I have to politely disagree to your reasoning of why Dimitri spared Edelgard at the end of AG. My reading was that he figured that she has already suffered enough because this time he has an idea of what TWSID have done to her and/or because now that she mentally regressed to twelve year old Edelgard, she's no longer the Edelgard that started the war in the first place.

I'm not sure if you saw my post after that one, but I mentioned a theory that basically there was dark magic on top of dark magic; that being, in this game specifically, maybe Edelgard had dark magic used on her to begin with (and was part of why she forgot about Dimitri), so in a way it could be that the "new" personality started there and the "real" personality was "asleep" that whole time.

When Thales used his dark magic to control her during AG, that would be the second time in this theory that he used it on her and I guess took her memory away to some extent, since she couldn't remember what happened over the course of six months.

If that happened it would be like, once Thales died and his dark magic on her was released, that the time she lived from back then to the present was possibly just gone. In a sense, you could say the Edelgard we know was possibly totally erased and that she's starting over from the moment her memories were first wiped/altered.

And I think it's totally valid that you have your own idea on what the final scene meant! To me I think it could be a combination of both the ideas we have, because while I think it'd make sense that maybe he's letting some things go since she may not have been totally in control and all that and the blame for most of his pain was due to Thales' desires, I think it would be hard for him to reconcile with her mentally by then. I think there's still probably some part of him that will struggle to look at her and not feel anger for things she did (especially the war). In time I think he might be able to forgive her if the theory I mentioned above is accurate/somewhat accurate and like you said, she regressed back to being a child.

Since it's an open ending on that stuff though, it could be possible that maybe she remembered him but still has her memories of the war and whatnot? Like maybe all that happened is her old memories are accessible to her now but she's returned to being who she was throughout the war, but she's remembering "oh shit, it's Dee who I've been at war with".

Because it's an ambiguous ending I think there are any number of possibilities as to why he walked away tbh. Basically the way I've been seeing it is what I wrote just above - that she might finally remember him but may also be just now realizing exactly what she's done. Perhaps a part of him was at the time still too bitter and he had to address the armies that they'd won first before trying to get into anything emotional with her.

You could kind of say with how I'm thinking of it that like, imagine you were talking to someone online and didn't know who it was. You ended up in this fight with them and bad things happened, only for you to find out later that it was another person you cherished and kind of had that oh shit moment, but the fact still remains that you had this fight with that person due to a conflict of interests without knowing who it was. You did things you normally wouldn't have done to that person, but because you didn't know it was them you did do those things.

If Edelgard had just completely regressed and was living her life over again from the age of, mentally, twelve, and everything from that point after was truly erased, I'm sure Dimitri would reconcile with her, though I'm sure he'd need some time to let his feelings work themselves out.

What he'd do after imo would really depend on which Edelgard she is at the end: twelve year old Edelgard or a combination of her memories from back then but also the person we knew in game.

Thank you for being polite about it though! I don't mind discussing opposing thoughts/opinions. Usually it's just angry stans who have no actual discussion to add and just throw insults and angry comments, so I'm not gonna bother having a calm discussion with them when I know they won't listen. Ima just tell 'em to hop off my blog if I say anything to them because they have nothing nice to say and no actual discussion to offer. I don't mind talking to fans of her (not sure if you would consider yourself a fan or if you just see the scene differently) and I've talked to a small few before who don't mind a casual conversation. The only time I actually mind it is when people have a fit and don't know how to do anything except combust and malfunction. At that point it's like, if you can't calmly explain your view to someone then you need to just ignore it and accept that someone has a different opinion. I don't talk to hardcore Dimitri haters because I know nothing I say will change their mind (and most are just gonna shit on him anyway lol), but I'm also not gonna waste my time getting mad at them one on one when I could be posting something positive about him.

I find it weird how so many in the GG fandom love Nate but hate Chuck. I'm not a fan of either, but I don't find any of the main characters likable enough, though they're entertaining but I don't understand their logic. Nate made numerous comments that were questionable throughout the show and enabled and defended Chuck's mistakes and in season 6 he dates and sleeps with a teen as a grown man with a business. If he looked unattractive I'm sure people would criticize him more for it but he's charming enough for them to hypocritically sweep it under a rug. Nate told the police they couldn't talk to Sage because she's a minor and also complained on a date with her about it being too high school for him. He also made a weird comment trying to convince someone to go to a party because there would be grown women dressed like schoolgirls there among other comments. Chuck isn't better than him and Nate is more likable most of the show, but while Chuck's misdeeds weren't handled realistically enough it was acknowledged to some extent while Nate's was swept under a rug in the show. Nate sleeping with a minor was treated like a rich people thing since when he told his grandpa a grown woman was sleeping with him as a teen his grandpa talked of it as normal while Rufus who wasn't rich had a critical reaction to an adult sleeping with Dan as a teen. Miss Carr wasn't rich enough to walk away without backlash, so fans reinforcing the lack of backlash Nate got in the show and hypocritically being woke in Chuck's case to harass real people over a serious issue for stan wars sickens me. I don't even ship Chair and I find it disturbing and disrespectful to people who deal with shit in real life. It feel like they don't really care about the issue they're preaching about. Also most will go on about Blair being mistreated because of ship wars and stan Blair but will much lesser acknowledge the way she treated victims of abuse and slut shamed women as if they are less important because they aren't favorites. Her publicly outing Dan as Miss Carr's victim for her personal agenda was wrong and her doing things like making Eva out to be a prostitute less worthy of respect was distasteful. People judge others for enjoying Chuck's character and while Blair is more likable she was messed up and not someone most would get along with in real life. While I ship Dair I find it hypocritical how some Dair fans will unprovoked be self righteous about shipping them and say shit like they're less retarded than Chair fans while liking Blair who was messy and would likely not support abuse victims if it got in the way of her personal goals and would actively bully them instead. I confronted someone over this and they got offended over me calling them self righteous even though they were offensive first, accusing me of not really shipping them. I hate how people have to act like their side of the fandom is perfect and judge others for what they like in fiction.

hi!! so truthfully after yesterday I wasn't entirely sure where this ask was going but I think I get ur point. obviously I just wanna reiterate that I'm a chair shipper but I agree that a lot of nate's behaviour is overlooked bc he's attractive. like u said there are extremely vocal chuck haters who love nate as if he hasn't done plenty of problematic things too. I think that to a certain degree some fans have a selective memory and are quick to list bad things 1 character has done but conveniently ignore or excuse another character for worse or equally bad behaviour. ultimately for me gossip girl is a show about "bad" people so the idea that they all have to be made to be likeable goes against their character, none of them are meant to be especially good or nice and there's nothing wrong with that. obviously it really depends on the individual, but I think this idea that dair is morally superior to chair is kinda ridiculous bc at the end of the day it's a 00s teen drama where all the characters are varying levels of "bad" and like u said it's hypocritical too

Can I vent one thing? I kind hate the hipocrisy of some (a big number here) fans on regards Izu and Endeavour.

Like it goes more or less like this:

Fans:😒look at Izu defending Endeavour even through Dabi told how abusive he is.

Me: what you want Izu to do punch Endeavour and praise Dabi? A fucking villain who killed and has no remorse?

The hipocrisy here is how they blame Izu for "siding with an abuser" but Shot befriend BK is cute.

Following that logic, they should hate Shoto too as he is Bk's friends...somehow. BK for all his many flaws, I say this, he is honest in his hate for Izu. Never tried to mask.

As for the other ask I sent and yoy answer. Look, Hori just hates Izu and at this point is just easier to say he is a bad writer (feels lazy but I swear this is the easiest and real explanation here) we dont know why Izu wants to be a hero or anything about his family. His complex of martyr makes no sense (does AM have the same thing? It also makes no sense ....bc we know 0 about AM)

There is so much cognitive dissonance baked into Bakugou and how much people love him, there really is; he hits Izuku and there are Bakugou fans that basiclly say Izuku should thank him for the privilege.

Relatedly, a lot of people apparently find him attractive which... I don't get. But hot people do get away with a lot more than unattractive people, so I could see some unconscious biases on the fact that they think he looks hot, and is therefore more tolerable than if he looked like Mineta but acted like he does in canon.

