#Actor Allusion (trope)

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

One of the highlights of ‘Scoundrel’ was when the Inspector

started singing ‘Always Look on the Bright Side’ from Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’ when he introduced the title character to the BOOTH.

[rwbyrg]

Can we take a moment to appreciate just how well fed we are? Both in canon and beyond?

Oscar said "woah" the moment he first met Ruby.

"Woah. You have... silver eyes". Specifically.

The scene of them sparring at sunset and being goofy about it.

They're the two youngest members of the team, and both of their main allusions are stories about growing up (The Little Prince and Little Red Riding Hood).

Oscar's main allusion is of a character that's in love with a rose. Ruby's last name is Rose, she has a rose emblem, and can turn into rose petals.

They also have shared/parallel allusions from in-universe fairytales (Ex. The Boy Who Fell From The Sky, The Girl Who Fell Through the World, and most notably, The Warrior in the Woods).

The Dojo Scene

Their shared attachments to each other keep being put in focus.

Oscar cared more about Ruby being knocked out than Weiss being impaled at Haven.

Ruby's always watching his back in fights, and he always has hers in group conflict discussions.

Neo, the illusionist character, uses Oscar as both the first and last illusion to torture Ruby; going so far as to make Ruby "kill" him with her own hands. It could have been anyone, but it WASN'T. It was OSCAR.

Meanwhile, Oscar in the V9 epilogue laments to Ruby's "grave" about how he is struggling to hold onto who he is more than ever before. In large part because of the merge, but also because Ruby "always saw people for who they really were", and she's not around anymore to help remind him of who he is.

"You're your own person."

The Almost Hug.

The song that plays leading up to The Almost Hug is one about someone pining for a love they've lost and been separated from across worlds. The song airs a few episodes before Oscar and Ruby are the only "pairing" split up between Remnant and The Ever After. The song itself is called Treasure and Ruby is a type of precious gem, while Oscar's name alludes to gold.

Oscar's last name is Pine. Which, aside from the species of tree, is defined as: "to long or yearn for the return of something; to suffer, typically from a broken heart"(please see points 12 and 15).

They have multiple paralleling arcs and themes around choice, identity, responsibility, leadership, grief, etc.

Their character designs have complimentary colour schemes like other canon ships (red/green and silver/gold).

Sun/Moon ship

"Combat gear looks good."

They also follow the same story beats, separations, and reunions that other canon ships have in show (the meet-cute, the getting-to-know-you, the breakup arc, the distance makes the heart grow fonder trope, the (upcoming) emotional reunion, etc).

The animators, writers, and even voice actors on occasion, engage with fan content or discussions of the ship in a positive manner.

The Official RWBY Twitter Oscars Meme

Miles Luna has said a few times that the ship is cute. He also highlights that their relationship is built on mutual understanding from being in similar circumstances as the youngest kids in the group with too much weight on their shoulders.

Miles also said that in a hypothetical scenario where everyone celebrates Oscar's birthday, Ruby would buy a co-op video game as a present and the two of them would stay up really late playing it together.

Rosegarden won 2nd place in a popular RWBY YouTuber's "Top 10 RWBY Ships" poll as voted by fans after Volume 8 (it would have been third place if Renora and Bumbleby hadn't tied for first).

That one video from Aaron Dismuke, Oscar's VA.

"That kid's got a collapsible staff" -heart eyes emoji-

We've gotten a "Rosegarden Moment" in every Volume premiere since Oscar's debut in V4.

Oscar shouting Ruby's name too many times in the V6 fight against Cordovin.

Maria tells Oscar to "keep that fire fed" after he overhears Ruby talking about food always making her feel better. Then a few episodes later, he suspiciously makes a casserole for the "team" after "they" had a rough day (where he stood up for Ruby when she was looking defeated in a group argument).

Oscar's the only person Ruby opened up to about her grief until the blacksmith. Meanwhile, Ruby's the one who's always assuring Oscar he's his own person despite the merge.

The parallels of Oscar's struggle with the merge and Ruby's ascension in The Ever After.

"I'm just going to be another one of his lives, aren't I?" / "What if you could be anyone?"

Characters within the narrative regularly notice how close these two are to each other. Mainly Nora, Weiss, Yang, Cinder and Neo.

Oscar blushed when Ruby touched his shoulder???

THE FUMBLE?!?!?!?

[thatwritererinoriordan]

See also: Actor Allusion on tvtropes.org

Favorite underrated tv bit is when the writing acknowledges the actors’ past roles.

We’ve been watching a lot of leverage lately and the writers do this a lot. Wil Wheaton and LeVar Burton guest star and there are Star Trek jokes. (I’m blanking on if they made any with Jeri Ryan as a main cast member.) Noah Wyle dons a lab coat for a con.

I just love that shit, I eat it up.

[sombredancer]

Recent visually beautiful and generally watchable Russian fantasy movies

(because I start forgetting they exist at all) Ironically, all of them are adaptations of books/comics.

I Am Dragon / Он — дракон (2015) This movie is a very free adaptation of the novel "The Rite" / "Ритуал" by Maryna and Serhiy Dyachenko (Марина и Сергей Дяченко). It's a reinterpreting of an ancient tale about a maiden, a hero and a dragon. I don`t like the novel because it's very postmodern, wracks the typical fairytale plot and hurts my escapist feelings by ugly reality, but the movie is pretty fairytale-ish and nice. Firstly, it is visually beautiful and represent Slavic pseudo-medieval lore the way it should have always been in Slavic fantasy.

Secondly, as a love story between a monster and a maiden, it has got A PLENTY of tropes I'm usually looking for in Chinese dramas, so I understand very well why it was pretty popular in Asia.

Thirdly, when I said it's visually beautiful I wasn't joking. The main hero is played not by an actor, but by a male model, who is shirtless all the time (and sometimes pantless) and has a very fit and good-looking body. It's something unbelievable that someone in Russia made a movie to please women's eyes! Really, it's insane!

The folk-rock band Мельница wrote an insanely beautiful song "Обряд" (The Rite) for this movie (more matched to the book plot, though), but it was never used as OST, which is a shame. The song is about a black sheep girl, who is denied by society and asks a dragon to come for her and to take her away, because the dragon is denied by this world just like her. You can listen to it here. The band also has a song "Змей" (The Wyrm) (based on Lev Gumilev's poem), which is more accurate to the plot of the movie: the wyrm kidnaps maidens to make them its wives, but they are all dying during the flight; at the end of the song a hero-knight is ready to shoot it in order to stop it. Listen to it here.

It ends with HE, which is better than the book's obscure ending, so it is pleasure for me to rewatch it till these days.

