#Diego isn’t perfect and he also has this flawed way of thinking that I think would have just propelled Phoenix even further with his plan

[doctorsiren]

Okay okay oaky I have to ask based on the ask abt the disbarment I have to wonder how does Good Guy Godot react when phoenix DOES go too far??? (Ik he’d be going by diego again but I like the alliteration) like??? Would he be kinda pissed seeing what phoenix has become??? Would he be kinda pissed at HIMSELF for not noticing the ways phoenix was changing?? Would he be upset with MIA for not relaying that information to him??? Like???????? The potential?????

The thing is

I actually have to disagree here

I don’t think Diego would think Phoenix went too far

He didn’t lose sight of what was truly important (trucy, his badge, putting a criminal behind bars)

He didn’t lose sight of himself (yes he changed physically, emotionally, became cagier, but he laughed a lot more. It was for an end goal.)

And he didn’t think that murder was okay

So, based on Diego’s rules, he didn’t go too far. Yes, he may have pushed Apollo a little far, but all these mentors keep doing this to their lawyers and no one says anything. Phoenix didn’t commit crimes, and so Diego would have believed that what Phoenix did was justified AND that he was a lot smarter in how he went about things than how Diego was about to go about things before Mia was like “wtf are you doing”

So yes, Phoenix did change. But he didn’t lose himself the way that Diego lost himself when he became Godot.

[obsidianstrawberrymilk]

oh defo agreed on leonard, part of why viktor frustrates me sometimes much as i love him because it feels like the tua writers keep trying to make him *the* main character (despite it being a cast show) and they keep bringing up the fact that he has trauma, and they erase his flaw’s because they’re telling you more that he’s a dysfunctional and traumatized but sympathetic character without actually showing that

like viktor having what’s effectively a mental breakdown in s1 finale and deciding to cause the apocalypse (imo he was trying to cause the apocalypse ((esp since he literally killed a guy for honking at him and went to the concert knowing his powers feed on sound)) once his siblings started attacking him but the exact way he caused the apocalypse was an accident) but that’s not really brought up and when it os, they talk about it like he took his dad’s car and had a joyride and accidentally crashed it, not causing the literal apocalypse

Viktor’s trauma w leonard isn’t addressed, nor is him literally getting tortured by the fbi (absolutely not surprising given klaus’ torture not being addressed, but not any less frustrating), his anger issues and bit of a victim complex, and his years of anger and resentment towards his siblings are magically wiped away thx to the fact that he has powers now apparently

the latter bits are esp frustrating, bc y’know, wiping away his flaws is wiping away a good chunk of what makes him interesting. I feel like s2 really dropped the ball w the amnesia storyline bc it just served as a reason to not address s1. imo it could’ve been good, if they played into the “oh viktor’s amnesiac and all his problems are solved now” and have the siblings kind of think that when they see viktor happy w sissy and carl but then they slowly realize viktor defo vv much still has his resentment issues. the only reason they didn’t see it is bc who pr what does viktor have to be jealous of the farm (or maybe viktor could be jealous of carl not just bc of sissy but bc of him being important at his job but i digress)

like diego mentions having to save keneddy and viktor’s like “what so you can get patted on the back for being extraordinary for saving the day?” And instances like that which make the siblings realize that viktor’s issues defo aren’t a quick and simple fix, they’ve always been there and it’s not something they can blame solely on leonard. leonard was merely only the one who lit the match to the bomb, he didn’t create it. and if they really wanna address viktor’s issues they have to address their own and the family’s issues as a whole

You just outlined basically all of my issues w how Viktor is treated in the show.

It's like the showrunners have forgotten who he was in S1, tbh: Viktor is angry. He's angry, he's kind of ruthless, he's selfish. He destroys the world because he's angry at his siblings and doesn't give two shits about who he could hurt. Was part of that Leonard? Yeah, sure. Was it also years of repressed anger just bursting out? Yep.

He thinks he had it the worst out of his siblings, he thinks he was the only one who's trauma really matters and he's a victim, and like... the show never addresses or even contradicts this?? It's like they want us to think he's right, that Vik was the only one with trauma and it justifies everything he does.

The thing is- Viktor is kind. He's sweet, he's passionate when he finally gets off his pills, he's a good person. But he's not perfect. He's far from perfect. Those flaws I outlined above? They didn't make me hate him at all. They make him interesting. They make him realistic. Abuse isn't pretty, trauma isn't pretty - they're awful and people have to work to get away from the affects of them. That's what we saw with Allison in S1, what we should have seen with Viktor.

I've mentioned before that I think S2 and 3 sanitized a lot of the characters, and this is what I mean.

Look, Leonard was horrible for Viktor. He was manipulative and abusive and terrifying towards the end. How is he just... not affected by that? How does he not close himself off even more, even subconsciously, terrified and wary of someone treating him like a tool to manipulate and use again? Or maybe he does the opposite: throw himself into love just to try and get rid of it's association to him?

And for that matter: how is Viktor not affected by anything from S1?? Holy shit, he ended the season trying to murder his siblings!! And yet when he meets them again they're all... fine? No resentment? No anything?

I feel like S2 was trying to show us who Viktor could have been; the person he could've been without the abuse and trauma, and yk, I do appreciate it. But if that was the case, then S3 should've been when it all came back - all the resentment and anger and abuse. But it... wasn't?

The narrative treats him with kid gloves, ngl. And that's so, so bad for his character, bc it robs him of the complexity that made me love him. I love Viktor because he's angry and selfish and good anyway - because he has his flaws but he's kind, but he's patient, but he's trying to figure out this family with everyone else.

But the thing is, the show doesn't show that. Because Viktor's flaws are suddenly gone, his trauma isn't addressed, and everything is now a joke. His powers aren't explained or elaborated on, most of his development is just a suggestion.

I love the idea you had about the resentment that Viktor could show even with his amnesia, tbh. Small things here and there - easy enough to brush of but that could explode later, just to show us it's not gone, not (totally) healed, because you can't just fix trauma by ignoring it. That resentment is still there. That's fantastic.

Something interesting, imo, could have been that Viktor was faking his amnesia. Like, he's suddenly in the 1960s without any idea where anyone is, and now he's staying with a woman he's growing to love, and a kid he really, really cares about. There's no one to compete with or feel inferior to, no siblings he has to sort out his emotions about, and no one to hold him accountable for ending the world.

Why would he want to leave?

It could sort of be like what Allison learns pre-S1: you have to take responsibility for your actions, and if you want to make up with people, you have to take steps as well. You have to be the one who wants reconciliation, not just the other people, or else relationships can never fix.

Also Viktor Allison parallels did I mention how much I love them yet-

Anyway, yes, you're absolutely right. The show has watered down everyone ngl, and that very, very heavily includes Viktor.

[sunriseseance]

please,,, even if you dont answer this publicly i wanna know your In Depth Thoughts on fanon klaus and the issues w him bc i also have issues w fanon klaus but i cant put it in words

This got SO LONG, so I hope you meant it when you said you wanted in depth! Holy shit I sorta lost my mind on this.

In my early days as a bear-poker in this fandom, I described fanon!Klaus as that person who gets resurrected in a horror movie and comes back different. As an audience member, I can tell he's wrong, but nobody interacting with him directly seems to know this. I've also talked a little bit about Klaus and intelligence before, which plays into any discussion about fanon!Klaus, but I'll be more specific here. Before I get started, I wanna say that fandom is a fun space and I don't think anyone is *bad* for creating/enjoying fanon!Klaus, especially not for the third reason I lay out. I just think he's awful, and has some harmful roots that I doubt the people writing him even know about on a conscious level.

Okay, let's get into this. Because I'm me and Wittgenstein's early work that he later disagreed with has changed my entire way of interacting with the world, I'm gonna define my terms. Let's talk about what fanon!Klaus is LIKE before we talk about why I REALLY DON'T LIKE HIM. Fanon!Klaus is a happy, stupid, sweet, childish, bubbly, luminous free spirit. He wears bubblegum pink skirts and he cries when Diego eats his cookies. He doesn't know what numbers are, he can't count, he can't walk and chew gum, he thinks that Africa is a country, he forgets that homophobia exists, he doesn't know that drugs are bad for him, the list goes on (These are all real examples. Can you tell what part of fanon annoys me the most?). He cries at the drop of a hat, and doesn't understand his place in the family. He'd move heaven and earth to help the people around him, and he'd never be mean to anyone but Luther (and even then just barely) He constantly needs attention, supervision, etc. He makes jokes about modern memes and listens exclusively to pop music. He's really damaged but it's only because nobody Took Care Of Him and he needs someone to Rescue Him.

Canon Klaus is mean, and quick, and sharp, and miserable, and hiding, and funny because you're laughing WITH him, and an old soul, and a goth, and chronically apathetic, and selfish, and so fucking smart, and acutely aware of just how much he matters to other people. He makes rape jokes, he figures out how to get info on the eye while high out of his mind, he speaks like 10 languages, he listens to Nina Simone, he uses people's inherent fear of the dead to buy himself time, he finds the perfect story within the dead to cause a rift, he tells Luther TO HIS FACE that he doesn't care if the world ends. Klaus is a fascinating study in queer trauma, and robbing him of these traits is a complete disservice to yourself AND the character.

I say this often about fanon!Klaus, but WHO IS THIS??? Like…. Okay, if I gave you this list and you didn't know it was about Klaus, would you think it was? I think he's literally unrecognizable. He's not any of the things I know or love about Klaus. He's nobody to me, except a nuisance wearing the same skin suit and clogging the tags. He is also, weirdly, the most popular character in the entire fandom. I wanna think about why, and I have 3 theories that I think can all be true separately or simultaneously instance to instance.

First, fanon!Klaus exists because of internalized homophobia, classism, and anti-addict rhetoric. I think that on some level people don't believe addicts, feminine queer men, or homeless people are capable of intelligence. I think people see Klaus's canonical positive traits and they sort of throw them out the window because they don't make sense with their world view. A queer addict is a helpless tragedy, and he's someone that needs rescuing by Kind Strong Dave. A queer addict can't be smart, because then he wouldn't be an addict. A queer addict can't be wily, or interesting, because then he wouldn't be an addict. Fandom sees a feminine queer mlm and knows he should be in a sparkly bubblegum pink skirt, and saying "dahling" or "wig" or whatever else all the time. They know he should be bashful and submissive and always falling into the arms of Kind Strong Dave who protects him from Evil. They also know he should really, really like Britney Spears, and not give a shit about Nina Simone.

Second, fanon!Klaus exists because people want to excuse negative behavior in their favorite characters. Klaus is selfish and mean and apathetic. He just is. These are flaws that haunt him, and define a lot of his interactions. These are, also, pretty tough flaws to excuse (which… Hey…. I have a solution for that). I think that fanon Klaus, who just doesn't GET that he's being mean, and is too stupid not to become an addict (I don't think addiction is a flaw, but I do think that addiction plays into this), and is too out of touch and childish to understand that he shouldn't just fucking leave, comes from a place of wanting Klaus to be a good person who does good things. I'm sorry, but he isn't. Not always. I think the impulse to make him constantly sweet and constantly stupid comes from wanting Klaus's actions to be fundamentally excusable. He can't help it! He's just too much of a useless twink to know that it's bad to lie! (also, side note, fanon!Ben comes from this side of fanon!Klaus. In canon, Klaus is self destructing on purpose and Ben's presence helps…. Maybe, possibly, twice. In fanon, Klaus is just stupid and he needs a babysitter and that is Ben, the motiveless, endlessly loving but Exhausted braincell holder. This is fucked up on many levels. Ben is an asshole, and we all need to get used to that idea quick).

