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beyond-far-horizons · 4 years ago

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Analysing the Zutara Cave Scene from a Writing and Psychological perspective

Forgive me, I’m an enthusiastic newbie to the ATLA fandom and Zutara (mainly because I knew the ship was perfect for me but was not canon and so I held off watching it for years.) So I know you’ve heard it all before but I wanted to break down this famous scene in more depth from my background as both a writer and a student of psychology. It’s also important since the age old ship wars are being resurrected (which I want no part of) and Zutara and this scene has been looked down on and belittled from some quarters.

Warning - Wall of Text TM incoming!

The main thing that gets most people is these mortal enemies going from hating each other to being open and vulnerable in about five minutes of screen time. I get the impression more time and therefore more conversation has gone on off screen, but it’s amazing that Katara goes from tirade at the literal face of the Fire Nation (a country whose plagued her people and killed her mother, and Zuko himself who has hunted her and her friends, captured her at least twice and has had several intense fights with her)

to tenderly touching Zuko’s face and “let me use our one of its kind Holy Water TM to maybe heal your face.”

Also as others have pointed out Zuko lets this ‘peasant’ (who defeated him, wounded his pride and foiled his lifelong goal several times) touch his scar when he doesn’t let anyone else do that at this point, even girls he’s been close to.

I doubt many Zutara shippers think this happened because the two suddenly decided the other was hot, even though there might be an unconscious physical attraction under all the animosity. But no-one can deny the writers were trying to show a shared connection that makes them open up to each other. That to me makes the relationship much deeper whether it’s platonic or romantic.

Katara, despite her understandable rage at Zuko, is surprisingly open to forgiving and helping him as soon as he -

a) mentions they have something in common - the Fire Nation being responsible in some way for the loss of their mothers.

b) his resolution to make his own destiny and overcome his difficult past associated with the scar.

I just love this about her character. She’s passionate, feisty and full of integrity but she can’t stop herself wanting to help make things better, even to one of her worst enemies. Her compassion is such a strength and it comes out even more when she realises she’s accidentally hurt his feelings re his face.

Zuko in turn is softer with her than I’ve ever seen him with others, even Iroh most of the time. He doesn’t get angry or even really defensive and he opens up about his mother for the first time. Extraordinary considering he’s talking to an enemy.

But this isn’t the first time he’s tried to win Katara over against his normal combative persona. When he captured her in Ep 9 you’d expect him to threaten her, especially surrounded by his men and bloodthirsty pirates. Instead he asks for her understanding and tells her (the little peasant and enemy of the Fire Nation) about his lost honour.

He then goes momentarily into full skeevy villain mode (which I loved) and offers her necklace back by placing it round her neck. (As an aside, yes this was totally the wrong tactic considering it was her mother’s who the Fire Nation killed, but I do love that he unknowingly offered her a Water Tribe betrothal necklace.)

Analysing it more deeply from a writing and psychology perspective, I’d say Katara represents the integrity and vulnerability that is at the core of Zuko’s character - the thing that got him that scar and banishment from his warlike family.

The same side he struggles with and that Iroh tries to heal and encourage within him. It’s masterly from a writing POV that they brought this mirror up and allowed Zuko to connect and own this aspect of himself again briefly before Azula (the opposite representation and Zuko’s ‘shadow’) literally crashes the party. This is truly his ‘crossroads of destiny’, raising the stakes and therefore making us - the audience - ache all the more when Zuko makes the wrong but understandable decision to choose Azula and his family’s version of him and betray not just Katara but Iroh too (dat angst.)

(As an aside look at the framing of the above shot. They do this alot showing him literally caught between two sides. In the previous scene with Azula and Iroh, they show both the unscarred and then scarred profile of Zuko to show the ‘two sides of him’ symbolically represented by Azula and Iroh.)

Two sides, Fire and Water, the battle of opposites and the bringing of balance is of course the core of ATLA, and Zuko and Katara’s fraught relationship sums this theme up perfectly. Another reason so many still ship them and feel aggrieved by the non-canon ending.

I think Zuko is so wounded by Katara’s refusal to forgive him and so determined to earn that forgiveness is because she represents his true ‘honour’ - the right way to be - to fight for balance and justice with integrity no matter what. Thus he must make amends to her, not just as someone he has wronged, but as the mirror of that aspect in himself.

Thematically this is tied up beautifully in him asking her to join him to defeat Azula in the final season and them working together to do so.

(As another aside, the theme of balance and Yin and Yang is also mirrored in Zuko and Katara’s relationship and character development. At the start Katara is the caring, altruistic almost motherly sort and Zuko is the angry, aggressive pursuer. However like Yin and Yang that contain an aspect of the other within them, whenever Katara meets Zuko she becomes more aggressive and is allowed to process her grief and anger, unlike with her friends. Zuko, in turn is often softened by her, reawakening his compassion and deeper feelings. Yes these aspects are also fostered by others, but Season 3 highlights this dynamic to Zutara allowing Katara to address her anger and Zuko to practice caregiving and support.)

Coming back to the Cave Scene - the most poignant part for me isn’t actually the face touch (even though I love it). It’s the final glance between them as Katara and Aang leave. Katara looks back worried, it’s as if she can sense the threshold Zuko is on and feels torn between staying and supporting him and her duty to Aang. I feel if they had had more time together Azula would have had less chance to turn Zuko.

He looks back at her softly and there’s a beautiful musical cue, hinting at things unsaid and unfinished, she gives him a final lingering glance, still anxious, then goes.

We all know what happens next.

Conclusion

Looking at this from a purely plot point of view it -

raises the emotional stakes and therefore make Zuko’s betrayal hurt worse.

Sets up Zuko knowing about Katara’s healing abilities and Spirit Water so he knows there is a possibility the Avatar could be saved. This all plays into the shenanigans of Book 3, letting Zuko go back to the Fire Nation, Azula giving him the credit and then letting down her father etc.

Giving Zuko more character development work to earn everyone’s trust esp Katara’s when he finally makes the right choice.

However I’m surprised that Bryke didn’t realise how this episode would look to the eyes of most fans esp Zutarians. Yes you could say it’s hetero-normative and why can’t they be just platonic etc but it was the Noughties, it’s a kids show and they are blatantly playing into those well known tropes - Zuko’s previous verging-on flirtatious treatment of Katara, his uncharacteristic softness and openness with her, her touching his scar, the music, their lingering glances, Aang’s jealous look (you could argue it was animosity towards his enemy but while we get this from Zuko, it is definitely played as suspicion about a potential rival so close to ‘his girl’ from Aang’s side.)

Ultimately the writers didn’t choose the romantic route, which I feel is a real shame and missed opportunity because of the depth of feeling and potential there. But what I really resent is when people act like Zutarians were stupid and/or biased for seeing and loving that potential. I hope this analysis has shown that the romantic subtext was strong (and much more believable for me than with Katara and Aang) and in line with the core themes of ATLA itself. This also refutes the suggestion that Zutara was somehow dark, toxic or shallow cos ‘he’s a bad boy’ or something.

Zuko was owning his own struggles, emotions and destiny in this scene, it’s why Katara finally opens up to him. She doesn’t have to ‘do the work for him’, but she supports him in it as he supports her later on when he earns her forgiveness. And that’s why I love it!

Thank you for coming to my TED talk...

#zutara #zuko #katara #atla #avatar the last airbender #meta #my meta #my writing #long post is long #wall of text tm #anti-kataang #better put that in there even though I don't really go into the rival ship #antis please don't interact I respect your right to ship let's be civil

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usagi-mitsu · 4 years ago

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Werlyt & Gaius - a bunch of thoughts.

I am a little late to the party. I know. But I just finished the Emerald weapon and before I go to try out the „not Zenos“ weapon as in „Diamond“, I need to get my thoughts on the story straight.

Perhaps I have been spoiled by 5.0s brilliant MSQ and cannot appreciate the inherent beauty of at least decent writing any longer. But this felt so wrong and out of tune with the rest of the game. I started writing this 2 hours ago! I wanted to one in bed by now! XD But I had to get it out of my system… so….

Spoilers for the MSQ and Werlyt incoming??? And no I did not re-read this so not just spoilers but also writing errors incoming. -.-

The good

These fights are epic! I have only ever cleared the normal versions, but I loved those. They are amazing. The callbacks to Eula (her being a woman here! When did they discover that???), Regula (may he rest in peace) and Gaius himself in his prime were delightful. But I could do with a little less rotating, ok? A dragoon has positional, you know? And being allowed to pilot my very own mecha was like *chefs kiss*. On that front? Well done Square Enix!

I am also glad they were able to get another use out of Porta Praetora! That place looks amazing with the wide open field and the lake – and Ala Mhigo across it. It was one of my favourite Stormblood areas and I am always glad to return there. And of course… being able to visit the allied camp again… And Werlyt itself. It’s simply a beautiful place. It reminds me very much of southern Greece. If you’ve watched the movie Mamma Mia you know what I mean.

The music too was really nice. But I don’t think I’ll… you know… listen to it on repeat as I am doing with other parts of the soundtrack.

I’ve also loved how much amazing lore we got about Garlemald and especially the garlean military. And the military abroad. The way soldiers not from the mainland get treated. I love learning about these things.

Gaius

The man. The legend. The guy yelling in Prae.

He’s so very boring here. He has so much potential as a character and maybe I’m missing something, but all throughout this story he has been nothing but passive. He’s a reactive character in this storyline. You know. The guy who made deals with Lahabread (the d is intended), tried to take over Eorzea, lead a whole army, stood idly by as the moon dropped, almost died but then decided just not to die and then though „hm… I’ve got so much freetime now. How about I go and hunt some ascians?“ That guy is NOT a reactive character. He is active. He goes out of his way to make shit he wants happen. And in here? He seems too starstruck and devastated by his adopted kids actions to actually have one clear thought.

The only explanation I have is that he might have gotten hit in the head by something on his way to the ruby weapon. I get why he would rely on Cid for help, but the WoL??? The alliance? If you wish to be an ally and help or something, fucking act like it. You were a former legatus and I expect you to live up to your name – even after retiring.

And yeah.. I guess it’s hard having to watch your kids willingly, knowingly dying. But you fucking raised them. You are a big part of the reason to why they are in that predicament. So like… Aside from that I don’t even get why you are in this story at all.

And for the record: I’m not sorry for him. I’m just flabbergasted by all the bullshit we’ve been learning about him.

To be quite honest, I think this story could have worked just as well or maybe even better, if we got another man as the „hero“ of the story. I am talking about none other than our engineering, hammer-swinging, ex-enemy - of course talking about Nero!

The MSQ has long established that his research into the Ultimate Weapon had been taken, twisted and turned – Estinien had to experience this first-hand. I’m not saying that Nero was in need of a redemption arc and I cannot remember if these weapons were of his creation or even stem from anything he did, but it would make so much more sense for me, to have him confront his past in the garlean military like this and be responsible for the death of his former colleagues. Soldiers that he served with, whom he faught with. Give me Nero and them working together to get the weapons going and him bonding with them as his pilots to a degree. Comrades. Not that strange familiar bond that Gaius appareantly has with them. … Scratch that: Let Gaius be the father figure. Him being that wouldn’t change Nero’s relationship with them, but maybe his with Gaius as his superior.

The story wouldn’t even need to try and redeem Nero: He has already gone through major character development with the MSQ and the Omega raid tier. It would simply be Nero, confronted with the things he created, hopefully instilling more morals and a sense of responsibility for his creations. Heck: Let Cid yell at the guy! Seriously! Cid sticking around to help out would make so much more sense if it was Nero instead of freaking Gaius! Cid hated the guy! He might be a professional, but he is not one to torture himself by staying around a guy he (as far as I know) detests.

Make Nero the central figure and give Cid and Gaius the roles of „angel and demon“: One desperately trying to reach out to his old friend, reminding him why they became engineers and trying to make him realise that he can’t just run around designing weapons and leaving the scematics for everyone to read; while the other has trouble letting go of his imperial past and is struggling to see the errors of his ways – if Nero was wrong, than he (Gaius) was wrong too -and of course they did all of this for their home, to further their cause, and to bring peace to the savage lands of Eorzea, who had been fighting amongst themselves for so long… You get the point.

And you could still have these gundam themed fights. But I think everything would make so much more sense in general.

But speaking of which-

The children

I do not truly care for any of them. And that is a shame: I do think there are great characters and dynamics hidden behind these very few cutscenes. When they were first introduced I was wondering why I was suddenly watching „heartwarming“ cutscenes of my foes as children – until I realised that I was supposed to care and that they were supposed to make me feel pity for Gaius. I was supposed to feel bad for him, because they died and he blames himself. But while their fates so far have been gruesome, I cannot say that I am sad they died. They chose to die as they did. There were a myriad more options. And they chose that.

Actually. Their whole story makes me feel like they were huge masochist from the very beginning. They could have just run away and gotten help from someone more competent than them, but they stayed in an abusive military arrangement just so nobody else got hurt?? Please. Use your brains next time. And for the Berserk-like torture scene? I mean. I get what was implied here. But was it necessary? As a writer myself I follow the rule that torture and sexual violence should never be used in a story, unless it must be in there for the story to work or to bring across a vital point important to the story or it’s moral (or if you are writing porn and you are into it – but we are talking official in-game content here). But the violence towards these „children“ seems unnecessary for the plot and the violence of their deaths by piloting the weapons is already gruesome enough. Sometimes it’s better to leave things like this out – the emotional torture of feeling stuck and having a martyrs complex would have been enough here, I think. If the rest of the story had been well written at least.

(I believe my utter lack of sympathy shows how little character developement they had. I love tragic characters, who choose to suffer for the good of other people – even better if those people don’t even like them. It’s just my thing. And those kids are just… well.)

Their reasons and especially why they were making Allie out as the one who would need to survive was also just… weird. Like. I feel like 75% of what happened would not have happened, if they actually talked to each other, used their brains and had done something about their problems. But no…

These characters are also so exchangeable with basic anime/j-RPG character tropes… I only remember Alfonse, Rex and Allie – because I just did the Emerald weapon. And right afterwards I thought, „huh. So… Fullmetal Alchemist?“ Which brings me to my third point …

…the story at large.

„Pacing is a virtue“ or was it patience..? Anyhow: The author of this story should have had more patience with his story and characters and taken a bloody break! And I am not talking about the obvious blunder of „How is Allie feeling?“, „she is in shock and you cannot talk to her“ turning to „oh yeah if you are careful you can talk to her now“. I mean. WTF. That was MAYBE 10-20 in-game minutes of dialogue.

But everything was moving so very fast – and not even in a good way. There are few things better than a fast paced, action rich story about a group of young people trying to safe (their) world. But if you try to cram in two expansions worth of character development and story telling into about two hours of content each patch.. Well, then you get whatever the hell this is.

