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brawltogethernow · 5 years ago

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So, I don't think I've ever asked you this... what IS the whole point of the Spider-Sense? It really seems like something that only exists for writers to ignore or work around when they want to inject Legit Tension into a story.

I’ve thought about this power so much, but never with an eye to defend its right to exist, so I needed to think about this. The results could be more concise.

Ironically, given the question, I have to say its main purpose is to ramp up tension. But it’s also a highly variable multitool that a skilled creative team can use for...pretty much anything. It does everything the writer wants it to, while for its wielder always falls just short of doing enough.

I went looking through my photos for a really generic, classic-looking example to use as an image to head this topic, but then I ran into the time Peter absolutely did not reimburse this man for his stolen McDonald’s, so have that instead.

A Scare Chord, But You Can Draw It

That one post that says the spider-sense is just super-anxiety isn’t, like, wrong. It’s a very anxious, dramatic storytelling tool originally designed for a very anxious, dramatic protagonist. I find it speaks to the overall tone of the franchise that some characters are functionally psychics, but with a psychic ability that only points out problems.

Spidey sense pinging? There’s danger, be stressed! Broken? Now the lead won’t even KNOW when there’s a problem, scary! Single character is immune to it? That’s an invisible knife in the dark oh my god what the fuck what the fU--

Like its counterpart in garden variety anxiety, the only time the spider-sense reduces tension is in the middle of a crisis. But in the wish fulfillmenty way that you want in an adventure story to justify exaggerated action sequences, the same way enhanced strength or durability does. Also like those, it would theoretically make someone much safer to have it, but it exists in the story to let your character navigate into and weather more dangerous situations.

For its basic role in a story, a danger sense is a snappy way to rile up both the reader and the protagonist that doesn’t offer much information beyond that it’s time to sit smart because shit is about to go down.

Spidey comic canon is all over the board in quality and genre, and it started needing to subvert its formulas before the creators got a handle on what those formulas even were, and basically no one has read anything approaching most of it at this point, so for consistent examples of a really bare bones use of this power in storytelling, I’d point to the property that’s done the best job yet of boiling down the mechanics of Spider-Man to their absolute most basic essentials for adaptation to a compelling monster of the week TV series.

Or as you probably know it, Danny Phantom. DON’T BOO, I’M RIGHT.

DP is Spider-Man with about 2/3 of the serial numbers filed off and no death (ironically), and Danny’s ghost sense is the most proof in the formula example of what the spidey sense is for: It’s a big sign held up for the viewer that says, “Something is wrong! Pay attention!” Effectively a visual scare chord. It’s about That Drama. And it works, which won it a consistent place in the show’s formula. We’re talking several times an episode here.

So why does it work?

It’s a little counterintuitive, but it’s strong storytelling to tell your audience that something bad is going to happen before it does. A vague, punchy spoiler transforms the ignorant calm before a conflict into a tense moment of anticipation. ...And it makes sure people don’t fail to absorb the beginning of said conflict because they weren’t prepared to shift gears when the scene did. Shock is a valuable tool, too, but treating it like a staple is how you burn out your audience instead of keeping them engaged. Not to go after an easy target, but you need to know how to manage your audience’s alarm if you don’t want to end up like Game of Thrones.

The limits of the spider-sense also keep you on your toes when handled by a smart writer. It tells Peter (everyone’s is a little different, so I’m going to cite the og) about threats to his person, but it doesn’t elaborate with any details when it’s not already obvious why, what kind, and from what. And it doesn’t warn him about anything else-- Which is a pretty critical gap when you zoom out and look at his hero career’s successes and failures and conclude that it’s definitely why he’s lived as long as he has acting the way he does, but was useless as he failed to save a string of people he’d have much rather had live on than him.

(Any long-running superhero mythos has these incidents, but with Peter they’re important to the core themes.)

And since this power is by plot for plot (or because it’s roughly agreed it only really blares about threats that check at least two boxes of being major, immediate, or physical), it always kicks in enough to register when the danger is bearing down...when it’s too late to actually do anything about it if “anything” is a more complex action than “dodge”.

Really? Not until the elevator doors started to open?

That Distinctive, Crunchy Spider Flavor

The spider-sense and its little pen squiggles go hand in hand with wallcrawling (and its unique and instantly identifiable associated body language) to make the Spider-Person powerset enduringly iconic and elevate characters with it from being generic mid-level super-bricks. Visually, but also in how it shapes the story.

I said it can share a narrative role with super strength. But when you end a fight and go home, super strength continues to make your character feel powerful, probably safer than they’d be otherwise, maybe dangerous.

The spider-sense just keeps blaring, “Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong! God, why aren’t you doing something about this!?”

Pretty morose thing to live with, for a safety net! Kind of a double edged sword you have there! Could be constantly being hyperattuned to problems would prime you for a negative outlook on life. Kind of seems like a power that would make it impossible for a moral person to take a day off, leading them into a beleaguered and resentful yet dutiful attitude about the whole superhero gig! Might build up to some of the core traits of this mythos, maybe! Might lead to a lot of fifteen minute retirement stories, or something. Might even be a built in ‘great responsibility’ alarm that gets you a main character who as a rule is not going to stop fighting until he physically cannot fight anymore.

Certainly not apropos of anything, just throwing this short lived barely-a-joke tagline up for fun.

One of my personal favorite things about stories with superpowers is keeping in mind how they cause the people who have them to act in unusual ways outside of fights, so when you tell me that these people have an entire extra sense that tells them when the gas in their house is leaking through a barely useful hot/cold warning system that never turns off, I’m like, eyes emojis, popcorn out, notebook open, listening intently, spectacles on, the whole deal.

It also contributes to Peter Parker’s personality in a way I really enjoy: It allows him to act like an irrational maniac. When you know exactly when a situation becomes dangerous and how much, normal levels of caution go out the window and absolutely nothing you do makes sense from an exterior standpoint anymore. That’s the good shit. I would like to see more exploration of how the non-Parker characters experiencing the world in this incredibly altered way bounce in response.

It’s also one of many tools in this franchise hauling the reader into relating more closely with the main character. The backbone of classic Spidey is probably being in on secrets only Peter and the reader know which completely reframe how one views the situation on the page. It’s just a big irony mine for the whole first decade. A convenient way to inform the reader and the lead that something is bad news that’s not perceivable to any other characters is youth-with-a-big-exciting-secret catnip.

Another point for tension, there, in that being aware of danger is not synonymous with being able to act on it. If there’s no visible reason for you to be acting strange, well...you’re just going to have to sit tight and sweat, aren’t you? Some gratuitous head wiggles never hurt when setting up that type of conflict.

Have I mentioned that they look cool? Simultaneously punchy and distinctive, with a respectable amount of leeway for artists to get creative with and still coming up with something easily recognizable? And pretty easy to intuit the meaning of even without the long-winded explanations common in the days when people wrote comics with the intent that someone could come in cold on any random issue and follow along okay, I think, although the mechanic has been deeply ingrained in popular culture for so long that I can’t really say for sure.

It was also useful back in the day when no artists drew the eyes on the Spider-Man mask as emoting and were conveying the lead’s expressions entirely through body language and panel composition. If you wiggle enough squiggles, you don’t need eyebrows.

Take This Handwave and Never Ask Me a Logistical Question Again

This ability patches plot holes faster than people can pick them open AND it can act as an excuse to get any plot rolling you can think of if paired with one meddling protagonist who doesn’t know how to mind their own business. Buy it now for only $19.99 (in four installments; that’s four installments of $19.99).

Why can a teenager win a six on one fight against other superhumans? Well, the spider-sense is the ultimate edge in combat, duh.

Why can Peter websling? Why doesn’t everyone websling? Well, the spider-sense is keeping him from eating flagpole when he violently flings himself across New York in a way neither man nor spider was ever meant to move.

How are we supposed to get him involved with the plot this week???? Well, that crate FELT dangerous, so he’s going to investigate it. Oh, dip, it was full of guns and radioactive snakes! Probably shouldn’t have opened that!

Yeah, okay, but why isn’t it fixing everything, then? Isn’t it supposed to be why Peter has never accidentally unmasked in front of somebody? ('Nother entry for this section, take a shot.) That’s crazy sensitive! How does he still have any problems!? Is everything bad that’s ever happened to characters with this powerset bad writing!? --Listen, I think as people with uncanny senses that can tell us whether we are in danger with accuracy that varies from incredible to approximate (I am talking about the five senses that most people have), we should all know better than to underestimate our ability to tune them out or interpret them wrong and fuck ourselves up anyway. I honestly find this part completely realistic.

*SLAPS ROOF OF SPIDER-SENSE* YOU CAN FIT SO MANY STORIES IN THIS THING

The spider-sense is a clean branch into...whatever. There is the exact right balance of structure and wishy-washiness to build off of. A sample selection of whatevers that have been built:

It’s sci-fi and spy gadgets when Peter builds technology that can interface with it.

It’s quasi-mystical when Kaine and Annie-May get stronger versions of it that give them literal psychic visions, or when you want to get mythological and start talking about all the spider-characters being part of a grand web of fate.

Kaine loses his and it becomes symbolic of a future newly unbound by constraints, entangled thematically with the improved physical health he picked up at the same time -- a loss presented as a gain.

Peter loses his and almost dies 782 times in one afternoon because that didn’t make the people he provoked when he had it stop trying to kill him, and also because he isn’t about to start “””taking the subway’’””’ “‘’“”to work”””’’” like some kind of loser who doesn’t get a heads up when he’s about to hit a pigeon at 50mph.

Peter’s starts tuning into his wife’s anxiety and it’s a tool in a relationship study.

It starts pinging whenever Peter’s near his boss who’s secretly been replaced by a shapeshifter and he IGNORES IT because his boss is enough of an asshole that that doesn’t strike him as weird; now it’s a comedy/irony tool.

Into the Spider-Verse made it this beautiful poetic thing connecting all the spider-heroes in the multiverse and stacked up a story on it about instant connection, loss, and incredibly unlikely strangers becoming a found family. It was also aesthetic as FUCK. Remember the scene where Miles just hears barely intelligible whispering that’s all lines people say later in the film and then his own voice very clearly says “look out” and then the room explodes?? Fuck!!!!

Venom becomes immune to it after hitchhiking to Earth in Peter’s bone juice and it makes him a unique threat while telling a more-homoerotic-than-I-assume-was-originally-intended story about violation and how close relationships can be dangerous when they go sour.

It doesn’t work on people you trust for maximum soap opera energy. Love the innate tragedy of this feature coming up.

IN CONCLUSION I don’t have much patience for writers who don’t take advantage of it, never mind feel they need to write around it.

#spiderman #peter parker #spiderverse #spidey #marvel #danny phantom #one day you'll see what i'm doing with it in the project i'm collabing on w/ my brother and then you'll all be sorry and hopefully impresse #mirrorfalls #asks answered #essays

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kanohivolitakk · 3 years ago

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Thinking about this image and how much I feel this when it comes to Bionicle and my creation and consumption of transformative content in this fandom, especially when it comes as someone who prefers the more secondary heroic characters, the villains and the few neutral characters the series has over the main heroes (who I do like, just don’t have as big brainrot for).

OK let me explain.

So, lately I been thinking a lot about Greg’s writing style as well as how he engaged with the fandom. And one thing I have in particular paid attention to is the following: Bionicle is the type of story where plot is it’s driving force (alongside its worldbuilding) and Greg is the type of writer who writes characters in the service of the plot, rather than plot in service of the characters.

Now, I don’t think this writing style is inherently bad, and it works for Bionicle since as said, Bionicle is a plot-driven series where the big appealis uncovering the world and numerous webs of conflict and drama and discord. I’m not also saying that Bionicle doesn’t have compelling characters or that some of those characters don’t have emotionally compelling arcs. Bionicle is an action-figure focused toyline so of course the characters have to be fun/interesting/likeable and there are many characters whose arcs people have either enjoyed, liked their writing or resonated with such as Takua or Vakama for instance. I’m also not saying Greg is incapable of writing emotional moments either (I mean, everyone in this fandom cried when Matoro died soo.)

What I am trying to say is the following: 1) Bionicle is an action-fantasy-science fiction-war drama aimed at kids which main focus is telling a complex story in a complex universe. Despite that the characters are (relatively) simple in the grand scheme of things. 2) Greg has said at least on a few occasions he uses characters as tools in story, and uses characters whenever they need to appear in the story. For Greg a lot of the time it feels he uses characters for what they can do in the story rather than who they are. 3)Greg often said that he thinks about details only if “they’re important to the story”. This is true to characters and their emotional struggles as well. 4) The fans love to overthink and speculate stuff that Greg probably never thought of because it wasn’t important for him. 5) A lot of the time Bionicle characters (especially the non main hero ones) only have their emotional struggles implied or skirted from.

Because of Gregs writing style and the way he is more interested in exploring the world/plot rather than the characters emotional struggles, it feels that the characters sometimes feel..undercooked. That they aren’t allowed to go through their emotional struggles in a way that feels natural. Heck, at times the emotional struggles feel accidental rather than intentional on Greg’s front (see one of the reasons Nidhiki is my favorite character is because his characterization just has that “deep rooted self-haterd/haterd towards everything else issues” yet when asked about this Greg just went very “idk I guess he’s dead so doesn’t matter”).

And just, this is a thing I like about the Bionicle fandom because like, we can add emotional struggles and stuff there where it was implied. Fandoms in general (transformative fandom in particular) tends to often focus on characters above any other aspect of storytelling, and as such, we can analyze, headcanon and breathe life into characters in a canon that was more focused on plot and world like Bionicle. It does help that unlike a lot of plot/world-focused series (which tend to have rather shallow and generic casts), the characters in Bionicle actually do have a lot of potential to be explored and dissected, no matter how clearly you can see them not being the focus of the story. So just interesting characters who don’t get as much of emotional caharsis/focus as they deserve equals desire of wanting to write meta/headcanons/fic where those characters issues are addressed and touched on. Because unlike Greg, I (and other ppl in the fandom as well9 do care about stuff like this.

Of course there are exceptions (see Vakama for instance). In addition, not every character needs to have emotional struggles: one thing I really like about Lhikan for instance is that he was able to keep hisidealism despite everything that happened to him.

But yeah. This is just my few cnets as a very vocal villain liker who also likes emotional catharsis. Idk how ppl who like main toa teams feel about this so I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject and whether or not me liking villains/secondary characters colors my view on this subject. Again keep in mind that the writer of this meta had their favorite character basically been characterized as “just a selfish bastard” according to Greg despite the text arguably suggesting otherwise so I am biased a f.

#Kirika Talks #Bionicle #Kirikas Bionicle Meta

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tlbodine · 4 years ago

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A Horror History of Werewolves

As far as horror icons are concerned, werewolves are among the oldest of all monsters. References to man-to-wolf transformations show up as early as the Epic of Gilgamesh, making them pretty much as old as storytelling itself. And, unlike many other movie monsters, werewolves trace their folkloric roots to a time when people truly believed in and feared these creatures.

But for a creature with such a storied past, the modern werewolf has quite the crisis of identity. Thanks to an absolute deluge of romance novels featuring sometimes-furry love interests, the contemporary idea of “werewolf” is decidedly de-fanged. So how did we get here? Where did they come from, where are they going, and can werewolves ever be terrifying again?

