#also all the gender themes!! and then the morality and questionable choices of like all the characters!! *chefs kiss*

[beaulesbian]

I'm seeing a lot of trigun stampede stuff on my dash, and only have one question... is it gay?

how do i answer this,..

i dont have the full knowledge of the story/the full manga yet, and stampede is reboot so i guess anything is possible, but

there are the themes, you know, so many themes.

even if some stuff is not canon, there are things you take away from it, how they present it, how the relationships work, and what remains.

...and it sure is pretty gay, even if its not explicitly said - and in this way i feel it works better for the whole story.

(i got into trigun thanks to the stampede anime, but the more i watch the og anime, i like it more and more?

look at this shit

and they're always just like that, what's not to love.

Hope this helped ✨️💜

[em-dash-press]

7 Types of Internal Conflict for Your Protagonist

External conflict can always make readers more interested in a story. The fist fights, car chases, and fictional battles might make them hold their breath, but so can internal conflict. Check out the primary types of internal conflict your protagonist can experience to add more depth to your stories.

1. Morality Conflicts

Everyone eventually reaches a point where they question their morals. We have to believe in our morals as individuals to prioritize them. It’s not enough to have your parents or other leaders in your life tell you what’s right and wrong. You won’t hold the same morals until you choose them on your own.

Characters also reach these crucial points. It’s part of their character development like it’s part of our personal development. 

Your protagonist may only grapple with one question of morality in your story or they could encounter many. The morals will most likely align with your theme so they make sense within your plot.

Example: Your protagonist is a scientific researcher and leading a trial that could result in a cure for a new illness. They know they shouldn’t take bribes and wouldn’t compromise their career, but someone who nearly qualifies for their trial offers a life-changing amount of money to get included even though they’ve already been ruled out. The protagonist has to choose—do they stick with what they trust is morally correct or do they take the money and use it to help pay for a family member’s legal battle in criminal court? Do they view it as potentially saving two lives at once? Or do they reject the bribe and face whatever consequences could have possibly been avoided?

2. Self-Identity Conflicts

Your identity is something that morphs with time. People rarely settle on one version of themselves forever. Life makes us reconsider things from different perspectives as we go through periods of challenges and peace. Characters also grapple with their identities when faced with similar situations. It makes them take a stand, hold their ground, or chase new goals, which is much more interesting for readers.

Example: Your protagonist considers themselves an optimist because they’re a firefighter who has saved many lives. When they realize their chief has been starting all the fires their station ever fought, your protagonist begins to view people more pessimistically. It affects how quickly they’re willing to risk their life for others, which results in challenges and a character arc they wouldn’t have experienced without this fundamental change in their identity.

3. Religious Belief Conflicts

It’s much easier to stay firm in your religious beliefs if nothing challenges them. If a challenge or major question arises and your beliefs hold firm, that makes your identity stronger. It doesn’t always happen that way though.

When your protagonist faces this type of internal conflict and realizes their opinions or feelings contradict their religious beliefs, it can take them onto a path that shapes a new identity. These choices are hard but real. Readers who are going through the same experience or experienced the same questions before will get absorbed by your story because it’s relatable.

Example: Your protagonist attends a religious gathering every week. The group fundamentally believes their religion exists to help those in need. Prejudices begin to invade that group, so people start choosing their own well-being instead of helping others. Your protagonist watches their religious family pick sides and has to question if they really believe in helping others or if they choose the familiarity and safety that comes with the approval of their longtime religious family.

4. Societal Role Conflicts

Societies have predetermined roles or expectations for people based on factors like their gender, sex, and economic status (just to name a few). Sometimes these roles feel natural to people and other times they don’t. We all have to decide what feels best for us on an ongoing basis. Your protagonist may need to choose their societal role, reject it, or shape a new one to portray your theme in a relatable way.

Example: Your protagonist goes to a university for the first time. They’ve been encouraged by everyone they know to start forming a large friend group. That’s what people are supposed to do in college, their loved ones said. But your protagonist is an introvert and values only a few friendships at a time. They have to choose if they’ll push themselves to become a social butterfly or if they’re happier as the person they’ve always been.

5. Political Opinion Conflicts

Political opinions can create all types of internal conflict. You may believe in a certain candidate or party during one part of your life and support something completely different in another part. Those values change as we experience new things and meet new people. Characters can face the same internal struggles as they recognize changing values or reject opportunities for change.

Example: Your protagonist may have never formed strong political opinions. They meet a new person who becomes their best friend, but their government starts passing laws that make their best friend’s life much harder because they’re part of a marginalized community your protagonist hasn’t empathized with before. Your protagonist now cares for that community, so they have to decide if they’ll make different political choices that could ostracize them from the community they’ve been part of all their life. 

6. Love Conflicts

There are numerous types of love—self-love, your love for your family, and your love of a potential romantic interest or current partner. These come into conflicts in stories all the time because people experience them every day.

The conflicts result in choices—does your protagonist choose to continue loving a specific person or do they fall out of love? Do they fight for that love or realize it never actually existed? These are just a few ways this inner conflict can play out.

Example: Your protagonist has three siblings. They’d give their life for their siblings because they’ve lived in an emotional and physical home environment that’s been unsafe all of their lives. However, your protagonist is also the oldest child who has to leave home when they’re 18. They have to decide how to best love their siblings—do they leave them at home with a parent who is a threat to their safety so your protagonist can achieve an education or job that pays enough to create a new home for them? Do they get the legal system involved? Do they get their siblings and run away together since your protagonist is now old enough to lease an apartment, pay bills, etc?

7. Personal Journey Conflict

Existential crises make characters come to life by breaking their identity apart. These moments are unfortunately a real part of life, so readers want them in their books to help them cope, understand the changes, and generally feel not alone in their hardships.

This internal conflict happens when we question why we’re in this world or what we’re supposed to do with our lives. Sometimes there’s a clear answer after we start searching for it, but other times there isn’t. How your protagonist’s internal journey to a new purpose unfolds depends on your theme and plot.

Example: Your protagonist spent their life dreaming of becoming a politician. They wanted to help people and change the world, but they lost their first three attempts at running for local office. The third loss devastated them. If voters don’t want them as a leader, what’s their purpose? Who are they if they aren’t a leader who changes the world through effective policies? The answer may come through the plot events that follow. If they don’t get an answer, sometimes it means their purpose already exists in their life and they’re overlooking it.

-----

Reading through the basic types of internal conflict will help you shape your future protagonists. If you align your desired theme with an inner conflict, the external events in your plot will be much easier to choose. Your readers will also connect with your story better because they’ll see real problems reflected in your protagonist’s character arc.

[infamous-if]

✮ FAQ ✮

hi, it's amy!! i did not expect this kind of reaction and there's a lot of questions-- so much more than i expected--which has made me very happy. i've mostly left them on a rolling queue so if your question hasn't been answered yet, it's coming i haven't ignored you :)

there's been a lot of repeat questions about some things so this is just a quick FAQ to clear things up and not clog the dash with the same answers.

CONTENT WARNINGS?

This post is spoilery, but content warnings for the game here.

Will we able to choose X, Y, and Z?

Pertaining to the band, I will make it type-in and customizable as much as possible. Right now you can:

Choose your band's name.

their genre

the name of your song and the theme (as of right now, the theme will be choice-based so i can have the variables and write accordingly)

whether your band has a unifying 'aesthetic' or you guys all wear whatever you want on stage

you'll be able to occasionally write lyrics, it'll be a combination of typing in and 'filling the blanks' and if your MC is co-songwriting, it'll also be choices

your band's approach to their image, whether they're underground or mainstream, kid-friendly or 'devil music' according to parents (lol)

and more. i really want infamous to be as customizable as possible.

Pertaining to your MC:

the usual stuff is customizable: (name/surname, appearance, height, pronouns, gender identity etc)

personality and public image is up to you. customize whether you're controversial, whether you have strong stage presence, whether you're a fame/money hungry social climber or a passionate ~artist~ etc etc.

The things that are set with your MC:

their age is set. where your MC was born and raised up until middle school will be headcannon, but they are American. The state in which you grew up after that will be headcannon. no matter what, you grew up with seven and you met your bandmates freshman year of high school.

your MC idolizes G and Misfit Alley. They will think and feel like a fan, at least in the beginning, and that can't be changed. Of course, whether you maintain a cool face or go crazy and act like a fan is up to you.

your MC cares about Seven. They were your best friend since you were 11, so it makes sense. Of course, you can choose whether your MC wants to mend the relationship or is just as angry, and even if your MC has accepted Seven is their past and they need to move on, but Seven isn't someone MC just doesn't give a fuck about. it wouldn't make sense.

Do we have to engage in an affair to romance G or Victoria?

Yes.

MC is a doormat/loser/isn't as talented as everyone else!!

You're wrong.

I will not be answering about this anymore.

Read.

What is a sub-romance?

It’s the same as a romance except your decisions do not influence how it ends and it is controlled by the narrative. I have full control on whether the romance succeeds or fails based on what the narrative requires.

Do we have to [insert anything about Seven]?

Lol, these are prob the most frequently asked questions but you do not have to hate Seven the way they hate you. there's going to be a variety of approaches toward seven.

but they will hate you no matter what! at least in the start of the route.

you can

be former friends and then reconcile as lovers

be former friends and reconcile as friends

be former lovers and reconcile as friends

be former lovers and reconcile as lovers

be former lovers/friends and not reconcile at all

Why are they like this? Why can't they be like [this]?

Yes, I have gotten this question already 😭 i really want to be clear that these characters aren't completely moral people. they will do problematic things (obviously not bigoted things, dw) they will fuck up, they will be toxic, they will probably (emotionally) lash out at MC sometimes (and MC can do so in return). i just want to make it clear now so i don't surprise anyone when the story gets more plot heavy.

they will also engage sexual acts, do drugs, drink, party, do terrible shit yk...

that's showbiz, baby !

Do we have to engage in [insert sexual or immoral behavior here]?

Nope.

Attitude wise, your MC can theoretically be a pure glittery unicorn who has never had a mean or immoral thought in their life.

Is NSFW allowed?

Yes.

Can I call August [insert gendered term here]?

Nope!

Do we have to have a crush on Orion?

No.

Do we have to romance anyone at all?

While this is a romance-centered story, I'm going to insert a non-romance platonic play-through for people who just want to play with the fame parts. Soo no.

Can we be friends with Soft Violence?

Yep, you can befriend the members of Soft Violence.

Seven and Avina.

I won't be answering questions in terms of Savina and Avina's relationship as that is spoilery. But I will say that Seven is an RO and the MC is the main character. No false advertising here :)

So we can end up with Seven?

Yes.

Do we have to?

No. You can end the story hating or ignoring Seven.

Can we romance multiple ROs?

Yes, but there will be a point where you can only romance one RO outside of the G-Vic-MC poly.

Can we romance G and V individually?

Yes.

Can we romance Rowan?

As of right now, no plans for that!

Does every route have angst?

Yes. August has the least.

Can we write songs about the ROs/will it be acknowledged?

Yes and yes.

Subromances?

Dakota, Blake (you meet in the prologue) and E (you meet in chapter 2) are sub-romances.

There’s (possibly) one more.

Be warned: sub-romances are at the mercy of my writing.

Who the f**k is Dakota?

Spoilery!

Will you be having a plan for the next update?

As of right now, it's a release-when-done deal. Maybe if my life is more organized I'll actually have plans set lol! I'll try to keep things updated as much as I can.

Can you add [customizable thing]?

You can suggest it but I can't guarantee it will be added!

Does choosing a bus lock you out of Seven's romance/stay for the whole game?

The bus you choose stays the same the entire story and no, it does not lock you out of a Seven romance. Really you'll just miss some 'bus exclusive' scenes.

Can we draw the characters or imagine them differently?

Do as you wish and imagine them as you wish! So as long as you do not whitewash them.

Can we write fanfiction?

Sure! I just won’t reblog or interact in order to protect myself!

Twine?

In the future and if I ever learn to code twine.

You don't answer my questions.

Sorry. I don't mean to ignore your ask. Or it's spoilery and I can't! Sometimes I also miss mentions. I try my best to see them all!

This is problematic for me.

That is the point. I will not be sanitizing Infamous. Apologies in advance!!! 🙏

I don't like [this].

Don't read it :)

[Suggestion]

I listen to them all! Doesn’t mean I’ll add them though :)

[Music Rec]

Even if I don’t reply, I do see it and add it into a queue to add it to the Infamous master playlist! I love song recs!

[Any praise or kind words or jokes]

i am so grateful and even if i do not reply (to avoid spamming), i read it all ! (and giggle to myself)

Do not:

request things rudely please. I take into consideration all requests if they are said politely. It doesn’t hurt to be kind :)

whitewash my characters of color

follow or engage in infamous if you are under 18 ! <3

✮✮

thats all i can think of now, but i know there's more i just haven't noted them. if there's any more i'll make sure to add it here, if you guys have any questions that weren't answered pls send them my way and thanks again for your interest!

[gatoraid]

Anime recs for The Radiant Emperor enjoyers

I was watching the new Ooku anime on Netflix some weeks ago and I thought it hit that ”court drama dealing with gender roles and making me cry” spot that He Who Drowned the World has been occupying in my heart lately (even if it engages with some of these themes very differently).

Somehow that got me thinking about other anime that might align with the vibes and themes in The Radiant Emperor book series and eventually came up with this list.

Some of those themes include gender roles, queerness, disability, politics, oppression, rebellion, revenge, impossible and messy relationships and tragedy. Darker themes like war, violence, sexual assault etc are also often present. Please lmk if you agree or disagree with these choices and feel free to add more!

Dororo (2019)

Historical fantasy based on Osamu Tezuka’s manga classic from the 1960s.

An orphan who hides her gender in order to survive meets a young man who fights demons to claim back his body parts that his father traded away in a demonic pact. There’s tons of pain and tough moral questions and complicated family relationships, and the way Hyakkimaru deals with having lost and then slowly regaining parts of himself is super interesting.

24 episodes. Stream on Prime Video, Hidive

The Heike Story (2022)

Retelling of the historical epic Heike monogatari through the eyes of an orphan girl who gains the ability to see supernatural things after her father’s passing. Inevitability of fate, the impermanence of all existence, praying for your loved ones’ happiness in the next life, all of these things are beautifully woven in this visually stunning story. The story also hits different when you know that Heike monogatari was traditionally performed by blind musicians and singers.

11 episodes. Stream on Cruncyroll, Apple TV

Inu-oh (2022)

Historical fantasy. Two outcasts find each other and change the history with their music in this story that also pays respect to the Heike monogatari’s origin as a singing tradition. Focus on things like identity, disability, nonconformity, ghosts. Yes, the ghosts part is important. Also, the gender expressions and the bond between the two main characters is something I’ve seen a lot of queer/trans ppl relate to and Inu-oh is voiced by none other than the trans icon Avu-chan.

Movie. Stream on Hulu

Ōoku: The Inner Chambers (2023)

Alternate history where most men in Japan have been wiped out by a mysterious disease. Very much a court drama centered in the Tokugawa shogun’s residence where men serve the woman shogun as concubines (and sometimes have relationships with each other). Also, one of the main characters is a monk who ends up giving up his vows! Based on Fumi Yoshinaga’s acclaimed manga that has also been adapted to various live action movies and drama series.

10 episodes. Stream on Netflix

Toward the Terra (2007)

Scifi classic with two main characters who are at the opposing sides but feel inexplicably connected. There’s just so many insane relationships and emotions here, I still have not recovered from the ”I want to kill you but I will also protect you with my own life” thing…… Based on the 1970s manga by Keiko Takemiya. Not to be confused with the movie from 1980.

24 episodes. Available on DVD

Devilman Crybaby (2018)

Apocalyptic fantasy with demons and stuff. Based on the classic 1970s manga by Go Nagai.

I don’t even know how to describe the story, it’s just the tragedy, the queer yearning, the ”I killed the one I loved and then it was too late”, the ”things will get bad and then they will get worse” vibe that I think is very fitting. This one has the most extreme violent and sexual content out of the series on this list.

10 episodes. Stream on Netflix

Banana Fish (2018)

Gang wars, mystery drugs and complicated emotions set in New York. Based on the iconic 1980s manga by Akemi Yoshida. Deals heavily with trauma and CSA.

You guessed right, this one is also a tragedy. If you love Ouyang and/or Baoxiang, you’re probably going to love Lee Yut-Lung. That’s all I’m going to say.

