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captainpikeachu · 3 years

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Steve & John: shared similarities

People have talked endlessly about Steve and John’s differences that made Steve worthy of the shield and John not worthy (plenty of gifsets are all about that), but for me, the contrast of their personalities and how they handle things only really work because the two characters actually share many similarities at their core. And I don’t just mean because superficially they are both blond haired blue eyed white dudes with military experience.

So in this post, I’m going to talk about the ways Steve and John are much more alike than people would like to admit.

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1. Shy down-turned smile (also Imposter Syndrome)

Steve always had this shy/nervous downturned smile when someone took a genuine interest in him, and no doubt much of that came from how often he was looked down upon before his transformation. So he’s genuinely surprised/pleased that someone is interested, and a little nervous too. Because even if he is the big strong man now physically, I think there is always that bit of imposter syndrome with Steve where he still thinks of himself as the scrawny kid from Brooklyn and not this big tall hero that people see him as. John when he gets teases from his wife and his best friend in those locker room scenes does this same shy downturned smile, as if he’s still that nervous anxious high school kid with a lot of expectations on his shoulders, a side that he doesn’t really present to anyone but the people he trusts to let his guard down with because John also has a huge case of imposter syndrome as his past experiences and trauma doesn’t make him feel so strong and qualified and heroic. Everyone may call him the hero, but in his heart, he doesn’t feel like the perfect righteous hero that people expects or sees him as.

2. Discomfort with their public roles + Just want to do the job

Steve was notably uncomfortable being thrown into the USO tours. It’s not what he wanted, it’s not what he intended. He felt like a dancing monkey, performing for people instead of doing the things that he wanted to do to actually help people. And while he reluctantly accepted that all the autographs and fake smiles and acting and fame was part of the job, all he really wanted to do was actually do the real job and save lives, to have the chance to make a difference and do the right thing. This same sentiment is echoed by John, who is equally as uncomfortable being placed into a public role that he clearly does not want to be in. He’s a soldier used to serving a silent and thankless role, we see his discomfort with publicity in his GMA interview, and we see it later in the show when strangers come for autographs. Yes, like Steve, he has accepted this is part of being Captain America, but he doesn’t want it, he just wants to be able to do his job, complete his mission, and keep everyone safe.

3. Loyalty to their loved ones

Steve will always come for the people he loves, he will always stand by them, he will fight for them and die for them. Numerous times now Steve has been willing to risk everything to protect Bucky or anyone else that he cares about, even if no one else is willing, even if the world is against him or his own life is on the line. John carries that same loyalty for the people who matter to him. When Lemar is taken by the Flag Smashers, John’s immediate concern isn’t even about the mission or his job, it’s getting Lemar back. When they were fighting on top of the trucks in Episode 2, when Lemar’s life was in danger, John puts himself at a disadvantage to take a shot at the guy holding Lemar even though it leaves himself open to attack and nearly kicked off the truck roof. And then he throws the shield to cover Lemar’s landing despite it would leave him weaponless as a regular non-powered person to face off a super soldier. Steve and John would both do anything for the people they love.

4. Self-sacrificing

We’ve seen Steve willing to throw himself on the grenade, so to speak, time and time again. He did it in his first film to send the plane into the water. He does it for Bucky in Winter Soldier. And not to mention actually jumping on grenades, even if that ended up being a test. Steve’s instinct to throw himself in danger and sacrifice for others is well documented, but John matches that self sacrificing instinct as well. He’s jumped on grenades before as an active duty soldier. He has three Medals of Honor that would only be earned through willing to sacrifice himself above and beyond the call of duty to save others. And even in the final fight in Episode 6, we see him fighting off the Flag Smashers while trying to pull that truck up even if the Flag Smashers pull him over the ledge. When push comes to shove, Steve and John’s instincts are to jump into danger to shield others with their lives, no hesitation. They both would see it as their duty.

5. “I can do this all day”

This is Steve’s signature line. He doesn’t give up, he can keep standing up to fight for what he believes in, whether against bullies, Red Skull, Tony, the government, Thanos, and even a version of himself. Steve is resilient and his endurance goes beyond just his physical abilities. He has the heart to keep fighting, the stubborn tenacity to never give up even when all seems lost. Yet John has that same stubborn tenacity that Steve has. Those three Medals of Honor are proof of that. You’d have to be able to walk through hell to even get one medal, much less three. The mental endurance required to keep going would have been enormous. And even after Sam and Bucky broke his arm in that warehouse, John got back up and tried to keep fighting, they had to bash him into unconsciousness to even stop him. And even then he went on to forge his own shield and got back into the fight. Much like Steve, he doesn’t know when to give up.

6. Lying (in an attempt to protect themselves and others)

Steve lied to Tony about the truth of his parents’ death. He knew and he kept silent, lying by omission, and he was going to keep lying until Tony finally confronted him for a simple clear answer. Steve even admits that he thought by not saying anything, he was sparing Tony, but he realizes that he was really sparing himself. It was a selfish choice, one born not out of malice, but perhaps a misguided attempt to keep the peace, thinking if the truth isn’t out there then maybe any conflict is unnecessary and everyone can have their peace of mind. And that same line of thinking is what drives John’s lies to Lemar’s family too. A part of him wants to spare them further pain, because what good would come from telling them that their son/brother’s killer is still out there and that he failed to stop them? He wanted to spare them, he wanted to give them closure and peace in their grief, to not burden them with an open ended story with no justice. But he was also sparing himself, because he’s afraid admitting the truth that he didn’t kill the person directly responsible might lead to Lemar’s family hating him and he’d lose them and his last connection to Lemar. This is not a decision of malice, this is a decision born from fear. Steve and John both lie in trying to spare others from pain but also selfishly spare themselves from the further conflict that the truth may cause.

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In a way, yes, John was designed to be a darker mirror to Steve (less solid morality, less emotional control), but that darker mirror only works when they share some core similarities. Their differences are in how those traits can manifest outward into different actions.

Perhaps shockingly, I think Steve would have understood John and his choices more than most, and may have been able to talk him off the ledges better anyone else besides Lemar, and maybe with some more understanding guidance, John might have made for a good Captain America. After all, Steve did say once say in that letter to Tony, “I know you’re doing what you believe in, and that’s all any of us can do, that’s all any of us should.”

#these two are a lot similar than people like to think they are #and i needed to talk about that #steve rogers #john walker #captain america #the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws #tfatws meta #mcu #marvel #mcu meta

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marmarparadoxa · 3 years

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I always read opinions about hanji post time skip and ch 132 they say her decision to sacrifice herself was the decision of a suicidal person because of how inadequate she felt as a commander and unable to live up to erwin’s legacy or things like yams ruined Hanji’s character and was treated by him as unimportant character useless weak or gave up easily and was just there until armin grow up to be commander. As a hanji fan I feel so disappointed in hanji's treatment. What do you think?

Hi! I’m sorry to hear you feel like that as an Hange fan, and I’m aware that you’re not the only one who sees it that way. However, I felt very disoriented at first, when I started reading these opinions, because my experience about Hange’s character in reading the manga was very different from yours. Although I also have my complaints, I actually think that Hange had their time to shine in the last arcs, and moments and scenes and speeches for which I think I came to understand them better, and loved them and all the more felt proud of them, so I can’t say I feel disappointed by their treatment.

For one thing, I don’t think their decision to sacrifice themselves was the decision of a suicidal person. Hange never manifested any sort of suicidal ideation to begin with (as for instance, obviously Reiner did, and somewhat Armin - when he said, in reference to the serum bowl, that it wasn’t him, the one whom they should have revived), and overall, they never gave me the impression of someone willing to throw their life away. It’s true that they didn’t feel worthy of Erwin’s legacy, and blamed themselves for not having been able to show Eren alternative solutions. You can see, in certain moments, how much these thoughts made them doubt their value as commander. However, Hange was not the type of person who would let themselves be led astray by these thoughts, nor shy away from their responsibilities, to cry over themselves - and back to chapter 71, we can see what was their opinion of people who’d do that, in their reaction at Keith Shadis’ story.

Shadis shirked from his role as commander, because he wasn’t “special”, because he didn’t feel equal to his role. In learning that, Hange, for once, was not very sympathetic, but reacted very harshly, and labeled Shadis’ motivations as “childish reasons” and “inferiority complex”. And I think it was not only because they used to admire and have a crush for him once that they felt so outraged at that point, but mostly because of the kind of person Hange had always been. They were an incredibly strong-willed, resilient and self-denying person, who fiercely believed in the ideal they decided to dedicate their life to, and thus felt offended in learning about Shadis’ petty self-concern. And this is how Hange concluded their tirade against the poor Shadis that day: “Isn’t that what it means to cast away your own life and dedicate your heart to the greater good?”. And this leads to a further important point.

Being suicidal, or more or less actively seeking your own death for the sake of your own death, is a different thing from being prepared to altruistically give up on your own life, for the better good. And in view of the above, I’m convinced that Hange’s sacrifice falls under the second sort. In their very last moment, Hange was not thinking about their own misfortunes, but was still looking for the plan to take off, because they wanted to make sure that they could save their friends, and with them, the last chance for salvation for humanity.

So I didn’t like the briskness of the chapter, and I had a hard time suspending my disbelief at Floch having survived Gabi’s shot, and throughout the whole trip of the ship. That was not good-writing, and obviously Isayama wanted to kill off Hange, for whatever reason. But their readiness to take up their responsibilities, and sacrificing their life, was nonetheless consistent with the kind of person Hange has always been. When I think about their sacrifice, their speech to pastor Nick, on top of the walls, in chapter 34 always comes to my mind: “Do you know what exactly we in the Survey Corps have spilled our blood for? To take back the freedom the titans stole from us. For that cause...our lives were a small price to pay.” The Survey Corps required its members to devote their lives, their flesh, their hearts to its cause, and Hange was aware of that.

And when it comes down to it, what exactly could have Hange done to avoid their sacrifice? They couldn’t send any precious titan shifters (to Reiner’s chagrin) and of course they wouldn’t have sent any of the remaining kids (Mikasa, Jean or Connie), to go sacrifice themselves, instead of taking responsibility for their decisions. Levi, at that time, could barely stand up straight. So it had to be them.

I think that Hange was even more courageous, and their sacrifice was all the more admirable (and more painful for me) if you consider that Hange, though willing to take their responsibilities, and committed to their purpose, didn’t actually want to die. Their leaving the kids was so swift, rushed, and they didn’t show how scared they were. But it became manifest when they were asking Levi to let them go, and when he put his fist above their heart, and told them to dedicate their heart, their lips curved downward, and then they laughed it off, and flew away. They downplayed their feelings and rushed, so to be able to leave Levi and the kids - the people they loved - behind. Death, for them, didn’t come as a release from sufference or a crushing burden, but they accepted and went toward it nonetheless.

Then, if we want to address Hange’s character general treatment post time-skip, I think it’d be better to first briefly observe what was Isayama’s general treatment of all Paradis characters, post time-skip. My general impression is that, having come into play all those new different characters from Marley, which asked for narrative space and development, and the plot which had to keep going on, somehow there wasn’t space and time to a proper treatment of the old cast, so that its members, more or less, became rather static and passive.

However, I didn’t perceive Hange’s character as being “unimportant, useless, weak, or giving up easily, who was just there until Armin grew up to be commander”, as you said. In those four years, Hange had a most important role - they were the one who directed their first encounters with Marleyans ships, and talked to their members, and initiated their alliance. Among all Paradis’ political figures, together with Pixis Hange was the one who most took part in negotiations and diplomacy, and worked hard to give Paradis a future. They were shown happily getting excited over Marleyans’ inventions, overcoming Marleyans’ hostilities. And then there’s that beautiful scene, when they restored hope for the kids, proposing the trip to Marley, and then expressing the Survey Corps’ ideal. Later on, when Eren betrayed them in Liberio, when in the dungeon he threatened them, and then when the Jeagerists organized and Floch sequestered them, of course Hange felt let down, disheartened, and powerless, and doubted their value. However, given the circumstances, I wonder how these reactions would spoil Hange’s character, where in fact they are most understandable, and human. It made me sad to see Hange suffer that way (the scene where they were shooting at those SC soldiers and crying, and then seeing how Sannes’ words were still haunting them was painful to see), but it was also interesting to see more of their vulnerable side. And so, it was even more remarkable to see what they were able to do, despite the seemingly hopeless conditions, after Eren initiated the Rumbling - Hange didn’t give up easily at all. It was them who gathered the Alliance. They spoke with Magath, and Pieck, and thus persuaded previous enemies to join forces. Then they went and found Mikasa and Jean, and asked them to help them. And, in the morally wavering atmosphere after the start of the Rumbling, the scene of “I’m not accepting genocide!! You’re not getting me to agree with any reason to support this!!”, and their following speech was so powerful, meaningful, and important.

In conclusion, Hange kept on being Hange till the end, I think - they were still the playful, optimist crazy titan scientist (I mean, they asked Pieck’s Cart titan if she ever brushed her teeth in her titan form XD), and, in the bleakest moment, they didn’t lose hope (“It might not work out today...but maybe someday”), they were still keeping on looking to the future.

And I want to add one more thing, in regards to the “afterlife” scene. I imagine that a lot of people (myself included) felt let down when Isayama stated that it was only a “revolving lantern”. But now I think that it doesn’t really matter whether that's just something Hange’s mind created, or an actual afterlife plane. It was an unexpected act of kindness from Isayama, which completed Hange’s arc in a somehow uplifting note. Hange got reunited with their friends, and saw the plane, flying above them (so they knew their sacrifice was not in vain). And then Erwin told them “You did well”. That’s the message Isayama wanted to give us about Hange, and, if nothing else, I feel grateful for that.

#hange zoe #snk meta #hanji zoe #erwin smith #armin arlert #reiner braun #keith shadis #levi ackerman #pieck finger #jean kirschtien #mikasa ackerman #this got longer than i intended #apparently I needed to get this out of my chest ^^#snk 132 #tw suidice

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prome-th3us · 3 years

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Runes for beginners: introduction

In this grimoire I'm going to go through runes and their meaning in a way that is accessible to everyone. I'm gonna make a post for every rune so it's gonna be a long serie. I hope you will find this useful and if there's something unclear or wrong, please let me know!

I decided to avoid runes magic because I just want to help to get to know the runes a little better. Before practicing magic, you have to understand what this powerful tool is.

Introduction

Runes are not only a writing system, but they were also used as a magical, divinatory and spiritual growth tool. Rune (norse: rún/rúnar) means "segret, mistery". The characters used to engrave the rune, symbol of a certain energy in this world, were called runstafas (runic sticks).

They are an oracle and we can ask them to guide us: they work better if our question is specific and detailed. The lecture of Runes sometimes is obscure: the petitioner must interpret the details and understand them. Runes give us a way to analize the path we are on and to understand one of his possible outcomes: the future isn't static, we can change it with everything we do.

each rune has a phonetic value and a name that identifies its function and meaning; then it has a very specific history behind it and is associated with a diety.

Historical origins

I'm not gonna say much about the historical origins of the Runes because there are so many different theories about them and we could write an entire book just about this topic.

This is what you have to know:

the ancient futhark comes from the alphabet used by the Celts of Lugano (leoponzi) which has Greek origin. The Greek alphabet would have been absorbed by the Etruscans in the 12th century BC. and then by the Celts of Lugano in the VII. From here, thanks to trade, it would have arrived in the far north, with the necessary changes.

The Greek alphabet influenced the Gothic one and then the Germanic peoples adapted it (we can see how the Gothic alphabet is actually similar to both Greek and Runic, then the Othala rune resembles the Greek Omega).

it originated from the Roman alphabet, given the many relationships that different peoples entertained.

