#their survival in the end. something about their tragedy being the fact that both of them thought the other betrayed them first

[charles-jpg]

you say i killed you, haunt me then! | coriolanus snow and lucy gray baird

1. lev st. valentine // 2. clarice lispector // 3. anne carson // 4. anne carson // 5. haruki murakami // 6. richard siken // 7. unknown // 8. t.b bliss // 9. brenna twohy

[operator-report]

In middle school, I read a short story for English class called Flowers for Algernon. Maybe you’ve read it, too. In the story, a disabled man named Charlie is given a medicine that cures his disability. Over the course of the story, he comes to realize that his “cure” is temporary and that he will “regress” into being disabled again. The story makes it clear that this is a tragedy. As a disabled teenager when I first read it, the story affected me deeply.

I’d like to talk about David and Noelle. 

Content warnings for discussion of suicide, self-harm, ableism and eating disorders below the cut. Spoilers for Worm through arc 27. 

When I was first reading arc 18, one of the things that stuck out to me is how much time the story spends on Eidolon. For me, it was the first time I paid much attention to him - prior to that, Eidolon was just an extremely powerful background character to me. But in arc 18, we learn that (1) Eidolon is losing his powers and (2) he believes that fighting Echidna will allow him to tap into some sort of reservoir to bring them back.

We find this out, of course, through Tattletale exposing him, which is always an extremely embarrassing event for Tattletale’s target. It makes it extremely clear that what Eidolon is doing is pathetic. He is going to kill a teenage girl so he can feel something. 

Which would be messed up enough, right? We don’t need to make this even worse, right? Wrong. Because Wildblow has spent the last several thousand words building up the Case 53s as X-Men style metaphors for oppressed groups, and one of the forms of oppression that Wildblow generally writes well is ableism. I think you can consider most, if not all of the Case 53s as disabled in some way. I think the link is extremely clear with Noelle.

Noelle doesn’t get her powers from traditional Cauldron human experimentation - at least, not directly. Instead, she and Krouse are facing what is, to them, a no-win scenario. They’re quarantined with limited access to medical care. Breaching this quarantine would permanently render them criminals. If Noelle survives her surgery, which is a pretty big if, she’ll become disabled, in a way that both Krouse and Noelle agree is ugly and undesirable. She won’t be able to do “boyfriend-girlfriend stuff” because she won’t be “any good to look at, after.” 

Krouse and Noelle are terrified of death, yes, but they’re also terrified of disability. They are desperate for control over Noelle’s body, control that, as of that moment, only the state has. (Remember the quarantine?) Krouse pressures Noelle into drinking the vial. Noelle is cured. 

Noelle’s cure does not last. In attempting to assert control, her body becomes uncontrollable. Her body is her trauma and her eating disorder made literal. She still needs care.

Worm would be bad if this is why her life sucks. But Worm does something better, instead. Noelle goes through hell, not just due to the sheer difficulty of having her power, but because of the way her teammates and Coil treat her. They talk about Noelle like she’s already dead. They’re ashamed of bringing her the food she needs. When Krouse “includes” Noelle in a discussion in arc 12, it’s mostly perfunctory. They do not believe Noelle is human any longer. They lock her away.

Noelle doesn’t want to be put in a cage. Noelle doesn’t want to be dehumanized. In interlude 18, when we get insight into Noelle’s thoughts, we learn that what Noelle is angry about is the fact that Krouse locked her in a concrete bunker and placated her. When she tells people not to look at her, there’s a coda to that sentence that she doesn’t get to verbalize: don’t look at me like that. 

This is the person who Eidolon is going to kill. 

Via the Simurgh, this is a person Eidolon has unknowingly created.

A few thousand words of Worm go by. It’s Gold Morning. Eidolon is fighting Scion. Now, at the end of the book, we finally get substantial insight into David, the man behind the mask. 

David takes a Cauldron vial to cure his disability. David sees this as the only way out, after an unsuccessful application to join the military, and then, an unsuccessful suicide attempt. David is bearing an immense amount of shame and internalized ableism. David is worried that father’s friends are watching him. (Don’t look at me.) David cleaves the world into two kinds of people: those who can have jobs, who are liked and respected because they are useful; and people like him, who are useless.

It’s a terrible way to think. Without that worldview, how could a person not take the vial? David wants to be used, because David wants to be useful. He never gets the independence he craves – not when he’s in that level of debt to Cauldron – but he gets to be useful, and that’s one of the best things you can be.

Like Noelle’s, like Charlie’s in Flowers, David’s cure doesn’t work. His abilities are wearing off. He is essentially told, when Doctor Mother administers his booster shots, that his medicine is too expensive. 

Cauldron creates Noelle. David, as Cauldron’s soldier, has a role to play in her creation. David knows exactly what he is doing to Noelle. It happened to him. Worm fandom talks a lot about David being a father. He’s a father in more ways than one. (David’s father is always watching him.) (Don’t look at me.)

Cauldron never cures David’s ableism. In his world, you can be useful, or you can die. David asks Noelle if she wants to win. Noelle tells him no. You can have a job, or you can kill yourself. When David tries to kill Noelle to help himself, isn’t that a mercy?

Of course it isn’t. It goes without saying that all of this is extremely fucked up. When it comes to disability, “cure” is a complicated concept. I’m not going to get into all the ways it can be treated; this post is already a thousand words long. But I do think that Worm, through Noelle and David and the concept of the Cauldron vial, provides an extremely vivid picture of the problems with cure. 

Under ableist logic, when you have a disability, a cure is something you’re expected to want. Without it, the story goes, you can’t be useful. You can’t do boyfriend-girlfriend stuff. The expectation is social, like the act of staring. Your desire for it should drive how you organize your life – it is control, like a quarantine. David is crushed by that expectation. He throws his lot in with Cauldron, the cure-makers. The expectation is passed along to Noelle, and even though David can recognize that inheritance, he cannot imagine any other way to respond to it other than attempted murder.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that Flowers for Algernon is a tragedy. The reason that story has stuck with me so long is that I keep going back and forth as to why. Is it a tragedy because Charlie goes back to being disabled? There’s a good chance that’s what the author intended. I don’t know. It would be a pretty shitty story if that were the case. Is it a tragedy because people only treat Charlie well when he’s “cured,” and when that stops, he’ll go back to abuse? Seems plausible. I don’t think there’s one right answer. Regardless, when you’re disabled, there’s an immense pressure to seek out a cure, and a cognizable loss when it is withheld. The fact that Worm captures that social pressure and social loss so well is extremely compelling for me, and I’m going to be thinking about these characters for a long time.

[buggachat]

I'm so curious to hear your thoughts. do you think Gabriel will ACTUALLY die? Or Nathalie? or will they both get healed??? Will Emilie actually get revived? The latter was always something I thought the show would do, but I also feel like this show is hard to predict sometimes. If Emilie does come back, I can't imagine she'd be too thrilled when she learns what Gabe's been up to that the two of them would go back to being a happy loving couple. #eminath2022

honestly it's SO HARD to predict how this series could possibly end. Adrien's story is so clearly set up as a tragedy, completely doomed by the narrative, and there's sufficient foreshadowing that he could possibly die/be sacrificed.... but I also believe that IF that happens he'd be revived and will ultimately receive a happy ending, because he's a main/beloved character of a children's show (also future-chat noir was alive in timetagger). So how will Adrien get a happy ending? Who will parent this child? UHHHHH

Personally, I really hope they don't revive Emilie, even if that's maybe the most obvious way for Adrien to have a happy ending. I think it'd maybe be a little questionable for kids who watch the show and relate to Adrien's struggles of losing a parent, and also I think that it'd kind of... prove Gabriel right? I think Gabriel would happily sacrifice ANYTHING, including his own life, to save Emilie, and I think him essentially doing that, sacrificing EVERYTHING to revive Emilie, and then everyone in the show being better off for it and it being the "happy ending" would kind of mess with the themes. Gabriel isn't supposed to be right. He's supposed to be wrong, he's supposed to be deluded that Emilie can be saved, he's supposed to be wrong in refusing to mourn her properly and move on, and with those themes in mind I don't think it'd make sense for her to be brought back. Maybe temporarily, but not permanently, y'know?

