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#i feel like the narrative i knew as a Youth was very much
freebooter4ever · 1 month
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Hey thanks I thought I was the only one who didn’t like the joke. Everyone laughed yuck
Ahhhhh yeah :/ i thought the joke was definitely funny, but with that harsh twinge of sadness at just how normalized and accepted this sort of sexism STILL is.
' i was never good at telling jokes but the punchline goes, i get older but your lovers stay my age '
And its not necessarily a damnation of the man himself - obviously rami is a favorite of mine but i dont think hes ever dated anyone over 30 and is veering towards jake and leo disease too, and i still think rami is one of the most brilliant character narrative builders in the business currently - but its a damnation of a culture that treats romantic partners not as equals but as disposable play things with an expiration date. Look, i got flirted with by much older guys in pittsburgh all the time - usually it was cute, they were friendly, very complimentary and flattering about it, and they never treated it seriously or asked me out. Then i came to LA and the difference was night and day. Older (rich) men here feel entitled to younger women in a way that is frankly scary - at one point in a bar when a guy in his 60s was hitting on me my muscular male friend had to physically step between us and scare the guy off to get him to go away.
And it doesn't help that im sort of in the 'one of the guys' category, so i've heard the way these super rich dudes talk about the models they date behind their back while hanging with 'the guys', and, ugh, its not nice. I will say one thing for sports dudes - i imagine guys like ja*gr have way more respect for young women who are passionate about health and fitness than computer science executives.
But there's negatives in the sports world too - yall know how much i adore taylor. But even i recognize that she's not 'sports bro hot' - she doesn't have silicone, her make up is understated, she doesn't have that social media defined 'hotness' that sports fan dudes expect their sports heroes to date. So while i was naively scrolling insta looking for cute snapshots of taylor and travis being all lovey dovey at the end of the game, a good half the comments were men complaining about her. Saying they cant understand why travis is dating someone so old, that she will never be able to give him kids, that she's already showing her age (both of them are 34 btw). So far travis seems to ignore these types of comments but it would be hard to judge him for giving into peer pressure because this stuff is just so prevelant and exhausting.
And it does effect us older women - while i was dating Pilot Boy i was absolutely hyper aware of the fact that here is this rich, handsome, successful, and extremely smart guy dating beneath him. Like we bonded over being literally the same age - we had mutual friends in college without even knowing it. But i was always questioning like what does this guy see in me - why isn't he dating a gorgeous 25 year old whose only goal in life is to live on the beach with him??? Like he was honestly more the type of dude i would be friends with while he dates hotter women, lol. So i really was not surprised when he ended things (i was mostly sad that we couldnt stay friends and continue geeking out on airplanes and history together LOL), it just felt like it made sense, of course he wouldn't be serious about me, a guy like him should be dating a fresh, youthful, less bitter and cynical 25 yr old blonde. Six years in LA and this is just the pattern i see repeating itself over and over.
And im the romantic - when i fall in love its ALL in. Usually it's personality, usually its intellectual - that comfort in finding someone who just understands how you think. I love being so close to someone that you know them better than yourself, that you can communicate wordlessly. Shared humor, shared experience. As i age im learning that i actually dont pay much attention to the signs of aging when it comes to attraction - who notices wrinkles when what you're in love with is that look in their eye when they smile at you? The mental connection between romantic partners is the most important for me in my book. For me this typically means someone within the ten year range plus or minus - though i prefer it even within a five year age gap.
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chthonic-cassandra · 2 months
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Recent books, fiction (non-rereads) -
Rebecca Kim Wells, Briar Girls - YA fantasy, very faintly a Sleeping Beauty retelling. A girl cursed to harm anyone she touches takes a journey into a magical forest. This was decidedly mediocre, enlivened only by having a bisexual protagonist, which is no longer enough for me to be excited by a book. Not recommend.
James Hannaham, Don't Nobody Give a Shit About What Happened to Carlotta - A Black trans woman returns home to Brooklyn after ~20 years of incarceration. I feel a little biased about this one because for various reasons I am very much poised as an ideal reader for it, but I loved it. Hannaham's prose moves skillfully between first person and third, and the lurching pace, which deeply immerses us in Carlotta's experience of the world, is both an audacious authorial move and also very effective. I particularly appreciated the middle section of the novel, which slowed way down for an extremely extended two-handed trauma disclosure scene. There was some stuff about the way secondary characters were represented which I would have preferred be different, but overall I was deeply impressed by this.
Madeleine Roux, The Book of Living Secrets - Two teenage girls end up transported into the world of their favorite novel and find it is not what it seems. I convinced myself to stop reading this book, despite my completionist instincts, because I found prose and tone totally insufferable. I really need to stop reading so much YA.
Grady Hendrix, We Sold Our Souls - A middle-aged woman who in her youth was the guitarist for a successful metal band, learns that her former bandmate has sold her and her colleagues' souls for success and sets off on a journey to stop him. I am positive I would have appreciated this book more if I knew more (or anything) about metal (there are a lot of things I could tell were probably-clever references), but as it was it was fun. I've been reading through all of Hendrix' work, and with that context a number of the plot beats were very predictable (to me this felt especially similar to The Final Girl Support Group), but the process of identifying his favorite tropes is itself sort of entertaining.
Yiyun Li, The Book of Goose - two girls living in the countryside in postwar France develop an enmeshed and unhealthy friendship and then unexpectedly end up literary celebrities. I didn't like this. I found the prose flat and grating, the historical setting implausible and ill-researched, and the plot lacking meaningful emotional stakes. It felt like there was a shadow of an interesting novel somewhere in there, but it wasn't the one I was reading.
Tania James, Loot - a boy in eighteenth-century Mysore ends up apprenticed to a French clockmaker and the rest of his life is changed. This I enjoyed very much, despite some things about its pacing and narrative structure that I wished were different. It had interesting and nuanced things to say about history and memory and colonialism, and several very compelling characters. I would be interested to read more by James.
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azems-familiar · 11 months
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any thoughts on Cal's embracing the darkness? specifically...darkside!cal/bode.....👀
oh BOY do i have thoughts, actually. for both of these. i'm actually currently working on a fic (sitting at a little over 5k and probably going to be ~10k when it's done) which goes AU on Nova Garon and involves Cal fighting Bode there.
thoughts on Cal falling in general: yes, absolutely, i am so here for it, i love corruption arcs and i feel like this one is really well-built. from the beginning of the game we see how he's been struggling, how he's gotten darker and darker over the gap - he no longer reaches out to Ninth Sister (that it's time to set you free line right before he murders the shit out of her made me GASP), he's been working with Saw (who we know to use a lot of unsavory methods to the point that it got him disowned from the greater rebel alliance), he's been alone (which he never handles well At All). he consistently chooses to fight even when he shouldn't, he's not letting go of anything, he's gotten desperate. it makes sense. to me, Cal is the kind of person who pretends he's fine until he absolutely cannot anymore, whether that's hiding injuries or willfully refusing to realize he can't cope with things emotionally, and i feel like that's fairly well supported by the fact that the rest of the found family has each gone their own ways because they needed to make strides forward for themselves they couldn't while they were with him, no matter how much they love him, and because they can't help him until/unless he wants to be helped.
Cal also doesn't handle betrayal well, on top of Cere's death being the second time he's lost a master. to me, it's no surprise that he completely snaps on Jedha, and i think his fall is reinforced by a) the massacre on Nova Garon b) the fact that he outright refuses to listen to/understand Bode. Cal i think has a very black and white worldview due to his trauma and his youth in which he sees the Empire as a monolith and puts the crimes of the Empire onto every single person who serves it, and he struggles to understand why people would give in rather than choose to fight. i think we spend the game with him watching him run more and more on anger against the Empire as well as his desperation for Tanalorr, and that anger becomes more and more selfish until we get the snap on Jedha. honestly i think with the way the early game was written, even if Cere hadn't died, he would've still fallen, just possibly not when he did. it's been building up to that.
