#BUT i think the idea has narrative merit on its own i mean

[bittersweetresilience]

for the ship ask game...

feligami 🦚🐉

HI SELKIE 💘💓💗 let’s go into my room and sit on my bed. i have snacks 🥰

What made you ship it?

i didn’t ship feligami until very recently, since i have strong feelings about arocoded félix, but while i was making amvs i saw how many times they held hands and my heart was swayed.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

i don’t ship it enough to have an answer for this question 🤣 get nina in here. nina has essays on essays about queerness and abuse recovery. i suppose my answer is the hand holding.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

i have strong feelings about this one too. they would not have kids ‼️ they would not get married ‼️ down with the nuclear family ‼️

(ship ask game)

#miraculous ladybug #🦭 #🌃 #maybe i will ramble about why i think félix is arocoded eventually #although i think part of it is the level to which i associate myself with him i mean i get physical pain whenever i think about aus where #he’s replaced in adrien’s life because i feel his emotions so viscerally they’re entangled with mine #BUT i think the idea has narrative merit on its own i mean #just another way in which you’re called a monster not human not feeling things like everyone else #seemingly doomed to be alone because you don’t relate to other people in the right way #your cousin chooses love over you and you just can’t understand you know? #and possibly even félix’s inability to love being a command from his father #the bunny incident i mean #paralleling trauma based aromanticism and the complicated feelings of not knowing whether you were always this way or it was done to you #and how to proceed and whether you’re valid and whether there’s even such a thing as being fixed #but i also believe in aroace amélie which means we can draw another parallel between them and he can be comfortable and proud because of he #*her #and you could make an argument for aro adrien too but i’m getting way off track #whoops i rambled so much LOVE YOU SELKIE

[elizakai]

you guys i can’t take this anymore i need to release steam from this pot of killer and dust thoughts that’s on the stove

listen. if you don’t know by now. one of my favorite things to do is bridge narratives between fanon ideas, and canon truths hehe

Killer and Dust. The accepted dynamic is basically killer being a pestering little shit and dust being over it.

THATS GREAT ON ITS OWN it’s funny etc

but think about their ACTUAL characters for a moment. they are two sides of the same coin.

⬇️

i don’t want to hear any of that old fandom “they are literally the same” shhhhh. nuh uh dear friend, they commuted the same (general) action💥

their motives and situations are very different however! which is important when it comes to understanding a character

They both played into an opposite role in their world if you ask me.

Killer partners with chara, filling the role of the player. he’s a lot like flowey actually.

(in killers world, while he is still a pawn of this sick game, he gets manipulated after all, he has taken on the ROLE of the player. everyone else are the pawns.)

dust is against the anomaly of dusttale, which is that worlds player.

dust is a pawn. a pawn that is defying the player of the game

(in the same way that killer is still pawned, dust still uses his fellow “pawns” as a means to “win” the game, meaning he’s also playing)

(but again, i’m speaking role wise)

Killer and Dust’s dynamic doesn’t have to just be haha funny, it has some actual merit and potential to their characters.

Killer is constantly looking for new forms of entertainment. something new. he’ll get bored, and if he’s bored he’ll have to look at himself. killer is very much a character representing disassociation avoidance and to an extent, escapism (huh. like someone playing a video game?)

Of COURSE he’s gonna poke at people. it’s INTERESTING. it gets a REACTION. he gets to have that small power trip of being in control, after feeling like he lost control this is something that’s probably addictive to killer.

meanwhile dust…well. killer acts like his own anomaly in a way. he prods at him, toys with him, he’s leering and he takes pleasure in any reaction dust gives. dust probably would resent this feeling without really knowing why. he feels like some toy, and he’d probably be inclined to even interpret a genuine interaction this way.

this honestly makes dusts inclination to shut off or dull down any emotion make more sense. be as unremarkable as possible, and you’ll be left alone, right?

isn’t that…kind of what sans does? he’ll repeat same lines of dialogue and such when he reallyyy doesn’t have to. he’s being uninteresting. (and no he doesn’t need to remember everything magically for that to be possible. in game he will poke fun at past conversations and dialogue so he’s clearly aware enough)

Killer wants a response, so dust doesn’t give one.

killer wants control and feels like this is a challenge, dust feels cornered and defensive

if they had existed in the same world, it would have been killer vs dust in the end either way.

it’s a big old game of cat and mouse until someone snaps. they need to be given the opportunity to understand their similarities

even in an interpretation where they are in a healthier relationship, in whatever capacity, i think these mindsets would be conflict they may have….

to killer , on one hand he may be OFFENDED by his lack of response. he may be EXCITED, it’s a CHALLENGE. he might take dusts resignation as a sign of submission, which would give killer a HIGE power trip.

he might. genuinely just be trying to have fun?

it could be ENTIRELY lighthearted, and it’s still…rather toxic, considering where that mindset branched from

and we know dust won’t be inclined to say anything. he probably doesn’t understand his own feelings to be frank💀 he just feels gross and intimidated and cornered so he shuts off and sees killer as oppressive , and grows resentful regardless of intent, as these feelings only feed into his crippling self hatred anyways

….thats all for tonight-

#utmv #ut au #undertale #sans aus #dust sans #murder sans #killer sans #bad sanses #THOUGHTS #PLEASE SHARE IM SISBDOD #this is unorganized and i don’t care hee hoo #headcanons #interpretations ig #dusttale #something new au #kist #if we want #😏 #or not

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 70 – American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis

I’m honestly not sure I ever would have gotten around to reading this on my own, but ended up buying it through the ‘blind date with a book’ thing a bookstore in New York was doing when I was visiting (incredible gimmick, for the record). The fact that it then took me a solid three months to actually finish probably tells you something about how genuinely difficult a read I found it. Not in the sense of being bad, but just legitimately difficult to stomach at points. Overall I’d call it a real triumph of literature.

Not that anyone doesn’t already know, but; the book is spent inside the head of Patrick Bateman, high-flying wall street trader and Harvard blueblood at the close of the Reagan era. Also a serial killer. The story is told as a series of more or less disconnected vignettes, jumping from dinner conversations at one exclusive bar or club or another to the brutal torture and murder of a sex worker to several pages of incredibly vapid pontification on Nina Simone’s discography. The story vaguely tracks Bateman growing ever-more alienated and out of control as the year goes on, but there’s very much not any real single narrative or cathartic climax here. - most stuff just happens (stuff that’s either incredibly tedious or utterly nauseating by turns but still just, stuff).

So yeah this is an intensely literary work (obviously), a word I’m here using to mean one that is as much about the form and style of the writing as about the actual events portrayed. Bateman is a monster, but more than that he’s just an utterly boring and tedious husk of a man, traits which are exaggerated to the point of being fascinating– if you told this story in conventional third person narration without all the weird asides, it would be a) like half as long and b) totally worthless. The tonal whiplash of going from an incredibly visceral depiction of Bateman cutting out the eyes of a homeless man to six (utterly insipid) pages on the merits of The Doors is the selling point here (well actually I think Ellis goes back to that specific well probably one time too many, but in general I mean).

