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heartbeatbookclub · 1 year ago

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I absolutely adore all of your analysis so far, they are so indepth and it feels like you’re able to explain stuff that I’m only able to vaguely think in an abstract sense when it comes to ddlc and dhdhdj so so good

I do wanna say that for you mc analysis, there’s one thing missing. I’m someone who got into ddlc cause of plus so I have hyperfixated on all the lore. While the employees imply that Monika made MC, I don’t think that’s actually true based on what we know about Monika. If she could make a whole character then why couldn’t she make herself a route? Heck in one of her act 3 convos, she can barely change the music before saying “well I just break everything anyway”.

So I believe based on other emails, that it was Ive Laster who made MC since they were the one who wanted to make ddlc a game. In the first meeting notes, we are told that Ive tends to ramble a lot. But in the next one when MC is mentioned in a meeting, they are silent. Another thing is that in one of the ddlc plus trailers, ive is the name of the MC.

It could be said that Ive based it on the stuff in the control group, but the control group was made AFTER the main vm (That’s not how a science experiment should work but ya know, I don’t think they are smart). So really the control group is based on main game first. Honestly so much of the issue of the plus lore is how it’s so convoluted to get, but reading it all on the wiki helped me alot.

Plus seemed to add a new sense of horror to the og, the horror of knowledge that one plagued Monika is now plaguing the player as we have all this information but can do nothing to help them. I think the idea of MC being made by someone else adds this new layer to him along with this new layer of horror. But that’s more just my own thoughts on it that I thought you may find interesting along with all the lore from above.

Anyway, I hope you have a good day! Your post are great and I’ll make sure to keep up with coil more!

aw, thanks anon! i often find it difficult to find the exact way to explain what i'm thinking when i do analysis like i have on this blog, so i'm glad i can at least help to put it into words for other people who have even more trouble with it than i do.

as for the rest of your statement...i think you make a compelling point. full disclaimer; a lot of my knowledge on what's presented in + outside of the full text of the side stories is secondhand, and when talking about the original game, i think it's important to keep in mind that my reference for most of this is my playthrough with my friends back in like...2017-18ish a little after the game came out...? aheh, i won't lie, though i am rather obsessive in the course of scouring information i remember via the wiki/elsewhere to verify i'm not just making it up, putting off my replay of the og game has not been helpful for me.

i think it's very much up in the air as to how much influence that Monika actually has over the game, which is something i talked about in my analysis of Natsuki in the Side Stories. in my opinion, what + demonstrates more than anything is that in whatever she DID do in the main game, she mostly worked with material that was already there to make things easier on her. one of the things i based that claim on was the reference of the Protagonist in the Side Stories, but it's not a necessary claim, and in fact, i think you do make a good point in how it's unlikely that she'd be able to do this (at the very least, by herself) based on what's been shown of her ability in the game.

i think, in regards to your comment on the reference to MC in the Side Stories, it's important to consider the wider conceit of DDLC--i have a deeper analysis i'm tinkering around with on terms of it as an exploration of fiction vs the concept within the "universe", but that's another story--namely, all of the girls aren't (or at least, are heavily implied not to be) just static fictional characters following a pre-written script, they're genuine artificial intelligence!

this is part of what i meant when i said that the Side Stories demonstrate the raw character of each of the girls independently of any 4th wall shenanigans--within the world of Doki Doki Literature Club, they're essentially just people living in the confines of a computer, and therefore have essential, largely immutable character traits which exist within some fundamental essence of what makes them who they are. i think there are a shitload of really, really terrifying things this opens the door to if you really think about its nature (independently of DDLC, i've personally had longform discussions with a friend about the morality and potential horrors which would exist within a similar universe concept, and it's somewhat ubiquitous in a lot of sci-fi universes), but like i said, that's a different discussion entirely!

what i'm trying to suggest here is that it's likely that Sayori's relationship to the Protagonist is something inherent to her character, so it doesn't necessarily have to be something gleaned entirely from the Side Stories.

of course, this is all post hoc reasoning with what we're given! occam's razor suggests that it's actually just likely that (given that DDLC was written and released a long while prior to the Side Stories) they didn't necessarily plan every part of this from the outset, so some things just naturally seem to fit together a little weirdly, with little details added here and there just for flavor! i think that given the nature of the entire thing (and how Dan Salvato has talked about DDLC and the statements he's given with about in universe details in the past), it's unlikely that every single element of this was planned out from the word go.

this might be a bit of a controversial opinion, but there's a lot about how + handles the lore of ddlc that i didn't really like, just because it adds a whole new layer of lore and context, which soured a lot of my impressions, because the original game really flourished in its simplicity. that said, with all that's been given in the Side Stories and the deeper layers to the actual horror which are now visible in the original game, i think it pretty well makes up for it!

awa, i didn't plan for this to become an entire essay in itself...but i do appreciate this kind of thing! i really like digging deep into what's explicitly provided in canon to get a deeper understanding of the characters and universe as it's actually been shown, so any encouragement and correspondence related to either my analysis or my opinions in general are welcome! honestly, i'm also welcome to read others' analysis like this, because i like to see when people read deep into it like i do! typically it ends up reshaping how i see the entire thing, and it sorta just makes my heart happy to get people thinking about this stuff!

i think, as a last thought, if MC is actually conscious in any way similar to the other girls (which I think is a definite possibility, given his ability to respond in contexts impacted by Monika's manipulation, even if barebones), it actually makes him a very interesting character in his simplicity. i know that Dan Salvato doesn't see him as one, but i think it'd make for an interesting study in a fanfic or something.

i hope you also have a good day anon (even though it's 2 am here as i'm writing this...) and you BETTER KEEP UP W/IT I PUT MY HEART N SOUUL INTO THAT BABY (/lh /hj i'm just glad other people are liking it, even if it's just silent kudos :))

#coil is still on the backburner but i have been doing some work on actually finishing it after not touching it for like a week and a half #i'll elaborate more on why it's a bit of a struggle to write it when i actually upload the last part but needless to say i will finish it #anyway ily guys it's fun to talk to people who are as passionate about this stuff as me #i kinda feel like making a discord server for mutual discussion of this stuff would be fun #but i also know like 2 people would join it or too MANY people would join it #as a happy medium i think keeping my askbox (specifically anons lmao) & dms is a good option #asks #ddlc #doki doki literature club #musings

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jcmarchi · 8 months ago

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Unlocking New Possibilities in Healthcare with AI

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/unlocking-new-possibilities-in-healthcare-with-ai/

Unlocking New Possibilities in Healthcare with AI

Healthcare in the United States is in the early stages of a significant potential disruption due to the use of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. This shift has been underway for over a decade, but with recent advances, seems poised for more rapid changes. Much work remains to be done to understand the safest and most effective applications of AI in healthcare, to build trust among clinicians in the use of AI, and to adjust our clinical education system to drive better use of AI-based systems.

Applications of AI in Healthcare

AI has been in evolution for decades in healthcare, both in patient-facing and back-office functions. Some of the earliest and most extensive work has occurred in the use of deep learning and computer vision models.

First, some terminology. Traditional statistical approaches in research–e.g. observational studies and clinical trials–have used population-focused modeling approaches that rely on regression models, in which independent variables are used to predict outcomes. In these approaches, while more data is better, there is a plateau effect in which above a certain data set size, no better inferences can be obtained from the data.

Artificial intelligence brings a newer approach to prediction. A structure called a perceptron processes data that is passed forward a row at a time, and is created as a network of layers of differential equations to modify the input data, to produce an output. During training, each row of data as it passes through the network–called a neural network–modifies the equations at each layer of the network so that the predicted output matches the actual output. As the data in a training set is processed, the neural network learns how to predict the outcome.

Several types of networks exist. Convolutional neural networks, or CNNs, were among the first models to find success in healthcare applications. CNNs are very good at learning from images in a process called computer vision and have found applications where image data is prominent: radiology, retinal exams, and skin images.

A newer neural network type called the transformer architecture has become a dominant approach due to its incredible success for text, and combinations of text and images (also called multimodal data). Transformer neural networks are exceptional when given a set of text, at predicting subsequent text. One application of the transformer architecture is the Large Language Model or LLM. Multiple commercial examples of LLMs include Chat GPT, Anthropics Claude, and Metas Llama 3.

What has been observed with neural networks, in general, is that a plateau for improvement in learning has been hard to find. In other words, given more and more data, neural networks continue to learn and improve. The main limits on their capability are larger and larger data sets and the computing power to train the models. In healthcare, the creation of privacy-protecting data sets that faithfully represent true clinical care is a key priority to advance model development.

LLMs may represent a paradigm shift in the application of AI for healthcare. Because of their facility with language and text, they are a good match to electronic records in which almost all data are text. They also do not require highly annotated data for training but can use existing data sets. The two main flaws with these models are that 1) they do not have a world model or an understanding of the data that is being analyzed (they have been called fancy autocomplete), and 2) they can hallucinate or confabulate, making up text or images that appear accurate but create information presented as fact.

Use cases being explored for AI include automation and augmentation for reading of radiology images, retinal images, and other image data; reducing the effort and improving the accuracy of clinical documentation, a major source of clinician burnout; better, more empathic, patient communication; and improving the efficiency of back-office functions like revenue cycle, operations, and billing.

Real-world Examples

AI has been incrementally introduced into clinical care overall. Typically, successful use of AI has followed peer-reviewed trials of performance that have demonstrated success and, in some cases, FDA approval for use.

Among the earliest use cases in which AI performs well have been AI detecting disease in retinal exam images and radiology. For retinal exams, published literature on the performance of these models has been followed by the deployment of automated fundoscopy to detect retinal disease in ambulatory settings. Studies of image segmentation, with many published successes, have resulted in multiple software solutions that provide decision support for radiologists, reducing errors and detecting abnormalities to make radiologist workflows more efficient.

Newer large language models are being explored for assistance with clinical workflows. Ambient voice is being used to enhance the usage of Electronic Health Records (EHRs). Currently, AI scribes are being implemented to aid in medical documentation. This allows physicians to focus on patients while AI takes care of the documentation process, improving efficiency and accuracy.

In addition, hospitals and health systems can use AI’s predictive modeling capabilities to risk-stratify patients, identifying patients who are at high or increasing risk and determining the best course of action. In fact, AI’s cluster detection capabilities are being increasingly used in research and clinical care to identify patients with similar characteristics and determine the typical course of clinical action for them. This can also enable virtual or simulated clinical trials to determine the most effective treatment courses and measure their efficacy.

A future use case may be the use of AI-powered language models in doctor-patient communication. These models have been found to have valid responses for patients that simulate empathetic conversations, making it easier to manage difficult interactions. This application of AI can greatly improve patient care by providing quicker and more efficient triage of patient messages based on the severity of their condition and message.

Challenges and Ethical Considerations

One challenge with AI implementation in healthcare is ensuring regulatory compliance, patient safety, and clinical efficacy when using AI tools. While clinical trials are the standard for new treatments, there is a debate on whether AI tools should follow the same approach. Another concern is the risk of data breaches and compromised patient privacy. Large language models trained on protected data can potentially leak source data, which poses a significant threat to patient privacy. Healthcare organizations must find ways to protect patient data and prevent breaches to maintain trust and confidentiality. Bias in training data is also a critical challenge that needs to be addressed. To avoid biased models, better methods to avoid bias in training data must be introduced. It is crucial to develop training and academic approaches that enable better model training and incorporate equity in all aspects of healthcare to avoid bias.

The use of AI has opened a number of new concerns and frontiers for innovation. Further study of where true clinical benefit may be found in AI use is needed. To address these challenges and ethical concerns, healthcare provider organizations and software companies must focus on developing data sets that accurately model healthcare data while ensuring anonymity and protecting privacy. Additionally, partnerships between healthcare providers, systems, and technology/software companies must be established to bring AI tools into practice in a safe and thoughtful manner. By addressing these challenges, healthcare organizations can harness the potential of AI while upholding patient safety, privacy, and fairness.