The third and final reason is that fanon!Klaus is… More fun, in the traditional sense of the word. Fanon!Klaus seems like he comes from a very emotional romcom or sitcom or something. He's like a barbie. He's fun to play dress-up with. He's fun to make incorrect quotes about. He's fun to write about, especially when it's about his siblings herding him or coddling him. Good ol' useless, loveable Klaus. I think this is partially because Klaus is a pretty fucking heavy character. He's a traumatized homeless queer drug addict, and that's sort of hard to make jokey fandom content about. Not impossible, I don't think, but not easy. This isn't to say that angsty fandom content isn't guilty of fanon!Klaus, though. It absolutely is. Often when Klaus willingly shares his feelings, or cries in front of someone, or asks for help for something more intense than tying him to a chair, it's fanon!Klaus. Hell, any time he GETS rescued it's teetering into that territory. He's still completely devoid of all of the grit and intrigue of canon, but he's fun to write about, and fun to project onto, and fun to rescue. He's also EASIER to write. People know that Klaus is a funny character, they know they laugh when he's on screen, but it is WAY harder to write a character you're laughing with than it is to write a character you're laughing at. It's WAY easier to write a character who moves your angst plot on by asking for help, or necessitating rescuing, than it is to work out how these things would happen without initiation. I get it, and in spite of the length of this, I don't think it's the end of the world.

I guess as I close this out, I would remind everyone that Klaus is smart, and mean, and over 30 years old. He's not a babe in the woods, or a damsel in distress, or a useless silly junkie twink. I promise that the real Klaus is worth the time and effort it takes to engage with him.

[angst-fairygodmother]

Is it too late to request cliche 15 for Light Fingers?

A/N: You managed to get this in just in time. 😊 I wasn’t sure if this is actually the one you meant, since it’s an...odd choice for a married pair, but I think it came out stupid cute so thank you. Word Count: 1319 Content Warnings: alcohol references, self-deprecation/self-worth issues

The gentle rattling of the doorknob made him tense, reaching for a knife on the coffee table beside him, until the sound of giggling rang from the other side of the barrier. He sighed, pulling his hand back as Y/N finally managed to get her key into the lock and come bursting through.

“Diego!” she cheered, much too loud in the stillness of the early morning. “Hi baby!” 

Her footsteps lurched like a toddler, quick but unsteady as she crossed the room and launched herself at him. He grunted, winded, as she dropped on top of him where he lay on the couch. 

“I assume you’ve got things from here, Hargreeves?” Patch laughed, leaning against the entryway. 

“Yeah, we’re good,” he groaned, slowly recovering the breath Y/N had stolen and slightly distracted by the kisses she started planting on his neck. “How much did she even drink?”

“I tried to stop her after the seventh shot, but she was really on a roll. Hit ten before the bartender cut her off. Plus a couple of cocktails earlier.”

“Great,” he sighed. “Thanks for getting her home Eudora.”

“Of course, Diego. Have a good night.” Patch offered him a smile before turning to go, closing the door behind her.

“Alright sweetheart,” he said, turning his head to look down at his drunk and very snuggly wife. “Time to get you to bed.”

She whined, burying her face further into him and refusing to move. He chuckled despite himself. 

“We’re not staying here all night. I don’t want to face the demon in the morning.”

“What demon?” her mumble betrayed how sleepy she was now that she had stopped moving, and he knew he only had a few minutes to convince her to move or he’d have to carry her to bed, somehow. 

“You.” He gently nudged her shoulder. “Come on, up.”

“‘M notta demon.” He could almost hear the scowl in her voice past the slur.

“You are when you fall asleep on the couch and wake up with a crick in your neck. Please get up so we can go to bed sweetheart?”

She was silent for a moment and he feared she had fallen asleep. 

“Fine,” she finally groaned, rolling limply off of him and landing in a seated position on the ground where she pouted. 

With hands wrapped around her middle he lifted her to her feet and supported her, guided her, to the bedroom. Sitting her on the end of the bed, he fixed her with his sternest face.

“Wait here, I’m going to get you a glass of water and I want you to drink it before we sleep, okay?” he said, and satisfied by her nod, went to do so.

When he returned he found her flopped blackward, staring up at the ceiling.

“...never thought I’d be in love, ya know. Not like this, not with someone like him. He’s so good, isn’t he?” She paused as if waiting for a response. “I mean of course he is. He’s one of...no it’s not about how he was raised either is it? He’s just that way on the inside. Sweet and funny and clever and witty and kind and wonderful. And he’s so pretty. Really, beautiful. Especially when he smiles. I’m so glad I get to make him smile all the time. I hope he is too…”

He stood, stunned and staring, unsure whether to interrupt or just listen. Her drunken soliloquy was obviously about him, and it wasn’t like they hadn’t complimented each other before, or talked about loving each other, they said the words or something meaning them at least three times a day. But still, it almost felt like intruding.

“I love his smile. I love his heart. The metaphorical one and his actual one. I love listening to it when I can’t sleep at night. And I love his hair, especially when he waits a little too long to trim it so it gets all floppy and cute. I love his smile. I said that one already. I love his laugh. I love the little crinkles around his eyes. I love his eyes. And his butt. He has a really nice butt. Not as nice as Dora’s but still in class A.”

He stopped resisting the smile that threatened to split his face in half as he listened to her ramble, and was just about to clear his throat and interrupt with a teasing remark when she suddenly started to cry. Immediately, he was by her side, depositing the glass of water on the bedside table and crawling across the mattress to wrap his arms around her. 

“I don’t deserve him,” she sobbed. “I love him so much that it hurts. And he’s so good. But I’m not, I’m kinda terrible. He should have someone good, like him. It’s not fair.”

“Shh, no,” he soothed, stroking her hair as she rolled to bury her face against his chest. “No, that’s not true. You’re perfect, and I love you, just as you are. There could never be anyone else. This was...we were meant to be, Y/N.”

~

The next morning dawned bright and warm, and despite the faint throb in your head, you were glad of it. A dreary day would have only lent strength to your regrets from the previous night. As you stretched, you realized that some time after you had cried yourself to sleep, Diego had changed you out of your dress and into a comfortable albeit ragged pair of flannel pants and one of his shirts. And more importantly, you realized that you were alone in the bed, and the air carried the faint nutty scent of coffee. 

Rubbing your eyes blearily, you shambled out into the kitchen just in time to spot Diego pouring two fresh mugs of the beverage.

“Morning,” he said with a soft smirk. “How are you feeling?”

“Not too bad, all things considered.” You hesitated, biting your lip. “Sorry, I was kind of a mess.”

He circled the counter, pressing one of the mugs into your hands and kissing the top of your head affectionately. 

“Don’t worry about it, baby. Do you feel like eating?”

“Are you actually going to cook the eggs first?” you hid your smirk behind your mug as he groaned. 

“You’re never going to let that go are you?” he rolled his eyes. “It’s good protein for a workout.”

“Nope,” you popped the p dramatically. “Because it’s also disgusting. But it’s good to have flaws, even if they are little ones.”

He stiffened, face dropping just slightly before he tried to hide it behind a laugh and started pulling omelette ingredients out of the fridge.

“Diego…” you sighed.

“You were pretty drunk, Y/N,” he ventured, swiftly whisking the eggs and not meeting your eyes. “How much do you remember?”

“I wasn’t…drunk enough to forget. I know what I said. And...I meant it.” You stared at a familiar pattern of scratches in the worn countertop, feeling tears stinging at your eyes.

Warm hands were on your shoulders first, trailing up your neck to cup your face and pull it up to meet his eyes. You marveled not for the first or last time at how quickly and quietly he could move and at the fathomless depths of his eyes, how such a depth could be so warm. 

“Do you remember what I said?” he asked softly, barely above a whisper but still enough for you to hear the crack in his voice.

You hesitated, mind flickering back over the night. We were meant to be. The sentence bounced and echoed through you, making your heart flutter, stubbornly filling you with the sort of fuzzy bliss you used to think was only in fairytales. You swallowed and nodded.

“I meant what I said too, okay,” he pressed, resting his forehead against yours. “Every single damn word.”

[e-vasong]

Can I ask about your writing process?

Huge fan of your TUA fics here - the way you just GET the characters is incredible - its almost like reading a novel written by the actual show writers!

How do you go about your characterisation and your drafting process? Any tips on nailing the complexities of the characters (specifically five)?

Thanks!!!

:') This is literally so nice I don't know how to respond, oh my goodness. I wish I had, like, life-altering writing wisdom for you here, but I honestly feel like my entire process is kind of a mess. I'll share it with you anyways, though, just in case you can glean anything helpful from it. I’ll tuck it below a cut, but here it is (ft. some of my specific characterization notes on Five, since you asked :D).

Pre-draft: Concept stage! This can be a variety of things -- sometimes it's a specific scene. For me it's usually a challenge of some sort. I like to take things that I think are unlikely for a character (under what circumstances would [x] character ever become a bad guy? How would [x] character’s secrets get revealed if they never talk willingly about their emotions?) Then I build out from there. I outline sometimes now, but I’ve been winging all my pieces for so long that it’s pretty tough for me. 

Draft one: Throw things at the wall. If I let myself, I will spend way too long agonizing on making every word perfect on the first go around, and I’ll never write anything. So draft one has permission to be as bad as it needs to be: sentence fragments, OOC dialogue/actions, clunky word choice, the whole nine yards. The most important thing is getting the words/scenes on the page.

Draft two: What sticks? Everyone is different -- I find it easier to edit than to write in the first place. So here’s where I look over my work from draft one. Is my sentence structure variable enough? How are their voices? Their actions? Does the narration work with the POV I’m using for the scene? 

Like, okay. I’m working on chapter two of the end of the war right now. Currently, it includes this line:

“How did you even—” Five starts, then shakes himself.  Absolutely not.  He isn’t entertaining this.  “Luther.”

In retrospect, I’m not wild about it. It doesn’t sound in character to me. I’m not pulling out receipts right now or anything, but the more I think about it, the more that I feel certain that Five rarely expresses surprise unless really shocked. Part of this is likely the contrast between him in his siblings (all the stuff about the Apocalypse and time travel is familiar to him and new to them, so the show has a lot of “Five explains [x] to his siblings while they look flabbergasted by him.”)

Anyways, it doesn’t sit right. So maybe, instead:

Five frowns, taken off guard. He could ask, but--quite frankly--he’s starting to think that he doesn’t want to know. He does, however, know what this is a preface to -- Luther is going to meddle. 

“Luther,” Five says it like a warning. Luther either doesn’t hear it or doesn’t care.

Anyways, rinse and repeat step two as much as necessary, and you basically have my entire drafting process.

Characterization, though, I have a more thorough process for!

Fanon and meta is super, super helpful, but I definitely prefer to look at canon first and foremost. I find it easiest to build characterization by asking myself questions about the character! I mean, don’t get me wrong. The first step is just to...get your own read on their personality? And there’s no trick to that. Everyone comes away from watching a show/reading a book with a slightly different interpretation of a character’s personality. But when building off of that to write them, I find questions helpful. They vary from fandom to fandom, but, like, here are some of the questions I’ve asked myself while writing Five.

