As much as i think toshiros complicity is based in his cowardice I do kinda get why he didnt talk to tade about what he thought abt how she views her retainership. Like even if he had that conversation like what could she do other than nod and smile—the power differential between them is huge. I feel something that plays into his conflict aversion is that if he did get upset or hit someone its not like they could hit back without serious consequences. But also he’s been raised in an environment where his comfort has always been prioritized above other ppls wellbeing and he def chooses the easier route A Lot. Like the fact that instead of genuinely engaging w whats going on w izutsumi and tade he ignored all his retainers, let maizuru handle it, and went on some two year spring break dungeon crawling whatever like words cannot describe what an abdication of responsibility this was. That instead of working w his party he went off on his own w his retainers bc he just didnt want them to know he was a noble that much (granted he also didnt think laios was cut out to lead which tough but fair) like cmon man…. But i do think his fight w laios was good for him even tho it was a shitty bitch fight when they rlly shouldve been helping their party revive ppl bc he could have a conflict on equal footing w someone. His whole life hes viewed himself as someone w no power (and the ways this is false esp on the island) but i think in the dungeon he realized he genuinely has a responsibility to his retainers n his actions led to them following him into something really dangerous when they had no dog in this. But also it seems as an attempt to reciprocate, he does seem to have become very observant of other people beyond what is normal bc he doesnt speak much. Culture plays into his clash w laios but i think the fact he’s grown up being so closely observed and in turn closely observes others plays into it too. But its fun how hes always toeing the line between being a spoiled brat, being too passive bc of his own lack of agency, n also that hes genuinely intelligent and has thought a really long time about power.

I think it also gets at why marcilles plan to equalize the races by making their lifespans the same was doomed to fail and also highlights how she can only view other ppls oppression thru her own suffering—that theres always going to be differentials in power that are difficult, but you have to interact meaningfully w them rather than running from them. A simple world w easy solutions like that would be bloodless and false, no?

I have a few questions for you since you want people to ask u abt ur Gikabis,

1- What is society like on Ripple Star and how does it affect Ribbon.

2- Can you tell me more abt Ado, I’m really interested in the way you built her character and wanna know.

I’ll wait for an answer

Oooh thank thee for the questions!

1.- I don't have much BUT it's a monarchy where the queen gets to choose the future knight that will guard the future queen/king/etc till their last breath and she choose Ribbon since she saw potential in her, which Ribbon is happy for but of course there's certain... pressures.

Currently there's a crisis going on Ripple Star (Idk what exactly, but there's something going on) and while everyone on the court is discussing about options on what to do, Ribbon, the only child there (She has a spot there due to being trained as the higher knight) suggests that they maybe ask for help from eldritch beings, which gets her laughed out of the room.

The thing with Ribbon is that she's also seen as freaky in her school due to her fascination with eldritch beings and firearms (This has lead to multiple incidents where she's trying to summon demons on the school's bathroom), she's also not that good at socializing and tends to be pretty loud when she does.

So this leads to a situation where people see her as someone who needs to fulfill so much stuff due to being a future higher knight but ALSO see her as incompetent and creepy, so she isn't worth of her position at all and of course that breaks little Ribbon's heart, you can see how Zero manipulated her so easy lol

2.- She's actually a 18 year old girl from another dimension who came from an earth like ours that was in the 2010s, though it froze over by the end of it. She's a bit chill and draws edgy stuff with her magical weapon. She's also extremely masc lmao.

Thanks for your questions!

Richard Armitage and Astrology

Hi! I find astrology fascinating, and am an armchair expert on it myself, so I found Richard's comments in his recent Total Film Magazine interview very interesting. This is what he said:

I’ve been incredibly lucky. I’ve dabbled with having my celestial chart looked at every couple of years, just for a little tune-up. Every time, the guy sighs, and goes, “What can I say? You’ve just got a sprinkle of luck.” And I say, “That’s good, because I don’t have the talent, so I really need the luck!”

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There is a naughty, dark side to me. I am quite strongly affected by the moon. So if there’s a full moon I’ll go a bit crazy. (source)

This isn't the first time Richard's mentioned astrology – he's mentioned being a Leo, reading his daily horoscope, and finding out he was born in the Chinese Year of the Pig; but these were all informal twitter comments. He has also mentioned the effect the moon has on him before, in February 2020:

“Everyone has cycles of positive mental and emotional feelings and negative mental and emotional feelings and I know that I am profoundly affected on a monthly cycle. I always look at the calendar when I'm feeling particularly low and check the lunar cycle to see if it's a full or new moon.” (source)

However, what prompted me to write this is that Richard's personal put-downs were even more direct here than usual; and the connection that has to his natal, or birth, chart.

A little disclaimer: Personally, I think general horoscopes (like the ones you find in magazines) do far more harm than good. They are based solely on the twelve sun signs, and your sun sign is just one puzzle piece out of 25+ pieces that make up your natal chart. This is why many people don't relate to their horoscope or it's personality description.

Your natal chart, however, is a whole different animal. It's an intricate puzzle created by the exact date, time, and location you were born; which is why most people find their natal charts to be scarily accurate.

Back during the Hobbit days, a fan blog reported that Richard told a NZ fan that his birth time was just after 4 a.m. I used 4:05 for this post, and being off by a few minutes doesn't really make a difference.

Richard and self-esteem

I really feel for and relate to Richard's self-esteem struggles, because our charts mirror each other. We are both Leo suns; but I have my moon in Aries with my MC and Chiron conjunct each other in Virgo and sextile my North Node; while Richard has his moon in Virgo with his MC and Chiron conjunct each other in Aries and sextile his North Node.

What on earth does that mean?

Each planet represents a different part of you. The sun represents your ego/conscious self; the moon your emotions, mercury your mind/intellect, venus love and beauty/aesthetics, mars passion and drive, etc.

On top of the twelve planets, there are specific points and asteroids that are also important. Your MC, or Midheaven, represents your career and public persona. Your North Node describes your inner journey and life purpose. The asteroid Chiron describes your major soul wound, that you will be forced to deal with throughout your life.

A conjunction and a sextile are two of several different kinds of aspects. The different kinds of aspects are the different ways your respective puzzle pieces can interact with each other. Some are 'easy/positive' and some 'difficult/negative'. A sextile is considered easy/positive. A conjunction means two things are next to each other and overlap with one another, and is usually considered positive.

Leo and Aries are both fire signs. Fire signs are generally playful, warm, passionate, confident, and optimistic. Virgo is an earth sign. Earth signs are generally practical, grounded, sensual, and logical.

Richard's personality is dominated by an almost equal amount of Leo and Virgo influence, with both his sun (core self) and venus (love and beauty) in Leo and his moon (emotions) and mercury (mind) in Virgo.

Aries and Virgo are said to be the most difficult Chiron signs, because they are the wounds tied directly to your self-worth (Aries is the wound of Self and Virgo is the wound of Perfection). With Aries Chiron you feel a core sense of worthlessness, like you're missing a fundamental piece of your core self. This deeply felt lack of self-worth leads people to be people pleasers and have issues with confrontation and conflict.

Aries rules the planet mars. It is the warrior planet of passion, drive, and combat. A conventional Aries is confident, outgoing, impulsive, and strong willed. Aries and mars are definitely the rowdiest sign and planet in the zodiac. However, with Chiron here the traits are inverted, and so someone like Richard is much more likely to be scared of his inner passion, confidence, and willpower – depending, of course, on what the rest of his chart is like.

That leads us to Virgo. Chiron Virgo feels impure, like there is something fundamentally wrong with them. This kind of low self-esteem makes you feel like you have to constantly try to 'fix' yourself so people will love and accept you. It's an OCD type of perfectionism that only ends in failure and heartbreak.

A good example of how this works is when I talked to my therapist recently. I hadn't quite succeeded in meeting my goals, and so my automatic response was to condemn myself for failing. My therapists immediate response was to congratulate me on how much progress I had made.

Ironically, unlike with Aries, this isn't an inversion of the conventional Virgo. Conventional Virgo is meticulous, detail-oriented, focused, patient, efficient, practical, perfectionistic, systematic, and pessimistic with high expectations. If Aries is the official warrior of the zodiac, Virgo is the official nit-picker.

This means that Richard's subconscious intellectually (mercury) and emotionally (moon) expects and demands perfection, whilst simultaneously feeling fundamentally worthless. In short: ouch.

Interestingly, a significant number of celebrities have their Chiron conjunct their MC. Personally, I think Richard hit the nail on the head as to why in his essay on the Human Condition for Cybersmile:

The answer in my humble opinion, (and believe me it is humble, to a point of taking 43 years to be shared) is actually something which applies to my work as an actor. It’s why sometimes actors are called in to work with therapists, in large corporations, in schools. It’s why drama therapy is fantastic to understand what we do, how we do it and what the outcome might be, and in an improvisation where we aren’t playing ourselves sometimes we explore avenues that are too frightening or unacceptable in our own lives.

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So going back to my very first point, the “social media society” in which we’d all like to feel safe, supported, excited, creative, spontaneous, innovative, courageous, is really in our own hands. And back to acting, it’s taken me a long time to shake off the effects of bullying in school. That people were always laughing behind my back. I was always looking out of the corner of my eye. I now have incredible peripheral vision which is so useful, (as is Kinesthetic sense…Google it) but try being a brave, experimental, uninhibited actor with all of those hang ups. Wasn’t happening.

So here is the thing, and it’s key to my work and I think ours as a community. When we speak or write, we ultimately desire to ‘affect’. If we aren’t watching the destination of that affect, then how do we know our words have landed and the ‘effect’ they have caused?

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If I have a strong opinion about something which I want to express I really task myself with backing it up with the ‘why do I feel that?’

Again it’s part of my work building a believable character, and actually part of building a believable ‘me’ outside of my work. Just.. “because that’s what I feel” is a bit of a cop out.

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As for Bullying, it’s like the moment the pot boils over, or it’s the poisoned stream that can’t be cleansed, so why bother. Well I think that’s what art is for. It’s can support the best and the worst of ourselves. We can ‘attack’ a canvas with black angry paint, we can ‘savage’ a piano keyboard, we can dance until we drop, we can read about a Puritan society who executed elders, we can explore the psychology of a serial killer, and when we can’t do this ourselves we can experience it, and witness it through others.

It’s more than being nice. Edward Munch’s “The Scream” is far from nice. Francisco Goya’s “Saturn” is horrific, Metallica, Die Antwoort etc etc. But then there is Monet, Faure, Renée Fleming, Peter Jackson, Ariana Grande (ok it’s getting a bit eclectic I admit) but when we look, listen and empathize, we tune in to the Human Condition.

We are all part of The Human Condition, whether we like it or not. Social Media. Expression. The Human Condition.

Us human beings are wired for emotion and connection. For actors, their career gives them a way to safely process and explore their personal wounds through the characters they play. For Richard in particular, his mars is conjunct his North Node. So, his mars and North Node are sextile his Chiron and MC.

Remember, Aries (the sign of Richard's Chiron and MC) is ruled by mars. Mars is the warrior planet, like Aries is the warrior sign. This means that Richard's spiritual journey/life's purpose (North Node) deals directly with healing his soul wound so he can accept and embrace his inner confidence and willpower. This explains why he ends up playing a lot of ultra-masculine characters – mars/Aries are the most macho of them all.

This isn't to say I think Richard should change who he is! I wouldn't be interested in him if he was ultra-masculine or macho. However, for his own sake, I would be overjoyed to see him gain more self-esteem and inner confidence.

Extrapolating from my own personal experiences, the constant criticism and judgement I received during my adolescence from my peers and various authority figures (like family members and teachers) for being unconventional and 'over the top' caused me to turn on myself and repress my passion and will-power for several years. I think it's highly likely that Richard experienced this too.

Here are some quotes from Richard that illustrate everything I've been talking about (emphasis is mine):

Armitage is still notably handsome, but, within minutes of meeting him, it’s apparent how incongruous it is that this bookish, sensitive, self-described ‘melancholic, philosophically-minded softie’ and ardent fan of The Great British Bake Off was cast as beefcake killer totty for a considerable part of his career. ‘It’s ridiculous. It’s the complete opposite to who I am. I’m such a pacifist,’ he laughs. ‘But then, part of me always felt: “Well, isn’t that why we’re actors?”

[cut]

'I think the turning point was losing my mum,” he says. “Up until that point, I felt like I mustn’t put a foot wrong, that if I said the wrong thing or revealed too much about my personal life, it could all come crashing down, and it would come down on my parents, and they wouldn’t be proud of me anymore.” He shrugs. “Now that I’m past that I’m actually much more carefree about the choices I make.” (source)

Richard Armitage puts his head in his hands and emits a noise that's somewhere between a sigh, a laugh and a groan. “Oh no! Why would you want to pin this up?” he says with a horrified whisper.

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Never has a man seemed more ill at ease with the heartthrob label. He squirms with embarrassment in his chair every time the subject comes up. He is grateful for the loyalty of his fans, he says, but worries that “there is this thing of, 'Is he just totty?' Because the industry will sometimes write you off as a serious actor if they think that. I have always been conscious of that and fought against it, because I don't really see myself like that at all.”

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This brings us back to Astrov, who looks so relentless towards the future that he can't see the truth in front of his eyes. “It's interesting that he's an outsider in the play. I've often felt like that myself in life. I'm quite a solitary person. I enjoy my time with me, and sometimes it's not necessarily healthy, because I can talk myself into quite a dark place.

I'm an optimist, but at the same time, there's a discipline in me that will attack me for not working hard enough, not achieving enough, not being good enough. You always think, 'I'll grow out of that. With success, those voices will disappear.' But they don't, they get louder. I suppose I'm learning a bit about myself through Astrov.” (source)

The answer in my humble opinion, (and believe me it is humble, to a point of taking 43 years to be shared) is actually something which applies to my work as an actor. … And back to acting, it’s taken me a long time to shake off the effects of bullying in school. That people were always laughing behind my back. I was always looking out of the corner of my eye. I now have incredible peripheral vision which is so useful, (as is Kinesthetic sense…Google it) but try being a brave, experimental, uninhibited actor with all of those hang ups. Wasn’t happening. (Human Condition essay)

So I kind of travelled on that line for a while, and I was bullied for it as well. The problem with me is that as soon as you try to push me down or say “you can’t do this” and “I don’t think you should do that”, I immediately push back. So I did – I’d decided really young that I was going to try to make a career out of it.

[cut]

Actually, there was something I wanted to add to what Shaun said, about inclusivity, is that um, no matter how – how much confidence you have or how, in my case, lack. Y’know, I always felt like a misfit, or an oddball, or that I didn’t belong. But I always – I always told myself that ‘you exist in the world, so therefore there’s a place for you in this industry’. I think anybody who feels like, “I can’t become an actor because…” – you exist. And, y’know, the job of filmmakers is to write about our life and society, and if you are a part of that, then there’s a place for you in the industry. (source)

I'm a bit of a brooder. I don't like confrontation, so I think I suppress things. When my temper does come out, it goes all the way – the kind of temper you can't apologize for. Yep, the chair getting thrown out of the window. Those emotions are scary, but hey, they come in useful when you're acting. (source)

Armitage is a noticeably calm presence but he talks with passion.

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In the past, he has described himself as a shy person. “Not any more,” he says forcefully. “I mean… if I’m very, very honest, I’m a big guy, I think I’m at times quite a frightening person.”

In what way?

“I think I’m quite uncompromising. I can’t bear bulls---. And in a way the shyness is me protecting other people from that. I can feel that there’s an intimidation that can happen if I own my full height, and speak at my full volume. So I’ve learned over the years to just tone it all down a bit.” (source)

I've become one of those actors who find it difficult to say no when things are offered. I think if I had come out of drama school and been an instant Hollywood superstar I would be taking long, leisurely holidays. But I always feel somehow it's going to be taken away from me so I work when I can. When you struggled with work as I did when I left drama school you make hay when the sun shines. There was a time when I thought, and my agent thought, it wasn't going to happen for me. We both sat down and I actually said I don't know if I can stay in this state. The interesting roles have only come since I got into my 30s. But I didn't know that was going to happen. I'm a bit of an all or nothing kind of guy. To be honest, I had no blind faith in myself. I don't think I could have stayed around as a jobbing actor. I would probably have quit. Who knows? I think I would have found that too frustrating. But at the moment when I thought I was going to quit, something happened and it all changed again. (source)

[talking about being cast in the Hobbit]

There was a little bit of guidance as to what they were looking for. I felt that I was too young for the character, too tall for that character, so I thought, you know, ‘I’ll just look at the scene they’ve written’. And then I realised the essence of the character that they were aiming for. So I went to meet Peter and Phillipa and we read some of the scenes. I think we spent an hour-and-a-half talking about the character and what their vision was, and I sort of explained who I thought he was, and that was it.

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Yeah, my first instinct, whenever that kind of thing happens, is to say, 'Well what's wrong with the part? Why did nobody else want it'? Which is kind of the story of my life really. When I get offered something, I'm like, 'Well there must be something wrong with it if they're offering it to me!'

[cut]

But you know, the thing is, you talk about all of this: ‘How did you get the role? And how did it feel when you got the role?’ And once all that’s died down you start to think, ‘I’ve actually got to go and play this now’. They’ve trusted me. Everyone’s happy, everyone’s celebrated, the phones have gone down and the deal’s been done. Now it’s over to me to make the role work. And that’s the scariest moment, because you do have that elation and then the work begins and you think, ‘How the hell am I going to do this?’ (source)

How was it for you taking on this beloved role, this character that has such a huge responsibilty on his back? Could you relate in some ways?

Richard Armitage: Yeah. There is always building within him this paranoia that he’s not a good enough leader, and that weighs him down. I have experienced that same feeling as an actor in this role. And I was aware of taking on the responsibility of that character, so there was something I could latch onto there, as one of the people who loved ‘The Hobbit’ book and had envisioned that character. It took me a while to be convinced that I could do it, it wasn’t until I saw some sketches, this one particular pencil sketch….there was something about this characters eyes and the way that his hands are crossed, I thought, “I think I can do this, I can pull this off.” (source)

Q: I wanted to ask you about what your Arkenstone is. For you personally.

A: Me personally?

Q: And I meant for this to be materialistic. What's the thing that you covet so much that it makes you mad that you don't have it?

A: Well, it's actually not material. It's not material, and it's – (laughs) You want a comedy answer, don't you? But it's respect. It's the thing that always eludes you, you know. You have to fight for it and when you get it, your arkenstone, the thing that crowns you, is respect.

Q: And also a sweater.

A: And a sweater. I do have this little natty number.

Q: It's a good one man.

A: Tom Ford made this personally. But hey, he can have it back. I don't covet wealth and material. (source)

Q6: You’ve done a variety of different roles, I wonder what influences you to pursue those roles?

R: More often than not, you go where you’re wanted. So getting hired is still kind of a revelation to me, a shock and a surprise. Sometimes you have very flat periods, where I don’t really care what comes next, I just want to work on something. I feel like I’ve got a little cloud of luck over my head so the right thing always seems to come along. But again, I’m easily excited about literature and stories, so I’ve always said I don’t really pursue glory, I’d happily do acting for two people in my living room if it was a role that I really enjoyed with a story I’d really like to tell. So it’s chance, I would say.

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Q8: Once in an interview about Thorin, you were asked what your arkenstone was and your answer was respect. I like this answer a lot. So I was wondering what’s your red dragon? As you said yesterday he’s a character who sheds his skin, improves, and becomes something. I was wondering if there was something you’d like to improve, become?

R: I guess the antithesis of that is disrespect. Do you mean in myself?

Q8: Yes.

R: Yeah I try not to be too disrespectful. I guess I value the truth. I think we’re living at a time at the moment where the truth is warped and there’s a word that’s been in my head for a long time, and particularly recently it’s come to the surface. When I was studying Macbeth, at the RSC, I read a long thesis about the gunpowder plot, which was one of the things they thought that Shakespeare (or whoever Shakespeare was) was stimulated by to write Macbeth. And the word equivocation was used in this thesis, it was actually about equivocation and what equivocation is. And if you look it up in the dictionary, at the moment most politicians are equivocating. When you don’t answer a question, or you bend the truth to make it seem like you are answering the question, and in fact you’re telling a lie. So I would say my red dragon would be equivocation.

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Then there was the physical form that I was studying and observing, but also, I do sometimes enjoy locking myself away in a room and reading a book or just doing something alone, and you sometimes can go a couple of days without speaking to anybody. I don’t know whether anyone else experiences this or whether I’m just a weirdo. But I find that when that happens my voice changes, and I always forget how to make a noise, I have to do a warm-up before I go into the world and start speaking again.

