#or you *shouldn't* need to relate to a protagonist

[colorisbyshe]

A lot of the response to Oppenheimer criticism has been "Clearly, you haven't watched the film, it isn't celebrating him! It shows all the things he did wrong" and I have to say... that's... still... missing the point of the criticism.

Oppenheimer occupies the same space as all the war films--like Dunkirk--that say "War is hell." While these films could and do skew towards "War is bad, let's avoid it," they still often... really end up saying "War is hell but let's pity the warriors and maybe consider the ways in which it was worth it."

The "war is hell" films end up completely missing the "anti war" mark because they choose to focus on the people waging the war, painting them in a sympathetic or at least humanizing light even when they're in the wrong. You feel bad when a soldier has to kill a kid on the other side--even if the kid is unarmed or begging for their life--because it's sooo sad that the soldier was driven to that point. And because... well, what else could they have done?

A much more effective "war is hell" film would be focused on the people whose land is ravaged by bombs. The civilians. The families. The people who lose their homes, their schools, their hospitals, their lives. Not in waging war but just in happening to live where war is happening. THEY are the real victims. They are not victimizers who might come to regret it (like warriors, like Oppenheimer) but like... actual victims.

In choosing to make a film about Oppenheimer and not about his victims--the people of New Mexico, the people of Japan, people forced into internment camps on US soil, and broader even then--you are saying "This man is responsible for great evil but let's humanize him too. Let's recognize that he didn't really have a choice or that maybe he felt bad about it. It was out of his hands."

Beyond humanizing him, it gives this history an element of inevitability. He HAD to do it. This HAD to happen. It's horrible that it happened but it was always going to happen.

If you focus instead on all the people victimized, you see all the reasons why it didn't have to happen.

And if Christopher Nolan isn't equipped to tell the story of New Mexican civilians who weren't given protective gear when the only jobs they had left were at all the labs or the stories of what a Japanese child does when his family is ravaged by American war crimes... he doesn't have to tell that story. The option isn't "Tell Oppenheimer or tell an intimate story he can't at all relate to." He could just... not tell this story.

Some stories really are not meant to have entertainment value. Some stories are not meant to be human stories but rather just facts on paper. Or told from the other human side. Sort of how like documentaries on serial killers often get it wrong but the fictionalized tv shows exploring ~what made them serial killers are ALWAYS wrong.

Some perspectives don't really need to be explored, is what I'm saying. Oppenheimer shouldn't be a grey or even dark protagonist. Some atrocities do not need to be humanized in any way, even if the humanity mostly culminates into "He was still wrong, though."

There are more efficient, less troubling ways to explore the motivation (the greed, the nationalism, the racism, the hatred, the warmongernig) behind bombings and wars like this. That would be better tools at realizing how we are repeating history, right now, in 2023.

That don't involve having to paint atrocities and the people behind them as grey or human or pathetic or pitiable.

[tcfactory]

Okay, random 1 am idea:

In the earliest of Airplane-bro's drafts, Luo Binghe's sidekick was a sneaky spy ice demon with teleportation powers. A real overworked backstabbing ladder-climber type. He was supposed to bide his time and then try to double-cross Binghe when the protagonist got his eyes on the ancestral power of the north, because Luo Binghe was a shitty boss to him and trying to take what should have been his birthright was the last straw. (Overworked, underappreciated backstabbing sidekicks may or may not have been a common trope at the time he started writing, but also incredibly relatable, even if his betrayal was doomed to failure by the narrative.)

But then the direction of the story started getting out of Airplane's hands (gotta please the readers after all) and he really wanted to have something for himself, so the original Ice Demon Sidekick TM got split into the current Author's Favorite Mobei-jun and sneaky spy waving deathflags OG!Shang Qinghua. Then, because by then OG!Shang Qinghua was long dead in the story, Airplane ended up simply reusing the original concept/personality for Linguang-jun (after some nerfs of course) and the ancestral power storyline got revamped for Mobei-jun's personal story.

As a direct side effect of this, Linguang-jun and OG!Shang Qinghua are extremely similar in personality and, because overworked author put more of himself into the overworked spy's character than he realized, he's also quite similar to Airplane-as-Shang-Qinghua.

From there it takes one accidental meeting for him to gain some insight into Linguang-jun's motivations (quite logical, if you ask Airplane, but that might just be the authorial bias speaking) and then a spur of the moment decision to go: you know what? None of this has any effect on Binghe and his general... everything, so why shouldn't he be allowed to fix the Mobei family drama before it can escalate to murder attempts? Having two crafty schemers instead of just one would only benefit his king, after all. (This has nothing to do with him having weekly meetings / venting sessions with Linguang-jun, nothing at all I say.)

But then it does end up mattering. Maybe Sha Hualing's demon invasion doesn't happen. Maybe the attack on the Immortal Alliance Conference is so well-organized that the Old Palace Master dies. Maybe Linguang-jun recognizes Binghe as Tianlang-jun's kid and the whole thing turns into a kidnapping instead. There are plenty of options, but in short: the story goes way off the rails, all because Shang Qinghua managed to make Mobei-jun and Linguang-jun set their conflict aside and work together as a team.

He doesn't exactly mind it, as such. He's much less overworked and his king is happy and it's all probably going to be fine. That's all he needs, really. The details can work themselves out over time.

[kokiriri]

I saw you accept asks, I'm going to keep it simple and Request something simple(also Would like a list on request rules and stuff, I'm assuming wakfu is the only allowed fandom)

Main protagonist yugo, Eating a Potato

Finally getting around to doing some art requests!

Thank you for asking about rules, I guess I never bothered really to set any guidelines, so I'll do that here!

-⚠️Biggest rule is NO NSFW(18+) asks. On top of that, I will not draw any ship art I find inappropriate (i.e. inc3$+, abu$!ve relationships, etc.)

-I definitely prefer Wakfu-related requests, but I'll also draw from other fandoms, including Zelda, Miraculous LB, Inuyasha, Ghibli, and more. However, if you want to make a request outside of these fandoms, just know there's a possibility I'm less likely to respond.

-No complicated scenes or images. I simply don't have enough time, and on top of that, I'm doing this for free (which honestly, I prolly shouldn't do cuz I need money rn but whatever ig😭😭)

-I do not draw furries or mechs, so please don't ask.

-In regards with OCs, I'm not exactly sure if I'll draw those atm. I've gotten some Wakfu OC requests already, but none with reference sheets. I can't really draw an OC without a reference yaknow...😟

I guess that's it for now, I may update it in the future as time goes on, but yeah. Hope you enjoy the drawing!🫶

[punkeropercyjackson]

Hot take but Percy Jackson actually isn't anything like Harry Potter and the reason they're popularly compared is due to the mass mischaracterization and misenterpretation that leads to sanatization of Percy to turn him into a more standard protagonist despite the whole point his character being that he's NOT normal while Harry's is that he IS and that made him into a very bland and lowkey passive aggressive bigot that's an awful example for kids while Percy is the perfect role model.Like let's look them over.Percy:

Was born poor and never becomes rich

Is a child abuse victim with consistent trauma responses and unhealthy coping mechanisms all the way starting at The Lightning Thief

Beat up bullies as a kid,was targeted by them to begin with because he's neurodivergent and his teachers picked on him too

Has nothing but love and respect for his fellow minorities,women especially thanks to being a mama's boy with no positive older male figures in his life except Beckendorf

Is pessimistic,sardonic,anger issued,bad at socializing and gets embarrased to be overly open with his emotions but none of this turns him into a bad person but instead makes him realistic and relatable

And he's also kind,gentle,nurturing to the point of basically adopting younger demigods as his found siblings and pseudo-kids if they don't have positive adult figures in their lives already,encouraging,loyal to a literal fatal fault and has a distinctive and iconic sense of humor that never dosen't land

Didn't like Annabeth or Rachel for shallow reasons and instead for their personalities and only wasn't into Reyna because he was taken at the time and treats all three of them very nicely

Is an instigator who's driving point as our hero is taking down corrupted figures but also does activism for the lesser treated people in his world by helping out every time he gets a chance to,has one of his core trait's being that he's COMPLETELY devoid in power hunger and pretty arguably counts as an anarchist because of this

Relating to the sense of humor thing again,his whole PERSONALITY is distinctive-He's not just some fantasy protagonist,he's PERCY JACKSON.The name alone gives everybody who's read the books flashbacks to all his crazy ass shit(affectionate)and that's how you know you've got a well-written protagonist

