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paperstarwriters · 8 months

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ive come kneeling at your doorstep to beg for that essay on murio and luciels parallels you mentioned 👀💦👉👈

i love loathing lucio so much so it would deal my lil hater ass so much psychic damage and i cannot wait to get rekt

(onlyifyouwanttothoofcoursetakeyourtime)(just making sure youre aware id print that shit n frame it above my bed were it to come to existence)

Hello @tetsuooooooooooo! I know you said I can take my time, ok I'm still really really sorry this took awhile, I've been kinda burnt out from classes lately, and writing a bunch of essays for that lol, but I've managed to make a somewhat coherent argument for my case here lol.

Now, to preface this:

I only really like Lucio as a character to thematically dissect and kick around occasionally for giggles. I am a far, far cry from a Lucio stan, I just find him interesting—like a bug. Honestly I don't think I'm gonna convince you he's in any way a good guy I just might make you loathe him more 😅

I haven't played Lucio's route. I'm too busy and I get too annoyed with some of his antics + the options of reactions that MC is allowed to make. I've only played the side stories and a lot of my understanding of his character is built from Muriel's route (and I know he's much more different in his own route than he is in the others') as well as hearsay from other people talking about Lucio

I know I said that I'd include Aurora's songs in my original statement but that got wayyyyyyy too messy so I'm just opting to exclude them lol. (not to mention youtube is doing a very irritatingly strange thing of deleting and then reuploading Aurora's songs??? so I don't wanna deal with the messy files :/)

With that out of the way here is my essay :)

Wordcount: 2,908

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Muriel and Lucio are both very, very caught up in how they are seen by others. While it's clearer when it comes to Lucio, it is also made clear in Muriel by the fact that Social anxiety is often caused by stress over how a person is perceived and their mental belief that they are helpless to change that perception. This causes of their self perception are also quite similar, due to their similar histories, but in the same way that there are some notable opposites between them with their struggle for their identity there is also some notable differences in their histories that arguably causes the slight difference in their struggle for their self image.

To begin with their history, Muriel and Lucio are noted to both come from the South. They come from two opposing tribes, and are both eventually chased out of their home and community by 1) a cruel person who arguably causes their struggle of identity and 2) the plague. Of course, the major difference here is that Lucio actively made decisions that would lead to him being chased out of his tribe, he was arguably aware that if it failed he'd have to leave, he just hadn't considered that it would actually fail.

Muriel on the other hand is chased out of his home at a much younger age, and he has no choice in his eviction from his home or his family. There is no action that Muriel could have done that would have allowed him to stay where he was, unlike Lucio who had a clear option that would have allowed him to stay.

Or at least would have allowed him to stay until he grew tired of his mother's attitude towards him.

I don't believe that Morga's cruel and dismissive attitude towards Lucio started when he tried to kill her, rather, I believe that she has been doing that for a long, long time. She often states that she had been "too soft" on Lucio, but I think her "softness" is the same kind we see in Muriel's route. She berates him, she threatens him, she tells him how awful and unskilled he is to everyone else and makes a show of his failures, but when she is completely and fully enraged and is about to hit Lucio, she hesitates.

Is that softness? To her perhaps. To the tribe, perhaps. But not to me, and not to Lucio.

So, despite all of the harsh words thrown his way, he decides to take action to prove her wrong. I'm willing to bet that a lot of Morga's criticisms were about how strong he was and how he was in fact not actually as strong as he could have been, not as strong as he should have been. That's why when he takes action to prove Morga wrong, he immediately snaps to killing her. There is, after all, no better way than showing your power than killing your opponent (we see this belief in Morga when she spars against Muriel and he beats her.) Of course, in hand-to-hand combat, and on fair terms, Lucio can't actually defeat his mother, so he takes to more under-handed methods in order to beat her.

When this fails, it is the first major wound on his self-image. He cannot defeat his mother. He is not strong enough to defeat his mother despite cheating.

So, he runs away.

Besides marking a wound on his self-image, this also marks Lucio's connection to others. Having been exiled from his tribe, he is disconnected from the friends who may have actually supported him somewhat, he is robbed of his connections and separated from anyone who may have actually loved and cared for him (platonically and/or romantically)

Similarly, Muriel's separation from his own family, and his eventual abandonment into the streets of Vesuvia separates him from any stable sense of love and affection as well. Because he was separated from loving parents as a child and was likely surrounded by a number of children who were abandoned because they were unwanted, or because their parents were unable to care for them, Muriel has no other answer than what the other kids give him it is the only answer he has. Further more I believe that Muriel was probably abandoned by that merchant because they were unable to keep feeding him, which he also attaches onto his real parents as to why he was abandoned in the first place.

And so Muriel believes himself to be unloved and unlovable after being separated from family, or any semblance of a family.

Returning to Lucio, he moves on from his tribe and eventually joins a military group(? I think? Idk. I'm sure there was a specific name for it but I can't remember sorry) Once again, this is an act of trying to prove to his mother and to his community that they were wrong, and when compared to the ordinary person outside of their tribe, he's actually a really good and capable fighter. Of course, however, this is inevitably cut short as he looses his arm, and is once again confronted with the fact that he is unskilled as a warrior and so he retreats from his perceived deficiency and takes a different route to getting the love and admiration he wants—politics.

