#and literally fails to give credit to the actual authors the people making these claims supposedly care about uplifting. lol.

[gigantomachylesbian]

I could not care less if people personally choose not to read classics. However nothing pisses me off like "I don't read classics because they're all written by dead old white guys" you apologize to Toni Morrison NOW!!!!

[demeterdefence]

Thinking about your "Rachel bashing og greek myths" post, methinks she believed herself to be making greek culture a favor similarly to the author of The Phantom of Manhattan, the unofficial sequel to The Phantom of the Opera

In the preface, the author begins by saying that Phantom, unlike Frankenstein or Dracula, barely made a dent in world culture until Andrew Lloyd Webber came along to make the musical, which he considers the "true" version even tho like...it wouldn't exist without the novel! He bashes Gaston Leroux and basically states that his attempt at writing failed miserably and it's like DUDE, again, the musical and your problematic sequel wouldn't even exist without it, and just because it was bigger in France than in the usa it doesn't mean it had zero impact in culture

But of COURSE unless it's usa-approved then it doesn't count and isn't worth anything *sarcasm*

PHENOMENAL point, FANTASTIC point, absolutely true and correct

i can't be a total dick and say this is an issue solely created and implemented by rachel, because we've seen non-western cultures and religions absolutely whitewashed to hell and back - like, people have been drawing jesus of the bible as white for centuries when he was a middle eastern palestinian jewish man, and good god look what the west has done to the religions of india, china, and japan. but it's the way these kinds of stories drip with a sort of smugness in removing the original culture, in depicting it as backwards and broken.

rachel wants to claim she's making a feminist retelling, but the original myth was already feminist. ancient greece didn't pretend their society was not fiercely male dominated and patriarchal, and hades stealing persephone was absolutely in line with the traditional myths - the twist is that demeter wins. demeter punishes the male gods who stole her daughter, and the ferocity of her rage and grief forces hades and zeus to give in. if persephone hadn't eaten the pomegrante seeds, she wouldn't be in the underworld at all! this is a story that is so clearly a triumph for the mothers and daughters of ancient greece, of many worlds over, because it depicted explicitly that a mother's love was more powerful than even the gods. and rachel pisses all over that.

literally even going beyond that, looking at the society that is olympus and the underworld - all the technology they use, all the innovations they have. who exactly is making these??? where exactly is the material coming from??? you can handwave away most of the inventions by saying it's magic, but we've seen demeter talk about algebra, which was invented in the ninth century by a muslim scholar from persia. in speedrunning to this so called perfect modernized world, rachel actually erases the cultural offerings and developments of dozens of other ancient worlds, and kind of just gives the credit to the underworld, which is run by a slave driver.

persephone constantly bemoans the dullness of the mortal realm, and prefers to literally lounge around doing nothing, when the mortal realm is inventing the olympic games, the democratic forum, FOOTBALL. you have thousands of things to show the gods involved in - largely because the gods were the patrons!!! why do we never see zeus looking over the olympic games??? they happen in his sanctuary!!!

like the disdain rachel has for ancient greece is insane. she can't even bother to research the food typical of the time period, seeing as she writes persephone being looked down on for being vegetarian when vegetables were a key and staple diet of ancient greece. one could argue that a vast majority of ancient greece were vegetarian by general habit. she's baking cheesecake and french desserts and having fast food and carrot cake and maybe - maybe - she'll mention baklava. the ancient greeks are FAMOUS for their art, but we sure wouldn't know that from lore olympus. the only character who even references ancient greek music is apollo, with his lyre, and that's not exactly a ringing endorsement.

and this is not to say that an adaption has to follow the ancient text to a t - that's just not feasible and no one is expected to do so. but there's really something to how rachel does dismiss or ignore the canonical importance of so many of these stories to replace them with a western interpretation. even the therapy speak is grating. in episode 227, when persephone is talking about the concept of virginity, she's absolutely correct in pointing out how that's largely a social construct - but in light of the world she lives in and the world she helps control, the same idea could have been reached through means other than americanized psych talk.

so often, people will look back at the ancient world and think we are morally superior because we do not have the same views, or we have seemingly "developed." that is a view i abhor, because it removes the very act of learning and developing and understanding. rachel really talked big about how removing the incest of ancient greece made the story better, but incidentally, she managed to also take out the feminism, and literally the entire lgbt culture of ancient greece. apollo was even considered the patron of homosexuality! he was called to bless same-sex unions! zeus had DOZENS of male lovers; ares, hephestus, and hermes had known male relationships, and several of the ancient heroes and gods of greek mythology were described in terms we would refer to as transgender in modern times.

if rachel had gone "i'm writing a love story that's originally inspired by the myth of persephone and hades but it's very much modern and removed from the myths" that would be one thing, and i would not be bristling at that; myths have inspired countless stories over the centuries and will continue to do so for centuries to come. the problem is rachel wants to claim a rooting in these myths with zero understanding of how they work or why they work, and absolutely lets her contempt for the ancients shine through in every single aspect of her comic. it's gross and it's petty and she deserves none of the self-appointed "mythology expert" she's given herself.

[yurileclercseyeliner]

A Dumb Rant About A Webtoon

Okay so I’m actually super into reading webcomics (I read them on both Webtoon and Tapas), and although this has nothing to do with my blog (I AM considering making a side blog for webcomic content/reviews tho) I sort of feel like ranting about one that I saw. I’m sorry, but if you like Athena Complex this is probably going to piss you off. Admittedly, I couldn’t get far into the comic without being upset about this so I stopped reading a few chapters in, so that may affect my opinion here. This is mainly my opinion though, and if you disagree with me it’s fine.

So I did mention in my Fire Emblem kelpie beast unit post my opinion on mythological adaptation. Essentially, I believe that when you adapt any sort of mythological being into your story you need to keep these two things in mind:

The recognizable features/symbols/abilities: by this I mean what physical features is this being known to have, what are their physical/magical abilities, what objects are they most associated with, etc. You don’t need to have every single thing that is mentioned in the source material, just a decent combination of them that can allow the reader to easily connect the adaptation to the source material.

This factor mainly applies to individual characters as opposed to a full species or classification of creatures (I have read a decent number of mythological adaptations and have seen a mythical species depicted as evil in one adaptation and benevolent or neutral in another and enjoyed both, it all depends on if it makes sense in the context). What are the character’s main personal views, goals, and motivations? By this I mean how do they think and what are their views on the world around them, and what is the context surrounding that? Essentially, what can their main personalities and motivations be boiled down to and why?

After those two factors, I think that you can then go buck wild with any other characterization as long as it isn’t contradictory and makes sense in your story.

Now that I have set that down here’s my deal with Athena Complex. Athena Complex is a Webtoon based on Greek mythology that follows Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and strategy. She falls in love with Poseidon, the god of the sea, and is rejected by him. Fueled by vengeance and a desire to win his heart she takes the form of a high school boy in order to take revenge on his reincarnation. Basically, this entire Webtoon is practically a public execution of a large part of what makes Athena, well, Athena.

First off, I will give credit to Athena Complex for at least getting the symbolism correct, Athena is a goddess of wisdom and war and when in the form of a goddess her design reflects that with her armor, among other things such as her association with owls, so the first aspect that I mentioned is fine.

Additionally there is the fact that they also did heavily tap into the prideful aspect of Athena’s nature. Essentially in the source material Athena is a VERY prideful goddess and will take any opportunity to prove her worth if someone attempt to upstage her, and gets very angry when she fails or is insulted in the process (ie the story of Arachne, the story behind the double flute). This aspect could also be seen slightly in Athena Complex’s Athena’s behavior, which I can also give them credit for.

But that’s where a lot of the similarities end. Tbh a large majority of these issues surround the second aspect, the basics of the figure’s personality and motivations.

First, Athena’s stance on romance. Original Athena...literally wanted nothing to do with any sort of romantic relationship. Seriously it’s one of her main things one of her epithets is literally “Parenthos”, which means virgin. No lovers, no sex, no marriage, no intentionally created children (I say intentionally bc she and Hepheastus accidentally created a child when his snot got onto a torn piece of her cloak, but that’s a different weird story), nothing. She solely focused on the expansion of knowledge and learning. She had no time for any sort of relationship. Making Athena in Athena Complex heavily motivated by an unrequited romantic attraction literally rips one of her main core values to shreds.