And Percy is legitimately transfem-coded,because i've met so many trans women in the Pjo fandom and every single one of them without exception have said that she's a femme trans woman egg.This also applies to black/afrolatino folks and autistics in the fandom like me to a less near universal extent

While Harry:

Grew up middle class and then got riches out the ass when the series started

Is a very poor attempt at positive abuse survivor rep because he uses his mental health as an excuse to a huge dick with no consequences given to him afterward

Had no tormenters other than the Dursleys

A 'dosen't know better and refuses to learn' typa bigot with tons of passive aggressive remarks about girls and ableism and fatphobia thrown in too,not to mention racist moments like hating Dean for dating Ginny

Is the quintessential young male fantasy protagonist and this is exactly his problem because it makes him boring asf and we're dealing with so much fucking damage in the kids fantasy genre thanks to his musty ass

All his crushes were shallow(Only liked Cho for a pretty girljock and only noticed Ginny when she became one too and prioritizes looks and society's idea of 'coolness' on the other girls his age too like damn i wonder why he only ever saw Hermione as a sister,surely it can't be connected /s)

Never does actual justice fighting unless he's required to and don't tell me he shouldn't have needed to because this wasn't real life,it was a magics series so he should've fought evil on purpose like Percy did and so did Katniss Everdeen and the Pevensie Siblings and all the other actual good kids books protags.This genre is supposed to be a power fantasy for kids that they can be heroes too and Harry failed big time at his job just like he did at everything else

Again,he is VERY mediocre as a character but mediocrity sells and now we have a million clones of him instead of real mcs

Is part of exactly zero minorities,neither intentionally or accidentally,and that made him grow up to be a cop.Douchebag ass white straight boy Harry vs Autistic afrolatina transfemme slay Percy.No competition,Percy's punk so she'd kill Harry to earn her blue laces

And before Maraturds and Luke/gods stans get bold,you're literally him irl but worse besties♡

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hello! I think you had a post about this before but I can't find it. Not really sure though. I have this probelm with picking ideas? When I work on a story I usually explore many different ideas for the plot but find myself stuck in choosing one. I quickly grow bored of what I came up with and start creating more... in the end I have too much, and can't decide what fits my story best. Then I procrastinate because I have too many notes to process and get overwhelmed...

Overwhelmed After Story Evolves Too Many Plots

Stories shouldn't naturally evolve through several different plots. If that's happening, there's probably one of the following goin on: 1 - You don't have a good grasp on how stories work. Stories aren't a random exploration of things happening. Stories are a cohesive sequence of related events through which the main characters react to and often resolve a conflict. That conflict may be internal (within the characters), external (within the characters' world), or both. The particular events and sequence of events in your story (story structure) depends on the type of story you're writing. Most stories (longer fiction in particular) follow basic story structure:

If your stories often evolve through multiple plots, it's because you didn't have a clear and solid conflict to begin with, or you didn't know how to explore your conflict effectively (via story structure) and you burned through it too fast. (See: Plot & Story Structure master list) 2 - You don't know why you're writing the story. There's always a reason we start writing a story in the first place. Nine out of ten times it's because we're hit with an idea and are inspired to follow it. But, believe it or not, most of the time there needs to be a greater purpose there. If you have a cohesive conflict and well developed plot, your story has a purpose in terms of what the characters get out of it. But what about what the reader gets out of it? Do you just want them to have a rip-roaring good time? Do you want them to feel like they've been sucked into the mystery with your investigator protagonist? Do you want them to feel less alone as someone whose experienced the same thing as your protagonist? Do you want them to feel seen or represented? Do you want them to walk away with some deep meaning or moral lesson? And what about you? What do you get out of this story as a writer? Are you writing it to explore an aspect of life, society, or a particular dynamic that is fascinating to you? Are you hoping of catharsis as you do a deep dive into an experience you yourself have lived through? Are you hoping to deliver a moral message that you feel is important to spread? Knowing not just what your characters get out of the story, but what your reader and yourself as the writer get out of the story is an important part of staying on track and staying motivated.

3 - You're chasing waterfalls, so-to-speak... meaning that rather than staying on track, you're leaving the plotted course in pursuit of prettier, more exciting things. Most of the time when this happens, it's because you're giving into the dopamine rush you feel when a new idea strikes. Now, ideally you would write the idea down someplace safe, put it out of your mind, and put your focus back on your story. We do this every single day in life, because if we didn't, we couldn't go to school, have jobs, date, have social lives, raise children or animals... being a responsible human requires us to choose to do the thing we need to do rather than chase the sparkly fun things. If you have to leave for class in ten minutes but your favorite movie just started on TV, you have to make the choice to turn off the TV and go to class. You choose to stay on course rather than go off-track and do the fun thing. However, many of us have a difficult time with these types of decisions for various reasons, such as neurodivergence, chronic illness, depression, mental illness, stress, and exhaustion. So, it's not always easy to make that choice, even when it just means taking the new and exciting idea and writing it down for later. One thing you can do in that case, though, is leave yourself a note in the current story about where you're headed next. What's the next moment, scene, or event you're going to write? Then, save it and set it aside and follow the new idea for a little bit by starting a new story. That way, you're not grafting this idea onto a story that already has its course plotted. 4. You need to be a "plotter". If you start out with a solid plot and story structure, you know what you want to get out of the story, and you're not letting yourself chase waterfalls, but you STILL can't keep your story to one plot, this is a pretty good sign that you need to be a "plotter." Now, there tends to be a little controversy over the whole "plotter" vs "pantser" thing, and that's mainly because everyone things their way is best and often forget there's actually a whole spectrum between plotting and pantsing. Either way, they're both a real thing, because some writers need to intricately plot their story down to timeline, scene list, glossaries, and bios, while others can just "write by the seat of their pants" and let the story develop as they right. Then, of course, there are writers who fall every which way in-between.

Some writers are inherently plotters or need some level of plotting in order to execute a story from beginning to end. Some can write with little to no planning at all. For some writers it depends on their phase of life or what they're specifically writing. But, if you find that your stories are always going off-track even if they're solid in your mind, you may need to do some solid plotting. Start by having a beginning to end written summary of the story and see if that's enough to keep you on track. If not, next time try the summary as well as a timeline of events. If that doesn't work, try the summary and timeline plus a scene list. And just keep adding things until you find the right amount of planning to keep you on track with your original idea.

Happy writing! I hope something here works for you!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[autumnslance]

Hey Aeryn, I was wondering what you recommend to get past FOMO and overthinking. I know I shouldn't feel this way but I can't shake it. I want to play all of the story but I start to feel anxious. I start overthinking and second-guessing and the cycle starts again. I have a WOL I'm enjoying writing but I can't get her to translate in-game. Any advice?

I admit, I don't often get FOMO, but when I do, I stop and ask myself: is this something I actually want to do? A place I actually want to go? An experience I need? An item I want? Or am I just reacting to others, especially friends, having fun and talking about a thing together, so it's pinging a social desire/need?

Cuz I can interact and talk with my friends in other ways and places. I don't have to do all the things they do, play the games they play, etc. I use in built filters and blacklists on my social media to not see things about games/shows/etc that I don't want hear about, and I stop following a lot of (usually sideblogs) accounts that deal with those topics. When I left WoW behind, I dropped a lot of those blogs, for instance.

(I think some people would be happier if they put down media they don't actually enjoy but only watch/play because the people in their lives do.)

What about playing the game is making you anxious? Is it doing the content? Most can be done solo now, but friends can help with the stuff that can't be, or there's always duty finder. Is it story and character direction? Afraid things will happen to your faves, or they'll grown and change in ways you don't care for? That's a risk in any ongoing media, and up to an individual where their "I'm done" point is where they don't enjoy that lore and canon anymore, and then make the decision to change it in fanfiction or drop the story altogether.

With everyone talking about new content right now, even trying to keep spoilers under wraps, it can be rough for sure. Everyone has opinions! And screenshots! And there's new fanfic!

Is the anxiety because of the WoL you started writing, and how she doesn't "translate" in game, and afraid the lore will continue to make that harder?

In that case, look at what the character is, what you've written...and what the character (your subconscious, really) is telling you they actually are, or need. If they don't fit the canon lore...It's OK. Change the story to fit as needed. Or....play through it and see what ends up working after all, with the benefit of knowledge.

