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that-ari-blogger · 5 months

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Efficient Writing At Its Best

Is it me, or is there a noticeable jump in quality in No Princess Left Behind? As in, the animation budget seems to double between episodes, the cinematography is stellar, the humour is incredible. And the writing itself becomes so much more enthralling.

What gets me about this jump is that She Ra and the Princesses of Power was already a fantastic show. Each element I mentioned above is already firing on all cylinders. You would think that this show cannot improve any further, but in this episode it does.

Promise is lauded as some of the best She-Ra has to offer. And don't worry, I will get there. But No Princess Left Behind is my favourite episode of the show by far and one of my favourite episodes of television. This is the episode She Ra stops being merely an incredibly well-made show, and starts to become art.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD

First up, format. This episode is a prison break and both a condensed monomyth and a miniaturised tragedy. None of these things make it great on their own, that's not how writing works. But they are written with incredible nuance derived from character, setting, and the intersections of those tropes.

A prison break is a self-explanatory story structure. A character is imprisoned and either doesn't want to be or has allies who don't want them to be. In the case of the external help variation, as with this episode, the plot functions as a medicine journey with the object of significance being the ally on the inside. (A medicine journey is just a journey to a place to retrieve a thing).

Monomyth is another term for the Hero's Journey. And there are two things about this that need to be understood: The Hero's journey is a set of guidelines, and the Hero's Journey is fluid. By which I mean, the format of the monomyth isn't set in stone, and if a story doesn't follow the specific set of rules you have found, that's not a fault.

In essence, the Monomyth is a set of common events that link multiple stories. Originally proposed in Joseph Campbell's A Hero With A Thousand Faces, the format has been changed over time through interpretation and through people leaving out Campbell's... biases (Misogynistic is an understatement for this guy). The form I am most aware of includes elements such as crossing the threshold, the darkest hour, and the metaphorical death and rebirth, all of which this episode hits in quick succession. If you want more details about the monomyth, I advise reading Campbell's book, or this article by Owlcation. TedEd also has a neat video on the subject.

A tragedy is the most well-known story type. Or rather, you say tragedy, and people generally get what you are talking about. It's a story with a sad ending. But there is more complication than that. Beginning in Ancient Greece, a tragedy is a way of experiencing powerful emotions in a safe environment. Loss, pain, hope, joy. A tragedy is a rollercoaster and is an incredibly good way of achieving that effect. To the point where stories that aren't tragedies (Like She-Ra) are frequently written as them and subverted at the last possible moment. OSP has a video going into detail, but in the interest of this analysis being shorter than a Tolstoy book, the words to understand are these:

Hamartia - Fatal flaw

Peripetea - Reversal of fortune

Catharsis - Emotional release

Bear these in mind because these are situational, and I will be talking about how in a moment. The point is this episode is incredibly efficient at showing each character's strengths and weaknesses and having them affect the plot. Each character has some moments to shine, and that final gut punch is caused by the characters' mistakes. Thats why it hurts, because it was both unlucky and inevitable.

Mermista and Sea Hawk steal the show for me, for completely opposite reasons.

I have always believed, somewhat falsely, that the most well written scenes are those with less dialogue, because the rest of the acting can speak for itself. The minour acting and surroundings can shine if there is less dialogue to distract. Mermista is an example of this, but also an example of why this belief is wrong.

Mermista is the queen of subtlety, with so much emotion and meaning being portrayed by so little. She is exaggerated, sure, but she is a lot more subdued than the entire rest of the cast. What she does have, is expression. In the sewer scene, her head is the only thing visible, and she has more character on display in twenty-two seconds than Swiftwind has in the whole series. She doesn't even speak.

But when Mermista does speak, there is something fascinating happening here. Mermista's lines are saying a completely different thing to her animation, actions, and even the inflection of how those lines are delivered. Mermista goes out of her way to put up a facade of not caring, but she is remarkably affected by her surroundings and the people around her.

For example, despite herself, she grows attached to Entrapta, and gets excited when they work as a team. But I find this gesture so much more revealing. She tears up. But instead of crying, she quietly turns away and dries them. Mermista's Hamartia is also her greatest strength, her distance. She is pragmatic, but she pushes herself too far away to help.

Meanwhile Sea Hawk is a TTRPG bard. This isn't even subtle.

For those who don't know, in DnD and Pathfinder, a bard is a charisma-based class that plays support most of the time (although you can build it in whatever way you want, this is how the class is designed). This means that they often end up as the party face and the glue of the group. There is a prominent live show in which a Bard leaves the party, and it shows off my point exactly.

Sea Hawk is easily the most charismatic character on the group, a fact he uses in a really interesting way. For one, he's distracting. His fast talking keeps Scorpia from being a problem for the group, and in every fight he is in in this episode, his primary role is to distract or annoy his opponents. He doesn't deal much damage, but he keeps himself as a piece on the board that gets on people's nerves and gets them to make mistakes.

Sea Hawk's constant babble is doing another thing for the group. He's reassuring and comforting. His number one priority at all times (successfully or not), is to keep everyone's spirits up. Sea Hawk is a master of inspiring. And would you look at that, DnD and Pathfinder have that as a core ability (Bardic Inspiration and Inspiring Performance respectively).

So, what is Sea Hawk's weakness? His optimism. I don't mean this as "optimism is foolish", I mean that Sea Hawk's hamartia is, much like Mermista, his greatest strength. Sea Hawk is always looking forwards, always keeping the group moving. When someone stops, it doesn't occur to him to look back until it is too late.

Glimmer and Bow are similar characters to each other, and it is in how they react to stress that that is shown. Both are resilient, but where one is resourceful, the other is relentless.

Bow is a simple character, in comparison to everyone else. Psychologically and physically. He doesn't have powers that can be restricted or that can get him out of trouble. What he does have, is his mind. Bow is clever and resourceful, and he works out a way of getting the right information while imprisoned so that the group doesn't have to work on that later.

Bow thinks big picture, once again his greatest strength and greatest weakness. He can strategize really well, but he doesn't expect the little things. Like Adora's surrender, or like the tiny detail that he overlooks: Entrapta likes robots. It's so small and so natural to him that he takes it for granted.

Glimmer's fatal flaw is obvious already. It's her stubbornness that got everyone into this situation, and that directly causes the end result. This is Glimmer's fault. But Glimmer's stubbornness isn't always a bad thing.

"It's a shame the toll this rebellion has taken on your family. First you loose your father and now..."

"She-Ra will stop you."

"There is no She-Ra!"

Shadow Weaver is a character who specialises in messing with people's minds. She enjoys control, and routinely underestimates the power of determination. To her all those around her are weak willed. But say what you want about Glimmer, the one thing she is not, is weak willed.

I love the line above because it is the first time anyone has managed to actually annoy Shadow Weaver. By this, I don't mean the same type of annoyance as Catra is to her, because I don't think Shadow Weaver cares about her enough to be truly angry. What Glimmer does here is win on Shadow Weaver's home turf.

Shadow Weaver tries to demoralise, and Glimmer blinks away tears, looks her square in the face, and remains stalwart. That's why I think Shadow Weaver shouts here, she's furious, and she can keep posturing, but Glimmer has won this little exchange.

Even with the reveal of the sword, I think its clear just how much Shadow Weaver is rattled, and I think this little exchange is the reason for her actions later on in the series.

This is also on display here, as once again, Glimmer's raw determination and stubbornness blindsides Shadow Weaver, and it's telling what provoked this. Glimmer is protective of her friends first and foremost. And here, Shadow Weaver pushes too far, and the power of friendship prevails.

It's a minour moment of the theme for the rest of the series. Love, whether romantic or platonic, will overpower anything.

And finally, there is Entrapta. I don't think I need to explain what her strengths and weaknesses are. She's not hiding either.

What's important to note about Entrapta is that she is the convergence of the plot threads I mentioned earlier. The tragedy is her story, and this episode focuses in on that.

Her death scene is so powerful because it is so unfair, and so inevitable. It's quick, and unavoidable in the moment. Thie is the moment when the cost of this war finally sinks in. Yes, things happen later on, but it cannot undermine the gut punch that is this scene, and the final few moments of this episode.

Peripetia is the reversal of fortune, it is the moment when all of the Hamartia comes crashing down and everything thereafter, and the tone changes. In Romeo and Juliet, this is the death of Tybalt (Spoilers).

Here, the Peripetia is the moment when Emily gets stuck, and those flames. It's the look in everyone's face as they realise what has happened and that brief shot of Entrapta's expression before. And it is that infernal siren.

Catharsis meanwhile is the moment of relief, or setting out those emotions. Catharsis is technically not a part of the story, it happens when you stop watching and reflect.

But this episode offers you time to wind down. That brief shot of She-Ra turning back into Adora is powerful not just because of the music, but also because of how empty it is. There is no closure here, and the audience doesn't get it either. The episode ends on this:

Final Thoughts

I didn't even have time to talk about Catra. She doesn't really do much here, but that scene with the sword is a nice bait and switch. Shadow Weaver is evil, all the characters are at their best and their worst simultaneously and I think that is quite cool.

Oh, and Perfuma. She has an extremely restricted worldview of what teamwork should look like, and Entrapta doesn't fit into that, hence the conflict. I think Perfuma learns to change slightly but doesn't get much time to do so in this episode.

Next week I'll be taking a look at The Beacon, so stick around if that interests you.

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#rants #literary analysis #literature analysis #character analysis #what's so special about...?#she ra and the princesses of power #she ra glimmer #she ra #she ra spop #she ra adora #spop #shadow weaver #glimmer #best friend squad #she ra bow #she ra mermista #she ra sea hawk #she ra entrapta

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fool-who-dreams · 2 years

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shrink

summary:

Tony is tired of hearing her daughter talk about her crush, and Peter talk about his. So he sets them up for confrontation and decides to have a little fun with it...

you stepped inside the most spacious classroom of Midtown High, and the familiar scents of chemicals immediately invaded your smell. The chemistry class was soon filled with people taking their seats at their tables and putting on their candid white lab coats and protective goggles. Your usual desk mates were absent on that day due to the intensive sport training they were undergoing; soon they'd have a really important match and the school couldn't risk loosing (again), so they were excused from classes that day.

It was no big deal, but it was an absolute tragedy for you: who will you blather about your crush to? Who will listen as you make up romantic - most definitely unrealistic - scenarios, and encourage your imagination? How can you go a whole day without hearing their encouraging words on how you should just go up to Peter's desk and say-

"Hi, is this seat taken?" The familiar voice shakes you out of your thoughts. Your eyes widen as the sight of THE Peter Parker.

The boy wasn't popular in the slightest, but you had the chance to admire him in his natural habitat, the chemistry and maths classrooms, (or so you thought) and he was the smartest person in MILES. The rare few times you had the chance - or the excuse - to talk to him, he had been the most caring, generous and kindest person you ever had the chance to meet.

"Of course not." You smiled, making him smile, too. You blushed at the thought of always being the one to make him smile like that. Better yet, at the thought of him making you smile like an absolute fool everyday.

"y/n, right?" Peter asked while fixing his bag next to him and sitting down on the stool.

From there on the chitchat never ended. You both did stay silent: he was rather invested in the experiment, and you were rather invested in watching him focus. Chemistry came pretty naturally to you - just like every other scientifical and technology-related subject - which gave you more time to dream of the moment that had finally come.

You guys discovered that you had so much in common: interests, friendships, hobbies...heroes. You both loved Spiderman, for instance, and you both really looked up to Ironman and Captain America. You both liked Star Wars and Delmar's sandwiches, and you both knew MJ.

After class was over, the two of you agreed to sit next to each other the following time as well: your friends had been telling you to talk to him for ages, they won't mind at all if you actually did and stopped distracting him from their assignments in class. Even though, underneath, you knew they enjoyed it just as much as you did.

The weeks went by and you couldn't help but like him more and more, falling deeper and deeper for the boy. He seemed quite involved, too: every time your hands brushed against each other, or you made him laugh, or even just held eye contact for more than one second, it just made your heartbeat run a marathon. And that wasn't like you at all, but you weren't sure you liked it much. That little voice in your head just kept telling you that it might all just be your imagination going a bit too far; basically just gaslighting yourself.

Six months later you guys had become absolute best friends. You walked back home together after school, worked on projects, had your own inside jokes; you had even met his aunt May!

"Hey y/n?" Peter broke the silence while he was laying on a park bench, his curls on your laps.

"Yeah?"

"Do you- would you ever-" he started stuttering as he usually did when he was going to say something important for him. It always made you giggle, you found it cute.

"C'mon Pete, you can tell me anything, you know that."

"I know" he whispered before sitting back straight up. He took a deep breath before finally saying what he wanted to "Do you- like pillowcases?"

You looked at him, puzzled and surprised by the question. "Do I- like pillowcases?" You let out a laugh, trying to hide the disappointment in what you thought he'd have said. "I guess I do. Do you?"

"Yea. I do, I really do."

"That's- cool, I didn't know that about you" You chuckled, as he let out more of a nervous laugh. "I guess we should get going now". You smiled, gathering your things.

After Peter dropped you off where you "lived", you waited til he was out of sight before getting into the most famous building in the State: your actual home.

"I CANNOT BELIEVE HIM!" You shouted as you angrily climbed the stairs and walked into the kitchen, reaching straight for the fridge and opening it. "I seriously cannot believe that boy!"

"What did he do today sweetheart?" you father asked, not getting his eyes off of the newspaper he was reading.

"He almost asked me out!"

"And the problem with that is..."

"THAT HE ALMOST ASKED ME OUT!"

"Oh, obviously" He mocked you as he folded his newspaper. "Honey, have you ever thought of asking him out yourself?"

"Of course not. I mean, what if he says no?"

"You've never had this problem with any other boy before, and you're having this kind of doubts now that I actually like one of your picks?"

"Yes, because I also actually like this one!"

"Pepper, I don't need the blood test anymore, she's definitely a Stark!"

"I thought we had agreed on that when she fixed the- technology thing you couldn't deal with when she was 5." Your mother shouted from the other room.

"Okay, ouch." Tony replied.

"To be fair, you did deserve that." You chuckled. "Anyways, I'm starting to think it was just all in my head. Maybe that's just how he is with everyone, I'm nothing special. I guess I love for the both of us. I mean, how could I be enough for someone like him? He's the sweetest, kindest, most generous and caring person on this planet. And me? Well, I'm just really smart. And I'm amazing for everyone else, of course, but him? He deserves more than I'll ever be able to give." You concluded looking at the ground as you let your head fall into your arms. You were forced to raise your gaze when you heard a sudden loud noise. Something had fallen and broken, like a plate or a mug.

Looking up you saw the only thing you needed but last thing you wanted to see in that moment.

"You better clean that up kid. Oh and, y/n? Peter's here, by the way. Which is a really good thing because now you can both stop using me as your shrink and actually talk to each other." Tony looked at you with the most amused smirk as he was on his way to leave the room.

Your face had reached the cherry red color of the ceramic bowl that was scattered all around on the floor.

"Are you- did you actually mean all that?" An incredulously open-mouthed Peter asked.

"What are you even doing here?!" You inquired, confused and embarrassed.

"That's not important right now. Did you mean that?"

"Haven't I proven it to you?"

"I- I feel awful about making you doubt how much I love you." He said sincerely, while walking towards you.

"You- love me?"

"More than I thought I could." He leaned in slowly, following your every move until your lips fused into the most beautiful feeling you had ever felt. When the kiss was broken he held you in his arms for a few minutes, you both contemplating how the moment felt as magical as you had imagined it. Peter broke the silence with a sudden realization.

"Wait- you are PEPPER POTTS AND TONY STARK'S DAUGHTER?"

"Yeah..." You laughed nervously.

"Why have you never said anything?"

"I don't really go around advertising it. You know the bad guys and stuff can-" As you were explaining, you accidentally hurt a mug. Luckily, before it could touch the ground it was promptly saved: Peter was holding in his right hand the purple thing.

"you are SPIDERMAN?! MY BOYFRIEND IS SPIDERMAN?"

"Mh, boyfriend." He chuckled before hugging you again. "I like the sound of that."

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incorrecttowerofgodquotes · 10 months

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Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Season 2 Episode 11 Discussion

- Martin was me the entire episode, freaking the fuck out

- Eri vs Suletta is such a great fight. The two love each other, but their viewpoints and morals are on such opposite wavelengths. Eri, much like Suletta in the past, is doing everything for her mother because she wants her mom to be happy. The Eri we see is simply lines of code reconfigured into what could possibly be construed as a human being. She has Eri’s memories and feelings, but she hasn’t, can’t, grow up, unlike Suletta. Suletta loves her mom, she wants to be there for her, but she can’t accept killing people. She’s realized just how much heavy a life is and so she moves to protect it.

- Peil and the SAL have taken the mantle of final boss. If they really cared about punishing the Benerit Group, they would arrest the leaders, not shoot them with a giant fuck you laser while children are on board all while supporting the people who make nuclear child body doubles. The League is doing exactly what Delling did during the Vanadis incident, right down to the “I’ll take responsibility (but I really won’t)” shtick.