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fearsmagazine · 1 year ago

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WITCH – Review

DISTRIBUTOR: Amcomri & 101 Films

SYNOPSIS: In 1575 England, Twyla, a resident of a small village, encounters a mysterious stranger who urges her to stay away from the town temporarily. The stranger warns her that she could get caught up in a complex case involving a double murder and a subsequent witch trial. Twyla's husband, William, is chosen as a juror in the trial. During the court proceedings, Twyla is shockingly arrested by the sheriff at their home. To clear her name and save her from the false accusation of witchcraft, which could lead to her execution if found guilty, William joins forces with the stranger. Their mission is to uncover the true identity of the real witch responsible for the crimes. Time is of the essence as William races against the clock to exonerate his wife and bring justice to the situation.

REVIEW: "WITCH" by Craig Hinde and Marc Zammit, despite its intriguing premise, fails to deliver a captivating viewing experience due to its disjointed narrative, overwhelming sound design, and vibrant production designs.

The story follows the typical tropes, featuring magic, demons, and Christians. The writers' attempt to incorporate a time loop element that feels disjointed and doesn't blend well with the rest of the narrative. Many essential elements are assumed without providing any explanation or backstory. Essentially, the story revolves around a simplistic narrative of love and magic set against a backdrop of tyrannical oppression. While the characters are likable, they lack depth and engagement. Predictable dialogue further hampers the storytelling. To further complicate matters, a sequence during the end credits suggests a potential continuation of the tale, adding an unnecessary layer of confusion.

The filmmakers had a great location that appeared a bit too pristine for its setting in the late 1500s. The costumes and makeup also seemed a bit too clean and new, lacking the worn and dirty look that would have been more authentic. Even the character of Johanna, who was bloodied, didn't quite feel convincing.

One particularly frustrating scene involved William, a blacksmith, working on horseshoes. Instead of the typical depiction of blacksmiths working over a fire and pounding hot, glowing metal, there was no fire or smoke, and the metal he was working on was cold. This scene lacked authenticity.

For the outdoor night sequences, the film used blue light, which this reviewer did not favor, considering how many new cameras allow directors to shoot in very low light.

Finally, the demon design was uninspired, a formless tall figure that lacked presence and menace.

While serviceable, Imran Ahmad’s score occasionally became excessively loud, often failing to enhance the visuals or narrative in any meaningful way.

The cast's performance was praiseworthy, effectively utilizing the available material. Ryan Spong and Sarah Alexandra Marks excelled in portraying a couple with a deep connection. However, certain dialogues lacked originality and were predictable. Fabrizio Santino and Daniel Jordan's portrayal of menacing and passionate villains was noteworthy.

The movie WITCH has some redeemable qualities, but overall it feels disjointed and lacks cohesion. The plot is convoluted, and the production design, while visually appealing, seems too polished and modern for the time period in which the story is set. It appears that the film's co-directors, Craig Hinde and Marc Zammit, took on too many responsibilities, and lacked creative input from external sources. Additionally, the film's dark elements are undermined by an overly upbeat tone and grounding details. Again, the ending scene, in particular, is confusing and unsatisfying.

CAST: Sarah Alexandra Marks, Russel Shaw, Ryan Spong, Fabrizio Santino, Daniel Jordan, Mims Burton, Anto Sharp, Danny Howard, Nell Bailey, Nick Tuck, Jame Hamlet and Ella Starbuck. CREW: Director/Producer - Marc Zammit; Director/Screenplay/Producer/Editor - Craig Hinde; Producer - Tony Zammit; Cinematographer - Richard Oakes; Score - Imran Ahmad; Costume Designer - Jenny Anderton; Head Makeup Artist - Kate Griffiths; Visual Effects - Reece Sanders. OFFICIAL: N.A. FACEBOOK: N.A. TWITTER: https://twitter.com/WitchMovie1 RELEASE DATE: Digital and VOD April 30th, 2024 TRAILER -

**Until we can all head back into the theaters our “COVID Reel Value” will be similar to how you rate a film on digital platforms - 👍 (Like), 👌 (It’s just okay), or 👎 (Dislike)

Reviewed by Joseph B Mauceri

#film review #movie review #witchmovie #Amcomri #101 films #marc zammit

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that-dinopunk-guy · 9 months ago

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I'm bored, here's some Mo'e-Mo'e trivia.

I originally came up with them for a convoluted play-by-post forum roleplay thing I was part of about fourteen(?!) years ago. That version of them basically just looked like anime children, since their whole gimmick was "They look all cute but they're violent and rude! Ha ha, isn't that so funny?!" (This origin can still be seen in their name, which was a reference to the Japanese concept of moe.) Then I kept fleshing them out over the years until they arrived at their current form.

They're obviously not really marsupials, what with being aliens and all, but they reproduce in a similar manner by carrying their young in an abdominal pouch.

Their respiratory systems are similar to those of birds, using unidirectional airflow through a series of air sacs throughout their bodies. While this means they don't run out of breath easily and can function comfortably at much lower oxygen concentrations than a human could tolerate, it also makes them much more susceptible to harmful gasses and airborne toxins. It also makes them much lighter and easier to toss around than a similar-sized human.

Though they're usually pretty friendly and eager to interact with other races of the galaxy, they also tend to be rather short-tempered and the standard Mo'esh response to any act of aggression is INCREDIBLE VIOLENCE.

As previously mentioned the Mo'e-Mo'e are able to projectile vomit on command as a natural defense mechanism, showering their target with highly caustic and extremely foul-smelling stomach acid. While not usually permanently damaging to human skin, you really wouldn't want to get it in your eyes.

Mo'e-Mo'e are obligate carnivores, and willing to try just about anything as long as it's compatible with their biochemistry (though they do have strong taboos against eating the flesh of other sentient races). While they can digest plant matter as well, they don't get nearly as many nutrients out of it.

A popular Mo'esh saying is "We are Mo'e-Mo'e, and our teeth are sharp." While this is also true literally, being carnivores, it mostly means that anyone who tries to push them around isn't going to have a good time.

Mo'e-Mo'e are largely divided into two main groups: Settlers, descended from refugees who settled on new planets following the destruction of their homeworld, and the Children of the Void, who decided they'd rather wander the galaxy as nomads. The Children tend to see Settlers as soft and weak, while the Settlers for the most part see the Children as wild and dangerous, but also cool in a "bad boy" sort of way.

Mo'e-Mo'e are intensely social creatures, to the point where they start to go crazy if kept in isolation for too long. They don't even like to sleep alone, and typically use big communal beds where they all sleep in a big cuddle-pile.

The Children of the Void practice ritualized cannibalism, in the belief that consuming the flesh of their dead allows a part of the deceased's spirit to live on inside them and perhaps grant them some of their positive traits. This practice began as a grimly pragmatic response to having to live on spaceships with limited resources, with layers of justification and ritual being added on over the years even after most of the food issues had been solved.

Mo'e-Mo'e females outnumber the males by about three to one, and as a result tend to be polygynous in their relatonships.

Despite being a demographic minority Mo'esh society is still pretty patriarchal, with, among other things, Mo'esh women being forbidden from being spaceship captains (a very prestigious title among the Children). As a result of this the majority of Children who strike out on their own in search of adventure and glory tend to be female.

Okay that's all for now.

Last year I tried making some of my various characters in Hero Forge, to varying degrees of success. I think this one, the alien space pirate Ip-Sing Fesh from my space opera 'verse, came out the best. And I just came across it again today so here it is.

Ip-Sing is a Mo'e-Mo'e, which are essentially a race of four-foot-tall marsupial space goblins. Specifically she is a Child of the Void, one of those who chose to remain as space-wandering nomads rather than settle as refugees following the destruction of their homeworld at the hands of one of the local dick-waving galactic superpowers.

Not shown here is her sweet space helmet, with a retractable faceplate that I imagine as looking something like a Balinese mask:

It also has a built-in voice modulator to make her sound like the Mouth of Sauron. (Without it she sounds more like Dexter. The one with the laboratory.)

Also, since the Mo'e-Mo'e are marsupials I based their teeth in my head on those of Thylacoleo:

Ip-Sing had her chompers coated in a gold-colored metal alloy both for decoration (jewelry being a liability on a spaceship in a setting where inertial dampening isn't really a thing), and to protect them from damage when she uses her species' natural ability to projectile vomit as a defense mechanism.

#worldbuilding #who the fuck knows if i'll ever do anything with this setting #calico spiral

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bingoboingobongo · 2 years ago

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141 reacting to their s/o getting out of danger like Jack Sparrow. All flailing arms and convoluted escape plans that just seem to work. I watched Pirates recently and I thought it'd be funny.

task force 141 + jack sparrow!reader

Characters: Simon "Ghost" Riley, John "Soap" MacTavish, Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, John Price, Alejandro Vargas, Rodolfo "Rudy" Parra

Warnings: none

A/N: i realize now that we have completely given up on the holiday theme but oh well christmas passed anyways

simon "ghost" riley:

alright so the first time ghost was assigned to work with you he wasn't really sure what to expect

of course he had heard whispers around base about you're um.. out of the box approach to escapes and he wasn't exactly sure how to feel about it

part of him was assuming (and low-key praying) that they were nothing more than rumors that way he wouldn't have an extra thing to worry about and part of him kind of wanted it to be true because he was curious about how it would play out

that being said he's honestly just hoping you don't get into a situation where you have to pull out one of your infamous jack sparrow-esque plans

because of course that would mean that something has gone horribly wrong

that being said it is the military and so of course something goes terribly wrong

somehow you manage to get separated from the group and taken by enemy forces

which means that now ghost has to go rescue you

however you can imagine his surprise when he's on the way to sneak into the base and hears what can only be described as pure chaos going on

there's like twenty different fires going on and a lot of gunfire in what should have been a peaceful base

and in the midst of it all is you sprinting towards him, an insane but also vaguely panicked grin on your face as you flail your arms at him in an attempt to signal for him to run the other way

you manage to hotwire a car and drive out of there and meanwhile ghost is sitting in the passenger side super confused about what happened

once you're safe you explain to him what happened

along with your escape plan which you think is twenty layers of genius and he thinks is way too complicated and easily could have been cut down to like three steps

that being said it obviously worked and after that point ghost wasn't too worried about your little self-contained movie escape plans

he trusts that you'll figure out a way to escape safely and as long as the mission isn't affected he's fine

john "soap" mactavish:

alright so i can see soap as being a big fan of pirates of the caribbean so obviously he's gonna be a big fan of your whacky plans

it doesn't take him long to figure out the connection and when he does he definitely uses it to give you a new nickname

like sparrow or smthing like that (idk man i haven't watched the films)

that being said he's only ever heard about your methods through stories

either from you or from others

which is why when the two of you are stuck in an enemy base together he can't help but be more excited than scared

i wouldn't be surprised if he already has a plan of his own ready to fall back on in an emergency

but he definitely wouldn't say anything so he can be a part of your misadventures

and he's absolutely shaking with excitement as you explain it to him

obviously when it gets down to it not much goes to plan and it ends up being mostly panicked improv

but that's honestly fine with him and he thinks it's more fun that way anyways

afterwards he won't stop raving about it and how fun it was too

even if he sustained more than a few injuries because of it

kyle "gaz" garrick:

alright so honestly kyle doesn't know how to feel about your escape plan antics

on one hand the military side of him is saying "no do things as simple as possible" but also he loves hearing the sound of your voice, especially when it's filled with so much passion and excitement like it is when you tell him your escape stories

the thing is your escapes usually end up with you in the infirmary for quite a while when you return and he's not so much of a fan of that

but he is a fan of spending the day talking and laughing with you as you wait to be released

