#sometimes my entire thought process consists of parallels
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hello, good morning!!
I wanted to know what you think about the origin trio and their dynamic, like I can see where it emerged from and how it works but sometimes I can't help but feel it's forced? I don't know how to explain it but for example I thought shouto was very sidelined in the Endeavor agency arc, like he was there just as a shortcut to get bakugo and especially deku there?
Maybe it's because shouto is my favourite and he is usually written third wheeling? I would love your input.
I love the Origin Trio. It's my favourite trio dynamic and probably favourite overall dynamic out of the entire story.
I've seen people saying it's "forced", but I personally don't understand what they mean by that, other than they didn't become friends / buddies early on like some of the other trios we've been introduced to.
For me however, the shifting dynamic is one of the most exciting part of the Origin Trio - to really have entire arcs dedicated to the development of not only the characters, but the specific bonds of each pair within the Trio is truly fantastic.
We have such rich lore for them. BKDK is clearly one of the core dynamics of the story and many people have written at length of their development since Chapter 1.
But Shouto is added very early in the mix. His first ever line is famously during Deku vs Kacchan, specifically about Bakugou, and when Bakugou breaks down crying in Ch. 11, Shouto's power is part of his loss of confidence.
The USJ arc already foreshadows their trio-ification by having these similar thought processes as each of them comes to help All Might.
The Sport Festival which kickstarts the TDDK friendship is also truly the first great Origin Trio arc - we see Deku save but not win, Bakugou win but not save, and Shouto unable to break through his indecision. It is also the introduction of the Todoroki family storyline which is immediately linked into the BKDK storyline by having Bakugou eavesdrop.
TDDK is then cemented in the Stain arc as a solid friendship, and gets consistent development with both slice-of-life and fight moments throughout the manga.
And I especially love that TDBK gets its own development not only with many scenes scattered throughout the story, but even a specific mini-arc dedicated to Shouto's and Bakugou's character development and evolving relationship with each other, culminating in their hero license fight and that wonderful moment with All Might.
So to me, the Endeavor internship's logic is set up in a really convincing manner as we see Shouto develop his own relationship with both Bakugou and Deku individually and organically throughout the story.
I also don't feel like Shouto is thirdwheeling or is sidelined in the Endeavor internship. He has a pretty important milestone when he speaks his truth to Endeavor and asserts his boundaries. Plus, there is a lot of focus on his family, his thoughts about his father and mother, important bonding with Fuyumi and Natsuo, as well as bonding with his friends. Plus he masters flashfire. That's not bad for a single, 10-chapter long arc.
And if anything, during that internship, Bakugou is the one who is constantly portrayed as the one thirdwheeling the sweet and tight TDDK friendship - very much by design. Plus he's forced to look at Endeavor as a possible dark future of a No 1 who focused only on strength and burnt every meaningful relationship in his life to get there.
I also really love how the BKDK drama and the Todo-fam drama feeds on each other. Bakugou witnessing Endeavor's remorse, Shouto witnessing Bakugou's change, all the TDDK parallels which allow both Shouto (heroes cry too) and Izuku (it's ok not to forgive if you really hate the guy) reflections on their own problems while helping their friend. For me, there is just such emotional richness to their interactions in any combination, so many layers, parallels and foiling to play with.
And clearly the Endeavor internship wasn't the "endpoint", since we do get meaningful moments post-war not only between BKDK, but also between Bakugou and Todoroki as well as Deku and Shouto even though for now the final battle seems to keep the Todoroki plot and the OFA plot physically separate from each other (for now).
TL;DR: I really adore the Origin Trio. To me they are a fantastic dynamic with actual development all around - characters and relationships - that we got to experience from the start of the story. They had ups and downs, conflicts and sweet moments, a friendship born at the nexus of the two emotionally most captivating storylines.
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4.14.24 @ 1:34
i don’t journal enough. especially given the fact that i don’t really have anyone in my life right now that i feel like i can go to for consistent support. there are people, and yet, i still feel like i have no one to talk to. i have decided in my head already that tb is the only one, that they’re the only person who will always be there for me, no matter what. because the other option is friends who simply aren’t very emotionally available. and i’m not always either, but i try to be for them, and i’ve also had a lot more therapy than most of the people around me. and even as the person who people ask for advice on communicating, i still can’t fucking communicate well. i feel like i fail in communicating every fucking day.
this entire week i have had incident after incident that has sent my nervous system into complete chaos and have had to figure it out and regulate/calm down myself. i suppose this is what all humans do, or what many of us do. figure our shit out on our own and then deal with it alone, and that is what i’m working on in weaning from a codependent relationship. i can’t believe it’s been almost a year since we broke up. i didn’t think it was the end back then.
and every time i tried to go to the people i think of as my support system, i felt, well, less than supported. i feel so blind in this entire process of releasing my first ep, most of the time i feel like i have no idea what i’m doing. i reach out to people with questions or help with things that come up, and then when i don’t hear back and make the call on my own in the moment, when my nervous system is on fire, i get criticized for not making the right call. it’s never the right choice. i’m pretty sure i upset everyone i communicated with this weekend. watching resident alien alongside this chaos has been quite the parallel. and being sick doesn’t help any of it.
mf is back to ignoring me, i guess. i know they have a lot going on, but i’ve barely heard from them since thursday when we last saw each other. i miss them, and i could really use some support right now emotionally, but it feels like there’s barely enough space to talk about the things happening in the now, the logistics, the important stuff. i don’t know why i can’t consider my emotional needs as important. i don’t know, i guess we’re not really there yet. they say they’re learning to be vulnerable, and i am proud of how far they’ve come. i just wish they would extend the same to me when i tried to be vulnerable. i stopped trying, i guess. i got frustrated, and hurt. so i sopped trying to make them the empathetic, receptive person i had in my head, and tried to just accept the person they are and where they’re at in life. i can’t expect them to be any older than they are, at the end of the day, they are 23, not 30.
i’m not going to lie, when they kissed me, i thought about it. what if we did date? but then, after they started dating a man who has everyone concerned, who they won’t even introduce their friends to, two days later, after i watched that relationship take off and swallow them whole with it, i saw how much i did not want that. i watched them disappear into a new relationship, days on end with barely any communication, still talking to their ex. i wish my therapist could talk to them, honestly. she would not take the bullshit they tell themself. i know they think what they’re saying is true, that those conversations don’t affect them, that they’re over it. i watched them cheat on him rather than tell him it was over. i told them that i thought sometimes when people frame us as something we are not, we sometimes become that thing out of spite. i don’t think it’s that, though, anymore. i think they do something fucked up at the end so it’s not his fault why it didn’t work. because that would be harder to admit. that that person just isn’t the love of your life. i think it’s easier for them to believe that it’s their fault than to let go. and i get that. i’ve been there too. i don’t take it personally, but i’m trying to be less involved with people’s life choices going forward, i suppose.
they kept saying how ready they were, and maybe they are ready to love again. i remember when i felt love again, with tb, after not feeling it for so long. i thought i would never feel that kind of passion, connection, intimacy, ever again. i understand. they are there now, though, and i am here. i am content with not chasing love if it means waiting for a partner who is where i’m at. who can communicate, who can be consistent, and who will not dive down the path of codependency at the first hit of dopamine. i can’t do that anymore. and maybe that’s why i can’t be with anyone right now, because i know that for me, it is still so fucking hard to be alone. i am this fucking close to calling tb to come take care of me while i’m sick—i won’t, though (they work tonight lol but jk i actually won’t). i want to, though, because my dog can’t take care of me, and she doesn’t talk back, and loneliness still crushes me every single night before i force myself to sleep.
that’s why i know that i can’t be in a relationship right now. that’s why i know i can’t even know if i want to be with tb. of course i do, now. i am lonely. when i can be content in my aloneness, i will know what i want. i can’t trust this feeling when i am still so afraid of being alone.
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Good day Hazel! Just wanted to ask ya how on earth are you so consistent in writing? Whats your process like? I know you for Dare To Dream and im honestly fuckn impressed how you wrote 25k in... a month? I could barely manage 11k in two months! Admittedly I havent read a bunch of your other Suselle and Kriselle fics, but I'm still impressed how consistent you are, even with the recent concert one I'm surpised how fast you were.
Life kinda gets in the way sometimes, I haven't written in like 7 months because I've been absolutely hammered out with irl happenings, and I wanna know how you manage your schedule and momentum when writing.
Hey! Sorry I didn't answer this sooner, the past few days have been actually insane as I'm sure you can guess KDSJHGFSDHFGSDF
So, I don't know, this is kind of always a hard question to answer because process is always so personal, you know? But I do have a few tricks I use to make it as painless as possible, so that when I sit down to write I actually get words on the page. First, though, don't knock your pace, friend; 11K in two months isn't bad at all. Sometimes you can do a lot more with a lot less, anyway.
Primarily, I have outlines, and I outline constantly in my head. I don't always write down my outlines explicitly, but I think about my stories allll the time when I'm walking places, in the bathroom/shower, doing chores--whatever occupies my body and not my mind, I'm usually thinking about my stories. Sometimes down to the details; I've blocked out entire conversations between characters in my head before while in the shower or something, including which versions of 'said' i use for which lines and where I cut the dialog with actions, and all that shit. If you've already got it in your head, then when you have free time to actually write, it often just dumps out of you onto the page.
If I don't have a really strong idea for a scene already loaded, though, it can be a bit harder to jump that first sentence hurdle; but it gets a lot easier over time. I have had to start so so many scenes over the years that at this point I just run through a bunch of different potential starts--starting with fast-paced action, starting with dialog, starting with a character's internal thoughts, starting with a description of the setting, starting with sensory imagery that the POV character is feeling--and then find one that works and write it down before I can second-guess myself, just so I can get over that initial hump. It becomes quicker and quicker with practice. And once I break that hump, the rest of the scene usually flows pretty easily.
If I'm REALLY struggling with how a scene should go, thuogh, that usually means there's something missing from it structurally--its too boring, or its too convoluted, or something like that. In that case, I'll really think about what I'm trying to accomplish with the scene, what the best way to get there is, and if there's any sub-conflict I can leverage within the scene to chug it along. Oftentimes in scenes, you want there to be two parallel 'conflicts' happening that can bounce of of one another (though I use 'conflict' pretty loosely here). For example, maybe Kris and Noelle are having an emotional conversation about their childhood; but at the same time, maybe they're walking down the street. The 'walking down the street' part may sound horribly insignificant, but keeping things in motion like that is very useful for breaking up the conversation: maybe Noelle looks away to admire the scenery before going on, or Kris trips after hearing something particularly unexpected, or they both stop walking for a minute, even though they're going to be late for class, because they've realized this is more important--the secondary 'conflict' in the scene gives you something to bounce the primary conflict off of. If I'm having a lot of trouble getting invested in a scene, in my experience, it's usually because I need to give it a secondary conflict.
From a logistic standpoint, too, a lot of my productivity literally just comes from having google docs on my phone, because if I'm in like for two minutes at the grocery store, well, that's two minutes of writing I can accomplish. The little things add up, especially since I don't bring my computer everywhere -- if I were limited to just writing on my computer instead of when im walking places, eating lunch, running errands, etc, my fics would never ever get done. It's at least 30-40% of my writing time these days.
Hope some of that was helpful and/or interesting! Hope you have a good one.
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Penny Polendina alludes to Astro Boy - and how this allusion foreshadows Penny’s eventual resurrection
Some of you may remember my first post in which I compared Penny and Astro Boy, with a specific focus on the version of Astro from the 2009 3D animated film (if not, you can read it here, but I'll be repeating everything stated there anyway). In the month or two since I first made that post, more and more parallels have start to pop up, with one of those parallels matching one of our most popular theories and foreshadowing Penny's upcoming resurrection.
In order to write this, I went through and watched the entire film, taking notes as I went. I'm not going to include every single detail that I noticed, only the things that seem the most relevant and can be put together in a single post in a comprehensive manner. Believe me when I say that I've thought about this a lot, and the sheer amount of parallels and connections (and the fact that I'm not the only one to notice these connections) has lead me to believe that this has been done intentionally.
With that being said, I'm only going to focus on the Astro Boy film from 2009 - the Astro Boy franchise is massive, going back to the first manga coming out in 1952 with a few different adaptations and reboots with different versions of the story, and I just don't have the time to go through all of those. As such, I'm going to be focusing on the movie, due to the fact that it has the highest amount of parallels to both Penny specifically, and RWBY as a whole.
So, let's get into this.
Worldbuilding
Metro City and the Surface - Atlas and Mantle
One of the reasons I've decided to focus on the film in particular is due to the nature of the film's setting. Astro Boy (2009) takes place in two locations - Metro City, and the Surface.
According to the opening of the film, Metro City was created when the people who would become the founders of the city noticed the world changing for the worse, and responded by taking part of the land and lifting it into the sky, creating a floating city - the opening voiceover refers to it as "an oasis, a floating paradise". Everybody else is left behind on what is referred to as the Surface, left to fend for themselves while the people of Metro City largely ignore their existence.
The parallels to Atlas and Mantle are crystal clear. Atlas and Metro City are both set up as a beautiful city above the clouds, meant to serve as an inspiration for the rest of the world. In reality, it's a place where the rich and privileged can live in comfort while shunning the poor. Meanwhile, down in Mantle/on the Surface, people are suffering and struggling to get by. Additionally, both 'surface' and 'mantle' are words that are associated with the ground.
The Blue Core (and the Red Core) - Penny's soul and Maiden powers.
Another concept that is (as far as my research shows at least) unique to the film is the Blue Core and the Red Core.
The Blue Core is a small sphere that is filled with pure positive energy, referred to as Blue Core Energy. It was created by Dr. Elefun, made from the fragments of a star that no longer exists - meaning that the Blue Core is all that's left, and cannot be recreated. This is reminiscent of how Pietro has no more aura left to spare, and thus is unable to give any more of his soul to Penny like he did the first time she died. In this allusion, the Blue Core is representative of Penny's soul and the power of the Winter Maiden.
When the Blue Core was created, there was also a byproduct - the Red Core. Essentially, it's the same thing as the Blue Core, but with negative energy instead of positive. If the Blue Core and the Red Core make contact, they both die - this is relevant later.
You could compare the Red Core to Watts’ virus, due to the way that it causes a robot to have red eyes and that it coming into contact with the Blue Core destroys them both.
Character Parallels
Before I get into this properly, I wanna give a quick side note. While Astro matches up to Penny perfectly, things get a little bit messier with the others in that we have a case of characters taking on multiple roles. However, this is far from unheard of in RWBY - let's not forget about how Blake represents both Belle and the Beast, Yang is sometimes the Beast to Blake's Belle, and Adam is an amalgamation of every antagonistic force in Beauty and the Beast. It's far from uncommon for a character to allude to multiple characters from the same allusion, or vice versa, which is what we see with some of the characters in this allusion as well.
Astro - Penny Polendina
Unsurprisingly, Astro himself is our parallel to Penny.
After the death of his son Toby, Dr. Tenma rebuilds his son as a robot, using the Blue Core as his energy source. The Blue Core is stated to be unpredictable, and it's this that makes Astro who he is, what makes him unique from every other robot. As stated earlier, the Blue Core represents Penny's soul (and the Winter Maiden powers that are attached to it). When the Blue Core dies - and Astro dies with it - and Dr. Elefun is asked if he can be rebuilt, the answer is 'no' because the Core was unique and can't be remade - just like Penny's soul.
While Astro appears perfectly human on the surface, he's fitted with as much self-defence technology as Tenma could fit in him. The most iconic of these upgrades (and the only one that's consistent across every single version of Astro throughout the franchise) is the rocket boots. He even flies in a very similar way to Penny - pay attention to the posing, especially with the legs.
When Astro starts making friends with humans on the Surface, he conceals the fact that he's a robot, afraid of what they'll think of him when they learn he's not human. This matches up to Penny initially hiding the fact that she's not human, seeing herself as 'not a real girl'.
Astro has two father figures - Dr. Elefun and Dr. Tenma. Similarly, Penny has two father figures - Pietro and Ironwood.
During the climax of the film, Metro City starts to fall out of the sky and back down to the Surface. This is a parallel to two seperate moments in RWBY. The most obvious one is when Atlas is falling onto Mantle after the Staff of Creation is used. However, I think this scene more closely resembles the scene from Amity in which Amity Tower begins to fall.
When Astro sees that Metro City is falling, he immediately flies in to hold it up, despite the incredible strain it puts on him. This is a direct parallel to how Penny flew in to hold up Amity Tower.
Astro pushes himself to the limit when he holds up Metro City, to the point where the flames from his boots burn so brightly that they turn blue - oh hey, doesn't that look familiar?
Astro also demonstrates self-sacrificial tendencies at a few points in the film. When he's captured in order to have his Blue Core taken out and placed into another robot, he simply accepts it, saying that "I think maybe this is what's supposed to happen...this is my destiny". This becomes a lot more interesting when you remember that the Blue Core is representative of Penny's soul and Maiden powers. Astro giving himself up to President Stone (the film's main antagonist who later ends up in a sort of 'fusion' with the Red Core) so that Stone can use the Blue Core could be a reference to the virus making Penny want to give herself up to Ironwood so that he can use her soul to open the vault - especially if we believe that the Red Core is connected to the virus in some way.
Near the end of the film, in the fight against the fusion of President Stone and a giant robot containing the Red Core (it's a long story, I'll get to it later in the post), Astro makes the decision to sacrifice his own life in order to destroy both the Red Core and the Blue Core, saying “this is what I was created for” and saving the lives of everybody else in the process. I doubt I need to explain how "choosing to die in order to protect other people" relates back to Penny in Volume 8.
At the end of the film, and in the rest of the Astro Boy franchise as a whole, Astro takes it upon himself to be the protector of Metro City (and technically the Surface, but since Metro City has fallen, they're not exactly seperate locations anymore...). 'Robotic guardian of a city who's seen as a hero by the people' - you don't get much more obvious of a connection to the Protector of Mantle than that.