Mythological origin

"I know that I hung

On the wind-blasted tree

All of nights nine,

Pierced by my spear

And given to Odin,

Myself sacrificed to myself

On that pole

Of which none know

Where its roots run.

No aid I received,

Not even a sip from the horn.

Peering down,

I took up the runes –

Screaming I grasped them –

Then I fell back from there."

from the Old Norse poem Hávamál.

In Norse mythology, it's Odin who brought the Runes to the other gods. He wanted to know everything and he was envy of the Norns, who already knew them. He went to the Well of urd, the home of Runes, and since they reveal themselves to any but those who prove themselves worthy of such fearful insights and abilities, Odin hung himself from a branch of Yggdrasil, pierced himself with his spear, and peered downward into the waters below. He forbade any of the other gods to grant him the slightest aid. He survived in this state, teetering on the precipice that separates the living from the dead, for no less than nine days and nights. At the end of the ninth night, he at last perceived shapes in the depths: the runes. He's also lost his eyes for the wisdom.

Other important concepts

First of all, to truly understand how runes were used, you have to know at least a little of Norse mythology (I will tell you some books and links in the last paragraph). Then you have to understand what Orlog and Wyrd mean.

Orlog

This is basically karma but without reincarnation. Every person is born completely responsible for everything they do in their life since the first second: positive actions bring positive results, bad actions bring bad results, even in the afterlife. Who did positive things will go to Valhalla (where the heroes and the people who died in battle go) or to Sessrumnir (the halls of Freya). Who doesn't die in an honorable way or who did bad thing will go to Helheimr (the realm of Hel, this means that even who died in a normal way and who had a normal life will go there) or to Nilfheimr (the world of ice and cold, where the Ice Giants live).

Basically we decide where we are going with every choice we make.

Wyrd

A giant cobweb that extends in space and time: each thread is made up of a different manifestation of energy and all together it constitutes the very fabric of the universe. Since we are born, we are in some part of this web so we are also part of it.

Wyrd and Orlog are intertwined: who does good things and has a good Orlog, he will be on a good thread of the web. Wyrd is the fabric of life as well, so the world will be influenced by the positive energy of the man and will give him back this energy.

If each strand is a different manifestation of energy, each type of energy must have a name: the runes. In runic divination, what we see is a reflection of the energies in and around us (or around the person we are divining for). When we want to modify the Orlog, the process is different: we use the Runes as a channel for the energies that we need. We can say that the practice related to the runes is of two types: passive (divination) and active (healing, protection, etc ...).

Aettir of Runes

In the ancient futhark, there are 24 runes divided in three aettir (sing. aett, sets) of 8 runes each. Every aett is dedicated to a different diety:

Aett of Freya. She is of the Vani lineage and is therefore linked to fertility and harvest. She was welcomed with her twin brother Freyr in Asgard at the end of the war between the Aesir and the Vanir (basically the "wae" between the Norse people and the invaders). She can use the Runes, so she's a goddess of magic but also of love, associated with death (she is the leader of the Valkyries) and sexuality. The runes in this aett are: ᚠ ᚢ ᚦ ᚨ ᚱ ᚲ ᚷ ᚹ.

Aett of Heimdall. Of the Aesir lineage, he is among other things the guardian god of Bifrost and Asgard: he has hearing and sight that reach everywhere. Following a spell of Odin, he was born of nine waves and for this reason he is called "son of the wave". The runes in this aett are: ᚺ ᚾ ᛁ ᛃ ᛇ ᛈ ᛉ ᛊ.

Aett of Tyr. Of the Aesir lineage, he is known as the "Father of Heaven". He sacrificed one of his hands to be able to bind Fenrir and is a god linked to justice, loyalty, heaven, defense, war and law. The runes in this aett are: ᛏ ᛒ ᛖ ᛗ ᛚ ᛜ ᛞ ᛟ.

Last things

Ok so for this first post it's everything! I will continue in the next posts to explore every single rune. I just wanted to suggest some links and books if you want to go deeper into the fascinating history of runes.

Here you can find an interesting article about everything I just said, with so many references and here they also give a list of good books (if you can't afford them you can download their pdf from this site)

Anyway if you want to dig into norse mythology you can read:

Poetic Edda

Prose Edda

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs by John Lindow

(other good books can be found here).

And of course, if you still didn't realize this, I fricking love the website Norse Mythology for Smart People, even tho everything I wrote in this post is from "Le Rune" by Marco Massignan (I couldn't find the English Translation sorry).

#runes #viking runes #ancient runes #witchblr #norse heathen #norse paganism #norse runes #pagan witch

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tundrainafrica · 3 years

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So, what's your overall opinion on snk 139?

Something doesn’t sit well with me with how people on Twitter are complaining about 139. Personally (Hange backstory aside), it was satisfying and despite what people are saying that it ‘romanticizes genocide,’ I do not agree. I wanted to give my thoughts on the chapter overall so I decided to write it out.

In fact, I have another take on the overall message of the story and I hope people would give this a read.

Disclaimer: Sure, I am defending the story line and the ‘message’ that’s coming with it but I in no way, agree with the genocide. But there is a more nuanced take on this which I think will help people understand that there is an underlying message to all this and I wanted to just talk about it below.

Also, I found some cringe-worthy moments, I do not agree with Armin’s take on ‘Thank you for committing genocide for us’ one of the most horrible lines ever and I like to retcon that and never think about it again and I intend to read the Japanese raws though to check if it was just a translation error.

Maybe there is someone who already explored this but yeah, I’ll just write this in case no one has.

For now though, allow me to give a more detailed analysis of the message over all so people stop hating on the ending for ‘romanticizing genocide’ because I think this is a low key pretty shallow take on the whole thing and I want to provide some information, some analysis and some comparison to make people realize, this isn’t as easy as people claim it to be.

So let me start by mentioning something about the war with Marley to give people some perspective.

Yams pretty much set up a trolley problem on a wider scale and Eren was the one with the lever.

For people who don’t know what the trolley problem is, allow me to explain it below.

Here is a sample I found online: (See this link for details)

“A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward five workers who will all be killed if the trolley proceeds on its present course. Adam is standing next to a large switch that can divert the trolley onto a different track. The only way to save the lives of the five workers is to divert the trolley onto another track that only has one worker on it. If Adam diverts the trolley onto the other track, this one worker will die, but the other five workers will be saved.”

There are a lot of variations to this like:

“A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward five workers who will all be killed if the trolley proceeds on its present course. Adam is on a footbridge over the tracks, in between the approaching trolley and the five workers. Next to him on this footbridge is a stranger who happens to be very large. The only way to save the lives of the five workers is to push this stranger off the footbridge and onto the tracks below where his large body will stop the trolley. The stranger will die if Adam does this, but the five workers will be saved”

And there are so many other variations of this.

The runaway trolley is going after your mom vs. five escaped prisoners.

The runaway trolley is going after Pope Francis vs five serial killers.

These trolley problems show the moral tension between two schools of thought which are in two different ends of the moral spectrum: ‘Utilitarian ethics and ‘deontological ethics’ which are both either way, inherently flawed yet not totally bad. Utilitarian ethics focuses on the net happiness of doing an action as a determinant of whether something is good or not. So a utilitarian will find a way to kill less people and will probably go for the action which will actively kill people if it means saving others.

Deontological ethics emphasizes that the attention should be on the act in itself not the result is what makes something good. So ‘NOT pulling the lever’ even if it kills five people is the good thing to do.

The thing is, the trolley problem is not completely applicable in real life because you cannot really predict what’s gonna happen. Utilitarian ethics assumes that you will know what will happen in the end.

And here’s the thing, in the massive trolley problem created by Yams, Eren was the one with the lever. This was already proven in 138 and there were clear cut results. Eren knew what was going to happen. If he could, he would have just yeeted off to the woods with Mikasa and lived their remaining life together.

If he didn’t do anything, Paradis would have been completely destroyed and lost in five years or so. Marley was gonna overrun Paradis, the other nations were going to destroy it, take their resources and massive genocide was going to happen anyway.

Sure, Zeke and Hange offered their own suggestions to stop it. But as the founding titan, I’m sure Eren knew it probably wasn’t going to work. Because his daydream or the reality he saw where he lived in the woods with Mikasa implies that someone else took over the peace negotiations and Eren said himself, they had at least five years of peace before Marley and the other countries invade.

So with the results of both choices of the ‘trolley problem’ in Eren’s head at that time, he had a clear choice to make. Lemme quote the trolley problem again and apply it to his case.

“A runaway trolley (aka the war) is heading down the tracks towards Paradis who will all be killed if the trolley proceeds on its present course. Eren is standing next to a large switch that can divert the trolley onto a different track. The only way to save the lives of the people of his hometown is to divert the trolley onto another track that has the rest of the world (or at least the victims) on it. If Eren diverts the trolley onto the other track, the genoicde (the intended genocide), but Paradis will be saved.”

Okay fine, it looks like Eren did do something horrible because he pulled the lever and let more people die which is considered bad under the paradigm of both utilitarian and deontological ethics.

But lemme show you another variation of the trolley problem which can put Eren’s choice into perspective:

“A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks towards your beloved family who will all be killed if the trolley proceeds on its present course. You are standing next to a large switch that can divert the trolley onto a different track. The only way to save the lives of your loved ones is to divert the trolley onto another track that has complete strangers that have only hated you and are ready to fight back and kill everyone you love if you let them live. What will you do?”

This is difficult right? I don’t think it would be easy to make a choice to kill your family right?

So Eren went for the easier choice...

“A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks towards Eren’s loved ones who will all be killed if the trolley proceeds on its present course. Eren is standing next to a large switch that can divert the trolley onto a different track. The only way to save the lives of his loved ones is to divert the trolley onto another track that has complete strangers that have only hated him and are ready to fight back and kill everyone he loves if he lets them live.. So Eren diverts the trolley onto the other track, this trolley kills the current victims of the rumbling, but his hometown Paradis will be saved.”

So, what fueled Eren’s choice? Can love fuel Eren’s choice? Is love a valid reason to push or to leave the lever?

I personally believe love is the answer. But here my explanation.

Utilitarian and Deontological ethics are on two different sides of the ethical spectrum and at their extremes they are both inherently flawed paradigms to live by. Most people actually flit between the two when making decisions in morally gray situations which I believe is generally the most appropriate way to navigate ethics.

Let me introduce one new ethical paradigm to this discussion. “Aristotle ethics’ or Nicomachean ethics which claims there is a golden mean for everything. So goodness is finding that golden mean.

So I personally believe the most ethical and the best option is the finding that golden mean in between utilitarian ethics and deontological ethics, and what is the golden mean?

It’s difficult to find but I always believed the golden mean for something as complex as morality is the ‘most loving option’ but believe me, the most ‘loving option’ is very difficult thing to find.

I never believed that ‘true love’ was an emotion. I always believed love to be something born of deep discernment more than everything else. Although Eren had touched on love when he made the final decision to kill, he lacked the discernment which makes his decision still inherently flawed in the grand scheme of things.

So what was the whole point of the story?

I never believed AOT to be a manga that ‘romanticizes genocide’ regardless of what people are saying.

I think what Yams was trying to set up here, after giving Eren the very difficult decision, was ‘who set up the tracks in the first place?’

Who forced that young boy from Shinganshina to stand at the side of the tracks and have to make the decision to kill millions or to let his family die?

Was it the cycle of hatred? Was it the crapsack world that just forces everyone to be an asshole?

And the thing is, their world is a shithole. Just like ours.

Everyone is forced to do evil every once in their life (even through small ways) but it doesn’t mean that these people are completely at fault. There are structures in society that force us to do ‘evil’ to survive and the Catholic concept of social sin explains this. I won’t go into detail about this but I just want to say...

Morality is incredibly complex and I do not believe a clear cut right or wrong exist. But I believe if everyone discerned for themselves what right or wrong is, if everyone did their part to make this world a better place, maybe so many people wouldn’t be faced with their own version of the ‘trolley problem,’ maybe so many people wouldn’t be faced with the decision to make such an ethically gray and questionable decision like Eren.

So what’s the message that I believe Yams is trying to relay with his story?

Stop the cycle of hatred, start talking, start discourse. Stop fighting. And I think he has shown it multiple times with Eren and Reiner’s conversation and with Marco’s screams of ‘WE HAVEN’T EVEN TALKED THIS THROUGH YET.”

Anyway, I hope this meta or this rant whatever you think it is, just gives some new perspectives on the ending. Don’t get me wrong, Eren made a very ethically questionable decision but it had never been an easy decision to make to begin with.

And I hope this type of analysis and reflection could be useful to your own thoughts and your own ways on how you choose to navigate life.

#snk 139 #snk spoilers #snk ending #eren jaeger #meta

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thessaliah · 3 years

Note

Reading this lostbelt, from Pepe's viewpoint and issues, and how he described the Crypters. It makes me uncomfortable that FGO is trying to validate privilege and trying to cast the victims of the privileged ones (PHH) as "bad" because they tell them to go fuck themselves and flipped the roles. Or are "good" because accept being destroyed (fucking erased) to validate the "better" (privileged) history. It felt like that from the beginning but Pepe's thoughts nailed this sickening feeling.

I was going to do my character meme answers, but so much THIS. I don't think Nasu thought over this pretty well (or he doesn't care because status quo-sticker), or he took so long his work isn't going to age well in the current context people are more aware than ever about this "competition" between humanity which is absolutely abhorrent and unjust. Even when presenting a side as "hopeless" for their growth, that sounds like you're making excuses to trample it for your benefit, like a typical privileged person would ignore those who rot on the sidewalk.

This is the funny thing. The entire situation as you point is like some of those pariahs said no more and decided to take over with the corpses of their oppressors. Panhistory to validate themselves created the Prunning Phenomena and can't take heat from the consequences of their very system generated? The rich side of this is that all those billions who disappeared actually to validate their existence in the first place set this system that originally walked on the corpses of many untold erased timelines. Because resources were limited (sounds familiar?) only a scant number of timelines could be kept. And this very cruel system was wished unconsciously by humanity itself. Nasu even compared what Humanity is doing to itself to what Goetia did in his booklet of Lostroom as if to frame what is the cause. Crypters, Lostbelts, the "God"? Thematically, they are victims and pariahs who got left behind. They aren't the "aggressors" that shot first. There’s a reason why the theme is revenge and payback of those who were down and stood again. Nasu’s not talking about Panhistory or Novum Chaldea.

Of course, is perfectly good and dandy to have Novum Chaldea look for the survival of them and their Panhistory, but it's not sitting well with me to take them as heroes at all, unlike Part 1. In part 1, the enemy had a problem with suffering, but the suffering caused by death and terminus, which was more a natural consequence of being human that could be delayed but is something nobody denies exists and must be accepted. It was a palatable approach of a Solomon who experienced a mortal life and the system Solomon left behind which took an exclusive "god" viewpoint unable to sympathize until he tasted mortality.

Part 2 meanwhile the core of the problem is that injustice and gap between loser and winners, and it seems to push for us to accept it can't be helped, humans are like this when is a dangerous complacent "Let the better ones eat you, pariah" sour aftertaste. It's also very dangerous because while there's no "pruning phenomena" in real life, there is across history the whole silencing the loser and oppressed by the winners, trying to wipe them out for their own glory and benefit. There's no point to wish fight fact or reform. Novum Chaldea being a passive tool to defend the way Panhistory has conducted itself with rare exceptional "no this waifu/this loli/cute animal" moments don't cut it for me to see them as good. It makes me feel dirty. They never made an effort to do anything but react too unless a said article to protect is at stake. It's increasingly hard to associate or sympathize with them over someone like Kirschtaria Wodime, whatever you think of his plan, he is the only one who made an effort to try to change the odds while embracing hope humanity inherent goodness will carry them out for a better future, better order, better results. While Chaldea's weak arguments against him could be summed up in Holmes' cynical view of how humanity won't change and will always be like that and suffer (which is again a reminder of "don't try to do anything, go with the flow" to suppress revolution and reformers). The arguments were so feeble that the one that stopped him isn't Chaldea, but Beryl's betrayal.

