#Except the flashbacks mostly consisted on character A explaining things to character B

[papermonkeyism]

Hey, can I request, if you want to recommend me something to check out, can you please tell me something about it too?

I have a pretty bad case of ADHD and my name memory is flat out abysmal (I also do all of my onlining on my phone, so I can't right click search things from the tumblr app), so chances are I'm just never going to get around to checking it out if you give me just a name.

Something like, what's it about? Genre? Important tropes? Is it a funny story or a sad story? (is there queer?) Just. What kinds of stuff can I expect to get out of it?

Otherwise the chances are I'm just gonna forget to check it out.

[bipercabeth]

Hi you are such a good writer I was hoping you could give me some advice! I’m trying to write more consistently and more understandable for people to read, because I tend to just write my stream of consciousness and hope it sounds coherent but whenever I try to do that I totally lose my train of thought and the ideas I had trying to write it in a way people would understand? Idk if this makes sense, but how do you tackle writing out a story and not forgetting the details you want in it?

phew okay! i got all of these within 24 hours so i’m going to combine them and hope that i can answer them all. i’m both honored and terrified that i’m the person y’all came to for advice, that’s wild! i’ll do my best to be coherent. (also thank u ur all very sweet). i made a post about this a while ago, but it’s pretty half-baked. i’m putting this under a read more because i know it’s going to get out of hand. 

as far as software, i don’t think you need anything more than google docs! it’s what i use for everything and it’s so functional. you can access it from any device with internet, it automatically saves, the mobile app is decent, it’s easy to share, easy to format, and you can download different docs to work on offline! the share feature is versatile depending on who is reading, so friends can just view and/or comment and betas can edit/suggest. it has never let me down. 

plotting really is its own beast because it’s different for every writer. i’m just going to take you through my process and hope there are parts that will work for you! i’m also going to use examples from a few of my outlines (mostly roommates but i’ll probably dip into a bellarke one or two) to make more sense of what i’m sure is going to be a slightly feverish post. i really love plotting and talking about writing and i’m already getting excited. 

with writing, there’s kind of a spectrum of plotters vs pantsers. plotters stick by outlines and planning out their writing whereas pantsers go by their gut. i know people who write both ways, and there’s no difference in the quality of their writing or plots! it’s just about what works best for each person. i’m a pretty hardcore plotter, but i leave myself room to improvise and for the story to grow. 

okay, so my general first step once i’ve got an idea for a story is to open up a google doc, make a bullet point, and just word vomit every single idea i have onto the page. separate bullet points for each idea, but if i have multiple ideas that relate to each other, i indent to keep them together. the point of keeping similar things together is to make the next step easier: organize them. once it’s all on the page, put it in chronological order, or if your story has flashbacks, the order the scenes appear in. here’s an example of what i mean (from my bellarke superhero au):

it’s quite half-baked! pretty vague language, but it ended up being enough for me to write the scene. each indent further explains the point before, making it a lot easier to sort your thoughts and structure scenes once you get to them. it’s by no means a blow by blow account of what’s going to happen, but the language is just enough to make me recall what i was thinking when i wrote it. 

after that, i look at what is usually several pages of scenes told through bullet points, and i start to look for common themes to separate them into chapters. this is also where i try to fine tune scenes and clear up any immediate plot holes i find. i try not to force myself to completely outline everything in the beginning because i end up changing several scenes anyway! sometimes you get to the actual writing part and realize a scene you thought was perfect misses the mark. sometimes you write and realize there’s a theme or issue you need to address through a specific moment. leave yourself some room to grow! this is also a great time to weave in parallels, callbacks, and important themes you want to include throughout the story. 

this is usually where i start writing! if it’s a complex story with lots of research, formatting, or character building, i might take more time before jumping in, but these asks are fanfic-specific and fanfic tends to be pretty straightforward. for writing, i like to use a different doc than my outline. there’s less scrolling that way, and i find that having my outline open on the same screen while i’m writing really cuts into my flow. i end up staring at point a and point b trying to figure them out rather than starting at point a and letting the scene run it’s course. it’s much easier for me to switch tabs when i get stuck. 

that’s the majority of my plotting process! i’m going to leave a few miscellaneous tips that have helped me immensely down below. 

i find that certain things just don’t help me in an outline. scenery, description, and most body language are things i think about when i’m actually writing and fully immersed in the story. my outlines tend to be dialogue, bare-bones plot points, and quotes/lyrics/links for inspiration. dialogue comes very easily to me and sets the tone of the scene, so having it the outline helps me get into the flow of a scene, after which everything else follows. and if a whole scene of dialogue comes to you, why risk forgetting it? some of my best scenes have come from two pages of dialogue in my outline. sometimes you just know how a scene is going to go. 

nobody is seeing your outline except for you and maybe a trusted friend or beta. it should serve you! there’s no right or wrong way to write a story, so find the things that work for you! there’s a lot of advice in this post, and it all works for me, but there are some people who wouldn’t benefit from any of it. a lot of figuring it out might be trial and error. 

let yourself be indecisive! you don’t have to have every moment figured out right away, and some room to breathe usually serves your story better in the long run. i really didn’t have any clue where i’m going in either of these parts of my outline, but once i got to these points in roommates it became more clear what they needed to be.  

finding inspiration to get back into a fic after a while away is really hard for me, so i like to leave myself reminders of art, other writing references, reminders of the Energy i’m going for, song lyrics, etc. like so:

writing can be stressful! make yourself laugh in your outline! most of these are me objectifying percy but it’s okay i’m valid

okay those are my general tips! i know it’s a lot! you might not use any of this! but i worked for a long time to find the things that work for me and maximize my ability to write, so i hope this makes the search a bit easier for people who are starting out. feel free to come to me with any writing problems you have, whether that’s through my inbox or dms. always happy to talk about it. happy writing!

[jjoelswatch]

I HAVE SEEN THE WAR OF THE STARS

This was a very different Star Wars movie in the best ways possible. Whether you loved it or hated it, this movie would not have been possible without SW:TLJ, full stop. Personally, I liked this movie a lot. SW:ROTS is my favorite just because it’s a) the movie that got me to like Star Wars and b) Anakin, so nothing really compares to that for me but. I think I can largely attribute what I did like about this movie to how much it reminded me of story arcs in Clone Wars or Rebels (namely Mortis, Malachor, and the World Between Worlds), with the little caveats/side quests and side characters and the focus on arcane Force powers.

What I liked:

Kylo Ren and Rey being collective badasses on two opposite spectrums of the Force. You really get the sense that as things continue to become unbalanced, the more and more their powers grow. This movie is truly a love letter to fans of both Rey and Kylo Ren, because they both have largely satisfying developments (in their powers and their character growth). I’ve never hated Kylo Ren like a lot of people do. I like his character, I think he’s - at least - cool. This movie really showcased how formidable he was right off the bat-- from Title Scroll to opening scene. And if this movie showed how powerful he was, it REALLY doubled down on how strong Rey is. More on this throughout this ramble post.

Holy Sith lore, Batman.

Rey’s training sequence was everything Luke’s training sequence in SW:TESB should have been (limited ofc by film techniques of its time); I thoroughly enjoyed it. I know a lot of people are complaining about it, since she adamantly chose not to walk the path of a Jedi, but I liked that Leia got to be her Jedi Master.

Even though it was in the trailer, Rey flipping over the Kylo’s ship and slicing the wing off with her lightsaber was rad af.

Also followed by another rad af moment of her Force pulling the ship, like damn girl.

My face when Rey used Sith lightning was one of genuine shock like holy shit. This is also when I knew the “Force bloodline” twist ahead of time. It allowed me to become (mostly) okay with it. But damn, even Kylo Ren is like “...fuck”.

AUDIBLE SIGH OF RELIEF THAT CHEWIE DIDN’T DIE. Actual personification of that one bear vine.

Former spice-runner Poe is...sexy. What a concept.

Kijimi planet sequence was really cool. It also hammered home the entire space nazi motif in a very in-your-face way, which I appreciated because I feel like people try to rationalize the Empire and First Order as not being that, when that’s literally what they are. It also introduced Zorii Bliss, who I really enjoyed.

I really liked the style of the Force bond/Force Dyad moments in this movie. We got a good handful of them in TLJ and they were cool (and confirmed to not just be Snoke causing them with that movie’s end scene), but these were better. Just the way the scenes transition and the tangible objects being transferred between them.

Her parentage reveal, the mirror of the “join me” scene from TLJ [chef’s kiss] *

General Hux being the spy really reminded me of Alexsandr Kallus being Fulcrum in SW:Rebels, except Kallus was hotter and had less petty reasons for betraying the Empire.

The space horse...tusk...creatures. I love them.

Rey and Kylo Ren’s fight on the Death Star wreckage. Finally, at long last, we get to see some prequels level Jedi flips and jumps. FINALLY!

Leia’s last sacrifice c’:

Rey striking down Kylo Ren, healing him, telling him that she had wanted to take his hand when he offered, but she’d wanted to take Ben’s hand. So perfect.

Ben and Han’s mirrored scene from the bridge scene in TFA with Kylo and Han, line for line, with the right choice made this time. Just the combined effort of his father’s memory and his mother’s sacrifice having him throw his lightsaber into the ocean, killing Kylo Ren and becoming Ben Solo once more. So emotionally satisfying. **

Also: “Dad...” “I know.” very nice callback to TESB.

Force Ghost!Luke c’: catching that lightsaber as Rey goes to throw it into the flames; nice resolution to Luke’s arc from TLJ.

LUKE AND LEIA TRAINING SCENE FLASHBACK!!

Kylo Ren’s redemption/turn to the light was something that I thought I would hate, but I actually thought it was the one consistent character arc in the sequel films. I actually enjoyed it a lot, like everything about him turning to the light was handled well and you can track its path through the entire sequel trilogy. Don’t @ me.

Ben doing the classic Han Solo No Look Shot-- with Lando’s blaster (how did he get that?)

Ben absolutely butchering the Knights of Ren wearing the space equivalent of a sweater and jeans. Just the epitome of chaotic Skywalker/Solo energy. Iconic.

Enjoyed Ben’s little shrug of “finally” when Rey used their Force bond to transfer him one of the lightsabers to use. Was sitting there watching him fight like, get this man a lightsaber.

Also, regarding that moment, just the pause within their Force bond, actually, truly seeing each other.

All the voices of the Jedi. Chills. I heard Luke, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Windu, Kanan, Anakin. Ahsoka. ***

Rey’s sacrifice. Ben’s sacrifice. For a moment, I thought they were going to kill both of them and Palpatine (which I would have hated and appreciated at once; zero it out, bring balance to the Force via a flatline), or leave Rey dead and Ben alive to be haunted by his own deeds and demons. It was a surprise that Ben could use Force healing in the way Rey displayed earlier in the film, but a good one. Thanos vc: a soul for a soul.

“Ben” c’: such a bittersweet moment of acknowledgement and redemption tbh. ****

Rey burying Luke (Anakin’s) and Leia’s sabers on Tatooine c’: *****

Rey’s yellow lightsaber made from her staff. I wonder if it’s double-bladed (I bet it is).

I had a feeling one way or another that by the end of the movie Rey would be taking the Skywalker name for herself. I’m sure this made a lot of people angry. I’m not one of them.

What I didn’t like:

Not much tbh!

The Reylo kiss I guess, since it felt shoehorned in since they were both enemies 12 hours prior (if that). It would have felt more natural if it had just been a brief embrace or (as a friend suggested) a forehead touch. I’m totally okay with Rey and Ben having this strong connection through the Force, but no matter where you stand on the idea of those characters being romantically involved, you have to admit that they just weren’t there yet to have that kiss. ******

Conflicted that the Skywalker bloodline is gone. Like, trust me, I know the point - or one of the major ones - of this film is that blood doesn’t dictate choices/blood isn’t important, but like...I really love the Skywalkers, okay?

Palpatine being alive in this pretty much invalidates Anakin’s journey in the first six episodes, which sucks because in this house we love and appreciate Anakin Skywalker. You get a sense that Palpatine’s return was definitely never the end goal for this trilogy. It doesn’t feel planned because it’s never explained how he’s back, how he survived. We’re left to assume that it’s Sith power sustaining him. We never find out how Palpatine (who’s basically a zombie, I mean, look at him) managed to create a massive fleet of Star Destroyers capable of destroying planets. That’s just how it is, deal with it.

Asterisks/Questions Unanswered/Misc.:

* Still can’t believe Rey Palpatine fan theories DID THAT. Press F to pay respects to my Rey Kenobi theories (which would have made more sense with a Force bond but WHATEVER).

