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purble-turble · 1 year

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So I've got some thoughts about DKR and TT if you'll indulge me for a moment, Purbs. Not plot stuff but like, Meta thoughts.

I've always found it a little odd about myself why while the time travel Au is highkey one of my favorite lmk AUs in the Fandom, and I absolutely ADORE TTRed, I could never really get into DKR other than as the villain of TTRed's story. But i've been in a lord of the rings mood lately and I think i figured it out

so everyone knows that speech Samwise Gamgee gives in Two Towers, yeah? the importance of still keeping hope alive even in the most dire of circumstances because a new day WILL come eventually. the folk in those stories had plenty of chances of turning back but they didn't because they believed that there was enough good in this world to be worth fighting for, and all that.

And keeping hope for the sun to rise even when lost in the darkest of nights is kind of TTRed's whole thing.

Whereas there's very little HOPE in the DKR universe without TTRed there swearing to change the course of fate, which is kind of the point, yes, but the fact that the only permanent solution that's not a full stop bad-end is DKR dying since nothing else will stop him for good as the Calabash storyline proves. and the only way for that to be narratively satisfying is for MK to be the one to kill him, putting more pain and trauma on someone who's already suffered far too much at DKR's hands. leaving that finale while on some level cathartic for the end of a nightmare, still a phyrric victory at best.

i'm not sure if i have a point to all of this so i'm just gonna go reread Test of Time and cry about that one terry pratchett quote and think about the poor traumatized muffin (and btw thats the cutest pet name for TTRed poor dear) "Let there be goblin hordes, let there be terrible environmental threats, let there be giant mutated slugs if you really must, but let there also be hope. It may be a grim, thin hope, an Arthurian sword at sunset, but let us know that we do not live in vain"

Oh my gosh Anon, yes, thank you for this, you absolutely hit the nail on the head here with this analysis!

Demon King Red is about a person losing himself into madness because he doesn't understand what it means to love, and when he's forced to choose between two things he loves he tries to force them both together and it ends up destroying all of them. It's a story of devastation and ruin and nobody comes out of it better than they went in. Meanwhile, Time Travel Red Son's story is about seeing that horror and the cruelty and selfishness and deciding that he will not let it be his own fate, and in doing so he learns what love truly is. It's not something you have or take, it's something you give and receive, and it cannot be forced. And while he doesn't exactly get out of it unscathed either, he's still always working to be a better person and that intent is the most important thing about him and his story.

TT Red is definitely the hope of morning to DKR's black, somber night. So it's completely understandable that you weren't so interested in DKR's story without TT Red there to give it that spark of hope. I definitely agree that a story with only a bleak outcome possible isn't quite as interesting. It's fun to make characters evil and have them suffer, but when it comes to having a full narrative, the lack of hope certainly makes it less appealing. Which is why the traumatized muffin's story is the one I chose to tell in full via a fleshed out fanfic (and yes I agree, that's the best nickname for him lol) and not to spoil anything for that fic, but you're definitely right about the only good ending is going to end up in more trauma for MK (and you're even more right that the story demands it to be MK who kills DKR ultimately) And that ending is only possible because of TT Red's presence.

Also I'm super mega flattered that Samwise Gamgee, the goodest boy of all, reminded you in any way of my story and my traumatized muffin. And that Terry Pratchett quote, it’s one of my favorite quotes by my favorite author to boot! You're gonna make me blush bringing these amazing things up in reference to my silly lego AU lol 🥰

#ask #blog #demon king red #time travel #Anonymous #thanks for this ask anon it's super nice~#also not that it matters but I also love being called Purbs lol #I gotta update that fanfic #I am a few thousand words in to the next chapter and still have barely scratched the surface of what I need to have happen in it #that is my curse i guess lol

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smallheathgangsters · 4 years

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Wait For Me | T.S.

A/N: So proud of this one! Please enjoy and leave some feedback! ❤️ Btw, I hope this is want you wanted, Anon. :)

Request: “Hey! Could you write some angst with fluffy end (with 30,23,21 or 34) where Tommy and the reader were in a relationship before the war and she had to leave small heath and could only return years after they got back. They still love each other but she's keeping her distance in the beginning? And his family are the first who see her and welcome her and he just sort if walks in and falls in love again? Sorry if this is too detailed. I LOVE your writings :)” by Anon

Tags: @captivatedbycillianmurphy @tranquility-or-chaos

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x Reader

Word Count: 2841

Type: angst, fluff

Summary: Y/N breaks the only promise she made to Tommy before he went off to war. Will there be any hope left for them after he returns to Small Heath?

-----------------------------------------------------------------

“Are you being fucking serious?” you gasped speechlessly. Thomas was giving you a sad and guilty look. His hands were fidgeting with the ring on his right middle finger you had bought him about a year ago. It wasn’t meant to be a promise ring, simply a sweet gesture to show him how much he meant to you, but you knew from the moment he put it on, he started wearing it as one.

“Are you actually being serious, Tommy?” you repeated, looking at him bewilderedly with your eyes teared wide open.

“John and Arthur volunteered as well …” he mumbled, while his hands kept on working on the ring.

His response made you grab him by the hem of his jacket. “That makes no bloody difference, don’t you understand?”

His icy blue eyes were starting to get teary when he locked his gaze with your hurt one. You tried your best to not get soft by his reaction, tried to talk about his absolute stupid idea reasonably and even a tiny bit sternly, but you failed miserably, tears building up behind your eyes as well. “Are you trying to push me away? Are you trying to make it as hard for us as possible?”

You let out a desperate sob, making Tommy finally let go of the ring and cup your face into his hands lovingly. “I couldn’t live with myself if I wasn’t there to help my brothers and friends in this unbelievably hard time. I would feel like a coward, letting them die while I’d be hiding here.”

“But you wouldn’t be hiding! There are enough men volunteering, it wouldn’t make a difference if you went or stayed here!” you sobbed, the tears that had been gathering now running down your rosy cheeks.

“It would to me, Y/N …” he said quietly, caressing your cheek with his thumb, catching a few of your salty tears.

“Please don’t leave me, Tommy …” you cried. You leaned your forehead against his chest, your whole body erupting into even more violent sobs and hiccups, making you gasp for air. Tommy gently caressed your back. “I’m not leaving you. I could never leave you, love. My thoughts will always be with you.”

But his words did nothing to calm you down. “Please, love. You need to breathe.”

He wrapped his arms around you even tighter, swaying you softly. Then he placed a kiss on the top of your head. “I’ll write you every day, if I can, I promise. I’m sure, everything will be over sooner as you think.”

Finally, your crying quieted down. Tommy didn’t stop stroking your back. His big, warm hand gave you the comfort you needed in this moment, even though you knew it would be the last time for a long while. You sniffled and lifted your head from his shirt, which was now stained in your tears. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t, Y/N. I promise,” he ensured, kissing your forehead and giving you a weak smile, trying to lighted up the mood a little bit, even though there really wasn’t anything to be happy about right now. “Can you promise me something too?”

You nodded. “Anything.”

“Promise you’ll wait for me?”

His question made you break out into sobs again. “How could I not? How dare you even think I wouldn’t wait for you. Of course, I promise, Tommy.”

***

You broke your promise. The only thing Tommy had ever made you promise. The one promise that meant so much to him, you broke.

You tried telling yourself that it hadn’t been your fault that you had to leave Small Heath. Your parents ran a small business in London, but when all the men were collected or volunteered for the war, they lost their bookkeeper and desperately needed help. They had called you and naturally, you packed everything right away, leaving Birmingham.

But in the end, it didn’t matter who’s fault it was. You weren’t there when you heard about the brave men coming back from the war. You weren’t there when Tommy came back.

Polly even sent you a letter, telling you that they had all made it back alive. And you were so incredibly happy for them and Polly. Still, you never answered her letter, you never even called.

You felt like you didn’t belong to their family anymore. You had let them down, but in particular, you had let Tommy down. It made your heart shatter into a million pieces knowing that you hadn’t been there when the train arrived, waiting for him on the platform. That you hadn’t been there to hold him in your arms, welcoming him back home, peppering him with thousands of sweet little kisses and telling him how much you’d missed him.

And it was true. You really had missed him so much. There wasn’t a day that went by, that you didn’t think of him. His icy blue eyes were the only thing on your mind every single evening you went to sleep. It was the only reason you were even able to find some rest.

While you were overjoyed by Polly’s news, it also made you sick to the stomach. Hearing about Tommy coming back made you feel twice as guilty about the fact that around two years into the war, you stopped answering his letters on a regular basis. You felt as if you were betraying him, knowing very well that you had left Small Heath only a year after him joining the tunnellers. Eventually, you stopped writing him completely. You couldn’t bear telling him that you had left, but you also couldn’t keep on writing him with this secret weighing you down.

Losing Tommy was your own fault. In the beginning, you tried blaming him, out of frustration. You had blamed his decision to volunteer, him risking his life every day, accepting the fact that he may never return alive. But it never made you feel better about the situation you were in. Because deep down you knew, there was nothing to blame him for. The outcome of your relationship, the shatters of what you were left with had all been your doing, not Tommy’s.

It had been a year since Polly’s letter. But still not a day you hadn’t thought of Tommy. Your family had finally found somebody to take over the bookkeeping and suddenly, it was time for you to return to Small Heath. No matter how much time you spent in London, you never really felt at home there and you knew the only place you’d ever be happy was Birmingham. The only problem was, moving back to Birmingham also meant moving back to Tommy. And that was something you dreaded.

In fear of crossing his path unintentionally, you rented a tiny apartment as far away as possible from where Tommy had lived before the war. It wasn’t much but it had everything you needed for now.

Only a few days after returning home, you reunited with one of your best friends, meeting up at a small café. While it felt good seeing a familiar face, you knew it wouldn’t take long for her to ask about Tommy.

“Have you seen him yet? I’m sure he missed you so much,” your friend said, blowing away the steam from the cup of tea and then taking a careful sip, trying not to burn her tongue.

“Uh, no. Not yet,” you mumbled, stirring your spoon in your tea, avoiding her nosy gaze.

“What? Why not? Did you break up?” she asked confused.

Her question made you think. Tommy and you had never officially broken up. It was you who decided for yourself to break off the contact. And because he never reached out to you, asking why you hadn’t been writing him letters anymore or why you hadn’t been there when he came back from France, you assumed he had accepted the fact that your relationship had sort of dissolved itself.

“Not exactly …” you said insecurely, “but it’s been too long since we’ve had contact. It would be ridiculous of me to expect him to still care about me.”

“Oh, shut up,” your friend exclaimed. “You’re being stupid. Tommy Shelby was head over heels for you, there is nothing in the world that could make him lose interest or stop caring about you.”

You scoffed. “Was. Tommy Shelby was head over heels.”

Your comment made your friend groan. “You’re being annoying and self-pitying.”

“Excuse me?” you huffed. Nevertheless, you knew very well that your words had sounded whiny and as though you were sorry for yourself.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she said, lifting up her teacup to her lips and raising her eyebrows at you.

Just as you opened your mouth to let out a sarcastic reply, you heard a voice behind you shout your name.

“Y/N! Oh my gosh, is it really you?”

The voice was all too familiar to you and made you squeeze your eyes together, hoping it would go away. But of course, it didn’t. Only a second later Polly was standing next to yours and your friend’s table. You opened your eyes again and moved them slowly to the elegantly dressed woman, a cigarette between her index and middle finger.

“As pretty as ever!” she exclaimed, leaning down and pulling you into a friendly hug, pressing you tightly against her chest. “How long have you been back?”

“O– only a couple of days. Just started settling back in,” you mumbled, feeling absolutely awkward and uncomfortable.

She widened her eyes. “Why didn’t you come by? Tommy’s changed a lot since the war but I’m sure he still misses you and would be very happy to see you.”

Hearing her mention Tommy so casually made you gulp. Was he really not upset about you leaving and ignoring him? Or was Polly just not realising how complicated yours and Tommy’s relationship was, if you could still call it that? On the other hand, Polly was a clever woman. She would be the first to notice something being off.

“Are you sure …? I mean, a lot has happened since then.”

“Oh, of course! We all missed you very much, Y/N, even Finn!”

Sweet little Finn. How was it possible that even he remembered you?

Suddenly, you felt Polly grab you by your wrist, pulling you out of your chair. Then she gave your friend an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry, miss, but I need to steal Y/N away from you.”

You knew exactly that your friend didn’t mind at all, considering the topic of your previous conversation and simply nodded at Polly, smiling cheekily.