Werewolves in Folklore and Legend

Ancient Greece was full of werewolf stories. Herodotus wrote of a nomadic tribe from Scythia (part of modern-day Russia) who changed into wolves for a portion of the year. This was most likely a response to the Proto-Indo-European societies living in that region at the time -- a group whose warrior class would sometimes don animal pelts and were said to call on the spirit of animals to aid them in battle (the concept of the berserker has the same roots -- just bears rather than wolves).

In Arcadia, there was a local legend about King Lycaon, who was turned to a wolf as punishment for serving human meat to Zeus (exact details of the event vary between accounts, but cannibalism and crimes-against-the-gods are a common theme). Pliny the Elder wrote of werewolves as well, explaining that those who make a sacrifice to Zeus Lycaeus would be turned to wolves but could resume human form years later if they abstained from eating human meat in that time.

By the time we reach the Medieval period in Europe, werewolf stories were widespread and frequently associated with witchcraft. Lycanthropy could be either a curse laid upon someone or a transformation undergone by someone practicing witchcraft, but either way was bad news in the eyes of the church. For several centuries, witch-hunts would aggressively seek out anyone suspected of transforming into a wolf.

One particularly well-known werewolf trial was for Peter Stumpp in 1589. Stumpp, known as "The Werewolf of Bedburg," confessed to killing and eating fourteen children and two pregnant women while in the form of a wolf after donning a belt given to him by the Devil. Granted, this confession came on the tail-end of extensive public torture, so it may not be precisely reliable. His daughter and mistress were also executed in a public and brutal way during the same trial.

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

The thing you have to understand when studying folklore is that, for many centuries, wolves were the apex predator of Europe. While wolf attacks on humans have been exceedingly rare in North America, wolves in Europe have historically been much bolder -- or, at least, there are more numerous reports of man-eating wolves in those regions. Between 1362 and 1918, roughly 7,600 people were reportedly killed by wolves in France alone, which may have some bearing on the local werewolf tradition of the loup-garou.

For people living in rural areas, subsisting as farmers or hunters, wolves posed a genuine existential threat. Large, intelligent, utilizing teamwork and more than capable of outwitting the average human, wolves are a compelling villain. Which is probably why they show up so frequently in fairytales, from Little Red Riding Hood to Peter and the Wolf to The Three Little Pigs.

Early Werewolf Fiction

Vampires have Dracula and zombies have I Am Legend, but there really is no clear singular book to point to as the "First Great Werewolf Novel." Perhaps by the time the novel was really taking off as an artform, werewolves had lost some of their appeal. After all, widespread literacy and reading-for-pleasure went hand-in-hand with advancements in civilization. For city-dwellers in Victorian England, for example, the threat of a wolf eating you alive probably seemed quite remote.

Don't get me wrong -- there were some Gothic novels featuring werewolves, like Sutherland Menzies' Hugues, The Wer-Wolf, or G.W.M. Reynolds' Wagner the Wehr-Wolf, or even The Wolf Leader by Alexandre Dumas. But these are not books that have entered the popular conscience by any means. I doubt most people have ever heard of them, much less read them.

No -- I would argue that the closest thing we have, thematically, to a Great Werewolf Novel is in fact The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Written in 1886, the Gothic novella tells the story of a scientist who, wanting to engage in certain unnamed vices without detection, created a serum that would allow him to transform into another person. That alter-ego, Mr. Hyde, was selfish, violent, and ultimately uncontrollable -- and after taking over the body on its own terms and committing a murder or two, the only way to stop Hyde’s re-emergence was suicide.

Although not about werewolves, per se, Jekyll & Hyde touches on many themes that we'll see come up time and again in werewolf media up through the present day: toxic masculinity, the dual nature of man, leading a double life, and the ultimate tragedy of allowing one's base instincts/animal nature to run wild. Against a backdrop of Victorian sexual repression and a rapidly shifting concept of humanity's relationship to nature, it makes sense that these themes would resonate deeply (and find a new home in werewolf media).

It is also worth mentioning Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris, published in 1933. Set against the backdrop of the Franco-Prussian war and subsequent military battles, the book utilizes a werewolf as a plot device for exploring political turmoil. A #1 bestseller in its day, the book was a big influence on the sci-fi and mystery pulp scene of the 1940s and 50s, and is still considered one of the best werewolf novels of its ilk.

From Silver Bullets to Silver Screens

What werewolf representation lacks in novels, it makes up for in film. Werewolves have been a surprisingly enduring feature of film from its early days, due perhaps to just how much fun transformation sequences are to film. From camera tricks to makeup crews and animatronics design, werewolf movies create a lot of unique opportunities for special effects -- and for early film audiences especially (who were not yet jaded to movie magic), these on-screen metamorphoses must have elicited true awe.

The Wolf Man (1941) really kicked off the trend. Featuring Lon Chaney Jr. as the titular wolf-man, the film was cutting-edge for its time in the special effects department. The creature design is the most memorable thing about the film, which has an otherwise forgettable plot -- but it captured viewer attention enough to bring Chaney back many times over for sequels and Universal Monster mash-ups.

The Wolf Man and 1944's Cry of the Werewolf draw on that problematic Hollywood staple, "The Gypsy Curse(tm)" for their world-building. Fortunately, werewolf media would drift away from that trope pretty quickly; curses lost their appeal, but “bite as mode of transmission” would remain an essential part of werewolf mythos.

In 1957, I Was a Teenage Werewolf was released as a classic double-header drive-in flick that's nevertheless worth a watch for its parallels between werewolfism and male aggression (a theme we'll see come up again and again). Guy Endore's novel got the Hammer Film treatment for 1961's The Curse of the Werewolf, but it wasn't until the 1970s when werewolf media really exploded: The Beast Must Die, The Legend of the Wolf Woman, The Fury of the Wolfman, Scream of the Wolf, Werewolves on Wheels and many more besides.

Hmmm, werewolves exploding in popularity around the same time as women's liberation was dramatically redefining gender roles and threatening the cultural concept of masculinity? Nah, must be a coincidence.

The 1980s brought with it even more werewolf movies, including some of the best-known in the genre: The Howling (1981), Teen Wolf (1985), An American Werewolf in London (1981), and The Company of Wolves (1984). Differing widely in their tone and treatment of werewolf canon, the films would establish more of a spiderweb than a linear taxonomy.

That spilled over into the 1990s as well. The Howling franchise went deep, with at least seven films that I can think of. Wolf, a 1994 release starring Jack Nicholson is especially worth a watch for its themes of dark romantic horror.

By the 2000s, we get a proper grab-bag of werewolf options. There is of course the Underworld series, with its overwrought "vampires vs lycans" world-building. There's also Skin Walkers, which tries very hard to be Underworld (and fails miserably at even that low bar). But there's also Dog Soldiers and Ginger Snaps, arguably two of the finest werewolf movies of all time -- albeit in extremely different ways and for very different reasons.

Dog Soldiers is a straightforward monster movie pitting soldiers against ravenous werewolves. The wolves could just as easily have been subbed out with vampires or zombies -- there is nothing uniquely wolfish about them on a thematic level -- but the creature design is unique and the film itself is mastefully made and entertaining.

Ginger Snaps is the first werewolf movie I can think of that tackles lycanthropy from a female point of view. Although The Company of Wolves has a strong feminist angle, it is still very much a film about male sexuality and aggression. Ginger Snaps, on the other hand, likens werewolfism to female puberty -- a comparison that frankly makes a lot of sense.

The Werewolf as Sex Object

There are quite literally thousands of werewolf romance novels on the market, with more coming in each day. But the origins of this trend are a bit fuzzier to make out (no pun intended).

Everyone can mostly agree that Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire was the turning-point for sympathetic vampires -- and paranormal romance as a whole. But where do werewolves enter the mix? Possibly with Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter books, which feature the titular character in a relationship with a werewolf (and some vampires, and were-leopards, and...many other things). With the first book released in 1993, the Anita Blake series seems to pre-date similar books in its ilk.

Blood and Chocolate (1997) by Annette Curtis Klause delivers a YA-focused version of the classic “I’m a werewolf in high school crushing on a mortal boy”; that same year, Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit the small screen, and although the primary focus was vampires, there is a main werewolf character (and romancing him around the challenges of his wolfishness is a big plot point for the characters involved). And Buffy, of course, paved the way for Twilight in 2005. From there, werewolves were poised to become a staple of the ever-more-popular urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre.

“Sexy werewolf” as a trope may have its roots in other traditions like the beastly bridegroom (eg, Beauty and the Beast) and the demon lover (eg, Labyrinth), which we can talk about another time. But there’s one other ingredient in this recipe that needs to be discussed. And, oh yes, we’re going there.

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Alpha/Beta/Omegaverse

By now you might be familiar with the concept of the Omegaverse thanks to the illuminating Lindsay Ellis video on the topic (and the current ongoing lawsuit). If not, well, just watch the video. It’ll be easier than trying to explain it all. (Warning for NSFW topics).

But the tl;dr is that A/B/O or Omegaverse is a genre of (generally erotic) romance utilizing the classical understanding of wolf pack hierarchy. Never mind that science has long since disproven the stratification of authority in wolf packs; the popular conscious is still intrigued by the concept of a society where some people are powerful alphas and some people are timid omegas and that’s just The Way Things Are.

What’s interesting about the Omegaverse in regards to werewolf fiction is that, as near as I’ve been able to discover, it’s actually a case of convergent evolution. A/B/O as a genre seems to trace its roots to Star Trek fanfiction in the 1960s, where Kirk/Spock couplings popularized ideas like heat cycles. From there, the trope seems to weave its way through various fandoms, exploding in popularity in the Supernatural fandom.

What seems to have happened is that the confluence of A/B/O kink dynamics merging with urban fantasy werewolf social structure set off a popular niche for werewolf romance to truly thrive.

It’s important to remember that, throughout folklore, werewolves were not viewed as being part of werewolf societies. Werewolves were humans who achieved wolf form through a curse or witchcraft, causing them to transform into murderous monsters -- but there was no “werewolf pack,” and certainly no social hierarchy involving werewolf alphas exerting their dominance over weaker pack members. That element is a purely modern one rooted as much in our misunderstanding of wolf pack dynamics as in our very human desire for power hierarchies.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

I don’t think sexy werewolf stories are going anywhere anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no room left in horror for werewolves to resume their monstrous roots.

Thematically, werewolves have done a lot of heavy lifting over the centuries. They hold up a mirror to humanity to represent our own animal nature. They embody themes of toxic masculinity, aggression, primal sexuality, and the struggle of the id and ego. Werewolf attack as sexual violence is an obvious but powerful metaphor for trauma, leaving the victim transformed. Werewolves as predators hiding in plain sight among civilization have never been more relevant than in our #MeToo moment of history.

Can werewolves still be frightening? Absolutely.

As long as human nature remains conflicted, there will always be room at the table for man-beasts and horrifying transfigurations.

This blog topic was chosen by my Patreon supporters, who got to see it one week before it went live. If you too would enjoy early access to my blog posts, want to vote for next month’s topic, or just want to support the work I do, come be a patron at https://www.patreon.com/tlbodine

#horror history #werewolves #horror #werewolf #long post

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justgottafinishthischapter · 6 years ago

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Deciding on a POV

There are many ways to tell a story, and each one comes with a benefit or a downside. Still, I figured it’s worth going over the different ways each can be effective.

First Person

Reliable Narrator: A story with a reliable First Person narrator is one of the most common narrative styles. What this means is that the reader can trust what the narrator is telling them is the truth as it actually happened. Think Percy Jackson in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series.The reliable narrator is far more common than the unreliable variety. The benefit of this narrative style is that it mirrors how we tell stories verbally. If something happened to me, and I tell my friend what happened, I am going to use First Person narration to explain the events that transpired. Thus, this can feel like the most organic option. It also allows for total access to the POV character’s thoughts, allowing readers to see how they reached a conclusion, or why they’re acting a certain way. However, this can come with the problem of not being able to get inside the head of anyone except for the narrator. Now, while it’s standard for the First Person narrator to be the main character, it isn’t always the case. If the narrator is some sort of omniscient, bystander, or divine presence, whether they interact with the characters or not, it technically falls under First Person if they voice their opinion using I statements. The figure of Death in The Book Thief is a good example of this, as Death uses I and me in the narrative of the story. Because the story is set in Germany during World War II, the narrator of Death sees the protagonist, Liesel, frequently, and thus we’re able to get a narrator who is observing a protagonist from outside of her immediate story.

Unreliable Narrator: An Unreliable narrator is going to be the exact opposite. They tell the story, but take their story with a grain of salt. Whether their perception of reality is distorted, they’re using metaphors and symbolic imagery to tell the story, or they’re telling the story from a very narrow viewpoint, the unreliable narrator can be a good choice to get the reader to engage with the story and think critically about the work. Rugrats is a good example of this type of storytelling, as the main characters are babies, and therefore often mistake things for something else, making them unreliable narrators. This type works well if you want to tell a more abstract story. For instance, an entire story is about a boy chasing after a red balloon, but that red balloon itself represents accepting his mother’s death. Suddenly everything experienced becomes unreliable, leaving the reader wondering if the foes he defeated or the desert he crossed was literal, and he went on an actual journey to come to terms with his mother’s death, or was everything figurative, and the journey was more symbolic and allegorical? An unreliable narrator can play with these questions, blur the lines between reality and fiction, and leave their readers asking questions.

Third Person

Omniscient: Lemony Snicket is a perfect example of a great omniscient narrator. Mr. Snicket knows everything about every character, knows what’s going to happen before it happens, and comments on everything. Lemony Snicket himself is not a character in the story. Rather he recounts the story much like the First Person style, but from an outside perspective. Instead of being part of the story, Lemony Snicket is telling us about the Baudelaire children through the lens of the all-knowing and opinionated narrator. It’s not entirely uncommon for this type of narrator to be some supernatural force, a wise old sage, or someone who lived through an experience recounting the tale many years later. In fact it could be rather fun to play with this last one, having the story almost be told like a myth or legend, but having the narrator constantly side track to discuss how historians know and gathered the information for this story, only to reveal the narrator isn’t some omniscient being, but just a docent in a museum giving a tour and explaining an old myth to the patrons.

Limited: With a Limited POV, the reader learns things as the narrator does. Even though the narrator is the one telling the story, their information is only up to date with whatever is currently happening on the page. This and First Person are the two POV types most likely to appear in a mystery novel, or any novel where a mystery or unanswered questions drives the plot. Harry Potter is a series written in Limited Third Person. The story follows Harry, and the reader only learns information as Harry does. And every year, Harry is faced with the recurring mystery element of figuring out what’s going on, and stopping whatever their plan was. However, because the narrator only knows what the protagonist knows, this can allow you to play around with giving the narrator a personality, and having them comment or react to things as they happen, perhaps even mirroring the way you hope the readers are responding.

Objective: Think of Objective Point of View as watching a tv show. Anyone who’s into shipping has to read into objective romantic coding. Two characters held eye contact for five seconds? You the reader have to interpret that as you will. Objective is strangely both the most human and the most robotic point of view. At its most human, Objective treats the narration like a normal person. They can’t read the thoughts of other characters, they don’t know more than the hero or reader, and you’re effectively just a bystander in the crowd watching things happen with no context clues about what’s happening inside a character’s head. On the opposite end, it can also be the most robotic because it is the most lacking in human connection, as it leaves the reader detached from the characters themselves. However, a liberating or perhaps crippling aspect of this POV style is that it frees the author of show don’t tell because this type of POV can’t enter anyone’s minds or go on a rant about a character’s feelings about someone else. You just have to take what you get at face value and all information has to be conveyed through your characters and story, whether directly through dialogue, or subtly through background details.