Additional details that may not be intentional but I still noticed anyway;
- Dr. Elefun describes as Astro by saying "That robot had more humanity than most of us". At this point, there's been many moments that affirm Penny's humanity - "You have an aura, Penny. A soul. That's who you are - our friend. Not a machine", "Her soul is who she is", the fact that she was able to receive the Maiden powers, all of these moments affirm that Penny has always been just as human as anybody else. This is also contrasted against Ironwood (and, for a while, Winter), who act more machine than human.
- Astro is actually rather heavily trans-coded. Penny is also trans-coded, but this is mostly likely a coincidence that happened as a result of the inherent transness of robots
- Elefun tells Astro that he's "not actually an entirely ordinary boy", which is reminiscent of Ruby describing Penny as "she's...not your typical girl."
- The shape of Penny's bow (the way that it sticks out more on one side while the other side is more vertical) looks similar to the shape of Astro's hair (this one was pointed out to me by @cosmokyrin when I mentioned this theory in the Frosen Steel server)
Dr. Elefun - Pietro Polendina
Dr. Elefun is one of Metro City's top scientists, and one of Astro's father figures. He is soft-spoken and gentle, a dreamer but a genius. In terms of personality alone, he's a pretty good match with Pietro. He's also the one who created the Blue Core, which draws a direct parallel to Pietro creating Penny's soul from part of his.
Dr. Elefun is the first person to truly see Astro as who he truly is. Dr. Tenma expects Astro to be a replacement for Toby, and is disappointed when he isn't. Similarly, everybody else sees Astro as a robot just like any other at first - an advanced robot, but nothing more than a robot. But Dr. Elefun gives him genuine praise, and encourages Astro to live his life and find his place in the world, just like how Pietro tells Penny that he wants to see her live her life.
It's also worth noting that in most other versions of Astro Boy, Elefun takes the role of Astro's primary caregiver after Dr. Tenma no longer wants him.
President Stone - James Ironwood
President Stone is the current political leader of Metro City. For the entire film, his entire focus is on combat and military strength, and on multiple occasions he actively expresses his intention to start a war with the Surface. He believes that the best way to get re-elected is with a show of military force and violence.
His primary goal throughout the film is to have Astro destroyed in order to retrieve the Blue Core and use it for his own gain. This is a direct parallel to Ironwood's goal in Volume 8 - to hunt down Penny and have her use her Maiden power to open the vault, and destroy herself.
Stone wants to use the Blue Core in order to power a specialised combat robot, ironically called the Peacekeeper. When Astro continues to escape his clutches, he decides to use the Red Core to power the Peacekeeper instead, but it doesn't completely go as planned. The Peacekeeper is equipped with what the film calls 'adaptive technology' - it's capable of absorbing anything it makes contact with into its own body.
And I do mean anything
After Stone is absorbed by the Peacekeeper, he's in full control of it - essentially the Peacekeeper is nothing more than a metal outer shell. President Stone has become a fusion of man and machine.
Dr. Tenma - both Pietro Polendina AND James Ironwood (a bit more Pietro than Ironwood but it's worth acknowledging both)
You might notice that while Elefun and Stone do have plenty of references to Pietro and Ironwood respectively, there are gaps where they don't cover every aspect of these characters and/or their dynamic with Penny. This is where Dr. Tenma comes in.
Dr. Tenma is Astro's dad, and the one who built him. He originally created Astro as a sort of 'replacement' for his biological son Toby after he died, giving Astro all of Toby's memories (more on this later). Naturally, this is a very clear connection to Pietro.
Additionally, Dr. Tenma uses the Blue Core - a completely unique, one-of-a-kind technological marvel - in order to power a single small robot that's intended to be nothing more than a replacement for his son, saying "I can't lose him again!". In this moment, Dr. Tenma is so focused on not losing his child that he doesn't acknowledge the big picture.
However, once Dr. Tenma realises that Astro isn't a perfect replica of Toby, but rather his own person, Tenma discards him, not caring if Astro gets destroyed or not. Similarly, when Penny stopped doing what Ironwood wanted her to do, Ironwood stopped caring about her as anything more than a container for the Maiden powers and is perfectly willing to let her die once the vault is opened.
Luckily, Dr. Tenma does have a change of heart, deciding that while Astro isn't Toby, he's still his son. Near the end of the film, Astro is very injured, and Dr. Tenma encourages him to get far away from the danger. However, Astro refuses to back down, instead choosing to sacrifice his life in order to stop President Stone, despite Dr. Tenma begging him not to go. Here, we have yet another parallel to this moment in Amity.
Bonus (aka characters that aren't perfect allusions, but connections do exist)
When Astro ends up on the Surface, he's taken in by a man who calls himself Hamegg. Hamegg ends up being a jerk, and while his personality and actions in the film don't particularly match up with any characters in RWBY, his backstory is a perfect match to Watts - a head scientist in Metro City who was shunned and fired for reasons unknown (Hamegg claims that they were 'intimated by his ideas and talent', but this was when he was trying to impress Astro and he lies a lot anyway, so this could be a complete lie).
On the Surface, Astro befriends four human kids (Cora, Zane, Sludge and Widget) and their robotic dog, Trashcan. While the personalities don't really match up (though Cora, Astro's closest friend, does bear a visual resemblance to Ruby), the idea of a 4-person group + a dog could be a parallel to Team RWBY and Zwei.
Zog is a very old, very large robot that had been 'dead' for several years until Astro found him and revived him by giving him some of his Blue Core Energy. Zog is our allusion to Winter - Astro giving Zog some of his Blue Core energy is a parallel to Penny giving Winter the Maiden powers. Additionally, in The Final Word, Winter explicitly calls herself a machine. While this does have significance on it's own, it could also be a nod to this allusion. That being said, the main connection between Winter and Zog (and possibly the most important part of this post) is based on events that have yet to happen in RWBY canon, and so I'm saving that part for the end of the post.
Story Parallels
Toby's Death
Toby Tenma, Dr. Tenma's biological son, was very similar to Astro in terms of personality (with some key differences), as well as having a strong physical resemblance.
When the Blue Core and the Red Core were first being shown off to President Stone, Toby was accidentally locked behind a sealed off barrier, trapped with the Peacekeeper containing the Red Core. Toby was killed in a blast that completely disintegrated him, leaving nothing but a hat containing a single strand of hair.
This hair is important, because Dr. Tenma used this hair in order to extract Toby's DNA and memories, which he was then able to implant into Astro in order to make him resemble Toby.
This scene is most likely a parallel to Penny's first death in the Vytal Festival. In her first death, Penny's body was destroyed, but her core remained intact. Her core, which contained all of her memories, was the key piece in properly putting her back together without erasing who she used to be. The strand of hair containing Toby's DNA is representative of Penny's core containing her memories.
Additionally, there's the fact that when Toby was rebuilt as Astro, he was given various upgrades to allow him to better hold his own in a fight, with the most obvious behind the ability to fly via rocket boots. Penny received similar upgrades when she was rebuilt as well.
It's worth acknowledging that Toby's death could potentially parallel the moment that Ambrosius separated Penny from her robotic body, with the strand of hair instead being her soul, separated from her dying body and then disintegrating. However, due to the timeline and order of events, I think that Toby's death is more likely to be a parallel to Penny's first death, and her separation from her robot body is instead a parallel to the next scene I'm about to mention.
Momentary Death
When Astro is captured by President Stone and taken back to Metro City, Dr. Tenma actually does remove the Blue Core from his body, which does cause Astro to temporarily die.
Luckily, it only takes a few moments for Dr. Tenma to change his mind and return the Blue Core to Astro, reviving him.
Astro's 'soul' was removed from his body, causing that robotic body to die, even though in the end Astro does survive it. This is reminiscent of Ambrosius removing Penny's soul from her robotic body, letting that body die, while Penny survives.
Zog
I briefly went over Zog earlier, but I wanna go into more in-depth about him, because the parallels between Winter and Zog and the implications of said parallels are the main reason I ultimately decided to make this post.
As I said earlier, Zog is a very old, broken down robot that nobody has been able to revive in years. When Astro finds him, he brings him back to life by giving him some of his Blue Core Energy. Astro essentially gives Zog some of his lifeforce, a part of his soul.
Winter was on the verge of death at Ironwood's hands, but Penny was able to save her by giving her the Maiden powers, and her soul with them.
However, Zog doesn't keep all of the Blue Core Energy Astro gave him all to himself...
Resurrection
As I've mentioned a few times in this post, Astro does die - and I mean properly die, not a death that lasted 2 minutes at the most and had no consequences. Astro sacrifices himself and his Blue Core dies, all in attempts to protect the people of Metro City/the Surface and his friends. Dr. Elefun says that he can't be rebuilt because his Blue Core, his soul, was unique.
But then, Zog comes around. Zog, who is holding onto what is a part of Astro's soul - the only surviving part of Astro's soul. Zog returns some of the Blue Core Energy to Astro, which brings Astro back to life.
So, to recap: Astro gives a part of his lifeforce, part of his soul, to Zog. When Astro dies, Zog gives some of that soul back to Astro in order to revive him.
If you've been looking at the theories regarding Penny and Winter recently, this will sound VERY familiar. While the specifics vary, the essentials of the most popular theory is that Penny transferred her soul to Winter to hold on to along with the Maiden powers, and that somehow, Winter will return that soul to Penny in one way or another (either by putting her into another robotic body, or just somehow extracting her soul and letting it form it's own body again). The fact that this movie has these exact events occurring makes this seem more and more like the most likely route.
If Penny really is an intentional allusion to Astro Boy - which, based on the sheer length of this post, seems pretty damn likely - then the film practically spells it out for us. Winter will give part of her aura, the part that Penny gave her, in order to bring Penny back to life.
thank you for coming to my ted talk
#rwby#penny polendina#rwby v8#rwby theory#rwby volume 8#I've spent the past 2 days working on this#but the amount of parallels is insane#there's lots of bits and pieces I left out too#combine this with Pinocchio's three resurrections and the Narnia/Aslan theory and that's three allusions that foreshadow Penny's return#honestly I was just kinda chilling in my room yesterday when suddenly the scene with Zog came to me and I yelled HOLY SHIT out loud-#-because I realised it was the exact same scenario#there's probably some typos here and i could've included more pictures but like...it's 4am#and this thing is like 4000 words
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Hi I saw your post about fics being in character and I thought this could be a good opportunity to share some insight to help people who struggle with their characterization. I love your writing and ask could you share some traits you see as 'core' Rowan and Aelin traits? Maybe more valuably, would you be open to sharing your process for what you look for in the text when understanding characters, what stands out to you and what you make sure to include vs what you don't? I understand if this isn't something you want to share and I send this ask with good intentions and respect and hope this can start a productive discussion, no drama. Thanks :))
totally okay that you asked this!!
i think part of it is that i have read everything up to EoS so many times. like at least four times each and i've read heir of fire and queen of shadows probably six times each. i've only read kingdom of ash once bc it's still too painful to read again lmaoooo.
when i write i also always look for any chance i can to make parallels. i love making canon parallels to anything from small moments to bigger ones that are more recognizable. like the rowaelin qos reunion, rowan's "where is my wife" moment. rowan and aelin sparring in any capacity, like, anything like that. because i think that helps when you're pulling from the text and putting them into situations where you know how they interact with them, and it makes it easier to add in bits and pieces before and after. if that makes any kind of sense. (this also goes for legit any ship that i write. nessian, feysand, etc. pulling from the text and putting them in familiar situations will always help.)
as far as traits go, one of my major ones that i always try to keep in mind is rowaelin's loyalty to each other. rowan is like loyal to aelin almost to a fault sometimes. he will do anything and everything for her. when it comes that's why their thing is "to whatever end." they will follow each other to whatever end and beyond.
aelin has a very low opinion of herself. she thinks that she's expendable compared to those around her. she is very depressed sometimes and i think it gets overlooked a lot. (when i get my books back from my sister, i plan on doing a meta about this.) but she's been through a lot in her life and i try to keep that in mind in a lot of au's. some au's that are heavier (like iihasts and fafs) i try to pull on that. her mental health is very important to a lot of the way she handles things. post KOA, i know this girl has PTSD. it's evident in the way she handles a lot and takes a long time to warm back up to rowan in kingdom of ash. but she was tortured and manipulated for months. she's not okay.
people (in the books) also call her selfish A LOT but most of what she does she does for other people. she even spared dorian the weight of killing his father and told him she did it. like, come on.
as celaena, she does lean on the more selfish side, but as aelin she's doing everything she does for the greater good of the entire world. she didn't forge that lock for herself. she forged that lock for a better tomorrow for everyone she loved. which is incredibly selfless. she would also completely throw down to keep her loved ones safe.
the arrogant behavior is such an act. she's not really like that, it's a cover to hide everything she's truly feeling inside, to protect herself, to keep people from truly getting to know her. she can flip her personality to better suit the situation and the people she's around. she's mostly only her true self around aedion, lysandra, and rowan. i don't even think she really reveals herself to the rest of the cadre for probably a very long time. she picks fights when she's hurting the most and rowan is really the first person to see and recognize that. (very evident in hof when she sees what a good person gallan appears to be and goes and picks a bar fight immediately. or when arobynn humiliates her and she wears her nicest jewels to try to intentionally get robbed so she can start a fight.)
the reality is that she's an insanely hard worker, she keeps going and going and going to meet to meet her goals. she's a master strategist and very quick on her feet in any situation she finds herself in. she feels isolated (which goes back to her depression and ptsd) and she feels misunderstood. but she has been known to literally give the cloak off her back (with kaltain) and the money in her pocket (with yrene) and doesn't expect anything in return. literally nothing in return. she just did it out of the goodness of her own heart, yet she's constantly filled with self doubt that she's a bad person because people tell her that she is (chaol literally calls her a monster and she holds onto that and ends up asking rowan if she is one.)
she gives a lot of forgiveness and second chances, except to abusers. she pulls no punches with them. yet even with arboynn, she made sure there were no redeeming qualities left before letting lysandra kill him. instead of seeing it as a victory, though, she just felt hollow. she doesn't take joy in killing these people. she is not a bad person.
she feels a lot of guilt when she feels she could have stopped things. i think she carries those moments with her. which is why she helped those people the king wanted dead to escape in com. she has no problem ending people that deserve the punishment, but when they don't, she does what she can to help them.
rowan is so respectful. he finally gets his mate and his wife and his love back and he's consistently giving her the space she requires when it's so hard for him to not just touch her. he puts his own needs aside consistently based on what aelin needs.
he's a complete and total hardass to other people but is so soft for her. but he's also territorial about her. he's protective of her. but never at the cost of what she needs and wants. however, he will put his foot down and make people swallow their own tongues if they're disrespectful toward her. but he's also respectful toward everyone, not just aelin. he can prove his points without physical violence even if he would want to.
in that same vein, if you're doing enemies to lovers, he doesn't understand her at first. he think's she's spoiled and doesn't have a single clue about the trauma she's been through and he's very hard on her. he treats her like another warrior in their training. he doesn't go easy on her just because she's a woman (which also still comes from a place of respect) but the second he finds out about her trauma the way he treats her shifts. he becomes protective because he doesn't put up with that kind of shit. he isn't torturing her in their training, in fact aelin in hof says that he's brilliant even if he beats the shit out of her every damn day. a lot of people try to twist that into a thing of abuse, but again, he's training her like a warrior. he doesn't coddle her and she doesn't want to be coddled. again, this comes from a place of respect.
he also learns from his mistakes and tries to right them, and takes action to better himself from it as soon as he can. this is important. he has the humility to apologize, whether it be by actions or words. he doesn't ask for credit in the things he does and ends up kind of making jokes about it. i think he has a lot of humility at the end of the day. he is quick to forgive others when it's deserved but has a lot of trouble forgiving himself. this is also important.
but rowan also has a playful side with aelin. they have witty banter that they exchange even when they're not totally on board with the other. he's funny in subtle ways, and toward the end of the series we see that he's so wholly comfortable with her that he even gets a little silly.
after his own trauma, he also falls into a very deep depression. for centuries. it took aelin coming along for him to come back out of his shell. everyone gave up on him, but aelin never did. just like he never gave up on her, and they were able to walk out of that darkness together. i also think he feels a lot of guilt when innocent lives get put in danger and risk or die at his hands when he felt he could have stop it, much like aelin.
rowan is also very calm in most situations. he's able to work out solutions like the warrior that he is even when other people are losing their minds, which makes him a very good soldier and eventually king.
i could keep going but this is getting wildly long lol. i hope this helps even a little. thank you to @westofmoon @whimsicallyreading @punkassbookjockey26 for helping me with my thoughts as i'm still exhausted from surgery and healing.
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This year I spontaneously watched Appmon nearly 2 times, and I have thoughts about it. And what better way to acknowledge it than on its 5th Anniversary. (Or 4th anniversary of Our Singularity). I'm planning on at least covering my thoughts on the main 5 kids this month, in an order based 100% on who I want to talk about first.
It's Astra.
I think Astra is generally the least liked Appmon character, or perhaps more accurately, is the character I see the most disdain for. And, honestly, I can understand where it comes from. But he’s my favorite Appmon character actually. In a cast with a non-conventional protagonist, a blackbelt idol, and a hacker, Astra’s “Apptube” is well, just kind of there. Like a more modern version of Eri’s idol career. His personality is clearly meant to be representative of the target audience, the group whose number one career aspiration is Youtuber. So, he’s kind of cringy and kind of annoying, especially to an adult audience. I get it. But Astra’s a character I found to have a lot of stuff going on.
