#i wasn't a fan of the game's premise to begin with | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

andrewwtca · 1 year

Text

a Soriku Endgame, Actually essay on Light and Darkness

Also available to read on Archive of our Own.

Kingdom Hearts, with Sora and Riku in particular, has been on my mind as of late. It’s always been on my mind, to be honest, ever since I first got into the series. It’s grabbed my hand and hasn’t let go, especially with all the new lore. And yet, I’ve been struggling to make peace with myself.

On one hand, I don't want to get my hopes up, thinking that Sora and Riku would ever become something 'more' or that what I’m seeing is anything other than in-depth speculation. I've had my heart broken before and this series means too much to me for me to foolishly dive in like this.

On the other hand, I can't ignore what the story is telling me, as a literary analysis enthusiast and as a diehard fan. There have been parallels established, setups finally going through, and Nomura has said before that “this series is not intended to be child-focused, and so the complexity of the story is purposely made prominent.” I can’t keep turning a blind eye, knowing everything I know, thinking everything I think. If I did, I feel like I would be doing a disservice to both my experiences with the series and my experiences as a person.

So yeah—Soriku Endgame, Actually. Today, I’m arguing its canonicality because of the balance of Light and Darkness (or lack thereof) throughout the series. Please enjoy my messy and impassioned essay!

a sky of falling stars

The Children of Destiny is a new concept introduced to us in the finale of Dark Road. To summarize, they are people with the ability to feel what others feel, connect, and become one with them—empaths with Light.

It appears that the Children of Destiny are all descendants of Ephemer, characterized by silvery hair. There's Ephemer, there's Baldr, there's Xehanort—and, oh yeah, there's Riku.

Upon the release of the finale, a lot of people—myself included—quickly jumped to the conclusion that Sora is a Child of Destiny, which isn't all that wrong. If we're going by what the games have given us, Sora is very special. What other character has housed five different hearts inside his own? What other character had an entire arc in Birth by Sleep talking about how he felt the pain in someone else’s heart?

But Nomura has insisted since the beginning that Sora is an ordinary boy, that he wasn't born with anything special, explaining that he “had the premise that a heart like Sora’s exists within all the players. Sora is ‘ordinary’, therefore everyone is ‘ordinary.” (Before anyone argues Nomura is just going through a retcon, I doubt he would go through with one to this extent, given how he has had the ending to the Dark Seeker Saga in mind for years.)

Riku, on the other hand, has not been given this kind of treatment at all. He's always been painted as a golden child, better than Sora at everything, being the original bearer of the Keyblade. For crying out loud, he had a light in Birth By Sleep that was seen from space, not Sora. If you factor in bloodlines, it wouldn't be too far off to theorize that Riku is a descendent of Ephemer's line. Riku isn't who most look at first, but all signs lead to him being a Child of Destiny.

But that doesn't explain Sora at all. He may not have been born special like Riku, but he's special somehow. After all, Nomura did finish his ‘Sora isn't special’ line with, “I figure even if you’re ‘ordinary’, for something important, everyone can exhibit a special power just like Sora.” Aqua even calls out that Sora is the one who can set things right, the boy who can touch others’ hearts.

And that is where the necklace theory comes in.

Sora has always been associated with royalty, sitting on a throne in box art or having crowns plastered around him—or on him. From his debut, Sora has had a crown necklace that has never been explained. Despite wearing it in every outfit, it's never been addressed how it came to be.

It’s after Aqua and Terra came, judging by the BBS cutscenes of him and Riku. But it’s before KH1, as that's when his journey began. That’s a huge timeframe, from being a kid to deciding to leave the islands, but it's easy to pinpoint a time when considering something the games still never fully fleshed out: the meteor shower.

In Chain of Memories, Sora and Riku fight over this memory they supposedly both had of Namine one night during a meteor shower. One of them promised they would keep her safe, and it's all cute until we remember that Namine wasn't actually in these memories. And Namine can't make any new memories—she can only rearrange old ones.

Sora and Riku both share this memory. And the way they fought over this memory gave it the utmost importance. It becomes obvious at this point that the both of them witnessed a meteor shower, and given what we know about their dynamic (and that's a lot), it would make sense to assume it was Riku promising Sora to keep him safe—almost like a charm.

The necklace theory has been around for years, but it’s only after the Dark Road finale that it was expanded upon (or perhaps it’s just me and maybe three others who think this, but I don’t mind one bit.) It isn't just Riku promising to keep Sora safe. In giving Sora a necklace, a crown, Riku has metaphorically crowned Sora. He has brought Sora up to his status as a Child of Destiny, putting all his love into a charm that he hopes can keep Sora safe.

There’s a flaw in my logic though, trust me, I know. I just said that this meteor shower didn’t happen until after BBS, and yet it’s during the game that Sora feels the pain of others, it’s during the game that Aqua says that Sora is going to be the one to set things right. But I still stand firm in my belief. Riku has always been painted as the golden child, the Child of Destiny, but his love for Sora runs deeper than his love for anything else.

Riku’s light is the one that brought Terra and Aqua to Destiny Island but Riku’s light shines for Sora; sort of like step one to Sora’s crowning. Riku’s light rubbed off on Sora, ever since they were kids—after all, a Child of Destiny’s power is to connect hearts. Why not connect his own with another? Why not share his light?

Further, in BBS, Sora can feel Ven’s pain and take care of his heart, but he isn’t fully aware of this nor is he able to really do anything about this. It isn’t until KH1 that Sora ever exhibits a power of truly connecting to another’s heart when Sora entered the darkness swallowing Riku and touched Riku’s heart’s light to obtain his Keyblade, explained by Nomura himself. And it isn’t until KH3 that Sora finds the power to wake up Ven’s heart.

Regardless of whether or not I’m right about this, it means Nomura isn't technically wrong about Sora being normal. Sora, no matter what, doesn’t have some divine birthright, but he still has the makings of someone who can bring peace to the world—all thanks to Riku.

This helps set the tone of their relationship, of the depth of Sora and Riku’s bond. It also moves the storyline forward to how they will be the ones to instigate change—but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s first talk about who once were and who they could’ve been.

in another life

Kingdom Hearts is pretty on the nose on parallels between Xehanort/Eraqus and Riku/Sora. Besides personality, Xehanort and Riku are both Childs of Destiny who give in to the darkness and Eraqus and Sora are endless sources of light. But the parallels don't exist to make us empathize with Xehanort/Eraqus: they're to tell us a cautionary tale of what our protagonists could've been.

So it begs the question, what actually separated Sora and Riku from becoming like Eraqus and Xehanort? Let’s start with Riku.

To recap, Xehanort was a student in Scala ad Caelum alongside Eraqus, who watched all his classmates die. He learned from Baldr about their roles as Children of Destiny and in his grief, became obsessed with wiping the world clean. He wanted a Keyblade War to create a fresh start, void of Light and Darkness, so that the world could try again.

Riku seemed to have been walking the same road as Xehanort. He stopped fearing Darkness and started dancing on the line between it and Light. Riku was angry at the world and angry at his friends, and perhaps in another life, he may too have wanted to wipe the world clean.

But every time I compare him and Xehanort, I can't help but think that a cautionary tale isn't what Xehanort/Eraqus is. Because I can't help but think that it just could never have happened to Riku, and it's for two main reasons:

1) Hope.

Riku has hope in the world. When we look at all the other Children of Light, they all had a Darkness that took them down (although in Ephemer's case, it was a literal Darkness that killed him). Baldr lost himself in grief. Xehanort lost himself in rage. But not Riku.

When Xehanort saw that the world couldn't be fixed (to how he believed it should be), Riku did not even see a world that needed fixing. Riku saw the world in all of its complicated glory. For instance, Riku is one of the first characters to acknowledge the feelings of Nobodies; their pain, and their love. He doesn't see them as an extension of Darkness or Light. They simply are.

Riku believes in redemption. It's been his entire character arc, after all, to redeem himself and walk the Road to Dawn, a term coined way back in CoM. Ever since then, Riku has been closely associated with the sunrise—night turning into day. Darkness becomes Light. Redemption. This symbolism is shown in box art, said in interviews, even his Keyblade is called the Way to Dawn.

The fact that Riku was even able to think of the Road to Dawn proves that he's nothing like Xehanort. Xehanort believes that there is no redemption because the world needs to be wiped clean. But Riku believes that there is a road he can walk, a road he can take to salvation because the world is not good or bad, but made for people to live and learn. But how? How was he able to walk that road? He has hope, but how was he able to use it? And that's the second reason.

2) Sora. Riku has Sora.

It may feel a bit obvious to say, but it's true: the fact that Riku is Riku; Sora is Sora; and their relationship is the way it is, is the key to why they would never have fallen to the same fate. We don't know the full extent of Xehanort and Eraqus's relationship, but it's safe to assume it wasn't as kind or loving as Riku and Sora's ever were. The two would play as kids, promise to keep each other safe, tell secrets—the two became princes of destiny together, destined to fight their way home.

I can't see Xehanort and Eraqus as anything more than students in a fucked up situation. Because when things got bad for Xehanort, he didn't think of Eraqus as his guiding light. He only thought of what he lost. There’s even a line in Dark Road of Xehanort hearing Eraqus crying in the other room, yet he never comforts him, never approaches him. They suffered alone, too afraid or perhaps too blind to reach for one another.

When things got bad for Riku, he saw Sora. He saw how Sora loved Kairi and sacrificed himself for her, and he saw that Sora was forgiving towards him. The reason why Riku and Sora didn't end up like Xehanort and Eraqus is that they simply aren't them. Their bond is deeper and their love is stronger, and Riku’s hope is simply stronger than Xehanort’s ever was.

It’s important to emphasize that this truly is a feat that only Riku (and Sora, one day) could’ve accomplished. It's natural to us that Riku, one of the series' protagonists, was able to do this. It's easy to shrug off the balance he managed to strike between his Light and Darkness, but for so many actually in the series, it's an incomprehensible thought. Mickey even stated in CoM, that Riku introduced Light and Darkness in a way nobody has ever seen before. To understand how this affects Sora and Riku’s relationship, it’s important to understand the way things currently are.

the light we pass down

Light and Darkness are the very core of this series. Light represents the connections you make with others, while Darkness represents the lack thereof—those with Darkness in their hearts are those who walk alone, while those with Light are those with many friends around them. Darkness is selfishness, and Light is selflessness.

Darkness is usually framed as an inherently evil source in many stories, but it's something that cannot be extinguished. Light needs to be there to balance it.

