#very long fe meta talk

[kynimdraws]

Hey Kynim, what reason could the Church of Seiros, the Central Church, to interfere with more positive relations with the outside world? Do they fear that different religions could make their role less important and eventually make them bo longer in control of Fódlan or even the most wierd idea; that new branches of the Seiros religion would develop in other countries like Almyra. The last one is a funny idea, but what is your idea on why they this is the case?

Gonna put this under the cut bc it got a bit long ;w;

FYI: I do not really enjoy FE3H/FEW3H discourse but I know topics like this will probably attract that sort of crowd. My bias is for Claude/Leicester/Golden Deer, and this includes the "dreaded" GW!Claude that people dislike. 3Hopes despite all the flaws in narrative I love over 3Houses in general. The other factions/lords, while interesting, I am not as invested. So please don't label me as some apologist for anyone that isn't my stated bias. 

BTW my answer to this ask will focus more on Seiros/Rhea so don't expect much Claude in this lol

In theory, I think the Church of Seiros would be ok with being friendly with the outside world. But the issue lies in Seiros/Rhea's priority of self-preserving 1) the remaining Nabateans and 2) the following that Sothis had with humans. And given how the Nabateans were nearly driven to extinction by Nemesis, I feel like Seiros/Rhea has a deep-seated suspicion of humans despite her image as the best holy woman since the goddess herself.

For her, the only way to prevent humans from causing another massacre is to make the current humans in Fodlan to believe in the goddess Sothis and never question her tenets. This meant hindering/banning things that could potentionally "reduce faith" in the goddess as mentioned by the Abyss text "The Encyclopedia of Fodlan's Insects" which you can read here. The title may be misleading but you can see some of the odd examples of Church banning things to maintain "peace" via preventing humans from questioning their religion with devices like telescopes, autopsy, and the like. We also see in GW that technology at least Almyra is far advanced compared to Fodlan, as seen here:

So it seems that Fodlan is an isolated area for Seiros/Rhea to feel safe over trying to spread its influence. It is important to note that the Seiros Church is a shelter for the archbishop. Keeping the area that houses her shelter safe is what she wants the most, which stated rather clearly in both games. Given that her first time she had to deal with the non-believers of Sothis ended in an extremely traumatic event, you can see why Seiros/Rhea is hesitant to reach out.

"But wait," you might say. "All these foreign nations seem to be intent on attacking Fodlan so they are a victim! Who wouldn't want to isolate themselves and distrust outsiders knowing that?"

The game unfortunately only shows the Fodlan point-of-view when it comes of past events...so it might seem that way at first. But it is also interesting how Fodlan despite being a "victim" of all these attacks, usually come out on top and end up subjugating/annexing nations, even claiming their superiority over them by calling their "foreign" neighbors as monster and savages. Given how Fodlan is sort of a loose parallel of Europe and how Eurocentric certain historical events are in academic books...I just don't personally buy Fodlan being completely innocent.

While Seiros/Rhea may not have actively supported these wars/conflicts in Fodlan, she still is their symbol whether she wants to be or not.Given how long her reign has been (either as Rhea or some other alias being archibishop), this weighted reputation precedes her. Yes, the game shows she isn't a cartoon villain and can do good. Her devout followers see it and fight for her.

While the game sucks at showing this, it is clear her long leadership is not perfect and has become stagnant, letting the nations abuse the system she had initially laid out (probably with good intentions?).  Insert joke of Rhea being the late Queen Elizabeth here. 

3Hopes glosses over this but in 3Houses we see her multiple times using the Church’s influence to do take action on things, like suppressing rebellions and ousting bandits (see: White Cloud events). Still, most of these are used to protect her establishment and the order she set for the continent. Other social matters, Rhea does not really do anything unless she herself is threatened. So people like Edelgard felt justified in waging her war to just...uproot all of that obsolete system to reset everything.

Is that a great idea? I am not really sure, but it did make for two fun FE games lol.

[yanderefairyangel]

Some Sombron rambles? Could really use some talking about an actually good FE villain 🔥🔥

OOOH

Despicable evil Yander daddy Papabron

So

Sombron was really a breath of fresh air, I missed a good villain. I already pin a lot of meta I did about him but I think Sombron isn't that much of an interesting character as a character compared to how much he brings thematically speaking.

I do think his backstory gives him more complexity then might appears and makes him a great foil for Alear and Veyle. While not knowing who exactly is 0 Emblem is frustrating, I think it at the end doesn't really matter. It's in the name, 0 Emblem. The anonymity of the Emblem is on purpose : it's to put the emphasis on the fundamental vanity and futitliy of Sombron's quest for something that was lost long ago. He canno retrieve what he lost. Like a lot of things in Engage I mainly read the Emblem as metaphorical for Sombron being unable to overcome the loss of his family and home world and bearing survivor guilt. After all, let's not forget he used to be a victim too and losing you entire kin as a child is an inhumane experience that is deeply breaking. And this happen when he was still very young, an age where you are still developping so that sort of trauma is deeply engraved in your mind and then your brain developped around it. So losing 0 Emblem, his "light/hope" resulting in him falling so deep in despair and hatred he became what inspires despair and hatred is so damn freaking well though. I know people poke fun of Sombron's name as being generic because "it's just dark in another languag" but this makes so much sense just for the thematic alone since Sombron himself unded up sinking into despair. That's what makes him so interesting especially as he is an irredeemable monster, seriously he is absolutely monstrous and I am no just speaking about his design who imo reflects largely how Alear perceives him, I mean... have you seen what happened to Alear and how broken they were ? Just imagining what Sombron did to all his children for the surviving one to end up in such a state makes me shiver. But also the fact that he and Alear and Veyle and Zephia and Lumera are all foil to each other makes the narrative endlessly fascinating. Both Sombron and Lumera experienced the loss of their entire tribe yet Lumera choose to still fight and even forgive someone who whas kin to the one who killed her own family while Sombron clearly never forgive the people who killed his family and sent him there which once again show that Lumera encompasses hope whereas Sombron is despair.

The notion of forgiveness is intrasically linked to hope : hope that the one who wronged you wan improve and become a better person, hope that you yourself can become a better person and that there is still a chance even slight tiny bit snoflake chance to fix something. So giving up on forgiviness and on forgiving other is another demonstration of despair and anger, which Sombron encompasses. Zephia on that regard joins Sombron as a female counterpart where she emulated what she saw Sombron do because she is soooo twisted she came to envy his relationship with his children... why ?

Now interestingly enough, is that Sombron, despite not caring about anything still decided to spare Alear and Veyle and use them. Since Alear has a physicial body I guess they can travel to another world and be useful to Sombron but that he still brought Veyle with him in the bad ending ? I find that interesting as it's showing that in reality Sombron's pretention of not needing anyone is proven false. He knows in truth he does need other but rather then building a significant bond with them, he chooses to reduce them to mere tools. I think 0 Emblem was the only creature he didn't felt that way. Sure the power of a Fell dragon deprive the Emblems from speaking, but in chapter 22 Marth was able to show sign of emotions. So who knows.

Another example of symbolism is when he kills Alear in chapter 22, the cutscene in the past shows them being pierced by Obscurité. Alear's name refering to Lueur, a light much less intense then Lumière, this is heavy and full of symbolism, it's Sombron killing the gleam of hope that had so much hard time surving up to this point, like the symbolism of the one child being named after the symbol of hope surviving (aaaaahhhhh). Even the death of chapter 21 is despair winning over hope which is why this moment felt so tense I remember when that happened I was so involved and worrying about what would happened now that Alear is dead

And finally, while we know 0 sheet about him, thinking about his counterpart does put some highlights on Sombron's own traits. I did sooo many meta about the Fell Xenologue but now I think it's kinda obvious I don't consider it to be an extension of the main story but a real mirror. Cause like, while I was kinda sleeping when Nel dropped the nuke that the version of Sombron she descend from could potentially be a long lost cousin of Corrin and Anankos, I remember that I was immediately struct out by the fact in this world Xenobron call his children "failure" rather then "defect" (which MG does) and I kep trying to find the meaning of this one change. And thus I noticed some little bits such as the fact that Sombron's lack of attention regarding his children becomes emphasized when contrasted with how Xenobron watches over his children in the dark. For example, Veyle is often shown wondering about and we know through her speech with Griss it's an habit of hers and the reason why she doesn't know about the ... you know. Well Sombron's lack of reaction is typicall of him, he is letting the Hounds take care of that because partly of his state and partly because he doesn't care. While in the Xenologue, Xenobron is shown constantly watching over both Nel and Rafal which reinforced this thematic of the gaze that is surrouding Rafal's own narrative. Xenobron is even able to recognize that Rafal was impersonnating Nil. While out Sombron can't even remember the name or the face of his many children. Just to give an example of how different that this.

But also, something I noticed after a friend and I chatted about Veyle's helmet. In the Xenologue, Xenobron is shown aknowledging both Nel and Rafal's power. Sombron never does that. When he was trying to replace Veyle with her other self he was confident that Zephia's brainwash/spell mixed with his power would be enough but it's only by chapter 18 that he will give her an actual helmet he did himself and only then recognizing that Veyle is harder to "kill" then he hoped too, heck I would even say it's only in chapter 26 when Veyle fight him that Sombron "seems" to acknowledge her. Likewise with Alear, he never recognized their value, not even a word of praise, he really view them as a tool, the one who does praise Alear is Zephia (calling them the best of Sombron's child) and when Alear defeated him in the past he even then refused to admit his loss. Because that's how Sombron is, he refused to accept he is wrong and try to grow and move on, he is frozen in the past and stuck in his childhood trauma and wanting to find the same confort that guided him long ago : 0Emblem/light/hope. While people love to theorize that Alear is 0 Emblem I don't really subscribe, however I do think that at the end of the journey Alear ends up becoming what Sombron was seeking withing 0 Emblem : hope/light. Again, Alear's journey is all about going from being a glow/gleam to the bright light of hope, what Lumera was to Alear and what 0 Emblem was to Sombron.

Interestingly enough in the jpn version the incantation to call 0 Emblem is "kogase" which is usually associated to the word "tomoshibii" meaning glow/gleam so it does link and I think that 0 Emblem being invisible also ties with this notion of nothingness in this emblem to show that Sombron is literaly searching after nothing, an empty shadow

I think this backstory of his ties so well in his motivations and makes him into such a complete character. That's also what I think might explain the reason of the existence of the some subtle differences he has with his FX counterpart. I remember a japanese fan saying that unlike in the MG where he became this obsessive psychopath, Xenobron seemed to be more focused on the survival of his clan. And while I struggled to understand his motivation since without his trauma he really is a different character, that made me think. About Sombron's home world. We know next to nothing except that in the Main universe Fell dragon as a whole are not native to Elyos but to another world which doesn't apply to the FXElyos where both Divine and Fell tribe are natives (and possibly Corrin's cousins). However, according to Sombron his tribe and another one were fighting for the control of the rings of his world and universal constant only dragons from Royal family has the power to summon the Emblem rings. Then I wondered, why did they do it in the first place ? Considering Sombron's own family (and tribe as a whole ) was slaugthered and that Sombron could sneak a ring and that he is so attached to 0 Emblem, I think this means it was Sombron's family that used to keep the ring of his world, or possibly the 2 family shared them and then one decided to keep them all for themselves. So why wouldn't Xenobron try to reproduce that scenario ? Like in the MG, Sombron's comment seems to infer that Divine dragon didn't existed in his world the same way that there were no fell dragons in Elyos (which is confirmed by how Veyle immediately assumed that Nel and Rafal were part of Sombron's children when she learned they were fell dragon) but considering some event of the main universe happened albeit in different way in the FX that could be it : Xenobron attacked the Divine dragon tribe for the same reason that Sombron's own tribe got involved into a conflict and that's it.

Now I'd love to know more about Sombron's original dimension but I think that might solve it. Though Xenobron's is kinda disappointed when MG Sombron is that good mainly because he works less well as a vehicle for Nel and Rafal's backstory then MG Sombron does and I think Nel and Rafal's narrative would be more powerful if they were the children of MG Sombron and Rafal and Nel are already excellent character so that's saying a lot (or if Xenobron had a more solid reason to have this philosphoy of strengh then conquering)

People have speculated that he might need the bracelets to open a portal to other world like MG Sombron, which again, thinking about his home world, considering we have 2 cases of Emblem having this power, I do think that the rings of Sombron's world would also be able to grant someone's wish and open a portal to another world and that this would be the reason why everyting began, possibly that the portal used to send Sombron in Elyos was open using those rings

Now I'd also like to say that while I agree Sombron's isn't a fascinating character in himself, he sure is when it comes to be an arrogant heartless monster. But I do disagree with him being underutilisez, like yeah he doesn't appear a lot but you can't say he isn't present in the story cause he is the main objective and not for any reason, Engage as a whole is in reality about Alear finally overcoming their childhood trauma by taking the soruce of it down and each time he appears on screen, things managed to take a turn for the worst, like prologue ? You learn what happened in reality (Alear died) then Chapter 10 ? You lose the ring. Chapter 21 ? Alear dies and you lose the rings. Chapter 26 ? YOU CAN CANONICALLY FAIL TO SAVE THE WORLD!!! And add to that the Hounds and Other Veyle, cause Sombron is even more threatining when you have those 5 because they work very well as an antagonistic group. And I also remember people that said they were surprised Sombron was still the antagonist (sorta not really) in the FX world but again, it make sense thematically speaking. Like yeah, I did wanted to see Evil Lumera because... well... I live for angst family (just the idea of Alear learning that there is a world where Lumera isn't their mother and then you get to chapter 20 AAAAAh). But yeah thematically speaking it makes sense, Sombron is the epitome of darkness and despair and while Xenobron is mainly a vehicle for Nel and Rafal's storyline, it does align with their own story of overcoming, Nel accepting the loss of her twin and her lover while Rafal is trapped in a circle of never ending inner suffering with the whole DLC being about him finally succombing to the despair he was trying to resist for 1 000 years (people don't get Rafal's character guy was having a mental breakdown in the Xenologue, this isn't how he behaves) and ending up becoming "Sombron", the one being he wanted the approval of and wanted to surpass. Because again, Sombron is the one who enshade thing, that deforms them, that Corrupt them, in both literal and metaphorical sense though the way the story present being revived as a Corrupted as unnatural and horrible fate vs how we learn people who die in Elyos are believed to turn into star (hoshi sora no hate made kof kof) also ties in this "light vs darkness" thematic the game is full off and this does show how despair is something so dangerous that corrupt people into becoming shells of themselves = the Corrupted/the Fell Emblems's behaviour and even Past Alear's state

Wow... It ended up being a very long reply sorry, once I am talking about something I can't help myself but yeah Sombron is an excellent antagonist and I think he deserves more love for how wonderfull he is written and more hatred for how much of a loathsome piece of **** he is

[imustbenuts]

thoughts about the conception of Tokyo Mirage Sessions from a meta perspective, and why it's not as zany as it seems.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE, a rpg game spawned from crossing Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei really sounds out of place. at a first glance, the visuals are glitzy and the persona anime combat and presentation looks absurd, and TMS sounds like it just... doesn't fit as a FE game, right? heck, it probably barely fits as a SMT game.

mixing the two series sounds like trying to mix oil and water, which doesn't really work as evident by the pitiful sales figure.

except... they actually do have way too much in common. and TMS is fire emblem storytelling in some part.