To be fair, a lot of it is ultimately on Hori himself and the writing; no matter how bad I find his character arc at times, Endeavour's abuse and behaviour was never treated like a joke. Brushed over, sure, but it was never funny. Meanwhile, we passed a point in the story, long before Endeavour's redemption kicked in, and suddenly every abusive thing that Bakugou had been doing, bad things which were Serious Problems he was supposed to deal with, was nothing but a joke, even while Endeavour was still on and off being given shit for being an abuser; it's annoying, but I don't find it surprising people don't take Bakugou's behavior seriously if the story itself doesn't.

Meanwhile, while people's interest in Izuku has died to some extent because of how bad his writing got, I've seen people saying (and I'm not completely disagreeing with them) that Dabi has been carrying a lot of Post War, with all the focus on him and his tragic backstory being something that's actually interesting, and how much character he's allowed to have compared to everyone else, which, ironically enough, is probably enough to make him a more sympathetic victim to a lot of people over Izuku, who isn't even allowed to think about his past abuse with how much his traumatic backstory is being suppressed by the writing.

Granted, it feels like a lot of that was altered to make Endeavour (and Dabi) more tolerable to the readers, and while Dabi is supposed to be a villain with sympathetic origins, some people forget he's very much an unsympathetic person at this point, by his own design, and that would probably be insulted by some of the nicer takes on him.

Ultimately, what Endeavour did was worse than Bakugou, yeah, and I see people say that for why Bakugou is more defensible, but it's not a matter of degree; Endeavour doing shitty things doesn't excuse Bakugou doing shitty things, though there's also the fact that abusive fathers are more universally loathed than bullies, especially with all the extra stuff going on with Bakugou to try and mitigate him.

On the other thing....

Izuku is easy. Izuku wants to be a hero because: societal brainwashing about the heroic system as a whole making the system popular to the people, wanting to help people, and wanting acceptance from others. Being a hero, for him, is wrapped up with all three of those causes.

On All Might... Well. It's been awhile, but back when All Might was allowed to be a character, it was pointed out multiple times that Izuku is, in fact, exactly like All Might (seriously, if we look at what we know about Young!All Might, and it sounds like he's basically taller, more muscular, and to some degree more confident Izuku from the start of the story. He's basiclly Izuku if Izuku never had Bakugou in his life, constantly knocking him down, and maybe had an extra foot or two in height), and while Izuku liked being like his idol, everyone else in the know was worried because All Might went exactly down this road Izuku's going down.

That is to say, All Might is now a lonely old man, scarred and broken, without a life of his own, and the fact he's still alive means this is the good ending for him, compared to him getting himself killed.

(looks at the newer manga chapters meaningfully)

The Izuku and All Might self-destruction parallels is something that came up within the first couple of chapters; it was a very deliberate choice, and it seemed clear, at some point, that All Might was supposed to help Izuku be better than him, temper his natural martyr tendencies, and not get himself killed or horribly maimed, a process that would help the both of them grow past these tendencies.

And yes, we know little about All Might, but after a certain point his development stopped and... in all honesty, as much as Hori seems to hate Izuku, he seems to hate All Might just as much, if not more (or at least All Might isn't mandated to be strong and victorious, anyways, in ways that give Izuku some protections). All Might took this scrawny little boy to the beach and over the course of a summer bulked him up to the point where he could host OFA; he's not this horribly incompetent person that the later parts of the story seem to want us to see him as.

And yet, the more he's developed the more Hori just adds flaw upon flaw to the poor man, starting with being completely incapable of helping Izuku in pretty much any way all of a sudden ('clench your butt' my ass) and turning more and more pathetic over time as his powers waned, and he never got to grow as a character to filled the void in his characterization.

Presumably, mixed with the part where he was meant to teach Izuku... literally anything, All Might's backstory (beyond being basiclly tall Izuku, anyways) was probably going to be organically expanded on over time as their mentor and mentee based relationship developed, but that never happened, and so we have a character whose defining traits are largely having super powers, who no longer has those super powers.

"It's fine for them to claim Nesta stopped him from taking another breath but it's not fine for them to act like she did something dangerous or heroic or difficult. I used this metaphor before but it's like my husband taking a cake out of the oven once the timer goes off and him taking credit for baking it even though I spent 30 minutes mixing the ingredients and putting into the oven in the first place."

This is not true though. Nesta and Cassian do deserve credit for the role they played in the war and with Hybern. They literally both decided to use themselves as bait to lure Hybern away from the cauldron so Amren and Feyre would have easier access to the cauldron. Nesta and Cassian were not just randomly caught by the King, they were intentionally there as a distraction. And they did exactly that. The KOH was so distracted that Elain was able to stab him. Do you think she would have been able to do that if Nesta and Cassian didn't give her that opening?

I understand your frustration that Elain's role isn't acknowledged by the other characters because she does deserve credit. But I don't like this undermining of what Nesta did when she offered her life (bc everyone acknowledges its basically a suicide mission) to help Feyre (something that Nesta decided to do on her own bc she knew that the KOH would make it harder for Feyre and Amren to do their task which is very heroic and difficult and dangerous?! Please reread the full scene bc I think you're missing context when talking about it.).

Ultimately, Nesta and Elain were team players in killing the King and they both played a heavy role in his demise. They were both untrained yet stepped up and acted bravely.

I'm talking very specifically about the act of the King's Death and who takes credit for it when others discuss it, not how brave they all were during the war.

And yes, Nesta and Cassian were there as a distraction against the King but what is also true is Cassian was huddled on the ground and Nesta had her body over his, ready to die with him by the kings hands.

And the only reason Nesta ended up able to behead the king after that is because Elain saved her.

And yes, you're right, the reason Elain was able to sneak up on him probably was because he was distracted but the problem, I have is Nesta takes full credit and that's not really OK? She doesn't need to name names if she thinks Elain wouldn't want to have the attention drawn to her but she also shouldn't claim it as if his death were hers alone and she does. Nesta does not acknowledge it as a team effort.

Lucien gave credit to Elain and Elain made sure to immediately give credit to Nesta as well.

Feyre gave credit to Elain for Elain's part in waking up early to bake and Elain made sure she gave credit to the wraiths for being up earlier.

This wouldn't even be a topic of conversation if, on multiple conversations, we saw Nesta admit to others "I had help" or "it wasn't me alone" but her claiming she was able to kill the King because of "luck and rage" is so absurdly false to me.

And I'm not Nesta bashing, I think it all adds up to the issues Nesta has with feeling she has to be Elain's protector and not knowing how to accept Elain as her protector but I don't believe her taking all the credit is something that should go unaddressed.

It's OK that Nesta doesn't share Elain's name specifically with others while discussing what happened but she never once even gave her credit in her own thoughts and neither does Az.

lucysablefan 2023 review

also i didn't get to talk abt my top however many things that i've watched in 2023 and i'm probably going to have to make this into a thread but firdt of all revenant and celebrity are definitely Up There for me from the cast to the story and everything else i was completely into those shows and that's a lot for me bc getting bored halfway into a show is my number one (reluctant) hobby.

