#a film that lends itself so well for analysis

[not-wholly-unheroic]

A Comparative Analysis of Hook’s Ship and Cabin in Popular Media Portrayals

Part 4: Peter Pan (2003)

P.J. Hogan’s 2003 film is full of life and color, and Isaacs’ Hook is likewise a colorful character who, though grounded in reality, most definitely has a flair for the dramatic and a taste for the finer things in life.

Like the other Hooks we have seen thus far, Isaacs’ Jolly Roger appears to be the large stereotypical pirate ship that all children think of, despite the impracticality of a slower vessel in actual piracy. (By this point, I think we should just assume that all Hooks go for form over function when it comes to their choice of ship.) It’s a gorgeous ship, and I do wish we got more close-ups of the outside of this particular Roger so we could see more of what’s going on with all the decorative work on the outside of the cabin and the figurehead, etc. One thing, though, that stands out about this ship is that the mainsail itself has a giant skull and crossed swords on it. This would be completely impractical for any actual ship, as the enemy would see them coming and know they were pirates right off the bat…lending credence to the idea that this ship (and this Hook) may be deeply shaped by the children’s imagination. Then again…what else should we expect of a pirate ship whose name itself is the Jolly Roger?

The shots we get of the inside of Isaacs Hook’s cabin reveal the living space of a man who is accustomed to a decadent lifestyle but not so over-the-top as to be entirely unrealistic. While his beautifully decorated harpsichord is the centerpiece of the room, we also notice that he has several tables, a couch, and a globe.

This is about all we can tell from the in-film shots of the cabin, but some promotional material and a pirate-themed hotel that purchased a few set pieces from the film and set up their own room to mimic Hook’s can give us a few ideas about what the rest of the cabin might look like. (Big shout-out to @annabellioncourt for providing several of these bonus material images!)

In the one promotional photo, there is what looks like a lute, perhaps, in the background. I also love the little detail of the skull and crossbones on the candle stand…and his li’l stripey socks.

Here we can see the full-sized bed with a gun and what looks like it might be an Eton crest over it. (Note that if you pay close attention in Hook’s intro scene in the film, you will actually see that the tattoo on his left arm is an Eton crest as well.)

Isaacs Hook also has a self-portrait in his cabin, it seems…which interestingly has a date on the frame of 1742. This is about the most specific we get with ANY Hook as far as time period goes. This is after the Golden Age of Piracy had really already come to an end, though it’s technically possible he might still have been “Blackbeard’s bosun” depending on his age, as Blackbeard’s career ended in 1718 in a battle off Ocracoke Island, NC. Isaacs himself was around 40 years old when the filming was done, so if we want to assume Hook was around the same age when he came to Neverland and the portrait was done shortly before then, he would have been around 16 at the time of Blackbeard’s downfall. A bit young but…it’s possible if he started his career at sea early. Cabin boys usually started out around age 12 but could be as young as 8-ish on occasion. However…this wouldn’t really track with Hook being an Eton student. Assuming he actually graduated, he would have been at the school until he turned 18. So while Isaacs Hook may have very well been a sailor or even more specially a pirate prior to Neverland…he likely wasn’t a peer of Blackbeard or the other more well-known pirates of the early 1700s.

One last thing that is interesting to me is that in addition to the more standard weapons/tools like chains, guns, and boarding axes that we see in some shots, this version of Hook keeps what looks like an entire small cabinet of various tinctures and powders. At least the one of them which he removes is poison, but one wonders….are they all different kinds of poison? Or are some, perhaps, medicinal in nature or for recreational use?

As a whole, Isaacs’ Hook is, I think, perhaps one of the most realistic portrayals of the character. While there are some highly fanciful aspects to his ship—like the giant skull on the mainsail—much of his personal space has the lavish furnishings one might expect of someone with an aristocratic background without feeling too entirely impractical. Add to that a concrete date on the portrait, and I’d say this Hook is more grounded in reality than nearly any of the others we’ve encountered so far.

[terminatorbuns]

Understanding Puss in Boot: The Last Wish through its villains (but mostly just Jack Horner)

By @terminatorbuns, with special thanks to my wife @da-manta-ray

We don't talk enough about the villains of Puss in Boots, the Last Wish. I mean we do, I just want to talk about it MORE.

It's been a while since this movie was released and I'm glad to see all the discussion and discourse around all the ways that this movie has excelled in all technical and writing aspects. I love discourse and analysis and I've been dying to share some of my own thoughts about this movie since release. There's so much to talk about, but for now let's talk a little bit about the very impressive way this movie handles villains.

To be clear, I use "villain" to mean antagonist, people who oppose the main characters. In this movie, the villains are Goldilocks (plus bears), Death, and Jack Horner respectively. I'm not particular about semantics, villain is a cooler word to say, and they all commit crimes anyways, so whatever. Having said that, Puss in Boots has one of the most impressive uses of villains I've ever seen in a movie, delivering three extremely compelling villains in a two hour window when many longer films struggle to even deliver a single good villain. Not only that, but each villain in Puss in Boots represents a completely different villain archetype, each with a different role to play in the story, and each one executed to perfection for their respective roles. I think everyone who has watched the movie has come away with a favorite villain, and so the intention of this essay is to explore in depth the archetypes that each villain represents, their implementation, and the significance of each fairy tale chosen (yeah, it's important). As an analysis nerd, maybe I can bring to your attention some things about your favorite villain that you had not considered, maybe give you something to think about the next time you get into a friendly debate about who is the best Puss in Boots villain.

Because it's JACK HORNER. HOLY SHIT is it Jack Horner. This is THE Jack Horner essay, I need people to understand how big brained the execution on this narrative behemoth is, this is the ONLY reason this essay exists. Jack Horner is on an entirely different level of writing to the other two, LET ME SELL YOU ON THIS. The team at DreamWorks poured liquid narrative gold into this titan of a villain and this essay does not stop until I fully explain how much narrative genius is on display here, they have worked TOO hard for their work to go unappreciated. You can actually just skip to the Jack Horner section that's where the hot, hot analysis is. We have to talk about 18th century political discourse, galaxy brained narrative framing devices, and Jack's significance to the core themes of the Shrek franchise. I have lost sleep researching Jack Horner, this rabbit hole is DEEP. I'll talk about each villain in depth, but we stan Jack Horner in this house.

1. Goldilocks, the sympathetic villain

Goldilocks and her supporting bear family is the sympathetic villain archetype, villains who oppose the hero's goals but who otherwise have understandable, likable motivations that make an audience want to see them win. The strength of this style of villain is to serve as secondary protagonists: when the audience likes a villain, the audience wants to see them complete an emotional journey just as much as the main hero characters. Sympathetic villains are exceptionally strong when they are working towards the same goals as the heroes, because their motivations are inherently relatable. It's the same motivation that the good guys have, after all.

Goldilocks is one of the more well known fairy tale properties of the three villains and that lends itself well to her villain archetype. The fact that audiences are already familiar with the Goldilocks story, combined with the fact that she gets the most screen time of the three villains, gives the audience a lot of context and backstory to understand Goldilocks as a character, and relate to her more easily. Her supporting bear family is written to be lovably goofy and it's easy to get attached to this lovable family. They fulfill the sympathetic villain archetype by being as lovable as they are.

The recontextualization of the original Goldilocks fairy tale as a found family story is also a very clever choice. The repeated line "too big, too small, just right" is used in the original fairy tale to describe Goldilocks trying beds until she finds one that fits her, but is cleverly reframed in this movie as a metaphor for Goldilocks trying to find a FAMILY that fits her. The bear family that adopted her is "just right" as a permanent family for Goldilocks, yet she must struggle with different ideas of family before she is able to settle on her "just right".

The Goldilocks subplot easily parallels the journey of Puss, Kitty, and Perrito. Goldilocks and our main heroes are all in conflict over the wishing star, but ultimately both parties end up discovering that their needs are met by embracing their respective found families, no wish required. Puss, Kitty, and Perrito all suffer from loneliness and require each other's company to be truly happy, just like Goldilocks needs the company of the bears to be happy. And so, Goldilocks ends the movie not as enemies to Puss' party, but as allies, sitting next to Puss' party, celebrating their similar victories together. A classic and clean execution of a sympathetic villain.

2. Death, the symbolic villain

Death is an example of a symbolic villain, which is a villain designed specifically to symbolically challenge specific traits or beliefs held by the protagonists. Symbolic villains may have personal motivations but their primary narrative significance is the effect they have on the hero, and their job is to highlight the fears and anxieties of the hero and to force the hero to face their fears. To this end, symbolic villains can often have little or no personal motivations, at which point they are also known as force-of-nature villains, villains that function more as a threatening force than as a person with needs and wants. Force of nature villains don't even have to be people, a tornado can fill the role of a force of nature antagonist.

Death is a very obvious choice for this role, one of Puss' primary anxieties is his fear of death, and there's no better symbolic villain to challenge this than "Death, straight up". He qualifies as a force of nature villain in a very direct way by being a literal embodiment of a concept, threatening and unavoidable. The choice of depicting Death as an incarnation of the big bad wolf also has some significance. He doesn't have any narrative ties to the original incarnation of the big bad wolf (or the wolf from Shrek), but the big bad wolf is a well understood cultural shorthand for "fairy tale bad guy". Indeed, that's what Death represents for this movie, he plays the role of a fairy tale bad guy, and his depiction as the big bad wolf hides his true identity until later into the story.

It should be noted that the personal motivations of a symbolic villain barely matters, and that's very true of Death. He has minimal screen time to explain his motivations, because it's not particularly important. More interestingly, what little we know about his motivations are not particularly likable or relatable. Many have made the mistake of understanding Death as a neutral, noble party just doing his job as death, but that's not true of this movie. It's NOT Death's job to kill Puss in Boots, his job is to take Puss' life when Puss dies of normal causes. Death isn't supposed to stab people personally with a knife, he just wanted to kill Puss for fun. It's fine because Death isn't meant to be sympathetic, Death is a dick in this movie, straight up.

Since symbolic villains have everything to do with the hero, they are most effective when they force the hero into action. Death's presence forces Puss into retirement, then it forces him on the journey to find the wishing star, and shows up along the way to pressure him further. He forces Puss into a very sincerely depicted panic attack scene, and that's what symbolic villains do, they push our heroes to reveal things about themselves, their needs and wants and anxieties, so our heroes can then confront those things. The visual execution on his threatening presence also must be commended, since everyone knows how dangerous DreamWorks made him look. I have no notes, he's just cool as fuck.

3. Jack Horner is the unsympathetic villain

Alright we're starting to wade into the Jack Horner waters here, but we'll start with the baby surface level analysis of Jack's villain archetype. Jack is the unsympathetic villain, a particularly monstrous one, who no one likes because he's a dick. His motivations are surprisingly fleshed out more than that of Death since Jack at least explains his backstory, but his motivations are trash because he's trash. The heroes barely interact with him and his motivations add very little to the journey of the heroes. Unsympathetic villains are often like this because their role in the story is to simply be unlikeable, to be such a shitty person that their eventual failure delights the audience with a sense of catharsis. That in and of itself has its own kind of narrative strength, entertainment is still the ultimate goal of any piece of media, after all.

He's reminiscent of classic Disney villains such as Jafar and Scar in a number of ways: he's petty and power hungry despite having minimal backstory reasons to be so, and his depiction is not conventionally attractive (although those are some BROAD shoulders). He's also partially queer-coded in the same way as the classic Disney villains through his very unconventional masculinity: he's temperamentally flamboyant, and he's even got the pink hair to boot. Queer coding in villains is a complicated discussion I'm not qualified to discuss in depth, but it can be surprisingly enjoyable to see joyful unconventional masculinity on screen even if the context is an evil villain. We want to see him scheme, and we want to see him fail; The audience just wants to see him do stuff because he's so fun.

Jack embodies the unsympathetic villain well in his simplicity, all his actions are motivated by petty greed and he approaches every situation with uncomplicated evil. I would ask you, is this really all there is to this incarnation of Jack Horner though? YUP, turns out that's it. However, like the other two villains, Jack Horner is inspired by an existing cultural text that influences the development of his narrative. I have explained the motivations behind the other two, I will do the same for Jack.

THIS is where the fun starts.

4. Welcome to 18th century political discourse

Jack Horner's original text is the least well known property out of the three villain origins. "Little Jack Horner" is an 18th century nursery rhyme that's short enough to be read word for word in the film, and short enough to be included in this essay:

Little Jack Horner

Sat in the corner,

Eating his Christmas pie;

He put in his thumb,

And pulled out a plum,

And said, "What a good boy am I!"