Switching POVs

Most stories tend to stick with a single narrator. Stories can be complicated when one person is giving an opinion, but when multiple people are talking, it can be hard to find a voice and plot for each of them. And if you’re planning on writing a series, you may run into the problem of some characters having meatier plots than others. It’s for this reason that when it comes to watching Game of Thrones, I always groan internally whenver the story cuts back to Bran or Jon at the Wall. It’s a scene or two of people standing around being cold or talking about being cold and something something three-eyed raven and then we finally get back to the part I’m more interested in: the political games of manipulation and intrigue. But that’s also a strength of changing POVs. With something like Game of Thrones, you might not necessarily like every storyline happening, but you’re more likely to enjoy one. In a sense, Game of Thrones is like 11 novels stitched together, and because each is so different, you’re more likely to find something in the series that speaks to you. Conversely, when there’s multiple POVs experiencing the same thing, such as with the Heroes of Olympus series, having shifting POVs can be a good way of exploring each character. In The Lost Hero, Piper knows more about the giant waiting to fight them than either Jason or Leo, and because we have shifting POVs, we the reader get access to this otherwise Limited Third Person information from the character who already knows it, thus building dramatic tension of when the others will find out. Another benefit to this is giving unique encounters to the characters. Percy has already met Aphrodite in the past, but through Piper, Aphrodite’s daughter, we’re able to see a different side of this goddess, the goddess as a mother to someone else. This could also manifest in differing opinions of the same things. This is also part of why it works so well in Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones is a civil war story with multiple sides all vying for the same end goal. Because there are so many sides and players in the game, having so many different points of view is valueable to the story being told. If Eddard Stark was the sole protagonist, the only thing that we would know is whatever he knows. Everything Danny is doing across the narrow sea would need to be told to Ned for it to matter. And the same with Jon at the Wall. And if Jon or Danny was the sole narrator, the reader would miss out on everything happening in King’s Landing because neither Danny nor Jon are connected to that part of the plot. An entire element to the story is lost when a major POV character is dropped, which goes to show how strong George RR Martin’s writing really is. Something I like doing with multiple POVs is describing the same character in two different ways from two characters who would see them in a drastically different way. One description might paint a character as dark, alluring, and attractive, while another person might describe them as a rat-faced shifty-eyed snake that stinks of booze and dead fish. It’s the same character, but two different people see that character in entirely different ways. However, this also comes with a major backlash. It can be an absolute nightmare juggling not only so many plots, but trying to make them fit together nicely. You’ll notice this a lot with shows that emphasize drama and interconnecting storylines. They’ll be really strong in their earlier seasons, then peter out once they’ve hit the creative brick wall. It happened to Once Upon a Time and to a lesser extent, Glee. Both shows had tightly knit and compelling drama in season 1, but by season 4, both shows felt like they were just going through the motions and had lost the edge that made them interesting. Even with something as well-written as Game of Thrones, it’s still possible to have someone’s story be weaker than everyone else’s. Arya Stark for instance spent the first couple of seasons focused on learning to sword fighting, then once the Hound died, she went to Braavos, but it always kind of felt more like a detour than really what Arya’s story was supposed to be about. She was a little girl out for vengeance, she went to Braavos for a season or two, didn’t really learn much, and then she came back to Westeros and pretty much went right back to exactly who she was before going to Braavos. Now granted, I’m going by the TV show, but it always felt to me at least that Arya’s vacation in Braavos was just kind of George not knowing what to do with her as he built up to the big climactic battle. So if you’re going to use shifting POVs, it’s important to weigh the pros and the cons carefully.

#writing #writing tips #writing advice #pov #writer problems #writing your book #do it write #points of view #point of view

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recentanimenews · 4 years ago

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FEATURE: Why The Early Pokémon Anime Was So Important To Its Audience

The '90s was a big decade for anime. Iconic series like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop were born, shows that are still presented as the gold standard of what the medium can achieve. Studio Ghibli continued their string of soon-to-be classics, helping to cement Hayao Miyazaki into a globally-recognized “auteur” status, a title usually reserved for the creators of live-action fare. Meanwhile, Dragon Ball Z, Gundam Wing, and others made their debut on the programming block Toonami, effectively introducing anime to an entire generation of Americans who may have otherwise never been exposed to it.

But what about the importance of Pokémon? That was pretty big, too, right?

Obviously, the status of the Pokémon anime as it relates to Pokémon as a whole is clear. There has perhaps never been a franchise with more coherent brand synergy, none better at directing traffic so fans of one aspect could be easily guided to another. Aided by an almost supernaturally compelling catchphrase “Gotta catch ‘em all!,” the uncertain development and angst surrounding the first set of titles in the core game series Red and Blue were quickly left in the rearview mirror. Pokémon is seemingly an undefeatable pop culture hydra with the anime serving as one of its many heads.

So how does Pokémon fit in the grand scheme of anime and what it can give to us? Because with all of that in mind, it’s hard not to look at it with a kind of cynicism, viewing it less as a fictional series with all the pros and cons that come with it, and more as an advertisement for itself and other parts of the franchise that has lasted over 20 years. However, I believe the Pokémon anime can be, depending on the specific section, very good at times. And though the explosion of “Pokemania,” as it was dubbed when the franchise landed in the United States, seemed to render it as an extended commercial urging kids to get their parents to buy them a Game Boy as soon as the "PokeRap" finished, I think the early parts of the series are particularly strong.

Because while the anime has formed a kind of cyclical pattern in its storytelling, one that allows newcomers to easily latch onto the series whenever they happen to discover it, I think the portions set in Kanto and Johto are extremely cool to examine. The space from the first time Ash Ketchum wakes up too late to grab one of the three “starter” Pokémon from Professor Oak to the time he says goodbye to Misty and Brock at the crossroads following the Silver Conference contains a really touching narrative. One about growing up and learning to rely on others and then, eventually, learning to rely on yourself.

When we first meet Ash, he can barely keep things together. He’s desperate to be a Pokémon Master, but clueless when it comes to most of the techniques involved in actually doing that. He’s stubborn, but his confidence often reveals itself to be brittle bravado, a ten-year-old puffing his chest out only to be deflated when overtaken by an obstacle. His travel partners, Misty and Brock (and Tracey Sketchit for a little while,) obviously adore him, but their greatest shared trait is likely patience. Ash has a lot of learning to do.

This learning is usually slow and painstaking. Critics of the series are often quick to point out that Ash rarely wins his gym battles outright, something that’s a requirement to progress in the games the series is based on. Thus, more important than a solid KO is the lesson learned due to the battle, often something centered around taking care of your Pokémon, yourself, and other people. The “monster of the week” structure usually has Ash learning these lessons again and again, like a child that needs to be politely reprimanded until they fall out of a bad habit.

As the series moves from Kanto to the Johto region, Ash gains legitimate wins with higher frequency, gathering experience while his style remains eager, clumsy, and definitively Ash. His rivalry with Gary Oak — one initially informed by Ash’s seeming inadequacy and Gary’s loud, yet often precise assurance — evens out. At the end of the Indigo League in the Kanto region, Ash finally gets to battle Gary and loses. Then, in the Johto League tournament, Ash defeats Gary and the two make amends thanks to Ash’s defeat of his bully and Gary’s newfound serenity. It’s a nice payoff to their relationship, and Gary’s change of heart reflects the themes of personal growth found in the Original Series.

Meanwhile, Ash’s personal growth often comes with much more heartache. In “Bye Bye Butterfree,” he bids farewell to his first-ever caught monster because it would be happier with its own kind. A few episodes later, in “Pikachu’s Goodbye,” he seems all too ready to let Pikachu live with a pack of the little yellow critters, likely because his experience with Butterfree indicated that it was the right thing to do. Of course, Pikachu comes back to him, because he’s Ash’s ride or die.

Another relationship Ash learns from is the one with Charizard. Evolved from an abandoned and emotionally distraught Charmander, Charizard is rebellious to the extent that it causes Ash’s Indigo League loss, not because it gets knocked out but because it just doesn’t feel like fighting anymore. What follows is one of the most disheartening scenes in the series, with Ash shouting in anger and sadness at his Charizard to continue while Charizard just doesn’t respect his trainer enough to stand up. Though they eventually gain a sense of mutual reverence, their partnership is marked by this uncertainty.

And finally, the ending, which sees Ash, Misty, and Brock go their separate ways, recalls one of the franchise’s most resonant homages, that of the '80s film Stand By Me. Referenced in the opening moments of the first game, the movie about setting off on your own adventure as a youth and learning where nostalgia ends and the harshness of growing up begins mirrors the ethos of the franchise constantly. At the end of that film, the characters depart one another and the main protagonist muses to himself, “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”

You can get the same feeling from the affirmations of the importance of their friendship Ash, Brock, and Misty make when they head off on their own (though Brock quickly re-joins Ash in the next season of the anime). It’s here that Pokémon displays why it deserves its place among the notable anime of the '90s, not because of its massive marketing push (though that certainly helped its popularity) and not because of how it retold the story of the games (which, as adaptations go, is pretty hit or miss).

Instead, it’s a story about growing up. By the end of Ash’s time in Johto, it becomes clear that strength was never the objective, that the point of the whole affair was not Ash becoming a "Master." It was about teaching Ash enough so that when the time came for him to go out on his own, he could. And though he finds new companions in the regions to come pretty quickly, the impact of this is not diminished. If you began watching the show when it first appeared in America in 1998, you likely grew up with Ash to an extent, and you likely experienced some major life events during that time, whether it was going to a new school or facing some kind of family change or attempting to achieve some new, grand goal.

Ash and the Pokémon anime’s message was that you could do it. That the trials you’d experienced and the lessons you’d learned and the relationships you’d made had prepared you for it. And that while the future seems scary and unknowable, it isn’t insurmountable. Pokémon teaches you that you’ll be okay. That sounds pretty important to me.

Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Daniel Dockery

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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emptymanuscript · 4 years ago

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My biggest pro-tip: Fiction is NEVER Reality.

If I could give one and only one pro-tip for writing that so very many people, including people who are otherwise excellent storytellers, just don’t get it’s to remember that Fiction is NEVER Reality.

I have never seen so consistent a sign of a piece of fiction that isn’t going to work as the claims, “But that’s how it really happened,” or, “But that’s how it would really happen.”

To the point that the one few times back in grad school where I was writing something BASED on a real event, and people really wanted to know where I got such a compelling moment I was extremely reluctant to share. And the second I did, my lecturer turned on me, warning me that real events usually don’t work and usually aren’t the best way to do the action in a story even when they do work. And I was like, yeah, that’s why I didn’t want to tell you.

Which should not be mistaken for a contradiction.

I am not saying this belief that Fiction is NEVER Reality is something imposed on me by my teachers. I got to this one on my own. Though I think there was plenty of implication from my teachers that such a thing was the case, that lecturer was actually the first teacher I ever had to specifically say that clearly tome. I will eternally maintain that whatever works in specific, works. That trumps any general truth about writing. Same the other way around. You can follow the “rules” to the letter and still get crap because they don’t work for your specific piece. Every writing “rule” that may exist, exists for a reason. So long as you fulfill that reasoning, you don’t have to follow the “rules.” So long as the reasons for that “rule” don’t apply to your specific piece, it will hurt the piece to apply it. And, that’s the same thing as Fiction is NEVER Reality.

I can successfully write “real” events, well enough to get a bunch of very excellent writers, including my lecturer who wrote a lot for the BBC, very excited because I get that SEEMING real and BEING real are different. SEEMING real is the goal. BEING real tends to kill the seeming of reality. Because a rule in the real world is a rule. Drop a ball and it will accelerate toward the surface of the Earth at 9.8 meters per second squared. That is reality. Not every choice makes sense. The inexplicable happens every day. People just lie because... who knows... they’re liars. The world doesn’t make sense except in a very local or very abstract or very scientific way. And that’s fundamentally not what a story is.

A story’s job is to convince you it is real. But we’re used to living in that extreme local or deep abstract. Which means all the middle world incomprehensibility just doesn’t land right with most people. So, following the rules that are real rules, that things just happen, that is wide and incomprehensible, shuts people down the same as if you try to tell them really weird stuff in real life. A story SEEMS real by limiting itself to that personal level, even - or most especially - when it is not being written about that personal level.

Pardon me while I sidestep into my philosophy of art for a brief moment, it is applicable. There are a lot of opinions about art, how art works, and what art does. And I should be clear that my opinion is NOT the majority opinion.

The philosophy that i am an adherent to, and all the above is a recursive part of why, is that art happens as an act of communication between Artist and Audience, with the Medium of the Art as a conduit between. For writing in specific, that means my philosophy is that ART is the act of me, the Primary Author, taking an image I have in my head and giving you, the Reader, the basics of that story through the Medium of a Book, so that you, as a Secondary Author can build the full story up in your own head. I don’t have the totality of the Art. You don’t have the totality of the Art. The Book is simply the container for us to pass the communication between us. The Art only exists in that communication and interplay between us. It requires all three parts. Otherwise it doesn’t occur. I can make up a million stories in my head, I do, and if I don’t tell them to you, I don’t believe that is Art, I believe that is play. And the same for you. It has to pass between two people or more, allowing room for interpretation to be Art.

Which I mention because it informs why the personal point of view reigns supreme for story. Because in order for a story to occur, it has to get inside a person’s head and operate there. The Audience can only interact, truly, with a piece of Art as it sits inside their own understanding. So as you step away from a PERSONAL level of understanding on the part of the audience, you are stepping away from what they will believe, understand, and care about. We, as writers, are always limited by an “I” that we cannot control. Just manipulate.

To some degree, it is our job as writers to build the scaffolding for the readers to climb out of that “I” into a new and wider world. That is inevitable. But the basic logic of that as the beginning is inescapable. Everything starts as “I.” That’s why first person is so powerful and so natural as a starting place for new writers. Because it plays to that “I.” “I” am reading about a person A, who has to do B, but C is in the way. And while things will build to a richness where it will appear that A, B, and C will exist beyond their life in the book, that “I” will never absent itself. Which is why readers get mad when authors do things with characters and their world that don’t fit with the conceptions and rules that “I” have built up. Because we, in our personal lives maintain a structure of personal order. Violate that structure and “I” will rebel.

The real world violates it constantly. CONSTANTLY. There is no escape. We never know for sure what the other people in our lives will do. We never know precisely what the weather will do. There’s not a hope in hell of knowing what our leadership, far away, and foreign nations will do. But we hate that. We have to live with it but we hate it. So, we invent a narrative. We create for ourselves a line of reasoning to explain the unreasonable. Our parents yelled at us even though we didn’t do anything because they had a rough day at work. You know, that Allison is always giving them a hard time. “I” bet that was it. “I” bet Allison really laid into my parent and threatened to fire them for not getting the Bulletin Board Project done and even threatened to fire them, when all they really wanted was to get in, get it over with, and get us all to Carrow Beach for a relaxing weekend but now they have to work instead and they feel bad and then feel guilty and “I” am not helping so “I” better help and maybe if “I” can get some dinner on the table they would have more time and energy. Etc.

We’re playing with that as writers. Everything happens, eventually, for a reason. Everything, eventually, has a clear architecture of order - though it is usually emotional rather than factual. Because if a writer builds toward that SEEMING of reality, we can rely on the reader to take it and run with it and build out from that logic because that’s what they would do anyway. Try to make it literally real and you’re fighting against the architecture you’re trying to use. It’s like trying to make boat out of building. You might be able to. But it’s not taking advantage of how things are.

