#hes involved in A Lot of my stories because of how much depth he has and i have a bunch of stuff planned about him and carla and my khan ocs
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Hey guys! I actually spent long minutes staring at these reblogs and debating whether it was worth responding and talking about or not. But as I'm not the type to take hate and keep quiet, I decided to talk about it.
First of all, Reia, you really seem like a person who doesn't read many fanfics for the way you put it in your text, so I'll explain the meaning of the word. Fanfic, short for "fan fiction", is a story written by a fan based on characters, universes, or real people (like the triplets). Fans create their own narratives, expanding or reimagining everything, creating their own version, which in real life does not exist OR, as writers, we often draw inspiration from real-life events too.
And yes, you and Evangeline are trying to be "fanfic police" and even "sturniolo police", if you scroll through the thousands of Sturniolo Triplets fanfics, you will come across A LOT where Matt, Nick or Chris go through situations of anxiety attack, panic attack, OR where the "reader" herself goes through this, sometimes even involving situations way worse than that. Furthermore, there's thousands of fanfics describing explicit sex scenes with them, the famous smuts, does that bother you too? Because in the world of someone who writes a FANFIC in here, it doesn't.
And yes, I was indeed writing about the meet and greet situation, and this was nothing new to ANYONE in the fandom WHO READS THE FANFICS HERE. I even made a post the day before ASKING who would like to read the idea, and you want to know the news? All 200 people who voted wanted it.
I understand that you feel this story is disrespectful FOR YOU, especially because it touches on a real-life situation that may be sensitive or painful for some people. I want to assure you that it was never my intention to cause harm or disrespect anyone involved in that situation.
I myself am diagnosed with chronic anxiety, and even so, I didn't feel affected by the way I wrote. In fact, I described how I feel during MY anxiety attacks.
In no way did I make fun of the situation Matt went through, in fact, my intention in writing this story was to explore Matt's complexity and show how he deals with real problems, such as anxiety. It was a way to give more depth to his situation during the tour and highlight the importance of the emotional support he receives from "Y/N". It was not my intention to mock him, but rather to explore his humanity and the challenges he faced, and I know with all the certainty in the world that I did not mock him, much less affect the people who read the story.
Please, I ask you to reevaluate the need to throw hate at a person who has nothing to do with your outside the box opinions of what WRITERS ON THE STURNIOLO'S TUMBLR should or shouldn't write about.
There are thousands of posts on Instagram and TikTok from "fans" really mocking Matt and throwing hate at him about "their bad experiences" during one of the shows, these are the people you should be giving a piece of your mind to, not me. 🩷
#chris sturniolo#matt sturniolo#nick sturniolo#sturniolo triplets#sturniolo x reader#matt sturniolo x reader#vante thoughts
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ive just said it but i’m reiterating, the biggest hang up with boone for me is the fact that he quite literally wants to die heroically defending a refugee camp to absolve himself of his crimes. a refugee camp, mind you, that is using the homes and beds and abadoned supplies of the people HE had a hand in massacring and displacing. he doesnt want to submit himself to the khans law and risk suffering a brutal death at the hands of some nasty raiders
#like i said. i really like boone as a character. but i cant stand him at the same time#hes involved in A Lot of my stories because of how much depth he has and i have a bunch of stuff planned about him and carla and my khan ocs#but i feel that my interpretation of him is a lot more brutal than people would like so i dont really publish those ones#Friendly Fire is the closest i got lol#txt
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I love your Stephanie Brown post. It verbalized this feeling I've had about her character for awhile but didn't quite know how to phrase.
Just wanted to thank you for that!
ah thank you <3
yea to me, the super frustrating thing is that dixon's sexism gives her flaws that i find super narratively compelling and interesting and 3-dimensional and overall strong in a way that other writers somewhat miss the mark for me (i actually have a lot of criticisms about bg2009 and how bqm wrote her--overall i find it a very surface level girl power story veneered over pretty standard 2009 era sexism wrt the dynamics between women that has not aged super well and doesn't do much for actually giving steph interesting depth as a character & i find it's weakened by the fact that it is a doylist apology for the absolutely horrific way editorial treated steph prior to her death (which. she does deserve an apology and to be treated better), but also by doing that it makes almost every other character such as babs seem unreasonable and bad for their very understandable watsonian response to being wary of steph for many valid reasons and also makes it hard to actually give steph any flaws that aren't just quirky or clumsy--she's not perfect because she's adorkable). dixon steph has so many problems, being written by dixon, but she's truly my favorite flavor of steph because despite how horrid dixon is, you can absolutely tell how much he truly cared about her as a character. like. i bet if you asked him, he would have nothing but positive things to say about her personality and other characteristics. in fact, i believe a lot of the letters to the editor that talked about her back in the early robin issues had a lot of super positive things to say about her! like he created her! she's his blorbo! he wants to put her through the struggles!
like so many of her struggles when he's writing her is so much due to his sexism (she's never quite as competent as tim, and shouldn't be because she's The Girlfriend--compare to characters like babs and dinah and helena that were women but also written as extremely competent and good at what they do) and also because he wanted to put her through the wars, give her adversity to overcome! like steph is treated horribly a lot. by everyone. but it's partially because he wants her to perservere through it because he likes her and wants her to succeed. like a couple of very common threads through dixon's storytelling for her are the following:
tim is condescending (because that's how boys and girls are. see also: every 90s tv show that had a beleaguered sensible man with a nagging, over the top, ridiculous woman who does silly things that the man Puts Up With) -> steph gets mad -> tim thinks to himself that he shouldn't be so hard on her and usually apologizes -> well, actually tim was probably right because steph did get into trouble but steph making constant mistakes isn't actually narratively seen as "hey, maybe she should stop if she's making mistakes" because dixon wants her to continue.
or
more experienced vigilante (male or female--tim gets a lot of flack, but honestly, almost every single vigilante in batbooks at the time seemed to think steph wasn't quite good enough--batman, dick had his reservations about her, barbara didn't really necessarily want to train her, *cass* straight up told her she shouldn't be doing this, dinah didn't want to be her mentor, etc) tells steph not to screw up -> steph screws up -> steph has to get bailed out by more experienced vigilante -> steph keeps trying despite this
like so many of her diary entries that steph writes involve some flavor of "i've been told not to do this, but i have to, it's something i need to do despite all the naysayers". and it's sexist! because chuck wouldn't necessarily write the 'screw up and overconfident which usually leads to needing to be bailed out but keeps trying anyways' kind of a narrative for a male lead character (male characters get the 'i'm super competent but insecure/humble about it and when i make mistakes i'm able to figure out how to fix them by myself' narrative). but at the same time, it's what he truly believed for her--that she deserved to keep going despite any naysayers. if he truly believed that steph shouldn't be a vigilante or thought poorly of her, she would have been written out and/or he would have written her as making a mistake so bad she wouldn't have continued her activities as spoiler and finally agreed with everyone that she's not cut out for this. but he didn't. dixon writes her as not as competent as her peers because he has a worldview where girls are lesser and not capable of being as good as the boys. but he writes her with dogged determination to keep trying despite this because dixon truly thinks she deserves to keep going despite any mistakes he writes her making and that her perseverance should be rewarded.
like consider the arc where steph finds out tim's identity. dixon makes steph seem unreasonable for daring to change her mind and realize that yea, she does want to know the boy under the mask she's dating after all (because dixon thinks that girls are fickle and change their minds and boys shouldn't have to put up with that kind of nonsense behavior, not because this is a super valid thing to want) -> he has her go beat up an innocent boy named tito and stalk him in the hospital (because dixon is a sexist who things girls are just like this) -> tim does rightfully get mad about this and leaves in a huff -> batman tells steph tim's identity and she gets what she wanted?? -> tim is mad at her and batman until JLL when this is all swept under the rug and they go back to happily dating again + at this point everyone is open to training her/finally giving her a chance (until murderer/fugitive when she gets locked out again--which also leads into the era where dixon is no longer writing her--and after this is when we really get a lot of the really iconic unfair treatment towards her because at this point didio wanted her gone). and it creates this absolute interesting dissonance where you can see the overt sexism in dixon's writing and it's infuriating. and at the same time dixon also rewards her for the sexist way he writes her and she does generally get what she wants because dixon wants to give her the reward for her perseverance.
hell, consider the pregnancy storyline which is beyond overtly sexist and conservative but is probably the part where steph is most treated the best/in the right. tim and her mom are shown as in the wrong compared to her "correct" decision to keep the baby and they have to come around to support her. not just that, but for her to be given a teen pregnancy storyline in the 90s and not be shown as a Bad Girl for getting pregnant as a teen? dixon hates women and yet to him steph is a good girl who makes a mistake (something something he'll judge others, but when it comes to his daughter that's a different case. exceptions apply.) and she gets an ultimately supportive good boy boyfriend who helps her go to birthing class despite the fact that i'm sure dixon looks down on unwed teen mothers a lot.
it's just. i want to study it under a microscope. there's so much to unpack there.
#anyways apologies for the super long answer#i am just fascinated by dixon's treatment of her#it's sexism! but he does it because he wants to give her something to overcome! but it's definitely sexist!#scintilly ask tag#annah-kitathryne
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What Tai Sui is and Why Everyone Should Read It
So if you follow me, over the past couple weeks, you've probably noticed me obsessively screenshotting and posting about a book called Tai Sui. And now that I've finished it, I'd like to try and convince y'all to give it a chance.
What Is Tai Sui?
Tai Sui is a chinese web novel—a relatively unpopular work by the very popular author Priest (author of Guardian and Sha Po Lang, among others). Unlike a lot of the most popular web novels on tumblr, it's not a danmei. It's in fact rather important to the plot and themes that there is almost entirely no romance, but I promise you, it is absolutely worth it regardless.
What is Tai Sui About?
Tai Sui is a steampunk xianxia cultivation story. For those unfamiliar with xianxia and cultivation, this is a particular genre of Chinese historical fantasy.
The official summary of Tai Sui reads as follows:
“If I had a choice, I would only want to be a little insect in the mundane dust, born in confusion, dying in mediocrity, never seeing the light of day beneath the fog of Jinping City.
Better than taking this wrong road to heaven.”
You may have noticed that this summary is not in fact really a summary. It gives you a glimpse into the story's themes, mood, and destination, but it doesn't exactly tell you what happens in it.
That's because Tai Sui is one of those works that's incredibly hard to summarize. The story is incredibly wide in scope and changes massively over its course, to the point that any summary that encapsulates the whole thing is going to feel like a spoiler. However, I can try my best to add a little detail without giving too much away.
Tai Sui is the story of Xi Ping—an obnoxious, trouble-making rich boy with no interest in cultivation—who gets unwittingly involved in a plot to resurrect the "evil god" Tai Sui. This plot pulls him into the cultivation world against his will and, over time, threatens to rewrite everything he is.
Tai Sui is the end of immortality.
Why Should You Read Tai Sui?
Tai Sui is one of the most compelling stories I have ever read. It is a love letter to the power and promise of the whole world and its many mundane people. It also has some of the best worldbuilding I have ever seen.
Tai Sui is written in omniscient perspective, and though Xi Ping is very much the main character, as the story progresses, we spend more and more time alongside characters that aren't him. By the time the novel ends, his entire continent is at stake, and we the audience know that continent and its troubles inside and out from countless angles. Everyone from the immortal demigods of the cultivation world to the most wretched, miserable paupers is given a grand sense of emphasis.
Tai Sui is a deconstruction of the cultivation genre. It establishes a magic/cultivation system and its history, lets the main character live in that system for a while, and then dives deep into that system's depths. It looks at the cultivation genre, at the idea of people who leave behind their status as mortals for greater things, and asks "How does this really work?" and "Is this how the world should be?"
Tai Sui is the story of countless people who were never supposed to be powerful coming together to make the world a better place. It's well written (and very well translated), exciting, heartbreaking, and incredibly beautiful. It's also funny as hell.
I cannot recommend this story enough.
Warnings/Caveats
As I said before, Tai Sui is a deconstruction of the cultivation genre. If you're unfamiliar with this genre, while the book is certainly readable, you are going to be thrown head first into the deep end with the tropes and terminology at play. It's absolutely worth the learning curve, but it will be kind of a lot. Maybe do some light googling about what a cultivator is before you pick it up. (Or just ask a fan. I think most of us would happily explain anything that would win a new reader).
There are portrayals of people/cultures in Tai Sui that are heavily inspired by minority cultures in real-world China, and some of these portrayals play into pretty harmful stereotypes. It's not SPL "Barbarian" or TGCF Banyue levels of racist, but it's something to be aware of and careful about. I'd really recommend reading from the perspectives of those from the cultures in question (including but not limited to the post I linked) for more about the issues I'm talking about.
Tai Sui's English translation is 930,000 words long. I believe this is a strength, since its length is what allows it such an incredible scope. It is also a fucking daunting commitment, and I acknowledge that.