(i also love redemption arcs, i will say, but for a truly satisfying redemption arc you have to hit rock bottom first, and i want to push Cal there.)
in terms of fallen!Cal/Bode - also very much for this. part of this is just because i think the two of them killing people as fallen Jedi together is attractive and also what they deserve <3 but honestly narratively i think it just... works. mostly we'd just need Cal to work through his anger at the betrayal and actually properly understand why Bode did what he did (which is what i'm working on in the oneshot i'm writing), and to find a solution for everything that assuages Bode's paranoia. i do also think that with time, Bode could be convinced to return to fighting the Empire, especially if he knew Kata would be safe while he did it, but he's been through a lot and he's not there yet. but it's very clear that he doesn't like the Empire (only working with the ISB because he sees it as the only way to keep Kata safe), and i think it's also quite clear that he cares a great deal about Cal and didn't want to betray him at the point he did, but that he saw it as a choice between Cal's safety and Kata's safety and the latter had to be his highest priority. i absolutely don't think he'd find fallen!Cal any kind of turn-off, let's be real here, and honestly it's a dynamic i want to explore more of, maybe in AUs or something? i'm tossing around an inquisitor!Bode enemies to lovers au concept that might eventually turn into a fic at some point...
i may have gone slightly off topic here. anyway my thoughts on these are Yes, Yes, and More Yes, also i will go into an explanation of why i think Cal is actually fallen and not just struggling if people want. and also my final thought is that the Dagan parallel in this game is actually Cal and i will expand on this if asked to
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wondrouswendy · 2 months
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On Writing and Alan Wake
Talking about my writing is hard. I’m someone who wants to talk about it, but if you asked me to describe my feelings out loud, finding the right words would be difficult.
My current ongoing story, Out of My Hands and Into Your Heart, is finished, and has been for the past few weeks aside from some polishing. I started working on it back in late November. I wrote over half of my 2023 writing goal in one month alone last December. I think a large part of why this happened is because Alan Wake 2 reconfigured my brain and spoke to me on such a deep level as a writer.
With 7 chapters out now, I want to talk about the writing process and what I’m enjoying with my fic so far and why Alan Wake (as a character and as a game) is so meaningful to me.
It’s interesting to write about a writer. Obviously that’s the whole gist of Alan Wake, but I’m writing about a writer discussing the problems of writing and projecting onto his character. The meta layers appeal to me greatly.
First person POV helps me get into Alan’s head so much more (though this is in part due to how often we hear him monologuing in all 3 games). I know for a lot of people first person POV is an immediate turn off when it comes to fic, but more and more I think it deserves a chance with certain characters. To me, it just comes naturally for Alan (and on the flipside, Casey). First person POV is just another tool in the writer's kit.
I knew coming into this idea back in late November I wanted to provide my take on the story prior to the first Alan Wake game and Bright Falls. For Alan to be the man he is, kind of an arrogant asshole who doesn’t treat his wife and others well, I wanted to imagine what could have shaped him. Of course I wanted to have a shipping bent to my story with him and Fictional Alex Casey, so I started crafting my own interpretation of Alan’s narrative arc through the chapters of his life as told through his book publishing. There was one central question on my mind: What led to him wanting to kill off Casey?
...Which meant telling a well-rounded story rooted in canon to a degree. How does his relationship with Alice and Barry evolve over his writing? What highs and lows does Alan experience? How does he go from being a successful author to a shell of himself by the time the writer’s block hits?
So if the spiral is the metaphor for the creative journey of ups and downs, I decided to orient it as the story’s “villain” much earlier in the Alan Wake canon. The enemy in this story is Alan himself.
So I knew going into this Alan would do incredibly selfish and hurtful things—some of which could upset others, such as when Alan goes out on his own and is drugged by a group of so-called fans. No one likes to see their favorite characters doing horribly self-destructive things, but this is the nature of Alan's character and a large part of why I like him. He feels very human and vulnerable.
Amidst all this, the story posed a challenge because I needed to shift between the real and dream worlds so Casey and Alan could interact. The pivotal moment in book four when Casey confronts Alan always served as the signature moment of a character objecting to the whims of their author. On the one hand, I worried about not having Casey appear directly in the story sooner, but on the other hand, I thought it was important to treat the first chapters as a prologue building up to the real action and dynamics of the story: Casey and Alan’s (future romantic) relationship.
Which leads us to what I hope comes across as meaningful, if sad chapter seven. The kiss scene and its followup in Alan’s real world was important to the story, and it was a moment I was looking forward to sharing. Alan’s been carrying feelings for his character since his youth, but after his traumatic experience, he pushes it aside and tries to abide by heternormative ideals.
I chose to go this route based on how Alan behaves in the first Alan Wake game. Some of Alan’s behavior came across as over-inflated machismo, like he’s trying to prove he’s more than just a scrawny, out of shape writer. He gets into fights, he’s aggressive, defensive. I feel like it comes from a very vulnerable place of prior hurt. Alan could have easily been an easy target in his youth for being “too sensitive”, “too emotional”.
Further, Alan’s expectations of the kind of man Casey “should be” and the way Casey has become over the course of being “dimensional” in the context of years of storytelling reflect how sometimes characters take on lives of their own. You subconsciously push a character in one direction without even realizing it. Alan is so close with Casey without realizing the bond goes in the other direction too. A type of codependency where we rely on our fictional fantasies for comfort and support.
For now, that’s all I’ll say about the story. Though there’s only two more published books left, the story is far from over.
If you read this far, thanks for reading this post. I’m really proud of my story and enjoyed writing it. I’m grateful to be able to post something with consistency and reliability for once. I think this story reflects significant growth for me as a writer, breaking new ground with what I’m capable of doing when I’m inspired.
Thanks again to those of you who have read my story, kudos’d, bookmarked, subscribed, commented, reblogged/retweeted my posts. It’s very touching and I appreciate the support! Like Alan, it keeps me out of the Dark Place.
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fallowhearth · 5 months
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Review - Martha Wells, Witch King, 2023
Spoilers, this is not going to be a positive review. I expect others will enjoy this novel more than I did, which is fine. I can only review based on my own tastes!
Kai, a demon in a human body, wakes to find that he has been imprisoned by an ostensible ally. After he escapes, he adopts a random child, finds his friends, embarks on several fetch quests, does a lot of brutal murder, and unravels the mystery of who betrayed him. Simultaneously, the book retells the story of how Kai came to be in his position of power in the human world in the first place.
The premise is interesting enough! But, my overwhelming sense while reading was that I was not in fact reading the canon version, but a very long, self-indulgent fanfic written by a teenager who over-identified with the protagonist and woobified them into oblivion. There was a distinct tone mismatch between some of Kai's actions - the brutal murders - and the focus of the narrator on Kai being comforted and soothed. Part of the reason I say fanfic, is that the novel treated scenes that actually advanced the plot in that way that is so common in longer fanfic - the author technically includes major canon events, but kind of moves through them quickly without much focus, because, after all, the readers are already familiar with them. The author uses these scenes as largely functional connective tissue between the scenes they are actually interested in writing, the comforting of the woobified protagonist.
The characterisation of Kai as both a highly effective killer, and as a highly emotional, traumatised smol bean, would not have been an issue if the narrative had leaned into this tension. It could have been interesting! It's a ripe source of angst and tension, that has been well used in all kinds of stories exploring the monstrous.
Structurally, it also feels like there was about a novella's worth of actual story in this. I was bored by endless scenes of characters standing around narrating logistics and telling each other what they would do next, while the actual scenes depicting action felt bare-bones. There were a few interesting set pieces (exploring a spooky flooded palace filled with corpses! awesome!) but again these didn't feel like the focus of the narrative, compared to the standing around. Characters felt kind of thin and one-note, apart from Kai, who felt thin and one-note, but also dissonant in what was said about him vs what was shown about him.
I also think that the flashback sequences were entirely superfluous. Novels that weave together different points in time can be great, but imo it's a high risk strategy. The flashbacks have to be showing the reader something compelling, both in terms of its relevance to the 'current' storyline, but also on its own terms. This novel did not meet that benchmark. The flashbacks were mostly extended narration of facts we already knew from the current storyline, without much additional nuance, and did not generally complicate the versions told by 'current' characters. There was also not much difference between the younger and current version of the characters. It's kind of strange, actually, how little they grew. Kai as a youth just newly possessed of a body sounded exactly the same as Kai as a fully adult revolutionary hero and political mover. I'm not sure why the flashbacks were kept in the final draft.