I understand fully the extraordinary context and circumstances of what happened, and what was lost, but those people who disappeared, they also wove a system that did the same to others. It's just an unfortunate plot to me. Nobody denies Kirschtaria was willing to accept the loss of Panhistory (even though if he could, he would have saved those people too) out his inability to save them with his limits, but N. Chaldea is perfectly willing to accept the loss of other lives too (although they also feel bad), are they less worthy? And while Kirschtaria’s passively accepted the loss of Panhistory (because none of the Crypters directly had to do with its blanching), Chaldea is actively now doing the Pruning System work in pulling the plug on others. Not just the Lostbelts but to restore Panhistory is accepting the way it works and how many it destroys. Instead of taking a bet to try something new, in the long run, maybe create something better. Both sides demand terrible sacrifices, but only one is coming with a solution to try and fix what is broken. The other side is just putting a band-aid and pretend is fine. I don't know if Nasu is going to end it in a satisfying way. Because he's not one to overhaul this system and he maintained since FSN: "the seat of happiness are limited" as if was a natural and desirable message.

On the other hand, he did say that Kirschtaria's ideals are the most perfect even among "all legends of TM" and that his goal was objectively beneficial for humanity. Even one of the game options lets Guda comment that his idea is desirable, but... (doesn't want to forsake Panhistory... although Panhistory ironically has no problem to destroy and wreck other timelines to keep their flawed Consensus -> what isn't discussed, huh).

I think Nasu wanted to make this about survival instead of good vs evil, which was fine up until Kirschtaria came up with an idea of revision/reform the Human Order instead of proposing something based on survival of a lifestyle because he wanted to minimise the suffering. Which Chaldea poorly answered. At heart, by trying to smooth over humanity’s need to compete with each other by closing the gaps of how they started (and even them), wouldn’t that also affect the Pruning system which is based on this fierce competition of what is the best/ideal timeline consensus? Yes, of course, because that system reflects the present humanity mindset of competition to “survive” and divide themselves in winners and losers. In the long run, IMO, that would have been modified too. Kirschtaria doesn’t directly reference to it, but vaguely alludes to an answer humanity failed to reach which is linked to a lot of what’s happening too, including the “God.” Because Chaldea only had arguments for survival (to the point this is acknowledged by Kirschtaria’s description of what is defeat/victory for Chaldea and for Kirschtaria. To Chaldea, Kirschtaria says that their victory is survival, and to be defeated is to die; while Wodime’s defeat is that the Beast manifested and he couldn’t finish his plan). And business continues, as usual, I guess. It leaves a bitter taste when your supposed POV has no agency or drive to make any difference. It is frustrating!

I know I was harsh with this, and I also appreciate how Guda and Mash still try to help the people who they see in danger in front of them, but is frustrating because at the same time they are doing things to make themselves feel better knowing they are here to wipe them out. Like, you know, giving a starving orphan a candy to make then happy and go behind their back and pull out the resources of the orphanage they’re in to let them starve to use that money to buy yourself food, something like that. Even if you know they really need that money to not starve themselves for the possibility they can rebuild different orphanages, would you still consider characters who do that the same heroes as part 1? Hard to say, right?

“Far side is darker than Near side”, yes, but I think Nasu went a little too far. Because even if HF was dark, for example, I completely empathised with the difficult choices, while it’s harder now.

#fgo ask #meta #lostbelt spoilers #lostbelt criticism

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sergeant-angels-trashcan · 3 years

Note

hawkeye squared for the otp meme please? 🥺

as usual, i feel i need to suggest the idea of Lin Manuel Miranda as Clint, though I just saw a gifset of Manny Jacinto, and he is ALSO a great option

What was their first impression of each other?

“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?”“

As awful as it is, I LOVE them having their meet ugly when Clint thinks it’s a gangbusters idea to attack a teenager on a date in a carriage in central park. like. what a dumbass. also, both of them being all “I’m Hawkeye!” “no you’re not, I’m Hawkeye!”

What is their ship name?

Hawkeye Squared. It’s just cute. At some point they get asked (by a drunk Tommy, probably) what the square root of Hawkeye is, if it can be squared. Obviously, the square root of Hawkeye is Lucky the Pizza Dog

Describe their relationship dynamic.

two wrongs don’t make a right, but two competent individuals make a team of idiots.

I don’t know--they’re just so human with each other. They run with superpowered super special people, and that affects how they see themselves. I think they forget how breakable they are, and at the same time they’re really aware that they’re normal. (and maybe, they’d never admit it, feeling inadequate sometimes). With each other they get to be human, and they get the ordinary human stuff they have to deal with.

They’re really competitive, but in a fun way. Their underlying competitiveness also makes them strive to be better.

In some ways, their relationship is a meeting in the middle--Clint coming up, Kate coming down. Clint wants to be more together, less reckless, less one night stand with mob molls. Kate wants to be less...rich bitch. More aware of how money has made her life easier, how her life experiences aren’t typical.

They each want to be more stable for the other, they just want to be there for each other. They’re both messes, but it’s better when they are messes together.

What was their relationship like before they got together?

Manatee and mento.

No no just kidding. Most of their friends and Avengers coworkers think they had a mentor/mentee relationship, but the only think Clint has mentored Kate in is how to get horribly injured.

That’s one of my favorite things about their relationship. Kate was Hawkeye completely independent of Clint. She was a team leader, she had her shit TOGETHER, but the instant she hung out with Clint for any length of time she transforms into a garbage can person.

Their relationship trajectory is definitely idiots to friends to lovers. Their relationship status has been “in cahoots with” for almost as long as they’ve known each other. They’re just....their relationship is like Shane Madej and Ryan Bergara’s. Like, that’s not the dynamic, but it’s the feeling, you know?

They joke about being in love with/married/non-sexual life partners forEVER before one day it’s like “ha ha oh SHIT am I joking??”

How would they describe each other?

they each think the other is one of the best people they know. And that being together makes them want to be better.

if Kate isn’t listening, Clint will absolutely admit she’s the better shot. NOT BY MUCH, but if he HAD to say, that would be his answer. She’s a total badass. He’s John Mulaney’s every monologue about Anna. “My partner is a bitch and i like her SO MUCH” “she does not give a shit what anyone thinks of her” “i’ve never been supervised before” “she’s my HERO”. Seven drink Clint will just talk about everything about Kate that he likes. Many, many Avengers can attest that this is a very long list.

If Clint isn’t listening, Kate will say that Clint is one of the best men she’s ever met, and he looks BANGING in a skirt. He wants so much to do the right thing and even if he gets it wrong he just keeps trying and how can you not be inspired by that? He inspired her to be better and kinder and try harder, and keep trying, keep fighting. There’s always someone to help. Being a hero isn’t just about stopping dictators bent on world domination or fighting aliens. It’s not always about the world. Sometimes it’s about your neighborhood, or your building. Sometimes it’s just saving a dog. Clint’s always reminding her that being a hero isn’t about the size of the heroing. It’s just about doing the right thing.

What do they love about each other?

everything they tell people about each other, lol.

They love that they’re both superheroes, that they’re both Hawkeye. That they keep trying and keep trying.

What do they have in common?

Coffee, dogs, cars, purple, arrows

What are some differences between them?

I feel like they both have weird ideas of what’s normal as far as childhood experiences, but while Kate’s tend towards “what do you mean you didn’t have a nanny and a fencing instructor and a music tutor” and Clint’s are more along the lines of “eat all the food because you don’t know where your next meal might come from”

Kate also takes better care of cars than Clint does. She’s also a better chameleon than Clint--she can blend into different scenarios better than he does. It helps that Kate likes doing it more than Clint does.

What made them realize they were in love?

A million little things that added up to mean “I can’t imagine my life without you”. But probably when Kate bounced to LA after their Big Fight and they realized they did Not like being apart from each other. They didn’t call or text during that time and it was MISERABLE. They’re slightly codependent. They know it. It’s fine.

What are their love languages?

they’re actually really big on words of affirmation (i have to look up love languages every time i get to this question so i give actual love languages answers) it’s never big flowing speeches but they’re always telling each other “good shot” “good coffee” “you’re amazing hawkeye” “i know hawkeye” and physical affection of course. They’re very big on consent in all situations so Clint has taken to signing stuff like “wanna cuddle” “hey can i hold your hand” etc etc (steve and bucky see them do this and pick up the habit). physical affection also includes patching each other up when it’s not a hospital worthy injury

Do they get married? Who proposes and how?

eventually and on accident

they’re partners for YEARS and everyone thinks they’re banging, and then when they finally DO start banging nobody thinks they are. so they’re in this weird limbo of being in a healthy committed relationship that none of their peers know about despite seeing it all the time.

so they accidentally get married for a job, or one of them is like “Fuck! i field our taxes jointly this year, we gotta get married!” (i have no idea how this mistake happened. Is Jarvis in cahoots with Jonas and Viv to set them up? Probably)

You know how Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves were like “wait, did we get for real married on the set of Dracula years ago?” like that vibe is also good. That Clint and Kate TECHNICALLY got married when she was like. twenty for undercover reasons. And never realized it. so they’re going to file paperwork and some poor wage drone is like “uh, we already have paperwork filed on a ms. bishop...AND a mr. barton” *frantic clicking* “uh, it looks like you’re already married???”

they have a fake fight over missing anniversaries. every single one of their friends has a moment of “why did hawkeyes happen to me”

they have a wedding that’s mostly just a huge party. Kate gets kidnapped by von Doom (he promised he would! they have a weird friendship) Billy and Steve fight over who is going to officiate. somehow eli wins. all of clint’s exes dance with kate. all of kate’s exes dance with clint. wade declares himself both groomsman and bridesmaid, staving off the inevitable fight of who “got” Wade (that Kate would have won, no sense in hurting Clint’s feelings, that’s Wade’s opinion)

the proposal happens after the wedding. they want to get the most bang for their buck, and they’re both petty little shits, so Kate “surprises” Clint with a proposal at some big snooty gala Derek Bishop is hosting. during the gala and the flood of paparazzi, they “accidentally” “escape” for a makeout sesh and “inadvertently” lead the press to evidence of Derek’s criminal activities. they get engaged and he gets arrested in the same night. it’s a very productive proposal.

What would happen if they never met?

not an option. they always meet. even if a universe is missing one of them, the multiverse will find a way to make them meet, even for a short time. they represent something greater-than-self for each other, and they both need that. it’s easy for them to get tangled up in their depression, their ptsd, their mental health issues and feelings of inadequacy, but --

it’s like. “i’m not alone” there’s someone else out there. and some days it’s like, you know what, I bet he/she is fucking up my good name. I have to get up and do something. some days it’s like there’s someone else out there with my name. it’s okay for me to take a break and breathe. everything is going to be ok.

Who dies first? How does the other one react?

Kate, by thirty seconds TOPS. they die saving the universe, of course, and specifically an angry mama cat

they die sprawling next to each other, bleeding out, Clint internally, Kate externally. her blood haloes around her head and she’s talking to Clint, voice weak and it’s a miracle his hearing aids are still working, because as much as he doesn’t want to hear this he doesn’t want Kate to feel alone, and she’s saying how she’s scared and she can’t feel her legs and she flails an arm at him and he catches her hand, pressing kisses to her bloody knuckles

and then Kate stops talking, he can’t hear her breathing and she’s still, so still, and he drags himself closer to her carving in to what little time he has left on this earth and he doesn’t care, kisses her still-warm face, gently closes her glassy eyes. sobbing, he pulls her to him. “I’m right behind you, girly-girl.”

Are there any love rivals?

yes and no? I think Clint would consider Kate’s team as a whole a threat to his monopoly on Kate’s affections. But I also don’t see them being very monogamous all the time. I think they’d very easily and happily expand to a polyamorous relationship. they’re both such nerds about it, too. like, they KNOW the other is awesome, naturally everyone wants part of that awesomeness, and they deserve to have people in their lives who think they are awesome.

they are also weirdly possessive in a lot of ways. at least, Kate is. Clint likes people claiming ownership of him, of belonging. Clint can belong to other people, but Hawkeye is hers. Because hawkeye is her, and hers, and it’s a tangled mess of ownership and pronouns but they get it, and everyone else leaves the weird Hawkeye stuff alone for the most part.

Describe your favorite moment of that ship!

moments of realization. when they realize they’ve been platonically married for YEARS and maybe they want to be....carnally married as well??? and then just. UST for MILES. Staring. looking away. staring again. getting caught staring! oh no! the terrible, horrible, gut churning moment of being found out, of “this won’t hurt our friendship or our working relationship, i swear, do you want me to leave?” followed by the other party suddenly barreling into them, initiating a frantic makeout and grinding sesh, the RAGE that they could have been doing this for how long???

What do other characters think about this relationship?

“so are you guys together for real now, or what?” and “lmao no you’re not fooling me again! nice try though.”

there are so many people who don’t believe they’re a for real couple. and to be fair, there was that once time they pretended to be a couple and did a registry and everything. i’ve said it before, though, that someone could walk in on Kate and Clint banging and just be like “huh. weird Hawkeye thing” and never once think “oh my god clint and kate are an item”

Kate could literally be pregnant with Clint’s baby, they could be buying a house together, they could be on the Newlywed show, and most of their friends and teammates will be all “psh, codependent much? you gonna paint the outside of the house purple or what?”

Describe or write a really fluffy scene!

honestly anything goopily domestic. the sigh of relief when they both drop their go-bags in the entry way and realize they’re home. slow dancing in the living room. Kate telling Clint to start a load of laundry, only he pretends he can’t see her signing, so she throws an orange at him. Clint’s being honored at some pompous thing he hates or Stark has him on stage for some Avengery thing and Kate signs obscene or funny things to him and he has to keep a straight face.

Describe or write a really angsty scene!

all about the hurt/comfort here

so this is a post-Battleworld kind of thing. Everyone’s been flung to different universes and 616 doesn’t exist anymore and nobody knows if their friends are dead, if they’re ever going to see them again.

And Clint spots Kate (she’s bossing people around because she’s good at it, in every universe, he notes) but he’s not getting his hopes up. he’s seen a lot of Kates, and they’re all good, they’re all great, but they’re not his Katie-Kate, It’s not fair to compare every Kate in the multiverse to one single solitary Kate that he happens to like more than anything else, but screw fair, right?

Kate spots him. And she doesn’t really react, and Clint’s bracing himself to deal with Kate but not quite Kate, and they’re both making painfully polite small talk and he eventually says something about coming from 616 and it’s instantaneous, the change in her. “What the fuck did you just say, Clint? Clinton Francis Barton I swear to god if this is a joke--”

and it’s the Correct Kate, everything is good, great, wonderful, and then they get arrested for public indecency.

Talk about a headcanon you’ve never talked about before.

I don’t have a lot of headcanons for them, tbh? their braincells are repellent to one another. put them together and they’re just idiots trying to make their way in the universe.

oh! individually, they are so unlucky, but put them together and it kind of cancels out? their together jobs have the best outcomes. and their together jobs are how they acquire all sorts of random stuff. like an apartment building, a yacht, a Mars rover prototype, a child, a few extra spouses...

What does a typical date look like for them?

pizza, coffee, petting their dog and strangers’ dogs. takeout, stopping an armed robbery, cleaning up injuries, snuggling on the couch with popcorn or shave ice. they’re also working on a duo acrobatic routine in their spare time.