That's the whole thing, some kid eats a plum out of a pie. However, even in its early days the Jack Horner rhyme became (somehow) associated with the themes of greed and opportunism. Let's try to follow the logic: we have some kid, CLEARLY financially privileged enough to receive a pie for Christmas, decides to steal a plum out of the center of the pie, ruining it with his dirty kid fingers before anyone could cut the pie to share, then he has the gall to declare "what a good boy am I"! THIS FUCKER. The pie is the wealth of the common man, or something, and the plum is, like, the fruits of their labor, and this BOURGEOIS child is reveling in his destruction of the economy with his hunger for profit (and plums).

It sounds stupid because it IS stupid, but the association stuck and found use in a surprising amount of historical literature and political writings. I can just rattle off examples from the Wikipedia article: English poet Samuel Bishop uses Jack Horner as a critique of the Civil service bureaucracy, the satirical novel Melincourt (1817) has 5 people sing a song describing how they misuse their trades to fleece the public that compares themselves to Jack Horner, etc, etc, there's like 6 more examples. Also fun is the fact that educators in the 1800's have made attempts to sanitize the Jack Horner rhyme by adding verses that describe Jack Horner totally sharing his pie afterwards because it's the good ethical thing for little boys to do. Jack Horner shows up in war propaganda, it's absolutely wild.

This is the historical context behind the little Jack Horner rhyme, the reason why Jack Horner represents capitalistic greed and cruelty in the movie. I had to look this stuff up after the movie, who even knows about this stuff, but the writers have seriously done their homework to find a nursery rhyme with a historyc this interesting, and it's fascinating to see how they worked to recontextualize this rhyme into a movie villain for Puss in Boots. I say this, because the next layer of Jack Horner's narrative construction is even more interesting.

5. Jack the Anti-Pinocchio

Drew like a dark, fucked up version of Pinocchio, haha. Just a glimpse into my dark reality. A full stare into my twisted perspective would make most go simply insane, lmao.

Jack Horner's screen time is punctuated with references to the story of Pinocchio, who I'm sure we are all familiar with. Jack's intro flashback features Pinocchio and he spends a lot of time with "ethical bug", the very shameless clone of Pinocchio's cricket. On one hand, this is a very clever way to contextualize Jack Horner using a better known media property, but on the other hand, the choice of Pinocchio is very deliberate because Jack Horner is used in this movie specifically as a dark, villainous reflection of Pinocchio. 2022 is truly the year of Pinocchio for bringing us three Pinocchio movies and ending the year on the Anti-Pinnochio: Jack Horner.

Pinocchio is the story of a little puppet boy, naive to the ways of the world, learning how to be a "good boy" through trials and tribulations. He fails to listen to his father and his companion cricket sometimes but he ultimately learns a sense of morality and kindness. Compare and contrast this to the use of "good boy" in the Jack Horner rhyme, where Jack ruins a pie then ironically declares himself a good boy. This is where the parallels start: Jack Horner at multiple points calls himself a "good boy", but he has done nothing good to earn such a title. Everytime he says "good boy" it is not only a reference to his own rhyme, but as an ironic allusion to the story of Pinocchio as well.

Consider the appearance of Pinocchio early on in Jack's introduction scene, where Jack is upstaged by Pinocchio's magic puppet show and becomes jealously possessive of magic. The significance of that scene comes from the fact that Pinocchio's magic body is NOT a net positive advantage for Pinocchio: as a puppet Pinocchio struggles to fit in with human children, but the only advantage to his magic body is his ability to entertain crowds for stage shows, if he offers his only asset up for commercial exploitation. Not only that, but Pinocchio's magic forces his nose to grow when he lies, so it's as much a liability as it is an asset. Jack is jealous of a socially underprivileged child for the ONLY advantage Pinocchio has, planting the seeds of Jack's characterization mere moments after his introduction.

Jack's journey with off brand cricket completes his characterization. We see him abuse his men against the advice of cricket, but we also see that he perfectly understands cricket's advice, he just has no interest in being good. Contrast this with Pinocchio, who also fails to heed cricket's advice, but only because he is naive and fails to understand the nuances of the advice. We also learn how he was overwhelmingly privileged in life but still wishes for magic, the only privilege he's ever been denied, and his intention to hoard it from everyone else. Jack is written with the intention of filling the role of the monstrous, unsympathetic villain, and so it was a very deliberate and intelligent decision to frame him as the moral antithesis of a "good boy", the moral antithesis of Pinocchio. What morality Pinocchio has to learn, Jack disregards completely and declares himself a "good boy" anyways. Each of the three villains in this movie is designed around their respective archetypes, but Jack Horner takes his design prompt and fucking SOARS.

6. The Shrek Cinematic Universe

Let's take a brief detour through the history of the Shrek franchise.

In 1994, Jeffrey Katsenberg was ousted from a chairman role from Walt Disney and went on to co found DreamWorks Studios. The original Shrek movie started development the year after in 1995, as a very loose adaptation of a now very obscure children's picture book of the same name. It is often said that Shrek was written as a cynical parody of the fairy tale films of Disney as a form of revenge from Katsenberg. Disney films at the time were known for being family friendly and moralistically pure and full of beautiful, wholesome heroes on noble quests, and Shrek sought to subvert those expectations deliberately. At release Shrek had become an amalgamation of various fairy tale stories, featuring many parodies of Disney properties such as Pinocchio and Snow White. The humor was crass and irreverent to contrast with the properties of Disney, with a story focused on the uglier, dirtier ogre Shrek learning to become an unconventional hero to a fairytale kingdom.

It turns out the market was indeed craving the kind of off beat fairy tale that Shrek had become, as an alternative to Disney's clean, beautiful properties. Shrek's celebration of unconventional beauty and its clever parodies of classic fairy tales both struck a chord with audiences, and the Shrek franchise has been a DreamWorks classic ever since. The two Puss in boots movies are spin-offs of the Shrek franchise. Both Puss in Boots movies differ from Shrek in the way that they use fairy tales: the fairy tales are still different from their original contexts, but they are much closer to their original meanings rather than fully comedic comedies. The first Puss in Boots was a moderate success while the second Puss in Boots is critically acclaimed and seems to be on track to revive the entire Shrek franchise.

I want to highlight the strategy Puss in Boots: The Last Wish has found for handling its fairy tale properties, and how it contributed to this film's current success. Puss in Boots has figured out the storytelling potential of becoming a sort of cross over film for multiple fairy tale stories, recontextualized for a modern audience, but with more faithfulness and sincerity to the original text than the Shrek franchise before it. It's reminiscent of the very popular Marvel Cinematic Universe, but for even older public domain stories. In a way this is still within the spirit of Shrek, it still makes use of an ensemble cast of reimagined public domain fairy tale stories to construct a new, modern narrative. It even has some parallels to the original Disney properties that led to the creation of Shrek, as Disney also built its brand off the adaptation of the same public domain fairy tales that make guest appearances in Shrek.

This style of storytelling has the unique power of reviving older, forgotten media properties into fresh new narratives, made even more complex by blending multiple stories into a single movie and forcing them to develop new meaning through interacting with one another. This approach does an incredible job of capturing the essence of Shrek: Shrek himself is a lesser known property elevated to the status of a cultural icon through his interactions with an exciting ensemble cast of comedic fairy tale imaginings, and the Shrek franchise is responsible for bringing attention and meaning to even more fairy tales and nursery rhymes, some well known, some not. Might I remind you, Puss in Boots himself was not amongst the most popular fairy tales such as Pinocchio and Cinderella, the properties that were themselves brought to fame by being associated with the Disney brand. Shrek is often praised for its celebration of unconventional beauty, and while this is true for its celebration of literal unconventional beauty features, it's also a celebration of the revival of the unconventional, forgotten stories of the past that have the potential for new life.

I say to you that Jack Horner is the perfect encapsulation of this, the spirit of the Shrek franchise. This excruciatingly simple 6 line nursery rhyme, kept alive throughout centuries through artists extracting a comical amount of political meaning from it, now revived once more by the talented team at DreamWorks. Jack Horner had the least well known origins of the three villains, many people didn't even know the nursery rhyme going into the theater, but the amount of care put into his narrative construction is a monumental testament to the power of narrative reinvention. All this, at a time when the Shrek franchise itself was in decline and required its own reinvention to survive. This, when Puss in Boots 2 required bold new changes after the lukewarm reception to the first Puss in Boots. A daunting task, but if a property as obscure as Jack Horner can be revitalized with such vigor, then so can the Shrek franchise.

I'm tearing up about Jack Horner why the fuck is this happening.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Clayton

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Tarzan is a film that has aged pretty well in the eyes of the internet. The action, the animation, the epic Phil Collins soundtrack that goes unnecessarily hard—Nearly every aspect of this film is looked on with a lot of fondness these days, a far cry from that time Trey Parker and Matt Stone had a hissy fit that they lost an Oscar to Phil Collins and made an entire episode of South Park insulting him over it. But there is one aspect of this film that you don’t really see come up very often in discussions of the film: The villain, Clayton.

But come on, he’s a Disney Renaissance villain! Surely he can’t actually be so boring and forgettable that we just don’t bother to talk about him, right? Well, let’s take a look at this mighty hunter and see why he doesn’t seem to be remembered quite as much as that rocking soundtrack.

Motivation/Goals: Clayton’s biggest issue is he has easily the lamest and most uninteresting motivation for a Disney villain: Greed. Now, greed in and of itself is not a bad motivator for a villain; some of the greatest villains of all time are motivated by greed, such as Hans Gruber. But it seems like nearly every time Disney has attempted to do a villain motivated by greed, it just hasn’t worked out well, as Ratcliffe can attest to. They did eventually manage a few solid greed-motivated antagonists in the post-Renaissance era like Rourke and Silver, but that was immediately after Clayton’s time, so he doesn’t really avoid the fate of being a rather predictable and dull foe.

It’s even worse because there is a much more personal foe, the leopard Sabor. Sabor is the killer of Tarzan’s human parents as well as his adoptive mother’s gorilla child, so there’s a much more meaningful and personal connection there, not to mention the fact Sabor is just plain scary. But nah, she gets axed off halfway through and we’re stuck with a two-dimensional big game hunter.

Performance: When he’s not lending his mighty voice to the famous Tarzan yell, BRIAN BLESSED spends his time in the movie playing the final boss of Tarzan’s story and the killer of his gorilla father. The vocal performance here is one of the biggest redemptive elements of Clayton; not once has BRIAN BLESSED ever half-assed a role, no matter how corny or flat it is (look at his performance in the insane animated film Freddie as F.R.0.7. for instance, where he plays the most generic supervillain ever with great gusto). He manages to breathe a lot of life and a little bit of personality into this not-so-great white hunter, even if he’s still a generic character at the end of the day.

Final Fate: This is perhaps the most notable thing about Clayton aside from his VA. During the final confrontation, Clayton becomes entangled in vines. He begins hacking and slashing at them, until finally he cuts through enough and he goes tumbling to the ground, a vine wrapping around his neck. You can guess what happens next.

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This one stands out because it is honestly shockingly graphic. Yes, Tarzan is a bit more violent than your typical Disney fare, but for a split second you get to see the broken-necked corpse of this dude swinging in silhouette! It’s up there as one of the most brutal and disturbing Disney deaths ever seen. 

On top of that, it’s a rather brutal take on the greatest foe of every Disney villain: Gravity. Disney, much like Enrico Pucci, is absolutely obsessed with gravity judging by how often it takes out the big bads of their films. From the very start with the Evil Queen in Snow White to several Renaissance villains like Frollo and Gaston, that thing that dropped an apple on Newton’s head seems to have it out for Disney villains. The thing is, we usually don’t see the splat, we don’t see the actual moment of death. Some of them you can even pretend they survived with some injuries if you’re feeling overly nice (Gaston was actually supposed to survive his fall originally). Here though? Clayton is completely and unambiguously fucking dead, his neck snapped by his own wrathful arrogance being combined with gravity. 

Final Thoughts & Score: Clayton is almost the very definition of “mid.” He’s not great, he’s not awful, he’s just fine and serviceable. That being said, there are a few elements that help him stand out at least a little.

Yes, Clayton has very boring and basic motivations, and that don’t really put the most exciting spin on it. He’s a poacher and a hunter, but he doesn’t have the sheer charisma and personality of fellow villainous hunter Gaston. That being said, BRIAN BLESSED definitely injects his usual grandiose hamminess into the role, and his death scene is just so good… Maybe too good, honestly. His death scene is so great that it really does overshadow everything else about him. Think about it: When was the last time you saw anyone talk about Clayton outside of maybe his Kingdom Hearts boss battle? It’s really the most memorable thing that happens to him. He doesn’t get a villain song, he doesn’t really get any cool quotes, he just has a great vocal performance, an awesome death scene, and gets to ride a giant monster chameleon into battle in a Disney/Final Fantasy crossover video game. That’s the extent of his impact.