What motivates them? For Five, this is a super easy one. He literally says it at multiple points throughout the show. He’s motivated by his family. To the point of wanting to save the world because they’re a part of it. Five troops through injury and pain and discomfort, but one reference from Handler about a deal to save his family is enough to coerce Five into 1 - working with her when he doesn’t want to and 2 - taking a job that he doesn’t seem like he wants to take.

How far are they willing to go to get it? For Five, he’s willing to do pretty much anything.

Are there any contradictions in their characterization? This is a weirdly specific question, but! People are inherently contradictory. Sometimes in TV or movies or books, it’s just bad writing. But sometimes it’s because people are complicated. So, in TUA, Five is consistently a big-picture thinker throughout the series. He seems to view his job at the Commission with apathy because he knows that it’s part of maintaining the timeline and necessary for him to get back home and stop the Apocalypse. He plans to kill an innocent person because he believes the butterfly effect of their death could stop the end of the world. He is, in many ways, a utilitarian -- the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. The greater good sometimes requires a lesser evil. Pull the lever in the trolley problem, and kill the one to save the five. Unless that one is one of Five’s siblings. 

For instance, his dialogue with the Handler in season one seems to imply that he is willing to give up fighting the Apocalypse if and only if she can guarantee his siblings’ safety (though this admittedly turns on how honest you think he was being with her -- I think he was honest, but smart enough to know she’d never follow through, but a fair argument can be made either way.) There are a million ways to read this, and the fun of playing with characterization is that you get to experiment with them! I read it as proof that Five is so driven by his desire to save his siblings that he actually places their wellbeing above his own moral compass (whether his moral compass is right or wrong is a whole other debate.)

What are they like at their best vs. at their worst? At his best, Five is strategic, driven, independent, determined, loyal, and protective. At his worst, he’s controlling, suspicious, bloodthirsty, temperamental, and obsessive. Of course, most people don’t just switch between these two extremes, and these traits frequently coexist, interact, and manifest in milder ways.  Five being suspicious usually manifests as him being cautious until he’s confronted with a character (in season two, Lila) that strikes him the wrong way. Him being obsessive is often just a side product of the fact that he is determined, loyal, and protective.  The fact that he can be controlling is connected to how independent he can be -- the same reason that Five tries to keep Diego in the mental hospital, never tells people that he’s injured, and hides things from them is the same reason he’s so quick and effective at getting things done. This is just a handy way of compiling a flaws/virtues list, and I like to look at it in terms of the potential extremes because I think it makes it easier to see how they interact to create the middle ground where the character actually exists.

How do they talk? Arguably the most important question for actually getting their voice, and the easiest way to nail this down is to just...look at the canon dialogue. Does the character use really big words? Do they talk in long gusts or in short, clipped sentences?  Do they use contractions more or do they not shorten things? This is the hardest part of writing Five for me, because my first impulse is to make him talk like an Intellectual (tm) and Very Erudite Adult. Like, I default to that when writing him, and it’s a horrible habit (in my opinion) because...while he does speak that way sometimes (usually when explaining things to his siblings) that’s not actually how he talks most of the time.  (Like, for instance, I tend to default away from Five using contractions in my first drafts of things. He actually uses contractions a lot, and frequently shortens words--”got to” is “gotta” for Five, “because” becomes “‘cause”, etc.) 

Other examples:

Five: Billions of people are about to die tonight. You can change that.

The Handler: Tonight, tomorrow. So little difference in the scheme of things. Don't you remember the Commission's raison d'etre? What's meant to be is meant to be, or, as I like to say, que será, será.

Five: It's bullshit in any language.

I love this exchange so much :D. And it establishes some great things about the way Five talks! He doesn’t dance around the issue or debate her or try and prove her wrong. He just tells her he thinks that that opinion is dumb, obviously.  He’s blunt, straightforward, and honest. (This seems to tie into the thing I was saying about Five and contractions -- he picks the most straightforward way of saying things unless he’s giving a technical explanation.)

Five: Okay, Luther, but be careful. I mean, I've... I've lived a long life, but you're still a young man. You got your whole life ahead of you. Don't waste it.

Five talks like an old man. Not all the time (though there’s a wonderful gif set out there somewhere of Five using old timer slang -- wait, I found it here.) He doesn’t use the old-timey slang all the time -- and I personally like the idea of mixing up Five’s slang habits and including slang from all sorts of eras because he’s a time traveler whose primary source of interaction after four decades alone was other time traveling assassins. But! He also talks in a way where he shows his age. 

Regardless of where you think Five’s psychological age falls (I have my own Opinions on this), he seems to unilaterally view himself as the Big Sibling, and by a very large margin at that. That’s reflected in how he talks. Not always, since not every line of dialogue is relevant to his age. But stuff like this, or related to it, crops up a fair amount. He counsels his siblings on their problems (as when he comforted Diego post-Eudora’s death), and there are little moments like the quote above, where the point is that Five has indeed seen many more years than his siblings and has the perspective to reflect that.

Well, this is way too long now, and it’s really late where I’m at. I feel like the comprehensibility of this post has been steadily declining the whole time, but if other writers have tips that they want to add onto this, please go ahead! 

[itsthenovelteafactor]

Do you think Leonard and Vanya can be seen as a modern subverted version of the Greek myth Pygmalion?

“Thank you so much for the ask, @jeyfeather1234 (and also general shout-out for always asking the most interesting and thought-provoking questions - I appreciate you so much!! 💛💛💛)

This got kind of long, so I put it under the cut 😊

Not gonna lie, I had to brush up a bit on my Greek Mythology for this one because I didn’t remember too much about Pygmalion outside of the general synopsis. (For those like me, the myth is about a sculptor who disapproves of all the women in his city, and decides to carve a statue of his idea of the *ideal woman*. He becomes a bit obsessed and prays to Aphrodite to help him find a woman like her in real life. Aphrodite realizes, though, that he is actually in love with the statue, and is moved by his devotion to her to bring her to life.)

I am, however, pretty familiar with Pygmalion, the 1913 play by George Bernard Shaw, which was a Victorian-era deconstruction of the myth (and later adapted into the broadway musical My Fair Lady; the play follows Henry Higgins, a linguist who believes that any person could pass themselves off as nobility if they used *proper* English. To prove it, he takes a flower seller, Eliza Doolittle, off the street, and tries to teach her how to speak like a member of one of the upper classes. It gets its name from the myth because one of the central ideas is that we have this man trying to carve his ideal woman out of one who already has her own identity.) I mention it because it brings up a lot of questions about the myth itself that I think might be relevant here. I hope that is okay!

Let’s look at Vanya and Leonard. Right off the bat, we have that Leonard is a woodcarver, who literally carves a statue of Vanya (like. within days of meeting her. which would have freaked me tf out, but she thinks it’s sweet so…moving on). He loathes the other Hargreeves children and has isolated himself from everything else by the time he happens upon Reginald’s notes and makes his plans regarding Vanya. He also has this very elevated idea of what, and who, Vanya is supposed to be. This can be most clearly seen when they’re in the cabin. He clearly wants her to develop her powers and is physically struggling not to just force her to do it. He’s genuinely baffled when she talks about wanting to practice her violin, even though she’s made it very clear that music is one of the most important things for her.

Additionally, there is the manipulation. Leonard wants Vanya to hate her siblings as much as he does, and he plays onto her insecurities and feeds that resentment while situating himself as her ally, her friend, her confidant, the only person who’s ever really understood her. Basically, he has created this version of Vanya in his head that is ideal for his purposes and tries to shape the existing-Vanya to better fit that ideal.

This is where Pygmalion (the play) comes in, because one of the main takeaways from that story (beyond the fact that classism is terrible) is that you can’t just turn a person that exists into an ideal. Eliza has her own ambitions and desires, and because Higgins fails to acknowledge them (or treat her with basic human decency), she eventually walks out on him. And something similar (albeit more violent) happens with Vanya and Leonard. She refuses to become his weapon, he lashes out, and she stabs him with a million knives. (*Diego voice* Just like he deserved.)

(Side note: Leonard is not the only character that this happens to – the walking out, not the stabbing, unfortunately. Reginald Hargreeves took seven children and attempted to mold them into perfect little child soldiers, and each one of them eventually give up on pleasing him because they realize that he doesn’t actually view them as people. Like with Eliza and Higgins, they are just experiments to him; he conducts his study and does not think to be concerned about their welfare of what might happen to them after.)

Summarized: Yes, I can definitely see the parallels! The idea that you can’t actually make a person into an ideal, or make an ideal out of a person, runs counter to the central storyline of Pygmalion (the myth), and the parallels it evokes make for an interesting deconstruction when thinking about Leonard and Vanya. 

But also…

I think it’s worth mentioning that if you’d asked me to come up with a Pygmalion (the myth) reference in The Umbrella Academy, Leonard and Vanya would not be the first characters that came to mind.

They would:

Because Pygmalion (of the myth) isn’t taking a real person and trying to make her into the ideal. It’s a valid criticism of the story – the creation of the “perfect” woman by giving life to what is essentially one man’s fantasy – and it deconstructs the way that idea might be applied in a non-fantastical setting, but that isn’t part of the actual myth. 

In the myth, Pygmalion created Galatea because he was lonely. He felt isolated from the other people in his city (for dumb reasons, sure, but isolated nonetheless) and carved a likeness of a person to fill a void. He thought that his artistic pursuits would be enough to sustain him but really craved human connection. He projected onto her an identity that complemented his and earnestly fell in love with her (so much so that Aphrodite, who does have a bit of authority on that sort of thing, recognized it and was moved enough to give her life.)

In a similar fashion, a very isolated Five finds one of the few remaining things in the post-apocalyptic wasteland that at least resembles another person and projects an identity onto her because the alternative is having to cope with the fact that he’s literally the only person left. And, like Pygmalion (and unlike Leonard and Reginald), Five genuinely cares about Dolores. In his mind, their relationship is intimate and meaningful, and he finds comfort in it and imagines Dolores does as well. 

A couple quotes from Ovid’s Pygmalion:

“His art, he told himself, was enough for him. Nevertheless, the statue he made and devoted all his genius to was that of a woman.“

“He would dress her in rich robes, trying the effect of one delicate or glowing color after another, and imagine she was pleased.”

“He loved a lifeless thing and he was utterly and hopelessly wretched.”

But of course, unlike Pygmalion, The Umbrella Academy is... low-key a tragedy(?). Dolores isn’t going to become real just because Five loves her, and, like some other more modern retellings of the myth, he eventually has to move on to connecting with the real people in his life (flawed as they are). 

Sorry that this second half was a bit of a diversion from your original question, but once I started thinking about it, I thought it might be interesting to add on.

Once again, thank you so much for this ask!! This was really fun to do. 😊

[tuaparadis]

A Look into Klaus

I'm basing this off of @anxious-achillean's post, since I really wanted to talk about this.

So, Klaus, right? I love Klaus, he's my favorite character, most people love him as well. He's the fandom favorite for many reasons in my opinion. He's funny, chaotic, but there's also a darkness to him and a lot people can identify with that, as can I.

