- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You could make an argument for Ida being Sacrifice instead of Valour. (Or Honour, since that's a synonym.) But that would mean C couldn't be Sacrifice, and she clearly wants to be.
A Little Vice (Trans Magical Girl fic)
- Thread starter Shadell
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Another thing to note about Ultima Virtues is they're each assigned to a character class, so Valour is Fighter, Honesty is Mage, Compassion is Bard, Honour is Paladin, Justice is Druid, Sacrifice is Tinker, Spirituality is Ranger, and Humility is Shepherd.
I went with Ida being Valour as she hasn't really displayed any engineering interests yet, that I remember anyway. Not that Inessa's that Bard-like in her abilities, although Iolo's the main Bard in Ultima and he does use a bow (crossbow, but still).
I also thought it'd be nice if the Saints represented the three base Virtues, with Honesty, Compassion, and Valour representing the principles of Truth, Love, and Courage uncombined. Whereas Justice is Truth+Love, Honour is Truth+Courage, and Sacrifice is Love+Courage, Spirituality is all three, and Humility is at the root of all of them.
Also, if you're wondering why Mages represent Honesty, apparently that's due to casting magic being like speaking the 'truth of reality'. Completely forget why Rangers are Spirituality though, I could see it being due to a 'one with nature' thing (and D&D, Ultima's immediate influence, has them be divine casters), but it feels like Priest or Monk would fit much better in that role.
And weird that Courage doesn't factor into Justice, I guess that could be because Justice is meant to be impartial?
Probably should link Eukie's Ultima VII Let'sPlay for more info on the series
I went with Ida being Valour as she hasn't really displayed any engineering interests yet, that I remember anyway. Not that Inessa's that Bard-like in her abilities, although Iolo's the main Bard in Ultima and he does use a bow (crossbow, but still).
I also thought it'd be nice if the Saints represented the three base Virtues, with Honesty, Compassion, and Valour representing the principles of Truth, Love, and Courage uncombined. Whereas Justice is Truth+Love, Honour is Truth+Courage, and Sacrifice is Love+Courage, Spirituality is all three, and Humility is at the root of all of them.
Also, if you're wondering why Mages represent Honesty, apparently that's due to casting magic being like speaking the 'truth of reality'. Completely forget why Rangers are Spirituality though, I could see it being due to a 'one with nature' thing (and D&D, Ultima's immediate influence, has them be divine casters), but it feels like Priest or Monk would fit much better in that role.
And weird that Courage doesn't factor into Justice, I guess that could be because Justice is meant to be impartial?
Probably should link Eukie's Ultima VII Let'sPlay for more info on the series
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
These games, there was like ten of them, sixteen if you count spinoffs. Though virtues and classes didn't start until Ultima IV.
Another reason I bring up Ultima up is I do have a vague idea for a crossover omake in mind with it, given the thematic points of comparison I brought up between it and ALV. Though I also had the vague idea for a crossover omake with The Wizard of Oz actually.
- Pronouns
- She/They
This is a bad time to drop the phrase "Rogue of Blood" in relation to C, huh?
- Location
- Ireland
- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
It's a bad time to drop that and nothing else. Now drop the rest.
- Pronouns
- She/They
This is off the top of my head and I've been out of the fandom for a while, buuuuut this is the sort of thing that got me into Homestuck in the first place:
C: Rogue of Blood. Rogue because she's giving and helpful, but can only see herself taking what she doesn't "deserve". Blood Aspect is for her focus on emotional bonds and obviously a joke about Invidia's Vampire Bat shtick. Breath is another strong possibility but calling her the Rogue of Breath after her choking out Inessa felt mean, and often Aspects cross over with their converses in the same way Sins and Virtues do anyway.
Inessa: Maid of Light. She's shining, passionate, always in the spotlight, basically a beacon of Herself as I've said before. Maid is both the most "embodies the fucking Aspect" class and once again wordplay on "Maiden" as the virtue of Chastity
Ida: Knight of Breath. She's the most straightforward fighter and, much like Dave and Karkat, has the character arc of being a little too much and needing to dial it back or burn out. Breath I'm going a little out on a limb with and associating it with "striving" and "self-actualization" rather than the more common reading of "personal freedom", but it's a pretty vague Aspect all told, considering it's the canonical main character's. You could swap her Aspect and C's pretty easily.