Bateman is a tedious, unstable monster, but as far as the book has an obvious thesis it’s that he differs from the rest of his social milieu only in degree. A symptom of a fundamentally rotten society, not a heroic devil among sheep. The book’s climax, such as it is, involved Bateman getting into a drug-fueled gunfight with the NYPD, shooting multiple people in the middle of the street, and then stumbling home and leaving a rambling confession to every crime on his lawyer’s answering machine – but despite very clearly wanting and trying to get caught and face some sort of consequence or justice, people just refuse to believe that someone like him is capable of anything like that. (It’s not, it must be said, an especially subtle book).

There is, as far as I can recall, not a single character who gets enough screentime to give an idea of their personality who I’d call likeable. Sympathetic, sure, but that’s mostly because it’s pretty much impossible not to sympathize with someone getting horrifically tortured and torn apart (at one point a starving rat is involved). The upper crust of New York yuppie-dom is portrayed as shallow and vapid, casually bigoted towards quite literally everyone who isn’t identical to them, status-obsessed to the point of only being able to understand the world as a collection of markers of class and coolness, and totally incapable of real human connection. Bateman is a monster not because of any freak abnormality, but just because he takes all of that a few steps further than his coworkers.

The book is totally serious and straight-faced in its presentation, and absolutely never acknowledges any of the running gags that are kept up through it. Which shows impressive restraint, and also means that none of them exactly have a payoff or a punchline – it’s just a feature of the world that all the expensive meals at trendy restaurants everyone competes for tables at sound disgusting when you think about them for a moment, or that the whole class of wall street trader guy are so entirely interchangeable that ostensible close friends and coworkers constantly mistake each other for other traders and no one particularly cares. Or – and I’m taking this on faith because fuck knows I’ve got no idea what any of the brands people are wearing are – that the ruinously expensive outfits everyone spends so very much time and money on for every engagement all clash comically if you actually looked up what the different pieces looked like. The book’s in no way really a comedy, so the jokes sit a bit oddly, but they’re still overall pretty funny, at least to me.

I like to think I have something of a strong stomach for unpleasant material in books, but this was the first work of fiction that I had genuine trouble reading for content reasons in I can’t even remember. I’m not sure it’s exactly right to call the violence pornographic in a general sense, but as far as American Psycho goes the register and tone Bateman uses to describe fucking a woman and torturing her to death are basically identical (and told in similarly explicit detail), and all of Bateman’s sexual fantasies are more or less explicitly just porn scenes he wants to recreate, so. Regardless, the result’s pretty alienating in both cases – his internal monologue never really feels anything but detached and almost bored as he relays what he does, sound exactly as vapid and alienated as when he is carefully listing the exact brands and designers every person he ever interacts with is wearing at all times, or arguing over dinner reservations for hours on end with his friends and lovers (though both those terms probably deserve heavy airquotes around them). He legitimately sounds considerably more engaged when talking about arguing over sartorial etiquette. It all adds up to a really strong alienating effect.

Anyways, speaking of sex and violence – perhaps because my main exposure to the story before this was tumblr making memes out of scenes from the movie, but I was pretty shocked by just how explicitly awful Patrick is ‘on screen’. The horrible murder, sure, but also just the casual and frequent use of racist and homophobic slurs, the pathological misogyny, the total breakdown he has at the idea of a gay man being attracted to him and thinking he might reciprocate – all of these are entirely in character for an asshole Wall Street ‘80s Guy even if he wasn’t a serial killer, but it’s still oddly shocking at first to see it so thoroughly represented on the page. It makes how comparatively soft-pedaled the bigotry and just, awfulness, of villains in a lot of more modern books stand out a lot more, I suppose? I have read a lot of books that are in some sense About queerness and/or racism in the last year, and no one in any of them holds a candle to good old Patrick Bateman.

Part of that is just the book being so intensely of its time, I suppose. The New York of this book is very much one of the late ‘80s, incredible wealth living side by side with social rot and decay, crippling poverty everywhere and a society that has to a great degree just stopped caring. Absolutely none of which Bateman or any of his peers care one bit about, of course – they’re too busy showing off the latest walkmans and record players, going to the newest clubs, and just generally enjoying all the fruits of Reagan’s America. Recent history has made the fact that Bateman’s personal idol is Donald Trump almost too on the nose to be interesting, but in 1991 I’m sure it was a bit more subtle in how telling it was.

Anyway, yeah, horrifying and exhausting read, triumph of literature, my god did Easton Ellis hate America (this is a compliment). Now time to go watch the movie!

#book review #literature #american psycho #brett easton ellis

[yellowocaballero]

dude psyched ur reading orv, insanely curious about ur takes

My friend @charterandbarter put it best.

ORV is pretty fascinating to me. It's really just a self-insert isekai OP webnovel, and it is nothing else. Its medium is trashy and lowbrow, and its genre is almost devoid of high art. OP isekais are 'id' stories, meant to be satisfying and fun and contain very little of substance. ORV is a very well executed OP isekai - it contains the elements of the genre that make it satisfying, it understands why people read the genre and enjoy it, it reproduces those elements very well, and it is very concerned with telling an enjoyable story. ORV really, really loves webnovels and isekais and shitty wishfuillment stories. There's a lot more to ORV than the 'fist pump' moments of kdj doing something cool or pulling a fast one on a shmuck, but those moments are the undoubtedly the point of ORV, as they are the point of all SIOC isekai OP webnovels. And that's the point of ORV.

Metanarrative stories are cheap. Neil Gaiman's written 30 and millenials love waxing philosophical about the power of narratives. These metanarratives tend to describe stories as a theoretical framework through which we understand the world and our lives. Therefore, stories are tremendously important and valuable because they contain the totality of religion, history, culture, relationships, and lives. ORV says this too. But this theory tends to land at mystifying and exalting stories on virtue of them being stories, which I think misses the point. Stories aren't special because they're stories. They're not more sacred for containing our lives. What ORV says is that stories are important, because our lives are important. I like that a lot more.

ORV says that stories are our way of ordering a disordered world. A history, culture, nation, and religion are stories. None of those stories are true or real, because histories/cultures/nations/religions are constructs - they're how we interface with reality. They're created with a purpose, told for a point, pulled together into a narrative, and are satisfying or dissatisfying based on certain factors. ORV's perspective on fiction is deeply seeped in its own nature as 'low art'. There's something very cynical and commercialized about narratives in ORV, and every narrative in ORV is being told for a quick buck or to try and spread an idea for an individual's gains. It's a very unromantic, unimpressed view of narratives and fiction. It's pretty much the only way a SIOC OP isekai webnovel like ORV can talk about it without being disingenuous. And it's remarkably raw and visceral as a result, because ORV loves SIOC OP isekai webnovels like kdj loves yjh. Fiercely, insanely, like breathing, exactly for what it is. No pretensions.