And like I mentioned above, it really doesn’t help that he steals the spotlight away from a far more intimidating villain who actually has an honest-to-god personal connection to our protagonist. Sure, Sabor isn’t the deepest character on Earth and she’s a 6.5/10 at best, but I’d argue she’s at least as complex as Clayton is, if not more so. There’s even something of a mystique to her that our maniacal hunter simply lacks, and it really is a waste she was killed at the midpoint just so we could have Clayton take on the big bad role.

Still, for what he is, he’s not bad. He’s a remarkably unsubtle villain but he does serve his role in the plot well, and he’s not really the bottom of the barrel. I’d say he scores a very low 6/10. I almost gave him a 5.5, but I think that death and the fact he’s voiced by a man who was willing to reprise the role in a video game where Donald and Goofy team up with an anime boy to fight freakish heart-stealing monsters gives him a little bit of a boost. He’s one of the least interesting villains of the Disney Renaissance, sure, but that still makes him better than a lot of villains out there. 

[thechenfordanalysis]

The Chenford Analysis: Season 1 Eps 8 & 9

Tim and Lucy are finally beginning to head toward some dynamic of mutual understanding in these episodes. Lucy, particularly, has had to make the biggest emotional turnaround in an effort to understand Tim. We've almost seen her display a wider range of emotions when it comes to Tim's circumstances than he has himself.

This relates to another aspect of their relationship, which I find incredibly realistic. Tim and Lucy are both really good at feeling emotions and noticing them in each other. Although this quality would normally lend itself to the concept of both characters finding their rhythm seamlessly, we instead get a more natural give-and-take pattern from them, which is so much more sustainable from a writing perspective.

What I mean to say is that there are times when Lucy is more understanding and emotionally lenient with Tim, and there are moments when he is that way with her.

These moments rarely happen together.

For their progression, the writing of their relationship promotes growth by giving them adversity one at a time while the other serves as a pillar for comfort and normalcy. When Lucy feels discouraged about her inadequate training at the hands of a lazy T.O., Tim encourages her to hone in on her passion for her job. When Tim is blinded by desperation to help Isabel, Lucy talks some sense into him. Regardless of what they are experiencing personally, both Tim and Lucy have the ability to push their own insecure emotions aside for the sake of becoming each other's strength. This is a dynamic that continues throughout the series and is displayed in these next episodes.

Season 1 Episode 8:

Following Isabel's arrest, the detectives investigating her case offer her a deal to go undercover as a narc in exchange for keeping her out of jail. Tim finds out about this deal and vehemently rallies against it. In perhaps the only substantiative #Chenford moment in the whole episode, Lucy offers words of encouragement, stating that Tim did the right thing by not hiding Isabel's drugs. To this, Tim becomes defensive, saying that they were not hers and Isabel is just a victim of a "wrong place and wrong time" situation. Lucy asks him if he really believes that. Yet another example of her being the voice of reason for Tim when he is insecure.

Still so, Isabel realizes that there is no way out of this except to go through with the sting operation, so she pushes her luck to get her dealer to sell all the drugs in his possession in one go in an effort to end her involvement in the operation as quick as possible. The dealer, however, sees through her desperation and assaults Isabel, leaving her shot and clinging to life in a dumpster.

We see Lucy play the role of the voice of reason twice in this episode, once for Tim and once for Nolan, after he shoots and kills a criminal for the first time. The parallelism is not lost on me here. She puts the same kind of effort and care into talking to Tim as she does when speaking to Nolan. Since she and Nolan were in an intimate relationship until recently, it can be argued that this is a way to foreshadow or, rather, set the tone for where her relationship with Tim is headed. It is one of the most important ways she shows love for those she genuinely cares about. If anything, it shows the audience that despite what he puts her through, Lucy has unending empathy for Tim and genuinely cares about his well-being. This attitude will not go unnoticed by him, I assure you. It's something I am excited to talk about in my next episode review.

Season 1 Episode 9:

This episode has to be one of my favorites in all the series, to be honest. Apart from the way it was written, the way it was filmed felt dystopian and eerie, which makes for such excellent TV. There's also something about episodes that are filmed in one location that is just so artistic and skillful to me. To make an engaging 40 minutes worth of an episode while keeping your characters bound to one location is a ridiculous challenge and an incredible feat. Not to mention, when done successfully, is a masterpiece. I eat it up every time, TBH.

True to the nature of their give and take, we start this episode off with Lucy being the one in turmoil. She is doing her best to ignore her own involvement in the events that transpired at Nolan's house, and the stress of it is clearly getting to her. She is curt with Jackson when he tries to pry and is generally seen on edge the entire episode. Although we would imagine this to be a more challenging episode for Tim because he is tracking down the man who shot his wife, he actually just seems much more focused and strategized in this episode.

Nothing like the motivation of revenge to help a man get his head on straight.

It is really nice to get a true first glimpse of the strong-willed Tim we've all come to love, especially since this level-headed version of him was so absent through the beginning of the season.

Although Lucy's conflict is not overtly acknowledged or mentioned in this episode, I have to believe that Tim sensed some sort of nervous energy coming from her. I would also like to take this time to acknowledge the pure talent that is Melissa O'Neil for playing the subtleties of Lucy's nervousness so extremely well in this episode. In a space where Lucy cannot openly discuss what is bothering her, allowing her to live in a perpetual state of internal angst was definitely the right choice for her character. It was believable, real, and gripping to watch. Tim might not be in the know about Lucy's circumstances, but in this episode, he never wavers emotionally and steps up as the calculated and stable mentor he's meant to be. It definitely gives Lucy a reprieve and forces her to focus on something besides her own circumstances.

The writing in this episode also helped to reinforce the purpose of the show, which is to display the training process of police rookies. Even though there is another underlying goal at hand, Tim takes his time to elaborate on the steps they are going through to ensure proper training.

Tim and Lucy undergo extremely intense life-or-death situations in this episode. The way it's written really allows the audience to explore the mentor/mentee dynamic further. Lucy is quick on her feet and compliments Tim's formulaic work ethic very well. Even in the most intense moments, Tim never fails his mission as a T.O. and strives to turn their situation into a teachable moment for Lucy, something she is clearly on board with and appreciates.

It's always good to establish a pattern of dependable topics or dialogues that serve as a metaphorical home base for the initial purpose of the show. Taking moments within the twisted storylines of these characters' lives to reintroduce their purpose and the reason they are all together in the first place is really important to the development of a well-balanced script. It is important for a writer to give themselves a moment's reprieve from balancing the lives of all their characters and instead have them work together to push the central plot forward. This is harder to pull off in TV shows where most of the entertainment comes from interpersonal conflicts experienced by their core characters. The rookie always does a fantastic job of maintaining its own integrity and purpose through its writing. It is one of the reasons why it is still so entertaining to watch. They don't needlessly divulge in half-baked plotlines for a momentary thrill or reaction. They keep it very real that way. As in life, these characters are required to be multifaceted and to multitask. It makes them that much more relatable and endearing.

To add to the excellent training methods on display by Tim in this episode, we also get to see him give Lucy a compliment for the first time. Lucy helps deliver a baby in the lockdown, and he congratulates her on a job well done. I can't be sure if Tim knew the extent of Lucy's nervousness that day, but she clearly needed to hear him say that. As we know from future seasons, winning Tim's approval becomes one of the easiest ways to cheer Lucy up.

I'd like to think this is where it started.

(It is also just now dawning on me that Lucy might have a praise kink. I love this for her. Great implications for Season 5 Lucy, who now has more than one way to win Tim's approval, ifyouknowwhatimean).

[shivroythinker]

the cool thing about succession is it lends itself so well to so many types of discussions and analyses like... there are some incredibly brilliant people on this site who write amazing analysis about a lot of succession's central themes about capitalism and politics and all of that. but then there is also room for those of us who majored in psychology and film in college to make posts like hey. aren't these people super emotionally fucked up

[margridarnauds]

1, 9, and 23 for the fic writer asks ❤

Thank you!

What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year? How did it turn out and would you do it again?

This year's been slow for fics, since I've had a very busy time at my job, but I feel like I've been continuing to try to push the envelope -- working with new fandoms, new characters, and new styles. With Þe Grene, I think that I continued on with a trend that I started in A Soft October Night of embracing two things: Surrealism and my own discomfort with sex.

In fandom, it feels like there's a constant pressure to write sex scenes, and I do think that sex scenes can be important to developing character relationships, as one aspect of the human condition (even if it isn't the be-all, end-all.) I enjoy a well written sex scene! And I can give you an in-depth analysis of how various characters get it on. (And it isn't entirely clinical on my part, either.) But, for me, on a personal level, even though I'm not sex repulsed or even fully asexual (I feel like I lean into demisexuality or gray asexuality if anything), I've never gotten over that feeling of being self-conscious when it comes to WRITING them. And there are two strategies -- one is to keep writing sex scenes, which I've done for...years, at this point, the other is to lean into the discomfort, which I have a lot more fun with. And the Green Knight is such a trippy film to begin with that it really lends itself to surreal, uncomfortable fic, and I've had a lot of feelings about adaptation and homoeroticism in the film that it felt like a natural conclusion. So I leaned heavily into the discomfort, as well as the themes of identity and duality that are already there in the film itself.

And, honestly? We're at 103 hits, 23 kudos. Not bad, imo. No comments but, honestly, I'm not certain that it's the kind of fic that invites comments -- I think it's the kind of fic that you read and then sit with. If someone WANTS to comment, wonderful, grand, etc., but I also understand why people haven't, and that they haven't means, imo, that I nailed what I wanted to do. I wanted it to be an odd combination of sexy, disquieting, and oddly tender, and I think I succeeded. So I believe that overall, I succeeded, and I'm proud of the result.

9. What fic meant the most to you to write?

Just about every fic that I wrote this year was near and dear to my heart, specifically because every one required a level of sacrifice to create them when I was faced with various professional demands. But the one that probably meant the most on a personal level was Metempsychosis. Because, despite being a one-shot, it took me over five years to write it. I wrote it for a fandom event that never really took off. Most of the people who were in the fandom when I wrote it are gone. I haven't heard from them in years. The fandom itself looks wildly different from how it used to look, and I know next to no one in it. And it's for a fandom that I've never written for before and will probably never write for again, a character study of a female character who doesn't get all that much attention, with no focus on romance. There was no way it would ever NOT be a passion project, and I was fine with that.

I wrote out most of it by hand, in a single flurry of activity, in the middle of Heathrow Airport in the morning, while I was going home from a conference, after taking a 5 hour bus ride and getting into said airport at 3 AM. I was tired, I was jet-lagged, and it was the perfect time and place to just...finally let it all out. All my feelings about Nannerl and her place as a historical figure, the way that her story is written off as a tragedy, and all my feelings about creating art when the people who you used to create it for are gone, with me trying to come to terms with those questions at the same time as she was. It was very much a labor of love and very much a personal story to me.

23. Share the final version of a sentence or paragraph you struggled with. What about it was challenging? Are you happy with how it turned out?

"Romeo, I've been waiting up for you for hours, what is it?"

Romeo held her close, resting his head on her shoulder while entwining his long legs with hers. "Nothing," he murmured. "I'm just glad we have the chance to love one another."

She flipped over to face him, her face searching his, her fingers gently hovering over his cheek, and he didn't know what she'd find there, given that she seemed to be able to read him in a way that no one else seemed to. Then, she wrapped her arms around him, clinging onto him like her life depended on it and, perhaps, it did. Perhaps she felt the same shadows at the edges of her vision that he did, perhaps, when they both shared the night with one another, they shared the darkness as well as the starlight. All he knew was that he was completely, happily grateful to this girl, and he'd gladly spend the rest of his life proving that.

(From Qu'as-tu fait de fou dans ta vie?)

So, this isn't a case of just an entire paragraph that was hard to write, but an entire sub-plot. As an author, I tend to have a very one track mind. I'm not proud of it, but it's true -- I go in with a specific plotline, I come up with ways to get from Point A to Point B to Point C, I bring in other characters on an as-needed basis, and that's it. I don't like juggling side-plots. But, for this fic, I quickly realized that I would need to bring in more of Romeo and Mercutio, especially strengthening Romeo's plotline. Because if I under-developed Mercutio, it would make him look like an unsympathetic jackass (which, tbh, is where I tend to lean in canon) and if I underdeveloped Benvolio and Escalus, it would look like they were selfish, immature idiots who were sneaking around without caring that it would hurt Mercutio. And if I underdeveloped Romeo, it would look like platonic bonds are just stepping stones to romance, with you ditching them the second you fall in love with someone. None of which I wanted to do. So, I buffed up Mercutio's scenes and, instead of giving Romeo one or two scenes, I let him become (remain) a major part of the narrative, including this scene where he essentially goes to call out Escalus for dumping Benvolio. And it works both to show Romeo's close bond with Benvolio, Romeo's own character development, and also the way that both Romeo and Juliet are paralleling Escalus and Benvolio. (And also giving Juliet some screentime, because I always feel bad when my girl isn't given a chance to shine.)

