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cayenne-twilight · 4 years ago

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Professor Layton Iceberg Explanation

As I said in the tags of the original, the iceberg I made was a meme consisting of both real theories and satire/parodies/fandom memes. If anyone is interested, I can work on an unironic version that only has real theories.

Buckle in because this post is LONG and heavily saturated with lore and information.

Actual theories

Parallel universe 1960s where the world wars didn’t happen. There’s an unused file in Curious Village that shows the year as 1960 and the time machine from UF is set to 1973, ten years into the future. The series canonically takes place in an undefined time period (hence the technological inaccuracies and fantasy elements), but it’s based off the 60s. There’s more evidence but we don’t have time to go over every little thing. I linked my “no wars” theory below but TL;DR the outdated airplanes and underdeveloped medicine in the Layton series imply that the world wars may never have happened. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632205992162099200/outofcontextdiscord-timegearremix-zonosils-war

The real meaning behind the statue in Future London. In UF, the purpose of the statue is to spark Layton and Luke’s conversation about their friendship. Luke is stressing out about moving overseas and sees himself and the professor in the story behind the statue, but in the bigger picture, Clive must have been the one to commission it. Some theorize that the little boy is Clive and the man is either his father or the professor. One idea I’ve seen is that Clive wishes he could be Luke for real, while another is that he wishes he died ten years ago, and another is that he’s literally terminally ill explaining why he doesn’t care about consequence. Personally, I think “the boy succumbed to his illness” refers to his mental illness seeing as he wanted the professor to save him from his madness as he saved him all those years ago.

True location of Monte D’Or. there are no deserts on the British isles to my knowledge, so it makes the most sense for Monte D’Or to be in Southwest USA where English is the default language, they have a desert, and there exists a city famous for flashy hotels, casinos, and entertainment. What makes it odd is that nobody ever mentions overseas travel, and all the major characters are from England.

Loosha’s origins are not explicitly explained if I remember correctly, but the implication was that her prehistoric (supposedly) species was sealed away along with the garden, allowing them to survive all the way to the time of LS until Loosha was the only one left. The garden provided a good habitat and protection from predators, and it’s logical that they’d slowly die out anyways, but there’s no explanation of any specific factors that led to Loosha being the last.

Beasley is not a bee I wrote a post about this one as well, but TL;DR Beasly lacks several defining bee traits whilst having several human ones. He is not human, yet, by definition, not a bee. It’s possible that he is the result of Dimitri’s testing, but whatever his untold story is, he remains an enigma of nature. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632381715250282496/theory-beasly-isnt-a-bee

Subject 2’s identity is currently unknown. There is a subject one (parrot) and subject 3 (rabbit) so there has to be a second. For a long time, people suspected Beasly to be him seeing as he’s a bit of an amalgamation and definitely not a regular bee (see above). After the release of LMJ, though, people began to suspect Sherl, the intelligent hound who could speak to certain people but not others. That being said, it’s possible for one to be subject 4. Sherl’s memory of a bright flash matches up with subject 3’s memory of being electrocuted. They never explain why the animals were being experimented on, but it was probably Dimitri making sure the conditions of his machine were safe for humans before reliving the incident from ten years ago.

Lady Violet died from the plague from DB. There’s no evidence for this or anything, it’s just an idea. People say she died from the flu but I don’t remember them saying that in the game, at least the US version. Extending off my “no war” theory: it’s theorized that the Spanish Flu was spread by the travlelling soldiers, so if that’s true, it’s possible for the epidemic to have been averted for some decades. Maybe the Spanish Flu reached England later than in real life. The hole in this is that DB’s plague must’ve been close in time to 1918 while Violet’s death was much later, so it would’ve had to stick around.

Bill Hawks is working with Targent and Arthur Cantabella. There was a force in the shadows buying the time machine technology from Bill. Someone with a ton of money who helped him cover up a freak accident and get away with it completely, a feat that involved shady means like violence by hired thugs. Some theorize that it was Targent, seeking power over time in exchange for a little mafia magic. The Labarynthia project was sponsored by the UK government, so as the PM, Bill must’ve known about it. He probably supported dubiously ethical, high stakes (witch pun) psychological experiments like Cantabella’s and helped him stay in the shadows.

All the NPCs in St. Mystere and Folsense are dead. I make fun of this type of theory later, but they’re admittedly captivating. I’m pretty sure the canon in CV is that the villagers are Bruno and Augustus’s OCs that they made robots of and built a town around, but it’s more interesting to think that the village was there before, and the townspeople died of a plague and were replaced like Lady Violet. In Folsense, there really was a plague and they never explain the NPCs there. They’re either real people who appear way younger than they are due to hallucinations (even the ones who already look old ?), or they don’t exist at all, which is pretty spooky. This part of the story is a gaping plot hole. In a similar vein to CV, the edgy yet plausible theory is that they used to live in Folsense but died of the plague and now live on as hallucinations.

Hershel seeing everything as a puzzle is a coping mechanism for all his trauma. This was a joke but I thought about it for more than five seconds and it makes way too much sense.

Plot holes and unexplained questions that we like to overthink because it’s fun

The downfall of the Azran was vaguely explained in canon by people being so greedy that it lead to the civilization collapsing. It’s not a stretch to imagine that happening, but it would’ve been more interesting with a little more detail.

Layton and Luke are programmed to routinely forget how to walk. I didn’t know whether to list this in the joke section or not, but it’s odd that the characters actively participate in the walking tutorial (as opposed to showing a little memo to the player) as if they didn’t know how to before, especially when they go through this several times a year.

The truth behind Pavel. He’s simply a joke character who teleports, is a polyglot (sort of, at least he wants us to think he is) and is mega confused all the time. He’s a fun character to make crack theories about because of his cryptic nature that even he doesn’t seem to understand.

Miracle Mask deleted scenes. The first trailer for MM featured animations that were not in the final game. One was the Randall falling scene, except in a slightly different style than the one we know. Others were completely foreign, like Layton and Luke pacing across a theatre stage as if Layton’s about to expose someone with a dramatic point. Cut content and “could’ve beens” are always curious to think about.

Evan Barde: secret mastermind. Arianna and Tony’s dad is a mysterious character who died under mysterious circumstances. I think the canon is that his death was a genuine accident, but concept art of him making a creepy evil face suggests that maybe he originally had a larger role in the first drafts of LS than the finished game.

The secret to how Paul and Des pull off their disguises is unclear and will remain unclear. There is no plausible explanation for their shape shifting. Unless Paul is just a little dude wearing a human suit like that one Wizard of Oz species and Des is the best quick-changer ever and hides his naturally feminine legs under his cloak.

Alfendi’s mom. When LBMR came out people scrambled to piece together who Hershel had a kid with, but there’s no way alfendi is his biological son. This happened with Kat as well and her biological parents turned out to be brand new characters, so I’m sure Al will get an adoption backstory if his arc continues, be his parents old major characters or nameless, faceless NPCs.

Granny Riddleton and Stachenscarfen are omnipotent deities. Idk which section this fits best under, but these two characters have some serious power. At first introduction, they’re implied to be robots, but they appear everywhere in later games. They follow the Professor wherever he goes and assist him on his adventures, GR collecting puzzles and housing them by some odd magic, and Stachen teaches you how to walk. They both introduce and supervise the gameplay. By extension, I guess this idea could apply to Albus as well in the prequels. GR and Stachen even had the power to appear in LMJ, something no major character could do. I consider them akin to the velvet room attendants from the Persona games.

Clive’s kill count is a vague subject in the game for the sake of keeping it PG. I don’t know if anyone’s ever mathematically estimated the damage he caused, and I sure don’t want to try, but the game appears to push the idea that he didn’t kill anyone at all, saying they stopped him in the nick of time and things like that, even though we watch him raze the city. If they ever want to bring him back post-time skip, I can see them twisting it so that the mobile fortress cutscene wasn’t a linear sequence of events, but instead a compilation of scenes over the course of hours so that London neighborhoods around him could be evacuated and have it make sense. Knowing Level-5, it’s more likely that they wouldn’t think this deep and do something more lazy, though.

Memes and references

Post-time skip Flora is real references the famous L is real theory from Super Mario 64. Like Luigi in SM64, Flora was also a highly anticipated character who didn’t appear in a new game, in this case LMJ or LMDA. In the end, Luigi did become real in the DS port so hopefully Flora is real will be realized as well.

Hershel can’t read is a veteran fandom meme referring to how in the first few games, especially Curious Village, Layton asks Luke to read every document out loud for him. Perhaps this was an exercise to improve Luke’s reading skills and independent thinking, or perhaps he was just too lazy or preoccupied to do it himself, but this grew into the joke that our genius Professor was actually illiterate this whole time.

Layton’s smash invitation is hidden in PLvsAA. It’s no secret that the fandom would kill a man to get the Professor into the smash brothers franchise. In PLvsAA one of the puzzle artworks features a goat eating a familiar white envelope with a red stamp, sparking the joke that either Layton or Wright got the invitation their respective fans desired, but it got lost along the way.

The science board is the mysteriously vague organization Don Paolo got kicked out of for the crime of being evil. It’s the epitome of liberal arts majors and art school graduates trying to bs their way around not knowing any science and failing miserably. “He was very good at all the sciences, but then the CEO of science told him to stop because he was using the power of science for evil science”. They do this again when “Dr. Stahngun” describes his time machine what with the soolha coils and whatnot.

Hoogland is death cult initiation is a parody of “Mario 64 is Freemason initiation” which is ridiculous, just like the creepy human sacrifice subplot of AL.

You can see the reflection of someone watching you in Aurora’s eye references the famous, creepy Talking Angela theory. In retrospect it would’ve been funnier if I said Angela instead of Aurora.

Every copy of Professor Layton is personalized references the famous “every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized”

Clive’s fat ass in HD is a meme that originated from the announcement of UFHD, saying that half of the excited fans wanted to cry again while the other half were simply attracted to Clive. If we want to enter real bottom-section-of-the-iceberg-chart territory then let’s say Clive’s character has some sort of psychological siren properties that draw people to him like a magnet and/or Harry Styles.

Things I pulled out of my ass for shits and giggles

Infinite hint coin hack: I’m sure a tech savvy cheater could hack the game for infinite hint coins, but there’s no easy or interesting way. I don’t know why someone would do that though, considering a lot of the hints suck and there are puzzle guides on the internet.

Cringy, unused Randall villain monologue. This joke is derived from the actual scrapped MM content as well as deleted content being a popular element of iceberg charts, but it’s sadly not real. Would’ve been hilarious, though.

Last Specter Puzzle 031: Light Height tracks and records children’s intelligence level. It doesn’t, but it’s always fun to make fun of arguably THE most ridiculously difficult puzzle in the franchise. (Seriously, do they expect 7+ year olds to know trigonometry???)

Hershel struggles with tea addiction. Hershel from the games drinks tea in moderation, but the manga begs to differ. He has a tea set in the Laytonmobile, and an attempt at teatime while driving causes him to crash.

Folsense is a metaphor for Alzheimer’s. This is inspired by those edgy kids’ show theories where everyone’s in hell or something, but nobody has ever said this.

London Life is reality and the plot of the games is all in Luke’s head. That’s one way to fill every plot hole. How funny would it be if Luke made up crazy characters and stories based off his fellow townspeople Sharkboy and Lavagirl style. “This dude who lives in a castle and asks people to give him all their money for nothing in return is a vampire from 50 years ago involved in a tragic love story”.

Secret ending encoded into Tago’s Head Gymnastics. It’d be crazy if there was, and Dimitri would hound Tago for the secret to time travel. If you didn’t know, the Layton games started as an adaption of Akira Tago’s puzzle series, except they decided to add a story to make it more interesting and marketable.

Daily puzzles datamine your DS. I’m bad with technology but is it even possible to datamine a DS??? Idk, but I think my DS lite from 2008 is safe.

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sebastianshaw · 3 years ago

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Hey there @vvithteeth! So, this isn’t EXACTLY what you asked for the readlist to focus on, but I think it’s worth checking out all the same for a general sense of Emma’s history leading up to her current character!