so yeah it's a pretty mixed bag of emotions

ig in the end he's happy that your plans make you happy, but he wouldn't ever partake in one

and it's no offense to you or anything but he just doesn't want to take the unnecessary risk

that being said he admires the way you manage to get yourself out of even the stickiest of scenarios through your little schemes

and one of the things he loves about you is your smarts

even if you utilize them in questionable ways

john price:

alright so im sorry but price definitely despises your little escapades

i mean mans is old he has had enough of this in his younger years

also he's a military captain so his job is to take care of his soldiers

so seeing you pull out your little plans with all their extra side quests and questionable steps makes his poor old man heart beat a little too fast for his liking

i mean honestly his top priority is your safety

and so he isn't necessarily the biggest fan of you taking unnecessary risks

also everytime you do it you pretty much give him a mini heart attack

he'll always try and get you to reconsider a simpler plan even though he knows you'll most likely stick with your original one

but what can i say he needs to do his due diligence

he's always praying that you make it out safe though

also if you're ever in a situation where you're stuck with him and need to escape just know that he absolutely will not allow you to pull up with some crazy convoluted plan

alejandro vargas:

alright so alejandro is sorta a mix of ghost and price

like on one hand he is a leader and he needs to reduce risk which isn't usually the same goal as your plans

but on the other hand he's been working with you long enough to know that you can usually handle yourself

usually he'll try and advise you to go with the simplest route possible

but he also won't go out of his way to convince you to do things his way either

he knows what you're capable of and as long as you walk him through your plan whenever possible he trusts that you can pull it off

he's usually there to make sure nothing goes to awry though

and if things do start to get hairy he's quick to intervene and make sure you're safe and sound

because like price safety is the biggest thing that he worries about with your plans

rodolfo "rudy" parra:

alright so honestly rudy loves your plans

like he treats you like you're some legend and he'll have you tell him all about the adventures you've gone on while trying to escape

and he's also your biggest supporter because he'll go around telling your stories to everyone else

remember those whispers ghost heard about you?

yeah those came from rudy

(also ignore the logistics of that obviously it would be weird bc you'd be with rudy and ghost but maybe it's not weird for you idk man)

all that matters is that rudy is there for you and he will sing your praises

that being said if he's watching you enact a plan in real time he can get sorta stressed

it's sorta like watching a car crash but not in a horrific sorta way

it's like watching you and not doing anything is stressing him out big time but also he's so curious to see how it plays out he won't move unless you're like about to die

okay maybe the car crash metaphor doesn't make sense idk

but basically you're sorta like a legend to rudy

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svartalfhild · 3 years ago

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I'm deeply frustrated by the way leftist terminology gets picked up by right wingers and twisted on its head and then slingshotted back to centrists who then start wringing their hands about how both sides are equally bad.

Like, god, every time my centrist father starts making derisive comments about getting canceled or the woke mob or some such thing, I want to punch a wall, because he's parroting fashie bullshit and serving their cause without even knowing it, and I don't know how to explain to him that he's been tricked into thinking leftists are just as much his enemy as the fashies because he doesn't actually engage with progressive political discourse at its source. He gets everything second or even thirdhand.

Here's how it happens. Leftist discussions give rise to a particular term or idea. Fashies pick up on this and start using it to claim victimhood, thus rendering said term or idea controversial. Mainstream media sees a controversy and reports on it, giving an equal but very shallow 5 minutes (at most) to both sides of the issue, thus removing the original context and nuance of the topic and giving the average person an incredibly shallow understanding of what's happening. Naturally, news outlets also love to interview the leftists who have taken the original idea too far, because the people who take it too far make more of a splash and give the most simplistic, timeslot-friendly explanations for what they're about. This of course gives further credence in the centrist mind to the notion of both sides being bad.

Basically, the average person ends up not actually knowing what certain leftist terms or ideas mean and dismissing them as bad because they know nothing about where they really came from. They've received the most bad faith interpretation of something two or three steps removed from its source.

My dad thinks progressive thought has moved into the ludicrous and simplistic, and he constantly satirizes leftist ideas, believing he's the one with the nuanced take, because he hasn't come even within a mile of nuance since the 80's. He's not a "true progressive"; he's a puppet with a conservative's hand up his ass.

These thoughts came to me today because my dad and I were having a conversation about TV censorship in the 60's, and he felt the need to say that "today, it's the left that wants to cancel things", and it made me so angry, because there's about four layers of headass to unpack there.

"Canceled" started in progressive spaces as a quick way to refer to refusing to give someone any further time, attention, and money because they had done something reprehensible. There is discussion within the space about what circumstances warrant cancellation and what requires further examination or goes too far.

Sometimes, people get canceled for stupid reasons. Conservatives latch on and use this to prop up their own claims of victimhood and "censorship" when they get righteously canceled. Overzealous leftists who've looped back into conservatism through "think of the children" and similar logic get lumped into the issue.

News media puts it all through their Nuance Killer 3000, and hey presto, you've been tricked into thinking leftists are all assholes and that the bad actors are representative of the whole, thus making you a victim of conservative bullshit from another, more convoluted angle. Getting cancelled, which once meant being held accountable for shitty behaviour, now gets used to mean unjust persecution and censorship, thus allowing assholes to escape consequences while they get busy doing all of the actual censorship.

Censorship today isn't getting cancelled. Censorship today is the same as it was 60 years ago. It's preventing people from having open discussions about sex, gender, race, class, etc. in a way that challenges the ruling class and its conservative ideology. If you can't see that, then you've fallen for the right's distraction.

#politics #I'm American so this is obviously with primarily the American political landscape in mind #but I'm sure at least some of this applies elsewhere

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thelordofdarkreunion · 4 years ago

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The Great Game

This is kind of a sequel to “Man Behind the Curtain” and prequel to “The Misty Planet.” I decided to write a bit of an explanation story for some of the things that are going on, and some of the things that are about to happen. Be aware, that I have not written every player of the Great Game into this story, and I probably forgot a couple that I’ll add if I ever write another story like this. None of these characters are mine. Enjoy!

“There is no death. There is nothing to keep us in check… except each other. We are what you would call gods, and this is the eternal game for absolute dominion over all. Now, there are new players to be dealt in. Welcome to the Great Game, my enemy. Our journey has just begun.”

It was empty blackness. Nothingness. But yet, it was something. Something different… something that mortals could not comprehend. It was utterly anathema to all normal senses, to Euclidean geometry, to the laws of time, space, and reality themselves. It was completely indescribable, except to the players themselves. But, to a mortal, it might be described as something like this:

Beings, sitting around a massive table.

There were a lot of newcomers this time. They were attracted by this… the Great Game. The game of gods, all vying for power over each other. Originally, there had been three players. The three original Dark Gods of Chaos, all battling for cosmic supremacy between each other. Then, a fourth was born. But with the fourth came someone else: the Anathema. The End of Chaos. The Supreme Ruler of Mankind. The King of all Human Kings.

It was then that the Great Game got a lot more interesting. At last, the Dark Gods had an opponent different from themselves. The Emperor of Mankind wished for His species to thrive, and wanted to impose His order throughout the stars. The Dark Gods disagreed. The Primarchs, genetically crafted sons of the Emperor, were corrupted. The Emperor was mortally wounded, and his physical form confined to the Golden Throne of Terra. But He still fought ever onwards against Chaos for the protection of His race. The game continued, uninterrupted, for ten thousand years since then.

Then, through a series of completely random circumstances that none of them saw coming, eight other universes were thrown in with theirs. Some of them did not have gods in any sense, but many did, which brings us to the present setting.

If it could be described, the table would have been utterly massive to accommodate the bulk of many of the players. They were gods, after all, and most liked to make their forms as big as possible. On the table were layers upon layers of… things. Layers upon layers of images of planets, galaxies, people and creatures all flashed past. Each individual god had their own “color” if it could be described as such. Each of the holdings, or pieces in the Game, were tinged with the color of the god they belonged to. Gods moved individuals as they saw fit, for the lives of mortals were simply pieces on their chessboard.

The figure of the Shadow Broker, tinged with the cerulean blue of Tzeentch, died as his broken figure was gunned down by his own guards. The ever-changing, utterly unknowable form of Tzeentch flashed a thousand different emotions at once.

“Well then. There goes one strand of fate. A pity he did not succeed.” Tzeentch leered at its fellow players. “It does not matter in the end, though. Or does it? One really can never tell.” A bird-like face formed on the mass the was Tzeentch, followed by a tentacle-like arm that scratched it thoughtfully in a very mortal fashion. “I’m still wondering whether to leave this strand alone, or continue to spread my… taint to this galaxy.” Tzeentch grinned over to the Emperor of Man. “Is that not what your followers call it?” The figure opposite Tzeentch scowled.

“Because that’s what it is. You Dark Gods have meddled in the affairs of mortals for far too long.” The Emperor was clad in ornamented golden armor, with the symbols of His rein etched into the surface. His features were those of a man born in the wilds of ancient eurasia, in the very first human civilization. His skin was a blend of bronze and burnt umber, and glowed with the golden radiance that seemed to swirl around His person. His hair was shoulder length and solid black, held in place by a golden laurel wreath. But it was the eyes that betrayed his true power. They glowed solid gold, with endless depths promising eternal vengeance against the enemies of humanity. Golden electricity crackled around His eyes and face as he stroked his chin, considering His moves. He turned to his left and right. “What do you think?”

The slim figure to the Emperor’s right shrugged.

“I’m not really sure.” This figure had short cut black hair, and took the form of a human man wearing the uniform of the United Federation of Planets’ Starfleet. He gave a quick grin. “Although, this group that unknowingly defeated Tzeentch’s opening move shows a lot of promise.” The enigmatic figure of Q gave a mischievous smile once again. “Yes… they show promise.”

“The balance of fate may hang on their shoulders,” replied the figure to the Emperor’s right. He took the form of a human man, a very familiar one to many people. He had a shock of blond hair beneath a pale face. An eyepatch covered one eye, while the other glowed green. Deus, or the one who had been tasked to play the Game, wore the form of Admiral Adam Vir.

“Be a shame if they were… corrupted.” The voice that spoke was so completely, utterly perfect in every regard that mortals quite literally would have died at its sound. Another figure, glowing with pink and white light, sat opposite the human gods and next to Tzeentch. Its form, just like its voice, was entirely perfect, combining the best features of a thousand different races into one. However, there was something wrong, deep down, with it. Many of the less powerful gods, and certainly any mortal, would feel the urge to vomit at its sight. To look upon it was to die. This was Slaanesh, Dark God of pain, pleasure, and unimaginable excess of the senses.

“Yessssss. Corruption, though, exists in many forms.” This voice was a deep baritone, filled with phlegm and rasping coughs. The form of the god was massive and bloated with oozing boils and rotting skin. Organs spilled out from the bulk, and necrotic flaps of flesh covered it. Nurgle, Lord of Pestilence and Decay considered the board. “And if they are to be corrupted, then it will be my corruption to take ahold of them. Not yours, Slaanesh.”

“And how do you know it will be any of your corruption to reach them?” asked another voice. This one was deep, growly, and distinctly human. It had the sort of dark edge to it that made one instantly wary around it’s user. The user himself was wearing heavy black hooded robes and gloves, and considered his moves carefully from behind his dark hood.

“You’re not even a god, Tenebrae,” boomed another voice. This one swirled with untamed power, and hissed with darkness. A shifting mass of darkness, convoluted into a humanoid head, stared with glowing purple eyes.

“Yes, and no,” replied Tenebrae. “I am not a god, though I should have been. But it matters little. In the end, I, and I alone, am the Dark Side of the Force.” Tenebrae paused for a moment. “Plus, you, Dormammu, lost to a mortal. Stephen Strange, if I remember correctly.” This was said with a malicious grin.

“So did you!” raged back Dormammu. “Revan and the Hero of Tython.” Tenebrae scoffed.

