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norahastuff · 3 years

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I agree with you that there were ways to work around the bi Dean thing. But I’ve noticed a pattern. This always happens when things get too gay. They regress to old bibro ways. They get scared and go back to the one thing they can always count on. Sam Dean & impala. The great gay s8 was followed by no homo (you can’t stay because of *Sam*). The s12-13 escalation made Deans feelings so loud. Then again they regressed to bibroness and in s14 we had Dean bullying Cas just to hammer it in.

I mean I understand your frustration post-finale because Dean and Cas didn’t get a satisfying conclusion to their arc, in whatever form that may be but I guess I just don’t agree with the rest of it.

All that stuff you pointed to, those were all story arcs. Dean didn’t send Cas away in s9 to put a halt to any relationship developments between them, he did it because the story was how Sam and Dean’s desire to save each other at whatever cost was toxic to the people around them and the other relationships in their lives. That’s the whole point of the Carver era. We go from Benny and Amelia to Cas, to Kevin to Charlie (which is a whole different conversation) to eventually the whole world. Hell, the whole “Dean having to leave Cas for Sam’s sake even though that’s not what he wants at all” thing in 9x06 is immediately followed by 9x07, an episode where we see flashbacks to where he has to leave his first love Robin and a happy home because Sammy needs him.

You can argue about the execution, on my first watch I was very frustrated that they never showed us the reason Dean gave Cas for why he had to leave - though I now suppose the point was Dean didn’t really have a good reason and newly human Cas was supposed to be confused and upset about the whole thing and not understand why this was happening, but your mileage may vary.

In regards to the s12-13 thing...I guess I just don’t get that one? Dean’s feelings for Cas were given a long extended focus, especially how differently he felt for him than Sam did. Cas coming back and Dean getting his faith back, that was huge for him, but the point wasn’t just that Dean just needs Cas and then everything’s going to be ok. It was a very important turning point for him and highlighted just how central a role Cas played in his life, but Dean has other issues. His self-worth, his guilt when he thinks he can’t save the people he loves, his father’s conditioning that made him feel like he was just a blunt instrument, all that doesn’t just go away because he got Cas back. That’s what the second half of s13 was building to - Dean being pushed to his lowest by losing all the people he loves and getting them all back (Cas, Mary, Sam, Jack), and then just when he thinks he’s ok, losing them again. So he does what he thinks he’s good for and says yes to Michael.

And boy do I absolutely not think s14 was in any way trying to erase Dean and Cas’ relationship. The whole Michael arc was to highlight all of Dean’s repressed insecurities and issues. Facing John and putting that ghost to rest, letting go of some of the trauma that John had inflicted on him and choosing not to allow it to poison who he was now and the family he built acknowledging that he was good with his life...that was all really important stuff for Dean to go through. And then of course everything blows up with Mary, Jack, and God and Free Will, because you’re watching Supernatural and that’s how it works.

As for Dean “bullying” Cas...Ummm what? That arc you were talking about in s12-13 after which you said they regressed the Dean and Cas story, this was the follow up to that. Because yeah we learned a lot about Dean and Cas and how they felt during that time. Then Cas returned and it seemed like everything was business as usual. Except it wasn’t. Dean being angry at Cas about the whole Mary thing wasn’t about Mary. This was a setup for them finally having to address their issues for real, issues that always got swept under the rug because there was bigger life or death stuff that was more important than their feelings. But then Cas said enough. He wasn’t going to play that game anymore. Dean needed to face up to himself. Ever since s8, their dynamic has been Dean thinking Cas doesn’t want to stay with him because he doesn’t care, and Cas leaving because he thinks Dean doesn’t care enough to ask him to stay. 14x18-15x09 was another arc heavily focused on this whole thing, eventually culminating in their trip to Purgatory and Dean’s prayer.

And then don’t even get me started on how 15x18 and Cas’ confession takes essentially all the above elements and uses them to show just how well Cas knows and understands Dean and how important he is for Dean’s journey to self-acceptance and peace (the well-constructed arc of their relationship hits a wall for me at the whole Dean refusing to kill Chuck part of 15x19 so that’s as far as I’m talking about when I’m saying all this.)

I’m not making any of this up. This isn’t me reading into something that wasn’t there. That’s the narrative and what has happened between them over the course of the show. It’s not all that’s happened. There were a lot of detours and other plots etc that maybe sometimes weren’t all that good. There have been over 300 episodes, 15 seasons with most seasons having more than 20+ episodes. This show is not known for speeding through emotional growth or rapidly advancing relationship developments. It was long-running. These things unspooled slowly - sometimes too slowly and at times to the point where it wasn’t particularly fun or interesting to watch (s10 I’m looking at you.)

Look this show is not just about Dean and Cas. Yes their relationship is a vital and core element both for each other and the show, but ultimately the central relationship in this show was Sam and Dean, and looking at any time the show wasn’t solely focused on just Dean and Cas’ romantic feelings for each other and saying it was just a “no homo” is just not the way I ever looked at it. And also some of the times that there were low points or lulls in their relationship it made sense in relation to the greater story, and again your mileage may vary on how well they handled it, this show was certainly not always good with pacing or execution and no matter what else was going on, it was always going to stay beholden to the “two brothers in a car hunting monsters” formula, so their refusal/inability to separate Sam and Dean for more than 2 episodes at a time was always going to put a crimp in certain plots. You can like that or not (I personally was often frustrated by this) but it is what it is.

Like I’m on s5 in my rewatch right now and it’s crazy how differently Dean and Cas’ relationship was written back then as opposed to in s8. He consistently became coded as a different figure in Dean’s life than he was before and he’s important in a whole different way. It’s when they start leaning properly into the whole concept of Dean needing Cas on an emotional level, not just to help fight or to save them or whatever, but rather just because he cares deeply about him and needs him by his side. (There’s also a whole other post about the whole Dean and love interests thing in s1-6 vs s8/9-15 and how narratively that completely changed and how often Cas was slotted into that position or pointed to as potential for that but that’s a longer conversation and involves a discussion about subtext vs text, and since this is long enough I’ll just leave it at that for now.)

I’m not going to sit here and defend the finale. Personally, my issues with how Dean and Cas’ relationship were handled in that episode aren’t even about the “no homo” of it all but if you think that’s what it was and that’s what they were doing, that’s completely valid and I’m certainly not going to argue with you. But there’s a reason I liked this show, there’s a reason it was so interesting to follow the trajectory of these characters and relationships and all of that doesn’t suddenly get erased because the end didn’t satisfyingly conclude their arc. All of the rest of it still happened. It’s still there.

#asks #you don't have to agree with me anon #but that's how i always saw it #destiel #my spn thoughts #Anonymous

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sortinghatchats · 4 years

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Sorting Firefly

Note: in the way we like to play this sorting game, “primaries” are WHY you do things and “secondaries” are HOW. If you want to learn more about our system’s definitions, check out our other tumblr posts, our blog at sortinghatchats.wordpress.com, or our quiz at https://ejadelomax.itch.io/sortinghatchats.

Malcolm Reynolds is our go-to example for the Burned Hufflepuff Primary. An Unburned Hufflepuff Primary values community, fairness, and empathy. A Burned Hufflepuff still has those inner values, but thinks it’s impractical, naive, unsafe, or foolish to prioritize them. They tend to think of themselves as bad people -- practical, sensible, maybe, but not very good.

It can be tempting to consider Mal perhaps a burned Gryffindor instead, but look at him in the war, before he burns. His faith isn’t in the righteousness or the cause, but their people—”hear that? That’s our angels coming.” Mal has a big heart and he wants both to help and to believe in other people. (This is one of the reasons River is so vital to him—but we’ll talk about that later).

Mal after the war is no different in what he wants — he’s just had to settle, injured, for a smaller world. “You’re on my crew,” he tells a bewildered Simon. (Simon’s Slytherin Primary is absolutely flabbergasted by Mal’s stubborn loyalties to him and River, which is based in their need and their being part of the family, where Simon’s loyalties are razor-edged and individualistic).

Mal can’t love the whole world anymore, or even just the Browncoats, because he knows that would destroy him— it already almost did. But he can love his crew. He can make Serenity a home.

Mal’s Puff Primary shows up in other places, too, sneaking past the Slytherin Primary model he’s used to keep himself alive and sane after the breaking of his too-big heart, like when he gives the medicines back in Train Job, risking Niska’s wrath.

Zoe, who first fell into step behind a Hufflepuff years ago, questions him about it in the movie—an unburned Mal, the one from the war, would never have left a man behind. This Mal shot the bystander begging for rescue (a mercy) to save his crew. That prioritizing (or, rather, the instantaneous decision of it) points to his Slytherin model—but it eats Mal up the way it would never eat up Simon, an actual Slytherin Primary (“remember, River, it’s okay to leave them to die”).

Mal wishes, deeply, quietly, that he could save everyone. But war and loss burned his young, faithful Hufflepuff into a man who thinks one of the basic truths of the universe is that you can’t save everyone and that it will destroy you to try. So he’s sunk his stake into these eight Serenity-boarded souls and decided it’s enough.

This is one of the things that makes his relationship with River so interesting. The Burned Puff knows he should not be trusting and investing in this broken bird and her verse-wide bounty, her untrustworthy triggers and destructive lethality. But in letting them stay in the pilot, in pulling her back to the ship in Objects in Space, in joining her crusade in Serenity, he defies all these hard lessons he’s learned and he trusts her, he fights for her, he believes. By ignoring his “better judgement” and investing in this one unlikely young woman, he’s starting to heal his Hufflepuff and have faith in the good fight once again. The last moment of the Firefly-filmed universe is Mal Reynolds teaching River how to fly.

(For a definition of teach, anyway.)

For secondary (the “how”) — Mal’s a Gryff. “If I shoot you,” he told Simon, “You’ll be awake, you’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed.” Badger mocks him for it in the pilot— Mal wants the world to be honorable. He wants to be fighting the good fight, and he wants to do it in the good ways.

Gryffindor secondaries are an interesting mix of stand-up integrity and mischievous (even deceitful) rule-breaking and chaos (think Fred and George). These potentially conflicting traits come from this— Gryffindor Secondaries are self-defined.

Their integrity and their honesty is a deal with themselves, not others. They stand firm to their own rules, but find other peoples’ or organizations’ insignificant, or even downright offensive. The other secondaries all can and do break rules—a Slytherin Secondary might play the system, a Hufflepuff Secondary might invest in it, a Ravenclaw might find its loopholes—but a good rule of thumb for identifying a Gryffindor Secondary is this: is rule-breaking a tool? or is it a personality trait?

Simon, who destroyed his whole life to get to River, and was willing to let Kaylee (the epitome of the innocent bystander) bleed out in order to keep his sister safe, is a Slytherin Primary. He looks slightly Puff occassionally—this is because he’s tied part of his worth to the Puff-like doctrine of a surgeon: service and do no harm. You see it when he saves the patient on Ariel and then chews the attending physicisian out, offended to his core. These are beliefs he holds close to himself, that help define him—but at Simon’s core, no matter how Ravenclaw clever or kindly even bumblingly Hufflepuff he can seem, he puts his people first and he loses no sleep over that.

He’s got a Ravenclaw Secondary—asked to describe his usefulness, Simon would first and foremost claim his intelligence and his skills. He’s best when he’s in his “element,” drawing on skills, knowledge, and tolls he’s already learned and comfortable with.

Simon’s got a Slytherin Secondary model on top of his Slytherclaw heart, which I suspect he learned from his dad. The Ravenclaw/Slytherin combo in the secondary/model space (in either order) often looks a little bit like a criminal mastermind (or someone who wants to be one, anyway). When Simon is uncomfortable, falling back on his model, his starts to look a bit like a plotting villain—in the pilot, on Ariel, and at the beginning of Serenity the movie.

Zoe is a Gyffindor Primary who really likes Hufflepuffs (see: Mal, Wash). Like Mal, she’s been burned by the war. Puff Primary Mal has become disillusioned by a cruel ‘verse that requires you to abandon some people to save others. He has lost faith in both the fairness of the universe and his own ability to make it more fair. But Zoe, a burned Gryff, has lost faith in her own ability to tell right from wrong.

She’s not deeply burned—more a light char—but instead of trusting her own gut these days, she trusts Mal’s. Her internal moral compass feels like it’s gone awry or silent. She feels lost. This is a burned Gryffindor, and it’s not uncommon for a burned Gryffindor to try to find their morality somewhere outside themself. Zoe finds hers in Mal.

Part of it is that she knew him in the war when he was fearless, his Puff effortless, and because it’s easy for her to fall into the structured hierarchy of their roles-- sergeant or captain. She has given him not just practical but also moral authority. She questions him, but she trusts him in the end, almost always. And, though it’s framed within the “sir” and the war, the reason for it lies on the quality of Mal himself. Zoe would never give her allegiance to anyone who did not deserve it. But she feels she cannot trust her own internal compass, so instead she trusts Mal’s heart.

For secondary: Zoe does not charge, comfort, or connive. She’s straightforward because it’s useful, not because it’s a moral imperative. Ravenclaw Secondary I think—look at the comparison with Mal’s Gryff Secondary in the “tin of beans” flashback in The Message. Where Mal shouts and hollers and charges, a different school of thought, Zoe is organized, efficient, deliberate (and deadly).

The way Inara freaks out and skiddaddles when she realizes how important the Serenity crew (and esp. Mal) have become to her — that is a Slytherin Primary trying so hard to Petrify. She’s mourning Nandi and she’s mourning herself, and she just wants everything to stop hurting.

Inara looks a lot like a Puff Secondary, because she performs Hufflepuff so damn well, but she’s not. In her introductory scene, on the job, we get snatches of her “inner” thoughts while she smiles and pours tea— she’s sighing, shifting, rolling her eyes. There’s clearly a disconnect between how she feels about this man and what she’s doing.

A Slytherin/Hufflepuff Inara (which, on the very surface, would look very similar to most of her behavior) would have to convince herself to “mean” the affection for her clients, even if only for the allotted time slot. Eyerolling, internal or external, wouldn’t happen until she was back on the ship, curled up with Kaylee, telling stories, and that’s if the eye-rolling happened at all.

Inara talks like that, though—that she chooses people she ‘connects’ with, that kind of thing. She’s got a lot of respect and wishfulness when it comes to Hufflepuff, which I think is where she bonds best with Book— he performs Puff, too, and wishes that giving warmth was closer to his core.

Inara has a Slytherin Secondary model, which she uses to excel at the “performance” of her job. The flexibility and cultivated appearance of that secondary work for her well. However, her actual secondary is Ravenclaw, a learner, a studier, and a collector of skills. Slytherin’s adaptability is just one more skill her Ravenclaw has worked to learn.

When Inara’s with the crew, she tends to live simply in her Ravenclaw secondary, giving off an impression of precision, clarity, and certainty. Her Ravenclaw and Mal’s Gryffindor secondary, both strident, solid houses, like to have sparring matches/bonding times while their Loyalist House primaries make doe-eyes at each other. Dweebs.

Jayne Cobb displays neither a Slytherin Primary’s strong loyalty drive, a Hufflepuff’s need-based service, or a Ravenclaw’s constructed, systematized morality. He appears to be a Gryffindor Primary whose felt morality is “whatever I want.”

If you read him really complexly, you could maybe imagine a Ravenclaw Primary there, who’s settled on that morality of self-serving ruthlessness. But moments like the one where he joins up with Serentiy—he shoots both his buddies on Mal’s suggestion—suggest against that. The betrayal doesn’t make Ravenclaw any more unlikely than Gryffindor, but the instantaneous decision to make a moral choice he’d never considered or run through his system before suggests that his is an intuitive “gut” morality—just a really unsavory one.