EVIL 80s EMMA She’s not good reference for who Emma is NOW, but a good look at what she used to be, and what she’s overcome. I think looking at Emma when she was at her worst, helps one appreciate her at her best. If you see what she had to rise above in herself, you understand the self that she’s fighting back, you have a better appreciation for the kinds of things she’s tempted towards---and the kinds of things she no longer does. X-Men (1st series) #129-131 is her introduction, as she tries to recruit Kitty Pryde to her school before Xavier does. One of the most chilling moments, for me personally, is when she threatens to destroy Storm’s mind so that she will be “human only in physical form” And then Jean drops a house on her, which is why she’s not involved in the Dark Phoenix saga, as she was still recovering. Emma continues trying to get Kitty and other kids into her clutches in Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #180 and New Mutants (1st series) #15-17, but in New Mutants (1st series) #38-40 she finally manages it by exploiting their current fucked-up state and having her student Empath use his powers to manipulate Magneto. But when the kids decide to return to Xavier’s school, Emma allows them to do so without a fight, and just tells them that they’ll always have a place with her if they need it. Which seems nice, but then her thought balloons reveal that this is just so the kids won’t believe it when Magneto tells them she’s evil. Firestar #1-4: Whoa mama, Emma is at max abusive here. See, she desires to eliminate Selene, and to this end she trains a young mutant she names Firestar. She does so by manipulating the girl, isolating her, convincing her that she NEEDS Emma to help her control her powers or else she’s dangerous to others, and even KILLS HER PET HORSE. Emma is someone who says “I love children. Teaching is my life.” and she MEANS IT, she has a genuine call to teach and her love for her students is her driving force, but here we see how she USED to treat her students. Then put her against who she is now, it’s a huge contrast. Honestly, I don’t know why SOME WRITERS want to erase her growth by pretending she was Actually Good All Along but yeah, here’s Bad Emma. This is who she fights. This is what she has risen above. EMMA’S BACKSTORY ISSUES Emma’s history is. . . kind of multiple choice. She tells one version in Generation X #24, but this doesn’t fit at all with the Emma Frost miniseries that came out from 2003 -2004, which also doesn’t exactly fit with “X-Men Origins: Emma Frost” single-issue backstory. I personally would read the “X-Men Origins” one and at least the beginning of the miniseries, specifically the parts that deal with her home life. The reason is that both of these show how unhealthy Emma’s home was growing up, and how that made her who she is. When I saw I think Emma is “wired” to be a villain, I don’t mean I think she was born like that, but as in, I think her environment trained her to become like that. It’s kind of like how a lot of personality disorders aren’t something a person is born with, but come from being in a shitty environment where certain behaviors will help you survive better, and then even once that situation is over, you can’t get rid of those behaviors because it’s how your brain is wired now. That’s how I read Emma---she came out of this toxic, duplicitous environment of manipulation and abuse where she and her siblings were set against each other, and that’s now her default for how she interacts with the world, even though she was originally just a sweet little nerd who only wanted to be a teacher. The “Origins” one features a generic Shitty Abuser Shaw and isn’t as good as the more drawn-out miniseries, as it focuses more on physical abuse (like her father suddenly slapping her) to get a point across that her family is toxic, rather than the more drawn-out miniseries, which I think works better for explaining Emma’s specific brand of. . .Emma-ness. But the bit where her mother tells her that her father is hardest on her because he likes her most of all, is really important I think, since that reflects her relationship later with the Hellions, which is also shown in this. Because Emma is cruel to the Hellions, even though she loves them, and in fact because she loved them. Her love for them and her agony over their deaths is what drives her to join the X-Men in the first place. As for which origin story is true. . .I think the miniseries one is probably MOST true, as it’s the only one that Emma herself isn’t telling as a story. But as the friend who helped me assemble this list puts it, “ Think of any origin story of Emma's as "a sort of fairy tale, a parable," where it's the theme that matters, not the precise events or timeline “ 90s EMMA Emma spent most of the 90s teaching Generation X. I don’t remember a lot of stuff for specifically what I’m talking about with her, but here are a couple issues that strike me as significant. Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #311-314: In Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #281-284, the Hellions were killed and Emma Frost was left in a coma, her body taken care of by the X-Men. This is when she wakes up, takes over Iceman’s body, and goes on a rampage thinking she’s the prisoner of the X-Men. When she finds out what happened to her Hellions, she collapses in despair and turns herself over to the X-Men. This is her turning point. This is when we found out Emma Frost had a soul. That she LOVED the Hellions. That they were not just tools. And there’s this one line in the yellow narrative boxes that really sticks out: “As the Hellfire Club’s White Queen, she spent the better part of her life traversing from one mind to another, violating the very essence of anyone she so chose. Losing herself in the memories of others. Altering, at times, the opinions of those who opposed her. This time is different. This time it is about survival. This time. . .it’s for the children.” The words are echoed when she agrees to join Krakoa's Quiet Council, after Charles and Erik tell her their plan and convince her it might just work. "One more time, then. For the children." Emma’s true love, in my opinion, isn’t Scott. Nor is it Namor. It’s teaching. Emma becomes the teacher to Generation X, as mentioned, and in Generation X (1st series) #18-19, during the Onslaught crisis, she’s so terrified of losing them like she did the Hellions, that she snapped, took the kids to a safehouse in Canada, and put them under her telepathic control for their own safety. This is an Emma who has learned that abusing her students isn’t the right way, but still doesn’t respect their autonomy or consent even as she’s desperately trying to protect them, and has to learn from Monet (who is. . . .actually not Monet) that this isn’t the right way to do it either. Emma did not grow up with adult models who showed her how to love and care for a child, she has to figure it out herself, and it’s a rocky journey at times, even though she has the best of intentions. I think this is a good issue to show an Emma who is in the process of evolving. She’s getting better, but she still hasn’t got it “right” yet. CURRENT-ERA EMMA Emma really becomes the Emma we know with Grant Morrison’s New X-Men in the early 2000s. This is where she starts affecting a British accent, calling everyone darling, and the delightfully witty Queen of Mean while also still a devoted teacher with trauma over losing her students. She always was witty and a little mean, but Morrison takes these traits up to 11 and gives Emma the foundation of what a lot of writers would build upon. It’s also when she begins her telepathic affair/seduction of Scott, which is a more than slightly problematic dynamic, as I’ve discussed. Also, this is when she got her now-famous diamond form. We get a lot of lovely Emma nastiness in this series. New X-Men #128-139 all have lots of great moments for her where she’s just WICKED yet still on the side of the angels, and New X-Men Annual 2001 starts us off. However, character-wise, I think what really comes out here is Emma going from blaming her past actions on substances (she tells Scott in the New X-Men Annual 2001 that she just probably out of her mind on drink and drugs all those times she was doing bad things) to being forced to face her past and herself for the first time when confronted by Jean & the Phoenix in New X-Men #139. It’s the first time we get a look at what Emma’s family and home life was like, as well as the first time she’s established as having a brother, but more than that is the emotion that gets brought in. This is also when Morrison decided to retcon the Hellfire Club as a strip joint (which I hate and also shows up in Emma’s “Origins” story) but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, Jean makes Emma face all her flaws and pain and nasty, most vulnerable parts of herself. Emma is left mentally broken...then one page later, physically, shattered by a diamond bullet that we later find out was fired by none other than Esme, the Stepford Cuckoo whom Emma later says reminded her most of herself. There is definitely poetic symbolism there. As my friend put it “This cycle of her students dying and Emma losing it and trying again but never facing the roots of her issues goes on and on until her roots literally kill her, and Jean of all people resurrects her. Jean, who saw right through Emma, saw something there worth saving, and literally and metaphorically put her back together again.” The next place I’d go is Astonishing X-Men, which is the first time Emma and Kitty work together. Kitty HATES Emma at this point, because, as she points out, Emma is the villain in her origin story. And Emma KNOWS this. That’s why she WANTS Kitty there. She knew that Kitty would keep an eye on her, wouldn’t trust her, and that’s what Emma WANTS, because Emma doesn’t trust HERSELF. So this shows that Emma KNOWS her moral compass is a very flawed one, and that she WANTS to be better so consciously that she’s getting someone she knows doesn’t like or trust her to be around because she knows she’ll watch her like a HAWK. This also means Emma is admitting she can fail, and giving some control to someone else. There’s. . . so much that happens from here. Utopia. Phoenix Five. The Terrigen Mists shit. Secret Empire. I feel like there are probably great Emma readlists out there that include these, but honestly I just kinda zoned out through a lot of it. These are some additional read lists for her I found: https://lornahs.tumblr.com/post/87230882649/where-to-start-reading-emma-frost-lets-start https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/2bwwok/emma_frost_reading/ It’s definitely a LOT and I wish you the best of luck tackling it! Also, I wouldn’t feel you have to read EVERYTHING, or incorporate everything into your depiction. Pick and choose what you feel works best for your version!

#out of shirt #readlist

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bettsfic · 4 years ago

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Hi! Do you have any advice about how to reveal things about a character's past - particularly Big things, like trauma or otherwise defining moments - without either a) hitting the audience over the head in a big exposition dump, or b) hiding key info to the point where it's a Mystery to an annoying degree? I love stories where a character's behavior is somewhat of an enigma until you learn something important about them, but I don't know how to actually do that myself, esp for the pov character.

oh man what a great question! i think about this all the time. so much of writing boils down to when to reveal information. revealing information early in the story offers context, character development, and raises the stakes. late in the story, it illuminates all that came before it and casts the story in a new light.

there is so much writing advice out there that’s like “cut the backstory! nobody cares about backstory!”

but let me tell you, i’m always a slut for a good backstory. anti-backstory people are the same ones who hated the movie Solo because “we didn’t need to know more about han, he was already a good character on his own!” i read so many bad takes to that effect, and i kept thinking, excuse you! *i* want to know more about han solo!! i want information that will change and deepen my perspective of a trilogy i’ve seen a thousand times so i might go back and watch it again with new eyes!!

anyway. i’ve also been reading danmei, specifically mxtx, who is truly a galaxy brained writer when it comes to backstory. she completely changed my perspective on what it looks like to weave together a vast and complicated story structure. i remember watching the Untamed, deeply irritated by the 30-episode backstory, thinking about what poor writing it was and how if i could get my hands on the script, i’d pare it down and weave it in more thoroughly.

but then! by the end of the flashback, i was sobbing!! me! crying! over media! and i thought, i’ve had this reaction to a story maybe only a handful of times in my entire life? maybe instead of judging this for not meeting my (extremely western and strict) standards of a “good story” i should be listening to what it’s teaching me?

i honestly think i’ve learned more about writing from mxtx than my entire first semester of a cw phd.

now onto the actual advice:

in the first draft, let the backstory unveil itself to you naturally without concerning yourself with where information should go.

if you’re not used to writing multiple drafts, this might be difficult. but if you have a complicated past timeline that affects the present timeline, it’s nearly impossible to do it all in one go. you need at least one draft to get it all down, and another draft to put it in the right order. most of the revision process, i’ve found, is putting things in their right place. the creative brain is not an orderly thing, even for those of us who plan meticulously.

while you’re drafting, you’ll find natural pockets where contextual information should go. follow the paths that open for you. if you get to a point where a character is thinking about a certain moment in their past, go into what happened right then and there. you can always move it later, or expand on it, or cut it. but it’s important to see those cues and respond to them the very second you’re inspired to do so.

note, this is the same for nonfiction! if you’re writing a memoir or personal essay, memories will trigger other memories, and the more you allow yourself to follow those paths, the easier it is to see the patterns that emerge. you have to let your stories tell themselves to you.

okay so let’s say you’ve done all that. the past events are all there, but it’s awkwardly placed/you just don’t like where it is. how do you find where it goes?

unfortunately i can’t tell you where backstory/contextual information should always go or how it should be placed there. but i can tell you what certain positioning does to a narrative, so you can make a more confident decision.

i can go on at length about the movement of time in a story, but i want to keep this narrowed down to the basic premise that you have a present timeline that is informed by past events, and the present timeline is the main story. (there are many other ways to navigate time, but i’m defaulting to this setup because it’s what anon is asking, and also probably the most common.)

in your present timeline, you have plot points, moments where A Thing Happens. i’ll call these moments “events.” likely, you’ve established the stakes of these events as well as their consequences. if your past timeline (stuff that occurs before your story begins) informs these events, your first choice is whether or not you want to put them before an event or after it.

if you put the backstory prior to the event, you contextualize and add depth as or before the event unfolds. this option is good for romances, adventure stories, any narrative where the tension derives from a gradual increase in stakes, and the conflict is built by an opposing force like an antagonist.

if you put the backstory after, you illuminate the event and cast it in a new light. this might be a twist or reveal, which is good for mysteries, thrillers, or stories where the tension comes from the unveiling of information in order to answer a question the story poses.

and you can also have a bit of both! maybe you want to tease out some information and reveal some later, or have the past and present run parallel. maybe you want to begin the backstory, cut it short, the event happens, and then you complete the backstory. this method might be good for stories where the present timeline has lower stakes than the past timeline, like recovery narratives.

once you’ve decided before/after/during, the next major decision is whether you want to thread the past into the present via summary (indirect discourse), or if you want discrete, in-scene flashbacks (direct discourse). obviously you can also do a bit of both!

i think this decision will likely depend on your narrator. sometimes a well-written 3-sentence summary is more evocative than a 3-page detailed flashback, especially if the past timeline is a composite memory. that is to say, it’s not a single event that happens, but a series of them, like if you have a memory of always eating a bologna sandwich after school, your brain compiles that into a single memory even though you know you did it a thousand times.

but sometimes, if a past moment is really important, the 3-page detailed flashback is necessary. sometimes you’ll begin with summary and move into a scene and back out. when it comes to backstories, don’t be afraid to play around with discourse. how does the style and tone change when you summarize a conversation versus when you write it in actual dialogue? personally i’ve found that less is more when it comes to backstories so I err toward summary, at least in my own writing, but as a reader i appreciate each kind of approach.

lastly and most importantly, get a beta reader and ask them specifically about their experience reading the backstory. here you want descriptive feedback. you’re not asking “what should i do? how do i fix this?” you’re asking, “how did you feel while reading it?” and that will tell you how to approach revision. sometimes i write a backstory that i think is a slam dunk, because i’m already invested in the characters, but i get reader feedback saying it’s boring/they were inclined to skip over it. sometimes i’m like, “haha good, be miserable and bored, you’ll thank me later.” and sometimes i’m like, “dammit fine” and kill my darlings.

on that note, sometimes you just have to own it, and bore/confuse your reader because you know the eventual payoff is good enough. if the info dump is the best/easiest/clearest method, do it. if teasing a backstory out slowly is what you’re going for, don’t be afraid to make the reader want to throttle you. you don’t write to buy into your reader’s expectations; nor do you write specifically to defy those expectations. you write to honor the story you want to tell, and you place contextual information that is most complementary to the narration you’ve chosen.

#writing advice #Anonymous

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fanfics4all · 5 years ago

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Painless

Request: Yes / No

Requests are closed <3 Have a nice day/night

Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Word count: 3200

Warnings: SCHOOL BOMBING, CURSING, it’s criminal minds so read at your own risk!

Y/N: Your Name

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Masterlist

(Not my photo, credit to whoever made it!)

Another day at work. Another day of someone dead. I thought as I walked into the office. I saw everyone was already in the round table room and sighed. Another case. I put my stuff down at my desk and walked into the room. I took my seat next to my boyfriend Spencer and gave a smile at everyone.

“Does anyone remember this picture?” Garcia asked, bringing up a picture of a man and a girl looking distressed.

“Hotch and I were there. That’s Principal Doug Gavens. We had to drag him to safety.” Rossi said, making everyone look at him.

“High school bombing in Boise, right?” Emily asked.

“School shooter and school bomber.” JJ said and it triggered my memory.

“A kid named Randy Slade shot three students and then set off an I.E.D. in the cafeteria via cell phone, killing himself and thirteen kids total, but not before posting all his plans online.” I said and Garcia nodded.

“It was one of those “Where were you?” events. My whole campus was glued to the T.V..” JJ said.

“Last night, Principal Givens was killed by a bomb modeled exactly like the old one.” Garcia said.

“It feels like the unsub wants to attack the man who kept the school together after the bombing. It’s a pretty symbolic target.” Morgan said.

“And this week is the tenth anniversary of the massacre.” Hotch said.

“And today is the first day of a four day event to commemorate the bombing at the school.” Garcia said.

“Except commemorating it isn’t enough for this unsub.” Emily said.

“No. He wants to relive it.” Hotch said. We gathered our things and got on the plane. We were all sitting down and going over the case files.

“Perpetrators of school violence are often sophisticated with their weapons. Randy Slade carried his bomb in his backpack. This guy hid his in Givens’ clock radio.” Spencer said.

“Yeah, and progressive. Each one tries to top the body count of the one previous.”

“And they’re loners by default, not by choice. They try to join various social groups, but they get shut out.” JJ said.

“Randy Slade wasn’t a loner at all.” Hotch said.

“The family cooperated fully with us. He was a high-functioning psychopath, straight-A student, varsity wrestler, lots of girlfriends.” Rossi said.

“With an above-average intelligence that made him incredibly resourceful. His explosive of choice was Semtex.” I said looking at the files.

“It’s found at demolition sites, but it’s held under lock and key.” Spencer said.

“Which made us consider the possibility of a partner. Never found one.” Rossi said.

“Slade was too much of a narcissist to share credit. But he was also an impulsive teen, which is what bothers me about this unsub.” Hotch said.

“His sense of control?” Emily asked.

“And the end game that he’s working toward.” Hotch answered with a nod.

“Slade’s pathology revolved around the big kill. This unsub could have done the same if he’d waited for the candlelight vigil.” Hotch added.

“Which means there’s no blaze of glory fantasy here. This unsub has more bombs made, and he’s savoring the anticipation of his next attack.” Rossi said. After we talked everyone moved to their own spots to think and relax before we had the hard work to do. I sat next to Spencer and smiled at him.

“This poor town.” I said and he sighed.

“I know, but the odds are against them in this situation.” He said and I nodded.

“I know, but that doesn’t mean it sucks any less.” I said and he nodded.

“It’s a hard thing to deal with.” He said.

“Yeah…” I sighed. We tried to keep our minds on things that would help us, instead of how much people were hurting right now.

As soon as we landed we dropped our stuff off at our hotel then split up. Hotch and Rossi went to the station with Emily and Morgan. Spencer, JJ and I went to the crime scene. We walked inside and it was a mess, not shocking though considering what happened.

“Okay, so the unsub has to be tied to the school somehow, right?” JJ asked.

“Current student, alumni, family member who lost someone…” I listed off.

“It could be Slade groupies celebrating his hero. He taped nails to the exterior of the bomb, specifically to rip open flesh. That’s a sadistic detail of Slade’s the unsub copied.” Spencer said.

“Except he tricked Givens into blowing himself up. A groupie probably wouldn’t show that much self-control.” JJ said.

“But someone with an ax to grind against the principal would. Maybe he’s a surrogate for the tomenters in high school he can’t punish.” Spencer said.

“Who were yours?” He asked us.

“I don’t even remember.” JJ answered.

“You don’t even remember? Wait, were you one of those mean girls?” Spencer questioned.

“No.” JJ said.

“Valedictorian, soccer scholarship, corn-fed, but still a size zero. I think that you might have been a mean girl.” Spencer said.

“Spence.” I said.

“I was actually one of the nice girls, even to guys like you.” JJ answered and I shook my head. There was no stopping this now.