But Kingdom Hearts seems to be going down the path less taken—yes, Darkness isn't 'good', and it isn't desirable to isolate yourself from the rest of the world. But the series is asking the question many like to ignore: when does Light become Darkness?

In nearly every game, you can trace one character fed into the illusion that Light is good, everything else is bad, and the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. MoM to his pupils in Union X; Odin to Baldr in Dark Road; Eraqus to his children in BBS; Yen Sid to Mickey in forbidding him to speak of Aqua; Donald and Goofy to Sora in telling him that their ship runs on happy smiles. It is generational trauma.

A cycle of hypocrisy has been forced on not only the 'defenders of Light' but 'agents of Darkness.' Xehanort doesn't care who he hurts as long as he can get his own idea of balance in the world, believing his judgment to be supreme to others—despite his initial thoughts in Dark Road, that unless someone's heart is pure Light, how can one know for sure what is right and wrong? To which Eraqus responded that they as Keyblade Wielders held the supreme judgment towards morality.

Again and again, this cycle of defending what they believe is good and Light repeats, hurting themselves and hurting others, and even Sora is not free of this hypocrisy. While he doesn't go out of his way to hurt others the way Xehanort has, he is capable of hurting others: Riku was hurt by Sora in KH1 when he was silent when Kairi suggested leaving him behind or when he shrugged off Riku going missing in Traverse Town. In CoM, when the idea of him ‘abandoning’ people was presented, he acted out harshly and completely rejected the idea (this is all another parallel to Eraqus!)

He even denies the idea that Riku has hurt others. Despite Riku acting out of his own free will, the reason he feels the need to atone and walk the path to redemption, Sora believes that the Darkness was forced on Riku by others.

Sora has been carved into the same mindset as so many others, the idea heavily tackled in Dark Road, that Darkness is only brought upon by others, and that it needs to be expunged. Sora is a firm believer that the Darkness is something to be eradicated, such as with his encounter with Vanitas in KH3. When Vanitas states that he is simply Darkness, Ven is quick to understand and even accept. Sora, on the other hand, rejects this and insists that it isn’t okay.

Even our series’ protagonist is unable to shake himself from this self-righteous, black-or-white thinking. Riku is the only character in the series who has formed an actual balance in himself, with all other characters having to pick one side. Lea, Xion, and Roxas leave the Darkness of Organization XIII and become Keyblade Wielders. Terra embraces his Light, Aqua leaves the Realm of Darkness, and Ven is literally separated into a being of Light and Darkness (although not out of his own volition).

The series is not framing any of these things as negative—there’s nothing wrong with embracing Light. However, these characters are falling into the same cycle that the generations before have; they will once again be faced with a Darkness too deep to defeat and ignore. It must be talked to, reckoned with, and faced with open arms. Riku has been the only one able to return the hug and walk away.

We’ve explored what makes Riku’s character arc so significant and what Sora’s flaws are, and it’s time to dive into the murky waters of the future.

when does the sun become the night?

Sora. Oh, Sora. I love you, Sora. Now let me tear you and your smile apart.

The parallels between Xehanort and Riku are very on the nose and easy to distinguish; meanwhile, Eraqus and Sora are a bit more challenging.

In BBS, Eraqus is the Master of Aqua, Terra, and Ventus. He forms a bond between them, as one would expect, mentoring and looking out for their well-being. The Light in his heart is strong due to his connections with them, alongside being a Keyblade wielder. Although not perfect (feeding into Terra's insecurities about his Darkness, cough), he does care for them. But when the world falls to Darkness, Eraqus doesn't hesitate to be selfless, to give up his connections, the Light in his heart, to kill them to save a greater good. As long as someone somewhere can benefit from his actions, he isn't harming.

But is that selfless? Is sacrificing for a 'greater good' truly selfless? Is there a line between the needs of the many and the needs of the few? Or is there a certain ‘darkness’ that comes with these acts? Disregarding yourself, disregarding others, selfless yet selfish; it's not the right thing to do, and the series doesn't hesitate to frame it as that. What Eraqus did was wrong. He hurt others, even if he refused to acknowledge it.

And yet, no one seems to make any noise toward Sora.

Sora is a Guardian of Light. He is the cheerful protagonist who makes everyone smile and feel better. Ever since the first game, when Donald and Goofy (although not with ill intent) told him that the Gummi Ship runs on happy faces, he's been under the precedent that his emotions do not matter in the greater scheme of things. In the long run, what matters is that others are safe, the people he cares about.

Once again, like how Xehanort and Riku deviated in terms of having hope, this is where Eraqus and Sora begin to deviate from their parallels. While both are selfless to the point of ‘darkness,’ they show it in dramatically different ways. Eraqus is willing to hurt the people he cares about (and by extension, himself) to serve this 'greater good', but Sora is only willing to actively hurt himself.

I feel the need to remind everyone that this is a teenager we're talking about. If we weren't in a franchise partially owned by Disney, I feel like more people would be willing to call this what it is: suicidal. This is not Light.

We've already seen ways that this harms Sora outside the narrative and the whole getting sent to Quadratum thing in his Rage form. Sora transforms into a drive form that’s oddly reminiscent of his time as a Heartless and can unleash powerful attacks that lower his HP (hmm). Furthermore, this form only appears when his HP is low (double hmm) and stated by Nomura, “based on him going into a rampage state, controlled by feelings of anger (triple hmm).”

Back inside the narrative, the climax of KH3 was Sora believing that he's worthless without his friends, genuinely worthless, and unable to fight at all. This is the very definition of a Light gone too far when remembering that Light is the connections you form with others. With too much Light, Sora lost himself. He couldn't find himself past who he was for others.

In the section prior that broke down generational trauma as it appears in Kingdom Hearts, I mentioned that Sora does not only end up hurting himself but passively hurting others around him, most notably Riku. Sora is unable to understand that Darkness is not the absence of all good but rather the shadow that simply follows you around. Sora cannot understand that Darkness is not something to be shunned, to never talk about. (This could also be tied back to his Rage form—while he does not actively channel his anger to hurt, that is what happens; only to never be acknowledged by him.)

(Off-topic, but I find it funny that Sora, who is so keen on the idea that Darkness is Not Good, was only ever to have a proper conversation with Riku in the Realm of Darkness. It’s very telling to their characters.)

Kingdom Hearts is setting up a narrative that Light and Darkness cannot exist in excess. That Light doesn't exist to balance out the Darkness, to stop it from becoming too strong—you need Darkness to exist as well.

Sora has gotten this far along the story and still hasn't managed to learn this, because it’s just not something you can learn (or unlearn, rather) on your own. Because this kind of thinking isn’t undone with hours of contemplation; in a fitting Kingdom Hearts fashion, it’s connections that lead to the revelation.

the roads we walk

Xehanort and Eraqus fall out with each other. They stop talking and sever the connection with each other. That was a core reason things got as out of hand as they did for each other; they weren't keeping each other in check. Xehanort's Darkness left him blind and unable to see that there was Light after all, and Eraqus's Light blinded him and left him stumbling with a Keyblade for a 'greater purpose.' Their hearts fell too far to one end of the balance, leaving the scales unbalanced.

Riku and Sora do not have that. They have a connection like nothing seen in this series before—Riku had literally raised Sora to become a Child of Destiny alongside him. The Light of their hearts is just so awe-strikingly bright.

Sora, however, has lost himself in all his light. He is stuck in the same bright room that Eraqus was, stumbling around with his Keyblade. But where Eraqus was forever lost, Sora can be found: because where Riku had Sora to guide him to the Light, Sora will have Riku to guide him through the Darkness.

Riku spends the majority of his character simply proving that he is capable of redemption. It takes him the ending of a game to realize the errors in his ways and another game to figure out the solution he must fight for, and these weren't revelations he finds on his own—he found the first with Sora and the second (in CoM) with Mickey and Namine.

For Sora to even have the revelation that he cannot keep shutting out the Darkness in him unless he wants more pain for himself and others, he needs someone to help show him that is an option. And who else but Riku, who is living proof that existence isn’t just black-or-white, Light or Darkness?

Riku is Sora's foil. A foil is a character who either has pronounced differences between themselves and the protagonist or is so alike that a contrast appears. Riku is the ladder, similar enough to Sora that one can begin to make assumptions about where the story is heading. Their similarities aren't hard to find: they both hail from Destiny Islands, they both have a love for adventure, they both were assumed to walk a path of Light for the rest of their lives, and they both care deeply for each other. The contrast begins in KH1 when Riku begins his fall to Darkness while Sora remains firm in his standing.

Riku’s arc ended with acceptance; he needed to accept the Darkness and the Light inside him to find peace. It’s only natural that his foil, struggling with the same imbalance, would go through a similar arc but still different enough to be his own.

It isn't just the story telling us this. Riku has always been associated with imagery of dawn, the breaking of Darkness into Light, and Kairi is always associated with imagery of dusk, the breaking of Light into Darkness (which is a conversation all on its own). Sora, on the other hand, is associated with a large blue sky (his name, after all, does mean sky.) It's not hinting towards a journey of any kind—not a redemption like for Riku.

He is the daylight. He is the Light in everyone's lives. But ‘Sora’ doesn't mean the day sky. It simply means sky. Sky, at day or night—and I don't mind if you call me reaching at this point, but it feels like it's calling out to the fact that Sora needs to accept that he is both Light and Darkness, the way the sky is both day and night.

Nomura has even stated in an interview before when asked about the two different versions of the Dream Drop Distance illustrations that he “wanted its composition and look to remind [the player] of the title’s catch copy, ‘Darkness becomes light, light falls into darkness.’” The parallel structure of the tagline serves to mirror the parallel structure of Sora and Riku’s paths, Sora’s road to night and Riku’s road to dawn.

But I digress. Exhaustively, it’s very apparent that Sora is heading toward a climax, a Darkness he cannot ignore. His breakdown in KH3 was left unspoken, unresolved, and his disappearance only contributes to the fact that he’s heading toward another breaking point, where the cheerful protagonist can no longer remain cheerful. But like in KH3, something is going to be the same: Riku.

At his lowest point, it was Riku who was next to him, telling Sora that he believed in him. It was Riku who carried on when Sora couldn’t. Riku is going to be key in Sora's journey to night. Riku was able to find his Road to Dawn by remembering Sora. He was able to walk by remembering his love, his passion, his everything, and it was because of Sora that Riku found balance. He found the Light within himself, and he learned to accept that the Darkness would always be a part of him, the way it is for others.

