Goodness, jttw will never run out of different ways the story can be expanded. I don’t know if there are any other books like this. I think something that helps is that there’s no ip law and religious people are more relaxed (I mean when Chinese take creative liberties, it gets iffy when it’s non-Chinese).

Xiyouji has been going on strong for nearly 100 years of media! It truly is a work of art that embodies the human spirit and can be adapted and relatable to any generation to any person. Not matter where you are from or how old you are there is always going to be something so human and so touching in Xiyouji that just captures people for years to come.

Here's to another 100 years of Xiyouji media!!

The closest thing I can think of to another book or franchise that is this widely known could be like Shakespeare but that sadly has been teetering in the past few years. I kinda miss the modern adaptions of Shakespearian plays. And they don't even have games so another disadvantage.

It helps that Xiyouji mostly cameos Daoist and Buddhist figures in its story, hence while it does have a lot of religious messages and is a religious pilgrimage leads to a lot of fantastical worldbuilding and a great way for both patheons to be included. The only other story I can think of that has that kind of storytelling in like Dante's Inferno which while it is well-known certainly doesn't have that much of a media presence.

Your atla analysis is the best so I wanted to ask your opinion on something I've found the fandom fairly divided on - what did you think of Azula's ending within the show proper? Unnecessarily cruel or a necessary tragedy? Would you say that her mental breakdown was too conveniently brought about in order to 'nerf' her for the final agni kai? Also, do you think it was 'right' for Zuko to have fought with his sister at all or would it have been better for him to seek a more humane way to end the cycle of violence?

okay so im saying this as someone who loves azula to death like she has always been one of my absolute favorite characters ever since i was a kid and i’ve always vastly preferred her to zuko and found her to be extremely compelling and eminently sympathetic. i am saying this now before the azula stans come for me. i believe in their beliefs. but i also think her downfall is perfectly executed, and putting aside all the bullshit with the comics and whatever else, it’s a really powerful conclusion to her arc. obviously that isn’t to say that she wouldn’t continue to grow and develop in a postcanon scenario (i have a whole recovery arc for her mapped out in my head, like i do believe in her Healing Journey) but from a narrative perspective, her telos is in fact very thematically satisfying.

no, she wasn’t nerfed so that they could beat her in a fight. the fact that she falls apart is what makes them feel that they can confidently take her on (although i do think in a fair fight katara could win anyway), but the whole point is that it’s not about winning or losing in combat. the whole point is that zuko and azula being pitted against each other in this gratuitous ritual of violence as the culmination of their arcs is fundamentally tragic. yes it’s a bad decision to fight her, and zuko should have chosen another path, but the whole point is that he’s flawed and can only subscribe to the logic he has spent his whole life internalizing through violence and abuse.

that’s why aang’s fight against ozai, while tragic in its own way, is also a triumph for the way in which his ideals prevail in the face of genocide, while zuko and azula’s fight is very patently tragic. there is no moment of victory or triumph. even as zuko sacrifices himself in a beautiful mirroring of “the crossroads of destiny” and as katara uses the element of her people combined with techniques across other cultures to use azula’s hubris and ideology of domination against her, it’s presented as moments of personal growth occurring within a very tragic yet inevitable situation. it was inevitable because azula had always been positioned as an extension of her father, and thus to disempower ozai also means disempowering azula, his favorite site of projection, his favorite weapon.

yeah, it does rub me the wrong way when zuko asks katara whether she’d like to help him “put azula in her place.” it’s not a kind way to talk about your abused younger sister. but it’s also important to understand that zuko doesn’t really recognize his sister’s pain, despite the fact that they obviously share a father, because he’s always assumed that she was untouchable as their perfect golden child and thus never a victim. and he’s wrong. zuko and katara expect a battle of triumph and glory, noble heroes fighting valiantly so that good may prevail over evil. but as they discover here, even more so than their previous discovery two episodes prior, a battle is not a legendary event filled with bombast and beauty until after it has been historicized. often a war is simply fought between pathetic, desperate people who see no other option but to fight.

aang’s ultimate refusal to fight despite having all the power in the world is what makes him so important as the protagonist. but katara and zuko both share a more simplistic view of morality and what it means to be good. and zuko assumes that by fighting azula, he can only be punching up, because she has always been positioned as his superior, and she (in her own words!) is a “monster.” and then azula loses, and his entire worldview shatters. joking about putting her in her place makes way for the realization that behind all her posturing and lying (to herself more than anyone) and performance and cognitive dissonance, azula has always been broken, perhaps even more than he is.

azula says “im sorry it has to end this way, brother,” to which zuko replies “no you’re not.” but i think azula is truly sorry, because in her ideal world, she wouldn’t be fighting zuko. she doesn’t actually want to kill him, as much as she claims to. she’s already reached the conclusion that zuko will only truly reach once their fight is over. she lacks a support system, and she needs one, desperately. if she could somehow get her family back, do everything differently, less afraid of the consequences, she would. she’s smirking, she sounds almost facetious, but really, she is sorry. as of this moment, she really doesn’t want it to end this way. but zuko cannot accept that, because in his mind, azula is evil. azula has no soul nor feeling. azula always lies.

her breakdown doesn’t come out of nowhere, either. it’s precipitated by everyone she has ever cared about betraying her. first zuko betrays her, then mai, then ty lee, and then ozai — the person she has staked her entire identity to and to whom she has pledged her undying loyalty and obedience, become nothing more than a vessel for his whims — discards her because she had the audacity to care about someone other than him. what i don’t think zuko realizes, and perhaps will never realize, is that azula betrayed ozai by bringing zuko back home. he was not supposed to be brought back with honor and with glory. azula specifically orchestrated the fight in the catacombs to motivate him to join her, and it’s not because she’s some cruel sadistic monster who wanted to separate a poor innocent soft uwu bean from his loving uncle, it’s because she genuinely believes that she’s doing what’s best for him. she believes that their uncle is a traitor and a bad influence, and she believes that bringing zuko home with his honor “restored” is an act of love. to her it is.

yes, she claims that she was actually just manipulating him so that she wouldn’t have to take the fall if the avatar was actually alive, but also, she’s clearly just covering her own ass. she didn’t know about the spirit water, and only started improvising when zuko started showing hesitation. but even if she was only using zuko, then that was an insane risk to take, because either way she was lying directly to ozai’s face. and zuko admits it to ozai while simultaneously committing treason, so of course ozai would blame azula, his perfect golden child who tried to violate his decree by bringing zuko back home a prisoner at best and dead at worst, and instead found a way to restore his princehood with glory.

we only see ozai dismissing and discarding azula in the finale, but it’s clearly a tension that’s been bubbling since the day of black sun. and we know this because we do see azula falling apart before the finale. in “the boiling rock” she is betrayed by her only friends. in “the southern raiders” we see that this has taken a toll on her, that she is already somewhat unhinged. she and zuko tie in a one on one fight for the first time. and she takes down her hair as she uses her hairpin to secure herself against the edge of a cliff. unlike zuko, who is helped by his friends and allies, who has a support system. it’s a very precarious position; she’s literally on a cliff’s edge, alone, her hair down signifying her unraveling mental state. azula having her hair down signals to us an audience that she is in a position of vulnerability. she is able to mask this terrifying moment wherein she nearly plummets to her death with a triumphant smirk, but it should be evident to us all that her security is fragile here.