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Q15: I was wondering if you ever had to pull out of a project because it felt wrong or something, and what is the point where you say “nope I can’t do this”?

R: Um, no. But that’s partly to do with the fact that I have a lot of loyalty, probably too much loyalty for my own good, really, and there’ve been moment when I’ve been on board a project, and actually it happened this year with The Lodge, I was already on board that project and something else came along which was bigger and better and brighter and more money, and your agent says “look we can pull you out of The Lodge, they can probably recast it,” and here I think “I’ve already started this process, I don’t want to let people down,” and I don’t have a problem with that at all, I never have any regrets over the things that you miss or the things that you decide not to do, I think there’s a strong enough reason why you’ve decided not to do it, but in general no I haven’t ever pulled out of something. There was one television show I remember, I’m not going to say what it is, but after the first readthrough, I did call my agent and asked, “can I get out of this?” And then he quickly got back to me and said, “don’t do it. Don’t build a reputation built on disloyalty.” So I try not to.

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Q18: I think you are very handsome, but your character Francis hated the way he looked, how did that make you feel?

R: Francis hated the way he looked? Yeah. I guess there is something we relate to in that. Without getting too personal, I don’t always enjoy looking at myself in the mirror. I don’t do it very often, to be honest. I do it just to be sure I don’t have food on my face. I do it in character, actually. I do spend a bit of time studying my own face when I’m playing a character, which is interesting because your face does change. (source)

He cannot see the handsomeness: “I think I am odd-looking. I have big lines on my forehead.” I squint, looking for them, but he is talking over me, sounding slightly panicked. “I shouldn’t draw attention to it, because then everyone else will see the oddness.”

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Laziness is what makes him angry: “Laziness in myself. Laziness in other people. And dishonesty. All things I feel capable of myself. I have a propensity to be lazy and lie about it. Fear makes me rageful. There are words in The Crucible I actually find it quite hard to say.” I beg for an example — The Crucible is in the public domain. “No,” he says, “you’ll see it in the play.” I tell him it will make no sense in print if he will not tell me. But he won’t. So I change the subject. It works. “OK, I will give you a line.” He inflates a little and says: “Is there no good penitence but it be public?” And then: “Were I stone I would have cracked for shame this seven month.” (source)

Q: How would you describe your evolution as an actor since you started?

A: I think everything has to do with the fact that today I’m not afraid anymore. At first, I was embarrassed to do something wrong or do things badly or make myself ridiculous. Today, I am almost looking for opportunities to be ridiculous or vulnerable or to make as much of a mistake as possible. In a sense, it’s now the opposite of being undercover.

Q: Are you the actor you dreamed of being when you started?

A: Not yet. I am not yet fearless enough. It’s in waves, actually. But I have already approached this dream. There were moments, especially during Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, which I performed on stage, where I felt I had no control over things. That’s what I’m looking for: to lose control.

Q: You often play bad guys. What do you like in these characters?

A: I like disobedience. I like the fact that you can be disobedient thanks to your creativity. As a person, I must always be polite in life, be careful and correct so as not to hurt anyone. In a fantasy world, I can be as offensive as I want. It’s an outlet. (Laughter)

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Q: Many actors are moving to directing. Is this also your goal?

A: I would like to, but I do not think I’m smart enough. I am good when it comes to working with another’s vision. I do not think I have that creative spontaneity that creates a vision from scratch. But the future will tell. (source)

I applaud Richard for being so open and direct about his fears and insecurities. It takes a lot of bravery to do so. And while I've seen some fans get annoyed with his continual self-deprecation, I think his honesty and openness is much more significant, and shows his inner strength. He doesn't try to pretend to be someone he's not.

He recently described himself as “patient, obsessive, and silly” (source). The patient part is classic Virgo, and the obsessive part comes from an element of his natal chart that I have not mentioned.

The silly part, however, is classic Leo. Like I said above, he has an almost equal amount of Leo and Virgo in his personality. Personally, I'm proud to be a Leo, but I also know we get misunderstood a lot of the time. I wrote the following for an essay of mine on Leos in Disney:

Your sun sign represents your core identity. Just like the physical sun is the center of the solar system and its energy creates life, the astrological sun is our consciousness and life force. Each of the twelve sun signs are ruled by a different planet and element.

Since Leo is the fixed fire sign, we don't inherit the reckless and impulsive nature of fire, but instead are a steady flame. No sign is more reckless and impulsive than Aries, because they have the double combination of being a cardinal sign and a fire sign. Meanwhile, all four of the fixed signs struggle with stubbornness and admitting when their wrong.

Leo's are well known to be natural leaders and the rulers of the zodiac. We are ruled by the sun and our animal is the lion. We dream big and are born with big personalities, and we can't help but be theatrical and dramatic. This means we are always self-centered in the sense of being strong-willed and having a strong sense of self. It does not mean all Leos are egotistical.

Unhealthy Leo traits all revolve around the ego: attention-seeking, egotistical, selfish, bossy, controlling, pushy, jealous, possessive, lazy, vain, arrogant, aggressive, and obstinate.

Healthy Leos, however, are known for our fire-based traits – being animated, theatrical, happy, outgoing, independent, competitive, charismatic, creative, open-minded, open-hearted, confident, assertive, playful, warm, social, courageous, idealistic, affectionate, romantic, optimistic, and adventurous.

What isn't often talked about is our steadiness, our fixed-based traits. Leos are authentic, steadfast, fiercely loyal and protective, consistent, persistent, full-hearted, dedicated, need to do their best, generous and selfless, honorable and moral, genuine and direct, extremely supportive, hard-working and responsible, dignified, strong-willed, and ambitious and determined.

Something that is often mentioned but highly misunderstood is our trait of courage. Having courage doesn't mean you're fearless or reckless. The definition of courage is “the power or quality of dealing with or facing danger, fear, pain, etc.” It means that instead of running away from our problems or denying our emotions; healthy Leos face them and be genuine and direct with ourselves, embracing our vulnerability.

Having a big personality doesn't necessarily mean someone has a big ego. C.S. Lewis once said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.” Leos have huge hearts and are incredibly generous. The sun never goes retrograde, always shines, and gives life and energy to all living beings – it isn't selective or discriminatory. Healthy Leos are like mini suns; which is why we are also irrepressibly upbeat, optimistic, and fun-loving.

We're not pushovers. We are like roses – we have both flower petals and thorns. If you mess with someone we love you're going down. We're too loyal and protective to let major things slide; and even if we forgive, we never forget. Little things? We'll try to work them out with you.

Being naturally strong-willed and assertive is healthy – it just means we usually make horrible subordinates and yes people. There's nothing wrong with having high standards and being open about them. In fact, in relationships it's far better in the long run to open and frank about what you need and what you consider a dealbreaker from the beginning.

And oh yes are we ambitious and competitive – but most often with ourselves. We're natural leaders who always dream and think big. For a healthy Leo it's not about being the best, but doing your best. We have to be grand and intense, we're ruled by the sun. It's all or nothing for us. Settling is not something a Leo does. We need to be the best leader, the best friend, the best partner, etc. that we possibly can.

Also, in astrology each sign rules a different body part, and Leo rules the heart and upper back.

Adding to this, Leos are known as the Kings/Queens of the zodiac not because we're egotistical, but because our sun sign is the sun. It's like a double amount sun. I could go into significantly more detail about this, but it involves a lot of technical astrological details; so if anyone wants to know more just message me!

Going back to Richard, having his core self (sun) and love/beauty (venus) in Leo explains why he is an actor and artist; and why he is often warm, silly, and dramatic when he feels comfortable – his long interview with The Anglophile Channel (and it's deleted scenes) does a great job of showing the synergy between his Leo and Virgo sides.

We see Richard express the heartfelt, generous, sincere, and honorable side of Leo all the time. This is why I'm sure he has the inner-confidence and strength hidden within him to overcome the deep pain his Chiron causes him (like it does to us all). I hope he continues to find projects and people that help him on his journey to heal.

Thank you for reading this, I'm wishing him and you all the best. Take care!

farran re-reads lost lagoon: chapter 1

- there is a vibe here that i really don’t know how to explain. it might just be a juv fic thing where nuance gets flattened on the assumption that younger readers won’t or can’t understand such subtleties but i am immediately remembering that something about the way rapunzel is portrayed in the novels gets my hackles up. tts was evidently limited in how it could flesh out rapunzel’s character, and some of her flaws are glossed over accordingly - but in tts, rapunzel does have flaws, and toxic positivity is one that is repeatedly, if lightly, examined. in lost lagoon it feels like this trait has been dressed up in a party hat and presented to me as her best trait with a rah rah girl power cake to go with it, and it irks me. we’ll see how this holds out through the rest of the story, because in all fairness i have never met a juvfic first chapter whose character establishment i liked. lmao

- to give an example - in tangled and tts, pascal functions as rapunzel’s voice of reason. he encourages her to get out of the tower, and likewise encourages her to be cautious of eugene and check for ‘red flags’ (such as pointy teeth). in tts he regularly displays emotional awareness and sensitivity well beyond what rapunzel can grasp, and makes his doubts known when he feels rapunzel is behaving poorly. here… he’s afraid of heights, for some reason, so rapunzel can look carefree, spirited, and brave while teasing him for having this fear. she even lampshades the fact that it makes no sense for pascal, who grew up in a seventy-foot-high tower, to be afraid of being in a tree perhaps five or six feet off the ground. 

then this is underscored by means of guards rushing up with a ladder to ‘help’ rapunzel down from the tree, followed by her laughing them off and jumping to land ‘as always, on my strong bare feet.’ while it makes sense for rapunzel to think and feel this way, it has a distinctly different energy from rapunzel cracking under pressure in before ever after. in bea i feel like i’m supposed to sympathize with rapunzel’s distress whilst also recognizing the importance of the shoes she has been asked to fill, and of making her ready to fill them; that is… not the impression being crafted here.

- lost lagoon is one hundred percent structured as a coming out romantic novel wherein rapunzel identifies and comes to terms with her identity as a gay woman by cheating on her perfectly nice but unexciting male love interest with another woman, and this is endlessly hilarious to me regardless of anything else. i mean:

Not to mention true love with Eugene—sweet, funny Eugene! […] And yet something wasn’t right. Something was missing.

leila howland said “get fucked, fitzherbert”

- the treatment of friedborg here is a small step up from tts, where ‘haha weird and ugly’ is literally the punchline of every scene she’s in, but nevertheless it is distinctly uncomfortable to have a mute character portrayed as communicating in grunts and pointing. surely corona has some sort of sign language? surely someone could get this poor woman a slate and a piece of chalk, or if fine motor control is an issue that makes writing or signing prohibitively difficult then at the very least a booklet of cards with common words and phrases she could use to convey her meaning? but…no. instead she becomes a device to illustrate how opaque and confusing rapunzel finds palace etiquette to be.

- rapunzel thinking “manners are overrated” is extremely funny. i am not sure it’s supposed to be funny, but it is.

- lost lagoon eugene is suffering the great indignity of being made to learn something. this is one of the first signs that the book is fanfiction, which now that i think of it is also sort of hilarious.

- also: “I’ll join a dishwashing club or participate in a meatloaf-eating competition if that’s what it takes to make your dad accept me.” eugene what

- re: romance novel: “I watched Eugene walk back toward the castle. Why couldn’t I be as happy as he was? I wondered. We had everything anyone could ever want. Was there something wrong with me? It was almost like I didn’t even know I was lonely when I was in the tower, but everything had changed now. I could feel the places inside me that had been empty for so many years and I wanted to fill them all up.”

- amusing as this is i also can’t help but feel… a little irked, that tts rapunzel’s zeal for the outside world and her discovery of it has been transmuted into mere loneliness. rapunzel is a lonely person, absolutely, but i think far more pressing than that loneliness is her longing for newness after a life spent in the tower. moreover, in tts we see that it takes six months for rapunzel to start really chafing within the confines of her new life—in beginnings, which is the canon lost lagoon equivalent, she is still overwhelmed with wonder and delight in all the new things, cassandra included. i suppose what i’m getting at here is i don’t quite buy that the shine wore off this fast. it’s been less than a week.

(i promised myself i would keep bitter snow talk to a minimum for this but i do feel the need to say - benighted happens in a far more compressed amount of time than canon, and there rapunzel does indeed begin to feel overwhelmed and anxious within a single week. but her response to that anxiety is to think “well, i overestimated how easy this would be just a little!” and it isn’t until several more weeks have passed that she begins to feel dissatisfied and unhappy and uncomfortable as a consequence. whereas here, the vibe i am getting is more “manners are dumb, shoes suck, the guards suck, i’m miserable and i don’t know why” which just… it doesn’t feel like rapunzel.)

- rapunzel asks her security detail to give her some space, and when they refuse, she takes note of their sweaty brows, thinks to herself that they must be roasting under their armor—and uses this observation to deftly manipulate them into leaving her alone by suggesting they go dip their feet in a fountain to cool off. “It would make me really happy to see you happy.” 

i would argue that this sort of conscious manipulation is not at all out of character for rapunzel - she learned it from gothel and certainly there are examples of manipulative behavior from her in tts as well - but for it to happen so clearly in the very first chapter of the story casts everything else that happens in a sort of interesting light. for rapunzel to do this suggests a basic grasp of, at least, how people can be made to do things by appealing to their physical needs or comfort—yet she will also struggle to grasp social nuances and as in canon much of her conflict with cass is grounded in rapunzel’s dismissal of or blindness to what cassandra wants or needs from her. manipulativeness and social ignorance is an interesting combination of traits for her to have and it is nice to see the manipulativeness borne out so overtly in the text. again, we’ll have to see how this holds up later in the story because i do not remember it very well.

re: romance novel: the dissatisfaction and loneliness established in chapter one and explicitly not filled by the male love interest are, of course, answered by a fascinating glimpse of the one (1) gnc woman in all of corona. whom rapunzel only glimpses because she is climbing a tree to paint the view out of hopes that it will “fix” how out-of-place she feels. ms. howland you are not subtle, and also, how did she slip this past the disney censors?

My favourite thing this year has been the Korean drama Crash Landing on You (2019-20).

It has something of a ridiculous title (I’ve ended up calling it Crash Landing or sometimes just Crash). But, to be fair, North and South was already taken.

“I can go to Africa and even Antarctica but not here. It’s a shame that you live here.” “It’s a shame that you live there.” -- episode three

To my great amusement, every month or so, Netflix has sent me an email that’s said: “Don’t forget to finish Crash Landing on You” or “Remember this? Watch it again: Crash Landing on You” or “Rewatch your favourite moments - Watch it again: Crash Landing on You…”

And I’m like: NETFLIX! Seriously, WHAT do you THINK I’M DOING?

I have now watched Crash Landing on You five times.

There are several reasons for this:

I successfully dragged other family members down this particular rabbit hole, and in a pandemic season, when things have been unpredictable (or cancelled), rewatching Crash Landing has been an appealing and comfortably-familiar distraction, as well as the source of many, many long, analytical fandom-y conversations, which has been fun.

I needed to watch it more than once to straighten out all the pieces of the story in my head. With 16 episodes, each over an hour long, it’s one of the longest stories I’ve ever watched. I’ve seen other TV series with more episodes, but nearly all have been much more episodic, rather than telling one continuous story.  

I kept noticing details that I’d previously missed because I’d been focused on the subtitles or that I hadn’t properly understood some cultural nuance. And some things are ambiguous in translation -- in a good way, a fodder-for-discussion way.

I have ALWAYS rewatched (or reread) my favourite stories. And Crash Landing fits right in with those. Someone in my family described it as: “Like Lord of the Rings on steroids!” However, I think it actually has far more in common -- visually and thematically, and also in terms of my willingness to discuss the characters as if they were real people -- with my favourite historical dramas.

In terms of story, Crash Landing is easy enough to summarise: A South Korean businesswoman is paragliding when a freak storm blows her across the border; she’s discovered by a North Korean captain, who hides her and helps her get home.

But I’m going to need more words to explain why I fell in love with it.

It is fascinating and, first time round, tense and unpredictable. It’s funny and very meta -- very aware of the tropes it’s playing with and of parallels and contrasts within the story. It’s visually and aesthetically pleasing, and the soundtrack grew on me.

There are a number of coincidences and a few ridiculous fight scenes, but the emotions are intensely real and so are the consequences. It has camaraderie and found-family and thoughtfully-complicated family relationships. There are characters I love, and characters who surprised me, and so much time given to character development!  It’s romantic. There’s a fake engagement (a favourite trope of mine) and while I’m not a fan of love triangles, I liked how this quadrangle-tangle is handled. And the obstacles to the romance are satisfyingly realistic; characters have sensible reasons for the choices they make.

I love how the story uses flashbacks, particularly the post-credit scenes.

The final episode isn’t perfect, but given that a perfectly happy ending would, realistically,  require the reunification of north and south, I thought it came very close.

Let me elaborate.

Cut for sheer verbosity, rather than spoilers. (I’m not allowing myself to list spoiler-ish examples or dive into analysing my favourite scenes, because then I wouldn’t just be here all night, I’d be here all week).

⬦ Fascinating, tense, unpredictable: I knew almost nothing about life in North Korea, so that was fascinating and made the story harder to predict, as I couldn’t anticipate what options the characters had or what obstacles might arise. And that isn’t the only reason I found it tense -- at different times, different characters are greatly at risk if discovered; there are occasions when characters are in danger of physical violence or are injured; and they have a couple of dilemmas to which there are just not easy solutions (See also: Obstacles for romance).

While I’m on the subject of the setting, although I cannot judge how accurate this portrayal of the north was, it’s portrayal of people as people was incredibly convincing. It’s a society where people have differences in personality and in circumstances. There are orphans begging in the market, people who can afford to stay in fancy hotels -- and a lot of people somewhere in between. In the military village, people have varying attitudes, tastes in clothes, privileges, standards of living, etc. Their lifestyle differs from that in Pyongyang, and also in other parts of the country. Amongst the military, some men are compassionate, some are corrupt and some are not obviously one or the other.

Moreover, it’s clear that corruption and villainy isn’t just in the north. In the south, as in the north, we see a range of humanity -- selfishness, good friends, complicated families, happy marriages, criminal behaviour, and so on.

I’ve read an article or two suggesting that the least realistic aspect is Ri Jeong Hyeok being such a sympathetic and honourable officer. I think it’s interesting that he clearly isn’t a typical captain -- he wanted a different career, he’s spent time studying overseas (in a democratic country), and, perhaps most importantly, his father’s position gives him protection from pressures many others face. He has the privilege of being able to afford to act with integrity, and of encouraging such behaviour in the men he leads.

⬦ Humour and meta: I’ve included these two together, because so much of the story’s self-awareness and intertextuality is humorous. I am very amused by so many things -- the village women’s interactions, Se-ri’s wit and banter, Jeong Hyeok’s facial expressions, the duckling's reactions, the way Ju Meok keeps comparing things to South Korean dramas:

Ju Meok: “I haven’t seen any drama characters that don’t fall in love in that situation. That’s how they all fall in love.”

(Because my knowledge of Korean drama is limited, there are a few cameos and references which I suspect would be amusing if one was in the know. The exception is the taxi driver singing, who was funny even without recognising the actor.)

I love the commentary that comes from all the moments when other characters witness the unfolding romance. Others’ reactions are often memorably hilarious -- some of my favouritest scenes fall into this category. (The customs officer! Jeong Hyeok’s dad!) They introduce humour and self-awareness into these moments, allowing the story to acknowledge “Yeah, we know these two are being ridiculous/sappy/emotional”. These moments reveal people’s attitudes towards displays of affection, particularly in the north, and their different attitudes towards Se-ri and Jeong Hyeok’s relationship.  

And as their relationship changes, Se-ri and Jeong Hyeok’s awareness of being watched and commented upon changes, too.

Which leads me to…

⬦ Contrasts and parallels: So many scenes which echo/parallel earlier scenes. Most obviously, this allows the story to compare and contrast the north and south, but it also shows changes in time, differences between characters, and differences in relationships too. Sometimes all at once!

 It means some plot developments weren’t totally unexpected -- it was Oh, of COURSE, we’re going to now see that character in this situation! or OBVIOUSLY we now have to see what this is like in the south!

But I thought it was really effective storytelling and I so much enjoyed spotting and analysing these moments.

⬦ Yoon Se-ri and Ri Jeong Hyeok: These two are the heart of the story and there are so many things I love about them. Like how, even though Se-ri is dependent upon Jeong Hyeok to hide and help her -- even though they’re initially hesitant about a romantic relationship -- they quickly become very protective of each other. Often to the point of willingly risking their own safety. Often to the point of exasperating the other. It’s great.