Sora's arc will be spun into motion because of Riku. The next installments of Kingdom Hearts are setting up that Riku's dreams are the key to finding Sora, implying perhaps that it may be Sora and Riku all alone in a world. Whatever the case, Riku is going to be by Sora's side, as that is where they are at their best, to face Sora’s worst.

And it's fitting. Riku had to go from Darkness, defined as a lack of connections, to a balance with Light, having connections. He went from his isolation, wearing a blindfold and not being able to face anyone, to being the charming Riku we all love, fighting alongside the Keyblade wielders. His journey would have him open up, so he would be joined by memories, ghosts, not by people until he began to embrace others.

Sora will be going from Light to a balance with Darkness. He'd be going from connections to a lack (though not in the same extremes that Riku did), in a sense. Understandably, he can’t do it alone, make such a drastic change; he'd need someone.

This change, this balance, this emphasis on connections, it’s guiding us to what the narrative has been trying to tell us all along.

we can be the darkness, and the light, and the sunsets and sunrises too

When asked about the theme of KH3 and the entire series, Nomura answered, “It’s in the title: hearts. The consistent theme across the whole series is ‘What is a heart?’”

Kingdom Hearts is going to be doing something unprecedented in not only a lot of media but in its world itself. While the idea of Light and Darkness existing within characters is not new, the characters aren't exactly behind that idea. Most of the Keyblade Wielders and Guardians of Light cherish the Light above all else—while all the primary villains worship the Darkness. They fight for a balance but don't fully grasp that within (nearly) all of them lies both entities.

Riku seems to be more accepted in the world, as he did join the Light in the end. But what Sora would do is... just absolutely bonkers. He will be embracing a Darkness in him, the same kind that Terra and so many others were taught to push out. Sora will be... well, a teenager. Happy and angsty and all the things teens are.

This is where Kingdom Hearts has the chance to seal the deal, to fully welcome this balance of Light and Darkness: a relationship between Riku and Sora.

For all Guardians of Light, there is a generational trauma hanging over their heads and haunting them, and Sora will need to accept his Darkness to combat it, but the story can't end there. The games have been building up the idea that Sora will be the one to bring change to the world, that Sora will be the one to end this cycle. He won’t just accept his Darkness but lead a new age. He will be the one to show that there's a different way (or really, only one other way) to move forward:

Love.

Unconditional love. Not love depending on whether they fit the wielders' definitions of Light and Darkness, not love depending on the amount of Light in someone's heart, not love clouded by hypocrisy. Just pure love, forever forgiving and growing.

So who better for Sora’s love than Riku?

Let’s get all the arguments for Kairi out of the way first. Some may say that Kairi could still fulfill this role of spreading love in the next games, but that’s only if her role in the story is completely revamped. She represents friends growing apart as they grow older yet remaining close. While Sora and Riku represent a balance between Light and Darkness, Kairi represents holding a Light close to your heart, even when it's so far away; fitting for her story of being ripped apart from her home.

The games keep pushing the friends' growing apart narrative rather than pulling from it, having Kairi remain with Aqua to train while Riku goes after Sora. There is little space for Kairi to suddenly walk a road to dusk that leads to romance. Especially because it’s Sora and Riku who are the Children of Destiny, they are the ones who will connect to other hearts and bring change, not Kairi. Her lesson would be for herself, not for the world to see.

A relationship between Kairi and Sora would just be backtracking on this message. Sora needs to accept his Darkness, but joining forces with a Princess of Light does not challenge any norms, it does not provide a new answer. It makes sense because the core of Kingdom Hearts isn’t a Prince and Princess of Light—it’s two boys who saw the night sky fall one day, two boys who grew up together, two boys destined for something greater who write their own paths anyway. It’s Sora and Riku. Nomura himself has stated that “Sora and Riku represent the theme of the Kingdom Hearts series, which is the ‘light and dark sides of the heart,’” the essence of this essay.

Carrying on, some may stop me here and say that their love doesn't need to be romantic for a point to be made. But I argue that there is no other way.

Romantic love in stories often serves as the culmination of the story’s themes. In Leigh Bardugo's books, her romances serve to show the importance of love and healing. In the Shadow & Bone trilogy, Alina has the options between the Darkling, representing power, Nikolai, representing nationalism, and Mal, representing love. Just love. Not one befitting of a Saint, someone to change the world, but that’s not who Alina wanted to be; she just wanted a happy ending. Shockingly, she picks Mal. In Six of Crows, Kaz and Inej's romance, both traumatized teenagers, serves to show that you can heal and you can love. They're both scared of people, scared of intimacy and yet they still love with all their scars on display.

In Revolutionary Girl Utena, the romance between Utena and Anthy reaches its climax at the end of the show, displaying the vulnerability of both girls and the rawness of their feelings. But most importantly, it drives home the message: that the power to bring revolution is not the power of a prince or a witch. The power to change the world is love. The only way to change the world to be suitable to live in is through love. The power, a revolution, brought by love.

Romance is a revolution. It’s often saved for the last act of stories because of how it acts as a thread between all of the themes. In Kingdom Hearts, the theme needing weaving is balance: balance between yourself and others, balance between selflessness and selfishness, balance between Light and Darkness. Sora and Riku getting together would be Yin and Yang—a boy who had to accept his Darkness and a boy who had to fight for his Light. They complement each other and fill where the other lacks.

Likewise, a relationship between them stresses the importance of connections. Tai Yasue, co-director of the series, has stated that “the theme of the KH series is ‘connections of the heart,’” and the narrative will take advantage of any opportunity to let that theme shine. Previously, many defenders of Light would sacrifice their connections with others for a greater good. But Sora and Riku choosing to love each other, choosing to love the Light and Darkness in each other instead of trying to chase away their Darkness, is showing that love is their other option.

Sora getting with Kairi challenges nothing. It tells the others that Light must be with Light, that good must be with good. Even their grand attack in Re:Mind is two giant angel wings where they proclaim, “Light!” Sora and Riku, however, show that Light does not mean good. It shows that people can do bad things, and it doesn't make them bad, because people are not black and white. Like two kingdoms forever at war with each other, finally coming together and realizing that the other side is human and that you can't simply demonize them.

Sora and Kairi say there is nothing wrong with the world. To carry on. Sora and Riku say that there isn’t anything wrong with the world; it’s the people looking the wrong way. There is nothing wrong with what’s around us. Nothing wrong, nothing right. “Nothing is whole, and nothing is broken.” It’s simply being: being Darkness, being Light, being both, being neither.

It has to be Sora and Riku. It's always had to be them. Riku brought Sora up to the status of a Child of Destiny, and their journeys were led by each other, their character development taught by one another, and their acceptance will come from (an eventual) conversation between the two about their pain and hurt and Darkness, it’s all always been leading here. To this moment in time where they show the world all the hurt they hold and how they carry on with.

All of that, and loving each other?

They are crossing the line, as Hikaru Utada sings in Don't Think Twice. They are going to be crossing every line established in Kingdom Hearts, and this is their power. Their revolution. Their predetermined yet self-made destiny. The payoff for years and years of searching and yearning and pining and chasing is a love that brings revolution, and oh...isn't that just romantic?

That is the answer to “What is a heart?” The heart is the love you have, despite it all. The heart is the connections you make, despite it all. The heart is your Darkness and your Light and your experiences and your fights, despite it all. The heart is Sora and Riku, despite it all.

grant us the power to bring the world revolution

A lot of this analysis really depends on whether or not you believe Sora and Riku are in love with one another, I realize. You may agree with me that it seems fitting that their coming together as a pair would catalyze all the themes in Kingdom Hearts, but you disagree that it means they'd ever be a pairing. Which, I'd like to thank you for at least hearing me out.

The queerness of their relationship means there will always be naysayers to them getting together, there will always be people claiming that I'm reaching. I do not care if you see them as brothers or ‘just’ really good friends. I see a love story. I see a love story and a love story saying to love, above all else. Do not judge others for you don't know what is wrong or right, for you are biased, for you are flawed, for you are human. Love others for that is the heart's will. Love.

I see that their getting together would be a testament to that love. To that forgiveness, to those flaws we have. It would be an acceptance of Riku's pain and Darkness that he mysteriously doesn't want to acknowledge, it would be an acceptance of Sora's pain that he's been bottling up ever since the beginning of his journey, and it would be an acceptance to the Light they both share. It would be the balance that so many generations have looked for and couldn't find because they did not practice acceptance, only judgment.

Sora and Riku getting together is acceptance and it's proof that love is the answer to a generational trauma that has been around ever since the beginning of time. So yeah: Soriku Endgame, Actually.

Thank you so much for reading! I’m a really big fan of stories about light and darkness and the balance between them, stories about love, and just Kingdom Hearts in general. I didn’t want to keep these thoughts in the back of my head and I’m glad I wrote them all out, even if it’s messy (and a shocking 6k words long...) Kingdom Hearts is a bit messy, after all.

If you're interested in more about Sora and Riku's relationship or just literary analysis of KH in general, please check out Constructing Kingdoms on YouTube, as it helped give me the words to write a lot of this essay. Further, if you're in total denial that there is any queer text in Kingdom Hearts, please check out this amazing video essay on Riku being gay.

That's all I have. Please feel free to share if you have any disagreements or if any parts really spoke to you, or if you have anything to add, or anything really. These two live rent-free in my mind, and I don't mind talking about them or about how they're just so perfect to change the world.

Thank you. Spread love (and the Soriku agenda.)

#kingdom hearts #sora #riku #sora and riku #soriku #soriku endgame actually #media analysis #literary analysis is my special interest #andrew's essays #meta essay #kh meta

282 notes · View notes

serendertothesquad · 4 months

Text

The Ultimate Serendipity-Odd Squad Lore Post

Because you people keep asking for my entire story.

No, no, not my life story. Christ sakes, we'd be here until Gen Z'ers died off if I had to reiterate my whole life story.

No, I'm talking about my entire Odd Squad story. You know, how I got here to begin with, how I rose to fame, and how I am objectively still a god without a religion, a cult, or a religious cult. That story. You all want to hear that story.

If you're an oldie, you've probably already heard my tale at least once. If you're new here to the funny kids STEM show fandom, then damn boy howdy are you in for a wild ride.

Get a snack and a drink, pop below the break, and let's begin.