Gaius is a very interesting character and while I did not understand why they needed to bring him back in 4.4 (?), I do see how he could be a good asset for endwalker. And his involvement in 5.0 with Estinien was just a dear delight. So I am not opposed to learning more about him, to watching his character grow and changed with time. But I am not ready for badly written content of which 50% get told by suddenly induced echo-sequences. I mean – weren’t there rules for the echo at some point???

I’m not sure which one of the devs said it, but the feature that let’s you play an NPC is super convenient for them to tell the story, because before they could only show what happened where the WoL was.

And that’s just it. Rule number 1 in writing anything is „Show don’t tell“. It feels like they literally turned this one around for these cutscenes. While Valens torture and diet-Fandaniel-routine were very much „show“, the rest of the story was one long cutscene of exposition: We get exposition by Cid, by Gaius, by echo, by Gaius and his crew again, then by Allie. Before having to watch scenes we are not there for.

BTW. Dear square Enix: Your writers are capable of writing amazing villains, antagonist and despicable assholes. You don’t have to write „asshole, must die“ on Valens name card. And I also think the „WoL, strike here“ sign above his head was a tad bit too much. Nuance, dear writers. Nuance. Or perhaps I just got spoiled by these last few foes in the MSQ.

When I said I wanted to just be able to punch a bad guy for once and not feel bad about it, I did not mean this! I meant that I just wanted to play training dummy with Danny-Boy.

(Oh! And as far as I’m concerned you can just… sideline Gaius … „would be killer“ and the lady? Make them targetable NPCs with Dialoge to read. Let them stand somewhere accessible and comment on the latest developement. But ffs don’t give me hour long speeches about how you are going to kill Gaius if he does something you don’t like. The guy could and would wipe the floor with you if he felt like it. -.- So. Please. Shut up.)

Conclusion

Basically. I have to finish the Diamond weapon. But I doubt it will change my perception of this story line even in the slightest.

To be perfectly honest though … bringing Gaius back, having this story with and about him, forcing a sort of redemption ark here. It feels like they are really „grooming“ him to be a morally grey ally in Endwalker, with perhaps a big part to play in the endgame. At this point I wouldn’t even be surprised if they pulled a GoT and made him „King in the North“. Or if they had him die a heroic death to save the world, but especially his country. And to do so they need us to think his sacrifice means something. Or that he is the right person to lead Garlemald into a new future (I don’t think he is). But: For one, neither we (the players) nor the characters need to find him worthy of throne or death by heroism for his sacrifice/ascension to work. To be a useful tool for the story, only the other garleans who might oppose the alliance and scions need to deem him or his sacrifice „worthy“. And only they. And Ishikawa-san has all of 6.0 to accomplish whatever the hell she needs him for. He did not need to be the center of his own botched redemption ark. If that’s what they wanted to do. Or maybe I’m looking at this all wrong and all they wanted was to give the writes in training some literal training grounds to test their abilities.

But! On a positive note: I have yet to be told that raids and other side content are canon to any degree. So when playing the next story quests I’ll blissfully ignore all that happened in Werlyt and if it get’s mentioned (because they do that sometimes when you’ve done certain content) I’ll just ignore it.

Happy ignoring! Also: GIVE ME MORE NERO CONTENT!

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persephunee · 4 years ago

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LETS TALK “IT’S OKAY TO NOT BE OKAY” AKA, PSYCHO BUT IT’S OKAY

There is so much I want to say about this kdrama that I think some of it is going to have to be in dot points because I don’t know how else to string my thoughts cohesively. After watching episode 9, it’s further cemented how much I love this drama, how amazing I think the entire crew behind it is, and how I think this drama is such a huge step in the right direction in creating conversation about not just mental illness, but what it means to be human. It tests/pushes the viewers compassion and empathy constantly to show us just how important it is to break stereotypes. Do not get me wrong, I don’t think it’s absolutely 100% the PERFECT depiction of mental illness however you have to give it some leeway as mental illness is such a vast topic to cover and ultimately everyones experiences with mental health is going to be different.

Disclaimer: If you have watched this drama and find certain things offensive, or interpret things different to my opinion I understand. Everything I say here is what I think and feel and everyones entitled to disagree. I also love to discuss things in depth so please feel free to reply with your own thoughts!!

THE ENDING SCENE WAS SUCH AN emotional punch in the gut. The way they used the running joke of the show (where the characters ask who someone loves more and don’t get answer) as a build up to this climax where Sang Tae’s emotions that he’s been internalising, explodes is just... see you know that this is going to happen but the WAY they did it was phenomenal? You felt Sang Tae’s pain. And even though prior to this you can assume that he was traumatised from that event and Kang Tae’s words, it was both amazing and excruciatingly heartbreaking to see him finally verbalise this and release all this pent up resentment. He loves his brother so much and he feels so much pain thinking that the only family he has left wants him dead. It puts into perspective all the scenes where he’s terrified of Kang Tae being angry with him. Because he’s terrified his brother will hate him so much and leave him to drown just like he did that day.

Kang Tae on the other hand... I don’t even know how to express how much empathy I have for him and how much his breakdown broke my heart. Kang Tae loves his brother. He never meant what he said when they were kids and to this DAY he feels excruciating guilt over almost leaving his brother to drown. He loves his brother and he never meant the words he said, he was a child who was exhausted carrying a burden and expectations that he never should have had in the first place. He has spent every day since then to atone for it, and just when he’s beginning to feel that he can be his own person and forgive himself, the source of his guilt pain and trauma is thrown back in his face. His devotion to Sang Tae was not just a product of his mother, but his over whelming guilt for what he said (and almost did) to Sang Tae. Kang Tae deserves to forgive himself but it’s so painful to watch the process unfold because he has to address the trauma/feelings before he can make any move to forgiveness.

also a little side note on Moon Young and the fact that she shed tears watching.

It will be interesting to see how the show handles this. Both brothers love each other. Sang Tae needs to forgive Kang Tae and find a way to not only trust him again but understand him. And Kang Tae needs to find a way to ultimately forgive himself and make things right with his brother.

I also saw someone mention kang tae using the butterfly method on himself and EXCUSE ME WHILE I GO CRY. I will credit that person who noticed it (x)

wow... that’s already a lot so rest of my thoughts are under the cut !

The writers of this show have done an amazing job to make sure everything has a purpose. All the characters are important to the story and they aren’t just there for the sake of filling screen time. For EG: that guy who started the rumour at the end of the episode about Kang Tae + Moon Young and them getting married. He wasn’t just someone we haven’t come to know. In fact in one episode he was even a character who illustrated how employees at psychiatric hospitals/wards can be overworked etc. and how that can affect a person. His characterisation as well is spot on. I hate him fo what he did episode 9, but when you look at the way he would gossip and judge the patients unprofessionally in previous episodes it grounds his character more. It wasn’t OCC for him to do, and so it feels less like he’s just a catalyse to propel the story forward, and more organic.

I was also immensely happy this episode that the couple who fell in love at the hospital (Areum and Jung Tae), parted ways. I was so happy the writers didn’t just try to get off easy by showing them eloping together (or continuing a relationship). He was mature enough to realise they were not ready, that he had a lot more work to do before they can enter a healthy relationship. This show heavily leans on fairytales and could have easily gone the Disney route of showing them happy together as if they didn’t have more healing and growth to do. The writers said no NOT today sir!

Coming back to Kang Tae and MoonYoung. THE KISS! I think it’s important to note that Kang Tae initiates the kiss, because all this time Moon Young has been pressuring him and if she were the one to initiate the kiss it would have felt forced and wrong. Kang Tae decided on his terms when he would break down that barrier and reciprocate. I also really loved the parallel of them seeing each other as when they were kids. They’ve been stuck in their trauma, both of them running away or hiding from their past and now time is starting again as they both navigate how to face it. Kang Tae kissing Moon Young wasn’t him saying “I love you” but more a sign that he was taking down his brick wall one piece at a time.

Also appreciated that after the high of getting suspended wore off they showed Kang Tae feeling regret and reassessing his decisions about finally letting go haha. This is an important moment to have, as it shows that you’re not just magically fixed. You don’t just suddenly go from suppressing all your emotions so far down you barely flinch when a knife slices your hand open, to WOOOPY I’M GONNA BE HAPPY NOW AND LET MY EMOTIONS GOO, without having that moment of “oh crap... “ after you’ve come down from the high.

OH JUNG SE DESERVES TO BE RECOGNISED for his acting as Sang Tae because honestly wow. I’ve seen him in other dramas before but he’s shining so bright in this drama and I really hope that not only him, but the other actors and writer and directors get recognition for this.

Another thing I really loved was finally getting to understand more what happened between Moon Young and Juri! It makes sense now why Juri resents her and maybe even is a little scared of her. Juri had every right to have multiple friends, but I can also understand Moon Young feeling betrayed and abandoned. They were kids, and I think this is a case of wanting to fit in with everyone. Juri was given the opportunity to be normal and fit in, and she took it without thinking of how that made Moon Young feel. And Moon Young dealt with her emotions and the situation the only way she knew how. THIS ALSO BTW IS A NICE PARALLEL TO Sang Tae and how he wants Kang Tae to only be close to him )albeit for different reasons but yes). MoonYoung on a level understands Sang Tae’s need to keep Kang Tae to himself because she’s felt similar emotions before.

Okay but I also love how this show illustrates taking 2 steps forward and one step back is okay. Healing and growth is not always linear and you’re going to stumble, fall back, and relapse and that is okay. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to take 2 steps forward again, or 3, or 4. It’s all part of the process, and part of being human.

Ugh omg there is so much more I want to say but I should probably end this post here. I think I need a whole other post just to discuss the dynamics between Moon Young, Sang Tae, and Kang Tae. If you read this far CONGRATULATIONS. You’re a star hahaha

#psycho but it’s okay #iotnbo #psycho but it's okay #pbio #thoughts... lots of htem #i just love this drama so much #kdrama #drama

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mrs-nate-humphrey · 4 years ago

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So I have a curious question: as both a writer and someone who genuinely seems to care about Dan Humphrey and his character arc, how would you handle the concept of a "dark!Dan" arc, given the chance? As much as I HATE Dan's season 6 storyline and Sara Goodman's handling of the "dark!Dan" thing, I can't help but feel that there's a small nugget of something interesting there. S6!Dan was clearly written just to prop up Chuck, but I wonder what might have been if the writers still cared about Dan.

this is actually a difficult one to answer, mostly because i have too many thoughts. well, here’s to trying! (to the surprise of Nobody, this got pretty long!)

uh so, the thing i noticed about dan on first watch but became even more clear while i was rewatching certain episodes is that he’s very... passive isn’t the right word, nor is tolerant, but at the same time, something along those lines? dan keeps quiet when people hurt him or disappoint him - he doesn’t really do anything with that hurt. notable example is vanessa’s coming back? vanessa tries to pick up where they left off, and dan sorta goes along with it to the extent where both jenny and rufus need to tell vanessa that things aren’t how they were before when she left + that she actually really hurt dan - because dan isn’t telling her this himself.

basically, dan seems to be, by nature, VERY non-confrontational.

given this, i feel like dan’s whole exposé thing in s6 is very out of character - being like “oh yeah i’m going to actively ruin the lives of the people around me and show no remorse!” feels super uncharacteristic to dan, especially out of the blue like that.

when it comes to “tolerance” - i don’t know what better word to use, but throughout the show we see a few instances in which dan spends time with people he doesn’t like, for his own benefit or simply because it’s easier than getting out of that situation. for example, him hanging out with chuck for the charlie trout story, despite regarding chuck with the highest distaste - he puts all that aside because he needs that story, and he’s determined to get it, because he wants to succeed so badly. to some extent, i think that is bad writing (i don’t see dan forgiving someone who hurt jenny that easily or that casually) but at the same time it does fit in with the rest of dan’s character - imo he forgives georgina too easily in the s3 arc, which. does he really believe that she’s changed? maybe! but it feels weird to me because it’s like, while dan seems to have such high morals for himself he doesn’t really care what his friends are like, which i think is INTERESTING.

based on how you interpret the show canon, dan i think has had somewhere between 1 and 5 friends before the whole thing with serena, & most of these friends are his family (which is sad, i mean. rufus is rufus, alison LEFT, and jenny’s his little sister so there’s definitely things he can’t possibly talk to her about) or vanessa, who left pretty abruptly and hurt him pretty badly. i think given this, it makes sense that he would get into really weird and unhealthy friendships, because he doesn’t have much experience with healthy friendships and ends up just settling.

when we’re talking about dark!dan, these two things become super essential to me - dan’s non-confrontational slightly passive attitude to his friends, and the fact that he, potentially, could get in unhealthy friend groups and not realise it. i joke a lot about how the dan & georgina dynamic in s6 was my favourite part of the season, but it’s not actually a joke!! i can see how like. dan is still “friends” with georgina, and georgina loves to call the shots, and dan doesn’t mind doing what he’s being told. georgina for the most part seems sympathetic to dan’s problems, and dan, enabled by that friendship and her being there with him, goes and causes absolute havoc. sounds right! like, not the exposés themselves, but just the fact that someone needed to Be There Encouraging Dan to be Bad - i think That’s how it’d start.

i can imagine dan getting in with the wrong group of people, or whatever - like, dan having friends like s1 carter baizen. and it’d start innocently enough, like “oh these kids who are millionaires and billionaires don’t ever face any consequences for their actions and end up treating people from other class brackets like shit” and evolve into something like dan scamming nate at poker out of spite, and then realising that he’s in this group wayyy too deep, because, yes, he hates the rich kids as a matter of principle, and he’s been bitter about it for a long time, but “isn’t this going a bit too far, guys?” at this point though, much like jenny surrounded by her clique of mean girls, he doesn’t have an easy escape. “no,” carter will say. “we’ve only just begun. do you trust me?” and dan’s friendship is just Like That, which is not great, but he says yes and he means it.

so that’s one possible dark!dan arc i’d give him - joins a group and his intentions at the time aren’t even Inherently bad, and then just gradually slowly finds himself doing worse and worse things. at first it’d be reasonable stuff - maybe he does the anon call to yale that gets blair’s acceptance rescinded, maybe he’d find some way to mess up chuck’s business deal behind the scenes - things he can rationalise away as things they had coming because blair and chuck did something wrong and if they hadn’t, none of this would be able to affect them. then suddenly he finds himself sabotaging serena and nate and he’s like. holy fuck, what is wrong with me? that would be an interesting thing to explore.

another thing - i can’t believe i got this far into this response without mentioning jenny. but: jenny.

dan’s canonically not too pissed off about people treating him terribly. it’s what he’s used to, and he doesn’t expect any different! jenny, comparatively, is ready to say ‘fuck it’ to everyone and do whatever she wants to do to get what she wants, even if she hurts everybody around her on the way there - but that’s not what this is about, this is about how dan would never react recklessly and maliciously if someone was bad to him. but if someone hurt jenny???

unpopular opinion, but i can see him being gossip girl in THAT very specific context. girls in school are being cruel to his baby sister? he needs to shift the focus away from jenny. he needs to do something to keep his sister safe. so he creates a website, “gossip girl.” he starts blogging about one of the popular girls in his class, serena van der woodsen, because if people are busy sending tips about the girls in his grade, they’ll back off and leave jenny alone. i think if someone hurt jenny really, really badly, dan would basically go, ‘okay, i’m done being a good person’, and running gossip girl or doing something equally big that enables him to hold power over the group of girls who ruined his sister’s life? it could work.

the thing about dan being gossip girl is it makes no sense how the show did it. “a love letter”??? no, no way. dan and serena BOTH know that gossip girl is malicious and cruel and nasty in the early seasons. they both express their distaste/hatred towards the site and whatnot. dan’s “i could just write my way into the story” thing doesn’t sound right to me either, and his whole “i actually secretly wanted to be just like you guys” thing makes me shudder because. hey, whoever wrote s6, did you even watch your own show?

but dan being gossip girl because he’s bitter about the dynamics in high school, the privilege a few groups of people have, because he sees girls like jenny being treated terribly and harassed and pressured and coerced into things they don’t want to do, and he’s like, this is fucked up, why is nobody doing anything about this, what if i did something about this - and he starts gossip girl hoping that it’ll show people how none of their “friends” are really their friends, or that it’ll just form some sort of consequence for kids who never face consequences... like, i can see THAT happening and i think that’d be interesting to explore for a character like dan, especially if at some point jenny gets to like. smack him in the face with a handbag or something and go “you’re so righteous! you only made things worse with your stupid gossip site, dan!” and he’s like oh shit. but he doesn’t know what to do at that point - he’s been running the site for like 3 or 4 years and he doesn’t know who he is without it.

dan being gossip girl also makes sense given his non-confrontational nature - he can cause conflict without getting involved directly in the conflict, so it’s comfortable for him.

okay, so! wow, this got long, but you must’ve known that it would when you sent me this ask, haha. to summarise:

dan is very non-confrontational and often tolerant of the wrong people, this could be explored in a certain direction such as if he allied with toxic and dangerous people

dan never really fights for himself, but he’s naturally a protective person, so if something were to happen to jenny, i see that as the most major and natural incentive for a dark!dan arc.

wow, everything i said fits into 2 bullet points! who would’ve thought.