Outside, Polly pushed you into a taxi, herself following right behind. She told the driver the same address you remembered the Shelby Home having before you had left. Tommy and his brothers had built up this betting shop and you thought back to when Polly had to take over the reins when the boys left. Suddenly, so many memories popped up in your head, making you feel slightly overwhelmed. Polly seemed to notice you tensing up.

“Everything alright, love?”

You gulped and nodded. “Just feeling a little nervous.”

“Nervous?” she asked surprised, “Why would you be nervous around us? We’re family.”

“Tommy and I, we … you know, we–“

Polly cut you off by grabbing both your shoulders and looking into your eyes intensely. “Y/N, darling. Stop worrying about Tommy, everything’s going to be fine.”

You sighed. “Okay.”

The driver stopped the car and Polly payed him, getting out of the vehicle quickly onto Watery Lane. “Come on, then.”

You slid off of the back seat as well and followed her to the front door of the house. Your heart started racing and your palms got sweaty, making you wipe them on your dress. Unfortunately, it didn’t do much and they stayed uncomfortably clammy. Polly sensed you not feeling very well and grabbed your hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. Then she pushed open the front door to the betting shop, a wave of loud masculine voices coming your way.

“Look who I found!” you heard Polly shout over the voices, drawing all the attention towards the two of you.

“What the fuck!”

John was the first to react. A huge smile was plastered onto his face. You saw him rushing over to you and pulling into the biggest, tightest hug you’ve ever experienced. “What the bloody hell are you doing here? I thought you’d never come back!”

You nuzzled your face into his chest. All of a sudden, all your nervousness and insecurity was gone, replaced by the feeling of finally being at home. It made you realise how much you had missed all of them and how stupid you had been to avoid them. They really were family.

Immediately after John pulled away, Arthur wrapped his slender arms around you. You couldn’t say whose welcome was more heartfelt.

“You look amazing, Y/N,” Arthur complimented when he finally got to examine your face more closely.

“Thank you,” you said, blushing. “I really missed you all.”

“We did too, very much.”

After you hugged Finn as well, commenting on how much he had grown in the years you were gone, your eyes scanned the room in hope to find Tommy standing somewhere in the back, waiting for his turn to pull you into an embrace. But he was nowhere to be seen.

You felt a soft hand being placed on your shoulder. “I’m sorry he’s not here. I’m sure he’ll be over soon.”

You nodded and gave Polly a weak smile. “Don’t worry. Maybe it’s better this way.”

“Quit being so negative,” Polly told you off. The tone in which she said it wasn’t angry though. It sounded almost hopeful.

Suddenly, the front door behind you flew open, making you flinch. You whipped your head around, staring at the person standing in the doorway.

“Tommy …?” you whispered, as if you had to be careful to not scare him away.

He was just as handsome as the last time you had seen his beautiful face and his breathtakingly gorgeous eyes. He was wearing a perfectly tailored suit, making him look as if he were in charge of everything and everyone in Small Heath. There was nothing that didn’t make you fall in love with him all over again right then and there.

You felt all the other family members slowly backing up towards their offices, giving you the space, you needed.

At first, Tommy didn’t say a word. He just stared at you with an expression you weren’t able to make out. Was he happy to see you? Or did he want you to leave?

The silence made you feel uneasy. Your heart was beating uncontrollably fast in your chest and you felt heat wander up to your cheeks, making them flush.

This encounter was embarrassing. It was not at all romantic or even pleasant. It made you want to push past Tommy and run down the street, as far away as possible. You guessed he probably felt the same. You couldn’t imagine him feeling positive emotions when it came to you, especially not when you suddenly stood in his shop unannounced after not hearing from you for years.

“Look … I’m sorry, I– I shouldn’t be here,” you stammered nervously, your eyes jumping around in the entrance, avoiding his intense stare at all costs.

You wrapped your coat around your body and stepped towards Tommy, planning on squeezing past his muscular physique when you suddenly felt his arms around your body. His actions took you by surprise, making your freeze in his embrace. Your breath hitched at the back of your throat and you were unable to return the gesture. You worried that your reaction would make him regret hugging you, but he didn’t let you go. It seemed as though when he felt you unable to move, he pressed you even harder against himself.

“Don’t leave … please,” you heard him whisper pleadingly. You held your breath in shock when you thought you heard his voice being shaky.

“You promised …” he breathed, a silent sob escaping his lips. He placed a hand on your cheek, and you felt something cold. The ring.

That was when you broke. Your legs gave up on you, making Tommy catch you when your body collapsed. His strong arms supported your body, holding you up against his chest while his scent surrounded you.

Your cries filled the air and time seemed to have stopped, only for you and Tommy. It was a moment that nobody was able to take away from you. It was when you realised that life meant nothing if Tommy wasn’t there. And that nothing you had done had ever changed that. It was also the moment you realised that Tommy had never forgotten or stopped caring about you. He still loved you as much as you loved him, and not even war was able to change that.

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casually-inlove · 4 years

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(I hope your computer issues are getting better btw) I have seen a lot of posts about how tragic it will be for xixi when Jian xi disappears. But in the initial chapters before the flashbacks, that really doesn’t transpire. Do you have any theories on how that is going to work? I mean there is that hint in the first panel where going to the same uni is mentioned but

Hello there! I’m sorry for being so late with my response — I’ve been physically overwhelmed with stuff IRL. Also, thank you for asking. Yes, it’s much better now, and I got off easy (nothing work-related lost) but it was a close call.

Truthfully, I’ve been thinking about writing about it on my own, so your question happens to have excellent timing. No doubt some of it was spurred by the latest official illustration of Zhan Zheng Xi.

I've seen quite a few people (on and off Tumblr) discuss the possibility of the picture itself being linked to Jian Yi's disappearance, so it's no wonder we ended up thinking about the earlier chapters.

I have a few thoughts on the matter, but I'll try to be as brief here as possible here. Is Jian Yi's disappearance going to be tragic for Zhan Zheng Xi?

In theory? Absolutely yes.

Imagine someone you're seeing disappears one day without prior notice and keeps radio silence for years, only to appear one day at your doorstep and act like nothing truly happened. Or even worse, attempts to feed you an unlikely story of being stranded on an island after being kidnapped by a parent they allegedly never had. Imagine how you'd feel. Tricked? Yeah. Betrayed? Surely. Angry? Quite possibly. Kept in the dark and essentially swindled? Without a doubt. It's not a situation you'd take lightly, particularly if you had been romantically involved the said person. That's what they call "ghosting someone". What is Zhan Zheng Xi to think during Jian Yi's absence? In the best-case scenario that the latter decided to cut ties with him. In the worst-case scenario that he's come to physical harm.

You see, there's a particular leitmotif going on for Zhanyi. XiXi has always taken it upon himself to be Jian Yi's knight in shining armour, the one who saves him from whatever trouble he gets into. During elementary school, XiXi would protect JY from the bullies. During middle school, he tried to protect him from Mo's gang and He Cheng's men. Failing to do so caused XiXi visible distress to the point where even Jian Yi noticed and commented on it. So being the shield that protects Jian Yi from harm is directly linked to ZZX's image of himself. His self-worth, if you will. Failing to do so would inevitably tell on his self-esteem even if ZZX won't show it to the outside world due to his stoic nature.

There's also a matter "emotional hurdles", something that thematically unites all the other characters in the manhua save for ZZX. JY, MGS, HT have faced traumatic events in their past which shaped them into who they are now. ZZX had none of that (yet). Perhaps OX plans to keep it that way, although it's also possible OX plans to have ZZX face personal hell later on. It's not too unthinkable, and I believe that's the reason why many people believe that JY's disappearance will be "tragic" — to fit in with the running subtheme.

Naturally, the initial chapters don't show us any of that simply because those take place three or four years after Jian Yi's disappearance. It figures the bulk of the emotional turmoil ZZX's must have gone through is well in the past. Time heals, as they say. By time JY comes back, ZZX has been living without him for years; deep inside he might have embraced the idea that he'll never see him again. That's why his reaction may seem a lot tamer than one could imagine.

Still, if you pay attention to their future interactions, it becomes clear that their bond took considerable damage. Within the present canon storyline, they have essentially admitted mutual feelings for each other and even shared a bed several times (nothing sexual of course). In other words, they do share a great deal of intimacy. In future-set issues, when they are attending the same college, XiXi appears to have reservations about as little as letting drunk JY lean on him. Naturally, a huge chunk of it could be attributed to the comedic nature of the episodes (OX needed to make it funny), but it’s still something to ponder on.

Regarding the illustration OX posted -- I don't believe it hints at Jian Yi being presumed to be dead during his MIA period; I don't believe it's directly linked to JY at all for that matter. Had Jian Yi been presumed to be dead, you'd think ZZX would have shown a stronger reaction upon seeing him "alive", but that's not the case. Then again, OX may yet change it when we get to that point.

Lastly, if you recall, I did say that Jian Yi's disappearance is tragic "in theory". The reason why I say that resides in the very manner of OX's writing. If you peel away layers of slapstick comedy and occasional crude humour, you'd find that many things OX touches upon are no laughing matters. Absentee parents, alienation, peer pressure, social isolation, ostracism, street gangs, youth cruelty, dysfunctional families, criminal legacy, emotional abuse, neglect, being impoverished, having to deal with family debts, being threatened with prostitution, etc... You wouldn't be laughing at any of that had you been watching it on TV or reading in a newspaper. Many authors would find it to be an elephant in the room, yet more often than not OX doesn't address those issues directly. Instead, those get glossed over and covered up with situational comedy. While I absolutely appreciate the necessity of humour, I still believe there are topics out there making the light of which is simply unethical, regardless of comedic genre. Kidnapping someone for whatever reason and having to deal with someone's disappearance/loss is one such thing. That said, there's no guarantee that OX will make any of ZZX's internal struggle obvious and explicit. It might stay between the lines as something that we all know should be there — simply because we can put ourselves in ZZX's shoes. While I wouldn't want OX to play Jian Yi's kidnapping completely for the laughs, I still don't exclude a comedic outcome.

Now, I truly wouldn't want to be making any grand guesses regarding HOW exactly it might transpire. It's peculiar that Jian Yi ostensibly didn't recognize the men who kidnapped him. What's so odd about it is that we know that Qiu and He Cheng are assigned to the duty of looking after Jian Yi. It's mostly Qiu who picks him up and drives around. Could that mean that things shifted and Qiu & Cheng are no longer trusted with his life or are absent for some reason? Or, perhaps, those men lied and, in fact, weren't working for Mr Jian after all? Instead, might they be the ones Mr Jian tried to protect his son from? It could truly be a fascinating plot-twist.

All in all, I'd say that the tragedy of Jian Yi's disappearance is something implicit. Whether OX would go into detail here is uncertain though; likewise, it's uncertain whether they would address the matter seriously. I would love to see ZZX go through something that would break his perpetual pokerface (as harsh as it might sound), but I also realize that's not everyone's cup of tea and may be completely irrelevant to OX's grand plans.

#19 days #zhan zheng xi #jian yi #zhanyi #cat-in-the-night #q&a time

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echobearclasspectingblog · 5 years

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Hey, would a 12-kid session be too much to analyze? If not, then maybe you could predict a one with these 12 could play out? Witch of Time, Heir Of Space, Maid Of Void, Sylph of Life, Knight Of Doom, Page Of Mind, Bard Of Breath, Prince Of Blood, Mage of Light, Seer Of Rage, Rouge of Hope, and Thief Of Heart. Thanks in advance! -Anon

Sweet, my first 12/all central classes and aspects session request! Hey Anon (which is a valid ‘kid’ name for homestuck btw), a 12 kid session is the kind of challenge I’ve been looking forward to. I won’t know if it’ll be too much until I do it so let’s get into this! I’ll try to do this with the same style as the others, but it’ll be quite a long response just from the sheer number of players.

((I wrote some of this intro stuff before getting into it, and it is quite a large thing to respond to. Part way through I realized I couldn’t respond to double digit sburb sessions the same way as smaller sessions if I wanted to respond at a good pace for all my ask box, so in the interest of that I’ll be summarizing the synergies into the most important good/bads instead of listing all of them. I’ll also add that to my blog’s description for future reference.))