Overall, I think I did a good job, I felt like the chapter really fit into the flow of it, and this paragraph in particular did a great job of capping off that particular part.

[insideline]

people Outside sports fandoms are often surprised at the concept of sports rpf (see everyone shocked abt hockey rpf atuhors) but i think it makes a lot of sense! sports lends itself particularly well to fic for a few reasons: (longish text under cut)

1. lack of an author & externally fabricated narratives

fanfiction is an extension of the story world, for example prodding into plot holes, imagining an alternative ending, providing different perspectives than the original author's narrative. the thing with most (well-written) stories is that they're already complete and there isn't AS much material to extrapolate from. comparatively, there isn't any central authority on what is/isn't canon in sports, thus there's a lot of room for imagination and evolution!

narratives within sports are created communally. there's a fanspace agreement on what each athlete's "story" is, extrapolated and manufactured through championship standings and media interviews. those sources of info aren't really linked together at all, they're reports on Things that Happened without any kind of teleology. sports news sites and fan accounts coming up with narratives of teammate infighting, or redemption arcs is essentially a form of creative writing, which then clearly leads to rpf.

2. evolving stories and publicity

books and movies are limited. there's a certain finality to it each series- these three books in the trilogy is all that you get, and there's nothing further created. sports are a never ending story. you have the same narrative arcs played over and over again with different people (ex. young rising star unseating the established champion a la kimi/seb -> seb/charles etc.). this means that the fandom can't really die out after a season's over like other media fandoms die- there's another season of racing to come, another series to follow, or vintage races to watch.

there's also just so much more content available to extend on! "canon material" can mean anything from the races themselves, pictures of the drivers together, news reports... these many avenues provide different access points for a broad variety of people interested in the sport, inviting more authors into the space!

3. character "space"

in rpf, there's a multiplicity of characterizations and media sources available. athletes show a "public self," and authors fill in the distance between the public self and the private self. different scenarios reveal different traits (ex. a drivers personal social media vs. them in team publicity videos). in other forms of media, there is only one "self" of each character as there is only one official distributive source for information. this constrains the possibilities for characterization. however, in sports rpf you see a lot of competing understandings of each athlete as people interpret media sources in their own way! this ultimately leads to more fic written as different readers/writers are attracted to different characterizations.

i think all these characteristics lead to especially good writing in rpf fandoms that i dont see in others!! purely anecdotal of course, but all of the most Literary fanfics ive read have been from sports rpf.

this is all just me thought-dumping after reading real body, fake person: recontextualizing celebrity bodies in fandom and film which i recommend reading!! its a comparative analysis of the similarities in biopics and rpf, i cant remember who exactly first shared the link but shoutout to them

[yumeka36]

Frozen 2.5 - Prologue + Chapter 1

I’m literally shaking. I can’t believe this day has finally come.

I first began work on this project back in November, on Frozen 2′s anniversary to be precise, and have worked on it for countless hours since. My artist for the project, the talented @myrthena, has also been working hard on the above cover art and other illustrations. After tons of edits and re-readings, I can’t express how happy I am to finally share it with all of you!

Frozen 2.5 is my next big Frozen writing project. But unlike my previous one, Seek the Truth, which is an essay-style analysis book, Frozen 2.5 is a post-Frozen 2 fanfiction novel, created very much in the same vein as the official Frozen novels Dangerous Secrets and Forest of Shadows. Anyone who’s been following my posts for a while knows that I mostly do essay/editorial writing and have never had much interest in reading or writing fanfiction. But like any fan, I’m always playing out fanfiction stories in my head. I just never felt the need to write one out in full - until now. But before you get to reading the story, a quick introduction is in order:

I had two main goals while writing Frozen 2.5. First goal was to create a Frozen story that would be indistinguishable from something Disney would officially release as a feature-length film. I wanted fans, whether hardcore or casual, to read this novel and think, “Yeah, I could see Disney making this for the next Frozen movie.” Obviously, that means there’s nothing in the story that would warrant a rating beyond PG, but as anyone familiar with Disney movies knows, that certainly doesn’t mean the story can’t have drama, angst, and dark moments (which it does). And my other goal, and probably the more important one, was to create a story that appeals to a wide range of Frozen fans, especially fans who are having trouble imagining if fun, likable scenarios can still take place with the new direction Frozen 2 took for our beloved characters. With that in mind, even though I’m not well versed in the Frozen fanfic community, I’m pretty sure my story will have some similarities to others (the world of Frozen does lend itself easily to common headcanons and narrative ideas). But in spite of this, I’m hoping Frozen 2.5 has enough of my own unique touch as a writer, and die-hard Frozen fan, to be something very interesting, unpredictable, and overall enjoyable for fans of many ages and tastes.

I’m going to be releasing a new chapter of the story every 1-2 days, starting with the prologue plus chapter 1 today, and ending with chapter 7 (the final chapter) and the epilogue on April 11th. Each chapter will have an original illustration by myrthena as well. The entire 63K+-word novel is written already, so don’t worry about me getting writer’s block and not finishing it. I just need a little more time to compile the illustrations and do a final review.

The release schedule is below (I’ll try to stick as close to it as possible, though it may vary slightly). You can follow me here or on Twitter to be notified when the new chapters are available. You can also check the respective pages on FF.net and AO3 (linked at the end of this post):

Release Schedule:

-Sun. 3/28 (today): Prologue and Chapter 1

-Tue. 3/30: Chapter 2

-Fri. 4/2: Chapter 3

-Sun. 4/4: Chapter 4

-Tue. 4/6: Chapter 5

-Fri. 4/9: Chapter 6

-Sun. 4/11: Chapter 7 and Epilogue

For the final release on April 11th, I’ll also include a complete edition that has all the chapters and illustrations together in one pdf, including an afterword written by me (where I discuss some history and final thoughts on the project).

With all that said, please enjoy the prologue and chapter 1 linked below. I have poured my heart, soul, and every fiber of my being as a Frozen fan into this story!

-----

Story Summary: It’s been about half a year since the events of Frozen 2. Anna is adjusting well as queen of Arendelle, and Elsa has been making slow but steady progress with reconnecting the spirits with the Northuldra. And while both sisters, as well as Kristoff, have been trying hard to create a unity between Arendelle and Northuldra, decades of animosity is proving difficult to mend. However, the new status quo is interrupted when Anna receives a letter from a queen of an unknown kingdom - a queen who still thinks that Elsa is the queen of Arendelle. Our heroes soon get caught up in the mysterious plans and dark history of this strange kingdom and its enigmatic queen. Trusts are tested, courage must rise against danger, answers slowly come to light, and in the end, all sides must come together to overcome an impending threat.

The prologue and chapter 1 mostly reintroduce the characters and their current status, and have a lot of endearing Frohana moments. But there is foreshadowing of the calm before the storm...

*I recommend reading the PDF version since FF.net and AO3 have limitations (not a lot of font choices, can’t show all images, no distinction between prologue/epilogue and chapters, and FF.net doesn’t let me have a period in the title)*

*Read PDF version HERE (recommended)

*Read on FF.net HERE (it’s called “Frozen 2 5″ because FF.net doesn’t let you include periods in titles)

*Read on AO3 HERE (thanks to @wintermoonqueen for the invite)

[devilsskettle]

hi @pedropascalvstimotheechalamet sorry for responding to you this way, this got too long to send via dm and it was easier to add the links this way, also hopefully other people might have some thoughts about this topic as well!

i might not be the best person to ask about this tbh, my base of knowledge and opinions are mainly around horror movies for one thing and i know there’s been a lot of criticisms of this phenomenon from other genres, like superhero and action movies where there’s the Strong Female Character trope where people try to write feminist characters but end up making them empty, unrealistic characters with no flaws or characteristics other than being “strong” (in action movies, typically physically strong/good at fighting) and a lot of times they still end up being sexualized or objectified (like black widow in the mcu, especially when she’s first introduced. she’s a “role model” because she can fight but she has no personality, she’s a plot device, and she’s hyper-sexualized for the male gaze). i don’t have any good sources for this though! i’ve just seen people talk about it on the internet lol. i can point you in the direction of some other posts on here either that i’ve posted or seen and agreed with but also i’m definitely not an expert, i just have strong opinions, they’re mainly based off my judgment of what i’ve seen other people say and my personal analysis of a lot of media, not on like peer reviewed academic sources for the most part. some of the things i can refer you to might only be tangentially related to this, tbh i remember the post you’re talking about but i can’t find it now lol so i hope i can point you in the direction of some opinions that will be interesting to you

that being said, one example is the autopsy of jane doe, i wrote about it a bit here and have some links to other people’s reviews (and why i think they’re not quite accurate lol but you can judge for yourself of course)

and the witch and midsommar are also movies that gets this “girl power” treatment and i simply think it’s insane to think either of those have happy endings or ultimately that the protagonists of either film end up in a good place so: 1 & 2

i would also suggest reading men, women, and chainsaws by carol clover for the original way she defines “final girl” characters, here’s the introduction to the most recent edition that talks about how that term gets used now and why it’s been sort of co-opted to have a “girl power” meaning when that’s not inherent to the phenomenon she’s discussing, the rest of the book goes into more detail but i think the intro gives you a pretty good idea

i’ve also talked about gone girl ad nauseum, there’s a lot out there looking at the reception of the book and film that wants to make the conflict very gendered, either absolving amy of all her faults or completely demonizing her when she’s a complex character and there are other issues in the book including class and race that end up getting overlooked in favor of talking about gender as men vs women which i think is overly simplistic and lends itself to gender essentialism and is also sexist in the way that gillian flynn as an author isn’t afforded the same complexity as comparable male authors (stephen king is terrible at writing women, some of his stories DO posit gender essentialist ideas of what it’s like to be a man, but if you criticize him for it people will shrug it off. but gillian flynn is a misandrist for writing characters like amy and nick dunne! when she’s just writing complex unlikable interesting characters lol it has way less to do with gender than people make it out to be) and also it affords her female characters less humanity than male characters. anyway here’s some things i said about it before so i’m not just ranting at you lol: 1

and how i think other stories avoid “girl boss-ing” their female characters: 1 & 2

and some other things people have said about it: 1, 2, & 3

and what gillian flynn herself has said about writing women

here’s some refs for women in horror more generally, i don’t know if any of it will be of interest to you but it may be

so yeah those are some things i can think of off the top of my head, if anyone else has any thoughts or resources about “girl boss” or the “strong female character” trope, please feel free to chime in!

[jcs-study]

At the end of my last post, I referred to "Pilate's Dream" as "the number that makes you wonder aloud if a psychiatrist would have made a killing offering talk therapy in first-century Palestine."

To clarify what I meant by that joke... in writing JCS, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber were more interested in asking questions than in providing answers. The result was a rock opera that fictionalized the thoughts and motivations behind the actions of this group of prominent historical characters. That said, in their all-consuming interest in depicting biblical figures as human beings, the piece often places more emphasis on those thoughts and motivations than the actual actions. (This is partly why only those "well-coached in the mechanics of Christianity and its legends and beliefs," as Rice once put it, can really follow the plot anymore, but I digress.)

This was merely a piece of humor aimed at the fact that, with this song, we are getting a "therapist's eye view," if you will, into Pontius Pilate's psyche. It was not intended to offend or belittle anybody with mental health issues, and I apologize profusely in advance for any harm that may have arisen from that crappy attempt at comedy.

At any rate... willfully risking the appearance of repetitiveness, I return to the original Broadway highlights for this performance by the late Barry Dennen. I had the privilege of knowing Baz from seeing him perform the show live (as Herod, no less) and spending time with him after a number of anniversary screenings of the 1973 film. He was charming, mischievous, and a gent to the end, to say the very least, and I miss him every day.

Though he also played the part of Pilate, notably, on the original concept recording and in the film, this performance of "Pilate's Dream" is what sits with me most of the three he recorded. There is an earnestness to his voice that I don't hear in the other two, and it lends itself well to the scene.

Alright, enough piddling things to death, as Bob Ross would say...

The Lyrics

PILATE I DREAMED I MET A GALILEAN A MOST AMAZING MAN HE HAD THAT LOOK YOU VERY RARELY FIND THE HAUNTING, HUNTED KIND

I ASKED HIM TO SAY WHAT HAD HAPPENED HOW IT ALL BEGAN I ASKED AGAIN HE NEVER SAID A WORD AS IF HE HADN'T HEARD

AND NEXT THE ROOM WAS FULL OF WILD AND ANGRY MEN THEY SEEMED TO HATE THIS MAN THEY FELL ON HIM AND THEN THEY DISAPPEARED AGAIN

THEN I SAW THOUSANDS OF MILLIONS CRYING FOR THIS MAN AND THEN I HEARD THEM MENTIONING MY NAME AND LEAVING ME THE BLAME

The Plot

The Roman soldiers who kept the peace in Jerusalem were quartered at the Fortress Antonia, across from the Temple. The screams of someone waking from a nightmare must have alerted them into defensive mode.