Major Grom: Plague Doctor / Майор Гром: Чумной Доктор (2021)

It is an adaptation of Russian comic series "Major Grom" by Bubble comics. I am traditionally not very happy with the source material, but it is very good reworked to be the screen play of this movie.

It's very beautifully made in terms of director's, cameraman's and screenwriter's work, which is a rare thing for Russian movies. Also, the actors are young and handsome, especially the villain, which is a rare thing not only for Russian movies, but for the current Western movies, too. It has got a lot of allusions to Russian reality and a lot of beautiful views of Saint Petersburg, the second capital of Russia and one of the most beautiful Russian cities. And it has got some unusual visual solutions that turn it into a comic it should be.

The plot revolves around a mysterious serial killer (kinda bad Batman), a black sheep police officer and Russian Mark Zuckerberg (kind of). Mark Zuckerberg is the best guy of this movie and I like him a lot! Серёёёёжа! 🧡🧡🧡

This movie wasn't popular in Russia because of political situation in the country by the moment of its release (the both sides found out in there something insulting for them and banned it), but even if it has something like that, I honestly didn't pay attention to it. It's just a nice blockbuster with a tragic and handsome villain. The villain also has got his own BL-drama (in the comics they are really lovers, it`s as obvious as it could be shown in a Russian comic).

By the way, the villain is hot, insane, ruthless, sensitive and suffering. How does he contain all of this character treats in one personality? you may ask. He doesn`t. He has dissociative identity disorder, I would answer.

I don`t know if it works by now, but some time ago you could watch this lovely movie on Netflix.

The Master and Margarita / Мастер и Маргарита (2024) This is a loose adaptation of Russian classical novel "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov. I genuinely hate this book, but the adaptation reinterprets it, divides it into very interesting layers and makes it understandable and beautiful.

It`s layered, so it will probably be hard to understand what layer are we currently on if you are not familiar with the original story. The first layer is an ugly Soviet reality, the second layer is a plot of the novel that the main hero is writing, a story within a story. The third layer is the insane intertwining of the first two layers. On the reality layer the Master loses his job and freedom because of friend's denunciation and becomes star-crossed lovers with a married woman. On the novel level he meets devil, who visits Moscow by chance, and the devil gives him and his woman opportunity to live their lives being free from everything that usually tortures people IRL. Somewhere among those layers is a little plot about Jesus and Pontius Pilate.

The movie is visually beautiful. Although it feels pretty anti-Soviet, Soviet visuals of the movie are gorgeous. There were used the Stalin-times concepts of Moscow of the Future, the CGI buildings in frame came from the real architecture projects of those times. The Stalin Empire architecture style and views are typical for Moscow (but as I know, ironically, this all was shot in Saint Petersburg). It seems to me that this movie is heavily stuffed with visual allusions to the Western works: devil's escort looks like bunch of Pennywises, Margarita is Enchantress from Suicide Squad I, the scene of blood dripping is from Blade I etc. Usually, when I see it in Russian movies, it feels like plagiarism because I can recognize the reference but there is nothing except for these references . But here we have got the plot, so the allusions work as allusions and don`t irritate me.

The movie is dark, disturbing, uncomfortable. It really makes you feel as if you watch devil and his escort marching around you; they ravage, kill and destroy everything and you can only breathlessly, helplessly and in fear watch them. The German actor playing devil is insanely good. He stole the movie and I understand why it should have been named Woland (the devil's name) instead of the current movie's name. You may want to watch it, because it's very unusual in terms of plot and visuals experience, especially when you are not familiar with the book.

[byneddiedingo]

Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool & Wolverine (Shawn Levy, 2024)

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin, Matthew Macfadyen, Dafne Keen, Jon Favreau, Morena Baccarin, Rob Delaney, Leslie Uggams, Jennifer Garner, Wesley Snipes, Channing Tatum, Chris Evans, Henry Cavill, Wunmi Mosaku, Aaron Stanford, Tyler Mane, Karan Sonni, Brianna Hildebrand. Screenplay: Ryan Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Zeb Wells, Shawn Levy. Cinematography: George Richmond. Production design: Ray Chan. Film editing: Shane Reid, Dean Zimmerman. Music: Rob Simonsen. 

Raucous, rude, and raunchy, Deadpool & Wolverine holds nothing sacred, even the production companies that made it, as the irrepressible Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) teams up with the grouchy Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to take on the Time Variance Authority, represented by Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), and Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin) in the Void and elsewhere. You might wonder how Deadpool could team with Wolverine since the latter died in James Mangold's 2017 film Logan. It involves traveling through the multiverse and encountering all the various Wolverines that exist in other timelines, including one known as The Cavillrine, a cameo by Henry Cavill. The Wolverine Deadpool chooses turns out to be the worst Wolverine, someone reviled in his own universe for bringing about the deaths of all the other X-Men. The arc of Wolverine's story in the movie turns out to be a quest for redemption. The multiverse trope itself gets lampooned by treating its actors as moving through their roles as if through other universes than the one they inhabit, the Marvel Universe. So there are allusions to Jackman's career as a performer in musicals and to Reynolds's older films like The Proposal (Anne Fletcher, 2009) and Van Wilder (Walt Becker, 2002). Chris Evans's appearance in the film is also a bit of role-switching. Deadpool at first thinks he's Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, until he reveals himself as Johnny Storm, aka Human Torch, the earlier Marvel role Evans played in Fantastic Four (Tim Story, 2005). Evans's brief performance in Deadpool & Wolverine includes one of the funniest speeches in the film, a foul-mouthed diatribe about Cassandra that's so good it gets repeated in the end credits. Thoroughly mindless and thoroughly entertaining, Deadpool & Wolverine is the superhero movie to end all superhero movies. Well, we can dream, can't we?

[silviakundera]

Ok, upon request my thoughts on Bad Buddy, a good queer romance drama that doesn't get much if any international exposure outside the circle of Thai BL fans. Full spoilers.

after consuming literally dozens of BB videos, the best trailer to the drama imo is actually the talented samyvids' "Just My Type" songvid. Perfectly captures the setup.

* the hook: 2 boys raised by their feuding families to be rivals end up attending a university that has a childish Jets vs Sharksesque historic rivalry between the science/engineering vs artistic/architecture majors. Despite these 2 barriers, the boys stumble into a secret bromance and then into love. Secondary couple here is f/f, though it's basically just soft girls meet cute then getting together (no conflict).

* Comedic and light-hearted drama that doesn't take itself too seriously, while also swerving into the appropriate amount of angst for its set up.