Of course, as we see in Muriel and Asra's childhood tale, this inevitably puts him into direct conflict as, in order to climb the social ladder he offers to "clean up" the streets. While it's largely left up to interpretation as to whether or not the Threat of Asra's safety came first or Muriel's position as a gladiator came first, I can't help but believe that Muriel's position as a gladiator came first, as otherwise, he might've gone out and tried to check on Asra's safety. (though this is mostly a headcannon) I believe that Lucio offered Muriel a chance to have some say in who gets "cleaned up" from the streets, and for Muriel to be able to get rid of the "actually bad criminals". Regardless of whether or not this is true, the arena gives Muriel his first taste of admiration, as people cheer for and adore him, but it also tears that sense of admiration away as he eventually has to come to terms with what he is doing. Whether that sense of dread and awareness was always there or it occurred somewhere in the middle is also unknown but the outcome is the same regardless. Being known and being admired becomes tied to hurting and harming people—because it is the only trait he sees that other people admire, he sees it as his only lovable trait.

And so Lucio and Muriel begin to reflect each other—and I don't mean reflect as in they show the same image, I mean reflect as in we see a similar image, but the image is reversed (*wink wink nudge nudge*). Here Muriel sees himself as only capable of being loved for his ability to commit violence, and Lucio sees himself as being incapable of being loved because he cannot complete the amount of violence he needs to commit.

Now, I feel the need to emphasize here, despite having many people around him who Lucio may truly believe love and admire him, the people around him very likely don't actually care for him very much because they either do not know him well, or they see him as little more than a pawn in a plan, or at least someone who gives them benefits. And even if there are a number of people with genuine admiration for Lucio, it still wouldn't be enough. Admiration is never enough when you lack genuine emotional connections with others, and Lucio, clearly does.

Again, this parallels Muriel who also struggles with a lack of genuine emotional connections to others. Although he has Asra with him, it's clear that, Asra's tendency to be fickle with connections has extended to him as well, especially when Asra spends more time with MC than him, leaving Muriel feeling abandoned and alone. Considering that Asra is the only person we ever really see Muriel connect or talk to, it's no stretch to say that Asra is one of Muriel's only friends, if not their only friend period, and so with Asra disappearing on him as often as they do, Muriel is left feeling that he actually has no connections at all.

Of course once again reflecting each other, where Muriel clearly sees he lacks connections and pretends he does not, Lucio, makes unsteady transactional rather than emotional relationships and pretends that that is enough.

It is of course, not enough, because if it were, he wouldn't have treated Muriel like that, he likely wouldn't have plucked Muriel out at all. Although this is largely speculation, I believe that Lucio treated Muriel the way he did because he feels as if Muriel is the very child Morga would have wanted. He is big and strong, and although not technically skilled if Muriel were raised by Morga like Lucio was, he might've been. This is why his first reaction to seeing Muriel and Morga working together is that Muriel is Morga's replacement son. It's because that's how Lucio had been treating him. Muriel is Lucio's little avatar to live out the glory of being a fantastically skilled fighter who can beat up all of his opponents. This is also, why I believe that Lucio purposefully trained Muriel to be less skilled in fighting than he was. In Muriel's route, Lucio comments that he's always been able to beat Muriel, and while I do in fact believe that Lucio is actually a skilled fighter, despite how he is often presented and despite my arguments above—he's most often a skilled fighter in the technical sense. He knows all the movements, he knows all the strategies, he knows all the underhanded tricks. By not fighting Muriel too often, and refusing to teach him these tricks however much it may be able to help Muriel out in the arena, it allows Lucio to be able to defeat him whenever he wants to. It allows Lucio to make it seem to himself that he is better than the person his mother would have wanted as a son, which I believe to be both horrible but also sad, for both Lucio and Muriel.

With Lucio, it shows how desperate and inferior he feels with his fighting skills, constantly trying to compensate for it something we can also see that in the portrait of himself he has in his room.

For Muriel, it keeps him scared, and keeps him pinned in place despite having realized the consequences of his fighting. Something which only furthers his self-hatred when he realizes he actually could have easily left.

So yes, Muriel and Lucio are both very self conscious people, and while for Muriel his self consciousness stems from people seeing him as a monster, and him believing that he is one although he does not want to be one, Lucio is self-conscious in the fact that he is not seen as the brutal fighting warrior he was supposed to be.

These reflected aspects of each other, alongside of their self consciousness is the very thing they struggle through in their routes, the very thing that MC helps them to get through.

Lucio believes that through various paintings of himself that rearranges his past (paintings of himself as a triumphant fighter, while his mother is demure and elegant), various unfair/practically staged fights, and celebrations of himself on top of it all, he would be able to convince people that he is awesome and amazing and that he deserves to be loved. In doing all of this however, Lucio runs away from confronting the beliefs at his core and wondering if perhaps, what he understood as traits that make a person great may be incorrect—that his mother had not just been incorrect on the fact that he was a failure, but on the fact of what makes a person successful or powerful. By constantly covering up what he sees as deficits, Lucio skims over his own internal struggles entirely which makes him look foolish and annoying as he ignores what's so clearly there for others.

