#like that's kind of inherently going to be a theme because everyone has betrayed each other and done horrible things

[allsassnoclass]

yes good hello!!! may i know about 7, 10, 11, 13, and 25! and i love you sm :) xoxo

@clumsyclifford hi bella! thanks for asking love you too <3

7. What’s a topic you would like to explore? truth and trust! and the intersection of those two! and how to trust someone who isn't truthful and how to tell the truth to someone you don't know if you trust and how to trust someone again when you thought you knew the true them and have been proven wrong.

10. Do you always have a clear image before starting a piece? usually kind of! for fics, i have a general vision and it becomes and increasingly and increasingly clear. i usually know the beginning and the end for sure, with a few touchstone moments in the middle. for moodboards i have a pretty clear image, which can be an issue when i can't find the pictures i want and am not sure how to pivot. all of my moodboards end up looking very different from what i intially envision lol

11. What part of the process of creating brings you the most joy? probably brainstorming tbh! letting plots or ideas come to me and figuring out what's happening and getting to the point where i feel confident enough to start. it also kind of stresses me out because i have so many ideas, but i really like creating worlds and coming up with stories or envisioning moodboards.

13. Is there something you’d like to see created but you know you can’t/won’t do yourself? short answer: no <3 if i can envision something enough to want it, i envision it enough to want to make it myself. i always most enjoy other people's creations when it's something i myself would've never thought of or been able to visualize, such as megs's faking the moon landing fic. i never would've come up with that idea myself, so i enjoy reading it so much more! same with all of my moodboard ideas, with the exception of some moodboards for my fics (like the black coffee and sulfur one that maya made <3) because for my own fics i sometimes draw a huge blank on what should go in a mb, which doesn't typically happen when making a mb for someone else's fic or for my pairings as albums series. if i have an idea for something, i typically want to make it myself rather than have someone else make it

25. Tell us a little known fact about something you’ve made uhhhhhhhhhhh omg. what am i going to say. what have i made that i haven't talked extensively about. OH! in pas de deux harry styles was originally supposed to be a character. i had a scene where michael called him on the phone. they were exes. they danced together at abt. however i wrote him out lol he isn't mentioned in the fic anymore. it just didn't fit.

[wedreamedlove]

Xu Mo vs. Mo Yi [Character Study]

I can never get over the aesthetic of these two pictures placed side by side LOL. But, anyway, the point of this post is to nip any undue comparisons in the bud and claims of copying organize my thoughts and compare these two characters to highlight their similarities, differences, and further explore each character through these contrasts.

Q) If you like Xu Mo, would you like Mo Yi?

Honestly, I think this depends on what you like most about Xu Mo. I already knew beforehand that I gravitate towards characters who think 5 steps ahead, are predominantly logical, and scholars/gentlemen, so it’s not surprising I bias both Xu Mo and Mo Yi.

However, as I got to know Mo Yi further (Themis is around 6 months old now), I find that he’s distinctively different from Xu Mo on three crucial points that’ll determine whether people from either camp will like the other character.

1) Stance on Others

In a post for Xu Mo, “Into Your World”, I argued that Xu Mo is an alienated genius who had troubles getting along with others, until he mastered the social game as an adult. However, you can still see glimpses of this as he tries to understand MC’s world and shares his own.

To be fair, Mo Yi’s past is still under wraps but I feel confident in saying that, while he was probably highly intelligent compared to his peers [SR Sculpted Heart], his isolation doesn’t seem to come from his innate nature but rather his social position (there’s heavy implications that he’s like some sort of noble or something) [SR Snowy Pine Fairytale].

IMO, these backgrounds really shaped the way these two men interact with the world.

Xu Mo has a detached and indifferent view towards other people. They simply exist and don’t bring anything positive or negative to him. His ambition to ensure the survival of humanity reflects this too because it’s pure utilitarianism; everyone (apart from MC) can be sacrificed equally for the greater good. If anything, he probably finds other people to be interesting subjects to study, no matter what kind of person they are. IIRC the only time he expressed dislike to people, or a group of people, was when he told Hades he enjoyed killing thieves LOL.

Meanwhile, Mo Yi has an elitist streak to the point where he and his MC actually clashed opinions and debated each other [SR Warm Fingertips]. It’s incredibly ironic because he’s a psychiatrist who treats his patients without judgment, but at the same time he looks down on so many things and people (PUAs, people who betray love, hypocrites who only seek power and fame) [Ch2; Personal Story Ch1-3; SSR Moonlit Ball].

One of the things I noticed early on is that Xu Mo draws from the Eastern scholar archetype, “Xu Mo Character Study”, while Mo Yi actually draws more from the Western gentleman archetype.

So, just to summarize this section, Xu Mo is detached from the world naturally and likes to observe people and try to blend in. Mo Yi deliberately draws a line between him and others and, at times, has the casual cruelty of someone born as nobility (arrogance is carved into his bones, even if he tends to keep it low-key because he generally has a “gentle and polite” attitude).

2) Stance on Love

Xu Mo didn’t understand love, or really even emotions. Love is grown between him and his MC (there’s multiple analogies throughout the game about how their love is like a seed). I think [Ch25] pretty much sums it up for Xu Mo, where he goes through that emotional rollercoaster and muses about how, at the end of human evolution, emotions should be discarded. He also admits that MC taught him the “fear” of a normal person, because now he has someone he cannot give up no matter what, which goes against his previous utilitarian beliefs.

Compared to this, Mo Yi fell in love at first sight. Yes, you read that right. The “scientist and logical” archetype fell in love at first sight LOL. Not only does he acknowledge it right off the bat, but he fully embraces it too and believes that real love makes people better versions of themselves [Personal Story]. Mo Yi is a through and through psychiatrist in that he never underestimates how primal emotions (and love) can be.

Heck, not only is this central to his personal story, but we also have hints that one of Mo Yi’s parents fell in love at first sight with the other person (and he inherited their predisposition for that). Unfortunately, their love had a tragic end and Mo Yi seems to have a huge grudge against his father for whatever happened to his mother (again, Mihoyo is keeping this a mystery LOL), but Mo Yi explicitly confirms that even if his love leads to a tragic end he will still walk down this road and attempt to change it [SR Cool Summer].

IMO one other difference between them re: love is this exchange that lives rent free in my head which I saw in a Xu Mo/Reader/Mo Yi fanfiction LOL. Bear with me here.

Mo Yi: Wearing a mask for a long time will tire you.

Xu Mo: It’s enough just to wear one in front of the necessary person.

Xu Mo and his MC make great efforts to understand each other’s worlds, but this understanding comes from the doors he chooses to open to her. He reveals himself as much as possible, but I think he’s an inherently private person (and there’s all that Ares stuff) so there are times where he hides things so that he doesn’t worry his MC. I think this is enough to count as a “mask”. Sometimes he pretends he’s okay when he’s not.

On the other hand, while I think Mo Yi shares the sentiment in not wanting his MC to worry unduly, he tries to reveal himself as much as possible. There’s an amazingly relatable conflict in him here where he wants her to know every side of him, but he’s also terrified of how she’ll react if he shows her his ugliest sides and imperfect sides (he has some sort of phobia or fear about imperfection, but Mihoyo has been keeping mum on the exact details of this so far) [Personal Story; SR Sculpted Heart].

It’s pretty ironic that Mo Yi wants to be perfect, but he realizes that the more perfect he is the more of a sense of distance there’ll be between him and his MC because of the subconscious pressure someone “perfect” brings LOL [SSR Border of Light and Darkness].

3) Stance on Growth

If you haven’t realized that one of Xu Mo’s greatest themes is the phrase “Take your time in growing”, then what have you been reading? Jkjk, but seriously this gets repeated in multiple places, although my brain always goes back to [Blossom Date] for this.

Even if he and his MC start off with fundamental differences (she believes all people have inherent worth and can’t be involuntarily sacrificed), he wants to personally watch the journey of her maturation. He also subtly guides and teaches her. Unfortunately, due to circumstances of the main story, he doesn’t get his wish and she grows up a lot out of his eyes, but their relationship still revolves around him wanting her to have as much time as possible to grow.

He’s, for a lack of better word, extremely gentle about this (setting aside as much of the Ares and story parts as we can, because LovePro’s story is tragedy on tragedy LOL). I think [Autumn Blaze Date] shows a good analogy for this, because he holds the bicycle steady for MC until she can get going on her own, and he also catches her the first time.

Meanwhile, Mo Yi... ha ha ha. I just came out of chapter 3 for his [Personal Story] and let’s just say his philosophy is tough love. It’s ironic because, in many of his other dates, he wrestles with an internal conflict to protect his MC but also to let her experience all sorts of things to both test and temper her.

This is going to touch on the previous topic about love for a moment, but a part of Mo Yi’s love at first sight experience is also “testing” the other person through all sorts of situations and, after seeing all their different sides, he can determine whether his love at first sight is one that’ll last for the rest of his life or if it’s just a fleeting moment of beauty and emotion.

He also extremely respects his MC’s sense of justice and pursuit of the truth in the world, no matter what she encounters, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is what drew him to her in the first place. But MC’s occupation and beliefs will make her confront a lot of dark and dangerous things and so, whenever possible, Mo Yi lets her confront these in “controlled” situations to train her. If I had to make an analogy, IMO, he’d let his MC ride the bicycle and pick her up only after she falls, or when she’s like 0.1cm away from the ground LOL.

Mo Yi is (perhaps rightfully) called out on this by another character, who believes Mo Yi is too arrogant in believing everything is under his control and he can prevent MC from getting hurt whenever he lets her get into dangerous situations, and I’m interested to see if Mihoyo will let him experience failures with his philosophy so he can grow more, like the things Xu Mo went through re: his personal beliefs [Ch24].

Overall

I don’t know how well I explained myself, especially for people who don’t know anything about Mo Yi, and each section goes back and forth between the two characters LOL so here’s another section that attempts to describe their overall atmosphere.

If, like I said in my Headcanon Notes, Xu Mo makes me immediately think of all the words for soft, gentle, light, still, water, etc etc., then the words I constantly think about for Mo Yi is messily human. He’s like a bundle of contradictions, but coherent because it’s being intentionally done.

Mo Yi doesn’t discriminate against his patients, yet he can be elitist and looks down on others. He wants to let MC have dangerous experiences, but also wants to protect her. He wants to be perfect, but he also wants to reveal himself entirely to his MC because that’s real love.

In contrast, Xu Mo has a very clean and orderly personality LOL. You can draw clear cause and effect lines from his personality to his actions.

So, anyway, these are two interesting characters who start off with similar archetypes as scientific logical men of scholar/gentleman dispositions, but yet they’re also on opposite ends for a lot of things such as their approach to emotions and the world.

Oh wait, lastly, because I don’t have a good place to put this—but I think it’s funny—is that both characters are pretty possessive and greedy, but while Xu Mo does things in a sneaky, cunning and fox-like way Mo Yi gets ridiculously open about his jealousy and it’s hilariously cute but also almost childish? I often forget Mo Yi is older than Xu Mo by a year, because Xu Mo honestly feels a bit more mature than him LOL. If we count them actually aging by when their game came out though, then Mo Yi is 28 and Xu Mo is 29 now.

[lunarfly]

Hermione as Harry's Light (by Evaluna)

Hello! This is an essay written many years ago, before the release of HBP&DH. It doesn't belong to me so credits to the original writers(Evaluna, Turambar & Mad-I Moody)! It was written on the CoS forum, I'm not sure if it's still saved there but I have a word document with all of the essays. Anyways, this essay has no ship/character bashing. Again, this essay isn't written by me, but it's one of my favorites. Enjoy!

Quote by Mad-I Moody:

"1."Ron's mum's lit a fire in there [Harry's bedroom] and she's sent up sandwiches." -Hermione couldn't know that if she had immediately dashed up to Harry.

2. "Ron and Ginny say that you've been hiding from everyone since you got back from St. Mungo's." - She's obviously talked to them about this at some point between their arrival back from the hospital and her arrival at 12GP.

3. "The others have told me what you overheard last night on the Extendable Ears."

-Does this indicate that she's had time to talk to the other members of the Weasley clan? Sources point to yes!

Now, isn't it sensible to assume that, in the instances wherein Hermione talked to the Weasley family, she was, at least, thoughtful enough to ask about Mr. Weasley?

Saying Hermione came only to be with Harry cannot be true therefore, because:

1. She doesn't go to see him the MOMENT she comes through the door

2. She gets Harry right out of the sulking room and takes him into a room with Ron and Ginny, with whom she has quite obviously been talking.

3. There is no indication that she wants to be alone with Harry"

Mad-I: Disagree. Not just from a textual analysis standpoint; there we have each our own interpretation. My strongest disagreement comes from what I see as a critical ‘septology’ issue [overarching theme of all 7 books]: Harry overcoming his own internal darkness [despair, hopelessness, isolation] before able to wage and win [or overcome] the external darkness [Voldy, evil, fear, hatred and division]. See below post. IMO the Hermione as Lifeline or Light for Harry scene is representative of what Harry must confront and for what he must stand and fight:

--darkness and the battle of good over evil,

--despair [depression] and the battle of love over [here, self-] hatred,

--isolation and limitation [e.g., Harry imposes on himself a prison for his mind], and the battle of love as emanation over barriers, constraints, and perceptions

It begins with himself. And IMO it doesn’t end. But anyway, it progresses from there to encompass the world. On his own, this scene shows that Harry is vulnerable in that he needs a source of love [for himself] to sustain him; only then can Harry be a source of love [for the world] in his [upcoming and perhaps ongoing] battle with darkness. Harry needs love in this regard perhaps more than anyone else in the world, and yet he’s had very little of it, with Sirius mostly kept apart from Harry. Except for Hermione, who has always been there for Harry? With Hermione’s return, once more for Harry there is connection and hope, and the belief in unlimited horizons and potential - some would call it faith -- when with Hermione. For ship and for series, IMO, I believe that Harry’s ability to acknowledge his need for love [for me, this means for Hermione] is the first step on his path to the light.

What the scene does imply is that Hermione’s conversation with Ron and Ginny and the others’ [may include Fred and George as well] was extremely brief and in the majority focused firmly on Harry. So brief in span that the snow had not yet melted even after climbing the stairs and so focused on Harry and his situation that Hermione had the grasp on all the main details already when she first pounded on the door. This is a young woman on a *mission*. A mission to save Harry. Hermione reaches Harry and saves him from himself, from his dark side, from his own personal hell. I personally think this is one of the most critical scenes in the book for Harry and his battle for good over evil, probably the most important one. The battle is within as well as without, and Hermione is the bringer of light to balance his darkness, to bring balance to his soul AK and Earendil:[thanks for SF ref!] a soul is a universe in and of itself <kabbalah, so one could say Hermione is bringing balance to the universe, in this sense]. Some may say it is not romantic..er…well…to each. But it can certainly be argued that the light and dark imagery, in bringing light from darkness, in the balance they provide one another, in the give and take [in interactions, in providing insight [in this scene=hers/giving love to him through her actions when she comes] or providing courage [in this scene=his/accepting her love through his actions when he follows] between them are the yin and yang that represent in both religious and esoteric texts the love on many levels required for spiritual completion of the marriage of two [bodies and souls] as one, separate but together [again, see the smoky caduceus-like vision that Dumbledore views after Harry’s vision prior to their arrival at number 12, which is followed shortly thereafter by the arrival of Hermione.