i definitely think revenant escaped that partly bc there was no obvious romance plot for me to get bored after they get tgt but even without it being obvious kim taeri and hong kyung tgt in that show was one of the best decision ever made in cinema. kim taeri stuns us once again with her amazing acting + shim dalgi moment s, that was great i'm still not done watching more of her stuff but i really do love seeing her in stuff i'm watching it's always a delightful surprise and she slayed that role like it was written for her so that was great. oh jungse was there too (ig 🙄) and it was nice he did his job and i was sold + yang hyeji moment ! always a blast seeing her in anything (will make another appearance when i talk abt sweet home 2 in this post eventually)

now celebrity,,, amazing drama, i'll be honest at first i wasn't too sold on the influencer plotline but it's a park gyuyoung drama and as a humble lesbian i just had to tune in + lee chungha slay once again, i've loved her ever since vampire detective and this character was amazing for her

anyways i loved the plot, loved the execution, one grievance i have is definitely the fact that seo ari ends up with that loser classist guy intead of yoon sihyeon which was??? like if not for homophobia ik they would have ended up tgt bc seo ari has too much respect to stay with hjk for sure

also one thing i absolutely Have to comment on is that one scene where seo ari ruins her dress and then she goes "i can just pay for it" or smth along those lines and when she realizes what she said she gets a little taken aback? ye that scene birthed me actually bc??? what amazing writing truly just art

also literally the whole cast in that show was just like oh ye i'm an amazing performer and here's proof so that was definitely a treat for the audience (me)

now smth that Didn't come out during that year but i finally watched bc of park sewan (i still haven't finished doona but when i found out she played in it i was like!!!! school 2017 actress moment, idk why i have this weird cast of school 2017 thing but i do and it simply can't be helped) anwz it's!!!! ultimate weapon alice or wth title that you know it by. now i'll be honest the ending? i wasn't thrilled but i also didn't care much for it bc this drama just felt like one where the ending really isn't that important like ye i used to study lit so having an "oh this is a tragedy (shakespeare war flashbacks)" moment is always nice but that's not what this is abt, the sound design (? eng isn't my first language so don't be mean to me) alone makes this show better than average, the writing? impeccable, those imaginary somewhat comedic scenes? right up my alley, every episode was just a treat after another i had a Great time watching it, the characters and their dynamics were truly amazing and the acting was just constantly delivering once again i just love park sewan and i will finish watching doona for her (mostly, i love suzy too ofc <3)

now smty else i watched that i lived this year : enigma. what a show, short but a masterpiece nonetheless and i can't wait for s2 although obv as i was forced to learn through being a cw nancy drew fan, i should always keep my expectations low when the first season is a little too good. also prim won't be there which booooo,, but i'll get over it and i can't wait to see the new charas.

one thing to know abt me : i love visually pleasing stuff and if you play around with format a little bit and add some great mixed media to your show not only am i sold but i'm also telling whoever is willing to listen to go and watch your show i'm easy and i'm not ashamed.

anwz brain no worky anymore so i'll add onto this eventually but don't hold me to that (just rmbrd i have to talk abt sweet home 2 so i Will be back for that hehe)

So I too began rereading lotr (not bc of you pffft ofc not im my own person wdym) and i gotta ask. What do you think about the eomer and gimli's discussion of arwen vs galadriel. i didn't notice it as a kid but to present me it rlly turns me off their characters though esp eomer's bc he always talks so strangely about even eowyn or how he talked to the poc coded druedain characters too. do you think this whole ish is just the product of the time or is this a deliberate flaw put there specifically

Oof, this one is difficult to answer because I feel like there are several layers to this.

Usual disclaimer that I'm not the best person to talk about this, because scholars make entire careers out of exploring the interplay between author, society, and text. You've asked for how I personally interact with this scene so I'll say that but please take it with as many grains of salt as you can find.

Under a cut because this got long.

Okay, let me go through the layers I think of when I read this scene.

One layer is that Tolkien's work does contain sexist elements (although if you go through HoME, you can see his depiction of female characters improves a lot over time, which is why I feel this was very much him being a product of his time, and as he matures, he began to address his own biases, although of course, his portrayal ultimately doesn't hold up to modern day sensibilities, nor does intention stop readers from feeling uncomfortable), and his views on race are very problematic on multiple levels (and these remain more consistent, I would argue). So a part of that is definitely, imho, just Tolkien showing his biases.

Another layer, though, is that he's very much borrowing from medieval ideas. It's a major trope in medieval literature to have knights praise ladies and quarrel with each other over whose lady is best (which is often tied to beauty, although physical beauty is tied to virtue, so discussing beauty and discussing virtue are often one and the same in medieval literature.) Now, Tolkien started out having dwarves be all evil, and even in The Hobbit, the dwarves are not usually very courtly. That Gimli is shown repeatedly speaking of aesthetics, reciting poetry, and holding Galadriel as the lady whose favor he values strikes me as Tolkien trying to show Gimli's nobility, which is comparable to Eomer's, a prince/king.

Yet another layer is that Eomer specifically is meant to be a character who wouldn't be out of place in a story such as Beowulf. When his views seem Bad, I'm pretty sure they are meant to be, and some characters actually push back on that at times. Not just on his own personal views, but Rohan's as a whole. The people of Rohan are very honorable and heroic, but their views on elves are demonstrably wrong, and Tolkien is interested in how, while heroic, their ideas of death-as-a-noble-pursuit are ultimately out of step with how Middle-Earth works (where life is nearly always celebrated.) I'm not sure we can extend that to the Druedain, because Tolkien's own views on the Druedain seem to me veeeery problematic, but it's not impossible to headcanon that this, too, is a cultural bias of the Rohirrim.

(Side note: nobody comes off looking very good in the whole Eowyn fiasco, but Tolkien seems to be taking Eowyn's side while acknowledging that the people around her mean well and aren't out to make her miserable. For somebody who struggles writing female characters, Tolkien shows a marked interest in exploring the limited choices women have in life, especially in wartime, and how often even good, honorable men are horrible to them because they're simply too self-centered.)

Anyway, back to the issue at hand, I also think it's important to remember that in the context of the scene, Gimli and Eomer are clearly just being playful. I believe they're high off the end of war and joking around with hyperbole. I don't think we necessarily can extrapolate this is how they would normally think about the women around them, nor do I think Tolkien wants us to.

Finally, this scene is barely about Galadriel, or Arwen, or Gimli, or Eomer. It's about Morning that has become Evening. The time of the high elves (as represented by Galadriel) is ending, and now it's time for Gondor to protect and guide Middle-Earth (as represented by Arwen.) Elves are fading, men are coming into their inheritance. Galadriel and Arwen are personifying concepts here, and I don't think it's a coincidence that Gimli (who will also leave Middle-Earth soon-ish) is siding with the Morning and Eomer (a mortal man) is siding with Evening. Again, metaphors.

Sooooo basically, I think while the scene is uncomfortable to read (as are many scenes in Tolkien), my personal take is that any analysis that reads this scene as Free Of Authorial Bias is overlooking aspects, while any analysis that reads this scene as Just Typical Sexism is failing to consider other aspects. It's Complicated, as usual

for the character ask, Willow and Amity!!!

Willow!

favorite thing about them: I love a lot of things about her! But for now I'll be a bit general and say her arc of continuing to get back up and prove people wrong. I wanna call it perseverance or strength, but it's more like stubbornness lmao. In the early episodes she's prone to defeatism and that's such a far cry from who she is now. She gained hope and belief in herself and leant into the righteous anger she felt watching people she loves be treated like dirt! AUGH I love her

least favorite thing about them: ooh not sure. Maybe that early episode defeatism? Both in an encouraging way where I want her to get back up but also in the sense of "GIRL THIS ISN'T YOUR FAULT NOR THE END OF THE WORLD. TALK TO SOMEONE ABT THINGS!!!" You can see it a bit in for the future too where she interprets hunters ambiguous response ("I don't know") as negative. It's the warped self perception for me /j

favorite line: GRRR THAT'S HARD!! I'm not in encyclopedia mode rn but rn I'm thinking of some lines from Understanding Willow ("you said I was hurting Willow? I was just finishing what you started!" And "it's...a start"). uhh there's also "not if I never look down!" and "it'll be 52 weeks before Caleb's next day off"

brOTP: JUST ONE??? SHE HAS SO MANY GOOD FRIENDSHIPS MAN!!! But either her and Luz or her and Gus

OTP: sigh. Huntlow (I am predictable)

nOTP: her and Boscha. I wasn't in the fandom much during season 1 but I really never got it even back then. That is not a girl who's mean bc she likes you that is a highschool war criminal

random headcanon: OUGH I'VE HAD SO MANY OVER TIME AND NOW I'M BLANKING! Uhh would like magical girl anime (cardcaptor sakura and sailor moon specifically I think). Likes hyperpop and riot grrrl bc it releases her repressed rage and scratches her brain

