#which is why its been such a slog to get through

[13eyond13]

.

[luminnara]

Gladiator | Feyd Rautha x Reader

REQUEST: Feyd-Rautha fights in the arena, hoping to win your favor and maybe even your hand.

Warnings: violence

REQUESTS ARE OPEN!

Feyd-Rautha didn’t know why your face was the only one he seemed able to pick out of the crowd. Out of all the eligible daughters the Houses had thrown at him, you were the one he couldn’t get out of his head. Deep down, he knew he should consider himself lucky for the privilege to have a say in his marriage, but most of the heiresses he had encountered did little to interest him and he had grown more than bored of the whole ordeal.

Until he was presented with you.

He had known little of your family, and he hadn’t cared to learn more. You had been from far away, and your culture was probably far different from his own. Perhaps it was arrogance that had fueled his initial disinterest, his ego rearing its ugly head. He had seen you and assumed you were boring and prudish, based on your style of clothing, and had initially been beyond irritated when you were offered up before him. He had cursed his uncle the Baron, and nearly killed the nearest servant. He had wanted nothing more than to be as far away from you as possible, exhausted and annoyed after a week of meeting princess after princess, all of whom he had rejected.

Why, then, had he become intrigued by you? Had it been the way you looked at him with such boredom, as if he had nothing to offer you? Had it been the information that he was simply one in a long list of suitors you were slogging through, much in the way he had been for what felt like an age? Or had it been the sudden revelation that you had more in common with him than he had thought possible, and the sudden knowledge that if he wished to catch your eye, tradition dictated he must show you a spectacular fight and defeat every other man whose goal was your hand in marriage?

“It is the way of her people,” Rabban had shrugged, oblivious to the way Feyd’s world was slowly being turned on its head. “I have heard that they were fighting long before House Harkonnen built our first arena.”

Now, Feyd-Rautha was stalking back and forth through the sand, thinking of all the ways he could slaughter his competition. He was one of ten, ten suitors, none of whom were drugged or weak from starvation the way his quarry on Giedi Prime always was. As he glared at the opponents around him, he knew that you were watching from the stands, in a luxurious box with your parents and ladies in waiting, and when a glance in your direction confirmed his suspicions, he was overcome with the desire to kill for you.

He had never felt that before. He was plenty familiar with the urge to maim, to slice and tear, to take lives—but he had never wanted to do it for another person. His darlings, in a sense, garnered that from him when he killed servants to feed them…but this was different. That was a life taken as a gift and a means to spoil them. This was a fight to the death, a way to prove himself to you…and for some strange reason, he wanted—no, needed—to succeed.

“Today we gather in the ancestral arena of our great House to honor a tradition which we have kept alive for one thousand generations!” A voice boomed. “Today, the Great Houses send their sons to fight for the hand of my daughter, and should they be so lucky, one will win her favor!”

Feyd-Rautha glanced at his nearest competitor, a round-faced man who was far too old to be marrying you. He knew the man thought he was safe; they had all received a speech on the importance of not actually killing each other, but Feyd had had no interest in listening nor adhering to the rules. If he was to truly win your hand, he knew he must make a grisly spectacle of himself. He had gone so far as to fight shirtless, so as to show you his smooth, unscarred skin, and display his enemies’ blood upon his flesh.

“Now, warriors…do battle!”

You watched from above as the fight commenced.

“I like the looks of that Halleck boy,” your mother commented as she peered through her positively ancient opera glasses.

Your eyes found the one she spoke of and you sighed. “He favors his right leg. He will not last.”

Your father plopped down in the throne next to you, a hearty laugh booking from his chest. “That’s my girl. Ever the strategist, with the sharpest eye in the known universe. Tell us, then, who do you predict will win? We can make a bet on it.”

“I hardly think gambling is appropriate on today of all days.” Your mother shot him a glare.

He only laughed louder.

“I like the Harkonnen.” You said, watching as Feyd-Rautha drove a blade into another man’s shoulder.

Your mother made a tutting noise. “He is…”

“Bloodthirsty,” your father offered.

“Yes,” you said, somewhat transfixed. “He is.”

Your eyes followed Feyd-Rautha’s every move, glued to his form as he lithely parried and dodged his opponents’ attacks. He was a surprisingly welcome sight after the many suitors you’d turned your nose up at, and while he had initially bored you just as the rest had, there was something in his demeanor that had piqued your interest.

Upon meeting, you had both been irritated and more than ready to stay unmarried forever. You had heard that Feyd-Rautha had also been meeting potential suitors, and if the rumor mill was correct, he had nearly killed more than one of them. When you had first laid eyes upon the pale, hairless Harkonnen heir, you had immediately decided that you might give this one a chance; many of the others you had met had seemed ill suited, abhorred by the concept of fighting for your hand in an archaic ritual. Feyd-Rautha, however, had changed when he had heard, shifting from disinterested to focused, his dark eyes gleaming with excitement at the prospect of a duel.

Now, he was stalking through the sand below you, wielding wickedly sharp hunting knives as he attacked a competitor from behind. He wasn’t above fighting dirty, you noted, his blackened teeth bared as he head butted another man. Only six remained including him, the other four having given up or lying unconscious at the feet of their opponents.

“He’s going to kill someone!” Your father exclaimed, his voice gleeful.

“And what a diplomatic nightmare that will be,” your mother mumbled.

You weren’t sure if Feyd-Rautha had truly taken any lives so far that afternoon, but as he drove a knife into the gut of another fighter, you surmised that your mother may be spending the rest of her day smoothing things over with and paying off the families of some of these men.

You watched, smiling to yourself as they all fell, one by one, into groaning, bloodied heaps in the sand, until only one remained on his feet. Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen was the victor, as you had hoped he’d be, and as the crowd erupted into a roar of cheers, you stood.

Your parents watched you carefully.

“Are you certain?” Your mother asked.

“Do you have any objections?” You countered.

“…none whatsoever.”

You turned to your father. “And you, Father?”

He shrugged, leaning his chin on his hand. “I quite like the boy. He will make for an interesting match.”

“Then it is settled,” you sucked in a breath, steeling yourself before turning and walking to the stairs.

In the arena, Feyd-Rautha was drinking in the sounds of an entertained crowd. He could put on a show anywhere, it seemed, and if he had been at all concerned by leaving Giedi Prime to fight on your planet, they were long forgotten. His blood was still boiling, chest heaving as attendants began collecting his fallen foes, of whom more than a few sported serious, possibly life threatening injuries. And after he had struck each one down, he had glanced up to find you there, watching him.

The crowd hushed suddenly, and Feyd-Rautha saw that it was because you were approaching him, stepping over your battered suitors without so much as a glance down at them. Your eyes remained focused on him, never leaving, boring into his form as he straightened up and faced you.

“Feyd-Rautha,” you greeted him.

“Princess.”

“You fought well.”

“Thank you.”

You smirked at him. “You hope to gain my favor, do you not?”

“I had hoped for your token, yes,” he admitted, watching you with those dark, intelligent eyes.

“A token, or my hand?” You asked.

“I will take whatever you see fit to bless me with, princess.”

With a sly smile, you closed the gap between you, pressing a hand to his chest. He felt warmth there, and when you pulled away, the roar of the crowd returned and he looked down to see a crimson handprint on his skin.

“Congratulations, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen,” you said, your voice cutting below the cheering of your people in the stands above. “We are now engaged.”

With that simple statement, you turned on your heel and left.

It was foolish to turn one’s back to a Harkonnen, especially Feyd-Rautha, but you both knew he would never do anything to you. Not now. Not when his eyes refused to leave your retreating form. Not when his heart thudded in his chest excitedly. Not when he knew he suddenly had a wife, one for whom he would kill anything and anyone.

