#and we start discussing it

[dollopole]

Could have destiny, and therefore Arthur’s death, really be avoided in Merlin? Or were things supposed to flow like that either way?

The first thought that struck me, as soon as the last episode ended, was the usual “what if?” that keeps this fandom alive, alongside the plethora of theories (that I like looking into and discuss) questions, answers and headcanons.

But no matter how many times I think about it, I personally believe that the answer to the question in the title is simply:

No.

It couldn’t.

The directors, no matter how many choices they made, that we could either think are wrong or not, had also made a wonderful job of deceiving us, but not really, and ending the show with a tragedy and a good fucking plot.

What is the plot, you may ask?

“You don’t choose destiny, destiny chooses you”,

and I think it’s brilliant.

First thing first, destiny:

The directors said: “Fuck it.” They tried everything they could do so that Merlin, at the end of the day, had only one choice. It is really an hard point to make, especially because we like to think that if Merlin had done something differently, things could have actually took another road, and yes, it could have, but it didn’t happen, because we needed an enemy in the show, and it was made on purpose. I like to think that the directors knew it would piss people off. It did. Great job, you guys, I still think about it after fifteen years.

Second thing, who’s the bad guy? (Uther)

What I mean by this, is that I’m asking this question to the main characters who the directors wanted us to believe they were objectively good, right, like Merlin, or Gaius, and even Arthur. How about, no one of them had to be completely good? It hurts less if the characters I just cited acted differently, like we oftentimes say of Merlin, but it’s fiction, and we wouldn’t have Tumblr to discuss it on, if they were all perfect, so why not give them some very bad flows? *cough* All the better if they’re murderers *cough*. Now, if it were reality, I too would have said: “Go to hell”, but it’s BBC Merlin, so let me have some fun.

Morgana is bad, Merlin could be too, Arthur even, also Gwen, Lancelot too, and all the wicked team we’ve got. Oh, especially the toilet they had instead of a king, the one and only Uther Pendragon. I even said that Gaius is bad, and offended Hunith of all people, so let’s get to my point. Merlin could have done things differently? Yes. But Morgana, too. Hell, also Arthur. The point of the TV show is the very, very bad choice Uther made of being a tyrant, so. Merlin could have told Morgana he had magic? Yep, but sometimes I believe Morgana had to be evil, so even if she could have become like that in another way, she made her own choice. She knew Merlin was a good person, who didn’t dislike her because of the magic, and still threatened him throughout all season three, causing chaos and death because she craved power and she was in a privileged position where she could do all these things. We like to blame Merlin and Gaius for how she turned out, but what about Gwen? Poor woman didn’t do anything, as much as breathing too hard near her mistress, and Morgana wanted her dead because she hated the idea that a woman like Gwen, who even if amazing and with so many skills, was just a peasant, and could get on her throne. Morgana made the choice to hate Gwen. Morgana made the choice to try and kill Arthur to take her throne, even when Arthur had no idea of what was happening. Heavy on her throne, because who said it was? By age, status, whatever, Uther appointed Arthur as the heir, and there is no changing that. (so, bad Morgana. See? She had to be, like, it was the director’s job)

“Merlin poisoned her.” He did, and isn’t that magnificent? We can see how it destroys both of them in their own ways. Why did they have to be good characters? Imagine how boring the show would have been, and now I wouldn’t be making a post about it at ten in the evening. Morgana chose Morgause. There is no discussing that. As soon as she saw she could take Arthur’s throne, she started doing the evil smirk every two seconds, accuse Gwen of being a sorceress (shouldn’t she side with her own kind?), killing guards wherever she went, sneaking out with the clip, clap of her boots to make bad things, uh uh, in the woods, uh uh.

Third thing, Merlin tried, poor guy:

No, he is not perfect either, and I love it. He is a man who got appointed with this great job to do the right thing since he was a boy, and what did the lad do? Many wrong things, LMAO. And still, in his perspective, they were right. And we agree on most of them, don’t we? Everything because we’ve got his point of view. It was right for Merlin to try and kill a child, because of a prophecy; it was right to lie to Morgana, because she was upstanding, and he was just a peasant; it was right to free a dragon, and he was simply right on this one (yes, to me, there is no discussing this. I would have freed The Great Dragon too, and I cannot blame him for what he did after); it was right to poison Morgana; it was right for Merlin to follow Arthur everywhere and believe he was a good man despite everything, because the idiots loved one another more than they could hate the system they had been put in (spoiler alert, Arthur too has so many flows). Why listing all these things he thought were right? Because they were right to him, because we know his life, how much he had hurt, and how much death not only he saw, but also inflicted. And Morgana killed so many people too. She, multiple times, committed treason, and Merlin had enough information to know that she agreed to make Camelot sleep. Thinking only of saving Arthur and innocent people, he did what he thought was best (this is the same man who had already saved Morgana after he had already tried to kill her, because he tried with all his might not to be a killer, like he had said to the dragon long before), and poisoned her. Could there be an excuse for Mordred? I believe not, but Merlin believed there was, and that’s enough for him, for the audience, and that’s what makes him such a complicated and beautiful character. Merlin did help Morgana, even if he lied to her, and what if he didn’t? He could have got into so much more trouble, Gaius would have reproached him, Merlin believed neither Arthur or Camelot were ready to accept magic, or him, and Morgana, once finding out about the fact that he was Uther’s daughter, she would have probably still acted the same, because we later see that she didn’t want magic to not be outlawed anymore, but to simply, ehm, kill Arthur and everyone who got in her way.