Unpopular opinion: OKAY I get it. I also want willow to go apeshit, to have her catharsis and maim and kill. But some people characterize Willow as a lot more bitter than she is to compensate for this and I personally don't care for it, lol. It's Awful or anything it's just Not My Girl. She would not fucking say that

song i associate with them: CRIES. SO MANY!! Mona Lisa my mxmtoon

favorite picture of them:

^ this Dana pic!! There's more but I don't wanna make this any longer

Amity!

favorite thing about them: probably how far she's come from being a lonely, image obsessed girl who lashed out at others to a pretty silly but ultimately very emotionally mature person. She takes care of people more often now, while still having learned her lesson about respect and boundaries from labyrinth runners. Also her design/aesthetic

least favorite thing about them: bit wishy washy but a lot of the early season 1 scenes of her bullying Willow, Luz and Co are like. Hard for me to watch sometimes lol. Same with her and Willow in labyrinth runners. Mean girls just hit too close to home sometimes lol.

favorite line: ECLIPSE LAKE SPEECH HANDS DOWN!!! "There are people out there who won't make you feel worthless" SO PROUD OF HER. CRYING RN

brOTP: probably her and Willow since they have the most developed platonic relationship! But also her moments with Matt in for the future lmao (also Gus and Raine. In my head)

OTP: sigh. Lumity (I am predictable. Again)

nOTP: ooh I'm not sure I really have one! At least one that's based in personal squicks/opinions and not stuff like. Shipping her with men. If that's the case though, Amity/Hunter. Gag

random headcanon: she used to play piano as a kid! Was decent at it too even if she only got to play classical. But when she committed to abominations her mom cut her off of her lessons and pushed her away from it since there was no "practical use" for it anymore, not like Amity was going into the bard track. She gets back into it post-canon though :] would also like to jump off that starting point and play bass

unpopular opinion: hhh okay. While I think they could've made things more explicit/dwelled upon/whatever in order to communicate more clearly to the audience, I'm overall fine with the direction they took in Amity's "redemption arc". Bc like. She's just a highschool bully who's already being punished by her family when the audience can't see her. The solution to this would not be to punish her more. Maybe she should've gotten to talk things out more, somebody once pointed out that, in the main big redemption arcs in TOH, nobody really says sorry (ON SCREEN. Apologies are very much implied), just makes a gesture and does better, which I understand but also I like apologies they give closure. But overall I prefer them just giving her the chance to follow through on her promises.

song i associate with them: Babyface by fresh maybe?

favorite picture of them: I DONT HAVE IT RN BUT THE FACE SHE MAKES WHEN BOSCHA GETS DOWN ON ONE KNEE IN FOR THE FUTURE AND SHE GOES "heh????" IT'S SO FUNNY

please assign songs to characters from guardians of the lamb.. i will listen to them <3

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! dude i haven't read the updates in so long i bet moogil's gay ass is in the icu now. these songs are exclusively recent from my liked songs <3

songs + guardians of the lamb characters

yang hari

friction by cafune

i think some of the repeated metaphors in the song, falling asleep, running away from issues, really fit hari :)

[fold under / a deeper slumber / i left you with what didn't fit / i ran so far away from it] i feel like these lines work well with mideum as hari's way of escaping from her memories teehee

[i think we've waited long enough / i think we might be old enough / to face the things we've avoided] and this for the recent arc where my beautiful amazing gorgeous girl is confronting her past dude i need to catch up on guardians of the lamb.

lee moogil / gale

dan the dancer by mitski

i TOLD you. always a mitski song when katherine assigns songs. after going through a couple mitski songs i settled on this one bc it's about loving someone more than life itself but never letting the other person know. because moogil loves hari sooo much he's always getting beat up for her but he never tries to make her worry he's selfless about his love which is so unlike him which is why that genuine love he has for her is the bedroom dancer of the mitski song he really does love her he really does

[and when she'd ask to hold hands / he would smile and / let one of his hands go / his whole life in one hand] the titular dan the dancer of the mitski song is hanging from a cliff with both hands but willingly uses one hand for a kind but ultimately simple gesture for the one he loves. MOOGIL

[once back in his room / he'd return his waving hand / back to its cliff / he liked her more than life itself / i'm sure] once again he is self sacrificial in regards to his love for hari but its okay. happy ending please. please

ahn kangsoo

shrike by hozier

dude i've been listening to more hozier recently and this is one of them. i think i focused too hard on unrequited love (deserved tbh) and this ended up being the first one that fit! teehee

[i couldn't utter my love when it counted / ah, but i'm singing like a bird about it now / i couldn't whisper when you needed it shouted / ah, but I'm singing like a bird about it now] HE MISSED HIS DANG CHANCE WITH HARI!! good but still

[then when i met you, my virtues uncounted / all of my goodness is going with you now] also i feel like he tries sooo hard to be nice and good and the moral one of the love triangle but the truth is moogil loves her more. sorry for the slander mr kang

all of hari's friends bc i don't know the difference

#girlspkout by taeyeon & chanmina

yeah

[come on girls / this is our generation] they're girls generation

[girls speak it loud / speak it loud, speak it loud / come on, girls] you asking the hari friend mole to speak out loud who they are during that long long period of time LMFAO

evil cult people

runaway by varsity

i won't lie i couldn't actually find a song and the first verse of this mentions worship so here we go.

[idols in the air / vanish, then they disappear / how can i worship properly?] this is mideum disappearing i think.

[runaway / i don't even know your name / you're not going anywhere tonight] and this is them kidnapping hari i think.

uhhhhh mideum

seek and destroy by sza

this one is a reach cuz idk any songs about being miserable and jealous off the top of my head. she's just jealous she's not fun and beautiful and cool like hari so this is about her wanting to destroy hari. lol

[the art of war, goddamnit, i'm drained / now that i ruin everything, i cannot complain / now that I've ruined everything, i'm so fucking free] she makes attempts to take over the body or get moogil but they don't work except i guess she probs feels better. i guess

[all the pain i know / is used to fuel my soul / no control] she has no healthy coping mechanisms

Any thoughts/expectations/hopes/desire to even read GODS? I’m sure you don’t have the best opinion of Hickman (I don’t either) but Jericho is supposed to be there (though I imagine not in a huge capacity) and it seems like its (trying to be) massively important to marvel’s whole concept of magic

Frankly the idea of magic and science being these two opposing forces could be interesting but also feels kind of played out (and the idea of a non-magical, science based higher power seems contradictory) and I’m not super interested in buying comics for brand new totally important lore surrounding what’s essentially a brand new cast of characters so I’m gonna pass even though it’s already crossing over with everything bc the story is so so important

Here's the thing about Hickman-- I don't love the detached, sweeping tone he employs, and I struggle with a lot of his choices, but he is very good at big-picture narratives, and I think he's especially adept at weaving together the sprawling, messy timelines and mythologies of the Marvel world into cohesive worldbuilding. In that regard, specicially, HoXPoX is kind of a masterpiece, and I'm going to tune in to anything that promises to deliver the same impact.

So, while I'm not particularly interested in the subject matter of G.O.D.S., I am very interested to see what he does with it. From what I can tell, G.O.D.S. is going to be about the overarching cosmic and multiversal entities of the Marvel world-- Eternity, Infinity, the Living Tribunal, etc. These are the people and places that exist outside of, and in some cases, above, all realities in the Marvel multiverse. It's an area that tends to be vague and a bit contradictory, and it usually feels like a bit of a narrative dead-end to me. Building something larger, and more cohesive with roots in the tactile world would certainly make it a lot more exciting-- but ultimately, I'd really rather just read about the Vishanti or the Elder Gods, which are already built into the world in a more accessible manner.

Most of my favorite magic characters are grounded in really specific corners of the Marvel world, and I'd rather deepen those stories than than have them get lumped into another one of Hickman's grand soft reboots. even if I end up really liking this story, I don't want it to impact the magical world as a whole, so I'm kind of glad Wanda and them aren't part of this-- as far as we know.

I'm not expert on comic book sales, but I have heard that the numbers for G.O.D.S. aren't looking so good. This project doesn't have a built in audience like HoXPoX, or even broad-spectrum appeal like Secret Wars. The decision to retail G.O.D.S. #1 as a 60 volume-- with a price point to match-- is also a little strange, and it's not a great way to get readers to buy into a brand new story with brand new characters.