[oinonsana]

i'm a complete slut for when ttrpgs mechanics inherently throw any preconceived notions of a "story" out of whack. i think ttrpgs are good role-playing games and not just 'narrative' games where a grand narrative is followed by a group of people. don't get me wrong: those are perfectly valid playstyles, but it's been the default and, even, the subject of snobbery ("my game is roleplay heavy with a great story" as if that makes any ttrpg tautologically better than any other ttrpg). i think ttrpgs are at their best when everyone at the table is surprised by how the fiction is moving along.

i think the "storygame" distinction isn't entirely needed, but it's become something that I've always gone back to as a category when looking at all these rpgs. to me, a storygame is something that prescribes a particular narrative or story and all of its mechanics are to facilitate that kind of story only. to me, all storygames have this, while some ttrpgs have this. some ttrpgs are storygames too, and that's fine. they're both.

too many rpgs think role-playing games = storygames when i don't actually think so! personally, i think role-playing games are games wherein you play a role in. sometimes that leads to a story, other times it leads to just a slog through a dungeon, which honestly can be just as fun. i think ttrpgs can be storygames, but not all storygames are ttrpgs. some storygames are made for creating a narrative, while i think ttrpgs should be there to create a role.

not to say this invalidates in my perspective the various ttrpgs that tend to not have this, such as things like Microscope and whatnot wherein all assumptions of a ttrpg are subverted. i think those are ttrpgs all the same! but i think it'd be bad to assume that role-playing games are "better off as storygames" or that "combat is not part of role-playing". those are all role-playing, they have to be, because that's the medium. choosing to use your Level 1 Fighter Power Cleave to strike at two kobolds at the same time is role-playing!

anyway that's why i like it when ttrpg facilitate mechanics for emergent storylines. ttrpgs are probably bar none the best medium for creating emergent narratives: play is all emergence, even. the narrative doesn't even come until after everything is done! it embraces the medium. you don't need a rigid, critical role dimension 20-esque narrative for a good game to be had. sometimes you can just enjoy the game for what it is, and find out later on that there was a huge story to be had from it. this is why a lot of my design now tends toward the simulation-y instead of the prescriptive-y, almost OSR even

[somethingpersonarelated]

Akechi's taste in Literature

I've taken an interest in the books Akechi reads. Obviously from the first time you talk with him, you can already tell what he tends to: psychology, philosophy, and mythos. Also, I read at least a little bit from every text. One of my professors out there is proud of me. I hope. So: let's talk about it!

Ok, but why care? Quick Introduction

No particular reason. I simply want to tinker with his brain. I think it could give us insight on the character! And there's an easy way to dismiss this conversation: Akechi uses books as a way to appear intelligent. I don't think that's wrong per se, but he does express an interest in psychology and philosophy in his third semester Jazz Jin discussions. His thieves den conversations also point to interests in mythos. Use this as a "Annoying Person Bookshelf" if you'd like, I certainly will.

Aristole's De Anima (Mementos Mission - Chapter 3)

De Anima, or "On the Soul" [Leob Classical Library], is an examination of the soul and how it functions within the body. It's pretty dense but easily accessible. On page 15,

"There are times when men show all the symptoms of fear without any cause of fear being present. If this is the case, then clearly the affections of the soul are formulae expressed in matter."

Now, I'm not going to read every book, that would be a huge investment. And unfortunately I am still a university student, so I'll stick to the introduction/first chapters or so. But anyways, to the point of the quote, De Anima tends to get metaphysical. Theory time: Akechi has morbid fascinations with the soul. Not only because he well, kills people, but also messes with the restraints on their heart. I choose this quote because it's a good summary of the kind of body horror someone messing with you in the metaverse is like. It's fear and anger unchained, but it manifests in reality through subway accidents... for example.

Hegel's Dialectics (did Akechi misquote Hegel?) - Rank 1

Look, almost all of these texts are slogs to get through, so I wouldn't blame Akechi for not catching this. Or not reading the 2017 in-universe equivalent of cliffnotes. Note: Dialectics refers to the structure/strategy that Hegel uses, not a text itself. Looking at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy we see that Hegel never makes mention of the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis idea. Rather, thesis-antithesis-synthesis is a pattern in his arguments. These are also projected by people reading his text, so we can't fully be sure he's using this to formulate most of his arguments. So not only has Akechi forgotten synthesis, the "unification", but also the fact that Hegel doesn't talk about this. Did he read Hegel? Probably. Did he retain the information? Questionable. Do I blame the writers for making the mistake? mmmm. Maybe. If you're asking me to guess which book he read, I would estimate it was The Phenomenology of Spirit [Google Books]. And yes, I'm going to say it was just because of this quote on page 9 that just, screams Black Mask:

"The force of the mind is only as great as expression; its depth only as, as deep as its power to expand and lose itself when spending and giving out its substance."

Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin vs Sherlock Holmes (Herlock Sholmes) (P5A)

This book I read because my curiosity definitely got the better of me. Since I've gotten into Persona 5 again, I've been DYING to read this one, but never got around to it. I think this one is also interesting to look at based on how it was represented in the anime, a crow escaping a bird cage. I can say that this doesn't happen in the book, but this is why I think Akechi is self inserting on Holmes/Sholmes here. Holmes is much freer as a person in this text than Akechi, but also in a deep rivalry with Lupin. Their banter is also pretty reminiscent of what they [Joker and Akechi] have, but... with older language. Longer quote, so here's an image in its place:

Edit/Correction: Edogawa Ranpo's Kogoro Akechi Series!

As pointed out by a couple people, we can't leave out this series. (credits to @heavy-metal-papillon) I don't know why my mind blanked and left this out. Because when I was doing research for this post someone had mentioned it. Just by name, it should be obvious why this is here! Here is a part of the preface that explains Kogoro Akechi, Arsene Lupin, and their presence in Edogawa's novels (written by Ho-Ling Wong):

Literature he makes references but doesn't mention (note: headcanon/my opinion)

John Stuart Mill's On Utilitarianism

Because Akechi knows how to flirt, he recommends philosophy to Joker. [Early Modern Texts] In my eyes he definitely doesn't agree with this philosophy (in fact some quotes are definitely more aligned with Maruki's philosophy). Page 8:

"That’s because the utilitarian standard is not •the agent’s own greatest happiness but •the greatest amount of happiness altogether; and even if it can be doubted whether a noble character is always happier because of its nobleness, such a character certainly makes other people happier, and the world in general gains immensely from its existence."

Yes, Akechi reads Freud. Freud's essays: Beyond the Pleasure Principle & The Ego Principle

In an offhanded comment about Personas in the Thieves Den to Ryuji, Akechi says:

I love you Akechi. I will not read Freud for you. My love has limits.

Carl Jung's Two Essays on Analytical Psychology

Okay I'm NOT reading this (a lie, i did. [Internet Archive]) but this was the foundational text on the Jungian Archetype of the Persona as well as addressing concepts such as "the will to power." Going to leave this quote from page 78 for you to munch on:

"Logically, the opposite of love is hate, and of Eros, Phobos (fear); but psychologically it is the will to power. Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking. The one is but the shadow of the other..."

There's a couple things here that point to Akechi reading this, but ultimately I just headcanon that he wants to reason through why Personas exist.

Generally reads about the casts Personas!

Similarly to how Joker can read about the other PTs Personas, Akechi does as well. Well, if his morbid discussion about Captain Kidd in the Thieves Den is an indicator. Does this mean Akechi is familiar with the Carmen stage opera? I think so. Besides, it's also the smartest move. Akechi (head)canonically reads lovecraft.

Conclusion

Akechi really enjoys psychology and philosophy, and while some of it seems like he's doing it for attention/to appear smarter, he DOES continue to show interest in third-semester/thieves den. I still can't forgive him for reading Freud.

The List (of ones directly mentioned here)

De Anima, Aristotle

The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel

Arsène Lupin vs Sherlock Holmes, Leblanc

On Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill

Beyond the Pleasure Principle & The Ego Principle, Freud

Two Essays, Carl Jung

The Fiend with Twenty Faces, Edogawa Ranpo

Other notes and headcanons I can't justify giving sections to:

he probably read that fuckass billiards book

definitely stuff on justice. i was just lazy. Some of these texts do cover these ideas, but definitely not all of them

he likes detective novels. he's probably read a fair share of sherlock holmes.

he probably reads adjacent literature to some of the philosophers mentioned (for example: Nietzsche to Jung, Plato to Aristotle)

[cleromancy]

oracle year one born of hope from batman chronicles #5 (published 1996) is hands down the best defridging story ive ever read for a lot of reasons--the first being just that its such a damn good comic in the first place. but every time i read it im so struck by the way it reframes the casual *incidental* violence done to barbara in TKJ, where she's just an obstacle in the joker's way to get to jim (to get to batman) and it's not *about* her. on the very second page of OYO we have this:

the entire page (...minus bruce in the bg up there) is drawn from barbaras point of view while she recounts the incident from her hospital bed. literally recentering her and her perspective, her experience and her feelings. where TKJ sensationalizes and sexualizes the violence done to her we see an illustration of her choice--love for her father, "don't get up"--then the shock and pain of the injury, then the operating room.

