#like divide them a little more thematically sort of

[biaswreckmepls]

(Sorry for the delay in the poll y'all, life got in the way)

Remember to please reblog after you have voted, so that we get a larger sample size!

[sarahjacobs]

“If I’ve done my job right, it makes a statement that’s bigger than the newsies,” [Fierstein] said. “It’s about a bunch of kids changing the world, about handing over the world to a new generation.”

[source]

i find this quote fascinating because fierstein seems to imply that the 92 film didn’t “[make] a statement that's bigger than the newsies,” which is why he changed the framing of the strike from being about the rich vs the poor to the young vs the old. from a class struggle to a generational divide. and i really want to take this opportunity to think through newsies through a politically nihilist lens, keeping in mind that a) i don't think the film is a perfect political text either, nor do i believe such a thing is possible, and b) this is a springboard of sorts to critique a broader pattern of how leftist movements and history are represented and talked about.

katherine often unfairly catches a lot of flak when this thematic overhaul is critiqued, but the issue doesn’t lie in katherine’s inclusion. it’s more about how she was written to say things like “their mistake is they got old,” in conjunction with how the writers cut out every adult ally who wasn’t medda and roosevelt (and slotted in hannah to replace seitz as the sole advisor who pushes back against the price hike). denton was cut, of course. and sure, the trolley workers still serve as inspiration for the newsie strike, but we don’t actually see them like we did in 92. mayer, who is similarly used as a reason to strike (“if your father had a union, you wouldn’t be out here sellin’ papes right now”) but isn’t shown. the mention of his overwhelming support for the strike was also cut.

it’s even in the little things. compare and contrast the small moment in which, after denton bails the newsies out, a waiter tries to refuse when denton gives him money to cover their food expenses, to how on broadway, jacobi still charges two cents for seltzer, then shoos the newsies away to make room for paying customers.

(also i would be remiss if i didn’t at least briefly talk about how sarah was cut entirely, not even a passing mention reserved for her. and while her potential was never fully realized in 92, the fact that sarah, a child laborer who worked in the garment industry, helped produce and distribute the newsies banner feels significant to me in further marking the transition from a purely newsie strike to a more generalized children’s strike.)

additionally, more dialogue and lyrics that criticize adults were written in. and to be fair, there’s a trace of this in 92, as they sing, “and the torch is passed,” as well as “and the old will fall / and the young stand tall” in twwk (i believe these are the only instances of this). but on broadway, it is wayyy more recurring and explicit. i’m not going to list them all out because the only instance i actually want to talk about in depth is this —

ROOSEVELT: (recognizing this historical moment) Each generation must, at the height of its power, step aside and invite the young to share the day. You have laid claim to our world and I believe the future, in your hands, will be bright and prosperous.

— which is a deeply revealing line, one that shows the progressivist heart of the broadway production. and by progressivism, i mean the myth that history is a linear story of progress, and no matter what, we are always marching towards a brighter future. as bædan argues, politics revolve around futurity, which revolves around the image of the Child — think of how often children are evoked in politics as an unassuming, blank slate that deserve unique protection from evil. in left wing spaces, this is often expressed in the desire to improve the world for future generations; “the future is kid stuff,” as lee edelman claims.

but the Child, futurity, and progressivism are all problematic — it's a kind of cruel optimism. these ideas ask people to be content with horrifying conditions today, and with bitterly disappointing reformism, because progress is slow while simultaneously being certain. and yet the future, and the utopia it promises, is always hovering on the horizon… but never within reach. all of this points to a general “[misrecognition of] promise as an achievement.”

i would also argue that anything that uncritically valorizes youth movements, or the Youth more generally, plays into this. and don’t get me wrong, youth liberation is a real thing, and the age of the newsies and katherine does play a role in how they’re perceived (“i'm young, i ain't stupid”). but resistance is always delegitimized, most often by discounting them as violent, illegal, or outside agitators... and flatly rendering the conflict of newsies into a matter of age obfuscates precisely what they are struggling against — complex power structures that privilege the upper class and men. as mayer and the trolley workers show, it doesn’t really matter if they’re kids or adults, the newsies would still be crushed under the heel of the boss because they’re workers, doubly so because they’re poor.

and being young, just like the future, doesn’t guarantee anything, least of all a kind of politic. young people aren’t exempt from engaging in and replicating harmful dynamics. many are privileged in some way — because of their whiteness, class, gender, etc — or they’re desperate to attain privilege. and as a result, they have a vested interest in the uninterrupted existence of varying systems of domination, rather than its abolition. take the delanceys, who are around jack’s age, and yet they’re actively involved in breaking the strike. their age doesn’t automatically guarantee their allyship; as hired muscle, or “rent a cops,” they act in favor of protecting capital and the state, as all cops do.

too often movements populated by young faces are turned into feel good spectacles of how “the kids are alright,” that these so called revolutionaries are going to be the leaders of tomorrow, and how the future therefore looks “bright and prosperous,” to borrow roosevelt’s words. but implicit in this messaging is not only the continuance of the current social order, which is fucked and rotten to the core and needs to be destroyed, but the Youth assimilating and integrating into these systems.

take a look at how the skills jack used to rebel (his charisma and art) were met with repression at first but praised and rewarded at the end.

PULITZER: (to JACK) I can’t help thinking… if one of your drawings convinced the governor to close The Refuge, what might a daily political cartoon do to expose the dealings in our own government back rooms?

it’s worth noting the framing of this job offer — jack is not only being given a chance to climb the professional ladder, but he's specifically being hired to use his artistic skills for what essentially amounts to activism. and i use the term activism critically; it packages resistance, something anyone can do, into a specialized/professionalized role, a class of people separate from ordinary people. this makes it similar to a job, or, in jack's case, an actual salaried position. and as “give up activism” points out, all of this renders activism an “accepted form of dissent.”

additionally, jack using the world as an outlet for his discontent with the current state of affairs automatically defangs him. after all, how much social change can jack really push for in the inherently exploitative context of a worker-boss relationship? how effective can jack really be when his ideas are mediated to the public via a company like the world, which ordered a news blackout of the strike and used its wealth and power to violently crackdown on the newsies? that concerns itself with whether or not its papers are marketable to the masses and therefore profitable? anything jack publishes will have to go through a process of approval, filtered through a boss who derisively calls roosevelt a socialist, then a communist. this means jack can continue to publish his drawings, continue his activism, so long as he’s not threatening the interests of the world. what a huge constraint!

more broadly speaking, integration and assimilation can be seen in the recurring idea of power being transferred throughout newsies — from “just look around at the world we’re inheriting / and think of the one we’ll create,” to “you’re getting too old, too weak to keep holding on / a new world is gunning for you, and joe, we is too.” and finally, roosevelt claiming that the future “in your hands,” as in, under your leadership, is bright. but i take issue with the very notion of power, of leadership itself. as katherine quotes, “power tends to corrupt,” and while she proposes that corruption can be avoided so long as “[we] stay young forever,” having youthful, friendly faces in positions of power is meaningless when the very systems that facilitated any abuse of power are allowed to persist.

i want to close this out with an excerpt from serafinski's blessed is the flame:

The “progress of society” might be better described as the “evolution of systems of power,” and as Bædan reminds us: “any progressive development can only mean a more sophisticated system of misery and exploitation.”

think of the differences and similarities between the 1899 that newsies portrays and where we stand now. how history has been an unceasing transfer of power between generations, by virtue of the previous one dying out. and yet misogyny still prevails in the workforce and in everyday life, workers remain exploited, police continue to be employed against any social unrest, and the prison industrial complex has only expanded. have we really improved?

[guided-by-stars]

Do you like ISAT? ⭐️ Are you looking for more media to get into? Did you stumble across this post because you’re into one of the other projects mentioned here? (If yes, play In Stars in Time!!)

I’ll be dividing this up into sections based on the content in various Acts, so spoilers for each individual section below! I’ll be trying to avoid as much spoilers as possible for the other projects referenced here, for obvious reasons, but some concepts and thematic threads will be mentioned in order to give context.

This isn't a complete list, I'm sure I'll think of some perfect things to add here after I've posted it...Also sorrry most of these are video games.

Long post, so it'll be under a cut (But PLEASE PLEASE take a quick glance at the visuals/pictures I've provided and see if anything looks cool!)

If you’ve played up to Acts 1 & 2:

⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚ Madoka Magica ⋆౨ৎ˚⋆ ˚｡

Okay, this one's a little obvious if you know a bit of anything about both of these. It's definitely the most well known piece of media on this list. Puella Magi Madoka Magica, also known as PMMM or Madoka Magica, is a magical girl show. Directed by Akiyuki Shinbo & Yukihiro Miyamoto and produced by Magica Quartet, it centers around magical girls who have to battle witches, and only gain their powers through contracts with an alien being. This also gives them one wish. ***MINOR spoilers for Act 4 of ISAT, skip if needed...Wishes, huh? Powerful and dangerous wishes, huh?***

The writing has a lot of depth to it, the bonds between the characters are interesting, and the narrative weight they have placed on their shoulders to save the world...well!

I have an important other reason why ISAT fans may really enjoy this series, but it would spoil a lot of the series... so first, some visuals, because this show is beautiful.

Okay, now spoilers for Episode 10. These are pretty big spoilers, so avoid if you care about that sort of thing. I don't personally think it ruins the series to know about beforehand, but you do lose some of the surprise. ***Spoilers for Ep. 10 of PMMM, skip if needed: Well! It's a timeloop show. Specifically a timeloop centering one person who's terrified of loosing the person they love and prone to obsession.***

You can watch it on Crunchyroll, or you could watch it illegally on a few different pirating sites, it's not exactly obscure. There's the series, but also multiple movies. There's also a new movie coming out in 2025! Exciting!

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ 1BitHeart ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

1bitheart, created by Miwashiba and produced by PLAYISM, is a ?visual novel? I suppose. There are other mechanics besides just talking to people (mystery solving, gifting, walking), but that's the best way I can describe it. In 1bitheart, you experience the world through Nanashi's eyes, a severely agoraphobic guy. I feel like if you like Siffrin, you'll probably find him interesting. Honestly, I don't have much more to say here...just that the vibes of this game feel like something many ISAT fans might enjoy.

If you like dialogue and character building, then maybe give it a look! There's one more spoilery reason why you might find it interesting, but it's a major spoiler for BOTH games...so. I'll leave that for you to discover.

Visuals:

You can buy 1bitheart here:

☆ The Endless Empty ☆

The Endless Empty, created by Erik Sheader-Smith, is another artistic RPG game with themes of suicidality, imagery of stars, and a fascinating battle system. It's very...scrapbook diary nightmare anatomical textbook, if that makes sense. It's short, inexpensive, obscure, and delightful, in my opinion. Guys. This is good.

Visuals:

Buy it here:

𓐟◇ OFF ◇𓐟

I see a lot of people around who are into both ISAT and OFF!, which I find supremely unsurprising. Both are created by French devs (OFF by Mortis Ghost), steeped in that background, unique RPG battle system (many enemies in this game are basically Sadnesses), limited palette (and often black & white) and [killed for spoilers].

I find the translation writing fascinating, personally. There's a lot you can dig out of here.

Visuals:

Get it here:

๑ï🌧Mr Rainer’s Solve-It Service🌧๑ï

Easily the most obscure game on this list, Mr Rainer's, created by Etherane, is an incredible game that's more of a visual novel than a text based adventure. The worldbuilding of the story is fascinating, and the characters are compelling. The story ends with SO MANY unanswered questions and mysteries, which is another reason why it fascinates me so.

Like ISAT, Mr Rainer's is a game pretty much entirely in black, white, and red, about an amnesiac hooded figure who doesn't remember their past and is INCREDIBLY fucking hungry constantly, a story with multiple endings, a story about identity and belonging and being the only one of your kind in a strange land, a story about grief and life and touch and connection and cycles of pain...

Please give it a chance, I have absolutely nobody to talk to about this game. It's only 5 hours and it's only (around) five dollars...

Visuals:

You can get it here!:

If you’ve played the whole game + 2Hats (DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVE NOT DONE 2HATS!!! I AM WARNING YOU!!!):

⚂ ⊹.🂱 Yugioh (Specifically the Toei series and Duel Monsters)⊹. 🂱 ⚂

Well! Here it is! The series about friendship, "other you's", "you see everything I do and you know how my body reacts to things", "you’re me but also not me but also another me but also you’re NOTHING like me", "facade sees facade in the eyes and Knows" and [spoilers for Yugioh redacted].

Guys if you don't gaf about card games, in the Toei series they are an extremely small aspect of the show and other games (like Tamagotchi) are similarly important!

It's got a fucked up by grief and trauma guy who does morally grey stuff and is fixated on his own past and really does just deep down Want to be Useful!! It's also got a codependent protector who really needs to be protected! It's got GAMES!!! SO MANY GAMES!!! and DRAMA!

Visuals:

(Toei)

(Duel Monsters)

Watch Toei series here: (WARNING!! THE EPISODES ARE NOT IN ORDER! BE CAREFUL!)

