Maybe a hot take, but I don't think the Traveler was being inconsistent or out of character in the last archon quest at all. People are getting upset at their reaction to Lyney and Lynette's behavior from the perspective of players, with meta knowledge of the story that the Traveler, the character, doesn't have.

The players know, for example, that because they're playable characters, Lyney and Lynette are ultimately friendly and on "our" side, and we can also trust that what they told us about their backstory is true. The Traveler does not have that knowledge.

TO BE CLEAR this post is talking about my thoughts on the TRAVELER'S thought process. If we want to talk about how I personally would have reacted to the situation, I'm an overly trusting bleeding-heart who would absolutely get scammed and probably murdered by Fatui in this universe.

(Also characters, even main characters who you normally like, can do things you disagree with and that doesn't mean they're badly written. I mean, sometimes they are, but I don't think that's true in this particular case)

But think about it! Looking at the entire situation from an in-universe, in-character POV, it's a really bad look for Lyney and Lynette overall, because here are the facts as the Traveler is aware of them:

Lyney and Lynette are not only members of the Fatui, the primary antagonistic force in this story, but are specifically members of the House of the Hearth, which is known to specialize in espionage, subterfuge, and sabotage.

Both of them also work in a field that would further require them to be masters of misdirection, audience manipulation, and drama.

They "coincidentally" ran into the Traveler right as they arrived in Fontaine and immediately began to do them favors and be very friendly, including saving them from Furina, bringing them to meet their family, and gifting them VIP tickets to Lyney's show.

During the trial, the twins withheld key information, and not just about their identities (and listen, I get it, I fully empathize with why they did it, I get the reasoning, but it's still a bad look when it gets figured out) but also about what they were doing in the tunnel.

They admitted that the entire magic show was a ruse to do, guess what? espionage! To break into the room with the Oratrice's core and find out how it works. To, through subterfuge, obtain Fontaine's secrets about the nation's most important mechanism and central source of power.

The Traveler has known these people for like, a day total.

So what conclusions might the Traveler draw from these facts? When the evidence shows that Lyney and Lynette have a record of misdirection and obfuscation for their own ends? When the Traveler has no way of knowing if even their initial meeting was orchestrated for an ulterior purpose? How are they supposed to know if the tragic backstory is even true, or if that's just Lyney trying to win back some favor and sympathy? In my opinion, at that moment, they don't. Hence the coldness.

My interpretation of events is that the Traveler does like the twins, and wanted to keep liking them, but was struggling to reconcile their initial impression of two friendly magicians with the realization that these two friendly magicians were dishonest with them for most of the time they'd known each other, so they needed to have some space to figure that out.

And for those saying the Traveler is inconsistent, here's the thing: they still helped Lyney. They still acted as his attorney, investigated thoroughly, won the case, and cleared his name. They've done similar for other Fatui members in their acquaintance—they helped Childe with Teucer, they helped Scaramouche/Wanderer with getting his memories back, they helped that other member of the House of the Hearth fake her death and escape the organization—whether or not they fully trusted them, and generally they didn't.

As for the Traveler's supposed hypocrisy, my view of their relationship with Childe is that it's only improved because, despite Childe trying to nuke Liyue in the past, the Traveler knows that

a. They can handle him if it comes down to a fight again; b. He likes them, regardless of if the feeling is mutual or not, and is indeed aggressively friendly to the point where it's easier to just be civil; c. Childe is generally upfront and honest about his actions and will strike from the front, not stab them in the back; and d. He's worked together with them before when they had a common goal (for example, the labyrinth they went through with Xinyan).

They know how his mind works and what motivates him. Childe is a known quantity, the twins are not, and it took in-story time and shared experiences for the Traveler to get to even this point of neutrality; they were openly suspicious of him during his story quest.

As for holding his Vision for him, the Traveler didn't exactly volunteer for the job, Childe literally threw it at them with no warning and peaced out. What do you expect them to do, drop it in the sea? That would be inconsistent with their characterization.

Wanderer's whole situation is even weirder, since the Traveler was able to experience his actual memories and emotions and therefore has good reason to trust that he's had a genuine change of heart. Not to mention that they're not friends, I'd argue they're in that same nebulous "neutral" zone, and that only because Nahida usually functions as a buffer (and also because, again, the Traveler knows that they can handle Wanderer in a fight, and Wanderer also tends to be blunt and honest).

Also, in Lyney's story quest it seems like everyone got over their problems pretty fast and they're all chummy now, so you can all rest easy that the twins' feelings weren't too hurt about it.

Anyways if you disagree go ham, refute my points, whatever, just keep things civil.

Inazuma Rewrite part one

This is bullet points rewrite for Inazuma general plot structure, bc I think it had so much potential, but was horrifically scuffed in game. If I keep something from canon unchanged, I’ll just say so without retelling the entire thing to keep the length down, bc it’s gonna be A LOT already.

Some disclaimers: I’m not trying to fix every single problem, just what I see as major structural failures. I will reference my problems, but you can read my explanations on them more in depth in my “inazuma ranting” tag.

This is also not envisioned as free for all fanfic where I can write whatever I want, but aimed to be actually feasible to see in game, bc it’d be unfair and I want to show that Inazuma could be improved in the same constraints that hoyo writers had. So please don’t ask why I didn’t do wildly inconsistent thing that would be cool, but genshin would never actually do.

I’m aiming to retain all relevant lore and achieve basically same worldstate in the end, including character arcs, for the most part, because I presume them to be integral to the larger strategic plotline of the game. Which means I can’t drastically change characterization and major plot beats like the decrees, rebellion, Raiden has to be a sympathetic ally in the end, etc. I’m also trying to keep genshin’s general tone and modus operandi, bc like, target audience includes 13 yolds and I can’t just “make Inazuma good” by turning it into like, a gruesome and complex power struggle of political factions like Fallout New Vegas.

List of main issues I want to address: pacing in general, rebellion pacing especially, lack of impact and continuity of effects of vision loss on people, lack of setup for the stasis vs transience aka ei vs makoto conflict, character arcs: raiden, ayaka, kazuha, kokomi, yoimiya, kujou sara. And more! 

Initially I wanted to make a single post, but it’s already 3k and I’m only up to Raiden’s first duel and I plan to cover post-archon quest content too, like Raiden and Yoi story quests, so I decided to split it up instead of posting like 20k monstrosity. So remember, this is for now mostly a setup.

EDIT: Part 2

Raiden’s motivations\Reasons for vision hunt

Ok, so one of the biggest principal changes is that vision hunt and sakoku decree are active Raiden’s decisions, instead of Fatui’s plot that she’s just passively allowing to happen. Raiden closed the country, but she’s ok with Fatui starting a civil war and selling delusions, bc it doesn’t “affect eternity”, like??? I honestly think that the current plot of her people dying in a civil war meant nothing to her is much worse than her starting vision hunt decree out of misguided plan to ultimately do better for people.

I mean ok, we have to have closed borders to reference Japan’s history, sure, but like, the whole point of isolationist policies like this is to prevent the outsiders’ influence on the country. So she should not be ok with Fatui schemes at any point.  

I mean, if it was fallout new vegas AU, I’d keep it to show that dictator doesn’t not care about foreign powers exploiting it’s people as long as it profits the empire and helps to keep people subjugated, but like. Then raiden can’t be uwu waifu. So we gonna give her good intentions and integrity, but misunderstanding of humanity due to closing herself off instead.

Now to why would she close the country and institute sakoku decree. I want to tie this in with another plotline that is just. Kinda floating at sidelines at the moment, but I think could work nicely in tandem. The Scaramouche destroying Raiden Gokaden, the five schools of weapon smithing, which were canonically highly valued by Raiden.

I’m not gonna recount Scara’s entire plotline, but basically he went on a misguided crusade against Raiden Gokaden and managed to cause fall of 4 out of 5 weapon-smith schools.

Game says that he like, tampered with the schools and covertly led to their ruin, which like?? They never found anyone guilty, like the most prized weapon art smiths of your country fall apart and you’re like oh well, I guess Yashiro commission is just bad at it’s job?

There is a plot point in this story where Isshin weapon smiths, unable to replicate a faulty design that was Raiden’s commission tampered by Scara, were scared of Raiden’s wrath and decided to flee to Snezhnaya. I want to change it to be that there is an event, where ALL weapon schools receive same commission at the same time, and Scara tampers with it.

Just as in canon, scared smiths, but now from 4 schools, not one, are manipulated by Fatui to flee to Snezhnaya, But we add a new NPC, the most talented blade smith who had a vision. Fatui frame him as the ring leader, as if they were running not to save their lives because of the tampered design, impossible to fulfil, but that this was a betrayal because of his ambitions.

After this, Raiden has legitimate cause to feel like her eternity is threatened. She sees weapon art schools, one of the most prized country’s traditions being ruined in a moment because of what she thinks is ambitious hubris of one vision holder, who colluded with outsiders. So she closes Inazuma and declares a vision hunt, to prevent this from ever happening again.

But ironically, in truth it was the fault of not just Fatui, but specifically a puppet without a vision that she herself created and failed to supervise. This brings the main idea of the plotline from “Fatui evil, Raiden passive” to “Solipsist goddess who doesn’t understand humanity tries to protect her people by locking them in stasis and taking their ambitions, but the real case of tragedy was her negligence and lack of empathy all along, and this is what needs to be changed.”

Interlude and plot setup

We start with similar plotline. Traveler tries to go to Inazuma, learns that it’s closed, talks to Inazuman NPC to learn more. Here we’re introduced to the general idea that Inazuma was closed off due to one traitor blade smith with a vision who sold off Raiden Gokaden to Fatui.

We go to Beidou’s tournament, which goes basically the same, we meet Kazuha and watch a beautiful cutscene about his dead friend who challenged Raiden to a duel, and now Kazuha tries to find someone who can reignite his vision. I will actually add changes to Kazuha’s storyline, but it be will later.

then we arrive to Inazuma, go through the same bureaucracy loops with Thoma on Ritou, to show the barriers to outsiders and also to illustrate how Thoma is the best fixer when he manages to drop a fee from 1 mil to like 10 gold by promising to have a dinner with government official.

But we’re cutting the second part of Ritou, with the boring plot about like merchant from Mond scamming people with the local police and then Traveler delivering love letter or whatever. I mean, we can keep this as an optional side quest, if like hoyo thinks the lore about love letter is essential for the Ayato’s quest or smth, but not as an Archon quest.

Instead, we put a part of Yoimiya’s quest there. I think Yoi’s quest is relevant enough to stay in the Archon quest, unlike Ayaka’s, but it’s slapped into a place where it ruins pacing. So instead, we’re cutting it up in parts and inserting it into main storyline.

On Ritou, while doing bureaucracy bullshit, we meet Yoimiya, and play the part of her quest about her helping a guy with a vision to escape from his former best friend, who is now a guard hunting him. It helps to show the rift that vision hunt brings not only with the outsiders, but with inside of the country as well.

Ghost of Makoto\Transience setup

another key point that I think is integral to fixing Inazuma is planting seeds for Makoto’s reveal from the start. I really like the Stasis vs Transience conflict from raiden’s second story quest, where raiden believed in eternity as lack of change, a perfect state maintained until the rest of time, while her twin Makoto believed in eternity as never-ending change, where people’s dreams constantly evolve, nature of them chasing these dreams never changes.

but it feels like it came out of nowhere and raiden just speedruns character development in like an hour, so a lot of people ended up feeling like it was just about Raiden mourning her sister, instead of raiden coming to understand makoto’s belief system and through that unlocking makoto’s final connection and then being able to let go.

so we need to first of all, introduce makoto’s ideas of transience from the start, and also empathize the conflict of them with raiden’s stasis.

and it doesn’t mean we’ll spoil the reveal about the second raiden shogun! we don’t have to ever use makoto’s name, just her title as a raiden and sprinkle her ideas throughout the land. We know hoyo area designers can do that stuff really well (guizhong’s relics being scattered all over liyue, rukkhadevata’s shadow in the aranara quest).

like, it’s strange that Makoto primarily ruled and shaped country by herself while Ei was just a warrior, yet we do not have Makoto’s influence visible. We need to add ideas of transience into fundamentals of Inazuma,

“Transience is the dream of the nation of thunder. We find the greatest joys in mortal life in fleeting dreams, for is life itself not like the shadow of the thunder? Pursue your dreams into the clouds if you wish, and enjoy the unexpected silence of the dim lamp-lit nights.” - Guide to Transience talent book.

add these ideas all over the place, esp near sakura. And let’s draw player’s attention a couple of times specifically to the internal contradiction of these ideas of transience being integral to inazuma and raiden’s current hatred of change.

like, we need even 13 yolds and twitch streamers to remember this, so lets make paimon say like

“Huh, this shrine to raiden shogun says that eternity is the pursuit of fleeting dreams, but doesn’t raiden shogun fucking hates dreams?? I wonder, what made her change her mind about them to the total opposite!“

this and more subtle puzzles\locations with focus on transience for people who pay more attention will add the much needed setup for makoto’s reveal

Kamisato siblings

ok, first things first, Ayato being absent without any explanation while his little sister is plotting treason and his malewife Thoma is about to be executed on the streets is unacceptable.

like I know it’s marketing or whatever and he’s not being released but we need his model, hoyo. If we 200% CAN’T have his model, we need to come up with solid excuse why he’s not here. Like idk, he’s helping the war refugees or smth

And we need hints at his presence\influence throughout the story. Like oh, here’s group of refugees who were helped by Yashiro commissioner, they are relocating to new homes, I guess Ayato is really busy. Oh, here is Fatui’s camp where everyone is slaughtered and boba tea cups are littered around, I wonder what is up with that.

and also, Ayaka is organizing resistance behind his back, and we never meet him bc Ayaka actively tries to hide traveler from him.

bc like, Ayaka doesn’t have a development arc in archon quest. She’s just kind of there, being perfect. Like in her story quest that hoyo makes you do at gun point, you like, go on a date, learn that she’s lonely and has trouble connecting with people due to the pressure of having to project an image of perfection and societal distance, do an investigation to uncover her late mother’s fox fursona roleplay diary which she used to cope her with own societal pressure. Which like. Ok, sure, but but this wet socks quest is not an archon quest material. It should be just a normal story quest.

no, Ayaka’s real conflict is wanting to prove herself to her brother, bring real difference to the world. This is her ambition, she literally gained her vision while fighting Ayato in a training, she wanted to show him that she’s strong enough to handle responsibility, he named her Shirasagi Himegimi after she won that fight

but during a civil war, watching people suffer, her role as a cultural figurehead is not enough. She wants to help, but she’s afraid to act, because this will undermine Yashiro Commission and her brother worked so hard to build it back up after Raiden Gokaden fall. so she organizes resistance behind her brother’s back in secret, to help, but without compromising Kamisato name

this basically tracks with what happens in game, but we spell it out and expand on this later.

Getting Traveler to help

next, let’s throw out the weird edging introduction where traveler is not allowed to see Ayaka the first time. like??? bro, we’re friends with 2 archons and heads of their governments, you’re not that important. and it can’t be to protect her identity, bc like. You go to Kamisato estate! You’re told who she is! If you wanted to betray her, that would be enough already.

another awkward thing is that Traveler, who agrees to do every stupid quest they meet, suddenly refuses to help the resistance.

I think we should reframe their convo a little, like Traveler says hey I’d love to help, but my primary goal is to get info about my sibling from an Archon, so I don’t want to go against her.

To which Ayaka says oh, I totally get you, you see, I am myself a culture figurehead and a nominal princess and I can’t speak up against the decree, bc that will hurt Yashiro Commission. But I’m not asking you to fight Raiden Shogun in a duel or smth, I’m just asking you to help people with the resistance, which we do totally in secret. No one will know! Also, how are you going to see Raiden? She’s locked up and doesn’t appear in public. But my big brother is a head of the Commission, if anyone can get you an audience, it’s him. So help me help people and I will ask him to help you see Shogun!

she secretly believes that after traveler sees ppl suffering, they will change their mind and help willingly, same as in canon, but she’s more subtle about it

Rebellion connection

my other problem with vision hunt is that the 3 quests they force you to do about meeting people who lost their visions are like. not good. The concept is interesting, but they are just kinda boring and meandering. They lack dramatic impact. They could do better. So we’re not doing these 3 quests rn, but don’t worry about it, we will get to the effects of vision loss

Instead, ayaka sends us to help Yoimiya and we do the same quest we do in archon quest - help her to free someone from prison dungeon. It goes the same, we get to the dude being mistreated by cops, Kujou Sara steps up and lets us go

But then it’s like, we need to get this dude out of Inazuma city. Cops know he escaped! They will just come for him again! There is only one place that will take him and it’s the watatsumi rebels.