Witch of Time - One who makes changes to Time or changes things through Time

Heir of Space - One who causes Space to change or causes things to change through Space

Maid of Void - One who encourages creation of Void or encourages creation using Void

Sylph of Life - One who creates Life or creates things using Life

Knight of Doom - One who serves Doom or serves using Doom

Page of Mind - One who gathers service for Mind or gathers service using Mind

Bard of Breath - One who allows Breath to be destroyed or allows destruction through Breath

Prince of Blood - One who destroys Blood or destroys using Blood

Mage of Light - One who Knows Light or knows through Light through experience

Seer of Rage - One who knows Rage or knows through Rage through research

Rogue of Hope - One who takes Hope or takes using Hope for others

Thief of Heart - One who takes Heart or takes with Heart for themselves

You have a space player, required to breed the genesis frog. You have a time player, required to scratch the session. You’ve got all the canon aspects here, and most of the classes (no lords, muses, and the questionable demi-canon waste) so it’s basically a big session. Space and Time are change classes which could lead to some interesting shenanigans, the Bard of Breath also jumps out at me for some reason. This mix of 12 don’t seem too overpowered or disastrous from first glance.

That’s quite a long list, and now we get to the meat of the session analysis! I’ll first dedicate some thoughts to each player’s strengths and weaknesses individually in a sburb session. Then I’ll look at how the classpects interact with each other, doing my best to summarize the best and worst synergies for each player based on their classpect.

A witch of time changes events, history, and the future. This witch is a great player for changing the past to undo doomed timelines, preventing them before they happen, or even just fixing minor mistakes. If they become strong enough they could even change the alpha timeline’s future. Being able to redo the past so often could lead to existential issues of lacking agency, and if overdone could even lead to not learning from your mistakes and just running into them again waiting for the witch to fix things.

An heir of space causes change to creation, distance, and physical space. They’d be able to create different outcomes for alchemization, giving more options. Being able to cause changes to the planets would also be good for helping other people with their planet quests. Their aspect lines up with their duties and through the genesis frog they could end up making drastic changes to paradox space. On the other hand, they could end up making DRASTIC changes to paradox space through the main goal of a sburb session which if gone wrong is exactly how you end up with ultimate big bads.

A maid of void encourages creation of secrecy, emptiness, and mystery. They’ll encourage using secret plans to make it harder for the dersites to stop you. Consorts will build secret bases hidden from your enemies. Too many secret plans can cause players to end up not knowing what everyone else is doing and getting in each other’s way from lack of communication.

A sylph of life creates wealth, health, and living situations. Giving life to lifeless things means building up an army of living stuff like toys, action figures and statues. Making plenty of healing items. You could have some confusing or awkward times if they end up making too many living versions of each player at a time.

A knight of doom serves hardship, fate, and death. Misfortune is a sword they can wield against their enemies. They can serve their fellow players with the very doom that would otherwise only be a problem without this knight. Serving doom itself is a side of the knight that’ll lead to more dead players and more doomed timelines.

A page of mind gathers service of logic, decisions, and law. Every court in paradox space will be in your pocket with the page by your side. They’ll find some smart people to help you out as well. But it’s entirely possible that the page will be personally very indecisive and need people’s help making choices.

A bard of breath allows destruction of flow, flexibility, and wind. They’ll help make sure the enemy loses freedom over time. Causing tornadoes is a great late game attack too. As well as halting people’s breathing. If your party loses too much flexibility from the bard’s influence you may end up railroaded on a non-optimal version of the alpha timeline.

A prince of blood destroys connections, bonds, and important liquids that keep us alive. This prince will sever important ties between your enemies. No alliance is safe from them. Probably has some sort of sweet blood weapon too. Naturally adverse to friendship and connecting with others, and prince is already a class that needs support from others to keep from going completely off the rails.

A mage of light knows fortune, attention, and brightness. They’ll be the first one to know what’s important in the session and why it’s important. Also hunting down sweet loot and is probably a living treasure map to some degree. Mages tend to experience their aspect directly so maybe try to keep them from flying into the sun or something.

A seer of rage knows anger, chaos, and harsh truths. Will know when and how rage is best used. Is able to see through the confusion of volatile emotions. Needs tons of mental health support due to constantly learning enraging things and dealing with the angry side of society.

A rogue of hope takes imagination, belief, and angels for others. Your enemy’s hopes of winning a fight are now your hopes for winning that fight. Gives you something to believe in, though it’s a stolen belief. Stealing angels and gods may end up backfiring.

A thief of heart takes romance, souls, and motivation. Removes even the peskiest of souls from a body. Uses people’s feelings to steal from them. Beware, they’re probably the type to hit on your significant other. Also possibly has a collection of actual hearts in jars? That’d be messed up but cool.

The heir of space and witch of time combo is just asking for the fabric of reality to shift in grand unknowable ways. The sylph of life would give the witch plenty to change the flow of time with, both in new lives and in healing, I’d call this a good synergy. A bad combination pops up with the bard who’d limit the witch’s change of time, or worse only allow the destructive outcomes of the changes. The prince of blood helps the witch detach from their connection to other people, allowing them to make decisions on how to reshape time more on what’s logically best and not get caught up in feelings. The thief of heart’s drain of emotions could be a bit dangerous to the witch considering the prince’s interaction, pushing the witch to be a very coldhearted time magician with no ties to anyone. The redundancy of the thief and prince makes otherwise positive interactions become dangerous, so only one of the two should spend too long with the witch at a time.

To help the space player, the knight of doom will probably be the main one offering to help. Making sure the frogs have a fated doom/death in the future so that paradox cloning goes perfectly, a good knight for the heir who might have troubles with their duties due to the passive changing of space. Having the mage of light as a third helper would be even more of a boost, using their experience with luck to find the right frogs. Keep the maid of void and bard of breath away though as they both would do more harm than good, same with the prince of blood depending on how close the aspect of blood relates to ecto-biology. Your rogue might end up really useful once they learn how to steal imaginary frogs right out of people’s heads.

The maid’s best creation buddy would probably be the knight of doom, inspiring them to create things that fall into the decent overlap of the doom and void aspects. The bard of breath would be all too happy to allow nothingness to be created in the place of oxygen… which could be devastating come to think of it. Just by the nature of their classpects, the maid will be a very bad mix for the seer and the mage, not just because of their classes but because the aspects also directly conflict with void, light being opposite in many ways to void and rage for typically trying to see through lies and secrets which void has a hand in the second one enough for the seer to just lose their mind.

While they might not get along the knight of doom will keep the sylph’s life creation in check so that there isn’t ever too much life, keeping a balance. Meanwhile the prince of blood will keep the sylph from getting too attached to her creations. The maid of void’s influence could cause the sylph to start creating secret double lives for them self and others, which could have some benefit but easily lead to trouble and conflict between the players. The thief might also take the abundance of the sylph’s creations for granted and siphon off souls and such from their armies.

On the flip side of things, the sylph can bring more life into the knight’s life where they might be lacking because of the knight’s service to and using doom. The page may be able to bring out smarter thinking and logic out of the knight. The rogue of hope seems like a natural clashing classpect to the knight of doom, one giving out unrealistic hopes while the other helps people with hard reality and consequences. Better hope the rogue and knight roleplay into some classpects that get along better than their true ones.

Mage of light is a good classpect to pair up with the page of mind, as mages generally dive into their aspects and the light and mind overlap of knowledge means they’ll get to share plenty. The page’s development will benefit from this connection and probably be a very well off in learning to use their classpect to the fullest. While rage also has some knowledge based overlap, the seer of rage would be a bad person to try and help since the aspect is still disruptive to mind aspect and clashes in the order-chaos side of things, the page will have enough problems as it is. The maid of void and thief of heart are both the other main negative influences on the page, obscuring things and taking away their individuality.

The bard of breath could easily use the page of mind to enforce stricter laws and logic to break down freedom in the session. The thief of heart’s stealing of individuality would also be another tangent close to freedom eroding the bard could easily amplify. The biggest conflict I see happening with the bard would be the prince of blood, as one fights excessive freedom and the other fights excessive connections. This could make for some really ugly fights.

Your session’s thief could steal the individuality from the prince of blood, making them more reliant on the group rather than themselves to balance out their typically anti-social behavior. The maid of void on the other hand would empower the prince to use secrets to toxically tear apart friendships in the session.

The sylph of life’s creation of fortune would give the mage of light plenty of their aspect to experience, maybe even using some of the extra to gamble and experience the luck side of light. The maid’s void will make the mage’s job and use of classpect much harder, probably a good idea to keep them apart.

The knight of doom can serve the seer of rage well, as giving them the ability to see into doomed timelines allows for a lot of rage to come into vision. The prince’s destruction of friendships also would give the seer insight into things, as well as something to warn people against if the prince goes overboard.

Getting inspired to create void by the maid would help the rogue keep themselves hidden while they do sneaky stealy stuff. Besides the conflict with the Knight of doom like I listed earlier, I could see the bard of breath making the rogue’s job harder by letting options be destroyed, leaving less places to find hope.

All of the doomed alternate selves the knight of doom would/might pull into the alpha timeline gives the thief a buffet of ghosts to steal away for their own purposes. Plus like before, the sylph’s creations add even more for the thief to stash up, between these two you’ll have a very powerful thief of heart. Prince of blood looks like the worst pair up, possibly severing ties between the thief and the souls they’ve collected.

Your players seem like a viable match as far as I can tell. Besides the heir/witch possibly bending all of space time, nothing stands out to me as too excessively strong of a combination, and there doesn’t seem to be any session killing bad clashing between players. The balance of players seems like it’d be about average odds of winning for a group this size.

I believe the genesis frog breeding should be very successful and the sburb session in general has a good chance of being completed. The bard of breath seems like the biggest threat just due to their classpect being an anti-shenanigan type of thing. If that’s under control and you aren’t railroaded down a singular path your session should be capable of finding victory.

I’m not entirely sure how much of the trouble I had going over this session was from it being so large that it’s not practical to completely over analyze the combos like I do with smaller sessions or how much of it is that there’s just not super strong synergies here. Probably a mixture of both. Guess time will tell how viable it’ll be for me to do large session stuff like this but I’m still interested in trying it out.

#classpecting #sburb session #Session ask #witch of time #heir of space #maid of void #sylph of life #knight of doom #page of mind #bard of breath #prince of blood #mage of light #seer of rage #rogue of hope #thief of heart

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momoyomaki · 5 years

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Could Five realistically be autistic based solely on what we see on the show?

I stumbled across the theory that Five is autistic, and as someone with autism I find that very interesting. I’m not yet convinced he does have autism, but I’m not convinced he doesn’t either.

So let’s take this apart. :cracks knuckles:

First off, a couple things to keep in mind:

-No two autistic people are exactly the same.

-I am drawing on my own experience living with autism, and what I’ve witnessed from my sister and the kids I work with.

-Disabilities that affect the brain overlap. Many different things can affect the same areas of the brain, and we just categorize things for ease of assigning coping mechanisms. For example, if you were to take a brain scan of my brother who has PTSD, my sister who has brain damage from childhood trauma, and myself with autism, the scans would look very similar.

-Whether or not Five has autism, he most definitely has PTSD.

-Please chime in with your own theories and experiences, I’d love to open this TED talk up.

Ok here we go:

Klaus calls Five addicted to the apocalypse and he’s not wrong. Through an autistic lens, obsessing and hyper-fixating is like our bread and butter. My hyper-fixations have driven me to all sorts of extremes, like staying up for 24 hours, and giving myself heatstroke by hyper-fixating while outside. Whether Five is autistic or not he can obviously relate. His obsession with stopping the apocalypse drives him for 40+ years. He carries an eyeball around the entire time. His fixation on returning to his family keeps him going through his career as a hitman, something he makes clear he didn’t enjoy. On that note, he spent an episode walking around with a goddamn bullet wound. Talk about mind over matter, and also another tick in the hyper-fixation column. Again, when he checks on Klaus after he time travels to the Vietnam War, he’s clearly concerned for him, but gets sidetracked once again by his need to stop the apocalypse. Which is honestly valid, I mean, it’s the apocalypse.

Dolores. Anybody whose seen a decent therapist will probably have been told “yeah I know it sounds crazy, but try talking to yourself.” Being your own sounding board is a very healthy thing believe it or not, and Five uses Dolores for this purpose. Those with autism in my experience have crazy good imaginations. If I try hard enough I can fabricate fake memories to the point where I can’t quite remember it’s not true. I think this has a lot to do with the way autism thinks in pictures. Imaginary friend anyone? So Five finding Dolores and talking with her as if she were real for so long that he actually sees and hears her as a person? Totally believable and something I could see having happened to myself under the right circumstances. That being said, I feel he’s probably perfectly aware that she is, in fact, a mannequin. Dolores can be seen as a sign of Five having snapped or as a brilliant way of keeping his sanity while isolated for decades.

