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bluerosesburnblue · 8 months

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The last we talked about Final Fantasy XVI, you'd just seen someone get punched by a certain someone. Are you any further now? Like, have you seen the ending of the game? And if you have... I guess the developers of Final Fantasy XVI have said that this game has so much lore, they could make a sequel with it, which is most definitely true. LOL. Who knows if they'll ever actually do that (if so, it'll be very far off), but if they do, what do you think it'll tell? What would you want it to do?

I have indeed seen the end of it by now! To be honest, I kind of have mixed feelings on the plot of the game as a whole. Love the characters, Clive especially is now one of my favorite Final Fantasy protagonists, but I can't help but feel that the game is a little disjointed in spots. They advertised it as the story of Clive's life spanning three eras, but those three eras don't have equal weight and end up coming across as Prologue #1, Prologue #2, and The Actual Game if that makes sense given that you've actually played the game and I've only seen other people play it. And, honestly, when I think back on it, I kind of liked what Prologue #2 with Clive in his late 20s was putting forward the best out of all three sections

I liked the darker and more personal angle that they were putting down, with a story about a man whose latent powers went berserk and he ended up hurting someone close to him, desperate for revenge without realizing that the one he wants revenge against is himself. But then it feels like they resolve that angle very fast and everything after that is a very classic "god is evil kill god" Final Fantasy plot. It's a well-done version of that plot to be sure, and I can really respect how well they tried to capture the feeling of old-school Final Fantasy games, but given how much of the marketing was about this game being darker and more mature, to me it felt like the themes got almost less mature as it went on, going from personal grief, this desperation to rebuild, the price of revenge, etc. to a more generic "free will good" story

Spoilers from here on out

That said, the developers are correct that there's so much lore, and to me that's the best part of the game. I've always found stories that heavily feature elemental-themed areas a lot of fun, like Avatar: The Last Airbender or One Last God: Kubera, so this game giving each summon a specific element and, for the most part, keeping it one summon/element per faction was really interesting to see brought to light. I think the fact that they touched on different factions viewing their Dominants differently was a good start, I just wanted to see a bit more of it on-screen because again, like I said, they started doing that at the beginning, but then it kind of got completely overwhelmed by the "Ultima wants Clive to have all of the Dominant powers" stuff and then never bothered to really look back at how the people felt about losing their nation's Dominants (also they way that they handled Clive taking the powers was kinda weird? Like, Dion carries on just fine and can still transform but Jill gets benched? What?)

Ahhhhhh I just... I almost wish that Ultima had just been an interesting background element and that the game as a whole had focused more on the infighting between the nations and Dominants and Bearers, rather than the other way around. I just found Ultima so generic and uninteresting, and that the game focused too much on making Clive this Super Awesome Chosen One because of it, when I found he was at his best when he was just a kind, awkward man struggling with this unprecedented power he was stuck with and the trauma it brought him

Because to be honest, at the start of the game I wondered if, maybe, what was happening was that they were gonna pull some classic Final Fantasy Dark World stuff and have it be that every Eikon had a dark counterpart. So Ifrit would be the Dark Eikon of Fire to Phoenix's Light Eikon of Fire and they could have used other classic FF summons as the Dark Eikons, like Garuda vs. Sylph. And the Light Eikons could bless people with their power like how Clive had the blessing of the Phoenix, while the Dark Eikons could steal powers. But, no, it's just Ifrit being Super Special and everything. Also... why... was Joshua the only one who could seemingly bless others with his power? Dion couldn't give Terrence a Blessing of Bahamut or anything and give him some light powers? Jill had to let Clive absorb her Shiva powers rather than blessing him with them becauuuuuuse...? And, man, it could've been so interesting if they had a sideplot on Anabella trying to force all of the Dominants to bless Olivier to match Clive or something. Or maybe not even a sideplot, that sounds like I would've liked it way more than the Ultima stuff because of how much more personal it has the potential to be and the game could've been a race to take the power of each Dominant before Olivier could get their blessings. Olivier was so underutilized

As for the lore, I think they do a really good job fleshing out Bearers, so really if they had more to look into, it would be the unanswered questions. Like, we know that Valisthea is only one continent on this world (Cid isn't originally from there, and IIRC neither was Barnabas's family), so what are the others like? Where is Leviathan? Are the theories that the Medicine Girl was Leviathan's Dominant, just not yet awakened, true? (Also, if Ultima needed Clive to have all of the other Eikon's powers, why were we even allowed to skip Leviathan? Shouldn't we have had to track them down? Why did they end up lost?) If the truth is that Ultima's people descended from another world and created humanity, then where did the idea of the Goddess Greagor come from? And what about the legend surrounding the star, Metia? Is Metia magical or is it just a cute legend thing?

Hmmm. If they ever did more with FFXVI, it would have to be a prequel, wouldn't it? Because I think where it left off was exactly where it should have, with some hope for the future and the world moving on, bittersweet with all of the losses that it took to get there but worth it all the same. (I know that there's a lot of theories about who "Joshua Rosfield" is in the end, and I actually prefer that it's ambiguous. Whether you think Clive succeeded in bringing Joshua back at the cost of his own life, or that Clive took Joshua's name which is the one that I think has the most in-game hints to it, or even if you want to think of a third option like one I've seen where Clive survived, but the "Joshua Rosfield" in question is actually his and Jill's son named in Joshua's honor, sacrifices were made and hope remains)

So I think the route with the most potential might end up being a Cid-centric prequel about what life on other continents is like. And I would never complain about more Cid, especially in regards to how he was chosen by Ramuh and what about how things are on other continents is that made him so averse to how Valisthea does things. I think that Cid is really something special due to his status as an outsider looking in on Storm and Ash and how his different perspective compared to everyone there is such a catalyst for what happens in the plot and it's a real shame that most of what we get of Cid is posthumous. So if FFXVI was to get its own sub-series, that's where I'd take it

#liz answers #oveliagirlhaditright #final fantasy #final fantasy xvi #it's an interesting game to be sure #i like a lot of what it's got to it i just... idk i feel like it didn't match my expectations based on what we were shown pre-release #and it's one of those unfortunate things where what i built up in my head based on that marketing that was hiding spoilers #ended up being more interesting to me than what we got #and again i don't think that ffxvi is bad! it's not! it has a lot of interesting things to it #it just wasn't what i personally was hoping for but i can fully understand how someone else could fall in love with it #i do love clive a lot though #10/10 he's so serious while also being a bit of a dorky sweetheart

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georgiaeveritt · 1 year

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D&AD Examples related to my brief

29.01.23

Voices of Protest

Mark and Rich advised us to look at existing d&ad winners on their website, so I looked at previous protest briefs to gain some inspiration. This was encouraging to look at previous work, and how each person viewed the same brief creating their own unique outcomes. This first campaign ‘Voices of Protest’ really caught my eye because of the compelling, quirky type. I thought it looked so unique, wondering immediately how and why the type was all disjointed. Each letter has its own different personality, yet it still somehow all comes together as a typeface and works.

Reading further into this, I was impressed to see the unique feature they made for this project. A website in which you could write your own protest message by recording it with your voice. The type was then designed based around your speech and language - how aggressive or soft your voice is when speaking the words. I was really inspired by this idea because it creates a sense of curiosity - what would my poster look like, how would this word look if I shouted etc. This is clever because it entices people to use their online tool, whilst inspiring them to want to protest by handing them the tools to experiment and have fun designing their own protest poster. I like how personal this campaign is, focusing on the individuality of each poster, celebrating everyone’s protest views.

I particularly enjoy this campaign being in black and white - it’s simple yet effective. I think colours would overpower what their message is that they’re trying to get across. I intend to work in black and white to begin with, and explore colour later on to compare which is most successful. I love the timeless effect of black and white - usable across all platforms, hard to clash with.

https://www.dandad.org/awards/new-blood/2022/google-fonts-hmct/4070/voices-of-protest/

Now You Hear Us

‘Now You Hear Us’ looks at migrant workers in Australia campaigning for their exploitment and use as an economic resource in the country. It focuses solely on language, which as they state has been used to degrade, isolate and shame workers into complying with inhumane working conditions. It explores how powerful language really is, having the capacity to subvery power imbalance.

The campaign helps migrant workers find their voice. Disrupting the day-to-day using multilingual script aims to replicate the frustration of a language barrier, enabling Australians to emphasis with these vulnerable workers and break down the divide between migrants and non-migrants. I like how this approach for a campaign follows a different perspective, by forcing people to experience what they experiences on a day-to-day basis. I agree with the judges opinions on this as well - how it’s not over complicated and it’s simplicity is powerful through the use of words - doesn’t need over-the-top whacky designs. A good enough idea that has had enough research into it can be executed well in simple aspects like this campaign.

https://www.dandad.org/awards/new-blood/2022/google-fonts-hmct/3993/now-you-hear-us/

Change Your Views

A Netflix campaign with the purpose of showing that international films and series can broaden our perspectives. For this campaign they created a new function that lets people change their views with someone from a different part of the world, giving them access to exclusive content from each other’s countries only in their respective native languages. This exposes the viewer to content they wouldn’t have seen otherwise, making the foreign more familiar.

Again, these are simple designs based off a good idea and thinking. At this stage, I’m considering creating an online service or even improving the NHS one, so this campaign has given me lots of inspiration to explore this. I think improving a service which already exists is just as effective as creating a brand new one.

https://www.dandad.org/awards/new-blood/2022/netflix/4076/change-your-views/

#icp #d&ad

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justgottafinishthischapter · 2 years

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Writing Worlds: Multiple POV

I’ve talked before on the merits of a shifting pov in my last POV post, but I wanted to go on a bit further about the topic. Broadly speaking, multiple POV works best when a single character cannot possibly know everything happening in the story, the world and story is too large for one single character to care about everything, or you want the readers or viewers to be personally invested in a complex narrative of interwoven stories.

Interwoven Narratives

In shows like Game of Thrones, Once Upon a Time, or the 2nd season of Why Women Kill, there may be a central narrative, but each character for the most part has their own story. In an interwoven narrative, each character is going to have their own arc and story. Each story is going to have its own call to adventure, darkest hour, rising action, etc. Depending on how closely interwoven these stories are, a single story’s climax can very well be the climax of multiple storylines within the narrative. You can even spice this up, where the Point of No Return for story A is simultaneously the Call to Adventure for Story B. In an interwoven narrative, several stories may be ongoing, but certain characters will rarely if ever interact. This is why it feels uncanny for Missandei to sit in the same room as Sansa Stark. Their narratives have been so disjointed that seeing them together feels odd, even though they are from the same show and have appeared separately in other episodes. Game of Thrones takes this a step further by having 3 major overarching narratives: King’s Landing, the Knight’s Watchmen, and Essos. Objectively speaking, there is a protagonist and something of an antagonist in each setting. King’s Landing has Ned Stark, later Tyrion and then arguably either Brienn or Jaime, with Cersei as the big bad. The Night’s Watchmen has Jon, with the Night King as the big bad. Essos has Daenerys, though she doesn’t really have a singular antagonist the way the other two do. Her antagonist is Essos itself. Essos is like her training area. The tutorial on how to rule before she stops playing in the sandbox to go get the real thing over in Westeros. Her hurdles, such as the slave masters, the dothraki warlords, and the many assassins all prove to place various kinds of obstacles in her way that she would need to face as a queen. These stories work best in drama with large casts of complex characters with complicated relationships and competing desires. Game of Thrones wouldn’t work if Ned or Daenerys was the sole protagonist because limiting the scope to a single protagnist would rob the story of what’s happening elsewhere in the world, and hearing events second-hand as gossip and rumors isn’t as fun as seeing it. George could have given the story an ominsicent narrator who could see everything (such as the Three-Eyed Raven), but this would place a barrier between the audience and the action, as events would feel less personal and in-the-moment. Shifting POV was the best choice for this story because the world and cast is too big for any one narrator to suffice, and because the civil war of shifting alliances is a perfect fit for different characters giving the audience their personal insights into the ongoing events of the story.

Parallel Narratives

Similar to, but distinct from the the Interwoven Narrative, the Parallel Narrative is a story where there is only a few POV characters, most likely just two, although it is possible to do more than two. Shows like Avatar: The Last Aribender, She-Ra: and the Princesses of Power, and Xiaolin Showdown take the time to give the villain faction screen time, allowing the characters to have their own stories, arcs, and characters. Some shows may show what the villains are up to, but checking in on the villains is different from giving them large swaths of the narrative. These stories are best with complex or otherwise entertaining villains. In Xiaolin Showdown, most of the villains fall under the Saturday Morning Cartoon variety, with only Wuya and Chase being actually interesting. But all of the villains are rather charming, enough that stopping by to see what Jack Spicer, Evil Boy Genius is up to in his mother’s basement is entertaining, if nothing else. Xiaolin Showdown doesn’t showcase the villains as heavily as ATLA and SatPoP do, but I felt the Haylin forces get enough focus to warrant counting them on this list. Meanwhile, Zuko and Iroh from Avatar get the same level of devotion as the Gaang does, as do Catra, Scorpia, and Hordak in She-Ra. Zuko is a narrative foil to Aang, making him the Deuteragonist. Catra serves a similar role, being the foil to Adora. Aang and Zuko are on parallel journeys. In a sense, both are seeking redemption for past mistakes. Zuko believes he must regain his honor for disgracing his father, while Aang feels guilty and responsible for “abandoning” the world for 100 years, and not being around sooner to put a stop to the Hundred Years War. Catra and Adora foil off one another as both respond to emotional and mental abuse from Shadowweaver. Adora had it drilled into her from a young age that she is responsible for what Catra does, meaning that she thinks she has to be responsible for everyone and everything. Meanwhile, Catra has grown up with Adora always being responsible for her actions and has no idea how to take accountability because if she messes up, it’s Adora’s fault. Parallel narratives are perfect for creating a juxtaposition between conflicting sides, ideologies, or other dynamics. Showing how these sides differs is what makes them interesting. They don’t have to be Hero/Villain. Romeo and Juliet is a prime example. We get insights into both the Montagues and the Capulets, and neither side is inherently painted as the good side or the bad side.