And this in my opinion one of the worst offenses, MAKING THE SUBJECT OF THAT ROMANTIC ATTRACTION POSEIDON. Literally one MAJOR thing for the original Athena and Poseidon is that they HATE each other. (Also Athena is literally Poseidon’s niece, but tbh that’s a less heinous crime bc Greek mythology was weird about that shit, multiple gods married their siblings/cousins/uncles/aunts/nieces/nephews/etc., it’s weird. Also in Athena Complex Poseidon acted the main person raising Athena, which is ALSO really fucking weird and concerning, anyway back to why they hate each other).

The Contest for Athens: Basically before the Greek city of Athens was called Athens the people were looking for a patron deity, and both Athena and Poseidon tried to lay their claim. In order to determine who the city would go to, they decided to have a contest of who could give the city the best gift. Poseidon gave the city some horses (for transportation and farmwork) and a small spring in the middle of the city (note: the water in the spring was salt water and therefore undrinkable). Athena gave them olive trees (for food, making oil, wood, etc.). The peoplr decided that Athena’s gift was better and thus named the city “Athens” after her, leaving Poseidon incredibly salty.

The Medusa Incident (TW: possible rape/non-con): So Poseidon was having a nice little affair with a mortal woman named Medusa (you notice how this name is familiar, right? that’s important). It’s a little iffy on whether or not this affair was fully consensual on Medusa’s end due to the sort of victim blame-y aspects to this story, hence the trigger warning. So Poseidon his having his fun and decides to find a nice little place they can go to do the nasty. Where does he think would be a great idea? One of Athena’s temples of course! You know, a literal place of worship dedicated to his rival who is known to dislike involvement in romantic/sexual relationships? Nothing could go wrong at all! They of course get caught, and Athena, being pissed, decides to curse Medusa with snakes for hair and the ability to turn people into stone just by looking at them (see why the name was familiar?) For good measure she also curses Medusa’s two sisters with the snake hair. The sisters are then dubbed the Gorgons and then go live in isolation on a island until they are killed by Perseus (a hero that Athena was helping).

So this Webtoon completely ignores the context behind this hatred and decides to make it into an enemies to lovers story based on unrequited feelings (the feelings of a person for their childhood caretaker too...still weird). I guess they wanted to do enemies to lovers and such based on a rivalry dynamic, but in doing so they erased most of the actual substance behind that rivalry by making it romantic and destroying the characterization of one of the main characters.

I can understand taking creative liberties, but before you do so you NEED to have a full understanding of the characters that you are adapting. If a mythological character is known for a certain practice (refraining from romance) or for having an extreme distaste for another figure (Athena hating Poseidon), INCLUDE IT. You NEED to have all of the bare bones basics before you start taking liberties.

For example, the original Athena:

Goddess of wisdom and strategy

Association with owls, olives, carries a shield known as Aegis

Highly values learning and knowledge

Prideful to a fault

Virgin goddess with no interest in romantic or sexual relationships

Extreme hatred for Poseidon as a result of repeated negative encounters

Those are the bare bones basics, after that you can do what you want.

Honestly I don’t think that this Webtoon is necessarily BAD, but it is VERY annoying when you have the context behind these characters (hence my frustration and inability to make it past 10 chapters). In my opinion, if the author wanted to write this storyline, they should have made their own OCs as opposed to butchering a pre-existing figure’s characterization.

(Also I’m so sorry I know that this isn’t relevant to my argument BUT THE POSEIDON REINCARNATION LOOKS SO BORING HE LOOKS LIKE A BACKGROUND CHARACTER WHERE IS THE FLAVOR????)

[ardenttheories]

The issue with “Dubiously Canon”.

“Dubiously canon” was a term used by Hussie to describe both the Homestuck Epilogues and Homestuck^2. To his mind, this meant something very simple; in the greater canon of Homestuck - that is, the story it tells and the actual events that happen in its timeline - whatever happens in this continuative media paradoxically is and is not relevant. 

It is a term that allowed Homestuck to continue without actually being “Homestuck”; to carry its name without supposedly tarnishing its branding. It was used to posit a very simple question, and one that is actually fairly interesting to ponder: what is canon? 

This, of course, comes from the background of Homestuck’s community. Homestuck has thousands of fanfiction pieces, thousands of AUs, thousands of posited artworks - everything which is non-canonical, because it did not happen in the core story of Homestuck. 

Hussie, with the suggestion of “dubiously canon”, offered his fandom the choice of pseudo-canonicity; Homestuck is over, and anything that comes after is just one in a series of potentials that might have eventually happened. A piece of fanfiction detailing the life of John as he struggles with depression and eventually finds solace in Dirk is as potentially canonical as a fanartist’s design of Rose wearing her Seer uniform and becoming an actual goddess. 

Nothing is true, everything is permitted, to copy from a rather famous game’s quoting. Homestuck has no actual “end”, so everything we create is as real and unreal as anything else. 

This, of course, is a perfectly valid and reasonable claim to make. Dubiously canonical content allows the fans to be validated and recognised in the context of Homestuck. It’s saying to us, quite simply, that we have been a huge part of the creation of Homestuck - and from here on out, we are as real as Hussie is as authors, as creators for Homestuck. 

What causes it to fail, however, is when Hussie himself then makes a continuation. 

Hussie is the author and creator of Homestuck. In the grand scheme of things, he is the word of god, the lore creator, the one who envisioned it. If Hussie recognises something, it automatically stands out above the rest. It is inherently more canonical because Hussie, as the creator of Homestuck, has looked at it and said, “hey, this is something that could probably happen in Homestuck”. 

As the author, his word is miles above our own. He wrote Homestuck. He made a series of decisions that created Homestuck; without him, it would doubtlessly be completely different from what it is now, if it even existed at all. If Hussie says, “this is Homestuck”, then it simply is - because that’s what being an author means. You create the lore of your world, and anything that you recognise as part of that world is immediately brought into the canon. 

So, of course, the publication of the Epilogues and of Homestuck^2 is a significant issue. This is canonically Homestuck; this is how Hussie has determined that Homestuck would naturally continue. It’s obvious enough with how he described the Epilogues as Homestuck’s “drop-off” point; you can see the Epilogues and turn back, stay with the original story of Homestuck and all of its fanon content, or you can progress into Homestuck^2 and the story Hussie - the author - wants to tell.

By putting his name on it, posting it on his own website, and adding his own thoughts and ideas to it, Hussie has completely negated the point he was trying to make with “dubiously canon” content. Canon is canon because the author decided what is and is not part of the original universe. Whether Hussie wants to recognise it or not, he has declared that the Epilogues and Homestuck^2 are the actual continuations of Homestuck. That this is how Homestuck ends, and carries on. 

Another part of this issue is that Hussie’s name makes it official. Even if this was truly dubiously canon - in a paradoxical place of being both canonical and noncanonical - Hussie’s name and the fact that it’s being written by authors chosen by Hussie, that Hussie is paying to write the content, slaps an incredibly blatant “official” sticker on Homestuck^2 and the Epilogues that can’t be ignored. Money is changing hands. Several voices have been picked out of the crowd and one story has been chosen among thousands to be the Hussie mandated continuation. These are the official people and the official words of Homestuck - and with official branding comes canonical privillages.

Nobody is going to look at a work of fiction on AO3 and say that it has the same weighting as Homestuck^2 does. Nobody is going to look at a fan-made AU and say that it is as canonical as Homestuck^2. 

People already see Homestuck^2 as canon. Not as something that is dubiously canon, but as canon complete. June should not be lauded as a canonical figure, and neither should transmasc Roxy, because in theory they have the exact same canonicity as transmasc John and transfem Roxy - but by being in Homestuck^2 specifically, by being acknowledged by Hussie, the fandom sees them as more canonical than other fandom headcanons. They’re not just headcanons anymore - they’re real. But, in all technicality, they shouldn’t be if Hussie’s ideology is true. 

None of the events of Homestuck^2 should be seen as any more viable than any written fiction by a fan - but even the authors of Homestuck^2 see their word as law, their choices as canon, and their headcanons as the most legitimate. It is impossible to dismiss the canonicity of Homestuck^2. 

It is not the same, does not hold the same weighting, as a piece of fanfiction that maybe went down a route that we didn’t like. It isn’t something that can be brushed off. This isn’t an unknown author making a work of fiction for a piece of media they like; it’s Hussie’s official team, Hussie’s official word, making the official continuation of Homestuck. 