The problem with Klaus and the fandom in general is that people seem to ignore what he has done, not only to himself but to others as well. Klaus gets woobified a lot and most things he's done that could categorize him as a 'bad person' get swept under the rug, unlike with the other characters in the series, for example Luther or Vanya.

Klaus was tormented by his powers as a child. Corpses screaming his name, asking for help but him not being able to do anything clearly fucked him up. If that wasn't enough, his unwillingness to cooperate with the dead led Reginald to believe that locking him in the mausoleum was the only way he'd proceed with his personal training. As we know, that clearly didn't work.

Then Klaus discovered a way out of his personal hell. From a variety of info the series gives us, he started experimenting with alcohol at around 13-15. Of course, there are multiple theories on how he discovered that getting high/drunk could suppress his powers, for instance one of them says that when Klaus had to get his jaw wired shut, he went on painkillers and the ghosts disappeared when he did.

It doesn't really matter how he found out, it matters that he did. And from there, things only got worse. Not wanting to sober up again, it's most likely he would steal things from the mansion, pawn them and get enough money for drugs. He slowed the entire team down, probably got them in trouble for things he did as well.

This is just an introduction to the whole thing so I'm going to skip straight to adulthood.

Klaus is a drug addict by now. And it's safe to say that, no matter who it is, drug addicts can be annoying most of the time. Being related/close to an addict can make you feel like you're supposed to help them when you're not comfortable doing so. You shouldn't, not in the way they want you to, anyway.

It's been confirmed that after the Hargreeves moved out, Diego and Klaus had met multiple times. Klaus, as most addicts, was like a leech. Latching onto someone he knew, in this case Diego, asking for a place to say, or money, or anything. Promising to pay Diego back but never doing so.

Klaus was unreliable, but Diego couldn't just not trust his brother ever again. Something a lot of addicts do is manipulate their relatives, guilt-trapping them into giving them money. And who's to say he hadn't tried to reach out to his other siblings as well?

Klaus had gone to rehab, probably promised to get clean only to run to his dealer as soon as he got out.

Without caring who he would hurt or how much he'd hurt them, he needed drugs. With no regards to his personal safety either. Constantly lying, stealing, doing anything he could for a fix. That was Klaus's adulthood.

Nobody wants to deal with that kind of person, someone who would ignore you if you said you were worried about them, someone who wouldn't care about what you had to say period. At some point you have to stop caring as much, or cut contact with them because that person's already lost themselves. And no matter how much help is offered to them, they don't want it. They don't want the help of rehab, they want drugs. Something to silence the voices with.

Ben had to deal with Klaus like that, but he couldn't help him in any way because he was dead. Not to mention terrified that Klaus might die too, because he would just never listen to him.

Of course, things take a twist when he travels to Vietnam, that's a different story. From not caring about his life, he found someone worth living for. Dave taught him not only how to love him, but also how to love himself. But still, Klaus is flawed, very flawed in fact. He's hurt people, his family and himself.

Constantly chasing after the next high made him lose himself and caused him to make many mistakes. Does any of that make him a bad person? Honestly up to you. I think he truly has a kind heart, and he cares deeply about people. Accepting that Klaus is faulty can even help understand him better. Everyone is fucked up anyway, especially in that hellhole of a family.

It's honestly really, really important acknowledging that Klaus isn't perfect. He never has been, and never will be, and that's okay.

[ryanmeft]

Movie Review: Dora and the Lost City of Gold

There is a line of thinking which holds that you will enjoy things more if you turn off your adult brain and think like a child. I disdain this argument for two reasons. First, it assumes children cannot appreciate quality in their entertainment. Second, it posits that if you do not enjoy something, it isn’t because that thing was flawed, but because you’re an old grump. Dora and the Lost City of Gold kicks away both of these tired assumptions and delivers an exciting, irreverent, funny, well-made film that could serve as the first great pulp adventure for kids too young for Indiana Jones, while being legitimately interesting to adults. It is proof of my frequent assertion that you can make a good movie out of any subject.

Dora, who debuted as a 7-year-old adventurer educating children on culture and language in one of Nickelodeon’s most successful shows, has grown up. She’s 18, played by Isabela Moner (who also voiced a ten-year-old Dora on a follow-up show). She’s lived all her life in the jungles of Peru, accompanied only by her adventurer parents (Eva Longoria and Michael Pena) and her monkey Boots (voice of Danny Trejo, and yes, you hear him talk through the monkey at one point). Her one human friend her age, her cousin Diego (Jeff Wahlberg) moved from the jungle when she was 6. Her parents have spent years on the trail of a lost Incan city named Parapata. Much like when you were a kid and wanted to do whatever it was your parents did, Dora inherits their love for adventure and frequently gets herself in trouble. After endangering herself to a particular degree while thinking she’s found the city, her parents decide she’s not gained enough responsibility to continue the search for Parapata with them, and send her to school in L.A. while they continue the search.

From the off, the movie is spiced with just enough irreverent humor to clue in those of us who have seen dozens of episodes of the cartoon that this is not that. The first few minutes strongly suggest that the entire TV show was actually just the product of Dora and Diego’s imaginations, though it somehow does so in a way that doesn’t feel dismissive of the kids who grew up with it. Once grown, screenwriters Nicholas Stoller and Matthew Robinson provide the still-wide-eyed Dora with more comic fodder riffing on the show; a seconds-long explanation of a dangerous flower (“Can you say severe neurotoxicity?”) had me laughing as hard as anything I can remember this year. The characters poke fun at the show in a way that feels loving rather than insulting (“Who is gonna recognize one specific fox?”). This may be chalked up to the fact that the movie chose to employ at least one bona-fide comedy writer: Stoller’s credits include Forgetting Sarah Marshall, still one of the funniest films of this century, and director James Bobin’s Muppets movies, which also had a successful balance of whimsy and satire.

Moner is the key to the movie’s success. Her Dora is excitable, energetic, and optimistic, but never cloying or insulting to any age of viewer. She may have grown up in the jungle, but she’s not stupid: she understands that some people are mean because they’re damaged, and she knows what sex and dating are (parents, take comfort: her comments about mating practices will, like much of the film’s adult-geared humor, pass by your little ones without notice). She regularly embarrasses the now grown Diego, who just wants to get through the day with as little drama as possible. “This is High School,” he insists. “It’s life or death,” and frankly my own High School experiences incline me to agree. Also attracting Dora’s attention are over-achiever Sammy (Madeleine Madden), who is a toned-down version of Rachel McAdams’ Mean Girls character, and Randy (Nicholas Coombe), a shy nerd who, although the movie never quite goes there with it, would be Dora’s perfect match. These companions, who naturally eventually end up on the search for Parapata, are not given the same emotional or comic development as Dora, but they are supposed to be foils for her, representations of flaws she does not possess who she can play off of, and they are successful at this.

Dora eventually stops receiving messages from her parents, deduces they are in trouble, and enlists her reluctant classmates to rescue them. This comes with the introduction of both a band of mercenaries working with a CG Swiper the Fox (voice of Benicio Del Toro) and a guide, Alejandro (Eugenio Derbez) who is not the clueless, bumbling adult of kids movies, yet also not quite the fearless explorer he would like the kids to believe he is. I particularly appreciated his role, which is developed to an extent adults in these movies rarely are.

The adventures in the jungle have the tone of amusement park rides the way you remember them from childhood, as opposed to the way they actually were. The special effects and sets are deliberately just this side of realistic---gigantic rainbow flowers that spit poison, a throne room that feels like something out of an escape room, and other locations remind you of the mix of unreality and immersion you get wandering a really good man-made park. The film offers extended surprises in the story, too. If you ever wondered why characters in adventure movies never have to use the restroom, this one somehow manages to address that in a way that is both hilarious and does not feel low-brow. Dora’s inevitable moment of doubt in her leadership abilities feels real and true. And there’s an extended callback to the cartoon, which I won’t spoil, that only a truly inspired creative team would ever have thought of, and only a truly trusting studio would ever have signed off on. (As a side note: are there any fans of Don Rosa in the audience? And did you get the sense, during the stunt with the sluice gate, that the writers have read a particular comic of his?). I can only imagine what wonderful ideas the filmmakers didn’t use for this entry. A lot of family films get sequels, but this is one of the only such movies that absolutely needs one.

People ask why I get so tired of all-ages entertainment that panders to what viewers have already decided they want, or that employs cheap use of pop songs and recycled gags instead of real wit. They want to know why I can’t just turn my brain off. It’s because, every so often, you get a movie like this, something in the grand tradition of Holes or The Red Balloon, which knows that if you make a good film, kids and adults will respond. Against, arguably, all odds, a TV show designed to teach young kids about the world has been transmuted into one of the best live-action family films you can get. If anyone else out there would like to take a cue from Bobin and company and start making their all-ages fare with actual brains and heart and risk, I just have this to say: “Swiper, yes swiping.”

Verdict: Highly Recommended

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

 You can follow Ryan's reviews on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/ryanmeftmovies/

 Or his tweets here:

https://twitter.com/RyanmEft

 All images are property of the people what own the movie.

[amoveablejake]

Diego

Maradona and his legacy

I know, I know. I’ve written a piece about Diego Maradona before and also spoken about his influence in a couple more pieces on top of that. However, the five foot five man from Argentina passed away this past week and well, I felt I had to write a little piece about his legacy. I know that on the night he passed away I posted a few words and again, I have spoken about his lasting impact previously but now, this is a different matter for this isn’t talk about an icon who is still influencing the world but one that has waved goodbye. Although saying that, I don’t think he will ever stop influencing those he left behind.

Moments before writing this piece I saw a video of Lionel Messi taking his Barcelona shirt off today after he scored to reveal a Newell’s Old Boys shirt with Maradona’s number ten on the back. More than any other tribute this one struck me as the most meaningful. Messi isn’t paying tribute to a legend, to a fellow countrymen or even a hero, he is mourning his friend and mentor. He coupd have had an Argentina shirt on underneath, or even a Barcelona one after all they both played for the Catalan giants but no, the Newell Old Boy’s jersey is all the more personal. Maradona wasn’t even there for very long before he joined Boca Juniors however, it was enough time to show his shining light to the fans and in that prophetic first game that showed glimmers of the legend to come, a six year old boy was brought on at half time to do show some skills on the pitch. His name, well, you can guess.

And that’s the thing about Maradona’s passing. It isn’t really the death of an icon, it is more one of a human being, a being that many people the world over feel some relation to. Lionel Messi is often referred to as an alien, someone that isn’t human that we can’t comprehend. But Diego, he is always referred to as a Saint or God. Whilst he is above humanity, we can still understand his being as there is still a humanity to me. Ofcourse to Maradona there was a great deal of humanity to him, in both that he wasn’t perfect but also because he cared about his flock. A terminally ill child once requested to watch Diego play a match and after the request was officially rejected Diego turned up outside the child’s house with some fellow players to play for them. The murals of Maradona are not just because he was a successful athlete, perhaps more because of the being he was and the far reaching impact he had.

Argentina now from what I’ve heard and see is in a state of mourning. People are coming out onto the streets to cry together. Fans of both Boca Juniors and River Plate have put aside their rivalry to stand side by side. This in itself is quite something but then, there is a different aspect to it. Many of these people now flooding the streets haven’t seen others in the flesh for months after Argentina has been under a heavy lockdown. And yes, I’m sure the virus cases will go up after this however, Diego has once against brought his country together.