What’s a really significant moment in their relationship?

when Kate comes back. she leaves and it sucks, but she comes back and they don’t know where this is going, but they know their partnership is vital, and they’re going to make it work

(also when Clint let Kate drive the skycycle)

#clintkate #hawkeye squared #kate bishop #hawkeye #clint barton #ask meme answers #my stuff #Anonymous #NO ONE is drift compatible liek the hawkeyes

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miraculouscontent · 3 years

Text

Askplosion #11:

(note that I know I mentioned a “Voiced Askplosion” last time in the tags for anyone who put a 🎤 in their ask, meaning they wanted to hear me respond verbally to it, but I only got one and it wasn’t anything serious - just a tease from someone I know - so I either won’t be doing it at all or will be holding off)

Asks responding to previous posts:

ALYA NO!!!

(the idea of Sabrina avoiding not only Ms. Mendeleiev, but also Alya, is very amusing to me)

The fact that the special focuses on the love square instead of Sabrina and Delmar is a crime.

(also note that “Need some help?” is rhetorical in this context; Alya doesn’t care)

Highly recommended, honestly, otherwise it just turns into a big shame because there are shows I really like but with some content that I don’t like, and why torture myself with it when I can cut it out instead?

Just to give a rough idea, here’s my cut of “Desperada”; mind you, this is just my quick cut of it (basically a “beta” version where I just removed everything I disliked without much care for transitioning/having everything make sense; some of Marinette’s friends talking, the guitar scene, Aspik, etcetera), as I’m not comfortable handing over my “perfect” cut of it since it’s like my personal copy.

Yeah, that’s a super awkward scene. As much as I’d like to imagine that Adrien just doesn’t understand the “guy time” thing (which I still hate), the fact that they use the word “guy” specifically is--ugh.

I wasn’t aware of what he said in the French dub, so thanks! It’s really painful to see her throw so much love his way, openly and publicly and obviously, then be so humiliated for it, only for Adrien to feel nothing for her.

Say whatever you want about Chat Noir’s advances and how sAAAAAAD he is when she rejects him, but her rejections are just that; in private. There aren’t other heroes who are around and Chat is never really humiliated. Even in “Prime Queen,” Chat wasn’t the target - Ladybug was, and then Ladybug shifted it to Nadja - so Marinette is the one taking all the heat in love while Chat gets to sit on the sidelines (plus, then “Oblivio” happened and now people probably all thing they’re a thing).

Yeah! That’s the group I was thinking of!

Thank you!

I’m so sorry that happened. ;—;

I’m not aro but I am ace and I’ve gotten the whole, “oh it’s just because--” stuff before, so I know what it feels like to have people put on the pressure/invalidate you.

YES.

IT’S GORGEOUS.

I’m not really familiar with how holidays are celebrated outside of the bare basics of Christmas/New Year (which I am trying my hardest to forget lol), so I couldn’t say.

Sorry!

New Asks:

10/10 thought, would fantasize again.

Though would also accept MC Audrey just doing some “spring cleaning” of the whole staff in general. I have no idea how she’d replace Jeremy since he’s the company’s poster boy but most of the writers have to go at the very least and Jeremy should be given less power.

I think MC Audrey would appreciate how Kagami carries herself, though potential bonus if - while Tom and Sabine just openly trust whatever Marinette wants - Audrey does a bunch of digging to make sure Kagami is “worthy” of being with Marinette (she takes this all very seriously).

Double potential bonus if Kagami takes it just as seriously, so here’s Audrey and Kagami acting as if Kagami dating Marinette is like some sort of job interview.

Kagami handing over a “resume” of her accomplishments to Audrey. Audrey has already looked all of it up herself but appreciates the effort put in.

If the question in Miraculous is, “Do we really need a--” and the thing being introduced is something the staff came up with then the answer is usually “no.”

The movie will look pretty and that’s all I’ll expect. It’s just Jeremy’s take on Miraculous. Luka and Kagami probably won’t even be around so I’m not even interested.

I’ll watch it, but I’m also not interested lol.

Honestly, I’d rather turn into bubble froth.

oddly specific but... I mean, damn

I have no idea, and I try not to throw around words like “spite ship” because I know people could genuinely like the ship, though I will say that I went on AO3 and - unless I read from - the first Maribat fanfiction on there was posted after the airdate of “Chameleon.” I think it might’ve started with inspiration from “Marinette moves schools” ideas at the very least.

Non-Miraculous Asks responding to previous posts:

Oh, I understood, no worries! It was just funny for the split second it took me to figure it out.

My bad, that’s not how I meant to come off (especially since “magical girl shows” is a little broad; I mean, obviously I don’t think something like Cardcaptor Sakura is aiming for fanservice when Sakura’s--like... ten). I answered all those asks in the last askplosion in the same day so my brain was a little fried by the time I got to that ask.

I’m not even talking about Sailor Moon either; it’s just that I knew there are shows with fanservice and there are certain magical girl outfits where I kind of give the side-eye.

Absolutely zero problem with girls fighting in pretty outfits though. I fully admit that I’m a bit of a prude so sometimes I see fanservice where there might not be any. Super short skirts without shorts, for example, inherently throw me off (shout-out to Saint Tail - which I discovered while looking up “pretty magical girl outfits” - because the main character does have a skirt in “magical girl” form but also tights/boots and a cute hat, which is one of the more unique ones I’ve seen).

Non-Miraculous Asks:

Do you mean Sailor Moon Crystal? Yeah, the only reason I hesitate on Sailor Moon in general is because I’m not crazy about the transformed designs. It’s not really a matter of animation but more a design choice that takes me out of the experience.

I have seen all of Cardcaptor Sakura anime though, and then all of the Clear Card arc. I like the former, despise the latter, and I tried to keep up with the manga but once one of the big plot details were revealed, I officially dropped it.

As for Revolutionary Girl Utena, I looked it up a while ago and don’t remember what exactly turned me away. It might’ve been the darker tone though if what you say is accurate that it’s a darker take on a magical girl show.

Also, I may or may not have looked up the ending of at least Princess Tutu and I’m sorry, I’m sure it’s a great anime, but if there isn’t a happy ending then I give whatever anime a hard pass.

(note: yes, I realize the hilarity of saying that when I continue watching Miraculous)

(More Madoka Magica talk/salt below!)

Ohhh, it started a trend? I had no idea since I don’t actively keep up with every anime out there; descriptions need to really pull me in (the only current anime I’m keeping up with is Hanyou no Yashahime, Otherside Picnic, and Cells at Work (Season 2)).

The focus on specific--uh--body parts in magical girl transformations also reminds me that I think that’s usually what kills it for me, not because of the sexualization but because I expect transformations (especially ones that get repeated over and over) to be really dynamic with changing angles and such, which is harder to do when the camera is trying to draw focus to specific places.

Obviously you have to do it for some moments (I’ve always imagined Miraculous transformations like a potential sheep or another one for rabbit, then rabbit!Jean from Leave for Mendeleiev and fox!Juleka from LadyBugOut) because things will be weird if you focus on nothing, but I think there are ways to draw the eye without trying to sexualize.

Not having Ladybug-esque bodysuits is a good start. It reminds me too much of the Catwoman with just a bodysuit so it leaves nothing to the imagination.

How did I forget about that Sayaka scene? omg (though I dunno if the Bechdel Test is hard to pass if there aren’t really any endgame male love interests? are there rules about that? not saying a pass isn’t a pass but it feels like cheating)

It is nice when fans can respect the opinions of others without having to outright attack. I have had a few people come to me with, “I see your point/respect it even if I disagree,” instead of accusing me/others of--well, you get it.

Fandoms can be really messy, particularly as they get larger. I think there’s a certain balance between small fandoms that all know each other and a big fandom that’s out of control. Then there are things like “loud minority” and it’s just uggggh.

Anyway, back to the asks themselves, yeah, I’m not crazy about taking things that are just meant to be positive/cute/whatever and being like, “OKAY BUT WHAT IF IT WAS EDGY AND SAD.”

n o , p l z

Oh, I’ve never heard of that one!

Sayaka dying didn’t really do anything for me either. It’s hard to explain when I saw it so long ago, but it was just Sayaka’s attitude about the whole thing and it made it feel underwhelming. It was a shame too because I liked her and she had potential.

She was Madoka’s friend so I was just like, “Yeah, she’ll die soon.” Probably didn’t help since I knew what I knew about the show being “dark.”

Madoka/Sayaka is probably what I’d support the most out of all the potential shoujo ai ships. To my knowledge, none of them are really canon, though I remember a special song after the death Sayaka and Kyoko which I guess makes them the most canon and that did basically nothing for me since their relationship didn’t interest me (nor did I care for Kyoko as a character). The PSP game might have more intimate potential between the girls, but I never played them so I can’t make those claims (I only remember something about everyone potentially living and then a bad ending for Sayaka where part of her body was decayed when they didn’t get her soul gem back in time).

The tomboy argument makes me think back to a conversation with a friend of mine where we were discussing tomboys in anime and... we couldn’t really think of any? At least any that really qualify as “tomboy” for me.

Like, Misty from Pokemon, for example. I knoooooow everyone really likes Misty, but regardless of my opinion on her, it’s hard to see her as a tomboy.

I feel like they try to lean that way by making her super aggressive and violent (because... m E N) and I think Ash makes a comment once about her not being “like a girl,” but... I feel like that’s just how general “aggressive” female characters are written?

I mean, that’s tsundere female characters I’ve seen in general. Really loud (and not in a “gIrlS aRe sO lOuD aND ScReEcHY” way but like... the way anime gives them big heads while they scream at whatever male character they’re mad at), angry a lot, short fuse, etcetera.

But Misty is still crazy about clothes and dolls, she still gushes about cute things and romance, and both of those things seem pretty indicative of what “standard girl character” would be defined by, since they’re all “stereotypically girl thing” (I say stereotypically for obvious reasons since boys can like blah and girls can like blah and gender exclusivity is blah--). I get that she dresses differently, but that’s about it, and it comes off like, “she dresses differently and she’s ANGRY and VIOLENT, so she’s a tomboy,” which... yeah. They even gave her three beauty queen sisters with CURVES and BUSTS as if to say, “See?? These are GIRLS, not TOMBOYS.” (busty females can exist who are also tomboys, thank you have a nice day).

This becomes more complicated in magical girl anime since girly clothes are usually part of that so “tomboy” means that frills and skirts probably wouldn’t be a factor.

I mean, if you gave those sorts of outfits to me, I’d be like, “SCREW IT, I’M NOT A MAGICAL GIRL ANYMORE. IF LOOKING PRETTY IS REDUCED TO SKIRTS AND FRILLS, SOMEONE ELSE CAN SAVE THE WORLD.”

I’d also like to see some mixes between personalites and “tomboy” things. Like, non-stereotypical tomboy personalities doing tomboy things. Mix and match, y’know?

This was really rambly, but to answer the question... no, I wouldn’t count Sayaka as a tomboy.

All of this.

I think it also exemplifies the whole “dark and edgy magical girl show” thing because... ugh, how do I put this...

The “girls are overly emotional” thing is already bad, but then you realize that there not being any magical boys is also because that doesn’t hit the “shock value” threshold as much.

Y’know, because boys equal dark and edgy shows, so if there was even one magical boy it wouldn’t be as shocking when Mami gets her head chomped. They could’ve done, “emotional teenagers are the target because they’re in that vulnerable stage; smarter and more physically capable than children, but not as mature/stable as adults,” but having some boys in there for balance (it makes me feel weird saying that when I’m all for girl power shows with an all female cast, but in this show’s logic, it’s a different ball game) would make the show seem less bright and “girly” and thus lessen the shock value.

Does that make sense?

#((Aspies who also deal with Winter Blues or Seasonal Affective Disorder))#((how do you do iiiiiit))#((my usual methods aren't working and I'm constantly sluggiiiish))#category: trash #special: Miraculous New York #MC's Art #art: single picture #relationship: alya cesaire & sabrina raincomprix #category: salt #episode: Party Crasher #relationship: love square #relationship: adrien agreste & marinette dupain cheng #MC: Audrey Bourgeois #relationship: kagami tsurugi & marinette dupain cheng #character: marinette dupain cheng #other: non ml talk

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frederickabberline · 4 years

Text

I still don't think Will told the full story here.

Key points:

"I cannot give information pertaining to souls to a fiend."

That conflicted facial expression on the lower right of page 110

"Since you have the honour of being the greatest of evils "before I get to work", let me warn you."

"This is a special case, so please refrain from interfering."

William says he can't give Sebastian information about the souls, then proceeds to give information. Or does he? He gave Sebastian the bare minimum, tacked on to the end of a long warning. He thought about it, too, before he started speaking, and then he told Sebastian that the number of souls was large, and that yes, this was a special case.

But he doesn't say why it's a special case, exactly how many souls, or where in this vicinity those souls will be.

I've talked before about how odd it is that this is considered a special case and worthy of investigating, when Sebastian isn't used to seeing reapers personally investigating something, and the German reapers didn't infiltrate the witch village despite a similar number of souls being on the line. Number of souls =/= special case.

Then there's the "before I get to work" line. The emphasis here is odd. It's the same quotation mark treatment that oCiel calling himself "Ciel Phantomhive" got. It's also used after Madam Red's funeral when Sebastian asks if he should call oCiel a "coward", and when he quotes something oCiel said back at him.

There's potentially something more to this, then, too. And William isn't quoting something Sebastian has said back to him. So, most likely, something about the statement "before I get to work" is significant.

Is there an anticipated evil during or after Will gets to work? What is it? Or is this not really the before-work time, was this "special case" already set in motion long ago? It's a strange thing to put quotation-mark stress on, for sure.

Then, we have the definition of a special case. He gives us nothing in regards to this. Not a single hint as to what makes this lot of souls special enough for him to personally infiltrate them and "pretend to be human". Humans can't normally see reapers unless reapers make themselves visible on purpose, so there's no reason for William to have personally interacted with them unless he wanted to or he was instructed to. And why did he have to observe them personally before the reap began? For a whole month? He says it, right here. Reapers judge whether someone should live or die based on their cinematic records, not based on whether or not that person makes a good enough social impression on said reaper in the month leading up to their death.

In short, William appeased Sebastian, but he told him nothing he couldn't already guess.

Sebastian had already surmised there were special circumstances at play. The only new information was there would be "many" souls, but with the number of people Sebastian kills on the regular, that's not unusual either.

And this leads us to another question about William himself...

Will can hide things and skip over key information just fine, when he wants to or thinks it's important to do so.

Which means, on the flipside, he either didn't think it important or didn't want to hide the fact that he was a grim reaper evaluating everybody's souls from the circus crew.

Why?

There are plenty of potential reasons.

A self-defence mechanism, whereby he actively others himself and stops himself from getting too personally involved with them. This would protect him emotionally, but comes at the cost of a natural investigation.

He's actively self-sabotaging, in a way that doesn't put the souls at risk, but makes it less likely for the higher-ups to put him on covert investigations in the future.

He wants to test fate, indirectly. By making his presence known, he "warns" the circus crew that their time is near. Thus, he may change their fate, if they heed his warning and save themselves. They don't, of course, because they don't believe him. His motives may be related to empathy for the circus crew and a desire to protect them, or something more scientific like Undertaker's curiosity for what would happen if the cinematic record started to play again. As a character who has been dealt a very clear fate, trapped in purgatory and subject to the whims of the higher-ups, testing the boundaries of what can be changed and what is set is stone is a very natural response.

He simply doesn't care if they know, and there's no rule against it. He's very blatant about what he is simply because he can be. This still implies, however, that he didn't want to hide it, that he didn't want to fit in. That he was okay with giving indirect warnings.

It's not because he's incapable of lying. It's not because he's incapable of withholding information.