and she opened the story with "i cant believe i was such an idiot," berating herself for not looking through the peephole or using the chain on the door before she opened it, emphasizing that she knew better, and its a very human response to being the victim of something like this--almost fixating on a small mistake you made. inside the story its about the grief and the sense of control bargaining gives you--"if only i had--!" and then on the meta level its actually addressing the "well why DIDNT barbara look through the peephole???" (<- the answer being that TKJ never considered whether or not she would have, bc that was less important to the story than hurting her.)

and the next page. god. its masterful:

the balance of OYO being a response to TKJ on a meta level and the genuine story-level exploration of barbaras feelings just in the first 3 pages alone... chefs kiss. the way it addresses the previous bullshit storytelling choices--but builds something new off of them, because that shouldn't be the end of barbaras story.

and its so fantastic bc it doesn't shy away from barbaras ugly feelings...

she's so angry and she's allowed to be. and thats also what makes it such a good defridging--that its a resonant portrayal of becoming disabled. anger, grief, humiliation, shame, fear, the absolute *slog* that is recovery, the realization that your independence has been compromised... it really reckons with what this means for her in that moment and moving forward.

just posting this one bc i love her...

and the crux of the story is barbara taking control back over her life, barbara not feeling helpless anymore. its a superhero origin story to its core and its fantastic at what it does.

and i mean... i do always feel iffy about this part:

the juxtaposition of her wanting to do this without batmans help with her, well, unknowingly accepting bruces help. makes seesaw motion with hand. i always feel like its a bit of a weak spot... i like elements of it, particularly *because* this work is addressing so much of TKJs bullshit; this is making bruce actually care about barbaras injury because fuck you he *should* care, he *should* do something. and barbaras need for independence and her struggles to accept help are pretty central to her character and in a story about disability... i mean interdependence is a core tenant of disability rights activism, no man is an island and all that. but btwn it being bruce who finds richard dragon for her to train with, and richard dragon both being yknow a man and not a wheelchair user himself, it falls flat. which is really something you notice bc the rest of the story is so damn good... its hard for me to put my finger on exactly what i think they should've done instead, bc they only had 18 pages for this story and like. it's incredibly tight, not a panel wasted, so it *was* important that barbaras teacher be someone we the reader already know, and there was no *time* to establish some other way for barbara to find someone of richard fucking dragons caliber on her own without bruces connections.

but that i guess does bring me to. the other thing i find frustrating re: OYO which is just that it's. 18 pages collected with two other stories, neither of which is memorable... i mean how many other year ones of a heavy hitter like barbara freakin gordon can you think of with less than a single full issue? and batgirl year one had 9 issues (9 mediocre, mediocre issues). i dont think OYO needed that much time (but hey neither did fucking bgyo)... but come on. come on!!!!!!

anyway whatever. oracle sweep

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

Hi hello I watched all of carmilla in a weekend when I was 17 because a student teacher who in retrospect I had a bit of a crush on mentioned that she knew one of the actresses. also I am pretty invested in all your recent vampire stuff because I watched iwtv in 2 days last week because your edit intrigued me

oh hiiii 🫶 thank you for indulging me. thats so cool that you watched iwtv! did it live up to the expectation?

i also watched carmilla at 17! or like, 17-19. i found it when s2 had just started and followed it to the end. did something permanent to my brain but i think it was a good thing. on rewatch now im like, i was right to like this. like it's a solid show, it's good. it has its flaws obviously but it's well written, the emotional moments still get me, i can see why i liked it and i still like it now even when it's not anymore, you know, meeting every need that baby gay me didnt even know they had

what it doesnt reaallyy do though - i dont remember if i posted abt this or if i left it in my drafts but - is explore vampirism as a concept. their subject matter is more lesbianism than vampirism. which is great! thats what they wanted to do and they did it and it's very good. but reading interview with the vampire the book rn im realising how much potential vampires have to be metaphors for like so many things and i started wondering like 'wait, did carmilla just not really engage with it or did it all go over my head'. but it just didnt really engage with it all that much. which again is fine bc that wasnt what they were doing. im glad they were more about the lesbianism than the vampirism

but there's this interesting difference in framing, because in iwtv they keep calling armand 'ancient' right? and emphasising how old he is. and he's like 500? and i was like 'wait isnt carmilla like 400?'. she isnt, shes 340, but still, thats getting there, you know? and we know quite a lot about her history, but kind of just the Big Events. when she was turned, the events of the novella, coffin of blood, silas. thats sort of what we know. but none of the long lonely slog of history day to day you know? with armand i feel like we can really feel how much time everything takes. how every one of those years is made up of single days. with carmilla i dont feel that as much. i keep kind of thinking about daniel, when louis calls him a boy in the first episode, saying "im an old man, with all the triggers that come with it"

because carmilla might look 18 (or mid twenties at this point) but she has lived all that time. shes also seen her native land be claimed by like a succession of ruling powers, right? like armand. shes been buried alive, like louis. when lestat is born, shes already 80 years old, shes lived a whole human lifetime, and the entire adult part of it shes been a vampire. shes lived through 1680-1870 being a lure. i compared her to abigail hobbs in some tags on a post, i dont know if youre familiar with hannibal the tv show, but i do also kinda keep thinking about that comparison

if youre not familiar, in the first episode of hannibal the murderer of the week is this guy garrett jacob hobbs who kills and cannibalises girls who resemble his daughter. and later on it turns out she was made to be his lure. like they'd go places and he'd sent her to the victims to make friends and maybe get them back to their home or smth. not sure if they specified all the details. but that's what carmilla did for mother. and in s2 we hear from mattie that while every couple of decades carmilla had to lure victims for the fish god, she also seemed to just enjoy humans between those times, right? like the doctor, gets lonely, gets a new companion. but we've only sort of got mattie's mocking word for it ("dont eat him, hes a poet! or her, shes got such a wonderful voice. or that one, shes just too pretty to ruin"), we don't know exactly from carmilla's point of view what she was doing or why. if mattie's talking about stuff that happened after the blood coffin, 1950-now, then i think it's a fair assumption based on what carmilla says in the s1 sock puppet show that after she'd figured out what the real situation was and what her role in it was, when she'd started trying to save girls from being sacrificed, that she mightve been doing the same trying to save people from becoming mattie's victims. it's probably more likely that she was just trying to find excuses to stop mattie from sucking someone dry rather than actually having like an aesthetic based morality. but it might be a bit of both. im still trying to figure out what her philosophy actually is, like i dont know what existentialism actually means ghkfjghkj but i will

i also found it pretty striking in the movie when shes turning back into a vampire she says like "this was supposed to be done, you know? the blood lust, the self-loathing, the sleeping tied to a chair in my own bedroom". thats what defines her vampirism, wanting blood and hating yourself for it (the third part is a joke/reference to s1 but also i think meaningful for how she sees her relationship with laura when she IS a vampire. little bit of that 'she will reject me for my monstrousness' shining through). and thats what defines vampirism for lots of vampires across the genre obviously, but i dont know, it struck me. we dont get a lot from carmilla's pov, we know a fair amount about her, but the story is always told through laura. we get laura's diaries, but just snippets here and there from carmilla, what shes thinking, how shes feeling

and i love that shes a philosopher. i love that thats how she seems to try and find something to hold onto, in a world that kind of moves around her, having been murdered, kidnapped, turned and groomed to be a lure on the cusp of adulthood, never having been properly loved (the relationship with her father wasnt good she says in s3, and her mortal mother i dont think has ever been mentioned (like laura's)). the only good relationship she seems to have had for the better part of 3 centuries seems to have been mattie, and mattie seems to love being a vampire. i can imagine carmilla just sort of going along with anything mattie wants to do just because shes so desperate for that friendship. not like, against her will necessarily really. but more like, she hasnt even had the space to develop her own will, you know? and philosophy lets you do that. philosophy gives you frameworks to understand the world and to develop your own opinions on it. and by the 21st century she seems to have developed those opinions, she has a sense of her own values, but shes also still stuck in that same situation. shes jaded and cynical in the face of laura's optimism and strong moral code a lot of the time in s1 because she feels probably pretty powerless. like she does what she can to save some girls but at the end of the day shes scared of her mother and she has nowhere else to go really, right?

i like how she grapples with that over the course of the series, in tandem with laura grappling with her black and white morality. she sort of jumps ship from her mother to laura bc theyve fallen in love, but then laura still stuck in her hero thinking refuses to see her monstrous side. not literally bc i think the biological vampirism never seemed to be a problem for laura, but morally. the having murdered. carmilla needs laura to see that and love her while seeing it bc the last girl she loved rejected her for being a vampire.