It is important to say on behalf of the people he did hurt that he wasn’t perfect. But then, no one is saying he is. He was a human being. Diego in many ways can be presented by that match against England in Mexico. He cheated with the hand of god. But, he then went on to score what FIFA officially dubbed the goal of the century. He was flawed but also had the capacity for greatness and the beautiful moments. These components were all mixed together in a boy from the slums of Buenos Aires who the footballing world will never see another like.

Ciao, Diego.

- Jake, a fellow human being, 29/11/2020

[atalana]

Five, and the effects of Reginald Hargreeves' parenting

So like, I see a lot of posts around talking about the effects Hargreeves had on all the kids, the abuse they went through, and who they turned out to be, but a lot of the time when they get to Five this gets somewhat overshadowed by his experiences in the apocalypse, since that's what he's shown to have PTSD over, and is generally on the forefront of Five's mind

But the effects of Five's childhood are hugely evident in his character for me (potentially bc I've been through similar, just to a lesser extent), so I wanna go into them more

Here's the thing - kids can't help but want approval from their parents, even kids like Five. He can mask it in whatever he likes, but as a kid, Five was hugely dependent on Hargreeves' approval. It's more insidious than with most children, too, because when Reginald Hargreeves is involved, gaining his approval means avoiding his wrath - something you definitely don't want to face.

You see this all the time in kids with parents who have too high standards, even if the parents are considerably more gentle than Sir Reginald - the kids who can achieve to that standard become obsessed with it, turn it into their whole identity, while the kids who can't stop trying at all. And this harms both, because the underachievers feel like they'll never amount to anything, and the overachievers become paranoid, knowing they're one bad day away from becoming like the underachievers - the people they've been taught their whole life are the worst possible thing to be - so they try even harder to make sure that never happens.

The overachievers in the Hargreeves family are Luther, Diego, and Five, the underachievers are Klaus and Vanya (Allison and Ben it's hard to tell, maybe they managed to avoid this or maybe it just manifests in different ways), and this constantly affects all of their relationships with each other.

Reginald actively encouraged this discrepancy as well, because it made it easier to control them. The underachievers don't try anything because they believe they have no power. The overachievers won't try anything because one word of disapproval from Reginald and they lose that status, and with it their entire sense of identity and self worth. They can't band together either, because the underachievers think they amount to nothing, the underachievers don't trust the overachievers because they maintain the same standards, the overachievers don't trust each other because they're all competing for the same status, and the overachievers don't listen to the underachievers because they believe the lie that the underachievers can't do anything. It's a terrifyingly effective strategy.

There's yet another layer with the Hargreeves kids, though, and that's their numbers. This was another deliberate move on the part of Sir Reginald, because a hierarchy only adds to this dynamic.

Number one was superior to number two, who was superior to number three, and so on. It's not a coincidence that the overachievers tend to be higher up on the scale, and the underachievers lower. It's easier to excel when you believe you can do it, harder when you think you can't. And the further down the hierarchy you are, the more you're held to the standard of the ones above you.

So now we get to Five in particular, because Five is a special case - an overachiever very low on the hierarchy. He was constantly held to the standard of numbers 1-4, but Five could actually outperform them. And this was encouraged by their father - Reginald would have realised early on that telling Five he wasn't capable wouldn't have worked, because Five had proof he was, it would have only made him more rebellious (see: the reason he ran off in the first place).

So instead he creates an air of superiority in Five that's highly conditional and dependent on him. Five isn't like his siblings. Five can do better. Five gets praise. Which doesn't seem harmful until you realise, Five has to do better. Five doesn't have the option of an off day. Five has built his entire identity around being the best, because as a young child that was the only way he got anything close to the love and attention he needed, and as soon as he fails to outperform his siblings, he's going to lose that forever.

(It also probably contributed to a lot of that cocky attitude - if he ever did have a moment of weakness, he couldn't let anyone see, or it would discredit him, so he covers it up with the whole devil may care thing)

It's pretty obvious in Five's reactions to things that the siblings he got along with best were Ben and Vanya - 6 and 7. I don't think it was a conscious decision to be closer to the two lower on the hierarchy than him, but I also don't think it's a coincidence either - after all, he's never going to be held to their standard like he is the other four. With anyone above him in the ranking, there would have been a tension in their relationship, the knowledge that they were being compared, and Five would have to be constantly on guard for that. Around Ben and Vanya, he can actually breathe, and that makes it a lot easier for him to appreciate the qualities they have as people.

There's two moments in this season where Five's siblings genuinely get under his skin, and force him from exasperated to defensive, and both of them are hugely telling of this. The first is when Luther tells him "You think you're better than us, you always have. But the truth is, you're just as messed up as the rest of us."

Luther's completely right, but there's two things here Five can't handle hearing. Even after 45 years alone in the apocalypse, this is a core part of his identity he can't shake. One is "you think you're better than us", the implication that that's not true. The other is "you're just as messed up as the rest of us", making Five confront the realisation that he has flaws. Five responds "I don't think I'm better than you, Number One. I know I am."

He even refers to Luther by number, the only time in the series he ever does this to anyone. It's a deliberate jab, a way to remind Luther than even though he was supposedly number one, Five still managed to outperform him. It's honestly a really childish move, because it's Five frantically scrambling to get back on a pedestal he's been on his whole life - and not a very stable one either, if one comment from Luther can bring it down. Five believes he's perfect, infallible, because he can't live with himself if he's not.

The second time comes from the same root but the other direction - his conversation with Klaus in episode 9. Klaus calls him an apocalypse addict, comparing the two of them, and Five internally freaks the fuck out, because of all the siblings he can't handle being similar to, Klaus is the top of that list. If Luther was the golden boy Five constantly had to compete against, Klaus is the dumpster fire that serves to remind Five this is what he can never become.

Klaus, of course, is just a person, and has many good qualities, but Five was never trained to see them. Five was trained to see Klaus as a failure, a disappointment, someone it was better to be dead than to be like. (He may be nearly double the age of the rest of his siblings, but alone in the apocalypse isn't an ideal ground for reexamining your relationships with people, and Five still has so much growing up to do.)

Of all of them, Five is the most willing to push boundaries with his powers, to explore new realms of what he can and can't do, and that's also an effect of this - where the others were a lot more controlled or restricted, Five was encouraged to adapt, to be more powerful, to take risks, and Hargreeves probably allowed him more leeway than the others (again, fuelling that sense of superiority), as long as it provided results (and there's the paranoia part, the risks Five took needed to pay off, he didn't have any other option)

Credit to Five though, because the time travel scene was all him. Reginald's influence should have been enough to keep him from running off like that, but Five had a strong enough will to ignore it.

I think this is the mistake the Handler made as well. The Temps Commission employs people easy to manipulate, and a childhood of abuse followed by a lifetime of solitude sounds like the perfect breeding ground for such a person. If she just wanted Five she could have retrieved him at any age, after all, but she waits 45 years. His skills weren't increasing that much in that time, not more than they would have been working for the Commission. It was just that the longer he was alone, the easier he was to control.

But neither Hargreeves nor the Handler really anticipated just how stubborn and steadfast Five can be. He's affected by his childhood, yes, it forms the core of who he is as a person, but he's smart, and he found a way around it - picking a goal and sticking to it no matter what. Klaus was right, in a way, about him being an addict of the apocalypse, Five gets dangerous tunnel vision with a task in mind. He literally admits to Hazel that not once (in 45 years, with precious few distractions) did he think about what he would do after he stopped the apocalypse, focused only on doing it. He doesn't let anything else through, and that can be a detriment sometimes (not telling his siblings about the shrapnel wound and nearly dying because they were close to his goal), but when someone's trying to manipulate you, it's a huge advantage. (It's also a huge advantage when trying to survive in the apocalypse, you don't stop, you don't doubt yourself, you don't question what you are and aren't willing to do, you just do it and move on)

He broke through Hargreeves' control by focusing on learning to time travel, and he's unaffected by the Handler's attempts to do the same with his one goal of getting back and saving his family. She doesn't understand it either, because all she sees are his other traits - his pragmatism, his intelligence, his dissatisfaction with his own body image, and thinks if she can make him look how he wants to look ("we're all looking for happy"), that'll be enough to let his natural affinity for Commission work take over. She vastly underestimates his dedication.

(And also just his love for his siblings, like, I'm framing this potentially too much as a "he does this so he can't be manipulated" decision, and there is some truth to that, but if that were solely the case he'd only be focused on stopping the apocalypse. No, Five cares so much about his siblings that he's willing to compromise with them on nearly everything, even though stubbornness is kind of his thing, and even though he's been trained to believe they're lesser than him. He seriously debates letting the apocalypse happen if it'll save them. The reason they get under his skin (when other people underestimating him don't nearly as much), is because some part of him genuinely values their opinion. Five says he's not looking for happy, but I don't think that's true - it's just that happy for him isn't made of personal gain, but rather finding a place in his family he doesn't have to fight for)

[wunderlass]

On BFFs and friendship while Adulting

There was a post in the tag earlier today posing a question that I wanted to answer but unfortunately by the time I got around to it the post had vanished. I can’t remember the exact wording, but it was asking opinions of who is the ‘better’ friend to Maria during the series: Liz or Alex. 

I still wanted to answer that question (in a much broader sense) so here we are.

Usual meta caveats: my interpretation, ymmv etc.

First up: there is no right answer to that question. There are ways to be bad and terrible friends, sure, but every friendship and every connection is different in ways that are difficult to measure tangibly. We use “deep” friendship a lot when we discuss it but we can’t quantify that: time and knowledge and commonalities can make a difference but ultimately friendships are as much about chemistry as romantic connections are.

Also, just because somebody is the kind of friend you only go out partying with doesn’t mean they are less valid than the person you’ve known since nursery school who has been there for every major milestone of your life. So long as you’re both happy with the fact you’re only in each other’s lives to party, that friendship does what it needs to.

All of this to say: friendship isn’t a competition (and I don’t think that’s what the other poster was actually implying). You can have multiple best friends or none, or one “deep” lifelong bond. Liz and Alex aren’t competing for Maria’s affection or to be the better friend to Maria. All they need to be is the best friend they can be for her.

The real question is, how successful are they at it?

Honestly...not great.

But they’re trying!

Liz and Alex are both damaged, flawed people, for different reasons, and that’s impacted not only them but the connections they have to other people.

For Liz, she’s been wearing Rosa’s armour for ten years. We know she’s flitted from place to place, eschewing social media. She couldn’t make a connection romantically but there also has to be a trail of broken friendships across all of the places she’s been in during that time. We don’t hear her reference anybody except Diego, her ex-fiance, so there isn’t a hint of other friends she’s keeping in touch with. 

She also didn’t make much attempt to keep in touch with Maria or presumably anybody else from Roswell (perhaps understandably). It all sounds pretty lonely, and we come to learn that as capable as Liz is, the events when she was 18 have caused real damage to her emotionally. She’s isolated and stunted. Only upon returning home does she begin to shed her armour and attempt to reconnect.

Alex is also isolated and stunted, but for different reasons. Even after years of abuse we know he made major life choices in the hope he’d receive some form of love from his father (and likely brothers). He doesn’t seem to have had any kind of affection in his home life, so he reached out for it wherever he could when he was a teenager, notably to Michael. That ended badly, and he’s done what his father, the military, and a patriarchal society have wanted him to do: he’s locked his emotions away. 

