#i enjoy stories with family conflict and internal moral conflict a lot so its not surprising this theme is close to me jhgfghj

[necrotic-nephilim]

I started in DC by reading fanfics, but as I began to read actual comics, I started to be unable to read the actual fanfic that got me into it in the first place because it's so out of character.

But there are still some stories that I love to read because I love the found family trope so much, even if it isn't really accurate to the source material.

As a comics purist (sometimes), are there tropes that you like enough that you'll still enjoy a fic even if it's not accurate to canon?

oh my god this is SUCH a fun question. bc while i started with the comics, there were certain characters and/or character dynamics where i was exposed to the fanon before the canon (just bc it's hard to read everything when you start out just to read some fanfic) and so i've definitely experienced the fanon to canon transition. (*especially* with Jason Todd. i had only read 80s/90s stuff where he was already dead or the New-52 bc that was on-going when i got into comics and man. the fanon misunderstandings i had about him before i got frustrated and sat down to read all his pre-Flashpoint stuff were absolutely bonkers.) and aside from that, whilst i tend to prefer canon over fanon, i'm not past giving fanon its flowers for occasionally having really interesting insights. occasionally. so some of my fanon "guilty pleasure" tropes would probably be

Morally Grey Tim Drake - this is one where if you try to back it up with canon, i *will* get salty about it. of everyone in the Batfam aside from maybe Bruce and Cass, Tim has the *most* black and white morals. often his internal conflicts are routed in such an inability to compromise his moral views and it can cause him to clash with other characters. he's *very* stiff and rigid in his beliefs and is *rare* to compromise in even the smallest ways. i mean, DC has repeatedly used Tim Drake of Tomorrow/Savior/Gun Batman!Tim for a reason. it's to demonstrate that of everyone, Tim *cannot* have his morals compromised. there's no grey area for him. he's zero or a hundred, so if he tips over the edge of "too far" he tips *all the way*, and doing so is one of his worst fears, how he could go "too far" if he let himself. a couple panels out of context from Red Robin (2009) (which was a grief spiral for Tim to begin with) don't change that. now that said. if it's done *right*, i sort of love Tim being morally grey in fanfic. it takes a specific flavor for me, and it's incredibly important to include that mental spiral along with it, of him struggling to justify it. i don't have any interest in "Tim Drake is loosy goosy with Bruce's morals and has the highest kill count and no one knows teehee" bc it doesn't play with the interesting parts of making Tim morally grey, which are fracturing his psyche. but all in all, i think it's fun to put Tim in a morally grey area and i will read it in fanfic and i enjoy writing it a lot

Joker Junior!Tim Drake - i've not written it on this account (yet) but on my main ao3 account one of my biggest fics surrounds this concept. this is one of those "well *technically* it's canon but only in a specific very divorced from the comics universe and would not work at all in the main timeline" so, i categorize it as fanon in that 95% of fics exploring the concept are not doing so within the Batman Beyond universe, but the main timeline. i just love it. I'll take any excuse to whump Tim, but this concept is so fun. psychologically breaking Tim will always be my favorite pastime. there are so many ways to explore the long-term effects this could have on him, how it could affect the Batfam. i'm not a fan of it being used as a "gotcha" to Jason or Babs' trauma with the Joker to paint Tim as the Ultimate Victim, but it is fun to see how their relationships would be affected by being mutual victims of him. (i have a vague JayTim idea where TIm fully retires from being Robin after being Joker Junior and killing the Joker, making Steph Robin for most of his typical Robin era and Jason still tracks him down out of curiosity bc he wants to know what happened and all. very underbaked but i've got thoughts.)

Renegade/Apprentice of Slade!Dick Grayson - this is another one where yes, this happened *sort of* in canon, but i highly doubt most people writing Renegate!Dick have read or are actually pulling from Nightwing: Renegade. it's just an exploration fo the concept fo Dick being Slade's apprentice and i will always eat it up in any capacity. whether Dick grows up with Slade from a young age, or chooses Slade for whatever reason later in life. it's not anything that works in canon bc it compromises Dick morally (similar to the above with Tim) and therefore will always come across incredibly fanon in most fics. but i can't say i don't enjoy it. it's fun to make Dick a little morally fucked up and see what you can make him under Slade's tutelage.

Jason & Damian Meeting in the League -there's no world where i believe this could work in the canon comics. (maybe in the Young Justice cartoon i suppose, but even then i think it's iffy) i would go as far to say it's wildly unrealistic. i don't see a world where Ra's would let Jason anywhere *near* Damian, bc Jason was Talia's pet project that he didn't approve of. that all said, there's something very interesting about how they *could've* met and them potentially bonding during that timeframe. them being somewhat brotherly during this time because Jason sees Bruce in Damian and sort of latches onto the kid and Damian is full of wonder hearing real stories about Batman and Robin, then that getting violently ripped away by Jason leaving the League is fun to me. it's fun how that could affect them within the Batfam and all. it's super fanon to me, but i do not care. i will eat it up

Bad Dad Clark Kent/Good Dad Lex Luthor - i will admit as a late, i've been less and less kind to this particular fanon bc of everything i've argued with people about, *this* one seems the most pervasive as misunderstood fanon. i don't mind when fanon exists, my gripe is when ppl try to claim it's canon. and the *arguments* i've had over this with people who can never seem to cite an actual comic are... frustrating. but that said, i think there is something fun to this strictly in fanon. the duality of who you expect to accept Kon and who you expect to hurt him being flipped is just sort of fun for the occasional guilty pleasure fic. it can make Kon's internal conflict a bit more interesting. the same goes for the Jon favoritism from Clark, it's not a canon thing (and i rlly wish ppl understood how complicated the timeline of Kon and Jon is and any distance from Clark toward Kon isn't malice, it's that Kon is from a timeline that Clark does not remember in the current canon so Clark just straight up doesn't know the poor kid.) but it's sort of fun to give Kon that complex of being overlooked and forgotten sometimes. making Kon just a *bit* more Luthor than Kent will *always* appeal to me in fanfic, especially if he *knows* it's wrong but craves approval from anyone who will give it.

Good Dad Bruce Wayne - i'll die on the hill Bruce is canonically a shitty father. maybe not to the extreme some people write him as, but he's not great at it. that said, i enjoy it in fanfiction. sometimes, i just want silly fluff or hurt/comfort where Bruce finally gets it right and manages to comfort whatever Batkid is in the fic. one of my favorite fics of all time is hinged on Bruce being a good dad, so i think it's just fun to explore how good the relationships *could* be, if Bruce was slightly less of an asshole. i usually prefer him as an asshole, but there are times i want low stakes nonsense.

Gotham Rogues Having Soft Spots for Robin(s) - just about every Rogue in Gotham has done something absolutely irredeemable, and most of them don't like or care about anyone in the Batfamily. but if there's a fic where one of the Robins inexplicably is sort of close with a Rogue and they have a cute silly relationship out of it? I'll eat it up i fear. Steph and the Riddler are besties? I'll believe it. Tim and Scarecrow get along pretty well? give me ten of these. Rogues protecting Robins just hits a spot. the unexpected nature of the relationship, as well as the fact they see each other regularly, can make a lot of good fodder.

[adaptive-radiation]

Youth by Glass Animals is one of my new favourite songs 

[bakuliwrites]

Ooh I'd love to hear about Dark Star! 👀

I would be delighted to talk about it! Thank you so much for asking!

WIP Ask Game here

So, Dark Star is my BG3 fanfic about my Sorlock Tav, Orlando. More detailed info about her here and Chapter One here. She is a Deep Sea Tiefling who grew up in a family of Warlocks who all worshipped a Fathomless being they simply call The Deep Abyss. Orlando managed to escape her family with her mother and brother, but through a series of events, wound up trapped in the House of Hope as a child, where she met a young Enver Gortash. Some things I'm exploring in Dark Star:

Gortash's backstory and his time in the House of Hope. It is here that Orlando and Gortash begin their romance, which started as a childhood crush and bloomed into more as they aged. I wanted to write a story for a Tav with a history with Gortash, rather than a Durge story (though I do enjoy Durgetash).

I don't have any intention of doing a redemption arc for Gortash, but I do want to show his internal conflict when it comes to pleasing Orlando (she wants him to do the right thing) and providing a stable future for the both of them (which, for Gortash, means making questionable if not morally reprehensible decisions). Their relationship has, over the years, become more toxic, but there is a lot of deep love there, still. (If you're curious, I have a little standalone story about them in their younger years here and some letters exchanged between them here)

Lots of eldritch themes in this. Orlando has her own patron that I came up with (a baby Fathomless she rescued!), but her family has the Deep Abyss. She wants to sever her ties from this particular Fathomless, but is struggling to do so. Similar to Raphael, Orlando has an Ascended form, but it is directly related to the Deep Abyss (I'm going to draw up a design for this at some point haha).

Orlando has her own questline, so depending on which ending you get, she'll end up with Gortash, ruling over Faerûn together. Or she will end up with Astarion and Karlach :) I like poly romances and wish you could romance them both in game! I plan to have a ton of wholesome moments between them throughout each chapter.

And finally, here's a little excerpt that I haven't yet posted :) This fic has WAY more Gortash content than I initially intended. My obsession with that man hit me like a train haha. This occurs right in the beginning of act 3, during Gortash’s coronation. Orlando and Enver haven’t seen each other in a few years, but have been corresponding via letters to one another.

Orlando glides up to the dais, the hem of her white dress like silken snow pooling around her feet. She lays her hand softly over Enver’s, a touch so deeply familiar, it could knock him off his feet. For a moment, the throne room in Wyrm’s Rock is still, as if the very building itself is holding its breath. Enver has half a mind to scoop Orlando into his arms, to lay kiss after long awaited kiss to her lips, to make up for the years they’ve been apart. But in the company of others, tadpoled or otherwise, he opts to merely intertwine their fingers, giving her hand an affectionate squeeze. 

Enver is grateful for her discretion. A grand display of adoration would hardly be appropriate for his coronation ceremony. And he does not yet know where Orlando’s allegiance lies. Will she remain faithful to him? To the plan? Or will she deliberately work against him? With the killing of Ketheric Thorm, he cannot be sure anymore. Orlando is more lethal than she realizes, but that is not why Enver is interested in allying with her. No, it is her determination, her softness that will win the hearts of those in Baldur’s Gate. Enver Gortash, the iron fist of Bane, and Orlando, his gentle wife.

“I thought you dead,” he murmurs to his beloved, allowing himself a moment to rest his forehead against hers, to let his eyes flutter shut while he basks in her calm aura. How long has it been since he has felt this at peace? Her thoughts gently nudge his. 

“Your mind is open to me, Enver,” Orlando whispers in his head, a tender voice in the cacophonous din, “You are fraught with worry. What troubles you?” 

He lets her in, lets her wade past the wrathful, shadowy thoughts that have eclipsed his mind. He is controlled, calculated, and pulled together in front of this gathering of nobles and smarmy politicians. But there is a tiny corner of Enver’s psyche that is reeling, chaotic. Orlando is a reminder of softer days, hours spent idling with one another in the dark corners of the House of Hope. Secret meetings, stolen kisses, furtive glances. 

Yet, she is also a reminder of sorrowful, difficult days. Days of punishment for Enver’s insolence. His disobedience. Days of separation, because a note exchanged between the two of them was discovered, and they were no longer allowed to be alone with one another. Notes that contained plans of escape. Plans for a life lived beyond the confines of the House of Hope. Dreams crushed to dust by the cruelty of a world built on lies and false hope.

“Meet me in my office after the ceremony,” Enver breathes, before pulling away and cloaking himself in bravado once more.

[kinsey3furry300]

5 ships I hate, why I hate them, how to (kinda) fix them, the better ships you should be doing in that universe, and why you should ignore me and keep writing them if it makes you happy.

Note: this is done for amusement, please don’t be offended; I’m not attacking your ship, I’m just listing some ships I do not always care for, and how I think they could be improved, and maybe made brilliant, by clever writing.

In no particular order, and focusing on ships that often annoy me, with no attempt by me to say anything meaningful or popular about the current state of any particular fandom. I’m also a firm believer in the idea that there’s no such thing as a bad ship, only a badly executed ship, so my objections to these is less a dislike of shipping, or the paring, and more that they raise writing issues that I think are difficult to fix in a satisfying way. That’s why in a lot of the examples below I prefer AU ships to ones that try to messily work it into the cannon. Anyway, enjoy... I guess?

 Marco x / anyone (Animorphs)

Why I hate it: Animrophs is an intensely character-driven story, where the tension of each book comes from the conflicts, external and internal, that the five Animrophs (and Ax) face during a long, hard, traumatic war.  And while several of the character are paired off romantically, it’s always to emphasise character conflict over their different points of view. Jake and Cassie are a pair because Jake’s struggle with having to make hard, grey, morally ambiguous choices as leader is highlighted by Cassie’s burning need to make the right choice, the lesser evil, the choice that leaves some small shred of humanity and dignity and kindness left in this bleak world. Tobias and Rachel are a pair as their arcs deal with literal and figurative loss of humanity, as the slow accumulation of trauma over time turns these happy(ish), normal kids into psychologically ruined husks of their former selves and destroys them slowly, one fight at a time.

Marco’s arc, isn’t about either of these things: Marco’s arc, is about the bright, clear line between A and B, between problem and solution. Marco is a utilitarian, a pragmatist: his concern isn’t the burden of leadership, or the cost of the decision, but about how to put that all aside and make hard decisions that actually work regardless of cost. It’s not about what to do, the path is obvious: the bright, clear line of ruthless logic, but how to do it. His match, his counterpoint, the other character who’s all about the logic of taking awful decision in a way that actually works for the team, and his foil, his female counterpart in this, is not a romantic partner, but his mother: Visser one, making the exact same hard, difficulty ruthless decisions using logic and maths, but for the other side of this war. A romantic paring gets in the way of this arc because a partner doesn’t help him with that bright, clear line, and worse, any attempt to pair him of with either Rachel or Cassie breaks up not only a cannon paring, but their respective character arc.

How to (kinda) fix this: Marco’s arc is, at the end of the day, a trolly problem. So make sure whoever you ship him with is one of the people tied to the tracks. Introduce a character he crushes on, and then in the second act reveal that they are either a Controller, or in the family of a Controller or the proximity of the target of their next mission in a way that will make them collateral damage ,and let Marco struggle with what happens when that bright, clear logical line from A to B cuts through someone he actually loves; you know, like it did with his mother. See, even trying to fix this ship is weirdly Freudian.

The far better ship you should be doing: Ax x / EVERYONE. Ax in human form is described as a worryingly pretty, worryingly androgynous male of indeterminate race. He is a literally Bishonen alien hedonist with no familiarity with human senses, poor impulse control in human form, and no knowledge or understanding of human courtship rituals, and he can shape-shift, including into other members of the core team if needed to compel a mission, he calls Jake his prince,  and he is incredibly close to Tobias, the lonely outcast woobie that the LGBT fans adopted as their poster boy. Come on, the potential for shipping, both with wacky hijinks and sad, tragic star-crossed lovers’ trope is endless. Every line dedicated to Marco shipping is a line of text that could be dedicated to Ax trying to eat a Cinnabon erotically on his first date as a human and hulking out mid way because he forgot just how good they are. What could be better than him leaning into to erotically kiss a team-mate, and then fucking up due to his failure to understand human mouths, making weird mouth sounds, and then licking crumbs of the table in the middle of the mall, in front of the entire school, while his crush awkwardly tried to pretend this is normal? What’s wrong with you Marco-shipper people, do you hate fun?

 Riz/Tem (beastars) Why I hate this ship: Okay, just to quickly ask a question, to people who un-ironically like this as a serious ship and not a dark joke, just one little question: What’s wrong with you? I mean,are you okay? Keep taking the meds: the show is VERY clear on that point.

It’s like those people who say Joker X Harley Quinn is their ideal dark, edgy relationship: no it’s not, it’s abusive! Morticia x Gomez is dark and cool but CONSENTUAL and HEALTHY. This… this is a deeply imbalanced person murdering someone and telling themselves after that fact it was special and rare and magical. ITS HOMICIDE! And even if you write that out (and you shouldn’t, because that changes the character arc of every other major character) it’s still got more red flags that a soviet military parade. This is the botulinum of a toxic, one-sided teenage infatuation. Riz’s entire arc is about how he projects his thoughts and feelings about himself onto this idealised, made-up version of his and Tem’s relationship which, from Tem’s point of view, never existed. Riz never loved Tem: he loved the idea of Tem, the idea that someone would see the real him, see his inner pain and accept him anyway, but he never once told Tem this. He didn’t warn him “Hey, because of you I don’t feel I need my meds any more, do you mind if I try not taking them and we can meet and talk about this in a safe, well-lit pace?” He’s not honest with Tem, and on top of that It doesn’t make sense from the point of view of either of the characters for them to be actually, romantically in love (although  they were clearly close friends), because it undermines and cheepens Riz desire to just be seen and accepted for his real self, and the cannon Tem X Els ship. It also doesn’t make sense from a story point of view: Riz is a shadow archetype for Legosi. He’s what Legosi would have become if someone hadn’t interrupted his attack on Haru. That’s why Legosi needs to beat Riz with his own hands: because then he’s beating the darker version of himself he’s been carrying with him, and he can finally move on with Haru guilt-free. Having Riz and Tem’s relationship actually be what Riz imagined it to be undoes that. It undoes Riz’s interesting, dark inner struggle between truth and fantasy, it turns Tem’s tragic, unsolved murder that sets the entire story in motion into a just sort of weird Romeo-and Juliet suicide. It’s ruins the character arc not only for Riz, but for Legosi, and also, by extension, Louis and Haru, because Legosi’s internal angst over whether or not herbivores and carnivores can have a relationship as true friends needs this example of a tragic, flawed, toxic, failed friendship to bounce off of.

How it could (sort of) work: an AU where Riz’s attack on Tem is interrupted and Tem lives with a slight arm injury, and doesn’t tell anyone out of his complex feelings for Riz. Meanwhile, that bunny girl from the gardening club had been brutally devoured and Rz and/or Tem are so horrified with how close this was to their own near-miss, they start to investigate the murder, and in doing so get caught up in Louis’ inner struggle. Because that’s how the story needs to work, it’s about duality and struggle: and if Riz takes Legosi’s role, and by dating a herbivore he de facto takes the role, so Legosi must take Riz’s. This could be a great AU!