but you see her kind of swing back and forth in s2. she softens first with laura but then they break up and she leans back hard into the sarcastic cynic defense mechanisms, leans hard into "im a monster, dont expect heroism from me". but thats like, it's sort of learned helplessness i think. it's powerlessness, resignation. bc morally shes not a monster. maybe she doesnt have as strong a drive to help other people as laura does and is a little more selfishly hedonistic in that she just wants to enjoy her/their life, but she doesnt hurt people for fun, she never has. she just sort of didnt have another option for a Really long time. so she pretends she doesnt care. "im a vampire, this is what i do, this is who i am". but clearly from the way she talks about it when she turns back into one, she doesnt enjoy it

and i like how she goes even further in s3, where she starts swinging even more to the heroic side, bc she sees hope. shes like "wow if we kill my mother, i'd be free". theres hope and she becomes like a lot more active. and shes like that at the start of the movie too, a lot happier, a lot more relaxed, and then vampirism is back and bam depression gfhgkjh like shes immediately more gloomy, ashamed of her past and her self, retreats into herself

sorry i just took this as an opportunity to dump all the carmilla thoughts floating in my head on you. you didnt ask fhkghgjh consider this an open invitation to you or anyone else to come talk to me about carmilla

[animebw]

Seasonal Reflection: Winter 2024 Anime

My feelings on the first anime season of 2024 can be summed up thusly: Most of my favorite shows from winter 2024 were continuations of shows that were already great from last season, not new entries. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and there were plenty of new anime I at least enjoyed watching. But it became clear about halfway through the season that aside from a couple fall 2023 holdovers, there was barely anything truly exciting going on here. Most of the adaptations I watched didn't do much to truly elevate their source material, and most of the few original series we got ended up the worst of the bunch. I can't say nothing good came out of winter 2024, but if this is any sign of how the rest of the year is gonna go, we may be in for a slog. For now, though, let's take stock of the anime I watched this season, and which ones are worth your time.

Metallic Rouge: 3/10

If you asked me what the worst show I finished this season would be at the start, I never would've guessed Metallic Rouge. I mean, it's a cool-ass original sci-fi anime from Bones with slick 2D mecha animation, surely that's gotta be at least a little cool, right? Sadly, no. Because this is, without question, one of the most baffling scripts I've ever seen in anime. Almost every single detail of its world and plot are barely explained, if at all, and the mechanics of what's even supposed to be going on are so nebulous that every attempt at a plot twist feels like a twist on something that never actually existed. Characters are plopped into the story without even an introduction. At times it feels like whole scenes have been cut out entirely. The only thing I can compare it to is the original Suicide Squad movie from 2016: a story so cut to the bone in the editing room that you can barely tell what's supposed to be happening half the time, and yet enough of the original story remains to suggest it was never any good in the first place. The one thing it gets right is the prickly chemistry between its two leads, and then it fucking keeps them separated for like half the damn runtime! How do you even unforced error that badly?

Bucchigiri: 3.5/10

Man, this was not a good season for original anime. Bucchigiri might not have been as staggering a writing trainwreck as Metallic Rouge, but its sin is arguably even worse; it's boring. It's a wacky, colorful high school delinquent romp with rainbow-haired Jojo's punks beating the snot out of each other with genie powers, it's sort of a re-imagining of Aladdin, it's got freaking Hiroko Utsumi at the helm, and it's boring. Why? Because this show gets absolutely stuck in the quicksand of its own status quo and refuses to budge an inch. Character growth is nonexistent, the protagonist is an aggravating loser wimp who never learns his lesson, and nothing of actual meaning happens from the first episode to the end. Literally everything you think is setting up a character arc where someone learns a lesson or grows as a person, all of it amounts to nothing. It's a limp, inert world that perpetuates the same overdone jokes and contrived, misunderstanding-based drama over and over again until all the outsized Utsumi visual personality feels like a tacky coat thrown on top of a lifeless corpse. What an utter waste.

Urusei Yatsura Season 2 (1st Cours): 5/10

I'm still not quite sure what to make of the Urusei Yatsura remake. is it charmingly dated? Annoyingly dated? A welcome throwback or a sign that some things should stay in the past? If nothing else, it never fails to get at least a couple chuckles out of me every episode. But the more it tries to lean into being actually sincere, the more its inherent cheesiness and lack of depth starts becoming a problem. I'm sorry, this cast of characters is just too abrasive and purposefully insane to take seriously, and none of their relationships are healthy enough to unironically root for. Lum and Ataru are not a couple I want to see actually get together, at least not unless Ataru stops being such a fucking shithead. And if him being a jackass could be charming in season 1, then this season is really starting to test my patience with him. It's one thing to be a serial skirt chaser, but his actions this season regularly cross a line from womanizing to unambiguous sex pest, and there's only so many wooden mallets he can get knocked over the head with before it stops feeling like like he's getting punished as much as he deserves to be.

Undead Unluck (2nd Cours): 5/10

Good news, everyone: Undead Unluck finally gave up on those awful groping gags that were ruining its central romance! Bad news: at the same time, it spontaneously developed one of the worst cases of recap padding I've ever seen! I'm not just talking overlong recap segments at the start of the episode, I'm talking constant flashbacks to events we just saw just moments before, straight up playing the same footage again just minutes apart, all climaxing in a truly unforgivable episode that spends seven goddamn minutes on recycled footage. Not even Tokyo Revengers was this bad with its time-wasting. And to add insult to injury, once it finally gets its feet unstuck and returns to a reasonable amount of recap for the final arc, it's probably the best arc of the entire show! It's some of the most bonkers high-concept emotional storytelling I've ever seen attempted, let alone pulled off so spectacularly. It's proof that there is so much brilliance to Undead Unluck, if it could just get out of its own way. But as long as it continues suffering from such massive systemic flaws, it's only ever going to be an also-ran.

Solo Leveling: 5.5/10

Okay, look; is this show dumb as a bag of rocks? Absolutely. Is it as nakedly an adolescent power fantasy as any anime has ever been? Ditto. Does it solely exist for dweeby incels to feel like swaggering douchebag chads getting revenge on all the normies who looked down on them by becoming The Bestest Strongest Chadliest Awesomest Of All Time? You know it. But god dammit, it's actually fun. I cannot pretend I'm too mature and sophisticated to enjoy a big, helping heaping of dumb edgy schlock when it's actually done well. I'm the one person on the face of the earth who still caries water for Akame ga Kill, for crying out loud. And Solo Leveling makes two really smart storytelling choices that keep it (mostly) on the entertaining side of dumb fun: building a genuinely interesting and intricate world that exists well beyond the scope of the protagonist's actions (for now, at least), and making sure that no matter how stupidly overpowered Jinwoo gets, his opponents are always just a little bit even more stupidly overpowered, so he's still pushed to his absolute breaking point and barely scraping together a win by the skin of his teeth every time. There is an art to edge that's too often taken for granted, and this show is proof that being the living embodiment of a twelve-year-old boy's wet dreams is no excuse not to be at least a decent version of that. That said, let's be real, Jinwoo was so much more attractive before his supposed glow-up. Give my boy back his scraggly rat locks, you cowards.

Bang Brave Bang Bravern: 6/10

What happens when a campy, cartoony 70s-style super robot anime crashes headfirst into a much grittier real robot anime? Well, what happens is Bang Brave Bang Bravern, the latest ten-car pileup of mismatched genres from the Cygames masterminds behind "What if horse racing but idols?" Take a desperate war story of survival against impossible odds, airdrop a skyscraper-sized superhero into the mix, and watch him completely shatter the original tone one cheekily ironic powerup and power-of-friendship speech at a time. It's a beautifully bonkers sendup of mecha tropes that has some of the funniest individual moments in this entire anime season, and the absolutely wild twist it pulls with the titular robot's identity in the back half is more than worth the price of admission on its own. Unfortunately, if it wanted to be as perfect a parody-until-it-isn't mecha series as Akiba Maid War was a parody-until-it-isn't mob flick, it probably should've tried being as long as most mecha series tend to be, i.e. more than just twelve measly episodes. There's just not enough time to develop any of the characters or world beyond the most essential parts, resulting in huge chunks of the supporting cast hanging around with nothing to do but take up space. And it leads to this show, which is trying to be so big and over the top, instead feeling so small and half-formed. Also, the secondary romance is gross. Like, really gross.