You can't lock a character in stone; a story happens because characters want something (large or small), and in the course of the story they are changed in some way (large or small). WoL is an anime protagonist with plotstrong abilities and gifts that give players a lot of leeway in any direction. Some people don't play WoLs at all. Their OC is a person they roleplay and write about in the setting, the plot happens to someone else, and they just play the video game with that avatar.

So what isn't "translating"? Is it appearance related that can't be done without mods and artwork? Disabilities that likewise are tricky to show in game (which assumes a mostly able-bodied WoL)? A backstory that seems to not fit (the world's bigger than what we see)? A lot of detailed backstory and supporting cast that now make you feel boxed into a corner?

It can be hard, seeing people with deeply developed stories and characters and supporting cast, but you also have to remember: a lot of that is built over time. Aeryn didn't have nearly the detailed list of relatives to start, didn't have the "dad was a secret heretic" backstory until 4 years into playing her. I still haven't named all of Dark's siblings. I've seen some folks entirely rewrite their characters cuz something in an expansion spoke to them and it made more sense and made them happier than what they did before.

When I start overthinking a character story, I put the backstory away, and just play them for a bit. I keep a vague idea of what I think their personality might be, what reactions would seem right. And then I let "them" guide me as I play. And sometimes what a character tells me ends up far more interesting. Or I find the stuff I was anxious about adding to them...ends up being canon, or at least working out, anyway.

And if the concern is what other people will think about one's WoL....well, you can't control what others think. And trying to please everyone leaves you with a milquetoast bland sop who isn't interesting at all. Care about the character you want to write, even if that changes, and make them as interesting as you want.

I was saying in a convo yesterday that the shrieking about "Mary Sue and how to not be one" caused lasting societal trauma and people are still afraid of giving characters interesting traits and stories. A person was anxious about giving their WoL traits that might make them 'too much' or 'too special' but they're traits WoL canonically has. We're in an anime story as anime protagonists, be wild and weird. Not everyone will like it, and that's good, actually. Cuz others will love it, and it means you gave your writing and characters personality.

Final Fantasy XIV is a game that 90% of the time, the content isn't going anywhere. You go at your pace, you enjoy the story and side content. There's a lot, after 11 years. Do what you gotta to avoid spoilers, gushing, complaining, or otherwise talk about content you're not in yet to reduce the worry everyone else is having fun while you're spinning wheels a few expacs back. Figure out what you enjoy and love about the game, and focus on that for awhile. Let your WoL breathe, and just play without plotting out how they translate or fit, and remember stories aren't set in stone; they have to be malleable. Especially when trying to write/roleplay in someone else's world!

You should be in this for yourself. Because you find it fun, relaxing, enjoyable to experience. Because you want to tell a character's story even if it takes a hard left turn from canon lore. And if you have to mute and filter out and block some things and people on social media or chat or whatever, do what works for you. But when overthinking, turn that around and interrogate yourself: "OK, why do I feel this way? Why would this be bad? Do I want this or am I trying to follow the crowd?" Make lists, pros and cons. Figure out if it's actually FOMO and anxiety...or if you're trying to tell yourself something and you're just not listening.

Give yourself grace. This game is just one piece of our life's tapestry, and while there's probably friends who want to see you clear content, the world won't end if you don't catch up to the current patch right away, or write a 200k fic about your WoL's life by year's end, either. Go at your pace.

[almdragonrend]

I have somthing I really need to say, I don't get how FL could be popular, I mean if you think for a moment about it even OG Katarina is morally superior to the Heroine in Maria and all The Capture Targets in the story, I mean nothing against an Evil protagonist or a good antagonist, but than don't portray Katarina as a Villain and Maria as a hero ! That's wrong! Katarina leaves Maria completely alone in both the Nicole and Alan route, meaning she only opposed Maria when she's trying to seduce HER fiancée or mess with her family or do both in the Harem route!

Than the fact that she's accused of bullying those bellow her station is bulls* she only bullied Maria who I just said why she did it and Keith whose arrival at HER HOME turned HER PARENTS against eachother when she was a Child! That doesn't make it right but she couldn't know that this wasn't his fault, and his own original family wanted to kill him! Luigi saved his life and that's how he thanked him ?

than Geordo she gave almost half her life up to that point in complete support and devotion to that mother fu* and he swore an Oath to marry her! I don't think many people get how bad a possible future king breaking an Oath is especially considering Geordo's Grandpa's actions,

further more Katarina actually don't mistreated dose below her status, first her Maid Anne who despite being related to Nobility is herself a Commoner just like Maria and Katarina even in FL verse treats her like a Sister more than a servant!

Next there's Sianna, she's the bottom of the barrel of Nobility and still Katarina cherished her more than anyone else! This makes the claim of her bullying people for their status down right nonsensicaly!

Especially when she's the only one who never partake in bullying everyone's favorite Target Sophia Ascart, since we see in VOD is never once mentioned that she did so when Sophia joined her book club, that would have had to be brought up than ! Meaning is the only Noble Girl who didn't bully Sophia! (Except Marry) and it's even implied she discouraged others from bullying Sophia!

When Bakarina in verge of doom just assumed OG Katarina bullied more people and wanted to apologize during VoD judgment event no one spoke up! And that Is most likely because she never bullied anyone other than the Girl who tried to steal her fiancée and/or shame her family!

Also, it's said that Katarina's bullying was only on the very edge of Criminal, meaning she never really committed a crime, the one attacking Maria with fire was Noelia, who acted on her own accord!

Keith and/or Geordo basically rigged the Trial to get Katarina stripped of her status and exiled which is a way to hard punishment anyway! When she comes back with dark magic she didn't even kill someone for it! She just had it !

And that idiots in the development team must have believe that this made her appear more evil since she's just born with the "bad magic" but instead it just means she didn't kill anybody for it ! Right OG Katarina is not a murderer and the idiots of the FL development believed Katarina being NOT a murderer makes her more evil than people who literally commit murder to get the same magic! what does that say about their Character ?

I heard a lot about people saying something for a Original Katarina redemption arc and I really hope she gets an happy ending, she deserves it but what people need to understand is Original Katarina dosen't need an redemption arc because she has not done anything so bad that she deserved getting to that point anyway, instead she deserved a pretty enormous apology from Geordo, Keith and Maria

To give her a redemption arc basically means recognizing Maria, Geordo and Keith, Cheating, betraying,Oath breaking and manipulate a Chords to commit prejudice as a good thing, Original Katarina shouldn't have to apologize to them! They should have to apologize to her! Even when something like that calls for ways more than an apology! And first of all her entire sentence should be revoked !!!! + there has to be compensation for everything she had to go trough!!!

[betweengenesisfrogs]

Desynced

So I really like Desynced.

Strictly speaking, it doesn't 100% fit what I was talking about in my Homestuck manifesto, since it's technically a Homestuck fan adventure rather than a brand new work.

However…for a fanwork, it feels more like a new piece of Homestuckian art than many others I've seen?

I'm reminded of an old Hussie formspring response, where the question was about what would happen if siblings living in the same house played SBURB. Hussie's response was that one shouldn't try to solve this with the rules of Homestuck, but instead imagine the kind of story and plot that would suit such a scenario.

Desynced is like that - playing by its own rules. A lot of other fan adventures feel too stuck (ha) in adhering to the rules of SBURB and Paradox Space. Desynced is quite literally playing an entirely different game. It lets go of so much about the way a fan story is traditionally conceived, and brings in its own set of laws and ideas that fit its own story better.

Some things I like, in no particular order:

-The depiction of parents and children - Desynced knocks this out of the park by splitting the difference between faceless authority figures and relatable kids by playing with perception and letting the parents talk to each other as adults, even when they're faceless to their kids. There is some really phenomenal parent-child content here. The relationship between Kate and her father, for instance, is fraught and filled with missed conversations that break my heart

-That in 2024, everybody in the main group gets to be queer and trans from the very start

-That the protagonist kids are Zoomers, and we see that their interests tend not toward 80s movies but things like Minecraft and Discord chats

-That we seem to be building towards a "war in heaven" theme, where different members of the future gods and Carapacians will take different sides in a cosmic struggle

-The music, which is full of bangers and feels like the sequel to the Homestuck bandcamp page that I never knew I needed

-The total reimagining of Jack Noir, which seems like it shouldn't work, but totally does

-The genius way that the game's equivalent of Denizens tie into weird cosmic mysteries

-Alien kids who appear at first glance to be trolls but are quickly revealed to not be trolls at all (maybe they're tieflings)

-The way in this universe, Trollsonas only exist in connection to an obscure game called Hiveswap

-The fact that the fantasy land inhabitants, the equivalent of consorts, are more fleshed out and have their own lives going on instead of just being silly animals - which hints that we're taking 'their existence more seriously and sincerely.