His selfishness looks temptingly like a Slytherin Primary, but he lacks any of the loyalty. He’ll betray anyone and it doesn’t seem to be because he’s Petrified—he still likes and bonds with people. He cares not just practically but emotionally about what they think of him (his plea to Mal not to tell the others about his betrayal in Ariel). But when push comes to shove, he doesn’t seem to be driven strongly by that affection, the way a Slytherin is tied to their personal loyalties. A Gryffindor, then, just an ugly one. Sorry, Gryffindors.

His secondary, though, we think is Slytherin. He looks a lot like a blunt Gryffindor Secondary, but it’s just his Slytherin Secondary neutral state, which he likes to live in and which shares the blunt or even abrasive honesty and delighted tactlessness of some Gryffindor Secondaries.

When Jayne needs to lie, deceive, connive, or betray, he does it easily and without a touch of dismay. He schemes and jockies for advantage. He’s a good example of the uglier stereotypes of a Slytherin Secondary. Sorry, Slytherins.

Kaylee Frye is a Gryffindor Primary like Jayne and Zoe, but where Jayne’s is self-serving and Zoe’s is quietly shattered, Kaylee’s shines bright through her Hufflepuff Secondary. She community-builds like nobody’s business and even her technical prowess is described in terms of intuitive empathy.

In the episode where they pick up Simon and River, she’s sitting outside Serenity asking people why she should let them onto her ship, why they want to be on her ship. And the only answer she accepts, Book’s, is a philosophy of wandering and traveling that sits close to her heart. It’s a Gryffindor recognizing someone who looks to share her view of the world. It’s a Gryffindor who’s bonding over shared ideas and ideals. And what does she do with this information? She brings Book aboard the ship. Welcome to the family, you share our philosophies, and I think we’ll get along great.

One of the (many) ways she does her part on Serenity is by community building with people who are good, who are worth getting to know, or who are interesting-- who aren’t just picking their ship because it’s a ship that they happened to see, but because they’re able to pick up on that something special that Kaylee values so much about Serenity.

Book is a burned Gryffindor with a Slytherin secondary and a Hufflepuff performance. He’s devoted himself to the truth of the Word, of the Bible, of his religion-- like, Zoe he doesn’t have faith in his own ability to tell right from wrong. Where Zoe places her faith in Mal, Book places his in his religion.

His secondary is a bit hard to sort, but from his laid-back, go with the flow skills and his comfort with lying or gilding the truth, he reads as a Slytherin Secondary to us.

Wash is a hard sort, because you can read or not read so many different depths to him. Is he really as utterly transparent as he seems? He looks like a Hufflepuff Primary, but maybe he’s a Ravenclaw with a loud model—because if he’s a straight up Puff, then the boy wears his heart and thoughts on his sleeve all the time.

But Zoe has a pattern—she likes Puffs—so we’re gonna go with that.

Wash really is that honest and straightforward, his emotions obvious on his face. I think someone with the sort of built layers that are easy but not necessary to read into Wash wouldn’t be the kind Zoe would fall in love with. She likes hearts that know what they’re doing, that are instinctual in their kindnesses. Wash is himself, all the time, and that self plays with dinosaurs, loves his wife, and headbutts with Mal over ethics with the thoughtless confidence of two Puffs who disagree.

Ravenclaw Secondary—he’s quirky, delights in sarcasm and wit even when what he’s trying to be is kind. His Puff center makes his secondary look a lot warmer than burned Gryffindor Zoe’s Ravenclaw secondary, but the fact that this couple shares a secondary makes sense.

We think River was originally a Ravenclaw/Ravenclaw with Slytherin Primary and Ravenclaw Secondary models — basically, as a kid she modeled Simon’s Slytherclaw. She’s not a Slytherin Primary herself, but she finds comfort in Slytherin loyalty and she often sees the world through that lens—an emphasis on interpersonal connection, a sense of “mine first,” and loyalties owed.

By the time she’s on Serenity, however, she’s been rubbed so raw she doubts her Slytherin model (“I didn’t think you’d come for me” “Dummy,” says Slytherclaw Simon, who never could have done anything else) and she has almost entirely dropped the show-off Claw performance of the little girl who had corrected her big brother’s spelling. As the show goes on, she grasps more and more of her Slytherin model: she gets to bring back one of her layers, regain her trust in Simon’s Slytherin, rebuild her model of a world in which one universal truth is that her brother will always come for her.

But River’s drives and connection to the world are understanding it. She wants to know what’s going on, both in the observant, academic sense of the Ravenclaw Secondary and the more abstract Ravenclaw primary—she’s looking for purpose, shoulds and shouldn’ts, for identity.

A Slytherin Primary in her situation might have attached themselves to Simon like a baby sloth, but River doesn’t. He’s her solid ground, but not her reason.

A young Gryffindor might be reactive, responding with their gut, or perhaps cynical and shattered after their self had been so invaded. In rebuilding, a Gryffindor would be looking for something inside themselves, a sense of solidity, a sense of purpose — River is looking outside.

A Hufflepuff Primary might have clearer eyes for the people of the ship— River views them with a detached fondness. There is genuine affection there (see: Objects in Space), but when it comes to River feeling steady in the world she’s almost more interested in the engines than the crew— not their mechanics, but the beat of them.

She’s a Romantic sort of Ravenclaw Primary, sure, but she’s got a need for systems to build and inhabit. Her sense of reality has been shattered and the first thing that gives her some peace and stability is this — not safety, certainty, or community, but a sense of knowing what is going on.

River’s trying to figure out how this all works and the heart of this show (because River more than any of them lives in the meta-text) is Serenity.

River’s trying to find a base from which she can build. Her world, her models, and her ability to perceive and believe reality have been shattered. Mal pulls her back to the ship at the end of the last episode—it’s a homecoming, yes, but perhaps more than that he’s giving her a place to stand.

That episode is easily Firefly’s most existential/meta and it’s fitting that we start it with River detached from reality—ocean wave audio, mistaking a gun for a fallen branch, pushed to untrusted outskirts—and that we end it with River landing firmly feet first on Serenity, beaming through her suit visor.

tl;dr:

Mal - Burned Hufflepuff / Gryffindor

Inara - Slytherin / Ravenclaw

Jayne - Gryffindor / Slytherin

Kaylee - Gryffindor / Hufflepuff

Book - Burned Gryffindor / Slytherin

Zoe - Burned Gryffindor / Ravenclaw

Wash - Hufflepuff / Ravenclaw

Simon - Slytherin / Ravenclaw

River - Ravenclaw / Ravenclaw

#firefly #sortinghatchats #repost

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imperiuswrecked · 4 years

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Thank you so much for the Namor content and allowing us to ask all kinds of Namor questions. If you don’t mind me asking: what’s his MBTI and what would you say are the key things to know about him personality wise if you were a stranger who just happened to cross paths with him & wanted to strike up a convo. at one of these restaurants/events he seems to like (at least I think he does) to frequent.

Hello! And you’re welcome! I’m always open to answering questions as best I can. I know I discussed this once with a mutual but it was a while back so I took a MBTI quiz again for Namor and it says Namor is a Logistician ISTJ-A. I have included the explanation of this under the cut and tried to cross out things that didn’t really fit with Namor’s character.

I think the key things to know about Namor’s personality is:

- He hates cowards and bullies. Basically people who abuse their power over others is also someone he would hate. Also he hates Nazis.

- He dislikes people who don’t respect him and get in his space or touch him without permission.

- His mood shifts a lot even in conversation, so be ready for these changes especially when he gets angry.

- He is compassionate even if he doesn’t show it all the time.

- His compliments are very roundabout unless he is trying to woo someone then he is all poetry and dramatics.

- He likes doing stuff and having fun, so he is very adventurous.

- He is loyal and protective of those he deems as “his” whether it be friends, lovers, or family.

Basically he’s a salty grumpy charred on the outside and a little gooey on the inside, undersea marshmellow.

If you were to cross paths with him in a public setting I think it would depend entirely on who the person is, if it’s a commoner person Namor might ignore them, if its a person of importance then he would acknowledge them. He is very slow to make friends so that won’t happen right away. Flattery and compliments are usually the best way to go because he does like having his ego stroked. Hope this helps!

Logistician ISTJ-A

The Logistician personality type is thought to be the most abundant, making up around 13% of the population. Their defining characteristics of integrity, practical logic and tireless dedication to duty make Logisticians a vital core to many families, as well as organizations that uphold traditions, rules and standards, such as law offices, regulatory bodies and military. People with the Logistician personality type enjoy taking responsibility for their actions, and take pride in the work they do – when working towards a goal, Logisticians hold back none of their time and energy completing each relevant task with accuracy and patience.

Logisticians don’t make many assumptions, preferring instead to analyze their surroundings, check their facts and arrive at practical courses of action. Logistician personalities are no-nonsense, and when they’ve made a decision, they will relay the facts necessary to achieve their goal, expecting others to grasp the situation immediately and take action. Logisticians have little tolerance for indecisiveness, but lose patience even more quickly if their chosen course is challenged with impractical theories, especially if they ignore key details – if challenges becomes time-consuming debates, Logisticians can become noticeably angry as deadlines tick nearer.

Associate With Those of Good Quality if You Esteem Your Reputation...

When Logisticians say they are going to get something done, they do it, meeting their obligations no matter the personal cost, and they are baffled by people who don’t hold their own word in the same respect. Combining laziness and dishonesty is the quickest way to get on Logisticians’ bad side. Consequently, people with the Logistician personality type often prefer to work alone, or at least have their authority clearly established by hierarchy, where they can set and achieve their goals without debate or worry over other’s reliability.

Logisticians have sharp, fact-based minds, and prefer autonomy and self-sufficiency to reliance on someone or something. Dependency on others is often seen by Logisticians as a weakness, and their passion for duty, dependability and impeccable personal integrity forbid falling into such a trap.

This sense of personal integrity is core to Logisticians, and goes beyond their own minds – Logistician personalities adhere to established rules and guidelines regardless of cost, reporting their own mistakes and telling the truth even when the consequences for doing so could be disastrous. To Logisticians, honesty is far more important than emotional considerations, and their blunt approach leaves others with the false impression that Logisticians are cold, or even robotic. People with this type may struggle to express emotion or affection outwardly, but the suggestion that they don’t feel, or worse have no personality at all, is deeply hurtful.

...For It Is Better to Be Alone Than in Bad Company

Logisticians’ dedication is an excellent quality, allowing them to accomplish much, but it is also a core weakness that less scrupulous individuals take advantage of. Logisticians seek stability and security, considering it their duty to maintain a smooth operation, and they may find that their coworkers and significant others shift their responsibilities onto them, knowing that they will always take up the slack. Logisticians tend to keep their opinions to themselves and let the facts do the talking, but it can be a long time before observable evidence tells the whole story.

Logisticians need to remember to take care of themselves – their stubborn dedication to stability and efficiency can compromise those goals in the long term as others lean ever-harder on them, creating an emotional strain that can go unexpressed for years, only finally coming out after it’s too late to fix. If they can find coworkers and spouses who genuinely appreciate and complement their qualities, who enjoy the brightness, clarity and dependability that they offer, Logisticians will find that their stabilizing role is a tremendously satisfying one, knowing that they are part of a system that works.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Logistician Strengths

Honest and Direct – Integrity is the heart of the Logistician personality type. Emotional manipulation, mind games and reassuring lies all run counter to Logisticians’ preference for managing the reality of the situations they encounter with plain and simple honesty.

Strong-willed and Dutiful – Logisticians embody that integrity in their actions too, working hard and staying focused on their goals. Patient and determined, people with the Logistician personality type meet their obligations, period.

Very Responsible – Logisticians’ word is a promise, and a promise means everything. Logisticians would rather run themselves into the ground with extra days and lost sleep than fail to deliver the results they said they would. Loyalty is a strong sentiment for Logistician personalities, and they fulfill their duties to the people and organizations they’ve committed themselves to.

Calm and Practical – None of their promises would mean much if Logisticians lost their tempers and broke down at every sign of hardship – they keep their feet on the ground and make clear, rational decisions. Peoples’ preferences are a factor to consider in this process, and Logisticians work to make the best use of individual qualities, but these decisions are made with effectiveness in mind more so than empathy. The same applies to criticisms, for others and themselves.

Create and Enforce Order – The primary goal of any Logistician is to be effective in what they’ve chosen to do, and they believe that this is accomplished best when everyone involved knows exactly what is going on and why. Unclear guidelines and people who break established rules undermine this effort, and are rarely tolerated by Logisticians. Structure and rules foster dependability; chaos creates unforeseen setbacks and missed deadlines.

Jacks-of-all-trades – Much like Analyst personality types, Logisticians are proud repositories of knowledge, though the emphasis is more on facts and statistics than concepts and underlying principles. This allows Logisticians to apply themselves to a variety of situations, picking up and applying new data and grasping the details of challenging situations as a matter of course.

Logistician Weaknesses

Stubborn – The facts are the facts, and Logisticians tend to resist any new idea that isn’t supported by them. This factual decision-making process also makes it difficult for people with the Logistician personality type to accept that they were wrong about something – but anyone can miss a detail, even them.

Insensitive – While not intentionally harsh, Logisticians often hurt more sensitive types’ feelings by the simple mantra that honesty is the best policy. Logistician personalities may take emotions into consideration, but really only so far as to determine the most effective way to say what needs to be said.

Always by the Book – Logisticians believe that things work best with clearly defined rules, but this makes them reluctant to bend those rules or try new things, even when the downside is minimal. Truly unstructured environments leave Logisticians all but paralyzed.

Judgmental – Opinions are opinions and facts are facts, and Logisticians are unlikely to respect people who disagree with those facts, or especially those who remain willfully ignorant of them.

Often Unreasonably Blame Themselves – All this can combine to make Logisticians believe they are the only ones who can see projects through reliably. As they load themselves with extra work and responsibilities, turning away good intentions and helpful ideas, Logisticians sooner or later hit a tipping point where they simply can’t deliver. Since they’ve heaped the responsibility on themselves, Logisticians then believe the responsibility for failure is theirs alone to bear.

Romantic Relationships

Logisticians are dependable through and through, and this trait is clearly expressed when it comes to their romantic relationships. Often representing the epitome of family values, people with the Logistician personality type are comfortable with, and often even encourage traditional household and gender roles, and look to a family structure guided by clear expectations and honesty. While their reserved nature often makes dating Logisticians challenging, they are truly dedicated partners, willing to devote tremendous thought and energy to ensure stable and mutually satisfying relationships.

Happiness and Moral Duty Are Inseparably Connected

Blind dates and random hookups are not Logisticians’ preferred methods for finding potential partners. The risk and unpredictability of these situations has Logisticians’ alarm bells ringing, and being dragged out for a night of dancing at the club just isn’t going to happen. Logistician personalities much prefer more responsible, conservative methods of dating, such as dinner with an interested coworker or, in their more adventurous moods, a setup organized through a mutual friend.

Logisticians approach relationships, as with most things, from a rational perspective, looking for compatibility and the mutual satisfaction of daily and long-term needs. This isn’t a process that Logisticians take lightly, and once commitments are established, they stick to their promises to the very end. Logisticians establish foundations, fulfill their responsibilities, and keep their relationships functional and stable.

As their relationships transitions into the long-term, Logisticians gladly see to the necessary daily tasks around the house, applying the same sense of duty to their home life that they do in the workplace.

While this may not translate into particularly exotic intimate lives, Logisticians are dependable lovers who want very much for their partners to remain satisfied. It takes patience on the part of more adventurous partners, but if different activities can be demonstrated as equally or more enjoyable than those already within Logisticians’ comfort zones, they are perfectly capable of trying something new.

However, emotional satisfaction can be another matter. While Logisticians are able to provide surprisingly good emotional support, this only happens when they realize that it’s necessary, and there’s the rub. Logisticians are not naturally receptive to others’ emotions, not unless they are stated clearly, and a partner usually only says “I’m angry” when it’s too late to address the initial grievance.

