#but !!! this is the most cohesive way I could think to explain how their arcs work separately and individually

[emblazons]

Still thinking about how understanding what happened in the S3-S4 relational narratives requires you suspend the belief that the last two (soon to be 3) seasons of Stranger Things are designed to stand alone.

With S1 and S2, the seasons existed as standalone entities—S2 was a sequel yes, but it wasn't a direct narrative extension of the action that occurred in the season before. You could watch Season 2 with only a bit of context from the first season (one boy got kidnapped and taken by the monster into another dimension, the girl from the lab with the superpowers showed up and they worked together to save said boy, but then she disappeared and was presumed dead) and watch the second season with little issue.

Its not the same with Seasons 3-5. If anything...it helps when analyzing to imagine Seasons 3-5 as one "season" in the same way S1 and S2 exist as single entities; the Duffers have already confirmed its true for Seasons 4-5, but it gets a lot easier to follow arcs and action, particularly for the youngest characters, if you stop trying to find coherence in single-season stories and look at each season as three parts of a whole.

This is true across the board, but it's particularly true in the case of understanding Byler, both as individuals and a pairing (though the full buildup of their romantic arc will take us across all 5 seasons). Understanding why S3 feels like you just got dropped into nonsense with them specifically (after two seasons of Michael "I'm the only one who cares about Will" Wheeler and Will "I am central to the story even when I'm off screen" Byers) is because The Duffers took the risk of introducing a brand new set of conflicts to the youngest characters: namely, ongoing romantic relationships, personal identity crises and sexuality...only without resolving the conflict and action in the 8-9 episodes they usually do, which is why you feel frustrated by it.

Basically: Season Three was the season where we set up the relational problems that need to be fixed—we just have three entire seasons to work through them, which means its gonna look bad at the start and good as we work through the problem (over the course of a few seasons) to get to the solution.

forewarning: ferociously long post ahead (with headers for clarity)

Will’s Arc: A (Queer) Coming of Age

With Will, the problem re-introduced in S3 is that he feels different from his peers, and not just because he's gay; its because 1) he is in love with Mike in a way that is more genuine than we are being presented in the third season (that "sandbox" "puppy love" "break up and makeup" summer fling energy that S3 has) and 2) he is unwilling to step into the lie of "maturity" as its being presented in the story, aka giving up things like hanging out with his friends over focusing on relationships or giving up games (DnD in particular).

(sidebar: I wrote another analysis touching on the above here).

A lot of people I've met who watch the show casually say things like "it just seems like he's not able to grow up like his friends" and even "he's falling behind," but I think that's on the right track while missing the point: the reason Will is written as "refusing to grow up" is because he is the character that represents the rebellion of The Duffer's heart and interests, and both of the things that seem like they would be a bad because they make his character different in the narrative are actually surprisingly positive for his "three season" arc...if you understand what the ongoing themes of Stranger Things are.

With Will, the “problem” in the story exists because he is the one who represents being weird/the outcast/queer and not giving into the social pressure to “let go” of that—he loves another boy, is more emotional than his peers and loves nerdy things like his tabletop board game and refuses to deny that to himself, no matter how brutalizing that is for him and his feelings. In that way, he is the character who “represents” the sentiment of The Duffers themselves—he is a nerd, a child at heart, and he has no problem taking DnD and anything else into “adulthood,” (looking at you “yeah, yeah I really did” during the rain fight) the same way The Duffers have.

That said: as we move into season 4, Will is presented with an evolution of this conflict—he wants to continue to be honest with and about himself, his feelings, and his interests…but it comes in direct conflict with his understanding of his peers & Mike, whom he loves.

We see this conflict show up repeatedly in Will’s actions in S4, especially in regards to the painting, which is the physical representation of both his love of Mike and his embracing of his nerdiness. Will shows up to the airport with his painting in spite of not speaking to Mike because his heart is to be honest and true-to-self regardless of anyone else—you even see this as he takes the painting on the road when they plan on going back to Hawkins, after he makes up with Mike. The problem is though (and this plays into the whole “we want you to feel like you lost” sentiment The Duffers spoke about, as S4 is the “down” before the “up”resolution of the whole narrative) that Will he realizes that his desire to be honest is getting in the way of (his perception of) the happiness of the people he loves, so he decides to betray his character and break the first cardinal rule of The Party…to tell his first lie.

There are plenty of phenomenal analyses on other aspects of Will’s connection to Vecna/the UD and the love triangle dynamic at play across this app so I’ll leave that alone here (I do have many thoughts on why the above makes Henry Creel the perfect villain foil to Will specifically), but: for the sake of understanding Will’s relational narrative arc, it’s critical to understand that our “low” for him is the betrayal of his ongoing S3 character—and that him undermining his self-honesty, nerdiness and love for Mike are the things that The Duffers have set themselves up to resolve in S5.

The resolution for Will is to re-embrace his differences —to realize that lying to yourself and other people about who you are and what you love (both in terms of “nerdy” interests and his queerness) is not who he wants to be, no matter how hard it is to stand up for in the wake of adversity—along with embracing the power of real love, which is also an ongoing theme the Duffers have set up in their relationships beginning in Season 3.

Now…on to Michael.

Mike’s Arc: Finding Yourself & Embracing What Makes You Different

—anyone with a single toe in this fandom knows that Mike Wheeler is one of the most divisive characters in this story when it comes to deciding 1) what his motivations are and 2) what his desires will be, but (and bare with me on this)…I think that’s kind of the point of his story. Mike’s “three season” arc is about him moving through a confusion of identity into someone who can embrace himself while addressing the things he is most insecure about—namely; being seen, being useful, and (very, very likely) the fact that the person who makes him feel most secure, seen, useful and loved is another boy.

There are several context clues that give credence to the fact that the reason Mike feels so wishy-washy / lacking in depth is because his struggle is not knowing how to find his place in the world, though you have to go further back than S3 to find them. Let me explain.

From the literal pitch of the show, there has always been an undercurrent of self-doubt and insecurity in Mike; his desire to escape the weight of feeling insecure has been a driving factor in his actions since before he was even on the screen, and it is impossible to understand what motivates him without first understanding that.

With Mike, his actions across all seasons have been weighed down by his desire to escape his insecurities through action—and as he’s gotten older, what he’s used to escape those insecurities (to be someone like the paladin he plays in DnD) has evolved and shifted, ranging through everything from turning the world (no pun intended) upside down to find Will; being willing to sacrifice his life to save Dustin from bullies; using any weapon he could find to fight a baby demogorgon; and wanting to be a heroic knight who protects the perceived vulnerable girl once he starts dating Eleven.

The point is: Mike’s deepest core need is to assuage his insecurities by doing whatever he can to be a good person—and when he feels like can’t do anything or protect the people he loves…he spirals. That’s been true since the start of his character…and everyone from The Duffers to Finn Wolfhard himself has mentioned it.

Now. With that baseline established, let’s talk Season 3.

Ironically enough, a lot of people feel like Mike’s character has “fallen off” because he, by the sake of all appearances, has achieved all the things he is supposed to want—namely a girlfriend, which (at least in his mind) is the physical embodiment of successfully “addressing” his core fears.

Because Mike has all the external markings of a well-adjusted kid—he comes from a wealthy family, has a solid group of friends (who are also mostly now striving for social normalcy) and even a girlfriend—he seems to have addressed what many people even in real life believe is the end of most arcs & the fulfillment of the fantasy. For Mike, the appearance of his S3 life seems to have assuaged the fears at the root of several of his insecurities, including the desire to be needed, the desire to protect, the desire to be useful, and the desire for acceptance…all because now he’s saved El and has her at his side, and having a girlfriend means he has everything a good, well-adjusted guy is supposed to want.

Or…does it?

With how The Duffers set up the story (with S3 as the introduction of a new conflict for every major character), the answer they’re giving you based on how Mike interacts with other characters is no—having a girlfriend and acting “mature” doesn’t solve anything, especially if the core problem of you having an insecure identity while being dishonest with yourself isn’t addressed…and it’s the arc of Mike learning that “lesson” that we find ourselves dropped into moving into Season 3.

Beginning in S3, the war on Mike’s insecure self-concept comes at him on two fronts: on the one side, El, who started her journey needing Mike because of her background but now has no real need for any of the things he so desperately wants to provide as a means to validate himself, and on the other Will, whose deep familiarity and history with Mike combined with his confidence in his own identity presents Mike with a challenge of self-reflection that he doesn’t exactly feel ready for yet.

(sidebar: my post on how Mike's arc is intrinsically tied to a subversion of the "Born Sexy Yesterday" trope is a helpful expansion on things I talk about here).

We see this in how Mike gets frustrated with Max for giving El the space and language to not need him (undermining his role in her life as someone who she needs to protect/guide her); we see it in how he says cruel things when Will behaves in a way that challenges the actions Mike has taken to be “mature” (how he insults Will for not also wanting a girlfriend / still wanting to play the games that set them apart as nerds/different); and we see it in how Mike still goes out of his way to fix those relationships in the best way he can—because he knows on some level that what he’s doing in several moments isn’t in alignment with who he wants to be, even though they are both presenting him with radical internal challenges.

Ironically enough, Dustin does a great job of summarizing the two sides of Mike's internal conundrum in what he says to Steve about Robin—Mike, somewhat like Steve, is struggling between what is socially acceptable in a partner (or "cool") and what he actually wants and enjoys in one—and as El and Will evolve, so does Mike's internal conflict about how he perceives their places in his world.

Between El’s supernatural abilities and rapidly growing autonomy making him obsolete to her in all the areas that matter to Mike (see: the ability to protect, be useful, and be seen) and Will’s reminding him that at his core he is just as much of a nerd as Will is, Mike finds himself feeling more confused and insecure than ever…and that is the internal conflict we see him end S3 battling.

The evolution of Mike’s narrative arc past the introduction of this internal conflict doesn’t happen until is the Byers/Hopper move to Lenora though…when he is literally left alone to process what that intense summer brought to light for him—which is the note we're left on as we move into the next phase of Mike's evolution in S4.

In S4, the development of Mike figuring out what he wants and needs from his relationships + the kind of person he wants to be becomes a lot more external—we see him going through a series of code switches as he tries to manage the ever changing landscape of his self-perception, where has started journey toward self-acceptance but is still insecure about following through with it.

We see this in the way he has now joined The Hellfire Club and shows sincere signs of accepting his interests and "outcast" status, but still looks forlorn when Lucas says “I’m tired of being bullied / I thought you wanted things to be different too” (Lucas’ struggles with some aspects of performing normalcy the way Mike does S4).

We see it in the way he shows up to Lenora dressed in what he thinks he’s should be wearing rather than as himself / the way he continues performing his relationship with El throughout that first day (and how he says it was Will who "sabotaged" things by being that same kind of radical honest about his feelings we talked about before)...only for the events of the day to spur him into meaningful honesty with both El and Will (to varying degrees of success) mere hours later.

We even see it in the way Mike seemed to have been “turning over a new leaf” once he and El fought, to the point he was okay with them ending the “normalcy” performance of their romance…right up until Argyle’s paranoia while burying Unknown Hero Agent Man struck the fear of god back into him (aka making him worry he was letting El down by not protecting her—aka tapping into one of his core fears).

Basically: Mike is leaning into accepting the things that make him different in little ways, but is still struggling to step into that identity fully—aka he is still using perceived social acceptability as a shield, even though he no longer holds as tightly to being perceived as normal. (Even Finn himself often jokes about Mike “just trying to be normal,” which I think is a good, simple explanation of what’s happening—that said, if we take that reading and combine it with those “narrative goals” I mentioned The Duffers have earlier…Mike trying to be normal is an issue to be resolved, not an identity to be embraced. But…let’s move on).

By the time we get to the infamous van scene, we’ve watched Mike struggle through the two sides of his inner conflict for the entire season now, and felt him very gently succeed at switching into a more honest version of himself (who doesn’t need a girlfriend as a shield / can embrace his “otherness” in the same way Will does) right up until his inherent desires to be needed and useful come rearing up the second El is in danger.

It’s why we see him look pleased (but also marred with conflict) when Will looks confident, happy and radiant talking about “playing dnd and Nintendo for the rest of their lives…” and why him being honest in that scene is actually a huge moment for him, because rather than being vague about what has been plaguing him for two seasons now (trying to be “normal” just because he feels insecure) Mike is finally verbalizing the internal conundrum of his now two seasons of looking critically at his insecurities.