Where Liz displays her emotions proudly and often loudly, Alex is quiet, introspective. He internalises everything, or shoves it away so he can pretend he isn’t feeling. He wears his own form of armour so nobody can hurt him anymore. It’s a survival mechanism. We have hints that he has made friends and bonded with some of his colleagues, but how much he’s opened up to them or given them the opportunity to hurt him is debatable. And much like Liz, his time in Roswell is teaching him that although allowing other people to know you is a risk, that kind of vulnerability can also be its own kind of reward.

How does that relate to Maria specifically?

We see Liz spend more time with Maria than Alex does on screen, although arguably that is because Liz is the lead so we spend more time with her anyway. Both are returning to Roswell after a decade away, with the implication that they may have briefly returned in that time but haven’t made much of an effort to keep in touch with her or each other.

So this is an old friendship - the kind potentially forged when they were as young as toddlers - but one which has been neglected due to time and circumstance. One where all involved have to discover how much the other parties have changed and grown in the interim.

Maria herself has become pretty isolated. We know this because she also never mentions other friendships - the closest she has is her banter with Michael - and she seems to devote all of her time to Mimi and the bar. She also mentions dating a Chad, which is hilarious, but also hints at a desperation to have a connection with somebody after she’s been left behind in a one-horse town.

Liz is good at the easy stuff: turning up for advice, drinking, reminiscing about old times. She’s too wrapped up in her own stuff to give more than that. Maria says she was happy with this because it’s a distraction. She’s either sharing more with Alex - possibly because she expects Liz to leave town again sooner rather than later - or Alex has been around enough to see the situation with Mimi.

But I don’t think Alex is much good at the heavy emotional lifting either. He has to turn to Liz to help him shoulder that burden in episode seven. Fandom likes to celebrate him calling Liz out, but she really has been going through a lot, and it was Maria’s choice not to share. Liz doesn’t necessarily know Maria well enough anymore to spot the signs of emotional distress if they’re hidden from her.

Here’s where I admit that I see plenty of myself in Liz and Alex. I’m not very good at being a shoulder to cry on either. At the start of episode nine, Maria reaches out to Liz, who immediately starts to problem solve, and that’s the kind of friend I am: come to me when something's gone wrong and I will figure out how to fix it, even if what you actually need is someone to listen while you fall apart. We’re looking at two emotionally distant people who work in technical disciplines, and that’s their likely go to behaviour.

I think when Liz is aware of a problem, she’s better at being supportive, whereas Alex is so out of touch with his own emotions he might not be very good at handling others’ emotions either, hence his appeal to Liz in episode seven. However, both of them ultimately leave Maria high and dry when she’s most vulnerable. We end up with Michael who is hilariously, visibly uncomfortable with an upset Maria and yet does the right thing purely by instinct: offering her a literal shoulder to cry on. In episode nine we see Liz let Maria go off to “be her own damn saviour” when that might not actually be what Maria needs or wants.

So neither Liz or Alex are a perfect friend to Maria, and that’s okay, because that’s part of their emotional arcs. They both need to, and are beginning to, learn how to flex the friendship muscle again. By the end of the series we may even have three emotionally healthy, functional adults!

Just kidding, the show is going to put them all through the wringer and destroy them and us.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Dahlia Hawthorne

WARNING! This review contains MAJOR SPOILERS!

I decided it would be better to branch out into video game villains sooner rather than later, which mostly stemmed from a desire to discuss the villains of the Ace Attorney franchise. Ace Attorney is a series of point-and-click adventure visual novels with logic puzzles, as you must piece together the inconsistencies in the testimony of whatever crazy character you’re cross-examining in court and find flaws in their testimony so that you can ultimately prove the innocence of the client of our lovable protagonist Phoenix Wright (or Apollo Justice, or Athena Cykes, or Miles Edgeworth in one notable instance).

The series is known for having some truly wacky and colorful characters, so of course this extends to the villains, who tend to have incredibly creative breakdowns after you catch them in their lies and reveal them as the killers. However, even at their silliest the major villains tend to be handled a bit more seriously than the one-shot villains in other cases, even if all of them keep the ludicrous levels of hamminess required to even be in the series. What I’m saying is that the big bad tends to be over-the-top, but in a more subdued way than the wildly gesticulating characters around them. And “Over-the-top in a more subdued way” is probably the best way to describe the first video game villain I want to talk about: Dahlia Hawthorne, the overarching villain of Trials & Tribulations, the finale of the original Phoenix Wright saga, and one of the cruelest, pettiest, and most personal foes  Phoenix Wright ever had to deal with.

Motivation/Goals: Dahlia Hawthorne’s criminal career is almost entirely based around covering up her previous crimes. Her first crime was a faked kidnapping that went awry, which led to her faking her own death and then getting the man she seduced, Terry Fawles, framed; when her stepsister and co-conspirator got a change of heart and wanted to confess to her part, Dahlia killed her and then convinced Terry to ingest poison and commit suicide under the guise she would join him, a la Romeo and Juliet; after that she poisoned the coffee of attorney Diego Armando when he investigated her, and then hid the evidence on some hapless dork she bumped into in the courthouse, one Phoenix Wright; after that, she used her identical twin sister to try and get the evidence back so she could destroy it; and when that didn’t work, despite her sister’s feelings for Phoenix, she went ahead and tried to kill him, only to then try and frame him for the murder of another man who had figured out her true nature. Not once in any of this does Dahlia show even a single shred of remorse or exude any sort of sympathetic trait, unlike many villains of the series; no, Dahlia is just a truly monstrous and rotten person to the core. This isn’t even the half of it, mind you; all of this is just backstory, context for her motivation in the game’s present.

Her attempt to frame Phoenix having failed, she was defeated in court by Mia Fey, who would go on to be Phoenix’s mentor, get murdered, and then guide him by occasionally possessing the body of her spirit medium sister (long story). As such, Dahlia held a grudge against Mia, one that lasted even after she was executed. Revenge becomes her prime desire, revenge for finally being trapped after running for so long. It’s a simple motivator to be sure, but considering the kind of person Dahlia is, it makes perfect sense that she would want to harm someone who finally brought an end to her constant killings. 

Out of all the protagonists in the original trilogy. her motivations make her the most personal foe. Of course, Von Karma was also fairly personal, seeing as he was the killer of Edgeworth’s father, but he was only really around for a single case (albeit a very good one). Dahlia’s actions are a shadow that hangs over the game, and that deeply affected Mia, Godot, Phoenix, and even Edgeworth to a lesser extent due to his role as prosecutor on Terry’s trial. While it is pretty arguable that Dahlia is an idiot and an incompetent criminal who has to keep covering up her crimes with succesive murders, it still doesn’t change the fact she has a rather impressive body count, nor does it negate just how much she personally altered the courses of the main character’s lives.

Personality: Dahlia’s personality is where she truly impresses; she exudes an air of sweet, serene kindness at first, easily winning over the entire courtroom save for the defense bench. Everything about her design invokes sweetness and innocence, and this highlighted by the butterflies that flock to her and the peaceful, pretty music that acts as her leitmotif. Of course, seeing as you’ve read this far and seen the massive list of criminal actions she has partaken in, you know that this is a ruse, and it’s even fairly easy to pick up on before the truth is revealed to the player.

Dahlia is most comparable to Hans from Frozen. Both characters are sweet, charming redheads who turn out to be murderous, sociopathic manipulators who do what they do solely out of a desire to gratify themselves. The big difference is while the foreshadowing with Hans ranges from clunky and obscure to nonexistent, the foreshadowing for Dahlia is pretty evident, especially when Mia notes that they’ve met before. Then of course, in the end the big shock isn’t that Dahlia was the villain, it was the true extent of her wickedness. At the game’s start you get an idea that there’s more to her than what you see in the case, but at the end she seems to be little more than the standard starter villain, though even then keen players will note there’s something a bit off about this; she just doesn’t fit the same bill of most other starter villains in the series, as she is far less eccentric and accepts her defeat quite better than, say, Frank Sahwit or Ted Tonate. Then, over the course of the rest of the game, you see the true extent of how evil she was, as she is at least partially responsible for the entire plot of the game due to her poisoning of Diego Armando, the man who would go on to become Godot and oppose Phoenix in court throughout the game. She’s honestly up there with Von Karma as one of the biggest driving forces behind the original trilogy’s storyline. THIS is how you do a twist villain, THIS is how you do a manipulative sociopath. Dahlia is quite frankly everything Hans should have been.

I think it should be noted that Dahlia gets a shadowed court mugshot in the final cases of the game, long after she is dead. This is an oddity for the series, because typically the faces of criminals are shown in the bright colors of the rest of the game. This really shows us two things: one, obviously, is that she is dead, she no longer exists. A similar situation happened with Joe Darke in the bonus case of the first game. The second thing it shows is Dahlia’s true nature; while the other criminals in the games kill for selfish or stupid reasons, sometimes there is a sympathetic motive behind them. With Dahlia, this is not the case. She was always a prideful, twisted, self-serving monster who cared nothing for anyone other than herself. Her heart and soul were black, and she went above and beyond even what twisted villains like Von Karma or Matt Engarde did. She just kept killing and killing and ruining lives all because she felt like she could. And so, ultimately, a featureless, chilling shadowed image truly represents what Dahlia was on the inside.

Final Fate: Dahlia is hanged for her attempt to frame Phoenix Wright for murder, though this doesn’t stop her; after making a deal with her mother, Morgan Fey, that would have allowed her to get revenge by proxy on Mia by possessing the body of her stepsister Pearl and murdering Mia’s little sister Maya, Dahlia is summoned to the mortal plane yet again… and then finds that the entire plan failed, she’s actually being channeled by Maya, and she got one upped by Mia once again. Phoenix and Mia top off this chain of humiliation with one of the most epic “reason you suck” speeches in fiction, one that is just so incredibly awesome that it completely exorcises Dahlia’s spirit from Maya’s body and sends her shrieking with rage back to Hell.

Best Scene: The best moments the villains get in these games are always the breakdowns, and Dahlia probably has the most extravagant and satisfying in the entire series. After everything she did, sending her back to Hell with full knowledge that she is a complete and utter failure who will never be able to get revenge on Mia feels so damn good.

Best Quote: Upon finally being revealed in the final case, how does she introduce herself to the courtroom? “Dahlia Hawthorne. And my current profession? Permanently retired.”

Final Thoughts & Score: There are few villains in the history of video games who are so satisfying to see taken down. Dahlia is just an utterly irredeemable, heartless witch with a capital B… and for that, she gets a 10/10.

There really was no better way to cap off Phoenix Wright’s character arc in the original trilogy than with a foe so personal to him, a foe that ended up bringing him and Mia together and setting into motion the events of the past two games. Without Dahlia, Phoenix could have ended up on a different course in life, despite his best efforts to become an attorney to save Edgeworth, but because of her she pushed him down the path that would lead to the conviction of dozens of criminals, the saving of Miles Edgeworth and numerous others, and the reveal of the black corruption festering in the courtrooms. 

