#ultimately invalidating a lot of thoughtful points that were raised
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the IGN article has already been addressed by several users, but imo the points of critique raised by others were still often misinterpreted, or ignored entirely.
— so i’d like to talk about it.
beforehand, it is important to mention that it remains everyone’s respective responsibility to curate their own online experience. you shouldn’t purposefully expose yourself to topics that cause you distress or trigger you. however, general discussion should always be valid and welcomed. you have every right to voice your opinion on the matter and to be upset about this. please don’t feel guilty about venting and expressing your emotional response.
we also need to differentiate this specific interview from the fandom’s overall treatment and interpretation of gale. several of the posts i’ve seen on the subject tend to derail into the latter, without addressing the valid points many have raised or glossing over them entirely. this isn’t about the usual “haha gale eats shoes” joke or whatever new meme fandom comes up with. this is solely about the developer’s treatment of gale, the character, and about a specific, internal bias that has been prevalent throughout the entirety of the game, as well as their social media. this particular interview merely adding to the amalgamation of points mentioned.
yes, it is certainly unrealistic to expect larian to address every single companion in detail and to touch on every nuance possible, in an interview that broadly focuses on the game’s narrative and gameplay. there are, however, specific character sections. each companion received a headline that was reflective of their overall character archetype or provided quick insight into their development.
Karlach: 'The Labrador of the Party'
Lae'zel: 'She's So Young'
Halsin: 'A Creative Risk'
Shadowheart: 'The Jason Bourne'
Wyll: 'We Lost a Little Bit of Narrative Room'
Astarion: 'Much of What He Does Is Out of Fear'
Minthara: 'It's Not a Redemption Arc...But She's Got a Lot of Love'
and last but not least:
Gale: 'The Guy Who Starts Off Annoying Everyone'
what followed was a brief discussion about their respective storylines, each being addressed with a certain level of respect, empathy, and consideration. except for gale. all that was mentioned in regard to his character was the narrative impact of gale’s suicide. talking about the overall logistics of this ending, the visuals of the cutscene, and how, to them, his sacrifice felt like the right ending and how in many ways, it is.
Chrystal Ding, Lead Writer: On a very human level, you have the guy who starts off annoying everyone, he's constantly asking you to give him your most treasured possessions to eat, otherwise he's in trouble, and at the end, he gives himself for the world.
Sven Vincke, Founder: And he had the choice already once before where he wasn't ready for it. So it's a very powerful ending, and it comes in different permutations.
gale is the character who is initially annoying companions and players alike. he is verbose, enthusiastic and has a tendency to break out in long-winded rants. he repeatedly asks for your assistance, to help him manage his condition. to spare himself and his surroundings from an untimely, explosive death, he must consume items that you’ve carefully collected. gale is, essentially, a liability. a ticking time bomb. he already had the option to have his life be a meaningful sacrifice, but he wasn’t ready to die yet. now, that the party has reached the end, he has another chance to give himself up for the world.
short after, gale’s section of the interview quickly diverts into a more general discussion about the difficulties of playing as a wizard and other classes.
larian claiming that there is a universal “right ending” in a game with many branching paths and choices very much contradicts the definition of a role-playing game. where it is solely in the player’s hands to decide what direction to take and what outcome they deem to be the right one. moreover, it is important to remember that the interviewees weren’t just any developers, but consisted of two lead writers and larian’s founder himself. some of them industry veterans who are, to an extent, pr-trained. we all know that fandom often sees statements from developers synonymous with word of god. as such, the implications and impact are truly unfortunate.
if larian was referring the SA survivor and stated that “the right ending” for him was to return him to enslavement or to hand him over to the gur. that for all the death and misery he (involuntarily) assisted, his sacrifice would at least grand them a slither of justice.
astarion caused death, perpetuated racism, and now that you have handed him over to the gur hunter, he is offered a chance to give himself back to the world.
it is then deemed the right choice for him because it is the most narratively satisfying/impactful/powerful outcome in the context of the overall story. the majority of us would agree that such would be a rather tactless statement, no? not specifically for mentioning it in relation to astarion as a character or his influence on the narrative — he is fictional, after all, but because of the real-life implications and the very real stigma the affected face. we can't deny that it would be hurtful to irl victims. maybe we would even fault the writing altogether for such biases. after all, why should astarion be the only character whose redemption and healing are considered to be significantly less important in the grand scheme of things?
fiction functions as an abstraction and simulation of our social experience. we are supposed to get invested, to explore the meaning, examine the parallels, or maybe just to enjoy stories for the sole purpose of indulging in the occasional escapism. perhaps a way to temporarily forget about one’s limitations and the prejudices we face. in many ways, chronic pain/impairment, suicidal ideation, and autistic traits appear to be disorders & symptoms that are perhaps less relatable to some, and that they are maybe not as sympathetic to.
it truly would’ve been nice to see larian approach this interview with more professionalism. opting for a simple, diplomatic “actually, there is no right ending. the sheer variation in choices makes such a distinction impossible” would’ve more than sufficed.
this isn’t asking for larian to touch on every nuance possible, in an interview that largely resembled the flow of a regular conversation. it’s about asking for the same level of consideration and care that was granted to the rest of the companions. it’s about addressing gale’s particular brand of trauma with the same level of basic human decency. maybe we even could’ve received some new bits and pieces of insight on gale’s development, rather than the regurgitation of every shallow reddit/tiktok take we’ve seen up to this point. alas..
#gale dekarios#gale of waterdeep#baldurs gate 3#bg3#fandom discourse#at first i didn't even want to make a post about this but here we are#reducing the discussion to “blorbo trauma” feels like a very condescending/belittling approach#ultimately invalidating a lot of thoughtful points that were raised#this is tumblr. getting invested in fictional people and overanalysing every little scrap of content is what we do.#so to mention it once more: you have every right to be upset#it speaks#sa mention#suicide mention
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AITA for calling my dad homophobic?
I (18f) identify as an asexual queer girl, and i live with my parents. My dad (52m) as well as the rest of my family are all devout mormons. surprisingly, my mom (47f) took my coming out fairly well. there was a phase of her telling me we could fix it and a phase of her avoiding the situation altogether, but ultimately she’s grown a lot and has become a huge ally over the past two years since i came out to her.
my dad was a bit more of an issue. he took the coming out with a grain of salt, and has since admitted that he thought i was just trying to be rebellious, and he completely brushed me off when i told him i was leaving the church, telling me and i quote “i don’t care if you leave because i know you’ll come back”, which always irritated me but i brushed it off. he’s also gotten a lot better at being respectful and while he still makes tasteless jokes sometimes, he usually seems to respect my identity and love me for who i am.
flash forward to a few days ago. i get home from work and i end up chatting with my parents as i usually do. the conversation turns to sexuality and my dad mentions how accepting he and my mom are, and i raise my eyebrows and remind him how uncomfortable they were when i first came out. i wasn’t upset at this point, rather just poking holes in his story. i mentioned how awkward he was when i came out as asexual, and my mom (who has found herself to be a bit on the asexual spectrum as well) and i chuckle about it for a second, before my dad defends that he wasn’t weird about it.
i reminded him how he COMPLETELY brushed it off when i first told him, and he told me that it means im not gay. i asked what he meant at the time, and his response was that “i consider the definition of gay to be having sex with someone of the same gender”. my sister was in a serious committed relationship with a man at this point in time, but (being mormon) they hadn’t had sex, so i asked my dad if i had that same level of relationship with a woman, if he would consider it gay, and his response was no. i proceeded to ask him if i married a woman and spent the rest of my life with her, kissing and sharing a bed and everything, would he consider it gay? he kind of scoffed at me and said “well, if you’re sleeping in the same bed, then EVENTUALLY you’re going to have sex”. that really upset me at the time, but he had only just learned about asexuality, so i cut him a break.
flash forward to a few days ago, i bring this up and rather than shrug it off and cringe the way he and my mom had been at other behaviors of theirs, he scowled and began to defend himself. he said that it didn’t make any sense to him, and why should it matter if he thinks that? i pointed out that learning to respect other people even if you don’t understand them is important, and he got a bit huffy. i mentioned the not considering me gay thing, and asked if he still felt that way. i expected a no or some sort of explanation, but instead he said “well if you’re not having sex with another woman then you’re not doing anything wrong.”
that immediately made me upset, and i responded with “are you saying that being gay is wrong?” and my mom jumped in and accused me of twisting his words. i left the room and eventually he came in and gave an awkward apology without really saying anything just before he went to bed (one of those “im sorry you got upset because of what i said” apologies rather than an actual apology), and i reluctantly told him it was fine, but i still don’t feel fine about it. i feel like he’s invalidating my identity and pretending like he did nothing wrong, but i don’t want to confront him about it if i’m actually just making a big deal out of nothing. aita?
What are these acronyms?
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listen yes the diana ghost was stupid as fuck and i do agree with some of the cast being miscast (although i feel the real issue is they are not given enough to do) but idk man i was compelled. and more importantly entertained. god season 5 was so boring. maybe it's just that i had such low expections going in and i'll feel different on rewatch but i thought these episodes were a lot more focused, better paced and written compared to season 5. not perfect by any means but good bordering on amazing. i thought the acting was also very strong. i even feel like they handeded diana's death well and i'm impressed morgan didn't just totally repeat himself since he already covered these events in the queen. the shift in perspective helped i think. so yeah that's just me. i've seen the season getting a mixed response and it's definitely not on the level of seasons 1-4 but i thought it was still very very good.
To preface: I don't want to imply that you're wrong for liking it, there are totally my opinions alone.
For me, the ghost went beyond stupid--it's offensive. I know it wasn't a literal ghost, that's not even the issue. Peter Morgan softened the relationship Charles and Diana had in order to lionize Charles, which has been a huge part of s5 and s6 imo. Diana and Charles weren't like... good... when she died. She wasn't good with Elizabeth II either. Even if the ghost is idea is supposed to act as their projections, I don't think the general audience is necessarily going to get that in the way it was conveyed. Dianas would not like... lovingly usher Charles and Lizzie 2 through grief; and even the implication, however unintentional it is, goes into this idea PM has pushed that Diana didn't feel that badly to the monarchy, she didn't mean what she said in the Panorama interview, she was confused!!!!
And it's a part of invalidating her emotions, using her mental health especially, that is also a consistent part of the Windsor mythologizing of her in recent years especially. She didn't hate us. She was manipulated.
Diana was smart; she was abused by the Windsors; and I think she would've done a lot worse if not for William being the eventual heir. Compare it to Harry and Meghan--Harry clearly still has a kind of emotional attachment to his father and whatever he thinks his family is. Meghan has obviously ceased to give a fuck about them and did a while ago. When you weren't raised in that family and were treated like an outside as a married-in, I think your capacity for forgiveness probably goes away, especially when you're not financially dependent on them (see: Fergie, who stayed more loyal ultimately and is financially dependent on Andrew and by extension the royals).
And aside from that, I find the handling of Mohamed al-Fayed, a controversial man with controversial opinions, whose outspokenness and anger towards the royal family is totally valid--but who did have extreme theories that were used to invalidate the solid points he made at times. The other thing used to invalidate him was the concept of the Angry Brown Man who just Wants Revenge on the Rich Classy White People. The show has VERY MUCH played into that. And you can absolutely portray whatever Mohamed did to influence Dodi and that relationship (and I won't deny that he wanted them together) without playing into that stereotype.
I also found the way in which Dodi was portrayed, or really the lack there of, really disappointing. Dodi was given a really flat characterization over both seasons, which is a big missed opportunity to me--Dodi obviously died too, and his tragedy was really lost in the shuffle of the immense reaction to Diana's death.
To me, the attempted lionization of Charles and Camilla has really been distasteful. The were human. They made mistakes. Nobody is perfect. But the idea of Charles as this handsome grieving pseudo-widower who just wanted to be with the love of his life is so... off. Camilla as his loyal trusty partner who is ready to step up is... off. Camilla didn't want to be queen, at least not at that point. She slept with both Charles and her husband (among others) for years. She loved her husband. Charles saw other people. That's all valid, tbh; but I've never liked this idea that they were these consistent, steadfast lovers thwarted by fate and a more attractive, more popular woman. Camilla wanted to be his mistress, lol. Being queen or princess came with obligations that she (understandably) wasn't interested in signing up for. Charles kinda pushed her into that.
So yeah, idek. I don't find the writing any more compelling than s5, personally. I feel like the first four seasons did a great job of acknowledging the humanity of the royal family while also admitting to them being fundamentally shitty. Philip and Elizabeth have their weird failmarriage where they actually do love each other; and they're incredibly cold parents who scar their son. Margaret is a woman who wants her own individual identity and is mentally tormented by it; she's also an incredibly spoiled and self-absorbed asshole. Charles is the kid who wanted mom and dad to love him; he's also an emotionally abusive husband who is incapable of not wallowing in self pity.
I mean, I'd say this extends to people the show didn't see as shitty, too. Even Diana--she's got a good heart and is a good and loving (if not perfect) mother, and she soaks up the attention (while paradoxically hating it at times) and isn't very mature.
To me, it now seems like PM has failed to realize that he doesn't have to make Charles and Camilla seem like better people than they are to make them seem like people. Perhaps he feels he had to overhaul after the very negative reaction to them in s4. But the reality is? Those negative feelings were already there. Many people made up their minds about Charles and Camilla a long time ago. While I'm sure some people genuinely went "oh it's been long enough, we like them now" (particularly royalists) many, many people... still hated them lol. They just didn't think about it. The show gave them something to talk about. PM didn't make the royals look bad in that season; so much as he reminded everyone of why they were so, so criticized in the 90s.
(And he def gave a soft touch to some people before s5--good ol' Uncle Mountbatten's pedophilia accusations were never mentioned.)
So yeah, it just seems like they lack depth, and are more flattering portrayals of the monarchy versus even... well-rounded fictional people.
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Hi! New anon joining the railiu (raikang?) discussion! Had some thoughts in response to the chat about the interpretation of Lord Raiden and Liu Kang's relationship 💕
From what I've seen, I think it's an extremely common misconception people think Lord Raiden raised Kang from childhood. The original + MK9-11 lore makes is very clear that the Shaolin have raised Liu Kang since he was orphaned and Raiden is introduced much later in his life when he is looking for a defender of Earthrealm. Liu Kang's ending in MK9 states that he defeats his "friend and mentor" and I believe they use those two words together to describe their relationship fairly often.
The animated movie that shows Raiden raise Kang as a baby attempts to really drive a father son bond in order to make Raiden's sacrifice at the end of the movie more emotional. In my opinion, it kinda invalidates what makes the MK9 bond so tragic and authentic. Raiden is someone who Liu Kang has absolute faith in. Raiden chose him over anyone else, trained him, and entrusted the protection of Earthrealm into his hands in this tournament. Liu Kang watches Raiden fail and ultimately has to take a stance, and Raiden accidentally killing him tortures him. I've seen people argue that Raiden seems to care more about Liu Kang's death than Kung Lao. I think that is mostly untrue, but I think something can be said for him having a deeper relationship with Liu Kang and his death weighs more heavily on him because he is directly responsible for it. I find it extremely beautiful and tragic.