* This '20-something bros in love' dynamic reminds me vividly of what a lot of SPN J2 RPF and Hockey RPF has tried to capture. The 2 leads feel like your prototypical good natured university bros and falling in love never changes that. Friends AND Lovers is a challenging dynamic to capture imo but Bad Buddy succeeds

* It helps the Bros In Love vibes that the actors look less primped & polished than many other asian BL productions. They seem like guys you could have actually had in your classes in uni.

* If you welcome the drama's tone and just vibe with it, I think it successfully executes 4 popular romance tropes:

- rivals to friends to lovers

- forbidden (hidden) love

- fall first vs fall harder

- golden retriever bounding around paw cleaning cat

* If you are going to sell me on a modern day romeo & juliet esque queer rom-com, without the bloodshed, then you BETTER put your money where you mouth is and make their love actually forbidden.

* Thankfully, Bad Buddy understood the assignment. It's not just a misunderstanding. Their parents truly do have a feud and they truly are forbidden to even be friends, forget a romantic relationship. 2 kids obligated to be enemies since birth, bound by this twisted shared experience that no one else understands.

* Pran falling first, with enough time to comprehend how cruelly impossible they are. Pat falling late, fast, and hard - too impulsive to consider the consequences and wearing his heart on his sleeve.

* Both characters won me over quickly:  cautious & restrained Pran who likes order, chaotic Pat who craves his attention

* Love that the dramatic tension & hiding in all the early episodes isn't revealed to be pointless. If there was no consequence, then it removes the poignancy of its classic rooftop kiss scene. Prans' fears must be justified in order for the angst to stand up in a rewatch. Pran's friends DO reject him at first. Their parents DO refuse to accept the relationship, including his mom considering this a personal betrayal.

* Prans' fears are painfully rational and everything he is scared of does have to be confronted. But that also gives romantic weight to his decision to give in to the feelings and accept the consequences.

* In the way that scifi authors will try to explore sociopolitical topics through allusions & metaphor, and that Hunger Games author keeps writing dystopian YA whenever she gets heated about politics, Bad Buddy does a good job imo of using the feuding families setup to address the reality of existing in a homophobic and transphobic society while being queer -- demonstrating it in a way that straight cis people can relate to. And approaching from this angle allows the production to tell that story with a certain emotional distance for queer viewers who have experienced such struggles.

* The bittersweet ending sells me completely on this drama. Closeted but not. Open but not entirely. Accepting that you can't change the world and make all your family & friends & coworkers accept your truth... but refusing to abandon them OR your truth. It's a decision so many queer people have made over the years, in different countries and decades. And it's tinged with hope.

* Let's acknowledge that indeed there is tons of product placement in this series. Sometimes to hilarious ends. But frankly, without this sponsorship the series would not exist. So I'm very grateful to suffer through the marketing that helped fund it.

* Available streaming in multiple places, including YouTube.

[tiofrean]

Oh boy... OH BOY... I was reading through comments and tags under that Flint vs. Stede post (and before that in Silver vs. Oluwande post) and OH BOY RANT INCOMING

Feel free to ignore. No, I'm prickly about this.

I LOVE how people are like "Black Sails fans are so mean why are they like that T.T ?" in the tags and comments.

LET ME TELL YOU.

So we have this show that has been marginalized and has been pushed to the side for years. A show that has excellent plot, wonderful intrigue, magnificent representation and well-written, 3D characters that are complex and relatable. You get your edgy queer men (whether you want to characterize Flint as gay or bi, doesn't change the fact that he likes dick whichever way), you get your edgy queer girls (Anne), you get your flamboyant whatever-the-fuck-Jack-Rackham-is (<3), you get sweet gays (Thomas), you get confused bisexuals (Eleanor, Silver), you get straight sweets (Miranda) and straight angery dicks (Woodes Rogers), and competent, edgy straights (Vane). Oh! A competent, master-of-the-house lesbian? Check (Max). You even have asexuals, or that is what I shall forever classify Billy as. You have a f/f sex scene in the first damn episode, ffs. You get threesomes (sexual, romantic), you get couples, you even have Silver in a brothel orgy.

But sexual representation is not ALL! You get goofy pirates (Jack Rackham), you get serious pirates (Blackbeard), you get balls of rage (Flint), you get chill, laid-back sea dogs (Gates), you get competent little weasels (Silver), you get incompetent rats (Dufrense). You also have marvelous extras and side characters (Beauclerc the marksman, Captain Fruit-Fruit, Idelle... OHMYGOD IDELLE <3333).

There's the political plot that's historically accurate, the story's plot that's Flint's big gay rage, there's the sociological context of being painted as a monster, there's the gold hunt, there are ships correctly operated by crews of more than five fucking people, there are guns, blood and realistic injuries. You get quotations and allusions to Shakespeare, Cervantes, Julius Caesar, Marcus Fucking Aurelius, a metric ton of other classical writers. You get so many tropes done right it's astonishing and too effing long to list them all here.

On top of that, there is the picturesque landscape, absolutely gorgeous ships and very accurate portrayal of how life looked back then.

We had to defend that show when it first came out, the actors had to fucking fight homophobic assholes upon the airing of season two (IMAGINE THAT), people who loved it had a hard time going around, although admittedly it's a "fandom" hard time, not a "real life" hard time. We persisted, we persevered, and now we're here, clinging to what's left of our fandom, because we are admittedly all over the place and we don't have "troops" on any one social media, which makes our numbers small in comparison to other fandoms, and makes fandom interactions very limited.

Now imagine that there aired a show... a pirate show promising a lot. And then the show turned out to be an office-type comedy with no lesbian/bi women representation (I may be wrong, but I did watch it out of curiosity, didn't see any, just guys). A show that the whole plot of is just a rendition of the Beauty and the Beast for pirate times with so many historical inaccuracies (couching your crew like a bunch of office workers? Plz. The way they speak and the concepts they talk of that weren't there? It's like they were sitting around a fire, holding hands and singing kumbaya). And don't get me wrong, there's place for those shows as well, and maybe it works for you (and great for you too!).

We tried to ignore it, really we did. We basically gave it the eyebrow-raise-huff-ignore thing that you do on the internet when you want someone to enjoy their stuff and are not interested in it yourself.