and the thing is, even though she’s always masked it with a smirk and perfect poise, her security has always been fragile. azula has never been safe. azula’s breakdown is simply the culmination of her realization that no matter how hard she tries, she will never be ozai’s perfect weapon, because she is a human being. she is a child, no less. and there is no one in her entire life who loves her for nothing. zuko has iroh, who affirms to him that he could never be angry with zuko, that all he wants is simply what is best for zuko. but azula doesn’t have unconditional support in her life. she doesn’t even have support.

everyone she ever thought she could trust has betrayed her, and so she yells that trust is for fools. because she feels like a fool. of course fear is the only way; it’s what kept her in line all these years. azula is someone who is ruled by fear, and who is broken by the recognition that fear isn’t enough. her downfall is necessarily tragic because her worldview is wrong. the imperialist logic of terror as a tool for domination is her own undoing, just as ozai’s undoing is losing the weapon he has staked his national identity to. it’s a battle of ideals. aang v ozai: pacifism v imperialism. katara and zuko v azula: love and support v fear and isolation.

zuko is unfair to azula, it’s true. he tries to fight her even as he can clearly recognize that “she’s slipping.” instead of trying to help his little sister, he uses that weakness to his advantage, tries to exploit her pain so that he can finally, for the first time ever, beat her in a fight. it’s cruel, but it’s also how siblings act. especially considering the conditions under which they were raised, and how zuko has always viewed her. and in zuko’s defense, she has tried to kill him multiple times lately, both in “the boiling rock” and in “the southern raiders.” zuko is someone who gets fixated on a goal and blocks out everything else, including recognition of his surroundings or empathy for others. so of course when he’s promised to put azula in her place he’s going to exploit her weaknesses to do so. after all, isn’t exploiting his weaknesses exactly what azula does best? so he allows himself to stoop to her level, and in fact only redeems himself through his sacrifice for katara. but it is when azula is chained to the grate and zuko and katara, leaning on each other, look down and observe the sheer extent on her pain, that zuko realizes that “putting azula in her place” isn’t actually a victory. it feels really, really bad, actually.

they’re in a similar position as they were when they faced yon rha. and now it is zuko’s turn to understand that he is not a storybook hero triumphing over evil, but rather a human being, facing another human being, in a conflict that is larger than themselves. to “put someone in their place” is to imply a logic of domination, of inherent superiority, that someone has stepped out of line and must be reordered neatly into the hierarchy. but aang disputes the notion, ozai’s notion, that humanity can be classified along these lines, that there exists an ontological superiority among some and not others. so operation: putting azula in her place was always going to be flawed, even if she was performing competency the way she always does, because they’re nonetheless subscribing to her logic.

of course they should be helping azula, of course they should be reaching out to abuse victims through support instead of more violence. but first they must recognize her victimhood. first they must come to understand that they didn’t get lucky, and they didn’t dominate her because they are more “powerful,” that they weren’t “putting her in her place.” they must understand that they are not heroes fighting villains in a glorious trial by combat. that the logic of the agni kai is flawed. that they are all victims. that they are all just scared, hurt children who are still grieving their mothers.

so after a recent conversation with my friends we’ve come to a realization: fandom loves Slave Rights Advocate laurent trope. whether it be an arranged marriage au, a time travel au, an auguste lives au or any kind of setting where slavery is still in motion; it’s always laurent who opens damen’s eyes to the horrors of slavery and insists they can’t be with each other until slavery is abolished, that slavery is a deal breaker on whether they can be together or not. now i certainly don’t want to sound like i’m policing anybody’s creative choices but it’s become such a common trope in the fandom that it is baffling at this point because. here’s the thing. slavery isn’t one of laurent’s battles. at all.

allow me to explain further before i make people angry. it’s clear laurent is against the fundamental premise of slavery and finds it inhumane. but through the series (counting out taofc where he and damen are trying to build an empire together), he doesn’t actively fight or challenge the system or slavery. i don’t even think this is a hot take when you remember that he;

i. didn’t protect the akielon slaves in arles until damen begged him to and sold them to torveld for personal gain (which was the best course of action he could take under the circumstances but as i said, he wasn’t above using them)

ii. referred to damen as his slave constantly in both a technical and romantic sense

iii. got turned on by playing master and slave and master and pet

iv. used isander as a way to get back at damen: was fed by isander in the feast, stroked him, allowed him to kiss his feet and boots etc.

in fact here are plenty of instances where it’s clear laurent enjoyed the type of power he had over damen:

and here’s the only part where i can remember damen and laurent discussing slavery after damen’s identity is revealed and they have the possibility of a future together. as you can see, laurent’s attitude towards it is pretty neutral. he doesn’t approve, but it’s clear he’s not a passionate champion of the anti slavery movement.

let me make it clear that none of this is a criticism towards laurent. it’s important to remember that capri started as a slavekink fic (in pacat’s own words) and though it evolved, by the final draft she still kept some of those elements: like making the first night between lamen a romantic, sacred, precious thing between them; laurent telling damen he’s his slave by feeding him as a slave would, damen calling himself laurent’s slave as a sign of submission/love/romance before their first kiss, laurent saying damen is still his slave before sleeping with him… the narrative still eroticizes slavery to some extent and uses it as a vehicle of romance.

the thing is, laurent finding enjoyment in these practices is not the problem. when the fandom loves to pretend like laurent would be so disgusted by the idea of slavery (even though the text repeatedly shows he’s not) , that he; a perfect civilized blonde veretian angel would come to akielos and educate those barbarians about how horrible slavery is and damen would only open his eyes to the truth through laurent’s guidance, that’s when my issues start. because, like i said, this was never laurent’s battle and it pretty much reads like laurent is some sort of white savior, someone who comes to damen’s country to “fix” the problems of akielos without understanding their history, needs, or the region’s current state of affairs.

another very important thing to underline is that the whole slavery ordeal in the series was damen’s character arc, not laurent’s. he’s the actual slave in the scenario, and as much as laurent doesn’t like slavery, damen didn’t come to the conclusion that it was bad because of laurent’s preachings. it leaves a bad taste in the mouth that damen was the one who actually experienced slavery and faced countless humiliations in vere and yet people still insist on making laurent educate damen about why it’s wrong, even though he himself has never experienced slavery in his life. (one might argue in aus where damen was never sent to vere as a slave he wouldn’t come to the same realizations but that still doesn’t mean laurent would have a passionate agenda regarding slaves. at best i believe he would demand damen to stop sleeping with his slaves as they are monogamous.)

choosing laurent as The One who firmly stands against slavery is bad from a narrative pov too. making this specifically about laurent makes no sense because it's got nothing to do with him. it's not his country! he doesn't care about akielos the way damen does. everything about it thematically relates back to damen; who exists as a metaphor for akielos - any insult or injury done to him is an insult to akielos. he embodies it’s values and it’s people, and by becoming a slave he’s reflecting the current slave state of akielos, and through finding liberation for himself he’s also finding liberation for akielos. it’s a powerful symbolism for how akielos is changed and freed directly BECAUSE of his own personal liberation. laurent has nothing more than an intellectual interest in anti-slavery and he only ever begins to care about akielos because he cares for damen. but damen was raised with it and experienced it and cares very deeply about it. it’s his country! it's his story!

tldr; through the series, it was damen’s journey to experience what it was like to be a slave, to see the true horrors of this practice and decide he doesn’t want to rule his country that way anymore. so taking his agency and giving it laurent, someone who was neutral at best about slavery, feels incredibly insensitive and wrong.