I think the only other argument for a father son bond stems from X where Raiden says that Kung Lao and Liu Kang were "like sons." I view it a lot like how close male characters say they are like brothers. It seems like in media in general, writers tend to quantify an extremely close male/male bond using familial terms. That's not to invalidate any differeing viewpoints though, I think it's also extremely valid to view these two as close friends or having an adopted father son relationship. It's how 99% of the mk community views it and you could absolutely argue that these same points allude to a familial bond. However, it's up to the viewer to interpret that. It's annoying that I feel the need to stay on anon to support this ship and maybe some day more people will consider it but thank you for being awesome, writing great work, and talking about this ship 💗
yeeeees, thank you for your contribution! Also, damn, to think you gotta go on anon because the backlash could be THAT bad disheartens me. But thank you for your contribution regardless. I do enjoy this further insight into their relationship through the other mediums such as the animations.
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Late but interesting. The whole part about that it reinforces the sympathetic side of pink diamond it's something that seems to be getting ignored by most people while everyone is more focusing on for actions and the consequences behind them.
The whole part about her thinking people don't care about her did kind of have me thinking at that. It just made me wonder if that whole low self-esteem and self-hate was from the diamonds and believing they were right about her because like I kind of don't want to go with the idea that her feelings about them and how she was treated from them were invalid just because they loved her. Even though it would ignore their treatment of her and how they went about it. To me it just sounds like It be like saying Shadow Weaver "loved" Catra and everything she did was to make her be "better" and whatever she thought and feel about SW is invalid despite that would ignore her abuse and manipulation towards Catra and be like victim blaming or something like that.
I don't know if the whole comparison towards the diamonds and sw is fair but I pretty much got the whole idea that it doesn't matter what they thought was better, they ultimately hurt somebody and that somebody had a lot of issues that ended up affected everyone, Pink and Catra respectfully.
Although I did thought there was some interesting parallels between the two. I'm not 100% sure how people feel about both characters being compared but I kind of feel like I got the possible impression that people would say Rose/Pink is worse than Catra despite Catra was proven to be very selfish, toxic and destructive to the point where she was willing to destroy the entire universe just to spite Adora Whereas Rose/Pink wasn't intentionally malice like that, both in her Rose and Pink days, even arguably during her pre-cracking volleyball days. While throwing Tantrums, I don't know if anything was said about her being manipulative towards Volleyball. The same could possibly be said about Spinel too like what you're getting at. There might be similarities between the characters but I feel like I'm sure there are differences between the characters and how they go about it
I do think that the way the Diamonds raised Pink played a big part in her self-esteem and it’s something important that a lot of people leave out of discussions about her character. When she is first sent to Earth she still feels like the others don’t see her as an equal, on account of being sent to the Garden and generally being treated as less mature (and not even being allowed to have her own pearl!) Then when she raises concerns about the well-being of Earth the other Diamonds just brush her off and created the human Zoo*** without taking into account what Pink thinks. It’s because of this neglect that she even starts the rebellion as Rose Quartz in the first place, since she wasn’t respected when speaking her mind as herself. We even see this again in “Can’t Go Back” when Steven has a dream about what is clearly Pink trying to get the Diamonds to abandon the Earth colony again, and getting shut down again. In the scene where she fakes her death, she even straight up tells Pearl, “Yellow and Blue don’t care, they never have.” Clearly, if the other Diamonds had shown her more respect her story would’ve played out very differently
Of course, Yellow and Blue do care about Pink on some level. They’re obviously heartbroken about losing her and even feel somewhat responsible for her shattering. But they still don’t realize that their treatment of Pink is what drove her away, partly because they literally just didn’t know that she was still alive, and in part because of their own arrogance. In fact, when Blue admits this in “Change Your Mind” is what causes her to, well, change her mind
As for how she compares to Catra? I think one of the biggest differences between the two characters is their role in the story. Catra is a deuteragonist, and her relationship and conflict with Adora is firmly established by episode 2, so the show, and the audience, get plenty of time to become endeared to her and think about her motivations and internal conflicts. Meanwhile, “Pink Diamond” isn’t mentioned by name until the end of season 3, and we don’t know Rose’s whole story until almost the end of the main series. It’s like I’ve said before, lots of viewers only think of Rose/Pink in terms of how she affects other characters, and not as an actual character with her own motivations and feelings. This is probably just down to a lack of screentime and direct narrative focus
It’s been a while since I’ve watched She-Ra so idk exactly what Catra has done to all the other characters she’s fought against, but you’re definitely right in saying that Rose’s misdeeds are more out of carelessness as opposed to Catra’s being motivated by actual malice (even if that malice comes from an understandable place)
***I’ve also seen a few people say that it was actually Pink’s idea to create the Zoo instead of Blue Diamond, which is just wrong and definitely doesn’t help people’s opinion of Pink when they hear people repeat this
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Office Hours- Professor Aizawa x Student
Summary: Life as a college student left you bored. Your history professor, Aizawa Shouta gives you just what you need, but you get a little too close.
Word count: 6077
CW: Professor x Student Relationship
ao3
College life was basic. Wake up, go to school, come home, do homework, sleep. It was a basic cycle, but you made the most out of it by getting good grades. Except recently, something was up. It was your third year of college and you still didn’t have a major. With all your friends being in the process of getting ready to graduate, you were still left confused. This made you feel alone and unfulfilled. Ultimately, you just felt unmotivated with school. What’s the point of trying if you’re just going nowhere? So you started to miss more of your classes, assignments, which led to your grades plummeting. Your history class was a class you genuinely enjoyed but you just never felt like going. To avoid getting kicked out from school (which would upset your parents), you decided to just show up to your classes.
You forced yourself to wake up early, with your class starting at 10am, and decided to do your makeup and actually make an effort to get ready (just as a little motivation boost). You headed to your 10am science class and actually made it on time, which made you feel proud. After about 2 hours your class ended and you had about an hour long break until your last class of the day which was your history class. You decided to get some coffee to wake you up a bit since you felt extremely tired. A part of you still felt unmotivated, but you convinced yourself to push through.
It was 2pm and you were now in your last class of the day. You kept on giving yourself little motivators to make yourself pay attention and try:
“C’mon Y/N. It’s the last class of the day. After this you can go home and reward yourself with a nap. It’ll go by quickly. You like this subject plus this professor is good looking. At least let that motivate you” the little voice in your head said.
Sitting next to the door, you were the first one who knew when your professor was here. You could hear his footsteps and smell his cologne that left an invisible trail leading to the door. He walked into the room holding a coffee cup and black messenger bag. His long black hair was tied back into a low bun. He wore a light blue dress shirt, dark grey pants, and dark brown shoes. Damn, he actually was really good looking. It was something you never noticed since you were always just focused on your work and left class as soon as it ended. You didn’t even know his name. It started with an “A” but you weren’t really sure what it was.
To your luck, one of your classmates raised his hand to ask a question. Professor Aizawa was his name. The name easily flowed off your tongue as you mouthed it. Getting your attention, pieces of paper being passed your way.
Oh shit.
It turns out that today your first paper of the semester was due, and you had no idea. As Professor Aizawa came by to collect the papers, he could sense your gloomy energy.
“Y/N,” he spoke which caused your head to look up at him, “Can you stay after class? I have to talk to you about something?”
“Yeah.” You responded. Great. Was he going to drop you from the class for missing too many days? Probably. The duration of the class consisted of you bouncing your leg, clicking your pen, wallowing in anxiousness. You know you were probably bothering the rest of your classmates, but you weren’t a person of confrontation. Class finally ended. You waited for the rest of your classmates to leave before approaching Professor Aizawa’s desk.
Waiting with sweaty palms, Professor Aizawa looked up at you while he was in the middle of writing. He placed the tip of his pen to his mouth, thinking about what to say.
“Y/N. I’ve recently noticed that you haven’t been showing up to class.” You could sense the disappointment in his face, which was weird. Why was he so disappointed about you not showing up to class? He’s never even spoken to you, let alone even acknowledged you until now. After taking a long inhale, you respond.
“Yeah. I’m sorry, I just… I’m just going through one of those times. There’s just a lot going on with me.”
“I understand. But you always have to make the most out of your education, you aren’t paying all this tuition for nothing,” He gently laughed, “Anyways, I wanted to let you know about your recent missing assignments but my next class is about to start. How about I give you my card and you come to my office hours. This is gonna be my last class so if you’re free in about an hour you can come and we can figure out what to do about these assignments.” He reaches into his bag and pulls out his card.
The card reads: Shouta Aizawa. Department of Social Sciences. Head of the History Department.
His phone number and email are also being shown. You looked up at him.
“Okay. Sounds good! I can wait an hour. Thank you.”
You left the classroom feeling a bit of a relief. You honestly expected him to just drop you from the class. But the way he was so nice with you made you feel relaxed. It made you feel like someone could see the better in you. You headed to the library to take a nap before this meeting.
-
-
-
Walking around the social science building, you had no idea where you were going. The fact that the social science building consisted of 3 levels definitely made things more complicated for you. His office was located in 118O. You weren’t anywhere near that. “142” the nearest room showed. You decided to just give up and figure everything out tomorrow.
From a short distance, you could see Professor Aizawa walking the other direction. You thought about following him but felt like you would seem creepy if you did that. He turned around and noticed you staring at him.
“Hello Y/N. Are you lost?” he remarked. God how weird did you look just standing there? Your face flushed red.
“Hi Professor Aizawa. I’m sorry. I was just trying to find your office but uh, this building is a lot bigger than I expected” You tried laughing to ease awkwardness.
“No worries. Just follow me. My office is a bit hard to find since it’s sort of isolated.” He walked a bit in front of you while telling you about his previous class and how half of the class didn’t show up. After about 5 minutes, the two of you arrived at his office. He reached into his pocket, pulling out his keys and unlocking the door. You were surprised to find that his office was extremely clean. From his appearance, you assumed his office was going to be a little messy. His office consisted of random diplomas, a stack of papers on his desk along with a computer, black couch, basically everything that would be in your typical office. He glanced at you, “Take a seat. Make yourself comfortable.” He sat at his computer, typing away.
You looked around at his office to find something to help start conversation since the silence in the room made you feel awkward. Except, he didn’t have any photos. No family, friends, nothing. It made you feel kind of bad for him. Imagine how lonely he must be.
Finally saying something, the professor started, “Looking at your current grade- well, you’re at a D+ right now. C’mon Y/N, I expected better of you. You started off my class doing exceptional work on all my assignments. But now, you are so behind.”
“I know. I just haven’t been doing good these past couple of weeks. It’s just a lot going on not even with my life ju-”
“It’s alright. If you want to explain what has been going on, I’m here to listen. I just want you to do better. I don’t like seeing my students struggle, especially if I know what they are capable of. You can talk to me about what you are going through, only if you’re comfortable” His eyes glued to his computer then made eye contact with you for a brief moment. After a few seconds, he ran his fingers, pushing the strands on his face back, going back to viewing the screen.
You felt conflicted. You wanted to tell him about what you were going through. But, you didn’t feel like your struggles were valid. Should you be given another shot at your assignments when you didn’t show up to class for almost a month? Nothing was going on in your life, so what could you even say?
You decided to just say what was on your mind. Being honest was the only chance you had at passing this class, especially since you wanted to transfer soon. You stopped playing with your fingers and fixed your posture.
“Well, recently I’ve just been overthinking. I’ve kind of lost all my motivation for school. I don’t even know why. I’m assuming it’s because I still don’t have a major while all my friends are already transferring, graduating, and planning out their futures. While I’m just stuck. I feel like I’m not going anywhere.” The man sitting across from you, with his full attention. You didn’t even know when he stopped paying attention to his computer. He responds.
“That’s completely understandable”
“What?” That caught you off guard. You were so used to most teachers invalidating their students’ feelings.
“I mean. I can absolutely see how that would affect your mindset for school. How about we figure out a plan to get you right back on track.” His hands clasped together showed that he was genuinely interested in helping you. Staring at his hands, you noticed his hands were really big, his veins immediately grabbing your attention. This caused your face to go red. You could tell he enjoyed working out in his free time.
“Sounds good.” you smiled. You were still confused as to why he was helping you but he was able to get your grade up plus he was attractive so it served as eye candy while he worked.
After countless questions about your interests, the two of you were able to figure out a potential major for you which made you feel a lot more motivated. You felt like you were finally moving forward rather than continuing to be stagnant. Two hours had now passed and you had to go home. As you packed your notebook and pencil bag, the man invited you to another potential meeting.
“Y/N if you ever need help with figuring out how to go about your major just let me know and we could help figure out a plan.” He stated. His eagerness to help you really meant a lot, so why not visit him again?
“Yeah. That actually sounds really good. I’d love to plan out my schedule.” You responded.
“Great! You can just come by whenever. No need to make an appointment… that is if you can find my office on your own.” He teased which caused you to jokingly roll your eyes. “Anyways, I’ll see you Y/N.”
“Thank you for your help Professor Aizawa!” You left his office and made your way home. Not only feeling accomplished but also feeling a weird feeling, almost like butterflies.
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The next day, you decided to go by his office to see if he was there. You weren’t planning on having another meeting with Professor Aizawa since you didn’t want to seem weird, but you still wanted to see him since you only had class with him 2 days a week.
You walked into the Social Sciences building and headed to his office, only wanting to casually walk by to get a glance of the professor before heading home. Walking up the stairs, you made your way and pretended to casually stroll by… like you didn’t purposely walk across your campus just to get a glimpse of him. A part of you didn’t even know why you were even doing this. Another part of you just wanted to see what he was wearing, hear his voice, you wanted him to acknowledge you. These thoughts in your head turned into a full on day dream and you dozed off as you walked, not noticing that you had walked by without even looking into his office.
“Fuck” You thought. You missed your chance at seeing him. Should you walk back and potentially get caught walking around his office or should you just give up and go home?
You turned around and headed back towards his office. If he noticed you walking by his office again you could just say you forgot something. But why would he even ask? Your mind started to race with possible scenarios that could occur. Suddenly, you noticed a figure walking towards you. Of course, it was Professor Aizawa heading home.
“Hi Y/N. What are you doing here? There aren’t any classes going on right now?”
Embarrassment flowed throughout your whole body. You weren’t even sure of what to tell him since you were on the third floor of the Social Science Building where all the offices were located. Most of the professors had gone home. You cleared your throat.