So whenever you are trying to deal with REAL. Think about it from the point of view of “I”. Not what really happened but what “I” would come around to telling “myself” happened. You are recreating the MODEL of the real world you carry around in your brain, well enough that someone else can use that model to reconstruct that interpreted world.

This is my biggest number one thing because it is the only thing that dictates how everything else works. Why does a story have to be interesting? Because “I” don’t have the patience to read boring things. If “I” don’t care, “I” won’t read. Why does a story have to be clear? Because “I” am not directly experiencing any of it, there is no real world for “me” to see, just the model that has been given to “me.” The only way “I” know what is happening is if “I” am shown it. Why doesn’t the 100% Real world look like the world as “I” experience it? Because we all live in the matrix, we’re a brain in a walking, talking, feeling jar, and neither brain in the jar nor jar that is the body experiences anything without talking to each other and every bit of communication allows for miscommunication. So the world of every “I” is slightly different. So the most important, fundamental bits of a story have to be built. WHY something happens. WHO someone is. HOW they go about getting what they want. These things have to work internally to the story.

You can’t make something more REAL. What real? Whose real? Instead you make things seem more real by focusing on the emotional logic of an “I.” I am disenchanted with the world, so my fictional world becomes more gray to communicate my disaffection. I am frightened, so descriptions become more ominous to communicate my discomfort. I am happy so the party I am writing about is a description of joy safe in the harbor before the storm that is coming. A stalker doesn’t jump from the sidewalk to the second floor balcony (the first ‘but it really happened’ I ever heard) instead they are just there in the apartment to communicate the terror of that, someone in the room, where there shouldn’t be anyone, and when they flee out the window and you’re frozen in fear a full beat after they’ve disappeared, heart hammering, because you know, you KNOW, they’re still there, it’s two stories up, but you make yourself grab your keys in your fist and shuffle to the fluttering shades, wishing you could hold the noise of your shoes on the carpet like you’re holding your breath, and rip them back, taking two blind punches to try and drive him back, keep him from touching your skin, grabbing your wrist in a death lock, and then... you don’t know what and you don’t want to know so you punch like somehow God will guide the keys into his eyes, but the balcony is empty, you’re punching empty air, there’s no one at all, nothing you can see, like a ghost, who doesn’t care at all that there was nowhere to go, that you can’t vanish into nothing, that the door was locked, that there is such a thing as walls to keep you safe.

There’s nothing REAL about that. But that’s an “I” thinking, experiencing, an architecture is there: that the stalker is a monster and will obey monster rules. Later, yes, there can be an explanation about how he is a champion ex pole vaulter and literally can leap up and down from the ground to the second story. But by the time we learn that, those are just facts defining the monster’s powers. We already know HOW he did it: he’s a monster. It doesn’t matter that it is literary fiction and there are no fantasy or science fiction elements. It’s the rules “I” apply. How “I” think about it all. There are tons of ways to do this. It doesn’t particularly matter. There’s no right answer. But the way it really happened that no one believes of that you have to pause the story and justify, is one of the wrong answers. Because if the reader has to explain it all to themselves, then they aren’t working on the writer’s story anymore, they’re working on their own. Which is why it tends to throw people out of a tale.

Real is for Non-Fiction, and even then there’s an art.

Fiction, no matter how much it is based on a real thing, has to build up its own world and own logic. Realness either doesn’t apply or works against the model you are trying to create which means you’re working against your reader. Because fundamentally, Story is about A leads to Z. While reality cannot be predicted like that, only recorded, and even then can only move in a straight line from A to Z with labyrinthine explanations and diversions to accommodate the sheer amount of reasoning necessary to explain how A could get to Z in a clear path. The best you can do is to do the large scale abstract. You’ll see that a lot in movie prologue voice overs. “No one would have expected X, to win the election that year, but then there was a war and a plague and the language started to change, and when he won by a landslide, things changed even more.” That’s the abstract. Not the real. The ruleset that “I” carry around that says when things get bad, we turn totalitarian. And it happens quick. That’s not reality either. That’s a scripted narrative. We, culturally believe that. And that’s where we get tropes coming into it. Those are the abstract truths we, as a culture, trust, having no clue how valid it is for Reality itself. But it doesn’t matter. It’s a tautology. So it goes.

And I think I have gone on long enough. It’s just getting too REAL for me at this point :p

#writing #creative writing #writeblr

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gurguliare · 5 years ago

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Aw man, I’m feeling sentimental for a fully unrelated reason so I wanted to take this moment to say that I really love Friends at the Table and it has been a comfort to me during some dull and sad parts of my life, and also remained there for me after I shed a lot of that dullness and sadness. I still find great charm in the show even as Austin and the players’ storytelling interests have, with time, diverged from mine, and for every choice that distances me there are more to woo me back... I used to feel FATT’s best moments were the ones that came like bolts from the blue: strange, gorgeous, fully-formed scenes and transformed ideas. But there are also themes, especially in Twilight Mirage and late-season Hieron, that struggle hard to get underway, gaining momentum creakingly after a hundred hours of nothing... I like that style of surprise too; it’s nice when against all odds a story earns your patience. “Stockholm Surprise.”

...I mean, I still think Spring in Hieron is pretty bad. But I liked the epilogue, and it made me less regretful about having listened to the rest of the season. Mainly I liked the climax and the Understanding, and I especially liked, and wish they had kept, the original name of the Six, which seemed to best capture the most important and most underwritten of Hieron’s throughlines---that the horror of divinity is the horror of unilateral action, and that there’s no categorical difference between mortals acting secretly and destructively to serve “the public good” and gods doing the same. So the Six from the Last University mirror the Six from Marielda and the original pantheon of gods, complete with numbering chicanery. “Utilitarianism is wrong because it’s a fundamentally paternalistic, tyrannical dream that inflexibly robs individuals of their right to self-determination and discovery; it is so corrosively wrong that you are not excused in using utilitarian methods to fight a greater or more catastrophic fiat,” is a surprisingly rare message to find in genre fiction, which tends more toward “Utilitarianism is wrong... oh shit, look at all those people who died, though. Kind of makes you think.” That’s not to say that the above view of utilitarianism is co-signed by yours truly, but it was nevertheless refreshing to find it so clearly articulated and pressed on by the story, even to the point of the absurd “and so...?” stalemate to which Hieron devolves. And so, nothing.

It made me think about how sad I am about Samol, as a character, and as prime wellspring of the trauma and abusive love that characterized his whole family; I find his narrative shadow really compelling in retrospect, but his decision to save Samot’s life without Samot’s consent---kind of the ultimate reconfiguration and evocative even of Samol’s own birth from the nothing---should have been explicitly linked to Samot’s meltdown and actions in the finale. Also to Adelaide’s thinking around Adularia. Because Samol’s death is a refusal to change that he offers as the nearest thing to changing: he sees the harm he’s caused, regrets it, but even the gift of freedom for his children has to be given against their will. As a human narrative, it’s incredibly dark, and as a godly one it touches me in its unapologetic apartness. His ability to care and empathize with people never allows him to act as a person, with a person’s responsibility to others; alone of the gods, he really seems to have no choice but to do as he sees fit, beyond reproach or challenge, because no one can challenge him and to pretend otherwise would be a new way of imposing his will. Nor can he remove himself from the world he is. Which is like the truest parent conundrum, haha. ... ... But ... he nonetheless is written, played, and felt as a person, just a person beyond others’ reach. Which I know I’ve mentioned before as my favorite early Hieron theme and, well, here it is again, in the last place I expected, even if the season really buries it. So. I’m sad. End of post.

#friends at the table #spring in hieron #seasons of hieron

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swshadowcouncil · 6 years ago

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“Predictable” Is Not A Four-Letter Word

Well, looks like it’s that time again. That’s right: it’s time to talk about our good friend, Subverted Expectations™.(WARNING: Game of Thrones spoilers below the jump)

Hey, who’s super excited for the upcoming Benioff and Weiss Star Wars trilogy now?

I’m alluding, of course, to the latest episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones, in which, after an 8-season-long journey learning to own her own power, master her fate, lead armies, free slaves, and reclaim her family’s place on the Iron Throne, Daenerys Targaryen evidently got just a wee bit too much girl power and decided to become…bad? I guess? Boy, who could have foretold such a stunning subversion of expectations?

(I mean, a woman gaining power, being gradually resented by the men around her for her ascent, and eventually being viewed as a megalomaniacal villainess who needs to be taken down a peg is kind of the opposite of a subversion, it’s actually pretty much what happens to most women in power, fictional, or non-fictional, but I digress)

Fan response, needless to say, has been…mixed. Generally, folks seem to be unhappy with this course of events, given that, aside from some allusions to “Targaryen Madness” throughout the series, the buildup to Dany’s heel turn has been widely seen as rushed and somewhat arbitrary. True, she’s suffered a lot in the past few episodes, but the series has also put quite a lot of effort into making Dany a sympathetic character. Complicated, yes, and flawed, as most GoT protagonists are, but still heroic and generally good. Even as a conqueror, she holds her armies to a code of conduct, shows sympathy to the downtrodden, and overall seems to want to be a good, ethical ruler even after she’s taken the Iron Throne. So, uh….what gives?

Those of us who were Star Wars fans during the release and aftermath of The Last Jedi will recognize this feeling all too well. And, much like with TLJ, the backlash itself spawned a backlash. “Actually,” declared the internet masses, “It’s good that Rian Johnson subverted our expectations. To follow through on what Abrams set up would have been obvious and boring. The whole point of storytelling is to be unexpected!” But if this is the case, why did so many people walk away from TLJ, or this past episode of GoT, feeling so unsatisfied? And why, for god’s sake, do we find ourselves constantly having this argument any time a new piece of media comes to an end?

The internet certainly provides many examples of the attitude that objection to an incongruous shock ending is somehow weak, entitled, emotional, and juvenile. There’s a sense that true fans of a franchise are tough enough to absorb an unsatisfying ending, that they actually find satisfaction from the dissatisfaction, and that to want an ending that ties up loose ends and closes character arcs (dare I say, even happily, at times) is to want one’s hand held, or to be incapable of handling nuance or bittersweetness. “Life isn’t always happy!” the internet masses cry. “Life doesn’t always make sense! Life is disappointing too! Deal with it!” But stories aren’t vegetables we’re supposed to choke down before we can leave the dinner table. The purpose of storytelling, for adults, at least, is not just to condescendingly remind the viewer that bad things happen sometimes, and force them to suck it up. Which, of course, isn’t to say that all endings have to be neat and happy, either–there are stories with dark endings that are deeply satisfying (Breaking Bad) and ones with happy endings that are deeply unsatisfying (How I Met Your Mother). There are even stories with subtle, unclear endings that still feel logical and satisfying to many viewers, albeit not all. The ending of The Sopranos, for instance was famously controversial for its ambiguity, but even this ending was tied to themes and concepts planted earlier in the series, and several perfectly cogent arguments have been written to explain this quite persuasively.

But what satisfying endings tend to have in common, that unsatisfying ones don’t, is a feeling of appropriateness and completeness. Most fans who hated the finale of How I Met Your Mother did so not because they resented that it was “happy,” but because they felt it was a 180-degree turn from the arcs of all the characters and storylines up until the last few minutes of the last episode. Conversely, people didn’t love Breaking Bad’s ending because it was “difficult” or “dark,” they loved it because it was a believable, complete, fitting ending to the story that had come before (funny enough, I would wager that more people guessed the ending of Breaking Bad than guessed the ending of How I Met Your Mother, though that’s neither here nor there). But in the current cultural environment, a person can gain quite a bit of attention for boasting that unlike those blubbering fake fans, they LIKED that this ending didn’t conclude the arcs that had built for years, didn’t pick up dropped plot threads, didn’t allow protagonists to learn anything or achieve their goals, and so on and so forth. That they, by virtue of some unspecified quality, didn’t NEED an ending like that in order to enjoy what they were watching. Do I believe people who say this? Well, maybe. Human opinions are varied, and I don’t allege some conspiracy where everyone secretly hates the same things I hate. Nonetheless, I often find a degree of disingenuousness in these statements. A good ending can be obvious, unexpected, happy, sad, or even ambiguous–but more often than not, what makes it good is that it is satisfying. And loving an ending because it is unsatisfying, because it gives the audience nothing it wants, runs counter to this instinct, like it or not.

To use one example of a satisfying ending (albeit not a true ending, since it comes in the middle installment of a trilogy), Darth Vader’s revelation that he is Luke Skywalker’s father has gone down as one of the greatest plot twists in cinema history. Indeed, if you didn’t know that a mystery like this was building, you’d never think to put the pieces together–the ominous references to Luke having “too much of his father in him” or having “much anger…like his father,” the Chekhov’s gun of Anakin’s murder that goes unaddressed throughout A New Hope, and so on. But this twist is somewhat unique in that much of the buildup to it was done retroactively. During the writing of A New Hope, there was no plan for Vader to be Luke’s father–instead, the decision was the result of looking back at what the story had built, and following it to a coherent, unexpected, yet somehow totally natural conclusion that set up compelling stakes for the subsequent chapter. That is why the Vader twist works–it wasn’t chosen purely so the audience couldn’t guess the ending of the film, it was chosen because that was a compelling direction for the story to go, because it complicated and heightened the stakes, and because it deepened the existing text through unexpected means. In other words, arguably the greatest movie twist in history wasn’t great just because it was hard to guess, it was great because of the emotional impact of looking backwards and realizing how well it fit into the framework that was already in place despite the twist being unexpected. The surprise on its own is only a surprise; the surprise filling in the blanks of the story so effectively is what makes it sublime.

So why, then, do we find ourselves sucked into a maelstrom of hot takes every time we say we dislike a shock-value ending? And why does this trend seem to have gotten so much worse in recent years?

Well, it should come as a surprise to nobody that fandom culture to begin with is notorious for the ways in which elitism, gatekeeping, and all-around dick-measuring feature in its social interactions. Anybody who’s spent time in a major fandom has undoubtedly encountered this bizarre form of competitiveness, whether it’s being quizzed by strangers on their knowledge of canon or listening to boasts of “I was into it before it was cool” that would make a Brooklyn vinyl store owner blush. What has changed in recent years is the increased integration of the larger internet into these fandoms, shifting fan discussions from the confines of in-person hangouts or small online chat rooms, into massive public forums such as Tumblr and Reddit. Suddenly, said dick-measuring is not only happening for a far larger audience (including the general public, not just hardcore fans), but likes, reblogs, gold, and upvotes actually give fans a metric by which they can “win” or “lose” these competitions, further incentivizing them as a go-to mode of interaction among fans.

Now, with longform franchises, such as Star Wars, Marvel, and Game of Thrones, this who-is-the-nerdiest-of-them-all dynamic runs headlong into another common form of fan interaction; that is, speculation. When fans of a certain TV show or film series gather together, it’s only logical that one of the main topics of discussion is what they think might happen to their favorite characters next. These two dynamics in conjunction with one another form a fertile breeding ground for the almost gladiatorial style of fan speculation we see in most major forums nowadays. One person theorizes about a certain future plot line and receives a shower of upvotes, likes, favorites, and so on. Another comes back with a biting critique, and is given even more praise. Eventually, what might otherwise be a simple discussion becomes an outright competition, complete with points and ranking systems to keep track of who is “winning.”