It's bizarre, because ORV is about love. It's not about love for anything that deserves it. Not for a story with a lot of literary merit, a main character who is a remotely kind or lovable person, or art itself outside of its commercial or philosophical value. kdj really, really, really fucked loved TWS - because it was there, and because it lasted 15 years, and because it was fake, and because it was what he had. He loves yjh because yjh was his only companion in a dark world. That's fiction. Fiction helped him survive, because love is a way of ordering a disordered world.

I'm still reading myself, but ORV seems to be about how we manage to live in a hard world, and how to find it within ourselves to love each other and find meaning in that hard world. I see why kdj's the protagonist: he can find merit in something for existing, and loving it for being there, and he holds onto something because he has it. He sees the value in that. He read it in a book.

TL;DR: ORV is well-executed trashy commercialized art that is so obsessed with trashy commercialized art that it's looped straight back around into being somehow the most raw and visceral depiction of love I've seen in a long time.

#wish i could lie to myself and say that yall aint getting orv fic but :/ #my asks #I don't know what it'd be about but it'd be written under a heavy burden #of having to write the most insane thing physically possible #writing boring orv fic is a sin and baby the fucking ao3 tag is tartarus #hey why do i have to type kdj and yjh #why can't i just say dokja or joonghyuk #why are we full naming everybody at all times #this is the only webnovel i've ever read and its a big learning curve for me

[flints-black-spot]

I've recently seen a few people talking about media literacy in relation to Flint's sexuality and labels and figured I'd throw in my two cents on the discourse that seems to pop up every few months.

Because, I honestly think it does a disservice to Black Sails as a whole to focus on "gay vs. bi Flint" because like... does it matter? if Flint only has attraction to men, that doesn't change the fact that he's canonically, willingly, had sex with women (namely Miranda). But, on the other end of the spectrum, it's just as important to recognize how, societally and culturally, gender is a construct, which will inherently mean that sexuality is fluid! Flint can be a gay man with some level of attraction to women (hell, the majority of the fandom agrees that Anne is a lesbian, yet she's clearly in love and has sexual attraction to Jack, and that doesn't take away from her lesbianism!), and that attraction doesn't make him any less of a gay man! Or he could be bisexual, and that doesn't take away anything from the overarching narrative of his queer relationship with Thomas! The focus on a single 'correct' interpretation of his sexuality, in my mind, takes away from what the show is really trying to say about sexuality, which isn't the "this way" or "that way" to be queer, but the overarching connection that struggle and strife can bring to a community. (For a similar issue, see James Baldwin's response to critics arguing whether the main character from his novel Giovanni's Room is gay or bisexual, his response is incredible.)

And, on the other hand, it's also not entirely accurate or even fair to try and ascribe modern labels and perceptions of queerness to a character that existed long before those terms were even coined? In Flint's time, homosexuality was something a person did, not who a person was. While, yes, his queerness is inherent to his journey as a character, and he very clearly views it as a part of his identity, it's also very much worth noting that two things (homosexual love and desire, and heterosexual love and desire) can coexist, and not either way take away from his narrative as a whole.

Finally, then, there's the common thread of 'media literacy' in determining Flint's label (which, again, I honestly think is just a non-issue because it has such little impact on anything in meta discussions?). To present an opinion like "Flint is gay" is an example of an interpretation, one which can and should exist among others! To have a single, 'correct' interpretation of a piece of media, especially one like Black Sails, is an inherently flawed idea, because every interpretation should have its own merit on its own. Flint can be both bi and gay, and both arguments have perfectly equal weight, but in the end, it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of Black Sails meta. Either way, Flint is queer, and that queerness was a defining feature of his character for the rest of the show. To assign such importance to "gay or bi" just feels unimportant.

#this is about the meta interpretations of flint #not personal headcanons #black sails #black sails meta #pip talks black sails #james flint #captain flint

[jesncin]

Honestly, you are like the most based person ever. A Martian Manhunter fan and a MAWS critic? F YEAH!

I'm so disappointed with MAWS' Lois :( Her romance with Clark could've been so good. SO GOOD. But they decided to go for fan service instead. She just gives off Lena (from cwsg) vibes and that's never a good thing.

Speaking of Supergirl, what's your opinion on the show? And on the show's portrait of J'onn. It baffles me how much hate the show got for the same things fans are willing to overlook now on MAWS. Aren't those some double standards, geez...

Aw shucks thank you! 2 incredibly niche but based things to be...

Sob! Call it the ace in me but whenever people think MAWS!Clois have chemistry because they're easily amused by seeing hot characters undress I lose life force. I didn't witness a couple that grew mutual respect and affection, I saw an insta-crush that led to Lois becoming so entitled to a guy she'd known for less than a week to the point of demanding full transparency of his private life before they even started dating. And then the narrative says it's Clark's fault for having reasonable boundaries, and then they're a couple. What is this.

I've briefly talked about CW Supergirl before, but my takeaway is: if people think MAWS is genuinely good writing then they should absolutely watch CW Supergirl because it must look like high art in comparison to MAWS. Maybe people are less judgy when something's animated and that's not fair. If we want to take animation as a serious medium we should hold it to the same standard and not coddle it. As someone who watched a few eps when CW Supergirl aired and then revisited and watched the whole thing years after the show concluded, I feel that the misogyny surrounding people's discourse around the show has led to people judging the show based on a fanon idea of it rather than its own merits.

more under the cut!

CW Supergirl is a show with great highs and lows. This results in things being hit or miss. But when something hits- CW Supergirl is not given nearly enough credit as it deserves. As a Martian Manhunter fan, I believe that their take on J'onn is the most competent and well adapted in not just adapted media, but all of comics canon. That doesn't mean I like everything they did with his lore and character, but I can acknowledge that they actually bothered developing him outside of the comics/cartoon's fixation with making him mope about his Origin Story all the time. He gets to find love, have adopted daughters through Kara and Alex, reckon with what it's like to preserve aspects of a culture he doesn't fully identify with, deal with his dad going through Martian Alzheimer's disease, and most importantly MAKE PEACE WITH HIS BROTHER. CW Supergirl has hands down, the best take on Ma'alefa'ak in all of canon.

I think Lena is a great character on the show. She's dealing with the trauma of being constantly manipulated by her own family, the legacy her name carries and who she is in all that. But because the supercorp ship permeates the way people perceive the show, she's reduced to that by discourse. When Lena has drama over Kara's secret Superhero identity, it's something that's built up to and informed by trauma, trust-issues, and TIME. We are shown that she has these problems. It gets melodramatic at times, but it's still something that was built up to. Meanwhile in MAWS Lois just tells us she has daddy issues and that it's why she really needs the cute guy at work to spill all his personal info to her even though she gets to lie to him for her own personal gain multiple times. I appreciate what CW Supergirl did to bring more attention to what was an obscure character. Whenever I bump into Lena in the comics, it hasn't stacked up to the character I met on the show.