You can watch Duel Monsters many places, both legally and illegally.

⟳⏱︎ Start Again, duh! ⏱︎⟳

If you've only played ISAT but not Start Again (You know who the dev is...), you might think there's little of value there besides additional dialogue, but you'd be entirely wrong. Not only is this LOOP's story (and valuable to examine because of that), but the House is quite different, there's unique art, and there's different endings as well. PLAY START AGAIN START AGAIN START AGAIN: A PROLOGUE!!! YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT!

Visuals:

Get it here:

✧♥ Hello Charlotte series ♥✧

Hello Charlotte, also created by Etherane, is an incredible series, and one of the three most impactful game series I've ever encountered. The amount of unexpected developments that happen...I couldn't possibly understand where the game was going until everything clicked at once. Personally I think it's a masterpiece of storytelling.

Another artistic RPG maker game- so of course the art is beautiful. There's a battle system...in one of the games...yeah it's rudimentary. It's more of an exploration/puzzle game than anything. It's more of a STORY than anything. I would really really really hate to spoil this game, but what I will say, is there's a reason why I put it in the 2hats section. A very good reason. Pleaseee check it out it's so much content for so incredibly cheap. Criminally cheap. You will become incredibly attached to Charlotte.

Visuals:

Get the first game here (name your price!):

EP 2:

EP 3:

[flowerbloom-arts]

I suppose you could say they're a... Match made in hell........ (Design from Treehouse of Horror XXV, s26 ep4)

(Over-analysis of ChalmSkinn under the cut.)

Disclaimer: I know I'm overanalyzing silly gags and concepts from a silly animated sitcom that in its current state has what one could only describe as a rough approximation of continuity (and that the spooky anthology episodes in it are non-canon). Just let me exercise some media literacy for a bit.

Okay so like... What is it with Skinner, Chalmers, and being a two-headed creature? What is that meant to represent?? Once is a gag made in humor and twice is a little eyebrow raising, I think.

And it's not like they're using this as a gag because they have a kind of antagonistic relationship and it'd make for easy bickering jokes, it's actually the opposite! These representations of them with a shared body happen as a representation of them getting along!

ChalmSkinn Productions is their own production company that they originally used to submit films to the Sundance festival, and that episode was one where they got along the most, by far, as the two had a shared goal in being successful in the film industry.

(please ignore the video play bar at the bottom, thank you)

Now, the logo for the company when it got introduced as a concept was very different, it was a globe where Skinner and Chalmers' heads would spin on its surface (though, one could argue it's still their two heads attached to one thing which is roughly a similar idea to the shared body thing), but the association still applies. The company is the result of their two heads joining in an amicable way.

Demon ChalmSkinn (that's what I'm gonna call them) on the other hand is extremely fascinating to try and deconstruct into something of thematic implication.

They are... Technically not Skinner and Chalmers themselves? But they are a parallel version of them in this hell school dimension that Bart and Lisa discover and it's full of other demons that parallel characters from Springfield Elementary, so Demon ChalmSkinn might as well be Chalmers and Skinner for the purposes of this Treehouse of Horror segment.

And, given the vague idea of what Seymour Skinner and Gary Chalmers' relationship is like, you would expect the writers, when sticking their heads on the same body, to make them bicker, right? Have the Chalmers head yell at the Skinner had for some reason?

... They don't do that! They don't bicker at all! In fact, they are very much in sync in a non-hivemind sort of way, they don't interrupt eachother and they seem like very pleasant dudes in general (well, except for the part with they skinned Bart, that was a little uncool).

It's like... What are the writers trying to say with this, specifically? It almost feels like the fact they get along well is the joke.

You expect them to not get along? Well, they do. Their relationship in the regular world is so bad that it's better in hell.

And that's weird, right? If that's the joke then it sure as hell (heh) doesn't feel like it gets acknowledged as a joke. Why avoid such an opportunity for easy jokes? It clearly has to be some deliberate representation of something about their relationship, right? Why do they get along more when they're conjoined than when they're apart?

Maybe, just maybe this is saying something about the inseparability of Gary and Seymour, that they are unable to truly break apart from eachother and are actually far more miserable for it. No matter how many times Chalmers fires Skinner or plans on firing him or just gets annoyed at him for being a spineless kiss-ass around Gary, there's just no severing them. Perhaps a commentary on the status quo nature of the show.

One of my mutuals also suggested that these two would actually be happier if they were together instead of apart, that being stuck together makes them more whole and pleasant than just the sum of their parts.

Their relationship has been characterized by this great, invisible divide of some sort, where a blurry amalgamation of admiration and desperateness clash with an apathetic no-nonsense attitude. If they could just somehow bridge that divide and come to a deeper understanding of eachother then... they'll be happier for it, and maybe they'll be... Together. And inseparable.

If the episode Road to Cincinnati is of any indication, their relationship seems to be heading for a dynamic shift, almost definitely a positive one. Now that Chalmers finally sees Skinner as more earnest than placating, maybe we'll see a Chalmers and Skinner that will evolve into something more. Something metaphorically resembling that two-headed demon they are in hell.

[togglesbloggle]

Just musing out loud-

One of the gifts that time brought for me, ish, was a reduced interest in labels for myself. Reduced-not-gone, because humans love a good sorting hat, but definitely not what it once was.

It's most obvious in media, like with those YA books that routinely have explicit caste systems or divide people up by thematic groups, or with video games that let you pick a faction. But it sneaks in to real life too. Like, take the famed Tumblr* neogenders/neosexualities and proliferation of flags. It is, of course, unironically fun to watch the ever-increasing fractal complexity as people chase the questing beast of a coherent taxonomy of sexual nonconformity, and I think the people that do so often find it very rewarding. But I watch mostly as an outsider, because the whole thing is answering questions to which I already have satisfying answers in my own dialect- at least insofar as it comes to how I think about myself. And what's true in the narrow case of Tumblr's culture has some far-reaching impacts on politics as a whole, as you might guess.

It's not that I find the castes/factions/neogenders themselves uninteresting- almost the opposite really. I like exploring and thinking about them all, but in a way that doesn't trigger any questions about me as an observer; the 'me' in my sense of these things is a fairly high-inertia construct, one which doesn't really deform much in the presence of exciting new taxonomies. They tend to show me much more about their authors than they do about myself, though as always there are exceptions. It's like seeing a new map of a place you know well, where you're not so much discovering the territory as appreciating a new view of things through the eyes of someone else, a pleasure that follows from an appreciation of the cartographer's choice of framing and the cleverness by which they drew the lines.

The reason I say 'gift' is, most of the benefits of that sorting-hat instinct are front-loaded; a map, any map, is worth it's weight in gold when you're new to someplace. It helps you find a community where you can thrive, it helps you communicate with others and build shared expectations. But especially once you get a little bit more used to things and learn how to get around without a reference sheet, labels are a double-edged sword. There's no perfect label that can really capture a human person, leading to all manner of suffering as we try to conform to the labels we find ourselves carrying, and we can fall down a really deep hole if we start trying to treat those labels as the axioms from which a human is derived.

It also becomes clear, with the benefits of distance, that while a lot of my exertions in label-making felt like introspection at the time, they didn't really manage to be introspection. Introspection, I think, would have been a little more about my identity as a thing-in-itself; after all, it revolves around the question "who am I?" But a curious fact about these identity groups is that they're meant to be comprehensive; every single student at Hogwarts is placed within one of the four Houses. That is, playing around with these things isn't a matter of asking "who am I?", but rather, of describing the society in which we find ourselves, and our relationship to that society. Ruminating about the proper label for ourselves is asking a different question than introspection does: "where do I belong?"

A good chunk of what I thought was self-discovery was, in hindsight, something closer to self-consciousness. Trying to figure out how to be seen, how to be known, how to take up space in a social world where all of those things can be very high-stakes. But I seem to have stumbled in to a degree of equanimity with myself regardless, so I suppose no harm done. Probably you need to chase both lines of inquiry in parallel, but I think it would have helped me at the time to realize that they are fundamentally different questions.

[troperrific]

What are some things you are hoping to see in future chapters of ekuoto? Personally I really want to see the rebellion in the Heaven and it's direct aftermath (And I know i'll have to wait forever until I see that 😫)

Thank you for the ask!!

There are many, many things I’m hoping to see in future chapters, so I hope you don’t mind me rambling for a bit about the main ones… Most of these are just wishful thinking, my own delusional wondering, so no analysis to be found here. I’m going to divide them into categories so it’s easier to talk about them…:

Flashbacks, flashbacks and more flashbacks

There are plenty of things that get teased left and right in the manga, where we get only brief glances, and I kinda want to see all of them. To elaborate:

The rebellion in Heaven, its lead-up and the aftermath: I’m with you on this!! All of the little things we’ve seen so far make me want me to know more! Mammon quietly brooding how much the Archangels favor Priestie now, Beelzebub briefly mourning (?) the camaraderie the Demon Lords shared during their rebellion, I want to know everything about those relationships!! How were the DLs as angels? Why did they rebel? I’m betting it was something of a mix between Priestie’s painful (and in the DLs’ eyes, futile) devotion to God and Leah feeling/being neglected by her parents/father, but I wanna know the specifics!! Oh, and the fallen angels and Leviathan meeting for the first time! She saw them fall from the sky… I bet she was thrilled at first to see beings similarly strong to her, so this first stage of their dynamic has me curious!!

More Imuri flashbacks: I don’t care if it’s just kid Imuri or her past lovers/targets she tricked during her job as a femme fatale, I want more… it’d be fun to see the sort of inner justification she uses to none of her past guys being “The One”! Or the shared adventures of Asmo, Levi and Satan on Parenting Shenanigans!

Flashbacks about the four years time-skip of the first chapter: I want to see how Pristie’s first battles against Mammon and Beelzebub went! How Marco’s fanatical adoration started? How did Leah deal with fighting Mother Rosa’s corpse? How was Priestie’s first meeting with Leah, Barbara, Mikhail, etc? I also just want to see the younger Mr. Priest, I really enjoy how more abrasive, irritable and outwardly judgmental he was, so I wanna see him interact with more people. Because he’s adorable and hilarious!!

Dante and Vir flashbacks: What was their childhood under Nicholas like? How far did their relationship go? Like, did they ever even kiss or confessed to each other? What finally caused Vir to run away? Maybe we could see how Dante reacted upon first realizing Vir was a witch? Not really expecting it, but I’d like to see more on Dante and Rosa’s relationship!

Leah flashbacks: I really, really want to know how Leah came upon and mastered Alchemy. It’s a very unique power among all the miracle and magic users, and thematically, it really intrigues me. I also want to know about Leah’s time growing up under the Church’s care. Did anyone, particularly kids her age, resent her for surviving instead of those 79 exorcists? We already know about Priestie’s childhood under the Church and we got hints about Dante’s past with Vir and Nicholas, but we know almost nothing about Leah, other than the fact that Daniel was her doctor, so I’m very curious. Also, how did she meet Barbara, and why is the masked nun so devoted to Leah? How long has Leah been working with Mikhail and Barbara?

More under the cut!!

Dynamics

Look, I won’t lie, the thing that really pulled me into ekuoto in the first place were the demon/human relationships. This is what interests me the most about the story and what I’m always looking forward the most:

Satan/his frozen wife: Ever since I saw Satan talking to the woman in the ice, his “wife”, I’ve been wondering about their relationship. I hope that girl is Eve. I hope their relationship is super complicated. I hope his secret evil plan has much more to do with her than with Mr. Priest himself. I’m looking forward to the day she finally, officially, joins the cast!

Mammon/Tachibana: Look, if Tachibana’s back, then we eventually will get more details on how they met, right? And more development on their current relationship, I hope! I’m not sure where their dynamic is going, but I do think I’ll enjoy whatever it’s given to us. Also, I just want more details on Tachibana’s past and background, she really grew on me these past few chapters! Not even a flashback is necessary, just more information would be fine by me!

Beelzebub/Leah: This is yet another dynamic that I don’t think we’re done with… I’m of the opinion that it was a waste that, despite such an impactful flashback (that went on for almost 3 whole chapters!), neither their relationship nor Leah’s trauma were the actual focus of most of Part 3/Beelzebub’s arc. And although Leah’s feelings towards him are quite complex and messy, and that alone is interesting enough, we also don’t really know anything about how Beelzebub saw or felt about his ‘friendship’ with the younger Leah. Everything that I’ve seen fascinates me, because there are quite a few hints that there is more going on his side than meets the eye, but there’s also just enough stuff to make you dismiss it as him just being his sadistic self, and accept a first reading that it meant nothing to him. I’d like to see more, to see just what is the truth, but won’t set my hopes too high.

Asmodeus/Sarah: I knooooow that we’re likely done with these two for the most part, considering how nicely it was wrapped at the end of Part 4 and how we know how both Asmodeus and Sarah felt. However, I think it’d be fun to see a glimpse of Tobias coming to marry Sarah. He might’ve been the only good guy to become Sarah’s husband, so I want to see how Asmodeus reacted to that. I want her to be unreasonably jealous, possessive and wrathful towards a guy whose only crime is marrying the love of her life. Also, I just want to see her actually talk about Sarah with someone. Anyone! Hurt me again with the incredibly awful and toxic yuri, Arima-sensei, I’m not over them yet!!