Common complaint about Inazuma is that other countries feel like found families and Inazuma doesn’t, bc characters from resistance and rebellion basically don’t interact, and it’s true. And like, we can get them together! Thoma knows Kazuha, Kazuha knows Gorou, Gorou in canon went to recoinsanse missions to Narukami island.

So, Gorou visits the tea house to pick up the Vision Dude, and the gang has the hotpot meet up. Everyone is there (except Kokomi bc ok hoyo, we’re saving up for dramatic battle reveal, and i think her reveal would fuck up banner schedule). Ayaka, Thoma, Yoimiya, Kazuha, Gorou. and Teppei! Who is here bc he was recruited by Gorou. He’s actually from Narukami island, not Watatsumi, and he had nothing to do with visions, but he’s an idealist, he believes in freedom, so he joined rebellion. fun times are had, Ayaka tries to play srs bsns lady host, but breaks into giggling at The Shenanigans, Gorou is overly polite but adorable and apologizes to Ayaka about The Shenanigans in which everyone but him participates, Yoi is a life of party and the Shenanigans and later has to be bodily stopped by Kazuha from organizing fireworks right here, right now, Thoma and Teppei both get sick from eating Ayaka’s nasty cakes that she threw into soup, bc Thoma is just into oral stuff and Teppei is so earnest and eager to prove himself and impress ppl, haha comic relief, look how sweet and funny this guy is and all characters get along so great with him

bc like, I think Teppei has a problem of a) not having enough screen time b)not having any interesting characterization moments to make him stand out 3)not having other playable and already likeable characters interact with him

so this scene can serve not only to bring that “unlikely bunch of people becoming friends and working together” connection to life, but also to endear Teppei to the players

Vision Loss Effects\ Yoimiya and Thoma

ok, next Ayaka asks Traveler to do that one quest about martial arts master losing their vision. I think it’s the one quest from 3 about vision loss with most drama, but the real reason is that it introduces Yae Miko and we need to do this before leaving for the rebellion. Like, in theory, it could be switched to another, better quest that lets us meet Yae Miko, but honestly, this is not one of Inazuma archon quest problems so I can’t be arsed. Feel free to imagine a cooler intro instead.

when we go back to tea house, we learn that Yoimya’s vision has been taken away. She has been recognized in that last prison raid and the guards came for her later, and she didn’t fight bc there were kids and her old father around.

She’s completely changed. Her innate optimism, her belief in people and their dreams has been drained from her like a sunshine from a dark cellar. But she’s still Yoimiya!! She came here to warn you bc she still cares even if she had her own joy taken from her. She tries to smile and reassure you that it’s ok, she’s fine, but her smile is visibly strained, she’s never had to fake it before so she doesn’t know how. She wears a vision, but it’s a fake one, because her pops said that maybe having it here would help and she agreed, tried to pretend for him that it does help, bu. It very obviously doesn’t.

Ayaka is horrified. She apologizes to Yoimiya, tries to think of ways to help her, but Yoi just laughs humorlessly. “It won’t ever touch you, princess.”

She’s immediately disgusted at herself and apologizes, tries to take it back, this isn’t her, she would never say this, and not to her friend! But also, it’s so hard to care now and she can’t remember why it’s so important to care at all.

Ayaka is shaken. Bc it’s true! She is a privileged noble, vision hunt will not come for her! She is playing at the resistance from the safety of anonymity, while people like Yoimiya actually risk themselves and pay the price!

And this is when the news that Thoma was arrested and about to be 100th vision taken at the feet of the statue comes. Tenryou commission truly strikes back.

Ayaka is in uproar. She’s ready to go herself and fight for Thoma, especially after Yoi’s words. She’s sick and tired of being a perfect princess, she can’t allow any more of her friends, her family come to harm because they don’t have her protection. Clearly Thoma being a theatrical execution is a blow specifically against Yashiro commission and Kamisato family in particular, and if Shogun has beef with her, well, she can settle it with HER instead of going after her friends!

Traveler stops her. This is what they want. If Ayaka openly moves against the Shogun, the entire Yashiro commission falls. Even if Ayaka is in the right! No, it’s the Traveler who will go to save Thoma

But traveler needs raiden’s good will for the info, they can’t confront raiden openly, it was the deal from the start!

But at this point traveler has seen too much, the divide in the country, the change and suffering of their own friends, and they can’t allow all of Yashiro commission take the fall.

This is when the Traveler decides to take a stand.

ACT 2

I need to write this down before I forget… so what was your opinion on the Raiden Shogun’s story arc? Tbh I felt hyped about it when it first came out but now that I am calm, I realize there are some glaring issues in the plot when it comes to tying loose ends…

For example, the fact that people died during the vision hunt decree and that there wasn’t any sort of political pushback on Raiden Shogun’s rule… or questioning the commissions? Or even the unsolved tension between Sangonomiya and Narukami inhabitants. Overall the story was rushed but had so much potential…

There’s too much to cover on how we COULD speculate how it could have ended, so I’m just gonna discuss Raiden Shogun. Personally, I felt that Raiden Shogun should have been demoted(?) from her role as ruler of Inazuma… too many mistakes and the fact that she stayed inside her head for so long does not sound like a capable leader to the inazumans… not to mention that she kinda ignored them too for so long…

I could imagine that if we were to go down this demoted route, Raiden Shogun would just.. be a literal figurehead, maybe realizing that she’s unfit to rule and that her vision of eternity won’t benefit her people so she in stead resorts to just being a symbol of eternity… their eternal god that watches and records their history… idk I’m just spitballing here and kinda drawing from my pedestrian knowledge… so what do you think?

Also note: not hating on Raiden, I love her design just story wise there’s some inconsistencies haha. Sorry for the text being so long 💦💦💦

OH MY GOD YOURE ENABLING ME TO TALK ABOUT THIS

I'm going to compare her a lot to Venti and Zhongli, because it's the only reference we have.

Salt under cut.

As a consumer of a video game, it was... well. Wasn't enjoyable but whatever, they were rushing the product.

As a writer, I fucking hate it. I hate it so much. I fucking hate it and honestly I can't even like Raiden for it. [I dislike Kokomi, not because of Kokomi herself, but she was written like a fucking idiot in the archon quest... Why did she pop up twice and the second time was her NOT NOTICING HER SOLDIERS COULD USE ELEMENTS???]

First off, Raiden's position of power. I still don't understand a lot about her in ways we do understand Venti and Zhongli. We know what they were before becoming Archons. Venti was a little wind sprite that wanted to bring hope to the people of Mondstadt, and to bring freedom in the way he couldn't bring to his friend. Zhongli was already a powerful dragon, and the first adeptus, and was more forced into the position, because they needed a surviving god to lead them. Zhongli was the strongest.

But... Raiden- we don't know anything. I haven't done intensive research, but that's the thing: I shouldn't need to do intensive research to understand a character. I don't know what she was before. Was she just a powerful human? How could a human compare to beings literally made of, and for, their element? [Again, Zhongli being an Earth Dragon, Venti being a Wind Sprite]. And, this does include her sister, but I won't focus on her because... well. She's dead. She's not who we're talking about.

I don't know what Raiden is, and why she is an Archon. It wasn't touched upon, which really made it not feel... real. The argument CAN be made that we learned about Venti later [Zhongli we learned, quite quickly, that he was a dragon- See: Exodia.] But we learned about Venti's past during his Personal quest. We didn't learn about Ei in her personal quest.

So we're off to a bad start- We don't know how she became an Archon. We do know she's more of an upfront leader, as most Archons are, but the first we've seen due to... Well. Zhongli and Venti. I could've forgiven this if it was touched upon in her personal quest- But it wasn't. Honestly, I don't know WHO Ei is. She seeks eternity. She's suffered from trauma, losing her sister, and her three best friends. But there's more to life than just a base trauma, and what her goal is. Zhongli is an ancient dragon, and god, who has always wanted to find peace between two parties, and has always fulfilled his duties of protecting the people that worshipped him. He's resigned from what he's suffered from, but he's not in the midst of his pain, and has grown past it. He's smart but violent when necessary- Someone who didn't want what he was given, but was forced into it. Venti is a soul that truly is as free as the wind, mostly just wanting to have fun, he cares a lot, but he also understands that all of life is a joke. He wants to enjoy it, and he trusts his people- He's there for them, watching over them with love, but he doesn't trust himself to rule... and he knows that, being a god of freedom, he cannot rule, or he will destroy the freedom he offered. But Ei? She wants eternity because she lost people, and if there's eternity, they will stay forever, and she will not suffer from loss ever again. Noble, but that's it. That's a very two-dimensional character, compared to Venti and Zhongli.

As for the political pushback- I can forgive that more, at least, for Raiden directly. She's an ARCHON. A GOD. People don't have a choice to fight her. Sure, they can try, but we already had the rebellion... So writing-wise, it wouldn't make sense to rebel, and then to rebel for more, when originally they wanted to keep Ei around, but just repeal the vision hunt. Still, it's... quite odd. It doesn't feel right, but I won't fight on it too hard. Besides, they wanted to introduce the audience to an Archon who rules directly- It's a tricky thing! Mondstadt is the most relatable as far as the god is concerned, because it only features a God we cannot see, and we just believe in. Not everyone is Christian, but we don't have gods in real life ordering us around. Then, Zhongli is only somewhat present, so it helps ease us into gods being more present and distancing Teyvat from our world. Raiden is just the next step forward- She's there, but sort of distant, and her 'Shogun' itself can be likened to a prophet- Still, not too shocking. We can be eased into seeing gods as leaders being normal in teyvat. So, fine, I can forgive that in the grand scheme of things.

I do think she, in a way, let herself become a figurehead. Not entirely, but I can see her acting more reserved- Granted in her personal quest, she was in seclusion, the Shogun pacing endlessly, but I can see her stepping back a little- She's there, and she will still seek eternity, but she loosens her grip on Inazuma, if only a little bit. But as far as anyone trying to 'demote' her... that wouldn't... work. Just- You wouldn't go to a literal god and demote them. If this was a setting closer to real life, of course, like if the President of the USA did something terrible, we could get them impeached. But it's just... Humans can't fight the gods directly head-on without facing death. That's what we need to learn in the context of Genshin Impact- It's not our world, and we cannot apply it to our world's standards at some places. You can't demote a god in the same way you'd demote a national leader.

I personally detest how she was done, however, and I feel that the entire thing was rushed and we were deprived of a lot of information that could've at least helped us UNDERSTAND Raiden- She didn't even fucking get redeemed, she's still the same person. She just realized that she can't push her people around, but theres no character development. She still clearly doesn't understand that she can't treat people like less than people.

TL;DR: This is a setting that's trying to get us accustomed to a world that is not our own, and goes by its own 'Rules', so it's important to remember that demoting a god isnt as easy as demoting a national leader... But as a whole, Raiden is infuriatingly poorly written, and I can't find a reason to care about her. Her trauma doesn't justify her actions, and she never developed as a character, making her boring and a poor set-up to the future Archons of Teyvat.

Since I got time to kill, I’ll do a little write up thingy:

I’m not sure if the sale is still going on but if you like X-Com but wish the story had depth and choices, or you like the classic Fallout games but wish the combat wasn’t dogshit, I highly recommend Wasteland 3. I picked it up and the DLC because of Steam’s winter sale, never having played any of the other games in the series, and I’ve been having a blast.

The thing that is really surprised me the most is just how much choices seem to matter and they do try to provide some moral ambiguity to most of the choices. Now keep in mind that sometimes the game can be really wacky, and that the tonal inconsistency can be somewhat jarring but overall I think it leans more towards serious side.

With spoiling you much and not really knowing anything about the other games the basic premise is this; you play as a squad of Desert Rangers in a post apocalyptic America. At the end of Wasteland 2, the Rangers stopped a rogue AI from wiping out biological life, but at great cost. So now the Rangers have been promised assistance in rebuilding from a man known The Patriarch, the current ruler of Colorado. The Patriarch’s walled city is a jewel of civility compared to the rest of the ruins of America, but he needs your help in arresting his 3 wayward children who plot to usurp his throne. Of course, all that glitters is not gold, and the Patriarch has more than a few skeletons in his closet, and it’s up to you how you deal with him, his children, and the various other factions vying for power or just survival. Maybe you should depose the Patriarch, but many people view him as a hero so a peaceful transition of power is unlikely, and more troubling is the question is who would fill that vacuum? I’ve gotten probably like 30 hours in the game and I’m still not sure yet what I will do when it comes time because the most viable alternative at the moment isn’t much better.

One thing I really like compared to say Fallout is seeing as how you rebuilding an organization, the Patriarch gives you a home base of sorts and a fair degree of autonomy, it opens up lots of unique NPC interactions. For just one example, there was an early quest where a young man was going to be executed for a minor crime, and his mother wanted me to do whatever I could to free him. The solution I picked was to tell the judge i would pay for the damage he caused and have him join the Rangers, so now he is a guard at my base. This isn’t just for show, as in several missions enemies try to assault your base, so having additional guards who actually help out in those battles is a big plus.

It’s a really fun game and i strongly recommend it.

Huge-ask post (I am VERY funny)

Because I have so many questions that can be answered with just text, and I have mentioned my dislike of filling my art blog up with Words Words Words... let’s get them all done in one go!

(You guys can blacklist #rattytalks if you’re just here for the draws, btw)

A shit ton of asks under the cut!

Anonymous said: So for the center of the world, what with it being forcefully PG and all Bad Thoughts TM being prevented, how does having kids happen? Do parents just black out and wake up holding a child in their arms and vague memories of the last 9 months?

Ever seen a movie where they do that “and one day... a baby was born!” thing and a kid just appears offscreen with no explanation?

(This is how it works everywhere, Edgelands included; no one does the do or gets pregnant in this setting.)

Anonymous said: Hello! Quick question, and sorry if you’ve answered this before, but can other elves see the “intangible” bits of one another? Big fan of your work btw!

Nope! And thank you!

Anonymous said: Leopold was in my dream last night but I sadly cannot remember any of it.

I am SO sorry. I will try to keep my stinky murder men out of your head in the future.

Anonymous said: are the floaty bits stuck in one spot, or could the one they are attached to learn to move them around their body as long as its still within a certain distance? like, someone with the Floaty limbs, lets call him Ray, can move his limbs all over his body, allowing him to do all sorts of neat things that others with their attached limbs probably couldn't?

Whatever you want, honestly. As a general rule of thumb I don’t like putting down TOO many hard rules that prevent people from having fun with this setting. (Please ignore and scrap anything you think is stupid, I do this all the time and enjoy keeping this setting inconsistent and contradictory)

Anonymous said: Do elf names work off of Death Note rules, or is it like, if you know one elf’s name, all elves with that name are now unable to harm you? So if all the elf brothers are named Martin, for example, does it only work with blue?

I think it’s prolly just the one! Probably? Idk, might change if I think of something funnier.

Anonymous said: Can elves do magic on themselves or does thst go against the knowing name rule

Most people tend to know their own names, lol. So in my opinion, no, but don’t let me stop you if you got a fun idea.

Anonymous said: Could an Elf stitch on parts from another elf and have them work? i.e an Elf's finds the arm of another Elf. "Hey, free arm, might as well put it to good use", so they attach the arm and now they can give three high fives at once!

Same deal as previous questions, I personally would say no, but I also encourage people to do whatever the hell they want. It’s more fun that way!

Anonymous said: I bet elves are greasy to the touch.

They’re very powdery! Like if you rolled them in flour. And by flour I mean nasty glowing elf dandruff.

Anonymous said: Can elves fly or are their wings just for show?

No flying!!! (Unless you’re a mousefly)

Anonymous said: Something tells me that the elves would LOVE Obatzda.

Had to look that up, but definitely!

no1fan15: Not sure if someone asked already- Does Edgeworld have any equivalent to demons and angels? Like the old rubberhose cartoon kind?

Demons, yes! That’s what imps are: basically any demon, devil, or generic monster, but tiny! Even a couple of pop culture critters in there, there’s probably a very small gillman or robot monster running around there somewhere.

Angels, not so far. 

Anonymous said: How come Margaret hasn't yeeted George's jar into the Edge yet

I’d say being locked in a closet is good enough! (and also I need him for plot reasons, don’t tell anyone)

Anonymous said: If elves have knees bulges in the front then do they have butt bulges in the back?

i do not want to think about elf bulges

Anonymous said: So if you find a baby Therewoof and you say "aw you're so cute", their true name is So Cute?