Are we 100% it was actually X-Force’s beast that gave his life for Simon and not Defenders Hank? Maybe the evil one decided to cut his losses and fuck off to bang a d list actor bc making another black hole gun at this point would be the definition of overkill and surely he had no better ideas if that was plan A.

"There's a quote, that I think you will find apropos.

'There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.'"

"I appreciate, greatly, that I have filled you with such fear that my spectre lies, half-asleep, in your mind now. You wonder. You guess. You second guess. You think, is he still there? Is he around the corner? Is he still among us?"

He grins.

"I'm proud to be the monster that warrants your fear."

I feel like there's half a second where they kind of set up a potential switcheroo when evil Beast breaks normal Hank's glasses, but none of the other contextual clues really line up to make it make sense. In order for X-Force Beast to have made it out alive, in the time before Logan arrived, he would have had to:

Work out the plan with good Hank in between panels.

Dust off his acting chops, which are notoriously rusty (seriously, X-Force Beast is a bad actor).

Take off his Krakoan war suit, teach good Hank how to fly it properly, and give it to him.

Get embroiled in the fight with good Hank to make it look good for Logan.

Be okay with the younger, more idealistic version of himself, that he explicitly calls his favourite, that he likens to a treasured photo album he couldn't stand to watch burn, dying to save him.

Pass a telepathic litmus test with Kid Omega breathing down his mind.

Fool Logan's senses, who would probably notice that evil Beast doesn't smell like clone juice or like Simon like he should, considering he's been hanging around him for at least a day by this point.

Commit to being a good guy around Simon until he can get away.

Like, there's just too much here. That's so many steps. And god knows X-Force are incompetent enough that he could maybe pass the telepathic litmus test somehow, but . . . nah.

Also, while good Hank is obviously very willing to try and save his evil self, he's also actively interested in his own self-preservation, given his conversation in X-Force #49 about proving himself as an ally, and I don't see him staking that continued existence on a quantifiable madman. It just doesn't really make sense.

I also don't see the point in it, narratively speaking. If this was X-Force #20 and we weren't dragging over the finish line like racehorses with gunshots in our knees, maybe, because that's a plot thread that can at least go somewhere, but this is the final issue. Percy's done.

MacKay is Hank's next shepherd, so anything set up here would be at his request. Maybe MacKay would want to keep OG Hank so he can do a redemption arc, but . . . that's a reach. That's a Reed Richard style reach.

Also, maybe this is dumb, but I don't think, even as part of a deception to save his older self and Simon, that good Hank would have it in himself to call Simon a fool.

In the end, this kind of thinking, it's just . . . I think we're kinda reaching to find some kind of cleverness in a Ben Percy comic book, and I . . . think that's, ultimately, a bad idea. Because you won't find it. He plainly either doesn't give a fuck or is so self-deluded about what he's putting out that he thinks this is what passes for clever.

Let's not give the man credit. He wrote this, and it's exactly what it looks like - shoddy, ill-conceived, incredibly rushed for a nearly 100 issue plus finale, badly characterised, barely in continuity, and as lazy as the rest of his writing has been.

Plus, do we really want to rob ourselves of domestic gay boy good lad Hank McCoy and his boyfriend Simon Williams . . ?

Like, evil Beast and Simon is probably a funny sitcom pilot, like Heil Honey, I'm Home, but we know what we want, and it's 80s Hank and Simon curled up on the couch, with Simon doing for Hank what Hank did for Simon did all those years ago - getting him caught up on all the culture gaps in his knowledge.

That's right. It's time for Simon to get to catch Hank up on all the Star Trek that came out since his Cerebro back-up was made!

since i'm back in my ffxv phase, i've been thinking more and more about super eyepatchwolf's video on it and it really does tie in with what hbomb says about rwby, bc it like has moments of threatening to be good but ultimately misses the mark

i just rewatched the kingsglaive movie and there's so much untouched story that has so much potential, but the game doesn't really tap into any of it.

like yes, it's ultimately about noct, but i agree with eyepatchwolf in that the game should've started the player in insomnia, so that the player could build a rapport and connection with the city itself and its citizens before dealing the blow the city has fallen and the king is dead

now, eyepatchwolf goes into gameplay mechanics, and from my very limited perspective, having never played ffxv bc i don't enjoy combat games, but now having more experience with games in general, rather than just watching let's plays, i would agree with his criticisms about it. just wanted to put that out there

bc what i want to talk about is the story and how it progresses, aside from the game-play mechanics. bc it feels very disjointed and like it didn't quite know what it wanted to be or do.

bc i've also been watching a "movie" of a play-through of the entire game (i'm writing a fic that spans across the story and then some, and am trying to get back into the story), and after insomnia falls, it's so jarring to go instantly back into game-play, wacky and goofy backing tracks included. bc then it flip-flops between these side-tangents with fun, hoppy little music, back to cut-scenes of the characters talking about what happened to insomnia, before jumping back to far too light-hearted interstitial dialogue teasing noct about his wedding with luna when they find out she's actually still alive.

side note: also the fact that they completely gloss over the fact that they believed she had perished alongside the king, and then find out she's actually alive? and instead of reconciling with that, they tease noct about a wedding that might not occur bc not only has niflheim declared all-out war by taking over the last stronghold of lucis, and taking the crystal, but they have also kept luna as a political prisoner for almost a decade. and sure, she's been going about awakening the gods for noct, but it's very clear from the scenes in altissa that niflheim is still in control. there's just so much to unpack there, and the game just completely ignores it! /tangent

like yes, the worst thing about the worst day of your life is that the world keeps turning and going and moving forward without waiting. but i really wish they had changed the score a little, at the least, and incorporated noct's grief into the main storyline of the game (as well as the others, since they also grew up in insomnia and gladio lost his father, too).

they do address this more in the animated series, but since the game came first, i shouldn't need to seek out additional material for the game if i want the whole story/more emotional depth.

i just wish they had planned for the possibility that the little side-quests and tangents you could do in this game (which, yes, I understand is an open-world) would take place after the fall of insomnia. bc in the "movie" of the game i'm watching, they player goes to ride chocobos right after learning the news about insomnia, and it is so jarring to hear the upbeat, happy little music while they chocobo race, knowing that this tragedy to their home just happened, and that noct (and gladius) are probably grieving for their father(s). i think it would be difficult, since this is an open-world game, i am not denying that, but not impossible.

i think having more time to explore the city and learning about the citizens, and the current political climate would also help with establishing that, while the fall of insomnia is a terrible tragedy, life outside of the insomnia is,,,pretty normal? like yes, niflheim has been invading cities around insomnia, and the king has given a lot of them willingly, but like i said above, life unfortunately and fortunately marches on. ppl still have to live their lives under a governing body that has invaded and taken them over (or as in altissa's case, made an unfavorable deal with niflheim to avoid complete loss of autonomy).

i don't think i'm asking too much of a game that obviously wanted to tell a story, but i do think some elements are probably more meant for a movie or a tv show just bc at some point they do have to focus on the game part of the game. so i can't fault it for being a game, ultimately. and i know that ffxv was in development hell for years, so i don't blame anyone here for what i wish it had been. i just think it's a shame that so much potential for strengthening the story (and the game-play mechanics) were lost. and imagining what it could've been just makes me sad lol

Warframe: 7, 8, 9, 10

TF2: 6

thank u for letting me be an annoying cunt 😌

WARFRAME ASKS

7. What character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because of how the fandom acts about them?

the closest i can say is wisp. i technically don't hate wisp, i love her both as a warframe to play as well as aesthetically but also she is so obviously tryhard sexybait, and with the amount of porn i've seen it just goes around to becoming a complete turnoff. i automatically hate any porn fanart of wisp but i love love love fanart of wisp that shows off her beauty in other ways. u can show erotic beauty without being straight up pornographic

i do recognise the hypocrisy in this with the shit i've drawn of other warframes but i like to think it's just me balancing everything out