 That’s not the only thing they discover they have in common. They share some interests. They’re both highly intelligent, driven, successful leaders (he’s a captain, she’s a CEO) who are very private, lonely people carrying around grief about their family and their past. Neither of them likes to reveal their emotions -- he tries to conceal his by suppressing his facial expressions and avoiding answering questions, while Se-ri hides behind play-acting.  

I like watching Se-ri trying to get to know Jeong Hyeok. She isn’t deterred by his silences (unlike someone else) and she keeps the conversation going even when he doesn’t respond. She watches him closely, and says or does things to provoke a reaction. Poke, poke, poke.

And the time they spend together is really revealing. They share meals, they share a house. They see how the other responds under pressure, but also in various social and domestic situations. They see each other in a range of moods: calm, happy, grumpy, scared, tired, upset, unwell. Crash Landing takes advantage of spending sixteen episodes with these characters. Going through so many different experiences together, they learn a lot about each other -- about each other’s values, tastes and temperament -- and this means the audience gets a deeper, more nuanced understanding of who they are, too.  

Se-ri and Jeong Hyeok are also well-matched in how they show they appreciate each other -- she delights in giving presents, and he is quick to notice things Se-ri might need or like.

And it’s very satisfying when they open up, or when they cry in front of each other, because you know that they don’t do this lightly or easily.

⬦ Obstacles for romance, love triangle quadrangle-tangle: I appreciate that the obstacles in this story are not contrived or fueled by needless misunderstandings.  Se-ri and Jeong Hyeok have really solid, sensible reasons to be hesitant to first recognise, then admit to, and then act upon, a romantic attraction. Even once they realise that getting Se-ri home is going to take longer than they’d hoped and she’s pretending to be Jeong Hyeok’s fiancée, romance between them is still a road that leads nowhere. She isn’t safe staying in the north and he would endanger his family if he defected to the south, and they both accept that. And they’re reticent about sharing vulnerable feelings, and Jeong Hyeok is actually engaged to someone else.

But once they really open up to each other, the narrative conflict revolves around their circumstances, rather than doubts or misunderstandings they have about each other. Because the situations they face are dangerous and difficult, with no obvious or straightforward path to a happy ending, there’s quite enough tension to drive the story forward. They still have a couple of misunderstandings, but I like how they handle those, and I like that they don’t have more of them.

As for the love triangle, it doesn’t have the angst of someone torn between, or even attracted to, two people. Jeong Hyeok’s engagement has been arranged. Having feelings for someone else doesn’t change the foundation of that engagement, nor the pressure to please his family. He doesn’t love or know his fiancée -- not well enough to risk revealing Se-ri’s true identity to her. He’s honest with Se-ri and he makes an effort with Dan.  

(I have a theory that, if he had been in love before, he might be quicker to recognise how some of his behaviour towards Se-ri fosters intimacy and sends her messages he doesn’t intend, but this is all new for him.)

He tries not to mislead or hurt Dan, but she’s hurt nonetheless, and I like that Crash Landing doesn’t gloss over that. It explores why she’s hurt, why she’s so reluctant to let him go and why their relationship never really worked. (Neither of them are good at communicating with each other, and I think she takes some of the things he does for her for granted, rather than recognising them as overtures and as opportunities to get to know him better.)

Dan is not just a romantic rival, nor a narrative complication, but a person whose concerns and desire are taken seriously, and who is given space to grow.

Which leads me to...

⬦ Surprising characters, thoughtfully-complicated family relationships: As mentioned, Crash Landing takes advantage of the amount of character development 16 episodes allows, and not just for its lead couple. I was surprised by how much my opinion of certain characters changed, as I came to understand them better.

The character I was most surprised by was Gu Seung-jun.

Each time I’ve watched this, I’ve liked Dan more. I have a lot of sympathy for her now. I also like her mother, even though she’s embarrassingly over the top, because she cares fiercely about her daughter and about advocating for her.

Se-ri’s dysfunctional family are more nuanced than I expected, too. In particular, I love the attention the story gives to Se-ri’s relationship with her step-mother. I was expecting Se-ri’s father to play a larger role, perhaps because he’s nominally the one with the power and influence, and at first Se-ri’s mother seems so passive. But it was really interesting to understand where she’s coming from, why her relationship with Se-ri is broken and sad. The steps the two of them take towards rebuilding their relationship are believable.

(On a related thought, I appreciate a lot of the choices this makes in addressing these women’s mental health struggles. One or two moments arguably could have been handled better, but on the whole it’s realistically optimistic, with enough detail so that we understand the seriousness -- the impact it’s had on these women’s lives.)

⬦ Camaraderie, found family and the ducklings: Se-ri doesn’t spend as much time with the village women as she does with Jeong Hyeok and his soldiers, and when she does, she’s play-acting, in order to keep her identity a secret. But I like how they nevertheless support her, and how meeting her sparks change their dynamic with each other. They grow closer and become much better at supporting each other. It’s really heartwarming.

We gave many of the characters codenames, so we could discuss them when we were still learning their names. (I was surprised by how long it took me to learn some of the characters’ names.  Because so many were unfamiliar to me, they were harder to remember; I wasn’t always sure, from just reading the subtitles, how all of them were pronounced, and sometimes it was hard to separate the sound of the names from surrounding sentences, especially when, due to honorifics and titles and so on, subtitles don’t always match exactly what is being said.) Jeong Hyeok’s men are “the ducklings”, inspired by something I saw on Tumblr: Gwang Beom is “Handsome Duckling”, Ju Meok is “Drama Duckling” and Chi Su is just the sergeant.) I love how they function as a found-family, especially in contrast to Se-ri’s real family. They’re funny, loyal and caring, and in spite of their different personalities, work well together as a team. I enjoyed seeing the different relationships they have with each other, with Jeong Hyeok and Se-ri, and how some of those relationships change. And they’re so protective they are of Eun Dong!

Man Bok has an interesting arc -- I could have mentioned him under Surprising characters. I really like how he fits into this story, how he’s connected to the mystery Jeong Hyeok is investigating, how he becomes involved with the rest of the characters and has these moments when he plays a significant role. Or gets to be funny. I like the contrast and parallels too -- he’s in a different place in his life to the ducklings, and he gets opportunities to revisit past choices he regrets.

And I’m trying not to write essays about all the characters, and it’s ahhh, I have too many thoughts and feelings about them all!

⬦ Satisfyingly realistic: I like how -- one or two ridiculous fight scenes and an unrealistic paragliding scene aside -- things which happen have believable consequences. Particularly emotionally. We see men cry! A lot! And it always feels like a genuine expression of emotion, not gratuitous or overwrought. (Well, okay, there’s a very minor character who’s a bit over the top but he’s very minor.)

When one of the characters is gravely ill, she looks it, I found it oddly satisfying that she doesn’t have to be pretty all the time.

And I wasn’t sure if this belonged here or under “Visual details” but I love the attention given to Se-ri’s clothes. She cares a lot about fashion and in the north her clothing choices indicate that she cares a lot about her appearance, while making do with a limited wardrobe and still dressing for warmth.  (I’m happy to handwave that she seems to have more clothes than would realistically fit in those shopping bags.) I appreciated the practical streak, and, as winter wore on here, became envious of one of her outfits.

I don’t personally like the style of Se-ri chooses for work, but it’s different it is from what she wore in the north and from what she wears at home -- her power-dressing is like a uniform or a statement of persona she projects in her working life, and not necessarily a reflection of her personal tastes.

⬦ Visual details: I love so many of the visuals. Gorgeous scenery, interesting settings and clever framing for significant scenes. The sky, a place without borders, often becomes a focus and there’s a thematically-relevant flight motif -- paragliders, birds and kites.

I did not start noticing the   product placement until a rewatch, when I stopped to think about how often they went to Subway. The first time, it just seemed like a commentary on south-versus-north, and then I was just baffled-yet-amused by it all. (That sort of thing does not make me want to eat fried chicken...)

⬦ Soundtrack: The first time round, I liked the instrumental score and the presence of piano music actually in the story. As I kept rewatching, the rest of the soundtrack slowly but steadily grew on me, and I found myself liking the songs more and more.  

Now I not only recognise them by name, I can recall most of them well enough to hum them and know which scenes they’re associated with. Which is a lot harder when the lyrics are in a language I don’t speak and so I can’t use them as a prompt for memory.

⬦ Flashbacks: Instead of “previously-on” segments, Crash Landing employs lots of flashbacks whenever it wants to remind the audience of something.

Sometimes, instead of just repeating part of an earlier scene, it takes the opportunity to show the same moment from different angles or from a different character’s perspective,  or to juxtapose it with a different scene or to introduce new information. This was really effective. And when flashbacks were a simple repeat, I was usually happy to revisit important moments in the story (and sometimes, having a different person translating the subtitles meant there was a slightly different perspective on the dialogue).

Then there are the post-credit flashbacks, quite a few of which take places years earlier. I love how they’re puzzle pieces about the characters’ pasts and the connections between them.

⬦ The end:  The first time round, after watching the penultimate episode I was so engrossed in the story and so invested in the characters that I had trouble sleeping and I went around the next day with this tight, anxious feeling, unable to get the story out of my head.

The final episode is an emotional rollercoaster. SO. MANY. FEELINGS. There’s one particular scene which packs a powerful punch -- it’s exceptionally emotional and beautifully filmed. I love it, but I’m  glad we get the aftermath too.

It isn’t a perfect ending, but as I said, I don’t think there was a perfect ending was possible, not one that was both realistic and satisfying. But this comes very close. In the very final scenes, not everything is resolved or explained, and I like how that ambiguity is open to interpretation -- I like that there are some gaps for the viewer to fill in for oneself, however one prefers to imagine the characters’ lives going forward.

I know I could easily write another four thousand words about this story -- there are aspects I haven’t really discussed but this seems like a good place to stop. For now. I really like this story. I expect I’ll watch it all again soon.

Hello friend, it's Nicole from TAD discord, so sorry for awkwardly & randomly sliding into your dms. I've noticed that you've been reblogging a lot of The Untamed recently and I have just finished The Untamed & literally cannot think about anything else. I'm obsessed. Anyway, I've also noticed from your blog that your favorite seems to be JGY and I find that *fascinating*. He's very much not my fav, but he's such a complex character that I would love to hear your thoughts & feelings & analysis?

And to be completely clear, I will never try to debate with you or say your opinions are wrong or immoral or anything. I'm not an anti, I've stanned plenty of villains in my time. I'm just genuinely curious. I think the fact that you have such different feelings about this character is part of the beauty of stories and a testament to how complex and smart this particular story is.

Hello friend! First of all, thank you for your ask -- I love talking about my fictional faves, so there’s no need to apologize at all! There are definitely people out there who have already posted much more cohesive and succinct character analysis for JGY, but I’ve sat down for a bit to find an answer to the question of why I, personally, like him so much. I ended up finding six possible ways to answer this question, which I’ll list below and then go into (a lot) more detail under the cut. Hope you enjoy!

1) I like him because his motivations as a villain are complex and understandable

2) I like him because there’s no easy solution to his conflicts

3) I like him because he interacts with the story in a unique way

4) I like him because when we see him on top of his game, it’s fun to watch

5) I like him because LXC likes him

6) JGY is very small and has dimples

So, onward! (2.7k)

1) I like him because his motivations as a villain are complex and understandable

One possible way of looking at JGY is that throughout the entire story, his end goal is to eliminate all of the Jin family and come out on top as sect leader, chief cultivator and most powerful person in the cultivation world. However, I personally find it more intriguing to think that his specific plans shifted throughout the story and that he didn’t follow a long con the way NHS did, but that the common ground in everything he does is that he’s motivated by wanting security. Then, everything that he does afterwards is a step-by-step escalation when no matter what he does and how far he comes, his goal is always dangled right in front of him, but ultimately impossible to reach.

When he joins the Nie clan, on a superficial level it seems that this place could offer him the security he wants and needs, especially with NMJ protecting him -- but on the flip side of the coin, no one apart from NMJ and NHS seem to respect him, and his security entirely depends on NMJ’s goodwill. It’s an exteremely fragile position that could probably only ever last for a limited amount of time. Even if JGY never killed the guard captain and wasn’t thrown out of the Unclean Realm, how would the future have looked like for him? NMJ’s life expectancy was low to begin with, and once he had died (of natural causes, in this hypothetical case), NHS wouldn’t have been able to hold the same protective hand over JGY as his brother, and JGY would have become the disrespected advisor to the disrespected clan leader. (On a side note, I personally don’t think JGY released XY to get the yin iron -- I think it makes more sense that he wanted to use XY as bargaining chips against WC, seeing how he goes to free him immediately after WC asks for NMJ to release XY, to save the Unclean Realm and, in extension, his own ass.)

After JGY is thrown out, he’s basically out of options -- it’s go big or go home, because which other clan would take him in now? So he sets his sight on being recognized by JGS once more, and in order to succeed, he derives the plan of becoming a spy under WRH and do something so “heroical” that after the war, JGS has no other choice but to accept him into his clan. And at first, it seems like he succeeds and that he finally gets everything he wished for -- his father recognizes him as a son and gives him a position, he’s part of the Jin clan, he has power, he’s secure! But then it turns out that he was wishing on the monkey’s paw. His father doesn’t truly recognize him, and even in the Jin clan he’s disrespected (by JGS, by Madam Jin, by Jin Zixun), he doesn’t truly hold power (he just has to do whatever JGS tells him to), and he’s not secure (JGS instrumentalizes him because he’s useful to him right now, but does that mean he’ll be useful forever? So there’s a constant threat there).

I think the only reason JGS officially adopts JGY is that it allows him to claim the victory over WRH for the Jin clan and to expand his own power. Instead of JGY being recognized, JGS instrumentalizes him from the very first second and to make it worse, he makes JGY his attack dog the same way WRH did. I think the things JGY does under both WRH and JGS are absolutely horrifying, but I can’t help but also feel horrified for him. Under WRH, I think he tells himself that whatever he does is the lesser evil because it’ll end the war quicker, and that it’ll all be worth it in the end, and as a result, he loses parts of his own humanity there. And then under JGS, it’s the same fucked up shit again, except that this time, he also wants so very badly for JGS to value him, and in addition, he’s also completely out of options now. Without wanting to excuse the things he does under JGS, the only alternative at this point is for him to leave the Jin clan and the cultivation world as a whole, and I do think there’s a definite possibility that JGS would have him killed if he did because he knew too much about JGS’s plans.

Without passing judgment on his involvement in JZX and JZX’s deaths, as well as him killing NMJ and JGS for now (the latter being the one thing that I’m personally most horrified of), I don’t see JGY as a villain who enjoys being the villain the way XY does. I think he’s constantly horrified at himself and compartmentalizes to a degree where he’s actually derailing his own plans. Him throwing out XY immediately after killing JGS reads to me as him wanting to close the chapter of everything they did under JGS -- I think he must have acted out of a visceral emotion there or else he wouldn’t have left XY to die at the side of a road so carelessly (and, in effect, allowed for someone to live on with detailed knowledge of his own deeds). After rising to power (and finally, seemingly, really getting the security he’s always wanted), he doesn’t use that power to become WRH 3.0, but instead to do genuinely good things (such as building the watch towers). That’s not supposed to mean that him not being a cruel despot makes up for everything he’s done, but I find it interesting to think about from the perspective of, what kind of person could he have been if this opportunity had been given to him freely -- if his own class and social standing didn’t prevent him from that? I think he’d have become an incredibly powerful cultivator and clan leader if he’d have the same privilege as JZX.

In a way, I see JZX, WC, and JGY as narrative foils. WC shows us who JZX might have become if JGS treated him the same way as WRH treats WC. But, JGS doesn’t -- he shields his own son from this part of the Jin clan, and basically allows him to live in a completely different reality as JGY! JZX’s whole character arc is one of personality development, and becoming a hero, and falling in love -- he doesn’t have a clue about his father wanting to get his hands on XY and the Stygian tiger amulet and arguably about at least part of the war crimes he commits against the Wen clan. It’s not part of his life. In a way, JGY is the sacrifice being made to allow him to live his life unaware because in him, JGS found someone else to do his dirty work.

2) I like him because there’s no easy solution to his conflicts

Sometimes, when you want to be a villain apologist, all you need to do is point at one or a few bits of the story and say, “well if they hadn’t done that...”. (See, for example, Anakin Skywalker -- you wanna write a RotS canon divergence fixit? Just have Obi-Wan come back approximately one hour earlier and you have it, because before Anakin kills the Jedi even the Younglings he’s basically completely redeemable.) With JGY, you don’t get to have that. There’s no single turning point where you could say, “if he had picked the other option, he could have had a happy ending”. And part of the reason for that, which makes him a tragic character in my eyes, is that he crucially lacks options at many turning points.

In order to write a canon divergence AU for JGY where he comes out unscathed and redeemable, you’d have to go pretty far back in the story, and even then, you’d have to work hard to find a solution to his story that doesn’t a) rely on someone saving him (such as: LXC brings him to Cloud Recesses, or: JGS has a change of heart, frees his mother, and sends them a comfortable monthly pension), b) having him be dependent on someone else’s goodwill (such as: staying in the Unclean Realm in a delicate position).

If we don’t want to go back right to the very beginning or change fundamental parts of the story, well... As I’ve mused about above, if we let him stay in the Unclean Realm, he’d have never reached his goal of security either. If he never became a spy during the Sunshot Campaign, he wouldn’t have been accepted into the Jin clan and would have been out of options. If he never committed the atrocities for JGS, JGS would probably have kicked him out or killed him. (I do think there’s a lot of truth in what JGY tells NMJ in the empathy flashback, on that instance.) If he didn’t kill NMJ, there is a distinct possibility that NMJ would have killed him -- we see him try three times on screen, after all. (I’m leaving out the parts about him being directly responsible for JZX’s and JZX’s death in the show, as well as for controlling the corpses at Nighless City and JYL’s death, because it’s not in the book and I think it takes away from WWX’s character. As for QS’s and their son’s deaths...I personally do not see strong motivation for him to kill them, but in the end, we just don’t know which is, on a side note, a thing I really like about The Untamed/MDZS! Sometimes we just don’t know because the only people who know for sure can’t tell us anymore.) One option could be for him to confide to JZX, bring him over to his own side, and non-violently overthrow JGS, which would be a good and satisfying ending both to his and JZX’s character arcs -- but I also think there’s a high possibility JZX would hold JGY responsible for what he and JGS did, and never trust him with power again.

(Again, one thing I really do not wish to excuse away is how he killed JGS, and I just. Desperately wished he didn’t.)

I’ve been going over and over the possibilites for fix-its and canon divergence AUs, but in the end, I’ve arrived at the conclusion that the only real choice JGY has throughout the story is whether to remove himself from the narrative or stay in it. He could make the choice to give up his mother’s dream, reject his father, and leave cultivation world (and, on a meta level, the story!) to become a “nobody”. (Small side note, though -- living on which skills?) If he doesn’t -- well, as soon as he enters the game, the cards are stacked against him.

To pick up on the meta level comment, I do find it fascinating that in a sense, JGY not only has to struggle for respect and recognition within the story, but that what he does also serves to keep his character part of the story. He could choose to give up and leave (and thus come out of the story redeemable), but then he wouldn’t be part of the story anymore.

3) I like him because he interacts with the story in a unique way

Continuing with the last point, JGY interacts with the story in two unique ways that distinguish him basically from all the other characters. He’s not actually supposed to be part of the story, but that he basically claws his way in. But that also means that his class and social status cannot be removed from any of the conflicts he encounters in universe -- they’re at the heart of all of them. In the empathy flashback, he says to NMJ, “You always scold me for indecent scheming. You always say that you are just and straight [...] A decent man shouldn’t resort to devious stratagems. [...] You’re of noble birth and have profound cultivation. What about me? How can I be the same? First, I don’t have the foundation of cultivation. No one has ever taught me that since I was a child! Second, I don’t have any background. Do you think that my position is very solid in the Jin clan of Lanling?” What I find so intriguing about this scene is that he’s right when he says he’s different from the others both in text and on a meta level because most of the other characters are never faced with the same decisions and have a natural place within the story (apart, to some degree, WWX and XY, where also interesting parallels can be drawn). And the other characters are, in a way, self-righteous to judge him when almost none of them come out of the story without blood on their hands -- WWX’s revenge, JC torturing demonic cultivators after WWX’s death, and so on...The entire cultivation world (even NMJ! even LXC!) were complicit in the war crimes against the Wen. But when the cultivation world turns against JGY, they are the most appalled by the things I as a viewer would be the most lenient towards (murdering JGS), and don’t care at all about the thing that horrifies me the most (murdering the sex workers).

There’s an interesting post by @pumpkinpaix​ analysing how class dynamics work in the story, which I highly recommend! I don’t want to repeat what has been said there already in much better ways than I can, but among other things, it makes some really interesting points about how much JGY’s class is tied with his motivations.