24 episodes. Stream on Amazon Prime

[epictacobird]

Dorms React to Demon Slayer! Mc

Hooray! Pomefiore! Sorry for taking so long (I was sad) but thank you so much for 200+ followers. I love you all <3

No gendered pronouns for mc/Yuu, only “you” is used, can be platonic or romantic

Heartslabyul - Savanaclaw- Octavinelle - Scarabia - Pomefiore (here) - Ignihyde - Diasomnia

Warnings: angsty, spoilers for chapter 5, ptsd mentioned, dark themes, mc basically has a panic attack in Vil’s part, also its really fucking long my bad, Google translate French

Context:

You're a demon slayer, an extremely experienced one at that. You have been fighting demons ever since you were young, and preparing to do so even younger. When you were unexpectedly thrown into Twisted Wonderland and admitted to NRC, you hid your sword in your uniform, and stashed away your clothes once you could. You figured the best way to survive here was to hide your cards. After all, being surrounded by morally questionable strangers with magic was not ideal. In case you really needed it, you figured it was best to pretend to be weak so your strength could cover you when you needed it most.

Now that a few months have passed and you've gained reliable friends, you didn't see a point anymore. You felt safer than you ever have in your entire life. You were no longer on a battlefield, no longer surrounded by the pained cries of the people you failed to save. But the battle was catching up to you. Now that you were no longer fighting constantly, you had more time to think. You're nightmares of battle have been getting worse and you can't escape it. The guilt of hiding such an integral part of yourself from your friends wasn't helping either. Eventually though, you let the dam break. You tell them about your life, the reason behind your scars and show them your sword. There's tears in your eyes and you're shaking like the child you once were long ago.

Vil

He was intrigued by your choice of clothes, and at the same time a little horrified by your clearly unkempt skin.

As tempted as he was to help you out, he had a job to do. He never thought about you much until SDC came around. But the first thing he noticed was your terrible sleeping schedule.

He noticed that when he got up for his morning workout/skincare routine, you were already finishing a workout. And yet he’d catch you the night before sneaking out. When the hell did you sleep?

He did not appreciate it at all. Your complete lack of self care was not appropriate for the manager if his dance group >:( Especially since you held so much potential! You clearly cared about your strength, so why not the rest of you!?!

Vil decided to keep a closer eye on you to try to fish out a reason why. That’a when he noticed particular things about you.

It was a simple moment, something that really shouldn’t have stuck out to him. You had only handed him his water bottle during a quick break. But for a split second your hand brushed his, and he noticed how rough they were. When he looked down he was almost taken aback by the callouses and scars that littered your hand.

He decided not to let his surprise show, and only said a small “thank you”.

You only confused him more when he noticed even more scars that would pop out from the collar and cuffs of your shirt.

He asked Rook about it once, but only received another one of his vague tangents about your beauty.

Of course, he wouldn’t be Vil if he just stopped there. So he decided to make the difficult decision to switch up his sleeping schedule to catch you in the act.

He succeeded in his little stakeout and managed to catch you. And imagine his surprise in seeing you decked out in a uniform with your sword fastened to your body.

Both of you were stuck in silence, with Vil being the first to break it.

“Potato, what are you doing…?” There was a small frown placed on his pristine face, his brows lowered in almost a disappointed way.

“Uhm, it’s a bit hard to explain.”

“I have the time.”

Silence fell over the two of you again. You began to wonder if you should make a break for it, but Vil spoke up first.

“Sword aside, you should not be sacrificing your sleep like this.” He sighed deeply, “Just because you are not performing does not mean this is fine. On the other hand I will not punish you for it because you are not performing. Go to bed.”

You sighed in defeat, you couldn’t even remember the last time someone even made that request of you. Reluctantly, you decided to abide to his wishes (you actually just jumped out your window)

The next day, Vil still wasn’t satisfied. You still acted the same, sure, but you were clearly exhausted! No wonder your skin was in such poor condition, the dark circles under your eyes were a telltale sign. So he planned a more direct way to wrench out answers.

He managed to catch you alone in a room of Ramshackle. You were just cleaning another one of the countless filthy rooms humming to yourself peacefully. You really do nothing but work yourself ragged, he would’ve been impressed if not by the clear toll it was taking on you.

“You know, I really should report that sword to the Headmaster.”

“He already knows.” You looked back at him with a cheeky smile, “He let me keep it since it’s one of the few things that came with me other than the clothes on my back.”

“I see.” Vil hummed, closing the door behind him. Part of him wanted to ask why you had it in the first place, but something told him the answer wasn’t something he’d want to know. Then again…

“To train with that sword is the reason you go out late, isn’t it?”

You nodded hesitantly, “That’s right, I didn’t want to get rusty just because I’m not home. So I figured I should keep training.”

Vil watched as you kept cleaning the window, for a moment he could see your eye’s reflection flicker to him as the silence continued. If you were hiding something it was difficult to tell, nevertheless he continued on.

“I put a curse on your sword. If you try to train with it you’ll be locked in place, and I’ll know when you try.”

You whipped around with wide, almost terrified, eyes, “Vil! Why would you-“

The absolutely exasperated expression you held only reassured Vil’s conviction. If he was going to get you to sleep, this was how.

“It’ll only be for one night, that’s all I’m asking. 7 hours of sleep and the curse will be lifted.”

You frowned, still salty by the whole situation. For the limited amount of time you knew him, one thing you understood was that there was no way you would get out of this. You turned away from him with a hardened expression before letting it fall away. Your shoulders dropped as you nodded slowly, “Alright, deal. Just one night, right?”

“I would prefer it to be every night.” Vil sighed, “I told you all at least 7 hours each night at the beginning of this camp. Although I figured I would need to compromise for now.”

You bit your lip and tried to not let your worry show. Just one night.

It turns out one night meant one night of uninterrupted sleep. Safe to say you weren’t able to touch your sword for weeks.

After SDC and Vil’s overblot, you knew a few nights peace. Although you never managed to get a full nights rest, which meant your sword stayed cursed. It was just another night, and you had gone to sleep in hope you’d stay asleep until morning again.

Unsurprisingly to you, you had woken up nearly screaming. You had another nightmare, and with each one being more vivid than the last you didn’t see yourself falling asleep anytime soon. Shakily getting out of bed you reached for your sword to train and hopefully get it off your mind.

Unfortunately you remembered the curse. So before you could touch it you retracted your hand and decided to leave for the roof instead.

You took a few deep breaths, deciding to cry once you were sure you were safe from any prying eyes that laid in you dorm. Shakily, you took to the hallway and climbed the ladder to the roof of Ramshackle. Your little safe haven away from the stress residing under you.

You felt the cool air hit your face, only getting colder as the tears you held back began to fall. The dream was just so… real this time. It wasn’t even just other demon slayers and civilians getting killed, it was your friends here. They were supposed to be safe, especially with you around. But you just let them die in your arms, you were helpless again.

You curled yourself up into a ball, shaking violently as you sobbed. Terrible images still flashed through your mind, old scars felt as if they were burning in your skin as your mind took over your reality.

You tugged at your hair, your clothes, and even clawed at your skin in an attempt to ground yourself. Nothing worked, you were still trapped in your nightmare. So you continued to choke on your sobs as you fought through your memories.

Because of that, you didn’t notice Vil come up to the roof. Vil had known you still weren’t sleeping, so he had planned to catch you in the middle of the night. If it weren’t sword training, why were you waking up?

He wasn’t sure what to do when he saw you. You looked so small as you sat curled into yourself. You we’re nothing like the resilient, strong Prefect he knew you as. Rather, you resembled something more of a tragic hero.

Maybe it was because he felt partially responsible for this, or the fact he still wished for you to relax, but either way he approached you and put a gentle hand on your shoulder.

That was a bit of a mistake. Once you felt the foreign hand on you, you gasped and leapt back as if you were preparing to fight. Your eyes held nothing but utter horror as you stared at him, all red and puffy from your crying.

Vil frowned, his brows creasing his normally perfect face. He spoke slowly and softly, “I’m sorry, I did not mean to scare you.”

The tension never released from your shoulders. You stayed taut, as if you prepared to fight. Your eyes seemed almost glazed over, as if they didn’t even comprehend the space around you.

“Potato, are you alright?”

Somehow, upon hearing the nickname there was a flash of recognition. You relaxed a little, allowing your arms to fall to your sides. “Vil I…” You gulped, unable to find the words for a moment, “Why are you here..?”

Vil’s frown only deepened. He shook his head with a sigh, “I wanted to know why even after all this time my curse hasn’t lifted.” He crossed his arms, “Prefect, you may not be acting manager anymore but I still want you to at least get one full nights rest. You have so much potential, I just want you to realize that.”

Your expression changed to something unreadable. You seemed to be studying him, as if he was a puzzle you couldn’t figure out. For a moment you smiled before throwing your head in your hands, “You know, you really are kind, Vil.”

Your shoulders began to shake, “I’m so sorry, I guess I’m just not used to this. Normally I’m the one worrying about other people.” You laughed to yourself, as if you were trying to convince yourself of something. Vil stood by quietly, taking a few steps forward as you spoke again, “Vil, please, go back to your dorm. It’s cold out you know?”

“You’re right, let’s go inside.”

Too tired to argue, you allowed him to lead you inside the rickety dorm. You refused to look at him, a little ashamed by the way you allowed him to catch you at such a vulnerable moment. But you knew he had no ill intent, you just hoped he was prepared for the answers to the questions he no doubt had.

Vil sat on the couch and motioned for you to do the same. As you did he looked at you almost with pity. You were exhausted, shaking, and resembled more of a kicked puppy than anything. He sighed again and placed a bottle of swirling blue colors on the table, “It’s a sleeping potion.” He explained, “Normally I would not suggest you take it now, since you wouldn’t wake up until the afternoon by now, but…”

He looked at you again, you’re eyes were fixated on the bottle, and they were haunted. Void of life or hope, or even sadness or anger, just blank, barely even comprehending the world around them. He was sure that this was the right decision this time. You spoke softly, “Thank you, I appreciate it really, but I’d rather not.”

Vil’s eyes shot open, with you being on the verge of passing out, you’re really going to skip this opportunity of genuine sleep? Before he could retaliate you continued, “I have nightmares, as stupid as it sounds they’re the reason I can’t sleep. I don’t want to be stuck in one all night.” You finally looked at him, this time apologetically, “Thank you, truly. I’m honored you’re so invested in helping me. I…”

Your face fell into despair again as tears threatened to fall. You took in a shaky breath, “Vil, you don’t know what I’ve seen back home, what’s happened because of me and my weaknesses. If anything this is what I deserve.”

Vil stood up suddenly, his face switching between anger and exasperation, “I don’t know your life, yes, but I know you don’t deserve this!” He spoke firmly, never raising his voice, “You haven’t once slept properly since coming here have you? Or even before that? Prefect I-“ He took in a breath to calm himself, “Prefect, I just want you to realize the potential you hold. I won’t make you take the potion, but I will make you go back to sleep. So please, what can I do to help?”

Vil took your hand softly as more tears began to leave your eyes. Between shaky breaths you explained your nightmares and your life before Twisted Wonderland. Vil was actually a bit more shocked than he would’ve liked, but allowed you to continue. Rooks vague little sayings connected to your stories as he began to understand.

In the end he took you to your room, cleaning you up and going through a small skincare routine to relax. He brushed through your hair, anything to get the tension out of your shoulders.

You fell asleep almost immediately once you went to bed. You slept the best you had in years, and while yes you didn’t wake up until the afternoon even without the potion, the curse lifted from your sword. Safe to say, you and Vil were a lot closer than before.

“Prefect, don’t hesitate to ask for help alright? Proper sleep is just one more step for you to realize your full potential. You can be strong in more ways than one, and I want to lead you the best I can.”

Rook

As some of you may have guessed, he already knew.

This stalker could tell easily you were a warrior of some sort, it was only a matter of why.

He started trailing you from the start. Granted, he rarely did it until you truly piqued his interest.

You had caught him trailing at you. And while he was sure you couldn’t see him, you stared directly into his eyes, as if you were reaching for his very soul. It shook him to his core in more ways than one. It was at that moment he decided to take you more seriously.

He knew about your sword, your secret trainings, your uniform, your breathing technique, he just couldn’t quite figure what it was all for. He assumed you were a soldier of some kind, although why they would have someone so young so highly trained was another question.

He enjoyed watching you train, it brought a new and fresh perspective on beauty. The magicless prefect who still has a way to fight! And such a magnificent way too! The mysterious fog of it all excited him, he just needed to learn more.

Truth be told, you could tell someone was following and watching you. And you hated it, because why the hell was someone stalking you?? Demons didn’t exist here so there’s be no reason why someone would be out to kill you… right?

Because it truly didn’t feel that way. While you didn’t know it was Rook, it felt like you were prey being hunted. Which was a feeling you were all too familiar with.

At first you thought it was just nerves. Being in danger constantly then suddenly being thrown somewhere safe surely wouldn’t translate smoothly, but after feeling that way for months without any change you got sick of it.

You started to actively seek out your little stalker, and your first tip was actually the arrow Rook shot at you and your friends to announce their participation in SDC.

You felt the same presence, just like the months prior. Whoever it was was staring at you again, readying an attack. Eyeing for the perfect moment.

You turned your head at the perfect time, seeing the glint of an arrowhead whiz toward you. You caught it with utmost precision, but before you could track where it came from the attacker was gone.

It was easy to deduce that the arrow came from Rook (Ace and Deuce were very quick to point out how you actually caught an arrow from that freaky upperclassman after all) But her couldn’t be your stalker. You barely even met a few weeks ago!

But his presence never failed to grace you at least once every day. You could feel his chilling green eyes set on you, and you were determined to confront him.

So when SDC’s training camp rolled around, you figured that would be the easiest time to catch him. No way someone like him would pass up on the opportunity to look into your life so closely right?

You were right, actually. One night you could feel his eyes on you once again as you snuck out to train. You knew he’s watched you train before, so your element of surprise would be gone. But mage or not, there’s only so fast he could run compared to you.

So you left Ramshackle same as always, donned in your uniform with your sword by your side. You could already feel his eyes on you as you ran toward the forest. His presence would shift from time to time as he trailed you, but like a masterful hunter he kept out of sight.

After some time of running like normal, you decided to drop yourself out of his sight. You jumped into the low hanging trees and quickly hid.

From this angle you could see Rook in the branches, through the moonlight you could make out the smile he wore. His satisfaction and intrigue was obvious, even as he looked around confusedly for you. You quickly maneuvered yourself through the branches and crouched behind him.

Before you could do anything though, Rook twisted around with quite possibly the most ecstatic smile ever.

“To not only lose sight of you, but to have you sneak up on me must be my greatest embarrassment as a hunter!” He laughed joyously as he jumped away. “You truly are befitting of a trickster!”

As you chased him down it quickly became a game between you two. Once you caught up to Rook he would twist and maneuver out of your grasp and hide away, only for you to find him again. You let him win a little, seeing some fun in the chase. Eventually though, you figured it was time to actually catch him.

You made a dive toward him, one that he was unable to escape. As you pinned him to the ground you stared hard into his striking green eyes, “Why have you been following me, Rook?”

He laughed, “You must forgive me Trickster, your beauté mystérieuse was simply too alluring. I could not resist watching your beauty grow, guerrier.”

“Hmph.” You rolled off of him, sitting up on the grass as you watched Rook fix himself. You sighed deeply, “How much do you know? Or I guess, who else knows?”

“Roí de Poison is still unaware, I assure you.” He attempted to give a reassuring smile, “It’s come to my understanding that your power originates through breathing and not magic, yes? And that sword is not made of steel, nor any other metal here. You must also belong to some sort of organization with that uniform, are you a soldier perhaps?”

You tried to hide your surprise, (what could you expect really), as you confirmed his findings. You exchanged information for a while, eventually getting around to explaining demons and being a demon slayer.

Rook gave you undivided attention as he soaked all the information in. What a beautiful and radiant person you are! You were like a bright flame of hope that blazed your enemies and served your people. He wish you would let him sing your praises to others.

Rook continued to follow you around, now with your permission. Occasionally at night, you would play your game of chase again. Although Rook is yet to win, he enjoys the challenge and feeling of being the one hunted for once.

Both of you would show off your scars to each other. Retelling battles, or hunts, and the adventures. Rook would often go off on a tangent about the beauty of his particular prey, or the scenery around it. He loved the attention you gave him, and you appreciated the attention it took off of your less sugar coated tales.

Rook never looked at you in pity, nor in doubt. He believed you completely, and would often find himself ensnared in your tales. Rook found he loved hearing your retellings of anything from battles to lunches shared while traveling.

Although one night he noticed you weren’t up to your normal levels of energy. In fact, you looked a little heartbroken. While it has its own beauty, he absolutely couldn’t stand seeing you so distraught.

“Trickster, what causes you to frown so?”

You wordlessly leaned up against a tree, breathing deeply. You soaked in the earth around you as you tried to ground yourself. You were close to Rook now, despite the sketchy start. You couldn’t bring yourself to tell him anything but the truth (you wondered if you even could before he figured you out).

“Rook, my job back home was to save people. But I couldn’t save everyone.” You closed your eyes, biting your cheek as you fought down the memories, “Some days are worse than others, but I never forget them. That last part isn’t always a good thing.”

“I still see them sometimes, their screams, their bodies.” You bit back a sob, “Part of me doesn’t want to go back home. I don’t think I could stand telling another parent their child is dead.”