8. Common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

again, not everyone but a BIG FUCKING CHUNK of the fandom: margulis isn't a bad choice and is just as much of an identity of "her" as the other facets of her identity (though i am aware of how many ppl chose margulis solely bc boobs and face, rip). they're parts of a whole, just that post-new war she has to prioritise different values. i'm someone who very much appreciates compassionate characters and i think the margulis identity encapsulates that very well and in some cases would be helpful especially for the drifter/operator. but i personally believed that natah was a clean slate for "her" to start over, and that post-new war needed a driving force to protect in the grand scheme of things - compassion wouldn't be enough

somehow it's only lotus-pickers who seem to have a superiority complex over this - i've never seen a natah or margulis picker who had beef over what other ppl chose 🙃

9. worst part of canon

all of the early quests especially alad v's questline have bloody awful storytelling. alad v's quests are a complete mess and even i still don't know the proper order of what happened to him (i'm pretty sure i did all his quests save for the amalgam arc in reverse). almost all of the early quests are based on retired events/operations and new players aren't even given background summaries explaining them. vor's prize as a tutorial and story quest is HORRIBLE. so much pre-sacrifice stuff has been retconned, even lore from tsd/coh/tww

10. worst part of fanon

any ppl who thought natah/lotus deserved to die for 'betraying' the operator and were even hoping we'd have the option to kill her LMFAOOOOO y'all stupid to think they'd include that

runner up contender: THAT artist who made not-explicit-but-is-most-definitely-horny fanart of nef anyo cannibalising solaris united workers

TF2 ASKS

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

scout/sniper - i fucking hate that ship i see it everywhere and is the only tf2 ship tag i have blocked on tumblr. most basic bitch shit ever

heavy/medic - i love this ship with all my heart but its shippers need to calm the fuck down bc they think this ship is canon just bc the voice actors ship it as well. at best it's heavily implied in game but is ultimately still not canon, and shippers get so mad when you tell them that. very a much a "stop making the rest of us look bad" moment

ask game here!

Quote time!

"Never mind the rising sun, there's no sign of day or dawning"

"Until all the songs are sung"

"As Darkness Takes The Day"

"And I would bring you rings of gold"

"I'll be okay / cause I've been loved enough today"

"Lived for lies, lived for tales"

"Kept my treasures with my bones"

Ooooh let me see... I'm still in Too Much of a Middle-Earth mood so I can't promise that you'd get anything but that, tho ':D

Never mind the rising sun, there's no sign of day or dawning - I think this would be Silmarillion stuff... Maybe Maglor? Like After the War of Wrath and the whole mess with the Silmarils, after Maedhros has killed himself, after there's nothing left. Maglor, walking into the Second Age with none of the things he left Aman for and no hope of ever gaining them, only blood on his hands and no reason to go on except that he doesn't know what else to do. Uh. Sorry, this got really depressing (but to be fair to me there's Too Much Stuff going on for me to be able to come up with anything very cheerful right now)

Until all the songs are sung - For some reason my brain went into Elladan and Elrohir after LOTR. Still lingering in Middle-Earth because it's the only land they've ever known and they still love it (and also they care about Arwen and Aragorn), but knowing that should they choose the fate of the elves, they must soon leave for the West, because the time of the elves is over and they no longer really fit in in Middle-Earth, and kind of just exploring that dilemma. (For the record, I still think that they both did ultimately choose the elves, but they only sailed to the West together with Legolas and Gimli after Aragorn and Arwen had died.) I could not tell you if my life depended on it why this title would be that fic, though, it's just what my brain went to for some reason :D

As darkness takes the day - I think this could maybe be of the Fall of Eregion (and the army led by Elrond being too late to stop it) and the beginning of the War of Elves and Sauron in the Second Age. Probably at least mostly Elrond POV, but just kind of that like realization of how much worse it is than they had anticipated it was going to be and the kind of uncertainty as Eregion is lost and the elven army is forced to retreat bc Sauron's forces are just too strong and all that, you know?

And I would bring you rings of gold - For some reason my mind is going more towards BBC Merlin? Maybe some cute but mildly angsty Leoncelot, with Lance being totally in love with Leon but feeling unworthy of being with him and too shy to confess anyway, and it's just kind of him watching Leon from a distance while thinking of all the things he'd do for and give to him if he had the courage to show his feelings?

I'll be okay, cause I've been loved enough today - hmm, this one's hard. I'm not sure. It would be something super angsty but in kind of a Soft way with a happy ending? But I can't give a character or fandom, sorry! ':D

Lived for lies, lived for tales - for some reason I'm thinking Merlin with this too. Maybe Merlin afterwards questioning the narrative he'd tried to live by about him basically existing to help Arthur and starting to realize how it maybe wasn't the greatest idea to live his life only for someone else, rather than for himself and according to what he maybe would have wanted

Kept my treasures with my bones - I have no idea which fandom or character this would be, but I think it would be a resurrection story, someone being brought back from dead, you know? It definitely has an interesting vibe!

Thank you so much for the ask!!

Biggest post-ATLA fights/drama between Gaang members ?

okay i'm not gonna include any azula-related drama bc that could be its whole own post (and i've definitely talked about it a lot before too) but i am gonna include mai and ty lee bc they are honorary members of the gaang (esp postwar)

okay so there is a conflict regarding the fire nation colonies in the earth kingdom and what should be done about the fire nation settlers there but not in the way the comics handles it. if anything i think katara and zuko would firmly be on one side, that the fire nation shouldn't be exerting their power over native earth kingdom citizens on occupied land and that the colonizers should all gtfo; but then sokka is like that's unrealistic because where are they supposed to go, they've been there for multiple generations, they have mixed children, making people "return" to a country some of them have never even been to isn't the answer, and would only disrupt all their lives further; and aang thinks that even though the reason that fn settlers are on ek land in the first place is bad, it can ultimately be a good thing because it's one of the only places in the world where people from different nations are coming together and having mixed families, which is how he remembers the world being before the war divided everyone into these firm national divisions. so it gets really messy because it's such a complicated issue that can't be solved neatly, and sokka is the only one of them who recognizes that there is no idealistic resolution that will actually work perfectly, because people are garbage. and that's an issue that continues to surface throughout their entire lives, because there is simply no easy fix to colonialism. but yeah that's a big point of contention for sokka and katara especially, and one of the many things they continue to fight over for the rest of their lives.

katara also lashes out at sokka whenever she feels that he isn't in the swt enough (bc she misses him desperately), and sokka just feels horrible about it because he has responsibilities that demand that he be in multiple places at once, and no matter how much he tries to schedule his time evenly distributed among all the places he needs to be in a given year, the fact that he can't just be with his family all the time makes him miserable, and it makes katara miserable, and then she gets mad at him, and he feels guilty over what is basically out of his control because it's not like he doesn't try his hardest to prioritize his home/family anyway, and it's just a mess. but hey, that's life.

for the first few years after the war, at least one member of the gaang is in the fire nation palace with zuko at all times (usually toph, mai, and/or aang) because they all have an agreement that at least one of them is there to keep zuko company and give him advice and make sure he takes care of himself and doesn't have a breakdown. but then, it happens. aang gets waylaid by a village that needs his help with a spirit, mai is on kyoshi island with ty lee and suki, toph is in ba sing se with sokka and iroh, katara is in the south pole working, and zuko is alone. at first it's fine, because he's grown since he first became firelord, and he's not totally useless. but by the end of the week, when aang finally does arrive at the palace, he notices that zuko looks pale and exhausted and his bangs are uneven, and when aang tells zuko that he should probably get some sleep, he accidentally takes a nap that lasts 48 hours. after that sokka devises schedules for them with a contingency plan in place for when one of them gets in an emergency and can't babysit the firelord, so that at least two of them are in the fire nation at once no matter what. zuko is simultaneously offended that they don't trust him to be by himself and very grateful that they know not to trust him to be by himself.