Now—I could spend all day digging into just that bit of narrative alone—the way Mike finally externalizing his insecurities to be processed with Will rather than acting on them and hurting people unintentionally is a giant leap for him, and how when Will says “you’re sacred of losing her” Mike’s nod is an acknowledgement that Will is right…but his face is saying there’s more to that fear than he’s acknowledging—

—but for the sake of this analysis of the narrative arcs, the van scene is most important because it’s when the S4 “it feels like you lost” moment begins for Mike…and that’s because it matches up directly with the “you feel like you lost” moment for Will: him lying about the painting.

When Will lies about the painting—saying that his feelings and the art that (as I said before) represents 1) his love of Mike, 2) his embracing of his nerdiness and 3) that radial self-honestly Mike so admires Will for—it throws a wrench into Mike’s internal revelations because Will is essentially saying that the relationship that Mike was slowly realizing he used to assuage his insecurities (his relationship with Eleven) is actually what lines up best with "who he wants to be," which throws Mike’s slow growth toward Will + honesty about what (and who) he wants to be into a tail spin.

From Will’s lie onward, Mike is thrown into moment after moment of conflicting emotions and dire circumstances as well—and given that Mike's deep terror of losing people comes up strongest when the people he loves are in danger, it’s only downhill for Mike’s growth toward self actualization from here. In that sense, (much Jonathan's S4 omissions of his truths/fears to Nancy leading to Nancy's regression into complacency / social conformity with Steve), its Will's lie that leads us directly into the “you feel like you lost” moment for Mike: him moving back into "conforming" territory and confessing his love to El in the SBP.

The monologue (at least in terms of the narrative arc The Duffers are writing) is Mike’s “losing” moment because it’s when he has enough self-revelation to realize that being with a girl as a shield for his insecurities is no longer what he wants...but the drive he has to be useful, protect and love any way he can (on top of Will’s urging + lie) leave him feeling like his only option is stepping into the person he was at the start of S3.

In this moment, we see Mike say exactly what someone who is "acting normal” about loving his girlfriend and wanting to save her would….even though romantic love with El (and the socially-acceptable romantic relationship he has with her) are not what he really wants, and what we will watch crumble moving into S5.

Essentially: Mike having a moment of dissonance of that magnitude after an entire season of looking toward Will was what set us up to see all those "external markings of normalcy" Mike has held onto and had started grating against for two seasons now fall apart, given what we know about those core messages/themes/child-at-heart values the Duffers hold and keep at the heart of their show.

As of the end of S4, we can already see how this "regression" into his old self is not going to hold—the fact that everything Mike did to save El is rooted 1) in a lie and 2) not in alignment with Mike evolving understanding of his core desires makes sure of that.

We even see the beginnings of this "low" being resolved in Mike's arc in how Mike & El are not speaking (even with the 'resolution' of their surface-level S4 conflict with Mike's love confession) and how Mike is glued to Will's side even before Vecna is mentioned–which is how we've been set up to see the resolution of Mike's arc in S5.

With all this in mind, it becomes a bit clearer that the resolution of Mike's arc is him moving through the confusion of identity we've watched him go through from S3 forward and into someone who can embrace who he is what he truly loves without fear of going against what is expected—aka finding the courage not to conform.

Mike as a character is a lesson in how doing what you think you're supposed to (aka what is "normal") is often at odds with who you are and what makes you the happiest—and the only way to self-actualize is to move past your insecurities and into someone who can be confident embracing what (and who) they really want...even when it means stepping out of line from what you’ve grown up believing would do the self-actualizing for you.

Final Thoughts

Both Mike and Will's relational arcs revolve around an embracing of what makes them different—in terms of their (highly likely) mutual queerness, yes, but also in terms of them making self-actualized peace with being nerdy "children at heart" in much the same way The Duffer Brothers themselves are.

If Will represents a person who struggles because they refuse to deny themselves their identity, Mike represents a person who struggles because they don’t understand their identity, and are walking around just trying to do whatever they can to get along (because they haven’t been presented with the inciting conflict that will move them into self-revelation & growth).

Both of these internal conflicts are narrative arcs that have been built into the coming of age stories of both halves of Byler—and though we are currently sitting at the "low" of both of their arcs as of the end of Season 4, the setup and though-line for them finding themselves (and real, honest love with each other) has been clearly set up for exploration in Season 5.

—if you managed to get through all of this, I commend you. And yes, there are a million other things to be explored between these two, but...I enjoy sorting through the thematic / "moral of the story" through-lines in all my media, so of course I was gonna do it for for Byler!

[rawliverandgoronspice]

The Dondon Post (or: the bizarre TotK's side content counterpoints to its main quest's immuable binary morality)

Speaking of strange TotK Choices, I think I have one singe post left in me about this game; and it's about the Dondon quest, "The Beast and the Princess".

(and about other stuff too, you'll see, we'll get to them)

More specifically: about how... strange of a thematic point it feebly attemps to make in the larger context of the storyline, and how it seems to be yet another mark of a world that, perhaps, once tried to be more morally complex that it ended up becoming.

Buckle up: it's a long one, and it gets pretty conceptual.

(good gem boys notwhistanding)

The Princess and the Beast

So, a couple of things about the setup. We are investigating potential Princess sightings; but at this point, either because we have already completed a bunch and know the general gib, because we have met a couple of wild Fake Zelda shenanigans, or through the simple fact that we are completing a side quest, we know there's a good chance it won't lead to an actual Zelda information. So when we ask Penn about what is going on and he replies with the ominous "we saw the Princess riding some kind of beast --a frightening one with huge, brutal tusks-- that the princess seemed to control", we get Ideas. Then the sidequest is registered: "The Princess and the Beast".

So. You know me. And if you don't know me, here's what you should know: my brain immediately flared up with the thought there was no way in hell this wasn't some kind of wink towards Ganondorf's renowned boarish beast form, especially given tusks were given so much focus.

My first assumption was: that's a miniboss right? I will get to fight some small boar-like thing that Fake Zelda rides sometimes. Cool! I didn't hold too hard onto my hope that the relationship of Zelda and/or Ganondorf to the natural world, or to each other would be expanded upon, since I had already been burned before, but my interest was piqued.

You have to understand how starved I was for any hint of complexity or mystery or ambiguity at this point. I was extremely eager for the game to throw anything at me that would surprise me, enlighten something pre-established, make the exploration lead to a meaningful discovery or deepening of characters, world or themes (and not just slightly cooler loot, or a bossfight, or a puzzle devoid of emotional context --cohesion and depth is what motivates my play sessions, especially in an open world game that I want to believe is worth losing oneself into). This was about the most intriguing task on my to do list at the moment, and so I plunged in immediately.

After really REALLY misunderstanding what I was supposed to do (I stalked every corner of every forest surrounding the tropical area at night or during blood moons in hope to see something --which was very much the wrong call), I arrived to the other stable, then was guided to the other side of the river where Cima awaits and explains that these creatures are actually a new species discovered by Zelda; that they are gentle and kind and not at all scary ("Dondons aren't beastly, they're adorable!"), and even somehow digest luminous stones into gemstones. They like the company of people and liked Zelda in particular.

I was... I felt two different ways about this conclusion, and I think it's worth to explore both: disappointment and some sort of... "huh!" Hard to describe this emotion otherwise.

I'll get the disappointment out of the way first, because it's the least interesting of the two. While I think the little emotional arc I was taken on was not devoid of interest --I was indeed taken on by the rumor and intrigued by its implications-- I wanted, well. A little bit more. And if the creatures were to be Zelda's pet project, I would have loved for them to be actually terrifying and feisty, and for her to develop an interest for these creatures in particular regardless. It could have been very interesting characterization that veered out of the perfect princess loving the perfect world floundering around her, always bringing her clear, practical benefits from the interaction.

(I have made another post that speaks of my discomfort that Zelda does everything everywhere and everyone loves her for it --I get what they were trying to go for, but it either lacks conflict for me to buy into that dynamic at the scale of several regions, or they went on too hard for my taste, as she is, at once and in the span of a couple of years at most: a schoolteacher, a gardener, an animal researcher, a scholar, a traveler, a military expert, a knower of landscape, a painter, a horse rider, an infrastructure planner, a [...] princess --at some point it begins to sound made up, "Little Father of the people"-esque to rattle the hornet's nest a little bit, especially if it's not shown as either a clearly godly characteristic or, even more necessary imo, a negative trait; another expression of her killing herself at work to compensate for a perceived flaw she's trying to earn forgiveness for, like she did in BotW. But that's another topic, and the clumsiness of her character arc has been well threaded by basically everybody disappointed in the story already.)

But, if I decide to be a little graceful, I'd like to explore my "huh!" emotion, and take it apart a little bit.

I think there's something interesting to have such strong parallels to setting up a story about the relationship between Zelda and Ganondorf ("The Princess and the Beast", like come on guys that's the conflict of over half the series), or at least Zelda and the concept of Evil since Ganondorf pretty much represents it in this game, and then have it go: actually, there was a horrible monster that everyone was afraid of, but Zelda was wise and patient enough to approach it and realize its potential beyond the tusks, what beauty can be brought upon the world if one makes the effort to look for what exists underneath. It says something a bit deeper about the world and about Zelda in particular. It intrigues, at the very least.

Is it a reach? Probably! Is my first interpretation that the quest is actually about "eww you thought Zelda would be interested in *disgusting vile monsters* and not sweet and gentle and human-loving animals that literally shit jewlery when cared for? jokes on you, she never would feel any ounce of sympathy for anything that isn't Good and Deserving" uhhh definitively truer? Probably! But I also don't want to dismiss that the quest made me think about it. If I had completed it earlier, I might have even felt like it was (very clumsy, not gonna lie) setup about the main conflict.

But that's also a good segway into my next section: the arbitrary limitations between the animal and the creature, the monstrous and the human.

And the fact that TotK points directly at it.

A Monstrous Collection

(these two guys are just. doing So Much and being So Valid despite being massive weirdos the game wants us to be slightly repelled by. I, for one, respect the Monster kinning grind and their general Twilight Princess energy.)

So. These two guys. There is so much to say about these two guys. I don't think I have seen the Trans Perspective on Kolton on tumblr, and I would love to get it because. I feel like it's a worthwhile discussion (just, how gender and identity is handled in TotK overall, I feel like it's a very complicated conversation and I have not seen super deep dives and I'd be very interested in hearing more).

Beyond the throughline of voluntary consumption of magical objects to turn into less human creatures being a weirdly prevalent plot point in TotK (Zelda, Kolton and Ganondorf casually transing their entire species for funsies --Ganondorf being particularly relentless with Fake Zelda, mummy/phantom shenanigans, Demon King and then literal dragon), I want to focus on Kilton a little bit.

Kilton is genuinely the only NPC in the game willing to acknowledge the inherent personhood that monsters have (the game does showcase them picking up fruits, mourning their boss if you kill them, being cutesy and happy to identify you as one of their own if you wear the appropriate mask --and that's not even getting into creatures like the Lynels, who seem to really edge on the limit of being a conscious creature with a system of honor and property and many other things). He does encourage us to think of monsters as more than a species whose only worth lie in how fun it is to eradicate them; even more, gameplay-wise, he does give us a reason to interact with them in other ways than just our sword with his museum. He does encourage us to see that beauty for ourselves and then select what we think is coolest/most intimidating/cutest/eight billion ganondorfs in every pose imaginable

The fact that Ganondorf is considered a monster was a great win for this feature in particular, and is very funny, but it's also... A lot, if we dig at it a little more than warranted. Beyond all of the Implications and all of the things of representation and political conflict and values already discussed ad nauseum: when did he stop being considered a human? What does that mean about the flimsiness of what is a monster and what is a creature and what is an animal and what is a person and what is even a hylian, as sheikahs got absorbed into the definition in this game? Especially with the stones taken into account, how profound changes in nature are a huge part of the plot (even when reversed and ultimately pretty meaningless): how easy it is, to make that slip? Who decides when that slip has been made? What is acceptable to hurt without remorse? What is beautiful and worth preserving? What is both at once? What is neither?

And again, in a classic Zelda conundrum (appreciative(?)): who the fuck gets to decide that, when, and why?

The Bargainers and the Horned God

(major shoutout to these big guys for being the sole and only providers of actual depth to the Depths, and for looking cool as heck)

So. Let's move the conversation to the Depths.

Conceptually: what an interesting idea!! And so well executed (initially)!! A mirror world to the surface, dark and hushed and full of unknown creatures; haunted by gloom and sickness and the unknown. Not a first in the series, far from it: from ALTTP to ALBW, and even taking the Twilight world of TP into account, this idea of a Dark World acting as a deforming mirror to Hyrule and revealing many interesting aspects as we get to explore both is always a very interesting take on corruption and envy and fear/weakness and/or some sense of darkness looming under the perfect exterior. I'd argue even the Lens of Truth of both OoT and MM's serve a similar function, both gameplay-wise, but also in terms of theme: not everything is as it seems. In the world of Light, darkness must hide itself; but darkness also possess its own beauty, its own hardships, and will stare back at you without blinking if you go seek for it. It's, in my opinion, one of the series' most compelling conversation about the cyclical nature of fate, the coldness of godhood, and how small one feels in the face of a universe that is more complicated than it initially appears --which is why Courage must be invoked to push forward regardless.