“Guys like me? I’ll have you know that my social standing increased once I started winning at basketball.” Spencer said, I always forget that he coached basketball.

“Oh yeah? You played basketball?” JJ asked.

“Actually he coached it.” I answered.

“You coached it?” She asked.

“Yeah, I broke down the opposing team’s shooting strategy.” He said.

“Is that why Morgan kicked you two out of the pool last week?” She asked.

“Yeah, it took him three rounds to realize we were hustling him.” I answered with a laugh.

“Huh.” She said and we went back to looking at the crime scene. As soon as we were done looking we got a call about another murder. So we made our way there. The three of us looked around and JJ decided to call Hotch and tell him.

“You’re on speaker JJ.” Hotch answered.

“So, we might have another one.” She said.

“Might?” He asked.

“One of the North Valley alumni was killed in her motel room.” She answered.

“No bomb or gun this time. Looks like he used his bare hands.” I added.

“You got a name?” Hotch asked.

“Chelsea Grant.” Spencer answered.

The next day Spencer and I returned to the crime scene with Hotch. It was good to come back and look at it with fresh eyes.

“The unsub crushed Chelsea’s throat so she couldn’t scream, then he pulverized her ribs, sending fragments of bone into her heart.” Spencer said.

“Principal Givens was high-profile. Chelsea wasn’t. Right now the only thing connecting them is they’re both on the kill list.” Hotch said.

“A list that Brandon kept secret for ten years, but he was in custody when this happened. So the question is, how did the unsub get the exact same list?” I asked.

“Well, we ruled out a partner, but not conclusively.” Hotch said.

“Slade made every part of his plan public. It doesn’t make sense that he would hide a partner.” Spencer said.

“He didn’t want to share the credit. And this weekend is the partner’s best chance to claim it.” Hotch said.

“Let’s go back to the station, we have a profile to deliver.” He said and we followed him.

When we got back to the station we gathered everyone up and we were ready to deliver the profile.

“Partners of dominant psychopaths are usually submissive, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be intelligent or that they’re physically weak.” Hotch said.

“This unsub laid low after the bombing and successfully evaded police and FBI. That took cunning and patience, which he’s exhibiting now with his current murders.” Morgan said.

“We think he fits the loner profile Slade debunked. He grew up in an abusive home, which kept him from forming the normal social bonds in high school.” JJ said.

“We interviewed all the outcasts from back then. How did this guy slip through?” Chief Cole asked.

“Even outcasts eventually form friendships. But this unsub was the outcast the outcasts rejected.” Spencer said.

“Exactly, he won’t stand out in any capacity, and as a matter of fact, most of his fellow students probably won’t even remember graduating with him.” I said.

“And that invisibility is what made him attractive to Slade. This partner wouldn’t steal the spotlight.” Rossi said.

“Slade targeted the cafeteria because most of the names on his list ate there together during fifth period.” Spencer said.

“So his hatred festered when the names on the list emerged from the cafeteria as media heroes. And now he wants to finish the job that Randy started.” Morgan said.

“Emotionally, this weekend is more a high school reunion to him than a memorial. We go to reunions to show who we grew up to be. Often that means changing everything about who we were.” Rossi said.

“Consciously or not, Randy Slade revealed clues as to his partner’s identity when he detonated his bomb. Agent Prentiss will be conducting cognitive interviews to see what the survivors might remember.” Hotch said. We answered a few questions the cops had then went on to try and work out who this guy could be. Emily was with the survivors now working on them.

“So, as you can see from your board there, this kill list is weirdly similar to high school.

“Group on is like the popular kids, prom court, football team, dean’s list. The Heathers, if you will.” Garcia said.

“Kids in Slade’s social circle.” Hotch said.

“What about number two?” JJ asked.

“Uh, mmhmm, that would be the kids from the other side of the tracks, 180-degree difference, kids this close to getting kicked out, Stoners, burnouts, mental cases. Chelsea Grant is on this list.” Garcia said.

“Maybe Slade targeted them because they disgusted him?” JJ asked while Spencer’s phone was ringing. We have been doing a lot of that since we got here.

“But they didn’t threaten Slade’s sense of superiority. He wouldn’t have even cared about them.” Hotch said as we ignored Spencer’s phone.

“So maybe the partner put them on the list. They’d be closer to his social status than Slade’s.” I said as Spencer’s phone stopped ringing.

“Why would the-” Spencer was cut off by his phone ringing again.

“I’m so sorry.” He said, taking his phone out and hung up.

“Why would the unsub list kids that he fit in with?” Spencer asked, putting his phone away again.

“Apparently that’s how this clique worked. The kids in it were meaner to each other than kids on the outside. Garcia, separate out all the kids who got into trouble regularly. Then eliminate the names that the partner put on the list. Now, who’s left that came to the memorial?” Hotch asked.

“Right. Whoever made the list wouldn’t put their name on it. Uh… sir, I think- I think I’ve got him. His name is Lewis Ramsey.” Garcia said.

“Where is he?” Hotch asked.

“Uhh… According to his cell phone he’s at a local bar.” She answered.

“Send it to Morgan’s phone.” Hotch ordered and called him. Morgan brought him in and him and Hotch started interviewing him. Once they were done they told the rest of us.

“You buy it?” Emily asked.

“He fits the profile, and the evidence points to him, but he seems sincere.” Hotch said.

“He’s not the unsub. He was the partner, but look at how Slade added “All the losers in this Godforsaken school.” This capitalization isn’t an accident. Look.” Spencer said and wrote it on the white board.

“L-S-R, Lewis Stuart Ramsey.” He said.

“So Slade named his own partner.” I said.

“Ironically, Lewis’ marijuana addiction saved his life.” He said with a nod.

“Well, that puts us back to our original problem. If the unsub isn’t the partner, how did he get his hands on a list that Slade and Lewis kept to themselves?” I asked.

“The only answer is that part of the profile is wrong. The unsub’s vendetta has nothing to do with the list. Did you get anything from Jerry Holtz?” Hotch asked Emily.

“Only that he mixed up the cell phones that Slade used. It felt like he was making the story up, but I only had a hunch.” Emily said.

“We need to find him now. There’s a connection to the victimology that we’re missing. Whatever he’s holding back might be the key.” Hotch said. We found Jerry, but he was dead. He was killed at the school. We made our way there and Emily met us there.

“Jerry Holtz? How long?” She asked.

“Less than an hour. Security guard heard the commotion, but the unsub was already gone.” JJ answered.

“The only people who knew we were doing the cognitive interviews were the other survivors. The unsub must be part of that group.” Emily said.

“Well, we don’t know that for a fact. He could have been lying in wait.” I said.

“Look, Hotch wants me to go through the victims’ lives and find the overlaps. We can compare their histories with the unsub’s.” JJ said.

“What else do we have to go on?” Emily asked, looking at Spencer and I.

“Spence said the unsub would have broken his hand beating Chelsea to death. Did you notice anyone with a cast on their hand, someone who seemed hurt?” JJ asked.

“No.” Emily shook her head.

“I might know why.” Spencer said and we all looked at him.

“This unsub doesn’t feel pain.” He said.

“You mean he has pain asymbolia?” I asked and he nodded.

“We need to get back to the station. Spencer told them about his theorie and no one understood what he was saying.

“In english for the other people in the room.” Morgan asked.

“There’s a medical condition called pain asymbolia, where patients register harmful stimuli without being bothered by it. They’ve been documented holding their hand over an open flame because their brain doesn’t send pain signals to the central nervous system.” Spencer explained.

“Sounds pretty rare. You sure the unsub has it?” Rossi asked.

“The crime scenes prove it. Once Spencer said it, everything clicked. He displayed an unusual level of savagery towards his victims. And consider this, he smashed through a glass display case, but there were no cuts on Jerry. That means he most likely punched through it as a show of force.” I said.

“Now, the only way the human body could withstand that level of pain is if he couldn’t feel it at all.” Spencer added.

“It must take a major toll on someone’s emotional development.” Rossi said and Spencer’s phone rang… again.

“A significant contributor to our sense of empathy is the way we personally experience pain.” Morgan said and Spencer silenced his phone again.

“And the unsub didn’t develop his sense of empathy because it was cut off. Does every person with Asymbolia have this?” Hotch asked.

“Actually, most feel empathy just fine, which makes me think the rest of our profile is still accurate. Loner, invisible, outcast, boiling rage- Son of a bitch!” Spencer said, pulling out his ringing cell phone and answered it. I notice Morgan trying to hide a smirk.

“Hi! This is Dr. Spencer Reid. I actually can come to the phone right now with a very special message that your mother is-”

“Reid.” Hotch cut him off and he hung up.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I don’t know what got into me. Where were we?” He asked, putting his phone away.

“I’m going to have Garcia check medical records. Uh, what causes Asymbolia?” Hotch asked.

“Ssss- Severe trauma produces lesions on the insular cortex, usually after a stroke but this unsub’s so young, it’s most likely caused by an external factor.” Spencer said looking at Morgan the whole time.

“Like a bomb going off next to him?” Rossi asked.

“Yeah, like a bomb going off next to him.” He repeated at Morgan. Morgan just smirked and Hotch walked off to talk to Garcia.

“I will crush you.” Spencer whispered.

“What?” Morgan asked.

“What?” Spencer repeated and walked off. I looked at Rossi and shook my head with a smirk.

“You two are seriously pranking each other while on a case?” I asked and Morgan just smiled.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He said and I shook my head again. I swear these two…

JJ and Emily came by a little later with some new information. JJ was rearranging some pictures on the board. We looked on with confusion.

“Recognize the top ten?” JJ asked.

“No.” Hotch answered.

“They were the students that went in front of the cameras after the bombing.” She answered.

“I thought all the surviving students were interviewed?” I asked.

“After the initial aftermath, yes, but these are the kids that went on talk shows, traveled to other schools. My guess is that they didn’t self-select who made the cut.” JJ said.

“Principal Givens did.” Hotch said.

“That’s why the unsub killed him first. He was an outcast who wanted to fit in. Being a survivor should have been his golden ticket.” She said.

“But he was excluded again, and that’s why he’s killing them.” I said.

“Yeah. The rules of high school never changed, not even after a tragedy.” JJ said. Hotch’s phone rang and he put it on speaker.

“Go ahead, Garcia.” He said.

“Hey, listen up. I crossed-referenced student files with medical records. Now, there were six kids that were knocked unconscious in that blast, but only one fit the outcast profile. His name is Robert Adams, and he just used his credit card at a local restaurant, the address of which I just sent you right now.” She said.

“I’m on my way.” Hotch said looking at us. Hotch gathered everyone up and JJ and I stayed back. When they came back Robert wasn’t with them. Hotch had to shoot him, there was no other way this was going to end. Once we got everything sorted we got on the plane to go home. I was sitting next to Spencer, who was resting his head on my shoulder while I read a book. We were sitting across from Morgan and Emily, Morgan was listening to music and Emily was reading a paper. He took his headphones off and we heard Spencer screaming from them.

“Okay, kid, that was cute. But that’s all you got?” Morgan asked him, he was very clearly pretending to be asleep. Morgan’s cell ran and he answered it.

“Hey baby girl-” He was cut off by Spencer screaming coming through his phone. Spencer had a smile on his face and Rossi held up a white napkin.

“Uh-uh. Alright, Reid, it’s on. Just know that paybacks are a bitch.” Morgan said. Spencer just responded with snoring. I shook my head at the two of them.

“You started this Morgan, it’s your own fault.” I said with a slight laugh.

“Of course you’re taking his side, Y/N.” He rolled his eyes.

“Well I am dating him, so yes I’m taking his side.” I said and Rossi chuckled.

Tag list: @les-bio-lie @tashy-bear @ashwarren32 @hollie-blogs @schisbro87 @lover-of-books-and-teas @nerdygaloresposts @teenwolfbitches2 @genius2050 @drw0301bieber @softgamerking @lady-of-lies @simonsbluee @ravenmoore14 @maynardqueen101 @pettyjayy @reidssmile @currentfangirl-futuremedexaminer

#Criminal Minds #criminal minds imagine #spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #spencer x reader #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer x fem!reader #fanfic #criminal minds bingo 2020 #painless

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actress4him · 3 years ago

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Bad Things Happen Bingo

I’ve had this card forever, I’m so excited to finally be posting this!!

There are instructions below the cut that have details on what I will and won’t write, so please give them a read through before sending in a request!

Pick a square!

If you can’t decide between two, that’s okay, send both and I’ll pick which one speaks to me the most.

Pick your main whumpee!

I am willing to whump...

Voltron:

~Keith

~Shiro

~Pidge

~Lance

~Hunk

Kingdom Hearts:

~Sora

~Riku

~Kairi

~Axel/Lea

~Saix/Isa

~Vanitas

~Meli, my OC (Note: I will only use Meli if specifically requested, so don’t worry about me sticking her in where she’s not wanted)

Querencia:

~Liliana

~Quinn

~Nari

~Alex

~Jamil

In Irons:

~Adelaide

Overexposure:

~Ellery

The Barn:

~Jacob

Optional steps:

Pick an additional character (or two)!

Could be a fellow whumpee, a whumper, or a caretaker. You can specify or leave it up to me. I will most likely add extra characters regardless of if you pick someone for this step, this is just your chance to include someone specific. It can be pretty much anybody else in the series! Please see “what not to request” below for additional notes.

Specify additional details!

A more specific scenario, a place in the timeline, an AU idea, etc. Just please try to keep it to one or two details, not an entire plotline.

What NOT to Request:

~Ships. All prompts will be written as gen/platonic (unless you happen to request Riku and Meli). If you want to request an additional character and put on your shipping goggles, that's your prerogative, but please don’t tell me you’re going to haha and don't expect anything overtly romantic from me.

~Villains as anything but villains. That includes Lotor, sorry. Also includes most Organization XIII members, other than Isa and Vanitas, bc I love them.

~Your OC if I haven’t read your stuff! If you know for sure that I've read your story, then please do ask if you’d like and I'll consider it depending on how well I know your character and if I think I can write them.

~Anything explicit/NSFW. Though I'm not opposed to throwing in a little bit of non-con touching or threats of non-con, I will not write smut of any kind.

~Major character death, unless it's temporary/not actual death.

Additional Notes on What to Expect:

~If you have any triggers or squicks you want to make sure I avoid, please let me know.

~I have no idea how long these are going to be, it will probably vary depending on the prompt and how my muse is feeling at the time. They will most likely be longer than the recent prompts I was doing, but I’m going to try not to write entire novels! I usually tend towards too long rather than too short, because I like to get in maximum whump plus the rescue/comfort at the end.

~My default will be as close to canon as possible as long as it works for the prompt and the story, so if you specifically want an AU that will need to be specified as an additional detail.

~I'll be posting everything on Tumblr, fanfics will go on Ao3 and possibly FFN depending on the fandom, and you can request via comment, ask, or dm on any of those platforms or on Instagram.

~I'm going for a total blackout here, so bring on the requests, people!

#bad things happen bingo #badthingshappenbingo #bingo card #voltron fanfiction #kingdom hearts fanfiction #original fiction #whump blog #whump community

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goldenart0 · 4 years ago

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I am someone who believes that most stories would do better if there was a character (specifically protagonist) who just puts all of there points into charisma. Like, I love villains that are just Manipulative Bastards (like MCD Zane, brilliant character and villian. A dick, but well written), but honest to god having protagonists doing those things is equally as awesome to me.

And there’s also kinda this thing with Oscar ending up giving characters morality crises (I specifically saw on thing with Neo and Cinder as like a ‘what if Neo and Cinder ended up kidnapping Oscar but he just ends up giving them a morality crises) because baby. But then I thought, okay that, but more on purpose. Like specifically trying to get people to have morality crises or just not kill him.

So of course I put two and two together, and ended creating a list of reasons I think it makes sense for Oscar to be the kind of character with all point into charisma and such.