Waking in the dead of night, the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, recounts a dream which has been troubling him for many months. The dream focuses on a charismatic man. Pilate finds himself in a room full of people baying for this man's blood. The dream ends with an image of millions of people mourning the man's death and leaving Pilate with the blame.

The Analysis

Random fact: this song is an excellent example of what happens when you have a unique match of performer and character. Ellis Nassour's Rock Opera tells us that Barry Dennen did so well with the trial scene, which Lloyd Webber's memoir notes was among the first recorded, that they wanted to bring him in sooner in the piece.

Baz had no objections. As he put it in an interview with my website, JCS Zone, "You can't wait 'til halfway through for the character to appear. He has to show up near the beginning of it to establish himself as a character so you're interested in him. When he reappears in the second act, you know who he is and you understand what he is about." Per Tim Rice's autobiography, he agrees: "Pilate's one troubled appearance in the first half of the show makes his second-half dialogue with Jesus infinitely more powerful."

Savvy Christian listeners/readers/viewers will note that there is a bit of dramatic license taken here. According to the Gospel of Matthew, it wasn't Pilate who had the dream. Rice explains:

[I]n the Bible [the dream] is credited to his wife. However, introducing another character for just one brief scene was impractical, mainly for economic reasons, so we had no At Home with The Pilates number.

Of course, this hasn't stopped a few productions over the years from either including his wife in the scene where he has the dream (as one California production in the early 2000s did), using her as a general background character who appears curious about, and ultimately sympathetic to, Jesus (the 1973 film -- look for her in the Overture as Pilate makes his entrance once everyone is in character, during "Simon Zealotes / Poor Jerusalem," and in both "Pilate and Christ" and the trial), or straight-up adding the wife for just the one solo (see Anthony Von Eckstein's long-running JCS which played around the California Bay Area from 1988-1992 -- any video in the playlist labeled "Procula's Dream" will do).

Do I recommend shoehorning a character in just to sing one song, or to serve as mere window-dressing? No. But there is a possible way to have your cake and eat it too -- @ozymegdias, a fellow fan, and friend, once kicked around the concept of a "Karen" Pilate. (Think Moira Rose on Schitt's Creek, but with actual power, having a very, very bad day.) Not only is there plenty of room for dark humor in such casting, but it also gives the show a much more contemporary feel to have a woman in the position of authority, and solves the problem of JCS being very male-centric in its dramatis personae. Plus, it's a nod to who originally had the dream in the source material -- win/win.

Coming Up Next:

To borrow a Sisters of Mercy song title, there are thieves in "The Temple," and Jesus ain't happy about it.

[trixree]

Feminist, Queer, Playboy, Philanthropist: Why Ironman Belongs to the Shes, Gays, and Theys

Introduction:

This material originally comes from a media critique project I did for an undergrad philosophy course and I've attempted to adapt it into a tumblr post that doesn't make your eyes bleed. I may or may not have been successful. Upfront, I'm giving you a trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault/rape. If you'd like to skip that part of the analysis, mind the red content warning [start/end].

Trix, what are you up to today? Well, I’d like to present an alternative narrative interpretation of the capstone of the MCU. At face value, Tony Stark shows us a wise-cracking, suave, and hyper-masculine superhero. His soundtrack is AC/DC and he arrives on the battlefield in a shower of gold sparks and hydraulics, wearing sunglasses that cost more than my uterus would fetch on the black market. However, this character presents us with so much more than just a hyper-masculine caricature of straight, cis heroism. Not only does he embody typically “feminine” film tropes—such as the hypersexualized “fighting-fucktoy” role, the policing of his body and promiscuity, and the climactic “rape scene” in which his predatory father-figure drugs him and steals his “heart”—additionally, he embodies classically queer film tropes. Unlike most male action-movie protagonists, his story line is an identity crisis at heart, culminating in a climactic “coming out” scene. His character is promiscuous and spurned for it, and camp is a constant underlying theme in his character design as a whole. I explore these themes in two main parts: the femme and the queer. We'll start with the femme.

Hyper-Masculinity & Tony Stark

In order to understand the subversive nature of Tony Stark, we must first establish the typical nature of hyper-masculine and the hyper-feminine character tropes. Before we can ask the question, “how is this character coded as femme?'' We must first ask, “how is this character coded as masc?”. Further, what do these tropes tell the audience about those characters? Ultimately, the hypermasculine caricature lends power to the subject while the hyperfeminine caricature strips the subject of all agency.

Hypermasculinity is defined, generally, as the exaggerated portrayal or the reinforcement of “typically male stereotypes” (typical male meaning, in this context, that of a Westernized man) such as aggression, strength and power (both physcial and otherwise), as well as sex appeal, and integrity. Hypermasculinity takes a keen focus on the physical male form as a dominating force (1). A hypermasculine character, then, would be one that portrays a domineering, powerful man that is above his peers in some way, and is sexually desirable, in that he exemplifies a pornified picture of a male physique. This desirable and desiring caricature of manhood “socializes boys to believe that being a man means being powerful and in control” (2).

In contrast to this idea of hypermasculinity is the media’s typical portrayal of women. The typical hyperfeminine characterization of women in media is that of a passive, pretty, and overtly sexualized side-character with little agency or autonomy within the story. This is true of both blockbuster hits starring men and movies starring women, too. “We had many more interesting characters on screen in the '20s, '30s, '40s than we do now… They could be the femme fatale and then turn around and be the mother and then turn around and be the seductress, and then turn around and be the saint, and we accepted that. They were complex human beings” (2). This is no longer the case for a typical role for women on screen.

The documentary Miss Representation (2) presents a common caricature that a woman in Hollywood might find herself portraying. Action movies with a female lead surely must exhibit agency in their own story lines. However, the female-action-movie-lead is dubbed the “fighting fucktoy” by Miss Representation. Although she makes her own decisions and it is her narrative that drives the story, she primarily exists as eye-candy. Thus, even the “fighting fucktoy” is just that to audiences--a “fucktoy”. She may be “strong” but primarily, she must be pretty. The MCU character Black Widow perfectly exemplifies the “fighting fucktoy”. Her physical strength may be unquestioned, but primarily it is her beauty that is the focus on-screen. Never do we see her fighting in a t-shirt and sweatpants. Even outside of the skin-tight deep-vee catsuit, Black Widow’s plain clothes outfits consist of tight jeans and even tighter shirts.

This is true for both hyperfeminine and hypermasculine stories. Both the men and women starring in mainstream productions are expected to exemplify a western ideal of peak beauty standards at all times. However, where the hypersexualization of male’s bodies is associated with power, dominance, and strength, the sexualization of women’s bodies is linked to submission, frailty, and possession. Hence the name, “fighting fucktoy”. Her beauty does not make her powerful, it makes her a “toy”, an object, a possession. The sexualization of men in media gives them power within their narratives. For women, it does the complete opposite. It makes them objects, even when they are strong. Beauty and sex make them the victims of their own stories. Ultimately, the hypermasculine male character is envied and emulated, not coveted.

Ironman: Femme Fatale

The storyline of the first Iron Man movie is one concerned with bodily autonomy in a way typically reserved for women--Tony Stark is presented as a fighting fucktoy with an unattainable heart. Not only that, he must struggle against the literal policing of his body by friends, family, and government agencies alike. This subversive, unexpected feminine story culminates in the pinnacle “rape scene” wherein a trusted older-male drugs and assaults Tony in order to take advantage of his “body”, the arc-reactor.

Let’s examine Tony’s coded “fighting fucktoy” persona in two parts: the “fighting” and the “fucktoy”. Miss Representation identifies what female leadership often looks like in movies. “When it comes to female leaders in entertainment media, we see the bitchy boss who has sacrificed family and love to make it to where she is” (2). Odd as it may seem, this perfectly encapsulates the metaphorical role of the arc reactor powering the Iron Man suits. First and foremost, the reactor represents Tony Stark’s heart. Not only is it literally located within his heart for the purpose of keeping it intact, it represents his rebirth as a caring, philanthropic man--it encapsulates Stark’s “fight”. Before his kidnapping and the subsequent implanting of the reactor, Stark was every inch the “bitchy boss who has sacrificed family and love” as well as morals themselves in order to be a war profiteer. His “fight” consists of standing up against the same system that had allowed him to amass his fortune. This “fight” is inextricably tied to his “bitchy boss” caricature as someone who has had to surrender love.

It is clear to the viewer that Stark has had to sacrifice love to get where he is in life. Many allusions are given towards the “will they won't they” nature of his relationship with Pepper Potts and Stark’s work is identified as the reason why they won’t. At the end of the movie, Stark attempts to seduce Potts, asking if she ever “thinks about that night” to which she replies, “Are you talking about the night that we danced and went up on the roof, and then you went downstairs to get me a drink, and you left me there, by myself?” The viewers are aware that the reason Stark ran off was because he had received news that Stark weapons had gotten into the wrong hands. Later, Potts will gift him the original arc reactor with the engraving: PROOF THAT TONY STARK HAS A HEART surrounding it. In an unconventional way, Stark portrays the frigid boss who sacrificed everything to get where she is in his titular fight against a war profiteering machine.

Next, let’s examine his role as the fucktoy. This is a more subtle theme throughout the film, present in body language and subtext. I will focus mainly on scenes which present a femme-coded sexualization--scenes where emphasis on Stark’s body does not lend Stark power, but instead strips him of his autonomy. Take for example the scene pictured below. In this scene, Stark bares his chest to Stane. He is quick to cover up and fruitlessly attempts to redirect Stane’s curiosity. Much like a scene where an attractive woman shows skin, the emphasis is placed on Stark redirecting Stane’s predatory interest. Notice the tension in Stark’s stance, the challenge in his eyes and the contrasting pose of Stane, mid-motion, pushing so close into Stark’s space. Stane is clearly coded as the aggressor once the reactor comes out. The same effect is observed as when a woman bares skin--an apparent loss of autonomy as other characters (and even the cinematography itself) takes a pornographic view of her body. Instead of a powerful male character baring his chest in the heat of a battle, giving the audience a glimpse of corded muscle and strength, this scene leaves the viewer feeling uncomfortable on Stark’s behalf.

[TW Start] This femme-coded sexualization that leads ultimately to a loss of autonomy again rears its head in the titular “rape scene”. This is the clearest instance of the reactor--a literal part of Stark’s body, symbolically present as his heart--lends itself to his victimization. Just as a hypersexualized female character with no bodily autonomy, Stark’s bodily autonomy is forcefully violated so that a powerful male figure in his life can exploit a part of him. This theme becomes horrifyingly clear when the scene is examined up close.

Notice the position of their bodies. Once again, Stane towers over Stark, pressing into his space on all sides. In the first image, to the right, he has an arm draped over the back of the couch--a parody of a romantic or perhaps affectionate gesture from one intimate partner to another. Stane visibly radiates power in this position, even if the viewer were unaware of Stark’s paralyzed state. Stane’s shoulders are squared, even sitting down. The position of the reactor in his hand is relaxed and undeniably taunting. Looking at Stark himself, the horror and powerlessness of his situation is clear. His eyes are open, but almost appear to be unseeing. He is not looking directly at the reactor nor at Stane. In fact, it seems as though his eyes are looking below the reactor and to the room at large. I can only describe his expression as hollow--the blank eyes fixed out to something the viewers cannot see, his mouth partially open, his skin sickly pale.

In the second image, pictured above, Stane leers over Stark’s body, cradling his head in, once again, a parody of a lover’s tenderness. He coaxes Stark’s now limp form down onto the couch, having just paralyzed him with a fictional, technological nerve agent. The horror is shockingly clear on Stark’s face and the perverse joy is just as clear on Stane’s. This scene itself is an undeniable parody of rape, or, at the very least, physical assault. [TW End]

Tony Stark presents us with a clear, femme-coded character as his story line draws upon classicly feminine tropes wherein the sexualization of the character’s body is exploitative at heart and leaves them vulnerable to physical predation. In this way, though he is strong, his “body” makes him the victim of his own story. Not only that, his character arc itself travels from the heart-less profiteer to the philanthropic man with a heart of gold, drawing upon another classically femme-caricature of the “bitchy boss”.

Queer Tropes & The Closet

Queer tropes are much harder to draw upon than that of feminine tropes. Queer tropes in film developed in a time of great censorship and as a result are often subtle. There are three main tropes I would like to reference for the purposes of this critique. Within the Iron Man franchise, there exists a distinct sense of camp, a problematized sexual promiscuity, and, ultimately, an identity-reveal/coming out storyline.

One of the most obvious of these tropes is camp. Camp is “defined as the purposeful and ironic adoption of stylistic elements that would otherwise be considered bad taste. Camp aesthetics are generally extreme, exaggerated and showy and always involve an element of mockery” (3). Camp is present in queer culture most commonly in the ball and drag scenes. Camp is the gaudy, the glitzy, the over-the-top, the classic-but-not, the in-your-face… Camp is all of the above and more. This is why it is so easily recognizable to audiences.