As for the fate of Gabriel and Nathalie.... I DON'T KNOW.... I DON'T KNOW!!! I feel like I almost want to say that Gabriel will just flat out die, but can they do that??? It's a kids show??? WOULD they kill Gabriel??? I don't know!! I DON'T KNOW.... but also there's something so poetically beautiful about Gabriel being the cause of his own demise, y'know? He did this to himself. This is his punishment. Ladybug and Chat Noir don't even have to decide his fate, he decided it himself, and I love that. And even if they find a way to heal the cataclysm, would it heal his mind after being driven mad by all the miraculouses? I...... I don't know that they can do that. How weird would it be, if the series ended with Gabriel suddenly healthy in body and mind again? And then what? He goes back to raising Adrien like nothing happened? It's almost easier to picture him flat out dying, or going to prison with an implied shortened lifespan or something. Gabriel should not continue to have custody of Adrien after all is said and done.

Nathalie would make more sense to survive, I suppose, because even if her fate has been sealed for longer and more solidly, she's a more redeemable character. In fact, I'd say Passion implies that she's very redeemable now, and is even actively trying to step in and be a mother-figure to Adrien now, which makes her a solid contender for being Adrien's post-plot guardian... but it still doesn't feel quite right, because just like Gabriel, Nathalie did this to herself, and her illness is her poetic punishment for her crimes, and we have no reason to believe that her illness can be cured, and we know it's fatal because of Emilie. That, and even if she regrets it now, she still aided and abetted Adrien's abusive father.... so........ I................... .....?

I'm really at a loss here, because I can't predict at all where this could all possibly go. If not Emilie, Gabriel, or Nathalie, who will take care of Adrien?

I know a lot of people use Gorilla for this role, and I don't blame them because there's really no other option, but I've never bought it. Gorilla is.... essentially just.... Some Vaguely Decent Man™ who works for Gabriel, and I really don't get anything from him or from his relationship with Adrien beyond that. Like yes, he's nice to Adrien in a way that probably any Vaguely Decent Man™ would be, and Adrien likes him fine in the same way that Adrien likes everyone, but that's... kind of it? Fanon takes Gorilla and Adrien's relationship and runs with it, and that's fun and all, but in canon there's virtually nothing there, and I'm sure that if Gorilla adopting him was the intended ending, they'd be developing their relationship more than the nothing that we've gotten.

All that really leaves is Amelie, his aunt, who lives in a different country? That seems the most logical, but also would have a huge affect on future seasons of the show if Adrien left the country. Maybe there's some interesting plot stuff they could do with that, and with Adrien and Félix living together, but it almost feels too AUish for me to comfortably predict that it would happen in canon.

sorry this turned into a long ramble where my conclusion is basically a big "I don't know". But anyway, I'm actually really excited to see where this all ends up! I love how unpredictable this show can be.

My only semi-Serious prediction is: I can just picture an episode where Gabriel actually wins, where he recreates his world, and maybe Adrien isn't in it, like Adrien was the one transferred to the casket in the basement (or maybe Adrien was the one who made the wish, and willingly chose to sacrifice himself, because of Adrien's established sacrificial tendencies? idk), and Emilie denounces Gabriel and walks out on him and Gabriel realizes that everything that he's done has been for nothing, that his dream was never real and never could be, and then they somehow undo that timeline and bring everything back into the regular timeline. Idk how any of that would happen, but I'd like it so :)

("It's just bad writing" No Fun Allowed responders DNI)

[runningfrom2am]

“You were scared. Of him.” BABY BOY DID YOU EVEN HEAR WHAT SHE SAID ABOUT THE GAMES??

how i love when there’s a letter to feel guilty about, from beyond the grave.

“Or that if you’re out on cold nights when the breeze chills your skin, you’ll think of us.” THERE IT IS!!!

“Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, / Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!” the way that this is their relationship summary-

the fact that he sent the bread and the water only to buy her trust back is very reasonable and therefore disturbing.

SHE WOULD HAVE DIED WITHOUT HIS MOTHER’S SCARF!! she still cries for ruining something coryo gave her even after last night. I AM UNWELL!!

i just know that lucky and dr gaul are both losing it at the back for not having cameras in the vents. they’re very close to the end of the games yet they cannot see what is happening.

even the girl who had planned to stay still and wait for her end resorts to survival when fate knocks on her door and there is too much to lose.

okay we’re gonna rock with the same numbering system for this one bc we have SEVERAL points to go over.

(also i did have to reread it rq before i answered this bc i wrote and edited this like two weeks ago lol)

1. i mean,, at least he’s kinda self aware HAHAHA. actually very SELF aware and not very contextually observant rn. like babe you KNOW how terrified she was already and now the only person in this whole place who she trusts has started swinging too?! ZERO critical thinking skills.

2. yeahhhhh yk i had to do it 🤭 at first when i was writing it i was like “this is way too wordy” but then i was like “raye,,, duh words are her whole thing don’t be dumb” so i let it go on as long as it needed to haha. like i can see it SO vividly like it was probably hard to read i just KNOW she covered that whole sheet in writing without an inch to spare. i also feel like for her it wasn’t enough, but she would never complain or dare ask for another sheet.

3. title drop let’s goooooo (there will be more i think i do this a few times lol)

4. no bc that quote was so perfect i’ve been sitting on it since i started writing this series it’s been rotting in my notes waiting to be used and i just 🥹 of COURSE that’s what she would use as her real confession i’ll actually puke ab it.

as much as he thought the monologue was a confession, it really wasn’t. he heard what he wanted to hear, that she loved him and cared about him. which she does, but her intention was to beg and plead with him to be good and stay that way. she had no receipts besides his namesake and where he lived to base this theory off of, but i think after they discussed the tragedy of coriolanus at length she just wanted to hammer home that he is not what his name would suggest. this letter though was the realest confession she would give, through written word, and i think that’s very real to who she is, especially being so far from home and her family and her safe space.

5. pretending that he wanted her to help jessup was literally all he could do!! to him, what’s the alternative? give her the cold shoulder in the most vulnerable (likely final) days of her life? he couldn’t do that even if he wanted to, i think. i don’t think it successfully buys her trust, but i do think it is so motivational for her to just know that at the very least he is still there.

6. omg yeah me too i am SICK. she’s crying and apologizing knowing damn well he can’t even hear it or see what she’s doing but she feels just awful even though it means she would survive. as if that’s not the whole reason he gave it to her. he gave her the go ahead to use his mothers scarf to kill someone if she had to- and she feels that guilty about using it to save herself?? i’ll puke ab this actually she is so sweet. she cares about him so so deeply and i think a massive part of her fear, that kept her up all night, was that that fact that she loves him cares did not change.