“I defeated Revan and bound him to my will. I controlled him once, and tricked him twice. He is nothing by a piece under my possession. And in the end, my defeat did not matter. I am still at this table, am I not?” Out of the corner of his eye, the Emperor watched Tzeentch discretely move another pawn.

“Enough of this bickering. No one will be corrupting them,” He announced.

“Indeed,” remarked Deus. “Now, my move.” A misty red planet came in front of him, and he moved a white orb from one place to another. “This shall ensure that.” Deus smiled. “No corruption today, I’m afraid. They are already earmarked as our champions.” He looked over to Q.

“Shall I touch yours? Just in case?”

“Eh. Why not. Can’t hurt,” replied Q.

“And yours, Revelation?” Deus asked of the Emperor.

“No,” replied the Emperor. “He is already marked by me. No other power shall touch him.” The gods of humanity made their move.

I will be out with the direct sequel to “The Misty Planet” ASAP. As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, criticisms, or requests, feel free to ask!

#magnificent scoundrels #stories #writing #crossover #warhammer 40k #star wars #mcu #empyrean iris #star trek

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80hdean · 4 years ago

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Oh my god I just read a fic that I think actually fully explains Dean’s character choices (particularly regarding Jack, though also Cas) in seasons 14-15?? In an actually satisfying way? I never expected to have that make sense to me and I’m still kind of reeling.

The thing is that The Only Way it makes sense relies 100% on three things being true:

Dean is heinously full of self loathing, despair, and maladaptive coping strategies that he refuses to improve upon or seek help for; namely his belief that he is worthless and undeserving and should have been left to rot in hell, and that because of this worthlessness no one he cares about will ever really care about him in the same way, will never stay with him, so he must push them away before they get the chance to blindside him with that betrayal (which he knows from prior experience that he doesn’t deal with well) AND

Cas is the one being that’s even partially exempt from this rule because he’s an angel that earned his faith early on (profound bond style), and while he’s never been one to stick around physically, his devotion has never wavered enough that Dean seriously doubts that Cas cares deeply for him. This means that Cas somehow becomes integral to Dean’s conception of hope in general and becomes necessary to Dean envisioning a future of any kind for himself BECAUSE

Dean is romantically in love with Cas from at least season 12 onward (his feelings could potentially be repressed to a degree for some of it but they do need to be present explicitly for his motivations to make any kind of emotionally resonant sense)

All three of these things must be true for this series of interpretations to hold up. It all slots together so well that it almost seems *possible* that this was all somewhat intentional/planned on the writers’ part, but that the eventual execution was so piss poor that I wasn’t able to connect the dots (mostly bc of the extreme gaslighting regarding #3). It’s confusing as fuck to constantly try to figure out why the fuck a character is doing something if the logical CONTEXTUAL reasoning is frequently said to be nonexistent.

Basically this fic didn’t posit anything radically new, but it was a specific combination of minor takes and at a couple of key (and unexpected) time stamps that finally made it all coalesce for me.

Like, for example, Dean feels like he “had never had Cas, and now he never will” when Cas leaves him to protect Kelly before Jack was born, not afterwards, priming him to be not only angry at Jack but to see him as the interloper standing between him and Cas. This would then ratchet Dean’s rage and homicidal anger towards Jack up to eleven when Cas gets killed doing this.

But then getting Cas back restores Dean’s hope, hope for a future, so he chills out and even comes to care for Jack, especially since Cas does. And Cas is noticeably more affectionate and fond, and Dean’s hopes grow a little stronger until Jack dies and Cas goes and makes the deal with the Empty, after which Dean notices Cas being less obviously affectionate with him, which he can only conclude has something to do with Jack and his soul, which leads to increased suspicion yet again.

This was crucial for me bc without seeing it from this “Cas is my only hope at having a future” and “if you get between me and Cas I will treat you like I am a jilted and jealous lover” like without these layers of context, his reactions to Jack (and to Cas, especially during the divorce arc) are out of proportion to the situation and out of character for Dean given the whole trajectory of the show and character development and whatever.

I could write another 3k words about this, which is so silly, but yeah this one fic has fixed for me the one giant pulsating un-ignorable fault that caused me to fly off the handle about the last couple seasons of the show at any given moment. I’m aware that’s super irrational but what can you do. The show wrote one of my favorite characters being an abusive homicidal rageaholic towards my top two favorite characters (one of whom is a child!!) without anything resembling a good enough reason.

I personally found Dean’s character arc pretty hard to follow after the Mark of Cain was removed and even the back half of season 10 was kind of convoluted to me ACTUALLY you know what he really just went off the rails when he tricked Sam into accepting Gadreel. That’s when shit started to go sideways for Dean’s basic characterization, and things just snowballed after s11-12 I think.

Anyways I got this far and forgot to say it but the fic is Hell Was The Journey That Brought Me Heaven by thursdaysfallenangel (https://archiveofourown.org/works/26376697)

#dean #cas #meta #fic #fic rec #writers #jack #magpie dot txt #also this fic was published last September and managed to come up with an ending that eerily echoes 15x18 down to some details I’m not sure #how they predicted but they did!#like the handprint on the jacket!#idk maybe there were set photos leaked idfk I love the concept of this weirdly prescient fic author #destiel #I should also perhaps mention that there’s no easy resolution in this fic there’s no great catharsis moment #the beauty of this fic for me was explaining Dean’s inexplicable behavior and choices by putting them all to fit in the same contextual #framework

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tarithenurse · 5 years ago

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The good Villain - 9

Based on the prompt “You’re the villain and you know that you just want the ‘good guys’ to understand why”

Pairing: Loki x Fem!Reader Content: Tension, denial, feels, fluff, a proverbial olive branch, more tense feelings. A bit of drinking (not exessively). A/N: *hugs*

Chapter 9

… Reader …

Your boots, gear, and outer layer of clothing has been replaced by a soft blanket when you wake up. Jerking upright in bed, you take in the room only to find it empty even where the evening shadows have started to gather in the corners. A small glass bowl with those chips things is standing on the bedside table. Loki. Theoretically, it could have been any of the Terran heroes except…you do not want it to be.

The snack is gone and fingers licked clean of the last delicious crystals when someone knocks. In comes Natasha with a stack of clothing which she dumps on the bed before you.

“You’re not celebrating the success in your tacs,” he announces, “so Wanda and I scoured our closets. Get ready.”

“Yes, sir.” The words are meant as a joke, but you would not dare contradict her as long as her eyes are gleaming with the harshness of steel.

Since the release from the prison, you have been experimenting with the Terran way of cleaning. Cloths dipped in water from the sink have done a decent job although you miss the full body experience of the sand rubbing off dirt and leaving the skin soft and sensitive. Perhaps… The tiles and glass defining the shower are cold against your hands when you lean in to have a better look at the wide thing from which the water will fall. It is my last chance to try it.

The sound is similar to that of sky leaks. Rain. Also, the water is colder than you like – it is bad enough that the air on this planet has such a low temperature but for some reason it seems worse when it is wet, and you have to pull yourself together to undress and enter the cubicle.

At first, you try to avoid the frigid drops as you fidget with the controls but as the water heats…well, it is not so bad anymore and you start to enjoy the feeling.

… Loki …

He had become worried when the Betan was gone from the bed until he heard the splashing of water and the lingering concern mixed with curiosity which he gladly gave in to. Steam billowed in the white and blue bathroom, covering every surface with a thick layer of condense. He could have used a spell to remove the obscuring fog, granting a clear view of the figure in the shower while simultaneously breaking his own cover but there was something innocent, yet enticing, about the blurry vision of [Y/N]’s limbs caressing her body in partnership with the fragrant suds. When she released a moan of delight, Loki echoed it silently.

Of all the creations in all realms…why her?

Quiet as a cat, he slipped from her quarters, knowing what he had to do.

… Reader …

By the time you have showered and dressed, you are convinced that Terran women must be constantly freezing if all they wear in this climate is as skimpy as what Wanda and Natasha have provided. Or…it is not skimpy as such but…ugh! Turning in front of the mirror, you feel exposed in the body hugging dress: knee-length, long sleeves, and a high collar, all of it made in a black, soft fabric that almost manages to shield you from the constant chill in the air. There are shoes to go with it – all of them with higher heels than you have used in ages.

To say that you feel out of your comfort zone when you walk into the common room is an understatement.

“Here.” Natasha pushes a tiny drink in your hand. “Looks like y’need it.”

Pride urges you to deny it, but why bother? “Thank you…erm…and also for the…the…” When words fail, you motion at the outfit, earning an approving nod from the flaming-haired woman. “What is it?”

Understanding that the question is in relation to the beverage, she smiles. “Tequila. Burns in the stomach, salt on the rim…but with some lime to add a bit of taste.” The smile turns into a lopsided grin as she walks away. “You’ll like it.”

Ahuh? The conviction is not shared. In fact, nothing about the situation makes you feel any sort of tenderness or affection. There are people present that you have never met before, behaving as though they are a part of the Avengers while still ogling you with unveiled curiosity even if the only visible difference between you and them is the eyes. Just a little while…then I will leave.

Keeping your back to the wall, you skirt the room for a less obvious spot from where you can get your bearings to navigate the unwritten social rules.

Music is playing – the strange tunes uncannily familiar due to the rumble of the underlying beat – and creating an absorber to the many voices of the guests and residents. In the maelstrom of chatter, the translator implant is unable to keep up unless you concentrate hard on just once conversation and you quickly fall back to relying on the body language of those surrounding you at a distance.

Mindless actions take over in your loneliness, lifting the glass with the pungent liquid to your lips. Salt crystals shift from the rim to your tongue, carrying a sour note which quickly washes away by the biting liquor. In a flash, memories of your team wells up and you savour the burn even as you lick off the rest of the bitter salt-circle. If feelings were a beverage, then these would be your emotions bottled and served to indulge in the pain of why you had to embark on the hunt, the reasons for the emptiness at the prospect of going home. Finishing a mission is supposed to be a celebrated accomplishment, a moment of victorious joy…this time it is a pain in your heart and soul as you prepare for the whiplash to come.

A sound reaches your ears, soothing and riling as only one voice can, and you spot Loki on his way towards you. Not now. You cannot bear to face him, preferring instead to burn away the ghosts until the morning, so when he is distracted you grab the opportunity to slip off to another corner.

Moments later, you are “downing” the fourth tequila to Stark’s amusement. “Better make sure you get some o’ this with ya,” he grins, already pouring a new one.

“No need…but I appreciate the sentiment.”

“Loki says you’re leaving soon?”

The question is offhand, a nonchalant curiosity playing in the corners of the dark eyes which causes you to tense straight away. “By the end of this party.”

“Shame, it’d been nice if you stuck ‘round bit longer.” The smile is genuine, a kindness catching you off guard enough to cage the words in your throat as he saunters off.

…

Agonizing minutes have turned into hours where more and more people are coming over to chat, inquisitive but never demanding in their many inquiries. Some are the Avengers you know while others have been strangers with convoluted ties to the team and similarly colourful backgrounds which have made you feel less, well, alien. However, each time you have seen Loki heading your way, you have managed to dodge him…until now.

Standing by the bar, his silent presence behind you creeps under the skin. You have no intention of meeting his gaze when you turn, but he places a cool hand on your arm to stop you.

“Can we talk?”

Shrugging off the light grasp, you roll your eyes. “Proper words…yeah, apparently you can talk. Good for you!”

“[Y/N],” he pleads, quiet enough for only you to hear, “just a moment of your time…”

Fine! Heart thumping and mouth set in an impatient grimace, you follow him away from the party and towards the nearest stairwell. Each step he takes as he leads the way feels like a stomp on your courage. Not that you fear him. What you resent is the way your resolve wavers each time he speaks softly; how your plan fades when you look into the green-blue eyes. I must accept the consequences of my actions! But the voice in your mind sounds less like you and more like a snippy teacher with no understanding of a youngling’s needs. Whatever Loki wants to say, now that you are standing still, you will refuse to change your mind.