4) I like him because when we see him on top of his game, it’s fun to watch

Aside from any analysis, part of the reason why I like him so much is that when he’s acting as a villain, he’s just so much fun to watch. When WWX breaks into his vault in paperman form and JGY has approximately 5 minutes to get rid of the head, the torture bench (?) and anything suspicious, contact and inform Su She, run to a different building and come back, and nonetheless he manages to convince everyone but WWX and LWJ that he’s the victim in this situation, it’s just. Peak entertainment? For a short time, he’s on top of the game, and then he’s backed into a corner and becomes sloppy, and finally loses it all due to sentimentality (if he didn’t want to take his mother’s body with him and say goodbye to LXC, I’m sure he could have fled the country). I think Zhu Zanjin did an amazing job as an actor to portray how JGY is constantly assessing everything, how 23638 emotions flicker over his face in half a second, how his whole body language shows the constant anxiety and pressure and stress and fear he’s under, and how we actually get to see in his microexpressions when JGY chooses a path and commits to the acting and emotional manipulation to follow it through.

5) I like him because LXC likes him 

Here’s a secret: Actually, LXC is my favourite character. And LXC loves JGY a lot. So I’m kind of contractually obliged to at least love JGY a little bit as well?

On a more serious note, I’m very intrigued in their relationship because I do think what they had was genuine. I view it as two people being very open and honest and true with each other, while placing a lot of things outside the brackets and crossing them out. LXC even says that he was aware of some things JGY did (which ones? how? I need to know) but that he justified them to himself. I think they both realised that they could have had something very special, but under the given circumstances, LXC wouldn’t have been able to help JGY (see: point 2) even if he knew everything. Still, they were obviously very close and trusted each other as much as they could. I think in the end, when LXC seemed to have decided to stay and die with him, JGY pushed him away because he was the only genuinely good part of his life, and he felt like he couldn’t rightfully deprive the world of LXC. It’s all very tragic, and I’m very intrigued to explore what they could have been in a slightly softer world.

6) JGY is very small and has dimples

I can only speak for myself, but when I was watching, I was so prone at any point to believe in him no matter what was revealed. Look at him! Could this man do something wrong?

What would each ROs spirit animal be, and why?

Hi there, I’ve answered this before here, here, and here!

(However, it was recently brought to my attention by a kind person that use of the phrase “spirit animal” by non-Native people could be offensive or appropriating, so I won’t be using it anymore. I think guardian animal or patronus is better, so that’s what I’ll be using in my tags and whatnot from now on!)

I took this quiz for each of the ROs to see if their answers differed from what I’d put for them before, so here are their results:

Blade: Sable. Cool and confident - if not a little over-polished - sables are the most graceful of the herbivore personalities. With their outstanding physical presence and successful work ethic, they enjoy the universal admiration from colleagues and friends. Dapper in dress and noble in bearing, their tastes and lifestyle are refined and restrained and they disapprove of flashy or ostentatious behavior in any form.

Trouble: Zebra. Loyal and strong .Those that come into contact with the zebra find it to be a powerfully loyal and intelligent friend. Its black and white nature shuns the gray zones of compromise, and its decided idealism is incapable of accepting defeat in an argument. Zebras find it difficult to be punctual when it comes to meeting commitments that have little value to them, and close examination of this trait reveals the subtle arrogance that pervades the zebra's personality.

Tallys: Owl.  A creature of great integrity, the owl’s quiet demeanor accords it an air of mystery and diffidence, and it is widely recognized as a serene, wise observer of human society. Always well-groomed, it is a noble individual with elegantly chiseled features that border on the fine edge of beauty and homeliness. Owls have developed quite a reputation for intelligence, but it's really their calm, insightful natures that give this impression. Instead of an intellectual approach to life, they employ their deeper spiritual senses to guide them and -- like their nocturnal cohorts the bats -- have a deeply philosophical bent. Owls are not without their assertive side, however, and won't hesitate to use their razor-sharp tongues to settle arguments. 

Shery: Mole. Physically, moles are not awe-inspiring individuals. Their pale skin and plump physique are usually accompanied by thick glasses or contacts that compensate for poor eyesight. However, they are comfortable with their flaccid bodies and seek companionship with others who appreciate their more philosophical qualities. Passive and unassertive, they prefer to retreat at the first sign of confrontation and would rather run than take physical action. (Okay, this one seems meaner than the others?! Dead-on about the poor eyesight though gfdkjgfdlg??)

Riel: Penguin. Aggressive yet gentle, outgoing but shy, stable yet flighty - everyone sees the penguin in a different way. It's that black and white thing: the penguin only reveals the side that it wants to you to see. So whether you like this darling-devil or not, you have to concede that it's a fascinating and enigmatic individual. Penguins are birds condemned to live out their days on the ground. Unable to fly, their excess energy has no outlet save their creative talents and emotional outbursts. Penguins are poetic, artistic, and intellectually gifted, and as writers penguins have no equal. But, if unable to channel their impulses in a positive way, the resulting turmoil proves damaging to their relationships and careers. Penguins are deceptively intelligent and are particularly animated when intellectually challenged. They excel at word games and puzzles but are modest about their abilities and are generally underestimated by others.

Chase: Deer. Gorgeous yet capricious. This beautiful and delicate creature is a classic example of a prey species, and with few defenses other than its nimble mind and agile body it must be constantly on the lookout for danger. Deer are active and lithe creatures with little excess body fat, and enjoy and excel at most athletic pursuits. Their athleticism and grace may well create a fine first impression; it often masks a scatterbrained and emotionally taxing inner core. Best known for their highly-strung and skittish behavior, deer personalities are shy and demure. With a propensity to withdraw emotionally for fear of getting hurt, deer often struggle to settle down, and their motivations are certainly difficult to predict. Because their coquettish behavior is rooted in deeply buried insecurities, deer are drawn to the entertainment industry as actors and models, where -- by hiding behind the mask of characters --they find temporary refuge from the painful elements in their own lives.

Red: Fox. Astute and flirtatious. These agile-minded personalities are always active and -- although they never go out of their way to harm others -- have developed an unfair reputation for slyness and manipulation. Appealing, cerebral and of average size, the fox displays the typical canine qualities of loyalty, passion and creativity. Largely misunderstood to be a shy, retreating individual, it's the fox's stature as a small carnivore that defines its survival strategy. Because it cannot succeed using brute force alone, the fox must rely on its sharp mind and engaging personality to garner resources. Because it spends so much time in its head -- giving the impression that it's trying to outsmart everyone – the fox isn’t surprised that others find its intellectual pursuits quite intimidating (and often annoying). Foxes are fussy eaters and, with an appreciation for the finer things in life, demand quality in entertainment, food, and friends. Their love of exploration dovetails with their passion for overcoming challenges, which is why foxes are often found mountain climbing or journeying to exotic, forbidden places.

Ayla: Crocodile. Crocodiles are lean, leathery individuals with air of wariness that comes from living on the edge, which is why their skins are often decorated with scars or tattoos. Crocodiles are not always easy to identify because their survival strategy is based on misdirection and camouflage. As natural predators, crocs will attack without subtlety or intelligence and use any weapon at their disposal.Crocodiles prefer docile prey and will not hesitate to employ dirty tricks to gain an advantage. They have little sense of honor and, the more unwary their victim, the better. Crocs have little conscience, compassion, or guiding philosophy except that of survival and self-interest.

Briony: Wolf. The rugged wolf is athletic, good-looking and brimming with self-confidence. A close relative of the domestic dog, it is stronger and more aggressive, managing to generate notoriety wherever it marks its territory. The wolf's dark reputation is mainly due to jealousy of its consistent success in work and romance. With an innate understanding of the value of teamwork, it’s always ready to take its place in the chain of command either as leader or as simply a member of the pack. When a wolf decides to innovate, it makes sure that it has the backing of a capable team, for the wolf is clear-headed and strong-minded, and always willing to compromise in the interests of getting a job done. Wolves are facially expressive and readily communicate their emotional states with body language. They work hard at developing their social relationships, although -- unlike their cousin the dog -- they are quick to anger when they sense threats to the social order. When confrontations occur, they sometimes react suddenly and violently, barking displeasure at offending subordinates. Close companions know to avoid their biting tongue until they resume their normal gregarious behavior.

Lavinet: Dolphin. Dolphins are those tanned, beautiful people who populate background scenes in shows like Baywatch, and somehow remain annoyingly healthy while eating and drinking with abandon. You’ll rarely encounter an overweight dolphin.Perhaps it's their active lifestyles that keep them so trim, but their good genes have something to do with it too, for even though many dolphins subsist on junk food, their hair is shiny and their skin always glossy. Though the dolphin’s large brain is capable of solving almost any problem, its reputation for intelligence is overrated, for dolphins place little value in cerebral pursuits and avoid mental challenges.  They are nonetheless able to hold their own in debates, but prefer cavorting and surfing to discussing weighty philosophical issues. Dolphins demand little from life other than the time to enjoy it. As highly sexual individuals, they spend a great deal of time in the pursuit of bodily pleasure, and their aggressive quest for sex sometimes dominates social interactions. Dolphins are not designed for manual labor. Their bodies lack the skilled hand-eye coordination found in land mammal personalities, but their intelligence and social abilities bestow the special advantage in people-oriented careers.

What do you think? Some of these are fairly accurate, but the others...

If you take one for your MC, the results tell you which animals are compatible to your own!

Survey #397

“you’re my religion, you’re my reason to live  /  you are the heaven in my hell”

Do you think that you’ll always love who you love now? Even if we're never together again romantically, I will ALWAYS love her at least as a best friend. Have you ever made out with a random person? Yeah, no. If you could do your first kiss over, would you? No. I'm lucky that my first kiss was honestly cute as hell. Do you like your country’s president or prime minister? Well I voted for him, so I obviously can't hate him. He seems to be doing fine so far, though take that with a grain of salt seeing as I don't keep up with politics. Even before voting for him, I just did a small bit of researching on his values. What color is your house? Yellow with white accents. Do you listen to Christmas music during the holiday season? No, I don't enjoy it. Man, Jason's mom sure did, though... I loved how in the spirit she'd get and always played Christmas music in the car during that time of year. I miss that woman and I sure as hell hope she rests easy now. Do you like ginger ale? Solely if I have a stomach bug, and I can only ever sip it. What are you listening to? "Electric Sugar Pop" by Jeffree Star. What’s the last thing you watched on TV? The TMS office has the TV on, and the woman who overlooks it (I have zero idea what her position is called) tends to have it either on a cooking channel or a home improvement one. Today was a cooking one. Is your favorite author the author of your favorite book? I don't have a favorite author. Describe someone you find really attractive: M-Mark Fischbach. *___* If you HAD to look like someone else, but could choose who, who would you choose? Hm... maybe my friend Alon. I've mentioned I feel like a million times that she is like, ethereal with how gorgeous she is. Have you ever seen someone get a tattoo done? If so, what was it? Did they cry or were they in a lot of pain? Yeah; it was a watercolor feather with "ohana" written below it. She didn't cry at all, but she grit her teeth a few times. Do you have anything you couldn’t go a day without? Some form of technology. Have you ever gotten caught doing something illegal? No. What’s your favorite flavor of Vitamin Water? I don't even think I've ever tried it. Is there someone you wanna date right now? Yeah. What first attracted you to the last person you kissed? If we're talking the very first, our vast similar interests. How many brothers does your father have? None. Does your best friend have any tattoos? No. Do you like Ben + Jerry’s? Yep. Man, I want their Phish Food ice cream now. Would you ever wish to be the opposite sex? Nah. Do you think you’re attractive? Nope. What is your favorite card game to play? Magic: The Gathering. I really miss my PS3 where I had Duel of the Planeswalkers installed on it, it was really fun. Do you own a globe? I don't think we still do. What is your favorite wild cat? Perhaps clouded leopards. If your bedroom had three portals to anywhere, where would they lead? South Africa, Sara's place, and maybe a nice little cabin in the mountains for when I'm feeling a peaceful getaway. You can ask any author one question about their story. What do you ask? I have zero idea. What’s a place you have a strong emotional connection to? The pond behind the local community college. Jason and I took our first prom pictures there. Do you take yoga classes? No, but I'm actually considering it since they offer those at the YMCA Mom and I now go to. What is a decision you’ve made that changed your entire life? To let Jason go. It's pretty great, my PTSD has been less of a bother lately! Have you ever made any money from a side-hustle? Could you consider being paid to take pictures once in a blue moon a "side hustle" when I don't even have a main job? Do you ever wonder what kind of person you’d have turned out to be if a certain event never happened to you? Ugh... it's incredibly painful to wonder how life would be if Jason never left. If you could have anyone’s singing voice, whose would you choose? Adele's or Amy Lee's, probs. What are your top 3 favorite genres of music? Metal, hard rock, alternative. Do you think Mars will be colonized in your lifetime? No. Have you ever been homeless? If so, what led to your homelessness? Technically, yes, because Mom couldn't afford the rent. She, my little sister (who still lived with us at the time), and I each were accepted into the homes of willing, kind people, though. Have you ever been on a ship? No. Who was Van Halen’s better singer - David Lee Roth, or Sammy Hagar? David. Which fictional character has the most memorable quotes? Heath Ledger's Joker is quoted all the time, so probably him. What do you think of the "Healthy At Every Size" movement/philosophy? Before I answer this, I want you to keep in mind that this is coming from someone who is obese, so I would positively love to agree with that for my own self-confidence, but I don't. I believe it's a very dangerous mentality. I think you should cherish your body unconditionally, like it's an amazing machine, but I firmly believe you should have an active interest in becoming what is physically healthy. You couldn't pay me millions to convince me that, say, a 300 lb. person is healthy. What was the name of the first person you ever had a crush on? Why did you like them? I think my first *real* crush was this guy Sebastian my freshman year of high school. I thought he was very sweet, funny, caring, and attractiveness was a bonus. What food will you absolutely not, under any circumstances, eat? Sashimi, caviar, raw eggs... Which famous person would you like to be BFFs with? Bindi Irwin, for one. What kind of natural disaster is most common where you live? Hurricanes. Have you ever had an animal get into your attic? No. Have you ever been bitten so hard that there teeth marks were there after? I mean I've had hickeys before if that's what you're asking. Ever gave one? Oh, I guess you were. Yeah. Do you think its weird if guys wear make-up like eyeliner? Not at all. Would you ever date a disabled person? (Be honest) Yes. Would you rather adopt or have your own child? IF I wanted kids, I'd rather have one myself because I'm well aware I personally need that special connection. Stepkids count, too, because they'd be my partner's and therefore very important for me too. What is the most personal question you have ever been asked? Probably TMI, so here's your fair warning, but I've been asked before if I "touch" myself and I was absolutely repulsed that someone would ask me that. Were you abused by your parents? No. If you’re not straight, who was the first person you came out to? Sara. Were you one of the smartest in your class? Up to finishing high school, modestly, I was. Where did you meet your first crush? Art class my freshman year of high school. Do you ever go places with wet hair? Yeah, idc. Who is your favorite little girl? My niece Aubree. She's such a wonderful girl. Does your best friend have kids? No. If you were pregnant, would you want a boy or a girl? Hypothetically, a girl. What place outside of your own home do you spend the most time at? Um, maybe my older sister's house? Have you ever participated in a medical study? No. Do you have any family members who are cancer survivors? Yes, including my mother. Twice. Are you allergic to any medications? None that I've tried. Do you have any licenses other than your driver's license? I don't even have that. If you’re atheist, would you raise you kids believing in God or not? No; I wouldn't intervene with their own spiritual (or lack thereof) journey. They'd learn what they'd learn and decide themselves what they believe. Do you like reading self-help books? No, I just can't get invested in those. What is your opinion on sex change? If you're unhappy with your body, you're more than free to surgically change that with no judgment from me. Do you have any goals for this summer? If so, what are they? Yes, to lose weight. Can you get a strike at bowling? I have before. There was one occasion where my first go was a strike RIGHT after saying I sucked at bowling, hahaha. Do you ever take pictures of negative moments? Well, I photograph roadkill, and that's one hell of a sad moment. I actually wouldn't mind broadening my horizons of photographing negative moments (with permission of course), because I actually find these very impactful and even builds empathy. I will never, ever forget this one picture I saw sometime of an emaciated boy huddled in the dirt with a vulture close by watching him... like fuck, it made me want to sob. No one should ever have to live like that, especially a child. Would you ever post a picture of yourself crying on social media? No. I know that sounds contradictory to what I just said, I just wouldn't be able to do it myself. Have you ever held a newborn baby? Once, when my last niece was born. I'm terrified of holding them because they're just so fragile. Do you know anyone who has twins? My friend just had triplets. What is your favorite country in Europe? Germany. Are you thriving in your life right now? BOY HOWDY- Do you remember to water plants? I don't keep plants. Name three YouTubers you aspire to be like. 1.) Markiplier in a vast plethora of ways; 2.) Jeffree Star for his incredible work ethic; and 3.) Shane Dawson for his incredible compassion. Yes. I know the controversy, but regardless, he cares a lot about people. Who is your favorite character from Harry Potter? I wouldn't know, given I haven't read the books or seen the movies. Do you watch PewDiePie? Not anymore; his content doesn't interest me anymore. I watched him religiously back in the day when he was a serious let's player, though. Do you have a Steam account? Yes. Have you ever played Five Nights at Freddy’s? No, not personally. I like watching LPs of it and I find the story fascinating, but it's not the kind of game I'd enjoy playing. Have you ever tried Akinator? Yes. I don't think I ever beat it, except maybe once. Are you wearing socks right now? No; unless I'm wearing closed-toe shoes like sneakers, I never do. I hate the feeling of them. Can you twerk? Haven't tried, don't wanna. Do you like dabbing? No, it looks stupid. Do you like fishing? I honestly do think it's fun with all the anticipation and thrill of seeing how big the fish is, however I don't support it anymore unless, like hunting, you genuinely need it for food. The only case where I'd go again was if my dad asked me, because that's always been our bonding experience. Do you have a Spotify account? Yes. Have you heard of Blizzard Entertainment? Well, they're the company behind World of Warcraft, so obviously. Do you like bananas? Yes, but only for a VERY short window of time. I am beyond picky with the ripeness of bananas. Are you addicted to anything? Caffeine and technology. Do you know your phone number? I actually don't. Do you swear in front of children? No.

Light Novel Club, Chapter 29: Tearmoon Empire, Vol. 3

Welcome to our Light Novel Club discussion of Tearmoon Empire, Vol. 3! We are back with Mia, the Great Sage of the Empire, and her attempts to save the Empire and her own skin. Sure, she may have escaped the guillotine, but there may still be other threats to her livelihood in the future… especially when her granddaughter from the future pays a time-traveling visit!

Joining me in this discussion are Jeskai Angel, Gaheret, and marthaurion! As a reminder, the discussions are held on our public Beneath the Tangles Discord server, so anyone can join our discussions. Go to the end of this post if you want to see what novels we are reading next if you want to join our next discussions!

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1. What are your overall thoughts on the book?

stardf29: Seeing as this is the start of a new story arc, I think this volume worked pretty well to set up the next challenge Mia has to deal with. It confirmed my suspicions that there is a demonic force, the Chaos Serpents, that were truly behind the problems that led to Mia’s execution in the last timeline, and even in this current timeline they are continuing to try to cause problems. Bringing Mia’s granddaughter from a bad future provides an interesting “replacement” to the diary, but nevertheless the threat of Rafina going overzealous is there. That said, given that this volume has more of a focus on school activities and is still setting up things to come, it’s also not quite as interesting as the last volume was, which is to be expected. It’s still very entertaining, and sets things up well for future volumes.

Jeskai Angel: It’s great, as expected of Tearmoon Empire. I agree that whole student-council-election plot was…not the most interesting thing, though it still provided many opportunities for humor and character development. I think I mentioned this back when we covered vol. 2, but I appreciated how the narrative wove the new arc into Mia’s original story. I also thought it was great that we’re still getting flashbacks to Mia’s first life (e.g., the birthday observance chapter). She’s altered the timeline and no longer has to worry about that particular fate, but she still experienced those events and they still affect her. I like seeing that kind of continuity / consistency. It was also interesting to learn more about the church and its place within the setting.