I haven't really had any standout favourites amongst the DFF characters and I don't really ship any of the canon ships in the usual sense (i.e. no obsessive brainrot, although I'm enjoying them all from a narrative perspective). But the bombshell that was ep 9 has finally made me latch onto a character. This guy:

Although not I think for the most common reason that has caused Tan/New's surge in popularity i.e. being Non's avenger. Because man, New is so much more than that. This kid is a hot mess who's lost everything he holds dear, filled with guilt for failing Non and then his family, seeking answers, revenge, redemption and now has nothing left to lose. I'm so here for it. New's character and his arc is just fucking fascinating to me. Kudos to Mio for playing it so subtle until now and then knocking it out of the freaking park for ep 9.

This kid was the golden child of his family and favoured at least by his mother, and yet clearly felt the pressure of those expectations.

And then! And then! His and Non's whole deal makes my brain buzz. I love me some tragic siblings with a yawning emotional gulf in understanding between them; of a relationship lost or a closeness that never quite made it, of a relationship of two brothers endlessly set against each other and damaged by their parents. A relationship where he failed Non in a litany of little ways by not being there for him, and one always inevitably overshadowed by the comparisons their parents made between them both.

And when Non disappears, New is overcome with guilt! For failing him, and for not being able to be there for him, and so he resolves to find out what happened to him. And he fucking commits to it! This guy throws away his scholarship, his life in England, to fucking redo highschool and infiltrate the gang of kids who bullied his brother! For two years, he hung around with these people pretending to like them and lied to his parents, only to have nothing to show for it and to lose even more when his mother kills herself, his father disowns him and then does the same! This shit would break the strongest of people (and I'd argue something in New is broken now) but he still finds it in himself to kickstart the plan that will bring hell down on these kids.

This kid has lost everything, and is clearly at a place of desperation and despair. But he's still not giving up. Even in the face of ruination and perhaps his own destruction, I feel like New will keep going on regardless if it means finding out what happened to Non. He'll do whatever it takes, burn the world, immolate himself, if it means making that happen.

I think ultimately, I love that New's a tragic, complex character who's been ruined by life and by his own doing, and through ruination, has come out of it unhinged, perhaps even something worse. Someone haunted by the ghosts of his lost family, by his failures and his guilt. Someone with so much potential for further tragedy, who'll likely destroy themselves relentlessly chasing his end goal and end in misery.

TLDR; I love me a haunted, broken, unhinged, fucked up li'l guy.

John Gaius is less interesting to me as someone who is just a shallowly awful person, and vastly, infinitely more interesting to me as an intensely human person with the powers of a god and that has fucked him up. The things he does to his friends are done out of grief, because he doesn’t want them to be gone, it’s out of the loss of those he loved that he brings them back, that there’s almost something numb about him until the depression or the rage or the sorrow hits, because like he’s Jod, he didn’t get to where he was by being able to die, and that’s terrifying for others, but I can’t help thinking that it’s really fucked him up, too, because all that power, it’s just there, it’s in him all the time, and when someone betrays you and you have the power and invulnerability of a god and you’re a hot goddamned mess because you’re still just a person who has lived through so much pain and grief and loss, you react like a human and you reform yourself out of your own atoms and permanently explode people and go, right then, either you’re loyal or you die, because you’re fucking pissed, and you don’t want to fucking deal with it anymore, because you don’t have to, you’re God, you have the power to say, no, this stops here, loyalty or die, make your fucking choice now, instead of continuing to walk that tightrope of lying to your friends but trying to make it up to them and feeling guilty but also feeling angry, all while you’re so fucking tired. But then you feel more guilt about it, because you’re a person and you’re not trying to be a dictator, you’re trying to make the galaxy better, you’re trying lighten the mood, because it’s ten thousand fucking years and if you don’t embrace your love of puns being hilarious, then everything’s going to be so fucking boring, and you’re still angry at the trillionaires.   You stop time and tell everyone to stop attacking each other because you’re so fucking tired and just don’t want to deal with it anymore.  You’re so fucking careful, even around your friends, not to bleed around them because you know what that can lead to. I feel like John is a character who isn’t evil so much as every step is an understandable one he made, each one is a very human reaction when you have the context of everything that happened before, and then layer a whole lot of depression and guilt and anger on top of all those decisions. Is he doing terrible things?  Yeah, and he’s fucking terrifying to be around, he tries so hard to be affable and gentle, but he has so much power and he’s Just A Fucking Guy, a guy who wanted to save the world and started out from a place that so many of us have started out from, each step he took to where he got and why he lied are understandable ones, the weight inside him one that I can empathize with, I too am not always the kindest when I’m depressed, I too am not always one to make the best decisions when I feel torn between wanting to help people vs how to actually get there, like if I was face to face with a real chance to save the world, wouldn’t I do some shady things to make sure it got done, because the world hung in the balance?  Wouldn’t I fall into depression when weighed down by all that responsibility to do something when I had the power/ability to do it?  Where is the single point at which he should have said no and turned back, given all that had come before? I don’t see John Gaius as a character who set out to become Necrolord Prime, that that was the intended arc, so much as he kept making one decision after another, decisions that come from a place of very human nature, and eventually we’re here, with the weight of all those decisions behind him and no one single place that really was a hard turning point.  And also a whole lot of depression. Anyway, he’s my poor little meow meow and I hope he’s dictator of the universe for life because it’s very funny and also gives me feelings.

Boston and his "friends"

Last week, after I watched Boston get wrongfully branded by Atom as a sexual predator and isolated from the group, I was seething with rage and wanted to see Cheum, Mew and Ray to fall at Boston's feet and beg for his forgiveness after the truth comes out.

But today, honestly, I think it is a better character arc for Boston if he doesn't get that resolution from them. Because he fucking doesn't need it. He has defined a wonderful relationship with Nick, his first love, that will give him joy until he leaves for New York (cc @lurkingshan) and he has listened to Atom's grovelling apology. He has no other hangups tying him down.

Cheum, Ray and Mew, on the other hand, do not have the conviction to confront the truth in their relationships. They accused Boston of being duplicitous but none of them approaches their own problems with anything even remotely resembling a healthy communication.

Cheum heard her brother tell her that he lied about Boston taking advantage of him and all she could say was this:

She did not feel horrified that her brother chose to slander a friend, and she does not feel any remorse for her actions. I bet she thinks it's all fine because Boston is a slut anyway, he slept with Top and ruined Mew's relationship, so why does it matter that he was wrongfully accused this one time. Well, Cheum, it doesn't matter to him, but it will matter to you as you have not learned the integrity to face your mistakes and apologize for them. An apology should not be made expecting forgiveness in return, and it should not be valued based on the moral standing of the person you're apologizing to.

Mew. Oh, Mew, Mew, Mew. @lurkingshan pointed out during our post-episode conversation that Mew cannot stick to his schemes, he peters out at the first sign of stress and gives in to the status quo. He wanted to give Top a second chance, and then Boeing showed up. After understanding that Boeing is playing games for his own revenge-on-Top agenda, he initially goes along with it to spite Top. And after all the scheming has made both of them utterly miserable, he listens to his parents and finally decides to give Top an honest-to-goodness second chance. But, he doesn't give it after going through the painful process of self-reflection, and communication where both of them can set clear boundaries and understand where they each stand. Nope. Instead, they just casually agreed to push it away to deal with it in the future.

I declare my love for Theory of Love as loudly and passionately as I can whenever I get the chance on this hellsite, and one of the main reasons why I love that show so goddamn much is the conversation between Khai and Third in the Theory of Love Special Episode, where Khai admits that a girl kissed his neck at a party and how he tried so hard to keep Third from finding out. Third then tells him that he has known about the kiss the whole time, and how Khai need not worry; he knows the difference between an accident and a kiss with purpose. He then tells him that Khai is not the only one trying to make this relationship work, he is trying too, because Third also loves Khai and wants to be with him.