Temperance: Seer of Void. Knows everything. Doesn't say shit about fuck.
Avaritia: Thief of Mind. Ey's got the Thief personality archetype down pat, and ey is a greedy, greedy girl. Ey's also got a nasty habit of taking people's choice/agency away because ey philosophically thinks ey knows better, and "choice" is an in-universe supported interpretation of Mind.
Those are the five I'd consider the "main characters" here. Although Superbia definitely has a shitty OC that's a Lord of Space or something.
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- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
By the way @Shadell I was wondering what you'd think of A Little Vice being commissioned for a review by Leila Hann? I thought of getting around to commissioning it myself, but wanted to check if you were okay with it first.
While Leila can get harsh, she's also said she can tone that aspect of hers down when it comes to reviewing stuff from SV. And I thought ALV could be up her alley due to her in-depth reviews of other works that feature the seven deadly sins (like FMA and K6BD)
While Leila can get harsh, she's also said she can tone that aspect of hers down when it comes to reviewing stuff from SV. And I thought ALV could be up her alley due to her in-depth reviews of other works that feature the seven deadly sins (like FMA and K6BD)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Haha, the complexity of class x aspect pairs, the scarcity of information, the ambiguity and the finale helped me drop my interest in classpects. You have no power here.
The Saints in general have a Preservation vibe, specially how Inessa's motivation was protecting Chiro. But also, I can see Inessa as being Destruction, with how her fighting style is "all the arrows", she fits the bill for reckless and destructive, without hurting unintended targets, and when Chiro is in danger, she definitely displays anger. Also, it's a good path for a starting character, as it's balanced for multiple battle situations, with the characters being good at single and multiple target attacks, and being durable.
Ida, as the tank, fits Preservation. Perhaps Harmony, for all the groups she's involved in.
Temperance, I guess is Erudition, as the more strategic of the Saints. In gameplay, that's hitting multiple enemies.
Chiro, before becoming a Beast, would fit Abundance and Nihility. She did a lot for others, and held altruism as her ideal. She also suffered from emptiness, getting bogged down by her emotional exhaustion and feeling meaningless. She doesn't fit Harmony. As much as she could help coordinate the group, her relationships were breaking down as she isolated herself. As a Beast, while she still wants to provide for others, giving the resin to "free" them, her combat behavior I'm unsure.
Basically, Abundance is healer, along with getting energy for ultimates I think, and NIhility is dealing status effects and removing enemy buffs. The Hunt, that I didn't mention, is about determination, ruthlessness, and tenacious behavior, and is focused on single target damage. And there are the non-gameplay paths, too, with some appearing in the roguelike mode.
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Script Mak3r
(Verified Sun God) (Verified Feathers)
- Location
- Hell of Blazing Fires
- Pronouns
- She/Her
What I want to know is which Knight Radiant orders the characters would join. Ida is definitely a Stoneward, though, complete with biting off more work than she can chew.
Bluespark9
Goddess of Magic and Passion
- Location
- SoCal
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Off the top of my Head C would have the potential for a great lightweaver or edgedancer, both of which fit thematically and asthetically.
Script Mak3r
(Verified Sun God) (Verified Feathers)
- Location
- Hell of Blazing Fires
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah, I didn't say anything about her mainly because I couldn't decide between the two. As an aside, though, with Superbia wouldn't fit as a Knight Radiant. With him, I'd want to look at Fused Brands.
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's worthwhile to do so, given Ultima might be the single most important and influential cRPG series ever. For instance, Ultima III was a big inspiration for Dragon Quest, itself a big inspiration for pretty much every jRPG ever, and even a lot of Japanese-written Fantasy in other media. Ultima Underworld meanwhile inspired The Elder Scrolls, System Shock and BioShock, Deus Ex, and reportedly even Doom. And Ultima Online gives us nearly every MMORPG since.
So without Ultima, the entire gaming landscape could've been entirely unrecognisable (though the Wizardry games also deserve a share of the credit).