The better ship you should be doing: Pina/Riz (with a dash of Pina x Els), no, seriously, I’m not shitposting. You want to give Riz a redemption arc with a cute woolly boy? How about a story where Pina, out of a need for closure about at happened to him, starts to visit Riz in jail and they talk, mockingly at first, confrontational at first, but later Pina slowly becoming more fascinated in Riz and Tem’s life and asking Riz for more and more detail until they both bond over their shared traumatic experiences and their sense of loss for Tem’s senseless death, Tem’s unfished life casting a shadow over both off them. Eventually, the two of them find, from Legosi who still has the diary, that Tem had planned out an elaborate and beautiful first date with Els that he never got to take her on, and Riz, guilt ridden and sad than Tem never got this beautiful moment, decides to ask Pina take her on that date for Tem, with Riz coaching him by phone cyano-de-Bergerac style, Riz finally getting some closure that he helped one of Tem’s wishes come true and finally acknowledging to himself that Tem had a life and loves outside of him that were cut of short by his actions, and just crying over his lost friend, as Pina and Els slow-dance in Tem memory. Or if you just want to see Tem awkwardly date a carnivore boy from school, why not something less creepy and more wholesome and ship him with Jack? That would be cute AF, and more importantly, not romanticize brutal murder. Or an AU where everything is happy and nice, I’d argue at that it’s no longer Beastars at that point, but if it makes you happy, go for it. Let’s not shame anyone here.

 Snape X Lilly (Harry Potter)

Why I hate this ship: honestly, it’s not for the reason you think; I just like Snape too much as a tragic character, and making him in any way happy destroys his arc in my opinion.  The objection’s others have raised: that Snape acts in a worryingly possessive stalker-ish way towards Lilly, and that if Voldemort had gone for Nevil rather than Harry as a child Snape would have remained a loyal death eater, are true and I acknowledge them as having some validity, but that’s not why I can’t stand this ship. Snape is supposed to be a morally and emotionally complex, tragic figure. That “After all this time?” line was the best line in the Deathly Hallows.  Snape is supposed to show the equality destructive and redemptive power of  love. It’s sort of trinity: Lilly shows the pure power of true, unconditional love in her sacrifice to save Harry, Voldy shows what self-destruction and cruelty a life without understanding love leads to, and Snape sits somewhere in the middle: his one-sided  un-requited love being both the cause of his darkest, and his greatest actions. His curse, and his redemption, fall and rise. Making him happy messes that up.

How to (kinda) fix this ship: make them miserable. Make them fall for each-other only to be pulled apart by circumstance (you know, like they were in the darn original source material). You’re serious about making this a tragic, dark romance? Don’t ship them when they’re at school: Ship them during Voldemort’s rise to power, in the 80’s, after Lilly is married. Have the original Order of the Phoenix send her to meet with Snape and use their previous relation to try to milk some information out of him. Have her feel conflicted about it, have James furious about it, but have her do it anyway for the greater good. Have her meet up secretly with Snape who is angry and distrustful, knowing his must be a trap, and talk. Have the relationship slowly build over time against the backdrop of a cold-war spy thriller, as Lilly slowly realizes that she has some lingering feelings for Snape, but can’t reconcile them her loyalty to the order and her family. Make this a love story of conflicted feelings, divided loyalties, and spy-work against the background of drawing war-clouds. Have Snape offer to leave Voldemort, if she’ll leave the Order, and run away with him, but by that point she knows she’s pregnant and chooses to stay, out of loyalty even though she’s crushing on Snape. Have him show up at the rendezvous expecting for her to be there only for James to lead an Order Ambush, and a fight to ensure, on top of Tower Bridge in the howling wind and rain, Snape surviving but having his spirit crushed and fleeing before Lilly can tell him her true feelings. Make it big, and melodramatic, but above all, make it tragic.  Because that’s the only way Snape works as a character. Always.

The better ship you should be doing: Ginny X Nevil or Luna x Nevil: You want tragic lovers, at school, with divided loyalties, who never get together in the main cannon because a Potter ruins it and gets the girl? Ginny X Nevil. Write what was happening that final year Harry wasn’t at school when they took Dumbledore’s Army and make it work in earnest. Heck, you could even have Snape, as headmaster, hated by them but secretly trying to protect them as a secondary character to their secret, forbidden love. You don’t want to break up Harry X Ginny? Luna X Nevil is sweet and wholesome, but also tragic as they never get a chance, having their school life taken over by the horror of that final year and the need to fight for their very souls in a school run by Death Eaters and the trauma of the Battle of Hogwarts meaning that in order to put away the past and move on, they need to leave each other behind. Hell, do an AU where they canonically end up together, why not? They deserve happiness.

 Dean / Sam AKA Wincest (Supernatural)

Why I hate this ship: They’re brothers. The show even makes a joke about how squick this is. Several times.

How you could (sort of) fix this ship: You can’t: They’re brothers. The show even makes a joke about how squick this is. I guess a body-swap arc could fix this, as it’s less squicky if its just their bodies with someone else’s minds,  but seriously, the reasons why this shouldn’t exist are extensively covered in the show, and it was hilarious.  To be honest, I don’t hate this ship done as a joke, but I have seen some dark spots on the internet, and I can say with all honesty it’s not always treated as a joke. Some folks are really invested in this, and all I can ask is, is your home life okay?

Now, done as a joke, I’m 110% behind this. This is exactly the sort of insane wacky bullshit that makes for a good crack-fic. For example imagine that the supernatural threat of the week was book that made anything written in it come true, and the brothers are trying to find and destroy it, but they keep getting distracted by their burgeoning romantic feelings for each-other, and suddenly realise that the owner of the book is a fan on the in-universe novels, and writing slash-fic in the book. They need to find the writer before they make them do something they’ll both regret, but it’s just so distracting when Sam’s beautiful eyes are right there and- dammit, Sam, it’s happening again! Make Sam less concerned and even a little amused, with it, but make Dean hate what’s going on. Especially when the writer’s description suddenly makes Sam noticeably better hung that him. Make the villain turn out to be Becky from “Sympathy for the devil” and end with them trying to take the book away as she writes frantically to force them to do her bidding, and you’ve got yourself a good fic.

The better ship you should be doing: Cas/Sam or Cas/Dean or Cas/Sam AND Dean fic. Duh. Once again the show-runners beat the fans to the mark and pointed out that this is the best ship, and then they took it away just to fuck with us.

 Any Katniss ship that ignores her obsession with Emotional Security Logic. (The Hunger Games)

Why I hate these ships: Katniss is, briefly put, a mess before the books ever start, her father’s death and harsh upbringing have arguably given her PTSD before she ever volunteers for the reaping, and it doesn’t get better from there.  In psychology, Emotional Security Theory (EST) is a hypothesis that the heightened emotions surrounding repeated violent exposures leaves children vulnerable to dysregulated distress responses and eventual psychopathology, aka, why Kat be so messed up.  Her internal monologue makes the books completely clear that her choice in partners is not motivated by normal affections, but by deep, deep fear. A fear of loss, abandonment and death that leads her to make every decision about what minimises her, and her sister’s, exposure to potential physical and emotional harm. It’s frantic, fraught, cold survivalist thinking. And the other characters in the book notice and acknowledge it! “Which of us will she pick?” “She’ll pick whoever she can’t survive without.” Kat doesn’t like herself for it, but she does eventually admit to herself that she makes her decisions like this.

How do we fix this ship: Ship Kat with whoever you like, but give her a good reason to pick them: and in Kat’s mind “A good reason” is based on Emotional Security Logic, she needs to have a pressing reason why this ship makes her and her sister safer. Do that, and you’ve got yourself a good Katniss story. Don’t do that, and while you may or may not have a good story, the person staring in it isn’t Katniss Everdeen anymore.

The better ship you should be writing: Finick X Annie. Or, Haymitch prequel ships

FinAnn. This, this ship has some real potential to it, and is criminally underutilized. Finick and Annie’s relationship is one of the most tragic and romantic in the story, and has so much to offer. Or, if you want to have a hard-bitten character from district 12 struggling with trying to find love in the hellish combat of the games, do a prequel in which Haymitch finds love in the capitol during training, but loses then in the area and turns to drink as a result. Heck, you could even have some fun with this and turn it into a dark comedy, or a great tragic love story, whatever you like. It’s got potential, and his backstory is vague enough you could do a lot with it.

So, tell me below why I’m wrong, and have fun with your writing: just because I hate that ship doesn’t mean you should. Enjoy yourselves.

I’m off to write awful Ax/Pina/Luna Polyjuice’d into Nevil/Cas/Finick fiction set at an anime high-school that fights a magical war against other fictional schools, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[redorblue]

Reading @sugarfey, @venndaai and @the-roci’s thoughts about Fred’s death in 5x04 made me think about the political implications of him being gone. I was always a little conflicted about his character because on the one hand, he’s always seemed the most reasonable among the Belter leaders, and I like Chad Coleman in the role. But on the other, he’s so obviously a person from a priviledged group allying himself with an oppressed group because of guilt that even though the character is not white, he comes across very much like the stereotypical white savior, come to teach the natives how international politics is done properly to offset his own guilt. What reconciled me with the character somewhat was that until this season, he at least had some self-awareness regarding his positionality, although that seems to have been lost somewhere between seasons 4 and 5, what with him hiring an obviously racist Earther to boss around his Belter employees. But now that he’s gone, as sad as that is, it also got me thinking how it also leaves space for other characters (read: Drummer) to take over his role and do better.

Looking at the show (and to a lesser extend the books) from the perspective of the narrative, it’s clear that there’s just not a lot of space for different Belter leaders who fill the same niche in the ecosystem, if you want to look at it like that. There is a limited amount of screen time dedicated to Belter politics to go around, so the political landscape is broken down to a handful of types of leadership, each embodied by one person. There’s Anderson Dawes, who is basically a mob boss who managed to get an entire asteroid under his control. His leadership style is highly personalized, his authority is derived from a networked system of command resembling a pyramid scheme, he commands a mix of loyalty and fear from his people (both those working for him and those living in his territory) and he has a symbiotic relationship with the official government of Ceres - pulling the strings from the shadows.

While he is semi-legitimate (as in recognized by others in power, not, you know, morally), there are also the fully underground leaders: Marco in season 5, and (to a lesser extend) Ashford in seasons 3 and 4. Marco also has a very personalized leadership style, people who feel fear and loyalty towards him to the same extend, and he’s building a networked system of command (although it’s probably smaller since he hasn’t been in the game as long as Dawes). What he doesn’t have (or want), however, is ties to official sources of authority, simply because he wants to gain that position for himself. He wants to be the puppet ripping itself free of its strings, not the puppetmaster, so to speak, which ties in neatly with his desire to be feared/adored and his narcissistic streak (both of which haven’t been as prominent in the show so far as they are in the books, but I’m sure it’s coming). Another difference is that he embraces romantic fantasies of the heroic freedom fighter much more than Dawes, lending him a specific sort of charisma or mystique that basically begs for him to be the hero of the stories that Belter children get told when their community got humiliated/threatened by Earth or Mars once again. Based on the accounts we hear about him, I imagine that Ashford was similar to Marco in some ways when he was younger, even though by the time we meet him, he has mellowed out a little and does so further when being placed in an official position of authority, thereby getting closer to the sort of leadership that Fred represents.

Which brings me to the third type beside the mob boss and the heroic guerilla: the elder statesman, which Fred embodies to a T. He is the official authority, and while he also relies on contacts with semi-legitimate and underground actors to some extend, his leadership and command structure are a lot more formalized. He derives his authority from sources external to himself, specifically his job as the boss of a Belter powerhouse in terms of economic growth and innovation plus his legitimacy in the eyes of Earther (and maybe Martian?) politicians. Of course said legitimacy is derived mainly from his past as an Earther colonel and the contacts and know-how he still has from back then, but he’s probably learned the hard way that that doesn’t get anything done when negotiating with Belter leaders, so he frames it in terms of playing by international rules and appealing to universal values, which comes with less baggage. This framing of his perspectives is what makes him bearable for many Belters, while the success story that is Tycho makes him attractive.

Long story short, three leaders (and types of leadership) is already quite a lot when you consider the limitations of both screen time and the capacity of more casual viewers to remember characters and names - in comparison, Earth and Mars are presented as much more unified. Putting aside the pragmatic explanation, it also makes sense from an in-universe perspective - of course there would be more people claiming authority than we’re shown, but you still need to distinguish yourself from your rivals in order to get people to recognize your authority. Being a cheap imitation of Fred makes you one of his higher-ranked employees; being a cheap imitation of Dawes makes you one of his subordinates; and being a cheap imitation of Marco probably makes you dead, if you scratch his ego enough. And what’s more, not only are the roles limited, but they were all quite definitely taken - until 5x04.

Now the spot of the person who is able to work for the greater good instead of their own ego (Marco) or territorial ambitions (Dawes) is open again, and Drummer is by far the best candidate for it. In one of his last conversations with Holden, Fred seemed to encourage him to follow his path (stopping to fight and starting to build), but seeing how Fred met his end, it’s obvious why Holden taking over would not be a good idea. Drummer, on the other hand, is definitely not there yet, but she distinctly dislikes Dawes’ way of doing things, and she doesn’t have the self-aggrandizing streak that’s necessary for the heroic guerilla role (as a side note: as much as I enjoyed her I am Camina Drummer moment this season, and her speech in season 3, both of those were an act to get things done, not an innate desire for other people’s adoration). What she does have is: an eye for the shifting political landscape (not only in Marco’s trial in season 4, which obviously backfired, but also much earlier in season 2 when they were discussing what to do with Earth’s torpedoes); a growing capability of planning ahead (like how she acts as the captain of the Dewalt), and a willingness to set aside personal wishes and aversions for the greater good (like when she teamed up with Holden, of all people, to save the day in season 3). Fred had all of those as well (some more than others), but he was a bit too captivated with the story about himself that he told to others, and in the end he couldn’t offset the implications of his position as an ex-Earther soldier who decided to save the Belt. Drummer doesn’t have any of those handicaps. Her sense of responsibility for people other than her family needs to be reawakened, but we know it’s there from past seasons, and the next few episodes are probably going to have her struggle with her tendency for revenge over caution even more, but I’m convinced that she can take all of Fred’s best qualities and surpass him (and Dawes, and Ashford, and Marco), and that will be very satisfying to watch.

[st-just]

Semi-coherent thoughts on Oathbringer

So, overall probably the most even of the series so far, I’d say? Not to say I didn’t like it – I really, really loved the finale, and there were plenty of great lines, but my god were there a lot of pages spent on nothing happening (honestly it kind of reminded me of the latter volumes of ASOIF, in that sense) – then again, I suppose that is kind of just the nature of these 1000+ page fantasy epics. There were some setting reveals that really were fascinating, and legitimately a bit surprising. Going to have to take a break from the series until the friend I got Rhythm of War for is done so I can borrow it, though I suppose that’s no huge loss compared to the however many years everyone else had to wait in between them.

So in terms of pacing it’s...bad. Or, well, that’s probably a bit unfair. There’s absolutely plenty of fat to cute, but again I do think that might just come with the territory of committing to like a dozen POVs across a tree’s worth of paper (though there were absolutely like 100+ page stretches where I’m not actually sure the plot meaningfully progressed). That said, honestly the main pacing issue isn’t so much the bloat as, like – okay, Dalinar’s arc was a pretty consistent throughline, but for Kalidan and Shallan it kind of felt like there was one whole story in Urithiru, and then from the mission to Kholinar and the journey through the Cognitive Realm felt like its own separate novel? I mean, not sure if that makes any sense, but it really did kind of feel like there was a whole additional first act of table and stakes setting once they arrived in the city.

Though, to argue in favor of bloat for a moment – I was chatting with  @lifeattomsdiner​ bit back about The City We Became, and they mentioned that the size of the cast meant that you don’t actually really get to know any of the protagonists that well on their own. And I suppose that is the advantage of the 1200-page-per-volume epic cycle – even with characters you only really meet in interludes like Szeth, Vargo and Venli (incidentally three of my favorites), you spend enough pages inside of their head that you do really get to see what makes them tick and learn to love/hate them. Speaking of – props to Sanderson as an author, really – it’s vaguely astounding that he manages to keep track of that many internal monologues and actually make them seem distinct from each other.

Breaking things down by character a bit more – this book really did actually enjoy/get invested in Dalinar way more than either of the previous two, which again I’m told is more or less the expected reaction. Given the amount of tumblr brain poison I’m voluntarily exposed myself to, it’s honestly more than a bit of a nice change to see a character on a redemption arc who is actually unambiguously in need of redemption. Because holy shit, pulled, like, exactly two punches in terms of making the guy as genuinely loathsome as possible before he starts breaking. And, well, obviously he was on a redemption arc, but there was a bit near the end there where I really did think that the book was going to cut to black on an ‘end of Act 2, maximum darkness before dawn’ moment with, like, all the Skybreakers and him kneeling before Odium as the city fell. But I suppose that would be a bit much of a cliffhanger for a series with installments this weighty.

This was pretty clearly Shallan’s ‘getting over my personal bullshit’ book, like WoR was for Kaladin and WoK was for Dalinar, though spicing things up with increasingly severe DID as the book went on did make things more interesting at least. Also, I have no idea if this is actually true, but according to the friend who pestered me into reading these when someone asked Sanderson if he’d intentionally written her as bi he just kind of shrugged and said ‘sure, why not,’ which is fun. It was more than a bit, I don’t know, forced?, to have Wit just wander in from stage left and give her a desperately needed therapy session while she was in the middle of a breakdown and propel her development for most of the rest of the book, but on the other hand she’s pretty easily the main POV I’m most invested in by now, and the live triangle the text repeatedly threatened me with never actually became a thing, so I can’t really complain too much. Honestly super curious about the Ghostbloods and what they want out of her given, well, for a shadowy murderous conspiracy, everything they’ve wanted out of her so far has been pretty much entirely benign. Like, of the three major shadowy murderous conspiracies they’re easily the least problematic for the future of humanity at the moment. She should just commit and join for real imo.

