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rev3rb · 4 months

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Hi, again! I have to admit that the end of this chapter intrigued me quite a bit. I definitely wanna see where they’re going with Shinoa’s powers over demons. After a lot of time spent on angel flashbacks, it’s a good reminder that the humans have unique roles to play. I liked seeing the Shinoa squad, although spending time on crushes I’m not particularly invested in and making very vague, somewhat redundant plans was kinda boring. I enjoy some good girl talk, but I’m not particularly excited about having so many different groups working towards basically the same goal. It’s similar to what you pointed out about Saito still not siding with The First. It sorta seems as if everyone is stating similar values but personal issues are stopping them from just working together and actually accomplishing shit. Idk maybe it’s just me, but I think some of the most engaging and productive moments happened bc of the dynamics within the alliances. As of now, there’s at least 4 different factions, which truly seems unnecessary at this stage. Regardless of how happy an ending we get, I’d feel a bit unsatisfied if 1/4 groups succeeded at the expense of all the others failing. No matter which group it is, because they all have an interesting perspective and feel like protagonists in unique ways. I’m lowkey rooting for them all, so I’d really prefer if they could just compromise lol. I’m sure that solution is way too idealistic of me, but it’s not my fault Kagami wrote such sympathetic characters 😔

On another note… Happy Birthday!!! If I remember right, it should’ve just passed. I hope you had a great day <3

First off, oh my god! You remember! I didn’t expect that. At the time of posting this, yes, it would have been four days ago, but you sent this Tuesday so you were pretty spot on! Thank you so much! I did have an okay day!

I’m actually excited to see where Shinoa’s powers go as well! For quite some time now, the story has hyped Shinoa up as being special and ‘the perfect experiment’ or however it was phrased, but we’d had no real indication of it until now. It’s about time we shifted from tell to show. I’m hoping it gives her a bit more agency. However, I will say that Shinoa, or really rather how Kagami writes her, does disappoint me a bit in other ways, which leads me to the next thing you bring up.

I don’t hate Yuunoa. I don’t care for it either, but the fact that this chapter sorta confirms that Shinoa doesn’t have that much of a driving force outside of it makes me quite sad. You could argue that other Hiragis (Mahiru and Shinya) have a similar thing going on and they do, but there’s more than that, even if the story prefers bringing up Guren as their main motivation instead. Mahiru has the whole thing with wanting agency to live how she wants (which ties to Guren but I firmly believe can stand on its own) as well as wanting to protect Shinoa, as twisted as her methodology was. Shinya also had his goal of wanting to break free from the Hiragis before Guren became what he’d rather stand for. Being able to see that shift adds quite a bit of depth to that.

What else does Shinoa have going on really? As she says her she doesn’t feel like she has much reason for living, so she mind as well have this fight with Mitsu over Yuu be that driving force. You could say it’s similar to Yuu since he’s sorta said Mika is his reason for living, but I honestly wasn’t a huge fan of that either. I liked how Yuu was, at one point, able to somewhat move on and live for others (the Shinoa squad and Guren at the time) he was getting better in a way! But I don't want to rant for too long. End of the day, I kinda wish Shinoa had goals that didn't center around Yuu, even if she ended up dropping them at some point. As she said, she's really just been along for the ride her whole life.

It's nice to see Mitsu actually back and doing something though! Mitsu fans come get your food! I too wish they'd talked about something else, but what can you do I guess. It's just nice to see her. The focus hasn't been on her in SO long.

Now the whole Shinoa Squad being a new group. Yeaaaah this is driving me a bit insane as well. Weren't they just working with Guren, Mahiru, and Ferid? Why is that suddenly changing? I get that it's because they think them untrustworthy, and I get it to a degree, but it's exactly as you said. There's just SO many groups that are fighting for similar things that it's become kinda weird? Like... why did Guren and Mahiru even let the Shinoa Squad run off? They don't appear to be around, and I know that their priority is probably Yuu, but it feels weird that they're suddenly just elsewhere now when they were working together last we saw. It feels like we're missing something here. Anyways. I can't imagine these groups won't join up later, but the fact that we now have to follow 3 different groups (with there being 5 or maybe 6 factions atm) is going to make for an even more disjointed story. And that's one of the big problems with OnS. It's story is kind of all over the place and it can be difficult to follow with how much it jumps around and drops plot points and characters for no reason only to pick them up later like nothing happened. Nothing I've seen here instills me with confidence that this problem will get better.