“Dubiously canon” cannot work when the author continues his story. It is no longer “dubious”, it is outright canon. It no longer allows for the fandom to be validated, to be as genuine, as he intended for them to be. Through the sheer effort of writing Homestuck^2, Hussie has completely devalued the entire basis of its literary theory. 

There is, of course, yet another issue, and a fairly significant one at that: the profitisation of the Epilogues. 

The point of the Epilogues was that they were meant to replicate AO3′s fanfiction format. It was meant to show that they were as fanon as any other piece of fiction, and that they held no bolder position in the grand scheme of Homestuck than any fan’s work. 

No fan can profit from their work. No fan has the capacity to publish their fanfiction, to have it sold in stores, and set a price for it. Legally, they cannot get away with doing anything of the like - because they do not own the rights to Homestuck, and their publication could pose issue for Homestuck if casual readers mistake it for an actual piece in the canon. Donations are the best a fanfiction author can hope for, or perhaps Patreon subscribers. 

The point of fanfiction is that it is done for free. The enjoyment of something enough to create for it - and to create something that can never be achieved in the same way official content can - is what makes fandom and fan content what it is. You physically cannot profit from it because it is not your story to profit from; not your character set or your universe to claim. If profits can be found, it is through legal channels that VIZ and Hussie have explicitly allowed, such as commissions. Individual basis, rather than mass-production.

You can likely see where I’m going with this. 

The publication of the Epilogues completely ruins its fanfiction format. It is no longer a piece of fanfiction, styalised on the internet and mirroring what fanfiction authors do every day. It is no longer hosted in that category of fan work. It simply can’t be, because to be published, paid for, stocked on shelves - it has to be canonical, has to be written by the author, or at least endorsed by him. 

To have it published directly separates it from every piece of fanwork it was trying to celebrate. 

Their format was originally designed to emphasise the fact that it’s as non-canonical yet as relevant as other fan works post Earth-C - and is only one variant of the End-Credits continuation. Publication instead emphasises that the Epilogues are the official and canonical ending - because it’s the one that the unknowing public will accept, because it has Hussie’s name on it, and because it is no longer a replica of fanfiction but is instead on par with the other published Homestuck books. 

Yes: publication of the Epilogues puts it in the same place of canonicity as the canonical story of Homestuck, likewise published by VIZ. This is no longer a “drop-off” point; it is what bookstores genuinely cite to be the “long awaited ending to Homestuck”. The issue being, of course, that the Epilogues aren’t an ending; they’re a beginning - one that leads directly into Homestuck^2. Which, by proxy, provides canonicity to Homestuck^2. There is nothing dubious here. 

The problem being, of course, that as an author you cannot claim that your piece of media is meant to validate fan works by being in the style of a fan work, and then actively monetise and profit off of it. You cannot put it into bookstores with your name and your copyright and still claim that it is exactly the same as fanfiction. It just isn’t. It hosts a series of legalities that differentiates it completely from fandom.

The point of “dubious canonicity” is tarnished because of this. No fan author will ever be able to get that level of validation to be published above any other work. No fan author will be seen as that canonical to be praised as the “ending to Homestuck” by book stores. No fan author will receive a penny for the works they create on a similar scale. 

The Epilogues are Homestuck. By profiting off of it, they have explicitly stated that this is how Homestuck ends. They have made it clear that this is part of Homestuck’s canonical story.

The point they tried to make - both in regards to what canon is and how canon and noncanon works in Homestuck^2 - simply can’t exist with the way they have created it. “Dubiously canon” is a contradictory statement, one that doesn’t work for an official piece, and especially is lost when that piece is then profited from. Had it been left as a hand-off to fans, this would have been completely different - but the moment an author then continues to write, dubious canonicity hosts no meaning. 

[ariainstars]

Star Wars, the Last 20 Years or Can We Please Try to Stop the Blame Train?

I would like to touch a subject that’s starting to grate on my nerves a little.

Anyone here knows that I disliked The Rise of Skywalker heartily. And I’m not the only person here or elsewhere who tore it to shreds. But I am reading (again) over and over why and how JJ Abrams, Chris Terrio, Kathleen Kennedy and Co. made this mess. Instead of searching for culprits, this time I would like to point out a few things.

I. Star Wars Prequels

Jake Lloyd, Ahmed Best and Hayden Christensen had to endure awful harassment in their time: the audience largely vented their frustration on them because when the prequels hit theatres, they did not get the Star Wars they had wanted. Politics are a dry subject, and young Anakin and the Jedi Council were all too human to be liked by fans who expect coolness in a hero more than everything else; which is probably why Darth Maul is a huge favorite although we hardly learn anything about him and he says almost nothing. Ditto Obi-Wan although he is clearly not suited to train Anakin and it’s him who maims him and leaves him to burn in the lava. (Until I saw the film, I had always assumed Palpatine had tortured Anakin to push him to the Dark Side.) 

The prequels’ messages in general were not liked: the Jedi were not perfectly wise and cool wizards, the Old Republic was stagnant, Anakin was a hot-headed, frustrated young man desperate to save his wife and unborn children. The films do not want to excuse what he did; however they portray him not as a monster but as a human being who was under an almost unendurable pressure for years and years until he finally snapped.

These messages may not be “cool”, but they were realistic and most of all, humane. Portraying the Jedi as well as Anakin as powerful, flawless heroes and the old Republic as a just, prosperous and balanced place would have meant undermining a central theme of the original trilogy: the former generation could not have been all that powerful and wise, else the collapse of their world and the failure of their convictions would not have happened in the first place. It is a sore point, but still twenty years later Obi-Wan and Yoda denied that Vader was human and expected Luke to commit patricide. 