Also, relevant to this thread, Ultima III also let you play as a non-binary character way back in 1983, which Avaritia would appreciate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh, it's where Lord British comes from, got a laugh from it. I like how Humility is defined as being not Pride, which is defined as lacking Love, Truth and Courage. But having those is not Humility, it is the virtue of Spirituality. Humility is defined as a lack of a lack. Anyway, I think A Little Vice has a lot of Love going on, but the characters are too clueless to have Truth.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think this is all pretty on-point, the main thing I would add is that we know from Lupin's conversation with Chiro way back that both em and Temperance come from deeply abusive household, and it's very likely that even if at some point Lupin broke, ey have a lot of practice like, compartamentalizing and coming up with coping strategies to deal with that, and likely also leaving em with a lot of desire to have a father figure that they can connect to and really feel like loves them. Temperance has a lot more distance from Superbia and therefore has the lack of emotional investment to really get that Superbia is an abusive freakshow, but Avaritia simply doesn't have that emotional distance. I would argue that there is a lot of symmetry between Chiro's relationship and self-justifications concerning her dad and Lupin's relationship with Superbia, but I don't have the wherewithal to do an effortpost atm so maybe I'll dig into that at some other point.
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
Re: knights radiant. I kinda fell off after book three, but my rough guesses (take these with a grain of salt)
Chiro: Lightweaver
Ida: Dustbringer, maybe Stoneward
Inessa: Windrunner, maybe edgedancer
Temperance: elsecaller or maybe Truthwatcher, honestly no great fits here
Avaritia: Stoneward or maybe Willshaper
Superbia: skybreaker, maybe, if we must list him
Tbh, I'm not particularly familiar with Leila's work. She seems like a good essayist but longform text lets watches/reads are just very rarely my thing personally. A review of a meaningful enough chunk of Vice to get themes or a good sense of the overarching plot even, feels like it would be quite expensive to commission as well, and I am not really that sure of commissioning the first 1-3 chapters alone or so, as the story is paced fairly slow in terms of Chiro doing anything at first.
Like, this isn't a subtle story, so maybe there'd be some value in the endeavor, and I'd be genuinely amazed and honored if someone wanted to drop hundreds of bucks on a review of this free webfic.
Chiro: Lightweaver
Ida: Dustbringer, maybe Stoneward
Inessa: Windrunner, maybe edgedancer
Temperance: elsecaller or maybe Truthwatcher, honestly no great fits here
Avaritia: Stoneward or maybe Willshaper
Superbia: skybreaker, maybe, if we must list him
Tbh, I'm not particularly familiar with Leila's work. She seems like a good essayist but longform text lets watches/reads are just very rarely my thing personally. A review of a meaningful enough chunk of Vice to get themes or a good sense of the overarching plot even, feels like it would be quite expensive to commission as well, and I am not really that sure of commissioning the first 1-3 chapters alone or so, as the story is paced fairly slow in terms of Chiro doing anything at first.
Like, this isn't a subtle story, so maybe there'd be some value in the endeavor, and I'd be genuinely amazed and honored if someone wanted to drop hundreds of bucks on a review of this free webfic.
LancerisDead
Definitely not a cat
- Location
- Buenos Aires
I haven't checked Leila's stuff in years, but back when she was doing the RWBY let's watch she was as bad faith as it gets. Dunno how she's with other stuff, but it's something to keep in mind
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'd point towards her K6BD, Chainsaw Man, and Katalepsis reviews as examples of her more modern stuff (also FMA though it's a little further back), those being series she's largely positive about. And I couldn't see ALV reminding her much of RWBY at all
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Following a little bit of restructuring to the 15 draft from my initial plans, I've made some minor edits to the next episode preview in 14.
Article: The Abyssal Forest begins working on a terrifying new plan that could destroy the entire city if not stopped! Will the Saints manage to track down and defeat this new threat before it can plunge the city into an eternal nightmare? Meanwhile, Inessa comes to a decision of her own!
Article: The Abyssal Forest begins working on a terrifying new plan that could destroy the entire city if not stopped! When the Saints find themselves separated, Ida has to fight this new threat all alone before it can plunge the city into an eternal nightmare! Meanwhile, Inessa comes to a decision of her own!
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So, "Will the Saints manage to track down and defeat this new threat" changed to "When the Saints find themselves separated, Ida has to fight this new threat all alone" and the rest stayed the same. A bit more specific, but sounds mostly the same. Or at least, the latter sounds like a more specific version of the former rather than something completely different.