Ensemble Narrative

In an ensemble narrative, there may be multiple POV characters, but they are all united in a single story. They may have their own arcs and goals, but going from a chapter or episode focused on Character A to one focused on character B will still be advancing the overarching narrative instead of being disjointed. Heroes of Olympus shifts between narrators, but the overarching goal of stopping Gaea is the collective goal of the entire team. In TV shows, this manifests in what I would call The Team shows, where there is no central main character, but each major character gets their own arc or episodes dedicated to them. Teen Titans, Avatar: the Last Airbender, and Voltron: Legendary Defender are shows where there may be a “Cyborg Episode” or a “Raven Episode”, but the show is about all five of the Titans, and each gets their own turn in the spotlight with the story focused on them. Unlike other multiple POV stories, you can switch up the focus character without disrupting the flow of the story, and allow each character to feel more important. The cast doesn’t have to be together for the full story to work either. For the first two books, the Heroes of Olympus has two sets of heores, with Jason, Piper, and Leo in book 1, then Percy, Hazel, and Frank in book 2. Percy and Annabeth also get separated from the rest of the party when they fall into Tartarus, leaving those two to have their own disconnected storyline. Likewise, Keith spends time with the Blade of Marmora away from Team Voltron, and Zuko goes on life-changing field trips with Sokka and Katara in book 3 of Avatar. The Teen Titans spend most of season 5 separated or in smaller groups, and Beast Boy is left all alone for most of the finale, having to scrounge up a ragtag team of minor super heroes and old allies to bring down the Brain and his legion of doom. An Ensemble Narrative is best when you have a collective of equally interesting heroes all working together toward a common goal, and especially in television leans toward being an episodic format with an overarching plot, rather than a highly serialized plot. A serialized plot leaves too little time for character-driven episodes where each team member gets a moment to shine and be the central character for that episode, though some shows like Once Upon a Time accomplish similar things, where one episode will be about Snow White, and then the next might be about Belle and Rumpelstiltskin or Little Red Riding Hood. It’s definitely more serialized than the cartoons I listed, but it will still take a given episode to put the spotlight on a particular character or a particular storyline. Some characters, like Aurora or Snow White, get full season-long arcs, while characters like Cinderella and Ariel get an episode to their stories, making Once Upon a Time a rather interesting mix of Ensemble and Interwoven.

Fractured Narratives

Stories like Once Upon a Time and the 1st season of Why Women Kill use utterly disconnected multiple POV stories to tell completely isolated stories that follow a theme, or connect back to one another in poignant ways. Why Women Kills uses its first season to tell 3 disjointed stories of affairs and relationship drama, all tied together by a single house, even connecting the stories in one episode by showing a neighbor who saw all three murders in the house, from the time he was a little boy in the 60s to being an old man in the 2010s. Aside from this one neighbor and the house itself, there is no connection between any of the stories. Once Upon a Time uses a different approach, splitting the story between the current events in Storybrooke, Maine, contrasted by the backstory events in The Enchanted Forest. Many of the backstory scenes are used to give context clues or flesh out motivations, and are mirrored and repeated in the mundane world. The backstory elements are also not told in chronological order, freeing up the writers to add as much convoluted backstory as their hearts desired. In the second season, Mary Margaret and Emma get sent to the Enchanted Forest, and this creates a story where Mary Margaret and Emma have their own side plot, but functionally the story still only has two fractured halves, because the past events of the Enchanted Forest don’t ever connect with ongiong plotpoints in the Storybrooke timeline. Emma and Mary Margaret may be in the Enchanted Forest, but they are still firmly in the Storybrooke timeline. The Enchanted Forest Timeline is still in Mary Margaret and Emma’s past. In both of these stories, the fractured multiple POV is used to tell a story across a wide stretch of time, separating the past and present, while highlighting recurring themes, motifs, symbols, and imagery as they repeat again and again. These stories excel when history repeating itself or destiny being impossible to escape is a recurring theme. Movies like Titanic are similar to this, but fail to properly become a Fractured Narrative because even though there is a story set in two different time periods with different characters, the ones in the modern setting aren’t developed enough to have similar arcs to the characters in the backstory, or to play out similar events to those found in the backstory. It’s a wonderful movie, and I will fight to get Rose DeWitt Bukater recognized as an action heroine, but the characters in the modern day timeline don’t get enough time to shine to really say that the story is split evenly between two parallel stories with recurring themes or ideas. It’s a story set in the past with a modern day framing device.

Patchwork Narratives

This is what happens when you combine the Fractured Narrative with the Interwoven Narrative. Cloud Atlas is the only example of this that I know off the top of my head, as each story is its own self-contained narrative, but then, certain stories will overlap as well. The narrative of Sonmi ends up connecting to the postapocalyptic story as the speech she gives from her part of the story ended up becoming the holy doctrine of this new society in which she has become a goddess. There’s also an ongoing motif of a birthmark that resembles a shooting star or comet. In a patchwork narrative, context for one story is found in another disjointed part of the story, where all of the parts come together to tie everything together, making a story of sewn-together components that, together, tell one whole story. Like with the Interwoven stories, this is better for grandiose ideas and large casts, and like with a Fractured narrative, it allows the story to jump across time and space to put emphasis on themes, motifs, and symbols. Because I can only really name one story I know that does this story structure (and quite well I might add), I can’t really highlight any further advice on how to construct such a narrative, except to tell you to pop in Cloud Atlas, turn on subtitles to understand the post-apocalyptic part of the story, and take notes.

Hopefully, after looking at a few examples of multiple POVs and the ways they’re used, this can give you a better sense of how you want to structure your own stories, what you should aim to do with the story, or reference materials for you to check out if you want to learn a certain storytelling style. There is no one single perfect point of view, but I like to think the shifting POV to be one of the most challenging and interesting when done correctly.

#writing #writeblr #pov #point of view #multiple pov #shifting pov #narration #narrative structure #writing advice #writing tips #points of view #writing is hard #writing for the screen #screen writing

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

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Do you have any advice on how to write a noncon scene? I kind of want to try writing one as an experiment, but it’s not something I’m used to writing at all. I really don’t know where to start. I’m worried that it will just end up being cringy.

CW: Discussion of writing noncon under the cut, will not be graphic exactly but it will discuss emotions, resulting trauma, physical effects, etc

So, my first piece of advice is this: do not be afraid of the first go-round being cringy. Do not fear this. It will probably happen, because your first time writing out of your previous comfort zone will often end up feeling stilted or difficult! That is TOTALLY normal, don’t feel bad.

Secondly, let’s talk POV. Because a noncon scene from the whumper POV will be very different than from the whumpee POV. Your whumper can be intimate - they can be forcing some kind of affection into the moment, playacting at this being something other than what it is, etc. They may be sadistic and chasing their own pleasure without any regard for how it hurts the whumpee, or enjoying their pain.

The whumpee may be frightened. They may be angry. They may get sick, or feel sick. They may be defiant or freeze up (fight, flight, or freeze is a good place to start thinking this through - would my OC fight back? Would they try to get away? Would they just freeze up and go still?)

Some super quick pointers:

1. It is very possible or entirely inevitable that your whumpee WILL be injured unless the whumper takes specific care to take steps to keep them from being physically injured by the process. The process of preparing them is often good for building tension and dread into a scene, but it’s not necessary if it doesn’t fit your whumper.

2. If your whumper is an intimate or romantic whumper, they may spend time trying to make the whumpee ‘enjoy’ themself, or convincing them they want this, or they made it happen in some way, etc. If they are sadistic, they may instead delight in emphasizing how much the whumpee does NOT want it! An overlap may be discussing how beautiful their tears are, etc.

3. Your whumpee’s thoughts will likely fragment and become disjointed or panicked, but also they may begin to dissoci@te, feeling ‘separate’ from themself and what’s happeing to them.

4. You don’t need to use a lot of flowery terminology for the body parts involved. I’m a big fan of cutting to the chase. Call a cock a cock, if you will. Euphemisms can be incredibly distracting for the reader and take them out of the scene. But also, if your creepy whumper is like my Savvie Marcoset, maybe they use those euphemisms to build even further dread and disgust in the whumpee without even realizing it. The flowery language may be part of how the whumper hurts them.

5. Noncon is a traumatic event. Your whumpee may try to set it aside, to keep going. Some survivors can rationalize or talk themselves through it long enough to push through the immediate danger. Some can’t. Take some time to think through your OC and what their post-noncon response would be. Every single person who survives a traumatic event is an individual who may have a different response both in the moment and afterward.

Examples:

Kauri tends to turn it around, because of his own trauma and conditioning, and convince himself he wanted it. He pursues unhealthy physical connections with men for a long time as a way to more or less feel in control of a body he lost any agency over. With Owen, in the moment, he tries to please him and is frightened of not being able to do so well enough to keep Owen happy.

@whumpiary’s Cassius Bergen outright seeks out echoes of his own trauma to take control of it, and in the moment even when frightened forces himself to feign being into it, cracks jokes, etc.

@evermetnotforgotten’s Lev often dissoci@tes heavily and simply feels less present during his assaults.

Danny Michaelson slips into a headspace of eager-to-please to make his experience less horrifying in the moment only to let his emotions out when he’s alone.

Chris, you’ll notice, even in his memories primarily thinks of what happened to him with Oliver in metaphor and very vague allusions and doesn’t think about it with detail - until his breakdown, when finally you see him remember and acknowledge how absolutely horrifying his experience was, the terror and pain. In the moment, when he is facing it, he freezes up, goes still, and can’t fight back or even run.

@moose-teeth’s B is a fighter, who defies and fights until literally injured badly enough that he can’t anymore.

@whump-tr0pes’s Isaac names it what it is but also folds it into his existing struggles with self-loathing.

Antoni simply represses it entirely and refuses to acknowledge it ever happened. Even in the moment with Mr. Davies, he refused to name what was happening to him, because it would make it ‘real’.

6. For writing in the moment - if whumpee POV, keep in mind that as the scene unfolds, the whumpee’s thoughts will likely get shorter, interrupted, cut off. Show, don’t tell - the scratchy cheap sheets under their back, a cold chain around their ankles, the overheated warmth of the whumper, how sweat feels dripping onto skin. Disgust. Nausea. Their movements. Describe it all. Rather than saying, “Whumpee laid on the bed and thought they would throw up”, consider some details that feel more immediate:

Whumpee’s eyes locked on the ceiling fan, lazily circling, clicking softly with each full circle of the blades. The rhythmic click of the fan matched the way Whumper moved, his every rock forward briefly blotting out the sight of the fan, revealing it again.

His stomach twisted, lurched, and he felt bile rise up his throat. When he coughed, dry and sounding more like a sob, the Whumper clapped a hand over his mouth and whispered, “Don’t you dare ruin this moment.”

7. For writing the aftermath - does your whumper pretend to comfort them? Do they clean the Whumpee up, provide aftercare that is a mockery of affection? Do they simply leave them to clean themself up, or even leave them somewhere where that isn’t possible? Are they injured, requiring first aid?

8. Finally, I want to reiterate my first bit of advice: the first time you write noncon, it will probably be cringy. It’s your first draft! Oh man. The first noncon scene I ever wrote was the actual fucking worst. It was SO BAD. But I reused details from it later on in a much better-written scene!

Get the writing out, then reread and edit as you go, working through bits you’re not sure about. Consider how you can make the moments connect and flow together.

My biggest advice for a successful scene here is to remember that you are writing an act which will be traumatic to the Whumpee. Don’t throw that aside or ignore it, and to focus on sensory details of the experience to make it more immediate and grounded.

#noncon tw #writing noncon #writing #writing advice #whump writing

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gffa · 3 years

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I know I've brought this up before, but how much of the fandom reception of the prequels do you think stemmed from the genre dissonance? That the prequels, genre-wise, are closer to high fantasy, while the OT is more an adventure/space western/underdog triumph story.

The prequels also have elements more reminiscent of a romantic period/court drama/Shakespearean tragedy, while if you consider the underdog angle of the OT, the OT also seems kinda similar to some of those inspirational movies about sports teams or something, or a shonen anime with the "Power of Friendship".

I'm just saying, these are rather disparate genres that tend to attract different demographics of people.

And not many people tend to be... great about understanding why they don't like something, much less putting it into words, or understanding that they can dislike something without that something being actually bad. (For example, instead of "I just don't really like [thing]," the usual statement is something along the lines of "[thing] absolutely sucks.")

So the usual response is trying to find (and gather) solidarity while putting down or being condescending towards any dissent, and trying to justify their own dislike. (*gestures vaguely towards pineapple on pizza*)

And historically, it's not uncommon for people to... react strongly towards things they find... different or abnormal, which they judge based on themselves, their emotional response to something, and what they're used to.