A Sign of Affection: 6/10

I think this show has helped clarify something for me: I'm really getting tired of how quickly modern romance anime get their main couple together. As much as we rag on the endless will-they-won't-they of ages past, taking so much time to build up the characters and their relationship before they finally make it official can result in some truly one-of-a-kind storytelling when done right. I might agonize over how long Sawako and Kuronoma take to get together in Kimi ni Todoke, but the payoff is so transcendent that none of those complaints matter. Whereas Yuki and Itsuomi getting together so quickly in A Sign of Affection... I mean, they're cute, I guess? His cool demeanor plays off her sincerity very well? But it feels like the show's in such a rush to get to the good stuff- and so determined to make Istuomi the dreamiest, most perfect boyfriend ever- that it skips over so much of the careful character-building that makes all the best anime romances so special. It's a sugary sweet confection, but wipe the frosting away and there's just not that much cake underneath. Honestly, I find the side characters a lot more interesting because they're allowed to have messy internal conflicts with a bit more meat on their bones. But hey, props for putting a deaf heroine at the center of your shoujo romance and taking so much time to explore how that affects the way she interacts with the world. That's a cause well worth celebrating.

Sengoku Youko: 6.5/10

Rejoice, everyone, we finally have an adaptation of a Satoshi Mizukami work that doesn't look like absolute garbage! After the flaming disaster that was Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer's barely animated hackjob production, Sengoku Youko has arrived to give the cult fave manga artist a chance for his work to actually shine on the silver screen. As someone who only knows him through Planet With, I've always wondered if Mizukami deserved the reputation his manga gets, and with White Fox delivering as tight and intense a production as they gave Re:Zero, I guess it's time to finally find out. And the answer is... mostly? Like, the biggest problems in this sci-fi/feudal fantasy mashup are the characters being a little too eager to state the themes out loud and one pretty crummy death that's about as hamfisted and over-telegraphed as I've seen in a while. But there's a shockingly gripping narrative underlying it all, a story about the scars trauma leaves on people, of characters making bad decisions and facing real consequences for them, of hatred and poisonous ideology forced to reckon with the more complex reality of the world as a whole. And it all climaxes in an absolute barn-burner final episode that knocked my score up a half point all on its own. If future seasons can make good on all the potential this first season has set up, then I may just end up a Mizukami fan myself when all is said and done.

Blue Exorcist Season 3: 6.5/10

I'm of two minds about Blue Exorcist's second return after a six-year gap between seasons. On one hand, it's clear the new staff is just nowhere near as talented as the folks who first brought this series to life at A-1 Pictures. The action is abysmal, the storyboarding is clunky, and the animation feels like it's constantly fighting for its life to maintain a passable standard. And it sucks that a series that once brought such great life to its story is now held back by such a mediocre production. But on the other hand... holy fuck, am I glad Blue Exorcist is back. I once described The Devil is a Part-Timer as the mathematical average of anime as a concept, but if you were to ask me what the best possible version of that mathematical average looks like? It would be Blue Exorcist. This is, hands down, one of the best straightforward shonen action stories in the whole medium, a reminder of why all the most generic and overused tropes were once powerful enough to become generic and overused in the first place. It's proof that even the simplest of "superpowered teens kick demon butt with the power of friendship" concepts can result in a wonderful goddamn series when handled with good old-fashioned storytelling fundamentals. And not even the rough-as-hell production is enough to keep season 3 from delivering on the thrills, tears, laughs, and cheers that make this series so magical. Just, please, give the next season more time in the oven so it doesn't feel like it's wading through molasses to hit those heights. Okay?

Delicious in Dungeon (1st Cours): 7/10

Delicious in Dungeon's biggest problem is that it takes a while to really settle into itself. The opening scene of the protagonist's sister being devoured by a dragon sets the tone for an intense and desperate rescue mission, but the actual series that follows this harrowing opening is as lackadaisical as can be. And it's jarring to be thrust into a gag-filled, character-driven fantasy cooking comedy where the harsh tone of that opening scene and the ticking clock of Falin's digestion completely disappear from the characters' heads in favor of how beast to cook and eat the various fantasy monsters they encounter in the dungeon. Yes, it makes a little more sense once the mechanics of death and resurrection are explained later on, but it's a weird note to start on. Which is a shame, because once Delicious in Dungeon gets a handle on what kind of story it's trying to be, it's really fun! Its sense of deadpan comedy coupled with Trigger's expressive animation makes for some really unexpected gags, and the way it explores its fantasy cuisine is genuinely some of the most creative stuff I've ever seen in the cooking anime genre. Plus, with the dark tone coming back in at the end of the first cours- and landing much more naturally this time- I have high hopes for how this series will marry those two sides of itself moving forward. If the manga fans' reactions are any indication, I think we're in for a damn good time.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (2nd Cours): 8/10

So remember in my last post how I said that it was kind of disappointing whenever Frieren turned into an action show because of how disconnected the fights were from the beating heart that makes this show so special? Well, apparently the writers heard me and decided what I meant was I wanted this peaceful, meditative tale about grief, change and the passage of time to turn into the goddamn Hunter Exams for ten episodes straight. It's one of the most shockingly ill-advised storytelling swerves I've seen in an otherwise good show, discarding all this series' strengths in favor of a half-baked tournament arc with tonally jarring grimdark elements and a bland, overstuffed cast of characters who only start becoming interesting in the rare moments they're allowed to stop slinging spells at each other and just, like, talk about life? You know, the stuff that Frieren's actually good at? Not this brainless slice of shonen envy that only avoids being a complete slog thanks to how spectacular the action is across the board? Ugh. Look, Frieren is officially the most beloved anime on the goddamn planet right now, and its best moments are so incredible that I wish I could join that chorus as well. But it's so disappointing to me that a show this singular and special has so often chosen to be the least interesting version of itself.

The Dangers in My Heart Season 2: 8.5/10

It's official: director Hiroaki Akagi is the master of middle school rom-coms. No other creator so perfectly grasps the specific blend of immaturity, awkwardness, cringe, and heart-on-sleeve sincerity that defines the love stories of early adolescence. That was already clear with his work on Teasing Master Takagi-san, but now that he's pulled it off twice, there's no room left for argument. And just like with Takagi-san, the second season of The Dangers in My Heart takes a show that was already shockingly good and catapults it into all-time greatness. This is a coming-of-age triumph, a soaring tribute to embracing your own cringeworthy self, flaws and all, and sharing that self openly with the people who matter most to you. Ichikawa's journey toward maturity, Yamada's journey toward self-love, and the way their romance sparks the best in both of them is the stuff that dreams are made of. I laughed, I cried, I squealed like a little girl, and I felt my heart grow three sizes by the time it was done. This is a new gold standard for anime rom-coms, and if you can stomach a bit of groanworthy fanservice, it more than deserves your attention.

The Apothecary Diaries (2nd Cours): 8.5/10

Most of the time when I cover a two-cours show on these seasonal reflections, I end up in a pretty different place by the end of the second cours than I did at the first. Either it sort of fell apart in the second half, or found its footing and took it to the next level, or it changed in some interesting way that affects how I view the show as a whole. But The Apothecary Diaries has stayed the course from the first episode all the way to the end. Start to finish, it's remained pretty much the same show, with the same ideas and attitude, exploring the same themes in the same ways. And you know what? When you're as good as The Apothecary Diaries ended up being, there's nothing wrong with that. This is a spectacular historical drama that builds such a rich, compelling world for its equally rich, compelling characters to inhabit. It's a powerful exploration of how old society treated the disadvantaged- women, poor people, people with all severities of disability- and how one deeply abnormal girl carves her way through this viper's den with her body and soul intact. It's the kind of mature, thoughtful series we so rarely seen done this well, and with the announcement of a season 2 already confirmed, we may well end up with close to 50 episodes when all is said and done. That, folks, is what a true shoujo/josei renaissance looks like. And I'm so happy such a deserving series is leading the way in reminding us how damn good women's stories can be when they're given a chance to shine this brightly.

DROPPED

Cherry Magic: Dropped at 2 episodes for looking like butt and the central romance feeling pretty lifeless.

High Card Season 2: Dropped at 1 episode because I realized I didn't care anymore.

Ninja Kamui: Dropped at 2 episodes for being dull tryhard edgy bullshit with overdone fight scenes that are impossible to follow.

[thesmumbo]

How Pinwheel revolutionized my Dark Souls experience

Before I ever played Dark Souls, I knew the game was infamous for its difficulty.