As always, Kaladin’s POV is mostly good because it means we get more Syl, who is the single best character in the entire story I’ve decided. But also, I really quite liked his whole sojourn with the newly freed Parshmen and dawning realization that ‘wait these people are basically entirely right’. Also, the delicious delicious angst of spending however many dozens of pages getting to know them and then the wall guard and then the two groups killing each other in a confused melee while he has a mental breakdown. Easily best moment in the book (but then I’m a miserable person).

Adolin is honestly significantly more entertaining to follow than I really expected, though I’m still not like especially invested in him as a character. His relationship with his tailor was quite charming, though, as was the fact that he cares enough about fashion that he learned to sew. Honestly I was rather expecting/slightly dreading his main arc this book to be, like, inadequacy or insecurity over being almost literally the only member of his family that’s not a Radiant, so it’s kind of a pleasant surprise that he seems to have just accepted that (too well-adjust, I guess?). It is however extremely funny that the fact he just straight-up murdered one of the kingdom’s most important aristocrats and the major antagonist of the first two books seems to have resulted in absolutely zero consequences of any kind for him.

In terms of minor characters, the one I’m most invested in by a pretty substantial margin at this point is Venli, as she’s getting a front row seat to all the most interesting bits of the setting, ‘cultist growing increasingly disillusioned about return of ancient and terrible eldritch god’ is a really entertaining character arc just in principle, and because as of the end of the book she represents the morally objectively correct perspective and political line I’ve decided and will fight people about. Curious what sort of superpowers she’ll get. (Vargo and Szeth are still both great though, too).

The Unmade are really fun as a worldbuilding conceit/excuse for weird fucked up monsters. And it really is kind of funny that at least a third of the God of Evil’s nine generals/children/favoured beasts are, like, at conflicted or ambivalent about the whole ‘exterminate humanity and remake the world as a monument to my glory’ thing.  

Really, on an extremely shallow and entirely aesthetic level, between the evil red crystal/lightning aesthetic, the remote mountain fortress as a stronghold of the heroes in the face of the coming apocalypse, tears into the realm of spirits, the quirky evil minibosses each handling corrupting/conquering a given center of civilization, etc, the whole thing kind of reminded me of Dragon Age Inquisition. Which reminded me of how disappointing the story to that game was, which made me like the book more by comparison, but anyway. Yeah, good book.

[themattress]

OUAT AND ME: IN WONDERLAND

Story - Because this spin-off series only lasted for one season's worth of 13 episodes, its story is simply the Wonderland Saga and nothing else beyond that, which is for the best given that the story reaches far too complete an ending for anything beyond it to make any sense. The story is about Alice and what transpired after she returned from her original journey through Wonderland as a little girl, leading up to her romance with a young genie named Cyrus as a teenager, their tragic separation, her commitment to a mental institution, and her return to Wonderland in order to reunite with her lost love alongside her friend the Knave of Hearts, all while facing threats from the Red Queen and Jafar who seek to use Cyrus’ genie powers to break the laws of magic in order to accomplish their own secret goals.

The Wonderland Saga is as tight as tight can be, with one chief setting (Wonderland), a relatively small cast of characters, and a 4-episode beginning, 4-episode middle, and 5-episode end. Of course, this wouldn't matter if it wasn't an engaging story with enjoyable characters, but thankfully it very much is. This series is the brainchild of not just Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, but also of Jane Espenson and Zack Estrin, and because of this fact combined with its limited length, it actually surpasses the original Once Upon a Time when you stack the two completed shows up against each other. Sometimes, less is more.

As I said, the story is divided into a clear-cut beginning, middle, and end. The beginning focuses on the early part of Alice and the Knave's journey and establishing who they are and what their deal is, while Jafar and the Red Queen's goals and motivations are kept enigmatic and Cyrus is trapped in a cage for the whole duration of the time. The middle lets Cyrus escape, sheds light on Jafar and the Red Queen's goals and motivations, and explores the darker sides of Alice and the Knave as we see just how badly their past traumas have affected them. And the end is all about the alliance of Alice, Cyrus, the Knave and the Red Queen as they fight Jafar and his new ally the Jabberwocky to decide the fate of Wonderland. It's here that all lingering questions are answered and all character arcs are fully completed.

As far as stories go, this is top tier OUAT. I think I like the Dark Curse and Neverland Sagas slightly more, but the Wonderland Saga comes in at an incredibly close third place.

Characters - There are less of them than in the main show, so this will be easy.

* We start with Alice, played by Sophie Lowe as a teenager and by pre-Stranger Things Millie Bobby Brown as a child. She is a wonderfully multi-faceted heroine, capable of great love and great hate, great kindness and great cruelty, great ingenuity and great gullibility, and always treading the line between holding to hope and giving into despair. While her romance with Cyrus is the focal point of the story, I love that it's not the only important aspect to her character. We also delve into her fractured relationship with her father; her initially unsteady but eventually rock solid friendship with Will; her hate, fear and distrust of Anastasia up until she finally sees the girl behind the queenly mask and how very much alike they truly are; and even her internal mental and emotional conflicts with herself on various matters that sometimes go external due to how Wonderland works. And no offense to Emma Swan, who is great in her prime, but I feel like Alice is ultimately the stronger and more likable lead.

* Cyrus really impresses me, because being the romantic male object of the heroine's attention and a guy who spends the entire first third of the story stuck in a cage, he could have very easily been a boring character. But very quickly, he shows that good looks and magic powers aren't all there is to him - this guy is smart. His cleverness and ingenuity that allows him to affect the plot even when inside his cage is something to behold, and he only gets better once he's free from his prison and gets to play off other characters with more frequency. Add to this a backstory where we see he used to be a selfish con artist, and it being his love for Alice that changed the selfish part while repurposing the con artist part for the cause of good, and you have a character you can enjoy and a couple you can root for.

* The show's breakout character, for better or for worse (no, it's definitely for worse, as we'll see in the next post) is the Knave of Hearts / Will Scarlet. Played excellently by Michael Socha, Will was formerly one of Robin Hood's Merry Men but is now an outlaw all to himself in Wonderland. He's sardonic and quippy, selfish and yet reliable at the same time, eerily muted in his emotions due to having his heart removed from his chest and yet clearly possessing deep feelings within his soul that occasionally bubble to the surface. We watch him go from an untrustworthy, cowardly cad who refuses to accept responsibility for anything to a brave and loyal friend who will sacrifice his own well-being for those he cares about. And his love story with Anastasia honestly steals the show from Alice and Cyrus', as it's full of betrayal and heartbreak and fights and truces and reconciliations before its happy ending, and that honestly feels more human than Alice and Cyrus' entirely plot-based separation.

* Speaking of the Red Queen / Anastasia, she is the female villain with a redemption arc that Regina (and Zelena, to a lesser extent) wishes she was. When she first appears, the Red Queen seems to be a chillingly calm and poised sociopath without moral scruples, but she quickly starts displaying vulnerability, and kudos must be given to Emma Rigby for conveying this through her amazing performance. Her cool, haughty face is like a mask, with more and more cracks beginning to show until we see who she really is - Anastasia, a peasant girl who was misled into a life that was full of power and privilege but that was also lonely and way over her capability to endure in the long run, and who desperately wants to take it all back and return to who she used to be. Once she realizes that she won't be getting the magic shortcut she seeks and that in the process of seeking it she'd wrought even more damage to Wonderland, Anastasia fully commits herself to doing better by everyone that she'd hurt. Even horrific torture, temporary death and mind control doesn't stop her from aiding in the cause to save Wonderland! She's amazing and more than earns her happy ending with Will.

* I could gush about Jafar, the Big Bad of the story, all day long. Jafar has always been my favorite Disney Villain, but he's the villain of an animated musical comedy, so I guess I've always had the question in the back of my mind as to what he'd be like if applied to something with a more serious tone? Well, this version of the character, played to chilling perfection by Naveen Andrews, answers that question. Stripped of most of his caricatured and humorous elements, Jafar is a psychotic, power-hungry madman who will stop at nothing to get what he desires. There is no-one he won't manipulate or torture or murder in his quest to become all-powerful. And the show also gives him a feasible, compelling and incredibly dark backstory (he's the bastard child of an Agrabahn sultan who rejected him to the point of trying to murder him) that explains why he is the way he is but is never used to excuse him or entertain the slightest notion that he might be redeemable.  This version of Jafar perfectly embodies what Roy Disney and Jeffrey Katzenberg said about the original: “Jafar is just pure evil. He wants to take over the kingdom and kill everybody in sight or enslave them, or whatever suits his fancy." "This is the guy that wants it all. You know right from the start that he is a desperate character, capable of doing anything and everything to get what he wants".

* The White Rabbit / Percy is a purely CGI character, and you'd fear that this wouldn't work, but the show embraces how cartoony he is and so it actually works perfectly. He's a very appealing character as well: very neurotic and cowardly, but also a family man whose heart is in the right place and who can be very brave when push comes to shove. A lot of his likability also comes from the fact that John Lithgow (yes, I'm surprised they were able to get him too!) does his voice, and I can't think of anyone else who could voice such a character better.

* In terms of side characters, we have many Wonderland staples reimagined for this show, such as the Cheshire Cat who is now a feral beast voiced by Keith David, the Caterpillar who is now a Jabba the Hutt-esque crime boss voiced by Iggy Pop (who sounds nothing like the voice from the main show, but I digress), Tweedledee and Tweedledum who are the Red Queen's manservants (one being undyingly loyal while the other is a spy for Jafar), the sleazy Red King who tempts Anastasia into becoming his bride, the Carpenter who is trapped in a drug-like haze in the Boro Grove, the White Knight who stands guard over an important pair of doorways, and the Jabberwocky, a monster in the form of a humanoid woman whose power is being able to see a person's greatest fear and use it to psychologically torture them.

There is also mention of Alice having met Jefferson the Mad Hatter when she was a child, and Cora the Queen of Hearts herself appears in the flashback that shows how she manipulated events so that Will became the Knave of Hearts and ensure that Anastasia remained the Red Queen, whom she taught magic and villainy to and treated like a daughter. Regina, Zelena, Anastasia...is there no young woman that Cora won’t attempt to ruin?

Other side characters from other realms include Alice's highly flawed yet ultimately repentant father Edwin, his bitch of a new wife Sarah and her precocious young daughter Millie, and the cold-hearted Dr. Lydgate all from Alice's Victorian world; Robin Hood, Maleficent (voice-over only) and Anastasia's mother Lady Tremaine all from the Enchanted Forest; Nyx the guardian of a sacred well, Cyrus' mother and Jafar's teacher Amara, Cyrus' brothers Taj and Rafi, and Jafar's father the Sultan and half-brother Mirza all from Agrabah. The Sultan, by the way, is a particularly interesting character, as he's introduced as Cyrus' kindly old cellmate and you really get to thinking of him as a good guy, only to then learn who he really is and just what an utterly horrible person he was in the past. His tale is a tragic one, as while he sincerely commits to repenting, it’s not good enough and thus he cannot escape fatal poetic justice.

And then there's one side character that just really gets my goat: Elizabeth aka the Lizard, a cute young thief who has a crush on Will. She appears in the 4th episode and doesn't really do much of anything, then disappears for a while. I thought maybe she was going to end up paired with that "Mr. Darcy" suitor of Alice's from her world and it was going to be a big Pride and Prejudice reference...but instead, she reappears in the 9th episode, becomes the now genified Will's master, and makes a wish that accidentally kills her in order to give Will man-pain. And then she isn't really spoken of again afterward. What was even the point of her!? You could cut all of her scenes and actions from this story and miss absolutely nothing!

Atmosphere - I would describe this show's atmosphere as light and dark, back to back. When it's light, it is much lighter than Once Upon a Time, being very whimsical and romantic and fluffy and hopeful to an even higher degree than its parent show at its best. However, this kind of lightness helps to make the dark elements come off as that much darker as a result. And while there's certainly some dark stuff where Alice in concerned, from an intended lobotomy in the premiere episode to the intense clashing she has with her father, and in the troubled pasts of Will and Anastasia, nothing comes close to the darkness of everything Jafar-related. It's a guarantee that he will do something horrible to someone at least once per episode, although it's usually more than once. The nature of his backstory as a bastard child whose father attempts to drown him plus the intensity of his depraved power-lust also make him a particularly dark character, as is his eventual partner, the terrifying Jabberwocky. Personally, I have always appreciated stories that can balance light and dark in this way and am able to handle both of them, so this show's atmosphere is very appealing to me.

Episode Quality - All I can say here is that there is only one dud in this series, and it's not hard to spot which episode it is. Like I said, while the beginning and middle portions of the show are 4 episodes each, the end is 5 episodes...and the first of those 5, "Nothing to Fear", is incredibly awkward and poorly executed. On top of being where the aforementioned death of the Lizard occurs, the plotline with Alice, Cyrus and Anastasia is also botched. Alice clinginess to Cyrus out of worry that he might become separated from her again and she wants to savor the time she has with him now doesn't really work in the context of needing to find where the freshly genified Will went ASAP, and it makes Alice look bad - Will went through "Bloody Hell" to help her reunite with Cyrus, and now that she's been reunited with him at the direct expense of Will, she doesn't give a fuck? She feels no urgent desire to pay her friend back and be as dedicated to helping him as he was to helping her? Also, the way she verbalizes her issues sounds too ripped off of Emma Swan from the similarly clumsy episode "The New Neverland", and what works for Emma doesn't really work for Alice.

Alice's distrust of Anastasia and dislike of working with her is also badly written, in literally every other episode the tense dynamic between these two has been handled with more care and nuance, but here Alice just comes off as a bratty child. Again, Will is missing and you need to find him quickly, so being able to put aside your differences with Anastasia maturely would go a long way in helping make that happen, Alice! Also, there's a sequence with angry peasants tying Anastasia, Alice and Cyrus to stakes to be eaten by nocturnal wolf-like creatures, and it's so thoroughly mishandled to the point of coming across as comical (Anastasia really can't fight back or escape her binding despite the skills we've seen her have before? Cyrus really thought an eloquent speech was going to instantly convince the peasants to do what he wants of them? The peasants act like they're righteous people who are getting justice against their oppressor and yet then tie two completely innocent people up for daring to go against the grain on the matter? And oh my God, those wolves look awful!)

The only good parts of the episode are the very last scene between Alice, Cyrus, Anastasia and (finally!) Will, plus all of the scenes with Jafar which lead up to the Jabberwocky's debut. Otherwise, this was a transitional episode that needed a lot of fine-tuning from its makers.

Overall - Once Upon a Time in Wonderland is now on Disney+, so if you have that streaming service and haven't watched it, please do so. It's a very well-made limited series that features a great story and great characters played by great actors, and is a definite part of OUAT in its prime. And again, when both completed shows are compared, this one wins hands-down.

[intergalactic-zoo]

I think I've figured it out. If "Lois & Clark" was "Moonlighting" with super-powers, "Smallville" was "Dawson's Creek" with superpowers, and "Supergirl" started as "The Devil Wears Prada" with superpowers, then "Superman & Lois" is "This Is Us" with superpowers. 

Spoilers ahead!

That may not be entirely accurate—I've watched maybe 15 minutes of "This Is Us"—but I feel like that's the kind of tone this show is going for, the family-centered melodrama. The kind of show that would be designed to manipulate emotions and win Emmies if it didn't occasionally feature CGI battles between Superman and an alternate-universe Lex Luthor. I thought after the pilot that the muted color palette was an attempt to visually echo the Snyder movies—and that may be a piece of it—but it also reminds me of every clip I've seen of that show where the guy from "Heroes" gets killed by a pressure cooker. 

The result is a show that isn't quite like any of the other superhero shows on The CW. The closest (of the ones I've watched) is "Black Lightning," which similarly was about an older hero trying to raise a family, but even that felt more like "The Flash" in terms of cinematography and structure. You still had the Hero being directed by the Guy In The Chair to face a particular threat. Superman doesn't have the same support network, or the same relationship with his kids and the problem of adolescent superpowers. 

I continue to be cautiously optimistic about this series after episode two. I can see where some of the plots could easily go sideways, and the decision to cast two black male actors as two of our antagonists when the rest of our principal cast is pretty lily-white is Not Great, but right now I'm interested in seeing how things go, and I don't really understand where some of the vitriolic fan response is coming from. At worst this show is fine. 

There's a lot I like here. Every character's core conflicts internally and externally are already built at this point, and there are good points of conflict and connection between most of our main cast members. 

It would be easy to fall into the trap where Clark can't do anything right as a parent—which seemed to be the direction they were going in the pilot—but it's clear here that he's doing his best, and that leads to good moments with the kids. 

It's nice to see that the relationship between Clark and Sam Lane isn't all sunshine and roses; they have reason to distrust one another, and while they both clearly think they're doing the right things to keep their family safe, they have very different ideas about how to do that. It's also interesting that they're bringing in Project 7734, which I think first appeared in the World of New Krypton story. 

It's interesting that the trend has been to show Jor-El with a beard since...at least Superman: Secret Origin, but maybe as far back as the Richard Donner run on Action or "Up, Up, and Away." 

After years of seeing evil/corrupted/morally-ambiguous versions of Superman in the comics and prominent adaptations and pastiches—including the Injustice games, which we saw Jordan playing in the pilot—it's kind of a stroke of brilliance to make the main supervillain of this piece a version of Luthor from a world where Luthor was right and Superman was bad or went that way. It may be petty of me to appreciate that the evil Superman is wearing a black costume as in some prominent scenes by that one director with a New 52-style high collar (even if it looks to be the same costume that the evil Superman wore in the "Elseworlds" crossover a couple years back), but I'm embracing it. It's a good, simple visual shorthand. 

Speaking of costumes, I think it's interesting how much Hoechlin's main Superman costume for this series looks like the costume from the Smallville Season 11 comic and Superman: Earth One, down to the two-toned blue areas. 

It even has the same belt as that Smallville costume. Of the three main suits Hoechlin has worn—the one on "Supergirl," the Fleischer-inspired one in the pilot opening, and this main one—this is easily my least favorite; the muscles feel padded or painted-on (which is understandable; that visible eight-pack abs physique may be sustainable for a few weeks of film shooting, but not for the months needed to film a season of television), and it just feels more muted than even the darker blue of the "Supergirl" costume. But it's not bad, and making the belt red and yellow helps make up for the lack of trunks, and the two blue shades are one solution to the endless field of blue that most trunk-less versions of the costumes have. 