There’s also the way she ties thematically into the overarching moral of the story: revenge is ultimately a pointless endeavor and will consume you, ruining more than it helps. Dahlia kept on killing and killing in her quest to seek vengeance on any who dared to oppose her, and all it did was bring her not only to her own death, but eventually ended up damning her to an eternity in the afterlife existing with the knowledge of her failures. And that final failure also acts as the catalyst for the true killer of the final case to admit their wrongdoing and encourage Phoenix Wright to uncover the truth, so that they can pay for their foolish quest for vengeance that ended up causing more harm than good.

Three games in and they managed to make the absolute pinnacle of thematically appropriate villainy that is ultimately incredibly satisfying to see stripped of their bluster… it’s an incredible feat, and even with the fantastic villains that they’ve created since then, ones that are definitely as evil and impressive in a technical sense, I don’t think they’ll ever again create a villain as wholly satisfying to defeat in court as Dahlia Hawthorne.

[thesffcorner]

We Are the Ants

We Are the Ants is YA contemporary sci-fi novel written by Shaun David Hutchinson. It follows Henry, a high school student who gets abducted by aliens. The aliens pose Henry with a problem: the whole world is going to end on January 29th, 2016, and he’s the only one that can stop it; he just has to push a button. I’m slowly working my way through the really popular queer authors in YA, and Shaun David Hutchinson had been on my list for a while. I had been avoiding reading his books because I knew they dealt with heavy topics and a lot of abuse, and boy was I right about that. This is one of the most glib and sad books I’ve read in a while, and though that is mitigated by lot’s of humor and a hopeful ending, if you are at all sensitive to topics such as suicide, assault, and bullying, I’d suggest you stay clear of this book. First thing I’ll say is that Hutchinson’s writing style, is an acquired taste. You really have to enjoy this type of sardonic humor in order to get through this book, because especially for the first 100 pages, it’s relentless. We get the story in the form of Henry’s diary, and Henry is a very difficult character to like. He’s mean, he’s locked in a loop of self-loathing, depression, and hatred, and his entire outlook on life is justifiably bleak. As such, so is his humor; he spends a good chunk of the book calling his brother’s unborn child a ‘parasite’, and a lot of his internal monologue is the definition of the ‘too edgy for you’ variety. To give you an example: ”Turn on the news; read some blogs. The world is a shithole, and I have to consider whether it might be better to wipe the slate clean, and give the civilization that evolves from the ashes of our bones a chance to get it right” pg. 18 Personally, I was hooked. A few books have taken me back to what it felt like being a teenager so effectively, and this brought me straight back to the dark days, the endless drudge of school, confusion, hopelessness, feeling small and isolated, and like saying the world is shit and humans are idiots was the smartest thing anyone had ever said. Like Henry I too spent a lot of time pontificating on the futility of life and the universe, on being alone or dying, on the meaninglessness of existence. I did it for very different reasons that Henry, but the memory and effect were still the same. The fact of life is, when you’re a teenager you feel like you have all the answers, and all the adults are just too stupid or too ‘bought’ to see what is obvious to you, and this book really captured that feeling. The plot was not what I thought it would be, considering the premise. The book does revolve around the aliens and the end of the world, but it’s not an active part of the plot. Most of it comes down to Henry thinking about pressing the button, coming up with increasingly insane doomsday scenarios, and asking the characters around him if they’d push the the button if they were him. I found the various answers interesting, mostly in how they were all really unconvincing. I think that’s an intentional choice by Hutchinson, because really when you are in such a state as Henry is, what would be a convincing answer? Maybe you could make the most reasoned, researched argument, but at the end of the day, if you feel like you have nothing to wake up for, nothing will sound convincing. The alien are in reality are just a speculative element that Hutchinson uses as a way to externalize Henry’s internal conflict and mental state. Henry is dealing with a lot throughout the book; he’s dealing with the devastating suicide of someone close to him, with his father leaving him, his bad family situation, and the constant and relentless bullying at school and at home. The sluggers have a lot to do with that, and the abductions seem to be happening to Henry whenever he feels like he’s at an impasse or in a situation in which he needs to make a difficult choice. The main focus is dealing with loss, grief and depression, all of which I thought were presented extremely well, and believable. People deal with loss in different ways, and when it comes to suicide, especially the kind where the person leaves behind no explanation, no note, no last words, it’s almost impossible to conceive of a future where that specter wouldn’t haunt you for the rest of your life. Henry, his friend Audrey, and the person’s mother all blame themselves for the suicide, and the book in a way agrees with them; it was everyone’s fault and no one’s and the lack of concrete blame is infuriating and insurmountable. Henry especially tends to blame himself for pushing people away, and he feels like he wasn’t enough to keep the person alive. He’s obsessed with finding out why they’d done it; for someone who spends paragraphs talking about how nothing happens for a reason, how patterns are just in the human mind, and how life is meaningless and nothing matters, he is determined to find the reason behind the suicide, ignoring everyone who keeps telling him that the reason won’t bring the person back. It’s easy to see why Henry would blame himself; he’s someone who’s been dealt a really bad hand in life. I too was pretty badly bullied, especially in middle school, but it was nothing compared to what Henry goes through. Some of the scenes were so unsettling and so brutal I genuinely was sick reading them. What the characters in this book do to Henry goes beyond mere bullying and crosses into criminal assault, and I was glad that the adults and the police got involved, even if ultimately they were useless. It was at least a little comforting to know that though Henry felt like he was alone, there were people there for him, even if he didn’t see it. However, while I was glad the adults were present in the book, I don’t think they handled the situation appropriately. For example, Henry’s brother Charlie says and does some awful things to Henry, and there wasn’t ever a point where he’s called out on what he’s done, or a moment where he’s faced with the consequences of what he’s been doing to Henry for his entire life. It’s clear that Charlie loves Henry, but the way he treats him is not healthy or right, and he should have been held accountable, especially for the part where he blames Henry’s assault on Henry. The bullies too, don’t quite get what they deserved. Though it’s in a way realistic that they’d get away with things, the fact that Henry so easily forgives, especially one of them really didn’t sit right with me. Sure, there are always reasons for why people act the way they do, but what that character does to Henry is unforgivable, and goes way beyond simple growing disagreements. I’m not sure the message of forget about the people who made your life a living hell for years is necessarily the best one. The only other thing that annoyed me in the book, was how perfect the ending was. I think, especially considering how sharp and unflinching the story had been up until that point having the romance work out, and having no consequences come to Diego after what he does was a bit unrealistic. I am grateful that this book had a hopeful ending, but I just think it was too easy. Let’s talk about the characters. Everyone in this book felt and read like a fully realized person, and I loved that. We don’t have many characters, but the ones we do, especially Henry’s family were well developed. I loved how close Henry was to his Nana, and she was probably my favorite character. She has dementia, but she’s never used as a ‘burden’ or obstacle for the other characters; she’s a fully fleshed out person, and the surprise Henry throws her was so touching, it made me tear up. Audrey was a welcome presence in the story, and I liked her a lot, though she does suffer a bit from only girl who is Henry’s peer in the book. I liked that she had a lot of personal struggles, outside of Henry, but I found that they weren’t handled very well. She has a lot of backstory, but none of it plays a part in her relationship with Henry once they make up, and I found that she was unrealistically patient and wise for a teenager. I can absolutely say the same thing for Diego; there were many scenes where I was shocked to see him act so maturely around Henry, which just isn’s something I think teenagers would do. I’m also not gonna lie; Diego reminded me too much of Andrew from All For the Game. Not only do they have very similar backstories, his relationship with Henry was pretty reflective of that between Neil and Andrew. I thought he was fine as a character, but he did suffer a bit from manic pixie dream love interest. Finally we have Henry. I both loved and loathed Henry. He was one of the best written characters I’ve read from, which also entails all his flaws. He reminded me a bit of Mila from Undead Girl Gang; he’s confrontational and mean to everyone around him, in an attempt to deal with and hide the pain he’s still processing. The bullying that Henry endures in this book was beyond something I thought people experience, but I absolutely believed it would happen. It was both weird and nice that at least it didn’t revolve around his sexuality, not that what it does revolve around is any better. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to lose someone the way he has, and I though the dull, ever present grief he feels fully through every page of the book. It’s not about saving the world really; it’s about Henry finding the strength to save himself from his own depression, and I really, really appreciated that Hutchinson has Henry get on medication and go to a hospital. The state he’s in isn’t anything he can handle himself, and I’m really glad that he was allowed to seek out help. Overall, I really loved this book. It’s a difficult read, in spite of the sardonic tone and humor. If you think you can handle the subject matter I think you should give it a read; I can definitely see why people love it so much, even though it isn’t perfect.

goodreads

[sunriseseance]

i really liked your analysis on Fanon! Klaus and Fanon! Ben, i’d love to hear your thoughts on the fanon versions of the other tua characters if you have any

BOY DO I

Luther: in canon, a failure of a leader due to his loyalty and indecisiveness. His entire life has told him he has to be This Thing that he simply is not capable of, and moreover that's WHY Reg chose Luther for leadership. He is at his core a sweetheart, but makes some bad, violent choices because he was raised to be violent by a bad man. He's also stupid as hell and a COMPLETE dork. "I'm just gonna sit here, finish my beer, and get my... Buzz on." HELLO??? How can you not be charmed by that??? Also he is very autism coded AND he's disfigured and disabled.

In fanon he is not someone trying his best and failing, he's actively malicious and cruel. He's portrayed as stubborn, deliberately evil, and conniving. I've seen people portray him as homophobic, or racist, or both. I think this comes from am inherent desire for non-complexity. If Klaus and Vanya are pure good, then the people they clash with must be pure evil, right? I also think this is tied to his autism coding and his disfigurement and disability.

Diego: In canon, Diego is so fucking weird and dorky and ridiculous. He desperately portrays this badass Batman figure that is just rage and edge and coolness. But he… Isn't cool. He's also not that, like, smart? His plans consist of Jump Through Door and hope for the best. HOWEVER this act is to cover the beautiful, sweet, kind soul that lives underneath. He cares SO MUCH about EVERYTHING he is absolutely soaked in love. He cries all the time, she shares exactly how he's feeling whenever possible. He gets arrested to make sure Allison can go rescue Vanya.

In fanon, he's just… Sort of a nothing. He cares about Klaus in a pretty bot-like way, rescuing him and chastising him and letting him sleep on the bed while Diego takes the couch. He's exasperated and mature and cold. He's a good leader and a badass vigilante. I find this one annoying, because Diego shouldn't exist for a white character, but also sorta funny cause this is how Diego wants to be seen. He doesn't fool anyone else, but he's fooled fandom.

Allison: in canon, Allison is tirelessly, graciously trying to be a better person while drowning in guilt. She is light whenever she can be, she checks in on people, she seeks unity and communication and sharing, she is always apologizing and learning and growing. She is sweet, and often silly (chocolate! Covered! Raisins!), and smart, and humble, and charismatic. She has a MASSIVE tendency to go way too far, to pursue things until she can't anymore and then pursue further. She is not good at giving space or time because she is focused on making things better, now. She is a hero, and a good person, and an excellent character.

In fanon, when she exists at all, she's literally unrecognizable. She's manipulative, and jealous, and catty, and cruel, and egotistical. She never apologizes, she hurts people on purpose. She refuses to take accountability. This is FUCKING BUCK WILD for a character DEFINED by her guilt. This is racism. It's making the Black woman evil so that it isn't bad when other people aren't good to her. It's making it so that Vanya slashing her throat and calling her names and digging into her guilt deliberately is a Fine Action, Actually. It's fucked up.