I admittedly tend to have a soft spot for the babies of any team, especially if they are assertive enough to keep up with their seniors. And Astra does fit the bill. He’s generally seen to be on equal footing with the others, and his rather aggressive way of talking to the other doesn’t exactly make you think baby of the team. He doesn’t use honorifics, and in general Astra’s referred to in the same terms as Haru and Rei. (As near as I can tell, anyway with my nonexistent Japanese skills, correct me if I’m wrong). The fact he’s in elementary school is a bit more incidental than anything.
We learn the most about Astra’s family and upbringing compared to the other characters, and it is central to his arc. We get a lot of information straightforwardly in the show. He had a lot of pressure on him as the heir to the school, and felt pressured to act the part of the perfect heir. Throughout the show we see him struggle with the pressure of being the heir. As a child he was extremely dedicated to following his father's footsteps. He didn’t seem to see himself as anything other than the heir to his father's school. He seemed set apart from other children, seemingly due to the closed-off way he acted. This dedication to being a good heir was to the detriment of his happiness. Until Musimon came into his life allowing him to loosen up and seek his own happiness. Classic stuff. But Astra is a little more at war with himself than may be obvious by his “annoying” attitude.
While we first learn about Astra suppressing his own eccentricities, in his debut episodes, it’s not until later that we learn about his mother, and learn that this side of his personality didn’t come out of nowhere. His mother is very similar to him, which gives us the question of why he ever became so disciplined in the first place if his behavior isn't out of place in his family, and his mother is a strong advocate for him doing his own thing. In fact, Astra seemed initially a bit embarrassed by his mother when he introduced her to the other Appdrivers. Of course this is almost certainly because his mother calling his friend “pretty” and gushing about her husband and how they met is embarrassing, and even if Astra himself acts just as obnoxious. But even so, he's clearly less respectful towards her. The reasons behind why Astra calls his mother by her first name are unclear, though it doesn't seem to stem from a lack of love for his mother.
But regardless, it helps build the idea that more likely, he was trying to win the approval of people outside his immediate family. After all, as shown in episode 7, it was the assumption that Astra would inherit the school by others that prompted Astra’s response to his father. Even if Astra’s father does have a desire for Astra to inherit his position, he also understands that it's first and foremost Astra’s life to live. Astra however does have a lot of respect for his father and seems to value his opinion immensely, he recognizes that not inheriting the school would be disappointing to his father and does not want to disappoint him. So while I think there is something to be said for Astra’s behavior relating to a desire to impress his father, I don’t personally think it's the origin in its entirety.
Astra over the course of the series is very independent and marches to his own beat, Astra, like Eri, had made the first step to change prior to his introduction, but that doesn’t mean he was already completely different from the boy who acted stiff to prove himself to others. Astra’s second episode deals with him succumbing to peer pressure in his new activity, and his final episode is about not succumbing to his uncle's expectations, the old expectations that kept him down for so long. (But it's also a bit about fulfilling Hinarin’s expectations, expectations he agreed to).
Despite Apptubing being the career choice where Astra does as he pleases, his final episode isn’t about him Apptubing because he wants to but as a way to help someone else. Particularly his cousin. While it isn’t explicitly clear if Astra knows it’s his cousin the fact of the matter is that he’s helping his family through his Apptubing, even if it is something he picked up for himself. (A reasoning perhaps parallels Eri’s reasons for being an idol, wanting to bring smiles to her mom, despite it clearly being something she herself enjoys). His care for his family is exactly the reason he continues to train to be the heir, but that doesn’t mean even if he doesn’t uphold expectations that he can’t be a help to his family.
Astra’s arc deals with expectations vs. a desire to help. Astra in large part is assertive about not having to help other people out and doing his own thing, recognizing he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to. But his actions consistently betray his care for others. I think this is most evident in the way Astra acted as if he wasn’t going to help Eri out with her elections, but did so anyway, even if he antagonized her a bit in the process, but ended up being the proudest of her accomplishments. Not to mention the way he continues to train as the heir, albeit on his own terms. Over the course of the series, he becomes more open with his care towards others, culminating in the jailbreak episode, but he’s always been shown to care. He’s finding that balance between living his own life and helping others.
It’s clear that Astra doesn’t hate being heir at least. He’s extremely determined to do both. And personally, I think it’s very possible that he sees Apptubing as a hobby. He after all proposed the half-hour limit himself. Even at the beginning with his most abrasive. He dutifully kept it to a relatively small impact on his life. For all that it’s brought up as an important element in his life, and he is shown breaking his own rule on occasion without consequence. One of the longest times we see him Apptubing is when he’s helping Eri out. Of course on the flip side of that, we have episode 8 where he breaks the rule because his videos aren't doing as well as he likes, but that's definitely tying back to his desire for people's approval. While he is for lack of a better word, tempted into giving up training to be an iemoto to dedicate himself to Apptubing, it isn’t something he seems to seriously consider at all.
The biggest thing Musimon gave him was not the courage to be an Apptuber, but the courage to be himself. Indulging in Apptubing for fun is merely a small part of that. Astra is still the good heir, but he is no longer letting that define his entire life, sometimes forgoing certain parts of training. But that doesn’t mean that tea ceremony is a bad part of his life. There’s also a certain balance in his personality between the abrasive “annoying” boy at the start of the series and the passive boy prior to the show's beginning. I don’t feel that the polite Astra is completely disingenuous. Astra is capable of acting calm and grounded, and this side of himself becomes more apparent as the series goes on, particularly with Eri who, in contrast to him, throws herself into her idol career with more and more genuine passion. When he supports Eri with his videos but asks her to take a break, which tracks with what we know about his fathers working habits. It’s his final focus episode where he is shown to be acting, more in someone else's interest, and even shown to be a bit embarrassed by it. In contrast to an Astra who even in episode 19, was not taking much seriously. I think it’s only fair to say Astra did genuinely inherit some of his father's more grounded and dutiful nature.
And while earlier I did say Astra’s age feels incidental, I don’t think that is to say it has no bearing on his role in the story. It's part of the reason Eri is so dismissive of him at first, Sure, the other’s treat him as equal, and are in no way particularly protective of him, nor do they expect him to be any less capable than him. But this isn’t to say Astra’s relative youthfulness isn’t apparent when with the others at least in the beginning. Astra is definitely on the more immature side of things, he after all is the one who started the rivalry with Eri because his ego was bruised (not that Eri's initial dismissal of him was helping matters any). As I said earlier, Astra mellowed as the show progressed and I think it’s a fair assumption to say he’d continue to do so. Not that he’ll lose his energy, but that he’ll be able to act with more maturity and consideration for others. The most common complaint about him I’ve heard is “annoying”, which is understandable. But that’s not accidental, even in-universe (hah), others seem to find him to be a bit much at first at the beginning of the series. His “annoying” personality is him testing the waters beyond the role of dutiful heir he’s always played. He’s annoying because he’s an 11-year-old boy who does not always know how to act in ways appropriate to his situation. He’s the kid of the group. I do understand if that still makes watching irritating. Watching should be fun after all, but it’s more of a matter of opinion than an objective flaw.
Unlike Gatchmon, Offmon, and Dokamon whose personalities seem to clash a bit with their buddies, Musimon and Astra are consistently on the same page, after episode 8. This is exemplified in episode 29, where Musimon runs away for fun rather than because he wants something from Astra, and Astra is the only partner who seems to have not been worried, recognizing what Musimon was doing. Of course, their fight in episode 8 was about Astra not being true to himself, thus naturally conflicting with the one who is on the same page as his true self. Musimon shares Astra’s high energy but caring nature. I’m not an expert on the Japanese language by any means, but there is something notable about the fact Musimon uses “Boku” to Astra’s usual “Ore”. Musimon and Astra are without a doubt very similar, the only difference in their demeanors being Musimon is perhaps a bit less confrontational. If Musimon being Astra’s buddy says anything about Astra, it’s probably that Astra is by his nature not quite as aggressive as he seems. Which for someone who clearly used to takes people's opinions of him to heart, seems about right.
Astra’s arc is all about expectations, expectations as an Apptuber, and as the heir. Astra living up to, or disregarding expectations based on what he believes is best. Living the life he wants to live.
Some final observations from me in regards to Astra, is that he’s paired with Fakemon for God Grade. While it’s probably in part just how things worked out logistically, it also makes a bit of sense as a foil. Fakemon is constantly being disingenuous, while a huge part of Astra’s arc is being true to himself, while also fulfilling other people's expectations of him. Also of note, Entermon is described as a Digimon who exists wherever you can find culture something that is particularly relevant to Astra.
While being biracial is not directly important to the story, it’s not incidental and clearly is thematically related to him being trapped between the traditional and the modern Japan. While in story Astra’s story is simply about outside expectations of inheritance, It’s possible to read Astra prior to the series as trying to overcompensate for his foreign mother in the eyes of the people at his father’s school. This is something I find notable considering that Appmon’s assistant producer, Akari Yanagawa, went on to become the producer of 2019’s Star Twinkle Precure, a season of Precure notable for the franchise's 2nd biracial cure, whose personal arc more obviously alluded to racism than Astra's, though still very indirectly.
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Light Novel Club Chapter 32: The Faraway Paladin, Vol. 1
Welcome to our Light Novel Club discussion of The Faraway Paladin, Vol. 1! We’ve got a fairly unique light novel to discuss this time around, and this is a great time to discuss it, with an anime adaptation coming up soon and also the recent announcement of hardcover print editions for the series. So let’s jump into the discussion!
Joining Jeskai Angel and I is marthaurion, one of the members of the Beneath the Tangles Discord! This is a reminder that all Light Novel Club discussions are held on the public Beneath the Tangles Discord and anyone can join these discussions, so if you want to join future discussions, check us out over there.
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1. What are your overall thoughts on the novel?
Jeskai Angel: The pacing was a little slow at times, but overall I enjoyed this light novel. Also, it bugs me that I can’t narrow down a specific reason, but this story felt strangely old, like I might have picked it up at the public library back in 1998. I’ve written before about how I think Unnamed Memory doesn’t “feel” like a typical light novel, and I experienced a similar sensation with Faraway Paladin, though I don’t think it was for the same reasons (e.g., how magic works is actually explained quite a bit in Faraway Paladin).
stardf29: Maybe it’s because the author took inspiration from traditional tabletop RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, as opposed to video game RPGs like “typical” fantasy light novels?
Jeskai Angel: Ooh, that’s possible! It’s not exactly “You all meet in a tavern,” levels of DnD tropey-ness, but I can definitely see the DnD resemblance now that you point it out.
stardf29: This was definitely an interesting read that is quite different from the usual isekai light novel. It does feel a bit slow-paced because a lot of the beginning is so focused on Will simply growing up with his “parents” and learning about the world. That said, that kind of start is nice every once in a while; it is kind of like Mushoku Tensei in that regard. The worldbuilding is great because of it, and the conflict against the god of undeath is nice, too.
Beyond that, I do like how this story delves into various themes that are worth thinking about. It’s a nice, thoughtful light novel, and as much as I like my brainless fun light novels, having something like this is good for a balanced light novel diet.
2. What are your thoughts on the characters?
Jeskai Angel: By far, my favorite aspect of this story was the active role the gods played. It actually sort of resembles my favorite aspect of Spice and Wolf in that regard. In most light novels, either there’s no evidence gods are real, or they are deistic watchmakers who jump-start the story by isekai-ing the MC but thereafter take a hands-off approach to the setting, or they are benign comic relief. The biggest exceptions I can think of are Invaders of the Rokujouma!? and Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, plus Tearmoon Empire (which, thus far, has strongly-implied-but-not-explicitly-confirmed divine intervention).
I think one way to summarize this volume is that it’s the story of someone (Will) coming to know and put his faith in a loving deity (Gracefeel). Since learning about the Lord and then choosing to devote oneself to him is fundamental to being a Christian, it’s actually kind of a relatable process. Gracefeel, as a character, walks a fine line, managing to be knowable while remaining mysterious. She’s not just a human with superpowers, but neither is she a total enigma. She’s also a rare truly benevolent god; her power is finite, but she consistently seeks to use it for good.
Stagnate was…peculiar. Like, if the author had added a line about Stagnate twirling his mustache while cackling evilly, it would have fit right in; he acts almost ostentatiously villainous. At the same time he, doesn’t feel quite as “evil” as he acts. He DID help with sealing away the demon king, and even if he had an ulterior motive, that doesn’t entirely invalidate the goodness of aiding the struggle against the demon king. Then there’s issue of death. Stagnate isn’t wrong to see death a Bad Thing (TM). I got the the sense that he really had at least somewhat good intentions behind his flawed approach to the problem of death. Even his nefarious scheme to ensnare Blood and Mary consisted of…arranging for them to raise the child they’d always longed for. Like, as far as villainous plans go, “Give a childless couple a baby so they can shower him with love” isn’t actually all that fiendish. I can’t be too hard on Stagnate if that’s the best he can do for an “evil” plan.
marthaurion: For what it’s worth, I don’t really think I got the same impression of stagnate as being overtly evil, but maybe I wasn’t focusing on that at the time. From what I read, it seemed like his motivations were rooted in a concept that made sense, but his implementation ultimately brings him at odds with others.
stardf29: I have to agree that Stagnate is not so much “intentionally evil” as much as a sort of “well-intentioned extremist”. I think it’s interesting that Stagnate was originally a “good” god, but would later “stray from that path”; it shows that, putting the initially “evil” gods aside, the gods are not actual moral paragons and are indeed falliable. I’ll have more to say on this in a later question.
Jeskai Angel: Will was surprisingly relatable. The way he described himself, I got the impression that he suffered some real trauma which caused depression or anxiety or some other form of mental ill health, and as one commonly sees in anime / light novels, he never got adequate psychological / psychiatric treatment for it. I also appreciate that his past-life memories were important yet not intrusive. By that, I mean that the story spend a bunch time dwelling on Will’s efforts to replicate modern technology, business practices, or Japanese food culture the way so many isekai protagonists do. That sort of thing is sometimes done well, but other times just feels like a cookie cutter isekai trope. Memories from his past are both inspiring and useful for Will, but they can only carry him so far, something he explicitly notes when talking about how Gus’s lessons eventually surpassed his past-life education level.
Will eventually does end up as an OP Isekai Protagonist (TM), but it feels “earned” in a narrative sense. He puts forth a ton of effort to reach the point of being OP, and even then, it’s not just efforts that make it possible. He never could have reached the point he did without all the care and teaching Blood, Mary, and Gus give him. Mater and Gracefeel also contribute to what he becomes. He isn’t just handed phenomenal cosmic power from the start.
marthaurion: For my impression of will, it was hard for me not to draw parallels to Mushoku Tensei, since both protagonists come from that similar thought of feeling like they want to make something more of themselves in their new lives. It’s hard not to feel like Will’s reincarnation is more of an afterthought whenever it comes up, whereas Rudy’s reincarnation seems to more actively inform many of his decisions. Ultimately, it seems like Will’s reincarnation is mostly meant to tie him to Gracefeel. To be fair, i think this is fine, but the other attempts to tie back to his old life don’t really hit home for me.
Also, I would agree that will’s abilities definitely feel earned, in spite of what I said earlier about how I compare him to Rudy.
It’s more of a commentary on how the reincarnation aspect ties into things.
Jeskai Angel: I haven’t read the Jobless Reincarnation light novels, and only watched the first few episodes before dropping the recent anime adaptation. That said…the big contrast I saw between Will and Rudy is that the former is a relatively good person and the latter is a relatively awful one. I got the distinct sense that Rudy, was a Jabba-the-Hutt-like sleazeball in his previous life, AND that he carried over his perverted habits into his reincarnated life. In that regard, at least, Rudy didn’t even seem to be trying to do better than in his previous life. Perhaps I’m off base in this, and Rudy wasn’t as bad as in his first life as the anime made him seem, or perhaps he eventually turns better in his second life. I just know that in terms of comparisons, I found Will vastly more sympathetic and likeable.
marthaurion: Is that so wrong? Even if I don’t have the same traits, I can respect that Rudy carries over parts of his identity while working past some of the traumas that held him back.
stardf29: Regarding Will, honestly, I don’t really have anything to add here that Jeskai hasn’t already said. I like how his past life memories have enough of an effect on his current self that you’re curious what his past life was life, but not so much that I want the story to actually explain it, leaving that in the realm of fascinating mystery.
Jeskai Angel: I appreciated how each of Blood, Mary, and Gus contributed something irreplaceable to Will’s upbringing. They were well balanced, and had a fun rapport with each other. I also thought it was a fun touch how the story emphasized that some of their knowledge was dated and they don’t really know anything about the current state of the world. I can’t help but suspect all three are some kind of allusion to Christianity, due to in their names. First, having a woman named Mary who ends up with a baby through unnatural means is…not remotely subtle. And once you’ve introduced that, the names of the other two start to seem suspiciously coincidental. “Blood” is in fact a very important thing in Christianity (e.g., the Lord’s Supper / Eucharist). And Gus isn’t in the Bible by his nickname, but “Augustus” (of the Caesar variety) does get a shout-out in Luke 2:1.
stardf29: Man, Blood, Mary, and Gus are great. They are such a great parental trio, with each of them having aspects that are different from each other that allow them to balance each other out, which overall makes them quite good at raising Will. It definitely made me sad that their time with Will ultimately had to come to an end. And I definitely found the use of “Mary” for the mother’s name strangely familiar…
Someone took some creative liberties with their nativity display.