But you know what happened? Suddenly there were people on twitter tagging everyone and their dog from Black Sails with renditions of Flint/Izzy (Izzy who comes across as an extreme asshole at best and a homophobic shit at worst and you can't fault people for reading it like this). Let that sink in - our fandom babe Flint, who had his whole life ruined due to homophobia and homophobic assholes is suddenly being shipped with a guy who suspiciously fits the description a bit too much for our tastes. Wouldn't you get angry? Of course you would, we're all very protective of our babes. We are, you are, everyone is. We asked you not to do this, and while I admit that hurling curses your way might not have been the most polite way of asking you to stop, the message was clear enough. What does OFMD fandom do? They all double down. Double fucking down on fanfiction and tagging everything in BS again, pairing Flint and Izzy together, writing things way out of the realm of any possibilities because most of the writers didn't watch BS (I did read their comments on that. They weren't even sorry). If you take such character and throw him into a work of art that can and will be seen as controversial, you should at least have the decency to do your homework on the original work he comes from. Otherwise, to our eyes, you're taking the most wronged man from our beloved show, wronged due to his sexuality, and throw him together with a literal asshole just to see them fuck because they would look pretty (and that's an actual comment from one of the artists, I shit you not). Wouldn't you feel a bit angry about that? I bet you would.

What's worse, people loving Black Sails and not liking OFMD usually point out how narrow the representation is, how improbable the show is and how they're not remotely invested in the plot. It's a cheesy show for your average Sunday afternoon, don't make it into something it's not. It's not a political statement any more than Guess The Tune is.

What's more, when I've seen attempts at people pointing out the obvious flaws in plot, in logic (how many people crew that ship exactly? How is he not dead after being stabbed clean through with a sword?), all we've gotten was "Oh it's not that type of show, OBVIOUSLY", "it's just a comedy, duh" and my personal favorite "you just DON'T UNDERSTAND IT BOOMER". (I'm a late Millennial, thx). Every attempt was chucked out the window. What got me most, tho, was the high praise of OFMD IS THE FIRST SHOW TO [insert whatever queer thing it did supposedly]. No, it's not. There was even a post on twitter that debunked all those claims one by one. I get it, you're happy that you got your gay pirates, good for you. But give credit where credit's due, otherwise you're gonna piss off a lot of people. People who watched our show struggle and crawl so that your show can run today and be fine and accepted widely.

And personally, I felt disappointed watching it because of the lack of representation. Disappointed that Ed turned out to be just as rainbowy as Stede. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against rainbowy, ultra-sweet characters that are big softies. I love them. But not everyone in the lgbtq community is like that. Actually, it's the minority. There are your sweets, there are your glittery rainbows, but the majority is on the more... inconspicuous part of the scale. And there are edgy people (like myself) who don't like glitter, pink, feathers, fluff and a shitton of other things this show had in abundance. You know what made me wince while watching? When I realized that the only person who I could remotely like for the way they weren't so glittery-rainbowy-sweet was Izzy, and I hated him because he was an asshole. Even Jim got the fluffy af oranges arch. So not my (and others') cup of tea.

So yeah, our recent anger and rabidity is not based solely on one post about an insignificant poll (that you're winning only because our fandom is significantly smaller and most people are dispersed between different sites). It's all those things combined and it's the result of them.

And no, I'm not going to finish it with a "please forgive us if we seem a bit angery, we're coping". Flint wouldn't.

[olderthannetfic]

The “noncanonical pairings are usually wish fulfillment” thing is so bonkers because there’s so much variety in terms of what is “non canon.” By the strictest definitions of canon, something like Anthy/Utena isn’t “canon” in the original anime series because they never explicitly say they’re romantic lesbian lovers or kiss (except in the ending theme, which people often don’t count), even though the entire fucking show is about that relationship and it makes significantly less sense if you interpret them in a platonic way. Same with something like Yuuri and Victor in Yuri on Ice. Most people would call those “canon” (I would with both) but I’ve seen people fight over it because it’s not “explicit enough.” A lot of people who are used to really didactic storytelling — which, lbh, is clearly a lot of people in fandom spaces based on the discourse that gets started here — don’t really know what to make of works like Revolutionary Girl Utena that rely a lot on symbolism and allusion, and in expecting their audience to do the work to meet them where they are rather than getting down to where the dumbest possible viewer is.

Then, on the next level, you get relationships that were built up to in some way, but then the writers later decided to take it another direction. You get ones that got a lot of subtext, but they were a same-sex relationship or an interracial relationship or something else taboo in a time before that was permissible in mainstream media of that kind. You get ones where it was the actors interpreting it that way, but not the writers; or the writers, but not the directors; or the directors and script, but the actor didn’t play it that way. (A good example of both of the last two examples: Garak/Bashir from Star Trek Deep Space Nine, whose actors have both admitted to playing them that way and supporting the ship, and where the creators have basically said they saw that there was something there but knew they wouldn’t be able to get away with that on a Star Trek show then.)

On the next level down, you might get something where it fits into a well-established romantic trope but the creator somehow has no idea of but the fans pick up on it — for instance, maybe they would only see it as romantic if it were between a man and a woman, but this is two women, and they don’t recognize how it’s going to look different to someone who is less heteronormative in their thinking. Maybe the creator just has such a strong bias against some particular combo of characters that they don’t want to acknowledge what they wrote by accident. (Like how J.K. Rowling was so mad that so many of her readers liked Draco Malfoy even though it’s pretty obvious to anyone else what’s so appealing about how she wrote that character, but for relationships rather than individual characters.)

And then of course, you do get some ships that are just completely out of left field, someone projecting a particular dynamic really hard that they wish was there on some characters that don’t have that kind of chemistry at all to anyone else watching/reading/etc. One of my fandoms had a really vocal group get really into a ship like that recently (because the person who started it framed it as “progressive” and herself as a bit of a BNF so a lot of younger discourse-addled people went along with it who also thought the more popular main ship was “problematic”) and it was annoying because they were so self-aggrandizing about how there was all this hidden subtext that no one but them was seeing because we were all less social justice enlightened than them or something. When it was really just that those characters didn’t have that dynamic at all, but they THOUGHT they should. There was a lot of hilarious misinterpretation of scenes that were in context, not remotely shippy, but one character was touching the other one very slightly or something.