“But I need to go home, I know that more than anyone. I have a job, a duty to protect those people. Even at the cost of my life, I swore it, I I still intend to do that. So why do I feel this way?”

You laughed dryly, slowly sinking to the ground as you lifted your head to the stars. “You know, when humans grieve, they tend to look up at the sky. Do you think it’s just to avoid tears falling or something else?”

Rook stared at you silently before taking a seat next to you on the ground. “I believe we search for freedom when we look to the sky. Since dawn of time humans had wished to fly free with birds, so perhaps when we look to the sky that’s what we wish for. We wish for freedom from our sorrows and hardships; To fly away and embrace the sun.”

You smiled a little, “That’s what I like to believe too.”

Rook smiled pleasantly as comfortable silence fell over the two of you. You both looked to the stars as they shimmered and twinkled in all their glory. You have seen the night sky countless times, but somehow, being here in Twisted Wonderland, it all seemed new and bright. It wasn’t tainted by tragedies or bloodshed, it was beautiful.

Epel

He didn’t think about you too much initially. Mostly he was just amused over the whole event at orientation.

You seemed interesting enough with your choice of clothing. Maybe you were from a small town like him?

You became closer friends over the course of SDC. Both of you shared a sort of kinship over feeling so out of place in such a prestigious and modern environment.

You always appreciated the snacks he gave you. Many of the foods he provided were different from back home, sure, but the handmade feel reminded you so much of home.

Like Ace and Deuce, Epel found out by accident when he walked in on you working out.

You thought you’d be safe, after all you were in a tiny little room in the depths of Ramshackle. You just needed some time away from everyone in the dorm, but without the safety of the night you couldn’t leave to the forest for training.

Luckily with the help of the Ghosts you found a small room hidden away and some old gym equipment. Unfortunately it was hot af in there and if you covered up as much as you usually did you’d probably pass out. There were no windows to open, or any real ventilation for that matter.

So you wore normal workout clothes showing off your arms and legs, and to extension your scars. You thought nothing of it, completely unaware of the shitshow that was about to occur.

Epel was just exploring Ramshackle with Ace and Deuce. They started out looking for you but got distracted by the archaic building. They wanted to look around ok! Not like Ace was looking out for something interesting in the storage closet he could steal.

Eventually they came across a door a little off to the side and hidden in the halls. They just thought it was a storage closet and got interested, so they opened the door.

“Prefect! There you are. Jeez, we were looking for you everywhere.” “Wait, no! Epel don’t look!”

“Wha’ ihn da corn fiel’ hell ‘append to yur arms??!!”

“Ace! Deuce! All of you out!” You practically barked out as they scurried away. You sighed, you really couldn’t catch a break huh?

You put down your weights and attempted to refrain from kicking the door open. Has the idea of knocking seriously left their heads? You did not appreciate this trend at all.

“Sorry Prefect…” Deuce spoke meekly. Epel was off to the side, a little shaken. Like Ace and Deuce, initially he thought you were in something crazy. And here he thought you were just a magicless human! Maybe the two of you were alike somehow, for being misjudged because of ability.

“What did you three even need me for? Rehearsal isn’t going to start for another few hours.” You deadpanned, “Don’t tell me Grim got stuck in a tree again.”

“It don’ matta! Er ya evn’ gon menshun wha ‘appened?!” Epel motioned wildly to your exposed arms and legs. “I sen sum nasty scars befor’ bu wha coulda’ caused tha’?!”

“Rude.” You sighed again, waving them inside the little room, “I’m not going to let you interrupt my workout too. Come on, I’ll explain.”

Epel is initially a little horrified, after the initial shock though he’d think your so cool. Man or not, you exhibited the toughness and strength he always wanted.

Expect him to join you and Jack for workouts. He’s so excited to learn from the both of you, though he tries to be cool about it.

He loves hearing your tales about demons and the different types of slayers. A hashira that couldn’t match in strength found a way to use poisons instead? Amazing. The absolute tanks of men who are able to match the speed of demons? Please tell him more.

One day he did take you to his hometown. He was so excited to show off his pride to someone he respected so much. You were touched by the lack of modernity the city and NRC showed off. It felt closer to home, and you began to feel a bit homesick. Despite everything you still loved your home huh?

When was the last time you saw a forest this untouched by people? When was the last time you ate fruit straight from the source? Not to mention the stars, they were so much brighter here.

You tried hard not to let anyone see as the tears left your eyes gently. As you gazed up at the night sky, you wondered if you’d ever get back home, or if this was the closest you’d ever be.

“Prefect?”

You shout up from the grass you had been laying on, “Epel! Sorry I didn’t see you.” You quickly wiped your eyes, hoping the darkness would hide the puffiness of your eyes.

“What are you doin out here?“

You shrugged, “I wanted to look at the stars.”

Epel huffed, “It’s late, Vil would have a fit if he was here.”

“He’s not here though.”

Silence fell between the two of you for a moment. Eventually Epel joined you on the grass. The sounds of the night comforted the both of you as the silence continued.

“What we’re you thinking about out here?”

“What do you mean?”

Epel huffed, “No one comes out to lay on scratchy grass and look at the stars just for fun. Was something bothering you?”

You sighed a little, crossing your arms as you spoke quietly, “This town reminds me of my home. It’s small, nothing like the Night Raven College or any of the other cities I’ve seen here.” You smiled a little, “I missed it, the feeling of peacefulness. And for the record, some people do like stargazing.”

Epel rolled his eyes, but after a pause he asked again, “What was your hometown like then?”

You smiled, “Well, actually…”

As you recounted the stories of your childhood, you gradually forgot about your previous woes. Time flew by, eventually the both of you agreed to go to sleep.

The next day, all of you explored the town. You seemed happy enough, though Epel couldn’t shake the feeling that you weren’t completely telling the truth last night. So he decided to confront you again.

He found you again on the grass looking up at the stars. You were humming something to yourself, a lullaby?

Suddenly you came to a stop and sat up, “Hey Epel!”

“What was that? That melody?”

“It was a lullaby from back home.” You smiled, a little forlorn, “Sorry, I wasn’t bothering you right?”

Epel shook his head, “No, No, I was just curious. I came out here to…” His words trailed off, his confidence quickly dwindling. He readjusted himself, “You miss your home don’t you?”

You were a bit taken aback by the sudden forwardness, but ultimately nodded. “Yeah, it’s all I’ve really been able to think about lately. I mean…” You rested your head on your knees, “I’ve been here for so long. I need to know what’s happened since I’ve been gone. You know how it is, I don’t know who’s alive, or if I’d ever be able to find out.”

Epel frowned and took a seat next to you, “Come on, if they’re half as strong as you’ve told me they’ll be fine! And I’m sure Crowley will find a way home for you eventually.”

You laughed a little, “Thanks Epel.”

Silence fell over the two of you as you looked up at the stars. Comforting noises of insects and the rustle of leaves filled the air. Although the peacefulness didn’t last long, as the two of you heard a loud crash followed quickly by angry arguing between Ace, Deuce and Grim.