** This is where I would have wanted Anakin’s Force Ghost moment to be, especially since Kylo Ren idolized the ideal of Vader for so long, I felt it would have been a nice touch to have Anakin step in here, while across the galaxy Rey is being reached out to by Luke. Ultimately though, I think Han worked best.

*** Look, I know Ahsoka’s voice was in the past Jedi/Force Ghost moment, but like...my girl ain’t dead. Togruta live for over 200+ years, plus she was resurrected with the power of The Daughter. She just Force Skyped in to give Rey an inspirational line. Also Ahsoka is...not a Jedi, so ? interesting.

On that note, the above scene also reminds me 100% of Ezra’s moment in The World Between Worlds.

**** Really wish redemption didn’t always have to mean death, but I also understand that just like in ROTJ with Vader, there was a slim-to-none chance of a future for Ben after doing everything he’d done. But I also think death is...an easy out, when you don’t want to think about how a character can continue to atone for their deeds. I would have liked to see Ben live.

***** As for burying Luke and Leia’s sabers in the sands of Tatooine, Luke never associated himself with Anakin’s saber, so she buried Anakin’s saber in a place he hated and associated with so much pain and loss.

****** Reylo has never really been a ship I sailed, though I’ve never expressly hated it (there are certainly far more uncomfortable scenes with Anakin and Padma in AOTC than there have been between Rey and Kylo Ren in the sequel films), but if one of them is going to die, don’t have them kiss. If you’re going to have them kiss, let them live.

Finn never really did get to tell Rey what he wanted to tell her, huh? I joke. I think it’s obvious by the final act of the movie that he wanted to tell her that he could feel the Force, that he’s Force sensitive. This was hinted at in TFA during several beats (especially when he fights Kylo Ren-- anyone can use a lightsaber, but it’s kinda curious that he could hold his own for a bit).

This movie radiates a bi energy in ways I can’t describe. All the stuff with Poe being real concerned about what Finn wanted to tell Rey when he thought they were going to die? Poe and Zorii? Finn and Jannah? Poe and Rey? Really can’t believe they cut away before Finn and Poe kissed in the end celebration scene.

Ben Solo > Kylo Ren

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

I want to talk about the rumour of Kraven being from Wakanda.

Now I hope in the past I’ve been very clear about my stance when it comes to casting actors of different races, ethnicities, etc from their comic book counterparts.

To repeat myself I think it’s fine so long as the character in question doesn’t demand to be of any particular race or ethnicity (for the sake of argument let’s discount being an American/New Yorker) and the actor is a good choice for the role. As a follow up I do fundamentally disagree with actively seeking out to racebend characters 99% of the time, it should simply be that every actor who would be a good fit, regardless of their race and so on, should be looked at and then the best person for the job hired.

This then brings us to Kraven and for what I am about to say let’s presume for a moment the rumours are true.

For Kraven casting a black actor in the role is rather dependent upon what direction they are going to adopt for the character.

In a sense there are two Kravens from the 616 universe. I’m going to refer to them as pre and post KLH Kraven. Pre-KLH Kraven, as the name would imply, is Kraven as he was typically portrayed prior to Kraven’s Last Hunt and post-KLH Kraven is how he was portrayed during and after that story, which would include not just stories where he was alive but also flashback stories, appearances as a ghost or vision and also his metaphorical ‘ghost’, e.g. how characters talked about him after he died.

Whilst neither version was portrayed exactly the same way in every story, more often than not they had a consistency to them.

Pre-KLH Kraven was really nothing more than a B or C list villain who’s gimmick was simply being a jungle themed big game hunter who was a take upon the classic ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ archetypical antagonist.

And he was a jobber. Really his shining moment was in ASM #47, a story remembered more for it’s supporting cast drama and Romita artwork than for it’s super villain plot, but the latter (and thus the super villain in question) became memorable via association. It was also a time when Kraven scored essentially an unmitigated victory against Spider-Man but got his comeuppance shortly thereafter. Really Kraven’s role might’ve been played by almost any villain and amounted to practically the same thing.

In truth he was something of a joke character no one took seriously as a threat and was a villain few people, if anyone, particularly liked.

Post-KLH Kraven though is a different story altogether. The unimpressive reputation of pre-KLH Kraven helped to fuel the success of this iteration as in Kraven’s Last Hunt a villain considered a joke suddenly became deadly dangerous and effective. It wasn’t just in terms of the physical threat he posed though or even his deranged plan. Kraven’s personality got a makeover. Instead of overwriting what we’d known of him before J.M. DeMatteis expanded upon what we knew about Kraven and constructed a truly complex and nuanced character, who’s motivations and actions were understandable even as they were clearly deranged and insane.

Across just six issues (arguably just one even) Kraven the Hunter’s reputation was totally hanged. He became a contender amongst Spider-Man’s most effective and formidable foes and to many a fan favourite. This reputation was further fuelled by the legacy of Kraven’s Last Hunt consequently leading to further mentions and appeareces of Kraven usually being reframed through the lens of his more complex and darker Kraven’s Last Hunt characterization. This was even the case with the Chameleon, a character strongly associated with Kraven who was used in a very ambitious revenge scheme upon Spider-Man motivated by Kraven’s death, and used his ‘ghost’ as a weapon against Spider-Man. In the story Chameleon received his own share of character development as his backstory was revealed as inherently linked with Kraven.

The key to DeMatteis’ decision to use Kraven, to understanding the character and to developing him (and by extension the Chameleon) was the fact that he was Russian. DeMatteis was a fan of Russian literature and connected with it a lot so it was through that lens he expanded Kraven’s character. Rather than being a big game hunter who happened to be of Russian descent*DeMatteis revealed Kraven was a Russian aristocrat who’s lose of his home, wealth and ultimately his family in the 1917 Russian Revolution was the key to his embracing of a more primal lifestyle in the animal kingdom and his obsession with Spider-Man.**

The Russian influence was so important that on occasion Kraven’s name would at times be stylized with Russian alphabet characters.

In other words post-KLH Kraven is the more popular and dramatically compelling rendition of the character and his Russian origins are integral to that.

You likely see my point in all this.

If the MCU adopts the pre-KLH rendition of Kraven casting a black actor won’t really be a problem as his ethnicity is mostly irrelevant to the character.

However if they MCU adopts the post-KLH Kraven then casting a black actor would be a problem as his Russian aristocratic heritage is inherently vital to who this rendition of Kraven is; and unless I am very much mistaken there were no black Russian aristocrats.***

The question then becomes which version should the MCU adopt.

And frankly the answer should be pretty obvious. Even if you wouldn’t commit to a Kraven’s Last Hunt story specifically the post-KLH rendition of Kraven informed by his Russian heritage has proven itself inherently more dramatically compelling and effective. Pre-KLH Kraven is really just a gimmick villain with little substance, making him a Wakandan might improve upon that to an extent but why bother when the comics already have a more compelling version of the character to drawn from. Making him a Wakandan also perpetuates a systemic issue with MCU Spider-Man, that his corner of the MCU is dictated more by the wider MCU than...well...Spider-Man himself.

If you examine most of the Phase 1 movies, or in fact most of the MCU origin films you will see that most everything in them is built around and flows from the central character. Captain America the First Avenger might use Asgardian technology as a plot device, but fundamentally the movie revolves around Steve Rogers and everything is first and foremost connected to him. Same thing with Thor 2011 and Iron Man 2008 and Doctor Strange 2016.

The Spider-Man films have been this weird exception to the rule as Spider-Man himself and his world has to a very large extent revolved around other characters or the wider MCU, typically Iron Man or Iron Man associated elements. Case in point both of his villains’ have been designed as dark reflections of Iron Man and their motivates stemming from him, their ultimate plan revolving around the acquiring of his technology. If MCU Kraven is a Wakandan and uses Wakandan technology, and presumably will be motivated due to factors connected to Wakanda, we might be not be usuing Iron Man elements but the underlying problem would remain the same.

It’s Spider-Man’s characters and Spider-Man’s world essentially filtered through the lens of the MCU rather than organically integrated  within the MCU. It is allowing the MCU to lead and dictate the character and his world rather than reconciling the creative integrity of the latter within the pre-established world of the MCU.

*A fact likely established either because the Chameleon was Russian recruited Kraven and/or in the 1960s Russian was shorthand for villain.

**I should also note that DeMatteis explained that the source of Kraven’s powers alter retarded his aging hence he could look so young in spite of being born before 1917. This was revealed alongside the fact his origins date back to 1917.  

***I’d also add that his dynamic with the Chameleon, already established in the MCU with an Eastern European flavour, (though his skillset means you need not be constrained by that) would be inherently different (and inherently lesser frankly) if he is neither Kraven’s brother nor his lower class punching bag. So far in the MCU (and Black Panther fans will need to tell me if this is also true in the comics) apart from the royal family there doesn’t seem to be a class system in Wakanda wherein there is anything akin to an aristocracy. One might even argue the lack of one would fit with the notion of it being so advanced.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 225: Interview with a Vampire

Previously on BnHA: The Shigaraki Squad (after some debate) set out to rescue Giran from the Liberation Army’s clutches. Tomura plans to sic Gigantomachia on them, although the guy is still a-snooze for the next two and a half hours, so who even knows how that’s gonna work. Anyways though, the rest of the gang, Dabi included (over his protests), arrived at the designated meeting location in Aichi prefecture to be greeted by none other than Slidin’ Go, because apparently you can’t fucking trust anyone nowadays. He led them to the center of the town, which turned out to be populated by members of Re-Des’s army, including his top brass. Everyone attacked at once, and the League set to work kicking ass and not even bothering to take names because they’re just gonna kill everyone anyway so who cares! The chapter ended with Toga gettin’ ready to throw down with Kizuki, a.k.a. my new badass lady villain fave who can blow shit up with her mind, holy crap.

Today on BnHA: The Liberation Army continues to battle the League, confident in their eventual win, mostly because Re-Destro has somewhat smugly deduced that the League currently has no Noumu to spare. Kizuki, who is apparently a journalist, faces off against Toga and hounds her with questions about her past. Seems she’s specifically the type of journalist that likes to harass people about all of the most personal and private details of their lives. Toga sets to work stabbing all of Kizuki’s redshirt goons and sucking their blood, but this winds up backfiring as Kizuki makes brutal use of her quirk to blow up said blood. So basically she explodes Toga from the inside out. Somehow Toga doesn’t fucking die, and although I Have Questions About This, we can save that for later since the story is moving forward with or without my suspension of disbelief, and next up on the agenda is a motherfucking Toga flashback, folks.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 226, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

hahaha

welcome to Deika City, population: villains

holy heck

so that’s how it is, huh Horikoshi. just make all of my jokes for me before I ever even get the chance. who cares if the references are American. it’s 2019 and our mangaka are international now. next up is Homestuck jokes. I feel attacked

anyway so we’re zooming in on the observation tower again. how nice. is Giran fucking dead yet I wonder

oh hey

not only is he not dead, he’s smiling and taunting RD in spite of having recently lost a hand piece by piece!

you guys. Giran is legit the most OG motherfucker in this entire series, dead to rights. I adore him

and he can’t say he wouldn’t love to watch all that unfold

by the way, getting back to that earlier panel for a second, it occurs to me that of the three “rescue” arcs we’ve had thus far, only one has featured an actual damsel, and that was a baby damsel at that. like, a six-year-old girl. so like, that was more about her being a small child than her being female. and meanwhile the “damsels” in the other two arcs consisted of (a) the toughest motherfucker in class 1-A, and now (b) the most hardboiled fucking guy in the entire series. and by contrast, female characters have played critical roles in all three arcs on the rescuing side, and now we’re about to see two lady villains fucking throw down

like, I know I give Horikoshi a lot of shit for not having more badass female characters, but a lot of that is because BnHA honest to god is a cut above most other shounen manga to begin with when it comes to feminism. and it just makes me want it to be even better, because I know it could be

god, I can’t wait to be reading manga like 20 years from now, though, when Japan is (hopefully) finally a bit more woke

anyway I went on a tangent there didn’t I. so yeah, Giran. MVP

holy shit

son of a bitch can we just take a moment to appreciate how good the villain of this villain arc has been so far, though? like, he’s straight up evil, but not in an obnoxious way like Stain or Overhaul. this piece of shit knows what he’s doing and is cold blooded as fuck and actually seems to have a plan! I hate him and he’s been awesome so far

anyway so here’s his three reasons then

brb just gonna :| about that a bit, and also wonder why the fuck we apparently don’t have anyone this smart on the heroes’ side. except Hawks, maybe. goddamn

although he’s slightly off the mark there though, isn’t he! it’s astounding to me how much these villains -- and well, everyone really, except Bakugou Fucking Katsuki -- are underestimating All for One, though. like, they really think he’s gone for good. Overhaul was out there trying to become the new kingpin, and now RD is smugly monologuing about how the weapons All for One left behind are all gone and the League has no remaining assets left. well, a month and a half ago you wouldn’t have been wrong, RD. but things have changed now pal

and shouldn’t he know about Gigantomachia, though? even the heroes know about that one. if they were spying on the League with a fucking satellite, wouldn’t they have noticed the giant boulder man continuously trying to crush Tomura for two-day stretches at a time??

you guys it’s going to be so fucking satisfying when Tomura crushes this jackass though

and we’ve got some very interesting quirks going on here! someone here seems to have a targeting scope, and they’re firing a fucking laser from their mouth like fucking shoop da whoop lmao

and then there’s that one dude about to throw a fucking Volvo at everyone. and lots of elemental quirks, and one guy who seems to look weirdly similar to Kurogiri. it’s like a fucking Where’s Waldo of villains though

what in the hot hell

??? !?!?

oh I see. so it’s exactly what it looked like

(ETA: but you guys why does it remind me of this:

?????)