This paradigm, in turn, incentivizes a very specific style of speculation. If I begin telling you a story about a girl named Cinderella who lives with her wicked stepmother and two wicked stepsisters, who asks to go to the prince’s ball, and leaves a shoe behind on the steps of the palace, your inevitable prediction that the story will end with a shoe fitting and a royal wedding may be correct, but it’s hardly cause for bragging. Of course you could predict how the story would end, because the ending was obvious. However, if I gave subtle clues in my story that the ending would go a different way, and you were the only one to predict that in this version, Cinderella was actually a vampire the whole time, and the story would end with her turning all the other characters into vampires, you could get praise for your attention to detail and ability to pick up on clues others had missed in this (absolutely bonkers) adaptation of Cinderella. Those of us who have followed the Star Wars online fandom since the release of The Force Awakens will recognize this pattern of behavior, especially in the areas of Snoke’s identity and Rey’s parentage. Though most agreed immediately on the heels of TFA that Rey was heavily implied to be Luke Skywalker’s daughter (or possibly Han and Leia’s), it only took a few weeks for the tide to shift to increasingly fantastical theories. First, the relatively mundane theories that she was a Palpatine or a Kenobi, then the slightly more perplexing suggestions that she was a Lars or Naberrie, and eventually theories that she was an immaculately conceived Force baby, or a clone, or a reincarnation of Padme Amidala.

The simplest explanation for this progression is just that people get bored of talking about obvious theories and want to mix things up with more unusual “what if” scenarios. But it’s hard to ignore the way that the competitive nature of social media fandom fosters this paradigm as well. Like someone betting on horse races, the lower the odds, the higher the reward and the sweeter the victory. Guessing that Rey is Luke Skywalker’s daughter, immediately after The Force Awakens, would be like guessing that the story of Cinderella ends with a wedding–yes, you’re likely right, but so is any schlub off the street who watched the movie once and made an idle guess. However, if you guess that Rey is the reincarnation of Padme Amidala, conceived through the Force, and you’re right, you may well be treated as some sort of prophet. Cue the showers of fake internet points.

I should be clear here–I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting to guess the right answer to a mystery, or come up with a particularly clever solution to a problem that nobody else has thought of before. To the contrary, these are very normal human desires, ones that anyone who follows my writing knows that I myself engage in. The problem is, again, that this incentive to up the stakes of speculation with increasingly nonsensical, out-of-left-field proposals, purely to outdo others, makes it so that cohesive storytelling without shock value is stigmatized in fandom discussions. Which, of course, makes it harder to call content out for being unsatisfying without being accused of being childish, unsophisticated, or foolish. And so, we wind up in a self-perpetuating cycle. When we set up a paradigm where guessing the plot of a story is a competition, any predictable, reasonable, ho-hum answer becomes “too easy.” We expect content creators to structure their stories to make our guessing games harder, because after all, what’s the point of consuming media if the sweetness of “victory” is undercut by a simple, obvious answer? And if setting up these unexpected endings comes at the expense of a satisfying story, the response from many fans is “so be it.”

Which brings us to an even more pressing issue: the actual impact this discourse has on media itself. Content creators are praised by this subset of fans for creating endings that viewers didn’t expect, because, as established, this style of writing enriches the “game” that they play with one another in various forums. Consequently, fans begin to assume it is in longform media writers’ best interest to structure stories this way–to build a story that seems as though it will go one way, only to pull a U-turn at the last minute just to ensure nobody guessed the ending. Fan discourse, in other words, is normalizing bait-and-switching as a core pillar of storytelling, rather than one of many techniques writers can use to build a compelling story. And, as more people who came of age in the internet era grow up to become content creators themselves, I fear that this recent spate of shock-value media is going to become more of a trend than an aberration. Much has been said about the internet creating political echo chambers, but so too can it create artistic ones–and without dissenting opinions at the table, those reverberations will only get stronger.

So, am I advocating that people fearlessly defend “predictable” storytelling in its common connotation of “boring” and “unoriginal?” Of course not. But even if a story isn’t predictable, an audience member with a keen eye, a good instinct, and some time and attention, should in theory be able to predict it. It shows that the writer has put thought into foreshadowing, thematic congruence, consistency of character and motivation, and overall cohesion. Great, surprising endings are not created by building false decoys of these things. Instead, they’re created by rendering them subtly, slipping them in under the audience’s nose so they’re not aware of a surprise building; or sprinkling in deceptively contradicting information so the audience has to struggle to reconcile these conflicts in their minds. To expand upon a metaphor from our own HypersonicHarpist, a good storyteller–like a good magician–may disguise what they are doing with sleight of hand and misdirection, but ultimately they don’t stop mid-act, set down the hat and wand, and then pull a rabbit out of a nearby air duct vent instead. Put quite simply, we are hard-wired to want stories that leave us feeling satisfied. And the beauty is, we all have different ideas of what that looks like–that’s where good, productive discussion comes in.

But when we let disingenuous, performative internet groupthink make us doubt our instincts that something is amiss, for fear of appearing uncultured or childish, we do ourselves and our media a disservice. Bad-faith criticisms of “predictable” story arcs have poisoned fan discourse to the point where even genuine appreciation for certain shocking endings are drowned out in the cacophony of hot takes. And until more people begin to honestly admit it when they don’t see the Emperor’s new clothes, discussions on media will remain that way. As fans in the age of the internet, we have unprecedented voice and access to content creators, and more tools at our disposal to create content ourselves than any generation before us. Now more than ever, the way we talk about media guides media. It’s up to each of us to make sure we have a voice in that conversation.

#daenerys #daenerys targaryen #gameofthrones #jaime lannister #got #got spoilers #tros #star wars tros #subversion #longread #analysis

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stateofgrace-acoustic · 6 years ago

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Why Speak Now is a lyrical masterpiece: an essay.

//it’s here!! i really wrote a 6000 word essay on Speak Now. yep, I’m a nerd and also slightly crazy. have been working on it for the last two weeks. i am really proud of this and i’m excited to share it, even if not many people read it.

Special thanks to @bridgesburn-i-neverlearn who encouraged me to write this and also is an angel in general. Thank you for being excited about it as much as I am - I hope you enjoy! //

Speak Now is a fan favorite among Taylor Swift’s albums, even though it has always been painfully overlooked in the mainstream. It is undoubtedly amazing on more than just one level - musically, it is diverse, uniting not only country and pop but bringing rock into the mix as well; the songs are confessional, heartfelt, each one telling a different unique story. They feel almost theatrical at times, which the Speak Now tour with its musical appeal - the elaborate stage design, background dancers, and dramatic performances incorporated into the songs - capitalized on in captivating fashion.

What has made me fall in love with this album most of all, though, has always been its storytelling - and I’m sure most fans will agree with me here. In this essay I want to highlight what I believe to be a central reason behind the charm of Speak Now: its thematic cohesion, exploring the intricacies of confessions through songwriting, and of speaking - or not speaking - in the right moment. I will go through the songs on the album looking for these thematic ties, while highlighting what makes each song special in my eyes, pointing out subtle subversions and added subtext that make the songs more complex than they might seem on the surface. I’ll argue that these little subversions are what situate Speak Now in an in-between stage between naivety and maturity - between idealism and realism. It is this space of being in-between, on not quite having arrived at a specific point, but trying to make sense of the world through storytelling, that make the album so compelling.

Taylor talked about the central idea behind Speak Now being confessions. ‘Each song is a different confession to a person.’, she stated before the album came out. ‘In the past two years, I’ve experienced a lot of things that I’ve been dying to write about. A lot of things I wanted to say in the moment that I didn’t.’* In the album prologue, she mentions specific, crucial moments where the decision between speaking or not speaking up can make or break a situation - situations in which she could have spoken up, but didn’t, and so she wrote songs about them. Songs that are, by nature, retrospective - confessions kept past the time that they should have been said, emotions bottled up from the moment they were felt. And retrospection always has something wistful about it, the knowledge of not being able to turn back time, even if your reflections may have made you wiser in time.

This idea is central in Back to December, an apology to a lover she mistakenly let go. The progression of the relationship, but also her different states of mind associated with it, are symbolized by the different seasons - starting off light and sweet with ‘then i think about summer, all the beautiful times’, turning to the realization of love in fall, until ‘the cold came, the dark days when fear crept into my mind’. Here she directly references her fear keeping her from holding onto the relationship. Now, the constant urge to relive the mistakes she made keeps her from moving on: ‘staying up, playing back myself leaving’. But she pushes the message of the song further than regret and apology - she knows that, as much as she would want to, she can never ‘go back in time and change it’, and as much as she loves daydreaming about it, that will never make it real. With that in mind, she tells him, ‘so if the chain is on your door, I understand’. She accepts that her apology might not be enough, that she might not be forgiven; she knows she needs to make her peace with that. This sense of acceptance not only shows maturity, but gives the song an undercurrent of sincerity; otherwise it could have been perceived as manipulative, an apology constructed to win back someone’s heart. Instead, it expresses an earnest sense of regret, and at the same time, the heartbreaking realization that regret is not always enough, and fixing the past is something beyond our control.

The pain of reflections bringing back detailed memories of something that is forever lost is also a central focus on Last Kiss. One of Taylor’s biggest strengths in her songwriting is her focus on detail - rather than talking about the relationship in general terms, she evokes specific images of ‘the smell of the rain, fresh on the pavement’ and ‘that look on your face, lit through the darkness at 1:58′. Playful moments in the relationship and traits of her former lover that she found endearing earlier - ‘you’re showing off again’, ‘you kissed me when i was in the middle of saying something’, have now become bitter as she misses not only the big emotions, but the little quirks and small moments that made her fall in love. The chorus shows the pain of having to face dreams shattering; ‘I never imagined we’d end like this’. The way she continuously recalls beautiful moments from the point of view of her naive, lovestruck side, and crushes them with questions - ‘why did you go?’- and pain from the present, gives the song a structure that parallels the repeated, sinking feeling of heartbreak. This is brought to its most unfiltered expression on the bridge, where his current life and distance from her is directly contrasted with the intimacy they used to share: ‘so I watch your life in pictures, like I used to watch you sleep. And I feel you forget me life I used to feel you breathe.’ As in Back to December, she also dedicates the bridge to a central message to the person the song is about - but it is ultimately not only one of hurt, or even anger, but of being lost: ‘I never planned on you changing your mind’. The central idea of the song is that she feels deeply insecure because she does not understand why she was left. It becomes clearest when she expresses the hope that he might feel the same longing for their times together as she does: ‘I hope it’s nice where you are [...] and something reminds you, you wish you had stayed.’ This is not the scathing goodbye to an old lover that she can master just as well on many of her other songs; its heartbreaking nature lies in the simple, evocative way it talks about the pain of being left alone without knowing the reason.

If the communication on Last Kiss is one-sided, as her former lover is long gone, on The Story of Us, it is dysfunctional and characterized by the growing divide between two people - another variation of the topic of speaking and confessing that ties together the album. Besides the many metaphors related to stories themselves - ‘i don’t even know what page you’re on’ - the clear structure stands out here the most. The first verse recalls the effortless chemistry they had at the beginning - ‘we met and the sparks flew instantly’ - and the dreams of the time when everything seemed stable. But soon the distances are too far to cross, at least for one person alone - ‘so many things that I wish you knew, so many walls up I can’t break through’. She now desperately wants to know how the other person feels, but has no way of knowing: ‘I’m dying to know, is it killing you like it’s killing me?’ The disconnection is illustrated in the second verse as the actions of both people are separated and contrasted - “see me nervously pulling at my clothes [...] and you’re doing your best to avoid me.’ and ‘how I was losing my mind [...] but you held your pride’, unlike the first verse where the ‘we’ was central. In the middle of the isolation, she feels the weight of the things that are unsaid: ‘I’ve never heard silence quite this loud’, and perhaps also the weight of her own inability to articulate her thoughts and emotions: ‘I don’t know what to say since the twist of fate when it all broke down’. The song illustrates the difficulties of communicating once misunderstandings and emotional walls are built between people. She realizes that to break down these walls, both partners would have to put in effort - “I would put my armor down i you said you’d rather love than fight’, and recognizes that she is likely not the only one who has things to say that she cannot put into words: “There’s so many things that you wish I knew’. At the same time, the issue can never be resolved if her partner is not willing to take a step forward, and so, the relationship is breaking apart without either of them finding a way back to each other.

Instead of real life issues with communication, the idea of speaking up in a crucial situation is taken to the realm of daydreaming where situations play out perfectly on the title track, Speak Now. It presents itself innocently - the speaker being an uninvited guest at a wedding, secretly having a crush on the groom. And in fact, at the beginning, the speaker illustrates herself as the total opposite of trouble: ‘I am not the kind of girl who should be rudely barging in on a white veil occasion’. However, from verse one, a sense of cheekiness runs through the song - ‘her snobby little family all dressed in pastel’ doesn’t make the bride look too appealing, and ironic remarks like ‘it seems that I was univited by your lovely bride to be’ makes her seem quite a bit more feisty than she makes herself out to be. And indeed, at the end of the second verse she directly tells him , ‘You wish it was me, don’t you?’ It is still sweet, but also slightly taunting - he is the one who should have known better, and he picked the wrong girl. The part of the wedding ceremony where guests are allowed to speak up one last time, gives the song, and the album its name: ‘Speak now or forever hold your peace’. Even in a song as generally lighthearted as this one, the sentiment itself is quite serious, and runs through the sadder songs on the record as well - the fleeting nature of chances and opportunities to speak up, and the possibilites of regret if you let it pass. It is a challenge, in the moment, to raise your voice, but - as Taylor says in the album prologue - ‘if there’s something you should say, you’ll know it. I don’t think you should wait.’ In her daydream, she doesn’t wait, and speaks up despite of her nervousness to a happy ending - and the guy in the song eventually thanks her: ‘so glad you were around when they said speak now’ - suggesting that he was actually unhappy with the situation as well and was too afraid to speak up himself. Even though it is, of course, not a line that is supposed to be taken too seriously and is simply the fulfillment of her romantic fantasy, him echoing her words, it can also be seen as a reaffirmation of raising your voice, as you might not only change your own life to the better, but effect others with your courage, too.

Even when Taylor sings about stories of love in a light of positivity and liberation, she inserts more complex emotions into it than obvious on the surface. On the opening track Mine, she recalls the classic narrative of two lovers meeting, falling in love, fighting and finally reconciliating with a happy ending, but gives it a few subtle but meaningful twists that sets it apart from her earlier, more simple and naive stories in the like, as Love Story. Suggestions that the speaker of the song had to witness love breaking apart in her childhood and grew up not believing in ideals of happily ever after are woven through the song - lines like ‘wondering why we bother with love if it never lasts’ seem upon focused listen, quite dark and uncomfortable in a song this upbeat and optimistic, even if the story does get a happy ending. And the central fight that occurs in the bridge of the song is directly followed by the insecurities boiling back up and threatening to end what both of them have built. At the end, the song is about the power of love to set you free and make you believe that stories of happily ever after are possible - but it does not happen on its own. The repeated mentions of ‘hold on, make it last’ at the end of the song suggest that only if both partners continuously put work into it, the happy ending is truly possible. A subtle sense of maturity that the simple ‘baby, just say yes’ at the end of Love Story does not carry.