Let Your Heart Feel Their Afflictions, and Give Proportionally

People with the Logistician personality type can get so caught up in the belief in their correctness, in “winning” arguments they thought were about facts, that they don’t realize their partner may have viewed things from a perspective of consideration and sensitivity. Especially with more sensitive partners, this can be a huge challenge for the relationship. Ultimately though, Logisticians’ senses of responsibility and dedication set the tone, and they spare no effort in noting to this distinction moving forward, the consequences having been demonstrated as real.

While Logisticians’ staid approach may seem boring to some, there is an undeniable attractiveness to it, though felt perhaps more by respect and admiration than emotional passion. Logisticians’ shells hide a strong and quiet determination and reliability, rare among other personality types, which can benefit even the flightiest personalities, allowing them to stay connected to the real world while still exploring new territory. Partners who share the Observant (S) trait are the best fit for Logistician personalities, with one or two opposing traits to create balance and to expand Logisticians’ sometimes overly isolated world, such as partners with Extraverted (E) or Prospecting (P) traits.

Friendships

Logistician friends are not spontaneous. They are not talkative, or particularly playful in their affection. What Logistician friends are is loyal, trustworthy, honorable and dependable. Others may come and go with the ups and downs of life, but Logisticians stay by their friends’ sides no matter what, with a deepness of commitment that other types may not even believe is possible.

True Friendship Is a Plant of Slow Growth

Logisticians are a very methodical personality type, and this loyalty isn’t given away lightly. Often slow to make friends, Logisticians usually end up with a smaller circle, but they consider that circle to represent a promise to be there for the people they care about, and Logisticians’ promises are not easily broken.

Expressing emotional affection isn’t one of Logisticians’ stronger skills, but they nevertheless find ways to show it. As Socrates said, “To be is to do”, and Logisticians’ follow-through, their willingness to take action as a show of support, stands in for their words.

These actions convey a sensitivity that many fail to see, but it is a quality that Logisticians’ friends come to admire and depend on in the long years of their friendships.

But all of this sounds terribly serious, and indeed it only shows the one side of Logisticians and their approach to their friendships. The other side knows how to stop being quite so staid, and especially in the company of joyful and talkative Extraverts (E), Logisticians enjoy relaxing and having fun with a good discussion about work, life, and current events.

People with the Logistician personality type don’t like conflict, and this applies to how they select their friends as well. Seeking out friends with similar principles and opinions, Logisticians most often befriend other Sentinels personalities, who are likely to share their perspective and world vision. While they are unlikely to become friends with substantially different types – it simply takes too much energy to bridge the communication gap – Logistician personalities still recognize and appreciate others’ strengths and qualities.

Knowledge Is the Surest Basis of Happiness

In fact, as if to prove the point, Logisticians almost always have at least one Intuitive (N) friend in their inner circle, despite the disconnect the two perspectives bring. These are very much relationships built not on mutual understanding, but out of respect for their mutual differences. Logisticians marvel at Intuitives’ breadth of thought, being very much in tune with their own intelligence, while Intuitives admire Logisticians’ realism and dependability, something they are often hard-pressed to find in themselves. Knowledge, as always, is the great equalizer.

Parenthood

As parents, people with the Logistician personality type are often the most comfortable. Their sense of responsibility and honor blends well with a tradition that has been in place since time immemorial: to raise one’s children to be respected, contributing members of home and society. As with most commitments, Logisticians do not take their roles as parents lightly, and will make it their work to ensure that this tradition is upheld to the highest standard.

This doesn’t always come easily for their children though, as Logisticians tend to be strict, with high standards and expectations. Logistician personalities establish stable, clearly structured environments for their children, always with an eye on helping them to develop a sense of place in society, and to fulfill useful roles.

A clear sense of hierarchy is a part of developing this identity, and Logisticians work just as much to ensure an appropriate respect for authority as they do with family and societal structure.

All this loyalty, devotion and structure are of little use though when Logisticians’ children need the warmth of emotional support. While Logisticians can be sensitive towards those they care about in their own way, it’s hard for younger children and especially adolescents to recognize this tough love for the love that it is. Often Logisticians need to rely on a more sensitive partner to fill this role and mediate between rational purpose and the more ethereal sense of emotional well-being.

Success Is Owed to Our Parents’ Moral and Intellectual Teachings

People with the Logistician personality type are strongly principled, valuing patience and hard work, qualities children often struggle with. Nevertheless, Logisticians’ children are expected to meet these standards and share these values, for their own good. This approach often bears its fruit in the long run, but Logisticians must keep in mind that their approach creates natural barriers and distance that often leave their children wondering if they’re on the same team.

Taken too far, or with mutual stubbornness, this may even set in as a permanent state in the relationship, something both Logistician parents and their children ultimately regret. It is best for Logisticians to embrace and hold to their own values, but to also recognize that each person has their own goals, and to meet their children halfway in attaining theirs. Combining their natural devotion and purpose with this flexibility in support of their children’s own vision leads to a sense of mutual respect and accomplishment that any Logistician parent would be proud of.

#namor #namor mckenzie #namor the sub-mariner #marvel comics #long post #thanks for asking!#Anonymous

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ardenttheories · 5 years

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Could you do an analysis for Witch of Void and Thief of Hope?

Witch of Void

The Witch of Void is someone who Controls Void, which is Doubt, Confusion, Nothingness, Lies, Hidden Things, the actual Void itself, Indifference and Irrelevance.

Witches have a habit of exerting such control over their Aspect that they just break its rules entirely. They can, in essence, decide that works and what doesn’t, and this makes a Witch of Void a very interesting thing.

In personality, they’d likely be a bit of a connundrum. Void Players tend to be quiet, withdrawn, a little unsure; they seem wholly Unimportant and like to stay that way, and are more than happy to let other people take the stage.

The Witch of Void is not like this. They decide what is and isn’t Irrelevant, what should be Hidden and what should be Seen. They’re vocal and loud; brash and fervent. You WILL look at this thing, but you don’t look at this other thing, no, you won’t even know that it exists.

They like Obscure things, and probably work to try and keep those things purposefully Obscure, because they like the sense of Mystery it brings. Oh, you’ve never heard of this thing? It’s okay, it is pretty rare. You wouldn’t get it if you tried, but they can totally explain it to you - while leaving out all the main details, of course.

They take centre stage and expect to be heard. Of course, they then fade away when they want to be Hidden, and that can make them horrendously annoying. They’re too there and too gone, hard to ignore and then outright impossible to find.

They like to decide which parts of their lives are Hidden and which are in view, and that might not always be what people expect. For instance, they might happily show off that they goddamn adore My Little Pony, but only the really old generations that aren’t as well known anymore, and then Hide away an even bigger love, such as an Obscure anime series or videogame.

They like their own privacy, but then invade others. There’s no Secrets around the Witch of Void, and that can make them very oblivious and sometimes upsetting. They might Reveal something you didn’t want being Known, or might confront you about something you thought you’d kept closely Hidden against your chest. They can come off as very upfront and rude because of it, but it isn’t intentional; they don’t often mean to hurt, and pointing out that they dislike people knowing their own Secrets is likely enough to get them to snap up shut again.

They have the ability to decide what can be Hidden and what must face the Light, what should amount to Nothing and what is allowed Importance. They can turn the most Important in the entire game - such as the Narrative Construct - into absolutely Nothing at all. It would become completely Irrelevant, and as such, would never work - or they would simply hide it away so well that even the most determined of Light Players would never know of its existence.

They can erase the concept of Importance entirely, and replace it with an overarching sense of Irrelevancy. See how Important Vriska is to the storyline that she literally makes Jack Noir? The Witch of Void could completely counteract that by making Jack Noir have no actual effect on the Plot - or even by changing the concept of the Plot altogether.

They’d be able to create Loopholes, Blackouts, missing Plot Pieces, and they’d be able to find them where they already exist. They could Control these things and guide them into something that suitably benefits the Witch - such as by hiding from view a very Important character until it’s completely vital that they appear. They could even use Loopholes to ensure that certain events never come to be, or create them from Nothing just because they damn well said so.

This thing doesn’t make sense? The Witch of Void probably did that. Even the most basic concept could become completely impossible to understand if the Witch gets their hands on it, and they can spin you in circles around it until you just can’t stand to think on it anymore. They can, of course, also use these things that don’t make sense to their benefit; any part of SBURB lore that’s vague is a plaything for Witch, who can fill up those spaces with anything they so desire.

The Witch gets to decide if the Void should be there or not. They get to take it away and replace it with something else, get to fill it up with whatever they desire - and they can even just remove the Void without putting it anywhere else, or fill it up with things that didn’t already exist.

For instance, that cupboard is empty? Not anymore! Now it’s filled with berries! Where did the berries come from? Nowhere! They just exist now!

On a more serious note, though, this means that Witches of Void can fill Voids in the plot with anything they want. If there’s a Plothole that’s completely Irrelevant and has no effect on the Plot as a whole, they can just… take it away. They can get rid of anything relating to the Plothole entirely - such as by erasing the confusion over the Alpha Trolls’ whereabouts by erasing them from the story - or they can fill it in with something so Important it’ll blindside you - such as by revealling that actually the Alpha Trolls were the key to defeating LE all along.

They can conjure things out of thin air and Hide them away just as quickly, quite literally from nothing - and might even have the ability to Alchemise without using any Grist as a basis.

Hell, if we go far enough, a Witch of Void can screw up the entire concept of Alchemy altogether. You can’t grab “Nothing” and turn it into “something” - you have to convert that one thing into something else, like a sort of sacrifice - but the Witch of Void quite literally can. They can ignore this very basic law entirely and just make things without having to sacrifice anything in the process.

They can walk through the Void with ease, and traverse even the most Unknown paths as if they were paved out clear as day, like a map just exists in their mind of anything that’s Hidden. In fact, nothing is truly Hidden from them at all; Lies and Truths are clear as day to them, so long as they actually feel like focusing on them - and they can make sure that some Lies or Truths stay completely Irrelevant if that’s what benefits them best.

Of course, they can cause huge Blackouts, too - like most Void Players, except with actual purpose. It’d be like a giant ink splot over the Timeline; nobody would be able to see in it, even if the Witch was never there for the event itself. People might even just forget that the event happened at all, as if they suffered from acute amnesia. Their memories would either skip right over it or have a definite hole that they can’t dig into no matter how hard they try.

If it was a person or thing that they wanted to Blackout then it would remain unseen long after the Witch is gone - as long as they needed it to be Irrelevant and unseen.

Maybe that would mean that it physically LOOKS like a void - like you’d covered it in the blackest black known to man, and it just looks like a giant hole - and maybe that would mean a Players eyes just can’t comprehend it - that they see it, but they don’t register that it exists.

When they become Realised, there’s nothing they can’t do. While a lot of their initial powers would be pretty harmless and basic - like just being Really Good at finding hidden things or just Arguing A Lot against what Nothingness and Irrelevancy means - all the things I stated above would come into play pretty much as soon as they Godtier.

They’d become much more responsible. Whereas before they were brash and loud, bursting through like a bulldozer and then sinking back into the shadows as they pleased, the Realised Witch of Void would slowly come to understand that there’s a time and a place for everything.

They’d become a little more calculating, a little softer. They’d still hold that bright, out-there personality at times, but they’d be a little more somber and quiet. They might be so quiet at times that you even forget they’re in the room, and come off towards the end of the journey as a little shy and reserved.

In truth, they’re just watching and waiting. Void Players can be patient when they need to be, and the Witch of Void will eventually come to understand that. It won’t be a complete 180, but it will be evident enough that they’ve grown, matured, and realised that there’s just a certain way to act that isn’t totally out there.

Still a bit of a hipster douche, though. Just a little less blunt about it.

Thief of Hope

The Thief of Hope is someone who Steals Hope for their own benefit, which is Positivity, Belief, Acceptance, Naivety/Gullibility, Euphoria, and the idea of a Stubborn Yes.

Thieves tend to genuinely Lack their Aspect. They’re one of the few Classes that really does suffer from an inate void of their Aspect from the get-go, and their Stealing ways often stems from a desperation to fill this void. They also tend to represent what their session has too much of, so they act as a sort of balancing feature for the people around them.

Thieves of Hope, therefore, tend to suffer a lack of Hope. Deep inside, they are likely terrified and unsure, incapable of Believing in anything - most of all themselves - and suffer from a deep-seated Doubt of anything or anyone around them. They think they’re wrong, that everything is wrong, that there’s this innate wrongness about their very existence - and they desperately try to escape that by stealing the Positivity and Belief from other people.

You can imagine them as a sort of amalgamation of sorts. They snatch up bits and pieces of Belief from other people and make it their own, likely turning it into something entirely new or using it to emphasise their own Beliefs more. They might have a very specific ideology that they focus on, and Steal the core concepts of others to belittle anything that goes against their Belief, simultaneously powering it.

They Steal the Euphoria people feel in various situations to gain that sense of Wonder for themself, siphoning it into the things they feel like they should enjoy. I guess in a way you can imagine that a Thief of Hope would steal the high someone gets from doing something like mild drugs (such as weed) or adrenaline-fuelled sports and use it to power themselves forward. They may even become a little reliant on it, because the crash that they feel when all of the good feelings are gone would be… catastrophic.

That said, they would be boundless and filled with Optimism. Nothing could get them down, not even a little bit, and they would be horrifically stubborn. They just wouldn’t listen if something went against their way of thinking, and they’d Steal the Belief of the person they’re talking to in order to ensure that their way of thinking can’t be questioned. It’s their way or the highway, and they expect people to listen.

They might also be a little… narcassistic. They’re so overly confident in their own powers and abilities and fuelled by Positive thinking and feelings that they might overdo it a bit. After all, nothing ever seems to go wrong when they’re around (because they Steal everything good from their enemies), so clearly that means nothing will EVER go wrong!

The lack they feel also means that they just desperately want to feel loved and validated. They might take this to mean that they have to be the bestest buddy ever with everyone, or it might mean that they want to be elevated to god-like status. They want to be worshiped because that’s the absolute opposite of how they feel when they’re not on their Hope high - and they are incredibly powerful, so they deserve it, anyway.

Naturally, Stealing Hope means a lot of things.

They can Steal the Belief from something or something, rendering them useless; a highly cherished and worshipped object would have no actual power, even if it originally did, and mircles surrounding it would cease to exist. A worshipped figure would fall out of favour, and people would begin to Doubt them even though there’s no evidence to suggest that they’re wrong - be that a person of value in a community, a religious figure, or a well-loved scientist.

In turn, the Thief would take all that Belief and Reality for themselves. Everything they think and Believe in would magically come true, further validating the idea that they’re Right while everyone else is Wrong. They create their own fantasy and build it up with what they Steal, until it becomes Genuine and True.

This can, of course, be very bad. For instance, if they don’t Believe that Quest Beds work… then nobody will be able to Godtier at all. They’d literally Steal that Reality and make it False - and when someone died on the Quest Bed and didn’t revive on Skaia, they’d just take that as confirmation that they were Right (because they must naturally always be Right).

In fact, they can probably steal Rightness from people, too. If they are Right, then someone else must be Wrong - which would probably infuriate Light Players who know they’re Right, have evidence that they’re Right, have seen that they’re Right, and then suddenly the Thief shows up and they’re Wrong.

They can Steal the Positivity from people, leaving behind Fear and Anger and Doubt, while making themselves feel absolutely Wonderful. The Thief could literally make themself high on feelings, on good vibes, and go headlong into danger because Nothing Can Get Them Down! Of course, the fact that their enemies are now terrified of them helps - some may even be completely frozen in fear.

