#Anvilicious (trope)

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

The programme has been criticised many times over the years for the heavy-handed way the writers tackled major social issues,

such as Geneva taking the decision to activate the bomb that destroyed the creature inside the Moon, which was likened to her aborting her own baby.

[olderthannetfic]

A/B/O that contains bioessentialist tropes without anvilicious narrative disapproval, such that it is legitimately hard to tell whether they reflect the author's beliefs, or just a kink/fascination, that's an opportunity to make things clear in the Top Notes.

--

It's weird fanfic porn. I'm going to assume in 99% of cases that it's a combination of Rule of Horny and weak writing skills.

[fixaidea]

So it's true, Wizard of the Crow is, as TV Tropes would put it, a bit Anvilicious.

But for one, it's meant to have a sort of folk talesy vibe, and it fits with that.

Also, moral anvils have never stopped me from enjoying a book before. Hell, some of my greatest faves could be safely renamed 'What Pissed Terry Pratchett Off THIS Time?', 'Bulgakov's Beef With Soviet Elite, Especially Literary Critics' or 'Victor Hugo's Opinions: the Novel'.

If the story is enjoyable enough it can get away with as many anvils as it damn well pleases and at 60% I'm still having a very good time with Wizard of the Crow.

[synaryn]

Barbie is the LEAST subtle movie i have ever seen. greta gerwig really takes a hammer and beats the message into your head. there's a scene where barbie says "i'm not pretty anymore" and the movie PAUSES for the narrator to break the fourth wall and say "note to the producers, margot robbie is not who you want to cast for this line". could be the TV Tropes example of Anvilicious.

but i think that was also the point. that women are tired of needing feminist messages in media to be subtle enough for men to ignore. that we can't speak openly about the ways toxic masculinity damages society as a whole. gloria spends a whole five minutes going off about the contradictions of being a modern day woman, and outright says we're not supposed to acknowledge all of it. but she does, and it's what breaks the spell over the brainwashed barbies. women can be anything, including loud and direct about feminism and patriarchy. we don't have to tiptoe around it.

[chiisana-sukima]

via @adihildilid. Peer review on these tags: correct and true. Even after he shoots the Stein kid in the MoC arc, which is supposed to be his lowest point in the whole series, he's still the Patriarch. He is the one who has the option to go to Death and say "I finally agree I need to be contained now". Here too, like the Michael thing, he is still in charge of himself; even Death is just a consult.

Sam, Bobby and Dean when Sam is in the throes of hallucinations from demon blood withdrawal in s4:

Dean in the throes of hallucinations from the MoC in s10:

gif from pintrest & i cant find the tumblr version, apologies for the lack of credit

(Meanwhile, Sam in the deleted scenes, same episode:)

Sam's fate being decided in the s4 demon blood arc:

Dean's fate being decided in the s10 MoC arc:

The contrast is just so striking and anvilicious. I do think Dean feels like a monster here, and also that he feels like a monster in s4 after Alastair. And it's arguable perhaps that he's behaving like a "monster" here (although spn makes clear several times that humans behave just as badly as monsters). But the narrative doesn't treat him like a monster except, to the best of my memory, in Soul Survivor.

Anyway haha I meant the above part to be basically just adi's tags but then I got distracted by the "when is Dean a monster and when not" question. The body of the reblog was supposed to be the below:

I guess I just don't want anyone to think that I hold either of them above the other

No worries @jinkieswouldyoulookatthis, I didn't think that was the case. I know you love them both. <3 And I apologize if I've (accidentally) been combative or if I gave the impression I was angry with you, which is absolutely not the case. I am kind of pissy and unimpressed with Jensen about that interview, and I'm unimpressed by OP and original recent reblogger, who I know are both rather hardcore Sam haters. But mostly I'm very happy to have some new Dean girl friends who I can get opinions from that differ from mine. I'm old for tumblr and I still have the pre-scocial media belief that interacting with people who have different opinions than one is how one learns and grows. I enjoy it and although I hope you are enjoying it too, if I ever get too intense, I'm always fine with you stepping out of the conversation and/or asking me to please back off. Spn is (one of) my autistic special interests, so I a) unfortunately might not notice if you're feeling done, and b) prefer bluntness in social interaction.