It's also worth noting, when oCiel tells him off for his obviousness, he never defends himself for it. He's annoyed at being called worse than Grelle, but he doesn't say anything. And when oCiel says he "[doesn't] want to hear it from Specs, who can't even handle a covert investigation properly", William doesn't deny it. He just corrects the stage name.

He tones it down after that, too, but he's still carrying his scythe around. He's not hiding anything. He doesn't go to the circus crew and say "sorry, I was only joking after all".

William is the sort of character who doesn't like admitting his own faults, he shifts the blame for things and actively looks for faults in other people. If he had a legitimate excuse, surely he'd use it? If he had a defense like "there's no reason to hide my nature, it's not important", and he believed it, he'd surely say it? He loves to cite what Dispatch is about and how reapers should behave, he's the pinnacle of plot exposition in this regard. But he doesn't, here.

He's most certainly old enough and been a reaper long enough to understand that you're supposed to be secretive during a secret mission. He's fully aware of himself, and what he's doing.

He knows that it goes against the reaper aesthetic, that he's technically in the wrong.

He did it because he can, and he wanted to.

#william t. spears #kuroshitsuji #analysis #txt #mine #william #william t spears

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letterboxd · 3 years

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How I Letterboxd #12: Joe Lynch.

Self-described cinedork and Mayhem filmmaker Joe Lynch tells Horrorville’s Brett Petersel about cinematic sausage, getting to direct Creepshow episodes and being a three-star starter on Letterboxd.

“Even when I watch what I would think is a real stinker, I also consider that there were many people involved in that film who didn’t walk on set going ‘okay people, let’s screw this up today!’” —Joe Lynch

It is always a pleasure to find film directors lurking on Letterboxd. Joe Lynch is a bona fide, OG member, having racked up more than 1,500 diary entries, giving half-star reviews to his own work, and creating lists of the movies that have influenced the making of his films.

There are the films that were in Lynch’s subconscious when he made Mayhem, a workplace splatter led by Steven Yeun and Samara Weaving. There are the movies he watched while researching the Salma Hayek-starring Everly. And this just in: films that influenced The Right Snuff, one of Lynch’s two episodes for the new Creepshow series—based on the 1982 horror-comedy classic and its sequels—which premieres on Shudder April 15.

Like so many of us, Lynch took time during the pandemic to catch up on films he had neglected to watch in spite of a previous career as a video-store clerk (a Criterion Channel subscription helped him get on top of the backlog). In this edition of ‘How I Letterboxd’, Lynch discusses how those classics have informed his craft, who his Letterboxd faves are, and why the horror genre is the future of the industry.

Steven Yeun and Samara Weaving in Joe Lynch’s ‘Mayhem’ (2017).

How long have you been on Letterboxd? Joe Lynch: I remember when Letterboxd was in its beta phase way back in good ol’ 2012 and I couldn’t wait to sign up, breathlessly waiting for an invite to the party. At the time, I had a digital database where I would log movies I’ve seen, but it was always subject to whatever laptop or device I had handy and would just be a mess of titles with no rhyme or reason.

When a member follows you, what should they expect? I put it right up top in my description: “I am not a critic”, just a lover of cinema. At first I didn’t want to write “reviews” in the description, especially since I first started using the service whilst in the throes of a horrible experience making a film that I thought would bury me and I’d never work again. I was like, and I still feel this way, “who am I to rip on a movie when someone can throw it right back at me? Like ‘dude, you directed Knights of Badassdom, sit down’.”

I’ve always had the highest regard for filmmakers who can get anything made. So even when I watch what I would think is a real stinker, I also consider that there were many people involved in that film who didn’t walk on set going “okay people, let’s screw this up today!” but instead were trying their best and circumstances just got in the way, which always happens. Having made a few films and TV now, I’m fully aware of the trials and tribulations that go into making a movie and have all the respect in the world for anyone who can steer that ship to completion. It’s hard making movies and even harder making one that is your original vision [and] that is widely embraced by an audience.

I have very weird tastes so don’t be shocked if you glance at my recent activity and you see Casablanca, The Silence of the Lambs or Bigger Than Life right next to The Legend of Billie Jean, Con Air or Candyman 3. I’m usually bouncing all over the place in terms of what kinds of movies I’m screening. From films recommended to me, to films that I may be watching for research, or even just how I’m feeling that day and maybe need a good laugh or a good cry or to be scared stiff. I like that kind of variety. There’s something out there for everyone and every emotion. If anything, I’d say expect the unexpected when it comes to my viewing habits.

What’s your favorite feature to use and why? One of the residual effects of working at video stores as a kid was my desire to siphon people’s tastes in movies and possibly recommend films to others as well, so my favorite feature is the ease of use in logging films and being able to quickly recall those films as well in the event someone asks me “what’s something I should watch?”. Getting older, the “employee’s picks” in my head is getting a little harder to cross-reference than usual so to have the ability to whip out my phone and say “oh man, I just watched Possession and it was awesome!” is exponentially helpful to a cinedork like myself.

‘Big Trouble in Little China’ (1986)—a five-star film says Joe Lynch.

How do you rate the films you watch? For example, what type of film is worthy of a five-star review? Funny, I always start out on three-stars mainly because I’m so proud of the filmmakers actually getting it completed! I’ve been there! I’m somewhat biased in my reflections because I’m always rooting for the artists and from there, it’s usually gauged on both an emotional level and a technical level. I always get made fun of while watching movies because I can point out hidden cuts or when a shot is reversed but [I’m] not trying to point out flaws, it's just how my brain is wired at this point. When you pull the curtain back enough to see how the cinematic sausage is made, it's harder and harder to objectively watch a movie without trying to dissect how it was done. I try so hard to shut that part of my brain off to just passively enjoy a movie but it’s tough. I usually skew towards the positive.

The films I’ve given five-stars are movies that have continually affected me over the years and have inspired me as a person and a filmmaker, which is everything from The Empire Strikes Back, Dawn of the Dead and When Harry Met Sally... to Big Trouble in Little China, The Blob, The Last of the Mohicans. I looked back at my five-stars and it’s mostly movies that made a significant impression on me from an early age and continue to do so, maybe even more so as I get older and I view these movies in a different light.

The anthology show Creepshow returns to Shudder this month. Tell us about the two episodes you directed for the series, ‘Pipe Screams’ and ‘The Right Snuff’. Both Creepshow and Creepshow 2 were important films in my youth and even today, they were some of the first movies I remember where I wasn’t quite sure if I was supposed to be scared or laugh. These films proclaimed we could do both! As a disciple of George A. Romero, Stephen King and Tom Savini, Creepshow really shaped how I watched movies and how I made them—consider the anthology I did a few years back, Chillerama, as a prime example. So when Shudder announced the show, I had to do everything on my part to convince them I could take the baton from these masters of the macabre and do them and the many fans proud.

To come to the table and say “I want ‘The Right Snuff’ to feel like 2001: A Space Odyssey crashed into The Andromeda Strain, and ‘Pipe Screams’ is my homage to The Blob and Delicatessen”—and then everyone just immediately getting it—was a dream. Between the casts I was lucky enough to work with and the amazing crew, especially the FX geniuses at KNB, it really was one of those dream jobs I’ll never forget. I hope audiences dig the madness we conjured up on those!

Season 2 of the Shudder series ‘Creepshow’ returns to the horror streamer this month. A third season has been ordered.

If you were to expand the Mayhem universe, what would it look like? We tried! I pitched the producers the idea of the ID-7 virus in other locations and situations because in essence the idea of being uninhibited by mental and emotional constraints is so ripe. My favorite was the idea that it would get loose in a Wal-Mart or a mall on Black Friday when consumers swarm to these department stores for the best deals. You’ve seen the videos, it’s just mass hysteria. The footage already out there would have been perfect to use already and those people aren’t even infected!

Sadly it didn’t come to pass, mainly because they asked “how do we get Steven and Samara back?” and I didn’t want to force those characters into that scenario, Die Hard 2 style. Plus they’re both huge stars now and likely unavailable for the next twelve years. But the ideas people have thrown out to me show that it was impactful enough to warrant variant scenarios in a “what if?” way that’s really exciting. Who knows, maybe the ID-7 virus could find its way onto the set of a movie production…

What excites you about the future of filmmaking, especially in horror films? The world is embracing new faces and voices more than ever and it means we’re getting stories that may not have ever had the chance to flourish and be seen and heard before. For the longest time the system was much more rigid because executives and producers thought that the audience was much less accepting of a wider world view in cinema and I think the last ten years has proven them wrong. There shouldn’t be any more “token” character or “strong [insert non-white-male] character” descriptions in development meetings. I hear it less and less, which is great because that’s not our world and since cinema—especially horror—is and always should be a reflection of our culture and times, it should reflect these evolutions as well.

When I made Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, the discussions over how one of the characters—a Black character played by Texas Battle—survived at the end was not in the original script but I pushed for it mainly because it was rare for the Black character to do so in a horror film. That shouldn’t be an anomaly! Why can’t there be a ‘final guy’ or have the survivors be LGBT+ or a POC and not the usual stereotypes?

I think now it’s more commonplace to see this and it excites me for the future of the genre that artists are being more welcome to express themselves without it feeling like it’s a gimmick or a twist on the norm.

I think generations of kids growing up with horror now are gonna see these strides in the storytelling—and who’s telling the stories—and push it even further. Places like Netflix and Shudder are willing to take chances with new voices more than the studio system, now more than ever, and that’s only going to produce some great stories now and in the future.

Erica Leehrsen and Texas Battle in a scene from ‘Wrong Turn 2: Dead End’ (2007).

How has the pandemic affected your creativity and influenced your work moving forward? Aside from losing a bunch of gigs due to the shutdown and being delayed on shooting Creepshow—which was a blessing in disguise considering the time we took to further develop the scripts and design of each episode—one of the main effects of the pandemic was how it gave many of us the time to catch up on a lot of films, mainly older ones. As you’d see from my diary entries on this very site, my viewing habits changed from a lot of modern films in that rat-race of catching up with the latest release, to mainly watching films I loved in the past and a lot of ’40s to ’70s films that I never got around to.

We have the tendency as film lovers to keep a mental list of films we’ll eventually get around to as if we have all the time in the world, but with the threat of the apocalypse and no real new content coming our way at the usual rapid clip, it was so gratifying to buy an annual subscription to Criterion Channel and start watching films like The Old Dark House, The Crimson Kimono, Contempt and many others.

All of these films impacted how I view film now and have bled into future projects I’m working on—especially on the technical side, when the world wasn’t influenced vicariously through MTV coverage and letting scenes play out in masters or longer takes, relishing in the performance or the mise-en-scéne. So, silver linings!

Before we go, who are some of your favorite follows on Letterboxd? I’m a big fan of Sean Baker, who I’ve known for almost 20 years now! We worked together in NYC and I was already a big Greg the Bunny fan but our mutual appreciation for fringe and exploitation films, especially international horror and genre films, seems to have bonded us for life. I love when he posts what he’s watching. Even if he’s just saying he screened something on Blu or streaming, his thoughts on cinema are always enjoyable and engaging.

In the same breath, filmmaker Jim Cummings has the best perspective on modern filmmaking and he’s clearly a big fan of using Letterboxd, so whenever I see peers like them using the app it makes me feel less like an obsessive movie dork myself, who should be getting back to work.

Some of the other follows I really enjoy are cineastes like Elric Kane and Brian Saur, who are the hosts of the New Beverly podcast Pure Cinema. Writers Anya Stanley, David Chen, Walter Chaw and Lindsay Blair Goeldner, musician and filmmaker Brendon Small, writer and critic Brian Tallerico, author Glenn Kenny, filmmaker Rodman Flender—just to name a few people who clearly love film and love sharing their thoughts on films in a very thoughtful way.

More times than not, I’m getting some great advice for what to watch next in my “new from friends” section! Because, like being at the video store, it’s casual conversations like the ones on Letterboxd that I love and always steering me to new films or revisiting old ones with a new perspective.

Related content

Joe’s film influences for ‘The Right Snuff’ Creepshow episode

The Video Store: Hollie Horror’s list of horror films with memorable scenes in video stores

Office Workplace Horror: J Cara’s list of office horror and workplace thrillers

Follow Brett on Letterboxd

Follow Horrorville—the home for horror on Letterboxd

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ghostmartyr · 3 years

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/clears throat/ so, Immi, I hear you like the locked tomb, which is fantastic! from one person also escaping the snk series into TLT to another, what did you think of the characters and plot in HtN? are there any things you're most excited to see when Alecto comes out in 2022?

-pats lifeboat- This baby can fit so much trauma.

SPOILERS, naturally.

With another paragraph informing the curious that unspoiled is the way to go into HtN, since if you aren’t lost and confused, are you really reading Harrow the Ninth?

I read it all in one day, and that was a choice. It does mean my memory and understanding of what all went on is slightly dependent on someone else on the internet exploding over a particular set of paragraphs and explaining their significance to me, but I still enjoyed the hell out of it.

HtN disappointed me on one front in that I was hoping seeing more of Harrow 1.0 would help out any future fic endeavors. On everything else, like the first one, being told the story is such a good time that I’m willing to wait on a full comprehension of where it’s going.

I also really like second person.

What I loved most about HtN is how even without Gideon mentioned until very, very late in the book, you can feel her absence everywhere. In the wrong bubble flashbacks you’re commanded to examine the strangeness, but even in Harrow going about her day, the isolation and the wrongness of it decorate her every action. She’s alone, and she shouldn’t be, and the loss she’s unaware of bleeds into a constant echo of grief.

I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated absence as a narrative tool so much. Obviously griddlehark hours go hard once they start in HtN, but even before then, there is so much power to their connection that looking into a world where it never exists still manages to punch you in the heart with how much each one inhabits everything the other is.

The whole series is amping me up with a few thoughts on loneliness, honestly. Gideon and Harrow grow up alone on the Ninth, save for each other. It takes leaving for that to be any kind of good thing. The first book is tag team Among Us with everyone in their little clusters, slowly learning what other people are about as they all drop dead.

The second book has a different vibe and different plot things going on, but it’s similar in that the protagonist gets thrown into a world they don’t fit and have to put on a show. Only now there are even fewer people to familiarize with, with that number correlating directly to how they all killed the person closest to keeping them from being alone.

Lyctorhood is taking the person dearest to your heart and trapping them there forever while they’re stripped of everything that made them who they are.

...Also Ianthe is there.

Gideon, Mercy, and Augustine are the last Lyctors standing after 10,000 years. There were only seven, starting out. Sixteen acolytes who came to the First. The only pair who didn’t succeed in condensing themselves is separated from the pack and sent to live away from their peers on a tiny planet that no one has anything good to say about.

Alecto is John’s -- who even knows, past A Lot, and he puts her to sleep and locks her in a prison no one but he can get past.

God has seven friends. More if you want to count the people in the Cohort, but realistically, he has seven friends. Then they keep dying.

Harrow spends HtN in a spaceship with five people.

One is trying to kill her.

One ordered that one to try to kill her.

Two could not care less about the useless baby Lyctor.

One is Ianthe.

There is no real endgame. There is surviving life, and life has become a game of running as far away as possible so you don’t share your ruin upon your inevitable death.

It’s bleak and sad.

Harrow’s healthiest relationships are with dead people, and some of them she didn’t know at all in life.

Reiterating it, the most plot significant bit of the world is finding someone else in the world, swearing yourself to them, and smashing your souls together until you’ve lost the connection entirely.

My brain’s not in the best place so I can’t do more than gesture loudly at it, but a few people have mentioned that the series’ thesis is a counter to Ianthe’s statement that love is acquisitive.

Harrow tightens her hold around Gideon until Gideon would rather she just strangle her and get it over with, all things considered. It fucks them both up, and when they start working to get past it, circumstance wraps a chain around both their throats.

