mouth. On top of that, Luke would also think about how he despises certain traits in women. He thinks of Isabella’s friends at the convent as mindless and frivolous, he rejects London women because they are shallow, and says a few times that he can’t stand dishonesty in women because of the one time in his past that a woman hurt him. It was honestly tiring and because it takes so long for him to even begin to reexamine himself, I wasn’t convinced that he had any admirable qualities other than being physically attractive.

Like Luke, our main antagonist, Ramon, is also fairly misogynistic. Though he had more complex motivations than we are initially led to believe (which I appreciated), he did use words like “bitch” and “slut,” which killed much of the interest I had in seeing him as a multifaceted character.

Perlita is much more interesting in that she harbors little malice towards her sister and refuses to be rescued. She emphasizes that her living situation is enough for her and does not want others making decisions on her behalf, even if they would raise her to enjoy a more “proper” life. I liked the relationship that she had with Isabella - the two talk at length about how their father treated them differently and how they feel about each other, and I loved that they came to feel real affection for each others’ well-being.

Romance: I’m just going to say it - I wasn’t a fan of Luke and Isabella’s romance. Luke was way too dominating and didn’t seem to value Isabella at all, and it only seemed like he came to value her once he opened up about his past (and even then, he seemed to value her for what she was able to do to comfort him and keep him on his toes, not as a partner in her own right). Some may chalk it up to his anxiety about being in Spain again, where his worst memories took place, but just because a character has trauma, that doesn’t mean he can be a jerk without consequences. The point where this particularly became a big “nope” for me was when the two first had sex. Isabella and Luke are staying the night at an inn, and they start to get it on, as couples in a romance novel will do. However, when he penetrates her, she screams in pain. Instead of stopping to see what’s wrong, Luke keeps going until he is sated, and then they make a big deal about Isabella’s virginity. This lack of caring for her physical and emotional well-being put me off completely, and I gave up hope of Luke ever truly learning how to see his wife as a partner (rather than a subordinate).

Overall, this book suffers from a lack of suspense and an insufferable hero, and while I did like the heroine and enjoyed the interaction between the sisters, it wasn’t enough to overcome the lackluster narrative progression and rapey vibes from Luke’s POV.

#book reviews

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dorminchu · 4 years

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re: Mr. Robot’s twist

Currently plotting out a Mr. Robot AU that focuses on 4x11-4x13 but borrows elements more-so from seasons 1 and 2, and a bit of three, as well as a TON of introspection. I did start it around December, but neglected it because I wasn’t sure where to take it after the series ended.

I do have a bone to pick with the lack of details surrounding 4x07′s twist--as I felt like all the pieces were there to make it work, but some got lost or forgotten along the way, and as is it, the reveal feels kind of unearned despite the framework and delivery being solid.

This is really more of a meta post. I might continue it if there is interest. For now, massive spoilers (where Elliot is concerned) below the cut.

Disclaimer: This is purely speculation on Mr. Robot’s narrative structure involving the protagonist’s childhood abuse, not the subject of abuse in real life. I’m not a trained professional, these are just my thoughts. I adore Mr. Robot the series, so this isn’t meant to come from a place of negativity.

With that said: I can certainly believe Elliot (and Darlene!) suffered abuse at the hands of their parents--the mother, more obviously--but in Elliot’s case I did not walk away convinced that his father molested him. Neglected him, absolutely. But it could have been a friend of the dad’s from work or a teacher at school that preyed on Elliot, for all the difference it seems to make on the narrative.

To understand what I mean, let’s talk about Edward Alderson. We see a lot of evidence that the father was an irresponsible parent as demonstrated in flashbacks, most notably taking his eight year-old son to see movies that a kid of that age probably shouldn’t be watching (Reservoir Dogs, Time Cop, Shallow Grave etc.) and there’s that other scene where Elliot steals the customer’s money, I suppose.

In all of these flashbacks, as well as in the pictures Elliot unearths on the computer, there is no example of behavior I would classify as inappropriate or irredeemable on its own. Moreover, not all the pictures are of Elliot; there are a good number of the father alone, presumably before he got married. He seems to have a larger house than we see in Elliot’s memories of his childhood, and also appears to own a dog, and a Playstation console; so he’s well-off. I would be more inclined at this point to label Edward a narcissist than a pedophile.