You sighed, at least no matter what you’d have these idiots to rely on.

~~~~~

[ilynpilled]

Hey! So I'm from the Jaime/Lannister side of the fandom but wanted to ask your opinion on where you think GRRM is going with Dany. I don't mean spell out her endgame or anything, but what messages do you think he is trying to impart through her character? I see so much Dark!Dany! theory shaped by the show that has just never really resonated with how I read her in the books. I see her more as a figure who will try to be Queen of Westeros, but will ultimately end up abdicating or even sacrificing herself during the LN because finding "home" is more important to her than ruling... but that is not based on much other than gut feeling. What do you think?

yeah idrgaf about the show tbh. i think it fundamentally misunderstood key themes that the books were exploring. corrupted/mad dany feels so deeply cynical to me. people have been reiterating this: she is a subversive messiah figure & she is given a narrative that is so often reserved for the “male hero”. the gender commentary in that would fall flat on its face to me if she becomes mad fascist female ruler like bffr. yeah, she will get darker come winds, like everyone else she will have to make choices and will face moral dilemmas because she is resolved to continue combatting the institution of slavery. she knows she will not be able to do it without dirtying her hands in some way. i think grrm is gonna explore the concept of necessary force and the question of when it is more moral to take a stand and draw blood: is it justified to cut off and burn something at the root, especially if the alternative is allowing the cancer to exist and continue to spread? the institution of slavery is a wound that cannot just be covered up with a bandaid. like this is a very important aspect of abolition. the only way i can see the idea of “madness” be relevant is in a more subversive john brown paralleling way with how people thought that man was insane bc he wanted to end slavery lmfao. if terrible people think you are mad for attempting to make radical changes that harm them that is a good sign. also would hate her becoming an aerys parallel like in the show like that is cringe bio essentialism territory, again, antithetical to the themes prevalent in these books. d&d’s #subversive #dark #unexpected ending was unironically the equivalent of:

do not want her ‘idealism’ to be completely robbed from her at any point either really. im not opposed to tragedy but i dont think id vibe with it being too cynical in this instance. this series is about earned romanticism. its heroes are the dreamers yada yada. it is about a dream of spring. i always thought she represented hope in some way. she is gonna be the flame during TLN, literally and metaphorically imo. i do think there are thematic and more abstract aspects to lightbringer, like yeah humanity uniting over an ideal for a better future & it can be about hope or whatever, which is why multiple characters have some kind of flaming sword foreshadowing, but a main one is gonna be dany and her dragons. like on top of all the pretty overt foreshadowing, like let us think about the logistics here, what is gonna do more damage to the others?? three magic nukes or some convenient dues ex machina magical flaming toothpick we forge out of murdering a woman? i also do not want to instantly write her off as a doomed martyr either though. i see the appeal in the tragedy of the kind girl who wanted a home dying without ever getting to live in the one she created but still leaving it for millions upon millions of people present and future… but also idk i am just not crazy about martyrdom as a trope unless it is executed very well. i like when characters survive for a cause rather than die for it. dany always kept persevering, not just for herself, but others: her children and her people, so i like when altruism is framed in that way. also i might be a little bitter if she is the only one to die from the new generation or whatever like in the show

[eternal-echoes]

Hey!! I’m a catholic too, I never skip a sunday mass and I pray daily. I had a question about your views on abortion, gender and sexuality.

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged:

and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

Matthew 7:2

I do view abortion as homicide and I personally would never do it but I do not feel in any way in the position to judge a woman for wanting to do an abortion just like I wouldn’t judge somebody killing in case of self defense. I am not God and the most valuable thing He gave us was choice and free will and as a catholic I feel obliged to respect that in my neighbor. Same goes for LGBTQ+ people. Jesus never even mentioned the theme of sexuality or gender identity and always put love in front of the abrahamic law during the entirety of the gospel. What right do I have to judge others? What right do I have to think I’m right and they are wrong? I am cis and heterosexual, I would never abort in any scenario but in no way I can afford to be judged with the same measure I would judge others by telling them I was right and they were wrong for coming out as transgender or gay. I am sinful and ignorant, I’m not God, thus I have no right to judge.

In this very same way I’m not judging you, God has laid a path for us all and I’m sure you are doing a great job walking on yours, carrying your own cross. I’m sure you had a kind of upbringing that brought you here and made you who you are but you remind me a lot of who I used to be and I just felt the need to tell you I changed on the very moment I realized being religious wasn’t enough to be saved.

May God bless you! I will pray for you and I’m sorry if I crossed some boundaries writing this to you (also because as I said I’m ignorant and I might totally be wrong… if you think I am please pray for me so that God might lead me closer and closer to the Truth).

I wish you’ll spend a Merry Christmas!

Hello, Anon, thank you for your polite question. I will answer as best as I can.

As Jesus said,

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." - John 14: 15.

We can't just say we love God but break His laws He has explicitly stated in the Bible. Loving God is in His terms, not ours.

The thing about morality is that objective. It's not just an opinion, what will be wrong for me will also be wrong for another. It's not a matter of preferring vanilla ice cream over chocolate, if me and another person do it with full knowledge that it's wrong, then we've both committed a mortal sin.

Since you already believe that abortion is homicide, then you must believe it's also homicide when other people do it. Yes, we're called to love and respect our neighbor, but that does not mean we're called to approve of their sinful actions. All of us are still children of God when we commit sin, our actions doesn't negate our dignity. But being children of God doesn't negate the intrinsic evil of the sinful actions that people may decide to take. While there are different circumstances that may have driven a woman to abortion (i.e. poverty or desire to indulge in promiscuous lifestyle without consequences), and we as Christians can never assume that she's beyond forgiveness, we can never just declare that abortion isn't morally wrong or intrinsically sinful. It would not be loving to support someone commit something that would lead them to Hell. For a Christian to truly love someone is to will the other person's good. And that means saying no to what will lead them to Hell and guiding them to what will lead them to Heaven. In other words, we Christians have a duty to forbid promiscuity and promote chastity.

As for homosexuality and transgenderism,

it's important to remember what constitutes as sinful acts and what does not. Neither homosexuality or transgenderism are considered sins because those are not actions, especially since those do not fall under one's agency. What the Catholic Church teaches about people with same-sex attractions is written in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The Bible has been clear is condemning homosexual acts.

“‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable." - Leviticus 18: 22

"Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." - 1 Corinthians 9-10

"for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine." - 1 Timothy 1: 10

As a Catholic, we use the Bible as our guide along with the traditions of the Church in leading holy lives.

If you know any one who has same-sex attractions, I encourage you to share with them couragerc.net. It's a Catholic ministry that helps Christians with same-sex attractions lead chaste and holy lives.

In the case of transgenderism, the Catholic Church does not consider it sinful. The Catholic Church simply affirm the truth,

"God created man in his own image . . . male and female he created them" - Genesis 1: 27

No one is born in the wrong body because God doesn't make mistakes. People are fine just the way they are even though they do not adhere to the world's standards of beauty or socially constructed gender stereotypes. The body and soul are not separates; together they make up one substance.

We humans are integrated beings. That means our souls don’t reside in a round glowing ball in the middle of our chest. Our bodies aren’t something to detest, something that holds our soul for now but isn’t important. We are one being. So just as much as your soul is you, so is your body you. What we do with our bodies matters. You don’t just hurt my nose if you punch my face, you hurt me. If someone uses my body sexually for their own gratification, it’s not just my body that is affected, I am affected – my whole personhood has been hurt by being objectified.

Emphasis are mine. Read the full article here.

Transgenderism, or gender dysmorphia, is a mental health issue. It's in DSM-5. The correct treatment for mental health issues is therapy. We don't give liposuctions to anorexic girls who think they're fat because they're not in fact fat, so we shouldn't cut off perfectly healthy breasts on girls who think they're boys trapped in the wrong body, because they're not in fact boys. Being a girl means having XX chromosomes and being a boy means having XY-chromosomes.

It's true that Jesus has never specifically mentioned homosexuality and transgenderism but Jesus has never explicitly said not beating your spouse either but that doesn't mean He approves of it. When Jesus said, "But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5: 28), He was already speaking out against all sins against marriage here.

All of us fall short in following God's standard of morality, but that doesn't negate our intrinsic worth of being made in the image of likeness of God. We're judged by the same measure but we're also loved by the same God who wants us to keep striving to live a holy life even if the road is lonely and full of hardships. We can never judge someone as being unworthy of repentance and Heaven because only God knows that. But God did give us a moral code found in the Bible and expounded by the Catholic Church to tell us how to live a holy life according to His plan.

Anon, if you have anymore questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

[nzhdehb]

Discovering the Power of the Bronte Sisters in Literature

The Bronte sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—were some of the most influential novelists in the history of literature. With their classic works, such as Charlotte's 'Jane Eyre' and Emily's 'Wuthering Heights', they explored complex themes such as gender roles and social conventions with a unique blend of realism and elements of the supernatural. The Bronte sisters not only captured the inner thoughts and emotions of their characters in extraordinary detail, but also employed symbolism to explore deeper topics such as morality and self-acceptance. Their works remain a powerful source of inspiration even today, and continue to influence generations of readers around the world.

Exploring the Novels of the Bronte Sisters

The Bronte sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—were some of the most influential novelists in the history of literature. Their work has inspired readers and writers for generations, and their stories still hold power today. While each sister wrote novels that explored different themes, all three shared a common interest in exploring the power of human emotion. From Charlotte's classic 'Jane Eyre' to Emily's timeless 'Wuthering Heights', the Bronte sisters crafted stories of passion and complexity. In their works, characters are put through emotional turmoil, testing their strength and resilience. At times these characters suffer greatly yet ultimately find redemption through self-discovery. This theme is especially evident in Anne's 'Agnes Grey', which follows a young governess struggling to find her place in society while dealing with heartache and disappointment. In all of their novels, the Bronte sisters used symbolism to explore gender roles and social conventions. Throughout their works, they consistently challenge traditional gender norms by presenting strong female characters who defy expectations and take risks. These independent women often face difficult choices between pursuing true love or settling for more practical arrangements. The underlying message being that no matter what circumstances one faces, it is possible to find a greater sense of freedom if you remain true to yourself; an idea that has resonated with readers for centuries. The Bronte sisters have left us with powerful stories full of complex characters navigating challenging situations; stories that have stood the test of time and will continue to influence readers for many years to come. From exploring deep emotions to questioning gender roles, their work has shaped how we view literature today—and it's clear why they remain so revered among literary circles around the world.

The Unique Writing Style of the Bronte Sisters

The Bronte sisters were renowned for their unique writing style, combining realism with elements of the supernatural. Charlotte’s ‘Jane Eyre’ is renowned for its vivid descriptions and insightful character development, while Emily’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ is remembered for its intense atmosphere and gothic elements. Anne’s work also stands out, particularly in her novel ‘Agnes Grey’ which offers an unflinching look at the lives of servants during the Victorian era. What truly sets the Bronte sisters apart from other authors of their time is their ability to create a sense of suspense without relying on melodrama or sensationalism. They capture the inner thoughts and emotions of their characters in such a way that readers can relate to them on a personal level. Even when their stories are set in unfamiliar settings or involve fantastical elements, they manage to make them feel emotionally real. This ability to build powerful connections between readers and their stories is what makes the Bronte sisters so timelessly beloved. The Bronte sisters also employed a clever use of symbolism throughout their works, often using it to explore themes like gender roles and morality. For example, in ‘Jane Eyre’ Jane consistently faces difficult choices between pursuing true love or settling for more practical arrangements; this serves as a metaphor for society's expectations on women during that time period. Similarly, Emily uses symbolism in ‘Wuthering Heights’ to explore social class distinctions and how they can lead to tragedy if not handled properly. Through their use of vivid imagery and symbolism, the Bronte sisters created works that are both timelessly relevant and deeply meaningful. Their novels remain powerful sources of inspiration even today—a testament to the lasting impact these three remarkable women have had on literature.

Uncovering the Influences Behind Bronte Sister's Works

The Bronte sisters' works were heavily influenced by a variety of sources, including their own personal experiences and literature they read. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne all grew up in Haworth, Yorkshire; this rural area served as the backdrop for many of their stories and introduced them to a wide range of literary styles. As avid readers from an early age, the sisters were exposed to numerous authors such as William Wordsworth and Walter Scott, whose works had a lasting impact on their writing. In addition to the influence of other writers, the Bronte sisters also drew inspiration from their own lived experiences. For example, Charlotte's time as a governess is reflected in ‘Jane Eyre’ while Emily's novel ‘Wuthering Heights’ was inspired by her own experience with unrequited love. Anne also drew upon her own life when writing ‘Agnes Grey’; her time working as a governess informed much of the novel's themes and characters. These diverse influences allowed the Bronte sisters to create unique works that are both emotionally resonant and socially relevant. Their novels often explored weighty topics such as gender roles and morality while still delivering entertaining stories that kept readers engaged until the very last page. It is with these combined elements that the Bronte sisters have been able to remain beloved by readers around the world even today.

Delving Into the Social Context of Bronte Sister's Writings

The Bronte sisters' works are renowned for their captivating stories and thought-provoking themes. But to truly appreciate the power of their writing, one must examine the social context in which they were created. Their novels emerged during a period of great societal upheaval, when women were beginning to challenge traditional gender roles and push for greater independence. It was within this backdrop that the Bronte sisters crafted stories that shed light on heartfelt emotions and personal struggles. Charlotte's ‘Jane Eyre’ is a perfect example of how the Bronte sisters explored these issues in their works. Through her protagonist, Charlotte boldly confronted expectations placed upon women while also exploring themes such as morality and self-acceptance. Similarly, Emily's novel ‘Wuthering Heights’ also examined complex interpersonal relationships between men and women in a patriarchal society. The Bronte sisters' works not only offered an insight into 19th century societal issues but continue to speak volumes even today. Their novels still serve as an important reminder of the strength found in standing up against social norms, no matter how difficult it may be. The powerful messages within their writings will undoubtedly remain relevant for generations to come, continuing to inspire readers around the world.

Analyzing the Characters and Plots in Bronte Sister's Literature

The characters and plots of the Bronte sisters' writings are some of the most iconic in literature. Charlotte's Jane Eyre is an independent woman who faces many obstacles on her journey to finding love and acceptance. Emily's Wuthering Heights follows the passionate yet tumultuous relationship between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, depicting how social status can complicate matters of the heart. Anne's Agnes Grey is a coming-of-age story that chronicles the struggles of a young woman working as a governess in Victorian England. The novel highlights Anne's insight into both the plight of women and their relationship with society at large. Similarly, her other work The Tenant of Wildfell Hall focuses on themes such as domestic abuse, alcoholism, and morality. The Bronte sisters demonstrated a unique talent for creating vivid characters who moved readers with their complex stories and emotional journeys. Even today, their works remain incredibly powerful in exploring themes related to gender dynamics and societal pressures. Their timeless tales offer valuable lessons that continue to resonate with audiences across generations.

Examining the Impact of Bronte Sister's Works in Literary History

The Bronte sisters have had a lasting impact on literature, leaving behind works that are timeless and deeply influential. Their novels have been adapted for film, television, and the stage, attracting legions of fans in the process. Through their powerful writing, they explored themes such as gender roles, morality, and social inequalities in Victorian England – topics that remain relevant today. Charlotte's novel Jane Eyre has been especially influential in the literary world. Its success was groundbreaking at the time; it shattered stereotypes surrounding female authorship and helped pave the way for future generations of women writers. Jane Eyre is considered an early feminist novel due to its strong-willed heroine who defies societal expectations to pursue her own happiness. Emily's Wuthering Heights is also highly acclaimed for its exploration of love and revenge between two main characters from different social classes. The novel is recognized as one of the most important works of 19th century literature and continues to be widely read today for its complex characters and intense emotions. By crafting stories with relatable characters and touching on relevant social issues, the Bronte sisters created works that remain popular over 175 years later. Their influence can be seen in modern literature – from YA novels to adult fiction – further highlighting their cultural significance in literary history.

Understanding Feminism in Bronte Sister's Writings

The Bronte sisters are renowned for their strong feminist ideals, as evidenced in their works. Charlotte's novel Jane Eyre embodies these values by featuring a female protagonist who defies the conventions of Victorian society to pursue her own happiness. Emily's Wuthering Heights also contains feminist undertones, depicting characters from different social classes whose lives are intertwined through love and revenge. Both novels demonstrate the power of female agency and independence, challenging traditional gender roles and exploring the idea that women should be able to determine their own destiny. This theme is especially prominent in Jane Eyre, where Jane refuses to compromise her principles despite many hardships she faces along the way. Her journey serves as an inspiration to readers, showing them that they too can have strength and autonomy despite societal expectations. The Bronte sisters' writings were far ahead of their time in terms of feminism, offering insights into how women could be empowered even in a patriarchal society. Through their stories, they offered a glimpse into what was possible for women if they were allowed to make their own choices and live according to their beliefs. As such, the Bronte sisters' works remain influential today for their exploration of gender roles and empowerment of female protagonists.

Appreciating Bronte Sister's Poetry and Other Forms of Literature

The Bronte sisters were not only renowned for their novels, but also for their poetry and other forms of literature. Emily's collection of poems, Gondal Poems, showcases her creativity and insight into the human experience. Charlotte's works include vast collections of short stories as well as essays on social issues such as education and marriage. Anne Bronte wrote beautiful poetry that explored themes of love, nature, and mortality. All three sisters often drew inspiration from their own lives when writing about these topics, making their work even more powerful. The Bronte sisters' works have been widely praised for their vivid imagery and passionate storytelling. Through their words, they were able to capture the complexities of human emotion in a way that was both genuine and captivating. Their writings often featured strong female characters who challenged traditional conventions and embraced personal freedom. They provided readers with inspiring messages about courage, resilience, and self-determination. In sum, the Bronte sisters have left a lasting legacy in literature that continues to influence readers today. Whether it is through novels, poetry or other forms of literature, their works offer an insight into female empowerment that is still relevant today. With its exploration of gender roles and themes of independence and strength, the Bronte sisters' literature remains as powerful now as it was during their lifetime.