With this, one can make a case for striking symbolic romantic and platonic love imagery simultaneously, as well, in terms of a soulmate love that is “complete” on an esoteric level, a bonding of body and soul, the material and spiritual. I see no inherent contradiction, probably because I’m not an ancient Greek philosopher named Aristotle. [‘What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies’. --Aristotle] The difference being that we in our day can allow for this kind of soulmate love

between a man and a woman, as well, and that we can allow love to exist on many different levels between a man and a woman, not just Eros or what the Greeks narrowly defined as romantic love. The esoteric concepts of a true bonding of souls between a man and woman did of course contain all of these forms of love, sealed with emotional, physical, and contractual public commitments intended to represent the bonding of two souls as one before God and heaven. IMO how can this scene not be important for Harry, particularly as we all know that love is critical to overcoming all that Voldy is and represents? And whatever type you feel exists them between them, IMO there is deep love. So in fact I think this can be argued strongly as a H/Hr scene. For those who disagree, nonetheless it’s all-good since a deep soul love exists regardless if it is ‘very’ platonic. This is, after all, just a hair’s breadth from ‘total consciousness’.

One more point I mentioned before that I want to bring up in context of reinforcing Hermione’s critical position as Harry’s Light, Lifeline, or Savior. Arguably, since Hermione is key to bringing Harry back from the edge [regardless of what comes later], IMO the larger symbolism is that Hermione is “the one” who will always save Harry from his greatest enemy - himself, his dark side. After that, and only after that, can Harry save the world. She will help him choose light [represented by…Hermione] over darkness [his own despair and hopelessness, his feelings of being unclean and unworthy]. Even I can see some traditional religious symbolism here, but there’s much esoteric symbolism as well. Nonetheless, Ron’s gift of…what, frankincense and myth? Is that why the perfume smelled unusual?... Ron’s gift only seemed to highlight his deeper, intuitive understanding [at some level] of Hermione’s fundamental importance to Harry. Yin and Yang. Inexorably intertwined - just thought I’d throw that in here as well! And for what purpose would Ron is shown as gifting her with such symbolic honor if not to perhaps choose to give his life for hers, thereby saving Harry’s light and thus saving them all. Particularly, if Ron betrays or obstructs Harry and Hermione [this may happen if Ron is rejected by Hermione or “loses” her to Harry, per 6th step scene, falling away from the path to Hermione's door], then Ron may sacrifice himself [from betrayal guilt] to save Harry and/or Hermione [same scene, where Ron falls at Harry's feet] thus restoring his character and his legacy in addition to doing his critical bit to save Hermione &/or Harry [=the world].

(Turambar) I agree that the Christmas scene is one of the most significant in the book.

Just on what you said about the light/dark: it's interesting that JKR accentuates the extremities in various ways to bring out that contrast.

She uses biblical language - appropriate considering the timing - such as "unclean" and "possession" to describe Harry's self-disgust. His feelings of being unfit to be in the company of others brings another biblical image of the leper.

He completely isolates himself for a period rather than just behaves in a moody/angry fashion in company. He's "starving", cold.

Hermione is not mentioned at all from the time of the dream to her knocking on his door - an obvious device to enhance the surprise and impact of her arrival.

There's the imagery of evil (snake) and love (hippogriff) and as I've said before that suspicious dream occurs just when Harry is at his lowest ebb.

I agree with what FP said: the sequence shows the limitations of his relationship with the Weasleys and Sirius and conversely the growing significance to him of Hermione.

Both times he's considered running away when in a depressed state - here and before the First Task - the option has been to run to the barren, loveless Dursleys. To the house that's not a home and the family that isn't a family (to him). Both times he's got through the bad patch with a bit of help from Hermione.

[fonulyn]

So my partner is amazing and let's me ramble about RE to them whenever I want to, and even sat down to watch Vendetta with me when I bought it, so the other day I was like explaining Leon and Chris' characters (bc my partner knows how much I love them both lmao so of course that's what I was talking about), and we have both come to the conclusion that Leon is a bisexual disaster, and Chris is a homosexual. The running joke is that Leon is also just generally a whore, out there living his best life, and Chris is the kind of gay guy who no one expects to be gay bc of stereotypes and his habit of never really talking about himself, but he also was never really in the closet about it, so he's surprised whenever people are surprised to learn that he's gay lolol but in all seriousness Leon is not only bisexual, but he's the type to fall in love easily despite all of his background and trauma related to betrayal, so his heart is almost continually broken, either bc he's betrayed or he loses whoever it is he's found himself in love with (and sometimes both i.e. Krauser, and Ada at the end of RE2), either through death or just leaving bc he knows he can't stay/can't be with whomever. As for Chris, maybe I'm reading into it wrong, but despite all of the like, romantic connotations they try to put into some of his games (which I don't. Really see? Like there was some in the first game with Jill but I just cannot see them together like that, neither seem interested in one another like that. And of course, Jessica, who I can't stand, and who Chris is supposedly totally oblivious to? Like she thinks he didn't notice her flirting in RE revelations, and Parker is like "is it that, or is he maybe interested in someone else?" And the assumption there is that he means Jill, but again, I don't see it? Even in that game! But that line of Parker's always makes me think "yeah, he's more than just interested in someone else, he's playing for a whole nother team entirely!" lmao. And I haven't seen much for 5 but I'm sure it's there between Chris and Sheva, and then for 6 from what I understand there really is hardly any talk of Chris in regards to any women at all? 8 has nothing, as well, and the DLC for 7 is just another "Chris loses his entire team in horrific fashion yet again" side plot, so nothing there either), he never seems interested. He's always focused on the task at hand, not letting emotions get in his way, and like, some could argue that that's why he doesn't show interest or why Capcom doesn't create more romantic lore around him, but if they really wanted to Make Sure he was straight and Make Sure everyone playing these games knew that, I imagine there would be some one line little hints in the games of him talking about how he can't let himself get distracted, or in his line of work there are no happy endings or what have you, but. There's none of that. Bc he isn't forcing himself not to be interested, he isn't purposefully focusing on saving the day so he doesn't have to get hurt knowing he can never have whichever high potential for a dope ass protag female character who's constantly sacrificing herself to save him bc what better purpose could they serve, right Capcom?, he's just. There, doing his job and trying to save whoever he can, not getting distracted in anyway whatsoever by any of the women in his life, romantically at least. He still cares way too much, but it never comes off as romantic to me in pretty much any way. Also the note he leaves in his STARS locker in RE2remake, Claire being like "this doesn't sound like Chris at all!" Is funny to me bc like, I don't really remember so correct me if I'm wrong, but she doesn't elaborate on WHY that note doesn't sound like Chris lmao is it bc he's respectful to women at all times and doesn't ever objectify them, probably hates when other people do? Or is it bc he would never be interested in women in this way ANYWAYS, the man is so gay, he must have left this note so that Claire would know something is Up, bc her brother is Such a homosexual.

Anyways sorry, I just wanted to ramble/get your opinion on this. Over-analysing RE is actually really fun lmao

haha not gonna lie, I opened your ask in the car on the grocery store parking lot and tried to read it on my phone, and gave up squinting at the small screen halfway through :'D now that I'm back at my laptop though, lol, all good :'D

first of all I'm happy you have someone to ramble to even though they aren't into the thing themselves! :D I regularly rant about RE fandom things to my brother haha and he listens patiently although he isn't in the fandom at all, he's only played the games and that's it. but he still listens to my shippy rambles lol.

as for your thoughts? makes sense to me tbh. I definitely headcanon Leon as a bisexual disaster most of the time, because it does seem fitting. maybe it's partly because I think he's absolutely breathtakingly stunning and it'd be a shame to deny anyone that, so, naturally he wouldn't care about such trivial things as gender, pfth, love is love.

also Leon falling in love easily? absolutely. too damn easily. c'mon this is a man who gets attached to anyone who shows him even the tiniest amount of basic kindness in the matter of minutes. he canonically forms attachments with Claire, Ada, Krauser, Helena, Buddy and JD (JD 😭)... whoever else am I forgetting? but this is the guy who meets someone and would die for them five seconds later. so. it tracks.

and you know what, I can 100% see Chris being only into men. because like. I don't see the romance there either when he's interacting with the women in his life? okay, sure, I could imagine something there between him and Jill if pressed seeing the way he so single-mindedly wants to save her and then holds her in the scene after they get that thing off her chest. maybe. but even there it doesn't really feel super romantic to me, personally.

in the first game with Jill there's not... a lot of romance I don't think? sure she falls asleep against his shoulder in the evac helicopter but i mean, i've fallen asleep against a friend like that? not an indication of romance? they're clearly important to each other! i am not trying to diminish their importance to one another at all! they'd die for each other and they'd do anything it takes to protect each other and i do think their relationship is compelling but... i don't really see anything inherently romantic in it.

and Jessica, yeah, Chris is 100% oblivious to her advances. it is implied in the game that he's into Jill instead but other than that there's again zero actual romantic interaction between Chris and Jill. I was actually talking about this with my brother, who said the same, like there were so many chances in Revelations to put something romantic in there between Chris and Jill but there just. isn't? anything? except for Parker's comment. which is why it felt so damn out of place? (and like my brother would've wanted to ship Chris and Jill, he was kinda bummed about this i feel :'D) so interpreting it to mean he's not interested in women at all would actually make more sense lmao.

as for RE5, I've played it twice (with my brother lmao do we see a theme here) and honestly I don't remember anything in the game that would've insinuated anything more than solid partnership between Chris and Sheva?? if someone who's more familiar with the game wants to correct me on this, then please! but at least off the bat I can not remember anything so I think they actually didn't try to even hint at romance for them?

and in RE6 Chris is way too focused on killing "Ada" to have any thoughts about anything else :'D so no. no mentions in there regarding him and any women. at all. not even hints of Jill which is so incredibly weird (and stupid tbh) bc she was made to be so important to him in RE5 and then doesn't even get a mention in RE6? (/shakes fist damn you capcom! the characters exist outside the games they're in!)

I think that's pretty much the main difference between Chris and Leon tbh. Chris sees the job at hand, and he knows it'll help, he knows it'll save people and it'll make the world safer and he's so single-mindedly focused on the job that he sees nothing else. while Leon sees people, for the better or for worse, and he is willing to take detours if it helps even one person in the meantime. like in RE6, Leon willingly ignores the task at hand to go help just about anyone. Chris doesn't want to pause even when pressed bc he has an end goal in mind.

and bear in mind, I am not trying to say this somehow makes Leon better or Chris better or anything. they're both doing this to help. they both have their heart in the right place. they both care. but they're just so different! their personalities, and their way of dealing with things is different! I feel Chris is really target oriented and wants to get the job done. while Leon's easily distracted from it, because of all the damn feelings :'D

but yeah. i love them both, and i think it's really damn fascinating how they're both the good guys, the heroes of the franchise, but they both take to things so differently.

i don't know if any of this makes sense, I think i rambled too :'D but hey-o, it was fun lmao.

and hey no need to apologize at all!! always feel free to shoot me a message if you wanna chat!

[mythia]

♊︎ 9 Great Gemini Characters in Anime ♊︎

Gemini characters in anime/manga are RARE, and Gemini characters that aren’t deluded, deviant, unhinged, or warped are even rarer (think Hisoka from Hunter x Hunter). Therefore, I compiled this list to bring some light to characters that are doing the Gemini name proud! None of these characters are without their own personal demons and struggles, but all of them, in my opinion, are redeemable, complex characters who exemplify the Gemini archetype. Note: This list is in no particular order, I love all these characters equally haha!

 1. Shouko Nishimiya from A Silent Voice | Koe no Katachi

June 7th

Shouko Picture Link

Shouko is a gentle, sweet, and overall kind soul who struggles to communicate and connect with other people because of her deafness. Despite the barriers she faces, more than anything she yearns to communicate and socialize with others and hopes to make friends. Because of this desire, in grade school she uses a journal to communicate through writing, and she often urges her classmates to write in her journal in order to talk to her. This is certainly fitting, because Gemini, being ruled by mercury, is all about communication—whether through body language, speech, or writing.

Shouko faces many hardships throughout the story—such as bullying, the worsening of her hearing, and her grandmother’s death—but through it all she smiles to mask her deep inner pain and to ease the minds of those she cares about. This reluctance to engage negative emotions, and desire to not trouble other people with one’s own emotions, is truly characteristic of Gemini energy.

Gemini energy is associated with the third house—the house of communication, short distance travel, and siblings—and as such, it’s no surprise that Shouko has an extremely close connection and relationship with her sister, Yuzuru.

2. Shoya Ishida from A Silent Voice | Koe no Katachi

June 6th

Shoya Picture Link

Shoya is a deeply troubled character who struggles to connect with other people because of his intense anxiety, self-loathing, and remorse over his past mistakes. His past consumes him, and the mistake that troubles him most is the fact that in elementary school, he bullied Shouko Nishimiya, a deaf classmate.  

In grade-school, Shoya was a social boy with many friends despite his propensity towards rash, reckless behavior. But things changed for him in sixth grade. Keenly observant, Shoya noticed the frustration of his friends and classmates that developed because of Shouko’s seemingly “special” treatment. Additionally, Shoya felt the dynamic in his friend group changing. In his immaturity, he blames these changes and his frustrations on Shouko, and begins to bully her as a result. Part of the tension between Shoya and Shouko was that Shoya could not understand Shouko or communicate with her. Above all, understanding and communication are central to Geminis, and so it’s no surprise that this lack of understanding is what leads to major tension between these two characters.

Shoya is shown to be an intelligent person; for example, when Yuzuro decided to give school a second chance, it’s Shoya she seeks out in order to tutor her. He is also shown to be a gentle person. For example, when it comes to his family, Shoya is shown to deeply care for his mother, sister, and niece—he works extremely hard to pay back his debt to his mother, and he is always gentle, kind, and attentive towards his little niece, Maria.

3. Mamushi Hojo from Blue Exorcist | Ao no Exorcist

June 4th

Mamushi Picture Link

With her textbook tsundere personality, Mamushi embodies the Gemini archetype of “the twins!” On the surface, Mamushi is aloof with an independent personality, however, underneath her cold social mask she has a deep affection for her family (especially her sisters), and her mentor, Todo. Also, later on in the series, her husband Juzo comments that she has a soft side to her personality, too. This extreme duality is quite characteristic of Gemini energy.

Unfortunately, it is her misplaced affection, loyalty, and trust towards the traitor Todo that leads to her betraying her family in the Impure King arc of the series. However, once she realizes her mistake, she is genuinely devastated and remorseful because she cares for her family and is devoted to her responsibilities to the temple and as an Exorcist.

Mamushi is a calm and studious person with a strong sense of loyalty and justice. Mamushi seems to experience some degree of anxiety when it comes to socializing, partly because she is a serious individual who prefers to keep to herself and her close friends. She seems to enjoy nature and the company of animals, and takes great care of her Nagas (snake demons), for which she has great affection.

4. Kōshi Sugawara  from Haikyu!!

June 13th

Suga Picture Link

Suga is a dependable pillar of support for the Karasuno volleball team and is known as “the indomitable setter” because of his enduring nature. Though Suga has a predominantly calm, gentle, and nurturing presence, when he gets impassioned he shows no qualms about yelling at his team from the sidelines or saying what’s on his mind. Suga also has a good sense of humour and enjoys teasing his teammates! Despite his calm demeanor, he has a prominent mischievous side, too; for example, he encourages Hinata to crash the Youth Camp and finds it hilarious that Hinata does indeed go ahead and attend uninvited. These noticeable dualities are definitely characteristic of Gemini energy!

Suga truly wants what is best for the team even though it means allowing Kageyama to be the team’s main setter without protest, despite the fact that Suga has seniority. Though he is often sidelined, Suga is an intelligent and observant player, who excels at detecting the mood and state of his team-mates. Further, he is good at coming up with new and clever game plays and tactics. He is also shown to be a studious individual who prioritizes studying.