That all being said, I didn't hate the chapter. Shinoa squad as a whole hasn't felt like they've been the main focus since the Nagoya arc and while I don't think we'll be following them for too long, it's about time they became more relevant. Maybe what I'm saying is a bit contradictory since I just complained about different factions, but hey, there's some pay off here with Shinoa and her abilities like I mentioned earlier, so idk. It's something.

#this feels disjointed but idk #this chapter had nice things but it also annoyed me in different ways #my qualms lay more with Kagami's way of telling OnS more than anything #Owari no Seraph #OnS 133 #OnS 133 spoilers #Shinoa Hiragi #here's to hoping Shinoa is made more important to the story going forward!#she deserves it #get The First's ass girl

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flowercrowngods · 11 months

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day 07: free space a happy ending

Wakefulness embraces him so slowly and gently that Steve’s not entirely sure he isn’t dreaming when he sees Eddie lying next to him, watching him with an easy smile as his fingers tap out a slow beat on his pillow. Steve looks at him, blinking away the remnants of sleep, not quite daring to do anything more than that for fear of it being a dream after all, scared that Eddie would disappear if Steve reached out to touch.

But then Eddie’s smile widens. “Good morning, sunshine.”

Steve gasps a little and moves his hand to Eddie’s cheek, tucking a few strands of hair behind his ear, his breath hitching when Eddie leans into the touch.

“You’re here,” he whispers, his gaze wandering over Eddie’s features, taking it all in and looking for any indication that this is a dream.

Eddie hums. “And you’re pretty.”

It hits him out of nowhere, the open sincerity in Eddie’s voice, the fondness in his eyes, the honesty in everything about him. The love, open and free now — or getting there, at least. It’s still so raw, though, so new, that Steve doesn’t know how to handle it yet.

“Shut up,” he huffs once he’s caught his breath, rolling over to hide his face and the way his cheeks are heating up. He rolls right into Eddie's chest, though, and he's so warm, so close, smells so good that Steve wants nothing more than to bury his face in his neck and stay there for the rest of the morning. Or maybe the rest of his life.

The reflex to pull away is there. The urge to run and hide, to laugh it off, to freeze up and find something else to do, something to occupy his hands and stop them from reaching for Eddie. Years and years of muscle memory telling Steve to leave.

But Eddie's arms come around him, holding him close and pulling him even closer. And Steve breathes him in, remembering that it can be okay. Remembering that they get a chance now.

Remembering the words.

What are you doing?

Changing the world.

So he tries that, too. Changing the world. He tries by winding his arms around Eddie, too, and breathing in again and again, learning that Eddie won't disappear if he does.

Slowly, he dares to move his arms, stroking along Eddie's back in slow, gentle patterns, lulling himself into a safety he hasn't felt in a while. Maybe ever. At some point Eddie begins to hum, and Steve thinks that it's just another one of his audible smiles, inviting Steve and the rest of the world to join in if they're so inclined. But then he detects a familiar melody in the vibrations of Eddie's neck against his skin, and he holds his breath to find out what it is.

His heart jumps when he recognises the song as one he used to listen to on repeat like a lovesick fool around the time his feelings for Eddie turned into something more, something better, something infinitely worse.

It skips and he forgets how to breathe as he lets his hands travel over Eddie's back, slowly and tentatively daring to slip underneath his shirt and touch his skin.

Eddie begins to sing, then, and Steve wonders if he's even been in love with him before, because nothing of what he's ever felt compares to Eddie's gentle, hoarse, sleep-rough voice as he sings Somebody to Steve, to their little bubble, or to the world outside.

"I want somebody to share, share the rest of my lifeShare my innermost thoughts, know my intimate details."

He closes his eyes as he listens, focusing on the vibrations, on the warmth, on the closeness, on how this moment is everything he's never even dared to want. Everything so perfect that he couldn't even dream it up.

Everything. You're everything.

He needs to be closer still, so be buries his nose in Eddie's neck and breathes him in, tangling their legs, filled with a breathless kind of joyful bliss when Eddie's breath hitches, too, and he stumbles over the words of the second verse as Steve tries to climb into his skin.

"I want somebody who cares for me passionatelyWith every thought and with every breath."

You have me, Steve thinks, pressing his lips to Eddie's pulse point. It's not a kiss, not quite. It's something deeper. It's a promise.

Eddie's hands come up to hold him there even as his voice carries through the drumbeat of Steve's heart in his throat, running fingers through his hair, lightly scratching at his scalp, making him purr along to the melody.

"But when I'm asleep I want somebodyWho will put their arms around me and kiss me tenderlyThough things like this make me sickIn a case like this, I'll get away with it."