Coffee. Five’s caffeine addiction is probably not related to autism in anyway whatsoever, but boy can I relate. Coffee is my holy grail because it calms my personal blend of brain chemicals down enough for me to focus on things like driving. Of course that’s my ADHD talking. It’s not uncommon for those with autism to also have ADHD, but that’s a whole other post. So let’s just say Five’s relatable and leave it at that.

Sarcasm and Snark. Possibly the most common coping mechanism ever for any problem in existence. Probably just a part of Five’s glorious personality, but let’s say he developed it the way I did. As a way of taking on the world, sarcasm makes everything more bearable. It’s also a form of humor and nothing is as good as humor to cover social missteps. It takes you from being a weird outcast to being the Funny/Sarcastic Friend™️.

Five and routine. The first thing Five does when returning to the past is make his signature sandwich. Here he is, back with his family after all this time, and he doesn’t allow himself to bask in that, because the count down to the apocalypse has started. There’s no way he isn’t thrown off though, come on. 13 years old again with his family alive. When feeling shaken, most people with autism will absolutely fall back into routines even if they’re old ones. And who wants to bet he drove past at least one other perfectly serviceable shop with coffee on his way to Griddy’s and ignored them in favour of familiarity? And of course he works to get Dolores back right off the bat. When upset over the lab getting blown up he returns to what we can assume was home during the apocalypse; the library.

Five and his ability to take people at face value despite his overactive paranoia. From my experience working with those with autism, autistic people are some of the most forgiving people you will ever meet. This doesn’t have to come from a place of kindness. It’s more our black and white nature. Something used to be this way, and now it’s that way. We tend to just accept it where others might have a million questions. This goes hand in hand with our people sense. Oh we suck at reading social cues, but our instincts in regards to a persons trustworthiness are generally bang on. You see this in Five’s chat with Hazel. He doesn’t seem to have a problem buying what Hazel’s selling. Same with Klaus, who he acknowledges more then his other siblings even if it’s in a snarky manner. (He didn’t shoot Klaus down when he talked about conjuring their dad unlike Luther, and despite his angry reaction he took Klaus’ point about being addicted to the apocalypse seriously.) He gets angry when Vanya doesn’t believe him about the apocalypse but when it becomes clear that her disbelief is not malicious he doesn’t take it out on her. In contrast he doesn’t buy the Handler’s bullshit. To sum it up, Five is a practical people person, with good instincts but an outdated copy of Social Cues for Dummies. Is this autism or an effect of 40+ years alone? Both?

Five, the pragmatist. As the Handler says, Five is a first rate pragmatist which fits how a lot of those on the spectrum are very blunt, black and white thinkers. Where my family can debate politics for hours, my opinion is always the straightest path to whatever outcome I’m arguing for.

Five and clothes. Those on the spectrum tend to be hypersensitive, and clothing can be a Thing™️ for us. Certain materials feel like they're made of needles as opposed to just itchy, jeans are too tight, turtlenecks feel like a noose, etc. This is common, but sometimes it’s less about comfy sweatpants and more about familiarity. I have an undercut and if I don’t have time to get it shaved at the usual point, I get panicky. My hair feels slightly different, it looks slightly different, and it all just doesn't feel right. Five grew up wearing the academy uniform, and while he didn’t have the luxury of a suit and tie in the apocalypse, wearing a suit was clearly important to him during his time with the Commission. Even the Handler took notice, and gifted him a suit. And the second thing he does after making a sandwich in the past is find a suit that fits him. Ok, he didn’t have any options, but he didn’t have to wear the whole outfit. He could have mixed and matched. He could have stolen something from the department store. But no, he’s got to wear a suit jacket and tie. He even grabbed his tie off the guy he strangled at Griddy’s before he took care of the last dude. (Badass power move btw.) So I find it believable that the uniform was partially about appearances and partially about Five’s comfort zone, physically speaking.

(But wait, I hear you say, how can you throw in hypersensitivity when back up this post you claimed Five could have ignored his bullet wound via hyper-fixation? Here’s the thing, hyper-fixation basically mutes the notifications our bodies send us. We can be uncontrollably hypersensitive and still not clue into our bodies screaming at us while we fixate on something. But boy, we sure notice when we snap out of it.)

Five is all or nothing, ride or die. Oh boy is he ever. And most autistic people are too. We put our all into everything we do. Doesn’t always translate to doing it well, but we definitely give it our all. (In fact, we tend to over do things and need some serious recouping time after.) This can cover things already in the hyper-fixation section, like his obsession with the apocalypse. But going all in for something is different from the magnetic pull of hyper-fixation. It’s a conscious decision for one thing. The biggest example for Five is his commitment to his family. The Hargreeves are a dysfunctional family, and Five didn’t escape this by jumping to the future. He’s hardly the perfect brother but he’s the most invested in his siblings nonetheless. He became a killer for them, threw morals out the window for the slim chance he might be able to save them. And as is established pretty quickly, he put his all into being a hitman, becoming the best there ever was. That fight scene in the diner speaks for itself. And slicing up his own arm to get at the tracker? Well, it’s pretty clear that when Five commits to something he doesn’t mess around.

Five and math. Here we hit a stereotype about autistic people and their ‘special interests.’ Yeah, it’s really common, but what most people don’t know is that the majority of those on the spectrum are not math geniuses, or geniuses of any other kind. My sister’s ‘special interest’ is still relatively useful, being science, but she’s not a genius. Mine is ‘stories.’ Books, movies, theatre, music, etc. I can devour fiction forever. It’s basically useless to society though, because I’m picky af. But okay, Five fits the stereotype and is a math genius, or at least where it applies to time travel. We see this in the flashback already. Ok, time travelling didn’t work out as he’d hoped, but he managed it at 13 when even Reginald didn’t think he could. This makes me think that his tendency to spend hours working out equations didn’t start in the apocalypse.

Does Five stim? If so, we don’t really see it. That doesn’t rule out autism though, because, well, it’s a spectrum. I only stimmed as a toddler. Some people don’t stim at all.

Vanya. Another theory I’ve seen thrown around is that Vanya is autistic. I’m not going to address that here, but I do want to say that if she is, that wouldn't affect whether or not Five is autistic. Autism is not personality after all, and they are very different people. Again, autism is a spectrum and nobody displays all the same traits. If you’re thinking it would be unrealistic for Reginald. To have adopted two kids with autism, think again. That one autistic sister of mine? Adopted as a baby before we had any idea that she was a mini me.

Five doesn’t appear obviously autistic. What most people don’t realize is that autism is at the end of the day an invisible disability. Most people will know someone at some point on the spectrum and never even realize it. Because sure, sometimes you’ll see us rocking under the table or otherwise displaying what movies have stereotyped as autistic behaviour, but most of the time you won’t notice. We’re the slightly overly bright cashier at Walmart, the quiet bookworm at school, your favourite author that writes emotions so well, the person at comic con who can recite their favourite movie line for line, that kid that gets along best with those older or younger then them. If Five is autistic we may never know, because he’s perfectly functional, but that's hardly and argument against autism either.

And finally; people relate. Nobody knows autism better then those with autism themselves, so I’m inclined to take all the posts I’ve seen about Autistic!Five as a pretty big point on the autism column.

To summarize; none of these points taken alone indicate autism, but together well.... it’s an option at least.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk, I will now open the stage to audience input before this monster grows any longer.

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thorinkingoferebor · 5 years

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24 hours later: i'm still outraged as ever & i've found a couple of new things to be outraged about that i somehow just missed yesterday. which is understandable. hard to keep track of all the fuck ups!

what was the point of euron fighting jaime? also how did they even end up together? that was another case of characters just conveniently appearing at the right time at the right location (which is like euron’s mine character trait at this point: randomly showing up without any real reason just to fuck shit up in the most annoying way possible). Also: why didn't Jaime just go for this route the first time around?! he might have even made it in time. why is euron so obsessed with killing jaime? why is euron in general? what's his point? was he ever meant to be anything but a cheap plot device? everyone deserved better than this

the fact that the unsullied officers just left tyrion with jaime no questions asked is probably the dumbest moment of the entire episode. dany has often and loudly questions tyrion's loyalty but nothing suspicious about tyrion (THE HAND OF THE QUEEN) wanting to stand guard outside the tent and sending everyone else away. like what's he gonna do? free the person he clearly loves most in the world with a key that just magically appeared in his hand while davos somehow sneaks past the entire greyjoy fleet to leave a boat at the foot of the red keep? naaah (how did davos get back from there btw? did he tow another boat? was he not alone? why am i even trying to make sense of this we all know this plot was written on a piece of toilet paper)

and what's with dany never learning of jaime's escape?! someone must have checked on such a high profile prisoner in the morning? someone must have noticed and told dany who just hours ago threatened tyrion with death should he ever betray her. why did noone come up with the idea to use jaime as a hostage??? but guess everyone just forgot about him, just like the writers forgot about his arc :))))))))))))))))))

where did all the dothraki come from? why are there still so many unsullied left? it sure looked like 90% of them died in winterfell. then we see a significant number in episode five and in the trailer for episode 6 it looks like thousands??? do they just respawn? are we following video game logic now? (btw remember when soldiers had actual personalities? when was the last time an unsullied beside grey worm or a dothraki did anything to remind us they're more than npcs. what do they think about all of this? what did they think about the army of the dead? how are they coping? why was everyone suddenly ok with senseless violence against children even though dany has been saying for years she doesn't want that. yeah sure, she started the kings landing BBQ but she was in a completely different part of the city. there was no way for the foot soldier to know that she was indeed butchering civilians and not just wiping out the last remainders of the lannister forces that hadn't put down their weapons. i’m glad though that they all apparently learned to communicate with each other telepathically otherwise they would be as freaking lost as me rn

one thing the books and previous seasons have been really good at is small little world-building elements that pay off later. and they could have used that in season 8! there wasn't any need to introduce new stuff they could have just used what's already there. they did well on that account with lyanna, jorah and theon. Theon probably had the best arc this season tbh (not a tough competition but it's something) and died a stark and a greyjoy. His identity was the major theme of his journey and seeing it played out this way was satisfying! Lyanna and Jorah both embodied "Here We Stand" in their final moments (Jorah quite literally) and that was wonderful! Why couldn't we get something like this for the Lannisters? Why couldn't we get one final, brilliant scene with cersei trying to turn the tide (backup plan? never heard of it). Don't get me wrong, Lena's acting was fantastic but why couldn't we get a "Hear me roar" moment? Her arc was tide to house Lannister more than any other and yet we didn't get anything? Why didn't we get any rewarding rains of castamere parallels? if they're set on wiping house lannister off the map why not show the tragedy and irony of it. why not remind of us tywin's fantastic speech in season 2? they could have used any of those themes but they didn't???