FE presents itself like a tactical (western) medieval trpg, but it has a thick layer of eastern religion/culture embedded into its story telling. Naga, a recurring Divine Dragon, is a character based off a class deities in buddhist cosmology sharing the same name. there's a lot of soft Mandate of Heaven concept that goes on in nearly every series, and once in a while there's some buddhist named weapons too.

theres also this piece written by beej which highlights what the concept of Three Houses/Hopes is centered around. but long and short of it, Byleth is functionally a Bodhisattva in FE3H.

anyway, it's pretty buddhist, if not at least very eastern.

meanwhile, Shin Megami Tensei, a series about summoning gods and all that, also center around extreme cosmology story telling, leaning more towards the eastern side. theres always a lot of themes about death and rebirth and things happening in a cyclical nature in those series.

also, extremely buddhist.

now, about Tokyo Mirage Sessions and the core concept it centers around.

神楽 Kagura.

in TMS, we play as a bunch of idols singing and dancing with their performas to fight against mirages. sounds silly especially when watching them prance around before getting Chrom to cast a zio, but what they're effectively doing is something called Kagura 神楽, which can be translated as God-Entertainment.

kagura is a shinto ceremonial dance.

the aim of this ceremony is to 1) purify the gods, and also 2) to call down the gods to posses the shaman, often a female, in order for them to receive oracles. it was originally part of a divination ritual, but over time Kagura became a form of entertainment as well.

still, it must be silly to think of the FE characters as Gods in the context of TMS, bc these characters are at best *ahem* idols and not at all rulers of a proper domain of so and so.

honestly, calling any of these mirages a deity feels like a joke. they are lovable characters that we talk about, write fanfics and draw fanarts over.

but what if, these characters arent the true target of TMS' Kagura performance?

what if, the whole entirety of TMS' soundtrack, dancing, music, glamor and storytelling, topped off with a orchestration render of Fire Emblem's theme at its finale, wasn't meant for Fire Emblem or Shin Megami Tensei?

what if, these Gods TMS was trying to entertain through its Kagura were actually us, the players?

they might be taking the idea of the customer is god and pushing that several parallel dimensions ahead in 5d chess where nobody seems to realize it

[flightofaqrow]

KNOWING YOUR PARTNER WELL CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE WRITING TOGETHER A LOT EASIER. ( REPOST DO NOT REBLOG ! )

✿ NAME:    Ray!

✿ PRONOUNS:    she/her/hers

✿ PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION:   tags on posts, tumblr IM moving to discord

✿ NAME OF MUSE(S):

[inactive]: Minako Arisato ( @orokana-riko ), Robin ( @invisibleimpossibilities ), Basilio ( @feroxiox )

[other active]: Robyn Hill ( @trickshottruths ), Briar Rieka ( @hopeandharmonizing​ )

✿ EXPERIENCE/HOW LONG (MONTHS / YEARS?): Since Sailor Moon was showing on Toonami in the USA and that was the only way you could see it. A long time.

✿ PLATFORMS YOU’VE USED: yahoo forums, other forum board, AIM, tumblr, discord

✿ BEST EXPERIENCE: I always talk about the Persona stuff, let’s do something different. I was part of a small group in the FE rpc that helped organize some comm-wide events including volleyball tournaments, masquerade balls, muse auctions, zombie invasions, hedge mazes. It was always a good time.

✿ RP PET PEEVES/DEALBREAKERS:  I’ve been waiting for the pet peeve word to come up, because it’s not a deal breaker or something I super judge, but just a little peeve? yes: too many memes that put the burden of writing/creativity on the sender (make up your own question, send a nightmare, send a reaction to x, etc) like ‘send a kiss’ things are fine because ship fuel usually has extra reserves, poking for headcanons/meta/ships sometimes is fine bc you just want to open it up to hear what people think. but for the most part you’re the one posting the meme, you’re the one with the drive, you’re the one asking for interaction. Make it easy. Like, I want to interact and indulge, but If I have to do more than send a symbol or copy/paste a phrase when I’m already working on other drafts or tired and lurking, that just seems unfair. Especially if there’s a bunch like that in a row or every day.

Dealbreakers are too much vagueblogging, constant negativity that vastly overtakes regular interactions, not respecting my headcanons/boundaries.

✿ FLUFF, ANGST OR SMUT:  Blood, tears, and orgasms fuel my soul. But I’m up for anything that helps the muses develop, explores some depth or expression of character. If you’re willing to do some development first, then fluff in between can be fun too. (Also fluffy/soft/slice of life topics can still have development, in which case I wouldn’t consider them “fluff” threads.)

✿ PLOTS OR MEMES:    both. usually the best comes from a meme that kicks off some plotting. I don’t always have the brainspace for big plots these days, but some context and tentative direction for the thread is always good.

✿ LONG OR SHORT REPLIES:  I’ve done both. One-liners are rare and usually silly bouncing with muses already developed together. I can’t do full rps that way. I can get up to 1000-2000 words in replies, but lately just been loving the ~300-500 word medium length.

✿ BEST TIME TO WRITE: When I have the house to myself, which is usually only a few days a week and about to get less once I start work again lmao. In an ideal world, I would wake up, watch/listen/read some stuff/ catch up on the dash for inspo then churn some stuff out. Maybe take a break then repeat the process. Rare are the days responsibilities don’t break that up somehow. Such is life. I usually have more writing energy when other people are around on the dash or discord. Keeps the juices flowing and feels less like screaming into the void. Gotta agree with Shrimpy that sometimes the opposite extreme of everyone being quiet the whole time can help focus, though (if I have enough mojo to start in the first place). 

✿ ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S): I think we all fit our perceptions, values, pieces of ourselves in our muses somehow. That said, I am not very much like qrow except for some of those shared values (dislike of mainstream and propriety, caring about people, depth of emotion/sentimentality, some empathy) and maybe some trauma responses lmao. I’m not a 40 year old unlucky alcoholic fighter uncle man who travels the world and works with secret clubs. Although, we Qrow muns seem to agree some extra Misfortune slips into our lives since taking on this muse. The Qrow Curse (affectionate).

tagged by:  @lupusmatra <3

tagging: @the-gray-maiden​ @slaughtermachine @clockwork---heart 

[sailorblossoms-snowbaz]

i would love to hear your meta thoughts on how simon was able to easily say “i love you” to agatha (when he clearly didn’t) but it took him years to (verbally) tell baz

This is a funny coincidence because just a couple of days ago, I was looking for something in CO and ended up re-reading some stuff like the breakup scene (I even took notes lol). There are definitely a lot of interesting things in there (that might not be apparent on first read)

The short answer is: Simon was just saying shit with Agatha because up to that point, he survived with structure.

For the long (so long) (but necessarily so) (or maybe not, but i'm inspired,) answer, let's unpack a bit of comphet and how Simon functioned:

Worth mentioning is that they do have genuine love for each other. They grew up together, and Agatha's line sounds like heteronormativity made them reframe the platonic love they felt as "romance". One of the biggest signs of how much comphet fucked with them is that at end of CO, both make it clear they're not talking to each other, and have no immediate plans to change that (it takes at least a year before they break down and have a good cry together, with Simon's little gay wings on display and Niahm–Agatha's true love interest–present. That's when they can be friends again! When they're ready to start embracing their queerness!) Also: Baz is so very present when they break up. Simon isn't wearing his anti-vampire (anti-gay) cross when Agatha is breaking them out of comphet, and Simon snatches Baz's handkerchief (associated with lovers/courtship/romantic intentions and the like) from Agatha and keeps it for himself, telling us that rather than Simon not wanting Baz to "have Agatha" because of some silly rivalry between the boys, he doesn't want Agatha to have Baz. He doesn't want anyone to have him, but him. (And how he can't help but go back to his actual, biggest worry: Baz isn't here). (Simon has Baz's handkerchief in his pocket when Baz comes back)

An absolutely key part to understand Simon in CO isn't just that he avoids thinking (a consequence of trauma and neglect: it hurts to think when you can't have it, or can't do anything about it) but what this entails. Simon doesn't process the things he notices, the things that enter his mind. He hides them away even. As a consequence, Simon doesn't know what he wants, he doesn't understand his feelings. He truly doesn't. Simon's wants, needs, and desires: none of these things are even up for consideration for him. When he gets to Watford, he arrives with a role someone else assigned to him, alongside expectations (of an entire community) that will shape his entire adolescence. He gets a structure, and he latches on to it like his life depends on it.

Simon needs directions, he needs "a map" to follow. To survive, he grabbed the map, and he attempted to repress everything about himself that would make him more than just a "mindless", "heartless" soldier, more than the "traditional" hero. This isn't to say Simon isn't smart (he is) or that he doesn't feel shit (he feels so much, and he could never control himself around Baz). But if you are purposedly eliminating "your heart" and your "mind", what else is left, other than performing a role blindly? He purposely operated in ways that would make it very hard for him to answer "Who is Simon, if you remove roles and expectations? What does he want? What is romantic love? How does sexual attraction feel like?" (last 2 questions are particularly hard for someone who isn't straight, likely doesn't experience attraction like the "norm", and is doing everything to avoid figuring himself out)

This is how Simon could spend years genuinely not knowing he's in love with Baz, that the need to jump on him comes from genuine (sexual) attraction–even though those feelings were already there, even though his actions, the way he thought about him and just keeps thinking about him all the time, even when Simon wants to avoid thinking, reveal his true feelings.

Part of this is also why, once he no longer has a role and the structure he has been relying on for so long falls apart, Simon is left feeling so lost and broken. Too much of himself has been shaped by trauma for too long. Once he's out, he doesn't know how to live–he's only ever been surviving.

So much to unpack here. First of all, this makes it clear that for Simon, what's really distressing isn't not dating Agatha, but part of his structure falling apart. It's the going off script. At no point does he think about "feelings for Agatha", about wanting to be with her, specifically, because "he's sure she's the one" or whatever. Nope, he's thinking about his structure. He's thinking about potentially having a family–while noting how there's no emotional connection to her parents; they are polite, but they aren't close! He's thinking about "killing Baz" (we're getting back here in a minute). Most notably, he's thinking about how right now, he isn't happy.

That's the thing with Simon. As much as he wants to avoid it, he's still a boy with hopes and wants and feelings. He doesn't actually want to die in battle, like he was convinced he would (with the way he was living, it wasn't an unlikely scenario). He wants to live. He wouldn't fight the way he does, he wouldn't have such a developed instinct for danger if surviving wasn't his #1 priority. And why does he want to survive? Because he wants to be happy. The future terrifies him, but it doesn't mean he wants no future at all. He has friendship, but he also wants family, he wants romantic love. Dating Agatha and being "welcomed" into her family never fulfilled those needs.

Here, he's telling us that right now, he's unhappy, but he believes that if he continues blindly (and erroneously) holding on to those things (Agatha, her family) he will be. In the future. Because he's thinking about "happy endings": heteronormativity is trapping him. And here's the thing: Simon might not know about "the old stories" in the WoM, but he absolutely knows Normal media ("everyone knows vampires are sexy" he tells Baz in a futile attempt to tell him he thinks Baz is sexy) (you just know he knows about Twilight).

When he's talking about happy endings, he's talking about traditional fairy tales and romances that have no room for anyone who isn't a cis straight person. The kind that assumes straight as the default, and since Simon doesn't know what he wants, he tries to find happiness by following these conventions: the kind that would never even consider that romance and happiness can be found between two boys (or two girls, Agatha was sharing a braincell with Simon here, but that's for another post). The kind that tells you that heroes must rescue damsels, win them over as prizes, and ride into the sunset.