7. yeah they did NOT think that one through and ik it’s just eating dr. gaul ALIVE bro. this could also be the beginning (assuming the games do continue- who knows) of the trackers that monitor heart rates and vitals of tributes.

8. OKAY YES so i’m gonna tie this into point 6 too bc i feel like that’s the manifestation of this internal battle she’s having. if she had originally planned to give up her life at the very beginning, i can so easily see the guilt that she’s feeling over every little thing she’s doing to preserve her own life beyond that point. so not only is she ruining his late mothers beautiful scarf, she’s also betraying herself. the “old her”, if you will. she shouldn’t be alive anyways, she will die soon anyways, so it feels like a waste to ruin this scarf in the process when she likely believes it will be peeled off her dead body regardless. but she still does it.

she told herself that coryo was what changed that plan- that she wanted to win for him, but i don’t even know that that’s fully true. maybe it was about saving herself all along, but she felt too horribly guilty about the circumstances to even admit that to herself. especially now that she’s starting to devolve mentally, she opens the compact knowing that its contents will kill the boys that are after her, but immediately she’s going “oh, it looks like salt” and committing to that narrative so desperately so she can hide from herself that now not only is she ruining the scarf to save herself, that she’s also directly causing fatal harm to others which she has always sworn she would never do.

[sugar-grigri]

I love you but if denji sacrifices himself for asa I will throw up and sob. I pray that you're wrong

I really think the fact that Denji dies is key to his development.

We can see that he reaches his conclusions when he's in the middle of building Asa, Denji has more of a narrative role now to influence the other characters than to be disturbed by them.

I'm not saying this because tragedy is something Fujimoto knows how to write very well, but not only does death have an important place in his works, but Chainsaw Man is about the birth of a hero, especially in part 1, which is concluded in part 2.

We see that becoming a hero brings Denji artificial personal advantages, that he remains locked in a sad solitude

It has never had any other aim than to be integrated, and it still isn't.

Part 2 takes up Shakespearean codes (double identity, intertwined love, two opposing camps, relationship with the family), death has always had an emancipating function in tragedy.

Death is not an end but a conclusion; dying for the other is Denji's best way of paradoxically finding meaning in his existence.

For a boy who would constantly be judged as perverse but also as having low vices, sacrificing himself for others would finally serve to make him a hero in the ancient sense of the word, whose power derives not from his popularity but from his moral strength.

Sacrifice through the figure of the cat, the social integration initiated by Bucky and then taken up by the birds, the question of finding oneself, all need to be answered by a strong act, and only a powerful narrative act can resolve all these questions at once.

Fujimoto has just highlighted the concept of weapons, talking about their relationship with the fact of having no will of their own, their eternal youth and immortality.

The weapons are all polarized on this subject, while the whip and spear weapons see it as superiority, Miri, who also seems to want to act for his own freedom, is more dubious.

Barem is in a special position, having internalized the fact that sowing death is a divine mission, a trait common to all beings.

Quanxi and Denji are opposite examples: Quanxi has survived at the expense of his girlfriends, just as Denji has begun to see his own immortality as a burden.

Several times, Denji emanates the idea that he's a machine to be rebooted, that the people have projected him to become Chainsaw Man.

To have won against Aki, to have survived at the expense of his older brother, a victory that marries a loss is not really what you'd call "winning".

Fate is also a central theme in CSM, and Aki couldn't escape his contract with the demon from the future, just as he couldn't escape Makima's meticulous plan to bring about the end of the siblings before they were even formed.

Denji's mother and father died young, so it wouldn't surprise me if he, too, was trapped in a kind of fatality.

What's more, Denji's eternal youth is also what's going to give him trouble.

He hasn't matured physically compared to part 1; it's simply Fujimoto's style that has taken shape.

He won't grow up, this boy who'd like to go to school, plan to find a job and have a normal life.

Denji is condemned to seeing his loved ones die or to staying just the two of them with Nayuta.

We shouldn't idealize or demonize the relationship he has with his little sister, but the fact remains that Nayuta is a demon with different values than a boy who was human before becoming a demon.

The control demon simply wants an entourage, even if it's limited to one person.

As for Denji, he only finds meaning in his relationship with the majority, with people his own age.

Denji loves Nayuta, but they don't both have the same conception of happiness, as Fujimoto develops in the final chapters.

In short, the best way to make Denji happy is to let him die for someone else.

And again from a symbolic and narrative point of view, whether it's in relation to the general scenario or Denji's arc, of course I'd cry like everyone else and you Anon

But I want and hope for the best ending for CSM

[the-s1lly-corner]

What would happen if eyeless jacks s/o was being targeted by the cult that killed him? (Or remaining members from the cult) like somehow the stars aligned and they somehow found him and his s/o, and chose to target them since yk...going after a human would be a lot easier then going after him

Hunted (Eyeless Jack x reader being tracked by the cult hcs)

you. anon. points. shakes you (/pos) im loving the ej requests and honestly this one!! already love it and im hoping i can do the idea justice!! dont get me wrong i love the basic romance prompts but the drama and action that can come from prompts like this??? WOOOOOOO

no because imagine some of the remaining members track him down as you proposed. regardless of if they find him through sightings or tracking down his "feeding grounds", they find where he lives. and in turn also find his.. partner

ive got multiple ideas for this so bare with me

idea one: imagine they find you and him together and manage to overpower you both... i think at this point they would view jack as a lost cause and... try to put him down for lack of better wording. they already failed with him with the sacrifice and trying to get that demon they worship to take over his body... though did the ritual even fail? i mean something definitely happened, but... shrugs. too many things to dive into for this prompt but!! but imagine if they decide to use you as a new sacrifice

even worse what if they cant actually kill jack, be it because he cant be killed in any normal means or they dont have the means to do him in.. and hes made to watch. imagine what would be going through his mind. regardless of if you are a successful sacrifice, or youre botched like jack, or you simply die...

on the chance its successful, would it even be fair to say that its still you in there? i mean your body is literally being used as a skin puppet for... something else... gone and disgraced. but if you end up like jack, i think it would be worse. at least with the other option he can say you passed away or that there is hope to get you back.. but you being like him just makes his skin crawl. it feels more final, more personal. he would never wish what had happened to him onto you.. and yet, here you are. i think death, as much as it would hurt and destroy him, would at least give him some finality that you wont have to suffer. many feelings here you know. and again, this is assuming hes forced to watch everything to go down

Idea two: hes captured and you go looking for him... i think, since the cult doesnt know youre around they try to do the ritual right on jack... if it can even be redone.. probably leads to you trying to rush in and get jack out of there; ultimately ending in you either being used as the sacrifice or being offed before the option can even be considered

Idea three: you're taken while waiting for jack at his home. youre ambushed while your partner is away and taken. there will definitely be signs of a struggle and break in, but jack probably wouldnt have many leads of where you went. cursing him to live the rest of his life trying to search for you and figure out what happened to you. on the chance that you survived and returned to him, theres going to be so many questions... and so many more if the ritual was botched..

theres just so many ways to go about this but none of the outcomes and routes sound desirable as they all end in death and tragedy. either someones getting possessed, cursed, or killed... not very good...

but as i reread your request, i come up with another idea. what if they scope you out, by yourself. like how they originally would have done to jack to get him to drop your guard... imagine youre none the wiser, in fact you even talk about your new 'friends' to jack; and he, stupidly, decides to let you have your privacy. can you imagine the guilt that would hit him when the cycle repeats itself and you become a victim? i think he wouldnt know at first, just that youve stop coming to him for a while... i mean he doesnt exactly have many ties to the world outside of his little bubble at home, how could he ever find out?