Yep!

Anonymous said: Since a Therewoof's true name can be something like "cutie pie" or "dingus", does their name have to be spoken with "intent" for it to doggo-fy them? Or do they just have to live with the reality that any casual conversation/flirting can make them lose up to a month to Doggy Mode? My mom has little terrier dog named "Sweetie" so that got me thinking 'bout Therewoof names. & Anonymous said: here's a good question: If someone says a therewoof's true name, but not reffering to them, does it still affect them?

Just saying it will do! It’s based on those old werewolf stories where calling out the person’s name will change them back into a human/cure them, and a lot of the time it was by accident.

(My favorite is the one where they slam the door on the wolf’s tail and then say his name, and the dude ends up with a wolf tail for the rest of his life.)

Anonymous said: Would Seeing eye Therewoofs be a thing?

I... guess? Probably? Since regular dogs can turn into woofs, yeah. You might have to start paying em once they turn into a person tho. 

Anonymous said: Was ChalkZone ever an inspiration for you? Because I just love the silly world of ChalkZone and I noticed getting that same warm feeling when thinking about Edgeworld.

Maaaan, I wish. I’ve only seen about three episodes or so, but it seems really fun!

Anonymous said: So I saw your mimic post, and even though I don't think I've seen any other of your art before I was absolutely HAMMERED with an indescribable sense of slightly unsettling strangeness and comfortable familiarity. Your art feels like something from like, an old point and click computer game I would have had formative memories of before accidentally losing or scratching the disc therefore making me unsure if it ever REALLY existed. Sorry for being weird but I love the wacky nostalgia feel here

Aaaaaah, THANK YOU! That is SUCH a cool comparison and I appreciate!!!

Anonymous said: If the Edgeworld is based on cartoons then is there a Reverse Edge-world that’s based on anime?

Lol, I mean I DID have an anime phase for a while there, so...

caydebug: Man I’d love to see this as a cartoon some day

Honestly, same. Best you’re gonna get is the occasional animatic or gif, tho.

Anonymous said: Does anyone..."go" in Edgeworld? or is it like Pleasantville where bathrooms exist but there are no toilets in them because acknowledging it is yucky?

Oh god I keep getting asked this and have been avoiding it like the damn plague. But... Uh. No. No they do not. I am begging you all not to send any followup questions.

Anonymous said: Have you considered putting computer viruses or illnesses in with the buggymen? Since those are typically called ‘bugs’

Sure!

Anonymous said: are there any limits to what an Animimic could posess? i.e if they were in a costume of a Buggieman with multiple arms, could they control all of them? what about a small Mousefly costume? can multiple fit into one costume like a clown car? and what about in pitch black darkness, where you can only see the lights of their eyes and not their bodies? could one fit inside the pocket of a jacket you are wearing and help you steal things/wield a gun like a living turret?

Since clothing fills into the body type of the intended wearer, they would indeed be able to control all arms/legs in buggieman clothes.

Size restrictions is one of these things I wanna try to be vague about: I personally have been imagining them sticking to hiding in things no smaller than, um. Maybe imp sized, but really, whatever. It’s a cartoon eyeball critter!

You can put multiple animimics in one outfit!

They can move around just fine in darkness without being off screen, yeah!

And sure why not. lol

Anonymous said: I know you have been asked this once before, and you said nah you don't, but with a few more months of worldbuilding, do you have an idea for what could be down the edge now? 🤔

Not really! It’s not super important, honestly. I’d say any fan theory is about as valid as anything else I can come up with.

ps2polpo: I doubt you’ll ever elaborate on The Edge but I like to imagine there’s just one dude there like the Nowhere Man from the Yellow Submarine movie. Mostly cause the thought of someone accidentally winding up there being like “where am I?” And there’s just a guy casually waving at him like a friendly neighbor is funny to me & Anonymous said: The implication that the Edge is the physical manifestation of edginess so there’s probably like, Trevor Henderson monsters hanging out down there.

See above question! Valid! I also accept falling forever, getting erased from existence, ending up in another universe, getting stuck in limbo with thousands of other people, whatever you want, really!

Anonymous said: " he has very few bones and weighs basically nothing, " "Fastball special" trope, but with Leo?

YEET THE NASTY MAN

Anonymous said: did you ever watch dragon tales as a kid? because george and margaret make me think of murderous zak and wheezie from that show, and i love it to bits

I did not, but I would have loved it. Definitely up my alley!

(watched Quest for Camelot a loooot, though!)

Imma go ahead and stop here! There’s more but I’ve been writing for well over an hour and I have things to do. If your question is missing I’m either saving it for later, wasn’t entirely sure how to answer, or it’s spoilery.

Will probably do another one of these at some point!

Tangled Salt Marathon - Beyond the Corona Walls Part 1

Ah, now we’re finally here at season two; the dullest season. Yet there’s still plenty to talk about so let’s dig in. 

Summary: Rapunzel has begun following the Black Rocks and joining her on her journey are Eugene, Cassandra, Pascal, Maximus, Fidella, Owl, Lance, Hook Foot and Shorty (who stowed away). During this time, Eugene is planning on proposing to Rapunzel again, but when Rapunzel accidentally reveals herself when he is practicing it causes an awkward situation between the couple when Rapunzel doesn't give him an answer. Meanwhile, Rapunzel and the group are making their first stop in Vardaros, a city Eugene and Lance previously visited in their past, but discover it has become overrun with criminals. While Eugene and the boys remain in the city to gather supplies, news of Eugene's arrival quickly spreads among the citizens, including the city's leader, the Baron, a criminal kingpin who previously worked with Eugene and Lance in the past and seeks revenge. Eugene, Lance and Shorty are quickly captured by the Baron's men and taken to his castle where they met by the Baron and his daughter, Stalyan, Eugene's ex-fiancée. The Baron threatens Lance's life unless Eugene marries Stalyan. Meanwhile, Rapunzel and Cassandra meet Adira, a mysterious warrior who harbors knowledge on the Black Rocks.

The Audience Needs More Than Just Single Lines of Exposition 

(Yes, that’s a lot of screen grabs and this is where a video review has the advantage, but I’m not fooling with editing, so there ya go.)

King Edmund of the Dark Kingdom here is talking about the moonstone and how he wishes to destroy it. 

But how has it destroyed lives? What has it and the black rocks done besides some property damage? Why is he only now just considering this option when the moonstone has been there for centuries? Why leave to prevent people from using it, when the whole point of having a strong hold there is to safeguard it in the first place?    

There’s lots that we can theorize here; I’m of the mind that his wife was impaled on a black rock, myself, hence his break down here; but the series doesn’t show us that. Telling us that the moonstone is a threat isn’t enough, you have to prove that it is. Cause right now only the rocks have been shown to cause damage and in this very same episode they stop being a threat and don’t do anything. 

Well Looky There, Cass Got a Promotion 

So this line, plus all of Cass’s previous guard duty work coupled with her protective nature this season, more or less cements that she was personally appointed by the king to be the princess’s bodyguard. She’s no longer a handmaiden. 

Now watch as the show completely forgets this little plot point. 

Why Are You Here Hookfoot? 

As I said earlier, I do like Hookfoot, and in theory I don’t mind him coming along to round out the group. But in practice he doesn’t really add anything. You could slot nearly any other character into his place and nothing would really change. In some cases, things would even improve without him. 

Really Raps? More than Anyone?

More than the poor orphaned boy that you stole that scroll piece from and threw into a dungeon? The one that spent months translating that scroll and trying to figure out the rocks while you sat on your ass and did nothing? 

Oh, yeah, Varian is currently in jail by the way, and Rapunzel fully knows this, despite Frederick promising to try and help him. 

I can understand the mains not letting Varian come along on this trip, but keeping the character who thus far has the most connection to your ongoing arc away from said arc entirely is bad storytelling. There were countless ways to incorporate Varian this season that didn’t involve hiding him away for a year. Including having him come along on probation, because he’s the only one who can read the your dang macguffin. 

Marriage Isn’t a Trap, Stop Acting Like It Is

Marriage doesn’t stop you from living your life. You can be married and still do whatever it is that you enjoy. If it’s a healthy marriage then you and your partner will work together to help each other fulfill their dreams. Especially, when you got the money to do it, which, as royals, Eugene and Rapunzel both got in spades. 

Also we aren’t even talking about getting married right now, just getting engaged. An engagement can last however long you want it to. There’s literally no reason why Rapunzel and Eugene couldn’t have been engaged, or even married, for the rest of the series. 

I know you got a time frame show and this is suppose to lead into the Happily Ever After short, but then you need to give like an actual physical reason why they wouldn’t want to marry yet, cause otherwise you’re just spinning your wheels and wasting the audience’s time with this melodrama. 

Why Are You Here Shorty?

Shorty’s inclusion doesn’t bother me as much as Hookfoot’s. A. Because he’s a movie original and this is a spin off, and B. Shorty doesn’t take away anything. Including him doesn’t steal screen time from anybody else since he gets no real focus. It just also doesn’t add anything either since he gets no real focus. Your mileage may vary on how detrimental this is. It personally doesn’t bother me, but I’m not going to act like it’s great writing or anything either. 

We Needed More of This

Remember how I said that there’s no longer any threat this season? 

The rocks themselves could have been enough to push the narrative forward, same as they did in season one, if the series had bothered to show their destruction more often and claim that finding the moonstone could help fix things. But all we get is this one scene of a once prosperous town being junked. After that the story never focuses on it. The townspeople more or less get on with their lives, the rocks stop doing anything, and we see no more damage beyond this point.  

Also keep in mind that we are never told what taking the moonstone and reuniting it with the sundrop would do, nor how it might help anyone. Rapunzel has no longer has a reason to go on her road trip.     

In fact this whole season long quest now becomes pointless because not doing anything would in fact be the better option. Which in turn undermines all of season one as well, because we just spent 24 episodes saying that not doing anything is bad. So which is it show? Make up your mind. 

Once Again, Marriage Isn’t a Trap

I wouldn’t mind this kind of talk so much if the show was using Lance and Hookfoot here to set up a later contradiction and challenge this kind of thought process. Cause as is, this is a pretty toxic and sexist mentality. Ladies are no less ‘free’ when they get married. Eugene doesn’t like own Raps just cause he becomes a husband. She can still do whatever the heck she wants. But no, the show only validates this outdated thinking instead.

Cass Deserves To Get Her Butt Kicked 

Can’t spell Cass without ‘ass’, hun? 

Adria doesn’t do anything here. She cheerfully asks to talk to Rapunzel alone, respectfully requests not to to have her personal space invaded more than once, and even then she tries to deescalate the situation as Cass tries to pick a fight over nothing like a school yard bully; even going so far as to shout elementary insults at her. Which Ardia takes all in stride.

If you’re wanting me to take Cassandra’s side in the Cass vs. Adria fallout later, show, then you’re doing a poor job of setting that up. Being cautious with a stranger is one thing, getting butt hurt after being rightly called out on your BS is another. 

Let’s Talk About the Slap Here, and the Fans Misportrayal of Stalyan

Most of the fanbase hates Stalyan, and rightly so. She’s not meant to be likable. She is a villian and the show portrays her as such. However, certain fans like to take things a step further than that and take scenes out of context to imply that she is somehow even worse than she actually is. Scenes like this one for instance. 

Keep in mind, Eugene stood her up. He left her at the altar. As in, he didn’t have the decency to break up with her face to face like a respectful human being. The whole point behind Eugene’s character development is that he use to be a jerk. 

I’m not going to act like Stalyan is a sweet and wholly innocent victim here, but you look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t slap your cheating ex too when you finally saw him again after that? And yes, it is implied that Eugene use to cheat on her. More on that in part 2.  

The point is you can’t just shout ‘abuser’ when all you’ve seen of a relationship is the post break up. Cause you have no idea what went down, and people aren’t always friendly with their exes. 

Now we most definitely should have gotten more info on what their relationship was like and more context around the break up, and that is a failing of the show. But a good chunk of the complaints hurled at Stalyan aren’t based off anything she actually did and is more rooted in sexism and fandom’s toxic shipping habits. 

What you can rightly criticize Stalyan for is inconsistency. 

Stalyan’s Actions Don’t Mesh With Her Motivations 

So does she want revenge or does she want to marry him? Which is it? Cause those two things aren’t compatible. 

If she still loves Eugene and still believes that he would come back to her, than she wouldn’t be threatening him now. Like I said, marriage isn’t a trap. It’s not punishment. It’s a thing people actually want, and they want their partners to want it too. If her goal is to convince him to marry her, as stated, then she’d wouldn’t be mean to him right now and she wouldn’t be going along with this 'force him into it’ plan. 

Look, this entire plot needed a rewrite. I’m not saying that you need to make Stalyan nice nor have her be wholly forgiving of Eugene’s past actions, but you really, really, needed to keep her in the dark about the blackmail. Especially since they try and fail to make her sympathetic later on. 

As is, Stalyan is just a confusing character. You gotta do a lot of reading between the lines and digging for exposition (some of which we don't even get till the end of season 3) to make any sense of what she says and does. 

But I’m going to give it an honesty try come part two. 

Conclusion 

I’ll give my finally thoughts in the second half of the episode/review. But for now the only interesting thing is Adria herself. The Baron stuff just drags and feels like a waste of build up. 

Melisandre too please

OKAY STRAP IN MY FRIEND BECAUSE I WANT TO SCREAM ABOUT GOT WOMEN TODAY

• Did they live up to their potential? / In what ways was their potential unachieved?

I’m going to stick to the show because, again finished when the books aren’t. So, I really love Melisandre with my whole heart. You know, you have this mysterious woman who easily manipulates a powerful man, but it’s not just a standard femme-fatale I love power kind of thing. She grew up enslaved (at least in book canon, I can’t remember if this was ever mentioned in the show), and she’s in, essentially, a codependent relationship with her religious faith. It’s not for some sort of fake demureness or quest for purity, it’s because she thinks it’s genuinely the only thing she can do to save the world. She’s not a corrupt pastor, she’s an extremist who truly thinks she’s doing the right thing. But she’s not quite a competely-brainwashed, naive young victim, either. Obviously being sold into slavery and trained in the priesthood since forever ago influences her beliefs. But she reflects deeply on the nature of morality and owns up readily to the fact that sometimes she engages in acts of violence in the name of what she believes. It’s not an accident, people’s lives simply come at the expense of her service to R’hllor and faith in the coming of Azor Azai. She balances a very fine line between two extremes of the religious zealot morality spectrum, and I think she does it very well. The one thing I will say is that the show couldn’t seem to make up its mind on whether or not she was a fraud or whether she actually had Special Magic Powers. And not in kind of a “We won’t show you all the details of what happened, judge for yourself if she’s legit” way. They had her whole conversation with Selyse about using potions for desired fire effects, but she gives birth to shadow assassin babies and then literally brought someone back from the dead. If you’re going to make it ambiguous, keep it ambiguous. If not, make a decision and commit to it. Being completely shrouded in mystery; being a complete, unapologetic fraud; and being a supernatural entity entrusted with magic who sometimes misuses it “For The Greater Good” are all much more interesting than flip-flopping back and forth on characterization because you’re afraid to commit to a concept. Also, for some reason, in season 7 her main objective was to bring Jon and Dany together? Why? They should have explained how she got to that point and why she thought it was necessary. Also her death, but I talk about that in the last point.

• How they negatively and positively affected the story.

Positive: She brought Stannis into the story, leading to a discussion about whether or not the concept of justice is born from conformity to rules or a desire to put more good into the world. We are introduced to another religion in Westeros that helps enrich the worldbuilding and leads to a moral compass that is centered so differently from the other characters that it provides a fresh way of interpreting the story’s events and keeps us engaged. We are introduced to Davos aka Onion Dad through her and I love that guy.

Negative: She brought Stannis and Davos into the story, to the point where show Shireen died FOR NO REASON  which COMPLETELY RUINED STANNIS’S CHARACTER IN THE PROCESS. Stannis wasn’t supposed to be The Irredeemable Bad Guy, he was supposed to be another link in the chain that encompassed all of the different ways of looking at morality. Instead, they used his multifaceted, complex relationship with Melisandre to flatten out his characterization, make him the resident Pathetic Game Player We Are Supposed to Laugh At, and ultimately left off all degree of nuance by making him burn a child alive for shock value. I’ll never forgive the show for that. (Also, what with Brienne’s smiting of Stannis, Davos being the All-Around Good Guy and the fact that Mel’s death was so...anticlimactic...we’re also apparently supposed to see Stannis as the one primarily responsible for Renly’s death? Just? Ignoring Mel’s (and Davos’s) part in that? Sounds fake and narratively inconsistent, but okay.)