-That when Desynced does "play the Homestuck hits," it reminds you of how good those narrative structures are. Examples include:

Ordinary internet friend group discovers they are all interconnected and inveigled in a vast conspiracy

Making sense of the rules of a confusing alternate gamey-reality that suggests a sense of purpose but doesn't give you instructions for achieving it

Oh, and also, you have to do this while the world is ending and you're about to die

Villain narrator makes fun of you, the reader

Alien kids interrupt your game session to ramble at you about how they know much more about the game than you do, but it turns out they're just a tiny bit ahead and they're as confused about most things as you are

Ascending to godhood helps you redefine your identity but also causes as many problems as it solves

It's like, woah, Homestuck was really cooking, wasn't it?

We're all so used to the Homestuck plot structures and conventions that I think it's very easy to lose sight of why we fell in love with it in the first place. Reading Desynced made me remember how much I love the premise of Homestuck. Desynced achieves this by detaching from convention and focusing on Homestuck's themes: parent-child relationships, the limitations of one's ideology, the double-edged sword of finding identity in fantasy, and more.

So yes, Desynced is a Homestuck fanwork. But if we're asking where a Homestuck literary movement might go in the future, Desynched offers us a really neat glimpse of part of the answer.

I highly recommend checking it out, if you're interested.

-Ari

[justmenoworries]

Okay, I'm about to say something very controversial.

I think the Terrans and the Maltos are kind of the weakest part of EarthSpark.

"What? But they're the main characters!"

Yeah, I know. That's the problem.

The main characters are this group of children who are, for the most part, not in the loop when it comes to the show's more interesting conflicts.

The Transformers fitting in on Earth, post-war tensions between Decepticons and Autobots, G.H.O.S.T. being corrupt, parts of humanity being suspicious of and/or downright hostile toward Cybertronians- all of those are things the Maltos are either only tangentially related to or stumble across accidentally.

And that makes sense!

The Terrans and the Maltos are literally children, they shouldn't have to deal with all of that. And the way the show makes clear how brutally the realities of war hit them once shit starts going down is absolutely heartbreaking and well-written.

Still, I can't help but find their story-arcs... kinda boring and repetitive.

Now, I'm aware EarthSpark wasn't really made for people my age. It was made for young children, kids who are just starting to become Transformers-fans and need or might need an introduction to this universe and its characters.

And its message about the power of love and family is a really important one to tell.

But part of me can't help but feel that the Transformers stuff kind of ends up falling by the wayside.

When I think of episodes I enjoyed, the ones that come to mind are always those where the Maltos either interact with Cybertronian characters or ones where the Maltos completely take a backseat, leaving the plot room to focus on the Cybertronians and their troubles ("Decoy", "House Rules", "Missed Connections", "Warzone").

While the episodes that focus more to entirely on the Terrans were often the ones I was least interested in ("Moo-ving In", "Friends and Family", "Bear Necessities"). That's not to say any of these episodes are bad, but like I said, they weren't particularly interesting.

At times it feels like the show itself is aware that the Maltos don't really contribute much and flips a switch to artificially boost their importance. Like in the finale where all the Cybertronians (and Terrans) just so happen to get incapacitated so that Mo and Robbie can save the day with their magical healing sleeves.

There is this constant tug-of-war between a heartwarming slice of life cartoon about family, coming-of-age and love and a dark space opera epos about the consequences and casualties of war, racism and genocide. And when these two clash it often doesn't work.

We'll spend one moment talking about how Megatron used to brutalize his troops and the next doing a comedic sequence where Bumblebee falls off his hay-chair and does a funny exclamation. One moment we're examining the unjust detainment of one faction while the other walks free, and then suddenly it's "Look! The funny mini-casette-bots are making craaazy mischief!"

We get hints that there's something more going on, we get hints that some characters deal with heavy stuff, but if those characters aren't the Terrans or the Malto kids or in any way related to them, hints is all we ever get until everything comes bursting out at once.

Just to make this clear, I am not saying that EarthSpark is a bad show overall or that I hate the show. But no piece of media is perfect and the reason I'm criticizing EarthSpark isn't because I want it to go down, it's because I want it to do better.

Back to the Maltos: If they were interesting enough characters, I wouldn't mind them being the protagonists at all. They have potential, I'll admit to that.

But once you get past the novelty of Transformers born on Earth and being bonded with humans, there's just not much to them.

They're not very deep as characters go and their personalities aren't strong enough to carry them just as they are. They're your standard bickering but loving kid siblings.

It doesn't help that they're not really allowed to be anything but a family unit, to the point of being quite literally a hive mind.

And yes, the show wants to send a message about being open with your emotions and family bonds. But after the umpteenth time a Malto-character started a monologue about how much they love their family and how much their family makes them strong and how they're confident they can get through anything with their family I was like

I hope they develop these characters further in season 2. I want to like them, but right now it's really not easy for me.

Those are just my two cents, feel free to give your own.

[odetoviscera]

Baldur's Gate 3: The Evil Experience

on the recommendation of @leupagus: My Very Special Evil Boy, Vexation. don't worry about the blood, it's a fashion choice.

if you've been wondering how evil you can be in baldur's gate 3, wonder no more-- So Evil.

so beginning at the beginning, i of course chose the Dark Urge (obvious serial killer) origin, who is conveniently customizable, so i also made him Drow and a Lolth Worshipper and a Warlock (all of which has made him only marginally more evil, tbh, mostly the related dialogue options make him a smug bastard, although OCCASIONALLY this will give him a "hmm what if i enslaved you" option which people do indeed react to as if he's an evil maniac and they should flee and/or try to kill him. this goes great for them considering i'm the protagonist.)

i wake up on an illithid ship with no memories, as one does. i befriend a walking talking brain, by which i mean i lobotomize it so that i can more easily control and manipulate it, as one does. i may not know who i am, but i definitely know that i am powerful, mean, and more important than everyone here. also i have a great old one in my brain giving me eldritch blast, so the tadpole wriggling around in there seems normal. i crash the ship sort of accidentally and am set loose on my merry way to wrack the Sword Coast with terrible mayhem. probably. as soon as i figure out if i'm about to turn into a mindflayer.

the first sign of my uncontrollable evil mania was when i tried to talk to a squirrel in act one (actually, i tell a lie, the FIRST sign was when i was tempted to hack Gale's hand off instead of dragging him out of the portal he got stuck in, but i decided i needed a wizard more than a dismembered hand) and the narrator informed me i had been Gripped By A Compulsion and promptly dropkicked the squirrel into a tree. it died, obviously. i was given the option to decide if i cared about this and decided that my opinion was a frankly inappropriate level of malicious glee considering the heights from which i, clearly child of murder, have obviously fallen to get amnesia and get tadpoled and fall out of the sky on a dying illithid spaceship. anyway this set me up for Being Maximally Deranged, however there is No Karma Meter or any equivalent system to MEASURE your evil or limit your dialogue options-- i have free reign at all times, i COULD decide that suddenly i'm going to be a Repentant Murderer, i can do Nice Things if i want the reward or the exp or i am exercising my single scintilla of compassion accidentally inculcated by my eventual three simultaneous romances (one of which is with the mindflayer who lives in my brain/an artifact stopping ME from becoming a mindflayer. this game is so horny, very classic dnd "i roll to romance the villain". except i am also the villain.) at this point i have no romances, though-- at this point my companions watch me kick a squirrel to death and their collective response is "well… that seemed… excessive."

i also have the option to tell every single one of them individually that i am driven by a blood mania to murder and destruction. opinions of this range from "well admitting you have a problem is the first step!" to "that's nice, just point it at the enemy instead of ME". no one seems appropriately concerned about this. they'll learn.

