#he plays the antagonist that observes and understands everything he sees so well

[divineandmajesticinone]

25 Ji, Akasaka de / At 25:00 in Akasaka (2024) I 1.05

Nagumo Shoma as Yamase Kazuma

[themuppetarchives]

Statement of Jonathan Sims, The Archivist, regarding recent occurences surrounding the phenomenon of "The Yellow Door". Transcribed by subject 12 June, 2024. Statement begins:

The door first appeared on 10 June, 2024, while Two was infected by the so-called "soul virus". A mysterious entity approached Two with offers of a cure, instructing them to travel to the astral plane and "look for the yellow door".

Since, there have been multiple sightings of the door by various parties, including an attempted investigation [See CID:5914 and CID:5701].

Perhaps most curious of all is gonzobatman's claim that, while he was "making up" everything about his soul virus (I had suspected this), he himself has begun dreaming of the door himself.

This leads me to several theories:

First, that the door itself is, as I and @muppet-blackwood originally suspected, a manifestation of the entity known as The Distortion [See index:entities] and,

Second, that the Distortion is manifesting as a shared madness spread amongst everyone who comes into contact with it. I believe this explains the soul virus as well, and I can draw several conclusions from how the virus manifested in Two. The Distortion feeds upon madness and unreality, two elements that are prominent across the muppetverse, and concentrate around The Muppet Joker himself. I do not believe he is the source of this madness, perse, but he does seem to concentrate, attract, and redistribute it. The influence of The Distortion has found a foothold in the minds of those involving themselves deeply within the brotherhood (both positively and antagonistically). This caused Two to react to the presentation of a spiritual infection as if it was reality, they themselves creating how the symptoms manifested within them influened by their own fears and the fears inheirted from The Muppet Joker (ie horses).

When 57 engaged in their research of the Yellow Door, they reported that what came through it was...a plushie horse. This is not a known shape to this entity, however it follows given the mind of 57 themselves - once again, projecting both puppets and horses as the chosen psychopomps to appear through.

Both Five and 57 have expressed the theory of belief as the medium through which these fears are manifesting. I do not necessarily disagree, but would propose a reframing of his perspective. Belief is indeed powerful, and it is in fact a fundamental philosophy of my own that belief is the foundational material of our shared realities (perhaps I will make a seperate post about this theology at some point, if there is interest). I would further define the idea of belief into more specific categories, such as Fear and Hope - both powerful forces in their own right. In this case, it is fear that is the driving power influencing how various entities are manifesting on this plane.

I would imagine, should someone outside of the Brotherhood (such as one of my fellow researchers, or one of the "enemies" of The Muppet Joker such as Mis, Denise, or Gonzobatman) were to approach the door, it would present itself not as a horse, but as something otherwise representative of their own driving fears. To what end? Perhaps none. It is not out of the realm of possibility that The Distortion has appeared for the sole reason of sowing chaos and discord. It may simply be bored and playing a game with us. I would encourage everyone interested to - and I understand the irony of this statement coming from myself - not overthink this. The more you doubt your own mind, the stronger the hold of this entity becomes. This is not a being of logic or sense, do not try to ascribe it any. Paradoxically, the more you try to understand it and make sense of it, the deeper into the spiral you're pulled.

I will continue to observe. Regardless of the reasoning, its appearance and sudden prominence is...troubling.

[STATEMENT ENDS.]

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

Let's overthink Jiang Cheng's antagonistic role and the play on a Romantic False Lead he helps represent along with the misconception of Wei Wuxian being an "unreliable narrator"! I will note this is not necessarily in the shipping sense for Jiang Cheng. As I think in the text itself it is very clear from Wei Wuxian's point he silently viewed his place among the Jiangs as familial and wished that as so despite the many barriers the family had set with him on various personal levels. But I do think a solid case could be made concerning Jiang Cheng from a heavy fandom standpoint.

In the past, it was Jiang Cheng Wei Wuxian would latch onto for miscellaneous protection despite Jiang Cheng's erupt lectures towards him. He had been the constant within Wei Wuxian's life and Wei Wuxian was at least quiet certain of remaining by Jiang Cheng's side for the whole of his life according to their promise of remaining together as Sect Leader and servant. There was a very heavy underlying push to trust Jiang Cheng over Lan Wangji, who was the unknown factor within Wei Wuxian's life and did disrupt his expectations several times.

In contrast within these flashback parallels we have:

Jiang Cheng who is Wei Wuxian's fellow disciple and childhood friend, Lan Wangji a foreign sect disciple raised in a completely different environment from Wei Wuxian who is perceivably against everything Wei Wuxian is.

The Xuanwu Cave predicament where Wei Wuxian stays instead of Jiang Cheng, notably, for the others protection and also to assist a wounded Lan Wangji. It's here where Wei Wuxian at the time is under the impression that he is hated by Lan Wangji due to Lan Wangji withholding his own feelings as well as pushing away the attempts of friendship Wei Wuxian tries to extend. At this point despite the audience having a clear understanding of future events, Wei Wuxian has not lived them, his perception of events is not marred from his own unreliability but Lan Wangji's angry hesitance. It is after this incident where the dynamics begin to noticeably shift, at least for the audience, to how Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji are presented to Wei Wuxian post-resurrection. It's the first glimpse of Lan Wangji showing a softer side of himself to Wei Wuxian by holding a conversation with him and nursing him while fevered which is only implied as Wei Wuxian unsure if it was reasonably a fever dream. Jiang Cheng after the massacre of Lotus Pier begins to show signs of the aggressive hate he holds for Wei Wuxian when when he strangles him. Before the audience had been privy to the utter trust Wei Wuxian had put in him for years and had known the softer aspects Jiang Cheng had at one point in their youth and who had not been on the receiving end of Jiang Cheng's resentment that violently.

The dynamic shift once more to resemble their original relationships with Wei Wuxian, albeit twisted, with the torture of Wen Chao. Lan Wangji aggressively questions Wei Wuxian's new found cultivation, where as Jiang Cheng to Wei Wuxian is on equal understanding of what Wei Wuxian wants. He quite literally welcomes Wei Wuxian with open arms once more while Lan Wangji is the one to express perceived cold judgement for Wei Wuxian's morality, which was already shaken by his time within the Burial Mounds. It is only when Wei Wuxian has the time to reflect post-resurrection that he comes to see that Lan Wangji's words were out of concern due to the time he has spent with him, something he did not ever have in their youth.

It is not until Wei Wuxian has fled with the Wei remnants where the two are once again paralleled with each other. Jiang Cheng has disowned Wei Wuxian for survival of Lotus Pier and only secretly meets Wei Wuxian once, while that visit is rife with awkwardness and bitterness over Wei Wuxian's actions against Jiang Cheng's stance over the remaining Wens. Lan Wangji on the other hand is not as aggressive in his questioning of Wei Wuxian's actions as he had been before, he chooses to spend the day with him and A-Yuan in observation and to finally ruminate on Wei Wuxian's choices, something he had not done in Wei Wuxian's presence until that moment. In the future Wei Wuxian is far more privy to this side of Lan Wangji and quickly gets comfortable in Lan Wangji's trust in him enough to easily return that equal trust.

The play with flashbacks is what many mistake as Wei Wuxian's false narrations when there simply is not room within the past for Wei Wuxian to ponder the actions of others unlike his self of 13 years later. I'll explore the further dynamics of that in a companion post to this as a further exploration between Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji's role for Wei Wuxian sometime later down the line.

[linkspooky]

What do you think of Mahito, his role in the story's future, and what he might represent? I can't stop thinking of how he literally acts as an antithesis to Yuji (besides being his primary foil), humanity and the narrative itself and how that might mean that he is the main antagonist of Jujutsu Kaisen.

What are your thoughts on the new JJK chapter? With what Mahito said to Yuji at the start of the chapter?

Answering these asks together. Thank you both for sending them!

I’m going to center this analysis around Mahito’s statement that you are me, and his role as antithesis to Yuji as the anon stated above. There are two big ways you can interpret Mahito’s statement. They are the same in the sense that they are character foils, that Mahito is the Jungian Shadow to Yuji and all of his actions. The second one is based around the idea that Jujutsu Kaisen at large plays with Budhism, and BUdhist ideas, it’s an argument that Mahito and Itadori are spiritually the same. Not contradictory forces but complimentary, the whole of them each containing parts of the other. I’m not the best at explaining japanese budhism, because I myself am not a japanese budhist, but I will try my best under the cut. 

1. Spiritually the Same

So, Mahito’s arguments are ones that require a certain amount of abstraction to make sense. 

For example, is saving people the same as killing people? No, obviously not.

Alright, there’s your answer. Let’s go home, give me notes please. To understand Mahito’s argument you have to understand how far away from other living people his perspective is. 

Mahito positions himself as a third party observing from afar. From his position everything has a tendency to look the same. Let me explain: if every living creature has a soul, then what gives weight to human souls?

Heart, weight, both of those are words that are essentially trying to give human lives “worth.” Are human lives “worth something?” Are they more worthy than the lives of animals, plants, curses, etc. The way Mahito sees it everything has a soul. Even plants have a soul. However, there’s nothing too different in the souls of humans, from the souls of say bugs. The only difference he himsel sees is that humans have a capacity for reason. 

“The so-called dignity obtained by human reason”, humans assume their lives are more worthwhile, more dignified then say, the life of your dog, because a human has the intellectual capacity for logical reasoning and a full range of emotions on display, and your dog has been barking at his reflection in the mirror for twenty minutes because he thinks it’s another dog. 

Ideas of good and evil are not natural laws of the universe. They are made up by human reason. They only exist because humans said they do, and give reasons to them. Mahito’s perspective is a natural one on the world. 

The reason that humans are different from monkeys is just a quirk of evolution that enabled them to gain more brain mass over millions of years, and then gained higher amounts of intelligence. Everything else was reasoned out, ex posto facto. Humans come up with reasons why things happen after the fact, but they just happened. Humans just happened to evolve. 

If the natural state of the universe is chaos, and there’s no foreseen hand guiding everything, then things that happen just happen. There is no particular meaning to them. You can make up a meaning, but who is to say one invented meaning is more important than the other? 

There’s life on this planet, because we just so happened to be a certain distance away from the sun to enable an ideal climate for liquid water on the surface. Therefore, life is not some necessarily some thing that needs to be protected. It’s just there. 

If both Mahito and Yuji are fighting up with their made up value of life, Mahito believing there is no value, and Yuji believing there’s value worth preserving, then Yuji needs to actually make an argument. If no objective right or wrong exists, Yuji needs to prove why he’s right, rather than insisting he’s doing the right thing without thought. 

Yuji and Mahito are each other, because they both embody an ideal in the way life should be treated. 

When Mahito is saying this, it’s because Yuji gives weight to human lives, but not weight to the light of curses. That is to say, Yuji is fixated on the idea of giving humans a “good death” because he believes they’re owed that dignity, but will absolutely brutalize and tear curses to pieces. This is something Gojou commented on in chapter three, HUH ISN’T IT WEIRD THAT YUJI DIDN’T REALLY GROW UP SURROUNDED BY CURSES AND ALL I NEEDED TO DO WAS GIVE HIM A KNIFE AND POINT AT THAT AND SAY GO KILL THAT THING AND HE DID IT. 

Let’s say it wasn’t a curse for a moment. Let’s say Yuji wrestled and killed a tiger with his bare hands and afterwards you saw him skinning it. From a certain perspective his actions might look brutal. You killed and skinned a cat. Well, yeah, but I wouldn’t do this to a human. From a certain perspective his actions might look justified. There was an old lady nearby and I didn’t want to maul her. However, if you believe spiritually that humans are nothing special and all living things have equal dignity, Yuji killing and skinning that tiger is a violation of that dignity. 

Yuji believes that humans have dignity and wants to perserve that dignity even in death. That’s not objective fact though, that’s his own personal belief that he’s fighting for. 

The official translation even has Yuji call it a natural death rather than a good death. However, is Yuji just imposing what he believes to be good and insisting it’s the natural order of the world instead? 

Mahito’s argument is essentially that there is no right or wrong, and therefore the two of them are just both presenting ideas. If the order of the world is one where creatures constantly consume each other in order to survive, then what is so wrong about the curses fighting it out with humans against who becomes top dog? Curses are shown to have sentience same as humans. They don’t have human kindness, or compassion but they’re capable of assigning thoughts, and reasons behind their actions the same way humans do. What makes one life more worthy for another? Mahito’s words are a challenge, to come up with some reason to defy him. 

However, there’s a flaw in Mahito’s argument. 

Mahito’s argument is one that states nothing is a reason. All life is equal therefore one life doesn’t matter or is worth more than the other. However, then he uses that to give himself moral permission to do whatever he want. 

What do I mean by he needs moral permission? 

Mahito is justifying his actions, excusing his actions, the same way that Yuji is.

The appearance of the black flash this chapter signifies that the universe is a neutral party to both Yuji and Mahito’s fight. The universe is indifferent to both of them. However, Mahito presents himself as someone who is also indifferent, and objective, when he’s not. 

Mahito isn’t doing what he does for no reason at all. Mahito does it because he loves humans, while Yuji does it because he hates humans. Mahito tries to give permission to Junpei, he tries to give permission to himself. His views are not that of a true nihilist, because a nhilist wouldn’t seek permission like that. Mahito’s are that of a moral nihilist. All life is worthless, therefore I can do whatever I want with it. That’s not an expression of nihilism, or the abstract idea that there are no set goals or values to life. That’s just Mahito giving an excuse to why he wants to toy around with human life. 

(Also, I don’t really understand japanese budhism from the perspective of a japanese person, so please feel free to correct me on any of this, I’m just trying to go off of what was presented in the story! I’d love to hear other people’s perspectives). 

But basically what I’m talking about is expressed here by Mr. Yoshimura if you read Tokyo Ghoul. 

If all life on this planet is just trying to survive, and in compettition with one another to survive, then the taking of all life is equally evil. A human killing a curse for survival, and a curse killing a human for survival is the same FROM THAT PERSPECTIVE. 

However, I would argue that this assertion that “Life is Evil” is being said by a PERSON and that person is making a VALUE JUDGEMENT. Evil is an idea same as good. Life is neutral, life is random, life is indifferent, life is just atoms smashing around in pure utter chaos but it’s not necessarily evil and definitely not in the way Mahito takes it to be. 

2. We’re like the Same Dude

The second is that Mahito and Yuji are character foils. They are characters in a narrative who are meant to reflect each other, specifically that of the protagonist, and their shadow. 

Jung stated the shadow to be the unknown dark side of the personality. According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to psychological projection, in which a perceived personal inferiority is recognized as a perceived moral deficiency in someone else.

If Yuji and Mahito were two parts of the same whole person, like two halves of the brain, Yuji would be the sensible, reasonable half, and Mahito would be the one acting on pure emotion and instinct. 

Mahito and Yuji are both curse/human hybrids. They are both individuals that blur the line between humans and curses. Mahito is specifically, a curse that was created from the human fear of one another which makes him the most human of the curses and the most adept to change or growth. Yuji is a normal kid (as far as we know) who swallowed a finger, and his entire body became curse energy. He is half curse, and half human, in the regard that he is Sukuna and he is Yuji at the same time. 

Yuji and Mahito are people who both embody a vague area between human and curse, a curse that acts like a human, a human that acts like a curse in vice versa, however they choose to cling onto different apsects of their being. It’s ambiguous whether or not Mahito is a humanlike curse, but Mahito himself defines himself as only ever being a curse. Just like Yuji sees himself as a human too, he sees himself as Yuji, and not Yuji and Ryomen Sukuna at the same time. 

It’s Mahito who encourages the others to act more like curses, to live on impulse than desire, instead of trying to restrain themselves for the sake of reason. However, this is ironic, because the reason that Mahito is getting raised up as the leader of the curse family is because he is the mirror to humans, and is the most humanlike of all the curses. 

Mahito wants to be a pure curse, but his path requires him to become more and more human. Yuji wants to be a pure human, but his path in ingesting fingers will require him to become more and more curselike as time progresses. He will over time become more Ryomen Sukuna and less Yuji Itadori until the time comes for him to be executed after ingesting all twenty fingers. They are like opposite reflections in the mirror, clinging onto opposite parts of themselves. 

It’s even shown in their foiling in the Junpei arc. They both encourage Junpei to do the opposite things. Mahito encourages Junpei to follow his baser instincts and curse other people, to resent them for what they have done to him. 