Fourth thing, the other characters can be bad too:

Even if enchanted, Gwen did betray Arthur. (she is such a good character, and very kind, but I like when even the best ones do something bad). We know she is not guilty, but nobody knew, not even Merlin and Gaius, because they never found out she had been enchanted. And when she was evil, there are still consequences to the deaths she caused. Lancelot, even if a good man, and a good friend to Merlin, left before Gwen could decided if she wanted a relationship with him. Gwaine, who we love and adore, him too a complex character, didn’t think about it twice in kicking Merlin in the dungeons when Gwen, evil and enchanted, had accused him of treason. (yes, she is the queen, but Gwaine doesn’t seem the kind of character who would that, or maybe yes?) What about “you’re the only friend I have” and all that? Arthur still made prejudiced choices even when crowned king, and Merlin supported him, and we know why. Even bloody Sefa, manipulated by her father, decided to commit treason.

My point is, who wouldn’t have loved if things went differently, but at the same time, a TV show that is so perfect, with characters who cannot make a single bad thing, would have been still this enjoyable? Hell, that is the point of fiction, that is the point of writing, of directing. Even when we look at bad choices in a TV series, we try to understand why those things happened, why character A betrayed character B and the dominoes effect their relationship brought.

That’s what makes the TV show better. You can build things off bad things. You can make good fanfictions about what could have gone different. You can make theories debating whatever these choices were simply poorly made by the directors or made on purpose. You can discuss all day the relationships between the characters because they’re flowed, and sometimes even toxic.

That is the best part.

This is not to say that we cannot blame a character’s arc for something that happened, or try to redeem another character, instead, but it’s also good to be able to judge and point and write about it.

Even in this post I made points that I believe should be objective (siding with the oppressor, being an oppressor, not blaming a caged dragon for revenge, ecc.) and yet I still like the characters because I can blame them and talk about them exactly because they’re bad.

Moral of the story. A good story always has an antagonist. We shouldn’t delete that.

(and fuck you, Uther Pendragon)

See? Beautiful.

[inkskinned]

so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.

first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.

it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.

and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.

you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.

and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.

your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.

in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.

in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.

so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.

you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.

once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.

and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"

you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?

hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!

you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.

we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?

[neverbelessthan]

SEVERANCE 2x10 | "They give us half a life and think we won't fight for it."

[crimeronan]

i've seen a couple people in the notes of this very good post about fictional polyamory by @thebibliosphere say things along the lines of "oh, i've been doing it wrong :(" or "how do i know if i did this right??" or "i should probably give up and start over, i wrote this badly :(" and. no!!!!

(i AM seeing far MORE people say "oh, this clarified and helped me so much, i think i know how to fix issues i've been having with my own story" which. YES!!!!)

listen. if you're a monogamous person who's writing a polyamorous relationship, and you've been focusing mainly on The Triad and All Three Together All The Time as the endgame, that's literally fine. that's a perfectly acceptable and strong starting point for your plotting, imo. you do not need to give up on a story that you've started like this.

but the things discussed in the post Can and Should improve your execution!

you can keep the same plot beats and overall relationship arc 100%. polyamorous relationships are infinite in their formations, every one is unique. "basically a monogamous romance but with three people" Does exist, as a relationship type. you're not hashtag Misrepresenting (TM) poly people with it

BUT i do think it will help to read up on some poly people talking about how their relationships Differ from monogamous ones.

so i have outlined some basic important concepts about polyamory.