Marco/Pristie: Sorry to all the Belphegor/Pristie enjoyers/fans, but this is the real pseudo BL bait to me!!… Silliness aside, most of the other exorcists we met don’t really venerate or worship Mr. Priest, and many of the main group do seem to see him as a kid than the “Boy Chosen by God”, so Marco’s pretty unique in his fanatical adoration! I really want to see more of it, and how it affects Mr. Priest. Older characters uncomfortably idolizing and putting younger characters on pedestals in stories is often a fun plot point for me, so I’m eagerly waiting for him to finally appear!

Imuri/Priestie: Everyone and their mother is waiting for the moment when Imuri’s real identity gets revealed, me included. I often do think and sometimes sigh about how I wish the author went harder with them, because I feel like there needs to be more… I dunno, passion or romance besides the stuff we’ve seen, but if the fact that Imuri and Pristie are currently rather superficial as a couple (neither ever really tries to get to know each other, Imuri is still more in love with being in love, Pristie is currently enamored with the “perfect innocent damsel” image that Imuri presents him) is a set-up for future developments, I’ll be glad. I’m sure it is for Imuri, but I sure hope the same will apply for Pristie.

Just more Demon Lords’ Hell Office Comedy Shenanigans: Exactly what it says on the tin. They’re a riot whenever they interact, so I’ll always welcome more! The same applies to the main exorcist group!! I want to know at least a little about every single dynamic, they’re funny as hell!

Leah and the Witches: I think it’d be a great opportunity for character development on both sides! Leah suffers because of Beelzebub’s actions and works for the Church, who provided her a place to live, while the witches suffer because of the Church and work for Beelzebub, who provided them a place to be be free. The witches (sans Vir) worship and put Beelzebub on a pedestal, whereas Leah has a more complicated view on him, which is mostly tainted by negative emotions due to the trauma inflicted on her. Surely there is something there to be explored? Different perspectives to be exchanged?

Teased plotlines

Marco coming to cause confusion because of Imuri/Pristie: Pretty much what I said above. Marco’s crazy vibes both amuse and scare me, so I welcome him with open arms. May his potential shenanigans finally push Imuri into smothering Priestie with her love.

Cass, where the hell are you??: Very curious as to who is Cass and what they could bring to the story! Perhaps they could shed more light on Imuri’s character! I also think it’d be fun to see Pristie be the one getting jealous and over imagining things for once! After all, Cass has known Imuri longer!! They could make Pristie feel threatened, right?

Pristie’s infantile omnipotence: Now, this is fully my whimsical delusions!! I’m very aware we’ll likely get Beserker!Pristie, a personified version of wrath and violence for the climax of his “corruption” arc, but I really do want to see him going full boy king tyrant on everything and everyone at some point! Because he’s asleep, I don’t have much hope, but I think it’d be fun if he briefly high jacked the “Ark of Dreams” from Belphegor! I’m not interested in seeing Priestie become a witch, under another person’s orders/authority… I want him to go farther, in order to regain his autonomy!! Something along the lines of Bel still expecting Pristie to behave like the cute kid he was, instead of the teenager Pristie actually is! So Pristie would just try to shape the world as he likes, regardless of what Bel wants! What he (Pristie) says goes! Though, this could be done in any other arc, as long as Pristie undermines other people’s agency… specially the few people he likes! This would be one of the most fun (temporary) outcomes, to me! (The “infantile omnipotence comment comes from this extra, by the way)…. Also, when Masses of Trash 2 inevitably comes and/or when he starts to actually attack people, it’d like it if he mirrored Nicholas in his violence. Punishment for the sake of instilling good morals and behavior, this sort of self-justification. I’m also hoping he’ll eventually harm the few people he cares about… faceless innocents would also be good but I don’t think we’ll see that? Nevertheless, I think it’d be good if he ended up harming someone who didn’t deserve it…

An entire arc set in Gehenna: This one hasn’t really been teased or anything, but I’d love love love if there was one!! C’mon, we have a character named Dante, let’s have him and others travel to Hell! I wanna see what it’s like!

[f0xgl0v3]

Camp Jupiter Reimagined

(It took me the uppermost(?) of two days to write this because of school-)

In the last post I was ranting in I mentioned a lot of a project I was doing to Re-Imagine Camp Jupiter (and maybe share my re-imagining of the whole PJO concept and the characters- does that qualify as an AU? Maybe, I don’t know. But I like the world and I like being able to branch off existing concepts and make my own interpretations).

Some set dressing before I get into this; I love Camp Jupiter and the greater PJO franchise and world-building. It’s pretty well-done in my opinion, and it’s how Rome became one of my special interests (or maybe it just added to my greater Greco-Roman world interest and I just really like Rome) *But* how Camp Jupiter and New Rome is done just kind of feels a little underwhelming. It’s super cool and a great concept, and it fits. But I feel like New Rome and Camp Jupiter weren’t really thought out, just kind of happened and then we all just accepted it. Now; I’ll probably update some opinions when I read ToA (I’m currently reading the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid beforehand) but characterization doesn’t feel consistent to what is told before. There are things I don’t see happening; like an example being the legion being shrunk to 5 cohorts (Roman legions had 10). While that is for plot reasons to not make Camp and the Legion huge for reasons. We are told that Romans dislike change to the point they had a *mutiny* over a *name change* for the legion. But I have to hold my disbelief that they would *get rid of 5 cohorts*! So I decided that I would just Re-Imagine Camp Jupiter (and the Campers, and down the line PJO in general). So uh; here is some of the things I’ve defined in my brain for my re-imagination of the Camp/legion,

things, all the things,

I added back the 5 removed cohorts; HOWEVER, what I chose to do that made sense in my brain was make cohorts 6-10, *outposts* or Roman settlements around the Americas. They are mainly used in my mind for scouting, expanding the glory of the New Roman Republic (not a Empire for now, maybe a future fanfic, idk). But they’re there to scout out areas, help transport demigods across borders to the main camp, etc.

Along with that I decided they all had SETTLEMENTS (little tiny towns) that had thematic naming to it (still deciding on that)

Speaking of which; the outposts aren’t really respected; at least not how like the main 5 are respected. Sure they do important things, but no one takes them *as* seriously

They also act as reinforcements (auxiliary troops?) but I’d assume it would go; main 5 cohorts, 5 outposts, and then the veterans. In how they are called upon.

Maybe there is some conflict on the leaders (the Consuls? I think, I’m writing this while still doing research and while everything is still in the primordial soup stage) of the outposts divided on helping Octavian or if he didn’t assume power correctly and therefore wasn’t the leader of the legion.

It adds a sense of more overwhelming dread to facing Camp Jupiter in the big battle (which; I will be kind of mixing up) because in my idea it’s a bigger body of groups. We get a more ominous build-up of slowly watching and having to just hear or see in visions more cohorts (which the outposts are smaller than the main cohorts; I figure that’s also important) slowly congealing together with very shaky loyalty to Octavian. Being slightly disjointed from each other and the main cohorts.

Along with that; if I do like re-imagine HoO (which; would mostly be character work in my opinion, I don’t have *too* many qualms with the plot. I’ll probably say more when I get around to that). But if I do re-imagine and like half edit-half fanfic through the books I would love to include a Camp Jupiter POV in at least from MoA onwards, but that’s random here uhhh cohorts-

I’ve sort-of re-categorized the Cohorts (might also take some inspiration from what we know of the legions that share the same number in personality, if that makes sense?)

But each Cohort gets a sort of more defined personality to each other rather than the sort of muddled greater characterization we have for the groups in canon. (I’ll probably have another post that goes more in-depth on the ‘personalities’ of the cohorts)

Main 5 cohorts

First Cohort; I decided that this was going to be a very selective group in who gets accepted into the Cohort. I decided that along with a minimum of 2 letters of recommendation, legionnaires have to show some outstanding quality to them that the first Cohort wants (this takes from the ‘elite troop’ idea with the first *legion* and I needed a way to differentiate the 1st and 2nd, while this also plays off of all the 1st cohort legionnaires being said they had *something* special about them; Octavian and his talking stuff and prophecy, and Michael Kahale for uh, football and being giant? I’ll workshop it) while this of course means the 1st cohort is on the smaller side; they make up for it in general prowess and ability. On the rarest of rare occasions (like Jason, or maybe even Percy for my re-imagining) the first cohort will try and request recruits to join their legion (there’s probably a technical term, but basically what Dakota did for Percy in SoN; I’ll have to re-read HoO) but this isn’t a very common occurrence.

Second Cohort; I really like my concept of the Second cohort because it just really amuses me- simply put, their the rejects from the first cohort. Snobby kids who had good letters of Recommendation and were looking to ride off the coattails of their relatives. They are the ones with recommendation letters but nothing too crazy and special about them that makes it reasonable for the 1st Cohort to want them.

Third cohort; I decided on a whim that the third cohort would be the kids that are SUPER into the fighting parts of Camp; training? They’re down, the War Games? they want to win, they will win. They aren’t too into the political side of camp, they mostly are there for protecting their home.

Fourth Cohort; the fourth cohort is the one I have been purposely putting off characterizing Specifically because of the Camp Jupiter classified book where the protag is 4th cohort and I want to read that before making my conclusions. But if anyone currently were to ask me, they’re the trouble makers :]

Fifth Cohort; I kept the characterization of the Fifth cohort being the ‘rejects’. The unwanteds, however I decided to include the fifth cohort taking in legionnaires that had to get transferred cohorts. They are the largest cohort and there is a very varying personality to the cohort but the general idea is ‘Everyone doesn’t like us but hey, at least we can hold a sword :]’

Five outpost cohorts

My fan created cohorts based on concepts I discussed earlier on in this post :]

I chose in these to keep them relatively away from any important areas that are in the books (why Cohort six isn’t close to someplace like Quebec, or why the Eight cohort isn’t on an Puerto Rico or an island super close to Puerto Rico)

On that note; let it be known that these Outpost Cohorts also do help find legionnaires (i mention it in some of the descriptions for the cohorts)

These cohorts are much, much more rough around the edges currently because I’m still in the primordial soup and research stage; these are the roughest concepts for these Cohorts. I will first then out more… hopefully.

Cohort Six; the sixth cohort i decided would currently be stationed in Canada (I decided it would be in Canada so I could have a Frank tie-in and because I needed one in the north that wasn’t in Alaska) I also currently have the outpost at Great Bear Lake; close to Port Radium and Cameron Bay; though that might change. While the cohort is there with the Settlement New Britannia (name may be subject to change)

Seventh Cohort; The Seventh Cohort, which is considered the ‘best’ out of the outpost cohorts, located at the Sierra de pénjamo mountains in Mexico; along with the ‘New Hispania’ settlement. They deal with a lot of monster outbreaks along the equator.

Eighth Cohort; located on the Inagua Islands (I chose the larger one with Lake Rosa though might be changed) unlike the Seventh; the Eighth is the outcast of the legion; being the legions big naval force that deal with the islands on the east of South America, settlement possibly called ‘New Hispania Balearica’

Words about the ninth and tenth cohort; I had a sub the day I was working on their notebook pages so I don’t have very set locations for them.

Ninth Cohort; located in, somewhere Brazil. Meant to scout the eastern side of South America not including the islands

Tenth cohort; The tenth cohort is located in somewhere, Argentina. Does what Ninth does but just for the west side of South America

——————

Aaaaaaah, so sorry for the drop in quality at the last two but I’ve been writing this for like 2-3 days, I’ll write more about (probably Octavian) and my Camp re-imagining

[alto-tenure]

But then I tend to slot Eve as fairly badly socialized heroic antagonist and Arthur as the actual villain. Just on grounds of - Eve apparently going out of her way for Jean (Yeah, remove the drugs from the house, no need for a second suicide, letting Jean stay in the house) and in general deciding that the townwide illusion has to end. Arthur meanwhile - well he is the one that apparently set off the golden statue incident with his "story" (especially as he callously using Belduke's home for it)

(Part one here, because I didn't see there was more until I was already answering the first ask.)

I think the ending of the game is best assessed looking at it as a Layton game; there are plenty of revenge-seeking people in Ace Attorney, but it’s easier to see the trends looking at Layton villains in comparison to AA ones.

Since Unwound Future (and arguably earlier, though I wouldn't call Baron Reinhold or Anton truly villains imo), there's been a formula of sorts with two antagonists, one generally lower-level than the other, with different levels of justification & narrative forgiveness. A brief summary:

Unwound Future: What both of these characters did was messed up, but they both come away regretting it. Even though they'll face legal consequences, the narrative is still forgiving of both of them.

Last Specter: Jakes is hopelessly corrupt and gets his Deserved Comeuppance, and we have no idea about Descole’s deal.

Miracle Mask/Eternal Diva: This guy also did some messed up things, but he was being manipulated by Descole, so can you really blame him?