1) It fits his actually character so far.

Oscar from what we’ve seen always tends to try talking over nearly any other plan. In V5 he got Ruby to kinda open up a bit. Durning his fight with Hazel in V5 after learning Hazel’s story he tries to convince Hazel to move on and not blame anyone other then his sister for it (“did she know the risks?”). V6 he tried talking to Jaune after the group told JNR about Salem. And in V7, while everyone else was either fighting someone or trying to get to safety, he went to talk to and convince Ironwood to stop what he’s doing. There have been quite a few times where this tactic has failed, but the point still being it’s what he nearly always defaults to. Talk and convince other as opposed to jumping to punching them. Also, in V7 when everything was kinda falling apart in Atlas while they were at the party and James was panicking because the plan was falling apart, Oscar was the one to help James realize (maybe even help come up with a plan) that this isn’t as bad as it seems and that they can turn in around. This isn’t just plain optimism, this is taking the scene and finding a way to make in work in your favor. Which I’m sure is something that will come real handy soon. On that note, since (I’m like 90% sure) we’re out of act two and into act three, things will start to look up a bit more for our protagonists. And by most means they are in a very bad situation right about now. But as we’ve seen, bad situations can be turned good in you think right.

1.5) Also, he’s not the best fighter. And he knows this. In volumn six he specifically comes into the ship with Maria to help by watching from above. He doesn’t work well by being in the front lines, and he knows that. Besides this group needs someone who can deal with, ya know, people and most of them not really seem to fill that role quite that best (I know ruby can deliver her speeches in moments if need, but could she handle a professional meeting or discussion? I think not).

2) It’s not a typical story path.

These traits of making situations work better for you and convincing other to do things you’d like (ie.dont kill me) tend to be traits more given to villains as opposed to heroes. Think about it. How many villain to you know that manipulated and cunning compared to heroes. Not much in this day and age. But RWBY has done this kind of thing before. Take Ruby for example. Just looking at her we see dark colors, a cloak, a not typical hero weapon. But then we meet her and? It’s a bouncy girl who loves weapons, loyal to her friends, and with a spark that just won’t go out. She does not seem like what we’d expect by just given her design. Oscar himself already does this to some degree. He is the actual definition of a chosen one protagonist. And yet he is not the protagonist at all, and honestly that makes this idea even more fun. As I said, this is a trait that villains tend to get. Chosen one heroes never really get this, they fight to cunning villain instead. So seeing that flipping of traits and breaking of tropes is wonderful to me, and I love it and I hope RWBY never stop doing it.

3) Greek Mythology:

There are two main kinds of heroes in Greek mythology (at least as we’ve been able to find and collect, mythology is Fucking Weird sometimes. Most times history and time don’t really help much). The prideful one, who gets destroyed by their own hubris and the cunning one. Salem falls very much into the first of those. She’s like a Bellerophon, trying to reach the gods but being struck down, or an Icarus flying to close to the sun. Oscar on the other hand seems to be a bit more like Odysseus, may not physically be the strongest, but damn he was smart enough to get out of many bad situations. Or Heracles who, despite what modern media tends to show him as, was really fricken smart. The dude managed to trick Atlas into taking the sky back by basically saying he’d take it back but then went “fun fact! I lied. Bye!”. He figured out how to take down enemies many thought were immortal though smarts and figuring out their weaknesses. He realized when he couldn’t physically do something, found a way to do it, and won some horse along the way. Ancient Greece really liked to say, Brawns won’t do you shit if you don’t have the brains to back then up, and even when as far to go with that brains were more important then brawns at points. Also, remember that story with Atlas and Heracles I just told you? Well I mean they are in Atlas and they need to find some shiny relics...

4) There will be no victory in strength:

One of the main themes in RWBY is how you can’t just fight your way out of everything. Now the main group hasn’t quite realized this yet, hence why they were so upset about the Salem thing. But Oscar is the epitome of this idea. He doesn’t go straight to fighting the majority of the time, and tries to talk with people and convince them to change. Now I’m not saying he should try that with Salem, I highly doubt that’ll work, but honestly it would probably work with most of the other antagonists in the series. (“I don’t need to be able to beat you in a fight, I just need to be able to convince you to fight someone else”).

5) Plans

Honestly, quite a few of the groups in RWBY are not the best planners. The protagonists a) tend to only think about what to do immediately and b) go to fighting first. They also don’t really back up plans, just kinda wing it of plan A doesn’t work. Ironwood is very rigid in his plans, both as not being able to deal well is the plan fails, and in letting other people bring up other ways to handle something. But as I say earlier, Oscar was the one to convince Ironwood that not all hope was lost and that new plans can be made out if the ashes of the old one. It’s sort of a “think ten steps ahead, but also look out for any opening and play with the hand you’re dealt” kind of thing. Because taking chances when you see that and bending a situation to fit what you need is very much a more manipulative move, but also can be very helpful. Especially is current plans are failing. Or everything is very very bad at the moment. And Oscar is the only we’ve really seen to something like that. Everyone else just tends to find a way that works and just stick with it, not really making room to be flexible. Flexibility is important you guys.

6) Possible Semblance:

I think one thing most of us all agree on is that there is no way that Oscar can just be holding in all of his emotions and just, like, be fully mentally ok at this point in time (okay honestly none if the kids are) and I at least would like for him to just snap. And I think a main part of that will be not having people listen to him (ie. James just shooting him instead of listen to what he had to say) and not being seen as himself and who he is. And we know that Semblances tend to relfect in a person. With all that being said, there is a power that could manage to not only hit that current issues Oscar’s having mentally, but also with the while ‘convincing others’ part. Glamour. Now I might be the only one that read about this because of what I’ve found online, but Fae Glamour, as well as being able to make you look different, can also ness with peoples brains a bit. Just like, some making you believe something different here, some changing if your perspective on reality there ya know? Oh if you’ve ever read the series, The Invisible Library (I recommend you do if you like fantasy, the multiverse, fae, dragons, etc.), the librarians in that have the ability to make this to things, the farther from what it’s normally be like the more effort it takes. Kinda like that. This also ties in with Oz general Fae-like thing. I’m not joking he’s very much like a Fae. (This would also tie into my next point woo transitions).

7) Conflict:

As has been said before, these sorts of things are not usually hero traits. And there are definitely people on the group who may not be the most okay with someone doing things that aren’t fully morally right all the time and that could very well cause some issues. Issue that is even occur would probably be dealt with in a more timely manor but still. (Also the FNDM might not like it as much as well, cause no one seems to understand that morality isn’t just black and white).

I think that’s all? I might end up adding more is I remember or think of it. Well thanks for surviving my ramble if you did read it all

#rwby #oscar pine #rwby theory #basically he’s a slytherin #like a Manipulative Bastard but Neutal Good instead Neutal/Lawful Evil #part of me is like #he wouldnt use much cause precious cinnamon roll #but another part is #MCD Zane but just on the good side of dnd allinment chart #itd be fun if that were the case #i doubt it but itd be fun #also this whole thing would probably make him a bit more involed with planning and such #so thats good for the lancer thing

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dolcetters · 4 years ago

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THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; mun & muse - meme.

TAGGED BY: @hyaciiintho ( ;-; AAA THANK!!! )

TAGGING (don’t feel obligated to do it!): @forsakenflora , @avadite , @yinseal , @inseparabilum , @reigningsniper , @tsume-awase , @canisfuria & YOU if you wanna!

FILL OUT & REPOST ♥ this meme definitely favors canons more, but i hope oc’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. multi-muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

----------------------------------------------------

MY MUSE IS: CANON / OC / AU / CANON-DIVERGENT / FANDOMLESS

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK (he’s fetishized a lot; thanks, i hate it)

Is your character considered strong in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK (i’d lean more toward no)

Are they underrated? YES / NO

Were they relevant for the main story? YES / NO / MAYBE (stares into the abyss)

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO / MAYBE

How’s their reputation? GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL (true neutral, my boy)

HOW STRICTLY DO YOU FOLLOW CANON? ♠ || i have an ongoing joke that “canon is a slab of meat that we slow-roast at 475 degrees and carve for the juicy bits” but at the same time it’s not a joke at all, i’m being perfectly serious. i’m definitely a lot less strict than when i started for writing canon characters way back yonder, but i also DO like to keep within an array of canon boundaries because i’m not writing for an OC in this instance, i’m writing for an established character. ...it also doesn’t help that my character’s handled differently in the 4 types of media he shows up in but. i grew up reading DC comics and writing for beast boy, so i’m kind of used to “multiple takes existing for singular character”.

that being said, my take on dol is clearly canon divergent (since... he’s alive and my default verse takes place after the nest raid) but it pulls primarily from brotherhood/manga with a couple dashes of 2k3 series (since that’s the only media that gives us a length of time that he was in the labs). but given that i follow along with just about every scrap of information provided in the manga on this clown, i’d say i follow canon fairly strictly... but there ain’t a lot to go off of, so my reins are pretty loose no matter how you look at it. my city now.

SELL YOUR MUSE! AKA TRY TO LIST EVERYTHING, WHICH MAKES YOUR MUSE INTERESTING IN YOUR OPINION TO MAKE THEM SPICY FOR YOUR MUTUALS. ♠ || (*￣3￣)╭ well, hello, there. aware of dog? yes. this is he: dolcetto mcgrouchyboots, and he is not happy to be here at all. he is traumatized, sassy, wants to throw hands with teenagers, has no sense of self worth, and will absolutely use himself as a meat shield in order to protect any and everyone he cares about. he is spliced with: dog. his favorite weapon: sword. if you listen carefully, you might hear dog-song rising on the east wind as he approaches (don’t tell him axel taped a cassette player to his back). he comes from a found family of complete and utter morons with a lot of damage, they live in a partially underground bar, work as information brokers, and are all DEFINITELY fully functioning adult people. they say gay and trans rights. if you like angry boys with a sense of humor semi-on-par with griffin mcelroy, this is the boy for YOU!!!

NOW THE OPPOSITE, LIST EVERYTHING WHY YOUR MUSE COULD NOT BE SO INTERESTING (EVEN IF YOU MAY NOT AGREE, WHAT DOES THE FANDOM PERHAPS THINK?). ♠ || he’s only featured in a handful of episodes/chapters across all media, doesn’t have a significant amount of dialogue, and we only ever see him lose to the protagonist(s) despite that he seems more than capable of fighting anyone else. easy to brush off as a “aw he died and that’s sad but we didn’t really know him, moving on”. from what i’ve seen in my years, people are more interested in him being a cog in the machine of “greed is sad” and less interested in... HIM. which is fair, i guess, but hhhhhh

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO RP YOUR MUSE? ♠ || i don’t know if i can pin-point any ONE thing, but i’ve always been drawn to characters with some sort of connection or bond with animals (example, once again, being beast boy from teen titans). i also have an IMMENSE weakness for the found-family dynamic. so when the devil’s nest appeared during my first watch through of brotherhood, i was pretty much... hooked. immediately. and devastated. immediately. as for what drew me to writing dol, specifically... probably his loyalty, his drive, the fact that he WOULDN’T FUCKING STAY DOWN no matter how many times someone knocked him flat on his face. i vibe with that. grew up very much in the mentality of “fall down 7 times, get up 8″. also, he had a sword... which always beats guns on coolness factor. and i loved his fire. ...and that he was a complete fucking idiot who’s really bad at kidnapping i mean HOLY SHIT THAT’S HOW YOU TRIED TO GET HIM TO COME WITH YOU, DOLCETTO, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING--

WHAT KEEPS YOUR INSPIRATION GOING? ♠ || dol has always been a great source of ...venting for me? <xD ever since i started writing him, i’ve always found his muse--specifically--to be extremely cathartic and comforting. i dunno if it’s because he lets the more... jaded side of me come out, even when we’re both trying to be optimistic?

because i’ve been in 2 emotionally abusive friendships. i definitely have some left over hurt, pent up anger that hasn’t been given closure, a hell of a lot of underlying bitterness that i never got the opportunity to confront those people, BUT i still try to be. y’know. welcoming, friendly, supportive, despite a voice in the back of my head being paranoid?? i think dol continues to give me outlets to expressing that. somehow. not that i use him as an excuse to do it, more so i have more opportunities to do it when i’m writing him as opposed to writing someone like beast boy, who’s usually more on board with keeping the peace than picking a fight. i’ve also invested SO MUCH TIME and ENERGY into his background and headcanons and things that i kind of can’t quit him now, nor do i want to.

... and aside from that i just want him to have a happy ending god, fucking damnit.

SOME MORE PERSONAL QUESTIONS FOR THE MUN.

give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice? YES / NO ( or i certainly hope so )

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO

Do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO

Are you confident in your writing? YES / NO ( definitely have moments but eh! )

Are you a sensitive person? YES / NO ( kind of... varies. i’d say i’m more hyper aware)

DO YOU ACCEPT CRITICISM WELL ABOUT YOUR PORTRAYAL? ♠ || i definitely like to think i do when it comes to pre-established things in canon. but when it comes to what i’ve built on my own over my years of writing for dol (and the nest members as a whole), it’s kind of my sandbox and i’d appreciate you not stomp around in it.

unless i need to be learned a thing, like... one of the nest members, vi, is a trans-woman. i’m a cis-woman and i try to do as much research as i can and educate myself, but if i ever fuck something up please tell me, i’m doing my best but i’m more than willing to listen. i want to grow.

DO YOU LIKE QUESTIONS, WHICH HELP YOU EXPLORE YOUR CHARACTER? ♠ || pretty sure everyone does! >xD but yeah! i FUCKING love it. especially since i’m writing for a minor character. =//o//= it shows people are interested in him despite his overall lack of content.

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES TO A HEADCANON OF YOURS, DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY? ♠ || i’d definitely be curious as to why but i doubt i’d be offended or take ... any personal harm from it--y’know? it’d be more of a “let me hear your perspective and maybe it’ll expand my own understanding, or i might not agree after the explanation and that’s cool”!

an exception would be for an obviously shitty one that’s shitty for no reason, like... acTUALlY, he’s TOtaLLY hom///o///pho//bic, to which i’d be like “bitch, no, get away from me; no one in this bar is straight, die mad”.

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH YOUR PORTRAYAL, HOW WOULD YOU TAKE IT? ♠ || again, it’s cool! there’s not a lot of canon material so you can take his portrayal a variety of places. if we don’t jive, it’s pretty whatever.

my one exception to this is probably people who, in the past, have told me i write him being “too mean”. which will never cease to confuse me. because even after al straight told dolcetto he was 14, dol was still like “I REALLY WANNA SMACK HIM but i’d just hurt my hand so you’re off the hook”, he’s angry like 85% of his dialogue in the manga... i’m just confused. where are you seeing the “uwu pupper~” persona. you can write it, that’s fine, i don’t care, just don’t get irritable when i don’t write him like a cute puppy. because here he is. suggesting we just kill izumi because she’s being troublesome. yeet. ...he’s an asshole.

IF SOMEONE REALLY HATES YOUR CHARACTER, HOW DO YOU TAKE IT? ♠ || whatever, just don’t be a dick or speak badly about me or him in my presence because, flawed as he is and while i won’t make excuses for him, i’ll stand up for him. go somewhere else, my dude. i, personally, don’t have the energy for your negativity. nor do i have the patience.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PEOPLE POINTING OUT YOUR GRAMMATICAL ERRORS? ♠ || i’m more okay with people correcting my spelling (gently). because of the way i taught myself to read, i’d be FUCKED if auto-correct or spell-check didn’t exist. i also google correct spellings constantly. so spelling, yeah, i already know that i’m terrible at it so feel free to correct type-os or spelling mishaps, it ain’t no thang.

grammar i’m a bit... pickier about. because sometimes i’ll purposely do a “grammatical error” because the punctuation or otherwise further drives the pacing or mood i’m trying to give my writing. i may not know ALL the rules but i break them from time to time... FOR THE ART.