anyway the next sign of my uncontrollable evil mania is that when i decided to be nice to a bard for no reason and she showed up at our next long rest to Join The Party (oh we do get a bard companion, that's nice, i said, like a fool.) i promptly murdered her in the night. as in i woke up covered in blood with her corpse ritually slaughtered at my feet and said "hm. probably shouldn't let anyone else find out i did this" and then sulked when no one gave me proper respect and rewards for murdering her. fortunately the next day my Evil Butler materialized to do just that, and proved he wasn't a figment of my imagination by giving me an Evil Cloak that lets me turn invisible everytime i murder someone. i spend the next half an act or so convinced i'm going to slowly kill off my party, but fortunately i develop the ability to control myself. now i only murder when I WANT to murder.

the rest of act one i am SORT OF a good boy-- i do deliberately get a child killed but i don't PERSONALLY kill her, i get a druid's snake to do it, so does it really count against MY soul? yes but only me and daddy bhaal know it so i am able to continue playing Goody Two Shoes for the rest of the act. (i don't know he's my daddy yet, but like… i know it. i, the player, know it. in my soul. i've played these games before.) delightful fallout, my child murder gets the druid killed after i Helpfully Save The Tieflings by telling the opposing force i'll totally help them break in and kill them all, then betraying them at the last minute. i kill so so so many goblins. i get an inspiration point for how many goblins i kill. goblins are still sentient. It's Still Murder.

act two, however, empowered by all my Blood And Chaos, i turn over a new leaf. sure sure being lauded by the tieflings was fun and all, but i do somewhat regret not killing EVERYONE. i'll do better this time. this shadow-cursed hellscape is really vibing with me. it's also trying to eat me every time i'm not carrying a magic lamp but you can't win 'em all. i pretend that i'm with the antagonists (can you call them villains when I'M the villain?) so i can get their lamp. it's carried by a drider who does not appreciate my sincere compliments about how beautifully fucked up he is. his loss, i'm down to fuck anyone. i'm already fucking a githyanki and a vampire spawn.

when i get to the Big Bad Tower where supposedly they'll know about my tadpole, i discover they know something WAY MORE IMPORTANT: who the fuck i am. everyone here recognizes me. no one will tell me anything. several of them are appropriately terrified. this is infuriating but also promising. the Big Bad is a smug dick and i want to eat his heart raw. i daydream about this.

my butler arrives to tell me if i murder a Special Girl i'll get a treat. i like treats and i LOVE murder so i go looking for her. she's maintaining a Magic Selenite Moon Shield over the single not-shadow-cursed place here, which i hate on principle-- also it's a harper outpost and i hate them too, they'd probably disapprove of murder. some rando minion with wings drops in to tell me the Big Bad of the region wants to kidnap her (ALIVE, he specifies) so obviously i now double want to kill her. i kill her in one round. the magic shield collapses. EVERYONE dies (including the tieflings i saved in act one! full circle.) and then i kill their shadow-cursed undead corpses again, for good measure.

my treat is getting to turn into the slayer. i KNEW i was a bhaalspawn.

behold my true glorious visage. (with blep.) my only complaint is that i can only become this hulking death machine once per long rest. it is, however, not a turn-limited form, i can stay in it Forever if no one kills me as long as i'm willing to Just Murder No Talking. also it has a spectacular ladder-climbing animation, this bitch goes down ladders face-down like a lizard, i love him.)

anyway i don't go back to the Big Bad Tower bc presumably they'll be mad about the dead girl (i'm guessing she's Big Bad's dead daughter miraculously resurrected. i'm totally right by the way.) but the last time i was there i got a quest to find the Big Bad's Relic, which is obviously his phylactery or something since he's got a whole death aesthetic-- after a whole Temple of Shar sequence it turns out his phylactery is a captive aasimar actually. my companion wants to murder her for shar-related reasons, so i give her the go-ahead since i don't have any SPECIAL reason to kill her myself. my companions should get to be evil occasionally too.

with his phylactery dead, it's pretty easy to mow through the Big Bad Tower, especially since i can now turn into the Death Machine. i don't have to talk to anyone here. i can Just Murder.

nearly kill the Big Bad but he flees to his basement, where it turns out there's an mindflayer colony, big deal, we've all got tadpoles in our brains (i've been eating other tadpoles for extra power along the way, because of course i have) okay fine it's a slightly big deal bc there's an elder brain here that my Special Mindflayer Friend is shielding us from whatever. it's under the control of the Big Bad who's death aesthetic turns out to be that he's the Chosen of Myrkul, and also here are reps of the other Dead Three, Bane and My Daddy. i hate bhaal's chosen on sight, as is traditional for a bhaalspawn. i will murder her someday. i will murder her SO GOOD.

unfortunately she and the baneite fuck off with their elder brain to lay siege to baldur's gate while i'm daydreaming about it, so for now all i get to murder is Big Bad Myrkul Edition. moderately satisfying. he turns in an Avatar of Myrkul in the second half but i destroy him so quickly he doesn't even get to regenerate with the hojillion corpses in the area. nobody murders like vexation.

off to baldur's gate to save the city/get bigger hunting grounds!

i do cure the shadow curse on my way out though, because i'm never coming back and i've left the place a blighted wasteland, why not, it gets me a pet druid.

there's also some drama with githyanki and vlaakith, as usual, turns out the Rebel Prince Orpheus is actually how my particular mindflayer (who is finally revealing that he's a mindflayer, a thing i have suspected all along because of all the psychic shit he does) is doing the shielding, etc. etc. also i let my mindflayer boyfriend turn me in a half-illithid, which means i get no tentacles but a BUNCH of new mindflayer powers to make me an even better murderer. can't wait to see who wins in the tug-of-war for my mind, body, and soul--the illithids, my great old one beyond the stars, a devil who keeps trying to get my attention, my vampire boyfriend who wants to ascend to vampire god, or Murder Daddy. my bet is murder daddy.

anyway we get to baldur's gate, where i break in bc i don't want any guards to know i'm here-- just jumped and flew my way up the side of the bridge past the checkpoint. easy peasy now that i have illithid flight powers on command no cooldowns just Psychically Levitate wherever i want to go. also i can turn into a displacer beast. that's right, i now have to option to become TWO DIFFERENT terrifying horror beasts and rip through mobs like papier-mache. my patron really needs to keep up, warlock powers are falling behind. (no they aren't, i've hit level 10 and can now eldritch blast three times in one round and every hit knocks enemies back and terrifies them. i'm gonna chew this city up and swallow it one bite.)

however, first thing when i get into the citadel: the baneite is being coronated Archduke, bc of course he is. so i head up to see if there's a chance to murder him and a room full of peers, BUT. for the first time EVER-- this little shit is willing to tell me Who I Am. Assassin of Bhaal, former high priest of His Temple, and ONE OF THE INVENTORS OF THIS CONQUEST PLAN. that little bhaalite chosen is my bhaalspawn sister (obviously) who fucking tadpoled me, gave me amnesia, and discarded me before making sure my corpse was cold. this will be a mistake! FOR HER.

in the meantime the baneite wants me to know that he is a big fan of mine, would i like to murder my sister since i already murdered the myrkulite, and then he and i can rule this city together with an iron grip and a blood knife, since he's sure he'll have a lot of use for an assassin as a tyrant. mind-reading and my brain-illithid agree that he is actually on the level about this, at least for the moment, so of course i agree. i will rule this city. and then i will murder him. and then i will murder EVERYONE. in THE WORLD.

so now i'm hunting the current chosen of bhaal so i can kill her and steal her place-- my butler is sending me divine visions of it, SHE can't turn into the slayer, i am evil daddy's favourite. she's also kidnapped one of my companions and is threatening to kill her if i show up but i care about that less.

and that's where i am so far! will report on Future Evils.