- However what’s interesting is how out of place Elan seems to be. He isn’t sitting down with the Peil ladies, he’s standing off in the corner, staring at his own reflection, and I think this shows a lot of us got his character wrong. Elan is just another child the Peil ladies are taking advantage of. He only got where he was due to sheer luck that the AI picked him, if not, he probably would have either ended up as the other body doubles or dead and discarded. It’s common with abusive parents that they’ll choose a “golden child” and use that child to put down the others, and Elan seems to fit in that mold. I hope he breaks out just like El5n and creates his own life.

- God the Schwarzette is the best fucking Gundam. Between it and Calibarn, how are they ever going to challenge it in the future? It has space rave lasers, it’s sword is the GUND bits and it can become a wing, and it has bisexual lighting.

- Lauda is too good for every one of his haters. He’s been second string to Guel for his entire life, his very name “Lauda Neill” is just a reminder of how he’s a mistress’s child. But here he proudly proclaims himself as “Lauda Jeturk.” His feelings for his brother come from both admiration and self-worthlessness. He puts his entire identity into being Guel’s brother so when Guel falters, he does as well. He wants Guel to rely on him. He wants to be his equal. He put Guel on such a high pedestal because he was everything he wanted to be.

- My poor son Guel. He’s always loved his brother, no matter the fact that they come from different mothers, but as always he has trouble understanding others. Also, we get to see a far darker part of his psyche that most others might have missed. In his fight with Shaddiq, despite being stabbed, he managed to eject and save himself, but here he waits for death. Guel has been keeping himself moving with the idea that his family still needs him, but once Lauda seemingly rejects him, he loses all that energy. He hasn’t recovered from the trauma and pain he’s been through, he’s only simply masked it. But in that moment, he’s perfectly fine with dying because he believes it would be better for everyone

- But best girl Felsi says fuck that! She reminds Guel and Lauda that the world is so much bigger than them, and that there are people who still care about them. They can’t ignore their problems, they need to talk through it. Lauda’s insecurity and Guel’s suicidal nature and guilt, these are things that can’t be held within or else they’ll bubble over and end in tragedy. Felsi the hero says cut the bullshit, and I love her so much for it. I need Felsi merch right now

- El5n was another MVP of the episode. I’m surprised just how talented he is with a gun and shoot outs. Does he have experience, either from his past life or current one? And the fact that he didn’t hesitate to get the head shot off of Prospera says so much. He’s ruthless because he has a purpose. He ain’t letting anyone die unnecessarily, but he also recognizes when the doing needs done

- And Belmeria really stepped up as well. She’s spent the entire series running away from the consequences of her actions but here she finally stands up and protects the children who have been abused by the system she supported. Her diving to protect Miorine from getting shot was beautiful, and you can tell El5n really appreciated the gesture.

- Miorine is the best wife. That’s it, that’s the tweet

- Right when Eri was about to merc Miorine and co, something interrupted them, and I believe it was Notrette, Miorine’s mom. We never learned how Miorine’s mom died, so it’s possible she also got sucked up into the data storm and resides in Quiet Zero, and that’s why Delling was working on the project. She also added a failsafe so her daughter could shut it down, one that speaks words of love. Mother of the year

- The fact that Eri’s final act is to protect her sister and mother is so sad. She never had the chance to grow up, she’s forever stuck in stasis inside a giant hunk of metal. Quiet Zero offered the hope that she could finally escape and travel the world as herself, but it still wouldn’t give her herself back. However, Suletta can still live on, and so she valiantly protects her from the big laser, giving one final smile to her little sister. I hope she can finally rest in peace.

- But will Prospera allow that. She’s watched her daughter die twice now. Everything she worked for, all the lives that were sacrificed, they now all mean nothing. The world has rejected her once again. Whether she can accept it and become a better mother to Suletta is to be seen, but I don’t think she’ll follow that path.

Really hoping we get that second half so I can see the Peil girls get fucking incinerated. Also can we paint the Schwarzette red and give it to Guel? Double the points if it’s revealed he’s bisexual.

#gundam #g witch #gundam witch from mercury #ericht samaya #suletta mercury #guel jeturk #lauda neill #prospera mercury

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ariainstars · 1 year

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The Genius of Georgette Heyer

Georgette Heyer, an Englishwoman who lived from 1902 to 1974, is one of my favourite novelists, and I often reread her books or at least some parts of her books just to retire into an agreeable world. She wrote historical novels and thrillers, but I must admit I don’t like these very much. To me, Heyer’s genius was giving a breath of fresh air to the overworn genre of romance novels set in the English Regency era. (Although some of these Heyer novels like These Old Shades or The Convenient Marriage are set during High Rococo.)

In my opinion Heyer is highly underrated, standing in the shade of the more known Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters, books women most relate to when they want to read historical romance novels; Barbara Cartland is also more known, an author whose works are too saccharine for my taste.

Austen’s or the Brontë sister’s novels are not actually romances although they are often described as such; they are accurate portrayals of the society the authors lived in, romantic attachments playing a major role of course, but the focus is on the importance of family and society framing them and influencing them, for good or for bad.

I always found myself drawn to Heyer’s stories, long before I fell in love for the first time myself; the average romance novels get on my nerves. Now, and after having experienced love more than once, I can say that I wholly share Heyer’s approach that no matter how much in love you are has no influence on whether you and the object of your interest fit together.

The common trope in romances is “love conquers all”, which I personally dislike because it strips the protagonists of having their own mind and their own agenda. “Love” makes the choice for them; they don’t consciously choose to be with this person or other. Alternatively, the protagonists are “meant for each other” but “star-crossed”, i.e. circumstances or their own folly (or both) prevent them from being together, in which case the novel is framed as a tragedy and we are expected to cry buckets over it.

This is fortunately not the case in Heyer’s romance novels. Like Cartland, she writes of an England that was long gone before she was born, of course in a romanticized way. A lot of her stories mirror how the do’s and don’ts of those times, in particular in the upper class, influenced their lives and made it very difficult to navigate society.

Georgette Heyer’s genius is her capacity to imbue old tropes with new elements, and most importantly, to detach herself from the adage “love is all you need”. Without being sarcastic, she is at her best (in my opinion) when she weaves stories about people who realize that being in “love” is not that important at all. Her romances do end well, yet not due to the influence of a higher power but because the couples involved had the chance to realize who is the right partner for them to spend the rest of their lives with. Her heroines are usually headstrong, independent and reasonable; they may act on a whim or following their heart, but it is when they listen to reason - or are pushed to do so - that they finally get their happy ending.

Warning: spoilers ahead.

The Cinderella Trope

Arabella, and also Friday’s Child and The Convenient Marriage deal with the subject of a poor, or at least modest-living, female from a good family being launched into London’s high society by a strike of good fortune. In the latter two novels, this includes for them the chance to buy a heap of beautiful new clothes, strongly reminding of the Cinderella trope.

But Heyer would not be who she is if the novels would not be original in their own way: Arabella, far from being a modest, kind girl, pretends to be a rich heiress in order to “show his place” to a man who believed she wanted to ensnare him due to his wealth; Hero from Friday’s Child and Horatia from The Convenient Marriage both do not end but begin the story through marriage, and the plot unfolds as they slowly realize (and their respective spouses, too) that they have married the right person after all.

Finding Love in an Unexpected Place

In The Convenient Marriage, the Earl of Rule is ready to marry a certain girl to make a match, arranged years earlier, with a poor but very aristocratic family; it is on meeting her younger sister that he realizes “he does want to ally himself with the family”, to put it in his words.

In The Quiet Gentleman, as he has to deal with conspiracies and attempted murder, the protagonist Gervase Frant learns to put his trust in a female he first found dull, and who is not aristocratic the way he is.

In Sylvester or The Wicked Uncle, the Duke of Salford is at first disappointed by Phoebe, the girl his mother and her friend had chosen for him, and she doesn’t like him any better; they have to live through a number of adventures, together with friends and family, until they realize that they fit together perfectly.

In Sprig Muslin, Sir Gareth Ludlow overcomes his grief over his lost fiancé due to being responsible for Amanda, a girl of similar temper, and getting the chance to compare her to Lady Hester, a shy, unremarkable woman whom he liked but did not appreciate enough before. A beloved theme of Heyer’s romances is brought up here, too: having the same sense of humour shows to be indicative for two people fitting together.

In Charity Girl, notorious bachelor Viscount Desford gets involved both with a very beautiful girl named Lucasta and another, quite helpless damsel named Cherry, but none of them turn out to be right; instead, he finally realizes that Henrietta, an old friend of his, whom he had not wanted to marry years earlier, is the right mate for him after all.

In Faro’s Daughter, Mr Ravenscar gets interested in Deborah, a girl who works in a gaming house, which makes her free game to all men who visit it although she is a decent girl and only wants to earn a living for herself and the aunt who owns to place. A parallel is made through the protagonist’s niece Arabella, forever being in love with one guy or another but then refraining at the last moment. Finally, her uncle gives her a sound advice: that only if she will meet a man whom she will be ready to introduce to her family, she will know that he is the right man.

In False Colours, twin brothers Kit and Evelyn literally switch their places, one of them finding the right girl in the process by getting to know his brother’s prospected bride.

In The Foundling, the Duke of Sale is all but pushed to make an offer for Harriet, a girl he likes but is not in love with; but as he lives through some adventures and meets Belinda, who is very beautiful but also superficial, he learns to appreciate his future bride better and to realize that he would not want to be married to anyone else.

The Wrong Match

In An Infamous Army, Lady Worth wants to match up Colonel Charles Audley with Lucy, but then has to find out that the sweet, innocent-looking damsel is already secretly married, and that the temperamental Lady Barbara whom she had not liked for him is exactly what he needs since she has courage and straightforwardness.

Not Falling in Love at All

In A Civil Contract, Viscount Lynton, heir of an impoverished family, marries the shy and average-looking Jenny, the daughter of a rich, vulgar merchant to keep his family out of debt; she loves him but is aware of the fact that he does not requite her feelings, since he secretly loves Julia, a beautiful woman who does not have much money of her own. It is only as the plot thickens, the woman he loves marries another man and his wife gives him a son that he realizes “his Jenny” is the best wife he could have found.

Falling Out of Love

In Friday’s Child, Lord Sheringham believes to be in love with Isabella, an acclaimed beauty, until he has lived for a while with Hero, the young woman he had married on a whim. “Bella with her airs and graces, her moods and her sharp tongue! No, thank you!”

Isabella on the other hand was about to contrive a brilliant match, but good sense makes her refuse it after all. “When I thought how my life would be, that I would have to spend the rest of my life with him… oh, I could not!”

In The Grand Sophy, Cecilia is besotted with Augustus, a very romantic but unreliable young man. After a trying period spent nursing her small sister, who was critically ill, she finally realizes that the less romantic but more worthy Lord Charlbury who had offered for her in the first place is a much better partner for her.

In Cotillon, Kitty enters a fake engagement to teach a lesson to Jack, the man she is in love with; but when she comes to London for a while and learns more about him and the world, she slowly realizes that she was in love with a figment of her imagination, and that Freddy, the man she is engaged to, is a much better person.

“He seemed like all the heroes in the book, but I soon found that he is not like them at all.” “No. I’m afraid I ain’t either.” “Of course not! No one is.”

Heyer’s chief oeuvre in this respect is in my opinion Bath Tangle, where Serena and Lord Rotherham, both hot-tempered protagonists get engaged to someone much gentler than them, only for them to realize that they would not be happy with them. The heroine’s fiancé Hector gives her up amicably, having also found a much better life partner.

“You are a grander creature than I even imagined.” “And you are the kindest and best of men, but not my love!”

The “Pride and Prejudice” Trope

The themes of Jane Austen’s famous novel is upended in Faro’s Daughter, where it is the man who has a strong prejudice against the girl, whom he inevitably believes to be a scheming, money-grabbing minx because she earns her living in a gaming house. The girl on the other hand has strong personal pride and would never accept money from anyone, or accept marrying or becoming the mistress of a man for whom she doesn’t care. Far from declaring his devotion to her, the man insults the woman repeatedly, before he finally realizes his mistake and also that she is the right mate for him.

The Beauty and the Beast Trope

In Black Sheep, the protagonists Abby and Fanny are aunt and niece, both at the same time in love with two members of the Calverleigh family who both have a bad reputation; but while Beauty (the niece) has to realize that the man she had fallen for was only after her fortune, non-Beauty (the not quite so pretty, but intelligent aunt) realizes that the uncommon Miles who gives nothing on society’s standards does care for people, and that he is the broad-minded, worldly-wise partner she exactly needs.

In Venetia, the person falling out of love is a Edward Yardley, a sidekick, who really ends up being disillusioned; but the story had made it abundantly clear that he had been a fool all along to believe that he and the protagonist would suit. Venetia, the Beauty, has to find out that she cannot tame the Beast Lord Damerel, and that she wouldn’t want to do it additionally. The Beast is not a bad man but someone who does not fit in with society; which makes him ideal for her since she does not, either.

This trope is brought to a climax in Lady of Quality, where the protagonist Annis, who never felt the slightest interest in the gentlemen she met, on getting to know the rude but protective and straightforward Oliver finally gets to fall in love, despite the fact that they argue frequently. At one time she muses that “Surely kindred spirits did not quarrel?” only to then add mentally, with a little self-irony, “How mawkish!”

If you are tired of Jane Austens’ prim heroines and the Brontë sister’s drama, I invite you: give Georgette Heyer a try. Her novels are entertaining but neither flat nor sentimental, and I always find new layers and aspects in them when I reread them after a few years. Her heroes of course live in an idealized world, but it’s just what you might need after a hard day’s work. 😊

#historical romance #literature #georgette heyer #jane austen #bronte sisters #english literature #critical reading #romance #reading #entertainment

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fireemblems24 · 11 months

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Chapter 8 of Scarlet Blaze

Spoilers for up to Ch 8 beneath the cut. This chapter fucking sucked.

Also, I know I tagged this as SB, but be warned this was pretty critical of it. If anyone is actually still browsing tag and thinks I should remove it, I will.

STORY

Hell, yeah, Dimitri was taking names.

This plot is . . . kinda stupid. I feel like Edelgard is just running back and forth the whole time, accomplishing nothing.

LAMO, Omg, she just straight-up blamed all the deaths from the previous battle on . . . Claude 😂

Edelgard really be like "Why did Claude make me hit him!"

I'm pretty sure the writers didn't intend for SB to read like a Monty Python skit, but Edelgard has less self-awareness than Sir Lancelot when he kept apologizing for slaughtering the wedding party because at least that he was aware enough to apologize.

Oh, Randolph. So how many times does he die this time?

So, like, does Shez want people to get executed if they flip sides? He's like, geeze, how dare Claude and Dimitri forgive people.

Shez is like "I don't understand a word you say Edelgard, but I'm helping you slaughter your way across Fodlan because you may rub off on me!" More "SB is a comedy in disguise" fuel.

I wish I picked F!Shez for every route. I like her VA a lot more. Plus, I've seen this personality on a male character in the countless number of shonen anime and manga I've watched/read, but not as much in a woman. And unlike M!Byleth who's gorgeous, M!Shez is alright, but not super hot or anything.

So Lindhart mentioned that the Kingdom and Alliance can rally against the Empire because of the relics and crests. And like, I don't see how killing Rhea will make that power vanish and people not desperately want it. I feel like so much of Edelgard's spiel is an edgelord's power fantasy with no basis in reality.

This soldier is like "Dimitri labeled everyone who sided with his uncle as guilty in the tragedy of Duscur!" Lamo. Except it's true. Would've been interesting if it wasn't and see how Dimitri handled that. I sometimes wish he got more grey situations bc the writing in Hopes so far he's just . . . the good guy. Like straight-up the hero, no questions. Which, I love because at heart that's what Dimitri is, but I wish the writing would corner him anyways.

Oh, fuck. It's Sylvain. Oh fuck. I don't want to fight him. That sucked.

Count Rowe is being a backstabbing moron. I love how it's always the evil ones that side with Edelgard. It's an underrated thing no one talks about.

And now I have to fight Rodrigue :( Feels bad, killing Blue Lions+ members for the crime of defending themselves.

Ok. It's an unquestionable fact that when you find yourself fighting Annette, you are the villain. This is just truth.

Pretty sure this is heading to a temporary truce between Claude and Edelgard. Which, Claude's (and the Alliance's) funeral, I guess, lamo.

SHEZ & PETRA B SUPPORT

Petra's asking Shez about mercenaries. Questions if Shez would work for the enemy if they offered more money. Aww, damn. You don't have an option to say yes. :(

At least it's somewhat based in trust on their employer (and to get future ones) and not just mindless fangasming. I wouldn't want that in GW or AG either.

DOROTHEA & HUBERT B SUPPORT

This is their only support.