Allow me to take you back to the year 2014. I was the ripe young age of 15, finishing up my sophomore year of high school, and suffering from undiagnosed depression of the "I'm trapped in my own home" variety. We didn't have cable, and so stuff like PBS Kids, NBC Kids, and 4Kids were the only things I watched on a regular basis. In the online space, I was largely chronline to the tenth degree (and note the "largely", because, y'know...school). The Internet, and spaces like Tumblr, served as escapism, and I spent a lot of time particularly in the Wild Kratts side of things.

I had first heard of Odd Squad through PBS's own upfront, the PBS Annual Meeting, that was held in May (though the show was, as I would find out much later, officially announced back in January at that year's TCA Winter Press Tour). It was the network's first live-action show since The Electric Company reboot in 2009 that got swiftly cancelled, which was already enough to get me interested because PBS hadn't taken a chance on live-action stuff since. The premise, as well, was charming and incredibly interesting -- a secret organization that solves problems using math sounded a little saccharine and thus perfect for PBS Kids, but since it was live-action, I figured it could bring a little spice to the network in a way that not other kids shows of the modern network era (read: 2013 onwards, past the network redesign) did. The fact that PBS was willing to go all-in on the show, up to teasers, previews, even having two new games available for fans to play before its premiere, was practically the cherry on top.

Fast-forward to around September. By this point, teasers and promos were already coming out for the show that showcased Olive, Otto, Oprah and Oscar in action. And by this point, I was absolutely invested. On a whim, I decided to take my Sony camera and record a reaction video of me watching it. Was it weird? Yes, but I had no money for a laptop that wasn't a decade old and didn't run about as well as a computer from the days of yore. You make do with what you have.

Needless to say, when the first episode "Zero Effect" premiered, I was having a whale of a time. That's...pretty much all I remember. Aside from the swearing. Lots and lots of swearing.

(...Look, it was 10 years ago. My brain can only go on a decline after being fully developed. And the depression has been eating away at me for that long. When astrophysicists perfect the art of the time machine, call me.)

I uploaded it to my YouTube channel the day after the show premiered. No editing, just a straight-cut video of my reactions laid on the table. I figured, "Okay, so this would be nice to look back on and laugh, maybe."

And then, a month later, I got a PM from Joshua Kilimnik, the actor who plays Season 1's big bad Odd Todd.

Before I get into that, though, a bit of backstory for my channel is necessary.

I had made my channel in 2011, when Wild Kratts premiered. At the time, it was mostly hosting Wild Kratts content, mainly Top 10 countdowns of fan videos I stumbled across on Tumblr or elsewhere as well as Sparta Remix-related stuff. (Yeah, remember that old meme? That isn't as dead as you think it is? Yeeeeeeah.) Around the middle of 2015, it unfortunately got struck down pretty hard when PBS began to go Nintendo on it, viewed fanworks as threats to their IPs, and decided to rip down my videos from the 'Net in three easy strikes -- and with it, my entire channel. It stung, to see my relatively hard work go down the drain. I'd be lying if I said I had wanted the channel to stay up just so I can look back on it in 5 years and cringe at how juvenile it was. Christ sakes, I even had MLP stuff up there at one point. Why? Don't ask me. I wasn't even watching the show at the time. I truly got into it when Season 5 began airing.

But back to the PM. You know, back when YouTube gave you the option to PM people.

Getting the PM from Joshua, I was, naturally, suspect. Celebrity impersonators are all too common, and as I would later come to find out, Odd Squad was not exempt. I had to laugh, because an autistic nobody like me getting a PM from a child actor who was in the industry long before Odd Squad was like Ariana Grande up and inviting me to have dinner with her because I made a few comments about her diction. It's a miracle, people. Miracles that only happen to those with life-threatening illnesses or those who have done good for the community. I had neither of those. Unless you count me going to high school as doing the community a service, in which case I have one of those things.

I read the PM again. And again. And again. And something in me thought, "Maybe...just maybe...this guy is actually legitimate. Maybe he's telling the truth about the entire Season 1 cast and the show's crew members, creators included, seeing my video. I mean it's 2014, what creator wouldn't look to the Internet for first reactions on their show?"

Fuck it. iBalled. I went for it. I reached out to Joshua.

And by God's oddness-laden utopia, am I so happy I did.

We immediately hit it off, taking our conversation from YouTube DMs to Twitter DMs (no, my current Twitter is not that ancient -- my time on birdsite-now-saltyman-hellhole is a whole different story) and discussing our hobbies and what we did. Joshua confided in me that he helped disabled kids, which, honestly, is a green flag in my book off the bat as someone who is, in fact, disabled. I told him about my animal shelter work and how I loved the show.

At the same time, I had posted on Tumblr about the show. Don't ask me what the post was about -- I honestly couldn't tell you, and combing through the tag is something I'd need a hell of a lot of motivation for -- but it somehow, by some astronomical means, took off. People came in like a small trickle. It was small, but over time, we built a strong community. I didn't exactly know how big my impact on people was until I read "how I got into Odd Squad" stories and saw my name pop up enough times to the point where I could safely say I was an inspiration to more than one person.

At some point in 2015, I had created a Wiki for the show. Fandom -- or Wikia, as it was called back then -- wasn't exactly new territory for me, as I had visited other show Wikis before. However, my Odd Squad Wiki didn't take off, and someone else ended up making another one that became far more successful.

...Yeah, you're surprised, aren't you? Figures. But not even I can lay claim to everything.

When the other Wiki took off, Joshua decided to dive right into the fire and engage with the fandom directly. Now, for any big-name fandom, this is everyday normalcy. The My Little Pony fandom has fans directly engage with cast and crew members who answer their questions, for example. But for small fandoms of niche IPs -- and oh believe you me, Odd Squad was incredibly niche back then -- a cast member interacting with fans was a huge deal. The hype only increased when Joshua was named an administrator, along with a few others, myself included.

Needless to say, Joshua being involved boosted the fandom's activity exponentially, and not just due to his spectacular acting on the show. Fanfics, fanart, fan videos...it was a bustling time of fan content. I can recall some of the most notable works just off the top of my head. The fandom got to be so busy that I made a news blog just to cover every bit of news, shifting away from my Wild Kratts news coverage to focus on a different show instead. I enlisted a few old friends to help me out, converted them to be oddballs (which, I will say, was a stroke of luck), and put them on the "staff team". My aim was to create something akin to Equestria Daily, but on a smaller scale. We did editorials, episode followups, and scoured the Internet for any and every bit of Odd Squad news we could find. It became a reliable source for many, especially considering PBS's horrible track record with even the most basic of news -- cancellations, renewals, and other such announcements. Not to brag, but I like to think I did a better job than them at actually giving news to fans who deserve it. (Hell, I still do. My hunger for even small crumbs of news is very strong indeed.)

I can easily recall when Season 2 was announced. Me and my friends were ecstatic. For me, I never thought Odd Squad would get a Season 2, and the Season 1 finale -- affectionately named OINFO (don't confuse it with "O is Not For Old", that's a different rodeo; this is "O is Not For Over") -- made sure of that. Originally, it was set to air in May, before it got shifted to June to coincide with Season 2's premiere.

And even long before that, the movie being announced blew our minds. I genuinely couldn't believe this niche little IP, birthed only several months ago, was getting a movie. And not even one of those specials that PBS markets as a movie as a ratings stunt. No, no, this was a full-blown theatrical movie. With A-listers to boot! And it was a damn good movie!

(...Okay, unrelated, but man, I'm reading through all my old posts and comments on the Wiki and cringing. God, did I really type like a 10-year-old back then when I was in high school? Egh gross cringe. The "let her say fuck" was strong with me back then.)

Of course, as most actors do, Joshua largely moved on from the show as the years went on. Most long-timer fans stuck around until the end of Season 2 before either other interests caught their eye or real life just got in the way too much. A majority of these fans dropped off the face of the Earth like an introvert who suddenly disappears mid-conversation, though they still popped into the Discord server a few times and I reconnected with one or two on Twitter. Hell, some of them even made a "hey, I'm back, and here's what's up" post on Fandom that made me ask if their accounts got hacked.

As a result, when Season 3 premiered, the fandom had slowed down to a crawl. Anyone who's bore witness to it, whether an episode or a nugget of criticism, can probably guess why. (And anyone who hasn't can feel the wrath of my "trust me bro" card, thank you.) It was like I willingly leapt off of the boat, it sped away without me, and I was trapped in the middle of fuck-all nowhere with sharks. So, you know, like Open Water if it was actually good. But the point stands in that I was pretty much all alone. I couldn't crawl to anyone for the sweet release of death after seeing just how hard S&P tried to avoid The Shadow's very obvious murder attempt by way of hacking into a car to make it fall into a lake of green goo. All I could do was scream and cry into a mic, edit, upload to YouTube, and let all the unsupervised kids looking for free episodes come to me in droves.

Oh, and post to Odd News. Until I accidentally deleted the account.

By that point in time, my old friends had all left due to real life commitments, and only one, Angelica, remained. But even she drifted away, and I was stuck running it all alone. So, I made the difficult decision to let it rot, and frankly...I haven't touched it since. Largely because I left Tumblr entirely and only just now came back. On the news front, I expanded my coverage to PBS Kids as a whole network, just as I do on Twitter.

It wasn't until the back half of Season 3 premiered that the fandom slowly but surely began to grow from planted roots, and I could connect with people again. Seeing people flood the Discord server and Tumblr, sharing art and news and theories, was amazing. Not for Season 3, though -- it was because of the past two seasons. Honestly, to say there's been more talk about Otis and Odd Todd than about any other character in the entire franchise is a hell of an understatement, because it dominated pretty much 98% of the fandom.

From there, new fanworks, fanart, and other pieces of fan-created media were created, and many still continue to be created to this day. Though hyperfixations can be yoted off the cliff and die in an instant (with deepest apologies to Shroom), it's great to see a burst of activity in such a small fandom. Hell, it even got big enough to where we had a Secret Valentine's exchange a couple months back, which was a real joy because it gave me a chance to flex my writing chops even if it did leave me on the verge of a third panic attack. And...the fandom being revived did land me a solid interview for a college assignment. Which, to me, is my own equivalent of getting a dedicated panel at a convention.

But this isn't a whole entire story about fandom lore. It's a story about me.

And honestly...I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little tired with Odd Squad myself.

Between the choking responsibilities of adult life (yay work), the state of my mental and physical health (yay depression and anxiety), and the franchise being fucked over sideways to Pluto and back by numerous entities (yay TV industry), I really can't just focus on Odd Squad anymore. Now, I'll give a fair warning to you and tell you to make no mistake -- my enjoyment of the franchise will die with me and my entire bloodline if the franchise itself doesn't die first. But I've found other special interests and hyperfixations that have grabbed me more than the funny kid agent franchise has. I derive more joy from binging the 90s Frasier series, Pretty Cure, and Neighborhood Wars than I do with the funny kid agent franchise.