3. What do you think about the setting/worldbuilding in this volume?
Jeskai Angel: Now that you’ve said it, the worldbuilding and setting seem clearly inspired by tabletop RPGs (or video games closely based on tabletop RPGs, like Baldur’s Gate or something), which in turn drew from older western fantasy works (from Greek mythology to Tolkien). It contains a lot of traditional elements, and the end result is something that in one sense feels creative and unusual compared to typical fantasy light novels, but in another sense more derivative than many other fantasy light novels. That is, light novels that don’t draw so heavily on traditional fantasy have room to sometimes do some really interesting things, whereas Faraway Paladin never completely loses that familiar “I think I might have read this in the ’90s” vibe I mentioned before.
marthaurion: I really liked how magic was presented in this world. It feels more grounded to think of it as something that isn’t guaranteed to succeed in a general sense. With that presentation, Gus’s philosophy of choosing words that have the safest failures rather than the most effective successes makes a lot of sense. It truly makes magic feel like a feat of intelligence, rather than just a question of how well you can time or aim the spell, as is the general impression in other fantasy settings.
As for the pantheon, I’m less familiar with kind of the “official” pantheons for D&D, so I didn’t immediately draw that parallel. I felt the similarities to Greek/Roman mythology a lot more strongly when I was reading, where the gods are just presented as very powerful beings that preside over processes.
stardf29: As mentioned before, the current highlight of the worldbuilding is in the gods and how they relate to the people of the world. I do like how the worldbuilding is presented over time, as if we are learning about it alongside Will. This is especially notable since this first volume only takes place in a small area geographically, so there’s still a lot of world for us to learn as Will explores outside the city of the dead.
Also, I like how magic in this world works. It’s not just “oh yeah people can use magic,” nor is it too videogame-like or overly “scientific”. There’s a greater sense of mystique thanks to the connection to the “Words of Creation”, and even Will himself mentions it’s more like classic fantasy novels in this way.
Now, about those gods. As I mentioned before, the “good” and “evil” designation of gods is not static, and that does make me wonder a few things. For one, what exactly defines what makes a god “good” or “evil”? Gus does say at one point that he considers those designations something that their followers, i.e. the people, decided, and that makes me curious as to the greater religious sociology of this world. It also makes me wonder if there are any cases where an “evil” god ends up being more “good”…
4. What connections does this volume’s story have with our Christian faith?
Jeskai Angel: The conflicting divine approaches to death provide fascinating contrasts with the third possibility Christianity teaches. Gracefeel represents reincarnation with no memories. Life ends in death, but then restarts from scratch. In this system, a soul is basically an Etch A Sketch, getting erased & reused over & over. I find this a deeply unsatisfying concept because it makes one’s life meaningless. It doesn’t matter what you do, eventually you’ll die & get erased & nothing about you will carry over. This approach leaves no room for reward or judgment. It actually reminds me a bit of some of my issues the versions of predestination/election found in some circles of Christianity, in that by say God absolutely predetermines the outcome, they risk making this life meaningless.
Stagnate has beef with this, & thus offers undeath as an alternative to reincarnation. Your identity won’t get erased, but you’ll be stuck as some damaged or half-destroyed version of yourself (e.g., a skeleton, zombie, or ghost) that isn’t truly alive. By offering some degree of continuity, Stagnate’s undeath does have an advantage over Gracefeel’s soul recycling bin. Unfortunately, it’s rightly called ‘undeath,” not “life.” The solution to death needs to be life, so in that respect Gracefeel’s approach has an edge over Stagnate’s.
Finally, there’s Christianity, promising a transformative bodily resurrection. Gracefeel & Stagnate only have workarounds to the problem of death; they can’t do anything about death itself. On the other hand, in the person of Jesus, Life directly challenges & overcomes death. In the resurrection, we will still be ourselves in some meaningful sense, unlike Gracefeel’s reincarnation. But unlike with Stagnate’s static, flawed imitation of life, we will be truly alive as transformed, perfected versions of ourselves. In short, the contrast between Gracefeel’s reincarnation & Stagnate’s undeath really drives home how awesome our Lord’s promise of resurrection is.
stardf29: So one of my favorite moments in the novel is when Mater protects Mary, and shows that Mary’s “punishment” was entirely self-inflicted, and that Mater had long forgiven her. It’s a good picture of grace, and how we can sometimes believe we are being “punished” by God, and perhaps even try to punish ourselves, even though God has already satisfied all need for “punishment” through Christ’s death. Sure, we have to deal with consequences of our actions, but that is not some kind of divine judgment.
Now, this story’s theological worldbuilding is based on the idea that “if good is created, then evil must be created to balance it”. There’s also how Will feels like he needs to fear death in order to feel like he truly is living, in opposition to Stagnate who wants to remove death entirely. It’s this idea of “balance” that I think comes from one of the major Eastern religions (will have to do some more research on this) and is fairly popular in fantasy works. It’s certainly a nice-sounding idea, but I think Christianity shows how we can look forward to a future without death, and not feel like we’re “missing” something because of that.
The contrast with Stagnate, as Jeskai pointed out, is particularly helpful because it shows that eternal life, separated from God and His perfect design for life, is pretty crappy. (And I have to agree that Gracefeel’s reincarnation of souls feels rather empty.)
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Thank you for checking out our discussion on The Faraway Paladin, Vol. 1! The series is available digitally from J-Novel Club if you want to buy this volume or any later volumes for yourself, with a hardcover print edition planned for release in March 2022.
Discussion on our next Light Novel Club title, Tearmoon Empire Vol. 4, has started on the Beneath the Tangles Discord! The discussion will be open throughout the month of August, so there’s still time to read the series and join our discussion.
If you want to prepare for the novels we are discussing later in the year: In September 2021, we will be discussing Sword Art Online: Progressive, Vol. 1! And if you want to know what we are discussing in October 2021… we will be discussing the next novel in the “Rascal Does Not Dream…” series, Rascal Does Not Dream of Petite Devil Kohai!
#Light Novels#Christianity#The Faraway Paladin#Saihate no Paladin#BtT Light Novel Club#Articles#Author: Jeskai Angel#Author: stardf29#Author: marthaurion
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A “perfect” ending?
Thank you for Asking, @strangerbylerss ! I was a Tumblr amateur once again, and I accidentally tried to save your Ask as a Draft and it disappeared. Thankfully, I’ve started taking screenshots of all Asks so I don’t lose track of them so I’m replying in a post like this.
What do I envision as a “perfect ending” that the public would say is not forced that involves Mike and Will falling in love and becoming a couple? Well. As you probably have noticed, I already see Mike and Will’s strong bond as canon and as an essential part of the very structure of the entire series. I personally believe that any other ending would feel forced and as though the writers had diverged from their original plans that they foreshadowed in seasons 1, 2, and 3. But! I respect that my opinion on that topic is controversial in the context of the popular fandom understanding of the series thus far, and I am happy to describe my thoughts on the direction that the series might take next, how that might involve Mike and Will’s relationship, and what I would personally like to see addressed in the story by the end of season 5.
It is, of course, important for the writers to explore Mike and Will’s relationship from this point forward in a way that continues to be consistent with the established Stranger Things universe and any canon details that we have been given so far in the first three seasons. I think Mike and Will have quite a lot of hurdles to get through, but that those hurdles are an intrinsic part of the story and that they will be addressed in the final seasons. Whether they face their challenges together earlier on, or whether those challenges need to be dealt with before they feel comfortable admitting their feelings for each other, remains to be seen. I have a hunch, however, that the mysterious events and odd happenings with the Mindflayer are directly connected to what Will is struggling with in the story, and as such it only makes sense that in the process of confronting the Mindflayer and conquering the personal issues that Will is dealing with that he will also inevitably confront his feelings for Mike.
I trust the Duffer Brothers and the writing team behind Stranger Things to continue telling a great story just as they have been thus far. Season 4 and 5 will undoubtedly feature more monsters and strange happenings around Hawkins, the Upside Down, and now wherever Hopper is (presumably Russia) and wherever the Byers Family has moved to. I am wary of hypothesizing too far into plot-related specifics since I think that's entirely dependent on the writers' creative decisions and something that could take many different paths, but I'm happy to share a very general idea of one route that I could envision the story taking that I think could be very satisfying.
Hints and clues in the series so far suggest that Will is dealing with a lot of trauma, and I believe that there is evidence that Will is also dealing with a significant amount of internalized homophobia. Canonically, the Mindflayer is implied to be connected to Will's emotional state in some way or at the very least heavily influences it. Will is pulled into the Upside Down in season 2 when he is afraid: first while trick-or-treating when startled by the bullies in masks, and again when at school and frightened by Dart in the bathroom. Will senses the Mindflayer in season 3 while watching Mike and El holding hands on the hill as they walk home, and he senses the Mindflayer while at the movies alone with Mike. I hypothesize that these season 3 moments in which Will senses the Mindflayer are specifically triggered by Will’s intense fear and anxiety over his repressed feelings for Mike. I believe that by the end of the series Will has to confront many of his fears in order to effectively deal with the Mindflayer, and his internalized homophobia is a significant source of fear and anxiety for him. I theorize that he will have to face his feelings for Mike eventually, and that it is actually a critical part of the logical resolution of the story.
Mike, meanwhile, has his own challenges. We are led to understand that Mike has a lot of deep insecurities and wants to be loved and accepted by other people, and also very much cares about doing the “right” thing. As rebellious as Mike can sometimes act, you can tell that he values the respect of his friends and he also might feel like he needs to live up to his strict and orderly parents’ expectations in order to be loved. I might be projecting a bit here, but while growing up in a household that was very strict and had lots of rules, I often felt like if I broke a rule or if I didn’t live up to my parents’ expectations that their love might actually be revealed to be entirely conditional someday.
For Mike and Will to end up together in a way that I would consider narratively consistent with the themes in Stranger Things so far, I believe that season 4 and season 5 need to address:
Will’s trauma
Will’s severe internalized homophobia
Mike’s insecurities and his desire for love and approval
their separation now that the Byers Family moved out of Hawkins
The perfect ending, for me, would involve Will finally starting to confront his trauma and any parts of his past that are haunting him in the present, and working through his internalized homophobia and the ghost of his father’s abuse. I would hope to see Mike recognizing that even if people don’t approve of what he wants to do with his life that he will ultimately be much happier when he is honest with himself and with others about his feelings and who he is regardless of what society expects. I think that Karen Wheeler will be particularly happy that her son is able to understand this in a way that she struggled to when she was younger.
If I were to predict the chronology of certain plot-points: I might guess that in season 4 we will follow Mike figuring out his feelings for Will while in Hawkins, and that Will would be working through his trauma and dealing with the Mindflayer with El and Joyce and Jonathan wherever they’ve relocated to. Will, in all likelihood, is probably still under the heartbreaking impression that Mike does not return his feelings, that being queer means that he will never have the chance to be happy like his friends, and that he is alone and unworthy of romantic love. We might see a rather angsty contrast between Mike realizing his feelings for Will while in Hawkins and becoming more passionately confident about it, while Will is off on his own facing horrible things and convinced that Mike will never return his feelings. (The drama!) At some point, the adventures in Hawkins will probably collide with the adventures with the Mindflayer once again, and the cast will be reunited through various twists of fate. When reunited, Mike might be prepared to confess his feelings for Will but plans could be thrown awry as sinister plots unfold and antagonists gain the upper hand in the season’s latest conflict. Since it is the penultimate season, I wouldn't be shocked if they leave us with a grittier cliffhanger than even season 3 and Hopper's (incorrectly) presumed death.
I think there’s any number of ways that the writers could address the main conflict in the series while also addressing the emotional conflicts of the story and offer us a very satisfying conclusion to both over the course of season 4 and season 5. I’ve given you a peek into one of many different hypothetical scenarios that I’ve imagined might take place and that could work, but I trust that whatever route the Duffer Brothers decide to take with the story that it will be excellent.
In conclusion: the perfect ending for Stranger Things, for me, would involve Hopper, Will, El, and Mike (and everyone else!) being safe and healthy and happy and confronting their fears, their traumas, and their feelings while being honest with their loved ones and themselves about what matters most to them. And I do think this will involve Mike falling in love with his friend that went missing in November 1983, and them living a very happy life together for the rest of their days.
Thank you for your Ask!
*Edit: I realize that I should briefly address Mike and El’s former dating relationship since oftentimes fans see their rom-com drama in season 3 as the largest hurdle between Mike and Will becoming a couple by the end of the series. I see Mike and El’s dynamic, and El and Will’s eerie connections to one another, as being an intrinsic part of the emotional journey of self-discovery and self-love that Mike and Will are going through. I believe that El and Will's stories are intertwined and that they are not entirely independent from each other. I won’t elaborate in this post, but you can read some of my thoughts on Will and El’s connection to each other here and you can read my opinion of Mike and El’s current dynamic here. In short: I don’t see Mike and El’s relationship as being in direct conflict with Mike and Will becoming a couple, I actually see Mike and El’s dynamics as frequently directly supporting the theory that Mike has feelings for Will. @kaypeace21 also has an excellent write-up on the way that El and Mike’s break-up in season 3 directly parallels Will and Mike’s fight, and the way that the tone of those scenes reveal Mike’s feelings. You can read that here.
#byler#stranger things theory#stranger things#stranger things 4#will byers#mike wheeler#byler is real#byeler#byler is canon#stranger things analysis
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Questions for OC Creators
Shamelessly stole this from @tarberrymentats‘ post because I’m always a sucker for behind-the-scenes character inspiration and meaning stuff, so if you steal this in turn, feel free to tag me!
(I’m also stealing Halk’s usage of lovely art by @yesjejunus for this one 🖤)
Agnes Sands, Courier Six of the Mojave Express
A) Why are you excited about this character?
Agnes was an opportunity to create what felt like a very unorthodox OC, and it’s an opportunity that has certainly paid off. She’s not young, and she’s not a particularly pleasant or easygoing person to be around, but she’s also not the endearingly tragic loner type or a badass army-of-one. She’s not “spunky” or “fun” and isn’t the kind of Fallout character who’s necessarily motivated to do every quest, meet every companion, accomplish every thing. She’s not an important person; being an important person is anathema to her, and the looming, overarching themes of It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’ are these ideas of the hard limits on unlikely heroism, and how you really can’t fly that far on circumstance and luck. I’m very excited for everyone to see how it goes when the going gets tough.
Furthermore, the design and writing process for Agnes was very informed by finding justifications, reasons, and origins for all of her personality traits, skills, and various hang-ups. The result is a character that feels, to me, so deeply real and well-rounded and alive, that Agnes is a person who has lived every one of her 34 years of age, and that in each of those years were key developments that molded her into the person she is. When I write her, I feel like I know her because of how intimately I’ve researched and come to understand the life she’s led. I don’t want to say it comes effortlessly, but there’s a very genuine, sculpted depth to her character that I’m proud of, and it forms the bedrock of It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’.
It is also very important to me that Agnes is a trans woman, and is a trans woman who looks the way she does with a strong jaw and a big nose and long face and a wide body and hairy arms and so many other “masculine” features, because I wanted to create a character with a very real, visceral, visible transness to them, and for this transness to be a meaningful part of her character that informs her relationship to other people and the scarce world of the Mojave Wasteland instead of just an auxiliary character trait. She is no less of a woman for existing the way she does, but I simply wasn’t interested in creating a character or interpreting the Mojave Wasteland in a way that wouldn’t meaningfully grapple with what it really feels like, to me, to be a trans woman.
B) What inspired you to create them?
Many of Agnes’ character traits actually come from mechanical and specialization decisions that I play in game. I often joke that Agnes “just plain sucks,” but it’s true that in my Fallout: New Vegas game, I have encumbrance set to a measly 25 lbs without backpacks (necessitating her shoulder-slung duffel bag), use a directional flashlight instead of the Pip-Boy light (necessitating the shoulder-mounted flashlight), play with dramatically decreased total S.P.E.C.I.A.L. and skill points per level (which is why she’s so bad-to-average at most things except key specialties), and so on. This was the most obvious level of inspiration, and much of Agnes’ personality and backstory is reverse-engineered to justify the aspects of her character suggested and represented by her mechanical stats.
C) Did you have trouble figuring out where they fit in their own story?
Epiphanies have come over time, but ultimately I more or less hammered out Agnes’ whole “story” upfront. I have a detailed character bible saved away that covers not only her entire life pre-courier, but the story beats of her experience as the courier thrown into the center of the events of Fallout: New Vegas and the seismic geopolitical power plays leading up to the second battle of Hoover Dam. So, uh, stay tuned for each new issue of IKROAH!
D) Have they always had the same physical appearance, or have you had to edit how they look?
I wouldn’t say that I’ve meant to meaningfully change her appearance over time, but as I’ve been working on the comic, I’ve simply gotten better at drawing and the result has been an Agnes that more consistently looks like how I want her to look. One deliberate change to her appearance has been that her hair is a lot fluffier and voluminous than it used to be, just because a few other peoples’ fanart of her would be like that and I really liked how it looked.
E) Are they someone you would get along with? Would they get along with you?
Hard to say. Agnes has such a defensive, prickly, and particular personality and is so shy and anxious that she’s someone very hard to get along with in general, regardless of who you are. Cass could only ply her through a combination of drunken genuineness and total embarrassment that razor-cut right to her trauma. I don’t think I’d have the...audacious wherewithal to be that blunt with her if we’d just met. The best case scenario is that she imprints on me as a younger trans woman and feels compelled to look out for me because if there’s one soft spot she has, it’s that.
F) What do you feel when you think of your OC (pride, excitement, frustration, etc)?
Pride at the amount of work I’ve put into developing her and crafting her story so far, pride at how it’s been such a rewarding and enjoyable vehicle for getting so much better at art and writing since this summer, and occasionally sadness just because, man, I really let her fucking have it sometimes, huh.
G) What trait of theirs bothers you the most?
Her solitary lifestyle made it necessary to find a way to write Cass into the story, just so that there would be some more dialogue while she traveled. She has a lot of interpersonal flaws, her habit of going from totally reclusive and private to hollering mad with no steps in between would certainly be off-putting to me especially. She gets a bad, sad, crying kind of angry, and she doesn’t get there quick but she goes get there suddenly.
H) What trait do you admire most?