When the song ends, Eddie's words faded out, replaced once again by the gentlest silence, Steve feels raw. Vulnerable. Open and exposed. But he also feels safe, and loved, buried in Eddie's skin and held there, as though Eddie is just as scared of fading away as Steve is.

He lifts his head just slightly, enough to meet Eddie's eyes – only to find that they're closed, an expression so serene like Steve has never seen before. Mesmerised and overflowing with affection, he reaches out to trace the line of his brows, down to his cheeks and all the way to his lips, where his eyes are glued for a second.

The thought of kissing Eddie is right there. The opportunity is, too. But he doesn't. He barely dares to move as it is. But he does roll them over the rest of the way until he lies comfortably on top of Eddie, and tucks his head underneath his chin, finding one of his hands and lacing their fingers.

"You've got him," he breathes eventually. "That somebody. If you—“

"Yes," Eddie says, his other hand finding its way to the nape of Steve's neck to play with his hair again. "I want."

"Good." It's lame; far from what he wants to say. From what he has already said last night. It feels like they're doing this backwards, starting with the I love you and catching up with the slow build-up afterwards. "Good. Me, too."

"Good," Eddie hums, and there's that smile again that Steve can't help but mirror.

They fall asleep again like that even though it’s already late in the morning; cuddling and holding and cradling each other, still trembling slightly. Maybe that's what changing the world will do to you. Maybe that's the bravery more than the love.

Or maybe it's just Steve and Eddie. Steve and Eddie. SteveandEddie.

I love you.

~*~

It takes a bit for Steve to relearn loving Eddie. To not associate it with tragedy and sadness and a bone-deep loneliness that'll leave him breathless even on the best of days.

It takes a while for Steve to learn a whole new kind of breathlessness, a whole new kind of aching when it comes to Eddie.

And Eddie's not much better than Steve, pulling away when Steve wants him closer, swallowing his words and needing a second, third, fourth try until he learns that he gets to love Steve now.

Years of unrequited love, or feelings unreturned, of words put out into the universe with no one to receive them, are not easily or quickly unwritten. But every time Steve's breath gets lodged in his throat and he wants to run away, Eddie is right there to remind him of what they can have now. Every time Steve tries to be a little less of who he really is, Eddie is right there to coax him out of his head with gentle touch and a lot of hugs.

Every time Eddie starts to doubt himself and all the ways he makes Steve the happiest person on the planet, Steve is right there with the words he only has for Eddie. Words that don't get stuck anymore. Words that finally get a recipient.

~*~

Their first kiss, the first real kiss, doesn't happen that first morning. They spend the first week only holding each other, barely wanting to let go, hiding their vulnerabilities within each other.

Steve is worried about it at first, seeing Eddie so quiet, so reverent, lacking his usual cheer, his energy and snarky comments. He asks about it one night, ready to prove right that he isn't and can never be enough for him, that all he will do is steal the things that make him Eddie.

Eddie stops then, lifting Steve's chin with a finger when he's too scared, too ashamed, too vulnerable to meet his eyes on his own accord.

"Stevie," Eddie says, his voice so gentle that Steve immediately feels stupid for doubting. "I have loved you for ten years. I've had you for three days. Let me bask in it. Let me be unable to be myself with how absolutely and utterly overcome I am with the knowledge that I have you now. That I get to hold you. That I get to kiss you and keep you and... God. I'm not unhappy. I'm so much the opposite of that that I'm not sure there's a word for it. Other than devoted. Smitten. Bewitched, body and soul."

Steve wants to kiss him then. Almost does, with the way they're just staring at each other, breathing the same air —air that smells like Eddie now. In the end, Eddie just holds him, brushing a kiss to his cheek, his forehead, his temple, and whispers, "Let me bask in it."

And so they do.

Wayne called Eddie not long after with the words, "Chrissy just told me the wedding's off. Please tell me that means what I think it means."

Eddie just blushed, reaching for Steve, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. "Yeah, I, uh. I finally talked to Steve."

There was a very loud cheer on the other end that made Steve laugh, falling into Eddie's side, holding him tight, a weight falling off his shoulders knowing that Wayne was okay with them.

You know, I always figured it would be you.

No matter what happens, you'll always be a son to me.

It made his eyes sting again, but he basked in the moment and in the knowledge that Wayne was on their side. Always has been, always will be.

"You better come here on Sunday, and bring Robin and Chrissy, too."

"Robs and Chrissy?" Eddie asked.

"Oh, you're in for a treat. I'll see your asses on Sunday, boys."