Spinner what the fuck is your quirk!?!?

now we’re cutting back to Kizuki yesssssssssssss

she says that all of the army’s soldiers have undergone daily training. oh wow, whoopty freaking doo. good for you guys. so like every other character in this series, then

these “late starters” are going to whoop your ass and I’m so freaking here for it

oh dear

well there goes a great deal of my fondness for Kizuki straight out the fucking door. asshole journalists are pretty high up there on my list of types of people that I hate

(ETA: you know what though, I like that she has a unique personality. even if it’s one that annoys me. she doesn’t just blend in, unlike some other villains I could name (there were eight of them, and they were named after Buddhist precepts, hint hint). plus she really does have the best quirk in the business. Kizuki you’re a real piece of work but I respect you dammit.)

anyway Toga so whose ass do you want to kick first. you got this girl I believe in you

:DDDDDDDD

probably shouldn’t be loudly cheering at this man’s extremely gruesome murder. and yet. here we are

lmaoooooooooooo

while you were talking my girl up and absconded hahaha

friendly reminder that Toga Himiko is like #9 on my list of favorite characters and I would kill for her! I stan one (1) fearless bloodthirsty bitch

wow

all right, geez! fuck, y’all are real sensitive about a little attempted murder

so now Kizuki is asking Toga what kind of life she’s led to end up like this

I honestly want for nothing more than for Toga to have not had any sort of tragedy in her young life whatsoever, and to just be Like That. please. Horikoshi. this better be good

(ETA: it’s mostly good! we’re fine.)

anyway so Toga’s crashing through some stunt glass in the front window of some janky little bar, and skidding to her feet because she’s amazing and won’t let a little thing like being flung through a storefront window stop her

but as she skids, Kizuki is telling her to watch her step and Toga’s looking behind her, startled

oh fuck

joke’s on you, Toga’s amazing and won’t let a little thing like being blown to bits stop her

...right?

(ETA: lol)

interesting that the word “superpower” was used again here instead of “quirk”! what the hell do these guys have against that word anyway. I get that they’re following Destro who laid down the law in his book which is basically their personal bible, but that shit was like 200 years ago though. ah well, cults are weird

anyway so her quirk is Legit though, ngl. what can I say, I have a weakness for quirks that go boom

haha so Toga is fucking fine apparently and she’s sitting there kind of smoking a little and looks a little singed but otherwise not too worse for wear

there’s about half a dozen people attacking her from all sides, though. one of them is carrying a giant stock pot. that shit better not have boiling water in it. listen Liberation Army do you guys want to die fast or slow

oh shit

looks like my girl went and made that decision for you huh

oh my god

finally an explanation for the mask!! after... 150 chapters. holy shit

anyways. thirsty girl. Horikoshi’s got me out here rooting for some decidedly morally grey people, sob, and I ain’t even mad

so Kizuki looks very excited and is realizing that ingesting people’s blood is what lets Toga transform into them. so I guess she knew about her quirk, but not the mechanics of it

(ETA: her interest in this makes sense, though, as it explains the whole “attacked her classmate with a knife and sucked all his blood” thing.)

omg

(ETA: hey, we never did get an explanation for this! Toga are we still waiting on part two of your flashback where you interned at Cirque du Soleil.)

lady. me too. I’m still mad at you, but. we’re on the same side in this instance

DSFKJSDLFKJDSKHFS

NEVER FUCKING MIND!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK

FUCKING -- BUT THEN --

WELCOME TO BNHA WHERE CHARACTERS WILL INDEED DO ALL OF THE FUCKED UP SHIT YOU WERE WONDERING IF THEY WERE CAPABLE OF DOING WITH THEIR POWERS. HOLY SHIT

(ETA: I mean, it’s brutal and I’m mad she hurt my girl, but I’m also so impressed that Kizuki went and used her quirk in such a logical and devastating way. haha but Toga should still be dead though.)

so Kizuki is chiding Toga for attempting to disappear into the crowd, and she says she’s taken measures to ensure that she goes along with her interview

oh my god. fuck her up Toga please. make it hurt. girl

so now she’s bragging about how their soldiers will gladly become detonators! wow!

I love how Horikoshi makes the distinction between villains who at least care about their own, and villains who don’t give a fuck about anybody. like, the League is still evil -- Toga stabbed a man in the neck not ten pages ago -- but there’s no doubt whatsoever who we’re supposed to root for her. Toga is just as crazy as this lady, but she tied a handkerchief around Twice when his mask got torn. meanwhile Kizu blows up her own subordinates so she can get the hot goss from her victims before she murders them

OH HEY TOGA BACKSTORY

(ETA: I’m not sure if the phrase “eldest daughter” implies she has siblings? the flashback wasn’t exactly clear on that either. imagine the drama though! omg.)

this! I’m here for this! details without context! if you show us the context you had better not try to make it all saccharine, Horikoshi, do you hear??

MORE DETAILS

because she felt like it, Kizuki. fuck off

I love the description of her as a bright and reasonable girl, though. back when she first disguised herself as Camie I suspected that it might be her, but it seemed far-fetched because she showed herself capable of being perfectly logical and sane while disguised, and it was a side of her we’d never seen before. but I love that, though. I love that Toga’s particular brand of being unhinged doesn’t require her to be dumbed down. she’s brilliant. she just also happens to really, really like stabbing people

fffffffffdslkaj

(ETA: just for the record, I’m not on Team This Guy Is Somehow Related To Deku, sorry guys. he does look like him, I’ll give you that, but I think it’s just a coincidence. Deku is frequently described as having a very ordinary, plain appearance, so I don’t think it necessarily means anything if we happen to see another minor character who bears a slight resemblance. who knows, though, maybe I’m wrong. we’ve had important characters make their first appearance as background characters before -- Kirishima and Ms. Joke come to mind -- so it’s possible! but for the time being I think the likelihood is fairly low.)

TOGA YOU BETTER NOT DIE. YOU BETTER MURDER THIS LADY WITHOUT GIVING HER THE ANSWER SHE SO DESPERATELY CRAVES, AND ONLY THEN THINK THE ANSWER TO YOURSELF AND YOURSELF ALONE. AND THE ANSWER BETTER BE SOMETHING LIKE YOU WERE TIRED OF BEING NICE AND WANTED TO BE YOUR ACTUAL CRAZY SELF

so help me god you guys I’m like two seconds away from adopting a serial killer. she will not get along with her other siblings and it will not be pretty. but I love her though omg

(ETA: yeah it’s done. it’s a done deal. the boys can look after themselves so it’s not a problem, and Eri... well they’ll just have to keep an eye on Eri. as long as they don’t leave the two of them alone it should be fine! Mirio will look after her.

what even is my current adopted kid count anyways. let’s see... Katsuki, Izuku, Shouto, Mirio, Tamaki, Eri, Hawks, and now Toga. am I missing anyone. -- oh right, Shinsou! so that’s nine. plus the 17 other 1-A kids who are quasi-adopted as well. shit, did I adopt Tomura. I think I was on the fence. my fictional family is getting so complicated lol.)

lol sob

yes Toga you’re so normal. and she likes the Liberation Army sob. of course she does. she likes them so much she’s gonna murder the shit out of them

how is that the end of the chapter. shit. one more week to go and then the Golden Week break fffffff Horikoshi you’d better be kind to us with next week’s cliffhanger. please. omg

(ETA: no complaints whatsoever. that was some good shit.)

[secretgamergirl]

Let’s talk about how Ranma is trans, and not as a metaphor.

Yesterday, I had a quick, joking exchange with a friend, riffing off the general premise that the protagonist of the classic manga series Ranma 1/2 is a trans girl.Today I woke up to a slew of hateful, low-effort comments (the C-word is always a weird one to throw at a trans woman), largely objecting to this premise, so, I’m going to sit down now and show my work.

I was actually going to do this either way, honestly. Reading Ranma 1/2 and indignantly shouting “in what sense is this a ‘curse!?’“ is a pretty significant touchstone for damn near every trans girl born after 1970 or so.

For those who haven’t read it, Ranma 1/2 is a manga series by Rumiko Takahashi, which ran from 1987-1996, which also spawned a hit anime series, which itself had a lot of spinoffs, a dozen or so videogames, and a recent live-action special. The original manga itself was one of the first to ever be published in the U.S., and has also seen a recent reprinting (with an effort at colorization which I can’t say looked great). The basic premise is that it’s a long-form comedy series whose title character is A- a super talented martial artist, B- dealing with the fallout of a decade and a half of Ranma’s father making promises on Ranma’s behalf (including multiple arranged marriages), and C- being one of half a dozen or so characters over the course of the series to have fallen into one of hundreds of adjacent springs which each curse whoever falls in to change back and forth between whatever drowned in them and their original form based on exposure to cold and hot water respectively (Ranma gets Hot Girl, everyone else gets some wacky animal, basically).

It’s great. You should read it. Maybe watch the anime too. Also I’m going to spoil the ever loving hell out of a point or two in writing this, but I’m mostly going to do it sequentially, and it’s not really a series about major plot twists and reveals. Except maybe the bit I’m sticking between breaks here:

Spoiler country: I’m literally planning to sit down with the whole series and go through volume by volume here, but the series very much starts in media res, and it’s important to the purpose of my thesis here to look at everything with some backstory context that doesn’t really come out until like volume 30-something.

Specifically, Ranma’s parents are horribly abusive scumbags. Both of them. You don’t have to get terribly far in for the running gag about Ranma’s father Genma being a terrible person, prone to physical abuse, subjecting his own child to intentionally traumatizing experiences, forgoing any sort of normal childhood for her (going with feminine pronouns here, try to keep up) in favor of a world-traveling regimen of martial arts training, and of course, pimping her out with arranged marriage promises to whoever he owes money or favors to.

What comes out later though is that a big motivating factor for Genma’s abusive parenting is that Ranma’s mother, Nodoka, made Genma agree to raise Ranma to be a “man among men,” to be enforced by penalty of both Genma and Ranma committing ritual suicide should he fail.

That is, unfortunately, a very relatable experience for a hell of a lot of trans girls. Personally speaking, my father adopted the philosophy very early on in my life that he would rather have a dead “son” than a living daughter, and starting when he first picked up on my obvious girliness, he also decided on pursuing a sink-or-swim course of turning me into a “manly man” by forcing me into a series of life-threatening situations to “toughen me up” and pushed me to start dating when I was something like 10 years old. My mother was a lot more low-key about it, at least I formally came out to her, but, yeah, I relate. It’s not hard to imagine very-young-Ranma doing something obviously girly to give her parents similar concerns, and her resulting preoccupation with being tough and nominally rejecting femininity as a means of playing along with her parents’ pressuring her isn’t me doing a trans reading, THAT much is directly in the text.

The rest of the backstory mostly comes out in the first few volumes. In order to man Ranma up, Genma takes her on this international training mission, engages her to both a friend, and a food vendor he can’t afford to pay. Eventually this trip takes them to the cursed springs (so they can do the whole spar while balancing on bamboo stalks thing), splash splash, he’s a panda, she’s an ideal-feminine version of herself, basically. And Ranma picks up another couple of rivals/maybe-love-interests on the way home, because Genma picks a weird time to head back to Japan and force Ranma to live with his friend and his 3 daughters and enforce an arranged marriage to one of them.

Now leaving spoiler country.

So, jumping right in from the beginning with all this in mind...