Investigating Critical Reception to Bronte Sister's Work

The critical reception of the Bronte sisters' works has been overwhelmingly positive throughout the years. Their novels have been celebrated for their intricate character development, captivating plotlines, and thought-provoking themes. Many critics have praised Emily's poetry for its intense emotionality and imagery. Charlotte's short stories are often admired for their wit and social commentary. Anne's work is particularly acclaimed for its subtle yet powerful insights into human nature. In recent years, they have also been commended for the way they challenged gender roles in a time when women were expected to be passive and subservient. These writers have had an immense influence on subsequent generations of authors, inspiring many to explore similar topics and themes in their own works. The Bronte sisters' literature remains highly relevant today, with their stories of strong female characters still resonating with readers all over the world. Their legacy has endured long after their deaths, as evidenced by the countless adaptations that have been made of their works over time. It is clear that the Bronte sisters created some of the most iconic pieces of literature in history, earning them a place among the greatest writers of all time. Despite being written nearly two centuries ago, their writings continue to enthrall readers with their timeless messages about love, courage, and independence.

Celebrating the Legacy of the Bronte Sisters

The Bronte sisters have left behind a powerful legacy, one that continues to inspire readers and writers around the world. From Charlotte's iconic novel Jane Eyre to Emily's Wuthering Heights, their works are celebrated for their courage, individuality, and unabashed passion. Their stories remain as relevant today as they were when they were first written, offering lessons about love, family, and morality that still resonate with readers. The Bronte sisters have also been praised for their pioneering spirit in challenging gender roles and other social conventions of their time. Through their characters and stories, they showed the world that women are capable of being strong, independent figures who make their own choices. As such, they have become an invaluable part of literature history and a source of empowerment for countless generations of readers. These extraordinary writers have inspired many authors to explore similar themes in their own works. Although it has been nearly two centuries since the publication of the Bronte sisters' literature, its influence is still felt today in countless adaptations and reimaginings of their original works. The power of the Bronte sisters' stories truly knows no bounds—they will continue to captivate audiences for years to come. The Bronte sisters' works are a testament to their immense talent and creativity, and have had an indelible impact on literature. Their stories continue to captivate readers of all ages, exploring complex issues such as gender roles, morality, and self-acceptance in a way that resonates with modern audiences. Through their use of vivid imagery and symbolism, these three sisters created powerful works that still stand the test of time today. The Bronte sisters were truly ahead of their time, and it is clear why they remain so beloved in literary circles around the world.

FAQ's

Q: Who are the Bronte Sisters?

A: The Bronte Sisters are a trio of English Victorian novelists: Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte.

Q: What is the significance of the Bronte Sisters in literature?

A: The Bronte Sisters are renowned for their contributions to the Victorian literature movement, and are widely regarded as some of the most influential female authors of the 19th century.

Q: What books did the Bronte Sisters write?

A: The Bronte Sisters wrote a number of novels, including Charlotte's Jane Eyre, Emily's Wuthering Heights, and Anne's Agnes Grey.

Q: How did the Bronte Sisters influence literature?

A: The Bronte Sisters had a significant impact on the development of literature through their works, which often focused on strong female characters and pushed against traditional gender roles.

Q: What other works did the Bronte Sisters write?

A: The Bronte Sisters also wrote numerous short stories, poems, and essays.

Q: How did the Bronte Sisters become successful?

A: The Bronte Sisters initially published their works under male pseudonyms in order to be taken seriously in the literary world, and later achieved success by using their real names.

Q: What is the legacy of the Bronte Sisters?

A: The Bronte Sisters have left an indelible mark on literature and have inspired countless other authors.

Q: How did the Bronte Sisters become famous?

A: The Bronte Sisters became famous due to the success of their novels, which were widely praised for their originality and insight into the human condition.

Q: What is the literary style of the Bronte Sisters?

A: The Bronte Sisters wrote in a romantic gothic style, which was characterized by strong emotions, dark themes, and supernatural elements.

Q: What themes does the Bronte Sisters explore in their works?

A: The Bronte Sisters explored a wide range of themes in their works, including love, death, social class, religion, and gender roles.

[qqueenofhades]

The Green Knight and Medieval Metatextuality: An Essay

Right, so. Finally watched it last night, and I’ve been thinking about it literally ever since, except for the part where I was asleep. As I said to fellow medievalist and admirer of Dev Patel @oldshrewsburyian, it’s possibly the most fascinating piece of medieval-inspired media that I’ve seen in ages, and how refreshing to have something in this genre that actually rewards critical thought and deep analysis, rather than me just fulminating fruitlessly about how popular media thinks that slapping blood, filth, and misogyny onto some swords and castles is “historically accurate.” I read a review of TGK somewhere that described it as the anti-Game of Thrones, and I’m inclined to think that’s accurate. I didn’t agree with all of the film’s tonal, thematic, or interpretative choices, but I found them consistently stylish, compelling, and subversive in ways both small and large, and I’m gonna have to write about it or I’ll go crazy. So. Brace yourselves.

(Note: My PhD is in medieval history, not medieval literature, and I haven’t worked on SGGK specifically, but I am familiar with it, its general cultural context, and the historical influences, images, and debates that both the poem and the film referenced and drew upon, so that’s where this meta is coming from.)

First, obviously, while the film is not a straight-up text-to-screen version of the poem (though it is by and large relatively faithful), it is a multi-layered meta-text that comments on the original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the archetypes of chivalric literature as a whole, modern expectations for medieval films, the hero’s journey, the requirements of being an “honorable knight,” and the nature of death, fate, magic, and religion, just to name a few. Given that the Arthurian legendarium, otherwise known as the Matter of Britain, was written and rewritten over several centuries by countless authors, drawing on and changing and hybridizing interpretations that sometimes challenged or outright contradicted earlier versions, it makes sense for the film to chart its own path and make its own adaptational decisions as part of this multivalent, multivocal literary canon. Sir Gawain himself is a canonically and textually inconsistent figure; in the movie, the characters merrily pronounce his name in several different ways, most notably as Sean Harris/King Arthur’s somewhat inexplicable “Garr-win.” He might be a man without a consistent identity, but that’s pointed out within the film itself. What has he done to define himself, aside from being the king’s nephew? Is his quixotic quest for the Green Knight actually going to resolve the question of his identity and his honor – and if so, is it even going to matter, given that successful completion of the “game” seemingly equates with death?

Likewise, as the anti-Game of Thrones, the film is deliberately and sometimes maddeningly non-commercial. For an adaptation coming from a studio known primarily for horror, it almost completely eschews the cliché that gory bloodshed equals authentic medievalism; the only graphic scene is the Green Knight’s original beheading. The violence is only hinted at, subtextual, suspenseful; it is kept out of sight, around the corner, never entirely played out or resolved. In other words, if anyone came in thinking that they were going to watch Dev Patel luridly swashbuckle his way through some CGI monsters like bad Beowulf adaptations of yore, they were swiftly disappointed. In fact, he seems to spend most of his time being wet, sad, and failing to meet the moment at hand (with a few important exceptions).

The film unhurriedly evokes a medieval setting that is both surreal and defiantly non-historical. We travel (in roughly chronological order) from Anglo-Saxon huts to Romanesque halls to high-Gothic cathedrals to Tudor villages and half-timbered houses, culminating in the eerie neo-Renaissance splendor of the Lord and Lady’s hall, before returning to the ancient trees of the Green Chapel and its immortal occupant: everything that has come before has now returned to dust. We have been removed even from imagined time and place and into a moment where it ceases to function altogether. We move forward, backward, and sideways, as Gawain experiences past, present, and future in unison. He is dislocated from his own sense of himself, just as we, the viewers, are dislocated from our sense of what is the “true” reality or filmic narrative; what we think is real turns out not to be the case at all. If, of course, such a thing even exists at all.

This visual evocation of the entire medieval era also creates a setting that, unlike GOT, takes pride in rejecting absolutely all political context or Machiavellian maneuvering. The film acknowledges its own cultural ubiquity and the question of whether we really need yet another King Arthur adaptation: none of the characters aside from Gawain himself are credited by name. We all know it’s Arthur, but he’s listed only as “king.” We know the spooky druid-like old man with the white beard is Merlin, but it’s never required to spell it out. The film gestures at our pre-existing understanding; it relies on us to fill in the gaps, cuing us to collaboratively produce the story with it, positioning us as listeners as if we were gathered to hear the original poem. Just like fanfiction, it knows that it doesn’t need to waste time introducing every single character or filling in ultimately unnecessary background knowledge, when the audience can be relied upon to bring their own.

As for that, the film explicitly frames itself as a “filmed adaptation of the chivalric romance” in its opening credits, and continues to play with textual referents and cues throughout: telling us where we are, what’s happening, or what’s coming next, rather like the rubrics or headings within a medieval manuscript. As noted, its historical/architectural references span the entire medieval European world, as does its costume design. I was particularly struck by the fact that Arthur and Guinevere’s crowns resemble those from illuminated monastic manuscripts or Eastern Orthodox iconography: they are both crown and halo, they confer an air of both secular kingship and religious sanctity. The question in the film’s imagined epilogue thus becomes one familiar to Shakespeare’s Henry V: heavy is the head that wears the crown. Does Gawain want to earn his uncle’s crown, take over his place as king, bear the fate of Camelot, become a great ruler, a husband and father in ways that even Arthur never did, only to see it all brought to dust by his cowardice, his reliance on unscrupulous sorcery, and his unfulfilled promise to the Green Knight? Is it better to have that entire life and then lose it, or to make the right choice now, even if it means death?

Likewise, Arthur’s kingly mantle is Byzantine in inspiration, as is the icon of the Virgin Mary-as-Theotokos painted on Gawain’s shield (which we see broken apart during the attack by the scavengers). The film only glances at its religious themes rather than harping on them explicitly; we do have the cliché scene of the male churchmen praying for Gawain’s safety, opposite Gawain’s mother and her female attendants working witchcraft to protect him. (When oh when will I get my film that treats medieval magic and medieval religion as the complementary and co-existing epistemological systems that they were, rather than portraying them as diametrically binary and disparagingly gendered opposites?) But despite the interim setbacks borne from the failure of Christian icons, the overall resolution of the film could serve as the culmination of a medieval Christian morality tale: Gawain can buy himself a great future in the short term if he relies on the protection of the enchanted green belt to avoid the Green Knight’s killing stroke, but then he will have to watch it all crumble until he is sitting alone in his own hall, his children dead and his kingdom destroyed, as a headless corpse who only now has been brave enough to accept his proper fate. By removing the belt from his person in the film’s Inception-like final scene, he relinquishes the taint of black magic and regains his religious honor, even at the likely cost of death. That, the medieval Christian morality tale would agree, is the correct course of action.

Gawain’s encounter with St. Winifred likewise presents a more subtle vision of medieval Christianity. Winifred was an eighth-century Welsh saint known for being beheaded, after which (by the power of another saint) her head was miraculously restored to her body and she went on to live a long and holy life. It doesn’t quite work that way in TGK. (St Winifred’s Well is mentioned in the original SGGK, but as far as I recall, Gawain doesn’t meet the saint in person.) In the film, Gawain encounters Winifred’s lifelike apparition, who begs him to dive into the mere and retrieve her head (despite appearances, she warns him, it is not attached to her body). This fits into the pattern of medieval ghost stories, where the dead often return to entreat the living to help them finish their business; they must be heeded, but when they are encountered in places they shouldn’t be, they must be put back into their proper physical space and reminded of their real fate. Gawain doesn’t follow William of Newburgh’s practical recommendation to just fetch some brawny young men with shovels to beat the wandering corpse back into its grave. Instead, in one of his few moments of unqualified heroism, he dives into the dark water and retrieves Winifred’s skull from the bottom of the lake. Then when he returns to the house, he finds the rest of her skeleton lying in the bed where he was earlier sleeping, and carefully reunites the skull with its body, finally allowing it to rest in peace.

However, Gawain’s involvement with Winifred doesn’t end there. The fox that he sees on the bank after emerging with her skull, who then accompanies him for the rest of the film, is strongly implied to be her spirit, or at least a companion that she has sent for him. Gawain has handled a saint’s holy bones; her relics, which were well known to grant protection in the medieval world. He has done the saint a service, and in return, she extends her favor to him. At the end of the film, the fox finally speaks in a human voice, warning him not to proceed to the fateful final encounter with the Green Knight; it will mean his death. The symbolism of having a beheaded saint serve as Gawain’s guide and protector is obvious, since it is the fate that may or may not lie in store for him. As I said, the ending is Inception-like in that it steadfastly refuses to tell you if the hero is alive (or will live) or dead (or will die). In the original SGGK, of course, the Green Knight and the Lord turn out to be the same person, Gawain survives, it was all just a test of chivalric will and honor, and a trap put together by Morgan Le Fay in an attempt to frighten Guinevere. It’s essentially able to be laughed off: a game, an adventure, not real. TGK takes this paradigm and flips it (to speak…) on its head.

Gawain’s rescue of Winifred’s head also rewards him in more immediate terms: his/the Green Knight’s axe, stolen by the scavengers, is miraculously restored to him in her cottage, immediately and concretely demonstrating the virtue of his actions. This is one of the points where the film most stubbornly resists modern storytelling conventions: it simply refuses to add in any kind of “rational” or “empirical” explanation of how else it got there, aside from the grace and intercession of the saint. This is indeed how it works in medieval hagiography: things simply reappear, are returned, reattached, repaired, made whole again, and Gawain’s lost weapon is thus restored, symbolizing that he has passed the test and is worthy to continue with the quest. The film’s narrative is not modernizing its underlying medieval logic here, and it doesn’t particularly care if a modern audience finds it “convincing” or not. As noted, the film never makes any attempt to temporalize or localize itself; it exists in a determinedly surrealist and ahistorical landscape, where naked female giants who look suspiciously like Tilda Swinton roam across the wild with no necessary explanation. While this might be frustrating for some people, I actually found it a huge relief that a clearly fantastic and fictional literary adaptation was not acting like it was qualified to teach “real history” to its audience. Nobody would come out of TGK thinking that they had seen the “actual” medieval world, and since we have enough of a problem with that sort of thing thanks to GOT, I for one welcome the creation of a medieval imaginative space that embraces its eccentric and unrealistic elements, rather than trying to fit them into the Real Life box.

This plays into the fact that the film, like a reused medieval manuscript containing more than one text, is a palimpsest: for one, it audaciously rewrites the entire Arthurian canon in the wordless vision of Gawain’s life after escaping the Green Knight (I could write another meta on that dream-epilogue alone). It moves fluidly through time and creates alternate universes in at least two major points: one, the scene where Gawain is tied up and abandoned by the scavengers and that long circling shot reveals his skeletal corpse rotting on the sward, only to return to our original universe as Gawain decides that he doesn’t want that fate, and two, Gawain as King. In this alternate ending, Arthur doesn’t die in battle with Mordred, but peaceably in bed, having anointed his worthy nephew as his heir. Gawain becomes king, has children, gets married, governs Camelot, becomes a ruler surpassing even Arthur, but then watches his son get killed in battle, his subjects turn on him, and his family vanish into the dust of his broken hall before he himself, in despair, pulls the enchanted scarf out of his clothing and succumbs to his fate.

In this version, Gawain takes on the responsibility for the fall of Camelot, not Arthur. This is the hero’s burden, but he’s obtained it dishonorably, by cheating. It is a vivid but mimetic future which Gawain (to all appearances) ultimately rejects, returning the film to the realm of traditional Arthurian canon – but not quite. After all, if Gawain does get beheaded after that final fade to black, it would represent a significant alteration from the poem and the character’s usual arc. Are we back in traditional canon or aren’t we? Did Gawain reject that future or didn’t he? Do all these alterities still exist within the visual medium of the meta-text, and have any of them been definitely foreclosed?

Furthermore, the film interrogates itself and its own tropes in explicit and overt ways. In Gawain’s conversation with the Lord, the Lord poses the question that many members of the audience might have: is Gawain going to carry out this potentially pointless and suicidal quest and then be an honorable hero, just like that? What is he actually getting by staggering through assorted Irish bogs and seeming to reject, rather than embrace, the paradigms of a proper quest and that of an honorable knight? He lies about being a knight to the scavengers, clearly out of fear, and ends up cravenly bound and robbed rather than fighting back. He denies knowing anything about love to the Lady (played by Alicia Vikander, who also plays his lover at the start of the film with a decidedly ropey Yorkshire accent, sorry to say). He seems to shrink from the responsibility thrust on him, rather than rise to meet it (his only honorable act, retrieving Winifred’s head, is discussed above) and yet here he still is, plugging away. Why is he doing this? What does he really stand to gain, other than accepting a choice and its consequences (somewhat?) The film raises these questions, but it has no plans to answer them. It’s going to leave you to think about them for yourself, and it isn’t going to spoon-feed you any ultimate moral or neat resolution. In this interchange, it’s easy to see both the echoes of a formal dialogue between two speakers (a favored medieval didactic tactic) and the broader purpose of chivalric literature: to interrogate what it actually means to be a knight, how personal honor is generated, acquired, and increased, and whether engaging in these pointless and bloody “war games” is actually any kind of real path to lasting glory.

The film’s treatment of race, gender, and queerness obviously also merits comment. By casting Dev Patel, an Indian-born actor, as an Arthurian hero, the film is… actually being quite accurate to the original legends, doubtless much to the disappointment of assorted internet racists. The thirteenth-century Arthurian romance Parzival (Percival) by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach notably features the character of Percival’s mixed-race half-brother, Feirefiz, son of their father by his first marriage to a Muslim princess. Feirefiz is just as heroic as Percival (Gawaine, for the record, also plays a major role in the story) and assists in the quest for the Holy Grail, though it takes his conversion to Christianity for him to properly behold it.

By introducing Patel (and Sarita Chowdhury as Morgause) to the visual representation of Arthuriana, the film quietly does away with the “white Middle Ages” cliché that I have complained about ad nauseam; we see background Asian and black members of Camelot, who just exist there without having to conjure up some complicated rationale to explain their presence. The Lady also uses a camera obscura to make Gawain’s portrait. Contrary to those who might howl about anachronism, this technique was known in China as early as the fourth century BCE and the tenth/eleventh century Islamic scholar Ibn al-Haytham was probably the best-known medieval authority to write on it extensively; Latin translations of his work inspired European scientists from Roger Bacon to Leonardo da Vinci. Aside from the symbolism of an upside-down Gawain (and when he sees the portrait again during the ‘fall of Camelot’, it is right-side-up, representing that Gawain himself is in an upside-down world), this presents a subtle challenge to the prevailing Eurocentric imagination of the medieval world, and draws on other global influences.

As for gender, we have briefly touched on it above; in the original SGGK, Gawain’s entire journey is revealed to be just a cruel trick of Morgan Le Fay, simply trying to destabilize Arthur’s court and upset his queen. (Morgan is the old blindfolded woman who appears in the Lord and Lady’s castle and briefly approaches Gawain, but her identity is never explicitly spelled out.) This is, obviously, an implicitly misogynistic setup: an evil woman plays a trick on honorable men for the purpose of upsetting another woman, the honorable men overcome it, the hero survives, and everyone presumably lives happily ever after (at least until Mordred arrives).