Looking at kids, this behavior is... fairly normal. "You're weird," "ew, why do you like that, that's gross," "that's stupid," and so on. A lot of kids/teens/young adults also get defensive really easily. And let's face it--adults are basically just older, taller kids who've had to deal with more of life.

(To be honest, I also get defensive really easily. A lot of people do, and it's... it's normal. The defensive reaction can be lashing out, denial, or just being passive-aggressive or staying silent and tuning it out or mentally rolling your eyes at it. But I'm trying to work on it, because just because it's normal doesn't mean it's a good reaction.)

So, what I'm wondering is whether some fans dislike the prequels simply because it's a different genre...

...but instead of realizing that, they try to defend and justify their dislike by pointing fingers and criticizing whatever stood out or looked different from the OT or cherry-picking details/taking things out of context or making negative conflations (that can be refuted).

Because it's not about logic, it's about how they feel. And people want to feel justified and validated, and we want to feel like we're right and we enjoy staying in our comfort zones. So... yeah. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LOL, okay, this response is going to be really disjointed because I went off in like a dozen different tangents and even then it's not enough to cover everything, so just kind of read this in a Scattered Thoughts Nerd kind of tone, where I'm staring off into the distance because Navel Gazing Gets Me Going Sometimes. 😂 In my experience, it's sort of a mix. I don't hang around a lot of people who dislike the prequels (in the sense of dismissing them/not being fannish about them) because, well, that's the heart of my interest in Star Wars, so our areas of interest basically don't really overlap that much, so I don't have a chance to talk to a lot of people and find out their reasons or even how they dislike the prequels, in the bigger trends of fandom. I do think there's an element of what you're talking about, that sometimes people can't just dislike things because it's not their genre of choice, that's absolutely a part of it. Mostly because that's how a lot of people react to anything they don't like (and it's something I and literally everyone else has to work on), there has to be a reason for it that it's objectively bad and, like, I have experienced a lot of people getting mad because I like something in a different way than they do. And I don't mean just in Star Wars fandom, but in almost any given fandom--if someone likes something in a way someone else doesn't, if they talk loudly about it (even within their own space), then there's always a contingent of people who have to find a reason why that person is objectively wrong (or even try to make them morally wrong), rather than just shrugging and going, "We see things differently, my view on things doesn't overwrite theirs and their view on things doesn't overwrite mine." It gets more complicated in instances where fandom attitudes genuinely can be hurtful, especially when they're overlapping into the way real people are treated, likes/dislikes don't 100% exist in a bubble, especially when it comes to queer fans, fans of color, disabled fans, mentally ill fans, etc. But that there are a lot of instances where fandom culture has always been--and is increasingly so--contentious and it's hard to chill out when someone is always screaming at you, when the atmosphere of the fandom is always so intense. Further, there's also an element of how fandom has always been--and also is increasingly so--about personal resonance, personal emotional investment, interpretation, and meaning. That sometimes we identify with something so deeply that we feel attacked when someone else likes or dislikes something we feel so strongly about, something that we feel is a reflection of ourselves, and I see a lot of that as well. And this, too, often crosses over into lines of how the context of how we treat characters can be reflections of how we treat real world people, but that there's no monolith here as well. For example: I make fun of Anakin, this angers some people, because how dare I not take this fictional victim 100% seriously, despite that I have repeatedly said that Anakin is the character I most identify with, that things I make fun of him for are ones that I resonate with personally. I'm not disrespecting mentally ill people, especially considering that Anakin is not bound to a single interpretation on this front--he is not canonically mentally ill, no matter how easy it is for us in fandom to map much of that onto his character or, in my case, feel that so much of what I see in him are things I struggle with myself. By and large, the majority of the people I see (at least on tumblr) who make fun of Anakin are doing so within the same vein, that they're being silly about him on things that they personally relate to. (My experiences on this are not universal, I cannot speak for the whole of even any one part of fandom, only my own sphere of experience, but this is what I've seen.) As always, it's fine if someone doesn't vibe with my style or they find that it's not their thing because they do take him more seriously, but that preference does not make my jokes

suddenly not have the context that I relate a lot to what I see in Anakin. In contrast, the way some of the fandom treats Mace or Finn isn't just personal all the time. Not liking their characters isn't inherently racist, but the way they're consistently, consistently treated sure as hell speaks to a larger pattern of racism in fandom and doesn't come without that context. It's the same with Rey--is there a huge vein of misogyny when it comes to her character? Abso-fucking-lutely there is. Things Luke and Anakin get a pass on, Rey is raked over the coals for. Is everyone who dislikes Rey a misogynist? Not even close. Some don't like her because Finn was used as a prop for her story. Some people don't like her because she got sucked into Kylo Ren's story too much. Some just don't care for the way she was written for other reasons. Some just don't vibe with her. It's fine. Nothing is a monolith. And to circle this back around to what you're talking about--it's hard to judge, both because no part of fandom is a monolith in their reactions, but also because we're only hearing from a selection of the fans. How do you know how many people who aren't fans of the prequels, who just don't care for them because it's not their genre, but just go about their day? You don't hear from a lot of them because they moved on to things they do like, so it seems like they must not exist--except, they do, and they're just out there doing things they like more. We only hear from the people who feel the need to tell others they dislike the prequels for this reason or that reason, some valid, some less valid, etc. Ultimately, I do think there's probably a fair amount of genre dissonance for why people dislike the prequels and channel that into "they're objectively bad" and get defensive when people like them and say they were great, but only because that's true of anything anywhere. But that it's only one small slice of the bigger picture (and there's a lot of stuff that I had to eschew in the writing of this response as well because it can be a pretty sprawling topic), where there are tons of reasons and reactions that people have, as well as they're perfectly free to dislike the prequels for whatever reason they do or don't have, it doesn't really affect my opinions, unless they're trying to shove it in my face or are being a dick to those who disagree with them.

#lumi.txt #idk how to tag this

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honeyalchemist · 3 years

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Thats probably something people ask all the time, but how necessary would you say it is to actually start a legit note taking grimoire before you start getting into witchcraft? I have been on and off on witchcraft since my teens basically and honestly it doesn't really ever feel like I am actually... Practicing....anything whenever I do it and I actually thought that "Hey maybe writing would help" , but at the same time imagining myself sitting down and writing it down like a schoolbook also already feels....not quite right for reasons I can't explain (I guess it's partly because my thoughts are always very disjointed and note taking basically devolved into writing things over and over again until I didn't need the notes anymore in school so....yeah)

Also if you have any advice on how to approach all of this withouth already feeling like you are not gonna accomplish anything.....would be great, yeah. I am sorry this got so negative at the end but I genuinly feel like I myself am just fooling myself with all of this, not because it's not real but because the problem is me and.... Yeah not a great vibe.

Hello sweets! First, thank you for feeling comfortable enough to ask me of all people about this!!!

This is question I really have to take the time to answer because different things work for different people.

Some people will say you need to accomplish years of studying like school before you cast your first spell. I'm not in that party but I do see merit in that belief. Witchcraft can be VERY dangerous, so it's important to get all of the basics down and mastered before you really delve into it.

Personally I believe you can only master your craft by actually practicing it. It may seem boring, but early on in your craft you should be repeating the same basic skills until you have them near perfect. But I don't think you should ONLY be practicing basics. Sometimes there isn't a need for the basics to be practiced constantly. But they're the basics for a reason. You should be able to slowly branch out from the basics as you get more comfortable in your craft and your abilities.

I do think it is important to RECORD your practice in any way you are comfortable with. If it's writing, more power to you. But you can also video record, audio record, and even collage (with appropriate notations). But I believe witchcraft is closer to science than people assume, so I find it important to be able to repeat your spells/rituals/etc. with necessary modifications to achieve your desired results. You cannot grow in your craft without changing what doesn't work, and even what works but is too costly (be it time, materials, or even energy).

Now onto the topic of study itself. It takes a lot of time and trials to find out what study method truly works for you. It sucks but think back to your schooling days, and ponder what kind of learning method best suits you. Are you better at learning by sitting and reading through sources, and writing information down? Then do exactly that. Are you better at learning through visual shows and being orally walked through the steps? Head on down to YouTube and find some witchy YouTubers to learn from.

Once you've got that down, consider how you best retain that information. Is it better for you to sit down and copy lines? Is it better to actively practice what you learn? Is it better to "teach" others? You can record yourself "teaching others" to help you better retain and recall the information you've learned.

If you really feel you must write down the information you've learned, then I don't really recommend just writing down pages and pages of lines of notes. There's a variety of methods that could make the information more digestible and even fun to interact with and refresh if necessary.

One of the reasons you see so many grimoires filled with pictures and diagrams and interactive parts is that it makes relearning and refreshing that information more fun, do you're more likely to do just that. Use diagrams and pictures to help fill your pages and make the information stick a little better. You could even reduce your words even more by creating a picture heavy grimoire with just necessary words to help understand a little easier. Think of this. You have a Potion you want to make. Draw or print out pictures of the ingredients and insert them in your grimoire, with labels to identify what is harder to identify. If there's a specific order in which these items must be added, or a set of steps for a ritual that must be followed while making the Potion, draw or print out pictures of these steps and insert them in the correct order and perhaps draw arrows indicating order, or even write down the numbered order of steps.

If that's not really your style, then consider mind mapping. There's a variety of mind mapping methods you can use, but for me I typically write a word or phrase indicating the main topic of something I'm studying and put that in the middle of my page and circle it. From that circle, branch out into smaller circles with topics directly related to the initial phrase. And from those smaller circles, branch out even smaller to flesh out the idea of the initial phrase further. Here's a cute visual to explain a little better:

Witchcraft is a lot of trial and error. Try and try again to find out what method works best for you. It may seem like you are accomplishing nothing in this time where you are trying to find your suited method, but keep in mind each failure is a step closer to finding what works best for you.

I really hope this helped!!! If anybody has some further input, please share 💖

#personal #witch #magic #witchcraft #grimoire #witch research #ask #witchy ask #note taking

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queen-of-the-danse · 4 years

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I got into a conversation on Reddit with someone about the less than stellar writing of the companions in Fallout 4 and how they could be improved. They described them as semi-mute donkeys, which I found both amusing and accurate.

The first thing I'd do is give them more conversations. Danse, for example, only actually has four conversations with Sole. For reference, I'm excluding plot-related conversations such as stuff he says in Call To Arms because it's mostly just him talking at the Sole Survivor (gotta love that tell not show lmao). You can listen to it all in 15 minutes. To compare, Cullen from Dragon Age Inquisition has 14 conversations, excluding plot related conversations. And that's just conversations that go into actual cutscenes, it's not including all the mini conversations you can have with him. To listen to all of Cullen's dialogue content it takes 1 hour and 38 minutes.

Related to the conversations I would not have the romance be the last conversation. For a lot of people the best part about companions is developing a relationship with them, whether or not it's romantic. For most companions the earliest you can flirt with them is the second to last conversation, with Danse it's the third to last (his second conversation, in other words). With no build up or any real cultivation of a relationship this feels extremely forced and disjointed. I generally disagree with people who complain about characters being "player-sexual" (people said the same thing about Dragon Age 2) because a lot of the time it's thinly veiled biphobia, but the obvious lack of care and effort (or perhaps lack of skill) makes it feel like the argument has more merit in FO4.

Have the characters actually interact with each other. The only times your companions interact with each other is when you're switching between companions, but they only ever say one line to each other and it's always the same line. The only time I can really think of any of the companions properly interacting is between Piper and Nick, but that's to further the plot. I think the best way to solve this issue would be to have two companions follow you at the same time. That way they could have banter akin to Dragon Age companions. Another way would be able to allow them to interact when at the same settlement.

On a similar note, I know that companions do comment on their environment and the quest at hand on occasion, but I think they need to increase that. Really helps with the semi-mute donkey problem.

Have more physical interactions with the characters. I know there's implied sex if you sleep while a romanced companion follows you, but the ability to hug them or kiss them would have been amazing. Also ngl, as horrifying as I'm sure the Bethesda sex animations would have been I still think it would have been a nice addition. Non-sexual interactions could be stuff like sharing a drink at a bar or something like that.

The companions need to have the appearance of a life outside of the Sole Survivor. Preston kinda shows this as he has random NPCs come up to him and thank him for his work with the Minutemen, but that's really it. In theory Piper should be chasing down stories, Nick should be working on new cases, Hancock should be managing Goodneighbour, Danse should be commanding other BoS members, etc. But they don't. I think part of the problem is that once recruited you have to send them to a settlement, whereas for the companions that have homes it would make much more sense for them to go back home. Piper is literally abandoning her 10 year old sister. It would also be kinda cool if Piper continued to publish stories, perhaps based on quests you've completed such as a story and interview with Vadim after Confidence Man. I know there are two cases (excluding DLC) that you can work on with Nick, but considering you don't even have to do those with him it doesn't really count. I'd really like a radiant quest with Nick to help him solve cases, though preferably offered less often than Preston's Minutemen quests. For companions that don't have homes I'd like to see them interact with settlements in their own way. For example, Curie could set up a little medical shop or could walk around doing scientific research (plus imagine how cute she'd be with a little clipboard).

The companions need actual arcs and this includes personal quests. Most of them have some semblance of an arc, but none of it is impactful or really changes the companion that much, the main exception being Cait. Danse doesn't even change his Brotherhood lines post-Blind Betrayal nor do his approval/disapproval triggers change, despite dialogue implying he's begun to at least question some of his personal beliefs. The personal quests help give the companions a motivation and a want that exists outside of the Sole Survivor. Plus it's just interesting and god knows Fallout 4 needed more interesting quests. Piper, Deacon, Hancock, and X6-88 don't even have personal quests.