Azran Legacy: A lot of people have already spoken at length about why Bronev's turning point feels like too little too late and more. I think you need to at least be in a position to understand why Layton would choose to forgive him in the end, even if you personally can't.

Azran Legacy came out after the crossover, though they were only a few months apart, which is interesting considering the thematic similarities among their antagonists. (Cut for getting into AL spoilers.)

I agree with you about primary vs secondary antagonist here; I'd argue Eve is more like Descole (revenge; dead family; several different personas/identities) and Arthur is more like Leon (terrible awful father; runs the show; responsible for a great deal of what goes wrong). I think where the crossover goes wrong in comparison to Azran Legacy is in how much Arthur is unequivocally accepted back into the fold. Going back to our comparisons here...Des is never going to forgive Bronev, in my opinion, for the murder of his wife and daughter (among other wrongs). Hershel forgives Leon because he is in a better position to; he was not as personally wronged, and the theme with him is forgiveness. Hershel forgiving Leon is, dare I say, necessary to emphasize the theme of forgiveness in the series, and it would be more out of character for him not to.

But everyone forgives Arthur. Now -- Arthur may not have been directly responsible for anyone's deaths, but what he did was still deeply unethical, and while I am a firm believer in restorative justice over punitive justice, I think it doesn't have to be the case that Eve especially forgives him. Getting forgiven by Espella is important, and as much as I dislike it, it is in character for her. And the emphasis on embracing forgiveness and sympathy and understanding is a Layton theme as a whole.

Ace Attorney is a game about how systems can fail people, but it's not a game in which you can fundamentally change that system just by playing. It's frustratingly realistic in that you can only get rid of corrupt people and not the system that corrupted those people in the first place -- Kristoph Gavin, Gant, von Karma, and even the main antagonist of DGS. And there is also often a divide in AA between the antagonist who did some shit but ultimately is misguided (people like Ini Miney and Acro and Adrian Andrews and Godot) as opposed to the antagonist who is unrepentant and in some ways seeking something more (Matt Engarde, as well as the aforementioned corrupt legal figures).

And I think the collision here between the "Ace Attorney antagonist formula" and the "Professor Layton antagonist formula" in terms of how Eve and Arthur are ultimately written is interesting, because I think ultimately how they're written falls more into how Layton tends to treat its antagonists, but Eve leans slightly more towards the category of "Ace Attorney antagonist who massively screwed up and now has to face that" more so than the analogous Layton category.

But ultimately, as you've said here and as I implied in my previous response...Eve's plans would have been bad for Espella, but they would have been good for Labyrinthia. Arthur's plan involved just...carrying on with the way things were, content to let Espella believe what she would and to keep the fantasy going. It's why Layton and Luke present a more immediate threat to him -- though I don't doubt Eve had some hand in convincing him what exactly to do about them so that she could help Layton escape to the woods.

And in the end -- Eve never wanted Espella dead. She wanted Espella to see the truth, to see the gravity of what was done. We see that in all the times she bails Espella out of bad situations -- aboard the ship, in the courthouse, and at the Bell Tower.

[storyspinner91]

Willow + Lancer + The Oh Hellos = Like Constellations

Ok, a long, long time ago I said I might write up a little explanation post about what Like Constellations, A Million Years Away is. Because if there’s one thing I seem to have a talent for, it’s...getting excited about the intersections of two things that combine to make an extremely obscure niche, lol. So this post is meant to answer: what the heck is this? and why the heck is this? Read on for answers in hopefully not too (buuut probably too) much detail. 

What the Heck is your fic?

Like Constellations, A Million Years Away is a long-form fanfiction that adapts elements of the story of Willow (2022) to the setting (more or less, I’ve taken a few liberties) of the tabletop roleplaying game Lancer, created by Tom Parkinson Morgan and Miguel Lopez. This means that instead of a fantasy world, the characters of Willow are in a far-future science-fiction universe where combat sometimes takes place between pilots of huge, mechanized chassis (think of Gundam or Neon Genesis Evangelion). The fic starts out being a fairly “straightforward” adaptation but is, especially recently, rapidly departing from the narrative of the TV show. Because I’m a huge dork who love structure, it is also structured based on the music of the band The Oh Hellos - specifically, the Anemoi Cycle, 4 EPs titled Notos, Eurus, Boreas, and Zephyrus.

Basically, this means that Willow contributes the characters and certain plot beats; Lancer contributes the setting and influences the tone somewhat; and The Oh Hellos provide the emotional structure and thematic resonances for the piece. I’m being relatively strict with the structure; each chapter is based on a song from the Anemoi Cycle, in order, as indicated by the chapter titles (which are lyrics from the relevant song, or the title in the case of instrumental-only tracks). The one exception to this is chapters 7-8, which both correspond to “New River” from Notos - it just got too unwieldy, and I decided it had to be split up for space. (I suspect the same will happen to chapters 15-16, which may both be “Passerine,” but we’ll see.) And the whole work, which is gonna weigh in around 30 chapters, is divided into 4 books, one for each EP. In Like Constellations, Book 1 focuses on Jade, Book 2 on Kit, Book 3 on Graydon, and Book 4 on Elora.  

If that seems obsessive or red-string-cork-boardy, it probably is. But the plus side is that I feel like I have a really strong sense of where I’m going, at least in broad strokes and thematic terms. I know what the beginning and end of each book are, and many of the key moments in between. So I am very confident that this will be finished.

How and Why did this Nonsense Happen?

First off: I love adaptation and find it fascinating. The shift from one setting to another or (even cooler) one medium to another? A delight. My brain thinks laterally, and it likes to make connections. 

But this was really all a sort of accident. I’d seen a lot of memes when Willow was airing (or just “viewable,” RIP) that compared the group to a D&D party, and I was a little salty because they are clearly playing a game of Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

(That’s not a joke, it’s a game and a great one that would legitimately give you Willow vibes in play, you should go buy it.)

ANYWAY! I was taking a look at Lancer, which is a game where (in the mech tradition) mechs are very personal and can be customized, and I got to thinking, “I wonder whether you could make a mech for each of the Willow characters?” I was just idly scrolling through them when I suddenly saw a mech and thought, “Oh hell yes, that’s Kit’s mech.” 

Here’s where I have to give credit to Parkinson-Morgan and Lopez, because the synergy of illustration and game design in Lancer is astounding. You look at the Metalmark and you (at least I) think, “Yeah, that looks like a great fighter who prioritizes speed and really wants to look cool while doing it,” and that’s exactly what it is in terms of game mechanics. So that was fun to create, and I think Kit would be happy with the mech I built her.

But I still thought, “Well, that’s fun but there’s no way you could really pull off the story of Willow in Lancer’s setting...I mean the whole arranged-marriage aspect alone doesn’t really fit the science-ficti--”

In all [worlds controlled by SSC, the corporation that produces Kit’s mech], their populations are tightly controlled through deep cultural manipulation to generate biome-specific lines of colony seed materiel. The people of these worlds are aware of SSC’s mission; they are freely associated members of the corpro-state, most of whom are as invested in its mission – literally – and are generally unconcerned with SSC’s human experimentation projects. Save for regular, culturally-appropriate samplings of genetic material (a few hairs, a drop of blood, a swab from inside the mouth) and an expectation of arranged coupling, life on Constellar Worlds is unremarkable and quiet.

--Lancer core rulebook, p. 399-400

And at that point, the fic just sort of started to fall into my head. Kit could be the child of a major SSC investor, maybe the head of a subsidiary company. A valuable part of SSC’s horrible eugenics-”light” project (no such thing as light eugenics, kids) trapped not by monarchy but by corporate contracts that predate her birth. Jade could be a ward of the “state” (that here being a corporation). Boorman a former space pirate. Graydon a valuable new gene sample. Elora a totally normal girl but with some unusual computer capabilities. Willow a “paracausal” scientist (”paracausality” is Lancer’s in-world term for totally-not-magic). 

I was listening to the Anemoi Cycle at the time suddenly thought, “Wait, this sort of works, too.” Because the Anemoi Cycle is about having a crisis of belief and questioning the community (particularly, the problematic community) you were raised in. It’s about the need for constant growth, compassion, human connection, and an awareness of the value of material human existence. All of these are themes I think are there in Willow too. So I started outlining and writing and...wrote really fast when I started and have since slowed down, lol. Life has gotten busier in the last several weeks, and now that I’m moving beyond Willow’s plot beats I have to tread more carefully to avoid trapping myself or espousing things I want to avoid. 

But I am very excited to keep working on this story, and I can’t wait to look back on it when it’s finished. If you made it to the end of this long, rambly tumblr post - thank you, please get yourself a cookie for me as thanks for listening to my far-too-verbose thoughts.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: How to Read the Bible: An Introduction to Interpreting the Bible Like Jesus Would

Author: Marc S. Hays

Rating: 4/5 stars

If you want to read the Bible like Jesus would, this is the kind of book for you. That sounds like a cliché, but "you want the Bible to teach you the meaning of life through a close reading of its stories" isn't really a cliché any more.

What's the book about?

Marc Hays is a priest who is very clear on what his book is about. He is clear that this is a book about reading the Bible. Hays is not an ex-Christian, so he is not coming at the Bible from that angle. This is not a book about "Christianity," as such, but rather a book about reading the Bible from a Christian standpoint, i.e. in such a way that one is trying to figure out what Jesus would have wanted when he read it.

This isn't a book that takes what's in the Bible as literally true. He's not trying to prove Jesus was telling the truth about things. That would not be very useful for his purposes, since the Bible is full of things that are very true. Rather, he's trying to show what it would be like to read Jesus as someone who doesn't believe in the things in the Bible that are not literal.

That's what this is really about. It's one of those books that is a little difficult to classify because it's about a bunch of things at once. Hays will say that this book is about reading the Bible like Jesus would, but the reality is that Hays does very much bring in his own opinions about very Christian things like hell, Jesus' divinity, the atonement, and so on. This is not just a Bible book for Christians – Hays is talking about some things that were important to Christianity. This is the kind of book that you could hand to your pastor and say "hey I just read the Bible like Jesus would!"

Does it work?

In general, I agree that Hays has produced a lot of interesting results here, and he does it through a series of "case studies." Each chapter is about a different Bible story, or group of stories, and they are read through a Christian lens. Hays doesn't say much about the stories themselves, nor about the characters in them. The books are meant to be read as a collection of essays with some sort of thematic relationship between the various chapters.

There are four of these case studies, which I would rank in order of complexity:

Golgotha

Noah

Adam and Eve

New Birth

All four of these case studies (along with the others in the book) are good. The Golgotha case study has the "most" difficulty and the New Birth case study has the "least." This is because the case studies are divided by theme, so the two hardest ones are in the beginning and two easiest ones are in the end. It will not surprise you to hear that all four of these essays are very good.

Hays is very good at illustrating the "right" reading for each of the four stories. There are things in the Bible that are very difficult to interpret, and Hays does a great job of showing why the difficult passages are difficult.

One issue I want to bring up is how Hays does this reading. The Bible is full of difficult passages, but Hays is very focused on showing how difficult passages become less difficult when seen in the right light. It's a lot like "how to read a code," a concept popularized in the 1970s. Hays is using the same sort of process that is being used for the cryptography.

He uses the same sort of "detective" model of the code – there are the characters, there are the themes, there are the rules about when certain characters are allowed to say certain things. And then one discovers "the solution," which usually involves a complicated algorithm of figuring out how to use the rules of the text in a way that gives you "the right answer" (here, "the right answer" is "Hays's conclusions on each passage." In other words, the detective is "done" when the detective "solves" the code), or to put it another way: when one solves the puzzle, one realizes the "code's secret." But to Hays, this is the least interesting kind of detective story. What he likes more is the sort of mystery novel where the detective spends a lot of time trying to figure out how to "solve" the case without understanding what is going on. This is not a book of "solutions," it is a book that tries to show how to get to the "solution."

To take a bad example, I could point you to the ending of this book.

In the New Birth case study, Hays discusses the interpretation of the birth of Jesus (the most "difficult" of the four case studies) in chapter 14. In this chapter, he gives several interpretations of Jesus's birth which are then refuted by several others. At the end, he writes:

The problem posed by the passage in Luke chapter 1 is that in the end, its solution is unsatisfactory to me. I've arrived at my final interpretation only because I understand why and how the passage needs to be read as an introduction. Without that background understanding, the solution presented at the end of the previous chapter isn't satisfying. It feels incomplete, like a series of questions raised only to be put to rest.

I wish I could write a similar account of the other New Testament accounts in this volume. They seem like the kind of problems for which a more complete account of Jesus' teaching would produce satisfying solutions. It is not that I have a hard and fast rule of what is the "right" interpretation of passages like Romans chapter 8 or chapter 10 or Hebrews 6. The problem is that all these interpretations are incomplete and need more background knowledge to make them satisfying. I think they are so incomplete that if they were presented as they are by Paul, Jesus, and Augustine, a modern interpreter would be justified in saying that the book was written by a naive, uncritical student of Scripture who has been made wiser by time, rather than by anyone trying to understand the original intention of the authors of these letters.