Finally, while Tai Sui doesn't need too many trigger warnings, it does contain some pretty viscerally upsetting depictions of inequality and mistreatment, as well as a few instances of violence toward children. You can't uplift without first seeing what the people need uplifting from, and hooboy. They need it.
There's also some scenes that are technically rather violent, but the goriness is not presented as gore, if that makes sense. It never feels intensely or overly violent in the way some fantasy novels do.
Links
If all my gushing and propagandizing has convinced you to give it a try, you can find the original Chinese version (where you can buy chapters to support the author) on JJWXC.
The complete English translation is free on the website of E. Danglars, who does a truly incredible job with the translating.
Happy reading :).
#my desperate shot at propagandizing now that my followers have sat through months of on and off obsessive tai sui posting#besties it is genuinely so good#it made me cry. and that is a fcking feat.#tai sui#priest#cnovel#webnovel#long post#I'm not putting a readmore on this bc I want to force y'all to look at it#sorry#book rec#invasion of the frogs
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I love your headcanons!
Why do you think Tommy has a difficult relationship with sex and how does that show?
Also do you have any more ideas about the emergency contact one? Like the first time they get a call from the hospital...
Yessss thank you so much for asking about those headcanons! I’ve been wanting to talk about these.
I actually just got another ask about the emergency contact and I’m going to go super in depth for that, so stay tuned!
But why do I think Tommy has a difficult relationship with sex? I’m so, so glad you asked. This is one of my biggest headcanons.
However! Please read with caution. TW: for a form of self h*rm involving sex, self hatred, and internalized homophobia.
Tommy was extremely closeted for most of his life. When he was at the 118, he couldn’t even accept himself. But at some point, he stopped being able to ignore it. For me, this might be when he realized he liked Sal (see my other post).
Now for some people, exploring your sexuality includes a *ahem* wild phase. To me, Tommy had two parts of this phase. The first one was…not great.
Tommy was a self loathing closeted man. He hated himself for being gay. He wanted to be “normal”. So when he stopped being able to ignore it, he thought he could “get it out of his system”. So he went to bars outside of LA (he wasn’t risking bumping into anyone he knew) and hooked up with any man who showed interest. He wasn’t picky. He was just more focused on getting out of this “phase”.
So he hooked up with a lot of men. And he didn’t care about himself at all. In fact, he out right hated himself every time. So it devolved. If something didn’t feel good, Tommy leaned into it because he saw it as punishment. He used sex to punish himself and to hurt himself.
I’m not quite sure about how he pulled himself out of it, but we’ll go with this. My idea is that he had a sexual partner who caught onto what was going on, that Tommy secretly hated something happening but refused to stop on his own. The partner shut down the event and when he called out, gently, Tommy on what was happening, Tommy broke down. The partner held him and listened to his garbled story and talked him through it. Instead of the hookup, they spent that night just talking, with the partner trying to get Tommy to see what was happening and get him out of the slump.
And it didn’t fix it. Tommy continued this pattern for a couple more hookups, but he started to get discontented and uncomfortable. Around this time maybe, the 118 got Bobby Nash and the dynamic started changing. Sal was gone and working with Hen, an openly queer firefighter, started to shift how he looked at himself.
So Tommy stopped the hookups and started working on himself. He couldn’t quite face himself still, but he worked on liking himself outside of his sexuality. He started laying down boundaries when he hooked up. And then he left the 118 and started therapy. He was ready to start over. He was tired of the pain and the self hate and the cycle he’d been stuck in for so long. He wanted what he’d seen others have. He saw Hen with her wife and he wanted a bond like that and he knew it could never be with a woman.
Skip forward all this time and he’s learned to be gentle with himself. He finally loves himself. He has embraced his sexuality. Maybe he’s still friendly with that past partner or maybe they never spoke again, idk. He’s had some relationships but nothing’s really stuck. Then he meets Evan Buckley.
He meets Evan Buckley and he feels the sun for the first time. And Evan is still figuring himself out and Tommy not only really likes him, but also wants to make sure Evan doesn’t make the same mistakes he did.
Does that answer the question? Let me sum it up.
Tommy used sex to punish himself and those were his first real experiences with guys. So even now, in healthier relationships and with better mindsets, he doesn’t do the hookup game anymore and is very shy of having sex too soon. He doesn’t have sex without knowing and trusting the person.
Y’all I have no idea if this made sense, but this is literally the premise of a story in my brain.
#911 abc#9-1-1#911 show#tommy kinard#911 season 7#lou ferrigno jr#bucktommy#evan buckley#911 spoilers#tk6 answers#tk6 muses#911 meta#tw: mental health#tw: self loathing#tw: self destruction#read the tws
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1. Why do you like or dislike this character? - Percy and/or Keyleth?
I like both of them, so:
I like Percy for the surface reasons of intelligence and witty comebacks and the general Taliesin Jaffe Arrogant Guy Is Confidently Wrong About Many Things reasons, but more specifically I like how incredibly aware he is of social structures and doesn't dismiss them as stupid or fake or meaningless just because he is aware how much artifice is involved. I love how much he validates Vex in this, as someone who's been on the other side of that social divide most of her life and who knows she "shouldn't" care but does, deeply. It would be so easy for him to say "look, titles are stupid and fake, I should know, I have one," but instead he says "no, I see what this means to you, because yes it's all an accident of birth and yes it is kind of stupid and fake, but it's also the reason why you lived rough for your teens and early 20s, and you are not silly for wanting this security." I also think he's a great exploration of guilt and of someone who has a lot of complicated feelings from the gods but does value their counsel; we don't get a lot of characters with that sort of nuance. His scene with the Raven Queen remains a standout for me and for all he can be melodramatic and obnoxious at times, he is also like 25, traumatized, and should be at the club. I think the question he answers (why would someone invent the gun) is an interesting one, and I think the way that his story ends up with the obvious inevitable happening and yet he still finds happiness is unexpected and wonderful to see.
I like Keyleth for a lot of reasons people will probably be annoyed about, which is...she is annoying. Annoying women: may we know them, may we be them, and may we raise them. Anyway, I think her terror of doing the wrong thing at the cost of doing anything sets up a fantastic arc for someone who is expected to become a leader. I admire how she knows she's not the most eloquent and is scared of her responsibilities but does not back down from speaking up when she disagrees with the party. I like how she's perhaps the only example of lifespan angst that is actually portrayed as making a lot of sense, especially since she is also extremely young (probably shouldn't be at the club given the bar crawling results. She should be at ZooLights and have like, one cider.) I think in general her fears are incredibly real and make sense for the character and shape her, and that's not something you see portrayed with this amount of depth very often. I stuck with the VM-era portrayal of Percy but I will say I especially love how Keyleth is portrayed in Campaign 3, because Percy hasn't changed a ton in adulthood, merely mellowed out a little, but Keyleth very much has as she's grown in confidence, as she was only at the beginning of that during the Campaign. I think her relationship with Vax is incredibly good for both of them; her sense of belonging to a place and his ability to support. I do like that she gets angry, especially after so much time being insecure, but I feel much has been made of her anger and I don't have a ton to add there, and also while I like that she is angry and expresses it, there are other characters I gravitate to for that specifically. Also I have incredible respect for her having to take on a much bigger magical burden than expected; I have said this before but my longest-running character was in a campaign where the player playing sorcerer switched to ranger, and the cleric left, leaving me as the only full caster and primary healer (though thankfully we got a baller paladin shortly after). The fact that Keyleth had to, and could, be whatever the party needed mechanically was a godsend. I know VM died a lot but they would have died like 20 times more without her and Scanlan and especially without her.
#answered#essayofthoughts#cr tag#*bad percy fan voice* i don't actually care about his mechanics very much. i mean big damage is fun and i love an action surge#but i have never been able to give a damn about dps
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100 Epitaphs thoughts!
Alright, so like I said yesterday, I unfortunately did NOT have the time to write out all my thoughts and had to wait until tonight to do so. No particular order to these, it's word vomit time.
(warning: this is LONG. it's not even all my thoughts. i cut myself off at parts. this song is so good guys.)
1) YURA AS THE SUN!
I'VE BEEN FUCKING SAYING AND IT KEEPS BEING THERE AND I KEEP GOING INSANE ABOUT IT. especially in conjunction with the fact that, yknow, the sun hurts sanya. the icarus symbology is THERE it is PRESENT i KNOW this is gonna down that awfully (sanya please dont die. but also that would be the perfect resolution. GOD) and i'm so ready for it.
ALSO: "ready to be blinded by the breaking day" -> "the visionless (sergei) leading the blind (sanya)", and we know she's got bad eyesight. doesn't mean it couldn't get worse. the lines "loose compromise / where the sun won't set / as long as i can set the stage" are also interesting wrt yura-as-the-sun, as you can take it both as sanya saying that as long as she has any kind of control she will stick with yura and help him in whatever insane plan he's got going on, but it's also her saying that she will always, always make the choice to put herself in danger.
yura is the bright relentless sun, and sanya's got very sensitive wings.
2) the parallels between sergei and sanya!!!!
i think what really fucks me up about them is that, at their core, both of them just want to keep the people they care about the most safe. for sergei, that's sanya (and olga, but she's a grown woman who makes her own decisions while sanya's his little sister and also his only remaining family, so it's different), and for sanya it's yura (who, to her, represents freedom—"but the wiser you is [FREE]"—and an escape from her current life, which is everything she dreams of.) and it absolutely ruins their relationship!!!! and it ruins me!! every time!!!!
and on that note, "the tepid autumn day is starting to thaw" is 1. a genius a callback ("a thousand years ago it was a tepid autumn day" + "a day will come warm and bright when i tear down these dismal shelter walls"), and 2. a signifier that shit is about to Get Real. even if you don't read the explanation in the doc, we still understand that the action is going to pick up like crazy very soon. i believe someone also mentioned how it could represent sergei and sanya's relationship going downhill, although im not the expert on that so i wont do more than mention it.
3) this was SUCH a good dive into sanya's character.
honestly her songs have consistently been my favorite of the lot and i think it's because her personality and her character are just. perfect for these kinds of character studies.
this entire song is at once her forcibly entering herself into the narrative after being so completely seperate from it for like, the entire series up to now (there were some very good posts by some very skilled people on this exact topic but alas i have lost the links to it, if anyone has them lmk) and ALSO an exploration of her trauma (almost everyone she knows seemingly dying on her or disappearing from her life in another sense) in such a fascinating way.
there is such a depth to all her actions here and the song explains why she clings on to yura as much as she does, and it's because he's (along with sergei, but she resents him for isolating her) all she has left, really! of course, there are the BG gang, but they aren't as involved in the story and sanya doesn't seem to be as close with them as she was with yura. it also gives another dimension to her wanting to join in rescuing KT: this isn't just her wanting to rebel and/or do something with her life (both of those things already being associated with anya & yura respectively) but her having the chance to get someone she cared about back into her life after they were taken from her. of course she'd want that, after a lifetime of losing people.
a bit of an extension to that last point, i think it's also really incredible how ferry manages to portray how complicated sanya's relationship with yura is. i find these two shots in particular ->
<- really interesting, because they are actually really similar! i think it's a great way of showing how sanya is both angry and resentful of some of yura's worst traits and refuses to stand for them, but that they are still at the end of it all friends who have fun together. they're just kids who have no idea what they're getting into! if you look closely at the second one, she's shushing him for being too loud. (hell, i'd be willing to bet that she probably felt similar to how she felt before yura snuck her out to her first party right then.)
her (budding) dynamic with dima is also quite fascinating, and manages to say so much about her, her thoughts about KT, and dima all at once. it's just masterful. her segment with him displays:
the fact that she deeply cares about KT, and wants this to go as perfectly as possible, even going so far as to put herself in more danger than necessary.
her absolute determination to get this done, even though she knows she won't make it out unscathed ("i'm aware no soul can enter / roam its halls / and come out clean")
her feelings about her family and how she perceives herself and the legacy she has been given ("and it's like that / and i'm like that / and i'll always bear this stone")
dima feeling actual empathy after meeting another mutant! poor guy has no idea what's going on. but i think it's a really important step in his character and might even get him to actually open up.
i need to stop with this section before it takes over the whole post.
4) KATA-FUCKING-BASIS! (and eurydice!)
(thank you light for teaching me that word)
not much to say about this one but the descent-into-the-underworld vibes are off the fucking charts! we got death imagery with katya already with THIS:
and so, in a way… whoever makes the trip to the facility? to retrieve katya? the metaphorically dead girl? that's a trip to the underworld, baby! that's katabasis!
and you know who else goes through katabasis to retrieve a girl from the underworld and bring her back out?
that's right!
ORPHEUS!
which. like. we already kind of knew it, but.
this plan isn't gonna work out well, is it.
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Stranger Things: The First Shadow
(My spoiler-filled review and thoughts)
“Nerds, do you copy?”