“Um- I was just…” God what could you even say? “I just wanted to see if you were in your office- to see if we could plan out my schedule for next semester. You know since you said you could help me” You awkwardly laughed.
“Oh.”
“But I see you’re done for the day so we can just plan ano-”
“No it’s fine. I don’t mind staying later. I’m not busy this evening” He interrupted.
The two of you walked to his office. You felt a little guilty since you’re the reason that he has to stay on campus even longer.
“I’m sorry for making you stay later” You apologized.
“No don’t be sorry. I don’t mind at all. Listen. My job is to help my students. I enjoy this.”
You had no idea why that made your heart rate increase. Were you starting to develop feelings for your professor? You were so confused but you pushed it aside to take in the time you were spending. Admiring every feature of his face. From his man bun, to his 5 o’clock shadow, everything about Professor Aizawa captivated you.
After about an hour, you finally had all your classes for the next 2 semesters planned out. You planned on taking 12 units per semester which included general ed classes along with classes for your major. Grinning at your professor as you put away your paperwork into your backpack, you felt so much appreciation for him. In just 2 days, you were able to not only pick a major, but also plan out your semesters. And it was all thanks to your history professor.
“Thank you so much. I really appreciate you going all this way for me. I really don’t deserve all this honestly. But it means a lot that you are so willing to help me.”
“Don’t sweat it. Seeing you grow is enough of a reward to me. It’s why I do what I do.” He was packing his things as well.
“Well, I’ll see you in class! Thank you so much again for all your help,” waving goodbye as you walked out.
When you approached the door of the Social Science building you noticed that it was pouring rain outside. You had no idea it was even going to rain so you definitely were not prepared. Conveniently, you also planned to walk home since you couldn’t afford an uber home. You decided to try calling your mom, no answer. Friends? The two friends you had both worked. While you were waiting and trying to call your friends, Professor Aizawa approached the door to go to his car.
“Oh my bad.” He could sense that there was something wrong with you which caused him to make a second take to you. “You have a way home right?” Oh no. Were you better off lying to him or being honest?
“Um, yeah I wasn’t aware it was gonna rain today and I was planning on walking home. I don’t know why no one is answering to pick me up.”
“If you want I could give you a ride home. Just so you don’t have to walk home in the rain,” the keys wiggling between his fingers called your attention.
“Oh god haha. I feel bad.”
“I don’t mind. I’d rather drive you home then have you walking home by yourself in the rain.”
“If you can, I would appreciate it.”
“Alright. Let’s go.” He declared.
Walking to the parking lot while sharing an umbrella, you wondered what kind of car your professor would have. Your curiosity was put on hold when you heard a car ring. There it was. You weren’t someone who knew much about cars but the car had a small logo in front. The top of the license plate read: Mercedes Benz. The car shimmered with a clean grey tint. The car itself looked expensive. You both entered the car and headed to your home.
The car ride was about half an hour. It was also very silent. Professor Aizawa occasionally made small talk but due to the fact that it was pouring rain he became too focused on the road. The car was filled with the sound of the radio playing top hits. From time to time, you would glance at him. You noticed how mad he looked when he drove which made you flustered. His left thumb was placed on his lip as his right hand steered the wheel. Whenever someone cut him off, he would tug on his tie to let out his frustration. Furrowed eyebrows and random moments where he would clear his throat as if he was about to say something but never did. You noticed the details about the professor, such as when he would look back, he’d place his arm around your seat which always made you hold your breath with a clear blush on your face.
Professor Aizawa finally arrived at your house. You watched his hand as he moved the gear shift to ‘P.’ He rubbed his five o clock shadow before turning to you. You were lost in him.
“This is your house right?” He questioned which broke you from your trance.
“Oh! Yeah. This is my house. Thank you again for taking me home. I’ll try giving you gas money next time I see you”
“It’s alright. Don’t worry about it. Your house is on the way to mine so I don’t lose anything from taking you home. Let me know if you ever need me to drop you off again okay?”
“Sure thing. Thank you again Professor Aizawa!”
“Call me Aizawa. I’m not on the job right now so feel free to just call me Aizawa. Have a good one.” He laughed. You exited his car and walked to your door, noticing that he was waiting until you entered your home which made your heart warm.
When you entered your room, you immediately threw yourself on your bed. An exhale left you and had you feeling a sense of satisfaction. Your whole body felt warm and you weren’t sure why. You felt so many feelings. You constantly wanted to be around Aizawa. A part of you felt disappointed that he would never send you a text message everyday, let alone even feel the same way about you. The other part of you felt a sense of bliss that you were even in his car. Another part of you felt weird and wrong for having these wants and feelings towards your professor. You pressed your thighs together to give yourself the pleasure your teacher would never be able to, imagining his touch granting you all of your deepest desires as a melody of his name left your lips.
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The next couple of weeks consisted of you going to Aizawa’s office after your classes. The first couple of days, you would make up random excuses to visit him like homework help, directions, small things like that. As time passed on, you just started to go with no excuse. The two of you would talk for hours about random things. He would even go as far as buy you food. The two of you would eat while laughing about life stories each of you would tell. He would take you home everyday, even teaching you how to drive. The man would constantly tease you for not knowing how to drive.
“So let me get this. You’re 21 and can’t drive?” The man laughed as he took the last bite of his burrito bowl.
“Yeah,” you mumbled, “you know I kinda have a fear of driving.”
“Want me to teach you?”
The more you hung out with him, the more you fell head over heels over him. You felt like your feelings were wrong. Was it bad to like someone 10 years older than you? Someone who already had his life figured out while you were still trying to figure out yours? These questions kept you up at night. The divide within your thoughts had you torn. No one could fulfill you like he could.
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You entered his office one Thursday evening. It was the end of the week and the end of finals. You were completely exhausted. When you entered Aizawa’s office, things were different. The couch and your usual seat were gone. You stared at the professor in confusion.
“Oh… are you busy today?” You questioned.
“No. Oh! The chairs- I just needed to get my furniture cleaned since the semester is about to end but I guess they still haven’t finished cleaning.” He kept his eyes on the computer.
“Should I leave?” You were so confused. He was acting so weird.
“Why?” He continued typing, completely unfazed.
“Well there’s nowhere for me to sit…”
“Why don’t you just sit on the floor, princess” Immediately, a look of regret spread on his face. He was so focused typing he didn’t realize what he said, “Oh shit, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to call you that.” Both of your faces were covered in a bright shade of red.
You tried to ease the discomfort in the room. “Oh it’s okay I actually like it! It’s cute!” Too honest. That was probably the wrong thing to say. Aizawa moved his focus from his computer to you. His eyes could see the longing you felt for him. His eyes knew that you wanted him.
“Oh really?” He playfully said, “In that case, I don’t think a princess should be sitting on the ground like that.”
“Well there’s nowhere else to sit.” You could sense he was flirting with you. Did he want you as much as you wanted him, or was it all in your head?
“Well… why don’t you sit on my lap?” His voice mocked you. The energy in the room had completely shifted. It felt like pure ecstasy. Was this real? Or just another one of your dreams? One of those dreams of your professor that left you absolutely soaked every single time you woke up. There was no way this was reality.
Aizawa had rolled his chair back, waiting for you to join him. His hands hanging from the arm rests, the sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up to his elbows which made your breathing faster. You wanted those hands on you so bad. The urge for pleasure ran all over your body.
“What the fuck” was all you could say. It caught you off guard that he would say something like that. You were so used to seeing him be professional that seeing this side of him threw you off, but you loved this new side of him. And you wanted to have some fun with him…
“Maybe if you would’ve had a chair I would’ve had an actual place to sit..but whatever I guess” You talked back. You knew this would bother him since he was so used to being in charge as a teacher.
“Ahhh so that’s how it’s going to be” which was followed by a sinister giggle and dark stare. Your body was entangled by Aizawa’s eyes. He didn’t even have to lift a finger and you were already walking towards him. He had you on an imaginary leash that you loved. When you were close enough he yanked your arm and placed you on his lap, looking away from him. You could feel yourself getting wet for him.
”Since you want to act like a little brat with me, how about I show you how things are done here? You must’ve gotten a little too comfortable with me so let me put you in your place, princess” He whispered into the crook of your neck, which released a whine in you.
“Look at how wet you are for me, all I have to do is whisper in your ear and you’re dripping for me, I can feel it,” He was right. Aizawa didn’t have to touch you and you were a mess for him. Even in class, whenever you noticed Aizawa glance at you, you would always tighten your thighs just to get some sort of small release. His whisper in your ear made you so weak and he knew that, “So why doesn’t my princess destress herself. I can't even imagine how stressful school must be for her.” His hands were wrapped around you, gently brushing against your bare inner thigh. You always wore skirts everyday in hopes that he could put his hands up your legs and it was finally happening.
“Hnnng” All you could do was whine. Nothing was being done, so how could you already feel so much?
“C’mon. Why don’t you grind on my thigh? I can tell by the way you’ve been looking at me that you’ve wanted this for so, so long. Go on- Here why don’t I help you” The man proceeded to grab your hips and gyrate them. Moving your body in circles, you whimpered cries of pleasure. His toned thigh against your throbbing sex while his hands gripped you. His hands progressively got tighter around your waist and he began using his tongue on your neck to follow the gyrating motion from your hips. All you could do was grasp his hands and cry. You felt so good but you had to keep your voice down since the two of you were in his office and you were scared others would hear.
“God, I can feel how wet you are for me. C'mon let me hear you moan for me, don’t be shy” He nibbled on your ear as he moved his hand down your body and underneath your skirt. He chuckled under his breath as he felt how wet you were for him. Aizawa gave you some time to get used to his touch before inserting two fingers inside of you. An audible “mmm” could be heard and felt from him. He thought it was so hot how much you wanted him. He noticed all those times in class when you would move your eyes to his bulge whenever he was teaching, or when you would stare at his hands when he drove. He wanted to keep you wanting him.
He removed his fingers from your pussy and stuck them in your mouth so you could taste yourself. Moving his fingers, you gagged with watery eyes.
“Look at you. You’re a sloppy fucking mess for me. I can't wait to have my cock in you.” He moaned in your ear before moving you to the ground. The man moved you to the ground and demanded you to strip for
“Strip for me like the slut you are.” He walked back to his seat and watched you fully clothed as you slowly removed your clothes. He didn’t move at all, his eyes stayed glued on you. Meanwhile, you couldn’t even stare at him. You focused your attention to your clothes. After finally taking off everything, he made you crawl to him. A part of you was embarrassed at how much control this man had over you. But the other half of you had dreamt of this for so long. You wanted him to control you so bad.
You slowly unzipped his pants and could feel his erect cock spring out. A trail of precum leaked from it. You took the tip into your mouth as your tongue swirled along his sensitive part which stirred up a groan from the man. After a few minutes, you fully took him into your mouth. You felt pressure on the back of your head. Aizawa had placed his hand on the back of your head to keep you on his entire cock. This elicited a gag from you.
“Damn you would think with the way you dress you’d know how to do this by now. No worries, princess I’ll teach you how” He ridiculed before grabbing your hair and moving your face to his shaft, taking him whole. He started to move your face up and down his cock as he fucked your face. The back of your throat burned and your vision was blurred, however through all that, this was the most fulfilled you’ve been. After so many dreams of Aizawa, you finally had him. Your fantasy was being granted. He came in your mouth, telling you to open your cum filled mouth. He grabbed your face as he spit in your mouth. You swallowed before thanking him.
“Thank you, sir” You breathed. He grabbed the back of your neck and kissed you for the first time. Lips brushed against each other as the two of you mumbled sweet nothings. Aizawa stroked himself as he seductively spoke in between your lips.
“Well since there’s no chair I guess the only place your slutty ass can sit is on my cock, huh princess?” He sat on his chair, his hand around your waist. His hair was down and strands covered his face. A look of sin was conveyed on his face. He wasn’t just your professor anymore. At this moment, Aizawa embodied corruption. This was a completely different side of him that no one would ever get to see. Nobody except you. This realization scared you but it also excited you.
You joined him on the chair and slowly lowered yourself onto his cock. You let out a harsh cry as soon as his tip was inside of you before quickly covering your mouth.
“I want you to fuck yourself using my cock, you understand?” He purred into your ear which sent chills down your spine.
“Y-yes sir” You stuttered before slowly lifting yourself up. Up & down- the motion that would drive you mad. Even the slow speed you were going at wasn’t enough to have your legs trembling.
“Ah..fuck” You moaned.
“That’s a good girl. Like that.” Aizawa murmured. He had sat back and admired you, letting you go at your own pace. Occasionally, the man would pet your hair and caress your face.
After some time, impatience grew for Aizawa. He wanted to fuck you so hard. It took everything in him to let you go at your own slow pace. But his animalistic arousal was getting the best of him. He put his hand around your neck as he put you down on his desk.He buried his cock in you. The pace progressively got faster and faster. You weren’t used to this at all.
“Aizawa fuck. Too fast. Please keep going” You begged. Stars started to form in your vision but the feeling of euphoria you felt ran down to your sweet spot. Your natural instinct in you caused you to place your hands on his chest to move him away due to the overwhelming sensation you felt. In response, he stopped. He grabbed your hands that were on his chest and moved them on above your head. Aizawa undid his maroon tie and proceeded to bind your hands together.
“Your hands were getting in the way.” His raspy voice let out an almost menacing chuckle, as if he was now mocking you. You were in his complete control, which is something that brought out a raunchy side of him. It was something that made you absolutely weak. You wanted to submit to him.
He continued to thrust in and out of you again. Eventually, he was going at a fast pace again. His fuck had your mind blank. All you could let out were whimpers and pleads, while he grunted in your ear.
“C’mon I wanna hear you moan louder for daddy. You're daddy’s princess, let me hear you. Here let me help you” The man moved his hand to your sweet spot and proceeded to move his fingers in circles. By this point, you were practically screaming at all the pleasure he was giving you. You didn’t even care if others could hear your moans. You wanted him to keep going so bad, but could your body handle it? You opened your eyes for a brief second and caught a glimpse of the man’s eyes. His black eyes were full of impurity as he watched you go from his innocent student to his lewd fucktoy.
“I'm not gonna let you cum until you’re begging for me. Why don’t you ask me if you can cum?” his hand on your clit continued to move in circles, picking up speed.
“Ah~ Fuck. I want to cum” You moaned. The man grabbed your jaw in an aggressive manner and moved his face close to yours.
“That’s not what I fucking said. I told you to ask. Guess you’re not good at listening to directions huh.” He said as he sternly looked into your tear-filled eyes.
“P-please- Can I please cum?~” You cried out. You ached for release.
Aizawa began pulling your hips down to him, sinking his fingers into them. His cock could be felt pulsating in you as he quickly entered you. Sparks flew within his office. The room was filled with lust and you could feel yourself rising to release. Both of your breaths got faster and you felt yourself let go. Aizawa had released himself on your stomach. You stayed on his desk and he sat in his chair, the two of you catching your breaths and coming back to earth.