Volume 1, Chapter 1- Ranma and Genma show up at the Tendo’s with Ranma in girl mode. Not really a conscious choice here, since it’s raining that day, and Genma’s not in the mood to wait. What’s notable though is that (aside from obvious annoyance at all the the shocked poking and prodding) Ranma seems to be totally cool meeting these people in girl mode. She’s really relaxed, happy, makes quick friends with Akane, totally comfortable:

Honestly I could probably prove my whole point here just by running through the series and tallying up Ranma’s expressions, this is a pretty consistent thing.You would expect, if Ranma were actually a boy, that the idea of meeting new people while in girl mode like this would be awkward and humiliating, and feature facial expressions and body language more like the ones we see when Ranma has to explain the situation after a hot bath (during which she flat out has the thought “might as well go out like this, they’re going to find out eventually):

V1C2- One quick flashback/exposition later, Soun (Genma’s friend with the daughters), expresses his shock about the true horror. Ranma, irritated- “Whadya mean ‘true horror?’“ ... and then proceeds to actively dodge some hot water, staying in girl mode after both get splashed to demonstrate things live, and there’s a bit here where, Akane having walked in on her in the bathroom while in boy mode and both were naked (comedy manga and all), Ranma notes that it’s “no big deal for her to see a girl naked,” because she’s seen herself plenty of times, and has a quick prideful comment about her appearance in girl mode.

The rest of volume 1 is spent introducing the first of many rival/love interest characters. Nothing that really supports or hurts a trans reading unless you want to focus in on Ranma being a girl in this dream she has after getting groped by a creep, or already having spent enough off camera casual time in girl mode for Nabiki (Akane’s sister whose whole character is basically trying to turn a profit off how sexy Ranma is) to have a bunch of cute candid pictures to sell.

Most of volume 2 is spent introducing Ryoga, another rival/love interest (mainly just the former at first, but relationship webs for this series get weird quick), and a couple of other characters who feel really important but get dropped in a hurry (remember Dr. Tofu? The guy Akane starts the series off with a huge crush on? Because Takahashi forgot all about him after this). V2C9 however starts off with this:

Again, Ranma never looks this happy in boy-mode. This early on, we already see her just, voluntarily going girl mode to hang out all day, because she enjoys herself like this.

V3C10- After a volume spent on the other half of the brother-sister pair of rivals/love interests volume 1 devoted a lot of pages to (the Kunos, ultimately not real prominent characters), wherein Ranma will wear a girly leotard and compete in rhythmic-gymnastics-based combat, just won’t get caught doing so when in boy mode, Akane decides to teach her how to skate, which she insists on being in girl mode for because:

Yeah... there’s a definite pattern here. Stuff she’s too self-conscious about doing in boy mode, she’s comfortable trying when presenting as a girl, and it’s never about embarrassment, really, but not wanting to be seen as some sort of girly boy (for fear of violence). Appearing to be a girly girl is of course just fine, but only if she’s definitely going to pass. Again, very relatable. Later in the series, she doesn’t even bother trying to rationalize it like this, and pretty much just spends almost all her free time in girl mode, and gets a decidedly more feminine wardrobe. Oh and then they have a pairs-figure-skating duel with these two one-off characters, because the guy randomly gives Ranma her first kiss without her consent.

That rolls into the start of volume 4, which throws way more fuel out there for any Ranma/Ryoga shippers than I remembered, and then we get a big stretch of introducing new characters who stick around and are fairly major, including the remaining two characters of note with curses, without a lot of gender stuff coming up beyond Ranma switching modes to try and throw off rival/love interests in various ways. The next thing worth pointing out isn’t until the end of V5C8. Ranma ends up stuck in girl-mode because pressure point manipulation makes her a wimp about hot water. Having a fight scheduled as a guy though, she shows up with a bunch of cheesy magician’s tricks, before throwing off a big bulky robe and:

So... OK we dropped the premise of not wanting her manly image tainted by wearing a girly costume pretty quick. This is her own plan, this is in public, she chose this outfit herself. Again, super self-conscious any time she’s in public in boy mode, but when she’s undeniably a girl, she’s super comfortable with basically anything. Heck, that costume gets shredded like 2 pages later, and the quick bit of public nudity doesn’t even phase her. Oh and the next story arc (V5C10) has her just getting a cute swimsuit and hitting the public pool to relax. Plus some new casual clothes:

And formal wear for V5C11...

Again, there’s no subterfuge or convoluted circumstances behind these. She just had an excuse this volume to present as a girl full-time and dove right the hell in. By V5C12 she’s at the maximum possible level of confidence, wearing a tight swim-suit to the beach that advertises her trans status. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there myself:

Not a double entendre there, for what it’s worth. It’s really about watermelons.

After that there is a long long stretch of development arcs for secondary characters, the introduction of a dirty old man, and a lot of variations of Ranma and Akane’s relationship being tested with jealousy-inducing misunderstandings with the spare dozen or so love interests lying around. There’s a hell of a lot I could analyze here if I wanted to make a point about Ranma’s sexuality, but, I’m only really concerned with her being trans for this, and contrary to popular belief, whether or not she’s into guys at all has no bearing on that whatsoever. For what it’s worth though she’s totally bi and so’s Akane and you have to bend over backwards to argue otherwise for either of them.

That being said, I’m close to a quarter of a way through here, so I might as well keep going through the end of volume 10. Don’t want to make this more than a 4 part series if I go the distance with it. The next noteworthy thing we have is the introduction of Ukyo, the focal point of the more grounded queer content in the series. Let me just say first off that taken out of context this page resembles every conversation I’ve ever seen between two trans girls:

There are a LOT of angles I could come at Ukyo from. First off, she’s got a ton of trans coding. Ranma thought she was a boy when they were friends as kids (while their fathers were trying to hook them up). Everyone else also thinks she is when she’s first introduced, because... she dresses like a guy at school and wears a chest binder. She gets really angry about being misgendered by Ranma while having a revenge-fight with him (she’s the other girl Genma arranged a marriage with, for the sake of free food, which he just kinda stole, you see), plus as seen above, she has major body image issues. So, again, whole lot of trans coding (and that’s before HER rival/love interest shows up).

Regardless of that though, hey, the only actual friend Ranma ever had as a child, and who remains the healthiest relationship in her life is a girl, so, that’s something to note.

Also Ukyo is kind of the only character in the cast who isn’t a huge jerk. She patches things up with Ranma more or less immediately, and proceeds to try and untangle the absurd relationship web that’s already getting pretty damn convoluted. And I mean, good on her for trying, but here’s how that goes:

Yeah, that’s Ranma in a floral sun dress crashing a date between Akane and Ryoga. I believe this is V9C6. She gets way too into character and they end up making out, by the way. I defy anyone to find a way to rationalize this plan if Ranma were a cis dude OR was strictly into girls.

Oh and getting into V10C10, there’s this goofy plot about Akane accidentally swallowing a magic pill that makes her fall in love with the first guy she sees, and uh...

It’s been a while since I’d read this. It gets pretty damn on the nose. Anyway, the last storyline I’m getting to tonight starts with V10C16, which introduces Ukyo’s rival/love interest, Tsubasa:

Tsubasa is unambiguously, exclusively, into girls. Also unambiguously AMAB:

I’m actually not really a fan of Tsubasa. Ranma’s a really relatable trans girl with a well developed backstory, with some serious gender-based hangups that, while totally not cool, are totally rationalized by her traumatic childhood. Ukyo is a very nice girl whose friends are all trans, and it’s less clearcut whether she’s cis or trans. The page after this one it comes out that she previously attended an all-boy’s school though, which supports a trans reading. It makes a hell of a lot of sense to read her as a trans girl with supportive parents who never misgendered her, but only recently started in on HRT after entering high school, so, hey that’d make sense.

Tsubasa though... being unambiguous with all of this, so after the reveal with get a clumsy 1980s Japanese explanation, responding first to Akane shouting “cross-dresser!?” with "I am not! I’m just an ordinary boy who likes to dress up!” Again, very 80s Japan. Also between the into-girls reveal and the AMAB reveal, Ranma’s personal hang-ups lead to a single chapter of her trying to “fix” Tsubasa, encouraging dating guys. So, yeah, kind of an awkward stretch. On the upside, Ukyo already knows Tsubasa’s whole backstory, doesn’t find any of it at all odd or notable, and figured everyone else was also just cool like that. Again, Ukyo is just great. You can do a whole lot worse than using her as a model for realistic queer characters in fiction.

Also to end on a lighter note, when Tsubasa first shows up, the immediate battle for Ukyo’s affections (and yes, this IS immediately after Ranma passed on just dating Ukyo, letting Ryoga and Akane be a couple, and having relatively no drama) which takes this form of a competition to see who can sell more of Ukyo’s okonomiyaki. And, of course, this is Ranma’s strategy:

CONTINUED HERE

[travllingbunny]

The 100 rewatch: 1x06 His Sister’s Keeper

I’m a new fan of The 100, who first binged it last year, August to November. This is my first full rewatch of the show. I was planning to start it anyway and finish it before the season 6 premiere on April 30, and when I saw that Fox Serbia was airing a rerun (Monday to Friday, 40 min. after midnight, with repeats the next day), starting on 1st February, it was a great opportunity to start my rewatch in HDTV on my beautiful new TV. I decided to do write-ups and tag other fans on SpoilerTV website, as I did when I was first watching the show. But my posts turned into full blown essays. So, finally, after over a week, I’ve realized: Why don’t I post them on my Tumblr blog, too? I’ll copy my write-ups of the first 7 episodes, and then I’ll post my rewatch posts after I watch each episode. (The next one, 1x08, is on Monday’Tuesday.)

Spoilers below for all 5 seasons of the show. I go of on a tangents and make a lot of references to future events.

Rating: 8/10

Flashbacks to characters' past on the Ark are always one of my favorite things. i wish we'd get more of them. So far, IIRC, there's just been 3 episodes with flashbacks - 1x03, this one, and Join or Die in season 3. They really did a good job making both Bob and Marie look younger in the flashbacks. I do think that telling a 6 year old child it's his responsibility to take care of his sister is messed up, but on the other hand, what choice did Aurora Blake have? I can't judge her for it, since she was in a terrible situation, and it's the Ark system that's to blame for it all. And I've seen people hate on Aurora way too much. Some even go as far as to bring up that terrible "poor people should not have kids" argument, which is awful (classism, eugenics..). . (Another mini-rant upcoming) Speaking of weird things I've seen said in the fandom, I was really puzzled to learn that a lot of people did not realize Bellamy and Octavia have different fathers, and act like that's a big surprise, or that I've even seen people say that "the show never gave indication that they were half-siblings"?? WTF? The show never gave any indication that they were anything but half-siblings. For starters, I don't know why those two being full siblings would be anyone's default assumption, or why some people apparently think that women can't conceiving children with more than one man in their lifetime and that half-siblings are such a weird, rare and unheard of thing? But once you've seen this episode, the probability that they have the same father becomes microscopic. They're 6 years apart, there is no father in sight when Octavia is born, no one ever mentions a father, and Aurora is not in a regular relationship with anyone at the time Octavia is born. If Octavia's father died or was floated, it would have happened very recently, and they would have certainly mentioned it. In fact, I think that they would have definitely mentioned it if either of them knew they had a father who had been floated. I'm not sure what the deal was with Bellamy's father, whether Aurora had a serious relationship with him, whether he was around when Bellamy was very little and what happened to him (but even if he was in the picture at any point, he clearly couldn't have been around much, because Bellamy never mentions him), but in case of Octavia's father, he's clearly not in the picture and it's almost certain Octavia doesn't even know who he is. The two biggest revelations of the flashbacks were: that Octavia was discovered when Bellamy tried to let her have a life, for the first time, by taking her to see the Moon through the window and taking her to the dance to have fun and meet people; and that Shumway was the one who made Bellamy shoot Jaha in exchange for a place on the dropship. Not the greatest mystery The 100 has done - it was always going to be one of the few notable characters on the Ark, it was getting obvious it was not Kane, Diana hasn't even been introduced at this point, and the show never made the whole Jaha - Diana conflict remotely interesting or meaningful. Just how awful would have the lives of the Blake siblings been if they had spent their lives on the Ark? Octavia would have probably never met anyone other than her mother and her brother, never had a chance to have any kind of life except hiding. And Bellamy would have probably never had a real romantic relationship or a close friend (I always assumed he never had any of those on the Ark, because he kept people at a distance), never giving himself a chance to have a family of his own other than his sister, because of having to keep such a huge secret from everyone. Re: the Earth/present part of 1x06, it takes place fully on Earth (which was such a relief for me at the time, because at this point, I was sick of the Ark and hated pretty much every major character there other than Abby) and it's mostly about Bellamy taking a group of Delinquents (including Finn, who was asked to come as a tracker, and a bunch of kids who volunteered) to find Octavia, who was caught saved by Lincoln at the end of 1x05. One of the kids who volunteers is Jasper, the others include Bellamy's FwB Roma, John Mbege, some kid named Diggs, and Monroe (her first appearance). Three of those are redshits that end up killed by the Grounders. The rest almost meet the same fate, if Octavia hadn't asked Lincoln to help save her brother, so he used the signal horn to send a fake warning about the acid fog. which of course had the Grounders running away. I've seen a theory that Bellamy stopped sleeping around (minus that thing with Raven later in S1) because he felt guilty over Roma's death, because, as he says, she only joined the rescue party because of him. It may also be the turning point where he notably starts caring more about all of the Delinquents and not just his sister. As for the scenes with Lincoln and Octavia... eh. Lincoln will get much better writing and become one of my favorite characters in season 2, but in season 1, they were writing him really poorly. He was clearly meant to be mysterious and give the wrong first impression as a scary dangerous dude, which is why he doesn't talk until the very end of 1x07. But that doesn't actually make sense - there's no reason whatsoever, if he's already helping Octavia and doing things not sanctioned by the other Grounders, that he couldn't just talk to her and explain the situation, rather than chaining her up in the cave after healing her. The B subplot is again the love triangle. Or to be fair, the development of the relationship between Clarke and Raven, which is not just about the love triangle. Clarke reveals the info about the shelter to Raven (which Finn is not happy about) and they go together to search for things Raven could use to fix the radio with and contact the Ark. They have a conversation about their mothers, too. Clarke is still very angry at her mother because she blames her for her father's death, but won't talk about it, while Raven thinks Abby is awesome and wishes she had a mother like that, comparing her to her own alcoholic, neglectful mothers. We also learn more about Finn's role in her life - they knew each other as children, and he was the neighborhood boy who was giving her things and helping her survive. Which is consistent with Finn's character - he's always focusing on the girl he's in love with, doing everything for her and doing everything to make sure she feels that she needs him. 