But you are completely correct in that the show glosses over and/or forgives Dean for stuff that it crucifies Sam for, which is not fair or logical at all

When Carver was in charge I had gotten to this point too. Carver's id is not, frankly, a very comfortable thing for me to be observing. He's a good writer but he's just not to my taste.

But I've largely recovered from Carver since the finale lol, and I would say now that the difference in how the story treats Sam and Dean is logical because Sam is the Final Girl, and the final girl buys her survival through compliance. On the large social scale of real life, this trope is absolutely not fair. But it is interesting. And iddy in a way I enjoy. And from within the confines of spn as a genre work, maybe actually even is fair in the sense that that's how the genre operates. Sam has to be purer than everyone else because he's the hero. He has to be obedient because his original sin was escape.

Oh when you used to sing it to sleep

@jinkieswouldyoulookatthis and @blue-chimera - thank you both for your kind and thoughtful replies to my reblog of this post. The og post is getting quite long and also I don't want to put too much writing effort into a reblog that's susceptible to disappearance, so I'm continuing here instead.

I agree with you both that Dean's parentification and Sam's continued acceptance of vs rebellion against it as an adult are an important part of their dynamic. Dean's dying words in the finale attest to this beautifully (as well as many other things throughout the course of the show); I love you so much, my baby brother. To a certain extent Sam is Dean's baby and always will be.

I think though to a large extent, the framing by both Sam and Dean of Dean as Sam's parentified elder sibling is a mutually employed, mostly cooperative sanitization of the central and most damaging aspect of the roles they internalized through their upbringing: Sam is a monster and Dean is the tool to "take care of" it (double reading of "take care of" 100% intentional on my part). Because of this, while readings of spn through the lens of Dean's parentification are definitely valid, I do think they sometimes risk distorting or leaving out important aspects of the characters' personalities, motivations, and relationship.

Jinkies, in my fruitless quest to process without reblogging a take I knew the OP wouldn't appreciate, I had listened to the interview before posting, and I think while Jensen is being flip, he's also getting at what he sees as a truth in the brothers' relationship. I think he's right from a Doylist/co-creator/actor's perspective--Sam is the protagonist who we see through Dean, the deuteragonist's, eyes. Dean, as a piece of the narrative artifact, Supernatural, is there to save Sammy in a way that Sam (up to that point anyway) is not a piece of the narrative artifact whose purpose is to save Dean. From a Watsonian/in-universe perspective though, I think he's mistaken, and that his mistake is the reason his take sounds uncharitable, even aside from the flippant part.

It's just not a very convincing analysis imo to frame a character who spends the first few seasons rejecting immoral power, the next few in an arc that ends with him willingly subjected himself to eternal torture for the good of the world, and the one after that intending to sacrifice himself dramatically to rid the world of one particular species of monster but doesn't because Dean asks him not to, as self-absorbed or not particularly concerned with his effect on others, including on his brother. Likewise, Dean holds up well as a parentified older sibling with no sense of internal self and abysmal self-esteem in some ways, but in others not so much. He does have interests and priorities and a sense of purpose outside Sam. They're all over spn every day, much more so in fact than Sam's are. They're just not enough to override his Sam prioritization.

The main place I think this analysis fails on Dean's side though is that he, as an adult, is just not a very good parent. Obviously as a child he couldn't be expected to be a good parent (or a parent at all) and as an adult he's already damaged and so it's understandable that if big brother-ing Sam is how he chooses to spend the rest of his life, he may still not be equipped to do it. But he fails on such a fundamental, obvious level at the the most basic aspects of parenting--providing safety, unconditional love, and preparing your child to go out into the world as an independent adult--in ways that once he's a grown up are absolutely within his power to at least attempt (for example: if he wants Sam to be safer, it would ultimately have failed because of Fate, but the logical thing to do first would be not hunt. Dean could've followed Sam to Palo Alto. He could've told him to go to Harvard Law if he can't tolerate Stanford after Jess dies. Could've refused to support him throwing his life away of a mission of revenge. Bought him his own car, encouraged him to have his own tastes. Told him convincingly that trusting Ruby was a bad decision but Lucifer is still not his fault).