This can, of course, be used for good. If their foes start to question and Doubt themselves, their role in life, their actions and abilities, then taking them down gets much easier. If something was dangerous and Real - such as the Black King literally just starting the Reckoning - then the Thief can Steal that to make sure it’s not - thereby, for instance, making it so that the Black King’s unable to use the White King’s scepter.

To become Realised, the Thief of Hope has to accept that they can’t just blindly Steal things. They have to come down from that high eventually, to let go of their overzealous Confidence. It’ll be hard, and it’ll actively go against everything they Believe in - and, honestly, this is the Thief that will struggle with this transition most - but they must eventually give in.

Reality is harsh and it sucks, and they’re still allowed to change it, but they have to simmer down a little. Let their allies keep some Hope, let them Believe in things and let go of that chokehold around their own fervent Beliefs, and allow other people to feel Confident. It’s all well and good for the Thief to feel Brave if literally all of their allies have to struggle with Fear as a result.

On top of that, they have to accept that lack within them. They need to recognise that it isn’t a bad thing, that their fears are unwarranted, that they can get to that point without Stealing absolutely everything they can get their hands on.

In other words, instead of Stealing the Belief that everything is okay, they have to actually Believe it. They have to recognise that some of their Belief has to come from within, that they have to make it feel Real, without using their powers to MAKE it real. Once they do that, they’ll be much happier as people, much calmer, and much more likely to only Steal what needs to be Stolen.

#Anonymous #long post//#witch of void #thief of hope #classpect analysis #ardenttheories

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zeldauniverse · 5 years

Text

If you played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you know that one of the game’s vital features is cooking. The possibilities felt endless; you can cook many combinations of food and get a seemingly endless number of results.

Have you ever wanted to taste some of the cooked food you cooked in Breath of the Wild? The Legend’s Cookbook is the gateway to those fantasies. The Legend’s Cookbook is a Legend of Zelda inspired cookbook featuring recreations of the amazing dishes from games we enjoy so much.

We sat down with three of the team members behind The Legend’s Cookbook, and they shared their thoughts about the cookbook and what readers (and eaters!) can look forward to.

Zelda Universe: What made you decide to create a Legend of Zelda inspired cookbook?

Peter Abreu, Lead Chef: There were a lot of factors that went into us wanting to do this. People are spending more money eating out than cooking at home, and we can start to change that trend. We figure if we make cooking something fun, uncomplicated and interesting, we can really change people’s lives.

We love the Zelda series, we’re huge fans. We are in love with the stories, characters and art style. Do you know what is at the very core of that series? Being a hero and saving the world. All of us on the team want to do something like that. The absolute goal here is that one of the recipes in this book becomes a staple in someone’s diet, that it changes the way they go about their dietary lifestyle and their life improves from that change. If we manage to do that, then we’ve done it.

We want everyone to cook like a hero, what better place to draw inspiration from than a series that brought that concept so near and dear to our hearts?

Matt Mannheimer, Producer: It’s one of those things where you play something and you’re like “what if that was real?” That was some of our mindsets when wanting to make some of these inspired recipes from the games. From there we poured our heart into it. With our passion for gaming and the [Zelda] series in general, it made us do our research and figure out what will be the perfect fit for these recipes.

ZU: What types of recipes and foods from the Zelda series are you taking inspiration from?

Peter: The recipes in this cookbook are original, real world recipes inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. We have baked goods, breakfast foods, dinner items, healthy snacks, sweet desserts and so much more! We’re starting with 50 recipes and we want to add even more as stretch goals. For those stretch goals, we are going to add things like cocktails, more creative dishes, and even recipes inspired by the other games in the Zelda series.

Matt: This whole cookbook is from the perspective of the hero. The hero recollecting his time from his adventure, writing down these recipes, fighting monsters, going through dungeons. You know the whole drill! That’s what makes it special; it’s a cookbook that has a story behind it. Not just in the gaming world, but also in real life. If you have enjoyed Mother’s Cookbook or Batter’s Almanac, you’re probably going to enjoy this one.

ZU: Will this cookbook be enjoyed by those who may not know the Zelda franchise?

Peter: Absolutely, we like to keep cooking simple and accessible. This is not going to be a cookbook only for Zelda fans. This cookbook is not going to bash people over the head with references and in-jokes but there will be several subtle allusions and (literal) Easter eggs. We want this to be a guide for everyone, newcomers and veterans to the kitchen and the Zelda series.

The ultimate compliment is for someone to fall in love with the recipes, art, and photos in our cookbook, first, and then realize it draws a lot of inspiration from their favorite series, second.

Matt: You don’t have to know everything about the [Zelda] series to get into this book. I feel its for everyone. I definitely don’t know everything about the [Zelda] series, but whenever I look at these recipes, and the pictures, I’m drawn into it. There are recipes that range from easy to difficult, but they’re so much fun to make. They’re fun to make and are all delicious.

Patrick Deasy, Photographer: I’m probably the biggest normie of the bunch, I’m not much of a gamer. I’ve been able to try out these recipes and I can tell you from an outsiders perspective that this is definitely a cookbook first and a piece of nerd memorabilia later.

ZU: If you had to recommend a recipe to somebody who may be new to cooking, what would it be?

Peter: The rock-hard candy. Our rock candy recipe is simple and delicious. You can do it at home, it’s super easy and very enjoyable. This is for all those with a sweet tooth. Here, I’ll share it with you:

Rock Hard Candy

Ingredients:

2 Cups of White Sugar

1 Cup of Water

3/4 Cup of Light Corn Syrup

1/4 Cup of Pomegranate Juice

Powdered Sugar for Dusting

Directions:

In a saucepan, combine sugar, water, and corn syrup.

Heat up the pan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the white sugar is dissolved completely with the water and corn syrup. It is important to stir gently after sugar has dissolved to prevent burning, Use a candy thermometer to watch the temperature of the mixture and let it hit to the hard crack stage of 300F (149C).

Once there, remove from it from heat and add in the pomegranate juice, slowly. Mix it in.

Then, pour the hot candy into a 9”x9” baking pan covered in parchment paper that’s been dusted with powdered sugar, so the candy doesn’t stick. Leave it out in the open air uncovered and let the candy harden and cool completely.

Then the fun part, break into chunks with a hammer and then enjoy.

Matt: The Legends Cookbook is here to give you a culinary adventure: just go for it. If there’s a recipe you really wanna make, just do it. Even if it doesn’t turn out the way you want it the first time, just keep trying. With these recipes, we just want you to become a better chef.

ZU: Which recipe from this cookbook are you most excited about?

In The Legend’s Cookbook, the Dubious Food tastes really good; a lot more than you would expect. It’s even pixilated, like in Breath of the Wild!

Peter: The recipe I am most excited for is the one inspired by Dubious Food. It was the very first item I wanted to try and make in the kitchen. It was something just so disgusting yet edible, it was a fun idea and I wanted to make it. It was hard but I really enjoyed all different ways to make the food turn purple and look gross yet taste amazing. The final product just came out so great and it tasted delicious.

I pulled heavily from learning how to cook coq au vin from Anthony Bourdain and his show Parts Unknown. He was a was a huge inspiration for me as a chef. I really resonated with him because, like him, I spent a lot of my traveling the world, learning different cultures and food. I wanted to bring that same spirit of travel and exploration, a concept also very core to the Zelda series, to this cookbook as well as honor him with one of my favorite dishes he made. Hours upon hours in the kitchen later, I’ve created a questionable but inviting twist on coq au vin that you will all enjoy.

Matt: The meaty rice balls. I couldn’t stop eating them! They were so good! I don’t know how Peter does it, but that meat was the most delicious thing I ever tasted. It’s sweet, it’s GOOD.

Patrick: This is pretty basic, but I was pretty amazed when I got to see Peter make the fried rice for a couple of the dishes. I’ve never been able to do it right, so knowing that it’s in the cookbook is pretty exciting for me. Also the Rock Hard Food is pretty rad. It’s like a hard candy that’s flavored with pomegranate juice and it’s great. Meaty Rice balls are fantastic. It’s spicy and sweet and wonderful. I almost forgot about the Dubious Food, that one is awesome. That one is definitely my favorite.

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ZU: How will this cookbook stand out from other video game inspired cookbooks?

Peter: Our cookbook stands out from other cookbooks because it has a unique style and page layout. Have you opened a modern cookbook recently? Go to your local Target and find your way to the book section and look for their book section. Find a cookbook on the shelf and pick it up, look at it. You see beautiful food and a recipe. That’s usually it.

Our cookbook stands out because from the very inception, we are designing it like a field guide. In the margins are little watercolor drawings of stunning vistas, charcoal studies of various herbs and plants, little notes tucked in here or there. Our cookbook is rough around the edges and that’s the point, we want it to feel like you’ve found something personal and real when you pick it up. We want you to bust out your own pen and inks and add to it, there’s space! This may be our cookbook but we want you to make it your cookbook.

Matt: This project consists of a group of best friends; we’re all working on this together; we’re on the same wavelength. But were also big fans of the [Zelda] series and gaming in general. Were putting time into each and every recipe. I know Peter has done countless hours of research on every single recipe.

Everyone on our team is professional; we have several animation students. We have someone who worked on the Archer (the TV show), we have someone who worked from SEGA, that’s me! This team has come from different sides of the gaming, animation and art community. I feel like our relationships show from this cookbook.

Patrick: The thing that really separates this cookbook, I know I’ve been saying this a lot, but most video game cookbook’s I’ve seen have been very novelty, and most of them are just decoration guides for baked goods. This is not just a novelty decoration guide, we are not internet celebrities, we are a bunch of people who just really care about cooking.

ZU: A Kickstarter for this cookbook is coming up (May 2019); why should people support and back this project?

Peter: We hope, we really do hope, that people support our project. This is going to be something you’ll want to show other people and it is going to inspire you to cook for them as well. If you like cooking, if you like games or you want to just have a real piece of art to hang out on your bookshelf, this is for you.

Matt: The Kickstarter were hoping to have that up in May. We’re working really hard on this, we’re trying to make recipes that everyone can enjoy; a culinary adventure. This is one of my favorite projects I got to work on my entire life. The food is SO good. I’m serious about those meaty rice balls! I feel like with the team, partnering with TheYetee and the recipes, this will make for an amazing product.

We’re also working with The Yetee on this project! They will help with distribution, fulfillment, back rewards. I think partnering with TheYetee was amazing, and you’re gonna see a lot of stuff in the future that we’re excited to show off.

Patrick: If you wanted to know what the foods tasted like in Breath of the Wild, this is pretty much the closest you’re gonna get.

ZU: Anything else you want to share about the Zelda cookbook project?

Peter: We have so much more to tell but we want to save a few secrets. I’ll tell you what is no secret, we’ve partnered with The Yetee to help fulfill backer rewards and also produce a few of them. They are an amazing company and we are so happy to work with them. They’re gonna be a big help.

Here’s something that is a secret, but I’ll share it with you. We have a discord server that people can join and hang out in. People are invited to join, cook with us, and go on a culinary adventure! Here’s the invite: discord.gg/wGznSn9. It’s a secret, tell everyone.

Matt: We’re opening our public discord right now! If you wanna chat with the team, look at behind the scenes content, talk about the cookbook, join up in our server! We’ll also have a Twitter and Instagram open to check out. We really wanna hear from everyone.

Patrick: We’re trustworthy dudes and definitely Not A Scam ™ :^) Our discord is neat :^)

Thanks to Peter, Matt, and Patrick for taking time out of their schedule for the interview. We hope you’re looking forward to their upcoming cookbook project. A Kickstarter for The Legend’s Cookbook is launching mid-May; we will continue to share new details as they are announced. We will update with a link to the Kickstarter campaign after it begins.

If you’d like to communicate with the people behind the cookbook project, you can follow them on Twitter or join their Discord server. The team is always looking to engage with patrons, food lovers and Zelda fans alike.

Cook like a Hero: An interview with the team behind The Legend’s Cookbook If you played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you know that one of the game’s vital features is cooking.

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lovehaswonangelnumbers · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/moving-through-an-age-shift-from-pisces-to-aquarius/

Moving Through An Age Shift, From Pisces to Aquarius

By A Gift From Gaia

From our leaders squabbling and threating to throw bombs, to mass fires, to now obvious climate change as we move through a Grand Solar Minimum when technically we should be cooler and not warmer as per our current experience. Through to many experiencing their towns and cities begin to erupt in crime and violence and also the fast spreading Corona Virus.

May I remind all once again that we are moving through an Age shift, from Pisces to Aquarius. Have you researched the Ages? If not then I highly encourage each to have a full understanding of how this all works, how much perceived destruction or perhaps dissolution is involved, it is now crucial to know exactly the “times” we are moving into and align the subconscious driver into agreement.

Everything shakes, rattles and rolls, and all that holds the frequency of the old beliefs is removed, beliefs are frequencies, which are templates, and these dissolve once the new template/grid anchors and expands, the anchoring happened during the previous solar minimum, and by the solar cycle beginning to heighten and change in activation energy we saw many wayshowers begin their heart awakening experience, and as more awakened during the past decade the new template of the 5th dimension became more powerful.

As the light increases, as more release the programmed beliefs, and figure out how this all actually works the earth experience moves into a Quickening which is why in 2020, mid solar minimum that we are witnessing the world stage begin to mirror the discord back to Earth’s inhabitants.

But there is a way through, to be a part of the new, and to release the attachments to what is visibly dissolving.

It was through my years of connecting with the energy of Nostradamus, in which my dreams led me to study his life, and it was through these studies and transmissions that I was taught about physical body vibration, and the important crucial and yet constantly missed vital key, lost in the Piscean belief systems and social programming.

Being shown the separation, through lack, judgement, and strange beliefs systems held that lead us to value self on how much we can give, through sacrifice, through loyalty or commitments. All spirituality that has religious roots holds this same programming, and it doesn’t matter whether or not it is thought of in a religious way, the truth is, if it is grown from it, then it too will wither under this new powerful light now entering.

This is why there are abundance blocks in the spiritual arena, abundance being wealth through to health, in all ways, the disconnection now rapidly increasing, the gap between the “right path” and the light path widens.

The light path is the One path, that dissolves all belief systems, attachments and in return we are gifted with miraculous experiences, rapid healing, constant peace and a unlimited store of energy that provides stable focused fields in which we get to create and build the most magnificent Palaces of Light. And by the way I would have laughed these words off once before, thought myself a realist, and found myself to be my most magnificent abundance block, just from being a happy “realist” ended all ability to play with magic.

My own path didn’t allow me to continue to avoid like some seem to manage, my conviction to seeing imperfection as perfection led me to see nothing but perfection, always, and with this, it materialised, learning not to judge the imperfection slowly gave me realities that there werw no imperfection to judge even if I wanted it, I came to understand how it all worked.

I came to see how there was a form of spirituality that wasnt spirituality as I had come to know it, I even had to invent a new name for my path, whilst i released those attachments to labels, right, wrong, duality, I used the word univerSOULism because it allowed me the space to feel comfortable, but that over time released as everything just became a spectrum of unconscious through to conscious and then it was at this point that it became so very obvious that the path I once thought was all about spirituality was in fact just stories, mind junk and it was through being able to pull back, and realise the books, workshops, and teachers I had tried to follow and study were all as useless as a chocolate teapot and with this realisation I began to seek the path of truth, because there were principles in what I had learned within the stories that did have resonance, I knew there was Divine Truth somewhere encoded inside it all, which led me to learn patterns and templates.

What is found underneath it all is nothing different from our science and psychology classes, it is about biology, chemistry and physics, it’s about the mind, body and spirit, it’s where nature becomes maths and it’s fun and easy to understand and appreciate.

But then if we zip to the most highest of perspectives it’s an Alignment, which fractals out in everything we are and do, it’s a vibration that sends peace through the mind, peace through the physical and the energy reflects peace in the entire field.