“I assume I can’t talk you out of leaving?” Turning to face you, the tall Asgardian presses his lips tightly together.

“Correct.” Then why does it hurt to say it?

“You’ll return to Sirius Beta…face the court and accept what judgement they see fit?” This time you simply nod, gaze fixed on the wall behind Loki. “Then I’m coming with you.”

“What?!” There is no way you misheard it. “You are not –“

“I’ve already sent word of your actions and reasons behind it, vouching for your innocence and swearing to witness upon your return.” The urgency in his voice echoes the frantic rhythm of your pulse as the words register with you. “Don’t thro-…you’re…I can’t let you give up without a fight. I’ll fight for you, do you understand?”

I…do not know. Does he? “No.” And it is true, you do not understand why he would go so far nor why you have to feel the way you do for him.

“[Y/N]…I can’t lose you!”

His hands are strong and unyielding as they grasp your shoulders to drag you close enough for lips to skim over lips as he bares his heart, ripping yours out in the process. Every word he says could have been spoken by yourself if only you had taken the opportunity to accept the feelings and thoughts rather than bury them under the sense of duty – a righteousness that will separate you from him. I do not love him. But you do. He does not love me. But he does. He is mistaken. Unless he can be convinced of that, however, there is no holding him back.

“Loki –“

The Asgardian’s lips are as soft as you have imagined when they seal the kiss. Abrupt, desperate, pouring over with a deep seethed urge to stall time. Of course you give in, the dance of tongues and shared breath taking over your body for an eternity that ends too soon.

“No…”

Wrenching free from what has become an embrace, you rush the only way possible: up the stairs. It does not matter where you will end up, as long as it is far away where no one can see you are leaking for the second time in your life.

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allgirlsareprincesses · 6 years ago

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The Quest for the Lost Bride: Anidala (and Reylo) as Orpheus and Eurydice

One of the theories I’ve found intriguing since belatedly joining the Reylo fandom has been that of Reverse Anidala, or the idea that the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala is being told in reverse, as the joyous romance of Ben Solo and Rey of Jakku. When researching folktale types for my Reylo as Eros and Psyche analysis, I came across the apparent inverse of ATU 425: The Search for the Lost Husband, which is ATU 400: The Quest for the Lost Bride. If Star Wars does indeed draw on mythology from around the world, and the theory of Reverse Anidala is correct, it seems reasonable that Anakin and Padme’s tale would match closely to these Lost Bride tales, the most famous of which is that of Orpheus and Eurydice. On the surface, the mythological motifs in the Prequel Trilogy didn’t seem as distinct as those of the Sequel Trilogy, but a deeper dive demonstrated that George Lucas is, in fact, the inspired genius we all know him to be (awkward dialogue notwithstanding).

Quest for the Lost Bride tales include, just like Search for the Lost Husband stories, variations such as the Animal Bride and Supernatural Bride. There is slightly less standardization in the Bride tales than the Husband ones, even within a single cultural tradition: for instance, some versions of the Orpheus tale end with the eternal separation of the lovers, while others include the eventual happy reunion in the Underworld after Orpheus’ death. However, the most well-known of these stories are tragedies, so I’ll be focusing on those, including both Virgil and Ovid’s versions of Orpheus and Eurydice, several versions of The Swan Maiden, The Crane Wife, the Shinto creation myth of Izanagi and Izanami, and more. As some of these involve faith traditions that are still practiced to this day, I will try to handle them respectfully, but I would appreciate a generous correction if you feel my treatment has been in any way insensitive.

Orpheus was the son of Apollo, the sun god, and Calliope, chief of the muses who presided over epic poetry. He was best known as a uniquely-skilled musician and poet, whose music could charm all living things and even cause rocks and trees to dance. In some versions of the tale, Apollo gives Orpheus a golden lyre and teaches him to play it, and this hero is nearly always associated with magic or witchcraft. While the Greek story presents Orpheus as an artistic soul, both contemporary and later critics scoffed at this as his “unmanliness.” They would often blame the hero’s loss of his wife on the husband’s failures of traditional, aggressive masculinity. Accordingly, later iterations of the Quest for the Lost Bride folktale type have the hero as a warrior, king, or prince.

There’s a lot of Anakin Skywalker here already, both from a canonical perspective and a fandom perspective. The son of an inspiring woman and The Force itself (which is the deity of the Star Wars universe), Anakin is essentially a demigod, and his extraordinary skill with the Force is clearly a gift from that powerful “father.” His power does sometimes take on an artistic, charming character (and as a calligrapher, his grandson has clearly inherited this artistic spirit), as when he floated the pear to Padme, but the Jedi force him to turn his skills to war instead. Anakin is pressed into a violent role at odds with the selfless soul his mother Shmi describes, and even the fans at times seemed dissatisfied with his softer nature. This is part of the reason that the Clone Wars TV show portrayed him as much more traditionally masculine. We recognize both versions of the character as Anakin Skywalker, but they each reflect a particular audience perspective, just as the different mythical Husbands do.

Eurydice, on the other hand, is hardly described at all in the myth. Unusually, there’s not even a mention of her particular beauty. It seems she is just the object of Orpheus love and no more, leading to a great deal of excellent feminist criticism (which we’ll get into later). However, other versions of the Lost Bride give us more detail: most notable is that the heroine is nearly always a fairy or other ethereal creature, who hails from a mystical world apart from the mortal realm. She might be a fairy princess, a selkie, a mermaid, a swan, a crane, or even a goddess. Frequently, she must be enticed or abducted from this other world and her means of returning to it must be destroyed (usually with the typical burning of the animal skin). In some versions of the tale, she even had another husband before the hero captured her. She comes to love her new husband sincerely and live happily with him for a time, but there is always a sense of her being out of place.

When Anakin meets Padme as a child, his first words to her are “Are you an angel?” This has always struck me as a fascinating artistic choice by George Lucas, a man who so enjoyed worldbuilding that he frankly got a little carried away with it in much of the Prequel Trilogy. He certainly could have chosen a Star Wars-y sounding name for this alien race of ethereal beings from the moons of Iego, but he chose something with a very specific and recognizable meaning: Angel. He knew that this word would immediately communicate what a convoluted explanation of in-world lore (*cough* midichlorians *cough*) would not: an image of purity, kindness, and beauty. Padme is cast as a supernatural image of perfection, and we understand immediately that the lovesick Anakin has placed her on a pedestal, seeing her forever as Angel rather than as Woman. To marry Anakin, Padme must to some extent turn her back on her principles (remember her insistence that she couldn’t “live a lie?”), and is then torn between her loyalty to her husband and to democracy. In a sense, she has been plucked from the fairy world of Naboo and drawn into a marriage that, though filled with genuine love, places her at odds with her true nature.

In Quest for the Lost Bride tales, this duality of the lady is often expressed by the Animal Bride motif, with the heroine taking one form when she is away from her fairy world, and another when she is in her natural home. This might be taken further by having a false bride, a variation best known from the Black Swan of the Swan Lake ballet. In this example, the bride’s false nature is personified as a completely separate woman, while her true self exists in the form that the hero first falls in love with. Interestingly, this appears to be referenced in the costuming of Queen Amidala and her decoy, Sabe: During the invasion of Naboo in The Phantom Menace, Sabe wears a towering robe of black feathers. Later in the finale, Padme wears a similarly-feathered gown of soft white layers.

In Attack of the Clones, we see this duality within Padme herself in the two scenes in which she confronts her feelings for Anakin: When she denies her feelings for him and declares that they cannot be together, she wears a jarringly seductive black dress. This is clearly not her true self. Later on Geonosis, when she finally declares her love for him, Padme is clad in pure white. She then wears white again as she binds herself to him in marriage. Still another variant of the two brides theme is the human woman versus the shade (sometimes a rotting corpse), but we’ll get to that later….

Orpheus and Eurydice’s union seems to be doomed from the outset, as Hymen, the Greek god of marriage, fails to bless their marriage. Eurydice is then pursued by an insistent suitor, and in fleeing him, steps on a viper and dies of a poisonous bite to the heel, descending to the Underworld for eternity. In other Lost Bride tales, the enchanted wife returns to the fairy realm or retreats into her animal form, often after a betrayal by her husband. In the Maori tale of Mataora and Niwareka, husband Mataora strikes his spirit wife Niwareka across the face, and she flees back to her homeland because domestic violence is unheard of among her people. And in the Shinto creation myth of Izanagi and Izanami, wife Izanami dies in childbirth, burned to death when giving birth to the fire god Kagutsuchi. In fact, it’s extremely common for the fairy wife to flee or die after giving birth to her husband’s children.

Again, the parallels to Anakin and Padme’s story should be obvious: Since marriage is forbidden by the Jedi Order, the couple’s nuptials must remain a secret, meaning their union is never blessed by the powers of their world. Though Padme has no suitor, we see Anakin in Revenge of the Sith split into two people: the Jedi who loves his wife, and Darth Vader, who bids her join him in his galactic domination. In that sense, Vader is the dark rival for Padme’s affections. Further, he cements the loss of his wife with the ultimate marital betrayal, attempting to strangle her with the Force. And finally, Padme dies after giving birth to the twins, at the same moment that Vader rises from the flames that consumed Anakin Skywalker. The Lost Bride descends to the Underworld, and now begins the husband’s Quest.

One of my favorite sources for this analysis was In Search of the Swan Maiden: A Narrative on Folklore and Gender, by Barbara Fass Leavy. I strongly recommend checking it out, but this is one of her excellent points that caught my eye:

“.... according to the tale type Index, wives search for their lost spouses, whereas husbands who have lost fairy wives embark on quests - a particular irony given that the searching women characteristically win back their spouses and the questing men characteristically do not.”

I find this fascinating as a commentary on the perspective of both the storyteller and the audience in the Prequel Trilogy versus the Sequel Trilogy: the traditional tales seem to assign greater agency to the men, but greater success to the women. This can be seen in the prequels when Padme seems unusually passive and even dies of a “broken heart,” despite having two children to live for, as many have pointed out. Further, the first six films of the Skywalker saga are told from a masculine perspective, so a Quest for the Lost Bride tale seems like a natural fit. In the sequels, however, the perspective has shifted to the feminine, attempting to assign greater agency to the heroine and leading her toward a successful retrieval of the Lost Husband. This is important, because from this point onward in the myth, I’m going to be applying more and more of the story motifs to the Sequel Trilogy, not just the Prequels.

Back to the Quest: Orpheus, devastated by his wife’s death, roams the earth playing mournful tunes on his lyre. Eventually, he decides to descend to the Underworld and plead with Hades and Persephone for his wife, referencing their own love story to appeal to their empathy. Just because it’s gorgeous, here’s part of his song:

“Let me again Eurydice receive,

Let Fate her quick-spun thread of life reweave.

All our possessions are but loans from you,

And soon, or late, you must be paid your due;

Hither we haste to humankind's last seat,

Your endless empire, and our sure retreat.

She too, when ripened years she shall attain,

Must, of avoidless right, be yours again:

I but the transient use of that require,

Which soon, too soon, I must resign entire.

But if the destinies refuse my vow,

And no remission of her doom allow;

Know, I'm determined to return no more;

So both retain, or both to life restore.”

*MELTS* So anyway, his song works and they tell him he can lead Eurydice out of the Underworld, BUT she must walk behind him and he must not look back at her even once, or else she will spend eternity as a shade in Hell. In other tales, the husband might be instructed never to look upon the wife’s animal form (The Crane Wife), or upon her rotting corpse (Izanagi & Izanami), or he may be given another admonishment from his father-in-law as to the acceptable treatment of the daughter. Invariably, the hero swears he will obey, but whether an hour or many years later, he fails. In Orpheus’ case, he is nearly returned to the land of the living when he is unable to resist the temptation to glance back and check that Eurydice has not lost her footing. She vanishes, and Orpheus (described thereafter as having a “frozen breast”) is again wracked by grief, swearing off of [sexual] contact with women and again roaming the world singing songs of sorrow.