It's nice that every character has a clear arc ahead of them, and I do hope that (especially since her name's in the title) Lois's story gets increasing focus over the season, despite what we've heard from the writers' room. It's one of the plots that I can see going sideways—the Big City Reporter coming in to keep the Backwards Hicks from acting against their own interests, or learning that maybe her Big City Liberal Ways just don't work in the simple lives of Rural Americans—but I feel like the way things are set up now shows a degree of awareness that might avoid those pitfalls. We see complications to the "life in Smallville is simpler" mantra here—Sam Lane rejects it outright—and Morgan Edge is a prime indication of the fact that the same problems are at play in both the big cities and rural towns. 

I've lived in rural farm towns for most of my adult life. I've seen towns try to out-bid each other with municipality-killing tax breaks over businesses as small as local car dealerships, let alone big billionaires with promises of better jobs. I've had conversations with people who think the unions just have too much power these days and the owner takes all the risk so he should be able to take all the profits too. A show that's going to champion the need for independent local press when conglomerates are buying up papers and stations around the countries, that's going to argue that accepting scraps from billionaires because you're desperate is tantamount to extortion, that's a show that speaks to me, at least, and hopefully speaks to some people who might otherwise be hostile to those kinds of political messages. 

It is weird that Edge is interested in Smallville's mines rather than, you know, its farms, but I can see some logic behind that story decision. I do wonder if it's going to tie into some of Edge's more comic book-style motivations. Is there Apokoliptian tech in these mines? Kryptonite? Who knows?

Overall, I think this is a pretty strong start. It's not perfect, and I honestly wish the tone were a little closer to some of the other CW superhero shows, but I understand why they'd try to distinguish themselves from the pack. I'm invested in the characters, and I'm interested to see where the story goes. I realize that I'm a cheap date when it comes to Superman adaptations, but so far I'm enjoying this one more than most. 

[onegirllis]

Since Life is Strange 2 is finally fully released, I let myself to write a probably not-so-short review of the complete season. The momentum for such a summary is already gone I presume but it took me a moment to finally digest and find the proper words to describe what I think and feel about this production. Following the game from the start, I patiently waited to look at the story as a whole, hoping to find an explanation for tons of burning questions and satisfying outcomes to my choices and decisions. Unfortunately, most of those didn’t happen, therefore I present you with a piece that is not very favorable towards the newest Dontnod production, harsh in places but honest. Please, do not read if you really enjoyed the story of the two brothers and find it meaningful and important, not burdened with any fallacy. Life is way too short to read reviews that just leave you frustrated.

Remember the scene in Life is Strange season one (I still hate the fact that I have to separate different instances of the franchise calling them seasons), when Max summoned by an enormous plasma TV in Victoria’s room fantasizes about watching “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” on it? “I like this movie, I don’t care what everybody says,” getting protective about her preferences, the little freckle leaves the room soon after, never gifting us with any explanation as to why she indeed values this animation so much or why it was an important statement. It was never brought back again, it will never matter, becoming simply a meme material or a trigger for snarky comments from Twitch streamers and YouTubers. I watched the said movie a long time ago, recalling only two things about it: the breathtaking animation of hair at the beginning and the fact that the main male character looked like Ben Affleck. The rest of the story fell into obscurity before the end credits hit the screen. I reached for this title only because I was interested in anything video games related, and the name of the popular franchise was more than enough.

The same thing goes for Life is Strange 2.

Just like the mentioned FF: The Spirits Within, the second instance of the beloved series is more of an animation than an interactive experience. Recently, plenty of video games, overwhelmed by finally reachable technology of smooth mocaps, facial expressions, hyper-realistic locations, and scanned people as characters, turned into an alley dedicated to B-class movies. From adventures by David Cage to Death Stranding, video games started to flip their working template, replacing the actual action with long animations, not the other way around. With scattered gameplay, sometimes forced as if the developers reminded themselves at the last minute that this product is supposed to be interactive, they raise an eyebrow at best, and boil your blood with the lack of creativity at its worst. Life Is Strange 2 follows this trend with astonishing enthusiasm and to the core. Even regarding this particular genre that’s supposed to focus on narrative, it barely stands as a walking simulator becoming a hardly watchable TV series — a road trip story where walking is limited.

Well, shit.

The gameplay in Life is Strange 2 is nonexistent. To be frank, riveting action-packed sequences were never a trademark of the series, but a blatant lack of any didn’t make this experience any better. With the first one, the rewind power allowed the player to actually be part of the narrative. The second, where Sean just serves as a witness to his brother’s actions, plays more like a full motion picture. An enormous amount of un-skippable cut-scenes change LIS2 into a tedious, dragging journey straight from the worst selection of buy 1 get 3 free Z-class movies. The music and the mastery in creating an atmosphere that rose Dontnod to international fame due to widespread acclaim can’t save those sequences either. It almost feels like their own creation so enchanted the development team that they ignored all the red flags and clumsy solutions to immerse in the world themselves, treating the actual player as a lesser evil, throwing them a bone just to claim it is a video game format. To no surprise, most of the items the player interacts with don’t matter at all and don’t serve any purpose either to foreshadow an upcoming outcome, present exposition to the world, or be in any way helpful.

The lack of superpower is not an issue here though. Before the Storm met the expectations with way more grace, proving that a story doesn’t need a lot of strange in life to grip and hold its audience for hours. Watching a superhero growing up is an interesting premise, but a hell of a challenge to execute and execute well. Some stories like “Little Man Tate” translate to a brilliant film, but don’t necessarily work as games, after the planning stage or first Game Design Document. The references regarding the first game also remain scattered and uneven, tossed on the pile with a heap of faith that devoted fans would notice, but without a purpose in mind.

Even if I sound harsh, I do believe that Dontnod wanted to deliver the best story possible, but Life is Strange 2 feels even too big to absorb or fill with details. Captain Spirit, not necessarily my cup of tea either, was in my opinion way more coherent, as the creative team felt more comfortable with such a small scope of a product. Everything falls into place after careful exploration, makes more sense with every minute. The mystery about the mother, an alumnus of Blackwell Academy, and an admirer of Jefferson’s work is a solid premise that didn’t raise expectations up the roof nor overpromise. The mystery of yet another mother, this time Life is Strange 2, played for over 3 and a half episodes, falls flat in comparison and ends in the disappointing question “that’s it?”

No, that’s not it. There’s more to it.

Life is Strange 1 was mocked as Tumblr: The Game, while the second instance could easily pass as Twitter: The Animated Series. The writers didn’t challenge themselves or the audience to answer the question of why certain people voted for Donald Trump, or why they would do it yet again. The only reason presented in the story is quite simplistic and obvious – because they are evil, deplorable people, not worth listening to. They are the worst. We are better. Issues of being harangued by foreigners about domestic policies and troubles of your own country are a brewing can of worms I wouldn’t like to touch at the moment. Still, this particular stance, which serves as painful generalization that every single republican voter in the US is foul, can be forged only by someone who either lives in a bubble or doesn’t live here at all. Simply because we all have parents, grandparents, relatives, friends, or co-workers who decided to elect the actual prescient to power. Some of them are racists, disgusting, and horrible personas, and some just belong to the scared of change, confused and manipulated crowd that don’t accept the fast-paced transformation nor the need for a revolution. We coexist together, arguing and fighting, especially during holiday breaks, but even if it costs me a headache, I wouldn’t call them evil. Millions of people voted for Trump, but only a few wouldn’t spit on a swastika if confronted with the Nazi banner.

It’s even more painful when you understand what kind of message was sewed into the stitches of a shattered story. There was no ill will, or at least I don’t think so, but an honest, genuine need to express the concern about modern America. Unfortunately, when executed, this concern changed into another yell or discourse by the family table during an argument with your racist uncle. An open discussion in a game community that unifies both left and right supporters equally by their love for this form of entertainment would be appreciated by many, just like after playing LIS1, a handful of people changed their views on LGBT issues.

Instead of a lesson that had to be experienced, we got a lecture about morality and tolerance, contradicting itself constantly and nonchalantly following the well-known tropes NOT in a sarcastic and admirable way known from Saturday Night Live, but in a lazy and sometimes even clumsy substitute of a dramatic format. The political landscape painted in LIS2 is caricatural, unforgiving, harsh like a deserted wasteland with a few peaceful oases to stop at, but shies over its own existence, not willing to thoroughly discuss the dreadful weather. Guess what? The sand won’t change into greener pastures only because you close your eyes, putting your imagination to work. Donald Trump might not be re-elected for a second term, but his supporters will stay in place, even more conflicted by the other side. It’s a brave decision to deliver such a punitive story but such a cowardice to break its pillars, hoping that the general public wouldn’t notice or get distracted when things get too heated up.

The lack of subtlety forced scene by scene is even more polarizing. There is no peaceful dialogue with the other side as if it couldn’t exist in this world. There is no change of heart or a path to do so. Sometimes it feels like the only message that LIS2 writers wanted to provide was to find your own, peaceful and liberal hermitage, either among hipsters in the Redwood forest, driving a car that your ‘family with money but no soul’ had bought you or move to a trailer park filled with artistic souls in Nowhere, Arizona. Any contact with the outside world can hurt you and your feelings. Drop off the grid or die. The end.

No discussion.

The efforts of trying to understand the motivation behind even the most dreadful character of the first game, got lost in preparation for the second. LIS2 builds a higher wall between two political sides, than any other game released after Trump became the president of the United States and desperately wants to keep it erected, ignoring the crumbling foundations of such. A proverbial river you shall not cross nor build bridges over since the only outcome would end up in death, destruction, or you and your young brother getting hurt.

I’m familiar with the discussion about LIS2, especially with a shouting match that if you do not like this instance, you are therefore a racist pig, a disgusting person without a soul, conscience, or working brain that doesn’t understand the situation and never will. On the contrary. In my humble opinion, we deserve a better discussion, better stories, better representation, not sticking to whatever is presented because it’s brave enough or was never approached before. I disagree with the stance that a Latino, bisexual main character is enough to close your eyes, omitting all problems that this title tries to shun, riding its high horse. No. Those topics are way too crucial to just walk past, setting for less with your head down, thanking for the game industry to take notice. You the player deserve better, even if you don’t struggle with specific issues on a daily basis. And after playing LIS2, you may feel so good about yourself, stating that an effort was made but it it wasn’t made enough.

I expected more. I wanted Dontnod to do more, and frankly, I feel silly putting so much faith in them and supporting their efforts. Armed with resources provided by Square Enix, I’m sure they are aware of the fact that most of their audience is quite young and wouldn’t mind a lesson or message about what to do amidst troubled times. Well, Dontnod doesn’t have any but warns you that voicing your opinion or being different may end up in disaster. Outraged, they just yell at the news, angry about what our reality has changed into, but nothing comes out of it. It’s all right, though. Our parents do the same thing. We started to do the same thing, but instead of complaining to family members, we have Twitter.

While Life is Strange 2 tries really hard to come across as a realistic and raw portrait of the US at the end of the decade, they didn’t have enough courage to show realistic obstacles two runaways would be faced with. The brothers do meet a handful of bigots and racists, but the rest of the fellow travelers help them beyond understanding or hidden agenda. Sean and Daniel never really struggle to find a place to stay or a warm meal, usually complaining on or off the screen just before the game mercifully provides them with a solution. There’s no trap they can fall into, no ambiguous characters that promise one thing and then demand something in return. It’s very honorable for Brody to pay for a place to stay, but if an adult man gave young kids a key to a motel room, I would consider a way more sinister outcome. It’s not even about Brody himself, since good people exist, just like the racist ones, but the boys not even once are put in a realistic, scary situation created by a supposed ally. If somebody is helpful, this person is always decent, offering them a job, a ride, some food or money. The bad people wear red hats and yell racist slurs. America by Dontnod is simple to navigate but raw and painful when not necessary and fairy-tale-like when it could teach an actual lesson. Running away from home is not so hazardous because of Trump supporters but because you can end up dead in a ravine, being robbed and raped. It’s not the first and surely not the last time when the developers feared to touch any topic of sexual abuse with a ten-foot pole, but then the journey plays more like a vacation than a desperate escape. Sean gets beaten-up a few times, loses his eye due to a brawl, but it doesn’t affect him at all in the long run. When Daniel finally gets kidnapped, it’s not an Epstein-like circle, dealing with human trafficking, but a religious cult that worships him. The first option, even if it feels like a stretch, is unfortunately way more realistic than the latter.

Preaching to the choir is not the biggest sin this game commits though. That brings me to the most discussed theme of the production, which is education.

With all due respect to the developers, writers, and designers, Life is Strange 2 in this aspect falls flat as a discovery of a Sunday father, who is responsible for taking his kid to the zoo and struggles to find any common ground with his offspring, either trying to crack jokes about famous pop-culture phenomena or talk about food discussing their next favorite meal. The said father is trying his best though, perfectly aware that it’s his only chance to teach his son a thing or two, but doesn’t know exactly where to start, torn apart between buying more ice cream and throwing a fit about a stain on the carpet. The father doesn’t even like kids that much and can’t translate his lessons into an engaging play that would be memorized forever, rolling his eyes and counting the days to his kid’s graduation so they could share a beer or two and talk about adult things. Now, any effort to explain how the world works seems to be in vain, therefore a waste of his precious time. Leaving the emotional approach aside, the father doesn’t have to cuddle with his kid when he’s scared, bullied, traumatized or asks millions of questions about the future or present, because the full-time mother is waiting at home willing to replace him in this duty. The mother, knowing that her ex-partner sucks big time at talking about feelings, will be the one who will hold the kid, patiently explaining that the boogieman does not exist, playing pirates, or stay late at night to distract his sorrows. The kid will never discuss his fears with his dad though, trying so hard to impress his male parent. He will never know, and it’s fine. The mother is going to do the job while he can deliver a once a week entertainment along with the lines of ultimate wisdom that most likely will be forgotten anyway.

This is not raising a kid, it’s nursing them like a fragile plant in a flowerpot, focusing on water, sun, and fertilizer, but discarding the emotional background, hoping that somebody else would take care of such issues if things go south.

Sean can’t raise his brother well, simply because he is immature and will stay immature for the rest of the game. There is no moment when he truly goes through a transformation changing from a boy to a man, a fully grown-up adult who takes responsibility for his actions and makes sacrifices for the sake of the greater good. No, surrendering in a fight in the church doesn’t serve as one, neither does the first sexual experience. He doesn’t wonder even once if the hastily constructed plan is benefiting Daniel, forcing it to the last minutes of the game, taking the separation as the worst thing that could happen. There’s no spark of a tragedy like in “The Road” when a father gives up his son to strangers for the sake of saving him. Sean doesn’t care, presenting no character development across the board, merely pushing forward. If there are doubts, they disappear in the blink of an eye when the next cut-scene takes place.

I understand that such a young lad as Sean wouldn’t know how to raise a kid, especially if having no model to rely on. However, a part of growing pains is developing the awareness that we know way less than we assumed. That said, Sean Diaz is always assuming he is right, not asking for advice regarding Daniel even once. Apparently, it’s not something that he’s interested in or ever will be. If Life is Strange 2 wants to pass as a coming of age story, it falls on its face before it even starts.

Moreover, locked in the auto-driven plot, Sean cannot grow up and gain a new perspective; otherwise, the story wouldn’t reach its big, explosion-packed finale of crossing the border. His desperate efforts of influencing his brother usually converge to order him around, feed him with half-truths or simply leave him in the dark when convenient. I didn’t see any difference or change in Sean’s approach from episode one when he scolded his brother, annoyed for his party plans being interrupted, and in episode three, when he reacts similarly, for the sake of spending time alone with the chosen love interest. There’s no deep thought, no wonder about his own wrongdoings expressed to his brother, no faults admitted, no fallacies explained, with one life-threating situation after another. From an illegal weed growing farm, to destroying police stations, Sean just follows the road, paved by the writers, oblivious to the harm done to his younger sibling, as if Daniel simply forgets the morally gray choices, growing his moral spine entirely on performing chores. Washing the dishes and peeling potatoes does not make us better people but understanding a perspective so different than our own does. Thanks to Sean, Daniel expands his world, but it’s a very one-sided perspective, focusing on always praised, hippie-style liberties, and disregarding every option that requires any code of conduct, as represented by the grandparents. While the older brother forces the younger one to keep up with the designed tasks, he never discusses the issues that really matter. In episode 3, the youngster gets involved in a heist, a robbery, but after it fails, costing Sean his eye and the possible death of some of their companions, this is never mentioned. Mexico, a plan that is hardly a plan at all, is supposed to be an answer to all the questions and doubts. El Dorado of knowledge.

This is not how you raise a dog, not to mention a child.

There is no emotional bond, no special ties between the brothers, except a few problematic moments that play mostly on simple connection forged by blood, not by circumstances. Sean worries about Daniel because he’s his brother, but the player starts to wonder quite quickly why and what for. Reminiscing about old times gets nailed down to a few lines about the comforts and amenities of a life long gone. The tough topics, such as grieving after personally witnessing their father’s death, are mentioned scarcely and without much emphasis, as if serving only as a reminder to the player, but not a poignant struggle. Same goes with the dog, their friends mutilated at the end of the weed farm chapter, Chris (aka captain spirit) who is mentioned just before the end credits of the second episode, and tons of others. On top of it, the scattered and not so often dialogue lines about putting people in danger refer only to the good folk, siding with the brothers, not to humankind in general. Killing a police officer or knocking down a gas station owner are just natural ways of how things work in America, honorable deeds since it’s apparently perfectly fine for a kid to attempt a homicide if people are mean.

What a brave story.

Chloe Price had been suffering for five years after William, her beloved father, died in a car crash. For Sean and Daniel, there is no grief to experience, but a memory to share with a plan to erect a monument in the future. Esteban Diaz is a plot device, a symbol of inequality, but not a family member. Even a dream sequence with his guest appearance lacks the impact of the subconscious conversations we’ve seen in Before the Storm. It just simply doesn’t matter.