Happy endings for heroes are having "a girl in his arms"–a girl who must conform to very rigid (European) beauty standards–there is a point to even Baz noticing Agatha's "great beauty", it's not just beauty for the sake of it–and she must be completely helpless without "her strong man"–Agatha was likely a target all the time because she's a low powered magician and isn't one for combat, unlike Penny. And this is why Simon latches on to an idea of Agatha, despite not feeling attracted to her, despite not being in love, and not to Penny (who could never fit inside the traditional image of the "damsel", the "fair maiden", the "princess that rides into the sunset" with her frizzy hair, big glasses, and brown skin, who is indispensable in "solving problems and winning", and was likely often rescuing Simon)

This follows this line of thought, and it's very interesting because Simon presents this as proof of "romantic love and attraction", but it's not that at all. This isn't a little boy with a crush. These are the thoughts of a neglected boy, fresh out of care, looking at beauty as strength, as a way to be special. As a tool to make you feel loved and wanted. He has always felt ugly, and he has never felt loved before. It's a very queer moment to me, actually, because this is a boy who will be confined by very rigid gender norms and heteronormativity, thinking "I want to be just like that beautiful girl" and seeking to be (superficially) closer to her to "bask in her light" so maybe, he could be beautiful too. But he didn't have the tools to truly understand his feelings, and so this was reframed inside of heteronormativity, which could only see a boy noticing a girl's beauty as a sign of attraction. (Worth noting that Agatha also fell into comphet because she felt unwanted! obviously, it didn't work out for either of them)

That's also part of why Simon can tell her he loves her, like it's nothing. Because it is nothing. Holding on to this image of her, and to the conventions that tell him that happiness will follow when "they reach" the destination, the happy ending (and not now) is part of the structure. Going along with everything he thinks Agatha would want is also for the sake of keeping the structure intact. When she breaks up with him, she fractures this part of the structure (it's perhaps the first crack after Baz not showing up, that alone guarantees certain "shock") and this also "activates" Simon's abandonment issues. And still, it's not really "Agatha is leaving me" but rather, the idea of the happy ending that Simon has been using to hold on to that is abandoning him.

Also relevant is that in awtwb he tells Baz he isn't sure he even felt anything: it's so much easier to make yourself say things when there's no emotional attachment. And it's also worth mentioning that Simon isn't one to voice his love, that's how you can tell he doesn't mean it either. Simon's love languages are about protecting and providing, it's more about actions. You know Agatha is a loved one because when the three of them are sitting together, and he notes her disassociating and looking tired, despite his complicated relationship with touch, he squeezes her leg to get her attention, and then he does it again to reassure her (not unlike Penny and Simon squeezing each other's hand when in danger, or slowly putting his arms around Penny when she throws herself at him in tears, or even Agatha holding his hands while they cry together).

And then there's Baz. There "killing Baz, so he's not an option". It's not literal, of course, this is the same boy who went out of his goddamn mind when he went missing, who couldn't sleep, eat, or even function properly because he wasn't there. Who stopped eating (food=love and connection) just because Penny casually said "dead vampire".

For Simon to go on like that, blindly and unfeelingly inside of "the structure", then Baz must "be killed". He mustn't be an option for him. Because with Baz, there's no script to follow, there are no roles, there aren't traditional conventions. Choosing to love Baz, for Simon, it's about choosing what Simon wants. It's about himself, and not what others want of him. It's about making himself process his shit, it's about asking questions about his sexuality, about figuring out how romantic love and sexual attraction actually feel like for him. It's about considering his wants, his desires, his needs. He has no guide for that! There's really a before and after for Simon, when he kisses Baz for the first time.

Simon can't help but think about how much he loves Baz. It's so completely different from the kind of thoughts he has during the breakup in CO, where he's thinking about everything (structure, family, mistaken ideas of a person, Baz) but his actual feelings and the actual person who dumped him. But he hasn't managed to say it to Baz because, first of all, Baz and Simon weren't communicating at this point in their relationship. It's also because Simon struggles to voice his actual feelings. It's so different when there's emotional investment: it matters, so much.

This isn't about Simon pulling shit out of his ass with ease because he's not feeling shit. "You can't leave because I love you" he tells Agatha, and it doesn't work because it isn't true. Simon says it easily, because he's not speaking from the heart, he's just parroting conventions (those words are practically magic) in a way that's more akin to "strategy" to defeat an enemy (the enemy being anything that threatened the structure) than actually voicing feelings.

When he tells Baz "I love you", it's so hard because this is coming from the heart, this matters. This is about Simon struggling to voice his true feelings, both because he struggles with verbalizing his thoughts, and because he is so unpracticed in knowing what he actually wants and then saying it. Simon wants. Simon needs. This is Simon answering "why is it so important for him to be with Baz? why should it matter that he wants to try now?". "Because I love you" works now, because it's true. And there's nothing else on his mind other than Baz: how important Baz is to him, and how much he needs Baz to understand what's on his heart.

This is about them starting to communicate too, and realizing how vital it is for them to truly understand each other, instead of just "guessing" and letting their insecurities get the worst of them. It's Simon realizing that Baz can't know for sure he loves him if he doesn't say it (a big part of the problem in the relationship was that they weren't really saying what's in their hearts!) Baz needs to hear it, especially when he has never heard it before. Baz needs Simon to use his words. And it becomes so much easier for Simon to say it (and to say it constantly!) once he's sure that Baz wants him and loves him too, both because it becomes easier for him to voice his wants and needs to Baz, and because it's part of Simon providing, part of Simon taking care of Baz. (He wants to be the one to take care of all of Baz's needs). It's also Baz starting to understand that (killing) to protect and provide is part of how Simon expresses his love (he later compares Simon catching a rat and offering it to him to being gifted a rose, which is an obvious symbol of romance).

[pika-ace]

I FINALLY SAW THE IN THE HEIGHTS MOVIE

HOLY SHIT

HOLY FUCKING SHIT I JUST WITNESSED MANNA FROM THE FUCKING GODS

My skin is clear, my children are fed, and my crops are thriving and I have SO MUCH TO SAY ABOUT IT

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT! Seriously, do not read if you want to see the movie, I want you to experience this emotional ride yourselves

- I don't really need to talk about the music because, as expected, it was top-notch. Everyone was great, great voices, god-tier dancing, just good shit all around

- Songs are cut and things are changed, but honestly, NOTHING was lost so there's no need to worry. For every story element they take away, they add SO MUCH MORE with the changes they made to make up for it. It's like ITH for the first time all over again :D

- First up, Usnavi. MY GOD ANTHONY RAMOS, I AM SO SORRY I'VE BEEN SLEEPING ON YOU FOR SO LONG! I never paid him any mind back in the day because his face was just plastered all over Lams stuff (UGGGGH) so seeing him doing his own thing SEPARATE from that? I WAS ONCE BLIND BUT NOW I SEE

- The whole beach story-telling thing was throwing me off the whole time. I remember how PETRIFIED everyone was when the trailers showed that, but I had faith that there was a point to it and I WAS RIGHT!! The SECOND Sonny pointed out that green crab he painted, it was like a slap in the face, and when Usnavi started his whole 'There goes my flight' part, my cousin and I silently fist pumped in pure joy

- Also, USNAVI👏AND👏VANESSA👏AS👏MARRIED👏BUSINESS👏PARTNERS👏FUCKING👏ALL👏MY👏YES (Why did none of us think of this before????)

- USNAVI AND VANESSA GETTING A CANONICAL DAUGHTER, FUCKING YES PLEASE, PUT THAT HAT ON HER HEAD

- Next, Nina. Just...OH her voice...so soft...so gentle...I could fall asleep to that shit...

- The extra details of her being discriminated against at Stanford, just...DAMN, that shit HURTED. Best Girl doesn't deserve that shit!!!

- And her deciding to go back after learned that Sonny wants to be like her but can't due to discrimination just...BEST GIRL

- Benny just...OOZED charm, man. It almost makes me sad that he and Nina didn't play as big a role in the movie as they did in the play compared to Usnavi and Vanessa. ALMOST.

- Speaking of, Vanessa got an expanded role, HELL TO THE FUCKING YES. (She got a last name change from Otilla Garcia to Morales, but hey, her last name was just a workshop thing anyway so it's JUST not-canon enough to make changing it acceptable)

- Vanessa being the one who decided on the mural thing and getting Pete and Sonny to help just...BEAUTIFUL. That's TRUE LOVE right there

- Lin as Piragua Guy and Chris Jackson as Mr. Softee; that was the funniest meta shit I've EVER seen.

- I?? Did not expect?? To come out of this LOVING Kevin Rosario??? Like, he was SO MUCH BETTER and less antagonistic??? And I LOVED IT??

- Seriously though, getting rid of his prejudice against Benny was THE MOST WELCOME CHANGE in this whole movie (to me at least). When those two were together in the dispatch during the Blackout and helping people, that was just *chef's kiss* That was the pseudo-father-son shit I have been CRAVING for those two!

- Blackout was much less scary and chaotic than we were led to believe in the stage play; a part of me was disappointed, but the way they made it with everyone taking it in stride made up for it. It was like 'Aw dammit, blackout! Welp, bust out the fireworks and the Bingo boards, we're gonna be in the dark for a while, you all know the drill.'

- Also, lights turning back on RIGHT after Carnival del Barrio? Nice touch 👌

- Pete was SO GOOD. Favorite scene:

Usnavi, with Sonny: You're out here; who's watching the store? *points to Pete who's booking it out of the store having stolen something*

Sonny: *runs after him* PETE NO, YOU CAN'T JUST DO THAT!!!

- Age gap still seems a bit ambiguous between Sonny and Pete, so until confirmation is given, this pairing is staying EXPLICITLY in the stage version tag on Ao3 XD

- PETE PROVIDING VANESSA WITH INSPIRATIONAL MATERIALS, THAT IS A FACET OF FRIENDSHIP I NEVER KNEW I WANTED

- Also, appreciate Usnavi being MUCH less antagonistic towards Pete, just treating him as an annoying kid that enjoys getting a rise out of him rather than a vandal that's a bad influence who Usnavi WILL call the cops on if pushed.

- Daniela and Carla were REALLY awesome together and I'm DOWN for them being a couple, even though Hollywood STILL decided to be cowards about it with no on-screen kiss or mention that they were girlfriends (come on guys, it's 2021, stop hiding the gays!!)

- Abuela. ABUELAAAAAAAA. NEED I SAY MORE????

Usnavi: I wanna take you and Sonny to DR

Abuela: I'm not leaving without Sonny

Me: MY QUEEN, YEEEEES

- When I saw her lying down during Blackout and staring at Usnavi and Sonny and then started transitioning into Paciencia y Fe, my writer brain IMMEDIATELY began putting those metaphor pieces together and was like 'No...no no no no NO, don't you do this to me, DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE DO THIS TO ME-'

- Alabanza had me sobbing; no comment.

- The lotto money twist was SO GOOD??? Like, my cousin and I were VERY concerned when it wasn't brought up AT ALL, but then when it turns out she saved the ticket to give to Usnavi as a final gift after her death just...TEARS EVERYWHERE

- And last but not least...Sonny. Sonny Sonny Sonny Sonny SONNYYYYYYYYYYY! My son, my child, the light of my life, the stars in my sky, was given justice on this day!!!

- HE HAS A DAD!! IT'S A SHITTY DAD BUT HE HAS A PLACE TO LIVE!!! IT'S BETTER THAN WHAT WE HAD BEFORE AND I THANK BASED LMM FOR GIVING MY BOY THE BACKSTORY HE DESERVED!! (Fanfic writers, I expect MOUNTAINS of angst and hurt/comfort from you all with this new material!)

- RIP Smol Sonny, but that baby face of his MORE than made up for it :3c

- Usnavi WANTING to take Sonny to DR right off the bat, just...THANK YOU. That was DESPERATELY NEEDED and was even wrapped up early and neatly with Sonny saying to Usnavi 'Nah, I grew up here in NY, I have no memories of DR but YOU do, so if you wanna go, then go, I like it here.' and since he HAS A FUCKING HOME here, the worry for his well-being is GONE and it feels GOOD.

- Learning Sonny was undocumented was a PUNCH IN THE FUCKING HEART! My mind IMMEDIATELY reminded me when his dad asked Usnavi why he only paid Sonny in cash and the FACE HE MADE when Nina said that undocumented kids can't get in college just BABY NOOOOOOOOOO

- Usnavi. Using. The goddamn lotto money. TO GET SONNY DOCUMENTED. MY DE LA VEGA COUSIN LOVING HEART HAS FUCKING ASCENDED AND IS NEVER COMING BACK DOWN. DADNAVI SUPREMACY.

Do I have ANY gripes with this movie? Yes, I do.

THEY FUCKING KILLED CAMILA. I DO NOT APPRECIATE BEST MOM GETTING THE DISNEY TREATMENT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH >:/

Other than that though, this movie is a 10/10, go see it. Right now. I mean it.

[randomnameless]

I feel sad because when I first played 3h and finished with GW, I was so happy and it felt like it was going to be one of my favorite FE games, maybe one kf NY favorites of all games. I loved all of the GD crew, the maps looked gorgeous, and the thematic of that story being breaking down the walls of tradition to embrace others deeply resonated with me. I loved AM very similarly, CF not so much. But what makes me sad is the more I think about the game and read about all the sloppy writing mistakes that I didn't notice or think about, the more I can't really claim its a favorite of mine anymore. Sorry if this is a bad place to vent, but my venture into the discourse of this game really killed what I once thought of a great story.

No, don't worry, I love salt!

I think FE16 had a long honeymoon, and now all those small things we didn't care about are suddenly much more important, or we're not wearing googles anymore.

Coupled with a lot of devoted fans spreading nonsense after nonsense everywhere - inviting people to look closer at the script - and we end up with this weird fandom, where everything was consumed in around 3 years, with a lot of "us vs them" mentality coming from redshit and other spheres.

Is the fandom dead? I don't know. I don't think so, people are still engaging with AUs, making fanarts and all (even if some people still have to diss on a character because she ate their pet or something), there are "meta" posts, or just people talking about things they like.