Good luck, Ida. Hopefully you'll be fine without your friends holding you back.
(And the obvious question of where Temperance is...)
Good luck, Ida. Hopefully you'll be fine without your friends holding you back.
(And the obvious question of where Temperance is...)
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A while back I talked about how Misao could be an equivalent Japanese name for Inessa, since they both can mean 'chastity'. However, I recently found out another Japanese girls' name can mean chastity.
...Sadako.
Yeah, can't help being amused that if this were a real anime, Inessa could've shared a name with The Ring girl. Makes me picture Luxuria Fox attacking through the TV.
Actually makes me wonder why Samara wasn't called Inessa instead in The Ring US? I get that Samara sounds closer, but I always like it when you try to preserve the meaning through localisation
...Sadako.
Yeah, can't help being amused that if this were a real anime, Inessa could've shared a name with The Ring girl. Makes me picture Luxuria Fox attacking through the TV.
Actually makes me wonder why Samara wasn't called Inessa instead in The Ring US? I get that Samara sounds closer, but I always like it when you try to preserve the meaning through localisation
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Okay so this is me just kinda throwing all my brainworms out of my head and onto SV as I am wont to do.
So I mentioned to Shadell that I felt like Waving Through a Window is a very Chirocore song and now I can't get it out of my head.
I will make no apologies for Dear Even Hansen, it's not very good, and I don't even like the overall music that much, but this is an amazing song in a lot of ways to unpack and I think really fits Chiro realyl well.
Is this partially because it is hilarious how it completely recontextualizes the couplet "On the outside always looking in/Will I ever be more than a boy's been?" without losing a drop of thematic or metaphorical resonance? I will not deny this! But I will now spend too many words justifying it in other ways.
One thing I really like about the song is how manic it is. It swings from metaphor to metaphor with no real connecting thread or any cojoining link tying together the thought to thought whatsoever, it's a cohesive song based off vibes, rather than any sort of narrative or dialogic (that isn't a word but it is now) throughline. It really captures the sort of raw confusion that somebody can have where they understanding they're doing something wrong but they don't know exactly what it is so they mindlessly swing from thought to thought in a desperate attempt to make some sense of a reality in front of them that seems cartoonish and incoherent. This really captures Chiro's perspective early in the fic well, I think, in that she desperately swings from self-loathing thought to self-loathing thought in order to find The Problem. It's in herself, she knows this because everybody else can get around fine, but she is wrong somehow but she can't seem to figure out how. She keeps tying this into hertrans friend Inessa's situation because she went through something similar and obviously as a result she is worse because she can't figure out what is wrong, what core connecting thread there is to all her obvious inadequacies that make her so useless, because there is no real reason to think it's gender, per se.
On the outside always looking in
This works very well in the context of the window metaphor, but it also is an excellent descriptor of the character's headspace. And it's an interesting way to phrase it- it's not that they're always on the outside, but that they are on the outside and constantly looking inwards, constantly picking themselves apart for any perceived flaw or transgression that can make everything make sense, make reality actually cohere.
The song just radiates a sort of raw desperation, both in the lyrics and the sharp chords, that I think captures Chiro early in the fic especially well, as well as later; and that it's broader not just a desperation to be able to interact with people, but a desperation to be understood, including by herself, because she doesn't remotely understand why things just don't click for her and seemingly just for her.
Having proven my point, I will now beat the horse beyond death's door by doing a lyrical analysis.
I've learned to slam on the break
Before I even turn on the key
A lot of Chiro's social interactions are pretty clearly based on the precept that anything they say is worthless- one core point of growth is when they actually accept that a thing they said had legitimate value to the world around them. This is because the self-loathing is a sort of defense mechanism to avoid even having to deal with social interactions because they find interacting as themselves absolutely disgusting and repulsive.
She doesn't really want to talk to people because she obviously is a hideous person who shouldn't be loved and why don't people get this, why don't they understand this, all she'll say is something of negative value and they'll turn out to be a repulsive person that everybody hurts. Alternatively, one could put it
Before I make a mistake
Before I lead with the worst of me
Even.