This is what healthy communication looks like. The issues and miscommunications must be tackled head-on and resolved before moving on, so they don't fester into an even bigger and more painful problem later. You can't "leave the problems to the future" and expect it to work itself out. In case y'all don't remember, Khai had to step on literal broken glass to stand his ground and plead his case after a miscommunication, and it was still not enough. That's how painful this process is and I will bet my bottom dollar that Mew has exactly zero percent of the fortitude it takes to talk through a relationship faux pas.

Ray, the human embodiment of a fucking dumpster fire. All he says to Sand after accusing him of taking money from his dad in exchange of taking care of him is "I'm sorry" and Sand immediately takes him back into his arms (I'm so embarrassed that I was briefly rooting for Sand at the start of the show). He does his community service with Sand for a hot minute and then immediately plans an overseas trip to whisk him away. He spells it out, yet again, how he is always looking to "buy" Sand (cc @wen-kexing-apologist)

Buying Sand, ya know, the exact same thing he was mad about, one episode ago.

Trying to prove that Ray's communication skills are severely subpar and unhealthy is like trying to prove that the water in the ocean is salty; the more time I spend on this, the stupider I would look.

All of this is a long winded way to say that Cheum, Mew and Ray will be too busy trying to escape their own trappings, the ones they built for themselves while they convinced self and each other that they are better than Boston; while Boston moves on with his life, living unapologetically as he always does. They can keep their apologies -- I don’t need it, and neither does Boston.

2024 Book Review #2 – He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan

I’ve had this sitting on my bookshelf since it came out but, as so often happens, having it just laying around meant it faded to the background whenever I was deciding what to read next. Not the worst case of that (there’s a lovely of Cyteen that’s been sitting on my dresser and shaming me for at least a year now), but certainly long enough for me to regret it.

The story is a direct sequel to She Who Became The Sun, a low fantasy retelling of the fall of the Yuan Dynasty and the ascension of Zhu Yuanzhang to the imperial throne – though in this universe the ‘real’ Zhu Yuanzhang died a starving peasant child, and his sister assumed his identity and his destiny of greatness, willing to do anything and everything it takes to force the world into alignment with it. The book starts with her having lost her right hand, and only gets more emphatic about making her prove it from there.

Aside from Zhu, the narration’s split between several different points of view that fill out the struggle for the future of China. The book honestly does a better job with multiple POVs than the vast majority of epic fantasy I’ve read – every one is a thematic mirror of Zhu on one level or another, and every one has an arc dedicated to the book’s twin fascinations of what it means to be willing to do anything to achieve what you want on one hand, and gender nonconformity and queerness in an intensely patriarchal traditional society on the other.

The actual plot of the story is almost episodic – Zhu encounters some new obstacle on her way to victoriously marching to the Mongol capital at Dadu that can’t be defeated with the blunt force she has available, and she and some collection of the supporting cast goes on an insane adventure to snatch victory regardless. Then every so often there’s a cutaway to Wang Baoxiang (who, among all the other POVs, is easily the one that comes closest to deuteragonist status) scheming his way through imperial court politics in Dadu in his incredibly operatic and self-degrading scheme for revenge on his dead brother. The plots start affecting each other quite early, but I’m pretty sure it’s only in the last twenty pages or so that the two of them actually meet face to face (it is in fact a minor plot point that Wang can’t recognize Zhu when he sees her). It all manages to feel like it’s capturing a whole swathe of political intrigue beyond any one person’s understanding and feel fairly well plotted and cohesive as it comes together. Not that there aren’t plenty of points where you have to just run with it and not push back at what the book’s telling you but nowhere where it’s serious or blatant enough to actually be an issue.

I’m not sure it’s a complaint per se, but one thing that did take some adjusting to is just how, melodramatic I suppose? All the POVs in the book feel very profoundly and effusively, and also have absolutely zero awareness or understanding of their own emotions. This is particularly acute with Wang and Madame Zhang, but in every case there’s just a lot of characters being driven by emotions too large to be contained within them. It kind of feels like a musical, in that respect (but absolutely no other, to be clear).

Anyways, this is a book with absolutely massive amounts of Gender in it. With like, literally one exception, every POV is to some great extent defined by struggling against their position in the gender system of medieval China, and all the issues doing so their entire lives has left them with (Zhu is far and away the most healthy and well-adjusted about this.) Importantly, being oppressed and marginalized for being a woman/effeminate man/eunuch is in no way edifying or ennobling – it’s mostly left everyone involved deeply damaged and full of coping mechanisms that serve them poorly and everyone around them far worse. There’s basically no mention of even the idea of solidarity among the oppressed here – Madame Zhang tortures, mutilates and kills her own maids and her husbands’ consorts whenever necessary, Wang operatic revenge plot involves befriending and seducing a queer prince knowing it will get him killed in the end, Ouyang hates how effeminate his body is and deals with this by becoming a pathological misogynist – even Zhu doesn’t spare much to think about the cause of woman’s liberation beyond herself and her wife.Given the state of a lot of modern genre lit I honestly found this rather refreshing.

As both cause and consequence of the choice of POVs, the book has a rather interesting relationship with normative masculinity. There’s, as far as I can tell, exactly two examples of successful heroic/virtuous normative masculinity in the book – General Zhang and the Grand Councillor of the Yuan – and despite both being really incredibly competent and fearsome on the battlefield and legitimately selfless and honorable, both end up condemned as traitors to their respective lieges (both indolent, vicious, and generally contemptible men without anything in the way of redeeming features, themselves) and dying unpleasantly after being outmanoeuvred in court intrigue. Victory in the end goes not to those who are cherished by their society but the ones who are overlooked and brutalized by it but are willing and able to do whatever it takes and use anything and everything they can to claw their way to the top despite it.

Speaking of – the overriding throughline of the story is what it means to be willing to do anything to achieve your life’s ambition. Being willing to endure pain and suffering goes without saying, and while the book does put its leads through the physical ringer, that’s not really what it’s interested in. Are you willing to spend the lives of those who trust and rely upon you? Sacrifice those you love, or ask them to die for you? Betray those who have only ever shown you kindness? Are you willing to degrade and humiliate yourself, or lie and betray your own hard-won and precarious identity? And once you’ve done all that, and finally achieved your heart’s desire – well, are you really sure it was all worth it? Three cases out of four in the book, at least, ended up regretting it in the end.

This is a book that’s very concerned with sex and sexuality but, like, very nearly exclusively in offputting or unpleasant ways. There’s something like a dozen sex scenes (okay, ‘scenes with sex in them’ is probably the less misleading description. If you come looking for porn you’ll be disappointed) in the book and of them I believe exactly one that you could characterize as enthusiastically consensual and mutually enjoyable. Maybe three, if you count the incredibly toxic relationship which boils down to asking for help dong self-harm and it turns into a sadomasochist thing. Which never becomes/is never understood as sexual by the people engaging in it but describing it is definitely the closest the book gets to erotica. In any event, just somewhat surprising to see so much sex paired with so little romance, relative to most modern stuff I’ve read. Ties into how alienated literally everyone is from their bodies, I suppose.

Also I really don’t know enough about the historical memory of the early Ming dynasty to know whether all the stuff about how Zhu knows what it’s like to be nothing and how she’ll reorder the world to care for everyone is supposed to read as really darkly ironic or not.

🔥 each member of vox machina

Vax: really the sadboy narrative for Liam has always been stupid but it's egregiously bad that it started with Vax, who is like, sad for maybe a fifth of the episodes and largely because Liam O'Brien's actual mother was dying, like, with all due respect what the actual fuck, fandom.

