I think this weird trend of hating male bland background characters in warriors needs to stop. The girl ones are bland too. They’re ALL bland. You know what you can do? Make up personalities for all of them and have fun yourself

hi!! hope i’m not a bother. i just came across u and i wanted to ask something,,,

basically, i joined the life is strange fandom in 2018 so i never got to experience the pre-bts era, meaning i didn’t get to experience what rachel was like to the fandom back then or see the different interpretations of her.

i did some digging and i found some fan content of her from 2015-2016 & i’m absolutely infatuated with all aspects of the fanon version of her, especially her personality & how she looked. i totally wanna embody her. also the love is strange vn was so interesting to play, i love how she was written. i’d love to know more!

i stumbled across ur blog while i was doing my digging and i saw an old long post of urs saying how bts didn’t live up to the fandoms expectations, as almost everyone perceived her differently.

sorry for all the yapping LOL but what i basically wanna ask is,,, how *exactly* did the fandom perceive rachel back then (2015-2016). what were some popular headcanons for her? things you guys even considered to be canon? what were some of your own *personal* headcanons? (can be silly, realistic,,, just anything you thought resonated with her)

do you have any favorite arts from that time period that you thought really captured her? what were your hopes for the prequel/rachels character before it was released? what did you want to see in terms of story? was rachel’s style, appearance, & personality extremely different than what you expected? what did you expect?

i assume that rachels treatment in the fandom was different then than what it is now. whether it’s better or worse, i’m not sure. i was hoping u could answer that too😞. recently i’ve just been seeing constant hatred or lack of care for her character so i’m starting to think that if bts was written differently and based on the fandom’s interpretations instead, the hate now wouldn’t be this bad.

from my digging it seems like you guys had alot of fun sculpting rachel’s character on your own, and the interpretations were probably more realistic than what decknine put together.

anyway i’m sorry for the yapping essay on this random saturday, most old lis accounts are dead & i didn’t know who else to ask☹️. just trying to relive what you guys experienced the best i can. hope i’m not bombarding you with this. thank you so much if u respond !!

hiii u def did not bother me, i am not in a position to answer all of these questions, but although it makes me feel ancient, it's cute to see so much passion for rachel and pre-BTS fandom opinion, so i'll try answer some and for the rest (art, hcs, etc.) im just gonna have to direct you to my archive* (will continue under the readmore)

*(tumblr archive is so broken on mobile so you gotta go on pc for this, but also there's so many gifs from that time so it will Definitely slow down your browser). i was insane and 17 years old so like, just excuse all of the cringe content i guess. you can click tag and filter it by either #lis #rachel amber #amberprice or whatever to try and find stuff like art. and i got into lis sept 2015 so that's like, as far back as it will go, but i was fully lisbrained from 2016 through 2018)

to be honest, in alignment with pre-bts thought lmao, rachel is whoever you want her to be. there was less of 'this is a correct objective fact about her personality/history' and more 'yeah, this is an idea the fandom really likes and has become fanon, most likely because it is a nuanced and entertaining and realistic interpretation of what we have seen of her character in lis1' which means people whose opinions conflicted with that might've be contested/laughed at/unpopular, but they weren't wrong per se. there were plenty of people i'd criticise (and ridicule) back then for implying that this teenage girl was evil, and being a teenager myself back then, i'd call them morally reprehensible and cancellable and whatever, but tbh, as an adult now, i can just see that it was simply a boring interpretation of her character informed by misogyny

i'd disagree with the notion that fandom treatment of rachel's character was better before bts, back then there were plenty of people seemingly excited to characterise her as emotionally manipulative, a cheater, deserved what she got, etc. as well, bc tbh, the story did leave room for that interpretation, but it left room for so much more as well. i feel like bts just really locked in on a certain story they wanted to tell plot-wise, and didn't choose to explore a lot of the questions fans had about rachel as a person. it's hard to turn the ambiguity of a friendship turned situationship over a period of 4 years into a playable experience for an audience - so they didn't. regardless, it got people thinking about rachel more, putting a spotlight on her, hence increased attention both positive and negative. i feel like there's just a fundamental difference between what lis1 fans enjoyed about the potential for her character and how she related with chloe and the world around her, and what deck9 wanted to portray in bts (yes they hit the astrological headcanons, the charmingness, her rebellion, the emotional conflicts... but it personally felt hollow, contrived sometimes, i suppose). but there were a lot of people who loved bts (i enjoyed a lot of parts of it!). just, in my opinion, some of those were quite different people from who loved lis1, and with that wave it brought a lot of emotional immaturity to the fandom (like... ship wars, really? that was an insane change to fandom dynamics for me lmao, but maybe i was just spoiled by surrounding myself with people whose takes i respected)