The Depth's otherworldly ambiance is truy wonderful, whether in the plays of light and shadows, the creatures native to the environment we meet there (wish we met more!), the soundtrack, the strange aquatic/primordial plants, the fact that the dragons visit this place and connect them to the outside --invoking ideas of balance and interconnectivity, that the tree branches look like veins. The coliseums, the mines, the zonai facilities and the prisons do seem to poke at many things about what the relationship to the past was to this place; was it ever truly a place? Did it look like this back then? Why was it buried? Why did it come back? But in spite of it all, I think the Depths struggle overall to question or reveal anything about the surface that we couldn't already assume going in (that the only thing congealing there is Ganondorf's gloom, his lonely domain of Wrongness, only shared by Kohga and the yiga --the only naysayers of Goodness and Light, contemptful and blinded by self-importance and rage). The zonite is mined by gloomy monsters --why, what for?-- so any notion of greed and over-expansion that could have been associated to the zonai is now reabsorbed into Ganondorf's general evilness, since it needs to be reminded he is everything and anything bad with the world: darkness and conquest and greed and capitalism and pollution and bad weather and sickness and darkness and violence and war and death and betrayal and fakeness and lies and patriarchy and exploitation. No matter that he never does a single thing with zonite in the game; rather set up elements of conflict that never go anywhere than, for a second, let the foundations of absolute goodness and absolute evil risk becoming shaky --and you coming to this unwelcoming dark place that hates you, killing the miners and taking their resources for yourself is, on the other holy, royal fur-covered hand, utterly legitimate. The resources were once Rauru's after all, were they not?

And this is what I would say, except... except for the dead. The fallen warriors, the poes, and, most important of all: the Bargainer statues.

The Bargainers are, in-universe, godly creatures guiding the fallen to a place of final respite, regardless of moral alignment. The poes are all, fundamentally, cleansed of judgement: they are lost souls whose past reality does not matter anymore, and all deserve that peace regardless. In spite of the heavy paradise/hell parallels drawn in that game, with Rauru/Zelda/Sonia as the guardians of Light where Ganondorf gets to become a Devil-like figure, it is confirmed here that no such thing exists when you actually die in this universe.

It almost feels as if the fabric of Hyrule itself, in a brief moment that refuses to elaborate on its own point, goes: "yeah, whatever is happening here between Light and Darkness, it doesn't actually matter. This conflict is futile and doesn't understand the real nature of being alive, dead, a god, a person, a monster, an animal. The truth lies elsewhere --but you will never be told what it is."

It's: wild.

One of the game's most striking traits of narrative brilliance in my opinion --to the point where I'm wondering whether it's there on purpose or was effectively an oversight since every other aspect of reality breaks its own back trying to reassure us that everything is at its correct place, receiving the appropriate treatment by the universe in a way that is never to be questioned.

Another case of that ambiguity being allowed to exist without being immediately crushed and repressed is the case of the Horned God (interesting parallel to Ganon's actual horns that he develops in this game in case the hellish parallels weren't clear enough already): a demon Hylia sealed into stone and pushed far from humans in a clear case of questionable behavior since, while the Horned God isn't exactly nice, does propose a different philosophy you are not punished for exploring; and yet, a proposal that has seen itself persecuted in a very real sense by the goddess of absolute goodness, patron of hylians, Zelda, and many more. Pushed away from view.

Interesting.

And Yet, Light Must Prevail

Okay, so, after all of this, we're left to ask... What the fuck is up with morality in Tears of the Kingdom?!

What do we trust? These half-breaths in the occasional sidequests that Light and Darkness is just the wrong frame of reference, that nature cannot be this simple, is ever-shifting and can be recalled or reaffirmed by arbitrary forces, and might even not matter at all in the universe's fabric, despite having so much of its lore soaking in the dychotomy? Or... everything else about the game, this insistence that Good must not only be assumed as whatever tradition the kingdom has passed down for thousands upon thousands of years, but remain utterly unquestioned the entire time? That Bad is without cause, graceless and unworthy of investment?

Are the Bargainer's statues the only thing worth listening to, that morality is a fable the living tells themselves --or should we be moved when Darkness destroys Light, when Light suffers to preserve itself and the world --but not when the Other is rightfully slain?

Was Kilton correct to see beauty in the monstrous? Was Kolton onto something when he let go of his previous form because there is no clear distinction between what should receive an arrow to the face and what shouldn't? Or should we rather focus on Zelda losing her human form as a beautiful and tragic sacrifice --but something that never actually altered her nature as a hylian, the descendant of a lineage of Good Kings meant to rule forever?

Is the Dondon good because it always was, or was it worth Zelda's love in spite of the fear it initially provoked?

Either way, at the end of the game, evil is slain. Ganondorf is, not killed, but --like his angry BotW boar counterpart-- destroyed, as monsters tend to be. He explodes over the lands of Hyrule, freed from Darkness; freed from everything wrong, since the foreign menace that embodied it all was wiped out in one fateful sweep of a holy blade cradled in sacrificial love. Nothing wrong remains. The Sages reaffirm their vows to protect the kingdom forward, and a very human --hylian-- Zelda smiles: Hyrule now forever and ever basked in eternal Light.

[7ban-sama]

I want to know your opinion about that question: anyone noticed that in meetings of the seven mysteries, not only are the seats oddly divided, but also the way in which the meeting is conducted. I mean Hanako-kun is the leader, but from the place where he is, it looks like he's being judged as a criminal, answering questions given by Kako as if he were the real leader. Why would Aida Iro have put it that way, I mean if Hanako-kun is the leader, not deviate from being the one to lead and judge?

Considering the circumstance, I believe it is quite visually cohesive to portray that scene as though Hanako is 'on trial' by the other mysteries. If you'll recall, Kako is interrogating Hanako on his reckless decision to destroy yorishiro, hampering the Mysteries from operating as usual, which puts the school at more risk from attack from other kaii. This is right before Obon, and thus, the Severance, which Hanako himself is indeed orchestrating — planning to render the School Mysteries useless by having them all booted to the Far Shore.

The entire purpose of the Seven Mysteries is to regulate the relations between kaii and humans, so that there is no longer need for consistent sacrifice of kannagi. Hanako is effectively jeopardizing all of their 'jobs' by unseating several Mysteries... It does not really matter if Hanako is No. 7, if he is destroying the very institution he is 'in charge' of. He is the 'traitor', lol. Beyond that... with the most recent School Festival arc revealing that Hanako is missing memories tied to No. 1's clock, and the fact that it's composed of 3 individuals (unusual)... I believe they have a decent amount of sway in this system as well. No. 1 residing over something as powerful as the school's time is not so trivial to me, let's say it at least doesn't seem wrong that Kako is in a judicial position, here.

Our view of how the School Mysteries function is quite limited early in the series. I don't believe it's as straightforward as "Hanako is the defacto leader"... as more information is revealed to us, I am under the impression that the mysteries help regulate one another, to uphold their system. You could think about it, like... everyone here is a criminal, functionally, and there are harsh motivators that make everyone fall into line. If one misbehaves, it's up to the others to stop that... lest the Cops (The Minamoto/exorcists) actually intervene, which no one wants lol.

Life for kaii is harsh. Not many options, exactly. The Minamoto help enforce that reality by exorcising any kaii that exist outside the school, no exceptions. So, if you want to live at all in the Near Shore, you need to cling to this limited area. And then, if you want to be safe from being subjugated by other kaii, it would be beneficial to become powerful, and curry favor with those scary exorcists... Thus, it is desirable to maintain one's seat as a School Mystery. (Even if you're not a ghost, there's motivation to pursue it.)

More recently, in Ch 95, we have learned from Sakura the reality of yorishiro, and why they are specifically precious mementos of a Mystery's past life. It's not an arbitrary decision...

Yorishiro are precious keepsakes to serve as blackmail. Sakura is explaining this to Nene so that she can absorb the blunt truth of it all. Ostensibly, your yorishiro would be something so important to you, that you could not bear destroying ruthlessly (as the process requires you to render it unrecognizable...) It would also be something you want to preserve and protect from others. You would want to defend your seat as a mystery, to forever guard this belonging. You would... rather other mysteries behave and not disrupt the peace, so that you could cling to this.

I feel like it's important to remind people, the Mysteries are not really... friends. A lot of them flat out hate Hanako, because he is so poorly behaved, but even beyond that, I do not think there is much comradery between them. Not enough to risk very much for one another. It's VERY distinct that Tsuchigomori has personal investment in Hanako, and that's a VERY specific circumstance that lead to that. I think the others are, most neutrally, strangers, or coworkers, you could say... And at worst, actively dislike the other. There's very little trust here... between them all.

It's all a very tenuous relationship... Let alone the fact that Hanako is the sort of person who disregards most and only cares about his most precious, special girlies.

So if you ask me, I don't really see anything wrong with this arrangement. Is Hanako not being persecuted, in this moment? And is he not harboring secret plans to undermine everyone, secretly?? He's actually quite, egregiously rude and detached from this circumstance...

Completely self-aware at what he is doing, and not feeling a lick of guilt about it.

So, I don't think AidaIro are betraying his character by setting up a scene like this. If anything, I think AidaIro-sensei are being fun and theatrical, conveying the atmosphere of what this encounter is (even if we don't have all the information yet.) He is a criminal-!!

Hanako may be the leader of the Mysteries in a sheer technical sense, like, that's his job title... But it's not something he is deeply proud of, or wishes to preserve. It's not a super integral part of his ID...

In this way, I think of Hanako's feelings about this to be in direct contrast to someone like Kou, who is desperate to uphold the title of 'exorcist'... desiring to preserve a legacy, uphold traditional values, etc... What does being a Mystery really even mean to Hanako-? Not much, I don't think. He is willing to throw it all away.

Mmm, and who's to say he's wrong to?

[godkilller]

CAS HAPPY BIRTHDAY i hope you had a great day and that a birthday wish comes true for you this year!!! also thank you for taking gin and making him better. i love reading the inner workings, juxtaposed with how he acts or the things he says. he’s such. a fascinating creature, i want to study him under a microscope. kubo didn’t give us much but you took him and made him so much more multifaceted. i love how he’s not just a tragic double agent either; he’s got a nastiness to him that is genuine—a splinter wedged under his skin from brushing up against a cruel, thorned world, festered over the years. that’s such a great attention to detail that i appreciate. makes him more complex, more engaging to read. i’m really honored that you chose me as a regular writing partner. and! as a friend. you’re so mature and compassionate and fucking hilarious, and i cherish our range of conversations be they deep or silly. <3

out of character. Oh jeez, I've been staring at this ask for a while now not really certain how to tackle it -- but first and foremost, thank you so much for taking the time to send me this, it really does mean a lot to me! The extent of your feedback's a real treat, I think I'll be seeking this ask out on the regular for any needed pick-me-up. I love your writing so much, be it on Izuru, Shinji, or even Tokinada. Coming from you, to hear that I've managed to find balance in the multi-faceted character Gin is a massive compliment considering your own mastery of the art. Your array of characters are made up of numerous flaws and virtues (though perhaps Tokinada's more flaws than virtues, if any) and any time I read your writing it's never just one thing with them, you expand them in such refreshing yet cohesive with canon ways. I know it may seem like I'm just throwing a 'no u' curveball at you here, but I do mean it! You just happened to coherently express what is, in my eyes, a mutual feeling about our writing before I could, pfft.

That all said, I love that you've noticed that I never shy away from Gin's nasty side. It'll always be a part of him, and even Gin is self-aware enough to determine that he always had this side within him -- even back when he was but a boy with a handful of persimmons, offering one up to a collapsed girl. He could murder then, and in my headcanon he had (albeit accidentally/in a survival scenario) before meeting her. I think what draws me most to exploring these aspects of Gin is that it never justifies his actions in my eyes, it simply explains them. I hope I can continue shedding light on the darker parts of Gin while also giving his better side some love since, after all, canon events didn't really let us see what he could've been in a more anti-hero / foil position. Plus, let's be real, everybody secretly likes a redemption arc even if the redemption never actually happens -- the character is just simply striving to be better, give or take successes and failures. He can still be nasty in that verse, though he has consequences and can be set back on his path to being 'better' if he does in fact fall back into bad habits. That you've noticed this constant detail and work I've put into my Gin is a massive compliment and further excites me to continue!