Meanwhile, for Muriel, he is aware of his deficits, and is unable to properly hide them without disappearing completely himself, he tries to figure out and fix all of his problems through introspection and isolation, but it is not something he can do on his own. Muriel of course, can't accept the fact that he may need help. He can't accept the fact that despite what he believes of himself, other people may actually care for him the same way he cares for them, and will actually offer help. And so, as he runs away from people and community, from friends, and possible friends alike, Muriel runs away from his own problems as well, even if he tortures himself with confronting them (I can't remember if he actually does this or if this is a fanfic trope 😅) Essentially, by constantly trying to deal with his struggles on his own, he neglects his connections to others who may help him, or at least offer support.

And then MC comes along, and because they both desperately needed that deep connection to someone else, regardless of whether it is something platonic or romantic. MC is able to leverage their relationship in order to further propel Muriel and Lucio's development into acknowledging the thing they refuse to acknowledge, and finally balance out their coping mechanisms, which, on their own isn't actually unhealthy (Lucio's really good at connecting with others; Muriel knows how to confront his inner turmoil) using that single method as their crutch for their traumas only ever hurts them more.

As Muriel progresses through his route, he grows more connected with his community and people. One meaningful moment that I don't think they give enough screen time in the game is the moment that Muriel is forced to confront people recognizing and seeing him again. He's forced to confront everyone's perception of him, their memory of him and he retreats into the mirror maze where he stares at all these reflections of himself, all reversed images of himself, but he believes them all to accurately represent himself—as if his superficial physical image is what represents himself mentally and emotionally. And then MC (and Morga 🙄) come through to him and pull him out of that panic attack (or interrupt and yank him away from properly addressing the problem in Morga's case 😤) And that's the first step to being loved. As they say, in order to let yourself be loved you have to let yourself be known, and in that first step, choosing to step forward and prioritize the lives of others over his own self image, Muriel begins to be admired by others. Genuinely admired, for traits that he likes in himself rather than traits that he hates.

Similarly for Lucio, (although I haven't played his route so this is largely based on hearsay) he's faced with problems that he Has to face on his own (or at least somewhat on his own) the main one being that he has to confront the consequences of his own actions, he has to acknowledge to himself that he isn't perfect and that he can't be perfect. It's why at the end of his route on the upright ending, he leaves Vesuvia, to take on a life of (semi)solitude to further take some time to improve his ability at introspection, while in the Reversed ending he's still talking with people, still trying to manipulate their perceptions of him (and the MC), and still trying to be a "good boy" (ie. perfect) for the MC.

Now, it may be argued that Julian can/should be included in this struggle of how others perceive him but I raise you this; that guy is the most dramatic ass dude in town and his biggest dramatic act was telling everyone about how horrible he is. He clearly has no issues with how other people see him, but he has problems with how he sees himself, which again, reflects Muriel a bit, but I'm sure most people are familiar with their (more blatant) similarities by now lol

So yea.

Muriel and Lucio are reflections of each other. At their core, they both struggle with the same problem of caring way too much about how they're seen by others, but they cope with (and thus worsen) the problem in opposite ways, so when they take steps to heal themself, they also go in opposite directions, with Lucio needing to take some time to himself to get into his own head, while Muriel needs some time away from himself to get out of his own head.

Essentially they're heading in opposite directions to reach the same conclusion: other people's opinions don't matter as much as your own opinion of yourself and the opinions of the people close to you.

Interesting parallels, no?

Of course, I believe this could've been better illustrated if Nyx Hydra didn't rush the last three routes, but alas, this is what fan fiction and fan-analysis is for lol

Anyways I don't tend to poke around the Lucio side of the fandom too much to begin with so if this has all been said and argued before forgive me for the repetition, and If I've gotten some points wrong, please feel free to correct me! I've mentioned before I haven't really played through Lucio's route so some things may be wrong.

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academiaipromise · 1 year

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things that i want everyone to know about the return of true tv (riverdale season 7)

this season was promoted on the promise that you don’t need to have seen any of the other six seasons of this show. they also parodied nicole kidman’s “heartbreak feels good in a place like this” amc advert.

as we know this season is set in the 1950s (in case you missed it, they were sent back in time after bailey’s comet almost killed them all) and jughead is the only one who remembers the present.

brief interlude taken to condemn the murder of emmett till...okay back to the guardian angel plot line (???)

veronica is a ‘50s hollywood actress who is going to high school to get a sense of small town life before the filming of our town (1940?? maybe i misunderstood this dialogue tbh)

cheryl’s twin brother is alive but he’s not jason he’s julian (for those keeping track, this has raised our ginger ratio on this show to an unacceptable number) [i am ginger and approve this message]

betty’s dad is back and probably not a serial killer but probably racist (we’re still having wild tonal shifts from jughead trying to restore his friends’ memories to prevent more wacky time travel to toni and betty trying to bring attention to the murder of emmett till)

shazam reference! ✨ synergy ✨

hot rod archie hot rod archie hot rod archie (if this somehow ends in a performance of greased lightning...)

jughead finds the time capsule they buried after graduation and tries to use the objects to convince everyone they’re from the future

“kevin...you directed some musicals...and were in...an organ harvesting cult”

jughead explains to the group that if they do not want to wait for the comet they could instead get betty and archie to make out on a bed and detonate a bomb under them. i love being reminded of this thing that actually happened on tv.

i need to be real with y’all i find 1950s archie really endearing he somehow has all of the stupidity of modern day archie but it’s presented as naive innocence (”i like. cars. sports. and fishing” like i love that for him!)