• What my favorite arc for them is.

-I think, probably after Stannis’s death (how said death came about notwithstanding, see above), when she realizes that she was...wrong? About her faith? She thought she knew how the world was supposed to work, like she had finally figured it out and unlocked some big secret, and then it just wasn’t true at all. And (kind of similar to what I said about Cersei) she has to rebuild herself. She and Davos have reversed their ways of thinking, where Davos believes-maybe not in R’hllor or any god(s), but in the existence of inexplicable and superhuman things-and now he has to convince her. And only then does she (and the audience) learn of her true power. (Which, as I mentioned above, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. Her being a charlatan strikes me as a character choice I would want more in a story I was writing, but I’m not writing these books/episodes, lmao.) Her priorities become more skewed toward “Fighting the White Walkers and making sure whoever Azor Azai is has a world left to save,” which WE LOVE ORGANIC SHIFTS IN PERSONAL MOTIVATION WE REALLY DO Y’ALL

• What I think of their ending.

-Ugh. I don’t think I’ve ever actually talked about this, but her just going, “Well, my goal is done, bye” and then going out into the snow and just laying down to die is...how do I put it...utter bullshit. There was never any true payoff in her ongoing conflict with Davos, no resolution to her (weird, creepy) relationship with Jon or how he felt about her doing awful things but still being the person who brought him back to life, she didn’t even get a moment of dying in service of a cause she believed in (like, for example, Theon, whose ending I also hated but for much more personal reasons that have less to do with narrative structure and more to do with my feelings). She legit just said, “I’m out” and instantaneously died. Also...she, Davos, and Jon have been through a LOT. The fact that there was barely any mention of her or what her death meant save for that one conversation Davos had with Tyrion??? for some reason???? seems like a waste. If someone has been with you through multiple traumatic experiences, it doesn’t matter if you hate them, you’ll have some sort of feelings after they die. Davos never got retribution for Shireen, doesn’t that bother him?? How does Jon feel knowing he owes his life to the killer of an innocent child? How does Davos feel seeing yet another person die right in front of him, but intentionally this time?? *sigh* Emotional through-lines are a thing, people!

• When I wish they had died. / If I think they should’ve died.

-Ultimately, my biggest beef is that there was...nothing I saw in the show that suggested this was how she wanted her story to end. If you’re going to make a character feel hopeless upon resolving a specific problem or tie their entire reason for existing to one conflict, you have to have them talk about it or personally reflect on it? You can’t just stick that on as an afterthought to justify...whatever it was D&D were trying to justify. Melisandre has always had such a complicated relationship with Westerosi morality, and she NEVER got to see any direct consequence of that (and by consequence I don’t even mean, like...punishment or something, I literally just mean a result that happened because of it). She, again, legit just walked in the snow by herself and insta-died. It 100% felt like they just didn’t know what to do with this character so they just scribbled something in so they wouldn’t have to spend any time on her later because they didn’t care about her. (Which, obviously, they’re wrong. I love her and she’s so interesting this is a fact. Shame on you, D&D.) I do think, for her, it makes sense based on her religious ties to kind of...have a last-minute swerve toward penance. Not guilt or redemption, per se, but a way to honor the world she’s trying to save by way of choosing to die through a selfless act. Whether that be sacrificing herself as a distraction for the White Walkers or putting herself in the line of fire (ice?) for Jon because she thinks he'll help heal the world or (my personal favorite) fighting off a White Walker to protect Davos because she has finally come to sort-of understand his nuanced take on morality and that although he has some bad/dark parts, he is genuinely a good man and deserves to make it out alive. Let him have the life that Shireen didn’t get to have. Davos would be SO CONFLICTED because She Did a Good Selfless Thing For Someone Who Wanted To Kill Her But She’s An Awful Person What Do I Think About Good And Evil Now and the introspection would be delicious.

Uhh, apparently the Quibbler TLSQ triggers at year 5 chapter 15? So not exactly an early year. It doesn't really make sense for Ismelda to act like that in year 5 though, like that's the year her and Merula's friendship really starts drifting apart and I'm pretty sure it's when she accuses MC of trying to her only friend away from her so how would she have a group of cronies? Unless she meant her only "real" friend? Idk Ismelda having her own clique will just never make sense. Also the Quibbler TLSQ triggers after Crushed so Ismelda's gonna backtrack to an antagonist even after opening up to MC which I don't like the idea of at all ngl. At least it doesn't take place in year 6 or later I guess. That'd really ruin her development imo. :T

The TLSQ system officially breaks the timeline beyond repair if it is taken literally and even if it isn’t. I know I’ve said before that the Hogwarts Mystery universe is the epicenter of countless different timelines and alternate dimensions, and it is, but the developers should probably stick to just telling the tale of one, barring different choices that MC can make. Seriously, this is sounding more and more like a completely different iteration of Ismelda, which is just inconsistent writing. I’m not saying she couldn’t be like that in an AU or a fanfic, but this isn’t one of those things. The differences from file to file should probably be left to the player or else the player is going to get very confused. I’m not even trying to make a joke or be condescending right now, I’m sincerely talking about this and hoping that Jam City is listening. Because arguably one of this game’s biggest issues is that it has tried to be two things at once - a cohesive, linear mystery story about the character Jacob and his Sibling...and a subjective, write-it-yourself Hogwarts adventure where the protagonist is meant to be a self-insert or whatever else you want them to be. The TLSQs and their strange system of being written to work in any year (which often results in them not working for most years) is just one symptom of that. Most of the time, it is not at all clear when these quests are supposed to take place. Or what has or hasn’t already happened for MC and the other characters. So how does that affect the choices that we make? What if your MC hated Ismelda before, but grew to care for her after “Crushed?” How do you approach this quest? It’s all very confused...

I had books that I either loved or hated so idk maybe I need to do another unhaul to ensure I read books I'll actually enjoy.

1- OtherEarth (Otherworld #2) by Jason Segel

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So this was a big disappointment. It started out fine, but I had this bad feeling about what the twist of this book would be about 50% into it, and then the twist comes and it was just as bad as I feared. Honestly I don't even know if I wanna continue with the last book, I have it but honestly I can't say I am looking forward to it, it wasn't just the plot that fell down but the characters felt pretty inconsistent and yeah not a fan.

2.- Fireborne (The Aurelian Cycle #1) by Rosaria Munda

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The only thing I knew going into this was that it was inspired by Plato's Republic and that it was similar to Game of Thrones, so maybe that is why I found it pretty underwhelming. Like yeah I could see why it was based off the Republic with this system of education (tbh I still found it pretty basic and very much alike to other social systems I've read in other YA books) and there was some intresting tid-bits but not enough to keep me intrested. Now the characters, I liked both individually (unpopular opinion but I liked Annie more, I thought she had real potential but it was wasted because the moment she and Lee have this romance her character completely lost herself on thinking about him and what he did all the time) but I do not think they worked together romantically. There is some potential drama for book 2 but I am not intrested in reading it.

3.- The Mistress (The Original Sinners #4) by Tiffany Reisz

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This book was so good. Yeah it was super predictable, but the drama tho. I really loved Layla, she gave us an outsider's insight on Søren and Nora's relationship, and she is just the sweetest that I instantly knew she and Weasley were gonna get together. I cried at that last confrontation scene with Nora and Marie Laure and I am so happy that Nora is back together with Søren because they are truly a good couple despide everything.

4.-Gods of Jade and Shadow - Silvia Moreno Garcia

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I LOVED it. Ever since I saw the cover I was sold. This book I feel like it was meant for me. Like our protagonist Casiopea Tún is a dark skinned mexican girl of mayan descent in the 1920s who meets one of the lords of Xibalba and goes on a quest to help him retake his throne???? And on the way he falls in love with her so much he is about to forfeit his divinity to have a chance to be with her. I just, it was so beautiful, I felt my culture was really represented here, and it's so wierd to see the 1920's represented in Mexico I don't believe I had read something like this before and I will read anything Silvia Moreno Garcia writes from now on. Hopefully we will have a second book for this because that ending makes me wonder what adventures Casiopea will have.

5.-Little Gods by Meng Jin

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This book blew my mind. The structure is perfect for the themes . Su Lan was a truly fascinating character though I felt very sad about her, always wanting to escape her past and thinking she was so undeserving for anything good in her life and still fighting to go on. The ending was so good, and all the cast of characters made an excellent conection between the past and the future.

6.- As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

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Yeah I am a pretentious ho. I was very intimidated by this book (and anything written by Faulkner really) and I was really having trouble understanding the book at first because the prose is so particular (there are sentences that read like Shakespeare, some are almost Biblical stuff and then most of the dialogue is this very coloquial english with very poor ortography) and as English is not my first lenguage I struggled. But then we get to Addie's death and all this odyssey the family goes through to bury her, and it was so beautiful and exciting. I especially loved everything about Addie's chapter, she was so much better than her husband and she deserved better than what she got. I really liked Dewey Dell and Darl. While I hated Anse Bundren with a passion so the end really made me angry like waaaaat this selfish asshole gets everything he wanted and then some??? But I got why it made sense for the book. So I definitely recommend this, but my advice is to let yourself glide through the book, do not try to understand or make sense of it as you start it because then you become frustrated like it happened to me at first but it's a really beautiful book so I am really considering reading more Faulkner.

7.-Chosen (Slayer #2) by Kiersten White

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I enjoyed this book so much. It's a very easy read and we get some growth on Nina and Artemis. I liked the idea of the Watcher's Castle being a refuge for inofenssive demons. And omgggg I fangirled SO hard when Oz, Harmony and Clem appeared (my fave characters, like literally I only need a Spike cameo in these books to be completely happy). I really wanna see Nina meet Buffy in real life and ahhh I am excited for whatever the next book will bring us.

8.-Out of Salem by Hal Schrieve

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This is perharps my favorite book I read this month. It felt so relevant to things that are happening in the world, but escapist enough to bear it. For starters I love a good urban fantasy setting, and this was it. Z was a great non-binary protagonist (the fact the author is also non-binary also helps) like it was pretty original to make them a zombie when necromancy is viewed as wrong in their society and they get discriminated for it even though they knew nothing about how it happened to them. And their friendship with Aysel (lesbian muslim werewolf girl!!!) and Tommy (shapeshifter boy) was amazing. Like the way this book translates real life bigotry and social injustice to this magical creatures was truly amazing I recommend it to everyone of any age. Especially middle graders as this book is meant for that age group and I feel this is an amazing diverse read for that age group.

9.-El murmullo de las abejas de Sofia Segovia

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Realmente este libro es precioso, soy una super fan del realismo mágico y este libro realmente me toco el corazón. Aunque he de admitir que entre a este libro sin saber nada, y bueno que este libro pega diferente en el 2020, yo no tenía ni idea que este libro nos presentaba la Pandemia de Influenza Española de 1918, y bueno es bastante triste leer todo lo que paso cuando nosotros estamos pasando épocas muy similares. Simonopio es un personaje divino, poseedor de una sensibilidad y una inocencia verdaderamente fuera de esta mundo, y la forma en que la familia Morales lo adopta y lo abraza tan profundamente dentro de la familia es realmente hermosa. Fue muy difícil leer acerca de Anselmo Espiricueta porque puedo ver de donde venía todo ese odio y esa ignorancia que terminaron en tragedia y no puedo dejar de sentir lastima por él a pesar de todo el mal que hace durante el libro. Recomiendo mucho esta lectura.

10.-Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

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A book so relevant in our current times. So powerful and impactful even if the book is pretty short. We get to see how the systematic racisim at work. We get to get a glimpse of this awful reality through Kev and Ella, two gifted siblings that have lived this experiences in different ways and they cope with this in vastly different ways.It was such an intimate read I cannot begin to describe how angry and sad it made me, but also very glad I got to read it because we need to keep being aware that this is the reality for black people all around the world and they don't get to shy away from it so we shouldn't either we should see, learn and fight as hard as we can to change things for the better.

11.-Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

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I re-read this book to have it fresh in my mind before the new series airs on July. And I liked it better now than the 1st time. This world is so scary because I see so many realistic elements it shares with the present. I felt a lot for Lenina (for everyone who lives in this world really) because she wanted more than what the society had to offer yet was so deeply conditioned as to what was right that she could just supress her emotions with soma. This book is of course full of racist and sexist stuff (cuz woman and indigenous people can never win) but I feel it helps to get a feel about how fucked up society is as a whole. In the reservation woman are subjected to the usual slut shaming and gender roles we get in our society while in London we get a world in which woman are judged for not sleeping around and being happy and infantile. Like it seems controling woman and their relationship to intimacy and sex is always a bit theme is classic dystopic books which makes a lot of sense given it works like that in the real world too. Same thing with indigenous people being treated as savage to congratula te ourselves for being so much more "civilized" never stopping to think how deeply fractured and flawed this may be. We also get explotation and brain washing of working classes and all that fun stuff. Really and amazing book eerily accurate tho.

12.-Brick Lane by Monica Ali.

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This is the story of 2 very different Bangladeshi sisters with very different temperaments making their way through life. Nazneen is a very dutiful daughter that marries the man her father picked for her, moves to London, though her husband doesn't make her happy she tries very hard in this foreign country with so many desires of her own she wishes that she always supresses because of her upbringing. Then we have Hesina, she was always beautiful and runs away with a guy she was in love with, later he abandons her and she gets jobs and loses them because different man keep making her fall for them to abandon them later. Different as they are this 2 Sisters keep relying in each other through letters. I thought it was very moving, and I really liked the ending for Nazneen while Hasina left me feeling worried and unhappy.

13.- Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

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I was very hyped for this book and I am so sad I didn't like it. I just didn't feel the world building was cohesive (we have space travel but we don't have baths??? And rapiers as weapons??? Most of it felt like aesthetic decisions) the characters felt very one dimensional to me. And the plot was all over the place, just when I thought I knew what it was about it takes another turn and introduces so many generes but it did not feel natural at all so yeah I will not be reading the next one.

14.- Luces de Bohemia de Ramón Maria del Valle Inclan

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Me pareció una obra maravillosa. Definitivamente captura el espíritu creativo bohemio.

15 .- Don Juan Tenorio de José Zorrilla

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Yo adoro el Tenorio, sin embargo si que he de decir que prefiero la versión del Burlador de Sevilla de Tirso de Molina pues siento que el final es más adecuado. Me parece que aunque la prosa es hermosa Doña Ines pierde mucha agencia en esta versión, me recuerda mucho más a Angelina de la obra "El Honor del Brigadier" que la versión que hizo de ella Tirso de Molina, definitivamente se romántiza mucho más está figura de seductor canalla en esta versión, aun así es una historia arraigada en México, es una tradición para mi verla cada Noviembre, este año me temo que no será posible así que disfrute muchísimo leerla.

Salem ou alekoum fellow disbelievers,

I decided to write this story down because one of my friends is currently questioning Islam. She said it might be a good idea for me to share my journey to help her and others find inner peace once you have walk out of something you grew up thinking was correct. I think I will make this a 2-3 parts series depending on interest and how she deals with just part 1. There's a lot to go through, and I will try to be brief, but I do not mind elaborating on any section in the comments or private. I am very open and confident about who and what I am. Finally, I want to have at least one part dedicated to my current worldview with the hopes of helping you guys create your moral landscape.

Finally, I would like to complete this preface by saying that I know that we all have personal reasons for leaving a Religion. Some of you have left the faith because you felt as though it was too controlling; others may have felt that God was simply too cruel. I will say that in the end, those were not the deciding factors for me. In my view, only Truth matters. Therefore, for me to stop believing in a concept, it merely has to be proven untrue, whether scientifically or logically. So my journey of leaving Islam did not originate because I had problems with its takes on the world. They occurred in large part because I feel as though Islam is inconsistent with our understanding of the natural world. Given the purpose of writing this is to help people, and that most people don't make decisions based on logic, I will try and emphasize how events and not thoughts affected my worldview to help illustrate how and when the transition occurred.