None of that is meant to be insulting to Dean though, because I don't think that parenting Sam is Dean's real job--even from Dean's perspective--and I don't think his real job is palatable enough that it would be better for either of them if he admitted what it is head on. What his and Sam's real jobs both are imo is being a container for Sam. On Dean's side, this means holding Sam in his arms with love or if that's not enough, holding him in the panic room, which, from this perspective, is also an act of love. Substituting his judgement for Sam's is an act of love. Not encouraging Sam to hold his own interests first or to grow towards independence are acts of love. Given the nature of (what I believe to be) Dean's actual job, they are effective and competent acts of love undertaken under impossible circumstances, even if the results are sometimes pretty horrific. Because they're still better than the alternative.

Likewise on Sam's side, doing his job well means being a model monster--go to an Ivy, exercise, eat healthy, cultivate empathy, don't have desires of your own, hold yourself to an impossible standard, suppress your anger, kill other monsters when they get out of line. And in the moments he can't manage all that--because who can?-- submit to Dean. When he does those things, he's succeeding at his job, and while it would be nice if "let your brother hit you" or "jump in the Cage with Lucifer" wasn't his job, in the world of spn, it is. He is right to be contained by Dean and wrong to have opinions or priorities of his own unless Dean approves them first.

I do think this sometimes ends up looking like Sam has better self-regard, because Dean's job is to "take care of" Sam, and Sam's job is also to "take care of" Sam. But actually they both have absolutely abysmal shit self-esteem. "I should submit to eternal torture because it's my fault someone else is going to do terrible things he could choose not to do if he wanted" is not the thinking of a person with healthy self-regard. The reason neither of them could fill a thimble with their self-esteem or healthy boundaries imo is because neither "monster" nor "blunt instrument" is a person. Neither of these roles is better or more healthy than the other. Fundamentally, if you don't see yourself first and foremost as a human person, then your life is going to suck horribly. And neither of them see themselves that way.

[vincentspork]

Ok im pretty glad I played that. Distilled 2013 tumblr down to it using rpgmaker 2003 as the engine in all of its kinda cringy but carefree complexity. The music and art were very nice and it didnt overstay its welcome. 8/10

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

From the Total Drama Fridge Brilliance TV Tropes under Revenge of the Island:

Dakota initially seemed to be a shallow character, which is the entire point: Her entire life she was treated as a shallow character by everyone surrounding her, so when Sam spoke to her as though she were a normal person, she felt respected and her character started to gain more depth. It shows that even shallow characters can be good characters and can be considered an Anvilicious way to tell Give Geeks a Chance.

Thomas: "Lol nope. Once a brat, always a brat."

Bold of you to assume Miraculous Ladybug’s writers know how to satirize character archetypes like Total Drama does with reality TV cliches.

[muggle-born-princess]

Literally from the Total Drama Fridge Brillance TV Tropes:

Dakota initially seemed to be a shallow character, which is the entire point: Her entire life she was treated as a shallow character by everyone surrounding her, so when Sam spoke to her as though she were a normal person, she felt respected and her character started to gain more depth. It shows that even shallow characters can be good characters and can be considered an Anvilicious way to tell Give Geeks a Chance.

Thomas Astruc:

[shadeswift99]

YOU GET IT, this is exactly how I feel about - wait hang on

Also for the ask game: "you and I are not so different after all" type parallels drawn between a villain and a main character? (As in, when it is implied by the narrative or outright suggested by one of them they they are essentially pursuing the same type of goal with the same methods, just with different framing)

B by virtue of it being a Very High C -- i fucking love this trope so goddamn much but, like, the villain and the narrative both have to earn that, and if they don't then it's the most obnoxious thing in the world

however, when it's done well (and lucky for me, a lot of the time it is) then it's very tasty and i enjoy it a great deal. then again i'm a TIZ Team enjoyer i don't know why this'd be a surprise to you ;P

[bunnyandbooks]

Ace of Spades by Faridah Abike-Iyimide

Chiamaka and Devon are the only two black students in a prestigious high school, Niveus Academy. Soon into their senior year, they realize they become the target of a mysterious figure known only as “Aces,” who seems to only exist to spread nasty gossip about them and spill their most disastrous secrets. Spoilers under the cut.