anyway i highly recommend also that if you're hungry for that kind of content, read fanfiction on AO3 by the old fans - by Mogatrat (TON of rachel centric ones there), explosionshark and tippytypewriter, chicknparm (though Cusp is written post-bts, it's informed by pre-bts characterisations), vicepoint (me hehe), def many more good ones out there those r jus my friends so they come to mind first, e.g. i liked homecoming by kriegersan back in the day, but you could def find some more by sorting the lis ao3 page by kudos and reading the older ones that are highly rated featuring rachel. and lastly, my gf wrote a beautifully worded blog post called "The Assassination of Rachel Amber by the Cowards Dontnod and Deck Nine" which gets into some of this from a media crit perspective (not about fandom) in a very eloquent way thru comparison w twin peaks and i highly recommend that

rachel hcs that def started way before bts: skater rachel, stoner rachel, punk music listener rachel (but also like, fleetwood mac cranberries cocteau twins grungy hippy stuff rachel too), rachel's parents being distant and still living in california, curvy thick rachel, things that i've accepted as canon but were def created by diff people: bri explosionshark hc'd that rachel paid for chloe's sleeve, mogatrat (i think) hc'd that rachel initially went to get her nips pierced with chloe (that's a longtime fan hc now idk who started that one) but chickened out at the last minute, i think she also hc'd that chloe made the earring for rachel which is cute too

1. i love your blog sm kokichi is my favourite character (mayyyybe besides tsumugi but if so he's a CLOSE second. maybe even on par.) and your enthusiasm makes my WHOLE day i love it so much

2. (if you don't mind me responding to your post in ask format. if not feel free to ignore lol) I don't think what Kokichi suffers from enough to cause his death is self-hatred. I think it's self-apathy, and that messes me up UNIMAGINABLY so i HAVE to get it off my chest.

I think the fact that Kokichi is so enthusiastic about so many things (real or fake, he undeniably acts it, and at the very LEAST we know he cares about the death game. and i like to think he just cares about games in general. i think his special interest is chess but that's a headcanon for another post-) and he cares so little about his own life that he'd WILLINGLY do that to himself, for any reason, is absolutely DEVASTATING. I don't think he cares enough about his own life to hate it. He constantly uses himself as just a 'piece' or a 'character' in his own little method of winning (surviving - and helping other people to survive, too) the game (goddamn the chess metaphors at it again 😔), from pretending to be the mastermind, to playing devil's advocate every. single. trial. to lying and covering up evidence during trials, to finally, literally killing himself to get what he wants. He detaches himself so much FROM himself that when the time comes that his death is beneficial, he's like "yeah, seems legit" and just. does it.

(Sidenote: I find it incredibly ironic that everyone sees him as this master manipulator, and the person he manipulates most successfully is himself. Anyway-)

(sorry for the word vomit! your post just got me THINKING and i love character analysis so much AUGH themes and narratives and characters rotating in my head at all times. i cannot not speak about it.)

me rn:

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

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that is a very good point! personally i've always seen him as rather depressed but he's grown very apathetic - he accepted himself as a bad person who won't change. you're right - he does not care about himself.

i also think that he isn't insecure. i think he knows what he's capable of perfectly well. so he's like "okay, if i don't do this - who will?"

because most of the others are still in conflict with themselves, they're unsure about what to do and that makes them slow to act.

i don't think that kokichis some perfect machine who has completely turned off his emotions, at all, but he's better at it than most.

because, like you said, he's very detached from himself - he's a game piece, he's playing the role of the antagonist. he's just doing what's meant for his role.

i imagine that he still has his conscience screaming at him though.

and i think that kinda bleeds into his actions, almost but not exactly subconsciously if that makes sense.

like, once he's got miu and gonta killed, it's like nooo im totally not acting out because i feel extremely guilty. nooo this kamikaze plan is definitely not a direct result of that. i am simply the antagonist. im evil and crazy and this is what is in character for me. this is simply my curtain call.

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btw, i must tell you, this part: "He detaches himself so much FROM himself that when the time comes that his death is beneficial, he's like "yeah, seems legit" and just. does it." has got my brain on zoomies. it's like. yeah. that's so so so fucked. i love it

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BTW hard same on the chess hc and i also like tsumugi a lot!! (though more as a concept)

i dunno how accessible this fic is for non-umineko fans but a fic that encapsulates both of ^these things is this one. one of my faves for sure.