However, discourse really poisoned the story and the game, because you cannot talk to people due to the "us vs them" mentality from Redshit, which permeated (thanks epsilon!) through SF, Twitter (it has always been a hell hole) and even some corners of Tumblr. Fanfic? Transformative works have always been transformative, and no one writes canon - but for 10 "Rhea bakes cookies for the children" fics you have 87 951 "Rhea eats babies and is a homophobe and wanted to kill Billy who is always a woman" fics. Draco in Leatherpants has always been a thing, but to this magnitude? I will never pretend to have the only valable reading/characterisation on a character, but damn if only reading Ao3 makes me believe I'm completely out of my game regarding some characters. The Aeneid is a must-read, and shits on so many characters - and yet characterisation from The Aeneid is copied and pasted in other fics like, are you writing fics based on canon, or based on... The Aeneid (and NoA's FE16) ?

FE16's story is boring and not engaging - save for AM, because of the very interpersonnal nature of Dimitri's story, Claude's story promised things, it ends on a positive note but... I was left expecting more. Will Claude really be able to build this world? Will he face difficulties ? What about traditions that are worth keeping, will he throw them away? I don't know. I wish we had more about this than an ending card.

I disagree about Tru Piss though, it's like reading the posts from a Twitter parody account. You're not supposed to believe it, or if you do, then it's just for the lols or you're perfectly aware this is the "trap" route, as in you thought you were going to save the world? Psyche! Your goal has always been to topple Fodlan to Make Adrestia Great Again! Even if you never knew it.

I won't say FE16 doesn't take itself seriously like Awakening, it tries to be serious, too serious, that's why a good punchline like Tru Piss works perfectly.

Ultimately, if they release the Elibe bundle, we will return to a "complete" game, where people hired a continuity guy and where the most important issue is not to make the player happy, but to tell a story in an engaging way.

For what it's worth, if you want to talk about the story you're welcome here, I'm don't reply that fast, but I'm trying!

[livlepretre]

So this is a weird thing to bring up, but I was thinking about the weirdness regarding the accents of all the Originals and remembered the scene in ATFBBTF where Elena tells Klaus that she knows he is faking the accent. In canon, we know Mikael has a British accent (despite being a viking in a settlement located in current day Virginia) and all of them speak the way they do in the present throughout all their flashbacks. I love all of your charactizations throughout your fics and wanted to know: What are your personal headcanons regarding all the accent stuff and how all the cultures the Originals have lived through have affected the way they speak, think, behave, etc.?

Not a weird thing to bring up at all, because as it turns out, I am hyper-fixated on this franchise and would love to talk about any element of it! 

This is kind of long so I put my answer under the cut: 

Personal headcanons: I like to think that all of their accents are subtly WEIRD not only because they have moved all over the place but because pronunciation of languages like English have shifted so much over time. Like, I remember an early interview with Daniel Gillies where he said that he tried to make his accent sound like it was from everywhere and nowhere, because the Originals had traveled so extensively over such a long period of time. The other thing is that their syntax tends to lag inevitably behind-- yes, they incorporate new phrasings, like Elijah using “OMG” with such relish in 2x19, but I try to think about the way English was shaped in modernist novels when I’m writing Rebekah-- her idioms are all about a century out of date-- or slip in little anachronisms that aren’t quite off but are no longer common in daily speech like “shan’t” or even older slang like “belle chose.” 

The scene in FE where Elena asks Rebekah how many languages she speaks sums it up pretty well-- they’ve been speaking a lot of these languages as they evolved from middle languages to early modern languages to modern and then contemporary language. The slippage amongst them must be pretty extraordinary-- I like the idea that even though the Originals “mostly” sound contemporary that there would be a lot of random archaic forms peppered in. 

Another idea I had is that their names are probably different than the ones they originally had, but since they’ve all traveled and evolved linguistically/culturally together, they have changed how they think of each other, and maybe even their original names are getting fuzzy in their mind (Rebekah alludes to this in that same conversation in FE). This is partially born out of my general distaste for the Viking!origins that make no bloody sense to me and the fact that even if they’re all Vikings, why is Klaus’s name Niklaus (the German form of a Greek origin name), and then Elijah, Esther, Mikael, and Rebekah have Hebrew origin names and then mysteriously Finn, Kol, and Freya have Viking names? It makes no sense which is why I came up with the idea that they’ve changed their names over time, adapting and adopting what suited them. 

The idea that they grew up in Virginia a thousand years ago is so cringe that I mostly try to block it out (I was writing ATFBBTF while season 3 was airing, which is why I reference it explicitly; that was before I was comfortable just papering over things I don’t like so much)-- like, Elijah, there weren’t wild horses in the Americas a thousand years ago! You’re confused! 

I’ve talked about this at detailed length with @icebluecyanide (whose thoughts on this are AMAZING) but I’m really fond of irrevocably attached to the idea that the Originals are actually Russian or some other Slavic country in origin. Playing on the whole “my father was a wealthy landowner in Eastern Europe,” and also in a meta-sense playing with Eastern European vampire folklore. (Also I would love anything that gets rid of that awful Mikaelson “surname”! That name keeps me up at night. Also, why does Rebekah have it. She’s not a son.) 

I do think that they all tend to be really, really stuck in the middle ages in terms of their thinking about their place in the world, the roles of men vs. women, fathers vs mothers vs sisters vs brothers, and who has filial duty to whom. Maayyybbbeeee some Humanist ideas sunk in, but honestly, there’s a reason that Rebekah still cleaves to Klaus and it’s because he’s her brother and she very much conceives of herself as lower in the family chain, even though she also rebels against it (but never quite seriously). Klaus is patronizing and domineering because he very much so sees that as his divine right-- he’s the special one, the hybrid, the king of kings. And also, he’s not even aware of his sexism when in SWBS he tells Elena things like “don’t you want to be a nurse or a teacher or a mother” (not that those aren’t critical, difficult, amazing careers!)-- it’s just that his idea of career options for women hasn’t changed in like at least a hundred years so he falls back on to him the obvious standards. 

Hmm what else... they’re all definitely cultural chameleons, though, obviously, some places left bigger impacts on them than others. I think of Italy, and England, and New Orleans when I think of their “home” cultures, but that might be because that’s where we see them in flashbacks the most often. It’s easier to blend in for the three who are awake for most of everything, of course, because changes are incremental and fluid from their perspective, happening little by little and organically as they travel. 

Oh! And I think my last thing is that I am really fond of the idea that Kol and Finn were both just caught in a supernatural sleep for all that time they were daggered... so Kol is constantly having to reinvent himself and his facility with language since I get the impression he gets daggered pretty often, though also undaggered whenever his siblings decide they miss him, which is often enough to keep him spry and make him really really good at learning language and adapting, but poor Finn has to learn contemporary English from scratch when he’s undaggered and he’s lost and bewildered in the modern world and it’s really only the fact that he already thinks of his whole existence as a bewildering haze of hell on earth that he (eventually) learns enough English and modern customs to cope (so long as no one pays close attention; he blanks a lot on which word he should use.). 

I think that’s it??? 

[chikkou]

Will you talk more about Lisa?? Lisa the character specifically but also your feelings on his feelings about Buddy? I just thought your analysis was so good and I want to hear other thoughts you have on her.

yall are honestly spoiling me rn sdhkfdjfks this is like a dream come true 

i already got into the stuff with buddy in this ask here but i have a LOT to say about lisa and the connection between her and buddy so u better settle in!

ok so firstly ill start with lisa. i played the original lisa game (lisa the first) not long after it first dropped in 2012, and im not even kidding when i said it changed me LMAO.... seeing a story about a girl suffering is nothing new, but austin jorgensens approach to it was so fucking unique. you dont just witness it, you get to EXPERIENCE it right along with her. many stories that involve sexual abuse/rape show or otherwise depict it explicitly for the shock value, which is both disgusting and, in my opinion, extremely fucking exploitative. i feel that it is horrific to dignify an act so deeply evil with screentime. but lisa stood out to me immediately because, even though you know exactly whats going on, the game NEVER shows anything explicit. everything is layered in subtext and symbolism, and austin is fantastic with indirect storytelling, so you learn so much from just a little drop of information. this applies not just to the game proper, but to the character as well.

in case its not clear: i absolutely ADORE lisa. she is my favorite character in all of the games, bar none. its going to sound kind of fucked up, but as a kid around her age going through some fucked up shit, her committing suicide at the end felt like a sort of victory to me. she knew she could never escape from marty or what he was doing to her. he leaks into every single part of her psyche, everything she ever cared about or loved is ruined because of him, and even the vague memory of her mother is completely corrupted, and turned into a muddled version of him. lisa the first also had the added benefit of some religious commentary, as there are crosses all over their home and marty is characterized as an extremely religious man, which i fucking LOVE and wish had come back in the painful, but its an acceptable loss. anyway, lisa committing suicide at the end was an act of defiance against not just marty, but martys god, as suicide is considered a mortal sin in catholicism. lisa knew she’d never be free of marty in life, so she escaped the only way she could; she was defiant to the end.

ive seen people complain that the painful has a bit of a “lost lenore” thing going on, since lisas death seems to fuel the Manpain of both brad and buzzo, but i actually disagree. on the contrary, its just like austin himself said - lisa will never be gone. lisa is ALWAYS there, with brad, and buzzo, and buddy, and marty, and yado, and the ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD. i dont necessarily think that there is something paranormal going on in the game, but i AM going to say that, unlike other cases of a girl/woman dying for a mans backstory, lisa isnt just a bittersweet memory they can reflect on and then put away when its convenient for them. she is a presence that is felt throughout the entire game. brad sees her more than once, sometimes watching, sometimes reprimanding him. buzzo is clearly haunted by her, as he cries out to her a few times in the joyful. every character who was directly touched by lisa - brad, marty, and buzzo - calls out to lisa as they die. call it their guilt or call it her actions, but in either case, it is clear that lisa just as significant of a character in the painful as she was in the first, even if she cant always be seen. even in a meta-sense, every game in the series - even the joyful, whose protagonist doesnt even know who she is - is named after her. she is at the center of everything that happens in them. 

that actually brings me to buddy, because i find the dynamic between her and lisa fucking fascinating. as i previously mentioned, brad never talked about his past with buddy, and snaps at her for bringing up his adoptive son dusty (rando), so it goes without saying that she definitely doesnt know who lisa is. in spite of that, though, lisa is a fucking massive part of buddys life, and while she may not know the person herself, i think she is aware that when people (and brad especially) look at her, they arent seeing HER. 

i mentioned it in another post, but even though brad takes it upon himself to raise and “protect” buddy, he seems to almost unwittingly recreate lisas appearance, primarily by allowing her hair to grow long even though he knows what a risk that is to her safety. he also treats buddy in a manner thats incredibly similar to how marty treated lisa (sans sexual abuse, of course) - he insults her, does not let her leave the house at all, and forces her to do unsavory things that no one should ever have to do (in buddys case, this means killing at least two innocent people because brad doesnt want a “weak” daughter). the most literal comparison between buddy and lisa is the fact that they are both very young girls being essentially held captive by their father figures, albeit for different reasons, and both long for freedom from their captors. 

theres also the fact that both buddy and lisa have to deal with misogyny and the effects of rape culture firsthand; they both battle against men who feel entitled to do with them whatever they please, and the threat of ongoing sexual abuse looms heavy over both of their heads. neither one can seek help from anyone; the neighbors in brad and lisas town seem complacent at best, if they even know what is happening to lisa at all, and buddys only allies (sans rando) are long dead by the start of the joyful. this is not just a hypothetical or a distant possibility. this is the real, tangible fate that will befall them if they cant somehow secure their safety.

sadly, because lisa wasnt playable in either of the rpgs, we dont know if she was able to fight as brad was, but it is highly probable that she had the innate skill but was never able to learn it (as marty highly discouraged them from learning “their grandfathers karate,” and seemed disgusted whenever brad did so). however, she did have ONE weapon she could make use of, and this is a weapon buddy ends up using, as well - her femininity. she became close to bernard (aka buzzo), made him fall in love with her, and then used him as a last ditch effort to stop martys abuse by having him mutilate her face. im not saying lisa never cared about bernard - in fact, i think she DID really love and care for him - but her own fucked up experiences with “love” meant she really couldnt understand what it was supposed to be like, or that it was wrong to manipulate the people you care about. lisa did very few things wrong - it pretty much just stops at the maiming of the cat and her manipulation of bernard - but she knew that she would never get away from marty without some kind of drastic action being taken, and scarring herself was her last ditch effort before ultimately committing suicide.

buddy ends up taking a somewhat similar tack in the joyful, and like in lisas case, its simultaneously resourceful and horrific. one of buddys key moves in the joyful is to flash the enemy (which the player obviously doesnt see) in order to distract them long enough to get the kill. its fucking horrible and disgusting and makes you feel so dirty, but then, how must buddy feel having to do something like that just to survive? shes just a child, but in a world where almost every man is out to get you, she knows this has to be done to save herself, very much like lisa. unlike in lisas case, though, buddy is successful in securing her safety in this way - lisas effort is for naught, and leads to her committing suicide not very long after. 

in a way, i sort of attribute buddys brutality to lisas omnipresence; all of the men pursuing buddy are just like marty, monsters who would harm a fucking child for their own disgusting ends, and i think that when buzzo said that lisa wouldve loved olathe, what he means is that she would have loved seeing so many horrible men being punished for what theyd done. so in my opinion, buddy carving out a place for herself in olathe by killing all those who would subjugate her seems very much in the mentality lisa would have had. sure, there are some innocents who sadly get roped into it, but that would definitely not be her intention; for example, if buzzo could have practiced amputation without harming a living thing, i dont think lisa would have asked him to practice on the cat. note the LACK of brutality at the beehive and the swamp bar, two of the few peaceful places in the painful and both devoid of predatory men hunting for buddy - lisa has no qualm with any of them. but marty? brad could hardly even get a full sentence out before killing him on the spot. i dont doubt that that has a great deal to do with lisas presence. 

ok i talked for a while LMAO but basically i think that, in a more metatextual sense, lisa and buddys relationship really strikes me as an accurate depiction of generational trauma. of course it was intentional with the more obvious trauma chain (marty to brad to buddy), but the trauma chain of marty to lisa to buddy is rarely ever addressed due to lisa not physically appearing in the painful. however, i believe it may inform buddys actions a great deal more than people realize - after all, buddys experience is unique, but who could understand it better than lisa? who knows that sort of pain, of being alone on an island, the lone woman trapped with a man (or men) who want nothing more than to cause you harm? even without her realizing it, lisa is guiding buddy, encouraging her to take back what is hers no matter the cost, to punish those who would try to take what they want from her. lisa might be dead, but she is a vengeful presence throughout every game, and buddys actions feel like theyre meant not only to save herself, but to avenge lisa, even if she doesnt realize it. at the end of the day, buddy and lisa both get to exact revenge against all the men who have wronged them, and they succeed. they are aggressive, and violent, and selfish, and ANGRY - and they have every fucking right to be. 