Buckle up, because this is a long one! I've tried to remember as much as I can from when I saw the play on Dec 5th.
Disclaimer: This is in no way a complete recollection of things that happened. They really packed a LOT into it. This is just what I can personally recall, helped along by other reviews and recollections I’ve found online that sparked my memory.
If you don't want to be spoiled, don't read any further!
Act 1.
After an epic intro scene, where soldiers on a ship at sea get dragged off by demogorgons (more on this later), we’re shown the Stranger Things intro exactly as though we’re watching an episode.
Chapter One: The Girl from Nowhere.
Hawkins, 1959.
It opens with a young Bob Newby on air, talking on his radio show (the founder of Hawkins AV club! <3). We learn that he actually has an adopted sister, Patty Newby. She’s black, so she feels like an outsider (bear in mind it’s the 1950s/60s, so… yeah.) Principle Newby, their father and only remaining parent, is also very religious.
He’s also the pastor (?) at the local church, and often makes Patty go to the church with him. She admits to Bob that she only likes to go to listen in on people’s confessions (some of which are really juicy). She also enjoys the choir there (?) as she likes to sing.
Principal Newby doesn’t like that Bob and Patty read comic books. There’s talk about how some things are discouraged or outright forbidden because they involve sex (gasp!) and morally ambiguous behaviour. Patty in particular is looked down on by her father for acting rebellious. He disapproves of her answering him back.
Instead of praying to God, Patty prays to Wonder Woman.
One of the first sections in the show’s programme is dedicated to the impact of comic books and science fiction on kids in the 1950s:
[This has always been the way with fiction. Whether you are talking about adventure, fantasy or sci-fi, stories set in faraway places reflect the anxieties of the here and now. Just as the children in Stranger Things turn to a fantasy game to help them make imaginative sense of a dangerous world, so we escape to alien landscapes to think about ourselves. As South Africa novelist Lauren Beukes once said, “By imagining the unimaginable, it’s possible to make reality more bearable.”]
[As Patty in Stranger Things: The First Shadow is aware, however, whether male or female, superheroes were almost exclusively white. Unless you happened to get hold of a copy of All-Negro Comics, published in 1947 by Black journalist Orrin Cromwell Evans, Black children would not see themselves represented in popular culture.]
[... in this age of technological advance and political uncertainty, [comic books] provided the thrills, the escapism and the imaginative fuel that audiences, young and old, needed more than ever.”] - Mark Fisher
Next, we’re introduced to Joyce. She’s Joyce Maldonado at this point. She’s half undressed and trying to find her clothes, obviously fooling around with Lonnie Byers, who is already talking down to her in a very casual way, telling her she’ll never amount to anything and that she’ll never leave Hawkins like she dreams of. It was another example of only physical attraction existing between two characters - there’s little to no emotional compatibility there. I sort of had the vibe that the scene was effectively introducing Joyce and Lonnie’s unequal power dynamics as they are in the show moving forwards. Lonnie sits with his legs encasing Joyce as they both sit on a mattress, and she’s visibly vulnerable in her bra, listening to him say these casually demeaning things to her.
Joyce wants to direct the school play, although she’s pretending to Principal Newby that they’re doing Oklahoma. Oklahoma will serve as a smokescreen for the real play she wants to direct: The Dark of the Moon. This has its own page in the programme too:
[From the depths of Scottish folklore to the Broadway stage, the journey of The Dark of the Moon is as shrouded in mystery and intrigue as the contents of the piece itself. Over the course of several hundred years, the story evolved from humble beginnings (The Ballad of Barbara Allen) into something rather darker and more brooding than its simpler folktale roots.]
[In its original versions, it seems to have been an innocent, if tragic, ballad about a young man who dies of unrequited love, only for the grief-stricken object of his affection to follow him to the grave. There, they become a rose and a briar respectively, destined to be intertwined for all eternity.] - The Creel House front door, anyone?
[In 1939, it had somehow become part of the Appalachian mountain lore of the north-eastern USA… [sometimes] with a central theme of divorce rather than death. But perhaps its oddest reincarnation is as a regular feature in the annual school play catalogue across the United States… retitled The Dark of the Moon, the play recasts Barbara Allen as a young maiden desired by a witch boy whose request to be made human is granted on the condition that she is faithful to him for a year. When that condition is tested to destruction, tragedy naturally (or unnaturally) ensues. The play is rich with allegory, including themes as knotty as religious fanaticism, demonic possession and mob psychology, and with its plot of star-crossed lovers meeting across the divide between this world and a mystical parallel one, it’s a kind of Gothic Romeo and Juliet.]
-Michael Davies
In the next few scenes we’re introduced to a whole host of characters as they come into the high school, and eventually gather around for the casting of Joyce’s play:
Ted Wheeler, school jock, Mr Popular. Very much a ‘peaked in high school’ vibe. 🙈
Karen Childress, Ted’s popular cheerleader girlfriend. Ted and Karen are depicted as two teens who can barely keep their hands off each other. They constantly make out. It’s suggested that Karen is only dating him because he’s popular and um… well-endowed.
Walter Henderson (who must be Dustin’s dad) is a total dick. He’s openly racist towards Patty at one point, earning him glares and snappy remarks from both of the Sinclairs who are present at the time. Patty has a horrible nickname at school, “mystery meat”, because of her unknown origins. But it’s clear with Walter's comments that her race also plays a factor in her general ostracisation.
Claudia Yount (Dustin’s Mom). She has a cat called Prancer, and is dating Walter. I thought it was very fan-servicey to include Dustin’s parents at all, because we know canonically that Dustin and his mom only moved to Hawkins when he was 4th Grade. So I guess Claudia and Walter moved away, had Dustin elsewhere, then Claudia came back to Hawkins again with Dustin after Walter had left/divorced her??
Sue and Charles Sinclair. Again, it was a cute Easter Egg to include them, but all the parents of the OG boys being there felt very fan-servicey - especially with them all already being coupled up in high school. It felt too unrealistic and a bit jarring. I’m choosing to take this as they were literally intended as cute little Easter Eggs, and as prime opportunity for comedic relief (e.g. seeing Ted Wheeler as a total player, in total opposition to the Ted we know).
Alan Munson. He’s a little strange and quirky, a lot like Eddie. He has a rock and roll vibe, and sticks out his tongue and does devil horns with his fingers, lol. The others don’t seem to know what to make of him, but there’s no animosity or anything. He’s really funny in all his scenes.
And of course, Jim Hopper Junior. To me, Young Hopper was like… a weird mixture of old Hopper from the show, and Steve! The actor did a great job, but yeah, it was giving Steve more than Hopper in some places (to me, at least). I don't know if this was intentional.
Hopper has some dad issues - his father is the chief of police, and they don’t get on. There’s a whole scene later on in the show where they even have a physical fight in the police station (although this isn’t depicted super seriously, and is actually part of a larger comedic section that involves some of the other cops in the station getting involved for laughs. At the end, Hopper and his dad sort of come to an agreement.) It’s kind of slapstick. They’re all falling over each other, and there’s even a part where one male cop falls against another face forward onto a desk, and it’s pretty suggestive (one is sort of mounted behind the other). Idk if this was supposed to be a standard ‘gay joke’ just for lols, or if it was more that the cops had an unexpected ‘moment’ together (they take a while to part from each other, and then they avoid each other’s eyes, so… idk). Just something I noticed happening off to the side.
Anyway, back to Act 1. We’re taken away from Hawkins High to outside the Creel house, and introduced to the Creels moving into Hawkins, just like they appear in the show’s flashbacks. They’ve moved from Nevada, and the reason they’ve moved is because something had happened with Henry, and this is meant to be a new start - it’s left ambiguous as to what exactly happened, but there’s mention of a kid that had been ‘left in a wheelchair’.
At first, Virginia Creel seems somewhat loving towards her son, hugging and kissing him and trying to act ‘normal’, but she’s clearly unsettled by him. Henry is unpredictable, and almost seems to switch between different personalities: one that’s familiar, shy but friendly, and one that quickly rages and turns violent.
Whilst it’s not explained WHY yet, we clearly see that Henry is somehow ALREADY under the influence of the Mind Flayer - and that he has powers.
Virginia becomes more and more openly terrified of Henry as the play goes on. Meanwhile, Victor Creel is generally absent the whole time as he’s dealing with his own ‘demons’ (severe PTSD from the war). People in Hawkins think he’s odd and weird. Remember that nobody understands PTSD at this point in time.
Again, we get a spread in the programme about this: “These are the tranquilized fifties… the legacy of trauma in post-war America”:
[It is very likely that Corporal Victor Creel, 9th Airforce, missed the birth of his son Henry in 1945… Getting their bodies back to the US would be a huge undertaking… getting their minds home would be another problem, and one which no-one had thought to predict.]
[Victor Creel is a familiar figure to us now: shellshocked, prone to outbursts, turning to alcohol to numb his trauma… what to do with the man who has seen atrocities - who is in himself a living testament to the fact that they exist, that they happen - who, in Victor’s case, may even have committed them himself? The answer was to bury him. Though shellshock was first given its name in the aftermath of the First World War… there was no widespread study of PTSD until after the Vietnam War, even though more than double the amount of American soldiers showed symptoms of PTSD during WW2 than WW1… Those suffering on the front were sedated and told they were exhausted… once they made it home, they were told not to talk about it: that they were lucky to be alive.]
[One response in particular would have been familiar to the Creels - the child who becomes aloof from their father, and who disengages from the emotional life of the family… Much like Jim Hopper and his father, there was often immense love between these children and their fathers, but they had no way to talk about the pain they were feeling.]
-Beth Kelly
Henry is clearly lonely and feels misunderstood when he first moves to Hawkins. It’s like he’s aware that there’s a darker side of him that’s dangerous, but he can’t fully explain why he does certain things (e.g whatever he did to the kid left in a wheelchair). There’s a scene where he sees the smoke of the Mindflayer swirling around him in the void, and he yells, "What are you??"
He’s the new kid at Hawkins High. People at school think he’s strange. They’re not necessarily cruel to him, but they’re not really sure how to take him either. Joyce is pleasant to him. But the only person he really connects with is Patty Newby - who we know is also a bit of an outsider at the school because of her peculiar origins and skin colour.
It’s clear there is an instant connection between Henry and Patty. Henry in particular is obviously crushing on Patty, and acts awkward around her. They bond over their love of comic books, and decide to be friends.
Anyway - back to Joyce’s play. So the reason she wants to direct the play in the first place is to impress some visitors from a university, so she can achieve a scholarship to study theatre outside of Hawkins.
It involves “witches, satanism, religious allegory”. Lots of things that Principal Newby would definitely disapprove of (hence why she pretends that they’re doing Oklahoma).
Joyce talks about the overarching message: “That’s what it’s all about in the end, isn’t it? Whether love can conquer fear.” (paraphrased). I think that was perhaps a really meta moment, and applies to THIS play and even Stranger Things as a whole.
Also there was something like, “they’re witches, not lesbians!”/ “They were witches as well as lesbians”… “Does it matter?” (again, paraphrasing, I can’t recall the actual lines, and I think this was either said at this point by Joyce and someone else, or a conversation that happened earlier between Bob and Patty when they were talking about a comic or story they had read. I’m sorry, I can’t remember!) But I thought it could be a reference to the Fear Street trilogy, maybe. I was on the lookout for any kind of LGBTQ+ imagery or dialogue, and yet my brain still managed to forget details by the end of it all (Act 1 needed to be 20 minutes longer, seriously. They went through so much dialogue so quickly, it was difficult to keep up. I feel like I need to see the whole thing again to properly take it all in).
Maybe I was tripping, or maybe I misheard, but I thought there was also a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it line about “the ending is happy and gay”. I wish my brain would have held onto those lines, but it happened so quickly. Something like, “the ending will be happy and gay”… “isn’t that what everyone wants?”
Now, I’m certain they meant ‘gay’ as in ‘happy’ in the context, but I couldn’t help but side-eye that moment a little because it’s an outdated term in today’s language. It was, I believe, a quick exchange between Joyce and… I want to say Bob? Or possibly Walter? I honestly cannot remember.
I'm begging people not to run away with this because it’s also totally possible that it was said in a derivative sense, like, “this story is dark, gothic and tragic... not happy and gay”, you know? "That's what everyone wants, right?" "Maybe, but this ends in tragedy."
I really hope someone, ANYONE else caught these lines, and can give me their own two cents on it. (Curse my shit memory and also just how FAST those lines were coming at us during those scenes in Act 1… like guys, please slow down so I can actually take in what you’re saying!)
Anyway. Joyce is having trouble casting the main leads, John and Barbara Allen, as the two are lovers and will need to kiss, and nobody seems to have the right chemistry or is taking it seriously enough.
At one point, Karen (acting as the female lead) confidently and passionately kisses Bob (acting the male lead), who’s awkward and flustered afterwards (this is done for the audience lols).