I picked this one up because I heard it described as a “Gossip Girl” type school drama, but be forewarned that this is nothing like the soapy fluffy melodrama I was expecting. The bullying these kids face is downright brutal, and you can’t enjoy the drama because what they go through is so violating, icky, and devastating. Every single white character in this book is a sociopath. Every. Single. One. They all make-pretend to be friendly, but everyone is single-mindedly psychologically and physically abusing the two protagonists with the aim to ruin their lives in a practice called social eugenics. You would think that one of these people would have learned to feel something due to developed friendship or affection, or at least feel regret or guilt, but none of them do, and they in fact seem pretty ready to watch the school principal straight-up shoot Chiamaka at the equivalent of prom like it’s a normal occurrence.

Perhaps Belle, the girl that Chiamaka has a fling with, shows hints of some feeling, and she does provide helpful information that helps the protagonists unravel some of the mystery, but she very tellingly drops out of the narrative once she does, because you’re not supposed to think she’s redeemable. She’s part of the corrupt Ace of Spades society, one of the Aces, who took advantage of Chiamaka’s feelings to further the social eugenics agenda is the end goal of Aces. It’s especially telling because her treatment is Terrell, who is black and also betrayed the protagonists, is eventually forgiven and actually ends up with Devon at the end of the book. To put it in TV Tropes terms, the book is a pretty Anvilicious tale of institutionalized racists systems, and the way these systems are put in place to deliberately disadvantage and even kill black people.

But then again, Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: the book drives home how utterly powerless and outmatched they are. Every attempt they try to fight back is thwarted because they trusted the wrong people or the people who should be helping them are instead in on the Aces plan. Instead of a triumphant conclusion of the protagonists overcoming the school on their own power, they are only saved because of the black community coming together to violently protest Niveus and the Aces society. The protagonists do get the last laugh, but it’s quiet, and it’s through perseverance, not some dramatic show of strength.

I could make a commentary about intersectionality since other people of color are not overtly represented in the book, but that’s not the story that the author has come to tell. This is an unapologetic story about black struggle, and that is an important story to tell. If anything, it would’ve been nice to see some more focus on how the two protagonists are different and how racism affects them in different ways, Chiamaka being wealthy and a woman and presumably lighter skinned due to her mixed heritage and bi, while Devon is poor, male, and openly gay. Some nuances are introduced, but not thoroughly explored.

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

The lack of subtlety in the anti-war and pro-refugee messages

in Series 10 was not something viewers missed.

[moviegroovies]

confession time: for someone who (semi) actively runs a movie blog, i really haven’t seen a lot of classic movies.

(i know this comes as a shock for those of y’all who have been subjected to nothing but my half-baked thoughtpieces on bad 80′s horror for the past couple of years, but bear with me.) 

to be honest, even this review doesn’t REALLY represent me making an active choice to remedy that so much as it does me pulling a long con where i endear myself to marilyn monroe by watching her movies to get myself excited to watch the miniseries blonde (2001), for abnormally pretty, young jensen ackles purposes*, but let’s not dwell on all that. the practical result is the same; i watched some like it hot (1959). now, i hope y’all are ready for a few some like it Thoughts™:

first, idk how much attention y’all have been paying to the loose bits of personal lore i occasionally scatter within my reviews, but one thing about myself that i feel i’ve been pretty open about is the fact that i’m trans. this being so, and knowing not a whole lot about the movie beyond the very basic premise “1959 extended man in a dress gag,” i can’t say i went in with the highest of expectations. imagine my surprise, then, when the gender aspect of this movie was... actually pretty good? i mean, full disclosure, it’s not exactly gender studies, but it’s passable! it’s tolerable! there were even a few moments where i felt inclined to say the words “oh, GENDER?” out loud!