Then Raven figures out that Clarke and Finn had hooked up, because she found the origami deer and she's smart, and confronts Clarke about it I don't like the way Raven is catty to Clarke here, as opposed to the fact that she later doesn't confront Finn about it (until much later, when she realizes he's in love with Clarke). I always hate it when women blame only the "other woman", but not their own boyfriend/husband who's the one who cheated. But, again, I love the fact that Clarke absolutely doesn't do the "catty and fighting for a guy" thing. Instead, she points out that she didn't know about Raven.,but also tries to smooth things between Raven and Finn by pointing out that they thought Raven and everyone on the Ark would soon be dead and they would never see them again. This is, however, way, way too generous to Finn, because he was flirting with Clarke already on the dropship and pursued her constantly from day one. But I'm not sure that Clarke is even fully aware of it. She may be thinking that he really wasn't planning on hooking up with her till that moment at the end of 1x04, when he lost hope in contacting the Ark. She has very little romantic experience, after all, and seemed too distracted by everything else happening around them, the fight for survival, trying to save Jasper, Wells' death, the drama with Charlotte etc. to even notice how much Finn was hitting on her. The same way that, in season 2, she was far too distracted by planning the war and worrying about Bellamy and the Delinquents at Mount Weather and didn't seem to notice Lexa giving her heart eyes, until Lexa surprised her by kissing her. She's really not the most attuned to these things. Raven\s remark that "he could have waited for more than 10 days" (yes, exactly) gives us the first explicit clue about the exact timeline. The painful Octavia/Bellamy confrontation at the end of the episode is one of the best dramatic moments on S1. It gets resolved at the end of S1, but now I can't help thinking that it's just the first of the many times throughout all 5 seasons where Octavia blames Bellamy for pretty much everything ever. I remember that Bellamy takes back what he said here in the S1 finale - telling Octavia his life didn't end when she was born, it began - but does Octavia take back any of what she said to him, blaming him for their mother's death and her imprisonment and all? I don't remember that, but I'll pay attention in 1x13.

Timeline and body count at the end of 1x06:

The first 6 episodes took place over 10 days. The first 3 episodes must have been something like a day, then there was a week between episodes 3 and 4, and 4--6 were about a day or two.

Body count: 

at least 320 dead people on the Ark, 10 dead Delinquents on the ground: 2 killed in the crash landing (and due to their own stupidity), 3 (Trina, Pascal, Atom) killed by the acid fog (that is, the Mountain Men) - though technically Clarke mercy killed Atom, 2 killed by the Delinquents themselves (Wells - murdered by Charlotte, Charlotte - suicide, mostly sue to pressure from Murphy),, 3 killed by the Grounders (Doggs, Mbege, Roma). "The 100" are The 90 now. As of the start of season 6, they'll be The 4.

[oreramar]

The Freelancer Problem

A Red vs Blue ramble, written in an attempt to get these scattered little ducklings of impressions and thoughts into something resembling a coherent line. This one’s about the Freelancers, and the ways the writers of RvB have had to get around them and their established skills at times in order to present the Blood Gulch Crew with challenges that A) allied Freelancers can’t or don’t solve for them even though they would probably normally be able to, and B) won’t kill them even though the Freelancer that is that particular challenge should, again, probably be able to. 

The Freelancers of Red vs Blue were established as super-competent soldiers pretty much right out the gate. Admittedly, the only Freelancer seen for a long time was Tex, and admittedly the comparison was primarily against the Reds and the Blues, so the data could be a little skewed there. Still, the words and actions of the script mostly pointed that way, and were elaborated further in that direction as the series went on, so that by the time the story was expanded further starting in S6, it was a pretty solid fact: the Freelancers are badass super-soldiers, and the protagonists of the story mostly beat them in conflicts through a combination of luck, tenacity, teamwork, the occasional odd but impressive specialized skill (i.e. Donut’s throwing arm) and being fatally under-estimated by the Freelancer(s) in question.

This worked well as a means to compare/contrast the way the Blood Gulch Crew did things against more traditional battle protagonist methods (via Tex) and to provide them with powerful but still human-level antagonists (via Wyoming), but once we got to Washington (and, later, Carolina) I think that pedestal started to present some problems the writers had to find ways around...or, if possible, over.

(Long-ish post, continues under the cut.)

As I said, Freelancers were pretty well-established as being some of the best of the best soldiers, at least in this particular story. S6 Washington didn’t exactly disabuse anyone of the notion, single-handedly bringing down a Hornet with a very precise trick shot while avoiding getting shot himself, on top of a few other epic little moments. Sure, the Meta did keep escaping him, but that was easily put down to the Meta having much better armor tech and enhancements allowing him to escape, plus him once being a Freelancer himself. And, of course, the narrative required it in order to have that climactic finale - one in which the BGC actually didn’t face down the “final boss” themselves, actually. 

Then we hit S7/S8, and Washington became an antagonist to the crew, working alongside the Meta for his own ends. At that point the writers had to deal with a character who had already been shown to be very competent in combat - and perfectly willing to shoot to kill - going toe to toe with the show’s protags...without actually killing any of them. Granted, as far as anyone knew at the time Donut and Lopez had died, and it was a combination of sheer luck and robotic immortality that brought them back later, but that’d be tough to pull off with too many (living human) characters. So, as a result, certain things got a little bit...toned down...at necessary points.

That super precision shown by that trick shot (even while being shot at) Washington pulled off before? The moment he got hit by a warthog he couldn’t shoot Grif even at point-blank range across multiple attempts. You could write some of it off as being due to the discombobulation of getting hit and then balancing on the hood of a fast-moving vehicle, but it does seem to be a bit of a stretch, especially given Grif’s extremely limited range of movement and cover and all the times (admittedly mostly seen later in the series, though some of them set chronologically earlier) where Washington took hits and still managed precise close- to mid-range shots even while falling. I still love watching the scene, but whenever I think about it I’m sort of aware that it was written more for the requirements of the plot than for the realities of demonstrated character abilities. The plot would run into some trouble if Wash managed to shoot and/or kill Grif in that sequence, after all.

Tex’s return is similarly toned down, but only if you stop and think about it and realize that she could’ve killed every character present easily. We all know she could. She’s punched through solid metal and caught/stood up under a massive, filled warehouse crate dropped on her from a height; there’s almost no way standard-issue body armor would actually stop her. There’s not really any explanation given for how (or why?) she didn’t just cave everyone’s skulls in and go, aside from her one attempt at shooting someone failing due to the shotgun being out of ammo. Maybe you could theorize there being some familiarity with them causing her to pull her blows and/or a desire to play a bit rather than simply kill and run, as her verbalized reasoning for flying into the fight would imply. Again, it’s a brilliant fight scene and I love watching it, but damn, how did they survive? (Answer: plot armor standing up under a barrage of Rule of Cool, that’s how. Love it.)

The finale of this arc demonstrates this again, though perhaps to a lesser extent, in that a lot of it is pretty clearly justified one way or another. A good chunk of said finale is taken up by Tex vs Wash and Meta, after the latter two get blown up and the former has had who knows how many hours to seed the battleground in her favor, and even then it’s a close enough fight. Wash again demonstrates both great accuracy (shooting a fleeing Tex through the leg and laming her in her escape attempt) and...not (shooting repeatedly at Tex as the ice fell and seeming to miss every shot, though admittedly there were some pretty extreme issues with the battlefield, footing, and a great deal of motion involved. Plus plot requirements. She couldn’t get shot yet.).

Anyhow, Tex is fairly justifiably defeated after getting shot through the leg, caught up to by the Meta, and - as is soon established - being an AI effectively cursed with failing just when it matters the most. Then the Meta turns on Washington and he and the BGC have to team up. Wash is also justifiably taken out of the fight by his multiple implied injuries and perhaps fatigue finally catching up with him (blown up once with the jeep, fighting Tex, having to climb up a cliff, fighting the Meta and getting blown up one or two more times in the process...kind of a wonder that he survived, too, honestly), allowing the underdog protagonists to finish it. And they do, but not by overpowering the powerhouse; once again, they prevail by going outside the box, and it’s great.

Of course, from that point on Wash is on their side, and the writers have a new problem: it’s one thing to have a somewhat fickle Freelancer who occasionally does little things with or for them in exchange for promised payment or one who drags them along on his own mission (Tex and Wash, respectively). It’s one thing to have a Freelancer oppose them, probably underestimate them, and be defeated by them via creative and unusual means (Wyoming, Meta/Maine, Washington, Tex if you count the grenade incident at least). It’s...kind of another to put a Freelancer on a team with them in an invested and permanent way, because at that point the power imbalance becomes something you have to deal with all the time. The show is Red vs Blue; the main protagonists are the core Blood Gulch Crew; the entire thing has been the relatively-incompetent underdogs getting into shenanigans and silly nonsense and occasionally taking on a bigger problem in creative and unusual ways. You can’t just throw a serious, hyper-competent super-soldier in the mix without coming up with a way to mitigate all those things, because otherwise how do you explain Washington not solving all their problems?

So you kind of see these elements of him dismantled piece by piece in the next couple of seasons, mostly through the flashback episodes and sequences. 

Wash is serious? Let’s show him way back when the Freelancer Project was in its prime, and he was the silly, boyish rookie of the team, prone to goof-ups and foot-in-mouth syndrome and keeping rubber duckies and cat pictures in his locker. This isn’t a bad thing in itself; it’s actually pretty humanizing and the contrast alone between ‘Before Epsilon’ and ‘After Epsilon’ really helps drive home how damaging that incident was, not to mention how seeing some of that silliness creep back into him as he sticks with the crew implies a healing process. It’s just that you can kind of tell that it was inserted (and maybe a little extra-emphasized) at least partially in order to mitigate a personality element that stood to become a potential narrative obstacle.

Wash is very competent as a soldier and an operative? Okay, sure, he’s still shown to be a really good shot in unusual circumstances (often while in free-fall or while being knocked to the ground by an opponent), and he’s consistently seen on the Freelancer leaderboard (sixth or better out of an unknown number, theorized max 50), so you know he’s skilled in what he does, but he’s also verbally referred to as “the worst fighter on the team,” called a rookie, generally treated in dialogue at least as being barely competent - to the extent that I’ve actually seen it written in a couple of fics that Washington’s skill level as a soldier is actually only equal to that of the marine-wash-out Reds and Blues themselves, and nowhere near “real” Freelancer status. Again, showing him as the rookie once upon a time isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except perhaps that you’ve got a certain disparity of show vs tell, and the tell seems to be the loudest in this case. That, and it’s sort of sad to think that this has probably imprinted itself in his self-esteem, as he later tells Tucker outright that he really was the worst fighter on his squad, whether it was objectively true or not, and without taking into account that his squad was the best of those selected for the project anyhow. Worst of the best? That should still be pretty damn good.