Instead, by plunging the outcome into doubt and the hero into a much darker and more fallible moral universe, TGK shifts the blame for Gawain’s adventure and ultimate fate from Morgan to Gawain himself. Likewise, Guinevere is not the passive recipient of an evil deception but in a way, the catalyst for the whole thing. She breaks the seal on the Green Knight’s message with a weighty snap; she becomes the oracle who reads it out, she is alarming rather than alarmed, she disrupts the complacency of the court and silently shows up all the other knights who refuse to step forward and answer the Green Knight’s challenge. Gawain is not given the ontological reassurance that it’s just a practical joke and he’s going to be fine (and thanks to the unresolved ending, neither are we). The film instead takes the concept at face value in order to push the envelope and ask the simple question: if a man was going to be actually-for-real beheaded in a year, why would he set out on a suicidal quest? Would you, in Gawain’s place, make the same decision to cast aside the enchanted belt and accept your fate? Has he made his name, will he be remembered well? What is his legacy?

Indeed, if there is any hint of feminine connivance and manipulation, it arrives in the form of the implication that Gawain’s mother has deliberately summoned the Green Knight to test her son, prove his worth, and position him as his childless uncle’s heir; she gives him the protective belt to make sure he won’t actually die, and her intention all along was for the future shown in the epilogue to truly play out (minus the collapse of Camelot). Only Gawain loses the belt thanks to his cowardice in the encounter with the scavengers, regains it in a somewhat underhanded and morally questionable way when the Lady is attempting to seduce him, and by ultimately rejecting it altogether and submitting to his uncertain fate, totally mucks up his mother’s painstaking dynastic plans for his future. In this reading, Gawain could be king, and his mother’s efforts are meant to achieve that goal, rather than thwart it. He is thus required to shoulder his own responsibility for this outcome, rather than conveniently pawning it off on an “evil woman,” and by extension, the film asks the question: What would the world be like if men, especially those who make war on others as a way of life, were actually forced to face the consequences of their reckless and violent actions? Is it actually a “game” in any sense of the word, especially when chivalric literature is constantly preoccupied with the question of how much glorious violence is too much glorious violence? If you structure social prestige for the king and the noble male elite entirely around winning battles and existing in a state of perpetual war, when does that begin to backfire and devour the knightly class – and the rest of society – instead?

This leads into the central theme of Gawain’s relationships with the Lord and Lady, and how they’re treated in the film. The poem has been repeatedly studied in terms of its latent (and sometimes… less than latent) queer subtext: when the Lord asks Gawain to pay back to him whatever he should receive from his wife, does he already know what this involves; i.e. a physical and romantic encounter? When the Lady gives kisses to Gawain, which he is then obliged to return to the Lord as a condition of the agreement, is this all part of a dastardly plot to seduce him into a kinky green-themed threesome with a probably-not-human married couple looking to spice up their sex life? Why do we read the Lady’s kisses to Gawain as romantic but Gawain’s kisses to the Lord as filial, fraternal, or the standard “kiss of peace” exchanged between a liege lord and his vassal? Is Gawain simply being a dutiful guest by honoring the bargain with his host, actually just kissing the Lady again via the proxy of her husband, or somewhat more into this whole thing with the Lord than he (or the poet) would like to admit? Is the homosocial turning homoerotic, and how is Gawain going to navigate this tension and temptation?

If the question is never resolved: well, welcome to one of the central medieval anxieties about chivalry, knighthood, and male bonds! As I have written about before, medieval society needed to simultaneously exalt this as the most honored and noble form of love, and make sure it didn’t accidentally turn sexual (once again: how much male love is too much male love?). Does the poem raise the possibility of serious disruption to the dominant heteronormative paradigm, only to solve the problem by interpreting the Gawain/Lady male/female kisses as romantic and sexual and the Gawain/Lord male/male kisses as chaste and formal? In other words, acknowledging the underlying anxiety of possible homoeroticism but ultimately reasserting the heterosexual norm? The answer: Probably?!?! Maybe?!?! Hell if we know??! To say the least, this has been argued over to no end, and if you locked a lot of medieval history/literature scholars into a room and told them that they couldn’t come out until they decided on one clear answer, they would be in there for a very long time. The poem seemingly invokes the possibility of a queer reading only to reject it – but once again, as in the question of which canon we end up in at the film’s end, does it?

In some lights, the film’s treatment of this potential queer reading comes off like a cop-out: there is only one kiss between Gawain and the Lord, and it is something that the Lord has to initiate after Gawain has already fled the hall. Gawain himself appears to reject it; he tells the Lord to let go of him and runs off into the wilderness, rather than deal with or accept whatever has been suggested to him. However, this fits with film!Gawain’s pattern of rejecting that which fundamentally makes him who he is; like Peter in the Bible, he has now denied the truth three times. With the scavengers he denies being a knight; with the Lady he denies knowing about courtly love; with the Lord he denies the central bond of brotherhood with his fellows, whether homosocial or homoerotic in nature. I would go so far as to argue that if Gawain does die at the end of the film, it is this rejected kiss which truly seals his fate. In the poem, the Lord and the Green Knight are revealed to be the same person; in the film, it’s not clear if that’s the case, or they are separate characters, even if thematically interrelated. If we assume, however, that the Lord is in fact still the human form of the Green Knight, then Gawain has rejected both his kiss of peace (the standard gesture of protection offered from lord to vassal) and any deeper emotional bond that it can be read to signify. The Green Knight could decide to spare Gawain in recognition of the courage he has shown in relinquishing the enchanted belt – or he could just as easily decide to kill him, which he is legally free to do since Gawain has symbolically rejected the offer of brotherhood, vassalage, or knight-bonding by his unwise denial of the Lord’s freely given kiss. Once again, the film raises the overall thematic and moral question and then doesn’t give one straight (ahem) answer. As with the medieval anxieties and chivalric texts that it is based on, it invokes the specter of queerness and then doesn’t neatly resolve it. As a modern audience, we find this unsatisfying, but once again, the film is refusing to conform to our expectations.

As has been said before, there is so much kissing between men in medieval contexts, both ceremonial and otherwise, that we’re left to wonder: “is it gay or is it feudalism?” Is there an overtly erotic element in Gawain and the Green Knight’s mutual “beheading” of each other (especially since in the original version, this frees the Lord from his curse, functioning like a true love’s kiss in a fairytale). While it is certainly possible to argue that the film has “straightwashed” its subject material by removing the entire sequence of kisses between Gawain and the Lord and the unresolved motives for their existence, it is a fairly accurate, if condensed, representation of the anxieties around medieval knightly bonds and whether, as Carolyn Dinshaw put it, a (male/male) “kiss is just a kiss.” After all, the kiss between Gawain and the Lady is uncomplicatedly read as sexual/romantic, and that context doesn’t go away when Gawain is kissing the Lord instead. Just as with its multiple futurities, the film leaves the question open-ended. Is it that third and final denial that seals Gawain’s fate, and if so, is it asking us to reflect on why, specifically, he does so?

The film could play with both this question and its overall tone quite a bit more: it sometimes comes off as a grim, wooden, over-directed Shakespearean tragedy, rather than incorporating the lively and irreverent tone that the poem often takes. It’s almost totally devoid of humor, which is unfortunate, and the Grim Middle Ages aesthetic is in definite evidence. Nonetheless, because of the comprehensive de-historicizing and the obvious lack of effort to claim the film as any sort of authentic representation of the medieval past, it works. We are not meant to understand this as a historical document, and so we have to treat it on its terms, by its own logic, and by its own frames of reference. In some ways, its consistent opacity and its refusal to abide by modern rules and common narrative conventions is deliberately meant to challenge us: as before, when we recognize Arthur, Merlin, the Round Table, and the other stock characters because we know them already and not because the film tells us so, we have to fill in the gaps ourselves. We are watching the film not because it tells us a simple adventure story – there is, as noted, shockingly little action overall – but because we have to piece together the metatext independently and ponder the philosophical questions that it leaves us with. What conclusion do we reach? What canon do we settle in? What future or resolution is ultimately made real? That, the film says, it can’t decide for us. As ever, it is up to future generations to carry on the story, and decide how, if at all, it is going to survive.

(And to close, I desperately want them to make my much-coveted Bisclavret adaptation now in more or less the same style, albeit with some tweaks. Please.)

Further Reading

Ailes, Marianne J. ‘The Medieval Male Couple and the Language of Homosociality’, in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. by Dawn M. Hadley (Harlow: Longman, 1999), pp. 214–37.

Ashton, Gail. ‘The Perverse Dynamics of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 15 (2005), 51–74.

Boyd, David L. ‘Sodomy, Misogyny, and Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 8 (1998), 77–113.

Busse, Peter. ‘The Poet as Spouse of his Patron: Homoerotic Love in Medieval Welsh and Irish Poetry?’, Studi Celtici 2 (2003), 175–92.

Dinshaw, Carolyn. ‘A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Diacritics 24 (1994), 205–226.

Kocher, Suzanne. ‘Gay Knights in Medieval French Fiction: Constructs of Queerness and Non-Transgression’, Mediaevalia 29 (2008), 51–66.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. ‘Knighthood, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Sodomy’ in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 273–86.

Kuefler, Matthew. ‘Male Friendship and the Suspicion of Sodomy in Twelfth-Century France’, in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 179–214.

McVitty, E. Amanda, ‘False Knights and True Men: Contesting Chivalric Masculinity in English Treason Trials, 1388–1415,’ Journal of Medieval History 40 (2014), 458–77.

Mieszkowski, Gretchen. ‘The Prose Lancelot's Galehot, Malory's Lavain, and the Queering of Late Medieval Literature’, Arthuriana 5 (1995), 21–51.

Moss, Rachel E. ‘ “And much more I am soryat for my good knyghts’ ”: Fainting, Homosociality, and Elite Male Culture in Middle English Romance’, Historical Reflections / Réflexions historiques 42 (2016), 101–13.

Zeikowitz, Richard E. ‘Befriending the Medieval Queer: A Pedagogy for Literature Classes’, College English 65 (2002), 67–80.

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

I dont get the appeal of alutegra very much, why do you like it?

Well if you don’t like it, you don’t like it! And I know a lot of people are also just like baseline uncomfortable with it, which is very fair.

Alutegra is a ship I’ve talked about a lot lol. I have way too many posts in my archives if you’re curious about my thoughts! But basically I like the dynamic because of how intrinsically conflicted it is by implication?

Like of course you have the inherent vampire/vampire hunter conflict. Even though interestingly enough, the story doesn’t really engage with it? I think it’s particularly interesting as an elephant in the room.

And I’ve said it before, but I think it’s a very suffocating situation! They can’t exactly get away from each other unless someone does *something* morally dubious.

I’m also just very interested in power dynamics in ships and how they’re navigated. And these two have a very complicated situation. It’s also fairly subversive and doesn’t really align to standard gender roles which is something I tend to focus on in m/f ships. It’s just interesting to see that she has all the hard power in the dynamic, while he has more soft power. But it’s even more complex because he is centuries old and a vampire. And she is like. twenty two. and human.

And on top of those conflicts, meanwhile we have Alucard’s… entire personality and bloodthirstiness. That he’s meant to be Actual Dracula on a leash— and not tamed, just not actively preying on people.

There’s the fact that she’s meant to have a scrap of morals but also kind of doesn’t. There’s actually a fair bit of background grappling with the absence of morals in this series imo. There’s the question of what makes a monster, what makes a human. Who makes the choices and where the line is drawn for responsibility and complicity. And I think these two particularly embody that thematic question? And if I love anything it is an angsty theme.

[trothplighted]

You’ve talked more than once about homophobia in the WRITING of the books rather than the characters being homophobic. Can you explain what you mean? Specifically, how is the writing of ootp and dh homophobic towards Sirius and Albus?

Yeah, I can, absolutely.

Obviously, when you have a character who’s either confirmed to be queer or is coded as queer, and the narrative itself goes out of its way to say “this person is morally suspect and unstable, this person isn’t good for children to be around, this person associates with bad and disreputable people, this person might mean well but actually they’re bad”, that’s homophobic writing, and that’s very much where my textual analysis with these two starts. You can definitely have queer characters who are messy and dangerous and bad! Not every queer villain is a bigoted stereotype, not every dead gay is an example of burying the gays.

But the question has to be asked - why are certain writing decisions made? Why does the author make the choice to portray Albus and Sirius the way that she does? And that’s where I begin to see homophobia.

In the same book where Albus is revealed to have a same-sex lover, suddenly he’s also morally grey and he associated with a fascist and he’s accused of having raised Harry like a lamb for slaughter. He’s not just Albus Dumbledore the kind and wise and loving and funny character from before, he’s gay, and he’s also complicated and bad. That is not accidental. That is a conscious choice that JKR made. She purposefully wrote a situation where the only canonically queer heroic character is also a former fascist sympathizer, and handled his complexity in such a way that people are still bashing him fifteen years later. By doing this, by linking his homosexuality with his bad politics and his character flaws, and not giving him any more love interests later on, and by having him spend the rest of his life guilty and hating himself, she’s creating a situation where the story of Albus’s life is “never fall in love if you’re gay because it’ll wreck your family and it’ll destroy the lives of those you love and your lover will be a horrible person”.

That’s homophobic. Plain and simple. Yes, I love Grindeldore and I love Albus and Gellert and I will keep shipping them no matter what, but one of the biggest reasons I’m doing that is because she’s told this story that says people like me who love others of the same gender are doomed to this tragedy. I reject her characterization of Gellert as toxic and evil and manipulative because making him all of those things is in and of itself a homophobic act. No, not every queer villain is a stereotype or a bigoted caricature, but when your only queer relationship is defined by these things? I call bullshit.

Sirius’s character assassination is also in that vein. In book three he’s kind and loving to Harry and offers him a home. In book four, he’s attentive, he’s a good support, he’s communicating with Harry’s other parental figure (Dumbledore), he’s telling Harry to be smart and be careful and not to take risks. He tells the trio that good men are people that don’t treat those beneath them poorly, and he speaks out against blood purity.

And then in book five - the first book written after Wolfstar became a prominent ship and dominated fan discussion of Sirius and the Marauders - he’s shoved into his abusive home, he’s belittled for no reason by Molly, he’s punished for trying to be honest with the kids, he’s shown associating with Mundungus the petty criminal, and there’s an ongoing theme of him not being safe for Harry to be around. Molly accuses him of replacing James with Harry, which is really homophobic to say to a queercoded character, and suddenly he’s no longer being the solid, wise, reasonable adult he was less than a year ago. He starts being racist toward Kreacher out of nowhere, to the point that he’s blamed for being so racist it killed him.

Again, this was Jo’s choice. His character changes for no reason except authorial decision, but as before, why was that decision made? It’s inconsistent with who he was beforehand, and it feels very pointedly about his failure to be good enough for Molly, who’s a cishet housewife. Sure, we’re given some in-universe reasoning, but all the coding in the text says “I’ve decided this man isn’t safe for children because he’s Different and Weird and so I’m going to make him dangerous.”

That’s also homophobia. It doesn’t ultimately matter what the reasons given by other characters for things are - even if we’re accepting them, it’s like with Albus. They come into existence in the book where the coding and queer-friendly interpretation becomes most relevant. She’s associating being a bad person with being homosexual. And there are no truly good heavily queercoded characters! Remus is straightwashed and then flakes out on his family anyway! It matters that this association exists because since nobody who isn’t like this gets to be queer, we’re left with a world where everyone who is is problematic.

That’s why I say that the writing itself is homophobic. There are ways to get around this, but you can’t ignore it, and it’s the thing I find myself angriest at Jo for doing.

[tanoraqui]

hello wonderful children, it's esoteric scifi/fantasy book rec time!!

Why You Should Reach the Paradox trilogy by Rachel Bach, a list by me:

Scifi action-adventure romance

The basic premise of this series is that Devi (Deviana Morris) is a professional space mercenary who really wants to be one of her god-king's elite guard/agents of badassery...but in order to get tapped for a thing like that, she needs to boost her resume. So she deliberately takes a job on an "unassuming" little trade ship notorious for having bad lethally luck.

in narrative terms, this means taking her Book 1 Protagonist self and becoming a supporting character in someone else's...you know the phase late in the series when a Protagonist has made most of their defining moral choices, gathered their team of loyal misfits, and they do more monster-of-the-week adventures than we clearly see on page, until suddenly the series finale starts? Devi walks into that. And then the series finale starts, with her in the middle, completely stealing Caldswell's Protagonist slot.

Devi "there's no point in doing something if you don't commit to it 110%" Morris

Devi "wow, this child soldier thing you've got going is DEEPLY fucked up. thank goodness my military-obssessed planet where we all know it'd be an honor to give our lives for our saint-king is nothing like that" Morris

(Arguably the narrative backs this up, but because it's all 1st person pov, I'd argue Devi just never picks up on the hypocrisy. Also, the others guys ARE doing much more fucked up things than some sketchy absolute monarchy and required military service.)

Devi "shut up, you do NOT get to decide if I forgive you. I decide that, and I do. Forgive you. But also I'm NOT in love, I can handle this on my own but I can't afford any weakness; shut up and stop being hot and dedicated near me" Morris

Relatedly, Rupert "the concept of not committing to something 110% is inherently incomprehensible to me, so I guess now I'm committing treason and following this madwoman's lead to hell and back" Charkov

Tbh in book 1, I was like, "I get why he's falling head over heels for her, but I feel like she skipped right from 'he's badass, usually nice, and REALLY hot' to 'oh no I'm in love.'" But by the end of book 2, I was on board. You see, they're simply BOTH categorically insane.

I CANNOT get over him being named "Rupert" though. This author makes the hottest possible man - tall, thin-but-muscular, soft hair and piercing blue eyes! sexy accent! spoilers but let's just say he's VERY lethal and monsterfucking isn't out of question! And he cooks! And then to balance all of this, she names him the LEAST sexy thing possible.

for those who want The Representation Facts: it's heterosexual romance, nothing too novel about it, but complex female protagonist who fights fiercely to maintain her agency, despite the efforts of most of the people around her. A lot of the plot centered around giving some young women back their stolen agency, actually. There's 2 gender-nonconforming characters, and they're both aliens but they're GNC in ways suited to their own cultures, not human, which I thought was pretty neat? Race doesn't come up, iirc more people are described as pale than not but some are dark-skinned and some just aren't described. Uhh no disability rep except arguing with medical(ish) professionals who think they know best but are just assholes…what else do you want. Woman has guns, armor, flaming sword, rage.

The books are Fortune's Pawn, Honor's Knight, and Heaven's Queen. They're not full of great themes or stunning writing, but they're full of well-paced intrigue, action, and morally suspect people making what they're convinced in the best choice for the greatest good. I read all 3 in the space of about 48 hours.

Devi "stop trying to explain chess to me and tell me what's actually going on" Morris

Devi "if my beloved armor is marred one more time, I'm going to kill everyone on this ship and then myself" Morris

I really enjoyed that the moral position it landed on was, “doing something terrible to save billions of lives when you have no other options IS okay. The sin is never looking for a better solution, but rather doubling down on maintaining the terrible thing.” I think that’s a wonderful and probably correct gray position. Often the many IS more important than the one, or even than the few…but you can’t just settle in grittiness. You have to hope and work for something better.

Author Rachel Bach is known as Rachel Aaron when she writes fantasy, and I'm gonna go hunt down some of that, now.

[undertale-data]

[Image Description: An Undertale chat box that has “WHY FANS LOVE UNDERTALE” at its center. Next to it are a line chart and an Egg from the Dating Hub on its left, and a CRIME measurer (also from the Dating Hub) on its right. End I.D.]