[irlkdj]

Comparing Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint and I Want To Eat Your Pancreas [SPOILERS]

I will be mostly discussing themes of choice and love, so if you have not already I implore you to read my post about orv and themes of choice here.

I Want To Eat Your Pancreas is about a girl named Sakura who is terminally ill. A boy named Haruki stumbled upon her diary during a hospital visit. It was titled “Living with Dying.” He is the only one aside from her family that knows of her illness. Because of this, a special bond forms between them. She begins to pester him by getting a job in the library he works at. She tells him a story about how if someone were to eat a healthy version of the infected part of their body, they’d be cured of their ailments.

She begins to show up everywhere and tells him that she wants to spend the rest of her life hanging out with him. Haruki does not have friends. Much like Kim Dokja, he spends his days with his nose in a book—he thinks people do not want to know him.

Despite his expressing annoyance at her insistence, he still finds himself accompanying her. Fulfilling this list of things she wanted to do before she died. When hanging out, they have the following conversation:

He says no one is interested in him and so he isn’t interested in others. He is happy to let all relationships start and die in his head. She says immediately that she is interested in him—something that leaves him speechless. She actually lectures him on his poor habit of deciding everyone dislikes him. He doesn’t /let/ people love him. This is much like Kim Dokja’s mindset in the sense that he refuses to let people know him. He can’t comprehend the idea that anyone would /want/ to know him.

Sakura’s friends tell her they could find her someone better. Someone more interesting and not as boring. But she continues to hang out with him. They keep asking her why and she just says “we just get along.” There doesn’t need to be a reason to like someone. You don’t need to be extraordinary to be worthy of someone’s care and attention. Like Kim Dokja, whose life was another tragedy. Kim Dokja who was just a salaryman; a lousy employee who liked to read. A boy who avoided the complexities of relationships with fiction. Both Kim Dokja and Haruki think relationships bring problems. They are physically incapable of imagining a world where someone could care for someone are average as them. Being alone is easier. It’s easier to assume no one will like you because then you don’t face rejection.

Sakura tells him to stop spending so much time reading books and instead focus on spending time with /people/. Something he doesn’t do until the end of the film. In fact, one boy continuously reached out to Haruki by offering gum and he always refused.

With this continuous refusal, he does continue to accompany Sakura. After the two spend a spontaneous vacation together, Haruki even has a moment of honesty. A moment where he admits that he had fun.

This reminds me of Dokja coming to terms with the fact that even though he doesn’t believe in fantasies, he wants to enjoy his time with his companions. He never lets himself /want/ anything, but the safety and companionship these people provide him give him hope. As seen below, Kim Dokja says it’s easier to survive alone. Comfortable even. But he ends it with a “but..” I want to be with you. I want to love you despite all the problems that come with being by your side. Because with love comes pain, but I’ll carry that pain.

Later in the film, Haruki and Sakura argue and he proclaims that he should’ve never tried to interact with others. All he brings to others is pain. It’s similar to Kim Dokja coping with the fact that the novel that brought him these companions also ruined them.

She tells him that’s not true and he insists she should be with someone else who can care for her more. They just met by chance. Their relationship wasn’t special. She says it wasn’t a coincidence—that everyone is what they are because of the choices they’ve made.

“You're wrong. It wasn't chance. Everyone is where they are because of the choices they've made. Our choices led us to being in the same class. Our choices brought us to the hospital. Not chance. There's no such thing as fate. All the choices you've made and all the choices I've made brought us together. You and I met by our own decisions.”

Much like I say in my orv and the power of choice analysis, choosing to love someone is the most powerful act of free will we can choose as human beings. To /choose/ to love someone. How every day, every moment, every second is made up of countless choices we've made. How coincidences don't truly exist, because we end up where we are at each moment because of a choice someone made. Life is full of choices. Some are worse than others. It matters what we do with the next choice. It matters what we do with the choices we make. It matters how we factor in others' thoughts and feelings into the choices we make. Life is nothing without human connection. Making the choice to continue living.. the choice to have those relationships even though they're scary and uncertain. That’s what living is all about.

“Living...... Means having bonds with others. Paying attention to someone. Loving someone. Hating someone. Having fun being with someone. Taking someone’s hand. That’s what it means to live. If you’re all alone, you cant tell that you exist. Your relationship with others, is what defines being alive. I know my mind exists, since I can interact with others. I know my body exists, because others touch me. That’s where the purpose of being alive comes from. Just like we’ve been chosen to live out this moment here and now.”

Sakura asks Haruki: you want me to live? And he says yes, very much. Just like how orv teaches its readers that someone out there wants you to exist. Someone out there desperately wants to write you a story. Someone out there wants you to know that they love you.

Letting yourself want something. Wanting someone else to live. It reminds me of Kim Dokja proclaiming his wish of living in a big house with everyone. It’s not selfish to want to be loved. It’s not selfish to crave human interaction. Someone out there /wants/ to give that to you.

After this, Haruki begins to let people in. He finally accepts the gum. He expresses his care that normally goes unspoken to Sakura. He begins to truly live. When the destruction of the world began in orv, it was the start of Kim Dokja’s life. He began to let people love him.

Haruki chose to pick up that diary. Kim Dokja chose to read that story. Haruki chose to accompany Sakura. Kim Dokja chose to stick by his companions. They chose to walk alongside these people which cause them unbearable pain, but show them how beautiful life can be.

When he’s waiting for her at the cafe, he says he’s thinking about her. He says she is so much more amazing than him, and he wants to become like her. able to love and acknowledge others. Able to /be/ loved. He sends her one final message: “I want to eat your pancreas.”

He waits and waits and she never arrives. He leaves the cafe and comes home to the news that she’s been murdered. 

A man who at the beginning said he didn’t care for others, suddenly unable to walk up the stairs. Overtaken with grief. Clutching his phone with that final message as he cried. The book he promised to read and return still sitting on his shelf.

Sakura’s mother gave him her diary after the funeral, and in it contained a farewell letter addressed to him.

Haruki thought as he read the letter that he wanted to know her epilogue. She said there were many times she thought she had fallen in love with him. But that their relationship couldn’t be summed up by simple terms like love or friendship.

In her letter, she says she thinks he’s a really amazing person. In turn he says it’s not true, he’s a coward. Just like how Kim Dokja had viewed himself as average, unlovable, and impossible to be cared for. But Sakura loved Haruki. Han Sooyoung loved Kim Dokja. Despite there being almost nothing special about these two, someone saw a light within them that even themselves couldn’t locate.

Sakura always thought of herself as an average girl with a shorter lifespan. “But you cared for an uninteresting girl like me. You, who have no need for relationships like friendship or love, chose none other than me. Perhaps I’ve spent 17 years waiting to be needed by you.”

She reiterates that their relationship can’t be summed up with stuffy words, so she decides on one final message: I want to eat your pancreas. He opens her phone and finds tearfully that his final message, the same she wished to send to him, reached her. 

After reading her diary and seeing the message was received. He turns to her mother and asks: “Can I cry now?” Letting himself sit in the grief he refused to feel. Grief is all the unspoken love we have for those who have left us. He proclaims: I lived my life just to meet you. Thank you.