She has a dedication to her and a commitment to what she’s good at. She understands the value of stability, good work and a good job. Sometimes this value is so much to her that it keeps her stagnant, and she’s very much a person who’s stuck in their ways in so many regards, but there’s a resilience to her that may not be obvious at first, but that she simply wouldn’t have gotten this far or survived without.
I) Do you prefer to keep them in their canon universe?
Agnes’ story is so tailored to the source material of Fallout: New Vegas that I thought that transplanting her into other AUs would be difficult, but it’s actually been pretty seamless inserting her into the a modern AU with a few friends called Courier House, where instead of being a courier, she kept up her medical training and works as an EMT. That also spun off into a modern zombie AU, which is just fun and tragic in a lot of juicy ways.
I also have a lot of thoughts on an AU in which she makes it to the Commonwealth, in which she’d become Nick’s partner at the eventually-renamed Valentine and Sands Detective Agency, helping to solve cases of burglary and theft, B&E, and advises on various security concerns. She’d also get extremely invested in tracking down missing children. There are a lot of parallels and dramatic development potential between Agnes Sands and Nick Valentine that I’d kill for more time to explore one day.
J) Did you have to manipulate or exclude canon factors to allow them to create their character?
I didn’t have to, no, but I chose to and at least filled in some holes. My theory on transitional health care in the wasteland is all my own (the Followers are the primary manufacturer and distributor of hormones, which can be inefficiently synthesized from Auto-Docs so they’re not impossible to find but are considerably rare) and I’ve taken some liberties in the IKROAH canon so far for convenience, such as Primm never getting taken over by convicts and the Cassidy Caravans buyout offer being a letter at the Mojave Express instead of something she’d have had to get personally from Alice McLafferty later on. Expect a lot more little twists like this in the future.
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what if geralt catches regis looking in the mirror, tells him to close his eyes, and starts softly touching different parts of his face and describing them to him. or he has someone paint a portrait for him to look at instead ;_; im sorry your post made me sappy
It became an odd habit of sorts–checking his nonexistent reflection in the mirror–Regis realizes as he brushes off specks of dust from his jerkin. The standing-length mirror situated in the corner of his crypt had been a bit of an inside joke at first–he was already a vampire living in a cemetery, after all; what was stopping him from indulging in a few more lighthearted jokes? He already felt a secret pleasure at the garlands of garlic and collection of silver utensils he kept in his makeshift abode, so it was only in due time that he picked up an antique mirror from one of the stalls in the Beauclair marketplace, careful to keep the glass wrapped in a heavy, dark green fabric until it safely passed the threshold of his home.
And so the mirror remained, half-hidden in a dusty corner of the mausoleum, a few stray candles on a nearby table offering only a meager flicker of light. Not that Regis needed the candles either, but candles were a very human invention and one the vampire knew made humans feel just a little bit safer. Even if his only human visitor nowadays was Geralt, a witcher who could see perfectly fine in the dark, he had grown accustomed to the warm orange glow, the way the tiny beacons of light reminded him of his time spent amongst humans, learning and growing into the person he was today.
Just as Regis moves to adjust the cuffs of his shirt, he hears it: a familiarly slow heartbeat and with it, the faintest whiff of blood. Not Geralt’s, thankfully, but as the witcher grew closer, Regis could tell that he had recently bathed and cleaned his armor–it was his swords that carried the scent of old blood–both monster and human–a scent that could never be washed out completely. The swords had spilled so much blood despite Geralt’s best attempts at pacifism. He was a kind-hearted man by nature, but he knew when his only option was to kill.
“Hey,” the witcher greets, an easy grin upon his face. He meets his own gaze in the mirror before his eyes dart to the vampire. “Hmm… thought you hated mirrors.”
Regis turns away from the mirror, giving the witcher a fond look. “I hate that I have to avoid them. It’s the same with dogs, sorcerers, and telepaths–I have no hatred for them, I just dislike that I must go out of my way to avoid them.”
“I remember us having this conversation before. Think that was the first time I saw you really smile.”
“Is that so?” Regis begins, “Your memory is impeccable as always.”
“Only for certain things. Certain people,” Geralt replies, giving a tired shrug of his shoulders.
The admission, no matter how casual, sends a pleasant thrum of warmth through the vampire. For a man allegedly devoid of emotions, Geralt had quite a way of expressing them. Regis didn’t bother hiding his teeth as he smiled, lips pulling into a wide, happy grin.
“Careful with those fangs. Someone’s bound to notice,” Geralt teases.
“The only prying eyes here are the dead so I don’t think I have much to worry about.” With a lighthearted roll of his eyes, Regis turns back to the mirror, fiddling with his cuffs yet again.
Geralt’s voice suddenly sounds distant–but perhaps that isn’t the right word. Regis knows what grief sounds likes, the hollowness of it, the way it echoes in the emptiness of what was lost; the witcher’s voice sounds bereaved, but there’s an underlying fondness to it. It’s reminiscent; hopeful, even. “Remember when we first got to Beauclair? How everyone crowded into your room to get ready for the banquet?”
Regis huffs out a laugh. “How could I forget? Angouleme came in brandishing a pair of garden shears and asked me to cut her hair.”
“You even humored everyone with your floating scissors routine.”
Regis grew silent, unable to stop the flurry of memories that Geralt’s words had conjured up.
There was Milva begrudgingly slinking into the chair in front of the mirror to let Regis trim her bangs, expression softening as the rhythmic motions of having her hair cut lulled her into a light doze. When she stirred, she gave Regis a serious look and thanked him for his services. Whether she knew that the vampire had noticed her slipping out into the stables near the palace to cry at night, had noticed the tired bags under her eyes, and had helped her fall asleep peacefully for the first time in weeks, Regis wasn’t sure, but he did know that it wasn’t long until Milva began saving him a seat beside her during breakfast.
There was Cahir, usually silent and pensive, who suddenly showed a polite interest in all things related to Regis’ culture as a higher vampire. It was a unique parallel that they shared, both being sojourners in lands they did not belong to. Beauclair was as close to home as Cahir had been since Ciri–and then Geralt–had spared his life despite his connections to the Nilfgaardian Empire. Perhaps he had simply been feeling homesick as he sat in front of Regis’ mirror, invisible hands carefully trimming the are of his head where an axe nearly severed his scalp from his skull.
Even Dandelion had stopped by his room at some point, waxing poetic about the Duchess while Regis ran a brush through the musician’s long, blond curls. Their conversation drifted easily from topic to topic, spanning the arts and politics until undoubtedly returning to news about their company. Dandelion had always shown a near selfless interest in Geralt’s safety, that much was obvious to Regis, and only solidified that, despite appearances, the man was a genuinely good friend to have.
Then, his mind drifted to Angouleme. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Stygga–he preferred to think of happier times, of happier memories, of the lopsided grins and loud laughter that she brought every day to the breakfast table while they wintered in Beauclair. And, of course, her endearing antics, which only increased in creativity when she realized that Regis had no reflection.
When he finally spoke aloud, his lips twist into a wistful smile. “Ah, that was quite funny, wasn’t it? That was the first time anyone–human, vampire, or otherwise–saw my lack of reflection as interesting, as something to be explored and, dare I say, something endearing about me. I enjoyed having dear Angouleme on my shoulders… even if she did kick me a few times by mistake during her theatrical performance.” Regis pauses, his hands reaching on reflex for the leather strap of his satchel that wasn’t there. Instead, his hands found purchase in the fabric of his jerkin, fingernails scraping harmlessly against the surface. “You know, I would do it all again. Even knowing what I do now, knowing how this all eventually ends, I wouldn’t trade my time with our little rag-tag group for the world.”
“Neither would I,” Geralt affirms, reaching over to squeeze Regis’ shoulder. The vampire was acutely aware of how his touch lingered there, the warmth and weight that radiated from the man’s simple comforting gesture.
The reflection in the mirror shows only the witcher, one hand stretched out into the dark, grasp loose and empty.
“It’s a bit strange, isn’t it?” Regis says. “It’s like I’m not even here. Without a reflection, it almost looks as if you’re talking to a ghost. It was difficult after Stygga to piece my body back together. Even with Dettlaff’s help… I was, well, I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but I was convinced for some time that I was truly dead. There was nothing left of me aside from my consciousness. And once I did grow strong enough to begin the arduous process of becoming flesh and blood again, I had no real memory of myself to work with. I could only build back my appearance based on how I’ve heard other people describe me, of how Dettlaff described me when I was naught but a bloody smear in a dish.”
“Well, I think you did a good job,” Geralt replies, watching his own reflection as he–almost as if driven by instinct, some vestigial trait from the few vampire genes that were added to his mutated genome–reached up to gently cup the right side of Regis’ face. He knew exactly where Regis was, knew him well enough to reach out while his gaze remained fixed on the mirror, as if he was actually there beside him in the glass. It was only when he spoke again that he met Regis’ eyes, voice barely above a rumble. “You look a bit older, a bit more world-weary, but I recognized you immediately.”
Regis immediately leaned into the touch. Here, in the privacy of the crypt, he allowed himself a brief respite. He had spent so long trying to hide parts of himself, to hide the parts of himself that had realized long ago that he had fallen for the witcher. But now, after all the weighty events they had lived through, Regis was tired–and this, the warm hand on his face, the feeling of a sword-callused thumb rubbing absentmindedly at the high point of his cheekbone… it threatened to undo him entirely. He knew Geralt would never so much as point his sword at him now, unable to even think about harming him despite his relative immortality–and yet, the steady, consistent thrum of affection he felt for the witcher? It sometimes felt like it was cutting him to pieces, reshaping him into something that would rather turn into a pillar of ash than never see Geralt again–but it also felt a lot like love. Adoration. A warmth in his chest at the sight of the white-haired witcher, gold eyes lidded in contentment whenever his gaze wandered over to Regis.
“It’s really a shame you can’t see yourself,” Geralt says, hand drifting into Regis’ hair, gently combing a few dark grey locks behind his ear. “But I can help… if you’d let me.”
Regis inhaled sharply, unable to do anything but give a shaky nod of his head, mind spinning. He feared what he might say, what tightly-held secrets he’d divulge for Geralt alone, his thoughts centering upon a simple mantra: I’m not alone in these feelings–I can’t be…
Geralt’s thumb traces the edge of the vampire’s brow almost reverently and Regis can’t help but shiver at the touch. “You’ve got dark, thick eyebrows mixed with a bit of grey and silver. It suits you. You didn’t always have as much grey in your hair as you do now… but I like it. Feels right, somehow.”
The witcher’s hand drifts to the corner of the vampire’s left eye, index finger curled underneath a few black lashes of his bottom eyelid. “Your eyes are dark–almost as black as your eyelashes. It isn’t easy to see the separation between your iris and pupil. It makes it difficult to tell what’s going on in that head of yours sometimes, but I like that. Sometimes it’s too easy to read people. Ah, and you’ve always had a very obvious set of crow’s feet in the corner of your eyes. It just means you’ve smiled plenty. That you’ve been happy, and that even subconsciously, you were aware of the happiness you felt, that you let it show on your face after regenerating.”
He continued, stepping away for only a moment, as if he were trying to put Regis’ entire visage to memory. As if this would be the only time he would get to see him like this again: unguarded, open, hopeful, a vulnerable side that clashed so obviously with his near immortality as a higher vampire. Geralt smiled, drawing closer yet again. “Hmm… your features all together make you look aristocratic. Like I’d see a painting of you in a castle. You’ve got an impressively crooked nose and a sharp jaw. Your cheekbones are high too and you’ve got a few wrinkles on your forehead that make you look distinguished. You’re stunning–you’ve always been stunning. ”
“Geralt…” Regis breathes, tone bordering desperation. “Please…”
Wordlessly, Geralt closed the gap between them with a kiss, hands cupping Regis’ face. The vampire encircled his arms around Geralt’s shoulders, closing his eyes as he felt the tension in his body disappear. There was only the touch of Geralt’s lips against his own, the warmth of his hands against his cheeks, and the heart-tugging realization that he was truly home. It didn’t matter where he was, so long as Geralt was with him. Because Geralt knew him, knew all of him–the dark, the ugly, the cowardly, the parts of himself that kept him teetering on the edge of relapse–and still loved him.
It had always been Geralt who saw him–the one person he trusted to be his mirror, to help him see the parts of himself that were worth loving. And it had made all the difference.
#geralt of rivia#emiel regis#geralt x regis#so sorry this took so long ;v; idk how but the drabble got away from me#love the idea of geralt being regis' own moral mirror so to speak#as well as just pointing out all the physical features he loves#anyway i'll probably edit this more later & upload it to ao3 when i get the chance!! hope y'all enjoy it~#[frantically cleans out drafts]
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My thoughts on... The King: Eternal Monarch
Lee Min-ho as Lee Gon, and Kim Go-eun as Jeong Tae-eul.
Release date: April 17 - June 12, 2020
Episodes: 16
Available on: Netflix
Plot synopsis: On one fateful night of December 1994, the king of the Kingdom of Corea was brutally murdered by his illegitimate brother, Lee Lim. The king’s son, Lee Gon, was spared a similar fate thanks to the timely intervention of a mysterious saviour, who only left behind an identity card belonging to one Lieutenant Jeong Tae-eul. 15 years later, King Lee Gon finds himself transported to the parallel world of the Republic of Korea where he meets Lieutenant Jeong Tae-eul and together they work to uncover a conspiracy across their two worlds.
Rewatch meter: Medium to High
Introduction
The King: Eternal Monarch is the latest work by writer Kim Eun-sook and, since I enjoyed two of her previous works (Descendants of the Sun and Goblin), I was quite looking forward to it. I didn't know actor Lee Min-ho at the time but I recalled Kim Go-eun from Goblin so I was relatively excited to see her in another main role. The pilot episode of the show was great, deftly introducing us to a host of characters and setting up several plot threads in a total runtime of 70 minutes, already incorporating the concepts of time travel and parallel worlds, not an easy task and a much welcome departure from most kdramas on air. Since I am a fan of sci-fi and modern fantasy however, that meant I'd put this show under the microscope so how did it fare?
Related reviews: Goblin
Characters
From left to right: Lee Jung-jin as Lee Lim, Jung Eun-chae as Goo Seo-rung, Lee Min-ho as Lee Gon, Kim Go-eun as Jeong Tae-eul, Woo Do-hwan as Jo Yeong, and Kim Kyung-nam as Kang Shin-jae.
The show enjoys, and suffers from, a host of characters on both worlds, with many actors playing dual roles because of the concept of parallel worlds. This (over)abundance of characters results in most having to play second fiddle to the two leads. In hindsight, a tighter cast would've worked better. A fair few of the characters (e.g. the detective hiding something from his wife, the pregnant lady, the mother of Lee Gon's doppelganger, god kid, and many more) did not ultimately justify their presence other than to set up (underwhelmingly resolved) mysteries to keep the audience engaged. More important characters, like Prime Minister Koo and Lee Lim, sadly never reached their full potential to my mind, being relegated to play more stereotypical antagonist roles in the end. While I can understand this decision with Lee Lim to an extent, it was a shame Prime Minister Koo’s character wasn’t more nuanced. While Lee Min-ho's characterization of Lee Gon has taken some flak I found him to act more or less in line with how a (fictional) king would, one excited at the prospect of having found the woman he's been searching for for most of his life. Kim Go-eun as Jeong Tae-eul was the one who truly delivered on the emotional end of the spectrum, as we all knew she would. Sadly, the character of Luna was more undercooked, and the show could probably have done without her.
Pacing
The all-out battle at the end of Episode 11, with Lee Gon showing off his skill with the sword, is one of the highlights of the show.
While the pacing of the show ramped up considerably towards the end it actually started rather slowly. Lee Gon discovers the Republic of Korea at the end of the first episode, yes, but it is not until the end of Episode 4 that he returns to his kingdom, with a skeptical Jeong Tae-eul in tow. Then, it is at the end of Episode 9 that Lee Gon and Lee Lim have their first encounter, with an all-out battle with Lee Lim's henchmen at the end of Episode 11, and the reveal of the identity of the savior at the end of Episode 13. I was quite satisfied with the show's pacing up until that point but a little worried about how they would tie everything up with 3 episodes left, worries that proved to be justified, as many plot threads were left unresolved or rushed to conclusion without living up to the expectations built up after several episodes. Considering the last episode of the show solves the main conflict in the first 20 minutes, I don't think this faster pacing was justified.
Execution
It is difficult not to conclude the execution of the plot wasn't nearly as tight as it could've been. The show continuously introduced new questions, new mysteries, and new characters, to keep us guessing, to keep us engaged, sometimes to the detriment of the overall storytelling quality. Who is this new character? How does s/he factor in Lee Lim's plan? Who's sending this stuff to PM Koo? What is the significance of the scars? There is no doubt these questions succeeded in keeping us engaged and I have to give it props for that. However, the execution was dragged down from indulging in superfluous characters and plot threads. Park Moon-sik's nightly escapades from his wife are a perfect example, a plot whose resolution was needlessly postponed till the final episode. Removing such plots could've open up time better served to further develop characters, like PM Koo, or explore Lee Lim's plans more thoroughly, an aspect where I feel the show dropped the ball, as these turned out to be contradictory and contrived, helping out the writer more than Lee Lim himself.
Time Travel
Sadly, the execution of time travel is a direct casualty of continuously trying to surprise the audience with new twists or for the sake of pulling at our heart strings. Up until Episode 13, its depiction of time travel lined up perfectly with the concept of a causal loop (e.g. Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban), but then Episode 14 had characters remember new past events in real-time (think of the movie Frequency, with Jim Caviezel and Dennis Quaid), and Episode 15 resurrected a character who should've been dead, among potentially more problematic issues. Time travel is a fictional concept, but even fiction is guided by certain rules and, sadly, the depiction of time travel in The King: Eternal Monarch does not hold up under further scrutiny, what deflated my engagement somewhat. Here I was, trying to understand how the writer had put together the puzzle only to realize some of the pieces didn't line up or were from different puzzles altogether. This was not entirely unexpected, as few stories have used time travel consistently in the past, but I was mildly disappointed, particularly given the writer’s excellent work and attention to detail in Goblin.