[Image Description: a pie chart titled, “LEVEL OF LOVE FOR UNDERTALE.” The textbox on the top right reads, “On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the least and 10 being the highest, how much do fans enjoy Undertale?” From the top going clockwise, 12 or 0% chose 5 and below; 23 or 1% chose 6; 98, or 4%, chose 7; 325, or 12%, chose 8; 529, or 20%, chose 9; and 1664, or 63%, chose 10. End I.D.]

It’s clear from all of the data analyzed so far that fans who took the time to answer our survey love Undertale. It is unlikely that they would have taken the time to answer so many questions if they had not, and even less likely that they would have come across our survey in the first place. Naturally, it comes as no surprise that 63% of our responders gave their love for Undertale a score of ten out of ten. 95% gave their love for Undertale a score of eight or higher, and only 12 responders responded with five or below, a number so small that their responses had to be lumped together to be visible on the pie chart. Of those, only 3 responders gave their love for Undertale a score of 1, and based on those responders’ other answers, it is likely that they were only intending to troll. We are very fortunate that the vast majority of responders took the survey seriously, enough so that responses like this are barely a blip in the data.

Now, for our final analysis post of the event, we will delve into the reasons that fans love Undertale so dearly.

(Essay and highlights under the cut.)

There have been countless essays on the impact that Undertale has had on people’s lives. I can hardly add more on the subject than what has already been said, but I hope this summary can provide a brief overview of what stood out among the over two thousand answers given in response to this survey. That said, due to the sheer volume of answers, I could not read every single one in depth—however, I did skim all of them, and some that stood out or were representative of several responses have been highlighted below. If you would like to see what every fan who consented to share their response had to say, you may view the full list of responses here. Note that these responses have not been edited in any way. This document may take a long time to load, as it is over 100 pages long.

(Warnings for mentions of suicidal thoughts in the following essay.)

Several responders loved the theme of choices mattering in Undertale. Whether people played the pacifist, merciless, or neutral routes, they enjoyed how the game reacted to their actions. For some, it even made them consider their own morality. One touching response explained the impact that the theme of mercy made on them. “I realized that Mercy isn't something that's given to those who deserve it. Flowey didn't deserve it. I don't deserve it myself. Shoot, we ALL need Mercy in our lives.” Many fans left similar comments about how the themes of Undertale made them better people.

Undertale changed how its fans treat others, and it also changed how fans treat themselves. The theme of staying determined and the messages of hope in the game were a light to a very large portion of fans. I cannot list all of the fans who said that Undertale helped them out of a dark place, or that they would not be alive if not for Undertale. “DETERMINATION became a metaphor for not killing myself at a really rough time in my life and I’ll always cherish that. Undertale isn’t afraid to go to really dark places but at the same time holds on so tight to its hope.”

Undertale brought fans together in unexpected ways. Some said they met friends or significant others through the fandom. “I wouldn't have met my now husband without Undertale,” one fan said. A different fan who is non-native English speaking mentioned that the game and the fan community helped them to learn English.

It would be impossible to discuss Undertale without mentioning the fan community. Whether for good or bad, many responders mentioned the fandom in their responses. Overall the feelings towards the fandom seem positive, though many made references to “toxic” parts of the fandom without specifying which parts they consider toxic. Others rejected the idea of toxicity in fandom. One response said: “[SLAMS FIST ON DESK] I KNOW MOST PEOPLE SAY THE FANDOM IS TOXIC AND CRINGE OR WHATEVER BUT OH MY GOD. The Undertale fandom, both the UTMV and the actual UT fandom, has been so much fun to be a part of. I've met countless friends because of our shared interest in something related to the game! The art people create can be breathtaking and so inspirational, and the fanfics are so so good!! I've seen people write incredible things for this fandom and it's what made me continue writing!”

One thing that makes the Undertale fandom unique is the way it embraces various AUs. Some fans are tired of AU content, but the majority of responses show a love for the creativity behind AUs. “Roll your eyes at the 50th AU Sans all you want, it's encouraging people to step outside the boundaries of fanart and pushing people to make their own ideas! I mean, hell, it was how I gained the confidence to start making my own original content.” The lack of a judgemental atmosphere seems present in the AU community, according to the responses we saw. There is an interesting balance between AU and canon (sometimes referred to as “classic”) content that another responder pointed out: “The fandom helped keep the game alive all these years, with all of its AUs. Although personally, I always enjoyed AUs that kept characters as close to the classic material as possible (dancetale, outertale) I do appreciate the creativity of the fandom. They almost created entirely new stories with new characters of their own! If it weren't for those people, the Undertale fandom would have probably not been as active as it is now. I do feel like we're getting a resurgence of classic content now too! (In 2021)”

Regardless of the many AUs the fandom has created over the years, the original game of Undertale still feels like home for many fans. They wished they could reclaim the feeling of playing the game again for the first time, but even though we can’t reset time in real life, there is still a special feeling for fans each time they play Undertale. One fan said, “Even the best fics I've read can't capture that feeling of nostalgia/almost-"coming home" that comes with hearing the music and talking to the characters.” This feeling is one that can be cherished time and time again. In the words of another responder: “It always feels welcoming like home or like comfort food that I never grow tired of no matter how many times I go to it.” Others pointed out the strength of the found family trope in Undertale, which likely contributes to this feeling of “home” as well.

As mentioned briefly earlier, the music is part of what makes Undertale feel like home for fans. Even when responses focused on other aspects of the game, many would throw in a comment about the soundtrack at the end. One comment focused on the music said “IT'S SO GOOD like I will literally go through the entire thing over and over and not be bored with it. It makes my monkey brain so happy you have no idea.” Like with the game itself, the music has incredible replay value, an amazing feat considering most of the tracks use the same few motifs. “I think what I like the most about Undertale is how the music attaches you to the story,” another responder said. “They're simple melodies that stick with you throughout the whole game, and they can remind you of both good and bad times.”

If the music sticks with fans in their hearts, then the game’s lore sticks with fans in their minds. Even six years after the release of Undertale, fans are still creating new theories and digging up new secrets. The way the game breaks the fourth wall in particular intrigued many fans and has stuck out through all these years. The awareness that the game shows for the RPG genre makes it memorable. The game plays with the player’s expectations and turns them on their heads, all while reminding the player that they’re in a game. There are few other games that do this on such a large scale, so it’s no surprise that fans cite this as one of their favorite things about Undertale.

Lastly, the LGBT+ representation in Undertale has been a huge draw for fans. Especially in 2015, the sheer volume of non-cishet characters was unprecedented, as one fan pointed out: “It's practically unheard of to see so MANY from just one source, especially during its heyday in 2015-16. Hell, you can't even GET the true pacifist ending without helping two gay couples hook up. It's really nice to see all of them being accepted for who they are and not judged for their sexuality or gender, at least in-canon.” The LGBT+ cast including Frisk, Chara, Napstablook, Monster Kid, Mettaton, Alphys, and Undyne each connected with fans in unique ways. It’s clear how important this is from responses such as: “There are canon nonbinary characters 🥺. i have never seen representation of myself before.” “It made me gay and trans so thanks for that.”

Once again I am overwhelmed with just how much there is to say about Undertale. One responder really understood when they compared Undertale to an iceberg, explaining that there are so many layers to the game that there is something for everyone: “everyone can find something to enjoy in the lore/game regardless of what kind of fan they are! Being able to appeal to various types of fans—from simple happy shipper people to deep dive lorediggers—is the mark of the coolest games!” I would have to agree with them.

It’s been six years, and despite everything, it’s still you. Thank you for reading, participating in this survey, and above all, staying determined.

Highlights:

DETERMINATION became a metaphor for not killing myself at a really rough time in my life and I’ll always cherish that. Undertale isn’t afraid to go to really dark places but at the same time holds on so tight to its hope.

I think the coolest thing was having the opportunity to watch the AU community grow from its bare roots. It's nearly insane how big and complex it's gotten, unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Roll your eyes at the 50th AU Sans all you want, it's encouraging people to step outside the boundaries of fanart and pushing people to make their own ideas! I mean, hell, it was how I gained the confidence to start making my own original content.

i love how the lgbt rep is so naturalized... there are just gay people! and its nobodys business!

The music is my go to answer, but what I really really REALLY love is how the minor characters have so much personality to them when you talk to them. They aren't incredibly important to the overall story, but they're all so likeable and diverse that you just can't help but like them immediately!

I think it was the first videogame I have played that broke the fourth wall that much. Of course there has been other videogames that broke it but just for one or two tongue-in-cheek jokes. The guilt of killing mama goat was also something intense as well that I appreciated as an experience and that I didn't think a videogame could cause on someone.

I love how no character can be seen as completely bad! Everyone builds up Asgore as some horrible villain, but he turns out to be a 'fuzzy pushover' who's broken and just wants his family back by the time you meet him. Then you think Flowey's an irredeemable killer who engineered the suffering of the monsters across many timelines, and he is... but he also used to be the kind and beloved Prince Asriel Dreemurr, traumatized by his death and subsequent rebirth, projecting his best friend onto you.

The fact that choices matter in the game. Your first playthrough and getting the golden ending for the first time. I can never replicate those feelings again, wish I could erase my memories and replay the game from the start.

I wouldn't have met my now husband without Undertale.

(Toxic parts of the fandom aside) The community is possibly one of the kindest I've ever met. Cringe culture is completely dead, and I feel like I can be myself. I felt a very close connection to many of the characters, and I loved consuming content about them when I was in a rough patch in my life.

just everything, the whole game has just impacted my life so much. i know it sounds really lame, but when the game first came out, i would purposely put my hands in my pockets and sway slightly, like sans' idle animation. of course i dont do that anymore haha, but undertale still really impacts me to this day, and i wouldnt have it any other way :)

it made me gay and trans so thanks for that

I realized that Mercy isn't something that's given to those who deserve it. Flowey didn't deserve it. I don't deserve it myself. Shoot, we ALL need Mercy in our lives.

The thing I love most about Undertale is no matter how many times I play or watch a playthrough it always makes me genuinely happy. It always feels welcoming like home or like comfort food that I never grow tired of no matter how many times I go to it. Toriel still makes me feel all warm and cozy in her home, the Skelebros always make me laugh, and I still cry on the inside watching Frisk comforting Asriel. And on the flip side the No Mercy run still invokes the negative emotions in me as well. In short Undertale just feels like a second home to me and I always wish I could stay.

The reader inserts are my favorite way to decompress after a hard day

I think Undertale helped me discover my love for 8-bit games, and made me realize how IMPORTANT music is in video games.

the worldbuilding and character design are my favorite parts of the main game apart from the music! I’m also a huge fan of the random AU music- not for like underswap or underfell i like the stuff where someone makes a megalovania for a random au where gru from despicable me replaces sans as the character. i think its funny

Just... the vibe, honestly? Even the best fics I've read can't capture that feeling of nostalgia/almost-"coming home" that comes with hearing the music and talking to the characters.

there are canon nonbinary characters 🥺. i have never seen representation of myself before.

[SLAMS FIST ON DESK] I KNOW MOST PEOPLE SAY THE FANDOM IS TOXIC AND CRINGE OR WHATEVER BUT OH MY GOD. The Undertale fandom, both the UTMV and the actual UT fandom, has been so much fun to be a part of. I've met countless friends because of our shared interest in something related to the game! The art people create can be breathtaking and so inspirational, and the fanfics are so so good!! I've seen people write incredible things for this fandom and it's what made me continue writing!

There's a scene where Frisk (the player) is going towards what is presumably going to be their death. They will fight Asgore and he will use their human soul to break the barrier and free his people. The music, despite the player's impending doom, is... triumphant. You are not the triumphant one here, and yet, the score invites you to experience the monsters' joy and happiness as they tell you the tale of their subjugation. The monsters are going to be free. This is their victory, but they don't hate you or want you to die. They're just... happy. That scene has always struck me very deeply. I feel it represents the best parts of Undertale.

I loved how well thought out the Geno route was. It really made me feel like I was doing something horrible, and the characters were very obviously reacting to dire circumstances.

I dunno? I like Undertale for it's characters, story, music, secrets and many more. I am not good with Headcanons but I also like the neutral endings and how different they can depending on who you spare and kill

I was very bad at english before, i thought i couldn't progress because i was very shy and not confident. But my sibling and i wanted to have the best experience with this game so we wanted to play it in english. It's this game and the fandom which helped me to make huge progress in english !

THE SOUNDTRACK. IT'S SO GOOD like I will literally go through the entire thing over and over and not be bored with it. It makes my monkey brain so happy you have no idea.

to avoid writing an essay i will say one word. Mettaton

It is like Toby specifically made the games to fit the iceberg meme and it's awesome, everyone can find something to enjoy in the lore/game regardless of what kind of fan they are! Being able to appeal to various types of fans - from simple happy shipper people to deep dive lorediggers is the mark of the coolest games!

I love almost everything about Undertale as a game on its own. The music, the art and especially the characters and how they interact. They made me feel at home. Undertale means a huge amount to me. (I even got a tattoo of the castle when you and MK walk together!) The fandom helped keep the game alive all these years, with all of its AUs. Although personally, I always enjoyed AUs that kept characters as close to the classic material as possible (dancetale, outertale) I do appreciate the creativity of the fandom. They almost created entirely new stories with new characters of their own! If it weren't for those people, the Undertake fandom would have probably not been as active as it is now. I do feel like we're getting a resurgence of classic content now too! (In 2021)

the mystery. toby fox refused to give answers to anything and i think thats very sexy of him.

I just feel guilty for liking it so much when I'm in my 30's. But I recently got diagnosed with ASD, so I guess it explains things a bit. Many ppl consider Papyrus to be neurodivergent, and some adult fans are too, so seeing that makes me feel a bit better.

i think about "Despite everything, it's still you" everyday of my life.

I like how it's just as funny as it can be serious. All routes are this way. I laughed as much as I cried when I played the Pacifist route and then once I opened the game again and Flowey was telling me to let them be happy, I immediately turned off the game. I somehow felt bad.

The Found Family Trope

The True Pacifist Ending is just...man. And the fanworks about saving everyone even when the game doesn't let you? MANNNNNN

I think what I like the most about Undertale is how the music attaches you to the story. They're simple melodies that stick with you throughout the whole game, and they can remind you of both good and bad times.

there's honestly a LOT to love about this game, but i think one of my favorite things about it is just how many lgbt+ characters there are??? i can think of alphys, undyne, frisk, chara, mettaton, napstablook, monster kid, asgore, mad mew mew, the dress lion, the royal guards, and arguably even papyrus off of the top of my head, but im sure i'm forgetting a few from just undertale alone (there's even MORE in deltarune)!! it's practically unheard of to see so MANY from just one source, especially during its heyday in 2015-16. hell, you can't even GET the true pacifist ending without helping two gay couples hook up. it's really nice to see all of them being accepted for who they are and not judged for their sexuality or gender, at least in-canon.

[Image description: A wordcloud in the shape of the capitalized word UNDERTALE. The text is white on a black background, and uses the font found in the game. Some of the most visible words are: Game, Love, Music, Life, AU, Store, Friend, and Feel, which represent the most common words in the essays people wrote about their love for the game. End of ID]

[lochnessies]

ok here’s a dissection of a post an anon sent me the link to and bc i have the worst time management possible and i completely forgot i had it lol so sorry anon here you go ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

I am constantly thinking about how Edelgard just doesn’t seem designed to appeal to cishet men.

i hate to be the one to break this news to you op but just because a character doesn’t show skin like charlotte fire emblem doesn’t mean she isn’t designed to pander to men. she’s very much designed to pander to the (majority straight male) player base with her ‘uwu i only trust you professor omg did u see that rat? pls don’t look at my painting of you uwu’.

then there’s the whole edelgard c support in japanese where byleth makes reference to having come to her room for ‘yobi’ which is

there’s also the scene where byleth can make an unsolicited comment about edelgard’s breast size. which is… uhh… gross.

edelgard also has cipher cards that go from slightly fanserviceie to full on suggestive

and also her breast armor that my sister relentlessly mocked lol

and here’s a chart from the 3h subreddit about gender/sexually in regards to edelgard and edeleth. it’s extremely straight male. op might have just overlooked this since they probably don’t go on reddit and stay on tumblr (which unlike reddit is mostly female and has a high lgbt demographic).

Like the joke is that Bleagles is the Gay House, but everything about her feels deliberately non-hetero.

i don’t like where this is going…

She’s dressed in sharp outfits covering her upper body, with proportions that don’t seem exaggerated.

so women who cover up must be lgbt because straight women are naturally more revealing? oh y i k e s

Her poise and the way she effortlessly flourishes her axe exhibits an air of coolness. While titties out =/= character of no substance, Edelgard being dressed more modestly suggests that she wasn’t designed with male-centred fanservice in mind.

“titties don’t equal no substance but here’s my post on how she has more substance because she doesn’t show titties” ok

And she still looks absolutely stunning in her more modest attire (like seriously, I haven’t felt the need to return to cosplay in years but I want to do her academy look so bad). 

yes she does. amazing design 10/10. i have a feeling this is the only part i’m going to agree with

Edelgard is intense. She does not mince her words and she is constantly evaluating you. Though she tries, she has a difficult time understanding her peers initially. Early on, she talks about how she would sacrifice herself and others in the name of some greater good. She is terrible at communicating with her peers. She has to be seen as infallible. Her heart has been hardened for years and she assumes she has to stay that way. She also assumes everyone mourns the same way she does - which is why she (kind of insensitively) insists you move on when Jeralt dies. Because to her, grief has to be channeled towards action, or else you’ll get lost in it. This attitude is demonstrated time and time again as she presses on. It can make her come off as cold and unfeeling - but look closer, and she’s anything but.

don’t really have anything to say at this part. it is pretty on the nose though i would slightly disagree with that last sentence a bit. i wouldn’t say she’s as i feeling as hubert is but all of her talks of the war boil down to how she feels and never her victims.

Her story is ultimately about her realizing that to achieve her goals, she needs to let people in and allow herself to want things like cakes and tea parties and lazy days in peace. 

????? what ????? her goals include imperialism, ethnic and religious targeting. her story is about having a set of beliefs and mowing down anybody who stands in her way. that has nothing to do with tea, friends, and lazy days. also am i supposed to be sad that she has to get up everyday and work? i do that and i didn’t start a war and only throw a pity party for myself

The game leaves the player guessing as to how involved the Flame Emperor was in each Part I event, makes you feel hurt by her betrayal, and leaves you with a choice: do you follow the orders of the woman who tried to make you a god without your consent, or a young girl with questionable morals about to throw the world into upheaval?

this isn’t an ideal situation but i think i’m going to stick with the woman who tried to make me a god since i’m not selfish and i know it’s not only my desires and life at stake here. plus the green hair slaps ngl