This was a disappointing read. I hope others enjoyed it more than I did!
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beevean · 7 months
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Top 10 reason why Hecula is best ship, go!
Oh, but what a fortuitous coincidence :) I vaguely imply that I'd like more asks about Hecula, and lo and behold :) it's almost like you're in hell with me :)
I'm not sure I can rank them, but if you know me, you know which ones are the peak reasons I'm suffering from terminal brainrot <3
I am very weak for the narrative of a person trapped in an abusive relationship who manages to escape and learn that they deserve more. Fits Hector to a T :)
And yet Hector can't fully escape from Dracula. He's still cursed. He's forced to re-learn Devil Forging, the art taught by him from Dracula. He still lost much of his childhood and youth in Dracula's castle. He has to unlearn everything he has learned about being a weapon.
Hector is Dracula's specialest little boy and I love all the hints of how he was favored <3 because he was talented? Because he was cold and efficient like Dracula strives to be? Because he doesn't beg for love like Isaac does? Because he kinda looks like him? You decide. Point is, the mentor/protégé dynamic is very <3
But no, really, Dracula being possessive and overprotective of his precious Hector makes me swoon <3 it's both creepy and lowkey cute <3 he'd gouge the eyes of anyone who deludes themselves to be worthy of looking at Hector's splendor <3 only he can <3 because he deserves the best <3
I love to imagine that Dracula feels ownership towards Hector because he infused him with his own magic. Yes, same goes for Isaac, but... well, he's just not as good at using it :) Hector always makes Dracula proud <3 he's his very precious perfect weapon <3
Hector would care about his Lord. Dracula cherishes him like no one else does... like no one else would, because Hector only knew hatred before running to Dracula, and he welcomed him, and Hector is so grateful to his Lord and would obey him with pride <3 ... up to a certain point.
The symbolism of blood sucking meaning giving away your life, whether you want it or not. Hector threw his life away for Dracula because he needed it, or so he would feel. That's what my idea of Hector having bite scars all over his throat symbolizes. That, and a metaphorical collar he can't get rid of.
Dracula doesn't need any magical tricks to keep Hector on a leash, unlike someone else we know :) He knows his boy well enough to know what to say to him to keep him in line :) I like to think it as psychological warfare, Dracula expertly manipulating Hector, his feelings and what he craves to keep him nice and obedient vs. Hector's unbendable moral code and budding sense of pride (that I imagine that Dracula himself caused by spoiling him too much lol)
In short, I love that there is the potential for two "main" narratives. The one where Hector is groomed from youth to be as perfect and pliable as Dracula wants him to be, and while at first he naively trusts his Lord because he has zero world experience and just wants to be loved, he slowly but surely takes a stand and confirms his worth as a human being. Or the one where there are mutual, genuine feelings between the two - the relationship can never be truly healthy due to the massive power imbalance (which is a big 🥰 for me), but maybe, before Dracula went completely insane, there was a window of time where the two were fond of each other, Hector of his Lord who is always so kind to him, and treasures him, and gave him a reason to live, and Dracula of his strong knight who does his will and is so intelligent and devoted and whose valor may remind him of Leon.
Size difference :P Hector is very pickable in CoD, he gets picked up by normal enemies like the Red Ogre and the Harpies and also by Isaac (which is pretty chad ngl), but ofc, he looks especially small when Drac sips from him :)
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I will spam my screenshots until people understand my Vision 😤
There was no need to do this, Drac. No need at all. You just missed you boy. Understandable, but really. yes this does things to my brain
and remember guys: Hecula canon <3
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merrysithmas · 2 years
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I’d say one of my biggest Obi-Wan & Ashoka headcanons is:
After the fallout of The Wrong Jedi arc and Ashoka leaves the temple, she spends years wondering if all the love and care Obi-Wan had for her had just been for show. She doesn’t know how he voted as a member of the council but she believes (and has no reason not to) that she’s been abandoned by all except Anakin. So she has to grapple with the fact that maybe her Grandmaster never cared for her as much as she thought he did and that’s devastating. Especially with how much she cared for him. One of the people she always would have her back and support her for all she knew didn’t. She had that rug pulled out from under her so hard. So she spends years trying to reconcile with that because he’s there in almost all her memories with her beloved Master, her Skyguy, all of her most beloved memories don’t exist without Obi-Wan. A man for all she knew was able to believe the absolute worst of her.
I am HOWLING AT THIS ASK LIKE IT IS THE MOON AND I JUST TRANSFORMED INTO A WILD UNRESTRAINED WEREWOLF
Ahsoka having doubts about Obi-wan's affections and loyalties is ONE OF THE GREAT UNRESOLVED agonies of Star Wars canon. And how you worded this makes it all the more painful -- with her recalling the familial memories of her youth: her Anakin, her Obi-wan, their family, ALL she EVER had, the very basis of her entire LIFE, and thinking it was all built on false pretense? How could the Jedi be that shallow? A gut punch of a feeling.
I am BEGGING Filoni to give us insight on Ahsoka and Obi-wan's dynamic in the Ahsoka series. I need to know her feelings (and his!) on that cataclysmic Trial and its outcomes, Anakin's unrelenting search to clear her name, & Obi and Soka's very stilted and emotionally distant reunion.
Also! I think it was really important for them, narratively, to have driven a big wedge between Obi-wan and Ahsoka before Anakin's fall. It shows they really put a ton of thought into the dynamics of the story. If Soka and Obi had been on the same page, in the same place, at the same time, I believe their combined love and affection really would have been enough to keep Anakin in the light. At Mustafar or avoiding it all together.
So it seems that truly was the dark genius of Sidious in orchestrating Ahsoka's trial - not condemning Ahsoka, which was thwarted by Anakin, - but the intent was to drive a wedge between Ahsoka and Obi-wan... Anakin's main source of united support.
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arcplaysgames · 1 year
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HUGE fan of Naoto's shadow. The childishness of it, the big chunky ray guys, the jet wings, the racing stripes.
Naoto keeps being told he's so mature for his age, and it's very obvious that it comes from taking every youthful impulse and crushing it down into a little box until it reaches critical mass and explodes.
Also, this fight was pitifully easy lmao. Either I'm overleveled or the game was not prepared for me to bring in Kanji, who hits like a motherfucking truck. Also Yosuke now dodges like 90% of attacks and I have no idea how he's doing that but it's great.
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hoooooly shit this is so affecting. gold star performance form the VA. the sniffly loneliness of the shadow is so good. i want to hug them.
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KANJI THAT'S SWEET OF YOU BUT HE'S GOT A POINT, OKAY?
Naoto's gender is "detective" basically.
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asldkjflskdf OMG THE PERSONA IS SO TINY EEEEEEEEEEEE ITS SO CUTE uwu
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I KNEW IT WAS PART OF YOUR PLAN YOU LIL SHIT
also god i really need to contend with how to refer to Naoto. so far i just don't know enough about how they feel about their gender to just swap to "she", and BELIEVE ME, the way the game is doing it is giving me fucking agida, since I am looking through my screencaps and lemme tell you, Naoto doesn't indicate that's cool with them.
So yeah, I think I answered my own question there. Naoto is gonna be "them" in my mental narrative until further notice. Certainly until I know more about how they feel about all this.
I'm just saying, dude, if being a girl is a prison and being a boy is a slow poison, maybe opt out of both? That's what I'd do, pal.
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back home, Adachi is drunk???? Why are you here. Why are you drunk? I spoke to him on the way to find Naoto and he didn't seem terribly concerned about the disappearance.
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oh so dojima knows too. I wonder what his motivation is for not speaking up. He also, upon our return from Iwatodai, asked Reverie to befriend Naoto and indicated things were rough for them. So he's sympathetic to the ace detective's ideas about the case too.
(man even writing "them" is really hard. this whole situation sucks lmao. thanks persona. I might use they/he? nothing fits right.)
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I wish I could record clips because. There is something about this line read that made me stop and just stare at the screen for a bit... Adachi really really does give me Ryoji vibes, as in intense "I cannot trust you" vibes. But I'll get into that some more next post, as I did hit Rank 6 on his SLink, which is apparently the final rank????