I've talked about Klaus, Five, and Ben elsewhere, so I'm gonna just move on to Vanya

Vanya: in canon, Vanya is caring, and smart, and outspoken but shy, and interesting. She is checking in on people, and defending her points, and living her life. She has chocolate colored raisins on her counter. She is also, though, flawed. She has a weird superiority-inferiority complex where she thinks she KNOWS she's as good as, if not better than, the others, but she knows nobody will believe her, and it drives her bananas. She often interprets situations in ways that make her the victim when she… Just isn't, like when Allison refuses to say that Vanya shouldn't have come down when she heard gunfire. This is due to a lifetime of being forgotten, and it feels natural and elegantly written. This also isn't to say she's NEVER a victim, because she often is! The sibs fuck up a lot w her and hurt her. Reginald stole YEARS of her life from her. Also Leonard.

In fanon, she just… Is that victim. She is perfect and being hurt by evil people for no reason. She is constantly suffering real blows, and then getting apologized to, and fawned over. Every narrative she believes about herself is true. The book was fine, and the siblings all apologize to her for how Mean they were. She really was being left out in s1e6/7. It's bizarre. Vanya is a much more interesting character, to me, if she is sometimes hurting for real, and some times wallowing in a learned hurt, and so lonely and unaccustomed to feeling that she can't really tell the difference. It's not just the others that push Vanya to breaking point, it's Vanya herself, too. It's a disservice not just to Vanya, but to EVERYONE, to ignore her flaws in my opinion (this is true of all of them).

[slvtbible]

Babies And Other Stuff

[ In which they’re having their own private time in a yacht ]

Warnings: fluff, baby talks!!

From this series

This is very short!

**

There’s a privilege of dating the infamous Harry Styles. That is, by having their own small private yacht and to have no one exactly bothering them,

But of course, money isn’t the reason why she fell for the beautiful man. It’s his beautiful golden heart, that has captivated alot of beautiful young women yet somehow, his heart placed a mark upon hers,

With him. She feels everything she ever wanted to feel. Love, kindness, courage, lust, everything,

There’s no single flaw she can find in him. Always saying how perfect he is as a human being, causing him to blush deeply and tells her to stop,

She doesn’t.

“Are you trying to make me hard?”

She looks up from the magazine, seeing her handsome fiancee standing only five feet away from her. Holding a playful scowl on his face, wearing nothing except for yellow beach shorts that looks adorable on him,

Yellow is so his color,

“What do you mean?” She asks innocently, biting her glossed lip,

He rolls his eyes at her question, walking pass her and gives her ass a small slap before sitting down on the white couch behind,

Absolutely enjoying the view

“God, look at that” he whispers to himself, eyes running observing every curve of her plump flesh, “swear you’re going to make me cum”

Gasping, she quickly rolls on her back making him groan in disappointment. “You promised, no funny business”

Harry shrugs, holding his hands up in defense with a cheeky smile. “You didn’t tell me what that funny business is included”

She nudges his knee with her toe, and Harry swiftly catches her ankle earning a small yelp from her lips. Pulling her closer slowly,

“Harry! Stop that!” She exclaims, trying to get her ankle out of his grip, but he only tightens it, “stop! You can hear my ass is squeaking!”

He lets out a loud laugh after that, extending his hand for her to hold as she takes it and let him pull her up and let her fall on his lap,

“That’s because of the coconut oil, baby. And may i say, your ass looks incredibly good with it” he flirts, kissing her shoulder blade

Y/N gives him a naughty smile before kissing his soft lips. “i can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you,

“me too, baby” he says, patting her thigh and runs his hand over it as she tenses at his cold touch. “And i know you’re going to be a good mom someday”

She can feel the butterflies in her stomach after he said that, she has always think to herself that she won’t be a perfect role model to their future babies. But Harry has always makes her feel good and confident about herself, this is the love of her life for crying out loud. He would be a terrible husband if he didn’t encourage her,

“You think so?” She asks, still entirely unsure about it. “What makes you say that”

“Well” he starts, shifting her into a comfortable position, “first off, Ruby can’t get her hands off of you the first time you came around. Ben says that you’re the only woman besides her own mother that she wants to be held by. And you treat her as if she were your own”

Giggling, she nods as she feels her cheeks heating up at his statement. “She’s a cute baby. I won’t lie”

Nodding, he continues, “and remember when we met Austin and Catherine for the first time? Elle just launched herself at you and completely left me out.” He pouts, causing you to laugh and pecks his lips. “You’re a natural, my love. I love that”

“Thank you, bebe. You are too, you’re such a softie for a baby” she sighs and smiles and removing herself from his lap to get another refill, “you are also going to be a great parent.” she reassures, turning around to grab the champagne bottle,

He looks at her as if she’s his world. And she is. He sometimes wonders at nights, looking up above and are looking for an answer from God, because why did God had to make someone so beautiful and absolutely kind enough to put up with his constant life. Why did God have to be kind enough to send him, His sweet angel that day at the party. 

But he’s grateful. Very grateful indeed.

“We should make a baby” his sudden words causes her to choke on a drink,

Quickly turning around to face his handsome face, his legs spread out and eyebrows squinting due to the bright sun that directs straight to his features. His cheeks pinks a bit,

“What? Really?” she’s trying to contain her smile and excitement but it’s very hard to do so because he can easily see them through her.

With a shy smile, he stands and walks over to her to grab her hands and pulls her closer. “Yeah. Only if you wanted to”

“Of course i want to, my darling. I just thought that you might want to wait a little longer. You’re getting bigger and bigger with your career out there, it’s not fair for me to pressure you with it” she coos, rubbing her thumb over his soft cheek,

He scoffs, shaking his head in disagreement. Wrapping his arms around her waist and let his large hands rest on her plump ass, giving it a small squeeze,

“Baby, I wanted you to be pregnant way before I proposed to you. I wanted to start a family with you, so when it comes to you and my career, i will always going to choose you.” He sounds so sure and he has never been like this before, “you’re my priority now. My top priority”

She feels like a school girl when his lips touches her forehead to give it a small peck, “aww baby, you’re my top priority too. I’m such a lucky girl”

“I’m the lucky one, my love. You showed me the goddamn world. Shows and teaches me how it means and feels to be in your shoes, how it feels to have your family being taken away from you at the very young age and to have no one looks after you but yourself. Makes me feel grateful for them even more. All because of you.”

She tears up, feeling tears about to pour down like a waterfall but then stops when she hears what he says next,

“And you showed me how it feels to have a woman with a sexy ass like yours. Hard to keep up if I’m being honest, it’s like I’m gonna cum in less than two seconds”

She knows he’s joking(not really) and nudges his bulge with the side of her ass making him groan and tightening his grip,

“Again, you ruined the mood!”

A laugh rumbles on his throat after, pressing his groind against her body. “No i didn’t! Instead, i made it better”

“Yeah, yeah whatever.”

“Okay quick question” he says suddenly, grabbing her hand and kisses her knuckle. “If the baby came out to be a girl what would you name her?”

She thinks for a while, finding out cute and pretty names in Spanish for baby girls,

“I’ve always wanted to name a baby girl Anita. Or Lola, or Zoila. They sound so cute. Perhaps Zoila is cuter though”

“I agree” he nods, liking the sound of Zoila rolls out of her tongue, “Zoila sounds really cute. Just like you”

“Oh hush you” she blushes, waving her hand off, “what if it’s a boy? What would you name him?”

“I like Diego. Or Mateó. Used to watch Dora when i was a kid because my mom forced me to.” Shaking his head at the memory, “not disappointed though. I loved that show.”

She smiles lovingly at him, biting down her lower lip as she does. “Mhmm, so Zoila for a girl and Diego for a boy?”

He nods, “Si” with that answer, he smirks as if showing her off that he can speak Spanish although it’s only a one word answer

Oh he’s getting cocky now with his Spanish,

“Okay, gringo. It’s settled then. So are we going to do it now or not?”

Cocking an eyebrow, he asks “do what?”

She rolls her eyes at his dumb question, “put a baby in me, silly. Are you?”

His eyes widens in surprise as he nods his head rapidly, “yes! Definitely.”

His response is what gets her laughing because he’s so entusiastic, then he picks her up in bridal style making her yelp and laugh even louder as he carries carefully her to the small spaced room,

Gently laying her down on the bed as she unties her bikini and pull her bottoms down, watching him taking off his shorts as well

“I’m going to make love to you all day baby”

[fabfrnkie]

@shadycreekbaby​ I’ve seen your reply under this post and I will answer here because replying there is a mess.

You wrote: “Gerard is also a misandrist because Luther is the only character with negative development with regards to his cruelty, Klaus can be very mean for meanness sake, Diego cares more about proving himself than helping people, Ben lacks empathy for his brother's traumas, and Five is actively brutal, haughty, egotistical, and uncaring on a personal level. Characters need to have flaws. The women characters also having flaws isn't sexist, but the opposite would be.”

I personally think that your analysis about the boys is way too harsh. I think the amount of flaws is perfectly equal and the representation is perfect.

Luther has a negative development and that's still good representation. Not everyone reacts in the same way. Everyone else realized who their father was pretty soon, they were not even teens yet but Luther stayed. At 30+ years old he finds out that everything he did, everything he sacrificed, was for a non-existent mission (well, maybe not since it was the moon that exploded). Anyway can you imagine devoting 20 years, almost dying, waking up with the body of a gorilla, to something useless? He realized in a few seconds to have wasted most of his life. While his cruelty can’t be excused, the representation of a man losing all his certainties and reacting with violence is something extremely realistic. 

About Klaus I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. Him getting into a fight at the bar after he was provoked? Where an asshole wanted him to leave just because he was looking at a picture? After he had just seen the love of his life die? Because Dave’s death literally happened a few hours before. 

Diego cares more about proving himself than helping people, this is completely correct but how is that misandrist? That’s literally 90% of the men I met in my life. That’s just reality. And they did a great job representing that. 

Ben lacks empathy for his brother's traumas, how about Ben’s trauma? He was born with monsters inside him, all his life was a trauma! He was neglected like all the other ones but he was also used by his family, he was forced to see himself killing people horribly. And we also don’t know what happened to him. But even besides all that, he helped Klaus getting over his addiction more than anybody else and he actually helped him when he was kidnapped.

Five is actively brutal, haughty, egotistical, and uncaring on a personal level, Five has been completely alone for years. He grew up completely alone, he was a child when he disappeared. He had nothing but himself (and dolores, that’s probably thanks to her that he didn’t go crazy). How can someone not become egoistical after spending more than 20 years alone? The only person he met gave him a job as an assassin. In 58 years Five learned how to fight, “to adapt”, to use his power, to kill people. He did not learn anything else because there was no one who cared about him or could teach him anything besides killing and fixing timelines! He is also obviously haughty because, again, he grew up by himself. How can someone change their behaviour without anyone to scold him, without anybody to talk to! We all realize our mistakes and wrong behaviours thanks to others! Five disappeared when he was a teenager, the most important years for our character development, his behaviour is extremely obvious and very much realistic. 

Each character has flaws, different reactions, different stories, and that’s what makes the series so good. It talks about super-”heroes” with weird as fuck powers but they are so real. That’s why the series had such success. That’s why the comic won one of the most prestigious awards.