#gossip girl #anon #dan humphrey #meta #finally a nuanced take from me about this dude!!!#idk what to say like #dan isn't necessarily my favourite character #but he's the one i am most naturally symphathetic? emphathetic? to #i do genuinely like his character a lot #and i've always been fascinated by like #for the most part all gg characters aren't inherently good or bad #it's a lot more complicated than that #of course there are exceptions #but im not going there in the tags fdlflkhlkfdhl #long post

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reachexceedinggrasp · 4 years ago

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Fated to Love You here reaffirming my long held conviction that no pure romance drama should be 20+ episodes.

This show is... really something. It is, in the fullest possible sense, A Lot. It starts out as an all-out screwball comedy wrapped around a troperiffic romance fluff plot. Wall to wall clichés, but not in a bad way; in a meta, self-aware, peak performance, finest Velveeta way. And if you’re not familiar with screwball comedy, think ‘light-hearted crack fic with slapstick and farce’. There is nothing believable or grounded about any aspect of it, it starts at Bonkers Level: Platinum and it only climbs higher as it goes on.

(On a side note, this results in the leading man being possibly the most memorable love interest in romcom history. His introduction scene is nothing short of batshit insane and you can't reliably predict how he will respond to anything. I have never seen a main character like this, he is all over the shop and utterly singular. Your first reaction to him is ‘wtf?’, your second and third reactions are ‘really?! this guy??’, your fourth reaction is ‘okay he do be mad hot tho’, your fifth and final reaction is ‘I cannot believe this performance exists, I have no idea what he is doing, but it is amazing.’

Appropriately(?) the actor who plays him is an uncanny Korean doppelgänger of Johnny Depp and- between the resemblance, the mannerisms, and the fearless total commitment to a bold as fuck acting choice with the very serious chops to back it up- I’m not convinced they aren’t half brothers separated at birth.

They do sabotage my happiness several times by starting to randomly style his (long, beautiful) hair very weird, fixing it right when the plot is rapidly circling the drain so he looks his hottest just as the show becomes briefly unwatchable, and then ruining him for the entire second half of the series by shearing it all off. WHY, my anguished cry goes up. Why do you do this?! Why does he have like seven hairstyles over the course of the show? Much later they even briefly give him that ubiquitous Kdrama Second Lead haircut with weirdly forward combed fringe in a solid straight line across the brow all the way back from the crown. It looks terrible on everyone and I hate it so much. This version was less bad than most but it is still bad. Anyway.)

So it’s an incredibly fun time to start but there are some problems with the tone and plot even in the first 9 episodes, including when the lovers start getting along really well right away and they’re both thoroughly decent people so there’s nothing keeping them from having a lovely time together making the best of the circumstances (forced/fake marriage). And, instead of introducing new conflict or advancing one of the dozen conflicts previously established and actually moving forward, there is a painfully contrived rehash of something they already dealt with which is then just never resolved. They make the hero leap to a conclusion his wife is nefarious after he’d already decided once that she isn’t (though it was completely reasonable for him to think she was- the fact that he decided to trust her so quickly just speaks to what kind of person he is), never try to find out more or talk to anyone about it, start pushing her away because of it, and have all this come to absolutely nothing. It only exists so he’ll stop being so incredibly nice to her and they won’t fall in love too fast.

You’d think they would have to eventually clear the air before the romance advances right? No. It wasn’t a real plot point, it was just a reset button to get them estranged and hostile again after they connect over their kindred spirits and we’ve spent a bunch of time showing how profoundly supportive and honourable our hero is. He’s being beautifully mature and selfless because he’s a really good dude (unusual for a romcom drama, right? for the main guy to be nice and considerate? to accept responsibility even if he doesn’t have to? Gun’s weird but he’s wonderful), but the writers need him to be cold and standoffish, so they just make him act like an unreasonable idiot for a while. He’s been thus far hugely proactive and direct and honest about everything, it’s one of his most prominent character traits, but suddenly he’s going to avoid confrontation in favour of being super passive aggressive?? Then the writers never solve it. Never! It just goes away. He got over it, I guess? He decided he doesn’t care if she’s a gold digger who deliberately trapped him? God forbid we have motivations that make sense and organic character drama, right? It's not like he didn't have totally valid reasons to be suspicious that could have led to legitimate conflict our heroine would struggle to vindicate herself from.

But anyway, apart from that kind of lazy bullshit, it’s a fine romance plot with extremely endearing characters who have great chemistry. They are fun and well-rounded and incredibly human despite all the silliness and OTT antics. Their relationship is hugely, hugely engaging and the dynamic is perfect, they really complement each other as characters and organically drive each other's arcs. There's the genuine depth and warmth and quiet pathos so often lacking from this kind of show. Things progress at a semi-reasonable pace. They work up to confessing their mutual feelings and get into some cute shenanigans before making out. It happens soon enough that you are not frustrated, but there's still plenty of build-up. Then- uh oh! We’re only 9 eps in and we have another 11 hours to fill with this fluffy plot!

Time for a bunch of absolute fucking nonsense. Time for our show, which has been so goofy and removed from reality it occasionally resembles a Monty Python skit, which has been so light it asks you to ignore the frankly incredibly fucked up implications of its premise for the sake of comedy (they were both drugged and proxy raped resulting in a pregnancy- the FL was a virgin prior to this and Gun had a girlfriend he wanted to propose to- and it was the FL’s family who did this to them: SUPER FUCKED UP), so farcical that it makes Some Like it Hot look like a gritty crime drama, that show to cover a bunch of serious heavy shit.

First, the rankest of melodrama. The families and the world all turn on our couple, but their love is true and will conquer all- UNTIL, he randomly collapses and gets convenient Soap Opera Amnesia. He’s forgotten their entire relationship and a series of coincidental pieces of misconstrued evidence, the machinations of his scheming ex girlfriend, the Soap Opera Doctor’s advice, and his closest confidants all going along with this conspire to make him believe (AGAIN) that his wife just wants his money.

This whole terrible episode is mercifully brief, but it just gets worse after his memory returns. This is where we get into the Noble Idiocy. The ‘pretend you don’t love them to “save them” from getting hurt by hurting them and making their important life decisions for them as if they don’t have a basic fucking right to decide that themselves’ kind. Which goes on for three FUCK years in the show. He wastes three years of their lives they could have spent together because he’s worried he might die young (in a terrible way) and doesn’t want to put her through that. And, of course, they inevitably get together later, so all he did was make it infinitely worse for her either way. To say nothing of how he thus couldn’t be there for her through the loss of their child. Possibly my most hated fucking trope of all time when done this way.

And, yep, you read that right. This show that has the single most batshit bonkers over the top slapstick I have ever seen in a kdrama, this show has a storyline where the fluffy romcom trope accidental pregnancy ends in massive trauma. Because she was standing around in the street after realising he does remember her (he continued to pretend he had amnesia after his memories came back, it’s all part of the stupid noble idiocy so I glossed over it) and gets hit by a car in the middle of their angst staring.

It is nearly Meet Joe Black levels of hilariously abrupt and incongruous.

so, blah blah, they lose their baby (there’s a very stupid whole thing about her telling everyone to save the baby instead of her- the baby is not far enough along for this to have been remotely viable. She is like 3 months pregnant. They all act like there’s a choice to be made between them and she’s mad at her husband for choosing to save her, but there was NO CHOICE. Either she lives or they both die! ffs I’m so irritated about this) and then he dumps her ~for her own good~~ because he loves her too much to make her go through losing him? So she loses him sooner?? right after their baby died???

Why do people in these stories always think being betrayed and abandoned for no reason and being incredibly angry at someone you love while also not getting to be with them is somehow less painful than making the best of your life together and then losing them against their will? ‘I will make her hate me and then she won’t be sad we broke up/I died!!!!’ is such a fucking galaxy brain take and I despise it with the heat of ten thousand suns. Fuck you, Spider-Man. You aren’t protecting anyone, the villains still know you love MJ and will still use her against you, you clod. Emotionally torturing the person you love is not going to make them not a target because the villains are not as fucking stupid as you two. Anyway.

Amnesia was right where I started fast-forwarding and skipping around (because I couldn’t bear it), but it only goes downhill from there. Maybe I would have toughed out more of the wretched middle part plot twist if they hadn’t cut all the hot guy’s hair off. If I’m going to watch total nonsense tedious melodrama, I need it to at least be pretty. I understand it was a Symbolic Haircut but damnit! Let me have this!

And it ultimately does the thing that kdramas seem obsessed with and which makes me want to claw out my own eyeballs with frustration. There’s a giant time skip, the female lead gets a personality transplant, all narrative momentum is lost, and the characters who eventually (at ENORMOUS length) get together permanently are essentially completely different characters with a completely different dynamic than the couple you were shipping for 90% of the story. It is so FUCKING unsatisfying and it is EVERYWHERE.

Not so much with this one because this one still had a lot of very romantic scenes late in the game, but most that do this, it’s also like all the romance is sucked out of the post-time skip episodes and the ending is a consolation prize instead of a triumphant culmination. Inevitably, the heroine abruptly cools off and is suddenly wary of the hero and wants this Important New Career she never mentioned until the penultimate episode but is now her one true life’s dream. What the apparently irresistible appeal is of these contrived separations and demure conclusions is I CANNOT FATHOM. I’m here for the fucking romance guys, you have not made Citizen Kane, please just indulge me with a big schmoopy finale.

And if not that, it’s frequently that there’s been so many random mood swings and so much shitty behaviour by the end that the relationship doesn’t make sense and you don’t know why they even bother to get back together.

I’m not inherently against all misunderstandings (they are the bread and butter of low stakes romance let’s be real) or attempts at noble idiocy from misguided characters, but the duration and seriousness of the drama these generate needs to be in proportion to how ridiculous they are. If your entire plot can be solved by a thirty second conversation there is NO REASON not to have and the continuation of the misunderstanding is a result of someone just NOT SPEAKING UP when any functional human being would have spoken up seven times by now IT’S BAD.

Do little cliff-hangers, whatever, but don’t draaaaagg out silly misconceptions into Shakespearean tragedy, it’s just wearying. It makes me hate the characters for acting like emotionally constipated toddlers with terminal stupidity. If there is so little trust, so little understanding, and so little basic patience between these people, they probably shouldn’t be dating, so try fucking harder, writers. And noble idiocy that is more than an impulse they fairly quickly see the error of is just insulting. You are not helping the other person, you are being domineering and selfish. I have a whole complex about wasting time and seeing endless parades of characters flushing years down the toilet for literally no reason gives me hives. Especially when the whole issue is about time!

(And, btw, so much of the plot is about how desperately the family needs an heir and everyone still wanting them to have kids the second time they get together- while the ~dilemma used to keep them apart is a GENETIC DISEASE which could STRIKE AT ANY TIME. Do you SEE THE PROBLEM WITH THIS WRITERS????? NO, I KNOW YOU DON’T. ommmmmmmmggggg that’s awful! So they’re just dooming more kids to Soap Opera Brain Disease? And maybe growing up without a father just as Gun did? And no one even considers suggesting adoption??? He never considers that he shouldn’t have biological children despite thinking he shouldn’t have a wife?)

ANYWAY. Please do watch the first nine episodes and the last three, it’s bananas. They are cute as fuck, Gun is The Best, and the tropey romance scenes are top quality. You don't get those things executed so well, it doesn't happen, so you need this in your life. The acting is of a calibre you never usually see in modern romcoms; these are people at the top of their game committing utterly and taking these characters completely seriously. In that way it is pure wish fulfilment for me as someone who loves romance and is almost always disappointed by popular romance media, and thus the show is incalculably special. But skip the middle. Just skip it. It's not worth the suffering. I find the tone whiplash honestly just this side of crass.

I’ve been thinking about it for over a week and I truly love the main characters so it did plenty right, but I just cannot with wedding the two things this show is trying to be together, especially when it goes so hard in two mutually exclusive directions. but also the Meet Joe Black sudden car accident device is not redeemable under any circumstances. Can we never do that again, please.

