#especially when the characters relationship is complicated to the point where its like ‘do they hate each other?’

[devine-fem]

Understand that I am crazy and then read: This game changed what I thought games could be. This changed what I thought Batman could be, what the Batman and Jokers relationship could be. The take on them and making Joker a glorified Robin, showing the player the absolute tragedy that is their relationship, showing me how desperate and gross either side can become. Like Bruce has to prove to himself that what he’s doing, his code and his way is right and the Joker is the product of that… he’s the product of all of this - HIS CHARACTER is THAT. I was never the same after this, this rewired my brain. This will forever rival any Batman depiction I ever see. I’m new after this in the way that I have to mourn the person I once was before playing this. Call it a ship, a game, or a superhero story - I call this art. I’m gonna sit here for the next few months being upset at the fact that now that I’ve played this I’ll never find anything else like it.

[peachdues]

THE GREAT WAR (PART I) — ANNOUNCEMENTS AND CONTENT WARNINGS

Well, this one has been a long time coming, hasn’t it?

My goal is to get Part I completed and published this weekend. It will be roughly 25-26k words in length.

I’d really appreciate it if y’all can read through this before you read Part I. The Great War is very different from my other fics, in terms of both style and the general setting, so I feel it necessary to give some context.

First, The Great War is a non-linear story. This might seem a bit confusing, given that Part I takes place over the course of a little more than a year. However, you’ll likely notice there are some gaps in the story as you read through — these are intentional. While Part I is a chronological telling of Reader and Giyuu’s relationship, Part II features several major flashbacks to events that occur during the timeline of Part I that are not actually shown in Part I. So if you find yourself getting curious about when a character finds out a bit of information, or referenced some past occurrence that you didn’t read — know that it’s intentional, and it will show up in Part II.

Second, Part I of The Great War follows the canon timeline as closely as possible, with a few minor deviations. There are references to multiple canon events in the series, and I tried to follow it as much as I could. Huge shoutout to @/demonslayedher her incredible timeline.

Third, the reason TGW has taken so long is that I tried to be as historically accurate as was feasible to both Japan and its culture. That said, Shinto shrines and the practices of Shrine Maidens in particular were heavily cracked down upon by the Imperial government during the Meiji Era (the era immediately preceding the Taishō period in which Demon Slayer is canonically set). Obviously the reality of Shinto shrines and their practices during that period complicates the setting of TGW, and particularly, the Reader character, so I took some creative liberties. However, I do reference the fact that the Shrine where the Reader trains is not what it once was, and it functions more like a girl’s boarding house/school, where the girls who live there just happen to also be educated in Shinto practices/Shrine keeping.

Fourth, because there are a lot of references to Japanese culture and practices, I will link an addendum for your reference. The most important things to know is that Miko means “Shrine Maiden,” which is why it is used frequently.

Finally, I do want to acknowledge that the Reader is given a slight description — namely, in terms of her hair. It is described as very long, and when discussed from Giyuu’s perspective, he frequently depicts it as “silky.” This is not meant to be exclusive in any way — lots of hair types can be silky. I do make a very conscious effort to avoid using physically describing my Reader inserts (apart from acknowledging their beauty because, guess what? You’re all beautiful!!) But as the story is set in Taisho Era Japan and Reader is a Shrine Maiden, I found it difficult to avoid giving some vague description of her hair — especially given its importance with respect to a certain gift she receives from Giyuu during Part I. Please know that these references come up very sparingly, and again, I do avoid going into greater detail. Beyond that, she is only described as beautiful from Giyuu’s point of view.

Now, onto the content and trigger warnings.

Like most of my works, The Great War contains explicit sexual content, so minors do not interact.

This next warning is not so much centered around Part I, but more for the story in general. TGW is heavily centered around Giyuu attempting to deal with his trauma following the end of the canonical series — and it does feature violence as well as instances of PTSD. I don’t believe anything is too graphic, but it’s just something to keep in mind. That said, his PTSD will not appear in Part I — however, it will be a main focus of the story from Part II, on.

So, here are the warnings for The Great War

CW: explicit sexual content • MDNI • loss of virginity • unprotected sex • virgins being virgins • oral sex (F!receiving) • squirting • fingering • Giyuu is obsessed with Reader’s pleasure • creampies • semi-public sex • tbh they fuck everywhere but the bed • mention of pregnancy • protective Giyuu • possessive Giyuu • Giyuu is a simp for one person and it’s Reader • pregnancy (later)

TW: canon-typical violence • strangulation • PTSD • depictions of trauma • nightmares • some angst • Giyuu struggles with communicating his feelings • brief instance/implication of stalking by a non-canon character • mild description of panic/anxiety

My goal is to have Part I posted this weekend, so here’s to hopefully seeing y’all soon!

[papastarion]

Thinking about (Dad) Astarion related to pregnancy/birth itself as an experience and how he reacts and how it affects him, because that’s what my research is focused on right now, so that’s where my brain is. (So, obvious warnings for pregnancy/birth.)

I’ve been reading some of the older material connected with D&D/lore, to get a sense of how Astarion would instinctively react to fatherhood—regarding his elven nature, not just his trauma, because I think about that enough. Even in my own canon, where that baby is very much discussed and agreed upon (but happens way faster than either Astarion or my Durge anticipated, with both of them doubtful on whether or not they could have biological children or not), there’s a lot to unpack, and it’s not always easy for him to work through it.

I’m a sucker for Astarion relearning or reconnecting with his elven attributes that have been pushed down by Cazador for so many years, so much so that he surprises himself quite often.

For instance: Elves, both male and female because gender roles are whatever to them, are very involved in pregnancy, per some old sources like Dragon Magazine. It’s almost a natural response for them. And having the baby is a group activity if born in an elven community, because it’s something they take as a chance to come together. Tav/Durge (regardless of race, but bear in mind that my Durge is a half-elf, so a lot of my writing and research has that bias to it) and he are their own little community, and his elf brain is clear on what he needs to be doing before he even really has time to process.

Astarion himself is shocked by how involved he is from the moment he finds out that they’re having a baby.

Of course he was always going to invested—it’s his baby with the first person he ever truly cared for. And of course he’s terrified, who wouldn’t be? Even standard pregnancies aren’t simple, he knows this one is undoubtedly going to be even more complicated thanks to his vampirism, which is a delicious vein (no pun intended) for angst and character study. But, like so many people have pointed out, especially with a Durge partner, he can be and is very supportive, especially during tense moments.

Is he going to be dramatic about everything? Absolutely. He’s still Astarion, after all.

He also starts making concerted efforts to learn more about vampirism in general, because there’s still so much about his condition he doesn’t know, and if he doesn’t know about himself, he’s not going to very helpful when their child is older. Sure, dhampirism will have its own nuances, but he has to start somewhere. And there’s a lot more text out there about vampires than their rare instances of producing children.

He learns early on in the pregnancy that dhampirs can crave things other than blood to feed their hunger (spinal fluid, even dreams being among them), though they can also eat as any non-vampire can. However, some sources seem to insist that blood during fetal development is good for them, regardless of what diet they follow later on. Most sources are confident that a dhampir can feed from a vampire, but if a vampire were to bite/feed on a dhampir, the vampire would be left unsatiated, and the dhampir would likely not survive, the act sending their genetics into shock (*note: this isn’t strictly lore-compliant, because I’ve read too many conflicting things, so I’ve developed my own canon.)

Astarion absolutely starts bleeding himself for them to have blood on hand, just to be safe. After all, Tav/Durge has given him so much of their blood over the course of their relationship, if his can be good for something, he’ll gladly share. Besides, if we’re talking Durge, they’d probably be fairly thrilled to try his blood. It’s not the first time they’ve consumed flesh/blood, after all.

And with their medical proficiency, a Durge partner has a field day finally getting to stick his veins. He’s just happy they’re happy. If it helps the baby, and if it entertains Durge enough to distract them from all their aches and pains, then all the better.

Astarion does his own fair share of needlework, too. He starts teaching himself how to make blankets, the idea being that he wants something warm for the baby to associate him with, given how could his touch is. He isn’t sure how reactive they’ll be to body temperature, but he doesn’t want his son or daughter not liking him because he’s too cold. Besides, his scent will be all in the material, and he knows that’ll be good for anyone with any kind of vampiric nature to make associations.

Of course, he sees to altering Tav/Durge’s clothes over the months, too. If they’re self-conscious about everything happening, he’ll even do it exclusively. No need to pay a tailor or seamstress when he can do what they can better, by candlelight if needed, and he only charges in kisses, not gold.

He also tries to learn different ways to help physically. Someone teaches him the bump-lift trick for back pain at about seven months, and if Tav/Durge wasn’t hopelessly in love before, they are now. He takes bribes for foot rubs, but he’s always available for back rubs. He’ll make tea when they don’t feel like getting up to do it. He’ll lay in bed all day if that’s what they want to do. Snuggles? They’re already wrapped in a big old blanket together. They don’t want to be touched that day? He’s got books to read and a quip about being too beautiful to be ignored, but he won’t mean it.

He tries so hard not to panic when labor starts, but he’s so convinced all his good fortune is finally going to catch up with him if things have gone smoothly. And, in his subconscious, there’s been at least some illusion regarding the reality of it all, even as he’s watched his partner change physically and felt the baby move over the months.

But there’s no more hypotheticals.

Still, he would be insistent on being involved during the delivery itself (with bells on, no doubt, if you’ve seen my previous post.) He’s more scared than he’s ever been before, but he knows Tav/Durge is scared, too, and they’re the one in pain and doing all the work. The least he can do is be with them, and he can definitely do that. If he can offer them comfort when they’re actively trying to kill him thanks to Bhaal, then he can certainly put his own nerves aside when they’re having a baby.

He’ll make jokes about blood and the mess to cover up the fact that if he wasn’t already pale as a ghost, he’d be absolutely blanched, but he won’t let go of their hand, he’ll do whatever he can to make it at least marginally better, if it’s possible. He’ll crack jokes (“You put up with me everyday, this should be nothing.” “You’re going to be fine, because if you’re not, I’m going to kill you myself.” “It’s probably too late to back out of this now, but, I mean, we could try.”) All the back rubs. Hand holding, no matter how intense that gets as things progress. He’ll even share random relevant facts that stick out in his mind from months of research. (“Did you know dhampirs do have pulses despite popular belief, they’re just so faint that they can be hard to feel? Which is good, because if a vampire were to try to bite them, they’d have a hard time finding a vein and initiating paralysis and—” “Astarion, let’s have the baby before we start thinking about their camouflage tactics.”)

Hells, if the preferred attendant (I’ve seen Halsin, Shadowheart, Jaheira, an unnamed midwife, a combo of them—I’m partial to Miss Former Head Physican herself, Dalyria), tells him he’s catching the baby when it comes, then he’s doing it. (And he’s going to be crying more than the baby afterwards.)

It’s A Lot, for sure. And there’s a lot more nuance to it all than I can fit in one post, and this one is already getting too long, but I couldn’t help myself.

Bonus: Tav/Durge cuddled up and getting in those new baby snuggles and skin to skin after everything is cleaned up and everyone’s more or less at ease, and Tav/Durge looks at him and goes: “Well done catching him/her, by the way. It was very twee.”

No, he’s never living that one down.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Review Two, Electric Boogaloo: Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

This is my second review for Eureka, as the document has been majorly updated, and the designers are gearing up to fund it on Kickstarter from April 10 to May 10.