All of this goes to show that the Jedi’s moral standard was flawed and their attitude not rooted in compassion and pacifism the way they claimed. In the end, what they cared about was winning, no matter the cost. In this, they were no better than the Sith.

~~~more under the cut~~~

II. Star Wars Sequels

J.J. Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, Bob Iger and company were the ones who introduced the Star Wars sequel trilogy and with it its themes, characters, setting etc. to us in the first place: I think we should give them credit where it’s due. Rian Johnson made a very beautiful second chapter with The Last Jedi, but he did pick up where the others had left. 

Kelly Marie Tran made experiences similar to Jake Lloyds or Hayden Christensen’s when The Last Jedi was hit theatres. She was disliked for not being “Star-Wars-y” enough, chubby and lively instead of wiry and spitfire, and also taking a lot of screen time while many fans were impatiently waiting for some grand scenes from Luke and / or Leia. 

That Episode VIII, the central and most important one, was called “The Last Jedi” cannot be overstated. Luke was literally alone with the heavy task of rebuilding a religious order that was gone and destroyed long before he even learned about it, and at the same time he had to patch together his own family and atone for his father’s sins. This is a crushing burden for anyone to carry. It was important both for Rey and for the audience to meet Luke to see that he was a good man, but still just a man.

When Luke spoke openly to Rey about the failure of the Jedi Order, it was the first time he ever spoke about it that we know of; this wisdom he obviously acquired only after his nephew’s fall to the Dark Side. Luke has understood that the ways of the Jedi were wrong; but he does not know a better alternative. Force users are still born all over the galaxy, and they have to learn to use their powers - only how? Again, Luke is not to blame. How is he to know, when the Jedi of the Old Republic had lost sight of Balance in the Force for so long that they didn’t know what it actually meant anymore? 

Same goes for Leia, the princess without a realm, who tried to rebuild the Republic after the galaxy had been terrorized by the Empire and devastated by war for many years. She assuredly did her best, but she was only human. That she failed her son is of course shocking, but after the horror she had to endure at the hands of her own father it is not surprising that she would be terrified of her son possibly going the same way. Ben, like Anakin, was crushed under a legacy and responsibility that was by far too heavy for him. The tragedy of his life and the disruption - and in the end, obliteration - of his family was another proof for the failure of the ways of the Jedi. 

All of these lessons until now were not learned from. But let’s be honest: how many of us come from dysfunctional families? If we do, was getting away from them enough to heal the wounds of the past? Did we find out what to give our children on their way in life, or did we fail them because we had not elaborated the past enough to make way for a better future? Such problems are very common, and to heal them is complicated and takes time. A “happy ending” e.g. in form of finding a new family is not enough, on the contrary, it can lead to wanting to leave the past behind, leaving wounds unhealed that will fester their way through our lives again, sooner or later. Star Wars always was an allegory of the human mind, even if deeply cloaked in symbolism. The saga also abundantly takes inspiration from the Bible, and I think it’s not coincidentally said there that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. 

As fans, we would have wanted to see films that cemented the Jedi as guardians of the galaxy, with the Skywalker family right at the center. Which in itself is impossible because Jedi are supposed to remain unattached, making the mere idea of a Jedi having a family absurd. If the prequels told us that the Jedi were flawed, the sequels tore down the myth of the Skywalker family. And both trilogies showed that you can’t be a Skywalker and / or a Jedi / Force user and have attachments and a happy family of your own at the same time. At least, not until now. 

 III. Film production

Many fans of old complained because the sequel trilogy implied that the “happy ending” of the original trilogy’s heroes had not been so happy after all and that after having made peace for the galaxy, they had failed to keep it that way. Other viewers however liked the new trilogy and new characters right away and began to root for them. But they, too, jumped on the blame train when the trilogy had ended: expectations were not met, and now director, producers, script writers, cutters etc. are faulted all over again.

The first person coming up with the idea of Han’s and Leia’s only child turning to the Dark Side was Lucas himself. It always was a main theme of the saga that war separates people who actually belong together, like family, couples or close friends; that is not played for mere drama, but because it emphasizes the absurdity of war.

We as the audience do not know how production went - it is very possible that Lucas approved the general storyline, and there is always a whole team on board. It is not easy to purchase such a large and immensely popular franchise; it was to be expected that if things went not the way the audience expected, the Disney studios would be blamed harshly for having “ruined Star Wars”. With the prequels, at least Lucas was still at the helm; it was conceded that maybe he had lost his magic touch with storytelling, but certainly not that he was trying deliberately to ruin his own creation. And the fans who could not praise the Disney studios enough after The Last Jedi came out, now blame them over and over.

The Disney studios have long-term politics to consider and contracts to observe, and we don’t know their contents. We have every right to be disappointed, but I think it’s not fair to blame one or a particular group of persons who are trying their best to satisfy as many viewers as possible. If they simply wanted to satisfy the average dudebro who sees nothing but clichés, two-dimensional characters and Good against Evil - then why did they allow The Last Jedi to be produced in the first place? The studios obviously are aware that there are fans out there who are ready to look deeper in the saga’s themes, who wish to see the Force coming to Balance, who value family, friendship and love over “victory at any cost”, and who do not place the Jedi on some kind of pedestal.

In a sense, The Rise of Skywalker seems like a bow before The Last Jedi: the weakest chapter of the saga followed one of its strongest. Maybe the authors were aware that equaling or even topping what Rian Johnson had created would be next to impossible, so they patched up the open threads of The Force Awakens together with some fan service hoping to be out of the business as quickly as possible.

In retrospect, the infamous podcast with Charles Soule might also be tell-tale: Soule obviously is not elbows-deep in the saga and largely ignores its subtext. Since his The Rise of Kylo Ren comics are quite well-made, I assume that the general storyline did not stem from his own creativity and that he only carried out what he had been advised to do. The production of the whole sequel trilogy may have happened in a similar way. I am not excusing the poor choices of The Rise of Skywalker; merely considering that one or a few persons cannot be blamed in a studio that has thousands of creative minds on board.

I am still hoping for the next trilogy to finally bring Balance to the galaxy, and also into the fandom. Rian Johnson had negotiated the rights for the next trilogy along with The Last Jedi; I assume it is very possible that there was a clause about intellectual property saying that only he would continue Episode VIII’s topics, nobody else. This would at least be an explanation, given the embarrassing, jumbled mess that Episode IX was.

The overall title of the saga assuredly never wanted to inspire the audience to start online wars attacking the studios or the actors or other fans out of the conviction of being entitled to blame someone else’s worldview. The saga’s message is compassion. Both George Lucas and the Disney studios are telling us their story; the idea and the rights do not belong to us. Harping on “whose fault” it allegedly is won’t bring us anywhere; what we can do is make the studios understand that we’re not too stupid not to understand the subtext, the symbolism and metaphysics of the saga beyond the action story. If they listened to the Last Jedi haters, in all fairness they are bound to listen to us, too. 😊

  IV. Will Ben’s story continue?

My husband already warned me years ago that Ben most probably wouldn’t survive, or at least not get a happy ending. As Kylo Ren he had already been the head of a criminal organization for six years at the start of The Force Awakens, but all of that perhaps could still have been condoned within the scope of war. It was the very personal and intentional act of patricide, the killing of an unarmed, forgiving man, who turned him into a damned person. And after the deed, Ben was aware of it. He knew there was no way out for him, he had gone too far.

Many members of the audience did not understand that Kylo / Ben is not an out-and-out villain and that this narrative ultimately was about his redemption. Bringing him back to the Resistance after the Exegol battle alive and by Rey’s side would not have been accepted; how was Rey to explain everything when she hardly understood it herself? How would the audience have reacted to the former head of a criminal organization, a patricide, suddenly standing out as a hero? Remember how in Return of the Jedi Luke asked Vader to come away with him. Now suppose Vader had complied? It would have seemed (and been) sheer madness. Nobody would have believed neither father nor son that the terror of the galaxy had had a sudden turn of heart. Nobody knew that he was Luke’s father; Luke himself did not know Anakin’s backstory; nobody knew what had transpired between Luke and Vader so far. Yes, Ben was young and healthy, but he still had terrorized the galaxy for years and killed his own father. He knew himself that he was damned and could not go back to normality, as Vader did.

Rey was coded as the heroine: narratively, the sequel trilogy was her story. Ben couldn’t become the hero, with or without her, at the very last moment. She usurped power like her grandfather in his time, the Skywalker family was obliterated the way the Jedi were, she takes over another mantle (Skywalker) the way Palpatine did (becoming the Emperor). Balance in the Force never was truly in the cards, it was only vaguely hinted at in The Last Jedi by the Force mosaic in the Ahch-To temple. Balance is a complex and difficult subject; it would have been extremely difficult to develop it in the sequel trilogy together with introducing the new characters and giving the old ones closure.