Yuji however, applies to Junpei’s sense of reasoning and higher thinking. He suggests there’s a better plan than Junpei’s simple acting on. He asks Junpei not to do what he thinks is best in the moment and lash out on those feelings alone like Mahito suggested, not to follow his instinct to curse, but rather try to follow reason to find who is really at fault and then punish the correct person. Yuji appeals to the fact that Junpei have both empathy for the people he’s randomly lashing out at over his own pain, and that he has the ability to separate himself from his pain and try to search for what’s right instead. 

These are opposite ideas, and Mahito and Yuji clearly look at the world with completely opposite perspectives. However, these perspectives don’t contradict, they are complimentary. The existence of a shdaow doesn’t mean the conscious mind is right. The existence of the consious mind doesn’t mean the shadow isn’t there. In other words, light and shadow don’t negate each other, light cannot exist without shadow. 

In less poetic words. Whenever you make any action, your good intentions are equally as valid as your bad ones. There’s no such thing as a person without bad intentions. Anything can be seen from a both good and bad light. What Mahito argues to Yuji, is that Yuji was ignoring all along how dangerous an individual he was. Yuji uses his powers to save people, and he wants to become strong, but as has been pointed out in the manga before having all that strength collected in one person can be used oppressively and violently. 

This is what Getou says to Gojou. If he was Gojou he’d have the power to kill every last human being alive and spare only the sorcerers. Gojou is someone sitting on all that power. Power alone doesn’t justify itself. Equally as important is the choices and the reasoning behind wielding that power. What Mahito was pointing out, and what the plot is emphasizing is that Yuji was wielding that power, especially the power of Ryomen Sukuna in a way that was poorly thought out. 

Which is the point of this scene when Yuji realized the scope of Sukuna’s rampage. Yuji didn’t seriously think of the possibility that he was a walking bomb waiting to go off. This was brought up as an argument in the Kyoto arc, that it might be safer for everyone to just kill Yuji now so Sukuna doesn’t have the chance to get out. And then. Sukuna got out. And that’s what happened. 

Mahito isn’t saying that Yuji is good or bad, he’s saying Yuji hasn’t thought about what good or bad even is. Yuji only ever saw the good intention of his actions, he saw himself as a person saving others, and because of that he didn’t think properly about the risk he inherently carrying. He didn’t realize how dangerous of a person he was for carrying Sukuna around like that. Mahito is the unacknowledged shadow of Yuji’s actions, following him through the plot, and punishing him for his ignorance. 

Yuji is a good kid, but sadly the nature of the universe being true neutral good intentions don’t always lead to good results. It’s just a burden that Yuji has to think about, and carry with him as he moves on. Which I really, really want him to do. Yuji can think more, live on and live with his regrets, and still try to do the right thing even after enduring all of this because that’s what makes him human. 

Just like how all reasons for fighting are made up, humans are able to make up whatever reason they want to keep fighting. It goes both way. If all lives have equal weight. You don’t have to take it from Mahito’s perspective that they’re worth nothing. You can also take it from Yuji’s perspective, that every life is worth fighting for, worth living, because you and I are worth just as much as one another. 

[nesta-stan]

Acosf Theory: Nesta being kidnapped by the Mortal Queens will be a major plot point.

We all already know that the queens are going to play a major role from the synopsis. I think that specifically it will be the youngest Queen who will act as Nesta's main antagonist. She is the perfect character to act as a foil for Nesta.

Lets start with the younger queen herself.

"And the youngest two queens … One was perhaps a few years older than me, black-haired and black-eyed, careful cunning oozing from every pore as she surveyed us.

"The youngest queen, the dark-haired one, smiled slightly. Arrogant youth"

Here we see a few similarities between Nesta and that Queen. She is arrogant, "Cunning", proud, and about the same age as Nesta. They were both made into things they didn't want to be. To the Queen, Nesta has everything she wanted; she got the youth the power, and the money.

“The youngest one—that pinched-faced bitch—went into the Cauldron first. Practically trampled the others to get in after it saw what it did to you and your sister.”

Stone screamed beneath twin sets of talons. “But the Cauldron … Oh, it knew that something had been taken from it. Not sentient, but … it knew. It was furious. And when that young queen went in …”

The Ravens laughed. Laughed as the slope leveled out and we found ourselves at the bottom of the library.

“Oh, it gave her immortality. It made her Fae. But since something had been taken from it … the Cauldron took what she valued most. Her youth.” They sniggered again. “A young woman went in … but a withered crone came out.”

And from the catacombs of my memory, Elain’s voice sounded: I saw young hands

wither with age.

“The other queens won’t go into the Cauldron for terror of the same happening now. And the youngest one … Oh, you should hear how she talks, Nesta Archeron. The things she wants to do to you when Hybern is done …”

The Queen is angry at Nesta and Nesta is angry at the Queens. I'm going to be honest, when it comes to SJM's main villains like the king of hybern they seem to be one dimensional but this Queen's circumstances can be what forces Nesta to look further at her own. This Queen is what Nesta might have been. She might even be a deciding factor on who Nesta chooses to become.

Why this would make Nesta going to the Illyrian mountains make more sense

"She wasn’t stupid—she knew there had been unrest, both in Prythian and on the continent, since the war had ended. Knew some Fae territories were pushing their new limits on what they could get away with in terms of territory claims and how they treated humans."

These are Nesta's thoughts before going to see her sister in the sneak peak. I, and a lot of others, have never been able to wrap our heads around how the Illyrian mountains could ever be a good place for Nesta. Yes, a lot of people use the excuse "it's for her healing" but there is never any reasoning behind why illyria?

The mortal Queens know about Velaris. If Feyre and the inner circle have caught on to a plan to kidnap Nesta, than it makes sense that they would try to hide her away somewhere safe. Especially since she is basically helpless on her own. Cassian is the only character, besides Feyre, that cares about Nesta's well being and Illyria is filled with soldiers ready to fight at a moment's notice, while Velaris isn't. It is also where she can train. This threat has probably made Feyre realize how defenseless her sister is and to give her a fighting chance, she forces Nesta to train.

Now, let's talk about the "Ally" the synopsis mentioned. I think it's the Illyrians. That's how she still ends up captured. They betray Cassian and offer his mate to the mortal Queens. Though we all refer to this as Nesta's book, it's Cassian’s too. The Illyrians are closest to his heart. So it makes sense that they are included in his Arc. He has long been bad mouthed and treated as lowly for his status but he never stopped loving his people. Instead he internalized it, but what happens when the woman of his affections suffers because of that hatred? It would be the perfect tool to force Cassian to self-reflect on who he is and what he stands for. Can he choose between his people and his love?

This ties in with the snow queen theory

I actually first thought of this when reevaluating the theory that the story that will work as an inspiration for this book is the Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson. There are three versions of that story that all could potentially tie into to Acofas. The original, Frozen, and the 2002 movie remake.

Frozen because it is the tale of two sisters coming together after years of estrangement. (Feyre and Nesta obviously). 

I put the 2002 version in their because in that version of the story has "Lady's" portraying and ruling over each season. Their is a spring witch, summer princess (cresseida) , Autumn thief, and then the snow queen(Vivian?). Meaning more characters might play more roles in this story. I did see alot of wanting Nesta to travel to the other courts.

Now for the original, which probably looks like it has the most connection to Acosf. The story is short and easy to find online. In short, it's about a girl Named Gerda who goes on a quest to find Kay, her childhood friend. A magic mirror created by the devil , that I'm not going into detail much but it's basically the Ouroboros, is shattered and falls into the eyes and heart of young Kay. (Snow Queen also speculated to have a shard in her heart) This makes him cruel to his sister like friend over the next year till he is kidnapped by the snow queen.

This story ties in for multiple reasons. I think hear the mirror is replaced by the Cauldron. Both the Mortal Queen and Nesta were made and neither or happy about it. This being the "glass shard that froze their hearts." And the Mortal Queen being the Snow Queen who kidnapped Kay, or Nesta. Also, Kay is cruel to Gerda for a year before he is taken and it's been a year since the war.

Now let's look at this Quote.

“Little Kay was quite blue, yes nearly black with cold; but he did not observe it, for she had kissed away all feeling of cold from his body, and his heart was a lump of ice. He was dragging along some pointed flat pieces of ice, which he laid together in all possible ways, for he wanted to make something with them; just as we have little flat pieces of wood to make geometrical figures with, called the Chinese Puzzle. Kay made all sorts of figures, the most complicated, for it was an ice-puzzle for the understanding. In his eyes the figures were extraordinarily beautiful, and of the utmost importance; for the bit of glass which was in his eye caused this. He found whole figures which represented a written word; but he never could manage to represent just the word he wanted—that word was “eternity”; and the Snow Queen had said, “If you can discover that figure, you shall be your own master, and I will make you a present of the whole world and a pair of new skates.” But he could not find it out.”

I always interpreted that if this was going to inspire something in Acotar it would be Metaphorical. That the injuries Kay suffers would be how Nesta let herself fall apart and the puzzle that he needed to spell eternity for could be how Nesta still doesn't know what to do with her immortal life.

But what if it's literally? What if the Queen captures Nesta and tries to use her powers to fix her. The Queen was also granted immortality. What if Kay figuring out how to spell eternity is Nesta figuring out how to fix the young Queen. And the injuries are of being black and blue are from the queens torchering her?

Sjm's habits.

Sjm always has a habit of making her characters go through even deeper shit, once they finally healed. It would make sense that she would throw us another curve ball like this. She did something similar with Aelin in Koa, and she has reused some points before. Like Aedion and Lysandra taking Nessian's "till the next life".

Also, alot of people don't like Nesta and having even worse charecters be introduced to make the others look better is so in Sjm style. Just in the way that Tamlin and Eris make Rhysand look like a Saint, having the mortal Queen be the "bad" version of Nesta would help people see her in a better light.

I tried to look at this in the way of, What will make these Charecters question themselves and their motives the most. This was my conclusion.

This is just what I came up with, if you have any differing thoughts or ideas I would love to hear them. 

@heylittlemissy @sjm-things 

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

Why Dany’s Motivation for Abolishing Slavery is Not “Condescending Compassion”

Anon: Someone I know irl keeps who’s a Dany anti keeps saying that they don’t like Dany because she has “condescending compassion” for the slaves she freed. I really want to argue back because I know they’re wrong, but I can’t articulate why. Could you give me an example of what condescending compassion really is, and explain why that’s not what Dany is showing?

Whew, it’s been a while since I got an ask about Dany, but I’m always open to defend her. This one was long and interesting for me, so I put it in post form rather than just answering the ask. I hope you don’t mind, anon. 

Dany’s attitude towards the freedmen and the slaves she wants to free in the future is far from “condescending compassion.”

“Condescending Compassion is when a person feels magnanimous enough not to hold someone's 'faults' against them openly. They can't help being a commoner, idiot, mutant or simply wrong so it would be rude to treat them badly because of it. Instead, they resort to the much better idea that they should be sympathetic or even friendly to that lesser being, but of course, they won't really take them seriously.”

Source

This is not what Dany does. Here’s an actual example of condescending compassion. Under the cut for length and Fate/Grand Order spoilers, even though I really don’t think any of my followers know about or play it except for my constant spamming. Also, I will warn you that I ended up talking more about Fate/Grand Order than Dany because I was trying to explain the example, so... sorry about that. Also I got carried away

Someone who really exhibits a serious case of condescending compassion would be Goetia, the main antagonist of Fate/Grand Order Arc 1: Observer on Timeless Temple. Goetia is one of the seven Evils of Humanity, the Sin of Pity, which is, in essence, the embodiment of condescending compassion. To explain: 

Goetia was essentially the collective consciousness of the 72 Demon God Pillars, who were familiars of King Solomon, the founder of magecraft. Solomon made a spell to manifest said collective consciousness as Goetia, so the Demon God Pillars could continue to protect humanity after his death.

As Solomon’s familiar, Goetia shared Solomon’s ability of Clairvoyance, which, in Solomon’s case, enabled him to see all of the past and all of the future. Over time, Goetia became enraged that Solomon refused to do anything about the constant death and suffering of humanity despite being an extremely powerful mage who could see all the hardships that had occurred and were in store (thanks to his Clairvoyance). Thus, after Solomon’s death, Goetia possessed Solomon’s corpse, obtaining the majority of his powers as well as nine of the ten rings given to Solomon by God, which was the source of a good bit of Solomon’s abilities. The tenth ring, however, was sent into the future by Solomon on God’s command, so Goetia wasn’t able to obtain it. That’s an important plot point for later.

Goetia waited until modern day (2018 I think?) and then used measures he had put in place to wipe out all of humanity. Not just the humans living in the present, but all of the humans who had lived in the past were killed, too. So think of it as everyone who exists, ever existed, or will exist, dead. The only survivors were the protagonists of Fate/Grand Order. 

After incinerating humanity, Goetia planned to convert all of the destroyed mankind into magical energy, which he would then use to travel back in time to the planet’s creation. He wanted to start Earth all over again and establish a new humanity. However, this new humanity would be different from the old humanity; they would be unchanging, deathless organisms with no biological or emotional flaws, much like Goetia himself. 

The thing is, Goetia loved humanity in his own way and wanted what he thought was best for them. It essentially goes like this: Humans know so little, while his knowledge, through his Clairvoyance, borders on omniscience. Humans turn on and hurt each other for their own self-interest, while he is capable of thinking and acting on a much wider scale. Humans have to die eventually, unlike him who’s immortal, and so everything that every single human ever did, in Goetia’s mind, was for nothing. Why would it have meaning, if their only possible option is to die eventually? 

Poor things, right? He has to help them. They came out wrong. They’re so weak and hopeless, so he’s going to destroy their existence and their history and create them anew, the right way. (Aka his way.)

The way he loves humanity is belittling. No one wants help from someone who thinks of them like that. This quote is a pretty good summation of his love for humanity, borne of a legitimate case of condescending compassion.

“Do you think being forced to watch the lives of humans is an interesting task, one worthy of me!? I’m sick of it! No matter what happens, they just disappear, and only fear remains! Every human’s life is a story of hate and despair! It’s a terrible thing to watch!”

He invalidates all of humanity’s struggles, every single human’s life, because he’s not human himself. It’s not true that death means that everything that one ever does is pointless, but Goetia, being an immortal being unfamiliar with the concept of death, someone who doesn’t have to worry about an end ever coming to him, doesn’t understand that (for now). This is displayed in the multiple times he asks the protagonist and Mash, the deuteragonist, why. Why do they keep fighting, knowing that they can’t beat him? Even if they somehow could – why do they keep fighting, knowing that they’ll all die one day? Why do they keep fighting, when it’s so pointless?

But then, the basis of Goetia’s immortality is destroyed when Solomon reappears, having actually been one of the protagonist’s main allies disguised as a doctor. Remember that tenth ring that Solomon sent to the future under God’s instruction? Although Goetia has the majority of Solomon’s powers now that he possesses his corpse and the remaining nine rings, the tenth ring was something he never obtained. As it turns out, the real Solomon retrieved that ring, which was used as a catalyst to summon him, when he manifested in the modern era. 

Solomon now uses the power of the gathered ten rings to perform his trump card – The Time of Parting Hath Come, I Am He Who Surrenders the World: Ars Nova – to return all of the powers God gave him back to God. In essence, he “closes the curtain” on himself, everything he has ever done, and everything he’s ever created, including Goetia. Ars Nova removes Solomon entirely from existence (rip), but it also removes Goetia’s immortality, and then the protagonist manages to land a fatal blow on him.

A little before Solomon uses Ars Nova and vanishes, he explains to Goetia why he didn’t try to change humanity the way Goetia did, despite seeing all of the past and future and consequently being exposed over and over again to how inevitable humans’ deaths were. 

“That’s what you fail to understand, Goetia. Of course nothing is eternal, and pain awaits us all in the end. But that doesn’t make life a story of despair. Not at all. It’s a fight against death and separation in what precious little time one is given. It’s a repetition of meeting and parting, despite knowing there’s an end. ...Humans’ stories are dazzling, brief journeys, like the twinkling of the stars. They are stories of love and hope.”

At first, when he was still immortal, Goetia refused this logic, saying that it’s “deception” on Solomon’s part. Now, though, with Solomon having used Ars Nova and the protagonist having landed a fatal blow, Goetia is dying. For the first time, he’s confronted with the possibility of an end to his existence. He has no way, absolutely no means, to prevent his death now. Yet, when the protagonist attempts to escape the now-crumbling dimension in which Goetia made his temple, Goetia says this. (And I cut out a lot, because this is a long-ass monologue.)