If the “look back” can be seen as a loss of faith, or a fall to the temptation for power, then Anakin certainly demonstrated this in his reach for the power that Sidious offered. Padme begs him to run away with her, to turn back toward the Light, but Anakin “looks back” to the powerful promise of the Dark Side and loses her forever. Similarly, Ben Solo gazes at Rey across the burning throne room, clearly thinking only of being with her…. Until he “looks back” at Snoke’s throne, and is pulled back into the fear and bitterness that have kept him trapped in the dark for so long. Within her own Search for the Lost Husband journey, this is the moment that Rey also sees Ben’s true form, and realizes that she has to leave him. The lovers are separated (for now), until the husband can reject the lure of power and keep faith with his wife.

I’m very much not the expert here (that’s @corseque ), but we know from the Darth Vader comics that he was trying for the rest of his life to bring Padme back from death. We don’t really know how near he was to success, but that story may be relevant to the plot in The Rise of Skywalker. In any case, the myth now starts to get very interesting: Feeling spurned, a group of Maenads (female devotees of Dionysus) attack Orpheus in a forest and literally, gruesomely tear him limb from limb, until the ground is littered with body parts. This is actually a fairly common event in Greek mythology, such that it even has a name: Sparagmos, “to tear apart.” TEAR APART. Anakin, of course, did indeed lose limbs at the time of his “death,” when Obi-Wan cut off his legs and then Sidious raised him as Vader. If Reverse Anidala is true, and Ben Solo begins his story at a moment parallel to when Anakin Skywalker ended his, then of course the son of Leia sobs in the first sequel film: “I am being torn apart.” It’s poetry; it rhymes.

(GIF source: @mamalaz)

After his death, Orpheus’ head floats down a river on his lyre, continuing to sing his mournful songs to all who will hear. It eventually lands on the island of Lesbos, where it prophecies and eventually becomes as famous as the Oracle of Apollo. As I mentioned in my previous post, the iconic helmet of the tragic fallen hero does make an appearance in the ST, and it even seems that Kylo Ren is seeking wisdom from it. Apollo and the Muses finally take pity on poor Orpheus, and they bury his limbs. In some versions, the story ends here with a nightingale taking up the song of the lost lovers, but in others, Orpheus finally descends to the Underworld and is reunited with Eurydice, and they spend eternity together, hand-in-hand. Perhaps this means that Anakin may finally return to Padme and they may be together in the Force.

Among the other stories of the Lost Bride type are details that also align well with the Skywalker Saga: In the Shinto tale mentioned above, Izanagi fails to retrieve his wife but then begets Amaterasu (the sun goddess) and Tsukuyomi (the moon god). Anakin’s children Luke and Leia are visually associated with the sun and moon throughout the films, and similar imagery is used for Ben and Rey (NOT suggesting they’re siblings, people, just descendants of the Skywalker legacy, geez).

Another feature of these tales is the original meeting of the wedded pair: While in Orpheus and Eurydice their initial meeting is unrecorded, most stories actually include the abduction of the bride, either physically or by default because the husband has hidden or burned her animal skin. While this doesn’t really apply to Anidala, it certainly applies to Reylo, as Kylo of course carries Rey off to Starkiller Base. But it applies in another way, as well: In The Last Jedi, Ben breaks down Rey’s lies that she has told herself about her parents, in a sense burning away the protective skin of denial that she has, rendering it impossible for her to return to her childlike state. This is in a way another abduction, as Rey is forcibly pulled from her enchanted form to her true self.

(GIF source: @lyanna-stark)

There is also the common motif of recognition, which appears in the Search for the Lost Husband, as well. Often, when the lovers are separated, the lost spouse forgets the questing spouse and does not recognize them when they come to the rescue. Their memory is usually jogged by the spouse performing a unique task that only they can do, or by returning a gift which was once given before. From The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales: “It is interesting to note how these extended narratives tend to duplicate the motifs by repeating them in reverse order - she recovers her suit, and he recovers her; she presents a ring, and he represents it to regain her.”

In Revenge of the Sith, Padme cries to Anakin “I don’t know you any more!” clearly stating that she no longer recognizes her husband. While we have yet to see those characters’ reunion, there is a particular moment of recognition in the ST, related to a powerful object which has been previously offered as a gift: the legacy lightsaber. When Rey calls the saber to her in The Force Awakens, Kylo breathes “It is you” in the novel, clearly recognizing her in some way. There are hints that Rey also recalls him on a subconscious level, though for now we can only speculate how. Still, it’s clear that many more legacy objects are going to appear in TROS, so there will be plenty of opportunity for Rey to get a reminder!

In Barbara Leavy’s book, she mentions that the central thesis of these folktale types seems to be that the relationship between spouses is the basis for peace and stability in the world:

“These examples of emotional failure are significant because they suggest that even were it true that romantic love is an invention of modern Western literature, its elements not to be read into narratives where they do not apply, the importance of emotional bonds in the marital relationship has probably always been recognized. The breakdown in the attachment of husband and wife is a significant feature of some of the world’s most widely-told stories. So long as the family supplies society with a basic structural unit, the affective tensions within the family will be crucial aspects of daily life and the narratives that grow out of it.”

As applied to the Skywalker Saga, I take this to mean that the wars of in “Star Wars” are tied to the breakdown of the marriage of our central characters: Anakin and Padme, and later (to a lesser extent) Han and Leia. It follows then that this central conflict can only be resolved by the healing of the bond between husband and wife. When we say that the Skywalker Saga is the story of generational trauma, this is what we mean, and it is a tragically relatable tale for much of the audience. We see the sorrow of our broken families writ large in a violent conflict across an entire galaxy far, far away, and we yearn for hope and healing.

Leavy further illuminates an aspect of these stories - Psyche’s Search and Orpheus’ Quest - that I find particularly fascinating in light of the frequently gendered discourse around Star Wars:

“If it is true that the Orpheus tale is as favored by men as the Cupid and Psyche tale is favored by women, then male storytellers appear to be expressing through these narratives their difficulties in achieving self-definition consistent with stereotypical ideals of manhood. The typical success experienced by Psyche and the equally typical failure encountered by Orpheus can be profitably analyzed in the context of a recent study of the difference between the ways in which men and women respond to their own fantasies:

‘women would see deprivation followed by enhancement, whereas men would see enhancement followed by deprivation.’ In contrast to women, ‘men showed a preference for extreme endings, which revealed itself most clearly in the tendency of men to see any decline or fall as abrupt, total and final. The possibility of a resurgence or second chance, which is implicit in the female pattern, does not seem very real for men. Perhaps an important difference is that the woman is socialized to lose (or give up) control without panic, and that she picks up as a positive concomitant to her submission confidence of recovery in the face of failure or suffering.’”

If I may generalize, the Star Wars fans who seem to want or expect a tragic ending for Ben Solo predominantly identify as men, whereas those who want or expect his redemption and happy ending predominantly identify as women. It seems that the Star Wars fandom does bear out Leavy’s claim that men relate to the tragic Quest for the Lost Bride, which contains harsh punishment for the failures of its hero, while women prefer the Search for the Lost Husband, which rewards its heroine’s persistence with a passionate love. Again, this is a generalization, as obviously individuals of all genders and none can enjoy a wide range of stories.

Many critical analyses of Orpheus and Eurydice point out that there is a distinct power imbalance between the pair, and that therefore a happy ending can only occur if the husband successfully subjugates his wife. Much of the hero’s actions seem to be an attempt to control his wife or control her fate, and this is nearly always characterized as a character flaw on his part. In fact, the descent into the Underworld is sometimes interpreted not as an expression of death-defying love, but of an unwillingness to accept the finality of death, or a failure to accept that the fairy wife has chosen to flee of her own volition. On the rare occasions when the husband successfully retrieves the lost bride from the mystical realm, it is usually not because he approached her with humility and remorse for his lack of faith, but because he vanquished her demon lover. On the other hand, some stories actually switch perspectives from husband to wife after the bride is lost, and the tale suddenly becomes the Search for the Lost Husband, with all its typical features. When the lovers are equals and the wife pursues the husband, then their reunion is successful and lasting. This seems to be happening both on a large scale within the full nine films of the saga, and on a smaller scale within the Sequel Trilogy itself, as Anakin and Ben follow Orpheus’ path while Rey alone follows Psyche’s, which is an excellent sign for Ben’s redemption and happy union with his bride in The Rise of Skywalker.

So there you have it…. Yet another big-ass meta that hopefully demonstrates the genius mythology of the Star Wars saga, and not just the fact that I’ve spent way too much time researching this. Thanks for reading and as always, feedback is welcome!

Previous posts in this series:

The Search for the Lost Husband: Reylo as Eros and Psyche

More Search for the Lost Husband: The Burning of the Beast’s Skin in Star Wars

This post is dedicated to @ahsokaeden65, who gave me a gentle kick in the butt to finish it! <3

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crmediagal · 6 years ago

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I Have A Lot of Thoughts...

Okay. I just got back from seeing TROS. Bearing in mind that I already knew the main spoilers involving my precious boy, Ben Solo, and my beloved ship Reylo, I still have So. Many. Questions. And a flippin’ series of disappointments to whinge about, so get ready.

!!! WARNING: #TROS SPOILERS AHEAD !!!

Lets start with the main and, for me, most important factors: Reylo and Ben Solo

At the end of the day, if Reylo wasn’t ever intended to be end game, I could have lived with that. I’ve shipped whatever the heck I wanna ship and written those ships in fandoms I’ve loved for years, regardless of their basis (or more often, not) in the canonverse. I’d have survived if there was no kiss at the end.

Back in early 2016, when people were still speculating that Ben and Rey were related, I was writing them as lovers and doting parents, so, erm, again, for me, the ship wasn’t contingent upon them becoming canon in order to hold legitimacy/meaning. It shouldn’t for anyone, really. Ship whatever you wanna ship, guys! Love them regardless of screen time or lack thereof!

That being said, I will cherish That Moment™ forever when the Reylo shippers got a glimpse of what this incredible coupling could have been. And in the actual canon material, no less. That’s more than I'd have ever expected to receive and, frankly, was enough for me to be satisfied.

HOWEVER.

I was fully invested in this trilogy from start to finish for Ben Solo. And that is where I've been most letdown, disheartened, and pained.

At the off, sure, Kylo Ren made for an interesting archetype “villain” in TFA, but the moment we learned of his true identity, the Bad Boy™ appeal, for me, melted away. I fell in love with the tortured young man who had never really had the freedom of choice; who had the burden of war heroes for parents and a royal bloodline that traced back to Vader; who was abandoned by his family and left to navigate the enormity of his powers and abilities on his own. I was taken with Ben Solo’s troubled, many-layered complexity and this character took on a whole new meaning for me after TFA.

Like so many other Ben Redemptionists, I desperately wanted to see Ben Solo free of the torture he’d suffered all his life. And that life wasn’t long in years, unlike Anakin’s. By the end of Anakin’s life, he was more machine than man and middle-aged.

All the more reason that I needed to see Ben redeemed in this story...and allowed to walk freely in the sun.

SW is built on forgiveness and redemption, after all, so why would they not bring Ben Solo back to the Light and take him where Anakin’s story never could go? The groundwork was laid in two films and reiterated in countless interview quotes the creators dropped on us for four effin’ years. Disney and the creators seemed as invested in Ben Solo’s redemption arc as the fans were, so I wasn’t too worried about seeing it come full circle.