After hearing her beautiful singing voice (encouraged by Henry), Joyce decides to cast Patty as her female lead. Meanwhile Henry has unwittingly found himself in this room along with everyone, and accidentally gets involved in the casting process. Joyce sees that Patty and Henry have chemistry together, so she decides to cast Henry as her male lead too.
Henry and Patty grow closer. Henry tells Patty that he’s bad, and she should stay away from him. She doesn’t listen, and says just because someone has done some bad things, it doesn’t make them a bad person.
At one point they sit side by side by the confessional at church. Henry admits to her that he has powers. He tells Patty that he can hear what people are thinking - all the time. It drives him crazy (and says people are always ‘pretending’ to be normal. The vibe is very much in tune with his speech in Season 4 about how everyone is just in a silly little play, all playing pretend with each other, all trapped in these notions of living their lives in a way that society thinks is acceptable or desirable).
As an example later on in a separate scene, he points to Karen and Ted and tells Patty, “she thinks he’s an idiot, and he’s scared of her.” He points to more characters in this scene and says more about them (like Claudia and Walter, Sue and Charles, maybe even Joyce and Hopper?) but unfortunately I can only remember Ted and Karen’s.
Patty convinces Henry that his powers are not evil, and that he should be able to control them and use them for good. Henry then creates a "vision" for Patty, where she can freely sing with people listening, and everyone around her joins in and appreciates her talent (I think she sings "Dream a Little Dream of Me"? Unless this happens later on. There’s definitely a moment where she sings a bit of that song. Henry associates it with Patty.)
In this vision, even Patty's father is supportive of her and her singing, and it’s quite a funny moment how she imagines him dressed in a saucy red cape, dancing in a way that he *definitely* wouldn’t approve of in real life.
So it seems Henry is actually able to show people their dreams as well as their nightmares. It suggests his powers are his own at this point (at least to an extent), and not necessarily always controlled by the Mind Flayer.
Victor sees Henry talking to Patty at school, and mentions this to Virginia. He describes it as “harmless, just Puppy Love”, a first crush.
Virginia is still worried, and tells Henry to stay away from Patty (for her protection). Henry gets angry. We keep hearing his voice change when he changes, like a deep, monstrous voice. It’s creepy, like it’s not really him in those moments - it’s like the Mindflayer using Henry’s body, speaking through him.
While in the attic (his new favourite spot), Henry keeps becoming influenced by the Mind Flayer. He travels to the void frequently, from where he proceeds to start killing animals - the first of which is Dustin’s mom’s cat. It’s just like the Vecna attacks in Season 4, snapping their bones and blinding them.
Henry seems to be aware that he’s the one responsible for these killings, and he keeps on going back to the attic, and the void, to keep doing it - but it’s unclear just how aware or remorseful he is about all this, or whether it’s 100% possessed!Henry during those moments. It certainly seems like it’s the Mindflayer making him want to do those things. When he first approaches Prancer, he’s friendly, calm and softly-spoken. The attack happens very suddenly and afterwards, I think Henry sort of ‘comes to’ and cries out in distress/remorse?
Either way, Henry is definitely under the Mind Flayer's control at that point, and you can see the Mind Flayer smoke flying around in the void next to him.
After Claudia’s cat turns up dead, Hopper is immediately on the case, wanting to find the culprit. He starts questioning people, and ends up approaching Henry at school.
I want to clear Hopper’s name in something here! I saw someone say that, in the play, it’s stated that Hopper says he hates cats. Whilst this *is* something Hopper tells Henry at this point, it was clear to me that Hopper was only playing mind games in the way an investigator will try to get a suspected criminal to confess: ‘The truth is, I hate cats. So I actually just want to shake the hand of the person who did it - they’re a hero in my book!’ He’s totally bluffing, and it’s just meant to show that he’s already thinking and working like a detective. Regardless, the tactic doesn’t work, and Henry brushes him off. Hopper remains none the wiser.
When more animals start being killed in the same way, Hopper is the one who figures out that they’re all pets of Hawkins High School students who are taking part in Joyce’s play. He goes to her to request her help, and she and Bob both end up going out to look for clues with him (complete with torches, this gave major Season 1 vibes).
Joyce and Hopper’s relationship is mostly antagonistic, but it’s clear they like each other and they flirt a bit. Meanwhile Bob admires Joyce from afar, wanting only to impress her and to find the courage to tell her how he really feels. There's some love triangle imagery throughout with where they stand. (Note: Bob does eventually admit to Joyce how he feels at the end, but she casually rebuffs him. I'm so glad they eventually ended up together because Bob was just too pure.)
Henry continues to be haunted by images of a monster reflected back at him in a mirror. I think we’re meant to take that as a representation of Mind Flayer!possessed Henry. He’s clearly afraid of himself, and what he’s capable of.
The Mind Flayer appears to him as Patty, and taunts him by saying cruel things, like saying that he will end up killing her. In the vision, Patty starts pulling off her own hair until we see her brain. We hear a deep monstrous voice taunting Henry, saying he “will kill many, many more” - that they have seen it happen, and it is his destiny. (Time travel hints? The Mind Flayer can apparently see into his future, unless this was just an empty taunt that unfortunately came true, or a self-fulfilling prophecy).
[Evidently, there’s something deeply disturbing at the heart of the human psyche about the possibility of uncovering the horrific within itself. When that horror is externalised… it creates a symbolic representation of our own nightmares, perhaps allowing us to tackle them more objectively and overcome those dark, disturbing impulses within us all.]
[By investing fictional creations with the qualities we most fear - the horrifying, animalistic sides of our nature - we can, perhaps, face them more objectively and convince ourselves that we do, ultimately, have control over them… and ourselves.]
[... Perhaps the monster we fear most is the one we see reflected in the mirror. As Professor Mulrooney puts it: “The monsters in these tales are not necessarily the people we would call the monsters - Frankenstein’s creature or Dracula. The scariest part of these books is the humans.”]
-Michael Davies
The real Patty then interrupts the vision, and asks Henry if he can help her find her mother using his powers. He’s wary of doing so, but agrees to help her. He says she will have to come with him to his attic.
Once inside, Patty tells him that it’s cold in there. Henry says he likes it cold.
When Henry enters the void, he successfully locates Patty’s mom. She’s a singer, a show girl, working on a stage in Vegas. Patty asks him what she looks like. Henry says she looks like Patty. That she’s beautiful.
Suddenly, he loses control, and is once again visited by the Mind Flayer. Patty’s mom morphs into a terrifying figure who chases Henry through the void… and eventually catches him.
We see the Mindflayer going into Henry inside the void, very similar to Will in Season 2 on the school field. (This happens either at this moment, or in a flashback at another point of the play. But it’s at some point!!) I think this was showing us that whoever Henry was, he’s fast disappearing into the darkness of the Mind Flayer, and vice versa - it’s like a fusion.
Meanwhile, Mr Newby learns that Patty and Henry have been hanging out together a lot. He’s greatly displeased by this, and decides to go to the Creel House to fetch Patty and put an end to the budding romance. Romeo and Juliet vibes be vibing hard.
Downstairs, he speaks to Victor Creel, who is having a PTSD related episode and acting strangely. He says his wife believes the house is haunted by an ancient demon, and with everything that’s happened (and by how the lights keep flashing), he’s beginning to believe her. He feels like his demons have followed him from the war.
Mr Newby then overhears the commotion from upstairs, and goes up to investigate. In the attic, Henry is holding Patty’s hand very tightly. He’s twitching and yelling as he fights against the Mind Flayer’s possession, and this frightens Patty. When her father walks in, he demands that Patty lets go of Henry’s hand. She tries, but he’s holding on too tightly. “I can’t!” Patty cries out.
Mr Newby is then attacked by Henry, controlled by the Mind Flayer. His body starts to rise up. Patty encourages Henry to fight back by telling him that she believes he is good, and that she loves him.
“Say it back!” she pleads to him. “Say it back!”
Henry responds and says he loves her too. Because of the love exchange, he manages to momentarily break out of the Mind Flayer’s control: Mr Newby drops to the floor, alive but badly injured.
Joyce, Hopper and Bob were downstairs at this point, having followed radio anomalies to the Creel House (which they did via a machine that Bob built for them). They freak out and run away, and all come to the conclusion that creepy, crazy Victor Creel is the one responsible for Mr Newby’s injuries, as well as the string of violent animal deaths.
[Joyce has some basis for believing Victor capable of violent crime, based as this may be in her own father’s war experience… When Joyce opens her copy of the DSM, first published in 1952, she will find no entry for PTSD… Instead, the symptoms she might recognise from her father were incorporated into depression or schizophrenia, rather than their own diagnosis. Short of a name for what they were suffering, traumatised veterans were left to find their own way through nightmares - through violence, alcohol or isolation.]
-Beth Kelly (from the Stranger Things: The First Shadow programme)
After the commotion, Henry removes his blindfold. Patty's father has broken through the attic floor, and he’s seriously injured. Patty is very afraid and upset.
After a brief time skip (to the next day or two I think), we learn that Patty is staying away from Henry, who is worried that he’s ruined everything. The Mind Flayer starts to creep back in. We see a possessed Henry back in the attic, and Virginia comes up to him and says that she wants to help him, but she doesn’t know how. She reminds him that he needs to stay away from people to protect them. She talks about Patty, telling Henry that he shouldn’t see her anymore.
Possessed!Henry smirks and asks her if she’s jealous. There’s something insidious and disturbing in the way he asks it. Virginia recoils from her son and her “everything-is-going-to-be-okay” facade crumbles. We see she’s absolutely terrified of who Henry has become.
Henry creates a vision, so that it appears as though his pet spiders escape from their jars, and they run all over Virginia as she screams. She flees from the attic as Henry’s dark taunts follow her.
Henry’s sister Alice comes to the mouth of the attic.
"Where is Henry?" She asks.
Henry: "He’s right here."
Alice: "You’re not him."
At this point, it was like the Mindflayer had almost completely merged with Henry. The lines had become more and more blurred as the play went on, and now it’s becoming hard to separate them - the ‘real’ Henry is finding it hard to come through and fight the possession. The Mind Flayer is winning.
This really reminded me of Will and his own possession with the Mindflayer in Season 2. How they described it like a virus taking over, and how Will could have continued ‘disappearing’ until there was no more Will left.
After the incident with Mr Newby, and her terror with Henry in the attic, Virginia has finally had enough. She willingly hands her son over to an “interested party” who describes himself as a doctor (who we know is Dr Brenner). He vows to take Henry to Hawkins Lab, where he’ll be safe, and contained.
When he wakes up in the hospital, Mr Newby reveals to Patty that he actually stole her as a baby (?) in an effort to revive his relationship with his wife by having another child to care for - but it didn’t work, and his wife left him. He feels guilty about it, and wants to confess this to her after he almost died.
He tells her that he was attacked by a monster who made him relive his worst nightmares, and that “the boy”, Henry, actually fought back and saved him from death. He then draws the Mind Flayer on a piece of paper, hands it to his daughter, and tells her that this is what he saw.
After learning that Henry actually saved her father, Patty returns to his house to search for him, but it’s too late - Dr. Brenner has already taken him to the lab. However, she is able to communicate by calling out to him.
Henry contacts Patty through the void, where she is able to both speak and see him, despite him being at the lab. She tells him that she knows he is still a good person, and that he should return home.
———
Act 2.
On screen:
Chapter Two: Captain Midnight
So here’s the thing - the play paints us a totally different picture than Season 4 did in regards to Henry/Vecna.
Henry was not inherently evil, like S4 suggested to many people - he was actually just a regular boy until ‘an incident’ occurred when he was younger, which is what gave him powers and started his possession in the first place. The end of S4 makes us think that El sent Henry to the Upside Down, which is where he meets the shadow monster and morphs it into the Mind Flayer with his powers.
But that wasn’t Henry’s first time there, nor was it the first time he saw the Mind Flayer. That was all just a REUNION.
It’s revealed that Henry actually disappeared into another dimension (Dimension X/ Upside Down) for a period of 12 hours when he was just a kid. He got lost near some caves in the Nevada desert, and when he returned, he had "completely changed in personality".
He came back odd, ‘not normal’, and couldn’t socialise well. He also returned with dangerous powers, which he violently inflicts on animals. The Mind Flayer had clearly started possessing him from that early point, way before he even came to Hawkins.
Let’s go back to the very beginning of the play - to the soldiers on the ship. It was Brenner’s father and his crew that were aboard this ship, the USS Eldridge, which had accidentally travelled into Dimension X/The Upside Down as a result of electromagnetic activity.
This is based on The Philadelphia Experiment, or Project Rainbow, said to have taken place in the Second World War. The programme had a double spread on this:
[Allegedly, wartime experiments caused the supernatural disappearance of a US naval ship… Project Rainbow was based on Einstein’s research into unified field theory through which [he] hoped to create a single theoretical framework to encompass all fundamental forces, including electromagnetism and gravity.]