“We finally understand each other. I’m not going to let you leave alive. You will die here with me. ...My dream is in ruins. Everything I did here in this temple, all the time I spent planning... All of it, for naught. [...] No matter what I do here, now, I cannot redeem my failure. Killing you will change nothing. ...This is a meaningless battle. This would have been an unthinkable choice for me before. But...

...Yes, indeed. I also have my pride. Or rather, I do now. I now understand human mentality. Now that I have a limited, mortal life, I finally understand. [...] My name is Goetia. I am the one who used humanity to destroy humanity. The one who strove for what lay beyond. A climax with no one around. ...I strove for an empty wish that none truly wanted. I am born now and I shall perish now. This battle may be without resolution or reward, but I shall put my entire being on the line to crush you. ...My sworn enemy. My hatred. My destiny. I want you to witness this. This brief moment is now my story. This brief but precious time has given the creature called Goetia true life.”

This quote is so poignant. Although Goetia attempts to pull a “taking you with me” on the protagonist, this is a rare example of the trope that is not meant to paint the villain in a final negative light, as a petty sore loser. Rather, it’s an indication that Goetia finally understands Solomon’s view on humanity, why humans strive so hard despite their lives being so short, and why the protagonist and Mash put their everything into fighting him despite knowing that they’ll inevitably die no matter what the outcome is. Humans’ time on earth is, in Goetia’s own words, “brief but precious.” He actually echoes what Solomon said about humans’ stories being “dazzling, brief journeys”, despite having so vehemently rejected it when he was immortal.

There’s no point in Goetia killing the protagonist. Just like he once believed human life to be meaningless, it should be meaningless whether he wins or not; he’ll die no matter what, and his plans are already foiled. When he was immortal, he never would have thought like this.

But Goetia isn’t immortal now. He has a finite lifespan; in fact, he’s about to die. There’s nothing he can do to save himself. Yet, he still wants to take the protagonist down with him, simply because he “has his pride.” And what’s more? Even if he loses, he wants the protagonist to witness his end. He asks to be seen, acknowledged, and remembered, despite all his work having been for nothing.

Both of those desires are human things. Goetia now knows what it’s like to be human. His case of condescending compassion is closed; he no longer looks down on humanity, because he understands them. He empathizes with them. He experiences being human. 

But Dany? She never once looked down on the slaves she wanted to free. She doesn’t think, “Oh, poor things. They can’t possibly help themselves, not with how frail and simple they are. They’re so vulnerable, so delicate, so abused. Let me save them.” No. 

Dany always understood what it feels like to be owned. She was abused by her brother for years, with no means to protect herself from him. Then she was sold to a man more than twice her age and made into a glorified sex slave, again with no way to defend herself. She’s already experienced something very much like what the slaves she strives to free have gone through. And even though she later gains agency and power, she never forgets what being owned, being unable to fight back, is like. 

As the hours passed, the terror grew in Dany, until it was all she could do not to scream. She was afraid of the Dothraki, whose ways seemed alien and monstrous, as if they were beasts in human skins and not true men at all. She was afraid of her brother, of what he might do if she failed him. Most of all, she was afraid of what would happen tonight under the stars, when her brother gave her up to the hulking giant who sat drinking beside her with a face as still and cruel as a bronze mask.

A Game of Thrones – Daenerys II

"There speaks one who has been neither." Dany's nostrils flared. "Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and I ... my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?"

A Storm of Swords – Daenerys II

Safe. The word made Dany's eyes fill up with tears. "I want to keep you safe." Missandei was only a child. With her, she felt as if she could be a child too. "No one ever kept me safe when I was little. Well, Ser Willem did, but then he died, and Viserys … I want to protect you but … it is so hard. To be strong. I don't always know what I should do. I must know, though. I am all they have. I am the queen … the … the …"

A Dance with Dragons – Daenerys II

More than anything else, Daenerys always understood that her brother sold her as a bargaining chip – his own sister, and he uses her like some animal hide to trade off. She understood that she could do nothing to defend herself when she was with Viserys, and later, with Drogo. If they wanted to hurt her, no one would have stood up for her, no one would have protected her, and if she tried to protect herself, she would have been punished. She was in the same position as an object; no rights and no guarantees of basic decency. Dany experienced that fear and dehumanization firsthand. She empathizes with the slaves she wants to free in the way that Goetia, only at the end of his life, empathized with humans.

That’s why she wants to abolish slavery. She went through that horror firsthand, and she doesn’t want anyone else to have to go through it again. She wants to protect people from it, because she knows how awful and disgusting and traumatic it is. 

TLDR: It’s a complete and gross mischaracterization to write off Dany’s motivations for abolishing slavery as “condescending compassion”. It’s spitting on everything that she suffered from Viserys and from Drogo. It’s empathy, not condescending compassion, that motivates her. 

[mikaze-discord]

OG Heavens: Love letters

For these Heavens posts, I had reached out to a few people who just never ended up responding. With projects like these, please at least hear them out, you don't have to do it because I know its a huge project but at least tell them you won't be doing it instead of ghosting them. But apart from that little road block, this project was really fun!!

Please enjoy under the cut!!!!

EIICHI OTORI

From @milkmateartist:

I have always leaned towards megane characters and Eiichi is no exception. However, it's not often you see idols wearing glasses, and that is something I appreciate about Eiichi's design. His color palette also intrigues me since I love deep shades of blue. His royal blue jacket is very attractive, and the way he pops the collar also makes me go "kya!".  His voice is also very sexy as well and is pleasing to the ear uwu. I love how egoistic he is too. Being incredibly ambitious he has been able to reach amazing heights that surpass other idols. The one thing that seems to make him unique though is that he really gets zealous and overly passionate when it comes to the power of music, so much that it makes him physically tremble. You could get high off that shit literally. His entire being is centered around being an idol, and all the components of him go above and beyond the requirements. It's not just a job for him or something that simply makes an earning or brings satisfaction. It's pretty much everything to him. For that reason he has made it to the top. There is also the component where he's lonely and isolated emotionally that interests me. Despite being a beloved idol, he clearly didn't get the love he needed growing up. Even though he had Eiji I feel as though his nature was more to protect Eiji and shield him from whatever terrors would arise. I admire his ability to come through all of that and pay attention to the things he really cared about. Eiichi can be himself, his strange, sexy self, but also he acknowledges the lonesome darkness within too. I think that component makes him incredibly powerful.

Extra Details:

While appearing to be a bad guy in the anime (at least), Eiichi seemed to be that typical bad boy idol that would steal away Haruka from the main group. The time when he approached Haruka and took her by the chin is a perfect example. How dare this new guy just think he can have his way with our protagonist!  To be honest I liked that aspect about him a bit. While I can't remember my first impression of Eiichi aside from not knowing how to feel about that, he slowly grew on me. He had the appearance of just another selfish idol, demonstrated by swiping the mic away from the announcer at one of his concerts and immediately declaring their foreseen victory. So far that looked rather bland to me, and I was still cheering for STARISH. They really made him out to look like some bad guy who would not play fair and do whatever he could to take the throne (and the girl).  It's not surprising his glasses shine adds to his 'freaky antagonist' vibe that the show seemed to try to give off, but however for me I love the glasses beam, thus having the opposite effect.

And then there is the Next Door episode. Now here's where we got to see more of Eiichi aside from when the HEAVENS Dragon demolished the entire stadium. Aside from kya-ing over the EiichiOtoya content (especially where he goes behind otoya and covers his eyes), I got to see more of him here. It surprised me that someone so cocky and confident was actually the same depressed, lonely person that Otoya was. But it was also evident to me as well that he did care about the effect it had on Otoya as well after he sort-of-well mind broke him. I like how he is ambitious but also still caring, as compared to an antagonist that would stop at nothing to achieve their goal regardless of how much pain they cause.

I also enjoy Eiichi because I feel like I can roleplay him well. Usually for me, roleplay has to achieve some kind of goal since I tend to be business oriented. I think to some degree I'm able to practice being a eboy idol through Eiichi, as I do enjoy charming the fans. It also helps that I can naturally play characters with an inflated ego who enjoy charming people.

From @/egoisticCEO on twt:

July 2019. When Eiichi was first introduced to me via his voice, I hated him from the very beginning. His singing, his appearance, his personality – everything about him made me despise him. It’s funny looking back and seeing how quickly my attitude changed towards him, realising I’d been biased against him because of a friend. Finding more about him, hate turned to interest. It seemed like his life hadn’t been the best. Maybe that was why he acted in such a way? Interest turned to liking him more. Maybe I’d misunderstood him. I’d made the mistake of taking him at surface level.

December 2019. Like was slowly turning to love. More and more, I found myself looking at him instead of my current favourites. I found myself wanting him to actually be a part of Egoistic. Once I started devouring HEAVENS Radio and unveiling his true character, it was shocking how quickly I fell. He truly acted like a father to everyone in his band. Giving them what he never received. Everything was for them to thrive.

2020. With how much I was at home, it only made sense I grew more obsessed. I found Life with Thanks’ translation. “We’re irreplaceable to him,” he tells us, and that made me certain that his heart wasn’t as evil as some people liked to believe. He’s a caretaker, someone who wants everyone to feel like they matter. Even at his own expense. Instead of selfish, he’s selfless.

I related to him more than I have to any character – it was comforting. Seeing someone have no choice but to put on a brave face, even when his confidence was at an all time low. 2020 got a lot harder for me, but when I recovered, Eiichi was like a home to go back to. Time and time again, I’d have to break away, but I’d always be invited back in by that stupid smirk and overexaggerated ego and the warmest heart you could ever find. Every scene I watched with him would make me smile. I’d tease him to myself. I still do.

2021. That brings us to now. I can’t see my love for this one of a kind man dying any time soon. I don’t want it to, either. Just looking at him makes me happy! He’s the type of character with so many facets to his personality that you can keep digging and never reach the end. So, in conclusion, I hope I never stop finding new things out about this wonderful idiot. More than anything, he deserves all the love he gives to others, and I’d love to provide it tenfold.

KIRA SUMERAGI

From Anon: 

Many have their reasons to love their favorite characters. As for me, why Kira Sumeragi is my favorite character is because there are several things about him that I can relate myself to and there are a few qualities he has that I like about him. If many do not know about Kira that much, they’d look at who he is. He may look intimidating at first and may not talk much, when in actuality, Kira is a considerate, dependable, and mindful guy. Mainly, he is the type of guy that lets his actions do the explaining. He is a hard worker, as an idol, he looks after his bandmates, HEAVENS, like family. It’s like what Eiichi said in HEAVENS Radio about Kira, “he is HEAVENS’ pride!” Although he may not say much, Kira is very observant of his surroundings and never hesitates in his decisions. The members of HEAVENS understand and acknowledge Kira, knowing that he means well.

You can even tell in his solo music! Although there are only two solo songs for Kira, if you read the lyrics carefully, Kira’s thoughts and feelings are shown. Kira always knew that if he cannot explain his feelings through words, then he’ll let his songs and his actions do it for him for you to see.  Although the anime doesn’t show much of Kira, the only way to get to know him more is through HEAVENS Radio, also drama CDs like Paradise Lost, and other media like LINE Messenger Japan. There’s still much that I’d want to know about him, but as a start, these things are what makes Kira my favorite character for HEAVENS.

From Anon: 

Aside from my huge bias towards OnoD the first thing that drew my attention to Kira was his design. Dark haired anime boys with bright eyes have such a vibe and I loved how mysterious he was set up to be in season 2. But the thing that really hooked me a lot was the found family that Heavens became over the progression of the anime.

Particularly since people in the fandom have a bunch of funky headcanons about Kira being the mom friend in the group, which is incredibly wholesome. Kira’s very quiet and reserved but clearly holds a deep caring for his group members and does what he can when needed which is one of the reasons why he became so loveable for me.

NAGI MIKADO

From @/_PXRFECTIONIST on twt: 

If I managed to stan Nagi, so will you.

Greetings. I present to you, once more, a story of how I came to love a character that I wished I threw hands with.

So.

Nagi Mikado.

The possible only utapri character that Shinomiya oshis despise. Thanks to what happened in the anime.

Truth be told, I too was one of them. Until I came to love Both Shinomiya and Nagi. Reason?

Research.

Ya see, it is universally agreed upon that the way Nagi was pushing and pulling at Shinomiya's trauma and DID was… Not okay. So I said "yeah okay what an obnoxious kid i dont think ill ever like him lol" especially since I never come to really warm up to people younger than me.

Boy was I wrong.

My heart really sways easily when I go deep into characters, and why they act the way they are. And also because I chose to roleplay as him, but let's not. Speak of that.

(its actually the main reason i like him in the first place who am i fooling)

Nagi is… Indeed obnoxious, and really has bad manners that are covered up by his cute looks and fame, especially since he's one of the original HEAVENS members, but once you get to really know him.. It makes sense why he's being such a brat. And that is sort of endearing. And knowing how his group is like family to him too, it becomes harder and harder to completely dislike him.

….

He really is a boss man.

He knows what he wants, and how to get it. He knows how to get people to like him without handing over the tiniest sliver of his weaknesses. He acts in his own way that shapes his personality to suit him, yet still manages to be caring and helpful, even if it's hard to see tenderness and good will through his aggression.

Reading his solo lyrics, listening to the drama CDs, even thinking of headcanons due to lack of lore, it all slowly comes together like a lovely parfait to suddenly make you realize..

'Wow…'

'I really do like that rat.

[nagisasstunningpersonality]

About Assassination Classroom Characters - Asano Gakushuu

This character profile is done by request! As a disclaimer, there’s far less info on this character than the members of 3E within the graduation album and roll books, so some of this may be debatable observations of my own. 

Literal spawn of Satan. 

Honestly, on paper Asano is kind of... perfect? He’s attractive, good at sports, intelligent, and a commanding leader. He’s everything anybody would want to be, yet he pretty much consistently loses to E Class. (opinion here: this is a very cleverly written societal commentary, I believe)

This is the way his father taught and forced him to be. They barely even interact, unless one of them directly wants something, or his father has something to teach him. 

Honestly, his relationship with his father is absolutely Fucked Up. Aside from just the physical abuse, there’s also constant mental games between them. From his side, though, he has this really weird complex about overcoming and controlling his father. 

They resemble each other by looking pale and having bad eye bags. We can assume Asano doesn’t sleep much, or very well. 

Asano is like, REALLY into the idea of controlling people. His future goal is even to control all humans. 

He uses his manipulative talents to do this. He likes to view himself as some kind of puppet master. Though this is less mind control seeming than his father, it’s still very effective.  

Unlike his father, though. Gakushuu does have some kind of moral  standard. He wants to win, and he’ll use any tool available to him to do it. What he won’t do is straight up cheat to do it, he wants the satisfaction of a legitimate victory. He’ll bend the rules, but he won’t break them. 

He’s also genuinely kind of mature and gracious when admitting defeat, at least by the end of the story. He sacrifices his own victory in exams (and winning is the thing he likes to do THE MOST), because he understood his father was doing the wrong thing. 

He has a really big desire to investigate and uncover the truth about things.

He looks terrifying when he’s angry. 

He can play any instrument, though he’s best at guitar. 

Asano truly understands the power of networking, and how effective that can be. He can charm almost anybody. He uses this to get through life later as he becomes a successful businessman. 

He definitely thinks he’s better than other people, and this can lead to him misjudging the talents of others. He literally calls people his subordinates. 

Though he can look down on people less than him, he’s also kind of helpful? Like one of the first times we see him, he’s helping someone with their homework. 

His kind of rigid intelligence seems to be his downfall, as we see from the final math problem. Karma solves it by LITERALLY thinking outside the box, where Asano finally realises that he’s been too compacted inside it. 

He’s trained in martial arts. 

It’s hard to say how close he actually is with his ‘friends’. He does genuinely seem to care for them at the very least. Notably from the way they address each other, he seems closest with Ren.  

I also don’t really think he and Karma will ever be ‘friends’. I think they’re great, even healthy, rivals for each other. There might be a mutual respect there. Maybe they could be frenemies in high school (not tryna hate on your karashuu shipping by the way). There’s a lot of directions to go with it. But like, I can’t imagine them just casually hanging out. 

In summary, god there’s a lot to unpack with this guy. Honestly, I enjoy him a lot because he’s kind of... pompous seeming as an outsider? However inside the story, he’s a totally intelligent smooth talker. Though he might be antagonistic in nature, at his core, maaaaybe skipping past his messed up complexes, he’s a good guy. 

FURTHER CHARACTERS BY REQUEST ONLY 

MASTERLIST

[jackoshadows]

The Expanse and GOT Spoilers.