I've called this out before but while CW Supergirl isn't perfect by any means especially with their treatment of Jimmy Olsen as a love interest to Kara and a generally sidelined Black supporting character, they still discussed and acknowledged Jimmy's identity as a Black American man! Sure it was heavy handed many times, but that's way better than MAWS straight up ignoring Jimmy's Blackness and even making an unintentional jab at it!! Like cw Supergirl Jimmy knows bigotry and has experienced it. MAWS Jimmy thinks bigotry is being ghosted for a camping trip. I have seen the exact same critics call out cw Supergirl for Jimmy's treatment while gleefully thinking Jimmy's treatment in MAWS is so uwu perfect. It makes me sick! Am I going insane?? It's the double standards for me.

#askjesncin #jesncin dc meta #jesncin talks maws #both shows have terrible Asian rep tho- early Supergirl especially. Asian men dropped like flies in that show it's not even funny #I see you other asks about Supergirl- I will get to you! And I will introduce Kara into my AU eventually

[archivalofsins]

I've been discussing Kotoko a lot in private and honestly while I still don't like her as a person and think the flack, she's getting is emotionally valid. There is room for people to discuss more of her personality outside of the framing of judging her behavior and the Innocent/Guilty framework Milgram has given us to work within.

I for one really love how her second trial shows off her difficulties with socializing more. Kotoko is someone that a lot like Mu feels she has to give someone a reason or motivation to interact with her. She thinks she needs to highlight her value to be valued. Unlike Mu who combats this mindset by giving others around unconditional acceptance to the point of saying we should just vote everyone innocent multiple times this trial Kotoko holds everyone to that expectation.

She doesn't just expect that she should be useful but those around her to be useful as well to merit her engaging with them. This is highlighted in her second voice drama by how she views cooperation. She was always the sort to be just as hard on others as she is on herself. There's a discussion to be had about how Mu, Shidou, and Kotoko view usefulness in relation to personhood. A theme that becomes jarringly apparent when you view their narratives together but ultimately is something that can be seen across Milgram in its entirety.

There's a discussion on collectivism and the pitfalls of it being had over the course of the series. That's highlighted throughout every prisoner's narrative. The pitfalls of it are heavily highlighted within the narratives of Kazui and Amane as they are shown pushing aside their personal feelings for that of the group to unhealthy extents. Or in Amane's case having her treatment ignored or brushed aside by a larger collective that given the circumstances it was meant to actively help her and admonish the treatment she received.

Something highlighted through her line of

"The “It can’t be helped”, from the scum who can’t be helped."

Calling directly to attention the ways large groups ignore the struggles of the few as unsolvable or the bystander effect in general. Where a lot of systems present just go well a neighbor will say something, her school will say something, the health system will do something, the authorities will do something. There are so many systems around Amane that have the power to report the abuse that she's undergoing but just do not. In contrast to that we see the adults in her life have no qualms about reporting her misconduct to her mother.

So, why are these same people taking a stance of noninterference when Amane is going to school in the state we see her going to it in Purge March? Is it because that's less important or just because they keep thinking surely someone will say or do something we're all seeing it- I don't need to be the one to do it, right? The same can be said with Mikoto's work abuse. He has coworkers they certainly must know he's being called in at strange hours to make last minute corrections.

It's something that Kotoko even uses to her advantage in Harrow going if I don't do anything about these evils who will? Framing herself as the only aid in a hopeless situation. The same way Shidou does in Triage. They necessitate their own existences off violence that they themselves perpetuate.

"There are lives that need saving."

Yet the ones Shidou was meant to save he to his own admission killed. Mu states there's no reason to be a bully in her second voice drama but bullying not only gives her the ability to hold power over others but allows her to avoid being bullied herself. Because if she's on top she doesn't have to be on bottom.

Just like if Kotoko protects useless weaklings that in itself validates the idea that she is strong and useful. That she is necessary and needed. I think that link between these three has been greatly understated and I don't personally know what it means for Milgram moving forward. However, discussing how collectivism overlooks and fails individuals is something I believe is an important aspect of Milgram that should be discussed more frequently. I believe it not only impacts the prisoners highlighted here but all of them.

#milgram #muu kusunoki #shidou kirisaki #yuzuriha kotoko

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

I saw an ask about whether you could do a remake of F/SN in the style of FF7R and I agreed with the responder's take on the matter but I wanted to bring my own two cents in, because a lot of people when they think of "sequel", they think of the kind of sequel like Shrek 2 for instance. Mechanical sequels, where one follows directly after the other in terms of time and plot. Shrek 2 happens after Shrek 1. It's simple stuff, and this makes the vast majority of sequels.

Rarely however do we talk about thematic sequels, and I don't mean the idea of a spiritual successor (although, personally, some do count). Often times a spiritual successor is not in direct conversation with its predecessors, but often fits in a more referential or sometimes even reverent position. Many times spiritual successors aren't even in the same franchise; this is how you get games like, for example, Signalis. For an example of what I mean, let's look at the Silent Hill trilogy.

OH YEAH BABY ITS THE FUCK BLOOBER TIME OF THE POST but no really, Silent Hill 2 is often not considered a sequel at all, it's often considered a standalone entry into its franchise and while there is a lot to be understood and appreciated from the game by itself, it's not meant to be standalone. There's a 2 there. It's in direct conversation with Silent Hill 1. Part of why Silent Hill 2 worked so well for so many people is the fact that James' journey has a twist to it. It mirrors Harry's for quite a long time on purpose, before revealing that this was a trick!

Silent Hill 3, while being a mechanical sequel to Silent Hill 1, also does this. It sets itself up where it seems like its going to follow the same path as Silent Hill 2, playing along the lines of guilt, before nope! Sike! It's Silent Hill 1 baby, except we're not here to feel guilty, it's time to get revenge and end the nightmare and kill God. It's a trilogy, and the works complete each other more when combined with each other.

Fate/Stay Night is a lot like that. It's a bit more obvious in terms of what it's going for in that it is one work instead of three, but given the amount of discussions about which route is canon and what not I assume a lot of people missed it. This is why Hollow Ataraxia is the way it is. Which route is canon? Fate/Stay Night is canon, because these are NOT three standalone routes that can be enjoyed separately. They have their own merits, but they're meant to be interpreted as a package, which I understand is hard this game is really fucking long y'all.

The game disguises this by having the routes branch from each other in a pretty similar way to a normal visual novel, and presents them as a result of your choices rather than as a cohesive unit. The game also does kind of giveaway the game though by not letting you play the UBW route (with one very minor exception that leads to a bad end) or the Heaven's Feel route early. There's an order to these, you must stick with it.

These routes are, obviously speaking, thematic sequels. There's no need for the Heaven's Feel route to rehash the character development that Shirou receives in the Fate route or in the UBW route. The game knows you've read those already, and its coming in with a baseline assumption of who Shirou is. The Shirou as Heaven's Feel begins and establishes its hold over the narrative is a lot closer to the Shirou at the end of UBW than it is the Shirou at the beginning of the Fate route. We aren't grappling with Shirou's realization of self, because he's already gone through that, we need to test his ideals now and make him realize that there are things and people more important than his dream.

The three routes together represent Shirou's journey as a hero, his hero's journey if you will, and how his ideals mature and his image as a person is forged. He comes out of Heaven's Feel complete, almost as if he's lived through three different versions of those I think 20 days it's been a bit, and maybe its only through the medium of a visual novel and its mechanical framework that this journey can even be completed.