Hubert has a letter from the opera company and wanted to talk to Dorothea, so he's giving it to her in person.

Ohhh, he's bringing up how Dorothea hates violence, but stays and fights in the war rather than returning to the opera.

Glad this is finally getting addressed. Letting Dorothea talk.

It's part wanting to fight alongside her friends and part wanting to represent commoners in Edelgard's army. But also to score a rich husband.

Honestly, much better than whatever the fuck their Houses final support was.

HUBERT & FERDINAND B SUPPORT

So other popular ships got amped up (Dimilix, Dimidue, Marihilda - strangely not Sylvix though). So did the gay get turned up here?

Ferdinand is up late and Hubert wonders why. Ferdinand is studying the law to try and get his father arrested.

Oh, Ferdinand brought up the fact Hubert's father died. Putting Hubert to the question about executing his own father and mad he didn't judge his father in public

Hubert argues that his father would never have been found guilty.

God, that was SOOOOO much meatier than "I wanna serve Edelgard the best!" "No I wanna!!!!"

Monica took over the "pathetic Edelgard simp" to Hubert's "competent Edelgard simp" so Ferdinand could finally fucking get to run.

Ferdinand so far is 10000% the best part of SB (I'd say Petra competes, but I like her better in AG so far).

SHEZ & FERDINAND B SUPPORT

Shez thinks Ferdinand is faking enthusiasm. Not like that. Lamo. He's just overcompensating for his father's failure.

Ferdinand feels powerless and useless. I wish he was the MC.

Shez just wants to help Ferdinand feel better.

Ferdinand wants to surpass his father.

It's a repeat of his stuff with Edelgard and Hubert, but it's by far the most compelling part of SB.

PETRA & HUBERT B SUPPORT

Hubert is checking on Petra to make sure she feels comfortable and temps her with staying in the Empire, but Petra's like "naw."

Worth noting that Brigid is still under the thumb of the Empire. So Petra's a hostage basically forced into this war in order to secure the freedom of her country.

And they can't even go public yet, fearing the citizens get pissed off. Man, the Empire must be full of bloodthirsty land grabbers.

Go Petra! She low-key threatens Hubert and forces them to uphold their promises. Nice seeing her have a backbone.

PETRA & FERDINAND B SUPPORT

Ferdinand sung to Petra to ask her to spar. It's really cringe. Like, realllllly cringe. I would've been embarrassed if I wasn't playing alone.

He thinks this is some Brigid custom, but song and dance is only involved with religious ceremonies. Petra calls him out for finding her country so silly.

It's a mistranslation

Petra owned Ferdinand in this support and we are here for it.

FERDINAND & LYSITHEA C SUPPORT

Talking tea. Can relate.

Lysithea was ready to eat the food and bail. Nice.

But Ferdinand wanted to ask her about joining the commoner class. Lysithea insists she's fine with it and wants to.

Ferdinand doesn't know any de-nobled nobles who are happy. Lysithea know he only knows ones who got kicked out, he's not wrong.

Then he's like, you can't join them! Then you can't change anything anymore. But like what is he fighting on Edelgard's side for?

She, of course, doesn't have a future.

MONICA & BERNIE PARALOGUE

Bernie's enjoying her socially isolated life when Monica needs her help with something because there's no one else around.

You can have Shez agree she shouldn't come, and he says he'll slow them down, lamo. Bernie is offended.

They need to rid bandits out of a cave.

So his Duke is part of it. And he's had problems finding the Fetters of Dromini because of a TWSITD spy. It's also related to whoever kidnapped Monica.

So all I get is Shez, Monica, and Bernie. Only Shez has even looked at a battlefield and the other two are level 1 an 2. I can make 1 an adjunct, but not both. Ugh. Gotta go level at least one up.

Oh, hey, Myson.

I forgot how good of a unit Shez is lol.

Seems like Bernie actually has a decent mom. Bernie just wants to hide in the caves though. Monica advises against it.

DOROTHEA & MANUELA PARALOGUE

This one is easier since they're both leveled up already.

Everyone is fangirling over them. Dorothea assures Manuela that time hasn't tarnished her beauty, but she doesn't buy it.

They wanted Shez as a bodyguard because he's not a crazed fan. I wish real life celebrities would just whip out daggers on ridiculous fans.

This one's more entertaining than the last one. Random thieves are fans and if you defeat them with whoever they're a fan of (Dorothea or Manuela) they join you, lamo. Good both of them are already leveled up too.

Aww, Hanneman showed up to rescue Manuela.

The bandits were swarming the town because of the war. It's nice to see more acknowledgement of how Edelgard's war is screwing over the common folk.

Glad to see Hanneman get a nice little shout out despite getting demoted to NPC. Dorothea and Shez basically told them to get a room, lamo.

STORY/MAIN FIGHT

Edelgard is the least effective conquer I've seen in fiction.

"Defeat Dimitri" - How about, no.

I see "persuade Mercedes." Does that mean I need to bring Jeritza? Because it's not like Hubert or Edelgard are masters of persuasion.

"Defeat Dedue." I hate this. Monica's like, "If Dedue's here, then Dimitri is too." Even SB ships them.

Haha, they flipped sides to Dimitri after he was like "I don't want to kill you, please fight for me instead." And like, no shit?

Aw, shit. Now I have to fight Dimitri.

Oh, now I get to fight Ingrid too. Guys, I'm having so much fun right now. It doesn't help at all that SB is boring as fuck.

Oh, shit. Fuck. What the fuck. Ingrid just died. 😭😭😭😭😭😭

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Oh shut the fuck up, Edelgard. "Oh, this is so painful." IDK maybe stop trying to conquer everyone who doesn't kiss your ass. You too, Monica. "Oh, she was loyal to the end."

I'm beginning to remember why I hated Edelgard so much in CF. She's such a self-righteous idiot incapable of taking responsibility for her shitty actions AND has no sense of self-awareness.

Dimitri and Dedue sound so sad 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Dedue and Dimitri both taking the credit, meanwhile prissy ass is like "oh, wow, so sad these people died. No idea why."

Shit, Dimitri just mentioned Glenn. He sounds so broken up. Glad Dedue is giving Ingrid the credit for her own choices and actions.

She died defending everyone she loved.

I bet Edelgard will find a way to blame Rhea for Ingrid's death rather than take any responsibility for all the death she causes.

Only Dorothea fucking cares about Ingrid.

"We are nowhere near achieving our goals in the Alliance or in the Kingdom." - Edelgard. I can't fucking understand how some people argue she's isn't an Imperialist.

At least she's admitting she's fucking stupid with her army leadership inabilities.

I'd tell Edelgard to go fuck herself, but that implies a level of pleasure she doesn't deserve. #JusticeforIngrid #StoptheImperalists

xxxx

#fire emblem #fire emblem three hopes #scarlet blaze #three hopes #scarlet blaze spoilers #edelgard critical #scarlet blaze critical

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mell0bee · 15 days

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tagged by @candiedjellybean thank u dude!!! im p sure ive done this tag sometime last year so will be interesting to see if my answers have changed

Are you named after anyone? unfortunately, st. brigid of ireland, but also apparently it's a name thats been in my dad's side of the family too? either way my parents knew of the name due to irish catholic reasons. yipee! though im cool with it bc st. brigid used to be the goddess brigid from irish myth, and also both of them were badasses <3

When was the last time you cried? .....genuinely i think the last time i cried was in like. early march when i watched the holdovers? i think? taking a break from college has greatly decreased the frequency at which i cry lmao

Do you have kids? no sir

Do you use sarcasm a lot? i guess yes? probably about as much as the average person (this is not sarcasm)

What sports do you play? i do not play any currently (though i probs should. i am built like a twig and a strong wind will knock me over.) but as a kid i used to play soccer which i hated and was god awful at and softball which i liked more but i was also god awful at and mostly spent my time hitting foul balls and playing with the grass in right field. but it was fun!

What’s the first thing you notice about people? uhhhhhh. uh?????? if they're wearing a cool outfit or have cool hair or smth? idk man. i guess i dont rlly think abt it?

What’s your eye color? brown

Scary movies or happy endings? uh. both? am p sure my tolerance for horror is a lot higher than most people and im always down for a tragedy but i also like happy endings too. though from a writing perspective happy endings are significantly easier to pull off than sad ones (& more common. hero's journey and all that).

Any special talents? uhhhhh im double jointed in my thumbs. also i can put my foot behind my head. is that a talent? im also working on my sudoku time, i think my lowest time for master difficulty is around 6 mins 30 seconds? which is uh. above average?? i think???

Where were you born? idk apparently they cloned me in a lab somewhere

What are your hobbies? lately playing a lot of video games, writing (mostly fanfic), art stuff (mostly drawing but am learning how to use watercolor), uhhhh.... ttrpgs but i havent gotten to play in a while sadly

Do you have any pets? dog!!!!!

How tall are you? 5'3

Favourite subject in school? science

Dream job? ahahahah funny you should ask that, i say, having been doubting my choices in career aspirations and my post-undergrad 5-year plan that i've had since high school for the past 7 months, (please send help. but. for a serious answer. i think i still want to do science research? just maybe in a softer science like psych even tho my undergrad is bio & neuro???? idk. unsure.)

tagging uhhhhhhh candiedjellybean already tagged most of the ppl i usually tag sooo @halflingkima ? i think i tagged u last time too lol. & anyone else who wants to do this!!!

#bee post #lmao sorry for the lore dump for the name question i could talk on and on about the christianization of irish pagan gods #also st bridgid was probs partially inspired by st lucy and st lucy is also really cool.#i may be excath but they rlly did go hard with the stories of women associated with fire gouging their own eyes out <3 #anyways. lmao. enough completely unprompted catholic saint lore. i unfortunately know way too much about this subject. keep scrolling.

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twin-skelletons · 2 months

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Did Adrian attend college?

The only formal education Adrian received was through the ISSP Academy. His mentor, Detective Michael Ramírez, forged Adrian’s credentials so he could get around the background check. Adrian’s ability to quickly adapt to any situation in addition to being highly recommended by Michael put him on the fast track to becoming a detective.

During his time at the academy, Adrian found that he was well-suited to ISSP work. He was interested in topics like law, criminal psychology, and investigation procedures and even spent time outside of classes reading about them. Instructors were surprised by Adrian’s advanced weapons proficiency which they usually only saw from Titan veterans. Adrian explained that Michael had given him lessons from a young age, laying their curiosity to rest.

The one friend Adrian made at the academy was his partner, Detective Evelyn Bellamy, though ‘friend’ is a bit generous. Like many of their classmates, Evelyn quickly became tired of hearing their instructors sing Adrian’s praises. She was just relieved that he was aiming for the narcotics department so that their paths would never cross again. Unfortunately for her, their Captain had other ideas. Assigning them both to homicide, they were forced to find common ground. Let’s just say their partnership is a constant work in progress.

What animal best represents/symbolizes Adrian?

The animal that best represents Adrian is the coyote. Coyotes represent survival, adaptability, and tenacity, all traits that Adrian has honed from a young age. Being able to think on his feet has kept him alive for this long, but it has also caused him a fair deal of pain and suffering. With experience, especially in his role as a detective, Adrian has learned to wield this double-edged sword.

Coyotes have their destructive attributes as well, such as being stubborn, impulsive, and vengeful. Beneath his officer of the law façade, these attributes are at the core of everything Adrian does. While he truly believes he has let go of his past by finding his true calling, it’s his past that drives him to seek justice and eliminate targets. Adrian can’t confront this paradox because, deep down, he knows that it would destroy the very foundation of his identity.

Due to their howling during times of transition, such as dusk and dawn, coyotes are often associated with the concept of death and rebirth. With every death of every person he considered family, Adrian has emerged on the other side as someone completely new. It’s hard to say if it’s for better or worse.

How much does Adrian care for his appearance?

Adrian is all about practicality. One of the things he appreciates about being a detective is that he doesn’t have to think about what to wear. Because of that, he owns ten sets of the same white button-up, black tie, and black slacks. Whenever he gets an injury, usually from his extracurriculars, he patches himself up. He goes into the office the next day like nothing’s happened, causing many of his coworkers to worry and insist he visit a hospital.

Prior to working as a detective, Adrian wore whatever was comfortable. This mostly consisted of t-shirts, sweats, joggers, and baseball caps - all things he still wears when he’s off the clock. Michael was the first person to make Adrian more aware of how he presented himself. His mentor stressed how appearance was an indicator of professionalism and, if he wanted to be taken seriously as a detective, something he needed to follow through on consistently.

After Michael’s passing, Evelyn took on the role of pushing Adrian to expand his wardrobe. On their undercover cases and off-duty meetings, she always has a lot to say about his casual wear. Through her incessant pestering, Adrian has slowly started adding pieces to his collection just so he could make their conversations a little more bearable.

What quote best encapsulates Adrian?

“Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

While there are countless ways to interpret this quote, two of them are the most relevant to Adrian. The first has to do with the past. Behind every hero, there is usually a tragic event that shapes the rest of their life. For Adrian, that was losing his family. Their murders are the catalyst for him becoming a detective.

The second is more of a warning for the future. Making sacrifices is an unavoidable fact of being a hero. Adrian’s merciless pursuit of justice comes at the cost of everything else in his life. While he believes he has a righteous goal, being willing to go to any lengths to achieve it – violent or otherwise - pushes him further and further away from heroism. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and sometimes you don’t know you’re on that road until it’s far too late.

A note from the author: All questions were shared on the @bebopcrew server.

#adrian ramirez #michael ramirez #evelyn bellamy #fingerprints #reports

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alovelyburn · 1 year

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Rambles about the Conviction Arc Part 11

So when we left off, the Tower of Conviction had just collapsed on itself and turned into the Hand of God, so we all know what’s coming. But cool let’s look at it anyway.

1. This really reminds me of that scene in Devilman with the kid that ended up getting decapitated by his demon-merged parents. It’s interesting how thick on the ground the Devilman influences can be – I’ve heard there are some people who like to insist that the Go Nagai story that influenced Miura was Susano Oh instead of Devilman... but that strikes me as denial to be honest. Because they, I guess, don’t like the implication that there’s some kind of dynamic correlation between the characters in each series, or they just don’t like Griffith as much as Ryo, who knows. I looked into Susano Oh at one point to investigate where that idea came from and it really has nothing at all in common with Berserk aside from the existence of a shadowy villain cabal and the main character’s love interest being raped. It does kind of strike me as predictable that specific corners of the fandom would focus on the “evil bastards and a raped love interest that the hero has to avenge” thing though, since that’s kinda all they seem to perceive.

Anyway, that was a pointless ramble – Miura himself said it was Devilman and Violence Jack. And these scenes where the spirits or demons take over humans and the humans become violent monsters always evokes Go Nagai, not just in concept but in the visual language.

2. I left this whole sequence intact because it’s just unfair how beautifully cinematic and atmospheric it is. It plays like a film in my head, and it says everything you need to know through the panel staging – the slow pan away from the camps as they explode into madness, Guts’ dawning realization, the looming spirits in the background, and then the camera pivoting to reveal that Guts himself is right in the palm of that immense hand. Beautiful.

3. Like... if you try to break this situation into clean cut sides, it’s... very difficult.

Mozgus is a pseudo-apostle, and he’s trying to kill Casca. From Guts’ perspective he’s clearly a villain, which means he largely reads as one to the reader... and his penchant for torture helps with that. But at the same time, he’s also genuinely trying to protect the people from the spirit onslaught that is largely brought by Guts and Casca.

Because that’s one of the twists of the situation! He’s not wrong that Casca is the one who brought those spirits that possessed the people in the tunnel or flooded the tower. He’s not wrong that killing her would presumably dampen the attack somewhat – the movement of the world toward Griffith’s incarnation has exacerbated things, but it was the brand overlap that originally brought them. Mozgus doesn’t have the full context, obviously – he thinks Casca is actively summoning these things or that she’s commanding them rather than being the passive catalyst she is...

But I guess my question is, is that something that people who aren’t Guts should care about? If her presence is causing thousands of deaths and it can be stopped by executing her, would doing that be morally wrong? Is it better to let the destruction continue? Presumably Kant (”do not treat people as means to an end but as ends to themselves”) would think so, but Bentham (the correct action is the one that benefits the greatest number of people) would not.

I think this is the kind of thing Miura meant when he talked about trying to create Berserk without these strict enemy/ally, good/evil demarcations. They’re all doing what’s best from their own perspective, from Mozgus trying to save humanity through both cruelty and kindness to Griffith sacrificing his last remaining allies in order to retroactively justify the deaths of all his previous allies, to Guts charging forward to find Casca even knowing his brand and Casca’s together will cause chaos and tragedy, to the Behelit Apostle trying to kill one world to bring out a better one.

So like if you follow Guts’ perspective you see this crazy pseudo-apostle trying to kill a character/woman you care about but if you flip the focus, you see this crazy guy killing everything that crosses his path, burning the world down behind him and not caring as long as he gets what he personally wants.