Romance
Another highlight of the show, especially if you understand exactly what is going on in this scene.
While I can believe Lee Gon could’ve developed feelings for Jeong Tae-eul after searching for her for 20+years (fans of The Expanse will recall Miller also developed feelings for Julie while searching for her), the beginning of their romance in Episode 5 felt a bit forced. It also struck me as odd when Jeong Tae-eul was the one to declare her feelings of love for Lee Gon in Episode 7 instead of the other way around. In fact, it isn't until Episode 10 that Lee Gon admits his feelings for her in one of the most emotional scenes of the show. Perhaps if the two had switched around their declarations it would’ve made more sense.
In any case, their romantic relationship was cemented from Episode 10 onwards for me, although they had cute couple moments in earlier episodes, with Episode 6 featuring the most heartfelt conversations and interactions. For my part, watching their relationship continue to unfold was one of the highlights of the show, and it certainly delivered in the following episodes. Lee Gon's unyielding quest across time and space to find Jeong Tae-eul again and again was moving, though more powerful in Episode 14 than 16 to my mind, perhaps because of the music, editing, and added emotional impact of Jeong Tae-eul knowing Lee Gon is on his way. Perhaps if Episode 16 had dedicated more than 5 minutes (count them) of its runtime to show Lee Gon constantly leaving the palace to search for and meet different versions of Jeong Tae-eul throughout the years it would've been a lot more impactful, and potentially heartbreaking. Tying it to his appearance at the end of Episode 10 would've made it perfect.
Music
youtube
I hesitate slightly to say the soundtrack for The King: Eternal Monarch is on the same level as that of Goblin (time will tell), but if it's not, it certainly isn't far behind. Songs like "Gravity," "Orbit," and "Maze," or instrumental tracks like "One Day," "My Love and...," "Into the Fantasy," and "The Fantasia of Another Dimension," are a sample of this album's best. Sadly, not all tracks featured in the show are included in the album, such as the variant of “The King” that plays at the end of Episode 15 when Lee Gon bids farewell to Lady Noh. If you're a soundtrack aficionado like I am, I'd suggest you keep this album in your Spotify library or equivalent.
Conclusions
The King: Eternal Monarch is, by no means, a perfect show. It is technically not as good as writer Kim Eun-sook's previous Goblin, which overall covered the topics previously discussed better than The King did. However, that is not to say The King: Eternal Monarch isn't an overall good show as it is, one that boldly incorporates interesting concepts like time travel and parallel worlds to its narrative with ultimately mixed results. The music is great, production values are top notch, and all of the actors’ performances were on point, though a tighter cast would’ve benefited some of their performances. While the romance between Lee Min-ho’s and Kim Go-eun’s characters may be a hard sell for some, at least initially, it ultimately worked for me.
If you haven't watched the show yet and are reading this review now, then I'm sorry that you've missed out on the experience of watching the show week to week, discussing and dissecting it with other viewers, and rewatching episodes scouring for clues, a process it easily lends itself to as opposed to other kdramas. If you're into sci-fi and modern fantasy, then I'd encourage you to give it a watch, bearing in mind the previously discussed caveats. If you're into romance kdramas, set your expectations accordingly. If you're looking for more recommendations on modern fantasy+romance and have already watched Goblin, then allow me to recommend the excellent Hotel del Luna (which I’m currently in the process of reviewing after watching it, what, four times now?). For my part, I'm looking forward to Kim Eun-sook, Lee Min-ho, and Kim Go-eun's next projects.
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At what point in the story you started liking Garou as a character? What was his first impression on you and how did it changed later as the story progressed?
Oooh! What a GREAT question, I’m so glad you asked! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (Cause yes, my perceptions of him certainly did change over time! And that’s one of the fun things I love to see happen with other opm fans too.) So let’s see…*pulls up a chair and shovel to dig thru nearly 5yrs of archives* where to begin~
It was definitely a gradual process (so buckle in, this is gonna be a looong chronological trip thru memory lane. About 3500~ words!)
First impressions
Early on (and cause I’m skeptical to most new characters who I don’t ‘know’ yet), I remember feeling kinda like ‘huh? Who the heck is this guy? This wannabe Hiruma-lookalike (recognizing some of Murata’s recycled Eyeshield 21 char design elements for him) with some silly double Vegeta hair? The hell does he think he’s doing??’ Beyond being kinda incredulous about him, I honestly didn’t really give him much passing thought or attention either, and definitely not anything on a deeper level yet. He was just kinda there (I suppose?), but also out there forcefully (cockily and somewhat annoyingly?) inserting himself as the ‘villain’ into the story at times (which wasn’t really my thing), seemingly WAY in over his head with reckless antics and overambitious about what he was claiming to be and challenging himself to do (which I thought seemed both ridiculous and ironic to set up like that when characters like Saitama exist to directly check/refute his aims).
So at the time I wasn’t fully ‘on board’ or invested much in his story/concept yet cause I hadn’t really seen him…define himself (beyond those first impressions) into his own fleshed-out character. Because he still kept reminding me too much of other characters (I even heard him with Hiruma’s voice) rather than breaking out on his own. Murata’s early art also had yet to really evolve and settle him into his own distinguishable ‘face’ for that matter too (he would though later, when he’d draw ‘Garou’ recognizable as himself and not like…‘Hiruma’s shadow’ anymore). So with all that coming in, it’s hard to ‘see’ or genuinely ‘like’ a char at first when they haven’t done much yet to distinguish themselves from others and grow into their own. (Oho, how time will tell~)
This impression of Garou hadn’t really changed much and continued all thru the Metal Bat fight, by the way. (I actually caught up to the manga around the time Murata introduced MB with the centipedes and was about to start his fight with Garou. Events which weren’t on my highest priority to see either, cause I still mostly preferred seeing Saitama + Genos interact instead.) But on a surface level, I at least knew Garou was fun/impressive to watch and his excitable/feral energy was infectious and entertaining (Murata really knew how to hype him up too), but other than that, I’d yet to really ‘like’ him on his own (enough to talk/blog about) still.
I first eased into reblogging stuff with him back in Oct 2016, which included the first reblog of his back muscles (lol) appreciating how Murata drew him facing Watchdog Man so ksjggh that part of the story (when Murata was teasing their fight) was also when Garou starting having a presence on my blog. :O
First turning point
However, I distinctly remember the first ‘aha I see now’ point in understanding him better was when I did a second reread of the webcomic. (I don’t exactly remember when that was, but probably sometime during the tournament arc when the pace was kinda dragging, so I prob reread the wc around then for fun.) It was around early-April 2017 when I later admitted that (in the tags):
I’ve come to really like Garou, a second read of the webcomic made me fond of him, of his background and ideas he wished to set out and change, his heart was in it and he had his set of morals, but he was young and brashly took the wrong path, I really want to see him return someday now that he's learned better
Cause following the big webcomic reveal at the end of his arc (when Saitama calls him out), going back thru his entire story again you could totally spot all the consistent hints and signs (from both his backstory and actions) ONE sprinkled the entire time, making everything revealed about him true, and not suddenly sprung up outta nowhere. It was finally like ‘aaah, I understand what’s up with him and can sympathize where he’s coming from. Yes that makes sense. :O’ However, this clarity/acknowledgment had yet to shift from simply ‘seeing’ or understanding a thing as knowledge, to actually feeling it (connecting on a deeper/personal level) later. That’ll remain a big distinction.
May 2017, I first started writing some early meta break downs about him, starting with his end-arc parallels in Suiryu’s despair moment and from this, there was acknowledgement how all ONE’s manga additions (up til then this was still all tournament arc stuff) were only building further context towards what’s to come much later on in the webcomic.
June 2017, I started posting stream coverage about him (vs Watchdog Man stuff when he intercepts King and Saitama.) Around this time I also admit this kinda stuff in tags ‘goodness how I love that this nerd has a soft spot for that kid (truthfully he's not monstrous at all)’ for appreciating the manga’s wholesome extra Tareo moments.
Second big turning point
Around Sept-Oct 2017 was when post content/stream coverage kinda started exploding during the whole vs A/B heroes + shed fight. This whole sequence, following the tournament arc, was the first big long-awaited return back to the wc’s script (with style!), but with significant expansions (esp to his character) never seen before. In particular, the bullet shielding moment was changed/revised from him simply standing there in the wc, to Garou protecting Tareo in the shed.
Truly awesome and moving because dang, he selflessly put his life on the line for that ‘Garou the determinator fending off the impossible while protecting a kid ;o;’ Firmly standing up to (injustices) and revealing his solid moral core, like wow, what a guy. <3
Murata’s stream output picked up significantly back then too (compared to his slower pace drawing the previous arcs), so I also admitted: ‘gosh been cheering for Murata's hard work just like Garou's in-chapter determination!’
But also cause this whole fight was like the first actual, legit demonstration (shown, not told) of Garou’s prodigious fighting skills, intelligence, tenacity, resourcefulness, perseverance, etc. Like this is what he’s actually capable of when pushed to the brink; testing the actual quality of his character (showing his true colors) and allowing those merits to shine while under unfavorable, difficult, and desperate conditions. And all impressively done in a way to make the audience both believe it and root for him (presented from his side much like a protagonist? Wild! 8D) It was extremely thrilling and badass (truly that whole shed part was brilliant, narratively and spectacle-wise. As I’ve repeatedly gone back to write about many times and again. :’D) My impressions of Garou around this time:
yoooo boi see I really like Garou, the wild prodigy determinator with a misguided goal, going all out and demonstrating his talent and prowess (even tho he gets in over his head), PROTECTING CHILDREN WHEN HE PRETENDS HE DOESN'T CARE, omfg what a softie (as Saitama would say) :'D, yaaa see he was never a 'real' monster at all, Saitama can see straight through him, and what he REALLY wants to achieve
Dec 2017, first started getting some sporadic Garou anons after the whole epic manga spectacle vs Genos + Bang + EC fight with everyone.
Jan 2018, back when Garou was captured in the MA base and then left to his own devices above ground…things started getting really interesting. Including noticing ONE’s more careful (or perhaps more transparent?) approach to writing Garou’s manga portrayal this time around. Different and more nuanced from the wc for instance, so there were many fascinating contradictions and complexities to uncover (break down meta-wise) about his convictions, beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and how he applied those thru his actions and behavior (revealing decisive acts of character). This was when @gofancyninjaworld also started joining in to discuss and explore Garou’s ongoing dilemma with his goals and mindset. “His heart is in the right place, but his means are not, because at his core, he’s not a monster.” I admitted ‘Garou’s one of the most well-written characters in the story, I feel.’ And I was really looking forward to all the significant changes ONE was doing to make his manga story all the more defined and cohesive than it already was in the wc. That made things extra engaging (when there’s a desire to look deeper into things for fun and excitement for more).
Third turning point
Feb 2018 Oooh man. It was around here, (when Garou saves Tareo from the bullies and confronts RR and Bug God) that I was really starting to feel that shift happening (the impression of him turning into something more), so I had to comment on his ongoing characterization presented thus far (budding into a well-rounded, 3 dimensional character) and how ONE was (re)writing him in a more personal, sympathetic light that made him so easy to root for and genuinely likeable. I was fully AWARE of this happening and what both Murata and ONE were doing to increase his appeal. Admitting the more they revealed of him the more I was falling deeper for him, and fully welcoming it by narrative design. (Like alright let’s goooo! 8’D) Cause it was obvious how much differently and expansive he was getting portrayed vs the wc (with much less moral ambiguity). I said:
“Garou’s not simply a rogue, prodigious teen going on a spiteful rampage with an overconfident, slasher smile. Consistently, he’s been shown what really makes him tic: what gets him serious, passionate, sincere, and desperate – things that force his hand to either fight or defend against, with standards and ideals that he’d put his life on the line for. All of it is great: a variety of expressive emotions and definitive acts of character that all build towards the whole.
Which we’re then left to ponder exactly what that is. Is he truly a villain or a hero? Is he really a troublemaking bad guy or actually a misguided ‘nice guy’? The answer isn’t so black and white; it’s more like a mix of ALL of the above. And I LIKE that. As ONE has presented him, Garou is Garou, and not really someone to align or classify as simply one or the other. He’s in that kind of delicious gray zone where he’s getting put to the brink to show his true colors. And it’s so GOOD and refreshing to see.”
That plus the manga showing his deeper bond with Tareo, his gruffly protective qualities (ok but that’s kinda hot?) and a more sincere showing of his morals (which he refused to budge on no matter what anyone else ordered him to do), brought on all the feels. :’)
Stream coverage + ch commentary devolved to like unintelligible screaming, with some ‘man he’s so fucking cool,’ or ‘damn protective Garou’s SOO good,’ or ‘I swear the more Murata draws of him the more I fall for him like wtf,’ or even the flat out ‘GODDAMMIT MURATA ;A;’ types of suffering reactions, ahaha.
At this point I was all ‘bring on the Garou appreciation; he deserves it; I have a mighty NEED’ but was kinda annoyed/frustrated with the fandom cause there was hardly any recent fan content of him (relevant to his current plot progression, it was all suspiciously dry or old ship-related content I wasn’t interested in cause the plot had moved on, so I was like omg where is everybody, hello?!) It was already a dry spell in between seasons so overall fan content was slow anyway, but it seemed like there were so few actual fans of him (to my confusion?!) So I started making my own content (beyond just the stream coverage and ch reactions/commentary + meta) with the expression posts appreciation.
March 2018. U-uhoh, things (and posting frequency especially) were starting to escalate. His reaction to literally getting backstabbed by the monsters and losing Tareo (his quiet but seething controlled feral rage) definitely had me feeling™ things.
Final nail in the coffin
April 2018 Oshit;; Garou forcefully storming and bulldozing his way thru the MA base, his awesome BIG DAMN HEROES moment rescuing Tareo from Royal Ripper, to his hilarious absolute tsundere™ moment denying it (before running into Rover and immediately protecting the kid again) pretty much destroyed me. This was also like the first time I’d seen ONE make a character go full tsundere mode and pull it off in a genuine comedic way (with the classic ‘it’s not like I came here to save you or anything baka’ line and all) so pfft, that was so much endearing icing on the cake. :’D
At this point someone even asked me who’s my favorite opm character, to which I was all, ‘Garou’s current manga content has been on fire so he’s been quickly skyrocketing into my favs (if he wasn’t there already)!’
But then Murata soon dropped THIS ‘protect the child’ page all with perfect timing, and I was…fucking doomed.
'sugoi ojisan' was pretty much the moment of instant death for me ;A;
my constant reaction to the streams has been that gaijin 4koma meme with laser heart eyes for emphasis, and I'm pretty much losing my ability to articulate much beyond screaming at this rate
Garou’s behavior could then be summarized as ‘a very stubborn and in denial asshole tsundere little shit nerd. <3’ But there was classic ONE heartwarming irony in there too, cause Garou hadn’t fully ‘lost’ his battles either…during those critical times where he actually assumed the role of the ‘hero’ for Tareo instead. (Oho~)
basically Garou is a great character, the more you look into how ONE has built him the more meta af it gets
May 2018 (the long-awaited debut of the wc ‘scarf’ vs Rover towards Garou vs Orochi’s epic wtfshitstorm) lolwhoops~ I finally made the inevitable back muscles compilation while also writing longer, more in depth meta posts about him.
Murata delivered some of the best stream content we’ve seen of him. (Completely on FIRE, both literally and figuratively. And looking back, this was probably some of the most fun Murata’s stream sessions ever got. :’D Was awesome to be a fan tuning in during this time.)
even Murata was doodling chibis of himself freaking out in the margins XD
Delivering content from the pose of peak badassery…to dropping stream doodles of peak heartwarming/cuteness (Garou & Tareo in suits) on the fans for good measure.
bam Murata’s out to kill us with his art ...Murata can you like -maybe- chill? ABSOLUTELY NOT
Basically Murata knew exactly what he was doing, always delivering and servicing the fans (drawing the coke bottle was a fan suggestion too) yet also remaining a huge tease~
Towards S2 and beyond
June 2018, following the Orochi fight, Garou was put on a bus and absent from the manga for a while, so I went back revisiting older content again (rereading the manga for fun) and realizing/noticing/wondering stuff I hadn’t really caught about him before like…oh no why is he cute?? Was he always this way or had my eyes finally opened after everything??? (Cause aside from him being a little shit or a cool badass, he was also a complete dork and a nerd, and an oblivious dummy, and just…that was so…wtf endearing, a full package of fun to enjoy.)
But we soon got clips of Midorikawa’s voice reveal (from the opm drama cd) and all hell broke loose among the resident Garou fans. 8’D Especially cause his voice was ‘dark/smooth/mature/sexy’ as opposed to a higher-pitched, unhinged teen voice many had expected (remember that old Hiruma voice I first thought for him? So interestingly many fanboys were disappointed with this deeper voice casting). But also cause Midorikawa said “I’ll do my best to make Garou even more charming than before,” so we were excited to see Garou’s popularity spike even more cause of s2.
Aug 2018, the s2 key visual revealed with Garou prominently featured up and center and I WAS NOT PREPARED!!! I remember having like a full hyper-incoherent breakdown because of this so…yeaaaaah. 8’D I was all rationalizing,
If anything it’s all Murata and ONE’s fault that (the hype and appreciation for him) feeling’s grown even stronger. He was already a thoroughly fun walking meta source, but the manga made his softer/compassionate moments much more obvious (than in the wc). Just watch as this badass dorky nerd becomes even more hugely popular than he already is!