ALSO THERE IS A WEIRD MOMENT THAT I LITERALLY CANNOT CATCH WITH A SCREENCAP. While Dojima is in the room, Adachi is doing the swaying drunkenly thing that Yukiko and Rise did too when they were "drunk" at the party. But like the moment Dojima leaves?
He stops swaying.
/lifts eyebrow
WITH THAT, I FINISHED NAOTO'S DUNGEON ON THE FIRST DAY. I gave the fox so much yen and just kept powering thru. SINCE THEN, I HAVE MAXED OUT KANJI AND YUKIKO! And I made a lot of progress on others. I'll summarize that later, it is almost midnight.
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curiousthyme · 2 years
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one single thread of gold {tied me to you}
{kostas tsimikas x reader}
in which kostas tells you about the origin of his scar (pure fluff, even though this picture is thirst-central)
The scar that bisects the taut skin of his abdomen has always fascinated you. One night, in the post-sex afterglow, he catches you looking at it.
At first you think you’d overstepped a line. Maybe he had good reasons for never telling you about it, and maybe some secrets were his alone to keep.
You feel him draw you closer so that your bodies entwine and he takes your hand and glides it over the scarred skin. It’s the first time you’ve touched it because you’ve always been unsure about his boundaries, but this time, when he’s the one guiding your touch, letting you feel the part of him where smoothness bleeds into the cratered edge of his scar, you know it’s okay.
“I was ten.” he murmurs, nostalgia colouring in all the lines of his story, “it was a summer away in Thessaly. We went to hike the Meteora - these huge stones that line up this mountainous landscape. When it’s dark just before sunrise, everything is so peaceful and still. And when the sun hits? It’s glorious. My brother and I had never seen anything so beautiful. He leans back into you and smiles. “I’ll bring you there, some day, love.”
“I’d love that.” You gently skim your thumb over the center of his scar, feeling the texture of his skin that weaves a narrative of his pain and growth. “So what happened?”
“it was a pretty calm ascent, actually. Breezy. Fine weather. But the going down?” He lets out a short breath as if to reenact his own apprehension at ten. “Not the safest place for overexcited boys to play. My brother and I got competitive, and you know how I’m like. I gotta win.”
You shake your head at his big grin. “Always so reckless, my Kostas.”
“Yep. We barrelled down so quickly that I lost my footing. I think I tripped so hard that I was flung out into a particularly sharp piece of a rock pillar. At least it broke my fall and I caught against it on my side, not my head.” He shrugs. “Could’ve cracked my skull.”
“Jesus.” You squeeze his side, unable to imagine this unthinkable fate. “You could’ve died, Kos.”
“I know, I know.” His eyes flash with good humour and you know he’s not ever going to lose this reckless streak that’s always been a part of him. “It’s funny because I don’t remember the pain of impact. I only remember falling towards the rock and hitting it and then, next thing I knew, I was in my dad’s arms and he was carrying me down. I’d bled all over him. It hurt so fucking bad. I didn’t want to tell my mother when we got back, but we couldn’t hide it from her. She would’ve found out anyway.”
“Can’t stand to think about you in all that pain, Kos.” You kiss his shoulder, which makes him smile.
“It’s kind of blurry now anyway. But they had to graft some skin in because I’d been torn up pretty badly, so that’s why it’s so jagged now. It was kinda cool when it first healed and all the sitches came off and I looked like Frankenstein with all this patchwork.”
“It makes you look very tough.” Your hand moves away from the scar now so you can look at him as a whole. He’s so pretty, especially with the roughness of this scar, the contrast of how soft he usually is making the scar seem so much harsher - a testament to the playfulness of his youth and his tenacity to survive. “Thank you for telling me.”
You lean down to give the scar a small little kiss, feeling another thread weave itself between you two as he’s offered this glimpse into his past so freely - like a stitch protectively closing over an open wound.
@emilielfc and I were wondering about Kos’ scar, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So here’s what I think could’ve happened… obv this is all made up and nothing is real (please don’t sue me or parade this as fact). Also my apologies for any geological mistakes made - I only had Google for my frame of reference for the Meteora.
hope you liked it!
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iced-squid · 8 months
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An introduction to the characters of my (incomplete) story, The Chaos Magnet:
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(I collaged together a mishmash of old art to make this. It's not very elegant but oh well.)
The Chaos Magnet is urban fantasy, with a magic weapons system (because I had very specific media fixations back when I was a teenager). Two secret organizations have been waging a centuries-long war to gather magic weaponry and find the Pandemonium Machine. Wyn Halford, the leader of the organization formerly known as “The Confederation of Angels,” is desperate to end the war. As he sets his plans into motion, he recruits his nemesis’s daughter and is dealt much more than he reckoned for.
I wrote the first draft almost a decade ago and edited it religiously, but I’ve currently uprooted the whole story and I’m rewriting it. If my art skills ever get better, I’ll make a webcomic.
This post mostly explains my characters’ relationships to each other. I made this diagram to make it easier—
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—just kidding. This diagram is insane and confusing. I did it for the joke, but in retrospect, I spent a little too much time on it.
It's going to get reallllllllll long, so I'll break down their dynamics/background below the cut.
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The main POV characters are Glade Gideon, Wyn Halford, and Arch D'Auvay.
Glade Gideon is the daughter of Henry Gideon (the main villain, a.k.a. Wyn Halford's nemesis). She's a runaway drifting from place to place until Wyn sends Arch to "recruit" her. She is kidnapped to the organization headquarters and forced to join the war against her father. Though she doesn't like her father, she holds resentment towards Wyn for kidnapping her. She befriends Arch despite his role in carrying out the orders because it is clear he lacks autonomy—plus, he's fun to annoy.
Arch is not amused with the new addition to headquarters or with the incessant interruptions to his reading time, but it has been long since he had consistent conversation. He is not willing to admit he likes the company, or that he likes seeing Wyn suffer the annoyances wrought by the new recruit.
Wyn deeply regrets recruiting Glade because she is a menace. She spikes his coffee with a new condiment every week and interrupts his paperwork process, asking him inane questions. He did not sign up for babysitting his enemy's daughter. Hoping she would prove to be of some use, he has Arch and Layla train her as he makes preparations to dismantle Henry Gideon's organization for good.
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Glade is convinced she can snap Wyn like the twig he is (if he didn't have magic powers of course). If only she knew the phrase "I want that twink obliterated." She would have so much fun.
Arch secretly partakes in the "condiment of the week" prank with zest. But he's so deadpan, Glade can't tell.
Wyn likes the pranks. At least, most of the time. He loves a break from the monotony of his work and the chance to be melodramatic.
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The slightly older characters with intertwining fates who are all doomed by the narrative: Eno Vallerium, Layla Adderley, and Wyn Halford.
Eno's dead. But as far as the narrative is concerned, she's alive and well. Prior to her death, an seer told her the year she would die, so it came as no surprise to her. Knowing she would cease to be, she made every effort to stamp out her feelings for Layla. But she was not very successful. They have a few good months before her timely death. Eno is also well aware of Wyn and Layla's mutual feelings for each other, so they encourage it.
Layla was recruited into the organization when she was fourteen by Wyn, who had already been ambitiously running the organization for two years. She worked for Henry Gideon and was an utter slaughter machine, so Wyn saw her as valuable. In her youth, she followed excitement and ambition—motivations Wyn exploited. Unfortunately, with age and Eno's influence, her lust for murder has waned. It turns out, a quiet life is much better than a life of endless bloodshed.
Wyn was drawn to Layla's ruthlessness and ambition because it mirrored his own. They bicker often in their youth, usually with Eno on standby ensuring it won't devolve into a fight. Wyn and Layla both defend Eno fiercely, especially knowing her eventual fate. They don't know when they develop feelings for each other, but after Eno's death, they are determined to hang onto each other forever. Their relationship is a secret because they fear it will be exploited by the enemy.
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As of The Chaos Magnet, Layla and Wyn are engaged with rings inscribed with a commemoration to Eno.