Vex: I am the founding and probably only member of the "Vex is my favorite character and also I am 100% cool with Colville's depiction of her." The generosity she shows even very early on in C1 is still a generosity borne of some degree of security - they have a keep by then - and I also just don't think you have to like a character to write them fairly. Granted it's been a minute since I read early VMO but nothing stood out to me as out of line with my understanding of Vex.

Pike: repeating myself once again but I like Pike a lot and wish we could have seen more, but because we didn't, people who say she's their favorite in C1 do tend to turn me off in that I feel they're looking for a relatively flat and widely praised character to project onto rather than a character who goes through more messy development.

Grog: I think he's often underestimated and I was guilty of doing so myself, to be honest, until I saw Travis play more and until I personally got better at D&D. Also I still maintain that playing INT 6 sensitively and well is infinitely harder than playing INT 16, all things considered, and this is yet another reason why people should play high INT more often.

Scanlan: Also underestimated; I do understand being turned off by the whole extremely horny playboy thing but as I've said before Bard's Lament is a major litmus test for me: if you think Scanlan is completely at fault here, you are wrong, and if you think he's not partially at fault, you are also wrong.

Tary: I genuinely love him and think he's a great character and one of Sam's best, but while his character arc is strong the Taryon Darrington Arc of the VM Campaign, through no fault of his own (and partly bc I personally think D&D Hell, especially pre-Descent Into Avernus publication, is kind of boring), is one of the weakest parts of the campaign because it's kind of a grab bag of loose ends. With that said I would happily watch more Darrington Brigade-one shots.

Percy: Percy is also generally a litmus test in that it's like. Is he a good person? Eventually I believe he becomes one, and even before that I think he's very sympathetic and deeply traumatized and like, 24, so I get it, but also, who the fuck cares. This ties into the Essek and the Ashton opinions and all kinds of other stuff but why are people so invested in fucking absolving their blorbo of all sins? I want someone who's lived enough of a life to have done some heinous shit because that's fun and interesting and it's pretend and also because then they can have a rewarding character arc by either working towards redemption or coming to terms with who they are or spiraling into tragedy.

Keyleth: I like Keyleth a lot but I am, as this post indicates, far more sympathetic to Vex, and so while I do think Keyleth is a fairly good person she is also extremely sheltered and naive and terrified of doing the wrong thing and I would have, like Vex, wanted to scream at her half the time were I just a random NPC wandering about the campaign. On the other hand C3-era Keyleth? fantastic no notes she has grown up in such an interesting way.

Tiberius: I think we, and by we I mean people capable of separating the art from the artist, can recognize that his concept actually fucking slapped and unfortunately he was played by someone who absolutely sucked in a myriad of ways. I would love to see the alternate universe in which the same general concept (prodigy sorcerer from Draconia who is full of themself) had to face not just the destruction of their civilization but the realization that they were taking advantage of the Ravenites and while they did not deserve to be killed by Vorugal, had done nothing to justify aid from those they had subjugated either. Like, the alternate world in which one of the current cast members or like, a close friend of the main cast (Ashly, Erika, Mary Elizabeth) played this is one I'd love to see.

I have joked before that Stormblood feels like the writers thought they maybe went too hard on Major Character Death™️in Heavensward and so almost nobody gets to die. But looking back over the arc of the Scions as a whole, I think Stormblood through Endwalker are really the Scions learning (if slowly) that Heroic Sacrifice is not always the answer, and also growing closer to one another as people as a result. Especially for those of us who didn't play 1.0, I think it's so easy to forget sometimes that these characters just survived an apocalypse--and lost the guy who was the glue holding them all together. I think a lot of what feels like the Scions being cavalier with their comrade's life in ARR is the fact that they are all waiting, consciously or unconsciously, for their own Louisoix Moment, and they're so deep in that mindset that they probably don't even realize how it feels to an outsider, that understanding that they're all ready to die. Because when that moment does come, they all take it. Moenbryda takes it, Minfilia takes it, Papalymo takes it... and the rest are left to pick up the pieces.

And what do they do with those pieces? After Moenbryda's death Urianger goes on a very long arc where he starts mired in isolation and self-flagellation, but ultimately comes to see that turning to his friends for help is better than suffering alone. Alphinaud faces down the arrogance that made him so easy to manipulate and becomes better at working with others and not over and around them. Alisaie comes to terms with her grandfather's death and pushes those around her to see alternatives to sacrifice. Lyse decides to stop hiding, to live as herself, and to fight for what she believes in, ultimately becoming a leader in her newly-freed homeland. Thancred learns to better respect the agency of the people he loves while still acting as a protector. Y'shtola begins--slowly, and haltingly, but she does begin--to share her struggles with her friends instead of keeping everything to herself. G'raha, after years of secrecy and preparing to sacrifice himself, finds himself given a second chance and a new life to share with the people he loves. Estinien finds deeply meaningful friendships with people he would have once considered his enemy, and lets go of a life of solitude in favor of joining the Scions.

There's a reason the Scions don't really feel like a family in ARR. There's a reason that, to me, they do feel like one by Endwalker. Sometimes media will try to force a found family dynamic between a group of characters who don't even necessarily like each other very much; FFXIV lets the cracks in the Scions show early and then shatters them, then brings them back together in a long journey of reforging those bonds and making them stronger than they ever were.

Thoughts on Blade's recent characterisation

(Crossposting from reddit because I love my tumblrinas)

Does anyone else feel Blade, and by extension Yingxing, had inconsistent writing 1.4? I'm wondering if I had just read his character wrong to begin with due to my personal biases and was hoping someone could clarify some aspects of Jing Liu's companion quest that confused me such as:

1) Mara 

Blade's mara feels like some convenient plot device. I was under the impression it flared up when confronting anything that conjures up painful memories such as his meetings with Dan Heng. Kafka even specifically told him in her companion quest to avoid seeing familiar faces again. Yet, he was somehow keeping himself together up until the peak of the battle with JL? Which leads me onto my next point.

2) Blade and Jing Liu

There is a huge tonal disparity between his voice line about JL and how he interacted with her in the CQ. The 1.4 trailer gave me the impression he was going to throw hands but he just kinda asked her to try killing him again. Which is fair, it reinforces his ultimate goal of wanting to die and feeds into JL being a harbinger of karmatic debt that shaped his identity as a vengeful weapon. I have nothing against this but it makes the previous voice line about her feel needlessly aggressive and out of place. 

3) Yingxing and Baiheng 

This is admittedly more of a personal gripe but I feel they should have established his relationship with Baiheng a lot more. It's obvious BH was extremely dear to him given that, according to JL, the entire sedition (which is a subject with its own share of differing narratives) was an attempt to resurrect her. 

I actually really like how this reinforces that Baiheng was the glue of the HCQ and that it makes sense as it was her that gave YX the confidence boost he needed as a child. 

However, at the same time I feel conflicted because it completely destroys the entire point of Yingxing's character? YX took pride in being a short-life species that was able to surpass the XZ natives through his hard work and passion, forgetting to even sleep or eat. He was so driven on avenging the family the abundance took from him at such a young age despite facing prejudice from the other craftsmen. He literally never shuts up about it, 

"In fact... I also have lots of work to do, and won't live very long unlike the celestials on the Xianzhou. "

"I'm a short-life species, you think two hours isn't enough? It will be done"

This line in particular speaks for itself,

"I'd rather leave this world in a blaze than live until the end of time. I will let all of the Xianzhou know that a brief moment of my life is worth more than their long meaningless live."