Or, as Miura said himself, “From (Griffith’s) perspective, maybe Guts looks like the villain.”

4. So okay I’m about to track Guts’ part in this area of the story, which may require some jumping around and also a couple of sidetrips to really get it all together. First of all, this next bit really needs to be understood in the context of this page:

Because Guts is up there on the hand alter, and he sees Casca being led to her execution... and he’s panicked about it. Also note the position of the fingers from the hand which are currently behind him.

Here, the jelly spirits are rising from the layers of rubble between Guts and Casca, so here he’s still facing Casca.

Some more come up from behind him, and some take over the bird guy’s corpse and turn it into Void.

He is now facing away from Casca.

And he just kind of goes into BoD mode and starts chopping at the Godhand.

Also, I really like this image:

Where the extremes of Guts’ rage and his inability to contain it is represented in his face becoming half-Beast of Darkness with those...eyes and those teeth and that inhumanly extended mouth.

It also makes him look like Akira Fudo.

Anyway here he’s “chosen” between saving Casca and going after the Godhand... which is evident from how in order to attack the Godhand, he has to turn away from her. Rescue or fight? he went with fight.

However, these Godhand are just echoes, not the real things,

he thinks about Griffith, and it’s interesting how he still imagines his broken body in that incubation egg. It is, I think, sort of triggered by this recreation of the original eclipse not just in fact (like in the fact that there’s literally a recreation of the Eclipse in progress) but also in his own personal role.

Because here we are right back there: Guts in the palm of a handshaped alter with four of the godhand and not the fifth and a wall of monsters coming after him, ignoring Casca’s desperate situation because he’s too focused on his Griffith issues. Also interesting: when he thinks about Griffith he doesn’t look... angry. He looks... I don’t know. Distraught? And maybe a bit frightened.

So okay, like I said, Casca is down amongst the crowd that’s tearing at her and dragging her to a pyre to burn. Guts is very aware of this because he saw it happening before the Godhand echoes appeared and... well instead of going after her he attacked the echoes.Then...

So like, he remembers that Skull Knight had warned him that he’ll have to choose between saving Casca and fighting his enemies. More than that even I think this scene is masquerading as a reminder to him but it’s just as much a reminder to the reader – it sets out the stakes. Guts has to choose. And he’s struggling with it...

...because Casca’s situation is bad. So he goes to get her....

Or does he??! Initially we can’t tell - he has jelly spirits in front of him and behind him and the visual marker of which direction hes facing (the fingers of the hand alter) aren’t shown. But then...

NOPE. The orienting fingers return and he isn’t. He isn’t going after her at all. because remember she’s basically beneath where the reader is sitting - opposite the fingers, and there he is not even trying to go that way.

And I mean, he’s upset about it, the fact that he’s uh, leaving Casca to burn to death does kind of weigh on him.

“The same... the same as that time... With the same outcome? Again I can’t save her?”

But it’s funny because he’s not even trying to do that, which maybe is appropriate since he wasn’t doing that during the Eclipse either.

Anyway, the broad movements to parallel of the Eclipse are in progress even outside the general area, because SO FAR WE HAVE

-Guts in the palm of the alter attacked by a wall of monsters, faced with the four Godhand -Casca surrounded by a mob she can’t protect herself from trying to brutalize and kill her. -and Guts uh just not even trying to find her. -Oh yeah plus there’s always...

Skull Knight and Zodd meeting outside the sacrificial site.

Anyway so, Casca’s on the stake, Guts is smashing jelly spirits instead of going after her, meanwhile his future companions are kinda nyucking around trying to figure out what to do with themselves, like...

And... this is such a glorious headtrip. Miura juxtaposes Guts’ battle and Casca’s mortal peril.

Guts vs. the jelly spirits. Casca vs. the fire. I tend to think we’re meant to be expecting him to change his mind at the last second, realizing that saving her is more important and deciding to abandon fighting and go after her. The storytelling choices emphasize that question - she’s about to start burning, he’s running at spirits, she looks up, and the reader I suppose is meant to expect to see Guts barrelling down at her, but...

NOPE 2.0!

It’s not Guts at all that that’s about to come jumping down at her, it’s Isidro.

Incredible.

Anyway once Casca is in the vicinity of something he can stab, he does end up helping her situation. The narration makes it clear that Guts is remembering that Skull Knight had said this time might turn out differently - that Guts might be able to change something instead of just reacting to what Fate throws at him.

Now, I’ll be honest, this is wild to me - it’s wild enough that II have a hard time believing that "Guts literally chose to fight jelly spirits and let Casca burn to death” is what I’m meant to take away from this sequence. Because if Griffith were up there, sure no problem, but jelly spirits? I assume it’s based in that moment where he gets an anxiety/distress/fear moment thinking about/wondering about where Griffith is - like he doesn’t want to get down from the hand alter because he expects Griffith to turn up or even just thinks maybe he will (especially since Skull Knight did basically say Grifith would be returning to the world).... And it does fit the ultimatum Skull Knight set up, and that sure does seem to be what the staging is implying. And the way the sequence is presented does appear to be trying to make you think he’s going to save her and then throwing you for a loop by revealing he isn’t, he’s up there hacking at spirits instead.

But it’s still mindboggling and I really struggle with thinking that’s what actually happened, asldas but, you know, there it is.

Anyway as far as the Eclipse parallels go regarding Casca, I would argue that the murderous human masses parallel the apostles, while Mozgus is a bit of a standin for Griffith – as I’ve talked about before, his nature and his relationship with his followers strongly parallels the portrayal of Griffith’s role in the story despite being, obviously, much smaller scale and with a sillier portrayal at times. Also he is the force behind her being attacked to begin with.

5. Mozgus’s monster form is kind of silly. I mean, I guess it’s supposed to be, rofl. But it’s genuinely bizarre around this time, and seeing him cry tears of blood over his disciples is kind of..... I wish I found it more touching but I mostly find it ridiculous. Sorry Miura. Not really though, because he obviously meant Mozgus to be a little absurd.

Truly Messiah material.

6. Gah. There aren’t a lot of characters I really dislike, honestly like I can think of maybe three offhand. I’m sure there are more, but generally I either like a character or don’t care about them either way. Nina.... I don’t find her quite as grating as I did, say, Dolores Umbridge back in the day. But it’s not THAT far off.

7. So okay for a hot second I’m going to ignore how absurd Mozgus looks and think about this scene. I got into a conversation with @zombiesgohome recently, where we were talking about the way Berserk portrays “great” or “natural born leaders.” Miura really tended to go all in on that campfire thing, right, like Griffith was the greatest inferno and so everyone sought his heat and his light.

This is the case for most of the people we’re intended to see as great (not good but great) leaders. They are basically people that others cling to for light and stability, even if and when they resent the way that leader reflects their own weakness back at them. It kind of echoes back to Griffith’s monologue back in his very first appearance way back in Volume 3 – that there is a handful of individuals who, regardless of the status they’re born into, are ultimately the few who will truly shape the world.

This I think is true on various different scales - obviously Griffith turns out to be the greatest and biggest of the special world-shapers, but there are others who have a similar impact on a smaller scale. Luca was the same way to the prostitutes she protected – she didn’t change the whole world, but she changed theirs. Guts was like that for the Raiders, and later is the same way for the companions he ends up traveling with.

Mozgus is unironically one of those people. The way he gathered those disciples, and the way the terrified refugees cling to the hope that he can save them, the ease with which they accept that he’s been transfigured into an angel, tell us that. I mean there are leaders of every morality, after all, and Mozgus is..... more ambiguous than one would immediately think.

Because I mean, again, he’s not wrong. The monsters are there because Casca and Guts are there. By any I guess utilitarian perspective obviously she has to go, I mean you could say throw her out of the area instead of actually burning her alive but either way its not like the attacks will stop if she’s still there. And in theory if you kick her out you’re just passing the problem to the next person.

To be clear I’m not saying yeah burn Casca, I’m just saying it’s another perspective issue – does the weight of many lives override the right for one person to live?

8. And this is brings to mind two main thoughts.

First, it’s a direct confrontation of the question of Guts’ morality. I always say that he and Griffith aren’t really different in moral quality just in their specific priorities – Guts always thinks about his ingroup and is absolutely ready to sacrifice the larger picture. He is, after all, the individual. Griffith always thinks about the larger picture and is able to sacrifice his ingroup, because he is a representative of the collective – the weight of 1,000 lives is greater than the weight of 100. This – among other things - is how Griffith arrived at the idea that sacrificing a few dozen or a few hundred men at most was, while awful, not as bad as wasting the lives of the thousands that went before them.

But Guts is the opposite – he’d burn the world down to protect the handful of people he really cares about and I guess my question is, how is that better? Is it better? I don’t know that there is a legitimate answer, certainly not one presented in berserk – people assume Guts is “right” because his priorities are more in alignment with their own and, I think more than anything else just because he’s the protagonist and we’re used to the protagonist having the “right” perspective especially when they aren’t overtly villainous – Gut isn’t Light Yagami or anything, you know? He’s a guy doing his best. Plus I think a normal person finds it harder to understand choosing a principle over the individuals who are specifically important to them. But it doesn’t change the fact that his choices aren’t inherently more correct than the opposite thing would be.

That was a bit of a ramble but I guess my point is... allowing thousands of people to die so he can get his ex-girlfriend back isn’t really morally superior to allowing dozens or hundreds to die so that Griffith could achieve the dream they all dedicated their lives to. And for the record I’m also not saying that what Griffith did was morally correct, I’m just saying they’re both making decisions that I think make sense to them but are, I guess, arguably asshole moves. It just depends on which worldview the reader is closer to.

And I guess more than anything I’m saying I think both of them are morally ambiguous and that their morality level is not dissimilar, it’s the specific priorities that are different. Because the eclipse was awful...

But is this actually better?

I guess the argument would be “he’s doing it for Casca and Griffith did it for himself,” but really he’s doing it for himself (because he doesn’t want to lose his last connection to the Hawks) and Griffith was doing it for the (dead) Hawks as well as himself, so I D K. You could argue that it’s a passive decision with Guts (let it happen) instead of an active one with Griffith (do the thing), but passivity is a choice too.

The second thought: his comment here is, while obviously about Casca, also one of those moments that reflects the lessons he took away from the Band of the Hawk – the echoes of the Campfire, or the Promrose speech telling him that people have to find their own path and not cling to someone else.

But I mean, thinking like that is what makes him one of those leaders.

So like... Griffith.

9. There has been some discussion about the specific relationship of the infant to Griffith – is the body Griffith is in literally just the infant’s body or is the infant’s body part of the materials used to create Griffith’s body or what.

So like initially I figured that he was literally just in the baby’s body – there’s no strong indication that there’s anything other than the infant’s body involved, and the way the original baby is positioned in the center of the behelit apostle and Griffith’s infant form is in the same place really. But looking at what the behelit apostle is saying it does seem as though he’s taking the “world” in and incorporating it all, as well as himself, into that body. And later Griffith describes it as the infant being “fused into” his “vessel.”

So I’m going to say it’s part of the materials but maybe something more like the materials become part of the baby and change it accordingly, since I do feel like the framing implies that the infant is the or at least a major component of what becomes Griffith.

10. This is a pretty good time to note that I really like Azan. He’s a good egg.

Honestly the Conviction Arc in general is full of interesting side characters at least to me. Nina is even a pretty interesting character in the way her psychology is constructed even though I can’t stand her. Which by the way is my way of saying I’m skipping more of her making my hair stand on end.

Luca’s like, “what are you, a baby?” and I’m just like, yeah clearly. I don’t know, man. Also this makes me wonder if I was too nice to her back when she ran off with Casca, because at the time I thought she was sympathizing with Casca but now I’m like, maybe she literally just didn’t want to be alone.

11. I’m not going to talk at any length about how this scene is the signal that Farnese’s path is rerouting to Guts or how it signals her ultimate feelings for him – it’s the Griffith in the field throwing Casca a sword moment, that’s obvious. And Guts parallels Griffith’s actions in that scene too – he doesn’t just save Farnese, he gives her the means to save herself.

But that’s not the thing that really stands out to me about this scene. What really gets me is how this reinforces all those things I talked about in the last Conviction Rambles and then here again – the fire, the way leaders carry their own flame and people gather around them just kind of naturally. Because everyone naturally just falls into line behind him – Farnese even notes that in this situation most people can only cling to something and he doesn’t. Most people, in other words, are Hawks, are Nina, are Mozgus’s disciples – they cling to something when the terror starts, or when times become difficult. It’s all they know how to do. But Guts, like Luca (who is doing it just a page or so back), becomes the thing that is clung to instead. Becomes the torch in the dark and in fact....

It’s not even subtle imagery, he’s literally holding the fire that lights everyone’s way.

Miura mentioned in those tweets from before that Guts would eventually become more like Griffith, and well...

All that said there’s a certain irony to it since...

Again, he and Casca are the ones creating this situation to begin with. But since I keep banging on about parallels between him and Griffith, I will note that this is another similarity between Guts and post-Eclipse Griffith at least. They create the situations that they save others from.

12. And I admit this one did kind of get to me. The culmination of Nina’s terrified arc – the moment she finds the spark she needs to keep going... but also honestly, the reality that she’s dying anyway – the behelit apostle even mentions that she doesn’t have very long left – but she still wants to keep going as long as she can. In the end, that’s what drives her pettiness and meanness and cowardliness, isn’t it? The fact that she has so little time, so she wants to cling to what she has left.

13. You know.... I think I mentioned this before, but Guts himself (and Casca) are largely responsible for Griffith’s having returned, right like.... it’s the overlap of their brands that created the chaos and drew the jelly spirits that then consumed everything and gave rise to Neo Griffith.

I just think that’s interesting in a way, because Griffith – the original Griffith – made them who they are (in both good and bad ways)... and then they made him who he is, too. Not just by enabling his reincarnation this way either – obviously his body is at least partially composed of their demonspawn.

It also brings back the question of free will, though. Because if no one could change that Griffith was destined to return, does that mean that Guts choosing to go after Casca in defiance of fate was part of the plan? Doesn’t that also mean that Guts’ choice to kill Mozgus, thus saving Casca and himself, is part of it as well since if they had died, the jelly spirits would have disappeared?

You can go pretty far down the rabbit hole with this. There’s a theory that Femto’s rape of Casca was done to create the demonchild to become his host, and my thought on that is kind of the same as my thought on Guts having sort of accidentally destroyed this area by going after Casca, namely....

I don’t think that’s what was in Femto’s head when he did it – I think he really did it to hurt Guts – but that may well be why it happened on a Tapestry of Fate type of level. Because a lot of things in Berserk kind of move on the planned (by IoE presumably) overlap of desire and need – arranging for someone who would want to do something to be where it needs to be done at the time it needs to be done.

14. I kind of appreciate the confirmation from someone who isn’t involved with the Godhand, to be honest. The idea that damned or hurting souls call to Griffith for salvation reminds me very much of the tiny demons that came to him in the torture chamber.

15. You know... it’s not like I don’t understand why people see all this and think EVIL EVIL EVIL right, like we have jelly spirits devouring humans and demons and all that.

But the souls that call for him – the jelly spirits and the living, the demons in the dungeon... they aren’t really portrayed as evil – they’re in pain. They’re tormented by the pain and anger they experienced in life. They destroy things because of that pain. They aren’t calling for someone to come and destroy everything, they’re calling for someone to save them.

That’s not to say I think Griffith is a paragon savior, I just think there’s a lot of complexity behind human nature in Berserk that people don’t always like to acknowledge.... and of course complexity in Griffith’s role as that humanity’s voice.

And I’m stealing a line from @zombiesgohome here, but.... there’s some poetry in the will of manking having been executed by this behelit apostle – a person with no identity of his own, who is constantly around but never seen or acknowledged.

And since behelits are apparently souls, it makes sense that they, too, call out in their way.

I wonder what it was like reading Berserk as it was released and turning a page to see that.

16. So...prophecy check. Going back to the revelation sent by Griffith a few volumes ago, we had a few things unchecked:

-corpses of both family and neighbor- I feel like they covered this pretty thoroughly in the refugee camp if nothing else.

-mobs of starving vagrant folk – Also covered by the refugee camp

-a sun obscured by black smoke – Well, notably everything is dark and smoky now, but as soon as the pseudo-eclipse ends, the daylight comes out, so there you go. It’s now.

Three down, along with the biggest one, which is fulfilled with the great hand collapses and drops the corpses of the entire damn area around the tower of rebirth on top of everyone.

17. Well, now some short comments on the cleanup chapters.

The reemergence of the light is also great imagery for the emergency of Griffith in his “human” form from the shadow of Femto, his “dark” form.

Again, I ship it, gdi. In fact, I’m just gonna say it:

We should’ve kept Jerome instead of Magnifico.

Zodd is one of those characters whose appearance means the plot is turning, especially if he turns up somewhere without Griffith in his hand.