But IME, those kinds of ships getting any kind of substantial following is rare. Most fairly popular ships that are non-canon, including pretty much every non-canon juggernaut ship I’ve ever seen (going back to DS9, Garashir is like 45% of the DS9 fanfic on AO3 last time I checked, so it’s definitely a juggernaut ship), there is at least SOMETHING there that comes from the original work. Even if it’s just “these two guys have the kind of buddy-cop dynamic that slash shippers often like to envision in romantic ways,” “this guy and this girl are the kind of lifelong childhood friends that we’re used to being romantic in anime like this so a lot of people started shipping them immediately,” “these two girls have the kind of Fuffy/Catradora/etc. friends-to-enemies-to-friends-again-to-lovers dynamic that makes a lot of femslashers lose their minds,” etc. Even with those three examples, while it may not be *intentional* on the part of the creator, it’s bizarre to say those people are “projecting” when they’re responding to those couples fitting into longstanding media trends that a lot of people identify. “Projection” to me is something like the earlier example I gave of the obnoxious people in my one fandom, where they are just determined to make some square peg fit a round hole because they’re desperate to have everything be round. And again, I don’t think that’s nearly as common as a lot of people, and especially salty het shippers who want to demonize the popularity of M/M or F/F in their fandoms, seem to think it is. (Also, like het-only shippers aren’t the ultimate in seeing romantic dynamics with every time a man and a woman are close at all, and throwing a fit when it doesn’t happen in canon, lol)

(I also think some of these people confuse the “projection” for people who are more dedicated rarepair shippers, where the motivation is often more “okay this might not be here but WHAT IF” than sincerely thinking the work is actually doing something that it isn’t really doing. Again, I’ve met people who are into rarepairs who just seem to have a really bad lack of understanding for what “subtext” is and confusing anything they wish was there with “subtext,” but I think those people are a rarity. For a lot of people who like rarepairs, the fact that it’s not at all what canon is suggesting is something they are aware of and that is The Point. It’s “I know the work doesn’t actually suggest this, but how can I change it so that it does”)

--

In my experience, that particular flavor of oldschool homophobe invariably ships tons of het that is not actually canon.

They just don't like it when 1. anything that's not their favorite gets popular and 2. people think a character could be queer without it being literally stated in the first episode/page.

[bbcphile]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers (except me because obvs I have done it). Spread the self-love ❤

Thanks for the ask, @thesilversun! 😀

Since the ask said written, not “are writing,” I’m not including my current MLC longfic (as yet unnamed), but otherwise it would absolutely be on this list. It’s 58k and not yet halfway through (facepalm), and I’m really looking forward to finishing it and sharing it. So, for MLC folks, sorry there’s only one MLC fic here!

1. What’s Sealed Away (Mysterious Lotus Casebook, Dihua)

I really enjoyed figuring out how a-Fei’s amnesia works based on the details the show gives us and the things it’s oddly silent about, and reverse engineering based on how he acts towards LLH what his experience of amnesia might be like. (Also, as someone who has unfortunately had experience with amnesia, I feel like most examples of the amnesia trope really punt on the many different kinds of memory and how amnesia can mean you lose some but not all, and the wild things that happen when there are contradictions between them.) I’m also really proud of the ways I tried to convey the meanings behind LLH’s reactions even when DFS as the POV character had no way to fully interpret them because of all the missing context. It was a fun writing challenge.

2. Nunc Atque Semper (Horatio Hornblower, Maria/Horatio Hornblower, past Archie Kennedy/Horatio Hornblower; the only Dead Kennedy Universe fic I will ever write)

I can’t even read fics where Archie dies without being an emotional mess for days, so I was not ever expecting to write one. But 1. I got a prompt for it, and 2. It was a chance to hold Horatio accountable for the ways he treats Maria in the series while also being sympathetic to him for his overwhelming grief and being married to someone he doesn’t love; and 3. I love incorporating literary allusions into my work, and Archie’s canonical love of Shakespeare meant that I could have a central part of the fic be Maria essentially trying to do literary analysis to figure out what Archie and Horatio were to each other. I very much broke my own heart with this fic and I’m still proud of it.

3. Harboured and Encompassed (Horatio Hornblower modernAU (libraryAU + actor!Archie), Archie/Horatio; Archie/Horatio/Will pre-slash; 148,000 words)

I am still so incredibly proud of how I adapted the characters and events (with aspects of some of the books thrown in) to a modern setting while staying true to who they are. These characters will always have a very very special place in my heart, as will the special combo of humor, fluff, and heart-rending angst that having a character like Archie at the center of it enabled (I miss writing him so much sometimes). I love the whole series, too, but this is definitely the core of it.

4. Turning Over the Sands of Time (Horatio Hornblower, Archie/Horatio)

I still don’t understand why this one has so few kudos when I think it’s some of my best writing. Maybe the subject matter is too bleak/violent? (Mind the tags if you read it!) I really love writing missing scene fics and character studies, and the moments from the show that bookend this fic break my heart every time and make me fall in love with Archie all over again, respectively, and I wanted to delve into the hellscape of Archie’s mind in those moments and show how, even when he is in emotional agony and dealing with flashbacks, he is still compassionate and caring and trying with what little agency he has to make sure no one ever suffers as he did, or at least, if they are forced to, that no one has to suffer alone. (Also, a horribly depressed and triggered Archie means a very poetic Archie, which means I got to write lines like “The actors had changed, but the play had not” and “a rotting weed by any name would smell as fetid” and “Dying might be a price worth paying if it could but purchase that.” Have I mentioned I miss writing Archie?)

5. Taking Hands Against a Sea of Troubles (Horatio Hornblower, Archie/Horatio)

TW: suicide mention

The first time I saw a delirious Archie quote Anthony and Cleopatra during his suicide attempt and the play-illiterate Horatio has no idea what he’s saying, I knew I wanted to write the a scene where they see the play together years later in Drury Lane and Horatio finally understands the context. And I knew the scene in the theater box would need so much non-verbal communication and would need to be so comparatively subtle–because of the semi-public nature of the theatre box and the very real danger they would face if Horatio actually comforted Archie more overtly–so I waited a few years after having the idea until I was able to execute it the way I wanted to. I really love fics that deal just as much (if not more) in what’s unsaid than what’s said–for all that I love deep dives into character psychology–and I’m so glad I was able to finally write this. 

Thanks again for the ask!

[repurposedmeatlocker]

top 5 monkees episodes??

OMFGGGG

Gonna rate these in a combination of "cinematically significant" as well as a good dose of my personal opinion :P

Monkees on Tour - I really dig this one! I love how they went for a kind of "cinéma vérité" style. Stylistically one of the episodes that stands out the most from the rest of their usual show format, and all the better for it. I also feel that it is probably the most "honest" look at each member as a real person. The whole thing with The Monkees is how they blur the line between real and fake, to the point that even hardcore fans have trouble telling the difference. I think this episode is the closest they all got to being a little honest. Maybe overblown in the dramatic interview portions, but the intent is still there. Now if only we can get the full live footage of those concerts...I know some vault has them...my personal white whale.

The Devil and Peter Tork - What HASN'T already been said about "The Devil and Peter Tork"?? It is kind of THE Monkees episode. I am not gonna talk too much about all the inner meanings behind the narrative and how it reflects on The Monkees trying to gain acceptance in music history, or how Peter's deal with the devil reflects the band's own downfall. I will just say that the "selling soul to the devil" plot-line and trope is one of my favorite media allusions. It never fails. Also Mike Nesmith's speech. Yeah that's it.