[Carl Allen claimed to have witnessed a strange event in October 1943 involving the naval destroyer escort USS Eldridge and scientists who were working on highly confidential technology which would make ships invisible to the enemy by using powerful electromagnetic fields to ‘bend’ light around them. According to Allen, they succeeded in doing just that. In fact, Allen said the ship was also briefly teleported 275 miles away to Norfolk, Virginia, before reappearing in Philadelphia. …It’s been suggested that the Eldridge’s official logs could have been deliberately altered… with the whole of Project Rainbow moving beyond top secret clarification.]
-Catherine Jones
Brenner’s father is the only survivor of this terrifying event. After returning from Dimension X and taken to a hospital, injured and dying, we learn that his blood type is now “unique” from any other human being. He won't survive a blood transfusion.
His ravings about Dimension X before his death haunted and inspired Brenner for the rest of his life. Brenner started an experiment focused on finding and travelling back to Dimension X; his ultimate goal was to "create a gate" to reach it again.
Brenner enacted these experiments in the Nevada desert, where one day, one of his agents ran away with some of Brenner’s equipment near some desert caves. The agent was never found, but a Captain Midnight spyglass was - which was the exact spot where Henry went missing in Dimension X as a little boy for 12 hours. Brenner therefore began searching for the mysterious Captain Midnight comic-book fan who went to Dimension X and returned, watching him and keeping an eye on him. This is what led him to Hawkins: following Henry.
Brenner tells us that Henry’s powers emerged after he visited Dimension X, and just like his father, his blood type is “unique”. He collects several samples from him. He also tells Henry that his powers become stronger each time he kills, and that’s why he gets so much satisfaction out of it. Brenner also tells Henry that he would get even stronger if he kills human beings, rather than animals.
During one scene, Brenner uses special equipment to see into and hear Henry's mind. He pushes Henry to the limit so he can hear and catch a glimpse of Dimension X. We hear noises similar to the Mind Flayer in Season 2 when Will goes into the Upside Down on Halloween night. The shape of the Mind Flayer appears on the screen (or was it the head of a Demogorgon? It was definitely something Upside-Downy), while Henry convulses. After this incident, Henry asks Brenner, “Can you take me back there?"
Brenner also introduces the idea of anger to fuel Henry's power. On several instances he riles Henry up to get him angry, insulting him - and the result is always violence. He succeeds in getting Henry to kill a mouse/rat, which explodes into a bloody mess inside its cage, and then tries to convince him to kill a criminal who has been transferred to the lab with an agreement to be killed (he has a date with the electric chair later that week regardless).
Henry refuses. He’s been speaking to Patty in the void, who has convinced him that he’s good and that he should return home. Brenner is frustrated with this, and becomes sure that Henry has someone that is "holding him back". He vows to find and remove this obstacle. But after Henry leaves the lab, Brenner tells his agents to let him go. He cannot force Henry to kill. “It has to be his choice."
Brenner is shown to have significant influence over Virginia. He’s been providing her with medication/tranquilisers, and tells her that her son desperately needs his help. He encourages Virginia to tell him who the person Henry is attached to. She does. Brenner promises her that he will take Henry back into the lab and that he won’t leave again.
After Henry returns home, he reads his family's minds and learns that they are all afraid of him and unhappy with his return. He goes into his mother's memories and learns of the last interaction she had with Brenner, including that she wonders if he “may never have been good”, and whether "this was who he was the whole time." He knows that she was willing to give him up to Brenner forever.
This is when the Creel murders happen, just like they’re shown in Season 4. Virginia Creel and Alice Creel are both murdered at the dinner table - and we know Victor is going to be blamed for it.
Is this Henry’s own mind now, turned to darkness and hate, or is it the Mind Flayer intent on eliminating all of Henry’s attachments? A monster who’s made a monster. I think it’s all left open to interpretation on purpose.
After the death of his mother and sister, Henry goes straight to Hawkins High to find Patty, hoping to reach her before Brenner does. While at the school, he runs into Joyce, who voices to him her suspicions surrounding the animal killings, and what happened to Mr Newby at the Creel House.
At first, Henry thinks Joyce has worked it out, and that she knows it was him all along. “I wish you hadn’t done that…” he says, stepping closer. But Joyce clarifies just in time that she believes Henry’s father is the one who is dangerous, and that she believes he’s responsible for the terrible things that've happened in Hawkins recently. Maybe this is what gives Henry the idea to frame his father. Either way, he leaves Joyce alive.
Both Brenner and Henry find Patty on the stage rafters, up on a high catwalk, ready to perform her part in the play. She’s initially wearing a set of wings as a prop, which are attached to the rafter to be lowered. Henry unties her from these wings, pleading with her to run away with him. An argument ensues with Brenner, where he attempts to convince Henry that Patty is his weakness, and that he needs to kill her to let her go. Patty tells Henry not to listen to him.
During this argument, Henry loses control once more, and the Mind Flayer takes over. This results in Patty slow-motion falling from the rafters as the shape of the Mind Flayer overwhelms the stage. She hits the floor on her back, presumed dead.
(The stage effects for this particular scene were absolutely incredible, by the way.)
Henry is later seen back at the lab. He’s fully subdued, confined to a straitjacket, mouth gagged, and sat in a wheelchair. Brenner says the implant (Soteria) is in, about to take effect.
If we believe what Season 4 showed us, the play skipped the part where Henry appeared dead alongside his mother and sister (just before Victor is then blamed and incarcerated at Pennhurst Asylum). So assuming that Brenner played a part in covering up Henry’s involvement in the Creel murders, Henry is presumed dead by the town at this point too. Unfortunately the play doesn’t address this, as instead we see Henry run immediately from the dinner table murder scene, straight to Hawkins High to find Patty. It’s a big inconsistency which I guess they want us to explain away with Henry being an “unreliable narrator” in the show. I guess he gave Nancy the abridged version of what happened!
Anyway, it appears that Henry later finds Patty in the void, despite Brenner telling him that he killed her. It seems she has successfully left Hawkins and found her mother in Las Vegas, just as she always dreamed of doing. She uses a walking stick, but otherwise appears alive and well.
We hear and see static as Henry watches the scene unfold, and Patty glances over her shoulder, like she senses him. But then she turns her back and walks into the distance with her mother.
An alternative take that I heard from someone, was that perhaps Patty is truthfully still seriously injured and is actually in a coma (similar to Max). They thought that maybe the final scene of Patty with her mother was actually just something that Henry was creating for her in her mind, as a sort of last semblance of goodness and love. I don’t think that’s what was intended, but it was an interesting take that I wanted to include!
As the show nears its end, we’re presented with a series of newspaper articles relaying the tragic Creel Murders in Hawkins (possibly the same ones that Nancy and Robin find in Season 4). The Creel family all dead, Victor is blamed and sent to the asylum. The empty Creel House remains, a reminder of the horrors. It then shifts back to Hawkins lab, who are now recruiting pregnant women for experimentation.
Brenner introduces a pregnant woman to Henry (who is still bound to a chair and fully subdued) and explains to him that the "blood transfusion" finally worked on a subject. He points to the woman's belly and remarks, “One, meet Two!"
“You are as much a father to them as I am,” Brenner says at one point. Then, “Come… meet your brothers and sisters.” Even though we know Henry is not in any way related to the lab kids, they definitely played into the father/guardian/creator metaphor in the play. If not family by blood, then by circumstance.
We see photos of the babies created in the lab, with their numbers underneath. We can recognise Eight as young Kali. Eventually we get to Ten, at which point the stage focuses on a now older Henry, wearing his recognisable Season 4 orderly outfit. He kneels beside a child with buzzed hair.
"Hello, Eleven. Come with me.” He takes her by the hand, and they walk into the distance together.
———
Some final thoughts:
Because of the incident with Patty during Joyce's play, we can infer that's why she is unsuccessful in her goal to impress the university, and remains stuck in Hawkins - just like Lonnie said she would.
Lonnie is awful, and I’m in two minds about how he’s handled in the play. They did a good job to show he’s always been a douchebag, and unlike what I’ve seen some people say, I actually think it was horribly believable that Joyce (who they establish likes 'bad boys') ends up going back to him and having kids with him. We know from Season 1 that there’s emotional abuse with Joyce and Lonnie, and to me, it makes horrible, horrible sense that it all ends up the way it does. I’m just not sure how I feel about Lonnie being used as any kind of comedic effect in the play (he makes a brief reappearance at the police station, where he’s been lying drunkenly handcuffed on some chairs the whole time during a scene... “It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it!" he says, or something to that effect). I feel like using him in that way diminishes how truly awful he is as a character. Maybe I’m just being too sensitive, but I’d much rather they had kept all the laughs and jokes for the other characters, and treated Lonnie completely seriously the whole way through. I don’t want to see him in any way ‘likeable’ or ‘relatable’ or ‘funny’, you know? Not even for cheap audience laughs. This is a guy who called his own kid son a f*g. Let's treat that with the gravity and solemnity it deserves, please.
Louis McCartney and Ella Karuna Williams as Henry Creel and Patty were great, and Isabella Pappas as Joyce was amazing. Dr Brenner was nicely emulated by Patrick Vaill (I personally think he was one of the most believable characters from stage to show). The best performance of all though was Christopher Buckley as Bob. Like, damn, give that kid all the awards! He was so believable as a young Bob, I actually forgot it wasn’t somehow a young Sean Astin on stage. *chef’s kiss*
As previously mentioned, all the parents of the kids are present in the play (and already coupled up). None of these characters are particularly fleshed out, and I think they’re mainly just there as fun ‘Easter Eggs’ to connect it with the show. E.g having Claudia own another cat that gets killed, seeing Ted Wheeler ironically as some kind of jock god who gets all the ladies (and cheats on Karen with, by the way!), Joyce holding an axe prop near the end mid-rant (“Why am I holding this??”) and Hopper making a remark about breaking his own foot (which he does in Season 4).
They definitely seemed to be going back on the whole ‘it was Henry/Vecna the whole time’ thing from Season 4: the Mind Flayer has been pulling the strings from way before El sent Henry to Dimension X/Upside Down. We even see the Mind Flayer in the shape of a giant eldritch spider during the play, way before Henry appears to ‘shape’ it in Season 4. However, I think it’s also possible that Henry DID actually manage to take control of the Mind Flayer the second time he arrived in Dimension X (as we see at the end of S4). At that point, he’s killed all the lab kids and staff at Hawkins Lab, so he will be much more powerful now compared to the Henry from the play. By now he’s completely embraced the Mind Flayer’s philosophy, and is acting in its stead entirely on his own volition. Honestly? I think they’re going to leave it ambiguous on purpose. I think that’s why the play is technically canon, but totally not necessary before seeing Season 5. I think Henry and the Mindflayer are 'one' (lol) at this point - I think that’s what Vecna technically is. He’s like an amalgamation of this terrifying eldritch being that we can never begin to understand, but at the same time also something that is still deeply, deeply human.
The Henry side of him seems to be lost, but in a way Brenner was right - his feelings for Patty, whether ‘Puppy Love’ or real - was his one redeeming weakness in his early teen years. Judging from the play, I think it’s possible we might see a tragic sort of redemption moment in S5 (which I personally have mixed feelings about). But I do believe the play is supposed to be entirely separate, and that it’s possible Patty will continue not to be mentioned or relevant in the show (I hope I’m wrong). I just can’t help but be cautious in assuming the Mind Flayer is still the one in control after what they set up at the end of Season 4 (especially with Will saying, “it’s weird to know who it was this whole time” re: his own kidnapping and possession). I think Henry has become his darkest self as Vecna.
Speaking of Will… there were noticeably a LOT of parallels with him in Henry. Henry wears pretty much exactly Will’s outfit from Season 4, yellow tones with beige and brown. Meanwhile Patty wears a blue cardigan and a blue dress - at least in Act 1. I’m not hugely into the blue-and-yellow thing in a serious way, but even I noticed there were blue and yellow motifs for Henry and Patty. She wears a bright yellow top with her blue cardigan at one point too. I think there was definitely a mixture of both Will and El in Henry’s character.
Meanwhile Patty had noticeable similarities to Mike. She’s rebellious, outspoken, loves comic books, and worships superheroes.
Seeing the play hasn’t impacted my beliefs or hopes for Byler in any way. I think there are potentially good things to be taken from the writing, and potentially bad things too. My current confidence has neither been raised nor lowered, but what I will say is that it’s undeniable that the Henry x Patty relationship mirrors both Mileven and Byler, but especially Mileven. Hentty is obviously a star-crossed tragedy, deliberately set up like Romeo and Juliet, which we know is NEVER a good thing. I do find it interesting that their love confessions were an exchange, unlike Mike’s monologue. Patty is the one ‘present’, whilst Henry is the one trapped in the void with his eyes closed/blindfold on. It’s a high stakes moment. Patty tells Henry in desperation that she loves him, but she follows this up by pleading with him to say it back. I didn’t see anyone else talking about this, but it really stood out to me.