Gaheret: As for me, I did like the school council election plot more than the Remno plot (which felt less believable to me, speaking in general). It provided very interesting insights into the religion of Rafina´s Church and of the politics of this world, and I find that topic fascinating. A somewhat sacral democratic election! Ritual attires and baths! Symbolic colours! Moral issues concerning political campaigns! Dukes with theme colours! A tyrant theocratic Empire! A secret society trying to undermine the established religion! Justice and mercy! A proto-alliance against the Serpents! Mia´s theological thoughts! Rafina cracking! It was all great. In general, I´d say that I like Tearmoon Empire more in its St. Noel setting, where Mia can make the most of her knowledge of the future, the geopolitical/social/emotional game is everywhere, coincidences regarding future events are less far-fetched, she knows more or less everyone and more or less anticipates what the challenges of the school year will be, as she is revisiting a known scenario in which she has failed once. I liked this one a lot.

marthaurion: Been a while, so I don’t remember all of the details. I remember being surprised that the diary went away so soon in the story, but the fact that it opens the way for Miabel to enter the story is interesting. It would have been very easy (and safe) to keep the diary as an updating glimpse into Mia’s future, so I appreciate that it’s dumped to give way for new things. I like the idea in general that Mia’s life doesn’t completely revolve around a single tragedy in her future. As a side note, I thought it was funny that Mia dodges tragedy at the guillotine, securing a pleasant life for herself, but immediately ruins it again because she doesn’t want a lot of kids. I think some of this is carried over from the previous volume, but I think we get to see how this plays out in the overall story in this volume.

2. What are your thoughts on the new characters that are either introduced in this volume, or that we see more of this volume?

Jeskai Angel: Starting with her name (literally being a portmanteau of “Mia” and “Abel”), Bel is fun. Mia’s jealousy at the way everyone dotes on her granddaughter is also hilarious. Bel also has a tendency to blurt out truths that Mia hadn’t intended to share. And Bel serves an important role in confirming for us as readers that Mia is the beneficiary of some form of divine providence. Bel’s arrival is unmistakably an answer to Mia’s plea for guidance.

Finally, I think the Bel’s flashbacks (which are still in the future from Mia’s point of view) are another neat way of demonstrating Mia’s effect on the timeline. In her first life, most people rejected and abandoned Mia, but with just the changes she’s made so far, there are now a ton of people who treasure Mia so highly that they’re willing to die for her granddaughter. It’s a weird combination of sad and heartwarming. I want to learn more about how this has affected Bel. We know the royal guard died protecting Mia in her first life, and that Anne and Ludwig were loyal to the end, but beyond that, Mia’s first life experience was all about rejection. Not so for Bel, who was beloved by many, but instead has to deal with the trauma of seeing them all die for her.

Gaheret: Miabel was interesting to read about, but I cannot help but think that her plot could have been much more interesting. What if, for example, she had had some reason to hold a grudge against Mia, or perhaps Rafina? What if their personalities had been starkly different? What if the world of her grandmother had been so different from hers as our world is from the 1970´s, or as 1830 was from 1789, and she just couldn´t adjust? What if she saw things very differently? What if she had been evil or mischievous, or had created some sort of problem between Mia and Abel, or had befriended someone against Mia´s wishes? And, the one I feel the most to be a missed opportunity, what if she had been the one person able to see through her? I think Mia needs someone, anyone, that doesn´t misinterpret everything she does, someone she can be completely frank with. I know I would, if I were in her position. Miabel would have been great in that respect. I thought things were going there when she rejected the cookie and noticed how Mia had gone to Anne´s bed, but they didn´t.

marthaurion: Miabel was a fun addition to the cast. So far, she seems a bit incomplete, given the nature of her arrival. I would have expected a visitor from the future to contribute more than passing a single message from a future Ludwig, which makes me think she’s here for more than that. I’m also curious how temporary her visit is meant to be. If it’s truly temporary, then I think there’s a unique opportunity to provide the story with someone who doesn’t necessarily have to worship Mia. It might take some effort to get her there from her current state of reverence, but she could be the first person with whom Mia can be actually truthful.

stardf29: Miabel is, as mentioned, the “replacement” of the diary as far as a source of information about a bad future, and one that is even more personal, given that she isn’t just a book but a living, breathing person. And because she is going off her memory and records of Mia’s life, she’s also… not quite as reliable of a source, which can certainly make things interesting, as we see here with how she drives Mia towards becoming student council president.

As a character, she is basically a younger Mia, lacking in the wisdom and knowledge Mia has acquired over both her lives, but also lacking the spoiled-brattiness that Mia had once upon a time and lost during her new life. And yes, she’s a lot of fun overall with her interactions with others. I definitely get the sense that she’s finally being given a chance to enjoy life as a kid when she had previously had the whole issue of survival to deal with. She perhaps hasn’t had that much character development at the moment, as the story is still more focused on Mia, and it does make me wonder what Miabel will do going forward. Will she be forced at some point to return back to her old timeline, at which point one would hope she has learned and grown enough to rescue the Tearmoon of that timeline? Or is she stuck in this timeline and will simply continue to be Mia’s “sister”?

Jeskai Angel: Sapphias was a fun red herring. He’s initially set up as a potential enemy…but then turns out to be a just a boy trying to impress the girl he likes. The narrator makes fun of Mia for her groundless suspicions, and by extension, I think, also makes fun of us the readers for suspecting Sapphias. The other facet of his character that jumped out at me is that he’s yet another instance of Mia’s tendency to have a positive influence on those around her. Sapphias starts out as an arrogant jerk, but by the end of the volume he’s happily and humbly accepting a position as subordinate to Tiona, the girl he’d sneered at earlier.

Gaheret: Sapphias. There you have an interesting name. According to Flavius Josephus, Joshua Ben Sapphias was a leader of the Zealots during the war which ended with the destruction of the Temple, the one during which the Christians were advised to flee Jerusalem. He was of high upbringing, the governor of the city. The fact that one of the Dukes, related to Mia, is joining the revolutionaries also has Philippe Égalité vibes. Philippe, the “Godfather of the Revolution”, was a Borbon and married to the wealthiest lady of France, yet he was a Jacobin, the Masonic “Grand Orient de France” and a revolutionary leader who antagonised Marie Antoinette and voted for the death of the king. All of which didn´t spare him the guillotine, though.

As for the actual Sapphias, it seems that he is not the Serpent (I think it´s Ruby, but I could be wrong), and I like he being in the Student Council. In the end, Serpents aside, which caused Tearmoon´s Revolution was a morally compromised aristocracy who abused its privileges, behaved irresponsibly, was quarrelsome and didn´t cooperate. The incident at the frontier, the Tiona issue during the ball, Ludwig´s complaints and the new information we receive in this volume make this abundantly clear. So the main task of Mia is reforming her ruling class, both so they can work together and so they can behave (more or less) for the good of the people and in a way fitting of Rafina´s standards. Thus, Sapphias, who behaves arrogantly and dishonourably during the election, but doesn´t want to let his betrothed down, is perfect to illustrate this sort of change. He working with Mia under Tiona and Rafina is a brilliant move, and I think he will be a very interesting character.

Ruby. We see very little of the future Red Moon Duchess. I think she is an Oscar François de Jarjeyes/Rose of Versailles reference, and I suspect her of being the Serpent. This, both because she seems proficient with the sword and because she seems to be rubbing salt in the wound concerning Esmeralda´s grievances, and she seems clever. She also seems clever. And I´d say that the Red Moon sounds the most villain-like of the four moons.

stardf29: Sapphias, and on that same note Esmeralda and Ruby, are very reminiscent of “old” Mia. They have her self-centeredness and lack the perspective the current Mia has to recognize the larger-scale consequences of that selfishness, but at the same time they don’t seem to be truly malicious. Well, that might just be saying, they don’t quite have the mental capacity to do anything truly malicious… And yeah, the fake-out that Sapphias had nothing to do with the Chaos Serpents and just wants to impress the girl he likes is great.

That said, the main difference between Sapphias and the other two Etoiles we’ve met is that Sapphias has gotten a full dose of Mia’s power of unintentional inspiration, and is on track to becoming a better person. So the real question is… how will Mia change the lives of Esmeralda and Ruby?

Jeskai Angel: Shout-out to the mysterious Citrina, who hasn’t even shown up in person yet. With Sapphias, Esmeralda, and Ruby becoming more prominent in the narrative, it seems logical that Citrina will have a part to play as well. I can’t help but wonder about the fourth gem-themed ducal scion: it’s hard not to suspect the author of holding something back by talking about her yet keeping her off-stage.

3. What do you think of how previous characters have changed or developed in this volume?

Jeskai Angel: In terms of development for a returning character, Sion was the big winner of vol. 2, and for vol. 3, it’s Rafina. She was pretty vague prior to this — somebody connected with religion and hostile to Mia in her first life, but that’s about it. This volume shows more about her background, motivations, mental/emotional state, and social position. Within the setting, she’s basically like heir of the Pope, if the papacy were a hereditary position. For a kid her age, no wonder that’s a lot of stress!

This volume did a pretty good job of letting many of the notable previous characters get a moment or two in the spotlight, even while the main focus was still on Mia, Rafina, and the new (or new-ish) characters. I think my favorite moment was the conversation between Ludwig and Dion, where Ludwig lays out how Mia somehow inspires people to want to be better. It’s cool to see that Ludwig has such a surprisingly good grasp of Mia’s effect on others. But then we also get to see someone in the middle of changing due to Mia’s influence (i.e., Dion) reflecting on how he himself is changing, and deciding quite deliberately to let her continuing affecting him.

Gaheret: Turning to the already-established characters, Esmeralda being Mia´s friend in the previous timeline, yet abandoning her in the time of greatest need is a very interesting development. As Sapphias, she makes a great antagonist and may be the character who, right now, keeps more of the Mia that was. Unlike Shion and Rafina, people that she could more or less avoid, Mia is going to have to deal with her, because she will soon be one of the top members of her nobility. She is also an antagonist both to Tiona and to Mia herself, and it is clear that she has taken to heart Mia´s refusal to join her party. Her conversation with Sapphias is very interesting, too, both because it tells us that these people are connected and honour that, even if they can´t stand each other, and because of the detail that she thinks he is badmouthing Mia, but she is not, because she thinks Mia was in the wrong to disdain a kinswoman of high rank. Now she has chosen Sapphias over her, and it is foreseeable that he will start changing, so she could feel insulted again, and threatened by that change. The narrator tells us that she has plans of her own, and she could easily become the main non-Serpent antagonist very soon.

Dion. This is my favourite development. I found Dion Alaia to be a dangerous battle-addict who could betray his leader the moment he disagrees with her, and become downright murderous. I still find him to be as unnerving as Mia finds him. What if Rafina hadn´t taken the matter of his infiltration with a sword well, as she had every right to do? Why does he think it´s OK to be the only one to enter a school with a weapon? The Reaper, seriously? But to be willing to put his sword aside and take a different road in life for the good of Mia and the Empire, abandoning the dream of dying in the battlefield, is a very significant step for him. And that conversation with Ludwig, it is clear that he is willing to grow, to trust, to change. He may become a true soldier, one who takes the sword to protect the peace and then returns to other kinds of service. Which is the greatest example of the Mia effect I have yet seen, except for…

Rafina! In volume one, I said she had a threatening aura, always judging and condemning while using her influence one way or another. In this volume, we see the reason for this: she has always longed for a friend, yet her friends behave cruelly towards others, which implied that, were she not powerful and important, she may had the same fate. Embedded in ritual, loved by the commoners, unflinching, elegant, the main wall against the Tearmoon nobility ethos, her Empress Prelate was every bit as terrifying as the Penal King, yet somehow more justified. The Serpents discredited her religion precisely by exploiting her weaknesses and make their own destruction her absolute priority, and convincing her of abandoning her neutral, diarchical stance, so carefully built, towards theocracy. Her religion, which feels like a Christianity without Christ, reminded me of Israel at the time of the Maccabees, in need of the plan of salvation which shows mercy to the sinners. And thus, the lesson of forgiveness and mercy Mia inadvertently delivered her, beautifully represented in the red/white contrast, was precisely what she needed. Her stepping down was beautiful. She may be my favourite character right now, and the living proof that Mia is an agent of Providence.

Tiona, Shion, Keithwood, Chloe. Well, too little Tiona, once again. I want her to go beyond her newfound devotion to Mia, and start having her own thoughts, projects and dreams. She was a revolutionary leader, as well as Shion´s princess and her Tearmoon counterpart. She was the “Saint of the Revolution”, a St. Joan D´Arc figure that had everything Mia wanted, and her direct rival. In the new timeline, she may have not lost her family or her dominion, but she has (for now) lost everything else. I want to hear more of her. Prince Shion is ironic and cool as always, yet, according to Keithwood, still not over his heartbreak. So I think the conflict when Mia requests his support and flatters him (barefoot in the sand and at full power of her beauty, if we are to believe Keithwood, who barely escapes Mia´s attraction this time), should be greater. Especially due considering how she behaved in the previous volume. This happens in front of Abel, too, which should awaken his insecurities. Concerning Chloe, I liked how she reasons concerning the supernatural and ghosts, and the fact Mia trusts her to the extent of showing one of her weaknesses. I like how their friendship is going.

Ludwig, Abel and Anne. Concerning Mia´s “inner circle”, Ludwig interestingly described the “Mia effect” to Dion Alaia (he knows everything except that it is unintentional and providential) while creating the opportunity for him to change, and is a major player as the educator of Miabel. His future self also provided the decisive clue concerning the election, and Mia gave proof of her deep trust in him by blindly following his advice. He is a keen observer, and a good leader. As for Abel, everything goes smoothly, perhaps a little bit too smoothly, except that he is yet to know Mia´s “other side”. Miabel doesn´t tell us if he ever discovered it in the other timeline, either. Anne, whose kind, merciful nature is confirmed once again, regards Mia increasingly as a little sister, and actually sees her being afraid or lazy, which is good (even if she still regards her as a prodigy of wisdom). It seems to me that Miabel and her may have provided an interesting subplot, as she is her mother figure, only fifty or so years younger, and Miabel is keeping Anne separated from Mia and of her studies. That should bring conflict, or reveals or something, but it hasn´t, or not yet. In any case, she remains the most trustworthy, loyal and caring of all the characters.

And, finally, Mia. “Tiona’s answer blindsided Mia; she hadn’t considered that line of reasoning, and it was made all the more convincing by the fact that she had firsthand experience of an undoubtedly supernatural phenomenon. Ever since her mind-boggling leap through time, she’d been a believer. Not for any profound or philosophical reason, mind you. She just figured that a miracle like that could only have been the work of God. “The almighty God has bestowed something terribly special upon me. That makes me… the chosen one, in a way…” she mused in a profound moment of whatever the opposite of humility is”. But Narrator-san is wrong here: humilitas est veritas, and Mia is the chosen one, not due to her merits or wisdom. She is conscious that it is her duty to grow, be better while still being old Mia, and save many others, and that she is in a providential position to do so. When she going against Rafina in the election, scared as she is, it´s a big moment for her. I found the moments in which she goes through water purification, chooses guillotine red, drinks from the calyx of martyrs and sits in the Student Council after the ritual election to be very moving and powerful, more so because she is blind to most of it. It is the same for us, most of the time. Mia is not a “phoney saint”, but a very compelling saint-in-the-making with a political role to fulfil, and even if her relationship with this world´s God is indirect, it is increasingly real, because she is cooperating. She has all my sympathy.

At this point, I think that Mia´s biggest problem is that, were Rafina, Shion, Dion Alaia, Sapphias or perhaps even Tiona to know what she has been thinking all along, their friendship would probably not last. Abel, Anne and Ludwig would suffer a blow, but Anne and Ludwig remained loyal to her when she was selfish, and Mia has chosen Abel and helped him, not by mistake. That is a great weight, and there is something both comedic and tragic about all those misunderstandings. She has trusted the benevolent God of her world, though, and it seems that His providence is acting, so I hope it all ends well.

stardf29: Rafina definitely got the most out of this volume, particularly in seeing how stressed out she is about all her responsibilities, but also how she feels like she can’t let anyone else take on those responsibilities, either. It’s easy to see how, in the original timeline, this could lead to Empress Prelate Rafina, someone who believes “I am the only one who can fix what is wrong with the world”, but ultimately only hurts the world more because of her actions.

Thankfully, Mia shows her that she has people she can trust to reduce her workload and help her deal with issues like the Chaos Serpents. She may still have plenty to do, but she doesn’t have to burn herself out doing it.

Mia: I think my favorite bit here was how she had learned the importance of asking questions when needed, and how she observed Tiona and Sapphias in order to determine when to ask questions. Few things really are as valuable in life as the willingness to ask questions to learn what you do not know.

For other characters, I do like how some of the minor characters like Lynsha and Monica from the last volume find a role here in this volume. As the Mia support network grows, we could have quite the team ready to deal with whatever the Chaos Serpents try to throw at them.

Mia still has to deal with crap from horses, though. This time, literally.

4. What do you think of the story’s establishment of the “Chaos Serpents” as the greater evil in this world?

Jeskai Angel: I think the story had three options here: conclude, become a school slice-of-life romcom, or introduce some sort of larger conflict for Mia to overcome. The Chaos Serpents represent the third option, an antagonistic presence that can fuel further adventures. With the story increasingly suggesting Mia is the beneficiary of divine intervention and that Bel’s appearance is an answer to prayer, also it makes sense to add a spiritual (that is, demonic) dimension to her opposition.

I’m also glad this volume mostly kept us in the dark about the Chaos Serpents. We learned they exist…and that’s about it. Obviously, the story will eventually need to reveal more, but by leaving readers mostly ignorant at this stage, the narrative puts us in the same position as Mia, Rafina, and company. We know the Chaos Serpents are out there, and we know a few characters who are clearly not part of them. Beyond that, we can only wonder who might be a Chaos Serpent or what they might be doing now.

Gaheret: The Serpents are really cool villains. They sound like a mix of Dostoyevski´s demi-Satanic, demi-Nihilist anarchists leaded by Paul Stepanovich, the Frenchmasons which influenced the French revolution and standard Satanic cults. They oppose every authority, but hate above all religious authority. They have infiltrated the political structures, with an eye to influential positions. As spies, terrorists, criminal organisations and secret societies in the real world often do, they are able to use the paranoia they create against those who oppose them, and who may end up seeing conspirators everywhere and hurting their own causes. Rafina sent a general against then, and discovered that he was a member of the secret society (that literally happen in Spain with Rafael del Riego). I think they are a very good choice for villains.

marthaurion: Seems promising to me. Referring back to what I said earlier, this seemed a bit necessary to make the time shift possible. It was easy to buy that that Mia originally doomed herself to failure, but it would be hard to accept that this happens again and again, despite her flagrant ineptitude. So, I think it makes sense to add an evil organization that can provide the consistent force driving her to change her future. Plus, there’s a sense of comedy in seeing her bumble through their carefully thought-out conspiracies.

stardf29: Yeah, I really liked the establishment of the Chaos Serpents as the “main” villain, for a number of reasons. One reason is that it addresses the whole idea that Mia was singularly responsible for all of Tearmoon’s problems in the old timeline. It was already an unfair accusation in the first volume, showing how the “revolutionary” army wasn’t particularly in the right, and now it is clear that making Mia a scapegoat for the revolution was exactly what the Serpents wanted. They aren’t a “new” villain, but are now being revealed as the ones that are truly behind everything.

And then there is how these Chaos Serpents give off the feeling of a Satanic cult, and how there may be a sort of “God vs. Satan” element to the story. That certainly makes for an interesting way to view the story, especially from a Christian perspective.

Also, I like the idea of Mia thwarting the Serpents by, well, being Mia. For all of the Serpents’ machinations, they simply are no match for a girl with some foresight, some kindness, and a lot of charisma.

As an additional thought: if we think of this story as being inspired by actual historical events like the French Revolution, it creates an interesting thing to think about: how events like the French Revolution may have been influenced by Satan himself. Maybe there weren’t actual Satanic cultists secretly influencing things, but it’s not hard to think of how the Enemy’s lies might have affected historic events.

5. What did you think of the religious symbols and rituals in the story?

Jeskai Angel: I liked it. I guess what surprises me about the story’s use of religious imagery was how…respectful (?) it was. I feel like ninety-nine times out of a hundred, any organization that appears in light novels / manga / anime and bears the least resemblance to Christianity (and the Roman Catholic Church in particular) is going to be evil. In my experience, it’s actually pretty unusual to see a religion like this portrayed positively. Even in the case of the “Empress Prelate” in Bel’s timeline, it’s pretty clearly depicted as Rafina becoming corrupted and abandoning her true duties as a religious leader. That is, the problem is one leader falling to temptation, NOT the church as a whole being fundamentally corrupt.

And the story doesn’t just portray the church positively, but also…substantively? Church-like religions that show up in light novels / anime are often extremely vague in terms of details like who or what they worship, sacred texts they follow, rituals, structure, purpose, etc., to the point that one wonders why such institutions even exist (other than to provide employment for evil popes). But in this volume, we confirm that the religion has a bible, worships one god, what the church’s role is in within society at large, the range of attitudes toward it, etc. It felt like the author might have done research and was genuinely trying to present a somewhat coherent religion in the story’s setting, rather than just borrowing random stuff to make a cardboard cutout of a religion.