Raising the physical body vibration.

Only possible when the mind is fully onboard with the choices, only possible when the intention is pure and not rooted in fear or escapism.

The perfect example could be weight loss diets, its why they don’t work, why people yo-yo, why they become a looping lifestyle, constantly experiencing lack

Understanding why and how is the first step to becoming, naturally, into a state of innerstanding, being the experience of what is known, knowledge to wisdom, mind awakening to heart awakening and it is through this path of learning that the phsyical body vibration will rise.

It’s not done through eating healthy, or being vegan or not drinking tap water, it doesn’t matter how many times one meditates, or if you choose to not digest chemicals, it doesnt matter what you know, because if all of this is from a seed of fear, then fear based experiences will blossom.

And yet, it does become all about much of the above once the fear is removed, difference being is it happens itself once each learns to receive the guidance, through dropping the judgement programming, because there will be times when we must flow into a feed frequency shift, there may be times the body will call for a source, that perhaps the old spiritual ways would have once passed judgement and refused the urgent request because of an outdated disconnected belief.

The key to healing is rooted in the ability to pay attention and to hold patience and yes I will be so bold as to say we can all heal, once we fully understand exactly what healing is. It’s knowing how this all works, it’s being able to stop the ego need to rush out there to show off our Unhealed Healer “gifts” and tools picked up in the darkness handed most often by the shadowy fortune tellers who tell all they are natural healers, the hall of mirrors, all who identify with healers are healing and are in no way able to heal what hasn’t been healed within, this of course is a huge misalignment.

And yet those who chose to heal, and become the healed healer knows you cannot heal another, knows that nothing and no one is separate and fully understands that it is not healing that’s required but for the field to continue to rapidly rise in frequ2ncy, light is what brings the change, and we each have a responsibility to either speed it up, or slow it down.

So whilst the world shows off it’s chosen clearing modalities, such as fire, dis-ease and war, what we now do is identify this within each of us, and if we discover worry, fear, suffering and victim then it must be fully realised that the frequency held is currently that which is moving through dissolution, a hard pill to swallow, to know the core frequency held is a part of the collective dead wood, preparing for a chop, but it’s a truth pill that will awaken many into a state of responsibility and a high level of respect will enter to begin the Alignment Process, raising the phsyical vibration which results in a life experience devoid of sickness, suffering, and in return gifts One the sound platform to be a pioneer of the new.

Angels The Secret, the wisdom, the max health cheat on your life game, its hidden within you, it’s encoded within each, what we don’t physically like to see out there, we support and heal within, through our self love and forgiveness for our own, personal powerful dis-ease driving programs once held, and we heal this with validation, giving a vibrational increase to experience, and ultimately more light speed to our collective field.

We cannot and would not want to stand in the way of an age in a state of change, but what we can do is fully surrender, accepting all that needs to be Divinely Detached from and with love and compassion send out our light to speed up the process, and as each releases the fear vibrations and enters the healing waters of compassion, what we achieve, together, will be an array of more smoother transitional paths to choose from collectively.

If you would like to journey with me and 79 other committed light pioneers who I share the keys and light gems I have picked up along the light path then send an email over to [email protected], and for each who connects and enquires about the SOUL-AR Alignment keys will receive two modules, Karma Dogs and Empowering the Empath.

Join with me, supporting our collective grid from within, healing from the inside out

So much love 💙💙💙

*****

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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Most Anticipated Non-Western Fantasy Books of 2019

https://ift.tt/2ouKBy1

It's a great time to be a fan of fantasy literature, as the genre makes more space for epics told outside of the western perspective.

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While I love a good epic fantasy read where an unassuming, usually male, usually white farmboy learns of his great destiny to save the world, there are so many fantasy stories that exist outside of that framework.

One of my favorite ways to see fantasy genre tropes subverted is by taking the usual feudal European-like setting of the "traditional" epic fantasy saga and throwing it out the window in favor of mythic tropes that are less familiar to western fantasy readers. After all, Game of Thrones is great, but we tend to overrepresent Eurocentric, medieval-inspired stories in the epic fantasy world. There are so many other kinds of stories out there waiting to be told and heard.

read more: Best New Young Adult Books

This standalone YA #OwnVoices fantasy, which has the possibility of more novels to follow set in the same world, follows Hesina as she breaks the laws of her nation by enlisting a soothsayer and a criminal to help her determine who to trust, and who must be punished.

Read Descandant of the Crane by Joan He

Upon a Burning Throne by Ashok K. Banker

In promotional blurbs, Banker is called a pioneer of fantasy in his home country of India, and Upon a Burning Throne is based on the ancient classic, The Mahabharata, full of demigods and demons and battles for the throne. Although princes Adri and Shvate are royals, they must pass the Test of Fire if they want to inherit the throne.

read more: 9 Fantasy Books Set at Magical Boarding School

To make matters more complicated, a half-demon girl claims to have the right to take the test as well. When the girl is not allowed to claim any power after passing the Test, her demon father declares war on the Empire, threatening to tear the world apart. This #OwnVoices series is set for seven volumes, so get ready for an epic fantasy saga stretching over thousands of pages.

Read Upon a Burning Throne by Ashok K. Banker

The Tiger at Midnight by Swati Teerdhala

An assassin and a soldier get tangled in a civil war in this #ownvoices fantasy steeped in Indian history and Hindu mythology. Viper, an assassin fighting alongside the rebels, is how Esha hides her identity. No one knows that she, who lost so much in the royal coup, is the legendary assassin.

Kunal is a soldier, unquestioning in his orders to support the king, even while he longs for life outside the army. When Viper is on a mission to kill General Hotha, Kunal’s controlling uncle, the pair become involved in events on a grander scale, and no one is really sure who is directing all the pieces of this deadly game... This is listed as book one of the trilogy, so expect more cat and mouse games as the story progresses.

Read The Tiger at Midnight by Swati Teerdhala

May

The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad

In this YA feminist fantasy, set along the Silk Road, the city of Noor is destroyed by Shayateen djinn; only Fatima and two other humans survived the attack. Now, a restored Noor is protected by Ifrit djinn, who represent order and reason.

But their protection does not remove all the danger: when one of the Ifrit is killed, Fatima is forever changed, and she finds herself drawn into the political intrigues of the maharajah and his sister—and onto the magical battlefield. Azad’s #OwnVoices tale features fiercely independent women, and a cosmopolitan Silk Road city striving to find harmony within its myriad cultures.

Read The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal

It isn’t easy to be a legend. Zafira is the Hunter; by taking on a man’s role to feed her people, she can never reveal that she’s a girl, or everything she has done will be rejected. Nasir is the Prince of Death, a deadly assassin who punishes the enemies of his father, the king, despite his own tendency toward compassion.

Both Zafira and Nasir believe that an artifact can stop the incursion of the Arz, a cursed forest that expands by the day. Zafira, as the Hunter, sets out to find it; Nasir is ordered to retrieve it—and to kill the Hunter. Set in a fantastical Arabia, filled with cultures and beliefs that reflect the diversity of the real-world region, this #ownvoices YA series starter features lyrical prose and an enemies-to-lovers romance.

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal

Nocturna by Maya Motayne

First in an #OwnVoices fantasy trilogy set in a Latinix-inspired world, Nocturna introduces Finn, a face shifter, who has been in and out of so many disguises over the years she’s practically forgotten what her own face looks like. Unfortunately, she crosses the wrong mobster, and she’s given a choice: succeed at a heist inside Castallan’s royal palace, or have her magic stripped away.

Prince Alfehr faces the dilemma of trying to live up to his dead brother’s role as heir to the throne; feeling as though he will forever fail at that role, Alfie would far rather dabble in forbidden magics on the hope of bringing his brother back. When the two of them accidentally unleash an ancient evil, they have to become a team to stop it from destroying the entire world.

Read Nocturna by Maya Motayne

June

The Last Tsar's Dragon by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple

Set during the Russian revolution, this novella features dragons as tactical weapons, giving it the feel of a historical fiction that happens to have dragons involved in the plot. Yolen and Stemple explore the Romanov family history, as well as royal conspiracies and the revolutions of Jews and Bolsheviks during the October Revolution. For fans of this mother-son duo, it's a chance to delve into historical intrigue.

Unraveling by Karen Lord

Told in a contemporary setting, Lord's newest fantasy could easily be called a psychological thriller. Dr. Miranda Ecouvou has helped put a serial killer behind bars, but there's more to the world than she realized—and now Chance and the Trickster have enlisted her to look more deeply into the seven unusual murders. The plot and world are both labyrinthine, steeped in #ownvoices Caribbean storytelling.

July

Shatter the Sky by Rebecca Kim Wells

You might have heard something about "that angry feminist bisexual dragon YA fantasy novel" on the Internet, and that's a description that Wells has embraced wholeheartedly for her new series starter. In Shatter the Sky, Maren and Kaia expect to live a quiet life—but then the emperor's prophets steal Kaia away to join them, and it's up to Maren to rescue her girlfriend. She's determined to do it, too, even if the only way to rescue Kaia is to steal a dragon from the emperor and storm the fortress of his prophets on her own. While there's a lot in Shatter the Sky that fits into the traditions of western fantasy (including Tamora Pierce and Mercedes Lackey), but the worldbuilding includes #ownvoices Asian influences as well.

David Mogo, Godhunter by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

This #ownvoices urban fantasy is set in Lagos, Nigeria, in an age in which thousands of gods fell to Earth during a war. David Mogo is a demigod and a freelance Godhunter. But he takes a bad gig when he agrees to catch a god for an Eko wizard—who turns around and decides to rule Lagos himself. The three sections of the novel intertwine, but each has a distinct arc, almost like separate novellas. But together, they show David's journey of self-discovery as he deals with his own feelings of abandonment and defines for himself what it means to be a demigod.

Jade War by Fonda Lee

The Green Bone Saga continues in this sequel to the World Fantasy Award-winning Jade City. The Kaul family battles for control of the capital city of Kekon, and over the jade that allows Green Bone warriors to maintain their supernatural powers. But the conflict within Kekon is only a hint at the conflicts beyond the island's borders. Other nations have become interested in the properties of Kekon's magical jade, and the Kaul family must decide whether to band together, or whether to make new and more dangerous alliances to rise to the top. This #ownvoices Asian-inspired fantasy surpasses the first in the series, delving more deeply into Lee's world.

July

The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter

If a Xhosa-inspired revenge fantasy sounds up your alley, this #ownvoices debut may be exactly what you're looking for. Originally self-published in 2017, The Rage of Dragons got picked up by Orbit in a new edition for July 2019 publication. The story is set in a world of war, where those rare gifted—one in two thousand women can call the dragons, one in one hundred men can magically transform into a superhuman killer—wage battles, using the rest of their people as fodder. Ungifted Tau's greatest desire is to get injured early on so he can settle down and raise a family. But when everyone he cares about is slaughtered, his goals change: he will be come the greatest swordsman in order to get revenge on the three people who betrayed him.

The Ascent to Godhood by J. Y. Yang

The fourth in Yang's "Tensorate" series of novellas, The Ascent to Godhood explores how the Protector, now dead, came to power—and why her greatest enemy, Lady Han, mourns her death. Yang's series falls into a space that is almost serial fiction (we include it in our serial roundup), because the novellas are a shorter length, and the story and world grow with each new addition.

Fans of this #OwnVoices silkpunk saga are sure to enjoy seeing how it all began—and new readers might find this a good jumping in point for the series.

Read The Ascent to Godhood by J.Y. Yang

Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim

There’s something going on with stitching and magic in recent fantasy, but this #OwnVoices novel features both tailors and a girl-disguised-as-boy fantasy story with echoes of Mulan. Drawing inspiration from Chinese culture, Lim creates an Imperial Court where the competition over who will become the imperial tailor—and where Maia is at risk of being executed if anyone discovers that a girl is vying for the job.

Things get even worse when the court magician takes an interest in her, because he almost certainly knows the truth. Set with the task to sew three impossible gowns, one from the laughter of the sun, one from the moon’s tears, and the third from the blood of stars, Maia departs on a journey that will either save her family, or end her life.

Given that the book is marked as the first of a series, one can only hope that Maia will survive to stitch her way through future installments.

Read Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim

August

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Though this one isn't set wholly in a fantasy world, I couldn't miss out on including a Jazz Age underworld epic. Casiopea Tun dreams of life beyond her small town in Mexico, but those dreams didn't prepare her for freeing the Mayan god of death and following him into the Mayan underworld to reclaim his throne.

With parts of the novel set in Mexico City and the Yucatán and other pars set in the darkness of the Mayan land of the dead, this #OwnVoices novel is at the top of my TBR list.

Read Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Morena-Garcia

The Dragon Republic by R. F. Kuang

The sequel to Kuang's celebrated The Poppy War, the novel follows shaman and warrior Rin, now addicted to opium, traumatized by her own actions at the end of the Poppy War, and hiding from her god.

In order to get revenge on the Empress, Rin allies with the Dragon Warlord to take over her home country—but Rin learns that her new ally's motivations may not be for the good of the nation after all. Kuang uses some real-world events from twentieth century China as inspiration for an #OwnVoices fantasy full of magic and monsters.

Read The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang

September

The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan by Sherry Thomas

If you can't wait for the 2020 live action Mulan, starring Liu Yifei, keep an eye out for this YA wuxia retelling by Chinese-American author Sherry Thomas. A cover reveal posted at Hypable also offered an excerpt packed full of martial arts action. Catching arrows? This #OwnVoices Mulan is definitely going to be our action hero.

Read The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan by Sherry Thomas

Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron

Arrah doesn't have the knack for her witchdoctor family's magic. But when the Kingdom's children start to disappear, she's not going to let the mystery go unsolved. But this is no simple crime spree: the Demon King is waking, and Arrah may be the only one to stop him—if she's willing to sell years of her life to gain the magic it will take to defeat him. This #ownvoices fantasy sets witchdoctors and demons and an over-ambitious mother in the path of a heroine who's willing to tackle it all to save the world.

A Hero Born by Jin Yong

It might be a stretch to consider this classic Chinese epic truly a fantasy novel, but if you love a good kung fu epic, this is absolutely a thing you need on your list. Stretching from the Song Empire to the rule of Genghis Khan, the novel follows Guo Jing, a Song patriot who joined Genghis Khan. But a greater destiny awaits him, and he must learn from the Seven Heroes of the South in order to take up the mantle of his fate.

Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger

Krueger explores the role of colonization in this #ownvoices Asian-inspired fantasy epic. The nation of Tomoda has, until recently, been a colonial power. The Sanbunas have recently won a war that freed them from Tomoda. It means that Jimuro, heir to Tomoda's throne, should despise Tala, one of the Sabuna soldiers escorting him back to him to his home nation. But the two of them are thrown together, along with a detective-and-Shang-princess-in-disguise, Xiulan, and her thief partner, Lee. The four of them team together to defeat a killer using more powerful magic than the world has ever seen—and, along the way, forge friendships that could change the progression of their entire world.

October

The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco

Climate change can be a threat even in a fantasy world, and here, a goddess has sent the world spinning into a climate shift that causes rifts between nations. Half of the world is cloaked in night, and the other half burns with daylight. The two goddesses who rule the world each have a daughter, and both have kept their secrets about which twin goddess betrayed their world.

These young goddesses are called back to the site of where it all happened... and determined to undo the damage their mothers have caused. The daytime desert setting features sandworms and sand dolphins (which is enough to put it on my TBR list right there), and the author has noted her inspiration from both Mad Max and Avatar: The Last Airbender. The worldbuilding itself is less referential to real-world mythologies, and some advance reviewers are saying it's like nothing they've ever read before. We can't help but consider that a good thing.