But also...

Reactions like this serve to remind me that the world as a whole doesn’t know about Apostles yet, you know? We’re 20 volumes into the story so it can be easy to lose track of who does and doesn’t know about what... but really the answer is that no one knows anything except Guts and those he comes into contact with. Because the world isn’t generally overrun with supernatural stuff at this point – it just stirs up when Guts or Casca are around.

And now we have at last arrived at...

...and I’ll leave off there for now. Buy my merch! (I don’t have any merch).

#berserk meta #ariel talks about berserk #rambles about berserk

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theimpossiblescheme · 3 years

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Help me, I’m having Shakespeare thoughts in the middle of the night...

I was listening to a lecture on Macbeth, covering my favorite part of the play (Act 4, Scene 3), and the lecturer highlighted the moment where Macduff tells Malcolm, “I am not treacherous.” This is Macduff trying to distance himself from Macbeth, who Malcolm accuses him of being a stooge for. Macbeth was a traitor, he committed a terrible act of treason by killing the king, of course Macduff wants no association with the bastard...

Yet here he is in England, proposing the same thing. To commit an act of treason by killing a king. Moreover, he left his wife and children in the grip of that same king that he hates so much. So when Malcolm replies, “But Macbeth is./ A good and virtuous nature may recoil/ In an imperial charge”, of course he’s suspicious. He’s seeing the parallels between the two men and the possibility that Macduff might fall for the same mad grab for power that Macbeth did and further the cycle of violence. “Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace/ Yet grace must still look so.” Who is the greater danger here--the one sitting on the throne of Scotland, or the one approaching him in exile all alone, insisting that he’s incapable of the same temptations of power? And if Malcolm can’t trust any of the people he’s supposedly inspired... what does that say about his possible future as a ruler? What will become of him when that power is in his grasp, especially after Macbeth is dead?

Macduff and Malcolm as foils to Macbeth--the former proud and dubiously moral, the latter nervous and self-aware--are my favorite takes on these characters, and I think about it a lot.

#This isn't even my favorite tragedy--that honor belongs to 'King Lear'--but it still lives in my head rent-free...#shakespeare #macbeth #the schemer speaks #Especially with Malcolm voicing his worries about the lecherous greedy utterly evil king he might end up being #and Macduff essentially *excusing all of it*... even as he condemns Macbeth for all the same things.#I think there's definitely an argument to be made of Malcolm being a poor judge of character since he still places his trust in Macduff #but it's a sin he shares with Duncan since *he* had trusted Macbeth and the Thane of Cawdor... like father like son.#It's always so interesting to me how much in common the 'heroes' of the tragedies have in common with the villains #and how much they're willing to see that darkness in themselves.

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memryse · 3 years

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The magic of 3rd Life, or why such a simple hardcore miniseries works as well as it does

For a series which only lasted for eight sessions, 3rd Life has had a profound impact on the MCYT fandom. While it did go comparatively unnoticed on Twitter (as is consistent with YouTube-based Minecraft content as a whole, admittedly), Tumblr and other platforms have fallen in love with this series, and it’s become a vector for many fans to familiarise themselves with Hermitcraft and Empires SMP as well. But at its core, 3rd Life is a simple vanilla survival series with a gimmick. What about it resonates so much with so many people?

I would argue that its simplicity, its small cast, its vanilla gameplay “with a twist” is certainly part of it. It’s an easy series to consume, with many POVs totalling four hours or less, and it doesn’t require any prior knowledge of any of the members. Its mechanics are easy to understand. As a standalone, it functions perfectly – it’s immersive and can be followed easily by anyone, regardless of any prior knowledge they may or may not have. However, these factors alone don’t quite encompass what makes 3rd Life so special. Its true charm point lies in the format of the series, and how well it utilises improv.

[more below the cut; this is a fairly long post about 3rd/Last Life meta and my love of its improv. I'm mostly talking about 3rd Life here as it's a completed series, but this most definitely does apply to Last Life as well]

3rd Life is an entirely improv-based series. Whilst members may have a brief concept of the direction they’d like to take their series in – how heavily they want to roleplay, for example – the actual content of each session is fully improvised. Each episode is recorded in one three-hour block, and members are not allowed to play on the server outside of the allotted time other than specifically to finish builds. This time constraint prevents any planning from going into each episode, and interactions between players are completely spontaneous. Players simply run around the map looking for others to interact with (which is significantly easier with the limited world border) and chat about various events on the server, form alliances or deals, etc.

By definition, this almost completely negates the possibility of bad writing. Each player’s reaction to any server event is spontaneous, a legitimate reaction; they aren’t trying to play any specific roles or shoehorn in any specific events (with the exception of the Red King/Hand of the King roles, who were still completely improvising). Even the finale – a distinctly heart-wrenching and tragic scene – was improvised without Grian or Scar attempting to tell any specific story. According to Martyn, they weren’t roleplaying, they didn’t have any aims with that scene. It just happened to turn out in the way that it did, and they were legitimately sorry to one another. The server progressed in this natural way, and every person’s perspective tells a completely different story. It’s hard to identify any specific heroes or villains – fans of the Dream SMP can surely relate to this feeling, but I would argue that 3rd Life takes this one step further. 3rd Life is a tragedy from all perspectives, a tragedy which tells one cohesive story in its entirety before stopping as abruptly as it began.

3rd Life hinges entirely on its interactions between its members. Whilst solo content does exist – base building, for example – the majority of each session is spent interacting with others. 3rd Life is carried by its dialogue; nothing else drives the story, and yet many episodes are between 30 minutes and an hour long. It’s that dialogue-heavy. Members of the server have expressed trouble with even editing their videos because there is so much key dialogue that they don’t want to cut. People don’t watch 3rd Life for the actual gameplay, at all – there’s so little of it! They watch it for how each member interacts with the people around them. This is something not found in any other SMP I’ve encountered. SMPs livestreamed on Twitch have plenty of downtime, and people will happily watch streams on that SMP no matter what’s occurring on the server; people often watch them for their interest in specific members. Other currently popular YouTube SMPs, namely Hermitcraft and Empires, are well-balanced between solo content and interactions, and all server content hinges on the members’ various skills like building and redstone. 3rd Life is, to my knowledge, the only SMP which does not rely on building or redstone skills (what’s the point, when they’ll be dead the next week?), it doesn’t rely on the creator doing solo work talking to their chat, it doesn’t rely on planned roleplay. People legitimately just want to hear various members talking to each other. It’s a fascinatingly unique series in this regard. This dialogue-heavy aspect of 3rd Life ties back to my earlier point about 3rd Life feeling like a completely different series from all perspectives; with all of this dialogue being conveyed through proximity chat, so many events are entirely left out of other POVs, or presented in very different lights.

The pure improv format also helps significantly with worldbuilding, whilst also leaving plenty to the imagination. MCYT fandoms always require a significant amount of imagination to become invested in them, let alone make fan content of them, and 3rd Life is no exception to this. As discussed in this post, which was incidentally the inspiration for me to write this one, 3rdLife is full of lines which flesh out the series, which illustrate what happened better than can be shown in Minecraft. These lines are improvised on the spot, and are often complete throwaway lines in the creators’ eyes. In the fans’ eyes, they make 3rd Life feel alive, they provide plenty of material on which to base headcanons. Again, this isn’t necessarily unique to 3rd Life, it’s a common aspect of all Minecraft series, but I think this is where the rather angsty nature of 3rd Life comes into play. A dramatic survival game, entirely unscripted, with all events hinging entirely on your interpretation of them? It’s not hard to see why 3rd Life fans are so creative with character designs and fanfiction – hell, a lot of 3rd Life fics simply narrate canon in their own more dramatic light. Canon-compliant fics are significantly more common for 3rd Life than other fandoms I've encountered, because people hear these simple lines and want to dramatise them, put their own spins on them. I don't feel that this would be possible with any other series, not to the extent that 3rd Life fans do it. Other series' canon is either already dramatic, and so rehashing it can feel repetitive, or so lighthearted that people write AUs/new storylines. 3rd Life strikes a brand-new balance.

The development of its characters is also bolstered by improv. As no events on the server are pre-planned, members have to react completely spontaneously to anything that occurs. They don’t get time to think – only to react as though they genuinely were in that situation. As I said at the start, 3rd Life inherently lacks bad writing, because it’s not written. Ren, for instance, began 3rd Life as a kind and harmless person, with others often walking right over him. His reaction to his death by Grian and Scar’s trap spurs him to become the Red King; he raises an army and goes to war, and ends the series having taken countless lives, becoming hardened by war. He begins Last Life by isolating himself from others, seeming jaded and unwilling to form alliances, ready for another war to break out. Being improvised, it’s impossible to say how much of this was deliberate, or if Ren just started building his base without thinking about continuity from the previous season. This improv is what makes it feel so natural. It isn’t planned beforehand. This is Ren’s natural reaction to starting Last Life. It makes his character feel so much more real than it would if this was all scripted beforehand.

3rd Life is, overall, a testament to the power of improv. It manages to be compelling and dramatic without any acting feeling forced or wooden. Its characters’ arcs feel natural, because they are natural. Placing such a heavy emphasis on dialogue, with the gimmick of the server being a vehicle for interactions to happen rather than the sole appeal of the series, makes it truly feel as though we’re getting a glimpse into the characters’ lives, rather than watching a story which has been written beforehand. We get to watch everything unfold in real time. 3rd Life has a magic to it that, to my knowledge, no other SMP has been able to recreate.

#3rd life smp #last life smp #trafficblr #mae analyses #THIS IS REALLY META BUT I JUST <3 I HAVE SO MUCH LOVE FOR HOW WELL 3RD LIFE DOES WHAT IT DOES #THERE'S A *REASON* IT'S SO COMPELLING #it has this different feel to it #one that i've never encountered before because there is NOTHING like 3rd life out there #ohh i love 3rd life a normal and reasonable amount

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michaeljoncarter · 2 years

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I’ve often heard the expression “Space Grayson” thrown around in regards to Kyle Rayner - my question; is that a fair description of Kyle’s personality? And, in your opinion, should/could Kyle and Dick ever successfully occupy the same space? Either on a team (JLA, Titans, etc), or even just as a one-off team up?

ohhh boy. i have so many thoughts about these two. so many parallels! so much untapped potential! this is about to be an entire novella. strap in

they have a lot in common, but not necessarily in terms of personality. hal is much more similar to dick in terms of personality. for kyle, the parallels lie more in the sort of... place they occupy in their respective hero groups... if that makes any sense?

dick was the first robin, one of the first sidekicks, and the only robin with no one to really talk to or look up to (except bruce, who was kind of a disaster when it came to being a mentor in the beginning), where kyle was the first and only lantern after the corps was destroyed and the only lantern to have absolutely no guidance after getting the ring.

they both started out their careers kind of just alone but for completely opposite reasons. dick had no one to turn to because the titans and the batfam hadn’t really come to be yet, whereas kyle had no one to turn to because the green lantern corps had just been destroyed. dick was the first of a legacy, and kyle was meant to be the last

after kyle relit the central power battery, single-handedly resurrected the guardians, and brought the green lantern corps back, it took him a long time to actually join them. he was so different from the rest of the lanterns, never really had the real lantern experience, was kind of an outsider in the corps he essentially created

this can kind of be likened to dick and his relationship with the rest of the robins imo. he was the very first, and because of that, he never really got to experience the sense of family that the rest of them did.

for a long time, his relationship with bruce was really complex--much moreso than with the other batkids. it wasn’t really the cut-and-dry paternal relationship they tend to have now. bruce had no idea what he was doing when he took dick in and it showed. he didn’t even legally adopt dick like he did with the others, and dick was always kind of confused about where he stood with bruce, never really sure how to define their relationship, but regardless of whatever word he put to it at any given time, it was clear he held a pretty different position in the batfamily than the rest of them. not necessarily better or “higher ranked” or anything like that. just different.

it’s not an exact parallel, but it’s always been really interesting to me! and it’s something i feel like could lend to them really just getting each other if anyone ever did decide to develop this relationship

in more modern comics, though, their major character beats have tended run pretty much directly parallel to each other. like to an almost weird degree.

hal came back from the dead and upended everything the lanterns thought they knew about the biggest tragedy that ever happened to the corps, and a year later, jason returned and did pretty much the same thing for the bats.

then kyle had ion ripped away from him right after losing his mother, and shortly after, bruce's death forced dick to give up nightwing.

then at the same time dick was being forced to pretend he was dead to work for spyral after having his identity televised, the omega men broadcast a faked execution to trick everyone into thinking kyle was dead so he’d work for them

i'm sure there are more examples, but that's all i can think of off the top of my head. honestly? it's kind of astounding that they haven't interacted more. there's this weird, frustrating ships-in-the-night thing with them where they've been on like all the same teams but at different times and have all the same friends but somehow just never end up in the same place

but the one time they did team up for like 5 seconds, they got along great!

(completely unrelated but this line happened about 5 seconds after kyle had his still-beating heart ripped out of his chest to be used in a ritual to bring the league back to life. he’s literally a disembodied ring ghost at this point, and they have no idea if they’re gonna be able to fix him. the worse the circumstances, the harder it is for dick to resist making a terrible joke)

i’m not going to go on a tangent about kyle and bruce’s relationship here because this post is ungodly long already, but people say he’s his favorite lantern for a reason, and honestly? i’d say that’s underselling it. i’d go so far as to say he’s probably one of bruce’s favorite heroes period. they worked incredibly well together

there’s a whole trope about the bats and the lanterns not getting along, but the reason bruce clashes with most of the others is because they tend to be stubborn and proud and kinda bad at taking orders.

that’s really never been an issue with kyle. he’s very self aware about his abilities (or lack thereof) and doesn’t have a problem admitting when he’s out of his depth. this is something bruce recognized and appreciated before kyle was even working with him on the league

it’s one of the big reasons he and bruce clicked like they did, and it was great, and i think it would be pretty much exactly the same if he and dick were ever to be on a team together except maybe even more fun because hopefully dc would actually let them have some sort of relationship outside of superheroing like they absolutely refuse to do with bruce

i imagine they’d be something very similar to roy & kyle’s relationship from kyle’s stint with the titans, where roy was all Serious and Responsible all the time and trying and failing to turn it off when he’s supposed to be hanging out with kyle’s happy-go-lucky ass

this dynamic was so good. frankly, i’d prefer to just have roy & kyle back together, but you could easily put dick in a similar role!

one of my favorite things about kyle is how he just... refuses to not enjoy being a hero. he’s got moments where he starts to get broody and take himself too seriously, but he always catches himself and tells himself he’s being dumb. he’s so determined to stay lighthearted and optimistic, and it’s especially fun when he’s juxtaposed with more serious characters, which dick tends to be in a team setting!

they could be so fun, and it’s not like dc is using kyle for anything right now, anyway! i would absolutely love for somebody to throw him on the titans again (if dc would stop running titans books into the ground for 5 seconds and actually give them a good writer lol) so we could get his long overdue reunions with roy and wally (especially wally. please god) and finally actually have him and dick talk for more than like 3 lines!

it could be so good!!!

#LONG POST #kyle rayner #dick grayson #whatever!! i'm tagging it!#dickkyle #i would honestly be happy with anything with kyle in it at this point lol #you apparently have to have at least 1 bat in a book for dc to even consider publishing it at this point #so maybe if we push the dick/kyle agenda we'll actually see kyle again before we die #this is long and rambly and kinda all over the place but i have SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THEM

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janecrockeyre · 3 years

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scum villain is a greek tragedy disguised as a regular tragedy disguised as a comedy disguised as a danmei

this is going to be long, and this is only PART ONE.

a.k.a, Analysing the plot of Scum Villain’s Self Saving System through Aristotle’s Poetics, because I Have Mental Issues

Part One: Introduction and the Tragic Hero

Scum Villain’s Self Saving System is a tragedy disguised as a comedy, unless you’re Shen Yuan, in which case it’s a mixture of a romance and a survival horror. It's a fever dream. It's a horrible, terrible book that made me feel new undiscovered emotions when I finished reading it.

The thing is... SVSSS shares characteristics with some of the most famous tragedies in the West, such as Oedipus Rex, Medea, Antigone, the Oresteia... if you haven’t read these, I’ll explain everything. But the gist of my argument is this: SVSSS is the perfect tragedy. In triplicate.

Tragedy as a genre is old as balls and so it has meant slightly different things to different people over the last few thousand years. I'll be focusing on ancient Greek tragedy, which was performed at the yearly Festival of Dionysus in Athens during the 500-350s BC (give or take a hundred years). Aristotle, when writing about this very specific subset of tragedy, had no idea that one day Scum Villain would be written, and then that I would be using his work as a way to look at Shen Qingqiu’s Funky Transmigration Mistake. Anyway!

Greek tragedy greatly influenced European dramatic tradition. I have a lot of opinions about white academics idolising and upholding the classics as the "paragon of culture" but I'll withhold them for now. I have no idea if MXTX has read Greek tragedy or not, so don't take this as me saying they are writing it.