The necromancers who become imperfect Lyctors have all acquired their cavaliers, and besides the cav, it kills that bond.

Harrow’s rejection of that is why Gideon’s soul is still in the world of the living (and John blood).

She has spent her entire life eating pieces of Gideon to keep herself a horrid imitation of whole, and when she is finally offered that, she refuses.

Grief and how Harrow just can’t are active elements of the book, and Magnus gives her more therapy in five minutes talking about it than she has ever had in her life, but the reason why that isn’t the end of Gideon is because, unlike all the other Lyctors, Harrow turns the offer down.

With the exception of Babs and Ianthe, the relationship between cavaliers and necros about to do the Lyctor thing is cavaliers promising to burn for an eternity while their necromancer lives off the fumes.

Fuck that is Harrow’s response.

Cytherea says, in the aftermath, that they had the choice to stop.

Harrow stops.

A lifetime of doing exactly what Gideon is telling her to do with her death, and Harrow chooses to stop.

Harrow remembers Ortus’ poetry. She regularly sees her congregation off to their deaths. She keeps Gideon’s glasses. She views Palamedes, head exploded and all, as an infinitely better person than she is because of the quality of his exemplary character. She pulls Gideon the First from the incinerator on the night she plans to kill him.

Kiddo has so many fucking issues, but somewhere, she has learned to respect people for being people. That’s why she and Gideon are the heroes of the story, ultimately, and Ortus saying that they’re heroes worthy of the Ninth doesn’t fall flat. They’re actually trying.

Where that puts us for Alecto, I don’t pretend to know.

Since the first book is the temptation of an end to isolation, only to have it snatched away, the second book is the continuation of isolation with a few promising sparks of human connection that pave the way for hope...

That leaves the third book to shed the isolation and allow the connections to thrive.

With Gideon and Harrow MIA.

I know that the books kick things up into high gear in the final acts each time, but if they’re both gone for the majority of the book, no matter how much fun it is, I’m going to miss them. They’re the core leads, and I don’t want to be without them in the final part.

The 2022 release date has aged my soul. I deliberately planned my GtN read to land a month before HtN came out, then suffered when that was delayed. When really that was nothing at all. I hate waiting.

(Insert note that I’m very glad they aren’t forcing Muir to rush anything out. It’s been a rough time, but also, just in general authors should have the opportunity to create the best versions of their art they can, so the extra time hurts, but it’s obviously for the best.)

What I’m most excited for is probably the cover art. The first two have been awesome, and the artist said he’d likely do print sales for all three when the third’s revealed. My wallet cries but my heart does not.

What I dare not be excited for is the potential for Gideon and Harrow meeting again and perhaps hugging. In their own bodies.

I’d take other bodies, but ideally, y’know.

Also I would love for Harrow to finally meet her popsicle girlfriend.

I doubt it would be a wholly positive experience, but by golly I want it. Maybe they could hug too. It would probably kill Harrow again, but who doesn’t expect several people to die again in the third book?

However it plays out, I’m expecting to enjoy AtN. The writing’s the sort that I’ll happily follow wherever it goes. For everything else, there’s fanfic. The only real worry I have is the whole book will be narrated by Ianthe, and while I mentally groan at that, I actually find Ianthe’s commentary delightful, so even in the worst case scenario I’m having a good time.

Thank you so much for the ask.

#Harrow the Ninth #Gideon the Ninth #The Locked Tomb #asks #oh I don't have an ask tag for the tomb yet #should work on that #tl;dr #viva la pluto

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samsoleil · 3 years

Text

Why Demon Dean wasn’t a fulfilling darkside arc

Darkside arcs can be very compelling narratives! I very much enjoy a darkside arc in my media, and Supernatural generally does them very well. There are four key things that I particularly enjoy about darkside arcs, especially in Supernatural:

The character is “light” at other times, with strong morals and values that prioritise others above themselves.

The character has to (at least initially) fear going darkside and what will happen if they do, because of the above point, and actively tries to prevent it (this builds tension!).

There is an element of coercion, either through the darkside being uncontrollable or the narrative making it so that going darkside is the option with the most reward based on the character's morals.

The character is changed in a way that is incongruent with the way they previously believed, thought, or behaved, either during the arc or in response to it.

When I was watching seasons 9 and 10, I wasn’t as satisfied with Demon Dean as I’d hoped to be. The reason for this is because Dean’s darkside arc across seasons 9 and 10 fails to adequately meet all four of these points, which makes it an unfulfilling arc.

Dean’s darkside arc complies with the first two points. The first road block that it encounters is that Dean’s darkside arc has less inherent tension. The nature of the Mark leads us to view Dean going darkside as an inevitability, which takes away from the actions that the characters make to combat this. Compare Dean’s darkside arc to Sam’s: in Sam’s arc, the tension was created by the potential for him to go darkside, and was sustained by the ongoing question of “Is this what tips you over the edge?”

(Just want to take a moment to acknowledge that having a substance dependence does not make someone inherently dark. People struggling with substance dependence and drug addiction are just as worthy of love, care, and support as anyone else. While their substance use may be negatively impacting their life and relationships, they are not evil and their substance use is not their “darkside arc.”)

Sam’s darkside arc is multifaceted; demon blood, psychic powers, allying with Ruby, his status as an “abomination”, being Lucifer’s vessel. These all contribute to the fears of himself and those around him that he’ll turn evil, which is a direct contrast to his usual behaviour as a compassionate person who seeks to save people. The concern with Sam's darkside arc was whether Sam, who is someone who values the lives of others and wants to save people, would go “dark” to achieve that goal. It’s an ongoing question: what will be the thing that tips Sam over the edge into having that limitless power and what will hold him back when he does? Even Sam fears who he is and what he could become. He’d rather die than go dark.

Dean’s efforts to stop himself from going darkside are still compelling, but the arc lacks the narrative tension of Sam’s (much longer!) darkside arc. However, his arc definitely still complies with the third point, where he doesn’t want to go darkside, but felt that he had to take on the Mark and use it.

“It’s turning me into something that I don’t want to be.”

Of course, Sam’s darkside arc was never entirely followed through (in fact, it could be seen to have been averted as, despite being possessed by Lucifer and going "darkside", he still was able to do good). However, he still learnt from the experience and it shaped his future behaviour. It made him more compassionate towards people others consider inherently evil and reinforced his view that “It’s not what you are, it’s what you do.”

This brings me to the true flaw in Dean’s darkside arc. Dean’s darkside arc fails to meet the fourth point: Dean is not sufficiently changed either by or in response to his arc for it to be a truly compelling darkside arc.

Dean's changes in his darkside arc are that he gets a bit madder and kills more people (also he has sex a lot but that's okay we're not slut shaming here!). Sounds kinda darkside, right? Except all of those things are things that he has done before. They are established parts of his character. His "darkside" arc is actually just "what if he was a little bit worse". That's not really a fulfilling darkside arc because it's congruent with all of the things that he's been doing.

So, how did we get here? Why does this align with Dean’s trajectory and why does this make the arc unfulfilling?

Firstly, Dean's anger has been rewarded by the narrative. Namely because he never faces any consequences for it; he's allowed to yell, be physically violent, and seek revenge without repercussions, which reinforces these behaviours. Dean has gotten gradually more and more angry as the series has gone on, and he is able to freely express this anger without any narrative outcry, even when he does things that we, the audience, perceive as wrong.

Next change is in how he treats others, and Dean just doesn't have the value for other people that allows his behaviour during his "darkside" arc to satisfyingly contrast with his normal behaviour! Dean is already very keen on killing people, even people who don't deserve it. Yes, I am still mad about Amy Pond. The only point where it actually could be argued that his behaviour is “out of character” is how he treats Sam, but we have already seen that Dean is sometimes very cruel to Sam! So that's not really anything new for us.

The last point is that Dean likes sex, that's okay, wish he were less misogynistic but wcyd. This is the only part of the arc that actually gets a satisfying resolution, in that Dean’s perspective on relationships is changed.

Overall, this arc is dissatisfying because there is no true motivation to undo the changes, which are progressions of his pre-arc character. The lack of juxtaposition to who he was before also takes away from the prior fear that he has about the mark and his darkside arc. Despite all the awful things that Dean does under the influence as a mark, he doesn’t acknowledge how they changed him or change his future behaviour in response to them. A key example of this is how he treats Jack the same way he treated Sam and every other person he killed because he believed them to be monsters. His darkside arc is all but ignored by the narrative, and prevents Dean from having the reflection and character development that he needs.

The lack of a satisfying resolution is both a major problem with the arc and the best way to fix it.

At the end of it, Dean is horrified by what he's done.

That's it. That's the solution. That's what it's missing, the genuine reflection, the realisation that actually that isn't who Dean wants to be and that it scares him.

We see that early seasons Dean is sometimes horrified by his own ruthlessness. His behaviour during the darkside arc - his own behaviour, but a little bit worse - could be the catalyst for him to have a realisation about his current trajectory as a person. His uncontrollable and often violent anger, killing without remorse, mistreatment of his brother, and use of sexual intimacy to avoid emotional connections are exaggerated traits from his pre-arc character. The way to make the arc fulfilling is to have Dean return to himself and realise that the person he has become is not the person that he wants to be and start making genuine steps to change that.

Dean’s darkside arc turned him into something that he didn’t want to be. His response to that needed to be making change to become someone he wants to be.

#dean winchester #sam winchester #supernatural #sam and dean #demon dean #darkside arc #spn meta #spn #kael.txt

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zuzuslastbraincell · 3 years

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☕ Aang.

He's a character I don't see you talk about much, so I'm curious about you thoughts on him, his character arc, what you like or dislike about him, etc.

The short answer: Love Aang. He’s great! Feel like a lot of the dislike of his character (while fading, at least in the circles I’m in) is misplaced. People who think Aang didn’t make the right end game decisions don’t understand his character / miss the point, IMO. That said, dislike some of the character decisions especially r.e. Katara/Aang.

The longer answer: I really love Aang and I feel like the hate he receives from various parts of the fandom is very unwarranted, though I wonder if it stems from watching the show as a child his age and finding his playfulness unrelatable - like as a kid I might have found it exasperating but as an adult I find it very refreshing and it is so obvious to me that Aang is A Child, it informs how he behaves and his decisions massively, and I wonder if the dislike comes from the lack of perspective and being unable to view Aang as a kid, being kids themselves when these haters watched the show?

That said, all kinds of people do dismiss Aang as immature and it frustrates me to no end, because being cynical =/= maturity, a willingness to make difficult decisions that betray deeply held beliefs =/= maturity, and Aang’s decision to stick to his beliefs should always be viewed in tandem with the context that he is a victim of genocide, that genocide includes the destruction of a culture’s common beliefs and practices too, and whether those beliefs live or die in the future starts and ends with him.

Additionally, I feel like Aang does possess a lot of emotional maturity for his age, even if he has bouts of being immature (like, normal, honestly). Like he processes his anger in a way that is largely healthy, actually? I think that’s a thing most people don’t understand, they don’t see that as part of Aang, when really Aang processes his emotions like someone who’s had very clear healthy models for it. He does feel anger, and grief. When Aang tells Katara in the southern raiders episode vengeance isn’t the way, that’s something that he’s fought hard internally to believe in, that’s something that he’s learned.

Tying into that, I think an overlooked aspect of Aang’s development is how in season 1 Aang spent a lot of time looking for Fire Nation citizens who were good / who could be good, because the idea that the Fire Nation is fundamentally evil contradicts his world view (”the monks taught us all life was sacred”), but I think that was probably a perspective he clung onto as well as a way of dealing with his grief. Like, I feel like Aang has fought hard to reaffirm his beliefs in a world that seems determined to “prove him wrong”, surrounded with characters who largely don’t share or understand them & see it as naivety because they lack perspective and have only known war / understand the brutality of the opponent they’re facing on a personal level. I think we don’t see a lot of this explicitly, it’s largely subtext and often an internal debate -- Aang doesn’t have many people to soundboard these kind of thoughts off, there’s no one who is an air nomad or of a similar kind of upbringing around.

Tbh I feel that Aang is best in season 1, largely because his developments in later seasons also incorporate his feelings about Katara as part of his general development, and if I’m just completely honest with you all, I mean no disrespect to Katara/Aang folks you’re cool in my books but I’m just not sold by it at all. For example, because Aang’s journey mastering the avatar state involves him reckoning with his earthly attachments and the idea of letting go, and that conflict revolves around his feelings for Katara, and because I am not particularly sold by Aang and Katara, that impacts on how I view that whole arc. I love a good friends to lovers arc where the depth of those feelings extends to both friendship and romance but I feel like the way ATLA writes romantic arcs often involves a character suddenly looking at another with heart eyes and very little actual bonding to justify that sudden change, very few *journeys* or *arcs* that culminate in feelings (unrelated, but this is my theory as to why Zuko is shipped with almost everyone, because he literally has several life-changing journeys with other characters at the tail end of S3), and it’s fairly unconvincing / pretty flat to me? Especially since we do not get anywhere near as much an insight into Katara’s feelings in that regard? I get that romance isn’t always a grand arc or whatever but given that it’s tied to a lot of Aang’s S2 development, I think it ought to have more prominence.

If I’m honest, I also feel like Aang’s development regarding Katara and the Avatar State was incomplete, and that made a lot of his S3 development frustrating because in other aspects I think he came into his own and matured - usually in subtle ways, like his attitude in the Southern Raiders, but also we see him from being understandably upset about having to hide his identity, to incorporate aspects of Fire Nation dress into his final late S3 look - but in that aspect, his arc felt incomplete to me? This might be a poor reading of it, but to expand on how I see it, in S2, Aang is incapable of letting go of Katara until literally the most critical moment, when he has to -- at which point, he is struck down by chance. In S3, the concept of entering into the Avatar State being a matter of difficulty is literally not mentioned, so we can presume he’s come to terms with letting go of Katara - which directly contradicts the pushy behaviour he shows in Ember Island Players, the way he ignores her boundaries? And then that’s literally never addressed, Aang never apologises, Katara and Aang never have an important conversation resolving the conflict there, and in the end Aang gets the girl? It’s frustrating.

Like, the way I see it, “letting go” of Katara shouldn’t mean putting no importance on her - I actually like the idea of Aang not being willing to leave his friends behind, his compassion and care is important in this aspect. Rather, if I were in the writer’s chair, I would have it that “letting go” means a willingness to face rejection. Aang lets go of a romantic prospect of Katara - and acknowledges she can and might reject him, and that’s always a possibility, but opens his heart to her anyway out of trust (and when they get together, it’s not because he’s proven himself worthy, but because Katara wants to be with him). I think that would have been such a monumentally *powerful* message, especially in a late 00s cartoon, prior to the likes of Adventure Time and Gravity Falls quite explicitly deconstructing the idea of the male protagonist always getting with their crush (I feel like a vital context new viewers miss r.e. Katara/Aang is that the male protagonist would always always get with the girl in cartoons, it always happened, to the extent that female characters existed as much as love interests as characters in their own rights). I honestly don’t think it would even require that much in terms of change! I might show that in S3 Aang still has difficulty with the Avatar state at times - he can go into it at will, but not always - and that’s because he’s in the process of letting Katara as a crush go. I’d still keep the kiss in Day of Black Sun - tbh, I have no issues there, he thought he’d never see her again quite possibly, he’s impulsive, it makes sense - but I’d maybe highlight a slight awkwardness afterwards. I might even keep the awful Ember Island Players conflict - but crucially, I think Aang would have to learn from this. I think when Aang might realise he’s still struggling with the Avatar state as late as Sozin’s Comet episode 1, panic, realise he needs to internalise that belief more, and I think he’d leave Katara a note - including an apology for his actions before, for pushing her when she wasn’t ready, but explaining also, that he needs to go on a journey by himself to figure this out. Rest of Sozin’s comet goes ahead as normal, more or less. I’d end with Katara, maybe at the tea shop afterwards, talking to Aang and asking him why he went off by himself, explaining that she & the gaang would be there for him, he didn’t have to go on a journey alone. Aang would explain that he didn’t expect they’d understand, they’re not monks, and Katara explaining that maybe they wouldn’t, but he could *try*, that’s a risk you sometimes take (but concedes they could have been more understanding). And I think over that conversation it hits Aang it’s not about being alone. Everything’s connected. It’s about not clinging on. it’s about being willing to lose. It’s about trust. I think by the end, they agree to try and communicate better, and Aang then asks Katara out - mirroring “Do you want to go penguin sledding with me?”, similar kind of activity. He almost tries to over-explain and say ‘listen it doesn’t have to go anywhere’ but Katara just smiles and says yeah. And they leave to go on their first real date.