The play’s themes and messages still reflected what I believe the show to be about: rejecting forced conformity (it dealt with people’s ideas about what it means to be “normal” to fit in, about sex not being taboo, harmful black and white morality, and the damage that can occur from enforcing religious dogma)... and of course, like Joyce said, that love will ultimately conquer fear.
Over and out!
[This kind of introspection throws up unsettling and complex ideas about the nature of human morality. What does it mean to be human? Who gets to decide who is “other”? How do we treat those who are different from us? These are huge issues, and far too esoteric for most of us to deal with in abstract. So the way we choose to explore them is in stories.]
- Michael Davies
#stranger things: the first shadow#the first shadow#st: tfs#tfs#tfs spoilers#spoiler#spoilers#stranger things#byler#< target audience#personal
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Case study and analysis of the 1992 Good Omens movie screenplay (“the shitscript”) in light of the ongoing WGA strike
As one could suspect, the topic of the 1992 Good Omens movie screenplay and its infamy has recently emerged from the depths of the fandom. In light of the ongoing WGA strike it’d be good to properly address this issue, starting with Neil Gaiman’s own recollection written in 2004:
It’s basically the same old story — of brilliant creative workers struggling under the pressure of detached studio executives and being legally forced to mutilate their work again and again for no artistic or economic reason — we’ve heard before in many different contexts.
If you’re reading this and somehow still wondering why writers are fighting for their rights at the moment, their job security hasn’t changed much since then. Please follow the WGA, SAG-AFTRA, and other unions’ official channels for detailed information and ways to help the cause.
Anyway, it took over a decade and an enormous effort to print the screenplay in a limited edition of 552 copies. It can’t be distributed otherwise due to IP law, but some fans shared its fragments online and heavily criticized them, dubbing the 1992 source material #shitscript
There’s been obviously a lot of controversies over the changes in the plot and the relationship between the main characters. And rightfully so — the number of iterations has created something very different from the beloved book and the award-winning show we can all enjoy today.
It’s… objectively not good. Wouldn’t be considered a hit back then and certainly not by today’s standards. I don’t think I would watch it in any other way than through channel surfing. However, it’s not a monstrosity some people believe it to be and not a case of low effort.
Let’s start with the world building: the setting wasn’t changed to the US. It’s still very much based in the UK, mostly London and Tadfield, although the latter lies now by the sea and seems much more ominous. Interestingly, the British Museum becomes a prominent location as well.
The main character and the designated hero is not surprisingly Crowley, this time in his 90s anti-hero glory. If you haven’t watched many movies of this era, esp. dark fantasy, this trope involves middle-age disenchantment, cynicism, as well as hefty doses of sarcasm and brooding.
90s anti-heroes are a dark, grim, and unnecessarily violent embodiment of power fantasy, matching the destructive ideology of that time. Combined with uber-masculinity and performative strength over weaker characters, nowadays they naturally evoke more cringe or worry than awe.
1992 iteration of Crowley is basically in his Furfur era. Deeply unhappy and stuck in a dead end job, all he talks about is how he hates Earth and his assignment here, considering a transfer to Alpha Centauri as his one and only possibility of career advancement. Or life, really.
The talking part is important here, because he clearly compensates by insulting everything and everyone. He hates on the whole planet at length only to confess that he’d rather stay here with Aziraphale due to “no good restaurants”, “no decent bottle of wine” in Alpha Centauri.
Yes, he’s verbally abusive in his automatic response to stress. But doesn’t hate Aziraphale. In one particular scene he calls Azi stupid twice only to assure him that they are friends and to offer to solve the problem when he sees that his words were taken seriously and hurt him.
Crowley refers to him as “my angel” and “my dear Aziraphale”, agrees to Aziraphale’s suggestion of sharing a room, praises the angel as a “miracle worker around the home”, drinks the tea he makes for him, and generally proves to be much softer towards him than he wants to admit.
Aziraphale, on the contrary, wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s the one engineering ways to spend more time together, following Crowley around, checking up on him (including miracling himself into his apartment and office when no one answers the door), offering help right away.
He’s successfully calming Crowley down through his anxiety attacks, overcomes his dislike of heights (!) for Crowley, directly challenges him and even breaks rules only to make Crowley stay with him. Crowley seems to be his main motivation in this movie, not the saving the world.
1992 Aziraphale also has the most badass scene in the whole Good Omens multiverse to date, taking a 180 degree turn from the typical guardian angel we all know and love to the real angel of wrath protecting Crowley from harm in his true form.
But there’s no Their Side in this universe. The only semblance of that concept appears in the context of Anathema not representing either of their respective bosses, but humanity. “That’s the trouble with the humans. They’re on their own side.”
This Crowley appears not as much on Hell’s side as under Satan’s heel. He’s scared of him and subservient, and needs Aziraphale to prevent his escape as a pretext to do what is right. He lets the angel stop him by pretending that he doesn’t even see him cheating during their duel.
By finally standing up to his toxic boss (Satan is like Gabriel during the body-swapped trial, suave and cruel) and leaving Hell’s side to do good, Crowley takes an emancipated and employee-focused stance instead of fighting for his relationship with Aziraphale like shown in S1.
Which is a shame, but matches the overall tone of the screenplay and the times it was written in. The concept of free will, while simplified in a true Hollywood-style to issues like mind control and fear, is still crucial to this interpretation of the Good Omens original plot.
Especially the character of Anathema is seen fighting both of these things. There’s no Agnes Nutter with her prophecies here, only a 21-year-old witch and her will to thwart the ultimate evil versus her fear of doing it at a cost of one boy’s life, versus Satan’s brainwashing.
Madame Tracy appears slightly redesigned as a new character as well, but isn’t 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 for the most part. She’s been enjoying her youth way too much to see how fast it was fleeting, and this sudden realization left her in shock from which she denies to come back.
Unfortunately she’s also the one who took in baby Adam and now stays under his care. The level of his parentification is unnerving, much like his bullying and loneliness. He struggles to be loved and ask for love, which becomes his main quest beyond, y’know, the apocalypse thing.
Don’t worry, despite everything all ends well just like in the book. The family of two gets a chance to start again on much healthier terms and Anathema to live for herself for the first time in years. Our heroes get back in their car, Crowley tempting Aziraphale with an apple.
All in all, this whole post is a very long reminder for Amazon Prime to #PayYourWriters, #PayYourActors, and #RenewGoodOmens! The strike is still ongoing and crucial for any new content for this and many other fandoms #GiveMeS3orGiveMeDeath
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do you have thoughts on how ewan mitchell compared aemond to the cyclops in his interview...?
Um absolutely. Ewan Mitchell's recent interview has completely ruined my life, and especially so because of that very part.
In case you missed it, Ewan said that one of the first things the showrunners ever talked to him about was this very idea of the Cyclops. "What does that do to a person?" asked Ewan in the interview. "To know the day you're going down, and feel bulletproof to a point."
This means the showrunners canonically have written parallels between Aemond and the Cyclops from Greek mythology, who traded one eye to Hades, the god of death, in order to see into the future and discover how he died. This wasn't explicitly mentioned, but Norse mythology also carries a very similar story of Odin, who sacrificed one of his eyes in exchange for drinking from a well that would give him unparalleled knowledge. And it suggests that, with the loss of his eye, Aemond gained not just Vhagar, but the knowledge of his own death.
And GOD does that add so much depth to the show, and to his character. Especially the standoff between him and Daemon: a lot of people read this moment as Aemond backing down out of fear of Daemon's implicit threat. But to me, it now seems more like an acknowledgement: "it is not yet our time."
It also, interestingly, strengthens the parallels between him and Helaena, but I'll go into that another time.
Okay, now it's time for book spoilers, and I'm gonna make myself sad with this one.
If Aemond KNOWS how he is going to die-- if he knows WHO kills him-- then it makes him provoking Daemon all the more interesting. Because his toast at the dinner must have been deliberate; right after Daemon kills someone for calling Rhaenyra's children bastards, and Aemond goes and does the same thing? Who would be so insane, except someone who knows that he will not die that day? Who would want to draw Daemon's ire, save for someone who knows it will be inescapable no matter what they do?
It also makes the way he goes to his death all the more honorable. He doesn't try to run away, even though he has much to live for: his family, his lover, and especially their unborn child. In fact, he seeks Daemon out, as if he'd simply been waiting until the time was right. And he goes to mount Vhagar for the last time with grace, and without fear.
Also, there's no way Vhagar didn't know there was no coming out of that fight for Aemond. Regardless of what you think about a dragon-rider bond, we know for a fact that things like pain are transferred through the bond (Rhaenyra and Syrax), and the emotions involved with knowing you're about to die are too strong to not seep through. I've always had this headcanon that Vhagar made a conscious decision to go down with her rider, and I think that if she had knowledge (through Aemond) of his doom, this makes it all the more likely. There's something very beautiful, if very sad, about the oldest, loneliest dragon alive, deciding that if her rider dies she no longer has anything to live for. Or, even, deciding to fight for him, even if his heart tells her it will be futile.
Lastly, if the books are correct in their portrayal of his final moments, it means that despite the years he had to prepare himself, he cannot help but succumb to terror at the end. In the books, he is barely twenty years old-- barely beyond his teenage years--and so of course he dies as what he truly has been, all this time: a lost, and terrified boy.
In summary, I am not ready for what's going to happen to my baby boy :((((((((((((((((((((
#ask#asks#answered#aemond#aemond targaryen#ewan#ewan mitchell#vhagar#daemon#daemon targaryen#hotd#house of the dragon#show#books#aemyra#hotd meta#meta
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I saw this toss in about the whole "Eggdad" thing: Even if Eggman never lays a hand on Sage; that doesn't necessarily mean this stops for the rest of his creations. And Sage has to bear witness to that. (A parent showing blatant favoritism towards certain kids isn't wholesome by any means and hardly ever leads to anything good for every kid involved; including the ones that sucks up all the attention. It's silly to think that this wouldn't affect Sage in some way. Gamma wasn't an AI, and yet the actions Eggman had him do [and Amy's words] had him think twice. Omega was tossed away, and now seeks revenge. Even Metal Sonic rebelled, which ultimately resulted in him being reset. *With Sonic's influence changing how she calculated outcomes, what's stopping her from having her "canon event" later?)
*Note: This doesn't really mean yet another rebellion from an Eggman invention. (In anything, I'm more intrigued about the opposite happening. Like Sage struggling with perfectionism to NOT wind up like previous creations did. Constant approval seeking.)
Yeah exactly. I think a lot of the people who didn't wanna hear me out were missing the point of my analysis, hc, and fic about this. They were acting like I'm predicting that Eggman will be depicted smacking Sage around or something but I don't think he will because well- he literally can't. At least I don't think so because Sage is an AI program and his hands should just phase right through her if he were to try anyway.
Instead I was actually highlighting how terribly he treats all his other creations of Metal Sonic, the E Series, and Orbot and Cubot and how he's even manipulated those who were created/worked on by his grandfather with Emerl and Shadow. It'd make a lot of sense if he manipulated Sage in various ways and one way can actually be through treating her better than his other creations that he still treats terribly.
It's highly likely for him to at least be manipulative towards her, in fact he pretty much is in the Frontiers' story. Because he'll yell at her one moment when she doesn't do exactly what he wants but highly praises her the next when she does. He'll raise his voice and thump things that he can hit when he's angry at her, just as he does his other creations. Only difference is that he can't actually hit her like them.
But hitting them physically isn't the only way he can be a bad father and show concerning traits that support that. It's all throughout Frontiers for the above, which is present in multiple cutscenes. And also the way his value of Sage is solely rooted in what she can do for him and how great and impressive of a genius she makes him look as her creator in the first place, as he makes very clear in the memos.
That's already a lot of pressure put on Sage. She's expected to meet these expectations in loyalty and efficiency that Eggman brags about in the memos, otherwise she isn't reflective of his genius and doesn't bring him the selfish gain he desires, which will lose what gives her value and use to him in his own words! And not just that, but also the point you've raised about how he treats his other creations.
I've seen a lot of people acting like the way Eggman treated his other creations suddenly doesn't matter or just ignore it. But let's not pretend that Eggman isn't awfully cruel to Orbot and Cubot all the time in the games, which I explored in depth in my "proof that Eggman is a bad father" video. He has been verbally and physically abusive towards them and there's no other word for it or any excuses to make against it.
That isn't suddenly erased just because he sees more value in Sage (for very selfish conceited self serving reasons at that) and half-heartedly entertains the idea of Orbot and Cubot being like her brothers. It actually makes it worse that he's willing to see them that way with the way he treats them. It just means he's canonically both verbally and physically abusive to "kids" of his already, regardless of if he is to Sage.