This game is an investigative game meant for mysteries that incorporate a large amount of action and horror. I’m going to break down some of the interesting things Eureka does, and talk about who I think would be a good audience for it.

Graded Success

Eureka uses 2d6 for pretty much every roll, with the possibility of ending up with a failure, a partial success, or a full success. You can add modifiers from various different places, such as your skills, your fear, and your player Truth. The breadth of this game and the game philosophy behind it means that it is not a Powered by the Apocalypse style game - Eureka is its own beast.

Investigation

There are two kinds of rolls in Eureka - investigative and non-investigative. When you are not investigating, success and failure will mostly be determined by what makes sense in the fiction. For investigative rolls, regardless of success or failure, your character will receive investigation points.

I really like this mechanic because even if you fail, your character makes progress - and in fact, since you gain more investigation points when you fail, this plays as if your character is able to use their failures to arrive at a conclusion later in the story.

This is a great time to talk about the Investigation Bar, which is the central focus of the game. When you fill the Investigation Bar, you get a Eureka! This could be a chance to get a vital piece of information, or to tip the narrative scales into your character’s favor.

Precious Information - Secretive Play

Secrets are important in Eureka. The Narrator has secrets of course - the answers to the mystery, the motives of the NPCs, the supernatural that is hiding around the corner - but the players do to. If you are a vampire, a werewolf, a psychic, etc., you are encouraged to wait until a dramatically appropriate moment in the game to reveal this information.

This presents a very specific style of play. Eureka is an ideal game for folks who want to procedurally uncover information, and game masters who like using pre-determined, pre-written mysteries, with motives, clues and events mapped out. How these mysteries are solved still depends on what happens in play, but as a GM, you’ll have plenty of sources to draw on when the characters ask questions.

Eureka also prepares players for messy relationships between their characters. If you want your characters to misunderstand each-other, compete with each-other, or even betray each-other, that is an option in this game. These complicated relationships might even give birth to a secondary plot line for the characters to follow as they try to solve the mystery, especially if they want to find the answers for different reasons. I think it has the potential to make Eureka a multi-layered storytelling experience.

Procedurals

This multi-layered experience is possible only if you have one or more members of the group who are dedicated to taking notes. Because the information being relayed to the characters is so important, it’s crucial that the players remember that information.

In some ways, this reminds me of games where players are expected to get inventive with the tools they have. Players are given pieces of information, and then asked to put the pieces together while in character. The handing out of this information is similar to what I’ve heard described in GUMSHOE - obvious clues will not require a roll - but what is done with that information is up to the players.

I think this might be why playing in longer games or campaigns might be a really good format for Eureka, because it allows characters to piece together a big mystery over a long period of time. This is a game that requires a large amount of investment from both players and game-master alike; this is procedural play in which the narrative emerges from the procedure.

Horror

Eureka thrives with horror, and while the game is meant to be compatible with adventures with various systems, that doesn’t mean that it is genre-agnostic. There are dark things in the corners of this world, whatever it may be, and those things will scare and stress out your characters. There are a number of mechanics that tie Eureka to horror really well.

First is Composure, which is a replacement for sanity mechanics of games like Call of Cthulhu. Your character can only take so much emotional stress before it starts to inhibit their ability to perform certain tasks. If you lose enough Composure, you’ll find yourself hindered in the amount of positive modifiers you can apply to any given action. I like how this replicates how stressors can inhibit it personal performance - and the fact that Composure can be regained means that you can moderate how gruelling the gameplay is.

There’s also character Truths, which aren’t necessarily horrific, but can give you a reason to take the less-than-optimal path in any given situation. Similar to Vice in World of Darkness, you can gain a modifier to a situation in which your character chooses to act in a way that is in line with their Truth, even if there is another option available. This is a mechanical reward for playing true to your character, flaws and all.

The game also asks you to personalize the fears associated with your character. These fears may trigger Composure Rolls, or apply modifiers to them to make them harder to pass. These fears may also be cues to give to your Narrator, indicating what kinds of things you want to inhibit your character, and what kinds of things you want your character to be able to face with little difficulty.

Toolbox

There are elements of Eureka that are optional, which are there to help tailor your game experience. For example, you can include a Ticking Clock to give your players a dead-line or heighten the suspense, which can focus the game and also make it feel more like a thriller.

You can also tailor the skills to make the game fit a certain setting, such as prioritizing horseback riding or driving cars - or perhaps increasing the medical skills to make this a mystery much more focused on biology and medical practises.

The game also has many nods to various forms of detective fiction, as well as supernatural mysteries, action pulp films, and film noir. You can see this primarily in character abilities, which come as a big list of things you can pick and choose and pair together for a unique character.

All in all, if you want a game where Columbo, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Indiana Jones can all be in the same adventuring party, you might want to check out Eureka.

You can find a free download version of Eureka here, and keep an eye out for the Kickstarter here!

[mdhwrites]

Did TOH Need More Time For Its Ambitions?

No. Because Amphibia exists. Why can I say that so confidently? Because Sasha and Amity show a VERY clear comparison in how the storytelling in each show is handled and how that shows that even with a similar amount of appearances, TOH is just lacking in actually doing anything with its concepts.

(Quick interjection: Consider this effectively a part 2/rehash on why Anne's arc in S1 is so much better than Amity's arc period, which is a blog I did a LONG time ago that analyzed critical portions of character arcs in general. This one though uses the more obvious pairing and also the two with much closer screen time and narrative importance... though with TOH that term is entirely fucked.)

Both characters are enemies to allies. Both have complicated relationships with the main character and are motivated by that relationship to change themselves for the better. Both have positions in the world and priorities that explicitly makes them opposed to the main character not only ideologically but sociologically. And, above all else:

Sasha's redemption arc, from her first appearance to Turning Point when she explicitly turns full good, is 9 segments. Ten/Eleven if you count Reunion/True Colors as two.

Amity's redemption can range anywhere from seven A plots to nine/ten depending on if A: you count Hooty's Moving Hassle, which I don't, and B: if you count the end of her redemption arc at Winging it Like Witches (when she rebukes her old friends), Escaping Expulsion (when she rebukes her parents) or Looking Glass Ruins, the first episode where she is 100% an ally. Or hell, you could actually for FIVE episodes and say it's Understanding Willow as she apologizes for the past and promises to stop bullying at least Willow at that point, which was her first antagonistic act before.

And mind you... Understanding Willow is in S1. LONG before the shortening took effect. Even the latest one of these puts it at before the shortening. So I think these are fair comparisons of just how the two's arcs were handled with the amount of time spent on them. Which raises the question: What did we get in that time?

Well... We got an actual arc with Sasha while Amity just changes randomly. That's not even really a joke. I'll try to bounce between the two to really highlight the difference, especially in storytelling.

In her first appearance, we get pretty much all possible suspicions about Sasha based on Anne confirmed. She is manipulative, self serving, self aggrandizing and tells people what they want to hear to get them to do what she wants. She is your friend so she can control you. However, she isn't all bad. She could have just ran during the Heron attack but instead helps save the day though it's very possible that she recognized she was better off staying as an equal of Grime's than running off on her own. The Toads are opposed to the Frogs in Amphibia's society though, creating an inherent conflict between Sasha and Anne due to the social dynamics of the world they are in.

Meanwhile, Amity in her first appearance actually makes a strong case for herself. She looks down on those magically challenged, which Luz is, is a bully while Luz is an outcast who has struggled with friends and has a drive to succeed conventionally while Luz uses more unconventional methods. The opposing elements are actually lined up really well between the two but we don't get a lot of Amity's actual personality. She just comes off as an entertaining, almost neurotic bitch. We get more of her personality in her second episode where she is a little more in control of her emotions, shows a potential softer side, and also sets up another sociological conflict in that Luz inherently is on the side of the wild witches due to her mentor and her magic style while Amity is full on the coven train, even to the point to wanting to one day potentially lead the Emperor's Coven. Though, importantly... The only thing that's challenged about Amity's worldview in this episode is the idea that someone she thinks is weak could actually be strong, something that theoretically could have been said to have been covered by the end of Teenage Abomination when Willow proves herself with the seed. Hell, it's also reinforced in an episode I don't usually count for this but is kind of important: Hooty's Moving Hassle. So that's one problem addressed but only tangentially and it's by no means the biggest issue between Amity and Luz. Amity is still a bully after all.

Meanwhile, Reunion goes for the core, both sociologically and personally. The Toads want Hop Pop dead and Sasha doesn't care. Not only that but Sasha assumes that if she tells Anne not to care, Anne won't because in her eyes, Anne serves her. She is the one in charge after all and she won't take no for an answer. Period. We're even shown this explicitly in the flashbacks. The problem is... Anne has gone through an entire character arc to make it so she can stand up to Sasha and challenges pretty much all of Sasha's beliefs. Her need for control, her callousness towards others and her warped view of reality where she is the hero and all else are best off listening to her. Sasha even gives in for a moment in an act of genuine selflessness by letting go of Anne's hand so her and the Plantars can live. It does a lot of work but... It might be considered rushed if that were the end of her primary antagonism.

You know where this is going. In her third major appearance, forth appearance overall... Amity is a neutral entity and a friend by the end of Lost in Language. Honestly, if you wanted to argue that the majority of Amity's arc, especially friends to allies, was three episodes, you'd be actually making a very compelling point. This episode after all is the one where she effectively stops being a bully. She just is now the overly dedicated smart girl. She is explicitly not the antagonist though but instead the victim and the one we're primarily supposed to sympathize with. Then, thanks to Azura, she befriends Luz by the end of the episode. They are already allies and... There isn't much reason for it besides one time teaming up. Sure, Luz has challenged Amity's perceptions but even she calls out in this episode that each time they meet up, Amity gets in trouble or/amd embarrassed. Luz has actually done extremely little to deserve this because all Luz has actually done with Amity before this episode is a declaration of combat and then their last talk in Covention which was just about maybe rethinking if someone could or couldn't do something, not about Amity's morality. Also, Luz is important to consider here. These sorts of arcs involve the MC in a pretty crucial way because they're the one the antagonist wants to become allies with and so the MC needs to accept them. Amity hasn't done fuck all at this point to deserve Luz's attention because she's a bully and is cruel to her mostly besides her final act in Covention. It is literally NARRATIVE TROPES that make Luz forgive Amity and want to befriend. Literally. Nothing about Amity's actions or actual character, Luz just wants to live out her fanfic.

And that brings up the fact that Anne does keep giving Sasha chances but they have an established history and that push and pull of trust is a large part of this. It's the main driving factor for why Sasha will change at all and why the lengths she goes both for manipulation and redemption are important. It's also important to show WHY Anne might have wanted someone like Sasha around. Toad Catcher is not crucial for Sasha's arc, Barrel's Warhammer also shows how much Anne's rebuke of her and choosing the Plantars over her fucks with her mentally, but it does let you see why people follow her. The motivation she can bring them because Sasha does see the best in people... But mostly because people's bests are also the most useful for her. It also doubles down on her good quality that she rarely gives up on someone she chooses to ally with. All while still making it clear that if given the chance, she'll try to get back at Anne because accepting Anne was right is too antithetical to how she sees the world.