The Advocate identifies a series of seventeen queer caricatures in media for consideration, one of them being that of the “promiscuous queer”. Everyone knows the myth of the promiscuous bisexual, even when the reality is that bisexual individuals are no more or no less likely to view monogamy as “sacrificial” than gay or straight individuals (4). The stereotype of the promiscuous bisexual is inaccurate and harmful, and they are by no meals alone in being labeled overly promiscuous by a general audience. The “promiscuous queer” is defined as a character that may struggle with emotional intimacy and, as a result, sleeps around to mask the love they are missing in their life. “Films going back as far as the ’80s British period piece Another Country have featured gay male characters who use sex to cover for their inability to feel true intimacy with another human being” (5). Among their list of guilty perpetrators are Queer as Folk, The L Word, The Good Wife, and How to Get Away With Murder.

The last trope I’d like to present is that of the “coming out” story. Far from being problematic, the “coming out” is often necessary when telling a queer story. Coming out storylines can be problematized when they are presented as “Big Dark Secrets” that weigh heavily on a person until they are spoken. Ultimately, coming out is a choice. Many queer people choose to come out while many do not. There are many people who fall in between--some people may be comfortable being out to select individuals while not to others or to the world at large. In any case, people can be satisfied and fully fulfilled in any of those choices. Coming out stories are undeniably part of queer culture in media. Consider the recent hit, Love Simon alongside Transparent, Empire, Supergirl, and Glee.

Camp, Secrets & Sex

Through the camp of the Iron Man persona, the problematized sexuality of Stark, and the underlying theme of a “coming out” journey, Tony Stark presents audiences with a classically queer experience in film. Take the Iron Man suit itself. The iconic red and gold, the whine of the repulsors, the sleek metal edges and the furious glow of the arc reactor all scream camp. The red and the gold, the opening bars of Back In Black, the facial hair cut into odd spikes, and the sunglasses do, too. Each and every part of the Iron Man persona is camp. “Stylistic elements that otherwise would be bad taste”... talk about gold-plated biceps and a bright red, glowing chest piece! It's camp, baby!

The problematized sexuality of Stark is harder to see as reminiscent of a queer trope. Take, for example, one of the first scenes in the movie. “I do anything and everything that Mr. Stark requires, including, occasionally, taking out the trash”, Potts remarks in reference to a one-night stand she’s ushering out of Stark’s home. Here, Potts implies that Stark sleeps with “trash”. The following scene gives us the feeling that this is not a one-off occurrence. As Potts enters the room, Stark asks, “how’d she take it?” References to his repeated promiscuity are obvious. “Playboy” is an integral part of his persona. Equally obvious is Potts’ disapproval. Taking these inferences of his playboy lifestyle with what viewers know of Stark’s lack of attachments--his “bitchy boss” exterior, if you may--it appears as though his promiscuity is a symptom of the promiscuous queer stereotype.

“Don’t ever ask me to do anything like that ever again,” Potts says after removing the initial arc reactor model from Stark’s chest cavity. “I don’t have anyone but you,” Stark replies. The viewer has a clear picture of Stark as a playboy type who is truly lonely on the inside--who struggles with emotional intimacy. This struggle is evident, given that Potts, Stark’s secretary and co-worker, is the only person in his life he trusts to assist him in what is essentially open heart surgery. His playboy lifestyle mirrors the circumstances of the promiscuous queer trope in media.

Finally, we come to the last scene of the movie-- the climactic reveal. “I am Iron Man”, Stark says. This scene most clearly illustrates a queer story-line. Stark reveals his “identity”, shedding his last secret, and declares to reporters (and effectively the world) that he is Iron Man. To understand how this scene evokes such a strong sense of queer experience in viewers, I’d like to reference another recent in-universe identity reveal in the Marvel Cinematic canon. In Spiderman: Far From Home, the end-credit scene shows Peter Parker reacting in horror to his identity being leaked via doctored footage from the villain Mysterio. This scene can read as nothing but a deep violation. Even the main characters themselves react in abject horror at the news. The Spiderman identity reveal and the Iron Man identity reveal are two sides of the same coming-out process. In one, the character had full agency. In the other, the reveal was non-consensual, a complete violation. It is clear that both of these scenes draw explicitly upon themes that resonate particularly with queer audiences.

To Infinity(War) and Beyond

Growing up, I latched onto Iron Man and Tony Stark as an outlet for my “otherness”. I was well and truly obsessed with the character for reasons that I could not really put into words. He was weird, he was loud, and he was, frankly, unapologetic about any of it. I remember very clearly on my first day of tenth grade listening to Thunderstruck by AC/DC in the car and putting on the brightest shade of red lipstick I could find. Tony Stark gave me confidence. He gave me a voice. Throughout high-school I must have watched the first Iron Man movie upwards of twenty, maybe even thirty times. It was a comfort to me because it showed experiences I resonated with and it showed a strong character recovering from them. Tony Stark rose from the ashes every time and gave me the strength to rise from my own ashes every time he did.

Our heroes can be anything. And Tony Stark was mine.

[thoughtsofanexcitedspacechild]

Writing Tips (Pt. 3): Writing Believable and shippable relationships in literature.

Hello friends! First of all, let me say a HUGE thank you for the support on the Kataang post! I worked really hard on it and it means so much to me all the little notes you give it and reblog it! I know it’s not at a huge number of notes, but I like knowing that people took time to read through the endless rant and reblog it! I’m planning on doing another full analysis on Zutara and why specifically it doesn’t work. I’ll make it respectful though as I know that a lot of Kataang fans are REALLY defensive and anti-zutara. I promise I’m not one of those people, and believe that no matter who you ship, your opinions on fictional characters are your opinions and you are FULLY entitled to ship and like whatever you want (as long as it’s not incest or a huge age gap. PLEASE don’t ship that stuff lol. U nasty mfs know who u are.) Speaking of ships, let’s talk about writing them. Writing ships for movies, books, shows, etc. can be surprisingly hard. Writing characters themselves can be hard enough as it is, but writing a pair of characters that fit together like a puzzle piece can feel impossible. Nevertheless, I’m here to make that process a little bit easier. When I’m trying to set up a relationship that’s going to happen, here are some things that I keep in mind to make sure that I and the audience of my writing  ship the characters I have end up together. 

DISCLAIMER before I get a’rantin: I am by NO means telling you how or what to write and am by NO means a professional writer of any sorts. I’m doing this mostly because I write a lot and speak from my own personal experiences with writing and because these are just the things that I found work best when writing my own stories. I also read and analyze a lot of others work on my own personal time, and these are just the details that I pick up on that I find makes a piece of writing effective. With that in mind, remember that writing is and art form, and the beauty of that is that there’s no one right way to do it. Ever. You can read the same thing as another person and interpret it in a completely different and unique way. 

1. Complementary Characters usually work out best. 

This is more than the classic “opposite’s attract” theory, and characters don’t necessarily have to be opposite to be complementary. Some things to think about when thinking of and writing complementary characters:

-Complementary doesn’t necessarily mean complete opposite in every single way. Often times I find it much more helpful to have characters share a common interest in hobbies, upbringing, childhood trauma (that one’s a bit overdone these days), etc. so that they’re not butting heads all the time. Just like yin and yang, theres a bit of darkness in the light and vice versa. To keep the balance harmonious, you can’t have characters be polar opposites and have no common ground. That leads to what many people consider a toxic ship, and will either lead to an unrealistic balance that inevitably leads your characters to be fighting all the time. 

-Keeping common interests in mind, often times the paces where character’s contrast is in their personalities. (Shy and bold, heart and head, bubbly and brooding, quiet and gregarious, etc.) Different personalities often are able to balance each other out and hold each other accountable for their weaknesses.

-Going off of that, one character’s strength is another’s weakness, and all traits are both. A character’s empathy can lead them to be loved by many, but may cause them to starve themselves and drain their cup so there’s none left to take care of themselves. A character’s logic may lend them top of class or calm in stressful situations, but can lead them to be insensitive to others and even their own emotions. Your characters should balance each other out and work well together, and part of this is helping each other grow from their weakness. 

-This one isn't as important, but what I also find super compelling, especially in film and tv shows is when the authors/writers deliberately choose to give the characters complementary color palettes. (I dove more into this on my Kataang analysis so go read that if you’re super interested.) If the character’s look ascetically pleasing together, it makes shipping them a whole lot easier. Focus on orange and blue, yellow and purple, red and green, and any variation of those colors together. 

2. Buildup

Often times one of the biggest critiques of ships that just don’t work out is that there’s not enough buildup or foundation to have a romantic relationship. It seems obvious, but if you’re going to have them end up together, there’s going to need to be some buildup or else the entire relationship will feel wrong and contrived no matter how pleasant you make it. 

Some tips for increasing and establishing buildup:

-Have your otp spend time together as friends first. I personally find that the healthiest and most successful ships are friends before they’re lovers. This is why Kataang specifically works so well, but Korrasami, Romionie, and Liesel and Rudy from the Book Thief are all good examples. If you observe these ships, all of these characters spend time together as friends first. Korra and Asami were able to bond and become friends over a toxic guy (cough cough MAKO) and eventually developed feelings for one another. Ron and Hermione weren’t romantically interested in other people and were friends until they started seeing other people and found out they liked each other. Liesel and Rudy were best friends before anything else and Liesel didn’t realize her feelings until it was too late. 

-Time together. When your otp spends time together, make sure that whatever time is being spent together is time that they both enjoy. No, the activity itself doesn’t have to be enjoyable to both characters, but the time spent together should be. If the characters really aren’t enjoying the time spent together, then it’s never gonna work out. I’ll use the ship that I’m writing as an example. Currently, I’m in the process of writing a third atlas series and we’ll use my characters Liang and Hana. (Yea I used my own name for one of my characters. I think it suits her bc she’s basically my clone, just, she’s the avatar. I’m going to change both of their names once I do more research and can find culturally and historically accurate names.) Liang REALLY loves pro-bending matches. Hana, not so much. She still goes with him to see matches and attends his matches when she can. On the flip side, Hana really loves going to her favorite tea shop. Liang vastly prefers a strong cup of coffee, but he goes with her anyways. Why would they choose to do something that they don’t necessarily like? Because that’s more quality time spent with each other and doing something for the other person. 

3. Romantic Gestures

Going off of my last point, we have the art of romantic gestures. These can range to things anywhere from a hug, to an elaborate firework display, to a locket with both of their pictures in it. Make sure that the romantic gestures are there! It’s gotta be clear that both characters are thinking about one another and consciously choose to do something for the other person. Here are some fun ways to do it:

-Remembering a gift the other character wanted. This one’s cliche but it works, because often times the best way to show affection is through physical gifts and objects. Think coffee from a favorite shop, handwritten notes, that piece of clothing the other has been eyeing, etc. 

-~symbolism~ *add chime here* By that I mean have an object to symbolize their relationship with, like Korrasami’s iconic hair pin or Liesel’s book that Rudy retrieved for her. This way, the readers not only have a visual representation of their favorite ships, but the object can physically link characters together and make a vague relationship full cannon. (I know for sure that someday when I get a tattoo, I want the hairpin tattooed on my wrist, ankle or side of my body.) 

-PDAs. Works best in film and visual stuff, but still applies for everything. I’m talking cuddles, kisses, falling asleep in each other’s arms, the whole shebang. I mean how much clearer can you make it than a pda?

-Love languages. Each person loves in their own unique way. Have characters figure out and learn each other’s love language. It really shows and adds a whole other layer to the cake. This one can make a ship that feels a little bland have more depth and realism, because in the real world, healthy relationships are formed and aided by learning and applying each other’s love language. 

4. Dialogue. This one can be hard to master, but once you do, it’s a breeze. First off, I recommend getting all your ideas out, and editing. DON’T EDIT AS YOU GO! This is often tedious and super annoying, so get everything out first, and go from there once you have a decent amount to work with. Dialogue is tricky, because dialogue in and of itself is meant to communicate and express feelings. Here are some tips and steps to at least get a start: 

a. Know EXACTLY how your characters feel about one another, and make that evident through communication. It seems obvious (again) but this really helps and I find that putting myself in the character’s shoes for a second and really thinking about it helps to decide exactly what they would say in a given situation, especially if the scene you’re writing involves confrontation about feelings for one another. 

b. Dialogue is more than just talking. Body language, tone, facial expressions, etc. are all part of dialogue too and are SUPER important! In the real world, humans communicate through more than just words, and sometimes a playful grin, grimace, crossed arms, or pout is much more effective than a character outright saying something. 

c. Once you’ve written the dialogue out, be concise and smart about your dialogue and pare it down as much as you can. Often times, adding too much dialogue can make a scene boring and flat. Use your words sparingly! The purpose of writing is to covey a story or message and often times this can be done effectively with less words rather than more. The main point in dialogue itself is to provide necessary context and information. Otherwise, don’t use it.

d. Make sure the conversation is two sided. This (say it with me now) SEEMS OBVIOUS, but make sure that both people are talking/communicating. it’s a conversation, not a speech. (Unless it is a speech or declaration of some sort.)