“Here.” Aizawa handed you a cold water bottle. “Are you okay?” The concern in his voice made you finally come back to your reality. He helped you clean you up.
“I’m fine.” You felt more than fine. Your mind had just returned from a state of euphoria that you never thought you were ever going to get. You secretly pinched your thigh just to see if you could have been dreaming. This was no dream. This was just a reality you never expected.
“I wasn’t too rough on you right? I guess I got too carried away.”
“No! Don’t worry about it! I was good the whole time.” You reassured him.
The look in his eyes was different now. They gleamed in the light and had a sweet look. The two of you got dressed again. You made your way to the door of the building, before Aizawa rushed to grab your arm. The man cleared his throat once you turned his direction.
“Do you uh- want to eat something before you go? If you want, I can drive you home.” His cheeks became a bright pink, which made you giggle. The fact that he was acting so shy now after everything that the two of you just did.
“Oh. Sure”
“Alright. I’ll order us some Chipotle. How does that sound?”
“Sounds good.” You smiled at him as the two of you walked back to his office. You guys would end up spending the rest of the evening chatting and embracing each other’s company, literally. The rest of the day would be spent in Aizawa’s arms and you would cherish the warmth of his arms around you, feeling safe.
#aizawa#aizawa x female reader#aizawa x y/n#mha aizawa#aizawa shouta#teacher x student#professor x student#bnha aizawa#my hero x reader#bnha smut#bnha x reader#aizawa smut#college au
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So, I can see from your long response to my ask that this story arc has really hit a nerve, and I did not intend to piss you off the way I seem to have. I will concede that Alex being overly protective of her authority as THE MOM came off as forced and out of character without it being presented as a projection of her own insecurities. I think part of the inconsistencies in how the story is told is that the writers keep jumping what they want aliens to be an allegory for. Sometimes they’re the LGBTQ+ community. Sometimes they’re immigrants or racial/religious minorities. This almost felt like they were coming at it from a neuro-divergence angle, and it reminded me of a lot of the debate around ABA and masking. It also felt like they were setting up the idea of being closeted vs out, which is why the writers felt Alex had the experience to speak the way she did. I also get your point about Alex using her sexuality as license to speak for other marginalized groups, and I agree that should have been called out. I just don’t think her points were completely invalid. As for the jealousy thing, I’m not saying that was in the text of the episode, just that that could have been an interesting nuance to add to the discussion. It’s something you see in a lot of communities where the old guard are sometimes unconsciously, and sometimes not so unconsciously resentful on a level of how life is easier for the younger generations. Anyway, those are just my thoughts. It’s obviously cool if you disagree. I was also curious if you ever watch Young Justice. The third season was very up and down (some pretty bad LGBTQ rep and repeatedly graphically killing a WOC—because she could resurrect—chief among the downs), but it did cover some of these issues.
lol oh, I'm not bothered by your ask at all! The storyline just landed in the uncanny valley of being almost character-true in all the right ways and then the setup didn't deliver.
So, I don't actually think the show has been all that inconsistent with how it looks at alienness? There is the established connection between hiding and being "in the closet," which they set up in S1, and then there is the obvious parallel between being an alien— i.e. part of a minority ethnic group/culture— and being an immigrant, which has also been present for most of the series.
S1 also did a very nice job of using powers as a neurodivergence stand-in, which is different than saying that being an alien is automatically the reason for that similarity since not all aliens have sensory-based powers, or even powers at all. (There's a bunch of meta on it here, some of which I wrote, and then we also talked about it in this episode of Supergirl’s Attic.)
You're right, they're setting up Kara for the idea of being "out," in the sense of her deciding exactly how she wants to live her life and with whom she wants to share it. But that wasn't the issue Kara was speaking to in this episode re: Esme, and it was also not the problem Esme was experiencing. Alex reads the problem wrong because the lens of her experience does not include the actual problem at hand— she minimizes both Esme's and Kara's pain that's come from being themselves in a society that is not kind to them, no matter how supportive their loved ones are, in the same way she minimized Kelly's struggles against systemic racism in 6x12 until it was called out.
So, ultimately, Alex and Kara were having different conversations about very different aspects of marginalization— while both raising valid points!— but the text only supported Alex's point of view, which we can see in how J'onn encouraged Kara to concede to Alex without ever validating Kara's feelings, and Kara ended up apologizing without Alex really acknowledging her own shortcomings in return. And that’s a little bit concerning to me as far as setup for Kara’s arc at the end of the series, because it's a shallow way to understand her identity and completely sidesteps Alex's role in making Kara feel like she's had to hide.
I have not watched Young Justice, sorry! But that sounds very cool. ☺️
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Who was your favourite Eternal
This is such a hard question! So I'm going to rank them, if that's ok?
1. Makkari
Even though she was the last Eternal that they found, she brightened up the screen and stole my heart. At first, I was worried about the extend of her power being too powerful, but it worked into the movie perfectly!
I loved it how even though, out of the group fighting for humanity at the end, she had spent less time with humans. Sersi obviously has always been close with humanity, and loved them deeply, Phastos had his family to worry about, and one of the first things we learned about Druig was how much he hated to see humans hurt.
Even though Makkari wasn't as close to humans as they were, she was still very emotional at the thought of their extinction, and ultimately chose to defend them against Ikarus.
I adored her relationship with Druig! Lauren and Barry did an amazing job of showing such strong chemistry in such a short time.
Overall, she has a good heart, cool powers, was wonderfully portrayed, and had strong connections with fellow characters.
2. Druig and Sersi
I seriously can't choose between these two, so they've tied.
Sersi. Gemma Chan. Just... Gemma Chan. She's incredible every time she hops on screen. And Sersi's character is something completely new on-screen for a heroine. She's soft, and gentle. She's not motivated by anything other than her love for humanity. And whilst she seems to doubt her abilities a lot, she never seems to doubt her morals, which I love.
Druig was such a great character! I went for being sort of unsure about which way he was going to go after his decision to control the humans at the start.
That's another thing I loved about Eternals. There are so many different ethical points of view. There are those like Sersi and Phastos, who will do whatever they can to protect humanity, but they won't take away their free will. Then there are people like Druig, who seem to be physically unable to watch humanity hurt each other.
This is strange for a person who seems to dislike interacting with people, but it also makes sense considering how hard it must be for him to watch all the awful things humans do to each other, knowing that he could stop it.
Also, that rock smack was the best thing in the world.
4. Phastos
Now that I think about it, I actually appreciated Phastos' relationship to humanity more so than Sersei's. Whilst Sersi seems to love humans as a species, Phastos' relationship is more personal. Despite "giving up on humans a long time ago", he's the only one who has married and actually raised a family with them.
His power is amazing, and you can truly see how this has influenced his perception of humanity. Similar to Druig, Phastos is tempted to use his powers to help humanity in a way that isn't allowed by Arishem.
Also, that Hiroshima scene really touched me, probably because I have a similar view of nuclear weapons that Phastos does.
5. Gilgamesh
Just... everyone deserves a friend like Gilgamesh. I'm actually a bit conflicted about putting both him and Thena in this list because, in a way, they seem to be part of a separate story altogether. And I love them both so much, I hate that they're so far down on this list.
He actually has one of my favourite lines (even though it's actually spoken by Thena) that I think really sums up what this whole film was about.
"When you love something, you protect it. It's the most natural thing in the world."
This quote is just the purest, simplest, yet deep, thing I've ever heard. And it's exactly what Sersi needed to hear. The main argument against stopping the Emergence was that they were going against the natural order. This view from Gilgamesh completely invalidates that view because their desire to protect the world was natural.
6. Thena
I loved how much this character subverted my expectations. She was uncharacteristically soft and doubtful of herself for a fierce warrior princess figure. And I like that it really goes to show that anyone can fall victim to low self-esteem and even mental health issues.
7. Kingo
I don't know what to say. I liked him, I thought he was very funny. He didn't blow me away. I wasn't a fan of the way he bailed in the end. But I guess it does make sense with his character. He seemed to be the one who shifted back into the team so well that, for him, it seemed like no time had passed.
I guess he was the one who really relied on his family (the Eternals) and couldn't bear to see them fight. His closeness with his family is also shown through his love of movies, inspired by Sprite's stories. And him 'adopting' Sprite after she became human.
8. Ajak
Don't shoot! Look, I liked her. Maybe she's so far down on this list because of the lack of screen time. I appreciated her change of heart.
9. Sprite
*sigh* Sprite, Sprite, Sprite. What sucks is if she hadn't betrayed them in the end, she probably would've been in my top three.
I adored her powers, her sob story, but it wasn't sob enough to justify her actions at the end in my eyes. Go to school, Sprite. Learn something, Sprite.
10. Ikarus
He can choke. I goddamn trusted him. His name was a fucking warning to us and we ignored it.
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Thoughts on the various "young!Boba gets adopted" AUs out there? The various people/groups I've seen adopting him in fanon have been Obi Wan, Plo Koon, assortments of clones, and of course fellow bounty hunters like Bossk and Cad Bane. Personally - I love them all since any AU where young Boba is loved and supported brings me joy - but wondering if you had any specific thoughts on what's most likely/makes the most sense/would be best for Boba/etc. Since you're looking for asks :)
hello there! i also love boba-gets-adopted AUs bc i like to believe in a universe where he ended up safe and loved :,D in fact, in the junior novels, he does end up being brought to an orphanage on bespin, but it’s a republic orphanage and there’s jedi on the ship taking him there and he has to lie about his name and basically there’s a bunch of stuff that drives him to cut and run as soon as he’s able. BUT i definitely think things could’ve been different.
first off, disclaimer that the following are simply my opinions and that i don’t intend to bash or invalidate people with different headcanons/AUs. but yes, here are my opinions on who would likely have the least/most success in adopting a freshly orphaned boba.
i think it’s safe to say that any jedi would have their work cut out for them. he was raised to see them as the enemy, he knows his father’s history with them, and watching one of them decapitate his dad definitely didn’t help matters. he would likely respond to any of them trying to get close with anger and suspicion, not to mention a healthy dose of fear as to what their ulterior motive might be (are they after information? are they trying to make sure he won’t become a threat? do they just want to erase his father’s legacy?). ngl, i think a story with a jedi character like obi-wan or plo-koon trying to gain boba’s trust would be a fascinating read, but if we’re talking purely what’s the most likely/best arrangement for boba, jedi are probably at the bottom of the list, just bc boba’s view of them as the monsters who killed his dad and his dad’s family would make gaining his trust not only unlikely, but also a thoroughly distressing affair for everyone involved.
next up is the clones. this one i think could work, but it would require said clone(s) deserting for best chance of success. if they didn’t desert and stayed with the republic, boba would view their attempted “adoption” of him as capture at best and forced conscription at worst—obviously, they’re just taking him in bc they think he’s just a wayward clonetrooper who needs to be taught to fight and die for the republic, right? plus, non-deserter clones would likely have regular interaction with the jedi, which would present the problems from the bullet points above. on the other hand, if the clones were deserters, boba would likely have some immediate sympathy for them as they would share the same enemies/pursuers and he would have some interest in helping to keep them safe and free. even if this altruism would be at least partially motivated by the desire to stick it to the republic/jedi, i could see it easily evolving into genuine care and affection. the big, interesting obstacle here would be that, in the EU especially, boba isn’t very comfortable around clones. like, when he was even younger, he thought they were cool and liked to watch them march and train, but once his dad told him that boba himself was a clone too, boba became unsettled and stopped watching them. and then after jango is killed, well... the clones became upsetting to him for an entirely different reason. especially if any clone characters attempted to adopt boba, there’d be a lot of tension stemming from their resemblance to his father, plus boba’s own desire to be distinct and separate from them. i do think a happy ending is possible here, but it would require boba to learn to view the clones as individuals, not as reflections of his dad and not as threats to his own individuality.
then we have bounty hunters. honestly i’m not familiar enough with cad bane to have any say on his potential as an adoptive parent and i’m so used to the EU depiction of bossk and boba as shitty rivals that the thought of bossk trying to parent boba is inherently hilarious to me. HOWEVER, there is one bounty hunter who i think would be the number one best option for boba adoption and that’s zam wesell. yes, the one that jango murdered. as i’ve mentioned in previous posts, zam basically acted like boba’s second parent in the EU and, in an alternate universe where she survived jango’s assassination attempt, boba would be ecstatic to find out she’s still alive and, so long as she supported him in his quest to become a bounty hunter, he’d probably be happy to let her retake her parental role. the one tension point i can see here is that zam might not be so keen to let her adopted kid run off to try and avenge the man who almost killed her, but this could be mitigated by convincing boba to wait/train until someone else kills mace he’s older and ready. zam’s got a charisma score, she could swing it.
and finally: mandalorians! this would be another great option bc boba, especially younger boba, inherently trusts mandalorians more than most others in the galaxy (this is, in fact, implied to be one of the reasons he chooses concord dawn as his and sintas’s new home as a teenager; mandalorians, he thinks, are trustworthy and safe ;; ) he also almost certainly knows of their tendency towards adoption and thus would not be as quick to question their motives as he would be for some of the others on this list. not to mention, mandalorians would be more likely to support him in becoming a bounty hunter/warrior AND in avenging his father, which would earn them major respect and gratitude in boba’s mind. finally, assuming his adopters were similar to true mandalorians, the fact that they would share a culture in common would also likely make the adjustment period much easier than if boba were adopted into a non-mandalorian household.
and there you have it! as you can see, i think the best two options for adoptive guardians for boba would be a) (true) mandalorians or b) a miraculously-not-dead zam wesell. clone deserters could also be fun and ultimately beneficial, while attempted adoptions by GAR!clones and/or jedi could also lead to plenty of fun angst. in any case, it’s a great trope and it’s always nice to fantasize about a galaxy where boba gets to have a family again :,)
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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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Phoenix (6/6)
Words: 3582
Pairing: Steve McGarrett/Danny Williams, Chin go Kelly/Malia Waincroft, Kono Kalakaua/Adam Noshimuri
Summary: Malia's Funeral. Chin and Alyssa philosophically drink. Danny and Steve bickering.
⚠ Set during and after 3.02 ⚠
Funerals, whiskey, and tears.
Alyssa hated death.
She loathed it with all her heart, not because of death per se or the gigantic hole someone left in your life without knowing it, she hated death because of the consequences that it had on the living.
The loneliness, the sorrow, the tears, the cold, the heartache, the mental and emotional breakdown; Alyssa abhorred seeing the people she cared for in that kind of pain because she felt and saw it too many times. Any professional would have said it was kinda unhealthy, at that point.
Death was Alyssa's solo, steady, companion in her life and she despised it.