April 2019 was his anime debut…coincided with his post-arc WEBCOMIC DEBUT AFTER 5 FUCKING YEARS (before he even returned in the manga even) IMPECCABLE timing from ONE, holy shit people lost their minds. Including Murata, who had to draw him too! With all that and the anime airing (adding even more wholesome cute Tareo interactions not seen in the manga), fandom participation (+anons) really started to kick off.
I remember seeing the influx of new fans and how so many (who didn’t ‘know’ him yet either) would unironically label him as genuinely ‘evil’ or a ‘heinous villain’ at face value, which….uhhhhhh were the kinda takes that were hard to take seriously, but I appreciated how ONE’s writing allowed the readers to see and think for themselves as the narrative revealed more (rather than believing everything the characters said or claimed), so it’d only be a matter of time until they ‘saw’ the truth about him too. :’)
May-July 2019 the anime continued airing with fandom activity popping, until August when he finally reappeared and ‘awoke’ in the manga! ;A; After like an entire full year of him mia too. This was also the time frame when all the thirsty (and interestingly meta-hungry) Garou anons started (finding me???) regularly chiming in with fun participation. I was grateful though, cause they prompted certain takes I couldn’t have come up with on my own, and allowed me to think, examine, and explain things much more closely and thoroughly than I had ever posted before. (Yaaay~) Such as looking into just what IS it about him?!
“Garou wouldn’t be as compelling, engaging, and appealing as a character without (all) those other interesting layers and nuances to talk about too! :D It’s even better that way! Cause Murata can draw everyone looking drop-dead gorgeous and conventionally attractive, so just having a pretty face and impressive muscles isn’t enough to make him stand out in a special way from the rest of the cast.
Already all those things (about him) are certainly impressive, so just what is it about him in particular? (That makes him unique.) The fact Garou has all that AND those other compassionate & interesting qualities to him just makes it the icing on the cake for a complete, well-rounded package. The fact we can know him, for all his feelings and attitude why he behaves and acts the way he does, such as when he’s contradictory, troubled and tsundere-like sometimes, to hardcore and badass other times, to softer and empathetic to fiercely righteous, protective and determined other times, and all portrayed in the way he’s capable of the range (and makes us feel) the entire spectrum of emotion too. …Like whoa (I could keep going but I’d be preaching to the choir at that point aha), all that only enhances what’s already there. In this way, I feel the Garou we’ve come to know by now is much more endearing and appealing than the one we were introduced to at the start. Because as he appeared then, he may have seemed like just another wannabe thug-of-the-week we might not have given much passing thought & attention to. But now…uhoh, you could arguably say he’s grown to the point he’s almost taken over the rest of the manga (within good reason!) by challenging our perception of who’s even the active protagonist. :O Who keeps us engaged and tuned in to see more. Buaha, just what the hell happened?! Now that’s quite the impressive feat from both ONE and Murata to create a character with a lasting impact like that!”
…So that’s what happened. :’D In my opinion, I feel Garou’s best moments where we (or really, I) got to know him better (shed scene, Elder Centipede aftermath, dine n dash, rescuing Tareo, all up towards his fights vs Rover & Orochi) mostly only happen until after s2 so… Since those were some of my absolute fav manga moments (which only enhanced my perceptions of him), those’ll be the moments I’m really looking forward to see animated in s3. But most of all, I’m hoping to witness some of that same ‘aha!’ gradual realization process happen to newer fans who come to appreciate him too. :’3
#Anonymous#replies#opm#garou#commentary#long post#(readmore pls actually work! ...i think it broke after editing it once)#anyway THIS took plenty of time to put together and relive/remember all those moments from years ago 8'D#how things certainly changed (and escalated!) but here's a breakdown of everything; enjoy~
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I can't sleep so... some observations on, well, the thing that's observing?
i think my intuition has generally been sympathetic to some philosophically untrained variant of the 'emergent' view of like, consciousness, subjective experience, qualia, whatever you want to call it. in this view, the physical stuff of my brain gets on and does its thing, and somehow when you have a certain arrangement of moving stuff, a subjective experience arises. this is a kind of one way arrow: (atoms and shit) => (me experiencing stuff).
if that were true, it leads to some fun speculations. clearly human brains are a sufficient condition, but who knows what else might qualify? a computer? a person in a room full of rules defining how to manipulate statements in a language they don't speak? a rock? half a rock? a subset consisting of 1 in every 7 neurons in my brain?
I had a few subjective reasons for this appealing: i feel like desires and intentions and moodscome and go quite unpredictably, such that I feel like day to day I become one of a set of fairly different people in terms of my typical behaviours and ways of feeling and responding to the world. and it's also clear that my feelings and entire worldview have a lot to do with very material things like how long ago I've eaten, and often i don't seem to realise the 'real' reason I'm thinking something. I will be taken with obsessions and find no motivation. the idea that this chaos is the result of a coherent underlying 'will' seems hard to believe.
so, the idea of 'the consciousness' observing/receiving a series of actions and feelings and after the fact inventing some story to 'explain' them seemed quite plausible, and this was bolstered by research that suggested people will explain away a lot of stories about things they believe they have done, even if they're not true (something like that, anyway)
however it clearly can't be sufficient to have this strictly one way arrow, because here i am writing a blog post (very physical doing-stuff sort of thing) in which I'm talking about ideas like 'conscious experience', and that's unlikely to happen by coincidence. so the idea that the subjectivity is just some reflection of the physical world rather than an active part of it doesn't really work. if this post is even potentially meaningful, the act of subjectively experiencing can somehow exert a causal influence and transfer information?
so what is going on in here? many of my friends recognise themselves as part of 'systems' of multiple people sharing a body: multiple continuous streams of subjective experience who can perceive each other and might take turns to 'front' and have control over motor functions. I'm sure this is just a crude metaphor designed to convey part of this experience to people who don't share it, and i may be getting it wrong in some way, but in any case, that isn't exactly how i perceive it going in here...
instead it's almost like, i know computational metaphors for minds are kind of passé, but it's like threads in a parallel program... most of the time the inside of my head feels like a conversation, but the participants in the conversation only last as long as the conversation as opposed to being 'people' with distinct identities.
or like, I'll think about what I've just thought, but the 'thread' observing the completed thoughts is always a new one; sometimes I've tried to observe thoughts as I'm thinking them but not successfully, i just get a succession of threads observing each other?
another one: it often feels like part of me is racing ahead, producing a sentence of thought as a kind of tension, but until I've actually thought through each of the words it's like I've not 'really' thought it. it's almost like another thread has finished processing but needs to feed the result back to the 'conscious' thread.
and that's not even to get into intrusive thoughts... on some level every thought is surely intrusive because it springs up from who knows where and takes over the thread of consciousness until it has been thought. but sometimes (more so in the past) I'll have a thought and then feel really uncomfortable like, i don't want to have thought that, pleading (to whom?) not to have thought it.
there's an episode of the anime Little Witch Academia in which the protagonist Akko goes into the head of her friend Sucy, where she discovers many different stereotyped variants of Sucy representing personality traits and whims. she discovers that most of these Sucies are executed, and intervenes to rescue one of the fleeting intentions, only for it to wreak havoc and threaten the whole landscape. the thesis of this episode is that we move through the world by endlessly discarding possible future selves and ways we could be.
insofar as this fantasy metaphor means anything at all, i personally do not seem to have a fully functional means to discard these passing intentions; it's very easy for one to bubble up and take me over for a while. often it seems as if something is just bursting to get out; until i say it or write it or whatever, it just goes round and round.
anyway, this is drifting from the main question of trying to work out what thinking is like by thinking. one thing that does seem to be the case is that there are many different modes or roles or habits that are effectively cached, to be brought out by certain stimuli. i feel like i become a different person when I'm around my mum as when I'm around one of my partners, or particular friends, or what have you. this is clearly affected by things like meds (it's startling how differently i think and behave when I'm not on ssri withdrawal) but also like, i can jump into one of these tracks... get me talking about physics and I'll be quite a different sort of person than if I'm afraid I've done something Harmful. but none of these fuzzy sets of propensities strike me as constituting a person as such with a distinct stream of experience. if there are other minds in here, this mind (actively engaged in writing this post) can't perceive them.
so what to conclude? I don't have conclusions right now, just observations. I don't know how much of what I'm describing is common to most people as just what it is to be a person, and how much is this particular body's own idiosyncrasies... but i should be asleep
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This December, Bergen County natives The Front Bottoms will be throwing their annual ‘Champagne Jam’ in Asbury Park’s historic Convention Hall for the fifth year in a row after a successful co-headlining tour with beloved indie band Manchester Orchestra. The Front Bottoms are a band that just won’t stop from their humble D.I.Y. beginning on Bar/None Records to their cult-icon status on Fueled By Ramen. Their last major release was the Ann EP, the second in their grandmother series, which sparked a tour where they would play both the EP and Going Greyfront-to-back.
This tour, they’re taking things even looser with an entire bar setup on stage and more crowd interaction than thought possible for a band that signed to a major label. I got the chance to catch up with lead singer Brian Sella and talk about new beginnings, the artistic process and what home means to him.
How are you liking tour so far?
So far, so good, you know? All the shows so far have been pretty fantastic, so it’s been a nice feeling…To be able to come out here and, you know, play the music, and it’s like, “Oh, wow, people are rockin’, rollin’ and having a good time.” So, it’s really incredible.
You guys are originally from New Jersey. I am too, so I know it must be nice to get away from it for a bit, right?
[Laughs] Yeah you know it. Jersey is a nice place to come home to. A nice place to leave, a nice place to come home to.
Lots of great bands and musicians are from New Jersey, like Bruce Springsteen, Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, My Chemical Romance and The Misfits. What do you think it is about New Jersey that inspires great art?
Well, really, I’m not sure. I think it’s probably the tone or the atmosphere of it all. It’s just kind of, like, you could live close to Manhattan, but you don’t live in the city. You live close to Philadelphia, but you’re not from Pennsylvania. You could go to the beach, it’s on the coastline. You could also shoot up to Boston. I think the fact that there’s access to so many different styles makes its own style. I think that’s kind of why so many people from Jersey end up being total freakin’ nutjobs. [Laughs] Just kidding.
Your music seems to be heading towards a more polished, pop sound with each release. Was this the goal of your art from the beginning, but you now have the skills and label power to complete it?
I think the goal from the beginning was to just play shows. My life for the past eight to 10 years has been going on tour and playing shows every single day for months at a time, going to a different city and playing in front of different people. And the recording process for me? That lasts, like, two weeks. That’s such a quick blip in terms of the artistic experience. So I would never say that that was a goal to make the recording sounds the way that they sound. It was just part of the discovery of the art. I was just trying my best, and when all of a sudden you’re in a room with amazing equipment, and your friends are there and all the time it’s like, “Let’s try to make this sound a little bit better.”
But really the process for me is just one of discovery. It’s not like a projected path, I’m not thinking, “Oh, when I was playing a basement in New Jersey,” or “Oh, I wish this sounded like a Katy Perry song.” Each day happens and it unfolds and you roll with the punches. I think the most important thing is hindsight and looking back and saying, “Okay, that happened. So what did I like? What don’t I like? What do I want to change?” And really every single step and every single part of the process is you just figuring it out.
So, I don’t know the next album in terms of the discovery of myself through the art. It might be a country album or a D.I.Y.-sorta basement style recording. I can just kind of discover [myself] through the music and everybody can listen to it.
To answer your question, it definitely wasn’t a plan to have things turn out this way. I feel like that’s why things happened so positively; because it was never a plan. Everything was awesome and any little experience or accomplishment was the biggest thing that had ever happened to us, even if it was just a tiny, little thing. We just kinda roll with the punches all the way through. I think it would be unfair to give myself the credit of saying this was all a plan.
You kind of built your way up from the bottom — you played D.I.Y. shows and you and the audience were on a peer level where you could have a beer with all eight members of your early shows. Now, you’re selling out large venues and people are tattooing your face on their body. How does it feel like to have gained a cult following?
[Laughs] It’s strange, it’s a strange world. I think that’s part of the whole thing that we were saying — there was no plan, you kinda let the audience decide the plan. That’s why I always take requests on stage, because I’m not up here for myself, I’m not up here for my plan. This is whatever people want.
Like, back in the day, when there would be 10 people at the show, I could drink a beer with every single one of these people and a lot of these people got my face tattooed on them. It’s crazy, it’s a weird experience. I’m still so fucking lucky and I just try and stay naive about the whole thing and just excited about every little step.
I think that’s the best way to do it.
I think so. You can’t plan anything, really, and it’s a bummer, but sometimes it works out. In this particular situation it worked out. It was years of time that I think people would consider it not working out. The six or seven years of time where there was only 10 people coming to the shows. And my family was like, “Okay, what are you doing? You’re still living in the van with Mat…” But for me, I was so happy and so pumped, this was amazing.
So, I think that naiveté of it all was very important. If I had listened to anybody else talk, I wouldn’t be where I am now. You gotta stay positive and do what you want to do. I know it’s hard to be like, “Oh, just stay positive and everything will work out,” but really that’s kinda what happened. Me and Mat just stayed positive and remembered that we were having fun, and how lucky we were to not have to go work at a landscaping job or at a grocery store or something like that. That was the best feeling in the fucking world. You know, like with your writing it’s the same thing, you write articles and people read them. That’s a form of art. That’s incredible.
Thanks. Yeah, it’s nice for people to see what you produce.
Exactly! One time this girl was like, “I want to go around the country and read my poetry to people.” And in a very negative way I was like, “That doesn’t exist, that’s not a real thing.” And she said, “That’s what you do.” And it really hit me like, “Oh my gosh, that is what I do.” And it was like this crazy awakening of, yeah, I shouldn’t be telling people, “That doesn’t exist, that doesn’t happen,” because that’s what everybody was saying to me when I was trying to “read my poetry” around the country.
Now that you’ve been signed to Fueled By Ramen, you guys have been able to add more touring members and build a more elaborate stage setup. You, Mat and Tom are familiar faces on tour, but Jennifer, Roshan and Eric are now a part of the ensemble. What made you choose them?
Basically, Mat. First of all, the people in the band: Roshan, Eric and Jen, are unbelievable musicians. They’re fantastic. They are actual musicians. They are the reason it sounds incredible on stage.
Oh, I agree, it sounds great.
Thank you very much, that means a lot. It’s an experiment, like I was sayin’, we’re trying to figure it out. It’s all over the place, everyone has their style and we’re just trying to put on a good performance.
But basically, Rosh[an] is in a bunch of bands, he played keyboard in a band Mat was good friends with. Mat’s girlfriend was somehow involved. I met Ro[shan] at a bar one night, he was playing bass, and he had come highly recommended from Mat. And then Jen was in a band called River City Extension that we have quite a history with. We’ve known those guys a really long time, and I really wanted a violin player, I thought that would add a lot. And then Eric, we met at the studio. He was a studio rat, just always there, and I was making demos and stuff with him and it turns out he’s really incredible at bass. So we had him play bass and moved Tom over to electric guitar. And he loves to play electric guitar, so he was all about that.
And that’s always how it all comes together. Same with how I met Tom. I met Tom through [former guitarist] Ciaran, eight years ago. He just showed up at my house and Ciaran was like, “This guy plays bass, he’s amazing,” and we heard him play bass and we told him, “Dude, you should be in the band!”. That’s always the way that it’s been. We always try to keep it loosey goosey like that.
Sounds like a good deal. By the way, ‘Champagne Jam’ is taking place where you live: Asbury Park, one of many coastal New Jersey beach towns [like where I’m from]. In your latest single “End of Summer,” and also “Vacation Town” off of Going Grey, you capture the melancholy that comes with the passing of another season. Was that inspired by Asbury [Park]?
Absolutely inspired by Asbury Park. My girlfriend and I, we’re living there right now, so it’s definitely full circle. I wrote a lot of those songs when I was living there. That vibe of the summer time going into the winter time, it is definitely an energy that inspired those songs, absolutely.
Do you feel like that sort of parallels your life? Like you’re entering a new season, or new chapter?
Everything is very personal with my art, even if it’s about somebody else. I’m always drawing from my little perspective in there, especially as a songwriter, I gotta do that. I do feel like maybe it is a new chapter. Like I was saying, I’ve been on tour for fuckin’ nine years. Not consistently, but I’ve been hustling for nine years and it’s been a fucking grind for sure. And we have this tour, we do the ‘Champagne Jam’ and then in the new year we’re planning to just write a lot. I’m going to try to write as much as I can.
So I do think that it’s kind of like a chapter sort of ending and also sort of starting again. You need that refresher for art. You need to go get new inspiration. That’s where I’m at. I’m taking it year-to-year in Asbury, and you know, I like it. You’re always looking for the next thing and this is the first time in my life that I’m like, “Okay, I guess I can just chill”.
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The Fjorester Talk
ARE YOU GUYS READY FOR ME TO OVERANALYZE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CONVERSATION IN THIS CAMPAIGN BECAUSE I SO AM LET’S DO THIS
Okay, first of all, I would like to thank Matthew Mercer for my life. He really went and gave me the exact scene setting I’d been daydreaming off ever since we talked about Fjorester/Tangled parallels.
Look at Travis’s face during that description. This is the face of a man who knows his moment to show his shipper colors has come
Honestly, Jester’s fascination with the beautiful jellyfish really hit me because she was just talking to Caduceus about how big the world is beyond his confinement and she too is experimenting all this for the first time and my heart can’t take it. She was so unusually quiet and contemplative at that moment.
And then Travis had to go and say “Yeah, they are beautiful” while looking at Jester like THAT. (Marisha knows what he’s doing. HE KNOWS WHAT HE’S DOING)
I can’t believe they really gave me this exact scene and then proceeded to keep killing me with feels as if this moment alone wasn’t enough.
SOMETIMES THINGS THAT ARE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ARE THE THINGS THAT CAN HURT YOU THE WORST
this is gonna come back and haunt me at some angsty point in the future isn’t it????????????