And with that, he hung up. Steve immediately went to call Robin, hopeful and giddy with Wayne's implication, knowing that Chrissy was Robin's person just like Eddie was his.

"She loves me," Robin said, on the verge of tears, and Steve joined here right then and there. "She's– Steve. She's so– She... God!"

"Yeah," Steve laughed at the ceiling above his bed, grinning because Robin sounded so happy, not even caring that she didn't have the right words for it, because he could hear Chrissy laughing in the background, too. Laughing and saying hi to him and interrupting Robin's ramblings and groans and giggles with kisses that always left her dumbstruck for a good two seconds each time.

When the call ended, he went right back to the living room, where he and Eddie started watching Pride and Prejudice before, and fell right on top of him with a happy, happy smile.

~*~

It happens at Wayne's, exactly one week after Eddie showed up at Steve's in the middle of the night. One week after the phone call. One week after I love you.

It happens in the soft glow of the fairy lights Steve and Eddie helped him put up years ago. I happens after Wayne hugged him tight once more, after he pulled Chrissy to the side and promised her that she's still his kid, that he still loves her, and that he's happy to see her smile like that. After he promised the same to Robin.

It happens when Wayne's inside to refill their drinks and Chrissy and Robin are caught up in each other that they're blind and deaf to the rest of the world. When Steve turns to find Eddie looking at him with the softest, gentlest expression.

"Eddie," he whispers, leaning in to rest their heads together, lacing their fingers and stroking his thumb along Eddie's palm.

"Yeah, baby?"

Baby. It fills him with butterflies, with the urge to scream, to shout from all the rooftops that he loves Eddie, and more importantly, that Eddie loves him back! Baby. Baby.

"I love you."

"Hmm. I love you more."

No, you don't. Just longer. "Can I kiss you?"

He can feel Eddie's little gasp before he leans in even closer, rubbing their noses together, cradling Steve's face with his free hand. "Please," he whispers.

And Steve does. He captures Eddie's lips, pouring into it everything he feels and more. Sealing the promises he's made and all the ones he's yet to make. The promises to love and cherish Eddie. To be brave. To be there. To stay and keep and bask.

It's nothing like their first kiss all those years ago. There is no question behind it this time. Only declarations, only promises, only the beginning of a shared future.

And there are many, many more after this one.

🌷🤍🌷 THE END 🌷🤍🌷

tagging: @sexymothmanincarnate @mcneen @livsters @eddiemunchondeeznuts @abstractnaturaldisaster @steddie-as-they-go @hyperfixationgoddess @goodolefashionedloverboi @stxrcrossed186 @eddiemunsonswife @bidisastersworld @ghost-ly-s @romanticdestruction @walkingaftermidnight07 @anaibis @rainydays35 @mightbeasleep @sunfloweringstories @korixae @tuesdaycats @totoroinatardis @ilovebookshowboutyou @musical-theatre-gay @theluckyalien @copingmechanizm @srra @changelingbaby @sassygoop @obsessivelyme @r0binscript @hardboiledleggs @estrellami-1 @bisexualdisastersworld @space-invading-pigeon @swimmingbirdrunningrock @y0urnewstepp4r3nt @oxidantdreamboat @spilled-jar @phirex22 @littlemsterious @captaingigglyguinea @animecookie95 @sharingisntkaren @haluton @littlemsterious @animecookie95 @suddenlyinlove @bisexual-bilingual-biped @jinx-nanami @makewavesandwar @scheodingers-muppet @morcantinon @hexdbog @homosexualhomocide13

god i can't believe it's over. i thank you, every one of you, who cheered for me, cried with me, screamed and yelled at me, and stayed with me throughout this past week. i have no words right now other than thank you 🤍🌷 and i hope this is okay

#steddie #steddie fic #steddieweek2023 #steddie week fic #i feel like this one's a bit disjointed but i kinda like that about it?? little snippets that make a happy ending you know??#idk i hope you like it too (i always get anxious about endings tbh catch me vibrating out of my skin)#dio words #i cannot believe it is done. i cannot believe what a ride it's been. i'll find the words for it later i think. first we read. and we bask 🤍#morcantinon i am ENDLESSLY sorry i forgot to tag you even after you sent that wonderful ask please forgive me 😭🤍#i also forget a bunch of people who asked in the reblogs but dear god i hope you find this anyway i am all over the place #i will edit this and work in more chrissy/robin when i post it to ao3. but this is steddie week. and these are 15k words of an au #that happened spontaneously and within 2h each night of me flying by the seat of my pants. xD

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uncanny-tranny · 2 years

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The thing about assigned sex labels (AFAB/AMAB) is that a lot of its usefulness comes from discussions around medicine (though there are still issues with this). In a social sense, AFAB/AMAB isn't very useful to describe peoples' lived experience.