[icharchivist]

ok i’m out of my liveblog tag now so lmao, highlights! sorry for the small gbf spam before it’s time for it

but yeah so i feel strongly for the Lamorak’s storyline. Like i go more in depth there about why i really love the Wales brothers storyline for personal reasons (......... which ironically if you follow me for a3, is the same reason i love Gekka so much)

but one of the thing that blew my mind with it is that like, I love doing theories and meta right? but the fandoms that get me the most worked up for that are.... generally frozen? like if we don’t count characters studies like i do for a3, i’m talking, actual theories like i do for dgm, or, hxh, which are all saga i made extensive Meta for, are all stuck in hiatus and we have little advancement on the stuff i can meta about. There’s DA that’s a bit different because there was at least one book that made my brain goes brrr and all but aside from that, i rarely get new content for the sagas i theorize about and so i get used to it, and i even less get direct answers that proves or disproves my theories.

but the fact gbf is always getting out some content meant that ultimately i had to face my expectations and metas in the eyes

.... and the Lamorak’s storyline was basically telling me “hey you were right to expect me and also you were right about everything bestie” 

and like. The absolute VALIDATION of it all???

For the year i was into gbf about i was talking all the time about Lamorak to whoever would hear me. A character we only had seen in flashbacks at this point, before and during the incident that caused the major trauma both of his brothers went through and had to overcome as adult. And for a year, i would talk about everything we know about this kid, how he was before his mother’s death and how he would have coped with it, and how he would realistically appear again in the plot again.

i also remember theorizing something totally unrelated, knowing that Gawain was linked to the Wales storyline because he “blackmailed his influence into it” and back then i theorized that it could be something linked to Lamorak and “wouldn’t it be wild if Gawain and Lamorak knew each other actually” and it was totally a crack theory that was having very little foundation for it.

And then Lamorak was namedropped into the newest Percival FE and i kept thinking “okay next event Lamorak will happen. he’ll be there. I know it.”

......... and turns out. I was right. I was trying so hard to manage my expectation but here he was introducing himself in the Gawain centric event (at the time the Gawain involvement in the Dragon Knight saga was a secret kept in his 5* FE!! it was his first time into the Dragon Knights event!!), while also dropping in that indeed him and Gawain knew each other. And all of that while filling a fate i did expect of him and theorize about.

It was like. so wild to me. More than just seeing Lamorak again which i had wanted for a lONG TIME, it was that the way i interpreted and read Lamorak made so much sense that it was the plan. That ended up being the plan.

even for stuff like DA where i still get content to examine, i don’t have answers yet, just more clues and more questions.

but GBF told me “hey you were right about those things”

And it’s so validating??? to think that all of my overreading, all of my theorizing, all this time i spent rambling on and on.... was because i caught the right clues, or, if they hadn’t planned this far, that i understood the character enough to be able to reach the same conclusions as the writers when it came to deciding how he will join the story.

Like i always think i read too far into it, that i’m getting my expectations high, that i’m wrong and i’ll be disappointed. and since i am not in sagas that get answers, i am constantly pushing down my expectations. (which is also why a3 is soothing bc characters analysis don’t come with the crushing expectation of theories lmao).  So Being told that actually this is exactly how it was meant to be? for once i have an answer to my overthinking and it rewarded me for it. Unparalleled.

So yeah the high from the Savior of Dalmore event is unmatched. I will never forget it. Also the fact i managed to go in totally unspoiled and not knowing Lamorak was in it.

So that’s basically “10 times i overanalysed pieces of media (and One Time they told me i was right)” the event story. Forever vindicated.

[intpstyle]

Detective Conan Meta: Trauma, being seen & the Inner Child

Okay, so it’s 6AM and I woke up with this essay half-formed in my mind and I need to talk about DC. Yesterday, I saw a quote on tumblr that read

“to be loved is to be seen”

and it literally haunted my dreams. I dreamt of Shinichi being unable to tell Ran who he is for so long now (we won’t go into the half a year debate (in this post)) and it got me thinking about the unbearable loneliness of it all. Then I thought of Heiji and of how liberating it must be for Shinichi that some people do know him for who he really is - that some people see him, that some people are able to love him, all of him, because they’ve recognised him even when he looks like a child. And that got a chain reaction of symbolism going in my brain because THINK ABOUT IT, Shinichi is literally forced to live as his own inner child.

So, we open with this lovably weird 17-year-old (fuck no, in the manga he’s actually only 16) with barely any survival skills who’s been left alone in a huge mansion because his parents went adios, who doesn’t have a whole lot of close friends because he always found it difficult to connect with others because he’s so focussed on his detective work and who, when he finally manages to ask the love of his life out on a date and inevitably stumbles over another murder, claims that “you get used to it”, that corpses don’t affect him, that nothing really affects him and, worst of all, he actually means it. This is our protagonist. He’s All Grown Up. He always tried to be All Grown Up. Frankly, with parents like these, he always had to be All Grown Up. And it’s okay! Because he found something he loves doing (finding the truth, restoring justice, helping people) and he’s good at it and people actually love him for it (look at all these fan letters, Ran, look at them!)

And then Ran (bless you, angel child) starts crying because - because so many reasons. One, she’s still affected by what happened. Two, she sees the love of her life being strong - and he always has and had to be strong; it must be so bloody exhausting and he’s not even aware of how tired he is, but to ask him to take a break, to take a look at what all this death and suffering and loneliness really means, to take it in, to stop, would be to take the one thing away (apart from her, but she doesn’t know that) that keeps him stable and grounded and to risk having him fall apart. I don’t think she knows this consciously, but Ran is empathetic and has been around Shinichi all her life - this, I think, is the moment it really hits her that this brutality (a literal decapitated corpse that spews blood like a fountain on a roller coaster!!!) has become her best friend’s “normal”. She is scared. She is worried. And she shows it.

And then Shinichi (bless you, cool child) tries to play it down, to make her feel better, to show her that this is nothing to despair over. He, too, is trying to be considerate of this incredible girl who always takes on other people’s burdens and their pain and grins and bears it. But it isn’t all compassion - he frankly also does not have the tools to deal with someone being so vulnerable and innocent and, dare I say?, child-like. And what does he do? Does he stay and engage with her side of things? Does he hear her out and consider that he HAS become callous and somewhat addicted to shedding light on the dark sides of other people? That he feels uncomfortable feeling the light turned back on himself? No! No, of course not! He’s 16 and has the emotional range of a tea spoon (#relatable). Instead, he latches onto the next sign of mystery and turns back to his quest for truth where he feels safe and needed. He LITERALLY tells Ran to “go ahead” and that he’ll “catch up” and boy, will he ever (emotionally).

We all know what happens next: he bites off more than he can chew. He stumbles over a case that even he admits is “serious” and is LITERALLY hit over the head with the realisation that this - socio-economic corruption, systemic criminal organisations, being vulnerable and opening up to a loved one - is the world of adults and he is NOT ready for it. So he, like everybody else, is given the choice to call it quits or to choose life, start over and re-learn the things he missed out in childhood to become an adult. He becomes his inner child again (the first chapter literally ends with the dialogue

“You okay!? Can you stand up, little boy?”

“Huh?”

and he’s trying. He’s trying to stand up, okay?) and it smarts. In this old/new form, he is taken care of, but not taken taken seriously by the policemen (”You must’ve been scared”) and it freaks him out that they treat him (the master detective!) like a child again. At this height, he fails to get into his own house (some more symbolism right there) and he is not recognised by Professor Agasa until he shows him some impressive deduction work, demonstrating that this really is at the core of his character - he enjoys and is good at mysteries. That was never the problem. Neglecting just about everything else was (- the same goes for OG Holmes, I’d argue). Seeing how the situation he went through literally (damn that’s a lot of literally) turned Shinichi back into a child, Professor Agasa warns him not to inflict the same traumatic damage on others - especially since the situation is not yet resolved. (...but Agasa’s involvement is another can of worms)

There’s a whole other post in Shinichi’s choice to call himself “Conan Edogawa” and wearing his father’s glasses as well (aka trying to redefine his identity by viewing the world through the lense of the people he admired (notably his father’s frames without the lenses though!)), but the most interesting thing happens when Ran shows up. He tries, desperately, not to be recognised - not to be seen - by her in this form because it’s not HIM (it is though) and because it would involve Ran in danger; would put her in the adult world he couldn’t deal with and couldn’t protect her from, thus, ironically, infantilising her and (although in an attempt to be heroic, nonetheless still) limiting her agency.

And this is where the irony really kicks in - because Ran finds it much easier to talk to this raw, vulnerable version of himself that he doesn’t allow her to see as a “grown-up” 16-year-old. It is now, as a child that asks straight-forward questions, that he learns that Ran really does love him and that she knows the good (dependable, brave & cool), as well as the bad (full of himself, bit of a jerk and obsessed with mysteries) sides of him better than he does. At the very moment, he, touched by her vulnerability and wanting to open up, decides to tell her the truth, he is again reminded of the Men in Black by Kogoro falling down the stairs like a sack of potatoes and he (dependable, brave & cool) decides not to involve anyone in the mess he brought upon himself until he can stand up to the world of adulthood that he shrank from.

The beauty of the series is that Shinichi slowly realises, bit by bit, drop by drop, excruciating chapter after excruciating chapter, that the way for him (an INTP) to become an adult is precisely by letting others see him as he is and thus forming lasting, real and dependable relationships (by developing his Fe). This tragically begins with Akemi Miyano (a first step and another reminder that he is not capable enough yet), is slowly built up with the Detective Boys (who are honestly so important for him), continues with Ai (#bestpartners, for both of whom Professor Agasa, the eternal child-inventor, is a safe haven where they can catch up on what they missed out on, Ai obviously much more so than Conan), reaches a really, really sweet high with Heiji (#bestbromance), a rather dissatisfying conclusion with his parents (who, and I cannot stress this enough, decide the best way to convince their traumatised son that his life is in danger is to point a literal gun (okay, it’s a pistol) at his face in disguise) and climaxes with Eisuke Hondo (at which point he is confident enough to proclaim who he is even while still in the form of a child (although that doesn’t make the context of the situation any less stupid (thus proving that he IS still a love-struck teenager at the end of the day))). tl;dr By being both the professional adult “Sleeping Kogoro”, as well as the cooky child “Conan Edogawa” at once, Shinichi can play with both facets of his teenage life until he reaches a level of stability that allows him to integrate the child mind into his adult mind - and that will be the point at which he’ll be able to fully become (not just temporarily play the role of) Shinichi Kudo.

PS: It is also interesting to compare Ai’s and Shinichi’s approaches to being stuck in their childhood selves. Shinichi, not as scarred and slowly building up a network of people he trusts, is eager to move on and begs Ai to give him the temporary antidote as often as he can - he WANTS to grow up and be a grown-up so badly. There is so much (Ran) waiting for him there.

Ai, on the other hand, is much more cautious and warns him not to jump the gun. To her, much more scarred and still rather alone, this is an invaluable second shot at life and she is as careful with it as she humanly can, constantly worrying and on the look-out that someone could drag her back to the prison of responsibilities and obligations. That’s why it was SUCH a pivotal moment for her when she used and realised the use of her adult form when she saved the Detective Boys from the fire. She, too, is slowly connecting the two halves of herself but I suspect that it’ll take her an entire childhood to do so. (Also, interestingly, as an INTJ, she puts down her roots in a very different way from Conan. She cherishes her new relationships and protects them fiercely, but the real signs of her settling down ever-so-slowly is her growing willingness to reconstruct her internal moral system (Fi) and to acquire and find security in material possessions (Se), like her designer handbags and her little football-man-phone-strap.)

[roaringgirl]

Books read in January

I am keeping this as a little record for myself, as I already keep a list (my best new year’s resolution - begun Jan 2018) but don’t record my thoughts

General thoughts on this - I read a lot this month but it played into my worst tendencies to read very very fast and not reflect, something I’m particularly prone too with modern fiction. I just, so to speak, swallow it without thinking. First 5 or so entries apart, I did quite well in my usually miserably failed attempt to have my reading be at least half books by women.

1. John le Carré - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974): I liked this a lot! I sort of lost track of the Cold War and shall we say ethics-concerned parts of it and ended up reading a fair bit of it as an English comedy of manners - but I absolutely love all the bizarre rules about what is in bad taste (are these real? Did le Carré make them up?).

2. John le Carré - The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963): I liked this a lot less. It seemed at the same time wilfully opaque and entirely predictable. Have been thinking a lot about genre fiction - I love westerns and noir, so wonder if for me British genre fiction doesn’t quite scratch the same itch.