However: if Ben is brought back in the next trilogy, his sacrifice for Rey will have been his atonement. If his role this time is not that of the villain but of the hero, it would reverse Anakin’s path and make clear that he no longer is the same man. Vader was redeemed, not rehabilitated. His grandson might still have the chance to go that way.

- Luke had promised Rey a third lesson, and it happened. He also had promised Ben to “see him around”, which has not taken place yet.

- On Tatooine, Rey watches the twin suns setting, same as Luke before he met the other half of his soul (his twin sister) again.

- The studios had said that the sequels would be “very much like the prequels”; the prequels were a tragedy where the Dark Side (Palpatine) won that was followed by a fairy tale where the Light Side won.

- The Skywalker saga is closed, so if Ben comes back it would be justified by his being a Solo, i.e. the story of his own family and not his grandfather’s.

- Given the parallels with Beauty and the Beast, the Beast died before the broken spell brought him back, making him a wholly new person - his past identity, purged and redeemed.

- George Lucas repeatedly said that the prequels and the classics belong together as one narrative, with Anakin Skywalker at its center. First news of the next trilogy came up with The Last Jedi. Since there are strong parallels between Ben and his grandfather, we may assume that this six-chapter instalment will be his; Anakin also was left for dead but came back with a wholly different role and name.

- When Anakin was reborn as Darth Vader, he “rose” slowly from the ground, clad in his black armor. Ben fell to the ground abruptly and shed his black clothes, disappearing. This could be another clue. (It was also already speculated that Leia’s body dissolved exactly in this moment because she gave her life-force to her son for him to have another chance to live. Both Han and Luke had done what they could to atone for their remorse towards Ben; this might be her turn.)

- Much as I love Luke Skywalker, I can understand that Lucas did not see him as the saga’s protagonist. The overall arch is not so much about Luke’s heroism than about Anakin’s redemption and atonement. It is unusual because we expect the story’s “hero” to be the one who kills the Bad Guy; and indeed Anakin is, because he kills Palpatine in the end, the twist being that technically he is also a villain though not the archvillain.

- Ben had promised Anakin he would finish what he started. Anakin had been meant to bring Balance to the Force, and he had started a family. Until now, Ben did neither.

- If Ben and Rey are a dyad, i.e. one soul in two bodies, then Rey is in urgent need of her soulmate for her future tasks. She has her friends of course, but none of them gets her the way he did.

So, I still see reason to hope for a continuation, and, hopefully, satisfying conclusion of The Last Jedi’s themes.

  Film production: on a side note…

In the Nineties, Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale were the directors both of Beauty and the Beast and Atlantis: two more different stories are hardly imaginable with regard to everything - drawing style, setting, characters, development, music etc. This outcome can’t have been only due to the director’s choices, there must have been a wholly different idea behind both films right from the beginning. Just saying.

[saintheartwing]

Lily’s Post about Mary Sues

Let’s analyze this. 

None of those series you mentioned have characters that could be labelled as Mary Sues

Clark Kent, Goku, Luke, Anakin, Kirk.

Okay, a Mary Sue or Gary Stu has to be, basically, either an author avatar or stand-in, they tend to be beautiful or really handsome, have unusual, or dramatic backtories, are “chosen one” types, all of the main characters in the group will love them or admire them and those that don’t are always portrayed as in the wrong for not doing so, this kind of thing. They tend to be overpowered as well and they possess unique, special powers. They’ve basically overpowered, over-idealized, beloved by anybody and if you DON’T like them, you’re clearly in the wrong. Oh, and everything they do is treated as good, and if they DO screw up, hey, it’s no big deal. Any actual flaws are negligible or nonexistent. Like being “Naive” or wearing their heart on their sleeve. 

Let’s take a look at...Superman. Well, he’s got several big weaknesses. Kryptonite, for one. And Magic. HUGELY weak against magic. He IS overpowered and he is mostly beloved by everyone...but he has made a LOT of mistakes. Especially when it comes to Batman. Whenever Batman is involved in a story with him, it’s Batman who’s right, and Superman who’s in the wrong. Pretty much all the time. “Darkseid is dead, Superman.” “You know what Bruce? You’re not always right!” But Batman WAS right, at least technically. Batman regularly beats Superman in several stories. So Clark isn’t always treated as right. On top of that, he does have some real character flaws of constantly being torn between wanting to do more and being afraid of how far he should go. And when you have GODLY strength, that’s a huge exploit, especially for supervillains. But...he does fill a lot of the Mary Sue tropes, so we’ll give Lily some credit. 

Goku? Well Goku is a moron. The story always treats his stupidity as being a huge problem. One that CONTINUES to cause issues, and has even nearly gotten his world destroyed a few times. He’s even gotten himself and his friends KILLED cuz he couldn’t think of any other way but to sacrifice himself or the like. AND he has serious anger issues. When he’s furious, he’s almost uncontrollable. The only person more so is Vegeta. He’s also a pig who eats too much but we can sorta overlook that last one because being a glutton is played more for laughs and “He needs it to keep up his strength”.  How about his powers? Well he’s DEFINITELY overpowered. Is he handsome? Well, he looks pretty good. And he’s well-liked by pretty much the whole main cast except for, of course, the villains. So we could say...yeah. Goku’s kinda Mary Sue-ish. 

Luke? Well...not really. Luke isn’t naturally gifted or talented like Goku or Superman were. Despite having the POTENTIAL to be great, his Jedi skills started out so poor he couldn’t even block blaster bolts using the force alone. He had to train for weeks if not months under Yoda just to get somewhat up to snuff and he STILL failed. “Don’t go into that cave with your weapons”. He goes in. Sees Darth Vader and...oh, wait, it’s HIMSELF he’s killed! You were put to the test and you failed. He can’t lift large objects with the Force. He’s reckless, he doesn’t think things through and he often has to rely on help from OTHERS to succeed. He only got that one-in-a-million shot on the Death Star because Obi Wan’s ghost spoke to him in his head to help guide him. He only got away from the first Death Star because Obi Wan sacrificed himself. Throughout the first two films, he’s just not good enough. He loses to Darth Vader MISERABLY, and he even loses his HAND. A real Mary Sue would have won, or at least held Darth Vader off, or tied. Worse still, he’s not just dangerously reckless and kind of whiny...he’s got a serious anger problem that rises up in the films, he almost outright gives in to the dark side. But other than that, he’s just some country bumpkin who happened to luck out at finding the right droid. All his powers, he basically earned, showing a classic heroes’s journey growth. So that, combined with the huge failures in the first few movies and even if we factor in the sequels and the stupid, dumb decisions he made...he’s not a Mary Sue. A Mary Sue wouldn’t f--k up that much. Or if they did, it wouldn’t be treated as his own fault, or as a bad thing. It’d be brushed off.

Anakin! OHHH boy. This guy is a whiny little brat. I don’t know if people realize this, but...Lily, NOBODY LIKED ANAKIN. Anakin was unlikable BECAUSE he was a Mary Sue. You DO realize this, right? He was overpowered, treated as the chosen one, and he was super whiny at that. But you know what? At least the story treated him doing awful stuff as the wrong thing. Him being reckless? A bad thing. He should listen to Obi Wan more. Him casually killing someone through the back in the Clone Wars? A bad thing, he could have just knocked the guy out or cut his arm or hand off, what he did was murder. Anakin murdering the entire tribe of Sand People that kidnapped his mom, leading to her death? Shown as a VERY bad thing because he slaughtered ALL of them, even women and children. Anakin becoming Sith and killing kids? SUPER bad thing. 

So at the very least, him doing morally reprehensible things is treated as genuinely bad. At least the story calls him out on this. 

Kirk? Uh, Kirk is just a random human. He’s not exactly super strong or super intelligent. He’s clever and he’s fairly skilled in combat, and he’s definitely good looking, but he’s no ‘chosen one’ like so many of the others. Has he got flaws? Yeah, he’s got a temper. And he  flagrantly disregards the rules. And he DEFINITELY is something of a skirt chaser. But he’s not exactly overpowered enough to be considered a Mary Sue. He hasn’t GOT enough powers at all to be counted as one. Plus, when you consider how he died? A real Mary Sue would get a far better and more dramatic death, if they died at all. So Kirk? Ahhh, not really. He’s not a Mary Sue. He’s just not powerful enough to be one and he’s no chosen one. 

But your characters? Well, let’s see. Rey is a chosen one. So is Aliana. And Aliana is descended from a LONG LINE of superpowerful Sith. She’s basically “old money”. It runs in the blood. Pretty Mary Sue right there. They’re overpowered? Yep. Very. They easily beat the crap out of Kylo Ren. Do all the main characters like them? Yeah. And any that don’t are always treated as wrong, like Leia, or enemies, like Kylo Ren. They fit the definitions to a T.

can never be wrong

“So are a lot of characters in popular culture”