In my opinion, tragedy is a universal human constant. We are surrounded by pain and hurt and none of it makes any sense, so we seek to process that pain through drama, art, literature, etc. We want to understand why pain happens, and how it happens, and try to make sense of the senseless. The universe is cold and cruel and random. Tragedy eases some of that pain.

On that note: Just because I am analysing Scum Villain through a Greek lens doesn't mean that it was written that way. I'm pasting an interpretation onto the book when there's probably a very rich and deep history of Chinese tragedy that I just don't know about. If you ever want to talk about that, please, god, hit me up, I would love to learn about it!!

Anyway, tragedy. MXTX is excellent at it! Mo Dao Zu Shi? Painful dynastic family tragedy. Heaven Official's Blessing? Mostly romance, but she managed to get that pure pain in there, huh?

But in my opinion, Scum Villain holds the crown for the most tragic of her stories. MDZS was more of a mystery. TGCF was more of a romance. Neither of them shy away from their tragic elements.

Scum Villain would fit right in between the work of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. How? Let me show you. Join me on my mystery tour into the world of "Aristotle Analyses Danmei..."

Part One: The Tragic Hero

What is a tragic hero? Generally, Greek tragic heroes are united by the same key characteristics. He must be imperfect, having a "fatal flaw" of some kind. He must have something to lose. And he must go from fortune to misfortune thanks to that fatal flaw.

There are two (technically three) tragic protagonists in SVSSS and all of them are tragic in different but formulaic ways. Each protagonist has their own version of “hamartia” or a “fatal flaw”.

Actually, hamartia isn’t necessarily a flaw - rather, it is a thing which makes the audience pity and fear for them, a careful imperfection, a point of weakness in the character’s morality or reasoning that allows for bad things to happen to them. For example, in Oedipus Rex, the king Oedipus has a “fatal flaw” of always wanting to find the truth, but this isn’t exactly a flaw, right? Note: this flaw can be completely unwitting, as we see with Shen Yuan. It can also be something that the protagonist is born with, some kind of trait from birth or very young.

Shen Yuan

Shen Yuan’s “hamartia” is his rigid adherence to fate and his inability to read a situation as anything but how he thinks it ought to be. He believes that Bingmei will grow into Bingge, and it takes several years, two deaths, and some truly traumatising sex to convince him otherwise.

Shen Jiu

Shen Jiu’s fatal flaw is his cruelty. It is his own sadistic treatment and abuse of Binghe which directly leads to his eventual dismemberment. This is kind of a no-brainer. Of course, it isn't all that simple, and as an audience we pity him for his cruelty as much as we fear it because we know it comes from his own abuse as a child. This just makes him even more tragic. Delicious.

Luo Binghe

Luo Binghe’s fatal flaw is a complicated mix of things. It is his position as the “protagonist” which compels him to act in certain ways and be forced to suffer. It is his half-demonic heritage, something entirely out of his control, which sets in motion his tragic reversal of fortune when he gets yeeted into the Abyss. He also, much like Shen Yuan, has the propensity to jump to conclusions and somehow make 2 + 2 = 5.

As well as having their respective “flaws”, all three protagonists match the rough outline of a good tragic hero in another way: they are in a position of great wealth and power. Even when you split the different characters into different “versions”, this still holds true. Yes, Luo Binghe is raised a commoner by a washerwoman foster mother, but his dad is an emperor and he also ends up becoming an emperor himself.

Yes, Shen Jiu is an ex-slave and a victim of abuse himself, but Shen Qingqiu is a powerful peak lord with an entire mountain’s worth of resources at his back.

Shen Yuan is a second generation new money rich kid.

Bingge is a stereotypical protagonist with a golden finger. Bingmei is a treasured and loved disciple with a good reputation and a privileged seat by his shizun’s side.

In a tragedy, having this kind of good fortune at the beginning of your story is dangerous. Chaucer says that tragedy is (badly translated into modern english) “a certain story / of him that stood in great prosperity / and falls out of high degree / into misery, and ends up wretchedly”. If we follow this line of thinking, a good tragedy is about someone who has a lot to lose, losing everything because of one fatal point of weakness that they fail to address or understand.

If we look at Shakespeare, this is what makes King Lear such a fantastic tragic protagonist. He is a king in control of most of England, who from his own lack of wisdom and excess of pride, decides to split his kingdom apart to give to his daughters, favouring his murderous, double crossing progeny, and condemning his only actually filial daughter to death. He loses his kingdom, his mind, and his beloved daughter, all because of his own stupidity.

This brings us to:

Part Two: Peripeteia

This reversal of fortunes is called peripeteia. It is the moment where the entire plot shifts, and the hero’s fortunes go from good to bad. Think of it like one of those magic eye puzzles, where you stare at the image until a 3D shark appears, except you realise the shark was always there, you just couldn't ever see it, waiting for you, hungry, deadly, always lurking just behind that delightful pattern of random blue squiggles.

Each tragic hero has their own moment of peripeteia in SVSSS, sometimes several:

Shen Qingqiu

In the original PIDW, SQQ’s peripeteia presumably occurs when he finds out that Bingge didn’t perish in the Abyss but has actually been training hard to come and pay him back. There’s really not much I’m interested in saying here - as a villain, OG!SQQ is cut and dry, and the audience doesn’t really feel any pity or fear for him. As Shen Yuan often mentions, what the audience feels when they see OG!SQQ is bloodlust and sick satisfaction. There is also the trial at Huan Hua Palace, which I will talk about in Shen Yuan’s section.

Shen Yuan (SQQ 2.0)

One of SY’s most poggers moment of peripeteia is the glorious, terrifying section between hearing Binghe for the first time after the Abyss moment, and getting shoved into the Water Prison.

“Behind him, a low and soft voice came: “Shizun?”

Shen Qingqiu’s neck felt stiff as he slowly turned his head. Luo Binghe’s face was the most frightening thing he had ever seen.

The scariest thing about it was that the expression on his face was not cold at all. His smile wasn’t sharp like a knife. Rather, it showed a kind of bone-deep gentleness and amiability.”

This is the moment of true horror for Shen Yuan, because he knows what happens next: the plot unfurls before him, inevitable and painful, and he knows that death awaits him at Luo Binghe's hands (lol). Compare it with the bone deep certainty with which he faces his own downfall during the sham of a trial later in the chapter (I’ve bolded the important part):

“In the original work, Qiu Haitang’s appearance signified only one thing: Shen Qingqiu’s complete fall from grace. [...] Shen Qingqiu’s heart streamed with tears. Great Master… I know you’re doing this for my own good, but I’ll actually suffer if she speaks her words clearly. This truly is the saying “not frightened of doing a shameful deed, just afraid the ghost (consequences) will come knocking”!”

After the peripeteia is usually the denouement where the plot wraps up and the threads are all tied together leaving no loose ends, but because this tragedy isn’t Shen Yuan’s but the former Shen Jiu’s, it’s impossible to finish.

Shen Yuan cannot provide the meaningful answers that the narrative demands because 1) he doesn’t have any memory of doing anything, and 2) he wasn’t the person who did them. Narratively, he cannot follow the same path as the former SQQ because he lacks the same fatal flaw: cruelty.

This is why Binghe doesn’t kill him - because he loves him, rather than despises him. And this is why Shen Yuan has to sacrifice himself and die for Luo Binghe in order to save him from Xin Mo: because the narrative demands that denouement follows peripeteia, and SQQ’s fate is in the hands of the narrative.

(Side note: I believe that this literal death also represents the death of OG!SQQ's tragic arc. The body that committed all those crimes must die to satisfy the narrative. SQQ must die, like burning down a forest, so that new growth can sprout from the ashes. After this, Shen Yuan's story has more room to develop instead.)

It must happen to show Bingmei that SQQ loves him too. And this brings us to Bingmei.

Bingmei

Bingmei has two succinct moments of utter downfall. The first is a literal fall - his flaw, his demonic heritage, leads his beloved shizun to throw him down into the Abyss. From his point of view, SQQ is punishing him simply for the status of his birth. He rapidly goes from being loved and cherished unconditionally, to being the victim of an assassination attempt.

He realises that he is totally unlovable: that for the crimes of his species that he never had a hand in, he must pay the price as well: that his shizun is so righteous that no matter what love there was between them, if SQQ sees a demon, he will kill it. Even if that demon is Bingmei.

The second moment is when SQQ dies for him. Again, from his point of view, he was chasing after a man who was struggling to see him as a human being. Shen Qingqiu’s death makes Bingmei realise that he has been completely misunderstanding his shizun: that SQQ would literally die for him, the ultimate act of self sacrifice from love: that SQQ loved him despite his demon heritage.

Much like King Lear holding the corpse of his daughter and wailing in sheer grief and pain because he did this, he caused this, Bingmei gets to hold his shizun's cold body and cry his eyes out and know that it was his fault. (Kind of.)

(Yes, I’m bringing Shakespeare into this, no I am not justifying myself)

Maybe I'm a bit sadistic, but that scene slaps. Let me show you a comparison of scenes so you get the picture.

Re-enter KING LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, Captain, and others following

KING LEAR

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so

That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!

I know when one is dead, and when one lives;

She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.

[...]

KING LEAR

And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.

Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,

Look there, look there!

Dies

Versus this scene in SVSSS:

Luo Binghe turned a deaf ear to everything else, greatly agitated and at a loss of what to do. He was still holding Shen Qingqiu’s body, which was rapidly cooling down. It seemed like he wanted to call for him loudly and forcefully shake him awake, yet he didn’t dare to, as if he was afraid of being scolded. He said slowly, “Shizun?”

[...]

Luo Binghe involuntarily held Shen Qingqiu closer.

He said in a small voice, “I was wrong, Shizun, I really… know that I was wrong.

“I… I didn’t want to kill you…”

PAIN. SO MUCH BEAUTIFUL PAIN. Yes, I know Shakespeare isn’t Athenian, but he was inspired by the good old stuff and he also knew how to write a perfect tragedy on his own terms. Anyway. I’ll find more Greek examples later.

This post was a bit all over the place, but I hope it has been fun to read. Part Two will be coming At Some Point, Who Knows When. This is a bit messy and unedited, but hey, I’m not getting paid or graded, so you can eat any typos or errors. Unless you’re here to talk to me about Chinese tragedy, in which case, please pull up a seat, let me get you a drink, make yourself at home.

ps: if you want to retweet this, here is the promo tweet!

#svsss #scum villain #luo binghe #shen qingqiu #shen jiu #greek tragedy #hello followers this account has been silent for a long time but today i bring you whatever this is #long post #i am gonna cross post more art here from my twitter i think #you guys really like my shitposts on here

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hellsbellschime · 3 years

Note

I always love your takes on Dany because I think you explain her really well and was wondering what you think of this take by a Dany stan. It's got some uh... interesting ideas. Sorry too because it's quite long

The main difference in between Daenerys' political arc, and that of other "heroes" and their Houses is that Dany's is not currently a political arc relegated to fighting for Targaryen grievances and wins. Meanwhile, all other main House representatives in the narrative (Starks, Martells, Lannisters, Greyjoys, Tullys, Tyrells, Baratheons) are generally fighting precisely for nothing else but their own (and their Houses') grievances and wins.

That's where the double standards come in-

+ Daenerys is harshly and minutely judged for the quality of her every act, upon every single person in her narrative, bc her arc involves her aim to hold responsibility over the wellness of all these people.

+ Everyone else who are part of the Great Houses however are merely judged as per how they perform towards the wellness of their own Houses, because that's all they aim to perform for.

One girl dies in an act Dany is not directly involved in, particularly in intention, and the discussions are endless as per the repercussions and outrage of the occurrence. Because Daenerys took it upon herself to defend all these people, and this seems like a failure, particularlyin her POV: one girl with no other importance in the story and a few lines, among maybe millions. One girl. Hazea.

Robb Stark and his men, on the other hand, will kill, maim and rape thousands, or even tens of unnamed thousands, and there is no outrage; rarely discussed repercussions. Because Robb's political arc is not about protecting nameless people. Not about caring for the fate of one-liner non-noble characters. His arc is about the grievances of House Stark. About Ned. Readers judge him upon how close he gets to getting revenge on Tywin and Jofrrey, about how well/or bad he leads wars, not about what kind of leader he is to people, what kind of 'monster' he is to enemy commonfolk. The relevance of his eventual loss is not about the fate of his people, or enemy people, either. It's about his personal tragedy. It's about the tragedy of the remaining Starks.

There is outrage for Daenerys even killing her (leader) enemies. For everyone else, it's an undisputed aim.

Daenerys is even already judged for the possibility of a future where she will anything that concerns her actually being Daenerys of House Targaryen in Westeros. The possibility that any Westerosi people might die, while hundreds of thousands may have been dying so far at the hands of other Great Houses (directly and indirectly), and it's mostly irrelevant for them. But for Daenerys that judgement is everything. She is looked through the lense of "if she's a Queen she's meant to protect them, not kill them" tho she has not yet been granted that status, while those who have had the status of Kings, Queens and Lords of Westeros in the meantime have been responsible for the deaths of their own people all of this time.

No noble Northener really cares for a Jeyne Poole, least of all for a Hazea.

Daenerys alone is (harshly) judged as a leader of people, because that's her current actual arc. She is not Daenerys of House Targaryen currently, in a real sense, not really. Her family and House don't really matter where she is now, and to what she is doing.

Almost every other noble character (and I only say almost to partly exclude those not taking particular part in politics) is given the leniency of the tragic MC in a tragic family drama biopic. ALL THEY ARE IS X PERSON OF HOUSE Y. And in most cases nothing else matter. - end post

Well, obviously no hate to this person whoever they are and I don't necessarily think it's a bad take just because I disagree with it. I particularly DO agree on things like Jeyne Poole, and I think that is GRRM very intentionally trying to point out some huge hypocrisies with everyone in the story, even the "good guys", because it is incredibly unfair that no one will come to save Jeyne Poole while a fuckton of people will come to save "Arya Stark" just because they cared about Ned.

But where I don't agree is on that aspect in particular. Because it's not about winning or airing grievances for these great houses, a lot of their actions are largely driven by the fact that they simply care deeply about the other people who are involved in the war now or who have been hurt or killed in the past wars, and that is largely what is motivating many of them to do what they do. And in even more intense cases, they're going to war because they are in extremely immediate danger.

This is true for both villains and heroes, I mean Robb and Cat go to war against the Lannisters because there is an immediately mortal threat to their entire family, and even though Cersei and the rest of the Lannisters are clearly villains, their actions are also driven by an immediate mortal danger that their family is facing. And it's safe to say, a huge portion of what happened in the WOT5K would never have even occurred if a lot of these people weren't put in a position of "HOLY SHIT me or someone I love is about to die RIGHT NOW if I don't do something so I better fucking do something".

I feel like the story makes it clear that the wars that they are fighting are very pointless and brutal anyway. I mean FFS, GRRM does not accidentally traumatize the shit out of Arya by putting her in a commoner's position in a war that is supposedly being fought in her name. So I actually agree with the writer in the sense that there is a double standard when it comes to Dany vs. everyone else, but I feel like the double standard is valid because all of these characters for better or worse have a dog in this fight. Whatever they've done is incredibly personal and therefore pretty irrational for them.

And the fact that the men are rallying to save Arya Stark when they wouldn't rally to save a thousand Jeyne Pooles is very telling and demonstrates that they are extremely hypocritical, but it's also telling because they're not fighting for the "heir to House Stark". They repeatedly talk about how they're fighting for Ned's girl. It has very little to do with her nobility and power and a great deal to do with how these people feel about Ned not as a Stark, but just as a person that they knew and cared for who was horribly wronged.

So while I agree and recognize that a ton of the main characters have done the wrong things, often for the wrong reasons, it's personal, it's emotional, and it's irrational. And in a lot of cases it is driven by something as simple and pure as "I am about to die if I don't do something so I'm doing the first thing I fucking think of to get out of it". Even for the houses who initially got involved as a power play, it has become very much about the people that they care about and their own feelings rather than strategy and house advancement.

That doesn't magically make it moral, but it does make it hugely distinct from what Daenerys is doing. Because Daenerys doesn't have a dog in this fight at all. She has absolutely no personal ties to Westeros or anyone in it, and she is not in any danger from anyone in Westeros. Literally the only Westerosi person who has ever even really tried to kill her is a man she doesn't know and is already dead, and the only Targaryen she ever knew who even had a connection to Westeros was someone she hated who abused her horrifically and who is also already dead.

Ergo, Dany is a villain because she literally has no personal or political justification for the massive war that she's going to bring to Westeros. She is going to leave the place she's in that is a complete mess and desperately needs help even more than it did after her intervention, and she's going to invade a place that she doesn't care about beyond some imaginary concept she has about it in her head, has no connection to, has no need for her, and poses no threat to her.