3. David Lodge - Ginger You’re Barmy (1962): This was fine. I don’t have much to say about it - I was interested in reading about National Service and a bit bogged down in a history of it so read a novel. As with most comic novels, it was perfectly readable but not very funny.

4. Dan Simmons - Song of Kali (1985): His first novel. This is quite enjoyable just for the amount of Grand Guignol gore, and also because I like to imagine it caused the Calcutta tourist board some consternation. Wildly structurally flawed, however. Best/worst quote: ‘Hearing Amrita speak was like being stroked by a firm but well-oiled palm.’ Continues in that vein.

5. Richard Vinen - National Service: A Generation in Uniform (2014): If you are interested in National Service, this is a good overview! If not, not.

6. Sarah Moss - Ghost Wall (2018): I absolutely loved this. About a camping trip trying to recreate Iron Age Britain. Just, very upsetting but so so good - a horror story where the horror is male violence and abuse within the (un)natural family unit.

7. Kate Grenville - A Room Made of Leaves (2020): Excellent idea, but not amazing execution - the style is kind of bland in that ‘ironed out in MFA workshops’ way (I have no idea if she did an MFA but that’s what it felt like). Rewriting the story of early Australian colonisation through the POV of John Macarthur’s wife Elizabeth.

8. Ruth Goodman - How to Be a Victorian (2013): I mostly read this for Terror fic reasons, if I’m honest. I skimmed a lot of it but she has a charming authorial voice and I really like that she covers the beginning of the period, not just post-1870.

9. Gary Shteyngart - Super Sad True Love Story (2010): I read this on a recommendation from Ms Poose after I asked for good fiction mostly concerned with the internet, and I thought it was excellent - it’s very exaggerated/non-realistic and that heightening of incident and affect works so well.

10. Brenda Wineapple - The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation (2019): What a great book. I had to keep putting it down because reading about Reconstruction always makes me so sad and frustrated with what might have been - the lost dream of a better world.

11. Halle Butler - The New Me (2019): Reading this while single, starting antidepressants and stuck in an office job that bores me to death but is too stable/undemanding to complain about maybe wasn’t a great decision, for me, emotionally.

12. Halle Butler - Jillian (2015): Ditto.

13. Ottessa Moshfegh - Death in Her Hands (2020): Very disappointed by this. I don’t really like meta-fiction unless it’s really something special and this wasn’t. Also, I’m stupid and really bad at reading, like, postmodern allegorical fiction I just never get it.

14. Andrea Lawlor  - Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl (2017): This was really really hot! I will admit I don’t think the reflections on gender, homophobia, AIDS etc are very deep or as revealing as some reviews made out, but I also don’t think they’re supposed to be? It’s a lot of fun and all of the characters in it are so precisely, fondly but meanly sketched.

15. Catherine Lacey - The Answers (2017): This was fine! Readable, enjoyable, but honestly it has not stuck with me. There are only so many sad girl dystopias you can read and I think I overdid it with them this month.

16. Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall (2010, reread): Was supposed to read the first 55 pages of this for my two-person book club, but I completely lack self-restraint so reread the whole thing in four days. Like, I love it I don’t really know what else to say. I was posing for years that ‘Oh, Mantel’s earlier novels are better, they’re such an interesting development of Muriel Spark and the problem of evil and farce’ blah blah blah but nope, this is great.

17. Oisin Fagan - Hostages (2016): Book of short stories that I disliked intensely, which disappointed me because I tore through Nobber in horrified fascination (his novel set in Ireland during the Black Death - which I really cannot recommend enough. It’s so intensely horrible but, like Mantel although in a completely different style/method, he has the trick of not taking the past on modern terms). A lot of this is sci-fi dystopia short stories which just aren’t... very good or well-sustained. BUT I did appreciate it because it is absolutely the opposite of pleasant, competently-written but forgettable MFA fiction.

18. Muriel Spark - Loitering with Intent (1981): Probably my least favourite Spark so far, but still good. I think the Ealing Comedy-esque elements of her style are most evident and most dated here. It just doesn’t have the same sentence-by-sentence sting as most of her work, and again I don’t like meta-fiction.

19. Hilary Mantel - Bring up the Bodies (2012, reread): Having (re)read all of these in about 3 months, I think this is probably my favourite of the three. I just love the way a whole world, whole centuries and centuries of history and society spiral out from every paragraph. And just stylistically, how perfect - every sentence is a cracker. I’m just perpetually in awe of Mantel as a prose stylist (although I dislike that everyone seems to write in the present tense now and blame her for it).

20. Muriel Spark - The Girls of Slender Means (1963, reread): (TW weight talk etc ) As always, Hilary Mantel sets me off on a Muriel Spark spree. I’ve read this too many times to say much about it other than that the denouement always makes me go... my hips definitely wouldn’t fit through that window. Maybe I should lose weight in case I have to crawl out of a bathroom window due to a fire caused by an unexploded bomb from WW2???? Which is a wild throwback to my mentality as a 16 year old.

21. China Mieville - Perdido Street Station (2000, reread): What a lot of fun. I know we don’t do steampunk anymore BUT I do like that he got in the whole economic and justice system of the early British Industrial Revolution and not just like steam engines. God, maybe I should read more sci-fi. Maybe I should reread the rest of this trilogy but that’s like 2000 pages. Maybe I should reread the City and the City because at least that’s short and ties exactly into my Disco Elysium obsession (the mod I downloaded to unlock all dialogue keeps breaking the game though. Is there a script online???)

22. Stephen King - Carrie (1974): I have a confession to make: I was supposed to teach this to one of my tutees and then just never read it, but to be honest we’re still doing basic reading comprehension anyway. That sounds mean but she’s very sweet and I love teaching her because she gets perceptibly less intimidated/critical of herself every lesson. ANYWAY I read half of this in the bath having just finished my period, which I think was perfect. It’s fun! Stephen King is fun! I don’t have anything deeper to say.

23. Hilary Mantel - Every Day is Mother’s Day (1985): You can def tell this is a first novel because it doesn’t quite crackle with the same demonic energy as like, An Experiment in Love or Beyond Black, but all the recurring themes are there. If it were by anyone else I’d be like good novel! But it’s not as good as her other novels.

24. Dominique Fortier - On the Proper Usage of Stars (2010): This was... perfectly competent. Kind of dull? It made me think of what I appreciate about Dan Simmons which is how viscerally unpleasant he makes being in the Navy seem generally, and man-hauling with scurvy specifically. This had the same problem with some other FE fiction which is that they’re mostly not willing to go wild and invent enough so the whole thing is kind of diffuse and under-characterised. Although I hated the invented plucky Victorian orphan who’s great at magnetism and taxonomy and read all ONE THOUSAND BOOKS or whatever on the ships before they got thawed out at Beechey (and then the plotline just went nowhere because they immediately all died???) I had to skim all his bits in irritation. I liked the books more than this makes it sound I was just like Mr Tuesday I hope you fall down a crevasse sooner rather than later.

25. Muriel Spark - The Abbess of Crewe (1974): Transposing Watergate to an English convent is quite funny, although it took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that’s what she was doing even though I lit read a book covering Watergate in detail in December. Muriel Spark is just so, so stylish I’m always consumed with envy. I think a lot of her books don’t quite hang together as books but sentence by sentence... they’re exquisite and incomparable.

Overall thoughts: This month was very indulgent since I basically just inhaled a lot of not challenging fiction. I need to enjoy myself less, so next month we’re finishing a biography of Napoleon, reading the Woman in White and finishing the Lesser Bohemians which currently I’m struggling with since it’s like nearly as impenetrable Joyce c. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man but, so far... well I hesitate to say bad since I think once I get into I’ll be into it but. Bad.

[reviewpri]

Will GoT and ASOIAF have the same ending? No- and here is why:

We’ve passed George and that’s something that George always worried about — the show catching up and ultimately passing him — but the good thing about us diverging at this point is that George’s books will still be a surprise for readers who have seen the show. Certain things that we learned from George way back in that meeting in Santa Fe are going to happen on the show, but certain things won’t. 

The whole thing “ the show ending will be the same for the main characters “is, basically, not true and both David Benioff and Dan Weiss admit it in this pre-season 8 interview with Time

They spend an inordinate amount of time in pulling emphasis to the fact that they “meticulously planned this for years″ ( and they contradict themselves by word and action many times over, without noticing it.)

Look at this exchange:

“How long does the writing process usually take?

WEISS: It’s hard to say with this one especially, because so much of the endgame is stuff that we’ve been discussing for at least four or five years, if not longer. So a lot of the pieces have been put on the board years ago. You could go back to season 2 and some of these ideas started to come out. But the actual writing process, when did we start doing the outlines?”

Weiss does not know exactly when they started discussing the “ endgame”, but he is sure you can come back to season 2 and see some ideas there, which of course does not add up, except if they were retconning the whole thing because as the conversation they had with GRRM at Santa Fé about the endgame, by their own admission, happened between 2013 (before season 4 in 2014)  HOW THE FUCK CAN THEY SAY THE IDEAS HAD BEEN IN PLACE IN 2012 when season 2 was filmed and aired??

So, when Bryan Cogman want us to go back to season 2- specifically- to see the seeds for Daenerys insanity, you can tell it is a retcon because they are specifically pinpointing to a time where they started changing canon Daenerys to be more “ badass” and decided to use this to gaslight us into believing they indeed mapped everything out when, as I showed, they did not.

Moreover, look at the answer Benioff gives to Weiss about their outlines:

“ I don’t know, because we started going over it back when we were shooting season 7. “

See? The story departs from the books by season 5, season 6 is almost completely uncharted territory, but they only started checking the outlines for the endgame as THEY WERE SHOOTING SEASON 7!!!

Okay, now that I proved they are retconning Daenerys journey to hype this false perception they understood ASOIAF (” it’s about people, and power, and the pursuit of power, and how that affects those without power. “ - that is true for the first book - Game of Thrones- but GRRM had planned the series to be a coming of age story, a saga of three different families and how the legacy of their patriarchs affect the children) and are true to the ending (” pretty much the actual endgame )  because, as I imagine, they wanted to shield themselves from any backlash as much as possible, let´s turn one moment to talk about how the changes they made prove that they switched from a character-driven story to a plot-driven story in the last four seasons- and how this made GoT ending a mess!

First, they have been changing the characters since season 1 to fit their ideas and the actors who would be playing the parts. Case in point: Cersei Lannister :

 “ ...for instance, when Lena Headey came in and did her audition for Cersei. And we’d seen a number of actresses before, very good actresses, but they were all playing the ice queen.”

David Benioff, I am sorry to tell you this but CERSEI IS THE FUCKING ICE QUEEN! That was how GRRM wrote the character- not as a mother slightly drunk from afternoon mimosas ( “ Lena came in and she was funny and she was weird “), but as a force of nature, a volcano of ambitions and resentments.

Kit Harington is good with action scenes and not so good as a political player? Let´s write Jon Snow as the best warrior there is, as a man without any ambition whatsoever!

Emilia Clarke is good at giving speeches and being a badass? Let´s give her plot with Qaith to Ser Jorah and have Daenerys kill people every single season ( Book!Dany never killed Dorea and Xaro)

Peter Dinklage is getting Emmy after Emmy playing soul tortured, but mostly good guy Tyrion? Let´s have him be the moral compass of the story, no matter if in the books, he is among the darkest of characters in an already dark series!

Second, they do not see the story progressing in terms of character´s arcs, but in terms of points, of scenes they know it will happen:

“There were some details that were added later — but pretty much the actual endgame, the main climactic moments, we had in mind then. “

See how Weiss mentions “moments” and do not say anything about “character´s endings?”

Ladies and gentlemen, that is because they can still have certain key scenes in the story, but played by different characters!

Remember Sansa?

Remember by the end of season 4, she walked down the stairs of The Eyrie, with a new visual identity that was signaling to us that her journey, from there on, would be one of her making? That her alliance with Littlefinger would either be mutual beneficial, or she would get rid of him?

Then...season 5 came and DnD decided to scrap that. Book!Sansa stays at the Vale trying to protect SweetRobin and preparing a Tourney while increasingly resenting Littlefinger´s involvement with her life to the point she starts having doubts.

DnD must have found this boring....despite setting the pieces for this. So, they ignored a character´s progression to the point- they made Sansa take a pill of stupidity, eat Littlefinger´s shit and agree to marry North!Joffrey - so that they could give  Sansa one of those “ main climatic moments”- the rape of Jeyne Poole by the hands of Ramsay as watched by Theon.

There you have it guys : DnD ending is just a myriad of scenes from GRRM books they know it will happen but played out by different characters because DnD wanted to make the ending “ theirs” somehow and they think we will only care about those  main climactic moments if they happen to the already established characters.

This is why there is not fAegon and no Jon Connington in the story.

That is why they split fAegon plots between Cersei ( Golden Company + rule of Kl) and Jon ( the whole legitimacy and claim to the Throne)

Jon Connington is the only book! character foreshadowed to burn a city to the ground because that is his main regret in life- that he had been unable to do that during the rebellion, a hesitation that allowed Robert Baratheon to escape and, eventually, kill the love of his life, Rhaegar.

Had they adapted fAegon storyline, they could have burnt KL the way it has been foreshadowed in the books- between Jon Connigton´s hatred of bells, Cersei Lannister love for wildfire and the second dance of dragons between Daenerys and fAegon.

But they did not.

Season 7 we knew they had a scene filmed with Cersei, the motherly type Cersei of the show, would have lost the only thing that made her act rationally for the first time of her life: a baby.

BUT...

“ I don’t know, because we started going over it back when we were shooting season 7 “

They went over and probably realized what they could do with season 8 if they just ignored the foreshadowing they were setting about a war between two diametrical opposed queens:

Daenerys, the Bride of Fire, pregnant and happy with Jon, against Cersei, Ice Queen, miserable and barren.