Wash the super-soldier? Again, dismantled somewhat by the above notes, and further by the fact that not only does he not have an AI, he actively refuses to accept one, the brief time he carried the Alpha in S6 a single exception. He doesn’t have specialized equipment, weapons, or fighting styles; he used an armor enhancement exactly once in S9 and otherwise relies on his battle rifle, a very standard weapon, however good he is with it. Occasionally he uses a pistol. In fact, the knife throw in S8′s finale and the dodges/catch/throw in S13 are about as specialized as he ever gets. His close-combat style, the few times it’s come up, has been simple, direct, and pragmatic (though kudos to him managing to steal a rifle right off Tex’s back in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment in the S8 finale). In short, while he’s skilled he’s also nothing like most of the other Freelancers we’ve seen fight: Carolina and her proficiency with multiple unique weapons and acrobatic martial arts; Tex’s heavy powerhouse boxing and apparent invincibility (as well as invisibility); Maine’s mastery with the Brute Shot and power and durability near if not equal to Tex’s, with enough enhancements to power a small army; Wyoming’s sniping and time distortion; North’s shields and gumanship; South’s brawling capabilities...

Basically, in the course of a couple of seasons, badass-with-occasional-bad-days Freelancer Agent Washington comes down a level or two toward normal - someone who maybe fits in better with our team of misfits and goofballs, though there are a few more stumbling blocks along the way, of course.

Then Carolina joins the group - despite a rocky start - and we reach the Chorus Trilogy and see how the writers continue their game of keep-away in order to prevent these Freelancers - one a definite established top-rank fighter, the other a little toned-down but still demonstrably capable of holding his own at the least - from just solving things. 

They have Carolina leave, chasing her own leads and finding her own battles to fight, which puts her neatly out of the picture for a while without requiring the writers to find a way to compromise her far-above-average abilities in order to save opponents for the Gulch crew. Washington, in the meantime, mainly has to deal with things that don’t have to do with fighting off enemies, and when the enemies do come they take him by surprise and/or show up in numbers overwhelming enough - and with technology specialized enough - that between that and a calculated move of self-sacrifice on his part, he’s also removed from events for half a season.

And then, once the story progresses enough that the Freelancers return to the main group, we notice an interesting new theme in their fights with the main Mercenaries: the plans involved largely requiring them to either retreat or, if they engage, to hold back for some higher purpose. They encounter pirates at Crash Site Alpha? They’re caught in a defensive game, standing their ground, hopefully long enough to gain the manifest they came for, and when that fails their best option is to teleport away (not to mention Carolina’s recent leg wound hobbling her both then and later). They fight Locus and Felix at the radio jammer? They can’t go all-out; they need to make the Mercs overconfident in their ability to take them on, so that Felix will leave them to Locus and go blab all their plans on camera - their best shot at stopping the war altogether. Wash runs into Locus on a battleground? He prevails over Locus not by martial ability, outgunned as he is by Locus’ twin advantages of long range and active camouflage, but by pulling a tactical mind game that results in Locus leaving that part of the field rather than continuing to fight, then by taking part in an overall retreat that the tactic bought time for. The Freelancers fight the Mercs once again at the Temple of Destruction? Once again, they’re not fighting to win; they’re only fighting to delay, and the mercenaries each live to see the start of redemption (Locus) or their defeat at the hands of the Reds and Blues themselves (Felix).

(The Sharkface vs Carolina encounters don’t fully count toward the terms of this ramble, as Sharkface isn’t an enemy of the Blood Gulch Crew as a whole, and therefore the narrative didn’t need to ‘save’ him for them to ultimately take down. He was Carolina’s antagonist alone; the writers didn’t need to hold her back from him, and his initial victory over her was mostly there to drive her own character arc on the side and to increase tension for her and for Epsilon.)

So basically, the Chorus Trilogy solved the Freelancer Problem by taking the Freelancers out of the story for a while and by adding external factors to fights against the main antagonists that made it difficult if not impossible for the Freelancers to really lean into said fights as hard as they might’ve been able to. S15 continued this trend, as first the Freelancers followed their own path separate from the crew, then they were incapacitated for a time by Temple’s armor lock, and then - still incapacitated to a degree by hallucinations and physical weakness - Washington was severely injured and rushed off separate from the main group again, while Carolina (also incapacitated but not hallucinating or directly injured at least) took something of a backseat in the fight that followed, participating but not stealing the show in terms of combative action. That was for the BGC to do, in their own varying ways. 

I’m not sure where the story is going from where we are now, but I suspect that these methods - separation, incapacitation, and perhaps the deliberate throwing of fights - will continue to be used. They’ve been pretty handy so far, after all. They’ve just become...a little predictable because of it, I guess.

[notafeeling]

‘Accepting Anxiety, Part 1/2: Excepting Anxiety’ Video Analysis

((Video analysis/take aways from @thatsthat24 ‘s video, “Accepting Anxiety, Part ½: Excepting Anxiety”. Time has the links to that part in the video.))

-          Upon Seeing: Immediately there’s so much going on. I only read the first half of the title when I first clicked on it, so I knew that A) this was going to feature Anxiety; and B) that there were two parts. I was happy with this. Until I noticed the thumbnail. “NO MORE ANXIETY” freaks me out a little, then I remember that it’s two parts and I finally read the rest of the title. I am calmed minutely.

-          0:00 Thomas opens the video by appearing disorganised, looking messy and stuttering. At first I thought that it was a joke, but then I watched the rest. He also points out his own video structure (which he does many times throughout).

-          0:21 He mentions that he isn’t ~concerned~ about consistency (which bugs me, but whatever) and it is especially apparent that something is wrong. This hints at how badly (or, more accurately, how much) he is affected by the supposedly missing Anxiety.

-          0:38 Thomas associates Logan with him making a mistake. He blatantly points it out, acting blasé.

-          0:50 Logan is clearly weirded out by this new Thomas. He’s also a little stuttering – not as much as Thomas, but he isn’t as together as usual. This could be because Logic is confused by Thomas’ nature as well as Anxiety’s absence taking its toll on him too (even if he is unaware of it happening). I don’t mean emotional-toll here, more so subtle changes in how they all act without anxiety (the emotion/disorder and character), if that makes sense.                                 

-          1:06 Thomas quite clearly has no filter. His sentences and word choice are uncharacteristically basic. He tells Logan that he messed up but also somewhat encourages him. However, the academic side of me hates when people tell me that even though I messed up, at least I tried, or that trying is what counts. I feel like it would go for Logan as well, though I have no proof as of yet other than his pout and his dejected “thanks”. “That was bad, but like, you’re a really good tryer Logan. You’re really good.”

-          1:18 / 1:33 / 1:50 Thomas explains Logan’s job/character/purpose in a way that’s very uncommon to see when it isn’t solely meta-text. He also calls Roman and Patton what they embody, and establishes that he only did that because it was the easiest way to show newcomers what they do/are. This lack of care grates on Logan’s nerves (and mine, a person who values subtly and consistency). “… You usually provide, you know, the explanatory exposition in my videos …” / “That was just the easiest way to, you know, quickly establish what you guys represent in case there are any new viewers watching.” / “He is my logical side! He’s my logical side…”

-          1:55 “… but that is precisely why I wanted you two here” followed by Patton trying to correct Logan by saying, “You mean us three?” and then Morality being immediately shut down by Logic in a patronising tone.

-          2:03 The last point leads to this one because Patton flaunts Logan’s mistakes as a way of getting back at him. That is completely unlike him! Plus the way he says it, in a kind of muttering-to-those-nearby, snide way, you know? Patton makes a joke out of one of Logan’s mistakes, leading to Logic getting wound up. It’s important to note that Morality doesn’t apologise or even look remotely sorry. “He’s made mistakes before.” “An uncommon occurrence!” “Well then you might say the amount of mistakes you’ve made is… infinitesimal.” “YOU MAKE ONE MISTAKE AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS!”

-          2:10 Building off of that previous line and the fact that Logan makes it clear he hates having his mistakes pointed out/him being wrong and my own knowledge that often really ‘intelligent’ people stress out over little mistakes as they believe that they’re not worthy of such high praise, I think that Logan is like me again here. He won’t allow himself to make mistakes because of how the others might tease him later, etc.

-          2:26 Logan once again is visibly distressed/frustrated with Thomas. More important, Thomas makes a slightly NSFW joke. “… highly unproductive.” “You mean I can’t make babies?”

-          2:34 Logic is struggling to get his thoughts in order and stutters over his words more noticeably now. He can’t seem to get what he wants to say out in his usual rational manner, so he switches to a movie reference. The referencing is out of character for him but it could be his way of trying to communicate how he feels to the others. (For those who don’t know, the ‘flames on the side of my face’ comes from the movie Clue.)

-          2:43 It seems as if Patton is asking about Logan’s state of mind until Prince follows it up with Thomas-related stuff. Morality also addresses Thomas after this, so it can be assumed he was talking to Thomas. He could still be a little upset over being talked over again earlier and is taking it out in a petty-ish manner by ignoring him.

-          2:51 Thomas once again outright explains what Patton often does and almost goes into the NSFW side of things. “Oh yeah, you always say that instead of ‘becoming an adult’ or ‘adulthood’. As if you didn’t know the troubling definition of the word you’re using, which actually means, you know, when a-“

-          3:03 Roman cuts him off and Patton pulls an adorable, confused, scooby-doo-like face. I love Morality.

-          3:13 “Now, don’t you go shortening the word family by cutting out my three favourite letters: I, L, Y.” I love Patton.

-          3:29 He seems to be the only one who realises that Anxiety’s disappearance could be related to how Thomas is acting. This has also been mentioned many times before but Patton’s word choice is odd. It kind of insinuates that he knows more than he lets on/he’s frustrated/he’s… subtly insulting Logan and Roman again. “Boy, you both always act like you know all the answers so it’s surprising that you keep overlooking something so simple.”

-          3:37 He has to point out that Anxiety is missing and is the only one to do so. (Picture me clutching my heart here.) Then Logan briefly appears to consider this, and asks a confirmation question that doubles as a dig on Anxiety’s supposed uselessness. (Picture me and everyone else sobbing.) Roman jumps in to reassure Logan that the missing side is entirely unneeded and reiterates the fact that he doesn’t like him. (Picture me setting fire to my url.) “Where is Anxiety?” “Hm. Do you honestly think it’s necessary to have him here?” “To offer his mopey-dopey input? I- I don’t like him.”

-          4:09 Logan either misunderstands the joke or the fact that it even is a joke. “He’s definitely inviting some ants over.” “Just aunts, no uncles?”

-          4:19 Thomas takes off his hoodie and sweet love of death please take me now. (Roman clearly agrees with me that that hair is a nightmare. Still somehow cute though?? Sanders, why are you like this?)

-          4:44 Roman finally wants Anxiety there but mostly because the hair thing disgusts him. Mentioned in a previous analysis of mine and others, Roman is the one who hates mess the most.

-          4:56-5:23 They all try to summon Anxiety. Logan takes a neutral approach, Roman gets offended when he doesn’t bow down to his will and most importantly (because I love Patton, if I haven’t made it clear enough yet) Morality tells them to be nicer and compliments Anxiety as his way of trying to coax him out. And unlike someone, these compliments are genuine. Patton loves everyone and that just mended my heart a little. Then he says “Well, love has failed me,” and I can feel it break a little more. Thomas says what he thinks again and almost reveals personal information.

-          5:28 The others realise that the lack of Anxiety is causing this conundrum. Finally.

-          5:40 Roman brushes off their concern by saying the lack of fear (and therefore lack of Anxiety) is a good thing. (Picture me immediately starting to write a fluffy Anx-centred fic because how dare.) “Shouldn’t a lack of fear be a good thing?”

-          5:44-6:19 Patton is shocked by this. (Good.) He’s the first to jump to Anxiety’s defence and includes him. I just… really love Patton. Roman shoves that aside and lists reasons why Anxiety is unnecessary and should be excluded. The next line is interesting because he mentions them getting along without him originally, and that is true. In the first few videos, Logan was excited to see Roman but now they fight/insult each other constantly. Same goes for the Logan and Patton, though it’s mostly Logan doing the insulting this time. There could be underlying jealousy, especially since now Patton and Anxiety seem closer and Logan and Anxiety formed somewhat of an alliance in My Negative Thinking. Logan defends Anxiety now too in his roundabout way, but Prince still denies this. “Even still, I just don’t see why he’s necessary! If Anxiety is gone, what do we have to lose?”

