#that he wasn't an reliable narrator idk something like that

[vicsuragi]

okay i finally watched an episode from the correct season of ordinary lies and i am so fucking confused that was such a 90 degree turn they took in the last 10 minutes.

[rocketyship]

That poll is so hard to vote for cause on one hand, it feels like Tiff would fit the best because of her incredibly unreliable narration matching Ted's while it would still be a subversion of the original because of the reason why she's unreliable(rose tinted glasses and extreme devotion to BE as opposed to the stuff Ted's got going on) and her pov on and relationship with BE would just be so fun to see explored and the horror of the situation being a subtle thing thats swept under the rug could be so cool.

But on the other, Evan would also kinda match with the original due to his open emotional distance and disconnect from the girls, AND it would bring a lot of fun, fresh stuff! Seems like Evan is the one who pays most attention to AM, and seeing what's happening there from his pov would be so interesting! He, just like Ellen if she would've narrated could bring up how things like being the only one of the opposite sex and gender in the group and (from what we know from the short story at least) only dark skinned person would like.. idk change perspectives on things?? I'd also love to find out more about him!

Oh, not to mention Naomi!! Having narration that is pretty damn reliable would make worldbuilding and exploration much easier and she's also got that disconnect due to her age and crystal clear memory, being able to see things as they are and were could be really refreshing in a ihnmaims universe and i really want to know what her whole deal is! Being born toward the end of the war must've made quite a difference to how a person would process everything, Ted's whole "I'm youngest so my experience is different because i barely had time to live as an adult before the nukes" wouldn't have shit on someone who wasn't even like... done w puberty.

Ooooh they'd all make for such fun narrators 😭 It's really too bad that writing takes so much time and effort or it would've been amazing to see all three's povs! I still don't know what to vote for or how the results are looking so far but im really looking forward to seeing what the results will lead to!

Maybe you have a character you have the most ideas for or would like to write most? Cause if so, that'd def help me choose what to vote.

Sorry for the wall of text(would you believe me if i said i wanted to write more? This is me trying to show restraint, didn't even write about the potential AM could have as a narrator), and i hope you have a good day!

Okay so first off, I love-love-love this response. You have such fun perspectives on these silly little au characters of mine and it makes me a little sad that you didn’t write anymore cause I definitely would have read it, especially what you were thinking about what an interesting narrator AM could be.

As to which character I have the most ideas for, is such a difficult thing to answer cause well I have so-so many. But I do want to put them out there for you so here they are:

Tiffany: narration wise, I imagine the stuff she says can and does come across as nonsensical and border line trigger happy, however sometimes she occasionally lets something slip that clues into her true feelings and that a part of her may indeed be aware of the gravity of the groups situation, however she shuts it down as she has severe attachment issues and cannot fathom how she could possibly survive without BE. Another thing I pictured is that she very often quotes the bible and other religious texts, as BE doesn’t present herself as machine and genuinely as a divine entity. I also have been toying with a scene similar to the one in the radio drama, where AM is talking to Ted about bumblebees and getting high r something. Where it is set up as the reverse. BE showing Tiff the horrors of what the radiation and world has come to (in a way that is seriously deceptive) and claiming that all she has to do is snap her fingers for it to return. It would definitely read as a story where there is total tonal whiplash from one scene to the next, so that is something to consider.

Evan: I have come up with so many pasts for all these survivors before they were “rescued” by BE, however one thing to note is that I don’t really think of these characters as just “genderbent versions of the originals”. Evan is one of the key examples of this, as in this au he is technically the original Ellen’s older brother, however he left home when she was around 12-13ish, as he didn’t like the life, college and job his family set out and tried to push him into. Unlike Ellen who was a successful engineer, who may have been a hopeless romantic based on the original text. Evan was and very much still is kind of a massive party animal. I picture him very punk but like the old kind of punk. Like he was the kind of guy to go motorcycling around the country (even into war-devastated bits, cause it was a thrill), he went to underground clubs and concerts, and sure as heck slept around and had no shame in it (both women and men if you are curious). He doesn’t want to get sentimental, he wants to live his life on the edge and BE doesn’t allow that. He constantly tries to upset her, get some kind of intense reaction from her. He tries to escape, he kicks and tries to tear open parts of her internal network. This man has tried to kill Gloria (Gloria kind of deserves it thou) and the only reactions he gets from BE is her finding him cute, amusing, or as if he just needs to be put in a corner to calm down for a bit. Truthfully he is someone who just wants to go back and experience life again, recognising that BE’s utopia isn’t living and refusing to buy into it.