cheryl walks into pops and shouts “j’accuse!” at veronica catching her in a lie after she said that she had been cast in our town, but oh ho, cheryl has found out from her movie magazine that it is actually natalie wood! but i’m here to catch them both in a lie because there is no adaptation of our town starring natalie wood so.

veronica was involved with the 1955 car accident that killed james dean and her parents subsequently banished her. if you cared.

there is this subplot about the push for safe driving after the james dean crash which i know did happen but this is clearly an issue for hot rod archie!!

rip hot rod archie he has agreed to unsoup his car

just saw a WILD ad for reign on the cw streaming app...the end of the cw hurts all of us

“good morning riverdalians” [transitions straight to a reading of “Mississippi–1955” by langston hughes holy shit]

my joke post is not the place where i feel i have the nuance and space to discuss how this episode is engaging with racial discrimination and the civil rights movement but just know that it’s...it’s something to know about [edit: here is an interview about the decisions to include these plot points this season. i think it provides some important perspective on both the history of this show and the intent behind it, though of course intent ultimately doesn’t matter in terms of effect. still, a good start to have]

tabitha (the real tabitha, the guardian angel of riverdale), returns to talk to jughead and tells him that she used what was left of her life force to send everyone to the past but because the comet destroyed riverdale in that timeline, everyone needs to try to thrive in the 50s in order to find a path back to a different future.

you know what no one else is gonna give blake neely the credit he deserves so i’ll mention that this version of the riverdale theme is actually really gorgeous. sir if you’re reading this please know that i listened to the riverdale score aggressively while writing on the cw for my ma thesis and it would not have been finished without you thank you for your service.

tabitha takes jughead’s memories and he tries to write them down before he forgets, only to forget after writing the words “bend. towards. justice.” (yes as in the martin luther king jr quote) and he finds his beanie from the future. end of episode.

in conclusion:

#riverdale #riverdale spoilers #posts that you can feel that my masters thesis is in revisions and i have a conference presentation to finish lol #like august 23....let me be real with you!!! i will be sad!!! it's the end of the cw babes #kt tangents

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frogprincesnowglobe · 1 year

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One of my favorite Henry (Or Henry and Walter) moments is this very very in the background scene from Season 1 Episode 3 at 33:50. It's right in between Simon heading off to meet Wille to stay for the weekend and in the middle of Wille texting Simon. For some reason that will never make sense to me the English subtitles call Henry Vincent and then call Walter Henry in this scene, but it's Henry and Walter for sure, lol.

In the English dubs:

Henry: Well, here's the thing, our parents knew each other growing up.

Henry: They dated for a year [unintelligible because some background boy talks louder] before...

Walter: Wow, that's crazy! I had no idea.

Henry: No, I know.

Walter: How long have you known?

Henry: I know-- I know because my like my dad recognized your last name so he like, he like asked me if, if I know your or your family.

Walter: Oh! Okay.

Henry: Yeah I know.

Walter: That explains why there was [unintelligible because someone who sounds very British randomly says what sounds like "bloody vibe" over the top lol]

Henry: Yeah it's really like, like they knew each other

I can't speak Swedish so I don't know what the Swedish version says and the subs stop to focus on Simon and Wille texting (as you do, haha). This is one of my favorite moments though because it's so in the background and just a cute little moment between two friends. It also kind of seems like they're adlibbing here maybe? This is just after parents day and unless I missed it we don't actually see Henry or Walter with their parents.

But we really don't get a lot of information about most of the side characters, and here we have Henry and Walter telling us that their parents knew each other when they were younger and that they even dated each other for a whole year? I need to know everything!

Also it gives me so many plot ideas, maybe not even for the show but for fanfic or something. Like Henry's parents and Walter's parents are divorced and then Henry and Walter become stepbrothers when their parents get back together, or what if Henry's dad and Walter's mom had Walter and then at the same time Henry's dad and mom had Henry and they're half brothers.

#henry young royals #walter young royals #Young Royals #i went off on a tangent #at the end there #oops #am I maybe a little desperate for info about all of the characters?#yes #tagging #prince wilhelm #and #wilhelm young royals #too because his face is here #it counts #right?#lol #Mine

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alphabetboyluvr · 2 months

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Ok so I saw that long ass post that anon sent you about the vote thing on Wattpad, and while I don’t agree with some of what they said where they told you what to do (which they shouldn’t have done, they were rude) I do actually agree with them where they said people don’t tend to look at the votes when deciding whether or not to read a story. I actually think the whole vote thing is just something only authors care about, not readers.

As an avid reader on Wattpad, I do give votes just because authors like it- but I don’t actually give a shit about how many votes a story has when I’m looking for my next story to read. I look at the number of views- which I think you’ll find most readers do, even though the view count can be skewed.