#fated to love you #kdrama #jang hyuk #writing

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ayyponine · 4 years ago

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litlerally no one asked but anyway. personal fan fiction tropes tier list

with full explanation bc if my friends and i had a power point party rn this would be my topic id subject them all to but bc of covid protecting them from my Opinions this is the only way to vent so

top tier: it’s about!! the mutual pine baby. its all about the oh i mustnt over step anything and make them uncomfortable :// stupid idiots over thinking and being sO considerate of each other that no ones willing to ruin the amicable bond by admitting they actually want to be held and possibly railed. its abt the hurt/comfort and yearning but not feeling like theyre ALLOWED anything too close to genuine affection until theres the baffled incredulous joy of clear mutual confirmation (with or without tearing up over unnecessary drama the entire confusion had caused) and then its gO time baby. things like amnesia and fake dating are specific examples of that bc it’s like oh theres more going on there than the other person is aware of in this dynamic but i cant i.. i mustnt, not until they verbally confirm they also want smth more which ofc is never going to happen so i shall be resigned to my fate of burning fiercely yet quietly for them.. sex pollen/fuck or die is a fun one to throw in there to make it spicy bc then you get repressed idiots suddenly HAVING to confront the mutual lusting like ohh nooo you only want me because of the drugs or pollen or whatever i mUSTNT take advantage of you in this fragile compromised state and the other one is like.... hghghgh im horny for you SPECIFICALLY and have been for MONTHS

2nd: yeah theyre alright. solid, reliable, approved. cant say i have much experience w arranged marriage (thats a trope? thats an entire genre in the fan community?) but ive read some thatre like what how can YOU be my soulmate? or fake relationship stuff where it slow burns into a deeper appreciation fr the other and getting to know/love them in full as they both learn to grow comfortable w opening up to letting that be discovered so eh ill take it. last three tropes in that row are more of those concrete situations that’ll like force a mutual pine/underlying thoughts to surface or to least have some personal realisations percolating in the build up to an eventual confession but i havent read a lot of those in a while and lbr drunken confessions are a lil sad and worrying, not quite as hot and straightforward as dude you either fuck.... or you DIE

mid tier: these are all so vague and could mean a million different things depending on the concrete material & pairing as well as how the writer gets it all down yknow. 100% depends on the fic summary in question. might fuck around and find out. if the historical genre in question is a regency au it might get bumped up a tier... we love bitches misunderstanding an advance at the ball or a chance meeting during an afternoon walk, hair tousled and face flush with the exercise. insert gif of 2020 emma mr knightley flinging his coat off and lying on the fuckng floor overcome

4th: idk i think if you fuck w it too much it gets too removed frm canon and becomes its own entirely new thing so i lose interest. w crossovers i think it’s either i don’t know the other thing referenced, i don’t care enough to see the things merged as an au, or i feel like ive already seen enough of that one specific trope people will copy and paste frm the other medium and it’s just like.. meh.. i’ll fuck with fluff or smth dark on a rare occasion but both of em can make me uncomfortable so it rlly depends on my mood of the day tbh

bottom tier: watch me put crack and humor in the “fuck no” category because im not here to have fun i didnt come here to make friends. college and school is also out because i am an entire 28 yr old so either it’s about characters all more than 10 yrs my junior being minors with high school crushes and fighting w their parents or there’s some typa fucky power dynamics going on which, having BEEN sort of a teacher at some point in life, just has me like, lol ew no... even if theyre both college teachers im just like listen i dont care abt academia. imma look fr my faves having cooler au jobs like tattoo artist, gardener, body guard, phone sex operator, marine biologist the wORLD is my oyster man... anyway miss me with the truly heart breaking shit like str8 up death like thats the single quickest way to get me out. unrequited/love triangles is allowed only when it ends in some type of poly revelations but if people end up sad and alone i’ll pass. cute domestic fluff involving raising a child MIGHT make the reading list but i’ll take single parent with kid SUPER enthusiastically rooting fr them to get with the sweet and genuine kindergarten teacher/local barista/new neighbour any day of the week over an entire pregnancy and giving birth thing thanks. also established relationship? very bottom of the barrel fr me personally. we love bitches getting together. we love introspection, working up to a confession and the joy and relief of getting to that first kiss babey thats what its abOUT

#this probably speaks fr itself bc i got hurt/comfort and huddling fr warmth etc etc up there but #sometimes ill get a real craving fr sickfic and hanahaki. its about the pining. its about the intricate rituals. its abt finally being Held #theres probably other tropes i like/dislike but cant think of anything else rn so eh. but feel free to ask

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timeagainreviews · 4 years ago

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Reappraising Companions

Years after having watched every available episode of Doctor Who, I've had plenty of opportunities to rewatch episodes time and time again. As with most movies and television, I've found revisiting certain stories and eras has caused me to see them in a different light. A story I may have once reviled is suddenly more interesting. I even came to appreciate Peter Davison's performance as the Fifth Doctor for its subtle nature. But what about companions? Are there any companions I didn't care for at first, which I've softened toward over time? That is the question I wish to explore.

Below I've chosen a selection of companions of whom I had initially disliked for various reasons. They span across multiple eras and both the classic and modern versions of the show. With each companion, I have endeavoured to be fair in my reappraisal, but this doesn't mean I've changed my mind. I would also like to state that none of these appraisals are about the actors. My goal is to evaluate companions by the way they were written. The performance will come secondary.

1. Danny Pink

I chose Danny Pink to kick this list off because he is the reason I am writing this article in the first place. Recently, I took to rewatching a selection of Danny Pink episodes, in hopes that I may find something I didn't initially see. When Samuel Anderson was cast as Danny, I was excited. I've always been a big fan of male companions. They offer a different dynamic to the TARDIS that we don't often get to experience. However, in the wrong hands, they can be exhausting. Enter Steven Moffat.

When Steven Moffat took the reins of Doctor Who, he introduced us to Rory Williams. A smart, loyal, and combative male companion, not at all enamoured with the Doctor's mystique. At his worst, Rory was made to compete with the Doctor for Amy's affection. At his best, Rory held the Doctor accountable for the lives he brought aboard the TARDIS. With Danny, I felt like this is what Moffat was trying to do again, but this time, it wasn't as successful.

When we're introduced to Danny, we watch him and Clara fumble over their words like teenagers. It's meant to be cute, but their chemistry is non-existent. It feels like watching an episode of Coupling, in that it's painful and causes me to scan the room for exits. Their adorkable awkwardness is supposed to endear us to their relationship, but it seems forced. This is compounded when the Doctor enters the equation. Forcing Danny to fight for something very few of us in the audience believe in the first place.

Once again we find the male companion being forced to compete with the Doctor for the affection of a woman. But in this instance, instead of holding the Doctor accountable, Danny seems to hold the Doctor in contempt. Coming from his own history of military training and PTSD, Danny projects all of his inner struggles onto the Doctor. Which is unfortunate, as Danny's inner turmoil is his most humanistic trait. This wouldn't be the first time in Moffat's era where the Doctor's nature as a hero was called into play. The problem with Danny's appraisal of the Doctor as a general, barking orders, is that he's wrong. And we as an audience know it.

Not only do we know it, but so does the Doctor. The Doctor even gets a character arc over the identity crisis Danny gives him, wherein he realises Danny is wrong about him. Danny, however, never comes around to the Doctor's side. Even in his final moments on screen, he remains combative with the Doctor, in an exhausting refusal to grow as a character. We're supposed to believe he's come to some sort of character growth of self-acceptance by sacrificing his chance at a new life, for the life of a boy he mistakenly killed. Instead, he carries the same chip on his shoulder to his grave.

Danny is a companion wholly failed by writing. Even at his most heroic, it seems in service of making the Doctor look like a buffoon. His mimicking a soldier while yelling in the Doctor's face is embarrassing for everyone involved. Imagine this is your boyfriend meeting your friends. You would be mortified by his behaviour. Now imagine you have to lie about hanging out with your friends because it might make your boyfriend upset. Now imagine this friend is a very dashing person who constantly puts the lives of others before him. Danny and Clara's courtship is a romance by gaslight.

2. Clara Oswald

Clara is a whole other can of worms. I could probably dedicate an entire article to her character. I should clarify that my initial dislike for her character is somewhat mired in personal disappointment. By the time Clara was introduced, we had seen a string of modern human companions. We got the occasional tertiary companions from the future, such as Captain Jack or River Song. But we hadn't had a main companion from the past, future, or another planet. So when Jenna Coleman was introduced as Oswin Oswald, Junior Entertainment Manager of the starliner Alaska, I was very excited. Finally, a companion from the future! I was so ready for the Doctor to go on a quest to save Oswin from the cruel fate of becoming a Dalek. What an exciting storyline that was going to be.

And then we see her as governess Clara Oswin Oswald. Ok... Well at least she's still from a different era, right? Oh, she's dead now too? Oh. Much like Moffat's Dracula, all of this great promise was suddenly dashed against the rocks of a contemporary setting. Sigh. I was so excited. What we're given in “The Bells of St. John,” is a new character with less direction than either Oswin or the governess before her. So much that Moffat had taken to literally modulating her brain with an app. Maybe she's really good with computers now? Sorry friends, much like Rose Tyler's gymnastics and Peri Brown's botany, it's never going to come up again.

And this is the biggest issue I have had with Clara Oswald. She spends most of her screen time fluctuating between what character they're writing her as this week. The writers simply didn't know what to do with her while the Doctor tried to figure out why she's so "impossible." One week she's wacky, one week she's stern, another week she's bisexual queer bait. Her characterisation is all over the charts, which sadly, tracks with her entire storyline. She's a woman, fragmented across time, and so is her personality. And don't even get me started on that impossible girl nonsense.

Steven Moffat once said in an interview that one or two people usually guess his big reveal ahead of time, but that no one had guessed Clara's. Perhaps that's because nobody's fan theory was "It's going to be absolute shite." Instead of just being a woman who gets to be her own person, she has to become the most importantest companion. She has to save the Doctor by being planted throughout his timeline, saving him from the Great Intelligence. You know, by sometimes being born as herself, and other times being born as a Time Lord. Sometimes knowing who the Doctor is, other times having no idea whatsoever. Sometimes having a name that is a play on of Oswald, or Oswin, or Clara. And at no times did it make any kind of sense.

The funny thing is, that for me at least, Clara's character doesn't really become interesting until all of that nonsense is behind her. The Clara I find most compelling is the Clara in mourning. Clara post-Danny Pink is a Clara with focus. Her mood swings seem more from a place of destructive behaviour in the wake of great loss. Watching her hold the TARDIS keys hostage above a volcano was some seriously gripping stuff. Aside from the gross digs at her appearance, I found the Twelfth Doctor's relationship with Clara far more endearing than that of the Eleventh Doctor. It may have taken them until her final moments as a companion, but they did get her right, in the end.

3. Melanie Bush

Back in 2015, I had the opportunity to meet Louise Jameson, who played Leela, my all-time favourite Doctor Who companion. I also got to meet Colin Baker, who was all charm. Also in attendance was Bonnie Langford, aka, Doctor Who's Mel. After having gotten autographs from Louise and Colin, and having circled the convention hall a few times, I decided "Sure, why not. Let's meet Bonnie Langford. It's only 10 quid for an autograph." Upon meeting her, she was a very kind woman, and even still, I was racking my brain for something nice to say about Mel. To save face, I lied a very simple lie. I said, "I really liked you in Doctor Who." She smiled, said thank you, and signed my picture. And I walked away, taking my shitty liar mouth with me.

Because the fact is, I didn't like her in Doctor Who. I found every moment she was onscreen excruciating. From her poodle haircuts, to her 80's disaster attire, to her fat-shaming the Sixth Doctor, to her constant screaming at every little thing, she depressed me. I spoke in my review of "Terror of the Vervoids," just how weird it was that we're never actually introduced to her as a character. Instead, Peri is written off, and suddenly, Mel is there, already chummy with the Doctor. You guys know Mel, she's the Doctor's friend, because we told you she was! Instead of getting to know Mel slowly, we're thrown into the deep end, forced to sink or swim within the curls of red hair piled high. Mel doesn't just come out of nowhere, she comes on strong. Fitness expert Mel here to get your fat Doctor Who loving asses into shape. Drink this carrot juice you geek pig!

Not even in Big Finish audios was I finding myself warming up to Mel. When Ace was introduced, they couldn't have pushed Mel out quicker. I found everything about Ace immediately refreshing. Here was a calm and collected badass rebel that I could get behind. It's ironic then; that it was in the Seventh Doctor era that I have begun to find something likeable in Mel. Much like Clara Oswald, a changing of Doctors enriched my appreciation for her character. This appreciation didn't come immediately, mind you, it came about around my third or fourth watch-through of "Paradise Towers."

Perhaps it's the influence of Andrew Cartmel, but with the Seventh Doctor, I have begun to appreciate Mel in the snarkiest manner. Mel is best utilised as a commentary on the Doctor/Companion relationship. She's precocious to a fault, she chews scenery, she screams at the drop of a hat, and she is oftentimes a naive idiot. Yet in "Paradise Towers," it becomes hilarious. Like much of the 80's era of Doctor Who, there is a very "2000 AD," atmosphere to the stories, and I could easily see this as a setting for Judge Dredd to drudge through, busting skulls and filling bodies with bullets. Setting the sunshiny persona of Mel against this backdrop is so brilliant that I can't imagine another companion in this story. Where she would usually grate against me, her sharp contrast from the things happening around her is exactly why I began to soften toward her.

Not even the ire from the Kangs could shake Mel's confidence, which is oddly what makes her cool. Or "ice-hot," as they would say. For the first time, Mel's headstrong sense of self makes her a rebel. She doesn't need to follow a crowd to feel accepted. Sadly, very few writers were able to find this core to Mel, but it was enough for me to be able to look at her in a different light. I could finally look at Mel and say I did like her in Doctor Who. Even if it was just for a moment, and even if it was somewhat at her expense. From a very cynical perspective, Mel can actually be pretty fun.

4. River Song

I know a lot of you are probably aghast to see River Song on this list, but I assure you, I have my reasons, and they are not without consideration. I should begin by saying some good things about River. She's smart, she's competent, she's got a healthy grasp on her sexuality, and she's cool. Why then did I not like her very much the first few times I watched her? Well, if you hadn't noticed, the bulk of this list are characters written by Steven Moffat, and once again, it all comes down to writing.

We're first introduced to River in the Tenth Doctor two-parter "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead." At first, she's just one of a team of forgettable space scientists on an expedition. However, as she finds out the Doctor is who he is, her entire demeanour changes. Like Mel on steroids, we're given a heaping dose of "Who does this bitch think she is, being all familiar with the Doctor?" Only, instead of it lasting one episode, it's every interaction we have with her character beyond this point. Instead of getting to watch River and the Doctor grow as a couple, we're forced to watch them meet in opposite directions. It is the antithesis of "show, don't tell." Everything about the Doctor and River's relationship is implied. "You're going to love me someday," she promises. Couldn't we just see it play out naturally? Spoilers.

This idea is one that can only really be done on a show like Doctor Who, where things are wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey. The problem is, this doesn't mean that the idea is worth exploring, or even successful. It's made even worse when the relationship implied is one deeper than friendship. The Doctor is famously chaste, married only to his TARDIS and what lies ahead. Because of this, the idea of a person the Doctor will someday trust enough to share his real name and eventually marry carries with it a sizeable amount of convincing. Such a huge shift in the show's dynamic requires a lot of character development. Sadly none of that is to be seen onscreen. Who is Jim the Fish? Who cares? Steven Moffat's joke of "I'll explain later," became painfully prophetic of his time as showrunner.