You can't make an FF7R style remake of F/SN, because F/SN is already that. It's already got two similarly styled sequels built into itself, and it even has the wacky sequel already done in Hollow Ataraxia.

[lady-raziel]

I feel like you are missing the forest for the trees on the fanfic thing just because you keep insisting that there is good fanfic out there and pretty much nothing else. Like yeah obviously. But also bad fanfic has merit, has purpose. Fanfiction provides a relatively low risk space for people to experiment and learn how to write. How many Bad Fanfics are written when people are like 13?

Hello! I've included your second ask as a screencap so I can respond at the same time.

I agree with you, quite a lot actually. I think maybe these comments come from the fact that I could have made it much more explicit in my other post that part of "finding what you like" in fanfic means reading and enjoying stuff that isn't perhaps the best written, for whatever reason. Maybe the author struggled experimenting with characterization or narrative arc, but the idea of their story is unique and cool enough to read anyway. Maybe the author struggled with formatting, or some other thing that makes it hard to read. The important other aspect of consuming fanfiction (and media in general, but that's it's own post) that I didn't really touch on to keep an already long post from getting longer (but should have, if you're thinking I'm out here saying I think people should only read 'good' fanfics) is getting comfortable with engaging with things that bring you enjoyment even if others think they are 'bad.'

I don't really think I've been trying to imply that there are only the "quality" fanfics worth reading and everything else is just shit, but I can see how that might have come across given the way I pointed to how some fics go the extra mile as an example of why it's wrong to characterize all fics as badly written. I think maybe we're talking in different directions about two conversations within fanfic discourse that can coexist with one another. My previous post was more about people who disregard ALL fanfic because some of it is, in their opinion, poorly written, and how this may come from not engaging with the medium. What you're really getting at with these asks is the idea that all fanfic has merit in some form.

And you are right! People's efforts to put themselves out there and try writing, whether they are 13 or 30, and crucially regardless of whether or not their writing skill ever improves, have value! To me, it's not really even a question of 'writing bad stuff to get good later.' It's more of 'all attempts at creativity have inherent value.' Someone's bravery to post their fic as a teenager should be applauded just as much as a seasoned fic writer who's been doing this for a long time.

I think we are both on the same page when it comes to understanding why all this matters. I could have made the underlying point of 'fanfic is worth reading if you decide its worth reading' much clearer in what I wrote earlier, and I'm sorry about that!

[snipsnipsnippy]

On Ahsoka vs. Kenobi Shows

I wrote this as a rebuttal to one of those Anakin is a monster and the Jedi are innocent victims who did nothing wrong ever posts, and I decided I didn't want to bring attention to it, and I had my own things to say.

There's this idea going around that the Anakin we see in both Ahsoka and Kenobi are mutually exclusive and one of these shows "got" him and the other is propaganda.

Simply in the timing of these, yes, Anakin feels different between these two narratives because he is. Kenobi takes place about 9 BBY where we see Darth Vader approaching the heights of his darkness. The light in him is squashed. Anakin isn’t coming out. The only time we hear his voice is to tell Obi-Wan that Vader killed Anakin, that the man he once loved is gone, which is in my opinion refutes its own statement, because that wasn’t for Vader’s gain. If his only goal is to destroy Obi-Wan or hurt him, why say this? It was only to show mercy to Obi-Wan’s conscience. It was the smallest flash of the Padawan Anakin we saw. Which is to say, there is a lot of growth we see in Anakin from Padawan to even the start of the Clone Wars and certainly by the end of it.

So when we see him in Ahsoka, whether you think of it as a recollection, a mystic guide, or Anakin himself, the context of his character growth matters a literal fuckton. Ahsoka takes place about 11 ABY. 20 years later. And Anakin has changed greatly in that time, beyond literally dying. The entire point of the original trilogy was to show Anakin’s redemption from Darth Vader. He’s turned back to the light by the end of ROTJ, or at least some part of him has. Even in the flashbacks, these are 2-4 years after when we see him in the Kenobi flashback. One shows Anakin as he is a teenager in a practice fight against the man he called his brother or father and the others where he is in a literal war zone.

The way Ahsoka’s Anakin is presented is not as a true flashback. It’s a sort of a play presented by current Anakin of their past. So it’s Anakin inserting his history as Darth Vader into his history as this funny older brother Jedi. These flashback scenes were designed to help Ahsoka reconcile that Anakin is neither wholly good nor wholly bad. The point was not for him to feel like General Skywalker or Darth Vader. It was for all of that history to be in one character. If the goal of Kenobi was to free Darth Vader of Anakin to fight the darkness, then the goal of Ahsoka is to remove the separation of the two, to restor balance. If you walked out of Ahsoka thinking Anakin was fully good, you didn’t pay attention. If you walked out Kenobi thinking Anakin was fully evil, you didn’t pay attention.

From the time we meet him, we are told he will bring “balance to the Force”. This doesn’t mean he will become a great Jedi. This didn’t even have to becoming a Sith, certainly not to the extent of Vader's genocide, but equal and opposite reactions and all. In order to balance the dark and light, he must have experience in both. Balance includes the dark and the light, which is the sort of Anakin we see in Ahsoka, using this mix of the dark and light. If you’re going to be mad that Anakin is not pure evil incarnate, you’re in the wrong universe. We are explicitly told that this is not the case. That Anakin is not fully evil. “Good” people do bad things and “Bad” people do good things.

You can’t ignore that these stories are told by their main characters experiences. The way that both Obi-Wan and Ahsoka view Anakin is incredibly important as well as the point of their lives this view is in. Obi-Wan saw Anakin as a reflection of his merit. Anakin’s successes were his own, as well as his failures, and being the only witness to Anakin’s darkest failure, his perception is cast in this darkness. Ahsoka never had this experience. She knew he’d become Vader, but she’d left him when he was still very much a Jedi and she still looked up to him. She remembered him as good and leaned on those memories for support, believing that Anakin was always inside. When she hears of him again, he’s killed his master, not for his own gain but to save his son. Compound this with the fact that she’d been talking with Luke who shared this same sentiment about his father, that yes, he'd done terrible heinous things, but there was always good in him.

All this is to bring us back to the core of this godforsaken universe. The entire message underlying each and every Star Wars project is about redemption. From Anakin to Boba Fett to Han or Ben Solo, Reva, Hux, Kallus, Bo-Katan, I could go on... There has always been this belief that no one no matter the evils they have committed can still do good and find good in their heart if they only make that choice. This doesn’t make them intrinsically good or evil. This doesn’t make heroes or villains. This just makes people who walk both sides. No, Anakin’s atrocities are certainly not excused by any number of good deeds, and he is by no means “good”, but the message in all of Star Wars is that there are no truly good or bad people, no heroes and villains. Even the light and dark sides of the Force are not wholly good or evil. Their defining traits are selfishness and selflessness. There is good and bad in both of these extremes.