[russell-crowe]

gimme some random fun facts about russell !!

most of these are going to be young russell because he was. an idiot.

i think my fave is that he chipped his tooth when he was 10 playing rugby, and that he never considered to get it fixed. even arguing that he "shouldn't" need to fix his tooth to get roles. and then the director of 'the crossing' had to sit him down like. this character does not have a fucked up tooth. i do not want you to have this fucked up tooth. i am going to pay for your fucked up tooth to get fixed from my own pocket. it is peak dumbass russell moments. (and he mentioned that after he got his tooth fixed it was A Lot easier to get roles. my man. my dude.)

i also love how silly and dedicated he is to his roles, and that for the sum of us he'd go to bars in the sydney gay scene.... so much so that some people were discussing his sexuality when his girlfriend was in ear shot. 😭

he was fired. for using naughty words. at his gig as a bingo host.

he was actually seriously considering being a musician for someone (thankfully) told him that he should try acting. nowadays he refers to russ le roq (his teen music project) as "the worst performing single in NZ history"

when they were shooting la confidential he stayed in a tiny apartment so he'd feel bigger. 😭 (but tbh they were also trying to squeeze him out of that movie role, so maybe he simply couldn't afford bigger too <3)

i think it's important to remind people of his theatre kid days

speaking of theatre... when he played in rocky horror he dealt with a heckler by saying "if you squirt me one more time with your water pistol, I shall come off this stage and I shall jam my stiletto in the crack of your ass.” which is the greatest sentence he's ever formed, probably

the story he told during is igp concerts last summer about him living in sydney & busking to earn his rent. and sometimes having to choose between food and cigarettes. my bank account can relate

this entire quote: "just yelling and screaming and waving a gun around doth not a bad guy maketh. you have to have something in the ideology or the essential motivations of the character that take it beyond the average. but that is the same of both protagonists and villain, heroes and bad boys, or bad girls. but i haven’t been asked to play a bad girl lately."

i love how he always tries to figure out a way to bond with cast members. during les mis he'd invite people for sing-alongs, the whole master & commander thing with the t-shirts, always giving cast and crew merch from his band/rugby team, taking people to places. he's so often praised by cast members for this <3

[greenerteacups]

this might seem v random but, if you haven't come across it already, i would really recommend tavi gevinson's latest online zine 'fan fiction' -- not because of the fan fiction element of it, though, but because of your evident love of taylor swift (who it's about) and your impeccable literary taste. and would love to hear your thoughts!

This was an excellent recommendation, and I loved it. I will admit that the RPF segment had me leery (RPF throws me for reasons I have yet to intellectually inspect but believe may relate somehow to the concept of voyeurism) but I'm glad I finished it, because she pulls it together very well. The dialogue in the last segment is especially great, particularly these parts:

And this:

And this:

Because this gets at what I find so Gordian about Internet conversations among even relatively respectful/measured people about Swift's work and presence: we can't seem to figure out what it is we want from her. There is no right way for a woman to be more famous than most presidents. Do we want her to need us or not? Should she care about our approval or shouldn't she? Is the fact that she doesn't "feel" authentic to us the consequence of having demanded authenticity for so long she literally had to shape her personality to fit what "felt real" to millions of people, and in the process, of course, of course, inevitably, produced work that felt authentic to no one?

And then also, like. To what extent do fans use her autonomy/consent as a lever for bad behavior? I.e. does the "invitation" of personal information in her songs license us to speculate about her like she's a character on a TV show? Where is the line of appropriate speculation in an autobiographical medium? I was talking to my friend at dinner just tonight about how it's gross that people can't seem to give her the credit of writing songs that aren't 100% always About Her, and my friend pointed out that she invites comparisons to her own life by teasing names and iconography we identify with her public persona. It's like Brett Easton Ellis writing a book about a character named Brett Easton Ellis. Sure, they're not the same person, but you've invoked a symbol, and people are not being ridiculous for trying to analyze that symbol in the context of the work. In order to do that, they need to understand what the symbol is. Which means the biographical stuff actually is relevant to the text, and Swift's obvious irritation at her fans for failing to just... fuck off a little bit and let her live, while an entirely fair and morally defensible human response, is complicated by the way that her art is produced to resonate best for those who care most. Folklore and Evermore prove even Taylor is on some level aware of this, because she uses the third-person mechanic (and again in "Bolter") to differentiate those protagonists from the narrative construct of "Taylor Swift" in her other first-person work — i.e. pulling apart the Swift who is speaking and not the Swift who is singing (if that makes sense).

And then, finally: "The irony gets a bit tired. You can just say you like music. It's fine." What a deliciously recursive little bit of irony, considering it's a criticism being offered by a character whose ironic distance is itself being criticized. And the fact that the author is putting her own self-criticism in the mouth of a non-existent popstar who's deliberately flattening her take on her subject matter? Mingling valid with invalid criticism to establish a protective distance from her flaws and prove her smarty-pants intellectual self-awareness while also implicitly disowning the faults in her work, an (ironically) childish gesture of insecurity that stands at odds with the mature intellectual persona? Trying to have about seven or eight different cakes, and eat every one of them? "The irony gets a bit tired." Fucking perfect. I laughed.

[crowns-of-violets-and-roses]

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

Amina al-Sirafi left a life of adventure as a pirate behind to raise her newborn daughter. Now, she's gathering her old crew and returning for one last adventure to secure her family's fortune. This is a swashbuckling adventure story on the high seas as related by Amina to the scribe Jamal.

It's nominally set in the same setting as Chakraborty's Daevabad Trilogy but centuries earlier. You won't be missing anything if you haven't read those books and if you're interested in reading this I'd recommend going directly to it as it's a big improvement on her earlier works.

It's historical fantasy taking place in the 12th Century in the Indian Ocean and the setting is one of the novels strongest points. Chakraborty include an author's note at the end outlining her fascination with the Indian Ocean in this period and includes some of the sources she used for research. Her interest and research is apparent throughout the novel and it's naturally integrated; she doesn't just start infodumping about random cool historical facts she read about.

It's a more than welcome change from the endless "historical" fantasy novels where the setting is little more than an imagined medieval European aesthetic.

While historical detail and making the setting true to the medieval Indian Ocean are given high importance the worldviews of the main characters feel uniformly modern. Their conception of LGBT identities or their views on religion or Amina's struggle with balancing family and her career never jar modern sensibilities. It's not that I think any of this shouldn't have been included (on the contrary I'm very glad that all of it was included) but for a setting so stepped in history I would have enjoyed more dissonance between the character's views and the attitudes of the average reader.

The characters are stock character who play the part they need to in the narrative but I didn't find myself loving them. I did enjoy her take on the charming demon archetype with Raksh. It was impressive how easy Chakraborty made it to forget that Raksh has murdered hundreds of people when he isn't directly talking about it. Amina herself is substantially more fully realized than her supporting cast

Keeping to the mould of an adventure story does limit the thematic depth but it's a solid fun story with an interesting setting. If you like adventure fiction it's worth a read - particularly so if reading about a protagonist and supporting cast who are middle aged, a protagonist who is a mother or a book set in the 12th century Indian Ocean interest you.

[powwidge]

some musings about Octopath Traveler 1 and how the travelers aren't the main characters

since someone else in the tag has already addressed the issue of unfair criticism towards Octopath Traveler 1 i would like to quickly address as to why i think people judge OT1 on a very false level storytellign wise. also i'm hyperfixating on OT and need to put my thougths somewhere.

tl;dr: the 8 travelers are not the main cahracters - they just happen to be the protagonists, so judging them in terms of how non-mc they are is false

because what i mostly see criticized is the storytelling; and while to some extents that's valid (little interaction between the travelers esp as opposed to OT2 (mind u i love OT1 dearly!!)), I often see the argument of "some stories feel much less relevant than others. they're not interconnected. some of them don't seem to have much purpose or anything."

and see the thing is... I am very convicned that was wanted.

because the 8 travelers are not the main characters in Octopath 1 - that's Graham Crossford and Kit Crossford. just think about it; the entire story centers around esp Graham and then later Kit. The entire thing plays out like a story of a child searching for his father and uncovering all the things he did, finding connections to a lost parent and trying to save him. it's a classic, stereotypical story even, so much to the point that i see it reflected in multiple (esp japanese) works. Because Kit is the protagonist lookign for a father lost who once attempted to save the kingdom and his family and failed. you even get the dead mom prompt; like c'mon, everyone here who's seen fmab prob knows that one! u find it all over both western and eastern and southern media.

So, who are the travelers then?

they're just people. people who happen to be the protagonists at hand; some of them more classic than others and more directly related to the plot around Kit and Graham (Primrose (because of the Crows), Olberic (becuase of Hornburg), Therion (because of the dragonstones), Ophelia (because of Matthias)), others simply more or less loosely affected by it (Tressa (receiving Graham's diary), Alfyn (beign highly influenced by Graham), Ha'anit (affected by Graham's mistakes) and Cyurs (too interested in a book he shouldn't be interested in)). You just happen to play as these people, who, in the end, all find out that they have one thing in common - their lives have been affected by Graham and, in the end, by Kit Crossford, too, whom they have to save. only in the last fight against Galdera do they actually become the main characters, even marked by the common "fighting against a dark god" kind of jrpg stereotype which, in all fairness, is also found in western media of all kinds. they step in as main characters when Kit fails to be one - because what kind of main character has to get saved and can't save themselves (classical stereotype talking obv)?