DO YOU THINK YOU ARE EASY GOING AS A MUN? ♠ || i wanna say i am?? while i definitely do want to seriously explore and flesh out and grow dol as a muse and character, i’m “not above” goofing around, poking fun at him, or just being plain silly on the dash. RPing is escapism for me and i strive to keep my blog a peaceful safe haven on the dashboard, both for myself and my followers.

i try to communicate to the best of my ability and despite my anxieties, and while i may not be able to follow or RP with EVERYONE (for obvious reasons) i’m open to interacting with ... pretty much anyone who throws me a bone. i’ll speak up if i’m not down for a plot or interested in a certain relationship or interaction, but i’m certainly not going to be rude or dismissive about it. i know what that feels like. i’d say yeah, though! i think i’m pretty chill. e-e you tell me.

#♦: ooc answer .#[ ;0; THIS WAS FUN ]

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artemis-entreri · 5 years ago

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[[ This post contains Part 6 of my review/analysis of the Forgotten Realms/Drizzt novel, Boundless, by R. A. Salvatore. As such, the entirety of this post’s content is OOC. ]]

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Generations: Book 2 | Legend of Drizzt #35 (#32 if not counting The Sellswords)

Publisher: Harper Collins (September 10, 2019)

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Additional Information: Artwork for the cover of Boundless and used above is originally done by Aleks Melnik. This post CONTAINS SPOILERS. Furthermore, this discussion concerns topics that I am very passionate about, and as such, at times I do use strong language. Read and expand the cut at your own discretion.

Contents:

Introduction

I. Positives I.1 Pure Positives I.2 Muddled Positives

II. Mediocre Writing Style II.1 Bad Descriptions II.2 Salvatorisms II.3 Laborious “Action”

III. Poor Characterization III.1 “Maestro” III.2 Lieutenant III.3 Barbarian III.4 “Hero” III.5 Mother

IV. World Breaks IV.1 Blinders Against the Greater World IV.2 Befuddlement of Earth and Toril IV.3 Self-Inconsistency IV.4 Dungeon Amateur IV.5 Utter Nonsense

V. Ego Stroking V.1 The Ineffable Companions of the Hall V.2 Me, Myself, and I

VI. Problematic Themes (you are here) VI.1 No Homo VI.2 Disrespect of Women VI.3 Social-normalization VI.4 Eugenics

VII. What’s Next VII.1 Drizzt Ascends to Godhood VII.2 Profane Redemption VII.3 Passing the Torch VII.4 Don’t Notice Me Senpai

Problematic Themes

No Homo

Boundless continues to perpetuate some long-standing regressive to outright harmful ideas, as well as introducing new ones. There are two that are the biggest. The first is something that's existed for over two decades in the Drizzt books, and something that I've criticized Salvatore for for a long time: the fetishization of sapphic relationships. While Boundless is an improvement (and a bit of an oddity for Salvatore) in that it doesn't include any gratuitous lesbian sex scenes or allusions, it still very much perpetuates an imbalanced representation, such that it wouldn't be fair to describe it as true representation. Yet again, despite it being canon that the default sexuality in the Realms is pansexuality as opposed to heterosexuality in our world, the only people that we see in Boundless that are capable of same sex attractions are female. Ever since the token gay guy Afrafrenfere's epiphany that everything else he'd been engaged in, which includes his deceased boyfriend, was a distraction from enlightenment, there hasn't been so much of an implication that men could be attracted to other men in Salvatore's Realms. There exists more chemistry between Harbonair and Zaknafein than between Zaknafein and Dab'nay, which is rather sad given that the latter pair are actively sexual with each other. There's of course the possibility that Salvatore just doesn't know how to write gay male chemistry, but to be fair, his heterosexual chemistry is pretty bad. Most of it is just sex or another physical act spontaneously happening that triggers a change in the nature of the relationship, for instance, the start of the relationship between Entreri and Calihye. There's so much background "everyone is heterosexual" stuff going on that to be inclusive, Salvatore just needs to mention that there's more than one man in an orgy rather than it always being one man to many women. Or, better yet, use an example directly from the world canon that other authors have used, namely, that the workers of a brothel or attendants in a temple of Sune are of more than one gender and that a male client is greeted by both male, female, and other gender-identifying attendants. Casual inclusion of this nature isn't difficult, and we see Salvatore do it with sapphic stuff enough that leads me to believe that it's a choice on his part not to be fully inclusive.

An example of when Salvatore could've gone for inclusion, but instead went for fetishization, is in the scene of Dahlia infiltrating a Waterdhavian nobles' ball:

This isn't much better than gratuitous lesbian sex scenes at the total exclusion of gay men. It's completely unnecessary for Salvatore to have specified that women also drooled after Dahlia; simply stating "people" would've been sufficient. It's not like Salvatore doesn't have many chances and setups where he can drop a hint that gay men exist in the Realms like he does so frequently for gay women. Oftentimes, Salvatore's writing feels very much like he realizes that there's "too much" chemistry between two male characters, such that he has to throw in a "NO HOMO" wrench. For instance:

While there isn't anything inherently gay in this passage, there isn't anything inherently gay in so many places where Salvatore artificially injected "these women are sapphic" indicators. Yet here, between two male characters, it's specifically clarified that it's brotherly love. Love is love, it shouldn't have to be clarified like this. Sure, some people might jump to romantic love, but so what? This was a good opportunity to at the very least, leave it vague, but apparently Salvatore can't stomach it enough that he has to cross the possibility out with a bold black marker (maybe its the same sharpie he uses on the tapestry of Faerûn). It's as though the possibility of romantic love between two men somehow taints the sacredness of their bond. Salvatore's writing style is very old-fashioned and set in its ways, but that's no excuse not to change. Despite his espoused views on social media, Salvatore's lack of representation in his writing suggests a discomfort that he doesn't want to address. This is increasingly problematic as we try to push to a better world with more acceptance and equality. Inclusion isn't truly inclusion if it's done with only a portion of the population.

Disrespect of Women

What Salvatore does with sapphic women is fetishization, which is additionally problematic because it's a short hop from objectification of women. This point is one that I haven't touched on much in the past, but it's glaring in Boundless because in this novel, Salvatore also tries to demonstrate respect of women. Salvatore has a long history of poorly-written female characters. In his books, a female character's most redeeming characteristics were that she was hot and young. For a while, I could tell which female characters were there to stay, which were doomed to die from the get-go, and which would suffer horribly as they met their inevitable end. It always had to do with how physically attractive the character was, and usually with respect to how she measured up to Catti-brie's beauty. Not counting female villains like Sheila Kree who were not coincidentally unattractive, protagonist characters weren't spared this treatment. For instance, Delly Curtie didn't hold a candle to Catti and could barely find happiness with Catti's rejected suitor. By the same token, Innovindil, who, despite being a full-blooded elf, wasn't as beautiful as Catti, and was subsequently very short-lived. Dahlia, another full-blooded elf who wasn't as beautiful as Catti, admittedly didn't die (yet), but what she went through is arguably worse. Dahlia is portrayed to be very much second best to Catti, from her looks to her rejection by Drizzt to Catti outright beating Dahlia in a fight. So, of course, Dahlia gets stuck with Entreri, who's frequently portrayed as second best to Drizzt. Salvatore does deserve credit for trying to break the mold with Penelope Harpell and Wulfgar, but Penelope's appearance doesn't leave much of an impression. We're reminded multiple times that she's an older woman, and the focus is on her personality, but with how often younger female characters' physical appearance is mentioned and re-mentioned, it gives the impression that Salvatore doesn't believe older women can be physically attractive. As always, Catti-brie was an exception to the rule, for even in her mid-forties, "her form, a bit thicker with age, perhaps, but still so beautiful and inviting to [Drizzt]", a characterization that follows another sentence describing how beautiful she was barely a page prior. But we don't hear such about Penelope, instead, we're told about the strengths of her personality, which are admirable, but only become the focus for her, rather than for a young-appearing strong female character like Yvonnel the Second. This is not to mention that someone's form probably shouldn't be characterized as inviting, as that is something the person should do, not something done by the person's looks. The objectification of women is problematic enough on its own, but instead of addressing the issue, Salvatore appears to consider it sufficient to put in a significant anecdote featuring a temporary character to prove that he is an ally to women. The mysterious "demon" possessing the little girl Sharon is painted as a moral adjudicator, entrapping the evil in its unbreakable cocoons filled with wasps that have human faces. Before this "demon" entraps Entreri, it ensnares an old man, whom we're simply told is an old lecher, with no insight about what makes him such and what wrongdoings he'd committed. All we know is that he and his wife attempted to kidnap Sharon and threatened to kill her if she resisted. It's not very clear what's going on in that scenario or what the couple's intentions were. The man's description shifts suddenly from nothing to "old lecher", and he is damned to an eternity of suffering. But how was he a lecher? Was Salvatore trying to imply that he intended to sexually assault Sharon? Or was human trafficking one of his many sins, with the "lecher" part referring to how he is towards women? While all of these crimes certainly warrant harsh punishment, the message that Salvatore's trying to convey isn't clear. Furthermore, the anecdote gives the reader zero satisfaction in the guy's punishment, because we're only marginally invested in what's happened. His anecdote is nothing more than a cheap and lazy setup to illustrate what the "demon" can do.

Social-normalization

The second of the two worst among Salvatore's long-standing problematic themes is the simplified and social-normative qualifications of what makes a person worthwhile. To put it simply, one is good and just if they are the Companions of the Hall and/or act like them, despite the many many ways that the Companions behave unheroically and hypocritically. On the flip side, one who doesn't subscribe to or follow the model of the Companions is evil, bad, or not worthy of existence unless they change to become like the Companions. Of the latter group, it isn't sufficient to change to become a different version of themselves. For instance, during the demonic assault, Zaknafein throws himself into the fray of battle, risking his life, yet again, for his ungrateful son. Yet, Drizzt's takeaway from watching his father do this is, "joy to see his father so willingly risking his life for the cause of the goodly folk of the Crags". There appears to be a subconscious inconsistency here on Salvatore's part, for he even writes that Zaknafein helps the dwarves because Zaknafein knows it's what his son wants him to do, so removing Drizzt from the picture, Zaknafein wouldn't be doing it solely on behalf of the dwarves. Zaknafein isn't Drizzt, and that's a good thing, for not everything needs to be a Drizzt clone, but Salvatore doesn't seem to agree with that assessment.

Salvatore doesn't seem to realize that Drizzt is the problematic one. Boundless represents a point in time in which it's been awhile since Zaknafein has returned. During this time, while Zaknafein has been trying to adapt and adjust his worldviews, Drizzt's perspective hasn't changed at all, despite Jarlaxle spending a great amount of time talking to him about Zaknafein and presumably helping Drizzt get past the initial emotional turmoil of the return of Zaknafein and his own struggles with reconciling the past and the present. There's also a double-standard here, for while Entreri is forced to change because enough time has gone by, Drizzt isn't.

It really seems to be the message that the only characters that are good and valid need to be as close to Drizzt as possible, and this belief applied to Entreri has been the cause of the assassin's increasingly poor characterization. Entreri has become a "better person" by the narrator's approximation, a quality that is, yet again, not coincidentally synonymous to being an ally to the Companions of the Hall. Artemis Entreri may very well have become a better version of himself, but that is not, and should not be, becoming more like the Companions of the Hall. By whose definition is "a better person" anyway? By Drizzt's? By the Companions'? It's often the case that those that believe that they are the definition of what's right and define others' morality relative to themselves are the least qualified to do so.

Eugenics

Although not as prominent as the two themes already mentioned, one final consistent problematic theme of Salvatore's in the Drizzt books that I'd like to discuss is the idea that mediocrity and excellence are inherited traits. Boundless reminds us yet again that all of the offspring of Rizzen are as unpromising as he is, and while it isn't specifically stated that all the offspring of Zaknafein is very much otherwise, we have over thirty books basically telling us that so it probably doesn't need to be repeated. While it is true that genetics do play a role in determining what makes up a person, genetics do not lock in guaranteed results. Yet, the undistinguished Rizzen sired "the mediocrity of Nalfein", and as though that insult wasn't bad enough, "His pants fell down, too. Again, and as expected, unimpressive." Dinin "would do Rizzen proud", but that's not saying a whole lot because it was in the context of the total failure of Nalfein. There's a further level of problematic theme here, for perpetuating the stereotype that a man's worth is at all related to the size of his genitalia. All of that aside, not everyone is privileged enough to be born to top specimens, and those that weren't inherently already have a struggle on their hands. They don't deserve to have the idea that they'll be mediocre no matter what perpetuated. Genetics might be what makes an individual, but what defines them is the actions that they take.

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mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker · 6 years ago

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Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #13-15 Thoughts

Previous thoughts here.

Yes I know I couldn’t be later to this party but I started this series so I’m going to finish giving my thoughts on it.

I tried very hard to finish Houser’s run on RYV in time to read Spider-Girls but it just didn’t happen, I only made it up until just before the penultimate arc and I didn’t write up a proper post of my thoughts back then. So I re-read her first arc today with ambitions of re-reading the next 2 stories before finally experiencing the final arc and then Spider-Girls as part of reading over most of Spider-Geddon. What you will read below are a mixture of some initial thoughts I jotted down during my first read through and my thoughts upon revisiting the story, mostly the latter.

Oh SPOILERS I guess

So let me immediately get some obvious business about Renew Your Vows’ direction from here on in. The book, sans its covers, desperately misses Stegman. It also misses Conway but that is not a condemnation of Houser at all.

Houser in this arc does a good job with the situation presented by the new direction. Whether that new direction was her idea or editorials is unknown, though likely the latter.

And really that is the absolute worst thing about this story, the new direction itself.

It isn’t so much that it is bad unto itself but it is reductive that after 12 issues building a certain status quo, the one also built by the RYV Secret Wars mini-series and was promoted by Marvel prior and during the book’s initial release that we are abruptly changing course in a big way.

The book is still unique, at least the Spider-Books on the stands (even now). But it is less unique for various reasons.

Firstly we simply have way more teen heroes than pre-teen ones. Secondly a book that pays much attention to Spider-Man’s super powered teen daughter is going to either tread upon familiar ground that Spider-Girl stood on or else it will evoke Spider-Girl in the memories of the readers. Annie unto herself innately did this anyway, but that was offset when she was much younger than Mayday.

It also throws away the world building and set up Conway enacted in his initial arc, not to mention it just fast forwards a lot of Annie’s potential character development.

Does this render Annie uninteresting or the premise less likable? No because Houser has a strong handle on both the characters and more specifically what RYV as a book is.

Perhaps this is nowhere more apparent in how she structures her opening arc. Each issue shifts the POV to one of the Parker family, starting with Peter, then handing off to MJ and concluding with Annie, exactly like Conway’s first three issues did. This is a pretty clever way of conveying to readers Houser ‘gets’ the book and reassure readers who might not be thrilled about the time skip that these are the same characters just at different points in their lives, and not even that different, sans Annie.

This is rather realistic because Peter and MJ being the adults are comparatively less likely to change all that much even within 8 years whereas Annie inevitably will drastically change going from a pre-teen to an out-and-out teenager. Fittingly Houser compensates for this by showcasing Annie’s new state of being throughout the issues that are about Peter and MJ.

On the one hand this does somewhat undermine the idea that this book is about the family collectively as opposed being about Annie or placing Annie as the ‘first among equals’ in the team dynamic of the book.

On the other hand since the book is about the Parker family it adds up that so much of Peter and MJ’s characterization will stem from their relation to Annie; your child is after all the most important thing in your life.