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never feel sorry about ranting in my asks, posts or whatever! i love reading this stuff!!! (can't promise i'll always answer this fast tho lol)

How come the people in your fics always respond so well to oversharing? Most people, faced with the kind of issues Mosk and Augus faced, would run screaming in the opposite direction. Eran, Augus, Julvia, Ondine, etc nearly always know the right thing to say. Not every time maybe, but most of the time. And they don't get irritated at other people for being ill or depressed or whatever, like people do irl. None of them every say to someone else they can't be a stranger's therapist, for instance.

Contd: I mean, don't get me wrong, I love your writing and I love all the deep heart to heart convos everyone seems to have with everyone else, I just couldn't help wishing- say, A is rejected and abandoned by B, all of B's friends agree A is too weird and clingy and B isn't made out to be some sort of villain. Neither A nor B are villains. Like that. Sorry I'm not more articulate, I guess you can see why I never tried to put this in my own fics lol             

*

Hi anon!

I mean, the most basic answer to all of this is because it’s fiction, not reality, and I’m writing a romance, not a story about A and B parting ways because they’re fundamentally incompatible (which sounds a bit like what you’re describing, tbh). It sounds like you’re describing a different genre. I’m trying to think of incidences where this happens (and only ever as set ups to the ‘proper romance’ between say A and C) on screen in the hundreds of romances I’ve read, and I can’t think of a single incidence. Doesn’t mean they’re not out there, but...that’s not a romance trope.

Probably the only time I can think of it happening is in a Roan Parrish book, Rend. But the characters stay together, so it doesn’t meet your criteria of one character rejecting and abandoning another, in the book, the rejection is extremely temporary, it’s not abandonment. If you mean a scenario where the characters stay together, then I’m extra confused, because I don’t believe I villainise any of my main characters for mistakes they’re making in a relationship. Maybe some examples might help?

A more complex answer would need to look at your points a bit more individually.

* There are no therapists in the Fae realm. So how can anyone recommend one, except maybe Ash? (And, it hasn’t actually done him a great amount of good outside of how he deals with Gwyn). For the most part, older fae are of the opinion that authentic sharing is important, and often make space for it. It’s a kind of storytelling. Literally one of the fundamental unspoken tenets in Fae Tales is ‘better out than in’ particularly if tempered with compassion

* Your definition of oversharing is wildly different to mine, I think! Do you just mean ‘people who talk honestly about their feelings even when those feelings are ugly?’ Or ‘people who talk about difficult things in their past?’ To me, neither of those is oversharing. It would be oversharing if one went up to a total stranger during their dinner at a restaurant and started telling their life story or talking about their depression. None of my main characters do that. (Davix probably would though).

* I have written stories where one character cannot listen to another character’s self-hatred and suggests a therapist instead, in a world where therapists are canonically available (The Wind that Cuts the Night, Elliott makes it a pretty firm boundary). To a degree, Bull also threatens to walk away from Cullen more than once when he becomes too antagonistic and self-destructive in Stuck on the Puzzle.

* Which of my characters overshares by your definition? I feel like I’m missing something (which is possible, there’s millions of words to think of). But Gwyn is chronically private to the point where he often needs to be tortured to talk about himself. Augus is also private. Eran shares his feelings pretty openly, but in a way that is pretty self-responsible (with the exception of the first half of book 1, which he learns/grows from).

Mosk has been incredibly private re: details of his family and his torture (to the point where we’re heading towards the end of book 2 and Mosk still hasn’t described anything he went through with Davix/Olphix unless he’s pushed to, and he hardly talks about his family unless Eran prompts him), though he’ll be open about his hatred and emotions, and Eran has started putting down boundaries around that when Mosk gets cruel/mean about it. I honestly feel that, more than anything, I actually write characters who are chronic undersharers, it’s one of the reasons they’re so messed up in the first place. So I feel like we’re working off really different definitions there?

* Re: People not being irritated at others for being depressed or ill like in real life, yeah, selfishly I’ll just straight up admit this is because I’m a physically ill/mentally ill person irl who gets really tired of the stigma, ignorance and cruelty of people when it comes to these subjects. In fiction, I don’t have to indulge a broken world (in the same way that I don’t have to indulge homophobia if I don’t want to), it’s allowed to be what I want it to be. But also, all of my main characters have been through incredible depression, many to the point of considering suicide or certainly self-destruction, so they’re singularly well equipped to understand when another character is going through it.