i'm still not even ready to begin to vocalize my opinions regarding jaime. every time i think about it i can feel my life drain out of me. what a fucking waste you guys

what i can vocalize now however is how much i do hate cersei's end and how they treated lena. I cannot get over that. like i realize she is a villain and i realize she is not meant to be a sympathetic character and she never had a chance to get redemption or get out alive but the show treated her like dirt in the end and just like jaime she was eventually reduced to the incest plotline. she started this show out as someone completely at the mercy of the men in her life (her father, her husband) and while jaime was a big part of her arc her main objective was always throwing off that control and taking it herself. sure she overdid it massively and became power hungry but that power hunger is a direct result of the way she was brought up and everything she was forced into/everything she was denied. weirdly, her conflicts are very similar to brienne's. both women didn't want the roles their peers tried to force them into, both women wanted to escape and both women assumed to do so they would have to take on male traits. brienne did that by rejecting her womanhood completely for 7 seasons and aspiring to be a knight. cersei took a very different route. maybe because she had that option (brienne couldn't mould herself into a proper lady unlike her) or maybe because that was literally her only option (imagine tywin's reaction to cersei putting on armour...). in the years that follow cersei and brienne obviously take very different paths and they have very different personalities but just as brienne deserved her knighthood and the affections and acceptance of the man she loves, cersei would have deserved to be free of men trying to decide her fate for her. but she never was. first it was her father, then robert, then her father again, then the high sparrow and when she finally wiped them all out she had to let another man she despised into her bed to maintain power. brienne managed to escape the confines of male-dominated society forced on her, cersei never did. they could have either shown her finally free before her death, free of the men that tried to control her all her life, free of the power hunger, free of societies expectations or they could have had her face her ugly deeds. i doubt she would have ever regretted any of it but it would have been so much more satisfying to see her properly outsmarted, to see her face off either dany or sansa or jon (or even tyrion or jaime had his character arc not been ruined before that). she was a fantastic, complex villain until she basically just started to stare off into the distance. it would have been so satisfying to see her face reality before the end. Instead, we got rocks. but even that scene (as beautifully as it's acted) isn't satisfying. cersei, who has never been one to just weep helplessly, is first reduced to begging jaime for her life & to save their child (AGAIN WHAT WAS THE POINT! I WILL NEVER GET IT!) and then she keeps freaking out because she doesn't want to die at all and certainly not this way (very self-centred as always whereas jaime is much calmer and at peace with what's about to happen and ready to take care of her even though he’s worse off) . i don't know if this was intentional or just a happy accident but even in those final scenes it's very obvious that the love cersei has for jaime is not the same kind of love jaime has for her. i guess they both ended up wanting to die in each others arms seconds before it happened so there’s that. but it’s a cheap ending for the best actress in the show before they robbed her of all opportunities to shine

oh and lena's instagram combined with her body double’s yet unseen work on the show has now convinced me that we're incredibly likely to see cersei's and jaime's mutilated bodies/heads next week. can't wait to see their characters disrespected on a whole new level jfc i’m so tired

i can't even think about brienne these days. absolutely seething. at this point i would prefer it if the brienne/jaime romance had never happened in ep. 4. if they'd stuck to glances and meaningful gestures at least it would have made more sense. brienne would have been his "what if" when they erased jaime's character development and made him return to cersei (which i maintain could have made sense because no matter what jaime will always love his family no matter how much he also hates them IF ONLY THEY HAD PUT IN THE FUCKING WORK). but she's not a "what if" now is she. she is his "this happened and it was good and important" but we're just going to forget this. we're just going to forget that the last 8 seasons have been leading up to this point. we're gonna forget that for the entire first half of season 8 jaime didn't even flinch at the thought of cersei dying. four episodes of jaime glued to brienne's side and then we're just expected to believe he doesn't care after all. then we're just supposed to believe she is never mentioned again and no thought of her crosses his mind or anyone else's for that matter (looking at you tyrion). I genuinely don't get what the point of that romance was then. to keep jaime in winterfell for a bit longer so him getting captured would make more sense? i feel like there were like a million ways to get the same outcome without throwing brienne under the bus. brienne and her entire arc were used as a cheap plot device for jaime and it wasn't even worth it cause they then butchered jaime's arc. god i'm so angry.

remember the last time a tv show fucked up in the last episode? yeah, dexter! i'm calling it now: got will end exactly like dexter in terms of plot and level of satisfaction. jon will kill dany (a family member/romantic interest) and then go north to spend his day in the wilderness (lumberjacking away miserably)

the more i think about it there is not a single thing about this episode that actually makes sense. this goes beyond plotholes, this is just a plain hole

#text posts by thea #thea watches got #this is my last big rant i promise #just need to get this stuff off my chest as well #it's a coping mechanism #got spoilers

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avenger-hawk · 5 years

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It's interesting to me that you described Itachi as 'controlling'. And while it should be obvious to me that he IS controlling because he is very good if not a master at planning things out and executing them, I never viewed him as controlling. But i think that may be because I dont think of controlling people as being calm and cool-minded like Itachi. I view Itachi as a sweet- hearted person who was put into a bad situation. Do you have more posts about Itachi being controlling? I'm intrigued.

(Before I start let me remind you guys that I’m writing my opinion on my blog and I’m not up to debate. if you disagree I couldn’t care less)

Don’t take it personally but imo sweet hearted Itachi is so OOC it hurts. I know that a thousand blogs will you otherwise cause they agree with you but to me that’s a bad fan misconception stemmed from a bad understanding of the story and his personality. It’s pretty obvious that the gentleness of his soul, that even his father mentioned, has nothing to do with being a poor cinnamon roll too pure for this world and other meme bs.

Like I wrote here, Itachi is obsessed with control. Yup, he’s polite, he uses honorifics and respecting elders and superiors, buthis perfectly appropriate manners are part of the education of a perfect shinobi and a future clan leader, cause he would have become the Uchiha clan leader without the massacre. He loves peace, he wants to avoid conflicts between villages, he believes in the village as the very thing the founders created, and he’s against his clan’s rebellion, BUT he was first and foremost a shinobi, a soldier, who knew violence couldn’t be avoided. He’s idealistic about a perfect village but not a blind Konoha follower, he knows history well and he knows the way things really were. He threatened Danzo to spill their secrets if he harmed Sasuke, for example. He is a genius, always many steps ahead of everyone, his mind is better than anyone else’s, he doesn’t trust anyone but his own means, despite his noble ideals and his love for peace he is not a team worker.

He loves Sasuke more than anyone else, and he thinks he knows what’s best for him,but his methods were unorthodox, like his genius-like mind, so he hurt him more than anyone, even though he did it to spare his life and ensure him the safest life. Being a soldier, a shinobi since his early childhood, it’s only logical that he values Sasuke’s life and safety more than his mental sanity. He knows Konoha’s wrongdoings but still he think it’s better for Sasuke to live there. He loves Sasuke, he lives for Sasuke, he wants Sasuke to be safe and ALIVE. To ensure this he uses every possible mean, even if they mean harm for Sasuke, because in the long term they’ll all keep Sasuke safe and make him strong.

He’s extremely self-confident. He’s the opposite of Sasuke who has a low self-esteem (and no, don’t give me the selfish Sasuke cause it’s OOC or the arrogant Sasuke cause that’s an act) . He’s selfless cause he sacrifices so much for Sasuke, but he does it in a ‘selfish’ way, cause he chose what to do for Sasuke and how. He takes full responsibility for his actions, and he controls each and every outcome of every action, literally fighting death back, in order to let Sasuke “kill” him during their fight, so that he would have his revenge (and return to Konoha as a hero, and obtain MS. He literally donates his life to his loved one) and he admitted his past mistakes like no other character did.

As for where to find more controlling Itachi in my blog, you can try reading this, this, this, this and this but actually everything I write about Itachi mentions that cause I can’t stand the poor martyr Itachi fan idea. It’s so evident that I can’t understand why ppl don’t see it. What does being calm have to do with not being controlling? It’s not something only loud people have, in fact that’s being bossy maybe, but controlling is something that people can do both blatantly and covertly. Also those who control others in a calm, silent way are way more effective. Itachi was a master of manipulation and manipulation is a huge form of control. He once manipulated his father into going to Sasuke’s Academy ceremony. He manipulated Sasuke basically the whole time, he used to be a double spy so he used that skill on the job and in Akatsuki later.

People, and well written characters, aren’t black or white. They have good and bad traits, and the combination of them makes them fascinating. If there is no dark side the bright side is dull. Itachi is smart and indeed has a gentleness in his soul, and he showed it to Sasuke when he was a child, to Shisui and probably to his parents, on rare occasions. But the side that stands out the most was the strong-willed shinobi who hated to lose, as Shisui mentioned in the Shinden book, and Shisui sure knew him well. Even if more often than not he wore a mask figuratively speaking, and he hid his gentler side, it doesn’t mean he was a poor bby so gentle so sweet cause if he really were so, he wouldn’t have been able to pretend to be tough, detached, cold his whole life. He wouldn’t have resorted to that level of manipulation, cruelty and violence on Sasuke, not even to save his life. His decisions and actions stem from desperation because of Danzo’s blackmail, but they way he carried them out is part of his personality. His love for Sasuke, and his dream of peace, add depth to his personality, but the way he acted with Sasuke and for Sasuke speaks volumes of his controlling nature.

My Itachi essays tag. My tags masterpost btw.If you’re on mobile and can’t open links blame tumblr app that sucks, and use a web browser. It’s not my fault.

#anti-martyr Itachi #anti-sasuita #just in case #cause this characterization mostly comes with sas*ita and shiita or uncle itachi and ugh no thanks #I've stopped liking shiita because of this #vivalarevolution: in his defense #vivalarevolution

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quicklyseverebird · 5 years

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Adoption arguements

I am posting the full history of this conversation to give context, and leaving off the name of the speaker because I don’t want this to be a hatchet job or have it look like I want this person hassled. Ultimately the position is what I want to address, not the person, who is undoubtedly sincere.But sincerity doesn’t mean right. This came about from a post discussing the value of adoption where this individual pointed out many adoptees have complaints. I choose to do this this way mostly because I don’t want to feel limited by the PM system, and because I have very strong feelings following this exchange.

Them:

If you can, check out the following links to see what I mean. https://twitter.com/DebbieGarratt/status/1188565960061378560?s=19 https://twitter.com/DebbieGarratt/status/1188585006311989248?s=19 https://twitter.com/DebbieGarratt/status/1188592298021404674?s=19 Also, their living status doesn't outweigh adoptees' complaints about their adoptions if they're almost 4x more likely to attempt suicide.

And this too: https://adoptionsurveysblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/14/results-in-adult-adoptee-perceptions-in-closed-adoption/

[for reference, the twitter posts says this]:

Me:

I'm a little bit confused as to what you are debating? That adoption carries hardship and some mental trauma? Sure. Life has that too. Would it be better if adoption took place within the family? Of course! I think anyone would agree with that so long as family isn't abusive or drug ridden. I HATE what that woman said in the twitter. What kind of monster do you have to be to say that to a child? Talk about causing mental trauma... And no, the fact that they are alive definately outweighs any other factor. Unless you're going to argue that a higher percentage of suicide means they are better off dead to begin with? If so, will you advocate for the death of transgender people who have suicide rates 20 x the national average? That's absurd. Adoption comes with hardship, absolutely. hardship increases chances of suicide, matter of fact. I would like to see those graphs plotted against a random selection of the population to see how they compare to norms. I didn't happen to see the 4x figure. but then I'm trying to get to bed now, lol. I'm just confused as to what your position is. Abortion is better than adoption?

Them:

No, I am a pro-lifer and so is Debbie and some of these adoptees. We just don't think that claiming another person's child as your own is a beneficial or necessary way to care for a child from a crisis pregnancy. It's because many pro-lifers believe that it is that many adoptees are turned off by the pro-life movement. Legal guardianship is a good way to take in a child who doesn't have any relatives who aren't willing or able to care for them, but adoption is not necessary and can and often does cause a lot of the trauma that's described in those links. As for what kind of monster would say that to an adoptee, it's the same kind of monster who will say to a homosexual, "that 'love is love' and 'born this way' lines are nothing more than propaganda and I was a fool to believe otherwise". This is what adoptees will say because they know this first-hand and they know that they're far from alone in this.

Me:

I just...I can't fathom ever saying that kind of thing to a child. Talk about destroying a child's confidence and self image and making them suicidal. I can't think of a single child that line could ever help. The lines to a homosexual are bad because they are wrong. Telling an adoptee they are special is not only kind, it is also true. After all, they ARE special. Each one is special to God, and each one is made special by the love of others for them. They WERE chosen, literally! To say to a child, "no, you were unwanted and not special, but that's ok, you're not less than anyone else..." I mean, that literally sends two opposite messages. I don't know if you are a Christian, but God himself says that we, as believers are adopted sons and daughters of God. The term is applied to us. And once again, if there is someone in the family that could take them in, that's great. We agree on that, certainly. And I believe the courts do as well. That's a form of adoption, in fact. But if they can't, then adoption outside the family would be the next step. Any family will have its issues, but I believe adoption is a net positive outcome situation. I don't...I just don't understand what you are fighting against.

Them:

You're misunderstanding what we're talking about. The grown adoptees are not saying to an adoptee that he/she isn't inherently special or chosen. They're saying to him/her that his/her parents didn't adopt him/her for those reasons, but because it was their last resort after trying to have children of their own. They're pointing out the selfish and covetous reasons for adopting a child that have little (if anything) to do with the child's best interests at heart. That's the reality with many adoptive parents and adoptees are sick of them trying to pretend otherwise. As for what we're fighting against, you're confusing taking in a child and caring for him/her to always mean adoption, but that's not the case. Adoption, as it is defined in the adoption community, is only one way of doing it. Another way to do it is with legal guardianship even if the child isn't related to the family. The difference between that and adoption is that adoption involves the extra step of the family severing the child's ties with his/her original family and claiming them as their own. That is the thing that adoptees and their allies find problematic and unnecessary and different from biblical adoption (which only involves adults being adopted for inheritance purposes) and that's what we're fighting against. Despite what adoptive parents and adoption agencies will tell you, blood ties are important because they make up a huge part of a person's origins and identity. It's one thing to choose or be chosen as part of a spiritual family, but it's another thing to completely severe ties with your original family to try to replace them with someone else. God wants us to honor our parents, including our biological parents, and that's really hard to do when our connections with them have been cut in all but DNA and our blood ties have been rendered insignificant.