Except that’s not true. Superman, as I’ve shown, has been wrong quite a lot, especially when arguing against Batman, or Wonder Woman. Superman having to kill three Kryptonians who had did a literal genocide of an alternate Earth was portrayed as VERY wrong and it haunted him for years and years. Anakin was VERY, VERY wrong. The minute you do mass murder, you kinda instantly become wrong. Kirk ends up being very wrong in the final film he’s in. He doesn’t want to leave his heavenly alternate reality, it’s PICARD who has to convince him to stop being selfish. Goku is stupidly wrong when dealing with Cell, he really screws up and it gets his mentor and a few of his friends killed because he couldn’t think of a better way to get rid of the about-to-explode Cell than to teleport him to King Kai’s moon. He could have just teleported him, say, the serpent bridge, THEN teleported back if he really thought the explosion was gonna be so big it’d take out the entire world but...nope! Then there’s how he handled Majin Buu. He THINKS he doesn’t have to use fusion with his son. After all, Majin Buu has just lost a ton of power! He and his son can beat him normally...then Majin Buu catches him off guard and claims his son. Nice going, Goku, he was weak and instead of doing what everyone told you to do, you whiffed because you assumed you could handle it. And then there was his whole “Okay Vegeta, you finish off Frieza while he’s all Golden”. Big mistake. Frieza does a self-destructive attack that BLOWS UP THE ENTIRE WORLD and Whis has to literally TURN. BACK. TIME to fix this. Thanks, Goku. You COULDA just finished Frieza off like you did last time, but noooo! You had to indulge your friend’s ego. Luke? Luke’s been wrong a ton of times. Even if we ignore the sequels and the stupid way he handled Kylo Ren and hiding off on some podunk island, he ignored Yoda’s advice multiple times, he took off to fight Darth Vader, and he lost miserably. 

Basically, every time these people do something wrong...it is, for the most part, TREATED as the wrong move by the story. That’s NOT the case for Aliana or Rey. Casually killing a guard for harassing a refugee? Cold blooded murder? Not portrayed as wrong. Overkill of guards at Canto Bight? Not even REMOTELY called out, nor the whole “mass forced suicide” thing. Killing Rey’s parents in cold blood when they were unarmed? Barely glanced over. What’s portrayed as wrong was keeping that a secret, not the MURDER thing. SHOOTING LEIA WITH ELECTRICITY? Not even REMOTELY treated as going too far. 

are always victims

“Can’t imagine why a woman who suffers from PTSD writes characters who have suffered trauma in their lives. It’s a fucking mystery.”

You realize though this makes Aliana an author-avatar/stand in though, and that enforces the whole “she’s a Mary Sue” thing, right? 

and bend the narrative to suit their needs

“If they were villains you wouldn’t complain about it this insessantly.”

But they’re NOT villains. When a story has a hero doing this, even when it has a villain doing this, that’s bad writing. Having Leia reasonably point out the fact that the Republic has every good reason to not trust a Sith and Aliana can’t just bully them into going along with everything she wants...and then having Aliana just SPONTANEOUSLY summon her own WAR FLEET to go “Sword of Damocles” on Leia and the Republic? That’s bad writing. It comes out of nowhere, no build up, and exists ONLY to tell Leia and anybody who has a problem with how Aliana’s doing things to SHUT UP I’M IN CHARGE. It’s bullying, bad writing.

Also, those other characters mentioned have other characters who will call out people like Luke or Kirk if they mess up. And Luke and Kirk or Goku will go “Yeah, you’re right, I should listen to you” and they have to change...or at least say they’ll try to. Does anybody in your story do that? Well...no. Because ANY objection to how Rey or Aliana does things is treated as BAD and WRONG because they’re the main characters, and thus everything they do is right, even if it’s morally repulsive and if ANOTHER character shot lightning at a middle-aged woman for a nasty comment, they’d be the bad guy.

Anyway, said my piece. Lily really has absolutely no self-reflection on this. She can’t handle actual criticism. All this is is DEFLECTION and PIVOTING away from your own story’s problems.  It’s very easy to crow about how popular your work is when you dismiss and delete all actual critique and criticism. 

[booksbeyondimagining]

Before the Devil Breaks You (The Diviners #3), by Libba Bray

Publish Date:  October 3, 2017 Published by: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Length: 546 Genre: YA Paranormal/Historical Fiction My Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ (1 out of 5 stars)

Synopsis:

New York City. 1927. Lights are bright. Jazz is king. Parties are wild. And the dead are coming...

After battling a supernatural sleeping sickness that claimed two of their own, the Diviners have had enough lies. They're more determined than ever to uncover the mystery behind their extraordinary powers, even as they face off against an all-new terror. Out on Ward's Island, far from the city's bustle, sits a mental hospital haunted by the lost souls of people long forgotten--ghosts who have unusual and dangerous ties to the man in the stovepipe hat, also known as the King of Crows. With terrible accounts of murder and possession flooding in from all over and New York City on the verge of panic, the Diviners must band together and brave the sinister ghosts invading the asylum, a fight that will bring them face-to-face with the King of Crows. But as the explosive secrets of the past come to light, loyalties and friendships will be tested, love will hang in the balance, and the Diviners will question all that they've ever known. All the while, malevolent forces gather from every corner in a battle for the very soul of a nation--a fight that could claim the Diviners themselves.

My Review:

I don't even know where to begin this review. I feel like I don't understand what happened with this book? I loved the first two. They were breathtaking and wonderful and full of gorgeous characters, a setting that drew me back in time, and a plotline that gave me the best kind of chills. This one? This one just failed. Utterly failed. For a long time I considered Libba Bray to be my favorite author, but this book disappointed me so much that I don't know if I can anymore. What started as a spine-chilling paranormal historical story full of wonderfully diverse characters dealing with a multitude of problems, both emotional and physical, became what can only be described as a hot mess in this installment of the series. And not even the good, Evie O’Neill type of hot mess. Just, a mess.

What happened to the characters I fell in love with? It felt like they completely disappeared in this book. They were all trying to take the lead at the same time and instead of standing out, became lost in one another until it seemed like they barely existed as people at all, but rather caricatures of themselves. It honestly felt like Bray was just rehashing singular traits of these characters that had already been established in the first two novels, and rather than expanding on them and giving them growth, they all just felt very stagnant throughout the story. Or they would have a small moment, only for things to move quickly on before any true growth or resolution was shown despite the need for one. What irked me the most was how the perspectives would shift so quickly and often, literally within the same paragraph at times. It was like getting whiplash trying to keep straight whose feelings I was reading about. This translated horribly into the larger story arcs as well. Very often a plot point would pick up - Mabel and the Secret Six, Theta and Roy, Jericho at Hopeful Harbor - and the book would spend a little bit of time dealing with that, only for it to suddenly switch gear, drop it for multiple chapters (re: hundreds of pages), then to finally bring it back up again much, much later. This led to these story arcs (and consequently the characters) losing their momentum and my interest. I don’t understand why they weren’t intertwined more throughout the book as in the previous books, which balanced both the personal lives of these characters and the over-arcing plotline so well in comparison to this one. And the rest of the plot? A mish-mosh that felt like it was all over the place and completely tedious all at once. I wanted to like this book but I just couldn’t. I can’t tell you how many times I read a line or two and thought “Am I reading a rough draft?” Honestly, sometimes it didn’t even feel like more than a rough outline. Character emotions would pop on and off at random moments. They would do things that seemed to skip important movements in between. Descriptions were just sorely lacking. The first time I started this book (and yes, it took me two tries to get through it), I thought that I was unable to deal with it because it was 1. The early stages of a pandemic and 2. Filled with a lot of recaps of the books I had just reread. I thought it was just me. But it wasn’t. It took me almost four months to finish it the second time around, and only because I forced myself to do so because I wanted to know how this series ended and what became of my beloved characters. All I ended up wanting to do was cry. And not because of the actual story. Just how it was written. I never thought I would ever give Libba Bray a one star review, but sadly, this book just cannot earn anything above that from me. NOTE: The following is a more in-depth look at several plot points that I just want to rant about, and will therefore place under a spoiler alert. [SPOILERS BELOW]

We will start with Mabel, since she is the first character who felt like she had the beginnings of a story arc going on in this book. Mabel Rose, what happened? Again, here I thought she was going to be one of the main focuses of the book (such as with Henry and Ling in Lair of Dreams), but sadly her story just bookended the rest of the plots. But what annoyed me the most, was how botched her character became towards the end. She kept going on and on about “believing in people being good at heart” as if suddenly she had been blind to everything else? And don’t get me started on her believing herself to be in love with Arthur - she was in love with the idea of him loving her, because otherwise when they had sex, she would have been thinking of him, and not how she had beat Evie to something for the first time. (Speaking of, what was with EVERYONE having sex seemingly all at the same time? Was this some weird Sense8 thing?) In conjunction with that, we had Sam and Evie getting it on at the end as well. Now, this is one to unpack. Because let’s see - first, they were on the outs and fighting. Then, Evie was making the moves on Jericho again (and him on her). And things seemed to be actually heating up there (not that I cared). BUT, Jericho got all beefed up both physically and paranormally and suddenly became a raging neanderthal who ALMOST RAPED EVIE and they had one small conversation after he came back to his senses that didn’t really resolve anything, she left feeling conflicted, and then slept with Sam because he was “real” with her. *blinks hard* So are we supposed to ignore the fact that Evie wanted Sam to give everything to her while she still had unresolved and conflicted feelings for Jericho? Or did she make up her mind about him and we just missed that? Look, I love Sam and I thought it should have been him and Evie from the get-go (but not without some long-term dancing around each other), but not like this. It just felt...wrong. (I still hate Jericho. He’s dull. And he’s a philosophy nerd. It seems to explain a lot.)