Tbh, if romance suddenly became about what you’re describing re: A and B, I’d probably stop reading it (or at least not read it as much). What people need from what they’re reading/writing is highly individualistic and variable! It sounds like you need something you’re not getting, but what you’re describing is not something I need in my fiction to such an explicit degree, esp. since I think I’m not getting some of your context here - you think my characters overshare, I think they undershare for ex. - a character genuinely sharing their emotional state is so unusual that it’s often a massive and significant plot event when they finally do it, all of Fae Tales is built around the few times characters actually genuinely cathart their emotional states and the reasons around them, whether it’s Gwyn revealing he’s Unseelie, or Augus finally being forced to talk about what the Raven Prince did to him, or Mosk finally being cornered into sharing the fact that he killed Davix etc.

If you need to write a character where one of your characters abandons another character and they part ways and no one makes either out to be a villain, you can! But that’s not a romance. 

In reality, people are incompatible all the time and walk away from friendships, colleagues, relationships and more because of it. It is a fact of life that you will lose far more friends than you will ever make, because of these rejections, abandonments and incompatibilities. It doesn’t make either person the villain. I’ve known plenty of people I’m no longer friends with or partners with, and we’re just...incompatible people. But you’re not likely to see these storylines in romances, because what that describes isn’t compatible with the romance genre, which is about happy endings / hopeful endings between A and B, and not rejection/abandonment.

Furcadia Toxicity

The complete log file is provided, everything here is unedited, this all transpired publicly and should be available for everyone to have access to at all times. Thank you. (19:14:03) Tacada: watching the riot police going (19:14:21) Kixy: Protesting doesn't do anything. (19:14:23) Kunty: Nah, tell people to spend time with their fucking families they keep trying to ride dicks/cunts out of (19:14:23) Tacada: theyre taking the hong kong approach the protestors. using cones n water to stop tear gas nades (19:14:32) Kunty: they riot if quarantined. (19:14:33) Ditty: god (19:14:37) Ditty: turned out as expected (19:14:45) Ditty: Kixy: People will make a bigger stink out of not being called the correct pronoun than anything important. (19:14:48) Ditty: so peoples pronouns are important (19:14:52) Ditty: not sure why you have to bring that into this lmao (19:14:58) Puffin: ^^^^^^ (19:15:01) Ditty: Maya: Just offer free heroin and meth, you'll see enough people. (19:15:02) Ditty: so thats gross (19:15:07) Ditty: not sure why you have to bring that into this either (19:15:08) Kunty: IDC about pronouns, why is that even a thing? (19:15:09) Kixy: The point was that people get more angry over stupid shit than anything serious? (19:15:15) Ditty: pronouns are not stupid shit (19:15:19) Kunty: They are (19:15:21) Kixy: Yes they are. (19:15:27) Puffin: Riots are the language of the unheard, fam (19:15:29) Kixy: Compared to SO SO many things. (19:15:34) Ditty: why do we have to compare (19:15:39) Ditty: peoples identities are extremely important (19:15:41) Ditty: you cant rank it among other things (19:15:54) Ditty: did you know humans have the capacity to care about multiple things at once or are furcadians not able to do that (19:15:55) Tacada: sorry ditty i started all of this O.O (19:15:57) Kunty: I agree with Kixy, pronouns are NOT important in comparison to riots, killings, and corona. (19:16:03) Ditty: why are we comparing them (19:16:06) Ditty: answer the question

SEE THE REST WITH THIS LINK TO THE HTML LOG FILE

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The Devil’s Den Discord Meanwhile... Yes, you may Join.