I've got no complaints about River being a Time Lord, or even her being the child of Amy and Rory. Those elements are fine, really. It's the way in which she is presented which I find most detrimental to her character. I never did buy into the idea that the Doctor loved her as a wife. Their wedding seemed necessary to save the universe, as opposed to a union made out of love. Any kind of enjoyment I've ever gotten out of River stems mostly out of my love for Alex Kingston's performance. Where the show fails to establish her, she more than makes up for in style and substance. I grew to like River Song, despite the show's failure to ground her properly. River grew on me as she always said she would, but by no effort on the part of the writers. River is cool because River is cool, not because it was inferred that she was.

5. Susan

If you’ve followed this blog long enough, you’ll know I’ve already mellowed on Susan. In my reviews of the First Doctor era, I’ve had mostly good things to say about her character. This doesn’t change the fact that I found her utterly irritating at first, and it feels appropriate to talk about it here.

My initial dislike for Susan is a lot like my intial dislike for Clara. A lot of it was wrapped up in my own expectations of the character. Susan is the Doctor’s granddaughter. She is a Time Lord, therefore she should also be brilliant. And we get a lot of that in her first episode. She is mysterious, she’s enigmatic, and she is brilliant. Even her teachers at school found her perplexing. But the show doesn’t continue down that line. In fact, there are times when they make Susan borderline stupid. But how much of this is clouded by my own preconceptions?

For starters, Susan wasn’t a Time Lord. At least, not then. She was just a young girl. She may have been smarter than her fellow students, but this played more into how she was raised. So when the show depicts Susan screaming at every little thing, grabbing her hair dramatically, it smashed apart my mental image of a Time Lord. I couldn’t appreciate that they had her act this way to help sell a bad effect. Oftentimes Susan, like many Doctor Who companions, had her character sacrificed to make the baddies scarier. It was a product of her time, and even still I feel her character suffers for it.

However, one of the things I have discovered through repeat viewings of the First Doctor era is the surprising amount of character development among the TARDIS crew. The Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan all go through deep character development that was sadly often secondary in classic Doctor Who. Before the nature of the Doctor and companions was transient, there was a feeling of a family bond forming. Through this, I have come to find Susan to be a rather deep and sensitive person.

When it comes time to say goodbye to Susan, I can’t say I exactly agreed with the method. The Doctor locking her out and deciding she was mature enough to set out on her own felt hasty. But I would be lying if I didn’t agree that Susan had gone from a little girl to a young woman at that point. When you stop expecting Susan to be the Doctor, and allow her to be a kid, she grows on you instantly.

6. Adric

Let's be honest; it's not really original to hate on Adric. It's nothing new to point out what a bad companion he is, but here we are. Something I constantly endeavour to do on this blog is to be fair. One of my biggest complaints about the Doctor Who fandom is the proprietary attitude people take toward the fandom. The "I don't like it; therefore you shouldn't like it," attitude spat with such vitriol is one of the worst parts about being in the Doctor Who fandom. So when you say "Adric is my favourite companion," I'm not devising an argument for how wrong you are, it's fine. Like who you like. This doesn't mean I'm not also thinking in my head "What? Why?" Because I honestly, without malice, do not understand.

The most I ever enjoyed Adric, was in his introductory story "Full Circle." Setting him against a group of fellow Alzarians dilutes his lesser qualities. In fact, when paired with Varsh, he almost seems likeable. Sadly, we have to say goodbye to Varsh, and it's downhill from there. We're forced to watch a contrarian boy genius butt heads with the Doctor while he waddles around in a toddler's outfit while showing off his pound shop sheriffs badge for "mathematical excellence," to anyone who will listen. Adric is so obnoxious that he makes Wesley Crusher seem likeable in contrast.

However, it's not just his contrarian nature that makes me despise Adric, he's also disloyal to the Doctor and his friends. He's so susceptible to bad ideas as long as they a presented logically, that I've dubbed him the Ben Shapiro of the TARDIS. He's a smarmy little shit who believes himself superior to women, and he's really got no justification for his ill-placed self-confidence. Constantly demanding respect while giving very little reason to deserve it, he's like a poster child for incels. To make matters worse, he's oftentimes wrong and easily duped into taking the side of evil, turning him into more of a liability than an asset.

Recently, the idea that the Thirteenth Doctor could save someone from sacrificing themselves by using the TARDIS at the last moment to save them came under fire. "Why didn't the Doctor do this for Adric?" they said, forgetting conveniently when the Twelfth Doctor did the exact same thing in "Into the Dalek." But yes, why indeed? Why would the Doctor ever let a duplicitous, argumentative braggart die by their own stupid need to solve a math problem? My headcanon is that the Doctor got better at flying the TARDIS. The real reason is that people hated his character. The silence over the credits after Adric dies isn't out of respect for the character. The real reason is that the BBC couldn't secure the rights to Kool and the Gang's "Celebrate Good Times," before it aired.

Listen, I am not unsympathetic toward Matthew Waterhouse. He never should have been given such a big role, considering his utter lack of ability at the time. I imagine it was his own insecurity that fuelled his on-set antics. Giving unsolicited advice to veteran actors is cringey, but also the actions of a young and naive boy, in over his head. I know I said I was going to try and treat the performance as secondary, but in this case, it goes hand in hand. He has the stage presence of a fake. Every moment he's onscreen is disingenuous. The fact that he is present at the death of my favourite Doctor, stinking up the scene is genuine pain to me. If he has been made better in Big Finish, I've not yet heard it. As of now, there is nothing I've seen of Adric that has changed my opinion. But I'm glad if he makes you happy.

#Doctor Who #Danny Pink #samuel anderson #clara oswald #jenna coleman #Melanie Bush #Bonnie Langford #River Song #Alex Kingston #Susan #carole ann ford #adric #Matthew Waterhouse #tardis #bbc #companions

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coliverxxx · 5 years ago

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I just want to say people shouldn’t ignore Bakugo’s character development

Okay, so first of all, why am I writing this? It’s because I feel like a lot of people misunderstand Bakugo and his character. I will not claim to be some great anime analyst. I just watch anime because I enjoy watching anime, and it’s not even like I watch all anime genres. I just watch what my brother had already watched and thought I’d like it, too, since he watches practically all animes and is someone I trust with anime recommendations. He suggested Boku No Hero Academia way back its first season. I read the manga until the camping/Bakugo-napping incident and just last week, I finished watching the third season because the fourth’s going to be up next week, if I’m not mistaken. Going back, I feel like I had to do this because there’s been a great misconception about Bakugo and his character for me.

So let me say this. I am not particularly loving to Bakugo’s sadistic personality, especially towards Midoriya. I don’t tolerate him beating Midoriya and how he said Midoriya should take his own life just because he is quirkless and weak. However, towards the latter events of their intertwined lives, they both got into UA, their dream school, Midoriya got his quirk as All Might’s successor, and Bakugo got kidnapped by the villains, I’m saying if you’re just going to look at Bakugo’s bad personality, then you’re not watching this anime at all.

Midoriya and Bakugo both admire All Might since they were children. Their only difference aside from their opposite pole personalities was that Bakugo got a really strong quirk since he was a child while Midoriya didn’t. Working on that, Midoriya didn’t give up and still quite followed Bakugo even though Bakugo was getting stronger because of his quirk and his personality about winning could have attributed to that, too. And then, suddenly Midoriya got his quirk that made him strong as well. I will just take this moment here to specifically mention that Midoriya didn’t get there just because of All Might’s quirk and how it was already strong only. Sure, the quirk was strong but the quirk didn’t make its user strong. It was quite the opposite, I think, that for it to be strong, the user had to be strong enough to wield it. That’s what all his trainings with All Might was for before he even got into UA (which he still didn’t because he saved Uraraka but we all know how it ended and it ended positively with him getting UA after everything). Meanwhile, Bakugo was stunned because the person who was always tagging behind him was almost walking beside him now. It angered him and deep down, even if he wouldn’t admit it even if his life’s on it, I think it scared him because it was his goal. His life goal was to be the number one hero and to surpass All Might. But suddenly, this weak boy who he knew ever since he was a child, who was always following him behind, no matter how much he hurt him, was getting stronger and it scared him. That’s why I think he seemed particularly hateful towards Midoriya, too. Because he couldn’t show his vulnerability that he was slowly getting scared that Midoriya was catching up to him soon. So he would instead say spiteful things to Midoriya, yell at him, curse him. It definitely was not an admirable thing (not a hero thing as well, I know) but you also have to understand where Bakugo was coming from.

This bothers me because some people were often concentrating only on the fact that Bakugo was such a hateful, mean character in this anime/manga but they would overlook the circumstance of where Bakugo was coming from and why he was like that, which for me was like overlooking the overall story the writer/mangaka was trying to tell here. I think Horikoshi was trying to tell a story of two boys who came from different scenarios but will ultimately both come up as top heroes essentially for being one that is not the other. That’s what I am seeing in this series which is why I like both Midoriya and Bakugo’s dynamic relationship and individual characters. To see Midoriya finally stepping up his game, being more mature in using his power without forsaking his own body, and talking back to Bakugo just because he can now is just as gratifying as seeing Bakugo accept the fact that Midoriya is not powerless anymore, talk to Midoriya about what he can improve with his techniques, and decide that there isn’t really any change with what he has to do and that is to be the number one hero and surpass All Might.

Midoriya and Bakugo’s fight in the third season after the exam was one of the most satisfying fights I had seen with rivals in anime because it answered a lot of questions and bottled up feelings both on Midoriya and Bakugo’s part. Even Midoriya and All Might understood what Bakugo had been carrying ever since he was kidnapped which is why I am extra bothered how some people could not see it, or how they could voluntarily ignore the development of these characters, especially as mentioned, Bakugo’s character.

Now there are excerpts from Midoriya and Bakugo’s fight.

Bakugo: Even though we both admired the same person, why did I end up having to chase after the back of someone who was always behind me? Why did a damn small fry like you get strong and become acknowledged by All Might? Why is it that you became strong but I… Why was I the one who ended All Might?

I just can’t with strong characters suddenly breaking down but this for me is on another whole level. This is admitting that Midoriya is catching up to him (Bakugo even said he was the one chasing after Midoriya now). This is like that point when Bakugo’s dreams are crushed because the person he wanted to surpass “ended” and he thinks it’s because of him. Well, technically, he’s not entirely wrong. I feel like All Might would have fought with All For One regardless but it came earlier than expected because he was kidnapped. He carries the pain of losing his dream, the guilt of ending that hero he always looks up to, the anger of falling behind someone he had always thought is weak, and the sadness that he couldn’t do anything about all of this besides to fight because that’s the only way he knows how to release all these feelings. To be honest, I find it hard to listen to Bakugo talk because we’re not accustomed to him talking, right? He’s mostly cursing even to his supposed friends. But to listen to him talk honestly about everything he’s been carrying himself all this time while crying is just painful for me especially since we’ve always seen him as a strong character. Additionally, I don’t honestly understand how some people are still offended with Bakugo’s language up to this point. He even talks back to his mother (and gets hit nonetheless) but a character don’t just turn compliant just because some people are tired of his nasty remarks. To be honest, I don’t see a story with every single character portrayed as polite and calm. That’s why I like what Kaminari said during the first part of their provisional license exam about Bakugo. His attitude might not be the best but he didn’t use his full power because he didn’t want to accidentally hurt Kirishima or Kaminari while fighting and he might not look like it but he’s actually one of those who are most trying their best to be a hero. And I agree because if this has all been nothing for Bakugo, he wouldn’t feel any of the things I said he felt. It wouldn’t matter to him how Midoriya’s getting strong, or if All Might used up all his power to save him. But you see, all of this meant something to him because of his dream to be the top hero and because as much as some people might not believe it, Bakugo is also a person. Frankly, he’s the same age as Midoriya, and I just felt like it’s unfair how we can understand other characters development but close ourselves off some others.

Midoriya: I mean, normally, if someone keeps looking down on you, you don’t want anything to do with them anymore. But like I said before, because I had nothing at first, along with the parts I hated about you, I saw vividly all the amazing things you could do. You, who had so much that I didn’t have, were an amazing person much closer to me than All Might! It’s because I thought you were amazing that’s why I keep chasing after you!

How do I explain this without offending people? I’m not even writing this for the ship but just read Midoriya’s admiration towards Bakugo which is not exactly unexpected Bakugo doesn’t understand. Before, All Might was practically someone who was out of reach for both of them and Bakugo has always been someone who was strong since they were children. That’s why Midoriya always chased after Bakugo because he admired the strength he didn’t have and even now that he has his own power, he still chased after Bakugo because he wanted to surpass him. I particularly liked that part in their fight when Midoriya realised that he wanted to win this fight with Bakugo because despite all the hateful parts of Bakugo’s personality, he still admired his desire to win (also see that episode where they fight with All Might together and Midoriya just punched the hell out of Bakugo for saying he doesn't care if he’ll lose because Midoriya knows that’s not Bakugo at all) and that in his heart, the image of victory is Bakugo. I feel like that’s such an integral part in the story of this series and All Might’s going to be the one to explain that.

All Might: After being a hero for a long time, I’ve seen that being fixated on victory like you, Young Bakugo, and wanting to save those in trouble like you, Young Midoriya, if either of those feelings is missing, then a hero won’t be able to carry out the justice he wants to carry out. Like how you, Young Midoriya, admired Young Bakuro’s strength, and how you, Young Bakugo, feared Young Midoriya’s heart, now that your feelings are out in the open, I think you both understand. If you both recognize each other and can focus on making each other stronger, then you can save people to win and win to save people, becoming the greatest heroes.

I will just mention here that this is probably what other stories are missing. You see, in the end, there’s no such thing as a sudden power of friendship to save people, unless in that universe, that’s like the ultimate source of thing, okay, and I’m not even going to mention other animes for the sake of this argument but just saying, that not all anime universes have the power of friendship as the ultimate source of salvation and I think this is important to understand for this story. Bakugo’s strength compared to Midoriya’s is still top-notched up to this point of the story where they fight and it’s something Midoriya has to work hard for to catch up with and that’s something we need to understand since Bakugo has had his quirk ever since he was a child whereas Midoriya on the other hand was quirkless until he became All Might’s successor just before he started high school. On the other hand, Bakugo’s personality of plainly just wanting to win was not exactly hero-personality as we had seen on the second part of their provisional license exam and that’s why he failed. Both characters has something to learn from the other. That’s why I think this story is special for laying that out and putting it together. You can’t save people without the proper strength. At the same time, you can’t be a hero without having the heart to save people. It’s like what All Might said. If it’s just one without the other, it’s not going to work out, and that’s why I love Midoriya and Bakugo’s characters, and I feel sad that some people are just ignoring the development of Bakugo’s character because he is such a badmouth (and many more, to be honest, but can we focus on the topic at hand, please).

Lastly, like I said before, I just hope people won’t turn a blind eye and ignore all the character development of Bakugo because of what he did in the past or what he said to Midoriya in the past. I love Midoriya as well but just like how the story progresses and how the characters develop, I feel like as viewers, we should move forward along with all of them as well.