I have been doing The Expanse re-watch to prepare for the best season ever - season 5 - starting on the 16th. And the writing is so good, even for the secondary characters and their relationships. I can’t help but compare it to the garbage writing on the more popular Game of Thrones.

Watching season 3, and the character dynamics between Camina Drummer and Klaes Ashford is what I think Benioff and Weiss wanted between Jon Snow and Sansa Stark in seasons 6 and 7. There is a tug of war for power and leadership between Drummer and Ashford and the same holds true for Jon and Sansa. Scene for scene there are parallels of the conflict between the characters on both shows.

But context matters. Drummer and Ashford actually work because she’s the new, younger leader in charge of the Behemoth and Ashford is the older, more experienced leader who thinks he should lead because of his experience. On the other hand, it does not work at all with Jon and Sansa. In their case, Jon is the older, more experienced and knowledgeable leader and Sansa is the younger sibling trying to make the case that she knows better than him and therefore should be the one making the decisions.

The Expanse actually lays out and explores in detail the conflict between Drummer and Ashford. They spar and argue with witty dialogue and good delivery of lines that makes the case for both of them. Each character knows and is clear about where the other character stands. They know what the other character is trying to do. That makes their scenes exciting and interesting to watch.

Ashford: Camina, you have nothing to worry about from me. I am here to be your first officer and I have no problem with that.

Drummer: You believe you should be in command.

Ashford: Ah, of course I do, but this is not about experience. It's about politics and perception.  Fred has Protomolecule, Dawes has Cortazar, and they both need this ship.  And neither one of them cares if you or I are happy with the arrangement.

Drummer: Ah, finally, some truth.

Ashford: I haven't lied to you...

Drummer: Yet...

Ashford: But my point is that we both have orders to follow, which means we have to work together. For the good of the new Belter state, ke?

We never get a similar scene or confrontation between Jon and Sansa. Sansa hides information about her Vale army from Jon so that she could get the credit of the victory, leading to the needless deaths of thousands. And Jon just shrugs it off with a kiss on the forehead. Imagine if we got a game of thrones in Winterfell between Jon and Sansa - like we got between Tyrion and Cersei in KL? Where both characters know what the other is trying to do and try to outwit each other? But D&D never really committed to what they wanted Sansa to be on the show and their Jon was written as a gullible fool and so we got scenes that made no sense.

Remember when Sansa undermined Jon in front of the other houses and later Arya observes that Sansa was trying to get the Lords on her side rather than Jon’s. Again, the show hesitates to commit to what Sansa is doing. Jon is made out to be the bad guy for requesting that Sansa not undermine him and Arya comes off as being the mean sister for pointing out that Sansa is not supporting her brother.

Meanwhile, on The Expanse, we clearly see what Ashford is doing and so can Drummer.

Sansa wants to punish the children of the traitors. Jon wants to pardon them and give them back their lands. Drummer wants to throw the drug dealers out of the airlock. Ashford disagrees. He asks for a private word with Drummer and orders their audience to step back - he then persuades Drummer to change her mind but it’s clear to the people watching that he made the decision. Both the audience and Drummer can see that Ashford is indeed undermining Drummer here, but he’s more sly about it.

They have several such arguments. Ashford questions Drummer’s decisions within hearing of their men. Ashford wants them to hear his disagreements.

Ashford: Oh, and it's just too bad we don't have our chief engineer to build us some probes.

Drummer: You have something to say?

Ashford: Yeah, I said it. We needed Nagata here, and you let her go.

Drummer: This isn't a slave ship.

Ashford: No, it's a warship. The Belt's first and only.

Drummer: And I'm its captain.

Ashford: Yeah. Yeah, you are.

Drummer: We have a few autonomous farm drones with chemical samplers for soil. We can convert those into probes. A captain must know their ship.  Hmm?

Later one of those men approaches Ashford. He trash talks Drummer to Ashford and insinuates that Ashford should take over.

Diego: Bossmang...

Ashford: Yeah, what's up? What's the problem, Harari?

Diego: I na like da ting Drummer say to you... or how she say it.

Ashford: Uh... a captain can run their ship however they choose to.

Diego: Captain should be you.

Ashford: Tread carefully, good my boy.

Diego: You been bossmang from da time before me or half the Beltalowda on this ship was born.

Ashford: Yeah, that's true. I have. And I've drunk real Earth whiskey out of a UN Admiral's mug and then scuttled her ship. I flew dark past a Martian battle group, and they never even knew I was there. And I've seen friends breathe the vacuum and watched my only child burn. So when I tell you to tread carefully, you would do well to stop talking.

This scene parallels the Northern lords saying that they should have made Sansa queen instead of Jon. Sansa listens to their complaints and then says that Jon is their king and they can only do what he says. We see Arya observing this and later confronts Sansa in a scene where Arya comes off as being unnecessarily harsh and wrong. I am not going back and watching this trash, but if I recall, Arya actually gets angry at Sansa’s fashion choices here! Like why? What does that have to do with anything? What does that have to do with Sansa trying to win favor from the Northern lords while not supporting Jon’s decisions as king? Again, the show never commits to exploring Sansa’s decisions here.

But Drummer knows what Ashford is doing. She’s clever.

Ashford: I understand why you let Nagata go. If I had a chief engineer who didn't want to be here, I wouldn't want them around, either. But she was your friend.

Drummer: She is my friend.

Ashford: No, I always treated my friends harder... harsher, to show the crew I wasn't playing favorites... even if I was.

Drummer: You just can't stop giving me advice, can you?

Ashford: I'm trying to help you.

Drummer: Yet, still you call me out in front of the crew.

Ashford: Yeah, I could've done that better.

Drummer: You did what you meant. You put it in everyone's head. And after I left, I bet you were all praise for me, yeah? How important it is to respect the captain and so on. That way, when the turn come and you take over, they all know it was because you had to. No choice.

Ashford: Oh, we have a problem. And we need to work it out.

Drummer: Or else what?

Oh, how I wish we got this sort of confrontation, conversation, a similar scene between Jon and Sansa after he got back to Winterfell.

And the beautiful thing about Drummer and Ashford is that we can actually see where they are both coming from. They are both looking out for their people, they both want to do right by the belt. The older, more experienced Ashford thinks he should be in charge and knows better than the young whippersnapper Drummer. Smart Drummer is actually capable of being a good leader and can see through what Ashford is trying to do. They end up helping each other. And in the end, Drummer turns out to be right, Ashford acknowledges this and in the next season they work together.

In GOT however, we are just supposed to accept that Sansa is right, despite Jon making the right decisions to tackle the problems facing them. Sansa’s actions are never challenged by anyone. Jon just floats around like a gullible fool and Arya’s real issues with Sansa in season 7 are never again mentioned. And because there is no resolution to the conflicts and drama, in season 8 we get Arya suddenly and inexplicably thinking that Sansa is the smartest ever, Jon continuing to trust the person who lied to him and undermined him and Sansa continues to win despite being wrong about everything.

Drummer and Ashford are secondary characters in The Expanse and yet their character dynamics, the conflict, the resolution is all so well written and played out. Meanwhile, Jon, Sansa, Arya and Bran are all main characters and Littlefinger is a main antagonist and yet that whole story in seasons 6 and 7 was so badly written and nonsensical that it’s absolute trash. Ultimately Benioff and Weiss did not know what they wanted Sansa to be - they wrote her one way, did not want to commit to the character they wrote, and wanted the other characters (and audience) to see her another way.

It’s clear that the writers and showrunners of The Expanse are invested in their characters and good storytelling. And that’s why it’s a far more enjoyable and entertaining show with likeable characters than GOT.

[tigerdrop]

Okay, I'm gonna adress the elephant in the room, ya all folks like to draw each other's Benrys hanging with their Benreys or doing nasty together so don't tell me some of you folks have not discussed or at least thought about a free for all Freeman gangbang with them all. (Gonna admit I make this sound so hardcore when in my mind they actually all play nice for Gordon just cuz they don't quite know if this Gordon has the same limits as "their" Gordon so they gotta make sure at first at least)

i got to thinking about this and your brain is very huge, and wrinkled, for this. here are those thoughts (also they ended up turning into “okay but what if HL gordon ended up in the hlvrai universe and cucked the unholy hell out of hlvrai gordon” at the end. please do not fucking observe me)

can u imagine. 3 gordons powertripping so hard over finally being able to overpower benrey that it sets off fucking geiger counters. and gordons not a weak guy as it is! hes strong enough to catch benrey in his arms when he jumps, so, 3 of him? Hello

c.an you imagine the- what if one or all of them just, yknow. let out a really nasty evil laugh a little bit. or more than a little. i mean. the sheer concentrated satisfaction 

"haha, oh man. you actually like this, dont you?"

benrey, flushed and sweating and hard as a rock: "uhhh, what? no,"

"okay. fine. say it again and we'll let you go."

benrey: (utter fucking silence while trying not to meet any of their eyes)

and. you know. double.....penetration......if anybody can take it its fuckin benrey. mans bein sandwiched between two gordons while a 3rd jerks off over him and fingerfucks his mouth? On Fucking God. if i didnt have like 3 art commissions i still gotta finish i would be dropping everything to draw this but for now you will just have to envision it yourself. minds eye

but also another vaguely-related thought i had was: HL gordon cucking hlvrai gordon. okay, goodbye 

all of that effortless, silent confidence.......hlvrai gordon seeing how its winning benrey over (and, you know, the later HEV suits being a lot more visually flattering than HL1 gordons not helping matters) and being insanely fucking jealous for reasons he does not want to interrogate 

but like......what the hell can he do about it without admitting that he feels jealous that benreys clearly attracted to this version of him that, in his eyes, is like, better in every possible way? thats fuckin embarrassing, man. so instead he just sits there stewing in it and making it incredibly obvious to everyone (except benrey, who is not terribly perceptive of "feelings") that hes jealous 

and the whole time benreys fuckin thought process is just "two cakes! except one of them gets mad when i say his ass looks nice and the other one doesnt". and if hlvrai gordons not interested, then, well, whats the problem? b/c hes not interested, right. he doesnt care if benreys makin eyes at HL gordon, right 

at the same time, consider: hlvrai gordon bitching out loud about how unfair it is that this alternate universe version of him is so capable and intelligent and cool and collected and his fucking cheekbones, man, and its not fair how much more flattering his HEV suit and his haircut are and-- and bubby interrupts him like "for gods sake, do you want to fuck him?"

anyway all im getting at is that what i really want in life is for hlvrai gordon to be watching benrey and HL gordon make out and fuck and just be seething from how fucking turned on he is by it 

[[rubs my damn temples thinking about how i also feel like HL gordon wouldnt exactly think the world of himself either he just does what he has to do and is really reserved about it, so if someone told him all of that shit about how hot he is he would be almost just as flustered and confused]]

he doesnt fully understand why benrey is hitting on him so hes like flushed and a little embarrassed by it but hes so much more receptive to it than hlvrai gordon is b/c they dont have that antagonistic history........

and. you know. benrey does kind of look like barney. lil bit of feelings-transferral there, too

thinking HL gordon is just as interested in the novelty of benrey being so much more uninhibited than his universes' version of barney. it's jarring at first but. u know

thinks about. HL gordon railing him into the fucking ground and benreys getting Loud and he starts saying gordons name out loud but the whole time hes doing it hes got his head turned to look straight at hlvrai gordon. direct eye contact

you just know this motherfucker is thinking about hlvrai gordon joining in and fucking him just like that but he doesnt. he cant bring himself to move b/c this already feels like an insanely weird situation. just sits there feeling frustrated and horny but not even sure if he should be jerking off right now, even though they literally asked him if he wanted to watch and he sure as shit didnt walk away

does he want to the one fucking benrey right now? does he want to be the one getting fucked by HL gordon??? who knows!!! he doesnt, and he is so very pissed off about it.  if he just got over himself and talked about even just one of his feelings, maybe he could be getting both of these things right now! but you know. hes stubborn

i also had more thoughts about HL gordon/hlvrai gordon stuff but i will save those for a later post i think. this is already embarrassing enough as-is

[common-blackbird]

it’s time... for a dragon age 2 playthrough post. scroll on!

The things i loved most:

1) the frame of the game - Cassandra interrogating Varric.

What a great way to get hook the player. Like, the opening of guards dragging this poor dwarf with cuts of the title, and then Cassandra demanding answers... Whoaaa! I have no idea if that’s usually done in games or not, but it’s definitely such an amazing intro with characters introducing themselves as well as the story so perfectly, it captivates instantly. The tutorial has a charm to it bc varric is messing around. Which serves to show more of his character. Cassandra’s personality was pretty much blank here but her presence is so powerful. Something happened, something huge and they know and i was about to find out. I can’t describe how excited that intro made me feel. Each time the scene cut to the interrogation scenes, my eyes were glued more than ever. Just GREAT.

Also it makes for a very convenient scapegoat for every plothole ever with the argument “it’s just his version of the story”.

2) The story.

It’s tragic. It’s amazing! The further you play, the more you can see that no matter what you do, everything leads to a disaster. Hawke doesn’t want to take sides, tries to mediate, does not want to get involved, but just can’t stop it. For every thing gained, Hawke loses two more. Your friends come with packages that get you involved in terrible stuff. Your good intentions result in disasters. The whole game you spent time climbing  the social ladder not only to reach the top hauntingly alone after losing all of your family, but also losing even that empty title and watching as the city you started to find your place in fall apart in blood. UGH! GAH! FEELS!

3) Kirkwall.

“ But, I beg you my dear readers, never forget that, no matter the subject of any story that might ever be explored between the cliffs of Kirkwall, She will find a way to steal the thunder of the protagonist. Or become the antagonist. Kirkwall is never a mere background. We could even understand it so: the challenge for you dear readers is to prevail against the smokescreens and observe to what extent our characters are players or played by the merciless black souled stone giant. Enjoy playing the dare of the ages between the lines of these humble memoirs. “

Memoirs from the Downfall - Act I. Mirage    by Pfefferminze on ao3 (fic rec!)

This paragraph summs up what Kirkwall is better than I ever could. This shrouded mystery that surrounds Kirkwall keeps you on toes. From the first intro when Varric describes it (paraphrasing from memory) “Kirkwall. The city of chains. It is a free city - keeping in mind i use the  the word loosely”. You already start seeing how dark Kirkwall gets. The name, that derives from its black walls (interestingly, the walls in the game aren’t black...), the history of slavery etched into every corner of that city  and its surroundings - the names (The Gallows, the Bone Pit, the Wounded Coast, the pub The Hanged Man), the scenery (sculptures of slaves, the sunken ships by the Wounded Coast, slums and underground of the Lowtown and the Darktown).

I was really digging the History of Kirkwall and it loved it. Kirkwall has a history of violence, from the times of slavery of the Tevinter Imperium, to Qunari conquests and liberation from Orlais. Many revolts and uprising. And though free now, it’s suggested that, seeing that the Templars hold the most influence, Kirkwall is in the hands of the Chantry.

It’s full of cultures mixing together. I love how not one of your companions is a native to Kirkwall, and it feels like a crossroads to every character’s life. a very tragic crossroads in their life, seeing there’s nothing ever good waiting for you in Kirkwall.

Also there’s these codex entries you look for about the Enigma of Kirkwall. It was when i started digging that up that i fell in love with the city and all. Combined with the History of Kirkwall and every codex entry for every place in and out of Kirkwall, I was pulling my hair out reading about the Enigma. I..i’m still not quite sure what happened. Did the magisters use blood of thousands upon thousands slaves to unbound a forgotten one? if so, is that corypheus? And around what time did that happen?? I get that part (or all?) of Kirkwall’s mysterious violent agency is owed to corypheus slumbering relatively close to the city, but is that all? or is there something more? In either case, the Band of Tree are my heroes.

4) The characters.

I’ll talk more about them later, but in general, i just love how they oppose each other, how complex they are, and there is just not pleasing everyone. They feel genuine. They are all deeply flawed. They all have a solid background that makes their beliefs and actions convincing. The friendship/rivalry points are shaky though, and sometimes really don’t fit the character, but i guess there must be someone hating/loving your bad choices for the sake of the game regardless of characterisation. But all in all, i really appreciated each and every character, and loved how their viewpoints challenged me.

First i want a disclaimer: i love each and every character in the game, whatever i say against them doesn’t diminish my liking of them. My issues really aren’t significant. Also, i might and probably will say smth wrong bc i’ve only played it once. I’m a baby.

let’s start with Family:

Mama Hawke:

i really loved mama hawke. after reading her codex entry and an excerpt of some book on this site, i really feel for her. I mean, imagine going back to your home city where you only remember being respected and wealthy only to find out everything you remember is gone, you are forced to live in poverty, your kids are doing dangerous jobs and you can’t stop them bc you do need that money, you write letters trying to get the old connections but keep failing (at least it was implied?), it’s really been hard for her. I get why she was so obsessed with her legacy. She wanted her childhood home back. She can’t feel like Kirkwall is her home until she is home.