So we get Annie’s somewhat more salty and disconnected relationship with a Peter who is very much starting to feel his age. Which is GOOD, the obnoxious proliferation of teen Spider-Man renders almost any older portrayal interesting by default. With MJ though, Annie seems to have a much more conciliatory relationship, its more that she exhausts her mother and seems more comfortable going to her about stuff. Also as a nice way of distinguishing her from Mayday, Annie seems to share her mother’s passion for fashion which Mayday actively didn’t.

Speaking of fashion lets talk about Annie’s new costume. I’ll level you all..it looks better than her prior costume, but also less unique but neither is...all that great. I guess when you have Mayday Parker and Spider-Gwen and all the Spider-Women running around, coming up with something thing that fits the general Spider-Man motif, looks unique and also is really dynamic can be difficult. I can see where the designer was going though. Peter, MJ and Annie share the same outlines for where the chest areas of their suits turn into another colour. Peter’s is red and blue, MJ’s red and white and Annie’s is blue to black. So the ‘shape’ of the suit lends to the ‘unified family’ idea. The colours also make her stand out but maybe too much. If her parents had red chests and then she has blue it’s kinda weird. If the idea was she was trying to strike out on her own sure but I don’t get that impression at all. It is kinda cool she has MJ’s mask design but I preferred her old mask which was a compromise between her parents’ masks.

As for the main plot, I think Houser could’ve milked it much more than she did, we could’ve done with much more of the slice of life stuff and the Lizard was underutilized. There is a strong element of family defining the Lizard’s character because of his wife and child. In a book about family I presumed that was where we were going when he showed up. But...no he was just used as a monster amidst monsters.

I’m not saying Houser got the Lizard wrong just that there was an obvious and more compelling angle to exploited in the story.

The two big reveals surrounding the plot, that there is a zoo full of near-human people, and that it’s being run by Mister Sinister was also...underwhelming.

Spider-Man has the best supporting cast and rogue’s gallery within Marvel comics. Not only does this mean we don’t really need to see non-Spider-Man characters (like the X-Men) pop up, it’s frankly less interesting when we do because they have little-no history with Spider-Man or his family.

It was also just kind of a reveal that didn’t land for me, I could not care at all.

Mister Sinister was a little different because, I like Sinister as a bad guy I really do...but not in Spider-Man. I get including and referencing the X-Men in this arc because for some reason they were practically supporting cast members in Conway’s run, so paying that off makes sense. But why double down upon it with a major X-villain? Like the Jackal, even Doc Ock, either of them would be more fitting villains in this type of story or where the series implies it will be leading onto later.

It didn’t help that when we met Sinister initially in disguise there was just very little gravitas to him because he obviously looked like a no-name 18th century circus reject.

The ending let this arc down is what I guess I’m getting at. Issue #13 and #14 had pretty nice hooks for the next issues.

What was a letdown throughout though was the action sequences. They were pretty pedestrian along with the art overall. Like it wasn’t BAD per se (except Peter’s eyebrows...wtf?), it just was a major step down from Stegman and even Stockman, the latter of whom I think the artwork was chosen to be more like. It had this softer undefined element to it, and not in a Romita Senior way.

Returning to the character though, I do commend Houser for having a good grip on everyone and efficiently finding a way to distinguish them from one another across the three issues.

Peter dealing with being older and now decidedly less cool and engaging to his teen daughter is delightful..even if at points it feels like the narrative is kind of undermining him, especially in the Wolverine scene at the start of the story...still Dad Joke Spider-Man is awesome. Even more awesome is how together he over all is. This isn’t an angst ridden Peter Parker or one who is introspectively questioning himself. Throughout the story he gives off this air of relaxed experience, like he knows what he’s doing and can tell the situation allows for a few jokes and a bit of fun. Refrshingly he doesn’t angst about not pursuing the bad guy at all.

Moving on, Houser probably dissing MJ’s place in the Iron books at the time with her reprimanding and smack down of Tony was awesome (although I don’t get why she was so miffed at him). Her playing Spider-Mom, and more poignantly dejectedly owning it, was hilarious. Her sense of exhaustion is relatable whether you’ve been a parent or just been around them. It very much taps into Conway’s characterization of MJ as a juggler

Houser’s Annie also shines. She is believably an older version of the kid Annie we once knew but also stands firmly as her own person. She’s somewhat embarrassed by her Dad and wants greater independence. She loves being a superhero, but is (also in contrast to Mayday) a more of a punch first think later kind of gal with a dash of overconfidence.

She is untrustworthy of the Lizard and more gung ho, whilst MJ and especially Peter (to my delight) are both more reigned in and trusting.

This is nicely explored in the family’s single page descent underground where Houser gives Peter a really great speech about what it means for Annie to accept the great responsibility of the mask, that it might mean trusting those who are not trustworthy for the sake of others. This serves to nicely develop Annie as its her Dad treating her as more of an adult for the first time. the fact that it’s her Dad, the iconic hero Spider-Man conveying this wisedom onto her is very fitting and helps further legitimize Annie as a Spider-Hero to the readers of RYV and legitimize the new teen version to those jumping aboard at this point.

Not to be outdone, MJ an issue earlier got a wonderful piece of dialogue about how in spite of how their lives might be messed up by being heroes she and her family will still endeavour to make plans and live normal lives. Which is both a wonderfully inspiring heroic statement but also so very true to who she and Peter are as people.

Some other small points:

I saw Carrion amidst Sinister’s menagerie

The underground nature of the story’s conclusion nicely evokes the first arc by Conway

Overall Houser sells/sold you on the new dynamic with this arc as much as I preferred the older one and wish they hadn’t changed.

B+

#RYV Thoughts #Jody Houser #Nick Roche #Annie May Parker #Spiderling #spinneret #renew your vows #Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #mary jane watson #Mary jane watson Parker #MJ Watson #mjwatsonedit #Spider-Man #Peter Parker

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joyofcrime-elinorhigh · 6 years ago

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Ouran High School Host Club REVIEW:

Hello there, everybody. My name is JoyofCrimeArt and welcome to the first cartoon review in my month long "Deviant-cember." event. For those of you who don't know every Friday for the rest of December I will be posting a new cartoon review, because I really enjoy making these reviews and hopefully you really enjoy reading them. Plus why not make something extra for the month of December. I mean all of those Youtubers are doing it. Anyway, I think I've gotten a bit off track, it's review time! So a couple months ago my little brother decided to randomly pick a show off of Netflix and start watching it. After he saw the first episode he decided to ask me if I was interested in watching it with him. This show was none other than the 2006 anime series "Ouran High School Host Club!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1SxNoqhwHA

For those who are unaware, "Ouran High School Host" is an anime series produced by Studio Bones and based on the long running manga by Bisco Hartori. This manga series seems to be pretty big in Japan as this series not only got an anime adaptation but also a live action series that aired on the Japanese version of TBS. And THAT series was apparently popular enough to warrant a live action film based on the series to be created. I didn't even know that Japan even had any live action shows! Like what!? Man, what will those Japanese people think of next... Anyway Ouran High School Host Club is a comedy anime that pokes fun at the Shojo genre of anime and manga. The Shojo genre seems to be defined as, quote "Them anime's where people don't spend all of there time powering up, fighting, and blowing stuff up." I didn't even know that Japan even had any anime like that! Like what!? Man, what will those Japanese people think of next...All jokes aside Shojo is apparently anime that is mainly targeted mainly at teenage girls. I've never seen any other "Shojo" anime before this but if this parody series in indication I would guess it features a lot of roses, fancy outfits, and flamboyant men. But enough background information, let's talk about the series plot! The series focuses on Haruhi Fujinoka, a first year high school student who is attending the illustrious private school Ouran Academy on scholarship. (SIDE NOTE: the show makes a big deal about, even though we actually only see our main characters actually DOING schoolwork in like two episodes out of the twenty six. And even in those episodes all we see are characters do is like a fitness exam and planning a school fair. Like does anybody actually do like, math and stuff at this school? Like, I know this show is about an after school club and all, but dang! Okay tangent over.) Everything is going well until Haruhi accidentally walks into the room of the Ouran High School Host Club. Now, I know what you may be wondering if you aren't Japanese or haven't seen this show before, "What is a host club?" Now, I'm not going to say that I'm an expert on the subject or anything but based on my limited research a host club is basically a less sexual and gender flipped version of a Hooters. There basically bars or clubs that feature attractive men who's job is to charm and flirt with female customers. This show takes that idea and just puts it into a high school and removes the alcohol. Haruhi accidentally knocks over a vase that belongs to the club and, since this is a precious private school owned entirely by rich people, the vase is valued at 8,000,000 yen, or a about 70,561 dollars American (give or take inflation. Thanks Google!) And thus, Haruhi is forced to work at the host club in order to pay off her debt but, shocking twist, Haruhi is actually a girl! Wah Wah Wah! So now Haruhi has to disguise herself as a man in order to work of her debt to the host club, and many shenanigans ensue!

(You know that the vase is going to break because they have an arrow pointing at it for the entire scene before Haruhi breaks it. It's because the show thinks that if there wasn't an arrow pointing at the vase, we might forget that the vase is important.) So let's talk about the members of the host club. First we have Haruhi. She's smart, hardworking, and independent to a fault. She acts as the straight man of the group and honestly she serves that role perfectly. Her default emotion ninety percent of the time seems to just be "indifference," and I mean that in the best possible way. Her deadpan attitude acts as a perfect foil for the other members of the host club. That being said it's not like she's a static character, as she does show emotion when a scene calls for it. Without Haruhi down to earth attitude the show would not work at all, as without it the show would just become to zany. You really need that voice of reason character to balance out the wackiness, even in a show as silly as this. Also, while I don't know how much this applies in the Japanese version her American voice actress, Caitlin Glass, does an excellent job delivering her lines as this character. Also yes, I did watch this show dubbed and not subbed and that is because I am a FILTHY CASUAL PLEBE! Next we have Tamaki, the leader and co founder of the host club. Tamaki is very much the dumb but beautiful type of character. He's self absorbed, though it seems to come less from a place of ego and more from just a place of ignorance. And despite him being so self absorbed he isn't selfish. He is shown to be a kind person who cares deeply about helping people, which does keep him likable. Tamaki is just such a passionate character it's hard for you as the viewer to not get as passionate as he is. He has a crush on Haruhi, which is obvious to everybody except himself. Many episodes focus on him trying to impress her, or focusing on his jealousy of anybody else who wants to get close to Haruhi, leading to many comedic situations. The obvious irony here is that Tamaki is in love with the only girl in the school who isn't madly in love with him. Like for real, every other girl in the school just melts in his hand, except for Haruhi. This is something I simply do not get, Tamaki is a doofus. I just don't see the attraction.

I mean sure he's attractive, I guess! What with that shaggy blond hair, and those deep blue eyes...that look like two glistening pools of water in the moonlight. And he does have a sort of innocent boyish charm to him...and those luscious, kissable lips....I-Ugh, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, the review! Hehe, um...Where was I again? Also in the dub Tamaki is voiced by none other then Vic Mignogna. Most people would probably recognize him as Eric Elric from "Full Metal Alchemist" but the role that I most recognize him from is Uncle Qrow from "RWBY." QROW IS TAMAKI GUYS! I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO TAKE QROW SERIOUSLY AGAIN!

Then we have Kyouya, the other co-founder of the host club. He's in charge of all of the planning and actual day to day running of the host club. He also acts as a straight man for the group, though not as much as Haruhi. He's cold and calculated, being in the club more business reasons as oppose to Tamaki who does it in order to make women happy. He's an excellent foil for Tamaki and an excellent tool for exposition for the writers, because he always does extensive background checks on literally every character in the series because, well, he's kinda a creep. Though in all serious he is a good character, especially as we get to learn more about him and get past his calculating exterior, as we learn he truly does have a soft side. Then we have twins Hikaru and Karou, who are in the club in order to appeal to guest who attracted to a certain, specific, type of yaoi....And this has gotten weird already if you get what I'm saying. Though to be fair it is left a bit vague how much of there "brotherly love." is real and how much is just an act for there clients. They are mischievous and overall pretty awful people overall, doing really jerky things pretty much just for the fun of it. Luckily they do get character development over time that fixes this a little, but yeah. They look completely identical to each other and act pretty much the same for the first half of the series too. There's even an episode where the dye there hair differently so it'd be easier to tell them apart.

(...I think this how Akira Toriyama got his inspiration for the "Future Trunks Arc" of Dragonball Super.) They do however start to divulge more in the second half with Hikaru being more rash and more of a jerk while Karou being a bit kinder and more sensitive. But don't worry, if you think that that's the last of the awkward and possibly unfortunate implications this show presents, you'd be way off- -Cause we also have Honey! He's a seventeen year old who's whole gimmick is that he both looks and acts like a five year old...God damn it, Japan. Okay to be fair the girls in the host club don't seem to actually seem to be "attracted" to him per say, they seem to just like to fangirl over how cute he is. So at least there's that. Honey is the cute one of the host club, who loves naps, stuffed animals, and cakes. While the anime gives no explanation on why Honey looks and acts the way he does the creator of the original manga gives one, and it's the dumbest answer ever. Bisco Hatori has jokes the reason Honey looks and acts so young is because Honey was born on February 29th, and thus only ages every four years. Well played Hatori, well played. There's also the host club manager, Renge. Now according to Tvtropes at least, she's kinda a base breaker character, meaning people either love her or hate her. I personally love her, but I totally understand how people might find her annoying. She's doesn't really serve much purpose to most of the plot, probably because she was only in one chapter of the manga. She's an insane Otaku who's only real purpose is to be genre savvy. She also always rises from the grown on a platform powered by a powerful motor. Even when there outside or something. Don't ask, there is no explanation.

...Oh, there's also Mori. Yup. Mori's was definitely there too.

here are some other characters, like Nekozawa, Haruhi's dad, and Zuka club but I don't want to go into all of those characters here. I don't want to spoil the entire show. Oh! I almost forget everybody's favorite side character, John Cena Senpai!

(All credit to twitter.com/thaniasenpai for the original tweet/joke.) If there was one word that I would use to describe this show it would be "farcical." This is a really frickin' silly, especially in the first half. There's lots of yelling, over exaggerated facial expressions, and even some fourth wall jokes. Also this show has this weird thing with banana peels. Like y'know how in most slapstick comedies you'll see a character eating a banana, and then they'll drop the peel and later on some character will slip on it. This show just skips the set up and just has them slipping on the peel from the get go. The banana peels seem to just, kinda spawn. It's really kooky. The comedy is definitely over the top, but it's a really fun kind of over the top that I found to be very enjoyable personally. When your "Alice and Wonderland" episode of your show is actually one of the more serious episodes, I think it says something about the tone of your story.