Companions that aren't fully formed should have either been cut or made complete companions (I'm excluding Dogmeat here because, well, he's a dog). This is really just Codsworth and Strong. I would obviously have preferred to have all the companions be full companions, I think Strong is genuinely interesting and it's a shame he doesn't have proper conversations. But yeah, if it would have saved them time to put more effort into the fleshed out companions I would have preferred that, quality over quantity and all that.

Very interested to hear everyone's thoughts!

#fallout 4 #fo4 #danse #paladin danse #piper wright #john hancock #preston garvey #x6-88 #x6 88 #deacon #robert joseph maccready #robert maccready #nick valentine #curie #codsworth #strong #fallout 4 companions #fo4 companions

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imagine-turtles · 3 years

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Ggggnhgfjdhdjdjdjd ok new request bro, how about the boys receiving anonymous appreciation letters (like little encouraging or praising words, or just things like "I hope you know how much I appreciate you and everything you do for me" etc) like once a week or something, and they dont know who it's from but one day they recognize its their crush's handwriting? How would they feel about the anonymous letters? Would they want to write back even if they dont know who it's from? Would they be suspicious? And how would they react to discovering who wrote them?

Bayverse ‘cause I make the rules. (KIDDING, let me know if you’re looking for another era.)

Leonardo isn’t clueless about his secret admirer’s identity for long; his family only knows a handful of people, and only a few out of those people know him well enough to target his ego so accurately.

Unfortunately, he starts overthinking the whole thing. Why are they doing this? Why not just talk to him directly? Does he seem unapproachable? Are they messing with him, knowing it could never work out? Splinter and April bear the full brunt of Leonardo’s near-obsessive need to deduce their exact intentions, not that April minds--all she does is uhuh and mhm and maybe they just like you, doofus. She may even tip off the “anonymous” writer to let them know that their super cute idea is inadvertently stressing the recipient out.

Once the situation is put to rest, Leonardo’s thrilled to have his crush’s support, but he’d honestly rather be talking face to face than through notes. It’s faster, easier, and looking at them when they speak kills most of his anxiety about where he stands.

~~~

Raphael thinks most writing looks pretty much the same--the only exception being April’s tendency to write everything huge, in all caps--so he has no idea who keeps leaving him letters. Touchy-feely, deadly accurate, borderline romantic letters, that he stashes more carefully than anything else he owns. He may as well be hiding nuclear launch codes. Logically, he knows it’d be safer to just read and destroy, but he can’t bear to part with a single one. Not even the goofy little post-its.

The decision of whether or not to write back plagues Raphael for weeks. He wants so badly for his crush to be the one leaving him the notes, he’s almost content not knowing instead of considering someone else. And what if he writes back, but they’re disappointed by what he writes? What if he never gets another letter? The rest of the family notes his new moodiness, but he’d sooner relinquish the top bunk than open up to one of them about it.

Even when Raphael realizes who he’s been writing, he doesn’t ever really stop. Sending letters back and forth becomes a pastime never acknowledged out loud, a way for him to voice exactly what he’s feeling without having to justify himself. Besides, isn’t it just horribly, decadently romantic?

~~~

Like Leonardo, Donatello would probably identify the handwriting fairly quickly. This isn’t just due to their limited social circle, either; he verifies his hunch with some forensic handwriting recognition software he “borrowed” from the NYPD to be double sure, and checks the security cams to be triple sure.

(He weakly reasons that it’s not creepy to check the cameras in your own house, and he did tell them that nearly every inch of the lair is recorded.)