Gaheret: Reflecting about it these days, I think that Rafina gets purified of her main flaw during the rite of purification (hence the tears), and surrenders her position after drinking the cup of sacrifice and martyredom. She is giving the Empress the direct governing power in the sacred election, and yet giving her guidance and counsel.

stardf29: I’m not as familiar with religious imagery, but I do agree that it is very refreshing to see the Church being portrayed positively in a light novel. This is one place in particular where the Chaos Serpents works very well as the villain, as it sets up a nice “good vs. evil” conflict, which I think is all too often made to be either too “morally gray” or make for too much of a “human” problem. Here we have a grand evil force, and a “God” opposed to that evil.

6. Do you agree with Mia that she was chosen by God for a mission? And in that case, what do you think it is?

Jeskai Angel: I do agree with Mia. She’s quite right that dying and going back in time with an evolving diary is NOT a natural phenomenon: divine intervention is the most logical explanation. It actually reminds of a line near the end the great C.S. Lewis novel Till We Have Faces: “This age of ours will one day be the distant past. And the Divine Nature can change the past. Nothing is yet in its true form.” I don’t think Mia’s experience is quite what Lewis had in mind (LOL), but the underlying concept that God can intervene in what we perceive as “the past” rings true. The idea was quite striking to me when I read TWHF in college years ago (as shown by the fact that I remembered it well enough to look it up and find the exact quote), and inclines me to see Mia’s time leap as a totally possible thing for a god to do.

This volume adds a couple of important points. First, I think that by fleshing out the Central Orthodox Church somewhat, the existence of a god within the story feels more plausible. Second, there’s the whole business with Bel showing up. As I mentioned before, the story makes it clear that Mia seeks guidance, and Bel promptly shows up with knowledge from the future. I can’t see that as anything but an answered prayer. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find,” indeed. Finally, I think the Chaos Serpents actually make a pretty good case for the existence of a god in the story. It’s strange that someone like Jem would display such an intense aversion to the setting’s bible if that book is just a bunch of myths and fables, but makes far more sense if (in the setting) the bible is a genuine sacred text from a very real god.

I suppose at this point it seems likely that in terms of the overall narrative, Mia’s mission is to thwart the Chaos Serpents. However, I can’t help but wonder about the Mia Effect. From Anne (the first) to Sapphias (the most recent), Mia keeps positively influencing individuals who come into her sphere. Maybe Mia’s mission isn’t to defeat a civilization-destroying evil cult. Maybe her mission is just to change someone’s life for the better.

stardf29: Oh, I 100% agree Mia was chosen by “God” to go back in time. And I think that highlights something very true about our God: God does not choose “perfect” people for His missions. He chooses broken, sinful people. And not just “kinda sinful” people, but people who still have huge sins to work through.

So what is Mia’s mission? Sure, it’s to thwart the Chaos Serpents and save Tearmoon, and I also agree with Jeskai about how there’s also the element of inspiring the people around her to become better as well. And if I may throw one more thing on there: it’s also to grow herself as a person. And those three things are not separate missions; they are all connected together in a greater mission to, well, simply make everything better. In terms of our own faith, it’s the whole idea of “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

7. Final Thoughts

stardf29: So I would like to take this moment to promote J-Novel Club’s premium e-books, which often have some bonus content, and in this case there’s a very special bonus story… done in the form of a mini choose-your-own-adventure style “otome game” where Mia can end up interacting with one of the many other characters based on your choices. I especially like how it uses the hyperlink feature of e-books to make choices and jump around the book, as well as make it easy to go back to the start. It’s mainly just slice-of-life fluff, but it’s still a fun extra for those buying direct from JNC.

Gaheret: Now that you say it, the choose-your-own-adventure idea is very fitting to the Tearmoon Empire story as a whole. For now, I’m enjoying the ride very much, I think the author is pushing the story in interesting directions, and I wonder about the endgame.

=====

If you read through our discussion, thank you for following along!

If you are interested in joining future Light Novel Club discussions, I bet you want to know what novels to read. Well, later this month, we will be starting discussion on Reset! The Imprisoned Princess Dreams of Another Chance! Vol. 1! This is another story about a princess who goes back in time to try to stop the fall of her country, so it will be interesting to see how this novel approaches the concept differently. Discussion starts on April 20th, but don’t worry if you need more time to read it, as discussion will run into the first week of May as well.

If you want to look towards our May discussion, you have a good amount of time to read up through Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki, Vol. 2! With the anime adaptation having recently finished, it is a great time to get back to this series and look at how Tomozaki’s attempt to master the game of life goes as he comes up against some unique challenges. Our discussion opens on May 21st!

Have fun reading, and join our Discord if you want to join in on our Light Novel Club discussions!

TAKEN CHARACTER: RED MARSHELL!!

Howdy, Dread! Welcome to SOUTHPARKRPG. Please find the accepted application for RED MARSHELL below:

OUT OF CHARACTER:

name/alias: dread

age: 19

pronouns: she/her

triggers: none

IN CHARACTER:

name: red marshell

age: june 16th, 2000 [19]

gender: cis female [she/her]

living situation: dormitory, but she visits home often

occupation: english major- honestly, red is only attending the community college for brownie points, and to be where almost everyone else (and, of course, for the parties). taking english as a major seemed like the easiest alternative to other degree programs. she is not  currently employed, though is looking at possible work study opportunities.

sexuality: bisexual

PERSONALITY:

Confrontational / Hard-headed

Red isn’t afraid to speak her mind, even if it might damage her relationships or cause an argument. Sometimes, her confrontational streak is a good thing, is allows her to assert herself in certain situations, but on the flip side, it can also lead to her appearing cold or uncaring towards others. Fortunately, this is often offset by her ability to be compassionate as well- she truly does care about other people, she is simply blunt and refuses to mince words.

Insecure

Red is always the first person to admit that her confidence is shaky at best. Compared to her peers, she often feels untalented, even if she’s loathe to admit it. She places an extraordinary amount of her self-worth on what other’s think of her, which explains her tendency to party, and her social butterfly persona. The thing that makes her the most uncomfortable in the world is being alone, or feeling looked over, and these emotions can manifest in a variety of ways- most notably through anger, jealousy, or sadness, with the latter most being the most prominent.

Courageous / Reckless

Red is always the first one to jump to a challenge, willing to delve into potentially dangerous situations for the thrill. She gets bored if she cannot try new things, and often butts heads with people who are cowardly. While popularity is important to Red, at the same time she’s not unwilling to go outside the box and try something new, so long as she doesn’t think it’ll affect her social status. Her courageous can sometimes feed into recklessness and bad decision making, but as they say- bad choices make good stories.

Party Animal

Red loves to have a good time, and in college, even a shitty South Park community one, it’s a breeding ground for good times. She’s quick to organize parties on the weekend, quick to provide any recreational substances, and also -occasionally- quick to be the first one to pass out on the couch. To her, there’s nothing better than being around good friends with good food and drinks and listening to hit music blaring over the speakers (especially if it’s Justin Timberlake, but she’ll compromise). Her academics suffer because of her interest in partying and other recreational activities.

Music-Lover

Spotify Premium? Check. Apple Music? Check. Pandora Premium? Check. Even Youtube Red? Of course! It even has her name in it. Just about any service out there that offers a music subscription, Red has. More often than not she’s seen with headphones, and she collects records. Her music tends to be pop and contemporary, but she has a few playlists of the classics as well. It’s well known that her favorite singer is Justin Timberlake, for reasons more that just his music, but she’s broadened her horizons the older she got. Still, he remains a childhood favorite.

BIO:

Red graduated at about mid-tier of her class, not too low but not too high either. She was proud of herself regardless though, and so was her father, and that was all that really mattered. Graduation was a time of glory for everyone, and surprisingly, everyone made it. If you asked her in fourth grade if she thought she’d be graduating with all her then-current peers, her answer would’ve been a resounding no.

However, Red was comfortable in South Park. She was relatively popular, comfortable in her position, had many good friends- sure, there weren’t a whole lot of opportunities, but what did she want to do with her life anyway? The kind of pressure that filled her with made her anxious, and when the government regulations began to roll in and the school she applied to a few states away gave her a rejection letter, it was bittersweet. On one hand she was going to miss out on the possibilities awaiting her- a new town, a new image for herself, new friends even. Life had so much more to offer that wasn’t just South Park. But, at the same time, staying in her hometown was undeniably comfortable. Sure, there weren’t a lot of opportunities, but she had good friends and she knew everyone and didn’t have to fear social rejection or not fitting in somewhere else.

South Park Community College became heavily populated with her peers, which made the transition easy- and even though it was still in South Park, living on her own in the dormitories and becoming largely independent for the first time in her life was still exciting. And, of course, all the extra-curricular opportunities college had to offer she was quick to dip her toe into. She never much questioned the government cracking down on their town, weirder things have happened after all.

HEADCANONS:

can always be seen with headphones on, or around her neck if they’re the wired kind. but of course she has airpods

she loves to dance, and while has never taken formal lessons, she’s gotten quite good over the years. she doesn’t usually dance sober (in public anyway)

she also loves to sing, but she’s not very good at it

while she’s technically roman-catholic, she doesn’t go to church regularly, and doesn’t think much about religion

however, she’s very interested in the darker side of spirituality, and is fascinated with spirit boards, tarot cards, palm reading, and all matters of mysticism. unfortunately, a lot of people find this lame, so she keeps the hobby to herself

she runs an aesthetic / astrology twitter under an alias

she is infamous for skipping class, usually from sleeping in, or because she simply forgot and was busy elsewhere

#734: ‘Gangs of New York’, dir. Martin Scorsese, 2002.

To start with some well-earned praise: Gangs of New York is not boring. It is a pretty good cinematic representation of the word ‘rollicking’. It is beautifully put-together, with art design and costume perfectly on-point, and a cast that has been chosen well for every role, from the major to the minor. Scorsese’s film is, however, irritating on a narrative level, and simultaneously feels like it’s trying to do too much and too little for its 160-minute runtime. It’s a film I would quite happily watch again, both in spite of and because of its narrative flaws - to pick it apart and see why it is so unsatisfying in its final hour, but just to bask in the things that Scorsese does so well here.

Generally, Scorsese’s films - and especially his crime dramas - are built around the character of the antihero. It’s pleasing to see the antihero break social norms and also to see him (and for Scorsese it is almost always a him) get his well-earned comeuppance as social morality reasserts itself through the text. The criminal is always damaged by his meteoric rise to success, and this damage makes it impossible for that success to be anything but fleeting.

Troublingly, a lot of films that feature antiheroes are also poorly-read by audiences, especially as these films are usually targeted towards younger men who identify more completely with the figures shown. This is not to say that portrayals of figures like Tyler Durden or William Cutting increase the likelihood of audience members following in their footsteps, but that identification, when it is easier in the short term, does not lend itself well to long-term reflection. On the face of it, Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis) and ‘Amsterdam’ Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) are fascinating characters, especially in the way they use and justify violence. Often, though, the links between an antihero’s behaviour and their comeuppance is not drawn clearly enough to dissuade the audience’s identification or even to make it problematic to them.

Scorsese’s film also fancy themselves as being about American society in general, and Gangs of New York is perhaps his most explicit claim to this connection. Set during the Civil War, this film is both a celebration of and a criticism of the ‘melting pot’ of American society during the time, and it sets its composition directly around the tensions surrounding immigration. This analogy could be one of this film’s greatest selling points, but I don’t feel it quite works as Scorsese perhaps wanted it to - the film preserves its ambiguity perhaps too much, leaving itself open to the kinds of murky readings that usually accompany discussions of the antihero.

To make matters even more complex, Gangs of New York was scheduled for release shortly before September 11, 2001. While the reasons for its delay and subsequent 2002 release were not directly related to the political climate of America at the time, it’s very difficult to separate the film from that context (especially as the final shot, a time-lapse of the development of Manhattan Island, prominently features the towers of the World Trade Centre as part of the film’s closing image). Coupled with the film’s main track, U2′s ‘The Hands that Built America’, and the closing monologue by Amsterdam, it’s clear that Scorsese’s film is pitching the War of the Five Points as a moment that represents the development of the true American psyche.

The trouble is that the script isn’t particularly clear on what the development actually is. Let’s lay out the key elements of this metaphorical battle: on one hand you’ve got Cutting, an aptly-named butcher who represents what he calls ‘the Natives’ - white people who were born in the United States. Cutting’s side denigrates both black Americans and immigrants, chiefly Irish immigrants (but only because our POV character is Amsterdam). Cutting is the character most prominently associated with the old guard of the United States, reactionary towards anybody that isn’t immediately recognisable as ‘him’. As shown above, he is at one stage literally draped in the flag of the United States, delivering a monologue about “the spectacle of fearsome acts” being “what preserves the order of things”. This monologue answers several questions about Cutting’s character, the most important of which is the origin of his glass eye: Cutting removed it himself, associating it with cowardice following a fight with Amsterdam’s father, Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson). For Cutting, lessons are learned through pain, and the offending part is removed to teach those that remain a harsh lesson.

Facing down Cutting is Amsterdam’s gang, the Dead Rabbits. As a minority group themselves, the Dead Rabbits come to represent everything that threatens the old order of the United States, and for a time they are allied with the free black men of the North, as well as all those who are impoverished. Scorsese’s film makes the chief antagonistic act the killing of Amsterdam’s father, and so because Amsterdam is motivated by vengeance, a motivation that aligns itself well with Cutting’s worldview, it’s clearly the action we are meant to be approving of as audience members. Amsterdam is the POV character and the one who is ‘right’ by moral standards - his narration guides us through the film.

As well as this showdown, however, Gangs of New York has an extra plotline - the conscription for the Civil War. This complicates the film significantly, because it places both Cutting’s people and Amsterdam’s people on the same side, against the government. For Cutting, there’s no real internal conflict, but Amsterdam is in a bit more of a predicament. Scorsese’s film has to walk the line between demonstrating it’s on the right side of the Civil War but against the forced conscription of soldiers to fight that war - a position that’s easy to hold but hard to depict on screen without explaining it through dialogue. As it happens in Gangs of New York, it’s hard not to see the Irish immigrants as protesting a little too much - demanding both the right to be considered as American citizens and that only ‘true’ American citizens, the ‘Natives’, be sent to fight for the rights of others.

This is where Scorsese’s film begins to fall apart a bit - not so much that it becomes impossible to follow, but enough that the wheels make an audible grinding noise at the beginning of the third act. Were Gangs of New York just a film about Cutting and Amsterdam’s gangs fighting, it would be a perfectly clear and untroubling film - too anodyne to actually be great. If the film ramped up the conscription plot earlier, it would be better-integrated into the moral quilt of the narrative, but then the film’s scriptwriters would have to find something to add to that plotline without detracting from what exists in the main conflict.

One thing that would certainly help, though, is to expand the film’s cast of black characters. There is only one named black character, so incidental that I knew the actor’s name better than the character’s (Lawrence Gilliard Jr., by the way, playing Jimmy Spoils), who has fewer lines of dialogue than moments where he’s called the N-word. Normally I don’t expect much in this regard from Scorsese: he’s not a black man and comes from a school of filmmaking and is interested in a set of themes that relegated black characters to the sidelines. But here? Making a film set during the Civil War, where conscription is a major subplot? If your scriptwriters don’t put black characters in, Martin, you need to.

This is what makes the film infuriating towards the end, really: a lack of clear indication of how these three sides are meant to be interacting. The way the first two acts of Gangs of New York go, it seems that there are two ways of concluding the film: 1) Amsterdam kills Cutting, proving that a more inclusive American society is something to be desired, and then reconciling their identities as new American citizens with the issue of conscription, confirming or denying the necessity of fighting for others rather than for yourselves, or 2) Cutting kills Amsterdam, reaffirming the old racist order of the United States and subverting the traditional narrative of righteous vengeance. This ending would also potentially subvert the antihero identification with Cutting, by making his act of triumph unpalatable from a narrative perspective. Cutting can only win by killing the film’s narrator. Here, the reconciliation with conscription is less important: Cutting’s political position is strong enough that is doesn’t really matter what happens with the Civil War.

What Gangs of New York does instead is this: 3?) The final showdown occurs at the same time as a riot over conscription. The military coincidentally fire cannons into the prelude to the fight, scattering the forces and injuring Cutting. Rather than allowing Cutting to live in shame (an act of valour, as Cutting indicated in his flag monologue) or die in cowardice from his wounds, Amsterdam kills cutting. Several of the secondary characters, both on Cutting’s side and on Amsterdam’s, are killed in the riot, an action-packed sequence which is intercut jarringly with the relatively sedate and solemn interaction between Cutting and Amsterdam.

One of the characters killed in the riot is Jimmy Spoils, who is so thematically central to these conflicts that you would suspect he should have a more lasting impact on the film. The final sequence, though, is Amsterdam burying his father’s blade at the grave of Cutting, which feels like it relegates the whole question of race and the Civil War to a footnote in a story about Irish immigration. Which, to be fair, it kind of is, but then why have the Civil War going on at all here? Again, it’s a difficult balancing act and a complex set of themes and plotlines, but it feels like Gangs of New York couldn’t quite figure out how to weave these ideas enough to do them all justice. Amsterdam’s final monologue is emblematic of this even-handedness that doesn’t do the film any good:

“It was four days and nights before the worst of the mob was finally put down. We never knew how many New Yorkers died that week before the city was finally delivered. My father told me we was all born of blood and tribulation, and so then too was our great city.”

Gangs of New York is a beautiful and stirring film, sure, but delivered from what? What kind of city was born, and whose blood and tribulation paid for it?

Oh my God. So now people in Hollywood are threatening Darren and Chris's families if they don't comply? Tinhats are saying they wouldn't be surprised if someone died in a freak accident to put Darren and Chris in line. How long before they bring up Chris's mom and start getting suspicious?

Anonymous said: Damn it’s real dramatic over in CCLand today. Abby’s “anons” are talking about how someone must have threatened to kill Darren or Chris’s family if Darren didn’t get married. And then we have Abby saying that no matter what happens she won’t abandon them. Yeah, she is definitely setting the stage for claiming someone threatened to kill Chris if Darren didn’t have a baby with Mia. She knows a baby is coming eventually and she can’t let go of her CCThrone.

It’s da Mafia, my friends! 

They are so full of themselves-and so dramatic- it’s terrifying. 

I keep saying that Abby is writing a Telenovela and damn does she love the drama. She’s also desperate to keep her storyline going and there just isn’t a logical reason WHY Darren would be in the closet and married to Mia at this point unless you go for “big threats”. Abby has suggested this vague“threat” theory before but nobody else picked it up so we never had such scary-hilarious promises of allegiance to Criss and Colfer. This is exactly the kind of pithy, over-the-top emotional digging into a cause that social media was made for- the kind in which you have no actual impact but you blog the hell out it like you matter.  

One of the biggest issues with the CrissColfer storyline is why should we be sympathetic to ccDarren and/or ccChris? They are both successful, famous, wealthy, powerful men. Abby’s never-ending criticisms of ccDarren are becoming a problem. While she always blames it on “his team”, most people don’t find it so obviously his team’s fault as evidenced by her Nonnies who then get a lecture on HOW it IS his team’s fault. Of course, nobody is controlled by their employees and ccDarren and ccChris aren’t victims or children. 

Abby delights when she can claim that ccDarren is treating Mia abhorrently because it fulfills her hatred of Mia but nobody else feels so delighted. For instance, she claimed he was trying to pull her in the water during a New Year’s Eve embrace. 

I’m guessing, and we are missing the moment inbetween d goes to dip her so she things she’s getting her kiss but in fact tries to throw her in the water.(X)

The sane among us are disgusted by a claim that he would try to drown his wife. The same goes for ccChris when he publically bullies and shames Mia on social media and his books. Abby’s love of hating Mia often overshadows her need to keep ccChris and ccDarren as victims. 

The basis of CrissColfer is that both men want to be famous and work in Hollywood for the big money and they can’t tell their truth without fear of losing everything. After ten years, both men are no longer the “inexperienced, naive, innocent young men who made bad choices when fame was flashed in their faces” and Abby needs a new spin in order to keep her followers emotionally invested. Throw in a storyline where both men are just trying to stay afloat after their families were threatened and WHOA man, you have two very compelling characters with sympathy through the roof.