Mijacgeo or The Frodis Caper - Their last episode being not only one of their best and most unique, but ALSO directed by Micky Dolenz just makes it so awesome. The humor in it seriously holds up the way a good ytp does. I love how crazy and insane it is. The aliens, the eye controlling people through the television, the weed references. It is so 60s. I want to explore Micky's mind.

Some Like It Lukewarm - Ok this one is EXTREMELY biased. I know that a lot of elements with the narrative do not age well and sit wrong. I am still peeved how their idea of a "mixed gender group" is just having the girls stand around and dance like...ok...BUT I think that it is certainly a hilarious episode. Their outfits are some of my favs, Davy is in drag, and I love their performance of "She Hangs Out". It is so cute and fun. Also Davy is in drag.

Success Story - Super early episode compared to the others here, but I think it is EVEN MORE IMPORTANT because of it. It is kind of a traditional format episode by Monkees standards. Monkees deal with a conflict, go through musical hijinks to solve it, win in the end yay. But man...Davy put his ALL in acting for this. When he is told he has to leave and go back to England and is saying goodbye to them...Like, holy shit man. I am crying because of the mf Monkees show. The fact that they decided to air an episode of this emotional magnitude so early in the show's run, and the fact that it could carry such an emotional impact, really just says a lot about each member as an actor and the relationship they built onscreen. I don't know if people realize how entertaining these guys are as actors, and how well they built a believable onscreen relationship with one another. I think this episode is kind of a testament to that.

[kitsoa]

I once again got the urge to work on my Trigun Stampede Broadway Musical Concept. But I feel it requires me to do more research on musicals. Expand my horizons for the music references.

For the record, I'm thinking about writing an outline with the song concepts and summarizing how they progress or move the plot. Note the changes in characterization and make a little Bible of ideas on how to bring it to life like effects and costumes.

There would also be song references from other musicals, not necessarily the content of the song but the mood and style mixed with notes on instrumentation or allusions to the tristamp ost.

Finally I would make a playbill cover. Cause most musicals do stylized iconic renderings that don't depict detailed actors for the sake of a rotating cast.

I just have to decide how overtly gay we are getting cuz the vashwood dynamic would be the real heart of the narrative. It would be very subversive to not be explicit with a romantic subplot but we could maintain the emotional core of all the relationships regardless.

But omg I'm reviewing some dialogue from trimax and like there would be no way to drop some of these lines in song and not feel a romantic motif. Song does that lol. These guys have to be the emotional backbone.

At the risk of sounding heteronormative, Meryl would need a narrative upgrade as the sole female lead... I know romance is not my only choice here but it is the musical trope satisfying one. I'm gonna try to avoid it. Even though I have a real soft spot for vashmeryl.

She is the audience insert character and I would have to do well to make her not passive but maybe grow towards something in her relationship to parallel the themes of human nature, in a way that tristamp couldn't/ didnt have the air time to do. Maybe mess with her motives a bit, give her some kind of commentary on the setting and have her make an active choice, maybe in the plant reveal turn of the narrative (which is an act 1 finale thing as of now, act 2 is flashback and maybe an original escalating plotline). This isn't corrective by any means, I love Meryl but the engagement in a musical setting is very different.

I know for a fact that I'll have to rearrange some things and combine some ideas from even the tristamp formula. Mainly to fit into the 2 act format or accommodate the flow and set.

I'm rambling but most musicals don't have lore and tristamp has lore and I think it could be really really effective and cool. Ahhh this is just an excuse to listen to a bunch if show tunes.

Anywhere, does this sound interesting or am I just crazy? The right kind of crazy?

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

‘It’s a good thing we’re not in ancient Rome. Someone’s liable to mistake you for Nero.’

– 11th Inspector

[threebooksoneplot]

📖 Glossary of Terms 🔍 - Season 1

As explained in our finale episode, Shannon sure as hell didn't know a lot of the terms/words that G and various guests used. That led to the creation of this glossary.

This is a non-comprehensive list that includes academic deep cuts, colloquialisms, and popular internet fan culture phrases that people who aren’t entrenched in fandom culture may not know. That's in addition to the things Shannon heard while recording and silently went "okay... guess I gotta google that after we're done."

Many of these terms have already appeared in our show notes! That’s always the perfect place to follow along with whatever nonsense we’re talking about in each episode and often includes extra articles/content about many of these concepts. You are also welcome to send us an ask or email asking for definitions or clarification about anything we say!

(your daily learning experience under the cut)

Alternate Universe/AU

An alternate universe (also known as AU, alternative universe, alternative/alternate timeline, alternative/alternate reality) is a setting for a work of fanfiction that departs from the canon of the fictional universe that the fanwork is based on. Example: A fanfiction story about Twilight characters on board the USS Enterprise would be set in an alternate universe and called "an AU." (Fanlore link)

Anachronism

An anachronism (prn. "ah-NAK-rohn-iz-um, not "ANNA-krohn-iz-um" as it is frequently mispronounced by Youtubers who shall remain nameless), is a "chronological inconsistency," a thing belonging or appropriate to a time period other than that in which it appears, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned. Example: since iPhone 14s and Venmo did not exist in 2005, it would be an anachronism if, in Midnight Sun, Bella pulled out her iPhone 14 and venmoed Edward the cost of her ravioli. (Wikipedia link)

Blocking [a scene]

Blocking is “the precise staging of actors.” Blocking in filmmaking or theatre refers to where actors stand on a set and how they move around over the course of a scene, similar to choreography in dance. (Wikipedia link)

Blorbo

Blorbo is a slang term for a favorite fictional character, usually one that a fan frequently posts and/or makes fanworks about. Example: Alice Cullen is one of Shannon's and G's Blorbos. (Know Your Meme link)

"Bride of death"

As coined by Rae in Episode 12, an allusion to the popular 'Death and the Maiden' imagery, and specifically the subset of tropes common in folklore and fiction in which a bride is murdered by her groom, usually on their wedding night (see also: murder ballads.)