I've seen it depicted in cutesy funny ways to have Eggman treat Sage better in front of the others, but the blatant favoritism of some creations over others, that's based on who is the most impressive and useful to him at the time, would have harmful effects on all involved in reality. Sage has to keep living up to that and he can use her as an example to get the others to fight harder for the same praise.
The Murder of Sonic had Eggman do this intentionally by having them compete against to serve him well to impress him and get praise and "rewards" and I really like that. He programs them with feelings just to take advantage of them like that and that's just so Eggman. I can see him doing more of the exact same thing in the main games with how their worth is determined by their use there too.
Sage, Metal Sonic, and Orbot and Cubot would all be affected badly by this when they realize Eggman's affection and praise is conditional, shallow, and manipulative in these ways. When they realize that it's really all determined by what is the most beneficial to him personally, while buttering them up to keep them loyal and efficient, set an example and act as a measuring stick to the others but tosses them if they fail.
And Gamma was also a victim of this as a top example of what shows how harmful it is when Eggman picks a favorite! Eggman praised Gamma highly and said he was proud of him in the exact same way he did to Sage and say that he knew he'd be of use (again proving that their value is determined by their use to him), to butter him up and keep him performing well- even though he clearly had doubts in him prior.
It was very manipulative of Eggman to that just like it appears to me with Sage too. It's even similar to TMoS in a way, with how he pit Gamma against Beta in a fight and all the E Series had to search for Froggy and he punished the failures cruelly by breaking them down, disassembling them and putting them back together, which disturbed Gamma so much that he was willing to kill his brothers to set them all free.
And Omega was shut away by Eggman and he hated being sealed in that room, not even the important duty of guarding the real Shadow and ensuring that he didn't escape was enough to feel valued and be happy. Just because he can be useful to him, it doesn't change that Eggman is still cruel and uncaring and will lock him away and not care if he wants it or not. His value and praise is a performance and only for his gain.
And Metal Sonic is also another of the top examples of what it's like to be treated badly by Eggman to the point that he tries to rebel twice but not be so lucky to escape like the E Series and Omega because he's trapped being reprogrammed again and again and kept under his control to ensure that he's not going anywhere. No matter how useful a creation is to him at one point or another, they all suffer in some way.
There are many ways Eggman could be cruel or harmful to Sage. I think he's already shown signs of how and used some tactics on her in Frontiers, going by his track record and the known intentions and reasons behind it confirmed by Ian Flynn. Maybe they'll decide to expand on it blatantly, maybe they won't. But I think it's there subtly already and those conditions are very accurate to his character.
Then you have the extras of Eggman calling Sage "ugly/unseemly" before he gave her shoes in the Sonic Channel art (what was seen as a sweet cute gift by fans still had him being a jerk in it like lol wtf Eggman) and in Murder of Sonic, he's still yelling at Orbot in front of her, so she has witnessed Eggman still very much being terrible to his other creations/her brothers and in front of her in official media already!
And yeah I don't see Sage betraying Eggman with the stuff she witnessed both from how he treats her and Sonic and co and how she still stuck by his side and stayed genuinely loyal and willing to protect and serve. Even after all that and how she also revealed that she doubted he even cared about her, as she asked Sonic if he thinks Eggman does (to which Sonic could only mutter "sure... in his own way" lol)
Eggman doesn't even have to give her much to keep her loyal and efficient as it's what he created her to do and it was a success, she's devoted and willing regardless of how he treats her. She was like that even before he gave her an ounce of praise and even after he yelled at her. But the manipulation of her emotions by buttering her up with that praise, albeit conditional, helps further ensure it will stay that way.
And when his other creations see the praise and approval Sage gets, they'll wish they could get that too and will work harder to try to please him, which is exactly what he wants. But he has and continues to treat his other creations terribly even in front of her when they don't, which puts even more pressure on her having to continue living up to that standard to keep him pleased and avoid ending up like them.
So yeah, regardless of how Eggman treats Sage on the surface, there's always those dark undertones, the bad signs that have shown in their interactions, and the toxic basis of their dynamic on Eggman's side as officially confirmed. It's supposed to be unsettling as Flynn said for a reason. And he still treats his other creations blatantly terribly in front of her which also isn't pleasant and can have harmful effects.
They're not the picture perfect family that people find cute and ideal and that's actually the point. And it will definitely be interesting to see how Sage remains loyal and devoted but will have to deal with her father doing things like this to her brothers and what she thinks and he feels about it. It will probably be like how she took a liking to Sonic and co but Eggman just wants them dead but still she stayed by him despite that.
#asks#dr eggman#eggman#dr robotnik#dr. eggman#sage the ai#sonic frontiers#the murder of sonic the hedgehog#abuse mention#metal sonic#orbot and cubot#eggdad#robotnik family#eggfam#sage robotnik#my post
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Okay, another dumb Star Wars comment I heard in my journeys in Star Wars YouTube. I was reading through a bunch of comments people had made hating on the Kenobi show (and that show is my entire heart so I was mostly doing it to entertain myself by seeing the terrible Jedi takes) but aside from all the unfortunate hate for the show I came across one person who claimed that it should have been Luke if the show was going to involve one of the skytwins, because Leia doesn’t react when Obi-Wan comes for her in A New Hope, and because Obi-Wan and Luke “SEEM TO KNOW EACH OTHER PRETTY WELL LATER ON” so they should’ve talked about how they became close.
like…… did you not WATCH A New Hope?
That’s…. That’s how they become close. 😭 (also Leia was super excited when she found out he was there so)
I think you can make a solid argument that it might've made more sense for it to be Luke instead of Leia just by simple logistics I guess. Leia doesn't really SEEM to know Obi-Wan super well within ANH, it's Luke who grieves Obi-Wan more openly and Luke who yells out Obi-Wan's name on the Death Star right before he dies, etc etc. Luke is the person that Obi-Wan has been most connected to at this point while Leia's knowledge of Obi-Wan seems to have primarily come through stories told to her by Bail and little else.
And while obviously ANH is supposed to stand on its own in building Obi-Wan and Luke's relationship, they really only get a few days together and a lot of Luke's connection to Obi-Wan seems to come from this desire to be a Jedi and the connection to his father he craves so desperately as well as just the fact that he loses everything else so his only real option IS to go with Obi-Wan. It's a different kind of connection than the one we see built between Obi-Wan and Leia in this show that feels more personal. I LIKE Obi-Wan and Luke's relationship well enough, but I am brought to literal tears by Obi-Wan and Leia's. So for people who like Obi-Wan and Luke more than I did and picked up on the extra emotional depth of the relationship given to Obi-Wan and Leia, I can understand the wish for it to have been applied to Luke instead of Leia, to bolster the already existing relationship rather than creating a new one.
So I GET IT. I don't feel the same way, the Obi-Wan and Leia relationship stole my whole heart and was a large part of why I loved that show, but I can see the reasoning for why people might feel that way.
That being said, Luke's had his turn to shine. He got an entire trilogy of films dedicated to HIS STORY and his growth into being a Jedi while Leia was primarily there as a supporting character in his story. The Kenobi show HIGHLIGHTS Leia and the growth that allowed her to become the person we know from the OT. We get to see that development happen for her and how Obi-Wan helps jumpstart it. We get to see more of what being an Organa means to her and her relationship with her parents, we get to see her love of ships and droids (clearly inherited from Bail), we get to see her passion for helping people and sparky attitude (also inherited from Bail), and the unbridled optimism she has in the fact that goodness and selflessness still exists in the world and it's worth believing in and fighting for. We got SO MUCH for Leia in this and it's about damn time something in high canon focused on her instead of her brother anyway.
So I think you CAN fit the events of the show into canon relatively easily, especially Obi-Wan and Leia having had this relationship, but I can understand people wanting more of Luke and feeling like the Obi-Wan and Luke relationship was usually more narratively relevant prior to this and was an easy place to flesh it out and explore it more in depth in a way ANH just isn't really able to do.
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I wonder how Gaon and Yohan are going to explain the change in their interactions to Elijah, since it's going to be obvious to her that something has happened between them. Since Elijah knows that there's nothing between Gaon and Soo hyun, I wonder if she will play a role in clearing Yohan's misconception? Thanks for the update! I can't stop thinking how many ways this story can play out😅 Btw i really appreciate the time and effort you put into responding to our questions with such detail.
That definitely depends on who's doing the explaining xD Yo Han would just brush it off and pretend that nothing is happening — which would just piss her off — while Ga On would make a stilted effort to explain without making it too obvious what it's actually about. Which would also annoy her.
That poor girl, seriously. She doesn't deserve to get caught between these two idiots.
I'm not sure I agree that Elijah "knows" that there was nothing between Ga On and Soo Hyun, though. I think she very much thinks there was something between them. I mean, sure, they denied it when she asked if they were dating, but THE WAY they did so was pretty telling (especially in Soo Hyun's case). Even more so since Elijah is a bit... well, innocent? I think most of her experience with love comes from media, books etc. and how Ga On and Soo Hyun behaved is, well, straight from a drama xD
And Elijah also had that talk with Soo Hyun when they were eating ice cream on Ga On's terrace, where it became pretty obvious that Soo Hyun is in love with Ga On and has already confessed to him several times.
So I think Elijah very much believes they were in love. Which means she won't really play a role in convincing Yo Han otherwise — if asked, she'd probably only make it worse, even. Because her understanding of love is a bit superficial and probably pretty geared towards straightness. That's not to say that she's not aware of gay people (I think she might actually know more about that than Ga On does xD) but from the evidence she's seen both Ga On and Yo Han seem straight to her (because I can't imagine that Yo Han has flaunted his dalliances with other men in front of her).
I know I'm very, very firm about this but Elijah doesn't know that Yo Han and Ga On have the hots for each other. And not because she's stupid, but because she's grown up in a country where straightness is the norm and Yo Han has done everything he can to hide the depth of his and Ga On's relationship from her. Also, she's a self-centred teenager x'D
Like, take me for an example. I was around 23-24 and very comfortable in my own pansexuality but was still IN NO WAY PREPARED when my mum basically went: "I may only have had sex with two women in my life but, let me tell you — 10/10, would recommend." Because I had only ever seen her date and talk about men before and therefore assumed she had no interest in anything else. That's how easy it is to miss that someone close to you isn't entirely straight — especially if it's a parent/guardian.
So I really don't think that Elijah would notice until it gets a lot more obvious than this xD
Which wasn't technically what your ask was about (sorry for the tangent xD), but still important to know because Elijah really won't be all that helpful when it comes to Yo Han and Ga On figuring out their feelings for each other. In fact, she might just end up making things harder for them without meaning to. But more about that in later chapters ;)
ANYWAY. Thank you so much for the lovely ask! I'm so happy to hear that people are this excited and involved in my story! And, tbh, I can't help replying because I'm very excited, too, and love talking about my writing, my thoughts, and my takes on these characters. How could I resist? More often than not, I have to cut my answers short because I keep writing longer and longer ones.
Like, you guys have no idea how long the first drafts of my author's notes usually are. One time I had to cut half of it because it was reaching truly spectacular lengths. And sure, I know that some of you probably wouldn't complain if I had posted that first draft, but I'm trying to contain myself, okay? And also not reveal too much since it might end up spoiling future plot points. It's a constant struggle.
So yeah. I'm actually consciously holding back a lot of the time because I'm trying to not come off as completely unhinged x'D
#Amethystina Replies#Anonymous#Who Holds the Devil#I admit that I sometimes feel a little bad about being so firm about the Elijah situation#A lot of people seem to want her to be aware of Yo Han and Ga on's feeling?#And help them along?#But I genuinely don't see why she would be based on her character in the drama#She's incredibly clever yes#But also socially inept#(much like her uncle)#And a teenager#She's got her own problems to worry about#Her weird uncle's sexuality is NOT high on her list of priorities okay?
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Hiii. First off, I'm so sorry if this is annoying, but I. Have a lot of Nanamiki thoughts and thought you might like them? I was talking with a friend about them (he hasn't played danganronpa so he doesn't really know them but he was still super nice and listened to me ramble) and I realized that you may be interested in what I had to say about them?
First off, I think nanamiki is a lot more complex than what a lot of people make it out to be, in my opinion. She ship was first popularized by the optional scene in SDR2 where Chiaki and Mikan play video games together. It's a very cute scene, and I urge anyone who hasn't seen it to look it up, because it makes it clear that Mikan and Chiaki are friends, or at least have the potential to be friends, and the relationship is very positive and sweet on Chiaki's side. Nanamiki as a pairing got very popular in the komahina fandom back before DR3 came out (I can only really attest for about a year before DR3 came out, but this was very much the vibe I got) as a pairing to get Chiaki out of the way of komahina. Back before DR3, I saw a lot of double date fics with the two couples, and a lot of Komahina fics where they were a side pairing. They were, for the most part, regulated to "lesbian best friends of komahina", which, nowadays, ever since DR3, has seemed to be replaced with Soniaki and sometimes Tsumioda instead. Now, I like Soniaki, and I don't have anything against people who ship Tsumioda (even if it's not personally my cup of tea), but as a Nanamiki lover, I have noticed a fandom shift to favoring these ships just from my own observations. Which, good for people who like those ships! I just can't help but look back longingly on the Era where nanamiki was the standard wlw ship - even if that Era was rife with issues.