MORE IMPORTANTLY though, i've broken down some questions that you can answer throughout the writing process to strengthen your individual dyad relationships, your individual characterization, & your characters' individual feelings/experiences. this is a writing resource have fun

future kitkat butting in to say i spent over two hours writing this and it definitely needs a readmore. it is also NOT comprehensive. but everything should be pretty simple to follow! feel free to reblog if you find it helpful yourself or just want to reward me for how gotdan long this took KSLDKFJKDL.

i've grabbed quick links for a couple of the important concepts, some have SEO pitches in them but the info largely seems to be good. (if i missed anything Egregiously Gross on these sites i should be able to update the links with better ones later, since they're under the readmore.)

sidenote: this is NOT meant to be overwhelming, despite the length. if you can't read all of this, that's Okay. you do not need to give up on your writing.

here we go:

compersion!

compersion is a BIG thing in a lot of polyamorous relationships. it's joy derived from seeing two (or more) of your partners happy together, or joy derived from seeing your partner happy with someone else.

compersion is really important as a concept because it highlights that every individual relationship within a polycule is different -- and that that's a GOOD thing. it's sort of the inverse of jealousy.

by the "inverse of jealousy," i mean that instead of feeling left out and upset and possessive, you feel happy/joyous/content.

i can use personal experience as an example: it's a Relief for me when my partners receive joy/support/sex/romance/etc that i can't (or prefer not to) give them. and i love seeing my partners make each other laugh and be silly together.

it's 100% okay for a poly triad not to be together 100% of the time, it doesn't mean that the third member is being left out or not treated equally when two people do things alone together.

(i have individual dates with my partners all the time! PLUS larger 3-and-4-person date nights.)

if the third member DOES feel jealous or left out, then the polycule can have a conversation to figure out what needs/wants aren't being met, and solve that. this happens semi-regularly in my polycule, as it will happen in any relationship (including monogamous ones)! it's just part of being an adult, sometimes you have to talk about feelings.

metamours!

a metamour is someone who is dating your partner, but ISN'T dating you. this may not be relevant for people writing closed three-person romantic sexual triads, but it's a super helpful term to know.

the linked article also lists different types of metamour relationships with some fun phrasing i hadn't heard before. the tl;dr is: sometimes you'll be domestic cohabitation friends, sometimes you'll be buddies with your own friendship, sometimes you might not interact much outside of parties, every relationship is different.

there's no one-size-fits-all requirement for metamour relationships. sometimes polyamorous people will end up dating their metamour after a while (has happened to me), sometimes polyamorous people will break up with one partner for normal life reasons, but remain friendly metamours.

the goal of polyamory is NOT for EVERYONE to fall in love. it is 100% okay if this happens in your story, it happens in real life too! but it is also 100% okay for characters to be metamours without ever becoming "more than friends."

(sidenote: try to kill any internalized "more than" that you have when it comes to friendship. friends are just as important and special and vital as partners.)

of course there are a million ways for messiness to occur with metamours within a complex polycule, exactly like with close-knit platonic friend groups. however this post is not about that! there's enough "here's how polyamory can go wrong" stuff out there already, so i'm focusing on the positives here :)

open versus closed polyamorous relationships!

i'm struggling to find an online article that reflects my experience without directly contradicting at least SOME stuff. so i'll give a quick rundown

google has a bunch of conflicting definitions of open relationships and whether open relationships are different from polyamory. the general consensus seems to be that an open relationship prioritizes one partnership (often a marriage), but that each partner can have extraneous flings or long-term commitments (most often sexual in nature).

this is not typically how i use the term wrt polyamory. the poly concept is pretty simple. a closed polyamorous relationship is one with boundaries like a monogamous one. there are multiple partners in the polycule, but they are not interested in having anybody new join said polycule.

an open polyamorous relationship tends to be more flexible -- it just means that IF someone in the polycule develops mutual feelings for a new person, it's fine for them to become part of said polycule if they want to! the relationship/person is open to newcomers.

some groups will need to negotiate this all together, others will just go "haha, you kids have fun." just depends on the individuals!

with open AND closed polyamorous relationships, the most important thing is making sure that there's respectful communication and that everyone is on the same page. but there's no one-size-fits-all way to do that.

i wish i could give you guys a prescriptive "You Must Do It This Way" guide, but that's.... basically the opposite of what polyamory is about, HAHA.

feelings for multiple people!

i was gonna tack this on to the previous section but decided it warranted its own lil bit.

a defining feature (....i'm told?) of monogamous relationships is that a monogamous person only has feelings for One individual at a time. they only want a relationship with one individual at a time. or, if they DO have feelings for multiple people simultaneously, they're still only comfortable dating one person at a time & being exclusive with that one person.

this is perfectly fine!

the poly experience is generally different from this. but once again..... polyamorous people all have different individual perspectives on this.

for me, i have never been able to draw hard boxes around romantic vs sexual vs platonic relationships, & i love many people at once. my personal polycule lacks many strict definitions beyond "these are my chosen people, i want to forge a life with them indefinitely, whatever shape that life takes"

some poly people feel explicit romantic or sexual attraction to multiple people at once, some poly people feel almost no romantic or sexual attraction at all. i'd say that MOST poly people feel different things for different partners, which is not a bad thing!