/6:33 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: IMAGINE SEXUALLY HARASSING PEOPLE AND BEING TRANSPHOBIC AS FUCK ON FUCADIA [6:34 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: LITERALLY JUST FOR ATTENTION [6:34 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: WHO FAILED YOU [6:35 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: JK ITS YOUR OWN FUCKIN FAULT [6:35 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: "THE DEVIL'S DEN" THIS IS SOME SERIOUSLY TEEENY EDGELORD SHIT [6:35 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: ESPECIALLY WITH YOUR GROSS RAPE FANTASY THESAURUS-FUCKING DESCRIPTION [6:36 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: UNAPOLOGETIC SEXUAL HARASSERS SHOULD BE SHOT [6:39 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: jesus your discord server is dead as fuck [6:39 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: small wonder you have no friends [6:39 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: you are human garbage(edited) [6:43 PM] Hellcat: I'm here to fuck ass [6:44 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: its completely dead its no use [6:44 PM] Hellcat: Plague queens are my fetish tho [6:45 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: im here to fuck ass and fuck bubblegum [6:45 PM] Hellcat: Who failed you lmfao [6:45 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: yeah i had to rethink that cuz that'd mean it's someone else's fault [6:46 PM] Hellcat: It smells like poop and semen [6:47 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: as expected [6:55 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: [REDACTED] just thought yall should know your friend is a gross transphobe who repeatedly talked about my partner's genitals after being asked not to [6:55 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: and also claimed corona was a good thing because the world needs a "plague" [6:55 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: attention seeking teen edgelord bullshit [6:56 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: could only respond with "k" when it was brought up [7:08 PM] Ill: ? [7:09 PM] Ill: Logs please @Xzfgiiimtsath#6669(edited) [7:11 PM] Ill: It is without saying that unless evidence is provided, everything else is simply hearsay. I’m sorry to say that, without visible proof of this outrageous claim, you’re kind of just making empty accusations and slanderous character bashing. ): [REDACTED]  [7:12 PM] Ill: Oh, I guess they just wanted to troll. ): I’m sorry, hopefully this can be cleaned up. [7:28 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: OH HI [7:28 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: JUST ASK HER SHE WONT DENY IT [7:28 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: she was pretty proud of it on furc [7:28 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: i can post logs but judging from your response to that you'd just say i'd edited them lol [7:29 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: is it really hard to believe that she'd say something like that? seems pretty in-character for her [7:31 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: i mean you guys jerk it to beast porn tho i dont have high hopes for any moral outrage here [7:31 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: but if there were any trans people in the server id def want them to know [7:33 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: she was shit-talking people who care about their pronouns [7:33 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: my partner, who is trans, tries to explain to them what's wrong with that [7:35 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: then Kunty's response is to repeatedly talk about not wanting to hear about their genitals(?) which has nothign to do with pronouns and wasnt part of the conversation [7:35 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: when asked to stop talking about their genitals she continues unabated just to piss them off(edited) [7:36 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: you can choose to believe im just making this up for no reason if you want, but that would be really fucking brickheaded of you [7:37 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: care more about your shitty transphobic friend repeatedly who was bringing up my partners genitals randomly and without their consent(edited) [7:37 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: @ill [7:40 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: again, 0 hopes for you response, youre a fantasy animal r*pe enthusiast who says things like, "It is without saying that unless evidence is provided," [7:40 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: holy fuck get your head out of your ass [7:41 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: but ill STILL warn you of your transphobic friend since judging on your art youre lgbtq+ [7:43 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: are you just gonna wait til i leave again to respond? figures [7:44 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: you didnt even ask them about it, just "NO EVIDENCE SO ITS FAKE" [7:44 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: you'd really go that far to defend this person when you have no idea what happened? [7:44 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: god you fucking suck [7:44 PM] Ill: Okay but [7:44 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: but nothing [7:44 PM] Ill: You are actively here [7:44 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: wow youre a fuckin genius or something eh [7:44 PM] Ill: Why are you being aggressive? [7:45 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: because im pissed [7:45 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: obviously [7:45 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: stupid question [7:45 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: why are you deflecting [7:45 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: and defending your transphobic friend for no god damn reason [7:46 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz [7:46 PM] Ill: Okay, I understand that you are in an emotional state right now, but I would really need you to calm down first before coming off on a rage to people that have no idea what you are upset over. [7:46 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: ? [7:46 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: read my post dumbass [7:46 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: then you'd know [7:46 PM] Ill: No [7:46 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: LOL [7:47 PM] Ill: Here is why [7:47 PM] Ill: The stupidest things we say are said out of Anger. [7:47 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: are you legit like 14 [7:47 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: im wasting my time [7:47 PM] Ill: I will advise you a little more directly that you take time to calm down before you come venting. [7:48 PM] Ill: No, I am asking you to be an adult [7:48 PM] Ill: And not a raging tween with a hormone spike [7:48 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: said the literal child who thinks having emotions means "not being an adult" [7:48 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: lmfao [7:48 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: not being pissed about transphobia is a character flaw [7:48 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: work on it bitch [7:48 PM] Ill: I emphasize with your anger, I am not saying it is wrong to have them [7:48 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: emphasize with my anger [7:49 PM] Ill: I am saying that you are abusing everyone else for things we have no knowledge or control over [7:49 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: what the fuck are you talking about [7:49 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: im warning you about your transphobic friend and youre being a piece of shit about it [7:50 PM] Ill: You are acting like a child, I’ve been there and done that - it does not end well. Please take time to self care for yourself first so you can be an adult that can have a calm conversation [7:50 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: and you also fantasize about r*ping animals so again: 0 hope for you to have any concept of why things are wrong [7:50 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: total fucking human garbage [7:50 PM] Xzfgiiimtsath: [8:05 PM] Ill: I am going to go step away before I address this further, I am losing some patience very quickly. I am kindly asking you to do the same so that you may take time to care for yourself during this clearly highly emotional state you are in. Maybe sip some cool water, dab your cheeks with ice, and/or take a moment with a loved one that makes you feel safe. I do not know what else to recommend here, I do not assume ignorance right away when meeting people, and I would like to think that other people can also step back to rationalize themselves down from tensions like these. I call this being an adult, growing up enough to get beyond yelling and throwing every accusation at someone simply because you’re angry. Accepting that it could be possible there is a grave misunderstanding, or maybe even misinterpretation of intent/meaning. As a person that never gets these opportunities to rationalize issues away from pure misunderstood hatred, I have never seen the actual outcome. In the adult world here, if we are angry with someone that offended us, we can’t just go into their family bbq and be screaming like lunatics about how their goat fuckers based solely on our interpretations, either. That would lead to calling the police... it doesn’t get you anywhere ... not in the adult world. You need to stop and care for yourself before you come guns blazing. You don’t DO this in the adult world and then call the adults staring at you like a tantruming toddler “children” because they won’t feed your anger. I’m sorry, for whatever it is you feel WE did to you specifically. You came here, though and whatever your assumptions are, I understand that there is no arguing with you or reasoning with you beyond you are the victim of some unproven atrocity. 