Hooooo boy. #MyBigFatMistakeThatIWillNeverMakeAgain

Ben Solo’s redemption, while earned in the last few minutes of TROS, was horribly cheapened when the creators decided to ‘play it safe’ by making him sacrifice himself. It wasn’t romantic and tragic, as I’m sure JJ and the creators were aiming for, but, rather, a Grade F example of very poor, very subpar writing. We got to see Ben for a few moments as himself whilst much of his storyline and importance in TROS was cruelly (and, it would seem, very purposely) reduced in the last film, too, when such plot for his character was supposed to be centre stage.

Less time devoted to Ben’s arc and then killing him off sends so many terrible messages, particularly for kids. You’d think Disney would understand that better than most.

Death is not hopeful. Redemption in the form of a young man, who was barely given the chance to live in Light and Love, dying as soon as his true self was realised isn’t hope. It’s been done before in this saga, as it has in many others, so it just makes the whole play-by-play defeatist and devastating. And after 40+ years of Skywalkers and Solos suffering in this universe, haven’t we ALL had enough of that, JJ? Disney?

They made Rey a Palpatine--a ‘surprise’ that had me actually laughing in the cinema and asking myself nervously, ‘Is this a joke?’--who takes the name of Skywalker to renounce her own bloodline but in the end, JJ, Disney, and the creators still sent us the same damnable, harrowing message: that Palpatine won.

#YIKES. That isn’t hope either, JJ! Disney! ABORT ABORT ABORT!

I thought JJ and the creators would be bolder than this PG-level crap. I thought Ben’s journey would be a true reversal of Vader’s, just as the director himself quoted not too long ago, and what did we get instead? Dusty old tropes and the sour takeaway that redemption will always come at a price rather than at its simplest, most exceptional form: the beauty of a second chance.

In the end, Ben Solo’s never to know freedom from Darkness? He's never to have the opportunity to make right of his wrongs by living in the Light? He's never to grow old? Instead, he’s to die a too-young death in the hands of a woman who actually loves and cares about the role he has to play in this whole saga; perhaps, the only one who cares at that point?

That’s cruel, JJ. Disney. And, again, utterly hopeless.

Hell, Ben’s not even one of the Force Ghosts Rey sees in the last scene of the movie! (A convenient loophole, yes, and the flicker of an opportunity to, perhaps, bring him back but it’s a wildly overlooked mistake if that wasn’t intended by the creators...and I don’t think it was intentional to make him Not There™.)

I don’t get this saga anymore. I failed to grasp the overall message of Hope in TROS. At all. I’m beyond disappointed at the assassination of Ben’s character to give others, who shall remain nameless, more screen time and a beefier storyline which was, frankly, always quite thin to begin with. I feel like I’ve been cheated on...and it hurts so badly to be so letdown by something you’ve loved and supported for so long.

And some other ridiculous absurdities in TROS while we’re still here:

Why was this film ALL about Rey’s lineage, a direction that seemed to come out of nowhere when it was already established in TLJ that her background wasn’t important or crucial to her part in the story? She came from nowhere, so why did this become a central thing?

I’ll admit that I never really cared whether Rey was a Skywalker or a Kenobi or had any given name. I rather enjoyed the idea that she had built herself up from nothing. That was an empowering message, in fact, and a strong one, I think. It was certainly leaps and bounds better than the, ‘HA! GOTCHA! SHE’S PALPATINE’S GRANDDAUGHTER!’ reveal that was laid onto us way too thick in the Final Act.

Ew. Gross. No thanks. I hate it. Take it back. It’s a passe trick to try and pull on the audience at the last minute.

One of many more examples of poor writing by the creators, I suppose.

Also, since when is Finn a Force sensitive? Did I miss something in TFA or TLJ that suggested he possessed that gift? No? Ah. More lousy writing.

Additionally, why does Finn spend the entire movie running after Rey? Why was his romantic storyline with Rose completely dropped and nonexistent in TROS?

It’s almost as if JJ and the creators were giving TLJ director, Rian Johnson, the middle finger throughout the entire finale that was this garbage of a movie. Nice work in undoing all the innovative things Rian brought to the saga, JJ. TROS is even worse™ than the Prequels...and THAT’s saying something.

Why did all the voices of Jedis past speak to Rey but never the helpless Ben Solo who had Palpatine raping his ear from the time he was a baby? It seems sketchy and unfair?

Again, lots of TROS makes little sense. It felt like an entirely separate movie to me--separate from the rest of the saga--and doesn’t wrap 40+ years of this series up all too nicely. It’s anything but. It’s confusing, heartbreaking, and leaves one without much hope.

So...we come to the end of my ramblings and wailings:

Ben Solo was the most interesting, convoluted, and beautifully crafted character from this new trilogy and a true redemption would have served the legacy upon which the SW saga is built--Hope™--so much better, including but not limited to its utilisation in making Han’s death carry meaning. Because his son would have not only returned to the Light but gotten to Live™ and experience it fully.

What a remarkably hopeful ending that would have been...

Instead, we got garbage writing and the redundant SW tropes.

Ben Solo deserved better. JJ and the creators absolutely wasted his potential in this story and I’ll be forever crestfallen..and retreating more and more into my own Ben Redemption fics because to hell with this elementary-level bullsh*t.

Han Solo deserved for his son’s part in his demise to not be utterly pointless at the end because, hey ho, guess what? YOUR SON DIED ANYWAY?!

Leia Organa deserved to not only see her son redeemed but to have that emotional reunion many of us were craving. She had already lost so much, but I guess JJ and the creators decided to just...serve the general more pain in the end. Wow. Rude. Such disrespect. Carrie Fisher wouldn’t have stood for it.

And Rey... My gawd, she deserved better, too. She should never been tied to Palpatine in order to make her seem more important. That grossly underserved her character.

She also should have had her other half. The yang to her yin. The only other person in the entire ruddy galaxy who understood her: Ben. She deserved to not be left alone at the end of TROS, just as she had started in TFA.

I’m going to go work on my WIP Reylo fic now and try to forget TROS entirely.

#ben solo #reylo #reyben #tros #tros spoilers #rey #star wars #i am in pain #i am....so heartbroken

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tbonechessor · 5 years ago

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There have probably been video essays done about this that can say this better than I can but I'm gonna try and articulate it anyway.

There a common response to the notion of giving a game like darksouls an 'easy mode'. That being: it wouldn't really be Darksouls.

What I think that statement somewhat fails to fully explain is that the nature of Dark souls design is fundamentally challenging.

Alot of the time when people think of a hard game they think of enemies who hit really hard and have alot of health. And while dark souls has plenty of hard-hitting and strong enemies, what makes the common encounters so dangerous is that; more often than not, it is the nature of the mechanics, environment and enemy composition that come together to create the true difficulty.

There's actually not that many enemies that can stand up to the player character in a one on one fight on flat, open ground when you know the enemy moveset and your own. The real challenge is facing multiple enemies with different movesets (see Orenstein and Smaugh)

In fact, encountering new enemies, sometimes several different ones at once, while also trying to mind surroundings where you might fall or take damage, THAT is a true darksouls encounter that can really shake your confidence whilst also giving you a sense of almost horrific discovery.

"Who is THIS guy?"

"What is he doing!?"

"How do I AVOID that?"

Etc etc.

When you strip these "difficult" elements away, the deadly environment, the simple to understand, yet difficult to master, slow and steady combat, and the enemy composition that makes a true, earnest attempt at KILLING the player every chance it can rather than simply inconveniencing them, what do you have left?

Do you have the masterful level design and composition that loops back around in ways you didn't expect and uses vertical elements to assist you in memorizing its complex design? No, you get something straightforward, easy to follow. But nothing that sticks out. Nothing memorable.

Or do you have enemy encounters that use that environment to their advantage to teach you how to handle even more convoluted situations later in the game and create multiple, layered experiences with only a handful of enemies? No, you get repetition that teaches you how to handle a single enemy on a common basis instead of how YOU might use that environment to YOUR advantage.

Which only makes the world around you even MORE memorable as it becomes a personal part of your victory.

When you take these elements away, you strip the game of it's creativity bestowed to it by its developers and designers. Dark souls's difficulty is what makes it unique, fun and immersive and actually has alot of care put into making that difficulty feel real. It's not a simple matter of removing that difficulty because it's something that ist literally BUILT into that experience.

It's not "Elitism" to want that uniqueness preserved. The difficulty is a core part of the storytelling experience and enjoyment of the game. Just as simplicity and goal management are core parts of games like minecraft, animal crossing, and star dew valley.

Video-games SHOULD exist on a spectrum like that, the same way people do.

#dark souls #darksouls #Ds #essay #ramblings

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markoftheasphodel · 6 years ago

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The Blue Lions and the Burden of Tradition

Note: spoilers related to multiple Fire Emblem games including FE1/11, FE2/15, FE3/12, FE5, and FE8 follow.

The classic Fire Emblem plot line is the one sketched out by its first installment, Dark Dragons and the Sword of Light, all the way back in ’90. Young Prince Marth loses homeland in surprise betrayal, mopes in exile, gathers allies, retakes homeland, unites continent, defeats dragon, settles down to become virtuous ruler with love interest at his side. Then Fire Emblem Gaiden offered a counterpoint narrative in which a scrappier hero, village boy Alm, unites half a continent through military prowess before he even finds out he’s the prince, whereupon he too can defeat a big bad monster and settle down with his childhood companion/love interest as his consort. Marth restores order to The Way Things Were, But Better. Alm sweeps away a corrupt order entirely and puts something else in its place. One can be viewed as fundamentally conservative, looking back to an idealized past and trying to recreate it without the old mistakes. The other is revolutionary, but the way the revolution plays out the New Boss has an awful lot in common with the Old Boss (kings, nobles, churches). Any way you slice it the best outcome is a Just Ruler with the blessings of heaven and democracy ain’t in the cards. These two basic narratives have shaped every single installment of Fire Emblem to date. Some lean more heavily on the Marth narrative (Binding Blade), some on the Alm narrative (Path of Radiance), and others combine elements of both— Thracia 776, Sacred Stones, and Awakening all take some of Column A and some of Column B and and achieve strikingly difference outcomes.

The Blue Lions route of Three Houses offers the latest iteration of that classic Marth narrative, and it proves the deepest, richest, most nuanced look at that storyline to date even if it’s ultimately constrained by its own tropes.

Its protagonist, Prince Dimitri, is introduced as a polite and courtly young man, the image of a Fire Emblem princeling, and as Part I of Three Houses unfolds the viewer is let into just how much of a Fire Emblem Prince Dimitri is. He’s the last hope of his house and kingdom, an orphan who lost his family under traumatic circumstances, and he’s struggling to maintain his peaceful ideals in the face of his lingering trauma and suppressed rage. As Dimitri receives both character revelation and character development through Part I, he echoes not just Marth but Thracia 776’s Leif and Ephraim from Sacred Stones, and those echoes carry over strongly to Part II of this route.

Likewise, Dimitri’s fellow Blue Lions, initially just another lot of fresh-faced schoolchildren, reveal themselves to be the Three Houses iterations of some classic “archetypes” of Fire Emblem. We have the “steady” traditionalist knight in Ingrid, the more unruly “rowdy” knight in Sylvain, the sullen swordmaster in Felix, the bright-eyed archer in Ashe, the bright-eyed mage in Annette, the demure healer with the convoluted backstory in Mercedes, and the battered old retainer in Gilbert. If you expect your “Christmas Knights” and “Navarre” and “Lena” and whatnot out of a Fire Emblem game, Blue Lions offers the entire set; they’re just a little harder to detect thanks to the open class system and lack of convenient color-coding.