Wyn has consistent morals and values he abides by, but Layla is genuinely a terrible person until she matures. She spends a lot of her life in a "frozen time" state, so she has a lot of time to think. They get on the same wavelength eventually and spend their free time chilling on a couch.
They're all just very tired.
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These guys grew up together in the organization headquarters. Eno basically parented Eric, Arch, and Wyn. Wyn takes care of Arch and Eric when he grows older, but he also gradually becomes more distant, especially after the responsibilities of leadership are thrust upon him at the green age of thirteen.
Wyn and Arch were orphaned in the same night. Before dying, Wyn’s parents ensured they would make a safe trip to the headquarters, despite having retired from the organization because they didn't agree with the politics.
Eric and Eno were practically kidnapped for the organization’s needs. Eno doesn’t even know their own birth name.
They all grew up alongside each other, but the weight of responsibility divided them. Eno and Wyn learned to shoulder the burden of knowledge so Eric and Arch could live as carefree as they possibly could. Of course, they couldn’t escape from the organization’s work.
Arch and Eric were inseparable, training and spending every waking moment together. If one of them got sick, the other would not escape the illness either. This would have probably continued forever, if Eric didn’t get beaten to a bloody pulp on a mission. The last time Arch sees Eric is when his maimed body is swept up by a helmeted stranger on an enemy motorbike. He’s twelve when he blames himself for what happened.
Wyn is too busy with work to provide consistent emotional support and Eno tries her best, but she is contending with her own fate, which was coming for her in less than a year.
As a result, Arch spends all his teen years stewing in guilt and loneliness, with nothing but his books.
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Layla’s there too, but she’s horrendous at dealing with people’s emotions. She tries, but she’s not good at it. The most she can do is hold a box of tissues.
Clem shows up eventually, but she’d rather die than deal with touchy feely stuff.
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I had no idea what to label these guys, but here they are: Eric Florentine, Arch, Glade, and Clem. They're the younger of the main cast.
Glade meets Arch and Clem her first day of being kidnapped. Clem is the resident healer who is mysterious and aloof, but as far as Glade is concerned, she has not wronged her, so she likes her presence. Plus, for a person prone to small injuries, having a magic healer around is handy.
They all meet Eric when he shows up at the doorstep with a potentially fatal wound. Arch has been sure he was dead for six years, but Eric is very much alive, and he has been made into an experimental subject for Henry Gideon's people. He's been on the run after he made an attempt to steal something important from Gideon. He's a charismatic dude, and he dislikes Wyn, so Glade automatically considers him a friend.
Clem likes to stay out of the drama and emotional bits of other people's lives as much as she can. She heals people, and that's it. Out the gang, she likes Arch the most, since she considers him the most normal one. He's quiet and doesn't stir up trouble (at least, until Glade's influence and Eric's reappearance).
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Clem is secretly bothered by the fact she can't take Layla in a fair fight. She respects Layla the most though.
Glade is usually only annoying when she is with Arch and Wyn. She's much more chill when conversing with both Eric and Clem because she admires them.
Wyn has known Eric was alive for four years. He never told Arch on account of the promise he made to Eric.
They're all a hot mess. It's a miracle Clem can stay out of it at all.
It gets a lot more complicated, but this is the simplified, spoiler-free version.
If you've read all of this...well I don't know, I guess I owe you a small sliver of my soul. Here, I'll put it on a fancy gilded plate for you.
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feretra · 3 months
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my favorite thing about me being classified as a member of the moral police whom I called out for wanting violent misogyny and suchforth tagged?
if they knew anything — like actually anything — about me and the literary world, they would know i grew up and cut my teeth as a wee youngin’ on anne rice, chuck palahniuk, cormac mccarthy, bret easton ellis, and the marquis de sade. that george orwell is my favorite author.
that i read so much truly egregious, and legitimately traumatizing to many, pieces of fiction that it made me uniquely prepared to slosh through the horrendous piles of genocidal narratives that i am capable of feeling nothing. that is not normal, but it is a gift in a career path when literally everything you’re handling has the ability to rend your psyche five ways from hell. because that’s what i was training myself to endure.
sometimes i still have to stop and realize that i am criticizing horror and other works unfairly because the bar was shifted so profoundly when i was young, that if something literally does not traumatize or horrify me permanently, then it did not do its job. it did, i just no longer have a fair ability to judge the standard. this is as unfair to the author and the work as it is to myself, who hurt myself so deeply in my youth trying to find something that reflected my own horrors? that i unconsciously ruined my own enjoyment of fictionalized media through the power of what it can convey to me.
i did not learn my limits, which a very milennial and gen x rite of passage with the rogue internet of the past, but not exactly a safe one. this is why i am such a strong advocate the self-moderation of your own media intake, and have the critique that attempting to always keep putting or seeking to put characters in abject misery and torture does, in fact, drive the dehumanization of others in your mindset. when our media consumption — canon or fandom — begins to reflect that hyperviolence and detachment of empathy towards others, we often unconsciously adopt those behaviours through the memetic mindset of simply mimicking the characters we enjoy. visual propaganda does the same thing without attachment to brand image, usually, but sometimes. and this is particularly problematic for neurodivergent people, who often adopt portions of characters we love as a way of masking. this isn’t inevitably and always a problem, but it can be in situations like these.
so traversing that razor thin margin for your own wellbeing is difficult, but required.
even more than media consumption, i think this is is interesting when posed against my parenting style. most people don’t even realize i did parent. still parent. i raised my cousin’s two children from the ages of five to now, and i never kept anything taboo from them. they came into my care through addiction, they were acutely aware of the reality in which we live.
before i got these kids, the internet had raised them. they were like how i had been, but in elementary school. completely desensitized by their media consumption to the point that it damaged their ability to relate to other people, but especially peers their own age. it took a lot of work to fucking repair that, while adhering to my own guns about trying to not censor the world they grew up in. it took a lot of therapy.
elementary age kids shouldn’t have be placed into in-patient programming because the internet raised them for their formative years and gave them fucking reactive attachment disorder. and yet.
yes. just thoughts.
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shortnotsweet · 3 months
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I got a kind of upsetting ask the other day about my Rhaenicent art. It wasn’t malicious, but it was phrased (non-verbatim) like: “you draw Rhaenyra much prettier than she is in the show. I enjoy your art, though!” and although I knew they meant well and I was glad they could appreciate what I made, my first instinctive reaction was to feel indignant, followed by rage and then sadness, and eventually a more contemplative state.
I started sketching Rhaenyra because I thought she was beautiful. She has sort of bone structure that is both strong and delicate, aristocratic, and has a very fine nose, the kind that makes for a sharp profile. I started drawing Rhaenicent admittedly because I wanted an excuse to sketch her in all kinds of armor—full suits, armored dresses, etc. and the scenario I imagined at first was one in which she donned armor and presented Alicent with a crown of flowers in a tourney.
I think the term “pretty” is subjective, obviously, and incredibly personal, but often very telling nonetheless. It irked me slightly first because oftentimes there’s a lot of focus both by editorial photoshoots and official promotional content to emphasize Olivia Cooke’s beauty in comparison to and sometimes to undermine Emma D’Arcy’s, and we know why: it’s not about objective attractiveness but rather conventional feminine presentation. This is also reflective, I think, in fan consumption. That’s not to say that Olivia Cooke is not gorgeous—she definitely is, and I think she has one of the strongest performances in the show. BUT it pisses me off instinctively when comments about Emma being less attractive crop up, because they genuinely ARE attractive, they just are not as feminine presenting. Fans or anti’s or whoever often bring this up in a competitive sort of way, either in an IRL context or in the actual show. So it feels more like a projection of “they are less feminine and therefore less beautiful”, which is ridiculous, and extends to Rhaenyra the character, who is female. The showrunner’s themselves made a lot of…questionable decisions, I think, given hair and wardrobe and characterization, to align the idea of a less feminine character automatically being less comfortable in their own clothes and therefore being given less-than-flattering and uncharacteristically non-ornate clothing as a result, as if their idea of non gender-confirming suggests frumpiness, or lack of confidence. That’s the thing about pretty, I think, that set me off. People suffer for pretty. People are happy because of pretty, or apathetic. People die and kill themselves for pretty. Pretty means things, like not ugly, not-not good enough, my standards, your standards, acceptable bodies, things like that.