Anonymous asked: Let's not forget that with the wedding being the lesser of two evils, one of the threats could have gone far beyond you or C would never be working in this industry again, like you said, the people in power will do anything to hide their sins and there really is no limit, who knows a threat on his (or C's or other family) live could have been made. It sure as hell wouldn't be the first time someone dies in a freak accident because they have dirt on someone (Chris already lost his mom in a freak accident. I can’t imagine he would ruin his entire life over the fear of losing someone else when he understands that life is precious and you can’t control what happens to family members. Or the other argument is why would he allow someone to control his life when the easy solution is to go off to NYC and become an author.  Leave Hollywood behind for the man he loves and living an authentic life. It doesn’t seem like that hard of a tradeoff to me)

ajw720 answered: Nonnie. I’m really starting to question. And m has her family and SS on her side. That’s a lot of power and ruthlessness. (I'm always fascinated by the power that Abby imagines Mia’s family has. If Chris and Darren are powerless then why is the head of Vera Wang’s company so powerful? Mia’s dad owned a small chain of small music venues. He’s likely loaded but not in the BIG powerful world of movers and shakers. As for Sunshine Sachs- they are very powerful and healthy but there is little incentive for them to risk it all by getting involved in little unknown Darren’s love life by closeting him).    

I’ve decided. No matter what they throw at us, while i may not be able to watch as closely, I’m not abandoning them unless there comes a point I think it’s willing. I don’t see that happening. What is happening is not about straight. (What “they throw at us”? This isn’t about you, Abby. Nothing about CC is about you. You’re just a lonely, unstable fan sitting in her living room all alone obsessing about Mia and fabricating outrageous stories about a family you don’t know and a man who doesn’t care about you. I’m curious, what would convince you that he’s willing? You already said you wouldn’t believe him if he told you he loved Mia.  You’re destinated to come out the loser because you refuse to see or accept reality.)    

It’s about hiding sins. If it were just straight as I have repeatedly said it would be done better and with someone that actually makes d look good. (So she’s twisting the story to be about hiding sins.  I’m not sure how forcing the farce to continue is a good strategy to ensure you don’ get caught. It seems like a cut and run strategy is better- preferably with big payoffs. Lots of us DO think Darren does look good. It’s only the people obsessed that he’s gay who don’t like him).

I just hope they have finally aligned with the right people to help them (How would this work? Either Ryan and Sunshine are terrified of their role coming out, all-powerful and threatening his family to keep it quiet OR there are people to align with who can help but not both because people who threaten others' lives for their own interests aren’t going to show up at the negotiation table willing to work out and deal).

flowersintheattic254. @ajw720 I’ll state publicly that I’m with you on that. I’m not going away unless I see it’s willing. Right now it doesn’t seem to be and frankly the more I learn about Holly/wood and how people are manipulated and abused the more I think it isn’t a choice or a very unwilling one. (Why would Darren and Chris stay there if it is that bad?  If Hollywood is one big cesspool then reasonable people would get the hell out of dodge, do something because living in that environment will turn you into that kind of person.  Also, I just have to add that the Catholic Church has an abysmal record on sex abuse of women and children so if anyplace is manipulative and abusive, it’s Abby’s church)

leka-1998 Totally agreed.

I feel like every day I get more repulsed by what the people in that awful industry are capable of.

notes-from-nowhere If it is possible, the more I know, the more I feel compelled to stand up against this habits and fight back. (How exactly will you do that? I’m fascinated and can’t wait to hear)

Nothing will change overnight. Not D’s life, not the ones of the others in his same situation but we can do something. And as much as we could, I’m sure, we will. (No shit sherlock, you’re 10 years  inand no end in sight)

I will accept defeat the day D will show me, without a doubt, that this is what he wants for his life and not matter if right or wrong, I will respect his choice. To date, I don’t think we are even close to that. Time will tell. (Again, what can Darren do to prove to you? He married the woman he’s dated for 8 years, he opened a business with her, he gushed about the wedding, and he travels with her everywhere. When he tells you how he feels about her you all instantly dismiss his words as being contracted or “Mia wrote them”.  You refuse to SEE what is so plain in front of you. I cannot imagine what he could do that would convince you.)  

In the meantime I will keep doing what I do now. (which is lie, twist facts, post Glee photos as CrissColfer, make stupid comparisons, and blow some up Abby’s ass).   

Anonymous asked: I agree about HW and who knows what kind of nefarious shit goes on. The problem I have is his parents not intervening in this . I get there is probably blackmail at this point but surely his parents can see this can’t go on. I’m afraid it’s affecting his family at this point and I would think his dad would take the reigns at some point and say enough. This is the only thing that tells me it’s short term and there is an escape date. I don’t see his parents accepting something permanent.

Do they have a choice though nonnie? That’s the question. How are they more powerful then the heavy weights he’s up against? What has been threatened? I have an idea of where I think this is going but I don’t know and I’m firm there’s 2 distinct paths, one is freedom. The other is too horrifying for words. And I think by the end of the year we will know. (She is sure they will be divorcing after the anniversary and Hollywood airs.) 

Because no doubt this has gravely hurt d and his spirit. And between c and his parents, i’d think they are doing everything to help him win. All parties on his side have to be petrified. Because even if there’s a positive plan in place, what’s to stop it from changing? Because I reiterate. D was going to come out tied to ACS and it went nightmarishly wrong. And he’s well being and safety are at stake for as long as she is tied to him. (She reiterates God Damnit! She KNOWS she was right!!!!!!! WTAF? No, he wasn’t going to come out. He’s told you he’s straight and there is no reason to suspect he’s lying. I love the comments about his safety as long as Mia is around or his image as long as his team is around-He’s fucking thriving. When is the shit going to hit the fan? He won the top four awards, has his own show on a new platform, has a big Broadway show coming, has a Ryan Murphy Netflix show that he helped co-create, Elsie is amazing, StarKid had a very successful year, his wedding is all over the “top celeb weddings” lists, he was busy AF this year and he just bought a $3 million house. It’s been a decade-when will this bad stuff start? ). 

Anonymous asked: I do fear D is in this for the long haul unfortunately. It has slowed down for her a bit post-nuptials but unless this show with RM is serving as an out, I don’t see how D will ever get out of this. We also need to remember she knows too much too at this point. It’s not that easy to get someone with the amount of info she has to just go away. If she’s intent on riding coattails, there may be little D can do to get rid of her. I hope I’m wrong. I want to see him win. But it doesn’t look good. (What does ccMia know that she can use against him? That would mean he’s done something wrong but according to cc lexicon, it’s all done against him, he’s the victim. If anything he would have dirt on her to use) 

I can’t believe how naive I was to think it was as simple as d&c saying no. I doubt that was ever an option and they learned that, after months of fighting post encagement, in the cruelest manner. Honestly I’m feeling almost more heartbroken today then on feb 16 because I’m finally seeing the horrifying reality of HW.Nonnie. Despite the fact that I don’t trust him, I’m praying that RM saw that it serves his agenda and reputation to help d as it would rehabilitate his character much more than to continue to hurt him, because at this point I think he’s the only person that has the power to get him out. Now we wait and see. (I don’t see how Ryan Murphy can serve as both Mafia boss and his savior but I understand that he’s the only one that could possibly play that role right now. There are no other gay Yoda’s in Darren’s life with enough cloud to be the “savior” so by process of elimination, Ryan is the one). .   ’t see how Ryan Murphy can serve as both Mafia boss and his savior but I understand that he’s the only one that could possibly play that role right now. There are no other gay Yoda’s in Darren’s life with enough cloud to be the “savior” so by process of elimination, Ryan is the one).    

I can’t believe how naive I was to think it was as simple as d&c saying no. I doubt that was ever an option and they learned that, after months of fighting post encagement, in the cruelest manner. Honestly I’m feeling almost more heartbroken today then on feb 16 because I’m finally seeing the horrifying reality of HW. (So basically, the original cc storyline isn’t holding up anymore after the end dates passed for coming out- Glee ended, the 8-year contract expired, Hedwig ended, ACS started, filmed and ended, Awards season came to a finish and now you’re hoping the anniversary is the lucky date.  But you need to explain why Darren and Chris have so much power and still are not together so you’re going for something bigger and more sinister.  The problem is that while Hollywood has a seedy underbelly, you can’t take one person’s story and extrapolates it to everyone. Judy Garland may have been drugged but they didn’t know the effect of drugs back then like we do know and the military gives the pilots “go” and “no go” pills to help them perform to this day under close medical supervision)  

Death Stranding

I had to write about Death Stranding to get this not very good game out of my head and soul

(this has spoilers I guess but honestly who cares)

I was going to wait to play Death Stranding, if I ever even played it at all. I had barely seen any trailers outside of the first couple. I remember seeing them and thinking “this isn’t going to be the crazy, weird experience everyone thinks it’s going to be”. I didn’t think that I knew better than anyone else, or that the people who were excited were stupid to feel that way. I just felt like I could see what it was and knew that, having played the majority of Kojima’s work, that this probably wasn’t going to be the experience that people thought it was going to be.

And I was comfortable with my disinterest, content to know that this thing existed, that I was fine with it existing away from me. But then a week before release when the review embargo lifted and people started posting their impressions and experiences and reviews my interest was piqued in a way that no trailer or announcement had interested me before. It wasn’t the glowing and fawning reviews that drew me to the game, the people who played and loved the game. It was, weirdly, the negative ones that changed me from not having any interest in playing Death Stranding to going to the store on the Friday morning it was released and standing in the rain waiting too long for an Uber so I could get home as fast as possible to start playing.

The reason the negative reviews drew me to the game so much is not because they were negative, it’s not that I was taking some joy in getting to play something that I thought was going to be bad and now I had an opportunity to be vindicated by seeing for myself that it is bad. It was the things that they were negative about that sounded so interesting. The idea that a group of people would spend so much time and effort and money in creating a large premier video game experience where the main crux seemed to be tedium is an inherently fascinating concept.

The kind of elevator pitch descriptor that interested me the most (that was used by people both derisively and positively) was that it was a post-apocalyptic truck simulator. Travelling a dead or dying world as a UPS driver. Mad Max meets King of Queens (that’s a comparison that I made and I’m too proud of it not to use it). What if a development team who made one of the great action games on the last decade (Metal Gear Solid V might be a terribly lacking narrative experience with some frustrating mission design, but the core gameplay is extremely good) and funnelled all of that energy into something intentionally boring and monotonous?

Not only did that help reset my expectations of what this would be, it made me feel excitement for something that I had previously thought I wouldn’t be able to feel excitement or anticipation for.

I spent 40 hours with it over the course of a week. That might not sound like a lot of time in video game speak, but I don’t remember the last time I spent that much time with a game over such a short period of time. Over the first weekend I had it I played for just over 20 hours. Twenty hours. I don’t know if I’ve ever been that focused on a game in my life. But still when I reflect on my time with it, and especially when I try to recall those initial 20 hours which were far and away the most fun I had with the game, I feel nothing. It’s like static, like someone has gone back and just erased that time from my memory.

That’s maybe not entirely fair. I remember general things, just not specific gameplay moments.

I remember the gameplay loop. It’s less a truck simulator game and more of a hiking game, at least initially. And this was appealing to me. You’re slowly traversing across these barren, empty environments delivering packages to and from outposts and shelters. You’re packing a huge amount of garbage on your back and climbing up mountains and down cliffs and wading through rivers. You’re given ropes and ladders to try and ease your journey, and later you’re able to build greater structures like bridges and towers to help you more easily navigate the environment and scout your path ahead. Eventually you’re given access to motorbikes and trucks that can both help and hinder your deliveries, depending on the paths you take and forge. You even get a chance to help rebuild an actual honest to goodness highway, creating it piece by piece by providing an increasing amount of materials to each section. Maybe the greatest accomplishment I felt playing this game was spending a few hours creating large sections of the highway and then getting to just fly down it on a motorbike. It really did feel like I hate created something big, that I not only radically changed the world by creating this, but that I had bettered it.

And there’s there community aspect of the game. Having others donate materials to your structures as well as seeing structures others have built and abandoned vehicles and packages in your world is all really neat and interesting. Everything positive I have to say about this game is wrapped up in these systems, because there is a lot of the game that feels like you’re on a genuine journey. Taking a package over the peak of a snow capped mountain for the first time can feel like a legitimate achievement, it was rewarding just walking from one place to the next. Seeing a bridge helpfully placed in a frustrating location made me feel real gratitude toward that person, and receiving feedback that other people were using and liking things that I had built made me feel good, as if I was paying forward the help that I had received.

For a long time I didn’t even think there would be combat in the game but it gradually increases as you go along and, while it’s never good, it’s still serviceable and easy enough to never really get in the way. The shooting and melee combat feels off, and I might have had a better time if it wasn’t there at all, but a few boss encounters and combat vignettes were interesting and would occasionally help when the monotony of just delivering packages started to grow.

But after 20 hours of this nothing really stood out to me, there’s no one gameplay moment that will stay with me. I won’t reflect on this game and think “wow, remember that one journey I took by following the coastline?” It’s all just a long, sustained blur.

And it’s not that I don’t remember the story or the characters either. Those are all easy to recall. The story is especially easy to recall because, over 40 hours, it’s just basically telling you one thing over and over and over. It’s hard not to recall it, because there is only one thing to recall.

The thing that I was worried about before the game came out was that the story was just going to be a huge mess. Kojima’s games are always functionally good to great, that’s never really been an issue I’ve had with his work, it’s always been the stories he tries to tell and how he tries to tell them. From the first Metal Gear Solid through to The Phantom Pain there are always misgivings I’ve had with character representation, general themes, and just the delivery of that narrative. I know this isn’t a unique position to have regarding his work (sexism and his consistently awful portrayal of women is a pretty famous issue he has, even among his biggest fans), but beyond that I just never felt that anything he was doing was particularly special. They were different and almost always interesting, but a lot of people would like to tell you that Kojima was doing masterful video game storytelling that no one else was capable, that he was single-handedly raising the medium of video games to something as artistically valid and viable as cinema or art. But, to me, he was never doing that. He was making fun and compelling video games, but they were inconsistent and messy and overly verbose and self-righteous.

So my concern was that, now that he was the head of an independent studio that for all intents and purposes answered to no one, he would let that his storytelling get further away from him. In an attempt to prove his level of creativity, maybe to even prove his worth, he was going to put all of his ideas on the table and the result was going to be an indecipherable mess.  When they would release a trailer of a naked Norman Reedus on a beach holding a baby attached to him with an artificial umbilical cord, or Guillermo Del Toro standing in a sewer holding a baby in a jar while Mads Mikkelsen is covered in black tar leading a bunch of skeleton soldiers a lot of people responding with a variant of “wow Kojima is going to make something crazy, this is going to blow my mind”. But all I saw was a giant red flag.

So when I finally experienced the story of Death Stranding I was kind of taken aback. Not by how crazy or nonsensical it is, but by kind of how… boring and one note it is? There isn’t really any room for interpretation in this story. It’s all very, very literal. It tells you how and why things are happening, and if you missed the exposition the first time don’t worry! Here is another twenty minute info dump reiterating the same boring, one note narrative over and over.

The game just tricks you into thinking it’s being more creative than it is because it’s filled with endless jargon. There is timefall, void outs, BTs, BBs, Beaches, repatriates, chiral energy, and extinction entities. Ha and ka. But it’s all in service of creating a world and a narrative that ultimately says nothing, and spends dozens of hours painfully and slowly telling you nothing. It’s borderline torturous.

There is also some high school art level social commentary on social media. Likes are a huge commodity in this world, with people becoming addicted to the feeling you get when they receive one. And instead of having a smart phone or whatever you have Cuff Links, which is a literal pair of handcuffs that, when strapped to your wrist, functions as a way to communicate with people through the Codec or email. Because our phones are a prison, right guys? Pretty deep. In Kojima’s world we truly do live in a society.

But it’s not just the small stuff like that that’s so literal, every part of the game is literal. You’re Sam Porter Bridges, a porter who has a contract with the organisations Bridges, created by someone named Bridget, to create bridges with people across America (both figuratively and literally) to create a network across the continent that will bridge everyone together. Every metaphor and theme in the game is so painfully literal that the game never gives you the opportunity to interpret anything else. The only time there are moments in the game when you don’t know what is happening is when characters start talking about things that you could have no way of knowing about as if you did know about them, but even then these moments of mystery are immediately undone because they always immediately explain the thing that you missed. You will have a cryptic conversation with someone about something you have had no opportunity to deduce or discover on your own, but it never matters because it’s followed up a few minutes later with a flashback or exposition that lays everything out on the table.

Instead of Kojima creating something nonsensical and imaginative and impossible to follow, he managed to make the world’s most shallow metaphor about really nothing in particular. When he said that the game was inspired by Donald Trump and Brexit he meant that it was inspired by the division that these things caused between people and how we need to create Bridges to reconnect with people.

That’s it, that’s the game. That is its message. And it’s not interestingly presented, there’s nothing more to it than that.

One of the podcast conversations I listened to before released (that was largely critical of the game) that drew me toward playing it ended with one of the people saying “It is a game that I think everyone should experience, but not one that I could ever recommend” which is a perfect way of articulating how I feel. It’s a unique experience that does things that a game of its size has never really done before. I don’t think there’s merit in being different for differences’ sake, but this isn’t that. The gameplay is considered and deliberate and purposeful, but that doesn’t mean that it’s fun and it doesn’t negate the parts that are tedious and tiring. Just because you make something boring and annoying on purpose that doesn’t make it good.

If you had asked me six months ago if I think I would like Death Stranding I would have said no. I probably would have qualified it by saying I hope that I was wrong, that I would like it to be good, but that I was probably more likely to hate it.

I didn’t love it, and I don’t like it. I don’t even hate it, but in a weird way I wish that I could. Because then at least I would feel something toward it. Instead Death Stranding leaves me feeling something much, much worse.

It makes me feel nothing.

Romancelandia you don’t have to ask I’m just gonna say it anyway~

Original Post Here

Barbara Cartland: Favourite author?

Courtney Milan.

Alisha Rai: Favorite era? (i.e. when they were written, not when set)

Current! I’m ecstatic to see how much more punk the romance novel genre has become lately- so many authors explicitly talking about race and class and gender and mental health and neurodivergence in so many interesting ways. Independent publishing opening up entirely new avenues which were not recommended for traditional publications. It’s exciting and wonderful.

Eve Dangerfield: Favourite setting for historicals?

Not sure if my opinion matters here because I have read books from very few eras? I think my preferences have moved to mid-to-late Victorian era for England-based books, but what I really want more of is historicals on other (non North American) continents. I badly want to do a romance in Historical India that is not about Englishmen, for example. Like a Muslim and Hindu falling in love during the Aurangazeb era, maybe. 

Anne Mather: Favourite contemporary setting/sub-genre

Again, I haven’t really read enough to form a nuanced opinion- when I look for contemporaries, my first priority used to be “does this make me laugh?” Which is um- a relic of a bygone era, because that used to be the only thing I wanted from contemporaries. 

Right now, I try to get read more of diverse romance in contemporary eras. Again, including non-American/English nationalities.

Georgette Heyer: Third or first person tense?

Either will do. It’s not really a factor in how much I enjoy a story. 

Lisa Kleypas: Hero/ine you’d most like to date & Jane Austen: Hero/ine you’d most like to be friends with

Same answer to both of the above categories. I’ll take anyone who I think is a rational person who forgives misunderstandings ans does not try to actively make them. I’m not really that picky. 

Amanda Quick: Hero/ine you most relate to

At the time when I first read it as a dramatic early twenties person, Minerva Lane from Courtney Milan’s The Duchess War spoke to me. There was a lot in there about fear and having to push yourself down fro the sake of survival that was similar to my life back then. I cried a lot when I read that book. 

More recently, I really wanted to snuggle up to Verity Plum from Cat Sebastian’s A duke in Disguise because her feelings of independence and placing it above pretty much everything else her life is... yeah. A lot of what Verity says sounds intimately familiar. 

Julie Anne Long: Historical or contemporary?

Historical. Given a choice between two books which are similarly positioned in terms of tropes I like and hate, I’ll pick a historical every time. 

Mariana Zapata: Open or closed door sex scenes? & Anne Hampson: Erotic or clean romances?

Ninety percent of the time I’m thoroughly disinterested in the sex scenes, and sometimes I am actively annoyed at the many pages of boning happening while the protagonists barely have an emotional connection. That said, there are plenty books which have no sex scenes where I am reduced to gross sobbing because GODDAMMIT THERE IS TOO MUCH SEXUAL TENSION IN THE AIR GIVE ME BONING.

I am still thirsty about Jo Beverley’s The Unwilling Bride. There was so much sexual tension and growth and Lucien was hot as hell but there was no sex scene. //grumbles

Elizabeth Hoyt: Paranormal or science fiction?