A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy

Eva and her sister Isa must face each other in mortal combat to decide who takes the throne, because in Myre, only the strongest is fit to be the queen. Eva has magick of both marrow and bone, a rare power, but it means that her sister may not be the only one who wants her dead.

Eva must rely on a fey instructor and a khimaer prince to teach her how to wield her own magick before it's too late. But Eva's biggest challenge may be facing the sister she still loves and fighting her to the death, because only one of them can survive. Based on a North African setting, this debut fantasy doesn't shy away from the dark and bloody, whether in magick or politics.

November

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

Inspired by the song of the same title, written by Hamilton original cast member Daveed Diggs and his fellow hip-hop artists William Huston and Jonathan Snipes, Solomon’s novel takes place under the water, where generations of African slave women live now-idyllic lives, their pasts forgotten.

Only Yetu, the people’s historian, remembers the truth of their past. But the weight of the memories is destroying her, so Yetu tries to flee to the surface—only to gain the understanding that if her people are to survive, they must begin to remember for themselves. Solomon, author of the science fiction novel An Unkindness of Ghosts as well as a writer on Serial Box serial The Vela, shows their versatility with this switch into this #OwnVoices fantasy.

Read The Deep by Rivers Solomon

The Impossible Contract by K.A. Doore

Doore's Chronicles of Ghadid continue as Thana, daughter of the Serpent, takes up her first assassination contract to prove her worth. Her target, Heru, is a dangerous sorcerer, and Thana isn't the only one who wants him dead. When a rival sends an undead horde to attach Heru and Thana both, Thana has no choice but to follow her target into the empire that threatens her own nation. Following a different main character from the first book in the series, The Perfect Assassin, the novel still relies on the world building of the first in this Arabian-flavored setting, so pick up book one before this one hits the shelves.

Realm of Ash by Tasha Suri

Last year's Empire of Sand told the story of Mehr, daughter of an imperial governor and a mother who is one of the outcast and oppressed Amrithi people, descendants of desert spirits. Because Mehr can work desert magic, the deathless Emperor and his advisers take her captive, force her to marry, and try to break her spirit. But when Mehr discovers their plot for her magic, she stands against the tide. In Realm of Ash, Mehr's younger sister Arwa is now an adult, widowed in a massacre she only survived due to her Amrithi heritage. To try to free the Empire from a curse, she forms an allegiance with the disgraced prince, and they travel to the Realm of Ash, seeking to to find answers in the ghostly memories of their ancestors. This #ownvoices sequel returns to the South Asian inspired desert lands of the Ambhan Empire, giving readers new aspects of its world to explore.

Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callendar

Set in a Carribean-inspired fantasy world, this #OwnVoices novel follows Sigourney Rose, last heir to a murdered noble family. Her people have been enslaved and massacred by colonizers for generations, and Sigourney, who has the power to control minds, is ready to take her revenge. But as she manipulates herself into the royal island and among the colonizers, she realizes a sinister magic is killing the ruling families, and she herself may be a target.

Callender’s excellent middle-grade novel, Hurricane Child, had an understated sense of fantasy and a beautifully grounded depiction of the islands, family, and same-sex budding romance. While I expect the fantasy aspects in Queen of the Conquered to be much stronger, I hope that we’ll see more of those earlier strengths.

Read Queen of the Conquered by Kheryn Callender

December

Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi

If you're like us here at Den of Geek, you've already taken the quiz to find out your Maji clan and you've put the date for this release, the sequel to last year's Children of Blood and Bone, on your calendar in big red pen. We're ready to get back into the world of the Orisha and find out what happens next with Zélie and Amari now that they've brought magic back into the world.

Step one is securing Amari's throne—so that Orisha's maji clans can be safe from persecution. Can't wait until December? You've got time to read Adeyemi's first #ownvoices African-centered fantasy over again!

In the Works

Choice of Games, publisher of interactive, multiple-choice novels, has two forthcoming non-western fantasy apps in production. (Disclosure: I also have multiple-choice novels published by Choice of Games, but I’m not involved in either of these projects!)

Keep an eye out for #OwnVoices Destined for Greatness, by Yasmine Fahmy, in which the reader directs the actions of a main character who keeps company with a djinn, flies magical carpets, and has to save the city of Ghariba from a nefarious dragon; and Tale of Two Cranes by Michelle and Stepanie Balaban, in which the main character helps shape the course of a battle between two warring nobles (based on the historical civil war between the Han and Qin dynasties) in an ancient China filled with magic.

What non-western fantasies are you most looking forward to this year? What did we miss? Let us know—we’ll keep updating this piece as we find them!

Alana Joli Abbott writes about books for Den of Geek. Read more of her work here.

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Alana Joli Abbott

Oct 10, 2019

Fantasy Books

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morshtalon · 5 years

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Shin Megami Tensei

(Definitely part 3 of a series of posts on the entire franchise)

For the end of MegaTen II, Atlus pulled out all the stops in terms of who you'd meet and what their importance to the lore was. While the ending arguably did leave some room for further escalation, by choosing to continue the story as it was, they'd be agreeing to keep being derivative works in relation to the books that originated their backstory. Sure, it was hardly the case anymore, what with the extreme departures MegaTen II took from the novels, but still. I guess the relative corner the writers got themselves backed into, combined with the clamor to have a more independent franchise on their hands, prompted them to scrap their established continuity and kick off a new one of their own. Whatever the real case was, it was definitely a smart choice, and thus was born Shin Megami Tensei, a way for them to keep their profitable series going. Also probably a much better game than a MegaTen III would have been.

Anyway, with a new continuity, possibilities were endless. They could better retread grounds they had already covered in the previous two games (well, really just MTII, since the first one barely even had anything going on), and expand upon ongoing themes while not having to worry about the usual expectation for a sequel in terms of magnitude and impact. Given that, it's unsurprising that, in comparison to MTII, this game dials things down a notch, relegating most of the more classical power fantasy stuff to the third act and preferring to engage in more character-driven events while leading up to it. None of the final enemies in SMT are as powerful as the ones in MTI and II (in story terms, actual battle stats notwithstanding) and the influence of cosmic forces that would have been enemies fought directly in the titles so far takes on a distant, more psychological approach (for the most part), unable to be challenged by the player. This helps build them as respectable overarching threats, and keeps the setting more subdued and the stakes higher, since it feels like characters are acting under the banner of things so powerful the player shouldn't even think themselves able to scratch them. It's good not to stat things sometimes, and it's quite impressive that they exercised this restraint way back in 1992.

For the demons that ARE fought, though, the artists really put their all into it this time. Even compared to games in the series's near future, I think this is the best looking they would be for a while. I mean, sure, Majin Tensei later on would have more detailed graphics, but I feel the art itself was worse there, with some weird proportions and a lot of palette swaps, while this game keeps things more consistently good overall.

Naturally, one longstanding tradition of the franchise introduced in SMT was the philosophical axis of Law vs. Chaos and the branching story that allowed the player to sit in any one point of the spectrum, with a modified final act depending on your decisions up to a certain point and where in the axis they would leave you once this point is reached. This system was partly a logical progression of the two endings from MTII and partly a way to integrate gameplay significance into what was already the grand point of SMT's storyline. While a good idea on paper and certainly innovative for its time and context, the warring faction-based story meant that as far as the plot is concerned, Law vs. Chaos pertains more to which of the factions you're appeasing with your decisions rather than any particularly lawful or chaotic behavior. There are some things that shift your alignment that have to do with being lawful or chaotic, but those lie mostly outside of the plot, in small actions that only serve to bring things one way or the other on infinitesimal increments and are meant more as an extra level of thought put into the system to label certain actions that were always there. The parallelisms between one faction and the other (i.e. temples that are identical in functionality; quests that consist of killing the other faction's quest-giver or vice-versa), together with certain easily exploitable ways to shift the alignment variable any way you want (so that you can play the game being entirely chaotic up to the crucial point where your alignment is locked, then right before that, exploit the mechanics to bring yourself to Law without having done anything lawful throughout the rest of the game), make the whole alignment system feel arbitrary, or at least the actual coded-in gameplay layer of it. I feel like maybe having only the unrepeatable story decisions actually affect alignment could help mitigate this somewhat. Then again, as I said, the story stuff doesn't feel much like the player being lawful or chaotic, so... I don't know.

Regardless of which path you take, you are going to get into a lot of fights. The game plays basically exactly like MTII, with an overhead top-down overworld and first-person dungeon crawling once you enter an area. This time around, very few areas are safe from enemy encounters, which makes sense since you're mostly just walking around Tokyo and a lot of first-person areas are just sections of the city that are populated (and besides, all of Tokyo is under threat from the demons). It made me realize that it's actually the typical RPG that opts to be nonsensical about the no-monsters-in-towns rule, but I'd be damned if that's not a smart choice on the part of the typical RPG. There are so many random encounters in this game, it's a common occurence for you to get several 1-step fights in a row. When I play an RPG, there's usually a point where I get really bored of always fighting enemies, then I finally escape the dungeon I'm in or go into a town and it's a big relief, like I can finally walk around and talk to people without having to stop dead in my tracks to fight the same enemy I already proved I can beat five hundred times before. Not so much in this game, and you'll definitely be crying out for an Estoma or a Fuma Bell most of the time. If you even know these two things act like repels in Pokémon and realize how useful they are.

If you don't know, however, you're going to need a lot of patience, because once again the game is very easy. Aside from, once again, a difficult earlygame, especially if you didn't put the right stat points into your protagonist (read: vitality and speed), the same basic problems from the previous two games' core concept of walking around and fighting dudes can be found here, but this time guns have ammo. Ammo doesn't actually count how many bullets you have left, it's just an extra thing you can equip that gives your gun attack an extra property such as more damage or a status effect. Thing is, status effects have an absurdly high hit rate in this game, work on most bosses, and there's a type of ammo that causes the "enthralled" status effect, which makes the target attack their own allies. Once you've got your hands on it, the game has been effectively turned into an interactive movie, even easier than the NES ones. Even without it, magic always seems to go before physical attacks, and both lightning and ice spells can stop an enemy for the current turn, so you'll likely always find a way to trivialize encounters within your disposal if you're just playing the game normally, even if you didn't realize it. With good speed, lightning or ice spells at your disposal and some status effect ammo, nothing will ever be able to stop you, no matter how hard they try. Once again, it's a preparations game, and that auto-battle button will get an intense workout this time around. I actually cleared the entire final dungeon under the effect of consecutive Fuma Bells, because of the combined effect a high encounter rate and the knowledge that the bosses could not stop me had on my brain. It's all about knowing which things are actually useful and which aren't, so it's actually just about struggling until the point you figure it out, then blazing through the game's fights half-asleep.

Still, battles notwithstanding, I think the exploration is more masterful than ever this time around. There isn't any significant portion of the game where you're clearly going after McGuffins, the whole story is pretty tightly paced and the balance between open-endedness and plot progression is well kept. There is a clearly evolving status quo for the entire setting of the game, and each time a major change happens new areas are made available while others are locked away. You can feel the effect the events of the narrative are having on the whole scenario, and the progression creates a bit of a disorienting effect as you attempt to find your way to the next significant location (which can and very well may cause you to get hopelessly lost on occasion, but that's part of the experience, I think). It's a pretty admirable blend of elements working together to create a continuous experience. This bleeds over into the characters themselves, who have evolving arcs and, for the most part, continue to be relevant and to have all sorts of crazy things happen to them through the course of the game. Consider it a much more mature attempt to do the sort of character-based revolving scheme that Final Fantasy IV also tried to do.

Overall, this is a game that further plays around with story concept brought over from MTII, experiments somewhat with new ways to go through some of its story beats, and creates a character-based narrative that goes through admirable amounts of change, to the point you can feel the whole cast working through their arcs as things escalate and reach a fever pitch. The gameplay is significantly less refined, though, and, admittedly, even the respectable things in SMT have struggled to stand the test of time, especially when you consider what later SMTs and SMT spinoffs would go on to do. I think this earns the original a 6.5 out of 10, my first non-integer score. It's damn respectable and admirable for 1992, but it has so many outdated things in it that it's hard to actually get oneself into the proper mentality to admire it unless you actually make the conscious decision to play the series in chronological release order. But who would be masochistic enough to do that, right?

#megaten #shin megami tensei #megami tensei #rpg #game #review

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pass-the-bechdel · 5 years

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Marvel Cinematic Universe: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Yes, once.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Five (29.41% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twelve.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

No matter how many times I watch this, I’m always surprised by how excellent it is. If any other future Marvel film wants to be ‘the best’, this is the movie it has to beat for the title.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Natasha asks about the ballistics on the weapon used against Fury, and Maria responds. I’ve heard people argue that Natasha was not asking Maria specifically and therefore this does not count, but since Natasha clarifies a detail of Maria’s response (to which Maria responds again in order to confirm), I definitely think it qualifies. I have allowed a pass for far, far less in the past.

Female characters:

Natasha Romanov.

Peggy Carter.

Maria Hill.

Sharon Carter.

Renata.

Male characters:

Steven Rogers.

Sam Wilson.

Brock Rumlow.

Georges Batroc.

Jerome.

Jasper Sitwell.

Nick Fury.

Alexander Pierce.

Aaron.

Arnim Zola.

Senator Stern.

Bucky Barnes.

OTHER NOTES:

They start this movie by having Steve go for a jog and make a new friend, with a conversation ensuing that is by touches casual, light, humorous, insightful, serious, and sobering. It’s a pretty weird way to launch a much-anticipated superhero comic-adaptation action movie sequel, to be honest, but it’s also rock-solid character establishment - for the never-before-seen Sam Wilson, and for Steve Rogers whose mental state and coping skills in the modern era are kinda an open question at this point - and by getting us on level with Steve’s day-to-day (rather than Captain America’s, which comes after) they’ve immediately prepped us for a story in which this character confronts and reassesses who he is and what he stands for at a core level, and not just in a symbolic/legacy kind of fashion (a la Tony Stark). It may say ‘Captain America’ on the tin, but this is Steven Rogers’ story. This is a fantastic and well-condensed first three minutes of this film, before they fly off to deliver the action sequence we may well have expected to have received up-front.

Oh yeah, also this opening scene involves jogging around the Washington Monument, which is not a subtle detail, but I can dig it. If they’d had Steve draw attention to some Major American Landmark at some point in the movie and make a patriotic declaration of some kind, then I’d cry foul, but as-is the use of Washington DC as a setting is the hardest they bother to hammer the AMERICA button. The absence of self-fellating patriotism which I appreciated so much in the first film continues to be a virtue in this one. I do dig.

Remember how I really love it when people get hit and fly off the screen? Steve just kicked a dude off a boat and I made the dorkiest ‘hee hee!’ noise ever. Sure am glad the only reason anyone knows about that is that I just told y’all, and not because anyone actually heard me.

One day, we’ll stop getting these kinds of gratuitous butt shots of female characters in tight clothes. But it sure ain’t this day.

In a world of equal-opportunity sexualisation, this Cap-butt would be forgiveness enough for the aforementioned offense. But it still sure ain’t that day, friends.

Other reasons to love that opening scene: they low-balled Sam’s counseling skills to us by having him quickly identify the best way to speak to Steve and to engage with him (as Steve, again, not as Captain America; that’s the key), and that’s what allows Steve to bond with him enough that, put in a tight spot and not sure who to trust, he shows up on Sam’s doorstep later in the film. Really tight characterisation and dynamic-building.