And then for both, we get episodes that mostly just explore the characters. A sort of holding pattern for both arcs with Barrel's Warhammer, Third Temple, The Sleepover and The Battle of the Bands for Sasha while we have Adventure in the Elements, Understanding Willow and Grom for Amity. This is also where you can extend this to include Winging it Like Witches and/or Escaping Expulsion depending on where you count Amity's arc as fully ending. For both characters though, the status quote they're primarily in doesn't change a lot. Amity is a tentative ally who has to get dragged into things and is generally a good person but not hanging out with everyone else casually yet. Meanwhile, Sasha is barely controlling her growing rage and insecurity about losing her power over Anne, exacerbated by Marcy coming into the mix and, from Sasha's perspective, siding with Anne. Though, there is a critical difference.

One is actually exploring the character, their motivations and their mindset. In all the episodes I listed for Amity, Amity gets small steps but they're NOTHING we don't already know. She's a generally good person who has a compulsion to succeed until suddenly in Escaping Expulsion that she's let her grades slip. There's nothing about what drives her towards success, no exploration on if these changes are difficult on her, both of which are actually in Battle of the Bands to some extent for Sasha. We don't see how this stuff is affecting her besides her growing crush and if that's getting her to act out. That takes until fucking Looking Glass Ruins to actually manifest while Barrel's Warhammer shows how much the idea of changing is fucking with Sasha's head but also why her behavior is toxic. How her best traits can also be her worst. Amity's traits are barely even being examined. She's just slowly becoming more and more obsessed with Luz and bleeding personality for it by becoming a very generically good person.

THEN we get Sasha's big relapse. Her denial of her arc. The attempt to wrestle back control because she saw an oppurtunity to be on top and took it. This is book 2's ending for Zuko. A moment of weakness where the character's vices means they at least have to question their character arc. If that's what they want or if they want to continue being who they always were. True Colors is this for Sasha, even to the point where she is willing to throw out parts of her past if she can't find a way to keep them. It is that same weakness that makes her plans fail though because once she can try to justify her actions and bring Anne back to her, she can't fight Anne properly and loses for a second time. Again, that push and pull of trust and control.

And Amity doesn't have this. The closest there is to it is Escaping Expulsion... Where she doesn't do shit. Calling that an Amity episode is FRUSTRATING for me because she is barely in it. Not only that, but she doesn't decide to do villainy. Instead, it's that she is a teenager with a controlling mother. But don't worry, despite only showing up for like four minutes of the episode, Amity can just tell her mom to piss off and that's that. It isn't motivated by a push or pull, Amity doesn't want to go back at all and she actively is miserable the entire episode despite having explicitly chosen to be a bully for YEARS before this. After all, her parents only told her she couldn't be friends with Willow. They never told Amity to bully her for years and become queen bitch of the school over all. That was Amity's choice.

And then finally resolution. When the character themselves accepts the change and stops shifting morality. This is actually why I consider Turning Point the end of Sasha'a arc. Commander Anne is follow through but it's just reinforcing the version of Sasha that takes form in this moment. The Sasha, who reading how much her betrayal hurt Anne but how much trust she had for the mean girl, who has to face all she's lost in her pursuit of power, takes the mantle of guardian seriously. It is not a moment of weakness like in Reunion that makes her put other lives over hers but instead a moment self actualization and determination. A moment of strength and one she'll stick to for the most part. She is no longer manipulative, she is a commander, even if she doesn't have the title yet. This is especially satisfying because... Well, we've seen EVERYTHING that motivates this moment. Not just Anne's stuff but Grime's loyalty to her and how much that means to her. Percy and Braddock abandoning her and her trying to use the calculus of war to be okay with that. We can see MOUNTAINS of evidence for why she would choose this over her old self. Over one more time to try to conquer Amphibia like Grime suggests.

I... Genuinely can't really say when this happens for Amity. This actually has way less to do with how many times she rejects her past self and more to do with... Why does she? Why does she ever change in fact? What are her motivations? Because even in Escaping Expulsion, Luz's conversation with Amity isn't "You need to stand up to your parents because you shouldn't let others dictate your life." It's instead, "You should stand up to your parents so I can go back to witch school." And this happens CONSTANTLY. Remember: You can argue her villain role ends on her third major appearance and Luz NEVER talks morality with her. Never has Amity actually learn something.

It actually comes down to an inherent storytelling choice with TOH as a whole: Very few episodes are about anyone other than Luz and Luz actually really sucks at helping people during their episodes. Gus actually has some of the best episodes dedicated to a side character as they're actually addressing a core element of the character... And in his first one, Luz is a bystander. She does fucking NOTHING except maybe give Gus a pep talk. She is mcguffin than anything. With Amity though? Covention is mostly about Luz learning about the coven system. Lost in Language is about Luz and the twins and her want to befriend Amity, not the why she wants to befriend Amity. Adventure in the Elements: About Luz having a Winter Adventure where Amity is a perfectly good person. Understanding Willow is actually one of the better ones because at least for that one, Amity makes her final choice because she's nostalgic for an old friend. Grom has her only stand up though when Luz in trouble. Winging it Like Witches? It's just Luz being in danger that motivates her. Escaping Expulsion? Luz being in danger. Looking Glass? Luz needs her.

This is why Amity feels like she changes just for a pretty girl. Luz actually does NOTHING to ever try and change Amity. To ever actually interact with Amity's arc. Reaching Out will be the pinnacle of this where Amity has suddenly written off the entire coven system, one of the only things besides Luz we've been told she cares about... And Luz has never once talked to her about the coven system or Belos. Because Luz has barely actually talked to her about her besides to call her cool and pretty. It is remarkable how little Luz actually interacts properly with Amity and how few real conversations they have, especially about their differences and feelings about each other. Each time Sasha and Anne are in the same room, you know their philosophies and relationship is going to come up in some way. It's too omnipresent for both to ignore. Meanwhile... There's a lot of episodes where Lumity exchange cute jokes and that's it, despite the main plot focusing on those two characters for that episode. And remember: TOH's A plots explicitly have more time to include those sorts of slower conversations. Oh, and, you know, one of these pairs are just friends while the other GETS INTO A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP.

And the pinnacle of all of this: Amphibia does this amazing character arc while also making it plot relevant and REALLY important to its themes. Sasha is a primary antagonist for two seasons technically. She genuinely challenges both the message of change being good from a meta perspective but also challenges Anne's own character arc from a narrative perspective. Her degradation of care is contrasted by how Amphibia makes Anne care so much about others that it makes it harder and harder for her to write off Sasha despite what Sasha did. Then, Sasha changing her perspective and treatment of others, while keeping the core of herself true, is what helps keep Wartwood alive while Anne is gone while also demonstrating the power of change but also that you don't have to change literally EVERYTHING about you.

Meanwhile, it was a fucking meme in the TOH community that if Amity was on screen, nothing could happen and that stayed almost true for literally half the series. Not only that but Amity's complete change for Luz doesn't really feel coherent with the themes of self acceptance and not changing for others. It tries because the show posits that Amity just needed a better environment to go back to being the good person she always was but A: that's never explored because challenging her environment is not actually a part of what motivates her changes, just B: Luz is the whole reason for her change and she changes effectively into Azura, Luz's favorite character. That doesn't feel like becoming her own person and instead changing literally every aspect of yourself for your partner which... Yikes. To put it mildly.

You can cut EVERYTHING to do with Amity out of the show and you lose literally nothing except representation. You cut Sasha out of Amphibia though? You do not have the same story. Period. You have to rewrite a good bit because despite her lack of appearances, she is important. A lot of elements of Amphibia are important like that.

And Amphibia did it with smart storytelling that actually explored its own elements, not because it had three full seasons. Not when Sasha takes up so much less time of her show than Amity does.

This is all because Amphibia actually was interested in telling a character arc instead of just kind of weakly being able to claim it had a character arc. You can even extend that to almost literally any element that TOH and Amphibia both did. And not because of time, simply because one is written a hell of a lot better and was more interested in actually telling its story rather than making a bunch of statements that Twitter could freak out about.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[luminous-jade-skies]

在心而在心思

In Heart and In Mind

Foresight 远见 (written as of patch 1.0)

Pairing: Jing Yuan/Vidyadhara! Reader

Content: rated M, complicated relationships, fluff, humour, complicated feelings, potentially older man/younger woman (the situation is complicated), morally grey fic, leaning yandere! Jing Yuan, minors dni

This is really long, like really long. I’ve been writing this for like a week or two (might’ve been two). Also as mentioned in the contents, it’s quite a weird situation (which makes it fun). I don’t recommend minors reading this because (no offence) it takes a bit of discretion. 在心而在心思 may also be a series (not chronological), so if you liked this one, there may be potentially more in the future.

I actually lost my 50/50 to Clara at 85 pulls which pained me greatly to the point where I swore off gacha games for a bit. Then I decided to swipe and got him in around 65. I also pulled for his lightcone and got it in 1 ten pull, so I’ll take that as his apology ahahaha. Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

———————————————————————————————————

“Amidst the falling golden light of the Arbor Glowing roots spread across the ship Conflict blooming from its branches, the pale aurora flames.

Where gingko leaves fall and dance in the wind Blood and despair follows Halls of humanity, forgotten in the pride bred from our bones. 

Thus sings our short history Where legends live and never die…”

Your brush draws out the last stroke of the character onto your scroll, the golden paint appearing on the brown reflective surface just in time for you to meet the matching irises of the Divine Foresight. 

“Late. Again.” The scroll is rolled and snapped shut—poem incomplete—and tucked into your bag. Its red tassel hangs out teasingly. “General, after many centuries I expect you to be less tardy.”

He plops down on the stool of the teahouse in front of you, making himself comfortable by crossing his leg and leaning his elbows on the table. “Oh?” He says with playful amusement. He reaches over to pinch your cheek which you immediately dodge. “If you’ve known me for so long, why still call me ‘general,’ hm?”

You huff. “Firstly, you’re my superior, I must address you as such. Secondly, I know you, not in heart, but in mind. If everything written in my past self’s journal is true, then you have hardly changed.”

As soon as Jing Yuan confirms an order of two Immortal’s Delight, he chuckles. “So you’ve finished reading all the journals?”

“Of course not, there’s so much to read! If you told me I was a writer in my past life I wouldn’t be surprised. I just finished reading volume twelve.” You cross your arms. 

“Oh? You’ve finished all twelve already?”

“No, I started from the most recent years. The information seems the most relevant, like recent developments in my job and instructions on how to deal with them. That being said, you’re not keeping anything from me aren’t you?” You eyed him suspiciously. 

He feigned hurt, wincing and throwing a dramatic hand to clutch his heart. “Did your past self write such terrible things about me? I miss when you acted carefreely, especially when you would rush into my arms without care.”

“I’m old enough to not be doing that!” You exclaimed, hiding your face behind your hand in embarrassment. After taking a quick second to compose yourself (wisely covered up with a fed-up groan), you clarify your pointed suspicion in a hushed tone. “The journal mentions how I was supposed to begin working as soon as I reached five years old. I’m fifteen now and I’ve only started.” 

It’s true. You were supposed to start when you were five. If everything had gone according to your past self’s plan, you would master literacy by three and finish most of your studies by five like “how you always did” as you had told him. However, Jing Yuan had different plans. You were catching on quickly that he wasn’t honouring your wishes as you had wanted them exactly. But it would take more deduction and action than merely suspicion to nail him in his sins. 