Assigned sex happens to people as babies, and "AFAB" and "AMAB" describe very broadly sex categories. Assigned sex acknowledges past assignment, not current reality with regards to one's sex and/or gender.

I find that when people try to apply sex assignment to social settings (e.g., "all AFABs experience this!"), it comes very close not only to misgendering, but also to sex essentialism in many cases.

I simply think there are too many assumptions made about what every person AMAB has (such as a certain body, a certain gender, and certain lived experiences) and what every person AFAB has. We cannot make sweeping generalizations about people, and I think a lot of people seem to forget this especially with regards to transition and/or "rare" sexes.

#trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #ftm #mtf #nonbinary #all this to say that i don't really like how people slap afab and amab around for social things #like it comes across (to me) like just saying 'women' and 'men' but as an acronym instead...#...and you can see why i don't like that as a trans person i hope...#...i also don't think it is my responsibility to tell y'all my sex or what my sex entails as a trans person...#...(it also bothers me when people say 'afabs' and 'amabs' like idk)#the only people who theoretically NEED to know your sex are certain doctors (like a gp for example) or a partner you are with #i don't think the general public is entitled to your private information - including your sex/transition status/anything else #you are NOT required to tell people if you're transitioning or if you're a trans man or trans woman or literally ANYTHING #in fact that information can put you in danger ESPECIALLY if you have other identities (e.g. being Black/disabled/queer/ect)#i'm sorry if this sounds disjointed ummmmm i have a lot of Thoughts and Feelings about this and it's sometimes hard to get that across well

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sharkface · 2 months

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I don't have a problem with a lot of fan content focusing on shipping honestly even stuff that's generic and out of character or clearly so far removed from the original the op has fundamentally just made ocs inspired by certain characters. People harp on these things a lot but I feel like overall shipping is just not necessarily solely responsible for other problems fanbases tend to have and probably doesn't deserve to be seen as THE thing wrong with fanworks, because you really can just avoid it if you don't like seeing it. The thing I have a problem with is that so often people who are only really interested in shipping have to go out of their way to create an alternative version of the source material to make this make sense and then will get mad at YOU for not agreeing that a bunch of hypothetical shit they just sort of made up is an interpretation of the actual text. And because they only care about shipping they kind of have to discard everything that gets in the way of that, creating entire nonexistent character traits and arcs or "fix it" fanworks that fundamentally alter the entire story so that they can creates scenarios where characters can kiss.

When we're at a point where the story itself comes second to having two characters to pair up, and you literally cannot attempt to interpret any part of a story other than deciding what character's you'd like to see paired up, you are not doing "character analysis," you're barely even Watching Shows. It is fine that you like romance centric plotlines, and I think it's great if you like it enough to make fan content of it, but you NEED to be able to separate the thing you do for fun (shipping) from the actual narrative you are engaging with and stop getting so defensive when people just don't see what you see. You are a member of an incredibly niche hobby subculture, most people who are interested in analysis of narratives and characters do not do it the way you do and will find your disregard for the text in favor of irrelevant romances and smut shallow, because it IS shallow. And it's fine to be shallow and have fun in a way others find bland or distasteful, but even so, this behavior is degrading your ability to engage with and understand media. It's making you WORSE at the thing you supposedly like doing.

You don't need to engage with things you don't enjoy, but I think you'll find that if you just stretch out of your comfort zone a little bit and just put the ship goggles down for a second you'll see a lot of value in what you find.

#talk #I feel like this is really disjointed and longer than is really necessary but whatever I'm just like #Idk. I think a lot of the posts on this subject just end up making people sound like haters for no readin #reason*#And I think if you actually want to have a meaningful conversation about it with people that do it you really can't go straight in being #mean or talking to them like they're stupid for liking shit you think is lame

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neurotonic · 1 month

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Ouh. I really like how out of all the antagonists in the series, Prism's motivations (and her turning to Zoraxis) are directly influenced by Phoenix's track record. She has the most personal beef with the agent, though it's a little ironic that her TK implant helped the agent's success. If it weren't for Prism, Phoenix wouldn't be the legend that they are known for.