1. Humble beginnings: I know everybody has a different upbringing, so I would like to give you guys some context of how familiar I was with Islam growing up as a child (4-12). For starters, I am the eldest son of first-generation Algerian immigrants to Canada. This is just to tell you I'm brown, and I went to a school surrounded by non-muslims. In school, I was a troublemaker. I was basically this brainy kid who cared so little of rules and norms that I was almost transferred to this school for a learning disability. In response, my dad would beat the shit out of me every day for not being an obedient student despite my grades being decent (during that period B to B+). Despite his sincerest efforts, I never learned or changed. I'm only saying this because it made Arabic school impossible for my parents to manage since I simply refused to do my regular homework from school. My thinking was something like this: "What's the point of going to ANOTHER school on the weekend and spend all of my time off doing pointless alphabetical exercises in a language no one other than my parents spoke?" This, in turn, limited my exposure to Islam since I didn't interact with other Muslim kids. Finally, my parents bestowed upon me few Islamic teachings or practices. For instance, I fasted, I didn't eat pepperoni pizza, I was a relatively good kid, and I knew of prayer. Still, it wasn't something we did in our household. So I basically ended up with the same amount of knowledge of Islam and Arabic as Mohammed did when he was visited by Gabriel.

2. The quest begins: By the time I reached 14, I began to change mentally (One would only hope). I had stopped being this rebellious kid and became a book worm. I read encyclopedias, watched documentaries, binged read Wikipedia and genuinely wanted to learn everything the world had to offer. Therefore, religion seemed like the next logical step. Another reason that pushed me to that position is my first adolescent trip to Algeria. It was the first time I had truly been exposed to Islam, and I felt like I got a good whiff of what it meant to be a Muslim. And so, I decided I had now come of age and was of sufficient maturity to read the Quran and become a proper Muslim. I purchased a translated version of the Holy Book and waited until nightfall to open it. I vividly remember the mindset I put myself in before opening the book. I told myself the following things:

1. Bismillah. (YAH BOY) 2. I am about to read a book written by a being that is not human. (how fucking cool is that?!) 3. It is a book of ultimate and limitless knowledge and is the literal word of God.   4. It will guide me now and forever, for it is a timeless work meant to guide all of humanity.

By the time I made it halfway through Al-Baqarah, the second chapter of the book, I was mortified. For whatever reason, God presented himself as a terrifying merciless being. So many verses spoke about how powerful God was, and for some reason, it felt weird to me. It's almost like Bill Gates flaunting billions at a homeless person or a fisherman trying to shame a fish on how it cant breathe once it's out of water. I also felt as though too many verses spoke about eternal damnation instead of collective upbringing. In essence, it wasn't the book I expected. I was hoping for the key to save my soul and help humanity. All that ran through my head was that I was unworthy and had to dedicate myself or else face the consequences. But I persevered. Over the next few days, I kept reading while trying to keep an open mind, but I was definitely feeling perplexed. What I could not wrap my head around was the following: If God can indeed do anything, why can't he have a son?  Like all this talk about how Powerful he is, but he can't have a son?

It was around this time I started to explore other religions. However, there were so many religions that existed that it would take an eternity to study and contemplate every single one. So I elaborated the following shortcuts:

1. I skipped Judaism because a "true" faith can't have fewer subscribers than the city of New York. That also threw a bunch of other religions out the window. In my view, a Divine being should do a good job of spreading his work even if he has to do it remotely. 2. I skipped polytheistic religions like Hinduism because multiple Gods seemed odd to me. 3. Buddhism didn't have a deity, can we, therefore, call it a religion?

By that flawless logic (lol), I thought that Christianity was likely to be the One True Faith. But there were inconsistencies. For starters, the faith had multiple subdivisions and multiple versions given the Bible was written after the life of Jesus. Suffice to say, I agreed with most Muslim criticisms towards Christianity's essence manipulated by men. If Christianity is the real deal, then God would have cared a little more. As a side note to my thinking, the book of Narnia really helped me appreciate Christianity. It portrayed a more merciful caring version of God that wanted what was best for his disciples and all that existed. Yet the feeling of a merciful and just God was simply not sufficient to make me convert.

And so I started to think about atheism. However, I could still feel the presence of God. In the end, I just felt discouraged. I wrapped my head around the whole thing when I realized there was a possibility I was simply too immature to understand Islam or the Quran. So, in the end, I decided to postpone my immersion in the faith until later.

3. I committed: By the time I reached 16, I had started rereading the Quran, which actually flowed better this time around. I was relieved to know that my 14-year-old self was simply too childish. Eventually, I stumbled upon a verse akin to the following: Oh, Believers look into the world, and you shall see evidence of Islam. It felt as though God challenged me to learn science and search for proof of his existence in the natural world. And so, I did.

So one thing that occurred to me growing up is that I wanted to learn everything. By the time I reached 12, I thought to myself that if I knew every word in the dictionary, I would end up knowing everything. But the dictionary was dull. So, I decided that if I know how all things came about by reading history, then I would end up knowing everything. So when I read that verse that said learn science, I was ecstatic.  I just doubled down on my readings and started to focus more on scientific theories. I read about physics and the origin of the universe. I read on chemistry and the nature of matter and atomic bonds. By the time I reached biology, Darwinism quickly became very problematic. I thought really long and hard about how to counter it. I started to read into Intelligent Design and watched Islamic Scholars debate atheists. Still, it didn't make sense to me since the evidence for evolution was just overwhelming.

I voiced some of my concerns to a Muslim friend of mine in High School, and we had this long-winded conversation in which he convinced me he was right. I wish I remembered exactly what he said, but I remember him instilling upon me enough doubt to make me not drop the faith. Following that conversation, I decided it was time to commit to Islam finally. Here are a few things I started to do: 1. I started praying 5-7 times per day. 2. I read the Quran. 3. I would watch videos daily on what it meant to be a Muslim and how I can improve on my practice. 4. I would fast every once a while. 5. I went to the mosque whenever I could since it was far from where I lived. 6. I even helped start our prayer group in High School. In that group, we would all sit and eat together. We shared food, laughter and drinks. We were a brotherhood through and through, and for a time, it was good.

Reflecting on this period, I was one standard deviation from being in a CIA hit list. I literally messaged Benjamin Netanyahu on YT, encouraging him to stop his occupation of Palestine and to seak a peaceful approach when engaging with my brothers and sisters. Despite these friendly messages, some darker thoughts flowed through me. So I will say that there definitely is some credence to the idea that the more radical a Muslim is, the more you should worry about him, especially if he is a dude.

So when I say I genuinely believed 100% of what the Quran said, I really did. Some people will say: "Well, yea, I also used to be that way too." Well, I think I took it to another degree. For instance, when I used to walk, I would think to myself there are two people next to me—these immortal, holy beings made of light were sent by God to watch over my every move. I must, therefore, walk and behave in the utmost perfect ways to not only impress them but also uphold my honour. I was 16. 

4.The Masturbation/sleep problem:

Now I'm going to say that the period mentioned above lasted about 6 months. During this period, despite my holier than thou behaviour, I was still a man, and I had urges dawg. Every once in awhile, i.e, once a week, I would lament hypothetically at my hypocrisy. Repression creates obsession; truer words have never been spoken. The more I fought my urges not to masturbate, THE MORE I HAD TO. I created this whole inner mathematical system based on the number 19 since its a particular Islamic number. Basically, I would only masturbate around times when I could calculate 19. To me, it meant God approved of my addiction. I ended up using the time since my alarm clock was next to me. Its such warped logic don't look too much into it for when there is a will there is a way and I can get creative. Here are a few noteworthy examples:

1.Its 1:09 AM. Shit that's 19 to me since all you have to do is ignore the 0, and you have 19. 2. Its 1:45 AM. You guessed it 19. 3.7:00 PM. 19. 4. 12:07 PM. Unzip. 5. 12:17. PM shit, that's 19 too. 12+(1 times 7). Guess its Time for round 2.   6. 12:35 PM. FUCK I have to again you see 1+2+35=38, which is 19 times 2. EYYYY

[Insert COOMER MEME.]

To get over this dissonance, the Devil was responsible for these intrusive thoughts. I was a holy man of God, after all. But the voice that told me to unzip my pants and wax my carrot was the EXACT same voice that told me to go bed when I didn't want too. In the end, I knew deep down temptation doesn't come from the Devil. It comes from me. I decide what I do with my life, not some off-world entity. Keep in mind for later its just this thing I noticed. The Mosque event: So the day started like any other Friday prayer. The Imam began to speak about how God has no equal. He went on about how great and awesome of a sky Chad he was. He said that although he had no equal, there was another being that was insanely powerful as well. My eyes lit up, for I loved Islamic lore. He said that among non-God entities, the strongest was Gabriel. Eventually, he went on to say how to associate any other thing to God's power was literally the worst crime a human could commit. Shirk was worse than murder, he said. It literally guarantees you a trip to Hell.

And so given that I was human when I am told not to think about something, I immediately start to think about it. So I began to think well what if Gabriel stood up to God. I do not know what came over me but I got a literal panic attack from this. [Insert meme it was at this moment he knew he fucked up]

As the Imam had so eloquently put it to associate anything to God, you just committed the worst sin ever. I kept trying to tell myself not to think about it. Still, it just kept repeating it over and over again despite my sincerest efforts. I legit left the mosque and went back home and prayed all night, hoping God would forgive me.

The next morning was wild. I was basically schizophrenic since I kept thinking God was going to smite me for I have sinned. Crossing the street was so hard since I felt God would turn a car invisible and run me over or would simply kill me there where I stood. I lived in utter fear since I felt as though I had a bounty on my head. The inner world that I worked so hard to create had fallen apart from stupid, intrusive, thoughts. How the mighty have fallen.

5.Rethinking the Conspiracies:

A few days later, I started to rethink everything inside my head once I started to calm down. I felt as though my fears were way too irrational for the type of person I usually am and that I could not regain my sanity by thinking I was unworthy. I just simply had to work my way back up to the top fam.

During this time, I also began to rethink my understanding of the political world. For starters, as far back as I can remember, I have always been anti-authority. I believed in political realism, and so large corporations or governments always used their powers to oppress others. And so, what began as a soft-hearted liberal who thought 911 was an inside job turned into a cult of devil worshippers who rule the world and are trying to get us into the End Times.

This political worldview of a small elite who use the Devil to gain off-world power was further validated my understanding of Islam. In my view, the END WAS NEAR. Eventually, people took my ideas and thoughts in High School, and it became its own thing. Just to give you context on the time here, but it was when Lady Gaga dropped Bad Romance, and Kanye West and Jay-Z dropped Watch The Throne. We would analyze the videos and look for satanic imagery, but I always felt like that was a tad bit too far. Why are they being so apparent about something that's supposed to be secret? Predictive-Programming can only go so far after all. I began to pushback on this worldview, and I went so far back that Islam was caught in the cross-fire.

This turned into a three-month-long journey. I started by revisiting natural selection, and I realized that I duped myself. I just did not understand natural selection well enough to defend my position 6 months ago. I read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I binged watched George Carlin, and he really helped me overcome any anxiety I had towards leaving my faith because, like him, I really did want to believe in a deity, but I started to realize all of the inconsistencies. [I will elaborate more on this in a later part]

5. The social consequences: By the time I left my faith, I was open about it. I have always been vocal about what I believe in, and I simply told all of my prayer brothers why I stopped going to prayer. Needless to say, they weren't pleased about it. Unlike Elementary School and as a result of our immigration policies, High School had more Muslims in it, and many hated or criticized me for questioning the faith. As time went on, they became more toxic and vicious in their opposition, and so I called them out on their shit. I told them that I am on a journey like each and every one of them, and if they don't want to talk to me anymore, I would not care, and if they wanted to fight me, then bring it on. It was the last time any of them said anything to my face that was negative. Some of them never spoke to me again, some spoke to me less. I respected their choice and moved on; whether they respected mine mattered not. All that I cared about was that I felt that I was moving forward in my life. Eventually, the Muslim prayer group fell apart, and everything went back to normal in my High School.

Now, all of what I wrote happened about 10 years ago, and despite standing up to my fellow peers, I still haven't mustered up the courage to tell my parents. Honestly, I'm glad I still haven't. To this day, I have a good relationship with them, and they are far more religious now than they were. It seems like an egregiously unnecessary thing to do that will not only sour my relationship with them but also with their future grandkids. That just seems too selfish for my liking despite my usual vocal tendencies.

End of part 1.

BOTW RANT-ISH INCOMING

Okay okay..since the botw 2 sequel trailer, I’ve been thinking of something..

Nintendo, for breath of the wild, decided to give a reason behind Link’s silence for the first time. (Correct me if I’m wrong) saying that he felt the weight of hyrule on his shoulders and felt like he couldn’t put his say in anything and bear the huge responsibilities if I’m remembering correctly.

So we see why the hero is mostly blank and silent in the flashbacks with Zelda and the Champions.

But yet..they continued this blank slate even through the cutscenes that took place in present time. I know that Nintendo said that they really wanted to emphasize the “a link to the players” shit more so than ever this time around.

But in my opinion..I feel like if that was going to be the case..then maybe they shouldn’t of acknowledged Link’s silence and actually given it a reason.

They said before that his memory loss indeed did affect his personality afterwards. (I believe this was in the master works) that he was back to being more expressive and talkative since now no one knows he’s here or something of that sort.

Though..we still see him being silent in the present day cutscenes anyways? Again, I know that Nintendo was just really focused on him being a blank slate for the player but..that’s why I’m saying they shouldn’t of told us why he became silent, and shouldn’t of told us that he wasn’t completely that way anymore after the memory loss..cause then it makes you wonder why he looked blanked with Tiba or Sidon, etc. (I’m talking cutscenes, not small things like him happily cooking or smiling and waving hello to people. It’s just so much inconsistency.)

They shouldn’t of drawn attention to his silence.

Do I think the “knight who became silent because of all of eyes on him” is a good plot? Yeah I do, I actually really like that. I like knowing he was able to open up and trust Zelda too. But it just frustrates me to know that they kept that going in the present day cutscenes when that’s now incorrect with the information that Nintendo themselves gave us. They shouldn’t of even said anything, lol.

So what am I getting to when it comes to the sequel?

Well..Nintendo likes to keep things up to the player, right? Even when it comes to love interests in the Zelda games.

Though in my opinion, I feel like they do obviously favor zelink. Giving them more content from other options. Of course there are going to be people out there that will disagree and always deny it and hey..that’s completely fine. You do you. Have fun.

But I’m not just saying this because I am a zelink shipper..I’m saying this because I personally like to follow ships that get the most obvious attention. So I pay attention to what truly is written there and shown to me in front of my eyes. So I will see and admit to when Link and Zelda are not given attention, and I will see when they definitely are given more attention.

Breath of the Wild definitely being one of them that definitely does favor giving them more attention. The content they are given is too much for me to even list here. There are already great posts out there to do that for you.

Now I know all of this so far sounds like rambling and admittedly it probably is..but I mention this to let you know that even though I do feel like link and Zelda are more favored in this game then in some others, that I don’t expect Nintendo to actually confirm anything. No, of course not. I don’t think they ever will. They still want to paint it as “player’s choice” after all.

But what do we know so far?

Link opened up to Zelda, his true personality came back after his memory loss (in my opinion at least it was his true personality before making himself a rock) that Zelda has something to tell Link when she sees him again, and that Link knows about the princess’ crush on him.

Now..there are some problems with some of those that may seem obvious.

What I’m worried about with the sequel is what Nintendo’s cowardly choices will be.

Since they’re so fixated on “YOU CHOOSE YOUR ROUTE” I feel like they’ll still keep what you ended on in the first game, vague.

It would mean no progress in the things that you discovered in the first game.

Does this link remember Zelda and all of his friends like you worked hard to do? Or is this link the link that rushed into hyrule castle immediately and clapped Ganon’s ass cheeks and didnt regain his memories?

I know in the end, it’s still up to your imagination and you just go with your own headcanon. And yeah, that’s fine..I understand the freedom in that and all.

But I’m personally someone who likes to have things shown to my face and confirmed. I personally have more fun in that. So if the second option is the route they will be taking then..yeah of course I’ll live. Of course it’ll all still be fun. I just wish Nintendo would do a change with Link for once. They were starting to..especially with SS Link but..yah know.

And the “Link knowing Zelda’s crush” thing I understand you can only have Link discover that if you finish Kass’ quests. I understand if that one isn’t as important for Nintendo to focus on in..some ways. But I thought I’d mention it anyways.

So I feel like because of all of that..because Nintendo will still want it to be “it’s whatever you choose” that they won’t address things in a satisfying way. They won’t show the link that opened up to Zelda. They probably won’t make Zelda try to make things happen between her and Link because I feel like they still don’t always want to show confirmation between ships. (Also they will be too busy with GANON..so of course you know that could be a reason too lolol)

Again it’s not about “I’m a zelink shipper and I want to see them finally happen!” It’s more about..okay Nintendo, you are the ones drawing attention to certain aspects in the story and character’s romantic insterests for once and if you’re not going to progress and expand upon that then like..what are you doing lol..