Now, does this mean I'm leaving the fandom? God no. To do it on the verge of the franchise's 10th anniversary would be utter blasphemy. And I do plan on weaponizing this blog for more Seren's Studies, including episode reviews and character analyses I can't do with the limited resources I have. But the drive for Odd Squad is just...no longer there for me. I did not, unfortunately, get the "Odd Squad forever" autism. I got the "childhood is hell, but okay, sure, I'll make you a functioning competent adult to a certain degree" autism.

Maybe one of these days, amidst the countless new pieces of media that keep releasing, I'll be able to rewatch Odd Squad. It's worn out its welcome nostalgia-wise, but I find it to be a pretty enjoyable view when I take off those glasses and put on the "my God is an awesome God and that's why I try to attend church every Sunday" ones. I'm still making crossover fan projects to other IPs like MLP, Super Monkey Ball, and Precure. And of course, I'll be seated for Odd Squad UK to see if it's good or not -- I'm more than happy to take the bullet for people who don't want to see it for whatever reason, just as I did for the back half of Season 3. But for now, the drive is pretty much gone.

I will admit, I'm likely missing some stuff. My memory is absolutely terrible, and I had to go fishing for a lot of stuff to refresh it (one of the reasons why this took so long to release in the first place). But this is what I can dredge up.

I'm honestly proud of the little fandom I birthed. I could work a hundred jobs in my lifetime and still say that founding the Odd Squad fandom is by far my greatest accomplishment. I've met so many amazing people, seen so many amazing things, and really, I'm hoping to see more people in the years to come. If the aim is to introduce Odd Squad to new generations of kids, teens, young adults, and adults alike, then I'm all for it. Expose them to goodness. None of that Cocomelon shit.

Thank you for reading, and to all of the people in the fandom both old and new, thank you for touching my life in ways I never thought of. If you've got any further questions about my story, send 'em my way; I'll be glad to answer 'em.

See you all in the next Seren's Studies, whenever that may be.

#odd squad #odd squad pbs kids #seren speaks

23 notes · View notes

fennelockley · 9 months

Note

What are your favorite toymaker fics so far? :3

Also what is your favorite headcanon?

Hello and thank you for the questions!

I want to say a disclaimer first, and that is I LOVE every single fic equally. Not one have I read where I disliked it even a smidge. This fandom is incredible. So if you don't see your fic on the list, I want you to know that I love it regardless!

I've chosen my favourites by how they really flesh out the Toymakers character beyond what we know already. Or interesting premises that just make sense for him.

My painfully narrowed down list includes:

House by Salethe - I am obsessed with the whole premise. Restraining the Toymakers powers and forcing him to play nice? Brilliant.

Dollface by Starleska - Really great characterisation of the Toymaker. And a great reader perspective of where you're both intrigued but also (rightfully) scared of him. And the childhood section (also one of my favourite headcanons).

Chase by Thecorsairstardis - Just love how cute it is. Playing chase with the Toymaker is both freaky and exciting, but this fic makes it adorable!

All Thats In between by Aves_Aesalona (heavy explicit warning) - Please read the tags first! Lots of reality warping and delving further into what the Toymaker is and how he works. Absolutely messed up, but links in with my idea that while the Toymaker isn't out to hurt physically, he will take what he wants.

Honorary mention to:

From the beginning to the end of time by RiversofMars - This fic is from before the time of NPH, and it has the Toymaker firmly as a villian. But the scope of the game of he plays and how well he's written - this fic probably wasn't written with Toymaker fans in mind but I adore it.

As for headcanons, I rather like @Avery-braindump recent headcanon that his abilities are tied to his emotions. Not necessarily out of control all the time, but we know his realm and everything around him is affected by him, so why not further that to reflect his emotions too?

Generally, I like the headcanons that develop his reality-bending abilities. We don't actually have a lot of information regarding how his abilities work (or where he comes from) so I love hearing other people develop headcanons on it. Pushing sci fi to its limits is my favourite trope of all.

#the toymaker #doctor who #asks #the celestial toymaker

35 notes · View notes

triangle-strategy-notes · 23 days

Note

what do you think happens with Avlora in the non conviction endings?

Words cannot describe how excited I got when I saw this ask!! I think SO MUCH about what Avlora does in all of the different endings hahaha. Thanks for the question! <3

In general, my personal thoughts are that the Liberty/Benedict ending would eventually play out similarly to the Golden/Serenoa ending, Morality/Frederica would involve Avlora getting involved in Svarog's civil war, and Utility/Roland would probably have Avlora considering a rebellion of some type for a while but ultimately putting her sword away to focus on rebuilding the Aesfrosti community.

But if you're interested in more details/reasoning, I wrote up some of that as well! Don't worry about the readmore I wrote a normal amount about it :) it's a normal amount I promise. I only wrote a normal amount. I promise it's just a norma

Liberty/Benedict Ending

With Liberty ending, tbh I feel like story-wise it really feels weird that Avlora doesn't come back, given how it's essentially the Golden/Serenoa route except Aesfrost and Glenbrook are on good terms, which seems like it'd be a point in Avlora's favor.

But as far as looking at her reasons for staying away, here are a few possibilities:

— She didn't feel Cordelia needed her as badly since Glenbrook was now fighting a war on only one front (vs. the three in the Golden/Serenoa route) and she wasn't willing to risk her life by returning to face Glenbrook's judgment.

— She felt betrayed/demoralized by how Cordelia handed over her throne and went along with the whole alliance to Gustadolph. (Some reasoning along the lines of "Why exactly was I risking my life to stage a coup d'etat if Cordelia was just going to hand her power over as soon as things got inconvenient?")

— She didn't trust Serenoa and Benedict after they suddenly usurped Roland and allied with Aesfrost. She also canonically isn't a fan of Benedict's morals to begin with, so there's that.

— Or, (most likely explanation in my mind) she saw that Glenbrook was trying to secure an alliance with Aesfrost and felt that publicly swearing fealty to Cordelia would aggravate tensions between the two.

Depending on what you think her reasons were, there are a lot of different explanations for what she's up to during the time period between the Chapter 17 decision and the end of the game. Theoretically she might just be hiding out somewhere, or if you want to imagine her doing something more interesting it's possible that she'd quietly reach out to Cordelia and/or would try to track down Roland in order to make sure he's safe for Cordelia's sake.

Either way, I do think Avlora would eventually come around and rejoin Glenbrook once the war cools down and the alliance becomes less strategically important.

Benedict's treatment of Cordelia does kinda suck, and I think Avlora's worry for her would outweigh any other doubts she might have. Roland's absence from the castle would probably make the decision easier too, since Avlora a) doesn't have to worry about Roland's grudge against her and b) knows that Cordelia doesn't have Roland to protect her.

Morality/Frederica Ending

I like thinking about this one a lot :) I take a lot of my headcanons from Little Queen of All Things Forsaken on Ao3. I don't want to spoil the fic a ton for anyone who hasn't read it and wants to, but the basic premise centers around the question of "what if Cordelia stayed behind to rule Glenbrook when Roland and everyone else ran off to Centralia?" Which if that's the case, I would definitely assume Avlora would eventually decide to return and serve at Cordelia's side.

I'd imagine Avlora would essentially become the Dawnspear of Cordelia's reign, where she serves as both a political figure and the head of Cordelia's Kingsguard.

(^^ also this conversation would be really funny to me in the context of her literally taking his job)

BUT, if we're assuming Cordelia is recruited and goes along to Centralia with everyone, I think Avlora would wander around for a long while trying to figure out what she should do. Tracking down where Cordelia went is technically an option, but Avlora was never directly informed about Centralia. To add to that, rumors for sure would slowly filter in from Hyzante about the explosion that killed Idore, and it'd be easy to assume others died in the blast as well.

And even if Cordelia did manage to survive the escape, how much time is Avlora willing to spend looking? How far might the Roselle have fled? Since Avlora's not currently serving as Aesfrost's general, she doesn't have a boat, or supplies, or really any resources whatsoever. Is she really willing to throw her life away to search for someone who might very well already be dead?

I think eventually she'd catch wind of Svarog starting a civil war against Gustadolph and would join Svarog in that effort. Given Benedict serving as an advisor to Gustadolph, it seems possible-to-likely she'd lose the fight like she lost against Wolffort, and at that point would either be killed or would run off again and just try to live a normal life somewhere.

Or maybe she'd finally go "welp. guess I've officially got nothing to lose!" and go try and track down Cordelia. Another fic I really love is somewhere, beyond the sea which is Serenoa/Frederica-focused but also has a really cool bit about Avlora coming to Centralia.

Utility/Roland Ending

I think Avlora would be absolutely horrified at what Glenbrook + Hyzante do to Aesfrost. Like her entire nation is just. Gone. She was willing to oust Gustadolph, willing to join Cordelia, willing to take up a sword against people she once knew and worked with, but I don't think she ever expected the consequences to be the literal destruction of Aesfrost in its entirety.

The image of Avlora (or really ANY Aesfrosti) going back to Ironstone and finding the entire city buried beneath an impenetrable layer of blackened slag is haunting.

And given the history of conflict between Hyzante and Aesfrost, watching Hyzante take over all of Norzelia has gotta be. a whole thing for Avlora. However she felt about the Saintly Seven before, she definitely hates them now. I also can't see her ever wanting to associate again with Roland or Serenoa after hearing about their role in what happened.

(Though honestly I think the person she'd be the most furious toward would be Svarog. His duty, like hers, was to protect Aesfrost, and instead he completely destroyed what little they might have had left.)

I feel like she'd spend a good while thinking about revenge against Hyzante in a "as the last semblance of anything like a leader that Aesfrost has, I'm obligated to avenge that which was destroyed" type of way. Possibly even to the point of actually trying to put together a resistance. But with the way Hyzante crushes people's spirits and manipulates resources to encourage 100% obedience, I feel like she would really struggle to gain ground in that respect.

You could also imagine that she runs into Frederica at some point in all this, since both of them would likely be on the outskirts of society and/or wanted criminals. I don't know for sure whether I could see them fully joining forces (mostly just think they'd butt heads over specific goals and methods for fighting back against Hyzante), but they'd for sure have a lot to talk about.