some poly people are even monogamous-leaning -- they have just chosen one romantic partner who is themselves part of a larger polycule. (so this monogamous-leaning person has at least one metamour!)

or alternatively, they might have one romantic partner AND a qpr, or other ways of defining relationships. (this is a factor in my own polycule!)

i made this its own point because if you're writing a straightforward triad, this is unlikely to come up in the story itself -- but it's worth thinking about how your characters develop/handle feelings outside of their partnerships.

like, is this sort of a soulmateship, 'these are the only ones for me' type deal? in which they won't fall in love with anyone else, and can be fairly certain of that?

that's pretty close to typical monogamous standards but you Can make it work. just be thoughtful with it

alternatively, can you see any of these characters falling in love Again after the happily-ever-after? and how would the triad approach it, if so? what would they all need to talk about beforehand, and what feelings would everybody have about the situation?

it's worth considering these questions even if the hypothetical will never feature in your actual canon, because knowing the answers to these questions will help you understand all of the individuals & their relationship(s) MUCH better.

i've been typing this for nearly two hours and there's a lot more i COULD say because... there's just a lot to say. i'll close out with some quick questions that you can ask yourself when developing the dyad dynamics within your triad

first, take a page and create a separate section for each individual dyad. then answer these questions for every pair:

how does each pair act when alone?

how do they act differently alone compared to when they're with their third partner?

are there any elements of this dyad (romantic, sexual, financial, domestic, etc) that these two people DON'T have with the third partner?

if so, what are they?

are there any boundaries or hard limits within this dyad that aren't shared with the third partner?

if so, what are they?

partner 3 goes out of town alone for a few weeks. what are the remaining two doing in their absence?

(doesn't have to be anything special, it's just to get a sense of how the two interact on a day-by-day basis without the third there)

what is something that each partner in the dyad admires about the other -- that they DON'T necessarily see in the third partner?

what problem do These Two Specifically need to solve in the story before their relationship will work?

how is that problem DIFFERENT from the problems being solved within the other two dyads?

doing this for ALL THREE dyads is VITAL imo. that way, you develop complex and nuanced and different relationships that all have unique dynamics.

those questions should be enough to get you started, i hope

then After you've charted the differences in relationships, you can start to jot down similarities in the overarching triad. what does one person admire in Both of their partners? what are activities that all three like to do together? what are boundaries or discussions that all three share?

but the main goal is to figure out how to Differentiate each relationship!

a polycule is only as strong as the individual relationships within it. if two people are struggling with their own relationship, adding a third person won't fix that.

(UNLESS the third person is the catalyst for those two to, like, Actually Communicate And Work Their Shit Out. i just mean that the old adage of "maybe if we just add a third-" works about as well to fix a miserable non-communicative marriage as, uh, "maybe if we have a baby-")

AND FINALLY.

if you're not sure whether your poly romance reads organically to poly people, you can hire a sensitivity reader with poly experience. if you can't afford that, you can read up on polyamorous resources like a glossary of terms & articles actually written by poly people. (and stories written by poly people!)

you can also just.... ask poly people questions, if they're open to it. i like talking about polyamory and my own relationships so you're welcome to send asks if u want, i just can't guarantee i'll answer bc my energy levels fluctuate a lot and i don't always have time.

polyamorous people are in an uphill battle for positive representation right now & so the LAST thing i want to see is authors giving up on their stories bc they're worried about getting things Wrong. well-meaning and positive stories that treat this kind of love as normal, healthy, & aspirational are So So So Needed. even if you guys end up with some funky-feeling details.

seriously, if you're monogamous then you probably don't have a full idea of Just How Nasty a lot of people can get about polyamory. i wish it DIDN'T mean so much for you guys to want to write nice stories about us, but it does mean a lot. and it means a lot that you want to do it WELL.

in conclusion. this is not a prescriptive guide, it's just a way to raise questions. and also, you all are doing FINE.

[rimatsu]

setting pessimism aside to daydream about my ideal bucktommy makeup scenario and i just... keep oscillating between buck extending an olive branch and tommy reaching out first. there's merit in both. yes i'd love for buck to discard passivity and fight for this salvageable relationship — for buck to look tommy straight in the eyes and tell him that his sharp edges and his vulnerable insides don't make him any less deserving of love. that he's not blinded by the excitement of novelty or misguided admiration — even without the full picture, buck has seen enough pieces of the puzzle that makes up tommy's whole to know that he loves the entirety of him, unspoken faults and past sins included. that buck can't guarantee forever but he sure as hell can try to build the sturdy foundation of a shared life based on the hope for more. that sometimes you just luck out on the first draw and there's nothing wrong with good fortune.

but it would also be extremely healing if tommy knocked on buck's door to chase after his own second chance. to say "i want you more than i'm scared of hurting" when buck asks him what's changed in 4 months — because tommy would rather live with scars than be haunted by regrets and what-ifs. because buck is worth the risk of never recovering from having loved him

[transsexula]

Anyways when are we gonna stop pretending this isn't about "getting back at" an imagined trans guy. Good job! You both finally recognized trans men as men, AND ignored that they are punished for being men in one sentence. Really special work happening here.