Donatello isn’t quite sure if his crush is shy, messing with him, or just thinks he needs cheering up, but he’s willing to play their game and find out. Rather than leaving them physical notes, he starts sending them little gifts. Sometimes they’re useful, sometimes they’re just snacks or trinkets, but they’re always accompanied by a brief note. The exchanges between he and his crush turn into a sort of disjointed conversation between them, occasionally bleeding into their in-person interactions by picking up where they left off. No one else tries to follow exactly what they’re talking about anymore.

~~~

Michelangelo needs to know who’s sending him gooey notes or he will simply pass away. Unlike his brothers, he’s not only happy to share, he keeps everyone updated with a running commentary. Yes, his family is happy for him, but they really, really don’t need a play-by-play analysis every single time he receives so much as a “great job” post-it.

Mikey makes it his mission to reply to every single one, placing it exactly where he found the previous message in the hopes that his pen pal sees it. It briefly occurs to him that anyone else could also read the notes, but hey, it’s not like he’s trying to be sneaky. His brothers have no desire to further involve themselves, and he begs Leonardo to proofread them anyways. He’d shout his feelings from the tippy-top of the nearest radio tower if it would earn him more mysterious attention.

It honestly doesn’t take Michelangelo too long to figure out his ~secret pen pal~ is the person he was hoping it was. Which is great! Better than great! Now he can start leaving them notes too--but not just notes. He takes it upon himself to “redecorate” an overpass into a mural for his crush, smack dab in the middle of their usual commute.

#back in the saddle girls gays n theys...#tmnt #tmnt imagines #tmnt bayverse #leonardo #raphael #donatello #michelangelo #dianounais

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thoughtfulpaperback · 3 years

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CHARMED 03X09 REVIEW SPOILERS!!!!!

Am I the only one who thought that the breaking of Jordan's Curse was weak as heck? I'll go into further detail about why I didn't care much for it but I feel that it is the main reason I am giving this episode a 7/10. It was solid as far as entertainment goes, but it wasn't as exciting to me as some past episodes have been.

Anyways I guess I will continue on to the dislikes now.

DISLIKES

1) The end of Jordan's curse

Okay y'all, I get the poeticness of jordan being released from his curse by convincing a projection of Florence with his whole the past can't be changed and I am not going to be a violent person/I'm different. My whole issue with this is that the whole curse said you had to balance the scales of justice and that was kinda of exciting to think about how the show was going to go that route and what it might mean as far as tasks go.

This was a decidedly weak way to end a potentially exciting curse. Because the curse wasn't actually "broken" Jordan was released from it.

And on that note, I also have issues with that logic. So the spell was just a simple containment gone wrong because of Jordan's curse....so why was Florence real in it?. Like it is technically trapping then in thier heads in a way. You telling me that Florence's spirit just hangs around in Jordan's mind?

Well since the curse made the spell go haywire that's why Florence was there.....

Okay so this curse can bring back the dead in your mind?

Its magic its fine however they try to explain it. I just wish they'd (the writers) would put more effort into making it make sense in the show. Not in the Q&A section of thier social media pages/interviews.

I am honestly getting tired of having to be Sherlock Holmes all the time and me having to discuss and question on go back to previous episodes to figure out how what they did makes sense in canon. It's exhausting.

And listen, I know that people might see this as negativity, but in the spirit of the episodes message, am I saying it. The writing does not need to be exceptional, but it shouldn't be lazy.

The audience shouldn't have to put in all the work to figure out what's going on. It be one thing if we trying to solve a mystery or speculate on where the show is going , but in general solutions to problems should make sense and be connected to what you've already set up. They spent so much build up on the idea of this curse and the price of "balancing the scales of justice" to have the curse ended all in a simple spell gone wrong narrative. Again, if they felt it was the best to have Jordan released from his cure rather than "break it" thats cool but not in a containment spell gone wrong. I personally didn't need an action scene or anything, but maybe in a spell/plotline actually related directly to the curse. It just came off as an easy out for the writers.

2) Introducing Josefina as a possible recurring character.

Don't hate! I love Josefina as a character and would love to see more of her......but this plate is already full. I have felt it a lot this season, but felt it was a nit pick not worth mentioning because I didn't expect it to get worse, but I am just going to say it.

Every episode has like three or so storylines. And while I dont mind them when they are all equally interesting and feel not too split, I feel that sometimes its too seperate and dis jointed. Its too much time apart and not enough together time. The more character they have introduced the more they have split the stories and I just would prefer that we'd see more together time than separated.

That's kind of what I complained about season two. That it was too much of everyone doing thier own thing that it felt off.

Thats said all I mean is that either they need to figure out how to write in a less disjointed way or to drop some characters. Which would be sad since they have spent a lot of time in the two recurring characters (Jordan and Abby) they already have.

I dont know exactly where they are going with Josefina or if she is going to be as recurring as Jordan and abby or if its more like a few episodes or just one more.

I would like to see more, but I dont trust the writers.....I feel like I say that a lot and that's sad.

LIKES

1) issue of the episode: Exceptionality

I have nothing to say other than thank God someone said it. It's exhausting being pressured into being a "model minority".

2) Josefina

Love the idea of the character and getting to learn more about Marisol and her side of the family.

Also like the idea of witch training. We never actually got to see the PO3 Learn about magic and study magic all that much. Even on season 1 a big issue I had was that they never really put as much effort into showing how the ladies are going about learning and training to fight demons/evil. The training orb was a simple way to do so but we didn't get to see very much of it. It was all mostly assumed off screen.

3) Language issues

I like that they brought up (briefly) the whole language issue in the Latinx community. So I assume most of us know it but ill just go through it a bit.

There are many different voices in the community and there are some that believe that the language (Spanish and/or other native or native based jargon) are essential to the experience. Some go as far as to say you can't really consider yourself latinx if you dont speak Spanish.

Which is bonkers in my mind because (as in episode with Maggie) latinx people face similar issues based on thier appearance and last name whether or not they speak Spanish. There are many latinx people who do not speak Spanish and yet it is assumed they do.

No being raised in a Spanish speaking (or other native language) household does open you up to different experiences (language erasure, ESL school experiences, etc) those aren't soley latinx and shouldn't be a "admissions" requirement.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

Macy letting Harry go to Abby alone (I am to be that secure that Abby aint gonna try it)

Maggie mad that Antonio swooped in because he speaks Spanish - that ain't his fault take notes.

Jordan-sorry-it-was-instinct-I-wanted-to-protect-you-Chase

Brujeria wasn't stigmatized until the colonizers

"Stay for that whiskey"

Scorpions

#harry greenwood #charmed spoilers #macy vaughn #charmed reboot #charmed cw #charmed remake #cw charmed #charmed 2018 spoilers #charmed 2018 #mel vera #maggie vera #jordan chase

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the-signs-of-two · 3 years

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Do you think there are still hopes for season 5? A lot of articles claim that there is no future for sherlock holmes and that we should give up our hopes of season 5. Thoughts?

Ouf.

Tough one. And a long one to answer. But I want to be truthful and thorough.

Based purely on advertising and how keen people are to keep audiences invested, I don’t think they’re allowing us much hope. It’s been almost four years and they’ve done very little to maintain any kind of hype or interest, perhaps with the exception of keeping the escape room going. The sad truth of it is that a show will rarely get picked up for a new series if the majority of viewers have moved on. And they’ve done very little to keep their viewers excited about the prospect of a series 5.

Then, of course, there’s the elephant in the room, whether you’re a hardcore TJLC’er or a casual viewer: the fact that series 4, on a surface level, was just... not very good. It looks and feels disjointed and very different from the previous series and casual viewers don’t want to spend hours and hours trying to figure out if it was actually better than its surface narrative. That sort of thing - taking a long hiatus, hyping a new series by saying it’ll be television history and then delivering a somewhat lukewarm product - drives viewers away. And like I said, if most viewers no longer care, chances are it won’t be picked up for a new series.

That’s one way to look at it. But what about the actual story?

The show is called Sherlock. And I think, putting my Johnlock-glasses to the side, you could actually argue that Sherlock does come full circle. In series 1, Sherlock is driven almost entirely by his logic. He’s arrogant, cocky and he makes a show of being disdainful and unfeeling, even if you get small glimpses showing that that isn’t actually who he is. With every series, Sherlock has moved further away from that and become a softer, more emphatic version of himself - a version of himself who cares more about making his close ones happy than about making himself look cool and mysterious. Series 4 does seem to complete that narrative. They made Eurus into the synthesis of everything Sherlock was and tried to be in the beginning of the show and turned that against Sherlock - and I actually really like that. I think it works. When Sherlock says that they’re “experiencing science from the perspective of lab rats”, we’re reminded of the time when he would do something similar: when he would pretend to be Ian Monkford’s friend to get information from his wife, when he would scare/traumatise the already traumatised headmistress to get information on two missing children, when he would compliment Molly’s hair to convince her to show him two bodies. In each instance, it was to do good, to get ahead in a case, but it was also a coldly calculated piece of manipulation, one which Sherlock showed zero regret for. The way he acted in first couple of series hurt other people - sometimes you wouldn’t feel any remorse for them, but sometimes it was Sherlock’s closest. Let’s take the most obvious example: locking John in a lab after (as far as he knew) drugging him, then providing him with sound effects and watching what would happen on the monitors. Don’t you think John experienced science from the perspective of a lab rat then? Sherlock is a different person now, but TFP also forces him to come to terms with the consequences of his previous behaviour. He has to confront logical problems - kill one man or three men, kill one man or two people will die, save Molly’s life etc. - but he has to face the emotional consequences of those logical decisions. He can’t just look away as he used to do. Seen in that way, I actually think TFP does provide a poignant culmination of Sherlock’s character arc. When Lestrade says that Sherlock is now a good man rather than a great man, it does feel earned.

However. Then there’s... well, everyone else. I’m pretty sure I could tell you what John’s character arc was all about in HLV. If this is the end, I no longer know what his character arc was. John makes horrible decision upon horrible decision in series 4. A cynical reading would be that he’s “stupid for the plot”. They needed to drive a wedge between Sherlock and John for TLD, so they didn’t care that John’s decision to blame Sherlock for Mary’s death in TST makes absolutely no sense. Then there’s the morgue scene, which... To be fair, it has actually been foreshadowed that John is a violent person. That he has very bad aggression issues and that he deals with a lot of anger in a physical manner. Sherlock isn’t perfect, but John certainly isn’t either. And I actually think the morgue scene could work in that light. Hear me out. Sherlock has done bad things to John, he really has, and all those things have been in line with his character and a reflection of his flaws. John beating Sherlock up could work in the same way. But it HAS TO BE ADDRESSED. When Sherlock does something morally reprehensible and psychologically scarring, it’s not presented as acceptable. When Sherlock locks John in the lab, you FEEL that what he did was unacceptable. John calls him out for it and it’s discussed. And this happens a number of times and each time, Sherlock shows more and more regret for his actions. He begins to apologise. He begins to try to change. If the morgue scene is going to work as a low point in John’s morality which prompts him to feel regret and try to change, it needs to be presented that way. It needs to be presented as bad (it is), it needs to be presented as a low point (it is), but it also needs to be presented as unjustified, unacceptable and inexcusable. No matter how you feel, beating up your best friend is never okay. Just as no matter how badly you need to solve a case, experimenting on your best friend by subjecting him to a terror-indusing drug and locking him up to examine the effects is never okay. But John isn’t called out for this and it’s never discussed. That leaves John with no incentive to change, no moment of remorse and regret, no need to make amends. So, in a way, the series leaves him at his absolute lowest. Which isn’t a character arc, friends.

Then there’s Molly. After the most heartbreaking betrayal of all time, the series just... ends. Like, she’s there at the end and it’s all fine. The part where the man she loved told her to tell him that she loved him FOR AN EXPERIMENT and then she took the opportunity to make him say it in return, clinging on to those three words like her life depended on it... yeah, that happened, but he presumably told her that he had to do it and it was all fine. No lasting emotional damage or mistrust there.

You could argue that Mycroft does come full circle too. In TAB, he decides to relinquish control over Sherlock and instead tells John to take care of him in his place. In TFP, he goes all the way and decides to die to let John live. In doing so, he acknowledges that Sherlock needs John more than he needs Mycroft, but also that John is better for Sherlock than Mycroft ever was. After a lifetime of controlling and watching over Sherlock against his will, he finally decides to let Sherlock go live his own life and make his own decisions. And he proves his love by being prepared to die to give Sherlock happiness with John.

So... yeah. I think some character arcs did actually come full circle, while others definitely didn’t. I just took the most obvious examples here.

As a background story for the Holmes family, I don’t really think it works. To me, it doesn’t explain why Sherlock and Mycroft are the way they are - and it certainly is weird that their parents seem so normal and unconcerned about the whole thing. Buried trauma is definitely a thing, but there doesn’t seem to be any obvious correlation between what happened with Eurus and who Sherlock was at the beginning of the series. As for Mycroft... I honestly don’t know how he feels about Eurus, apart from the fact that he’s scared of her.

Then there’s the part where John flat out tells Sherlock that a romantic relationship would complete him as a human being. This goes completely unresolved. Are we meant to assume that Sherlock called Irene after this conversation and they got together? 1) Why should we assume this? And 2) effing straight culture, let him be gay, because he is.

To summarise... I don’t think TFP works as a conclusion. Some things are resolved, some are not. I think there’s so much story and plot left unresolved that a series 5 would definitely have story points to work with. Also, once you’ve said that a character needs a romantic relationship, you need to go through with that or it turns into a major hole in said character arc.

Getting a little more tinfoil hat-y, I think the television history, gut-punch moment could be a recreation of the circumstances around The Final Problem. The Final Problem seemingly finished the Sherlock Holmes stories by having Sherlock die. People were outraged and deeply upset. It took ten years for ACD to undo it and reveal that Sherlock had actually survived. Trying to recreate the atmosphere surrounding a beloved piece of literature in 1893 - that sort of thing has never been attempted before and would be television history. And in that light, it would make sense that they aren’t encouraging the rumours surrounding series 5. They need to make people think that Sherlock is “dead” if they are going to resurrect him. That’s the tinfoil hat speaking, but I can’t help but find it an intriguing idea. And I would be DOWN.

Still, they didn’t need to make series 4 bad for this to work. They could have just made it end sadly. Series 4 being bad and difficult to understand lost them a lot of viewers. And sadly, viewers are what make shows happen. In that sense, I think it could backfire very severely if that is their plan.

So there you have it. I haven’t lost hope. I think there’s still story and plot and characters that would make series 5 worth making. And of course I’ve only discussed surface narratives in this post. If some of the theories proposed by us (EMP) should turn out to be correct, it could fix a lot of the problems with series 4 and make for a fantastic gut-punch moment in series 5. But I will admit that I’m concerned it won’t be greenlit because people have lost interest. If it’s no longer likely to have a large audience because series 4 was bad, they may not be able to make it even if that was their original intent. Or they may need to really amp up the hype when and if they make series 5.

I hope this long ramble answered your question.

#Sherlock #BBC Sherlock #S5 #my thoughts #anon asks

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kangaracharacha · 3 years

Note

Imogen and all the OC asks

What is/are your OC’s nickname(s) and how did it come about? ‘sparrow’, because she turned up with hawkeye and a sparrow is a little shitty hawk and tony stark thinks he’s funny

What is the color of your OC’s eyes/hair/skin? blue, blonde, white.

How tall is your OC? not very tall. very short. probably like 5′-ish.

What is a noticeable physical attribute of your OC? there’s a long, ugly scar on the inside of her collarbone. otherwise, the general bad attitude mixed with the height is. amusing.

What does your OC normally wear? What would your OC wear on a special night? comfortable, practical clothing. dull colours, generic brands, doesn’t mind much what she looks like. for a special occasion, she’d dress down, but appropriate to the occasion.

What is one word you would use to describe your OC’s appearances? angry

Does your OC have any markings, such as a birthmark or a scar? scar on her collarbone.

How does your OC talk/what does your OC’s voice sound like? I’m honestly struggling here. It’s just normal. Just a normal voice. Good at shouting. Very loud. Usually angry.