Give them no reason to stare
No slipping up if you slip away
A core fundamental element of Chiro's narrative is that she desperately craves atetntion but rejects it and finds herself disgusting for wanting it. This is because of a sort of bizarre duality in humans with active self-loathing issues; we trhink we're horrible repulsive people who nobody should have to deal with, but we're also social creatures as humans that ENJOY interacting with other people. So how do we deal with the cognitive dissonance? Well, by doubling down on the self-loathing and decide that that in itself makes us especially worthless and horrible.
So I got nothing to share
No, I got nothing to say
Shadell has commented to me about how C is a very passive character at the beginning of the story, whichi s absolutely true, but is tied into the fact that she doesn't have any way to fix the issue because she doesn't know what the issue is. So when she becomes more active, it is isn't about her, really, it's about Ida or Inessa, the people around her. I know from experience it is immensely easy to bury your own problems and even start to feel satisfied with yourself if you get so preoccupied with being the hero to everybody else that you don't bother to even start to care about yourself or address any core issues you might be having as a person.
There is also of course the raw irony of this line in the context of a song that isf an extended internal monologue, but it makes sense because it is an internal monologue. The person singing has nothing to say, they have a lot to think, which is an important distinction there. Thinking isn't productive and allows you to go around in circles, but is far less scary because it doesn't require any sort of confrontation with anything, the repetitive uselessness is in a way comforting because you can come back to the same cyclical non-conclusions and then just keep living life as though you actually explained anything.
Step out, step out of the sun, if you keep getting burned
Step out, step out of the sun, because you learned- because you learned!
Overall at the beginning of the story, Chiro can do a passable immitation of a functional person. Like, yeah, we see in her head, she's clearly Not Okay, but if you close your eyes and just pretend you're Ida, say, there's no real reason to think there's much of an issue beyond Chiro being Inessa's Quiet Friend. Some people are just quiet and prefer to read books than interact, and it's really easy to conflate that core social anxiety born of self-loathing with simply introversion; I did for most of my life and it was genjuinely shocking to me how much more social I wanted to actually be when I wasn't actively like, repressing myself out of fear of interacting with people. Crazy.
So overall, it is worth noting that Chiro at the beginning of the story clearly has an illusion of satisfaction with life. Yeah their dad sucks but he doesn't hit her or anything, so it's fine. Yeah, so she doesn't have many friends, but she doesn't deserve them, so it's fine. It's a sort of dull nothingness but if you have no idea what anything else feels like, that feels fine. That feels like the place you belong.
We Start with stars in our eyes
We Start believing we belong
And then the more agency she gets in the narrative, the more she has to confront the fact that there is just this core problem with herself that she can't name, that she can't pin down, that she desperately doesn't come close to understanding because she doesn't have the right frame to view these problems, and she has no idea where she keeps going wrong over and over again.
But every sun doesn't rise
And no one tells you where you went wrong
It's worth noting that not much really happens in Chapter 10 that... exascerbates Chiro's issues. It's basically just the same problems only emphasized; I suppose you could argue that her dad almost actually hurting her is a line, and that is true, but that isn't really what causes Chiro's breakdown. In fact, if anything, it should make things easier, but that in itself might be the core part of the problem, by solving all the other problems, it forces Chiro to more directly confront the overarching problem. The problem where everything she has done has been essentially an extended cry for help about, but people either don't realize it, because they can't read Chiro's mind, or they do understand it, and don't know how to solve it or reach her, so she internally explodes because she just needs to do something
when you're falling in the forest, and there's nobody around
do you ever really crash or make a sound?
When you're falling in the forest, and there's nobody around,
do you ever really crash or make a sound?
It's like I never really made a sound!
It's like I never make a sound.
And now we get to the chorus where we have to recontextualize things a bit, but even then not really that much.
On the outside always looking in
Never be more than a boy's been
So now we circle back to this, and really as I said, it's just as strong a line. Only the original is making a sort of peon to youthhood before things became complicated and fucked up for the character, while for Chiro it's kind of the opposite in a way, that the core issue is something they have been repressing since childhood, and they have essentially always been an outsider trying to help people's problems while tearing themselves apart internally, because they feel like they'll never be more than a boy, not as an issue of mature, but an issue of gender.