5. Umetarou Nozaki from Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun | Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

June 6th

Nozaki Picture Link

Of all the Geminis on this list, no other better represents the Gemini archetype of “the storytelller” than Umetarou! He is a passionate mangaka who is wholly devoted to the art and craft of producing his shoujo manga, “Let’s Fall in Love.” Umetarou is an observant person who constantly looks for story ideas in his everyday life.There is a strong duality to Umetarou’s personality—underneath his serious demeanour, he has an incredibly imaginative and playful nature that  comes out when he tests possible story-lines for his manga out on his friends.

He is a gentle, social, and considerate person who goes to great lengths for his friends. When his assistants/friends gather at his apartment, he’s a thoughtful host who makes extra food for everyone, and he genuinely seems to enjoy sharing meals with other people and attending to guests. He even often lets his male friends stay overnight. He also allows his friend Mikorin to stash his suggestive manga, dating simulation video-games, and figurines at his apartment (talk about a good friend!). Also, Umetarou does his utmost to ensure Chiyo is happy—her distress is shown to greatly unnerve him. Umetarou is also close with his siblings despite living apart from them.

Though Umetarou is intelligent, he is emotionally dense. He doesn’t recognize that Chiyo has a crush on him even though her feelings are incredibly obvious. It’s unclear whether he TRULY doesn’t realize her feelings, or if he is only pretending to be oblivious because he is uncomfortable with his emotions and Chiyo’s emotions. Since he writes a manga about love, his discomfort with romance is pretty ironic! However, discomfort surrounding difficult emotions is quite characteristic of Gemini energy.

6. Mitsuri Kanroji from Demon Slayer | Kimetsu no Yaiba

June 1st

Mitsuri Picture Link

While all the characters on this list have an inherent caring, gentle nature that is characteristic of Gemini energy, Mitsuri takes it a step further! In the tarot, the card associated with Gemini energy from the major arcana is “the lovers.” This is certainly fitting, as she is the Hashira of love. On top of that, her goal is to find a partner who is stronger than she is to marry.

Mitsuri is passionate, sweet, and affectionate. She greatly admires her peers and compliments them nonstop in her own mind—though, her shyness prevents her from voicing these thoughts aloud. Additionally, Mitsuri’s being and personality embodies duality; though she has a gentle personality, she is a fearsome fighter with great agility and strength.

Like others on the list, when it comes to difficult emotions, Mitsuri becomes withdrawn. It’s clear that Obani Iguro is in love with her, yet she remains largely ignorant of his emotions. She also seems to experience some degree of anxiety and overthinking when it comes to expressing herself to her peers, and is most comfortable residing in her own world inside her mind.

7 & 8. Kaoru & Hikaru Hitachiin from Ouran High School Host Club | Ōran Kōkō Hosuto Kurabu

June 9th

Hitachiin Twins Picture Link

The mischievous and witty twins, Kaoru and Hikaru, certainly tap into the gemini archetypes of “the trickster” as well as “the twins.” As twins, the two have a deep sibling bond. Both are intelligent, witty, and curious.

They both have a great capability for affection, however, before joining the host club, Kaoru and Hikaru are shown to be somewhat aloof with everyone but each other, leading their peers to think they are simply stuck-up. The truth is that their distant, cold exteriors mask a deep turbulence and sadness within them that arises due to an inner isoation and loneliness that both of them carry. Identity is a key theme for the twins because other people cannot tell them apart. The failure of other people to recognize them as individuals brings both of them great inner sadness, but at each of their cores, they long for true connection and friendship with people other than each other.

Easily bored, these two enjoy playing jokes and tricks on their friends. They both have playful personalities, and don’t mean harm, but at times their playfulness moves beyond mischievous toward manipulative. Personality wise, Hikaru is more expressive, open, and emotionally immature than Kaoru, whereas Kaoru is more observant, reserved, and attuned to the emotions and expressions of other people than Hikaru.

9. Ryota Kise from Kuroko’s Basketball | Kuroko no Basuke

June 18th

Kise Picture Link

Of the “Generation of Miracles” characters, Kise is arguably the most gentle— next to Aquarius Kuroko, that is! Kise has a sweet and friendly personality with a bit of a competitive edge. Emotionally, Kise is quite expressive, even crying upon his first ever basketball loss.

Kise is extremely intelligent and observant. Additionally, he is an insanely fast learner. His “special talent” is the ability to see any basketball move once, analyze it, learn it, then execute it as if it were his own all along. This exceptional ability to mirror others’ and learn quickly certainly plays into the strengths of Gemini energy!

When it comes to basketball Kise starts out as a competitive and selfish player, but after losing to Kuroko’s team and realizing he can’t win on his own, he begins to lean on his own team-mates more and appreciate them. All in all, he is a popular person who cares about his friends and prioritizes developing his friendships. Kise clearly desires a friendship with Kuroko, as he makes every effort to seek him out and talk to try to establish a deeper connection despite their situation as rivals from different teams.

The End! Notes:

*apparently May Gemini’s don’t exist in anime which breaks my little May Gemini heart 😭

* Keep in mind this list is limited to characters that I have personally encountered in anime and/or manga or light novels :)

Tell me your favourite Gemini characters!

[oumakokichi]

What's your opinion on Kaito and Maki! I don't know if anyone's ever asked this before (sorry if yes) Ur blog is epic btw!

This question is pretty recent, so I feel like this is a great one to kick off with getting back into writing full meta! I know in the past I’ve answered a few brief questions on how I feel about Momota and Maki respectively, as well as their relationship in-game, but I don’t know if I’ve ever written at length about the two of them.

I also don’t know whether you want my opinions on them both as individual characters or their relationship together, so I’ll probably touch on both aspects! This ask will obviously include spoilers for the whole game, so I’ll talk more under the cut!

Momota and Maki are definitely two of the most important characters in the game. Both their dynamic with each other, as well as their eventual friendship with Saihara, are pivotal plot points that come up again and again. Momota’s good intentions and attempts to help Maki come out of her shell and self-imposed isolation from everyone else are initially met by her with skepticism, distrust, and a feeling that he’s being incredibly overbearing and putting his nose where it doesn’t belong—but in the end, she does find herself pulled in by his unrelenting optimism and offers of friendship.

As Momota helps Saihara begin to overcome his anxiety and self-doubt by pushing him forward and reaffirming that he believes in him, Maki also begins to face some of her own demons. Like Saihara, her issues are rooted in deep-seated trauma from a young age, though hers is considerably more severe as it concerns both physical and mental child abuse, as well as a life filled with violence and murder.

It’s interesting, because both Saihara and Maki struggle with what I would call self-loathing, but go about showing it in completely different ways. They both doubt their own ability to do anything right and feel that they’ll only hurt people in the end, but where Saihara overcompensates for this by trying to please everyone and being afraid of saying no, Maki’s approach is much firmer: she tries to shut everyone out completely, keeping everyone at arm’s bay in order to prevent any attachments from forming in the first place. As someone who lost pretty much everything at such a young age, she’s clearly afraid of the same thing happening all over again, as well as wary of anyone who might try to get close to her, only to attempt to “take her out” in the same fashion that she’s had to kill people her entire life.

Momota’s persistence in striking up a friendship with her is therefore really, really interesting. It’s the first time in Maki’s life that anyone has ever been so adamant about wanting to get to know her. Considering how harsh and unfriendly she initially is, as well as the fact that her talent is revealed to everyone by the end of chapter 2, it would make complete sense if Momota wanted nothing to do with her, in her opinion. She’s used to being alone, and she’s already convinced herself by that point that it’s preferable to the alternative.

But Momota is a character who fundamentally refuses to take no for an answer. This is simultaneously both his best and worst trait, in my opinion: it’s literally right in his catch phrase, whenever he claims that he’s going to reach the stars someday. He runs purely on the idea of faith and belief. There’s no middle ground with him: either you trust someone implicitly, regardless of everything stacked against them, or you don’t. Shades of grey, especially at the beginning of the game, are virtually nil. It’s a very “shounen protagonist” sentiment that winds up being somewhat challenged for him as the game goes on.

He’s interested in Maki, and wants to know why she closes herself off in her research lab. When the finger is pointed at her in chapter 2 and she falls under suspicion of murdering Hoshi, he defends her even at the expense of making himself look worse, and even to the point of claiming that he would “bet everyone else’s lives” that she’s innocent (a line which was completely omitted in the localization and dub, but which you can still hear him say in the jp dialogue of the chapter 2 trial).

There’s absolutely no evidence to back Maki up or support her; Momota’s defense on her behalf stems more from the fact that he hates Ouma’s equally black-or-white “guilty until proven innocent” approach, and resents the attempts at mutual suspicion and paranoia that Ouma tries to force between them. Momota is, in a word, stubborn. He figures things out by “feel” or “intuition” and is extremely slow to change his opinions even when facts and evidence are presented before him.

Again, this can be a good trait: his loyalty means he’s the last person who would ever throw someone else under the bus, and it’s the main reason he succeeds in getting closer to someone as emotionally closed-off as Maki at all. It’s less of a good thing, however, in later chapters like chapter 4, where his stubborn refusal to look at the facts genuinely endangers everyone’s lives in the trial and results in a huge blow-out that threatens his friend group with Saihara especially, but really with the whole training trio.

It’s this stubbornness of his that really baffles Maki. Initially, she doesn’t know what to make of Momota’s attempts to befriend her. She assumes he must be reckless, or stupid, or both, to want to get close to someone as dangerous as she is. But as she gradually begins to let her walls down and starts opening up despite herself, it’s such a nice change to see her eventually starting to believe in herself and view herself more positively as a result of Momota’s own belief in her.

I think momoharu as a ship works really well and has potential specifically because of these themes of “self-love” and “believing in yourself” that come up in the main game’s narrative again and again. And unlike the dynamics between Momota and other characters, such as Saihara, I feel like Momota and Maki are on much more of an even footing, where the two of them can view each other as equals and aren’t afraid to challenge each other whenever one of them is in the wrong about something.

For example, Saihara and Momota have much more of an imbalanced, sometimes one-sided friendship. That’s not to say that they aren’t both extremely important friends to one another—but between Saihara’s inability to say no to people and Momota’s tendency to take charge and view himself as “the hero” while everyone else is his “sidekick,” their relationship becomes incredibly uneven very quickly.

Add to this Momota’s unspoken jealousy of Saihara’s talent and his pivotal importance to the rest of the group in trials, and it gets even messier. I’m reminded of the chapter 4 trial, when Saihara really goes against Momota’s opinion on something for the first time by proving that Gonta is the culprit, and Momota is livid. Even when all the proof is laid out before him, and even when he knows, logically, he feels so betrayed by Saihara’s lack of “belief” in him that his underlying jealousy bubbles up and he lashes out. The localization considerably dulled the impact of this, but in the original Japanese dialogue, Momota even stops referring to Saihara by his first name for a long time, referring to him much more coldly by his surname from the end of chapter 4 until the latter half of chapter 5.

Momota and Saihara never feel as though they’ve really escaped that “hero and sidekick” dynamic until the very end of chapter 5 when they say their farewells, and even then there’s a real hesitance with Saihara to call Momota out when he’s wrong or ask for an apology even when Momota owes him one. If the game had explored more of Momota’s jealousy and feelings of inadequacy compared to Saihara, I would have really loved that, and I feel like there would be real potential to explore how they could eventually be on even footing… but as it stands, in canon we don’t really get that, and most of Momota’s shortcomings and flaws are somewhat brushed aside after his death in favor of Saihara remembering him more fondly.

This isn’t to say that Momota doesn’t have any flaws when it comes to how he interacts with Maki, of course. His character has a lot of “toxic masculinity” baggage, including unironically believing really outdated things like “women shouldn’t be fighting, they should be raising children,” or thinking that women are inherently weaker physically and more fragile emotionally than men. Luckily though, Maki often consistently proves him wrong on all of these points: her ability to wipe the floor with him during their training sessions is of course part of it, but it’s worth noting that she’s also considerably more level-headed than Momota is in many ways.

Where Momota is superstitious and afraid of the occult to a comedic degree, Maki remains the rational, down-to-earth one who doesn’t believe in such things. Where Momota is prone to letting his pride and temper get the better of him and refuses to speak to Saihara or apologize for the things he said during their fight in chapter 4, Maki is the one who attempts to push them into interacting with each other again, and believes that Momota is being much too childish about the whole ordeal. Again and again, Maki proves Momota’s outdated and harmful stereotypes about women wrong, and isn’t afraid to poke fun at him or get exasperated with his bullshit whenever he’s being kind of a dick.

Her relationship with Momota works specifically because of how much it feels like the two of them are on a more even footing. Where Saihara somewhat meekly accepts the “sidekick” role, even when he thinks it’s unfair, Maki doesn’t really accept it or go along with it in the first place, beyond showing up for training sessions. And when she gradually begins to develop romantic feelings for him, it feels authentic—particularly because it ties back into the idea of Maki learning to believe in herself the same way that Momota has believed in her from the start.

Deep down, Maki is someone who fundamentally believes herself not only undeserving of, but borderline incapable of love. She feels as though any human emotions she might have once had were stomped out of her from a young age and that absolutely nothing remains, to the point where she says “even Kiibo is more human than she is.” This self-loathing and dehumanization are the main reasons she keeps people at arm’s length: she simply thinks she doesn’t deserve any kindness, and that even if it’s given to her, she doesn’t know how to reciprocate in turn.

Her entire character arc is about unlearning this, and gradually coming to accept that she does have the capacity to love, including love for herself and for others. I’ve seen some people who believe Tsumugi when she claims in the chapter 6 trial that she “gave Maki those feelings for Momota” for the sake of the show, but I feel that believing that at face value really doesn’t do justice to Maki’s autonomy as a character.

Even if Tsumugi somehow did insert those feelings there (which I highly doubt, especially considering how she blatantly lies about giving Momota his illness too despite pretty obviously not knowing he was sick prior to chapter 5), the whole point of Maki’s confession to Momota in chapter 5 and reaffirmation of those feelings in chapter 6 is that she eventually comes to believe that they’re her feelings, and no one else’s. As someone who was denied any free will or choice for her entire life, her coming to view Momota as someone precious to her, as well as herself as an individual capable of making decisions and loving other people, is an incredibly powerful arc of character growth. I honestly really love to see it.

And it’s clear that Maki coming to love and value herself as an individual is exactly what Momota wanted to see from her. We don’t really know if he reciprocated her romantic feelings or not since he dies without really giving her an answer. I personally think he spared her an answer because even if he had said he reciprocated, it only would’ve hurt her worse to see him die immediately afterward.

But what he does make really clear is that he fully believes that because she could come to love him, she could also eventually come to love herself. Whether it’s romantic or not, he clearly cherishes her a lot as a person and wants her to be happy. He wants her to live on as herself, and not any of the roles she’s had to take thus far in order to survive. She eventually does do this, and I think he would’ve been absolutely thrilled to see it happen.

All in all, I feel like momoharu has a lot of potential for character growth (both for Maki and Momota), as well as for cute moments, comic relief, and all around as a feel-good ship. Momota definitely has some issues to work out with misogyny and toxic masculinity, and while it’s certainly not Maki’s job to hold his hand and walk him through those things, she’s the type of person who doesn’t mind putting her foot down and telling him no when she feels like he’s crossed a line, which is exactly the type of dynamic I like to see in relationships.

Anyway, I’ll wind this up here. This was a really fun question to go into, thank you again anon! I had a lot of fun getting back into the swing of writing meta, and I’m glad I got a chance to write a little more about my thoughts on momoharu, and Momota and Maki as characters.