What does your OC’s bedroom look like? His/her living area? kind of messy but like, organised chaos. she’s not really a chore-doer, yknow, she’s busy doing other stuff and she mostly lives alone so it doesn’t bother her or anyone else. it’s not really out of control or anything. apart from her clothes and stuff, she doesn’t really have her own space; in new york, she lives in clint’s apartment, an old, small space in an outdated building with second-hand furniture and a bunch of clint’s crap still sitting around, and if she has a place in sokovia it’s temporary housing and doubles as an office, so in the grand scheme of things she doesn’t really have a huge impact on the spaces she occupies while she’s there.

What does your OC keep in a special drawer? as sad as it is, nothing, she doesn’t really have a lot of possessions, definitely not special ones; the only things she brought with her from SHIELD were a bag of clothes, a knife, a gun, and a toothbrush, and since then she hasn’t quite settled enough to start collecting things - and living most of her life so far without a lot of stuff is just a hard habit to break.

What is your OC’s relationship with his/her mother? the evil scientist? she’s not a huge fan. kind of resents her like, a lot. imogen doesn’t remember anything about her except what other people have told her and the things she’s found out about herself, so she’s kind of just a stranger that set her up for a lifetime of frustrations.

What is your OC’s relationship with his/her father? nevr knew him, has like one vague memory of him being kind of nice, but in the end he was evil so she’s not really searching for any way to keep his memory alive.

How many siblings does your OC and what is his/her relationship with them? hah. she has one brother. having cut herself loose of that tie, she’s recently realised that that relationship was some kinda toxic and also he wasn’t afraid to kill her when ordered to so. you could say she’s not really interested in seeing him again either.

Who is the mother and/or father figure in your OC’s life? she’s a bit over parental figures and a bit too old for that kind of bond at this point in her life, but she does have a couple of ‘mentors’, people that she can rely on to point her in the right direction. clint barton is one, of course, you always have to have a good friend who can knock you out and tell you ‘hey maybe being on team hydra isn’t like, the most morally sound decision you could make’. pepper potts is a professional rolemodel she’s found she can look up to. she lowkey thinks she could be like pepper someday but she’ll never admit that ‘CEO’ sounds like a good job to her. and shoutout to Agent Donoghue, whose name i had to look up because he’s in sparrow for a whole five seconds but. she feels really bad about this one. Donoghue was her last chance at SHIELD, he gave her every chance to be successful in that line of work and he really was a good mentor, she just wasn’t ready to change when they knew each other. she looks back on a lot of the things he said these days and regrets not listening sooner, just like she regrets how it ended...but things had to happen the way they did for her to want to grow and become a better person.

What was your OC’s childhood like? crap, mostly. well, it was fine in a way, but. her parents died when she was five and she almost died too but that wiped most of the memory out of her head at least. she was adopted by a neighbour who was actually just a hydra agent on a longcon mission to keep an eye on her, more because she was possibly useful for information on her parents than out of any concern. this didn’t really lead to a loving household to grow up in, and her brother, who is five (or maybe seven?) years older than her didn’t spend much time around the place, and got himself admitted to the SHIELD academy as soon as he could. she didn’t really deal with this whole situation very well, so she grew up struggling in school, getting into fights, constantly grounded and yet impossible to control. eventually, her brother managed to get her an admission into the academy as well, where she found some structure at least but wasn’t particularly well liked and was typically bottom of the class, problem student, one step away from being thrown out.

What is your OC’s strongest childhood memory? Why and how as that impacted him/her? she sort of remembers the murder of her parents, sort of, but it doesn’t really hit her the way she thinks it probably should? it’s just there in the back of her brain, blurry and disjointed and she’s not sure how much of it she’s made up and how much she’s actually remembering, and it doesn’t really impact her all that much although it probably did as a young child. otherwise, the day that her brother, will, left for the academy. she has a whole lifetime of memories of people failing her, but that was the first time that he failed her, and though she didn’t realise it at the time, it was the final straw for her as a kid; she only closed off after that, gave up on people and on school and whatever else she was dreaming about. looking back now, she realises that she should have held on to that betrayal instead of eventually forgiving him, because that was her first red flag that he wasn’t as focused on her wellbeing as she thought he was.

What is your OC’s imagination like? not very good, she’s a very impulsive and in-the-moment kind of person, and a pragmatic and logical thinker who doesn’t leave much room for fanciful dreaming or thinking very far outside the box.

How many times did your OC move as a child? Which area was his/her favorite? she spent most of her childhood in new york, shifting house a couple of times but otherwise in the same area, attending the same school, etc. they all sucked, honestly; her favourite place was her parent’s house. or it would be if she could remember it.

What does your OC think of children- either in general or about having them? she used to have no tolerance for kids but she’s warming up to them slowly, the further she gets from being a loudmouthed, hotheaded teenager. she would have kids one day, but not for a while yet, but more because she’s just too busy and not settled in one place at all than because she doesn’t like them.

What kind of mother/father would your OC be? she’d be dedicated to being a good mother, and to settling down and living a life that is right for her kids. she wouldn’t be the perfect parent, she knows nothing about parenting and has never had one of her own in her life, but she would try her best. she might even learn patience.

Who are your OC’s closest relatives? none of her relatives are close. she doesn’t know any of her distant family, most of them are dead anyway, and her brother is the worst person ever, so she’d just like them all to stay very far away, thankyou.

Who is/are your OC’s closest friend(s)? she has a couple of good friends in sokovia, katja and sofia and vinn (but they are all ocs and so you’ll have to send me another ask to know more about them). clint and the maximoffs are her closest friends in the avengers circle of people, and i guess ruby (radford, hacker extraordinaire and Legally Dead) also counts as a close friend, if grudgingly.

Who are the people your OC surrounds him/herself with? people that challenge her, and people that have earned her respect, which she doesn’t give away freely. she likes to be pushed, whether in her skills or her wit or just as a person, and she has an acute sense of when people don’t really like her company - which is fine, she knows she has a personality that is grating to some people, but she would prefer that they just didn’t come near her if that’s the case.

Who are the people your OC dislikes/hates? people that she feels are working against what she thinks is right. usually, this is groups of people - hydra, intel, certain rebel groups and militias in sokovia. otherwise, there are plenty of people that rub her the wrong way day to day, but she doesn’t really spend time actively hating them, she’ll just either get into a fight with them or avoid them as much as she can.

If your OC has a soulmate, who is it? (pietro, but don’t tell her)

Why does your OC and his/her soulmate work so well together? they’re both people that grew up lost and overlooked and angry at the world, and they were both manipulated by hydra and used and tossed aside by them, so they find common ground in that, even if it was on very different scales. they also tend to run in the same sort of circles as well - they find friends in the same people, their goals often align - but their personalities are different enough that they don’t just piss each other off. they share the same humour and the same brutal honesty and strong sense of right and wrong - they’re not afraid to call each other out, or argue, and they’re learning to apologise and forgive together. most importantly, they make the choice to be there for each other and to live new lives, and they stick to it. they both have an idea of who they want to be in the future, and both have the other in that vision.

What are some things your OC admires about his/her soulmate? she admires his commitment to his cause, how much he cares about his country and his friends and family and the responsibility he puts on himself to fix it. also, that he could put up with her for so long, without complaint; she’s always been used to people getting tired of her or taking off (or trying to kill her but we’re not going to talk about that), and she wasn’t really sure anyone could stand to be around her and still care about her for so long.

How did your OC and his/her soulmate meet? auntie stark playing matchmaker at a party because he was bored and he’s a meddler and they both annoy him in the same way.

What is your OC’s level of education? high school dropout and SHIELD academy dropout with no formal education, but she’s competent enough to get by in basic skills like maths and SHIELD related things like fighting and espionage.

Did your OC participate in extracurricular activities, and if so, what were they? is detention considered an extracurricular activity

What is your OC’s opinion of school? What kind of student was s/he? school was a very negative experience. she hated every minute of it. she was that really annoying, disruptive kid that would physically square up to anyone who even looked at her funny and regularly punched people and things, yknow? bad grades, bad attitude, no friends, given up on a long time ago.

What subjects did your OC excel at? sports weren’t terrible, as long as they weren’t team sports. once she got to the academy, hand to hand combat was her best subject, except that she was used to fighting dirty and already too set against the system to sit down and learn proper technique.

What subjects interested your OC? nothing at school really interested her; all of her interests have really come to her in her 20s, when she’s free to discover them on her own.

What is your OC’s dream job and/or current profession? throughout the three fics about her, she’s a shield/hydra agent, a security officer at Stark Industries, and the director of the SRF camp in Nova Grad, Sokovia. she’s still figuring out where this is leading her, but the last two jobs have been perfect for her at that stage in her life.

How is your OC working towards his/her dream job and/or achieved his/her current profession? she’s been lucky enough to fall into each of her professions so far, which she is all too aware of and works hard to prove that she deserves it. her brother got her a place in SHIELD training, Clint helped organise the job at Stark Industries and called in a few favours so that she would get it, and she took over the SRF camp temporarily after an incident with the former director. she’s most proud of her work at the latter, and she’ll try to continue in that role until something else pulls her away.

What are your OC’s thoughts/opinions of his/her current profession? she enjoyed working at SI well enough, the job was within her skill level, the people were okay, she was comfortable. she could have easily stayed there for a lot longer if other opportunities hadn’t presented themselves. she loves running the SRF camp, it’s just the right amount of challenging and a little bit dangerous but not too dangerous, and even if it’s a lot of paperwork there’s also something new and crazy happening every day to keep it fresh.

What is your OC’s biggest dream? to find a place to fit into and live a life where she’s making her own decisions, outside of the control of other people.

How does your OC react to and handle stress? she gets short and snappy with people, doesn’t have time for stupid or time wasting, can get pretty heated but doesn’t often get overwhelmed, she’s still got a handle on the situation.

How does your OC handle anger? loudly. she will physically fight people, if she’s riled up enough, but she’s trying to curb that habit.

How does your OC handle grief? processes inwardly, and puts on a brave face outwardly. very few people would see her express grief, and it would take a few weeks for it to really hit her like that.

What is your OC’s greatest fear? losing everything she’s worked hard to get in the last few years.

What makes your OC happy? uninterrupted downtime, when she can just do what she wants. it’s a simple life. oh, and people getting what they deserve. it’s satisfying.

What kind of sense of humor does your OC have? sarcastic, dry remarks, and finding humour in other people’s misfortune.

What are some things that greatly upset your OC? being disregarded as stupid or useless or annoying, situations in which she’s helpless or too far out of her depth to catch up

What are some things that annoy your OC? people that can’t keep up with her or say dumb shit, people in general, irritating noises

If your OC has them, what are some regrets s/he has? she regrets not trying harder in school or the academy, she feels like those years were mostly wasted and wishes they hadn’t been even though she knows it’s not something to blame herself for. she regrets killing donoghue too; in the moment, it was all she could do, and what she had to do to survive, but it goes so against her morals that she’ll always feel guilty about it.

How easily does your OC forgive? not very. she’s been let down a lot in the past, and she’s cutthroat about removing people from her life when she thinks that they’re dragging her down.

What are some of your OC’s vices? pride, wrath, anger, impatience, unkindness, spite

If your OC experienced trauma, what was it? the death of her parents. during flicker, she struggles with the knowledge that she has killed and seriously injured people before, and with knowing that she’s done these things while trying to learn how to live a normal life. in swift, sokovia offers her a very immediate and major seachange; she has to live through bombings, violent riots, shootings, etc. I think the most rattling out of these for her is having to play dead on a street filled with the dead, not knowing if her friends are alive or if she is going to live through this. up until swift, she doesn’t really see the worst that groups like hydra can do; she sees the blood and the death and the injustice of soldiers running blindly in to die, but this incident really hits home for her that she’s putting herself in the way of bad, terrifying people, and the things they are capable of are scary.

What secrets does your OC have? she used to be a hydra agent. she’s open about it if she has to be, if someone finds this information out themselves she’s very upfront and will tell them the whole story and let them make their own decision, but she’ll keep it secret until that time, she’ll never be the one they hear it from.

What are some of your OC’s morals? usually her choices come down to just basic human decency, sadly; she believes people should be free to make their own choices and to live their own lives, safe and in peace. in the scope of swift, she wants the people of sokovia to be able to retain their country under their own control, she doesn’t believe that the invaders and the rising militia should be involved, and that they should be free to choose their own government, but she doesn’t really think that riots and bombs are the way to go about it.

What are some of your OC’s motivations? her own drive to be better than she has been in the past, to make up for the time she’d spent with hydra (even if the things she’d actively done for them were minimal), to find her way in the world and the place she’s meant to occupy.

What is the health of your OC? it’s good. lots of scars, the regular kind of aches and pains from living a very active lifestyle. as of swift, she has restricted movement in her shoulder from a bullet wound - not enough to really bother her day-to-day, but she’s given up archery since recovering.

Does your OC think with his/her head or heart? with her head

What are your OC’s thoughts on death? she hasn’t really come to terms with death yet - it’s a scary concept, and she’s young. mostly, she just tries not to think about it at all, even when it’s staring her right in the face. she could probably find peace with it when it happens, if it’s for the right cause.

What are some of your OC’s strengths? she’s willful, determined, brave, she can speak her mind when she needs to and she’s not afraid to tell people what she thinks or to fight for a change. she’s open to change herself, and she’s willing to learn, where she wasn’t in the past.

What are some of your OC’s weaknesses? she’s quick to anger and slow to forgive, she often picks a fight that she should refrain from and can easily hurt the ones she loves. she’s closed off and that turns away many people and loses her many opportunities. she has a negative mindset and low self-worth; she makes life harder for herself often.

How does your OC take criticism? not well. she’ll get angry and start an argument or storm off, and take a few hours or days to process. it depends who is offering her criticism as to whether she’ll come crawling back to apologise or if her pride will be too much to allow her to do that.

What does your OC think of him/herself? she doesn’t think very highly of herself. she’s acutely aware of her faults - that she’s too angry and hardheaded, that she doesn’t listen enough and isn’t particularly talented at anything.

If your OC could change one thing about him/herself, what would it be? some days, she would say that she would change her whole personality, take out the anger or whatever it is that makes it so hard for her to sit down and listen, or forget her whole past. other days, she wouldn’t want to change anything at all, even though she’s a whole mess. she really wants the latter to be her answer, but she’s still learning to be okay with herself.

What is the general impression your OC gives other people? standoffish, strong personality bordering on rude, takes no shit, short-tempered, unfriendly.

How emotionally/mentally vulnerable is your OC with other people? on a scale of zero to ten, i’d give her a solid one. she’s closed off, pragmatic, and thinks she has to do everything alone. close friends might get more out of her, and she’s learning to be softer and more open, and to work with other people, but for the most part she isn’t giving anything away.

How does your OC display love? sarcasm, mostly. she doesn’t outwardly express it, really, especially in public, but she’s always there as support or to listen or offer advice, if she can. and she’s always trying to do better and to commit herself to the relationship, even if she doesn’t make a big show of it.

What are some habits your OC has picked up? clint’s coffee addiction has rubbed off on her.

What is your OC’s favorite drink? it’s quickly becoming coffee

What is your OC’s favorite food? doritos

What is your OC’s favorite sweet? chocolate

What is your OC’s favorite season? autumn

What is your OC’s favorite kind of weather? sunny, but not too sunny

What is your OC’s favorite book? she doesn’t really read

What is your OC’s favorite movie and/or TV show? dog cops, she used to hate it but now she’s too invested to quit, shrek is her like, go-to movie when there’s nothing else which is weird and she’ll never admit it. but true.

What is your OC’s favorite kind of music (and song if there is one)? she listens to a whole bunch of different music, but her main genres would be pop, rock, rnb