I can’t believe I have to say this but the relatable part about LIS1 wasn’t the tornado, just like in LIS2 crossing the border is its weakest point, but it’s those small moments, gestures, quick smiles in passing, the atmosphere and a breath of fresh air when a line, sometimes silly, got dropped. In the most recent story, there is not a single line worth quoting, memorizing, or discussing. And please, don’t bring up “awesome possum” again. It’s literally taken from The Lego Movie song.

The brothers, just like Thelma and Louise, decide to leave everything behind, throwing away the life as they knew it and forging their own future despite all odds. Although, when the two desperate women drive off the cliff committing suicide, chased by the armed forces, there is nothing to explain as the audience fully understands their reasoning. Their will of life was strong, but the path they followed was too steep to return. Without any help or support, confronted with brutal honesty and the world’s cruelty around them, it is the best possible solution. The story of the two brothers, even if it tries to echo the iconic movie, couldn’t be more different. Despite resources at their disposal, family members that do care about their wellbeing, the whole community rising in protest in their hometown, they risk everything for the sake of getting back to the land they don’t even know. Their Mexican heritage is also mentioned just as an exposition, and, as we learn in the very last episode, just before the ending that Daniel doesn’t speak Spanish. So why do the stubborn Diaz brothers despite all odds travel to Mexico? Because.

Canada was too close, I guess.

Last but not least, let’s talk about sex, because why the hell not. A lot of fans or admirers of the previous instances howled across all social media about how much they miss Max and Chloe. I don’t really think it’s the case, but those two girls symbolize something that LIS2 has a tremendous problem with. There’s no emotional connection between the characters the brothers meet along the way, especially the ones that really should matter. Even the love interests feel more like nagging choices than anything else, an experiment during a camping trip, not something that would last or could be fantasized about. Instead of nerve-wracking decisions such as if you’re supposed to kiss Rachel, hold her hand, or the ecstatic discovery (for PriceFielders, but it was ecstatic, right?) that Chloe changed her phone’s background, we are instead presented with a lineup of sexual experiences, that maybe trail-blaze the road when it comes to topics tackled by a video game, but fall into obscurity as an emotional construction. There is no build-up between Sean and Finn as everything develops to a kiss in one conversation, and Cassidy has fewer lines than Victoria Chase before she invites Sean to her tent. We watch it as we watched it before, trying to get attached, feel something, but the only thing we remember was how much it touched us years ago when we played a different game but with a similar title. The sex scene, relatable or not, is stripped from the emotional intimacy and is as sensitively challenging as a dog being killed.

Character development doesn’t move an inch even if Sean, a surrogate father to his brother, lost his virginity to an older girl. There’s no single thought in his head that he might conceive his own offspring during this short but probably memorable experience. There’s not a single line except for the satisfaction of some female parts finally discovered. Oh, dashing explorer, will you ever learn?

It’s sad. I did want to like this game and gave it plenty of chances like no other titles ever. I’ve made excuses for the poor execution, technical problems, with the whiny voice acting that was driving me up the wall, plot twists written (I think) on a lunch break, and so on, but I couldn’t stand it. It’s a hard pass when it comes to a video game in general, not to mention the story, script, and everything else. Life is Strange season one; a low-budget production, was the first step to create a masterpiece that LIS2 might’ve been able to become. The second season didn’t learn much from LIS1’s mistakes, additionally exchanging the well-known beauty for a garbage fire, ignoring all the warning signs along the way. Delivering a story that tackles such important topics, it slides between the checkmarks on the board of issues, mentioning conversion therapy, religion, gayness, illegal immigration, and a spiral of crimes but never elaborating on any of them. There is no meat and potatoes presented on the plate of events, but just a sticky, sweet gravy with nothing underneath that leaves you not only hungry but frustrated, willing to call the chef and yell at the waiter. The trick is that unless you were living under a rock, there are tons of other productions in different media that give those themes justice, carefully unfolding all the aspects, giving voice to both sides. The fact that it’s the first video game having an affair with serious issues doesn’t matter. I don’t believe that anybody who consumes any kind of other media like decent books, movies, or TV shows can remain blind to the problems of Life is Strange 2, claiming it to be a good story. It’s not.

So here we are, girls, boys, and beyond. Life is Strange 2 with its broken mechanics, story, characters, and spirit slowly but surely will be forgotten. It’s Dontnod’s Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within that you might love to watch or play on your brand-new TV, despite what everybody else would say, omitting any valid or invalid criticism, but unfortunately, it won’t change the general optics about this particular piece of media. A lost chance or recklessness created a convoluted mess and with a heart beating in the wrong place. You might praise Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, get excited about it since it’s a free world, free country (and even if it’s not, no one will take this ersatz of such liberty) and don’t let anybody tell you what to love. The problem is, that most likely the only thing that people will remember about this production is that the main male character looked like Ben Affleck and the hair animation was dope. Everything else won’t matter.

The same thing goes, unfortunately, for Life is Strange 2, subtitle: The Spirits Without.

[marceltorak]

ABCs of your OCs I found this floating around and thought it would be an amazing way to give some real in-depth background on a character in ways I never thought of before. So I copied the list and here we go!

A -huge- thank you to @kalissimsblog for the stunning photo edit of my picture of Sinostra.

Sinostra Orphan ABC Questionnaire.

A: Aptitude 1. what are your OC's natural abilities, things they’ve been doing since young? Sinostra is a natural at healing and sewing and has been working on perfecting both since she was a young girl. 2. what activities have they participated in? For fun, she participates in singing to Elune on nights of the full moon or relaxing in the garden Abenta grew for her. In terms of what she’s participated in the most, I would have to say healing on the battlefield as a combat medic. 3. what abilities do they have that they’ve worked for? Healing came naturally to her but her mental telepathy skills are something she developed over time. Several techniques as a priestess require some ability in mental powers and she chose to really hone this skill into one that is quietly formidable as a backup weapon. 4. what things are they bad at? She isn’t that great of a cook. She leaves the kitchen to Sinadra and the gardening to Abenta because she can’t tell weeds from flowers until they bloom. 5. what is their most impressive talent? Her most impressive talent would be her healing skills and more specifically her special skills she developed herself that got her kicked out of the church of Elune.

B: Basics 1. what is their hair colour? Royal Purple 2. what is their eye colour? Silver 3. how tall are they? Well if I math right (no promises) She’d be about 7 and 1/2 to 8 feet tall? 4. how old are they? In terms of how long I’ve roleplayed her, she’s aged over the years from a woman just cusping on adulthood to middle-aged. It really depends on where in the story I start to tell it. 5. how much do they weigh? That’s a math question I cannot really do well so I’d say she’s leaning to the side of slightly underweight or close to there. She’s always been a bit on the too skinny side.

C: Comfort 1. how do they sit in a chair? Sinostra sits like a grand old lady. Knees together, ankles together slightly to the side with her hands resting lightly in her lap folded together and back straight. 2. in what position do they sleep? She likes to curl up into a ball if she’s alone but if she’s sharing with someone she tends to be a cuddler. 3. what is their ideal comfort day? Her favourite way to spend a day of rest is to sit by the Moonwell in the yard surrounded by Abenta’s flowers and sew while feeling the sun on her head. 4. what is their major comfort food? why? Her favourite meal would be venison stew because when Sinadra makes it, it’s just about the best thing ever. It’s full of flavour and fills you right up and it's nice and juicy and warm. 5. who is the best at comforting them when down? Abenta is the best at comforting her through cuddles while Matheus is the one to give her wise and gentle advice. Matheus being Sinadra’s mate.

D: Decoration 1. how would they decorate a house if they had one under their name? Sinostra surprisingly isn’t one for decorating. When the sisters built the orphanage she didn’t really put much thought into it past functionality. She leaves that to others and instead just enjoys the natural beauty of the wood grains in the house and the flower garden outside the house. 2. how would they decorate their child’s room? Veshada, her daughter shares a bed with her since her mate is out to sea most often shipping orders from here to there. So she hasn’t really decorated or even prepared a room for her daughter. 3. how do they decorate their own room? She put lace curtains in the window once after a fancy to see if she could make it herself. She hasn’t done much else since. She really just prefers to sit outside and enjoy nature’s beauty than to decorate inside. 4. what type of clothes and accessories do they wear? Sinostra tends to prefer darker colours in her clothes. Best way to hide bloodstains. But she will wear white robes of her high priestess status when she must. Her style is very modest with skirts that reach the ground and little to no cleavage ever revealed. She’s always been shy in public eyes. 5. do they like makeup/nail/beauty trends? She would prefer to be a bit more stylish but her practical side scorns it at the same time. She loves making pretty clothes for others to wear and follows fashion in some ways but for herself, she tends to neglect this because of the fact that she’s often called for emergencies and her nice things get ruined with blood.

E: External Personality 1. does the way they do things portray their internal personality? Sinostra is more secretive than she lets on, she’s really good at that. She’s very gentle and kind and shows a great deal of care and understanding to the outside world. But she has her secrets, even from her sisters. 2. do they do things that conform to the norm? She is not one to conform to the norm just for the sake of fitting in. She stands up for what she believes and will face any army she must if that’s what it takes. 3. do they follow trends or do their own thing? She will follow trends if they do not conflict with her beliefs but generally, she does her own thing her own way and it works well for her. 4. are they up-to-date on the internet fads? If the internet existed she would not be up to date with its fads. She’d rather be out in the garden listening to the water lap inside the Moonwell. 5. do they portray their personality intentionally or let people figure it out on their own? Sinostra doesn’t hide who she is at her core and that’s what makes her secrets so well kept because she’s so open generally that one wouldn’t think she had something to hide. She is who she is and doesn’t have to explain that about herself.

F: Fun 1. what do they do for fun? She likes to sew, to sing and to be out in the garden. 2. what is their ideal party? Lots of laughter. A peaceful setting with everyone feeling content and relaxed. Nothing too crazy or frantic. 3. who would they have the most fun with? Shaleen. She and Shaleen both love to sit quietly and the two are often found together just being quiet together. 4. can they have fun while conforming to rules? While Sinostra is one to move at the beat of her own drum she isn’t one to break laws unless she has good reason to. 5. do they go out a lot? She’s out of the home more often than she’d like but her job is to heal the sick and the wounded and that keeps her busy.

G: Gorgeous 1. what is their most attractive external feature? Her tender gentle smile. 2. what is the most attractive part of their personality? Her empathy and willingness to offer comfort. 3. what benefits come with being their friend? In Sinostra you will always have a loyal companion who is on your side. Even if she has to gently chide you when you stray off and get lost now and again she will always welcome you back without judgement. 4. what parts of them do they like and dislike? She is proud of her family and what they have built together. She likes kindness in herself and dislikes the darkness. She is yet to truly find a balance she is comfortable with and continues to work on her path of discipline. 5. what parts of others do they envy? She envies Abenta’s joy, Dahala’s free morals and Dikalie’s quick to laugh quick to rage temperament. Sinostra in all things is usually calm and gentle or at least in control of herself. She envies her sisters their passionate expressions of self.

H: Heat 1. do they rather a hot or cold room? Sinostra would prefer warmer to cooler in room temperature but can and will endure any. 2. do they prefer summer or winter? She prefers Summer for the flowers. 3. do they like the snow? She does enjoy the snow and how beautiful it is for the few seconds it’s untouched before her sisters wake and play in it. 4. do they have a favourite summer activity? Sitting by the Moonwell sewing. 5. do they have a favourite winter activity? Sitting by the fire sewing.

I: In-the-closet 1. what is their sexuality? Sinostra is Heterosexual 2. have they ever questioned their sexuality? No, she’s never doubted her attractions. 3. have they ever questioned their gender? No, she’s always been confident in her womanhood. 4. would/was their family be okay with them being LGBT? Her sisters will always love her and accept her for who she believed herself to be. 5. how long would/did it take for them to come out? She’s never had to confess her preferences to her sisters but if she did it would be relatively quickly once she came to the conclusion about how she felt. She trusts her sisters to accept her.

J: Joy 1. what makes them happy? Her sisters are her greatest joy as are the children in the orphanage. 2. who makes them happy? Tyvius Zarzamee certainly does his best when he’s ashore but otherwise, it’s her family and her work. 3. are there any songs that bring them joy? The song of praise they sing to Elune on the full moon is her favourite mainly because of how they all instinctively blend in and harmonize with each other. 4. are they happy often? She is happy more often than she is not. Her life while hard and is one she is pleased with. 5. what brings them the most joy in the world? Saving a life.

K: Kill 1. have they ever thought about suicide? Never. No matter how hard life got she always had hope it would get better and she would just have to keep trying harder. 2. have they ever thought about homicide? She is a soldier in the end even if she is a healer. There are times she has to take a life in order to save a life. She is no stranger to this and isn’t one to hesitate when it comes to defending others. 3. if they could kill anyone without punishment, would they? who? She has in order to save others. Mainly on the battlefield but once most significantly in Darnassus city it’s self. 4. who would miss them if they died? Her sisters, her mate and her children would miss her most significantly but I think the world would miss her as she is a very well known priestess. 5. who would be happy they died, anyone? I don’t think anyone would be specifically happy she died even among the Horde as she is well known and well respected all over.

L: Lemons 1. what is their favourite fruit? Peaches. 2. what is their least favourite fruit? Blueberries. 3. are there any foods they hate? There isn’t any food she will refuse to eat, she remembers what it’s like to starve but raw meats would be at the bottom of her list. 4. do they have any food intolerances? She isn’t allergic to anything or has any bad reactions to food. 5. what is their favourite food? Sinadra’s Venison Stew.

M: Maternal 1. would they want a daughter or a son? She has a daughter and knows that her mate kinda hopes for a son to take over his shipping business someday. She’s in no rush but she certainly hopes for more children. 2. how many children do they want? As many as Elune will bless her with. Adopted or biological. 3. would they be a good parent? She is a good mother. Her sisters and her children often say so. 4. what would they name a son? what would they name a daughter? Her daughter’s name is Veshada and if she had a son? Well, I’m sure she’ll be inspired when the time comes. 5. would they adopt? Yes, she has.

N: Never Have I Ever 1. what would they never do? She will never reject her sisters, no matter what they do. Same for her close friends. 2. what have they never done that they want to do? Live in a time of peace with no more Orphans and everyone is relatively safe. 3. is there anything they absolutely can’t believe people do? She cannot fathom sadistic hatred. Even in herself. 4. what is the most embarrassing thing they’ve done? Once she and Tyvius were a little naughty in his personal helicopter while up in the air.  5. have they done anything they thought they’d never do? She never thought she’d become the hero she has. She always believed that she’d be pushed aside and forgotten her whole life but her skills and the skills of her sisters are ones the world couldn’t ignore even if they wanted to.

O: Optimism 1. are they optimistic or pessimistic? She tends to be Optimistic. 2. are they openly optimistic, throwing it on others? She is a peaceful optimistic. Her quiet calm shows her hope for the future instead of insisting things will be better she just acts and lives like it will be if she keeps working hard. 3. are they good at giving advice? Yes, she’s often asked for advice. 4. is there anyone in their life that throws optimism on them? Abenta is always so energetic and optimistic that even if Abby didn’t mean to she would end up pushing her optimism on others. 5. were they always optimistic? She’s always had faith in the future and so I’d say yes she’s always been optimistic.

P: Personality 1. what is their best personality trait? Her patience and gentleness. 2. what is their worst personality trait? She can be frustrating because she’s always so calm. Sometimes it seems like she doesn’t care as much as she really does to others who don’t know her well. 3. what of their personality do others love? They love her warmth. Her ability to envelope them in peace and acceptance. 4. what of their personality do others envy? Her sisters sometimes wish they could be as patient as she is or as calm but it’s their passion that she envies so they’re even. 5. do they hate anything about their personality/about other’s personalities? Hate is a strong word to Sinostra and she isn’t really one to hate someone. But a person who enjoys harming innocents is certainly a personality she’d rather not come across.

Q: Questions 1. do they ask for help? Usually no she doesn’t ask for help. She’s too busy helping to stop and ask. 2. do they ask questions in class? She did when she was an acolyte at the Temple of Elune. 3. do they answer questions that make them a little uncomfortable? Sinostra is very open and honest so usually, she’s willing to answer even if it’s embarrassing. 4. do they ask weird questions? She probably does but not all that often. 5. are they curious? She is about people. She loves to listen and learn about a person.

R: Rules 1. do they follow the rules? Unless she has to, she will follow the rules. 2. would they be a strict or laid-back parent? She tends to be the more gentle parental figure who lets things slide a bit before stepping in and putting her foot down. 3. have they ever been consequences for breaking a rule? She was expelled from the Temple of Elune for developing a style of healing that relied on skill rather than faith. 4. have they broken any rules they now regret breaking? No. She doesn’t regret when she’s broken rules because she’s always had a reason for it. 5. do they find any rules they/others follow absolutely ridiculous? Sometimes she might but she chooses to respect them until they get in the way of her helping someone important.

S: Streets 1. are they street-smart? She’s fairly street smart. She can survive on her own if she has to. 2. would they give money to someone on the streets? She doesn’t give money, she usually gives clothes and or food if she can’t help them find shelter. 3. have they ever gotten in a fight on the streets? Yes, she has. 4. has anything happened to them on the streets? Oh, I’m sure a lot has happened. After all, she was still rather young when she was kicked out of the temple and had to survive on her own on the streets. 5. are they cautious when out? It’s instinctual to be careful. If she isn’t at the Orphanage she’s usually in her battle gear and armed even if she seems relaxed she’s aware of what’s going on around her.

T: Truth 1. are they honest? She is honest by choice and very so usually. 2. can they tell if someone is lying? If she wanted to she could -always- tell but she chooses to respect others privacy so there are times that lies get past her. Though she can often tell by their body language if they are. 3. is it obvious when they’re lying? No. If she chooses to lie there is a reason to motivate it so she says the lie without guilt and thus doesn’t usually give herself away. 4. have they lied about anything they regret lying about? She’s only ever lied to protect someone so, no. 5. have they told truths that have been spread against their will? Has she told a truth that hurt someone when spread out by others outside of context? Perhaps but nothing really comes to mind where her truth hurt someone.