Me:

Ok, you've given me a lot to think about and I believe I understand a little better what your position is, but before I reply, I need you to answer a couple questions to help me understand better how to do so. Were you adopted? Do you have children?

Them:

Neither, but I do know people in and outside my family who were teen/single moms and some people in real life who were adopted. And I used to have that pro-adoption mindset, until I saw some things that helped me understand what adoptees must feel about their parents rejecting/abandoning them. And not long after, I started doing research and reading a lot of testimonies from adoptees and bio moms (who are not always mutually exclusive, BTW) about the trauma that they've experienced from the relinquishment. There are whole blogs about it on Facebook and all over the Internet with a bunch of testimonies from writers, followers, and commenters. You can Google them and see what they have to say. And when you do, please just listen to them instead of trying to argue with them about adoption because they've already been through that and they're sick of it. There's also scientific research about it with biology and social science fields that you can also Google. Also, take note that just because some adoptee may seem happy with their adoptions doesn't mean that they actually are. They might actually be hiding their true feelings, in denial about it, or not having processed the trauma that they experienced at a young age. Many of the dissatisfied adoptees that I've heard from were once in that position.

Ok, deep breath.

First off, I think you are over-simplifying things enormously. And I think you fail to keep things in perspective. Are there bad parents, whether they adopt or not? Yes. Do some people adopt for the wrong reasons, or because they have no other option? Yes. Do some people have kids of their OWN for the wrong reasons? Yes. I think you are so focused on this one aspect of family life that you fail to remember that there are $****ty people everywhere. That parents can mess up, that kids can get hurt, no matter how they became a part of a family. Everything you say about adoptee kids above, can be said by natural children. You speak about how many websites there are from adopted kids talking about their hardships. Did you ever check to see how many websites there are about natural children talking about their families? Heck, that’s practically a rite of passage and a badge of honor these days for kids to complain about how much their families messed them up. If you wanted to make some kind of definitive statement about the value of adoption, you need to compare it to a baseline, which I don’t see that you have.

Now, I agree with you that separating kids from their families is a hardship. Would it be better for them to be “adopted” (by whatever form, or however you want to call it, becoming a part of a new set of guardians) within their extended family so they retain a sense of their roots? Certainly. However, that is not always possible, or even desirable for a multitude of factors. Would you force the family to keep a child they didn’t want for the hypothetical value you think it would gain in being part of such a family? I would hope not. I think you oversimplify the types of adoption there are too. Not everything is closed. I have friends who adopted a child through the foster system that regularly sees his biological grandparents, even though the parents didn’t want him. There is a whole spectrum of adoption formats, each having their own unique dynamics and struggles.

Now I also agree with you that adopted kids are likely to have some unique struggles of their own. Some hardships that natural children aren’t going to have. Some will be unique to their circumstances, such as feelings of abandonment and issues of self worth because of their birth mother giving them up. Some will be due to the genetics or condition of their birth. You talk about adopted kids having a suicide rate 4x higher than the norm. Assuming that’s true, there are other factors at work here that could contribute to this apart from them just being “adopted.” Many women who give up their babies have medical, genetic, mental or drug issues that lead to their not only giving up the child, but having it in the first place. How many adoptee kids are born with damage due to their mother’s drug or alcohol use? How many kids are given up because they themselves have medical issues their parents don’t want to deal with? My pastor adopted a daughter who has had lifelong struggles with medical issues almost certainly due to her mother’s lifestyle and who was surrendered for adoption in part because of those medical issues. These things are present in a higher concentration among adoptees than the general public, which itself would lead to a higher risk of mental illness and suicide. You are only looking at one factor, adoption, and making a simplistic correlation: If X is with Y than Y is caused by X, ignoring factors A, B, C and Z.

Once more I want to freely admit that people can adopt for the wrong reasons. Absolutely true. But, how many people have babies for equally wrong reasons? Which child has it better: the one who was adopted by a loving family because mom was a crack addict and got knocked up by her pimp, or a child conceived and kept by the biological mother so she could collect child support from the baby daddy? Chances are, over all, the adopted child has it better. While there is value in knowing where you come from, good or bad (think about the huge popularity of ancestry.com and similar sites, even if knowing your ancestors came from 20 different countries has no meaningful effect on your day to day life), it is not a magical panacea that cures all things. Often, that knowledge can be just as damaging, or moreso, than ignorance is. Substitute “child” for “adoptee” in your comments above and the result would be equally true. Not to mention you fail to consider the dynamic of “The Review.” When you’re looking to purchase an item online, you will check the reviews to see what people think. The problem here, is that, statistically, the only people who tend to comment are the ones who either had a GREAT experience with it and want to share, or the people who had a horrible experience and want to vent. The vast majority don’t bother and continue on with their lives. Only the vocal ones are seen and noted. Its why anecdotal evidence is meaningless. Now your statistical data has some value, but without a comparison to a control, it’s useless. Some 30% or so of them have considered suicide in the past. Ok, but what % of people in general consider suicide at some point in their life? I did myself, and I’m not an adoptee.

Now to get to the issue that has me fired up. That quote by Debbie and your claim that telling kids “the truth” that they aren’t special has some value. Now I understand that what you mean is, telling kids they weren’t adopted BECAUSE they were special. But saying that to a child, and telling them they were adopted because they weren’t wanted by their parents, and the adopted parents wanted them because they couldn’t have kids of their own is….is…

I want to be clear here. I am not using hyperbolic language. I am not trying to be dramatic. I am giving my diagnosis of such an approach, as a mother with a teen daughter.

This. Is. Evil.

And I don’t mean that in a nebulous, general sense. I mean, telling that to a child, any child, at any age, or even an adult, is doing the literal Devil’s work. This is beyond despicable, beyond selfish. This is wicked, horrible, evil and cruel.

Now you and Debbie couch it in terms of, “well it’s just the truth, give up the fairy tale.” No. You are missing the point entirely. Even if everything you said is technically true, and they were given up because their parents were horrible people, and they were adopted by horrible people, you’re still wrong. Someone is not made special because of who gave birth to them or who adopted them. They aren’t made special by their family. Every single woe you declare present in the life of an adopted child would be made worse by them hearing such a statement.

Now before you respond with indignation and outrage, saying “but what we really mean is…” I want you to think about how this would sound if said to a non-adopted child. Because in large part it can be. Everything Debbie said could be applied to many children:

“You aren’t chosen, you aren’t special. You were born even though your parents didn’t want you, couldn’t afford you, or were forced to.” You can even riff off of this same idea with, “You were just born because your parents forgot to wear a condom, or Mommy was trying to get Daddy to marry her, or they were drunk one night, etc, therefor you aren’t special.” Same exact energy.

If I said that to a child from the inner city, living with his single mother, you would be horrified. It doesn’t matter if I followed it up with a: “Oh by the way, you’re not less than anyone else, you aren’t here because of a sin and you deserve to be here.” The only thing you or that child is going to hear and remember is the first part, and it, quite frankly, refutes and negates anything said in the second half. Saying that to a child will scar them. Because, in fact, that child IS special, regardless of the circumstances of its birth. And it quite likely is wrong anyways, since it’s based on a host of simplistic assumptions.

Seriously now, you talk about the hardships adoptees face due to their circumstances and you honestly believe telling a child, or even an adult, who is already struggling with self worth and their identity, what Debbie says, is going to help them? Are you insane? If someone is struggling with depression, will telling them they aren’t special, but buck up anyways, is going to help? Will it help someone who is part of a population with 4X the suicide rate? Will it help anyone?

The answer is no. Because it is a lie framed as a “brutal/honest truth,” and to say it to anyone, especially a child, is literally evil. Even if it WERE true, as the Bible says, “speak the truth in love.” There is no love in that statement. Adoptees face many struggle, by your own arguments. You aren’t helping.

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scuttleboat · 6 years

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It's gonna be hard, it is gonna hurt, but Bellarke can and will grow beyond this.

(a comment on this post where I mention it’s impossible to classify ‘regret’ on tv)

(FYI record this kind of general-thoughts comment doesn’t need to be anonymous, you can just send it with your name on it. I’d prefer that because then we can have future conversations and I will know who I’m talking to.)

*smacks hands* OKAY MANY THOUGHTS HERE

I more or less agree with you that probably neither character truly regrets their actions, because they think that they were necessary. The show made it crystal clear why both of them thought they had to act to protect their loved ones, at least to this viewer typing now before you. So ‘forgiveness’ may not unfold for Bellarke this time the way it has in the past.

LIMITS OF THE MEDIUM

The thing is, with television one can only go to a certain level of understanding a character's inner feelings. With a book you can explain EVERYTHING they feel. With a musical or voice over, you can explain most of what they feel. With a traditional drama like t100, we can only go so-so deep. There's the script, the acting, the cinematic atmosphere, the music, and the editing. Each of those factors is subjective; even the script is up for interpretation as for how candid it is about a character's true feelings vs their presented feelings.

It's pretty unlikely that we're ever going to get a full explanation of how each Clarke and Bellamy are feeling about what happened, and that's fine. For myself, as a writer my natural inclination is to immediately build up headcanons for what I guess that each of them may be going through, such as I might turn into a fanfic. What I come up with is going to be a lot more specific and multilayered than what the show could possibly communicate through the screen medium. Sometimes I think people in fandom trick themselves into thinking that a show can explain it all, and when it doesn't, they think it means that character isn't feeling those things. The character isn't showing enough sadness, or not showing it the right way, for example. But there's only so much television can do, and the fact that we must fill in the rest is kind of... our privilege. That's where a viewer has the power to create their own experience in the story. So I could talk for ages about the micro nuances for how I think Clarke is feeling, but most of that will be my headcanon, at the end of the day. Which means it won't match up with everyone else.

REGRET, REMORSE, AND ALL THAT JAZZ

People put a lot of weight on words like "regret" or "sorry" but those can be complex emotions. Also, side rant, I think people really mean remorse, not regret. I think Clarke and Bellamy both felt extraordinary pain this episode, but I also think that overall, both of them would stand by their choices and their reasoning (Chash has a fanfic up right now actually that explores this dilemma thoughtfully.) However, looking at how the episode actually ENDED, I think its possible to have regrets that you did something, now that you've seen it fail. Like when you start a thing, you hope it will work and you feel justified in doing it. But then it fails and you're up shit creek! Might actually be executed! Lost your BFF! Those are major and valid reasons to regret doing something. Time machines WOULD BE SO USEFUL TO UNDO THAT WHOLE MESS. But feeling "omg if I'd known it would end like this I would have done something else" does not invalidate the logic path or the emotional context of why you did it. It doesn't mean you weren't making what you thought was your best choice in that moment, given the information you had.

That's where I think Bellamy and Clarke will be at next week. Bellamy probably regrets his plan for the fact that it ended so badly--but he won't apologize for trying to save his family and do the right thing. Those motives were not wrong, to his eyes. But yeah, if someone had prophesied "btw if you try this Clarke will get out and flee with Madi and instead of a peace alliance you'll just end up in a death ring" then of course he wouldn't do it. Similarly, if back in 508 someone told Clarke "Hey this plan to kill Cooper will start a chain of events where Bellamy puts the Flame in Madi, you leave him to die and Octavia wakes up worse than ever" then of course she would not do it. I'm sure she's regretting the hell out of how all this went down. But that doesn't mean Clarke would ever apologize for prioritizing her daughter, or that she would /regret/ trying to sabotage the Ascension. Clarke has achieved her immediate goal of stopping Madi from being Commander, and to Clarke that is worth anyone's life, even Bellamy's. Clarke sees being Commander as a death sentence, especially for 11-to-12 year old nightblood children. It was like three days ago that she stopped Gaia from murdering Niylah over this. People were already willing to kill to put Madi in power or to keep her out of power; the threat is real. Clarke won't regret escaping with Madi. But I do think, if I were writing a story about her inner thoughts, that she's gonna be plagued with remorse that she didn't do it sooner, that she didn't have a better plan or anticipate what was going to happen. Clarke loves Bellamy and leaving him to maybe be executed is a terrible thing. She could spend A LIFE TIME replaying the last couple days in her mind and speculating how both she and Bellamy could have made better choices. Smarter choices. Choices that didn't take them to this awful end.