The controversy is in only considering trans men as "men" in a way to hurt them. While also in a way misgendering:

"You're only a man because I know implying you act like a cis man in all the bad ways hurts you. In reality I see you all as hysterical bitches out to hurt the rest of the trans community" isn't progressive. It's just being nasty to be nasty.

Imagine hating trans people so much you joke about wishing they all died, then make posts like this, and assume that people will still think you actually care about the trans community.

[backpackingspace]

I have such complicated feelings about Athena's regert in epic. Because on one hand. Athena WAS right. Odysseus did need to listen her. And he did need to kill the cyclops. And her regert and her desire to find a better path for the future makes it seem that wasn't the case. That odysseus was right to adopt polites mindset (WHICH is a whole other post I might write up. I have. Thoughts!)

And that is very much not what Athena is regretting. She regerts leaving and LEAVING ONLY. (And maybe her comment about the dead friends). She regerts not being able to make odysseus listen. And later she regerts what happened to odysseus because she's horrified about what he suffered with calypso.

How many times in those ten years did Athena almost go visit odysseus on the automatic. When she left, she had convinced herself that odysseus was just another mentee just another one of her heros. She had been convincing herself of this for years, for odysseus's whole life basically. And then when she left she found that that was not the case. The pain she felt would not allow her denial anymore. (Yall ever lose a friend? Have a best friend become a stranger? That shit hurts like nothing else.) So at first she's angry and hurting and then later she's idgent with herself (she's not going to apologize first. Like hell shes the goddess here.) and hurting and then she's just lonely and hurting.

Shes not really close to any one on Olympus. And odysseus always took such good care of her (his prayers and devotion and inventions fed her so well) even though she's a war goddess and doesn't need it. And he was always fearless of her. Comfortable with her the way literally nobody else is. (Because he's her friend /her best friend) and Olympus is all politics and cold distance and catering to her father and she tried to go visit diomedes but (the poor boy) is still so afraid of her. And was all great Athena direct me to where you need the spear thrown. (The feeling of heart break is familiar now. She's never felt this human before how do they cope)

And so she's lonely and bored and hurting and she MISSES her best friend. She REGETS leaving. And she's missing and reverting enough to swallow her godly pride and go visit odysseus friend. Maybe she won't apologize first but she can extend the first olive branch. So she goes to Ithaca and does not find him. That's super weird but she does find telemachus

Telemachus who, despite his circumstances is so happy. Who teaches her about how the future could be. And they talk about it, how the future could be. (Honorable warfare. No more camp slaves, so more women hiding in her temples and Athena failing to protect them from being raped. Giving your enemies a the chance to surround and then dealing out a quick death honorable death if they dont.) Telemachus who calls her friend immediately. Who is maybe a shyer happier verison of his father. Who odysseus might be if he ...hadn't had her in his life. (It's a horrible thought. Heart break is a familiar feeling.)

So she hustles telemachus off the island. They make a plan, telemachus will be safe from the suitors. Athena will block the women's door so none of the suitors can go in. And telemachus will look for his father in the mortal relam, seeking odysseus's old comrades and she will look for odysseus in the godly realm.

So Athena, filled with heart break and regret but hopeful for the first time since she was four (and play fighting with pallas) goes time diving for her old friend. And is /horrified/ when she finds him. Finds out how exactly he spent the last seven years. Another one of her chosen violated another one she failed to protect. Her best friend gods. What has she done? This never would have happened if she had never left. Why did she leave? It was odysseus's first fuck offense why did she leave?

She has to help. SHE HAS TO

So off she goes, pissing off her father for the first time ever. And putting her pride to beg (also for the first time ever. Odysseus do you see this shit I'm doing for you)

By the time she's talking to odysseus again. She's spent ten years of heart break missing her best friend, the guilt has cumulated into self blame for not preventing odysseus's violation. (Keep in mind that witnessing trauma is just as traumatizing as going through it. And Athena is a chaste goddess. ) telemachus has shown her a new path for the future. Hence her regert and wondering about leading odysseus astray.