[minyocs]

Name: Morgana Vistel  Fandom: Dungeons & Dragons (Homebrew game)

Age: 22 Occupation: Adventurer Species: Half-elf Gender: Female Family: Thane Vistel (older brother; living), Evey Vistel (younger sister; deceased), Unnamed parents (deceased), Damon Vistel (ancestor; deceased; Watcher) Physical Description: Lithe and fair skinned with shoulder-length, thick, black hair and golden eyes. She has a scar on her chin from a previous skirmish she was in alongside her brother. Pretty features, slightly pointed ears. Hair usually very messy. Personality: (following a 1-2-3 Model). Value - Family. Flaws - Ruthless and Headstrong. Traits - Compassionate, Sincere, and Loyal. Sexuality: Demisexual Backstory: When Morgana was a child, she grew up in a fairly well-off town (Argenhold) that was known for the beautifully ornate jewelry that the artisans produced. This town was located along the mountains of Gentian. Growing up with her older brother (Thane) and baby sister (Evey), she was a happy child who was beginning her studies to become something of a medical professional. She always wanted to help people. When she was fifteen years old, a terrible plague swept through her town, and the powers that be (presumably The Empress) decided the only course of action would be to destroy the town entirely and all of the people in it. Everyone was locked inside the gates, and the entire town was set ablaze, the citizens shot with arrows from the top of the walls if they were caught trying to escape. Morgana and Thane were the only ones who survived the massacre, having hidden themselves under the corpses that were being carted out when all was said and done. Morgana and Thane traveled together after that, having only each other in the world. Both handled the trauma differently, with Thane swearing revenge on the people who murdered their family, and Morgana falling silent for nearly two years as she followed her brother. Her brother became quite the battlemaster, while she turned her talents to the art of being hidden and striking swiftly and silently. The ghosts of their shared past haunted them all along the way. Two months ago, Thane and Morgana were caught in a fight that was over their heads against a band of slavers. This was around the strait between Arvensi and Argoseris. Thane was captured, but caused enough of a commotion for Morgana to be able to escape. He screamed for her to not look back. She ran as far and as fast as she could, vowing to find a way to free him.  Ongoing Story: Morgana arrived on Ralek to try and do some work that would get her a diviner to help her find her brother. Along the way, she met Nerida (a Sirenian Divination wizard), Aedan (a human fighter, later revealed to be Jago Lejune, nephew to the Empress), Shepherd (half-orc druid), and Alistair (satyr bard). While traveling with them, they lost Alistair to a monster, and were shortly after joined by Damien, an elven blood hunter. The party is working to find the lost god-city of Dur, but have been waylaid by a lead on finding Thane. She has also recently learned that Thane’s Watcher was the first Emperor of Altaine, and that Damon (her Watcher/ancestor) was his best friend and Commander during the rebellion that founded the empire. Likes:  Archery, medicine Dislikes: Slavers, the Empress’ family line (for now). Strengths: Stealth, lock-picking, archery Weaknesses: melee combat Notes: Ever since the destruction of Argenhold, Morgana has been able to see spirits, specifically Watchers (spirits of love meant to watch over a mortal). Her own Watcher is her ancestor, Damon Vistel. Her brother’s Watcher is Corasand (Cora for short), and was the first Emperor of Altaine. She doesn’t know yet, but Damon was in love with Corasand in life.

Misc Questions: • KIND OF CLOTHING?: Usually pretty simple. She has been traveling with Thane for the past seven years, so she’s used to traveling light most of the time. She wears studded leather armor. • WHAT ELEMENT WOULD THEY BE?: More likely fire.  • THEME SONG?: “Courage” - P!nk • ALIGNMENT?: Chaotic Neutral • DEADLY SIN THAT BEST REPRESENTS THEM?: Wrath • HOBBIES?: She used to enjoy learning about medicine.  • SPECIAL SKILLS / TALENTS?: She’s very skilled with a bow. Also very good at stealth and picking locks after the past seven years on the road with her brother. • PATIENCE LEVEL?: Usually pretty high, but it’s been wavering.  • REGRETS?: Leaving Thane behind. • ROLE MODEL?: Damon and Cora • MODE OF TRANSPORTATION?: On foot, lately. • PETS?: The party pet seems to be Argos the dog. • WEAPON: Primarily bow & arrow, but she is proficient with a rapier and daggers.  • HOW DO THEY FEEL ABOUT LOVE?: She’s a bit resistant to it, after all she’s been through.  • HOME TOWN?: Argenhold. It no longer exists. • WHERE THEY LIVE NOW?: Nowhere, really. She’s been homeless and traveling with Thane since Argenhold was destroyed. • MAKES A LIVING BY?: Adventuring/hunting creatures. • BAD HABITS?: She’s gotten into the habit of speaking to Damon (or other Watchers/spirits) without much regard for who might hear her.  • DOES THEIR UNIVERSE HAVE A GOD?: Yes, but she puts no faith in the gods. She feels as though they abandoned her, so she’s turned her back on them. • DO GHOSTS OR SUPERNATURAL ENTITIES EXIST IN THEIR’ WORLD?: Yes. She sees and speaks to ghosts on a regular basis.  • OUTLOOK ON LIFE?: Despite everything she’s experienced, she still believes that there has to be good in the world. She is outwardly warm towards people, and has even told Nerida that “Sometimes allowing people to be close to you is painful, but it’s always worth it.”    • MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THEIR LIFE: Thane. • WHAT WAS YOUR CHARACTER LIKE AS A CHILD?: Very outgoing and curious. She wanted to learn a lot.  • WHAT IS SOMETHING OTHER PEOPLE ASSUME ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER?: She has a haunted look about her, so people are often kinder towards her because they assume she’s seen some shit. They have no idea just how much.  • LANGUAGES SPOKEN: Celestial, Common, Elvish, Goblin, Sylvan • ENNEAGRAM TYPE? Reformer • SIBLINGS?: Thane (living), and Evey (deceased)  • HAVE THEY EVER WANTED TO COMMIT SUICIDE?: She seriously considered it after what happened in Argenhold. It was Damon talking to her that kept her from going through with it.  • CLOSE FRIENDS?: Damon and Cora. But living, she’s starting to grow closer to Nerida.  • AS A CHILD, WHAT DID THEY WANT TO BE WHEN THEY GREW UP?: She wanted to be a doctor. She had just begun an apprenticeship when Argenhold was destroyed.  • BELIEF IN AN AFTERLIFE?: Yes. • WANTS TO GET MARRIED?: She hasn’t considered it. Subconsciously, she wonders if she’s too broken for anyone to love her.  • WANTS TO HAVE KIDS, RAISE A FAMILY?: Again, she hasn’t considered it.   • SWORN ENEMY?: Admiral Navarch, for destroying her home. Edwin “Eddie” Bellamy, for taking her brother. • IS THEIR NAME A PUN OF ANYTHING?: I technically tried to derive her name from Morgan le Fey. Also, she sees dead people, so I wanted to play with the sound of “morgue”  • MOST TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE?: The burning of Argenhold. • FAVORITE MEMORY?: When she was a little girl, Thane brought her into town to take part in a festival that was being held. She still looks back on that time fondly, thinking of the bright lights and colors floating overhead.  • ARE THEY TICKLISH?: Yes.   • IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN THEIR LIFE: Thane, Damon, Cora. She’s starting to feel like Nerida, Shepherd and Aedan/Jago are important, but she’s not there yet (especially with Jago. She feels pretty betrayed by finding out he’s actually related to the Empress) • IF THEY COULD HAVE ONE THING IN THE WORLD?: If anyone were to actually sit down and ask her, she would tell them that she just wants family and a home.  • WOULD THEY DARE KILL SOMEONE?: With ease, if it meant getting Thane back. She’s not proud of it, but she would also be very willing to torture to get him back.  • INVOLVED WITH MAGIC OR WITCHCRAFT?: Not technically. She has some ghostly-related abilities, but they aren’t inherently magical. 

[commandercoriandersalamander]

deservingporcupine said:                                                                                                                            Nooooooo what’s your favorite book?                             

OH BOY IS IT TIME TO TALK ABOUT ARCHIVIST WASP AGAIN YES IT IS

(you’ve unleashed a demon here my friend)

Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace is probably one of my top five favorite books ever, maybe even top three (and the top three isn’t ranked it’s just Really Good Books). It is constantly slept on. No one has read it. No one has even heard of it! Even though every element is fantastic and likens to a very popular series (in a “oh, you liked that bit? try this book!” way not in a derivative way). It is my life’s work to get people to read this book.

 I should put in a Read More because I am going to talk A LOT about it. But- if you like The Abhorsen Trilogy, His Dark Materials, the Hunger Games, Never Let Me Go, Station Eleven, Graceling, any mythology ever, ghosts, supersoldiers, post-apocalypse religion, or the struggle of to what extent you can define yourself versus others define you and the trauma of being both a monster and a savior, you’ll love this book.

-the premise. it’s post-apocalyptic fantasy which is a niche I absolutely love. basically, the world ended generations ago, and no one really knows why or how. but humanity lives in little isolated town-states around the edge of this giant irradiated wasteland. and since the end of the world, ghosts exist.

-after the collapse (and I’m going to talk a lot about the collapse BUT it’s worth noting that the story of the end of the world isn’t a major-major part, like the book is concerned both with looking back and looking forwards, but the story is much more intimate and focused on Wasp and her world rather than The World At Large) this new constellation-based religion popped up. it’s completely unique and AMAZING and integrates so well into the world that you forget you’re still learning about it.

-Wasp was raised by the Catchkeep (what we call Ursa Major) priest. he’s this skeevy old man who raises young girls and every year they fight to the death for the honor of being the Archivist. Wasp is the current Archivist! which is absolutely terrible for her, but the only way out is to die, and the only way to survive is to kill the upstarts.

-the Archivist’s job is to protect the town from ghosts. ghosts can get really angry and mean! and then, to record the ghosts, and watch them and categorize them, in hopes that one of them will reveal how the world ended

-(lemme talk about ghosts for a hot sec. ghosts in this world are basically repeating memories- they’re not really “people”. when you die, your ghost might return, to constantly play out its last moments, but you aren’t aware of the world, you’re not really sentient. ghosts who died violently can become violent, hence the Archivist’s banishing rituals. there has never been a ghost that can talk, so no one has been able to ask the ghosts how the world ended. the theme of repetition, identity, and relation to the world that is inherent in the concept of ghosts is SUPER CENTRAL to the plot and woven so well in.)

-Wasp’s job is really sucky, because she’s incredibly valued by the people of Sweetwater, but she’s also feared and hated. she is kept apart from them, and is basically only ever allowed to interact with the Catchkeep Priest, but she survives on the offerings the people leave outside her door being they are grateful to her for keeping the ghosts away and also terrified of her for being so close to them. this theme- valued monster, monster created and maintained by a society, is central to the book, and I know you’re like “okay, yeah, that’s a theme of a lot of books do, whatever” but the nuance and depth here is incredible.

-Wasp, naturally, wants to escape the Catchkeep Priest, but again, irradiated wasteland, everyone is afraid of her, she has nowhere to go. Wasp is very explicitly a trauma and abuse victim/survivor, and she has guts and bravery without overlooking that or pretending that one cancels out the other.

-Wasp’s entire life is turned upside down when she finds a ghost that can TALK. like, recognize its surroundings, recognize her, and talk to her. like I said, that’s NEVER HAPPENED. completely unprecedented.

-the ghost (who doesn’t have a name) explains that in his old life, he was a soldier. and that he had a comrade, Kit Foster, who died as well, and that he’s trying to find her ghost, so that they can survive the underworld together. he wants Wasp’s help. in return, he will get her away from the Catchkeep Priest.

-lemme talk about the ghost because he is a completely tragic figure in such a compelling way. ghosts get weaker and weaker the longer they’re dead, and he’s been dead a long time. he doesn’t remember most of his life. he doesn’t remember his own name. he remembers that he is a monster, in a way that directly parallels Wasp, because they’re both created soldiers people are afraid of but also need, but while Wasp has the chance to go forwards and grow, he’s dead, he can’t. ghosts are incredibly stagnant.

-he wants to find Kit because he’s forgetting who he is. he hopes that if he finds her, they can remind each other of who they are. when the underworld decays them, they can pull back and remember each other. remember the theme I said about defining yourself versus others defining you, and how it plays into the idea of an important monster? yeah here it is again!

-let me say really explicitly though: I know what you’re thinking. Wasp and the ghost are going to hook up. Mild spoiler but worth knowing: THEY DO NOT. yeah you heard me. Kit and the ghost aren’t romantic either. this is a book about trusting other people enough to know and define you when you can’t and IT DOESN”T HAVE ROMANCE. platonic, important, deep and trusting relationships, boyos! I care so much about this.

-so the trip through the underworld. the underworld is such an amazing setting here. the closest thing I’ve read is His Dark Materials underworld, full of ghosts and emptiness. it’s an expanse of old flotsam of memories and it’s always trying to destroy you. Wasp and the ghost have to wade through this place, trying to figure out what does and doesn’t belong to them.

-Wasp, as the Archivist and wielding a special ghost sword, is able to enter the memories of the ghost. specifically, the memories that he has forgotten. doing this is killing her, but she’s already in the underworld, so... the book switches between Wasp and the ghost’s journey through Hades and flashbacks to the ghost’s childhood with Kit Foster, as medical experiments and supersoldiers in a world-ending war. you start to realize that the ghost thinks he betrayed Kit, but can’t remember how.

-look, it’s just incredibly. the themes are woven into everything, the parallels between Wasp and the ghost are superb, the symbolism is constant without being heavy-handed. you’re reading a really engaging story, not an essay about identity with some story trappings, it doesn’t get preachy, it’s just really well done. Wasp and the ghosts are both realistic, flawed, hurting characters trying to imagine some kind of ending for themselves. this book sneaks up on you with how painful (in the good book way!) it is to read. and then the ending! I’m not gonna say anything! I won’t! But the ending!

-the sequel (which is the book I lost, RIP) does the Really Great Sequel Thing where it continues the themes and struggles without invalidating the progress the characters made in the last book. it also confirms what was hinted at in the first book, which is that Wasp is a woman of color, and so that’s neat. she’s also a realistic example of someone with PTSD and chronic pain. plus: still no romance, still incredibly important and complete platonic relationships. and you learn more about other towns and the gods!

-I will say, on first reading, the writing style took me a sec to adjust to. Wasp’s POV (it’s third person, but completely centered on her viewpoint) has the blind spots and anger that you’d expect from first person, and it can be weird to adjust. it’s also very jerkily written, which sounds like an insult, but it’s not, it absolutely works with Wasp’s voice and the setting, but it takes a few chapters to click with your brain.

-have I dressed up like the Archivist for Halloween? oh you fuckin bet I have.

[notreallythegreatestperson]

FIVE SONGS

list five songs associated with your muse and its meaning to them as a character, or to you as the writer. this can be applied in-character or out-of-character. it can go as deep as looking at the song’s real-world origins or meaning along with the themes it carries to the muses’ story, values, or experiences, or as simple as if your muse would listen to this kind of music, or even if you just listen to these pieces for inspiration.

TAGGED BY: @handspoken​ (i think this is my first time actually being tagged in one of these! thanks!)  TAGGING: @dogandroses​ (any muse you like!), @puzzlebones​, @the-judge-of-bones​, @sxvethequeen​, @ladydreemurr​, @staydetermined​, @nebula-gaster​, and anyone else who wants to do it! 

01. Megalo Strike Back  - Toby Fox

a part of the soundtrack from earthbound, a game toby fox worked on a few years before undertale’s release. though it’s not connected to undertale explicitly, the link with megalovania has led to some headcanons of it being chara’s theme. i was a little hesitant to include this, it felt like a bit of a cliche, but ultimately I do like it as a theme for chara. you’ve got the rich, heavy instruments that remind me of megalovania and other intense battle themes, but with a bright, simple melody more reminiscent of flowey’s theme and the image of something happy and childlike turned bad.   