Naomi: I won’t lie, Nimdok is so boring in the og story, and they definitely tried to do “something” with him in the game. I don’t like it, again different ramble. So like Evan, she is a different person. Like you said she has barely started puberty and because of BE neither her body or even her mind has really aged in anyway and she is horribly aware of this. Due to the war she has had her childhood taken from her, but now because of BE she shall never experience adulthood or growing up. Her memory hardly anything particularly helpful. She remembers exactly what BE did to the others when they first got brought to the compound, she has seen what goes down in the labs, she knows what pills are and aren’t sleeping pills, developing a habit where she will pretend to take one and spit it out if she is able to. As stated in the survivors master post, she knows BE’s blind spots and will often go there on her own. Not really to do anything, just kind of sit around. Further more, she and Evan have a way of communicating, number of blinks, which fingers moved when you spoke to them, that kind of stuff. Still she doesn’t want to escape, she knows she’ll die if she does, generally she acts more like a mediator in the group. As a narrator, I did have this idea for a few odd habits she has learned over the years. Example is that she constantly counting, time and routine is import to her, as she notices when something is wrong and that freaks her out. She also has this habit of just staring at the others for very long periods of time, especially Gloria. She clearly remembers seeing her on tv during her old life, and also remembers how she attacked her when Naomi attempted to mention it to Gloria.

Writing does take so much effort, especially for me, cause truthfully I’m always jumping back and forth on what I’m working on. On top of this au and the fic, I’m also in the process of finishing the final script and sketches for a different web comic I’ve been planning for a while, as well as a completely unrelated world building project that I’ve been at for two years now. Anyhow!! Tell me more please

[sir-yeehaw-paws]

idk this is maybe gonna sound random but i think kaz was involved with the great msf bbq of 74. skull face knows him pretty well and he easily could've pinned everything on huey. there's evidence for him killing strangelove yeah but none for him allowing the attack.

I don't think it sounds all that random, anon. It's a theory I've come across before. I believe either on Youtube, or Reddit. I can't recall particularly which exact place though, so I apologize for that. I can understand to some degree that theory being possible, and I haven't given it enough thought myself to speculate. I've also seen it theorized Kaz is also responsible for the second outbreak, but again, I haven't looked deep enough into that alternative theory personally to give it too much weight.

(And people have pointed out the whole 'he's already working for Cipher too why not do something else' but I don't know personally that I agree there, per se. I don't think the story explores Kaz working for Cipher well enough to where I can build up headcanons about his mindset there-outside of what we are given. But I can't discount why people theorize he's further treacherous as a result).

Personally, as far as Huey goes, he's absolutely guilty for Strangelove, but there's some deliberate (I think anyway) ambiguity as to whether or not he knew 100% for sure that the inspection was a fake. There's evidence to suggest he knew all along, but I am not fully convinced at all times. I imagine he is, but. IDK. I think the story is written for us to ask questions. (Or I'm giving it too much credit, I genuinely cannot say)

I will say though, I personally can't see Kaz having any motivation to facilitate the second outbreak. Even if he did work with Cipher back in the MSF days, Diamond Dogs was largely started by him. He was the one putting in the work to restart Mother Base-he just had a lot of trouble getting any recruits because he didn't have Big Boss's influence, and thus few wanted to follow him (as he tells it). His personal phone call with Zero also implies they are very much not on friendly terms whatsoever. He later describes his relationship with Cipher as 'parasitic'. Now, how reliable a narrator Kaz is I can't tell you, but I really don't think he's a traitor during Diamond Dogs era. Does this add possibility to him being guilty for the original MSF attack? No, but I also struggle to find motivation there. If he was still angry at Big Boss for his less-than-consensual recruitment, there's several other ways he could've gone about it. He was the second in command at MSF too. I feel like it's a pretty hard sell for Skull Face going up to him and say something like 'Hey, work with me to blow up the base and people you've grown attached to.' Skull Face was (I assume anyway) also slowly distancing himself from Zero by this point. Whilst that doesn't happen in full til later, Zero wasn't responsible for the MSF attack. That was all Skull Face, acting alone without Zero's approval. Yes, he's using their banner, XOF, but this was probably the first true sign to Zero that Skull Face had gone rogue (the second being Skull Face attacking Zero with the parasites).

But back to Kaz. the man's as much of an opportunist as the rest of them, but I genuinely don't see what Skull Face could've offered him in that moment to make 'attack your base' appealing to him. Too much loss without enough gain, at least to Kaz. What would be the pull? What would've been appealing enough for Kaz to take a risk like that?