Her mother invited him and Kyoko (Sakurra's best friend) to come have dinner at the house sometime. After that he makes attempts to connect with Kyoko, despite her outward dislike for him. Sakura had always wished for them to get along. He tells her the truth of their relationship, and let’s her see Sakura’s diary. He chases after her when she flees the cafe where they met and asks that for her to forgive him one day. He asks that one day they can be friends like Sakura had wished.

I Want To Eat Your Pancreas and orv both tell stories of unremarkable people. Ordinary individuals who hide away from the complexities of human relationships to protect themselves. But these stories show their readers that you don’t have to be anything other than yourself to be worthy of love. You don’t need to be class president to be friends with someone, you don’t need to be the protagonist to do something amazing. You don’t need to do anything other than be yourself for someone out there to see you for who you are and choose to love you. Someone out there wants to read your epilogue. Someone out there wants you to exist just as you are. 

[brownbitchshit]

What I absolutely loved about s2 (among many other things) is that they solidified Wilhelm -Simon's love story.

They both tried to move on. They both tried to find the same level of love, comfort and peace in others. Simon tried to treat it like a month old relationship where he got treated horribly and he can get over it if he tries. He thought he'd be fine if he were with someone who wasn't a Prince and comes with so much baggage. But very quickly he realized, he could have the perfect guy in the world, but it wouldn’t mean anything to him because Wilhelm is it for him. Their shortlived romance wasn’t trivial.

And Wilhelm tried to win Simon over in the beginning because he knew what he felt for Simon was rare and he was the one for him. But seeing Simon moving on, he started doubting his feelings and their relationship. But pretty soon he too realized that he was right, there can never be anyone like Simon. But he had to let him go if he wants to survive and because Simon deserves to be happy.

In episode 4, when Simon kissed Wilhelm, you could see the relief that flooded in Wilhelm's expression and the pain Simon was in because they both realized, they will never get over each other. And that's what I wanted for them since the season announced.

Because they fell for each other head first but they had no confirmation about how special their love was! They are 16 and first love always feel monumental. So with the tragedy and trauma, mixed with first love, it might feel like something big when it isn’t. But in s2 they confirmed that it was in fact something monumental. They fought, bickered, hurt each other, pushed each other away but couldn’t move on. Couldn’t love others. Now that's how you tell a love story. Now that's a love story I'll believe that will last forever and that's the love story I wanna see end with them being married and ruling together.

[im-poe-dameron]

❛ everyone i’ve cared about has either died of left me. except for you. ❜

❛ you’re the one good thing left in this world. ❜

back at it again, what about these two with my fave flyboy, poe?

HOPE

a/n: i can't even tell you how long this has been sitting in my inbox. but i was watching the force awakens and the poe inspiration came back in full force. so here you go darling! i hope you enjoy poe dameron being the absolute loving character he is. this is not beta read or edited so there will probably be mistakes.

comments, reblogs, and feedback is absolutely welcome!!

summary: you were his light, his life and he...he was your hope.

word count: 1.1k+

pairing: poe dameron x reader

warnings: not explicit, grief, mentions of death, pain, angst, and bit of fluff.

Fate was cruel to those who had light in their souls.

You recall that saying being used a lot to describe the tragedy of your family when you were younger. Fate—the eternal entity that no one could explain. How did it determine where you would wind up in life? How did it control you? If you could go back in time to change things…you would have. You could have given your family a different path altogether. One where they weren’t stuck in a life they didn’t want.

They had traded you as a youngling. Offered you up to the Resistance as a trainee for their war and like a good soldier you went along with it. Promised them that hope would rise again in the galaxy, but you never expected the inevitable to happen.

“Hey Red!” his voice echoed behind you, catching up to where you’d been standing. For a minute you allowed yourself to break down at the news of your family’s end. Just for a second and you’d be back to yourself afterwards.

Eventually you would have to shove any and all emotions out of sight in order to survive whatever came your way. It was harsh to force yourself to forget, but you wouldn’t be able to keep going on if you didn’t. Loss was a part of war. You had to accept that.

You wiped quickly at the fresh tears that sprouted, trying to seem like you were okay when in fact your entire world shattered within seconds. They may have given you up, but in the end it was always your choice to go or stay. For the first time fate had been in your hands instead and you did what you believed to be the best for your family. You left them behind instead. Slapping a false smile on your face you turned to greet Poe, someone you considered a friend—possibly more.

That conclusion you weren’t sure of. Yet.

“Leia wants us to—” He stopped short at the sight of your eyes still glassy from before. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

Being too quick to answer the question is what got you caught. He saw right through you as if you. He always did.

“Red,” he said, moving closer with slow steps.

This was too much. All of it combined would make you crack your exterior shell and you couldn’t do that—not here. Not now. Shutting your eyes you willed the tears away; knowing that if you let him in there would be no getting him out. But maybe…you didn’t want him to leave you. Poe had been your friend for so long it felt wrong to call him something else. Except there he was, pressing his hand to your cheek and wiping away the rogue tear that fell down your face.

He’d been there for you when you first started. Both new pilots trying to navigate a war that used to be your parents, and now he was there as a man standing in front of the girl he loved, hoping she loved him too.

“Tell me,” he whispered. “Why are you crying?”

The words fell from your lips before you could stop them. “My family’s gone,” you choked out and you could hear the crash of your armor fall to the forest floor around you. “They—” Taking in a breath, you tried not to sob. “They were attacked by The First Order. My parents, my little brother—”

He caught you as you fell to his chest, holding you tight as the sobs broke free and nearly shattered his heart. You couldn’t explain anymore to him, but he got the gist of it. Having lost his entire family to this war, he understood what you were going through—how it tore you apart on the inside. It made you debate what you could have done to save them. What would have happened if you were there with them instead of here?

Fate played its cruel hand and tore another piece of light away from you. A realization that broke him. You were part of why he was still alive. You and the light you shed on the world around you, and now…you were a little darker. Lost in the grief that plagued your soul like a sickness.

“What can I do?” he asked, pressing his cheek to your head. “How can I help?”

You shook your head, clutching on his shirt to ground yourself. “You don’t have to do anything.”

“I want to,” he replied. He cupped your cheek, tilting your tear stained face back to finally see you. “I need to.”

“W-why?”

He wiped away the tears, smiling sadly at you in the hopes of easing your spirits. “You’re the one good thing left in this world.” Pressing his forehead to yours, he exhaled softly, listening to your breath hitch in your throat. “You’re the one thing keeping me going Red.”

Though you were swallowed whole by the grief that came with the news of your family, you felt warmth flicker in your chest. A small piece of light to grasp onto in order to pull yourself out. It wouldn’t happen today. Or even tomorrow for that matter. But Poe had helped you in the best way possible. He’d given you hope. Enough to fight against the darkness that wished to drag you underneath the dark waves and find your way back to him.

Opening your eyes you met his and saw the desperation in his face—the need to know what you were thinking. “Everyone I've cared about has either died or left me. Except for you.”

He smiled, nudging his nose against yours. “I’m never leaving you Red.”

“Promise?” you whispered.

Bringing you closer, he pressed his lips to yours. The action wasn’t spurred by anything other than the love he had to offer you in this lifetime. He didn’t expect anything back, nor did he want you to feel like you had to offer him the same amount of affection. But you did. You loved him in the end of all of this. The man who was your light, your hope in this ongoing horror that seemed to never have an end. You kissed him back gently, cupping his cheeks in an attempt to convey that, yes you wanted him, yes you loved him, yes…you were his.

“I promise,” he breathed against your lips, seeing a small bit of light flicker in your eyes.