02. Requiem - Dear Evan Hansen (tw: suicide mention) when the villains fall, the kingdoms never weep / no one lights a candle to remember / no, no one mourns at all / when they lay them down to sleep

not as much a song that could be from chara’s perspective, as the later ones on the list are, but more a song about their impact. the song deals with a family, reacting in different ways after a member commits suicide unexpectedly. it’s not a stretch to see them as the dreemurrs. their sibling is coming to terms with the fact that the person who died was a flawed person who hurt them, and struggles to grieve as they’re expected to. the father feels bitter, regretting that he wasn’t able to provide enough for his child, while the mother remains hopeful that some essence of her child remains in the world. the idea of remembrance - the “requiem” - links in to chara’s bitterness towards the monsters after death, that they literally sacrificed themselves to make a difference to monsterkind and barely see anyone remember that, while frisk gets all the glory and credit. 

03. Everyone Else is an Asshole - Reel Big Fish everybody else thinks of no one but themselves / and no one wants to help cause they're all assholes / and every friendly chat is a knife in the back / a sneaky attack waiting to happen

this is probably the least serious song on the list, but it’s still an interesting look inside their head. the singer here insists that the rest of the world are assholes, that he’s the nice guy, and his worries about what they’re going to do to him drives him to physical violence. while chara fully acknowledges that they play the villain in bad runs, and often enjoy it, i think this song applies to the overall dissonance between their mindset and the actual reality of the world. they have a habit of separating things into black and white, good and bad, despite any evidence that it isnt the case. they believe caring about another person, even just being allies with someone else, is a stupid, unnecessary risk that will only lead to them getting betrayed. this defensiveness, this refusal to connect with others, is a big driving factor in chara getting physically violent towards the people around them.

04. Monster - Dodie Clark i'm guessing that i've grown horns / i guess i'm human no more / i can tell I've rotted in your brain

it’s not a song chara would ever listen to themselves, but i’m always a sucker for a good monster/human metaphor i can apply a little too literally. though it’s originally written about romantic partners, the core idea of two people who used to love each other, and now begin to hate each other, feels very relevant to chara’s life. mix that in with the visuals of hate slowly turning a person into something grotesque and monstrous, and you get an interesting clash of ideas - chara’s rejection of humanity and their wish to be more like their monster family, and chara’s mindset that they are inherently twisted and dark and evil in some way. it also explores the idea of regretting the past, wanting to take it back but being unable to do that or even to communicate how you really feel, and that resonates very strongly with my portrayal of chara.

05. Blasphemy - Bring Me The Horizon you got hell to pay, but you already sold your soul / it's blasphemy, but the words don't make sense no more / what would your mother say?

i’ll be real here, when i first looked through this meme, i was acutely aware that my interests in music are very different to chara’s, and it felt like a disservice to not include at least one song that they’d actually listen to. so after a chat with a friend who has more similar tastes to them, i picked out this. the creators describe it as being about people who make themselves believe something they know deep down is false, because the alternative scares them. looking to what ive mentioned already about chara’s binary, reductive mindset that enables them hurting others, it feels very relevant. throw in some religious imagery, linking to the whole “angel of death” concept in undertale, and the concept of sacrificing yourself for an already flawed belief, and i knew it had to be on here.

[faunusrights]

OFFAL HUNT REMASTERED LIVEBLOG // CHAPTERS 10 + 11

we had a week of peace and now we’re gonna get annihilated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i have no clue how long this liveblog may end up but hell and high water i’m combining them both

she tore the jade pendant from her neck and flung it into the darkness.

let’s give a warm welcome, to sadness,

i’m very excited for all-new cinder content hhhhhhh if u havent gathered by now I Love This Bitch and I Love Her Many Problems so im thankful for this gift 😞

Cinder was a ruin, her pride carved and served like slabs of meat.

i can FEEL diesel n kc rly patting themselves on the back for every bit of wet meat they can toss at me!!!!!!!!!! U HEAR THAT I CAN FEEL U!!!!!!!!!!! but also i still love this shit w/ all my heart!!!!!!!!!! IM NEVER GONNA STOP SAYIN IT

She had never looked at Glynda’s files.

im so sorry cinder baby but that whole thing? is still HILARIOUS oh my GOD i cannot believe you fucked up that badly. u shoved yr entire head into a beartrap. u absolutely crapped yr pants on that one. yr gonna be thinking abt that on yr deathbed,

/looks at the chapter title again

hhhhhhhh im. so pumped. its gonna be hard to talk abt most of this w/o doing a million fingerguns a minute but i’m gonna try my best

Cinder approached the mirror and touched its silvered face with black-tipped claws,

I SAID IM GONNA TRY MY BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She was iron barbs beneath the nail bed, glowing coals underfoot, the singular capacity to do harm. She was a beast, armed with fang and claw and a deep, dark void where her compassion should have laid, and she was dressed for dinner.

HHHHHH god YES THIS IS THE CINDER IM THIRSTY FOR............ i literally cannot say anything that isnt a massive 👈😎👈 but AAAAAAA

like im reading thru this and i cant cherry-pick lines this whole bit? is SO GOOD...  kc n diesel are Yet Again obliterating me w/ their mastery of the narrative style of offal hunt and i just love all of this i rly wish i could explain how offal hunt is EXACTLY MY BRAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! F U C K

The final touch on her mastercraft disaster: the four sawed-off horn stumps which grew among her silver-streaked hair.

HOOOO B O I i am. Losin it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE HER HORNS.......... CINDR...............

Wretchedly, she wondered: did Glynda even respect her now?

any other villain: my plan didnt work and im mad >:( cinder fall: my plan didnt work and now im mad but also mostly sad :(

CINDER’S TRYING HER BEST GOD.......... i literally hate how the remaster has made her So Soft, Actually... I BELIEVE IN U CINDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE U!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO YR BEST

Every part of her was hot and hollow. She was sick with loathing.

i LOVE HER.... CINDER I HOPE U KNO THAT YR LOVED... god tho i dont like how SAD I AM RN... cinder’s so small and the world is so big and wants 2 Shit On Her blease

honestly like. im rly- LOOK I SAID THIS BEFORE BUT. this is why im rly lovin the new cinder content because in the first version we only got glimpses of her internal machinations and now we’re in full-blown Always Sad territory and everything is suffering :)

She blinked. Her double did not.

‘well’, thought murphy. ‘that’s terrifying.’

she’d only survived thanks to a keen instinct for danger, cultivated during her tenuous teenage years.

i NEED. I NEED. CINDER BACKSTORY. all these lil nuggets dont constitute a meal! I WANT A BIG MAC AND FRIES. WHAT THE HELL WAS THIS BABY DOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

also again. the body horror of offal hunt? peak content. Im Lovin It

its getting harder to divine what is and what is not a 👈😎👈 because we got bits sprinkled around and theres only rly a spoiler potential if u glue em all together so im still being extra careful and the answer is blared in everyones faces so this whole kondor scene will go uncommented unless some Bullshit Happens which it will, so,

When she had become so invested in Glynda’s approval? When had a desire to be recognized as something inhuman, something ferocious, something black and terrible and capable of keeping up with Glynda Fucking Goodwitch turned into this?

oh! oh! i have the answer! i do! i know the answer! it’s you a lesbian,

The spectres of her youth haunted this city, owl-eyed children and fox-eared teens. They’d been a second sort of family, the only kind she’d had within these walls, and she’d wondered what had become of them in the past decades, but…

It was too sentimental, and she wasn’t meant to be a creature of sentiment.

oh boy okay wow

okay so actually this bit made me cry??? fuck OFF im losing it!!!!!!!! LET HER BE SENTIMENTAL!!!! LET HER HAVE PPL TO CARE ABT!!!!!!!!!! IM LITERALLY CRYING IM GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!

She would go barefoot from this point on, her heels clutched at her side. When she left the hotel room to steal into the night, she promised herself not to look back.

im sorry im just. so sad rn. i havent cried over a fic in YEARS and we still have another chapter ago i hate this SO MUCH..............

here comes chapter 11 

if i cry even once more im going to stab!!!!!! im not sure what BUT ILL STAB!!!!!!!!!!!!

Even without his wings, the Manticore would easily have been twice the size of any of the other Grimm, far outstripping them in sheer bulk.

HATI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HATI HATI HATI

holy shit we actually get to see him this time!!!!!!!!!!! WE GET TO SEE THIS LEGENDARY BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS CHONCC,

also hes a manticore now which is, Radical, may i just say, and just a little bit sexy,

The effortless grace in each move betrayed power most Grimm would not live to achieve. Once he stood, he had to dip his head low to meet her eye to eye. His canines were the length of her forearm.

if u werent here for the remaster? we never even SAW hati but now hes here, hes Big, and rly thats all that matters,

Like a child who’d been allowed to lie and lie until at last they’d strangled themself in the web they’d spun, Cinder couldn’t speak. Could only wait on his verdict.

every single one of cinder’s inherent themes is killing me and this business w/ family? stop. im dying. this is rude

The scant space between them popped and cracked like an sparking flame, warm and effervescent, and this time, Cinder lingered, hugging Hati close.

IF I CRY ONCE MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I MEAN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IF U ASSHOLES MAKE ME CRY ONCE MORE I WILL DOXX YOU,

aaaaaaaaaaaaaah im loving this content i rly dont have words for it dhjfgsdfgjh i just, rly like the words, and the order theyre in, and i honestly keep forgetting to liveblog it cause i just wanna READ EM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tempting as it was—as it always had been, ever since she’d left the relative safety of the wastes and learned what happened to scraggly-limbed teens with horns and fangs and gleaming eyes—

with every chapter i desperately have 2 kno more abt baby cinder i HAVE to know i am so. UNBEARABLY CURIOUS... baby cinder what happened... what happened 2 u....

A lantern’s glow warmed her, bleeding into the darkness leeching at them both. It was a gentle gold across her skin, and like an answering signal from a distant outpost, Cinder saw a flush of light through the dark fur lining Hati’s throat, as though flames licked at his insides.

i forgot. that cinder glows like that when she feels Loved or full of pride and you know what i dont like these chapters. they were made to hurt me and i Dont Like That (im mclovin it)

From the safety of Hati’s neck, she found it easier—after all this time, he was still her bastion.

WHEN YOU REALISE? THAT YR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES?? STOP,

For a regular person, the machine would be able to draw out short bursts of power, the likes of which no Semblance could ever channel. The taxation would eventually destroy the soul so deeply, so thoroughly, as to leave it empty for good.

For a Witch? For—

the fact. she cut herself off before she could think ‘for glynda’. has me on the FLOOR. this bit is just So Much i dont like it

Glynda Goodwitch would not abandon this hunt. Cinder knew it, had read it from her palms like an open book—Glynda Goodwitch did not know how to stop. If it had been anyone else on Remnant, they might never return, might never pull themselves back into action after today—but Glynda did not have a shred of self-preservation.

me, knocking against cinder’s head: u kno for someone w/ so many schemes in yr brain yr pretty dumb and gay, huh,

firstly let’s talk abt cinder’s “””””””””””””””””””self-preservation””””””””””””””””””” instin-- whats that? not found? yes

[Glynda’s] eyes were empty, hungry, insatiable.

i feel like ive read this line before! lets jump back a chapter--

In [Cinder’s] eyes, there was a subtle, endless hunger.

WAKE UP CINDER SHE’S YR SOULMATE!!!!!!!!!!! THE COFFEE’S READY U CAN SMELL THE BACON FROM HERE WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With a fluid leap, they were in the air, the ground quickly shrinking beneath them. Pressing her face against his neck to shield herself from the wind, she closed her eyes and prepared herself for what was to come, trusting Hati to deliver her safely.

that said i ADORE my boy hati is literally the best part of offal hunt kc and diesel do not interact,

He was frozen in horrific anticipation, like watching an imminent tragedy and being absolutely helpless to stop it. Like all the tension was mixed with grief and hopeless, futile fear.

when will offal hunt be nice to me. when will any of these characters get to be happy. hello. im full of sadness.

The sound was like a saw working back and forth, but resonating inside her head, rattling every tooth in her jaw, deafening to her ears.

im literally gritting my teeth at this i can hear it in my own head and its Very Bad!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

okay god i can barely handle to quote anything more this bit is hurting ME so lets swiftly move on before I Die

Cinder closed her weary eyes, sinking into sleep like a shallow grave.

BE NICE TO HER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BE NICE TO HER JUST THIS ONCE, PLEASE, IM BEGGING YOU,

They only knew death, only ever sought death; fangs and claws slicked with blood, magic rending meat and marrow apart, and everywhere that choking, scalding heat, spilled blood like magma, like the core of a planet.

hmm... that seems like a 👈😎👈 ~reference~

They were all alert, ears pricked, hackles raised like Hati’s. They all fixed on the same spot, somewhere beyond the darkness of the cave opening, and though she could barely think, she knew:

She was out of time. The Witch was here.

oh no.

okay so THATS CHAPTERS 10 AND 11! i only cried ONCE and u kno what thats. a Victory. these two chapters were VERY GOOD i rly loved em and i can tell new readers r gonna have a blast w/ this shit!!!!!!!!!! meanwhile i, a veteran reader, am full of peril,

terrible.

[avatarsymbolism]

The Waterbender and the Firelord: Katara and Zuko Parallels

Avatar: The Last Airbender has three central characters: Aang, Zuko, and Katara. These three characters share a lot of parallels and connections, and we see each of them interact, develop, and grow during the course of the series.

With that said, Katara and Zuko are two very different, but at the same time very similar characters. And, just like with Aang and Zuko in my previous meta, we can look at the parallels between them to see how exactly the thematic parallels between these two characters play out. And, just like last time, I won’t look all the parallels (like this one), since not all the parallels are of thematic significance but, I will look at the really important ones that help tie them together.

That said, I will be doing something a little different this time around. While I’ll mostly be focusing on Katara and Zuko, I’ll bring in a couple of the parallels between Aang and Zuko as well since Katara kind of helps bridge these two characters, and because so much of the Katara/Zuko parallels are parallels between the narrative three and actually help to better develop both Katara and Zuko’s respective story arcs. Thus, it is my hope that. by the end of the meta, both the readers of this meta and myself will have a better understanding of just how this dynamic works. 

So, without further ado, let’s begin!

Just like with Aang and Zuko. we have similarities between Katara and Zuko that have to do with their personalities, as well as their upbringing. In addition to this, a lot of the big thematic parallels between Katara and Zuko occur because of these personality traits--they’re determined, they have a strict sense of morality and judgement, etc. Therefore, just like how Aang can be seen as a version of Zuko who was not groomed by an imperialist society, so too can Katara be viewed as a possible version of Zuko--one who always stayed on the right path, and one who didn’t have moral dilemmas the way Zuko did. 

Personality

In terms of personality. Zuko and Katara are very similar, with Katara even becoming a foil for Zuko in “The Southern Raiders.” 

Both Katara and Zuko are fiercely determined to the point of stubbornness. They can also get very angry when provoked. Usually, these situations end with either Aang or Iroh trying to calm everyone down but, they don’t always succeed. Sometimes, these outbursts can even end with them saying hurtful things that they might not have meant to say, or would later regret.

Similarly, Zuko and Katara both adopt spirit-inspired secret identities, which ties into their stubborn determination in that it’s a strong motivator for their actions. However, what distinguishes them is the reason behind these identities. 

Katara genuinely wanted to help people, and used the “Painted Lady” persona as a means to hide her identity as she did so. This ensured that the Gaang wouldn’t find out about her activities, and also made sure that the villagers in the episode of the same name didn’t find out who or what she really was. 

In contrast, Zuko donned the mask  of the  “Blue Spirit” as a way to hide his identity in order to fulfill his goal of capturing Aang in Book 1, and later to escape poverty by becoming a thief in Book 2.

We also get a nice little parallel where Katara and Zuko have to unmask themselves for Iroh and Aang. Again, the reasons behind these two unmaskings are different, but the parallel is still there. 