“If I were as wise as my past self seemed to have been, then I would not trust my reincarnation to solely one person, even if he was the Divine Foresight. It puts me in too much a vulnerable position.”

Jing Yuan sighs, but not of discontent. Returning to his leisurely posture, he stares at you from beneath his lashes lazily, saying. “You’re so cute in your caution.”

If any Outworlders were nearby to witness the mild flirt, they would have shot a concerned look at Jing Yuan. Was this middle-aged man making passive moves on a young girl?! If they tried looking around at other passersby, they would find no such reaction. With one glance at the girl in question, locals would notice the Vidyadhara horns and the red Erudition eye painted on the middle of her forehead, then continue on their day. Afterall, the Sky-Faring Logistics Master could take care of herself. 

The Dozing General always kept alertness just below the shallows of ease. You were a big deal in the Sky-Faring Commision, handling everything that involved the movement of goods of any kind. The seven Luofu Sky-Faring Commision Guilds imported and exported all sorts of products, but you arranged the receiving and releasing of said products. Suffice it to say, without you, the flow of hundred thousands of containers moving through the Luofu would be clashing in a blinding chaos. Much of the laymen didn’t realise that the ever-capable Logistics Master had not been at her post for the past ten years. Merely seeing you led them to assume you were doing your job as usual. As for admin and employees within the Commision… the temporary Master’s term had to be extended with the additional request (read: order) that any concerns were put to rest assuringly. Now, he had been relieved with good compensation and you were put in your proper position, everything would continue as normal.

No harm done.

Jing Yuan’s lips twitched when you scoff at his comment. “Still saying such things?” You say. “Hmph, my past self might have tolerated it, but I won’t. If you like her so much, then show me the same respect!”

“Why not act as casually as I treat you? Even the staff at the Seat call me Jing Yuan.” He leaned forward with a blossoming innocent smile. “You’re already acting so haughty and you’ve only just received your journals, have you forgotten who your official guardian is?”

“I knew it! My previous incarnation was a fool to put me in your hands!” You whined.

Mengming comes over just in time to stop your pouting fest with two refreshingly cold Immortal’s Delight. As you drag the drink closer, the expertly swirled fluffy whipped cream hardly bobs on top of the blended milk tea drink. A tiny hum of approval leaves your now grinning lips. That meant the drink was freshly blended, ice crystals still solid in the ideally near-frozen treat. Sprinkled on top is a generous cluster of brown sugar bits, glistening in what light sneaks into the shaded tea shop, as if the sweet syrupy goodness layered at the bottom of the same ingredient wasn’t enough. It forms a murky fog that swirls cloudily with the liquid, just waiting to be stirred and messed about inside the cup. Hiding amidst the murk are bouncy and chewy pearls, treasures you can’t wait to hunt with the red straw. 

You waste no time taking a big gulp, uncaring of how the freeze travels straight to your brain. A sugary explosion bursts in your mouth, accompanied by the slight bitterness of the tea in the most uplifting manner. Unaware of how the bliss draws happy hum after hum, you chew on the pearls. Your hair sways side to side with your head, hands gripping the drink tightly like the magical treat it was. 

The general takes a sip of his own, and savours the taste with you with closed eyes. Your past self was not here for the drink’s creation, and your go-to refreshment was a personally brewed pot of Whale-Tide Spring tea. Your present self, however, was less interested in the archaic drink and preferred the more modern one. What a shock it was to him when you refused another sip of the tea, letting out a small ‘bleh’ after only the first. In contrast, your love for Immortal’s Delight was as strong as your past love for Whale-Tide Spring (which was saying quite a lot, you always had a porcelain jar full of the leaves). 

Ever since its introduction, Immortal’s Delight has been a hit with the Luofu locals, but especially with you. His original intention was to reintroduce you to your favourite tea, but with how sideways that went, he tried something else. Yes, he received weird looks from others as he ushered a toddler to take a sip of the chilly thick drink, but you loved it in the end so that was that. It was also of great amusement to him how you cried and grabbed for it when he threatened to finish the rest of it. And yes, he gave you an extra sip because you learnt how to ask nicely that day. 

His eyes open to return to your form. Visions of the past overlaid themselves with the present. Past you was elegant, dignified with that slight tinge of whimsy. Present you was excitable, childish, bursting with a starlight that shone from your eyes—something he supposed could be called ‘youthful innocence.’ He wonders if this is what you were like in your younger days… thousands of years ago. You had mentioned how millenia of diligent journaling has maintained your wisdom’s edge no matter how many times you’ve moulted. It’s a well-known fact in the Xianzhou Luofu that the Sky-Faring Logistics Master never changes. Same name, same personality, somehow you’ve managed to create a unique sense of immortality…  

‘I’ll be moulting soon. I must ensure that all my knowledge and character are well-documented for my next reincarnation,’ you told him one day. Back then, he was a young apprentice under Jingliu, helping to move boxes of journals to your new residence. It was sunny that day, and he had just finished another exercise of 10,000 sword strokes, but he was eager to help as soon as he caught a glimpse of you in the distance. He had asked why you kept so many records, refusing to admit his struggle with the weight yet still feeling the strain of them all the same. 

‘Why does your reincarnation need to know all this?’

You tilt your head over your shoulder to smile at him, long horns extending gracefully in an arch against the bright sky. ‘I have been master over the Luofu’s goods flow for longer than you can ever imagine. Whether it be the receiving of commercial goods for residents or sending military supplies to our Cloud Knights, the hand that draws lanes and guides starskiffs must be an experienced one. The history of trade is great and the eyes that witness are the eyes that must be preserved.’ 

You wave a hand lightly at the box he carries. ‘—hence my records.’

He wonders just how much you’ve changed under his care. Letting you develop with hardly any direct influence from your past self must’ve affected you somehow. Not that he wanted you to change, Lan forbid. He loved you dearly, and he’s seen you be reborn over and over. He still dreams of every life you've lived and every moment you shared with him. As a good friend of his parents who worked in the Realm-Keeping Commision, he’s known you even before joining the Cloud Knights. Respect turned into admiration, then adoration, and further still in his adolescent years, a boyish crush which developed into an intimate love (and the lust that accompanies it) that he disguises under a close and familiar friendship. 

Qingzu likes to say ‘when the Sky-Faring Logistics Master steps into the Seat of Divine Foresight, the Dozing General dozes no longer.’ So perhaps he isn’t subtle about his feelings at all. 

Jing Yuan finds himself enjoying you enjoy your drink rather than enjoying the drink itself. You’re adorable, unbearably so. He’s met you in this age before but you’re always trying so hard to maintain your poise that he hasn’t seen you act this way. Really, you’re quite different now. As a kid you would quite literally jump for joy when he bought your favourite food or read you your favourite books. Pouting wasn’t a strange occurrence either. Sometimes he indulges in a little bullying to rile you up, have you stomping all over the place before giving you what you wanted. He watches you happily sip away, practically able to see warmth blossoming around you from joy. 

Your past selves never pouted nor showed excessive joy, and you had grown into it. He had noticed how the pressure to continue the legacy of your first life strained you, whether it be in the tired narrow of your eyes or the hollow sigh you let spill out. You may be the same in biological make-up, but really, you were successors of someone with very high standards and ambition… or were possibly part of a social experiment (he vocalised that joke at some point and you only shrugged, saying you could understand the intrigue which only makes it more plausible). 

The idea that he had ruined you somehow sent excited tingles zipping around in his brain. He had not only yourself in his grasp, but your very personality. When he made the decision to be your guardian, he wasn’t thinking of this indirect consequence. Clutching your bloody egg in his arms, the scene of your head getting cleaved off replaying countlessly in his mind, all he could think about was how he had to protect you and keep you close. 

So now you were his adorable little charge, and in the future, hopefully, his beautiful wife. He’s made sure to keep his hands off you, it was distasteful to even attempt and would dishonour you and your past incarnations. But his feelings were very true and well… you were still you. Regardless of how different you acted. 

“Why are you suddenly looking so happy…” you asked, nudging the empty cup away. “You haven’t touched your drink, if you don’t want it, can I?”

Just as you say that he takes a huge sip of his Immortal’s Delight, causing a considerable amount to disappear. And much to his delight, you frown a little and keep your eyes on him albeit with an unimpressed expression. 

“Now now, no need to make that face,” he mellowly drawls. “I’ve been so distracted by the beauty in front of me that my drink has become watery, how will you compensate?”

“General, I will throw my bag at you!”

He chuckles and continues to languidly sip, watching your face turn red. ‘How satisfying,’ he thinks. Long ago such teasing would only warrant a polite dismissal from you, even if you were blushing. Now he wonders what other expressions he could draw from you…

Two empty cups are left on the table as the both of you leave for a stroll. Jing Yuan had arranged for this lunch break meeting since he hardly sees you anymore. He missed when he could take you with him to his office, it certainly made those boring days go by a lot faster. On days where he’s forced to stay up late signing documents or going over a deployment plan, you’re there sleeping soundly on his lap. It only takes a single glance down to restore his energy. Now that you’re working he only ever gets to see you in the mornings and evenings, not quite enough time. 

There’s a pleasant breeze in the air and civilians are moving about peacefully. He allows himself to be lost in the atmosphere until he hears you mutter something. He looks down at you inquisitively with a small ‘hm?’ and you blink up. 

“Oh! It’s nothing!” You exclaim, waving your hands. “I was just wondering where Yanqing is.”

Yanqing. Your past self has never met him, he took in the boy not long ago and you’ve happily adopted him as your younger brother. The boy is usually at the training grounds with other Cloud Knights or at home studying (that’s what he tells him, but most likely he was distracted 80% of the time). Jing Yuan did ponder over whether to invite the boy, but decided that he could another time. Just like with you in the past, he brought Yanqing with him almost everywhere, but for today he just wanted to be alone with you.

“He said he would be at the training grounds mastering his sword strokes. Why?” Jing Yuan replied. He leans down closer until you can feel his breath ghost over your cheek. “Are you missing your little brother already?”

He pulls away as you jump in place and stumble back, slapping a hand on the afflicted cheek. He chuckles with an innocent expression at your fluster. 

“S-so? I’m just concerned for him! He’s usually with you and as his big sister, I have responsibilities, y-you know!” You sputter. “Don’t get close like that!”

The general quirks an eyebrow and your nervous sweating increases as his smile grows wider. ‘Oh no, what did I say…’

Like you anticipated, he walks closer, backing you up to the railings of the starskiff way. 

“What’s wrong with me being close, hm?” He teases, he’s hovering over you now and you lean further back to create more space between you. “Are you getting shy? Is this why you haven’t been giving me any hugs lately?”

Your head began to spin with how hot your face was getting. The truth was you’ve developed a bit of a crush for your superior. Your caretakers have always told you how attached you were to the general, and that hasn’t really changed until you read your past self’s journal. You wrote a lot about the general, like things he said or memories of older days (with exact journal entry numbers…). Sometimes you wrote descriptions of him with comments sprinkled in and it gave you a larger sense of familiarity beyond Jing Yuan just being your mentor. When you read an entry of a time Jing Yuan flirted (that word was nowhere to be found in the entry, but probably because your past self seemed to lack the recognition prowess for romance. You, who has read countless novels in your spare time, was well-acquainted) with your past self, you had to shut the book and almost threw it from your bed in second-hand embarrassment. 