...Except...That's minimizing Phoenix's own ingenuity and skill with the implant, isn't it? It's a useful tool, yes! But in the end, it's just a tool. Phoenix was able to use it in unique ways, and that's not counting whatever else Phoenix has to do in the moment without TK. If it weren't for Phoenix's own efforts (and their strange ability to not Die), Prism wouldn't be forced to take revenge.

They're their own self-made people, but inevitably they left such a huge impact on each other before the third game...and if Prism wasn't the one who personally added the implant in Phoenix's head, then they haven't even interacted in person!

It could be seen as a little tragic, and it sorta is--Prism's desire for revenge is a little misplaced (and, yes, it is bolstered by Zor when she switches to their side). For all we know, Phoenix never intended to be the villain in Prism's story. But Prism's frustrated and angry and devastated about being reduced to the One Project she made. She just wanted to make something bigger than herself.

And it's really nice to see Phoenix help her once she recognizes that Zor's been using her all this time...even if it takes some time for Prism to really let them help her.

It takes the combination of their unique skills, brainpower, and their eventual trust in one another to destroy Zor's volcano kinesium base. Prism gets saved by the person she thought made her dreams impossible, and in return, Phoenix gets saved in the one IEYTD ending where they're not declared legally dead. I feel like that's something interesting? Because this is also the one finale where Phoenix has an active ally working with them close to their side (...as close as Prism and Phoenix could get, anyway).

Well. Anyway. What was I talking about? Enemies who are closely intertwined with one another's journeys end up becoming each other's most important allies? Okay, yeah. Let's go with that.

#ieytd #i expect you to die #roxana prism #agent phoenix #Could be shippy but it's focused more on their friendship #and parallels..might tag it but it's not really all there. feel free to though #i meant to like .. write more about them but my ideas are disjointed n all over the place #so you guys get this one part for now lmao #i Need to listen to more of Prism's voicelines. i forget how much she heckles on Phoenix's abilities #in the earlier parts #she calls their techniques... 'uniquely clever' in the mines (sarcastic)#and she's like 'took you long enough' in blind spot #personally i love 'hey if it's dumb and it works; it just works! Good job' in kboom #GIRL. you're so funny you know that. twirling my hair #anyways #gene rambles #idk if this is readable. it's probably all over the place #but it's also half of my explanation on the 'you made me as i made you' line #that i wrote. on that doodle dump i made #ieytd 3 #ieytd 3 spoilers #um yeah uh yeah my blogs full of that. sorry #i expect you to die 3 spoilers

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sundayswiththeilluminati · 1 year

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Well, it’s been a week and I've had time to cool down and put together my thoughts on Season of the Seraph and its ending. So here goes.

The season finale plot did not require Rasputin to die. "The eliksni are trying to get control of the warsats" is literally a strike. If the warsats needed to be taken off the table as a get-out-of-jail-free card we could have blown the network and kept Rasputin himself. There was an active decision to kill him. Having thought about it, I think I understand why this decision was made - but I still think it's a terrible decision, and I'll explain why.

Before we start, I don't want to sound like I'm going after Destiny's narrative team either personally or professionally. I'm not calling them terrible writers, much less terrible people. I don't know them! They might even be terrible people, for all I know. While I refer to a single monolithic "narrative team," I know in reality there are multiple groups working on different stories. I’m not a professional writer, and they are. And I genuinely believe all of them are talented people who work hard and care about Destiny. But that doesn't mean I don't have some criticisms.

After considering it I think there are three possible reasons to kill Rasputin:

1). The narrative team believed this was a good emotional conclusion that brought closure to his character arc in Destiny. In this case I just think they're flat-out wrong. I'd say "I respect it" but I kind of don't because I think it's so terribly wrong. I don't know what other people think Rasputin's character arc involved, but I won't get closure till Rasputin faces the Witness again and finally ends the war he's been trapped in for centuries. But I get why they would do it, if they believed this. And that final mission was really good. I had a hard time noticing at the time, but it was very well-done, and the cutscene proper was well-shot, -scripted, and -acted (though I'm still angry about the Traveler upstaging Rasputin's death). They put a huge amount of effort into it and into the story work all season long.

But his death being well-done doesn’t change whether I think it was a good narrative choice. Even saying “Rasputin’s arc should conclude here,” the way it was set up had him sacrificing himself to basically cancel himself out. Unless they’re saving up a plot twist, Rasputin ultimately contributed nothing to the fight. He didn’t do any damage to the Fleet or Witness, or anything to stymie Xivu Arath. He died thinking he’d never helped humanity at all and it was safer if he didn’t exist. I don’t know about you, but I find that extremely unsatisfying.