The text has a lot to say about female beauty and presentation and identity and what the public projects onto young women on the basis of femininity and vulnerability, and the narrative even includes smear campaigns alleging Alicent’s supposed beauty and thinness over Rhaenyra’s waning youth, due to having children in rapid succession. The text largely grapples with the bloody transition from girlhood to womanhood and the question how women should or shouldn’t behave, and the consequences for doing either. Our own society and the society of the text align physical beauty with moral righteousness, and of course the ideal of physical beauty is heavily based on our own patriarchal, in this case Western standard of femininity. All’s that to say, I remember rereading the ask and thinking: “Less pretty? What does that mean?”
I’m not insinuating that they were trying to necessarily compliment or insult the actors, or that they were trying to belittle my own ability. It just felt strange to me, and disheartening: incredible effect, for only being about two sentences. Perhaps they meant “less accurate” in which case there could be an argument made, but still, it was a rude and backhanded way to phrase it, perhaps. I could just be overthinking it. Maybe it was just my ego that was bruised, that could be it.
The universe that I usually draw Alicent and Rhaenyra in, as stated in the tags, is a show-to-book hybrid, with a substantive age gap and different plot points. Both women are considered conventionally beautiful by their society’s standards. The Rhaenyra usually being drawn is usually a teen, sometimes a young adult, somewhere between Millie and Emma’s portrayal, and while I use references for both, the in-between is not a fixed face, and there is no definitive reference for her older and younger self. Perhaps that makes her “less accurate” which I wouldn’t argue with, but to me, accuracy is not the point when I draw from that universe and it discourages me that it has to be stated. I don’t want to draw Rhaenicent if the reaction is that I am not drawing them to an acceptable or comparable standard of pretty.
Similarly, while Alicent is loosely based off of Olivia Cooke largely bc she’s got great expressions and because the show’s visuals still play a part, half the time she is simply drawn as a woman with a round face and large eyes. Occasionally I draw and picture her with black or dark brown hair instead of red. There is no fixed face for her; she is an amalgamation. Maybe she is as ‘pretty’ as her onscreen counterpart, maybe not. It’s subjective, again.
I enjoy asks immensely. It makes me happy when people ask me questions, when they let me know what they’re thinking, when they make me think. I don’t want people to stop, and the vast majority have been wonderful to receive. This one made me think, definitely. It made me reflect. It also made my stomach twist and my drawing hand (that’s my left) twitch. I like drawing pretty things. I curate my Instagram and Tumblr based on pretty things. I like to look at pretty people. If I’m not pretty, I want to die. God, I should be sick of it.
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raayllum · 2 years
Text
Rayllum and the Cube
Introduction
So I’ve written before about how Rayla is tied to Callum’s mage arc, my short hand for the particularly magically motivated or focused portion of one of his many arcs over the course of the first three seasons. But I thought it was high time I talked about a subset of this, perhaps, and how Rayla is connected to Callum’s cube — and to the Key of Aaravos in general. The following meta, then, was born out of two of my previous ones in particular:
How Rayla and Aaravos parallel each other and indeed their foils tag in general 
My Cube Hostage Exchange theory meta based upon where I think S4 could go following the end of Through the Moon (and additional broader tag)
I will be touching briefly on both of those metas, so if you haven’t read them, I highly recommend doing so before we proceed. Rayla’s connection to the Cube — and therefore Aaravos — was also influenced by past musings on how all three kids — as our three protagonists — have to be bound to our endgame big bad, Aaravos, in a personal way. 
Callum, obviously, has the Key of Aaravos, which as we’re going to talk about in a minute, is already symbolically or literally connected to much of his own personal development. It is also a tie to his father, so it’s already an emotional anchor of sorts. Ezran’s royal line is descended from the Orphan Queen, a ruler of Katolis mentioned at various cons over the years, who lived three centuries ago and who seems to have something to do with Aaravos (being given his cube, which the creators have confirmed, and possibly having a deeper connection as well). 
Well, what sort of connection does Rayla have? Like Aaravos, she’s an elf who’s seen as a traitor, she originally perpetuated the cycle, and the Moon and Stars are probably as closely aligned as Stars get to anything. They both have mirror motifs, narrative weight concerning lying, and have been Ghosted on small and much larger scales, respectively. That, and given Runaan knew what the mirror was, and Lain and Tiadrin seemingly staying behind to also try and ensure the mirror didn’t fall into the wrong hands... Rayla is already twisted in with Aaravos’ roots quite deeply. So I won’t be surprised, overall, if in the elven realm of things, Rayla is Aaravos’ antithesis — the way Ezran will be as a powerful ruler, and the way Callum will be as a mage. 
Then, there’s the fact that Rayla is the one who ruined Viren and Aaravos’ conquest of Zym and Zubeia by killing Viren. And TTM heavily implies, with a picture of Viren in the cocoon, that it’s merely the new form Aaravos has, and that he and Rayla are connected through a line of hate in the Moon portal between the realms of life and death.
Now, with all that out of the way, let’s dive into
Rayla and the Cube
Rayla and the cube are intertwined very early on in 1x04. Callum makes his first heartfelt speech and opens up to Rayla in a plea to get the cube, guided by a good feeling. And Rayla, in spite of having a bad feeling, agrees and goes to fetch it herself. When things go awry at the Banther Lodge, Callum gives up on his original quest, and just wants to get all three of them — particularly Rayla — safely out of the Lodge. Yet, in spite of the humans who want to kill her crawling all over the place, Rayla gets the Key anyway, and we hold on it and her for a moment. 
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She is even so distracted by the cube that she doesn’t notice Aunt Amaya approaching to attack — and come closest, comparatively to any combatant — to killing her. Then, although hurt and bitter, Rayla still gives Callum the cube at the end of the episode with a very particular warning:
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Her belief here implies that perhaps her taken aback reaction was that at finding something that wouldn’t be out of place in an elven’s child hand all the way in the human lands. And subsequently, that Rayla sees the cube as unimportant, precisely because of it’s connection to youth. (In spite of Runaan putting her down in a similar way a few episodes prior: “I see now that you’re still just a child.”)
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Callum looks away dejectedly until he accidentally drops the cube, and it rolls over to his more stable, current source of magical power: the primal stone.
[Side note: 1x04 is one of the episodes that set me on my Cube Hostage Exchange theory the most where, after being captured by Claudia, Aaravos, and Viren in season four, Callum exchanges the cube for her life. Callum would be using the cube that Rayla risked her life now to save it, and would be putting everyone’s lives in danger yet again — but this time it would be worth it.] Moving on:
Rayla hasn’t changed her tune the next morning as Callum sees how the cube also glows with Bait, and then to see if it’ll do the same with Rayla.
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Rayla and Callum agree that the cube is a glow toy, even if she’s much less excited about it. She’s also the one to first spot the cube’s Ocean rune glowing after their disastrous boat ride and much sweeter bonding scene, indicating another threat on the horizon. Given that Rayla hates the water, this works doubly for her.
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We don’t really see the cube again until the s1 finale, when the group is walking up the Cursed Caldera, and Callum and Rayla have this exchange:
C: Huh! The higher we walk up this Caldera, the brighter the Moon rune glows. R: Here’s a theory. The higher we walk, the closer we are to the moon. C: I don’t know. Something seems different this time.
Callum is, of course, right. In reality, the Moon rune is glowing due to two main reasons: 1) they are surrounded by Lujanne’s magicked up illusions, and 2) they are on a steady path up to the Moon Nexus, where moon magic is concentrated the most in the world. But put a pin in Callum and connecting to the Moon arcanum, because we’ll come back to this later.
But just like before, the Cube is warning them of something terrible to come. Lujanne is not the miracle healer they desperately need to solve either of their problems, even if Zym is still safely, miraculously, hatched. 
The more ‘negative’ associations with the cube continues into season two, where it is emblematic of Callum’s lack of a magical connection. He strokes the Moon rune first, acknowledging what he’ll never have, according to Lujanne. Then he touches the Sky rune, mourning what he’s lost.