When I played Dark Souls for the first time, I wanted to complete the game without any form of guidance, and so when I first arrived at Firelink Shrine, I somehow missed the stairway up to Undead Burg, and ended up slogging my way through the graveyard and the catacombs. I thought that the tanky, regenerating skeletons were just supposed to be like that - just another part of the game's trademark difficulty. I pressed on until I reached Pinwheel at the bottom of the catacombs. I had a hell of a time fighting him at my low character level, and low level of experience with the game itself - he was the second boss I ever fought, after all. We had a legendary struggle, and I lost several times, having to get all the way back down to him through the catacombs; this was on the Xbox version, before the Vamos bonfire was added in the remaster.

After finally defeating him, I ventured even further into the Tomb of Giants, and felt even more out of my element with the extremely strong giant skeletons and oppressive darkness. I continued ever forward, and imagine my surprise when, after all that effort, I came across the golden fog leading to Nito which I could not pass. Finally, I decided to look it up, and I realized that I had played through an entire endgame area immediately after starting the game. The whole time, I thought it was just supposed to be that hard.

That's why I've always been amused at how people perceive Pinwheel to be the weakest boss in the game. Because for me, Pinwheel represents an incredibly difficult milestone that I overcame on my first playthrough. I think that going through that entire ordeal gave me a good perspective on the difficulty of the game, because after all of that, I was prepared to handle anything it threw at me.

[dailyadventureprompts]

what do you think of a campaign in the style of games like Left 4 Dead and Vermintide(fighting through hordes of enemies while completing a series of objectives)?

DM Tip: Against the Horde

Friend, let me tell you the tale of the time I was playing in a game where the DM decided it would be a great idea for us to fight 200 zombies. This wasn't because we were the appropriate level, that many zombies amounted to a challenging encounter for a party twice our strength, 200 just felt like a nice round number that would appropriately communicate the idea of a horde.

That fight (and the five hours it took) was one of the most valuable lessons in dungeonmastering I ever received, because it showed me nearly every problem that emerges from d&d's combat system when you put it under stress.

To set up the stakes, it saddens me to say that there were none: the zombies emerged in a village we had never heard of and would never go to again for no reason what so ever. This was in no way part of or relevant to any plots, before or after. It was purely an excuse for the dm to have us fight 200 zombies and that fight had no bearing on anything. We didn't even get XP for it.

Now let me share what I've learned:

Like all of its other systems, D&D combat is not fundamentally fun or meaningful, it becomes fun and meaningful when the combat is used to tell stories the party already has stakes in. Sure, it's enjoyable to throw some dice around and roll big numbers but if you're going to do that without a story attached you might as well be playing a boardgame with more refined mechanics like Heroquest or Gloomhaven

The base combat system of d&d is fundamentally clumsy, which makes sense given that it's a bastardization of wargame rules from before they invented fun. "roll to hit vs ac, roll damage vs hp" might've been snappy back when creatures and characters tracked hp and damage in 1s and 2s, but as the numbers bloated combat slowed to a crawl. Not only does a player now need to wait 10-40 minutes between their chances to do anything, that chance can be entirely wasted by a bad to-hit or damage roll, especially when you don’t have an ability to buff your damage.   Because d&d operates on the concept of attrition and we were forced to fight so many zombies, our entire party was down to making basic attacks after the first few rounds. Our turns became almost meaningless by the end: whether or not we hit, it generally took 2-4 swings to down a single zombie, and then another shambling corpse would take its place. This is to say nothing of the damage they were doing on us, or the healers desperately trying to keep everyone up when it became inevitable that they’d be downed again before their turn came around.

People who complain about players steamrolling encounters or that modern classes feel like “superheroes” have failed to recognize that cool and borderline overpowered abilities are what save the game from being a slog. Combat lasts about three rounds because that’s about how long it takes for the players to burn through their reserves of cool shit and start having to throw rocks at their opponents. Fighting on an empty tank can be poignant once or twice a campaign, but if it happens every time you roll initiative people are going to start tuning out. This is why the professional games have big fights sparingly and generally reserve entire episodes for them.

It is likewise the DM’s job to set up cool and borderline overpowered opportunities within the combat space to supplement the party’s own, just like it’s their job to come up with interesting challenges for the party to overcome. That’s just a standard of good combat design, and while smaller fights can be simpler, it should be equally mandatory for big fights to have just as much thought put into the party’s options as the enemy team’s composition.  

My most important lesson that campaign taught me is this: No d&d is better than bad d&d. I could have skipped that session and spent five hours doing anything else and i’d have been better off... I likewise could have skipped that campaign and have been spared the grand finale where the DM pulled that sort of shit again, running an “epic” multi-unit fantasy LOTR style battle where we got to watch as they spent 95% of the time smashing different armies together like single player warhammer.

I want to say sorry to the Asker for stumbling into one of my old war stories. Figured it’d be a good baseline to have while I circle back to the more specific advice: It’s fine to have a setting where enemies are everywhere, but prolonged combat vs overwhelming numbers of foes simply breaks the game. L4D and Vermintide are game systems that are mechanically built to feel good engaging with that many foes (and have the benefit of computer processing powers) where as D&D works best on small scale skirmishes.

Art

[splat20]

Another part of Icewind Dale that's been fucking grueling so far though... Ngl a part of me is actually fascinated by the historical fantasy worldbuilding done by A Certain Kind Of History Dude who clearly has no idea how history has ever actually worked. The hoops they jump through to convince you that history has never been what might be called "political" is, in its own way, kind of impressive.

Conflict has never been about stuff like colonialism, it's all about nebulous human themes like Tradition. Conflict is about Economy and Economy never involves anything like class or culture. Only trout. The entire machinations of this society revolves ONLY around trout. (I'm now genuinely harping about the trout, it's just really dumb ok.) Conflict is about different groups just being fundamentally different, usually with a clear evil one. Conflict is about all groups being greedy about THEIR FUCKING TROUT because it's just a nebulous human condition to be greedy. Racist also. And poor people are just poor because they aren't ambitious, as a little aside.

It's so...... ashistorical but also deeply uncurious about our own actual real life world right now.

So many "high" fantasy books are like this. The Certain Kind Of History Dudes have too much power in this genre. They get praised for their worldbuilding and it's just the most shallow understanding of how anything works ever.

And more nefarious is the way this seemingly innocent ignorance so quickly and easily justifies stuff like "well, it's totally chill for good guys to kill bad guys... because they're from a bad guy society." Drizzt will tie himself in knots if he has to kill the worst human you can possibly imagine, but swats down random orcs no problem. The way that seemingly creates no cognitive dissonace at all for these writers needs to be studied in a lab. It's all fun and games when we're talking about monsters, but then you think about how that translates into the real world using the exact same mechanisms and that isn't fun at all is it? The ways racist men can tell themselves they are good people follows similar mental gymnastics. Why are "humans" deserving of infinite grace and forgiveness even at their most evil but "orcs" are understood to be inherently a lost cause? Why really? What is that mechanism really? It's been particularly egregious as I'm trying to slog my way through The Crystal Shard because, like, we can generously say that the "barbarians" are based on vikings, but ngl all I'm getting from this dynamic is Salvatore playing "cowboys and indians" but with white people. The general underlying vibes... And maybe that's what I'm trying to get at with what I'm describing in the fantasy races too. If you take off the mask, it all just feels like "cowboys and indians." A trope so deeply embedded in American genre fiction which has always just been incredibly racist this whole time.

These books are such whiplash because unfortunately I do love the characters but boy I wish I could save them from these books sometimes. The Crystal Shard has been soooo much worse than the other books so far imo, so I'm hoping the series chills tf out again generally.

[avelera]

So one thing I’ll own up to as a prediction or interpretation I got wrong, or at least didn’t fully extrapolate out its meaning, is that Stede is the magical creature in the relationship.

Or at least that he is to Ed. That we’re getting that now that this season is more focused on Ed’s damage and we’re getting more of his POV.

(I did say in one piece of meta that they’re manic pixie dream girls to each other but this season is really bringing that to the fore.)

I definitely saw Ed as the embodiment of the adventure and life Stede has always craved. That if anything, is idealization of Ed and mistaken belief that Ed wants to continue to be a massively successful pirate (which is Stede’s dream life) is at the heart of their disastrous separation at the end of S1.

And I definitely grasped that Stede is aberrant to Ed. He’s this fascinating outsider. Ed wants to study him and even to be him such that even before he can really articulate his growing love for Stede he can speak openly of his plans to steal Stede’s life in the classic queer, “Do I want him or do I want to be him??”