Ahsoka is also just getting started. Kenobi’s story is finished. Of course, their character development is going to be different at this point. This is the point where we’re watching Ahsoka step into her own self-led narrative. And her sluggish pace is a valid criticism of the character, but it’s not the final word on her story. I'm excited to see more.

#star wars #im not usually on the defend anakin team #but i think hes a fascinating character #and i hate this black and white interpretation #and i really think Ahsoka did him right #the jump between general to vader #chefs kiss #he is both #anakin skywalker #darth vader #ahsoka #kenobi #obi wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #vktxt

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Do you have any tips for writing short stories? I want to write a collections of stories all taking place in the same setting with an interlinking meta-narrative and mysteries between them. However I also want all the stories to stand on their own merit but I'm struggling to come up with an actual story for most of them. When I do get ideas they usually balloon to the point of no longer fitting in a short story. Thanks for all the help! Your blog is really useful.

Think of a short story as a snapshot - limited characters, limited time, one concept to explore. Let's say (for the sake of focusing on something) your collection is about cryptids. Lots of mystery there, definitely a lot of interlinking you can do. We're going to focus each story on one cryptid, one point to make, one story to tell.

First, some questions to answer:

What question are you asking with each story? I mean yeah, the question could be 'what the living fuck were the Fresno Nightcrawlers,' but you're better on focusing on what you're trying to say with a story rather than it's actual contents. Is it that some mysteries better left unsolved? That the unknown is not as scary as we think it is?

How are you framing this question? Is it within a conversation where it's never directly asked? Shadowing the actions of the main character as they chase something through the woods? Implied through analysis of grainy home camera footage? An encounter with the Nightcrawlers may balloon into too long of a story - but merely the idea of an encounter, waiting in the dark for something to come, can hone your story down to its key point and visuals.

Does the question have an answer? If so, is it explicit on the page or left for the reader to gather? If there is no answer, was there value in asking the question? (If the theme of your collection is mystery, than yes). What does the character get it out it? What does the reader get from it?

Here is the core of your short story - the question you're asking, the framing of that question, and if that question is answered. Let's put this core into a idea for an example:

The Concept: A man waits in the dark to catch the Fresno Nightcrawlers in the act.

The Question: Should we treat the unknown as a potential threat?

The Framing: In one hand the man has a camera. In the other, a bat. (Representing the question - does he use the bat or the camera when tested?) We learn a bit of his backstory and what drives him out in the dark. We learn what drives him to do this. We will see what he does next with his eventual encounter.

The Answer: In my draft concept of the story, the man uses neither. He goes back inside and he does not wait up for white figures walking through the dark ever again. What lesson he takes from this - and what the reader will - depends on the content of the story.

You can see how this could spiral - obviously that backstory is important and what happens if he decides to follow the Nightcrawlers? - but remember, I have one question to answer, and I want to answer that with a specific setting and event. If I want to follow those other threads, I can save them for other supernatural critters, and other stories.

You don't have to frame every short story this way, but outlining your end goal is always a good idea. Remember, a short story is capturing a moment, a decision, a single act. It can't be a wide character study, but it can focus on a universal experience - fear, anger, facing the unknown. Focus on the core theme of your story and keep it to a strict concept. You can always save those spiraling ideas for later, so don't force yourself to banish them (you never know where a whole novel idea might lurk), but don't let them lead you off track.

#short stories

[atopvisenyashill]

What is Corlys loyal to, during the Dance? What are his ambitions, as you see them?

Corlys wants

To keep his family safe

Access to power

To prove he’s as good as a Targaryen

His family name on the Iron Throne

A dragon rider in his family

Very similar in many ways to most of the other adults during this time, especially Otto Hightower. I think in many ways, he’s kind of an echo of Tywin here - he’s trying to prove that the Velaryons are worth just as much, that they’re just as Valyrian, just as special, just as ~chosen by the narrative~ as the Targaryens are. To him, proving that means he has to have a Targaryen wife, dragon riding children & grandchildren, and in a perfect world, his own family on that ugly spiky chair.

[not quite a sidebar but - while I do think Aegon makes all the right choices in his initial conquest of the seven kingdoms, I think the Velaryons resented not being made a powerful, Paramount house in their own right. Installing them as overlords for the Riverlands or the Reach would be a bad idea the same way that both conquests leaving a Tyrell in Sunspear to help take over is a stupid, malicious idea that probably made both wars worse bc it pissed Dorne off. AND YET. they’re a valyrian house! one of the last lines of valyria left!! but all they have is driftmark!!!! i do think this sticks in their collective craw a bit but it seems to especially bother Corlys!]

I say “family” and not “blood” because Corlys is clearly willing to stretch the definition of “family” if it means he gets continued access to power. It’s why he is extremely forgiving in the Laenor/Rhaenyra marriage - I do think he realizes to an extent that he put them both in a weird situation and is willing to look past it a) because looking past it gives him access to power b) because Rhaenyra didn’t do it to sleight him, as shown by her friendship with Laena & the betrothals of their children and c) he grows to genuinely love and care for Jace & Lucerys, and probably Joff as well. There is that theory that it was Corlys who killed Harwin & Lyonel and I think it has its merits! Despite his affection for the boys, I do think he takes insult at the way Harwin & Rhaenyra so publicly carry on - he himself has a long(ish) standing love affair that he keeps hushed up and I imagine he felt Rhaenyra should be more discreet, and was insulted when Joff was born because like, you already have an heir and spare stop cuckolding my son jfc. Do I think he actually killed Harwin? Eh, up in the air about it tbh (seems more Viserys’ style if I’m being honest) but I can absolutely see the justifications he’s making here that Jace & Luke are necessary sacrifices of his pride but Joffrey is a step too far.

Now, while I put “keep his family safe” first because I DO think it comes first, notice I used “safe” and not “happy.” He doesn’t give a shit if they don’t like his decisions but Corlys does actually keep an eye on all his kids to make sure they are not being harmed. He doesn’t just wash his hands of Laena when the sealord he betroths her to turns out to be a dud, he actively puts off the marriage, and allows Daemon to get involved. He turns against Rhaenyra when Addam and Alyn are put at risk, then turns against Aegon II, even making the extremely risky move to kill the king, in an attempt to protect Baela.

I shittalk him a LOT for completely usurping his own daughter/granddaughter as well as counseling Rhaenyra away from a more proto-feminist stance, but I have to commend him here the way I do the Tyrells. Aegon II has gone mad with grief over Sunfyre, he’s probably in a lot of pain, high off his ass, we get that convo about him taking the black so he’s also running out of steam, which makes him erratic and dangerous, and he turns all of those built up feelings on Baela (if there isn’t snot and tears and spit dripping down both their faces when he takes her to the block in the show i’m suing!!!). Corlys attempts to calm Aegon but when it reaches a certain point, he doesn’t dick around trying to rationalize with an irrational person when it comes to the safety of his granddaughter - he just fucking offs the problem. Power and the Throne mean little and less if his entire family is dead and he knows this. It doesn’t mean he’s not willing to gamble, not willing to force his kids into shitty situations, not willing to usurp his own fucking granddaughter because a son is worth more, but in the end, Corlys really does love his family. It’s why he rages when Rhaenys dies. It’s why he’s devastated when Jacaerys dies. Corlys is very much A Man Of Westeros but in conversation with others like Tywin, Ned, Doran, Jon Arryn, Robert, etc., Corlys is willing to admit when he’s in over his head, grab his family, and get the fuck out of dodge. We are scraping the bottom of the barrel here on what a good father means, but well, that’s Westeros!