Also loved her antagonism towards Hawke. It seems she can no longer treat him like a child, so she criticises him instead. and honestly, hawke is doing some crazy things so he defintiely deserves some criticism. And stopping Hawke from taking carver with him is just logical to me, idk. since she knows she can’t stop Hawke from going, she will at least attempt to prevent the last kid from going into mortal danger. I’d do the same. AND AFTER HAVING CARVER DYING IN DEEP ROADS I AGREE WITH HER

All in all, i don’t think she’s a perfect mom, but there is no perfect mom, and Leandra does care a lot for her kids. The All that remains killed me too :’(

Bethany

RIP :(

Her codex is not long, but i guess she wasn’t happy with her magic :(

CARVER

My favouritest bestest bro in the game. A secondary character with an inferiority complex towards his sibling, with no sense of humour, blaming everyone else for his inability to get a life? I see a lot of myself in him.  He is sooo bitter, but doesn’t even realise (or at least doesn’t admit) that he’s his biggest obstacle. He feels like it’s Hawke’s fault for Carver not getting his place in the sun, but honestly, it’s Carver’s devotion to Hawke that keeps him from getting a life. He’s just tied with that responsibility and can’t break from it unless forced to.

His interactions with other characters are so funny. Either he’s bitter or he’s awkward, i die every time ;;__;;

Anyways, he became a templar in my game and i thought it fits better thematically (throughout the game the grey wardens felt more like a fanservice material since they really aren’t connected to the story), but after reading that meta about carver and seeing the striking difference between warden!carver and templar!carver i wanna reload and redo everything ;;__;;

i mean... carver isn’t exactly a templar material. The codex entry for templars says that the wanted characteristics of templars are strong faith and utmost  obedience, none of which carver really has... . But that moment when he stands up against meredith was *chefs kiss* worth it. I’m just wondering what happens after, is he still a templar? is he with hawke? is he in Kirkwall or if not, where did he go?? so many questions ;A;

Uncle Gamlen

I feel bad for him. Mostly he’s mean but i like to think it’s bc he’s so ashamed that his sister sees what he’s become. And he’s bitter about his own life. I was so happy when i realised he has a personal mission ;__; I feel bad that he didn’t come to live in the hawke estate tho, especially since Hawke is also alone there :(

COMPANIONS!

Varric

There are no words that can properly convey the amount of love for this guy. He is simply flawless. He’s a charming godfather of the dwarven mafia. I wanna have a charming godfather of the dwarven mafia in my life... He already becomes interesting with the intro, and i gotta say, out of all ~storyteller~ types of characters, he is the best. he puts a disclaimer at the beginning with that game tutorial, and during the whole interrogation he’s like “well, how do you know i’m not lying? i could be.” Also, his voice is the second best voice in the game. 

As for his personal missions, oh wow, that thing with his big bro really hurt. I also gave him the red lyrium... was that a mistake? will i regret it? ;__; I know the true friend would prevent him, but i also trust that varric knows how to handle dangerous stuff...

On a side note, since i’ve read the comics (no self control whatsoever), i loved the beginning of the Until We Sleep, where varric mentions it’s easier to imagine all the people he had to kill were evil than to face the fact that those were normal people just doing their job or trying to survive. Man, it hurts TAT

*garret hawke’s voice when he looks a certain way at the family crest in the hawke estate* ISABELA!

Ok ok, so, i love Carver bc i relate,  i love Varric because he’s simply perfect. But I love Isabela because she’s the most intriguing.

She just crashed in Kirkwall and really didn’t sign up for all the trouble she got. She never likes to have deep conversations, she is always downgrading herself and you just wonder, what is it that happened in her life, and you know her past mistakes haunt her, and she’s doing her best to move on. Her arc was i think my favourite. I think the comic Those Who Speak really adds a lot to her arc in DA2 and makes some of her choices more understandable. Her whole story is about her internal conflict of whether to survive or do the right thing. Her story about freeing the slaves got her ship wrecked is great and all for making her be a pirate with a golden heart, but that story about her drowning all the slaves few years previous make this freeing of slaves a big character moment for her. She finally did the right thing. And she got for it was more trouble, because she’s a pirate which means she can’t afford to just do the right thing. And throughout the game, that same story is going back and forth. She runs off with the Relic bc she’s done the right thing before and it got her nowhere, so now she decided to put her own survival as a priority, but comes back bc she’s too kind to just leave Hawke standing like that. And again, with the slaver papers, it’s the same reasoning: it’s her or the higher cause. She needs that ship. She chooses herself. It’s her biggest flaw. But hey, between pros and antis in your party, it was really refreshing to have someone who, along with varric, just gives you a break with moral high-grounds.

I only wish we actually got to see her more as a captain in power in the game or that she showed me that amazing hat she saw in lowtown. It’s cool that it’s implied that her crew doesn’t like her and she also lost most of them during the crash while the others probably left her after.

I love it when she says she goes sometimes to the docks just to watch the ships. That there is no feeling like sailing. I just want a spin-off with captain isabela’s terrible adventures (´A`)

Also, isabela’s VA is my fave, she really did an amazing job. she voices so smoothly, i wouldn’t know if i was playing a game or watching a movie. And has such a pretty way of talking...

Aveline

I’m really neutral towards Aveline. I like her personality and i like that she’s found herself a purpose and advanced in the guards, and she’s always looking out for everybody. I just wish her personal missions went in the vein of the one in act 1... i feel it would have been more interesting to see her having trouble in her position and that you can’t just waltz into Kirkwall and take command. It’s implied she’s being pressured, so i guess she’s just dealing with it herself, but i just... eh. She’s ok.

Merrill

Merrill actually has one of the if not the most tragic story-line that really challenges you both morally and emotionally. 

Her cheerful and cute personality is dampened by her constant dark leitmotif of willingly practicing blood magic. And i think her story really showed well the indirect consequences of it.

Not in one instance was Merrill’s practice of blood magic an active culprit for all tragedy that surrounds her. First, it seems that blood magic is practiced in the clan, seeing there is no freeing Flemeth without it, but i’m guessing it’s seldom practiced and with great caution. So Merrill wasn’t in any danger of being prosecuted for her blood magic. It’s actually her wish to study it further with the help of the demon that makes her an outcast. That and the magic mirror that apparently is forgotten for a reason. Also, it’s made quite clear that Merrill would be welcomed back no questions asked if she at any point decided to ditch the demon and live without the study of magic mirror. She, on the other side, is driven by the higher cause, the idea that figuring out the forgotten purpose of some evil mirror might help her clan, and is willing to be an outcast if it means reaching her goal and helping her clan. Fast foward to act 3, the clan is still there when they should have moved away, and it’s only when you face the demon possessed Keeper, you realise why. She knew Merrill would sooner or later bargain with the demon again. And she sacrificed herself, trapping the demon within her, as to prevent it. And i think that is why the clan stayed so long there. She waited for Merrill because she wanted Merrill to kill her, and hopefully with her the demon. It didn’t go as planned, obviously, but i really think she had good intentions. When Merrill does manage to kill the Keeper she’s forced to face the clan and i chose the wrong option of telling the truth which resulted in a massacre. Merrill gets back and regrets everything. She, however resolves to help the alienage.

The thing is, there is no one to blame Everyone had the best intentions. Everyone is working for the safety of the clan. it’s a story of sacrifice and when sacrifice feels like the wrong choice (whether it truly is or isn’t depends on your worldview) and it’s really done well.

But here are my issues with Merrill. I love her as a character, but i don’t agree with her decisions.  It’s a personal issue. Merrill is giving up everything as to help her clan by learning history of the evil mirror. And while this is a game where old things are important and significant, her mission is always explained as this duty of preserving history. And while i agree that preserving history is very important, there is a limit to it. you should never put history before the present. If your research endangers the present, you give up on that line. The other is that you need to make peace with the fact that many, many things are forgotten and will be forgotten. It’s sad, but you gotta make peace with the fact that some things are just gone.

And Merrill, who is a magic historian, fails to see that. So that kinda irks my historian moral codex. And in the end, as far as i know, Merrill doesn’t succeed in reviving the evil mirror and dedicates herself to help the alienage. It was a terrible way to learn that some things aren’t worth it.

The other, less personal issue, is that none of this had to happen. I mean, the keeper obviously didn’t think Merrill was experienced enough to actually deal with demons and therefore distrusted her and warned the clan about it. So, if Merrill was a little bit more patient she could have just studied normally under the keeper, and when she herself becomes the keeper, she could have fraternize with that demon however she wanted without much complications. So yeah... i guess youth is made of idealism.

But as i said, minor issues. Her story is really, really great.

Fenris

Fenris and Anders are my “i love you but i am soo annoyed by you but i still love you” characters. Half of the time they’re just there to make you feel guilty for being a neutral party. Which sometimes has me rolling my eyes. If Fenris and Anders actually got along with each other, slavery and mage oppression would have ended in 2 days. Which makes it all the more frustrating that they do not.

Fenris.. his voice. What a nice voice colour. So elegant, but kinda rough, sometimes he talks like he’s 80 years old, sometimes like he’s a teenager. I love it.

As for the rest, i mean, i don’t agree with his methods, but very often, the guy’s got a point. I get his experience with mages colours his view on them, so while i symphatise, it’s really hard to have him on my “free mages” missions when he’s my best tank and i want him to be on friendly terms with Hawke so this makes things... difficult. That aside, it’s interesting that fenris doesn’t see mages as evil per se, but rather victims who, in his experience, will always, always going to succumb to a demon. It’s an inevitable reality to him. And this makes me wonder if he ultimately, despite being his friend or lover, is just waiting for the day he will be forced to kill Hawke too :(

As for his missions, they were ok, it led up to culmination and i didn’t let him kill his sister bc Hawke has just lost his mom, don’t do smth you’ll regret ;__;

also, somewhere around the end of act 2 i decided to romance fenris bc i love to suffer, so i worked the whole act 3 trying to get more aproval points and also wondering why are there no romance options when i talk to him... turns out that one night stand with isabela romanced her and canceled fenris. But i never even finished the romance with her so i’m just ??? about it all.

I wish it was more explained about the tattoos fenris has? I just thought the tattoos would play a big role somewhere in the game and it just never happened. There was a banter with Merrill about how his tattoos are similar to valaslin, so i thought, hmm, interesting, maybe the two are connected. But nah they just glow in the dark and make you pass through walls. Whatevs.

also dude just goes and kills without a second thought, i’m just “mate, you gotta calm down”. But that’s his thing. He’s constantly bitter and is very bad at anger management. I can’t blame him, considering he lacks around 10- 20 years of experience due to amnesia.

He’s the only one who left me when Hawke sided with mages, and i was like, “ok i getcha, it’s been nice knowing you”, but then when i asked him to join me 5 minutes later he just went “ok changed my mind” which was so funny, like, where did all that integrity dissappear??? It would have been more impactful if the dialogue went in the line of “i want to stand by my principals but you’re a living breathing proof that not all mages are weak to succumb to demons so i’ll join you in the end” (and then side-eye “i told you so” when orsino turns into a demon)

And i wanna read the fenris comic now bc my question for every character here is what is their fate after kirkwall. I only know that isabela & varric are working for alistair and merrill wants to help the alienage. Aveline is i guess either dismissed from her job or got a pass after cullen took  the command.  But Carver?? Fenris?? Anders?? They never talked about long term plans...

Anders

ooh boy, here we go. there are many questions i have for him and am generally just hmmmm. First, as for his pro-mage rights - it’s like opposite fenris so i just have the same feelings: you mean well, i don’t agree with your methods, your experiences define your worldview so i let some things slide, but other things i will not agree with. Though, question: in how many circles has Anders been? He knows the kirkwall circle, he knows the fereldan circle. Seeing he has excaped 7 times, did they send him to a different circle each time or was the fereldan the last one? or the first one? Or maybe it was his boyfriend they transferred? did i miss something?

I’ll just whisper: awakening!Anders >>> da2!Anders. I just miss the old anders. Which says a lot bc during the awakening i was just “shut up anders”. I miss his bad jokes, his terrible attempts at flirting, his enjoyment of freedom, nagging all the time, and generally being more moderate in pro-mage rights. Like, in awakening, because it was not the only thing he talked about, it felt more personal and intense. Here mage-rights are the only thing he ever talks about + justice. I mean, please correct me if i’m wrong, this was just general impression. But to defend da2!Anders here, it makes sense that merging with mixed both of their personality, and i like that they did that. It’s also very sad.

The thing is, when i’m thinking about anders, i love his story and character. Just as it’s terrible that Fenris, having no memory from before being Fenris, Anders can never go back to being just Anders. And this, people, is why you don’t fraternize with spirits. He’s obviously afraid of how justice is affecting him and there are some bare traces of his old personality and i guess he wouldn’t be as radical if he didn’t have justice personality that can’t stand the injustice. And in combination with anders quite selfish personality (form awakening, and i say that lovingly), it makes him do things that justice wouldn’t condone. Anders is literally a walking bomb.

Again, same problem as with fenris, i really thought that the justice glow would have a incredibly significant culmination, and it didn’t, it was just to show that anders and justice are very bitter. Eh, ok.

Also, i let anders join after he blew up the chantry, bc he started it, so might as well follow it through.

Some minor characters that i remember

Senechal Bran for the next Viscount! He hated hawke so much but still put up with him.

Feynriel is the coolest mage in Kirkwall. I think his missions were my favourite. Dude goes from “oh no i’m a mage” to “i will just dreamwalk to tevinter and learn control the reality” to “i dream-killed bad people from thousands of miles away”. Does he appear in the next game? I want him on my side. He’s so cool.

I think the Maker is sending Cullen signs to quit being a templar. First job: evil mages that tortured you. Instead of “this job will kill you” h took it as  a “never trusting mages again, got it”. Second job: your boss is evil possessed paranoid maniac. Man, talk about bad luck.

What is the story of the Lady Elegant?

Flemeth had that big great talk at the beginning of the game and i thought by the end of the game i’d realise what it meant, but nope, still no clue.

Ok so I defeated Corypheus, but there was this looong shot of Larius walking away. Corypheus possessed larius, didn’t he? He’s out there. In a madman’s body. I know he appears in inquisition.

Many thoughts

I gotta say, in Kirkwall, at least, it didn’t feel like much of a challenge to pick a side. Like, there was no mage who said “hey i actually really like it here in the circle, the templars aren’t so bad”, and having templars actually smuggling mages from the circle says a lot to say the least. Every time a mage talks to you, unless you go with “oh they’re 100% lying”, their stories invoke sympathy and of course you want to help them. And then in 99% cases they turn to blood magic bc there was no other way. Except that dude who always hanged out with the wrong people, he only did blood magic to save Carver. But yeah, that turning to blood magic was like having Fenris side-eye me with an unspoken “i told you so” bc every mage, whether in desperation or hunger for power, will turn sooner or later into a demon. Regardless, blood magic was always in the act of desperation and self-defense. The only times where magic was actually evil was the slavers and the serial killer, who is a madman.

When i was reading the Enigma of Kirkwall, there was a part that talks of a blood-mage conspiracy and i was all, oh shit, there is a reason why templars are mean to mages! maybe the conspirators are framing innocent mages on blood magic crimes that they actually commit, maybe Meredith is actually on trail of the conspirators, maybe there is a reason for animosity on both sides. After all, Kirkwall was known for having a bigger number of apostates, a bigger number of blood magic cases and far more ruthless templars. It added up.Thinking back now, i never even got any specific reason why meredith was so intensely anti-mage, other than going mad.

But yeah, no conspirators. Just sad mages and mean templars, and good templars that get screwed by desperate and mean mages.

While in Kirkwall it’s easy to be a pro-mage, i was thinking a lot about mage-rights in general so let me indulge myself: there are circles, but the mages aren’t oppressed. Rather, the circles would be educational centres and society in every larger city where one learns how to properly handle magic bc magic is dangerous. You can leave when you pass the final exam and also come back anytime to hang out with mages who decide to live there since the institution would support mages.

Also, when one gets possessed, i’d invest more into “walk into their head and free them of demons” specialists. It’d be cool if you could have a dreamer who does that bc no lyrium spent. Honestly, why don’t they ever do that? How did the keeper do that rite for Feynriel? Was it blood magic?