If I were to summarize my conclusions, I would conclude that Jesus did not think of himself as divine, he believed he was God's final word, his final authority. He did not think that he had to die to be holy. He taught that the purpose of human existence was not to be holy, but to be perfect, even if it meant putting aside everything about oneself that seemed to hinder that perfection. We must put aside our fears and our human concepts of good and evil if we want to become the kind of people Jesus wanted us to be. But we must also do so as individuals, for we are all sinful creatures who make different choices on different days. All we can do is to come to know what is

[pocketbelt]

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker Patch 6.5 (PS5)

The Endwalker patch cycle main story has been a neat little diversion but the way it comes together in this is remarkably fucking strong. The way all the different story threads come together and align to reinforce its core theme is expertly done, and 6.5's cutscenes especially use camera direction and control in cutscenes super well to imply subtle aspects that hearken back to seemingly one-off aspects all the way back to 6.1.

It also has a lot of what I wanted in part from Endwalker MSQ proper: actually making use of its direct visual and plot point lifts and references to Final Fantasy IV in cool and interesting ways, similar to how Shadowbringers played with the concepts of Final Fantasy III. There are still aspects there I think Endwalker fumbled the bag on and if anything, the way this patch cycle uses IV's concepts to different ends so fucking well displays that brilliantly.

It has some issues - there's a distinctly bastard return of the "Warrior of Light stands around like a fucking idiot while everyone does the actual stuff" problem in several of the pivotal cutscenes, in particular. Like, I get it; you have a wide variety of body types and a very wide array of classes with their own unique animations for similar actions, making the player do overly animated stuff believably is difficult, but after a point I think they're just going to have to try and engineer a solution to it. Either generic animations by role (melee DPS are the big problem here) or just take time during the Dawntrail patch cycle to come up with some that can be used, I dunno, but this sort of shit has to stop. It's actually kind of insane how differently the plot would go in places if the Warrior of Light didn't just stand around gawping like a fucking balloon in so many scenes - it's one of the core reasons I've long since turned on Heavensward's main story in particular when looking back.

It actually kind of undermined the weight of the 6.5 trial, which is a fucking cool trial (with a new killer remix, this patch cycle story has had so many 11/10 remixes/new takes on FFIV music) but due to the way you stand around like a tit before and after it while your party does everything, it feels like it was completely superfluous.

The final alliance raid is also pretty cool, it has really cool mechanics and effects and the final fight is really rad, but I think by the end I was tired of all the weightiness in this expansion. The AR story itself is ultimately very warm and well-meaning, it's quite sweet in a lot of ways, but it carries a lot of the lofty ideal preaching and between Endwalker MSQ, the patch MSQ ending and this, I'm good and ready for Dawntrail to be low-stakes fucking about.

I have some actual spoiler points over the jump, but in short, good shit but now I need you guys to chill out.

Re; Endwalker fumbling the bag with the usage of FFIV as a reference point, I still feel it's kind of insane that they went for basic bitch nihilism and not over-riding hatred as the source of the Final Days. I felt it was more thematically fitting to do so, between the constant casual racism of ARR and how hatred is fostered among the people of Eorzea because they don't work together or trust each other, how Teledji explicitly spun up hatred of Ala Mhigan refugees among Ul'dah's people and vice versa to further his own ends, how the ideologies and root of the Empire ultimately deal in hatred of non-Garleans and gods, etc; the same could be said of the Holy See of Ishgard and its legacy of hating the dragons and how the greed of the ancient Ishgardians driving them to kill Ratatoskr fomented the undying unyielding hatred of Niddhogg for them in Heavensward; Stormblood is entirely a lengthy fucking screed about all the ways imperialism is bad, how it works and divides and weakens people and core strands of that are it preying on hatred born of a nation's problems to sow discord in it and expose it to invasion and conquest. Fordola and especially Yotsuyu talk at length about the hatred they have for the people of their homelands because of the misery those people caused them, again born of hatred (even if Fordola's is really shittily done and very hard to empathise with at all) - the mid-fight grand narrative turn of the Tsukuyomi trial in 4.3 is quite literally Yotsuyu reaching deep down and trying to manifest her own hatred to fuel her ability to keep fighting! The distinct lack of Eorzea's racism and division is screechingly evident in the Crystarium and Amh Araeng in Shadowbringers and it's a core part of how they survived for 100 years at the very brink of the Light-borne apocalypse, and Emet-Selch is clearly worn down and lacks the full-throated venom for you and Hydaelyn that his compatriots show, he has none to will up at the end of it all and all that has transpired is rooted in the ancient tragedy that caused a rift, conflict and hatred to form among the ancient Eitheryians!

Long story short I have thought extensively about the expansions and how they connect together; it's deranged to me that we left-field pivot to some twee bird girl trying to kill everyone because she had a brain aneurysm and decided nihilism was cool because multiple other societies ended in unfortunate circumstance (the ocean planet ravaged by hell plague), unrestrained hatred (the planet that warred itself to death) or blinding stupidity (you cannot convince me the Ea or the golden robe people as presented are anything but cornball idiots). The overbearing thread of "the hatred we create is the root of all our woes" permeating damn near everything before it leads almost fucking flawlessly to Zemus/Zeromus as final ultimate antagonist - because, for the very little we learn of Zemus/Zeromus in FFIV, the one thing we do know is that he fucking hates the non-Lunarian people and advocates for their eradication by his people, who he sees as superior. Zeromus is Zemus' unyielding hatred taken form, it is literally just manifest hatred! It was a fucking lay-up and to me it felt like they just chucked it out the window for something much fucking weaker, which they also delivered really fucking badly right at the end (but the problems with the entirety of the Ultima Thule section are for another time).

To that end, while the usage of Zeromus in the patch cycle is neat, it also feels like a bit of a fumble because this aspect isn't utilised at all. Zeromus isn't a manifestation of hatred here, it's the gigantic Dark aether pool made by the death of the Thirteenth's Zodiark shard melded into a being driven by the ragged emotions and longings of a dragon who's been tortured for centuries. It's the flipside of the rest of the patch cycle making great use of FFIV concepts and characters, because it has different or different-ish takes on them all and Zeromus is again left wanting.

On the other hand, Golbez is used immaculately. Instead of a man mind-controlled into being evil, FFXIV Golbez is a man with good intentions manipulated to evil ends, and now driven to desperation to fix the unfathomable mistakes he has made. He's beautifully tragic and performed so fucking well, driven to his mad plan because he can't conceive of any other method than finding a way to bring death back to a world that is bereft of it. The nature of who the Golbez we meet is helps that further, as are the supremely clever allusions made in the 6.5 post-dungeon cutscenes. I know this is the spoiler section but I'm putting it in ROT13 anyway:

Qhenagr vf pyrneyl n ybbx-nyvxr bs Mrabf, vs abg qverpgyl gur Guvegrragu'f funeq/ersyrpgvba bs uvz (vs ur unf gubfr gbb, fbzr qverpgbe D&N fhttrfgrq ur qbrfa'g), naq Tbyorm vf uvf orfg sevraq naq vqby. Jr arire frr Tbyorm'f gehr snpr, orpnhfr gur bevtvany Tbyorm jnf lbhe Guvegrragu funeq/ersyrpgvba. Gur ehzvangvba ba Mrabf frrvat lbh nf uvf sevraq, naq vs lbh sryg gur fnzr be abg, va 6.1 jnf yrnqvat gb guvf. Na vqrn bs ubj guvatf pbhyq'ir orra, vs uvf cngu jnf qvssrerag. Nyfb, Qhenagr-nf-Tbyorm vf znavchyngrq vagb oevatvat nobhg gur Sybbq bs Qnexarff, whfg nf Neqoreg jnf znavchyngrq vagb oevatvat nobhg gur Sybbq bs Yvtug, znxvat sbe fbzr avpr shegure cnenyyryf orgjrra gur Svefg naq gur Guvegrragu. Va bar jbeyq vg jnf lbh, va nabgure vg jnf uvz.

Durante wielding a greatsword and Dark magic, and explicitly being a Dark Knight in the flashbacks but not being the one to become a Paladin is also a really nice spin that works better for XIV. After all, Darkness is not evil and Light is not good here, and Golbez is able to use his Dark power for good in the end. On the flipside, Zero being freed from being a Reaper, becoming the Paladin she originally was as she learns to trust and takes Light into herself with the help of others (and not after ritually confronting her inner Darkness, as Cecil did in FFIV) as she learned to trust, that's a real fucking good turn on the notion of a "dark" class becoming a Paladin. The Dark Knight and the Paladin learn to trust each other and work together to do better by the world, and if the Paladin had been able to trust people originally and joined the Dark Knight back then, perhaps it could have all been avoided. But all one can do is keep going forward, making amends for their sins and errors. It's real fucking good, it's a good way of using IV's key moments and concepts in different ways better suited to XIV instead of blindly copying them (which, to be fair, XIV doesn't really blindly copy things in that fashion anyway).

It all reinforces the recurring theme of trust, of trust among people in each other being the way forward and for the good of all. That and the two striving to rebuild the Thirteenth, just as the Garleans must rebuild Garlemald and the First must rebuild itself, all in the wake of the Ascians and their machinations, it all lines up really well and makes for a good follow-up to the vanquishing of the Final Days. The worlds are healing in their own ways, and they don't need to be reunited or abandoned.

I was kind of hoping we'd still be packing the Lightwardens' light in our back pocket to blast Zeromus with or blow into the Thirteenth, but it seems we did indeed blast it all into Emet-Selch instead. Same effect but my preference would have us being more active, a thing they're a bit dodgy about doing. They don't want you to do everything, of course, as it makes the rest of the cast seem incompetent or pointless, but at the same time they keep making us seem a bit irrelevant at times. Zero and Golbez handle Zeromus so quickly after the trial that it makes the trial seem like it didn't matter or need to happen. They don't mention Zeromus being any weaker from you beating it, and hell it doesn't seem any weaker either.

Drawing Light from the frozen Flood on the First into the Thirteenth, and passing Zeromus' crystal to the First for Ryne, Gaia and Lou Beq to potentially draw massive quantities of Darkness from to heal the First are real nice caps. They kind of stumbled over the Unulkalhai/Cyvette "we're going to research the Thirteenth and see what we can do" plot thread locked behind beating all of Shadowbringers' role quests, but by necessity they kind of had to; they can hardly mandate that be done by all players, funny as that would be to do (you'd have to do the HW Extreme Trials, too, for Unulkalhai first but those are easily bullshitted with unsynced Lv80 parties/Lv90 solos). Gaia's scenes are optional and easily worked around, at least, but seeing her in main story was a real treat. It's always delightful to see the side content acknowledged as being real, and as ever, it's Shadowbringers stuff that does it best. They did add extra dialogue for those two if you've done that stuff, at least, which was a nice treat, even if it was obviously just paving over "hey why didn't these two get to meet Zero or take part in this at all".

I get deep into my thoughts and feelings about XIV a lot, but yeah, I really could do with some Alexander raid series-tier tone and style next time. Enough loft, enough warm and grand resolutions about peace and trust and love. We need idiot goblins blasting metal over super-robot fights or rapping over their time-bending divine robot summoning himself inside himself to help himself cave our heads in, or HW alliance raid style demons being dicks for the sake of it. Diabolos is still out there, I'm fairly sure he survived the Cyber Diabolos machina in Bozja!

Feeling that way is why I really front that it would be funnier if the Scions (or ex-Scions, now) didn't come with you to the New World at first. With all being said and done, everyone goes to the four winds to do what they want and will, and you stumble onto a boat to a new place like a lost child and no-one knows where you go. So they'd be frantically hunting your trail because they need you or just miss you and got worried, while you're having fun with new friends in the New World. The people there like this odd stranger who only nods at them, they helped with herding sheep and doing menial chores and are fun to watch eat new foods, and they just killed god what the fuck do you mean they killed god? That can happen? How? What do we do about this

I just think it'd be way funnier and lighter, and absence (sort of) would make us fonder of the crew we're so fond of as is. You'd bypass the touchy "city of gold" colonial explorer shite they're teetering on stumbling into, as well, and you'd be able to make and flesh out a delightful New World cast too with more focus and room.

[mariacallous]

do you have any book recs on anti intellectualism? love your blog btw<3

Oh, thank you!

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, while not totally dealing with anti-intellectualism, devotes a good amount of space and attention to discussing anti-intellectual elements and the dumbing down of discourse.

One of the classics is the appropriately and directly titled Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter which provides a good historical and foundational basis and which argues how much and how long it's been a strain through American life. It's very much a product of its time, though, and the view is a little limited, as one might expect from a historian from Columbia University.

Inventing the Egghead: The Battle over Brainpower in American Culture by Aaron Lecklider is kind of a partial rebuttal or challenge to Hofstadter, where Lecklider argues, at least in part, that Hofstadter and others narrowly defined what an "intellectual" is/was partly in response to the right-wing pushback of the time period (1950s and 1960s) to basically mean guys like them (white academic middle-class and up guys at or from the Ivies who were generally liberal in the left/progressive sense) and which ignored many of the other people (and peoples) that would and could be considered intellectuals and which sort of helped reinforce the argued divide between lower/working-class (and emphasis on Working) people and the Intellectuals.