(Example of Kooky.) About half way through the series the show starts to change in tone slightly. The show still remains goofy all the way through, (That image above me is actually a shot from one of the last scenes of the last episode.) but we start to get some more serious episodes mixed in with the silly ones, or episodes that have both silly and serious elements to them. We start to get more backstory on the various members of the host club and it's actually pretty effective the majority of the time. It's really weird because you wouldn't expect the show to go off in that direction but I think it's good that it did. They know not to ever make things get to heavy and give us just enough drama to be drawn into the story a bit more without substituting the shows original appeal, which is the comedy. We see the characters open up and develop as time goes on, becoming more complex and interesting. Honestly after watching all twenty six episodes of this show I didn't really have much to complain about. The only problems the show has is that the jokes don't always land and some of the unfortunate implications. And I don't just mean the stuff I mentioned earlier with Honey and the twins. When you get right down to it a lot of the host clubs antics, if placed in a less comedic setting would be a lot more creepy. Like how Tamaki claims himself as Haruhi's "Daddy." and tries to stop her from having any romantic relationship with someone else, and is kinda forcing Haruhi into his weird love club until she starts to actually start enjoying the club, almost like stockholm syndrome. Now obviously that's not the implication we're suppose to take away from all of this, as the show's tounge and cheek attitude prevents any of this stuff from getting too weird, and the bond between Haruhi and the members of the host club are genuine, I'm just saying that there's an great darker and edgier horror movie in here waiting to be made! So in conclusion is Ouran High School Host Club the greatest anime ever made? Yes. IN YOUR FACE "Hayao Miyazaki!" No, while Ouran High School Host Club may not be the greatest anime ever made by any stretch, I found it surprisingly enjoyable. It has great characters, good comedy, and a surprisingly well told and heart warming story. I think a lot of the parody and and some of the weird implications the series would work a bit better if I know more Japanese culture and the shojo genre, but regardless I do think it's a good show that is worth watching. This show will not be for everybody. It's comedy may be seen as "too goofy" for some, some of the implications might be a bit squicky for some people, and some people may not be able to get over how flamboyant and cheesy it is. But if your willing to look past all of that, and your just in the mood for a silly, nonsensical farce featuring a lot over the top characters, a lot of yaoi overtones, and a lot, and I mean a lot of roses, Ouran Highschool Host Club might just be the show to give you all of that, plus maybe a little bit more. While the show is no longer available on Netflix it is still available on Hulu both subbed and dubbed. You can also watch the series on Funimation.com for free, or buy the series on DVD and blu-ray. Check if the show sounds interesting to you maybe check it out. It'll most likely be time well spent. So that's my review of Ouran High School Host Club. Have you seen the show? What do you think of it? Feel free to tell me your thoughts in the comments down bellow. Even if you disagree with my opinion I'd love to hear yours. Feel free to fav, follow and comment on this post if you liked the review. And don't forget to come back next week for the second review in my multi-part "Deviant-cember." where I'll be talking about the 1992 Holiday "classic" Frosty Returns. See you guys then and have a great day.

(And here we have Tamaki, about to break through Wall Maria, releasing the titans onto the citizens of the Shiganshina District.) (I do not own any of the images or videos in this review all credit goes to there original owners.)

https://www.deviantart.com/joyofcrimeart/journal/Ouran-High-School-Host-Club-REVIEW-650271772 DA Link

#ouran host club #Ouran High School Host #Anime #Cartoon Review #2000's

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anmousewrites · 7 years ago

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Endless Waltz Rewatch and Review

I promised I would, so here it is. Like the other one, this one is going to have notes taken throughout because that way I can make sure I’ve covered everything.

The opening is always a little wonky. The stuff about the 13th constellation etc etc etc doesn’t make sense without background that we’re not given. In short, there’s whispers of a new mobile suit model. That’s really the easiest way to sum it up.

Also, even young me used to side-eye the scene with Releena and the colony leaders. It STILL comes off as being way more suggestive than it is.

Mariemeia’s voice acting is still 100% perfect. She’s so off-putting. Love it.

“My father entrusted me with these christmas presents.” okay idek if he’s actually your father at all, though, and if he is, The Audience already knows that can’t be true. Treize dedicated his whole life to The War To End All Wars so why would he do that. You have no idea, you’re ten. Noin and Sally~ Noin and Sally! So good.

Releena is immedately skeptical of Mariemeia because she’s met Treize and she’s like rly r u for rl It’s glossed over a little but another good line from Duo “If you leave him alone, Quatre is the kind of guy who will take the blame for everything. I wouldn’t be surprised one day if he says his lack of effort is the reason there’s no air in space.” He’s right though.

Duo’s fondness for Deathscythe is so nice, and also the animation for the special edition is... great actually? Everyone’s relationships to their mechs are really interesting.

I like seeing the backstories. A lot of this stuff is sort of implied in the series but it is nice to see it expanded upon.

Mariemeia makes her speech and you don’t get to hear Une cursing but Ii can imagine it when she says who she is. No one can call her on that faster than Lady Une.

Showing how Quatre gets Sandrock is neat, but it raises more questions than it answers. I wish they would have done his history with the Maguanac’s instead. I read it in a manga one million years ago, but seeing as I still remember it, well, it sticks with you.

“I find that I cannot quietly sleep in my grave while Trieze’s spirit is still roaming among us.” Translation: Y’all are slandering by best friend’s name and I will not stand for that shit even if I have to raise myself from the fucking dead.

Wufei is usually on an opposing side to a lot of the pilots and their ideals and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Too often we default to just believing the heroes, so I think he does a fair job of pointing out that they might be wrong.

okay but when the music picks up when wing zero shows up and heero hops in, so good, rescue me from the nostalgia, everything is great, im die

The romantic relationships are all really low-key in Wing, where they’re hinted at all. There’s enough female characters for het ships, but ya’ll know that wasn’t how we rolled back when the show came out. Heck, for some of them, it’s not how I roll now. The interpersonal relationships in the show (between the pilots, their enemies, and even some civilian characters) are never really talked about but are all very interesting.

Zechs played dead for a year and showed up again and Noin joins him on the battlefield to a mutual sense of relief. This is how it should be, this is how its always been, they’ve been fighting together since they were at Lake Victoria and nothing feels more natural, more right. Une still asks Treize for advice although she knows he isn’t there to answer. The easy, friendly relationship between Duo and Heero is comfortable and hilarious (who could imagine them being friends at all? but they make it look natural). The quiet understanding that Quatre and Trowa have is never spoken about, but demonstrated consistently though their actions.

I’m a sucker for characters and relationships and Endless Waltz, like the series, nails it.

“Let’s only take the weapons, and war itself, ALONG WITH US TO HELL.” Duo you’re the most quotable person and tbh I’ve quoted this for years. That one and ‘If you’re joking that’s cruel but if you’re being sarcastic that’s even worse.’

“How much longer do those kids intend to retaliate against me?” Dekim did you not pay attention for the last year, none of these people have any chill literally none at all

I love the parallels between Releena and Treize. Same goals, different ways of doing it, but they highlight how much their personalities and their dedication make the difference. Also Hello Dorothy. I’d be happy enough not to see her, but she does show up just to dish out some sick burns. She seems to have her shit together a little better now, and is acting more directly. She’s more likeable for it.

Not that complex characters can’t be likable, but seeing as she was so hard to pin down in the series it was really hard to understand or care about her.

We see a lot of how Noin, Zechs, Quatre, Trowa and Duo are excellent fighters, not that the series ever let us doubt it. Wufei, for as much as he has the same skills, isn’t in this movie for how good he is in combat, though. He’s here to try and wrap his head around what to make of his life now that the war is over. It’s a struggle that likely Heero and Trowa also face, not to mention everyone left over from OZ, but he’s the one who brings it to the forefront, It’s not a bad role for him.

‘wow this place has like 7 walls it’s gundam proof’

Nothing is gundam proof but esp not beam rifle proof sorry

“See for yourself just how powerless you are.” “Roger that.” Now, he didn’t say ‘fuck you’, but he meant fuck you, you get me? How did Une get in to the locked down building? Who knows. She’s magical. We don’t care.

“It is not the victor that moves the heart of the people.” Again, GW bringing it home that the war isn’t the point, the people are the point. That’s why Treize was so loved (IS so loved), why Releena is so important, why the gundams are the symbols that they are.

Treize has been dead for a year, but his ideals and his love are so insistent that Dekim is killed by one of his own men in Treize’s name. His decisions might have been awful, but he was one hell of a guy.

Heero ‘symbolically’ killing Mariemeia makes sense kiiiiind of. Who she was is dead. She’s no longer Mariemeia Kushrenada... she’s Mariemeia Barton, and will be happy to live a gentler existence than the one she was raised in.

“I will never kill anyone ever again. I don’t... have to, anymore.” Coming from the guy whose been killing people since he was a smol, that’s saying something.

The end screen of the gundams shows them all alone EXCEPT Sandrock, who is with the MC. I really like that touch.

The ending shots all show the pilots going their own ways but Young Mouse and Old Mouse agree that they kept in touch. It’s hard when you share that kind of experience with someone to just let them go. No one understands them as well as the other pilots, so although they may not talk all the time, they are never alone. Heero would be the hardest to track down but c’mon he isn’t hiding that hard.

Okay so, to sum up... Endless Waltz is completely context-less without the show. Its definitely made specifically for fans of it, and that’s okay. But it does mean it can’t just be picked up and watched... you’ll get really confused. But as for quality, my answer is probably pretty predictable. It’s an old anime, and while Waltz looks slick as fuck for how old it is, you can still catch it in spots. There’s less Naval Gazing here, there’s less time for it, and all the philosophy and politics that are brought up are worth something. Also, we get to see all of our friends again and to get a real ending to their story. Except Treize. Now, my bitterness aside as a fan of his, the fact that he is missing is noticeable. Just like in the show, going through time without him has a strange feeling to it, because his influence is still felt everywhere.

Waltz gives us some of the best of these characters and distills some of the best of the show. I don’t really have a lot of complaints, as much as I would love to be critical of it. Explosions in space? Explosions underwater? Space Empathy TM? But in the end, none of those things really break the feeling of it. It’s a good adventure, and to this day it makes me glad to have been on it.

#gundam wing #gundam wing endless waltz #anime review #anime rewatch

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afishtrap · 8 years ago

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So this sketch (from Voltron co-executive producer, Lauren Montgomery) has been going around. The theory is that each sign corresponds to a season: Pidge, in the first season, dealt with gender; Keith’s story raised issues of race; either Lance or Shiro will then (it’s assumed) deal with sexuality. Given that it’s Lance who’s looking kind of iffy (similar expression to Pidge and Keith, notably), it seems some quarters of the fandom are not just saying Lance will have some sexuality-related storyline, but that he’ll come out as bisexual.

First thing I have to say: there are a lot of things this Voltron reboot does get right. It has enough nods to the original series (which I saw in badly-dubbed reruns as a kid), but with just enough twists to make what’s really a kind of dorky super-mecha story into something with real heart. Pidge being a girl, but not being required to girl-ify herself post-reveal; Allura being strong, even harsh, instead of delicate space-princess. Hunk isn’t the butt of jokes, though Lance is still mostly comic relief... which I’ll get to, shortly.

But the reboot isn’t perfect. One bit that had people cheering had my teeth on edge: Pidge, at the alien space mall, looking at the two signs. One pink, one blue, neither representing human shape. I could’ve forgiven this if she’d been with one of the other Paladins, and they’d both been baffled. It no longer would’ve been “Pidge, because she doesn’t do performative femininity, must be puzzled as to which bathroom to use”. Instead it would’ve been, “when one’s familiar gender clues are removed, suddenly it becomes almost ridiculous to assign someone to a specific category” or some such.

Really, it felt like a failure of imagination: why not three bathrooms? Or even four? Why must aliens also divide themselves into two genders, and color-coded, at that? If the point was, “how do I know which bathroom to use when I don’t fit into neat gender categories,” how much more wonderful this question would’ve been when the animation made clear that the human/western assumption of ‘two genders’ is not everyone’s default.

The other issue is Lance. He’s supposed to be Latino (Cuban, iirc), and... he flirts, or tries to flirt, with anything that appears feminine, alien or human. (Except, notably, Pidge.) Oh come on, writers. You got so much else right, did you run out of enthusiasm for doing more? Is there some reason you couldn’t be arsed to do more, and fell back on the Latin lover stereotype?

But of course, there’s more. What, you think I was done already?

I do appreciate that the Voltron writers are proving themselves very good at laying groundwork. Given Pidge’s reveal was about mid-season, I thought they handled the revelation really well, especially with the lack of drama (or radical change on Pidge’s part) afterwards. The hints about Keith are subtle, but on rewatch I realized how many I’d missed. It wasn’t blatant; it was just enough that for those in the fandom paying really close attention, their antennae were probably up for some kind of reveal.

Which means if the hint in this image is to be taken seriously, and given Lance’s expression matching that of Pidge and Keith, welp. I guess there’s going to be some reveal of his sexuality -- but given the treatment for the other two, there should be hints in the earlier seasons.

Okay, I went looking. Even on rewatch and attuned for it, I still miss these rumored instances of Lance flirting with Keith like he does Allura. I’m left with what Lance does, and two images jumped out at me.

Remember Avatar: Last Airbender? Especially Sokka, meat-loving, sarcastic comic relief who believed in the healing power of shopping therapy. Normally that combination would’ve made him the sassy gay older brother, yet the narrative never goes that route. He falls in love with a girl, loses her, learns to love again, and never loses his quirky shopping habit. The narrative not only treats this as Just What Sokka Does, it never ridicules him for it. And he remains clearly heterosexual in his pursuits, if a bit goofy and clearly fifteen. My point is that it’s entirely possible to give a character non-masculine traits and not make it an issue of sexuality. Just saying.

So, one possibility: Lance will shift from Latin Lover to the gay guy who chases skirts in a desperate attempt to convince everyone (including himself) that he’s straight. It’s a horribly overdone trope, and it has a dark undercurrent of the lgbt person as deceitful. The person ‘plays’ at being straight, lies to others (and possibly themselves), and the reveal of their sexuality thus becomes a revelation of a scaffolding of lies. Keith may’ve gotten a pass due to his ignorance of his heritage, but the same can’t be said of Lance, unless we’re to believe he’s been unwittingly ignorant of himself this entire time (and that gets us into the gay-for-you trope and omfg please let’s not go there).

We’ve got several other options: ace, bi, trans. I doubt trans, since narratively this is too close to Pidge, and I doubt ace since flirting-as-cover doesn’t make any sense. (None of the rest of the guys feel it necessary to flirt outrageously, so not sure why Lance would feel pressured to do so; I’d expect an ace character to be relieved to be among at least two guys who seem entirely uninterested in anything sexual.) Given the narrative risks in turning all of Lance’s flirtation into deception, this is probably why a segment of the fandom thinks Lance’s reveal will be of bisexuality.

The problem is when you put together the assumptions that a) Lance will get a reveal as part of his character development, b) this reveal is related to his sexuality, and c) the demonstration of non-masculine behaviors is where the writers are laying the groundwork. Contrast Keith, who sleeps in old tanktop and doesn’t seem to notice nor care about his appearance, with Lance: proper pajamas, face mask, Pidge’s headphones, and some kind of a facial treatment mask. Add the towel around his head and the bathrobe, and, well. Lots of stereotypical ‘metrosexual’ clues, there.

So here’s the reason this makes me worry.

When heterosexuality is the assumed default, most writers seem to think indicating a non-het preference requires a sexual situation. Even one as otherwise innocent as, ‘hey, want to get coffee sometime?’ ‘Thanks, but I’m into guys.’ If there’s no way to work in that kind of interaction, the fallback is stereotypical signals. Women with short hair, who work construction. Men who lisp, or sway their hips. There are many kinds of signals used in Western media and by god I loathe all of them. But anyway.

Here’s the problem, and I’ve seen this elsewhere, which is why I’m on guard. To indicate bisexuality, the character is treated like a simple combination of two opposing things: gay and straight. It’s like Jekyll and Hyde: at night, Lance turns into Metrosexually-Gay Lance, but in daylight, he’s Flirtatious-Straight Lance. Please, no.

There’s another way I’ve seen bisexuality represented, and I hate this even more, because this is the shit that non-bi audience members carry into their everyday lives, and causes a lot of heartache for the bi community. And that’s to have Lance explicitly flirt with Keith, and when it’s noted, to defend himself by saying he flirts because he likes both men and women.

See, in a heterosexual character, we’d dismiss flirtation with the opposite sex as just a sign someone’s on the make. In a bisexual character, the layers of stereotypes twist this into, “this person isn’t capable of being attracted to only one person at a time,” which in turn becomes a charge that bisexuals aren’t capable of monogamy, or fidelity. Setting Lance up as an incorrigible flirt could play all too easily into that most pernicious of stereotypes: the bisexual who’s just biding their time to dump one lover for another. Or doesn’t even dump, just cheats, because ‘having potential attraction to multiple genders’ is apparently the same as ‘unable to be faithful to one person at a time’, in the minds of non-bi people.