So ultimately the honor is all mine! Thank you for giving me the opportunity to write your lieutenant's dumb traitor captain -- I love your Izuru dearly and our talks about the various scenarios and little funny peeks into their day-to-day lives make me excited to write with you on the dash so much so that I typically zoom to reply ASAP lmfao. You're a good friend of mine with excellent humor and a good heart, I'll be stickin' to ya for some time now. Thank you, again <3

[greatwyrmgold]

I've spent a few posts talking about things I like about Bleach. Now for me to talk about things I don't like.

The Soul Society arc.

Thank you, have a good day.

Okay, yes, I will explain myself. I recall that the Soul Society arc is one of the parts of Bleach that its fans generally like, and I...don't. There are several reasons for this.

Why I dislike the Soul Society Arc

Rukia

I've made a bit of a running gag about how Rukia is my favorite character, which I might actually try to explain at some point. She's determined, she's resourceful, she tries to do the right thing (even if it means breaking the law), she can switch from being the straight man/voice of reason to being the silly punchline guy without feeling like she's out of character. And while I wish she'd kept a meaningful fragment of her powers, having her fight a Hollow without them was pretty badass.

And she spends basically the entire Soul Society arc as a damsel in distress. She thinks that doing anything will make things worse for the people she cares about, which is a better reason than most damsels in distress have, but it still feels like an excuse to let the deuteragonist gather dust in the corner while the series focuses on a bunch of new soul reapers. Speaking of which:

I lost track of how many new characters were introduced

In principle, introducing dozens of Soul Reapers isn't automatically a bad thing. There are some bit-part Reapers who add a lot to the texture of the world without taking up too much narrative real estate. That one officer who hits on (what he thinks are) female Reapers in the middle of a crisis does a good job making the Reapers seem both varied and...banal, in a three-dimensional sort of way?

But then there are the dozens of Reapers (and non-Soul-Reaper souls) who are supposed to be main characters. There's the thirteen captains, and most of their assistant captains, and a bunch of others besides. And I like some of these!

Hanataro is a nice weakling, contrasting the overwhelmingly powerful and callous captains. He's just...a nice dude. And despite being weak, he's allowed to do stuff.

Renji, aside from being a vehicle to explain Rukia's backstory (yay, Rukia when she wasn't damseled!), is a

Kenpachi is just that shonen fight-loving dude, but...he's the most that dude I have ever seen. And despite that, he's absolutely shit at using his zanpakuto; he has to get by on raw brute force. He feels like a subtweet about all the worst anime heroes.

Yachiru is adorable and I love her dynamic with Kenpachi.

But there are also plenty of Reapers who I dislike, like Mayuri the generic mad scientist, Gin Ichimaru the obvious villain, or Rukia's brother Byakuya (who isn't as evil as Gin, but is also a less audacious and interesting flavor of evil). And worse, there are a bunch who I just don't care about, like...the guy with a fox head, or the old leader guy, or the glasses guy, or the other six captains, who the series tries to make into main characters.

It's too much to keep track of. And so is...

All the fight scenes

I get it, this is a shonen battle manga, shonens are gonna battle as the manga goes on. But do the battles need to seem so superfluous?

It could be worse. I've been reading Jump manga long enough to know that. Lots of Big Event arcs turn into chaotic melees, almost impossible to follow. Others throw fights back-to-back at you, with no room to breathe.

The Soul Society arc doesn't do either of those. The participants in each fight are well-defined, the fights separated from each other by several blocks at minimum. There's space in between them, time to reset the tension and explore some character stuff that comes up. But it still has a lot of superfluous-feeling fights.

(Aside: While splitting the party this way and giving everyone periodic downtime is good, it also makes the timeline feel less cohesive than it probably is. It sometimes feels like one group is resting up and having lengthy conversations in the middle of another group's action scene.)

For instance: We're supposed to be invested in a multi-chapter fight between the mentor character who barely existed before the Soul Society arc* and her ex-student who barely existed before this fight? Really? The student's backstory had to be explained midfight for it to have a semblance of emotional...anything.

I assumed that fight was just introducing the sleeve-destroying lightning technique, but the wiki says it's only used by those two and the mentor's sister. Which is a shame, because A. it means we don't get to see Ichigo in one of those goofy open-sided uniforms, Hawkeye Initiative style, and B. it means we really were supposed to care about the student who got mad her teacher left.

I realize I've harped on this one segment, but...well, it's mostly the recency effect, but also that segment knocked me out of my reading groove and made it hard to get back into it. No offense to either Yoruichi or...(checks notes) Sui-feng, but your backstory was introduced in the worst way, and there doesn't seem to be that much to it.

Anyways, that's just one fight out of dozens. Some of them advance the plot, or help the heroes understand/develop their powers. Some are just obstacles for the heroes to overcome. And some are just squabbles between Soul Reaper captains over everything from the dumb, violent version of Machiavellian scheming to "Why didn't you bring me with you when you left, sensei?!?"

Anyways. Circling through the technique introduced two pages before it was used to win a fight to the mid-fight-scene exposition, we come to another problem.

Maybe Bleach deserves its reputation?

Before reading Bleach or watching Geoff Thew's Bleach video, I had heard some stuff about the series. One of those things is that it had bad power creep, with new powers being introduced on a dime as the plot requires. For the whole pre-Soul-Society monster-of-the-week segment, this didn't come up.

Then we get to the Soul Society. The main characters are faced by overwhelmingly powerful Soul Reapers, with far greater spirit energy (power level) and a variety of special techniques and powers among them. Ichigo &co struggle against low-level Reaper officers, knowing they will have to fight captains who can mop the floor with those mooks. And then...they get stronger, and have about the same level of struggle against the strongest captains, and win.

The worst has to be Ichigo getting his bankai. For those who don't read Bleach: I hope this has made sense, and also bankai is kinda like a super-mode of the magic swords every Soul Reaper has, which can summon monsters or deadly flower petals or a bone snake whip thing. I don't really get it yet. Anyways, bankai is super rare; only a fraction of Soul Reapers ever get a bankai, and it takes a decade or more of training.

Of course, Ichigo takes a shortcut. It involves a quasi-symbolic fight against the incarnation of his magical sword; the goal is to find his real magic sword, which is stated to be the one piece of his spirit made for fighting. This has the potential to be an interesting training scene, forcing Ichigo to introspect and figure out why he fights, what he's fighting for.

...it happens offscreen. We cut away from Ichigo's training for a while, stuff happens, Rukia's about to be executed, Ichigo appears a day ahead of schedule, having figured his bankai thing out. There's no flashback, we don't get to see Ichigo figuring out why he fights or anything. He just comes back, and he's stronger now. And when that's not enough (because of his shonen BS), he gets a spooky Hollow mask.

But it's not just this kind of convenient power-up. There are also a lot of techniques that are explained in flashbacks right before (or after) they win a fight. Some of these make sense; Quincies can manipulate reiki in the world around them, the afterlife world is made out of reiki, it makes sense that Uryu would be able to draw power from nearby buildings and stuff. Others really don't; the thing Uryu pulled in the same fight which boosted his Quincy powers but then made him lose them at the end of the fight came out of nowhere.

There's a lot of backfill, a lot of mid-fight exposition, and yet a lot of stuff that isn't explained. Orihime and Chad getting powers still isn't explained beyond "Hanging out with Ichigo and Rukia awakened dormant magical powers," and it's weird that two of Ichigo's friends would have those. And while the way Orihime's powers work is explained decently, I still have no idea what Chad's armor arm does. Strong, tough, draining? Iunno.

But I guess it's not surprising that some stuff would fall by the wayside.

It's Too Much

This isn't so much a new point, as a new angle on the points I already made, synthesizing everything.

I liked the small-scale conflicts in Bleach's early monster-of-the-week arcs. One chapter, there's a cursed parakeet (there's a Hollow involved). A few chapters later, soul-Ichigo needs to chase down his body and the artificial autopilot soul that was supposed to be safeguarding it. Then he meets the Hollow that killed his mom, then a TV psychic who understands spirits just well enough to accidentally make everything worse, then a different kind of monster-hunter who thinks Soul Reapers need to back off and let humans handle their own world.

It's episodic, and that's not a bad thing! It gives us time to get acquainted with the world and how it works. And, of course, how Ichigo's Reaper magic and Uryu's Quincy powers work. Plus, it's just kinda fun? Every few chapters, you get a different flavor of urban fantasy nonsense, which all feels like it fits in the same world.

Then all of a sudden, Rukia abandons the Kurosaki household, and Ichigo sees her getting kidnapped by her brother, a high-ranking Soul Reaper, who is going to execute her. Ichigo and his friends (and Uryu) need to train fast so they can go to the Soul Society, where they're promptly smacked in the face with a whole mass of characters and powers and technobabble and politics, both class politics and powerful individuals maneuvering for more power.

And I like some of these elements. The divide between haves and have-nots in the afterlife is worth exploring, bankai seem neat (especially that one tidbit from when Ichigo was training, which never paid off and I'm still mad), plenty of the Soul Reapers are interesting and fun, some of the fight scenes are cool.

But I don't have the time to enjoy those elements. They're drowning in a sea of other things introduced at the same time, and a stream of new things being constantly introduced. New characters (and characters we technically already saw getting developed), more part of that big scheme coming to light, more technobabble, more powers, more training.

Bonus: Shonen BS

I couldn't fit this into the neat stream of segues, but there's a lot more shonen BS in this arc. You know, characters doing things that help set up fight scenes but don't make a lot of sense in-character.

Some shonen BS, I can accept. Kenpachi, for instance. Shonen BS is his whole character; he wears an eyepatch because binocular vision would make fights too easy. (Also, there's something in it that limits his spirit energy.) It makes sense that he'd go out of his way to let his opponent fight. And even characters who aren't pure, unadulterated shonen BS, sometimes shonen BS is in-character. That's fine.

But when Ichigo has his sword to the throat of Rukia's evil brother, who he considers irredeemably evil for callously trying to execute his sister (fair), and backs off for no apparent reason so they can fight for a couple more chapters...why? Why did he hold back his bankai until after Rukia's brother cut him up with his flower bankai? Why did he not kill him when he had such an easy chance? If you're gonna kill him, kill him!? You could have finished this with one fewer convenient power-up!

I don't have any big point here. Some shonen BS is expected in any battle manga, Bleach got a bunch more in the Soul Society arc, it's starting to get on my nerves.

What do I wish had happened?

I think the big problem is how suddenly Bleach goes from pre-Soul-Society MOTW stuff to a big, dense plotline in a whole new world. It's a sudden change of pace, a change in place, a whole herd of new characters, and a bunch of new powers and setting elements, introduced all at the same time.

So instead...don't do that.

Keep up the monster-of-the-week format, and introduce these things more gradually. Maybe Ichigo starts running into tougher Hollows after Uryu's stunt, so he needs to recruit Orihime, Chad, and Uryu to help him fight. Then they start training their supernatural abilities to stay on top of the problem.

Meanwhile, spirit world stuff starts getting introduced. Maybe Uruhara sends Ichigo and Rukia on an errand that takes them into the spirit world, or pursuing a Hollow takes them there, or Renji visits the mortal world to figure out why Rukia's been gone so long, or something.

Or if nothing else, have some Rukia flashback chapters. Those could introduce basics of how the Soul Society works, and since Rukia was adopted into one of the big spirit world families, she could plausibly have met most of the major characters in the Soul Society arc. Plus, more Rukia is rarely a mistake.

My biggest problems with the Soul Society arc come down to dumping so much information on the reader at once (too much to be contained in organic-feeling scenes) and how much of a disconnect between Soul Society and what came before. But that's an obvious problem, right? It makes me wonder why Tite Kubo wrote Bleach this way. But I don't know enough to meaningfully speculate, and I shouldn't baselessly speculate.

Anyways, beyond that...Rukia should actually do stuff. This would require a lot of rewriting about why she was imprisoned and how she felt about her execution, but it's not like you could adjust the pacing without changing all of that stuff. Also, I don't like it. "I'll let my brother kill me and hope that the other captains don't have any reason to go after Ichigo, who they hold partially responsible for the thing I'm being executed for" isn't the worst motivation a damsel can have for accepting her distress, but it's still not a great one.

Finally, cut down a bit. I can't get specific without toeing into the "fix-it fic" zone, but I feel like all thirteen Soul Reaper captains and most of their assistant captains and a bunch of their flunkies and several people living outside the spirit city is a few more principal characters than a single arc needs. Part of the problem is that the Rukia execution plotline has a lot of scenes setting up some kind of big conspiracy plotline that I haven't really gotten to.