I haven’t read that much SF romance, but I’m going to pick it anyway because the usual tropes associated with Werewolves/Vampires bug the crap out of me. 

Nalini Singh: Favourite tropes

Both the protagonists have problems with stakes, and one is not there to manic pixie the other. Protagonists have relationships (non-romantic) outside of the romance. Subversions and reversions of gender norms. Banter and Snark. Character tries very very hard to not be emotionally vulnerable, but goddammit there are these stupid feelings. 

Alyssa Cole: Least favourite tropes

Prolonged Miscommunication. Slut shaming, especially when coupled with I Have Had So Much Sex and I am So Experienced hypocrisy. Gratuitous sex with no emotional connection. Protagonists immediately throwing over all other friends/family/loved ones for the sake of their new romantic interest. False competence in female characters which immediately get thrown to the wind when the romantic interest comes on scene (Ahem. Never Judge a lady By Her Cover.)

Rose Lerner: Favourite / Least favourite series

Nope.

Sandra Marton: Favourite romantic non-romance or love story

Unspoken Trilogy, by Sarah Rees Brennan. It is in part a fascinating exploration of privacy in a relationship- most of the rest of it is about friendships and platonic relationships. There is also a cult of sorcerers trying to take over the world via human sacrifice but I continue to insist that’s mostly just setting information. 

Skye Warren: Any problematic faves?

I have a depressingly large soft spot for anything funny, and I will forgive a lot of despised tropes if a book makes me laugh. I’m easy.

Specific examples: Until You (Judith McNaught), Dragon Shifter Series (Katie MacCalister).   

Ainsley Booth: Position on HEAs

I’m cool with those.

Abby Green: Position on HFNs

I like these better than HEAs, because the characters I like tend to be difficult and also fighting various difficult scenarios so it’s far more likely that more problems will pop up in their lives than not. 

Kristen Ashley: Position on the “romance novels are feminist” discourse

Conflicted. I think many romances are feminist, but there are an equal number or more which are patently not. Like all other genres, it has to be judged on a book by book basis, not for the genre as a whole.  

Carla Kelly: Position on the “calling romance novels trashy is problematic” discourse

Yes. Outright dismissal of an entire genre is just dumb. 

Diana Palmer: Position on the “are romance novels porn” discourse

Ha, no. Porn is porn. 

Johanna Lindsey: Position on the “romance novels represent the female gaze” discourse

Yes, I guess? In many romances the way men are portrayed is markedly different from the way they are seen in other genres. Again, this is not a universal constant- all romances do not show men in the exact same way. 

Also, it is hard to find any other genre with a larger proportion of characters, viewpoints and conflicts centered around women so there’s that.   

Mary Jo Putney: Position on the “calling romances without sex ‘clean’ or ‘sweet’ is implicitly slut shaming romances with sex” discourse?

Yes. Just call them romances without sex. What are we, the moral police?

Cara McKenna: What’s your hot take on the “forced seduction” trope?

I understand the time and place where there scenes were popular, and the social norms which prompted them. I’m still uncomfortable with them and there are may things I’d rather read about so I avoid them.    

Abigail Barnette: Opinion of Fifty Shades of Grey

Never read it, don’t plan to. Like I said, sex is not really my thing.

Tessa Bailey: Opinion of Twilight

I gobbled these books like a maniac when I first read them and there is a lot of pure entertainment in there and there is so much emotion. That said, they are not quite as interesting on re-reads. :(

Kathleen E. Woodiwiss: Opinion of Pride & Prejudice

I’m not comfortable with the prose, which means i prefer to watch/read adaptations. Most notably the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. 

Lynne Graham: Opinion of Harlequin Mills & Boon

Meh. 

Tessa Dare: Opinion of bodice rippers

I mean, I would be fine if there wasn’t so much of people causing their own problems by refusing to talk to each other. 

Sylvia Day: Opinion of Fabio

I did not even know he was a real person till like- recently.

Roni Loren: Opinion of male romance authors

Yes please. Particularly if they are writing under female pseudonyms. With this, we are getting the exact same thing that female authors did and have to go through- a forced perspective from people oft he other gender. That can only lead to more nuance and acceptance and I am all about that.  

Courtney Milan: All-time favourite romance novel & Jana Aston: Favourite contemporary romance & Judith McNaught: Favourite historical romance

Nope.

Alexa Riley: Physical or digital books?

Digital. I tend to make a lot of highlights and notes and that holds up much better with ebooks. 

E.L. James: Internal drama or external drama

Characters who are not getting together/along because they can’t communicate with each other are better off not being with each other in the first place. So if that’s what internal drama is then I prefer the external type. 

Sarah MacLean: Favourite heroine/s & Maya Rodale: Least favourite heroine/s & Penny Reid: Favourite hero/s & Megan Hart: Least favourite hero/s & Stephenie Meyer: Favourite and least favourite couple/s

I have types rather than specific examples. Most of it has already been detailed out in the tropes questions.

Beverly Jenkins: First romance novel you ever read

Almost Heaven, by Judith McNaught.

Sabrina Jeffries: How long have you been reading romance novels?

14 years or thereabouts.  

Loretta Chase: Last romance novel you read

A Duke in Disguise by Cat Sebastian. I’m currently reading An Unconditional Freedom (Alyussa Cole) and Earthrise (MCA Hogarth).

Christina Lauren: Do you need to start a series from the beginning, or can you just dive in anywhere?

Anywhere is fine.

Chuck Tingle: How strong does your HEA have to be?

Not much. See the HFN answer. 

Julia Quinn: Underrated author/s & Mary Balogh: Most overrated author/s & Violet Winspear: Most overrated book/s & Sara Craven: Most underrated book/s & Susan Elizabeth Phillips: Best romance by a debut author? & Madison Faye: Favourite romance by a non-romance author

Error Report: Cannot Compute, not enough data.

Nora Roberts: Least favourite hero and heroine archetypes

Eloisa James: What are you reading when you’re not reading romance?

Fantasy, Science Fiction, YA, Comics, Mysteries, Fanfiction, Nonfiction. I’ll read anything. 

Teresa Medeiros: Other media property you wish was a romance novel

Idk what this means?   

Laura Lee Guhrke: Last romance novel you DNFed

I think it was Elizabeth Kingston’s A Fallen Lady? Which was actually a GOOD book and I skipped ahead to scenes I really wanted to see and those scenes made me cry but also... there was not much about the romance itself that I was really interested in. I loved the heroine to death though. 

Cat Sebastian: Alpha, Gamma, or Beta heroes?

Depends on how they are written, but I confess an Alpha is so easily made into an irredeemable dipshit.  

Jeannie Lin: Ideal hero and heroine archetypes

Family-minded hero stressed out about taking care of his family. Independent, business minded heroine. 

Helen Hoang: Sexually experienced or inexperienced heroines? & Lucy Monroe: Sexually experienced or inexperienced heroes?

Experienced heroines and inexperienced heroes. Play against the type!

Lorraine Heath: When you choose a book do you look for tropes, plots or authors?

Authors, then Tropes. I barely pay attention to plots. 

C.D. Reiss: Puns in titles: 👍 or 👎?

YES. I have picked up books purely because of punny titles. 

Emily Bronte: Favourite cover designs/illustrations & Maya Banks: Least favourite cover design 

I suck a remembering covers so this question is going to get skipped~

Penny Jordan: What would you like to see more of in romance novels?

Diversity and cliche subversions. 

Lauren Blakey: What would you like to see less of in romance novels?

Overplayed cliches played in the same way again and again. Relationships based entirely on sex. 

Betty Neels: What do you think are the high and low points of the genre?

Highs: Romancelandia is probably the most intelligent and nuanced fandom I have ever been a part of and I have been a part of many fandoms. The genre is very, very diverse and there are so many experiments going on in the fringes. Questions and stories about the emotional components of relationships can never get old because there are too many permutations to explore in a few lifetimes.  

Lows: The core of the romance novel industry is still trying desperately to hold on to tropes and themes of older days, many of which are regressive. 

Jill Shalvis: Finish this sentence: “Romance novels are__________”

complex social commentaries. 

❝ “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore. ❞

KANISHK WELLESLEY-MITTAL is a TWENTY-ONE year old MATERIALS SCIENCE student at TRINITY COLLEGE in the University of Oxford. HE is in his FOURTH YEAR of studies.

DESCRIPTION

You were born into gold. Your cot was lined with gold, and it is with gold that the shroud that will one day deliver you back to the Earth has already been woven. It is not gold that impresses you, but human hands, complex minds that shape senseless metallic lumps into intricate art. Gold is earthly and temporary, and you are carelessly derelict to the duties that by birth are assigned to you. Instead you gaze upon the sun, you gaze upon the stars, and behind all that exists is a question, a history, a mystery—and it is your destiny to deliver answers. Yet you only answer questions that others do not ask, and you perceive signs where others see nothing. This commitment to destiny has made you eccentric, myopic and superstitious in the eyes of others.

Two paths had lain in front of you: one carved for you by privilege, the other by merit. If there are those who strive to merge these two paths into one, but you are of the belief that they are innately irreconcilable. The other path innately requires agreement that bloodline and dynasty are the highest qualities one can hold, and the quest of knowledge has long been burdened by those who seek only connections and titles. Those who, in their entitlement, deprive others more deserving of opportunities, who contribute minimally in the effort they extend into the philosophy. You think yourself the greatest prosecutor of this rhetoric of reunification and you do not hesitate to make your disagreements known; it is poison and you will burn it at its roots.

CONNECTIONS

You, CAESAR, and JUSTINIAN were given the same choice between the two paths. CAESAR chose wealth and power over knowledge, and you did not fault him for it, but it didn’t mean you had to tolerate him either. His rhetorics of reunification disgusted you, and JUSTINIAN’s agreement provoked you to disgust someone who was once a peer. To your chagrin, the death of CAESAR has not killed his ideas. It is up to you, then, to commit this final murder of CAESAR.

The members of Sodalitas are little more than decorated shells, glimmering façades with little substance. MESSALINA seems to you the worst offender of them all. You have crossed numerous paths with them, your family inhabits the same social circles, and yet you do not know them well and you have no desire to know them further. They seem shallow to you, insubstantial. Maybe if you got to know them, you would change your mind, but for now they are the prime example to you as to why the two societies ought never to reunite.

There is no one who embodies all that Pandidakterion stands for as much as IRENE. Except sometimes you wonder if they do not take the ideology a little too radically. They purport that all of humanity has equal right to knowledge—that it must not be kept to a chosen few, whether these few are qualified by merit or bloodline. In truth, the world is unprepared for this knowledge, would not know what to do with it, would view those who partake in it with nothing but disgust. You keep a close eye on her, just in case.

FACECLAIM: Avan Jogia

This character’s tag can be found here.

BIOGRAPHY

One shoulder bore the weight of his mother’s legacy—the illustrious Lady Elizabeth Wellesley, a daughter of the notable Duke of Wellington and a Princess of Prussia, descended from Kaiser Wilhelm II, and, in turn, Queen Victoria. The other shoulder bore the weight of his father’s—not any more lacking in grandeur, Ashok Mittal, the heir of one of the wealthiest families in the United Kingdom, the son of the King of Steel, now a magnate in his own right, driving the chariot in his hands, president of the world’s largest steel manufacturing company. The weight pinned him down to the Earth and duty drew lashes on his skin as he fell to his knees. The paths that lay in front of him have always been illusions of freedom; interweaving paths that crawled to the same destination, and really, what use was resistance? What use was struggle?

And so he followed this path passively: he allowed his mother to shape him, to enter him into Eton and mold him as young men of his birth ought to be molded. She had no titles and neither would he inherit any, and so he would never stand among the House of Lords, but he could stand still with the House of Commons, could rise even to Prime Minister, she posited day through to night. His father, meanwhile, cajoled him towards a different direction. He honed and sharpened what he deemed to be acumen for business, a ruthlessness, an instinct for blood and power, the necessary skills to one day succeed him.

Kanishk took to business as he did politics—that is, he performed pallidly, limply, and disappointed his parents in every turn. He barely bothered to mingle with his peers in Eton, instead burying his nose in books of history and myth, fascinated by the rituals of old, twisted his tongue in Latin and Greek in order to invoke a muse before a daunting task, in order to submerge himself in Homer’s wine dark sea and kiln-fired earth. He cared little for spending time with the social circles of his mother, caring more for the time of the night when the Bengali woman tasked to care for him would recount him the epics of the old, the tales of the avatars as they appeared on Earth, and with her he contemplated the boundless universe as it existed all at once. In his trips with his father, he cared little for the sleek skyscrapers and the men in lush suits, instead begging for more time at the steel mills, to gaze upon the glowing orange of the forge, his shy exterior exploding into wondrous enthusiasm when it came time to ask the scientists questions.

Even as a worthier contender arose—his darling sister, Visakha, who untrained and unshaped had desired so deeply that which he cared so little for, displaying with great potency a proficiency and an affinity for the skills required to navigate both business and politics, the very same skills that Kanishk so weakly attempted to emulate out of obligation—it was he who they hailed their prince, he who they still expect to one day take the reins. It strains on their relations, but there is no other who understands Kanishk as well as Visakha, no other who he trusts or admires as ardently, and if there comes to be power in his hands, then the only good use for it would be to pave the path to allow Visakha to claim the empire that she deserves. What was once disinterest curled sourly into disdain. He grew to despise this same system which privileged him but denied his sister. Shyness and deference blossomed into anger, into passion in every pursuit.

Oxford was an easy choice for him. His study of Materials Science was acceptable to his parents, still under the spell that it might be to understand their industry better, still priming to take the position from his father one day—and they could believe what they wished to believe, but Kanishk studied materials science because the scientists at the mills had filled him with an insatiable curiosity, and together with his interest in an ancient world long gone he had found his niche in Trinity College, where there were tutors present who expressly dealt in this intersection of ancient materials. To the world outside it still seemed as though he was traveling these paths that led to one destination, but Kanishk knew now that he wanted nothing more than a life in pursuit of answers, of knowledge, a life submerged in the academic where since childhood he had exceeded, even stood out—affirmed when, one day, he was approached with an offer. His mother had told him of Sodalitas, even if in vague whispers. She was a member herself. He had received an offer, and this he met with disinterest. It was the invitation from Pandidakterion that filled him with glee, and with Pandidakterion he discovered a home unlike any other. Others to share this passion with, a society so deeply embedded into history itself.

Why Consider Astrology Now?

Astrology Transits is the method of determining the character as well as future of a person through the alignment of the celebrities as well as planets. Astrology does not function and also can not anticipate future occasions or characters. The Eastern astrology is occasion oriented, they will certainly inform you what took place in the past and also what will certainly take place in the future with much grater precision. One of the most widespread application of horoscopic astrology is to utilize it to examine the birth charts of individuals in order to read character, emotional attributes, as well as to some extent fate.

Arab era astrology is the immediate forefather of the Western astrology these days. Our astrology might be in truth the follower to that 3rd stream of ancient astrologies. Created by the Greeks and based upon a few of the basic concepts established in Babylon, this sort of astrology is additionally referred to as 'judicial' or 'genethlialic'. This is the kind of astrology that most of us recognize with today, whether we are followers or doubters. The concern of why people count on astrology is much more fascinating than the details of the horoscope. Psycho therapists have actually revealed that clients are satisfied with astrological predictions as long as the treatments are embellished in some instead unclear way.

Astrology is best comprehended by discovering how it started. Transits Astrology is certainly the oldest and at the same time currently the most preferred of all pseudosciences. Astrology is additionally used to strengthen understanding of our own nature. This emotional technique has actually expanded considerably in the past thirty years as an increasing number of astrologists create their therapy skills. Astrology is Magical Assuming, which has offered us creationism and also most kinds of natural medicine. It's at odds with clinical reasoning and also it places the expert squarely against the practice of The Enlightenment.

Astrology is pseudoscience since individuals generally count on it for illegitimate factors. He provides no instances here. Astrology is, put simply, the study of the connection between the astronomical positions of the earths and also occasions in the world. Astrologists believe that the placements of the Sun, Moon, as well as worlds at the time of an individual's birth have a straight influence on that individual's character. Astrology is a terrific mix of science, art and craft. The most effective part of it is that no matter how much one discovers he can never welcome all its expertise.

The idea in astrology is that the placements of particular celestial objects either impact or associate with an individuals personality type. In the past, those researching Astrology made use of observation of celestial objects and the charting of their motions. Prior knowledge of astrology is not required. The four degrees of research consist of all needed astrological understanding from the extremely beginning to having your own, effective practice. Astrology is so called because it ariseth from the stars; as Theology is so called since it flows from God. To live astrologically is, with a pleasing concupiscence, to consume of the Tree of the understanding of excellent and also evil, as well as to bring fatality to himself.

A detailed bibliography of astrology is beyond the extent of this Frequently Asked Question, however some books have been included. The interested reader is advised to check out a well equipped book shop. However, because the paradises were never intended for these purposes, astrology is a hazardous as well as wrongful method. Stars were developed for schedule keeping and for proclaiming God?s magnificence. The lessons right here are for everyone that wants to learn just how astrology is done as well as exactly how to do astrology. They are especially for doubters due to the fact that scientific research needs that expertise of a subject must come prior to evaluation.

For if astronomy is the research study of the movements of the celestial bodies, after that astrology is the research of the impacts of those motions. The astronomers of the ancient world presumed a division of deep space whereby the superior, unalterable bodies of the holy worlds subjugated the terrestrial or sublunary round, where all was death as well as adjustment. But astrology is no longer about simply enjoy and money. Astrology answers lots of other questions. Vocational Astrology is the art of helping others in helping them find what they are called to do.

The practitioner of Shamanic Astrology is trained in the alone eye understanding and also experience of the night sky, and also the spiritual rhythms, cycles as well as activities of the universes. Astrology is also an art-form-- one that offers itself to quick sketches and complex pictures of people, pairs, firms, nations as well as more. Astrology can likewise clearly have spiritual and religious touches as confirmed by studies of old Egypt. Astrology is unscientific as a result of the truth of the precession or the shifting of constellations. The very early astronomers were not aware of precession as well as for that reason fell short to take it into account in their system.

Though enjoyable, Sunlight indicator astrology is a rather surface, and also marginally valuable application of a complex and ancient science that goes back countless years. Discover just how astrology can be made use of to educate your choices as well as enhance your own knowledge. Astrology is the ancient practice as well as research of the celebrities as well as planets. Its background goes back to Babylonian times. Astrology is such a design.

Wholistic Astrology is a means of analyzing a horoscope to ensure that all aspects are thought about. We can see tendencies in external areas such are career, financing as well as social requirements. This is why astrology is described as the "Science of Indications". Without an effort to overcome the energy of any kind of offered pressure or thrust of activity, the indications suggest what will most likely be, as well as in any event, astrology discloses the timing of fads and also specific influences. Today, some astrology exists by doing this, however this is not true "conventional astrology". Did you know that Astrology was taken into consideration science in guy's early history?

Astrology is not some ridiculous old point, a superstitious notion or pseudo-science, but a genuine scientific research of human experience. Its icons leave room for the inconsistencies of human actions, that which can never ever be minimized to basic and outright solutions. Perhaps the hostility exists due to the fact that astrology is still a living technique, an actual competitor for preferred respect and also patronage. I hope that the typical hostility may be dying amongst historians and social researchers which a real understanding of this significant technique as well as belief. It does not indicate that astrology is accurate in predicting human behavior or events to a degree dramatically greater than plain opportunity. There are numerous satisfied clients that think that their horoscope precisely explains them which their astrologer has provided great suggestions.

Astrology is safe, it is a home entertainment. Whatever its previous magnificences, it seems now a five-and-dime glance of the cosmos. Astrology is maybe the most ancient topic as well as additionally in a manner one of the most overlooked. It is one of the most ancient due to the fact that astrology has actually remained in presence as far back as we have had the ability to examine the history of humanity. Rather, they such as to offer anecdotal proof-- tales people tell about exactly how exact they think astrology is. Unscientific evidence is not acceptable in an actual scientific research because it's as well very easy to exclude all the negative experiences people have, and also individuals not great at remembering as well as accurately reporting experiences.

Astrology is based on birth graphes for a person. The placement of the Sunlight, Moon and worlds is outlined on the zodiac at the moment of birth. Additionally, astrology is not a quick study. Reactionaries used to state it takes a trainee one transit of Saturn, concerning three decades, to become competent. Vedic Astrology belongs to an alternative, integrated expertise system as well as its results can be strengthened by interoperating with its "sis" sciences. The Vedic Astrology system is kind because not just is a person told what might take place, but they exist a listing of prospective solutions or rehabilitative activities to counter the amount and top quality of fates that are returning to them, as seen in the birth chart.

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