This is why I’m really hoping it’s a feint, and in fact it’ll be one of the other characters who’s queer in some way. I’d actually like best if it were Shiro, simply because he’s been so stoically steadfast, and presents as extremely masculine. He’s so non-flirtatious that if he were bi, there’d be no room for that infidelity stereotype to gain ground; if he were gay, his masculinity would reinforce that one need not be a butch or femme stereotype to be attracted to the same gender. Or maybe the picture’s a total feint and we’ll find out Matt is gay, but I suppose that depends on whether Pidge manages to track him down anytime in the next four seasons.

I just don’t want to have a well-written series turn sour on me, simply because the writers wanted to represent without any understanding of the lived experience. Bisexuality does not mean someone is part-gay, part-straight. It’s an orientation in its own right, and we are long overdue for seeing that represented, and respected, in our media.

#voltron meta #voltron legendary defender #lance mcclain #analysis is my chocolate cake #lgbtqia

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mild-lunacy · 8 years ago

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My Meta Daydreams (and I)

When I read a fic for a canon I know well, I think it's genius achievement when I can shut my brain off. There's a reason I most enjoy fics where I have little familiarity with canon, if any, and that's because it's the only way I can usually stop yelling 'OOC! OOC!' at the top of my lungs. Sherlock is an exception, in that there was a lot of fic and so much of it was good-- and in-character. And, needless to say, 80%+ was Johnlock. Usually I'm only so interested, and can tolerate the mental dissonance only so long, especially with canon pairings. I think fondly of the fandoms where there's a lot of fic, and the pairing I'm into is far enough from canon reality I'm not constantly trying to gouge my eyes out. Usually it's that *either* there's a lot of good fic *or* the pairing is far enough from canon, and in the right way: the old-school slash OTPs generally hit a sweet spot 'cause the canon is *about* the relationship, but in a platonic sense.

In that regard, both Thor/Loki and John/Sherlock and all the rest of the partner ships, from Jim/Spock to Jim/Blair have a lot in common. Perhaps ironically, Johnlock will probably be remembered as a classic slash pairing that had a renaissance at the transition moment in media. I'm pretty sure Jim and Blair living together platonically on The Sentinel, or Fraser and Ray going off into the sunset together at the end in Due South would be hard to make happen these days without some people calling it queerbaiting; times have changed. Anyway, most people are much more vocally critical of the media we consume, these days (which is great). As in, most people who are not me, haha. The thing I'm knee-jerk critical of is fanfic; I sort of enjoy my entertainment with as much suspension of disbelief and mental bending as possible, particularly since I only watch most things once. The thing is, with stuff I read/watch for fun and enjoy enough to think about on the meta level, I *can* analyze, but I prefer to daydream. I think that's the difference, what explains why I'm still playing with S4 'as is' when everyone I know except Ivy has given up in disgust.

I think my relationship with analysis and whatever motivates my meta writing has demonstrably been shown to be different from the rest of fandom. I read and write analysis for fun, just like everyone else; I like thinking about fiction and I do it naturally, don't get me wrong. I do it if I'm interested at all, on some level. The thing is, I don't... default to critique, exactly, let alone social critique. The thing that comes naturally isn't wondering 'how'-- pretty much ever. I do that if and only if things are *really* confusing and nonlinear enough to require charts, like in TAB. Then I do want to know what's going on and how it works on the surface level. Usually, though, I get that part in broad terms, and that's more than enough. In other words, I'm Moffat's perfect audience, haha.

Some examples: Star Trek TOS wants you-- the audience-- to think about the progressive possibilities in the future of mankind, socially and technologically, in space. When I was a huge Trek fan, I spent all my 'meta daydreaming' about the future and how I can possibly live an extra 250 years and serve on a starship, and what other planets are like, how we should all give up having countries, and pondering Spock's feelings. Star Trek AOS wants you to think about alternate realities, and just how much would have changed if Jim Kirk's father had died, and Jim grew up angry, isolated and with a chip on his shoulder. What kind of man would he be, and how could he still (eventually) become the Kirk we know (or would he?) Likewise, what sort of impact would the destruction of Vulcan have on this timeline? What sort of things would still happen, but with major differences and at a different time and place? That's the sort of thoughts I had, and so I loved both the AOS movies while most classic Trek fans hated them (particularly Into Darkness). Not to put too fine a point on it, Series 4 of Sherlock wants you to think about the sort of influence a 'sociopathic' sister had on a young Sherlock and what the trauma she caused really meant for him. Mofftiss want you to believe in the unshakeable bond John and Sherlock have, which the other series already established, but to wonder about all the ways in which John hasn't been allowing either himself or Sherlock to be flawed. And so on and so forth. That's the sort of daydreams I tend to have, at base.

Perhaps you could say I'm very suggestible, though as I said-- this doesn't work with fanfic, where it *does* seem to work for most people. If I had to guess, I'd say it's that most people read fic that's narrowly tailored to their interests, with at least the pairing and the rating (and usually the main tropes being used) guaranteed. Most people's fic tastes aren't mine, so I don't normally have that experience of things being tailored to me with fic, aside from on the pairing level. Obviously, TV and genre lit is much more broadly focused, and thus much more likely to disappoint even the non-meta-inclined viewer. Most people tend to project their lives or experiences onto fiction enough that they get pretty turned off if they realize the story is suddenly not so relatable. One discordant new element, and it no longer 'gels' properly into the familiar shape. With most people who're into doing meta, I get more of a sense that the interest is in deconstruction-- in taking the narrative apart and seeing what makes it tick. Some people use this to make predictions or theories, some just analyze characterization, but most meta fans need the text to 'make sense' in the rational or practical sense, not the metaphoric one. It seems that this kind of meta is the opposite of making leaps, at least *with* as opposed to an imaginative analytical departure *from* the text. At base, after all, fandom is transformative.

I'm definitely not a transformative fan, even if I'm into many transformative pairings. Usually I get into stuff like Harry/Draco and Thor/Loki from the fandom side; as I said, I often start with fic. It's like a shared universe; I've always enjoyed those. With regular fiction, though, I feel like I'm free floating, not thinking or projecting so much as daydreaming. That's why meta is so natural and organic to me: I can *use* it to deduce things or create order, but in the end it's an open-ended and exploratory process of thinking in concert with the story. To me, thinking and daydreaming and experiencing fiction are naturally one. It's all kind of a single process, an experience in processing other worlds, other characters who are not me. That's why I don't project myself, as I said recently in response to Ivy, I think. I'm experiencing something holistically, which leaves no room for the deconstruction of specifics or questions of 'realism', not unless I focus and force myself to carve out a mental space to ask questions of the sort in the @twocandles discussion earlier.

I would imagine I'm not alone; I'm pretty close to the kind of reader that Ivy describes in her post, for example. Still, this absolute empathetic experience of fiction is... not typical, as far as I can tell. It's probably even less typical that I still enjoy playing around with other people's concrete theories and ideas, as I did with Sherlock. I've seen a lot of people who're mostly like this refusing to make any predictions about Mary or John and Sherlock's arc post-S3. I definitely didn't shy away there; it's definitely not that I'm naturally about seeing ambiguities or shy about my readings. Quite the contrary: I'm generally pretty confident about my reading and what it means (though I can change my mind, because the text always has new things to teach me). I definitely feel like I'm *learning*, generally. I listen to the text, and it normally tells me what it wants me to know, and what it wants me to wonder about. Sometimes I resist (about those Slytherins, Ms. Rowling...), but not for long. I like the meta daydream float too much.

I think in many ways, I've spent 70% of my waking hours suspended in that mental floating daydream state. It's comfy here; Series 4 is just a stone in a pond, like every other story. At least to me.

#pointless rambles #slash meta #me myself and i #sherlock feels #fandom meta #reader response #the great divergence #series 4

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sharkiegorath · 8 years ago

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@almaviva90 thanks for mentioning That Article, the only thing that can make me write coherently rn

I mean, God, if it’d just been called an underwhelming/bad show that would’ve been, like, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, it’s your opinion, buddy. But personal bias aside, singling Finn out of all the characters in the series, especially the Scotland Yard arc, is??? It’s compounded by how the article doesn’t actually give any reason for why he’s included, unless you count ‘he’s like this one iconic character except not I guess’. So I’d like to examine the subconscious processes behind why Finn is listed as a Great Character while everyone else - cast and character - is disregarded, especially since positive reviews pinpointed the ensemble effort.

anyway I took this as an opportunity to Go the Fuck Off suddenly synthesizing loose scraps of information I’ve had for some time so bear in mind

“The folks who did stick with it mostly stayed onboard for Bertie Carvel’s Finn”??? Where are you getting this information? Since 2014, positive reviews and tweets mentioned the ensemble. For mediocre-to-negative audience reactions, I’d say there was a 50/50 split between people saying they only continued to watch for Bertie versus only continuing to watch for Brit. I’m pretty sure social media suggested there were more people who started watching for one actor then ended up immersed in the overall series.

Anyway. Anyway.

The reason the article loosely gives for Finn's impressiveness is silly in the first place. Yeah, he's superficially like Malcolm Tucker, they're both spin doctors who go on shouty elaborate tangents. If it's been done before, why's it interesting? What distinguishes Finn so much that he's not just a clone in a different, allegedly weaker setting - which shouldn’t be worth listing - and how can he simultaneously be so similar that the explanation relies on preexisting knowledge of Tucker? 'He's even less charming' isn't a good reason, because intensifying one trait doesn't necessarily make a distinct character. (And based on what I've seen, isn't Finn less intense?)

Oh, and the fun thing is, that implied reason why he’s a stand-out character isn’t that accurate in the first place.

Firstly: we’re socially conditioned to identify with nominally straight white men, even (especially?) when they’re jerks. We create justifications for them in the absence of explicit excuses; we perceive complexity while oversimplifying other characters, even if we feel positively about them. But I’ve seen enough mediocre TV to think Finn is above-average. Until Ep. 5, I was partially willing to view him as complex because I believed everyone else was complex, and everyone else had interesting dynamics with him. I watched along with the original C4 airing. In terms of ‘sticking it through’, no, I didn’t watch just for Finn, and I had only watched the pilot for Bertie. Finn didn’t seem *that* important in the first two episodes of the main series, it looked like he might leave in the third, and his characterisation from the fourth onwards was tied to the overall plot. It was only subsequent marketing that gave away his prominence.

The article mentions (and dismisses) Bertie Carvel’s own opinion on Finn. (Which may have been paraphrased by the interviewer, but was probably still sympathetic.) He's realistic about his characters' flaws, including unambiguously sympathetic protagonists, including those who try to take advantage of institutional injustice. For him to say something along the lines of Finn not being that bad, Finn probably isn't. Babylon takes place over around a month, under uniquely stressful events. Since Liz's escalating issues make her act 2edgier and more unpleasant than usual, I think it's fair to infer that Finn is also not acting entirely like 'himself'; we don't have anywhere near the amount of context about his personal life as we do for Liz or Richard, but we do see his seemingly stable preexisting workplace relationships. Whether any of that justifies his behaviour is up to personal interpretation.

In Babylon, lack/introduction of context is juxtaposed with the transparency debate. (Actual Critic Genevieve Valentine also noted the narrative style, I'm not desperately bullshitting here.) It's ironic having characters argue about transparency when they aren't honest about themselves. It's not a mystery show, but mundane-yet-important details about main characters' personal lives are revealed suddenly, sometimes as surprises to the audience but not to other characters, sometimes as shocks to everyone. When characters learn more about each other and adjust their opinions, they themselves become more sympathetic in the process because it parallels audience reaction. I'm insistent that the series - specifically the Scotland Yard arc - is a team effort because otherwise Finn is just an asshole bouncing lines off people who don't verbally respond half of the time, and that's amazingly boring.

There isn't much evidence that Richard is a good person or Commissioner besides the word of his best friend and an infatuated woman he barely knows. He mistreats both of them in some way. He’s not mean to his family, but he's mentioned and shown as verbally abusive towards subordinates. Delgado may have had a point, since every other hint he gives to Liz is reliable. Yet the overall audience is probably more inclined to perceive Finn as the most-likely-to-be-abusive character, even though the only evidence is A) his interactions with Liz (who's matched him since day one; arguments aren't inherently abusive and they’ve started to Calm TF Down by the end) and B) his annoyance with Tom, which only peaks in the last two episodes.

Why does this happen? Because early on, Mia says Finn is an ‘arsehole’ - never mind how they usually seem to get along. (The only time they clash, his anger isn't actually directed at her.) No one paints a heroic picture of Finn; he describes himself through fictional villains or less-than-anti-heroes. He's not charismatic like Richard. He uses big words and has a severe gum addiction. Those 'undesirable traits' are subconsciously associated with being a white collar villain, while the obviously wrong actions of police characters aren’t as strongly vilified.

Audiences are so conditioned to expect certain story beats or clichés that we automatically assume they exist, or that there's a strong connection between things that aren't inherently linked. It happens with Liz, who might be negatively viewed the way Finn views her, or through a stereotypically rose-tinted ‘strong female character’ lens. It happens with Finn...who becomes most prominent as he’s part of the arcs of white women and a Black man. In his specific case, is that why the other characters aren't interesting, while he mysteriously pops out like a fucking daffodil in the middle of a desert? After Richard dies, only Finn could possibly fit what the protagonist of a satire 'should' look like, if you shut one eye and thought satires can't be humanist and pretended you didn't see certain scenes and turned off your deductive reasoning.

The worst things about Finn are his casual -ism’s and active role in the institution. I wonder if they’re the Bad Things identified by people who view him as an archetypal career-driven sadist, or if they come to mind at all. He’s not manipulative or a jerk as a default, he’s not motivated by money or power for its own sake. He’s arrogant and abrasive - that’s the rule in his setting, not the exception. Yet he mentally registers as a flat archetype at the cost of recognising his actual pressing issues. Not seeing his deeper issues undermines his dynamic with almost every other character - which, if you’re using him as a reference point, maybe explains why they might not appear as compelling, just maaaaybe.

The trickiness of contextualization is specifically linked to Finn, who’s implied to have some sort of literary background. (Thanks, inexplicable Shakespeare bust!) In another interview, Bertie says Finn would describe himself as a ‘realist’. Finn occasionally brings up facts, but his concept of realism revolves around how other people construct their own fiction. (A neat thing about how Liz and Finn usually communicate: she ‘sells’ ideas, he gives mini narratives.)

It’s impossible to guard Richard while being honest about him or the police. Finn is opposed to Liz’s policies because their ‘story’ doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. He also romanticizes the job, but it’s in a Byronic way instead of straightforward heroism; he knows the truth is ugly and gives people more reasons to hate them, so he thinks they might as well control the narrative while they can. He frames his job as a gritty morally grey drama to justify himself - but it’s the wrong ‘genre’ and he fails to salvage their image anyway. Liz and Inglis have idealized, somewhat self-righteous perceptions of the institution, but they don’t use it to justify really bad things; their morality overrides conventional logic several times and it turns out to be the right thing, or the least wrong thing. They’re the only ones who remotely gain something they want by the end.

The emotional climax or whatever of Finn’s largely background arc is quietly admitting that he needs Liz, that her approach might be better than his, and encouraging Inglis’s interest in transparency - an interest that’ll likely have a long-term impact. Finn’s cynicism begins to recede and it’s largely dependent on them; he represents the shifting status quo, he’s an indication that they succeeded in some way. So he’s quite obviously not static and he can’t exist as effectively as an isolated entity therefore, bite me, Digital Spy.

#babylon uk #babylon meta #finn kirkwood #bertie carvel #finn is basically a fandom discourser in a fairly powerful public sector position #like i can write this shit but you wouldn't want me doing PR for a police force #that's a TERRIBLE idea #bright red cw #bright colours cw

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