It wasn’t much—barely there—but it was enough.

While you were his light, his life, the reason he continued this fight. He...he was your hope.

[driftwithme]

That deleted scene between Chuck and Herc haunts me because that is the ThesisTM of Chuck as a character.

Let's see:

He feels he was not raised by a man, but by the machines he grew up around. I'd admit this one is more implicit, so let me explain. When Chuck says that Herc did not raised him to be anything, he then admits he spend more time around the machines than with Herc. Chuck doesn't even mentions anyone else human, not even the j-techs or other pilots. He goes to straight up mention the machines. Herc might have not raised him to be anything, but those machines thought him how to be a pilot.

He is perceived by other people as a great ranger but not a very good man. Which yeah, Chuck is great at his job, but what about his social life? We never see him around other people, talking or anything else. The movie makes a good point of separating him from the bunch in every scene. The only mention of him having a life is when he tells Raleigh that he wants to come back, but hold on, it takes us to another point.

When Herc asks him who is him and follows it by saying everybody knows he's a great ranger, Chuck asks his dad what else does Herc want him to be. He doesn't understand the question. He is doing what he is required to do, isn't it? So why is it not enough? At this point is obvious Chuck doesn't have an identity beyond being a jaeger pilot. That's not a job for him, that is his whole life, who he is, what he was raised to be. Is that the life he wants to return to? The life Chuck likes so much?

He tells Herc that the only reason they still talk if 'cause their drift compatibility and the fact they are good at smashing things. To me it sounded more like they are good at destroying, which could be a reference to how they constantly fail at mending their relationship. This means that the only meaningful connection he has is only there because of his job. And I'm not counting Max here, but it's all the same to say this man's alone in the world with only a dog for company.

When all is said and done, this scene was as an explanation for Chuck's death, narrative wise. He was no one without the kaiju war or the ranger job. He had no identity beside the identity of a soldier. Every other character's storyline has a figurative anchor, except of course the ones who died: The pilots of both Cherno and Crimson died with their family and jaegers, Pentecost trade places with G. Danger for them to survive and Chuck? Well, Chuck gave his anchor (Max) to his dad, so Herc would have something after he's gone.

The PPDC and Team Danger also work as an anchor for Herc, since he still had to be there until the mission was over. Hannibal Chau had an anchor (his business) and ended up surviving as well.

So I guess, in the sense that New was born to study monsters and fall in love with them, Chuck was fight in that war and made it his mission to end it. He doesn't survive because his arc in the story was over, solved, done.

That's the genius of the Hansen meeting deleted scene. It sets the tragedy to happen.

[gamequeenanya]

I may have figured out FNAF.

(Aka: "Phone Guy and the inherent tragedy of every developed FNAF character.")

Now, this isn't some deep theory post. It's just my observation watching the characters of the series and what happens to them.

FNAF is and always has been, a tragedy. (Everyone already knows this in relation to the ghost kids, but let's look deeper.)

And all this time I've been wanting more character development for my faves, I failed to realize that they already had it. But in the opposite direction as I may have liked.

You see, FNAF characters - every single one of them that even has a character to speak of - goes through a fall arc. Every single one of them (even the few who get rescued in the end, like Vanessa.)

Michael Afton has a fall arc (Bite of 83, and his gradual deterioration in the Sister Location Custom Night)

William Afton has a fall arc (his envy of Henry leads to his downfall, and then leads to himself getting Springlocked and deteriorating physically as well as mentally)

Other characters can have either a physical or mental state of getting worse as the story goes on, but many have both.

The Glamrocks get dirtier - and most of them are broken by the end. Glamrock Freddy survives but by the end, only his head is left.

There are exceptions to this rule - we don't yet know what Steel Wool is going to do with Gregory and Cassie - but for the most part this story is about everyone suffering because of FNAF, even if they start out in a relatively good place at the beginning.

Now to the part I've been waiting to tell.

All of Phone Guy's calls through the three games are about a fall arc. (Yes, even FNAF 3. It's subtle but it's there.)

He starts out as an older teen/young adult who seems really happy and excited to be a part of the Fazbear Experience. Listening to the tapes, you can hear the smile in his voice as he's reading the script.

But then, gradually, he starts smiling less and less. If you listen to the first tape and then the last tape back to back, you'll notice the fall from grace... What started out as a sweet, happy young man turns into a sad man with guilt and trauma. And even though he is telling us to "Remember to Smile!," he no longer puts any effort into even faking a smile by the end.

And it gets worse when you realize that this is someone who is bearing the burden of something he didn't do. People who are too nice often find themselves bearing the burden of other people's actions. And it feels like this is the case here. Phone Guy did not want anyone to get hurt on the job. Whether they actually listened to his tapes or muted him is not clear, but the fact is it would upset him greatly to hear someone got hurt on the job, and bear the guilt of the incidents. Phone Guy is good at hiding his emotions and pretending everything is fine, but as I'm listening close during a deep dive, it's clear his heart is affected by this.

That's not even getting into what William Afton did... Phone Guy has to pretend to be happy and smiley, but he can't help get passive aggressive when he finds out William broke the rules.

And then, listening to the less subtle ways the restaurant broke his heart... He went from a cheerful youngster wanting to work for a company that seemed like a lot of fun, to someone just trying to keep it together for the next person. By FNAF 2, he "succeeded." He's "lucky" because he gets to be paid more as a manager. But FNAF 2 contains probably the worst trauma ever for him... failing to save five children, and then dealing with the guilt. Then, (for whatever reason), he steps down from his previous position to take the night shift. Well, I have an inkling why, but it's dark. Does tumblr still allow us to say it without censoring it? I think the reason is that he's punishing himself for not being able to do more.

And then the FNAF 1 fall arc. This has all led up to the most unconvincing attempt of hiding his emotions we've seen so far. Phone Guy here is nervous. He's frazzled. He knows he's going to die. (But goshdarnit if he isn't going to talk to the nightguard he's training and try to help as much as he can.)

(And I know a lot of what Phone Guy says is just Scott trolling the player, but I can't help love it and want to analyze it nonetheless.)

And how could this be complete if I also don't analyze the trailer line:

"Hello hello? If you're hearing this, you've probably made a very poor career choice!" - If every other instance of Phone Guy lines can be dismissed as not being dark humor, I think this definitely is. But take a moment and consider: who is he really talking about here? The player is not going to have a long career at Freddy's. Nightguards at Freddy's tend to be a short time gig (for whatever reason). Whose job can safely be called a "career" then? It's Phone Guy. He's talking about himself. He regrets working here and he wants to warn you away from the job... And why would the trailer line be cut from the game? It isn't out of character. It's just something Fazbear Ent would not let him get away with saying.

Basically, this is the first instance of the FNAF fall arc, but it's a darned effective one. It's a tragic tale of a man who just wanted to have fun at a place that seemed nostalgic and happy.