ALSO, Steve’s adventure to the Captain America museum exhibit reminds us all of what he’s lost - specifically, Bucky Barnes - and contextualises his encounters with Sam Wilson within the emotional landscape of Steve’s desire for close male companionship, highlighting the need which compels the formation of that bond while also accentuating the sense of Steve’s present isolation and uncertainty, robbed of any understanding confidante (the bittersweet reality of having Peggy Carter still alive, but losing herself to Alzheimer's, really hits that one home). Again, Steve’s emotional landscape is actually a vital part of the story of the film on both character and plot levels, so there’s a LOT of great show-don’t-tell demonstration in the interconnections of all these scenes, PLUS they’re doing the good work for all the other characters involved AND reminding the audience of the score so that the film can continue to draw from the past as the movie continues, without losing any viewers for whom this might be the first foray into the Captain America story. This movie is just...really well put together, guys. It’s a little shocking, how good it is.

Winter Soldier intro is too cool. Not a pun.

Steve takes a chance and asks his neighbour out for coffee; she declines with a soft no; he accepts even-tempered and assures her he won’t trouble her any further, and she lets him know that he’s no trouble and there’s no hard feelings. It’s all a very painless and respectful navigation of boundaries, and taken on face value (ignoring the part where she turns out to be an undercover SHIELD agent, and everything which unfolds from there), it’s a welcome example of how easy it is to take rejection graciously. Guys, be the Steve Rogers that women want to see in the world.

I want a metal arm. I don’t want to not have my current arms, they’re fine, but in an abstract version of the world where you have things purely for cool points, I want a metal arm.

The fight choreography in this film is great. It’s good watchin’.

Also the soundtrack is top-end.

“...Specimen.”

The movie didn’t need a hetero kiss thrown in there, though. I sure wish there wasn’t a random kiss in there.

“The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it.”

Urgh, why Senator Stern gotta show up, be a pig about women, make his little Nazi declaration, and leave? The answer is, he really doesn’t gotta. You know what’s good shit? Not using misogyny and objectification of women to demonstrate that a bad guy is a bad guy, unless it’s actually a relevant part of the story. One day...

I can’t deal with how cool the Winter Soldier is. I’m almost embarrassed by how much the whole Silent Sauntering Assassin thing works for me.

Sam Wilson brings a tiny knife to a gunfight and still gets the upper hand because he’s perfect.

THE FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHYYYYY

The Winter Soldier is barely in the film in the first hour, and Bucky is referenced in the museum but not discussed by any of the characters, so there’s no lantern hanging on either the mystery of the Winter Soldier’s identity or the conspicuous reminder of a supposedly dead character (another reason why tying the memory of Bucky in so tightly with Steve’s present state of comfortless seclusion is important and clever). If you somehow managed not to be spoiled for it already, the Bucky reveal is a real kicker of a twist.

The degree to which I adore Sebastian Stan’s attention to detail in his performance has increased tenfold since The First Avenger. Dude has got nuances on his nuances.

The part of me that is emotionally susceptible to heroism is very moved by all the nameless SHIELD agents who stand up to HYDRA and die for it.

I join the rest of the world in being really disappointed that what appeared to be Jenny Agutter’s councilwoman kicking Strike Team ass was actually just Black Widow. Sorry Natasha.

The Winter Soldier shows up and murderises a heap of pilots, and the part of me that is susceptible to heroism finds itself in conflict with the part that is susceptible to the Winter Soldier’s ineffable coolness (which is itself at odds with the part of me that wants Bucky Barnes to be safe and happy). This movie got me good.

Rumlow talkin’ some shit about pain and Sam’s just like “Man, shut the Hell up,” and it’s perfect. I love him.

I love this film. I mean I really, really love it. Like, I mean this is one of my favourite movies in the world. Like, if we were playing that ol’ game of ‘if you had to pick ten movies, and those were the only movies you were allowed to watch for the rest of your life’, this would be one of my ten movies. That’s how much I love this film. There’s so much to get into here, so much to enjoy: it’s light and easily-digestible enough for when you just want to be entertained by something that doesn’t demand too much from you, but it also has serious depths for when you’re in the mood to dig in. It has well-crafted action scenes, but also a strong plot with powerful emotional currents. It has wonderful, charismatic actors playing intriguing characters, and most of them are good eye candy, but none of them are just eye candy - there’s a lot of complexity to unravel in the motivations and personal narratives of the leads. It’s a superhero movie, sure, but it’s also a political spy thriller. And, to top it off, it’s not only an excellent stand-alone film, it’s also a fantastic example of how to do a sequel right.

Sequel-making can be a fraught business; you’ve got sequels that are basically just pointless retreads of the original, sequels that are so different they hardly count as sequels at all, sequels that are so busy trying to be ‘bigger and better’ than the original they become ridiculous, sequels so busy attempting to capitalise on the spectacle of the original that they forget to have any of the same heart that gave the original meaningful impact, sequels that ignore that the original had a plot and themes and that maybe that stuff was relevant to its success, etc, etc...there are lots of great sequels in the world, certainly, but as Iron Man 2 and Thor: The Dark World already attested for the MCU, it is very, very easy for sequels to go wrong. For this film, I think it goes without saying that I feel they passed all of the above sequel-killing quality tests with flying (low-key red-white-and-blue) colours, hence my adoration. But, just for kicks, lets talk about how they did it.

For starters, you can pretty much guarantee that this isn’t gonna be a pointless retread of Captain America: The First Avenger, since this movie takes place seventy years later and there are certain essential world elements that have fundamentally changed, such as technology, characters, and the fact that WWII ended a good while previous. But, that’s exactly how they make this story work as a sequel: they use the nature of change to give the film its shape, thematically, politically, emotionally, and in doing so they assure that everything which is different in the present builds directly from the past. Steve Rogers has not fundamentally changed, and that’s a critical anchor, considering he’s the titular character and all, but he is in a state of flux due to everything else that has changed, and his doubts inform the narrative landscape. This is not the world he remembers, and yet, as the plot unfolds and he digs into the conspiracy at his feet, there’s plenty there that is hauntingly familiar, because this is a story about how the past is still alive and kicking in the present, it has just updated to keep with the times.

It’s worth noting that despite Captain America making the jump from the forties to the modern age without any stop-offs in between, the film doesn’t linger on or wallow in the differences in his world in any strict sense - even Steve himself (in that EXTREMELY well-crafted opening scene with Sam) is somewhat dismissive of the specifics, because he’s not dwelling on the oh-woe-things-have-changed, he’s just trying to get his head around it, adapt, and move forward (and the practical realities are easy enough, but the emotional facets? Yeah). The thing is of course, no one else shares this problem with Steve; they’ve all been around, variously, for the parts in between, and the story is still concerned with the context of the world which made all of its characters what they are, and particularly with the war that came after WWII, the war within which HYDRA reseeded and began to grow anew: the Cold War. In particular, it’s the ‘70s/’80s era Cold War, built into the political-thriller superstructure of the film itself and driven home most overtly by the Winter Soldier, heavily Russian-coded and steeped in the potent psychological horror of brainwashing, but there are other signifiers littered across the story as well. There’s former-KGB agent Black Widow, and the reference she makes to WarGames, and there’s Arnim Zola frozen in time by the ancient computer system which now acts as his ‘brain’, and then there’s the stroke of subversive genius in the casting of Robert Redford - the positively Captain America-esque blue-eyed-blond hero of many a seventies Cold War political thriller - as our primary villain, working within the United States government for the benefit of his secret European-originating agenda in true foreign-infiltration style. Of course, we can adapt all of this to fit the radicalised terrorism and technological paranoia of modern times (and those elements are alive and well in the text with the surveillance-state fears represented by the helicarriers), but the historical timestamping is important to the trajectory of the film; times change and things grow increasingly subtle and complicated, but the core dilemmas that call people out to fight are instantly familiar. In that sense, Steve Rogers hasn’t missed much at all.

The war that calls Cap to arms this time around may be more subtle than the openly-fought battlefields of WWII, but it is no less global or insidious; the new ‘improved’ HYDRA may not be led by a literal Nazi who peels off his own face, but the cold political calculations of Alexander Pierce are much more frightening for their realism (an aspect of the film which has become increasingly prescient for the modern era since the movie was released), and the fascist supremacist dogma that compels these villains to attempt to reshape the world with the blood of millions is drawn from the same poisoned well; this is an escalation of the same enemy that Captain America faced before, only much closer to home. And while the passage of time has benefited the old evils in allowing them to entrench and fester and craft re-branded, more socially-accepted versions of themselves, it has not been so favourable to the positive familiar things from Steve’s past: it has claimed Peggy’s memory, and rotted SHIELD beyond recovery. And then, there’s what it’s done to Bucky Barnes.

Fake-out character deaths are a major staple of the superhero/comic genre, and not one I love, since it tends to take the power out of apparent-death scenes and leaves the drama feeling contrived, and while the Bucky reveal is not entirely free from that cynicism, it sells itself well on delivery. For starters, it packs a wallop in additional drama instead of just neatly undoing that which already existed (Nick Fury’s ‘death’ and reveal, on the other hand, is more in the classic line of cheap and inconsequential), and it ups the personal stakes for Steve in exactly the same way as Bucky’s ‘death’ did in The First Avenger. Crucially, the fact that Bucky is the Winter Soldier doesn’t alter the wider narrative in any convenient way, such as providing Captain America with the key to stopping him or resolving the other conflicts of the plot through his connection; the Bucky reveal reconnects the story to Steve’s emotional journey, which is exactly where it started before Shit Got Crazy - there’s a good reason they spent the first half hour of the movie on charting Steve’s mental state. There’s a sharp division between Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier, despite them both inhabiting the same form, and it’s a mirror of the division between Steve Rogers and Captain America: regardless of all assumptions to the contrary, the two are mutually exclusive entities. ‘Captain America’ is not a person, he’s a symbol, and he’s manipulable in that way, he can be propagandised, his image and actions are a tool turned to the purposes of others at the expense of the human underneath; Steve recognises this (and has since the first film), and he holds this secondary persona at a remove and does not define himself through it. This is what Sam’s keen social instincts pick up so quickly in the beginning: treating Steve as Captain America is the wrong approach, it fails to connect, because Steve is not the uniform, Steve has doubts, Steve could give up the shield; Steve is a person. Bucky doesn’t have the same luxuries, in opportunities, in company, or in the cognizant ability to define his own identity, but even without the personal attachment of their history, Steve is uniquely positioned to understand the difference between the Winter Soldier and the person buried beneath the title. If it was not Bucky, specifically, the visceral emotion of the mirrored experience wouldn’t land quite as strong, but either way the Winter Soldier is the realisation of Steve’s deep-seated fear of being made a puppet, an unthinking enforcer too heavily indoctrinated into patriotic subservience to recognise the despotism that has replaced his idealism.

I said at the top that this is, ultimately, a Steven Rogers story to which ‘Captain America’ is an accessory, and not the other way around, and that’s a fact at the heart of what makes this film work - on its own, and as a sequel. The fore-fronting of Steve as a character in his own right and not just ‘Captain America’s real name’ was key to avoiding any cloying patriotism overriding the narrative of the first film, and it’s doubly important now as both Steve and the Captain America brand re-situate outside of their original context. It’s easy to strip back the specific trappings of Captain America and still have this movie function just right, because for all the action and intrigue, it is essentially a character piece about Steve Rogers figuring out his place in the world and reclaiming the moral compunctions which have been presumptuously attributed to the lofty symbol of his alter ego, and not the struggling reality of everyday life. Captain America is what he is and how he is not because it sounds good or because it makes for positive PR or because it’s nice to have legends from the good ol’ days; Captain America is the embodiment of scrappy little Steve Rogers’ grit and determination to live up to what he believes in, come Hell or high water or the gravest of consequences. Steve begins the film at odds with himself, unsure if there’s a place for his shameless idealism within the mess of modern life; he’s going through the motions of being Captain America, but he’s uncertain of what it means to him at this point, or where it’s headed. He finishes the film having gained something vital: a mission, but it’s not a professional job for Captain America, it’s a personal mission for Steve Rogers, and that’s much more important. Captain America is just an idea; Steve Rogers is the reason it matters, no matter what war, what time, what place, or what flag.

#MCU #Marvel Cinematic Universe #Captain America: The Winter Soldier #Bechdel Test #female representation

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hub-pub-bub · 5 years

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Think it’s enough to write a great character? Think again. If you’re going to write a story worthy of your amazing character, the first thing you have to do is learn how to write character arcs that resonate with your readers and leave them gasping, cheering, or crying. Or all three! “How to write character arcs?” isn’t just any old question for a writer. It’s one of the questions. Master the tenets of positive change arcs, flat arcs, and negative change arcs, and you’ll be able to write any story with confidence and skill.

Figuring out how to write character arcs takes your understanding of story far beyond that of just a character changing over the course the story. It will take you beyond even the all-important foundation of story structure to the core principles of story theory (not familiar with story structure yet? Click here to read this series first).

Character evolution is at the heart of any good story. Whether it’s the protagonist doing the changing, or whether he’s changing the world around him, character arcs are ultimately the whole point of fiction. The change–the journey from one spiritual/emotional/intellectual place to another–is the story of humanity. As an author your primary job is learning how those fundamental changes work in real life, and how you can then present them in your fiction with enough realism to connect with your readers.

In my How to Write Character Arcs series, you’ll learn:

How to write a positive change arc

How to write a negative change arc

How to write a flat arc

What to do if your character has no arc

How to align the structure of your character arcs with that of your plot

Gaining an understanding of how to write character arcs is a game-changing moment in any author’s pursuit of the craft. Learn how to take your stories from good to great and bring your characters to unforgettable and realistic life!

How to Write a Positive Change Character Arc

PART 1: CAN YOU STRUCTURE CHARACTERS?

What if there were a surefire secret to creating stunning character arcs? Would you be interested in discovering it? If you care about connecting with readers, grabbing hold of their emotions, and creating stories that will resonate with them on a level deeper than mere entertainment, then the answer has to be a resounding yes!

PART 2: THE LIE YOUR CHARACTER BELIEVES

The Change Arc is all about the Lie Your Character Believes. His life may be horrible, or his life may seem pretty great. But, festering under the surface, is the Lie.

PART 3: THE THING YOUR CHARACTER WANTS VS. THE THING YOUR CHARACTER NEEDS

The Lie plays out in your character’s life, and your story, through the conflict between the Thing He Needs (the Truth) and the Thing He Wants (the perceived cure for the symptoms of the Lie).

PART 4: YOUR CHARACTER’S GHOST

If there’s one solid rule in fiction, it’s that every effect must have a cause. If your character is in need of undergoing a change arc, then one of your first tasks is figuring out why he needs to change. What happened to him to cause him to embrace this obviously damaging Lie?

PART 5: THE CHARACTERISTIC MOMENT

First impressions do count. And your protagonist’s Characteristic Moment is his first chance to impress your readers. In short, a failed Characteristic Moment can very likely mean a failed story.

PART 6: THE NORMAL WORLD

In a story, the Normal World will play an important role in the first quarter of your story—the First Act. This entire segment can basically be summarized as “set-up,” and the Normal World plays a vital role in grounding the story in a concrete setting. Even more important, the Normal World creates the standard against which all the personal and plot changes to come will be measured.

PART 7: THE FIRST ACT

On the surface, the First Act seems to be the slowest part of the story—and it often is. It’s just setup, after all, right? True enough, except for that one little word just. It isn’t “just” setup; it’s SETUP! It sets up the plot, but even more importantly, it sets up the character arcs.

PART 8: THE FIRST PLOT POINT

We might visualize a locked door separating the First Act from the Second Act. The First Plot Point is where the protagonist sticks his key in that door and unlocks it. And, like Pandora’s box, he ain’t never going to get it shut again.

PART 9: THE FIRST HALF OF THE SECOND ACT

In the structure of character arcs, the First Half of the Second Act is where your character ventures (or is thrust) into uncharted territory—and gets lost. He may not quite see it that way himself, but this is where he begins to discover that the old rules (the Lie He Believes) no longer apply.