Morality 

Another thing that Katara and Zuko have in common is their strong sense of judgement and morality. Here, we see two people that are inherently good and who, despite the cruel world around them, continue to do good--even if one of them was misguided for two and a half seasons. 

I’ve mentioned in the past that one of the things that separates the Avatar protagonists from the Avatar antagonists is that the protagonistsare unable to hurtl, and kill innocents. This is true not just for the narrative three but for the other members of the Gaang as well. 

Even so, this is still a strong theme for Katara and Zuko. Katara refuses to take up Hama’s fight because she sees what Hama is doing as wrong. Likewise, Zuko thought that needlessly sacrificing an entire division of soldiers was morally abhorrent.

And again, here we have two staunchly determined individuals who can be motivated by anger, rage, and a need for revenge. And yet, just like with all our protagonists it doesn’t matter how many times Katara tells herself “I’m going to kill Yon Rha,” or how many times Zuko says “today I’m gong to kill Admiral Zhao” because deep down they are inherently good and have a strong moral compass that doesn’t allow them to take such drastic actions. They simply can’t, and the narrative is totally fine with that. 

Furthermore, it’s this determination and unwillingness to abandon their ethical beliefs that ultimately lets them prevail against their opponents (we even get a really nice camera framing parallel between Katara and Zuko in the process, as well as another parallel which shows Katara and Zuko catching their opponents off guard). 

With that in mind, one of arcs that Zuko goes through has to do with learning that mercy and forgiveness aren’t childish concepts. And, throughout the series, we see Zuko struggling with what he knows is right, and what his nation sees as right. Katara ties into this arc because she, alongside Aang and Iroh, show Zuko  that mercy and forgiveness aren’t in fact childish concepts, and that moving on and forgiveness aren’t mutually exclusive concepts. 

Family 

Now, let’s talk about Katara and Zuko’s respective family dynamics. 

Just like with Aang and Zuko, we see a stark contrast between Katara and Zuko’s upbringing. Katara grew up in a loving family, with her parents supporting and loving both their children. In contrast, Zuko grew up in an abusive household with his father pitting himself against his sister. This could be due to the cultural difference between the Water Tribe which prioritized unity and community, and the Fire Nation which prioritized strength and power.  

There is also another parallel between the overall family dynamics of Katara’s family and Zuko’s family with Hakoda and Ozai being the fathers that haven’t seen their sons in many years, Ursa and Kya sharing the role of the absentee mother, Azula ad Katara as bending prodigies, and Sokka and Zuko as older brothers who feel like they need to prove themselves to their fathers. 

Loss

Speaking of mothers, let’s talk about one of the big themes which, as I’ve mentioned before, is the one theme that ties all three of our central characters together the most: loss. It motivates everyone. It’s what makes it hard for Aang to let go of Katara, and makes him so upset when Appa is kidnapped. It’s what makes Katara so determined to succeed in the war against the Fire Nation, and so angry at Zuko. It’s also what makes Zuko both want to restore his father’s love, and eventually defect. 

Loss is everywhere. 

So, of course, Katara and Zuko parallel each other in that they both lost their mothers to the Fire Nation at a relatively young age. Ursa was banished as part of a deal that would spare Zuko’s life, and Kya sacrificed herself to spare Katara’s life. 

These two events affected who Katara and Zuko became when they grew older. For Katara, it meant becoming fiercely protective, and doing everything in her power to protect the ones she loved and cared about. This is the driving force that makes her protect and vouch for all the people she has saved or tried to save from the people in “Imprisoned” and “The Painted Lady” to Aang, Jet, and Zuko in seasons 2 and 3. In the show’s continuity it’s the parallels between Aang and Kya that really helps push Katara to continue to protect the ones she loves, and consequently to view Zuko as “the face of the enemy,” up to the latter half of Book 3. The consequence of this parallel is that Katara eventually connects her losing her mother to Zuko himself. This eventually culminates with Katara saving Zuko’s life in the finale after he risked his life to save her from Azula in a moment that parallels what happened to her mother.  

Zuko’s story is a little different. He lost three parental figures in the course of the series, and losing these parental figures affected him in different ways. 

First, he lost his father’s love, the one thing he he wanted the most. This is what motivates him to go after Aang, and even to betray his uncle. It’s a destructive driving force that blinded him to his true calling. 

We won’t talk too much about Lu Ten and Iroh, but just know that, like Ursa, Zuko’s losing Lu Ten ties into Zuko’s empathy arc and helps him connect with the people he meets in the Earth Kingdom. In a similar vein, the Kya-Ursa connection is one of the factors that lets Zuko empathize with the people whom his nation views as enemies as well. Iroh also plays into the mix by becoming Zuko’s motivator after he realizes he doesn’t need Ozai’s love. Here, “I want to make Dad proud” transforms into “I want to make Uncle proud.

That said, as mentioned before, Ursa’s influence on Zuko is twofold. On the one hand, it’s what ultimately makes Zuko able to stay true himself by leaving the Fire Nation. But, before this happened, Ursa’s influence on Zuko played out a little differently, with Zuko’s memories of his mother making him nostalgic for how things used to be before his banishment. At this time, staying true to himself was less about being his own person and freeing himself from Ozai’s influence, and more about fulfilling his role as Ozai’s son and heir and returning home. 

Still, the fact remains that as soon as Zuko stopped being blinded by his need to win his father’s approval, his memory of Ursa became a positive motivator, and was the push he needed to join the Gaang 

And, speaking of nostalgia, “North and South” does a great job of not only elaborating on Katara’s “protect all the people” arc and giving it a second conclusion, but it also turns what used to be only a parallel between Aang and Zuko into one that features all three of our central characters. 

This parallel, connects Zuko, Katara, and Aang together even more by showing us just how much they feel they’ve lost, and just how much they want things to return to normal. With Katara and Zuko especially, it demonstrates why their loss is such a potent motivator. It’s what helps them make it through the day, and want to push themselves against the odds. These are characters who lost something that affected them deeply, who want so hard for everything to return to normal, and yet all they can do is try to cope and try to somehow move on from what happened to them. 

Loss and Foils

This brings us to our final group of parallels between Katara and Zuko.

I mentioned already that loss is a powerful motivator for our main characters, and makes them do a lot of the things they do (in fact, a lot of the conversations that Zuko and Katara have focus on loss). I also mentioned the connection between Zuko and Yon Rha, and how this parallel played into Katara’s hatred for Zuko. 

In “The southern Raiders,” we see a version of Katara that we’be never seen, a version of Katara that is so blinded by her need for revenge that one can’t help but draw parallels to Zuko in the first season, and how he was blinded and motivated by his need to regain Ozai’s love.

In fact, the show does us one better by doing just that. 

The story itself resembles the arc of “The Avatar State.” Azula and Zuko give them an offer which revolves around what Katara and Zuko have both lost--Ozai’s love, and Katara’s mom. They agree. Aang, Sokka, and Iroh warn them not to do it, but Katara and Zuko refuse to back down and end up saying things that they might later regret. Both characters end up going through with their plans, with Aang and Iroh giving their reluctant support. The two plots continue from there with the two episodes’ separate conclusions. 

But now for the fun stuff. 

In “The Southern Raiders,” Katara becomes a foil for Zuko by showing us just how far Zuko has come. Where most shows might use this kind of parallel to make the antagonist (or anti-hero, in Zuko’s case) sympathetic to the protagonist or vis versa, TSR does it to highlight just how far Zuko has come from his Book 1 beginnings. In addition to this, it kind of helps Katara walk a mile in Zuko’s shoes in a way, maybe showing her where exactly Zuko was coming. Consequently, this all ties right into the “Zuko learns that mercy isn’t stupid” arc which I mentioned earlier. 

Thus, we get a parallel with Katara and Zuko saying they do not have a choice. This refers to Katara going after Yon Rha, and to Zuko’s need to capture Aang to restore his father’s love. 

We also get another parallel that really helps to drive home just how determined Katara and Zuko were in their respective missions. Here, they are so determined and angry that they refuse to sleep, with Iroh and Zuko having to come along to tell them that they need to rest. 

And finally, in what might be the most creepy of the TSR related parallels, Katara’s look when Zuko confronts her at the start of the episode resembles the twisted expression we see on Zuko in “The Waterbending Scroll” when he has Katara tied up, and that’s just downright scary. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, Katara and Zuko are two similar individuals who go through some very different but, at the same time, very similar experiences. They are fiercely determined, and like many of our characters, they have lost so much.

Their loss is what makes them grow into the people we see in the show, and it’s their determination, combined with their loss, that makes them clash, interact, and grow as characters. 

[ariyadaivaris]

so rachel @breadclubrising​ wrote a bit of excellent meta (because of course she did) about rich and brian’s match this last 205, and how it’s especially ESPECIALLY powerful in regards to jack, and i hope it’s alright to build on it from here? because i know i wrote a meta post awhile ago about jack as well, and i think that it might be suitable to talk about here? i hope its alright feel free to ignore me!

...not only did they do that, but they proved Jack wrong too: cruelty isn’t the only way to get ahead. There’s a reason Jack was so upset at the end, and it wasn’t completely because Brian lost; Jack lost too. The entire premise he’s staked his recent changes on, the idea that only cruelty can win, is not true. Sounds cheesy, but friendship proved to be more powerful than cruelty. So now Jack has to look at himself and ask why he was vulnerable to that cruelty in the first place, and why he didn’t look to others for help. He has to admit to himself that there was something in him that enjoyed and wanted cruelty, and that instinct isn’t as universal as he thought.

the thing is, jack could have turned to others for help, but he didn’t. we KNOW there are people he cares about on 205. one of his heroic moments against brian was when he saved mustafa from brian attacking him. but even after that big damn heroes moment, jack didn’t reach out to anyone for help, and, really, no one reached out to him. mustafa challenged brian to defend jack’s honor, but he didn’t talk to jack himself. (which is...like. it’s the same thing DIY had, where johnny would express how much he cared about and loved tommaso entirely nonverbally and subtly, and as a result both tommaso and jack failed to actually pick up on just how much they’re loved.)

i think that that relates as well to how jack went from fighting to defend the other Weirdos in the wwe universe to despising the people in it. jack isn’t a cruel person, but he isolates himself more often than not. he doesn’t really have interactions with anyone backstage the way people like rich and cedric and mustafa and akira do. jack doesn’t reach out to people, but some part of him WANTS people to help him. he denies that. he doesn’t act on it. 

and then when he’s in pain, he kind of imagines people are slighting him, and resents that no one would come to his rescue or cheer him on. which is tragically TRAGICALLY human and terribly relatable. no one knows that he needs help, because he won’t show that he does, and then he hates that no one helps him anyway. that’s not an evil thing. that’s just a character flaw a LOT of people have. but it’s...kind of leading to his downfall, here. 

jack was vulnerable to cruelty, isolated by his own doing, and, something i talked about awhile ago, in the aforementioned meta, jack already knows he’s got a cruel heart. 

and the reality of it is that jack DOES have a lot of cruelty in him. jack has always set himself apart from people, he’s always maintained that he’s Different and that he’ll fight for that, for himself. but there are lots of ways to be different from others. maybe jack’s always had a tired bitter heart beneath the gentleman mask. maybe his heart’s calloused from the fighting and the surviving he’s done since he was sixteen. maybe the eccentricity of everything he does is a way to make him different without acknowledging the big reason he feels different, which is that he just feels…cruel.

mistaking fighting back as cruelty is nothing new. defending yourself against a world that wants you dead isn’t inherently cruel, but when the world wants you dead it sure as hell feels like it is. jack performs, he does what he can to make people smile, he plays the part he should and has fun and retires home quietly, isolated and alone and tired and bitter. maybe he’s just embracing that now. maybe he’s just finally accepting he’s a cruel person and it was pointless to ever pretend otherwise.

jack is under no illusion that he’s an ordinary person. he’s always been vocal about being different! but if we go with the idea that jack is a performer and a liar (which, of course, he’d know about better than anyone), then like...i think that while he knows he’s different, he acts like it’s only because he’s Quirky. but in his heart he’d know that it’s because there’s something Wrong With Him. and as his feud with brian went on and he got more desperate and violent and cold, it would be easy to say that what makes him different...is cruelty. 

it’s...a lot? and if we’re doing this, and judging by how long this post is and how opaque it is we are doing this, this arc brings up some fucken pressing psychological issues? like. things that ring really true to how we as humans behave and interpret things and both isolate ourselves AND reach out for help. we can see how cedric and rich quickly formed a team together when it took MONTHS for jack to find an ally in brian. we can see how cedric and rich have a much healthier idea of how to talk to people and ask for help, and we can see how rich balances out the dark intense side of cedric that jack and brian ALMOST brought out, and we can see how having a partner inspires cedric to look out for him and care about him and make sure they both pull through this. 

and we can see how brian is so SO good at isolating vulnerable people and wearing them down until he has all the power over them and they know he can hurt them far worse than they could hurt him so just Do What He Wants and you’ll be fine. we can look at how rich and cedric have a partnership and a friendship where they balance each other out, and care about each other, and make each other better and stronger, as equals. 

and in contrast, we can look at how brian and jack are very much teacher and pupil and their power imbalance is stil FUCKED UP. we can look at how concerned and protective jack gets over brian after matches, because brian’s the one who inspired his turn and if brian’s a fool then what is jack? and we can see how brian’s still a creep but how possessive his body language is, and how, as the teacher, AND as someone who put a hole in jack’s head and could have easily done worse given the chance, how brian has a scary amount of power over jack. and how jack is completely alone accept for brian, and how, if he doesn’t learn right by brian, if he doesn’t obey properly, brian will use any tool at his disposal to hurt him again. 

there’s just. there is SO SO SO MUCH to all of this. and everything ties into everything else in a shockingly intricate elegant way, and i’m almost sure this is unintentional because this is still wwe, but that there can be this much nuance found in this story in the first place is something incredible, yknow? 

[and we could talk about how a queer reading plays into this, how this theme of having Something Wrong With You fits perfectly into that, how internalized homophobia plays up the idea that you’re predatory and dangerous and evil, how the desire to reach out to people is outweighed by fear that you’re preying on them and that getting close to them will make them see you’re a Dirty Queer and results in you isolating even more harshly than before, on and on and on, but like. you know my gay ass is biased so maybe i will shut up about this just this once.]

anyway i don’t know how to structure anything and i have no intention of ever being good at writing, i have a lot of feelings about rich as a good influence and friend and about how cedric’s got someone to care about after being betrayed by almost everyone he’s ever befriended or grown close to in wwe, i have a lot of feelings about how brian is desperately flexing his power over people like cedric and rich and akira and jack to prove he’s worthy of staying in the wwe, and i have a lot of feelings about fucked up bitter tired awful jack gallagher it is 330 am i am going to bed good night

[lotrewrite]

Episode Commentaries PART 2

I got home later than intended this evening so unfortunately I could only do a few episodes! Hopefully I’ll be able to get to the rest across the weekend. As previously, I think everyone’s done a super job and I’m really loving reading these summaries! Can’t wait for the finished piece :-D

Without further ado…

LOTREWRITE: For some reason this appeared way down in my inbox, so I missed it! More comments for everybody!

Episode 8

-          I’m not as familiar with the Constantine tv show so I’ll leave the commentary on characterisation to people who have more experience with it (I really only know him from his Arrow cameos). I do however love Constantine as a character and I’m very much looking forward to seeing him.

-          There seems to be a bit of disconnect between the opening scene with Rip running/being chased and the Legion apparently only just then deciding to capture him – I would have assumed that it was the Legion hunting him down/he was trying to escape the Legion? Perhaps something along the lines of D and Eo arguing and Eo snaps and says like:-

For example:

[EO: I know, Dahrk, believe me – which is why we agreed on an easier target, remember?

D: Ah. So you’ve finally found him, then.

EO (grins darkly): Oh yes. Right down to the very day and everything.

D: Well, aren’t you talented.