As far as Cordelia goes, I think Avlora wouldn't really want to blame her for everything that happened. Like Avlora would be aware that Cordelia wasn't innocent in it, but on some level I think she would just sort of mentally go "it cannot be Cordelia's fault because if it was her fault then it was also my fault. We were both just following orders. We were both doing what our nations demanded of us." And also I think she likely would consider Cordelia to be the closest thing to a friend she has left, and as a result would have a hard time giving that relationship up.

Their dynamic in the Wolffort Wedding extra story cracks me up and I also think it would be in-character for Cordelia to hunt Avlora down as soon as she hears rumors that Avlora is still alive. If that happens then I wholeheartedly believe Cordelia would take one look at Avlora (wearing the same clothing she had on when she fell into the Norzelia River more than a year ago) (hasn't eaten in a week because she's avoiding the Hyzantian ration handouts and won't accept any from other displaced Aesfrosti) (generally stressed out of her mind and regularly daydreams about throwing her life away on an assassination attempt on Idore) and Cordelia would just go "okay yeah no I'm going to nurse you back to health and you're going to like it."

Roland would probably catch onto this at some point and I do imagine he'd try to attack or otherwise apprehend Avlora (he might feel a little bad about it because Cordelia obviously cares about her, but he's also tied himself inexorably to Hyzante at this point and not apprehending the last bastion of the Aesfrosti army would go against everything he's committed himself to). But assuming Cordelia's a little older and has had time to recover from the war, I think she'd put up a fight to the point that he'd back off and turn a blind eye to Avlora so long as she doesn't try anything too aggressive.

Getting deeper into "this is just me writing fanfiction" territory, I'm a sucker for "veteran gets to lay down their sword" arcs and I think it'd be nice to see Avlora eventually distance herself from plans of revenge and instead focus her energy on supporting the remaining people of Aesfrost as a sort of community leader, possibly with Cordelia's help.

I also really love the idea that Avlora would run an orphanage at some point. Working with orphans would be a good way of satisfying Avlora's desire to protect those who are otherwise alone, and it's also just funny/sweet to imagine General "There is nothing more agonizing than a child glaring at you through tears" Avlora trying to, for example, get a three-year-old to do something they don't want to do. Her personality and values as a character lend to her being a pretty big pushover with kids while simultaneously not having any frame of reference for "how to gently coax a child to do something" and I think it'd be a good and humbling experience for her :)

#triangle strategy #triangle strategy spoilers #avlora #cordelia glenbrook #also just re-read your question and I hope that was what you meant by non-conviction endings lol #if I misunderstood definitely feel free to let me know! I will never complain at getting to word vomit some more #non-canon ts notes

9 notes · View notes

captain-gillian · 4 months

Text

tag game tuesday friday (better late than never?): 911 lone star edition

thank you @tellmegoodbye for creating this tag + tagging me

When did you first start watching Lone Star? Who or what introduced you to the show?

i watched og from when it started airing in australia because it looked interesting in the trailers, and i was hooked straight away. i saw they were making a spin off and thought the premise looked really interesting, so despite my strong dislike for a certain main cast member, i gave it a go. while i haven't been engaging in the fandom the whole time, i've been watching since the first episode, weekly as it's aired in the us because i'm not going to risk spoilers waiting an extra several months to watch it as it airs here

Which season is your favorite?

nothing will ever beat season 3 for me

Who is your favorite character? (Bonus: If you answered TK or Carlos, who is your favorite besides them?)

if it wasn't obvious from the theming of my blog, I am a nancy girl through and through. she has been my favourite since season 1 where paramedic gillian had less than 10 minutes air time and no first name. i am a nancy gillian fan first and a lone star fan second.

Top five episodes. Go!

in no particular order 4x09 road kill 3x13 riddle of the sphynx 3x08 in the unlikely event of an emergency 3x07 red vs blue 2x09 saving grace

If you could pick any character to be given a "begins" episode, who would it be and what would that episode look like?

nancy. she's the character we canonically know the least about, and i am desperate to know more. i'd love an episode where an emergency in the present day takes us through flashbacks showing her journey to the 126, why she became a paramedic, who she is outside of work, her previous relationships, her relationship with her family. whether it be from an emergency they're responding to reminding her of some past event/trauma or her being injured/in peril and reflecting on her life up until that point.

What is a scenario or storyline that you would like to see in season 5?

i'm really interested to see why there's a bts photo with nancy in a capt. gillian name tag on her uniform and explore how nancy being chosen as (i'm assuming temporary/acting) captain and that change in leadership structure affects dynamics in the firehouse, her relationship with tk both personally and professionally, her relationship with mateo and how he handles the change in dynamic in the work place, and all the other dynamics and interpersonal relationship changes within the firehouse as a result of it, and how the dynamics would be affected by pressumably introducing another new paramedic to take her spot while she's filling tommy's. i just think it would be really interesting, and also really interesting to see why tommy isn't the captain, is she stepping down temporarily for family reasons, is she suspended, is she injured, is she being promoted? so many possibilities to explore.

im doing two answers because i'd also really love to see (though 99% sure it wouldn't happen in a short season especially) a holiday episode, there are so many holidays towards the end of the year, not just Christmas and an episode featuring the different ways that different members of the 126 celebrate their respective holidays and each other's holidays could be a really lovely episode, especially with some of the cheesier christmas emergencies we've seen covered on og sprinkled into that, as holidays are always going to be a busy time for first responders.

What do you think is going on in this still?

given tk's posture, i think it's a call that they were apprehensively expecting/waiting on, maybe for news about an ongoing investigation (either into gabriel's death or something that won't be introduced until the new season)

We all know about the elusive 5x05 spicy scene that has been teased, so what is your prediction for how it could possibly top 1x02?

look, i'm gonna be honest, as a lesbian its not something i've thought about at all, so i don't have a prediction, but i'm happy for all of y'all who wanted this that you'll be getting it

Where was the Tarlos honeymoon in your mind?

probably somewhere local/within texas, it's not anywhere specific in my mind because my knowledge of united states geography is minimal, but i feel like even if they'd had plans to travel further they would have changed to stay closer to home given the circumstances leading up to the wedding.

Shoutout one of your favorite fan creations.

i'm shouting out more than one, you can't stop me firstly, i always knew you'd find your way by @fallout-mars which is a masterpiece of writing and a really great outsider (nancy) pov of tarlos' relationship, love love love love this fic next, soulmates aren't just lovers by @nancys-braids this is such a beautiful (canon divergent) look at nancy and carlos' pasts and their friendship, i do not have enough words to convey just how much i adore this fic and how it's written and finally, the ring in by @welcometololaland which is one of the first tarlos fics i ever read, back in 2022 before i had a ls tumblr, it's such a fun read, cannot reccomend it more highly, i absolutely adore this fic.

an open tag because i'm so late, if you see this and you wanna do it, consider this me tagging you <3

#tag games #911 lone star

11 notes · View notes

ideahat-universe · 9 months

Text

4chan strikes when you least suspect it

So have you seen this video?

youtube

I knew about Goodbye Volcano high when people reacted to the trailer but I forgot about it after that.

Next thing I know I see this video and learn about Snoot game. This is probably a very rare example of a fan fix and there's a lot to learn from it. For starters, Goodbye Volcano High simultaneously bit off more than it can chew while having no ambition. In a David Cage like manner it opted to turn what is essentially a short film or a novel into a video game experience via a lot of game elements that are accepted but never fun (the only time someone found QTE events fun was when the animation it correlated with was batshit crazy but maybe they felt like their little dinosaur game was more important than it needed to be.

Not to put too fine a point on it but a LGBT project that was supposedly being partially funded by the Canadian government would explain why it was a feature at a triple A trailer reel despite being a Renpy visual novel. A lot of good PR would have been obtained had the game been a huge success, good for the LGBT community and Sony and Canada pats themselves on the back for supporting a minority group.

Everyone wins. IF THE GAME IS GOOD. Everybody would have won if the game was good. But the game wasn't good. You could say when a notable member of the staff was kicked off the project and it had to be re-written was the point where the game's success was lost. You could say that 4chan sabotaging the game by creating a parody that ended up stealing the thunder of the original game was when the game's success was lost.

But the reality is that, similar to the phrase "every battle is won before it is fought." by Sun Tzu, The reality is that systematically Goodbye Volcano High was never prepared for success. Despite all the shortcomings the trailer is still completely in line with the game. Goodbye Volcano High was no Doki Doki Literature Club. There was no secret meta defying layer to the story. It wasn't Slay the Princess where it simply opted to work within the limitations of being a story driven game and focus on an extreme amount of player guided writing.

It was always going to be about Fang and her friends discovering themselves while also facing obliteration from the meteor. It was linear and simple from the very beginning.

And that is the point where the game failed and let its community down. It put too much hope on making the game almost a cinematic experience and it almost feels like this game wanted to function more like Life is Strange but the team working on the game don't know how to handle a robust game engine and it shows as the programming mistakes made in Goodbye Volcano High are quite damning when you know how straight forward the Renpy game engine is.

So the question is, how could Goodbye Volcano High been saved?

Well the first step would be to dial back everything it showed off in the trailer. No animation beyond a GIF, no QTEs, and instead add branching paths with endings and choices that matter. That's all Snoot game did to be successful. Well, they had one more trick.

4chan utilized it's own identity to craft a narrative to work with. The main character in Snoot game is 4chan personified and the story of Snoot Game in a very meta way is about how 4chan observed Fang and by extension the basic premise and the world of Volcano High. At first it was the general loathing that you come to expect but based on your choices you can actually develop quite a fondness for the characters and the setting.

You fall in love. Quite romantic for a website that's under constant surveillance from the FBI for, well you know the reasons.

Maybe instead of the meteor being ignored until it lands it's the driving narrative. Sure, Fang still has identity and self confidence issues but on top of that she has to deal with also the thought of dying, but what if, she found a way to stop it, or at the very least survive it?

If the Dinosaurs are basically a modern society but dinos then they would have seen the Meteor months ago. The player playing as Fang could be tasked with finding some way to survive the meteor. She could befriend the 1% who are going to hide in their bunker. Doing this she would possibly have to suck up to nasty individuals and betray good friends.

Maybe you could spend the play through making enough money to buy a car and the money you have decides how many of your friends you can rescue (you can even have it to where some of your friends don't want to leave and you have to save them against their own will).

Lets get really crazy, lets say there was a Laser gun being developed to zap the meteor but it was abandoned when the government realized that it would still do a huge amount across pangea as opposed to having most of the damage in just one place but if you zap the meteor you can save your town specifically from being obliterated.