PART 10: THE MIDPOINT

In a positive change character arc, your protagonist will have spent the First Half of the Second Act blundering around in foreign territory, making mistakes based on false assumptions, and getting his hand slapped for his every wrong move. But he’s also going to have been slowly—maybe even subconsciously—learning his lesson and figuring things out. These personal revelations are going to lead him up to a very special turning point at the story’s Midpoint.

PART 11: THE SECOND HALF OF THE SECOND ACT

The Second Half of the Second Act is where your character shifts out of the reactive phase (in which the conflict is being controlled by the antagonist) and starts moving into the active phase (in which he starts taking control of the conflict for himself).

PART 12: THE THIRD PLOT POINT

This low moment—this defeat, which is made all the more crushing because it comes on the heels of a seeming victory—will force the character to stop deceiving himself about the Lie. He can’t evade it anymore. He can’t pretend it away. He has to confront it once and for all—and either destroy it or be destroyed.

PART 13: THE THIRD ACT

Character arcs in the Third Act are all about intensity. On the story’s exterior, the conflict is heating up. The protagonist is a runaway train thundering toward what has now become an inevitable confrontation with the antagonistic force. But, on the inside, he’s reeling from the events of the Third Plot Point.

PART 14: THE CLIMAX

The Climax is the reason for the story. This is where the author reveals what the journey the character just endured was really all about—and, in a positive change arc, why that journey has turned out to be worth all the heartaches and trauma.

PART 15: THE RESOLUTION

This important ending scene(s) is there to bookend the opening scene. In the beginning of your story, you showed your character living in his Normal World, as shaped by the Lie. In the Resolution, you get to show readers the new Normal World that has been built by the character’s hard-won Truth.

How to Write a Flat Character Arc

PART 1: THE FIRST ACT

Next to the positive change arc, the flat character arc is the most popular storyline. Also called the “testing arc,” the flat arc is about a character who does not change. He already has the Truth figured out in the beginning of the story, and he uses that Truth to help him overcome various external tests.

PART 2: THE SECOND ACT

In comparison to a positive change arc, the difference in a flat character arc’s Second Act is that the emphasis is not on the protagonist’s discovering and confronting his own inner misconceptions. Rather, the Second Act in a flat arc is where he will be discovering the Lie embedded in the world around him.

PART 3: THE THIRD ACT

The Third Act is where we find arguably the greatest similarities between the flat character arc and the positive change arc, since in both types of story the protagonist will have a full grasp on the Truth by this point. The primary difference, of course, is that the protagonist in a flat character arc will have already been in possession of that Truth almost universally throughout the story.

How to Write a Negative Change Arc

PART 1: THE FIRST ACT

Everybody likes a happy ending, but, let’s face it, not all stories have happy endings. Negative change arcs won’t give readers the warm fuzzies and spawn date-night movie adaptations. But they do have the ability to create stories of unparalleled power and resonance—if they’re true.

PART 2: THE SECOND ACT

The Second Act in a negative character arc bears a lot of similarity to that in a positive change arc. In both types of arc, the character will be thrust out of his Normal World into a new and strange dilemma, where he will be forced to confront his Lie.

PART 3: THE THIRD ACT

In a word, the negative character arc is about failure, and this becomes nowhere more clear than in the Third Act. If the positive change arc is about redeeming self and the flat arc is about saving others, then the negative character arc is about destroying self and probably others as well.

Frequently Asked Questions About Character Arcs

HOW CAN I FIGURE OUT WHAT MY CHARACTER’S ARC SHOULD BE?

Choosing your character’s arc is every bit as important a decision as choosing the right plot. Get it wrong in the beginning, and, at best, you’ll be facing massive rewrites. Fortunately, picking the perfect character arc for your story requires nothing more than the answers to three questions.

CAN A CHARACTER’S ARC BE A SUBPLOT?

Not every story—especially action-oriented stories—will feature huge character arcs that get all kinds of screentime and prominently showcase the Lie, the Truth, and the character’s pit stops in between. These stories are no less credible than those with prominently developed arcs.

WHAT IS AN IMPACT CHARACTER? AND WHY DOES EVERY CHARACTER ARC NEED ONE?

When we think of necessary characters, we tend to come up with obvious choices such as the protagonist, the antagonist, and maybe the mentor, love interest, and sidekick. “Impact character” probably isn’t at the top of your list. But it should be. Because you can’t create a character arc without one.

SHOULD ALL MY MINOR CHARACTERS HAVE ARCS?

If your protagonist’s character arc has the ability to deepen your story, then just think how much more depth you can create if all your minor characters have arcs! Dizzying concept, isn’t it? And it raises the (somewhat trepidatious) question: Should all your minor characters have arcs?

HOW CAN I USE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS TO GET MY CHARACTER TO CHANGE?

How do you make your character change? How do you get him from Point A (the Lie) to Point B (the Truth) in a way that makes sense from the inside out? It’s not enough to put a character though all the proper motions of a change. To make it really work, the character has to feel that change. He has to be personally motivated to change.

WHAT IF MY STORY HAS NO CHARACTER ARC?

Can you write a story with no character arc? Is that even possible? And, if it is, will the story be doomed to drabness in comparison to those that do feature rich character arcs?

HOW DO I WRITE CHARACTER ARCS IN A SERIES?

Up to now, I’ve been addressing character arcs primarily within the structure of a single story, using the important structural moments in a classic Three-Act plot to anchor the timing. But what if your character’s arc spans more than just three acts and one book?

For more on writing great characters, download my free e-book Crafting Unforgettable Characters or click here for a full listof all my posts on the subject.

#writing #writers #characters #how to

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foxofthedesert · 5 years

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Arrow FanFic | Dinah x Laurel | A Christmas Miracle

Part 4 – The Miracle (AO3 Link)

A vicious chill threads through the alleyway outside the Carmine Kanigher Shelter, sending waste detritus of modern civilization skittering in every direction. Mice and rats flee for cover as fat flakes of snow begin to fall. Soon the entire area will be blanketed in a carpet of fluffy white powder. A Christmas Miracle for Star City courtesy of a recently reunited father and daughter duo of certain...arctic talents who are in town for the first of what will become the annual Team Flarrowgirl – a universally reviled portmanteau courtesy of one Ralph Dibney – Christmas extravaganza.

Pushing off the cinder block he’s occupied for the second time tonight over the past few minutes, Marv adopts a toothy grin. He already worked his seasonal miracle, which if his best friend Nora’s spotty accounting of history unrelated to her dad can be trusted is taking place right about...now. Nervously, he lifts the sleeve of his jacket to check the vitals monitor on the modular biometrically keyed device wrapped around his wrist, finding all readings back within ideal parameters whereas only hours before they were fluctuating wildly. Just to be sure his efforts were indeed successful, he pinches himself in several places to ensure his central nervous system is still functioning correctly that he is still corporeal and has not disintegrated due to a seismic shift within the causal domino chain that will eventually result in his birth less than six years from his present location in spacetime.

As a reward for a mission accomplished, he sifts through the menus on what Nora calls their Vibe-rators – bless the innocent, adorable, perpetual child that she is, Nora has yet to grasp why nicknaming the gadgets that in honor of their esteemed inventor, their beloved Uncle Cisco, was not quite the honor she thought it was – and quickly deactivates the artificial aging matrix produced by some seriously shway tech that, savvy as he is, even he doesn’t fully understand. He also unilaterally decides to never adopt the pseudonym Marv ever again.

Honestly, what was I thinking going with that? Quen shakes his head, chuckling ruefully as the answer dawns on him. There is a longstanding Christmas Eve tradition in his house of watching Christmas movies all evening until everyone is too tired to keep going, and this year they are breaking out amongst other titles both of Macaulay Culkin’s Home Alone films. Double-dipping those gems before bed is, in his opinion, just about the perfect way to cap off a perfect Christmas Day with his family. Which is why he has to get a move on or he’ll be late and his Moms will not be happy. Nor will Aunt Sara and Aunt Ava, who are actually supposed to drop by this year instead of ducking his Mom’s invite with some lame explanation of a temporal anomaly that needed fixing like, pronto. Come to think of it, Maya, his older sister by a year and a half, is coming back home from a work thing in National City for the annual Lance family Christmas and will almost certainly use his tardiness as another excuse to hit him. And Quen can’t have that. She has enough reasons as is without adding valid cause. Plus, his damn shoulder has been abused enough by his sibling’s iron fists, thank you very much!

Glancing back toward the street he’d watched a younger, more hardened version of his softer mother approach him from, the familiar tug of welcome memory pulls him under its sway. His Ma is still a knock-out according to all his friends, who often break out an ancient acronym he chooses to ignore so as to not require a bleaching of his brain, so the age difference was not that jarring. But it was beyond weird to see her so restrained and world weary.

Of his parents, his Ma is the positive one, the tactile huggy, kissy, slightly smothery mom who sings while she cooks, dances as she cleans, and who cried – on camera! – at his graduation...every last one of the four so far. So many wonderful memories of her flash by that he can hardly sort through them all. Her singing him to sleep while he was little and really, really sick while his Mom cradled him close to her chest and rocked him in her favorite rocking chair. The absurd, bonkers, overboard, birthday bashes she organized for both him and his sister every friggin’ year until they were old enough to insist she dial back the adorable insanity. The way she would stand to the side giggling uncontrollably at his ultra-competitive Mom once he got old enough to regularly beat her at basketball or soccer or video games. How a few stern words from her spoke volumes more than a profuse tirade from his Mom ever could amongst one of the many lectures he endured regarding the vital importance of taking responsibility for one’s own actions. How she always smells like an amazing blend of vanilla and cinnamon and can with a single enveloping hug and a lingering forehead kiss banish every iota of hurt, confusion, pain, and fear plaguing her children, even when they are fully grown adults. His Ma is a lionhearted woman who loves with every last ounce of her strength, and it was more than a little disconcerting to witness her holding that ferociousness ransom in the obviously fading hope that a rescuer might appear to set it free. Thankfully, he is a devoted son who is willing to brave her wrath to secure her happiness, which he did by pushing her toward a certain irritatingly complicated blonde.

The various images of his Ma, heartwarming as they are, mingle with one of his other mom as he watched her first set foot in the shelter. Looking for all the world like she didn’t know what the hell she was doing there, all the while unwilling to surrender an inch to fear or doubt, she was yet so fragile he was afraid to even breath in her general direction lest she shatter into a million pieces. He had to get to know her first before he risked ingratiating himself to the point she would grant him permission for one stilted hug.

He’d like to say that it shocked him to see her so walled off, the woman who carried and nourished him inside her body for nine months and then endured unspeakable pain to deliver him safely into the world, but it didn’t. His Mom has always had trouble letting people in, which in combination with her frightening dark side could make her a foreboding person to approach. From his first memories, he can recall glimpsing fleeting specters of what he’d witnessed in earnest while on this escapade in the past: a simmering rage and innate cynicism fueled by pain that only his Ma can assuage. Once or twice he was the unlucky target to bear the brunt of an outburst that scared him witless, and scared his Mom even more – so much so that she would sequester herself in the bedroom or the spare bathroom until she calmed down or his Ma intervened to soothe the offended beast back into her thick iron mental cage. He never really understood why his Mom got that way sometimes until just last year, about five months after his eighteenth birthday, when he learned about Black Siren. That wasn’t a happy time for him, or for his Mom. He had always known she had a troubled past, but that...that shook the foundations of his essential being, made him doubt his own moral and ethic core, and worst of all caused him to doubt his Mom’s ability to love. It took both his Ma and his Uncle Ollie teaming up to knock some sense into him for him to get his head out of his ass and to stop avoiding and start talking to his Mom again.

And now? Well, now he’s glad he knows about Black Siren, because if nothing else, this trip into the past has given him a reality check as to just how awful his Mom’s life was to have molded her into the hateful person she was before his Grandpa took a chance on her that his Ma later picked up and ran with. Once, and fortuitously, she got to the shelter early enough to join in a group session with the therapist that visits the facility once per week. He had to sit there silently and listen as she got roped into sharing, then grit his teeth through the empathetic agony of her divulging a lot more than she had originally intended. The things she went through before she met his Ma...Quen shudders at the very thought. The silver lining to that intolerable experience is that at least he has a reference to work with dealing with her occasional mood swings.

Also, this foray has given him a new, unique perspective into how much his parents love each other. To have overcome so much adversity just to be together is, quite frankly, astonishing. Nora has told him so many times that his Moms’ love story rivals that of any epic parental romance within the group of kids belonging to the venerated members of the Justice League, but he never quite believed her. How could he when they were competing with the likes of Superman and Lois Lane, the Green Arrow and his Overwatch, the Flash and Iris West, and Supergirl and her mysteriously broody governmental handler all the kids simply know as their favorite Aunt Alex. But those precious hours surreptitiously watching them interact in the kitchen and during the post-dinner clean up operation afforded him a view that, while slightly biased, was able to recognize that same divine spark between them that he sensed whenever he was around his friends’ folks. It was nice, so nice that his heart is still soaring high in the clouds above, to be given the immense privilege of bearing witness to the event that will begin an inevitable spiral into his – and his sister’s – future conception upon a recovered Kryptonian Genesis ship. And come what may, be it unavoidable tragedy like Nora’s Uncle Wally getting imprisoned outside the timeline by Abra Kadabra, or some catastrophic event like Darkseid himself descending upon his Earth tomorrow, he won’t be forgetting this adventure any time soon. It has ignited in him a flame of hope that cannot be quenched and solidified a belief that will endure until his death that love really can conquer all.

“Well, I guess you guys will see me in five years and twelve months on the dot” he says, his gaze turning instinctively to the apartment in which he knows his parents to be making the first baby steps toward a future they have both risked life and limb to protect multiple times. “Good thing it’ll be sooner for me. Just hope you guys don’t kill me when I tell you where I’ve been for the past month...”

And with the press of a button upon his Vibe-rator – he snickers at the thought of the name – Quentin Nicholas Lance disappears from view to join his best friend for their return trip to the future. He is not seen again until many years later. Twenty-four years, ten days, seven hours, and thirteen minutes to be precise, which is two minutes late and of no consequence to anyone but Maya, who uses that as an excuse to hit him.

Damn that punchy brat.

Quen rubs his sore arm, but the smile on his face remains until he is engulfed by two pairs of arms that officially ring in another Merry Christmas for the Lances. To his unending delight, in addition to a new Quantum Tablet, his Moms pulled some really big strings to get him into the Air Force Academy. He can’t wait to tell Nora! And as he rushes to dial his bestie up on his Vibe-device, he gives them both the biggest hugs he can muster up. He doesn’t see how their eyes catch over his shoulder, glowing with love for each other and pride for their child and happiness over his happiness, but then again he doesn’t really need to. He sees it every single day. Nor would it have registered even if he had caught it. He is far too excited to think of little else than realizing his dream of becoming a pilot.

Merry Christmas to me! He thinks as he hears Nora’s voice chime through the tiny, nearly impervious subdermal implants designed by his Uncle Cisco that were wired into his ears after a childhood accident his Mom still hasn’t forgiven herself for rendered him deaf.

“Hey! You’ll never guess what I got for Christmas!”

Nora does guess, the know-it-all brat, but his enthusiasm doesn’t diminish one iota. This is, after all, the best Christmas ever. And not just because he got everything he wanted, but because he got to watch his parents take the final steps in their journey falling in love. How many kids get to make that boast? Not any he knows of besides Nora.

Quen has an extended family that loves him, a bright future ahead of him, a sister that would fight the world for him, and Moms who love him – and each other – more than he could ever begin to describe. And that makes him the luckiest kid alive.

THE END

#dctv #arrow #arrow fanfic #dinah drake #laurel lance #dinah x laurel #laurel x dinah #aka Dinahmite!#or:#dinahsiren #merry christmas y'all!

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