The reason why Blade's story is so tragic is because he was robbed of this and thereby, everything that made him Yingxing. 

Now I get it, that must have meant that he loved Baiheng so much to completely turn around all his values on living one's limited existence to the fullest and being against the abundance to use the flesh of an emanator on her. Grief changes you, one's personal philosophies may not necessarily apply to other people, BH was already notorious for escaping near death situations, he probably had it in his head he will die first out of the Quintet, and he and DF were proud, arrogant jackasses who thought they could actually pull their Full Metal Alchemist arc off.

But you see how there are some fairly subjective assumptions needed to be made here in order to justify such a drastic shift in YX's characterisation that was consistently built up since the beginning? It also doesn't help that this quote can either come across as him respecting the situation or sounding bitter about it. 

"Yes, none of us are special! Each of us has only one life, sacrificing for this, dying for that... it's all our own choices. Just like how she chose to save you and Jing Liu... just like how she chose to let more people live on!"

I understand it on paper but I feel there was loss potential and not much concrete in-game content to drive home the emotional impact. Blade barely mentions Baiheng in his character stories aside from the vague "beloved", there are no voice lines, mirage echoes or any other readings aside from the Zhuming one prior to 1.4. Heck, that one closed beta content about her was removed and they only kept the lore about DF (at the risk of sounding like some annoying shipper, they established DF and YX being partners-in-crime so much to the point it is more convincing that he assisted mostly out of loyalty to DF) . I get it that Baiheng isn't explicitly stated to have any present counterparts (even though BH = Bailu theory is super implied at this point) but that didn't stop JL from having her dead centre on her phone case.

Also for those entertaining the possibility that YX mostly did it to go along with DF's ulterior motive of creating a new HE and/or uprooting the Ambrosial Arbor, the bracer lore implies that YX was the one who originally brought up the idea of supposedly resurrecting BH.

"This person (DF) who stubbornly adhered to their plans with the unnamed (YX)"

I'm not saying at all this approach was bad or any logic leaps had to be made (it's honestly pretty straightforward) but it felt like the rug was pulled from underneath for those who were invested in YX/Blade as a character. I've also seen the argument that YX's arrogance was repeatedly mentioned, so it's no surprise he had a wack moral compass, but didn't that conceited behaviour also stem from his virgin XZ natives vs chad short-lived outlander mentality?

I've said this before but the narrative told in JL's CQ is good in a vacuum but it made some of the previously established lore come across as contradictory, hence all these theories about JL being a unreliable narrator and conspiracies about writers intentionally messing up the HCQ lore.

I'm not sure, is what I'm saying making sense or did I just make up an oc in my head?

TDLR; It felt like they were changing around previously established aspects of his character for JL's companion quest and the parts that did make sense lacked context that it being the sole reason to throw away all the foundation themes YX embodies just rubs the wrong way.

Hello, I think I already asked someone else about this but I wanted to hear your thoughts as well. What do you think are the parallels/foils of Adam and Yang (not including Blake's romantic interest and the Beauty and the Beast dynamics between the three). I just want to see if there's anything else connecting Yang and Adam without Blake. Thanks.

Hi!

Sorry for the late reply :D

So, I think taking Blake out of Adam and Yang's foiling depowers it. Foiling between two characters is used in stories to highlight other elements, like character arcs, themes and plot.

Now, Blake and Yang are important parts of each other's arcs and Adam is a character put in the narrative for the sake of Blake's story. In short, Blake kind of connects Yang and Adam thematically and plot-wise (like Yang connects Blake and Raven). I have discussed about these three foiling here and here.

That said, you can talk about Yang and Adam without mentioning Blake, if you want to. Still, it means you are just gonna stay on the surface without addressing why those similarities are even there to begin with. In any case, I think a good way to go at it is to juxtapose their semblances and their eye motif.

Burn and Moonslice are similar abilities. Both semblances let Yang and Adam take the damage done to them and change it into energy. Yang and Adam are similar by how they do not give up in the face of pain, but are fueled by it and find motivation in it. This is good, but if a person never truly faces their trauma, they are bound to be slowly devoured by it. Well, Yang understands it, while Adam doesn't.

Yang's semblance has her feel the pain in order to channel it into power. Adam's semblance instead lets him deflect it by using his sword. Similarly, Yang is able to face the root of her vulnerability and pain (Raven) and realizes her trauma does not define her. Adam instead refuses to feel and never truly solves the deeper issues behind his trauma. He lets himself be defined by the violence and hate he endured. Yang is able not to let herself be consumed by hate and embraces love. Adam can only take the hate given to it and use it to fuel himself, until this very hate turns into something cheaper and self-entitled, like spite. Yang loses her arm, but she is still herself. She can still fight and her semblance still works. Adam loses his sword and he loses the fight. He puts all of himself in his weapon to avoid vulnerability, but in this way he objectifies and loses himself.

Yang and Adam show how feelings like anger can empower you, but how you should never let yourself be consumed by them. You should become able to manage your emotions and to show empathy to others. This is what their eye motif conveys.

Yang sees red when her semblance activates:

Adam is literally blinded by hate:

Yang's development in volume 5 is to become able to see people as complex:

Raven: The truth is that "truth" is hard to come by. A story of victory for one person is a story of defeat for someone else.

In other words, she learns empathy:

Weiss: You're right though. I don't know loneliness like you do. I have my own version. And, I'll bet Blake has her own version too.

This is why she is able to see through Raven and to forgive Blake.

Adam on the other hand is unable to clearly see anyone. Not the Faunus. Not Blake. Not himself:

Adam: What does she even see in you?!!

It is not what Blake sees in Yang. It is that Yang is able to see Blake as a person and not an extension of herself or of her own trauma (Blake is not Raven; she leaves Yang, but she also comes back).

Symbolically, Yang defeats Adam because of two reasons:

She doesn't let her emotions control her (healthy management of trauma)

She never loses sight of Blake and sets things up, so that her partner can ambush and kill Adam in the end (she sees Blake as a person with agency and is empathetic towards her)

Hope this helped! As you see, Blake popped up in the end :''') this is just how key she is to their foiling.

Thank you for the ask!

It’s the last couple hours of Lone Trail. So I need to leave my thoughts on the lobby.

��A new age is upon us.”

You first open up the event and hear this song:

You know that it’s a tipping point. The song is sweeping, emotional, almost epic but so very vulnerable, melancholic, like setting off into the unknown with a long journey behind you. You can sense immediately that it’s the final chapter of the long arc of Rhine Lab, and the stories of these characters are going to reach their conclusion.

Everyone is standing on a different plane, looking in their own direction. Muelsyse and Saria are looking the same way, but they’re far apart, standing on different ground. Silence and Saria are facing opposite each other, walking the same ground, like they’re going to pass: Muelsyse and Ho’olheyak are on the same plane, but not facing one another.

They are a collection of people, on their own journeys: they just happen to all be in the same place.

The story is much this way. It’s about isolation and alienation, longing and vulnerability: every character is on their own journey, with their own aims, and their own feelings. Saria’s devotion, Silence’s resolve, Ho’olheyak’s desperation, Mueslsyse’s despair, and Kristen’s dream. Some conflict: some head in the same direction: some walk together.

It’s a story about Rhine Lab itself. How it started, how it will end up, what it has done. The society in which it grew, and how that shapes it:

It’s a story about humanity, life on Terra. About hope, and death, and change. Their place in the grand scheme of things, in time, in space, traveling alone in the dark: about the difference between a closed sky, and one that contains the universe.