-          6:28 Thomas is without his natural reflexes and throws caution to the wind.

-          6:36-6:59 Logan tests Thomas slightly then lists the negative side effects of having absolutely no anxiety. He meets Roman’s protests with logic and good rebuttal arguments. It seems he’s officially on the “Anxiety is important after all” side… Two-thirds of the way in.

-          7:18 Roman gets called out by Thomas. Cue flashbacks of some of the times when Prince mentions not liking Anxiety. (Good.) “Princey’s never liked Anxiety, that’s his problem!”

-          7:36 Logan talks about how he and Patton have reconciled slightly with Anxiety in the past, but Roman refuses to. Roman says that it’s because Anxiety has always held him back, and from the Am I Original video we know that he hates that.

-          7:51 Thomas takes his pants off with no concern. Logan now is determined to find Anxiety.

-          7:58 Patton uses his ‘dad voice’ and demands that Thomas puts them on. He actually listens. The one other time we hear Morality’s authoritative tone (that I can remember) is in the Valentine’s video, directed at Prince. He might’ve also used it in Way Too Adult. “You put them back. Right now.”

-          8:03 The separate room theory is confirmed!

-          8:31 Roman is reluctant to go and hasn’t been there before. “So we’re all going to Anxiety’s room? Who knows what that tragic kingdom looks like.”

-          8:35 Patton reveals that to get to another’s room, they need to be transported by Thomas. This could be for whenever or the specific cases when they’re uninvited to the room in particular, or as I thought, when multiple sides are going all at once from reality.

-          9:07 They pop in Anxiety’s room. You can immediately see that it’s a lot darker. There have been many posts about this already, so I’ll only mention the obvious stuff. There’s a clock spinning out of control, which could represent the anxiety over running out of control, and there’s cobwebs on the couch. It seems like he doesn’t use the couch that often then. Oh, and there’s a red glow in the background. The room is rearranged differently, with many different props and details added around.

-          9:11 You can hear Logan’s voice but you don’t see him at all. Is he unable to have a physical manifestation in Anxiety’s room? Personally, I think that Thomas just didn’t have the rest of the new background set up because it’s unlikely that we’ll go the whole next part without seeing them.

-          9:18 TO BE CONTINUED?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! YOU DIDN’T EVEN DO THE OUTRO AND JUST… WHY?! WHY?!

-          9:20-9:38 The sides comment on the cliffhanger and reveal that the next part should be within a couple of days. This is followed by a dig on Thomas’ uploading habits, which made me laugh.

Things I want to see from the next video include moxiety, a proper explanation behind Roman’s dislike of Anxiety, Roman apologising to Anxiety, Roman making it up to Anxiety, Roman being nice to Anxiety, Roman making sure his insults don’t hurt Anxiety, Roman just not being an insensitive idiot towards Anxiety, uh, I’m excited to see the rest of the room. And for Anxiety’s name.

If there are any points you would like to discuss with me or for me to explain myself further, just send an ask!

Last Analysis: “Becoming a Cartoon”

[avelera]

Prayers to Broken Stone structure/character arc breakdown

So I’m learning a bunch in my writing class about how to put together character arcs, plots, and causal chains of events. In doing so I realized the only story I’ve written that has those elements in any sort of deliberate fashion was Prayers to Broken Stone (probably because it had 2 drafts). I decided to go through the story in my head and figure out exactly what I did there, though the lens of what I’ve learned. 

This essay could be helpful for people who want to walk through the thought process of how a character arc and plot are put together, but I’m also going to point out places where I think PTBS failed to have a strong structure, so it’s a bit of a peak behind the curtain that maybe not everyone wants to have. I also discuss what I would do if there was ever a 3rd draft. This is mostly me explaining my lessons to myself, so may be a bit rambling and long, but it’s available for those who are interested!

For me at least, I don’t generally figure out the mechanics of a story until I’ve finished a first draft, and I don’t think it’s actually got everything it could be until I’ve done a second draft. I’ve only done a second draft for one sizable work and that was with Prayer to Broken Stone, so I’m going to talk about the mechanics of Prayers for a second and how my dumb ass ambled backwards into a story that actually had a plot for once.

Chapter 1 - Actually sucked and was kinda rambling, so let’s just say Chapter 1-3 were actually chapter 1. This is the elements the first 3 chapters had that would, ideally help to think about when writing a different novel. I’m also going to talk about some places where I failed pretty badly though.

- Chapter 1-3 did well in that it opened with a character. The world is filtered through his perspective (Bilbo, and Thorin for chapter 2). All of the world is shown through their subjective, NOT objective eyes (when the description is actually good). Meaning everything is colored by their perception and the description actually serves a PURPOSE, which reveals character by showing how they see things (the wind is uncomfortable because they are uncomfortable, the world outside may be objectively beautiful but all they can see is the bad things like the army outside their door because it’s drawing their focus).

Tip: When writing a novel or story, avoid long, objective passages of description. Description should serve multiple purposes, either strengthening the setting, plot, or characters of the story. Description filtered through the lens of a character is better for the story. Ex. “It was a nice day and the sun was shining, but Bob didn’t care.” vs. “The birds were screeching, the sun hurt his eyes, and Bob was pissed off that he had already sweated through his shirt. Nice day my ass, he thought.” The second line tells us much more about the character, AND we learned what the weather was like, so everyone wins! 

One time I ambled ass-backwards into doing description correctly was the ch. 2 with the descriptions of Thorin’s transformation serving the story and not just being objective, like in the tip above. Thorin doesn’t see everything in the room like an omniscient narrator would. He only sees the things he cares about, which are the scales emerging on his skin, which he sees with hyper-detail which allows me to wax poetic for a bit. Also he’s surrounded by treasure, but I don’t describe all of the treasure, because it’s not relevant.

He sees a silver bowl, which he notices because it’s a reflective surface and his goal is to figure out what is happening to him. This goal is thwarted by an obstacle, which is the dragon sickness itself trying to lure him into a false sense of calm, literally putting him to sleep, so he can’t do the thing he wants to do which is presumably fix the problem. 

(This is probably a bit weak, and in a 3rd draft I would strengthen the reason that Thorin doesn’t just run out of the mountain screaming right at that moment but eh, hopefully I got away with it here and did so by introducing new elements about how dragon sickness works, which makes it hopefully more scary for the audience and raises tension.)

Tip: A character should have a goal, but they shouldn’t reach the goal too easily or there’s no tension or reason for the audience to keep reading. To raise the tension we need OBSTACLES and/or SETBACKS. How characters REACT when they’re confronted with these obstacles shows us more about the story, it often makes us like the character more and/or become more invested in their struggle, and it raises tension.

Chapter 3, Bilbo wakes up on the battlefield like he did on the book. (As I was trying to establish the book events so we could move on ASAP.) The goal that gets handed to him by Gandalf (that could have been strengthened a bit by him volunteering himself but eh, I was cribbing Tolkien) is to go check on Thorin. Bilbo was already worried about Gandalf, so he does the thing he already wanted to do even more, which is go check on Thorin. Again, this could have been a stronger scene if he didn’t want to go see Thorin because he was still afraid, but I guess that kind of happens in chapter 4, where the story actually properly begins. We’re still kind of “driving to the story” here, something that is discouraged. People want to start where the action is.

Tip: Avoid “Driving to the Story”, start us if possible in a scene where the action has already begun, framed in a way that you don’t need to flashback. Usually this is about 3 pages or a few hundred words into whatever you’ve written, because by then you’ve finished clearing your throat and you’ve finally arrived at the story. Now go back and cut the part where you weren’t there yet and boom, instant tension and audience attention.

Chapter 4 - the game pieces are in place, the story can begin. Except I decided we need to “drive to the story” a bit too much, we don’t need to, I could have just begun with Bilbo at the cave entrance about to go in (which I think I did sort of?? But yeah, you didn’t need to see Bilbo climbing the mountain again, we get it already that he had to).

Bilbo is reluctant to return to the mountain but his goal to help Thorin forces him to throw caution to the wind, he hears Thorin’s pained screaming from the events of chapter 2, presumably Thorin is only unconscious for a few minutes (oops, just found a logic plothole) because Bilbo is now running into the mountain.

Drama! Character! Action! We like Bilbo (I hope) because he has a strong goal: which is to help someone who is in pain! Hopefully we’re feeling suspense: will he accomplish his goal?? How is he doing it? Action! He’s running! His internal fear is now external (much of PTBS is about internal things like self-loathing becoming outside things like dragon scales, so this works thematically too, yay!) he’s not sitting in a room stressing about Thorin, he’s doing something about it, which we like, which makes us cheer for him!

He arrives to the treasury where Thorin is suffering the early onset of physical dragon sickness. Now there’s 2 apparent options on the table: 1) he helps Thorin 2) he doesn’t help. But we’re going to go with option 3 because both of those don’t really go anywhere which is 3) He finds Thorin, but Thorin is having a dragon sickness fit and tries to kill him.

Tip: Never set up a story that only has 2 options at the end: they do A or B. Always go with C. C consists of “they do A BUT something else happens” or “they do B, AND there’s unforeseen consequences”. This also applies for the end of your story, the end should be surprising (not just A or B) but inevitable (C) and shouldn’t be something that comes totally out of nowhere (Z).

I switched over to Thorin’s POV there because I thought it would create more tension and be scarier. We know Bilbo is entering the room, we’re wondering what will happen next. But oh no! Now we’re in Thorin’s head and all Thorin sees is an intruder. Hopefully this is both revealing the character and revealing the problem as well as setting up later events: Thorin occasionally has fits where he can’t tell friend from foe.

Tip: Don’t save the best for last. IE not all revelations should be saved for the end. Says there’s a guy who is about to go into the room where the killer is hiding. If he goes into that room, he might be killed! Yes you can do a twist where we’re surprised he gets killed, but now the story can’t be re-read because we know the twist. You can instead let us know the killer is in that room, and now there’s tension. Will the character go in? Won’t he? I hope he doesn’t! Maybe at the last minute we get option C, he starts to go in, but someone calls him away, but then the killer appears behind him and kills him! It’s not necessarily creative or original, but it is more tense and we don’t feel cheated because we didn’t know the killer was in there because we weren’t told. Now we know more things, and we’re stressing (ie there’s tension) about what will happen next.

Drama, action, character!  Thorin’s internal problem of not being able to distinguish friend from foe is made external! He attacks! He and Bilbo don’t just amble up to each other and have a calm conversation about uh oh, bad things are happening. Thorin tries to kill him because he doesn’t know who he is! It’s now pretty heavily implied that something bad is happening and we see it through action instead of navel gazing, and this action reveals character and plot, it’s not gratuitous.

Chapter 5 - info dump and lots of talking heads conversation. What redeems this chapter is something called an “adversarial ally”. Friends who want to help friends are great, but if the sidekick is just passively going along with what the protagonist’s asks for, not much is happening. Thorin and Bilbo need to clear the air, that’s my goal as a writer. But what do they want in this scene?

Tip: Don’t just have helpful sidekicks, have sidekicks (or side characters) who FIGHT with the protagonist. This gives you a fun way to do exposition! Kirk and McCoy arguing about what to do on the planet is way more interesting than Kirk saying what he’s going to do (which may be a dumb idea) and McCoy just agreeing to go along. Also we learn a lot when character’s argue, and we feel involved as audience members.

Well, Bilbo who is the POV character, wants to know what the heck happened to Thorin. But there’s an obstacle! He and Thorin have a lot of bad blood between them from the Arkenstone incident. They have to trust each other again before he can unlock Thorin’s tragic backstory (aka, what happened in chapter 2).

Talking heads scenes can be hard to make interesting, so it’s better for tension if they argue. This scene could probably have been shorter in some ways, but I need to thoroughly convince the audience that they are at least back to a working relationship so they can tackle the bigger problem, even if there’s still some lingering hurt between them. The argument escalates until Bilbo draws a sword on Thorin (well, not really, but it reveals that he wanted to). What probably isn’t very good in this scene is things like how quickly they resolve everything (it takes away tension I could have used later), and the fact that Bilbo just gives up on his tirade in reaction to his own attempt at violence, and there’s a bit of narrative convenience and author’s hand showing when Thorin just gets on the same page and asks Bilbo why he stole the Arkenstone, and admits he’s ashamed of his own behavior. Hopefully I got away with this through doing the voices well, but there are some logical leaps here because I was trying to get to the bigger point of them working together.