Before I go: A QUICK (Long) PSA ON TOXIC SHIPS: 

The concept of a toxic ship is very common in a lot of literature. Often times writers choose to include elements that may be toxic to heighten romantic tension in a story. While I do recognize that this sometimes may be a stylistic choice, there are MUCH better and effective ways to create tension that having something be toxic. Toxic relationships in my opinion share one purpose, and that is to establish a relationship’s toxicity and ineffectiveness. I don’t recommend writing these into a story unless it’s an obstacle for your characters to overcome, and having a character forgive the toxic actions of another character and still end up with them isn’t the right move because it completely disregards and diminishes the effects of what happened previously.

One of the best examples I can think of is Reylo from the new sw trilogy. I did touch on this briefly in a couple of my earlier posts (The Effect Of Modern Day SW characters and My Tips for Writing (In General) which I highly suggest you go read bc they both took me a bit of time and state the purpose more in depth) but I think I’ll quick reiterate and say that it wasn’t a good choice on the writer’s part to have some of the dialogue be so intense and vicious and then have them end up together. I still like the idea of Ben Solo and Rey together and ship them together out of cannon, but in cannon, it’s the perfect example of an ineffective ship. There was little to no build up, the dialogue was often spiteful and sharp, and it escalated a bit too quickly. I would’ve liked to see more of Ben Solo (NOT Kylo) and him feeling sorry for and repenting for the bad that he’s done before he and Rey end up together. Yes, we’re all suckers for the enemies to lovers trope, but PLEASE make sure to filter out the toxins before boarding your ships and watching them sail. 

That’s it for now! I hope this helps a little when writing shippable characters! I’m always free to rant to and to critique. I’m going to start posting as much as I can, because these guides help me too! Check out my other ones if you’d like to know tips for writing in general and I made another one on how to write characters. 

[kjack89]

I really, really, really want to read the Les Mis book, but I’m kind of intimidated by the size. And I know that there are plenty of people that say reading an abridged version is cheating yourself. I just don’t know what to do. Right now, I’m think of reading an abridged version, and when I’m ready, I’ll read the unabridged version. What do you think I should do?

Oof, friend. You are...possibly asking the wrong person. I have – respect, I guess, for lack of the better word, for the Brick. Deep respect, and doubly deep respect for the incredibly well-qualified folks on this website who have done deep dives into the Brick, into the textual analysis behind just about everything, etc.

But as someone who has read the thing cover to cover thrice, I did not enjoy the experience any of the three times, and there are few people who I would wish it on.

I think, like with tackling any long, dense book, the question you need to ask yourself before starting is why you want to read it. What are you hoping to get from the experience? Are you reading it just to say you’ve read it? Are you looking for a deeper understanding of some of the characters or situations? What are you specifically hoping to get out of the experience of reading Les Misérables?

Because once you’ve defined that question for yourself, I think it will naturally lend itself to the answer to your original question. If you want a better understanding of the Barricade Boys, for instance, you don’t have to read the whole Brick! Not even remotely! You do probably need to dig into an unabridged translation, because I imagine some of the good stuff is cut for the abridged versions, but you can skip around, read the relevant parts, and go from there (when I’m revisiting things, I use the free Project Gutenberg version online so that I can ctrl-F and find things without flipping through). Whereas if the goal is a broader understanding of the story as a whole, honestly an abridged version is a good way to get your feet wet. You’ll learn a lot more about the characters and the story than you do from just, say, the musical or the 2012 movie, but it’s still manageable. 

And again, if at the end of the day what you truly want is street cred to say you’ve read it, you’re gonna need to tackle the whole beast. Even then, I’d probably recommend starting with an abridged version, but that’s up to you.

Anyway, that’s just my two cents – start from what you’re trying to get out of it and work backwards from there.

And perhaps more importantly, know you’re not alone, and you’re sure as fuck not a lesser fan for not reading the Brick. There are a ton of Les Mis fans whose only experience is the musical, or the 2012 film, or the recent BBC mini-series or, hell, the 1998 film with Liam Neeson as Valjean (I’ve personally never met someone from the latter category but I am certain that person exists, somewhere, and they, too, are a true Les Mis fan). We are a big tent here in the Les Mis fandom, and if someone tells you otherwise, fuck ‘em.

[notmoreflippingelves]

Reading Asks

I was tagged by @saemi-the-dreamer

hardcover or paperback --Depends on the book but unless it’s one I plan on re-reading multiple times, I go paperback

 rent or buy  --Depends on the book; I use the library a lot but for certain books or vacations/other times when I know I’ll be doing a lot of reading, I’ll buy

reads in silence or reads with music 

standalone or series (Depends; when I was younger I was more into series, but now that I’m an adult with less time to read, I tend to read more standalone but I love it when I find a series I like.) 

annotations or pristine pages --Are we talking like professional annotations like footnotes, etc, or like someone just writing in the margins on their own? I never write in or highlight my books, but when I’m reading a classic, I do prefer to find an edition with copious footnotes by academics

ebook or physical copy  --Depends on the book. I used to be a complete book snob about kindles. But then I got one and now I’m obsessed with it.  I still like to have hard copies of certain books ( especially ones that have illustrations/maps/lists of characters) so I can easily consult them. But otherwise, I’m fine with eBooks especially for books I’m not planning to re-read.

dog ears or bookmarks  --I almost never dog-ear but I have been known to do it when I can’t find a bookmark. I also tend to lose nice bookmarks easily and end up using receipts/random scraps of paper, etc as bookmarks

mismatched series or complete set  --unfortunately both; sadly a fair few of the series I enjoyed growing up abruptly decided to change the cover design in the middle of the series; why would they do that? and usually the new covers were less good overall; so I sort of got stuck with the mismatched volumes as a result.  *le sigh*)

cover matters or you don’t judge -- It depends. Naturally, I’m more drawn to books with attractive covers, but honestly the title and the blurb itself matter far more to me than the cover image itself. 

 lend books or keep them to yourself-- Depends on the person and the book (i.e. how likely I am to re-read it, if it’s part of a series I like, etc) , but overall, I’m less likely to lend out books unless I’m sure I’m done with them. 

 enjoys lit classes or despises them -- I miss my lit classes so muuuucch. I even miss the papers. Sometimes I find myself randomly doing complex “literary analysis” type takes randomly (and often on non-book forms of media), because the urge to analyze the *symbolism* and themes will never leave me.

 browses shops or orders online-- Both. I mean to be honest, I’m more likely to actually buy the book online  (or receive it as a gift), but bookstores are a great place to scout out what’s out there and be aware of things. Especially old and quirky ones that aren’t a chain.

reads reviews or goes in blind-- Depends on the book. I have recently become extremely addicted to goodreads, so I tend to consult their user reviews for a book I’m curious about than scout out formal professional reviews. But often if I just come across a book in a store or library that I like the sound off enough to start reading right away, I don’t necessarily feel the need to check public opinion before I start. 

unreturned books or clean library record -- As of right now, I am in the clear. Granted I have lost a handful of books over the years, but really not that many and I am pretty reliable about paying late fines right away.

rereads or once was enough-- Depends on the book, but unless I really didn’t like it, I will probably pick it up again at some point. 

fanfic enthusiast or a stickler for canon -- Depends on the book.  There are a lot of books I’ve loved that I’ve never felt the need to seek out and/or create fic for, and others (even ones that I objectively like less) that I’ve read multiple fics.

deep reader or easily distracted-- Is both an option?  I read multiple books at once semi-regularly in order to keep my mind fully engaged. But I also often get “in the zone” when reading and am capable of intense hyperfocus. I also tend to be a speed-reader overall, and when properly focused, I can devour like 400 page books within like a day or less. 

 must read the book before seeing the movie or order doesn’t matter-- It depends on how well-known the book is--relative to the movie.  Like there are several films that I was not aware were books until later (The first example that comes to mind is The Princess Bride)   But if a book is well-known enough in its own right and I’m consciously aware that both film and book versions exist, I usually make a point to seek out the book first. Interestingly enough, the times when I’ve seen the film before reading the book, I’m more likely to enjoy them both--whereas reading the book first can sometimes “ruin” the movie for me. 

 has neat bookshelves or messy bookshelves -- bold of you to assume anything of mine is neat. (Although to be fair, my bookshelves are much more put together than my desk, kitchen table, etc). 

skips ahead or resists temptation -- If it’s a big enough book with a lot riding on it, I have been known to read at least the last few pages--just to give me a little hint of what I’m getting in for. Surprisingly spoilers have never been a dealbreaker for me, and I’m often more likely to enjoy something if I have a sense that it’s coming. (Obviously, I don’t do this with mystery/crime novels as so much of the enjoyment of the work as a whole depends on the ‘surprise’ ending.

reads aloud or in your head

I’m tagging @quitequiteblue, @moocowmoocow, @combefaerie for now--as I am pretty sure you are all readers.

[saltyfilmmajor]

The Political Implications of the Use of Found Footage: An Analysis of JFK and Tribulations 99

So some context before this paper. It was written as the final paper for my Editing class, which was mostly about the history of editing and the practices and theory of editing within certain film concepts.  It’s about two films I highly recommend watching for a firmer understanding of this paper in particular but also can be mostly understood without having watched them. Tribulations 99: Alien Anomalies Under the United States and JFK are two very interesting films and I highly recommend them. So here’s the actual paper: 

JFK and Tribulations 99: Alien Anomalies Under America are both films around the topic of government conspiracy. They both deal with themes of the obfuscation of truth as well as examining the historical discourse surrounding certain watershed moments in the American cultural consciousness. Tribulations 99 is far more intense in its editing style and is completely put together with found footage and has a much broader subject matter. In contrast, JFK resembles a commercial Hollywood film despite its editing creating a temporal disparity in the spectator and it is deeply focused on one specific topic. Both utilize found footage in differing ways; however, in both films, they serve to break down historical narrative in a complex manner to the spectator. The effects of the use of found footage within the narrative and in the spectator differ in both films but are key to examining their respective politics.

Attempting to dissect the JFK scene (00:14:36 – 00:17:01) from Tribulations 99 is quite difficult given the multiple layers that the film is working on as both a parody of a conspiracy film and as a mockumentary. In the scene preceding this one, it is noted how President Kennedy had abandoned the freedom fighters and pulled back air support for the invasion of Cuba. Thus, the sequence begins with an intertitle “1963: Executive Action”, signaling a larger conspiracy at play for the Kennedy assassination. The intertitle in relation to the narration gives the implication that the executive action being taken is not that of Kennedy himself. Instead is being taken by the CIA because of the decisions Kennedy made in regard to Cuba. Then speculation begins on the humanity of Fidel Castro as the narrator details most if not all of the assassination attempts that the CIA tried against him.

The music in this sequence stands out because of what it references: Mission: Impossible (the original 1960’s television series) and James Bond (the Sean Connery era). Two spy franchises known for their fantastical elements, and well-remembered during the time this film was made. Despite the levity that the inclusion of their music brings to the spectator, they are deliberately chosen by Baldwin in order to further communicate the idea of questioning the government’s methods and actions in countries not aligned directly to the United States or its interests. The inclusion of the Mission: Impossible theme specifically legitimizes this argument given its cultural context as a franchise known for ignoring the implications of how the government functions within its own narrative: “Aside from the team's elaborate tricks, what is most striking about seeing "Mission Impossible" today is its unquestioned assumption that the American government has the right to meddle freely in the internal affairs of any nation it chooses.” (Worland 1989) Because the original context of the show implies that the government can function unquestioned, its inclusion gives way to detangling the arguments in the narrative presented, as well as working as basic commentary. For this reason, the relationship between the choice of music and the subject matter becomes clear.    

That’s not where the fictional espionage references end, however. At the inclusion of Theodore Shackley, the head of the CIA, footage of M from the Sean Connery era of James Bond appears. This happens multiple times throughout the film itself and works to give the government a representative that is much more familiar to the audience. There is a connection between the person of Theodore Shackley and M established almost immediately, leading to the implication the figures of authority in the government are in charge of irresponsible agents.

What Baldwin is utilizing here and throughout most of Tribulations 99 is what is referred to as “ironic recontextualization” by Michael Zryd:

Ironic recontextualization mines the subversive potential inherent in much archival footage’s source as official discourse, whether located in the sphere of government, corporate sponsorship, or the entertainment/news media industry. The footage speaks anew as evidence—but less as evidence of an event than as evidence of the folly of the official discourses from which the archival footage springs. (Zyrd 2003)

The use of ironic recontextualization is meant to give the spectator a subject that is familiar to them and create a different meaning through the juxtaposition of the image and narration or other sound in the film.