Choosing her of your own volition (not for completionist reasons) requires the basic ability to sympathize with a woman’s pain. It also requires the player to read beyond her unwavering will and dubious methods to get a sense of how deep that pain goes and how the theme of humanity relates to her differently in each route.

i’m not going to touch this since @nilsh13 made a post on it that i’ll link here. i agree with everything he said so to repeat it would be redundant.

The player must be able to see a young woman’s desperate resolve to change the world so it stops exploiting people and ruining lives. They must be able to accept the fact that women can make the same morally wrong and ambivalent decisions that complicated male characters get to make all the time and still be the one to root for.

literally the same reason i love rhea lol her goddess experiments are dubious at best but her reasons are the same you mentioned. i would say that i like this quality in edelgard too if her ending, while bloody, actually ended in a good outcome for fodlan.

This is not unique to LGBT+ people, but this population is likely to understand why Edelgard feels so strongly about why she has to change the system. 

i understand wanting to change a system, i really do. like edelgard, i’m an opinionated bisexual woman (who’s also physically disabled) so yeah i get it. and change can be good but it can also be terrible. even if the church was the boogeyman edelgard treats it as she still replaces it with her own shit regime. so it’s the same circus just with a new conductor.

I don’t think “Edelgard gets undue criticism because she’s a woman” captures the full picture. An important aspect of her treatment by certain parts of the fandom is that she’s a radical woman.

or maybe she does some pretty fucked up shit and it goes unacknowledged in her own route. and yeah she’s radical but in all the worst ways.

Her hatred of the Church and the Crest system resonates way harder with people who have been hurt by institutions that are deeply engrained in our society. 

and what about people who have been hurt by systems where their ‘merit’ didn’t measure up and they were left behind? what about people from nations that experienced imperialism?

Siding with her means siding against the Church - which, while different from real world religious institutions, still invokes language about “sin” and “punishment.

yeah the ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ are used in relation to attempted murders which i think everybody can agree is a bad thing that needs to be condemned.

Choosing Edelgard will likely hit different if homophobic and transphobic Christians used that rhetoric against you.

it has literally nothing to do with ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ in regards to being gay or trans. that’s you projecting. especially since the church has 2 canon gay characters and two coded ones.

like i can understand why having a church condemn you can be uncomfortable but i’m begging you to please look at the context of what’s happening.

I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that the reason F/F Edeleth is the more popular iteration of that ship because most people who would choose to S-support Edelgard are LGBT+ themselves. This is not a revelation. To anyone in the community, it’s fairly obvious. 

i was talking to nilish and he said

so yeah… while there is definitely sapphic femleth shippers out there, there’s still a whole lot of weird fetishizing going on from straight men about edelgard.

Crimson Flower was my first route. I went into the game knowing absolutely nothing. I played it during the last week of 2020 and hoo boy was it cathartic. 

i can tell. this wasn’t supposed to be a dig but it came out that way and i’m not taking it out.

I felt like I was living out a gay revolution power fantasy, where I could truly change systems of oppression while fighting alongside a group of troubled students I’d shaped the lives of.

so a gay revolution power fantasy (cringe) goes hand in hand with imperialism and installing a dictatorship? also the war had nothing to do with sexuality.

Through your unwavering support, Edelgard learns that she needs to be human, that she must listen to her friends, and that she’s allowed to enjoy the world she’s creating.

edelgard gets to learn how to be human all while hunting those who don’t. and she doesn’t listen fo her friends. she doesn’t even trust them. she’s willing to talk to byleth but keep the people who’s been by her side for five years in the dark about everything. and yeah she gets to enjoy her new words since she’s on top. hate to be a commoner under her rule after she burned down my village in her war.

I love this character so much.

clearly. and i honestly don’t care if somebody likes her. i do as well even if my sometimes scathing words can make it seem otherwise.

It has been six months since I first played and I am still analyzing her,

me too. please help me escape i’m losing my mind

because there’s so much depth. Yet so many people fail to see that depth and dismiss her as evil,

i mean, she does some fucked up shit that goes beyond any of the less than desirable actions of the other main characters and does an extremely poor job in trying to make herself seem innocent. i personally don’t think she’s pure evil but i completely understand where the people who say she is are coming from.

because they never had the will to understand complicated women in the first place. 

that’s big talk from somebody who implies that a gay pope is comparable to homophobic and transphobic irl religions and that leads an oppressive regime all because she uses the vague terms of sin and punishments that you have to gay power fantasy your way out of

[killianmesmalls]

On your comments about Jack: ye-es, in the sense that Jack is a character who definitely deserved better than he was treated by the characters. The way Dean especially treats him reflects very badly on Dean, no question. But, speaking as a viewer, I think the perspective needs to shift a little bit.

To me, Jack is Dawn from Buffy, or Scrappy Doo. He’s an (in my opinion) irritating kid who is introduced out of nowhere to be both super vulnerable and super OP, and the jeopardy is centered around him in a way that has nothing to do with his actual character or relationships. He’s mostly around to be cute and to solve or create problems — he never has any firm character arcs or goals of his own, nor any deeper purpose in the meta narrative. In this way, he’s a miss for SPN, which focuses heavily on conflicts as metaphors for real life.

Mary fits so much better in that framework, and introducing her as a developed, flawed person works really well with the narrative. It is easy for us to care about Mary, both as the dead perfect mother on the pedestal and as the flawed, human woman who could not live up to her sons’ expectations. That connection is built into the core of SPN, and was developed over years, even before she was a character. When she was added, she was given depth and nuance organically, and treated as a flawed, complex character rather than as a plot device or a contrivance. She was given a voice and independence, and became a powerful metaphor for developing new understandings of our parents in adulthood, as well as an interesting and well-rounded character. You care that she’s dead, not just because Sam and Dean are sad, but for the loss of her development and the potential she offered. So, in that sense, I think a lot of people were frustrated that she died essentially fridged for a second time, and especially in service of the arc of a weaker character.

And like, you’re right, no one can figure out if Jack is a toddler or a teenager. He’s both and he’s neither, because he’s never anything consistently and his character arc is always “whatever the plot needs it to be.” Every episode is different. Is he Dean’s sunny opportunity to be a parent and make up for his dad’s shitty parenting? Yes! Is he also Dean’s worst failure and a reminder that he has done many horrible things, including to “innocent” children? Yes! Is he Cas’s child? Yes! Is he Dean’s child? Yes! But also, no! Is he Sam’s child? Yes! Is he a lonely teenager who does terrible things? Yes! Is he a totally innocent little lamb who doesn’t get why what he is doing is wrong? Yes! Is he the most powerful being in the universe? Yes! Does he need everyone to take care of him? Yes! Is he just along for the ride? Yes! Is he responsible for his actions? Kinda??? Sometimes??? What is he???

Mary as a character is narratively cohesive and fleshed-out. Jack is a mishmash of confusing whatever’s that all add up to a frustrating plot device with no consistent traits to latch on to. Everything that fans like about him (cute outfits, gender play, well-developed parental bonds with the characters) is fanon. So, yes, the narrative prioritizes Mary. Many fans prioritize Mary, at least enough that Dean’s most heinous acts barely register. To the narrative (not to Cas, which is a totally different situation), Jack is only barely more of a character than Emma Winchester, who Sam killed without uproar seasons earlier. He’s been around longer, but he’s equally not really real.

I debated on responding to this because, to tell the truth, I think we fundamentally disagree on a number of subjects and, as they say, true insanity is arguing with anyone on the internet. However, you spent a lot of time on the above and I feel it's only fair to say my thoughts, even if I don't believe it will sway you any more than what you said changed my opinions.

I'm assuming this was in response to this post regarding how Jack's accidental killing of Mary was treated so severely by the brothers, particularly Dean, because it was Mary and, had it been a random character like the security guard in 13x06, it would have been treated far differently. However, then the argument becomes less about the reaction of the Winchester brothers to this incident and more the value of Jack or Mary to the audience.

I believe we need to first admit that both characters are inherently archetypes—Mary as the Madonna character initially then, later, as a metaphor for how imperfect and truly human our parents are compared to the idol we have as children, and Jack as the overpowered child who is a Jesus allegory by the end. Both have a function within the story to serve the Winchester brothers, through whose lens and with whose biases we are meant to view the show's events. We also need to admit that the writers didn't think more than a season ahead for either character, especially since it wasn't initially supposed to be Mary that came back at the end of season 11 but John, and they only wrote enough for Jack in season 13 to gauge whether or not the audience would want him to continue on or if he needed to be killed off by the end of the season. Now, I know we curate our own experiences online which leads to us being in our own fandom echo chambers, however it is important to note that the character was immediately successful enough with the general audience that, after his first episode or two, he was basically guaranteed a longer future on the show.

I have to admit, I’m not entirely sure why the perspective of how his character is processed by some audience members versus others has any bearing on the argument that he deserved to be treated better overall by the other characters especially when taking their own previous actions in mind. I’m not going to tell you that your opinion is wrong regarding your feelings for Jack. It’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it, it harms no one to have it and express it. My feelings on Jack are clearly very different from your own, but this is really just two different people who processed a fictional person in different ways. I personally believe he has a purpose in the Winchesters’ story, including Castiel’s, as he reflects certain aspects of all of them, gives them a way to explore their own histories through a different perspective, and changes the overall dynamic of Team Free Will from “soldiers in arms” to a family (Misha’s words). In the beginning he allows Sam to work through his past as the “freak” and powerful, dangerous boy wonder destined to bring hell on earth. With Dean, his presence lets Dean work through his issues with John and asks whether he will let history repeat itself or if he’ll work to break the cycle. Regarding Cas, in my opinion he helps the angel reach his “final form” of a father, member of a family, lover and protector of humanity, rebellious son, and the true show of free will. 

From strictly the story, he has several arcs that work within themes explored in Supernatural, such as the argument of nature versus nurture, the question of what we’re willing to give up in order to protect something or someone else and how ends justify the means, and the struggle between feeling helpless and powerless versus the corruptive nature of having too much power and the dangerous lack of a moral compass. His goals are mentioned and on display throughout his stint on the show, ones that are truly relatable to some viewers: the strong desire to belong—the need for family and what you’ll do to find and keep it. 

With Mary, we first need to establish whether the two versions of her were a writing flaw due to the constant change in who was dictating her story and her relationship to the boys, which goes against the idea that her characterization was cohesive and fleshed-out but, rather, put together when needed for convenience, or if they both exist because, as stated above, we are seeing the show primarily through the biased lens of the Winchester brothers and come to face facts about the true Mary as they do. Like I said in my previous post, I don’t dislike Mary and I don’t blame her for her death (either one). However, I do have a hard time seeing her as a more nuanced, fleshed-out character than Jack. True, a lot of her problems are more adult in nature considering she has to struggle with losing her sons’ formative years and meeting them as whole adults she knows almost nothing about, all because of a choice she made before they were born. 

However, her personal struggles being more “mature” in nature (as they center primarily on parental battles) doesn’t necessarily mean her story has layers and Jack’s does not. They are entirely different but sometimes interconnected in a way that adds to both of their arcs, like Mary taking Jack on as an adoptive son which gives her the moments of parenting she lost with Sam and Dean, and Jack having Mary as a parental figure who understands and supports him gives him that sense of belonging he had just been struggling with to the point of running away while he is also given the chance to show “even monsters can do good”. 

I’d also argue that Jack being many ages at once isn’t poor writing so much as a metaphor for how, even if you’re forced to grow up fast, that doesn’t mean you’re a fully equipped adult. I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I believe Jack simultaneously taking a lot of responsibility and constantly trying to prove to others he’s useful while having childish moments is relatable to some who were forced to play an adult role at a young age. He proves a number of times that he doesn’t need everyone to take care of him, but he also has limited life experience and, as such, will make some mistakes while he’s also being a valuable member of the group. Jack constantly exists on a fine line in multiple respects. Some may see that as a writing flaw but it is who the character was conceived to be: the balance between nature or nurture, between good and evil, between savior and devil. 

Now, I was also frustrated Mary was “fridged” for a second time. It really provided no other purpose than to give the brothers more man pain to further the plot along. However, this can exist while also acknowledging that the way it happened and the subsequent fallout for Jack was also unnecessary and a sign of blatant hypocrisy from Dean, primarily, and Sam. 

And, yes, Jack can be different things at once because, I mean, can’t we all? If Mary can be both the perfect mother and the flawed, independent, distant parent, can’t Jack be the sweet kid who helps his father-figures process their own feelings on fatherhood while also being a lost young-adult forcing them to face their failures? Both characters contain multitudes because, I mean, we all do. 

I can provide articles or posts on Jack’s characterization and popularity along with Mary’s if needed, but for now I think this is a long enough ramble on my thoughts and feelings. I’m happy to discuss more, my messenger is always open for (polite) discussion. Until then, I’m going to leave it at we maybe agree to disagree. 

[itsclydebitches]

Not sure how I feel about anon bringing Yang not showing Salem empathy in that moment as a bad thing. Like if an immortal witch was trying to murder/kill all of my friends my reaction probably wouldn't be "how do you feel though"

That's been my response too, anon, though I understand where the previous anon is coming from. Though Salem started out as a generic Big Bad with no redeemable qualities, Volume 6 showed us a captive woman who was later tortured by the gods and sought death, only to find herself changed instead, thereby raising the question for the audience, "How much of the Big Bad's action is Salem and how much of it is the evil grimm magic acting upon her?" Just as important, Volume 8 gave us Cinder's backstory and a scene of her crying on the rooftop, alongside the forgiveness of Emerald and Hazel. I could go on another rant about how this sympathy didn't extent to Ironwood and, in a different way, didn't extend to Ozpin either, but outside of that there's been a very strong message of, "Abuse victims and people who have just generally suffered - lost a sister, lived on the streets - should be shown compassion and given a second chance," which becomes a problem when we consider that the most prominent villain with an abusive backstory since Volume 6 has not been extended that compassion. Gender dynamics aside, it's the same problem fans have with Adam's ending considering that his brand was revealed right before he died. The go-to explanations of, "But Adam was his own abuser who stalked Blake" and "Salem is literally trying to destroy the world" fall a little flat when pit against "But it's okay for Emerald to manipulate Pyrrha into killing Penny?" and "Hazel has also knowingly helped Salem try to take over the world. And also murdered countless huntsmen. And also was torturing a kid." It's not so easy to go, "The story shouldn't show them compassion because they're The Worst" when the story is already showing compassion to people who... are also The Worst. I say all this not as a way to excuse any one character's actions - I'm not in the business of going, "[insert horrific choice here] is fine actually!" - but rather to acknowledge that RWBY lacks a clear divide between what actions are forgivable and what actions are not. Fans aren't wrong to go, "If you expect me to feel for Cinder after everything she's done since Episode 1 and you expect me to laugh along with the cast after everything Emerald has done, why isn't Salem Adam Ironwood Ozpin getting that same sort of work?" Given the "trust love" message and the strong push to sympathize with/outright redeem heinous characters, a lot of fans are wondering why our cast hasn't even mentioned all the shit Salem went through. It's been months now since they watched Jinn's vision and they're accepting former villains into their ranks now because Life is Hard and they deserve that chance, but no one cares to even mention everything Salem went through and debate her own responsibility. Surely if they can forgive Emerald for willingly working with her, there's at least some room to discuss the question of Salem's morality in the context of two Gods' manipulations and a magical pool having some kind of impact on her. There's a disconnect here. The story can't go, "These heinous people are Good deep down, actually" without extending that to all our villains, Salem included.

(All of which, btw, is tied up in the frustration that the group hasn't discussed the vision at all. The question of Salem's morality is tied up in the question of her defeat. For example, if they decide they're not comfortable with killing her, that might lead to theories on how to contain her instead...)

So ALL OF THAT is churning in the back of fans' minds. I agree 100% that the group's capture was not the time to extend any sympathy for Salem and I've got posts out there saying the exact same as you, anon: "You really expect Yang to be compassionate after Salem was torturing Oscar, captured them, was planning to kill them, is attacking the city, and just reminded her of her dead mom? C'mon." The problem lies in the fact that we haven't gotten this kind of work anywhere else, the cast has barely mentioned Salem anywhere else - outside of freaking out over her arrival - so when a member of our main group is suddenly right next to her and they're discussing the concept of loss, some fans are like, "AHHHH TALK ABOUT WHAT SALEM HAS LOST TOO GODDAMMIT." It's putting an unfair expectation on Yang and the scene because, again, I don't think that was the time or place for discussing the nuances of morality in a fantasy setting, but because everything else around Salem has been so badly written, and Yang's scene was the closest we've ever gotten to scratching that itch... fans get frustrated that it didn't happen, no matter how unfair or ridiculous that frustration might seem. Really, I don't think fans, in a general sense, actually want Yang to sympathize with Salem then and there. That would be a whole other, messy can of worms given the context. But they want something and at this point "something" has become accepting even really bad versions of what they're looking for. Since no one discussed the vision at the farm, or at Argus, or any time in Atlas, fans are metaphorically throwing up their hands with a, "Well, if we have to delve into Salem's character only when she's doing the most damage in the entire series then fine! You didn't do it earlier when you should have, so this is just what we're left with! Better then nothing! I'm sick of watching Cinder cry and Emerald make quips and Hazel go out in a blaze of heroics and we still haven't even mentioned that our primary antagonist went through more shit than the three of them combined. Am I supposed to be compassionate towards the bad guys or not? Make up your mind, RWBY."

RWBY is a hot mess and the mistakes the story has made, sadly, are not easily separated from one another. Frustration over Yang's scene is prioritizing one problem over another. Namely, the problem of Salem's characterization over the problem of having your hero go "How do you feel though?" while the bad guy is about to kill her. RWBY has backed itself into a corner, both problems exist, but we can only easily discuss one at a time. Similarly, if someone goes, "Ugh they really need to work on Emerald's redemption in Volume 9" people are correct to go, "But if they do that then Volume 8 will look even worse since they've already forgiven her" or "But that's going to be so messy if they're flip-flopping between Vacuo and the island world. Should they even redeem her without the main girls around?" And it's like yes! Exactly! None of these are good options. RWBY has written a situation where ANY choice is going to be a problem on some level because none of this story has been well thought out. So it comes down to which problem an individual fan considers to be, well, more of a problem. In Yang's case it's going, "I will gladly sacrifice the integrity of this scene to get some acknowledgement of a theme that has existed for Salem since early Volume 6 and is now being heavily pushed on other characters in Volume 8. If a stupid moment where Yang is kind to Salem while she's captured is what it takes to start this conversation then fine. I'll take it. Especially when Oscar was kind to Hazel while captured and tortured. You already gave us the stupid scene - just do it again and actually get something out of it this time!"

It is, as said, a twisting, turning mess.