'cause I'm tap-tap-tappin' on that glass
Waving through a window
Glass is a very interesting sort of metaphor; you see it a lot when people about dysphoria too for a similar reason; it allows you to see the world around you, while at the same time distorting it, and especially distorting the concept of distance. While people think you're actually right there, you're actually sitting behind layer after layer of aggressive anger and self-loathing and repression and you can't actually communicate that to anybody because you likely have no clue that it's true so much as just a thing that is your life.
I try to speak but nobody can hear
So I wait around for an answer to appear
Looping back around- Chiro does feel like she's been communicating and it just feels like nobody hears her, because she isn't really communicating because she can't because she doesn't understand the problem. So she just kinda sets it aside and waits for everything to resolve itself because like... what else can you do, really? Surely it'll just go away if you ignore it long enough.
While I'm watch, watch, watching people pass
Waving through a window
All this of course essentially has the core effect of making you a passive observer in your own life- again, something that people with dysphoria comment on constantly, while at the same time being an aggressively active observer because you're constantly criticizing and complaining about evreything you do, it's just that none of it fits or works or makes sense.
Can anybody see, is anybody waving back at me?
Which allows me to get to this, which allows this post to have some reason for its existence outside the argument that the musical would have been far better if it were about a sad trans girl and not a weird socially anxious sociopath (which is to be fair objectively true), but that in many ways this sort of desire, for other poeple to see you and understand you is both a core component of Chiro's angst and anger, and also a key appeal of these sorts of stories. It's a form of, trauma-bonding I suppose, because of course we see Chiro, we know what kind of story this is from the outside and know the core fundamental problem while Chiro agonizes not getting it. It's painfully obvious to us but that is a core part of the point of this kind of story. It allows for a trans author to communicate their experience through art, an experience that can be difficult to truly express through words, or believe that you have enough of unique value to say to warrant an autobiogarphy, certainly. It's a form of trauma-bonding, in a way, that is all tied together by the fact that there is one natural endpoint for the story to reach, that everybody in the end sees Chiro for who she is, and she gets a happy ending, because otherwise the story doesn't reflect the lived experience of the author, and serves no real purpose.
This was such a normal post. I'm a very normal person, you know.
(Now to actually try and incorporate some of this a bit more into what I'm writing)
So I mentioned to Shadell that I felt like Waving Through a Window is a very Chirocore song and now I can't get it out of my head.
I will make no apologies for Dear Even Hansen, it's not very good, and I don't even like the overall music that much, but this is an amazing song in a lot of ways to unpack and I think really fits Chiro realyl well.
Is this partially because it is hilarious how it completely recontextualizes the couplet "On the outside always looking in/Will I ever be more than a boy's been?" without losing a drop of thematic or metaphorical resonance? I will not deny this! But I will now spend too many words justifying it in other ways.
One thing I really like about the song is how manic it is. It swings from metaphor to metaphor with no real connecting thread or any cojoining link tying together the thought to thought whatsoever, it's a cohesive song based off vibes, rather than any sort of narrative or dialogic (that isn't a word but it is now) throughline. It really captures the sort of raw confusion that somebody can have where they understanding they're doing something wrong but they don't know exactly what it is so they mindlessly swing from thought to thought in a desperate attempt to make some sense of a reality in front of them that seems cartoonish and incoherent. This really captures Chiro's perspective early in the fic well, I think, in that she desperately swings from self-loathing thought to self-loathing thought in order to find The Problem. It's in herself, she knows this because everybody else can get around fine, but she is wrong somehow but she can't seem to figure out how. She keeps tying this into her
On the outside always looking in
This works very well in the context of the window metaphor, but it also is an excellent descriptor of the character's headspace. And it's an interesting way to phrase it- it's not that they're always on the outside, but that they are on the outside and constantly looking inwards, constantly picking themselves apart for any perceived flaw or transgression that can make everything make sense, make reality actually cohere.
The song just radiates a sort of raw desperation, both in the lyrics and the sharp chords, that I think captures Chiro early in the fic especially well, as well as later; and that it's broader not just a desperation to be able to interact with people, but a desperation to be understood, including by herself, because she doesn't remotely understand why things just don't click for her and seemingly just for her.
Having proven my point, I will now beat the horse beyond death's door by doing a lyrical analysis.