The story then becomes you breaking into the facility and dealing with the fact that while your town will consider what you did a moral good, you'll go to jail, possibly for the rest of your life and everyone affected by the fragments of the meteor will want you dead.

Lets get even crazier and say that the meteor can be destroyed completely with magic but in order to use this magic you'll have to specifically sacrifice people who are close to you. Maybe that means killing your best friends or it means becoming good friends with bad people just so you can kill them instead.

Every choice would have life changing consequences and shape the kind of character who Fang is and it would make the player very involved in the story and in Fang's development. With all those paths there's still sit around and wait death. Why not?

Renpy is a story telling tool but it functions best as a choose your own adventure novel and that's what Goodbye Volcano High should have been.

Before we wrap things up we need to talk about zoomers underestimating the wily nature of 4chan.

youtube

Keyan Carlie who is a very good content creator made his video about the forgotten failed Gravity Falls theories and during the video he didn't understand why 4chan would latch onto Gravity Falls given the nature of the show and ya know. 4chan is a den of evil white supremacy.

Yes. 4chan is crazy, dangerous even. The people on that website have gone on to ruin more than a few lives (most white) for very little other than because it amused them but 4chan is also where a lot of popular culture mutates and turns into a meme.

As a result, this concoction of crazy anonymous people who have nothing but time will find the time to obsess over anything, that includes a children show. If 4chan can obsess over Deltarune and Undertale it's not going to find any reason to hands off on Gravity Falls.

Ahh, I should lay off the lad, Carlie is just a boy in his echo chamber. Not everyone grew up knowing that 4chan could strike at any moment, from any place, and for any reason.

Goodbye Volcano High devs had to learn that lesson the hard way. Are you next?

#4chan #snoot game #video games #goodbye volcano high #controversy #Youtube

15 notes · View notes

spaceorphanssecondbreakfastclub · 2 months

Text

SO's Bookclub : The Duke and I

Title: The Duke and I Author: Julia Quinn Genre: Romance

Goodreads Summary :

Daphne Bridgerton has always failed at the latter. The fourth of eight siblings in her close-knit family, she has formed friendships with the most eligible young men in London. Everyone likes Daphne for her kindness and wit. But no one truly desires her. She is simply too deuced honest for that, too unwilling to play the romantic games that captivate gentlemen.

Amiability is not a characteristic shared by Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings. Recently returned to England from abroad, he intends to shun both marriage and society—just as his callous father shunned Simon throughout his painful childhood. Yet an encounter with his best friend’s sister offers another option. If Daphne agrees to a fake courtship, Simon can deter the mamas who parade their daughters before him. Daphne, meanwhile, will see her prospects and her reputation soar.

Review:

My mother made a bet with me - that if she watched the show, I needed to read the books. So here we are. I'm not a huge fan of historical romance as a genre, but I feel like light reading in this insane world felt like a nice escape.

I have to say - I went in with really low expectations and I was pleasantly surprised. This book isn't anywhere near the absolute horror show I expected it to be. (A mix of terrible writing with bad stereotypes and corny romance sequences...) It's a functionally decent romance novel.

I'm kind of surprised at how much of the book the TV show adapted, which was kind of fun. The series, of course, added a ton of side plots, but kept the main heart of the book relatively intact.

The book, in turn, almost feels a little thin on plot, but the intention is to be just a simple romance between two people in the early 1800s, and that's really what people read these books for. It's not ground breaking or soul searching. It's just fluffy fluff.

And, like the first season of the show, I like the premise of the plot more than the execution. Fake dating is the set trope here, and I love fake dating! But the fake dating part of it isn't that huge, and it's a lot of Daphne and Simon repressing their feelings for each other. Which I totally get is a staple of historical romance fiction, but okay.

Daphne as a heroine is fine. (I'll get to that one questionable thing in a moment.) She's somewhat of a reader insert, and I hate to say it, but most of the other characters have more personality than she does. She spends the first half of the book kind of moping around thinking about how men don't like her. And the second half being angry at her husband. And.. it's fine.

Meanwhile, Simon is really your quintessential historical romance hero with his broodiness and his anger issues and his insistence that he'll never take a wife because he won't can't have children. Honestly, I'm not overly fond of this archetype, so yes I found myself rolling my eyes a bit. But I can't say that it wasn't unexpected.

And, you know, a majority of the book really is not bad. I'm kind of surprised that there's less smut in it than I expected, and despite a few silly lines here and there, it's nicely done. I can't say that anything got me invested in the two of them as a pairing (especially since they spent a majority of the book on said repressed feelings of attraction and... what else exactly do they enjoy about each other?) but if you're looking for standard romance, this is it.

The last... maybe fifth of the book does have some questionable elements to it. Not only is there a sequence where Simon gets trashed then takes his anger out on Daphne, Daphne does some stuff in turn that, well, is very out of line, and kind of sours the end of the book.

I will say, the last chapter has them chatting about Lady Whistledown and her possible identity, and I kind of perked up -- LW was really fun at the beginning of the chapters, and we all know why I'm really here anyway. ;)

Meanwhile, I am looking forward to seeing how the other characters get fleshed out. There weren't a whole lot of other characters outside of Daphne and Simon, and we really didn't get to see much of the rest of the Bridgerton family; save Anthony and Colin (who surprised me, he and Daphne are rather close in the books - mostly due to age).

Overall, if you're looking for a standard, historical romance getaway, this book works. But I don't think it's one to be blown away by.

Rating: 3 Stars

#sbc book club #books #book review #bridgerton #the duke and I #julia quinn

4 notes · View notes

i-am-a-living-god · 11 months

Text

just watched the fnaf movie.

fuck it, it was awesome. Idk what those critics are going on about, this movie is literally so good.

I was worried that it would suck like most adaptions, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Yeah it wasn't scarry, but neither are the games.

I feel like they really nailed the characters, Mike and Vanessa especially. When I was watching it they really felt like a lot of the fan interpretations I've seen.

Those critics that are saying that "it isn't scarry" or "it isn't funny enough" "it's boring" have never played fnaf before.

The premise of the games is, you sit in a room and await your death.

WHY WOULD THERE BE JOKES SHANNON?!

overall the movie felt like something is fans have been desperately craving since the beginning.

I mean, goofy shenanigans with the animatronics is exactly what we want.

also, I literally screamed when I saw MatPat.

Great movie. 10/10

#fnaf #fnaf movie #five nights at freddys

12 notes · View notes

caernua · 8 months

Note

completely genuine question—what makes you like Valhalla so much? I played that game for over 100 hours and I think the world was absolutely gorgeous, and some aspects of it were incredibly fun, but I thought so much of the writing, pacing, and characters were just… off? I think the gameplay mechanics (dialogue, romances, other “choices” you get to make, and the way they handled exploration objectives) are really hollow and narratively it’s maybe my least favorite or second least favorite ac game, but I’d genuinely really love to hear why it hits for someone whose a big fan

anon this is about to get very long i am so sorry also thank you for asking me this i love rambling about my favorite viddy games

in a lot of ways i agree with you! i think the pacing is off, the game is way too long and it overall feels like a game that aims to waste your time as much as possible which is simply infuriating. this is part of the reason why i started valhalla many many times but only finished it a handful of times. (which for 500 hours is insane) that is also bc the earlier arcs imo are superior to the ones in the middle and many of them feel downright unnecessary. i’m also not a fan in general of the rpg mechanics either, i’ve largely ignored them in valhalla frankly and neither am i of the romances (with the exception of ciara but that one too feels a little half assed and inconsequential - it's like you're always aware that whatever you do it won't last bc the character's story can't deviate too much) or the whole choice aspect that matters little. i will always hold the opinion that having choices (including the gender of the main character) introduced in a franchise where the premise is that you are reliving someone else’s memories is stupid, frankly. no amount of in-game explanations or isu bullshit will change that in my eyes.

however, what really clicked with me was the story. i know that’s not the case with a lot of people and i actually see why, it's a huge reason why it's such a polarizing game. weirdly enough, i first watched the gameplay before buying the game and i really disliked it. i wasn't pulled in, i didn't care much and i thought it was a subpar story. buut when i actually got my hands on the game i deeply connected with eivor and even tho i’ve just criticized the length of the game i think the hours and hours you get to spend as her contribute to that a lot. her entire journey was incredibly compelling in my eyes and especially the latter arcs hit me like a truck (i cried playing this game a lot <3). i think what i love most about this story is how it goes against the game’s promotion and the direction it went completely shocked me. doing an assassin’s creed based on vikings and very much using the romanticization of the term like any other form of media focused on vikings to depict these badass rutheless glory seeking fighters and absolutely relishing in that imagery in all the promotion and the beginning of the game and really in eivor’s character only to lead to a climax in which the main character turns away from odin and glory and says “no, the love of my people is more important to me than victories” was just… an amazing moment across the whole franchise in my mind. it was satisfying, it was heartbreaking, it was relatable and it was unique in my mind. i think assassin’s creed for so long has relished in these aspirational images of badass warriors and to choose THE most universally seen as badass historical warriors to send that kind of message was a ballsy move and really surprising. and it also works because eivor feels threatening across the game, she's scary! and ac doesn't always manage to make their protagonists feel that way (sorry arno love you 😘)

i also think that for how boring the asgard arc was (really don’t know how they achieved that) the storyline was REALLY well thought out since lore-wise they were essentially left with scraps from the other games so to make a coherent continuation from that mess that someone else thought out was impressive in my mind. i really liked how it tied in to basim’s story, i loved the moment when the reveal finally happened and i loved basim and eivor as narrative foils who are in a similar situation but experience it completely differently.

but aside from the ending i think there’s plenty of high points in the main campaign that just feel fun? i lovelovelove the east anglia arc (oswald’s story), i loved the lunden arc with its many many throwbacks to ac1, i loved soma and her arc, i loved vili's arc, cent was also really fun and a personal favorite. i also just enjoy doing the world events (fuuuck the anomalies tho!!!) and as sad as i am to say this, a part of my enjoyment was also the questions posed that were dissapointingly answered with the half assed 'last chapter'. i can't deny that valhalla suffers from missed potential a lot which is crazy bc you'd think that a game that forces you to play for hundreds of hours would have the time to deliver satisfying conclusions.

but i do also love doing... not much in it. as you said the environment is beautiful, the soundtrack is top notch and the atmosphere is really just amazing as well. i don't know how but valhalla kinda awakens a very deep sadness in me but it's not unpleasant, it's bittersweet. whenever i open the game and hear that beautiful main theme i want to cry a bit, same goes for when i climb the snowy mountains of norway and i look at the northern lights. the atmosphere in valhalla is just... outstanding. it reawakens so many things in me and that's partly due to eivor's story as well but it's amazing that it's somehow infused in the environment itself. am i thinking of regrets i carry and heartache, of how i have to cherish the people i have before i lose them, of how i lost my childhood because the pixels are pretty and the soundtrack is heartbreaking, or because eivor's story is in large part about all that? i have no idea but it's a precious sentiment. 💗

#i'm sorry anon this got so deranged #and extremely personal LMAO but yea valhalla is certainly a very polarizing game #perhaps the most polarizing in the franchise!! i think the story was very strong #anonymous #asks

8 notes · View notes

quackle · 17 days

Note

So what’s your final opinion of Disventure Camp All-Star now that it comes to a end?