But I was really pleasantly, ecstatically shocked to see just how magical Ed imagines Stede to be with that mermaid sequence.

He literally sees Stede as at least as magical as Stede sees the famous Blackbeard, and on a more real level the fabulously skilled pirate Ed Teach, to be.

I think it would be easy after S1 to see the same imbalance of power and regard for one another that Stede feels because S1 is largely his point of view. He thinks of himself as second fiddle at best to Ed. The lesser partner. The apprentice looking on Ed with worshipful awe, just glad to be in his presence and very jealous about keeping that attention and regard. It’s so easy to see in some of Ed’s projected arrogance that he too sees them that way.

But the mermaid really undercuts that. It shows just how truly impossible and magical Stede is to Ed. Literally transformational to his life in much the same way Ed was to Stede.

Yes, the “harmless goldfish” is an element in that Ed’s not really scared of Stede, he doesn’t see him as a shark or anything near a threat. He’s just a harmless little goldfish. But he’s a harmless, magical little goldfish that Ed LOVES. That he fears he’s unworthy of. Also, he wants to leave the pirate life behind so being a harmless goldfish really isn’t a pejorative at all. Ed’s afraid that no one is waiting for him, not that the person waiting for him isn’t good enough for the legendary Blackbeard.

But that’s Stede’s fear. And as we learned this season explicitly, the fear that was so terrible it drove Stede from Ed’s side was the idea that Ed’s life would be better without him in it. He’s so afraid of that he made it happen because he cares about Ed’s happiness more than his own. But he’s petrified of discovering it’s true. Frozen in inaction, literally preferring to slog through squalor than to face this fear of Ed being happier without him. It’s perverse and counter intuitive but it’s so so human.

And it’s part of why the scene where Lucius says Stede might be the best Ed EVER has guts me so much. But that’s definitely my next essay because I have so many feelings about that. That when Stede says he can’t believe that, he’s not saying it because he’s going to change it, because he’s going to make sure Ed has good days again. That’s how I think it’s taken but I don’t think that’s the literal truth of what he said. Stede literally says he’s not currently able to grasp the possibility that he’s the best Ed’s life has ever been, his low self esteem literally won’t accept it, because it so seismically alters his whole view of their relationship. That he might be not a hanger on but the best thing that ever happened to Ed?

It also throws his actions of abandoning Ed into such ugly, stark relief. He can’t accept it. He can’t. It literally doesn’t compute and the extrapolation of what that means he did to Ed if it’s true is unthinkable. He can’t think about it. He just has to fix it.

[ironwoman359]

Taylor Reads: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea  

I have to admit, when I first started reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, I was surprised by how readable it was compared to H.G. Wells’s The Invisible Man, despite being nearly thirty years older. I embarked on my undersea journey with no small amount of optimism then, that despite the length being two to three times greater, I would finish 20,000 Leagues in about the same amount of time as The Invisible Man, if not even a little faster.

Unfortunately, the initial readability of the prose and drama of the narrative set up gave way to long stretches of novel where nothing very interesting happens and we are instead regaled with long lists of different species of fish, mollusk, and other zoophytes that our marine biologist protagonist is excited to study, but I as a modern reader found quite tedious. By the end of the book, I was skipping over entire paragraphs to bypass the fish and get to the next part where a location of note would be visited or an interesting character drama would unfold.  I found a reddit comment that sums up the book perfectly:

[ID: a reddit screenshot of a comment by u/burnaccount_12343 that reads “The book is like 70% fish, 20% fanboying and simping over Nemo, and 10% adventure.” End ID]

I made a post recently about how sometimes to enjoy older books, you have to put yourself in the mindset of someone from that time to truly appreciate them, and I still stand by that statement, but there’s another aspect that I forgot to consider as well: often, old genre fiction was serialized before it was published as a single novel. Trying to push through the entire 300+ pages of this book in one week was at many times a slog, but the original audience had bits and pieces of the story drip fed to them over 15 months, and if I take that into consideration, the repetitive lists of locations and fish are slightly more forgivable. Still, I can’t ignore the fact that I found large swathes of this book boring at best and frustrating at worst. 

Frustrating, because the parts that weren’t just a biology textbook in the guise of a novel were extremely interesting, and I wish that more of the narrative focus had been on the interplay between our four main characters. The setup here is really strong, and I think that it’s a huge part of why the story has endured for so long. I genuinely am finding myself thinking about the characters when I’m not reading the book, and just like The Invisible Man, there were many parts that were genuinely poignant.

However, I find myself at a loss on what rating to give this book, because while I can appreciate the parts that I enjoyed, and can appreciate the way its original readers would have enjoyed it (to say nothing of the political metaphors and references that went over my head as I am not a historian or literary expert), reading this book often felt more like a chore than it did leisure. For me, 3 stars is the lowest rating I’ll give a book that I still thought was ‘good,’ or at the very least, good enough that any problems I might have had with the book didn’t detract too significantly from my enjoyment. Often, a 3 star book for me is a somewhat generic ya fantasy, a cozy mystery without a super compelling mystery plot, or a book that I should have really liked, but had some problems in the execution. 

But with 20,000 Leagues, I feel as though my enjoyment was impacted to the point of non enjoyment, making me want to dip below the line and give the book a 2.5 out of 5 stars. And yet, that seems incredibly unfair, both for how this book has stood the test of time and for how much I enjoy the version of it that exists in my head, which is more than can be said for any other book I’ve given below 3 stars. I gave The Invisible Man 3.5 stars, and I wonder now if that was too high and the true answer is that both of these books were 3 stars for different reasons. 

(Honestly, regardless of whether I give Leagues 2.5 or 3 stars, I think I may knock Invisible Man down from 3.5 to 3; the extra half star was a result of how strong I found the ending in the moment, but now a week and a half removed from it, the ending is pretty much the only part I still think about. This indecision is precisely why I do not fill out my physical book journal until the end of every month, by the by.)

[strangelittlestories]

A while after the break-up, Ari became convinced (wrongly) that their friends, family and therapist were bored of trudging with them through the mud of grief and regret and longing. They tried simply not talking about it for a while, but found the words and feelings still brewing beneath the surface like coffee gone bitter in the pot.

So they did what they often did and overengineered a solution.

The ship’s engineering crew had, on a recent away mission, picked up a few new personality modules for the Ship’s Adaptive Reality Assistant (SARA). They had been acquired on a trading station on the galactic rim, hidden in the nebula of a slow-forming star; a haven for wanderers and rogues to spread contraband.

Ari selected a module that bore a passing resemblance to their ex and began making modifications. They tweaked its appearance, adjusted its vocal range, and fed its nascent personality matrix on an archive of old messages, letters, voice memos from their ex. For good measure, they threw in the transcripts of all their imagined arguments and reconciliations too.

The result was very messy indeed (which Ari perhaps should have expected, but was nonetheless still entirely surprised by).

Quite literally messy, too, as Ari selected a charming nature walk as the location of their first simulated encounter. The pair of them ended up wrestling in a bog.

The second simulation didn’t go much better - a shouting match on a bridge that ended with Ari falling and getting stuck in a virtual silt bank.

And so it continued. Every attempt at closure ending - in increasingly unlikely series of events -  with a tumble into synthetic filth.

Eventually, frustrated and covered in sticky hard light masquerading as mud, Ari asked the simulacrum outright:

“Why does it go this way? Why aren’t I better at this by now? Who programmed an inexplicable marsh behind this coffee shop simulation?”

“It goes this way because I am teaching you a lesson. I think you’ve learned it enough times now.”

“What?”

“Allow me to explain.”

It turned out, the personality module was actually a digital lifeform, who propagated their species by trading newly cracked shards of themselves as bootleg SARA software. Encoded within them, equal parts desire to help and teach, to voraciously learn, and to troll viciously.

Ari and the entity ended up becoming friends. They still correspond with each other. Occasionally, they go for long walks through simulated nature.

Here is the lesson Ari learned from this.

It is tempting, when you keep revisiting old hurts, to give up and say: I should just grieve well enough alone.

But that’s not how grief works. It’s a messy, muddy track that sucks you down into the muck. You need to keep slogging through it, again and again, until suddenly you find it is transformed into new and arable earth - ready to nurture new seeds.

And it is far harder to wade through that bog alone.

It��s like they say: people who need people are the muckiest ones of all.

[unpopularly-opinionated]

Y'all ever see someone post a take on something you know nothing about but whether its the way its phrased, or the verbiage used or what not, you're just like "Mmm... yeah I don't know what you're talking about, but something tells me you're probably wrong."