At the first funeral she attended, she was six and no one had to explain to her what had happened or what was happening. She knew that her Nonno Alberto wasn't sleeping in the casket and she felt like she would have never been able to talk to him ever again, but she was okay with that in a strange way.
She was sad, obviously, but after her mother and sister talked to her, she accepted that it was a fact that no one could change.
What had broken her into a pathetic whine was the devastation that she could see on her parents and sister's faces; she didn't want them to feel that way, she wanted them to smile, to laugh, to enjoy the food it was passed around, but she was six and she couldn't do anything to help.
That broke her spirit and her little heart.
In the mare eight years after, Alyssa attended other four family funerals. The last one, when she was fourteen, was her mother's.
For the first time, she didn't just saw the agony in her grannies' faces or her dad's or her sister's; Alyssa felt it, felt the voidness in her chest, the crack in her soul, the ultimate clusterfuck of emotion that her brain was, one moment she was crying for her loss and the next she was hysterically laughing.
Everyone was telling her to be strong. To be courageous. To be there for her dad, but she just wanted to disappear, to stop feeling, to lose herself into the void.
Everything was too much and she didn't know how to copy. The sun was too bright, the sorrow of the people gathered too fake, the emotions too troublesome and Alyssa just turned it all off.
It took hours, a panic attack at the thought of never being able to feel again, and a hurtful headshot with her cousin's forehead to evade the nothingness and being able to feel again. Years later she would have learned that she had her first emotional overload that day.
But death wasn't done with her.
Her mother's cousin, her mother's aunt, her two grannies, her father's aunt, all died before her twenty-second birthday.
Death wasn't a stranger to Alyssa but she now could handle the aftermath.
At least, that was what she thought before Danny's call.
It had been a long work night. She had just finished examining a young boy that was brought into ER at an hour where you can't tell if it is too late or too soon when her phone ringed. Danny's voice cracked when he told her about Malia's death.
Alyssa was so out of it that she breakdown in the middle of ER. The nurses had to take her phone and tell Danny to come, take her home. Her blond friends didn't leave her alone that night: he brought her to his home and tackle her on the couch, under soft sheets. Told her to wake him if there was anything she needed.
Alyssa the world became blurred after that.
Danny was always present. Showing up on her doorstep every time he could, bringing her something to eat or drink; they passed the hours sitting on her couch silently drinking their sorrow away. She knew Steve was away for a few days – this time the idiot told them – and when one afternoon Danny showed up with his brunette partner, she just buried herself in the hug that Steve was offering.
It was only a couple of hours later and a call away that Alyssa learned that Doris McGarrett was alive and being watched by Catherine, Steve's ex. That afternoon she learned that Danny had to thought for Grace once again, too.
It took Chin a couple of weeks to organize Malia's surfer funeral ceremony and he asked for her help. He knew how strongly tied Alyssa and Malia had become during the past year and it would be offensive to not include her in it.
They met at a twenty-four hours diner and set together almost all nights; they needed someone to talk to, to mourn and cry with. Someone that could understand the hole Malia left behind at a hundred per cent.
Sometimes Steve showed up, no words, just a cup of coffee and his presence - the worst nights his strong arm could have been found over Alyssa's shoulders. Other times Danny followed him and there were a lot of words included, but they were soft and warm. She found herself smiling softly at the couple more and more times alongside Chin.
And then the day came.
The sky was impeccably blue, no trace of clouds, and the sun could break a stone. Alyssa, wearing her most elegant black suit, was standing on the beach barefoot; in the water, a few meters away, Chin was releasing Malia's ashes. Her eyes were burning because of the tears but she stood rigid, head high, paying her silent respect to one of the best women she ever met in her life.
At her right, Danny was squeezing her forearm to remind her that she was not alone in that. Alyssa breathed shakingly and throw a rapid glance in his direction.
Danny's expression was contracted and his jaw was rigid, tightly closed; his eyes were dark and shiny, a little tear had escaped his left eye but he wouldn't wipe it away: one hand closed around her arm and the other was tightly buried into Steve's suit.
Steve, on the other side of the blonde, had an arm around his boyfriend's waist and was whispering things, trying to console the other man. For all the things that had happened in the last few days, Alyssa was really happy that at least these two were finally together.
Kono was at her left and had taken residence against Alyssa's shoulder, hold protectively by her arm; the woman hadn't yet won against the demons that were telling her that Malia's death was her fault and for that, she hadn't been able to be at his cousin's side in the water. Alyssa had promised Chin to keep an eye on her.
Behind them, a little distant, there were Adam and Cathrine.
Alyssa had yet to meet Kono's man but she knew was told that between him and Chin there wasn't a good relationship; that alone explained why, even though Adam wanted to be there for Kono, he was standing respectfully away. Everyone was pretending he wasn't there – no one wanted to witness a fistfight at a funeral – but now and then Kono would look back and waved a hand to tell him she was alright. Alyssa looked at him only a handful of times, their meeting every time and she nodded, just once, to tell him that his girlfriend was alright.
Cathrine was an entirely different story: she wanted to help Steve but stood back a little from them because she didn't know Malia personally and didn't want to intrude.
In the water, the surfers started shouting and splashing the water.
Malia was gone.
The wake had been good. A lot of people passed by for condolences and even more arrived armed with alcohol.
Alyssa, Kono, Danny, and Steve helped Chin in every way they can – from taking the food from a newly arrived woman to greetings people when Chin hid for a moment – but when their common friend would bench them because "I'm suffering not an invalid", Danny had an entire argument against that, they would find themselves in a corner of the room mourning and sharing stories about Malia.
Alyssa brought the glass to her lips and sipped the brown beverage. She wasn't a whiskey woman – rum, rum was her go-to for the sourest nights – but it was the strongest alcoholic drink that had been left around.
Not even two hours in and Five-0, minus Chin, was called away for a case. Alyssa found herself alone, with not a lot of booze left around: the Kelly-Kalakaua clan turned out to be composed of pro-drinker.
Snatching away a glass, and the last but already opened bottle of whiskey, she went outside and sat on the porch's steps. It was only two weeks and she already missed Malia as she would have missed a limb.
There was a huge void in her life, in her work, in her daily activity by now. It was said that you understood what you had after you had lost it; Alyssa always thought she had understood what she had in Malia – a coworker, a friend, a sister – and yet she felt like she had just lost a piece of who she was.
She felt desperation, rage, sadness, and numbness; she felt it all at once or nothing at all.
God! She felt precisely the same as at her mother's funeral. This time, though, she had booze to drown herself in.
Her phone vibrated again but she ignored Steve's text: the brunette wanted an update on her and Chin, every five minutes. Yeah, she was starting to understand why Danny was always in yelling mode.
She sipped again at the whiskey – no but seriously, why no one had brought rum? – and looked nowhere and everywhere.
«Are you okay?» Chin's voice asked her. Alyssa looked over and watched the man stumbled towards her and slumped (fell) next to her (almost on her). When had he become so drunk?
«Shouldn't be me to ask you that?» She retorted, settling him the best she could.
«Meh. I am good for now: the Okolehao helped». He raised his still full glass. «But you are not drunk, not speaking, and starting at nothing».
Alyssa smirked and sipped from her glass.
«What are you? A policeman?»
Chin's elbow found a new home in her left side. Hard. Ouch.
«I'm not so gone that I can't see you burying your emotion under your scary amount of sarcasm», he warned. «I had worked with Steve and Danny for over two years now, I am trained. And Malia complained about it. A lot. And loud enough».
Alyssa snorted. Gosh, that woman!
They settled in comfortable silence for a few minutes.
Chin knew that Alyssa was dangerously similar to Steve when it came to coping mechanisms: where his boss coped from trauma with an insane dose of recklessness, the woman used a foolish amount of sarcasm.
Just like Danny... A lot like Danny.
Chin looked at the dark-haired woman and couldn't stop himself from thinking that she was what Steve and Danny's child would have been like. Grace had saved herself from becoming that thank to Rachel.
«I thought I become good at managing it», Alyssa's voice brought Chin back to the present.
«Managing what?»
«Death, mourning... The void». She answered with a tight tone before dipping the whiskey, trying to force down the knot that was forming in her throat.
«Death is death, Lyss, there is no way around».
She snorted before drinking again. «Didn't I know that».
Chin cringed at her level of sarcasm. Malia, during a rare night spent on the couch with Netflix and ice cream, had confessed to him that she was preoccupied with her new co-worker's coping mechanism. Steve and Danny hadn't yet become her patients at that point.
The two women weren't even friends but, because Malia was the only one that Alyssa respect enough to not insult, their boss had asked Malia to talk to the younger woman. She had made a nurse cry that day, after blowing up for a stupid reason; Alyssa had probably been at her breaking point because she opened up to Malia the instant she asked her what was wrong. The unhealthy amount of sarcasm used during the explanation – it had been her mother's death anniversary – had left Malia on edge for the rest of the day.
«I'm sorry», Chin mumble apologetically.
Alyssa winced.
«God, Chin. No!» She exclaimed, passing a hand on her face. «Don't ever apologize for something like that. Your sorrow isn't less real than mine cause I had a lot of people taken from me! That is a very, very wrong idea to have!»
«And yet, you're undermining your own only because you attended more funerals than me!» He threw back at her. «Losing a loved one is never easy! Even after fifty damn funerals».
Alyssa shakingly breathed in and filled her now empty glass. She needed a lot more alcohol in her to be able to survive that discussion.
«Death touched me when I was a baby, Chin», she gulped down a good amount of the brown beverage, burning her throat. «I grew up with death breathing down my neck. Wherever I look there was death in a way or another. That scars you for life; the only way out of that ache is accepting.
Accepting that death is real. Death is everywhere, at any given moment, and we can't do shit about it. Life's meaning is death and that's it».
Chin watched her eyes puffing and reddening with unleashed tears, he drunk.
«I understand what you mean but I think you are wrong on two things».
«Enlight me, please», Alyssa's tone was sarcastic but her face was grim: she honestly grew up thinking that she hadn't any more rights to feel the loss of a loved one because she had lost too many.
Chin's heart strung at the revelation. He wanted to kill every idiot that made her feel that way and then protect her a lot more: she was a beautiful person, with a gigantic heart; she didn't deserve all the suffering she had been through.
«First», he choked out, «I think that we can do something about death. Yeah, we can't save anyone and death is the destination of everyone's life... But we can help to make their life a little bit longer and a little bit safer. I become a cop cause of that and you wouldn't be such a good doctor if you didn't think the same. At least, subconsciously».
«Second», his voice lower, careful and full of affection, «I think that death can help us understand life better. Can let us appreciate what we have a lot more, never giving someone for granted. I thought that I had the rest of my life to spend with Malia and I feel that I hadn't told her enough how much I love her».
Alyssa shook her head vigorously.
«Malia knew how much you loved her, Chin. She never questioned your seriousness or your resolve. She comprehended how much you were giving her and she worshipped it.
«Never, ever guilt yourself with her death. Please, please, believe me when I tell you that Malia loved you with every inch of herself, despite knowing that one day you could have died in action or that your work could have followed you home. She knew what she was going up to and she never regretted any of that. That was the kind of love she was willing to give you and the kind of love she knew you were giving her every single second of your life».
Chin sipped from his glass and closed his eyes, trying to contain his tears but losing miserably when one ran down his sharp cheekbone. He didn't even try to wipe it away, too tired.
«I wasn't the only one she loved, Lyss», he remarked. «She thought of you as the little sister she never had. She cared about you as much as you cared for her. Yeah, maybe you didn't know her for long, but you have the same rights as me to be upset. To be angry. To be sad.
«She was your friend and you can be broken because of her death. No matter how many people you lose or how many funerals you attended».
Alyssa felt her eyes stung like bitches and didn't fight the tears or the emotional breakdown. She sobbed loudly, hiding her face with her free hand, letting herself honestly mourning her best friend for the first time since she had been told she had died.
Suddenly, a weight was left from her shoulders, and Chin was there to keep her together. She didn't know what he had done to deserve such good friends but she was thankful for them all.
Chin embraced her for what felt like forever, encouraging her to let go of everything, before the sobs subsided and she stopped crying. They stayed like that – her head on his shoulder and his arm around her shoulders – a little more afterwards, just to know that they were not alone.
The only sound was the neverending buzz of her phone.
«Are you going to respond to Steve's text?» Chin asked after the umpteenth notification.
«Nope, he should learn a little bit of patience». Alyssa responded truthfully. «And I am enjoying my mental picture of Danny bitching at him at every new text».
Chin snorted.
«I think you forget who you are talking about in that bottle of whiskey you stole».
Alyssa scuffed and admitted to herself that she was starting to feel a little tipsy; it was a good feeling. For the first time in days, she felt the void inside her subsided a little bit.
«He has a job to do and he should stay focus on it», she smirked. «We have alcohol to keep us at bay and each other, obviously, because misery loves company».
The dark-haired man laughed at that.
«You would have been right if you were talking about anyone else, but you talking about Steve McGarrett here. He will terrify someone for life just to being able to return here immediately and smother us with worries. If you think that Danny will not partner up with him on this, I will say you drunk too much».
The woman rolled her eyes and was ready to retort that yes, Steve and Danny were practically insane and unstoppable when worried for their ohana but this was different because they knew where they were; when the rumble of an engine tore the quiet air in half and suddenly a silver Camaro was stopping in front of Chin's house with a dangerous screech.
The car went silent a moment after and the first thing the two cuddling friends heard was Danny's scared-pitched ranting. Immediately, they couldn't understand the single words – obstructed by the car door – but then Steve swiftly got out of the vehicle and Danny followed him.
«I was screaming for my life you Neandertal animal!» He was wailing, waving his hands everywhere after closing the car door. «You went up to the red zone of the speedo and never come down! You are officially insane and I should have dragged you to a psychiatrist some time like yesterday!»
«I was preoccupied!» Steve ranted back, now at Danny's side with an I-can't–understand–why-are-you-shouting-at-me face. «She isn't answering her phone! Everything could have happened!».
Danny made a large and circular gesture with his hand and ended up indicating Chin and Alyssa.
«They are drunk, you shmuck! They are at a wake, they are grieving the loss of a very special woman in their life, they are crying, and they are drinking an unhealthy amount of alcohol! Just look at them, they are fine!»
Steve let his gaze follow Danny's hands and he finally noticed that the sources of his concerns, cuddling on the front step of Chin's house. Their glasses were half empty, the whiskey in the bottle was dangerously close to the bottom, and their cheeks were stained with dried tears.
No dangerous whatsoever.
He felt his face flush and shyly waved a hand in their direction.
Alyssa laughed out loud at that because, yeah, Chin was right and she had forgotten who Steve was: a closet mother hen. Hell, if she didn't love him for that.
Chin joined in her laugh and she caught the shitty smut grin that Danny was giving his boyfriend.