Could be wrong tho! I mean, this is all theories and headcanons after all. I'm not an expert.

[mermaidsirennikita]

Maybe it's because I never joined the Rice fandom before the show but I'm still surprised (though probably shouldn't be) at the complaints people throw over Louis' portrayal of Lestat. If anything else the show makes Lestat look a hell of a lot better than the book or movie, all the while giving us reasons as to why Lestat would still be an awful partner to Louis because he simply doesn't care to understand him or try to, and even if he technically accepts Louis' hesitation to kill, he looks down upon it because he views his human connection as unnecessary as an older vampire. And Claudia's version of events still ties to Louis' version of Lestat even if not completely since Louis' version is an outdated memory rather than a real time recording. Lestat turned her for Louis. He may have loved her in his own way but his approach to teach her how to be emotionally disconnected is destructive and frankly not good at all considering how he also went through similar shit? When Louis goes "you forgot how youth was" he wasn't wrong.

I also never joined that fandom, but I do know that it's super Lestat-driven. Lestat was Anne's favorite, he had the most attention paid to him by her, the most content driven by her.... So I get why the fandom loves him. They know him best.

But! Lestat is, in or out of his own perspective, a fucked individual.... which is why he's fun to read about. And the show's version is its own thing, with a lot of complex elements re: gender, race, and sexuality that were not confronted in the book!canon.

And I agree that he's way more sympathetic than in the original book or the movie. The show has already called out that Louis's narration is not reliable, something only teased in the movie at the end, and only really called out explicitly in subsequent books. Sam Reid is giving a muuuuch more nuanced performance than Tom did.

(I'll be real... I think Tom's Lestat was one of his more interesting performances, but I suspect that it's not so much immortalized because it's *good*. It's immortalized because it's the anti-Tom performance in his repertoire, and it's very unintentionally camp. Do you think he's doing good acting there? Or do you think he's doing drag and doesn't know it. BE HONEST. Whereas Sam is intentionally doing camp and PERFORMING.)

Louis calling out Lestat forgetting youth is accurate--and I'd argue that, as with many abusive parents, the issue is also that Lestat sees himself in Claudia on some level and kinda hates those parts of her he sees. I mean, Lestat berating Claudia for falling for a mortal when Lestat did that... also? And sure, his story ended differently, but lol, he knows Louis hates him as much as he loves him. So you either kill them or make them immortal and have a fucked up relationship.

I think the show is dabbling in a lot of gray, which people don't wanna accept. Louis and Lestat can love each other tremendously and be in a horrible relationship. We can want that relationship to continue while also acknowledging that it's bad. It can be an abusive relationship that we acknowledge as abusive and we can root for them to figure it out. Louis can be abused by Lestat and do his own fucked up shit in the relationship. Louis can be exaggerating some aspects of Lestat's behavior to put distance between himself and his feelings for him, and he can be telling the dead truth about other aspects. Lestat can love Louis and Claudia and be horrible to them.

Idk man--I think the show has done a great job of presenting nuanced, tragic figures who are hurt and also actively harm others. You don't win an argument if you spend your entire viewing experience trying to explain how LOUIS IS ALSO A FLAWED PERSON like lol... everyone knows that. But the power dynamic, on almost every level, is in Lestat's favor. There's a reason why we saw big emphasis on Louis and Claudia being able to *understand each other* in a way that Lestat couldn't, supernaturally.

[thesilverlady]

Have they butchered Rhaenyra and Aegon that much? Idk i think i liked them both in the show, but reading people opinions it seems they changed them from the source material especially Aegon. Are they that different from their book characters?

obviously there's no problem if you or anyone else likes the show version. I know many people who do in fact, and while I don't feel the same everyone is valid.

As for the change, well, we don't know a lot of things about Aegon II pre-war to be honest. The things that are mentioned is that he's lazy, folds girls, most likely raped some as well, and protested for a sec against stealing Rhaneyra's throne.

Of course, if we analyze it, we gotta consider the people who report these events, how reliable they are etc. In my personal opinion, I don't think there's any narrator that is just right. I think the truth lies somewhere in the between.

Anyways, back to Aegon, in the show we see he's also lazy, wants nothing to do with the throne, he also rapes girls and he seems against the idea of ruling so you'd think "well, that's not so different" but once you read f&b and consider the context of the world building it's easy to see there's a difference.

first of all, show!Aegon seems to be very isolated. We have seen in asoiaf royals are rarely left alone. Even someone as Aegon, he'd hang out with the sons of the lords that are part of the king's council. They'd drink, go to brothels together, mess around etc. Also Alicent has 0 power over Aegon. Her being verbally and physically abusive is a weird choice (of course her character is also someone entirely different so we shouldn't be surprised), the only person who could be able to push him around is Otto - and even he has limitations.

it just seems hotd doesn't seem to understand the power and privilege people from that upper class are capable of having.