That was not the only entry to have contained such contents. And for the entire time, your wise past incarnation assumed it was the general’s usual playfulness and your shared closeness. ‘Wise’! What ‘wise’?! How dense could a person possibly be! A man caresses your hair and says sweet words as the sun sets in front of you—how can it be anything but romantic! You had banged your head against your bed frame, going through multiple revelations at once, which alerted Jing Yuan who came into the room and asked ‘is something wrong?’ To which you quickly hid under the covers and shouted ‘nothing!’ as if that was less suspicious than just telling him you read something embarrassing from a novel. 

Anyways, you could never look at the general the same way again. How easy it was to make those memories your own, the way you wrote those entries were very personable. Again, if you were a writer in your past life, you would not be surprised! 

He leaned closely and gently ran his hand through some of my hair. The sun was beginning to set and our tea was cold from our lengthy conversation. It was cooling in the balcony of my flat but with Jing Yuan so close, I could not feel the chill. 

“And yet another day has passed,” he says, clearly referring to the increasing rosiness of the sky. He has not taken his eyes off me. “Many more are to come. But none of them will be as special as those I spend with you. You are more beautiful than any sunset or celestial phenomena.”

I watched curiously as he lifted the lock of hair to his nose and breathed in softly before kissing it. This made me laugh slightly and I waved him off. “Don’t hold me in such high regard, general. If I were to disappear, the rest of your days would become bleak.”

He looked at me seriously, gold irises glinting in the dying light. Somehow, it always manages to freeze me in place. Perhaps because I’m not used to that kind of emotion on him in moments like these. He took my hand and grips it tightly.

He said, “if you disappeared, the sun in my days would never rise again.”

He loved your past self. You don’t know if that sentiment was the same for your other incarnations, but he loved you deeply. When a young girl witnesses such tenderness and intimacy, even secondhand, how can she not develop feelings?! What made it even worse was the biting awareness that the both of you weren’t the same person. Maybe in body, but not in spirit. You seemed so different from her! And it was all because you didn’t start reading the journals early enough. A late bloomer, that’s what you were. Did he still love you the same way? 

“What’s on your mind?” Jing Yuan’s arms trapped you in between them, hands on the rails. “You’re staring so vacantly at me as if you’re thinking about something else.”

That snaps you from the tangled mess of hot wires of your mind. Immediately, you attempt to push him away, glancing nervously at passersby who are beginning to take notice.

“G-general… not here… people are looking…!”

He hums and leans closer, striking gold eyes mere inches away from yours, lips smiling mere fractions away from yours. His white hair falling over your face like a curtain. 

“This won’t do,” he whispers. “I can’t have your attention stolen away from me, can I?”

He takes a hand away from the rails to cup your head, tilting it stiffly so you’re angled to face him properly. ‘A kiss,’ you think dumbly. Was he really going to? Did you want him to? Your mind scrambled to sort the complexities of the situation. Technically, you were younger than him, incredibly so. And you were only fifteen! No matter how you looked at it, this was quite illegal wasn’t it?! You tried so hard to ignore this strange circumstance you found yourself in with the general. If only your past self was smarter about it! That stupid journal!

Just as you begin to feel dizzy and light-headed, Jing Yuan pulls away and pats your shoulder casually. “It’s quite rude for your mind to wander off while having a conversation, try to improve next time,” he says before continuing his stroll, leaving you flushed against the rails.

Upon processing his statement, your cheeks heat up further, no longer from embarrassment, but from anger. 

“As if you don’t do the same! General!” you shout, charging after him with the intent of giving him a good shove. 

Jing Yuan laughs as he accepts your shove, hardly affected. He’s seen enough to ascertain the future of his relationship with this new you—enough to grant him clear foresight. Now all he had to do was play his moves carefully.

In your office, you stare at the poem you were attempting earlier this afternoon. Remembering Jing Yuan turns you red, hastily you scribble down the last line before focusing on the rest of your work.

“Amidst the falling golden light of the Arbor Glowing roots spread across the ship Conflict blooming from its branches, the pale aurora flames.

Where gingko leaves fall and dance in the wind Blood and despair follows Halls of humanity, forgotten in the pride bred from our bones. 

Thus sings our short history Where legends live and never die In heart and in mind.”

[thesiltverses]

Hello! Just wanted to say, and hopefully this isn't an odd compliment to receive, how much I adore the episode titles of the silt verses. One of my favorite things to do after I get someone to listen to tsv is point out that the episode titles make a poem when you read them back to back. It always tends to blow their minds and I get great satisfaction from seeing their reactions. What I especially love about them is how they can stand on their own and reflect events of the episodes while still connect with one another to make a bigger picture so to speak. (For example, how Faulkner and Carpenter's reunion episode in s2 is titled "But We'll Never Be Rid of Each Other" to reflect their relationship as two people that can't seem to untangle themselves from each other, for better or for worse ((and how this title hangs over the episode ominously when contrasted with how happy their reunion makes listeners, as if just waiting for events to come)), but then connect it to the next title "My Song, My Sorrow and I" and it slightly changes the context where it feels more like it examines the characters' various complicated relationships with their gods)

(Though, on a tangent, speaking of episode titles and how they match each episode, I think constantly about "One Final Fall From Grace" with Faulkner and how it's the episode where he loses all but one of his acolytes, idk there's something about it that gets me so bad/pos)

I was wondering how you go about deciding on episode titles? Has the poem already been written out since the very beginning of the show? Is episode order dictated and determined by said finished poem? Or am I overthinking how each line fits each episode? What made you decide on this format compared to I am in Eskew's episode naming convention? Sorry for such a long winded question! I just cannot overstate how much I adore the episode titles, sometimes I'll go back and read everything all over just to hear the words.

Thank you very much!

So the plan was always roughly along the lines of:

Season 1 titles begin by trying to outline a kind of epic poem, then get distracted by describing its hold over the poet

Season 2 titles are about the poet's yearning to be free from the poem, but ultimate acceptance that their fates are entwined

Season 3 is about the realisation that the poem will outlive the poet.

Beyond that, there's generally plenty of flex and it remains a semi-spontaneous act of play - like you say, I might think I have something in mind and then realise at the last minute that another line works better for the themes of the ep (and sometimes there's no thematic relevance at all and it's just filling in a necessary rhyme to keep the whole thing going).

This leads to imperfections and a bit of a shaggy-dog story feel - if I could go back without confusing everyone, I'd correct the very first ep title to 'First I'll Sing Of Revelations' so the terminology is consistent - but I like imperfections, and I like shaggy dogs.

As to why? It just felt like a different way of being playful; the Eskew titles were fun for me because of their simplicity (I have vivid memories as a very young kid, not being old enough to be allowed to watch the video-tapes of Blackadder II, all of which had really evocative, teasing single-word episode titles - 'Head', 'Money', 'Potato'. So I'd just sit back on the floor and imagine what those meant.)

But for TSV, it felt appropriate and fun to begin with these trappings of epic storytelling and religious verse in the episode titles, and then gradually pan outwards to show that it's more of a story about being entrapped by stories and the impossibility of escape.

[bonesandthebees]

How do you come up with such banger plots? I’m trying to write an original book and I have the world building and characters down easy, but I’m blank with plot ideas.

-♟️

well first off when you're plotting you have to know the overarching story you're telling. like before you can figure out the individual plot beats, I really recommend that you know where you want your characters to end up at the end of the whole story. what are you working towards? once you know what your end goal is, then you can create your plot points with the intention of them moving your characters towards the end goal.

example of this: say you're writing a romance story. the two main characters start off as strangers, and you want them to end the story in a relationship. well how do you get there? obviously you're going to start off with them meeting. then your plot points become focused on building their romance. you have a scene of them going to a movie together. hanging out with a group of friends together. having a one on one conversation late at night. just different scenes that let the characters relationship build with one another. of course that's not to say that has to be the only focus of your plot. subplots exist as well, so you can intersperse those romance building scenes with ones showing other things going on in the characters personal lives. character a is having arguments with her sister a lot, so you can include scenes of her getting into fights with her sister or trying to talk about the issues with her parents or things like that, which can then tie into the main romance going on where she vents her problems with her sister to character b which allows them to grow closer to each other. subplot serves the larger plot.

of course this is a very basic plot idea and it's a bit more complicated in most stories. especially in different genres like fantasy or sci fi where the end goal is something much larger than two characters finally kissing. but it's the same concept at its core.

now if you already know what end you're building towards and you're struggling to figure out what plot beats to put in to push the characters to the goal, I definitely recommend consuming other pieces of media for ideas. watch movies, read books, play video games—the more creative content you consume, the more ideas will exist in your head that you can bounce off of. say you watch a movie and see the main characters getting stuck at an awkward dinner party. even if your story is a completely different genre from that movie, if you want to write a scene like that, you can change it to fit your own story to also work towards your end goal.

say you watch a movie where your average modern family gets into a bad argument over the dinner table. then, say your story is a fantasy tale about a princess trying to usurp her father from the throne. well, you can throw an awkward family dinner in there! the tone will be completely different but it can serve any function you want it to. show the strained relationship the princess has with her father? show her father's incompetence at his position? tell the reader more information about what's going on in the kingdom through dinner conversation? there are plenty of ways you can work with a scene like that to make it serve your plot, and now you have a plot point. boom.

I hope this helps a bit!

[viveela]

When it comes to Stan and Kyle, realistically/in canon how do you think they’d actually confess to each other?

Hmm...the way SP handles and adds to its overarching canon makes it hard for me to imagine it. But, if I just viewed Stan and Kyle's characters right now and thought only about how it'd go if they liked each other... Well, their dynamic is complicated and distant. There's also a lot about them to consider.

Kyle's a romantic, but he's had so many failed relationships. He also hates being ostracized. Rejection would terrify him as the possible outcome of his bond with Stan ending and others finding out and gossiping a out it would be an absolute nightmare for him. Then there's Stan's who's more bitter and very depressed. I think a lot is from his home situation but also Cartman's wake up call (saying he never stands up to Kyle). However he still is possessive and jealous about his best friend status with Kyle despite everything. He also has a weird perception of relationships now for sure especially due to the on and off one he currently has.

So with all that in mind...here's my take:

The two have developed feelings and it changes their dynamic once again.

Stan upon realizing this felt exhausted. There's too much already going on in his life and this is just adds to it. Exhausted he decides to just push the problem away and shut it all out. This causes him to be more unresponsive around Kyle.

Meanwhile, Kyle upon realizing his feelings gets conflicted. His romantic history isn't the greatest and rejection is scary. He's not sure if Stan's even like that. Sure his dog was gay and he's supportive, but does that truly mean anything about what Stan is specifically? He decides it'd be best to never act on this. But also Kyle now craves Stan's attention more than ever. He leans into his wants by behaving more clingy towards Stan, maybe even trying to asking odd questions here and there to gauge if maybe he would have a chance.

This goes on for a while and at first Stan was just sort of watching it happen. Not receptive but also not reacting. Eventually he can't handle this shift in Kyle and he starts trying to avoid him out of confusion and frustration. He doesn't want to deal with any of this right now.

Kyle notices this and it just makes his feelings jumble up. He's hurt, this isn't how Stan used to be around him. Usually it didn't take much to get his friend to go along with things. How can he deal with his unreciprocated crush like this? He grows more desperate and tries much more forcefully to get Stan to spend time with him, practically begging for his attention at this point.