Enchanted may be seen as the most straightforwardly romantic song on the album, but there are undercurrents of darkness here as well: the entire first verse speaks of being in a situation of loneliness and alienation from all the people in a room: ‘walls of insincerity, shifting eyes and vacancy’. It is a deeply sad image that is relieved by meeting the one person the speaker does have a real, intimate connection with. And while it is sweet and beautiful, the loneliness from the beginning of the song never vanishes entirely, as the entire song is a daydream - it is left open how the person that she has caught feelings for actually feels and responds. The sense of agitation that comes with overwhelming happiness is never really resolved - she expresses it in ‘dancing around all alone’ and daydreaming about a happy ending - but the song is never grounded back into reality, which gives it its momentum - it exists and stays in its own sphere of joy and hopefulness.

In this song, as in so many others, the important, revealing emotions occur at specific nighttime hours - here it is the anxious reflection on who the other person might love, in Mine it was the crucial fight between the lovers, in Last Kiss a remembered moment of intimacy. It is at these hours that emotions are most raw and unfiltered - which ties into the confessional nature of the whole album.

Taylor explores the intricacies of love further on songs like Sparks Fly, which, in its lyrical themes, can be seen as a predecessor to her album Red, as she talks about falling for someone that might not be the best choice, infatuation taking away her capacities for rational thought - ‘my mind forgets to remind me you’re a bad idea’, a recurring idea on her fourth LP. As happy and liberating as the song is, there is a certain danger to the attraction that Taylor is aware of - it could all end up badly, but she is too caught up to care. She paints herself as helpless to the feelings at first - comparing herself to a house of cards and saying ‘you’re the kinda reckless that should send me running, but I kinda know that I won’t get far.’ However, this simple image of total helplessness that does not give her any agency in instigating the relationship is subtly challenged on the bridge: ‘Just keep on keeping your eyes on me, it’s just wrong enough to make it feel right’, she sings, suggesting that in some capacity she simply does not want to think about the possible results of giving into her feelings - she is aware there is something off, but prefers not to follow the thought further. It is a moment of almost conscious self-denial that not only draws strong parallels to songs such as I Knew You Were Trouble, but to another song on Speak Now that dramatizes the opposite of falling in love: a relationship falling apart - Haunted.

Haunted with its deeply dramatic presentation gives the impression of Taylor being caught up in memories and feelings she cannot escape or move on from. More straightforwardly than on Sparks Fly, however, she states right at the beginning that she could see the damage coming: ‘I have known it all this time, but I never thought I’d live to see it break’. A small part of her held onto the hope that is might still work out. However, after everything is inevitably broken, she cannot find consolation or a sense of stability anywhere: ‘It’s getting dark and it’s all too quiet and I can’t trust anything now’. Her sensation of having lost her partner to a mysterious force that made his ‘eyes go cold’ perfectly fits the gothic atmosphere of the song, and the chorus shows that she is still to a certain extent in denial and shock as she pleads to him to come back to her - ‘something’s gone terribly wrong’ she sings, completely lost as to what caused him to turn away after she thought she knew him so well. The amount of shock she is still in is powerfully illustrated in the second verse as well: ‘Something keeps me holding on in nothing’. She is self-aware enough to know that it is senseless to keep coming back to a broken thing, but her emotions keep pulling her in. Finally, denial takes over again during the bridge as she repeats to herself: ‘I just know you’re not gone, you can’t be gone’. The song illustrates the precise state between realizing something is over, and dediding to move on. It’s the state of lingering for a while longer, being pulled from either side and being unable to let go - being ‘haunted’.

These same emotions of denial and helplessness are central in the next song as well, but it discusses many more emotional states, too- Dear John, which might be the center point of my analysis, as I consider it to be one of the most complex and impactful songs Taylor has ever written. It is a song about the dynamics of an abusive relationship and about heartbreak that gradually turns into self-empowerment.

Taylor uses a wide array of images to convey her feeling of being trapped in the relationship in the first verse, always feeling like the weaker partner at the mercy of the other - she compares herself to a chess figure being rendered powerless by constantly changing rules, and evokes the image of a blue sky being turned into rain. At the same time, she discusses the anxiety that comes with being so powerless and being the subject of constantly changing moods - ‘counting my footsteps, praying the floor won’t fall through again’, as well as bringing up the already mentioned self denial that she is now aware of and that her worried mother brought to her attention.

In the prechorus she frames the song as an explanation as to why she walked away from the relationship: ‘This song is to let you know why’. Then the chorus turns reflection of her emotional states into accusation, the first step on the song’s way toward empowerment. ‘Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with?’, she asks her partner to evaluate his own consciousness. But eventually, the chorus ends on a somber note as the accusation is directed not at him, but herself: ‘I should’ve known’. She regrets her denial in retrospect and blames herself for the way he treated her, a common reaction in emotionally abusive relationships.

The second verse, then, takes the next step: she examines the reasons behind the relationship not working out, and explicitly incorporates both partners into the conversation. However, while she accuses herself of naivety, the majority of the blame lasts on him this time, presenting him as having ‘a sick need to give love and take it away’. She further disects his personality, stating that he would not actually listen to her criticisms - or anyone else’s -, but simply think of her as misunderstanding him, refusing to see any position but his own- everyone else is on his ‘long list of traitors who don’t understand’.

Finally, on the bridge, she takes the crucial step up: instead of remaining a passive marionette in his hands, she takes back her agency, escapes his influence and therefore takes away his power: ‘took your matches before fire could catch me’, and, with her life back in her own hands, she is not only free, but a better person with a brighter life than his will ever be: ‘I’m shining like fireworks over your sad empty town’. It is the central climax of the song, but I would argue that it has a second, just as important one, as the central moment of subversion is reached at the end of the song. She turns the last lines of the chorus on its head: ‘cried the whole way home’, an image of humiliation, sadness and brokenness, is turned into the triumphant ‘wrote you a song’. And instead of the self-accusing ‘I should have known’ comes one small, but immensely weighted comment that not only makes him look like the naive fool instead of her, but places her in a position of strength on the basis of her songwriting: ‘You should’ve known’. It carries a double meaning - he should have known not to mess with her that young, but he also should have known that she would fight back by writing a song. She uses her own public image as a weapon in a line that manages to both be slightly self-deprecating, and ridiculing her former lover for underestimating her. He might have broken her heart, but she can write about it and find protection and self-worth through her art - here, Taylor discovers the power of the song as a weapon, a concept she would later bring to heights of success on mega hits like Blank Space.

Thus, Dear John takes the journey from a place of complete helplessness to strength and empowerment through art, and it chronicles the variety of emotional states on the way with captivating precision.

As multifaceted as Taylor’s songs about love on Speak Now are, it is not the only topic she sings about, so for the last section, I’ll take a look at the songs that illustrate topics of empowerment, revenge, and forgiveness, as well as the overarching theme of growing up.

Mean might be seen as just one of the many Taylor songs about getting back on a hater, but it is a truly special one, as she grounds the song in different emotions that all play together; a confronting attitude, making her critic responsible for his words and actions, a sense of the cheekiness from Speak Now, and genuine expression of the effect his words had on her wellbeing. She is not afraid to call out his behavior as hypocritical and unfair - ‘switching sides, wildfire lies, humiliation’, the accusatory ‘you’ hanging over the beginning of every verse. At the same time, ‘you have knocked me off my feet again, got me feeling like a nothing’ opens up a complete insight into the devastating effect his comments had on her. At the end, ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ is her way of telling him that as long as he does not actually know her and makes up accusations, his words do not have legitimacy at all. She even searches for roots to his actions - ‘I bet you got pushed around’ before stating that she will not stoop so low to use his own methods: ‘the cycle ends right now’. Following up on this idea, the chorus is her big, triumphant refusal to further engage with him at all, saying that some day, she will be so big, he will not even be relevant enough to hurt her. It is a much more scathing comment than actually directly getting back at him would be, completely stripping him of any relevance. Toward the end of the bridge, she seems to leave it at ‘all you are is mean’, but then fires off some more accusations: ‘and a liar, and pathetic, and alone in life...and mean’ It is intentionally slightly petty, playing with restraint before she gives into her desire to express herself honestly and to get a bit of revenge, after all. She is having her fun with the rebuttal as much as she is genuinely expressing her emotions and making a mature statement about taking the higher road. She proves, on the song, that these do not have to be exclusive attitudes - you can send an important message while still having fun with the song.

But as effective as Taylor can be at balancing revenge and forgiveness, she can dive deeper into either side of the scale as well if she wants to. On Better than Revenge, she fully embraces her anger and fury to call out both her ex boyfriend and his new girfriend. She paints him as a possession of hers that was unrightfully stolen, and equates her rival to a child that hasn’t learned proper manners when she lectures her that ‘stealing other people’s toys on the playground won’t make you many friends’. Thus, in the word choice alone, she takes the conflict to a childlike level. Taylor shows herself as a person with mature attitudes who has to teach the other girl about proper behaviour - and she does have real points to make: ‘sophistication isn’t what you wear or who you know’ - but at the same time, her wilingness to engage in the battle and her desire to ‘always have the last word’ reveal her own motivations which come from a place of impulsive emotions and wounded pride, too. The triumphant and gratified way she sings ‘Let’s hear the applause, come on, show me how much better you are’ shows her taking pleasure from the fact that her rival was, after all, not worth it anyway - an attitude that is very much not mature, but she knows it, and she embraces it fully in the song, which no doubt felt cathartic to write. And here, again, we have the function of songwriting reflected in an actual song. It is only implied, but after all, the titular revenge she gets is the song itself - even if she could not win him back, she can make sure that she has the last word.

Innocent can be seen as the opposite twin of Better than Revenge - even though they are about different issues - when it comes to attitude. The song is all about giving a person who slighted you a second chance, the reasoning for it being that stumbling at a point in life is an experience everyone shares, and so everyone deserves a fresh start at one point with no past baggage keeping them down - ‘who you are is not what you’ve been’. She expresses sympathy in the verses, comparing adult life to easier days of childhood when a sense of safety and security was taken for granted, and you had people to look up to and guide you in life - ‘always a bigger bed to crawl into’. The line ‘wasn’t it beautiful when you believed in everything and everybody believed in you’ expresses both a sense of disillusionment that comes with adulthood and the loss of the support structure that seemed completely self-evident for all of childhood - being left alone, knowing that no one will be there to catch you once you fall, is a terrifying situation. Adulthood is the time when ‘the monsters caught up to you’, a simultaneously sinister and sad image for everything that caregivers cannot shield from us anymore after a certain age. And as this is an experience we all share, Taylor implies, we need to look out for each other instead, and give each other second chances when needed. She talks about regret, too, an idea that was already discussed in other songs: ‘Did some things you can’t speak of, but at night you’ll live it all again.[...] If only you had seen what you know now, then.’ This part not only incorporates the album theme of speaking into the song - in the form of words you won’t even admit to yourself - it also calls back to the idea of knowing a better route to past events upon reflection, but the wistful knowledge that turning back time is impossible. As Taylor herself relates heavily to this experience, as she has illustrated on songs like Back to December, she can apply the feelings to others and empathize with her supposed enemy. The song in that way shows itself to be about the power of empathy to remind us of experiences we all share and are bonded by, and, at the same time, it is just as much about growing up as it is about forgiveness. The key to dealing with the fleeting nature of life and the possibilites of missteps and missed opportunities, as is suggested in the bridge, is to keep reminding yourself that changes also bring chances, and as humans we are capable of constantly renewing ourselves: ‘Today is never too late to be brand new’.

The topic of growing up is not left to Innocent alone to reflect; in fact, it has its very own song dedicated to it, titled Never Grow Up. The wistfulness of remembering the safety and effortless happiness of a childhood long gone takes center stage here, as she talks to a young child who stil has her entire life in front of her - yet, over the course of the song, Taylor gets lost in her own reflections and reminisces on what she has lost of her own childhood. The child’s innocence makes her think - in a heartbreaking way - of the inevitable time when this carefree nature - ‘to you, everything’s funny, you’ve got nothing to regret’ - will be lost and disillusionment will replace wide-eyed optimism. Having experienced it herself, Taylor wants nothing more than to shield her from the same fate - ‘I’d give all I have, honey, if you could stay like that’, but she knows that it is impossible. And so the chorus with its repeated mentions of ‘oh, darling don’t you ever grow up’ is steeped in a deep sense of sadness, as it’s clear that this wish can never be fulfilled. On the second verse, Taylor flashes forward to the teenage years and once again, recalls an image of naive, boundless joy, struggling to hold onto it - ‘don’t lose the way that you dance around in your PJs getting ready for school’. At the same time, she never loses sight of the fact that everyone shares the fate of growing up, and struggles with it, which might help us understand other generations’ struggles, too: ‘Remember that she’s getting older too’. The central idea of the song is the tragedy behind the constant wish to grow up as a child - ‘you can’t wait to move out some day and call your own shots’ - just to want to go back to the simpleness of childhood once you actually get there. Thus the mantra of the chorus can also be seen as a wish to hold onto childhood just a little longer, or preserve what is possible from it. But at the end of the song, when Taylor relates her own experience to the rest of the song, she comes to a rather defeating conclusion: ‘I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone:’ The only thing that is possible to do is hold onto the memories, they will hold on to you - ‘keep pictures in your mind of your childhood’ - and try to keep them safe in your heart.

Finally, the song that is left is the last song on the album, Long Live - and this song, too, is a reflection, but it is a much more hopeful, enthusiastic one that celebrates the people that helped Taylor get to where she is and all the memories that were made on the way. She consistently uses plural ‘we’ on the chorus of this song, illustrating the fact that it is not about her own success and story only, but about the community she has built along the way - with her band, her entire crew, and most importantly her fans, and just how much this community means to her. The song is a celebration of the things that can be moved when people come together - the way it can make the seemingly impossible come true - ‘long live all the magic we made’, and the way it can make seeming underdogs the ‘kings and queens’ of the world for just a night. She feels like she can take anyone on in this situation - ‘bring on all the pretenders, I’m not afraid’. This momentum, this power and beauty is something she wants to keep safely stored so that the memories can never be lost. At the same time, she takes a wider look into the future on the bridge, breaking her celebration for a while to think about the consequences of the fairytale ending, of things falling apart - and all she wants in this situation is the magic of the memories to be remembered, and felt even by people who were not directly there. It is, at the end, a love letter to her fans, for all that we have achieved together with her and that is yet to come: ‘I had the time of my life with you’. Thinking back on the album topic, it illustrates the wonderful things that can happen if you do take chances - if you take the courage to speak now. It leaves the album on a note of joy and a sense of magic the belief that even the highest dreams can be achieved, and everything is possible - when we find a way to connect with each other and fight for it together.

At the end, with Speak Now we are left with an album that examines love and life in all its complexities; incorporating fantasy and reality, regret and denial, revenge and forgiveness, loneliness and connection, wistfulness and hope into fourteen songs, each painted in muliple shades of emotion, all of them tied together by the topic of confessions and speaking up. It is an album that is both deeply personal and universal, and I have loved it for all of that for many years - I hope this love came through in this piece of writing, and I hope that I could make you relive your own love for Speak Now while reading it.

(If you’ve made it all the way to the end, thank you so much!! I don’t really expect anyone to read this, so if you did, I really really appreciate it. I hope you could get something for yourself out of it. And to Natasha, thanks to you more than anything - without you I never would have written this!)