What is your OC’s favorite form of entertainment? TV/movies

What is your OC’s favorite color? blue

What is your OC’s favorite scent? salty sea air on a strong breeze. it’s just so crisp.

What is your OC’s favorite animal? she wasn’t a dog person until she met clint’s dogs. now she’s totally a dog person.

What is your OC’s favorite sound? s i l e n c e on a sunday morning.

What is your OC’s favorite time of day? morning, once she’s awake.

What is your OC’s favorite kind of ice cream? chocolate

What is your OC’s favorite dinosaur? pterodactyl

#imogen oc #flicker

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portmantaur · 3 years

Text

i sat across from a psychiatrist recently (insofar as that’s possible during a video call) and experienced a deep and primal kind of frustration when I realized that if it weren’t for the symptoms I spent half an hour begging her to treat (which she refused to do), i would make a more astute and more sympathetic doctor than the person treating me.

this post might be disjointed and im not 100% certain what the point of it is, but i need it somewhere written down, if only so my brain can un-jumble it enough to process.

when I was younger, I was forced into a diagnosis because of a situation of abuse. I don’t feel like going into detail, but basically I could either a) be homeless or b) get a diagnosis that could potentially be used to hospitalize me against my will. I knew I wouldn’t survive on the street, so I did what I thought was all I could at the time. I got a diagnosis for bipolar disorder; it was the easiest one to get because there are a lot of overlap in symptoms of bipolar and symptoms of many, many other illnesses and disorders. I knew I had something, but I also knew I didn’t have time or freedom to find out the truth and healthily heal.

I recently got diagnosed with ADHD, as an adult. this IS the correct diagnosis — coping mechanisms and adaptations that have worked for me, in my entire life, have come EXCLUSIVELY from treatment for/literal experts on ADHD. it is very obvious given my history that I need medication for this. It’s also becoming increasingly obvious that there is no way bipolar disorder even remotely fits my symptoms in their totality - even in their majority.

primarily: I have never, in all 29 years of my life, experienced any level of mania. Not even the hypomania expected of Type II. in order for someone to even qualify for a bipolar diagnosis, there must be a history of at LEAST one manic episode, even if it’s “only” hypomania.

I told my psychiatrist (to whom I was referred specifically because of this new ADHD diagnosis), in no uncertain terms, that this was the case. I have NEVER experienced mania. I do not experience significant fluctuations in my mood that impede my ability to live. I DO experience dysfunction in my focus, executive functions, concentration, emotional regulation (this is -not- the same thing as mania), memory recall, and most significantly motivation. These symptoms DO impede my ability to live. THESE are the symptoms that contributed to getting fired, flunking out of college, almost dropping out of high school, and a plethora of other such issues that span the entire length of my life.

my psychiatrist insisted on putting me on a mood stabilizer. she stated this was her duty, as stimulants can cause mania in people who have bipolar disorder - people who have already experienced at least one manic episode. I emphasized again that I had never experienced mania; mood symptoms, including mania, have never impeded my ability to function. I used those words. I said “this is what is impeding my ability to live.” I begged this woman for half an hour to please, please treat the symptoms I actually have - to believe me when I say that my bipolar diagnosis has never accounted for what actually ails me. I reiterated that I have been on what was considered the best mood (new) stabilizer for my diagnosis, and that it had absolutely no effect on my mood but it did make me incredibly ill. I told her that when I was prescribed a mood stabilizer when I was a child, it also had no effect on my symptoms but it did have detrimental physical side effects.

I came out of that appointment with a prescription for a mood stabilizer, which I have to taper onto, stay on for at least a month, and then presumably taper off of if (when) it doesn’t work. There is no potential benefit from this medication, since it treats epilepsy and bipolar disorder, neither of which I have. It does come with 2 rare but possible side effects that are LETHAL. however unlikely, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that this medication could kill me.

she of course neglected to tell me that in the session, insisting that it was not a very reactive medication, and having spent most of her time repeating that she cannot risk sending me into a manic episode - a symptom I have never, ever experienced. She didn’t even ask me how I came about the diagnosis if I had never experienced the single required symptom for a diagnosis. I knew, after the conversation and after I had been allowed to sort through my thoughts that I was unable to process or express because of the symptoms I was pleading with her to consider & treat, that as a doctor, that would have been my FIRST question. I knew that I would call into question the validity of a diagnosis if my patient was claiming they did not experience the necessary symptom to receive a diagnosis. Maybe I would then find out my patient suffered from paranoia and delusions, and was in denial or fearful of their disorder. Or maybe I would have found out that someone from an abusive situation was forced to get a diagnosis that their abuser would approve of, for the purposes of control.

I’m on a mood stabilizer now, because I do not have another option. There is nowhere else I can go, and I NEED treatment - just not what I’m being given. I have to prove my own lived experiences just to be taken even slightly seriously enough; I have to obsessively document my experience with this medication so I can prove to a professional what I already told her was true. I have to do homework to get medication that my brain needs in order to function.

I can’t really fathom a reason she could be denying me treatment and exposing me to a medication that, because of my (lack of) condition, presents all risk and zero chance of reward. Does she believe her opinion of a list of disorders on a piece of paper and thirty minutes of my time is more valid and important than the opinion I have on the brain ive been living with for 29 years? Does she think it’s more important to make sure she cannot be legally liable for the actions of someone she may have induced mania in than to listen to and treat what the patient is actually presenting? I don’t know. And to be honest, I don’t really care. I can’t think of a justifiable reason to essentially prescribe me stress. I already have signs of common side effects of this medication - drowsiness, headaches, etc. I do not have any signs of it’s benefits.

But this is my life for at least a month, and probably longer after that, because for whatever reason, my lived experience is not as valid or important as some words on a sheet of paper. I am being forced to endure a significant time of increased stress and potentially dangerous physical harm to my body because for whatever reason, my entire lifetime of experience with my symptoms was summarily ignore by a medical professional.

like I said, I’m not even sure what the point of this post is. I’m exhausted. I am so tired of telling people what is wrong, of telling them what I am experiencing and feeling, of telling them how I have to live my life, and being told that somehow I - the person who has, for all intents and purposes, spent 29 years with the patient needing treatment - am wrong. I am somehow not capable of understanding a brain I have had to adapt to for my entire life. I am tired of being ignored. It’s not even just my psychiatric care - my gallbladder dysfunction nearly caused me to go septic because the first time I went to the emergency room, the doctor in charge of my care more or less concluded that I was faking or exaggerating my pain, and thus refused to run any further tests and abruptly ended my access to pain treatment. By the time my actual problem was diagnosed, I required two separate surgeries to fix the problem. They admitted me immediately because leaving the problem any longer threatened my life.

Medical professionals would rather risk killing me than actually listening to me. And I am so exhausted. I just want to live.

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mediaevalmusereads · 3 years

Text

The Black Tides of Heaven. By Jy Yang. New York: Tor, 2017.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Genre: novella, fantasy

Part of a Series? Yes, Tensorate #1

Summary: Mokoya and Akeha, the twin children of the Protector, were sold to the Grand Monastery as children. While Mokoya developed their strange prophetic gift, Akeha was always the one who could see the strings that moved adults to action. While Mokoya received visions of what would be, Akeha realized what could be. What's more, they saw the sickness at the heart of their mother's Protectorate. A rebellion is growing. The Machinists discover new levers to move the world every day, while the Tensors fight to put them down and preserve the power of the state. Unwilling to continue to play a pawn in their mother's twisted schemes, Akeha leaves the Tensorate behind and falls in with the rebels. But every step Akeha takes towards the Machinists is a step away from Mokoya. Can Akeha find peace without shattering the bond they shares with their twin?

***Full review under the cut.***

Minor spoilers under “Characters.”

Content Warnings: violence, blood, suicide

Overview: I kept seeing this book pop up on lists of non-Western fantasy and lgbt+ reading lists, so I took the plunge and bought a copy. The plot seemed interesting, and in many ways, it definitely was. There was rich worldbuilding and intriguing politics, and I appreciated the way gender was treated. However, as much as I loved the ideas in this novel, I ultimately felt that I was reading an outline rather than a finished product. There are a lot of places where things would happen or characters would do things and I didn’t quite understand why (other than, perhaps, to create drama?). If Yang had fleshed out those moments and made a full-length novel, I think The Black Tides of Heaven could have been a more satisfying read.

Writing: Yang’s writing is fairly well-balanced between telling and showing in most places. I had no trouble immersing myself in the world or the plot, and the sentences flowed together well so I never felt confused or lost. There were a few blips here and there - for example, when we’re first introduced to the character Thennjay, his backstory is dumped onto us in about a paragraph, which made me think the author wanted us to absorb it right away without doing the work to make it more significant or interesting. But otherwise, I think Yang’s prose was well-crafted.

Plot: This book primarily follows twins Mokoya and Akeha as they come to terms with their supernatural (?) abilities against the backdrop of political unrest and rebellion. We follow them from birth to age 35 as they struggle with their mother’s control, their gender identities, and their relationship each each other, all while some rebels are mounting a resistance campaign against the throne.

At first, I liked the idea of this plot, but ultimately, I felt like a lot of the important political stuff was unsupported or undervalued. The main conflict is supposed to be between the ruling class and a working class (teamed up with some from the disgruntled ruling class?), but it felt like the conflict was never established as part of the lived reality of people in Yang’s world. For example, we never see how the working class is treated - we don’t even see the Protector doing anything cruel or outright bad. She doesn’t actively manipulate Mokoya or try to use their prophecies to gain more power (at least not on-page). We just get the vibe that the Protector is corrupt or power-hungry with a few sneaky, ruthless deals thrown in here and there. As a result, the political conflict didn’t feel very important, so when a big plot point happens (like Thennjay being the next Head Abbot), I felt like we were told its significance rather than feeling its significance.

The same lack of support seems to also happen in the development of the romance(s). Whenever Mokoya or Akeha would fall for someone, it seemed to come out of nowhere. There is one which particularly feels like insta-love, and the love interest is so new to us, the reader, that it’s hard to see why our POV characters fall so hard for them.

I also felt like major scenes or sections didn’t build upon each other and seemed to be inserted for action or drama. For example, early in the book, the twins escape the monastery to avoid being separated by their mother. While they are out, they find a cave full of supplies and randomly have to fight a kirin - an extinct mythical beast. The significance of the cave or the kirin is never brought up again, and it turns out the twins never had to slip out and escape anyway, since they were eventually told they wouldn’t be separated. It made me wonder what the point of the twins being at the monastery was - what did they learn there that would be important later in the book?

Lastly, the time skips make the main conflict of the plot feel less urgent. I understand that with politics, conflict can continue for years and years; however, when a scene happens and then 10+ years go by, it feels like the plot isn’t really building up anything. I think to make these time skips more effective, Yang could have shown us how tensions keep growing year after year until there comes a moment where the people reach their breaking point (or some major development happens, etc). As it stands, I didn’t quite get that feeling.

Characters: This is story is mainly told from Mokoya’s and Akeha’s POVs (though the prose uses third person, not first). What I appreciated most about Mokoya and Akeha was their gender journey; in Yang’s world, children are raised genderless until they are around 18-20, when they are given the opportunity to choose (or “confirm”) their gender. I really liked the way Mokoya and Akeha talked about their genders - Mokoya speaks about “feeling” like a woman, while Akeha struggles to be a man despite being raised in a family of only women. They change their language to reflect their change in identity, and I liked that the world around them didn’t expect someone to choose a gender based on patriarchal expectations.

That being said, I wish there was a little more work put into developing Mokoya and Akeha’s involvement with opposite sides of the political conflict. To me, it felt like the decisions to get involved weren’t personal, and we’re told more than shown that certain things are significant. For example, Mokoya reveals at one point the extent of their involvement and complicity in the political plot, and it kind of just felt... empty. Like we weren’t shown Mokoya doing things, nor were we shown a scene where the outcome was determined by Mokoya’s involvement. We’re definitely told about it later, but we don’t get to see it.

I also felt like Yang asked readers to care about certain characters who had little involvement in the twins’ lives. For example, Mokoya reveals at one point that she is pregnant (this is long after the twins confirm their gender identities), and Akeha feels a longing to meet his niece. However, something happens to the neice that makes their meeting impossible - and this all happens in about 10 pages. So, I felt like I was being asked to absorb the emotional impact of this event without really having time to feel Akeha’s longing.

The niece is one example where it felt like side characters were mainly used to further a plot or as somewhat underdeveloped characters. While I liked the idea of many supporting characters, the book was so short that it didn’t feel like these characters had any time to make a grand impact. I would have liked to see more work put into establishing a few supporting characters as key pieces in this political plot, perhaps with everyone seemingly coming in and out of the twins’ lives to try to push them in one direction or another. The first Head Abbot is one example of someone who could have had a larger role, as is the Protector and Thennjay.

TL;DR: The Black Tides of Heaven is an intriguing novella with interesting worldbuilding and likeable protagonists. However, the disjointed plot feels a bit too rushed and supporting characters feel a bit too one-dimensional for this book to be a truly satisfying read.

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yuvon-writes-letters · 3 years

Note

To all,

In the few hours of planning, I have witnessed a letter appear in our shared mailbox, on a Tuesday.

For the record, I do not believe any of this nonsense, you could very easily be lying, both Yu, and whoever that “entity” is.

But Rai insists that it is all true, and despite his fragility, he always had this uncanny ability to tell when someone is spreading falsehoods or not, a knack for feeling if something is going wrong. The fact that he hasn’t quit sending these letters means that he wholeheartedly believes this, sci-fi narrative.

I trust him, so I’ll play along for now.

Trust me, this does not mean I trust you. For the time being, Rai will not be sending any letters, because he has apparently made himself a target, I cannot have that.

My name is. Actually, you don’t get to know my full name, it’s bad enough that you know my first anyways.

To, the entity, the letter that that was sent was matted in dirt, the words “I see you” were written in what is most likely blood, it was stuffed in an envelope along with the lily.

To Yu, Yuvon, thank you for being there for Rai these past few weeks, and fuck you, for making his life so much harder than it needs to be. He should be worried about portioning his time right to get more sleep, and doing his best to earn a living, not trying to keep a cursed pen-pal alive. Unfortunately, if what you do say is true, then I cannot blame you for his woes, you reached out, and like the hero he is, he takes the call for help.

I am currently in the process of reading the letters that were sent between you all, but, if you want to be in my good graces, a summary would help much more than hours of reading, I will not take kindly to secrets (Jake).

I will await a response.

Skie

Skie,

Most of the evidence I'd usually offer to assure people I'm not lying doesn't apply to you. It'll be a little more clear why when I get into the summary later, but I'm reeling a bit and I'm trying to take things one thing at a time.

Yeah. It's probably best if Rai at least isn't the first one to open these letters for a while. Please be careful too. I seriously don't know what this thing is capable of or what it wants, but it's very clearly violent. And entities (that's what we call these things, for lack of a better word) getting violent ends very, very poorly.

Best if we don't do full names, I agree. We've all sort of set a precedent where we use nicknames or screen names instead of our actual names.

(The ink turns dark enough that it seems to suck in the light around it.) My thanks for the description.

...Right. That just happened. I'm never going to get used to that.

You're welcome and I'm sorry. Truthfully, I've been pretty worried about Rai as well, and I sincerely apologize for any and all parts I played in Rai's problems.

Alright. Recap. This is gonna be long.

One day before I sent my first letter, I woke up in a clearing in a forest, with a note that told me that I could send letters to alternate universes with other people in the same situation I had left before arriving to the clearing on the ground in front of me. I marked the direction I was facing when I appeared and arbitrarily declared it "north". I did some exploring, and discovered that there was an invisible barrier all around the clearing, and that there were trees as far as the eye could see when I climbed a tree inside the barrier. After the first day, I sent my first letter.