katara never truly gets along with mai and ty lee. even after they apologize to every member of the gaang, make tangible amends for their past actions, and work with them to repair the world, she still just doesn't really like them as people? and vice versa (well, ty lee likes katara fine, but mai finds her annoying). katara thinks that ty lee is the most terrifying and inscrutable person she has ever met, and that mai's extreme privilege and disaffectedness and deadpan way of talking and confusing relationship to zuko just makes her a person she simply does not enjoy being around. she knows that aang gets along really well with ty lee (which katara accepts because aang gets along with everyone), and that mai is like bffs with sokka and toph (which katara chalks up to the fact that they're kind of insane), but she never really makes an effort to befriend them, and would absolutely never hang out with them outside of a group setting.

katara and toph will never stop fighting each other as long as they live. every time they see each other it's on sight. sometimes an idiot will be like "should we try to intervene?" and sokka is like "a) it's cute that you think that you can stop them and b) no, this is how they express affection." they even host formal tournaments (since they are the only opponents worthy of each other), which is sort of the origin of probending. but they fight each other informally all the time as well (which is to say, sometimes toph just throws a handful of sand from her pocket into katara's face and then runs away cackling, and then katara retaliates by using waterbending to pour a bunch of beer on toph's head, etc etc).

that time sokka said "flameo hotman" ironically in front of aang and zuko and aang was offended by sokka's cynicism and zuko was offended that sokka said "flameo hotman" at all and it led to all three of them getting in a huge fight and then suki tried to mediate but because she clearly just agreed with sokka she only fanned the flames (no pun intended) and aang and zuko became so impassioned that they held a public forum on the matter and it became an entire cause for national debate in the fire nation and sokka, who honestly didn't really give a shit in the first place, was just like "what have i done....??"

mai and ty lee do not particularly like iroh, and they make the mistake of letting toph know this, who is like "why would you say this about my beloved uncle 😭😭😭" and they're like "he's a war criminal and a misogynist....." and toph's like "well so am i are you saying you hate me too????" and they're just like "what."

aang gets genuinely offended after zuko says that he would never in a million years date aang. and then he's like "katara you'll never guess what zuko said" and katara gets offended on aang's behalf and says to zuko "well aang's out of your league ANYWAY!!!!" and then neither of them speak to him for like two weeks. all zuko meant by that was that in his mind aang is perpetually twelve years old and he sees him as his baby brother, but every time he tries to justify himself aang's just like "nope! i don't wanna hear it!" and when aang finally does hear him out katara's like "then why did you say aang was ugly and a bad kisser????" and zuko's like "wtf i never said that??????" and katara's like "interesting. so now you're calling aang a liar too???" it gets so bad that eventually sokka goes to aang and says "zuko wanted me to tell you that he thinks you're very sexy and knows that he would be lucky to date you" and then he goes to zuko and says "aang wanted me to let you know that he recognizes that he overreacted and just wants to move past this" at which point they apologize to each other and never speak about it again...........until zuko makes the mistake of saying he'd never date KATARA –

Goddammit im so hapoy to have found you, a Luke apologist. I jaut got sucked back into the whole fandom bc of the upcoming series and... i read the original books when i was really young, right, 11,12,13. And yea, Luke was the bad guy!!

But now im actually Luke age. And i know how young everyone actually is. If you put me in charge of a bunch of 12-15 year olds and made me watch them die one after the other; i'd probably side with the side that's AGAINST those making this happen too???

Idk his stance is just so so so understandable. I'm studying to become a teacher rn and being responsible for big groups of young kids - it feels a certain way. It's like... motherly instincts, but not really, but kinda, but definetly extreme protectiveness.

Now did he make some bad choices along the way blablabla, sure yea. But holy hell his position is understandable.

ESPECIALLY! Knowing about New Rome and that alternatives are a possibility, actually, the greeks just aren't getting them??? Nah i'd definetly try and murder all the gods. Viciously.

I don't really know where i'm going with this except that i was scrolling through the Luke tag and one of your posts was like a breath of fresh air in between all the, mostly pretty young, fans that hate on him and everything he every did. So thanks, i guess?

Goddamn, I somehow never got an email for this, so I had no idea this was collecting dust in my inbox. Sorry about that.

Also, you left me rambling, so. . .sorry about that.

And yes. I am more or less the same age Luke was during the series, and I can't imagine the number it would do on you to be responsible for prepping a bunch of preteens and teenagers to face their violent deaths, especially after what he went through with his mother and Thalia.

I left it in the tags of the post that went viral against my will, but Luke's living out a different genre from Percy and company, and I—I would lose my shit, too, if in his position. That's torturous, dystopian shit.

They're kids, damn it.

(And I have. . .many headcanons about Luke Castellan and Camp Jupiter and Greek demigod life expectancies. Most of them not good, all of them trying to square the worldbuilding)

And I find it so difficult to believe that it's a bad person—and not simply a very angry and hurt person—who sets out to do really questionable things to try and keep another kids from suffering and dying, to prevent anyone else from becoming himself.

There's a certain despair through it and Luke's choices; I really, really have my doubts over whether Luke genuinely believed that he would survive the war, either way.

Raging against the dying of the light and all that. He knows he will likely fail, he knows he's propping up a monster, and he's doing it anyway in this desperate attempt to create something different.

This makes Percy so important because he still thinks that as family and as people, the gods can change—just look at his conversation with Hermes at the end of TLO.

There's a faith he very understandably keeps (Poseidon is, by godly standards, a good dad who tries and that's important), a faith that Luke, in turn, has understandably lost and we see Hermes's grief and regret over that loss.

Luke's last change in heart, his choice to believe in Percy, in how to break this cycle of violence and abuse that's been eating demigods alive, is beautiful and kills me every time.

(Requisite note that this final choice takes on a different timbre considering the events of HoO)

He's lost everything—his mother, Thalia, Annabeth, any semblance of a home he ever had. Which is how I think he justifies Kronos, ultimately, I think. He's lost any hope he has, for himself or otherwise, and is intent on making the gods pay for what they've done.

Like every other tragic hero, he penned his own tragedy, knowing what was going to happen the whole time, which kills me.

He walks into his own end and, at the end, finds that last thing at the bottom of Pandora's jar—Hope.

I, STRAHD: THE WAR AGAINST AZALIN by P.N. Elrod

[intro post]

OH GLORY OF GLORIES, SOMEONE COMPETENT 

going from the embarrassment that was Tower of Doom directly to this is a hell of an experience lemme tell you, one i can only describe as overwhelming relief

what makes matters even better is that, well, you remember that bit i complained about in King of the Dead? where they just kinda glossed over Azalin's whole half-century of cohabitation with everyone's favorite dracula? buckle up kiddies bc this whole book is about that

it's beautiful, it had me howling with laughter in a goddamn subaru dealership while my winter tires were getting changed over, everyone needs to read this immediately

so we open with Strahd being the most dramatic motherfucker in the grocery store, literally flinging himself off a mountain while howling his rage at the sky itself, bc Whoops, Tatyana's Dead Again

and then a week later he gets up off the ground like “ok i’m normal now”, and the book goes on to explain how he's gotten used to Barovia's still relatively new position in the mists. people do not leave. sometimes people enter! no one, not even the travelers, understand how this is done, and it pisses Strahd off. he is rattling the bars of his cage to be let out.

he has also made his famous deal with the Vistani, the only people who do have any degree of mobility between Barovia and the rest of the world; they enjoy a measure of safety from him and his agents, and in return act as his spies and limited servitors. he is also warned via a card reading that a powerful opposing figure approaches, and brings inevitable war

in any other story, this would be Our Designated Hero, Who Will Surely Triumph

i think by now you all can guess that this is not the case

and of course, a few years later, Strahd gets wind of Someone New harassing his nobles and making off with a rare magical book, to which he responds "excuse me, no, only i'm allowed to do that" and tracks the interloper to an abandoned manner house in the south of the country

it's at this point that i'd like to thank the author for the glorious image of Strahd getting just fuckign bug-zapped out of the air by the wards around this place so hard he hits a tree and straight up falls out of bat form. istg for all the work the game modules do to make Strahd into the ultimate big bad of the setting, unkillable and invincible, the man sure does spend a lot of time in these novels just getting the shit kicked out of him. it's beautiful and i want every minute of it framed on my wall. i wanna shove him in a locker and steal his lunch money.