I feel there should have been more space between them. That might be tricky; Rukia's execution was a step in the conspiracy's plan, and I'm not sure how close it is to the end or how easy it would be to restructure the conspiracy so that there was more of a gap. For all I know, something not yet revealed about the conspiracy will make it seem like as crucial a part of the Soul Society arc as Rukia's execution, and not just the next thing that happens. But at the moment, I feel like jamming them together weakened both.

Conclusion

The Soul Society arc is not bad; I just like it less than what came before. It feels like too many things are introduced too quickly, with loads of characters and powers and worldbuilding details being dumped in at once.

Those things are not bad, just crammed in too tightly for my taste. I could have found Sui-feng a compelling character, if her story wasn't crammed into the middle of a fight scene which feels like it has no purpose except introducing her and showing off her ex-master's powers. It could have been a side-story about a character dutifully following the path laid out for her by her ancestors and superiors, only for that path to stop making sense when her mentor bailed.

But instead, it's a backstory that was squished into a fight scene that felt like a big plot cul-de-sac. And that stinks.

(It also stinks that Rukia was just kinda tossed into the corner like a forgotten toy.)

[zadien]

💥 🍬 😎 💎 🔥🚦💌 🎨

Sorry i got carried away 😅 (feel free to ignore any duplicates)

💥What is one canon thing that you wish you could change? I’d have Ian in Beyblade more and give Hilary a story arc for herself - and have the whole show be more cohesive. But honestly, I don’t generally want to change canon so much. People made their decisions for a reason, I have to go with it. Like obviously I’d love canon FF7 to be a little more blatant with their intentions and while I’d love for Zack and Aerith to, you know, live I know that the story would not work without their deaths. So it would be pointless. I do think shipping drama would be less volatile if certain things were made explicit from the beginning but that’s minor stuff really.

🍬 Do you write for multiple fandoms? If yes, what is your favorite fic of yours for each fandom? I write for multiple but also I don’t. Beyblade is the one true fandom and everything else is like a one night stand. I do write for FFVII when the moment takes me and Fall Ball Fling is currently my fave since it’s the one I’m writing. SLTS is obviously my first love of Beyblade, though honestly, I think my fave fic for Beyblade is Time After Time. It’s something I really enjoy rereading myself. Kai and Amber as adults making adult decisions while in the shadows Gavvy exists.

😎What fics do you prefer on a scale of canon-compliant to wildly original? Depends on the fandom I’m reading for. Like Beyblade, I’m happy with either, though I tend to read more original stuff because you can do way more with it and you’re not constrained to the canon character relationships. For Final Fantasy, it’s such a complete story in canon that I don’t need to read anything more in that world, so again wildly original is good for that fandom. For Haikyuu, I'd want canon but also how can you improve on canon for that show??? For other fandoms, I really want canon compliant. I want canon-compliant to explain what the hell canon was doing and fix it — within reason.

💎Do you often write about a relationship or focus on an individual? Oh, it’s always a relationship of some sort. It’s either friendship, familial or romantic. I have to have some kind of relationship in the fic because none of my characters are wildly entertaining on their own. Also, I love dialogue and you get better dialogue exploring a relationship than exploring an individual.

🔥Have you included any sexy scenes in your fics? If yes, do you find them easy or difficult to write? Yes, I have, there's The Phoenix and Ember Reunion and Time After Time. And they’re horrible to write. God, I hate writing them but they’re also fun. I just find that when I’m writing them, I’m very concerned about how it reads, is it too clinical? Is the chemistry coming across? Will the reader understand why this is occurring? As someone who has on MANY occasions watched a show and wondered, why is this happening now? I don’t want a reader to feel that way about my scenes. I do feel I write them very unsexily, which I want to work on. But I also don’t write very fiery passionate characters either so there’s no cause for a blaze on the page.

🚦What sort of endings do you prefer to write: ambiguous, bad, happily ever after, etc.? HAPPILY EVER AFTER!!! Because life is shitty enough. And if I can’t find it, I’m gonna live vicariously through my characters who will. It’s all about how they find it.

💌 Is there a favorite trope you like to write? Bed sharing. It tends to pop up in mostly everything I write. I just love the idea of people letting down their guard when sleeping and ending up cuddling, even if it’s platonic cuddles or puppy piles. It’s such an expression of trust.

🎨 If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see? I think Saving probably is the most visual fanfic I’ve written, but I got fan art for that and commissioned a piece from Lucy so that was amazing! But I’d love something for SLTS, I just don’t know what I’d want. I never really think about fanart for my stuff because it’s not the kind of writing that would inspire fan art, you know? OH! No, I’d love to see jock Tyson and diligent student Hilary because their dynamic in SLTS gives me life. They’re so much fun. For Fall Ball Fling, there’s a scene involving the iconic Water Tower which would be cute but I’m sure there’s tons of fan art of them and the water tower - I just want Tifa in her new outfit from Ever Crisis because she’s stunning.

Thanks for asking!!! 💖

[cleflink]

Howdy-hi! Your Santa again <3

I’m glad to hear you enjoy the trope, and I think I’ve finalized the overall story. I’m still in the process of working on it, but I can truthfully say that you can expect it between the 22-25th (hopefully sooner, depends on how long it’ll take me to edit). It’s been an absolute blast to work on and I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I have writing it!

I suspect when I next come in contact with you, it’ll be through the reveal and the gifting of your present. Truly quite excited, this event has been so much fun, and I’m glad I participated, if only because I got to be introduced to you and your writing. I’ve been picking through Scion piece by piece, and my absolute joy when I saw how you wrote Shinichi, but most of all Kaito. I won’t lie, I ended up raving about it to my roommate, explaining only the beginning of the fic in what cohesive manner I could.

So if nothing more, you’ve gained a new reader delighted to find a great author.

And I think, if only to give more content, I would like to leave you with one last question: If you could watch a DCMK episode/movie for the first time again, what would it be?

Until we meet face to face, take care of yourself!!

–Your DCMK Secret Santa

Merry Christmas!

I've done this all in a backwards order, sorry about that! ^_^ But between covid, Christmas and finishing my own Santa fics, I've barely been on tumblr oops.

Your story was absolutely worth the wait, and I'm so glad that you enjoyed writing it because I very much enjoyed reading it! :) It's also been such a delight to get to chat with you this month and to flail over this fandom together.

Ahhh, I'm so glad that you liked Scion! (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄) I love these boys so much, so knowing that I'm writing them in a way that other people also resonate with means so so much.

Another great but challenging question - there are just so many great options to choose from! Hmmm... for movie, I'm torn between The Last Wizard of the Century and The Lost Ship in the Sky (yes, I'm aware my KID bias is showing, and I'm totally okay with that). Both of them are such fun to watch unfold, and they go in directions that I didn't expect, which would be fun to watch again for the first time. Also, there can never be enough KID shenanigans.

For the show/manga, I actually really loved the Scarlet Return arc. It had all the tension of main plot stuff ACTUALLY HAPPENING (how unusual!), and the way it unfolded was just so satisfying. Kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time and I enjoyed seeing Amuro get out-manoeuvred when he thought he was winning. What about you?

Thanks again, Silver! I look forward to getting to know you better moving forward. :D

[eirasummersreview]

The Sandman (Netflix) review

I finished The Sandman a few weeks ago and I quite enjoyed it. It's that type of absurd and chaotic shows that have cohesion within themselves and I like them. I'll add before I start, I am not familiar with the original comics and I have never read them. This will be about the tv show only. And now, let's proceed with the review:

Story:

I'd say there's the overall story about Dream that keeps moving alongside some other shorter arcs. It does start with him as the main focus, but soon turns to him dealing with other situations and problems that arise (or have been there for a while). It's all very chaotic in its presentation, but makes sense when you tie it with a story about "dreams" most of the time. I also didn't feel lost at any point. It's more like I was along for the ride, wether I had all the info or not.

About the lore, I think that was the most interesting part for me. Knowing how this world works, the rules it has, all the different dimensions/realms and how they influence the "regular" world. I was always waiting for more info on them and wasn't disappointed by them. Of course, it was never explained directly, it was shown most of the time or told with a brief explanation. But I do prefer them doing it this way, seems more organic and integrated in the story.

Characters:

All the characters were interesting and had so many particularities that made them seem "real" in a way. I did enjoy learning about them all. Definitely the strongest point in this tv show, in my opinion, is the characters. They also each had their motivations and circumstances, leading to them making understandable decisions during the plot. I might've agreed more with some than the others, but still they all made "sense" (as much as they could in a story like this hahaha).

I was particularly interested in the Endless and all the "non human" characters that appeared through the story, although that doesn't mean the humans weren't also good and interesting, because they were too. If I have to say, probably Death was my personal favourite of them all.

Aesthetic:

I think the aesthetic was also solid. All the caracters had really particular and distinctive aesthetics, quirky enough to fit the universe they were in, but also not so much it looked like a "costume" and you couldn't take them seriously.

And as far as backgrounds, lighting and scenes, they were all really pretty and well executed. Some of the still shots were really beautiful, seemed diretly taken from the concept art or some illustration, which made them stand out in a really good way.

Although I will also add that it has the same problem a lot of modern tv shows and movies have: it was too dark at times. So much that you could barely see what was going on. It wasn't too often compared to other ones, but it was still present for sure.

---

Overall, as I said I enjoyed it. Although I do think it might not be for everyone, since it's a really particular style and is dialogue heavy. But I'd recommend giving it a try and watch the first 2-3 episodes to see if you enjoy it~ As an end note, I really liked episode 5. It might be the one most separate from the overall plot, but the way it's shot and told was really interesting and engaging.

That's all~ If they do a season 2 at some point, I'll probably watch it as well and do a review of it as well C:

[erithel]

Person who sent the lotor rant here, i feel like they always intended for him to be an antagonist without a goal of redemption. And given his current actions, the way he continued his parent’s imperialism (no matter how good his intentions started out or his backstory), he didn’t really seek one out or even worked towards it given he had about 10 thousand years to do so, imo lotor in s1-6 is not redemptive. I don’t want to use real examples bc that takes away the gravity of those situations, but if lotor had a real world analogue, I don’t think people would advocate for him much.

And yeah agree that he does get away with it bc he’s “attractive” to fans, if he was drawn any less “attractive” people wouldn’t be playing devil advocate for him. And would be more likely to condemn him for how he treated allura. The way he used her and manipulate her throws up so many red flags, that’s the kind of man people should look out for and get warned about.

I think the writers only started giving him a more sympathetic perspective in s7-8 bc of fan popularity. Which wouldn’t be the first time the writers lean more on marketing than organic story telling (shiro and toys…) to get a season out. It would explain why the portrayal came so late and people had such a mix reaction.

And I know people wanted him to be zuko but we should remember that zuko had a hard journey and actively seeked out the path for redemption that and it was long to get there. He was also a teenager who didn’t commit the kind of atrocities that grown adult Lotor had. I also get the impression the fandom doesn’t want Looe to put in the work to it and just want him to get the redemption free of charge, love and kisses all around for him. Which is basically the same as writing off his actions and excusing them. If Lotor had to have a redemption arc it would be something along the lines of Uncle Iroh. The messy kind where he is not entitled to forgiveness but he is still working to correct his mistakes and be more a man of the earth.

So there are a couple things I would like to address, here.

First and foremost, yes. You are absolutely right that it feels as though the showrunners/writers were swayed by influences that had nothing to do with the actual story/characters. I know I've addressed it in previous posts, but it still remains relevant that if there had been a solid plan from the get-go and they had stuck to that plan, the show would have been less…disjointed.

Character arcs would have made more sense. Storylines would not have been forgotten. Everything would have felt more cohesive instead of how rushed and frazzled it became in the last few seasons.

Secondly, we obviously view Lotor in a slightly different light.

I am not here to argue your opinion. Only to offer mine.

Because the most interesting thing I ever found about Lotor's character was that I think he actually did believe his feelings for Allura were genuine. Now, I do just want to be clear, here – I am not saying the way he treated her was good, or right. It was not. It was clearly manipulative, and she was 100% right in her anger towards him. But I do believe that because he had no frame of reference for a healthy relationship, he believed that his own feelings were true toward her.

Allura started out as a target for Lotor, but somewhere along the way she became more than that. Not in the sense of the power of true love won out, or she was able to change the monster or any of that BS. But she did become different.

Because on several occasions throughout the show, people said things like "you're just like your father" to Lotor – and as far as I can remember, he brushed it off every time.

Every time… except when Allura said it to him.