The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump by Michiko Kakutani is a really good read in general but she specifically dives into the different elements (from all sides and parts of the political and ideological spectrum) which helped contribute to both the general atmosphere we find ourselves in but also specifically tied to the rise of Trump and the fake news/subjective reality environment, and Hannah Arendt and her ideas and arguments feature prominently and helped provide part of the frame she uses to discuss things.

Speaking of Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism would be another book recommendation, particularly because of how anti-intellectual fascism specifically and totalitarianism in general is (and which she goes into some detail discussing and analyzing). It's also just a (somewhat unfortunately) timeless book that goes into an analysis of what drives those kinds of movements and ideas.

The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby is like a more up-to-date (but pre-Trump) version of Hofstadter's book and which helps, at least chronologically and thematically, in my mind, bridge the gap (with Lecklider) between Hofstadter and Kakutani. and which makes some of the same arguments as the latter.

While not specifically touching on anti-intellectualism, Chris Hayes's Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy does discuss how so many traditionally respected and trusted institutions and groups have been undermined and despised, among which would be analysts and intellectuals and educators, etc. It's also very much of its time (2012-ish).

[amuelia]

How do you think Roose will meet his demise? Or will he survive? What's your best Roose end game predictions?

Thank you for the question! This will be a long post under the readmore, going into my thoughts on the show ending and exploring what the books may have set up in regards to themes and characterization, as well as a bit of general analysis of Roose' story arc in a Dance with Dragons (and some speculation about Ramsay as well).

If you click on the readmore i will have divided the post into sections with bolded Headers, if you want to only read my specific endgame ideas you can skip ahead to the "His Endgame?" section.

In The Show

The show had him get killed by Ramsay in s6, which informs a lot of the fandom speculation about this storyline.

I am not a fan of the show's scenario as it was both similar to tywin and tyrion as well as a mirror of robb's death; it would also be offscreen in the books since neither of the characters are PoVs and Ramsay would need to do the act in secret. This would ultimately undercut Roose' role and impact, being a death scene that is not very unique and also isn't shown to the reader directly. Since no PoV is even in Winterfell currently, we would just hear of it from afar and not witness the consequences.

The show also has a different dynamic in the Bolton storyline, emphasizing Ramsay as the "main character" of this arc, and elevating him to the main villain for s5-6 to fill Joffrey's shoes as an evil character played by a very charismatic actor. Ramsay's show writing is informed by the needs of a TV setting that wants shocking moments and capitalizes on "fan favourite" actors; his rising importance in the show thus is not necessarily an indicator of his book importance. The show was also missing many central characters like the northern lords and the Frey men in Winterfell.

The show had a tendency to kill off characters early when they wanted to cull storylines or had no plans to adapt more of the character's story (like Stannis, Barristan, possibly the Tyrells...); In Mance Rayder we have the most obvious example, where they killed him off for real in a scene that in the book was a misdirection. We also have characters like Jorah where it appears the showrunners had their own choice of how they want his storyline to end, even if Grrm has his own ending in mind.

"For a long time we wanted Ser Jorah to be there at The Wall in the end," writer Dave Hill says. "The three coming out of the tunnel would be Jon and Jorah and Tormund. But [...] Jorah should have the noble death he craves defending the woman he loves." - Dave Hill for Entertainment Weekly

So a death in the show does not need to be an indicator that the books will feature an equivalent scene, even if it gives a hint as to what may happen. By s5 the show has become its own beast, and the butterfly effects from radical changes they made as well as the different characterizations results in the show having to cater to its own needs in many cases when it gets to resolving a plotline.

"We reconceived the role to make it worthy of the actor's talents." - Benioff and Weiss for the s5 DVD commentary, on Indira Varma's casting as Ellaria

In The Books

(Since this post was getting out of hand in length a lot of these arguments are a little shortened/not as in-depth as i'd like! Feel free to inquire more via ask if something is unclear or you disagree)

In the books i find it hard to make a concrete guess as to how it will end. Occam's razor would be to assume the show sort of got it right and that it will vaguely end the same, which could very well happen and i will not discount the possibility; Ramsay is cruel, desires the Dreadfort rule, and is a suspected kinslayer and has no qualms to commit immoral violence.

"Ramsay killed [his brother]. A sickness of the bowels, Maester Uthor says, but I say poison." - Reek III, aDwD

Reek saw the way Ramsay's mouth twisted, the spittle glistening between his lips. He feared he might leap the table with his dagger in his hand [to attack his father]. - Reek III, aDwD

Arguments against this or for a different endgame come down to interpretations of the themes in the story arc and opinions on dramatic structure/grrm's writing, and are thus very subjective.

The way the story currently is going, Ramsay killing Roose treats Roose almost as a plot device; his death brings no change or development to Ramsay's character as we already know his motivations and cruelty align with such an act, and we can assume that he would feel no remorse about it either. The results of such a scene would be firmly on a story level, as it brings political changes and moves the plot along into a specific direction. Roose himself cannot have any relevant character development about it as he does not have a PoV and we would not be able to witness his reaction from the outside.

“The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.” - William Faulkner, often quoted by Grrm

Further, killing his father is very difficult to pull off in secret (Roose is frequently described as very cautious, and employs many guardsmen). And even if Ramsay pulls it off (people often interpret Ramsay as Roose' blind spot, assuming he might be caught by surprise, not expecting Ramsay would bite the hand that feeds him), Roose is the one that holds his entire alliance together; The Freys would be alienated by Ramsay who would antagonize Walda and her son as his rivals, The Ryswell bloc appears to dislike Ramsay (especially Barbrey), and the other northmen are implied to not even like Roose himself. Killing Roose would quickly combust the entire northern faction, and hinder Ramsay's further plans (another reason why I am not convinced of a book version of the "Battle of Bastards"). Though this might of course, if we look at it from the other side, be grrm's plan to quickly dissolve this plot and move the northern story forwards.

"Ramsay will kill [Walda's children], of course. [...] [She] will grieve to see them die, though." - Reek III, aDwD

"How many of our grudging friends do you imagine we'd retain if the truth were known? Only Lady Barbrey, whom you would turn into a pair of boots … inferior boots." - Reek III, aDwD

"Fear is what keeps a man alive in this world of treachery and deceit. Even here in Barrowton the crows are circling, waiting to feast upon our flesh. The Cerwyns and the Tallharts are not to be relied on, my fat friend Lord Wyman plots betrayal, and Whoresbane … the Umbers may seem simple, but they are not without a certain low cunning. Ramsay should fear them all, as I do." - Reek III, aDwD

Roose' death at Ramsay's hand also removes him thematically from the Red Wedding, as we can assume such a death might have happened regardless of his participation in the event (seeing as Ramsay is getting provoked by Roose constantly in normal dialogue, and has a general violent disposition). Roose already took Ramsay in before aGoT started, and married Walda very early in the war, which is already most of the buildup that the show's scenario had. It also has little to do with the The North Remembers plot except set dressing, since the northmen are presumably neither collaborating with/egging on Ramsay nor would they appreciate the development.

Themes: Ned Stark and the rule over the North

Roose is treated as a foil to Eddard; They are often contrasted in morals and ruling styles, while also having many superficial similarities that further connect them (they are seen as cold by people, grey eyed, patriarchs of rivalling northern houses, etc...).

Pale as morning mist, his eyes concealed more than they told. Jaime misliked those eyes. They reminded him of the day at King's Landing when Ned Stark had found him seated on the Iron Throne. - Jaime IV, aSoS

They both have a "bastard son" that they handle very differently; Roose treating Ramsay in the way that is seen as common in their society. Ramsay and Jon as a comparison are meant to show that Catelyn had a reason to see a bastard as a threat (since Domeric was antagonized by his bastard brother), but also shows that her suggested plan for Jon would not have stopped any danger either (as Ramsay being raised away from the castle didn't help).

And if his seed quickened, she expected he would see to the child's needs. He did more than that. The Starks were not like other men. Ned brought his bastard home with him, and called him "son" for all the north to see. - Catelyn II, aGoT

"Each year I sent the woman some piglets and chickens and a bag of stars, on the understanding that she was never to tell the boy who had fathered him. A peaceful land, a quiet people, that has always been my rule." - Reek III, aDwD

It appears to me that Roose' story functions in some ways as an inversion to Ned. He makes an attempt to grab a power he was not destined to (becoming warden of the north), where Ned did not want the responsiblity thrust upon him ("It was all meant for Brandon. [...] I never asked for this cup to pass to me." - Cat II, aGoT). Where Ned rules successfully and his northmen honor his legacy ("What do you think passes through their heads when they hear the new bride weeping? Valiant Ned's precious little girl." - The Turncloak, aDwD), the Boltons are largely hated and there are several plots conspiring against them ("Let me bathe in Bolton blood before I die." - The King's Prize, aDwD).

It seems possible to me that in terms of their family and legacy, Roose might also live through an inverted version of Ned's story; where Ned died first, leaving his family behind, Roose already lived to see the death of his wives and trueborn heir, and might thus also live to see Ramsay's death. Ned leaves behind well raised children and a North who still respects his name, and even though he dies it will presumably all be "in good hands" in the end (in broad strokes, obviously this is all much more morally complex). Roose however built up a bad and toxic legacy, and also built his way of life around evading consequences; it makes sense to me that he would be forced by the story to finally endure all the consequences of his actions and witness the fall of his house firsthand. After all we already have Tywin who fulfils the purpose of dying before his children while his legacy falls to ruins, and a Feast for Crows explores this aspect thoroughly.

Roose' arc in A Dance With Dragons

The story repeatedly builds up the situation unravelling around Roose, and him slowly losing a grip on it and becoming more stressed and anxious.

Reek wondered if Roose Bolton ever cried. If so, do the tears feel cold upon his cheeks? - Reek II, aDwD

Roose Bolton said nothing at all. But Theon Greyjoy saw a look in his pale eyes that he had never seen before—an uneasiness, even a hint of fear. [...] That night the new stable collapsed beneath the weight of the snow that had buried it. - a Ghost in Winterfell, aDwD

Lady Walda gave a shriek and clutched at her lord husband's arm. "Stop," Roose Bolton shouted. "Stop this madness." His own men rushed forward as the Manderlys vaulted over the benches to get at the Freys. - Theon I, aDwD

It also directly presents him as a parallel to Theon's rule in aCoK, who similarly experienced a very unpopular rule and his subjects slowly turning against him. Presumably, the point of this comparison will not just be "Ramsay comes in at the end and unexpectedly whacks them on the head". Both Theon and Roose invited Ramsay into their lives, giving him more power than he deserves, and causing Ramsay to make choices that increasingly alienate others from them (the death of the miller's boys for example has repercussions for both Theon and Roose). Grrm is likely steering this towards a difference in how they will deal with this situation.

It all seemed so familiar, like a mummer show that he had seen before. Only the mummers had changed. Roose Bolton was playing the part that Theon had played the last time round, and the dead men were playing the parts of Aggar, Gynir Rednose, and Gelmarr the Grim. Reek was there too, he remembered, but he was a different Reek, a Reek with bloody hands and lies dripping from his lips, sweet as honey. - a Ghost in Winterfell, aDwD

"Stark's little wolflings are dead," said Ramsay, sloshing some more ale into his cup, "and they'll stay dead. Let them show their ugly faces, and my girls will rip those wolves of theirs to pieces. The sooner they turn up, the sooner I kill them again." - The elder Bolton sighed. "Again? Surely you misspeak. You never slew Lord Eddard's sons, those two sweet boys we loved so well. That was Theon Turncloak's work, remember? How many of our grudging friends do you imagine we'd retain if the truth were known?" - Reek III, aDwD

Roose' arc is deeply connected to the relations he shares to the other northern lords, which has been heavily impacted by the Red Wedding. It stands to reason that they are going to be an important part of his downfall, and we see many hints of them plotting to betray him.

The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer's farce is almost done. My son is home." - Davos IV, aDwD

Themes: Stannis and kinslaying

The books set up Roose and Stannis as foils as well; Both lack charisma and have trouble winnning the people's support, Stannis and Roose both parallel and contrast Ned, Stannis appears as a "lesser Robert" where Roose is a "lesser Ned", Stannis represents the fire where Roose represents the ice, both struggle over dominion in a land that doesnt particularly want either of them, etc... What i find interesting is how they are contrasted over kinslaying:

"Only Renly could vex me so with a piece of fruit. He brought his doom on himself with his treason, but I did love him, Davos. I know that now. I swear, I will go to my grave thinking of my brother's peach." - Davos II, aCoK

"I should've had the mother whipped and thrown her child down a well … but the babe did have my eyes." [...] "Now [Domeric's] bones lie beneath the Dreadfort with the bones of his brothers, who died still in the cradle, and I am left with Ramsay. Tell me, my lord … if the kinslayer is accursed, what is a father to do when one son slays another?" - Reek III, aCoK

Stannis is set up as someone who is very thorough and strict in following his own code and his "duty", even if he does not like what it forces him to do.