U: Underdog 1. have they been bullied? Yes. At the temple. 2. have they bullied anyone? No. 3. have they been physically attacked by a bully? No, the church wasn’t one to dirty their hands. Though at one point the tried to hire an assassin to silence her. 4. have they ever been doubted? For a long time, her skills and desire to help people was doubted. But time proved her ally. 5. have they surprised people with being good at something? She often surprised her fellow soldiers with little things about herself. She’s generally private when out on the field and only relaxes at home.

V: Vomit 1. do they vomit often? She did when she was pregnant with Veshada. 2. do they get lots of stomach aches? No. 3. are they good at comforting someone ill? Yes, that is one of her specialties. 4. what do they like as far as comfort goes? When she’s feeling ill or wants some comfort she will go brush Shaleen’s hair or cuddle with Abenta. 5. do they burp, cough, or hiccup most when nauseous? when vomiting? She’d probably cough when being sick (vomiting) and perhaps burps when nauseous.

W: Water 1. do they drink enough water? Yes, she’s always paying attention to the state of her own body. 2. have they learned to swim? That’s something she learnt quickly when she got sisters. 3. do they like to swim? She enjoys it but, she prefers floating to swimming and doesn’t get to often since the others are noisy. 4. can they dive? She can but not very well. 5. can they swim without holding their nose? Yes.

X: Xylophone 1. what is their favourite genre of music? Traditional Elven music. 2. do they have a favourite song? The song of praise to Elune. 3. do they have a favourite band/artist/singer? Just her and her sisters singing together. 4. can they sing well? She’s a beautiful soprano. 5. can they rap? No.

Y: You 1. how old were you when you created them? I was about 20 years old when World of Warcraft was first released. 2. what inspired you to create them? I made Sinostra and each of the sisters to represent an aspect of myself. Sinostra was my gentle caregiver side. 3. were they different when they were first created? Yes and no. Her core self is still the same but she is more mature and has evolved into her own self. She’s a lot more than the 1D character I first made. 4. do you enjoy writing them more than other characters? I adore writing about Sinostra but, each of the sisters is just as important to me because of what they represent. 5. what’s your favourite thing about them? I love her kindness, her tenderness and how calm I feel when I play her.

Z: Zebra 1. what’s their favourite animal? She isn’t really huge on animals, She adopted a Worg pup once but any other animal that came into the house was usually attached to someone else. Even the worg liked Sinadra better when she was home. 2. do they like animals? She likes them but they tend to like other people more. 3. cats or dogs? She took in a worg pup but I think she might like cats better because of Abenta’s habit of shifting into a panther to cuddle. 4. what’s their dream pet? One that loves her the most. 5. do they have any pets at the moment? She still has the worg pup who’s now grown some but it’s more Sinadra’s than hers if she’s not away from home.

[archer3-13]

Thoughts on Other Students in 3H

in no particular order

Hubert: evil snake boi, i kinda like you. i just wish there was more actual meat to ya then what there is. still, he does his role effectively and unlike edelgard plays into the whole evil empire thing with more gusto so i ironically find him more palatable because atleast the game isnt trying to pretend he isnt shady as fuck.

Dedue: oddly charming despite his straight laced attitude, he gets some interesting nuance in how well he highly respects (cough loves cough) dimitri and likes individual people from the blue lions, he doesnt have any particular fondness for faerghus as a whole which is definitely understandable given his history. hes essentially using the camus/murdoch aspect of undying loyalty and even borrows elements of the female camuses line of romantic interest in their liege however heavily implied it might be and applying that to a male playable character. Plus he just has some fun and interesting interactions with other characters in general.

Lorenz: I have difficulty saying whether i like him. on the one hand, he ended up being more multidimensional then i thought he was going to be with his internal conflict between keeping up appearances for the sake social status and societal order and his desire to pursue his own personal interests and ideals against the needs of his father and thus societal conventions. on the other hand, the game never really runs with this as much as it should and hes still treated as a bit of a joke character so... c+ to b? 

Ingrid: the token heterosexual of the blue lions whos still kinda gay anyways, her whole struggle with being a knight over a housewife seems a bit odd on the surface considering theres plenty of female knights and no one throws much of a fuss in universe, until you learn that it isnt so much that society expects her to do it as matter of course and more so that shes struggling with whether to pursue personal duty to her family or personal desires and ideals kinda like lorenz. in that respect she hits the mark a bit better then he does.

Raphael: kinda insubstantial but i liked him anyways, his sheer exuberance can be kinda refreshing in the games darker moments and hes got a few angles of his own such as his refusal to consider his parents deaths as part of a larger conspiracy so as to not hurt his friendship with ignatz nor ruin his own life and his sisters. plus hes just generally a nice guy. like a big huggable bear. just a shame that being a nice kinda dumb huggable bear is all thats really done with him.

Ignatz: his painting stuff and personal insecurities about wanting to do it over being a knight which his parents want him to do, more of that duty over desires and ideals thing again, is well enough and his probably misplaced guilt over raphaels misfortunes is definitely a highlight of him but he never really grabs as a character for some reason. probably because theres a lot of other characters in the game that hit those same marks and do it better then him.

Sylvain: has a lot of aspects that never really feel like they get proper follow up, his big thing is less womanizer and more so that he covers up his own mistrust and personal feeling by pretending to be a shameless flirt and philanderer. basically, maybe the emotional pain will go away if i flirt with girls and act the fool. but again there never really feels like theres any proper follow up for all this, others comment on it and then its more often then not dropped in story. hes fun enough but never really realized if that makes sense.

Caspar: shonen protagonist is kinda an apt word to describe him honestly, and that idealism of his clashes with the more grey on grey morality of the world hes within which is never a particularly bad direction to take the shonen bois in if done well like hunter x hunter. And he is done well, or at least satisfactorily to the point that hes another one i ended up liking more then i thought i would. his problem is more so that his interactions with most other characters in the main cast which feel duller then they should on most occasions.

Dorothea: probably gonna get a bit of shit for this, but i have no interest in her. her insecurities about her future and getting a good husband is well and interesting but manuela does that better honestly and outside of that dorotheas a bit... not shallow but hazy and insubstantial if you will. she obviously has appeal to people but like ignatz she failed to grab me in part because others did what she did and better within the game itself.

Ashe: soft boi chose to be soft instead of hard, one of the characters i found liking and one i expected to kinda like to begin with. in game he gets accused of being childish and naive a lot but i dont see it personally, hes not naive but more so tries to look for the best in people and in life like lonato did all those years ago for him. that said, the speed with which lonato dies damages his identity as a character a bit by happening before we really get a chance to feel for his relation to lonato, its not to big a bug bear as it doesnt hurt his character all that much but it does feel a bit frustrating.

Felix: teenage angst personified, his main gripes seem to be a distaste of warrior culture and its glorification of bloodshed and sacrifice but instead of approaching it with sadness or pacifism, he lashes out against what he feels is the unfairness of the world. hes not exactly wrong in his feelings and as a character it makes sense and works for his abrasive attitude, and its an interesting twist to the navarre type to have their isolation come not from stoicism nor sheer blood lust or a combo of the two but rather from a rage against the machine of society mindset.

Ferdinand: he got more interesting as i got farther along, and i personally feel he works the best as a character when going against edelgard since thats where more of his personal drama comes from. hes eager to succeed and prove himself worthy of his title over time and holds a chivalrous mindset very similar to others in the cast but his growth is less about learning how to hold onto those ideals in the face of reality for the sake of personal fulfillment but more so about learning to define himself by himself and not by societies needs. ultimately he comes to value chivalry not because its what people tell him to value but because he truly values it and i enjoy that. but its also why i feel he works better on other routes then edelgards since there hes still valuing himself not for himself but for the expectations society or edelgard in this case is placing him under, one tyrant for another in a sense. i admit i dont remember much about him on edelgards route though because i just like him more on the others.

Leonie: poorly timed support aside, she has an odd charm to her that a lot of modern fire emblem characters just dont have anymore. but knuckling past jeralt senpai shes an interesting blend of stingy and work effort that goes to inform itself and her relations to others. and like a lot of the golden deer she has a lackadaisical attitude of ‘i might not know what the fuck is happening, but i do know someone needs an ass whooping!’ and it works especially well in her case since her character is very attuned towards focusing more on her personal matters then the grand scheme of things because she has rent due in a few months. if she was in a more traditional fe set up she would definitely be a beowolf archtype that you need to pay to recruit. in fact im surprised thats not an option on other routes to begin with for her.

Hilda: honestly suprised me by not being a pure serra type. she has aspects of that on the surface with the selfish almost vain attitude towards life and others bur well serra is more about puffing herself up to hide insecurity and contribute towards a desperate desire for grand social status, Hilda downplays herself and her abilities due to living in her brothers shadow if unintentionally and seeing the stress it can bring. they’re both lazy and vain, on the surface anyways, always getting others to do their work for them but well serra seeks more social status to escape it hilda seeks less social status to escape it. plus it was kinda funny to see hilda act as claudes unofficial number 2 you could still recruit.

Lindhart: Sleepy boi needs a nap and thats kinda it really. exaggeration maybe but unlike a lot of characters in the game and the series as a whole he really doesnt have a reason to be there as a character. as a unit certainly but not a character, in terms of motivation anyways. He hates blood, fighting and violence, hed rather sleep or pursue personal interests then work or politics, hes insightful and intelligent but the important players in the plot have other advisers and hes not interested in stepping up in that regard anyways. his only real reason for being there is academic interest and even then a pin has to be put in that when war breaks out. hes not a bad character overall though, his sleepiness and insight make for an interesting double act along with his blunt mannerisms, i just have trouble pinning down motivations for him.

Mercedes: big team mom energy, which i suppose goes along with the whole being older then everyone thing. a bit dopey and airheaded at first glance shes one of the more receptive characters to how others are feeling and well she does try to nurture shes not above scolding if she feels it would help someone more then praise and reassurance. of course shes also very detached to events of the world mostly just there to help the people around her from the bottom rather then the top which is not an insult and more one of the things i find fascinating about her. it all makes for a very interesting character and one of my personal favorites of the cast.

Annette: overworker, issues with her dad, magic bubbly, and hits things with axes. a nice recipe of a character but it never feels as if the game can get it all to blend properly. more so to the point is that most of these elements work independently of each other and not to inform each other despite the games insistence. theres a lot of dramatic potential involving her father as well and though the game makes the best use of those aspects its not to the benefit of the rest of her character. it doesnt hurt her either though and she has some appealing dialogue with other characters.

Marianne: I had trouble getting to like her, perhaps more so then any other character among the other students. not because i hated her but because shes, well, very boring. alot of the characters in the game are into the self deprecation thing already and well her personality aspects of acting quite and submissive to fall into the background from a lack of self confidence it also feels like the game came up with two different explanations for it and couldnt settle on whether it was because of her adoptive fathers pressure or her families history and instead of weaving both together decided to use them interchangeably. Sometimes shes a wallflower because of her father and a lack of confidence to state her mind and self loathing over that lack of confidence, other times its because of her lineage and self loathing over her cursed history. never really at the same time.

Bernadetta: another odd favorite for me. recent support changes aside, the basic gist of her history remains the same in that her father was a tyrant in regards to her future which caused her to grow up with no confidence and a crippling fear of society, so shes already off to a good start as a character by basically doing mariannes schtik but better. well its hard for me to definitely say she ever grows past that as a character, thats fine in my opinion because her development is less stop being a recluse because society demands you dont and more so about making actual friends and learning that not all people are garbage fires just most of them. in most of her supports anyways. she just feels the most rewarding to interact with alright, and she was the one i always felt the most upset to mess up a speak thing with. Let us hug and stay inside watching cartoons together.

Petra: i went in wanting to like her and really liking her at first, but shes hit a middle of the road for me now. her speech gimmick wasn't particularly egregious and gets even less noticeable after the timeskip, but her actual character is a very straight forward ‘national pride demands independence’ package and doesnt really escape past that boundary all that much. its very understandable motivation, id even go so far as to say that shes the one with the best reasons to betray the empire of the black eagles characters, so like ferdinand i feel she works better outside of the black eagles in term of her own character identity and motivation/development as she finally stands up for her peoples right to exist on their own in an fe6 echidna kinda fashion. outside of that though shes... foreign to the other characters. thats kinda it.

Lysithia: as a unit she hits like a truck, as a character shes functional but hardly revolutionary for the series. i mean i did like her since i have a fondness for her archtype of weird magic prodigy poor social skills, but more so that she doesn't hit any particularly new notes in that regard. Shes a lot of lute, with some delthea childishness in her, some of sanakis sharper political wit and dark history, and a bit of miriels scientist on top. that said its all blended very nicely and she has some nice scenes for herself that got me to feel and care for her, some kinda adorable moments, and a history well woven into the games background and more so then most of the other deer and a lot of the other characters from across the houses in general. for a minor character anyways.

you may now all stone me to death.

[wolf-nir]

The Members of the Decay of Angels

The Decay of Angels is a five-member terrorist organization. They specialize in being a “murder association”. Although few in number, all its members have powerful and threatening abilities.

So far has been presented two members of this organization, Fyodor Doystoyevsky and Nikolai Gogol. The other three members remain a mystery, however it is known that possibly all of them are infiltrated into the government and the Japanese police force.

From the two members hitherto presented, it is possible to deduce that the organization is probably formed by classical russian authors, since Asagiri likes to present groups and organizations with members having the same nationality. This is the case with the ADA, Port Mafia and The Guild.

However, I believe that only two of the remaining members can be russian authors, since Asagiri has been playing reference to one of the classic Japanese authors, Mishima Yukio, which would make sense for an organization with predictable base in Japan needing a Japanese connection.

Following this theory, we know that there are several classic russian authors, an example is the very organization commanded by Fyodor, who has mostly russian authors. However, because it is a tremendously dangerous organization, it is possible to deduce that the authors chosen by Asagiri are the best known and/or controversial in the history of russian literature, both IRL!Fyodor and IRL!Gogol being part of this list.

Among several choices I have separated five authors known for their fame and influence in literature. Since this is a theory, I will introduce some of the IRL! and their possible ability. Since I’m not Asagiri and I don’t have much knowledge about russian literature, I may be wrong on some points here and there, but I hope you enjoy it!

❝  Leo Tolstoy ❞

⌈ IRL! Facts ⌋

✓ Leo Tolstoy, born as Liev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is considered to be one of the greatest authors of all time. ✓ Born to an aristocratic russian family in 1828, he is best known for the novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. He first achieved literary acclaim in his twenties with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (1852-1856), and Sevastopol Sketches (1855), based upon his experiences in the Crimean War. ✓ In the 1870s Tolstoy experienced a profound moral crisis, followed by what he regarded as an equally profound spiritual awakening, as outlined in his non-fiction work A Confession (1882). His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him to become a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist.

⌈ Ability ⌋

❝  Karenina ❞

✓ Anna Karenina is the tragic story of Countess Anna Karenina, a married noblewoman and socialite, and her affair with the affluent Count Vronsky. The story starts when she arrives in the midst of a family broken up by her brother's unbridled womanizing — something that prefigures her own later situation, though she would experience less tolerance by others. A bachelor, Vronsky is eager to marry Anna if she will agree to leave her husband Count Karenin, a senior government official, but she is vulnerable to the pressures of Russian social norms, the moral laws of the Russian Orthodox Church, her own insecurities, and Karenin's indecision. Although Vronsky and Anna go to Italy, where they can be together, they have trouble making friends. Back in Russia, she is shunned, becoming further isolated and anxious, while Vronsky pursues his social life. Despite Vronsky's reassurances, she grows increasingly possessive and paranoid about his imagined infidelity, fearing loss of control. ✓ Seen from a small perspective, Karenina is a novel focused on a toxic relationship because of Anna's mistrust and paranoia. (in fact I may be quite wrong, since I have never finished reading the book and probably never will -q) ✓ Thus, Tolstoy's possible ability could be something connected to causing paranoia/delusions in the victim or incubating the victim to betray his own allies. ✓ Seeing that Leo Tolstoy is probably also infiltrated in the Japanese government, it is quite possible that he is using his ability to cause discord among politicians, and if he finds himself infiltrated into another government or public force, his ability continues to be useful in conflict of national or international disposition.

❝ A Confession ❞

✓ The book is a brief autobiographical story of the author's struggle with a mid-life existential crisis. It describes his search for the answer to the ultimate philosophical question. “If God does not exist, since death is inevitable, what is the meaning of life?”. Without the answer to this, for him, life had become “impossible”. ✓ According to IRL!Tolstoy, in the face of the inevitability of death and assuming that God does not exist, the most intellectually honest response to the situation would be suicide. ✓ Thus, the ability of BSD!Tolstoy would also be manipulative in content, perhaps something close to the ability of Yumeno or Fyodor, in that by touch or any other kind of contact, Tolstoy could manipulate the victim's mind to commit suicide, perhaps by incubating existential doubts or personal insecurities that, in extreme circumstances, could lead the person to the suicide. Honestly, that would be the last ability I'd like Atsushi, Akutagawa or Dazai to face (even if Dazai can cancel the ability).

❝  Andrei Bely ❞

⌈ IRL! Facts ⌋

✓ Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev, better known by the pen name Andrei Bely or Biely; 26 October [O.S. 14 October] 1880 – 8 January 1934), was a Russian novelist, poet, theorist, communist, and literary critic. ✓ His novel Petersburg was regarded by Vladimir Nabokov as one of the four greatest novels of the 20th century. ✓ Boris Bugaev was fascinated by probability and particularly by entropy, a notion to which he frequently refers in works such as Kotik Letaev. ✓ As a young man, Bely was strongly influenced by his acquaintance with the family of philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, especially Vladimir's younger brother Mikhail, described in his long autobiographical poem The First Encounter (1921); the title is a reflection of Vladimir Solovyov's Three Encounters. It was Mikhail Solovyov who gave Bugaev his pseudonym Andrei Bely. ✓ Bely's symbolist novel Petersburg (1916; 1922) is generally considered to be his masterpiece. The book employs a striking prose method in which sounds often evoke colors. The novel is set in the somewhat hysterical atmosphere of turn-of-the-century Petersburg and the Russian Revolution of 1905.