Either way, I do think the whole vote thing should be taken off Wattpad as to the majority of readers, they really don’t care about it and it doesn’t give a good representation of how good a story is

I've been thinking about this all a lot ever since the last anon came in. I'll probably avoid answering questions about this topic again, but there does seem to be disconnect between the writer and reader standpoint, so I'll try and explain my thoughts as best I can without waffling for ages lol

my answer is to this ask, but also to the topic in general, and thoughts I've had regarding that last anon.

it's a really difficult topic to discuss because wattpad has an algorithm that is never really explained to writers. i cant say its important because xyz - i can just give you my own experience. ive been on wattpad for 11 years and have seen it through many changes. i used to use the activity tab to find new stories, and i honestly think getting rid of that was detrimental to the user experience tbh.

as it stands, we don't know what the algorithm favours, so we have to do what we can.

and what can we do? we can tag our work, we can acquire reads and votes, and then we can do more laborious things such as entering award books run by other users and engaging with our readers in various ways.

the tag system, and trending stories under those tabs, are really skewed. for instance, I don't think any of my stories have ever made it onto the fanfic tab, nor have I ever ranked highly under tags despite having really engaged readers and metrics which would suggest I would be.

so, unlike what the last anon said, my stories haven't always been 'out there'. word of mouth, and some stroke of luck tiktoks, are what's pushed them more than anything. so in that way, yeah the desire for votes is flawed—but personally I don't think read count is indicative of quality. if we're thinking about it from a marketing standpoint and conversion rates etc, votes a far more indicative of quality and I'd rather be known for quality over quantity.

the last anon also specifically noted the number of reads/follows I have on wattpad, and suggested that I shouldn't care because those numbers are high—which, respectfully I disagree with. if I didn't care in the early days, I wouldn't have pushed myself to make it to where i am. you can't just expect me to switch off that part of my personality. I'm ambitious and I really care about the things I create.

my girliepop oc's tend to have ambitious streaks and personal goals that they work hard for. they take after their mother, in that sense.

i think what confuses me the most is why it irks people, when you boil it down. its a tap on the screen for readers—and having just uploaded an 11k chapter that took hours to write, to edit, to craft, only to then be told its not worth it? i dunno man, it's just mean lol.

you can think these thing by all means, but don't come into my space just to be cruel. sometimes it okay to keep your opinions in your group chats.

the system is flawed, but I don't think you can blame a gal for just trying to work with it in the only way she knows how

#like at the end of the day none of this matters #none of it at all #i just take such offense to labelled as greedy lmao #its really bothered me lol #ask #sorry to this anon tho cause i went on a big ass tangent

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sushisocks · 6 months

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Hey there! I believe you said in another post that the final confrontation would be unlikely to happen if lenny and sean were alive, so i'd like to ask if you could expand on that pls(if u havent already and i just didnt see it lol)

Btw on a side note im actually super invested in your sean content😭😭the fandom seems to only talk ab him to label as an idiot, so as a fellow sean lover the way you characterize him has me so in love❤️❤️❤️❤️

Oh Anon you are SO LOVELY!!! Thank you not only in giving me the opportunity to rant more about Sean and Lenny (which I am always so willing to do), but also for your super kind words!! Sean is very dear to me, and I'm glad my reading into him as much as I do strikes a chord with other people ;;u;;

The way the general fandom often characterizes him isn't very surprising to me, given his personality & the surface level impressions he gives, but maybe for now I'll save THAT rant for another time, else we stay here forever lmaoo

So, to start answering your question, I believe you're talking about my post from a few months ago, where I talk about how I believe Sean & Lenny would've sided with Arthur & John if they'd lived to see the final confrontation. In it I mention how I find that final confrontation a lot more unlikely were Lenny & Sean to survive that far and stick around for the entire thing.

Now, WHY do I believe this? I touch on it briefly in that original post, but let's really get into it here!!

Okay to start off, there's a LOT of ways I see things going, in regards to Sean and Lenny, were they both to survive, because it adds SO MANY variables, but let's start at the very top.

At a meta level, it is important to recognize that RDR2 is a prequel to RDR1. This meant from the get that RDR2, as it is canonically, was bound to a certain outcome, to set up for RDR1. This ALSO means, that every step from the start of RDR2 was very much there not only to lay the groundwork for the end of RDR2 but also add another emotional layer to RDR1. This is all certainly things we are aware of already, but I think it's important to have that context in mind while we talk about alternative outcomes.

Because, see, Sean and Lenny HAD to die for the outcome in RDR2 to be the one it is. Not only them, but Hosea, Kieran, Molly, and Susan's deaths are ALL integral and important to the story, they ALL make a difference and contribute in pushing the story a certain way, and in reinforcing the steadily increasing hopelessness which infest the gang from Sean's death and out.

So if we're like "what if none of them died?" there are suddenly a LOT of new variables for every mission and every scenario we know from the game, which need to be considered. This is true EVEN if the change in survival count is only reduced to Lenny & Sean.

How different do you not think Shady Belle would have felt, initially, without Sean's death hanging over it? What about the bank job -- would Lenny & Sean end up on the boat to Guarma? What would've happened to them there, then? Would either of them be caught by the Pinkertons instead, with John or in his stead maybe? What other options would there have been, where would they end up at the end of that?

And already here we have to consider how those experiences might've impacted them psychologically, because of who they are.

In the post I mentioned earlier, I talk about how Lenny is new to the gang and probably isn't as stuck in it mentally as Arthur and John, nor do Sean and Lenny have the same emotional attachment/baggage in regards to Dutch. They're loyal of course, because they feel a sense of obligation to the gang, because it provides them with safety, friends, and allies, in an otherwise unkind world.

But what then happens when that changes?

How do you expect Sean and Lenny to respond when the gang starts turning on itself? When Dutch visibly starts losing it? When people start snapping at each other and threatening one another in the middle of camp?

(I have a half-formed thought here about how people would ABSOLUTELY be snapping and talking down to Sean in a way more cruel way towards the end of the game, for trying to keep things light and easy, yknow, fulfilling his role in the gang. I can only imagine what that'd end up doing to him, tbh.)