Also regarding winner, you are right! They didn’t go with “Who deserved to win” and tons of fans are piss off.

and so we have made it to the end. dcas is officially over... sobbing a lil at that fact. now. finale rambles under the cut (tldr: 7/10 season):

i think dcas was pretty nice for what it gave. i know a lot of people think it's shit, and i do nod my head at most concerns i've seen through posts on here and elsewhere. but idk. i had a relatively good time these past couple of months while watching!

let's start with...

Things I Liked:

The Main Premise (and in extension, Riya's Story) — this season showed that it truly wasn't about who deserved to win, it was about who wanted it most. and riya wanted it badly, to the point where it changed her for the worst whenever a camera was around. it took me until ally's elimination to see the direction this season was going (so... basically near the end LOL), but once it clicked, i was like. wowie. this is a bold choice of a winner. and interesting as fuckkkk, despite it not being hinted at as much as i hoped it would near the beginning. i don't think i've ever seen someone who is deemed as a villain be the only winner of a show like this. no alt endings or anything, just a villain win that sort of translates into a loss when you really think about how nobody is in riya's corner anymore. i know people (mostly riya fans) were disappointed with how sad and slightly open ended riya's conclusion arc was, but i personally can't be that upset at it. rosa maria's message during her elimination in season 2 really hit here. riya let the game change her, and though she won three million dollars, she has absolutely nobody (except potentially her sister eesha, but even still, that's not the best way for things to end for her). tis the way the cookie crumbles. i'm glad the writing team decided to go with this instead of the jake ending like thank GOODNESS for the proofreaders omg this is what proofreaders are for!!! (also. i'm clearly biased to the 'faking in front of cameras/others just to become a realer version of oneself once that's tested' characters in particular. look at my icon rn. i think you can understand why i'm such a big fan of this)

Allyson Amber— obligatory ally mention LOL. i think i already rambled enough on why i love ally so so so much as a character, so i will avoid. today. just know that opinion still stands.

Voice Acting— i am not a voice actor, just a voice actor enthusiast, so idk how much my words truly mean here. but i absolutely loveeeee the vocal direction this season went. best vocal performance in the whole series thus far. i can tell each actor + anybody on the voicing team worked hard to deliver! each character's voice really fit and everyone is so talented. hashtag i love connecting voices to characters. i'm excited for s4 voices ahhhh <3

The Grett + Gabby Friendship— we had her for like a good two eps and it still solo'd. going from what had happened in season 1 to what happened in season 3 was chef's kiss. it showed that both grett and gabby grew as characters throughout their whole journey on dc. idk i just love their bond so much, hashtag thank you for adding that.

and now...

Things I have Mixed Feelings About:

Gabby and Ally's Elimination— am i that mad that they ultimately left? eh not really, especially after i learned what type of story onc was aiming to tell this season. but am i mad about how they left? absolutely. because it was bullshitttttt omg. last minute, out of nowhere changes that cause eliminations of characters will never fail to piss me off. personally. even if real life is unfair like this too. (i'm only human LOL let me live)

TomJake Plot-Line— the good news (?) is that i don't find it absolutely mind-numbingly awful anymore. jake's cool. tom's okay. so overall, now i just think the plot is thee definition of mid. improvement! but still mid! i think certain ships in media are not for me, and this is one of em. sorry tomjakers, they should have had a meaningful conversation a long ass time ago. (also why tf they the finale thumbnail like MOVEEEEE with yall yaoi moment /lh)

Connor's Marriage— not that big of a deal, props to connor for finallyyyyyyy retiring from his savior complex (like i genuinely clapped for him cause that was a LONGGGGGG time coming), but a record scratch DID go off in my head when i saw that lol wedding pic. like OH... okay! congrats? i guess? (idek why i had this reaction or why i'm even writing about it lol, connor is Just Okay to me so)

Certain Lack of Character Interactions— i know this is a parody of reality TV and the show can only do so much, especially for characters that got eliminated early on. and i know i can quite literally go on something like ao3 and either find some fic that caters to my tastes or create it myself. but i frowned a lil when i realized certain characters wouldn't talk that much canonically. the curse of an all stars season is that they're bringing back some of the best characters this series has to offer. so when i don't get to see them interact, i go "aww. fair. but aww." (biggest examples here would be grett and hunter during the returnee challenge (because they can serve as interesting parallels (why would they finally make me gaf about hunter just to make him have like 30 seconds of lines ugh onc i am GLARING)), and jake and tess in general (the slightly healed meets the destructive work in progress. the difference in mental health journeys and how they can reflect within gameplay + outside convos. we coulda squeezed a lil somethin here. for me.))

Ellie's Plot-Line— one of the main reasons why i found ellie so compelling as a character is because the choices she made, both good and bad, all connected with her need for money due to being a college student who's not that well off. so to see that written off at the end was... well. eh? like cool, she's got gabby and grett, and they do matter the most, and i loveeeee their bond, but like. girly is a student in nyc and losing all that money is fucking huge. (i think it's mostly the bad pacing here, so i'm not giving it too much critique)

Grett's Plot-Line— onc introduced that whole tree scene (one of my fav scenes btw), and i thought that was so inspiring. "oh my gosh, i can't wait to see grett shine after she was constantly disrespected by some fucker that should have gotten his ass beat a long ass time ago!" i exclaimed. and then, she was eliminated. look. i get the whole premise of this season. i like it, too. so even though i think grett deserved to win the most, i can understand why the writers didn't have her win. BUT i think they should have written her arc with way more care and attention. if anything, i remember more harmful moments than good. grett deserved better than that. to me.

Huntally Plot-Line— i like huntally. and i wish it was written a bit better. it felt... rushed in comparison to other things we've seen here. granted, they couldn't do as much as others when hunter was eliminated so quickly, but still. meh overall.

and finally...

Things I Didn't Like:

The Staffs' Plot-Line— yall. the way i grew to not give a singular fuck about this plot... i saw people complain about tomjake screen time or jake screentime or ally vs jake screentime or connor vs riya screentime or riya screentime. which, okay whatever i guess. but LOOK AT THE REAL CULPRITS HERE... they're already getting a spinoff, idgaf about some staff when i won't be able to see some of the contestants ever again after this season!!! trevek irritated the absolute hell outta me, kristal made me side eye, marcus, nina and oliver were there i guess, and emily? man. i think that alone needs another bullet point hold on-

Emily's Plot-line (if you can even call it that)— yes, yes, i already know, emily was terrible, this was shown in the very first ep, she was never supposed to be rooted for, blahblahblah. but why. why did she decide to help yul. why did she decide to help trevor. why is she helping men so much. why did she turn so cartoonishly evil in the end. why is she like that. it's so uncanny to me. it just feels like she's more of a plot device that she is a character, which makes her fall so fucking flat. it blows. to me.

The Therapist Characters— ashley and tess are the biggest examples of this. not to say that friends irl don't ask this question, but fuck, did i get tired of hearing "are you ok?" or "what's wrong?" or "here let me give you some advive." it feels like such a reduction of their characters, which really sucks considering they didn't get much characterization in comparison to other characters in the first place.

"Be the Bigger Person, Ally"— okay. the more i think about this the more it pisses me off. this is a quote from episode 18, where connor tells ally to be the bigger person in her whole situation with jake. now riddle me this, chat. why is it that connor only tells ally to be the bigger person, then a few minutes later when talking to jake, he goes "oh there's only so much i can accomplish with jake" in the confessional? you didn't even reiterate the same words old man. that makes it seem like ally should do more and adjust what she deems as okay and not okay, just so her tension with jake can dwindle, while jake gets a sigh and a slap on the wrist and a "welp i tried." despite her more immature reactions later on during this plot, ally had every right to be bitter toward someone who kept snapping at her and giving her attitude because no good communication was being used to explain why he kept doing that. instead, i wish the message could have been something like "communicate, then try to insert yourself in their shoes so you can understand each other better because you're more alike than you think" to BOTH ally and jake, because this conflict involves BOTH of them, and needs to be worked on by BOTH of them, not just by one damn party. (i could dive into shit like the sexism connotations of the message "be the bigger person" only being directed to the female character here, but ehhhh, not today + people would think i'm overreacting when i know i'm not)

Yul— look, even if i put the whole slur slinging slanger incident that occurred to the side, i still was not a fan of how yul was portrayed here for that long. idgaf if he's sometimes funny. it just made me feel uncomfy seeing such a disrespectful piece of shit get this far with a burn to the face that didn't even stay permanently. like oh so emily can be in bandages for "a year or two," but bigot mcgee here gets off burn free? okay. don't piss me off. and yes, i understand his sponsorship ending where he's still acting fake because "it doesn't matter to him whether he's liked or not," and i know he serves as an okay parallel to james at best. but personallyyyyy if we were going with the whole "yul is the worst type of famous person imaginable" angle, you could have at least made the consequences of his actions stick to his face forevermore. (that's like the only thing they got right with endeavor from my hero like come on)

and that's about it. i think. overall, i'd give this season a solid 7. i know it looks like there's more stuff i didn't like or felt indifferent about,but i just feel like i have to explain my distastes a little more so people can understand me pfft. but yeah, it's not too bad of a season, even if i side eye some things.

and i'm looking forward to season four! from what i've seen, from the short character dialogues in the voice acting tryouts (ruby save me), to the potential storyboarded scene of the setting (abandoned carnival vibes???), i am most certainly sat. i really hope onc improves from here on out :)

#ok. i think that's all my thoughts. definitely subject to change tho!#i'm not proofreading this essay LOL just lmk if anything doesn't make sense and i'll get back to it 😭#ask quackle #hhytheking

3 notes · View notes