Anyway that’s how I *would* have handled it and that is what I think could be an interesting and compelling arc that wouldn’t take much adjustment to add. Aang is afraid of losing Katara, and realising that he can and might lose her is important.

.... that’s way more than I intended to write but yeah. I feel like a lot of Aang’s development ties in with his feelings for Katara and that’s where I take issue.

#aang #soozenwrites

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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 4 years

Text

Backstory timeline for ‘Becoming The Mask’

Since I’m Not Using The One From Wizards

Notes: not every Trollhunter will be listed

Eight million years ago: First trollish writing appears. Trolls have culture and oral history prior to this point, but this was when literacy became a thing; or at least, the earliest written documents that survive to the present day date back to this time.

Mentions of ‘Trollhunters’ appear in these early writings. ‘Troll’ can be used to mean ‘a member of the species’ but it can also be used to mean ‘a member of a particular tribe’.

Hunter Trolls are nomadic and travel alone or in small bands between various tribes, fighting monsters like Nyarlagroths.

Being a Hunter is a self-appointed job. There can, therefore, be more than one Trollhunter at a time, but there can also be periods without any active Trollhunters.

The Trollhunters are mostly young adventurers who want to see the world and fight things.

Some Trollhunters are trolls who were banished from their home tribes, and are taking the only job that allows them to continue interacting with other trolls.

Some are basically running protection rackets. (“Nice cave you have here. Be a shame if it got infested with monsters.”) These Hunters usually get taken down at some point by another Trollhunter who isn’t running a protection racket and takes offense at the Hunter reputation being besmirched.

Because Trollhunters travel between different tribes, sometimes they get commissioned to escort other travelers, or go to dangerous places and retrieve magical/medical ingredients.

Trollhunters begin to be called upon to mediate inter-tribal disputes; if there is a Trollhunter who has saved both tribes involved in said dispute, they are therefore a neutral party that both sides are willing to trust.

Six million years ago: Mediating inter-tribal disputes becomes an expected part of the Trollhunter job, even if they’ve never dealt with either tribe before.

It becomes a faux pas for a Trollhunter to try and refuse a request for aid.

Because most of these jobs are dangerous, a member of one Trollhunter band invents a grit-shaka, a talisman that takes away fear. The resulting recklessness proves fatal for almost every wearer.

This is the origin of both “Trollhunting Rule Number One, always be afraid”, and the expression “the fearless are the first to die”.

That band of Trollhunters decides to start calling themselves Ga-Huels (“adventurers” in archaic trollish) instead of Trollhunters, so other trolls will stop asking them favours when the band passes through their territory.

Four million years ago: The Ga-Huels expand enough to become a tribe in their own right. They continue to be nomadic rather than permanently settling somewhere.

Their typical pattern is to move into another tribe’s territory, conquer the locals, demand tribute while there, and then move on to the next place.

The Decimaar Blade is invented and magically bound to the Ga-Huel leader. (Decimaar means “authority” in archaic trollish.)

It can be wielded by any member of the tribe, and only by members of the tribe, but only summoned or dissipated by the leader. The link will be passed down to anyone who manages to kill the leader using the Decimaar Blade. If the leader dies another way, the sword chooses its own successor.

The sword also gives its wielder the ability to look into people’s minds, intended to give the wielder a heads-up to sneak attacks. The “mind control” feature came about as an accidental overload of this power.

One million years ago: The Ga-Huels officially start referring to their leader as a Warlord.

500-300 thousand years ago, by current estimate based on fossil evidence: Homo sapiens diverges from other hominids.

Six thousand years ago/circa 4000 BCE: Trolls discover that there is a surface, rather than the whole universe being rocks and caves and magma.

Quag, of the Wumpa tribe, meets and befriends Merlin and Morgana. They study magic from each other. Morgana starts doing research into how to allow trolls to withstand sunlight, on the theory that this could also enhance her Shadow Magic, which is weakened at certain times of day.

Some of the Wumpa tribe form a settlement on the surface, under the leadership of Quag (now their king), and rename themselves the Quagawumps.

More trolls begin visiting the surface after discovering how tasty the animals are. Most trolls do not yet distinguish between humans and any other surface animal.

The Ga-Huels begin actively displacing trolls with territories near the surface, in the interests of claiming the best bases of operation for hunting parties. They start to be referred to as Gumm-Gumms.

“The fearless are the first to die” starts to be used as a taunt instead of strategic advice, becoming “the brave are often first to die”.

Gunmar is born and quickly becomes known as a powerful and dangerous wizard. He kills King Quag when the Ga-Huel attempt to conquer the swamp.

Merlin learns (or remembers, from conversations with Quag) that a Trollhunter cannot refuse a call for help. He approaches the only active Trollhunter of the time, Gorgus the Great, to ask her to protect humans from Gumm-Gumms.

Merlin builds the Amulet of Daylight. Designing and assembling it takes a few decades.

Because he doesn’t have Shadow Magic, which is necessary to allow trolls to touch sunlight, he cuts off Morgana’s hand and forearm to melt down and infuse into the metal.

Tethering the artifact to one person at a time and letting it choose a ‘worthy successor’ is based on the enchantment structure of the Decimaar Blade.

Merlin adds a few safety features, such as the amulet not choosing whoever killed its last bearer as the new bearer; no one being able to wield the sword except for the summoner; and it being possible to steal the Amulet entirely (in case he ever had to take it back from the Trollhunter).

He also adds a language translation enchantment, so the troll who carries the Amulet can talk to humans.

Gorgus accepts the weapon and armour, but continues referring to herself as a ‘Trollhunter’ rather than ‘the Champion of Daylight’.

Morgana’s research into how trolls work allows her to create an animate stone prosthesis for herself. She swears revenge on Merlin.

Five thousand years ago/circa 3000 BCE: Spar the Spiteful is the called as the second Champion of Daylight. He wasn’t a Trollhunter before that and does not want the job, but is magically stuck with it.

Gorgus is annoyed at Merlin for not telling her that her soul would be trapped in the Amulet to watch over and occasionally advise her successor. It is unclear if Merlin knew this would happen but she suspects he did.

Spar meets an Akiridion, on Earth for reasons unspecified. He helps jump-start her spaceship by pushing it off a cliff after the local humans throw a spear through the Daxial Array. (Scene from the Trollhunters spin-off comic, The Felled.)

The Gumm-Gumms begin to use the Darklands as a permanent base of operations, with Killahead Bridge giving them rapid access to the surface. Killahead is one of the earliest examples of trolls using bridges as portals.

Morgana experiments with transmuting stone to flesh and back again. She invents Creeper’s Sun toxin and its antidote during these experiments.

2000 BCE: In the course of her experiments, Morgana finds a way to 'pause’ the development flesh or living stone, and to restart the process later.

(This is eventually used to keep the Familiars from aging in the Darklands, and the Changelings from aging until they get Familiars.)

She uses this to give herself eternal youth on top of her wizardly longevity.

Humans begin launching counter-attacks at the less dangerous troll communities on the surface, intended as retaliation against the Gumm-Gumm raids.

Even though trolls can now tell humans are capable of more complex reasoning than most other surface animals, these attacks encourage anti-human sentiments, so eating humans remains common even among troll tribes that don’t actively hunt them.

1000 BCE: Morgana begins to consider the merits of an Eternal Night, which would allow her to access her full level of power at any time rather than the fluctuations in power that the day-night cycle brings.

0 BCE/CE: Maddrux the Many becomes the Trollhunter. There have been a few others between Spar and Maddrux. By this point it is more-or-less forgotten that ‘Trollhunter’ was once a job title that had nothing to do with the Amulet of Daylight.

300 CE: Orlagk the Oppressor becomes the Gumm-Gumm Warlord and names the wizard Gunmar the Skullcrusher as his top general.

400 CE: Maddrux the Many dies and is succeeded as Trollhunter by Araknak the Agile.

Late 400s-early 500s, the time period to which Arthurian legend dates back: Rise and fall of Camelot.

500 CE: Morgana proposes an alliance to the Gumm-Gumms, giving them magical items and cutting them in on her ‘Eternal Night’ plan, in exchange for them giving her trolls to experiment on.

530 CE: Deya is born.

600 CE: A plague ravages Deya’s village. Her newly-hatched brother is one of the dead. The villagers are weak when humans attack, and most of the surviving trolls are killed.

Deya survives the plague and the raid. Since she is small and ‘harmless’ at the time, she is taken by the humans, who rename her ‘Callista’ and raise her as an exotic pet.

She picks up their language, but her ability to speak is seen as a charming quirk rather than a sign of intelligence.

800 CE: ‘Callista’ runs away and tries to find more trolls.

Vendel is born.

900 CE: ‘Callista’ finally meets other trolls for the first time since she was in her eighties (the trollish equivalent of a human 5-year-old). Her clumsiness with social niceties gets her the nickname ‘Calamity’.

A series of negative coincidences happen in various places she tries to stay, and she gets a reputation among other trolls for being bad luck. The nickname ‘Calamity’ gradually becomes a more deliberate insult.

Mid to late 1100s: Usurna and Gunmar secretly make an alliance.

Merlin meets a young con artist named Hisirdoux Casperan, realizes the boy has actual magic as well as slight-of-hand, and takes him on as an apprentice.

Although eating humans is still not something most trolls think is morally a big deal, it’s also starting to be more trouble than it’s worth, so avoiding humans becomes more typical.

Early 1200s: Usurna becomes Queen of the Krubera.

A troll scholar named Bodus attempts to study the Gumm-Gumms, creating The Book Of Ga-Huel. He learns some old Ga-Huel magic during his work to make his book self-update as their tribe’s history progresses. Due to overall troll sentiments about Gumm-Gumms, Bodus himself becomes feared and distrusted.

1200-1300: AAARRRGGHH and Stricklander are born (exact dates undecided) and taken by the Gumm-Gumms. AAARRRGGHH is raised as a soldier and Stricklander becomes one of the first successful Changelings.

Mid 1200s: The Trollhunter, Tellad-Urr the Triumphant, cracks under the never-ending demands placed on Trollhunters to resolve every petty little problem, and starts working with the Gumm-Gumms, becoming known as Tellad-Urr the Terrible.

1297: Angor Rot asks Morgana for help in protecting his village from the Gumm-Gumms. Morgana responds by taking Angor’s soul and magically enslaving him. She also magically pauses his aging, so he’ll perpetually be in his prime while hunting down the Trollhunters.

1350s: Angor Rot kills Tellad-Urr the Terrible and absorbs his soul.

1360s: Gogun the Gentle, the Trollhunter after Tellad-Urr, dies peacefully in his sleep. Gogun is the first Champion Of Daylight not to die in combat.

1380s: Angor Rot kills his second Trollhunter.

Deya learns her birth name when she is called by the Amulet. Trolls are still not particularly welcoming of her, but they stop actively driving her away.

Early 1400s: Blinky is born. (Exact date undecided, but he is in his 600s in the present day.)

Skarlagk, daughter of Orlagk, is also born.

Enough Changelings exist that the Janus Order is formed.

Mid 1400s: Testing the limits of how mutable she can make living stone, Morgana creates the first Polymorphs; Changelings who do not need a Familiar to take on human form. Because this is more difficult and has a higher death rate than making ‘standard’ Changelings, she only makes a few of them.

Late 1400s: Deya goes on her quest to punch Merlin in the face for being chronically cryptic. (Scene from the Trollhunters spin-off comic, The Felled.)

Non-Gumm-Gumm trolls learn that Changelings exist. Gaggletacks are discovered.

Trolls start making more active efforts to conceal their existence from humans, partly to avoid encounters with Changelings and partly because human weaponry continues to improve.

Early 1500s: Gunmar kills Orlagk and becomes the new Gumm-Gumm Warlord.

Gunmar loses his eye in the fight. Merlin has a vision of the Triumbric Stones being the key to defeating Gunmar, so he gathers them and hides them in places he thinks will be safe until he figures out how exactly that will work.

AAARRRGGHH internally questions how safe it is to remain on Gunmar’s side, since AAARRRGGHH is now at the same rank Gunmar was before overthrowing Orlagk and therefore Gunmar might start viewing AAARRRGGHH with suspicion.

Mid 1500s: Skarlagk the Scorned begins recruiting Gumm-Gumms for a coup, intending to kill and replace Gunmar to avenge her father.

Jim, Nomura, and Not Enrique are born, kidnapped, and made into Changelings.(Nomura is older than the boys, but only by about twenty years, which isn’t much for trolls.)

Bular is also born.

The Dishonourable Bodus learns of the Triumbric Stones and records that there is a way to defeat Gunmar. Stories about the hypothetical ‘Eclipse Sword’ begin to spread. Gunmar has Bodus and his students tracked down and killed, and all found copies of his work destroyed.

After burning Bodus’ Final Testament, Stricklander reads and memorizes the riddle about where to find the “three forces elemental” which make up “a shadow’s bane”.

Deya hears that Merlin found a potential way to defeat Gunmar and is annoyed that he hasn’t told her about it, but right now she doesn’t have time to track the wizard down and punch him again.

1582: The Gregorian calendar is established.

Late 1500s: AAARRRGGHH deserts the Gumm-Gumms. To prove himself trustworthy to Deya, he gives her crucial information about the location and function of Killahead Bridge, the Darklands’ main access point to the surface.

Anticipating an attack after AAARRRGGHH’s desertion, Gunmar leaves Bular in the care of the Janus Order.

Deya seals the Gumm-Gumms in the Darklands.

Merlin seals Morgana in the Heartstone and decides to take a nap for the next few centuries.

Early 1600s: Morgana figures out how to siphon Merlin’s magic.

Skarlagk openly turns against Gunmar. Many Gumm-Gumms resent being trapped in the Darklands, which makes recruitment easier for her.

Gunmar begins mind-controlling more and more of his soldiers. This increases the rate of desertion among those not being mind-controlled.

The Janus Order beings trying to gather and rebuild Killahead Bridge.

1620: The Mayflower sets sail, with trolls stowing away ... somehow.

1630s: The trolls find the Heartstone and settle under what will become Arcadia Oaks.

Birthstones which were carried along during the migration begin to hatch. Draal is one of the first trolls born in Heartstone Trollmarket.

AAARRRGGHH makes contact with the Krubera for the first time since his infancy.

Dictatious, who was too close to the bridge and pulled into the Darklands by accident, is found by Gunmar’s forces. He swears loyalty to Gunmar to avoid being mind-controlled or killed.

Gunmar decides that, if Dictatious was able to survive the Darklands alone for as long as he did, he must have potential and be worth keeping around.

At the age of 1100, Deya the Deliverer is killed by Bular.

Unkar the Unfortunate is called as the Trollhunter and killed by Angor Rot before Bular even knows who the new Trollhunter is.

Late 1600s: Unkar’s successor is also killed by Angor Rot, but successfully traps him before dying.