Jester asking if Fjord is worried about the orb thing and being afraid that the captain will hurt him.
Like okay this is a consistent thing the one person who seems to be most worried over Fjord somehow being put in danger by his story and the one who’s always encouraging him to find answers and make sure he’s okay is always Jester. She’s so worried about him.
But Fjord is calm and confident and he has complete faith in what they can accomplish together.
“I feel like we take care of ourselves pretty well” totally felt like a throwback to when Jester was defining her relationship with Fjord to Nott back at the beginning and said “He watches out for me. I watch out for him. You know, we’re a good team.”
“I promise I’ll heal you if you start to hurt, okay?”
EXCUSE ME HOW DARE YOU TWO DO THIS TO ME? THOSE LITTLE SMILES. REMEMBER WHEN FJORD ASKED JESTER TO TELL HIM IF HE STARTED CHIPPING AT HIS TUSKS AND AFTER THEY AGREED THEY MADE THIS EXACT SAME FACES????
And then there’s that pause, and they could’ve totally stopped the conversation there but then Laura Bailey had to come for my heart with that soft way in which Jester finally asks: “Do you ever get sad?”
And I want to talk about that phrase.
Like. The sentence, the delivery, Laura’s face... it said so much about Jester.
I mean, Jester should know that everyone gets sad sometimes, but in her head Fjord is this strong and steady and fearless person who she puts her absolute trust on... so maybe he doesn’t get sad. Jester tries so hard to pretend that she’s never sad, maybe because she doesn’t know that others go through it too, that it’s completely okay to not feel happy and cheerful all the time.
The way she asks it is so desperate for confirmation like she’s scared like she really needs something to hold on to. There’s some heartbreaking yearning in her voice like she doesn’t want to feel alone anymore.
And when she further explains what she means “Sad that sometimes things don’t work out the way you were hoping?” you can see Fjord pause and process and realize that she’s talking about herself.
And Fjord who feels this enormous pressure to be a good leader, to present himself to the world in a certain way, who is so frustrated for the events that transpired a day ago... and who’s never lied to her, just nods and says “yes, sometimes”
“Are you sad, Jester?”
He says it so carefully, so softly, while looking at her as if he just discovered something. Because, to Fjord, Jester is unbreakable. Nothing gets her down, none of the horrors they’ve gone through or the fights or the pain.
When Fjord FINALLY asks this, he’s looking at Jester and maybe for the first time realizing how much she’s been carrying in her chest.
And, of course, because this is Jester we’re talking about, she tries to brush it off saying it passes quickly, she literally smiles through the tears as she says it.
I feel personally victimized by Laura Bailey
And then Fjord does this wonderful thing that I think is always part of healthy friendships and relationships: he doesn’t push to know what the problem is, instead he offers. It’s a give-and-take and he opens up before to be on equal ground.
I really think when he talked about the things he had that he doesn’t anymore Fjord was talking about losing his crew and Vandrin, who was clearly very important to him. We’ve rarely seen Fjord talk about this but survivor’s guilt clearly weights on him so much, it’s nice that he can open up a little bit more about it with her.
“What makes you sad, Jester?”
And, oh boy, when she talks about missing her mom and being sad that they had to leave so quickly... like dude, that whole clusterfuck started with Fjord falling into the water while pursuing his personal business... and if you don’t think he feels responsible for that shit you’re WRONG
“I... am sorry that we had to leave in the way we did.”
But “sorry” is not enough. We’ve seen that Fjord absolutely can’t handle Jester being upset and his default mode is “what can I do to fix this?” After the Gentleman reveal it was dealing with Algar to make her feel better about her mom’s safety. This time, you can see him formulating a plan: If Jester can go to Nicodranas, what if we can get her mom out of there?
“She thought about it one time, with my dad. She was planning to leave with him.”
I LOVE THAT FJORD ASKS WHAT JESTER WANTS FOR HER MOTHER BECAUSE HE ALWAYS DEFERS TO HER JUDGEMENT WHEN IT COMES TO HER HOME AND HER FAMILY AND RESPECTS HER WISHES AND THAT’S SO IMPORTANT TO ME
“I would like for her to be happy. I would like for him to love her.”
I’m gonna make a whole separate post about how Marion and the Gentleman’s relationship parallels Fjord and Jester
“I would like for her to not have to work anymore”
That’s like super interesting because, so far, she’s presented herself as someone who not only accepts but embraces her mother’s life as a normal one, a cool thing... but here for the first time we see hints of her perhaps not being entirely into it, maybe seeing the risks and the unsavory people she has to work for sometimes (like Algar or Lord Sharpe)
“That’s very noble of you” “I’m very noble” heartwarming words of affirmation.
“Well, how ‘bout...” SOMETHING ABOUT THE WAY FJORD SAYS THIS, COMPLETELY CHANGING THE MOOD BETWEEN THEM FROM A SAD CONVERSATION TO PARTNERS IN CRIME MAKING A PLAN JUST GETS TO ME
And of course, Fjord talks about the treasure islands and all these things that in D&D language means “we’ll collect a lot of loot” but what’s more important is that he cheers her up.
Jester spends 90% of her time trying to make people happy or make them laugh and brighten up and to see someone else do it for her when she most needs it kills me.
HE GETS HER TO SMILE.
Seriously, look at Matt’s face. Same, Matt. Same.
And of course, Fjord brings up again the “we take care of each other” because THAT’S THEIR THING. THAT’S WHAT THEY DO. THAT’S WHAT THEY ARE DOING RIGHT NOW.
And then Jester comes up with the crazy version of the plan to bribe the Gentleman into going back with her mother... but Fjord, bless him, is the romantic one this time, sure Marion can woo him herself.
And the way he says it.
He’s goofy, making faces and ‘sound effects’ and it’s so on-brand with Jester’s humor and what she needs right now.
“And she’s just...”
“...amazing” (he said while intensely staring at the girl standing by his side)
LOOK AT THEM HOW DARE THEY.
“Don’t be sad”
THE WAY HE SAYS IT GUYS I CAN’T HE’S SO SOFT AND GENTLE AND SWEET I CAN’T
And what’s most, he’s asking her not to be sad, because the boy can’t handle seeing her sad.
ALSO, DID YOU CATCH HOW PERFECTLY THE MUSIC SYNC’D WITH THE MOMENT??
IT WAS ALL TOO PERFECT. THE DND GODS HAVE SMILED UPON US
And Jester looks up like this:
Like she’s almost startled by his gentleness.
And there’s just a gentle violin in the back like a freaking Disney movie.
“Your mom is very proud of you, that much was clear.”
“Yeah... thanks, Fjord.”
“Don’t mention it.”
HER LITTLE SMILE.
THE WAY HE KEEPS LOOKING OVER AT HER.
BYE.
GOODBYE
I’M DECEASED
MARISHA IS A MOOD
#fjorester#fjord#jester lavorre#critical role#cr spoilers#sofia's nonsense#fjester#jic because i need every shipper to see this#GU Y S#IT'S HAPPENING#IT'S UNDER THE CUT BUT I APOLOGIZE TO MOBILE USERS IN ADVANCE
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Nocturnal Emission
[Scully watches Mulder have a wet dream]
They are adults. Full grown, tax paying, insurance holding adults. They’d gone around the world fighting depraved criminals and paranormal mysteries, staring pure evil in the eyes so many times they’d probably never get out of the periphery. Sometimes it felt like they were taking on the world by themselves.
All perfectly good reasons as to why it was ridiculous for them to be standing on either side of this queen bed like awkward teenagers, staring at the mattress in front of them with crimson cheeks.
“I can take the floor, really. It’s my fault after all.”
She chuckled humorlessly, pulling back the covers as if the prospect of sharing a bed didn’t both excite and terrify her.“Don’t be ridiculous, Mulder. We’re adults.”
Adults with so much sexual tension they were a hair's breadth away from jumping each other on a normal day. A normal day consisting of them being fully clothed in different motel rooms, not stuck together in the world’s most cramped and inconvenient motel room with one bed.
“Oh, trust me. I know,” he murmured, eyeing her revealed skin appreciatively once more before sliding under the covers on his side. She may have entertained the idea that he forgot to book the arrangements on purpose if it wasn’t for his clear embarrassment about his lack of sleepwear. She’d always known he slept in his boxers, but not while he slept right next to her. She didn’t fare much better; just a thin cotton t-shirt with a pair of booty shorts.
They both settled down, turning off the lights and tucking themselves in as they laid still, basked in the glow of the moonlight. When it became clear he was done, she realized he was giving her so much room that she was sure he had to be hanging half off the bed. “Mulder, are you comfortable?”
“Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Do you have enough room?”
“Y-yeah,” he stammered, embarrassed at being called out. “I’m fine.”
She looked over at him and saw he was staring straight up at the ceiling, looking uncomfortably stiff. “I promise I won’t bite.”
She regretted saying anything when an eyebrow cocked suggestively. “Are you making a pass at me, Scully?”
She rolled her eyes and, from his laughter, he must’ve sensed it. “Goodnight, Mulder,” she chastised, rolling on her side to face the clock.
“Night, g-woman,” he teased.
She felt him shift in place a few times before inevitably succumbing and scooting closer to her, not quite touching but close enough that she could feel his body heat under the thin blanket.
Instinctively, she wanted to back up into him. Feel his skin touch her back as he wrapped his arms around her. But she shook the thoughts from her mind as quickly as they came. Instead, she focused on the clock on the nightstand.
11:12
A sigh from Mulder.
12:15
Mulder tossing and turning a few times while punching the pillow.
1:08
Would the night just consist of her laying straight as a board, hoping for just a chance that Mulder might brush against her. God, this sexual dry spell had turned her into a character from a Victorian novel.
How could she sleep when her half-naked partner was so close to her?
“Mmm,” he hummed deep in his throat.
She started in the bed, somehow convincing herself she must’ve spoken that last sentiment outloud and he was replying. When she looked over at him, prepared to apologize, she was instead met with a completely unconscious Mulder. His chest was rising and falling to the steady beats of his breath.
A look of pain crossed his face and she raised herself up on her elbow to look at him. A light sheen of sweat had broken out on his hairline as his brow furrowed. She lifted her own hand as delicately as she could and placed it on his forehead, checking for a temperature, but not wanting to wake him and re-start the awkward process of trying to fall asleep. Especially if she had to then explain why she was touching him while he was unconscious.
A small gasp left his lips and she retracted her hand like the warmth of his skin had burned her. The quickness of her action was lewdly juxtaposed by the languid motion he made with his hips, thrusting them upwards to some unknown goal before falling back into the mattress.
It was amazing how many symptoms a fever dream and a sex dream shared. The latter of which she quickly realized Mulder was experience as the thin sheet above him raised under his turgidity.
She had to hold back her own gasp as she took in the sight. Mulder was hard as a rock and clearly doing something to indulge in that fact. He made another little sound in the back of his throat, almost like a muffled grunt, as his face turned on the pillow, facing her with eyes still clamped shut. His fists were clutching onto the sheets like a lifeline as he made little scooping motions with his hips, angling them upwards as he squeezed his thighs together.
The sight alone made her squeeze her own thighs together in faint mimicry, intimately aware of the wetness that couldn’t be contained behind her lips and seeped out onto her outer folds. Had she been wet before seeing this or was she that quickly affected by Mulder? She didn’t know, but she couldn’t bring her eyes away from the sight in front of her.
Her breath caught in her throat as he rolled on his side a bit more, inadvertently scooting himself closer to her. She could feel his body heat and she was afraid even just the sheer weight of her attention would wake him up. “Ngh, fuck.” It was murmured, but it was distinguishable. His face turned into the pillow even more and this time she caught him almost burying his face in it.
Only when he smelled it did she realize it was actually her pillow he was on and then suddenly the newfound force of his grinding into the mattress made sense. It also made every hair on her body stand up as goosebumps littered her body. “Sc-.” She felt her lungs screaming for air, but she needed to hear that again. She needed him to finish that word.
She needed him to say her name.
She sank slowly down onto her back so that she was parallel to him, her face a few mere inches away from his. They were so close the minty undertones of his toothpaste hit her face and moved her hair as his breaths turned into rhythmic pants. It felt like his pants were synching up with the throbbing in her groin and it wasn’t until she felt her own wetness hit the pads of her middle finger that she realized she snuck her hand down her pants and was starting to touch herself.
Always her partner, even unconsciously, Mulder lazily reached his hand down to press into the front of his crotch. There was no dexterity to it, but there was plenty of intent clear as he began rubbing himself against his hand. His jaw was slack and it gave her a perfect view of his pretty pink tongue. The tongue she’d spent countless hours imagining going back and forth across the very place she was now touching.
God, she shouldn’t be doing that. A few years ago that thought probably would have caused her to turn away. Give him the privacy he deserved. Instead it just made her body pulse unbearably as she watched this display of pure human lust unfold in front of her. Mulder’s subconscious lust. She took in an eyeful of what the falling sheet was offering. He was big. She’d always hoped. She’d always suspected. But now there was undeniable proof outlined by eight hard inches of stretched blue cotton. Occasionally he would hit the fly of his boxers so that she got a glimpse of his skin. It was red from the blood flow and glistening with precum. The moonlight gave her a perfect view and she silently counted her lucky stars he hadn’t woken up.
“Yeah,” he gasped as his brow furrowed again. Everytime he thrust downward her side dipped into the bed slightly. They were that close. He turned his head into the pillow again, but this time she noticed his lips pucker slightly.
She’d seen how he looked at her nowadays. Innuendos were slowly becoming offers in disguise. He wanted her, and every fiber in her being told her that dream-Scully was getting a lot more action than just a good show with some masturbation. She plunged two fingers into herself and she stilled almost instantly because of how loud the sound of her wetness felt in the room. Like a sharp disturbance in the cloud of lust deafening them. She pulled them out slowly and felt how her walls clenched around her, trying desperately to keep the digits submerged. As she drug them out, she made sure to rub her clit with the entire length of her soaked fingers. Now it was her turn to thrust her sex in the air.
Her mouth dropped open in a silent moan as she willed the sound to stay buried by the clench of her throat. For a second she worried the movement had woken Mulder up, but he simply fell back onto his back, still facing her as he pumped his hips in the air. The leg holes of his boxers were visibly being pulled away from his legs with the sheer rigor of his erection.
“-lee.” Her fingers picked up the pace as the trail end of her name escaped from his throat in a strangled whisper. That’s it, Mulder. Keep going. She was internally cheering him on as she saw the way his mouth was moving against the night, the way his hips were pleasing the dream-Scully whom she would give anything to trade places with.
She could see the precum leaking out of the tip of his boxers, creating a damp spot on the fabric that made the ridges of his head that much more prominent. She bit down on her lip hard in punishment as an actual sound left her lips and broke the silence of the room. Not quite a whine, not quite a moan, but definitely something that made her whole body still in anticipation of bright hazel eyes snapping open.
Except they didn’t come. Instead the sound seemed to beckon him as he turned over and shifted a leg towards her, spreading his legs and now actually making contact with her. She started moving her fingers again, and this time she didn’t care that there was a wet sloppy sound filling the air. All she could focus on was that Mulder, so beautiful and erect, was touching her as they both were enthralled in pleasure. God she needed this. She was caught in rapture as she pretended like Mulder’s fingers, still clutching the bedsheets, were clutching her instead. That it was him slowly driving her to the brink of insanity.
“Scully,” he moaned so viscerally that she could practically see the way his eyes rolled to the back of his head.
Her name was all she needed as her body wracked with one of the most powerful orgasms of her life. She hoped the shaking of the bed wouldn’t wake him because there was no way in hell she could stop it. She watched his hips undulate, and she imagined it was him she was clenching around instead of just a fantasy. She didn’t let up the tempo of her fingers and she was glad as his own orgasm seeped through the material, coming out thick, hot, and white against the darkness of his boxers. It was undoubtedly the hottest thing she’d ever seen and this was probably the longest orgasm she’d ever had.
His face fell into the pillow as he thrust the orgasm out, blissfully unaware of the way his semen amassed and dripped down in globs onto the rest of his front. A lazy smile tugged on his lips and she hoped dream-Scully was placing sweet kisses on his face and telling him she loved him, because real-Scully’s lips burned from being bitten so many times to repress doing just that.
Everything seemed so much quieter after that and she slowly pulled her hand out of her underwear, mindful to keep the elastic of her panties from snapping against her as she realized what just happened.
She masturbated less than a foot away from Mulder while she watched him have a wet dream about her.
In the moonlight she could see the way her fingers glistened from her arousal and she wiped them against the warm linens, figuring it wasn’t the only mark going to be left on them as a reminder of tonight. She gasped again as she felt Mulder’s hand slide over her belly, but when she looked at him she realized he was still asleep. Real-Scully just got to be dream-Scully for a while. He shifted his body closer to her so that his front was flush with her side as he laid his head a top her breast.
She felt the damp stickiness of his come hit her bare leg, but she wasn’t even grossed out. This very well might be the most intimate, sexual experience she would ever have with Mulder, and she had no problem indulging in it within the privacy of the night.
For tonight, she would simply nuzzle herself closer to him, breathe in his scent, and be lulled to sleep by the comforting nature of the moment.
For the morning, she would wake up to a fully-dressed Mulder “accidentally” pouring a carton of orange juice on the bed. Even in her groggy morning haze, she knew it was directly on the stain in the middle of the bed and directly on the side he’d been nuzzled against. It was amazing how creative Mulder was when he was desperate to hide something.
“Oh shit, Scully. I’m so sorry,” he lamented with sincerity, though she knew what the true apology was for.
She felt her own stickiness coating her thighs and she was honestly more endeared by his actions than annoyed. Turning over onto the orange juice without care, she stretched, not caring that her shirt had risen to show her midriff, and gave him a sleepy, seductive smile and in her sleep-laced voice asked, “Sleep good?”
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