In a response to another post that I wrote, @jeanie205 described Bellamy in 509 as "making one seemingly reasonable but ultimately unsuccessful decision after the other." I think that's an excellent way of looking at all of their choices over 508 and 509: The plan to kill Cooper. The plan to destroy the worms. The plan to put Octavia in a coma. The plan for Indra to lead a surrender. The plan to make Madi Commander. The plan to stop the Ascension before Madi is chipped. All of these were founded on the logic and emotions that the characters had at the time, and all of them were unsuccessful. The worst outcomes happened instead. On t100, mistakes have life & death consequences.

I think that Clarke and Bellamy have a lot to regret about the decisions that they made to take them to where they are now. But I don't think either of them regret doing everything that they can to save their loved ones. I don't think Clarke needs to aplogize for picking Madi's life over Bellamy's life. I don't think that Bellamy needs to apologize for trying to save Raven, Echo, Murphy, and Emori from being consumed alive by worms from the inside out. How do you apologize for pain you've caused someone without conceding that your motives were somehow wrong? Because what if your motives WEREN'T wrong at all... But you're still so fucking sorry that someone you love is now suffering? And there's always that gem t100 goes back to: How do you respect yourself when you will sink to any depths of behavior to achieve your goals? When you manipulate and mortally endanger a child that trusts you, or leave a man you love behind to be held for treason and likely execution...can you forgive yourself? Can you at least suck in your breath and swallow your pain and endure til tomorrow?

GOING FORWARD

This is where Clarke and Bellamy are gonna be, headspace wise. Struggling to absorb the internal conflicts. Struggling to move forward past these terrible things while knowing that they partially brought it on themselves and each other. Also accepting that some of what happened wasn’t their fault because they couldn’t control the actions of others who would do them harm.

They've both been in these situations before. They've accepted and moved on before, and the foundation of love between them hasn't changed. It's gonna be hard, it is gonna hurt, but Bellarke can and will grow beyond this.

#the 100 meta #bellarke #clarke griffin #bellamy blake #the 100 season 5 #the 100 5x09 #bellarke meta

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sol1056 · 6 years

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pacing and progress: scenes

A story is a collection of scenes in which stuff happens, but every scene’s gotta be doing work. If it’s not, it’s filler, and needs to be cut. Seriously: make every word count.

A scene has two sections. The first (aka the scene) begins with a stated purpose (goal), has an obstacle in the way of that goal (conflict), and an outcome that progresses the story, forward or sideways (disaster). You could say it’s an ‘outcome’ but 'disaster’ is closer to the kind of monkey-wrench work you want that final bit to have. Either way, it must grow organically from the conflict/obstacle.

The second half (aka a sequel, yes, it’s awkward, I don’t make the rules) consists of processing the disaster (reaction), considering what this means and what to do (dilemma), and the choice of a new goal (decision). Btw, the sequel doesn’t have to be its own thing; it can be as short as a paragraph or a single line of dialogue, as long as it hits those notes.

In general, I find it works best to consider the two parts (scene and sequel) as a complete unit, and the length of each will also help with pacing. If you want a story to slow down, lengthen your sequel-section and let the characters have more time to mull. If you want to speed up a story, shorten the sequel-section to a sentence or maybe a short paragraph. It’s also best to vary it up slightly; if it’s always scene-then-sequel at the same beat, the story will feel boring, no matter how much is happening.

What you don’t want to do is scenes with no sequel beats; you’ll just exhaust your readers. You’re literally never giving the story a chance to breathe. At the opposite end, you don’t want a story that’s 90% sequel, either, because that’s just pure reaction without action, and it gets dull.

Okay, let’s look at two examples in VLD.

S4E1: Keith and the Blades sneak into a military base.

Scene: Kolivan wants information about the quintessence (goal); Keith fails to be stealthy and guards are alerted (conflict); Keith rescues teammate, gets info, barely makes it in time (disaster).

Sequel: Kolivan is angry Keith takes risks (reaction), he needs to get Keith to stop (dilemma); and... he ends up letting Keith’s response go unchallenged (decision).

It’s a short scene with decent stakes, and if you have the room in your story, Kolivan’s non-decision at the end works to establish the status quo: Kolivan orders, Keith screws it up, Kolivan lets it go. You want the decision (resolving the dilemma) to become the goal for the next scene.

And, in fact, it does. In the next Blade infiltration scene, the stated goal is again ‘get information’, and again the conflict is Keith having different ideas of what to do -- he wants to investigate. Since Kolivan’s previous decision seems to have amounted to ‘why do I even bother,’ he concedes to Keith’s demand in this scene, and cue disaster. This time, Kolivan’s reaction is to demand they go, again Keith refuses, and the scene closes with Kolivan’s decision to pick Keith up and just haul him away, which leads into the next scene.

Where this falls down is that this becomes a pattern, rather than breaking into a new goal via the decision point. The result is Kolivan comes across as inept at managing rebellious underlings like Keith (echoed by Regris ignoring Kolivan’s orders to evacuate). It could also be taken (as I saw some viewers do) as Kolivan disinterested in keeping his underlings alive despite stupid mistakes.

S2E3: Ulaz’ death and Shiro’s grief

Scene: The team must defend themselves from a robeast (goal); the robeast is too powerful (conflict); Ulaz has the technology to take the robeast down, at the cost of his own life (disaster).

Sequel: Shiro grieves over his unanswered questions (reaction), must weigh his desire for knowledge vs Zarkon’s pursuit (dilemma), realizes they have to shake Zarkon first (decision).

These scenes are almost seamless with the rest of the episode; multiple characters move the story forward, and scenes do double- and triple-duty, resulting in multiple parallel decision points. Shiro learning about his missing year exposes Keith to the Marmora symbol, which in turn creates a new goal for Keith of finding out more, etc.

In the first example; the actual goal -- get useful information -- doesn’t impact the overall storyline to a significant enough degree to be worth the attention paid. Keith’s stated goal is to follow the quintessence to find Lotor, but nothing comes of it; Lotor instead finds Keith. Kolivan’s purpose of finding out what the empire’s up to also comes to nothing; whatever information they find never becomes a plot-point in some next step.

In other words, the Blade scenes at the start of S4 exist to fill a purpose which is almost entirely exposition: Keith doesn’t fit in with the Blades, Keith values his work with the Blades; here’s an excuse to put Keith on a bus. And lastly, Keith’s goal drives a wedge between him, the team, and Shiro.

Compare that to Shiro’s decision in S2E3, which drives almost four episodes of action. A solidly-written decision should shape the downstream events.

When a scene is doing its job, something must change. Either the character overcomes the obstacle, reflects, and decides on a new goal, or the character fails, reflects, and tries a new approach. That series of repeated failures (or, at least, less than great successes) forms the try/fail cycle.

You get one opening like S4E1, and then it’s time to move along. You’ve established the status quo, now it’s time to break it. Those scene-ending decisions are where the story pivots and moves away from that status quo.

It’s possible to knock a character back a step with the disaster, but if you do this too many times, that’s not failure. That’s sending the story backwards. If you can’t let a character go forward for some reason, then you need a disaster that will knock the character sideways.

If the conflict is Keith refusing to follow orders, then Kolivan’s decision shouldn’t be ‘keep doing what I’m doing’ but ‘give Keith a different set of responsibilities’ or ‘ground Keith until he behaves’. That decision would not only resolve the disaster caused by Keith not behaving, but also shift Keith’s goal from ‘information at any cost’ to, say, ‘don’t flunk this one’.

What it must be is organic: the decision stems from the dilemma, which is raised by the reaction, which is directly tied to the disaster, which should be one of two or three ways out of or around the obstacle, which should be a logical result of having the goal. If Shiro had reacted to Ulaz’ death with upset, stated the choice was to find the Marmora (new goal) or evade Zarkon (existing goal) and then decided to upgrade the lions, the scene has failed because his choice doesn’t follow from the options in his dilemma.

This isn’t to say you can’t throw a curveball. You just have to figure out what the decision should be and work backwards from that. The Olkari stopover is a lazy curveball: upon getting the distress call, the team conveniently forgets the ‘we don’t want Zarkon following us’ priority. The episode’s events literally come out of left field, and worse, there are no consequences (ie, Zarkon showing up). If fear of Zarkon was enough to hold off contacting the Marmora, it should’ve been enough to hold off on landing on a side planet to make a different set of friends.

The simple work-around is to introduce the need as a new conflict. Shiro makes the decision to figure out how Zarkon finds them. That’s his goal going into the next scene, where the conflict is against Coran’s goal of repairing the castle. Make Coran’s goal dire enough, and Shiro’s goal is averted (sent sideways). That’s also where you get good tension -- Shiro wants A with good reason; Coran wants B, with equally good reason.

Your sequel POV could be Shiro, trying to be proactive in the dilemma of how to guard against Zarkon. Or it could be Coran, trying to make contact with the Olkari while keeping a low profile on the empire’s bandwidth.

In this scenario, Coran’s declaration acts as a curveball into Shiro’s decision, but it’s also organic to Coran’s needs. Equally important, it takes Coran out of plot device territory and into being a character with agency: he has a set of objectives of his own, and can push the story in the direction he needs it to go.

Plus, now you have an episode that addresses a goal. Keep in mind the consequences of Shiro’s averted goal, though. If nothing happens, it’ll either make Shiro look like a worrier without cause, or it’ll make any outcomes feel unearned.

That said, there’s another aspect to scene structure, and that’s where in the story it goes. As much as it’s pleasant to watch characters be proactive, consistently smart decisions mean there’s no room for learning by try/fail. In the first half of a story, the characters are still learning how to handle this strange new world (the breakage after the opening status quo), and they’re likely reacting more than acting.

In that case, Shiro’s decision to figure out Zarkon’s tactics should’ve backfired. That’s when a robeast would hit, and without allies, the team loses the fight (or gets away but at some great cost). Again, and again, until the cost is too high and they realize: they’ve been making the wrong decision (try/fail). They must find allies, even if they haven’t resolved how Zarkon is tracking them.

That would mean when they head for the Marmora, that additional unresolved threat is hanging over their heads, but they’re between a rock and a hard place. Fighting alone means they're at risk; fighting with others puts everyone else at risk, too (and any alliance). When your characters are choosing, over and over, between the lesser of two horrible choices, that’s when a story is ramping up to the midpoint and the make-or-break choice. After that, the cost of being reactive has become too much, and it’s time to get proactive.

For a really tight story, those proactive second-half decisions should reflect previous failures. If the failure in the first part was to hide from Zarkon rather than seek allies, then the second part’s decision should pivot on reaching out to allies. Let the characters learn their lessons from the ways they’ve failed.

#writing #plotting #voltron legendary defender #analysis #scenes #vld #voltron

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gotgifsandmusings · 7 years

Text

GoT 7x03 Musings

My initial reaction to “The Queen’s Justice”

^I dub thee “Casterly Castle”

I guess the title refers to Cheryl finally delivering that poetic justice for Madison’s death via Poison Ivy lipstick (which I’ve been told was only a thing Ivy did in Batman and Robin; she’s usually just more a dramatic biochemist nerd with pheromones. I’m so sorry, Ivy.). I guess it could also be Deadpan not randomly giving Jon her help for nothing in exchange, because that’s actually a decent sense of justice. It was pretty obvious D&D were writing this one again, with the nonversations featuring strongly. Let’s dive in.

Dragonstone

A lot happened here, and yet nothing did at all.

Jon is a fucking idiot for arriving with just Davos, and it’s beyond clear that he should have listened to Sansa and everyone else cautioning him from going, because he was immediately in a position where he had no capacity to defend himself, and nothing to offer Deadpan at all.

Really glad Tyrion reminded us HOW NICE he is about not raping Sansa when they were married. More points for him being THE BEST. Sorry. If you know me, you know this one is a specific bugaboo.

Some say the dragon CGI didn’t look good, but frankly it didn’t bother me that much. I was much more distracted by Tyrion’s alcoholism jokes and Jon’s mouth breathing

The Mel & Davos scene felt like it worked last night, but after reading over Jess’s review today, I have no idea why I thought that. Mel was literally just saying she was peacing out, and then creepily said she and Varys would both die in Weisseroff, so I guess they will. It was…fine? But also “the plot needs me over here now!”

I felt like Deadpan and Jonny were asserting different things every few minutes. I’m also assuming we’re supposed to view Deadpan as the spoiled entitled shittier leader, while Jonny is a man of the people who drops his g’s at the ends of his sentences.

this would have been somewhat possible to be sold if Jonny hadn’t been given a kingship for being the world’s biggest fucking idiot

Also, Tyrion’s point about “you should just kneel if this war to the North is all that matters to you” is really, really salient. Like…what did Jonny expect in this? He *said* Deadpan needs him, but actually how? What she needs his 4 surviving Wildlings? The Manderly forces?