I guess, you’d still have to answer for your crimes, tho no death punishment and degradation allowed. Blood magic wouldn’t be punishable by death, but rather have specialists who study it, but practice with extreme caution and use of another person’s blood is strictly prohibited.

Templars would still exist but completely reformed. No more “mages are all potential disasters”, but i’d rather make it that mages can too be templars, since they both have abilities that prevents the others from casting magic. This way the control system would be much like the dalish: if the keeper(mage) is possessed, the clan (which means the non-mages and the first(mage)) need to kill them. You could argue that you don’t need templars as non-mages, since mages can do it too, but seeing that in general people fear magic and feel inferior to it (since there’s a collective memory of the great tevinter imperium), having non-magic specialists would make them feel like on equal ground. The extra-reformed templars would be under Circle, not under direct command of the chantry, and circle, depending of whether chantry is reformed, might or might not be under chantry.

(a side note, i was thinking about templars recently and i can’t recall an instance where it says who had the clever idea to chew lyrium first? i just wanna know)

I know that DA2 wasn’t about grey wardens and therefore not about darkspawn, but seeing as in legacy we get corypheus being... an evil version of the Architect(??), i was only wondering do we get more answers about the darkspawn? is there hope for them? is the Architect still alive?

And oh, to turn to the Anders question:

Is he a terrorist, or was that just activism? I mean, i don’t see why those two can’t go together. blasting a building with a symbolic significance killing and harming many innocent people to get a message of your radical activism across belongs into a schoolbook of terrorism. Does he have a good cause? He sure believes so, and i, too, agree that mages should not be oppressed for just being mages. But does that mean this is the right way to do it? Personally, i do not condone any act of violence in service of a political or religious cause. I know it’s sometimes inevitable, but i like to believe there are more diplomatic ways, or at least not including an attack on civilians.

That aside, the moment where anders goes in front and just announces that the church was gonna blow up in a minute was the best anders moment for me. Until that point i more or less just viewed his activism as a hobby since he just did it in his free time, but now he put his money where his mouth is and freaking went all out. Cool character moment. And incredibly heartwrenching. He was aware of how many innocents he killed, but just didn’t see other way to get the point across.

I still don’t agree with his idea of blowing up the church tho. Maybe if he told Hawke, they could have done something to empty the church previously and further people away from it and then blow it up?

But still, blowing up religious buildings isn’t the answer. If i was the radical mage activist, i would have gone for the open assassination. Seeing it worked in WW1, i don’t see why it couldn’t start a fantasy war.

Some random things i liked:

uniportant but lovable interractions in the house: it starts innocently with gamlen’s house, to see how you’re doing, and becomes really fun during act 2 when you see your friends have been here and left you things. In act 3, however, it feels melancholic. no more family to come back to, just ghosts of friends that have visited, Bodahn and Sandal being there for you, Orana still not getting some sunlight and your dog at the fireplace. The Hawke Family Suite is playing, and you feel older than you are, lonlier than you should be. just... ouch. I hope Bodahn adopted Orana and took her out of Kirkwall :(

t i named the dog “Maker” which is very funny to me bc every time i summon the dog i just imagine Hawke yelling “Maker help us”. Carver hates the name bc he needs to chase the dog often in the streets. Mama Hawke never ever calls the dog Maker, but she never has to call the dog anything: he’s super obedient towards her.

Fighting wasn’t as hard as in origins, i like that.

The haunted house mission was so cool.

When random people greet aveline in Hightown.

And that’s i think about it. There are probably plenty more things i loved, but i think this is already enough. if somebody told me i’d be playing so much this year, i’d laugh, but I already want to play the next game ;;___;;

[ultravioletsoul]

Can you rank your fave CoD antagonists?

Hello there nonny, sorry for taking so long to reply and thank you for your ask ♥♥

Rank my favorite CoD antagonists? Sure, I can do that! There are several antagonists in the series, but I’ll only rank my top 3. Hope that is okay with you c:

3. Jonathan Irons

Original gif

Advanced Warfare may not be a series as popular as BO or MW, but I actually enjoyed the game and I also liked Irons. Honestly, I don’t think we’ve gotten that many antagonists that started out as our allies in CoD (at least I don’t remember any others atm), much any less an American antagonist, so that kinda made him stand out to me.

I’m not familiar with Kevin Spacey’s works, and I barely watched any trailers pre-release. So to see Irons go from someone who I believed genuinely wanted to make the world a better place, where every human being could live in peace and thrive, away from the pointless wars that governments waged, to someone who was willing to use any means necessary to achieve his goals, regardless of how many lives he had to sacrifice... well, that was something that hit me hard.

This man who gave my character a second chance, who treated me (Mitchell) as his son, who cleaned up after the colossal mess that others countries made, helped people from devastated war-zones rebuild their lives and gave them hope for the future, turned out to be someone I was forced to betray because of different viewpoints and philosophies. Despite everything, I think Irons had his heart in the right place, but his methods were ultimately terrible and in his messianic delusions he ended up doing more harm than good, so of course he had to be stopped.

And what I liked about him was that he didn’t start out as a bad man, he didn’t do all those things because of greed, and his characterization wasn’t that of a cartoonish villain. In a way I could find logic in his arguments, he made a few good points about the current state of the world and the inability (or indifference) of many politicians to solve the real problems of the people. But the root of it all lies in the loss of his son, his only child, to a government he no longer trusted nor had any faith in doing what was right. Despite having served in the military in his youth, Irons had grown disillusioned at the way the US handled domestic and international policy, and strongly disagreed with them— opposing the status quo in favor of change. 

One could argue that serving in the military was entirely Will’s choice all along, and as a grown adult he knew what he was getting himself into. Still Irons couldn’t help but think that if that war had never happened, Will would still be alive. So that left him with a bitter taste, and it served as the catalyst behind his actions.

If nobody else would bother to do anything to actually solve the world’s problems, then he would be the savior to do it— whether they liked it or not. And he didn’t care what methods he had to use, how many had to die, or if he had to plunge the world into total chaos before he could ultimately end all wars and bring everlasting “peace” (perhaps one of the greatest ironies) as his dream seemed to be. Even at the cost of such a high price.

I don’t think Irons gets the credit he deserves.

2. Raúl Menéndez

Original gifset

BO2 is one of my favorite games and Raúl is undoubtedly one of the most memorable antagonists in the series. Much like Irons, his actions were heavily motivated by the loss of a loved one but his life is also one sad story, so it’s no wonder he turned out the way he did. Not to justify him, but it’s not hard to understand what led him to do all those things.

From a very young age, his life was destroyed by the actions of Americans, from the horrors of the dictatorship in Nicaragua (in which the Contras were supported by the US); the crippling and disfigurement of his young sister Josefina, due to the greed of an American owner who burned down a warehouse in order to obtain 11,000$ through insurance fraud. After losing everything during an earthquake, and becoming homeless, Raúl and his father started over by selling drugs, successfully establishing a cartel that was so powerful in Nicaragua that they were equally feared and admired among the people.

But this status and power they had newly acquired concerned the US government, and it wasn't long before they sanctioned an assassination order on Raúl's father and sent the CIA in to kill him. Raúl observed it all, a teenager back then, and managed to escape thanks to his father's training. Though he could do nothing to stop it, nothing to save his father, this event marked him and further embittered him against the US and the West. And the last straw was the unfortunate death of Josefina, at the hands of Woods. He lost his sister, the only living relative he had, and his world fell apart. But if we think about it, Raúl was indirectly responsible for her death too, after the horrible torture he put Woods through in Angola. So the next time Woods saw Raúl he lost his mind and threw the grenade that tragically bounced into Josefina's bedroom and killed her.

So he spent all his life orchestrating a huge plan, a brilliant plan, that would shake the US from the very ground. And he was damn charismatic while executing it, earning the support and approval of billions of people all around the world— even from those who lived in US soil!— to begin a world revolution and end the dominance of capitalist nations that had subjugated other weaker countries, amassing huge riches through market economy and wars for resources, destroying lives and sinking many in poverty. And he also manipulates and pits two superpowers against each other... sending everyone to the brink of another world war, or a second cold war at best.

He wanted revenge on the US for playing with the lives of other people, for taking everything he loved away from him, by making them live in fear and destroying everything they had built. He wanted them to feel the same pain, to suffer the way he did. And he wouldn't rest until he achieved that because he had nothing to lose anymore.

Depending on the outcome, he can get revenge on Woods for Josefina, as well. And though we all like it when the "good" guys prevail and foil the plans of the villain, I think this particular ending had a much deeper and stronger emotional impact. The conversation they have at the end is something I didn't expect. Raúl has come to kill Woods but they're both in a place where the years have beaten them down with the weight of they’ve done and rather than an over the top scene, what we’re given is quite the opposite of that. 

There’s no screaming, no heated argument between them, no dramatic lines. It’s just two old men who had to live with what they’ve done, and who have come to terms with the inevitability of that moment. Raúl slits Woods’s artery with Josefina’s pendant, and then he does something that surprised me: he closes Frank’s eyes, takes him off the wheelchair and lies his body on the bed. Something that is a huge contrast with what he did to Hudson many years ago... the savagery he used when killing him. For Raúl to behave that way with Woods, the man he considered to be his sister’s killer, it raises the question as to whether he still hated Woods after all these years, or maybe deep down he finally acknowledges that his actions (namely torturing Woods and killing his whole team) was the true motive that led to Josefina’s death.

The thing is, Raúl knows that he's to blame for what happened. It's also the reason why he burns himself alive in front of Josefina's grave. It’s because he has to pay for what he's done to her, too, and he chose to do it in probably the most horrible way possible but it didn’t matter to him. Nothing was more painful than living with the knowledge that his sister died because of what he did.

To him Josefina was the true innocent soul, who didn't deserve any of the suffering she went through.

1. Vladimir Makarov

Original gifset

It’s no secret that Vladimir is my most favorite antagonist (and character) in all of Call of Duty.

Though his background and motives weren’t as well developed and explained as those of other antagonists in the series, his untold story (which you won’t find anywhere in the game, though you can deduce if you have a basic idea of the situation before and after the fall of the Soviet Union) perhaps says a lot more about him than one might expect.

There’s not a lot we know about his past other than the meager information that was provided in some loading cutscenes, but it’s reasonable to think that Vladimir wasn’t always the trashbag that we see in the games. He once was a young man with dreams of patriotism, who wanted the best for his country, who loved Russia with his soul, and who would do anything to protect her, because as a soldier that was what he was taught to do. As a soldier, that was his purpose in life and without that reason to drive him on, he had nothing left.

And however vague his backstory may seem to be, it gives you an idea that Vladimir in a way was a victim of a system that imparted a type of soft indoctrination on him, from a very young age (as many states do all around the world in some form or another, even those who hold democratic values), all the way to his education in the military academy and his brutal training in the special forces, that further cemented this undying love for Russia, maybe in a way that bordered brainwashing.

His true radicalization came after the fall of the Soviet Union with the loss of his homeland and the Soviet culture as he knew it, as well as Russia becoming weak and losing much of her power and influence across the world. Then came his deployment in Chechnya in 1994, where he lived the horrors of a war that most likely left him psychologically scarred after the experiences he had to go through. And when he returned home, he was kicked out of the armed forces under accusations of human rights violations during the First Chechen War. And they may be true, he probably did a lot of bad things there (under the illusion that he was serving his country for a higher cause), and sadly it’s something commonplace in many armed conflicts. I’m going to leave this short post here for some details on that.

When he returned from war, he didn’t receive any professional help or if he did, it didn’t work. He didn’t know how to cope, he ultimately was unable to adapt to a normal life, he became a misfit. He had lost his job, he had a stain in his career, and finding a decent way to get by was very difficult at the time when the country was in the middle of a political, social, and economic crisis.

He was in financial ruin, and it was hunger that pushed him to become a criminal (something that wasn’t uncommon for ex military men in 90s Russia). Not just that but also hatred for those in power as well as society as a whole, and what they represented: total decadence and the reason why Russia was falling apart with these “stupid” western conceptions about freedom that in his eyes did nothing but give leeway for debauchery and corruption, which he ultimately sought to “fix” by returning Russia to what it used to be (a god-fearing empire under the autocratic rule of a tsar that was likened to a father to all his subjects, and where religion was used as a resource to legitimize his power and as a moral regulator that maintained the social order).

He pretty much felt abandoned, betrayed by his government— a leadership that had done nothing but sink Russia deeper and deeper into ruin, destroying the values under which he was raised and turning people like him into cynical masses that had lost faith in everything and were adrift without any real purpose in life, no future to look forward to, completely disillusioned that the dreams they’d bought into, the promises they had been sold by the west, were nothing but lies.

He’s still a piece of garbage, we know that, but I also think that he’s gone through a lot of struggles and bad experiences in his youth that marked him and filled him with resentment. Everyone sees Vladimir as the puppet master of the storyline of MW, and we have to give him credit for that, but deep down he’s just a man who has been a slave to his own obsessions and ambitions, unable to free himself from the hatred that has poisoned his mind for years, which led him to commit so many atrocities and strip himself from any semblance of humanity— all for the sake of a higher cause, as he undoubtedly tried to justify his actions at the end of the day.

In conclusion, all three were marked by losses in one way or another, and saw themselves as men who had to take the hard path and do what had to be done. And it’s also curious that Call of Duty, while not a game with any deep meaning on the surface, almost seems like social commentary on how war ruins lives and how anyone can do horrible things if put through the wringer enough times. It’s like these stories are trying to say that bad circumstances can make bad men out of seemingly good people, who wouldn’t have done any of the evil they did if maybe things had been different.

And I think that’s what makes these characters so interesting.

[autumnblogs]

Day 15: Troll Girls and Human Boyfriend Material

https://homestuck.com/story/2626

In exactly the same way that the indecency of Vriska’s abusive behavior (and the expectations of Troll Culture) are exposed when they come into contact with Tavros’ non-resistance, the indecency of the conditions of Troll Society are exposed as soon as Karkat is able to observe the conditions of Human society.

Karkat isn’t awake to that yet, though, so all his anger comes out pointed in the direction of the most immediate target - John Human Egbert. Thus begins the most legendary hatecrush in Paradox Space.

Dave and Karkat are both attracted to the same guy.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/2629

That little affair ended about as fast as it started.

I think what’s interesting about Karkat and Terezi’s relationship with full retrospect is that with the exception of their respective introductions, nearly all of their shared storyline takes place after they have already broken up.

Terezi is a bit of a serial romantic, leaving behind a trail of broken hearts, repeatedly breaking her own heart in the process. Maybe she’s trying to fill the void left behind by the end of her friendship with Vriska - if friendship is all it is. Terezi might not be the most important person in Vriska’s life (she also might be,) but Vriska is definitely the most important person in Terezi’s life.

Playing house with Karkat, turning Dave into a project, having her weird Batman and Joker relationship with Gamzee, but none of them fills the niche. I might be reading too far into that.

https://homestuck.com/story/2641

https://homestuck.com/story/2642

John and his Dad both address each other with symbols representing each other.

https://homestuck.com/story/2644

Being able to reunite with his Dad is, at this point, the same kind of fleeting fantasy that being able to fly is for Tavros.

https://homestuck.com/story/2652

Roxy Lalonde, Copium dealer.

Suffering is what all human beings share in common. Mom and Dad didn’t know each other until today, it seems, but they have their shared losses in common. That makes them friends.

https://homestuck.com/story/2653

Vriska probably latches onto John for the same reasons she latched onto Tavros - Breath Player. I have heard it hypothesized that Vriska envies the freedom that people like John and Tavros enjoy, their relative detachments from other people. She wants to be more like them. On the other hand, she also wants them to be more like her, and she does her darndest to turn both of them into hero coolguys (the kind of person she wants to be!)

On the subject of Vriska as coolguy, she is a parallel to Dave in that respect, and in more ways than that. Vriska ultimately wields the Ultimate Weapon against Lord English in the final battle as his nemesis, a role which is also foretold of Dave. Like Dave, Vriska has spent her entire life around vectors by which Lord English has infected her subconscious mind.

But Vriska becomes a dangerous antagonist whose presence represses other people’s agency. Dave, on the other hand, turns out to be a laidback and chill dude who rejects the violence inherent in the system. Dave has kinder, more understanding friends and easier living conditions though.

More push and pull between nature and nurture.

https://homestuck.com/story/2660

Maybe I do finally have something to say about the Carapacians’ emotional arc and the themes of their story.