And the song keeps playing, every time you finish a stage, every time you come back. It carries the weight of all these themes. It’s a lonely song, sweeping, emotional: and it’s sad. Everyone is setting off into the unknown, walking their path alone with long journeys behind them and an uncertain future ahead.

“A new age is upon us.” The point of no return is long in the rearview mirror: the rubicon has been crossed, and however it turns out nothing will be the same again.

Something is coming to an end. Life on Terra, our understanding of it, will not be the same.

You can hear the tragedy and the beauty hanging in the air.

Because ultimately, it’s a story about Kristen Wright, whose dream built this place. It’s about people remembering her, loving her, hating her, and following her; guessing at her location and her motives and being wrong. It’s about the people in her life, walking, briefly, in the same direction as her: about how nobody could ever truly walk with her; about how she carries love for Muelsyse and Saria with her into the sky: about how she says goodbye to them, one by one, as she continues on the path she’d always planned; about how they fall away from her, one by one. About Kristen, pioneering a path into the future that everyone can witness but no one can follow.

At the end of it all, it’s just Kristen, leaving terra through the whole she made in the sky: the newest and brightest star.

She’s turning out the light for the long journey into the unknown, a lone trail up from the earth through the sky and into the stars, with so much love left behind her.

And as you listen to that song (sweeping, emotional, vulnerable, reflective and melancholic), floating in the dark on the tide of your feelings as you think back on that long journey, as you imagine those aching, tearful steps into the future, you can hear clearly now the cadence of unbearable, overwhelming grief in those huge, sweeping swells of music, and their lingering cadences.

Sabine Wren's Lost Arc

I love Rebels, I do, but I swear I am never going to stop being angry about how Sabine's arc got so completely derailed in season 4 in favor of lifting up BO-KATAN KRYZE of all characters.

Rebels is very clearly setting up Sabine as the next leader of Mandalore in season 3. It's what introduces the Darksaber as a symbol of leadership in the first place and it does so by having SABINE pick it up from Maul and train with it and then win it in combat from another Mandalorian. There is no reason to do ANY OF THAT unless Sabine is intended to become a leader via the Darksaber itself.

Look at this shot! Fenn Rau, Ezra Bridger, and Kanan Jarrus, all KNEELING TO HER. Kanan is kneeling mostly because she beat him in training rather than out of swearing allegiance, but both Fenn Rau and Ezra have just sworn to follow her. Kanan promises her that her family will back her up no matter what she chooses. Sabine sitting there HOLDING THE DARKSABER with two Jedi and a leader of a Mandalorian faction in his own right kneeling to her while swearing to follow her. There is NO WAY we aren't supposed to see Sabine as a future ruler.

We didn't need the Darksaber in order to have Sabine deal with her arc about her family and her time in the Academy and why she left. There were plenty of ways and reasons to have had Sabine go back to Krownest to deal with that issue without ever bringing in the Darksaber and then declaring that wielding the Darksaber and winning it in combat specifically means having a claim to leadership over Mandalore. She claims not to be ready by the end of the arc, yes, but she also chooses to stay behind to help her family. It's the start of a new arc for Sabine, towards leadership after reclaiming her place in her family.

I've talked before about how Sabine is the ONLY person we ever see wielding the Darksaber who has legitimately earned it the JEDI way. She doesn't just win it in combat the way Mandalorians earn it. She trains in how to use it FROM ANOTHER JEDI and has to both acknowledge and then face her own worst fears first. She even acquires the Darksaber in a way reminiscent of how Jedi kids pick up their own kyber crystals: she goes into a cave and comes back out with a crystal that called to her (yes, she does things a little out of order and the crystal is already inside a hilt but it's a fun little parallel still). She even wins the Darksaber in combat specifically by using a Jedi lightsaber and then shows MERCY, a lesson she learned FROM THE JEDI WHO RAISED HER. Everyone else who has wielded it, up to and including Din Djarin, have only ever earned it the Mandalorian way via combat.

And that's specifically why Sabine makes such a good candidate to lead Mandalore. She's gone on an entire journey towards figuring out what it means to her to be Mandalorian, but also towards recognizing the fatal flaws in her own culture (mainly that they keep fighting EACH OTHER rather than cooperating together) and discovering a new, healthier, kinder way to be Mandalorian by learning how to be a Jedi. She learns how to control her anger, how to show mercy, how to connect to another Mandalorian who hates her through compassion and perseverance, and how to overcome her fears and guilt. This is the core of the arc Sabine goes on over the first three seasons.

And then we get to season four and suddenly Sabine has lost all sense of mercy and is willing to use her own weapon to kill and torture other Mandalorians she doesn't agree with because she's letting her anger control her. All of that development, lost.

While Bo-Katan Kryze, someone who we last saw being a terrorist who helped bring Maul to Mandalore in the first place, is somehow the one advocating for mercy instead. And then Sabine hands over the Darksaber to her so she can fuck off to Lothal and be a part of the show's final season. Which I get, I do, I understand that the show probably got unexpectedly canceled and so they had to wrap things up and they wanted Sabine to be a major part of that final arc on Lothal which meant they had to find a way to quickly finish off the Darksaber arc without making SABINE be the one to take up that leadership. And in walks Bo-Katan Kryze the Freedom Fighter. But in order to make Bo-Katan even work in this storyline as a legitimate option, they have to completely undo Sabine's character development and pretend like Bo-Katan's more negative history never happened. Which sucks. A lot.

It would've made a LOT more sense for Bo-Katan to have shown up as an EXTREMIST, someone that Sabine might know as a freedom fighter but who Fenn Rau remembers as a terrorist who helped overthrow Mandalore's only peaceful government run by her own sister, brought Republic forces to invade Mandalore to oust the Sith Lord she helped bring to Mandalore in the first place, and then lost Mandalore to the Empire shortly after taking up its leadership. For Bo-Katan to be the one filled with anger and who nearly uses Sabine's weapon to take out Gar Saxon and his followers, but for Sabine to talk her down and convince her towards mercy instead. Have Sabine bring different factions of Mandalorians TOGETHER, have her INSPIRE Mandalorians to be better than they have been before by using Jedi values of compassion and mercy to reach them.

And then Bo-Katan kneels to Sabine, swears her loyalty and the loyalty of her followers (which includes multiple different clans and houses) to Sabine.

But no. Instead, Bo-Katan becomes this hypocritical mess who is given leadership of Mandalore AGAIN only to lose it to the Empire AGAIN after being hailed as this wonderful freedom fighter everyone loves, and Sabine got relegated to having to re-learn the lessons she's already learned and her rightful place and storyline stolen from her.

I'll never stop being mad about that.

I don't know if I'm in the minority here but what I loved about season 2 is actually Simon's storyline! I get wanting to dive deeper into his family life and that better be the plan for season 3 if they get one, but all the things we did get I thought were brilliant. I loved loved Simon in season 1 but he at times he came across a little perfect with his incredibly strong morals and such a clear understanding of who he is. I mean yes he was selling booze and drugs to help him and Sara make it through Hillerska but that felt pretty justified.

I don't know how anyone can say that Simon was just reduced to a love interest this season when those romances worked so well to bring to light the way Simon struggles. We learned that he runs away from difficult feelings instead of really dealing with them, he can be talked into things he knows are not right (we can say whatever we want about Marcus and his manipulation but Simon should have never even went on a second date with him) and we learned that to an unnerving level he doesn't let himself break down (that gun scene and the way Simon held all of his anger in - chef's kiss acting from Omar).