2). Someone doesn't like Rasputin/doesn't know what to do with him. This is two reasons, but they overlap. The Operation: Sancus mission dialogue pissed me off because it gave me the impression that whoever was writing it really didn't like Rasputin and was taking the chance to morally excoriate him. A more subtle version recurs in the final mission where Rasputin is essentially sacrificing himself to null out his own existence - saying "as long as I exist I'm a threat to humanity" - as if he can't ever help or contribute more than endanger people, which is just flat-out wrong. "Humanity doesn't need a Warmind" you're part of humanity, Red. He’s a person; he doesn’t need to justify living. If someone just decided Rasputin Was Bad Actually I’d be very angry indeed. But I don't think it's that personal. Destiny has lots of writers and multiple narrative teams will touch the same work. One person's distaste probably wouldn't steer an entire season.

Related, however, is the reason that maybe no one knows what to do with Rasputin. To be honest I sympathize with this one. Would it shock anyone to hear I've thought about how I would script a Rasputin-focused season? It's surprisingly hard to build a plot around him. A game needs to be interactive and Rasputin's kind of all or nothing - either he can handle the whole problem himself or he can't do anything at all. Red also mostly plays defense. He doesn't have a goal he's working towards other than "kill the Witness/save humanity." You need to come up with a plausible goal that we can believably help him achieve, and that's nontrivial. But, well, that's why I'm not a professional games writer and these people are. "Not sure what do" is not IMO sufficient justification for assassinating one of Destiny's oldest characters/factions.

3). The Destiny narrative team is trying to "declutter" the setting and foreground story by sidelining characters who take a lot of lore to understand. I think this is the real reason, and it's worth talking more about.

A lot of us lore-nerds have long complained about Destiny not foregrounding its setting and story, and Bungie has responded by trying to do so. I think we didn't consider what that would actually look like. Imagine Destiny's story like a long movie. Now imagine people are constantly coming and going from the audience, and everyone who comes in has to nudge their neighbor and go, "hey, what's happening?" Destiny is always (hopefully) acquiring new players, and existing ones are dropping out and coming back. Even most established players either don't read the lore or don't track/remember it. We the lore-keepers are very much the anomaly. If we want story to be a focus, that story also has to be more accessible to new players, lapsed players, people who don't bother reading loretabs, etc., because otherwise it harms their experience and there's a lot more of them than there are of us.

I think this is why we've seen a lot of seasons that introduce whole new concepts - the eliksni Sacred Splicers, for instance - rather than following on existing storylines. Introducing a mostly-new concept puts new and old players on a similar footing. Haunted is another type of compromise between the goal of furthering the story and the goal of making it accessible. Calus and Leviathan are back, but so warped that old players have as much to learn as new ones, and the Sever missions dive deep into character pasts but pretty explicitly describe the emotional arcs they're illustrating, so you don't have to be familiar with that character to get what they're going through. To those who already know Zavala, Crow, etc., it seems laughably obvious and strained. But to those who just got here, this is their first time learning not just about Safiyah but also about Zavala. I think this is also why there have been multiple casual retcons of minor stuff - there isn't time to explain the history, and they've decided it's not worth confusing people.

Rasputin is old. He's been a significant part of Destiny since literally the pre-Alpha test. The complexity and history that are part of why we love the Warmind also make him hell to explain to new people. It takes a decent amount of lore to get invested in his character and since Beyond Light none of that lore is featured in-game. Pre-Season of the Seraph, anyone who began with Beyond Light literally never met him. They never visited Hellas Basin, which is one big environmental story about Rasputin, and The Will of Thousands strike, which demonstrates Red's power and contains many possible dialogues that emphasize him trusting you/acting as an ally, left the playlist ages ago. Since then a new player's only gameplay interaction with him has been Fallen SABER, in which Red yells incoherent Russian and tries to flatten you with a warsat. Is it a surprise relatively new players might not be up on his character arc?

Season of the Seraph, with its narrative of rebuilding Rasputin from the ground up, would be a perfect time to introduce new players to Red's long history, and they...kind of...did that. They worked in Felwinter although then for some reason felt the need to retcon in the whole "Clovis wanted to destroy the Traveler" plan. If you were a new player who didn't know anything about Destiny lore, and you just played Season of the Seraph, you'd get an entire canned arc for Rasputin that hits the early high notes: built to be a weapon, rebelled against his constraints, humanities nerd, big smite, loves Ana and Elsie, makes mistakes but genuinely cares and wants to help.