Please keep in mind in that I wrote this after the third season only. All facts and canon that happened after that, I’m still yet to read in the manga (doing that now actually) and see in the anime.

#dekubaku #bakudeku #dkbk #bkdk #boku no hero academia #bnha #bnha analysis #my hero academy #character development #let's not ignore horikoshi's effort please #midoriya x bakugo #deku x kacchan #izuku x katsuki #i honestly didn't even write this for the ship #i'm just sad how bakugo's character development is always getting misinterpreted #just saying

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dorizardthewizard · 4 years ago

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TLNM musings, part 2

Okay, here I ramble about problems with the movie. Ended up adding more stuff since I first wrote this :’P

Screentime and characterisation of the other ninja:

One of the biggest complaints from fans... they're all introduced individually with very different personalities, they’re told they each have a special element they control, making you feel like they should each get some moment to shine and affect the plot of the movie, but then none of that happens. Ultimately you could take out all the ninja and the story would be the same, you don't even necessarily need them for Lloyd's character since his journey of reconnecting with his father and bringing his family together can still work without them. It's so sad because if you read and watch extra material, you can tell thought went into their personalities, but we never get to see this as they're all just lumped together, mostly there to support Lloyd's development.

For someone who hasn't seen the show, it must feel a bit off seeing characters with distinguished personalities and no payoff for it; take Zane for example. Imagine not knowing anything about the characters and seeing one of them is a robot, for some reason? You wonder why he's a robot, what significance that has for the plot and why it's important for his character (I mean they missed a big opportunity to develop Zane from always trying to fit in and seem like a “normal teenager” to accepting that he's different but that that doesn't mean he's less valid), but then this really specific characteristic is never expanded on except for comedy purposes. People probably thought “oh, guess it makes more sense in the show”, but this just detaches viewers and makes them feel like they're missing something if they haven't seen the show beforehand.

Sigh, still gotta give the crew credit for fitting in a load of little subtle details about the ninja, I had to rewatch it a couple of times because there were things I didn’t notice at first, like Kai sliding down a bannister in the Temple of Fragile Foundations and falling off :’D

Group dynamic:

Another thing that bothered me is that the movie isn't that good at making you care about them as a team. They're already established as friends but I wish there were more material showing us how much they care about each other. The Kai hug scene was 10/10 but then when Chen and the other cheerleaders started picking on Lloyd, nobody said or did anything? In merchandise it said Kai is a hothead who isn't afraid to speak up or stand up to people, then show it in the movie! Him and Nya should have been on the verge of tackling that guy to the floor! Ok, I can see Lloyd asking them not to get into fights as it makes people hate him even more and he probably feels guilty if one of the ninja gets into trouble because of him. This would still have given more emotional connection between the characters but we're never shown it, except in the novelisation where Cole tries to block Lloyd from his locker so he doesn't see the insult written on it, I think. But again, we shouldn't have to read/ watch extra material for that.

Instead of moments showcasing the ninja’s friendship and close bonds, we got the opposite- everyone turned on Lloyd incredibly quickly for one mistake. Sure, it was a pretty big one and resulted in Garmadon taking over the city and their mechs being wrecked, but Lloyd was the only one doing anything about Garmadon at the time and he didn't exactly know what the consequences of using the ultimate weapon were; it's not like he knew it could potentially hurt his friends. In fact, how did the ninja know he used it anyway? That would mean they already knew about it and what it could do, yet Lloyd was not told? In which case, how can they blame him?? Damn it Wu, why couldn't you just tell Lloyd that using the weapon would unleash a cat that could destroy the city, instead of vaguely saying the weapon can be dangerous in the wrong hands. That's taking too many pages from TV Wu's book!

Honestly, it's like the ninja were just one character either shunning Lloyd or supporting him, depending on what the plot needed :/ That scene where they're talking with Garmadon while carrying him through the jungle really rubbed me the wrong way because first, no one seemed to care that Lloyd is so snippy because he's been forced to work with the man who made his life hell, and second they joke about Lloyd with that very same person and imply they don't respect Lloyd as leader, as Jay says he doesn't usually want to listen to him when he's talking? What??

Lloyd and Garmadon’s relationship:

I mentioned this in part 1, but they really didn’t execute this well- I feel like they had so much fun playing up Garmadon being the worst dad in the world that they forgot to give him redeemable qualities. It took me a second viewing to realise his relationship with Lloyd was actually pretty messed up, because they played off his despicableness as comedic and glossed over it by suddenly giving him a flashback to make it seem like he’s sorry. They wanted to go for the father-and-son-have-issues-but-reconnect story, and had Lloyd say “I wish we didn’t have to fight all the time” in his emotional ending, but that’s a line usually present in a daddy-issue story where both have a part to blame and there's issues with communication. In this, though? Lloyd did nothing wrong! It was just Garmadon being trash, and there wasn't even a particular scene of him recognising and apologising for his actions- not the bit about driving Misako away, but how he treated Lloyd after.

The message is all mucked up - hoping to find some good in neglectful parents is just gonna get you hurt, and in a story like this it would make more sense for the protagonist to realise they don't need validation from this guy, shouldn't feel like they have to keep connected with toxic relatives just because they're family, and that they should focus on the friends and family who actually love them (although, whether Lloyd's friends were even portrayed as liking him is a different story). I mean, Koko could just teach him to throw and catch! Does he have to have two parents just for that?

Tone and humour:

I think another main reason this movie didn't do as well was its more childish tone and dialogue; unlike the previous two movies, it was marketed at younger children. One of the main reasons TLM and LB were so successful is because of the self-aware jokes that could actually be enjoyed by adults too, while in this movie I may have properly laughed only a couple of times. Plus, in its effort to connect with kid's humour it just got cringy in some parts, like the Ultimate Weapon compilation. It would have been funny if it was ironic, like Amazing World of Gumball style, but it just didn't come across like that, so I can see why many jokes fell flat for older audiences.

People probably had different expectations for the overall tone as well- everyone loved the previous LEGO movies because of their constant barrage of action, witty jokes and a ton of references. This was never the selling point of Ninjago, but TLNM didn’t manage to capture the show’s dramatic style and deep lore-driven plot either.

The writers:

Okay last thing. This movie had three directors, six producers, six screenwriters and seven people working on the story. Compared to most animated movies, that's a lot, and its shows. It feels like they had a few different ideas and themes and couldn't quite patch them together, with vague messages like “looking at things from a different point of view” being thrown in as well to try and link it up. I guess at the end of the day, this is a father-son story, and that makes it very difficult to fit in a power-of-friendship plot at the same time, but still. Also, the shifting plot and ideas is really clear in the trailers, I mean half the stuff there wasn't even in the movie, it's as if the entire story was changed!

Final verdict? I think an overall theme with this movie is that the writers wanted to overhaul Ninjago to introduce it to new viewers, but also wanted to keep the fans happy so shoehorned in lots of elements from the show without giving them enough development. This just disappoints fans and alienates general audiences, which is a problem since Ninjago doesn’t have a huge following already backing it up like LEGO Batman did, and could have been the pilot for more original LEGO lines making it to the big screen. It was a technically amazing movie, with beautiful animation and visuals, an epic soundtrack and stunning voice acting, but it was also such a waste of potential.

The only other thing we can do is think about how it could have gone differently, so here's some of my ideas :'D

NOT using the deleted time travel plot. I know that after being disappointed in a movie you welcome any alternative, but giant mechs were already a big deviation from the ninja theme; flinging in time travel as well would be too much for non-show watchers. Plus, I thought we were all complaining about how time travel in Ninjago always just messes things up :'P

Also not following the show closer. We have over 10 seasons of the show, the whole point of a movie is giving a fresh take; using a giant snake or the Overlord possessing Garmadon again would just be boring.

Delete the first act? One of the best parts of the secret high school heroes trope is seeing how they juggle both lives, if you're gonna drop it after half an hour there's not much point of it being there.

Could instead just have Garmadon attacking again, the last invasion attempt being ages ago. Maybe the ninja rediscover a rich history of elemental masters protecting Ninjago when Wu decides to get a new team together to fight the new threat?

Make it about learning master building instead so they build their mechs at the end, and then gain elements in a sequel?

Or don't mention anything about elements and have every ninja individually go through an obstacle to obtain an elemental weapon, then they all lose them but don't know they're not necessary, so it's actually a surprise that the power is inside them? Everyone gets a sort of true potential moment?

Ninja having to warm up to Garmadon's son, so we have a plot of Lloyd slowly gaining their respect and becoming leader?

Higher stakes at the end, make the Shark Army more threatening and have them turn on Garmadon using Meowthra, so there's still an intense climax of the ninja fighting the army before Lloyd reaches Meowthra and gets his emotional ending?

Get rid of the live action sequence, or make it fit the message of the story more?

Feel free to add any ideas/ thoughts!

#ninjago #ninjago movie #lego ninjago movie #RIP lego cinematic universe v_v #my posts

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doof-doofblog · 4 years ago

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EastEnders Iconic Episodes:- Pat & Peggy

Tuesday 21st July 2020

Hello again folks! As promised, I am back again today following up on last night's iconic episodes. This episode is all about two of main iconic, legendary characters in the soap! Pat Evans and Peggy Mitchell! What an iconic pair these two made, every time they were on screen together their would be an epic toing and froing of insults to one another. I'd like to think deep down, as much as they sometimes came across as hating each other's guts, there would be deep friendship between them also. I never realised it, but this episode would be a two-hander between the two vixens. This iconic episode was first aired on 27th October 1998!

As I was born in the early 90s, I don't recall watching this episode when it first aired and I only have a small idea as to what was going on between these legendary women. As far as I know, Pat and Frank had been lovers many many years ago, in their younger days, I believe they still held a light for each other. But over time they had gone their separate ways. Now Peggy was married to Frank and Pat was married to Roy, although now Pat has been accused by Peggy of having an affair with Frank.

Wow, okay! So the episodes start with a car flying towards Pat, Peggy and Frank. Luckily they all leap out of the way before it hits any of them. Behind the wheel is Roy, it seems that he has become aware of some form of rumours or evidence that Pat and Frank have been having an affair. Pat is desperate to get to Roy and talk things through, but Frank forces Peggy to take her home and stay with her while Frank goes after Roy. Pat admits that the night before she was with Frank, but it was innocent. She explains that she and Frank were talking about Peggy about how Frank was going to ask Peggy to marry him and how Pat hoped that she would say "Yes!" and how happy Frank was.

It looks as if Peggy can't understand the need Pat has to keep running back to Frank whenever something goes wrong. It's true Pat and Frank have always loved each other, I think that was always known between everyone involved. I feel sorry for them both in a way, Peggy finding out her friend and husband betrayed her, and yet Pat and Frank are desperately in love and yet can't bring themselves to leave each other alone while married to other people. The dynamic between Pat and Peggy has always been epic, and it always come back down to this story-line. Frank is the man that they both have in common, they both loved him and they both married him.

I loved the scene where they are both talking at the kitchen table, Pat comes to the realisation that Roy is wanting to leave her and Peggy is there to persuade her that it's all words and that he doesn't mean it. When Pat reveals that she and Roy don't have sex, it comes as a surprise to Peggy. I feel in that moment she genuinely does feel sorry for the woman, and she can understand how upset she feels about not being wanted. Pat truly believed that she had everything in Roy, it was horrible hearing her talk herself down, telling herself and Peggy that every time she finds a man she brings them down. I feel perhaps this is the moment they realise they're both not that different from each other, which what makes their friendship so brilliant and iconic!

Oooo the phone has rung and no one appears to be on the other end of the line. Pat makes a sarcastic remark claiming Roy might be waiting outside to run her over a second time. Then suddenly, the doorbell rings and the police emerge. They reveal to Pat that they have found Roy's car left abandoned in a car park with the key still in the ignition. It looks as if the car has been in some form of incident and the driver has been taken away or left on his own accord. Could it be that Frank has caught up with him and taken him somewhere privately to talk? Peggy reveals to the police that Frank did go after him after he drove out of the square, the police then tell Peggy privately that there had been some blood found on the driver's seat too. Had Frank caught up with Roy and had they had a fight and left the scene?

Another scene I love where they are sat together in the living room drinking a bottle of wine together, waiting to hear news from the police. Pat is reminiscing about when she met Roy, she's worried sick that her husband has been injured and or left for dead somewhere. Peggy is there, sat by her side, trying to persuade her that that is not the case and both Roy and Frank will be found. I love how, even while believing her friend has had an affair with her fiance, Peggy is still being the strongest woman and being there to support her friend ... it's only when Pat makes a slip of the tongue that Roy reminded her how much she loved Frank, Peggy then starts to say that that doesn't matter, it's all in the past and now Frank was hers. As Peggy describes how Frank makes her feel, you can see Pat look incredibly uncomfortable, or perhaps jealous? It looks as if Peggy is enjoying making a slight dig at her friend, saying how she and Frank are made for each other.

It's amazing how the whole scene has done a whole twist of compassion and then envy and jealousy and both of them trying to score points. Now this is where it all heats up! Comparing each other's weddings to the same bloke. I think it's brilliant writing, This the moment you realise how each of them are strong and powerful in their own way. They throw dig and after dig to each other, claiming that they are both jealous of each other. Peggy making a comment on her brilliant her sex life is compared Pat's. Pat then states that Peggy will never have what she and Frank had, she believes Frank came back for her, only to find that she had remarried. Was Peggy just a rebound? I love how they really are like two school children fighting over the same bloke, but then again, it's incredible how epic it really is. The writers have managed to make it so brilliant that everyone knows that this was the moment they began an utter hatred for each other, due to the fact that they both loved the same bloke! AHHHHHHH and there is the iconic moment, throwing wine glasses at each other, "I'll flaming well kill ya!" .... throwing the table across the room, "You bitch!" , "You cow!" those epic, memorable slaps across the face!

How many years did this go on for? Many as I recall! It was always something that was revisited between the two characters. One of them would always mention it to the other or make a dig in the street and they would always use the same insults over the years, "You bitch!" , "You cow!". Even that moment in the Vic where Peggy confronted both Pat and Frank and slapped them both behind the bar! ... I want to applaud both Barbara Windsor and Pam St. Clement for creating such iconic characters on this soap. It devastates me that they are both no longer on the square, each of their character's death was such a tear-jerker. It's true that they had some brilliant moments together, getting drunk in an ice cream van together, and then confronting another man, Harvey, together, who was taking them both for mugs, while on a London tour bus. One moment i'll always remember is Peggy's death, when Peggy feels it's time to end her life, the ghost of Pat appears to her. She's talks to her about ending her life and how terrified she is, Pat's ghost is there to see her through to the other side. They both give each other that last epic insult, softly "You bitch!" , "You cow!" and then Peggy make her decision. I remember the words they both spoke to each other, so heart-wrenching:-

Peggy:- "Oh my friend, my dear friend. You won't ever leave me will you?

"Pat:- "No sweetheart! Not for one single second!"