This doesn't go on for too long before Stan gets highly aggravated and riled up. He's trying so hard to ignore everything happening externally and internally and this is making it impossible. Not to mention this switch up in their friendship happened out of nowhere. Where did this even come from? This boils within Stan before he finally snaps at Kyle one day, stopping him in his tracks from continuing further.

Now on the defensive Kyle snaps back and they're now arguing. Their entire relationship as a whole is being brought up and thrown back and forth at each other; both frantically pointing fingers and pent up frustrations spilling out. It doesn't take long before Stan breaks and goes from yelling to crying. His true state comes to light and he finally expresses how their distance has affected him and that it's really been messing with his head —especially now with the newfound feelings he's been having lately. Kyle's silent for a moment taking this all in before bombarding Stan with apologies for everything, feeling stupid.

The implications from Stan's words earlier aren't lost on him though and once things calm down, he then takes the chance to confess his own feelings as well while also admiting he misses being close to each other. Now they're both feeling like idiots and reconcile, deciding to be more open with each other and figure out how to move their relationship further from here.

[ilynpilled]

u know a thing i really do love about jaime’s arc is that what he wants to even achieve is actually interrogated pretty thoroughly in affc. like it is very much about grueling internal development rather than a simple linear trajectory. the thing with a lot of reformation arcs (george’s words: link) and characters who seek their “honor” back is that it is often dealt with in a pretty straightforward way. how people even define goodness and the nuances of morality and altruism and how self concept is tied to how you are perceived by others and certain flawed moral constructs, in medieval fantasy especially, is often not really that focused on. jaime as a character already has such a multifaceted relationship with it all, it is a core part of his story: “honor” in asoiaf exists within a system and it is full of contradictions. moral constructs are also very much rooted in an ultimately feudalistic structure. and when you throw “glory”, within feudalistic constructs of chivalry & heroism, into the mix, and the complications of external perception and how you want to change, it all gets a lot more difficult. his character already deals with that in his origin, it is at the root of his disillusionment and fall into cynicism and darkness. and he is then forced to grapple more with change and what being better even really means after “whatever he chose…”. a lot of these types of stories tend to skim over this part when dealing with reformation. like i do think george delineates how “change” is restricted by external and internal factors in a plethora of ways that have to actually be addressed during an arc like this. there is a theme with jaime of it being impossible to compromise with certain things: he has to eventually choose between them. cost and sacrifice is examined a whole lot. even if he is arguably pretty passively suicidal he is not at a stage in affc where he necessarily lost everything, though he is beginning to. he has status, power, and a role to play, his family is in severe danger, he has certain selfish desires, he has ties, loved ones, people he feels the need and responsibility to protect. which puts him in a position that makes his choices a whole lot more complicated. the “so many vows” are still there. i also like that he is navigating change from a point where he still has the option not to (at least externally, i think internally he is at a point of no return, like he would not be able to stomach himself because he did lose what had allowed him to easily compartmentalize, other than being faced with the example that brienne provides that contradicts & condemns his entire cynical outlook he used to justify himself, and he expresses his readiness to die, like when he plans to be the first on the field if he “has” to attack riverrun, and believes he will be the first to fall too because of his hand. but again, the resolution of the whole fiasco makes the choice to reform something primarily internally motivated as he actually dooms his image entirely through his method of utilizing the persona he wants to change to its fullest potential with the trebuchet & edmure, and that he is very much stuck in the middle of things that are intrinsically incompatible. the lannister regime and tywin’s legacy is incompatible with becoming a better person. he is also repeatedly faced with the fact that change and trying to achieve things he set out to do will not come with external rewards, like being viewed differently by other people, that he is very desperate for to make it easier to not despise himself anymore. jaime does want to feel better about himself, but true redemption comes with real sacrifice. he does not see a golden hand anymore in his final dream in affc, just the ugliness of the stump. he contradicts tywin’s dogma, abandons his position, and goes with brienne at the end of the adwd chapter all the same. personally, i am seeing a clear set up, especially that he is now about to be confronted by the woman who embodies most of his greatest sins.

[uselessheretic]

i think the thing that irritates me about izzy ofmd hate is that you don't have to like izzy? you don't. he's an unpleasant little man who does bad things and as an antagonist is very easy (and fun) to hate. you can gleefully cheer for him to be tossed overboard s2 that is okay!

i am bothered though by the push for other people to not engage with his character. like i made one joke post about izzy's perspective that was still making fun of him, and someone sent me hate messages saying i was racist and supported homophobia and that i should get my teeth kicked in (which is VERY funny considering i'm gay and black and this was sent by a white fan)

less extreme than that though is people consistently talking about how he's not that deep, that interpreting him as queer is homophobic, and that fans trying to analyze him are trying to redeem a flat white villain instead of engaging with other characters. which... you can engage with multiple characters to be clear. you can. there isn't a limit to how many dick jokes one can make about a cast at any given point in time. also analyzing izzy means analyzing ed like you need to understand izzy if you want to understand ed.

but also it's just not true to call him flat? if you say "izzy's in love with ed and acting out because of jealousy" then people say you're reading too far into it. but this is something that is supported in the text of the show and by the creator. i don't understand how "ed and izzy is its own love story and izzy is a spurned wife and izzy is in love with ed but their relationship is very toxic" could be any more clear. wanting to read more into him isn't grasping at fake straws either, he was written that way to be complicated where david jenkins has said that izzy's the character to pay attention to on a rewatch because there's more to him at first glance.

like this is literally canon. i cannot stress enough that izzy being in love with ed and izzy being a complex character worth analyzing is just canon and the creator specifically pointed to him as a character to focus more on

he's LITERALLY in love with ed this isn't reaching this isn't "it's not that deep" and he's not generically evil without anything else to him. this is a textual, canon reading of their relationship explicitly stated by the creator several times

and i guess i'm just? confused then on how we keep going back to a pushback against analyzing the actual show and character. it doesnt absolve izzy of his actions, but it does make him more interesting. if you think about it, izzy's character doesn't make a lot of sense if you read him as having his motivations based solely in a homophobic desire to keep blackbeard masc especially when you don't actually see much pushback from him in show of ed being too feminine or whatever. he kicks him when he's down in episode 10, but i stfg it's so much more interesting if you just pay attention to what actually spurns that on because the "you're blackbeard not ed" as a running theme thru the show is SO interesting when you realize that izzy primarily calls him ed and edward, but he hates it when others do it. like ugh sir you are so toxic and possessive lmaooo

you don't need to like him, but what's the point in trying to force others into flattening his character? where again, you can dislike him. you can even dislike him loudly and on your own blog. but it's weird for people to go out of their way and get mad at other people for engaging with the content or stating facts about the character that are literally canon.

[rafaelsilvasource]

9-1-1: Lone Star’s Ronen Rubinstein and Rafael Silva on TV wedding and the beauty of queer love

9-1-1: Lone Star fans will finally see TK Strand (Ronen Rubinstein) and Carlos Reyes (Rafael Silva) get married in the two-part season four finale

BY REBECCA LEWIS | Hello! Magazine, May 2023

After four years, some false starts, and far too many near-death experiences,  9-1-1: Lone Star fans will finally see TK Strand (Ronen Rubinstein) and Carlos Reyes (Rafael Silva) get married in the two-part season four finale on Tuesday May 16, 8/7c. But it's not going to be smooth-sailing, as fans have already been promised a tragedy that will strike — and change the trajectory of their lives forever.

"It's a blessing to be given these storylines," Rafael, 28, says on the set of HELLO!'s digital cover shoot in Los Angeles, "It's not every day that you get a story like this with juicy scenes where you have to focus and step up."

Fans already know that Lyndsy Fonseca will return as Carlos' best friend Iris, but the two episodes will see other surprises on-screen as TK and Carlos — known by their portmanteau Tarlos — lean on each other as they work through the shocking complications.

Ronen and Rafael met in 2019 when they were cast as TK, an NYC firefighter who moves to Austin with his father, Captain Owen Strand (Rob Lowe), and Carlos, an openly gay Latino police officer in the Austin PD.

Their relationship has become the focal point for the Fox drama, and a beloved character all its own, and the decision to have them finally wed means so much to so many, especially at a time in the US when conservative legislation has been attacking the LGBTQ community, making this wedding all the more poignant and important.

Over the past four years, the two actors have built such a bond on and off-screen that even among all the "chaos around us on set," as Ronen describes it, they are able to stay focused on telling their stories.

That connection also helped Ronen, 29, come out publicly as bisexual in 2021; he credited Rafael at the time as one of a few people, along with wife Jessica Parker Kennedy and stylist Chaise Dennis, for encouraging and supporting him to live his truth.

"I shouldn't be here," says Ronen. "Little Ronen's from the slums of Staten Island, growing up as a degenerate and fighting, doing drugs, and not going to school, we don't really get to come full circle to this sort of position."

Truth and love are what Rafael and Ronen both hope is the lingering legacy of this show, and these characters, no matter how many more seasons it stays on air. "I hope this inspires people, in the simplest way, to say, Love yourself," said Rafael.

When you think back over the last four years, and see the growth of Tarlos as a couple, and TK and Carlos as individuals, has there been anything that has truly surprised you?

Ronen: Not surprised, but I am most proud of their communication skills! We've seen the evolution of these two, and what were terrible communication skills!

I mean, Carlos made TK a beautiful dinner and then he stormed out like a little bitch! But it's all thanks to the writers; the fact that they were able to connect all the moments up to this level of communication which we saw in episode 16, when Carlos says, "Even if you don't remember who I am, I will stay in this, and love you and stay with you and support you and I'll introduce myself, 'Hi, you're TK and I'm Carlos and we're soulmates.'"

How have TK and Carlos changed you as actors?

Ronen: I don't even know where I would start. It's changed me as a person but as an actor it definitely has taught me speed and efficiency. After Lone Star, I'll be ready for any sort of set in any sort of situation. We're on this massive production, but sometimes it still feels like you're in an independent film when you get a script the day before.

This show has also given me the opportunity to provide a life for myself, and my wife, that I didn't necessarily have growing up.

I shouldn't be here. Little Ronen's from the slums of Staten Island, growing up as a degenerate and fighting, doing drugs, not going to school, we don't really get to come full circle to this sort of position. It's a blessing.

Rafael: I wanted to go to grad school before I booked Lone Star, but God has a way of showing you that life is your school. When I booked Lone Star, I felt so inadequate but now I realize it's healthy to have some doubt — and I love the fact that I talk about this now without any sense of feeling like an impostor, because if we don't talk about these things, we dehumanize these very human experiences.

Carlos has allowed me to learn a lot just simply by watching, listening and playing. I'm extremely grateful that it has changed me as a professional, and also the way I see myself, and the kinds of stories I want to tell. Now I say, 'Know why you're doing something and don't be shy to be yourself, go for the truth,' and I think that's something that this show has truly required of Rafael.

What would you say to 2018 Rafael who cried in the bathroom after his audition?

Rafael: Do exactly what you did and be exactly who you were. It's OK to feel all of those feelings — like you don't belong here because that is what you were being told, but you had to be that person in that moment in order to be this person here today I don't think there's such a thing as a coincidence.

Jim Parrack (who plays Judd Ryder) says, "Coincidence is God's way of staying anonymous," and for me it's a sense of trusting life and the work  —  and when I speak of this, it comes from a place of humility and not necessarily any attachment to religious indoctrination that is going on today to put others down.