And, I'll be repeating myself from other posts here, but how do you think Lenny, a young black man painfully aware of the social structure as it exists in America at that point in time, would react to realizing what Dutch's plan with the Wapiti is? Same goes for Sean, who has SEVERAL instances through the game showing him just as politically aware as Lenny - certainly moreso than Arthur.

Would the outcome for the Wapiti tribe be the same, do you think, if Charles had more people than a very sick and tired Arthur to lean on, willing to help? Would Lenny in particular want to stick around to see Dutch attempt to drive the tribe into the ground for his own gain?

Also, I'm sorry but like, Lenny has a camp interaction with Dutch where he disagrees with him (about Miller, Dutch's favorite author) and explains why in a very well-articulated manner. In one instance, Dutch gets straight up offended by it, bcz Lenny can argue very well (and is RIGHT mind you lol).

I do absolutely believe that Lenny would not just sit around quietly in Beaver Hollow. I'd expect him to be among the most vocal in their discontent with the situation, and probably the best at arguing against Dutch.

That is, up until a certain point. Lenny is a young black boy, and Dutch is a white authority figure. Watch Dutch snap and yell at him, like he does John in Ch6 for example, and see how much longer Lenny sticks around fr. The trade is loyalty for safety and the same in kind. Why do you think members start leaving when things start looking their worst? And don't you think Lenny would be among the first to see the writing on the wall?

Though that is hinging on that very specific vibe in Beaver Hollow, where they're all scattered and losing their ties to one another. Add then in Sean, who is VITAL as social glue, and for making conversations easier. If he, and Lenny, and Mary-Beth, Tilly, Arthur, Charles, etc etc, insert your favorites here, managed to retain some of that community feeling, despite it all, then I absolutely see Lenny sticking around for them.

Same goes for Sean, tbh. I can see him leaving earlier, bcz the trade stops being equal and bcz he's not being taken seriously, and I can see him staying, for his friends.

There IS also a version of things where things are similar and I do see Sean siding with Dutch; but that is a very sad and lonely Sean, who is VERY different from where he's at in Clemens Point, and I think that's an unfair perspective to take for him in general.

Okay so, now we're back to that final confrontation, after I said I found it unlikely, why is that? Because, with every question I've posed thus far, about what Lenny & Sean's reactions might've been to canon events after their deaths, I have essentially presented a variable that comes with their survival to those points. Them being there for it, HAS to mean a change, has to mean something different happens, because their deaths are direct contributors to the path we already know the story takes WITHOUT their presences.

Now, what are those differences and changes? I honestly can't answer; something being different earlier or later can butterfly-effect into something completely new or remarkably similar to what we already know. I could sit here all day and wax poetic about all the different options and possibilities for where things could go, were ANY character to survive past their death point, BUT thankfully, that is what fanfiction is for, lol.

I hope this satisfied some of your curiosity, dear anon!! It was a lot of fun for me to write and think about, so thank you very much for asking!!!

#red dead redemption 2 #red dead redemption meta #rdr2 #sean macguire #lenny summers #dutch van der linde #arthur morgan #rdr thoughts #teki talks #long post #im sorry this took me a while to answer i had to sleep and then do my irl things and then Stew on this for a while #i hope this all made sense tbh idk if i lost the plot at some point in there. im SURE there's a tangent or two but yknow #ALSO if youre interested in reading a potential take on how things couldve gone if Sean and Lenny survived to chapter 6 #my fic Attentive Vigor is a soulmate au game rewrite where their survival is VITAL for the ending to be different from what we know #im almost finished with it! 4 chapters left that im really excited to share #if you like macsummers and sean whump it's got a lot of that after you get past the initial chapters lol #had to do a lil plug lol bcz this topic hits v close to home after all #asks #rdr asks #meta asks

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un-pearable · 4 months

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george lucas handed an overwritten mess in and then the fandom + otherwise involved creators in the extended universe and other supplemental media have spent the last decades ritualistically dissecting it and reworking it’s constituent parts into some of the most fascinating worldbuilding you can get. and the average person has no knowledge of this and just watched disney completely fumble it within an hour and a half of their first title crawl in The Force Awakens and proceed to completely fall apart within the next 3 hours . and that’s just what star wars is to them

#star wars #and maybe the mandalorian. din djarin really out here carrying the entire star wars reputation as well as his son #original trilogy girlie will never not be mad disney inevitably fucked up BOTH giving the OG trio OR finn poe and ray a satisfying ending #and is instead now going down the prequel rabbithole . this is what youve done to me disney #star wars/episode 4 a new hope is still my end all be all fave (specifically despecialized) BUT i will admit . the clone wars era is growin #on me. i’m down for the tragedy of your ancestral life ways being eroded by the need to throw your peacemakers and children on thefrontline #to prevent the deaths of an army you never wanted to be responsible for #that one story that had the whole ‘if people actually want to leave the republic *why aren’t they the ones fighting*’ revelation. oogh.#sheev you bastard you divised the perfect plan to make a bunch of hypercompassionate mystics who are preternaturally #disposed to feel empathy for people be unable to refuse fighting on the frontlines of a war bc it’s the only way to even begin to protect #both their army of innocents (acceleratedly aged clones) AND the public at large #I KEEP GOING ON TANGENTS IN THE TAGS SORRY. MANY EMOTIONS TONIGHT!!!!!!!#<- old tags from nov 28 lol #old starred war posts im excavating from the drafts :]#text✨#posts from a galaxy far far away