#and also that’s fathers! 😁 #i do love him my lil misogynist king #corlys velaryon #asks #anons #rani attempts meta

[fire-fira]

Some further thoughts in regards to [this post] just in terms of what I personally think would make sense for all of them.

Coral: yes, keep her as the emissary for Neptunos in Poseidonis, though with both of her partners being so thoroughly tied to Poseidonis I'd include at least some hints that it doesn't come without challenges or some doubts about where her loyalties lay. She's a politician, she can handle it, but it'd be a little more intriguing to have her have to occasionally fend off criticism from people in Neptunos who might think she's getting a little 'too fond' of Poseidonis.

Topo: Historian and restorationist, full stop. He doesn't seem to me to be the type to really be comfortable being an outright politician, but as an adviser whose knowledge of history makes him an invaluable asset, he would shine. Atlantis has a looooooong history, and if you go with the headcanon that magic extends the lives of those who use it (and that the more skilled a person is, the longer they can live-- which could easily result in at least a few being hundreds of years old), then that would make his knowledge even more valuable because that history would be much more blatantly present than might otherwise be expected.

Lori: While arguments could be made for keeping Lori as a General for Tritonis, I will admit I have a fondness for the idea of Lori having thrown herself wholeheartedly into the study of healing magic while at the Conservatory of Sorcery. (Also, having a General as Tritonis's emissary to Poseidonis seems a bit counter-effective to me. Why send a General from their military when it would make more sense to send someone who should ideally have better negotiating skills than what would likely be presumed of a General?) But as a healer? A magic user whose emphasis is in healing and who might have gained the knowledge of how to track and contain things like pandemics and other public health crises in Atlantis? She could easily have all the authority of a General, but on a broader scale than just Tritonis or Poseidonis, she could be a key public health advisor for all of Atlantis, and she has the connections to pave her way to that position. (Plus, Lori getting to have moments of being the quintessential snarly 'white mage' amuses me to no end.)

Garth: He can stay as the Atlantean Minister of Diplomacy and the UN Ambassador for Atlantis. Neither of those ties him explicitly to only one city-state of Atlantis, and he has the personal and political ties for it to make sense for how he eventually wound up in the position. Though with his being the protégé/apprentice to Arthur/Orin, I'm sure he would occasionally get met with accusations of prioritizing Poseidonis over the other city-states, but that just adds another layer (like Coral) that makes him having the position interesting. Plus, his experience from being on the surface gives him an edge of familiarity that would serve him well as the UN Ambassador. (And with my own headcanons and fics, he's got plenty of practice in diplomatically talking around things he'd rather avoid getting into, which is a skill I'm sure he'd use if he has it at his disposal.)

Beluga: I'm not opposed to Beluga having become the equivalent of a bishop or cleric, but the episodes he was in had him come across as a joke-- a bottom-of-the-barrel pick for a representative for Xebel. And while yeah, having a bottom-of-the-barrel pick was an easy way to show Mera's father snubbing Orin and that whole council and has its own narrative merits, at the same time it's just... SIGH. It also doesn't help that there's barely anything to his character shown in the series. And that's not even getting into the conflicting implication that in season 1 (his first appearance) Xebel was either largely unknown of in Atlantis proper, or that it wasn't technically considered part of Atlantis for a while (up until at least the end of season 1 at the earliest)-- which would mean that if he was originally from Xebel that his chances of attending the Conservatory would probably have been really limited. On the other hand, Beluga as a privileged son of some official who went into the Conservatory and eventually became a cleric and decided to take his practice to Xebel? That I can buy. (And in that context, Nereus pushing Beluga into the position of a politician when he's uncomfortable with it because it's seriously out of his wheelhouse while also leaning on his background as the son of some official for why he's the 'appropriate choice', sounds like an appropriately dick-ish move for Nereus without making Beluga an outright joke.)

Ronal: I'll admit, I do not like the idea of him being a 'lord' of Crastinus. Yes, he practically screams 'I am the son of someone with a LOT of political power', but putting him on the same level of royal families like Orin, Mera, Nereus, and Sha'ark just feels off-base and loads of 'ick' to me. (I personally headcanon him as the son of the Consul Magistrate of Poseidonis, putting his mother as one of the most politically powerful people in Atlantis right below the various royal families, but that's me.) I can buy him getting a political position due to the precedent set by his parent(s), however, due to his past history as a known purist I suspect his position would be precarious as hell. Making him an emissary would be a political landmine that I think most of the Atlantean city-states wouldn't want to risk. Taking up a position as a consul or a praetor though (since I doubt he'd be accepted as a consul magistrate due to being a political landmine)? That I can easily see happening. He'd have a political position due to his family background and training, but having been a known purist should have cost him access to higher levels of political power.

#Atlantis #Atlanteans #Coral #Topo #Lori Lemaris #Garth Curry #headcanons #meta #my fiction #tagging 'my fiction' so it's easier to find #YJA

[digitaldoeslmk]

I just have to say I love your art and your AU! As someone who is a big fan of LMK, but also reading JTTW right now (Anthony C. Yu Abridged Version since thats all I have access too right now), you have effectively mixed two of my favorite things right now!

I enjoy LMK because it's a fair intro to the stories while still being altered for the enjoyment of the viewers (and a younger audience). Things are definitely far from being one to one with the books, but I see it as a good starting point for people who have no idea about the culture or original story. I will admit Macaque is one of my favorites in the show, I'm a big fan of bastard characters, but even I can see that the mischaracterization of him is quite heavy since they altered the story so much. It's why I separate LMK!Macaque from JTTW!Macaque.

That being said I do also absolutely love JTTW. I'm from America so I'm used to westernized versions of stuff, but reading JTTW has been a blast. I love the characters and the story because it's a way for me to learn about a culture that's not my own. That also being said it's not the easiest read I've ever had, just because it isn't my culture and I went into reading it havign very little knowledge of the religions they touch on in the books. All the same it's still amazing. I also enjoy Macaque in JTTW. I mean who wouldn't love the cannibalistic and antagonist monkey who's actually super intelligent?

All in all I love your AU and I love that it still holds that ability to tell the story more in-line with JTTW's events (also give Macaque a more predominant role and characterization) while still holding the behavioralisms I loved to see in the characters of LMK.