Oh wait, that’s right, the whole theme of this season has been “how can we illogically deplete Deadpan’s massive and unbeatable army?” She learns about Yara’s fleet and decides not to keep Jonny as a prisoner, but a guest, before storming off.

I’m probably remembering this out of order, but we get some kind of war council scene where she suggests riding her dragon to like…BURN Euron’s wormhole-navigating fleet?

But no. Apparently she could get shot with an arrow so it’s never going to happen. Let’s ignore her biggest military advantage.

We also get Jonny & Tyrion 2.0: who broods best? Aka D&D write shitty lines for cheap fandom jokes.

It is kind of amusing to watch Jonny have his own idiocy pointed out to him

Then Tyrion runs to Deadpan and tells her to play nice, because she’s been a very naughty little school girl lately. Also they need allies because things are going tits up with his masterplan of incompetence. I just can’t take the fucking infantilizing tone, though I did legit laugh when Deadpan called him on “a wise ma n once said.”

Uhhh finally Deadpan & Jonny’s 2.0 scene? She decides to let him mine dragon glass because Tyrion asked nicely. I can’t think anything positively about either of their leadership capabilities, nor do I think D&D have much interest in showing them. Can we just get on to boat sex already?

Cheryl’s Landing

The biggest issue I have is how the smallfolk of Cheryl’s Landing are even more mercurial than the Northern Lords. Now they’re CHEERING Euron despite knowing Cheryl burned everything down? Why don’t they give any shits?

I don’t know who Euron is playing this week. Moriarity? Julia says a bad magician. Are we supposed to find him intimidating?

Legit found Cheryl’s approach to governance compelling this week. She secured an ally with a promise of marriage *after* the war is won (why the fuck is Euron so interested in this?), and was a savvy negotiator with the “we love the slave trade” Iron Bank of Braavos.

I can’t begin to deal with the Faullaria death scene. Longest fucking thing in the world, and it was just D&D reveling in murdering characters we hated because they put no depth into them. Everything about it was horrible, absolutely everything.

even the stupid “poetic justice” of the kiss. Just stop.

Larry loves Cheryl! Cheryl’s maid loves Cheryl’s style! What in the fuck is happening??

Winterhell

BRITTANY’S BACK

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings:

"a female character is empowered without resorting to violence, sexual manipulation, or dismissal of typically feminine-coded traits or activities" happened tho, with Sansa's ruling scene. It was one of the scenes I really enjoyed this episode (until littlefinger started to talk)

Yeah man, for sure. It was actually nice to watch, even if the larger pattern of their conception of empowerment is totally fucked. I have a feeling this one won’t be staying around

Also my god, that Batfinger speech was one of his worst yet. It makes chaos is a ladder seem like the smartest thing ever uttered. “See all possible outcomes”? Um…you didn’t, you fucking moron. Remember when the Sansa Marriage Strike blew up in literally everyone’s face?

at least Brittany wasn’t into it

Aaaaand then Bran came with a brand new personality! He wasn’t able to emote or give any shits about his sister, and then forced her to relive her trauma by talking about it in really creepy, deadpan, voyeuristic tones. Yay!

this Bran came out of NOWHERE. He became the Three Eyed Sydow last year (or something), so…where was this creepiness then? He seemed to be able to engage with Meera and Benjen and stuff. Was the baby crossfade THAT momentous?

I’m glad Brittany ran away from him. I rather stanned her this episode

Oh btw Theon is alive.

Apparently the Ironboors who survived can intuit exactly what happened on his ship, rather than thinking he got thrown overboard or something.

Hogwarts

I almost forgot this was in the episode

Greyscale is cured! Forever! This plot really mattered so much!

no are we supposed to be affected that Jorah was contemplating suicide? Are we supposed to care that Sam figured this out from what Jess described as a “wiki-how”?

just someone kick Sam out already. This is going nowhere

THE BATTLES

I’ll direct you back to Jess’s review if you haven’t read it already. She does an AMAZING job at explaining how Tyrion’s voice-over removed all dramatic tension.

Fuck traveling logistics, amirite? Of course Larry can sprint around Weisseroff in two weeks. I feel like they threw that timeframe in there just to piss us off.

Again, the importance of Casterly Castle was never in evidence. Larry didn’t care about it enough to abandon it. Tyrion described it as “impenetrable” and even went on to say how once inside, the Unsullied would *still* be outnumbered.

it makes Tyrion seem like an idiot, especially with Larry knowing he’d take it, so was this supposed to be his hubris? But it was never framed as hubris. So…

Oh look, Euron’s fleet warped from somewhere in between Cheryl’s Landing and Porne to Casterly Castle. That works!

Then Larry just warps and takes Highgarden off-screen, because apparently D&D say that the Tyrells are shitty fighters. What. No seriously, what? Where did that even come from? And taking a castle is still kind of a big deal.

^this was a tad disappointing for Highgarden.

Frankly, where did the Tyrell army even go? Tarly’s an important bannerman, but not like ALL of it

The best part was that Diana Rigg seemed as happy to be done with this stupid show as I was for her, so there was a good amount of energy in her scene.

the whole “Cheryl is the worst” thing didn’t land as usual, especially when immediately followed by her confession about murdering Joffrey, but she was just so gosh darn plucky about it!

Aaaand that’s all I’ve got! Boy Deadpan sure is in a pickle that her amazing “divide and fail to conquer” plan was as bad as @turtle-paced described it last week. Add to that Larry’s sudden competence, and she just might yet need Jonny!

Top 3 nitpicks:

Casterly Castle being single-handedly built by Tywin and Tyrion having actually constructed the sewers himself. Not just running them…constructed them.

The Iron Bank investing in the slave trade

The smallfolk LOVE Euron and Cheryl now

Did this land for you? I was seeing tweets about how smart the writing was and just...WHAT. Though Brittany was boss ass, if I may say so myself.

#episode musings #got 7x03 #the queen's justice

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sometimesrosy · 7 years

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What main characters in the 100 do you consider as selfless?

All right. I think there are selfless characters in this story, but I am not considering being selfless to actually be an admirable trait. Or not totally admirable. Let me explain why.

Someone like Abby will risk her life to do the right thing or to save her daughter or both. But she is definitely doing it for herself and her love of her daughter and self identity and such. And what that means is she actually thinks about the repercussions of things and how what she wants interacts with what is right and how the rest of the world works. She isn’t BLINDLY selfless.

Someone like JAKE, was selfless. He risked his life in order to do what was right, and was willing to give up his life to do it. This was actually kind of stupid and defeated his purpose, because he didn’t recognize the effect this would have on people around him, notably his daughter, who, in echoing his selfless behavior, threw herself onto the same sword and was imprisoned and given a death sentence for it. Not only did his selflessness affect his loved ones, but it also affected the outcome of his goal– to save everyone on The Ark and tell the truth– because the truth was silenced, the oppressive regime continued their oppression enacting even more draconic punishments, AND the head of engineering was no longer around to work on solving this problem, whether that entailed simply fixing the air system, which he couldn’t do, or finding creative solutions to the problem… which ABBY found. And she found it out of selfISHness, because she was desperate for a way to save Clarke from being floated on her 18th birthday.

I think there are some characters that people THINK are being selfless, when really they are sacrificing one thing so they can have another that they want more. That’s not selfless. If you give up love so that you can have power, that’s not selfless. You want to have POWER. You are doing it in your self interest. f you decide later that you want love more and then sacrifice your power for that love, you still aren’t being selfless. You are then wanting to have LOVE. Still self interest. This can be seen in both Lxa and Jaha. Where their personal self interest is subsumed into their zealotry. What they want for themselves isn’t their motivation (until it is) but rather, their dominance over other people. They believe they are the only ones who truly understand and their beliefs, wisdom and power comes first. Not selfless.

I think there are some characters who are selfless, but perhaps have a really twisted idea of what selfless means and how they give themselves to their people. Like, a character like Dante Wallace is pretty selfless in that he’s willing to take on the burden of evil so his people don’t have to worry about it, but it doesn’t really work like that, as those people are STILL bearing it and still responsible for their acceptance of the evil so that they can benefit. He’s just giving them an excuse for pretending they don’t have a choice in the atrocities they are taking part of because they didn’t order it themselves. Because they follow him. Is that selfless? Or does he want his people to survive so much that he would do anything to reach his goal? Is his self interest driven by the survival of those he considers his tribe? I think so. Thus not selfless but self interest.

So let me think about who the selfless characters are and which ones I think are most effective in their selflessness. Maybe these won’t be surprises.

Maya Vie. She saw that what her people were doing was wrong, and while she went along with it for years, knowing it, when she reflected upon who her people really were and what they would do for their self interest, she stood up and faced down her own selfishness, her own desire to survive (which she never gave up btw) and did the right thing, not only sacrificing her loved ones and her entire people, but her own life. Willingly. And she weighed her selfless goals with her self interested survival and she chose to give up self interest.

Lincoln. He also saw that his people were doing wrong and stood with the side of the others who were being wronged. Again and again he made the choice to side with the sky people, and it wasn’t just for Octavia’s sake. He would have left with her when the kill order was lifted if it WAS for Octavia’s sake. He wanted peace. He wanted another way to live. He wanted to protect his people who were also interested in unity and working with the sky people and followed him. He stood up to tyranny, whether it came from his own people or the sky people. Like Maya, he ALSO sacrificed his life so that the world would be a better place and to face down tyranny and oppression. I say his selflessness wasn’t quite as successful as Maya’s because in his selflessness, he lost a little too much self. He WAITED. He always waited for someone else to make the decision (except in regards to Octavia) he let Lxa or Indra or Bellamy or Kane make the decisions and he passively accepted what they decided. He knew what was right and he tried to convince others that it was right, but his proactive attempts to right wrongs was mostly limited to Octavia. So his self interest is what made him be more effective. See? I think he should have believed more in his understanding of right and wrong. Because he was right. So he should have been more selfish.

Bellamy. Bellamy as a person is pretty selfless. giving up his life to keep his sister alive and safe. This was not good for him. And when it failed to work, he went into a spiral of self hate and acting out and selfish behavior in reaction. Over the course of the story he’s learned to expand his selfless protection beyond just those he loved. I think he was the most effective and the best in his selflessness in season 2 when he sacrificed himself to at first just save his people, but then, upon recognizing that it wasn’t just about his own people, attempting to save the mountain, too. But while he succeeded with his people he failed with the mountain and this was so traumatic that he, in way, gave up his self in season 3. Rather than selfless, he erased his self, and gave away his power to other people, so he no longer had to make the decisions that led to horror. And in doing so, he let his selfish desire for revenge and his need to protect only those he loved be manipulated. He became a weapon for someone else to use, because he did not recognize anymore that his understanding of right and wrong was the right thing, even though it could fail and cause him personal pain. I think Bellamy regains a lot of his sense of self in season 4, when he makes choices to do the right thing, not just what was in his people’s best interest, or in revenge for what was done to him and his people. Bellamy still struggles with the positive and negative aspects of self interest and selflessness, and in the end, he might be the most effective– but it might be because he has learned NOT to erase his own sense of self in service of humanity. huh. interesting.

Clarke. Clarke has her father’s self destructive selflessness. She will sell her soul in order to protect other people. She took her father’s short sighted selflessness and combined it with Dante’s false selflessness, Bellamy’s self sacrifice in the name of his people, and Jaha’s and L’s egotism in deciding who is worth saving, and just made a mess of it all. She didn’t want to do it, but it was given to her, and she did it. She did things that she believed were wrong, because she was sacrificing her own morality. She erased her own self so many times in order to save people, that I think it’s possible there was little left of her. UNTIL she was forced to sacrifice very personal love in order to do it. She would NOT sacrifice Emori. She would NOT sacrifice Bellamy. She would NOT sacrifice Raven or Monty or Harper or Murphy or Emori anymore. She loved them and it wasn’t worth leaving them behind or testing on them or shooting them. Not even if it meant humanity would collapse. So she was beginning to remember her own sense of self and weigh it with self sacrifice, morality, long term cause and effect, and giving her self up for a cause.

this went on longer than I planned. It turns out to be a complicated question.

#the 100 meta #selflessness #maya vie #lincoln #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #leadership #jake griffin #abby griffin #dante #thelonious jaha

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