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lrdvyke · 4 months

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so in the want to figure out a way of life for escaped vyke should the cure prove too impossible to get ( it is 😭 ), i started to look for ways to help deal with the madness build up. it's going to always be there, it doesn't just go away be it through plucking out the eyes or the three fingers dying. from the clues that the game gives, the madness itself seems more physical in the way of what one may call a disease of sort. sometimes even just due to the fact that one's mind is not capable enough to continue caring for the body, but i'm digressing a little.

so i looked at the clarifying boluses for the biggest tell, as they are meant to get rid of the buildup of madness before it gets too much in the person's body / system:

Madness accumulates slowly, inflicting heavy damage and reducing FP once the threshold is reached. Take one of these in timely fashion to avoid such events.

the ingredients to make these are as follows: eye of yelough, crystal cave moss, and dewkissed herba, but the main one i want to touch on first is the eye of yelough due to the fact that it says more as to what kind of help it provides aside from the typical "medicinal" just by the item description alone:

Grown in lands afflicted by frenzy, it's used for its pain-relieving properties… Though it's also known to be a dangerous intoxicant.

when i say madness is more physical, i mean it in the sense that the body is in constant pain at all times. with taking the name "frenzied flame", from the looks of the people affected by madness and how their eye sockets hold a little glowing flame within them, along with the fact that the burn wounds never heal on your tarnished, i have reason to believe that in gaining the madness, there is a small source of flame inside of you that is constantly in a steady burn that brings with it a continuous amount of pain within the afflicted. also hyetta's words to you: ( which granted, she says this because you have become the lord of chaos, but it also tells of the other afflicted. you just take in the main source, being the vessel of the outer god, while the others afflicted have only an offshoot, if that makes sense )

Ahhh, the flame of chaos has nestled within you.

with the crystal cave moss and dewkissed herba, my guess is that it's included because of possible infection as they are both ingredients for preserving ( scarlet rot ) and rejuvenating ( death blight ) boluses. but i think it does something extra for the clarifying boluses because once madness effects you, your focus is punished as well as your health. focus is necessary for spells, to which the crystal cave moss is within crystal caves that are being mined by the academy. dewkissed herba is noted as being "soaked in arcane dew" and in the ingredients list for glowstones; thus sources of magic that push for a larger focus and in doing so, clearing a mind beset by madness.

ok but besides pain and infection, there is another: not eating. or in hyetta's words:

They rest their trembling hands upon me. Howling wordlessly, they gently stroke my eyes. Their frail fingers, emaciated... Yet still, they give me the grapes. But you...seem somehow...firmer.

there is no ability to undertake that demand. they waste away from the pain, the sickness, the inability to speak without screaming, a mind that can no longer focus enough for the afflicted to take care of the body. but there is a promise that the lord of chaos would take it from them, so that they may live happily again.

tl;dr life for vyke could be possible under the right circumstances should no cure come to him. it would just be impossible to do it alone, as he would have no mind to do anything let alone making the boluses, eating, or even treating the burns upon his body. he would simply act like the frenzied flame villagers: immovable in their pain until forced into violence.

#— study.#god i hope this makes sense. i feel like i started rambling towards the end bc i have so many thoughts about thishgkjsg #death in general in this game i still do not understand nor do i think i will ever lol #but given how many bodies there are in the church!! and how they are... i go back and forth in the camp of are they actually dead #or are they alive just unable to move due to the pain and madness ? ???#they are all dried out eyeless husks. practically skeletons with skin #but there are some you can still target. some don't even attack unless you attack first too #anyway im going off on another tangent hjfksdhgkj #in er fashion realistically will vyke live at all? no #but in max fashion who likes to find other ways for a story can vyke live? yes. but it will be difficult and he is forever changed #which is the meat and potatoes of this-- ok i'll shut up nowhgkjshfgk #ok another thing: allegory for grief. just think biggest depression spell of your life #ok im done im prommy

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ultimategirldad · 2 years

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[ID: screenshot from the spamton sweepstakes page, featuring a caption from the engraved wristwatch prize. It says "NEED PROOF? THERE LIES THE NAME OF THE [angel with the tattered wings]!". End ID]

So I think regarding this page. It's interesting to contextualise it with the text preceding it - especially the angel with the tattered wings part.

I don’t think we’ve ever seen Noelle Holiday described like this before and it’s absolutely fascinating to me.