And Peggy takes it upon herself to end her life, as Pat's ghost watches over her. I remember watching that moment and feeling slightly emotional. It's as if they both leave Walford together. I'd do anything for them to return, but they both left their mark on the Square, they will both be remembered as such iconic, legendary vixens of Walford! I'm thrilled that they have been chosen as one of EastEnders iconic moments, you don't get any more iconic than those two! I believe that possibly next week we will be revisiting the death of Lucy and the reveal of who was her killer! That was another brilliant episode, am I right in thinking is was another live episode? Or was it one for an anniversary? Either way, it was a moment that millions of people were waiting for! I'm looking forward to reliving that moment!

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week, keep yourself busy and looked after yourselves. I'll be back next week with another post! Love to you all xXx

#eastenders #peggymitchell #patevans #patbutcher #iconic #albertsquare #walford #soapfan

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crowsent · 5 years ago

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👶,⭐,💘, and💻. Love you!!

thank you for ask anon! writer ask game is here if yall wanna send in something. still taking asks for these btw

👶- advice for new writers =

yall this is hella fucking generic but PRACTISE. theres a reason almost literally every writer on tumblr gives the advise of “practise practise practise” and that reason is it works. practise doesnt mean ‘oh just write bc youll automatically get better over time’ it means ‘write bc if you dont, you wont figure out what you need to improve.’ did yall know that i literally had no sentence variation in the past? i started every sentence with [character name] or [character pronoun] and i didnt realise until i was 15/16 and i only realised bc i started writing a lot.

i think there’s a fear of failure with new writers. there’s this lingering doubt of “what if its not good?” and boy howdy i will answer that question right fucking now. it wont be good. when i compare my current work to my earlier work, my earlier work sucked fucking shit. i spelled soldier with a fucking ‘j’ and i had no idea what the hell a point of view was. and thats okay. whoever tells you that youre going to perfect writing is a fucking liar. there is no perfecting writing. 20 years from now, imma look at the writing from today and im gonna think it sucks shit. writing is a process. its a craft. you get better and better over time and the way you get better is by experimenting w different styles, different genres, different ways of writing.

and the only way you can experiment and improve is through practise. in video games, especially rpgs (which are my favourite kind of video games), you struggle in the early game. youre at a low level, you dont have good equipment, you have a hard time moving to the next area. but the only way you progress is by grinding, gaining levels, and getting stronger. same w writing. if youre a level 1 writer, just starting out, no idea what to do, just experiment. fuck around a bit. write crackships, write rarepairs, write niche self-indulgent reader/character fics. at the end of the day, you should write for yourself. its good and cool if other people like your stuff and validate all your hard work, but at the end of the day, the one who should enjoy your writing the most is yourself.

you WILL mess up and you WILL struggle, but thats the only way you can improve. i struggle with pacing the most. still do. but others might have pacing down pat and struggle instead with word choice or pov or something else. cant figure out where you need to improve if you dont write, so just practise and worry about all the fine print later

⭐️- how do you get your inspiration? =

this is definitely not universal, but i just sit on my bed, close my eyes, and meditate. cycle through all my emotions and thoughts and filter them out. then i just toss everything out the damn window. like. id just meditate for a while, focus on breathing, on experiencing the present, picture a field and a tree and myself and breathe. thoughts fly by and i let them happen but dont focus on it.

meditating gives me some semblance of emotional control bc i normally have none, and it gives me kind of this space. this safe space that only exists for me and me alone. so i use that space to let the world drift away. just me and my thoughts and sometimes, those thoughts end up being good writing ideas. but i usually meditate for a set amount of time. like 15 minutes or 30 minutes so i dont write until i finish meditating.

then when i get out of my headspace, i open up my laptop and see what i remember. thinking too hard about something causes it to muddy up. same with art. in digital art, artists flip the canvas to refresh their eyes, see if there’s anything weird or wonky about the illustration that they normally dont see bc theyve gotten used to it. flipping the canvas is like giving our eyes a jumpstart and lets us see what we could do better. in traditional art, its turning the canvas this way and that or repositioning yourself. meditating is like that. a break. a cleanse. a kind of pause where you dont think about anything and just try to process what you already have. you relax and kind of let yourself float down a river of thoughts and sometimes, a fish would jump out of that river and youd go “hey, thats a good idea. i should try that” so when you get out of the river, youre refreshed and ready to go.

same principle with showers. more ideas come to you in the shower when you dont have anything to write with bc youre not thinking about it. youre not focusing on finding inspiration or motivation so ideas naturally flow through you. you know that feeling when you want to do x then someone comes along and says “hey you should do x” and suddenly all motivation to do x leaves? same w your brain. focus too much on “i should be writing” or “i want inspiration” and its never gonna come. just let things happen. at least, thats how i do it. some people might get inspiration by reading or watching tv. everyones different so if thats not what works out for you, dont feel pressured to try my method

💘- what’s your favorite AU? Least favorite? =

magic au. specifically fantasy au set in like a pre-modern era. shows like avatar where theres all this magic and fantastical beasts and so on and so forth. semi-modern like six of crows and nevernight are great too. i want that magic to be woven into people’s lives. harry potter is okay but there’s like this separation between magic and muggle. there’s this feeling of “magic” but like as a tool. like a spoon or a gun or a shovel. i want magic au’s that are INTEGRATED with the world its set in.

like in atla, earth kingdom people have trains they move with bending while fire nation people have machines powered by heat and steam. both correspond to their bending and makes sense for the world they live in. but if your plot is like harry potter and its less worldbuilding and more action, then there’s this book series called seasons rising (read it. so good) where there’s a bunch of spells but the spells have character. the people using the spells GIVE it character and it feels much more intimate. pokemon does the whole fantasy mixed w reality better. give two trainers the exact same pokemon and by the time that pokemon reaches lvl 50, its gonna have a different moveset, different fight style, etc bc it was shaped by the world and people around it. i like harry potter but tbh it could have been so much better

for the least favourite au, it’s A/B/O i dont like the whole “omegas are only good for breeding hurr durr” and “alphas are violent and aggressive and cant control themselves around omegas” thing and it squicks me out. major squick. i read the original harry potter squick (THAT one. yeah. you know the one) and i still hate a/b/o more. i get why people like it, and there are one or two fics set in a/b/o au that i enjoy reading, but as a whole, i severely dislike a/b/o fics.

the themes are squick, the character dynamics get so messed up, and shipping dynamics (bc a/b/o fics usually have shipping) just get so blown out of proportion. there are so many a/b/o fics that turn ooc or the character interpretations radically change or something else. no hate against a/b/o fans bc yall are amazing for writing/drawing yalls au. there are things that you can only do in this setting and exploring those things can be incredibly fun for people, but for me personally, its not an au i like to visit.

💻- three works of yours that are must reads =

i. dont know what fandom youre in anon or your genre preferences. so ill just rec you one fic for a different fandom each with kind of different genres. ts masterlist is on my side @hufflepuff-deceit and regular fanfic masterlist is on my writing blog @crownonymous

(BNHA) Viper. its my first serious attempt at fanfic in YEARS and its my baby. currently has 7 chapters, i havent updated it in a while bc im hyperfocused on ts rn, but i love it to bits. its just all of my fav bnha fics crammed into one fic. quirkless kind of villain izuku with stain as a mentor as they work together to bring light to the injustices of hero society and where bakugos bullying has visible and long-lasting repercussions? sign me the fuck up. you can read it on ao3 HERE bc its not on tumblr. kind of fast-paced, has a lot more action scenes than anything else ive written. heavy plot-wise but has a lot of humour and comedy to break things up

(Kimetsu no Yaiba) I Pray To God He Hears You. not related to my other kny fic oleander which is a multichap retelling au. iptghhy is a standalone one-shot and kind of a character study on one giyuu tomioka. i love him so much. giyuu is my baby and i adore him. so of course i wrote a sad fic focusing on him. well technically, the fic focuses on giyuu AND his relationships. SPOILERS for chapters 130 and 131 of the manga. focuses mostly on giyuu and sabito, but there’s a fair bit of giyuu and tanjiro and urokodaki. you can read it HERE bc this is also not on tumblr. also deals with heavy things but more emotion-wise since it doesnt have that much of a plot. loss. grief. moving on. survivors guilt. that kind of stuff. very sad. hurt but with comfort, especially at the end.

(Sanders Sides) Logan’s Birthday Fic: Logicality. just what the title says. i wrote 5 different fics and published them all on logans bday but the logicality one received the most feedback and honestly? the cutest of the bunch. its gonna be crossposted onto ao3 but for now, you can read it HERE on my ts sideblog. theres no plot since its literally just domestic and relationship fluff. and puns. patton is in the fic, theres gonna be puns. nothing but good things and warm feelings bc logan deserves it.

thank you so much for such interesting asks anon! i enjoyed answering these. have a lovely day!

#crowsas answers #kny #bnha #sanders sides

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norahastuff · 6 years ago

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I’ve been asked a few times “Do you think Destiel is going to be canon?”, and though I’ve kind of addressed it on replies to posts and stuff before, I guess it’s time I should answer it directly. Or as directly as I can anyway, which with me involves a lot of rambling and tangents :L

I’ve loved Dean and Cas’ relationship from the beginning. It was complex, intense and fascinating. They are both rich, well crafted characters and their interactions led not only to a very interesting dynamic developing between them, but also to more nuance in their own individual characterisations. However it wasn’t until 9x06 that I started to see their relationship as romantic, or at the very least, as having strong romantic undertones.

Don’t get me wrong, there were many times before that, when watching scenes between them that I raised an eyebrow and thought hmm alright then...actually I’ll list some of them:

4x21 - the scene in the junkyard with Dean and Cas staring at each other for like a solid 30 secs or so.

5x18 - Dean making sexual comments to Cas and then winking at him? That was a major eyebrow raise.

6x20 - Basically the whole thing. It was very much framed as a break up and even if you weren’t looking at it romantically, the longing and heartbreak were clearly evident from beginning to end.

7x17 - The montage of Cas getting his memories back, which was essentially a Destiel fanvid. Dean keeping Cas’ trenchcoat the whole time Cas was gone and then wordlessly presenting it to him. I now know there was some additional dialogue that was cut, but to me that scene works perfectly. Cas is overwhelmed by the memories of all his mistakes suddenly flooding back. He can’t cope with the pain and guilt, so Dean pulls the coat out of his trunk. Earlier with Emmanuel, Dean admits that he can usually get past loss and betrayal, but there was something different about Cas and he just can’t understand what it was. And yet, he kept the coat. The look that they both share when he pulls it out of the trunk conveys perfectly that they know how significant this one action is.

(Okay this got long so I’ll put the rest under a cut)

8x07 - Dean thinking he’s hallucinating Cas. The conversation Sam and Dean have, after he thinks he’s seen Cas in the middle of the night outside his window. The conversation that Dean and Cas have that keeps getting interrupted.

8x17 - I mean come on. Being forced to kill thousands of copies of Dean. Breaking out of mind control while gripping his wrist and pleading “I need you”...yeah...

8x22 - Dean being mad at Cas. Cas being sad and forlorn about Dean being mad at him. The two of them just gazing into each others eyes, Sam looking between them and then loudly coughing to get their attention. I actually remember having to pause the ep because I was laughing so hard at this scene.

8x23 - Bar convo, cupid, m/m couple at the bar.

Honestly I’m sure there were more, that is just the stuff I definitely remember that struck me on my first watch. And still even with all that, I didn’t really consider their relationship romantic. I think to me it was an intense ambiguous thing with a certain “je ne sais quoi” about it (sorry I can’t think of a better descriptor for how I thought of it.) It wouldn’t have surprised me if someone told me they were romantic, but it also wasn’t something I was actively thinking about, and since I was watching the show in a vacuum - I didn’t know anything about it at all before I started watching, and didn’t look up anything about it to avoid spoilers till I had caught up - I didn’t really consider it very much.

And then came 9x06.

From Dean rushing out the door as soon as he got Cas’ call, to him standing outside the Gas n’ Sip intensely watching Cas through the window. Dean is so happy and excited to see Cas, but Cas...his face when he’s suddenly confronted with Dean is hurt, surprised and disbelieving all at once. It’s obvious how heartbroken he is by Dean forcing him to leave the bunker. There’s a very clear ‘’here comes my ex who dumped me and i’m mad at him but still not over him” vibe running through this whole scene.

Then there was their pre-date car scene and the much sadder post-date one, where Dean asks Cas “where to?” and Cas just looks at him and gets in the car. Not to mention the final one in the morning when they say goodbye. Everything unsaid is just hanging in the air, it’s very clear that neither of them want the other to leave but that they also both know they have to. And just when you think, alright - it’s over, you see Dean sitting in the car watching Cas walk away into the store.

As a sidenote: I’m not really a shipper, romantic relationships or the desire for them is never really going to hold my interest for too long in any tv show. For some people it’s really important and it’s what they enjoy the most, which - great! That’s exactly the point of fiction, or any art really, to take what’s meaningful and enjoyable to you from it. I’m not against romance or anything, it’s interesting to explore all kinds of different dynamics and if a romantic relationship is serving that purpose, both for these characters and their individual growth while still being engaging - that’s great.

This was a beautiful and layered episode in many ways, and I loved it immediately, not only for the Dean and Cas stuff but for everything else too, particularly what it said about Cas’ own personal arc and his feelings about what it was to be human. It wasn’t that I watched this episode and was suddenly 100% focused on Dean and Cas being in love, and the show tilted on it’s axis for me or anything. It was genuinely just “oh alright then, I guess the show is actually just writing them as romantic.” It was an interesting but not too surprising revelation for me. In my head Dean and Cas went from a fascinating ambiguous dynamic I enjoyed watching, to a fascinating low(mid) key romantic dynamic that I enjoyed watching. I seriously thought that’s just how they were supposed to be seen and how the show was presenting them. It wasn’t till later when I caught up on the show and looked it up that I even realised there was any kind of debate about this, let alone outright denials.

Ok I’ve rambled for so long now - what does this have to do with canon destiel you may rightly ask? Well I watched this episode, and the fact that Dean and Cas’ relationship was portrayed as romantic was blindingly obvious to me. Misha has revealed in interviews that Jeremy Carver, the showrunner at the time, instructed him to play Cas as a “jilted lover”.

Now people can read that whole passage I’ve written as to why this I see their dynamic as romantic in 9x06, and still claim, “well I don’t see it that way, they just seem like good bros to me”, to which I say ok cool, you don’t see it, but I do. So if I watched that episode and saw them as romantic and later discover that is how they were playing it - how is my interpretation wrong again? I was watching the canon unfold on screen in front of me, exactly how I was supposed to.

And that’s still where I’m stuck on all of this.