EO: I’d say I try, but…it’s really quite effortless at this point. Tell me…how do you feel about ninjas?

D narrows eyes…]

LOTREWRITE: An alternative suggestion is that we could start in media res with Rip running away from someone through feudal Japan - and then do the “several hours earlier” thing.

I would be interested in a bit more time in Japan, though, especially spent on the ninja subplot with Mick

-          I wrote Ray’s suit as having broken down completely in the Invasion episode but reading this I’ll change it to a breakdown with repair potential (or at least, he insists it can be repaired!) because I really like the image you have of racing to get Rip, only Ray’s suit and Sara’s hesitance mean they miss their chance (in a race against a speedster they were always gonna lose lol)

-          Reeeally like the Mick bit about ninjas.

-          Verrry much looking forward to Queen B’s appearance!

-          Shout outs! Love ‘em!!

-          Also love how you kept what Booster was to Rip and Eo ambiguous

-          How do we find out about the compass in the first place? (I may just be forgetting something)

LOTREWRITE: This is actually a good point - either Constantine has to inform them that he can’t help them with info/Rip but he can give them a compass OR we have to seed a reference to the compass in an earlier episode. And either way, we should definitely have characters using the compass in episodes following this.

-          Great points of contention with Oculus!Len towards Mick, Jax/Amaya towards Sara

-          I like the Legion scenes we get in this episode, especially when it shows D and Eo’s double standards re brainwashing and inherent suspicious nature

-          I like the reference to Jason/Etrigan, but personally I’d make it less flippant; like John should be clearly sarcastic when he says ‘Etrigan’, and the others just grimace at each other, maybe?

-          Overall quite liked this episode, but I’d just be careful of pacing and maybe jigging around the scenes so that we close on maybe the reveal of brainwashed Rip or something, especially since it might follow a scene where the Legends hear Zed make the predication and brush it off, believing that Rip would never betray them? That way there’s an emotional punch before the closing titles. Just a thought.

-          Thanks for this, looking forward to it!

Episode 9

-          Nice opening scene

-          I like the mention of a ‘re-set’ for Gideon, since it kinda links in with the themes of episode 12, which I worked on!

-          I really like the build up across the episode and the way it plays out, overall it flows quite well

-          Good interaction between the team, and also that it’s immediately picked up on that ofc it’s a trap

-          Really good scene with Mick, Sara, and Rip

-          I’m just reading through it all again and finding that I want to leave positive comments on each paragraph, the pacing is really excellent in this episode, good job

-          Very well balanced episode overall, actually – the more serious notes are cut well with Ray’s adventures in miniature and the action builds up naturally

-          Love the image of Ray going back to normal size while still on Mick!

-          Good ending, really liked this episode, nice work.

Episode 10

-          Love this opening, and it acts as a bit of emotional relief from the heaviness of the previous episode

-          I love how excited the guys are about pirates, even while Ray is in the process of being a nerd

-          Captain Jack Sparrow reference

-          I’d vote for the Legends just being interrupted, since we don’t want to play up Ray overdoing it too much, it’s already pretty obvious

-          I like Madam Ching recognising Sara as Captain, it shows off her sharpness and intelligence

-          Ray trying out a Cold persona seems a bit abrupt here, especially since he seems to have settled on being a swashbuckling pirate for the day and Mick wouldn’t really have been carrying around the cold gun. However I think that if this happens in the episode, it’ll need a build up somewhere in a previous episode (there needs to be a bit of a build up to this topic/theme – maybe foreshadowing in previous episodes, it would only need a few lines here and there, and some commentary from O!Len to finish it off – it could be similar to how Ray was ‘recruited’ in the original season?). Then he can bring the gun with him while taking on a more ‘badass’ pirate persona, maybe trying to impress Mick? Just some thoughts.

-          I like the plot of the episode, very engaging

-          Nice almost-catch by Ray of Mick’s ‘hallucinations’ (maybe there can be a couple of people giving each other side-eyes behind Mick’s back?)

-          Just mind the pacing a little bit, particularly in the latter half of the episode – it seems like there’s a lot of ‘epiphanies’ for Ray in a short amount of time

-          Love the ending, with the pirate battle and the pirates naming the ship the Waverider

-          Super looking forward to this episode, nice work.

Episode 11

-          I do like the opening, but does it lean it too heavily on revealing that Len is real, since we’re sort of seeing something from his perspective? Before this he was basically just a ‘hallucination’, revealed to be real in the next episode through his interaction with Gideon. Just a thought.

-          I like that it’s a kind of ‘quiet’ opening, though, especially considering all the swashbuckling and energy that the previous episode would have had, so it gives us a nice atmospheric relief

-          I like that the team is pretty concerned, and that Mick actually mentions the ‘Induction Process’ he’d gone through

-          I like the juxtaposition of the seriousness of this episode (themes/plot etc) compared to the pirate episode previously (not that the Pirate episode doesn’t have its serious moments, but it’s pirates and that’s going to be fun no matter what!)

-          I like Amaya coming face to face with some of the future’s less shiny aspects

-          I prefer the second option with Stein (i.e. arguing that they could change time but in a way that doesn’t cause an aberration), he (or Jax?) could also name-drop Lily since it’s natural she’d come up

-          I like seeing Ray come into his role as researcher, and the way the team react to Mick when he tells them he’s ‘hallucinating’ again (yes to Jax reaching out to him)

-          Yes to Mick and Jax adorable engineering duo, please

-          Yes to positive Amaya Ray interaction

-          Pretty intense moment with the Greenpeace member, it really drives home the Legend’s decision to let the ship sink – they’re actively taking a life and they understand that

-          How does the Greenpeace member know what the spear piece is and where it is?

-          Maybe after they get the piece of the spear, spare a moment for the Legends to actually watch the ship explode and sink, and have a moment for them to process and accept that this is a part of their job and responsibility (then just after that scene show the Legion’s ship lingering for a moment, having failed to get their piece, and they leave, etc? Just a thought.)

-          Good afters interaction with Stein and Mick, Mick and Jax, Ray and Sara

-          Great ending scene, very dramatic, love it

-          Thanks for this!

Episode 12

I wrote this episode so I’ll reserve comment, only saying that I’ll be adjusting the end of the episode to take account for the ending of episode 11 (i.e. who brings in Len), and changing the atmosphere of the episode so that it’s slightly lighter (but still creepy! In a good way), given the heavy themes of episode 11. Comments are of course welcome.

Hope that was all okay! This was all I could manage tonight, but I’ll try to get to the others over the weekend. Thanks for all the amazing efforts, you guys! :-)

- Kako-Pumpkin

[hawk-in-a-jazzy-hat]

Anime Review: The Seven Deadly Sins (Season 1)

In a world where humans and magical beings had yet to split, signs of war were imminent and the country was protected by the group of mages known as the Holy Knights. But there was a group that split off, and terrorised the land. A group of seven immensely powerful beings, each branded with the sign of their sin, and designated the Seven Deadly Sins.

The owner of a travelling pub known as the Boar Hat finds himself in an interesting situation when a rusted suit of armour bursts through his door, only to collapse, revealing an unconscious girl inside. It soon turns out that the Holy Knights are searching for her, for she is Princess Elizabeth, third princess to the kingdom. She ran away, claiming the knights are corrupt and tyrannical, and her mission is to gather the Seven Deadly Sins in order to rise up and save her family and her kingdom. But after the owner of the bar gets himself involved, she makes a miraculous discovery; he is in fact Meliodas, the Dragon Sin of Wrath and leader of the Sins themselves. Together, they pledge to go out into the world and find the other six Sins, and maybe bring this fractured land back to rights.

But what is the true agenda of the Holy Knights? And what are the true characters of the Sins themselves? Are they misunderstood heroes, or is there some truth to the terrible legends...

I’m reminded at this point of an anime reviewer I follow called Jacob Chapman (formerly JesuOtaku). He does very good and very in-depth reviews and honestly he was the one who got me into anime in the first place. I want to quote something he said back, when he was doing videos, when talking about a more classic show called the Vision of Escaflowne.

“Can a series be great on execution alone? Could perfect pacing, taut delivery and gripping tension save a story and characters that are old as dirt and nothing special?” [JesuOtaku’s Top 25 Favorite Anime]

Far be it for me to steal his thunder, but I honestly cannot think of a better question to ask when addressing the Seven Deadly Sins. Well, sort of. I want to add a little extra from my personal experience, since it will very much determine the final score I’m going to give this show:

Is it possible for a good show to be made great solely due to a single episode?

We’ve laid down our learning objectives, so with that, we can begin.

The animation is by A-1 Pictures; the Dreamworks of anime studios. They can push out some of the best shows and some of the best-looking shows on the market, but they push out so much stuff (Sword Art Online has obviously set them for life) that the quality can be a bit of a roulette wheel, though I will admit there’s more good than bad. Thankfully Seven Deadly Sins is on the higher-end of that scale, at least on the animation front. It’s straight shounen, and it has all the straight-shounen animation tricks; bright colours, simple but well-directed talking heads and panning shots mixed with some genuinely impressive fights. There is a lot of magic at work here and a lot of the characters are reeeeally powerful, so it’s nice to see the animation can handle it well. It’s not One Punch Man level, but the fights are still immensely fun to watch.

The music is Hiroyuki Sawano. I need say no more; you know exactly what you’re going to get, and you know it’s going to be absolutely epic. It’s also themed well, having a goodly amount of Celtic fiddle and fast-paced percussion, mixed with powerful vocals and guitar riffs. It’s symphonic rock, and honestly that’s perfect for this kind of show. The openings and endings are pretty standard rock fare, with the exception of the second opening which relies a bit more on the vocals and a bit less on playing-as-fast-as-possible, making for a more emotional opening. But overall, s’good stuff.

Now, those who know me may know that I’m not really the biggest fan of shounen. I tend not to hate it, but I tend not to love it either. And that’s what Seven Deadly Sins is; a paint-by-numbers, very safe and very standard shounen with all the standard shounen tropes. Cute animal sidekick? Check. Naive, weak (usually female) side character who acts as the human contact but ultimately means little to the main story? Check. Team member who is likely to betray the main character at any point? Double check. Initial villain who makes a heel-face turn? Checkity-check. Slightly goofy but insanely powerful main character with a very dangerous daaaaark siiiiiide? Oh boy, check. Pretty much every plot twist and character arc is on the table from the moment it’s introduced, so much so that it doesn’t seem worth going through it at all. I could just say ‘it’s a standard shounen’ and leave it at that.

But I won’t, because there are four very good reasons why this show in particular got me in ways that HunterXHunter, or heck, even Soul Eater, couldn’t quite.

The first is very simple; I’m a sucker for this setup. Any show which involves running around trying to ‘get the gang together’ as it were is just immediately attractive to me, probably because I like seeing different and insane characters bouncing off of each other. Add in the nice high-fantasy setting and the interesting setup with the Holy Knights (and for once, pretty much all of the standard one-off villains are actually unique in design and power, which you don’t see often), and I was left inherently excited for the concept.

The second reason is as I mentioned above; while the premise and characters are standard, the execution is very nearly spot-on. There is practically no filler in the whole show (granted it’s only 24 episodes, but for a shounen that’s still impressive). The show is heavily serialised, with elements and characters being introduced in early arcs, being left alone for a few episodes, then coming back again at the opportune moment. And it’s not just the ‘get the gang together’ plot happening at any time; there are rumblings going on within the Holy Knights, there are important items to collect, and of course all the characters have their own troubles to work through. And it all ties together very nicely; the discovery of a new Sin can also lead into the origin of a new villain and foreshadowing for the big final twist. It sounds like basic writing practise, but honestly in shounen, which is usually so arc-based with very little crossover in between, it is an utter gift to see actual PLANNING for once.

In fact, it’s planned so well that by the time the ending comes around, everything important is wrapped up. Not absolutely everything; heck, we only meet six of the Sins and only go into four of them in any depth. But as an actual ending, it addresses everything important that was brought up within the show. The initial objective? Addressed. All the side-arcs and villain-arcs? Addressed. Even things that are left open are purposely left open; characters turn round and say “I haven’t forgotten this, but let’s just wrap this thing up first.” It’s really quite stunning because, again, you see it so rarely in this kind of show. I want to see a second season, but I would be happy if it ended here. It’s open, without being unfinished, and that is such a breath of fresh air like you wouldn’t believe.

So a premise I like with near flawless execution. Is it still enough to get past the standard tropiness? Well...that’s the thing; there are one or two original ideas here...I...think. Not so much with the plot or the world, but especially with the characters. Not so much the side characters; while they are explored well and in-depth, the Holy Knights never really become something ‘new’. Even Elizabeth and mascot character Hawk are kind of familiar roles, despite both being done well. But what I did find interesting were the Sins themselves.

On the one hand, it’s nice to see some diversity. It’s not just a bunch of powerful warriors; we have a giant, a fairy and immortal(s?) on board, and everyone is visually distinct and has their own unique powers. That’s all well and great in itself, but then we find out which sin they each represent. And I’ll be honest, I was often taken aback.

The seven deadly sins as a concept has been done to death by this point; FullMetal Alchemist, Se7en, heck, even Pokemon and Digimon have had a crack at it. And with each variant you always sort of see the same ideas being pulled out; sloth is lazy, lust is an attractive woman, envy is wormy and obnoxious etc etc. You can usually guess who will fit each role, but here, it doesn’t always go with what you’d expect.

For example, the leader Meliodas is short, kinda pervy but immensely easy-going and even cocky. You’d expect him to represent pride, or maybe sloth at a push, but nope. He’s wrath.

When you meet Diane, the awesome giant lady and my favourite character, she’s a little ditzy, but obviously immensely strong with a short temper. You’d really expect her to be either sloth or wrath, or maybe gluttony or...envy? Yeah, in a weird twist, the arguably most outgoing member of the group is the representation of envy. That...never happens, and it took me a little while to figure out why it was her. I mean yes, they gave her a crush on Meliodas, but it seemed a little superficial when compared to what her actual character was.

It wasn’t until about halfway through the series when I figured it out, and why it seemed so far removed from other examples I’d seen. With things like FMA or Digimon, the sins are the literal representation of, well, their respective sin. But here, despite the name, the Sins are not represented by their respective sins; if anything, they are held back by them. Each vice represents each member at their absolute worst.

When you look at it this way, a lot of the backstories and character quirks suddenly explain a lot. Diane being envy actually makes a lot of sense, since as a giant around humans she often feels out of place and awkward, and is looking for acceptance. Her envious side is the worst side of herself. Ban of greed and King of sloth have similar issues; each one tries to be the best of themselves, but are forever branded and atoning for past sins they committed. And then there’s Meliodas of wrath, and let me just say...yeesh.

It’s very rare in a shounen that main characters are defined by their worst aspects. Even if many of them have fascinating flaws which are well explored, not often are they pushed to the front and centre of their every action, sometimes unfairly. The only one I can think off would be Yusuke Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakusho, who is such an annoying arsehole for the entirety of the series that it actually flips him around in the latter half and makes him stronger.

The Seven Deadly Sins are constantly fighting against the worst of themselves. Unless they ever atone, they will always be damned by their own title. That’s both a creative way of using the sins (despite being weirdly obvious) but also allows for some really interesting character stuff. I honestly can’t wait to see what they do with lust, because the reveal of their actual character was perfect, and I can’t wait to see how far they go down their darkest road.

So despite the plot being simple, the main characters actually have quite a bit of depth to them. Even so, I wouldn’t say it was so well handled that it would push it anything up from a straight recommendation. It’s immensely entertaining, with a bit of depth and drama to it, but nothing absolutely stunning or mindblowing.

Except...there’s one more reason why I find this show awesome. And it goes back to my other point, because it is all a single episode.

That is episode 19. And it might just be the single greatest episode of shounen I’ve seen in my entire life.