Alyssa felt alive and at home. She felt secure like she could be herself even in the worst moment of all with her Ohana around.
She hadn't to hide her sadness and sorrow anymore because now she had insane, lovely people that would help through all of it.
Part (1/2/3/4/5/6)
#fanfiction#hawaii five 0#danny williams#fanfic#mcdanno#mcdanno fanfiction#steve mcgarrett#english is not my first language#friendship#h50 fandom#h50 fanfiction#h50 fic#h50 mcdanno#adam noshimuri#kono kalakaua#chin ho kelly#family#ohana#ohana means family#funeral#whiskey#emotional breakdown#tears#crying#hugging
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Rambling about V3 Again
Today I saw a really interesting quote from author Brandon Sanderson and it honestly got me thinking. He talked about what he considers the single worst thing you can do with critique in writing, and that’s if a critic “tries to make your story into one they would write, rather a better version of one you want to write.”
That got me thinking about V3.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that V3 is a very polarizing game, and I’ve seen many people talk about how they would’ve preferred to see the story play out, from character arcs to deaths to story conclusions. And while I do honestly enjoy seeing alternative perspectives and takes and AU’s, I feel like a lot about the game, what it’s trying to say and be, is skewed by those ideals.
I’m not saying that the critiques about the game are invalid, because there are a fair share of flaws with the game. What I am saying is that we end up talking so much about what we wish V3 could’ve been that what V3 was trying to be often ends up lost in that, and I want to talk about it.
It wasn’t until I really saw this quote that I was able to articulate all my likes and dislikes about the game and the reactions to it into a cohesive whole, which is what I’d like to do here.
So let’s ask this: what was V3 really trying to be?
Let’s start from the game’s theme: the relationship between truth and lies. This is best exemplified by the fact that you have the option to lie during trials, that you can use deception to find the truth. That’s a very different take from the previous games, where hope was associated with finding and confronting the truth.
Kokichi is another example, as he’s a self-admitted liar who claims to lead a criminal organization and it’s hard to tell exactly what he’s thinking or saying. Yet Kokichi actually helps bring the group to several truths: he helps find the culprit in trials, he reveals Maki’s identity as the Ultimate Assassin, tells the truth about Gonta murdering Miu and it’s thanks to his actions that the group later discovers the reality of their situation.
Throughout their journey, the group is confronted by numerous truths they don’t want to acknowledge, even refusing to do so and attacking people who continue to push them through. And with every revelation, there’s always those lingering details that don’t really make a lot of sense.
Let’s look at the game’s main narrative. At the start of the game, Kaede remembers she was kidnapped in broad daylight, thrown into a van, and brought to some abandoned school with a bunch of other people. She doesn’t act like a particularly nice person and is dressed differently, at least until the Monokubs arrive and give everyone their new clothes and memories. From that point, the narrative shifts considerably.
Kaede is suddenly an outgoing, optimistic leader and Shuichi is a sullen, withdrawn detective who serves as her deuteragonist for Chapter 1. She’s resolved to escape the Killing Game and tries to rally the group together. However, when her methods don’t prove successful and they start drifting away from her, she considers saving them by any means necessary and goes so far as to attempt murder against the mastermind. When that happens, she’s found guilty and executed, leaving Shuichi to take up her role as protagonist.
As you go through the game, using devices called flashback lights that apparently reawaken lost memories, you learn more and more about the reason that the group was brought here: the Gofer Project. When meteors began raining down on earth, all seemed lost until they established this project to send a group of survivors into space to colonize a new planet. A group of Ultimates.
They had established early on that Ultimates have even greater rights in this world: they’re the only ones allowed to vote and hold office. As the meteors came down and the news of this project got out, some people formed a cult that believed it was divine judgement and that mankind should be destroyed. That’s when they began the Ultimate Hunt, pursuing the candidates for the Gofer Project across the world. The Ultimates, with no other way out, decided to erase their memories of talent and live their last days as normal people.
To protect them, the people in charge spread a false story that the Ultimates had died, even holding a fake funeral for them and sent them into space secretly. However, while everyone was in cold sleep, one member of the cult- Kokichi- had sneaked aboard and piloted the ship back to the ruined and now inhospitable earth. They have no way back and no way to survive outside, and thanks to Kokichi’s claims to be the mastermind, they’ve been killing each for nothing. The group ultimately loses hope.
However, they’re resolved to continue on in their fight against the mastermind when they find a flashback light that reveals they weren’t just any ultimates: they were the next generation of ultimates from Hope’s Peak Academy. It wasn’t really the meteorites that got everyone, it was an alien virus that pushed mankind to the brink of extinction. That the cult that rose in the wake of this was Ultimate Despair.
That seems like a definitive way to link this game with its predecessors...until you really begin to stop and pick it apart. If this was about saving mankind, why did nobody have their memories right away? Why would you only bring 16 people? Why students who don’t make them suited to colonization? Why people like a death row inmate, a serial killer, a self-proclaimed liar and criminal, and an assassin?
Furthermore, going through many Fte’s highlights how much of the characters’ backstories seem very out there. Gonta wasn’t raised by wolves but a race of dinosaur people living in the woods, Kirumi is so hyper-competent that she became prime minister during the meteor crisis, Korekiyo’s killed almost 100 women and yet has never been caught, Maki can attend high school despite Japanese orphanages being too underfunded for kids to usually attend, Tenko’s neo-aikido breaks all the rules of traditional aikido and she's impulsive, has low pain tolerance, and disregards fair rules, none of which are very befitting of a martial artist.
And to conclude, even I thought that the reveal of their connection to Hope’s Peak felt very fanficy and out there, especially when the game had made no references or implications of it beforehand. But the reason for all of this is simple and effective:
None of this is real. It’s all staged.
Chapter 6 reveals that everything from their identities to the outside world they thought they knew was all just a fabrication. In truth, Tsumugi shows herself as the mastermind and that they’re actually in the 53rd season of an in-universe show called Danganronpa. Something alluded to even in the beginning of the game with the Team Danganronpa logo. This moment was very make or break for a lot of people, but let’s treat it fairly.
According to Tsumugi, the outside world has become a peaceful, boring place and Danganronpa is the only source of real entertainment the people have. A place where people literally come to have their identities replaced with those of Ultimates and then made to kill each other. This, as it turns out, was an outgrowth of the actual series we’d played before. A game that’s gone over 53 times.
This revelation is devastating for the characters. The lives and memories they’d known were all fabrications, which Tsumugi claims to have intentionally written. The Flashback lights were designed to implant fake memories to manipulate them, which is why that Hope’s Peak connection was set up after everyone gave up following the reveal of the outside world. A truth that could lead the world to despair, a lie that could lead the world to hope.
She even goes so far as to show everyone’s audition tapes, claiming that Kaede, Kaito, and Shuichi himself were willing to participate in the killings out of sheer misanthropy, popularity, and morbid excitement
Kiibo is also revealed to be the audience’s means of interacting with the game, able to carry out their wishes and can even be hijacked and used as a way to fight against the characters’ decisions.
In the end, Tsumugi claims that the ongoing battle of hope vs despair needs to continue in perpetuity and that the survivors need to sacrifice someone, since only two people can survive Danganronpa. Shuichi, however, convinces Maki and Himiko not to vote for anyone and actually convinces the in-universe audience to give up on the series. Kiibo then blows the set to hell and allows Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko the chance to escape and see the world outside and what sort of influence they could have.
Now, let’s this break this down piece by piece here, because I feel like this part of the game is often conflated. Often I’ve seen people say that Chapter 6 is a giant middle finger to fans of the series, that nothing about the series really mattered, or that the flaws of the game can simply be attributed to bad writing on the creator’s part.
I honestly used to be in that camp myself, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I feel those statements don’t hold up to scrutiny. We often conflate writing and narrative decisions we don’t like with bad writing. However, if the creator deliberately wants the narrative to move in that direction and has made intentional foreshadowing, references, and motivations that match it, we can’t simply equate that with it being “badly written.”
It’s not bad simply because we would’ve preferred they do something different. There’s a lot of very acclaimed books out there that I’ll admit I don’t care for because of their narrative decisions, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re badly-written.
Furthermore, if something intentionally doesn’t make sense in-story, that is not bad writing. That is purposeful on the part of the creator, not a plot hole. The Gofer Project is not supposed to be a logical narrative, it’s meant to serve V3′s role: deconstruction of the nature of the series. It does this in many different ways:
Sequelization: 53 is a ridiculous amount of entries in a franchise and as I’m sure we’re all aware, as the number of entries goes up, the writing quality tends to go down. The Gofer Project story was purposefully meant to be nonsensical because it’s a story in an in-universe franchise that jumped the shark long ago.
A lot of people found it confusing or ridiculous that Shuichi and Kaede would have a romantic connection despite knowing each other barely a few days. That’s also the point; quick romances are a convenient narrative device to establish a means for character growth, followed by fridging her, a bad narrative trope designed to propel Shuichi toward development. Tsumugi even said as much during Chapter 6.
Similarly, Maki’s role in the story and her feelings for Kaito were reminiscent of that as well, with him helping her come out of her shell.
When you go back, you can see Danganronpa is loaded with references to other series. Tsumugi is an obsessive otaku and went so far as to fill the entire story with deliberate references and callbacks to things she enjoys.
The Monokubs are deliberate references to executive decisions to add more marketable and merchandisable characters as the series drags on.
The fact that there are (supposedly) people willing to sign up for a killing game deconstructs the idea that some in the fandom may have had. That is, actually being in a killing game would not be fun or exciting, but horrific and traumatizing. Most of us wouldn’t be badass detectives or heroes, we’d be scared out of our minds, afraid, and want to find a way out.
Furthermore, Shuichi being repeatedly told that he’s just a fictional character and that his role is to be the protagonist, to go through hardships and come out stronger for the audience’s entertainment pisses him off so much that he wants no part of it.
The climax is ultimately a deconstruction of what the series is famous for: the battle of hope vs. despair. In-universe, this has been reduced down to a simple narrative where the audience wants the same thing again and again: to see hope win in the end. Because hope keeps winning, the audience keeps wanting more. It’s become so formulaic that the audience doesn’t want to break out of its shell and just wants to see it over and over.
The final PTA against Kiibo is not meant to be an insult to the audience, but a representation of fighting against toxicity and entitlement in the fanbase, especially the ones that don’t want change. It’s not saying “you’re stupid for liking this series,” it’s saying “don’t be like these people.”
And how does the game? An unsatisfying ending that’s so bad that it drives the audience to give up on the show, finally allowing the killing to stop. Tsumugi decides she can’t live in a world without her favorite show and decides to die.
And that brings me to what I think is the ultimate thing that people conflate about the ending: that it’s all fiction, so nothing about it matters. That the entire franchise was fake, so it’s not worth your time.
That’s exactly the opposite of what V3 is trying to say.
First, Tsumugi is a completely unreliable narrator. The kind of person who let fiction consume her entire life, yet she believes it can’t change reality. She’s a liar and a hypocrite, and there’s no way of knowing if anything she says about the outside world is even true. It could be like she says or it might not be.
The fact that they have technology that can remove memories and add fake ones adds an entire dimension of ambiguity to everything she says, especially when you consider how the beginning of the game does not match up with what she says. We have no idea what the kids were really like before the killing game, so why should we believe anything she says?
And how can we be certain of her claims that she just wrote everything as planned? Kokichi and Kaito managed to put together a plan that completely threw her and Monokuma for a loop
Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko ultimately choosing to take the words of Kaede, Kaito, and Tenko to heart, even if they were part of a fictional narrative, is proof that they still had an influence on the trio. They choose to take something meaningful from their experiences regardless of the reality of their situation. And that’s something we all do.
The media we consume has an influence over who we are as people, and it’s part of why so many of us have such strong attachments to works we love. They were often influential in help shape who we are as people now, for good and for ill, and it’s important to take that into account.
V3′s message is that yes, that is important, and that you should read and enjoy stories and fiction, just as long as you don’t let it consume your life. They can influence you and even the world at large, and so it’s our responsibility as writers, artists, and creators to use that influence positively, to use the medium as a way to change the world for the better. That the only way for stale franchises that we’re tired of seeing over and over is to demand change, even if that means walking out on them. That the only way for things to change is for us to take action and demand change.
And by the end, we may not see immediate results, but we can at least work hard at trying to bring them about. V3 ends with Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko facing an uncertain future in a world they really know nothing about, but hopeful that their actions can and will change the world for the better. Real life doesn’t have solid, satisfying conclusions and it always doesn’t play out like a story, but that doesn’t mean you should give up on ever finding something satisfying or hopeful out there.
This, by no means, is me saying that V3 is a flawless story. I can point to numerous critiques that I still think hold water. However, Sanderson’s point is that we shouldn’t criticize a work based on what we wish it was rather than how it is and what it was trying to do.
I know there’s a lot about the story that bothers people, I know there’s a lot that wasn’t polished and a lot that feels uncomfortable and hard to swallow. Like Shuichi, coming out feeling confused, lost, unsure of what to do, but choosing to see merit and things to take to heart even in a story that turned out to be full of lies and uncomfortable truths.
If you didn’t enjoy V3, I wouldn’t force you to enjoy it. If you did love it, then you should love it. These are all just my thoughts on a story that, as time goes on, honestly feels more and more relevant to me.
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I debated a lot about whether to post this as I'm worried about it being misconstrued but I feel there's a lot of points that merit discussion. I'd definitely be open for people's thoughts on it.
tl;dr: society has an unhealthy deeply interwoven obsession with sex/romance as a be all and end all, and I think it's a large contributor to sexual violence against women.
Regarding the discussions that Sarah Everad’s case has reawoken, there are few voices trying to invalidate the most common argument by saying “there’s no point telling men not to rape/murder because the messed up men will do it anyway”. But this is an extreme simplification of the matter at hand. The issue lies with the perpetrators of course and NEVER the victims. But we need to explore what breeds the mentality of the perpetrators as SO many women have recounted their experiences, so it’s obvious that the problem is widespread at varying levels. The levels range from the simplest catcaller to cases like Elliot Rodger and Sarah Everad’s killer.
My belief is that a lot of the mentality surrounding the violence and aggression towards women stems from male entitlement. That phrase alone is a buzzword, and again its often used with a simple-cut phrase with “women don’t owe men anything” which is entirely true, but whilst unlearning entitlement is a step further than telling men “don’t rape”, its still not tackling the problem at its roots.