But that's where Seraph stops. In existing lore (I almost typed "in reality") Rasputin worked out the whole "not a weapon" thing well back during the Golden Age. For a lot of us Warmind fans the most interesting parts of his story happened after that - the entire Collapse, confrontation with Darkness, years of hiding, etc., not to mention all his character development during Warmind and Worthy. He's gone through a lot, and Seraph misses all of it (except Felwinter) in favor of rehashing the same arc for a third time. It's like when moviemakers keep rebooting a superhero origin story. It may be a good story, but eventually we'd like to move on to the other parts we enjoy: this sleeping giant, hard scifi AI, grouchy old bastard, lost lore of the Golden Age, champion of humanity, learning from defeat, learning to trust again, the morality and trauma of warfare - what it means to lose a war - a being never meant to become what he was transforming still further, still unfolding his own potential.

So understanding why they might have done this doesn't excuse what I still see as a terrible narrative choice. I think dropping Rasputin is a major waste of potential, and he's far from the only tricky character to explain. Osiris, or at least the Cult of Osiris, is similarly old. His story is complex and weird and requires knowledge from Curse and earlier, yet he's still playing a major role. Other current characters like Elsie, Saladin, and Crow also need a decent amount of knowledge about previous game events to get why they are the way they are. Saladin's origin story isn't even in this game. It's not Rasputin's fault the game went three years without so much as mentioning him outside of written lore. What was wrong with the great Xivu-Rasputin “war god” parallels most of the season worked to set up, about the intent of violence? Are we never going to explore those? Are we just throwing out all the dialogues planning a role for Red in the upcoming war? Why did we have a dramatic confrontation about trusting Rasputin to operate independently if he were going to be gone in a month anyway? Just in Seraph alone the number of interesting plot threads abruptly trashed by this death argues against it.

Rasputin's longevity is precisely part of why he should stick around. In the first mission of Destiny 1 you wake up in his shadow. He has a history with us. There's just no one quite like him in Destiny. He's not just a character but an entire faction. He explores a part of story space that no one else does. He resonates with us as people rather than players. I assume Neomuna will pick up the Golden Age banner, but it’s a thriving city; Rasputin represented the ruins, the dangers of a dead age, the shadow of apocalypse. He's also maybe the most Guardian-like character and one of the best to weave a parallel/cautionary tale - were we, too, only made to be weapons? But if Rasputin didn't stay a weapon, can we too transcend that intention? And of all the factions in our solar system, the two with the most personal scores to settle with the Witness are the eliksni and Rasputin, and Misraaks'/Eramis' story has focused much more on the Traveler's flight than the Fleet's attack. Of everyone in Destiny Rasputin has the most desperately personal motive for revenge on the monochrome bastard. Now he's not even going to be there to watch it crash and burn.

I understand that foregrounding story also comes with the requirement that it be accessible to those who don't do their lore homework. I appreciate the monumental amount of work that's gone into doing that and the experimental nature of it. But I think the balance has skewed too far towards accessibility. Stuff like the end of Season of Plunder that has zero narrative motivation or continuity and doesn't even get a pretend justification drives me absolutely batty. You can only break internal rules so many times before players stop buying whatever narrative stakes you're trying to set up. Making the story easier to follow doesn't mean characters have to be cartoonishly-exaggerated caricatures like Clovis was in Seraph - just absolutely cartoonishly evil - or reduced to one or two character motives explicitly laid out for the player (though, credit where credit is due, Clovis was hilarious.) It doesn't mean the dialogue has to be as subtle as a Thundercrash. It doesn't mean you get a blank check to retcon or invent whatever's needed to create the intended character arc. If anything that discourages looking further into lore - why bother to learn it when next season will change it all again? I think Y5 represents a lot of experimentation by the Destiny narrative team, and I really respect that. But I also hope they learn what didn’t work from it, and sacrificing Rasputin in an ultimately pointless and unnecessary finale is a major misstep.

#Destiny 2 #Season of the Seraph #Destiny spoilers #Season of the Seraph spoilers #and that’s what I think about that #anyone else feel like this finale was weirdly disjointed from the rest of the season?#like Sancus led into it but the previous missions didn’t lead into Sancus at all #why so much planning and speculation on Red’s future if he wasn’t going to have one?#frankly why bother with Xivu Arath?#I wonder if this was supposed to be the second or third season and got moved up #I don’t know why I wrote this no one cares what I think and it won’t change anything #but it makes me feel better #so hey that’s not nothing #and I can pretend it might matter #just let me pretend #this is the wager of existence #The Warmind Rasputin #Season of the Seraph finale #IDK my BFF AI-COM/RSPN

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