We also have some very few hints of the relationships he had with his family; with Alicent he mostly ignored her, with Aemond they were civil and there was nothing to show they weren't getting along in childhood, with his nephews he was obviously jealous because of the attention Viserys gave them,with Helaena he was neutral and their marriage wasn't the abusive type the fandom has agreed to think of it as.

so yeah, with Aegon the differences are mostly the way they haven't really established the dynamics he has with each family member.

Now when it comes to Rhaneyra... yeah the difference is much more huge. Young Rhaneyra isn't like the wannabe tomboy the show tried to push; she was cheerful, intelligent and incredible charming. her father doted on her and many lords liked her. (I won't get into her romantic relationships because this post will become longer but the portray of daemyra is very different as well).

While I wouldn't say she was as isolated as the show portrayed her, she definitely felt lonely. Alicent had given birth to Aegon, she was pushing her son to be betrothed to Rhaneyra, and she was very antagonistic towards her stepdaughter. So ofc that made Rhaneyra angry and feeling lonely since her father tried to keep neutral ground and please both of them.

Everything changed when Daemon came back from the stepstones and the rest was history.

As for older Rhaneyra (still pre-war), book!Rhaneyra remains a very emotional woman, she acts with her heart and prioritizes her feelings; she doesn't have the need to "prove" something because the throne is hers. She just wants to be happy with the man she loves, build an family and maybe knock down Alicent's smug face every now and then.

She's a "girly girl" and her power move is in her words and the way she dresses and makes statements.

All of these are lost in the show. Young Rhaneyra is just angry, she's constantly insecure about her place but does nothing to show she's capable. Older Rhaneyra loses the fire the younger one has, she's tamer, more silent and more scared. She's just not Rhaenyra at all. There's 0 of her temper, fierceness and her unforgiveness.

I've kinda given up hope that they'll ever turn it around anon. Because I don't see how they could fix it in such a way we'd forget the characterization the two had in s1.

Anyways, I'm sorry this reply became so long 😅 Truth be told I can talk about these characters for hours. I hope I managed to answer your question, and remember, it's perfectly fine if you prefer the show. No judgements from me. I just read the book long ago and am already attached the characters the way I got to know them, so it kinda impossible to just forget their canon selves

[atelier-maroron]

Clavis Route Musings (Spoilers)

Disclaimer: My Japanese comprehension is garbage.com and I rely heavily on less-than-reliable translators, so there is a good chance what I discuss here is inaccurate. If you read this, please take everything I say with a grain of salt. I'll link the fan-translation for his route when it gets put up :)

Disclaimer 2: My commentary may stray into NSFT territory so be advised. Minors DNI.

I will update this post as I proceed through his route.

Chapter 1

I'm still on Chapter 1 because reading with a translator is an excruciatingly slow process for me, even with one that works fast and in real-time essentially.

But it opens with Clavis having a dream back to when he and Chev were children. They're at a funeral and it's raining and Clavis has Chev by the collar, screaming at him: "This is all your fault!"

The narration meanwhile is Clavis reflecting on the nature of genius, the ability to always pick the "correct answer", and the pain and frustration of being an ordinary person next to that genius.

(some more stuff happens in the dream and some stuff when he wakes up, but I wasn't clear on the text so I'll revisit it later)

But Chapter 1 is largely Clavis "graciously" giving Emma a tour of the palace, with a "complimentary introduction to [his] brothers" (whilst pranking all of them) because he is a "gentleman" who simply cannot let a young woman fester alone in her woes. Emma at several points expresses her frustration at Clavis's antics but that exchange always goes something like:

Emma: Clavis, please stop doing this thing

Clavis: You want me to do more of this thing, you say! It would be my pleasure!

Emma: Are you even listening to me!?!?!?!

Then Sariel manages to intercept them. Clavis asks him if he didn't see the note he left indicating that he was taking Emma on a tour that day, but Sariel's like "The note written in an indecipherable foreign language? I couldn't understand it so I threw it in the trash." Clavis, not missing a beat, questions Sariel's ability as a courtier if he can't even decipher "Clavish." Idk what the English localizers are calling the Language of Clavis, but that's what I'm calling it for now.

More later!