- Xzfgiiimtsath#6669 - Hellcat#0186

(19:15:15) Ditty: pronouns are not stupid shit (19:15:19) Kunty: They are (19:15:21) Kixy: Yes they are.

I can’t write like I used to, so I’m sorry. I used to feel like words were my everything. They were ropes, bonds, bands around my shoulder and chest that grappled me back down when flying was dangerous. They were moral backing, sharp glimmering silver knives in a verbal body that I could throw at the world. When I needed not to fly but to just ultimately prevail, when I needed to be sharp, supreme, and superior, those ropes bound to keep me safe propelled me into the sky. I was tethered and free, like some sort of twisted propaganda.

I feel like an open expanse, like a concave and rotting pumpkin, innards all exposed and vulnerable, but so disgusting no one would ever take advantage. This year took something away from me. I don’t what it is- curiosity, hope, fire, human connection? But I’ve grown distant and restless and filled with hatred, pain, worry, anxiety, fear, fright. I’ve grown full of fright and emptiness. I’ve learned that making something out of nothing is difficult when you don’t care, and that the opportunity to create nothing out of something is seized by an other worldly power that hates you and want to rip you apart and tear you down, that gets some sort of sick, sick, sick, enjoyment out of this, out of something that just hurts and hurts, and aches so bad the marrow of my bones screams out in pain. I can’t.

I used to have this gift for enrapturement. I would capture people to set them free. The same power that the words gave to me, I would give it to others. I loved speaking. I loved writing, I loved telling, exposing, believing, influencing. I can’t help but feel like everything I do now is a corruption, something everyone can easily sense. I feel like a faceless background character that moves constantly in the midst of something important but has no value to be included in writing or characterization. Now, I wonder all the time how people can talk so much. I have nothing to talk about that feels anything other than frail, fake, like plastic, like when you lick your own lipstick off by accident and it’s absolutely disgusting to taste.

People are put off by me, I know this. I don’t respond the way I’m supposed to. My morals are different. I am consistent. I think killing bugs makes you a terrible person. I also feel like we should do extreme things to create a better world. Maybe it's suppressing these urges, that would surely lead me to do something drastic, that causes me to feel as if I am forsaking myself.  I hate the world, the people of the world, and want to do nothing for it, but I love the world, and my essence cries out for me to act for it. Maybe it’s the effort to push everything away so I can live a simple, comfortable, long life, that causes me to feel anything but, wrapped in warm, soothing blankets of hardened, stiff, cold apathy.

If I had the opportunity between living the way I am now, living the way I wish to, by changing everything, or being subdued into a lucid dream for the rest of my life, I would with no doubt, choose the lucid dream. Maybe some moral law would cause me to in fact say no, but the painful realization is that I ultimately yearn for something else in this world that I can only find in a place that doesn’t exist.