Allura said "You're more like Zarkon that I could have imagined" and Lotor…snapped. It was the only time he reacted to that phrase, because it was the only time it was spoken by someone who's opinion of him mattered.

Maybe that's just a reaching headcanon of mine, but I always found that moment interesting.

Thirdly, I am not gonna get too much into this because I am not having politics invade my nice little klance space here, but I have to disagree with you on one point. It has become abundantly clear that no matter what heinous acts real world people do commit, there are always others who will advocate for them.

And lastly, characters are often compared to Zuko because he had one of the most successfully portrayed redemption arcs in any show or movie.

I mentioned this in a comment on the previous Lotor post, but I'll say it here again – Zuko's redemption arc was successful because we got his backstory and his reason for acting the way he did in episode 12 of season 1.

They gave us just enough time to settle into "ok so he's the antagonist" before they flipped it on us and made us sympathize with him. And because they played Zuko's parts of that episode in almost a direct parallel to Aang's, it told us that this story wasn't just "good vs evil" black and white storytelling. It literally showcased that Zuko (the antagonist) tried to do the right thing for the good of his people and literally got burned and banished for it. While Aang (the protagonist) made a bad decision for selfish reasons and the world suffered for it. It was an excellent lesson in "everyone makes mistakes, and everyone handles things differently."

In my opinion, it's not fair to compare most characters to those of AtLA, because they were actually given the chance to grow and change, whereas many others were not.

Especially not those of VLD.

I feel as though maybe you are basing a lot of this on the members of the fandom who say "Lotor deserved better."

I do not believe those people are saying "Lotor did no wrong," but instead, it's more along the lines of "everyone deserves to be given a chance."

Did Lotor do horrible things? Yes. Does he deserve to be forgiven for doing those things? No.

But did he deserve a chance to a life where everything wasn't standing against him? Did he deserve a life where he could have learned the right thing and changed for the better?

Yes.

Everyone deserves a chance to better themselves. And it's up to them to make that chance count.

[maulusque]

Clone genetic enhancement ideas

So the clones were genetically enhanced, but i don’t really see any writers (in fanfic or in published stuff) really exploring what that MEANS beyond “clone very stronk”. Here are some ideas that would actually make clones significantly different from just a regular-ass human in peak condition. 

-enhanced senses: eyesight, hearing, etc. I’m talking eyes like a HAWK

-better reflexes

-quicker information processing

-can hear sounds of higher and lower frequency than standard humans

-can see light of a broader spectrum than human standard

-learn quicker, retain information and skills better (potential problem: if you learn something the WRONG way, that way might stick really well)

-photographic memory (really useful for memorizing layouts and maps)

-immunity to various diseases

-can tolerate a wider range of temperatures and environments

-increased stamina and strength baseline. Clones can just run full-tilt for hours and hours and be like “ah a nice stroll”. Over long distances, they can out-pace jedi in the same way that humans can out-pace horses.

-higher tolerance of certain poisons/toxins (clones can straight-up drink ethanol, and get maybe a little tipsy)

-bodies respond quickly to physical stress, and slowly to the absence of it (basically, this means that physical conditioning results in stronger muscles and a stronger cardiovascular system really quickly, and it takes MUCH longer for a clone to lose strength and conditioning due to not exercising than standard humans. Think how much valuable training time is saved if they only have to go on a run like, once a month in order to stay in shape)

-increased ability to function through intense pain and acute injuries. Basically, semi-disabling the pain system so it’s less distracting. Probably not good for the survival of the individual in many situations, but an advantage on the battlefield. 

-heal faster and better, with fewer long-term complications. Clones can dislocate their shoulders and NOT have the joint be permanently fucked up, because the Kaminoans re-designed the whole damn thing to suck WAY less.

-actually, unique internal anatomy. There’s probably a lot about the human body besides the shoulder joint that is actually just really stupid, and something no intelligent designer would actually build. So the Kaminoans can fix a lot of that stuff. Better knees, maybe. Stronger ribs. Maybe Cody punches droids not just because he’s a mad bastard, but also because his metatarsals are literally as strong as steel. 

-Hearing loss/hearing damage? No problem, your ear can regrow those little hair-thingies that help you hear. 

-Of course, it takes energy to maintain muscle mass, which is why human bodies lose it if we’re not using it. Clones need significantly more calories than standard humans. However, their digestive systems are enhanced to extract calories and nutrients from food much more efficiently, so food goes much farther. Potential weird side effect: maybe clones only have to poop like, once a week?

-You could probably extend that into increased ability to tolerate long periods without food/on low rations, despite the increased need for calories. 

-wouldn’t it be NEAT if the kaminoans somehow designed self-repairing DNA. This would mean that others couldn’t take a DNA sample from a clone and modify it to create their own clones (basically, it protects their product. It’s like DRM for clones). This ALSO means that clones couldn’t get cancer, and that they’d be immune to radiation poisoning. So a clone could just walk up to a sphere of uranium at critical mass and pick it up. Maybe with oven mitts on if it’s hot. (this would also make it harder for a rapid-aging cure to be developed, but uhhhh fanfic writers find a way)

- “bred for obedience” I think most of this would have to be accomplished through tightly-controlled messaging and cultural norms as the clones grow up- basically, enshrining obedience as a desirable and almost sacred trait, to be prized higher than anything else, including the lives of your brothers. In the same way that we hear stories of people sacrificing their lives to protect their loved ones, the clones would grow up hearing stories of soldiers sacrificing their brothers’ lives to obey an order from a superior. 

-SOME of the “obedience” thing could be engineered, though. Humans are already super social, but it would probably make sense for the clones to have an even greater need for social bonds. This would make for greater teamwork and coordination, and better unit cohesion, since the clones would be more inclined to prioritize friendship/agreeing with someone over winning an argument. It would also make it so they’d bond with their natural-born generals more easily, so they would obey them not just because they’re supposed to, but because they’d be much quicker to see them as a friend, and someone who’s trust they want to earn, someone they want to incorporate into their group and make happy.

-consequently, clones who find themselves alone do NOT do well. Isolation has a much more profoundly negative impact on clones than on regular humans.

-Originally, clones designed to operate alone or in small teams would not have the social enhancement- ARC troopers, spec-ops teams, etc. There wouldn’t be much of a noticeable difference in everyday interactions, but they’d also be vaguely weirded out by what they interpret as aggressive friendliness from their brothers, and their brothers would think they’re a bit shy and standoffish. 

-actually this social modification would make it MUCH harder for clones to kill people. REGULAR HUMANS are already super bad at killing people- i remember reading this article about how as soon as soldiers have to point their weapons at actual people, their aim gets mysteriously much shittier. Even when compared to situations that are exactly the same, except they’re not shooting at other humans. So reconcile this how you will, idk.

-I imagine a lot of these enhancements would be accomplished not through DNA, but through microorganisms. Retroviruses could explain the DNA resistant to modification, and the increased healing speed, and possibly some disease resistance (do i know anything about retroviruses other than a vague concept of what they are? no i do not. will that stop me? also no.) Their metabolism can be partially explained through specially engineered gut microbes.

-not sure how they’d go about making clones “resistant to any stress”, because you can’t exactly turn off the trauma response in the brain without breaking a bunch of other things. They could probably do a bit of fiddling to make clones more resistant to chemical imbalances, and therefore more depression-resistant. I think most of the “stress-resistance” would have to come through training. Either they train the clones to basically suppress everything, which might work alright in the short term. OR they actually have systems in place that help prevent the development of things like PTSD and help treat trauma. Meaning the clones are literally trained in self-care, positive self-talk, talking about their pain with their brothers, and having community rituals around things like death and grief. I don’t think that’s super likely because one thing that’s integral to those concepts is the concept of “i am a person and i have worth, and if i feel angry about something bad happening, that is ok and valid” and considering that a whole lot of bad things happen to the clones all the time and their childhood is a whole boatload of bad all happening at once, i don’t think the kaminoans would want the clones realizing “hey wait a minute i’m a person and i don’t deserve to be treated this way and it’s ok for me to be mad at you”. 

- the clones were supposedly engineered to be “less aggressive” but i think there was literally nothing more to that than a cover story for the control chip. The clones wouldn’t be raised with a lot of the aggressive western concept of masculinity, where anger is the default reaction to like, everything, and your personal pride is extremely important and also fragile (no offense lmao). So you wouldn’t have clones posturing and getting angry over perceived slights and fighting each other all the time, like everyone in-universe apparently expects to be the case. Anyway, why would you want your soldiers to be less aggressive? they’re literally supposed to fight and kill the enemy. You want them fully capable of getting angry, anger is the human response to fear and danger that lets us DO something about it. 

-obviously the biggest component in how they behave would be how they are raised, but that’s an entirely different post

-Specializations! I imagine that initially, the Kaminoans had different clones with different traits engineered specifically to fill certain roles. However, as the war went on, they struggled to keep up with demand and had to start shoving clones into whatever roles were needed (hence Fives and Echo becoming ARCs, despite not being engineered as ARC troopers). 

-Command clones would have better abilities in the executive function parts of the brain that deal with extrapolation, planning ahead, spatial reasoning, etc. They’d also have increased visual pattern recognition (like a pigeon)

-search-and-rescue troops would also have the pigeon pattern recognition abilities. The coast guard literally strapped pigeons to helicopters who would tap a button when they saw orange in the water, because they were better at spotting it than humans. Pigeons can detect cancer in microscope images of cells, because they’re that good at pattern recognition

-Pilots would have hella reflexes, excellent spatial awareness and spatial reasoning skills, much greater ability to process visual information, stronger hearts and blood vessels (to resist greater Gs of force), and they’d also be much shorter, to better fit into a cockpit. Which reminds me of Axe, that poor bastard from Ahsoka’s squadron over Ryloth who was almost eight feet tall. rip poor Axe, how did you even become a pilot, you long bastard.

-medics who can smell certain diseases. If you want to get a little bit out there, make the medics able to purr so they can sooth stressed-out patients. 

-infantry would have even greater endurance than everyone else, as well as greater tolerance for, and ability to, remain constantly on alert.

-ability to fall asleep at will? that would be super dope.

-maybe more efficient sleep, so to an adult clone, 4 hours of sleep is genuinely sufficient.

-concept: clones can sort of turn down their bodily functions- slow their digestion, heart, lungs, the whole nine yards- to last longer in adverse conditions. Sort of a half-hibernation (or quarter hibernation- they’d still be able to talk and think, but they’d feel very lethargic). They wouldn’t be able to function very well, but it would be great for things like enduring intense cold, periods without food, low-oxygen environments, and it would be especially useful if you were wounded and waiting for help, since you could slow your circulation, meaning it would take you a lot longer to bleed out. This state could be triggered by a combination of physical actions such as sitting or lying still, breathing slowly and deeply, and focusing on slowing the heart down (humans can actually slow down their hearts consciously if you practice at it, this is basically that, but turned up to like 1100).

-one thing that never made sense to me was the whole “we’re running out of jango fett’s DNA, all the new clones won’t be as good, and we have to stop ventress from stealing the original DNA” because like, can’t they just, get the EXACT SAME DNA from the clones?? you know, the exact genetic copies? With all the enhancements already done? But now my idea is that the kaminoans have engineered the clones so their DNA straight up can’t be copied. The clone’s own body can obviously replicate it, but if you take a sample and try to extract the DNA, it just self-destructs or something. This is to protect their intellectual property, but also means that they literally have to use a couple of Jango Fett’s actual human cells for every single clone they make (and the fact that they then have to do all the above enhancements to every single embryo helps explain why there’s so many small mutations, such as hair color and height). So they kinda shot themselves in the foot with that one. 

-of course since things like ADHD and autism have a strong genetic component, the kaminoans could theoretically engineer those out of the clones, but actually FUCK THAT so for whatever reason, that’s just not something they are able to do, and neurodivergent clones are absolutely a thing

[princeanxious]

For your sideswap AU (anxiety!Logan is adorable btw), are there big changes in their personalities from the original sides or do they act the same for the most part?

Also how about how they interact? Do they like/dislike the same sides or are their relationships different too?

Okay okay okay so this’ll take a lil bit of explaining so bare with me kjhkjbij

my basis of the swap part of the au is that while two side’s ‘cores’ (i.e. Logic, Anxiety, Deceit) are swapped, half of either original character still remains as a base, so theyre each a combined half of eachother in clothing style, personal motivation, *and* personality. So:

Virgil <-core swapped with-> Logan

Roman <-core swapped with-> Janus

Patton <-core swapped with-> Remus

(This got long, hiding the rest under the cut)

For instance:

Anxiety!Virgil & Logic!Logan have become -> Anxiety!Logan and Logic!Virgil, right?