[tyrannuspitch]

been thinking about the dearth of actual movie adaptations of norse myth, which is of course partly down to the fact that what we have is fragmentary and episodic and not movie-shaped at all.

so um. here are a few preliminary thoughts on how you might be able to make it work.

focus on ragnarok, since that's where we have the most continuous/connected material, and make it a tragedy, because that's the whole point.

focus on the relationship between loki and odin, since they're going to be leading the armies at ragnarok.

make them both tragic, complex, morally grey figures, and draw out their similarities. either could be the protagonist, but let's say odin for now.

invent a little bit of backstory for how and why loki and odin became blood brothers - a connection, and either genuine personal loyalty or common cause. give us something to root for, even if it's small, and then spend the rest of the film slowly destroying it.

open by telling the audience exactly what's going to happen at ragnarok, so it can hang over the whole of the film.

take your time introducing the characters to the prophecy - maybe we start with hints or fragments, and we try not to believe them, so when odin gets the full thing it's a major plot point. and yet the distrust and decay has already set in; it's already inevitable.

finding a plot point to take us from the lead-up to ragnarok, to ragnarok itself, is going to be difficult - but maybe we don't actually need to.

the baldr's death/failed rescue/snake torture sequence could work as a climax. once everything is in place, we could end on "waiting for ragnarok" and leave it hanging.

some other thoughts:

odin sacrificing his eye and loki getting his lips sewn shut could be parallel steps towards ragnarok - odin is growing paranoid and obsessively seeks knowledge, while loki is growing bitter and vengeful.

odin imprisons loki's children (fenrir/hel/jormungandr); loki kills odin's son baldr and keeps him trapped in hel; the aesir kill loki's sons vali and narfi and imprison loki using their entrails. this could be a cycle of vengeance!

loki and odin don't actually directly kill one another at ragnarok. maybe you'd want to change this, or maybe there could be a kind of tragic disappointment in it, a sense of loss...? i burnt down the world to kill you and i didn't even get to do it myself!

(<- although i'm not sure how being blood brothers plays into that. are blood brothers allowed to kill one another? oaths in myth tend to be binding, so if that is part of it, it's possible they literally can't.)

odin built the world, and loki burnt it down. odin is a king/chief of the gods and loki, his blood brother, is an outsider and scapegoat among them. at least from loki's perspective, power and injustice will probably be central to their conflict.

odin is endlessly preparing for crisis, while loki is reckless and impulsive. but they're both willing to kill and let countless people die for them. from odin's perspective, their conflict is probably still essentially about personal survival and personal (or familial) grudges - i don't think myth!odin would necessarily see a need to justify it via a greater good, although he would probably deflect as much of the blame as possibly onto loki.

this is a fun thought experiment. i might come back to it later.

[evesaintyves]

If Lupin and Tonks had survived the battle do you think their relationship would’ve lasted

i love this question. this isn't something that gets much discussion within the remadora fandom.

i lean toward no. i think lupin and tonks would have had a very difficult time of it after the war for a lot of reasons.

it's hard to say exactly what the political/legal/social landscape would have looked like in the first few years after the battle of hogwarts, but i think it's reasonable to think that even if the legal status of werewolves changed immediately (doubtful), their position in society would be much slower to shift. (it's worth pointing out, because in lupin-centric fics it usually gets glossed over, that it makes sense to be afraid of werewolves! werewolves are dangerous!) so, after the war, lupin is likely still unemployable and kind of a pariah. it's likely that tonks will have lost friends over it, and would be treated differently at work and in any social spaces where people know who her husband is. probably also very difficult for lupin to participate in the public/social aspects of parenting, and school-age teddy is likely to see social fallout from this, too.

those things alone are a huge strain on a relationship, and then there's the fact that lupin is likely to continue agonizing and self-destructing over them. everything he feared their relationship would mean for tonks & teddy is still going to be true. lupin is deeply traumatized and has a ton of maladaptive behaviors toward other people that are clearly evident in canon (manipulativeness, dishonesty, keeping people at a distance, bottling his emotions - and this is the tip of the iceberg that's visible in the books, you can certainly extrapolate a lot more) and i think it's unrealistic to imagine that his epiphany in the last book changed all of this. dude needs therapy, probably a lot of it. being in a relationship with lupin would fucking suck.

meanwhile, tonks is quite young, and canon suggests she has idealistic views about love. she's experienced a huge amount of change in her society, her career and her personal life in a very short time, she's definitely traumatized as well, she's got a baby, she's probably the sole breadwinner, AND she's got all of lupin's issues—psychological and social and health and supernatural issues—to deal with. that is a LOT. sooner or later, once all the big feelings of a new relationship start to die down, staying together is going to be a ton of hard, ugly work for both of them. even healthy partnerships would struggle to survive stuff like this—and i don't think lupin and tonks' relationship seems particularly healthy.

divorce isn't really ever mentioned in hp canon, so who knows what options lupin and tonks would feel like they had, but if they did stay together i feel like they'd be in for some very unhappy times.

i should say, and i think this is evident in my work, that the doomedness of lupin and tonks' relationship is one of my favorite things about it. as much as i like them as characters and feel very real huge feelings about the way things went for them, i wouldn't change the fact that they died, nor do i really enjoy imagining a happy ending for them. the brevity and irony and cruelty and mistakes and regrets and wasted time, and the crater of grief they would have left in the lives of the people who loved them, are all part of what makes their little window of time together fascinating to explore.

that said, don't think it would have been such a tragedy if they made it through the war and broke up. especially if they could still amicably co-parent and move on with their lives. sometimes a relationship is beautiful and special and important and worthwhile, and then it runs its course and ends. most relationships are not lifelong relationships. i don't regret the time i spent with people i used to love, nor do i wish i'd stayed in the relationships that fell apart. sometimes people give each other a few years of love and joy and that's enough. remadora, as a story, is a great reminder to savor what you have, and make peace with the things you don't, because right now might be all there is for you.

[letswritestories101]

Characters are not people (and the importance of planning and fairness of character arcs).

A character I liked recently had a very tragic end. He had suffered a lot as an outcast and it wasn't totally unexpected in a way. Still, not only me but the whole fandom got that sense of bitterness, no matter how logical seemed at first. Was pretty much a consensus. I tried to understand why.

Then I saw: It's for nothing. He died continuing to suffer, being hated, for no reason and without any justice or narrative sense. The terrible thing hit: he needn't have died. It could have been resolved in another way. Was like saying: "strange, different and outcast people, no matter how hard they try to overcome and find love and understanding, they will die in hate and pain".

Of course, wasn't the author's intention, but it comes out quite like this. Because other characters in these respects survived the so-called worst ordeals.

Reflecting on this, I came to an interesting conclusion and that inspired me to write what I thought would make good writing advice both for myself and to help should anyone want it:

Characters aren't people.

What do I mean?

Think about us.

Sometimes things don't go as planned and we end up with totally different results even though we did everything right. Or we achieve something when everything was falling apart and there was no way out. Just chance sometimes.

Our characters aren't people. The chance card doesn't work with them because there are authors. And authors dictate all the rules.

Hence, enter what I mean:

As writers, we have to give meaning, motivation, and in the best way we can, irreversibility to a character arc AND how it might sound. Because in the end, if we don't give them a satisfying and justified ending, it's not going to be well written.

Of course, in real life, there are circumstances beyond our control and unexpected events. Both just and unjust. However, in history, you decide the facts. That traumatic conga given to some character or cradle privileges will not be life's work, but yours.

No matter how much attachment, grief and suffering a certain character leaves upon dying or good feelings upon winning and getting what they wanted, it needs to make narrative sense. It has to be explained and not just played out.

Even what may seem like chance in the stories and for the characters will be you, needing to be planned and executed in a satisfactory manner.

Prim from The Hunger Games dying. Tadashi dying in Big Hero 6. The fairy godmother showing up in Cinderella when she needed it most. Midorya becoming the heir to the One for All from All Might. Even if in the narrative they are shown as coincidences of life, good or bad, they are crucial events and translate messages. It's all about payoff.