I just..after Nintendo themselves saying that his personality does change after the memory loss..I don’t want to see him being blank again in present day. Nothing progressing..nothing being talked about between characters. Not after all of the attention they brought to his backstory and even Zelda’s feelings.

But I know that’s probably going to happen.

But hey! Maybe I’ll be proved wrong.

Of course this is all super earlier thoughts and worries since we don’t know shit about the new game, haha. I’m just spitting out what comes to mind.

And I know it’ll be more about the deep story Nintendo is wanting to show which, awesome! I’m excited! More excited for that to be honest.

Again, I don’t mean to repeat my self here and you probably won’t believe me from how much I’ve said this now, but this truly isn’t about me being a zelink shipper.

It’s literally..

Nintendo.. if 👏you👏are👏going👏to👏actually👏draw👏attention👏to👏why👏Link👏is👏silent👏and👏actually👏confirm👏that👏a👏zelda👏legit👏told👏someone👏that👏she👏has👏eyes👏for👏her👏knight👏then👏dont👏dodge👏the👏shit👏you👏put👏on👏the👏table👏yourself👏and👏not👏address👏your👏shit👏and keep👏link👏being👏a blank👏slate👏when👏it👏no👏longer👏makes👏sense👏then👏what👏the fuck👏writing👏are👏you doing👏

....

This👏is👏no👏longer👏the👏past👏link👏But is👏now👏the👏link👏you👏said👏has👏changed👏👏👏

Again, this stuff probably ain’t even a second thought to other people..I’m not saying this is the most important shit in the world to me..this is just something that I thought about and decided to let out cause I just can haha

Sorry that this is so unnessarily long.

I can lose focus and wind up not even getting to my point or not making my point clear..so..like..I’m sorry, lol. I probably explained myself horribly.

I don't know about any previous drafts, but it seems clear to me that in KH3 Braig was the one who saved Subject X. Ansem certainly has no idea what happened to her. And with the Luxu reveal (which was probably planned for years) it makes sense that he'd have his own agenda regarding an amnesiac Skuld/Ava.

With this new power, I uncovered a “corridor of darkness” that connects the realm of nothingness to the outside world. While it is still difficult to come and go as I please, my banishment is now a thing of the past. To deceive Xehanort and my apprentices, I first used my power to change form before returning to the realm of light. As I had suspected, Xehanort had become a Heartless. Under my name, he commanded other Heartless in quests to snatch away the hearts of many different worlds. At the center of the heart Xehanort has stolen was “Kingdom Hearts,” which attracts tremendous darkness itself and attempts to send any and all matter back into its depths.

Yeah, I agree. I think Braig/Luxu is the one who knows where she is. Ansem the Wise was banished to the Realm of Darkness for like 10 years. By the time he came back to the Realm of Light the first time, Xehanort had already plunged many worlds to darkness and Sora was a Keyblade wielder. How would he even be able to personally keep track of that girl over such a long period of time? Unless she was kept in stasis or something.

Even now, years on, I feel no closer to understanding who or what I am. May my heart be my guiding key.

But in her writings she says that it’s been years and she still doesn’t remember who she is. So that wasn’t the case. Not to mention that Ansem the Wise was supposed to have lost all of his memories except those concerning Sora. 

Ansem: Well…I can tell you this is my second time on these shores. But unfortunately, much like the first, I do not remember who I am or whence I came. Everything was washed away in whatever currents carried me here.

When Aqua spoke to him in Blank Points, he said he didn’t remember who he was or from whence he came. They clearly dropped that idea, but it shows just how little planning this whole “Subject X” girl had in the story. I can’t even really speculate much about her or Luxu because NONE of this stuff was consistent with what we learned in the previous games.

Xemnas: Students do take after their teachers. Only a fool would be your apprentice. After all, none of this would have happened without you. YOU are the source of all Heartless. It was your research that inspired me to go further than you ever dared.

Ansem the Wise: I admit…my disregard brought chaos to more worlds than one. But what were YOU seeking? You erased me from the world, only to take my name and continue research better left forgotten… Is this the answer you’ve been looking for?

Xemnas: All that and more. I’m carrying on what you yourself began, and I’m creating a brand new world, one heart at a time. I thought you’d praise me, but all you ever do is hold me back. I understand, though. Unlike me, you have a heart. And you’re powerless to control it. Consumed, by the jealousy you feel toward the student who surpassed you.

The story of Ansem and the apprentices made no sense to me in KH3. In KH2, Ansem was clearly someone who had no idea unethical research was taking place. He was devastated to find out that his apprentices were performing experiments on unwilling subjects. Xemnas was bragging that he went further than Ansem ever dared. And everything we saw was consistent with that. 

Ansem: Please. I have created enough victims.

Xehanort’s Heartless: Yes, you have. All the children sacrificed in the name of your research…So make things right.

Ansem: I told you I did not taker her. Her disappearance is why I put a stop to the research.

Xehanort’s Heartless: And that makes you honorable? You used Roxas and Naminé and threw them away. I doubt there’s a merciful bone in your body.

Yet in KH3, Ansem is made out to be some child-sacrificing monster, and Xehanort is scolding HIM for how merciless he is? And Ansem said that he stopped the experiments because this girl disappeared? That doesn’t even make sense. 

My pilot studies used a handful of subjects, but none possessed the fortitude to endure them. Ultimately, all suffered mental collapse. I knew it would be a heavy blow to lose a subject as unique as she. Upon discovering the tests I’ve been conducting, my master demanded that I cease my work immediately and destroy what research I have compiled. Worse still, he ordered the release of my remaining subjects. She is gone.

Even in KH3, Xehanort wrote that Ansem called off all the research because Xehanort was abusing people. THEN all of the subjects were released and  Subject X was taken away. So Ansem would have stopped his experiments already, before she disappeared. I’m sure the implication is that Luxu took her.

I have made a grave mistake. My study of the “darkness of the heart” began with a simple psychological test and quickly snowballed. Spurred on by my youngest apprentice, Ienzo, I constructed a massive laboratory in the basement of my castle. Unbeknownst to me, my six apprentices then began collecting a large number of subjects on which to perform dangerous experiments into the “darkness of the heart." As soon as I found out, I called my apprentices together and ordered them not only to cease their studies, but to destroy the results of their research thus far.

But still. All of this is so different from the story we had before that I can’t even really make sense of it or contextualize it. It’s just a brand-new story that’s totally disconnected from the old one. How are you just going to blatantly change established so much established story at the drop of a hat like that? Are we just supposed to ignore all the atrocities Apprentice Xehanort committed now? Do the experiments on the darkness of the heart not exist in canon anymore? They seemed to have been replaced with these vague memory experiments. I can’t really speculate much on canon regarding Subject X, since everything about her story is so inconsistent with what we saw before. I can only speculate on what I think was originally planned.

Sora: What are you saying? That he knew everything that would happen?

Young Xehanort: No, not everything. But remember, Ansem possessed Riku and saw his experiences in real time.

Sora: So? That could only tell him so much. How did he know I would be here today?

Young Xehanort: Simple.

Sora: Kairi!

And it definitely involves another mysterious amnesiac girl who MAY have been able to time-travel. And that’s Kairi. There was so much left unexplained about her and and Naminé. I think the new Subject X mystery girl simply replaced and tweaked their original story, along with Isa’s backstory. Apparently Kairi was the reason Xehanort knew Sora would be there in KH3D. But this is never followed up on.

— The King seems to come in contact with Kairi, the heroine from Kingdom Hearts I.

Because the story takes place before Kingdom Hearts I, the part about Kairi couldn’t be ignored. However, the cause for her going to Destiny Island and her detailed history are not revealed. It draws on the mysterious special existence.

— Why did Kairi end up with Sora and Riku?It has to do with Aqua’s “magic”. Nine years before KH, Kairi was thrust into the outside world, and found herself on Sora and Riku’s world. Ansem Seeker of Darkness thought that she had been able to search for a keyblade wielder, but what actually saved her was the magic spell Aqua had put on her.

Kairi apparently went through the Door to Darkness in Radiant Garden and wound up on Destiny Islands. At first she retained her memories, but by the time she meets Sora and Riku, she has no memories of her original home world. And her body was intact. Aqua’s magic was involved somehow.

Riku: When we grow up, let’s get off this island. We’ll go on real adventures, not this kid stuff!

Sora: Sure. But isn’t there anything fun to do now? Hey, you know the new girl at the mayor’s house? She arrived on the night of the meteor shower!

Destiny Island’s Keyhole had opened, and there was a meteor shower the night Kairi arrived. It was just like when Xehanort opened Radiant Garden’s Keyhole. Riku definitely wasn’t the one who opened the door. And Kairi was standing at the Keyhole door when Destiny Islands fell.

Aeleus: But, that boy…

Even: Never you worry about him. He’s a special case.

There’s no evidence that Kairi was actually a princess. Yet she was allowed inside the castle along with her grandma. Even could sense Ven’s heart of pure light as soon as he encountered him. Well…he probably could with Kairi, too. She would have been a subject of interest to Ansem, who was obsessed with the darkness of the heart.

“What in the world were they talking about?” said Even, who had been trying to eavesdrop.

Xehanort ignored him and continued down the stairs to the basement laboratory. He flung open the door, and the others all turned to him at once.

“Aeleus, where is the girl?” Xehanort asked.

“She’s asleep…” Aeleus pointed to the capsule room in the back.

The girl was very particular—unique among people. They had not been able to create any Heartless using her heart. Perhaps because she was too young, or perhaps…Xehanort disappeared into the capsule room.

While eavesdropping, it’s revealed that the apprentices had Kairi in a pod. This is during Micky’s visit in KH2. So this is after Ansem found out about the experiments and released all the subjects.

It was too dim to make out her features. We spoke to her in hushed whispers. Who was she? Why was she imprisoned here? She had no answers for us. Had no memories at all. She was an enigma, but I knew I wanted to help her.

Xehanort tried to turn Kairi into a Heartless, but was unable to. I would guess that this is probably when Lea and Isa found her. She was imprisoned in an attempt to get her to succumb to darkness and become a Heartless.

Ansem’s Report 11

Opening the door to a world’s heart causes its walls to crumble. These fragments are seen as shooting stars. This explains why these “gummi blocks” can travel freely to other worlds. I know the catalyst of this collapse—the appearance of the Heartless. However, it will take time search out the worlds’ doors and to retrieve each heart. Furthermore, the doors can be locked using a Keyblade, making the heart forever unattainable. I must take action before the wielder of the key appears in this world.If the princesses and the Keyblade are connected, they should resonate. I’ve chosen a girl. I don’t know if she holds the princesses’ powers, but I will find out. She may lead me to the key bearer. I shall set her free and observe.

After he eavesdropped on Mickey and Ansem’s conversation, Xehanort wrote that he “set her free”. So he extracted her heart, I’m assuming?

Ansem’s Report 12

The body is gone; the heart should have returned to the Heartless. And yet, nothing. This one is unlike any other. Its memories remain and it has yet to take the form of a Heartless. A close eye must be kept on the situation. Much is still unknown. To get to the realm of Darkness, one must go through the doors of Kingdom Hearts, the place where the world’s hearts connect. Beyond this world is a place in which darkness reigns. (Details shall be archived in a separate report.) There are many worlds in existence, some of which we know nothing about. The world in which we live. The realm of Darkness. The realm of Light. And the world in between. Wherein lies true nirvana?

But she didn’t turn into a Heartless. Her body disappeared, though. She retained her memories. So…what exactly was she at that point? There was something really unusual going on with Kairi, that’s for sure. Maybe it was similar to the Robed Figure.

Ansem’s Report 13

Where does the body go when it separates from the heart? If the soul remains within the body, is it still considered to be deceased? When the heart returns to the Heartless, the physical form disappears. But that is merely true in this world. Perhaps the body exists in another form in another world. If that is the case, then it is possible for one to exist in two worlds. A being that is neither darkness nor light; belonging nowhere; abandoned by its heart; a mere shell of its former self. The relation between the heart and body is complex. However, I am certain that if your self exists here, then by definition, the other cannot truly “exist.“ The other, the one which does not exist, shall be dubbed, "Nobody.”

I think there was a very important connection between apprentice Xehanort and Kairi. He cast away his body, and could time travel. Something special must have happened with Kairi after she was “set free”.

Naminé is a Nobody, created when a young girl’s heart left her body. Yet she has no corresponding Heartless. This is because the "young girl” in this case was a princess. Kairi, a resident of Radiant Garden over which I had ruled, was one of the Seven Princesses that uphold the realm of light. With no darkness in her heart, Kairi produced no Heartless, and instead of vanishing, her body remained in the realm of light. In other words, both the Nobody called Naminé and the Heartless—proof of a lost heart—are extremely unstable beings who lack the bodies needed to produce a Nobody. Therefore, they also lack Kairi’s memories. One reason for this maybe that Kairi’s heart did not return to the darkness when separated from her body, but rather migrated to another vessel…deep within Sora’s heart.

Ansem knew Kairi was from Radiant Garden somehow in KH2. 

Sora: Say, Kairi, what was your hometown like? You know, where you grew up.

Kairi: I’ve told you before, I don’t remember.

Sora: Nothing at all?

Kairi: Nothing.

Yet, Kairi was NOT aware that she was from Radiant Garden. So, she wouldn’t have been able to tell Ansem or anyone else. Mickey didn’t remember that the little girl he saved in BBS was Kairi. Aqua didn’t know about Kairi’s fate until she was rescued. So, I would imagine that the only way Ansem the Wise would have known about Kairi’s past is if he remembered her, due to how special she was.He described her as simply a resident—not related to him.

Ansem: If you do find the girl, what is it that you expect will happen?

Xehanort’s Heartless: The child’s memory holds a mystery to unravel—one concerning the battle we seek between light and darkness. You know something and that…is why you stopped the experiments.

Ansem: You are completely deluded, Xehanort.

Was the special mystery girl originally Kairi? Or Naminé? It could be why Ansem was taken to the mansion and stared at the curtain. Naminé was the ghost girl, after all.

But DiZ had hurt Roxas—even let him be destroyed—to wake Sora up.

Roxas had to disappear. I know that. I understand it, but something inside me makes me reject that.

Did he really have to disappear?

The heart probably had secrets unknown even to DiZ. The Heartless were an embodiment of the darkness in the heart. When a Heartless was born, it created a Nobody, too—an empty physical form.

Then…a Nobody is……

Sora had to be the one who held the key. By coming into contact with him, the heart would awaken.

And that means……

I’m sure there was a lot more we were supposed to learn about Naminé. She always knew more about the heart than the others did in the novels. And she did spend a lot of time with DiZ, who was researching the heart and emotions. The Organization had a special interest in her. In the novels, Axel even doubted if she was actually a Nobody.

“…It’s salty…but sweet,” Naminé murmured after taking a bite of the ice cream.

“Sea-salt ice cream and a photo…” With the ice pop in his hand, Riku eyed the transporter device in the center of the room. “Is he saying to give it to Sora…? As a hint pointing to this place?”

Naminé nodded. “That might be it. I think DiZ—I mean, Ansem the Wise—has some kind of plan.”

“Hey, Naminé… Is there something you haven’t told me—well, haven’t told us?”

She looked at the floor. “…I’m not sure of it yet. The secrets of the heart…aren’t something I can talk about, not yet,” she told him in a tiny voice and took another bite of ice cream.

She knew abut the heart’s ability to be nurtured. But for some reason she couldn’t talk about the “secrets”.

“I feel bad for you, too,” she told him.

“What are you talking about?” Saïx towered over Naminé.

“You haven’t even noticed yet…that you have a heart.” Several Nobodies emerged from a rift out of the corridors.

“A heart? I have a heart? No one wants your nonsense!” Saïx raised his sword over Naminé—but Riku was there with Soul Eater to intercept the blow.

“Hmph. I don’t have time for these games.” Darkness welled from a rift behind Saïx. “Run along and help your dear hero.” With that, he disappeared.

“Are you all right?” Riku helped Naminé to her feet.

“Now I understand…,” she murmured.

“Naminé…? You understand what?”

She was silent for a moment and quietly shook her head as she stood. “It’s nothing. We have to find Kairi.”