I've learned to slam on the break
Before I even turn on the key
A lot of Chiro's social interactions are pretty clearly based on the precept that anything they say is worthless- one core point of growth is when they actually accept that a thing they said had legitimate value to the world around them. This is because the self-loathing is a sort of defense mechanism to avoid even having to deal with social interactions because they find interacting as themselves absolutely disgusting and repulsive.
She doesn't really want to talk to people because she obviously is a hideous person who shouldn't be loved and why don't people get this, why don't they understand this, all she'll say is something of negative value and they'll turn out to be a repulsive person that everybody hurts. Alternatively, one could put it
Before I make a mistake
Before I lead with the worst of me
Even.
Give them no reason to stare
No slipping up if you slip away
A core fundamental element of Chiro's narrative is that she desperately craves atetntion but rejects it and finds herself disgusting for wanting it. This is because of a sort of bizarre duality in humans with active self-loathing issues; we trhink we're horrible repulsive people who nobody should have to deal with, but we're also social creatures as humans that ENJOY interacting with other people. So how do we deal with the cognitive dissonance? Well, by doubling down on the self-loathing and decide that that in itself makes us especially worthless and horrible.
So I got nothing to share
No, I got nothing to say
Shadell has commented to me about how C is a very passive character at the beginning of the story, whichi s absolutely true, but is tied into the fact that she doesn't have any way to fix the issue because she doesn't know what the issue is. So when she becomes more active, it is isn't about her, really, it's about Ida or Inessa, the people around her. I know from experience it is immensely easy to bury your own problems and even start to feel satisfied with yourself if you get so preoccupied with being the hero to everybody else that you don't bother to even start to care about yourself or address any core issues you might be having as a person.
There is also of course the raw irony of this line in the context of a song that isf an extended internal monologue, but it makes sense because it is an internal monologue. The person singing has nothing to say, they have a lot to think, which is an important distinction there. Thinking isn't productive and allows you to go around in circles, but is far less scary because it doesn't require any sort of confrontation with anything, the repetitive uselessness is in a way comforting because you can come back to the same cyclical non-conclusions and then just keep living life as though you actually explained anything.
Step out, step out of the sun, if you keep getting burned
Step out, step out of the sun, because you learned- because you learned!
Overall at the beginning of the story, Chiro can do a passable immitation of a functional person. Like, yeah, we see in her head, she's clearly Not Okay, but if you close your eyes and just pretend you're Ida, say, there's no real reason to think there's much of an issue beyond Chiro being Inessa's Quiet Friend. Some people are just quiet and prefer to read books than interact, and it's really easy to conflate that core social anxiety born of self-loathing with simply introversion; I did for most of my life and it was genjuinely shocking to me how much more social I wanted to actually be when I wasn't actively like, repressing myself out of fear of interacting with people. Crazy.
So overall, it is worth noting that Chiro at the beginning of the story clearly has an illusion of satisfaction with life. Yeah their dad sucks but he doesn't hit her or anything, so it's fine. Yeah, so she doesn't have many friends, but she doesn't deserve them, so it's fine. It's a sort of dull nothingness but if you have no idea what anything else feels like, that feels fine. That feels like the place you belong.
We Start with stars in our eyes
We Start believing we belong
And then the more agency she gets in the narrative, the more she has to confront the fact that there is just this core problem with herself that she can't name, that she can't pin down, that she desperately doesn't come close to understanding because she doesn't have the right frame to view these problems, and she has no idea where she keeps going wrong over and over again.
But every sun doesn't rise
And no one tells you where you went wrong
It's worth noting that not much really happens in Chapter 10 that... exascerbates Chiro's issues. It's basically just the same problems only emphasized; I suppose you could argue that her dad almost actually hurting her is a line, and that is true, but that isn't really what causes Chiro's breakdown. In fact, if anything, it should make things easier, but that in itself might be the core part of the problem, by solving all the other problems, it forces Chiro to more directly confront the overarching problem. The problem where everything she has done has been essentially an extended cry for help about, but people either don't realize it, because they can't read Chiro's mind, or they do understand it, and don't know how to solve it or reach her, so she internally explodes because she just needs to do something
when you're falling in the forest, and there's nobody around
do you ever really crash or make a sound?
When you're falling in the forest, and there's nobody around,
do you ever really crash or make a sound?
It's like I never really made a sound!