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In fact, in many ways, the cube doesn’t have an outright helpful or ‘positive’ connotation until Harrow’s letter all the way into 2x06, where Harrow explains
Finally, you must be wondering about the secret I promised to share. Well, good news. The secret is hidden in the Banther Lodge, right where you are right now. How’s that for planning? Right now, go upstairs to the game room. There I have hidden an unusual cube with rune symbols on each side. This cube is an ancient relic that has been passed down through the ages. It belonged to an elven wizard in Xadia, the Archmage Aaravos, a master of all six primal sources. It is hidden in a box of keys because it is known as the Key of Aaravos, and legends say it unlocks something of great power in Xadia. Perhaps it will be you, Callum, who discovers the key’s secrets.
So, at long last, we finally have something undeniably positive about the cube. It was Harrow’s secret parting gift to Callum, something magical and mystical he could focus on, likely as a distraction in his grief. And it works, as Callum is curious about the Cube in the following episode.
After all, the biggest piece of information he can parse out at this time is that it is
A Magical Key
Following 2x06, Callum is up late worrying over his lack of access to magic as their adventure will likely grow more dangerous, but he’s also deeply intrigued by the largest piece of information Harrow arguably gave: 
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Then, like most other scenes with the cube, Rayla steadily reminds us of her presence as she joins him. She then offers aid, hears out all his concerns, and then comforts him enough so that he can go back to sleep. The Key isn’t warning them of some danger, or reminding Callum (quite) of what he doesn’t have (yet). I also find it interesting that Rayla refers to it specifically as a game, and Callum dismisses it. A similar exchange that two other characters will have in just another episode:
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That said, the other noteworthy key referred to in the series concerns
Rayla’s home
Remember how I said much earlier in this post that Aaravos and Rayla have parallels with being Ghosted? Well, if the cube is the Key to Aaravos’ prison or power, that would be another parallel to how Rayla is able to access her home (if not without a price in 3x03). 
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Rayla is a Moonshadow elf who knows what she’s guiding Callum, a human mage from Katolis, to and how to guide him past the illusion that hides her home. Runaan is a Moonshadow elf able to see past the illusion of the mirror, and knows - seemingly precisely - what is inside it: “You have indeed found something worse than death.”
Viren, likewise, must use dark magic to see through the illusion cloaked over his mirror, and allow Aaravos to modify his body further in order to be seen and heard. Similarly to how, thanks to the Ghosting, Rayla cannot be heard or seen except in a reflection’s surface. And we all know the Moonshadow elf binding ritual is similar to its own form of physical and emotional imprisonment as well:
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Moonshadow keys and secrets
Moonshadow elves love secrets. Illusions, hiding themselves away, hiding their true intentions or emotions behind masks. This relates to the likelihood of Aaravos’ imprisonment being inherently related to Moon Magic (the reflection, the hidden, the associations with death). It also relates to the way Moonshadow elves have a tendency to 1) buy into lies instead of examining further and 2) tend to lie to themselves/others. 
This can be seen in the three canon Ghostings we have; Rayla and her village, including her parents’ best friends, never saw a reason to investigate further into how the egg was stolen, and assumed her parents ran away and punished them ‘accordingly.’ The same fate befalls Rayla, but she is so ingrained with that perspective that she sees no choice but to repeat history in 3x08, rather than question 1) what actually happened there or 2) acknowledge that even if her parents did run, it doesn’t mean she has to stay behind and die. 
Viren buys into the Lie of History which is a Narrative of Strength. So does Aaravos, even if he claims to “Never lie,” whereas Rayla is painfully aware of the lies she has told and continues to tell. 
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The Moon Henge is a key to another realm. Phoe-Phoe’s Moon phoenix feather is the key to getting out of there alive. Callum unlocks the Sky Arcanum and refuses the Chains of Fate that Harrow is bound in. Callum smashing the primal storm to Free it so it can reduce harm and hatch Zym from the egg that was slowly becoming his tomb. Callum seeing through the majority of her lies and breaking so many Rayla’s cycles, symbolized most explicitly in breaking the circular pendant from Ethari.
Speaking of which, let’s talk:
Callum connecting to the moon arcanum
I don’t think it’s any secret (lmao) that the Moon Arcanum is the next likeliest one Callum will connect to.
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This matters because, as we’ve gone over, Aaravos’ imprisonment has the most in common with what we’ve seen of Moon Magic so far. Moon magic itself also has positive and negative associations, seen most notably in Callum’s Spellbook: 
Illusion, Love, Charm, Private, Deep, Secrets, Manipulation, Death, Reflection, Appearances, Duality
It’s also the only primal source Callum puts love under. Callum has tried to exchange himself for loved ones before. He has also exchanged objects, even ones that meant a lot to him (the primal stone, the pendant), for the good of his loved ones.  Callum unlocking the Moon arcanum then, due to his love for Rayla, is not out of the realm of possibility. Nor is the possibility of Callum giving up the Key to save Rayla’s life if she’s been taken hostage, as he’s engaged in similar risky behaviours before (1x04, 2x04, 2x07, 3x08, TTM).
Rayla and the Key run in parallel to influencing and aiding Callum’s magical arc; it’s not a stretch that one, or both, will influence and aid him in connecting to the Moon arcanum as his next form of magic.
Last but not least, we have to examine 
The Concept of Exchange
The concept of exchange is something I’ve talked about before, briefly, for TDP. In some ways, it’s the conceptual backbone of the series’ struggle and magic system. The Cycle is an continual exchanging of violence, insisting upon an eye for an eye methodology of striking back with equal might, if not more fiercely. Dark Magic also resides on a principle of exchange, with the essence of magical creatures or people, or indeed their entire lives, for the ability to perform powerful magic. Harrow railed against Viren for this very concept, before Claudia directly performed it in 3x09.
 Primal magic is set apart from this, as it exists without a need for exchange - it, largely, gives to the user, instead of taking from them and the world around them. However, even the heroes rely on the principle of exchange for some of their more heroic ideals, i.e. the Dragon Prince for the hope of world peace, which sets them on their quest to bring Zym home. 
Thus, just as the Key of Aaravos has multiple associations — an unnecessary risk, a hope, a children’s toy, a father’s last gift, a warning of danger, a connection to a person whose worse than death — so too does the concept of exchange. We have seen Exchange be accordingly muddled. A ‘monster’s heart to save hundreds that isn’t as easy it seems; three mothers for said heart; Claudia’s restoration of her brother and revival of her father, the latter framed as horrifying and the former as the first step on the road to hell (paved with good intentions). 
Rayla also understands the idea of exchange. Initially, she fully buys into it, believing in the murder of the king and his son in exchange for the murder of Avizandum and the believed murder of the Dragon Prince. Then she’s willing to risk herself for the boys and lose her hand in exchange for saving Ezran’s life. This is amplified in 3x09 when she’s willing to give her life in order to save Zym and kill Viren.
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Last but not least, in Aaravos’ words:
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Thus far, we haven’t seen him set up a Test of Love, but I’ll be keeping my eye on it.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Key of Aaravos evolves in meaning many times over the course of the first three seasons. The main consistency it has is its connection to Harrow and Callum while Rayla continues to parallel Aaravos. Rayla also has a unique connection to the cube through her evolving relationship with Callum. The above is evidence for one theory of how all those elements could continue to play out moving forward into season four (and beyond).
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unnursvanablog · 1 year
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Now I have not done one of these in a good while, as I have been in a kdrama slump and I have been taking a bit of a break from kdramas lately, aside from slowly getting myself through Alchemy of Souls. But you know I am a sageuk fan and one of the more promising dramas in the early 2023 lineup was Our Blooming Youth despite it looking and sounding, based on the title and the posters alone like more of a fluffy, rom-com period drama than the more serious or darker/moodier stuff that I prefer in my sageuks.
So it was a pleasant surprise when I watched the first episode and the tone of the whole thing had a lot more enfaces on mystery and the dark past of the crown prince and just the overall serious mood of it all. I did not expect the leading ladies entire family being poisoned and she being on the run trying to prove her own innocence. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t watch the teasers or read too much up on things.
The drama moves at a brisk pace (for now... I also could have said the same about Alchemy of Souls until that one hit a lull in the pacing) and introduces us quite early to the main conflict, the inner daemons of the characters and all of that without too much info dumping or anything.