Stannis ground his teeth again. "I never asked for this crown. Gold is cold and heavy on the head, but so long as I am the king, I have a duty . . . If I must sacrifice one child to the flames to save a million from the dark . . . Sacrifice . . . is never easy, Davos. Or it is no true sacrifice. Tell him, my lady." - Davos IV, aSoS

The armorer considered that a moment. "Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He'll break before he bends." - Jon I, aCoK

Roose however is frequently characterized as someone who tries to get as much as he can while avoiding negative consequences, and who does not have a consistent moral code and instead bends rules to his benefit to be the most comfortable to him.

It is often theorized that Stannis will end up burning his daughter Shireen; the Ramsay issue might then serve to contrast the two men. If Grrm intends it to be compared by the reader, I can see it going two ways: Either Roose will be forced to finally act in a drastic way after avoiding his responsibility in regards to Ramsay and he will be forced to get rid of his son, making him break the only moral hurdle he has presented adhering to during the story (though analyzing his character, the kinslaying taboo is probably less a sign of moral fortitude and more him using the guise of morals to explain a selfish motivation). Or he might not act against Ramsay and suffer the consequences, presenting an interesting moral situation where some readers might consider his action "better" or more relatable than Stannis', breaking up the otherwise very black and white moral comparison between the two men. It serves as an interesting conflict of the morality of kinslaying compared to what readers might see as a moral obligation of getting rid of a monster such as Ramsay; contrasting Shireen whose death would not be seen as worth it by most. Ramsay as a bastard (who was almost killed at birth if he hadnt been able to prove his paternity) also makes for an interesting verbal parallel with the bastard Edric Storm, and might be used for a look at the utilitarian principle of killing a child (baby ramsay/edric) to save countless people from suffering that underpinned Edric's story.

"As Faulkner says, all of us have the capacity in us for great good and for great evil, for love but also for hate. I wanted to write those kinds of complex character in a fantasy, and not just have all the good people get together to fight the bad guy." - Grrm

"Robert, I ask you, what did we rise against Aerys Targaryen for, if not to put an end to the murder of children?" - Eddard VIII, aGoT

"If Joffrey should die . . . what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?" - "Everything," said Davos, softly. - Davos V, aSoS

However Grrm decides to present these conflicts or which actions the characters will take in the end, it will result in interesting discussion and analysis for the readers.

His Endgame?

Looking at the trends of the past books, it is probably going to be hard to predict any specific outcome; every book introduces new characters and plot elements that were impossible to predict from the last book even if their thematic importance or setup was aptly foreshadowed.

Roose has a lot of plot importance and characterization that has, in my opinion, not yet been properly resolved in a way that would be unique and poignant to the specific purpose his character appears to fulfil. However I also have a bias in that i did not like the show's writing of that scene which makes me averse to see a version of it in the books, and i really like Roose as a character and want to see him have more scenes in the next book(s). This leads me to discount plot speculation that cuts his character arc short offscreen early. Roose is only a side character; however, i have trust in grrm's writing abilities and that he would give him a proper sendoff that feels satisfying to a fan of the character.

"…even the [characters] who are complete bastards, nasty, twisted, deeply flawed human beings with serious psychological problems… When I get inside their skin and look out through their eyes, I have to feel a certain — if not sympathy, certainly empathy for them. I have to try to perceive the world as they do, and that creates a certain amount of affection." — George Martin

Considering my earlier analyis, there is a case to be made for Roose killing Ramsay; however it appears grrm might have a different endgame in mind for Ramsay, foreshadowed in Chett's prologue:

There'd be no lord's life for the leechman's son, no keep to call his own, no wives nor crowns. Only a wildling's sword in his belly, and then an unmarked grave. The snow's taken it all from me . . . the bloody snow . . . - Chett, aSoS

I tend to think something might happen to Roose/the Bolton bloc later in the book that would cause Ramsay to attempt to flee the scene again like he did back in aCoK fleeing Rodrik's justice; perhaps Ramsay is sent out to battle but then flees it like a coward, or he sees his cause as lost. This time, the fleeing and potentially disguised Ramsay would not make it out to safety though, and get killed without being recognized as Ramsay, dying forgotten. This would serve as dramatic irony since Ramsay so strongly desired to be recognized and respected as a Lord of Bolton, without being too on the nose.

As for Roose, i could see him getting captured and somehow brought to justice (either when someone takes Winterfell or in some sort of battle). I see it unlikely that he will be backstabbed like Robb was, because it seems very "eye for an eye" and ultimately doesn't teach much of a lesson except "he had it coming"; But the various people conspiring against him could lead to his capture by betraying him (giving a payoff to the northern conspiracies and the red wedding). I would find a scene of him standing trial interesting since i believe we didn't have one of these for a true non-pov villain yet, and it would be an interesting confrontation that he cannot escape from (he also loves to talk so it would be a good read to see him make a case for himself).

I assume Roose will be out of the picture when the Other plot finally properly kicks into gear (whether dead or "in prison"). With Stannis as a false Azor Ahai and Roose as a false Other (with his pale, cold features), their struggle in the north seems to be a representation of the false "Game of Thrones" that distracts people from the "real threat" of the Others.

As always this is just my opinion, and it could all go very differently in the books! There could always be something that completely uproots my analysis and goes into a direction i did not expect from the material we had; But i have fate that Grrm as a writer will deliver and give me something i can be satisfied with.

[inventors-fair]

Putting the I in Team

Congrats to our runners-up this week! @nicolbolas96 with You’ll Be Mine, @simsarwel with Here I Stand, and @snugz with United We Stand // Divided We Fall

~

You’ll Be Mine

I remember there being some discussion in the discord, and I’d just like to say, personally, I think this card and its first ability is entirely in-color. I think it’s outdated and not something you’d do regularly, but this is exactly the type of card where you’d prefer it to a tap or transforming effect. That said, I think there’s two things a little off about this. First, It’s a little cheap. A pacifism alone has lately been going for a little higher than 2 mana, and even with the double blue color restriction, I think it needs to be more, especially since it’s something blue isn’t supposed to be better at than white. Similarly, I like the idea of the activated ability being higher. Four mana is really cheap. You can curve into this while still getting the pacifism bonus. I think it would play better if it were more expensive, like something you’re leading up to and hoping to get the mana for, rather than something that will definitely happen and happen soon. I know it’s technically 6 mana total, but it can often play like a 4 mana card. Last big one: I want it to be sorcery speed. Partly so you can’t just leave up mana and do this when they don’t cast a spell, and partly to not mess with combat math and make things complicated. Like I said, I think this plays better when it’s something to work for and earn. Tapping out on your turn to steal a creature feels good and powerful, so you should make it happen on your turn. Make ‘em work for it. So with all that said, I still like this card. The concept is great and the execution is pretty close. The name is also fitting, if a little cheesy.

-

Here I Stand

Place: Battlefield on Bant

Description: A soldier is facing an overwhelming legion of Grixis horrors. The character looks bruised, but determined.

Mood: No hope, no rest, not a flinch.

Wow, this card is way better than I thought it was at first glance. The two different ways to use this card are very interesting. First, you can use it on one of your own creatures as essentially a giant fog at the cost of sacrificing a creature. Or, if you’re lucky, you’ve got something that can survive. Second, you could use it as a removal spell. Attack with your two 1/3 creatures, then cast this targeting their 2/2, and even if it attacked you get to untap it and kill it. It’s both the card Culling Mark and Gideon’s sacrifice at the same time, while also being Valor Made real, all for two mana. Normally I’d say that’s too much value, but with combat tricks small amounts of mana matter, and none of those are good cards anyway. But if you combine them all together, they sort of are! I like this card and its versatility. I will say, though, that that last ability would probably be written differently. I’d have phrased it “Enchanted creature can block any number of creatures and blocks each attacking creature if able.” You don’t need to specify ones attack you or planeswalkers you control because those are already the only ones it can block. The only thing to keep this from a top spot is its complexity. This is very hard to comprehend, even for experienced players, and I wish there was a way to make it easier to interpret without losing its versatility. It’s complexity might be okay if it were a rare, but I don't think players would like a fog / conditional removal spell as their rare. Other than that, very impressed, very cool card.

-

United We Stand // Divided We Fall

WotC doesn’t have a way to denote it, so I’m going to assume this is a modal double faced card. The naming convention does feel a bit closer to a split card, since most MDFCs have no naming convention linking the two sides, but I don’t think that’s important. It’s two cards with very thematic effects. The first is great for going wide and smashing face, and the second is great for shrinking your opponents board. Though, weirdly, they play out pretty similarly I think. Since you’re only giving indestructible, not trample or vigilance or lifelink, an all out attack isn’t going to get much damage through, just force your opponent to chump a bitm removing about as many creatures as the other half. I think MDFCs work best when the two sides are used in entirely different situations, and I think these overlap maybe just a bit too much. If the first side were a little more aggressive, providing either a way to finish out the game or get in a relatively free attack, that might help make it stand out more. As is I actually think this card is pretty good, just could be a bit better. Do or Die is an old card, and I think it’s fine at 4 mana when it’s got another option, and a board pump is always going to be at least a little playable. So yeah, quite good, but some room for improvement.

~

And there are your runners-up! Good job! I’ll have the commentary up shortly, hopefully.

- Mod Mr. ShinyObject

[4ragon]

Can't speak for anyone else but I for one would love an incoherent rant about the dark age of the law plotline

Alright buckle up kiddos.

So I have a lot of complaints with Dual Destinies as a whole. It’s a poorly paced mess, the final confrontation was deeply underwhelming, it has all these weird “Gotcha” moments where they put in the most bizarre, logic breaking plot twists and then undo them within ten minutes completely for shock value. And yet, despite all of these issues, there is nothing in this world that pisses me off more than the words “The Dark Age of the Law.”

I hate the Dark Age of the Law subplot more than literally any other thing in Ace Attorney. It is a complete failure of a story in literally every possible way. It not only doesn’t work within the context of Dual Destinies, it also completely flies in the face of everything we understand about the original trilogy! It!!!! Sucks!!!!

But no. That was too coherent. I think we should break this down.

First I’m going to start on a macro level. The Dark Age of the Law is the clearest indication to me that the writers of Dual Destinies never played another Ace Attorney game. They treat this Dark Age of the Law thing like this big bad, this shiny new toy, this never before seen wonder, but??? Corruption has been a CENTRAL part of every single AA game since game one!! Since case 2 even!!!

The Dark Age of the Law is this whole idea that people have lost their trust in the court system. And what do they site as the catalyst for this breaking of trust? Phoenix Wright’s disbarment and Simon Blackquill’s arrest.

And okay. Phoenix Wright’s disbarment is a reasonable one. Phoenix was sort of known for being this paragon of truth and justice, this man willing to do what it took to find the truth and protect people in need. His name being smeared through the mud could very well shake up the foundations of trust that the people had in the court system.

But Simon Blackquill? Simon FUCKING Blackquill shook up people’s faith in the court system?? Simon Blackquill is the reason that people are convinced that the entire system is full of lies and deceit? SIMON CONFESSED!! He didn’t even do anything corrupt!! He murdered a woman, sure, but he then immediately lets everyone know “Yes, I super did this murder. No one else.” And they treat it like it’s this big turning point??

LANA SKYE!! You guys remember Lana Skye? The Chief Prosecutor at the time, who was accused of murder, and who still went to prison for doing like a million other crimes after being blackmailed by the chief of police.

SPEAKING OF WHICH the fucking CHIEF OF POLICE was a murderous monster who blackmailed people and also murdered. Did that have no effect on people’s trust in the courts?

Manfred von Karma? Never lost a case in 40 years, literally everyone talked about how he and Miles were KNOWN to be corrupt? Also, you know, murdered a man in cold blood?

Blaise Debeste??? Chairman of the fucking ETHICS BOARD???????? Like!!! That’s some deep fucking corruption right there!!!! And he constantly talks about the mysterious disappearances around him of people who disagreed with him, does that not shake your faith?!

In Turnabout Sisters, as early as case 1-2, Redd White calls up the Chief Prosecutor (who also is not Lana, just to be clear) and demands his complicitness in covering up his own crimes. That’s how central corruption is to the entirety of Ace Attorney.

And you’re going to look me in the fucking EYES and tell me Simon Blackquill, some 21 year old nobody with no power or influence, who theoretically stabbed a woman and made no effort to cover that up, is the reason the courts have lost the faith of the people? You have the NERVE??? the AUDACITY??? the fucking GALL????? to tell me that SIMON is what caused this? The system was never trustworthy, and if it was, what the FUCK did Simon have to do with changing that???

Horrible. Terrible. Disgusting.

BUT

Let’s pretend for a moment that Dual Destinies existed in a vacuum. First Ace Attorney game you’ve ever played. Never touched another one in your life. If you were unfamiliar with the world that Ace Attorney has already spent six games establishing, does the Dark Age of the Law subplot hold up?