But then this tragic complicated guilt and character growth Athena goes through gets boiled down to actually polites was right (again I have thoughts about his philosophy and that is a completely separate post. As is how telemachus and polities views differ (because they do!!!!!) But again. Separate post.) And any killing at all is bad. And then you have fics where Athena begs odysseus's forgiveness and claims that all killing is bad and (like no hate obvious people can write and headcanon however they want. ) it's just an instant fuck no for me and I've got to click out of said fics. And I know this is part due to this culture we've developed lately and childish black and white thinking (bad vs good. No nuace. If anybody disagrees with my opinion that's uncomfortable and that threatens me so therefore that person is evil and I must attack them) and partially because in fandom things get summerize, nauce gets lost. And it's hard to see the nuace in a musical playlist anyway. And everybody is going to interpret things differently and all that.

But at the end of the day. Athena was right that the cyclops needed to be killed. And she knows this she doesn't regret this. Just how she handled the situation , just that she was so ubrupt with her best friend, everything that led to odysseus being trapped on that island for seven years.

[petr1kov]

actually an underrated little song from wicked to me is 'something bad'. i really like the ominous vibe and i kinda love dr dillamond tbh

[starcurtain]

My favorite brand of Ratiorine is definitely:

"They both experienced immediate attraction upon seeing the other and are (silently) interested in the possibility of pursuing a relationship, regardless of their differences and the difficulties of their situations."

But also:

"Despite being two of the most hyper-competent people in the universe, they are absolutely idiot4idiot when it comes to romance or discussing their feelings, and they are about to make their complete inability to express themselves and court like normal people into everybody's problem."

[windcarvedlyre]

I've been following @druidposting's DR2 playthrough on discord and we just had a really good discussion about DR's Closing Arguments. Specifically the way the murderer is depicted as grey and featureless, which until now I found a bit annoying.

In Danganronpa it's repeatedly the case that we don't have the full picture until the talking actually stops- which always goes beyond the end of the trial. We generally vote first and come to understand what the murderer's actual motive was, sometimes filling in important pieces of the timeline in the process, afterwards.

But none of that matters for the killing game because characters' emotions aren't directly relevant to who was the 'blackened'- the only thing that matters to Monokuma- so it comes out afterwards and does nothing to change their execution. It doesn't matter how sympathetic they are (basically everyone) or whether other people share responsibility for the situation (eg. Hanamura, Pekoyama, Momota) or whether they intended to murder at all (Nanami). They objectively pulled the trigger and nothing else matters. Nothing about them as a person matters.

The Closing Argument mechanic might illustrate that problem- literally. They're a dramatic, conclusive summary of the entire case... constructed before the vote even happens, before we know if we're actually right, and they're missing something really important:

The actual perpetrator.

We quite literally don't even begin to see the real person behind the crime, any real exploration of their mental state, anything besides the cold, hard facts of the murder that are necessary to convict them, until the comic finishes and the protagonist makes their final accusation- replacing the grey figure with their real appearance in a shot that's often intensely emotional.

And these comics lack crucial parts of the case's timeline and sometimes important parts of the very scenes they depict that we only find out about afterwards. And those are what we know; characters may die with some pieces of the truth and prevent us from ever learning them. These aren't objective depictions of the murder, they're the protagonist's subjective attempt to connect the facts they have. A join-the-dots portrait of someone with missing dots and no colour.

Even characters' expressions may not match how they truly feel, with the grey placeholder potentially looking way more confident and sinister than they were in reality. Pasting Falter's commentary here since they put it well.

For obvious reasons this could especially be a problem for characters that die before the trial- the ones we never get a post-vote testimony from. DR1 chapter 4 really highlighted that in the way Asahina's huge misinterpretation of Oogami's feelings took up a lot of the post-trial discussion, only for Monokuma to reveal Oogami's real suicide note and recontextualise everything.

It might really be a problem for how Komaeda's depicted in DR2 chapter 5. While he isn't greyed out, we get panel after panel where he's either level-headed or maniacally evil, and even the depictions of his self-torture and death don't humanise him:

But we know that his real feelings were more complicated than that. We have his actual corpse to compare the last page to.

He died afraid.

If we approach the comic as Hinata's mental image of him instead of reality, he died without anyone truly understanding him. He was alarming, very hard to relate to, actively fought against people doing so, ensured even the killer didn't watch him die, and the survivors couldn't begin to understand his motive until a chapter later. The Closing Argument reflects that.

Early in DR1 Togami calls out the rest of his class for judging others by their own standards. However, he, too, is doing this, maybe more so than many other characters; his inability to view other people through anything but the cold, brutal logic of the killing game bites him in the ass in chapter 4. In DR2 chapter 2 voting without a good understanding of Pekoyama's motive or Kuzuryuu's involvement nearly got everyone killed. Komaeda's a walking embodiment of the problems with flattening people into caricatures and not empathising with them, suffered from people doing that back to him, and his case- the Closing Argument for which turned everyone else into grey placeholders- was impossible to solve with objective facts. It was only survivable because the survivors cooperated and one person tried to analyse things the way he would.