By taking cultural icons such as Mission: Impossible or James Bond, references that would be familiar to the spectator, and using them to comment on the implications that their own narratives refused to do, it adds another layer to the argument of the film. The argument itself being the government must be held accountable for its actions, even if the plots it was involved in sound far too fantastical to be real or seem too much like something out of popular media.

The use of pop culture reference itself makes the film much more accessible on a surface level. Compare this to Here and Elsewhere, an essayist film working through similar ideas and imagery, which is less accessible to audiences who don’t understand French and are unfamiliar with the political turmoil of the 1970s. Tribulations 99 is much more pleasant, for lack of a better term, to watch. The references of obscure b movies and major pop culture icons may keep the spectator engaged on a surface level, but since the editing is so rapid and intense there is no room for contemplation of the images and what they are meant to convey. It all happens so quickly that the spectator themselves cannot reflect on what the narrative is attempting to dissect from a historical point. However, that does not mean there is no point being made. This film is intended to be watched multiple times in order for there to be a full understanding of what is happening in the narrative presented and what the references being used are attempting to add to the overall argument that Baldwin makes.

But why does Baldwin ultimately use found footage to make a political point at all? Not every reference in the film is inherently political, at least not in the same way that the references to the spy genre are. Perhaps it is because the footage itself comes predominantly from the United States, be it either commercial Hollywood films, newsreels, propaganda films etc. The footage used no matter what will be tied to the ideology of its country of origin, despite how innocuous the original context of the footage may be. Ideology is inescapable and so by attempting to critique the American government for its actions, the film uses found footage to undermine the original implication that the found footage itself has and argue against the ideology that it originates from.

While Tribulations 99 is didactical because of its dense editing and stitching together of multiple images from different historical, social, and political contexts, JFK is didactical for different reasons. It is very much an essay film working through the trappings of a commercial Hollywood film. So, its cinematography is not extreme, and its editing is not attacking the spectator in the same manner that Tribulations 99 is. It’s overall less extreme, but far more drawn out as it is a much longer film. Despite this, it is not difficult to follow the actual narrative of the film. It also does not have a slow pace but is not rapidly edited in the way Tribulations 99 is. In comparing JFK’s use of found footage to the previous film, it is much more careful and deliberate.

The opening sequence of JFK [00:00:18 – 00:07:0:30] is utilized to give authority to the rest of the film’s political argument, that being that the truth about the Kennedy assassination is hidden due to a mass conspiracy. It uses found footage to make a documentary style intro. Nearing the end of the sequence there is a blending of found footage and “actual” filmed scenes. They are hard to tell apart from the actual found footage because the aesthetics are made to be nearly identical. However, the camera movements, as well as distinct angles that are used, are different enough from the archival footage shown. This introduces the film’s approach to history and how it works through multiple perspectives of a singular event.  By combining real found footage and footage made to look it’s found, the film legitimizes on an aesthetic level the way the conjecture surrounding the Kennedy assassination spirals over the course of the narrative. It also serves as Oliver Stone’s way into introducing dramatization of fictional events and making them collateral to the actual event in the mind of the spectator.

There is something to be said about how the film utilizes found footage in order to construct a point in the narrative. However, it works in almost the opposite fashion in how Tribulations 99 does. The use of found footage is not being utilized in order to create ironic recontextualization but is being used in order to lend authority to the film and its implications of the true conspiracy surrounding the Kennedy assassination. The footage itself does not change the meaning and is not meant to undermine the original context of it. It becomes a way to unite the “imagined community” around a watershed moment that involves multiple perspectives.

The film in its entirety according to Burgoyne, is the national consciousness attempting to work through the rupture of their imagined community. It also helps acclimate the spectator to the temporal disjunction that permeates the entire film. The rapid cutting between different events surrounding the president builds and builds, up until the moment Kennedy is shot, introducing the spectator to the pace of the film.  Burgoyne writes about this moment, claiming it to be representative of the fracturing of the “imagined community” or the national consciousness at the moment: “The temporal collage the film sets up communicates instead the message that the national narrative has come unraveled, that the shots in Dealey Plaza have produced a caesura in the narrative of nation…” (Burgoyne 2008) The use of found footage is representative of the collective conscious of the United States during this time and it is meant to reintroduce the concept of a shared accepted reality to the audience.

This is similar to what certain film theorists conceive of the relationship between people in a movie theater. For a brief moment, the people are in a shared “reality”, become a sort of singular consciousness.  The viewer is introduced briefly to the idea of a shared consciousness by the various specific news reports referenced in the opening sequence, back when there were only 3 television channels and news sources were limited. There is an instant rupture when the assassination occurs, creating multiple perspectives of what the truth could be. While the film as a whole works through different perspectives of that day from witnesses at Dealey Plaza and the official Warren report. Thus, the opening works as a metonym for the way the film handles the unraveling of multiple perspectives, just as the film as a whole functions as a metonym for how the American public reacted to the assassination: fractured and confused with differing theories and perspectives on how it happened. The job the film takes upon itself then is to attempt to find the singular truth amongst all the chaos rather than to make a generic statement about how the search for truth can tear apart a community.

Both of these films deal heavily with government accountability and conspiracy, using different aesthetics and editing styles in order to make specific arguments. Tribulations 99 uses ironic recontextualization with pop culture imagery in order to undermine the common discourse surrounding the American government and its methods. In contrast, JFK uses found footage in order to lend authority to its later conjecture surrounding the Kennedy assassination as well as representing the loss of a national identity in the post Kennedy period. Both films use found footage to engage their respective audience on multiple levels: for political commentary, historical context or to make an argument about the nature of the government and the way history is interpreted from differing perspectives. The use of found footage is ingrained so heavily into the politics of each film that in both cases they cannot be separated from that context. Instead it becomes material for the interpretation of said politics which, in both cases,  is highly skeptical of the American government and it’s methods as well as anger at the obfuscation of truth by the government to the American public.

Works Cited

Burgoyne, Robert. "MODERNISM AND THE NARRATIVE OF NATION IN JFK." Ilha Do Desterro 32 (2008): 81 - 98.

Worland, Eric John. "The other living-room war: Evolving Cold War imagery in popular TV programs of the Vietnam era, 1960-1975." 1989. Los Angeles: University of California, 1989. Dissertation.

Zyrd, Micahel. "Found Footage Film as Discursive Metahistory: Craig Baldwin's Tribulation 99." The Moving Image 3.2 (2003): 40 - 61.

[bleuebirdarchive]

TOPIC: analysis of veronica’s childhood & it’s lasting affect 

throughout this analysis, i will be referring back to alice miller’s the drama of the gifted child, as that book is A. one written within the time frame that veronica’s somewhat disconnected parents would have purchased a copy and B. really does a lot to tie into my interpretations of veronica’s relationship with her parents, her childhood, and the way she interprets the world and her feelings.

i. 

veronica, at an early age, was clearly a gifted child. she learned extremely quickly. she walked, talked, and even read at an exceptionally early age. with her parents’ draw towards the more high brow standards that world had to offer, they naturally pushed to nurture her growing intellect. they strived to make their home intellectually stimulating and flooded her with books and games meant to challenge and teach. they read parenting books advising that, in order to raise a respectful child, you should treat them as an equal. however, as is the case with many gifted children, veronica is extraordinarily sensitive. she notices things (injustices, people’s shift in emotions, tones) most people don’t see, she has an overwhelming sense of empathy that eats at her, and her emotions are, and have always been, too much for her to handle or process properly. the sawyers aim to treat veronica as an equal, as an adult, over shot her need for understanding and affection. her outward intelligence is misread at a maturity beyond her years and the oversized feelings she bore were taught to be repressed and ignored. as miller describes it, veronica developed ‘the art of not experiencing feelings’ to please her disaffected parents. even in her few acts of attempting to relay her feelings, she was often misunderstood, chastised, and sent to print her thoughts to paper, privately.

These people have all developed the art of not experiencing feelings, for a child can experience her feelings only when there is somebody there who accepts her fully, understands her, and supports her. If that person is missing, if the child must risk losing the mother’s love or the love of her substitute in order to feel, then she will repress her emotions. She cannot even experience them secretly, “just for herself”; she will fail to experience them at all. But they will nevertheless stay in her body, in her cells, stored up as information that can be triggered by a later event.

ii. 

veronica’s position as an only child ( a gifted, ‘different’, child even more so ) teamed with her lack of an opportunity to express her feelings verbally and to others leaves her socially underdeveloped. despite all of her natural charm and charisma, she does not feel as though she fits in or connects with children her own age, or people at large. the mix of being a social outsider unable to form genuine bonds and her parents lack of affection toward her leaves her to be extraordinarily lonely. her only friend is betty finn, but that friendship is thin and superficial, especially when we think about childhood and how that lends to deeper bonds within friendships. in reality, veronica’s sole companion is her diary (and her cat, jfk, which she receives around her 10th birthday). veronica is not someone that simmers on her sadness or her self pity, but this extremely profound loneliness manifests itself in a lot of ways. some are more positive: her need to speak up for others, to right wrongs she sees in the world, and to be some kind of beacon of kindness for the underdogs. but more often, they’re not: self injury, acting out, and, especially, turning that pain into anger. the last of those definitely makes itself known the older she gets (particularly in the time frame of the film).

The function all expressions of contempt have in common is the defense against unwanted feelings. Contempt simply evaporates, having lost its point, when it is no longer useful as a shield—against the child’s shame over his desperate, unreturned love; against his feeling of inadequacy; or above all against his rage that his parents were not available [...] Nevertheless, if we avoid this mourning it means that we remain at bottom the one who is despised, for we have to despise everything in ourselves that is not wonderful, good, and clever. Thus we perpetuate the loneliness of childhood: We despise weakness, helplessness, uncertainty—in short, the child in ourselves and in others.

furthermore, this disconnect with others is perpetuated by veronica’s very self. she is a beautiful, intelligent, and charming girl. everything about her reads as open for projection for the people around her, who decide they already know her. in every aspect of her life veronica is met with people that have decided on who she is for themselves  :  this makes any attempt on her end to communicate or express herself a frustrating experience as she is nearly always misunderstood. had this not so closely mirrored her relationship with her parents, she may have been able to take it better in stride.

[...] they are aware of having been misunderstood as children, they feel that the fault lay with them and with their inability to express themselves appropriately.

iii.

factoring in her genius i.q. it’s not hard to see why her parents fell a bit short of understanding her. as capable as she is, as self sufficient and independent, they did not feel a need to hold her hand as she went. they wanted to avoid an ego on her, and so her accomplishments were always overlooked or treated as an expectation. winning science fairs, getting good grades, and even being published later in life: there was no fanfare at the sawyer home. there is no drive in her to excel, as well as a notable lack of competitive spirit, because she has never felt pride or excitement in what she can do or has done: there was nobody to share that thrill with. veronica solved her problems the same way she handled everything in her life: alone. while she is more than happy to lend a hand, people expressing their own emotions or struggling to be independent can leave her a little irritated and confused.

People who, as children, were intellectually far beyond their parents and therefore admired by them, but who also therefore had to solve their own problems alone. These people, who give us a feeling of their intellectual strength and will power, also seem to demand that we, too, ought to fight off any feeling of weakness with intellectual means. In their presence one feels one cannot be recognized as a person with problems just as they and their problems were unrecognized by their parents, for whom he always had to be strong.

also in consideration regarding the lack of a response toward her successes ( positive or negative ), as a child, veronica definitely felt as if she was letting them down. she downplays her intelligence and is dissatisfied with her choices no matter what ( i.e. the scene with jd after croquet and the ‘some genius’ dialogue ). veronica wants to please people, however deeply buried this want is, and feels an immense amount of guilt when she feels she has disappointed them in some way.

Many people suffer all their lives from this oppressive feeling of guilt, the sense of not having lived up to their parents’ expectations. This feeling is stronger than any intellectual insight they might have, that it is not a child’s task or duty to satisfy his parents needs. No argument can overcome these guilt feelings, for they have their beginnings in life’s earliest periods, and from that they derive their intensity and obduracy.

conclusion

veronica has a number of issues with emotional intelligence and communication, and with bonding with others. all of this stems back to her parents missing the mark on raising a gifted child and not meeting her emotional needs. as a conclusion, since it’s difficult for me to write a better summation of her childhood-rooted issues, i’m including a quote from this post:

emotional loneliness is so distressing that a child who experiences it will do whatever is necessary to make some kind of connection with the parent. These children may learn to put other people's needs first as the price of admission to a relationship. Instead of expecting others to provide support or show interest in them, they may take on the role of helping others, convincing everyone that they have few emotional needs of their own. Unfortunately, this tends to create even more loneliness, since covering up your deepest needs prevents genuine connection with others.