*https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-announces-third-album-speak-now-186288/

#taylor swift #speak now #vanessa talks #for a very long time #vanessa has never talked this much #she is currently questioning her sanity #she loves speak now way too much

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inthedayglo · 6 years ago

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Still alive, and Who S11

I’ve been away, largely, for the last few months because of Doctor Who. I’m back now, though holidays, etc. may make that kind of spotty for a while.

I started watching this series late (hence avoiding Tumblr to avoid spoilers), which is pretty unusual for me--I’m usually chomping at the bit. Not this time. Why? A couple of reasons.

1. General wariness of the gender swap and Chris Chibnall. I don’t know if I’ve said this on here before, so forgive me if I’m repeating myself, but I was never a proponent of the gender swap, because I’m not a proponent of “just because we can!” in storytelling. I am a proponent of “because it would let us do X, Y, and Z that we can’t do with our current setup.” There’s no guarantee of success with either, but at least one shows some forethought and purpose. “Just because we can” shows neither. And with Chris Chibnall in charge, and his incredibly inconsistent writing--it’s an oxymoron if ever there was one, putting the man who wrote “Cyberwoman,” one of the most incredibly misogynistic things I’ve ever seen, in charge of a male-to-female gender swap--I was not about to hold my breath that any forethought actually occurred.

2. The BBC and apparently everyone else deciding to trash Peter Capaldi in order to promote Jodie was a massive, massive turnoff. Any decent marketing person can tell you there are better ways to create hype than alienating the viewers who are still mourning the previous Doctor. But no, they went for it. I waited until November to start watching--and wouldn’t have started then if one of my friends hadn’t begged me to so she could discuss them with someone.

My short verdict? “Jodie’s a great actress. The fact that watching Doctor Who has never, ever been a chore for me before does not fall on her shoulders. Chris Chibnall, on the other hand, has a hell of a lot to answer for.”

Because the fact is, this series was a chore. A largely incomprehensible, forgettable chore. I have trouble remembering that at least half the episodes even existed--including the ones I liked, like “Kerblam!” And I suspect that number will grow with time. There’s just nothing memorable going on here.

I appreciate what they tried to do, or what I can only guess that they tried to do, but it feels to me like “tried” is an overstatement. I’ve come to call this TARDIS crew the “ticky box” team, because it feels to me as if they said, “Ooh, let’s tick all the boxes for every possible kind of diversity! Won’t that be great! Then we’re done--nothing more we need to do on that front!” And it just doesn’t work that way.

I mean, there should be an interesting relationship between Graham and Ryan...but no. There’s almost nothing, and what little we do get comes so close to the end of the series as to beggar belief. Those two should be, at the very least, getting in each other’s faces right from the beginning--or else pointedly avoiding each other, or one of each. Instead, it’s as if nothing happened, except to Graham, just a little, here and there. And then right back to Situation Normal--until we suddenly get Ryan and Graham Are Best Buds out of NOWHERE at the very end.

Now, I’ve become kind of tired of the big giant overblown series arc over the years, so I’m not saying that going more episodic is a bad thing. I’m just saying even episodic telly in 2018 is being viewed by an audience that’s going to expect more than that, and that, frankly, deserves more. We didn’t get it.

After 10 episodes, I still have no idea what purpose Yaz serves, except to have given us a Partition episode--which was the only truly memorable one of the year, but she was just an excuse for it. For all she sees during that episode, there’s hardly any character development (do we sense a theme here?) But that fits with the fact that Ryan never seems to mourn his Nan, except in that YouTube video in the very first episode, or deal with his father’s absence, and even his conveniently invisible disability gets so little attention that it might as well not be there (and it’s so poorly explained that I was baffled in the first episode that someone his age could not ride a bicycle and why this was such a big deal. I guess we were required to do outside reading to figure it out--which, by the way, explicitly violates the BBC’s charter).

So basically we ticked all the boxes and still managed to make the old white guy the most interesting character on the show. Oops.

A lot of people liked “Rosa”, and it is better than most of what we saw, but here’s why I have issues with it:

1. Ryan seems to serve one purpose in this episode--to be slapped by a white man for trying to return a glove, and to fawn all over Rosa and MLK like a teen meeting Justin Bieber. The episode basically reduced him to the color of his skin and nothing else. (This is exactly what I mean about ticking all the boxes and deciding that’s enough.)

2. The villain is so negligible that he might as well not even be there. And, in fact, had they made systemic racism the villain instead of some unlikely 267684th century nobody, they’d have had a far better episode. That villain’s baked in, and this meaningless yahoo just distracts from it.

3. My biggest gripe: It paints Rosa Parks as a woman who took independent, spontaneous action when that couldn’t be further from the truth. A historical should know better, because a historical should do its homework. It didn’t. Rosa’s action was planned carefully with local NAACP folks who couldn’t use another woman, who’d already done the same thing, as a flashpoint because she was pregnant and unmarried. There is just plain NO WAY that what Rosa did would have set off a movement like it did if that movement wasn’t assembled and ready to respond to her arrest. Rosa could have picked any bus on any day. It didn’t matter. And yet, the episode hinges on the faulty historical read that says otherwise.

Is it a better episode than, say, “The Turanga Conundrum”? Sure. But so is the average episode of “Teletubbies,” because Tsuranga is literally unwatchable, and I know this because I kept trying and couldn’t do it. It illustrates every reason why Chibnall should not have been put in charge of this show, primarily that he tries to do more than the format will allow for, and he does all of it badly. His Doctor spouts meaningless technobabble more often than Geordie Laforge, and with far less plausibility and logic. She doesn’t even bother to notice that she’s endangering other people. And there are not only four lead characters to keep busy but also a handful guest stars who have almost nothing to do--nothing meaningful, certainly, because they each get about three minutes of screen time--but yes, absolutely, do bring on the pregnant guy just because you can. (Why “Just Because You Can” Is A Bad Idea, Exhibit A.) And the less said about the ridiculous villain, which on paper should have been phenomenally threatening and yet just wasn’t, the better.

The whole Tim Shaw thing is irritating for a series that went episodic, as if it wanted the best of both worlds and couldn’t manage either. Having him turn up in the finale is just annoying, and not just because I found the teeth thing revolting, but because it comes out of nowhere (yes, really, sending him back to wherever with NOTHING in between is still nowhere. Any setup you can find there is so thin you’d need a scanning electron microscope to show it to me). Mark Addy and Phyllis Logan should have made for good telly no matter how bad the script, but that concept apparently never met Chris Chibnall before, because even they couldn’t save it. And Graham’s dilemma, such as it was, should have been more interesting, but ended up just being utterly predictable instead. It’s all surface stuff. Style, perhaps, but no substance.

“The Witchfinders” is interesting more because Alan Cumming camps it up and because Downton Abbey’s O’Brien is the Big Bad, proving that Siobhan Finneran has the serious Big Bad chops we...already knew she had. It stands out for one reason only, for me, and that’s that, for the first time all year, the Doctor actually faces some sexism. Pity Chibnall thinks we have to go back to the 1700s to find it--I guess he figures we’re past all that now? The lack of realism in how the Doctor is treated on Earth grated on me for all ten episodes, including this one, because how did it take so long? How was this not part of the PLAN for a female Doctor? (Oh, wait--did I say “plan”?) “Honestly, if I was still a bloke, I could get on with the job and not have to waste time defending myself” is the story of every woman watching this show, every single damn day. I presume the people who wanted a female Doctor wanted it because they wanted to feel represented by this character--but this isn’t it. If I can’t call tech support without having to establish my tech cred every. single. time because I have the audacity to call while female, the Doctor shouldn’t be able to, either, much less wander into a situation and just take over. And yet, she does, again, and again, denying my everyday existence and that of every other woman on the planet. And we’re...not supposed to notice? Decide the 2018 on the screen is some sort of utopia we know doesn’t exist? What, exactly, are we to make of this whitewashing of reality? Yet another missed opportunity in a series riddled with them.

“Demons of the Punjab” is the only episode I really liked, because it’s the only episode that really told a conflicted, compelling story, though Thirteen is still saddled with being the Unnecessary Exposition Fairy and Yaz is frustratingly pointless in a story about her own past. It could, and perhaps even should, have been a bigger story. Continued lack of development for Yaz notwithstanding, it’s solid telly. More like this, please.

The Atlantic ran a piece extolling the show for “allowing” Thirteen to be weak and ineffective. It was, to my horror, written by a woman. It was not satire. I can’t say if Chibnall intended this outcome, to explore this “theme,” but if he did, he picked the wrong Doctor to experiment with. I’m as deeply offended by the idea that making the first female Doctor weak and ineffective is a good thing as I am by the implication that sexism died 300 years ago and by the way Ryan is presented in “Rosa.” IMHO, this take is a fundamental betrayal of what this character has stood for for 55 years--and of all the women who watch the show, and who wanted to see themselves in the title character.

On the other hand, this excellent, stunningly thorough piece looks at the whole series in great detail (seriously, fortify yourself and block out some time on your calendar, ‘cause it will take a while. It’s worth it, though). It works very hard to be as fair as possible. It also makes a very interesting argument that the surface appearance of Chibnall!Who is very progressive, but the inner workings are astonishingly conservative, and I think the author is on to something that explains, for instance, why CC thinks it’s okay to tick the boxes and then move on without a second thought. Appearance is meant to trump substance in S11, and whatever else you can say about progressive intent on S11, the fact remains that a white guy is still in charge.

(I find it fascinating that my biggest concern when I heard the show was coming back in 2005 was that, if given an actual budget, particularly for special effects, it would lose its charm and become a highly rated show that was all about effects driving the plot rather than plot driving the effects. It’s taken 13 years for that original fear to be realized, which is one hell of an accomplishment considering how easily it could have gone this way from the beginning--but that’s still cold comfort considering the quality we’re used to from Who.)

The second author’s most cuttingly insightful commentary might just be this (emphasis mine):

...the abiding moral of the Moffat era was that kindness and compassion were worthy ends of themselves. The Twelfth Doctor’s final advice to the Thirteenth Doctor was simply, “Be kind.” It is a damning indictment of the Chibnall era that the Thirteenth Doctor has failed so spectacularly at that one single piece of advice given to her by her direct predecessor. The eleventh season is a meditation in indifference and obliviousness, with the Doctor at best ignorant to the suffering of others and at worst actively complicit.

(This observation also harks back to my list of reasons for being reluctant to watch in the first place...)

Really, go read it. Even if you don’t agree with it, it’ll make you think. (You can skip the first several paragraphs about production improvements if that’s not really your thing, though his comments on the attempt to make DW “prestige TV” and what that means are insightful.)

I didn’t really mean to write this much, but this year realized my worst fears for the future of my favorite show. If you disagree with me, that’s fine; you’re certainly allowed--but please don’t ask me why I kept watching. It’s such a dismissive question. The obvious answer is “because I kept hoping it would get better, all evidence to the contrary.”

This show has sat in my heart for 32 years now. It made me who I am. I’m not about to abandon it without a fight. But this year was the biggest fight I’ve had to put up since I was 15 years old, and the closest I’ve ever come to despair while watching (which is saying something considering I was not a RTD fan--but S11 is giving me a new appreciation there).

I can only hope that Chibnall will resign and let someone who can do Thirteen justice take over. We need no repeat of the Series of Wasted Opportunities.

#doctor who #dw s11 #dw s11 spoilers #Thirteenth Doctor #chris chibnall

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des-shinta · 6 years ago

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Discussing this publicly as...Y'see, me getting comments like this DM'd and Emailed to me? That's why I even keep bringing Zi-O up or have stayed even tangentially involved. it’s not to keep sniping at it, it’s putting out there that you can choose another target, as this horse is out of this race until it is all said and done. Hell, that was the entire point of the last post about it. I’ve been through this song and dance and want people to stop bringing it to me. Though I am not calling out KaijucorpsTokuandrobots and his opinion of my work or in any way attempting to publicly shame him. Frankly, his is the most civil DM I’ve received on this thus-far and why I have chosen to cite it. They have otherwise escalated to Death Threats for me not wanting to watch a show that It’s clear I won’t like. I just...I’m seriously just done with this fandom. Marzgurl’s two twitter threads on the missed concept of the ‘Ally of Justice’ are so on the ball for how bad it’s been getting. I WANT to do and have been doing exactly as KaijuKorpsTokuandrobots is demanding and leave it alone for others to hate or enjoy as they wish to, and as I stated my position and bowed out weeks ago I would like to leave it be. I mostly have kept silent on my commentary since outside of...what, a handful of posts in the time it’s been running, not counting repetitions of the same subject such as the show being predictable, expanded reply threads, or snarking at crap? Though That’s part of why I format my videos and reviews the way I do, to better explain the positions I take. The extended in-depth length is for those unfamiliar or familiar with the media to see more of it than is present in shorter-length ones that's just the opinion piece, with my perspectives and analysis set between the recap. Doing this allows it to be more objective than others, and provide a better explanation for my perspective. It is not done to lead them to a subjective conclusion that ignores facts on a matter simply to make others opinions align with mine. That’s just manipulative and arrogant and...well, if you knew me or paid attention to my conduct, you’d know that isn’t me. If I did and was, in the Kyoryuger videos I could’ve just said “you’re all wrong about Daigo”, instead of addressing how there were legitimate grievances one could have against him due to his character archetype being one that grates on a lot of people and super sentai overuses, and also ones that had been blown out of proportion in the face of those who have legitimately erred in the same fields Daigo was blamed for but didn’t actually do. I could’ve just ignored the fandom complaints instead of acknowledging the reasonable ones and providing evidence against the ludicrous or exaggerated ones. For if you notice, I always supply evidence of why I have the perspective I do. For It has not nor has ever been about my opinion being the right one, it's about putting thought into one’s entertainment and seeing if it holds up under scrutiny. That’s what a reviewer’s job is. I’m an analytical and introspective person, I THINK about things. I LIKE Informing people about things, I believe facts and trivia are neat and fun to share, and media content regardless of genre, age or demographic that put in that extra effort to have all these big allusions to other work seamlessly woven into them and work for their story gives them a whole new layer of depth that is absolutely wonderful, especially if it is to other things I have enjoyed. And conversely, when I see something that has held itself to higher standards in the past acting as if it could not care less, I am compelled like many to call it out for that, and explain why that is. To paraphrase Linkara, “By teaching you how something is Bad, you learn how something is good, and if you are a creative type yourself, these are then tips to avoid creating something horrible.”

I don’t see how that can be viewed as being smug or any different than anyone else that does the reviewer thing, as my presenting of facts and the evidence supplied from interviews, analysis, data, records and what-not in the video content I make (and often these large blog posts) is always divorced or set separately of my Opinion or snark about something so it is uniquely distinguishable on which is which. My opinion does not superceed all of that, my opinion is a result of knowing and being aware of all of this, seeking out this information as I love to learn facts and trivia about stuff I enjoy, and presenting them all in a condensed collection of content. Analyzing the common themes, tropes and plots the writers on a show make use of in their original works (the Toshiki Inoue Drinking game, anyone?), and the conduct and statements they and the producers have made over the course of their careers inform the direction their work can take, as all of that can play a factor in the final product that results. And it’s not like I’ve never been wrong as a result of my research being erroneous or the knowledge I’ve gathered being faulty, and I’m more than capable of admitting it and have done so when told. if you’ve seen my videos on the Garo Franchise, I’ve had to do so a number of times because there are Not a lot of good, Reliable sources on it, and some of them have misreported information or treated Fanon opinion as if it were canon fact without verification. In example I had believed that Shou Aikawa and Toshiki Inoue were the writers to The series Garo The Crimson moon because it was originally reported they were the only ones writing on it. That turned out to not be so, and I was unaware of that as no-one had written differently in any of my usual resources. That wasn’t malicious ignorance or smug self-assurance, but operating off of the information that had been provided. Since that new information corrected me, I haven’t repeated something that wasn’t so.