The games have always been a critique of the justice system and Japanese society and push us to care about others as individuals, not reduce them to- and judge their right to exist by- something they've done or their net impact on society. There are always consequences when someone neglects to do that, and the above might be yet another way the games explore that theme.

[coladaminx]

So if you watch this scene izuku and kacchan are sitting on both ends of the couch and what makes this scene so sweet and kinda sad is that izuku consciously or maybe unconsciously brings himself closer to his kacchan with the Manga version you can actively see him scooting closer (HE WANTS TO BE CLOSE TO HIM) and be able to actually talk with him Normally ;A; which we find out later he feels blessed being able to be near him and ya know talk and katsuki didn't push him away THEIR INSANE YA'LL!

[starssoblue]

"the reason adrien is just instantly good at everything he tries is because he is programmed to be that way as a senti" aside from the fact that i don't think that's how it works (and also while he was decent at everything he tried with marinette he wasn't instantly good at all of them, and what marinette actually said to him was that he could improve in anything with practice but it was a great first attempt) did we all collectively forget about how adrien actually canonically isn't the best singer?

[utilitycaster]

I'll be missing the live wrap-up but i wanted to say it's been disheartening but sadly unsurprising the way a lot of people who started with Campaign 3 talk about Marisha and Laura especially. It feels as though they see them as little more than vessels to provide Laudna and Imogen content. They get outright mad when people ask them questions in the AMA Firesides or 4SD about their jobs in Critical Role as a company, or other characters they've played, or their personal feelings about things they enjoy. A lot of them hate the Cobalt Soul despite Marisha explicitly and repeatedly saying it's incredibly meaningful to her, and are vocal about this, but will attack you if you say you're not a big fan of Laudna. Their approach to Keyleth feels like little more than a convenient opportunity for them to say "you can't ever criticize Marisha! Look at the harassment she received" but they'll then direct this claim towards anyone, even people who watched C1 live and experienced that in real-time and opposed it. They'll engage in harassment themselves and claim it's in defense of Marisha, then turn around and shit talk the Cobalt Soul and yell about how the Ashari are evil Ruidusborn haters and Beauyasha is boring.

And to be clear I have a longstanding and documented history of disliking obnoxiously parasocial behavior or invasive/repetitive/overly generic panel questions. I think, and I mean this genuinely, that it's completely fine and reasonable to be a CR fan who is here for characters only, and isn't interested in the cast. Indeed, I think a lot of early fans of the show were mostly here for the story of Vox Machina, and I respect the people who didn't connect to the Mighty Nein nor have an attachment to the cast and politely stepped away. I am not demanding everyone love every piece of merch nor every creative direction choice lest they disrespect Laura or Marisha; that is not how this works. But there's a difference between "I'm not really interested in anything but Keyleth, so I'm only tuning in to TLOVM chats!" vs this entitled distaste, verging on disgust, among a certain set of C3 fans when Marisha and Laura especially spend even a minute of their out-of-character time talking about anything other than Laudna and Imogen. If you do this, you cede the right to any "they're having fun/it's meaningful or comforting or makes them happy" defense (which, to be clear, I do not think is a valid argument with regards to the quality of a story, but which a lot of these people hypocritically invoke) or "if you dislike this female character or F/F ship you're a bigoted person," especially when you resent the actual real-world women behind your pretend characters for choosing to answer a question about anything other than what you personally care about.

And ultimately, I think that if you are dismissive and resentful towards the bulk of what the cast/company does (this includes when you turn this resentment towards fans for daring to ask questions about anything else, even in places that aren't at all C3-specific like panels or cast fireside AMAs, or places where the crew or the cast themselves are the ones actually choosing which questions are answered), it is childish and embarrassing to then act like you are being wronged and your opinions cruelly disregarded simply because something of which you only like one small facet fails to cater to you. You don't have to like it; but you showed up to part 3 of a trilogy and got mad that the creators sometimes talk about parts 1 and 2.

[wackywatchdotcom]

what intrigues me abt caines dynamic w the rest of the cast is the way that none of them seem to understand why he is the way he is. like not in the comedic sense but how they dont seem to have a clear concept of his motivations or anything of that sort

we havent seen toooo much of it. but we have seen how pomni, zooble, jax, ragatha, and gangle view him and its so fascinating

pomni is like. she doesnt understand what hes doing but seems to view his actions as malicious in some way. i dont think she sees him as a 'mean' person but with how she says she thinks he wants her to suffer its very illuminating of how she sees him as someone who wants all of them to hurt. i dont think she knows why he would, but its the only conclusion shes got. it also speaks to her distrusting nature that upon being hurt by him her first thought is that its an intentional decision to harm her, and unfortunately for caine she hasnt actually been given much of a reason to think he feels otherwise. i dont know how she thinks caine feels about them but its clear to me how she views his goals and hobbies for lack of a better term