So in this Au, Logan would:

-struggle with social cues

-Be hot-headed

-overwork himself

But also,

-Being anxious, overthinking and overanalyzing things

-being stand-offish on purpose bc he feels he doesnt deserve help

- struggle to trust the others whilst worrying constantly about them and Thomas

Which adds up to him being the type of person who doesn’t care what the others think of him so long as he succeeds in keeping everyone safe. He wont hesitate to start an screaming match argument if it gets the others to hear his point of view, because he often feels pushed to the side and ignored. He has the added bonus of being able to provide rational points of logic in his arguments but struggles to be taken seriously because he cant handle being taunted, and ends up lashing out because he thinks every jab is a serious one because he legitimately struggles with telling the two apart. He’s sort of like, a heightened version of both personal and external insecurity alongside anxiety, yknow?

His redemtion arc probably involved him getting so frustrated and confused by them coming to bring him back from ducking out that he literally burst into tears, because ‘I don’t understand! You all hate me, so much! I know I can’t be perfect but I can’t handle this, this, pity party! I’m not coming back knowing you’re going to go right back to hating every little thing that I do!’ Because he’s convinced himself that theres no possible way the others could even remotely like him. They *do* manage to convince him otherwise, dont worry!

As for Virgil, his character take looks a little more like this:

-Doesn’t have a high self-esteem, and can be awkward with showing vulnerable emotions

-still leans into the dark brooding shtick to be taken seriously but with a quieter demeanor, which doesnt always work

-can easily match and give playful quips, but needs time to explain himself and his reasoning

But also,

-carries a bit more confidence knowing his points and views are backed by facts

-serious insults and snips aimed at him do not land as hard on him as he knows how to brush illogical lash-out’s(like Logan’s) off as emotionally-charged but not done with malicious intent

-is able to keep up a reasonably constructed schedule, and has logical work-arounds for bumps in the schedule.

-definitely doesn’t take as good of care of himself as he likes to lead the others on to believe

I’m kinda running out of steam here to write out Virgil’s character bits all tied together as a cohesive character type but i hope what i’ve given so far will suffice??

As for the character’s interpersonal interactions, I’ll probably have to explain that more in depth in another ask bc.. I kinda want specific examples to work from because, As I said, trying to explain the relationships via the swap, where the ‘light’ and ‘dark’ sides have flipped positions with who i deemed their opposite half, but obviously not swapped each others personalities 100%, it means i’m aiming for all the original standing relationship types between the canon group to stay the same for their core positions, but just altered enough in a way that fit’s the current core-holder’s personality.

(Plus, for anyone whose curious about the au’s ships but is new to the au, it’s Roceit, Intruality, and Analogical.)

For super simple examples:

-if Anxiety!Virgil & Morality!Patton had a Father/Son type relationship, then Anxiety!Logan and Morality!Remus have a Father/Son type relationship(sort of. I’m aiming for brotherly relationship in this).

-If you headcanoned(like I do, for this au anyway) that Anxiety!Virgil had been raised by Deceit!Janus as a father figure before joining the lightsides, then Anxiety!Logan had been raised by Deceit!Roman as a father figure before they joined the lightsides.

This technically sets things up for Patton and Janus to be brothers in this au, for that reason Remus and Roman are not considered brothers. However, this does not mean that shipping Remus and Roman will be allowed in this au. Please do not take this as invitation to do as such.

Now for a bit of added fun, heres this bonus jumble of character math that i’d tried to used to explain this whole mess to ske last like at like 1 am, and some mock character interactions using this math lol:

“(Really tho its like. Solving math trying to just take two swapped characters and be like ‘okay what the fuck do we have now’ i.e Janus and Logan would actually probably get along rly well bc theyre basically swapped prinxiety, but janus and and Virgil would *STILL* have friction bc theyre swapped logince, but patton and logan would have either a raised by Roman as brothers dynamic or simply just chaotic tension bc intru thoughts and anxiety fuel eachother, but Roman and Patton would be a swapped!dukeceit dynamic, yknow??)”

———

A take on Anxiety!Logan and Deceit!Roman’s relationship:

Anxiety!Logan, having just been woken up from sleeping on the table: *hissing irritatedly at Roman*

Deceit!Roman,sitting there in all his dragon glory in still his night clothes, eyebrow raised but otherwise unphased: Good Morning to you too, 21 riots.

Anxiety!Logan: *hisses louder, bc he’s half asleep and hasnt realized it’s Roman*

Deceit!Roman, tossing the tiny feral child over his shoulder: Alrighty, Pancakes or Bacon?

A!Logan, melting into cuddle mode bc ‘oh okay this is Father, not a giant monster, its purring time then’: …Coffee

D!Roman: Pancakes it is

A!Logan: >:(

———

Aaaand a Take on Logic!Virgil and Deceit!Roman interacting:

Logic!Virgil, a lil peeved: “Are you done trying to mess with me, because-”

Deceit!Roman, smiling with a smug grin and a lil head tilt: “No.~”

Logic!Virgil, now angy from being interrupted “*listen here u lil shit*”

[goldensunset]

So the more I’m thinking about it, I realized I love each member of the destiny trio individually, (and Sokai of course), but I feel like they're not really the best, most cohesive trio at the moment. I think maybe Wayfinder trio actually is the best, most cohesive, functional trio right now? Anyway.

I’m wondering if maybe the weirdness between the destiny trio in kh3 was intentional, and not the result of rushed development or something, as I keep assuming. Because they took the time to give every other trio special moments, but we didn’t get anything like that for SKR. Even the very last scene in the game mirrors the paopu scene: it’s sora and Kairi alone, and Riku separate from them. He's smiling, he's happy for them, but still, it's a clear separation of Sora and Kairi from everyone else, and Riku especially. I feel like remind could have been an opportunity for them to give even one memory or flashback or moment between the three if they wanted. It just feels like the devs only ever put sora and Riku together (like the ending of kh2, or ddd), or sora and Kairi (end of kh1, end of kh3/remind), but not all three anymore (secret ending of kh1 with the letter in the bottle). Sora vanishes sitting alone with kairi. At the end of the credits, the final image is the one of her and sora on the tree. Look at remind, it’s Kairi on the title screen. And like, if it were a fluke of 3’s development, why did it persist in Melody of memory? They could have had Yen Sid tell Kairi to stay home. The fact that it was riku just hurts so much more.

I don’t really have an answer but I just wanted your thoughts. Is this so they’ll reconcile later? Or as Nomura said in that interview:

"Nomura hopes its depiction of their bonds can offer a realistic sense of how friendships evolve and change over time. "{Kingdom Hearts is] not too realistic, but I do want my players to grasp a sense of reality from it as well," Nomura said. "For example, I'm sure you had friends when you were young, a good group of friends, but as you grow older things change and it doesn't always stay the same. I think all I can say is please play to the very end and see what happens. But I think [Kingdom Hearts 3] does depict how each character feels about each other in this new storyline."

It's intentionally vague, but like, does that mean the trio is coming apart? is it just sora and kairi getting closer from here on out? I just don’t know what the series looks like if they’re estranged from here on out. But to be honest, I sort of felt like sora and Riku weren’t even getting along that well in 3. It was weird almost bullying at times against sora. But they did have that “you don’t believe that” moment too, so idk man. Am I just reading way too much into this (probably)? Also, do you REALLY think they might be setting up a Kairi protag arc, or are we being set up to he let down again? I want her to be equal to/save her boys so bad, but it’s hard to hope for it after MoM…

sorry for this stupid long ask, but I would love to hear your thoughts :) also when you said "I risk my life every time I say it but riku's arc is done" I really felt that

*cracks knuckles* aight it’s time

*sniffles* so i didn’t know about that interview where nomura said that… *lies down definitely not crying* might explain a lot…

man i…i’m torn. like a part of me thinks kh should ultimately come back to the destiny trio as a group of friends because from the beginning they were established as the main characters. and to lose sight of that is to lose sight of kh’s heart. play up the nostalgia factor for the first game back when it was so simple and magical. something something disney magic power of friendship everything should work out in the end. it’s a feel-good fantasy where the power of love can always save everyone.

the other part of me…thinks exploring this concept of growing apart from old friends is very good. very painful, for sure. but who says disney should be all sunshine and smiles all the time? change and pain are part of life. and kids aren’t idiots. they’re no strangers to sadness. narratives that can handle this without making it awful and grim are very touching and valuable. but i would love for this specific type of pain to be addressed because it’s an issue very near and dear to my own heart.

my first ever friends that i knew and loved when we were toddlers are all gone from my life now. and from what i hear they’re completely different people now, people i would never want to be friends with. plenty more people have come and gone since, and i get debilitating anxiety about the relationships i still have, just in case i’m a hair’s breadth away from another fallout or distancing. the truth of it is that you can’t take anything for granted in life.

when you’re that close with someone, you think it’s gonna last forever. because you love them now, right? why would you ever stop? you want to live in the disney movie forever. you want the credits to roll and have everything freeze. when you get older, you want to live in the past because the past is comforting. but the truth of the matter is, it isn’t a reality anymore. and it hurts to open your eyes and acknowledge the evidence that things have changed.

as you’ve said, the destiny trio are certainly the least cohesive trio at the moment. i don’t think anyone can argue otherwise. which is ironic, given how in the past, they were the only ones who got to come back to each other, while the others were tragically separated. in and after kh3, the opposite happens. the wayfinder and sea salt trio reunite, while the destiny trio have drifted apart.

but the issue isn’t merely their physical separation. something has changed internally. too much has happened for them to go back to being the simple island kids they used to be. you could pluck sora out of quadratum tomorrow and give him right back to his friends but their reunion would mean next to nothing if the three of them didn’t do some soul searching individually.

which is why i’m hoping that they actually don’t rescue him right away. if he had to spend some time alone, and probably meet up with the new and strange folks in quadratum far away from anything or anyone familiar, he could reflect on his life and grow as a person. it’d be like in kh1 right after losing kairi riku and his home. sora was kinda mistreated in kh3 and made to feel like he was nothing on his own. the ‘my friends are my power’ thing really isn’t cute anymore if he’s saying it because he hates himself. our boy is strong and he deserves more respect!!!

like on the one hand if his friends came to rescue him it would be a nice demonstration of how much they care about him, esp after all he’s done for them. healers need healing too. on the other hand if he had to save himself he’d prove his worth once and for all and they couldn’t bully him by calling him useless on his own anymore (they never should’ve been doing that in the first place!!)

and it would be especially boring if it was literally just riku the hero saving him yet again. (*gets killed by majority of followers*) DDD already gave us ‘mister obsession and abandonment issues coolguy riku saves useless naïve clownboy sora’. i’ll put up with it once bc good for riku but i won’t put up with it again. it should be kairi, or riku and kairi, or the entire main cast. like maybe riku jumps in alone and kairi and/or the others have to jump in after him and have their moment to shine. at some point kairi’s like ‘ok now i REALLY have had enough of this’ and abandons her training to go after the boys (this is how kairi stans post-mom can still win-)

and if they all reunited after all this, having done some soul-searching? could they ever be the same? of course they could still be friends. but i really feel that we’ve crossed a point of no return for them. the other trios have changed as individual people, sure, but their group dynamic is the same as always. at this point, though, the destiny trio as we knew it in kh1 has all but dissolved. i wonder if any of them have started to think about this or not, to question what they still mean to each other in the context of their new lives and new friends. because when a relationship starts to dissolve, it might take a while to notice it, and a very long while to acknowledge it. and sometimes you can reform it into something new, but sometimes you have to let it go.

and i do think we’re moving towards sokai and i want that for them bc they deserve to be together at last but also like. having riku awkwardly third wheel is kinda?? i want to see him loving and being loved by sora and kairi too. he’s their best friend too. or at least he’s supposed to be. (truth is there was always tension in the group i think. oh the problems with a love triangle. they’ve kinda never really been a cohesive trio but that’s an essay for another day.) even if things aren’t the way things were when they were little anymore, there is absolutely no way riku can fade into irrelevance.

if i had to guess i’d say they’re probably gonna resolve this by writing naminé into a love interest for riku. which i wouldn’t mind if they like. did it really really well? they’d have to give her lots of great screentime first. but -understatement of the century incoming- it’s gonna make a lot of people really angry and i fear being on the internet that day lol. (plus there’s just the question of what group should naminé be a part of? should we really turn any trio into a quartet and alter the dynamic of the bonds that have been around for years? but she needs her own place to go and aaaahhhhh. girl has had so many different one-off 5-minute boyfriends lol)

this is a very long post uhhmm in conclusion:

they should all remain a part of each other’s lives forever in some way but it’s ok that things aren’t the way they used to be. the past is full of lovely memories but you can’t live in it forever. it hurts to think about but separation and/or change are part of life and i’d love to see them address the reality of this painful topic.