anyway, as if the title of the goddamn book didn't give this away, this is where our buddy and pal Azalin Rex enters the scene! recently landed in Barovia, annoyed by literally everything but especially how he can't seem to memorize whatever spell's in that book he stole, damn thing must be broken i swear, and caked in so many illusions that it takes Strahd ten minutes to figure out there's Something going on under all that instagram contouring.

these two hit it off, well… less like a house on fire and more like a house being crushed by a glacier; icy and immovable and probably very worrisome to the neighbors down the street. they're instant bitchy exes, strangers to kismesises speedrun, they hate each other so much because they are so, so similar

Azalin is a king without a kingdom, prickly and a lil bit insecure and unsure of where he's landed and who this weird goth is and whether or not he should apply fireball directly to the problem yet. Strahd is 500% on edge, knowing full well that this is the fated necromancer he was warned about, and is in the process of sussing out exactly how worried he should be. the answer: very!

correctly surmising that this guy can turn him inside-out if he wanted to, and that Azalin is also a fellow Royal Personality and thus might feel motivated to cover his insecurities by yoinking rule of Barovia out from under Strahd's dainty lil goth boy boots, Strahd thinks very fast and manages to trap his new houseguest in a nonaggression pact of hospitality. Azalin is his guest, however unwillingly, and there are rules a guest and a host must observe with each other dammit.

and thus did two undead bastards become study buddies. neither of them like being stuck here, and Azalin doesn't have the distraction of hunting down the reincarnations of a girl he knew in high school. he's a better wizard than Strahd is at this point, too, of which Strahd is keenly aware, and between the two of them they're confident they can blow this popsicle stand within six months

they're there for forty years

to summarize a lot of slow-moving plot, Strahd does his new roomie the favor of restoring that old manner house he'd found him in into a proper wizard's lab, and by the time the renovations are finished Strahd wants Azalin out of he got damn house so fuckign badly, i love it

Azalin knows Strahd's nature well enough, but has managed to keep his own a secret in addition to his fun new curse of being unable to learn any new magic from this point forward. this manifests in the infuriating habit of having Strahd do a lot of the magical gruntwork with testing new escape spells, and good god it's like they're tenured professors arguing over whose turn it is to supervise the interns, it's delightful

eventually they make their first proper attempt, something something summer solstice, combining a translocation with a summoning, it's not important. what is important is it blows up spectacularly and is genuinely one of the funniest points in the book i shit you not

Strahd barely avoids getting atomized, employing the age-old tactic of Hiding Behind Something While The Fireworks Go Off, and when he finally picks himself back up and stops being crosseyed, he just looks at Azalin's desiccated husk of a body splatted across a wall and says "well fuck, that killed him extra dead didn't it"

and then when Azzie starts moving again Strahd briefly remembers what having a functioning lower intestine feels like bc "oh shit oh fuck he was like that the whole time, abort, ABORT, HE'S A FUCKMOTHERING LICH" and then just. plays dead.

he lies down on the goddamn floor and prays Azalin didn't notice that he saw him with his pants i mean illusions off.

i swear to you, dear reader, i had to put the book down and try to remember how to breathe for a solid twenty minutes

anyway Strahd's fakeout somehow works, and they immediately start bickering over whose fault this shitshow was, which provides more than enough cover for Strahd to Fuckign Book It and go triple his own magical defenses, and also have a delightful lil panic attack

i maintain that P.N. Elrod is butch as all hell, by virtue of no one but butches understand masculinity well enough to satirize it this beautifully. she manages to convey Strahd's "i'm not panicking, you're panicking" with this delightfully wry tone that i can't get enough of, and i fully intend to track down her other non-Ravenloft vampire novels once my brain loosens its vicegrip on this setting, bc by god i need more of her voice in my life

we're about halfway through now, and it's at this point that things start Happening in the wider world. namely, that there is suddenly a wider world for things to be Happening in. for about two hundred years at this point, Barovia has been totally isolated by the mists, and most ppl have just gotten used to this, barring a pair of geriatric wizards who keep trying to give spacetime what-for.

but now! all of a sudden! there's another country just. attached to the southwest end of Barovia like a malignant growth.

what's a local vampire lord to do? apparently commandeer a few of the refugees fleeing said new country to go show him where the fuck they came from, is what.

tragically Strahd still can't physically leave the bounds of his own country, mists or no mists, but he can mindcontrol a dude to go back in and have a look around for him. long story short, this new place is Forlorn and it is uhhhhh largely empty! just a bunch of weird magical mutants, and some hermits who aren't too jazzed about said weird magical mutants, and who all move into Barovia within a few months of the two nations sharing a border. 

this provides our two best buddies plenty of new study material, as do the next seven or so new countries that appear periodically like weird geographic parasites grafting themselves onto Barovia's decreasingly misty borders. Azalin can actually leave Barovia, which he's extremely smug about for the twelve minutes before Forlorn physically flings him back over the line in a pinwheel of stuffy robes and flailing knobbly legs, and boy i hope Strahd got a good knee-slapping laugh out of that bc god knows i sure did

the appearances of new lands culminates in Azalin's disappearance from Strahd's radar, and the emergence of his largest neighbor yet: Darkon. using his favorite remote-viewing magical scrying drone trick, Strahd starts sniffing around and is immediately yanked by the collar on a flash tour of the place, ending in the throne room of Castle Avernus, because if anyone knows how to cultivate an impression, it's Azalin Fucking Rex

yes after forty years of bumming around Strahd's backyard, Azalin has a shiny new gilded cage of his very own! congrats buddy, ur still stuck here like the rest of us. but at least ur not rubbing shoulders with that guy anymore.

unfortunately for Azalin's dramatic sense, Strahd is a) not physically there to intimidate, and b) an expert in the art of Not Being Impressed With Your Shit, so the dramatic tension lasts about five minutes before they're back to jabbing at each others' insecurities in the best long-distance shouting match i've ever seen

seriously they should televise this shit, sell tickets, they'd make a fortune

so far the titular War Against Azalin is less of a war and more of an Ongoing Domestic Dispute With Azalin, but the instant their bargain of hospitality is no longer required, that's when that forty year cold war goes real fucken hot

it's a bit of an anticlimax really. you'd think, being undead archmages, these two would fight like wizards and just hurl lightning and rocks and Spell Of Fuck You at each other over the borders, but instead they just… chuck some zombies at some dudes in armor and call it a day

military commander habits die hard i suppose

Strahd's in a bit of a genuine pickle actually, his noble caste have had two hundred years to get lazy and indolent, and he has to do a whole "I'll Make A Man Out Of You" montage to get them into fighting shape. but Azalin keeps handicapping himself by executing half his most effective lieutenants bc they don't agree with his pizza topping preferences or whatever, so Strahd gets to feel smug about being able to actually retain the loyalty of his people on his own

granted, it's not hard to be more charismatic than a bog mummy that got lost on a tour through the beef jerky factory, but still

we end on a narrow battle victory for Strahd, leaving Azalin to spend a few years rebuilding his forces out of corpses and whatever new talent he can scrape up, and having set the stage very effectively for the hundreds of years of conflict between Barovia and Darkon to come. the resentful roommates have become the viciously estranged exes, and nowhere in the dread domains will know peace ever again. 

tragically they will never really come to physical blows in the spectacular wizard fight way i really want them to, bc neither of them can leave their respective houses here, but u know what i think i can live with the kind of needlessly convoluted machinations guys like that come up with in order to fight proxy wars via soldiers and agents and all the tools of statecraft at their disposal. 

it's just. god i love this book. i love watching bitchy old men be bitchy at each other, i love how deep the world feels despite experiencing it through the viewpoints of two guys who have to share Ebeneezer Scrooge's allotment of goodwill, i love the tiny sprinklings of vampire horniness and lich avarice, i love it i love it i love it

absolutely track this book down if you can, or listen to the audiobook as it'll likely be a lot cheaper. if you need me i’ll be rereading Vampire of the Mists for old time’s sake, and also wallpapering my house in pdfs of the Ravenloft Gazetteers bc did u know there’s fuckign travelogues published for these places? with sneaky metaplot about Azalin and his many many kids i mean clones? holy shit yall.