Now, it’s true that Elliot is a woefully unreliable narrator, but that can only go so far before it stops making logical sense and just becomes a crutch for the plot. Elliot could have simply been the dad’s “favorite” kid; i.e. Edward wanted a friend more than a son, but despite his apparent selfishness he never would have dreamed of harming him or Darlene. It’s not as though we don’t have any examples of him acting like a parent ought to, either; Elliot’s favorite movie being Back to the Future II holds some thematic relevance, but it also seems a bit more appropriate for a kid to be interested in, and it’s presumably his father who introduced him to it, given the photo collection.

One could argue that this was “all for show”, but I don’t know if I believe that. Elliot clearly has some nicer memories of his father when he acted more like a parent should, and without counting the upcoming twist in 4x07, it’s also clear that his father was not perfect. Darlene hardly ever mentions him.

Now, we do get a few ominous lines regarding the window incident throughout the series; one of the more notable exchanges coming from Elliot and Darlene at the end of Season 3. 3x10, to be exact:

(italics added for emphasis)

DARLENE: Why did you bring up Kevin McCallister? The snowman. When we were in Coney Island, you asked me if I remembered. What was that all about? It felt so random.

ELLIOT: That was the day Dad pushed me out the window.

DARLENE: What are you... What do you mean, Dad pushed you out the window?

ELLIOT: He was mad that I told Mom about his cancer, and he pushed me out the window. You were young. I guess I never told you.

DARLENE: What are you talking about, Elliot? I was there. We were in your room looking for a camera when Dad came home. For some reason you freaked out and told me to go hide in the closet. Then Dad came in the room, and all of the sudden you... I don't know, you just... snapped. You started swinging your baseball bat, hitting everything.

ELLIOT: No. That's not what happened.

DARLENE: Trust me, I remember. You took your baseball bat and you smashed the window, and then you kept telling Dad you were gonna jump. Elliot, you weren't pushed. You jumped.

The most odd of these exchanges, in my opinion, is from 1x08, between Mr. Robot and Elliot. The argument reads as follows :

ELLIOT: This is where it happened, isn't it?

ROBOT: What? Where what happened?

ELLIOT: You remember anything about that window?

ROBOT: Come on, Elliot. Like I said, we should go. Elliot, what are you doing? Calm down--

(Elliot proceeds to break the window using Mr. Robot’s body and is now dangling him half-way over the edge)

ELLIOT: You pushed me out this window.

ROBOT: Elliot...

ELLIOT: You pushed me off the boardwalk.

ROBOT: Hey, come on.

ELLIOT: No. Maybe you're the one who needs some pushing now.

ROBOT: Calm down. It was an accident.

ELLIOT: Bullshit! I was eight years old. And you thought I deserved it. That's what you said, isn't it?

ROBOT: No, no.

ELLIOT: Yeah, right before you pushed me again!

ROBOT: No, no, no, Elliot, you thought you deserved it. You felt guilty about this your whole life, about telling people my secret. This anger was never at me. It was at you. Please, Elliot, you don't have to be angry at yourself any more. Just let it go. Please let it go.

ELLIOT: You're right. I was angry. I was angry at myself. I hated myself, for doing what I did to you. I'm ready to let go.

Elliot hated himself--for doing what? What did Mr. Robot (Edward?) think he deserved? Why is Elliot ready to let go when he’s clearly very angry? And what was Mr. Robot’s (or Edward’s) secret?

Well, with foresight, this could have something to do with Mr. Robot having to stand in for Elliot’s suffered abuse. But all this seems to prove is that the father was not around to protect Elliot rather than the one who directly facilitated the abuse.

But not necessarily. Recall Mr. Robot’s monologue from 1x01:

My dad was a petty thief. Never could hold down a job.

So, he just robbed, convenience stores, shops, small-time stuff. One time, he sat me down, he told me something I never forgot. He said, "Everyone steals. That's how it works. You think people out there are getting exactly what they deserve? No. They're getting paid over or under, but someone in the chain always gets bamboozled. I steal, son, but I don't get caught. That's my contract with society. Now if you can catch me stealing, I'll go to jail. But if you can't, then I've earned the money."