Skipping ahead (because I don’t want to do the whole fic) - They’ve met up and Bilbo has settled in for the long haul of curing Thorin. Again, logical leap there, they could just leave then, but I tried to foreshadow the sinister nature of the disease that they don’t just leave there. And at first, Thorin wanting to keep his dignity and not be seen with scales is also keeping him from going out, and Bilbo goes along with him on this in order to keep their tense relationship from blowing up again, and because it doesn’t seem like too bad of an idea there.

It’s a little mushy there, admittedly. This is probably because I hadn’t worked out a strong causal link around everything that was happening. The story is unified by the need to cure Thorin’s disease, and there’s the beginnings of themes around the need to want to be cured, and of Thorin’s real character arc in this story, which in addition to curing the dragon sickness/depression parallel, is also about shame vs. courage. He doesn’t want to be seen because he’s ashamed, he worries that he deserves what is happening to him and he’d rather try and fail to find a cure-- and die in the dark where no one can see him-- rather than reach out for help.

I didn’t know it when writing that scene at the time necessarily, but it means the climax of Thorin’s emotional arc has 2 big points. One is the big one where he scrapes away the scales and decides his life is worth it, he doesn’t have to die alone just to maintain the good opinion of others.

But there was another, more selfless arc which was set up with him not wanting to go outside for a cure back at the beginning, which is when Bilbo’s wounding forces him to carry Bilbo to safety, when he wasn’t willing to take himself to safety. He hears voices, not just of Gandalf but of his kin, the people that it was his greatest goal to avoid seeing what he has become. He wavers, tries to think of other solutions, and realizes he must expose himself and his transformation to them in order to save Bilbo’s life. That was the pride and humility character arc, or perhaps shame and courage arc as it could also be called. 

Thorin is a very brave character, except when it comes to this transformation which has exposed so much of the vulnerability and self-loathing he has hidden from the world and his family, and he needs to recover his courage in order to be in the room where he finds the cure in the next scene. He also needs to do something for Bilbo, who has done so much for him, and he needs to do something Bilbo asks him to do. Now, this theme somewhat contradicts the other theme of the fact Thorin lives too much for the opinion of others and needs to break out of that, but I like to think of it as a stepping stone emotional climax to the big one of ending the transformation. Yes he shouldn’t be worrying so much about the opinions of others, but before he can reach that revelation, he needs to reclaim his courage in facing his kin and learn that yes they do still recognize him and no they don’t blame him for it, and that blame he so feared was entirely in his head (just like much of the dragon voice). There’s all sorts of symbolism and stuff in that.

So in essence, Thorin had to go into the mountain because of pride/dragon sickness, he gets sicker, in order to get better he has to admit to Bilbo that he has a problem, they agree to work together, they go to do research to cure him BUT there’s an obstacle! Mim’s tablet gives him information, but it also makes him worse, not better, because his despair over learning that this curse is meant to be permanent actually strengthens the disease! (A big hint that the disease is emotionally based) 

Thorin goes back to the gold to feel better but there’s another obstacle! Bilbo reveals that he sees Thorin as monstrous now, they need to talk to overcome this obstacle! They have some downtime for processing all that has happened (ch. 9) and in that, Thorin’s disease is actually halted, though he doesn’t really notice or put together the implications that good food, rest, and companionship are the source of that halt. 

The boys instead go off on an incorrect tangent to solve Thorin’s illness, they decide it must be something external and physical, like a dragon’s claw. They go to find and destroy it but OBSTACLE, more tension! Bilbo’s ring has set up a trigger which makes Thorin’s disease worse (this probably wouldn’t work in a novel because the Ring would come out of left field and isn’t connected to events, but as a fanfic writer I have more freedom to draw on elements not directly connected to the story). Thorin and Bilbo’s hard work at making him better backfires, huge obstacle, enough that Thorin is pushed to a near suicide attempt in chapter 11, and only Bilbo taking action to stop him prevents this in chapter 12, where I take another break from the action to tell more about them falling in love.

Hopefully keeping the story going though is the danger of Thorin’s transformation, effectively a ticking time bomb which means even soft moments are tense in some way. That’s because there’s a GOAL in ch. 11 and 12. However, Thorin’s goal has changed. He now wants to die with dignity. Bilbo’s goal is to prevent this, so his goal is the same, but he doesn’t dare leave Thorin alone to get help. This creates TENSION between them as they want different things.

Tip: Characters wanting different things puts them in conflict, which creates tension and plot!

The story could stall out there a bit, and admittedly I got stuck writing this section because the goals were less clear. Bilbo is forced by a new element, Thorin’s dragon spell, to try to kill Thorin. Bilbo’s GOAL is to NOT kill Thorin, and it creates tension as he fights off the impulse, and Gandalf, Fili, and Kili enter. Notice they did not enter until the audience is SCREAMING for them to enter, wondering where they are. And that’s another important thing to learn: don’t serve what the audience wants BEFORE the audience wants it so badly they can taste it. That goes for exposition too. You don’t NEED to know why Thorin is transforming in chapter 2, because you haven’t felt the implications of it yet, only when the story CANNOT go forward without more information do you give that information (see: the library scene).

Tip: Don’t give exposition up front, wait until the audience cannot possibly wait another second longer, and then give them the info. This means don’t do what Tolkien did and have a 50 page prologue about what hobbits are at the beginning of Lord of the Rings. We don’t need that information yet. We’re not wondering what hobbits are yet, it’s not relevant. What we want to know at the beginning is what is the plot, what’s going to happen, who are the characters, and if there’s magic or some other weird element we need to know ASAP.

Tip: If a story is going to have magic in a setting where it might not otherwise, you have to give this fact as soon as possible. Preferably in the first paragraph, ideally in the first LINE. “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit,” is a fantastic first line for that reason. We don’t want to get 10 pages into The Hobbit and then find out that Bilbo isn’t a human! It will mess up our perception of the story and piss us off.

Chapter 14-19 Thorin gets a new goal! First it’s to get revenge on Bilbo for revealing his transformation to his kin (Fili and Kili who Thorin thinks Bilbo betrayed him to), and then it’s to save Bilbo’s life once they’re trapped. There’s a bit of authorial hand showing there, to keep them away from the thing that they want (or at least, what Bilbo wants) which is to find Gandalf and get Thorin the cure. But this is Thorin’s character arc, as an author I know he’s not ready for the cure yet, so it’s delayed with tension and with stabbing Bilbo so he’s faced with the ultimate choice.

Some people thought the love confession was odd in chapter 15 because they expected it in the climax. The reason I put it there was because I have a different view of love confessions: I think they raise stakes instead of lowering them. My philosophy is that having feelings out in the open creates a GREATER sense of responsibility. Thorin and Bilbo could have technically parted ways back in chapter 5, because their love wasn’t in the open yet and technically they had no obligation to each other besides friendship and a secret crush. Thorin is ready to die by ch. 15 but can’t because Bilbo is in danger if he does, the Thorin of ch. 5 could have theoretically killed himself and left Bilbo to figure out his own exit from the mountain, or Bilbo could have left sooner to seek his own safety. A Thorin and Bilbo who have openly confessed their love however CANNOT simply abandon each other. They have to see this through to the end now.

Back to Thorin’s ultimate choice - what he has wanted most, MORE than being cured this entire story, is for his kin not to see what has happened to him. Him and Bilbo falling in love and confessing that love has given him a second goal which until now has not been in conflict with his first goal, because Bilbo is doing his best to help Thorin find a cure and is allowing him to stay away from his kin (note, their biggest fights are whenever Bilbo trips over Thorin’s desire to stay away from his family in Bilbo’s pursuit of HIS goal which is to see Thorin get better).

Now Thorin has to choose: let his kin see him, or let Bilbo (the love of his life) die. That choice creates tension and conflict. Once Bilbo’s life is no longer in IMMEDIATE danger (we think!) then we could freely tackle Thorin’s OTHER big issue which is curing his transformation (ch. 19-20). The obstacle THERE was that he’s made a deal that effectively sold his soul to the devil for the ability to save Bilbo (in ch. 17-18) and now the devil is coming to collect.

Thorin must now make ANOTHER difficult decision: give in to his self-loathing and conviction about his own monstrosity and helplessness in the face of this curse, or fight for his own life which it’s revealed he sees as worthless and not worth fighting for, in a horrible internal loop which strengthened the dragon all along. Yes he needs external voices to push him over the edge into fighting, the voices of his loved ones telling him that this fight is worth having, but more importantly he needs his courage which he also regained a bit of when he carried Bilbo to be saved. Thorin as mentioned before is a pretty courageous guy, but he had fallen and lost his way, beaten down by this curse that made all his internal fears into an external appearance that all can now see. Yes, it’s a bit narratively convenient that all he had to do was decide to fight in order to win, but that’s because the vast majority of the fighting already happened when he made a courageous decision to save Bilbo’s life. That was the line that got him to the water’s edge, now he needed the resolve to pull himself out rather than drown.

Thorin’s character arc is the emotional arc of the story, he’s the main character who must make tough decisions. By contrast, Bilbo is a fairly reactive character, which is why to me he was harder to write and more passive. He’s doing things because Thorin set events in motion, he’s reacting to them, but then again, Thorin would give up and drown if not for Bilbo pushing him forward in some scenes, so they are ideally co-protagonists, or two halves of one protagonist, or whatever. 

However, I admit, Bilbo doesn’t really have much of an arc, and if I did a 3rd draft, I’d probably give him a stronger one. Bilbo wants Thorin to get better, and he succeeds, but he doesn’t change much as a result except for falling in love. Part of the problem there too is that Bilbo is already brave as a result of the events of The Hobbit, so his arc isn’t about becoming brave, he already is.

A better arc for Bilbo could be around issues of emotional intimacy. Thorin needs someone who will say unreservedly that he deserves to live, he deserves to have happiness, he deserves to be loved. Bilbo is from a repressed society and is generally a repressed person, admitting he’s in love with someone is very difficult for him, as is really admitting any emotion at all that isn’t extremely practical. 

Perhaps it’s tied up in how much his parents loved each other, he never thought he could have that for himself and so had resigned himself to never being in love at all, which in turn made him a very emotionally closed off person for all but polite pleasantries. Over the course of the story, his arc would be emotionally opening up to the much more emotionally honest Thorin. 

Thorin is many things in this story, but secretive about what he’s feeling is not one of them: the man is anguished. Bilbo has a polite veneer throughout, which on the one hand helps him stay afloat in a crazy situation, but on the other prevents him from reaching his true goal, which is helping Thorin heal. I’d probably need to throw in some more obstacles for him, such as moments where he tries to open up to Thorin, but something goes wrong. Or moments where Thorin desperately reaches out to him for some sort of confirmation of his own worth, and Bilbo is in too repressed a place emotionally to answer what he really feels (which is love for Thorin), which makes Thorin spiral even harder into his illness. 

Bilbo’s emotional arc may still be shorter as a result, and resolve before Thorin’s: the climax is on the throne, when he can’t admit to Thorin (who is essentially dying that he loves him), something that might have given Thorin the strength to seek help. This decision haunts Bilbo, and makes him resolve to change. Bilbo’s arc is fulfilled in ch. 15 then when he finally blurts out that he loves Thorin and then of course he gets stabbed which is a new arc for him: survive.

This arc IS in there, but it’s buried, and a 3rd draft would probably see a version where that’s brought more to the front and Bilbo gets more of his own things to struggle for and more obstacles that prevent him from achieving what he needs to do.

In the end, both characters get what they want, and the epilogue is me rather self-indulgently showing them afterwards, where their goals are much simpler: be together. They need some reassurance that it wasn’t just panic and heightened emotion that made them fall in love.

They need recovery from their ordeal, and the point of that ordeal was that it made them both see the world differently, Thorin in particular is better able to manage his emotions when it comes to those who have slighted him, and he’s more easy in his own skin, and more assured of his own worth, which makes him a better king. Bilbo’s recovery would probably be something like reassurance that his love confession wasn’t for nothing, that there is a place for him here, that he’s achieved what Bungo and Belladonna, and basically what is called “a reassertion of domesticity” - aka he won his domestic happy ending. Thorin needs some of that reassurance too, because his arc was tied up in whether or not his life was worth anything, and the love of others contributes to that reassurance, though it isn’t the sole source of his worth. Bilbo’s arc is also complete in reassuring himself that Thorin is safe and healthy, which was Bilbo’s goal the whole time.

So anyway, this is me trying to retroactively understand what I’m learning in my writing class, though the lens of the only story I think I’ve written that actually has some decent structure to it. Hopefully from now on I can start to put novels like this together on purpose, instead of by accident!