I just feel like judging the traveler's story for having "little relevance" or anythign of the like is wrong; they're people. they're 8 different people, picked to be protagonists, who, sure, i would've loved to see more interaction between, but first and foremost they're people like me and you and that's what makes them relatable.

Octopath Traveler 1 is not a story about being a main character; it's a story about WATCHING a main character (Kit) from an outsider's perspective and that is SUCH an interesting approach that i would personally never slander it, even if execution in some bits and pieces is most certainly lacking.

[our-transgender-experiences]

Hi Alex. Is it ok to vent a little bit a lot? It's completely fine if you don't post any response, I completely understand. This is a HUGE experience prompt to respond to.

I was birthed with the male sex (he/him) so you can call me that.

Over the past year and two months, I've been feeling just a little off. I keep a journal, and have since before that moment, so I have my experience written down carefully. In short form, I don't know who I am. In a longer form, I'm a weird, cringey high schooler who doesn't know who they are, who wears a galaxy backpack to school, who is agnostic (Christian, but can't prove it right or wrong), aromantic, and asexual. My experience isn't special by any means, in fact, I think I fit literally every queer stereotype known to mankind? Here's the best part: I live in Oklahoma, the famous place of Nex Benedict's horrific death.

About a month ago, I saw "Celeste" in a YouTube video about some of the hardest, but most enjoyable, games of all time. I looked it over, it's on sale for $5, and I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford that. So I got it and finished it within 3 days. I instantly recommended it to my brother, who also happens to be a little queer. He loved it too, but I STILL didn't know the backstory behind that game. Then, I saw the video. It was an amazing reading of Celeste, down to every minor detail of the game. One thing that stood out, was the fact that the both the creator, and the protagonist, were trans women. Even better: it was known for being a wonderful story of the trans experience, and I RELATED TO IT. EVEN BETTER: I had now recommended it to practically my entire friend group, including some incredibly religious people. So what was I gonna do about it? Not care, and continue onto the B-sides.

I want to say 5 days ago was when it really kicked in that "wait a minute, I related to Madeline in a very deep way, and she's a trans..." Now this is the climax, get ready. Because I had been journaling for so long, I had already written about my experience since those early days where I had that so-called dysphoria. And after I realized that could be because I'm trans, I immediately asked my parents what my girl names were before I was born. (doctors didn't know my sex until about two weeks before I was due) "Eden" is a pretty cool name, I guess I'll try it. I walk into my dad's office (works from home) that same day after school, and he immediately turns to me and asks: "So why did you need to know your girl names?" I immediately respond with "... idk?" Very convincing, well done. I text him after I flee to my room, "I'm experimenting, don't take that too seriously" He understands, and I'm at peace. Mom also takes it well, and we're good to actually begin the experiments I was "planning".

First up, change the online bios, like Discord. See how it actually looks on me. AAAAND my best friend sees it within a few hours. Not even prompted, we were talking, playing rocket league, and he just "hey why's your bio say you're experimenting with 'Eden' as your new name?" Explained, but he was in a weird spot. "I'm happy and will support you with whatever you **choose**." Key word there, I'm not choosing anything. I'm actually going with the flow so much more than he could imagine. But okay, we've got a pretty good ally on our side! Going great.

Except here comes "Part of Me" with the anxiety of what could happen, why I shouldn't do anything different around peers, and more importantly why I shouldn't experiment with myself. And to be honest, I believe that part of me. There's so many questions that I ask like "but what if it's all for attention?" or "but you always acted like a boy, why are you changing now? or "maybe the other Christians were right. you are a sinner after all, you're a bad person and you DO deserve to die." You know those.

And with those come the questioning part of it. Am I ACTUALLY just doing what I'm doing for attention? Like I said, I'm a high schooler. I'm a future aerospace engineer for SpaceX, I love computers, and I have top 1% test scores as a sophomore. I'm doing good with school, but that's exactly why I basically have one friend who is also up there with me. I'm not here to brag, I'm here to show that I don't get a lot of attention at school, it's basically all family members who care about me. So again, am I just trying this for attention? I don't think so, but that seems like what my brain would want me to say.

And to be honest, I needed this. I vent every day, but to nobody except Google advertisement algorithms out of Google Docs (my journal). I vent and cry into empty space, but maybe this is finally not just to my phone. This is to another human who I think has had a close experience to mine.

And of course I'm not going to ask you "who am I, who do I like, and what's my gender?" But I am going to ask you one thing: What's your take? I mean this is the trans experiences blog, but I'm not sure if I am a trans. I figured this was the best place to get a good use out of my time. Thank you so much for letting people like me do this, it seriously means a lot.

i'm glad that you feel that this is a space where you can comfortably talk about your experience, and question your gender. My advice, is to keep experimenting,and see where it takes you find out what you're comfortable with, it might take time, and it might change. It took me a while to get to where i am now, and even now i'm not 100% sure. i tried different labels that felt right at the time, but they changed later, and thats okay.

[hopefull-mindset]

Lately I've been thinking about the current progression of the story, obviously we are nowhere near the ending, however, what are your thoughts towards how the main story is going to end?

Based on what we know so far how do you think what do you think the climax and the resolution the story is going to be? Because so far it seems like it's going to be something related to the book, but there's so many plot points and characters that we haven't even really touched on yet and I'm wondering if we ever will (for example the order of the clock tower was this just a one and done thing or are we getting more on that Asagiri????)

I am SO sorry. I got sick on the weekend I was thinking of answering this. Then I got completely stuck on what I wanted to say because honestly I have no idea where this series is going besides a few things I know Kafka Asagiri wouldn't leave behind. I have faith in him and I feel like him pulling along Nathaniel Hawthorn for this long into the story and knowing when Fitzgerald would have involvement proves he doesn't forget about his previous storylines.

I see complaints sometimes about how Steinback’s side plot with the Guild is never touched on again and it's like?? Because there's already so much going on already?? I'm personally impressed with how Asagiri handles this bunch of characters and that's why I'm not impressed with complaints about the female characters getting “no” screentime. I think some of you really need to reread the manga because, of course, it would feel that way if you needed to split it between all these characters and have a smaller amount of female characters compared to guys.

It's an ongoing story so treat it like an ongoing story. Some criticisms I see of BSD really feel like they're in bad faith and don't give it any grace. To me, that's really depressing. I don't know what some of you even want from him. I'll move on now to your actual question.

This is a character-driven story with hmm, well I shouldn't say it doesn’t have a clear plotline because the antagonists have a clear goal for The Book, but it's not a story where the protagonist is driven to do anything besides overcome himself. I have ideas on what future plotlines would look like, but not all of them.

There are things that are absolutely going to be followed up on. Like how 55 Minutes’s story was left on a mystery to be explored in a future arc. 55 Minutes was very involved in the Great War and Europe, so I’m guessing some of that will be explored in due time. I’m not very good at guessing so I’m not the best to be asked on theorizing that far into the future.

How about I just speak on the present arc? I think that will be easier and it's good to work with the pieces we have. The ending is much too far into the future for me to come up with anything, really. This series is much too technical with its reference and motivations to say anything other than, “We should expect this stuff in the light novels to play into the story later.”

Since I gave myself some time to think this over, there are some things I am completely sure of having a critical role in the present and future of this story—besides the obvious lasting effects of the Great War and the storm Verlaine mentioned waiting for very much having to do with the Clock Tower’s eventual involvement.

I’ve been thinking about them a lot and I hadn’t realized this was my chance until now! So exciting! I mean these two tend to cross over for me.

55 Minutes is the 4th light novel in this series. Anyone who has read it loves it because of the focus on world building and getting to follow Atsushi for once in novel form. I went into it thinking that it was going to be a quick, self-contained story that happens a bit after the guild arc, but I was shocked to see that there were so many questions unanswered! On purpose obviously to set up a plot line for the future, but man.

While I am excited for many things from the light novels to be answered in the main story, I want to bring attention to the main antagonist. The living ability of Jules Gabriel Verne AKA Gab. Verne was a part of The Seven Traitors, a group that committed itself to stopping the war by any means necessary. They were what the Armed Detective Agency is to Atsushi for him. His ability (The Mysterious Island) absorbed other users’ abilities, so long as they were on an island he claimed as his domain.