Men in our society have been exposed to lifelong conditioning through mass media and social-engineering. We are more than familiar with movies/tv series where romantic/sexual attention from a woman is often a reward/end goal for the male protagonists. Sometimes there are men pitted against each other vying for the affections of a woman like it’s a coveted prize, and it’s normalised with humorous portrayal. Or sometimes sexual/romantic interest is not a reward, it’s a given, no matter what kind of person the male character is; see any series where a conventionally unattractive/unpleasant man always keeps his devoted, conventionally attractive wife despite his obvious flaws (Peter Griffin, Homer Simpson, Fred Flintstone). Then of course there’s the normalising of not taking no for an answer and constantly persisting and being rewarded eventually for it; for example The Notebook is considered a very romantic film but the male character literally threatens to kill himself to make her agree to date him. And of course there’s very damaging concepts presented by films like the 40 Year Old Virgin, but we’ll come to the negative sex-shaming in a tick.
Luckily thanks in huge part to movements like #MeToo, the idea of consent and ‘no means no’ is being more consistently normalised in modern mass media. Netflix’s Sex Education explores this but it’s still guilty of making the female love interest the end prize goal for the male protagonist.
Now it’s not just in media that this environment of coveting sexual/romantic affection as the ultimate goal is encouraged. Its a socially-engineered thing. A lot of us are aware of the double standard in which men are revered/congratulated by their peers for being sexually/romantically popular with women whereas women are shamed, but we often don’t talk about the poisonous culture in which men who aren’t sexually/romantically active or “successful” are shamed and humiliated. How many times have we witnessed people shaming or embarrassing their mates for not having a romantic partner or ‘not getting some’ or even worse, for being a virgin? The culture surrounding virginity is disgusting, it’s both shamed and coveted. This also ties into insults surrounding size/functionality of genitalia and how men are taught that’s one of the worst kind of insult they can receive. Same goes for insults surrounding “haha you can’t get laid/get any”. Plus some men deliberately pass down this mentality and on top they encourage younger male peers/family members to “keep at it” and “don’t take no for an answer” as if teaching younger men how to ‘get women’ is an important lesson that must be passed on.
One thing that’s also alarming is that this taught drive for sexual/romantic attraction is so inbuilt that men are taught to bypass a lot of principles for the chance of it, such as lying about their interests or faking a personality to keep a woman interested. I’ve also seen men forgiven for tardiness because they ‘got lucky the night before’ (that expression itself feeds into this ‘covet/reward’ culture). Only last week I was watching a video about how women were sexually harassed with deeply unpleasant/objectifying comments online whilst doing Twitch streams and I saw a man reply “Women complain all the time about getting attention, they have no idea how lucky they are, I’d kill for a woman to desire me like that”. Men are inherently taught by both peers and media that their entire self-worth is largely determined by whether they receive romantic/sexual attention, no matter how insincere/damaging it is. Hell, even when discussions about men who’ve committed atrocities against women come up, instead of sympathising with the women who have been hurt and those whose are more scared as a result, men instead tend to lament “men like this guy ruin it for other men, they spoil my chances with other women because women assume I’m like him”. A lot of this is a large part of why incel culture is more dangerously rife than it should ever be. The mere words ‘involuntarily celibate’ are all that’s wrong with what I’m discussing.
Lets be clear, society’s inbuilt social hierarchy around sexual/romantic frequency is poisonous to everyone, especially women and the way so many shape their lives around how ‘attractive’ they’re perceived as, and of course the damage it does to the barely-fledged self esteems and images of teenage girls.
Plus both genders suffer in nearly equal ways under some lenses. People who choose to live without a romantic partner are assumed to be “unable to find love” or “unfortunately lonely” (although its worth noting the semantic sexism of bachelor vs spinster). People who are virgins beyond their teens, hell even just beyond legal age, are pitied/shamed. And people stay in abusive relationships because society's taught us that being unhappy is better than being alone. It’s impossible for people to pass through life without being subject to the social perception of how ‘successful they are in love/sex’.
But in particular with men, it’s incredibly dangerous as it destroys how men perceive themselves, teaching them that women are a given or a prize and if they don’t receive, they’re shamed. Combine that with social engineering of which in general, men are taught to express their anger/frustration with physical exertion or violence. This lays groundwork for male entitlement at its most damaging and dangerous, because not only does it wreck the mental health of men who constantly wonder why they’re not getting what the world taught them they should receive, it also sows the seeds of violent thinking in some. How many times have we as women (as is our basic right) refused the advances of men in public and they’ve responded angrily, and sometimes they’ve been laughed at by their peers as it happens. Humiliation is a degrading and powerful thing and for those who’ve been taught to react aggressively to situations, those with weaker self-esteems (thanks to a myriad of sexist reasons eg 'man up') and those with lack of proper mental health help (again, a huge male-centric problem eg;'boys don't cry'), it can lead to breeding resentment, self-loathing, sometimes suicidal tendencies but more crucially, the anger/vengeance/entitlement that resides in would-be stalkers, rapists and murderers. Elliot Rodger called his murderous rampage a “Day of Retribution” as he lamented “having been at college and still being a virgin” and said he had “no choice to exact revenge on the society that had “denied” him sex and love. He targeted a sorority whose members he had deemed the “hottest” at his college, “the kind of girls I’ve always desired but was never able to have”.
You can see I’ve been carefully trying to toe a line between not excusing the behaviour of men who treat women horribly as a result of all this and more, but also understanding the damaging conditioning in which society has woven. Teaching men “don’t rape” and “women don’t owe you anything” are basic steps, but we need to tackle issues deeper than that. We need to stop teaching everyone that being sexually/romantically desired is NOT the be all and end all of life, that being sexually/romantically desirable is not the sum of someone’s self-worth, and that there is NO shame in being without a partner or not being sexually active.
I understand that society’s obsession with sex/romance/attraction is deeply interwoven and its not going to be unlearned in a day, but can you imagine a world where teenagers are raised being told that their attractiveness/desire popularity doesn’t define their worth to others. Can you imagine a world where women don’t constantly make the majority of their concerns about how attractive people perceive them as before how kind/intelligent they’re perceived as? Can you imagine a world where people don’t feel pressured into sex as virgins, or pressured into relationships where they’re unhappy because it’s better than being alone? Where someone can be without a partner and be their own person without people assuming that its chosen solitude and not liberated independence.
I know romantic/sexual companionship is very central to how the majority of people operate. But consider this, a world where sex/romance isn’t a heavily pressurised must-do, but an opt-in and opt-out path where people can explore at their own pace and with their own limitations and boundaries without people constantly passing judgement on it. Its an idealistic idea, and seeing the way that asexuals are mistreated is another factor in just how society shames those who opt-out of sexual activity. But I believe a lot of this discussion can lead to more practical steps than saying “don’t rape”
How about;
Don’t shame anyone for being a virgin at any age.
Don’t shame anyone for not having a partner.
Don’t shame anyone for not being sexually active.
Unlearn phrases like “get lucky” and “winning the girl/heart”.
Don’t use insults aimed at size/functionality of genitalia.
Don’t insult people based on their appearance.
Just a few ideas to start undoing the entitlement culture that puts so many women in danger.
And of course, wearily I’ll state the disclaimers.
None of this behaviour discussed excuses even the most ‘harmless’ of catcalls, let alone the reprehensible behaviour of the worst offenders. I just think it’s important to understand the finer points of what breeds this consistent societally inbuilt violence and hatred against women. I really really cannot state this too much, this is not a victim-blame, women do not deserve a single infinitesimal part of anything they've gone through just because they insulted some dude's penis.
Being sexually/romantically active is never ever a bad thing of course provided it’s legal, safe and fully consensual. It just shouldn’t be the only path that people feel forced to take.
Briefly, someone might argue that its okay for me to promote that being sexually inactive is all peachy keen is hypocritical when I'm in a happy relationship, but if I was single, you could just as easily argue that I'd be trying to validate being without a partner for my own gratification.
And yes. We know. Not all men. I know plenty of people, not just men who see past a lot of the shaming and conditioning, and continue to liberate themselves from society’s warped expectations of what they should be doing with their lives. But try this, YES ALL MEN are subject to this sexual/romantic obsession that the world forces on them. When a director chooses to have a man portrayed as the butt of a joke because he’s rebuffed by a woman, he’s sending out a message to all men that some of their worth is determined on whether a woman accepts their affections. Whenever a man snidely jokes to his friends that someone he knows can’t get a woman, he teaches his friends that their lives are only validated on whether they can attain partners. Not all men may not be predatory. But all men are targeted by this conditioning. And as a result of all this, all women are afraid.
Followup: Men receiving non romantic affection is largely shamed as well and as a result its not nearly as common as it should be. Men receiving platonic affection doesn't happen nearly as much as it should, because men are taught that platonic affection is never platonic because if it comes from men it must be gay, and if it comes from women, it must come from a place of attraction. This can tie into the larger discussions already at hand regarding men's mental health and the lack of support it recieves.
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Maruki’s Palace
So what's the deal with Maruki having a palace?
So this has been on my mind since I recently wrapped up the game finally.
Why does Maruki have a palace? Or rather, HOW does he have one, when Mona said pretty explicitly that a persona user can't have one.
Now obviously, there's the option that he's wrong. He was lacking in memory at the time, and even a good ways into the game there were things he just wasn't really sure about in regards to how mementos and palaces work. So that's an option.
I do not like that option. It's perfectly servicable true, but I think the explicit statement that persona user's can't have palaces casts an interesting light on them. Palaces form from a person's distorted desires right? That's the rule in play, so the fact that Persona User's can't suggests that they can't have distorted desires right?
Right?
Well...Not really. In fact there's a character in this very game who I feel I can say with a high degree of confidence has absolutely distorted desires despite having a persona. It's not Maruki, cause that'd be cheating.
It's Akechi. Now, again, the obvious problem of Persona User no Palace No distorted desires kinda comes up but...
But hold on. There's something funky about that chain there isn't there? Distorted Desires Come Before Palaces, and it's not like gaining a persona suddenly wipes out what you wanted or thought about the world does it? If it were that simple, Akechi would have never went the route he did right?
His desire, by the by, is seeing his dear old dad get absolutely fucked over. Which lead him to do all kinds of really dumb things that, as someone who could actually you know...Go into the metaverse and effect things that way, he never would have had to do. While the precise mechanisms in play would be a little odd, it's also pretty clear that if you control someone through the metaverse you can basically puppeteer them as you wish, if a bit indirectly. So long as the palace exists at least.
But we see that his desire there, that burning all consuming desire for a perfect vengeance, blinds him to a lot of things that someone who is genuinely as smart and skilled as he is should have seen plainly. Perhaps most critically the fact he would have been gotten rid of after he was of no more use.
So ok, I think you get the point, Persona User's can still have distorted desires...But what about palaces though? That's the key question.
Given Persona are Shadows, which quick explanation includes every aspect of you good bad and ugly, the desires getting absorbed, the palace getting absorbed more or less into a person seems to be why they wouldn't be able to host a palace. That is to say, Activating a Persona closes the Gaps that would allow you to access a person's mind. Not unless you were particularly close to them really.
We'll come back to that.
So if the idea is that a Persona closes the gaps, it still raises the question of how is there a palace? Why is it there as a thing that you can access right?
Well, we'll come back to it in a tick because first I wanna go with another obvious answer that I think is decisively wrong.
Maruki has a Palace because he DOESN'T have a persona. That is, he's possessed by another entity from the depths of humanity much like Yaldabaoth, the entity in this case being Azathoth. And that's not an unreasonable conclusion! His power seemingly activates before he ever accesses the metaverse, which is strange, Azathoth has a tie to the series as a whole greater scope villain in Nyarylotehp, and it does neatly answer the question of how he has a palace and all that because of course he would if he's being used as a pawn.
The problem here though is...How would he actually summon his persona in the real world when he can't physically access the metaverse? Indeed, there is a big scene when he actually makes a contract with azathoth that only occurs when he's in the metaverse, which I suppose would invalidate my argument entirely because it's not like you can use Persona Powers in the real world right?
Except that you absolutely can. You, that is Ren, can do it the whole time in the game with the use of the Thieves vision. You use it when you CHANGE your persona's to better align with people. Using your persona powers without having a fully awakened persona is a thing we see other characters in this very game do, in the case of Haru who can activate the metaverse app (a distinctly supernatural thing despite it's presence as a phone app) despite having an incompletely awakened persona. You see it in the phantom thieves as a whole being able to talk to Morgana even when their persona's aren't quite active yet (Specifically with Ryuji since he's the only one who really get's the overlap proper)
His power's are quite different than Ren's of course, but that's not unusual. A going theme with the games (or at least games 3-5) is that the development of a persona can lead to radically different powers as they develop and are used. Indeed, they alter depending on how the user want's to use them.
So for Maruki, someone who want's so desperately to alleviate people's pain, who understands peoples minds in a way that few others do, who understands the underlying magic/science of the setting in a way few others do, to have access to said supernatural powers outside of that world, if in a limited fashion (he seemingly needed Sumire's permission to actually do his thing before then, as well as knowing the problem and the desired memory/thing to be changed) it's not surprising that he'd have that kind of power.
But then, is Azathoth his persona? Well...Yeah. If not Azathoth, DEFINITELY Adam Kadmon.
And I mean, Lavenza say's it pretty explicitly near the start that yeah he has a persona, despite also having a palace.
But...Hm. Well let's take a look at that a bit again right? In all liklihood that palace has been there for a while right? It's not a new thing that popped up just these past few months in game. And I'm willing to accept that his Persona didn't fully awaken until Yaldabaoth did his thing so maybe it's some muddling going on but...
Well I think there is a different explanation.
Mind the mess of phrasing here, but it's not that Persona User's can't have palaces, it's that the nature of palaces changes once you awaken your persona.
That's a little cheaty I know, but consider this. The Rulers of Palaces are explicitly the Shadow of the person in question. It's why killing the Shadow suddenly offs the person in question right? But Shadows are Also Their Persona, albeit somewhat tamed.
It's not that Persona Users cannot have palaces. It's that Persona Users are their uncontested Rulers, for better or worse.
But...Ok, but wait. Mona SAID that persona user's can't have one right? Palaces are formed from desires run amok and...oh
oh
See, we come back to Akechi again. Just because you have a more thorough understanding of what makes you tick, just because you know what your thoughts and feelings are, just because you've acknowledged them, doesn't mean you've actually you know...fixed the problem.
That is to say, if you have a Persona it's not that you cannot have a Palace. It's that you have to specifically construct one.
But that's not an easy technique to do, nor, for that matter, is it something that you would necessarily WANT to do. It's narrowing your views, it's refining your thoughts in such a way that is potentially incredibly dangerous.
Indeed, Maruki at first did not see his palace AS one, and come think of it I don't know if he ever really accepts that beyond simplification for the sake of conversation. After all, in that regard, he literally, factually knows more than everyone else in that room, save maybe Morgana.
It's basically going “Ok It's not a palace but I understand that it looks feels and acts remarkably like one so ok for sake of simplicity it's a palace”
Again a little cheaty, but ok. Maruki has a Palace because he more or less made it (possibly with a little help from getting the Powers of the God of control)
But...See here's the thing about all of this that strikes me as most interesting.