perhaps most impressively, i’d say the Cis Creator Cringe Factor of some like it hot was actually impressively LOWER than a lot of modern moves with genderswapping premises tend to be. like, i know that one definite explanation for that would be the fact that trans experiences are more widespread today, so modern filmmakers don’t feel comfortable playing with ideas like this without at least giving lipservice to them, while the era that bore some like it hot didn’t face the same “pressure,” but, okay. listen. compared to another movie i watched recently--freaky (2020), in which a teenage girl swaps bodies with serial killer vince vaugn, featuring one incredibly anvilicious scene where, upon being informed by a gay boy that she’s in the men’s bathroom, the girl’s best friend retorts, “she [vince vaugn]’s got a dick in her hand, and you’re wearing chanel no. 5. i think we’re past labels.”--some like it hot, a movie older than my father, was wayyyy easier to watch**. actually, you know what? yeah. listen to me. cis content creators? movie producers? i’m talking to you. DON’T EVEN BRING GENDER (or gender “identities”... which is an incredibly gross term, anyway) UP IF YOU’RE NOT PLANNING TO DO SOMETHING WITH IT. sincerely, this particular bad taste corner of the trans community :).

...anyway.

some like it hot, by contrast, did it right. YES, the premise of the movie was two presumably cis men in disguise as women. i’ll put that in the open. however, there was a certain... i don’t know if “respect” is the right word, but there was an avoidance, at least, of the usual predatory tropes. in fact, the worst behavior by far from either main character comes when joe manages to take off his female disguise, donning another, male persona and using things that sugar (marilyn’s character) confided in “josephine” to create a nonthreatening, desirable “millionaire” in order to trick her into sex. okay, like i said, it’s not gender studies, but, the humor in some like it hot comes from generally the right place. joe and jerry don their female disguises in a matter that in quite literally life and death for them (and it’s more than the creators ever thought of, i’m sure, but there IS an interesting analysis to be had of them needing to pass to live), which to a degree removes the usual pitfalls of male to female crossdressing as a gag; they’re neither doing it for lecherous reasons, nor to parody the female experience. this being a comedy, there is a degree of humor found in the situation, but it’s directed at jerry and joe, the characters, more than their disguises. the general assumption is that they both pass without question, as long as they’re wearing their ladies’ clothes; jerry once comments that he’s “not even pretty,” but it’s never an issue to contend with. 

wrt the crossdressing, the worst moment for me, personally, was a scene on the train when jerry prepared to take off the disguise in order to sleep with sugar, and even this ends up comedically averted at jerry’s expense.

and speaking of jerry.

jerry is actually the most compelling part of the movie for me, especially viewing it through the lens of gender. while joe, who gets the girl and manages to spend large chunks of the latter part of the film in his second, male disguise, never thinks too much about what they’re doing beyond the survival aspect of it, jerry is the one who, erm, “gets into character.” joe’s female name is simply josephine; before they get on the train with the woman musicians, it’s assumed that jerry will be going by “geraldine.” however, when they give their introductions, the duo becomes josephine... and daphne. 

as the movie progresses, this distinction grows more pronounced; when joe has to remind a smitten jerry on the train that he’s a girl, referring to their disguises, jerry miserably repeats the affirmation: “i’m a girl. i’m a girl. i want to die. i’m a girl.” later on, however, as joe’s relationship with sugar develops, “daphne” becomes acquainted with local horndog millionaire osgood, who he at first dislikes, but comes around to after being forced on a date as part of joe’s plan to trick sugar. after seeing jerry excited by the prospect of marrying osgood, a bewildered joe has to remind jerry why it’s an impossibility, and in the same miserable tone as before, jerry/daphne muddles through a new affirmation, one that definitely didn’t ring false to my trans ears: “i’m a boy. i’m a boy. i want to die. i’m a boy.” 

hm. actually, now i’m thinking about a trans male reading of joe. he was the one at first resistant to taking the job (with the all-female band), when they only needed money, and not a place to hide from an upset mob boss, but also the one who seems to know more about the role when it comes time to get into character. while jerrydaphne gets increasingly comfortable with femininity as time passes, joe never performs it in anything but a perfunctory, necessary way, and sloughs the costume EVEN WHEN the danger of being found out has not yet passed, because pretending for such a long period of time is just untenable. something about passing for female being a safe haven and a burden for both closeted (re-closeted, in this case) trans men and out trans women?