I want to make that very clear, that it comes from my relationship with God, [and] a world where everyone belongs, everyone has a place, everyone has a voice and no one needs to close themselves off or hide.

Ronen, what has it been like building your relationship with Rob Lowe?

Ronen: I walked into the audition room for our chemistry read, Rob went to shake my hand and he looked me right into the eyes and he said, "Yep, that's it." We had a spark from the moment we met, but when Rob's on set, there is no time to mess around, everybody brings their highest game, and that's also why I love our father-son scenes so much.

We're very lucky we get given really special storylines; from the moment we meet those two, the bond is so strong and it's just been a beautiful place to build from - and now he's my best man at the wedding.

Does the pressure of the meaning of 'Tarlos' to so many, and what it has become outside of the show, get to you?

Ronen: No, I don't let it get to me. I feel like a lot of pressure is self-made; I don't know if this is just the way I was raised but I am able to compartmentalize really well. I stick to the root of things:the character, the story.

I do appreciate seeing what the fans think and and feel, and this actor-fan relationship is becoming really beautifully interwoven, especially when you get to meet the fans, but I'm able to separate the two. The core of everything is always the work, because if these characters aren't fully lived in and we're not giving our everything, we're not giving our heart and soul to these characters? Then I don't know if fans would necessarily connect with them as intensely.

I won't share what me and Rafa talk about, but the beauty of this whole situation is that I've been able to lean on Rafa, and Rafa has been able to lean on me through all this, because nobody knows what we're going through except for us. Fans can feel that we really care about these two guys — and we care about them maybe more than anyone because it literally is on our shoulders.

But I'm just very lucky to be on this journey with Rafa, because this could be really stressful if you're working with someone that you don't get along with ,or vibe with, on a professional level.

Rafael: As soon as you start making it about you because you were listening to people's opinions, or the critics… As an actor I need to stay focused because at the end of the day, the reason why Carlos and TK get so much attention is because the focus has always been on the character.

In theater, it's always about making it about the other person. When you're doing a scene, always make it about the other person, and that's the work that as actors we need to do with our characters, make it about the character. Forget the noise.

What do you hope the legacy of Tarlos is?

Rafael: I hope it inspires people, in the simplest way, to say, Love yourself.

We had these two broken characters that reacted very differently to their brokenness. One of them abused substances, the other one isolated himself, and both were responses to trauma. When you neglect who you are it's because that's what you were shown from your closest people, so we had two broken characters who came together because I think they were both yearning for a deep connection, not only with each other but with themselves.

I can only hope these two characters and their love can inspire you to, if not completely love and believe in yourself, but to start that conversation with yourself.

[ming-sik]

as a devoted hater of isekai where the premise is "oh no i got isekaied as the most unfortunatest character ever but Actually my unfortunate situation is secretly the most bestest divine power and now i'm a minor deity" and a triple hater of characters whose disabilities get magically cured i have REALLY mixed feelings on the devouring bc despite appreciating the mooooostly really good deconstruction, aob stumbles at the resolution for me.

bc lets face it, that IS what the devouring is. rozemyne starts as a terminally ill peasant living without access to medical care, but from when her terminal illness is revealed to be her excess of mana the story does in fact follow the path of lvl 1 commoner → lvl 99 avatar of a goddess, and that kind of sucks because it means that aob doesn't end up doing what it seems like no isekai has the will to do and just make a protagonist that never attains godlike power and has to create a fulfilling life in this unfamiliar and harsh world despite never ever ever ever even getting to meet the crown prince, which cuts off an interesting story i wish got told more often.

However, aob is very clearly doing a deconstruction of this plot structure and her relationship with her power is extremely complicated. i do kind of wish rozemyne was kept at the level of "archduke candidate" instead of the godlike power she ends up having because rozemyne's ability to slam the 'put enough mana in the machine to Win' i think prevents some instances where she would otherwise be forced to struggle with the gap between what she wants to do and what she's physically able to do, but deciding to recreate the premise closely in order to subvert it is a fine narrative choice.

especially because rozemyne's power IS balanced and caveated by the fact that the devouring & its resulting mana clumps are a pretty severe disability. the fact that she is denied any education on it to the point of being seconds away from dying from an unknown illness for most of part 1 and even when she understands the devouring and eventually her mana clumps she has to reckon constantly with her physical limits, and the fact that she can't just pour 1 million magiwatts into any given issue to make it go away because she will die. despite rozemyne's power, her disability makes it so that she narratively has to deal with a pretty neat subversion of the 'commoner elevated to noble trope' that really takes advantage of the fact that commoners in that world are so completely locked off from magic that becoming a noble doesn't just result in mild culture shock judged by the Prissy Rich Villainness but is a fleshed-out, complex tool of systemic oppression that causes real obstacles for our heroine even as she spirals ever deeper into becoming a noble. it also serves as a really elegant allegory for systemic ableism and the way that minor issues for a rich girl can be life-threatening if you don't have access to quality medical care.

But Then The Jureve Walks In. "literally don't even worry about that," aob says, "theres a magic juice which just cures any disease, and the only challenge is creating that juice and using that juice". but no, no you tell me, the jureve is balanced narratively by the timeskip and the difficulty of getting it! rozemyne loses years of her life, that's not nothing! but while it's not NOTHING it also just. doesn't have enough far-reaching consequences that i don't feel like it's an invocation of the "dw abt your disability theres a magic cure for it" rather than a true subversion. imo a true subversion would require that there either 1) straight up not be a cure and rozemyne has to live the rest of her life at 150cm with 3 HP, 2) only be an imperfect cure which maybe allows rozemyne to reach adult size but keeps her health frail enough that using her full magic potential has serious consequences or vice versa if they want to also subvert the '300 yr old child' trope by acknowledging how much it would suck to be eternally trapped in a body with no fine motor control that people instinctively don't take seriously, or 3) only be a cure that is either temporary or otherwise not a one-and-done deal because now that she's big and healthy she just has no long-lasting consequences from her severely disabled childhood, which seems like a narrative branch that was pruned way too hard and way too early to feel like a satisfying subversion instead of just playing the trope straight with a couple extra steps. indeed, option 2b is what the jureve initially seems like...... until your man gives rozemyne some steroids and she's tall now too. so there's just no conflict whatsoever between rozemyne's power and her ability to utilize it, which makes it much, much harder to balance her power in a way that lets her have interesting conflict around magic where she can't just press X to win.

also this problem doesnt exist in a vacuum, and a related complaint is one mostly unexplored comment from when ferdinand is talking to rozemyne about dirk's devouring, and he says that dirk was born with more mana than myne, but her compression method meant that her mana ballooned much bigger than what it would have if she was raised as a noble. bc like god Damn is that interesting! my ideal plot twist would be that the cinderella theme returns because there's a random laynoble whose magic tool got taken away as a teenager who ended up independently discovering a similarly desperate mana compression method, but they're knowledgeable about magic enough to hide it as physical weakness and then become a ticking time bomb who can be exploited by antagonists as a rozemyne with nobody to help her, the ultra-devouring soldier. the contracted devouring in general are such a potent and viscerally horrifying worldbuilding element that i really wish they weren't effectively treated as npc baddies, bc like-- that could've been rozemyne! only her support network and sheer luck separates her from them. part of the problem with rozemyne being cured of the devouring means that she loses even the vestiges of her personal connection to imo the most interesting take on fantasy disability i've ever seen, which is a real shame! especially from a series that's generally so concerned with Not having npc baddies, like explaining that bandits don't attack the church because they're farmers most of the time who rely on the harvest or the fact that all the minor noble antagonists have coherent motivations from bindewald to grausam, even if you aren't at all intended to sympathize with them.

pictured below: me explaining what the devouring couldve been to you

spoilers for vol5p9:

her recent PTSD around feystones... honestly feels like it exists mainly because if rozemyne is able-bodied and therefore powerful enough to just dye a duchy's foundation in minutes... she has an auto-win button for any situation that can be resolved by Having More Mana, which is most combat and a decent amount of politics because aob takes place in a society which runs on mana. i'm saying this as someone who felt like fran's PTSD was really well-done, despite it being the protagonist's problem rozemyne's is so explicitly and exclusively focused on feystones that it ceases feeling like a character trait that serves a narrative purpose and starts feeling like something that was crowbarred in because the trait meant to serve that narrative purpose got phased out before the realization that the story had rozemyne's power be balanced for a reason. is this me being unfair to miya kazuki when it's entirely possible that this was as planned out as everything else in aob and i have no idea what she thinks of this plot development or why she chose it? yeah probably especially when this is based on an incomplete prepub, which is why i say 'feels like' so much. i just read it and thought it fell really flat esp in comparison to earlier depictions of trauma triggers.

[ancientevangelions]

Hello! I'm new here! Just the other day I was going through the AsuShin tag, found your fics, and loved them! I also spent some time reading your thoughts and theories. Which brings me to ask, how do you perceive the changes and (lack of) relationship between Asuka and Shinji from Evangelion, EoE and Rebuild?

Specifically regarding Rebuild, I found it disheartening how they set Shinji and Asuka aside so easily. I'm not talking strictly nor only about shipping. I grew up watching the 90s Evangelion. And a big part of the story and its exploration of psychological themes and characters's psychology and motivation was Shinji's relationship with Asuka. Most of all in EoE, which, to me, is the ending I find most fitting.

It was dreadful to watch the redone beach sequence where Shinji thanks Asuka for admitting she used to like him, then him saying he used to like her back. Only for them to have that "everything is suddenly happy now" ending. This sequence seems to discredit most of the themes and sacrifices made in the original story, and does not satisfactorily brings their story to a close, but instead seem to try to brush it aside or bypass it somehow. Again, I do ship AsuShin but my grievance has much more to do with the way Rebuild handled them, I don't think in a story like Evangelion we could ever have had hopes of them living happily ever after or even be together necessarily

Hello!

Thanks for being here. I wanted to answer this as thoughtfully as I could! Asuka and Shinji are definitely a complicated pair. Regardless of shipping, they require care and attention to understand.

In NGE/EoE, the focus of the series is on their interactions, especially with the End of Evangelion. Episode 9 onward is focused primarily on the interactions between Asuka and Shinji, their highs and lows, the back and forth and their eventual downfalls. I always find it funny how people are highly critical of the interactions between the kids. From my memory of high school/being a teen (2004 to 2009 mostly), it was very much like this. A lot of back-and-forth denial of feelings and messiness trying to avoid pain, not wanting to speak your feelings due to embarrassment, and a lack of knowledge on consent or anything romantic or sexual. It all was a very realistic portrayal of my teen years, primarily because of the depression and mental illness (spoken as an undiagnosed mentally ill teen).

The realism with Asuka and Shinji and the non-linear progression/recovery felt extremely important to me. It was evident that they had a massive attraction to one another. Still, they fell into the trap I had in my youth of being unsure how to communicate my feelings without being rejected or experiencing pain. Even without romantic or sexual feelings, Shinji and Asuka live together, attend school, and work together. They are often abandoned by Misato at home alone, left to their own devices. They are two kids competing to see who can grow up faster. They have a compelling dynamic because they are so messy! In NGE, we see their ups and downs, learning about each other, fighting together and building trust, kindness, rude words, misunderstanding, poor communication, etc.