It's like I never make a sound.
And now we get to the chorus where we have to recontextualize things a bit, but even then not really that much.
On the outside always looking in
Never be more than a boy's been
So now we circle back to this, and really as I said, it's just as strong a line. Only the original is making a sort of peon to youthhood before things became complicated and fucked up for the character, while for Chiro it's kind of the opposite in a way, that the core issue is something they have been repressing since childhood, and they have essentially always been an outsider trying to help people's problems while tearing themselves apart internally, because they feel like they'll never be more than a boy, not as an issue of mature, but an issue of gender.
'cause I'm tap-tap-tappin' on that glass
Waving through a window
Glass is a very interesting sort of metaphor; you see it a lot when people about dysphoria too for a similar reason; it allows you to see the world around you, while at the same time distorting it, and especially distorting the concept of distance. While people think you're actually right there, you're actually sitting behind layer after layer of aggressive anger and self-loathing and repression and you can't actually communicate that to anybody because you likely have no clue that it's true so much as just a thing that is your life.
I try to speak but nobody can hear
So I wait around for an answer to appear
Looping back around- Chiro does feel like she's been communicating and it just feels like nobody hears her, because she isn't really communicating because she can't because she doesn't understand the problem. So she just kinda sets it aside and waits for everything to resolve itself because like... what else can you do, really? Surely it'll just go away if you ignore it long enough.
While I'm watch, watch, watching people pass
Waving through a window
All this of course essentially has the core effect of making you a passive observer in your own life- again, something that people with dysphoria comment on constantly, while at the same time being an aggressively active observer because you're constantly criticizing and complaining about evreything you do, it's just that none of it fits or works or makes sense.
Can anybody see, is anybody waving back at me?
Which allows me to get to this, which allows this post to have some reason for its existence outside the argument that the musical would have been far better if it were about a sad trans girl and not a weird socially anxious sociopath (which is to be fair objectively true), but that in many ways this sort of desire, for other poeple to see you and understand you is both a core component of Chiro's angst and anger, and also a key appeal of these sorts of stories. It's a form of, trauma-bonding I suppose, because of course we see Chiro, we know what kind of story this is from the outside and know the core fundamental problem while Chiro agonizes not getting it. It's painfully obvious to us but that is a core part of the point of this kind of story. It allows for a trans author to communicate their experience through art, an experience that can be difficult to truly express through words, or believe that you have enough of unique value to say to warrant an autobiogarphy, certainly. It's a form of trauma-bonding, in a way, that is all tied together by the fact that there is one natural endpoint for the story to reach, that everybody in the end sees Chiro for who she is, and she gets a happy ending, because otherwise the story doesn't reflect the lived experience of the author, and serves no real purpose.
This was such a normal post. I'm a very normal person, you know.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Labyrinth arc!
You know was thinking of my Star Rail ideas. In the game, memories are used to create equipment called light cones. So I had this fun idea.
When you weakness break an enemy, [insert thing here, dunno. Attack buff?]
Other ideas:
Problem is, light cones are generally slice-of-life and backstory stuff that sometimes hint at secrets, not important plot events, but oh well.
Also, Clown Bean, sorry, but I have no brain capacity to understand what you wrote, too eepy. I'll try to remember to read later.
The tsundere ojou is attacking through the screen. Ohohoho!
You know was thinking of my Star Rail ideas. In the game, memories are used to create equipment called light cones. So I had this fun idea.
Effect: Stranglehold
When you weakness break an enemy, [insert thing here, dunno. Attack buff?]
Destruction: Chiro protecting Inessa from bullies; Inessa's first battle, with the flavour test being her chant and resolve to save Chiro; Inessa's renewed resolve.
Preservation: Ida gets convinced to rest; Ida meting up with her cousin maybe; Ida calling for Chiro's help.
Erudition: Temperance preparing/performing her escape alongside Lupin; Temperance helping Inessa in a project.
Preservation: Ida gets convinced to rest; Ida meting up with her cousin maybe; Ida calling for Chiro's help.
Erudition: Temperance preparing/performing her escape alongside Lupin; Temperance helping Inessa in a project.
Also, Clown Bean, sorry, but I have no brain capacity to understand what you wrote, too eepy. I'll try to remember to read later.
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