anyway. by the end, though both osgood and sugar do find out the truth about the disguises, sugar seems to instantly forgive joe for his treacherousness (again, referring more to his actions as the shell millionaire than his escapade in drag), while osgood appears unbothered by daphne’s truth, leading to an ambiguous ending for the futures of the characters, and any realizations that might come later.

no, it’s not the “real transgender experience.” it (thankfully) never claims to be. BUT, being trans myself, there were some moments that made me feel linked to our protagonists, and relatively few, if any, that made me feel alienated. all in all, that’s a lot more than i hoped for going in, so that’s what i’m happy with.

watch some like it hot, y’all. it’s a good movie in a timeless way, and, as modern movies appealing to short-lived trends that will feel outdated next week (if not by the very time of their release) will show you, that’s more than it needed to be. 

*since my original draft of this post, i DID watch blonde, and i don’t know if that’s technically fair game for this blog (not exactly a movie) or what, but 6/10. fairly well done piece of art but just BEATINGLY tragic, so proceed with caution. jensen ackles literally is THAT PRETTY though, so the jackles cut i give a strong 11/10. i am a homosexual.   **i would like to clarify that this isn’t me telling you not to watch freaky. yes, some of the dialogue is tragically riverdaleian, but there’s also a scene where vince vaugn makes out with a teenage boy. so,

[olderthannetfic]

'A/B/O that contains bioessentialist tropes without anvilicious narrative disapproval, such that it is legitimately hard to tell whether they reflect the author's beliefs, or just a kink/fascination, that's an opportunity to make things clear in the Top Notes.'

This is sounding a little too much like when anti's demand you condemn your characters in the notes for committing fictional murder. How do we know you don't support murder in real life?????😂

--

[scary-ivy]

TvTropes might just seem like a funny quirky wiki from the outside but it is truly a hellsite because:

1. Every piece of media that attempts to have any type of moral or message about anything important is deemed "Anvilicious" (which is supposed to be a term for something that is too heavy-handed, but they use it for anything that has a progressive moral)

2. The Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement is constantly used to delete things deemed "too political", but it's for some reason never invoked to remove the many racist or sexist comments🤔

3. The sheer number of tropes that are just descriptions of racial stereotypes, homophobic stereotypes ect, which all start by just describing the stereotype and then end with a short little disclaimer that says something weak like "of course not all X people are like that". Many of these tropes have offensive and unclear "jokey" names as well, like for example the trope for gay people who aren't flamboyant is simply called Straight Gay 🤦

[limeadeislife]

I just re-read The Giver and Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry for funsies, and I think I actually like the second book better, even though the Giver is the one that won thousands of Newbery Medals and stuff

The Giver is weird because at first it seems like it’s going to be a “realistic” sci-fi kind of story about a plausible future society, but then they introduce a bunch the weird quasi-magical stuff with no explanation, about how you can transmit memories and only some people can see colors now or whatever. It’s also very anvilicious in a way I don’t really find appealing, and as Scott Alexander pointed out once on his old blog it uses a lot of somewhat boring dystopia tropes.

Meanwhile Gathering Blue has a cool, kind of mysterious and suspenseful tone. I liked the setting (still post-apocalyptic, but now a medieval-esque village in the woods) and somehow it feels more real. The magical element is worked into the story in a way that’s more subtle and better done imo, where Kira and Thomas have Powers they don’t fully understand when they knit and carve. And Kira is a cinnamon roll

[milayna-liveblogs]

Hoo boy.

The revelations are more or less what I expected, but -

Hoo boy.

I didn’t expect to meet Nogi.

PROTECC

THESE GIRLS

Yeah this is getting down to it isn’t it. I’m amazed at how...organic it feels.

An LP’er I was watching recently had to quit Nier, because it was setting up that he was about to kill a little girl and her robot. I got a Youtube playthrough and watched the whole game through, and for me, that part was...just so ludicrously overwrought it was hilarious. Anvilicious. I’d have forced myself to feel anything there based on the tropes I know. Overdone. Lazy. This? Not that. It hits hard, but isn’t tortuously cliche; despite barely knowing this new girl, she doesn’t feel reduced to feels-bait. I actually CARE about this and it’s...something IO expected, but still hits.

So this episode gets 9/10 and I’m so nervous for the next few episodes. See you next time!