#deltarune #noelle #spamton sweepstakes #Edit: really long tags!! fyi #there is a lot I want to say but i'm too tired lol. anyways noelle holiday is a character with well documented flaws and--#--the text in that page doesn't feel ooc for me at all. like. yes she's indecisive. yes she's literally frozen in fear. yes she'll literally #inconvenience herself so she doesn't step on others toes. and yes she's not gonna do anything about the bullying because...#what CAN she do? talk to kris? something that's established as a Hard and Rare thing to do. tell a teacher? literally which teacher??#alphys the one who sees this happen day in and out and with the authority to make a difference... but doesn't. or toriel. which I'm #not even gonna explain why that would go terribly. So that leaves us with... noelle standing up to susie herself. which i'd like to #point out that noelle learns to stand up for herself and others by the *end* of chapter 2. so I think there's most definitely a #precedent here for noelle to act the way she does. she's deeply flawed and has many weaknesses to exploit (as we've seen in --#snowgrave) BUT she's deeply wonderful and kind and all of that coexists together.#WHOOPS I didn't mean for this to get so long sdfghjkl and rant-y uhm I'm really not that fussed I just think people are seeing--#a character act in a non-ideal way and immediately assuming that it has to be Not Canon or OOC or Wrong.#I agree the topic and text is uncomfortable but. not anything unexpected?? yeah that's my 2 cents #this was all typed in one go by a sleep deprived me so if I got anything incorrect please don't pick me apart thank u #cryptic capri #discourse #<-- just in case bc I went OFF on a tangent with this lol

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nebulouscoffee · 7 months

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for the ask game star trek voyager!!

Thank you sm friend! I already answered a couple of these, but the great thing about being very indecisive is I can give different answers each time <3

Favourite character: B'Elanna Torres, although Kathryn Janeway is a close second (I do have a Janeway-themed url, after all😌)

Second favourite character: okay, I'll talk about Janeway here! Gosh what a deeply flawed individual. She's awesome, and yes, incredibly charismatic and badass, but she's also haunted, complex, and scarily capable of hurting those closest to her (which she does. Like, a lot.) She ends up in charge of a seemingly endless mission, and she cannot afford to crack- not in front of her crew, and not even really in secret- so she begins this seven-year process of what basically amounts to dehumanising herself. Her arc is almost like a long-form merging with Voyager the ship- she is Voyager, and Voyager is her! She will protect her crew and bring them home. She will ensure they get to survive. (What happens to her? Well, she knows she can and will never be the same, but she can't and doesn't think about that right now). She made a mistake and her crew paid the price and the guilt of this eats at her every day, but she cannot afford to acknowledge it or she'll go insane. She tries so hard to stick to her principles but once she's violated a few she starts thinking of her soul as this already-corrupted thing- she knows she can live with it, so why not do something else that's a bit messed up! Better me than any of my crew, right! Like- no wonder she couldn't move on with her life once Voyager reached the Alpha Quadrant in the Endgame timeline. No wonder she had to travel back in time to die in the past. She is so changed by the events of this show that the past the only place she can truly belong. Ugh!!!! I have so many feelings about her!!

Least favourite character: I dislike voyager!Q so much I actually skip all his episodes on rewatch lmao. And I'm someone who actually quite enjoys him on TNG! He's this all-powerful all-knowing omnipotent being who could literally be off anywhere any time doing anything he wanted, and yet he chooses to keep coming back to this one starship just to flirt with the most boring man alive. He literally got kicked out of the Q Continuum for having too much of a hyperfixation on his blorbo. That's funny! And compelling! Unfortunately the Voyager writers did not understand what made this work and decided his only trait was *irritates everybody* (including the audience lol). What he and Picard had was a funny back and forth, a snarky Quodo-style "these horrible old men deserve each other" rivalry. What he and Janeway have is sexual harassment played for laughs 🙃

The character I'm most like: Kes - I went into more detail here :)

Favourite pairing: B7 if we're talking non-canon ships! From canon, uhhhh I guess whatever was going on between Janeway and Chakotay in 'Resolutions' & Tom/B'Elanna before they got together

Least favourite pairing: I don't know if I have one? C7 is the popular answer but I literally straight up forget it exists because it's such a small part of the show, like it doesn't even show up for reals until the finale. I'm not a fan of the way they wrote Tom/B'Elanna for basically all of S5 and S6, and the damage control they did in S7 wasn't bad imo but also felt too little too late. I also dislike Kes/Neelix, though I do think it had potential to be a really interesting breakup arc lol

Favourite moment: That scene from 'Year of Hell' where Janeway has given the order to abandon ship and everyone else is so reluctant to desert the bridge and it looks soooo banged up but she still won't abandon it.... and then Tuvok gives her that hug goodbye..... and she glances at that little gift Chakotay made for her which she didn't have the heart to recycle..... and she talks about what Voyager means to her, and why she has to go down with the ship...... my heart😭

Rating out of 10: Objectively an 8/10, I think the early seasons are GREAT and around midway through they do sort of run out of ideas thanks to their commitment to being as episodic as possible and sidelining more than half the main cast as well as refusing to let the guest cast build up or develop. The show genuinely suffers for it imo! There's a lot of wasted potential, as well as biases of the time that prevented it from reaching true heights- I also wholeheartedly think this show ruined the Borg lol, now 75% more human and 200% less intimidating! However it's also got so many positives- I adore all the main characters so much, and the premise itself gives me so many feels that in my heart it's an 11/10🥰

#to be clear when I say voyager ruined the Borg I'm not talking about seven's journey learning to reclaim her life #that stuff is great #I'm talking about the instances where the ship would actually come into conflict with the Borg #I think that should've happened two times on the whole show max. Every appearance decreased their mystique and made them more human imo #it's the same with the q continuum! by the end of voy they're basically just another typical species & they don't even have forehead ridges #the more appearances you give a species that's meant to be non-corporeal/deeply alien the more human (and boring) they will become #this 100% would've happened to the prophets too if that show had gone on longer btw. imo at least #anyway that's a tangent lol #thanks again for the ask! :)#ask game

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