[silverthetheorist]

Wilbur returning as a writer is good (and why it will be an uphill battle)

I am back I guess. I disappeared for a while, which I tend to do. Anyways, my point today is explaining why Wilbur returning as the writer of the SMP is the best possible thing for the server. I’ve seen a lot of hate towards Wilbur and his writing, people say it was too focused on his own character and leaving everyone else out except for Tommy, to which I say.... Have you seen Season 2? They could have renamed the SMP the “Tommy, Techno, and no one else SMP”

Before showing proof to how Wilbur can improve the storyline let me talk about the Final Disk War Arc for a bit:

- It was very good!.... Until you start thinking about it for a little bit. When everyone showed up to say goodbye to Tommy and Tubbo and the Endgame moment were good, but then you remember half of those character either hate Tommy, barely interacted with him or have nothing to do with the plot of Season 2 (Because everyone who was not called Tommy, Techno and Dream were left out). So yeah, those moments are good on their own

- When Tommy starts listing all the horrible things Dream has done to everyone in the server and can’t think of any besides a joke about Quackity not wearing clothes... Even they know no one had any stake in the plot jesus

-Dream ending up in the prison was the perfect ending. Anyone else ending in that prison would not have made sense from a story perspective. Glad they dodged that narrative bullet. 

Really, the Final Disk War made me realise the biggest problem with season 2. The exile arc is very good... on its own. Doomsday was very g- hahahahaah... I’m kidding Doomsday is the only bad bad event on the SMP. And the Final Disk War is also very good. But when you put it all together.... it just doesn’t fit. This is a classic example of something being worse than the sum of its parts (Not sure if I am using that phrase correctly but you get the point... hopefully). Each arc on its own is fairly competent but how did Techno’s execution affect the rest of the arcs? How was the Final Disk War affected by prior arcs? It lacks cohesiveness and consistent themes.  

Now I have two more things to say before I give Wilbur his credit: 

- I’ve mentioned Eret, Fundy and Nicki a lot because I think they were great characters with a lot of potential. But, as we know, the story completely ignored them in favor of Dream, Techno and Tommy (Even Tubbo was sidelined for most of the Story). I am not insinuating anything, but something about one of the few LGBT CC of the server, one of the two women of the server and the only (I think) canonically trans characters being left out of the story they have been a part of since the beginning just... doesn’t feel right to me. 

- I LOVE Ranboo. You can see the passion and dedication he puts in his story and I love it. But, has he really done anything? Like... that affects the plot. He grieffed George’s house with Tommy but you can cut him out of it and nothing changes? Same with blowing up the community house, you can just say it was Dream and cut Ranboo’s character all together. If you can remove a character and the plot does not change then that is a bad character. And this is not Ranboo’s fault, you can tell how passionate he is and he is definitely the best actor of the SMP (Low bar there but whatever), but the Storyline says: No, your character cannot actually do anything. This also fits together with the Eret, Fundy and Nicki situation: A character giving his opinion and feeling over an event is not a character being involved in the plot. That is a reactionary character that never affects anything but is delegated to just reacting to the plot other characters move. Sad.

Now. How can Wilbur fix all of this? The evidence can be seen on his failed resurrection. He went directly to Eret to ask for help. That is the key to everything. 

Tommy is the main character. There is no changing that this far into the story. But by writing stories that involve other characters you include them. Big shocker there, I know. Season 2 was more character centric (Although not in a good way), the problem is that character centric stories cannot handle that many characters. Wilbur has said that he prefers geopolitical plots and why is that? A country has many people, not only one. if you built and open narrative, it allows for anyone who want to be included in the story to... well, be included. And a story being more geopolitical does not mean it is not character centric, but a character-centric story cannot be geopolitical. 

Why did I mention him asking Eret for help before Philza joining in? Because it is simple thing like that the way to go to include other characters. If you invite another CC into your lore event, then that CC can develop how his character interacts and grows from that event. You see this with Eret, he shows regret over the betray, he shows his love for Fundy and his respect for Wilbur. It really is not that hard to do, which makes everything season 2 has done way more infuriating. The ONE thing Wilbur decides in season 2 showed more skill that anything in season 1 (Kind of an exaggeration but you get the point). 

So to summarize, Wilbur will improve season 3 in two ways: Writing a bigger narrative that sustains more character and inviting said left-out characters to help out on events that they may not really have a lot of stake in. 

Why it will be an uphill battle you ask? Because they got rid of L’manberg. The geopolitical stuff is barely present anymore. And season 2 negative’s will still affect the future of the SMP forever just as the strength’s of season 1 impacted the mix reception season 2 had.

PS: English. Me make mistakes sometimes. Me sorry. Also sorry if I rambled a bit too much. Head full. 

PS2: The egg plot is cool and new and refreshing. But I cannot say it is very good until I see what the emotional core of the story is. It is still fairly new so I will give it the benefit of the doubt. 

PS3: Sorry if I was too negative again, but there are already so many people pointing out the good things about the SMP. This fandom forgets that they are allowed to not like things, and disagree with the CC. I see many post per day saying things like: If CC does this (Insert stupid idea) then we (Their viewers who they have to appease in some way or another) we CANNOT COMPLAIN EVER. Like, no. Have some critical thinking and point out bad when you see it, I know this fandom is capable of it but many suppress critical thinking in this fandom in favor of very weird hive-mind ideas. 

PS4: Dream’s song is not it. I am sorry. 

[lucemferto]

Niki Nihachu & Barbara Kean

Gonna drop something controversial real quick.

Niki Nihachu is the most tragic character on the Dream SMP – and I don’t mean in the sense of her having a tragic story (though she is up there), but in the sense that she is tragically mishandled.

I want to start out by saying that this essay is by no means an attack on the content creator Niki Nihachu or her abilities as a performer. She is frequently one of the strongest actors on the SMP and I have no idea how much of her character writing was within her power. How much of it was improv, how much pre-planned, how much something she genuinely wanted to do and how much stuff she just stumbled into or – in the worst-case scenario – was forced upon her. I don’t know.

The Dream SMP is not very transparent when it comes to their creative process. As such I can only judge it as a discerning viewer and English major dropout, who retained some half-remembered stuff about narratology.

So, a few weeks ago, I tumbled on here that Niki’s character journey reminded me a lot of the character Barbara Kean from the hit TV-show Gotham. Then I got an ask asking me to elaborate. This is the elaboration.

Barbara Kean

So, a quick crash course for people who haven’t seen Gotham (the greatest comic book show on Television, seriously, what are you doing with your life?!): Barbara Kean was a major female character throughout all five seasons of Gotham – and not once during those five seasons did the writers ever figure out what they wanted to do with her.

Every 10-12 episodes or so, Barbara’s role shifted completely. She started out as cop-protagonist Jim Gordon’s girlfriend at home and moral compass, then became part of a bisexual love triangle, then a hard-drinking jealous party girl with a backstory as repressed, lonely rich kid, before being kidnapped by a serial killer and ultimately making her perfect metamorphosis into the psychotic ex-girlfriend trope.

And that was Season 1.

Since then, she became the pseudo-Harley Quinn to the pseudo-Joker, a whip-wielding dominatrix, the obligatory female member in a supervillain squad, some sort of information broker, a mafia kingpin, the leader of a girl-power posse and – my favourite – the reincarnated wife of an ancient immortal who also controls all of Gotham and transferred that control over to her before that plot-point was dropped harder than a half-dead Oswald Cobblepot of the Gotham piers.

Also, she’s Batgirl’s mom.

In short, it’s a mess – but that’s what makes Gotham kinda fun.

Character Cohesion

Now, obviously, Niki’s character journey has not been quite as extreme. But it falls into the same traps, I find. Namely, that there’s just a distinct lack of character cohesion or character continuity.

Now, character cohesion or character continuity doesn’t mean that the arcs these characters undertake can’t be explained in a logical way. Barbara’s character journey is logical in the sense that you can explain it all with in-universe logic – but it’s not logical from a narratological sense now, is it?

Character Cohesion basically means that a character’s journey is reflected in their personal conflict – their Want vs. Need. Their arc is the natural continuation of what was set-up in previous sequences. Everything falls into a whole with Set-up, Confrontation, Resolution – we set up the character’s Want, their Want and Need are conflicting, the Want vs. Need is resolved. Ideally this coincides with the plot beats of the large conflict surrounding the cast.

When you look at Barbara in Season 1 of Gotham, you’re not thinking “This one right here – she’s the reincarnated wife of Ra’s Al Ghul”. Because why would you? There was no set-up; it’s not part of what her character was about in this moment – or any moment before that concept was introduced. It’s not needed for her character conflict (or any thematic conflicts for that matter).

It’s quite transparently just something that is affixed to her so that she has something until the writers come up with the next at which that first thing will dropped, underdeveloped.

Niki in Season 1

Niki follows the same route, unfortunately. She’s set-up as the resistance in L’Manburg, allies herself with Eret and HBomb until – oops – it doesn’t end mattering, because that entire side of the “plot” is completely underdeveloped. Just be a damsel until Wilbur can swoop in and save you, Niki.

Okay, but now she has a big moment with Tommy and Tubbo just after the pit-scene. “We’ll figure something out”, she says. “We need L’Manburg back”. This is all before the backdrop of Wilbur completely giving in to his role as a villain and Techno’s apparent “betrayal”.

So, now, surely, Niki is gonna affect change in Pogtopia and will have some influence on either Tommy or Wilbur, the two people she’s closest to. What’s this? Her biggest contribution is holding a birthday party where Quackity convinces Wilbur to hold off on his TNT-plan? And after that … she’s just gonna be part of the Pogtopia-masses?

Now, I like Wilbur’s writing and Season 1 generally, but when it comes to Niki (and Eret) something went terribly wrong. Both of them provided many a set-up – none of which were taken advantage of, unfortunately.

And, just to be clear, I’m not putting the blame on Niki here (or at least not most of it). Season 1 was pretty firmly in Wilbur’s hand … and Season 2 was a train wreck.

Niki in Season 2

Niki is – for the most part of Season 2 – a nothing character. She has no real conflict, no character beats, no arc. This is because through some unfortunate writing decisions, Season 2 is pretty squarely focused on a specific set of characters – and even fewer of those characters are granted a fully explored, completed character arc.

It all culminates in her Doomsday villain arc – a moment that can be logically explained from both an in-character perspective and a meta-perspective, but unfortunately, it’s not justified from a technical writing point of view.

Niki burning down the L’Mantree is her “Ra’s Al Ghul’s reincarnated wife”-moment. It’s a big statement that put her character on the map for a large part of the audience again. It was a striking visual. It could not be ignored.

Most of that was because it was a stark departure from her characterization in Season 1. Now, such a departure doesn’t necessarily have to be bad. The problem comes in when

a.) The full potential of the character in their previous narrative role had not yet been fully or even partly exhausted

b.) It cuts into an on-going character arc and drastically changes its course

c.) It’s not foreshadowed or developed properly.

And most of those are true for Niki’s character. She was not necessarily underdeveloped but underexplored in Season 1 and had no consistent storyline going on in Season 2. She was a witness to Tommy’s trial, but that was never worked into an on-going storyline for her. No matter how much we retroactively pretend like this turn to villainy, this breakdown, was brewing deep inside of her – there was no foreshadowing.

The reason, why I said it’s understandable from a meta-perspective, is that the content creator Niki Nihachu had a self-admittedly hard time getting her foot in in Season 2 – because Season 2, for as much love as I will heap upon Tommy’s and Dream’s storyline, was a pretty messy.

So, the villain arc was not well foreshadowed and Niki’s turn was developed, but what happened after she was in it?

Niki in Season 3

Well, unfortunately that problem of an inconsistent storyline never really went away for her. In the beginning of Season 3, she hatched her wagons with Jack Manifold, which was a pretty big tonal shift – from darkly tragic to cartoonish villainy.

But as Jack kept developing his character in that lane and following up on big plot development with corresponding character moments, Niki again just … vanished. She then changed gears again, joining the Syndicate – a great idea if only the Syndicate actually streamed together and developed a storyline and group cohesion.

As it stands right now, Niki’s character exists in the negative space of the fandom imaginations. We are given some scraps and good character moments – her sleeping in a jail cell, “I started baking again”, her secret city – but those moments never coalesce into a full-fledged storyline.

Her character’s journey is still as fragmented and underexplored as it ever was. I really hope that – with Wilbur’s revival and the new character conflict that seems to arise from that for her – she manages to finally get the foot in and get the storyline and dynamic arc she deserves.