AND ANOTHER THING! What the hell was the retconning about Sam and the circus?? It was mentioned like three times in this book? But never before that? All of a sudden he's a trapeze artist? What is even the point?  Finally, the other story arc that annoyed me was the Roy one. Mostly it was how it ended - Theta goes full Phoenix on his ass (and I was so ready for her to give him his comeuppance), only to be stopped at the last minute by Memphis who gives her a mini speech about “stopping you for you” so that she doesn’t feel guilt in the future (not that she should after what Roy did). Seems like a good time for some quality character development right? Well, after Roy runs away after screaming “I’ll get you for this” like a Scooby-Doo villain, Theta just smiles and kisses Memphis as if the credits are already rolling. No breakdown, no talking things through, no reassurances - nothing. Just, move on - next storyline please. [END SPOILERS]

[gaiapaia]

Kermit and Friends: Regulus

This week’s special guest was Aaron Ozee, author of the very popular children’s book Regulus. The book was such a hit that it was made into an animated film, also titled Regulus. You can purchase the book here and rent or buy a digital version of the film here.

Regulus is about a ‘Rat King’ who refuses to share his cheese with the mice he considers beneath him. Unfortunately for the Rat King, he loses his King status and the bully then becomes the bullied. 

The book has a very strong anti-bullying message, and Elisa’s first question to Aaron Ozee was about that. Aaron would explain how he was bullied growing up and how it deeply affected him in a bad way, only then to use it as motivation in an effort to help others going through the same kind of bullying he suffered as a kid.

Bullying would be a strong theme throughout the rest of the show. Elisa got bullied for the shirt she wore, she was verbally abused by her fiancé, accused of exploitation by a moron, dogged by multiple KAF Wrap-Up show hosts... I mean, Elisa was catching flack from all angles this week for little to no reason. It was unbelievable and a bit disheartening if you’re like myself and care about Elisa.

Andy Dick is simply out of control. After trying to con Elisa out of $650 earlier in the week, he called her a “Fat whore” among other horrible names at The Grove in front of strangers and children on Saturday. He even got his ‘boyfriend’ Lucas to join in on the harassment. Just an awful situation that no one deserves, especially Elisa who has treated Andy like absolute gold these last couple of months.

Elisa finally seemed fed up with Andy’s abuse, but it wouldn’t last long. After claiming she was done with him, Andy actually appeared on the show just as Elisa was getting ready to end it. He was being nice and I could tell right away that Elisa would let him back in her good graces.

Andy would give a half-assed apology for his actions from the previous day, only then to call Elisa crazy and psychotic, only again to apologize after that. Elisa not only accepted his apologies but then offered to take him out to eat after the show. It seemed like she wanted to shift all the blame on to that Lucas guy, letting Andy completely off the hook.

People who don’t like Elisa will look at this behavior and call her weak, or they will say she’s hanging on to Andy no matter what he does just because he’s famous. The idiots who say that would be very wrong.

Elisa doesn’t have an angle. She’s been in abusive relationship after abusive relationship. I’m afraid Elisa doesn’t love herself so she’s more attracted to people that treat her like crap. Elisa will turn 33 in June so she’s old enough where this isn’t some wild young woman phase. My theory is subconsciously Elisa believes she deserves the abuse. It could possibly stem from her parents shipping her off to a demonic boarding school where it stuck with Elisa that sort of treatment is what she deserves in this life. She doesn’t deserve it, though. Not at all.

Elisa may not agree with me but I feel I’m right about this because I’m speaking from personal experience. I deal with the same self-loathing issues I believe Elisa has, but it’s easy for me to sit here and say Elisa should start loving herself more than to look in the mirror and tell myself the same. One of the many reasons why I will never look at Elisa in a bad light is because I can relate to the inner-struggle she’s been going through all these years. I just wish there was a way Elisa could see herself in the same spectacular light I see her in.

Elisa talked about these grandiose visions she had of herself and Andy, being featured on the cover of Forbes magazine, creating hit music, starring in movies... the works.

Just think about this... if you’re reading this blog, you already know how talented Elisa is, even if you don’t like her. You know she’s already achieved a level of success that not 1% of the population will achieve in the entertainment industry. So why does she need someone like Andy freakin’ Dick in order to vision herself on the cover of Forbes magazine? Imagine if Elisa set the goal without a man or anyone else’s help by her side... could she do it? I 100% believe she could if she gave it her all. I understand success isn’t anywhere near as fulfilling when you don’t have anyone to share it with, but you should at least strive to share your success with someone who treats you well.

Anyways, I apologize for jumping out of the review to share my personal feelings. I’m not happy with Andy, I’m not happy with that relationship. I want Elisa to have fun and create a show she can be proud of. It’s easier to accomplish that with a wacky outgoing famous guy like Andy Dick, I get that... but at this point, in my opinion, it’s not worth it if this is how Andy is going to treat Elisa.

Elisa is a grown woman though capable of making her own decisions. I will always love Elisa and wish the best for her because I know she has a beautiful heart/soul and her intentions are always good. There’s more I want to say about the situation but I’ll move on.

Back to Aaron Ozee... he gave a fantastic interview. He’s a very positive guy with big goals but also humble and polite. T-Bob tried to ruffle Aaron’s feathers with a couple of asinine questions about Black Lives Matter, and Aaron couldn’t have handled it more eloquently, even winning Trumpster Bob over (no easy feat). I was extremely impressed. On top of that, Aaron was respectful and non-judgmental to every KAF regular he talked to. Just a truly swell guy and I hope to see him more often on the show.

Kermit made a couple of new friends this week. One was Johnny B’s alter ego, Joannie B. Think Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire and that’s Joannie B. Very humorous stuff. A guy in some kind of Star Wars helmet named White Kanye also made his debut on Kermit and Friends. Apparently he’s been in some escapades with Andy Dick and told some stories. Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell if he was being truthful.

Chris Christine blessed the show with her presence again. She opened up about the 20 years she spent in the American military and how it led to some traumatic mental anguish. Chris credited an Andy Dick Cameo she received as to why she didn’t commit suicide a couple of years ago. She was incredibly sweet and even offered to pay Andy that $650 I mentioned above. Chris also said a lovely prayer for Elisa and Andy. What a sweet soul Chris is all around, she’s easily one of my new favorites.

Sharmin and Dr. Roy joined us in Miami. They’ve been having a vacation together and they helped Elisa sort through her feelings regarding Andy. It was awesome to see them having fun and looking so happy.

Eric Riggs had another sex video presented on the show, this time involving a pen and his rear end. Eric called in and made Elisa shut off the video before the conclusion. He was fine with last week’s sex tape but I guess this week he felt embarrassed. Eric would later read a poem about some woman named Mindy that owes him money, which also somehow involved Elisa’s vagina and horseradish. One of the weirdest poems I’ve ever heard but hey... that’s Kermit and Friends.

Barry “Boss” Mezey called into the show to accuse Elisa of exploiting Kermit’s friends. Barry fails to realize that Elisa gives a platform to literally anyone who wants to make use of it, and the people who garner the most interest from the audience are the people Elisa will feature the most, just like every other reality show in human existence. Barry’s phone calls could not have been more wrong, shame on him.

Lastly, Elisa sort of snapped this week on a chatter by the name of Nikki. Nikki criticized Elisa’s shirt and then said she could have a more popular show than Kermit and Friends if she tried. I think Elisa had some pent up frustration regarding Andy and sort of it took it out on Nikki, which by my estimation Nikki honestly deserved anyway. I just wish Elisa had that same fire not to put up with Andy’s BS. But Nikki has said some very mean things about Elisa in the past, both on Discord and on other Kermitarian related streams, so it’s not like Elisa attacked some innocent princess who made one bad comment. Nikki can be funny but she’s not a nice person at all, so while I commend Elisa for apologizing and feeling guilty over her words to Nikki... sometimes the bully gets bullied just like in Regulus.

The show ended with Elisa playing yet another tremendously creative music video from her talented co-host, Sugar. Overall it was a good show. The interview with Aaron was very professional and well done, and the Andy stuff I’m certain was entertaining for most people. KAF continues to deliver every week, just as I’m sure it will next week. 'Til then, I sincerely thank everyone for reading and I hope you all have a superb week... well, unless your name is Andy Dick, in which case you deserve a very bad week with another bite to the face from my main man Fozzie.

[rushingheadlong]

A review of Queen: The Early Years

Well I have finally finished reading Queen: The Early Years, and now that I have read all 198 pages of this book I feel very confident in saying:

Yall I don’t think this is a good book. Like I really, really do not think this is a good book.

I’ve talked about some of this once or twice before, but I wanted to get all my thoughts about this in one place so, here we go. Brace yourselves, this is going to get wordy (as all my posts invariably do).

The Sources (or lack thereof)

The author wrote this book based on interviews with “over 60 friends and colleagues” of the band. Contrary to an earlier post of mine, he does provide a full list of the people he spoke with, however a lot of these connections are... dubious at best.