⌈ Ability ⌋

❝  Petersburg ❞

✓ To the extent that the book can be said to possess a plot, this can be summarized as the story of the hapless Nikolai Apollonovich, a ne'er-do-well who is caught up in revolutionary politics and assigned the task of assassinating a certain government official — his own father. At one point, Nikolai is pursued through the Petersburg mists by the ringing hooves of the famous bronze statue of Peter the Great. ✓ The main character of the book is known for wearing a strange red domino mask and cape. This visual is a way of “acting like a fool” in front of the woman who spent a lot of time courting and being rejected. ✓ The ability of BSD!Bely could be deceptive, illusory, very similar to that of Oguri. ✓ His ability could be to hypnotize the victim so that she was able to see and do catastrophic things as just “silly things”. An example would be to turn a bomb into a simple bouquet of flowers or something else that would make the victim cause chaos without actually realizing it.

❝  Mikhail Bulgakov ❞

⌈ IRL! Facts ⌋

✓ Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (15 May [O.S. 3 May] 1891 – 10 March 1940) was a russian writer, medical doctor and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. ✓ He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, published posthumously, which has been called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century. ✓ After illness Bulgakov abandoned his career as a doctor for that of a writer. In his autobiography, he recalled how he started writing: "Once in 1919 when I was traveling at night by train I wrote a short story. In the town where the train stopped, I took the story to the publisher of the newspaper who published the story". ✓ His first book was an almanac of feuilletons called Future Perspectives, written and published the same year.

⌈ Ability ⌋

❝  The Master and Margarita ❞

✓ The story concerns a visit by the devil to the officially atheistic Soviet Union. The Master and Margarita combines supernatural element with satirical dark comedy and Christian philosophy, defying a singular genre. ✓ The ability of the BSD!Mikhail is very similar to that of Lucy Montgomery, the only exception is that instead of a doll, Mikhail has the body of a dead woman as his marionette, he calls her Margarita. ✓ Margarita is described as a woman in a Russian style dress of the 19th century in a lush shade of red. His eyes are black and empty-looking. ✓ She is able to obey Mikhail's three specific orders. She “comes to life” during this process through the drinking ritual of Mikhail's blood. The more complicated Mikhail's desire, the more blood Margarita consumes.

❝  Heart of a Dog ❞

✓ The Heart of a Dog is a satirical work in which a doctor does an experiment on a dog rescued by him in which he transforms the animal into a human of personality and primitive aspects. (or at least that's what I understood, frankly I'm so confused with this book) ✓ The ability of BSD!Mikhail, in this case, would be quite simple: through physical contact, he is able to make a human being surrender to his most primitive and savage side, until that person becomes, in fact, a dog. ✓ Mikhail is able to control the duration of the transformation, meaning he is able to make someone turn quickly or slowly, depending on his intentions. Besides that, once the person is totally transformed, it is impossible to undo the transformation.

❝  Anton Chekhov ❞

⌈ IRL! Facts ⌋

✓ Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a russian playwright and short-story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. ✓ Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress." ✓ Chekhov had at first written stories only for financial gain, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made formal innovations which have influenced the evolution of the modern short story. He made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them.

⌈ Ability ⌋

❝  The Seagull ❞

✓  The Seagull is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatises the romantic and artistic conflicts between four characters: the famous middlebrow story writer Boris Trigorin, the ingenue Nina, the fading actress Irina Arkadina, and her son the symbolist playwright Konstantin Tréplev. ✓ The ability is to "send" your fatal injuries to the body of other people. According to BSD!Anton, the people with whom he makes this exchange are his mere seagulls who used to live happily and ignorantly, but who know him only to be a tool to kill his boredom. ✓ For the exchange to take place Anton must have made a "contract" with the other person. For the most part, people are women who have previously been their lovers or who are in love with him.

❝  Maxim Gorky ❞

⌈ IRL! Facts ⌋

✓ Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1868 – 18 June 1936), primarily known as Maxim Gorky, was a russian and soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist. He was also a five-time nominee for theNobel Prize in Literature. ✓ Gorky's most famous works were The Lower Depths (1902), Twenty-six Men and a Girl (1899), The Song of the Stormy Petrel (1901), My Childhood (1913-1914), Mother (1906), Summerfolk (1904) and Children of the Sun (1905). ✓ He had an association with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov; Gorky would later mention them in his memoirs.

⌈ Ability ⌋

❝  The Lower Depths ❞ 

✓ The play is centered on lower-class characters living in a shelter. Everyone has questionable ethical actions throughout the plot. ✓ Gorky's ability is based on people's lies. He is able to turn any and every lie that the person has already said into reality, most often causing the destruction - be it physical, mental or social - of the victim.

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Saga of Tanya the Evil, Episodes 7-9

In which I consider the problems of plot-based shows, and Tanya’s descent into darkness strikes a chord.

Lost in Action

I have never been the biggest fan of plot-focused shows. My long-time readers can attest to this; I tend to gravitate toward stories that favor emotional progression over plot progression, character work over mechanical maintenance, and strong thematic throughlines over clockwork-mechanism storytelling. That’s not to say I can’t enjoy plot-focused shows, or even love them when they’re done right; FMA Brotherhood is pretty much the epitome of the perfect plot-driven show, and it’s my #3 favorite anime of all time. But while Brotherhood’s story progression is absolutely its strongest aspect and is critical to its iconic status as the anime adventure narrative, it’s only able to work as well as it does because of how much we care about the characters and their personal journeys at the core of the thing. Stories can survive with minimal plot if their characters and ideas are strong enough to explore individually, but in my experience, the opposite is rarely true. A strong plot with weak characters is only ever going to feel like a hollow shell of an experience, no matter how hypothetically impressive it may be to watch it play itself out. And the more a particular show focuses on “plot”, the easier it is to slip into that trap of leaving “story” by the wayside.

I bring this all up because as much as I’m enjoying Saga of Tanya the Evil thus far, I’m finding more and more that it’s running into the problem of putting plot over story and running itself dry in the process. So much of these episodes are just focused on Plot Stuff Happening(tm), pieces moving from one place to another, conversation that dispense information and not much else, detailing extensively the whys and hows of the plot mechanics but not the whys and hows of the people working within those mechanics. Remember that scene in episode 4 that used actual character motivation from Tanya and her superior to make an exposition dump both a natural extension of their conversation and a genuine moment of internal conflict with actual stakes and tactics? I found myself missing that scene so many times throughout the long stretches of these episodes, generals sitting around dimly lit war rooms and rattling off inventory and tactical information without a scrap of that scene’s character-driven energy. It’s absolutely a difficult balance to walk for any show, and Youjo Senki’s far from the worst example of the form I’ve seen. But when I think about how much better it’s proven itself capable of in the past, I’m definitely disappointed that it’s struggling to be that consistently engaging and purposeful.

Are We the Baddies?

Gripes aside, though, there’s still a lot this show is doing right. Tanya’s character, when it does come back into focus, is still as compelling as it’s always been, even more so now that it’s started dipping into the darker aspects of her place in this story. With all due respect to Overlord, there’s an art to crafting a protagonist who’s meant to walk a gray moral line, and Youjo Senki is a prime example of how to do it right. Tanya is absolutely engaging in brutal measures over the course of fighting this war, but then again, it is war, and the particular war this show’s parallel world is mimicking was infamously one of the most brutal conflicts in world history. The man she kills in episode 7 was an honorable man with a family waiting for him, but the same could be said of countless nameless soldiers gunned down on every side of this conflict thus far. No one looks like a hero when the splatters of blood leave everyone’s hands stained red, least of all the men and women calling the shots. And Tanya is far from blind or desensitized to the crimes she’s committing. There’s a great scene in episode 8 where a general tries to give her orders to torch a town and its citizens in the most deflective, purposefully vague way possible, and she proceeds to verbally eviscerate his attempt to sugarcoat the monstrosity of his request with sheer, cruel honesty. He’s asking her to butcher innocent people for the sake of the war effort, and trying to spin it otherwise is nothing but cowardice. If we must march into hell, then let us march with our eyes wide open.

Still, as clear-eyed as Tanya is about the devastation the war brings, it’s clear she’s still far from comfortable with the violence she’s asked to carry out. She clearly has great distaste for the general’s orders, but she carries them out regardless, because it’s easy enough for her to displace blame through the chain of command and say she was “just following orders”. She can direct her men to gun down civilians to keep them from becoming potential soldiers and still try to pretend her hands are clean as the driven snow, deflecting the horror of what she’s done just as efficiently as the general she castrated. Yet there’s also a genuine desire to keep that horror from overwhelming her actions, as evidenced by her willingness to take the blame off her soldiers so they won’t have to suffer either. Her actions speak to a mixture of guilt and responsibility, unwilling to truly face her actions but also willing to give an out to others who may not be able to shoulder the weight as well as she can. That tenuous balance won’t hold forever, thought, not while Being X just revived the victim of one of her massacres to seek vengeance and force the weight of her actions in her face. Sooner or later, Tanya’s going to have to face up to the atrocities she’s committed and decide what path she truly wants her saga to take. That’s damn good writing, capturing genuine moral ambiguity without making the answer easy or obvious. As long as that keeps holding strong, whatever other complains I might have, this show will keep my attention until the end.

Odds and Ends

-Who pours their cream so dramatically I swear to GOD Tanya

-”I feel like a canary in a coal mine.” “Then, let’s sing a pretty song.” When suddenly, Symphogear.

-”Unified States, State of Arkansas” SURE

-I’m getting major Attack on Titan vibes from this city fight. Awesome, even if the city CG isn’t quite up to par.

-Another excellent ED? No problems here.

-HOLY SHIT THAT CUT TO BLACK OUCH

-Aw, what? Not even a scar? Lame.

-”Doctor Schugel?!” askdjhakds OH NO

-”He’s a natural-born disaster.” You’re not wrong.

-”I take that back.” Viktoria, I appreciate you.

-”Until I pound free-market principles into that asshole, I won’t die!” Capitalism was a mistake.

One more session to go. See you next time for the conclusion of Tanya’s saga of evil!

[sunnydwrites]

Writing a War

(P.S.A. Before We Begin: While the above GIF is from Captain America: Civil War, I won’t be including any superhero factors in this post. I just really love the movie and this scene specifically :P Enjoy!)

Hello friends, Abby here with another writing post! I’ve noticed that the concept of war tends to play a large role in many of the novels I’ve read in the past. Due to this and the fact that my own series (Smoke Shadows) will include its own war of sorts, I was inspired to make this post. Without further ado, let’s get started!

What could cause a war?

There are, of course, many causes that can lead to a war, and it would probably be a little strange if one occurred in your story for a single reason. Let’s go through a couple of general causes that have played major roles, starting with the M.A.I.N.:

Militarism. Some countries take excessive pride in their militaries and continue building and displaying them, even during peacetime. Often nations that would perceive an action like this as a threat find these acts of militarism unsettling; this can worsen relations between the two nations or can lead the threatened nation to make a preemptive strike of sorts.

Alliances. These can be dangerous, especially secret alliances. A small country might have made secret alliances with several larger nations in secret; someone picks a fight with them and suddenly there are six other nations on their case about it. Alliances made like these are the ones that can and probably will lead to conflicts involving more countries.

Imperialism. Simply put, imperialism is the process of “stronger” nations taking over “weaker” ones for control of some sort, and usually without the consent of the country they’re taking over. (Imperialistic nations don’t seem to care much about that last part, though.) Imperialism could lead to conflict in the form of a “turf war” of sorts between imperialistic nations or to a fight for independence by the nation that’s been taken over.

Nationalism. This one is dangerous, because it often comes from a feeling of unity in a nation. This pride can range anywhere from slight to intense and can be created in whatever way you want, but a historically proven way to use this method is through things like propaganda and yellow journalism.

At least one of these four reasons play some sort of role in the starting of a war, though of course there are many other causes you could choose from. Some of these possibilities can include completely unprecedented attacks, economic/territorial gain, religion, revenge of some sort, and (intense) internal disagreements.

How to “Structure” a War

Wars are usually won not through brute force alone, but by strategy. You’ll want to keep this in mind when you think of how your war plays out; whoever is the better strategies will have a higher chance of coming out of this whole thing victorious. It will probably help tremendously for you to draw a map of your world and include every place that will be affected, then get some different colored markers to represent the different sides.

It’s especially helpful if you can make two maps, or one that you can edit easily. On one you’ll want to create a plan for each side. If you were planning out something like this, what would you plan for? Include things like:

Attack points and any (possibly) ensured victories

Retreat plans

Key areas that this side will need to win

Other people that will be travelling with the troops

Amount of troops sent to each place

Methods of communication and transportation

Weaponry used

Any rules going on (ex. don’t go after civilians, leave injured soldiers to be healed since they are no longer a threat, etc.)

There are, of course, other things to consider, but if you’re just looking for the basic information then all this should be a good starting point for you. Next up comes the results, where you take the time to figure out how each battle/conflict/whatever you’d like to call it turned out. Think of things like:

Casualties

Injuries

Prisoners of war or any M.I.A.s

Total resources used

Damage done to the surrounding area

Whether each group should completely invade, draw back, or stay where they are

Essentially, whether the conflict was a victory, defeat, or stalemate for each side

From there, you’ll want to figure out how each side will adapt to this result. The best strategizers respond to the events of this conflict will often assess their side and the other side, and change their plans a little to try and help their side regain (or keep) the advantage.

Rinse and repeat until you’ve created a war.

The Home Front

What is everyone doing at home to help this effort, if anything at all? How are people responding to the war? Consider things like governmental actions and the civilian response, and what people at home might be asked to do to aid the cause. From a governmental perspective, think of things like:

The possibility of a draft

How they would get their funding

How much control (if any) it would take over everyday life

Any new laws that might be passed

The changing of alliances

Deciding on whether or not to declare war (additionally, admitting defeat or making an attempt to find peace)

The need to prevent something like an economic depression afterwards

Trading with countries they’re not actively fighting against

You’ll also want to consider things like propaganda. It’s often a “strategy” used to increase morale at home and to help unify the nation during wartime. This can be used for a lot of purposes, but it’s often to 1) encourage those who would be able to enlist to do so or 2) encourage those who can’t enlist to still find ways to help the country.

Some other things that might change in the home life include:

Work and education standards

Anything that goes into and out of a person’s bank account (or the equivalent); things like taxes and pay grades might change

The possibility of rationing, if needed

People spending more free time helping out in the effort

How people would react to family being sent away to fight (and the possibility of bad news being brought back)

The demand for different jobs and how this demand might be met

Any major changes in priority for the people as a whole

Ending the War

And finally, we’ve made it to the end! One way or another, things are going to come to a close on this conflict. It might have been a month, a year, or a decade since the initial declaration of war, but we’ve made it. What comes with the end of a war can vary in essentially every way you can imagine. You’ll want to consider things like:

Treaties (including things like alliances that might have been formed or come to an end, war reparations, punishments, etc.)

Any measures meant to prevent another war of this nature

Things being done to help any countries on which the war was fought, if anything at all

Lasting feelings that might lead to future conflicts or developments

And that’s all I’ve got for today, I hope this helped! If there’s anything you want to see me write about in my next post, please don’t hesitate to leave a message in my ask. Until next time, much love! <333

[me-on-set]

Harrowingly Strange

When was the last time you had to face a moral dilemma? I am still reeling. I actually just got home. I think I invented a new selfie style. I wanted to take a photo of my makeup on and off.

As I currently write this, I am not an actor but instead have been doing background work for the past year. I've occasionally been a featured extra and was a body double once.

It's fascinating, seeing and doing the work that embodies being on set.

A couple of days ago, I received a message from a casting agency that had my headshot asking to submit my photo for a featured non-speaking role with a local production company. It was a one or two day shoot at $200 per day. I said yes and I got the gig.

When you are cast, you get an email the night before with details about the set location, start time, special instructions, and wardrobe. This show I booked was for a reenactment TV series about real world events. The exciting news was that this particular episode revolved around a crisis that occurred in my parents' homeland. I was to play someone at home seeing the news on television, and then in a second scene complain to police of their incompetence. I was asked to bring leisure clothing one would wear at home.

When I first started being an extra, I would bring my clothes in a backpack, trying really hard not to care too much. That behavior did not last. I found my interest stumbling forward into a natural evolution. I started taking luggage to neatly carry my wardrobe options. I found that I would mostly get cast as a mid-30's businessman. This led me to comfortably bring my outfits in a garment bag. It's funny how familiarity can grow your views.

For today, I packed shorts, sweatpants, t-shirts, a hoodie, a pair of runners, and a pair of flip flops. I got these flip flops during my last vacation with my mom overseas in her hometown. I also brought some henley shirts and arrived on set in khakis and a short-sleeved polo because there was also a mention of button-ups being an option.

The majority of work involved as an extra is waiting. It's a good idea to bring a book, although in this day and age, occupying oneself with a smart phone is a much more fulfilling time killer. I didn't end up using any of the clothes I had brought except for my belt and my runners. After my hair and makeup were done I decided to satisfy my curiosity by searching keywords of this specific production. I searched the name of the character I was to reenact. Adding quotations to strict strings of words, I had soon discovered the event I was going to portray. This was when my moral dilemma began.

I was born and raised in North America by immigrant parents who arrived in their early 20's. The typical experiences had by people of color paint a relatively positive mural that represents my upbringing. Having visited my ethnic country many times throughout my life, I felt, and still feel, a deep connection to the motherland. This connection is common for others like myself, powered by identity in a time where life will sometimes present it as a limitation. Conversely, this only strengthens cultural pride.

The role I was to play was an international representing their countrymen against the very country I identify with. Pangs of uneasiness flooded my body. There was another featured role performer who had an earlier call time. We sat together in the holding area. He was cast to play the part of a family member learning the news of the event. What surprised me more was the fact that he was a recent immigrant from my country of ethnicity. Us both, cast in roles of coincidental conflict of interest?

When it comes to acting, the only other time I recall having feelings of apprehension was during a big budget movie filmed in a church. I was a church goer among a sea of church goers seated in church pews. We were instructed to portray the enjoyment of a church service. Some of us were selected to stand and sway to the Christian music. Some had their eyes closed, head tilted to the ceiling, palms facing up to the heavens. As easy a physical task that is, I instead opted to clap along to the band and pretend to really feel the sounds of my favorite music. I know it's just acting but I was driven by the thought of my mom seeing me do anything other than that on camera. So, I coursed the music through my veins. I know the history of the band members, the albums, this music moves me, pretend.