She somehow knew Nobodies had hearts. And she also could tell there was something unique about Saïx. In KH3, the scene about the mystery girl involves Hayner, Pence, and Olette. I think that the whole scenario was probably inspired by something involving Kairi/Naminé and was rewritten to involve the new girl much later.

Why I Love Spike But Also Hate Him A Lot: an unsolicited essay by me

OR: Why I personally relate to blood-sucking poseurs OR: dude what if I ever got high enough to rewrite season six?

(under a cut because this goes on for a while. also discourse frightens me)

Okay. I’m like twenty years late. But I’ve been rewatching BtVS s5 during my latest depression spiral and wandering against my better judgement into the Spuffy fic verse. Disclaimer that my grasp of the series’ larger canon is meh at best, and frankly I don’t care.

As usual, I have too many thoughts.

Spike is, hands-down, my favorite character on this show. Maybe one of my favorite characters, period. He’s just... good to watch. But listen. Secret poet or no, he was never an inherently good person. Meek and shy does not equal Buffy’s equal. I squirm at this apparently massively popular canon interpretation of his human character as some kind of adorable perfect cherub, as if William the Dipshit Poet is somehow preferable to Spike the Complicated Murderer or like, we should just automatically assume that cute shy white people who lived in 1880 London are default Lawful Good when in fact... ahahaa haaaa YIKES COLONIALISM?

I actually think the reason Spike is “more human” than other vampires (in the weird, contradictory Buffy soul-canon) is exactly because William was not Pure, he was a Pratt. Sweet? I guess. Loves his mum? He’s got that going for him. But that guy?? Is not Buffy’s long-lost true love, not a weepy ghost to be shoved into Spike’s Billy Idol cosplay bod at the last minute. In a show that, at its best, tries to give us a protagonist who fundamentally believes we must always make the choice to keep living mindfully, accountably, and with purpose... we get a love interest who is... Spike. A guy who, until the very end of his arc, acts as though he has zero fucking free will. Even though, through a combo of deliciously fun and inconsistent writing, Spike is apparently the only vampire in the Buffyverse who does.

I’ll get to that but first, let’s accept for a minute that Free Will + Buffy = good, and people who roll over and say “I had no choice” + Buffy = Mr. Pointy. This counts for her friends too, (*coughWILLOWcough*) and it’s one of the reasons I love the show despite its many textual problems. As a character piece, it’s great. People fail to take accountability for their behavior all the time. It’s an extraordinarily human flaw, one that rarely equals automatically evil, and I love that it can bite characters on the side of good, too. But that’s not the point of this, oh shit!

Okay. William, cute glasses aside, has no free will. He didn’t even sign up for the vampire thing, he just wanted to get felt up by a pretty girl who saw him cry and didn’t laugh at him. At every point, he was an immature, weak-willed, naive dreamer type who wanted nothing more than to be validated by his shitty friends. The vampirism made him a killer, yeah. But it also inadvertently gave a cowardly nobody a lot of good qualities. Now he’s a weirdly observant, relentlessly optimistic, fun-loving, sexually secure Cool Guy who gave up poetry for punk... but still tries too hard to impress his shitty friends. Basically, being a vampire made this guy a happier-but-still-undeniably-crappy version of himself, especially... considering all the murder. 

But now, let us transparently and metaphorically link cartoonish Vamp!Murder to addiction. Because wow, death in BtVS is either a manipulative authorial gut-punch or a dumb joke, and either way, it’s almost impossible to take seriously in this show, so let’s not.

How to make a remorseless bloodsucking fiend out of of “boo hoo I’m a bad writer and I wish some jerks thought I was cool?” Ha ha you can’t!  Turns out you basically recreate my early twenties but with more murder. Spike is a socially-dependent ADHD art school reject on a century-long avoidance bender. He’s a codependent, moon-eyed boyfriend who learns how to aggressively project not caring while caring Far Too Much, all while clinging to aesthetic as an identity. ALTHOUGH let us not deny that he 100% enjoyed all the killing - wtf so much killing - because for vampires, killing equals pleasure, and charming, “happy” addicts always justify the comforts of their vices. He talks the talk cuz fitting in is his whole deal, but he’s not actually in it for chaos and destruction or any high-falutin’ evil reason, or even really for eating delicious ladies but because, in the end, it feels good and the only girlfriend he’s ever had thinks eating people is cool. Even his whole (gorgeous, splendid to watch) episode-long speech about killing two slayers was written more for Buffy’s character arc than his; we don’t really know why he killed the slayers other than like, “Because they had a death wish I guess. Side note: it was fun.”

There wasn’t much legitimately vengeful or hateful stuff in sad little William for demon!Spike to work with, and apparently William’s soul-or-whatever moved about twelve inches over his left shoulder and stayed there, occasionally poking him for the next hundred years. So it should shock no one that he immediately switches sides when a) his girlfriend dumps him, b) his addiction suddenly hurts, and c) it’s time to impress a new friend group.

I get that Spike’s whole soul-getting between s6 and s7 has been interpreted in fanon as a grand romantic sacrifice (ehhhhhhhhhhhh) and I get why that’s tempting, but the show itself bungled that up way bad and I just can’t get behind it. R*pe idiocy aside, making it ultimately all about Buffy just kinda cheapens what could have been a really fucking powerful redemption arc, one that would have led to a far more satisfying love story. Especially from Buffy’s perspective. 

Okay listen.

We have a guy who has been playing the “duh, Vampire!” card for a century, pleasure-seeking and self-centered, pandering to various peer groups, murderous or otherwise, a happy addict, impervious to change. So when finally, after a HUNDRED SODDING YEARS of being a soulless, hilarious dick, Spike has consequences shoved into his gray matter by the government, he doesn’t change. At all. He just starts obsessing over another woman, doing what he thinks she wants. A woman he thinks will give him new pleasures, a new, perpetually fine status quo. But this woman is Buffy, whose identity is rock solid even though her life is constantly full of challenge and change and choices. She “rewards” Spike only when he makes willful, selfless decisions. And the rewards aren’t romantic, either. Not early on. Even in canon, she keeps rejecting him over and over again, for crystal clear reasons. Thank god. Because when he accepts that she’ll never have him, but still does the hard stuff anyway, he’s unwittingly starting to change. It’s not just Buffy. Buffy demands real personhood. Independence. Identity. Choice. 

Uh oh. She’s gotten to him, then. Though it starts out selfish, he still makes a CHOICE. Quite literally, he takes on the pain of self-improvement - first by embracing the consequences of his chip, later by going on his fancy sparkly soul quest. Buffy is the catalyst, no doubt, because once a poet always a poet and girls are pretty, but Spike’s path to improvement (if not redemption) was already there, laid out nice and neat. His narrative low point, the lightbulb moment that makes him want a soul again, should never have come out of a season of terrible backsliding, culminating in the shower scene we all regret.

It should have been The Gift. 

Death isn’t Buffy’s gift. It’s love. And not that simpering, easy kind of love that just says, “there there,” but the hard, truthful love that makes you want to keep getting that goddamn rock from the bottom of the hill. Yes, Spike’s arc should still be about Buffy, it’s Buffy’s show, but it should have been more about the hole she left behind. Not just in Spike but in the world. 

What’s left? This latest and greatest group of people who have so far RIGHTLY rejected a demon whose sole motivator seems to be comfort. And maybe when these particular people hit rock bottom, they have enough wisdom to see a monster down in the dark and recognize themselves. Maybe Dawn (whose humanizing effect on Spike has been nearly as important as his obsession with Buffy) shows him that rare, rare thing called Validation. And oh god, he realizes he’s never actually moved beyond trying to sell effulgence to Cecily Whatsherface, that he’s been sitting on his own grave for a hundred years, waiting for someone to coddle and fix him, and now the only woman who might have, the best woman, literally the one girl chosen one above all others... is gone. This would be a good time to die. 

Or...

...maybe there is no magic soul cave, maybe he tries to end it and makes the CHOICE not to. Chooses to stay and help, because what else is there? Then BAM! it just slams back into him in a way that hurts like you can’t even believe, because admitting how bad you’ve fucked up is the most painful moment of a lifetime and I’ve lived it and I wish I’d had a hellmouth to jump into, but the Scoobies pull him back, and he takes care of Dawn until life seems to have some meaning again, then Buffy comes out of the earth traumatized and broken and no one is better equipped to help her than a recovering Spike, not because he’s magically her rock but because he’s also learning how to roll his own rock and keep on climbing, because Camus ruined us all for metaphors...

THE END

Anyway. As a recovering addict and toxic person who has been struggling a lot recently... who wants to improve and be able to give more to the people I love, Spike has an arc that just like... cuts me deep, man. Especially because of what should have been.

Despite many able to argue that attempting to rank the talents of Stephen King in a 'Best Stephen King Books' type-article is a foolish battle, I am going to give it a go as it's a great excuse to get my King collection out. First time King-readers will also hopefully benefit from this, as let us remember that the great Stephen King has published over 60 books by the age of 64, and with the inconsistency that inevitably brings - reading the wrong novel first might put you off King forever. And oh what a crime that would be! Here goes - My personal 13 best Stephen King books.

The following best Stephen King books list is based on a broad number of criteria, including the number of sleepless nights caused from the nightmares that swiftly followed reading the books...

13- Misery

Misery was one of the first King stories that I got my hands on, and I remember reading it from start to finish over the span of no more than three nights. It makes for a fantastic introduction to Stephen King's writing and I thoroughly recommend it as a potential first King novel to read. Misery is the chilling story of an author named 'Paul Sheldon' who has spawned a series of popular stories about a woman known as only 'Misery'. Paul Sheldon decides he wants to write about something new, so he kills off the character known as Misery. On his way back home he has a car accident which overturns his car, leaving him knocked out. He then awakes to find he has was saved and being looked after by a strange woman named 'Annie Wilkes', who also happens to be his number one fan. Annie is not impressed with Paul's decision to kill off Misery, and so Paul, who once wrote to make a living, is now writing for his life. A truly fantastic story, which admittedly should be avoided if you are weak at heart, as there are some tremendously vivid and terrifying gory scenes.

12- The Green Mile

The Green Mile is a highly acclaimed novel that was originally published over six short separate instalments, each being released a month after the other and ending in a nail-biting cliffhanger. Those were the days...

Many have you have probably seen the movie-adaptation in which Tom Hanks stars, need I really say more? Unlike many other movies based on books, the movie is a loyal and strong interpretation of the book accompanied by remarkable acting. However, despite being a great movie, the book is still king (pun unintended) thanks to the many twists and sub-plots that did not make it into the movie. The story is set in the 30′s and tells the emotional tale of the experiences of prisoners on death row and the guards. The green mile is wonderfully well-written - you feel part of the fictitious world that is full of oppression and segregation that leads to multiple memorable thought-provoking and moving moments. Who said Stephen King can only write horror gems?

11- Bag Of Bones

Bag of Bones is possibly King's most ambitious attempt at having a love story. Similar to The Green Mile this is another of Stephen King's novels that doesn't strictly follow his early horror style of writing, and as such is not as popular as some of his other work. Which is a shame, because if given the chance, this is another truly wonderful ghost story full of twists and vivid characters. The main character is, as you've come to expect with King, a writer called Mike Noonan. Mike's wife suddenly dies and causes him to have a severe case of 'writer's block'. In order to get over his writer's block he returns to his summer house, where he discovers that his wife was on the trail of something highly sinister. With countless twists and turns concluding to a haunting ending, you will undoubtedly be left as breathless and mentally exhausted as I was. Great read...

10- Firestarter

Firestarter is perhaps one of Stephen King's lesser known novels and doesn't often feature in lists of the Best Stephen King Books. It might have something to do with the underwhelming reaction people had after seeing the movie-adaptation - many people see films and then read the book if the movie was any good. Whatever the reason is, a lot of King fans are missing out on a very good story which they would surely love. Firestarter is the tale of a father and his young daughter with pyrokinetic powers, who have to constantly be on the run from a government agency trying to capture the young girl to use her powers for their own gain. The plots are cleverly connected and the likeable characters make you genuinely care for their well-being. Recommended.

9- The Dark Tower Series

The Gunslinger is the first entry of King's The Dark Tower series and follows the protagonist, Roland, on his quest to the Dark Tower, but before he can get there he must locate his enigmatic antagonist that he kindly calls 'The Man in Black'. King took twelve years to write this book, but came up with the epic first line while still at University: 'The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed', gripping start for sure and there's a great deal more of it as you discover how Roland is capable of extreme violence, yet somehow still manages to come across as kind. A great start to a great series and a must-read for any Fantasy/Western book-lover.

8- Pet Semetary

Pet Sematary (purposely misspelt) is one of King's most enthralling and chilling novels. I read it for the first time when I was 14 and the disturbing nature of the story hindered the quality of my sleep for weeks (months?), I wasn't able to pick it up for several years, and for that reason I would wholeheartedly recommend this novel to every horror-lover. The story starts out when the Creed family, a happy family of four and a cat, decide to move house. In their new home, unspeakable evil things start to happen and are certain to keep you on the edge of your seat. Thoroughly frightening and definitely not one for the faint-hearted.

7- It

It is the story of a sleepy town in Maine, called Derry. Every three decades, mysterious and unspeakable evils occur, first come the rare sightings that are quickly followed by a series of murders of young children. The local residents refer to the being that causer of these acts as It, and not much is known about It, apart from the fact that it can shape-shift and appears to each person as a combination of their worst fears. A group of outcast teenagers decide to take a stand against the ultimate evil, and as adults return to Derry three decades later to fight It. The beauty of this book is in how King sets the mood of the story, by making It live in places within our very own homes that we take for granted, such as drains and sewers and the strong chemistry between the main characters as they are naturally gravitated towards each other due to their outcast status.

6- Different Seasons

Different Seasons is a collection of four different stories that saw one of Stephen King's first attempts at writing something not strictly-horror, however do not despair, there are still plenty of gory moments to keep the hardcore fans satisfied - Starting with Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (Hope Springs Eternal) which tells the story of an innocent man in prison convicted of murder, plotting his escape. With fantastic characters and a gripping story, it is a great start to the book. Many people will be aware of Frank Darabont's adaptation of the book into a movie which revels in the brilliance of the story - Shawshank Redemption, however this should not be the only reason to pick up this book, the rest is just as good. The second story in Different Seasons is called The Apt Pupil (Summer of corruption) and is about a seemingly normal teenager who discovers that a local resident is a war criminal, and causes him to develop a morbid curiosity about Nazi death camps. The third story is called The Body (Fall from Innocence), which is the touching story of four teenagers who are dared to go into the woods to confirm the existence of a dead body, and ends up becoming a coming-of-age story. Finally we have the macabre The Breathing Method (A Winter's Tale) which tells of an unmarried and pregnant woman determined to give birth, no matter what... All four stories are severe page-turners and will have you go through a range of strong emotions. Highly recommended for a rainy day.

5- Carrie

Carrie, as you are probably aware already, was Stephen King's first novel and kick-started his incredible career. It is hard to believe that this masterpiece was a writer's first published work, and the popularity and cult-status that it created still remains intact to this very day. Carrie takes you into the world of a lonely and tormented teenage girl who has problems both at home and at high school. Unable to connect with anyone, Carrie finally snaps and unleashes her rage using violence mixed with her telekinetic powers, causing havoc in the usually quiet small town.

4- Salem's Lot

Salem's Lot was Stephen King's second novel, following the hit that was Carrie. It was released in 1975 and immediately became another massive hit by terrifying even the most hardcore of horror readers. The protagonist is author Ben Mears, plagued by personal demons, decides to move to an old mansion in Jerusalem's Lot in a bid to rid himself of them and write a new book. However, Ben quickly discovers that things are not as they seem, and that his home town are under siege by the dark forces of evil. This is a vampire novel, but unlike the recent wave of romantic vampire stories around, these vampires are not friendly or charming at all, they are pure evil. The characters are, as expected, well-developed with believable back-stories that will keep you engaged and highly interested.

3- The Dead Zone

The Dead Zone comes in at number seven on this Best Stephen King Books list and is a book that I personally was mysteriously put-off reading for a very long time, I still do not know why that was, but I was very mistaken to not pick it up sooner. It was King's fifth published novel and is one that Stephen King himself later admitted to being one of the few novels that he plotted and actually liked. The Dead Zone is a fast-paced story about a man called Johnny Smith who after a terrible accident is left in a coma for several years. When Johnny finally awakens, he quickly discovers he has obtained the unique ability to limitedly see into the future of people he touches. With this new power and strong desire to use them for good, he unwittingly foresees terrible events. What makes The Dead Zone so special is that the writing is controlled and well-paced, but above all the character development is fantastic.