It’s clear that the Mayor has aspirations of leadership and noble intent, but he doesn’t want Power with a capital P - not the kind of currency that power is in Carapacian life. Whether you’re a Dersite or a Prospitian, life for Carapacians is being part of a war machine, so the form that power takes is the capacity to commit violence and destruction.

A Mayor though, isn’t defined by his ability to destroy things, but to create them. His power doesn’t come from his personal capacity to commit violence, but from his community’s trust. Being the leader of the rebellion on the battefield is one step in the right direction.

As the Ringbearer, just this little guy caught up in a war that’s much bigger than he is, the Mayor is full of references to Frodo Baggins, who along with the other Hobbits, is part of the parable about violence that is central to Lord of the Rings.

The world will probably always have employment for heroes like Aragorn (and like John, and Vriska), and there will always be tyrants for those heroes to oppose like Sauron (and like Lord English, and Vriska), but it is the pity of Frodo in sparing Gollum, the humility of Samwise in rejecting the ring, Merry and Pippin’s love of simple things, and earnest respect for other sentient beings, that are ultimately what win the day. It is not the courage of the great, or the wisdom of the wise that rules the destiny of nations, but the compassion of the lowly.

Maybe the Mayor was the secret hero of Homestuck all along.

https://homestuck.com/story/2662

Vriska breaks character in this conversation with John a bit and continues the trend of secretly valuing the journey and just doing some cool things more than she actually values the destination.

She may pretend to be all business, the kind of girl who cheats, cuts to the chase, beats the final boss and wins the treasure, but Vriska loves meaningless sidequests.

https://homestuck.com/story/2663

She almost immediately reneges on the sentiment, of course.

John also has a bit of an interesting response, and one that suits his general gullibility. I could be reading into his non-plussed response, but I feel like it fits a pattern where John outwardly assents to the first truth claim that he receives, while pondering it and questioning it internally.

https://homestuck.com/story/2672

Few interesting things in this conversational sequence, actually. More of Paradox Space’s self-fulfilling, self-justifying, self-authenticating nature rears its head. Vriska meddles with John because she does - the meddling comes from nowhere in particular, she sees that John is standing around in his room for a few minutes doing nothing, and meddles with him, and it turns out that it was her meddling that caused it in the first place.

It’s these times, where a character’s actions result in a stable time loop, that I think Paradox Space uses to help them understand their own true natures - what does Vriska do in a vacuum? She meddles, because that’s what Vriska does.

https://homestuck.com/story/2682

Rose is uncharacteristically aloof here, and it should be our first clue that all is not well in LOLAR. None of the jocular flowery language she usually addresses her friends with - she is sharp as a razor and ice cold.

Rose is also careful with the words that she uses. She describes her relationship with the consorts as coercive. That is concerning.

I bring all of this up because it’s the first time we’ve seen Rose in hundreds of pages, and the very last time we saw her was the fallout from her awakening on Derse.

This is isn’t just about the game, it’s about everything - because the sorts of enemies and troubles the game manifests for the heroes to fight aren’t trivial, they’re rooted in the symbols that characters associate with their fears and social anxieties - Sollux’s Brain, Karkat’s Blood, Pipes as a symbol of John’s Dad and their ambivalent relationship, Water as a symbol of loss - Jasper, as far as Rose knows, drowned in a river.

Rose is tired of losing the things that are most important to her, and feeling antagonized by emotionally distant forces who she yearns for intimacy with. She’s mad as hell and she’s not going to take it any more. And of course, it might be that cutting through the bullshit surface-level quest and going off to create the Green Sun might have been Rose’s real quest all along.

https://homestuck.com/story/2694

The actual material of Karkat’s speech is not particularly important, and it’s clear because the reaction of all of his counterparts is not different from how they would normally react to Karkat. Kanaya is supportive of Karkat’s idea because she is supportive of Karkat. Terezi is dismissive. The point of the speech isn’t whatever Karkat said, but that it makes use of the relationships Karkat already has.

https://homestuck.com/story/2705

The other conversation John and Kanaya have.

Really, just so great.

https://homestuck.com/story/2725

Fashion!!!!

Fashion obviously becomes more important the higher on the haemospectrum you go, but even some of the other lowbloods are more fashionable than Karkat, so the reality is probably just that he either doesn’t give a shit about it himself, or does but can’t afford anything fashionable.

https://homestuck.com/story/2727

Rose is clearly not okay with the fact that apocalypses are pedestrian in Paradox Space, but she has revolted, and one part of that revolt is revolting against her own preoccupation with the transitory nature of existence. She coolly pretends to be fine with it.

https://homestuck.com/story/2728

Kanaya is attracted to Rose exactly because she is so dangerous - Rose fills a Vriska shaped hole in her heart.

Skaia and the Horrorterrors are directly contrasted here. Let’s make a simile.

Prospit Dreamers are to Skaia as Derse Dreamers are to the Horrorterrors.

Prospit Dreamers go with the flow, are comfortable with the status quo, optimistic and flexible. Skaia reflects existence presenting everything as it is to Prospit Dreamers, without comment.

Derse Dreamers are rebellious, uncomfortable with stability, predisposed to catalyze change. We should expect that the Horrorterror’s relationship with reality and all of Paradox Space, is to question it, criticize it, and probe its vulnerabilities with their tentacles.

They are polar forces. There is one Skaia, because there is only one reality that all of the characters share. There are infinite horrorterrors because outside of the bounds of the one reality, there are infinite possibilities that could have been, or could still be.

Rose is predisposed toward the Horrorterrors because of her intense dissatisfaction with life. At times, her dissastisfaction trends toward the ultimate - there are a few indications throughout Homestuck that Rose might have suicidal ideations, and a number of places where she unnecessarily seeks out extremely self-destructive possibilities in the heat of the moment because of that intense dissatisfaction.

Kanaya is predisposed to trust her first impressions of her surroundings and the people in her life, and that gets her into trouble too. Her misplaced trust in Vriska’s intentions and goodwill toward everyone lets Vriska exploit her. They balance each other.

https://homestuck.com/story/2730

Rose has become dangerous because her dissatisfaction has increased to the extent that she doesn’t trust the people who care about her any more. Sure, she enjoys their presence, but she’s not really willing to listen to their concerns. She won’t be dissuaded from being manipulated.

https://homestuck.com/story/2734

Vriska reproduces/transmits herself onto John by replacing his symbols with her symbols (except for his green ghost, which is emblematic and can’t be erased.)

https://homestuck.com/story/2737

Constantly dunking on each other is a part of these two’s schtick that I’ve brought up before and I’ll bring it up again - they can barely go two seconds without exchanging shallow and insincere hostilities.

https://homestuck.com/story/2742

The Alternian Coolkid is, of course, Vriska.

Braggadocious, contentious, competitive. Terezi, like Kanaya, is trying to fill a Vriska-shaped space.

https://homestuck.com/story/2759

Man, somehow I forgot that Sollux is not merely their hacker guy, but their IT guy in general.

Suddenly, I am 1,000,000% more sympathetic to Sollux.

https://homestuck.com/story/2780

These past few pages have been absolutely swimming with good Dave dialogue.

Dave fills his speech with sexual innuendo and outright explicit language, particularly when means to shock and offend or deter someone from interacting.

He tends to string together multisyllabic adjectives and punctuate them with profane or explicit words in particular as a form of humor, and the words that he chooses tend to be literary references.

He tends to coin new words by stringing together adjectives or nouns.

Uses lots of slang suggestive of rap culture and basketball, both of which Dave has a fascination with.

I’ll preface this by saying your headcanons are valid, but I’ve always viewed Dave Strider as an intensely white character. For exactly the same reason that his use of Apple Products and his ironic coolkid routine come across as performative, so does his engagement with things that are culturally coded as black. Dave is an outsider, and a poseur. It would seem incongruous for Dave to actually be a member of the subcultures that he engages with by parodying them - because in no small part, he parodies them because he wants to feel like he’s a part of them, to enjoy the sense of community that comes from them.

https://homestuck.com/story/2784

John really is a clever and perceptive lad.

https://homestuck.com/story/2789

Even this early on in the comic, it’s obvious that Karkat and Dave have chemistry. Dave doesn’t respond to him with the kind of verbal legerdemain that he reserves for people who make him uncomfortable, he jokes around about himself with Karkat.

https://homestuck.com/story/2790

Wow this is a great conversation, there’s so much in here to unpack.

Let’s start with one of the first things.

Dave and Karkat’s language here is pretty indistinguishable from the way that they both normally talk to their friends - Karkat is always rude and shouty to everyone (except Kanaya), and Dave is similarly pretty rude and dismissive even to his pals. The thing is though, Dave is doing his whole performative alpha male thing, and so is Karkat, and it creates this really unpleasant tension between the two of them. These guys should obviously actually get along with each other for reasons that are complementary to the reasons they both get along with John, but they’re both so insecure that they can’t let the other’s challenge to their dominance go.

As a coming of age story, Homestuck is to some degree or another about puberty, and the effects that it has on social life - sexuality is intruding into formerly sexless spaces as youngsters become aware of their own bodies, and each other’s bodies. So that’s another tension in this conversation - being the alpha dog doesn’t just mean being the guy who is toughest, but being the guy who gets the girl, and part of that routine is Dave deliberately using his burgeoning friendship with Terezi as a point of contention with Karkat - making Terezi an object of competition.

The same tension makes everything awkward between all three of them because Karkat is attracted to John, and Dave (while still not awake to it) is also attracted to John.

And then Karkat wakes them both up to the possibility of the invasion of the sexual into formerly sexless friendships by bringing up the possibility of reproduction and the only biologically and culturally viable breeding pairs. (Breeding pair, as long as we’re on that topic, is as I understand it, film-industry jargon for the male and female romantic leads when considered together. Don’t quote me on that.)

Classic John is being completely puzzled by the existence of sexuality - completely oblivious to others’ attraction toward him, completely oblivious toward other people’s bodies. The only time in the comic John seems to show legitimate attraction toward another person is Roxy, but we’ll get back to that later. I think John might be Ace, which could be a bit of blatant wish fulfilment since I am Ace, but what am I gonna do, not project my own foibles onto characters I relate to and enjoy?

https://homestuck.com/story/2791

I am not going to play an interactive game right now, it’s getting late, and my break is about to be over.

So for now, this is Cam signing off, and you know the rest.

[aneomeris]

We’re All Someone’s Pekka Rollins

 Episode 2, here I am! I mean, it’s still these shitty times, I don’t need sleep. I don’t want it.

What I meant to say is Another Flashback, Yay. Wow. At least this one does some proper world building, it’s not for a cheap character establishing moment.

- the kids in the field is cute, I’m not a monster (even if I’m someone’s monster? Which, in my very humble opinion, is a lie. Edgy, catchy title line).

- Oh no, adult handholding! Interrupted! Noooo, what are you doing to me!

- Inej v. Kaz, go! Bets in the winner? I think it will be friendship!

- Despite his obsession, Kaz goes after her. Aw.

- Alina, my girl, you heard me. You are Baby again, after that disaster in episode 1 you admitted to being guilty. Girl, I forgive you. The dead maybe won’t, but that’s why they are dead characters anyway. Alina, I knew I were right to have high hopes for you.

- Also, love how the magic users mostly stayed alive, while the common soldiers died. Shows where the priorities are.

- Okay, so there won’t be ages, frustrating for the viewer, for the characters to discover that Alina is afflicted by the very common Main Character’s Super Powers Disease. Good.

- Oh no, right as Mal claims that he knows her better than anyone else, and surely there is no way for him to be wrong and her to have magic she goes and makes a whole damn lightshow.

- Oh no, right as Kaz went to grovel/explain himself to Inej, the baddies impeccably rolled in (I’ll show myself out).

- Soooo, me loving the scottish-ish accent? Check. Me having trouble understanding everything Male-Non-Serafina-Pekkala says? Double check.

- Both Kaz and Inej drinking and confiding in Jesper? Me thinks they are perfect for one another, drinkers when under stress, with excellent taste in confidants, all important traits to share with your significant other.

- I paused the episode to remember this nugget of an exchange. 

K. “Never make decisions out of fear, only out of spite.”

J. “Greed has served me well, so far”

Says so much, so fast about both of them. Now that’s proper writing, none of that “10 flashbacks”nonsence.

- Also, Kaz acting the detective. Nice.

- Ouuuuuu, the melodrama of Mal running after Alina’s carriage! Zoya approaching him? Where is that clip of “quit playing games with my heart”?

- Inej is gaining in terms of character appreciation: tons of daggers, awesome dark hair, weapons hidden in said awesome hair? Love it.

- Varys and the little birds. Enough said.

- Is this introducing Inej and a possible deal with the devil and her conscience?

- Lady, Blodie, darling, either drop the accent, or make it consistent. I’m sorry, Critical Role spoiled me for accents and your is... not good. And I could be wrong, but I doubt that’s on purpose.

- Jesper to the rescue. Not only will he listen to his friends’ trouble, but he’ll be ready to help, be it undisclosed business or killing someone in you stead. Also, I want to know why Inej wants to avoid killing. I mean, generally good rule to live by, by why?

- Look, I might take the line about transporting Alina to safety more seriously if the characters saying it weren’t wearing literal red coats. No.

- See? Ambush. So much for safety.

- Is the cute red coat dead? I’m sure the baddie red coat is just fine.

- Honestly was sure Alina would escape. Where would that have left the plot though?

- So. The general. I love my characters dark, angsty, with the occasional edgyness, but that’s too much. Also, bad hunch for Malina. General Kirigan saved her, has her next to him, has tons of lingering shots with the two of them in focus. Clearly is supposed to be hot (I don’t know why, I don’t find Ben Barns particularly attractive myself, no hate, I’m sure he’s awesome. there, random observation over).

- Him giving her a bloodied blaAaaack handkerchief was such a faux pas on his part. Is he going to be the dark, brooding antagonist like character, saved, at the end, by the literal lightness and love of Alina?

- Keygen, why are you so surprised she doesn’t want to save the world? Haven’t you heard of a reluctant hero? Honestly, brooding possible romantic interests, these days!

- Yay, we’re onto team Crows and handsome decoy!

- Ok, that’s clever writing, having the reward for not killing, not taking the deal with the devil be also very much plot relevant. Good idea for the assassination being bad for the soul just as much as for their endeavour.

- Is Inej religious? With a brother? Oh, no, I’m having Vax’ildan flashbacks myself. Am I going to adore her too?

- She would have taken the deal. She would have killed (thinking herself justified).

- Okay, the palace is awesome. Going to google it...

- Not surprised to find out it’s Budapest. One day I’ll be back, I promise!

- That scene of Mal’s friends talking him out of stealing the horsie and running to Alina Stark(ov-a) reminded me of Jon Snow being talked out of running in aid of Robb Stark.

- Kaz gave Occasional-Accent-Blondie his bar for Inej? He cares so much. I knew he had a soft heart for his two friends.

- Mal... it’s stupid and reckless and all, but unless you run to Alina, you just might doom the whole ship. Oh, and your heart, there’s that too.

- That bed transition though, the hands reaching, the eyes almost locking. The flashback felt earned, for the first time, a memory of simpler, better times, when instead of miles apart, cold, sad, tired they were together, laying in the sun.

[joealwyndaily]

Man About Town interview with Joe Alwyn

Fresh off the back of a star turn in Kasi Lemmons’ Harriet, we catch up with British superstar Joe Alwyn about getting into an evil mindset, playing the long-game in his career, and his upcoming role in Steven Knight’s A Christmas Carol.

words by Francesco Loy Bell

It’s an unnerving experience, having to ask an actor to fill you in on the ending of the film you’re supposed to be interviewing them about, but it’s a testament to Joe Alwyn’s charm and down-to-earth manner that he duly obliges, happily relaying the final ten minutes of Kasi Lemmons’ Harriet with an infectious enthusiasm only someone with genuine passion for a project could muster. I had been most of the way through Lemmons’ bold new offering, centred around American historical icon and slave-turned-abolitionist Harriet Tubman, when the fire alarm sounded, resulting in a hoard of shell-shocked journalists being quickly ushered out of the building, only to be told that we would not be able to watch the last 25 minutes of the film. Fast-forward 24 hours, and I can’t help but pause to reflect on the surreality of sitting across from the films horrifying antagonist as he casually explains his fate to me over coffee. More on that later, however. 