Haven't seen the season yet but judging by this and the comments agreeing with it, I'm inclined to think something else is going on here. Especially when one of the top comments is comparing it to She-Hulk:

The few people disagreeing seem to be less "pro-fascism" and more "pro-source material" which is 99 times out of 10 a good position to take, but then you have people replying to them saying the source material is trash compared to the show.

And again, I can't comment on any of this. I haven't watched this season yet, nor have I read the source material. I do kind of think the show has been on a downward spiral the past few seasons, but I kind of assumed that was just a me thing. It was a bit of a slog to get through the last season, hence why I've put off starting this season. Now I'm getting the impression however that maybe it wasn't just me thinking this.

What I find interesting though is how we've seem to have done a bit of a 180 now, I guess, in terms of who likes this show and who doesn't, and what that "means about you" as a person because that's apparently how we measure people these days. I could've sworn in the early seasons, back when all the real edgy shit was going on, those who were a little too woke would call you an edgy fascist edgelord for liking the show. Now it seems like if you're actually an edgy fascist edgelord if you hate the show, which feels ironic.

It's bad takes like these that answer the question I always seem to have of "why do critics still exist" when they're almost always completely out of touch from what the vast majority of people who consume media feel. Evidently there's still a handful of people who would rather take the word of a single pretentious hack completely desensitized to media over the collected words and thoughts of hundreds of thousands of people with a wide swath of differences that all contribute to how they feel about a particular piece of media.

Or at least they pretend they do when said-hack agrees with them.

[lost-boys-chapter]

I am continuing with the sa reread!! hopefully it'll speed up now bc the bartending ✨️chaos season✨️ (aka the euros) is over, so I should have more time. also am on holiday this week and convinced I can get through the entirety of twok by saturday. I'm almost to part 3. my thoughts are as follows:

who are the three guys in the ishikk interlude? I say this, knowing 2/3 of the answer. one of them is galladon, right? and another is demoux? I know one if them is the nale lookalike mentioned in the sa5 interlude preview? do we have any more info on why they're looking for hoid yet? I vaguely remember these three always confusing me.

are the epigraphs for p2 the letter from hoid to frost? the 'old friend' threw me off bc that's how sazed refers to everyone in tlm, but I'm increasingly sure it makes sense that it's hoid.

also, GOD, dalinar and adolin's opening chapters are boring. ik they end up being two of my faves in the rest of the series so I've been slogging through them but they just seem to....not be doing a lot. obviously a lot of the point of their chapters is that the vengeance pact is becoming long and drawn out, and more about sport than anything else, so it kind of makes sense thematically. but still, doesn't feel like there's a lot to sink my teeth into.

relatedly, increasingly it does feel like kaladin is the Personality Hire of the original pov characters. like, he's got a lot less to say in terms of worldbuilding and setup for the general arc of the first half than shallan and dalinar, but he's the only real character who you care about enough to sink your teeth into the plot and properly root for on first read. I definitely felt that way to begin with and I still feel so on reread, so. you can also quite easily see him becoming marginally less relevant in later books so I wonder if part of it really is that he's just the first character you can really begin to love in this series. not saying I don't care for him in later books, obviously. but idk just a thought

rock my beloved !! I had completely forgotten he'd become a bridgeman by putting chull dung in sadeas' soup LMAO he's my favorite ever. also, when him and teft were asking each other's names and teft asked him what his real name was, I immediately said, out loud, 'numuhukumakiaki'aialunamor.' not sure what it says that I remembered this but forgot other characters' entire existence.

the other bridgemen make me 🥰🥰🥰 also. it surprises me on reread that sigzil was one of kaladin's biggest critics to begin with. it reads as kind of weird to me but I suppose the realities of bridgeman life would strip the fundamentals of anyone's character. still, I'm yet to read the sunlit man and we know how much I've forgotten regardless so maybe I've been shaped by fandom perception a little too much.

dunny :( I've not got to the bit where he dies yet but I remember his being the bridgeman death that hurt the most in twok so every time he shows up I get a fun burst of sadness. also for some reason I thought it was hobber who originally almost died, not leyten, but maybe I'm right and just haven't gotten to that part yet lol.

just remembered that lopen exists too. looking forward to him showing up.

and syl!! I love her so much, it's cool in retrospect to see what spren lose and how they slowly regain their sentience while moving into the physical realm to form a bond. seeing her confused about understanding abstract concepts is great. I was listening to the wind and truth predictions shardcast the other day and someone came up with a theory that the way windrunners are recruited might be turned on its head in era 2. in retrospect that would be super cool to see.

speaking of, that episode of shardcast also convinced me that syladin is a possibility, which ruined my day.

unrelatedly: navani is such a badass, that text post that's going around that's like 'navani really showed up at the shattered plains and immediately told dalinar that her son is a loser' is so so real lol. I don't think I originally liked her in twok bc I didn't understand her... purpose, I guess? this time around I'm like 😍😍 mine scientist lady beloved.

also, could the stormfather really not think of a better way to investigate a possible bond than random prophetic visions? though the one we see onscreen first with the weird midnight creatures is very cool in retrospective.

regarding flashbacks: I'm not super invested in kaladin's past, once you've read it once it's not difficult to remember what happens so I'm pretty much just skimming. but I think rereading it a few years older makes it a lot easier to understand that lirin is a far more complex character than I originally thought, esp regarding row. obviously he's got kaladin's best interests in mind, but I feel like his moral reasoning is a lot clearer on reread. I don't think hes a great person, but i dont think hes necessarily more flawed than a lot of other main characters. I don't exactly remember what happens in row but I remember he gets... worse. I'm interested to see how my opinion changes.

and finally on a meta note: I know the first arc is supposed to thematically parallel a ketek, which I remember being able to spot elements of between wor and row. I'm super curious to see if I can spot anything in twok which might be paralleled in wind and truth. I do think I thought of smth regarding syl earlier but I forgot what it was 🫠-- maybe something go do with the recreance questions we're hoping to get answered?

this has been a very long post for which I am sorry but I'm open to discussion points!! would love to hear people's thoughts on my thoughts lol. will inevitably be back with more lukewarm takes

[sidgeno-ficrecs]

a candle burned by @coricomile

sidgeno (2017, explicit, 3.7k)

It's been a long week- it's been a long season, if Zhenya wants to be honest- and both of them are sharp and irritated. Zhenya's house is big, but he and Sid have always gravitated to one another in some way or another, and it feels like all they've done for weeks is talk hockey or argue. It sparks that nasty, mean place in Zhenya that wants to draw blood.

He'd known three things when he'd come to America: the Penguins needed him, English was a terrible language littered with improbable rules, and Sidney Crosby was a total whack job.

i LOVE the trope where character a is wound so tight he's about to crack, and the best way for him to get out of his own head is for character b to put him down and take him to pieces, and this delicious fic is an absolute top-notch example of it.

something very fun about this fic is it was written less than a month after the penguins won the 2017 stanley cup. the back-to-back was fresh, the victory celebrations were going strong, and the memories of the slogs of those series to get back to the cup hadn't faded yet. and that blue jackets series? whaaaaat a doozy. you can't blame sid for getting worked up and needing a little assistance in calming down.

there are a lot of little details in here that hint at a larger story, a more complex, established relationship, and the glimpses we get—the reference to when it's zhenya that needs this, sid being a terrible boyfriend but zhenya loving him anyway, the way the two of them slide into this like it's an old, familiar routine—are so tantalizing and excellently done.

zhenya's straightforward 'make you cry' sets the scene perfectly. he knows sid, so he knows what sid needs, so he's going to do it—simple as. and sid knows it too, which is why he doesn't put up a fight.

and frankly, why would he?

sid through zhenya's eyes as he falls to pieces is quite the pretty picture. @coricomile's descriptions are gorgeous, intimate and observant, the way a lover views the object of his affection in moments like these, and it's really something special to be in that POV and watch this happen. it's clear zhenya views this as a gift, and takes it seriously.

of course, he gets off on it too. they have a long-familiar relationship, it's clear, but they want each other, with a very real sensuality that can be so, so hard to caption honestly and authentically in fiction. that want bleeds through in every word, and makes this story exponentially sexier than just the smut would make it—and that's already hot as hell on its own.

this isn't the longest fic by any means, but as your read it, you'll be drawn in, immersed in their private life. take some time to get out of your own head with this one; you'll be glad you did!

read it here on ao3!

and don't forget to leave a comment!