Where the Blue Lions breaks with three-decades-old expectations is in its handling of the resident heavy; Dedue fills a slot on the starting team usually given short shrift (see: Draug, Bors), but in terms of plot and character and— critically— personal value to Dimitri he transcends both the stale Armor Knight niche that his character design nudges him to be and the Devoted Retainer trope that’s gotten a bit weird in recent years. Some recent games presented “devotion” in ways that were kind of twisted yet the games didn’t seem to really acknowledge how off-key it all was; Three Houses takes a full dive into what Dedue’s devotion to Dimitri (and vice-versa!) can encompass, how it’s a double-edged blade that can uplift or utterly destroy. That Dedue manages this while also being saddled with the role of being The Stigmatized Other to the Blue Lions cast is nothing short of remarkable.

Your core Blue Lions party is essentially the conservative wing of the Officers’ Academy. Ingrid may be the most orthodox knight of your house, but ultimately the entire core party is royalist and traditionalist, even when the system they’re holding up has hurt them personally. Annette, Sylvain, and most especially Felix offer some degree of dissent, but ultimately all of them fall in line behind King Dimitri and his unified continent— and in supporting Dimitri, by default they support the Church of Seiros under its new archbishop. This unswerving support of the Church structure on the Blue Lions route is hardly happenstance, as the game is basically waving a flag at the audience to let them know yes, this is indeed the conservative Restorationist faction— un roi une loi une foi. Still, the inner tensions of these loyalists as they play out through supports and in-game chatter— Felix against Ingrid and Dedue and Dimitri, Annette against Gilbert, Sylvain in his asides to Byleth— provide a multifaceted critique of the very concepts of Knighthood and Faith that the franchise has been trying to pull off since at least Thracia 776, whose beats the Lions’ plot structure samples more than once.

The game takes some risks; New Mystery of the Emblem supplied Avatar Kris as a mechanism to keep Marth’s fingerless gloves from getting dirtied by the grunt work of conquering an continent; Three Houses lets Dimitri’s hands get so filthy that his knights and vassals are appalled by it. He regains his moral compass and everyone’s respect after a tragedy that is one of the clearest call-backs to Thracia 776, but in Leif’s case the shock he received was a spur for a naive youth to grow up and look at the larger picture instead of his narrow goals. In Dimitri’s case, he’s got about five years of atrocities to atone for. That said, Thracia 776 arguably had a more realistic resolution to the Lord’s character development, as endgame Leif STILL has some growing-up to do, whereas Dimitri gets markedly better after a couple of conversations despite spending five years in the abyss.

And then we get to the Childhood Friend, one of the moments of the Blue Lions route that strongly evokes Sacred Stones. On this route we learn that Dimitri and antagonist Edelgard shared a fleeting but precious bond in childhood— but whereas antagonist Lyon uses a similar bond to his repeated advantage against the Sacred Stones Lords Eirika and Ephraim, Edelgard doesn’t even make the connection between Dimitri and her own lost childhood friend until he confronts her with the memory. It’s a one-sided bond that fuels Dimitri’s rage and regrets but is essentially irrelevant to Edelgard’s ambitions. The final wordless confrontation between them finally has Edelgard use Dimitri’s nostalgia as a literal weapon against him… and he silently runs her through with his lance for it— far cry from Lyon whispering “C’mon Ephraim, smile like you used to” as he dies in Ephraim’s arms. For a series that has leaned heavily on the trope of “Friendship is Magic” in recent years, it’s interesting to have the idea of the sepia-tinted childhood memory rendered impotent— but then again, the developers were supposedly inspired by Genealogy of the Holy War and the way that events pitted sworn friends and allies against one another.

The grand scope of Genealogy may be more apparent on other routes of Three Houses, but the Blue Lions route is fundamentally more narrow in scope, with this Thracia-like focus on Dimitri’s traumas, Dimitri’s loves and losses, Dimitri’s redemption, Dimitri’s ability to spare enemies and kill former friends. This in turn hobbles the ending of the route, much as Thracia 776 was hobbled by its status as a midquel, a singular if vivid chapter in the overall saga of Jugdral. Alliance and Empire totter, everything falls into Dimitri’s lap, the church is bolstered without any significant onscreen reforms or even onscreen questions on what the hell was going on under Rhea, and everything becomes as it was, but better— one king, one law, one faith (or one major faith with ecumenical tolerance for the rest, per Seteth’s ending), and apparently some reforms for the sake of The People. Dimitri’s going to be fine, and we all just have to have faith in the rest of it.

All in all, it brings to mind that Marth’s most successful game (Mystery of the Emblem), and the GBA game that hewed most strongly to the Marth Narrative (Binding Blade) both had Bad Endings in which the real answers, the true resolution, was never achieved. The Blue Lions route feels at once like a beautiful love letter to the Marth plot-line in all its iterations, in which the elements of its predecessors are revisited to grand effect— and a Bad Ending, a dead-end, an eternity of the curtain abruptly coming down once Marth defeats Hardin or even the hollow “is that all there is” moment of Leif besting Veld. It almost feels like a rebuke to the player for choosing to spend eighty, ninety, one-hundred hours in the company of Dimitri and his traditionalists, for choosing to glory in the multi-layered nostalgia offered by the Blue Lions. Perhaps it’s simply a cue that this is the route to play first, that it’s best to be guided into Fodlan by a familiar set of faces before choosing to open the doors of perception that the Golden Deer or Black Eagles offer. Given how heavily the pre-game marketing hyped the Black Eagles, that seems a bit weird.

I suppose the only way to get answers is to play another 200+ hours of Three Houses….

#fe16 spoilers #fe16 #fodlan meta #blue lions meta #fire emblem meta #jugdral meta #archanea meta #magvel meta

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sunevial · 6 years ago

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Writing requests, eh? How about Wholesome Followers, because I like few things more than seeing the horrible people that are our edgy murder OCs being... not horrible.

A door in the depths of the Apothecary opened up, hinges creaking from lack of oil and disturbing a thin layer of dust. Witch slowly poked her head into the hall, scanning for any signs of disturbance or unwelcome visitors. Hearing nothing and not sensing any disturbance in her wards, she slipped out, shutting the door tight and clutching a bundle close to her chest. She ran down the hall as fast as her feet would carry her, taking as convoluted a path as she could through storerooms and stone steps.

She just had get out of the store, and more importantly out of the Void, without anyone noticing. Do that, and she’d be home free. No one would know, and she could explain her disappearance easily enoug-

Lieutenant’s voice echoed all too close to her ears. “Witch, why do you have a baby?”

Witch froze, instinctively pulling the infant closer as she glanced around the room. Standing there were all of her ‘colleagues’, each looking at her with their own brand of confusion, curiosity, and suspicion. She couldn’t see their eldritch leader, but she could feel him standing directly behind her, looming over and looking at her and the child from every possible angle.

Well. Fuck.

“Oh, hi everyone, what are you all doing here?” Witch said with a breathy laugh, carefully pulling a bit of the blanket over the child’s face.

“It might be a better question of where have you been, my dear,” Priestess said, adjusting her glasses and putting on her fake worried face. “You haven’t responded to summons or letters, the doors to your shop have been closed for weeks, you missed the last meeting, not that anything really important happened at it…and our tea time.”

Witch glanced around, feeling her body shiver and shrink up under so many gazes. “I’m sorry for disappearing so quickly, I’ve just been a little busy with a deal, that’s all. Must’ve gotten a little lost in my work. How long has it been?”

“Cut the crap,” Huntress said, folding her arms and scowling. “You still haven’t said where you got the kid.”

“Like I said, I was working on a deal and this little one was part of it,” she said, putting on her sweetest smile. “Witches ask for newborns all the time.”

Paper crinkled as Bookkeeper thumbed her way through a small collection of scrolls, looking them over with more curiosity than Witch had seen in centuries. “According to all of your recent goings on with mortal contracts, I don’t see any record of newborns being traded or used as collateral for quite some time,” she said, clapping her hands and spiriting the rolls back to the Library.

“It’s also so out of vogue to be dealing in newborns,” Priestess said with a wave of her hand. “So loud and so messy.”

Advisor cocked his head, a light smile crossing his face. “You’re a terrible liar when caught off guard, Miss Witch,” he said, stepping closer and looking down at the child with a mixture of pride and sympathy. His eyes were swimming with magic, a type that in games was used to pry into the true nature of everyone’s roles and places. A moment passed as his smile slowly widened into utter delight. “Oh how interesting this is indeed.”

“What did you see?” Lieutenant asked, moving to get a better look at the infant in her arms.

The chaos entity stepped back just far enough for a dramatic bow. “I must say, my congratulations on the birth of your daughter.”

Everything went silent.

Priestess’s hysterical laughter broke the spell over the room as she doubled over and wiped away tears.

“You have a daughter? Since when?” Snapped from her shock, Huntress crossed the room in one step, peering over the child with clear disbelief scrawled across her face.

“S-Since…always?” Witch hesitantly replied, feeling rather cramped with so many people surrounding her. The secret was already out, best to explain what was going on anyways. “I was…pregnant during the game, and, I…lost her, and I didn’t want someone so…young in Her hands, so…”

Priestess’s laugh died down to little more than a snorting chuckle as she moved to inspect the child with her own two eyes. “Well, that certainly answers the question of why you made a deal with our Lady in the first place, I was wondering how you got off so light,” she said, smiling gently at the baby and making a little cooing noise. “How precious. Such a tender little morsel if I’ve ever seen one.”

“She’s not food, give the kid some room, you look like you’re going to eat the damn thing,” Huntress muttered, her own expression softening despite her harsh words. “What’s her name?”

“The Captain calls her The Promise, I…decided on Abigail. Gale for short.” Witch said, a smile returning to her face. “I was, well, building her a new body. It’s not easy trying to make something that will grow.”

A light gust of wind fluttered through the room as Bookkeeper floated over, glancing over the girl from above. While she still sported her normal neutral expression, her eyes were kinder than normal, her writing a little more leisurely. “If it took you even half of the time it took to build me or Huntress, that certainly would explain your absence,” she said, writing a couple of lines across her page. “Such a delicate piece of work it must be to make a child’s body.”

“Are all infant mortals so small and helpless?” Lieutenant asked, passing an eye or two over Gale. “That seems…incredibly inefficient and prone to predation by anything that happens to be larger.”

“Well, that’s why human mothers spend so much time with their children,” Priestess said, gently backing away to leaning on his arm. “Now, let’s step away from the new mother, no need to crowd her on such an important day.”

The seas parted and Witch let out a long sigh, shifting the infant in her arms as some of the muscle tension left her body. Well, this was…not how she was expecting this to go. Ideally, they never would have found about about Gale at all, leaving her safe and perfectly normal and not…mixed up in all of this. But they liked the kid. That was a start.

“You doing alright? You look like you’ve been through a war zone,” Huntress said, the only Follower to not have fully retreated. She held out her arms, an unusually gentle smile on her face and reflected in her eyes. “Here, I’ll hold her for a bit.”

“Are…you sure?” Witch asked, realizing both how tired she was and how little she wanted to give her daughter to any of these people.

Huntress raised an eyebrow. “You really think I’ve never held a baby before? She’ll be fine, Witch. Nothing’s gonna get to her here.”

Slower than Witch handled some of her most deadly potions and poisons, she lifted Gale up and out of her arms, placing her gently into Huntress’s care. She fussed for just a moment before settling down, taking to the amazon without protest.

“Aww, she likes me,” Huntress said with a chuckle, bouncing the infant lightly in her arms and walking around the room. “You’re gonna grow up big and strong, just like your mom, you hear me?”

Another fluttering of wind as Bookkeeper floated closer, voice little more than a puff of air. “Are you certain you’re okay with her holding the child? With them knowing?” she breathed, gaze flickering to the other non humans in the room.

Witch sighed a little even as a smile crept onto her weary face. “She’ll be okay. She’s a strong one.”

Perhaps this would be for the better. If there was one good thing about working for a god of murder and death, it was this.

They looked after their own.

#arahul abyssia #my writing #the followers

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