zooble doesnt trust him. they find him to be annoying but more significant is that they KNOW he likes them all. it adds an interesting tone to how they see him, that they specifically say that whats 'holding caine back' is that he 'likes [them]', which on one hand is them interpretting caines actions as being done from a place of liking the players, and that his actions are coming from a place of NOT hurting them, because he likes them (its interesting to note that they have participated in less adventures, so its unclear how much they know abt caines adventures firsthand). but on the other hand is implying that they think caines holding himself back at all. that there IS a desire or a capability to be cruel that theyre wary of. theyve also seen caine at his most vulnerable (in the show itself at least) and their comment, 'whose therapy session is this again?' implies theyre at least aware that this is caine having his own problems, though i dont think theyre comfortable safety-wise with how these problems affect them and the others. them asking caine 'why did you think i would like that?' speaks to the idea that they do think hes genuinely trying to appeal to the players, but they seem to find his lack of understanding of the players frustrating and unsafe for all of them

jax i think is pretty vague since most of his lines to caine are brief, and the most telling line he has abt caine is the only one we have. but he seems neutral on caine as a whole. caine is just a guy who makes things for them. he tries to entertain them and thats all jax really seems to be concerned with- whether his 'its not in his nature' line is reflective of him genuinely Believing that is smth i see debated often but i think no matter what, it conveys that jax Generally sees caine as someone who isnt malicious. hes not trying to hurt them, and whether or not he thinks caine is capable of hurting them is whats more vague. either way, jax doesnt seem to like or dislike caine

ragatha has very mimimal interactions with caine and not many lines about him, but i think her line in the pilot, 'thats just one of caines little adventures. theyre just something fun to do to, yknow, prevent us from going insane,' is extremely telling of how she sees caine. of all of them, she seems to have the most positive view of caine, since she interprets his actions as an active attempt to stave off abstraction in the players. whether or not she thinks caine is acting from a place of wanting to stop disruptions or if he wants to ensure the players arent doing as unwell as they could IS up for debate though. the way she talks about him in the pilot in general reads like she has some level of trust in him, but it seems like a surface level trust in him at the worst- she knows hes not malicious and knows he wants to help. she knows he can help her when shes jumbled. but its not clear if she Likes him. she seems to enjoy the adventures though (which, ill keep it brief so i dont derail this, but it honestly reads like a deliberate parallel writing-wise that the two of them both seem fond of distractions as an acceptable solution to a bad situation- if her assessment of Why he makes the adventures is anything to go by)

gangle is harder to read on this front, as she has way less lines about him, though she does have multiple notable interactions with him in ep 4, in the way of her seeming genuinely enthusiastic about his adventure (it doesnt seem completely directed at him, but she seems genuinely a bit happy about his praise of her leadership skills). when she calls him it doesnt convey TOO much i dont think but the way she talks to him and requests he make a punishment could imply she doesnt think hed normally make one, but also that hes not opposed to it, which is confusing in what it means about how she sees him but it feels important. her interaction with him at the end of the episode also doesnt convey much in this way (i feel like caine is not the main focus of most of that scene- which works for the scene and is good writing wise bc the scenes important for gangles writing of her own problems, but in terms of breaking down this idea it means im not sure this scene conveys much about how she sees him)

and then. i didnt mention kinger at the beginning specifically bc i dont think we have... almost any indicators of how he sees caine. he tells caine abt kaufmo in ep 1, suggests caine could find pomni in ep 2, doesnt address the thing pomni says abt caine in ep 3, and even his suggestion in ep 4 to sit out the adventure doesnt convey almost anything. the only throughline is that kinger sees caine as someone who can help them if they ask, but it doesnt convey any thoughts on what he thinks caines motivations are or his thoughts on caines actions. which frankly reads like a deliberate choice when kinger should be the one with the most history with caine

this post is long but i just am bery intrigued by this. i thinka ll the character dynamics are so deeply fascinating but with caine being the closest the show has to an antagonist (which of course is a loaded statement but i mean it in the writing sense and not in the 'antagonist is evil' way) it means that the way the characters see him holds a lot of weight. it conveys a lot abt them all with how they interpret the person that has (at least on the surface) the most control over the situation

[totallynotsloughjykk]

tgcf fandom can we please start holding feng xin accountable for being an ass to mu qing for 800 years. like. he started most fights and was constantly on servant mu qing's ass who was just trying to survive but people always skip over it

[barschter000]

broke: Due to his attractiveness, Barok has slept with countless (wo)men.

woke: Despite his attractiveness, Barok is a virgin.

Bespoke: Because of entirely different factors, Barok does not know what sex is.