I used to be hot all the time, like an overflowing, scalding cup of coffee, darkened swirling amber that invigorated. I’m cold now. Physically cold. All of the time. Buried under layers and layers, all I feel is the iced flesh I am. Dreams haven’t been an escape recently. I dream of old fears, or new fears, brought to wherever I am. I wake choking on fear, and with the most horrid strange feeling that the monster of all my dreams exists, and that it's watching me, with eyes the peer savagely, perversely, void of humanity, but filled with the worst reckonings of the universe, and everytime I turn my back it looks at the planes of my shoulders, the fragile slope of my spine, and sees into the cells of my body, and recognizes the cold and feels my skin and recognizes the distance. It craves the distance I have towards the world, the detachment, and that it’s drawn to that. It’s drawn to that and it feeds off it, and it inspires that, and thus forms a cyclical pattern that can only result in a total spiral to something absolutely horrendous and it makes me so terribly afraid. It makes me so fucking scared.

I want to escape but there’s nowhere to go. I’m painfully afraid of death and overly attached to being young forever.

Writing this, in my free time when no one is around, I feel like something is watching me again, like I’m doing something wrong for writing this, like I might never get to finish, like I’m sinning. My stomach is twisting, the sky is a haze today, nothings particularly bright or dark, but everything is a wash of gray and mist and constraint and chill today. It’s like its waiting, whether for something to start or end, close or open, but its patient. I am not, I am worried about what’s next. I don’t want to die.

Women are encouraged to be flighty and stupid, and needy. Men are encouraged to pretend like they have everything, including the answers, and speak the most limited bullshit with this emotion behind it like they have discovered the world. And then the girls coo and fawn, as if pretending they have not the capabilities to comprehend such a great failure as that idea. Now I am angry, which I originally treasured. It was the only thing I could use to get myself to care again, without caring enough for everything else I’ve been bottling to come pouring out. Anger is a distractor, a motivator, and invigorator. Now I just feel sick. And then when I drop again I’ll feel even more empty.  

Food is like sand to me. As pleasant as its taste it feels like nothing, quickly over once eaten, I seem to miss the point. Intimacy, relationships, I can’t do them. I feel like its so one-sided, like I’m not ever going to be able to feel towards them the way they do towards me, and I hate that type of lying. Academic accomplishment hurts because I am a prideful person who enjoys success but at the same time I understand that success in this absurd world means little to nothing in the long run, and that I should be doing something meaningful and fulfilling. But what is that?! I just want someone to tell me, but I know that they’d be wrong! I want to succeed and I also don’t! I want to abandon this whole meaningless charade of a system with its pointless barriers and struggling maze to reach a location I may find despicable. I am a body trapped in a system to which my mind has succeeded in leaving and isn’t that just the worst thing imaginable.

I want someone to tell me what to do, how to feel, how to think, to relieve the pressure of being free - maybe I’m too free, could that be the issue?-  but I abhor the idea of anyone telling me what to do, when I know they don’t truly understand, when they are less than in the ways that matter to me.

I want to enjoy conversation, relationships, achievements, stupid arbitrary things that everyone else does. But I feel like I have no voice, like I don’t have any of the words to say anything besides this, and most definitely not enough to do all of those so very human activities. Why have words forsaken me, where have they gone?

All I can ask is this:

Please come back

Episode 2: The Battle of Astate

Early 796/487; the Battle of Astate (conclusion). Yang takes command of the remaining fleet after his commander is injured, and promptly outsmarts Reinhard when Reinhard tries to split his fleet down the middle by...splitting the fleet down the middle himself. This forces the battle to become a clear metaphor for the endless futility of this 150-year-war—*cough* I mean a circular formation in which neither side can gain an advantage. They both retreat to avoid more losses, and Yang is too lazy to answer a letter, as is his wont. Jessica learns of her fiancé’s death. Meanwhile, Reinhard and Kircheis make moon-eyes at each other, Annerose gazes sadly into a bouquet of flowers, and Reuental and Mittermeyer go on a date.

Tactics and Strategy??

As we made clear in the FAQ, we are not here to offer our expert opinions about the intricacies of the military operations. But I want to take this early opportunity to talk about how the Battle of Astate symbolically sets up some dynamics that will become a recurring theme.

Om nom nom.

Throughout the show characters discuss the distinction between strategy (戦略, senryaku) and tactics (戦術, senjutsu), enough that it became a running joke between me and Elizabeth as we were watching that we had no clear idea what the difference is supposed to be. So for any of you who, like us, have not made a careful study of such things before now, let me share my best (vague) interpretation: Tactics refers to the play-by-play of a battle, the fleet maneuvers, responding to the enemy’s movement, etc. Strategy is bigger picture and encompasses things like choosing when and where to provoke a battle, as well as political positioning to ensure that one has the power to make strategic/tactical decisions in the first place.