And clearly there's something about Wille that just makes him feel all the possible emotions and he's so drawn into that and maybe a part of it is the fact that he gets a little bit off on the drama (hello the whole swinging a ball at Wille's face and then proceeding to make him jealous at the locker room and at the ball despite the fact that he knew perfectly well that Wille is already so fucking jealous). Now that I think about it, and don't hate me for it, I suspect Marcus all in all is a little too boring for him. A kid he went to pre-school with who knows all of his personal shit because their mothers are friends? That's not the life Simon wants, he doesn't want to stay in Bjärstad, he's told us this in so many ways. He wants to be a singer probably. Listen, he kissed an obviously closeted Prince of Sweden after spending the equivalent of one day with him, he is looking for drama just a little bit. Simon is good and honest and he loves the people around him so much but he's also a little messy and a little petty and he doesn't always make the right choices and all of that just makes me love him a thousand times more.

Sorry for the insanely long message I just have a lot of thoughts that I'm desperate to share 😂 Love your blog and the incredibly thoughtful conversations you are having here 💞

I love this I love this I love this I want to have this framed. This is exactly how I’ve come to view Simon’s storyline in season 2 after sitting with it for a while.

At first I was a little bummed that we didn’t get more of Simon’s family life, but if you think about the way Simon’s storyline ended in s1, it leads perfectly into his storyline in season 2. His season 2 arc begins when Sara tells him he lets everyone piss on him and when he tells Wille that he has to deal with things on his own. Simon took what Sara said to heart and said it was time to start prioritizing himself. He had no reason to stay in contact with Micke and the main thing he’s dealing with in season is his heartbreak over Wille and the video situation. What we see is a Simon who is desperate to move on and forget everything that happened the previous semester and the way he deals with that is by running away. He does it in season 1 too (for example when he runs away from his and Wille’s argument in the music room).

I understand why people say he was reduced to a love interest, but to me, the centre of this story is the love story, so of course Wille and Simon’s character arcs are going to heavily deal with that. Wille’s storyline was heavily about his feelings for Simon as well - Simon is all he wants after all. The focus of the season was them trying to live without each other and it not working.

I also agree that Marcus is too boring for Simon. It’s set up in season 1 that Simon wants more out of his life as you said and he’s very clearly drawn to Wille - Rosh even calls him out on it in season 2. He is scared of getting hurt but can’t help but be drawn in. He keeps Wille at a distance but then pulls him back in when he feels him drifting away. As you said, he’s a little messy and petty and he experienced so many emotions this season and I thought it was brilliantly done.

Simon has a fire inside of him just as much as Wille does and that’s why they’re so drawn to each other - they bring that fire out in each other.

I also loved that we got to see more of Simon’s love for singing. I thought that part of his character was underwritten in season 1 and I’m so happy they expanded on it.

I wish I had more to add but you explained it so perfectly. Feel free to slide into my DMs with your thoughts anytime; this was a pleasure to read!

"Let's talk about Chu" is actually really good

I honestly started this show out of boredom and because it only has 8 episodes, so it's easy to watch. The first episode feels like they just want to show how controversial the show is because there are several sex scenes but once the story really starts, it's really interesting. It kinda starts out as something like Sex Education but it ends up talking less about sex and more about people's different relationships.

The main cast is the Chu family which consists of the parents and their three children. There are two daughters (Ai and Wei) and one son (Yu Sen), everyone equally faces challenges and they all kinda manage. Sometimes, it feels like they really just manage but struggle to live. It's about everyone finding their happy place or reestablishing it.

There's an old marriage (the parents) and a young marriage (oldest daughter) facing the same issues. The partners seemingly have lost interest in each other, there's no intimacy physically and mentally. It's interesting and at times very sad to watch their marriages falling apart. Especially Wei's marriage, when they argue about irrational things that obviously root in distrust and disappointment. I could relate to her very much and I really like how the show points out that both are part of the problem.

The son - Yu Sen - is stuck in a weird relationship and his partner is really unlikable and doesn't want to come out to his parents. They eventually break up, who was sad? I wasn't. It marks the start of Yu Sen's arc where he meets a random, very extroverted guy who takes him to places and makes him feel alive. Honestly, I felt alive too, the guy named Yueh has a certain charm nobody can ignore. It goes so far, even though no commitments have been made, even though they shouldn't matter that much to each other, Yu Sen goes looking Yueh in the countryside, meets his grandma and helps him through his grief. It's sweet and shows different sides of the characters, my absolute favourite part of the show.

And then, there's the protagonist, the youngest daughter Ai. She and Ping-ke are friends with benefits and by the way he looks at her, one can immediatly tell he really likes her. But she sets boundaries and rules, so there cannot be more to it. They stay pretty consistent, she has something with two other guys but both don't give her a sense of love. Ping ke's still there and he sees his chance of persuing her for real. We find out there's actually a reason for those boundaries rooted in Ai's childhood and Ping-ke is there to comfort her after she remembers it again. I kind of like her but at the same time she's a bit frustrating because she doesn't have that much of an arc until episode 6, so I don't have much to say about her. I like Ping-ke's arc of starting to be independent and not living off his family's money. I could relate to a certain point. I can understand the sheer want of having something on one's own. He wants to be respected and actually do something, so he goes out and does it. I love it.

Anyway, great show, go watch it on Netflix. The story gets better and better the longer you watch and every character's arc is very valid and consistent. There are different sides to every story and the show does a really good job at showing both. Noone is right or wrong, it's sometimes frustrating how real it feels lol

to me a big byler proof is the fact that in order to ship milkvan u have to almost willfully misunderstand so many aspects of the plot😭 like the characters’ feelings and arcs have to be misconstrued so much in order to justify mike and el being together and believe there’s any kind of hope for a healthy relationship between them. if you actually look at the arcs of the characters, byler is what makes sense!

el has always been somebody’s lab rat, pet, superhero, etc. she has never been given the space to live for herself by anyone other than max, which is why their friendship is so special despite how brief it was. el needs to be single so she can properly learn who she is in the real world, and what she wants and needs. el’s arc will end with her not dating mike, or anyone else. her story is about freedom and independence.

will knows he’s capable of love, knows what he wants and how wonderful it would be to have it, but he doesn’t believe he’ll ever be able to have it. growing up gay in a conservative place without any other queer people to relate to is so isolating, and so naturally will has accepted he will never be able to be loved back. i think robin will be an important part of his arc in season 5, helping him to see that he’s not alone and there is hope for him. it’s possible that robin and vickie getting together will actually be a catalyst for will and mike doing the same once they see that the people in their life would be completely accepting and they don’t have to hide who they are anymore. of course, will could learn that he can have what he wants by dating another boy, but that wouldn’t be a very satisfying conclusion to his story. who could understand what he’s gone through the way mike does? who’s stood by his side through all of his trauma, made him feel safe, cared for, and better for being different? will and mike’s devotion for and compatibility with each other have been built up since season 1, it would be horrible writing to throw that out for will to date some rando. i think it’s possible another guy could come into the picture to further show will that he’s not alone and he has options, which would also make mike jealous and force him to face his feelings head on, but whatever would go on between will and this other guy (my bet’s on mikhail) wouldn’t last long, because being gay doesn’t mean you’ll just date any guy. he wants mike, he loves mike. will’s story is about learning you can have happiness in a world that wants to oppress you, and mike is that happiness will wants.

all of their stories are about rising above your conditioning, what you’ve been told about yourself and your life and your worth, and taking your life into your own hands and living for yourself. the lead female character ending up alone, and the two male leads ending up together? crazy, but stranger things have happened!