[ssweeneys]

How do you think Cassie and Nate's dynamic shifted since season one? Cause I went back and rewatched yesterday and like he was so mean to her talking about her and showing her nudes, pretty sure he had them saved on his phone. Very odd. Almost like he was a little obsessed with her. I know season two said he met Maddy first but I think Rue's narration can be a bit skewed sometimes. Idk to me it just seems like he's speaking out of a place of rejection like maybe he tried to get with her and she was like nope. I don't think Nate was ever her type to begin with.

Putting under the cut simply because this got so fucking long lol and I don’t wanna clog up someone’s dashboard with my thoughts being all over the place. 

I wanna start off by saying, I agree that Rue's narration of things is a bit skewed. She's definitely not the most reliable or reputable source for information given that she's an addict (1) and her mental health is not at it's greatest.

I, personally always thought Nate had a thing for Cassie. In the Pilot when he brings up the sextapes to McKay he says that it doesn't matter if he likes her or not because it's irrelevant when McKay calls him out for digging her and then goes on to label her a whore. His attraction to Maddy was, he was led to believe she was a virgin and therefore she was untouched whereas with Cassie because of the emotional abuse and pressure from guys previously, he knew she wasn't. Nate's a very possessive human being. His way of gaining control in an uncontrolled environment is through ownership. It's why he treats women like their property, particularly how he did with Maddy throughout s1 and we get a small glimpse of in s2 when Nate is hounding McKay for info about his interaction with Cassie. Speaking to my boyfriend irl (from a real guy's perspective and he has a tumblr here so he may chime into this but...) some guys, like Nate, seek out those details when they're possessive types because it's a way for them to process it. Nate constantly belittling Cassie in s1 and making fun of McKay's interest in her does somewhat stem from a jealous place. He wanted to get into McKay's head about her and numerous times he succeeded in order to push the two of them away. Same with them at the gas station when he's asking Cassie so many questions and he sort of got into her head too. He's jealous, plain and simple. Cassie symbolizes a life Nate wishes he had, a love that's nontoxic and straight forward and structured. With Maddy it's the complete opposite.

Quote directly from Jacob Elordi about Cassie and Nate:

Sydney's perspective on Cassie's attraction to Nate too:

Keep in mind that everything we've seen thus far is a collection of flashbacks, memories, thoughts and real events. For the sake of storytelling, more elements come to light as necessary. So we really only get snippets of how these relationships started and there could be more to it that we don't know or will be revealed later on. Like with Nate meeting Maddy his sophomore year first before Cassie. For all we know, as Sydney suggests they could've had a flirtationship. There's obviously a familiarity there and these characters know each other. Like you said too, at one point he could've made a move on her and she rejected him.

More on the control thing from Jacob:

“I think he has an issue with control and losing one person would mean losing control of them,” Elordi said. “But I think there’s a much more sensitive side to it as well in that… I don’t know if you’ve ever been in love, but I think that state, you store it in your bones somewhere. I don’t think you ever really let go of that love for somebody.”

“I know as a teenager it’s incredibly hard to let something go. And [Maddy has] also known him through all of his bullshit,” Elordi said. “So I think he’s genuinely torn between loving two people. Which is the kinder way to put it.”

Jacob also says at the end of ep 2 in his interview that Cassie is helping develop Nate's character in a way where it does reveal his softer side. Their scene at the construction site just goes to show there's something about her he can't walk away from. Cassie is definitely more supportive and emotional and could bring out better qualities to Nate. Looking back on s1 there's a lot of hints towards Nassie. The pilot with him having her nudes saved, the carnival where he's questioning her relationship with McKay and Cal points and kinda goes hey, get you a girl like her. Cassie finding out she's pregnant and McKay brushing it off and basically guilt tripping her into getting rid of it. She says to him she didn't want to have a baby but she just wanted to dream about it for a moment. Cut to s2 where second ep, Nate is having dreams of what a life with Cassie could be and look like and how much happier he'd be if he had someone like her. They're very much on the same wavelength, I think and aside from Jacob and Sydney's chemistry, I do think it's fascinating to watch.

People are going to hate it and hate them for it. I get it. But, I do think it's necessary and it will be a learning curve either way. Plus, it offers both characters a lot of character development. How else will they grow if they don't make mistakes? I trust Euphoria. I may not always agree with everyone's actions but I love this show. I love the characters, every one of them and it resonates with me so deeply.

Also, I can be a little bias probably lol just because I've loved the idea of Nate and Cassie since s1. I've crackshipped them, rewrote them in AUs and shipped their faces so... that's just me. I'm not saying I condone what they do, how they do it, etc. It's entertaining and interesting to watch.