I respected that, man. I thought that shit was cool as a little kid. A few years after that, they finally caught him. Sent him to jail. Dies five years later. My respect goes with him. I thought he was free doing what he did, but he wasn't. He was in prison. Just like you are now, Elliot. But I'm gonna break you out.

Now with that in mind, going into Season 2, we get the window flashback.

EDWARD: Oh, my God.

MAGDA: This is your fault! It's your fault!

EDWARD: I'm sorry! I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry!

MAGDA: What did you do, you son of a bitch? He's bleeding!

EDWARD: It was an accident.

MAGDA: God says there are no accidents!

EDWARD: Son, son, please talk to me. Talk to me please.

MAGDA: God help us, he's bleeding. The neighbors are looking. This is embarrassing.

EDWARD: Son, son, wake up. Wake up!

MAGDA: God, is he okay? Ask if he's okay!

EDWARD: Can't you see he's not responding, Magda?

MAGDA: It's your fault, it's your fault!

EDWARD: It was an accident.

MAGDA: God says there are no accidents.

EDWARD: I'm so sorry. Please call an ambulance! Call an ambulance!

And then, in the doctor’s office...

DOCTOR: As you can see by the images, everything appears to be normal, which is good news because there were no lesions from the scan, no hemorrhaging or bleeding, mild concussion, a few stitches. The forearm, however, is broken, so that will require a cast.

MAGDA: How much will that be?

DOCTOR: Excuse me?

MAGDA: How much will the co-pay be?

DOCTOR: Well, that's something you need to discuss with the billing department.

EDWARD: We'll talk about that later...

MAGDA: Shut up. You've lost your job. We have no money. How are we supposed to pay for this on top of all your other bills? Don't touch me.

EDWARD: I told you, there won't be any bills--

DOCTOR: Mr. and Mrs. Alderson, please, I'm going to have to ask you to step outside for a second. I'd like to talk to Elliot alone.

It’s clear that Elliot has been traumatized, but once again there’s nothing concrete beyond his lack of response. We don’t yet know what caused this reaction. His parents seem to be acting as expected, given their previous characterization; however, Magda is more concerned about the (recent?) loss of the father’s job, whereas Edward is trying to keep everything under control. Was he indeed a petty thief, as Mr. Robot alluded to in 1x01? Is that why the family has so many bills? (I’m also intrigued by the mother’s invocation of God--”God says there are no accidents!”--and the role God, or faith, subsequently plays in the therapy group and how it affects Elliot | Mr. Robot, but the series never brings up his mother’s faith again, as far as I am aware.)

Moreover, this is the point where Mr. Robot becomes this relentless, antagonistic force in Elliot’s life, at least up until 2x06. We’ve caught glimpses of this dangerous proclivity in Season 1, but now all Robot seems to want is for Elliot to get out of prison and back to work, and he’s more than happy to shoot him in the head, and (in the book at least) constantly sabotaging him(self) to accomplish this.

On my initial viewing, I wondered if this was representative of Elliot’s relationship with his late dad; a person he wanted to protect him, but who was unable (or unwilling) to for undisclosed reasons.

Elliot explicitly mentions Mr. Robot’s purpose in 2x07:

Mr. Robot was a part of me that I created because of my pain. So now we have a chance to start again. Our handshake negotiated us as partners.

In 2x06, Robot takes the punches from Ray’s guys, and we see the damage done to Elliot in the aftermath of his dissociation.

In 2x07 Robot takes the punches again, but vanishes just before Elliot is about to be raped, which is kind of interesting (note: I could be reading too much into this) as it appears to suggest a limitation of sorts; Mr. Robot can only protect Elliot from so much.

This idea of limitation was further exemplified to a lesser extent during Season 3, where Mr. Robot is largely absent, and completely vanishes after the E Corp incident. Later on in Season 4, he is no longer the aggressor (ironically, Elliot is far harsher throughout the first half of Season 4), vanishing after a certain point during 4x07 and he doesn’t resurface for almost the entirety of 4x08. It should also be noted that Robot does not vanish permanently in any of these cases--at least, until 4x13, when he’s no longer needed.

That’s all I’ve got, for now.

#mr. robot #wip #musings #mr. robot spoilers #mr robot season 1 #mr robot season 2 #mr robot season 4 #meta #elliot alderson #darlene alderson #edward alderson #magda alderson #more to come

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