For example, killing a character suffering from depression trying to have a happy life and move beyond suffering leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. It is frustrating.

This happens in real life, often even, sad as it is. But the authors, not real life, are the ones who drive the story. And if you saw the above, you would hardly blame the event that killed them but the author who just made a mistake and ruined what would be a beautiful and inspiring message.

Sure, characters like that can die, terribly at the hands of the villain if you want. It's your story. But not without impact on the plot, not for nothing in the plot. Not without seeming like that was the fate that made the most sense for the character. Not without having a good point or sensibility while executing that idea.

And if you, for example, kill only depressed people because they might have, statistically, more chances of that in real life as the only justification it will sound�� bad. Very bad. Yikes. Stop, rethink, and do it again. After all, we are not perfect and we can improve. Mistakes are normal.

We just have to remember that the fates of our Ocs are not simple works of chance or randomness.

Suffering and tragedies, or joy and rewards cannot be given for shock value.

Because in the end, characters aren't people.

They are a medium.

[phantomrose96]

How did you feel about the tma finale? I thought it was fine but after all of Jonny's warnings that "it will be sooo tragic don't get your hopes up" I was kind of disappointed by how mild it was. Nothing against a hopeful finale but it felt a little bit like it fizzled out. Any thoughts as a Tragedy Enjoyer (tm)?

You know I'm just theorizing, but as someone who has only a fraction of a fraction of the audience TMA has and is a Tragedy Writer, I've seen how a portion of an audience can get really intense and antsy about "if this has a sad ending I can't take it." My impression is the TMA audience was both large and had a lot of interaction with the writers so like, I'll bet Jonny heard that kind of thing hundreds of times. I could easily see that becoming like "the safety of my mental health is your responsibility" kind of message from a lot of people, which could really push someone to err on the side of over-warning about the ending.

My overall thoughts on s5 are... hard to pin down? I do think it's my least favorite season, but not because of any quality drop but because I just kind of didn't love the structure of it, I think. The sort of linear "we're questing to London" structure... I dunno.

A number of the stand-alone horror statements were some of the strongest in the whole series, I think! Rosie's statement about working for Elias all these years and Knowing something was wrong but just remaining complicit--excellent, loved that one. Jared Boneturner's one about twisting people's body dysmorphia against them with flower metaphors really hit. The meat processing plant one with the years worth of lines. The hospital that would try to make you better or worse on a whim each day. And I loved the reveal about The Spider pulling the strings all along. I was totally fooled thinking the tape recorders were just The Eye's way of snooping, but the fact that they were The Spider's web all along *chef's kiss*.

Oh also I loved that Jon could smite people. Good for him.

But it's. hmmm. It reminds me a little bit of a problem with later-season Supernatural, where they'd killed off near the entire recurring cast save for like 4 people. Just steadily lost people to be invested in. Sasha's dead. Tim's dead. Daisy's dead. Bigger antagonists like Peter are dead. Eliajonah spent 90% of the season in the gay baby panopticon (and killing him happened... kinda way too fast and short for me? Jonah was really the main antagonist and planned this for 2 centuries and puppeted Jon into becoming The Beholding's Special Little Boy but he didn't have a countermeasure for Being Beholded by said Special Boy?) Helen was fun but then Jon killed her! :< Georgie and Melanie were gone for most of the season too. Basira was the only kinda-regularly-present central character. And you know it's always kinda been The Jon Show, but there was a little more fun in that when Jon was being a stuck-up curmudgeon. He's... understandably... a bit more of a downer in s5. (Also found myself liking Martin a little less this season, but can't pin down why exactly.) Oh and, VERY much just a personal thing: but the way Jon would need to compulsively make statements just sat uncomfortably with me. Basira was joking about the bathroom metaphor but it really was like that.

Also THIS part is inevitable and there would be literally no way to avoid this - so much of TMA was built up as a mystery and now that we have most of the answers in s5 there's just. less to be intrigued about. We have most of the puzzle pieces so there's not much left to theorize about. And besides The Spider reveal, there wasn't really anything in s5 that was able to surprise me. The ending felt very straight-forward. And I figured from just about the beginning of the series Jon wasn't gonna survive to the end so that didn't surprise me. I was kinda thinking it might do one of those "we take the 3rd option!" things where they neither follow The Spider's plan nor Jon's plan but.

Anyway! I relistened to Angler Fish yesterday and it DOES hit much harder with retrospect

[roachleakage]

I have to snort when people are like "Noooo, you can't put a happy or even bittersweet ending in a Mythos work and still call it 'Lovecraftian', that's defeating the whole point!"

Like. Art is a conversation, ya dweebs. Yes, the running thesis in much of Lovecraft's work is that doom is inevitable and all-encompassing - but there's a lot of room to play with it that hardline traditionalists tend to overlook in their insistence on categorical purity. And one of the ways you can play with it is to disagree outright with his conclusions.

I mean, look. Lovecraft spent most of his life as a privileged dickhead whose trauma over the fate of his parents warred constantly with his view of himself as someone who should be exempt from such horrors. The idea of bad things, even cataclysmically bad, being something that both happened to people on a regular basis and could be lived with didn't come home to roost for him until the Depression. The dude was naive as hell, is what I'm saying - so of course sometimes people are going to look at his Earth-Shattering Tragedies and go "Oh, someone could actually survive that" - without fundamentally disagreeing with the concept that the world is full of terrifying unstoppable forces with the power to make your life worse.

In fact, one of the best Lovecraftian games I've ever seen both plays the doom completely straight, and refuses to submit to Lovecraft's philosophy about it. Sucker for Love: First Date is a fantastically silly dating sim about trying to smooch an Elder God, and while it is partly (and successfully) a horror game about dying because you woke up Femthulhu, it never downplays the significance of the protagonist's comparatively lighthearted quest to smooch that same Elder God. Essentially, the game says, the end might be horrible and inevitable, but you can still have a good time in the interim - and at the end, when everything is falling to pieces, the fact that you spent that time on something happy makes the end sting that much less.

It is a fantastic diversion from Lovecraft's attitude, while still taking his themes head-on. And that, to me, is more valuable than simply parroting everything he put into his work. Yes, there are writers and game developers who don't do this, but I consider that a skill issue rather than a problem of philosophical disagreement - they simply aren't making the effort to bridge the gap between the story they want to tell and the material that they're working with.

There are plenty of ways you can emphasize Lovecraft's themes without directly agreeing with his conclusions. You can rob protagonists of the ability to defend themselves via might - maybe the popular American pastime of "shoot the thing until dead" no longer works, or maybe efforts to call in the military fall on deaf ears. You can emphasize how terrible the cataclysm is by showing how much is still lost even when characters manage to cinch some kind of victory. Hell, you could even depict the inevitability of suffering by showing that after the characters are done dealing with the cosmic threats, the banal evils of everyday life mean the fight will never really be over.

And you can choose not to focus on that, too. You can decide you'd rather show the importance of small victories, managing to survive as everything is falling apart around you. You can send a message that even if you are doomed, survival is still worth fighting for. You can choose, as the creators of a ridiculous dating sim chose, to emphasize that the omnipresence of the end does not negate the possibility of present happiness.

Insisting that Lovecraftian works have to agree 1:1 with his messages effectively gatekeeps the genre from anyone who isn't willing to uncritically parrot his philosophy. And that's incredibly counterproductive to the purpose of making art, which is inherently transformative and communicative.