She's not fighting for anything besides herself and her own sense of entitlement over Westeros. She's more harshly judged for her actions because they are completely driven by her own whims and desires and nothing more. She has the opportunity to think things through and plan and get advice and actually figure out the best way to do things, whereas every character in Westeros is reacting to something very immediate that they don't have a lot of time to consider and that is deeply emotional for them. But still, she doesn't even do that.

She's judged for all of the mistakes she makes because they're unnecessary and foreseeable mistakes. And, if she actually just waited and tried to figure out what to do instead of basically throwing herself into situations where she's suddenly overthrowing governments and ruling hundreds of thousands of people without a plan or any governing experience, then a lot of the bad things that have happened as a result of her campaign wouldn't have happened.

And obviously, I think this is a very intentional move on GRRM's part. I think he establishes that war is pointless and often outrageously hypocritical with the WOT5K, but there's a reason he gave Dany no one she loves and no one who needs her help and no one who poses a threat to her in Westeros. She's going to bring war to an already war-ravaged continent simply because she feels like it should belong to her.

That is drastically different than Robb going to war because his father has been falsely charged with treason or Cersei murdering Robert because he will try to murder her children if he finds out they're not his. And while all of the wars in ASOIAF are terrible and purposeless in the end, GRRM is going very far out of his way to demonstrate that Dany has literally zero justification or even explanation for why she acts the way she does beyond her belief in her own super-special entitlement.

#asoiaf #anti daenerys targaryen #anti daenerys targaryen meta #asoiaf meta

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flightfoot · 3 years

Text

My Top 10 Favorite Miraculous Ladybug Characters

Note: this is FAVORITE, not necessarily the ones I think are best. These are the characters that bring me the most joy, which while it’s often connected to how well-developed they are or how much I enjoy their character types, those aren’t the only factors.

1. Adrien Agreste

A sunshine cat boy with a penchant for puns? One who’s under a lot more pressure, who’s had a worse time in his life than anyone knows... even, seemingly, himself? And with a looming identity crisis on top of that, what with trying to figure out who HE is underneath the “model son” act he puts on as Adrien and the “clown” act he puts on as Chat Noir? How could I not put him high up on the list?

With his hidden depths and the hidden tragedy of his terrible family, I really enjoy analyzing Adrien, peeling back his layers to try to figure out what he might be thinking and feeling, where his story is gonna go next.

2. Alya Cesaire

Marinette’s best friend since her arrival at Francois-Dupont, Alya made a splash within the first few minutes of her stay, standing up to Chloe in order to help Marinette, a total stranger, because it was the right thing to do. Her example helped inspire Marinette... along with her recklessness, with the way she biked after Stoneheart. But thanks to Alya’s presence at that first akuma fight, Ladybug and Chat Noir got introduced to the world, and Ladybug found the courage to enter her first fight with a supervillain.

3. Marinette Dupain-Cheng

The star of the show and one of the best-developed female characters I’ve ever seen, Marinette is truly a sight to behold. She can be clumsy, petty, lose her temper, and get so caught up in a goal that she loses sight of some other important things. But she’s also kind and considerate, giving chances to people she doesn’t like - and has good reason not to like.

She just FEELS so much like a real person, with all the quirks that come with that.

Also really appreciate that she’s allowed to have a diverse range of interests, from fashion design to video games. She can have an intense crush, but while that heavily affects her (as is common at that age), she has plenty of interests and activities outside of it as well.

In short, Marinette is a “strong character who is female” rather than a “strong female character”. Or, maybe instead of “strong”, I should say “multifaceted with great depth”, as that captures it better.

Marinette’s place on my favorites list shuffles around quite a bit. If I was solely ranking this on strength of character, I’d probably put her at the top - while Adrien also has some good depths, he doesn’t get as much focus as Marinette does, plus it’s not as novel to see a guy allowed to have that kind of depth.

But this list is about personal enjoyment more than anything, which means that it’s affected by outside factors, and well... Saltinette is a thing. And it can be hard for me to fully enjoy Marinette when Saltinette’s lurking in the back of my mind, even though Saltinette has very little in common with Marinette.

Incidentally, that’s also part of why Alya’s so high on the list - I enjoyed her to begin with, but seeing how badly she was treated in saltfics, so constantly, eventually moved her up my favorites list partly out of spite.

4. Plagg

The cheese-loving gremlin may not be the most responsible kwami around, but he’s one of the funniest, and he cares about Adrien a lot - which is good, considering how small his support network is, and how easily most of it can be cut off. Whether it’s telling a joke or playing the piano, Plagg’s always there to cheer Adrien up when he really needs it. He sometimes pushes Adrien to do things he probably shouldn’t, like not telling Ladybug he was going to New York, but ultimately it’s because he wants Adrien to be happy, screw the rules.

5. Nino Lahiffe

Steadfastly loyal, Nino’s the best sort of friend you could have - at least, Adrien seems to think so! He’s an awesome boyfriend as well, unwilling to abandon Alya, even when the situation seems hopeless, whether it involves zombies or a spider sister.

Plus he managed to secretly throw Adrien a raging party in order to make up for Adrien never getting a proper birthday party before (Bubbler didn’t exactly work out), how cool is that?!

I just wish we saw more of him outside of supporting others. It’s an important role, but it IS his main one. We have at least seen him being a movie director, djing, just working on his other interests, which is cool.

6. Kagami Tsurugi

She’s badass, fierce, and knows what she wants. But that’s not all she is. She lives under a stifling mother, one who she has to work around, evade, and lie to on a regular basis in order to get a chance to connect with others - if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have been able to spend nearly as much time with Adrien as she did, and she wouldn’t have befriended Marinette at all.

Not that she’s experienced in making friends - she really wants to, but doesn’t really know how, having to rely on online guides to get an idea of how to make small talk and connect.

Judging by her mannerisms, such as her flat affect and major trouble with social interactions, I’m also guessing she’s autistic, which is pretty cool.

7. Alix Kubdel

Bunnix is badass, and you can see that in her younger counterpart. I love just how DONE she is with some of the girl squad’s shenanigans, she’s more of a fan of cutting the gordian knot than executing convoluted plans.

Also her friendship with Nathaniel is adorable, I love them teasing each other.

8. Marc Anciel

He’s cute, shy, creative, and I loved Reverser and binged a lot of Marcnath fics.

9. Nathaniel Kurtzberg

Reverser and Evillustrator were both awesome episodes, and again, binged a lot of Marcnath fics so... yeah.

10. Sabine Cheng

I love how caring she is towards Marinette, and her just generally being pretty sensible - but also getting very excited about stuff she cares about, like hers and Tom’s giddy joy at getting to test out Max’s video game, and how thrilled she and Tom were about Marinette wanting to visit Shanghai. Also go to learn a little more about her roots in Shanghai, which was cool.

----

Note: While the top 5 are likely to remain in the top 5, a lot of the bottom 5 might go on and off the list. I also ended up leaving out specials-only characters, though I have enjoyed a lot of the new heroes they introduced.

#miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #alya cesaire #marinette dupain cheng #plagg #kagami tsurugi #nino lahiffe #nathaniel kurtzberg #marc anciel #sabine cheng #alix kubdel

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nostalgiaruinedme · 3 years

Text

Monster

Prompt: Mistreated by Authorities Fandom: TMNT 2012 Ao3 link: here Summary: After the Kraang and the Triceratons and the Shredder, the world is finally safe, save for the scars left behind. But humanity is looking for a scapegoat to blame all the tragedies on, and their gaze lands on the mutants. Now, every government in the world is after any and all mutants, but first and foremost, they want the turtles. And then the EPF capture Donatello.

First I’d like to thank the amazing @morikothehalfangel for beta reading this for me <3

I put way too much effort into researching the effects of torture by asphyxiation for this oneshot wow. I now know more about asphyxiation than I ever wanted to know but ~accuracy is important~

I mean I think it's accurate. I DID MY BEST OK and also I've been in the hospital because I couldn't breathe (asthma not torture i promise <3) so I based some of it a little on my own experiences, just amped up a billion percent.

Also I know a lot of people are like "THEY'RE TURTLES THEY CAN HOLD THEIR BREATH FOR A WHILE" but like- that's a great headcanon that I love reading about but considering they nearly did suffocate in that one episode where that one triceraton released all the air from their cell, I don't think it's canon. And even if it was canon I wanna write this so I'm disregarding it pff

PLEASE mind the warnings in the summary. Don't read anything that will trigger you, take your safety first ok? That's more important than reading a fic.

Okay, that's all. Please enjoy! and suffer.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: - Self hatred - Depression - Asphyxiation - Torture - Briefly mentioned suicide attempt -

Everyone is good at heart.

If you asked April 5 years ago what she thought about the inherent good or evilness of humanity, that would've been the answer she gave. A typical one, maybe, full of clichés and misplaced optimism, but it was also one she truly believed. Sure, sometimes that goodness had been shoved deep down and locked in a cage. Sometimes it was so long gone even its owner would forget it existed. Sometimes it was buried so deep not even god could tear it from its depths and bring it to the sunlight... but regardless, it was there, somewhere. To be good or not was just a matter of choice. Everyone was good at heart.

But that was then. And this was now. The time she believed in the goodness of all was before a time before a seething Casey Jones had marched into her apartment and shoved his phone into her face, a time before he said nothing as she read the article on the screen, her confusion slowly morphing into absolute horror.

"Mutant Responsible for Destruction of City Finally Apprehended", it read, and below that deceptive headline was a photo of someone she knew all too well. His mask was gone, one eye bruised shut, and a hand outstretched towards whoever was holding the camera in a last ditch effort to hide his face. It had been a fruitless endeavor, unfortunately; five more photos followed, and April had no doubt in her mind that there were plenty more in circulation elsewhere. Every news station in New York—no, scratch that; every news station in the country was rushing to cover this story, and probably a few hundred more channels across the world as well. It was big news after all. After years of trying to catch the so-called evil mutants the public had taken to blame for all of their problems, they finally got one of them. It didn't matter how wrong the stories were... the people who caught him were going to be praised as heroes.

"They got Donnie."

Casey's words weren't necessary—April easily recognized who was in the photo—but hearing them still made her breath hitch, all hope of this being a dream or imagined crashing down around her. This was all too real. Humans capturing the four brothers had always been a danger, they knew that, but to actually have it happen to one of them...

April guessed that after Tokka returned to Earth three years ago, they should've seen it coming. Bishop had tried his hardest to repair the Utrom's relationship with humanity, specifically the Earth Protection Force in this case, and had very nearly succeeded too. But the officials he was working with were stubborn, and after seeing the turtles in action themselves, they were terrified. It didn't matter that they had been working to save them or that they weren't the bad guys; those damn officials only saw a powerful threat they couldn't control.

They were evil men. And evil destroys what it can't control.

So they shattered what was left of the Utrom council's relations with humanity, and ensured the rest of the world did too. And then they used Earth's real saviors as scapegoats.

Aliens coming to Earth, capturing humanity countless times and mutating them into mindless slaves? The mutants' faults. The destroyed buildings and sounds of fighting and screaming all night long? The mutants' faults. The increase in robberies and kidnappings by inhumane creatures and robotic ninjas? The mutants' faults. Giant alien turtle lighting New York on fire? Mutants' fault. Dinosaurs invading? Mutants' fault. Ghosts rising? Mutants' fault. Cultish whispers? Mutants. It was all their fault.

And at the front of it all, they blamed the turtles specifically.

The four brothers pretended they didn't care. All of them. Mikey just joked about it, claiming those humans were clearly just jealous they couldn't save the Earth like they did. Raph got angry, obviously, but he pretended it was because of just 'humans in general', and that the accusations weren't hitting as hard as everyone knew they were. Leo used this to reason that they just needed to try harder and save more people... If they did more good, he said, people would speak up to defend them. He never quite managed to hide the hurt that came when no one did.

And Donnie... Donnie took all the allegations right to the heart.

He buried himself in inventions, the only one of his brothers who didn't seem to suffocate from the isolation, and never spoke of it. April tried to talk to him and Casey did too. Both were all too aware of the thoughts Donnie had about himself. While his brothers had their own insecurities, Donnie held the worst ones about just what he was. A Monster, he believed, despite their assurances he was anything but. This situation just made it all worse.

And then Donnie left the lair by himself. He'd gotten himself captured.

"What about his brothers?" April whispered, eyes still locked on the article. Casey sighed.

"They're obviously panicking... Leo's planning a rescue mission tonight, and Raph massacred his punch dummy and Mikey's trying to keep both of them from going on a suicide solo mission right now, in the daylight. It's not looking too good, Red, this isn't like any other time..."

It wasn't. They'd all been captured by the enemy before, but that was by underground organizations and alien terrorists and chaotic mutants. This was more than that. Donnie had been arrested by the EPF, a military organization... if you could even call it an arrest. He sure as hell wasn't gonna get a lawyer, that was for sure, and he'd probably be turned over to scientists the second he refused to tell them anything useful. This wasn't something they could just sneak into, fix, and then be on their way.

This was the entire United States government they had to go up again.

"We gotta get him out of there," April said, pushing the phone away. She couldn't look at it for another second. "He's barely been gone a day and his face is plastered everywhere online, we don't have a lot of time. When are the guys planning on going?"

"Right before sundown, so in about an hour," Casey said, returning his phone to his pocket. "I don't know what Leo's got planned, but we have just enough time to get ready and I told them we'd meet them there."

April nodded firmly, without even a hint of hesitance.

"Let's get going."

***

When Donatello was little, he liked to pretend there was a monster living under his bed.

A common nightmare among children, he knew what it was. Most children feared what lived under their bed, and when they did think there was one hiding there... it wasn't because they wanted it there; it was because they hated the idea. They would beg their parents to run into the room and shine a flashlight underneath, to hug them tightly and assure them that monsters weren't real, it's all in your head. Some braver children might even get up to check themselves, armed with a foam sword or a plastic spear, bravely embarking on a quest to kill the monster, for it was an enemy.

But to Donnie, the imagined monster under his bed wasn't hated. It was a friend. It was someone like him.

The fear of being a monster had started within the turtle when he was small, when he first started learning about the world above him. His brothers had found mankind interesting, sure, but it was he who wanted to know everything about them. What were their kids like? What did they eat? Why did they live so close to the sky? How did they look? How come they couldn't meet them? These were the questions that he'd sneak into Splinter's room for answers to long after his brothers had gone to sleep.

Because Donnie wanted answers, and his curiosity would never be satisfied until he knew all there was to know.

But as Donatello's knowledge grew, so did his own insecurities. He now knew what human children were like (different from him). He now knew why they couldn't meet them (they would be terrified). Because Donnie was a mutant. He was the scary monster they imagined under their beds, the one they wanted their parents to protect them from... He was what they feared.

So he took comfort in imagining his own monster under his bed, one that was even scarier than him. But he never hated or feared this monster. No, he wouldn't be like the human children. It didn't matter how scary this monster was, he decided, he would befriend and love it no matter how it looked. Because he was a monster too, and monsters had to stick together, right?

It only took a few years longer for Donnie to stop pretending he had a monster hiding under his bed (though he still took comfort in the thought every once in a while), but it took him much, much longer to stop thinking of himself as one. So many nights of sitting beside Casey and April, both assuring him he was anything but, and so many long years of doubting his place in their lives. It took determination on all three's part but eventually, he even saw himself as something normal, someone who could actually fit in their tiny group of three instead of the monstrous invader they swore he wasn't.

"We want you in this too," April had sworn, and Casey confessed the same only moments later. Donnie had cried. A day later, he finally believed them, and the three started the happiest relationship of their lives. He finally found himself fitting in, and finally, finally... he thought he had defeated his thoughts.

But that was then, and this was now.

He stood still as dozens of curious, terrified, and disgusted eyes watched him, some trying to get the best look while others tried to distract themselves from his existence. Never before in his life did he feel more like a monster than he did now. All of his progress had been destroyed.

Donnie stared at the men surrounding him on all sides, cursing the glass prison they kept him in. They didn't even let him have enough dignity to keep him in a normal, dusty, dirty cell with corners, did they? No, they had to keep him in a round glass one like some animal, one they could keep a constant watch over from all sides. He couldn't hide anywhere. He had to stand there in the silence.

Donnie wanted nothing more than to hide in his shell just to get away from the prying eyes. But that wasn't normal, was it? He knew that'd only make them stare even harder.

He wished they'd say something. The EPF had taken him, fair enough—Donnie knew they had been after them for months now. But instead of the torture, lifelong prison sentence, scientific experiments, or questioning he had expected, there was... nothing. After the tranquilizer they had shot him wore off, he'd been shoved in this stupid cell and left there for at least 6 hours now. Guards and various EPF staff watched him, spoke in hushed whispers about him and made a few phone calls, and even took a few photos, but that was it. They hadn't spoken a word to him.

Donatello didn't know whether to be relieved or horrified about that. He just wanted to go home.