This war would, of course only make thematic sense if this dynamic would play out, one player afraid of losing and the other, having nothing to lose.

They filmed the scene. The scene which would explain perfectly well why Cersei would become mad and try to burn the city so nobody would have it- and fulfill the Valonqar prophecy- but they scrapped.

The Throne scene between Daenerys and Jon makes sense...if it is between Cersei and Jaime.

and no, the vision of Daenerys at the second season- the one they now claim to have been “ all planned” despite the fact they had NO IDEA how it would play out before the end of season 3- had been ALREADY FULFILLED BY SEASON 7, with Daenerys choosing not to touch the Throne, which was covered in snow (Jon) but going North, beyond the Wall, with her dragons.

But, again, by their own admission, they looked back and realized...there was this amazing moment they could give to Emilia in the show and the only way they could explain this would be by retroactively stating the changes they made, by their own accord before they knew the endgame, had actually been, all this time, THEIR GENIUS MASTERPLAN.

Am I saying GRRM ending will be better? No...I am just explaining why you should not assume this mess came out from his butt because it came out of DnD´s butt.

(and yes, after all those cock jokes, I feel completely fine by ending this very serious meta with a butt joke.)

[leahazel]

7KPP Identity Meta

[The subject of racism in fanfic has come up, and I’ve been contemplating how and weather to change how I tag my own fics. This disorganized piece of 7KPP meta grew from those thoughts.]

Aly of @azalynestudios has said numerous times (I can’t find exact quotes right now) that in order to allow players to see themselves in the MCs they create, she wanted to make it possible for any MC of any of the kingdoms to be a member of any race, and have any physical appearance. She has also mentioned that the kingdoms are very inter-mixed racially, and that all the characters are probably multiracial (here and here, for example). She’s also talked about having multiple historical inspirations for each of the kingdoms (too many sources to link them all). 

Such is not the case for the NPCs of the different kingdoms, specifically the ones with visible sprite art. This is partly because the visual artist Bana had a huge influence in, for example, designing the fashion aesthetic of the different characters. But Aly has also stated here that the NPCs’ appearance is “closer to what the nations originally were dominated by“, compared to the more modern, diverse population. With the notable exception of post-coup Revaire. In-game, a few references are made to the “new nobility” of Revaire all having fair coloration and a similarity in appearance.

So, any player who wants to make an MC of any background have any combination of racial traits, is given solid backing both by canon text and by “word of god”. An Arland or Wellin MC who’s Black or Asian or mixed race is 100% as canon-compatible as a white one. Of course, that also means that a white Corval or Hise MC is also canon-compatible, but I think we can agree that the dynamic on that is quite different, in the same way that writing a canonically straight character into a slash relationship is very different from writing Lisle (gay) or Avalie (asexual) into a het relationship.

7KPP is a visual novel and the NPC sprites are designed for maximum visual coding. When the sprites for all the delegates from a single kingdom appear together on the screen, they are meant to look like they are obviously from the same place. With the exception of the Revaire NPCs. Clarmont is clearly designed to stand out from Gisette and Jarrod, and not just because they are siblings and he’s unrelated to them. It’s because he’s a member of Revaire’s old nobility, and they are of the new nobility. Aly explains about this, for example here.

Now, there is room to criticize this approach to portraying racial diversity, but that’s not what I’m going to do here. There has also been plenty of well-reasoned criticism on the portrayal of especially Corval and Jiyel, where despite Aly’s good intentions, harmful stereotypes had more influence on the end product than she realized. I will also not be addressing that issue in this post, but I did want to acknowledge that there are a lot of open and complex questions surrounding the issue of race in 7KPP canon. 

As a player, I took all the above issues as guiding principles when creating my MCs, including the bit about not whitewashing Corval and Hise MCs, and especially the bit about Revaire. Revaire was a huge, multicultural empire like Rome, and even though the narration in the game, and Aly’s commentary, both specifically say that the Revaire widow is of the new nobility, I made my widow Allegra an Old Blood noble, like Clarmont. Specifically so that she would stand out, like him, from among the other Revaire delegates. 

So Clarmont and Allegra’s relationship has a kind of racial subtext, because they are a dark-skinned couple in (eventually) open rebellion against a monarchy of extremely white, extremely blonde oppressors.

I feel increasingly that I, as a white writer, am not up to the complexities of writing this dynamic. Not with all the goodwill and compassion I can muster, not with all the studying and listening I can do. I’m not yet sure what I’m going to do with that revelation, though.

When I created my MCs I tried to be conscious both of the implications of canon, and of the complexities of real-life race relations. There are decisions that I might have done differently, if I were doing them now for the first time, especially when it comes to my Jiyel MCs. Most of my MCs, just like Aly says, come from families that are multiracial, going back generations. It’s more obvious with characters like Christabel, who has a white father on one side of the family and a Black mother and grandmother on the other. Less obvious with characters like Felicity and Jack, who could be easily taken for white.

And because of the way that race relations work in our world, the fact that they can be taken as white means that in a very real way, they are white. Because, well, that’s what whiteness is, that’s what it was created to do.

So I created Felicity, my Arland princess, and she was white. Not a golden-haired, blue-eyes princess, but still white, still with the peaches-and-cream complexion (actual canon description), and still with all the baggage thereof. But why must a princess be white? She doesn’t have to be, as Aly specifically said. When I created my second Arland princess, I gave that some thought, and out came Verity.

Verity is mixed race, like Felicity, but in a more obvious way. I try to describe her in a way that makes it obvious that she could not pass as white, without being othering or fetishizing. But that became difficult, because Verity married into Revaire, into the very “new nobility” above mentioned as being the only group in the modern seven kingdoms that actually is meaningfully racially homogeneous. This begins to come up in her story pretty early on, when she first meets and befriends Nerissa, a Revaire widow who -- unlike Allegra -- is of the new nobility. Deciding to make Nerissa and Claude (and their family) white was a decision that ended up having big implications.

Because, while I don’t want to exotify Verity as a character, others within the story definitely do other and fetishize her, and make her feel out of place. Once it started coming up in the drafts of my fanfics, I realized that I couldn’t ignore it. Verity is a multiracial girl living in the royal court of a multicultural empire, where the narrow slice of the elite has been striving to push everyone else out of the public sphere. This affects how she interacts with other people, and it means that with any supporting character I add to Decline and Fall, especially the nobles, I first have to give a good long think to their racial background.

It also meant that I have to give thought to Verity’s family and genealogy, especially when I decided that I wanted her ‘verse and Felicity’s to share a common root, and diverge. That means they have shared ancestors, and here I had the possibility of taking another look at Felicity’s uncomfortable whiteness. I could have decided to make Arland’s royal family white, going back through generations of whiteness, and only occasionally marrying in foreign brides, which could still account for Verity’s mixed heritage. I felt that it would be more interesting to do something else, and make the ancestors common to them both dark-skinned and curly-haired, like Verity, not fair and brunette like Felicity. 

In “Wendel Abbey”, Verity mentions to Brielle that she has a Revairian ancestor, and Brielle remarks that she must “come by her curls honestly”, that is, suggesting that her curly hair comes from Revaire heritage. But Verity corrects her and says that all her father (the King of Arland)’s family have it. I guess this is meant to represent the way that twenty years of a racially homogeneous (and oppressive) leadership have altered Revaire’s way of relating to the demographic mix of the other six kingdoms. Brielle is Black and her whole family is Black -- excepting her stepfather, who’s not mentioned directly in any of the fics (yet). The post-coup reality has affected the way she was taught to see the world.

It feels a bit like I am trying to have it both ways, both to talk about race and not talk about it, and I don’t know if I’m doing a good job. I’m not even sure that I know where I’m going with this post, even though I started writing it with such a confident attitude. I just know that these ideas have been swirling in my head for months and years, and it’s time for me to bring them out to see the outside world.

All my MCs are multiracial in the sense of their family trees, but some of them are easily identified as being characters of color. How to say this? In a modern AU, some of them would be stopped for a random check at the airport much more often than others. Allegra, Marguerite, Christabel and Verity are all on this list. Felicity, Jack, and Nerissa are not. Brielle is. Tristan is not. And so on. 

If I had thought about all these things more clearly before I created my six original MCs, maybe I would have made my Arland princess a Black girl. Or my tomboy countess. Or maybe I would have made them both Asian. Maybe I would have made my Jiyel MC Black, instead of basing her appearance on stereotypical East Asian traits, as I did with Periwinkle. I probably wouldn’t have made her white, for the reasons I outlined above -- I’m not saying that white MCs are anti-canon or wrong in any way, but it would have been too uncomfortable for me. Part of me thinks, “but then what? I would have no white MCs at all?” And another part of me replies, “Well, what if I didn’t?”

Which is kind of an empty dialogue on my part, because I went and wrote Felicity and Jack being who they are, without thinking too much about what their whiteness means, and I’m probably not gonna go back and retcon that. All the thinking that I do about it has to be retrospective.

There are other points of discomfort, like the way stats and personality interact with racist stereotype, and the way that butts up against my own personal preferences in terms of female characters. It’s no secret that Allegra is my favorite among my MCs, and also no secret that my favorite build to play is based around 75 points in manipulation. Which in a gameplay context creates a really powerful character who can broker peace treaties and fall in love and do a lot of heroic things. But nonetheless, there’s a subtext to creating a brown female character and immediately labeling her “manipulative”. Allegra’s build also took a hit to the beauty stat, as did several others of my favorite characters, and there’s a subtext there, too, like it or not.

I was especially uncomfortable with the fact that my two high-manip characters, Marguerite and Allegra, were both dark-skinned brown women. Despite the fact that they’re very different from each other, and despite the fact that I love them both, and despite that I tried to give them both deep and rich character development that makes them much more than their stats. I did create another character, Xanthine the weaver!MC, who is also based on the 75-manip build, and made her white. This... helped a little? I guess?

This is what I mean about the clash between my preferences and the racial stereotypes. The traits that create the kind of female character I’m most interested in, are ones that can easily be interpreted in a very negative light. I can’t ignore the implications of that, however much I might like to dismiss it by saying, “I just made her what I love to see.”

Of course I’m going to carry all these ideas forward, into any new game OCs I create, and especially into original fiction writing. And I want to stress that I’m just one very confused white gamer and fanfic writer, and I don’t have all the answers. I just think the questions are worth asking all the same, and to that end, I sat down and spent an hour or more writing this very confused (and confusing) spiel.

You are welcome to: reblog with comments, reblog with criticism, link to this post, post your own reflection on the race and ethnicity of your OCs, send m4e asks about any of these characters, etc. Remarks along the lines of “it’s stupid to care about racism in fandom” or “there’s nothing wrong with being white” will be roundly ignored as being beside the point. If you’ve read this far (or even skimmed it) I’m amazed and astonished. I’ve lost any gift for brevity that I ever had.

[zaxxusu]

Character Sheet (Answered by Zack!)

Mun’s Note: Filling a character sheet or even writing a character meta is not my thing. So I cudgel one's brains to keep filling what I’m tagged with... by interviewing my muse [laughs]. FYI, I roleplay him mostly as a spirit from Lifestream. Here we go! 

BASICS.

full name.   Zack Fair pronunciation.  Zek Fe-Ir nickname.  You aren’t Angeal so don’t call me Puppy! Would you say I became a Hero? gender.  male height.  185 cm age.   I thought I was still 18 but the reality is... I'm now 23 zodiac.   I should ask Square Enix my Mom first when my birthday is!  (//mun goes with Libra) spoken languages.  You can talk to me? Nah, guess Gaia have international language for Earth haha.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

hair color.   Jet black eye color.    The color of the sky! skin tone.    FAIR! Haha, kidding, it’s Light to medium. Guess I burned my skin a lot when I was kids; can’t just stay at home most times! And it’s gettin’ darker due to SOLDIER missions body type.    muscular, build accent.  idk, man voice.   upbeat dominant hand.  righty posture.  no backbone is bent here scars.   I was a SOLDIER, so I have some here and there behind my clothes due to fight. tattoos.   none birthmarks.  none, even if I had, I wouldn’t tell you most noticeable feature(s).   x-scar on my face, my stylish spike hair, buster sword

CHILDHOOD.

place of birth.  Me? Gongaga! hometown.    Gongaga Village birth weight.   how could I know that? ask my mom. birth height.  same as above manner of birth.   what is it? first words.   again, ask my parents for this siblings.  Sadly, I have none. It must be nice to have siblings! Maybe I should adopt Cloud as my ‘lil bro haha. parents.  it’s silly, I never ask their name, but my family name is Fair parental involvement. They raised me in good way. They’re harmonious. And you know what? They have no shame to show how romantic they are in front of their kid haha. Idk if it involved me, sort of... whaddaya think?

ADULT LIFE.

occupation.  Ex-SOLDIER current residence.  Is Lifestream counted? close friends.  Kunsel, Cissnei, Tseng; I think that’s all. Haha, kidding, Cloud too! Well, I also used to be close with Sephiroth since Angeal passed away, but that was before he completely lost his mind. I also sometimes hanged out with Luxiere since I was promoted, but he... ah, that’s what you call bootlicker. Essai and Sebastian were also my close friend, but they returned to Lifestream long before me, I missed ‘em. relationship status.   it’s complicated, Man. Last thing I know, my girlfriend broke me up through her 89th letter and I never had a chance to explain it ‘cause I never did what she might think I did. Unexpectedly we’re now reunited in Lifestream, so.... is it happy end or not? But if I could, I wouldn’t let her go. No way! financial status.  Well, Turks are paid better and Shin-Ra have sealed my bank account where I did saving, so ... you can see it. driver’s license.  You don’t know that I even could fly a helicopter. criminal record. Nah, I don’t wanna call myself a criminal, but Shin-Ra really made me a wanted man vices. Well, I admit I’m impulsive, but following your heart isn’t that bad, right? I commit not to be as reckless as I used to be.