He evolves his persona. Right? That was wild, and awesome I thought, but the way he went about doing it made me think about the OTHER persona evolutions.
And most specifically, the Ultimate Persona Evolutions that we see in game.
Cause see, it's not that he suddenly got a burst of will power out of nowhere. No. He rather explicitly gained that evolution by embracing his Palace Treasure. Which raises the question.
How do Persona evolutions actually WORK? Like the way the game portrays it, you go about your day, get close to a wild card and suddenly your persona is a different persona.
Well, that's the case if you look at the most recent games. But Looking at 3 (and I assume 1 and 2 but still haven't played em so) the evolution of a persona seems to come about when you have embraced a stronger resolve, increased your focus, have in effect become more of YOU. Or rather, further defined yourself.
So looking back at Maruki specifically here, I think it's telling that the thing that he further embraces is his Palace's Treasure. It's not only positive revelations or beliefs that can strengthen your resolve, as we see, but perhaps more critically in a general sense of the series, Persona Evolution requires a kind of narrowing of view. Not blinding yourself mind you, despite what it may sound like, but taking heed of specific goals and ambitions in order to actually well...Actualize.
Which makes the Wild Card VERY interesting, so I'm gonna see if I can't shake something out of that tree sooner or later.
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Well, this is certainly something that happened.
In response to a post I made stating the various reasons I don’t like the Twilight Princess manga (which was in and of itself a response to some replies I got on this other post), I got a barrage of replies from a user (who will go unnamed, they’ve already been blocked) in defense of the thing - which, ordinarily, wouldn’t be a big deal! People are allowed to have different opinions and I never once stated anyone who liked it should feel bad! I started writing up a reply to them in the middle of this barrage, but their replies just kept coming and got subsequently worse, yet it was all...so bizarre to the point that it would feel weird to not address that it happened. I’m putting all of this under a read more, because wow this is a wall of text, but also this is the kind of nonsense I want people to avoid having to read if it can be helped. At any rate, this is what they had to say:
I don’t know, this really honestly feels like reaching. It feels like criticism for the sake of criticism without actual narrative flaws being shown, but your anger seems to stem from “This interpretation is different from what I thought even though I admit all official art shows the charachter this way” and “Link HAD to be raised in ordon because of one quote from the enclosed instruction book”. Twilight Princess was literally made to be “the edgy zelda” in reponse to fan overreaction to wind waker. This is undeniable. All official art depicts link this way. He turned into a freaking wolf in the middle of the twilight craze! but no, he *can’t* be like that because of random expressions he makes when holding pets or items? First of all, even in the manga he isn’t an edgeboy all the time.
Secondly, it feels like you're merely glossing over all that was added in terms of charachterization! In the original game, I felt nothing for Ilia. She showed up, yelled at link for maybe getting epona slightly hurt, and then got kidnapped. Maybe a bit of tsundere stuff, but seriously, Midna is literally the best tsundere ever. You can't out midna-minda in her own damn game. XD In the manga, Ilia and Link actually have a warm and very close relationship, you can see them through all the slice of life in the first volume. I really grew to like her and truly felt sorry for her when bad things happened to her. She actually gets far, FAR more respect as a person and charachter in the manga than merely a trophy for link to get back. But no, you're far too focused on subtle expressions and insinuations because that is literally all anyone had to go on for the longest time. In reality, Link, as has been said many times, is an avatar as much as he is a charachter. You can't gloss over his official art depicitons any more than I can random expressions he makes when finding a heart piece.
Not to mention, you call the blog midzelink yet you make zero mention of the super obvious wlw-as-fuck zelda flashback in volume 5? It's a sad thing that Shad being straight is something I have seen people complain about, yet Zelda and Midna's relationship getting such a huge focus passes without a peep. It's a disturbing trend I see in my fellow Fujoshi. And on the subject of Shad, his relationship with Ilia is far more likely something included to give her a happy ending, rather than just seeing link off into the sunset to try to find midna and live forever alone in ordon. On that note as well, Link not being from Ordon fits PERFECTLY with the ending, Link being the only hylian, link being from there, all of this is SCREAMING that that is the place he never truly belonged, the manga simply takes it one step further and in this version says he was never from there any way, cementing that. It gives the concept that Link was using Ordon as a place to avoid being who he was extra weight. And Honestly, it makes him less of a jerk in the end for leaving ordon, as he never truly belonged.
And It's actually a narrative flaw in the original for Lanaryu to make mention of misusing the power of the master sword and then having nothing come of that warning later. If you're going to set chekov's gun down on the table, you better use it by the end of the play. It's simply capitalzing on something that the story actually set up, and playing into the tone of the story nintendo marketed it.
But really, most of my annoyance dosen't come from the fact that you don't like the manga. People can dislike what they want. It's that all your grievances seem to come from stuff at the very beginning, and you liked it for so long, when they were there just as much as they are now. This kinda reeks of someone else slowly influencing you over time, rather than your own thoughts.
Phew.
Okay.
First of all, what the f**k, dude. Who leaves this kind of essay in the replies of someone else’s post?
Secondly,
(Note: a “fujoshi” is a woman who likes yaoi, usually used in a derogatory manner, but it seems to be self-proclaimed in this case. That is to say, this person proudly announced they fetishized MLM relationships, and then proceeded to tell me my opinion was Bad and Wrong because I didn’t praise Himekawa for a scene that ultimately wasn’t WLW at all, even though I and a lot of other people liked to interpret it that way. Do not give Himekawa credit for gay rep, ever.)
Again, I was going to reply to this person civilly...up until I read the Midzel/Fujoshi reply, which decimated me on impact. There’s a heckuva lot I could say in response to, well...everything else, but in the interest of making this post shorter, I’ll break it down into a bulleted list:
Link being raised in Ordon is not based on “one quote from the enclosed instruction book” - Ilia specifically states when she gets her memory back, “When we were young, you and I... You were always there... You were always beside me... Link.” (I already mentioned this in my original post, which they evidently neglected to read properly.) And this is to speak nothing of the familial bond between Link and all of the Ordonians that is fairly evident within the context of the game, i.e. Rusl trusting him to deliver a very important gift to the Royal Family, or all the children looking up to him as much as they do.
Saying “all official art depicts Link this way” in defense of his characterization in the manga being edgy (when his in-game persona is far-flung from that) is pretty shaky when you realize that the same can be said for Skyward Sword, which arguably has the most emotive and happy Link of any game. In all of SS Link’s official art, he is angry, mid-yell, or stone-faced. That’s how character art works. That’s how marketing works. They wanted to market TP especially as a darker game, yes, in response to the critiques of The Wind Waker, but this is literally a man who smiles softly every time he picks up a dog or a cat. You can pet the goats. You get excited about fishing. If TP Link should be “edgy” because of his official art and no other reason, then SS Link should be, too.
it’s your own damn fault you felt nothing for Ilia, Ilia owns, suck it
MIDNA IS NOT A TSUNDERE, HOLY SHIT. SHE’S NOT. I WILL NEVER CONCEDE THIS. She doesn’t mistreat Link because she likes him, she mistreats him because he is nothing to her when they first meet, and this is a stance that slowly changes as they get to know each other! She stops treating him like garbage when she stops seeing him as such, and her behavior throughout the game post-Zelda is a mixed bag of shame over how she treated him previously and a longing to make up for it. How anyone can construe that as tsundere I will never, ever understand.
the Midzel comment is so wack I really can’t believe I had to read that shit with my own two eyes
no, Link likely isn’t from Ordon (again, already addressed in my original post, but again, I guess this person can’t read), but he was certainly raised there, see: the first bullet point
Lanayru never once mentions ANYTHING about misusing the power of the Master Sword, so that entire point is completely invalid. I literally have no idea what they’re talking about here. Lanayru does have the famous line, “Those who do not know the danger of wielding power will, before long, be ruled by it,” but that’s in reference to the Fused Shadows, not the Master Sword. Which, you know, you would know if you actually knew the source material as well as you claim to, dude.
Lastly, yes, I did like the manga when I first read it, but as I already stated, that was because I blasted through all four (available at the time) volumes in one sitting, and it was immediately after my hyperfixation for this game resurfaced (about a week or so before I made this blog!). I was Starved For Content, and the manga was Content. Now I’m not Starved, and two more volumes have released since, and guess what! People’s opinions can change! And my opinion is that the manga isn’t for me, and this entire, extremely accusatory essay of yours in the replies of a post I made stating my own opinion was entirely uncalled for and rather intrusive. So, yeah. Blocked.
This has certainly been a trip.
#not going to tag this because i'm not Like That but hoo man#the midzel comment is still destroying me#'how dare you not fetishize their relationship? homophobe 😒'#drama tag#again: you're allowed to like the manga!#but trying to argue i'm wrong for not liking it is super shitty!#i might delete this post later but I REALLY needed to get this outta my system#i don't like starting shit which is why i just blocked them#but oh man...#text#myposts*
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In Defense of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
This may be a controversial statement. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a pretty good movie--and at that--isn’t all that incongruous with the rest of the franchise. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out when I was 12--but because I’d been raised on the first three movies (and the Marvel and Darkhorse Comics and the Young Indy Show) I was a pretty big Indy fan already. I don’t actually remember what I thought of the movie when I saw it in theaters, but I remember the opinion that formed afterwards.
Very quickly the rest of the world had decided this was a bad movie--an unworthy followup that ruined the “ride into the sunset” ending of Last Crusade (in addition to invalidating a such a meaningful title). As a teenager I was perfectly willing to agree because when you’re a teenager there’s some kind of genetic impulse to agree with anyone who says something is lame. The best thing I ever said about it in those years was that it felt like someone’s very good fanfic--well plotted, fun action, a little derivative of the previous movies, and fulfilling the wish that Marion would come back and she and Indy would end up together but ultimately not really feeling like a “true” Indy movie (whatever the hell that means). In the years since, I’ve come around on it, and after my latest rewatch of the whole saga I’ve come to the conclusion that I actually really like it and I think it fits nicely thematically and aesthetically with the other three. Now if you truly don’t like it, that’s fine. Movie opinions aren’t moral imperatives but if you’re interested in a positive spin on it, read on.
One of the major arguments was that it didn’t “feel” like Indiana Jones. The 50′s aesthetic, the Soviet villains and most of all the aliens (sorry, inter-dimensional beings)...and yeah, it’s a little incongruous at first blush. Obviously it had to be set in the 50′s because Harrison Ford was old and already playing almost a decade younger than his actual age. The color pallet is a little weird too, more vibrant than the other movies and the CGI is distractingly 2008 but...I don’t think any of that is actually out of line with the first three movies. Indiana Jones was always set in a cartoon/comic book universe. For Pete’s sake in Raiders there’s a giant, perfectly round boulder that chases him. That is literally ripped out of a Scrooge McDuck comic. In Temple of Doom there’s a big musical number and in Crusade Young Indy escapes via magic trick. Indiana Jones was always an amalgam of things from old adventure stories. On that note, I’d like to take a moment to defend Mutt’s vine swinging. Now, it’s a weirdly staged scene and if it doesn’t work for you I totally get it, but Tarzan is just about the last classic adventure story Indy never took from. It may not have worked for everyone, but it’s exactly the kind of gamble they took with the boulder.
Now...the aliens. Fate of Atlantis did Aliens long before Crystal Skull but that’s neither here nor there. I think what eventually won me over to the aliens was that they were classic Roswell Greys in a flying saucer. To make my point, let me refer to another property--comic and movie--that are throwbacks in the same way Indy is. In the Rocketeer (both the comic and movie) he fights a bad guy modeled on horror actor Rondo Hatton and in the comic his girlfriend is basically just Bettie Page with a slightly different name. And we accept this because it’s a fun nod to the period and stories that inspired it and if the Rocketeer made it to the 50′s it would make all the sense in the world for him to encounter Roswell Greys in flying saucers. Same for Indy as far as I’m concerned. As for the existence of aliens at all...Like I said, it’s a comic book world that has an active Abrahamic God, active Hindu gods and if we take the Young Indy as canon vampires (and if we take the comics as canon Greek gods, Dragons, Mesoamerican gods, Celtic gods and even some borderline Lovecraftian “old gods” out in the arctic). Saying aliens don’t make sense in this universe is like saying magic shouldn’t exist in the DCU because it’s more heavily weighted toward aliens and sci-fi.
Now, I think that a lot of what makes this all feel wrong is the special effects, which definitely make it all feel less grounded than the previous films. I don’t deny that and I do wish they had kept the effects a little more practical--but my real point is that the things that feel silly, cartoony, or corny are all really still in line with the stuff from the old movies--it’s just that those were constrained by technology and for better or worse these weren’t. So Marion drives off a cliff--Indy rafted out of a plane. So Mutt swings on vines--Indy got chased by a Scrooge McDuck Bolder. So some CGI prairie dogs have a cartoonish reaction the rocket sled going by--a f**king monkey did a Nazi salute, silly animal antics are baked into this franchise’s DNA. Basically, it was always silly and over the top--the practical effects just convinced us it wasn’t.
Now, in the interest of fairness, there’s a fair amount I don’t care for and can’t really defend or spin another way. The Ancient Aliens hypothesis is a stock plot in stories like this but it is--ask any archaeologist or folklorist--absolutely steeped in and birthed from racist ideas that non-white cultures couldn’t achieve the things they did. I’m not saying the filmmakers were actively racist--I think they took a stock plot that needs to die and didn’t consider the implications, but it puts a damper on the movie. And the portrayal of indigenous people in this movie absolutely leaves something to be desired (understatement). It’s a problem with the colonialism that’s baked into the genre and I don’t think it’s unavoidable but I do think it’s far too easy to slip into writing a movie like this and it’s a problem all of the Indy Movies have.
Also, yes, the fridge scene is dumb. It stretches suspension of disbelief just a rope bridge too far. Spielberg and Lucas are really creative and talented men who also come up with a lot of silly ideas and sometimes one gets past the goalie. It happens. And, again, the CGI is jarring, no two ways about it.
But this is also the movie where Indy and Marion get back together and get married. This is a movie where we get to see a good balance Indy the Professor and Indy the Adventurer. He’s past “fortune and glory” but he still still gets giddy looking at all the history stored in Akator. This is a movie where we see and Indy who has actively grown since the past movies, he’s not a glory seeker and he repaired his relationship with his father but there’s still something missing and in the end he gets it. Also, Shia Labouf is not a bad actor and was, in fact, fairly good in this. Look at how he tears up in the sanitarium when he realizes what’s happened to Oxley. Look at how even after a fight with his parents in the Soviet convoy he’s able to jump into action mode because survival trumps personal issues in that moment. Look at how he cares for Oxley and Marion in all the group shots. It’s not a perfect movie...it’s not the best of these movies, but I think it’s better than we’ve been giving it credit for.
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