No. No it doesn’t.

So as I’ve said a million times before, it was clear that Dual Destinies should not have tried to juggle three protagonists. It just didn’t work. They learned their lesson and booted Athena out of that protagonist title in SoJ, and as much as I hated that decision, it was at least a much stronger overarching story for it.

Now. There were three main throughlines in Dual Destinies. Athena’s story centered on introducing her, of course, but it also was about her struggle to save a friend who needed saving from the law and also himself. It was very AA1 in that way.

Apollo’s story was a little harder to outline, because a lot of it is saved for the last couple of cases, but it’s really about his relationship with Athena. Coming to trust her, his trust in her being shaken, struggling to overcome that, grief, loss, yadda yadda, and I have my criticisms of how it’s handled, but that’s the gist of it.

And Phoenix needed a story. So they made up this stupid fucking bullshit garbage and dumped it in his lap and said “Here you go, best friend! Our dear money maker! This is what you’re working with!” And then they proceeded to use it to beat the shit out of Phoenix until he started spitting out dollar bills.

Okay no sorry I have no idea what the fuck I just said but liSTEN

The Dark Age of the Law storyline was clearly supposed to have some significant thematic relevance to the story, given how hard they were hammering it into us in case three. It was supposed to mean something, and I think it was supposed to mean something to Phoenix in particular. After all, he and Miles won’t stop TALKING ABOUT IT GOD MAKE THEM SHUT UP

The Dark Age of the Law subplot had nothing to do with that final case. Remove it, and nothing changes, because, again, Simon had nothing to do with the corruption in the first place, and the Phantom certainly had nothing to do with corruption. It’s so surface level. “Uh oh, people don’t like the courts. If you can solve this unrelated crime, everything will be fixed.” And then he does (also Athena should’ve been the one to win the case, but that’s a different problem) and nothing ever comes of it, other than “Hooray, you fixed the corruption!” He didn’t??? Miles what the fuck are you talking about????

If they had woven in the corruption throughout the story somehow, maybe it would’ve found some way to be impactful? But it was a floundering, half-thought-out subplot in an already bloated game that failed to give any meaning or help anyone develop as a character. Hell, it kept falling out of relevancy and only popped in to rear its head when the writers remembered it existed and decided to have yet another person remind us that THIS IS IMPORTANT GUYS NO REALLY.

Like! Okay. What if they tied it more to AA4? I mean Phoenix’s disbarment and subsequent return could’ve actually affected the plot. Have people actively mistrust Phoenix or something. Or maybe have it affect anyone in any way. Sure it divides the fucking high schoolers for that mess of a “power of friendship” storyline, but so could a plot about, I don’t know, electing a homecoming queen or something. It affected Athena for one case, but what did that even teach her other than “Trust your gut, sweetie, don’t do lawyer crimes!” Phoenix didn’t have an arc in this game, and he shouldn’t have had to, unless it was coming to grips with the fact that he was never going to get those 7 years of his life back and the smears against his character were always going to linger. But they didn’t do that, they just needed him in there for brand recognition.

I can handle a lot of bullshit in these bullshit lawyer games. That’s part of the appeal. But unlike most of the other bullshit, this particular threat was unsatisfying, meandering, and unnecessary.

[chalkrevelations]

So, Episode 7 of Word of Honor, and where to start? No, I’m kidding, I know exactly where I’m starting, which is with some recognition of what a great job this show does of developing 98 percent of its multitude of characters, because the first two things I’m going talk about this week aren’t even Zhou Zishu, Wen Kexing OR Wen Kexing’s thirst (AKA, the three main characters of the show).

Well, I guess I’m really starting with the usual warning – this is a re-watch and so there are SPOILERS here, not only for this episode, but for most of the show. Scroll away and come back later if you’re trying to watch all 36.5 eps unspoiled.

SO, I mean, come on. Of course I’m starting with the Smartest Man in the World, who has finally shown up in this episode, and I’m reminded once again what an actual cinnamon roll, too good for this world, Cao Weining is. He’s maybe the single completely good character we meet  – even Chengling wants to burn down somebody’s house at one point because he’s mad. But Cao Weining is almost too good to be true – and yet, there he is! Living his best life, being good, eating good, falling in love, and refusing to let his beautiful, clever, fierce girl’s neuroses come between them. I love him, y’all. And not just because he instantly falls in love with A-Xiang when he happens to see her beat up a bunch of drunk bro assholes in the inn where he’s having a quiet little lunch by himself before she storms into his life like a purple whirlwind. But let’s do think about this from his perspective, yeah? And let’s remember it as we watch the progression of their relationship, as we wait for the revelation we know is coming, and as – many eps down the line – he learns the truth of her. Cao Weining’s first experience of A-Xiang is someone who’s brave and capable, who defies outsized odds to come to the rescue of those in need, who doesn’t allow women and girls to be abused, who expects proper behavior from the representatives of the jianghu, and who is absolutely fearless in demanding just treatment and never even thinks to be intimidated when she faces unfair censure from an authority figure. This is the girl WKX raised, y’all. This is a girl who embodies everything Cao Weining has been taught to believe in as a cultivator. And this is the girl Cao Weining sees every time he looks at A-Xiang. Maybe, just maybe, this is the truth of her, and Cao-dage sees and understands it from the very first time he spots her, and anything else he’ll learn about her is really extraneous. (Hmm. I wonder what other relationship we’ll eventually end up seeing that kind of dynamic in, where someone truly knows you and believes in you, so everything else is unimportant?) Also, Cao Weining tells A-Xiang she’s very beautiful, and how many people do you think have ever told her that before in her life? He asks why he would want to fight and hurt her, and how many people – particularly men, given where she grew up – have ever told her that before? He buys her lunch – twice, because the first round gets cold. Remember a few episodes back, when WKX asked her who the second cutest person in the world was, and she responded that it was someone who would buy her a meal? Well, here he is. For bonus points, it is hilarious how badly WKX responds to Cao Weining’s very existence after ZZS points out the pair of them having a toast at the same inn that WKX and ZZS have stopped in WKX has dogged ZZS’s footsteps into. Poor Cao Weining doesn’t even get the shovel talk – although to be fair, he doesn’t get the full-court Ghost Valley Master press, either, so WKX must have been holding back somewhat – he just gets told to get out, before WKX grabs A-Xiang by the ear and delivers some scathing commentary on her taste in men, like he didn’t immediately fall for some rando who was tits out, drinking himself to death in the gutter.

ANYWAY, from the Smartest Man in the World, we’re going to move to Han Ying, My Beloved, who we see interacting with the Five Lakes Alliance again, this time in the person of Gao Chong, leader of Yueyang Sect and host of the upcoming Heroes Conference, da-ge of the 5LA. I had honestly forgotten we got to see so much of Han Ying this early on. What strikes me here is that this is a guy who I actually could believe is the second-in-command of Tian Chuang at what is it? 21 years old? When he’s doing his job, and ZZS is nowhere around for him to make pining puppy-dog eyes at, he’s focused and determined and a bit forceful and somewhat threatening and, frankly, appropriately arrogant for the job he’s been sent to do. He’s also wearing a cloak with a mini-Collar of Evil. He comes off as, dare I say, a capable leader of an assassin organization and a guy who’s able to do a proxy flex for his boss without looking completely ridiculous - which puts him one up on Duang Pengju, omg that asshole, and also makes me feel a little better about how I want ZZS to wreck him (or I guess, technically, him to wreck ZZS, because I’ve never seen a character (except Marcus Flavius Aquila, THANK YOU for your service, Channing Tatum) who put off such subby service-top vibes. WHY is there not more Han Ying/ZZS on AO3, fandom? I thought better … worse? … better? … of you.) When Gao Chong claims the Glazed Armor is a myth, Han Ying basically calls this older, respected zongzhu a liar and gets up in his face before refusing a dinner invitation and sweeping out in his mini-Collar of Evil with a credible “PAH.” My boy has layers, y’all.

What else? We start out the ep at Luo Mansion, a wedding scene, and I’m struck by how the Ghost Valley colors match traditional wedding colors, here. I’m thinking about how A-Xiang’s wedding dress won’t be red (and I think green was more common during the Tang dynasty?) although all the decorations will be, and I’m thinking about how we have this wedding as a book-end to that wedding, and I’m thinking about how it’s interesting that a girl who was raised in the Ghost Valley and protected by the Department of the Unfaithful meets a man who’s going to be so faithful to her in the same episode as this wedding with/of the dead. Ghoul, who’s one of the attendees from the Ghost Valley, also remarks that the red makes him hungry, so there’s a meat reference to throw into the thematic basket, I guess. (Also, hey. Ghoul is played by the same guy who’s Sun Yongren in Killer & Healer.) Lovelace (ugh) briefly menaces one of the Department handmaidens before Luo Fumeng shows up, and I think she’s Yun Zai or Hong Lu, one of the two maids that A-Xiang rescued from him, although I’m not positive, because her hairstyle is so different and hides a lot of her face, here. So, we’re all attending the “wedding” of Mu Yunge, the apparent fuckboy who got got a couple of episodes ago as bait for Ao Laizi when Changing Ghost got his hands (briefly) on the Danyang Glazed Armor. We did see a brief scene with Yunge in the last ep, when he woke up tied up in bed, being menaced by someone who appeared to be his dead lover – who hanged herself while pregnant with their child – but turned out to be Beauty Ghost using a face-masking technique similar to ZZS’s disguises. In the interim, Ghost Valley has kidnapped 10 cultivators as his wedding party, and – this is the important plot point – that includes Deng Kuan, head disciple of Yueyang Sect. We get to see some of Beauty Ghost’s ruthlessness here, as she carries in the dead woman’s memorial tablet draped in a red cloth – how’s that for some foreshadowing (my f’kn HEART) – to set it down in the “bride’s” place before Yunge is forced to bow three times. (Dead girlfriend was a Mo from Broken Arrow Manor, and I … am not sure if that is significant or not. Is she possibly related to Mo Huaiyang? Does anyone know which sect is associated with Broken Arrow Manor?) Beauty Ghost also kills two of the 10 “guest” cultivators for talking without permission as she explains the next event to them – cage match. Only one of them gets to get out alive. Deng Kuan, the best of them, apparently, pleads with everyone to not let themselves be divided, but we can all guess how this is going to go. I guess maybe he’s the other completely good character we meet, but he sure is a punching bag. He ends up the last man, sort of, standing, as he kills the final other person in self-defense, but not before getting stabbed, and he goes down and is out for the count.

Meanwhile, cut to Zhao Jing and Shen Shen drinking and gossiping at an inn on the way to Yueyang. Shenshen – Shenshen – continues to bemoan Chengling’s uselessness, and also talks about the torture the other Zhang family members underwent just in time for Chengling to overhear in the hallway, so thanks a lot for even more trauma, Shenshen. Zhao Jing is so sad about it all, y’all. He’s just so very very sad, can we just stop talking about it, Shenshen, because you’re making him sad, and he’s just going to let Da-ge figure it all out, OK? Uh-huh.

Fourth plot thread of the episode is ZZS skulking around, following Chengling, trying to convince himself that this kid is safe now that he’s turned himself in to gone to live with the 5LA, even as ZZS spots Tian Chuang spies in the ranks of the Yueyang disciples and among the dumpling vendors on the streets outside. ZZS follows the dumpling vendor, gives him a code phrase and almost gets his head taken off by a Scorpion blade for his trouble, before stabbing Dumpling Man in response. WKX picks this exact moment to wander back into ZZS’s orbit, taking the chance to flirt as Dumpling Man spits up blood and dies in the alleyway, because of course he does. WKX tsks, accuses ZZS of being cruel, and quotes some poetry about fair faces and poisonous hearts, which - like all of his poetry - has a double meaning, because which of them is he really talking about, ZZS or himself? ZZS notes that WKX is openly wearing the (Danyang) Glazed Armor because of course he’s looking for trouble, but WKX loosens his stays and clutches his pearls and replies that he couldn’t possibly be looking for trouble – him? Philanthropist Wen? He’s not a merciless killer like ZZS. Whereupon ZZS finally says out loud what he’s been clearly thinking since he started going on about what an awful person he is in the LAST EPISODE, which is why the hell don’t you stop following me around, then? There’s some more flirting, and WKX continues to follow ZZS around, and ZZS takes note that WKX is obviously flaunting the Glazed Armor out in the open, and then there’s a little sleight of hand when Famous Pickpocket Fan Bu Zhi, oh noes! Steals WKX’s Glazed Armor right off his belt when he isn’t even looking! before WKX continues to follow ZZS around, conveniently into the same inn where Cao Weining and A-Xiang are having lunch. After WKX attempts to chase him away, we discover Cao Weining has had his wallet stolen. WKX deploys his Sadness Eyebrows to convince ZZS to turn over his wallet to pay for Cao Weining’s and A-Xiang’s lunch. ZZS – who does an admirable job of refusing for a bit – finally caves, and WKX orders lunch for everyone, on ZZS. Now all we need is Chengling, because the fam is not complete without Goldbean.