I received my paperwork and read it over a cup of coffee from craft services. It was standard paperwork that I've filled out over a dozen times before. I looked at the inviting exit door. I was parked right outside. This is not that big of a deal, is it? I imagined this TV episode making its way to the news overseas, the citizens all over the world deeming me a traitor for perpetuating a negative image, not merely through action but through representation against them. Against us. Am I selling out? For two hundred bucks?

I thought about getting up and leaving. I thought about all of the hard work that people have put into this specific production. If you haven't been behind the scenes before, it is quite the trip. An assortment of heavy duty cables line the floors, taped in place. Racks of props in designated areas. The backstage crew zip around in sync, bursting with walkie-talkie sounds and hollers of instruction. There is a commonality in the many interactions, their minds tuned into the goal meant to be achieved. This is their career.

This is my hobby. I am a prop. Would leaving this put a blemish on my record in the local film community, or the film industry as a whole, because I wasted everyone's time being sensitive? As I languished, I get a message from my best friend and I tell him I'm on set. I tell him:

For some reason, that makes me feel better. I just might be able to work with that mentality. The other guy has finished. He returns his wardrobe and collects his belongings. I ask him if he knows what this show is about. We speak in our language among the English-speakers. I ask him if he thinks people back home are going to be mad at us. I ask him if he knew we were going to be doing this. He seems ok with it all. He said he was there during the actual event. He's new to the industry. We laugh about how we can pass as different races. This is his first time being on camera. He said he enjoyed the experience. I ask him if he'll continue. He said yes. I hope he does.

Finally, wardrobe is set and I am wearing a navy blue golf shirt and some gray slacks. I want to feel good, like the other times I've worked. How can I get that feeling? They're calling me on set. They adjust the lighting while I sit in front of the camera. A fog machine fills the mock living room belonging to my character. When the camera rolls, there is a fake TV in front of me that I am to watch casually at first and then grow increasingly interested as the live footage I am pretending to watch unfolds. I am supposed to build up into a frustration with the host country. My country. As I understand it, the real guy is being interviewed and I am the reenactment; the illustration of his side of the story. I do the scene. Twice. Filming took less than 5 minutes total. The whole time I was thinking about my mom. I can remember it still, a few hours ago today, the director describing the gradual transpiring of the footage to guide me. To help me see a reason to be frustrated on camera. It wasn't helping. It's not his fault. I don't think it's anyone's fault. I don't think they even knew why I would be uncomfortable. I don't think they knew much about the countries involved in the event. They even spelled the city name wrong. I don't even think the takes were that bad.

I wish it wasn't about my country. If it were different, I feel like I could have given more - like I had done at the church.

It's unsettling to perform make-believe, but for myself I have managed to apply a mental exercise that immerses me into a character; to actually be the person. The trick is to relate. To tie the emotion to a real memory and relive it. If it had only been about another country, I'm sure I would have enjoyed the process a lot more.

I'm writing this and I was hoping it would help me shake away this dread. Thoughts of regret imagining if I had only researched the keywords sooner. Maybe I would have cancelled. But that wouldn't have been better. I would be blacklisted and never cast as another role again. Or maybe I'm being dramatic. Hey, that's good for this line of work, right?

I honestly hope the final cut looks great. This is the biggest role I've ever been in. They gelled my hair funny like a nerd, I had on large framed glasses, just like the portrayed, and they put makeup on my upper lip to hide my dark, clean-shaven stubble.

When I got home, before I washed my makeup off, I took a before and after mirror selfie because my face looked comedically smooth. Taking the pictures reminded me of when I was sipping coffee in the holding area. I had taken pictures of my paperwork. I remember my mind racing. The feeling was like gathering license plates and insurance information after a collision. You know, just in case I have to stand trial, my cultural membership in jeopardy. I can review my situation with a lawyer to see what I can and can not say during a variety show interview that is getting my side of the story after viral, captioned screenshots of me flood the internet with embarrassing memes, stamped into history. Jesus Christ, that would be the worst. Here I go again with extreme maybes. It's an entertaining curse that I will forever be engulfed in my own hypothetical torture.

Anyway, here's that selfie I invented:

Yeah my bathroom mirrors are dirty.

I can't wait for my next job that I can cleanse my palate with. I really hope I can accept today as purely an actor's portrayal, and not a turncoat betrayal. This can't be my last go at acting. I ate some of my country's food for supper. I feel a bit better. I'm wearing a shirt that is emblazoned with our country's sports hero.

I have always been excited to see the final release of a production I am in, except for this one now. Uncontrollably, my perverse curiosity into the film world is only strengthening, so I don't think even the worst thoughts can slow my future participation. The silver lining is that the uncomfortable bar is set to a new level. I could reenact a murderous deviant now without batting a moral eyelash, I like to think. All for the sake of film.

- WSS, February 8, 2019

[captainderyn]

Tacka: An Intro (finally)

EDIT: THIS IS OUTDATED. EXPECT AN EDITED ONE AT SOME POINT. So awhile ago @therron-shan​ made a super awesome google sheet of character questions that I’ve wanted to do forever and I’ve finally done them! For Tacka boy, because I’ve never formally introduced him. 

Under a cut after the first bit because I went a little crazy.

Tacka (An Introduction)

Preliminary Info:

Name: Tacka Sutae

Nicknames: --

Alias(es): ---

Age: 19/20 depending

Born:  Whatever 3 years before 0ATC, is that 3BTC?

Gender: Male

Species: Mirialan

Affiliations:

Republic, Jedi Order, Corellian Resistance

Occupation:

He was a Jedi padawan, now he’s basically a rogue peacekeeper. Using his force sensitivity to help who he can, how he can.

Physical:

General Description:

Tacka is first and foremost intense. It doesn’t always show, but if you catch him in the right moment he watches everything around with with a burning intensity that’s near impossible to escape. Catch him when he’s angry--especially if it’s when someone or himself is threatened he’s almost feral. He’ll bare his teeth, his eyes will burn into you. But otherwise, he seems lonely, and young. Like he’s seen too much. Physically he’s unassuming, a tall kid, built like a runner. You wouldn’t think much of him unless you really paused to look.

Height: 5’ 9”

Weight: Somewhere around 168lbs? Not really sure. He was pretty scrawny in his young padawan days but now he’s built up some muscle and is a bit bigger than he was.

Hair: Dark brown hair kept in an undercut, kept long/floofy on the top.

Eyes: You can sit for hours and try to figure out if they’re gold or amber but you won’t be able to. They’re intense, and very expressive. You can read him like an open book in a single glance if he’s not careful.

Skin/Fur: He’s green. Hella green. No, he’s got olive-y/dark green skin that for the most part is pretty even (or as even as a teenager/young adults skin can be let’s be honest here)

Scars/Birthmarks/Etc.: He has a few little scars across his arms, knees, shoulders, ect from training incidents but no big ones. Hopefully it stays that way.

Tattoos/Markings: He has his miralan tattoos. On his face it’s a thick line across his nose horizontally with four alternating up facing/down facing triangles over the line, four pieces/squares making a diamond on his forehead, and a line from his lower lip to his chin with two lines extending diagonally from it on either side of his chin.

Cybernetics: ---

Handedness:

Tacka is right handed, though he’s not horribly inept at using his left hand for tasks as well.

Style:

He always kind of mimics his Jedi garb subconsciously tbh. His favored outfit of sorts is a black long sleeved shirt, a grey, thick fabric...wrap poncho thing. I don’t know guys it’s weird, it’s like a shirt that wraps but it doesn’t have sleeves and black pants, black boots. He kind of dresses like a hobo sith, damnit Tacka no wonder the Jedi didn’t take you back.

Other:

He walks like he’s trying not to draw attention to himself. Head down, hands in pockets. But he’s always listening, always watching in the force because he’s suspicious. Long strides, he gets where he needs to go, doesn’t linger, doesn’t pause, he might as well be a shadow.

Mental/Emotional:

Background/Backstory:

Tacka was taken from the Jedi as a very young child. Not by his parents consent, but because the Jedi needed Force sensitives and his family unfortunately had old ties to the Order from his father. They were on Alderaan at the time and the Jedi showed up, took him “peacefully” and he hasn’t seen his parents since. He was raised in the Jedi Temple on Tython and completed a majority of his training there. He spent a few weeks/months in the temple on Coruscant as an adolescent for a new environment experience but otherwise he’s lived and breathed the Jedi for his entire young life. At the age of 15 his master Dakhoel Faolan went rogue and went to Corellia to aid those oppressed by the Empire there. He followed, as he was beginning to chafe under the Order’s control over his life and the fact that they wouldn’t let him get in contact with his parents. After the war for Corellia, when his master was presumed killed and he was only 17, he drifted for a time. He spent a lot of time on Nar Shaddaa, where he was miserable, before finding his way to Rishi and finding his father figure Hugo and Hugo’s then girlfriend/something more (?) Nyrah’s neutral bar the Swamp. He spent a bit of time there before continuing on. He attempted to go back to the Order and was turned away due to being “tainted” by the dark side and being too grey in the Force to be able to trust him.

Personality:

Tacka is...hard to read. You can tell that he’s been through a lot at a young age but he hides a lot of his internal struggles and fears with a happy-go-lucky attitude and humor. He’s a kind soul, he wants to help but sometimes he does more harm than good. Tacka is the kind of person that is so loyal that he will let the world burn just to save on person and that is, problematic, when it comes to the Jedi. In his loyalty he will sometimes become a little blind to people’s flaws, case in point with his Master Dakhoel, he trusted her so much and was so attached to her that he couldn’t see that her fleeing the Jedi was for selfish purposes and based in paranoia. While for the most part he is happy-go-lucky it is very much a cover and deep down he is wired much of the time and always on high alert, is usually stressed and has a habit of overthinking things to the point of ramping himself up so much he can’t do the thing. When he’s angry...no, threatened, it’s like that cover fails completely and he’s very intense, quite powerful, and more than a little scary, like you’ve cornered a feral wolf.

Quirks:

At some point he acquires a leather type bracelet that has a significance that only he knows and when he’s nervous he will push the strap in and out of its keeper and shift it around his wrist.

Disorders:

----

Addictions:

----

Strengths: He’s quite powerful in the Force. Not “Wren” powerful, but more so than the other padawans he was training with. He’s quite good at not leaping into fights and at thinking things through. Is his sense of humor a strength? He’s always been praised for being good with people, even if he’s a bit on the more reserved side now, he was always kind of “that friendly dude” that you could go talk to no matter what.

Weaknesses: His wholehearted trust in people that he is loyal to is an unfortunate weakness. He’s caught in the grey area of unpredictability where he’s either 100% ready to fight right here right now and actually willing to think things through which has got him in a lot of trouble. Not really weakness but he’s kind of the “you fucked up a perfectly good (Jedi) is what you did, look at it, it’s got anxiety” thing.

Phobias/Fears: Failure, getting attached to someone, and following that--losing someone he’s close to, being seen as a disappointment, the assumptions that people make about him without him knowing has kept him up at night.

Hobbies: He hasn’t been able to do it for awhile but he likes games. Physical games like cards, holo games, just...games. Especially story games that he can get lost in. He likes doing that, telling stories. He’s no writer, but he likes building those sorts of worlds and scenarios and telling these elaborate fictitious tales. He’s also interested in and quite enjoys learning new forms of lightsaber techniques and such and just the physical training like that. It’s relaxing.

Interests: I kind of covered this above, oops.

Favorite movies: Space fantasy! Think Lord of the Rings but in space! Or Space!Marvel

Favorite music: Space alt rock, think The Score, AJR, things like that.

Favorite books: Space fantasy and the like.

Favorite TV shows: Something with substance, preferably not related to real life and not filled to the brim with needless drama.

Skills/Talents: I think I mentioned his people skills? He’s become pretty good at various lightsaber fighting styles. I’ve covered this a bit all throughout.

Habits: Stressing more than he should, pacing when he’s nervous/amped up, dragging his hands through his hair if he reaches Maximum Stress.

Morality/Ethics:

He’s really somewhere in between lawful good and neutral good on the alignment chart. He wants to do good and help others but sometimes can’t always act selflessly and will disregard the laws if he thinks he can do good by going against them.  

Goals:

He wants to find a new purpose in life, find a new home and someone that he can trust. He wants to move on from the Jedi and the conflict that haunts him from their rejection. He needs to reevaluate before deciding his new long term goals.

Motivations:

For the longest time it was his sense of loyalty and duty that motivated him. Now it’s his own personal drive that motivates him to try and find who he is without his Jedi now.

Other: According to the test he is an ENFP-T personality type. Which yeah, that actually makes a lot of

Relationships:

Sexual/Romantic Orientation: I can’t figure it out for him. He kind of likes everyone without really seeking anyone/feeling that drive around anyone.

Relationship History:  So the Jedi have really stifled any sort of attachment or romantic activity in their younglings...but that isn’t going to keep a bunch of hormonal teenagers from doing whatever the hell they want. He’s kissed and/or made out with both guys and girls, but he’s never really been in a committed relationship. Thanks Jedi.  He and another padawan were kind of running a friends with benefits dynamic, except not quite that. It’s complicated, there was a lot of “fuck the system” kissing in back hallways or closets.  I never said he was a good model Jedi.

Reputation: He has to know people to have a reputation. He’s got none. Except for maybe being one of the “hot guys” of the padawans lol.  

Family:

Rheya Sutae: Rheya is Tacka’s mother, who he barely remembers. She is a force sensitive mirialan who never had any formal training with a force sensitive faction. She is a smuggler by trade (the hardcore kind, not goody two shoes like Emeldir or neutral like Rielay). She had Tacka young, after what was supposed to be a not-so-serious fling with a Jedi who was deployed for diplomatic purposes on Alderaan where she was working under the table information and supply deals with the nobles, and she and said Jedi ended up decided to try and give this unexpected baby a somewhat stable life by settling together. Clearly that didn’t work.

Jaida Sutae: Tacka’s biological father, a Jedi Knight who was especially good at solving things by diplomacy and not so good at the fighting-to-kill solution, hence his placement on Alderaan to try and talk the Republic out of conflicts. Tacka wasn’t able to learn much on his father other than mentions of him by other masters and knights in the Temple. According to them his father was a lively and charming individual that could win people over with a single smile and was never really cut out to be a Jedi.

Hugo: A father figure to Tacka who he met on Corellia. An ex-Imperial slave from the Quesh venom mines that was acting as a field medic on Corellia and unfortunately was burdened with leadership of the resistance. Hugo and Tacka cared for each other deeply and it pained Tacka to leave the one father figure he had at the end of the war, but he had to go try and find his way in life. Hugo still to this day will greet him with open arms and nothing but happiness when he pops in to the Swamp.

Friends:

Well, there’s Phaedra. She’s my (not yet introduced) togruta Jedi who was a padawan at the same time he was, is a year older than he was, and they were best friends. They caused all manner of trouble together. Probably made a few Jedi masters retire with their antics tbh.

I’d like to say that I can consider Tacka and @skullinacowboyhat’s Sunny friends? She saved his butt on Nar and they’ve been stuck with each other since, had each other’s backs. He trusts Sunny, likes her and doesn’t feel like he has to be on constant alert. I’d consider her his first “friend” like that since before Corellia.

Dakhoel was someone he considered a friend. She was his master since he was ten years old and was nothing but kind to him. An Imperial raised miraluka, fled to the Jedi after getting off of Korriban. She was killed on Corellia. Tacka loved her dearly as well, as a friend, as a mentor.

Enemies:

Darth Xin: Aka, Wren Thornley. She was the one on Corellia who killed Dakhoel (and most of Coraaliya’s Havoc Squad) and very nearly killed Tacka. They’re enemies on the grounds that Tacka wants revenge for the death of his master. If they ever met it would be interesting at the very least, in a one on one fight Tacka would probably be killed, but Xin would try her hardest to try and twist him into joining the sith and taking him as her own apprentice because of his power in the Force. I don’t think he would ever fall that far. But he comes close, after the Jedi reject him.

Love Interest:

NONE! But he deserves someone to love and who will love him so hmu if anyone’s got ocs that want to smooch the green jedi boi.

Affiliations:

Jedi:

Rank:

Technically he never became a Knight. But by all requirements except the Council’s official naming him so, he is a Jedi Knight.

Master(s): Dakheol Faolan.

Apprentice(s): ---

Describe their lightsaber(s) and color crystal(s): Tacka uses a worn saber that belonged to his master on Corellia and after Corellia, with your typical blue color crystal. After being turned away by the Jedi (when he’s ~19 and wants to try and get stability in his life by returning to them) and their taking of his saber he found a somewhat broken, quite unstable double bladed saber in the black markets of Tatooine in his wanderings and repaired that. The color crystal is still weird though, he suspects it's broken but he hasn’t been able to find a replacement. It’s gold. Trying to wield the double bladed saber in its state is a bit like trying to wield a chainsaw and its taken him a lot of work to be able to fight with it as an extension of himself.

Specialization:

Were he in came I think he would honestly fall into a mixture of Jedi Guardian and Consular Shadow

Thoughts on the Order:

WELL he’s not their biggest fan. He thinks the Order is corrupt and has moved away from their own beliefs of goodness and doing good to try and pursue a moral righteousness that is twisted. He’s angry at them, as they’ve taken his entire childhood from him and then when he returned to try and serve again they rejected him because they thought he was beyond redemption or help.

Other Info:

He’s not a Jedi anymore, not really. He’s technically a deserter and a rogue.

Other Biographical Info:

Birthworld: Alderaan

Homeworld:

Right now he doesn't have a home. The closest he can think of is Rishi, but that’s really just a time to time home, where he’ll spend a few days at the Swamp with Hugo and Nyrah.

Familial Background:

I covered this earlier because I’m overzealous in my information, but his family is really just him and his parents. His mother is a smuggler who doesn’t have good relationships with any of her remaining family while his father--just like Tacka--was taken from his family by the Order at a very young age.

Other Info:

His tattoos on his arms and shoulders are based vaguely on what he can remember from his parents’ tattoos and his own design while the others on his face are based on things specifically from mirialan culture.