By the time the war had ended, he was alone again and the rest of the members were either dead and disappeared. Verne decided to stay and maintain the Standard Island so his friends had a place to come back to. Fourteen years pass and a deadly weapon called Annihilation and it's maker, H.G. Wells, came onto the island. Annihilation had been stolen from her and Verne agreed to help her get it back from the terrorists under the name “Gab”. The terrorist in question being the colonel, not to be confused with the character of the same title who was an executive to the Port Mafia.

This colonel had actually been the former leader of the group who had called themselves Mimic after being abandoned by their country and had heard his men drifted to Yokohama, only to die there in vain. I wonder if that connects to anything that happened in another light novel, wink wink.

It wasn’t hard for Verne to find where it was hidden, but next he had to come up with a way to get it back without using his ability. He decided to join the thieves that had snuck onto the island by turning himself into a teenager and asking to be the pupil of the boss so he could borrow his ability to go through walls. It had worked as planned, until Wells was hit by a stray bullet and died. He was devastated that he couldn't save this one woman.

His solution to save her was to absorb her ability (Time Machine) to go back 55 minutes in time to reverse what had happened. That worked, but then he thought of another thing: if he absorbed her ability again, couldn't he go further back in time to get a better result? Wells’s ability has the condition that it could only send a person back in time once, but by absorbing it again, he can ignore it as if he were using it for the first time. He regretted how many of the colonel's soldiers had died and he never learned his motivations in the end.

He was right, but creating the perfect future is almost impossible because of how someone always gets hurt in the process. Every time he succeeded, there was only the “what if?” hanging over him that this wasn't enough. The more he used the ability, the further he could go into the past. Even larger ideas had come into his head. What if he could reunite with his friends? What if he could prevent the entire war from happening? He hadn't realized just as Wells's ability evolved, something else would too: Gab, the island and the boy he posed as.

It overtook him and left to reside inside his own flesh as an echo of his own self, at the very corner of his mind. He died and Gab had been birthed from it. Gab is an unstable creation and even so, his humanity still urges him to keep living no matter what. So instead of being motivated to repeat time to save others, he keeps living to save himself so he doesn't fall back into the darkness of an unknown waiting for him.

I could keep going and talk about how he's pretty much the embodiment of the themes present in BSD, his resemblance to Atsushi that the narrative points out so graciously, and the nature of what he is supposed to be in the grand scheme of BSD, but this isn't why I brought him up.

55 Minutes has aspects that have appeared in the main story ever since the Decay of Angels have taken their place in the manga as antagonists. Dazai’s ability to control his heartbeat, time travel, Akutagawa calling Atsushi his “trial” and fighting out at sea, and the Great War being the source of the conflict. Now what if I propose my idea of what had happened to Fukuchi to be similar to what had happened to Verne when he had used Wells’s ability?

This is Fukuchi’s corpse reanimated, I think we all know it. While it’s possible Fyodor must've put a safeguard to put the condition for this to have happened or that this is a Fukuchi from another universe, I think what had happened altogether, in the end, was the consequence of using Amenogozen so freely to the point he was messing with the state of the timeline and creating paradoxes. The backlash of this divine blade had either created a divine being or let one reside in him.

It's not only 55 Minutes that has parallels/foreshadows what's to come, but Untold Origins as well. I do like noticing how Kafka Asagiri adds things so they fit more snuggly into what's to come later in the season or make the connection more obvious, like Fukuchi having a feature when Fukuzawa is visiting Oda behind bars and Fyodor appearing on the roof when Fukuzawa monologues about “V”.

I think I've been seeing some people notice this too, but I think the play featured is incredibly important. Like really, really important. I mean beyond any resemblance people saw in the visuals used in the anime background that looked like Fyodor being crucified. I feel unprepared to talk about it, so I hope I make some sort of sense.

“The Living World Is a Dream. The Nocturnal Dream is Reality” is a real quote from Ranpo Edogawa and is used as the name for this play. Twelve fallen angels gather in an old theater to earn god’s forgiveness. They had disobeyed god in the past by wanting to coexist with human beings and were shunned after the fact. During this, they are killed off one by one without the killer ever being seen. The killer, as the script follows, is a supposed angel of judgment, but it's hard to tell for the others if it really was an angel imparting their judgment or a serial killer because of how common the methods seemed to be. That is their mystery to be solved.

One of the fallen angels claims that an angel would use a divine blade to purge them and not methods like these, while another begs the question of why a fellow sinner would go after them and that an angel would have a real motive to have them killed. Their reason to going to this old theater is because they were searching for an ability user. In this fictionalized story, ability users are angels who had fallen but were able to atone and given a portion of their power back. Their hope is that when they encounter the ability user, they will gain atonement as well.

Suddenly, Murakami (the lead performer) is stabbed by a blade that came from nowhere. Completing the promised threat of an organization named “V”:

“An angel shall bring death, in the truest sense of the word, to the performer.”

So, what happened?

As he takes his newfound identity as an “ability user” in pride on stage and claims himself to be the savior of all, Ranpo explains that the angel that the play refers to is the audience watching it. A metaphor to how the audience is invisible to the characters on stage and knew almost every that had happened, but Ranpo also says that because the audience couldn't have laid a finger on the them, it means the angel couldn't have been the killer.

The “angel” was more the victim than anything and the so-called judgment imposed was the show of what was originally regarded as another victim. The switching of roles. The same thing has also applied to this murder. While Murakami was regarded the victim, the accused killer the police suspected was a man under a fake name who has randomly disappeared. Tied up behind the currents, the man had been here all along. The true victim of this case.

Which makes Murakami the real culprit of his own “murder”, but he's only a piece of the picture. After getting arrested, he speaks about how he had planned with the playwright about this but has no clue what capturing the older man was for. Not even after saying this, a detective rushes in saying that the playwright had been impaled with no weapon to be found.

Again, after an officer who had worked for the mysterious group “V” and tried to kill Ranpo after refusing to join them had been arrested, he was also killed the same way as the playwright. I feel like I don't even need to say that this “V” group is obviously the Decay of Angels after laying that out. The same motivations as Fyodor (”rid all evil of this world”) and the sword business is Fukuchi silencing people.

What was the purpose of the play though?

Besides capturing Natsume Soseki (if you haven't read it), it was foreshadowing for what was to come. Let's abandon the idea that skill users are redeemed angels for a second. Just a second, I promise. Have you ever looked up what Kaumi (神威) even means?

While one of the first results you get will refer you to gods themselves, you should be focusing on a more literal translation. That being “God’s Authority” or greater divine power, making Fukuchi function basically as Fyodor’s own angel of judgment. Let's say that ability users are the sinners and Fukuchi (or Fyodor) is the one imposing their judgment, even if they should've been in the same boat.

Just like the play, they swap the victim (Armed Detective Agency) and the killer (The Decay of Angels) for the public‘s unknowing view. This play is filled with Fyodor’s personal bias and I think the irony of their searching for the “ability user” in the play is that to Fyodor, there's no such thing as a redeemed ability user. There is only salvation of death for this great evil and that is exactly what happens to the characters from the play.

Ranpo filps this narrative on its head and forcefully changes the ending of the fallen angel. He wasn't a part of the story, he forcefully shoved through its bullcrap to create something much more ideal. Something much less miserable. It's a little fun that two people he goes out of his way to help out (Yosano & Mushitaro) both have the title of “angel of death/murder” as that's how the angel of the play is also referred to. Save the killer that was actually a victim…

With that, I really shouldn't abandon how ability users get referred to with titles like angel and demon right? Chuuya had an angelic allusion in Storm Bringer when he activated corruption for the first time, and hell, look at my buddy Gab and his mechanical wings. The further they transcend themselves of their humanity, the more angelic or demonic they become. There really is no true difference between them though.

This should've been about the trajectory of bsd…. Then it became me wanting to talk about DOA crap….

Well, I really don't know much. I connected dots that were there for me, but nothing to say for the future of BSD. I understand what is happening, but not enough to be psychic haha. I mostly went on about that because I didn't want our conversation about what is currently happening to be pushed aside because there's always more to say. Maybe if I read more of the authors involved, maybe I'd know.

If this is disappointing, oh well! It has taken me so long to think of something to say that the new chapter has already come out. Kafka Assgiri always leaves me with more questions than answers.

What even are abilities anyway?