- Lycori 🌸

thank you so much!! i'm happy that you enjoy my au! :DD

personally, i think that some of the changes made by the series go too far, or make it harder to get into jttw rather than easier, but i can't deny it has introduced a whole lot of new people into his wonderful novel! i think if they have kept some buddho-daoist cosmology fundamentals rather than westernizing it, maybe folks like you wouldn't struggle as much with some of te cultural contexts, yknow? and most importantly, chinese fans wouldn't feel alienated from the western fans.

still, i'm glad to hear you're able to separate the two, and that you can enjoy them both in their own merits!! i think that lmk has a lot of good qualities, not just the animation and voice acting, and hopefully my au can make a compelling point for how it could have been an overall stronger narrative if it had leaned harder on the source material and culture without cutting off those good qualities :D

if you'd like, i can always offer some good articles and meta posts i've come across related to jttw! i'm also working on a post of my notes and annotations of Oedipall God by Meir Shahar, which gave me a lot of cultural context that helped me make sense of a lot of plot beats in both jttw and fsyy (Investiture of the Gods), so people can't read the book can have access to some of its material :D

again thank you for the ask, it was very sweet! <33

[96percentdone]

Is Shouma really the trans rep y'all want? Someone who had no agency in their metaphorical puberty blockers and was forced and threatened into 'taking' them, hated it for years, and eventually decided 'yeah i guess it's pretty neat i'm still youthful but also but also fuck that guy who did this to me?' Is this not just a right wing talking point about how doctors are abusing innocent children with irreversible surgeries to trans their genders being with trans-positive paint? I think reclaiming transphobic narratives them can be powerful, but the context of Nirvana Initiative canon this doesn't feel like 'reframing conservative beliefs' so much as just. Doing their arguments beat by beat including the medical abuse part and saying 'its good actually we want this.'

I haven't seen works transformative enough that change the text so Shouma wasn't abused into the early stages of her transition, or that she was actually willing to take the abuse and deception once she learned about it to see if it could get her what she wants for her body, and her grievances are with the abuse alone. It's just treated as a given that canon is exactly as we know it to be, and the ends justify the means.

Maybe a controversial take, but I just think a lot of transcanons are poorly considered, genderbent or no. This isn't specific to aitsf, and I'm also not saying anyone who likes them are just as bad, even for the ones I don't like at all like this one. They are popular with trans people first and foremost, that would be a bizarre claim; I'm not your dad, fandom should make you happy, do whatever. My beef is that as far as I have seen, a lot of the popular ones in trans fan communities are done by picking some part of the text, ignoring the context it exists in, and then using that detail to justify the hc, even if the context flies against it, and without providing any new context to supplement or even replace the old one. We're just left to assume that everything else is the same still, and transitioning is often the focus of genderbent ones making it stranger. In the case of transfem!shouma, this style of creation just like accidentally leans into transphobic ideas, but even for characters where it's not doing that, they're still similarly thoughtless. Transmasc Kuranushi Mizuki has its own popularity, to distinguish her from Date Mizuki, but like...that's it. No one posts about what it would mean for his character, their life, it's an aesthetic decision alone. It means nothing other than the petty fan grievance or wish-fullfilment that inspired it.

That laziness is what I hate the most. Fandom is transformative, those transformations have the power to be extremely beautiful and compelling and meaningful. They can elevate the text into something more than what it was. I love that. I am a trans person who loves good art. That's why the way trans headcanons are made and portrayed is so irritating to me, because they feel low effort. People will say they have thought about them a lot, and maybe you have! But if all of that consideration is in a private discord server, that means nothing to me. I refuse to consider the merits of context I have no access to. If the context exists, put it in your work!! I just want better art than that.

Fandom wants to be taken seriously. It wants to be treated as art, and yet it also wants to be treated as just a fun hobby unworthy of criticism, but I don't think you get to have both. You cannot position your creations as art, your community as an artistic one worthy of respect, and yet its immune to the treatment all art and art communities get: criticism. I just want more thoughtful and considered fanworks. I want transcanons, even if they exist for a ship, or out of spite, or for fun aus and comedy fan-comics, to be taken just a bit more seriously and with more effort.

#hope.txt

[shipofthesis]

Reflecting on Fallen London content in light of the Disgraced Former Founder

I’ve been looking into Fallen London’s Disgraced Former Founder (AK) because I’d rather just know then assume. Now, everything I’ve read has tracked with what I was assuming from what I already knew and have seen of him but. God, he’s insufferable. I’ve read through his professed list of influences, and my realizations on that front have been: 

lamentably I have his written voice saved into my brain cuz I clocked it almost immediately (I tiredly clicked the link without registering who/what it was). This is wild to me cuz I have only really “read” him through whatever FL content he’s responsible for. Which makes me wonder how much is by his hand.

some of his commentary is... illuminating about the sort of person he is. Does he always sound this condescending? (Yes.) While a handful of his comments had me rolling my eyes or sighing this bit made me need to pause altogether. 

What an ass. Anyway, my final and perhaps most important realization! I am convinced while his merit as a writer is up for debate he is very well read and his writing owes everything to that. It sounds like some of FL is less genius ideas he had and more him grabbing things he liked from other, more established authors. (Something his own narrative along this list supports, though I’m sure he thinks more highly of himself than I do.)

Why does any of this matter? Why am I subjecting myself to learning about this frustrating scumbag? Because I am reexamining (earlier) FL given this context, understanding that often fiction is a reflection of its creators. 

I am thinking about how much of early FL content is the player character manipulating and exploiting people. I am thinking about the player character’s overarching narrative of starting from the bottom with nothing but your wits and grit, and winding up on top. I am thinking about how difficult it is to play a morally upstanding character if you take every storyline as canon rather than handwaving some here, others there. And I am thinking of all this while familiar with how people like AK think and create.

It sounds like AK regularly manipulated people while at Failbetter games. (Here’s a piece by the current CEO about AK’s behavior.) It’s safe to assume manipulation, intimidation, extortion, bribery, and other similar tactics are part of his everyday toolkit. Things the player character has options to do quite often, usually for greater profit. Even if you don’t play your character as morally dubious, there is something to be said of how various Making Your Name stories play out. How romancing characters is often a means to an end, how the university line is much more punishing if you uphold what is true and just. And likely many others I cannot remember in this moment! But wait, FL is a dark comedy and a horror show, it is also an rpg. This sort of thing is to be expected, right? It’s a dystopia where deathlessness has changed what violence means and we are all subject to the whims of monomaniacal space bats! What’s my point?? 

My point, what I am pondering, is how much of the player characters choices and actions were not written as something fantastical. How much of the sardonic narrator voice isn’t an affectation to amuse us, and how much the player characters sometimes ruthless, heartless, and even entitled actions and desires are not simply there to offer different Quirks. People like AK tend to think everyone thinks like them. The player character being written to use all tools available in service of their own needs, pleasure, ego, and rising power might not be entirely a hypothetical fantasy to AK. Well, maybe it’s a fantasy in that approaching the world of the Neath like this is not only accepted and justified, but the way to power. Power which you deserve because of your sharp wits and willingness to do what it takes, morality and ethics be damned.

#fallen london #schroedingers chat #i wrote this b4 the new patch updated some older content i would LOVE to know whats changed! #this isnt a knock against dubious morality in rpgs ive just been thinking