2- The Shining

The Shining is a chilling story that follows the dysfunctional Torrance family with a sickening past plagued by alcoholism and abuse. The father of the family, Jack, was a teacher until the day he spotted some of his students damaging his car and ended up punching them. After losing his job, the family are forced to move to a far away and isolated hotel, as that was the only place that would offer Jack a job. During a terrible winter the Torrance family are snowed in and forced to look after the hotel on their own, initially things seem under-control, but as the iconic 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy' statement, all is not well... There are not many characters outside of the family of three, allowing the novel to provide vast amounts of information and back-stories to all them, leading to stand-out character-development, which must rate among Stephen King's very best.. One of my favourite novels ever written and an absolute must-read for any book-lover - even if you have seen the critically-acclaimed movie starring Jack Nicholson.

To conclude our Best Stephen King Books list, I leave you with the book that marked me the most and despite giving me countless cold-sweated and sleepless nights, I read at least four times. A true premier horror classic that will remain in every horror and King aficionado's library forever:

1- The Stand

The Stand is a book that most readers are familiar with. Initially I thought that having to state a number one for a best Stephen King books list would be a tough task, but after remembering The Stand, it was the easiest one of the list. The story starts in the early 90′s in the California Desert, where a deadly mutated flu virus created by the U.S government manages to escape from a biology testing laboratory through a contaminated guard by the name of Campion. Unwittingly, this panicky character sets off a domino effect where 99% of the world's population is rapidly killed off by the deadly virus. The only survivors are those lucky (or unlucky) ones that happen to be naturally immune to the virus, but they are terrified and forced to survive in the depressing and desolate landscape. What follows is an incredible story of desperate struggles filled with humanity and real depth. This is possibly the best horror book I have ever read and if you have not read it yet, what are you waiting for?

That concludes this Best Stephen King Books list, and I wish I could have included many more, a few notable absentees that I'd like to mention are: Skeleton Crew - A collection of stories, The Long Walk - 100 boys meet for a race, if you break the rules you get a warning, exceed three warnings and what happens is truly terrifying and lastly Christine - The story of a teenage boy who falls in love with Christine, a rather 'special' woman.

Stephen King's vast imagination is one to be jealous of. King's delicious talent for story-telling makes his novels tremendously engrossing, and his ability to weave and connect his worlds with the vague perceptions we have of our own is remarkable and causes us to have strong feelings and even desires that these tantalizing worlds could actually exist in an alternate universe somewhere. If you have never picked up a Stephen King book, I couldn't recommend strongly enough to research the one that might initially suit you best and let yourself become absorbed by the incredible worlds of the King.

The Validity of Art!Caliborn

[S]After a great deal of contemplation, I have come to understand why we were wrong when predicting that the Caliborn we were watching-- the one which produced Homosuck and which focused so heavily upon art --was a Caliborn that would not become Lord English. This is because we did not realize certain very important things about Lord English, and the session that Caliborn went into as well.    Firstly, we must realize that Caliborn himself did not take up art only after his sister was gone. He drew his first art piece to show his appreciation of Dirk, while Calliope was still alive, and thus his hobby could not have stemmed from his loneliness and desire to fill the void that Calliope’s removal left in him.   The artwork that came about was crude and almost incapable of expressing what he was saying it was.   However, this did represent an inner draw toward the Space aspect which would remain with him throughout the rest of his life, and into his existence as Lord English.       All players have a connection to their opposite aspect. It is a healthy part of a player’s progression to experiment and try to understand it, which is necessary to their proper expression of their Classpect role.   However, we believed that Caliborn was going too far with his exploration of Space, and that this meant that he was likely out of tune with his Lord of Time title.      We believed this falsely. From the moment Caliborn arrived in the Incipisphere, he was left on the same planet:      A place where he had an endless supply of free time on his hands and a wide expanse of barren space to deal with.    He had no apparent quest, and the only way he might find one was the expenditure-- wasting --of his time in search for some sort of hidden order to the white noise of that empty world.    In SBURB, every player’s planet begins in a plagued condition, generally caused by the denizen.   In this case, it is arguably the reverse:  The planet was already in this state when it got pulled into the black hole. Game Objects were already on Earth, and the Earth was already a dead Land.      Because Yaldabaoth did nothing, the plague of the Earth is this: An over-abundance to both Time and Space, neither of which are mastered.   They are chaotic, and without meaning, unless someone interferes and takes the reins of one to tame the other. Thus, before even meeting his Denizen and being sent on the Path of the Conqueror, Caliborn’s quest was clear: Use his command of time to conquer the space laid out before him.    It was the same after that Choice, as well. You see, Caliborn was made to Play a Game with Yaldabaoth. A game where if he lost, the price would be his life.  He was like one of the captives in the Saw franchise, and had even removed one of his own limbs to get to the point where he could become one. However, he did so willingly, and would later be able to challenge the great lion-headed ‘god’ for the title of King of Death Games.   But before that, he  had to play a game. A game of billiards. One thing that one must realize about the game of billiards in order to understand why this is so important is that it is all about geometry. Specifically, it deals with the use of vector geometry and impact angles to produce precise amounts of force and precise angles of attack which are necessary in order to bring a ball into a pocket.    Generally, time has nothing to do with this game, save that time is necessary to see the balls go in motion and make movement to the pocket possible. It was nearly the same case with the planetary version of the game.     Time only mattered for two reasons: It was the tool Caliborn would use to deliver the force: his time manipulating leprechauns allowed him to deliver the force necessary to launch each planet out of its stable position; secondly, Yaldabaoth imposed a time limit for each world, artificially increasing the pressure on Caliborn with each success, and thus forcing him to learn or die.    And he WOULD learn!    Specifically, he would learn to use time manipulations as a tool to effect a mastery of space.              The irony of all of this is that his session was specifically designed to push him toward the embrace of Space as a Lord of Time.      After all, what would Doctor Who be like if it only featured events from Earth’s speculative history?       A proper time lord must be an adept in the usage and traversal of both Space AND Time.      This is the reason he is able to travel through the great chaos in which live the HorrorTerrors.  It is a place of time contingent on ever-changing factors in fluid space. However, a powerful, calculating mind (or someone with incredible luck) can traverse it freely, with careful plotting of their course. So, having been taught to embrace Space as a Lord of Time, which was indeed necessary for his survival, and therefore not something which he would hold with any distaste anymore, Caliborn is left with two things two do: Prepare himself in whatever way he can, and then confront Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge.    In order to prepare himself, Caliborn does not seem to have created much in the way of items, but instead returns unlock all the secrets which were kept from him for lack of keys, earlier on in his game session (as any good gamer might, before facing the final boss).   What does he discover behind these locks? More encouragement to hone his artistic skills now that he has a greater grasp of Space and its concepts (in the form of the How to Draw Manga book), and an indication that he would be taking over the role of a major figure who had the role of creating the world in which he lives.        In essence, this is encouragement to not just DEFEAT Yaldabaoth, but to predominate over it and absorb its nature into his own, as he had not his sister. He had another giant snake monster as a replacement for the nonexistent snake monster that would have been a replacement for his missing sister if he had predominated properly  (the screwy Freudian logic of Cherub mating cycles is screwy). Anyway, to be clear:   After defeating Yaldabaoth, Caliborn would go on to do more than simply producing a Homosuck story that made crude representations of the Homestuck characters going on a nonsense quest which may represent the final showdown in [S] Collide.    He would take up the role of the Demiurge, and would be responsible for the creation of countless corrupted universes throughout Paradox Space.    Lord English would have ages to develop his mind, refine his arts, and slowly, carefully manipulate the timelines of everything in existence to produce the Alpha: The path toward his own creation, and therefore his victory-- the shattering of reality, the birth and death of the Green Sun.    Though it took Forever, and required all his concentration and willpower, that old man with a peg leg was able to descend the stairs he built for himself without falling to the side or losing his foothold on reality.    Thus, he was able to burst forth upon the omniversal stage and begin playing his zealous part in the destructive End. In the end, I hope I have made this theory retrospective post clear.  In another attempt at writing this (which was lost because the page refreshed for no reason, and I could not copy the text, which may have been longer than this version), I had explained the extreme similarities between Caliborn and Yaldabaoth in much more detail.    For example: Yaldabaoth creates in the material world images which are reflections of the spiritual ideas which exist in the heavenly realms, but which cannot actually embody them fully, because physical reality itself in gnostic belief takes away part of the essence of higher things.      It is the same with Caliborn.   He draws to represent ideas he has in his head, but something is always lost. His drawing of a circle is a round shape composed entirely of straight lines.   We see that the lines certainly evoke the idea of a circle well enough.   In fact, it seems near perfectly round. However, this is simply an illusion. It is not a real circle which is produced. However, in this version I chose to focus much more on the space and art links to this issue, which I think lay a bit closer to the heart of things. The simple truth is that Caliborn was always meant to be an artist. He was shown producing art almost immediately after we first see text from him. As a consequence of his lonely existence, the fact that making art seemed to give him a way to interact with the world and show off his role as the usurping narrator, and finally because he was encouraged to embrace Space in general, it was only natural for the Caliborn that became Lord English to embrace artistic creation, which flows naturally from the Space Aspect, and which was a perfect stepping stone to the manipulation of the world which would become integral to his future existence. If anything, a Caliborn which completely rejected art would be the doomed timeline alternative version.   Yet that is what we believed Lord English must have been, since it seemed there were building inconsistencies between the Caliborn that made his Masterpiece and what must have actually happened to lead up to Lord English’s birth.

We made a mistake.  Somehow, the Cherubs’ viewing capabilities and chat functions were linked over the retcon to the world on the other side of it, it seems, and all those mountains of evidence which seemed to point to Art!Caliborn’s differentiation from the one who would become Lord English were close to Red Herrings. (He is apparently the king of them, after all)      We made this mistake because we forgot that Lord English was not just a power-mad monster seeking to destroy all reality, but was also a being whose will shaped the world to suit his desires and to confirm his own existence.  He is in a very true sense, meant to be the Demiurge of the world in which all the Homestuck characters live, even if Hussie or his Self-Insert wrote most of it, and LE didn’t invent The Game.     If you look up the meaning of the Greek word, “Demiourgos,” you will find that it does not only refer to the vile creator of the material world in gnostic lore, but that in its most basic sense, its meaning was this:  “an artisan.”

Harry Potter: 10 Things That Make No Sense About The Philosopher’s Stone

When both the book and film versions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone were released, no one could have predicted the level of success that they or the rest of the Harry Potter saga would achieve. But it's easy to see why so many children and adults immediately fell in love with the story of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

RELATED: Harry Potter: 10 Hilarious Voldemort Logic Memes That Are Too Funny

The first tale of Harry Potter that J.K. Rowling wove was a story that was thrilling and mysterious, and it revolved around a cast of characters that were very intriguing and relatable. Although the story itself was compelling and an exceptional achievement as a first attempt at writing, there are a few flaws within its creation and execution of said story. The Philosopher's Stone has plot holes like any average book and film does, and here are 10 of the most noticeable reasons why  some parts of The Philosopher's Stone just doesn't make any sense.

10 Clearly Not Every Evil Wizard Comes From Slytherin

Granted, Slytherin does seem to be the house in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry hosts majority of the wizards who go dark, however Hagrid's statement to Harry that "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin" is clearly untrue and Hagrid knows it.

Aside from there being plenty of dark wizards from any house, Hagrid personally knows of wizards who have gone to the dark side who weren't in Slytherin. It's unfortunate that this one statement from Hagrid seems to color how everyone looked at Slytherin from that moment forward.

9 How Does Every House Take An Even Number Of Students?

When a new student starts at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, they're subjected to the infamous sorting hat in order to figure out which Hogwarts house is right for them. And there are a lot of different criteria that the hat sifts through in order to choose the right house.

RELATED: Harry Potter: 10 Hilarious Hagrid Logic Memes That Are Too Funny

But miraculously it seems like the students who go to each house are pretty even within each class. If the house that each student goes to is dictated by their personalities, then what is the likelihood that every incoming Hogwarts class is equally split among all of the houses?

8 Why Wasn't Dumbledore Suspicious Of Quirrell?

Voldemort and his agents are undoubtedly very sneaky when it comes to achieving their desires, and I guess Dumbledore does deserve a break since Harry's first year at Hogwarts is also the first time that Voldemort makes himself known once again.

However, it's a little odd that the most brilliant wizard alive today never even had an inkling that Professor Quirrell was up to something. Moves like letting a troll into the school are big moves to be making, and it'd be pretty difficult to do that without making a mistake or drawing attention to yourself.

7 Why Wasn't Anyone Else Suspicious Of Quirrell?

Dumbledore shoulders a chunk of the blame when it comes to not realizing that Professor Quirrell was literally wearing Lord Voldemort on the back of his head, but it's bizarre that no one else picked up on anything strange either. I mean, he literally has another face on the back of his head!

Did his turban never slip in all the time he was at Hogwarts? How in the world was Voldemort even breathing back there? Obviously he was keeping his eye on the prize but even the most dedicated person would have trouble sitting in the dark without making a sound all day, every day.

6 Why Didn't Dumbledore Destroy The Stone?

The Philosopher's Stone was an incredibly powerful and valuable piece of magic, but any reasonable person would realize that the risk posed if Lord Voldemort (or any witch or wizard with ill intentions, really) ever got his hands on it was just too great.

RELATED: Harry Potter: 10 Slytherin Memes That Prove It's The Sneakiest House

Dumbledore is a smart man on his own but learned even more from his experiences with Lord Voldemort. The ability to live forever is an incredibly tempting choice that leads people to commit dangerous and crazy things, so destroying the stone in order to take that option off the table was just the smarter move.

5 Why Didn't Quirrell Get The Stone?

Now this is another plot twist that sounds like Dumbledore outsmarting everyone on the surface, but makes almost no sense the minute you think it through. Dumbledore hid the stone in the Mirror of Erised and enchanted it with the caveat that anyone who saw themselves in the mirror with the philosopher's stone would get it, just as long as they didn't want to use the stone for themselves.

However, Professor Quirrell didn't want to use the stone for himself. He wanted to use it for Voldemort. So by the enchantment's logic, Quirrell should have been able to get it.

4 Harry's Changing Ages

If there is something that was inconsistent in The Philosopher's Stone that continued throughout the course of Harry Potter, that would be the age Harry was when his parents were killed by Voldemort.

At times it looks like Harry is with his parents when he is already a toddler, but when Dumbledore and McGonagall drop Harry off on the doorstep of Privet Drive he is very clearly a young baby. Obviously if he was already being given to the Dursleys his parents would be dead, which is impossible given his age in scenes with his parents later.

3 Ollivander Should Be Out Of Business

According to the math laid out in the Harry Potter books, Ollivander's wand shop should be out of business. This is admittedly the kind of plot hole that only matters to the most pedantic of fans, but it is a plot hole nonetheless.

RELATED: Harry Potter: 12 Ravenclaw Logic Memes That Are Too Hilarious For Words

In the books, a wand from Ollivander costs seven Galleons. But we also learn that a unicorn hair, one of the typical cores of an Ollivander wand, costs ten Galleons. One could theorize that Ollivander gets a bit of a discount because he'll undoubtedly buy in bulk, but clearly his profit margins are razor thin at best.

2 Does Any Education Besides Magic Matter?

When students begin attending Hogwarts they're pretty young. Clearly they're old enough to have learned some basic reading, writing, and math, but their education in standard school subjects is still far from complete. However, it seems that Hogwarts never bothers to educate students in any skills aside from magical ones.

Granted, if you're a witch or wizard then it's not a stretch to say that you won't need a lot of standard educational skills on a day to day basis. However, the ability to read and write are necessary skills even for someone who's life is made easier by magic.

1 Why Couldn't The Professors Outsmart 11 Year Olds?

The main thrust of The Philosopher's Stone is Voldemort's quest to acquire the stone and bring himself back to life, along with the professors at Hogwarts doing whatever they can to foil his plans. However, their plans don't seem very impressive upon closer examination.

Every professor comes up with tricks to protect the Philosopher's Stone, however the work of every single teacher at Hogwarts apparently isn't enough to even foil three freshmen. The golden trio are the heroes  so it's no surprise that they succeed, but it doesn't reflect very well on the teachers at Hogwarts.

NEXT: Harry Potter: 5 Most Powerful Slytherin Wizards (& 5 Worst)

source https://screenrant.com/harry-potter-philosophers-stone-no-sense/