Burying the lede

To bury the lede is to delay sharing the essential information [in a story,] and begin with secondary details instead. Example: Edward would have really buried the lede if he'd told us all the details of how messy Bella's room was before bothering to mention that he had just broken in and was watching her sleep. (Merriam-Webster link)

Canon and Fanon

Canon is anything presented in official works by the creators of something. Example: it is canon that Bella Swan likes books. (Fanlore link)

Fanon is like a "fan canon." Basically fans developing agreed-upon readings or ideas about canon. Example: nowhere in Twilight canon is it stated that Emmett Cullen loves fantasy football, but if enough fans decide they think Emmett loves fantasy football, and start putting it into their fanworks and adopting it into their reading of Emmett, it becomes "fanon" that Emmett Cullen loves fantasy football. (Fanlore link)

Confirmation Bias

The Confirmation bias fallacy is a bias in psychology which refers to how we tend to only seek out and listen to information that confirms the opinion we already hold, and likewise tend to avoid any evidence that might be contradictory to our opinion. Example: Bella Swan, who loves vampires, finds 6 articles about evil bad guy vampires and one article about a good guy vampire. Guess which one she chooses to incorporate into her worldview? (Article link)

[Plot] Contrivance 

A plot contrivance is an overly convenient coincidence or circumstance, "something that causes things to happen in a story in a way that does not seem natural or believable." Usually happens when the author of a literary work forces action in a story rather than letting the events unfold naturally. Example: The gang of attackers happening upon Bella in Port Angeles was a plot contrivance so that Edward could save her.

Decision Fatigue

Decision fatigue is “the idea that after making many decisions, your ability to make more and more decisions over the course of a day becomes worse" (and, as a corollary, less enjoyable.) Example: Writing fanfiction is less likely to result in decision fatigue than writing original fiction, because the writer doesn't have to imagine and build the characters and world from the ground up. (Wikipedia link)

Democratized [fiction]

Democratize: to make (something) available to all people, to make it possible for all people to understand (something.) Example: Fanfiction can be considered "democratized" fiction because it is free and there are often few or no barriers to accessing, reading, and posting it.

Doylist vs Watsonian 

Doylist readings or interpretations look at "the out-of-universe or exegetic commentary, consider the work as a created object, and prefer exegetic explanations with particular attention to the author's intentions." Example: the Doylist reason for why the Cullens moved to Forks is because Stephenie Meyer needed all of her characters to live there for the sake of the story.

Watsonian readings look at "the in-universe or diegetic explanations" and how they "function within the logic of the narrative." Example: the Watsonian reason for why the Cullens moved to Forks is that the Cullens themselves chose a cloudy town and decided to move there. (Fanlore link)

Fandom and Bandom

A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest. A bandom is a fandom for a particular musician or musical artist. (Fanlore links)

Filk

Filk music is a musical culture, genre, and community tied to science fiction, fantasy, and horror fandom and a type of fan labor. The genre has existed since the early 1950s and been played primarily since the mid-1970s. G appropriates the term to refer to "any musical fanwork." (Wikipedia link)

Flanderization

Flanderization is the process through which a fictional, formerly complex character's essential traits are oversimplified to become their entire personality, or at least exaggerated over other traits, over the course of a serial work. Named after Ned Flanders from The Simpsons, who began as a relatively three-dimensional character and slowly evolved to become a caricature whose entire personality was Christianity. (Wikipedia link)

Fridge Logic/Fridge Explanation

An initially overlooked detail in a story, which, upon further contemplation, is more nonsensical or unrealistic than originally assumed, often to the point of creating a plot hole. Named after the image/idea that such overlooked details might only dawn on a viewer/reader after they have put aside a story and gone to get something out of their fridge. (TV Tropes link)

[The above is different than] Fridging (cw: murder, misogyny)

Character fridging is the use of a secondary or tertiary character as a plot device to motivate a primary character by cause of brutally killing, maiming, or otherwise harming said secondary/tertiary character. Usually discussed in the context of women characters and characters of color who are "fridged" to motivate a white male hero. Named after an old Green Lantern comic in which the hero returns home to find his then-girlfriend murdered and stuffed into a fridge. (TV Tropes link)

“Knocking over liquor stores”

A colloquialism. To "knock [an establishment] over" is to rob it. Has connotations of casual, unsophisticated, small-time robbery rather than an elegantly planned heist.

Lampshading

Hanging a lampshade, (or "Lampshading") is a trick writers use to deal with any element of a story that threatens the audience's willing suspension of disbelief (whether a very implausible plot development or a particularly blatant use of a trope) by calling attention to it and simply moving on. Example: Stephenie Meyer should have had Emmett lampshade the implausibility of Twilight by saying "what are the odds that the one person in the world whose blood tastes irresistibly delicious to Edward would walk into his science class and be assigned as his lab partner?" (Article link)

Non-sequitur

A non-sequitur is a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement. Example: if Edward had said "I'm a vampire who desperately wants to kill you and drink your blood. What's your favorite color?" that second sentence would be a major non-sequitur. (Merriam-Webster link)

Paranoid and Reparative Reading: 

Two terms coined by queer studies scholar Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick to refer to two different methods of reading, understanding, or critiquing something. “Essentially, paranoid reading approaches a work — whether it’s a story, tweet, TV show, photograph, or anything else that can be critiqued — from a defensive position. It anticipates bad actors and maliciousness, seeking out clues for them. Reparative reading, on the other hand, searches for the positive in even a deeply flawed work. It seeks pleasure instead of avoiding pain. It recognizes where the text might benefit some viewers/readers, even if it’s not personally pleasurable.” (Original Kosofsky Sedgwick pdf link, full Book Riot thinkpiece link; CW for discussion of homophobia, transphobia, racism)

Paratext and Epitext:

Paratext: The common elements provided within a book (peritext) and elements outside of the book (epitext) that refer to the book and can affect individual, as well as cultural, perceptions of a text, Example: Twilight's cover, typesetting style, dedication and acknowledgement are part of its paratext. (Wikipedia link)

Epitext: All elements outside the spectrum of the main text of the literary work, but present in a context external to the volume of the main work. Intended for the purpose of aiding, informing or complementing it. Example: Stephenie Meyer's playlists, blog posts, and interviews about Twilight are part of its epitext.

Lampshading

Lampshade Hanging (or, more informally, "Lampshading") is the writers' trick of dealing with any element of the story that threatens the audience's willing suspension of disbelief, whether a very implausible plot development, or a particularly blatant use of a trope, by calling attention to it and simply moving on. (G-provided link)

Non-sequitur

A non-sequitur is a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement. Example: if Edward had said "I'm a vampire who desperately wants to kill you and drink your blood. What's your favorite color?" that second sentence would be a major non-sequitur.

“Playing the end”

A theatrical term for the phenomenon when the actors' knowledge of how a play ends seeps into their performance, making it less realistic because in-universe, their characters should not know how their own story ends. Generally considered a negative thing that should be avoided. Example: the actors playing Romeo and Juliet start bringing "we're going to kill ourselves and die" energy to their giddy first love scenes.