Rai, though he went by Rainer then, was actually the first person to write to me, two days later. He was doubtful, obviously, but I shared specific details of the shared experiences that connect us across universes, and so did he, so we believed each other. We talked metaphysics and theories about what was going on for a bit, and Rai asked for details about my circumstances. I learned there were eight rooms off the central clearing, but five disturbed me so much that I lied and said that only three existed: a library (south), a game room (east), and a "comfy room" (west) with pillows and mattresses and blankets, etc.

Eventually, I realized there was an anomaly we've tentatively been calling the stasis over my version of the Duskwood group, where they went on with their lives but nothing actually changed. They didn't start to come to terms with emotional events that happened, they made no progress in their investigations, they didn't talk about anything important. Things were happening, but nothing HAPPENED, if that makes sense.

Rai encouraged me to tell one particular person from the Duskwood group I trust whole-heartedly, Jake, about my circumstances. That broke the stasis on him, and from then on, he and I started to work together.

We determined that the trees around my clearing are elder trees (symbolic of life/death/rebirth cycle) and completely generic trees. I theorized that I was stuck between a symbolic "death" and "rebirth", in a stasis of my own. I remain convinced of this theory.

On Father's Day, I spoke to the Duskwood group and lied to them in the process of cancelling an event I'd planned on that day for fear of giving myself away. Unbeknownst to me, that began to shake them out of their stasis slowly.

Someone named Liska contacted me then, informing me that they were sort of in an inverse situation as my own: They had normal contact with their friends and family outside of Duskwood, and they hadn't been kidnapped like I was, but Duskwood itself was almost completely frozen. There was some other weird stuff happening with the stasis, but that's not so relevant.

Lis started to get threatening calls from the perpetrator in the Duskwood case, worrying pretty much everyone, plus she didn't trust me, though I cleared the distrust up fairly quickly.

This is about when Rai started having issues, and warned us he wouldn't be able to write letters as often.

I sorta got stuck for a while, and Lis kept getting threatened. I figured out that someone would eventually join me in the clearing, but not who, how, or when, so I was obsessing over that. About then, Lis pointed out a small detail that showed I was lying about something, and that turned into a confession about the other five rooms. In brief:

North: A room with a countdown to when I can leave

Northwest: Another clearing where everything was dead with a silver goblet at the end, whole area gave off a magical sense of dread, I left without investigating further

Southeast: Altar w/ bloodstains, symbolism and text suggesting I could sacrifice my life to kill the ass terrorizing my version of the group (an alternate version of the asshole stalking Lis)

Northeast: Knife in the middle of a glade, can cut almost anything in here but the invisible barrier.

Southwest: 3 upside-down torches, one on each wall that wasn't an entrance, floor was a field of white lilies. Refused to enter initially due to overdose of symbols of death.

I discovered that my old family and my few non-Duskwood friends had all completely forgotten who I was. They still haven't remembered, but that's besides the point. I'm not just whining here, this becomes important later.

Anyhow, I started getting really worried about Rai, because he mentioned his head feeling fuzzy, he was having trouble understanding things, and his writing was disjointed. You probably know about when that was on the recent timeline.

Lis's next letter was concerning, and I asked in a cipher I won't disclose because at least one entity can't seem to understand it whether she was alright and offered a code for her to tell us if she was being watched.

Lis then sent two letters back to back: one where she used the code, and one when she wasn't being watched: she had been kidnapped by the stalker. We also made first contact with an entity we're calling "Goldie" or "Aur" (first few letters of their name) who is benevolent and has done their utmost to help Lis.

In addition, her Jake spoke to her over Tumblr, promising to help find her, and I got print-outs of the screenshots in an envelope. I contacted him as well, offering what advice I could, especially as we'd begun to theorize there was an entity working against Lis as well.

It wasn't enough. Lis was shot. And died.

And then her entity sent her back in time, alive, and with her Jake freed from the stasis much earlier.

As Lis started recovering mentally from that, I started messing on this plane again. Lis convinced me to test out the death symbol room and see if it was actually dangerous, so I first tried cutting my way out of the barrier with the knife (it failed) and then I started sorta using the Robin Crusoe method of testing the room for death, which meant I went very slowly.

During this, Rai finally admitted he hadn't been sleeping enough, and I tried to encourage him to actually fucking sleep and not worry so much about writing the damn letters.

Then

Okay, I'm not proud of this bit. Behind one of the torches in the room with the lilies and torches I'd been testing, there was a sheet of paper with a blood ritual on it. It promised an end result I'd like, and none of the other schmuck baits up to that point had actually hurt me, so I gave it a try. Imagine my shock when Jake appeared in the clearing. He's still here, by the way, we don't know how to get him back any more than me.

Rai brought up a theory (later confirmed) that the ritual brought Jake because he was what I most wanted to have with me right then. I began to work on trying to deconstruct the ritual and understand how it worked so I could confirm or deny, but was interrupted when I discovered that the Duskwood group had broken out of stasis, and I had to play damage control. They also became semi-aware the stasis had happened.

Lis sent another letter, and Jake came to the conclusion that her workplace is unsafe, and urged her to take a vacation, especially in the wake of further threats from the kidnapper. Also, Lis's stasis started to weaken, and she began passing messages between my version of Jake and her's. They proved to be surprisingly different.

At that point, someone named Jessy sent a letter in, who is one of the Duskwood crew. She was from a year in my future, shortly after her version of me, named Matt, was killed by the kidnapper and Jake was framed for it.

At this point, Jake raised the theory that Rai, Lis, Matt, myself, and all other counterparts across universes are somehow cursed, or gain more attention than we should from entities, and that's why so many horrible things happen to us. It... makes a lot of sense, honestly.

About here is when I started getting together a plan to get out. I was worried I might be mindread, though, so I went to slightly extreme measures to make sure my thoughts wouldn't give me away.

Then Jessy wrote again, and tried to convince Lis and I to run away from our respective Jakes out of concern. Along the way, she accidentally implied that her universe's Jake was being tortured in his incarceration, and I admittedly lashed out at her a bit in my response to her letter. It made me furious, obviously, and scared and upset, so I used those emotions to focus.

Lis grew concerned when I denied I had a plan. Repeatedly. And unconvincingly. Okay, it was more of a mantra. I sort of wrote "I have no plan" all over the paper and then didn't erase well enough, so you can see why she was concerned.

Now, I don't know everything that went down right there, but I'll take a guess. The entity, unable to interpret the ciphered messages I'd sent to Lis explaining why I was so insistent that I had no plan, asked Lis what my plan was, pretending to be benevolent like Goldie. Lis didn't believe it, and annoyed the entity in the process. It taunted her, claiming that Jake and I would be hurt because of her noncompliance, which was bullshit because the entity would've done what it did anyhow. Lis tried to send us warnings, but the entity blocked them and taunted her more publicly.

Unless it's essential, I'd rather not go into detail about what exactly happened when I tried to execute my plan. There's a letter that describes most of it somewhere in the past two weeks or more. Suffice it to say, I fell into a probably magic-induced coma for a few days, my face is still scarred to hell, and there's a small chunk missing from my right arm, though that's filling in because enhanced/faster healing here.

After the incident, while I was unconscious, everyone wrote in letters asking after me or offering advice, including Lis's Jake and Jessy, and Jake pretended to be me to keep the Duskwood group from suspecting anything. One of them figured it out, but she was sympathetic to both Jake and myself, so she kept the secret. In the meantime, Lis took a vacation and got out of danger, hopefully.

When I woke up, I was able to just... know a few minor facts about the entity. I still don't know how or why.

Anyway, I just sorta recovered and caught up for a bit.

Max contacted us to basically let us know that Lis was doing better (she was really torn up with guilt over the incident :( )

Very recently, Jessy contacted my parents, trying to determine if I was alright, and discovered that they didn't know who I was. That spawned a confession from me when I was confronted; that whole group is now in the know. Jake is still not entirely pleased with my decision, but I think he's mostly over it.

Then that new entity apparently sent out the letter, you contacted us for the first time, and now we’re back to the present moment.

Oh. One more thing that seems pretty important in hindsight. Rai sent me a crayon as an experiment. It arrived three different colors in one crayon: brown, green, and white. Take a wild guess what it was called.

Yep. White lily.

This is sort of reminding me of a character I made a million years ago, but the powers don't match up. It doesn't sound like the M.O. does either. Still, that character was a nasty piece of work. I hope it's all just a coincidence.

Anyhow. That's all for now. Talk to you later. Write to you later. Whatever.

—Yuvon

(The letter tucks itself in the paper clip with the others.)

#duskwood letter game #yuvon writes letters #duskwood #duskwood game #duskwood everbyte #duskwood jake #duskwood jessy #rai #skie #lis #lis's jake #lis's entity #jessy #the entity #lily #recap

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mamthew · 3 years

Text

My full review of Persona 5: Scramble. Some mostly minor spoilers scattered throughout, though I try to flag them in advance.

When Persona 5: Scramble was announced, my expectations were fairly low. As it was yet another Warriors spinoff of a better-known series, I expected Hyrule Warriors but with Persona characters. I thought we’d get the P5 crew, maybe even a few from P3 or P4, maybe a villain or two, mindlessly tearing through thousands of enemies in essentially interchangeable levels, justified by a threadbare, 6-hour story. The demo, then, blew me away. It was just…the beginning of a sequel to Persona 5, maintaining the locations, presentation, and characters of the original game, but with a beat ‘em up battle system. I began thinking of Scramble as a direct sequel to literally my favorite game of all time, including everything a sequel might entail.

Having played through almost all of Persona 5: Strikers (I have started but not bothered seriously attempting New Game+ in Merciless difficulty), the game we ended up getting was halfway between those, I think. They managed to recreate the presentation of P5 impeccably, with gorgeous menus, beautiful battle effects, entertaining scene transitions, etc. However, the half of the game that isn’t dungeon-crawling is deceptively scant. The story centers around a road trip across Japan, but each city isn’t nearly as realized as P5’s Tokyo, with only about 3 rooms apiece, and some of the later ones not even getting a hub at all. The hubs really only exist to have shops, with none of the time management, minigames, or relationship building in a mainline Persona game. Still, it’s the only Persona spinoff I’ve played that has a real-life component at all, so I found it refreshing to get to wander Sendai, Okinawa, Osaka, and other towns in a game I’d initially not expected to have any towns at all.

The dungeons are where this game shines, though. They’re actual Persona 5-style dungeons, made occasionally even more dynamic with the addition of platforming and sidescrolling sections reminiscent of Nier Automata. The battle system uses the bones of the system in every warriors game, but slowly builds on it with more and more complexity until it’s not only a unique system, but is honestly one of the more engaging action battle systems I’ve played in a minute, in which you’re constantly trying to time dodges just right for extra hits, which can then open the option to either get in an extra hit with your character, which heals some SP, or switch to another character for an extra hit with them, which increases the rate at which the special gauge increases. As Joker, you have an array of Personas you can switch between on the fly, shifting your moveset, your stats, and your strategy as you go. Each of the other characters has their own gimmick that makes them unique and fun to play and sets them apart from Joker, who otherwise would have access to all their elemental attacks and stat spreads. Strategically placed objects around dungeons can be used to pull off special moves in battles, as well, letting you jump up to chandeliers and drop them on enemies or dive off of walls and tackle enemies. The battle system takes a little too long to actually become complex, but once it actually reaches that point it’s really rewarding. The bosses, too, are fun, with designs deserving of the Persona name and strategies that make full use of the environments. You can even replay them at different difficulty levels as the game goes on. I’ve never played a Koei Tecmo game with this much polish, and the battle system makes me hope the Warriors team goes to try an actual Platinum-style character action game. I think they’d knock it out of the park.

I’m a little split on the story of this game. The bones of the story are good. The characters are all written perfectly, and seeing them interact again was enough that I actually teared up a bit when I first booted up the game. I enjoy the new characters, and they work well with the party. The pacing is solid and it has a good emotional core. The villains are decent for the most part, and the ending is pretty satisfying. Several of the villains directly correlate to specific party members, too, which gives us further insight into those party members, and lets us watch as they see themselves in someone else and recognize where that other person broke off from their path. The game is in part about trauma and the ways it drives individuals to lash out at a world they’ve always believed to be cold and unforgiving, which could be a powerful message if done well. In this game, though, it’s not done very well at all. The ultimate message – if this game could be said to have one – is that individuals without support networks are driven by trauma to make bad decisions. That’s not…necessarily untrue, but it’s not…necessarily true, either. This message is probably at its worst when the game gets into inadvertently ableist territory with a character near the end, who -spoilers until the end of the paragraph- tries to essentially enslave mankind because her dissociation due to trauma convinces her that she has no emotions and therefore the species as a whole should have no emotions either. It’s…frankly a really gross bookend on a game that, until that point, had managed to avoid most of the issues with male gaze and homophobia that the original game had.

Every message in this game, though, is too individual-focused to function as a real message or social commentary. It even undercuts the sharp themes in the original by showing people in similar positions of power as the original villains just…choosing not to fall to corruption and consequently avoiding all of the problems that would arise from their power discrepancy. For a spoilery example until the end of the paragraph, the villain in Persona 5 who’s a CEO is a villain because his need to make profit drives him to exploit his workers, paying them less and working them more. The villain in Strikers who’s a CEO is a villain because his father was abusive and that led him to think people must be controlled. One is a real-world problem applicable to any CEO. The other is a story that exists only in the fictional realm.

This wouldn’t be such a glaring issue if Persona games – and especially Persona 5 – weren’t known for their social commentary. That’s not limited to the main games, either. Persona 4 Dancing was a rhythm game with a story about parasocial relationships and the pressures they place on public figures. Strikers ostensibly touches on parasocial relationships, but doesn’t…really have anything to say about them.

The game does try to make a statement sometimes, but everything it tries to say is disjointed, at odds with the previous game, or inapplicable to real life. The villains’ deeds don’t really have much similarity to each other, either, unlike in 5, and it’s stated outright that several of them would not hold any power at all without the supernatural world, which both prevents their stories from saying anything about the real world, and flies in the face of the purpose of Persona as a series. The supernatural worlds in Persona games are the collective unconscious, which means that the worlds are used to give the characters and the player visual representations of abstract concepts. The Palaces in Persona 5 are not the sources of the villains’ power; that comes from regular old societal hierarchies. The characters in Persona 4 were experiencing their inner turmoil before they were sucked into the TV world, and the midnight channel only made manifest what was already there and unseen. Conversely, the first two villains in Strikers are only in the public eye because they use supernatural means to make people like them. That the supernatural means involve smart phones doesn’t say anything about technology, because that’s not how technology actually works. In a follow-up to a game that was as furious at the world and desperate for change as Persona 5 was, it’s a glaring departure for the characters to just…befriend “the good cop,” or -spoilers again- push the mayor who’s based on Margaret Fucking Thatcher to run again but do things the “right way” this time.

That being said, I’m not actually that upset with this game. I have a lot to say about its missteps because I have a lot to say about Persona 5, but the gameplay is legitimately fun, and I do really love seeing the characters again. I’m more bemused than upset with the game’s fumbling of…the thing that made me fall in love with Persona 5 to begin with. Part of that is because the game is still so solid and fun, and the characters are written so well that I can overlook the issues. Even deeper, though, is that the last few years has radicalized so many people that the statements made in Persona 5 are simply…more visible in the mainstream than they were when it released. Late show hosts rage about the exploitation of waged workers. Video game streamers remark on the cruel arbitrariness of the current system. Shows about cops are being pushed to justify their existence to an increasingly disillusioned public. I think if Persona 5 released today, it wouldn’t have the same impact it did in 2017. To my mind, the game no longer carries the responsibility it once did. So this game is fun and doesn’t really matter, and that’s actually okay.

But if Persona 6 isn’t a return to form, I’ll take it back.

#persona 5 strikers #persona 5 #persona 5 scramble

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