I love End of Evangelion. I don't need to see what happens after Asuka returns; I know now Yui was telling the truth that anyone can return when they are ready. Of course, it would be Asuka next after Shinji; their destinies are intertwined. She has every right to show him compassion AND to still be angry after all he did to her. The point of the ending scene is that there is love and affection in the world, but it's not forced; it's not a given; it's realistic. No one owes you anything, not love, not compassion, but when we choose to be kind, how amazing is that? Asuka and Shinji can continue to learn, grow and survive together. There is hope; they can be happy, but they must rebuild, work together, and try to find that happiness. 

Rebuild of Evangelion is so Shinji-centric at times it feels like it doesn't care about anyone else's motivations or backstory. Rebuild disappointed me so much with its focus on cinematic fights over substance. Rebuild also falls into the trap of forcing a perfect happy ending, which is unrealistic and annoying. Real change is messy and takes effort, years and years of action, and instead, we find perfection in imperfection. It's okay and expected if everything doesn't go exactly as planned. Rebuild needs more focus. It's evident that there was no overarching plan for the 4 films and that they underwent rewrites and delays for years. Of course, ideas would change. It took years to finish the series. It went from "Evangelion for new fans, a retelling that doesn't require you to watch NGE" to "The action sequences are good; let's make money off of sexualized children."

A lot of the AsuShin content is added on later in canon bonus material later added to 3.0 + 1.0 to clear up misconceptions about the relationships. It's subtle, and it feels tacked on. Shinji spends so little on-screen time with any of the characters that we don't get the same interactions, world-building, or character development and the flatness of the characters bothers me so much. What are their motivations? "Well, he cooked for her, so she likes him." Okay… that seems flimsy since she spends all her time alone, and he spends all his time alone… 

Shikinami might as well be 14, screaming that she is an adult now. For all the ways she has changed between 2.0 and 3.0, stewing in her anger doesn't seem very adult. The children telling us they are adults really doesn't convince me. The time skip accomplished nothing as no one reflected on 14 years passing in a realistic way. Shinji didn't grieve lost time or grapple with being an adult in a child's body. The deus ex machina at the end might have been "And then Shinji woke up, and Wonderland was gone" or "Asuka clicked her red heels and said there's no place like home."

Pixar films are popular because "Life doesn't always go according to plan, but you can still find happiness in the mess of life." The idea is that things are imperfect, and we make the most of what we have. Sometimes, what we want is different from what we need. Rebuild fails to capture this and instead falls into a trap I see in YA novels where the epilogue is much too neat. We see ourselves in the characters, and we identify with the struggle, but then the ending is too tidy. The protagonist gets a hetero-normative end with children and a picket fence and marries one of the love interests introduced early on. The protagonist becomes unrelatable to us because they fall into complacency where they have a 9 to 5 job and do nothing to better anything after the "fall of the tyrant." To quote The Who with their song Won't Get Fooled Again: "Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss." How can we, who are struggling daily for our survival and happiness, find the changing of one problem to be satisfactory in solving all issues? No more Evas, cool, but now he is under capitalism which we all know SUCKS. Sounds perfect, Shinji. Thanks for making your lives miserable in a new way. Trapped in wage labour sounds excellent. 

That's why I'm not a fan of "happy" endings. I only need some of the problems solved. I want to see work to build a new world. In the Rebuild ending, I dream of Asuka and Shinji working side by side to rebuild cities, prevent new child soldiers and be active in a community that fears them. We don't need a dream of paradise. We need hope that WE can make a difference, too. 

[stargirl092]

Behold, an unasked for, frankly concerning, painfully cringy and probably idiotic rant about Bojack horseman. read if you want lmao

first off, I am not that far into Bojack horseman, I am just now finishing up the second season. and even though I haven’t seen that much I am literally obsessed with it, and have consumed a very embarrassing amount of media about it I PROMISE I KNOW WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT I HAVE WATCHED A MILLION VIDEO ESSAYS. I am very passionate about this please bear with me Lmao.

As a mentally Ill person, Most media about mental illness and especially depression misses the mark. Books like “girl in pieces” and “my year of relaxation and rest” seem like they are laced with misery from the start to finish page, and seem like there is no actually depth and everything sits on the surface (I have read both of these books by the way). I believe they very commonly include controversial topics that can be sort of alienating instead of making people feel included, which doesn’t make a ton of sense but I feel it’s very possible to have actual depth without literally actively alienating the people that consume your content.

with BoJack Horseman, I genuinely assumed it was a stupid cartoon about a talking horse. Which it sort of is, but I heard good and bad things about it so I decided to try for myself and I was immediately compelled by how they introduce such serious topics with an on the surface almost stupidity, but also humor and ACTUAL ACCURATE DEPICTIONS OF DEPRESSION. as a person with depression and anxiety, I do not want to see a extremely attractive girl wearing makeup with perfect hair sitting in her bed in her spotless room while a singularly tear falls down her stupid but conventionally attractive face. I mean, not saying that’s not a valid experience of depression but depression/mental illness is messy. It’s disappointing, unbearable, and complicated. For most cases, it can negatively impact things like your character, social life, relationships with people you love, career, or ANYTHING in an awful way. And that doesn’t make you a bad person, but that is realistically The affects mental illness can/will have on you. Once again, not saying that mental illness has to ruin your life for it to be valid but a lot of the Time it can, or almost can.

take BoJack, for example. he is an alcoholic, has strangled a girl, sabotaged Todd’s career, backstabbed herb ETC ETC. So yea, he’s sort of a bad person and that’s a question the show sort of lets you answer for yourself. But he also had an awful childhood and absolutely hates himself. To alot of people, that makes him real because when you have the things that happen to BoJack happen to you, the things he does to people are things that THE CAUSE MAKES SENSE FOR THE AFFECT. despite all of this, BoJack tries to be a better person relentlessly, and fails every time. BoJack is painfully human (which is funny because he’s a horse) and that’s why he is an amazing character and a realistic character. It doesn’t make sense to have a traumatized mentally Ill character that is literally perfect and completely unscathed.

Take Diane, for example. Diane is an example of an amazing complex character. some people don’t like Diane and think she is a hypocrite, WHICH IS LITERALLY BULLSHIT AND I COULD SPEND HOURS TALKING ABOUT WHY ITS BULLSHIT. BoJack and Diane had similar childhoods, where they were both told negative things by their family members/parents but the main difference is that BoJack believed them and Diane did not. Another point is that BoJack and all the other characters make you feel comfortable with being or feeling “broken” but Diane makes you feel uncomfortable about not doing anything about it. Diane does make a sort of recovery, by taking antidepressants, gaining weight, and divorcing Mr. Peanut butter. Diane is complex, realistic and an amazing character. Tbh I think most Diane haters are just misogynistic.

One last example is Todd. Todd is supposed to be the sort of comic relief, stupid character (ex. “Todd pick up your shit”) But he has depth!! He has trauma and issues and he’s asexual, which is pretty cool because I never see asexuals in tv shows. id say a time you get a little glimpse into Todd as a whole is when he tells Bojack; “it’s not the drugs, it’s not the alcohol, it’s not the shitty things that happened to you when you were a kid, you are all the things that are wrong with you. Fuck, Man what else is there to say?” which is an amazing line and a hard truth that Bojack kinda needed to hear. Also may I add the genius use of the word fuck in the entire series, only using it once per season to really put emphasis on something. It is not used casually in the show. The only time it is used in season one is when BoJack tries to apologize to Herb and he says “Now get the fuck out of my house.” Which is a very big deal for BoJack.

Overall, this is way too long and I think it takes actual talent to be able to portray depression so well and have lines like “before I jumped, I should have seen the view from halfway down” (which btw is gonna be my yearbook quote) and also be about talking animals and be animated. Genuinely very impressive.

edit: I CANT BELIEVE I FORGOT SARAH LYNN OH MY GOD

[davekat-sucks]

Vriska is my favorite character in homestuck because she did nothing wrong. Jokes aside, the real reason is because I find her to be a pretty interesting character, and its not even because shes particularly complicated. Its the fact that she feels like a real troll. One of my biggest criticisms of Homestuck and Hussie himself is that he went to great lengths to create an entire fictional species with its own culture, way of reproduction, relationships, etc. All as a joke to make fun of shippers and then completely fucking abandon this golden ticket of world building. Literally all of the surviving trolls are human-lite at this point and most have been ret-conned to not even really liking the troll way of doing things anyway. All except Vriska. Shes the only one who felt in-between worlds. She was constantly on the verge of leaning one side or the other, especially because of the influences of John and Terezi, and even her own death. The "You dont have to be a good person to be a hero" is one of the best speeches of homestuck and a phenomenal characterization point for Vriska, so naturally in a later update, that same Vriska trash talked it because Hussie cant hold a serious idea for a fucking second.

It speaks to how Vriska has to adapt from being, as Dave so eloquently puts it "hell murder world" to playing nice and not murdering people on a whim like she was conditioned to, and would be expected of, on Alternia. Vriska and Eridan were really the only two highbloods that acted as highbloods were characterized to act. Feferi was a weirdo, Gamzee was high, and Equius was a pussy. Eridan was a side character turned brief villain who was then killed and never mentioned again. But then we had Vriska, who stuck around for awhile, and was relevant as a ghost then came back to life and we all had to deal with her. I feel like Vriska's journey of dealing with troll shit combined with human sensibilities should have been what all of them went through, but Karkat, Terezi and Kanaya really had no fucking problem going with the human ways of romance. Oh sure, Terezi tries to do a blackrom with John but he himself admits he doesnt really feel that way about her, since its not in humans to feel that way. The quadrants are dead, and its unlikely they'll make a return. Oh, sure there were spades in Vrissy's eyes when Tavros kissed her cheek (Or was it harry? I dont fucking care) but its not going to go anywhere.

Trolls as an alien species whose moral views are fucked up compared to humans, is way more interesting when it first started. It what makes them ALIENS. Foreign. That's what people loved about them. Now, people just make grey humans and slap troll horns on it and call it a day. Sure there is the whole rebellion this and that, but what about trolls that embrace being bad and awful people? Where are the gold diggers? Where are the cannibalists? What about a troll scientist that raises the dead and experiments body parts for their interest in science? Because in Alternia, that type of shit is seen as normal thing to do and justified. Vriska was interesting that she was like "yeah, I'm 8ad and DAMN proud!" I don't remember if she knew that Doc Scratch was the being that made trolls violent in nature. If she did, I would bet you she would be happy it happened because she wouldn't be where she was. And people who abandon that kind of nature don't deserve to be as awesome as her. Would have been interesting to see that kind of narrative of trolls that knowing their origins are fucked up, but damn proud. Whether they take time to change or don't as they use it to their advantage to keep rising up, would be interesting to explore in fanventures or fanfics. Part of me wants the latter since change is hard and I like my trolls being bad people. But that's just me. And if people say that the violent nature was only there because Doc Scratch made it so, doesn't that apply to quadrants? So there is no reason for anyone on Earth C to commit it. Not trolls, humans, or Carapacians. So Vrissy and Tavros should not be in one. I also mentioned before that Vrissy and Tavros are technically cousins in some way. So not only they are kismesis, but incest? So incest is fine on Earth C? Or only if one party is a troll? Earth C makes it vague what troll customs are allowed that isn't the caste system.