Everything came together at the right moment. The character arcs had hit the right place, and the tension was at its peak. The most interesting villain of the show was ready to strike, and I was genuinely scared for one of the sins. And then, just when it mattered, we finally discovered the full story.

I was marathoning this at the time, and I don’t know if any of my fellow members noticed, but I was actually on the verge of crying throughout this episode. It was beautiful, it was adorable, it was immensely tragic yet still hopeful, and it explained EVERYTHING. THAT is how you do backstory. Heck, that’s how you do characters to begin with. And for the characters in question, it totally appealed to both the worst of themselves, while finally breaking through and showing the best of themselves.

I loved this episode. I wanted to take it home and watch it again and again with a pot of houmous and just live in the moment again and again. Just...that right there? That is my jam. That is what made the Seven Deadly Sins for me.

Can a tired concept be made great through perfect execution? Honestly, of course it can. Originality can only get you so far. All those important things like pacing and planning and foreshadowing and editing; all the things that you need but nobody remembers, probably make up for at least half of every true great out there. Heck, you don’t need me to tell you this. Look at the Lego movie. An utter cash-in based on a toy which needed no effort put into it whatsoever, and yet what did we end up with? A movie so absolutely wonderfully brilliant that people were angry that it didn’t get nominated for an academy award. Any concept can be great if you do it right; no matter how tired it is.

As it stands, Seven Deadly Sins is a solid recommendation. It’s not perfect, and yeah it’s not finished either, and frankly it’s not really my kind of thing, in theory, but it’s done so well and so completely that I can’t help but give it a solid 7.

Is what I would say.

But frankly, when something is as solid is this, and then does one thing – just one thing – really, really astonishingly well, it would be lax of me not to take notice.

So, I can proudly boost my score by a whole point, making this show not only one of the greats, but without a doubt my favourite shounen as of yet. The effort that went into making this show the best that it could be – pushing the basic structure further and further to make it as perfect as possible, is utterly admirable. The animation and fight scenes are wonderful, the music is phenomenal, the characters are delightful and the whole thing is just immensely fun from start to finish.

Who could have guessed? Even a curmudgeonly old critic like me can be won over if something’s done well enough.

My score: 8/10

[fredenglish]

Last Friday, October 4th, Fredonia had the privilege of hosting award-winning author Jamel Brinkley for the English department’s yearly Visiting Writer series. Sitting down with Jamel over a cup of coffee, we were given the opportunity to discuss his work, his achievements, and the reflections he had on the path he took getting to where he is now. Jamel is a well spoken yet confident man, whose insight on the process of writing proved to be reflective of the human experience itself.

Beginning our conversation, I recalled what it was Jamel had spoken of in his initial lecture on the 3rd of October. He had given a presentation on the process of choosing a perspective to write from when crafting a tale, and had aptly described it as one of the most important, if not the most important decisions one makes when beginning any undertaking into literature. I mentioned that his questions to the audience, many of them writers, about how they chose their POV in a story, had made me wonder what it was that compelled Jamel to choose one mode over another.

“I think I tend to start just by feel,” he said, “which was part of my point in the lecture yesterday- like, often we grab for a certain point of view, because a voice is appealing to us. We’re not thinking of all the consequences of that choice. I think that’s fine, but once you commit to that choice, then you have to make sure you’re managing it.”

This opinion struck me as particularly pertinent to the protagonists of his collection, many of whom dealt with the repercussions of decisions made before the stories had even begun. These protagonists were never truly good or truly bad; very often, they sat at a truly grey area of the moral spectrum, prone to any of the same mistakes as the audience would be. I asked Jamel whether or not he ever struggled with writing such characters, especially given that very often, writers focus on creating characters who are likable, rather than those who, like Jamel’s protagonists, reflect the human condition in all its uncomfortable complexity.

“I’m not super interested in heroes and villains,” he answered. “I think they’re both kind of boring, honestly. That said, I think it's surprising the amount of times, even now, that I’ll let my character off the hook for the first few drafts. You know, I'm protecting that character, I’m not allowing them to make mistakes, because I do care about my characters. So there’s this contradictory impulse, where you do want to care for them and love them, but you don’t want to over-parent them almost. You want to let them do their thing.”

He paused for a moment, before continuing. “I think ultimately I have to be true to my vision. I know that not everyone will like my work- I’ve had readers say that they thought the collection was too dark or too sad- and that’s ok, you know, because I once had a writing teacher say “as soon as you write your first sentence, you’ve lost half your audience.” And I think that’s true- in other words, you can’t try to appeal to every single kind of reader. On the first stage of things, I’m trying to write work that is interesting to me. Then, of course, I’m trying to communicate these stories. But I don’t worry about readers feeling a certain kind of way about characters.”

I asked Jamel whether there were other things that proved difficult for him in writing, or at least which had troubled him when he first began his career. His answer was rather poignant to the experiences of many English students:

“One of my struggles, personally- and I think this is just a function of being trained as a literature student all the time - is that you’re trained to analyze literature. So we’re constantly talking about things like symbols, or themes, or things like that. One thing I remember when I started taking writing classes, was that I was kind of attending less to the characters- that humanness that you’re talking about- and thinking more about ‘ooh, this’ll be a cool symbol,’ or ‘this’ll be a cool theme,’- reaching for metaphors in weird ways. I think I had to realize that those things take care of themselves. If you pay close attention to the stories and to the characters, then that sort of comes organically.”

All writers have their inspirations, and I wanted to get a little more personal with Jamel by asking what his were. His answers were relatively straightforward, yet held a comprehensiveness that betrayed how well read he is. The authors he listed off included contemporary writers like Edward P. Jones, Alice Monroe, to more classical writers, like Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and, of course, Toni Morrison. When it came to their voices, Jamel said, he never tried to copy any of their styles. Rather, he said, “A version of that I find a little more useful is to write stories that talk back to stories you like. It’s not quite like ‘I’m trying to write like you,’ but ‘you wrote something that demands a response’.”

That brought up an interesting question in regards to Jamel’s own voice, and the struggle of many writers to develop their own sense of tone and style. Jamel, now in the prestigious role of a Writing Fellow at the University of Stanford, explained how second year Fellows were required to reflect on each other’s works. It’s a process which he said helped reveal to him aspects of his own work he hadn’t thought of before, aspects which were reflective of how he saw himself as a person.

“I think, like, there are parts of our personalities which show up in our prose,” he said, “that we don’t even really think about, and which other people have to point out. And I don’t know if you can consciously imbue your art with those personality traits. I think that’s why it’s hard to teach voice- it’s something people just have.”

Finally, I asked Jamel what his tips were to writers who wanted to follow a path similar to his, especially in regards to pursuing an MFA in writing. His biggest piece of advice was that you should be prepared; you don’t want to pursue something like it if you’re going to be in debt, nor if you’re going to have to take out time to support yourself through some other means. Your focus should be on your own writing, as he did when he first entered into the program. For that reason, he suggests looking for offers that will allow your MFA to be fully funded.

In conclusion, Jamel Brinkley is a modern writer whose experiences reflect both the age old wisdom of creative literature, as well as the modern opinions of contemporary greats. His insight into the nature of perspective reflects the intricate relationship art has with the real world, the degree to which an author is able to imbue themselves into their work, and the degree to which they must let go and hand over control of their creations to their audience. To Jamel, art is a personal experience, whose intricacies are oftentimes not taught, but simply inherent in the writer’s own instincts. A writer must be ready to take responsibility for the control they have over their work, but also must learn to be confident with that control, and learn to accept that it’s for themselves that they’re making their art. If such a mindset is achieved, then genuineness will be an inherent part of any author’s work, imbuing life into their stories that cannot be replicated by anyone else.

[thecelestialjukebox]

Best of 2017: 10-1

10. Paramore - Hard Times: 

“Hard Times,” first and foremost, is an expertly crafted retro pop song just on virtue of sonics— those marimbas! Those guitar stabs! That awkward vocoder bit! Yet it also captures something deep about the new wave material it’s cribbing from, something that many artists who’ve decided to do Talking Heads cosplay miss. On “Hard Times,” Hayley Williams, who has long been one of the best songwriters in the Alt-rock world, nails the profound sadness and fear of the best New Wave. But “Hard Times” is not just notable for how it imitates the past but in how it boldly stabs towards new sonic ground, in how it shows a Paramore that’s willing to evolve into something unrecognizable from the band that put out “Misery Business.”

9. Mount Eerie - Soria Moria:

 A Crow Looked At Me is a tragedy not just because of the real life calamity that it documents but because of the thing it realizes about the nature of sorrow. A Crow Looked At Me is about the death and mourning of Geneveive Castree, yes, but it’s also about how memory betrays us, gives us nothing but shards of what once was. “Soria Moria” is where Phil Elverum explores this theme most fully, weaving together his entire life and love into a meditation on the impossible places that grief and memory drive us towards, all held together by the twin images of a mythic Norwegian castle and “Slow pulsing red tower lights/Across a distance, refuge in the dust.”

8. Marika Hackman - Time’s Been Reckless:

 There are more genius hooks crammed into the four minutes of “Time’s Been Reckless” than most albums have in their entire running times. What more do you want from a power pop song? What greater joy is there than a pop song as expertly crafted as this?

7. The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - Marine Tigers: 

“Marine Tigers” is a heavy song— not just in its 4th-wave emo aesthetics and massive guitar riffs or its seven minute length, but in the density of its lyrics, which weave together fragments of the immigrant experience both political and personal into a meditation on what it means to be foreign. Yet any song this heavy needs something deeply vulnerable and open in it to survive— otherwise, it’s just dull— and “Marine Tigers” finds that moment in its midsection, as the eerie sustained guitar and synth lines fall away for riffs more delicate and the snare drops out entirely and the thing we’re left with it is just the simple declaration of defiant existence, repeated over and over again: “We’re here/I told you so.”  

6. Vince Staples - Big Fish:

 Vince Staples’ Big Fish Theory is one of those obvious masterpieces of an album, an album that commits so deeply to its aesthetic, equal parts submerged and metallic, that it can use its specificity to make universally powerful moments. “Big Fish,” the album’s pseudo-title track, is the most compelling moment on an album that’s full of them— it’s the easiest demonstration of Vince Staples’ appeal as a rapper who can move between intensity and levity. Just take the opening of the second verse:

“It's funny I was going crazy not too long ago

Women problems every morning like the Maury show

Swimming upstream while I'm tryna keep my bread

From the sharks make me wanna put the hammer to my head

At the park politickin' with the kids

Tryna get em on a straight path, got the lames mad

Know they hate to see me make cash, got the space dash

In the foreign with the GPS addressed to your mama house”

Vince delivers these lines with his characteristic flow, an almost mechanical method that lends his punchlines, like the literal “your mom” joke that ends this passage, a certain ambiguity. His best material is unnerving in that respect, in how you can’t ever tell fully how serious he is about any proposition, but it’s also thrilling.

5. St. Vincent - Hang On Me / Slow Disco:

 “Hang On Me” and “Slow Disco” are two equal and opposite forces, beginning and ending MASSEDUCTION with a desperate, pleading cry for companionship and an equally desperate act of abandonment. Both songs are bare, at least by St. Vincent’s typically maximalist standards, pairing Annie Clark’s vocal performances with just simple strings-and-synth arrangements that stick to slow, elegiac riffs. And in the open space left on these tracks, she delivers the two greatest vocal performances of her career, aching and raw in ways she never has been before.

4. Lil Uzi Vert - XO TOUR Llif3: 

On paper, it’s easy to dismiss “XO TOUR LLif3” as just another pop-trap novelty song, a faux-edgy earworm of a hook about dead friends with no song supporting it. After all, Lil Uzi Vert dropped it on SoundCloud unceremoniously last February on the short stopgap mixtape “Luv is Rage 1.5”, and only gave it a commercial release after the song became inescapably popular on that platform. Yet as soon Uzi’s voice starts to croak over TM88’s cyber-goth beat, it’s clear why “XO TOUR LLif3” is special. Cloaked in layers of autotune that nevertheless serve to accentuate the raw human emotion of his performance, the Philadelphia rapper slurs his lines together, starting and stopping and fragmenting himself towards incomprehensibility. It’s strange to see “XO TOUR LLif3” as some anthem, a song of the summer, when in itself it is not just personal but an invocation of the sheer loneliness and untranslatability of feeling. The line that everyone focuses on here is “all my friends are dead, push me to the edge,” which admittedly is one hell of a unique hook, but it’s in the song’s second verse (roughly speaking) that the song reveals its heart, a swirling mess of megalomania and fear: “I cannot die because this my universe.”

3. Lorde - The Louvre: 

The first part of “The Louvre” is already among the best work on Lorde’s messy, wonderful Melodrama. Lorde expertly captures the uncertainty and passion of a young romance in the song’s lyrics, which shift constantly from long, languid bits of poetry like “Well, summer slipped us underneath her tongue/Our days and nights are perfumed with obsession” to casual, conversational lines like “They’ll hang us in the Louvre/Down the back, but who cares—still the Louvre.” The beat, produced by Flume and Malay (who also contributed to many of the best bits of Frank Ocean’s Blonde) also contributes to this feeling of ambiguity, rising and falling and rising again from simple guitar strums to the burbling mass of synths that Lorde sings the song’s final chorus over, all wistful passion. Yet the best part of “The Louvre” is in the back half, after all that is over. The song’s extended, wordless outro, anchored by a repeated guitar and synth figure, is some of the most evocative sonic storytelling of the year, an open question of a piece that hints of sun-drenched memories.

2. Japanese Breakfast - The Body Is A Blade:

 “The Body Is A Blade” is a song about grief but it is not quite a sad song— instead, it feels like every other emotion but sadness is here, from a kind of wistful joy to defeat to anger finally all the way to acceptance. These feelings flow through every part of the song, from the guitars that hold the track down, slowly moving across its landscape with a deliberate sort of beauty, to the synth arpeggios that float in, unbound to the material world, in the song’s second half. In between these interlinked, kaleidoscopic parts a whole world of trauma and memory lies, brought out by Michelle Zauner’s vocal performance. Even as all these things move around her, she is steady, a force of clarity in an ambiguous and beautiful sonic world. Her lyrics, focused around the idea of survival in grief, do the same, returning again and again to the image of the body cutting through the days for the sake of staying alive.

1. Carly Rae Jepsen - Cut To The Feeling:

 Pop music is both very easy and very hard to explain. The easy part is identifying all the little moving parts that work— the surf guitar in “Toxic,” for example, or the rolling drum beat on “Maps.” The hard part is in explaining how each of those functional elements, the load-bearers of a song, come together into something more. It’s easier in other genres— you can point to the virtuosity of a metal guitarist or an uber-technical rapper as the point where a song achieves greatness, or see the deeper meaning in an expertly crafted folk song or thoughtful piece of R&B— but pop is supposed to be disposable, which isn’t a bad thing, really, but makes finding its critical value more difficult.

“Cut To The Feeling” makes the hard part easy. “Cut To The Feeling” is not quite the best pop song of all time but is certainly the most pop pop song of all time, a throwaway (it’s a B-side to Emotion’s B-sides, consigned to a fourth-rate French animated movie) that takes its status as a throwaway as not a write-off but a mission statement. It’s supposedly a love song, just as all of CRJ’s output has been, but it’s really a song about what pop music does to you, how these little confections of synths and vocal lines develop emergent properties and actually make you feel things. “Cut To The Feeling” knows that it isn’t real, that pop music is inherently an exercise in abstractions and constructed images, but it doesn’t really care. Somewhere in the song’s build, as chugging rhythm guitar gives way to those massive synth chords, the point of the difference between the feeling itself and the shortcut the music provides is lost. “Cut To The Feeling” sounds like what it is: an ode to the power of pop music to become something ineffably more even within its limitations.