“Sowing your wild oats”

A colloquial expression that means "to have many sexual relationships, particularly when one is young." Often used more generally to mean "partying or living a wild, frivolous lifestyle" than to having sexual encounters specifically. Example: Human Emmett must have really been sowing his wild oats in order for him to believe he had gone to Hell upon awakening as a vampire.

[thehyperrequiem]

It would be funny if Rocketear episode is just the Real Bubbler Returning...

And Rocketear is the name of his comically bubble gun themed Tommy Gun. That would be a great idea for the Actor Allusion Trope to his previous Voice Actor Ben Diskin, who voiced Joseph Joestar (Who at one point had a tommy gun) just like this gif.

[archaeopter-ace]

For the fanfic ask: P, S :-)

P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)

I think it's a sliding scale, but I do lean more towards 'architect.' Like if a shiny new idea occurs to me while writing I will absolutely make room for it, but I find it helpful to have a plan especially since I write out of chronological order, based on where the inspiration is. And sometimes the way for me to overcome writer's block is to break my outline down into smaller and smaller pieces until I have one Topic Sentence per paragraph. Then I go in and fill in the paragraphs in any order, and if there's one that I just can't find inspiration for, chances are that's because it's not that interesting to me. And if it's not interesting to me as a writer, it probably won't be interesting to my readers, and I can cut it out entirely. Just skip the filler and cutscene away to the next interesting bit, or leave just the topic sentence to show how characters got from A to B without going into detail.

S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?

Identity Reveal - and related Power Reveal variations - is my favorite trope to read, but when it comes to writing... hmm... I'd have to say Puns. Like I don't go out of my way to come up with puns, and I don't often write wisecracking characters, but if a pun occurs to me I cannot resist working it into the story. Doesn't matter whether readers will notice or not. One time I was writing a story about shapeshifters, and I had the pigeon guy wear a Columbia University shirt. Because the genus for the common pigeon is Columba. Things like that. Oh, and Actor Allusion, too, I just love making references.

Thanks for the ask! :-)

[fdelopera]

Leroux originally wrote Erik as being from Scandinavia in his manuscript, from the same region of Sweden as Christine, hence Erik's Swedish name. Then Leroux changed Erik's background to French, from Rouen - which is where Leroux was born. Leroux was doing a self-insert here. But he did not describe Erik or his family as being black.

It's important not to give Gaston Leroux credit that he doesn't deserve.

We can and should do "Death of the Author," which I'll discuss below, but it's also important not to give a white author credit for writing a non-white character when they haven't done so. This takes away from actual non-white characters in literature, especially non-white characters written by non-white authors.

It would have been powerful if Leroux had written Erik as being black. But he didn't. Not in his character description, nor in his background.

I say this from an intimate knowledge of Leroux's novel. I've studied Leroux's French manuscript, his 1909 Gaulois feuilleton serialization, and the original 1910 French novel. I'm a Leroux scholar and translator.

If we claim that Leroux did write Erik as being black, we are giving Leroux a modern recognition of progressiveness that he didn't earn, and doesn't deserve.

It was absolutely not progressive for Leroux to describe Erik as being like Othello when he sang the opera with Christine as Desdemona, for instance. Or for him to write Erik as being like Don Juan in Erik's self-insert opera, Don Juan triomphant.

Erik does spend his youth traveling with Romani people, but Leroux makes it clear that Erik is not Roma. They don't adopt him into their family. Instead, he exhibits himself in their traveling fair as the "mort vivant" in order to earn a living, and he also develops a magic act that he performs. He ran away with this Romani group to escape his abusive mother.

Leroux's description of Romani people is filled with a lot of the bigotry that you'd expect from an early 20th century French author (though 1990s British author Susan Kay in her novel "Phantom" said "hold my beer" and managed to write Romani characters with 100 times more racism and bigotry than Leroux did).

As for Othello, white actors in the 1800s performed Othello in black face (they of course also did this well into the late-1990s and early 2000s). That's partly what Leroux was describing through Christine's narration in "Apollo's Lyre," because Erik was wearing his black silk mask when he sang the opera with her.

Christine was also saying that Erik's black silk mask reminded her of Othello's complexion. She says, "Le masque noir d'Erik me faisait songer au masque naturel du More de Venise" -- "Erik's black mask reminded me of the natural mask of the Moor of Venice." But she wasn't saying that Erik shared Othello's complexion. Christine described Erik's complexion as being white and extremely pale, like the color of bone. The Daroga also describes Erik as being exceedingly pale. In his narration, he says, "Ayant enlevé son chapeau, il montra un front d'une pâleur de cire" -- "Having removed his hat, he revealed a forehead as pale as wax."

Leroux is using racist tropes here. He's describing Erik's "otherness" as being associated with black literary characters that were largely performed by white actors, and he's also making an allusion to blackface.

However, Leroux wasn't being literal. Instead, he was using literary "blackness" as a metaphor for "otherness," which nowadays we recognize as extremely racist, but in Leroux's day it was still used as a literary trope.

There are many progressive aspects of Leroux's novel. But we shouldn't give him credit for portraying a non-white main character in his novel when he didn't.

Instead, it's important to highlight intentionally written non-white characters in literature, especially when they are created by non-white authors.

.

Now, all that said, it's also vital to recognize "Death of the Author" here.

We should not give Leroux more credit than he deserves.

And at the same time, non-white actors should of course have the opportunity to play Erik as a non-white character on stage.

And Erik can and should be imagined however phans want to imagine him.

This gets into a discussion of canon versus fanon.

Non-white actors who bring their own experiences of being othered in white society have an experience of ostracization when portraying Erik that white actors won't have.

And non-white phans who see themselves in Erik and connect to him through a shared sense of "otherness" can and often do find tremendous power in that connection.

And I wish more non-white phanartists and phanfic writers would create more portrayals of Erik from their own lived experience. Mostly, he's portrayed as being white, according to Gerard Butler's performance in the 2004 movie, Michael Crawford's characterization from ALW's POTO, Susan Kay's characterization in "Phantom," or Leroux's description in his original novel.

There are also many productions of Phantom around the world where the cast is non-white, such as the recent production of ALW's POTO in Uganda, ALW's POTO in Shanghai, China, and the Takarazuka production of Kopit/Yeston's "Phantom" in Japan. And of course, there's Studio Life's theatrical production of Susan Kay's "Phantom" in Japan.

But also, we shouldn't give Gaston Leroux credit for this. He didn't earn it and he doesn't deserve it. He created an immensely compelling character in Erik who has stood the test of time, but he shouldn't be credited with making Erik non-white. That credit should go to the actors and to the phans.

Watched the 2004 Phantom of the Opera film for the first time ever, ask me anything