SEX & ROMANCE.

sexual orientation.  straight! love women! romantic orientation.  straight too! preferred emotional role.   submissive  |  dominant  |  switch   preferred sexual role.  submissive  |  dominant | switch libido. Mhmm..., give me any porn magazine or video, and yeah, I think I’m horny then. turn on’s.  Pretty much anything except the things below. turn off’s.  clingy, over-sensitive/sentimental, and possessive. love language.   Not sure, I enjoy my time with Aerith whatever silliness we did haha (even if it was just me sitting on the bench to see her tending), I also feel her love when she embraced me (or maybe that she’s just being there when I was in my lowest point)... but one single letter also could easily broke me up! relationship tendencies.  Right after everything is so click, I’ll go with the deep. No postpone and wait!

MISCELLANEOUS.

character’s theme song.  I think “It’s My Life” by Bon Jovi and “YOLO” by Smash Into Pieces are  very me, haha! (//mun goes with Last Order and The Price of Freedom from the OST) hobbies to pass time.   I used to do squat... not sure right now since time doesn’t exist here. Scarin’ naughty kids seems a good idea! mental illnesses.   none physical illnesses.   Mhmm.... okay, I was totally wounded so badly that it finally stopped my body functions left or right-brained.  Math isn’t my thing so I guess it’s right? fears.  Tbh, I’d never think or feel about it--not good to discover it until... the 9 months on the run was really a nightmare I never felt before

My biggest fear is perhaps loosing a freedom... well, when I was being a lab rat, I was mostly unconscious to be able to feel it but... NO! Don’t make me imagine if I was captured and return there ‘cause I knew there’s no guarantee. I'D RATHER DIE TO FIGHT FOR MY FREEDOM. Ssstt... maybe that was also a kind of reason why I left home... I mean, my mom didn’t want me to join SOLDIER and it’s against my freedom.

I also hate being alone or feeling lonely so maybe I’m afraid of being abandoned by the whole world. I’m glad I knew Kunsel didn’t abandon me through what I read on mails, Cissnei also helped me too. Those made me still able to cope with, not a total loneliness... and Cloud (whatever his state) is with me, I would never abandon him too. But..., the final letter Aerith sent to me was another nightmare. I’d never did what I’m afraid the most to my one and only love--I tried to fulfill my promise, heck I never knew I had been stuck for 4 years; but I feel Iike she did it to me, crushin’ my hope. Can’t blame her but still....dammit!

self-confidence level.  Are you askin’ me? When was I ever not being confident? vulnerabilities. Whatever it is, I never wanna show you that.

Tagged by: @brawlfists (//you can see Zerith here!) Tagging: @gaeaheal @finalhxaven​ @finalheavn​ @fatescourge @blackcowledbat @penjarah @illecebrcus​ @unforestalledreturn​ @coscuvilheiro​ @brokeniisms​ @elaceto​ @holywhitemateria​ @hatredheld​ And anyone who didn’t do this yet. No force, it’s a freedom!

[murasaki-murasame]

Oh boy that sure was a whole lotta stuff going on in the 1.5-year anniversary digest video, huh?

I was hoping to post some of my predictions and hopes for it beforehand but life stuff got in the way so here we are, lol.

Anyway there’s a lot I wanna talk about across the board so it’ll go under a cut.

When I saw that this digest was like 20 minutes long I figured it’d be padded out, but lol it’s actually even more dense with material than the last one we got. This really makes up for the recent drought of news and content.

Firstly, they immediately showed off Gala Alex, since she’s a given at this point and we all knew it was gonna happen. Funnily enough she actually seems like she might more or less be bait for the banner happening afterward, which also seems to be a shadow element banner.

In general Gala Alex is a weird and complicated character and I’m not sure what to make of her. At first glance she doesn’t seem super essential or game-breaking, but she has poison infliction and buff dispel, so I’d probably benefit from getting her since I don’t really have good units with that sort of utility in my shadow team yet. But I’m not gonna bother doing more than the free daily tenfold summons on this gala, since as a whole she doesn’t interest me much and I think I could live without her.

On top of her weird skill chain mechanic which I’m struggling to wrap my head around, she also introduces the chain co-ability feature, but I’ll get to that later since it’s a whole big thing.

Hopefully she’ll at least let people start accepting sword units into eKai, lol. That fight has a very open and accepting meta, unless you’re a sword unit in which case you’re fucked because there’s currently no meta shadow sword units people want for that fight.

We’re also getting two separate platinum summons for this gala that cover the past gala units, which is honestly kinda tempting to me since I still don’t have Gala Elly, but I’d just have a 1/3 chance of getting her instead of the other two gala units on her platinum summon, who I already have, so it wouldn’t be worth it.

Then there’s a whole bunch of free summons and wyrmite from new endeavors and co-op rewards getting reset. Which will be helpful in building my stash back up, but I’m probably still gonna avoid spending any resources on this gala.

I’m happy that this gala seems like one I can skip, since I went all in to get Tobias, and I didn’t want to end up regretting that.

Anyway, we also got a look at the next raid event, which will start at the end of this month. It looks like it’s another shadow element one, which just reminds me even more how much we need another wind element raid event, but it looks cool. Aldred has a fun, edgy design. I hope he’s actually worth using. As a shadow unit, he’ll at least be competing with the most stacked element in the game. It also looks like the event’s story is gonna involve the Syndicate, which we’ve actually known about via wyrmprint lore since the game came out, but they’ve never come up until now, so that’s interesting.

They also showed off the banner units, who look cool, but it’d take a lot for me to want to summon for them since I have so many good shadow units as it is. They also said it’ll be another two-part banner, which is getting really annoying.

We’re also getting a rerun of the FEH collab event, along with some sort of a new part two event for it, so that’s cool. I started playing the game at the tail end of the FEH collab originally, but I didn’t actually take part in it since I had performance anxiety about doing any of the co-op stuff, lol. So this means i’ll at least finally be able to get Alfonse.

I think the part two event is probably gonna involve more Fire Emblem characters who’ll be on their own banner, but like with the existing FE units, i don’t really have any attachment to that franchise so I probably wouldn’t be interested in pulling for them.

Though on that note, they did say that all of the four existing FEH units will get mana spirals, which might be interesting. But since I already have Euden and Xainfried at 70MC, as well as Gleo, I don’t think I’d be interested in pulling for Marth, Fjorm, or Veronica, lol. It’s at least interesting to set up this precedent, though. I guess we can assume that if Megaman ever gets rerun, he’ll get a mana spiral too.

If we get new FEH units in a part two banner for the event, I feel like they might end up being a bit underwhelming, since they probably won’t come with mana spirals built into their kits, but we’ll see how it goes.

We also got teasers for the next three main story chapters, which isn’t what I expected at all. We already knew when they’d be coming out since they’re on a fixed schedule now, but I didn’t expect actual teasers of the story content in them. Though tbh the thing that intrigues me the most is the gameplay clips of chapter 14 that involve unique maps based around the Alberian capital. I didn’t think we’d get to actually do stuff there, so that’s cool.

Also, them teasing at Leif showing up in chapter 13 is making me think that either he’ll be the next gala unit, or a welfare unit. Hopefully the latter, since he’s obviously a light sword unit and we already have Gala Euden as a light sword. If he’s a welfare unit, though, I hope he’s not super weak like Laxi.

We’re also getting the event replay feature, but sadly it seems like there won’t be any raid events in it at first, and the facility events included from the start are ones that have gotten reruns relatively recently. So that’s a bit lame. I’m glad they said that they plan on adding raid events to it, though. It looks like you can at least get the facilities from the facility events, so I hope we can also get the welfare units from raid events.

With the new version update they’re also apparently introducing a new currency called fafnir medals which can, to some degree or another, be exchanged for different materials. There’s a whole list of them, but let’s be honest here. The only one that actually matters is the gold testaments, lmao. Unless there’s a really rigid cap on how many of them you can trade for each week/month, that’ll probably be the main thing people trade for. Hopefully it can help address the need for more testaments [especially now that co-abilities are a bit more important]

Then there’s a few bits and pieces to the 1.18 update that they didn’t even mention in the digest. Like how there’ll be adjustments to daily endeavors, the addition of normal endeavors related to using skip tickets on your daily stages, and the ability to check your summon history. But the biggest deal they didn’t mention is how they’re standardizing drop rates in e/mHDTs, and adding horns to the weekly bonus chests for eHDTs. Which is basically exactly what people had been asking for.

We’re also eventually gonna get our encyclopedia feature, which will be nice, especially since it apparently comes with rewards based on how much stuff you have. Which will probably provide a huge batch of rewards to old players right off the bat.

They also showed off two more Agito bosses, who will probably be the next two ones. They didn’t say which would come out next, exactly, but we at least got their names and full designs, which also spells out what elements they are. I can’t actually remember their names at the moment, but the Sylvan lady is water, while the twins are flame. Since wind units have been getting some attention lately, I think the Sylvan lady will be next, and then the flame twins afterward, but we’ll see. One way or another I think the final Agito is gonna be the shadow element one. Which is a bit lame, since my light team really needs a boost. Oh well.

Oh, and they also teased at the Agito, or at least Volk, being formally introduced in chapter 14 of the main campaign, so that’s interesting.

And of course one of the biggest things in this whole update is the huge changes to co-abilities in general. Chain co-abilities are the main thing, but I’m also really intrigued by how in co-op matches, you’ll now take on the effects of your own team’s co-abilities, rather than the co-abilities of the main units your team-mates are using. On the one hand it means you can more comfortably run multiple units of the same weapon type in co-op without feeling like it’s a waste, but I feel like it’s also gonna introduce new ways to cheese some fights, like how 4-Gleo comps can now benefit from stuff like defensive co-abilities from AI units. I think that sort of situation was an intentional choice on Cygames’ part, though. It seems like their way of helping to make end-game content easier and more accessible. It also means that you have to depend less on your team-mates if you need stuff like defensive coabilities to survive an opening blast or something. So you can control that yourself and not worry about what co-op room you end up in.

But the real star of the show, whether or not it ends up being more game-changing than the change to how co-abilities are applied in general, is the chain co-ability feature. Which basically just seems to be a straight up second co-ability that every unit gets, but with the unique quality that they can stack with each other. I don’t actually know how often you’d bother stacking them, though. I looked through all the units I own and what chain co-abilities they have, and it seems like in each element, it’s usually units of the same weapon type that have overlapping chain co-abilities [like Mitsuhide and Fritz getting combo time]. So most of the time I don’t think you’d bother. It also looks like they’re kinda under-tuned, stat-wise, probably to compensate for them being stackable, so I think they might ultimately not be a huge deal, but hey, it’s just a straight up bonus set of stats on top of everything else, lol.

It’s a bit overwhelming since literally EVERY character has a chain co-ability now, and there’s way more variety in them than with regular co-abilities, but there are a few that stick out to me.

-Water seems to be the only element with units that have buff time chain co-abilities, from what I can tell, with Renee, S-Estelle, and Cibella having it. I think this might make S-Estelle a more valued AI team-mate for water teams, since buff time is a pretty big deal, and she also brings the skill damage coability.

-Light seems like one of the main cases where you might stack chain co-abilities, since S-Luca, Annelie, and Fritz have the same one that gives a strength buff whenever you get an energy stack [with a cooldown]. Which I think has a lot of potential, depending on how exactly it works.

-On a similar note, Lucretia has one that gives her a chance to get inspiration stacks when she gets energy stacks [I forget if it applies to just her or the whole team, though], which is interesting. I had a feeling they’d start adding inspiration mechanics to light to complement the amount of energy mechanics going on with them.

-OG Xainfried gets Dragon Claws VI, which seems like it’ll probably be a pretty huge deal for him. Pipple also gets about 18% dragon haste when he’s maxed out, which seems like it’d complement really nicely with Xainfried’s kit.

-Mitsuhide and Fritz’s combo time chain co-ability is gonna be REALLY nice for Gala Luca, since he kinda struggles to keep a high combo, but part of his kit relies on it.

-There’s a whole lot of units who get defensive chain co-abilities which will probably help people get by in HDTs even more. Including units with offensive co-abilities like Mikoto and Valerio.

All in all it seems like a really overwhelming and potentially game-changing mechanic. I also think it’s gonna be just about impossible to properly reflect the implications of it in the DPS sims, lol. This introduces way too many variables. And even then, the DPS sims won’t account for any of the more defensive ones, which have their own value.

Since the chain co-abilities seem to be tied to the regular co-abilities with how they get upgraded, it sounds like this is gonna incentivize getting more people’s co-ability nodes, which will also involve more use of testaments.

The chain co-abilities are one thing, but there’s also some interesting uses for how you benefit from your own AI members’ co-abilities in co-op. Mainly for characters with unique co-abilities like Tobias, H-Mym, and V-Melody. I think Ezelith is gonna basically always want to have an H-Mym on her team, Lin You is gonna want V-Melody on her team, and any wind buffer other than Tobias is gonna want a Tobias on the team to give them more buff-time.

Oh, and I almost forgot that they also casually mentioned that they’re gonna be bringing back defensive battle event types in the future. They didn’t go into much detail about it, but I assume it means that we’ll get more random events once in a while with the same sort of format as the FEH one. Hopefully that’d help alleviate the feeling of stagnation that comes with constantly alternating between raid and facility events endlessly. Since I didn’t actually participate in the FEH event I don’t know what that whole event type entails, though.

I’m probably forgetting lots of stuff they talked about, but they talked about a LOT of stuff, lol. It’s hard to keep track of it all. I wasn’t expecting such a substantial update for the 1.5-year anniversary, but I’m happy with it.