Even back then, you would be hard pressed to find any work that explored Nanamiki in depth that wasn't a one shot - and most if those one shots were plotless or near plotless fluff. This, to some degree, makes sense. Nanamiki's origin *was* plotless fluff - it was Chiaki showing Mikan a fun game and teaching her how to play. That's what the whole scene was, and that scene is the ships origin point. On works that did focus on nanamiki in depth, there was an emphasis on Chiaki comforting Mikan, which also makes sense, as that scene was Chiaki reaching out and being nice to Mikan. When I was young/a teenager, I also wrote fics similar- with Chiaki reaching out to Mikan, and helping her overcome her trauma.
However, now that I'm older, I look back on what a lot of these fics were (including my own), and I find myself somewhat discontent with the state of them. I feel a lot of these works fall into woobifying Mikan, and having Chiaki putting all the work and effort into "fixing" Mikan and her life. Oftentimes, there's no discussion about Chiaki's wants or needs, and those go unaddressed. It doesn't feel balanced, like a give and take dynamic, but instead like Chiaki is putting so much into the relationship and getting none of her needs met. A lot of times, there's not even fleshed out reasons why Chiaki would be dating Mikan - what she gets out of it, not just what she provides. Now, arguably, this is because most stories involving them are one shots - there just isn't time to explore both of them in depth, and its only a snapshot of their relationship. But even with that, there is an overabundance of Chiaki taking care of Mikan with oftentimes little to no indication that she does the same. I think this is partially because a lot of people are primed to see relationships as "what can this person do for me?" and not "what can we do for each other?" A lot of times, the dynamics aren't mutual and balanced. To be fair, life is messy in real life - sometimes one person is going to be putting in more work than the other one at the moment, but usually that is a temporary situation—and when they can, they reciprocate later. Relationships have their ups and downs. But I can't help but wish that we saw a more balanced dynamic between the two in fics, at least the fluffy ones.
But while I do acknowledge that the ship has fluffy origins, I am desperate for non-fluffy content. I think only having fluffy stuff does a disservice to the relationship - especially for Mikan. Mikan, in my opinion, is a very messy, traumatized person, and I don't like how a lot of people candy coat this in an attempt to write really fluffy relationship stuff (not just aimed at nanamiki works). Her trauma wouldn't just go away after getting in a relationship, and a relationship wouldn't just fix all her problems, either. Reducing her down to "crybaby who just needs love" misses the point of her character - while it's true she needs support, she can't just survive on one person, one relationship alone. She needs a support system, not (just) a girlfriend. In my opinion, Mikan would be a disaster in a relationship - and not just in a cute, insecure, shy way. Mikan has a lot of feelings and she feels them very violently, including love - she gets obsessive, is a chronic people pleaser, and threatens to break Hajime's legs in her island mode. Her whole motive for being a nurse is because she likes the power it gives her over her patients. This characterization, that she's a poor little baby who did nothing wrong and just needs real love to heal her, is a disservice to her character.
I want to see Mikan being complicated. I want to see her having maladaptive and unhealthy coping mechanisms. I want her to be messy. That's what I love about her character- that she is a deeply, truly traumatized person who is sometimes awful and sometimes a wreck of a person, but despite that, she's a victim. Despite that, she deserve to heal - or maybe because of that. Mikan is very much informed by her trauma, in a very unhealthy way, but she is still, ultimately, a person who needed help and didn't get it. She is a person society failed.
She didn't just need a lover. She needed a support system, she needed people to constantly stand up for her, constantly love her, support her—she needed people to not hurt her in the first place.
Sorry, I got pretty passionate about that. My point is, I wish there was more complicated Nanamiki - Nanamiki that addresses Chiaki's needs, Nanamiki that addresses Mikan's dark sides, Nanamiki that is complicated and messy.
I think, too, that DR3 (while having a lot of things I didn't like) had a compelling idea for Nanamiki (if I'm remembering right). Before Mikan pushes Chiaki into the hallway Chisa finds her, if I'm remembering right, Mikan talks about how everyone loves and admires Chiaki... and to me, she sounds jealous. Now that. That is interesting to me. I find that SO compelling - the idea that Mikan sees herself in Chiaki, and it infuriates her, because everyone loves and adores Chiaki and she feels like no one feels the same for her. Now, I have extrapolated a lot of feelings on Mikan's side from that short interaction, and maybe that's not the intent of canon, but honestly? I really like what I've extrapolated. With that in mind, there's even more you could headcanon about Mikan and Chiaki and their state of their relationship during the despair arc: Chiaki acts like she loves Mikan, but Mikan can't believe that, how could someone so loved like Chiaki love her? Maybe she even wants to test that love, test the limits of it, behave badly or hurt her to prove to herself that Chiaki never *really* loved her in the first place, that her "forgiveness" was fragile. (Think similar to the dynamic of dogbird by maddy, I guess?) Maybe she's jealous, so bitterly jealous, that people love Chiaki and no one loves her. Maybe she's secretly angry that Chiaki can get along with Hiyoko so well when she bullies her, and she's angry at herself for being angry, because isn't what Hiyoko does to her what she deserves? And yet Chiaki says she doesn't deserve that, yet at the same time is friends with someone who treats her like that... she's confused and hurt and internalizing all of it. I could go on.
I think, in DR3, it was a real missed opportunity to have the remnants turn on Chiaki slowly instead of being brainwashed. In a hypothetical AU, instead of being brainwashed, Junko turns them against her, or calls to question her love, makes them doubt her - and maybe that's not enough to get them to turn on her fully, but when she proposes a "test" of her hope in the form of a murder maze, they agree (Nagito first because he's all about testing hope and has faith in Chiaki, Mikan second because of her devotion to Junko—or reverse order, I'm not picky—and then everyone else reluctantly following). That isn't canon by any means, but it's the AU I tend to go with when I keep human Chiaki in my fanfic.
In that situation, Mikan becomes like a Judas figure. Actually, lower one's eyes (specifically trickles cover) portrays what I imagine Mikan would feel perfectly. Another song that really fits Nanamiki (imo) is lacy by Olivia Rodrigo. It talks about jealousy over and attraction to a girl you think is so perfect, which I think fits Mikan's side of this perfectly.
Even without the AU I made up, I think DR3 adds a layer of tragicness to nanamiki I don't see explored a lot! Which is sad. I mean, getting brainwashed to send your girlfriend to her death is prime angst potential. I would love even that to be explored (despite how I'm usually not a big fan of the brainwashing video in general). I want more angsty, doomed nanamiki. Even now, most stories are one shots focusing fluff, or ones where they woobify Mikan, or ones where the dynamic is unbalanced between Mikan and Chiaki, and in those fanfics, they hardly ever explore Chiaki. Which is so sad to me. All the multichapter fics I've seen only have nanamiki as a side pairing, too. I love Nanamiki (it might be my favorite DR f/f pairing ever!) and I would love for people to explore more sides of it!
Sorry for the long ask. I just have So Many Nanamiki thoughts.
As someone who wasn't around the fandom in 2013-era, this is SUCH an interesting read. It aligns with a lot of what I've rediscovered searching through for old art, especially searching for Nanamiki works.
I don't really have anything to add, which I hope is okay - this is just really cool on its own, and I don't have anything to add to it other than "YEAH!! YEAH"
#asks#anon#one of those that i sit on for a while because i want to say something smart but in the end im like. nope. not smart enough#gotta throw in the towel. you won this one anon. youre the smart one#talk to the mod#nanamiki#meta#mikan tsumiki#chiaki nanami#sdr2
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Okay, I think I'm ready to start chewing on and articulating some Peerless/Wushuang thoughts at least, because I'm deep in the parts of the book where this starts becoming more relevant.
Feng Xiao and Cui Buqu are VERY alike. This is an asshole4asshole relationship, they're both leading secret police bureaus, they're both ruthless and calculating and VERY smart. But they're also so different in some crucial ways. Yeah, Feng Xiao is one of the strongest martial artists alive, while Cui Buqu's health is so fragile that everyone is amazed he's still alive, which is delightful, but i do think the differences in personality are even more more interesting
Like, a thing I've said before (maybe not on here?) is that one of the things that makes Yan Wushi so compelling despite being such a jackass is that he's VERY true to himself, in a considered, deliberate, intelligent way. Part of what drives him to try to break Shen Qiao is his conviction that everyone who clings to ethics and morality is just putting on a self-serving facade and it won't take much hardship to shatter that. Feng Xiao doesn't have an internal conviction like that driving him, or, he sort of does. But his core driving force is pure unadulterated self-love.
Feng Xiao has lived his life with perfect cheerful conviction that Feng Xiao is the most beauitful, most capable, most clever boy in the whole world. Now. It doesn't take long for him to become VERY wary of Cui Buqu's intelligence, but the personal vanity doesn't falter. It's a delight to read, someone trying to suck up to him sends him the most beautiful woman he's ever seen trying to curry favor, and Feng Xiao has her clean his room. He's literally like 'buddy. pal. why would i sleep with someone less beautiful than i am?' He's capable of schemes and plotting, but when it comes to personality, he is a CHEERFULLY open reflection of his own inner self however rancid that inner self is lmao
Cui Buqu on the other hand. MY GOD. The man literally starts the book acting a fabricated role. This won't have been spoilers if you read the book summary, but Cui Buqu has a whole city convinced that he's a perfectly benevolent, kind, generous daoist priest, and meanwhile. When it comes to a contest of who's the most ruthless in this book, between Feng Xiao and Cui Buqu, i think Cui Buqu handily wins! Even once that initial act is peeled away, Cui Buqu has layers and LAYERS. Mister onion ogre man. The author even calls him out for being like this in the notes. It's extremely funny, but also makes for a delightful slow burn in terms of relationship development, it's very rewarding to read.
But as i do that actual reading now, I'm really taken by how subtly that tension between them really enriches the surrounding story. The arc I'm in now involves Cui Buqu's backstory, and he's simultaneously being revealed to be more vicious and more gentle than the prior story suggested. This is DEFINITELY weighted more towards the viciousness than gentleness, but without spoilers, that really makes the moments when he chooses to be kind hit so, so hard! And while Feng Xiao is strong, he's always been openly and bluntly strong, the way more and more of Cui Buqu is gradually brought to light underscores the depth and nature of HIS strength.
Both of these men are very beloved by their subordinates, so the story communicates well that they have good points, but it's fascinating how Cui Buqu's are revealed to readers by patiently peeling those layers away, while Feng Xiao, someone much more open, but with a very demanding personality, is rounded out in large part thanks to those reveals from Cui Buqu, and the way he reacts and how his behavior modifies.
Is that coherent? I can't tell anymore. But the depth of meng xi shi's character writing is something fascinating to me, and Peerless and Thousand Autumns give a LOT of narrative attention to who their main characters are, and the different seemingly-contradictory layers of characters like Yan Wushi and Cui Buqu. Shen Qiao and Feng Xiao are fascinating in the sense of however far down you dig, what you see is what you get, lmao. But the nuance and elaboration within that space, which might seem restrictive, still makes for a FASCINATING character, and a very engaging read
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Rant-ish lol. Mentions of SA because it about Astarion and related things
Full transparency, I did go into the Astarion romance completely blind expecting just a run of the mill "I can fix him" shoddily written spicy vampire storyline, because over ten years of consuming dragon age and destiny 2 my expectations for writing in video games such as this are in hell. I think those games did beat my brain into a sort of numbness. Especially with d2's "forgive your abuser" storyline jesus christ what the hell is happening in there
So imagine my surprise and actual delight when I noticed how much depth and care and time and effort and actual humanity they put into Astarion and his story. Holy shit. It's like Larian took a baseball bat filled with adrenaline to my brain.
Oh I do wonder why a character dealing with a very real trauma is such a popular character a lot of players relate to. I guess it's a mystery! Who knows! It's gotta be because he's pretty and a guy!
I feel like it's also the first time in a long while (if ever) a story about SA and trauma from it has been treated with any kind of tact and responsibility, to my knowledge.
Looking at you The Medium, you scum of the earth victim blaming atrocity. Boy what a great studio to give the Silent Hill 2 remake to, whose plot involves a victim of SA dealing with her trauma. Oh man oh boy we are in hell!
Point is that a lot of video game writers are incompetent to say the least around this subject, and a character like Astarion should at the very least be allowed to be celebrated that he exists. Because they are going to screw up that plot point in the SH2 remake ain't they.
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