Their successor is killed by Bular, who assumes the Trollhunter he just killed was Deya’s successor.

On Gunmar’s orders, as conveyed through a Fetch, Usurna makes contact with a few Changelings, who begin spying on trolls instead of humans and reporting to her instead of Bular.

Gunmar’s eye is passed from Usurna to the Changelings to the Janus Order.

The head of the Janus Order is aware that there’s at least one non-Changeling troll besides Bular who still serves Gunmar but isn’t in the Darklands. The head does not know Usurna’s name and has never met her in person.

Bular does know Usurna’s identity, but has never had the opportunity to meet her in person.

Through Usurna, who got the information from AAARRRRGGHH when he told the Krubera about how he left the Gumm-Gumms, the Janus Order learns that Killahead Bridge is now ‘locked’ by the Amulet of Daylight, and the Amulet will be necessary to reopen it.

Stricklander begins building a fake Amulet on the hypothesis it can work as a ‘lock pick’.

1700s: A branch of the Janus Order located in New Jersey discovers a Heartstone. Rather than turning it over to Gunmar, they desert as a whole, making it look like humans discovered them and the Changelings gutted the base to destroy any evidence of what they were doing before getting wiped out.

The Changeling deserters rename their group the Jersey Devils, after the local legend.

1850: California becomes a state.

Kanjigar becomes the Trollhunter.

Stricklander becomes the leader of the Janus Order.

1859: Nomura is assigned to a Familiar. She will later resent that she “just missed” the Renaissance.

1875: El Rancho Arcadia, the town that will become Arcadia Oaks, is founded. (Year and original town name seen on a sign on the final page of the spin-off comic The Secret History Of Trollkind.)

1876: Nomura, with her Familiar’s family, attends the first ever performance of Peer Gynt.

1877: Phonographs are invented. Stricklander buys one for personal use and Morgana communicates with him through it. All Janus Order bases are equipped with phonographs as soon as possible.

1900: Nomura and Draal meet and attempt to date.

1903: The Janus Order finds out Nomura has an ‘in’ with the Trollhunter’s son and she is instructed to try and steal the Amulet. Strickler gives Nomura the fake Amulet in case she can swap it for the real one.

Nancy not-Domzalski-yet is born.

1909: Carla Fontaine, leader of the Jersey Devils, accidentally encounters her ex-lover Tiffany Archenn, who is still in the Janus Order and thought Carla was dead. Luckily their relationship ended on good terms, so Tiffany is willing to keep Carla’s survival a secret and Carla is willing to accept her promise.

1914-1918: International warfare erupts, which will come to be known as ‘World War One’ after humans have a second one; at the time it is called ‘The Great War’ and ‘The War To End All Wars’.

Teenage Nancy probably-not-Domzalski-yet acts as a spy near the end of this war, taking advantage of her youth to avoid suspicion while running information.

1920s: Draal figures out Nomura is a Changeling but doesn’t let her know he’s figured it out. He starts “sneakily” trying to convince her to change sides, which gives away that he knows.

Nomura gives Draal a grit-shaka, expecting him to do something stupid under its influence that can be used to lure Kanjigar into a trap.

Things end badly, but surprisingly no one actually dies in the fallout. Draal sees Nomura escape, but does not correct his father when Kanjigar assumes she’s dead.

Trollmarket knows there was a Changeling trying to get in, but are under the impression Nomura was on her own, and that therefore they don’t need to worry about more Changelings.

Early 1950s: Dr Bernie Sturges begins working at Area 49-B, keeping an eye on what the humans are up to there on behalf of the Janus Order.

Nancy Domzalski has a surprise pregnancy. She and her husband Horace name their son Ralph.

1970s: Barbara is born. (Exact date undecided, but she’s in her mid-to-late twenties when she has her son.)

Early to mid 1990s: Barbara meets James Lake at college. They marry shortly after graduation.

Late 1990s: Bernie Sturges is discharged from Area 49-B for questioning policy decisions one too many times. They remain under surveillance because they know so much classified information, and are suspected of being involved in Stuart of Durio’s escape. (Bernie was not involved in that escape but did regularly object to the base’s treatment of prisoners.)

After several years of working as a painter, Barbara decides to go back to school to become a doctor.

James decides to get Barbara pregnant, expecting her to change her mind about going back to school once they have a baby, with the reasoning that “this whole ‘doctor’ thing is just because she wants someone to look after,” and “if I ask her not to go back to school, then I’m the asshole, so she needs to feel like it was her own idea.”

2000: James Lake Junior is born. Three months later, he is swapped for a Changeling who comes to be known as ‘Jim’.

2001: Mary Wang’s parents, Thomas and Laurel (names inspired by the character’s voice actress, Lauren Tom), get divorced because they have incompatible money-management techniques.

Laurel is very cautious with spending and meticulous about saving, believing in putting money aside for a rainy day; Thomas expected her to "be less of a penny-pincher" after they got married and pooled their resources.

Thomas is very relaxed about money, believing if you have it then you might as well enjoy it; Laurel expected him to "be less of a spendthrift" once they got married and had a fiscal responsibility to each other as well as themselves.

Once their finances are untangled, they get along much better, and the divorce is a friendly one.

2002: Ralph Domzalski and his wife win the state lottery. They put most of the money into savings but also decide to go on a cruise around the world, leaving their two-year-old son Tobias in the care of Ralph’s mother. They are lost at sea during a storm.

2003: Nancy Domzalski turns 100 years old.

2004: Darci Scott tells her parents she feels more like a girl than a boy. They do some talking with her and some research on their own, and help her to transition.

2005: Nancy and Tobias Domzalski move into the house across the street from the Lakes. Jim befriends Toby mostly because it draws attention from concerned adults if a child appears to have no friends.

James Lake Senior abandons his wife and son.

Several months later, Jim brings the unassembled bike kit James gave him to the Janus Order base and throws the pieces through the Fetch.

Nancy sets Toby up with regular therapy appointments with Dr Tiffany Archenn, because Nancy believes in preventative maintenance as part of mental health.

Mary Wang’s mother remarries. Premarital counselling happens this time around to make sure they’re on the same page about things like money. She and her wife, Jennifer Smith, each leave their names unchanged.

Jennifer Smith, a Changeling, puts heavy-duty protection spells on every building where her wife and stepdaughter spend a significant amount of time and any items they frequently have with them. The spells are applied in such a way that you have to be checking for protection spells (or set them off) in order to notice them.

2006: Jim realizes he genuinely cares about Toby, and gives him a spot on Jim’s mental list of “humans to try keeping alive”.

Barbara starts learning krav maga. In these classes, she meets and befriends Zelda Nomura.

2008: Bernie has been away from Area 49-B long enough that the surveillance is beginning to slack off.

2012: Since James Lake Senior has been “missing” for seven years, Jim is able to have him declared legally dead.

Barbara graduates medical school and becomes an emergency room trauma surgeon.

Summer 2015: Since Mary is about to start high school, her parents finally agree to let her have a cellphone. Jennifer adds yet another protection spell to the device; it’s a good anchor since Mary will presumably have it with her at all times.

Claire and Jim both attend a fundraiser for Arcadia's hospital. Claire sees Jim dancing with Barbara and is charmed and intrigued at the sight of a boy her age who is unembarrassed to dance with his mother in public. (Idea taken from the first spin-off novel, The Adventure Begins.)

September 2015 - June 2016: Toby develops a friendly acquaintanceship with Eli Pepperjack.

Jim is polite, in the interests of not driving Toby away by preventing him from having other friends, but wary because of Eli’s conviction there is something supernatural in Arcadia and his determination to uncover it.

Eli picks up that he is more ‘tolerated’ by Jim than ‘liked’, which makes Eli feel awkward and suspect Toby feels the same way and is just better at hiding it. Toby and Eli never progress past “friendly acquaintances” into “friends”.

Jim and Claire are partnered in several school projects. Like Toby and Eli, they become friendly acquaintances. Jim makes a note of how often and how fondly Claire speaks of her little brother once Enrique is born.

August 2016: Bernie Sturges fakes the death of their current human identity and temporarily moves into the Janus Order base while setting up a new one. (Sometimes Changelings have overlaps or gaps between identities, to muddy the trail if someone tries to track them.)

September 2016: Kanjigar dies. Jim is called as the Trollhunter. Fanfic begins at this point.

#Becoming The Mask extras #backstory #long post #Trollhunters #alternate universe #My Fanfiction #Tales of Arcadia #TOA novels and comics #3Below #toaWizards #Changeling Jim

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catflowerqueen · 3 years

Text

Rescue Team Retrospective Part 8: Characterization, Part 5

Hero

Much to my surprise, they actually do have more spoken dialogue than I remember. However, most of it still seems to be when they are/think they are alone, when they are dreaming, or during dialogue tree options. They also have funnier dialogue options on the whole, compared to in Explorers. …And I honestly don’t remember how much they have in PSMD, but I feel like it still less than they had in Gates?

Anyways, I get the feeling that they’re a bit older than most of the other protagonists, mostly in terms of what little dialogue we do see and how their situation seems a bit more dire in general? They are more prone to speculating on their new nature as a pokemon, for one, and they seem a bit more active over all in actually trying to figure out what exactly happened to them. Possibly this is because they actually get some hints early one with Alakazam suggesting they go check out the Hill of the Ancients, compared to Explorers waiting until the expedition and then pretty much stumbling into a possibility with Uxie, PSMD not really seeming to touch on it until way, way late in the game, and Gates actually having some knowledge of what they’re there for, but then deciding not to bother finding out anything else despite having the clearest path.

The Rescue Team Hero has the smallest support group and the natural disasters they keep experiencing first hand, even within the town, make their situation the most dangerous from the get-go, but they rise to the challenge admirably. And also, no one questions the fact that they are choosing to live alone even though we do have multiple examples of parents with children present in the Square—which is another reason why I think they must be older, because otherwise I would hope one of the actual adults would question it. So I’d give them late teens at minimum.

We don’t really get too much of a backstory on them besides the fact that they apparently spoke with Gardevoir and suggested the memory wiping themselves as a test of their worthiness. I think that the implication might also be that they are actually from the pokemon world specifically, rather than pulled there like the Gates hero was, but it isn’t entirely clear from the dialogue exactly how far the “We” that Gardevoir spoke of could reach on their search for a savior, so it could really go either way. I personally headcanon them as coming from the human world, though.

Of all the different heroes, I still think they have the least actual characterization—though they definitely do have more of it than I previously remembered.

Partner

I’m going to note again that I am just going with the original version. I know that DX changed some stuff—especially when it comes to the post game interactions—but since I haven’t played that version, I can’t comment on it.

The Partner actually seemed a lot sassier and selfish than I remember them being. Like, sure, I did recall that line about them faking a stomachache before they go off to save Shiftry, but even before that… well, they make fun of the hero’s name, for one, and they seem a bit self-centered and glory seeking when it comes to receiving personal rescue requests. Like… I touched on it a little in the Gengar post, but their reaction to the mail stealing scene struck me a bit differently as an adult than it did when I was a child. They weren’t angry that someone was stealing from their friend’s mailbox—they were angry that they weren’t the ones who would be getting the credit for completing the rescue requests. And maybe I’m just being nit-picky about it, but the subtle difference there just strikes me as putting the partner in a bit more negative light.

That aside, their devotion to the hero is clear. They are a great friend and go to many lengths to help them figure out their identity. And I actually think their moment of doubt after hearing the Ninetales Legend for the first time actually serves to strengthen their emotion and conviction. They really did go ride or die from the hero—knowing all the risks and having only their friendship as a reason to follow them on the fugitive arc. Comparatively, the Explorers partner literally was just dragged along with no say in the matter, the Gates partner thought it was just going to be a standard rescue mission when they agreed to help, and the PSMD partner was really the one who seemed to be calling the shots for the most part (and also accidentally got dragged along to their fugitive arc equivalent much like the Gates hero did, since their initial assumption was that the mission was going to be different than what ended up happening).

This is why I felt—and still feel—very betrayed by the fact that they pretty much abandon the hero after the main storyline. And they can even kick you out of your actual house if you choose them to be the leader. Okay, so the way that they frame it is to suggest taking a divide and conquer approach—that you can make teams specifically suited to each quest—but its just really sad that they no longer follow you around anymore or get any special dialogue if you visit their friend area.

I don’t think their goals and desires are as clear cut as some of the other partners. They seem to be almost making things up as they go at some points. Yes, there is an early indication and justification for wanting to form a Rescue Team initially, but they don’t really seem to get too into the idea of what that actually means until Caterpie expresses an interest in one day joining and the partner then suggests one day creating a proper base. And then promptly says nothing else on the matter or tries to get that started at any point between then and the fugitive arc until they randomly bring it up after meeting the mankey gang. Like, sure, some of that was put on the backburner when they got that suggestion to see Xatu… but there was still a little time before that, and there was ample opportunity for them to have had some sort of dialogue option indicating that they were still interested in doing that, but were going to put it aside in deference to the hero’s needs.

From that point of view, their bond with the hero probably is a lot stronger from the beginning. Which is in some ways good, but in other ways bad since it means we don’t get to see as much relationship growth. Though, ironically, I think we do see more growth from this pair in that matter than we do from the Explorers pair, especially considering the “moment of doubt” scene.

Like, sure, the Explorers duo are excellent friends, and obviously they are extremely close considering the whole Dimensional Scream thing. But while we do see some individual growth from the partner, there aren’t too many overt examples. Sure, we get that montage before the credits… but its just a lot more subtle. And that actually speaks more to the sort of easy friendships of young children, which is another reason that I headcanon that pair as being so young—which makes it all the sweeter that the duo can stand the test of time and remain close even after the big adventure is over.

That being said, I still think that the Rescue Team pair has less relationship growth than Gates or PSMD does. Which is probably one of the few nice things I can say about PSMD—I really do like how they handled the partner’s character growth there… it’s just too bad that a lot of the time it came at the expense of the hero, in multiple ways.

So I guess my overall verdict on the Rescue Team partner is that they aren’t as flat of a character as I remember, they’re still lacking in personal growth overall and are probably the overall weakest partner of the series even though there are some aspects in which they excel.

As a final note… Interestingly enough, it really is only the Gates and Rescue Team partners who really get the chance to make a deliberate choice to put the hero’s desires before their own—though it is slightly more subtle in the Rescue Team partner’s case. Sure, unlike the Gates partner, the Rescue Team partner doesn’t ever have the opportunity to actually ask the hero to stay with them—the hero didn’t tell them they would have to leave and then came back on their own anyways fairly quickly, and though the partner did question once whether or not they wanted to turn into a human again, they didn’t really comment much either way and the subject was quickly dropped. But it was the Rescue Team partner who worked through a moment of doubt and resolved to trust their hero, and, again, they did not have to go on the run with the hero. The hero outright offered to disband the team and give them the chance to leave, and they refused.

This is much like the subtle way that the Gates partner showed they cared. True, they didn’t exactly take back their words to the hero about wanting them to stay—at least not beyond what they said in the goodbye frism—but they were very willing to pass up on the opportunity to wish for their return if it meant the hero would be happier on Earth, and they tried their hardest to give them the best of both world when they did finally make a wish.

In comparison, the question was never really brought up with the Explorers partner, and they didn’t really have a choice or opportunity either way. And the PSMD partner didn’t give the hero any chances or opportunities at all, period—only some of which can be explained on the fact that apparently they also had their own case of amnesia, because even then they weren’t trying all that hard to look into the hero’s situation before that point when they, at least, actually got the opportunity to have an actual life and childhood full of new memories with their guardian and didn’t actually realize they had changed species at all, unlike the hero who knew full well from the get-go that they had amnesia and weren’t supposed to be a pokemon at all.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #red/blue rescue team #retrospective

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