It sure does feel like a standard sageuk with romance to it, that has not yet started to bloom... which I enjoy actually. It does not feel too cute or too airy but mature
I guess I could expected that since I knew that the drama was written by the person who did Romance is a Bonus Book and that one did have a good dash of romance and then more serious and mature tone to it. I remember I enjoyed the character arcs and the tone of that one really well.
I don't want to harp on a 'strong female character' or a kickass female lead thing, because I have mention it before that those types of measurements that is often given female character (but we never talk that way about male characters because they are all automatically interesting... right?) just because she fights a couple of guards and seems to be capable to land herself on her own feet and take charge of her own live as she figures out who killed her family and why.
But I will say that I enjoyed the time we have gotten from Min Jae Yi and she feels like a well rounded, interesting character who has her own story to tell within the narrative... which is all a character needs to be in order to be a 'good character' really. And even if she was not all that, even if she didn't fight anyone with a sword does not mean that she isn't a interesting character. Not every male character is a strong fighter, stop expecting every female character to be that way or else they are boring. 
The crown prince feels very much like the standard male lead with a tragic backstory, but I enjoy it. The background character are all quite standard... or what I expect from these sort of stories but it’s a well rounded cast and there are enough quirky characters and enough serious ones to make it work.
I very much enjoyed those first two episodes. I think it's a good choice of drama that could potentially kick my kdrama slump in the butt and I am excited about this murder investigation unfolds and how it all ties together to those inner demons of that cursed crown prince.
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Another thing I’ve kept thinking about is how similar Killing Eve and The Last of Us 2 are, but how the latter is much more natural in its misery and ending than the first. I’m sure I cannot put all my thoughts into words since this is still very overwhelming, but I’ll try my best.
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The Last of Us 2 is a videogame that from the start, we were told would be “just as the creator intended. No fan service”. That’s what we were told and truly, what we got. The game was unfortunately leaked, and people were infuriated by the previous protagonist’s death, something that made them cancel their order for the game and trash it endlessly without having seen the whole thing. I admit, I was enraged too, but I didn’t shit on the game before its initial release just for this. After the game came out, people showed no empathy for the co-protagonist Abby, showed a lot of sexism and homophobia towards Ellie, and called the game misery porn for dealing with important things such as ptsd, depression, death, love, forgiveness, losing everything and having to leave your youth behind and mature early. Many similar narratives as KE. As I predicted, a year later most of the people saying that were now praising the game, calling it innovative and extraordinary. Nothing wrong with that obviously, in fact, it helps me prove my point about KE.
Tlou did all that, but was never solely about misery, ending up alone, or turning the game itself into “misery porn”. It was only telling the story, in a beautiful way may I add, not doing anything for shock value. It did leave some players shocked, but certainly did not trigger that kind of reaction (aka emotionally scar them for life). It could’ve easily killed its queer characters but did not resort to that, even if it could’ve served the story, even if one of them wasn’t the lead. And at the end, Ellie, having lost everything (ironically left in the water by herself like Eve), got up, and walked away. She knew she did what’s right and she left to “keep finding something to fight for”. She went back to hopefully find the people who once loved her and maybe try to make amends, or start anew. The last game isn’t out yet so we can only wonder considering the current circumstances.
Killing Eve’s finale was the exact opposite. Although throughout the last season we were given hope that the leads would find some peace and quiet at the end of the day and all the show tried to teach us would be validated,(something that we had believed they were leaning towards since season 1, and by season 3’s finale considered almost certain since they had seemingly been building up to it), they didn’t. It was like “old tropes good, gays die, no rest for the seemingly wicked even if they aren’t truly wicked, you’ll end up alone no matter what”. The ending was made only for pure shock value and served neither the narrative, nor the audience. That was in fact “misery porn”. You see, KE’s misery is very exaggerated. And exaggerated as it is, the books still gave it a good ending without needing to resort to whatever the tv finale was. The last of us’ misery on the other hand seems so natural that makes you show empathy to the characters in a good and healthy, shall I say, way.
I still have more thoughts on this but I am still exhausted from thinking about it, and I certainly find it hard to put all this into sentences. Feel free to add on this and stay strong.
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letomills · 2 years
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Pleasantfiesta - Round 1 Part 5: Goth
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Back at the Goths’, Cassandra and Alexander were rolling pet wants so I got them two cats. I’m hoping they’ll get along and have kittens so I can populate my very bare pet adoption service pool (I tend to get all the clean templates and run all the no regen mods).
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The white one is called Tulla. She’s a doofus, lazy, friendly and a pigpen.
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The striped one is Noon and he’s a friendly genius.
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They seem to be enjoying their new home.
Cassandra and Alexander are becoming quite close.
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It’s helping Cassandra psychologically I think.
She certainly doesn’t feel as comfortable around Mortimer and Dina, and she hasn’t wanted to spend time with Don or set a new date for the wedding.
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As Dina is spending more and more time at the manor, Cassandra is increasingly anxious to move out and found a family of her own, but she’s also wary of making a hasty decision that she’ll regret.
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She’s thought a lot about her relationship with Don, and she’s realized that his aspirations don’t match her own as well as she used to believe. In fact the more she thinks about it, the less she feels like she knows him that well.
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Seeing him interact with the Caliente sisters during the party showed her a whole new side of him. She feels so stupid for not being more perceptive from the start.
As she's reevaluating everything she thought she knew about Don, something comes back to her mind: his possible involvement with her mother’s disappearance. It was years ago, and the police investigation was inconclusive, but Don is the last person who saw Bella before she disappeared. All he ever had to say about it is that she went up to the roof of his condo to use his telescope, and then poof! When he climbed up to check up on her, she somehow wasn’t there anymore.
Cassandra never really knew what to think of his story. Since there was no evidence of foul play, Mortimer adopted the narrative that Bella had left of her own volition, and it became the accepted explanation. She must have left Don’s condo while he wasn’t looking.
Bella had always been a very secretive person. And she wasn’t in her element at the Goth manor despite Mortimer’s efforts to make her happy. After they got married, the couple just wasn’t able to sustain the passion for each other that they had in their youth. And in the end, Bella left. To young Cassandra, it didn’t make any sense that her mom would just leave her and her brother without any explanation. But over time, she grew to accept it. What else could have happened?
She snaps out of her thoughts. “Don can’t have anything to do with it, it wouldn’t make any sense. He was just as baffled as we were.”
Regardless, Cassandra’s decision is made: the wedding was never a good idea, and it’s time to end this relationship. She calls Don over, and confronts him about what happened at the party.
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Don gets very defensive when she brings up his inappropriate behavior with Nina, and Cassandra takes it as confirmation that the two of them are in a relationship.
“Don, stop lying to me, do you think I’m stupid? I’ve made clear that I want a husband who will be faithful to me and me alone. If that’s too much of a requirement for you, fine, let’s just end it here.”
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I think Don didn’t expect to have his world shaken up so brutally. Tonight leaves him with some introspecting to do.
As Cassandra is going to bed, Mortimer and Dina decide to officialize their union in the backyard.
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In their eagerness, they agree to have a very low-key ceremony right then and there rather than plan a formal event.
The arch wasn’t meant for them, but since the only wedding happening here is theirs, they might as well use it. The only attendant is Alexander, who gets to stay up late for the occasion.
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Dina’s lazy slouch mirroring Mortimer’s elder slouch really is a thing of beauty.
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Alexander finally has his first conversation with his dad’s partner. Sadly they don’t get along too well so far.
Look who’s happy to have a new mom though.
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Those cats are adorable.
On the next day after school, Alexander meets Lucy Burb, who was passing by.
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They chat for a bit, but Lucy soon has to go home.
And right after that Alexander grows up to a teen with the knowledge aspiration.
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I completely forgot that his birthday was around the corner so I didn’t plan anything for it, but I think by now the family has taken the stance that parties are overrated.
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And that evening, Dina gets confirmation that she’s expecting her first baby!
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I’m not sure how Alexander is going to take the news, and I suspect it’s going to make Cassandra want to move out even more, but I’m happy for Dina and Mortimer.
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