Despite being the only actor in his immediate family, it’s fair to say Alwyn inherited some of the requisite DNA to pursue a career in film, his father, a documentary-maker and his mother, a therapist. Alwyn sees both as formative, instilling him with the “curiosity for looking into people’s lives, observing, and listening to stories” that had possessed him from an early age. “I always liked going to the cinema,” he explains, “sitting in big dark rooms, watching stories. It was kind of a way to disappear.” Though he cannot pinpoint the exact ‘light bulb’ moment in which he decided to become a professional actor, he does attribute seeing Ben Whishaw as Hamlet at the Old Vic when he was 12 or 13 as foundational, and “one of those moments that stick with you, where I thought: ‘I would really like to do that’.” That feeling soon blossomed, Alwyn taking numerous shows to the Edinburgh Fringe while at school and university, shows he can now jokingly admit “should not have been seen by anyone!”

Drama school naturally beckoned, the then-graduate enrolling himself into The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, an experience he looks back on fondly, his eyes lighting up as he recalls some of the more eccentric aspects of his time there. “A lot of rolling around on the floor, a lot of tight black clothing. And lots of trees, I was a brilliant tree,” he laughs, before informing me, in sudden deadpan: “you’re also looking at a llama.”

Alwyn probably wouldn’t have expected such a swift re-entry into the dynamic absurdity of drama school so soon after leaving, but then he probably wouldn’t have expected to be working with director Yorgos Lanthimos only a couple of years later either. Having shot his first job — Ang Lee’s reverse-engineered war film Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk — just after he graduated in 2015, Alwyn was sent the script of a then still in development The Favourite soon afterwards. “It felt like a special script. I mean, at that point, I hadn’t read that many scripts. I still was” — he catches himself, as his eyes widen in momentary wonder — “well, I still am new to this. But yeah, it was just... such a good script. I knew of Yorgos; I knew of his films. And those two things kind of narrowed together: this twisted take on a genre that can be quite conventional and stuffy, and his very unique, singular mind. It was exciting.”

A skype session with Lanthimos soon followed (“we talked about everything probably apart from The Favourite” Alwyn laughs), and the rest is history, the actor landing the role of Samuel Masham, a young baron in the court of Olivia Colman’s Queen Ann. Though his turn in the film is punctuated by exaggerated physicality — the court dancing scene with Rachel Weisz a particularly memorable example — Alwyn tells me that it was only when he got on set that Lanthimos’ true, bonkers vision began to come to life. 

“I didn’t know that it was going to become one of those moments,” he says of the dance scene and others like it. “Because in the script it just said ‘they dance’, or, ‘he chases her’.” He can’t help but smile when speaking about Lanthimos: “He is hilarious. And confusing. He doesn’t really say anything to you about conventional direction; there was no discussion of period, or etiquette, or character, or history — which I think we’d expected to a degree, just because of the nature of the film. We had two weeks of ridiculous exercises and rehearsals, where I’d be playing Olivia’s part, and Olivia would be playing Nick [Hoult]’s part, and you’d sing the lines, and you’re chasing each other, and... you don’t know what you’re doing, or why you’re doing it. And Yorgos doesn’t say anything. And then he’d get on set, and just kind of say ‘Mmm... louder, faster, quieter’.”

The profound respect Alwyn holds for Lanthimos is tangible — he responds “Yorgos again” in a flash when I ask him who he’d love to work with — and he largely credits the director’s vision for the success the film has since garnered. “He made it weird and wacky and bawdy and irreverent, and it’s just not what you’re used to seeing,” he gushes. One particular on-set tale gives some insight into the energetic nature of Lanthimos’ sets, Alwyn recollecting a close-shave experience during a flirtatious forest scene with Emma Stone which resulted in the actress being taken to hospital. “The woods scene; the rugby tackling scene. We — or I — got maybe a little too carried away in the rugby aspect of it, and Emma took a fall... which was completely my fault. She knocked herself on the root of a tree and hurt her head; the paramedics came, she had to go to hospital, and we had to stop filming for the day.” The sheer panic still momentary lingers on Alwyn’s face as he recounts the story: “She’d just won an Oscar [...] I was cowering in the corner thinking I’d just killed Emma Stone.”

Alwyn’s latest project, Harriet, is a stark departure from The Favourite, the actor trading in Masham’s comic fluidity for the chilling rigidity of Gideon Brodess, the vengeful and sickeningly violent son of Harriet’s owner. As aforementioned, it is difficult to reconcile the man sitting opposite me sipping his coffee with the evil he portrays on screen, and I’m curious as to Alwyn’s process for getting into such a poisonous mindset. “It’s tricky, because what he stands for is abhorrent, and obviously unrelatable,” he explains. “What him and his family did, and the idea of slavery, is repulsive. But I suppose with those kinds of characters you try to find some kind of humanity within them — which suits the time they were living in — to hold onto. And in Gideon’s case, it’s probably some kind of deep, repressed, buried feelings of love. Maybe love for Harriet? I don’t think he necessarily has a language for it, or even understands what it is. But he’s deeply tangled and confused inside. And you try and connect with those sides of him. But, in terms of who they are and what they stand for... it’s hard to find a way in. It’s near impossible.”

Alwyn gives a brutal performance in the film, deftly showcasing Gideon’s skin-crawling internal struggle between racist disgust, and Lima Syndrome-style  lust of Harriet, and his antagonistic villainy is the perfect foil to fellow Brit Cynthia Erivo’s stunning performance as the eponymous emancipator, Alwyn extolling her “formidable” work ethic and on-screen generosity as hugely motivational in his preparation. The story of Harriet Tubman, though well known, is perhaps not as staple a piece of knowledge in the American psyche as her actions demand, and Alwyn hopes that the film will help to give her the wider historical credit she deserves, both in the States and beyond. “Growing up in the UK,” he explains, “I didn’t know who she was, really. I’d seen her name; I’d seen the older iconic images of her. But I didn’t know her story. You hope that films like this will make it more accessible, and bring people in to learn about her and the story of what she did, what she achieved.”

As the politics of division take hold around the world, there has been an intensified focus on the debate surrounding story-telling, and the potential impact or consequence a story can have in the current climate; Todd Phillips’ Joker, for example, has faced significant criticism for potentially giving encouragement to white terrorism and racism. In this vein, the telling of stories like Tubman’s seems more necessary than ever, and this is not lost on Alwyn. “If you go on Twitter and read down on the news, there’s endless stories of division and racism, bigotry, families being torn apart at the borders. Without putting too much on it, if there was someone who represents a fight in the face of that, Harriet Tubman seems to shine pretty strong. And you’d hope that someone like her would become a part of a global curriculum at school.” Alwyn is hopeful that giving figures like Tubman their due historical credit — at least in terms of film — will universalise her all-too-recent struggle, and help unite people in the face of societal partition.

Alwyn’s next project will see him return to London, albeit a dark, Dickensian version of the city, as he takes on the role of Bob Cratchit — Ebenezer Scrooge’s much-abused clerk — in Steven Knight’s upcoming rendition of A Christmas Carol. Though he cannot give too much away, he promises the miniseries will be much darker and truer to Dickens’ sordid portrayal of London than previous versions. “It’s very much more in that kind of gritty, darker, slightly twisted world,” he explains. “It’s not as sanitised, perhaps, as most other versions are [...] it really goes into Scrooge’s own pain and why he is the way he is in quite an unpleasant way. And definitely in a way that hasn’t been seen before.”

Alwyn speaks with a soft, magnetic enthusiasm that almost makes me forget that this is indeed an interview, and I am disappointed to look down at my dictaphone and discover that our allotted time slot is drawing to a close. Characteristically, however, he laughs off any time constraint, and I am afforded some final questions. At 28 years old, the actor is arguably slightly older than some of the other industry ‘up-and-comers’ one might bracket him alongside, and I ask whether he thinks the hyper-visibility of fame elicited by social media is in part to blame for an increasing tendency to link the validity of success with being in your early 20s. Alwyn, despite having an instagram page and being in a relationship with one of the biggest musicians in the world, is notably more private than many others in his position, and he quotes a piece of advice given to him by Ang Lee on set of Billy Lynn in his response.

“It’s not a sprint,” he decides, after some deliberation. “Everyone has different ways of going. I’m still at an early stage in my career. I left Central in 2015, the first film I was in came out at the end of 2016. It doesn’t feel too long ago. I don’t think there is any right way to do it, but [...] I do think it’s an interesting point about social media and the idea of instant visibility, an instant attainment... it’s a dangerous thing to play into. And something that would be dangerous to get hooked on because I don’t think it’s real. You know, social media is [a facade]. And if you buy into that being a reality — or that’s what you go after — it’s not healthy.”

I am struck by how refreshing Alwyn’s attitude to fame is, though by the end of our conversation, I am hardly surprised. This is someone for whom the work is clearly a far superior motivational factor than fame or recognition, and this passion for his craft is evident in every project he touches. Ang Lee was right, it is a marathon rather than a sprint, but Joe Alwyn certainly seems ahead of the curve as he enters what promises to be a vastly exciting new chapter in his career. I, for one, can’t wait to see what he does next.

[xiolaperry]

The Piano - Chapter 8

Summary: Belle French and her daughter arrive in New Zealand to an arranged marriage with Gaston LeGume.  Gaston shows little interest in her or her piano and books. However, Mr. Gold is fascinated… (Rumbelling of the 1993 film “The Piano”)

Rating: E (for smut, dark subject matter and violence)

Also available on AO3

-

When Gaston came home and saw the piano, he was furious.

“What is this doing here?”

Belle did not acknowledge him.

“Answer me!” He grabbed a pile of books from the table and threw them to the ground in a rage. Belle's hands clenched into fists at the sight of them on the floor.

“Mr. Gold has given it back,” said Tilly, coming to her mother's rescue.

“You will not ruin this land deal for me.” He shook his finger in Belle's face. Without waiting for a response, he stormed out, almost ripping the door off its hinges.

What would people think if Gold took that land back? They'd say Gold tricked him, and he'd look foolish. He’d already started fences to mark the boundary! If Belle had worked some kind of deal behind his back, he didn't know what he'd do to her. She'd regret it.

“Gold!” he yelled, pounding on the door. “I know you're in there!” There was no reply. He barged in.

The sight of Gold sitting at the table, his head resting on his arms, stopped him in his tracks. Gold was never disheveled or caught in a vulnerable position. Some of Gaston’s anger dissipated from the surprise.

“Are you sick?”

“Something like that.”

“Listen, Gold. You're not going to weasel your way out of this agreement. The land is mine. If Belle isn't doing a good enough job teaching you, we can figure something else out.”

Gold raised his head. “I don't want to learn anymore.”

“What about our deal? I can't afford the piano if you expect me to pay for it.”

“No payment. I've given it back.”

“But I don’t need a piano.”

“I'm not giving it to you, dearie. I'm giving it to your wife.” Idiot.

“Oh. I see.” He didn't. He was more confused than ever. Since when did Gold give anybody anything? “I'm sure she'll appreciate it.”

The whiskey bottle caught Gaston's eye. Only an inch of amber liquid remained at the bottom. “Wait a minute. Are you drunk? This still counts, even if you're drunk.”

Gold's head hurt. He could endure this conversation no longer.

“Leave before I change my mind.” He would do no such thing, but Gaston didn't know that. He put his head back down. The door creaked open and then closed again. Footsteps went down the porch steps. Blessed silence. Until the hinges groaned again.

“Gaston, I told you to get out.”

“I'm not Gaston.”

Someone else was here. Wonderful. It took significant effort to lean back and open his eyes. “What do you want?”

Granny stood before him, hands on her hips. “I saw your face when you left last night.”

“And?”

“I don't think I've ever seen you look so distressed. Not even when you lost your top hat to Kamira in a card game.”

“Indigestion. That's all it was.”

“The piano's gone.” Granny swept her arm to the empty spot in the room.

“How observant of you.”

“Where are your manners, Gold? Aren't you going to invite an old woman to sit down?”

“I would if I wanted you to stay. But I don't.”

She sat down anyway.

“Is everyone being deliberately dense today? I obviously don't want visitors. I'm quite busy. This whiskey isn't going to finish itself.” He poured the rest into his cup with a flourish.

Granny sighed. “I saw Gaston Legume leave. He looked very pleased with himself. You gave that piano back and let him keep the acreage, didn’t you? You have feelings for that woman, Belle. You're smarter than this. Snap out of it. This can only end badly.”

“If I wanted your opinion, I'd ask for it.” His tone went from antagonistic to defeated. “And it has ended. It's over. Done. Like this conversation.”

Her face softened. She reached out and touched his hand. “Gold, I'm worried about you.”

“That's it. I'm going to bed.” He downed the rest of the whiskey and staggered to his feet, his grip on his cane the only thing keeping him from falling over. Granny helped him to the bed. She took off his shoes and covered him with a blanket. Gold muttered something unintelligible. She doubted it was complimentary.

“Sleep it off, you grumpy old bastard. You'll feel better when you wake up.”

---

Pleased that everything had worked out so well, Gaston whistled as he strolled back to the house. Looking like a fool was his biggest fear, and now the opposite happened. He got to keep the land and his odd wife had her piano back without cost or inconvenience to himself. It couldn't have turned out better if he had planned the entire thing.

He remembered holding Belle's hand at the play. The experience wasn’t terrible. Maybe she was warming up to him? Perhaps everything would work out with her too. He knew he'd be good at this husband thing.

Gaston entered the house. Belle was stroking the piano keys with an expression on her face that he didn’t understand.

“Everything all right with it?” he asked. “Why don't you play something?”

Belle stepped back from the piano and gestured to Tilly to take her place. She was reluctant to perform for the man who traded what she held dear with no thought to her feelings. Not to mention how angry Gaston had been just a short time ago, yelling and throwing things. People who threw books were not to be trusted. Now he was acting as though nothing happened.

“What shall I play?” asked Tilly, pleased to be the center of attention.

“Something fun.”

Tilly played an upbeat tune. “Would you like me to sing along?”

“Yes, that would be nice. At least someone is happy.”

After listening for a few seconds, Belle walked out of the house. There was a jumble of emotions inside of her: confusion with Gold, irritation with Gaston and her marriage. What did it all mean? She should be happy. Mr. Gold returned her precious things to her, no more bartering for black keys.

Attempting to analyze what happened that afternoon, Belle replayed the event in her mind. He'd said, “I've had enough.” Initially, she’d taken that as rejection. He was bored with her and didn't want her anymore. But then he said he wanted her to care for him. The self-loathing in his voice when he said he would turn her into a whore, that he would be a monster. Mr. Gold thought she had rejected him. He was letting her go because he cared for her.

Her mind spun and circled, overwrought. She wrapped her arms around herself and paced.

Gaston watched her from the window.

“Why won't she play? She gets the thing back after being so upset about losing it. Now she just wanders off.” He shook his head. “Women. They make no sense.” They ought to be celebrating. It wasn’t every day that someone bested Gold, and he couldn’t wait to boast about it.

Tilly shrugged and kept playing. Her mother wasn't making any sense to her either.

Her mother's strange mood continued the next morning. Tilly dressed in her costume and wings to get her attention. Why was her mother ignoring her? It was simple: Mr. Gold gave back the piano and books. Mama should be happy. She should be smiling and asking her what she wanted for breakfast. Her child's mind could not see her mother's distraction as anything other than an insult to her.

Gaston noticed she was wearing her costume from the play. Still in a pleasant mood from the day before, he told her how pretty she looked in it as he was leaving. What would Mama do if she started calling Gaston 'Papa'? That might get her attention.

Belle had not spoiled Tilly, but their relationship was unique, symbiotic in nature. Being her mother's voice had altered the normal mother/daughter dynamic. Maurice had loved his granddaughter, but there was always distance – she was a tangible reminder of his daughter's shame. Belle and Tilly had been the center of each other's world. Any rival to her mother’s affections would be met with jealousy.

Belle tried to play her piano, but she kept having to stop. It wasn't the same without Gold. She tried to read a book. He was in her mind and would not leave. She could not endure this. “Do the brave thing, and bravery will follow.” That's what it said in 'Her Handsome Hero.' It was good advice, and she would take it. She would be brave and go to him.

She told Tilly to wash the dishes and read her lessons. Her daughter could not accompany her today. Hurrying, she rushed to fix her hair and lace her boots.

Even though she was instructed to stay behind, Tilly followed her outside. “Wait for me! I want to come too.” She grabbed Belle's skirt.

Belle turned and snatched her skirt back, impatient to be going now that she had decided on a course of action. She signed, “No. Go inside and don’t follow me. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone.”

Tilly stamped her foot, outraged. Accompanying her mother had never been denied to her. “Why not? Why can't I?”

Belle took a deep breath, trying to be patient, but she had to leave before she lost her nerve. “You will listen to me. Go into the house. Now.” Her movements were sharp, irritated.

Tilly ran back in the house, angry tears in her eyes.