But It is NOT about people lying to themselves about what they enjoy. To cite the specific gripe, I don't think Kyuuranger fans are lying to themselves in liking it and have never at ANY point said that about THAT show or any other media, I think they didn't see what others, including myself, disliked about it or didn’t find it disagreeable themselves. That’s not lying, that’s having a different perspective on it and what angers/annoys/frustrates others they don’t have a problem with. Everyone has a different perspective, I just put a lot of thought into explaining mine, why I have the gut reactions, revulsion or love I do for something. That doesn’t make me automatically right, that’s giving you all the evidence to why my perspective is the way it is, and the reasoning of my own instincts. Hell, in the entire year Kyuranger was Running, I only discussed or made mentioned of it around a dozen times in any significant manner in that period after I dropped it. Most of them? When it was Relevant to discuss it or refute something that had been spread in the fandom which was a factual Lie or blown out of proportion. I otherwise left it alone for people to enjoy or hate on as they wished and stayed out of it...until people kept berating me to give it a second chance. After MONTHS of this I finally caved and watched more of it.. and proceeded to predict every episode of the series simply from the ‘next time’ trailers. One of the bigger things I called before it happened? Revelations of Quervo’s betrayal and his related possession by Don Armage. Why could I? Because it was a cliche. Raven’s and crows by Proxy of Tengu (quervo’s creature themes) in Japanese Literature/mythology are most commonly used as either Divine Messengers or traitors to their cause; the latter often from selfish, self-serving motivations or malevolent corruption. Quervo ended up not diverging from that latter interpretation. And I saw them as taking that route with it (as opposed to Just Redoing Utsusemimaru's story from kyoryuger with Tsurugi as...well, Kyuranger redid a lot of stories from previous sentai), because of the derisive and flippant manner the show treated Death as both a consequence and tragedy before making it reasonable that they would do so. All that informed because of my experiences with Japanese storytelling tropes, mythology and the Eastern take on The Heroes Journey Monomyth. But I dropped it in the first place because it was clear it was not going to be something I would enjoy and I would be spending the whole year bashing it, but I didn’t want to do that. I went and did the ‘don’t like, then don’t watch’ thing people often want from those in the detractor camp of series people like when they don’t want to hear a dissenting opinion, and instead went to watch “wander over yonder” and other series I did like which did many of the same things Kyuranger did in ways which were more appealing to me. As That Pointless hate and bile was not something I wanted to spread or have infest my life. I did not want to rally a crusade of bloody vengeance against the show for every perceived slight. For That’s not the person I am or want to be. And with how horrible 2017 was for me personally (including my Stepfather withering away from an incurable disease before dying and relatedly being thrown out of my home), it was something I could do without. I decided I was done with it, and made my exit calmly and rationally as a Mature adult would when they decided they didn’t like something, and only brought it up when it was relevant to bring it up after that, until other people dragged me back. Would you honestly have preferred it if I spent week after week angry at something and pointing out every single way it was messing up? ‘cause anyone can do that. Many people still did. it’s not like I was ever a deciding voice, just another sharing the same perspective. I would’ve just done it with the framing device of explaining the context of why people disliked it, as opposed to bashing it on the principle of it existing. So why Should I be the guy that Goes onto every blog, every forum and lambasts any person that ever said something good about it with a bulletpointed list of reasons? Hell, I avoid the Tokusatsu forums in their entirety because OF my experiences with that fandom Toxicity. And The reason I ended up predicting the content as I did when I finally gave in? It was Because I am very well-versed in Science fiction and space series tropes Kyuuranger as a series called upon (star trek, star wars, babylon 5, farscape, gundam, Battlestar galactica...the list goes on as I prefer sci-fi stuff to fantasy series) alongside super sentai ones due to me having watched over half the franchise and the afore-mentioned mythology awareness, and thus could ask myself ‘From what I’ve seen before and this show has been doing thus-far, how could they go about doing this plot they’ve teased in the next episode?’ Watching the first Five episodes of the series was more than enough to provide that. And Five these days is considered lenient now, many Reviewers have reached the point of doing it in One, depending on their familiarity with the general signs of poor execution in the genre, medium or premise of the related story. Once more, it wasn’t about being right, it was about thinking on and applying the experiences I have had to the subject matter, and speculating on where it’s going, only to find it was as I had Guessed. My continued dislike of it being because those predictions included ‘what are the bad ways they could do this story’ as well, and finding more times I guessed that to end up being true. And I do this with...basically everything. My roommates and family are astounded by how often I call plot twists in advance of the story’s seeding of it. One of the reasons I don’t like M Night shyamalan movies (besides all the other reasons people cite) is his twists are ridiculously transparent to me. I literally had the response to the twist that Bruce Willis’ character in the Sixth sense is dead of “yeah, and?” because I didn’t think that was what they were building up to, I just thought that was the quirk of the movie’s story. the same with the old lady being the Devil in “Devil”. Months ago My roommate showed me the movie “Cabin In The Woods”. I had never seen nor heard of the movie beforehand. AS I later learned, It is Notorious as a movie where people do not see the plot twist coming. In the first few minutes of watching? I guessed the plot twist. It is actually a very good one that I do not wish to spoil here and was pleasantly surprised at how they went about executing it, but I Figured it out because I’d seen a lot of the works of The movie’s Writer Joss Whedon. If someone were to propose I had a superpower? That’s basically it, I predict narratives from precedent of their content, it’s genre, and their creators. I am VERY good at doing this once I know where they’re going. That is, after all, how I guessed the entire second half of Kamen Rider Ryuki’s story without having seen it beforehand from making a Phoenix Down Joke. My roommates and I love the Venture bros, Season 7 is currently Airing, it has been wrapping up a number of it’s previous hanging plot threads and story seeding. Of them I guessed from the watching of previous seasons: Vendata being the blue Morpho and the Monarch’s Dead “Father”. The Monarch and Rusty Venture being Half-siblings as Jonas Venture Senior had Sex with The Monarch’s Mom. And Rusty being a clone. There are others, but there’s spoilers involved.

I was excited about all of that, because the series had been building up the suspense about answers to those questions for years or seeded paralleling stories to them previously in the series (I.E Hank, Dean and Dermott’s relationship). I was elated to learn I’d been following the deeper lore of the show as they’d intended from their intermittent seeding of the story, that I’d connected the clues as they’d wanted them to be connected. And for all of that to add up? That’s Good storytelling.

And it’s not like I’m always right about that stuff either or desire media to bend to how I predict it would go. if I’m not experienced with a certain story engine, I’m less likely to be right and more willing to go with the flow to explore it, and conversely really open to things that defy my expectations.

I’m a huge fan of .Hack and the Megaman battle networks series, and other stories using Virtual settings for storytelling (though Not SAO, I’m in the camp that dislikes SAO), thus was very experienced with the tropes, storypoints and themes Kamen Rider Ex-aid was making use of. I played this same ‘game’ with it...and It proved me wrong very often with how it was taking things. I didn’t see where it was going, as the show was not Predictable nor following the expected formula’s. Sometimes I disagreed with or was critical of what it was doing, such as the lacking focus on Hiiro Kagami’s relationship with his lost Love Saki and her impact on him. For how important it was to the series and his Character it was very poorly grounded, established and explored even with the Later Snipe miniseries going back to her death to further flesh it out, as it was something that needed more than the show was able to give for it to fully justify where they took it and all the connected links in the story it chained together. Or, say, Kiriya’s Death in how Toei tried to make money off of a character death by selling commemorative shirts to it, as that’s a scumbag thing to do and made it seem like they ordered his death just to sell merchandise. it wasn’t true and was just a bad marketing decision, the reaction to it being so hostile as Toei had pulled crap like that before and had shown itself tonedeaf to that conduct.. But for the most part, I adored how original a lot of it was by it’s end, most of my early criticisms they took the proper steps to mediate, and at the end it used all of it’s assets very smartly. I enjoy it not because it conformed to some pre-scripted narrative, but because it defied and exceeded my expectations of it, and tended to blow up my expectations in the best ways possible. whatever nitpicking that’s applicable to it doesn’t negate the overall good it did and quality it put out week after week.

And even with those nitpicks and any other criticism I voice, it wasn’t about me being personally right and the show wrong about how it did it, but areas in which the product was flawed and the areas in which it could have been improved. Pointing those out? That’s what a reviewer does.

But To bring it back to Zi-O as this is ultimately what this is all about with people wanting me to shut up about it despite me already having done so for the most part...with the extensive experience concerning the Writer and Producers I have had in almost everything they’ve worked on, how Negative that experience has been, Time travel stories being something I really adore and read/watched/played a lot of, awareness of how easy it is to screw it up if you don’t care about addressing contradictions or think of how to do it without such, and the first episode and the ones I’ve been dragged into commenting on since by people sending me messages Just like this one, I’ve done this ‘how would they likely do this from everything that’s been presented’ exercise with them and ended up being mostly spot-on with the predictions Thus-far. I’m not going out of my way to do it or bash every little thing, I’ve been trying to do what I did with Kyuranger and Leave it be unless there’s something relevant to say, or someone drags me back.

Again, the post I linked to up top? That was another attempt to do that, showcase what is the standard expectation I have for a series using a time travel story device so you see where I’m coming from on this. And yet, half a dozen people instead shot me angry messages and death threats, some of them telling me ‘Beast Wars Transformers is Shit and makes no sense and zi-oh was already doing it better than that because it intentionally decided to not play by any rules, even the ones it made up.’ ...The fact it ‘explaining’ it’s ‘rules’ and calling people losers for bothering to care about story consistency is locked behind a subscription paywall instead of it being part of the main series seems to be lost in this. ...Is this the one people want to fall on their sword over? Really? Guy’s, it’s a show run by a man who’s known for crappy conduct and screwing people over. There are better targets for this, and people who are more active in shaping public opinion than the one who’s moving towards retiring from doing web-video content altogether because of medical reasons!

You want me to leave Zi-O alone, just let others enjoy it blindly? That’s what I’m doing. Stop bringing it to my doorstep and dragging me back. You’ll just see come occasional snark when I’m given the prompt, that’s it. If there’s no supplied prompt you won’t even see that.

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Returnal’s $70 Price Highlights Gaming’s Difficulty Divide

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We really need a word or a phrase for when you’re a fan of something but not necessarily a fan of the fans of that thing. It’s a concept that’s impacted Rick and Morty, it’s an idea that has long negatively affected the Star Wars franchise, and it’s something that’s been on my mind lately as I’ve been playing more and more Returnal.

Actually, the problem isn’t really Returnal itself so much as it’s the argument over difficult games. I generally love difficult games and have even recently highlighted some of the most challenging retro games across various generations. At the same time, the release of any new FromSoftware title or any other notably challenging game triggers that same defensive cry that insults just as it shuts down any meaningful conversation: “Git gud.”

In the case of Returnal, though, the conversation about the game’s difficulty feels a little more complicated than usual. Interestingly, many of those complications have something to do with the game’s $70 price tag.

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While some felt the jump from $60 to $70 for a Triple-A new release wouldn’t be that big of a deal in the long run, the fact of the matter is that we’re not in the long run. We’re in the earliest days of the new $70 standard, and the price jump feels significant enough to make people ask more questions about the “true” value of a game. At the moment, it certainly doesn’t help that some are already having to pay inflated prices for a PS5 (if they can find one at all).

In the case of Returnal, many reviewers and early adopters have pointed out that the game is, in many ways, very much worth the price. It’s an incredible blend of bullet-hell shooter action, psychological horror, and storytelling that, much like Hades, brilliantly utilizes the time loop implications of roguelike games to weave a compelling narrative about repetition, consequences, and growth. When viewed from the right angle, it’s hard not to see Returnal as a work of art.

Yet, pretty much every review and impression of the game released so far has highlighted the game’s difficulty. In a way, Returnal is difficult in the way that most roguelikes are difficult. That is to say that the core of its gameplay is built around the idea of dying and dying over and over again in order to earn the upgrades, skills, and items needed to make true progress. Some roguelikes are more forgiving than others, but “failure” is in their DNA.

The element of Returnal‘s roguelike gameplay that’s drawing so much attention is its lack of a traditional save feature. Again, that’s not uncommon in roguelike games (and some progress in Returnal is permanent), but because the average run in Returnal lasts much longer than in the average roguelike game, you really feel those times that you try so hard, get so far, and, in the end, it doesn’t really matter.

Some Returnal reviewers have noted that the lack of a more standard save system (outside of some ways you can “cheat” the system using the PlayStation 5’s sleep mode), made it difficult for them to progress in a way that allowed them to properly experience the game. In some instances, the lack of a save system has been seen as a flaw or even an oversight.

Here’s the thing, though. One of the first screens you see in Returnal informs you that the game doesn’t offer a traditional save system. The lack of a save feature is very much intended to amplify Returnal‘s themes, characters, and gameplay. If you’re tired of the phrase “tough but fair,” then consider that in the case of Returnal, the phrase may be “tough, but aware.”

As difficult as it can be to support an argument that even indirectly supports the “git gud” crowd, I feel the urge to defend Returnal‘s difficulty as an artistic choice that feels vital to the overall experience. Would Returnal be an impressive game if it wasn’t so difficult? In many ways, yes. Could many of its best attributes be appreciated even with an optional save system? I’d argue they could be. Yet, it’s so clear that Returnal is the product of a clear, bold, and fascinating vision that it’s hard not to make the argument that it deserves to at least be tried in its intended format.

The problem is that it’s not exactly easy to try Returnal. As a $70 game released for a roughly $500 console (depending on which version you buy and how you buy it), Returnal isn’t just a strange new IP from a relatively unknown developer that is designed to intimidate from the outset: it’s a considerable investment in the minds of many, even if they already own a PS5. Returnal is also not currently available on any streaming or subscription service, meaning some of the modern ways you might otherwise be able to relatively easily take a chance on something different are currently unavailable.

“Taking a chance” is really what we’re talking about here. When it comes to difficult games released in recent years such as Sekiro, I’ll usually tell people to give it a shot whenever they’re able. After all, sometimes it’s tougher to get past the toxicity of the “git gud” gamers than it is to get through the games themselves and maybe expand your comfort zone and find out something new about the kind of games you like in the process.

The beautiful thing about gaming is that it’s not only a relatively young art form but many gamers are relatively young in terms of their experience with the art form. There’s always something out there to discover that could surprise you with both its quality and the ways that you enjoy it despite your preconceived notions. I think Returnal has the power to be that game for many.

Yet, the game’s $70 price tag is already highlighting a divide over video game difficulty that is making it more difficult for anyone to reach out to the other side even if they are otherwise willing to do so. The conversation about difficult games should be about the craft of difficult games done well and how to foster an environment where more people are able to try those games in order to help them grow and reach wider audiences that could potentially love them as much as so many others clearly do. At the very least, those who don’t like difficult games shouldn’t feel so discouraged to give them a shot if for no other reason than to ensure the conversation about them doesn’t always feel so familiar.

Instead, the increased price of next-gen games feels like another form of gatekeeping in an area of the growth industry that is already suffering as a result of that concept.

The post Returnal’s $70 Price Highlights Gaming’s Difficulty Divide appeared first on Den of Geek.

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