In this episode Yang takes command in an extremely disadvantaged position, two of the Alliance fleets already annihilated and his own fleet outnumbered by the Imperial forces. By correctly predicting Reinhard’s move of splitting them down the middle and figuring out a way to turn it to his advantage, he forced the battle into that weird snake formation in which neither side had the upper hand, a “victory” given his starting position.

Is this whole battle kind of silly? Absolutely, yes. Is it insane that Yang and Reinhard are the only people who notice that splitting up the Alliance forces into three small groups was dumb? Yup. Is it implausible that Reinhard wouldn’t have anticipated that Yang could purposefully separate his fleet and attack them from behind? Yup again. But I take this early battle as mainly symbolic, establishing some basic facts:

Yang is at least a match for Reinhard tactically and quite possibly actually better, but

Reinhard is often more successful at strategy: having the power to manipulate the broad situation to his advantage. And finally…

...literally everyone in the military except Yang and Reinhard is really dumb. Okay maybe except Dusty and Kircheis. And Reuental and Mittermeyer but they weren’t in this battle. And maybe Lapp but he died, oh well.

And speaking of Lapp…

Jessica

The scene that really jumps out at me in this episode is Jessica Edwards learning that Lapp has been killed. This was the first time the show really made me catch my breath. And with such a trite set-up too—the woman left at home awaiting news of her man’s fate in battle. Eye roll. But it’s in the details: the way that the piano music in the background as the narrator informs us of 1.5 million deaths in the Alliance fleet becomes Jessica’s playing, interrupted by the bulletin that announces a great victory for the Alliance (naturally) despite losses to the fourth and sixth fleets; and most hauntingly, how Jessica learns of her fiancé’s death by the operator using the wrong rank for him.

This sequence is a lot: the ridiculous hollowness of the double promotion after death, the impersonal, detached language of the operator. Jessica’s struggle to absorb the reality of those formal, polite words is so palpable; alone in her silent living room, stumbling back to the piano after she hangs up on the operator. 

In the (totally gorgeous) graveyard scene we get even more of a sense of Jessica’s stance on the war, as well as our first peek at her dynamic with Yang. 

Listen, is while he’s on his way to the empty grave of one of his best friends an inappropriate time for me to point out how great Yang’s ass is?

Yang’s history and relationship with Jessica will get fleshed out more in the future, but for now we see both a vague past and a deep tension between them. His involvement in the war that killed her fiancé is not something she can push to the side, and it’s not in Yang’s nature to fight back against that.

Of course Yang knows, as she doesn’t, that he might have prevented Lapp’s death if he had pushed harder, had more power. This again highlights Yang’s primary struggle: his pacifism and hatred of the senseless violence of war, pitted against the practical observation that with a bit more ambition and authority he might actually help fewer people die, fewer people go through what Jessica’s going through.

So hey, you might well be wondering, is Jessica meant to be read here as the potential love interest for Yang? Kinda seems that way, right? To that I have a couple of things to comment: 1) Sure, maybe, we definitely don’t know enough yet to be sure! But also 2) train yourself now to peel away any heteronormativity that’s coloring your assumptions about what the show wants you to think. It’s hard! So often “ooh hey this male character and female character seem to have an emotionally intense relationship” is absolutely used as a lazy narrative indicator of romance. LoGH asks more of you, and you should trust it in return. Examine each relationship individually for context, facial expressions, the emotions beneath the surface of the words, without assuming the show is using any shortcuts.

In this case, Yang and Jessica obviously have a history of some sort, but her fiancé literally just died and the tension between them is explained by Yang's guilt over being part of the military she despises and blames for his death. Could it become romantic in the future? Could we learn more about their past that changes things? Of course. But don’t fall into a pattern of making assumptions based only on narrative tropes. You’ll be rewarded for assuming the story has more nuance than that.

Magdalena

Who is this mysterious and beautiful baroness attempting the sisyphean task of cheering up Annerose? Why, it’s Magdalena von Westfalen, LoGH’s second-best space lesbian! Okay, so we don’t learn much of anything about her now, but here’s what you need to know, spoiler-free: Magdalena takes absolutely no shit from anyone, and I (Elizabeth) would die for her. 

Stray Tidbits

Worldbuilding alert! The vaguely futuristic self-driving zipcars that they use on Heinessen are badass.

Reuental and Mittermeyer continue their tour of the Empire’s fanciest date spots.