I have no control over or knowledge of how their relationship is going to play out. I suspect there’s never been some huge grand plan in the works, and that any plans there have been for Sam, Dean or Cas’ arcs, whether individually or otherwise, have been (and still are) constantly subject to change - which is a good thing. You don’t want any writers to doggedly stick to a stale endgame they decided on years earlier, even if it no longer seems to service the characters as they exist in their current state and place in the story *cough HIMYM*

I just know that there has been a wealth of canon that emphasised the romantic elements present in crafting Dean and Cas’ relationship, and I never doubted that I was seeing them as they were meant to be seen. Including, but not limited to: 9x06, Metatron telling us to pay attention to the subtext in Meta fiction (after which Dean and Cas smile softly at the sound of each other’s voices on the phone), colette parallels, 11x18, Ishim/angel in love with a human/dean being Cas’ human weakness, mixtapes, I’m going to say that again - mixtapes, intense grief arcs or climactic reunions set to rousing soundtracks.

I do truly hope they explicitly address the romantic nature of their relationship in some way in text. I don’t know how/when/if they will, but I do hope so. However, am I supposed to dismiss everything that comes across as romantic to me just because it has not been consummated? I have no agenda, I wasn’t reading into anything or trying to see something that wasn’t there, again I was simply just watching the canon unfold. Not to mention the first time I did see something as unquestionably romantic, it turns out I was supposed to be seeing a “jilted lover”.

This all exists. The storylines/tropes/parallels, the reasons that Dean and Cas come across as romantic to so many people are there.

And they exist regardless of TPTB’s intentions of exploring Destiel as an eventual textual development.

And since I have no control over how their relationship is going to play out, I’m just going to continue watching it, and everything else on the show, exactly the same way I was before I started being told that I was wrong or that it isn’t enough.

#destiel #canon destiel #my spn thoughts #this got super long #feel free to ignore it #just thought i should at least write it down once #9x06

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paperclipninja · 6 years ago

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So during the two week hiatus of Younger I re-watched the entire series from the pilot up to the latest ep. And it’s been so interesting seeing the lead up to where we’re at now as far as Liza’s growth goes and her relationships with Josh and Charles. Naturally I have thoughts and feelings about this and what will follow is undoubtedly some form of rambling essay. I would also like to preface this by saying that while I am Team Charles all the way, I do pride myself on being objective when I watch shows and I legitimately like Josh, so this is just my interpretation of how things have gone down, am very open to alternative views and ideas.

Liza started off just trying to reestablish herself as a newly single mother who wanted to get back into the workforce, rediscovering her sexuality with Josh and gaining some confidence about her ability to go outside her comfort zone in general. The relationship with Josh was so pivotal for Liza in this transition from a clearly toxic marriage to a new life. It allowed her to really release herself from any of the shackles of her former life and be with someone who worshipped her in a way that she hadn’t experienced for a long time. Even after the rockiness of Josh finding out her age and them rekindling their relationship, his unrelenting sweetness and adoration of her served the purpose of showing her that while the workplace might be ageist, love isn’t. That Liza’s lie did not make her unworthy of an authentic life outside of the workplace. However this is also where, upon my re-watch, I noticed that as Josh reinforced this notion of Liza being accepted for who she is and she began to believe it, she also realized that she was not with Josh for the right reasons, that by being with him she was actually not being authentic. And suddenly there’s another lie she’s stuck in.

From the moment we began to see her dance with Charles, even before there was anything really going on, the fact her mind is drifting towards him is pretty telling IMO. It really struck me in the Summer Friday ep in season 3. I mean, I thought it before that but that’s when I suddenly went ‘oh no Liza, what are you doing’??? I’d never noticed the expression on her face when Josh is about to tattoo her. She is doing it for him. Not for herself. You can see it on her face as he starts tattooing. To be honest, by this point I found Josh’s ‘I love you just as you are except for the whole other life you had before me’ antics a bit exhausting, not to mention the glaring fact that it felt obvious Liza loved Josh for what he had done for her rather than what he could do for her moving forward. As her connection with Charles develops you can almost see Liza clinging to Josh because she knows that she can’t end up with him in the long run (and yes also because of the kids thing, which is pretty significant) but doesn’t want to lose what he represents or hurt him. It’s as though she feels she owes it to him (let me be clear, I’m not doubting she loved him) because he was such a big part of her moving on from her previous life.

Now I also want to clarify that while I’m staunchly Team Charles, I do not hate Josh. Quite the opposite. I actually really loved him. But I hate what the writers are doing to him. If the purpose of his character has been served then he needs to be moved on and developed or if they want a legitimate love triangle then he also needs to grow. His character has stagnated so much that IMO he is becoming unlikable because all he does is wallow and pine for Liza, despite her very clearly telling him there is no romantic future for them. I get that they want to create this whole ‘love triangle’ thing, but when one corner of that triangle is just constantly bringing up past betrayals and hurt in some kind of perverted attempt to guilt Liza back into his arms, then it is undoing the goodness of his character that we all saw in the earlier seasons. And to me at least, I don’t see this inability to let go as romantic, I see it as not respecting the woman he claims to love and letting her move on to find her own happiness. And just as an aside, Josh has lived in the city for a long time, where are his other friends? I mean, I totally get hanging out with your room mates but he only hangs out with Liza’s friends. Where are his own? This isn’t meant to sound snarky, it legitimately bothers me that any friends he had prior to Liza have seemingly evaporated. But I digress...

As the relationship between Charles and Liza unfolds, you see the connection through similar interests and being able to banter and challenge one another on equal intellectual footing grow (not to mention there was clearly a physical attraction there). But it’s almost like the development of this relationship is the reverse of the relationship with Josh. With Josh it’s purely physical at the beginning and even when all the truth is out in the open and despite the fact he is wonderful, the realisation that Liza is not being true to herself by being with him slowly dawns on her. There are needs of hers he cannot fulfil just as he has needs she cannot fulfil. But with Charles, as the connection grows deeper and the physical aspects become stronger, Liza realises this could be the real deal, that actually they could fulfil what the other is looking for, but the truth is not out in the open.

I know there is an argument that Josh loves her just as she is, but I believe the big realisation for Liza about Josh this season has been that as a romantic partner, he is not enough for her. Yes, she loves him, but she’s not in love with him. I don’t know if it was the intention of the writers or not, but this season we, as viewers, are having our conditioned view of these kinds of shows, where the female protagonist should be falling over herself to be with the guy who relentlessly pursues her, challenged. As I said earlier, Liza has been clear with Josh about where she stands and how she views her relationship with him and I really hope that they don’t backtrack. Again, not because I’m anti-Josh but because I’m pro-Liza and all for a show having the balls to show a relationship transition from romantic to platonic in a realistic way (which is what I’m hoping we’re in the midst of witnessing right now).

Which brings me to the current situation. This week’s episode, when Liza strode into that office with the manuscript...THAT is what I’ve been waiting for these past few seasons. This was Liza’s ‘I’m done pretending. This is me, take it or leave it’ moment.

It also really highlighted to me the way the lie had led to such a power imbalance in her relationships. With Josh, it played into the whole trying to appease him and getting tattoos she didn’t really want, but that power imbalance then shifted to her trying to get him to match her on levels other than the physical and it was sort of as though she had to hide that intellectual side or her desire for that sort of connection in order for him not to feel inadequate. Basically, I feel like she was almost protecting him like an older sibling or mother would. And with Charles, the intellectual connection was clearly there, but Liza had to play down her competency in other areas and so he was holding the power as someone who had more life experience (the way she did with Josh) in addition to also being in a position of power at work as her boss.

And that is why I am loving this season so much. The fact that Charles said he was relieved when he found out her real age shows that he was aware of the imbalance of power on some level and had been struggling to reconcile how that could be overcome if they were together. And It’s not just about age, it’s about experience. I believe that for him, connecting with someone so deeply when their life experiences seemed poles apart was baffling. In episode 4 this season, when Liza confronts Charles in his office after he crashes the meeting with Don, this might sound crazy, but that is one of my most favourite exchanges between them ever. It was only as I watched it that I realized that this was the most equal and honest interaction I think I’ve ever seen. Up until now, Liza has been ‘playing’ the 27 year old and in playing that part, would not have stood up to Charles in the same way (which is a whole other thing, because Kelsey would have so it’s not to do with the age, it’s to do with the persona Liza had attached to the 27 year old version of herself). But as a 41 year old she can confidently call him out on his bullshit behaviour and does so and even though that exchange is angry and heated, both of them meet each other in the middle and hold their own ground.

So now, after the silver suit boss moment, we’ve been left with Liza taking back her power once and for all I believe. It’s what makes the possibility of her and Charles so exciting, the legitimately equal partnership in which both can be who they are and respect what each brings to the dynamic. I really do believe it could be one of the most exciting pairings we’ve seen if done well. I know shows fear putting two leads together but they could be a powerhouse and really take the show in a different direction as a couple. But most importantly, it’s such a satisfying and wonderful way to see this character finally shake the idea that the lie makes her deserving of unhappiness or pain. I feel like Liza is going to be ok now, whatever they do from here on.

#youngertv #holy shamole this is so long i'm sorry #liza miller #charles brooks #liza x charles #team charles #rambles #tv land

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scifimagpie · 6 years ago

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Evil is Boring, and Other Unexpected Things

Like a chipmunk crouching in a forest next to a nuclear reactor, Canada is in close proximity to the slow-motion disaster that is the United States of America. With a president who coasted into office on a wave of electoral fraud constantly compromising the safety of the country's information and people.

A part of me - perhaps unbelievably - is a little embarrassed to be excoriating Trump as thoroughly as I am, even though it's nearly a universally understood truth at this point - and even though his party's legislation has directly resulted in the caging of immigrants and their children, and their detainment in concentration camps.

That said, I think one of the hardest things to understand about Donald Trump is that, inasmuch as he's basically as evil and villainous as it gets, he's not the kind of villain I was raised to to expect.

What is evil?

That's a complex question, but for our purposes, I'm going to reference both aesthetics and intentions. My personal stance on evil is that it's more of a verb than a noun. One's actions, weighed in the balance of their impact, as well as the current historical or contemporary perspective, tend to determine whether or not one is classified as evil. For instance, Winston Churchill tested mustard gas on Kurdish villagers before deploying it during WWII, and the otherwise admirable Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who created the "New Deal" and a number of important social security measures for American citizens, also was responsible for the internment of Japanese-Americans. Canada has its own examples of leaders with similarly mixed legacies. In the context of colonialism and that resulting violence, it's hard to canonize any leaders, especially those in the "New World."

That being said, Adolf Hitler's actions and his legacy are pretty good examples - nearly archetypcal examples - of what we see as evil nowadays. (Well, those of us who are not neo-Nazis, anyway.)

But do they look evil?

Between Disney and other fantastical films, very clear portrayals of "a villain" emerged - a villain was supposed to be stylish, attractive, usually or frequently non-white, damaged, and either coded-gay or overtly homosexual (sometimes asexual). In contrast, heroes - especially in the nineties - were usually laid-back slackers, usually white, straight, and male; always heterosexual, and both mentally and physically well, often athletic or extremely nerdy, and usually lacking self-confidence and/or social skills. Frequently, said heroes were disproportionately popular, due to some inexplicable "leadership quality," and I'm sure many of my readers will be familiar with the token reward girlfriends usually accorded to such heroes as a matter of course.

The state of the present

Much hay has been made of the idea that young white men grew up seeing themselves as heroes based on their birthright, and therefore, have not had to do anything to deserve that mantle. Said young and less-than-young men are also increasingly fond of mocking marginalized people who dare set boundaries on the portrayals of their cultures, sexuality, and themselves.

Given that white men and white women voted for Trump in droves, and have continually shuffled out of the way when held accountable for inequality issues, I feel it's fair to say that both the left and right have come to see straight, white, cisgender, heterosexual, and able people as - well, the "enemy," or at least a source of antagonism - and as a "persecuted minority," respectively. That said, from what I can tell black people and other people of colour don't really hate white people, not really - but centuries and decades of persecution and marginalization and abuse have led to a lot of pain and entirely reasonable resentment.

More recently, in addition to the many nigh-endless microaggressions and larger acts of violent discrimination perpetrated against people of colour, images of the cargo shorts-clad and tiki-torch wielding racist protesters trying to "defend their white heritage and children" are inescapable. For white queers, a similar dynamic exists with "the straights" - it's not that we hate straight people, but we exist in a constant state of trepidation, wary of that moment when a friend or relative will suddenly reveal that they hate people like us, or have no interest in preserving the rights of people like us.

Because narratives cut us out of the spotlight or cast us in antagonistic roles, queers and people of colour grew up fixating on minor characters and often, on villains. When I thought about it tonight, my heart cracked to realise that the people who were supposed to be the heroes fighting injustice - ordinary white men - seem to care little about our rights and their so-called birthright - and those who were always cast as villains had ended up being, well, the ones fighting for people's rights to marry, control their own bodies, vote, and not be incarcerated or killed on fatuous or fabricated charges.

Coping with it

On the other hand, I finally had the emotional resources and the chance to watch Black Panther recently, and I think the movie - which did not disappoint - offers both hope and some potential solutions. Martin Freeman's (hilariously) American CIA agent is overtly (and rightly) called a colonizer, but he learns to listen to Nakia and Shuri rather than questioning them or assuming he knows better. The movie nods to the historical reality of American interference in other countries' governments, but unlike Andy Serkis' character, he doesn't refer to the Wakandans as "savages."

The peaceful resolution at the end of the movie brings tears to my eyes as I recollect it. Conquest and murder won't make reparations for the sins of the past (and present). But resources and nurturing might, and will save the current and future generations - as well as enriching all of us.

And personally, that's the future I want. Let me be clear - as a scary leftist, all I want is for everyone in my city, my province, my country, my continent, and this world to be housed, fed, and safe; for people to be happy, healthy, and loved. That includes the straight, white, cisgender people, not just the marginalized.

I want to see what the world can be if we work together to take care of it. I want to see what kind of art we can produce when we have the opportunity to make it, and what we can discover if we put the resources towards the sciences. And from what I've gleaned from talking to anarchists, communists, socialists, and even many people on the liberal spectrum - that's what all of us want.

But to do that, we have to figure out what we're fighting for, and maybe, who we're fighting.

As a writer...

I was never prepared for this eventuality. Will Ferguson's Happiness (TM), a book in which the end of the world is wrought by a self-help book, had some excellent points about the banality of evil. I think a lot of us still think of evil as stylish and classy, but where in that schema do we place a tasteless human vuvuzela like Trump? The bland and smiling "worst teacher you had in high school" persona of Mike Pence has something of a place in the rogue's gallery of archetypes, especially in dystopian fiction. But how do we reconcile with the fact that the people we were taught to trust and idolize - for instance, cops and parents - are only too happy to hurt us?

Honestly? I don't have an answer, so I want to know how all of you feel about this. Reblog, comment, and answer - how do you feel about this reversal? How are you going to write about villains and antagonists?

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Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime, housemate, and their cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and nightmares, as well as social justice issues. She is currently working on the next books in her series, other people's manuscripts, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible. Catch up with Michelle's news on the mailing list. Her books are available on Amazon, and she is also active on Medium, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, and the original blog.

#dystopia #evil #villain #disney #mike pence #trump #antifa #heroes #history

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