"Come on, guys..." Donnie muttered, eyes focused on the single window in the room. It was starting to get dark out; his brothers should be coming soon, right? They were at least ready to go by now, if they weren't already on their way. He just had to be patient. "Please hurry..."

"There you are."

Donnie quickly turned around, cursing himself for not realizing that someone had snuck up behind him. To be fair, he had felt watched from all directions since the moment he had woken up, and still did, so one more set of eyes hadn't been much different, but even so... He was a ninja, damn it! He should have realized that someone had approached his cage before they even said anything.

There stood one of the EPF officers, clearly one of their higher-ups, judging by the many many badges he wore on his chest. He had a grim look on his face, yet a hint of satisfaction was hidden in his eyes behind the frown on his lips. Though Donnie didn't know him, he could tell just by looking at him that this was not a good man; he was a man out for power and without sympathy.

Donnie folded his arms across his plastron defensively and met his eyes. However, he was still upset about being given the silent treatment for three hours, so he didn't bother to reply.

They hadn't answered him, so why should he answer them?

"Not a big talker, huh? That's alright." The man said, voice matter-of-fact and calm as could be. "As long as you answer my questions, we won't have a problem, mutant. You don't have to talk any more than that, I promise."

Donnie clenched his teeth. The man smiled.

"You and those other turtles have been on the run for quite some time, haven't you?" He continued, hands behind his back. "I understand you four may not have much experience with the law, as you have been completely disregarding it for years now... but that's not something that's allowed.

"You're wanted by every government and legal system in the world for your crimes against humanity. You've nearly caused the extinction of mankind a dozen times over, yet you refuse to face consequences for your actions. On one hand, I see why you'd be scared to get caught for that, but it's still quite dishonorable, avoiding justice like that. You're running from the law. What should one make of that, mutant?"

'That you're all ungrateful pieces of shit,' Donnie thought, but managed to keep to himself. They nearly sacrificed their very lives just to save this stupid planet, yet here they were blaming him for it. He couldn't keep the scowl off of his face as the man continued to stare, though, no matter how hard he fought to keep his expression blank.

"It's not safe to let you continue to wander the Earth on your own. You'll try and kill us all again, and that's an international threat we can't let slide. But," The man leaned forward slightly, placing a hand over his heart as a sign of trust that Donatello knew better than to believe, "I am a very powerful man. You tell me where we can find the rest of those responsible, and I'll make sure you and the other mutants live a decent life. In captivity, of course, I can't change that, but it will be relatively peaceful."

Donatello tried to calm his breathing, keeping his mouth firmly shut. He didn't give a damn what this man would say; he'd never give up his brothers' locations—who did he think he was? He wouldn't tell him where any of the other mutants he knew were either. The EPF could do whatever they wanted with him... He'd never speak a word.

"Of course, there's other ways to get information out of you," The man continued, voice overbearingly calm and carefree. "Maybe not on where those other freaks are hiding. But there's plenty to learn from mutants' very existence, isn't there?" He grinned. His teeth were white and clear, just perfect enough to hide the rotting soul inside.

"We released your photos to the press already. Can you believe how many labs have offered hundreds of millions, one or two even billions, for you? We're still getting calls and emails as we speak."

Donatello was no idiot, he could have guessed that had happened already. But hearing it... He tensed, hoping the man couldn't see the fear he knew was already apparent on his face. He just had to ignore him. His threats wouldn't mean anything; his brothers would be there soon to save him, way before they could even consider doing that for real.

Besides, the EPF had spent months searching for and trying to capture him. Surely, they wouldn't just sell him off to the highest bidder that easily...

Right?

"Still not talking?" The man's expression darkened, "You don't understand just how much trouble you're in, do you? You're going to pay for what you and the rest of the mutants have done to humanity; I don't care whether you actually feel guilty for it or not. You will be sorry, Mutant."

"Donatello."

"What?"

"My name's Donatello," Donnie hissed out, too angry to even care that he broke his attempt at silence. "Stop calling me that when I have a name."

"I can call you whatever I damn well please, freak," The man replied, pointing a finger at him as though he were lecturing him, "You're lucky I'm even speaking to you right now. Everyone else I spoke to figured said it'd be pointless, and we should just ship you off right now. Mutant, I don't think you realize just how lucky you've been because of me. In fact, you oughta be thanking me."

Even the damn Foot Clan called them by their names, Donnie realized bitterly. Even the Foot treated them with more dignity than these people.

"The decision hasn't been made yet, but the Earth Protection Force is still deciding what to do with you. We've recently built a new high-security prison for mutants specifically in mind, and that had been the plan all along. However, we could always use the money we'd get from your bidders to upgrade it and arrest more-"

"We didn't do any of it!" Donnie couldn't take it anymore. He knew arguing was pointless and he knew it was probably what the man wanted, but he didn't care. "We saved the world, you- my brothers and I were the ones who stopped all that shit from happening! We saved Earth when you and the entire Earth Protection Force couldn't!"

"That's not how I remember it."

"Bullshit! You know you're all lying!"

"Memories are subjective," The man said, "However, the general consensus among the government, public, and us has been that the Kraang backed off due to our brief but effective alliance with the Utrom. The Triceratons-"

"You just want a damn scapegoat because you kept failing!" Donnie exclaimed, slamming his fist onto the glass walls in anger, teeth barred in rage and desperation. He knew his words were falling on deaf ears, but he couldn't take these lies. "We beat them! Not the EPF! We brought all the humans back from Dimension X and saved you all from the Kraang's mind control while you guys did nothing! We stopped the Triceratons! Me and my family nearly died—no, actually some of us did die—just trying to save the planet! The humans who did help us had nothing to do with you guys and it's because of us that you're even breathing right now! We-"

Donnie choked.

While he was shouted, the man had pressed some button, and it turned out the cursed dome he was in had more uses than just keeping him in one place after all. It started with a hissing noise from above and seconds later, a burning in his lungs. He gasped as the air turned frigid, the oxygen escaping from his grasp before he even realized what was happening. His hands flew to his throat. He couldn't breathe.

He fell to his knees harshly, ignoring the pain that came with it—all of his gear, including his knee pads, had been taken before he'd woken up—and clawed at his neck. Out of the corner of Donnie's eyes, he could see the satisfied gleam in the man’s eyes as struggled, gasping for air that just wasn't there. The edges of his vision flashed black.

But just before he passed out, the hissing changed and the air came back. Donnie gasped and inhaled with relief, savoring the feeling he hated that he still took for granted after how many times it had been taken away from him. He could breathe. He didn't bother rising from where he knelt.

"Tell me, Mutant," The man's voice was cold, and Donnie felt a shiver run down his spine. "Why would a monster sacrifice all that for the human race?"

Donnie didn't know.

"Well?" The man said, "That wasn't a rhetorical question. Answer me!"

"Earth's... it's ours too," Donnie hissed out, clenching his fists, "It's... it's just as much ours as... as yours."

"Is that so?" Donnie wanted to nod, to say yes, but he was frozen. Or at least, it felt like that. Humiliated and weak and terrified, Donnie wondered if they had paralyzed him when he wasn't paying attention... But he knew the only thing keeping him from moving was his own damn mind.

"I think you know as well as I do the Earth wasn't built for freaks like you," The man said, "And we sure as hell aren't going to let you just steal it from us. Not while I'm here, and not anytime soon after, you hear me? Earth's ours. It always has been."

Donnie felt a wave of relief wash over him when he turned, preparing to leave. He was still trapped in hell, but at let no one would talk down to him more if the man wasn't here... no privacy or not, it was better than nothing.

But then, the man stopped, tilting his head in thought. He turned back around and addressed another person on the other side of the room.

"Lower the oxygen percentage. Keep it just high enough so it doesn't pass out, but I want it as low as possible without that happening."

He walked away just as the hissing began, and Donnie couldn't help the tears from forming.

***

Two weeks.

Casey couldn't believe it had already been two full weeks since they'd last seen Donnie. How could they have let this have gone on for so long? They should have gotten him back days ago! But no, the calendar didn't lie; it had been fourteen days.

Fourteen days since they'd seen his gap-toothed smile. Fourteen days since the EPF had so cruelly snatched him from his patrol. Fourteen days since they kidnapped him and did who knows what with him. Fourteen days since they'd locked him away.

Thirteen days since they had first tried to get him back.

Casey grimaced at the memories. The first mission had been a failure, as had the second and third ones. Each building had been a fake one, framed as the place where they imprisoned mutants but really only a distraction. Donnie had never stepped foot in any of them... and with each trap they landed in, the team grew more and more desperate. Angrier and angrier. More and more heartbroken.

Casey hated it.

"What do we do, Red?" He asked April one night, sitting on the ledge of a roof and tossing a pebble off of it. It landed on a trashcan below with a satisfying clink, a sound that usually would've elicited a grin from Casey if it weren't for the circumstances. How could they have failed so much?

"I really don't know," April sighed, shaking her head, "We've searched everywhere in the city. I don't think they've sent him off somewhere, since I can still sense him in the city... but I have no idea where. I can't pinpoint him."

Casey looked out across the city, eyes sweeping over every building lining the distance. Though he knew it wasn't exactly true, it had felt like he'd searched every single one of them by now from top to bottom. Why couldn't they find Donnie? How many hideouts did the Earth Protection Force have anyways? So many in the city seemed excessive. Surely, they couldn't be hiding too many more.

Casey's gaze turned towards the water as the sun hovered over the horizon, casting beautiful crystals of light over everything it touched. It reflected off of the waves and met Casey's eyes, lighting them up gold.

And as they did, an idea lit up in his mind.

"April," He said, spinning around to face her, eyes wide and jaw slack, "What if we're looking in the wrong place?"

April frowned, folding her arms across her chest. "What do you mean?"

"They already know we know about all their buildings and hideouts in the city," Casey said, words tumbling from his mouth in a rush, "So why would they hide him somewhere we could find him? I'd guess they took him out of the city or even country, but you said you still sense him here. You know what that means?"

April shook her head. Casey rose to his feet, standing tall as he raised his arm and pointed towards the waters surrounding Manhattan.

"I bet they're hiding him out there, on a ship."

***

Donnie lost track of the days.

He'd tried to keep count, he really did. But there were no windows and no visible clocks, and each second spent in that damned dome felt like years. The circumstances inside didn't make it any easier to keep his mind clear.

Yes, the man had been true to his word and kept the air as unbreathable as was possible. His limbs were weighted and every movement took so much effort; speaking wasn't even an option. Even something as simple as thinking seemed nearly impossible when one was suffocating, and Donnie had no idea how to escape, not with how thick the walls were and how guarded he was. It wasn't normal glass, it was something special, something he couldn't break. All he could do was choke on nothing.

But he wasn't stupid. As impossible as the situation was, he tried to make do. He sat still and folded his legs, staying still and remembering the breathing techniques Splinter had taught him, just like they had when the Triceratons had tried to suffocate them.

At first, it had worked, but then the men caught on. They lowered the amount of oxygen he was getting even more and spoke loudly of their plans for him as a mutant, purposefully destroying his concentration with panic and anxiety. Meditation was impossible.

And even if it wasn't? Even breathing techniques couldn't save him from suffocation that lasted for hours on end.

So Donnie would gasp and claw at nothing, pleading internally for the air to return yet being met with no answer but amused chuckles. The sides of his vision would flash black and slowly grow until he was this close to passing out and ready to feel the sweet release of unconsciousness—Donnie started looking forward to that time when he could get a few short seconds of nothingness before he felt like he was dying again. Just take him away already!

But then, the second they noticed he was unconscious, the air would return all at once. Donnie would fling up from where he was laying and inhale the precious, beautifully crisp air with more appreciation than he'd known was possible. He knew it was just to keep him from dying on them and to keep him awake to suffer even longer, but he could never keep the relieved sigh from escaping his lips.

"So," The man would always approach him around this time, the same disgusting human every time. "Are you ready to tell me where the other mutants are?"

And every time, Donnie would only reply with an adamant shake of his head and narrowed eyes filled with false confidence. The man never stayed much longer after that. He would only shake his head in disapproval, mutter something along the lines of "those damn mutants..." or something about them being criminals, then he'd turn and walk away. The hissing would start not too long after that.

And the process would repeat.

On the fifth day, he really did pass out, and they were forced to give him a few hours to breathe properly, lest they gain a corpse replace their hostage. He didn't bother moving from the floor, feeling nothing yet too much all at once. He didn't think, only longed for his family's rescue.

On the tenth day, the man opened the cage long enough to walk inside and slap him once, twice, and scream in his face. 'Monster!' he screamed, 'Murderer!'

Donnie didn't react. The man was out of shape and old, someone Donnie knew he could normally take out without breaking a sweat. But after four days of struggling for a single breath, he didn't have the energy to do anything but stare.

At least he couldn't think enough to agree with his accusations.

On the thirteenth and fourteenth days, Donnie didn't bother moving once. Most of those 48 hours were spent zoned out and unaware of the passage of time. You could tell him it had only been an hour, or even that it had been three weeks; he'd have believed you either way.

On the eighteenth day, Donnie realized they weren't coming.

The men gagged him before he could bite his tongue hard enough.

***

It should have been obvious.

Staring at the ship now, April wondered how the hell no one on the team had thought of it before. Of course, the EPF would expect them to search their usual hideouts! Of course, they'd be ready for that! They wasted so much time searching the places they knew about that they had just... forgotten that this was more than just another gang or mafia or clan. This was a government agency with resources beyond imagination, they didn't have to reuse the same locations again and again and again.

April was just thankful they had stayed in New York.

"We go in, but we're focusing on stealth," Leo instructed his team—Mikey, Raph, Karai, Shini, April, and Casey—and pointed towards the ship, "We're not trying to take them out. Getting Donnie out is our first priority."

"No objections there," April replied, holding onto her tessen tightly. Casey scoffed from behind her.

"Yeah, definitely agree," He said, "But the second he's out, I'm burning the whole ship down."

"And everyone aboard responsible," Raph added on, eyes dark. Karai nodded in agreement while Shini grinned with delight.

Neither Leo nor Mikey had anything to say against that. Neither did April.

***

The air came back sooner than usual for Donnie this time.

He wasn't entirely sure why, usually it took a lot longer for them to give him a break. Or maybe it had been longer than he'd realized? Time was a strange thing, after all, and Donnie knew that he'd been out of it for a while.

He should probably stop questioning it and just be thankful for the brief break.

But now hands were on him, shaking him by the shoulders and screaming in his ears. What were they even saying? Donnie didn't know; tuning them out was easier. He was just tired of hearing the threats against his brothers and his family and friends and accusations. They could do what he wanted with him—he didn't care anymore.

But then they screamed again, and Donnie tried to focus, because the word they were saying over and over again was so foreign, yet so familiar. It was something he hadn't heard in a long time... wait, were they-

"Donnie!"

The man never said his name.

Donnie blinked several times, looking up and trying so desperately to see who it was. He distantly felt them remove the gag, though he knew he wasn't going to talk anyways, not with how dry his mouth was.

"He's alive," A voice cried out, shaking with relief. He wished he knew who it was, but try as he might, he couldn't make his vision come into focus. All there was was blurs of lights and colors, distant faces, and tears (though he wasn't sure if they were his or not). Green and black and red and orange and blue and more black and gray and yellow... He weakly reached out towards them.

Someone took his hand, squeezing it tightly. He wasn't sure who, but he was suddenly filled with an unbelievable wave of trust and peace.

For the first time in a long time, he felt okay.

Someone picked him up and suddenly, the lights and colors were changing, and he was moving. He blinked and he was outside and then he was sat down outside.

He blinked again, and finally, he could see the stars.

"Donnie?" A voice asked, and he finally recognized it. "Can you hear me?"

April.

He weakly nodded yes, and Casey was there too, grabbing his hand. Mikey sat right next to him.

He tried to sit up, still savoring the beautiful night air, never before appreciating the air of New York City as much as he did at that moment. But something else was on his mind; where were the others? Where were Leo and Raph? Where were the others he knew he saw with them?

"Hey, calm down Love, they're okay," Casey quickly calmed him down, tightening his hold on his hand. Donnie shook his head.

"W-where?"

"They're just finishing up something," Mikey promised, wrapping his arms around his brother in a tight hug. "They'll be out soon."

Donnie nodded, finally with someone he knew he could trust the words of. He breathed in deeply, and looked back forward, out to the ship he now realized he must have been on.

And just as he caught sight of it, a brilliant light erupted from the ship, a radiant explosion of reds and oranges and yellows, casting the same colors across the waves. Fire spread across the deck that was left. From the corner of his eye, he could see his brothers and Karai and Shini approaching, having finally finished their mission, but Donnie could only keep his eyes on the destruction behind them. Donnie imagined that he could hear the man's screams through the wreckage, though he knew individually, he couldn't; they must have been drowned out by the cries of everyone still aboard.

The fire raged on. It was a sight of pain and death and destruction, one that only a monster would take delight in to watch.

And Donnie smiled.

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