He does interview former band members of the groups they were each with before Queen, which might be the only good bits of this book. But a lot of the people he talked to fall under “friends of friends” or “casual acquaintances” or “knew them for a few months decades ago” and not really people who had deep insights into Queen as people, which is fine but he’s presenting their information as if they did.

He also doesn’t give any qualifiers for the information presented - and unless it’s a direct quote from someone, he doesn’t even tell you where he’s getting 90% of the “facts” in his book from. There are no in-text citations, apart from those sporadic quotes, and no bibliography list anywhere in this book.

Instead, he just presents everything he’s writing as the absolute truth with next to nothing to back up what he’s saying, apart from cherry-picked quotes from people who have their own biases in these conversations to begin with. He writes about how many of these people fell out of touch with Queen for 30+ years, and there are several moments during reading where I was wondering whether these stories that were being quoted were true or if it’s the sort of thing that these people made up for the purpose of getting their name in print (especially stories about Freddie).

In the interest of fairness, he does admit in the two-page epilogue that he knows the people he talks to will have their own slant to their stories but he claims that all biographies are “a random assembly of thoughts and recollections” as if to absolve himself of the work of verifying anything being told to him, or at least putting in the effort to let the reader know that things cannot be verified rather than simply presenting everything as pure objective fact.

Authorial Bias and Band Portrayal

The author very much comes across as writing about the band to fit his preconceived ideas of who they are. There are definitely points in the book where he presents images of the band that almost seem like caricatures - Freddie made out to be the deeply self-loathing gay who everyone knew wasn’t actually straight, Brian to be the aloof controlling perfectionist - with little to no nuance given to their actions or stories.

But there are also a lot of moments when it seems like the author doesn’t like the band at all and that he’s writing this book in an attempt to tarnish their image?

Like I wrote in one of my earlier posts, he literally says that Freddie and Brian had the power in the band and that Roger and John had “token” roles. He also implies that Queen only started attributing songwriting credit to the band as a whole beginning with The Miracle to prevent singles royalties from going to Freddie’s estate when he died. The author also often feels the need to put the blame for failed friendships solely on the band, and on several occasions implies that they “betrayed” the people who helped them out in their early career.

Because of this, and because he conveniently doesn’t provide sources for anything he says, it makes me call into question basically everything he writes in this book. Are these stories and facts all accurate, or is he spinning the truth to fit the story he wants to tell?

It’s worth noting also that he apparently asked Brian, Roger, and John for their input, and they and all their official representatives declined. It’s always a red flag for me when someone writes about Queen without the band’s involvement, but the author presents this situation as if he had been deeply wronged by this and implies that any bias in the book was because he didn’t have “their” side of the story - and not because he simply failed to do any work to validate what 60+ strangers were telling him.

I also want to give a warning that how he writes about Freddie’s sexuality is painful in a lot of places. It’s a combination of ideas that don’t hold up well in the 25 years since publication (for example, he says in one place that since Freddie went to an all-boys boarding school it was obvious that he would end up being queer) as well as loose anecdotes shared by people who didn’t know him well, but all felt that they had to give input about his sexuality.

It feels like every time this author interviewed someone about Freddie, he felt obligated to include their “opinion” on whether it was obvious that Freddie was gay in the early 70s or not. It’s a heavy and strange focus that gets really uncomfortable to read about after a while, and one that I don’t think is really appropriate to have been included to the degree that it was.

Misinformation

The author flat-out puts wrong information into this book. I will admit that most of what I picked up on during my read is trivial, but it’s the sort of trivial that makes me question his authority to write anything accurately and also (I believe) has led to misinformation being spread in other Queen writings.

He says that Brian’s parents could have afforded to buy him a guitar, and that the building of the Red Special was essentially an act of ego. This is directly contrary to everything that Brian has ever said on the topic, which is that his family was too poor to afford to buy him a guitar and that the Red Special was built out of an act of necessity. (This also ties into the author’s biased writing of Brian as a controlling perfectionist.)

He gives incorrect dates for concerts and tour information, as can be proven by other first-hand sources like ticket stubs and tour posters. (For example, he says that Queen played six shows in New York’s Uris Theatre in 1974, when we know they only played five.) Again, this is a minor thing but if he’s getting details like this wrong why should I trust his broader stories or conclusions that have no other verifying sources to be correct?

I also think his book is the origination for the story about Brian getting gangrene due to a dirty vaccine needle in 1974. I have a problem with this claim in that I don’t think it’s actually true, but this book is now the earliest source of the story that I’ve seen by over a decade. However since the author doesn’t cite anything in this book, I have no idea how he found this information (or whether he made it up himself).

I also suspect that this is the book that Mick Rock copied information from when compiling the timeline in his book Classic Queen, which was published 12 years later in 2007. Mick Rock not only copies the gangrene story (again, with no further information or citations given) but also includes a very specific reference to Brian complaining about not feeling well while on tour on April 21st, 1974 - a date which is also specifically referenced in The Early Years, again without any citation for where this information came from.

No one takes Mick Rock seriously as a good source for Queen information (beyond info about the photo sessions themselves, which is about the only thing within his scope of expertise). Now it seems like he might have copied those “facts” from this book, which means we might very well have a situation of one questionable book being copied by another until misinformation and lies get assumed to be true just because they’re in more than one place now, never mind that none of this is getting backed up by anything concrete.

Tiny details because I’m big mad about this book just in general

Maybe this is just my copy (which is a physical book, not a digital copy) but there are a lot of typos in this book. Mike Grose becomes Mike Crouse from one paragraph to the next. Words are misspelled, punctuation is missing... It’s a little jarring to see in a book that was actually physically printed up, and makes me wonder if this went through any sort of editing process whatsoever.

Conclusions, or something of the sort?

I need to admit here that I am very angry about this book, because particularly in the later chapters I think the author starts speculating about band dynamics and things from later in their career in a way that is entirely wrong and inappropriate.

However, for the most part, I did enjoy the first part of this book. Roger’s and John’s early chapters seemed to be fine (and from what I’ve been told, the information in Roger’s chapters is backed up in other, better researched, sources). The book started falling apart for me around Brian’s and Freddie’s chapters, though, and as it progressed it just kept going off the rails.

I’m actually really frustrated and disappointed by this, because there’s a lot in this book that reads like it could be true. There’s a lot here that sounds very believable, that seems to align with what others have said about the band, and that I didn’t blink twice at until the cracks started showing up and everything got called into question.

There’s nothing exactly wrong with writing a “biography” based solely on loose anecdotes, especially given that this was written in 1995 shortly after Freddie’s death and before a lot of the more contemporary sources had come out (like Brian’s books and the things him and Roger have said in more recent years).

But I do think that the author has a responsibility for doing some vetting of these stories, either by trying to verify what’s been said or making it apparent to the reader that some of the information is hearsay or has to be taken with a grain of salt. The Early Years doesn’t do that, though. This book is presenting itself as a labor of love from a tired, dedicated author who has toiled over tracking down these stories while being rebuffed by the band itself, and at no point does anything come with a caveat about what’s being said.

The author wants you read this book and assume everything in it is true. The author wants you to feel sorry for him that he couldn’t interview Queen directly, and frankly it seems like he wants you to side-eye the official Queen story (or at least question their morals and motives) in favor of agreeing with the narrative that he presents.

And that’s the big issue that I have with this book. Most of the information in here could very well be true - but as a reader, you aren’t given the tools you need to judge that for yourself and instead are encouraged to sympathize with the author and his work, and to take what he says as objective fact and not look at any of it too deeply.

And because of that, the entire book falls apart for me. If I know that the author is printing small details of misinformation, and I don’t have any way of verifying what is being printed here, and the author starts presenting conclusions and narratives that run counter to everything else that has been said about Queen... how can I trust that anything in this book is accurate on it’s own?

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

Super Heroes are a HUMAN power fantasy Part 2

Super Heroes are a HUMAN power fantasy Part 1

Master Post

There were several points a bit more tangentially connected to my arguments in part 1. As a result I decided to leave them until now and hit them up in bullet points.

These are arguments against the superhero genre chiefly perpetuated by the tryhard trinity of Osvaldo Oyola , J. Lamb and Noah Berlatsky.

On the topic of the genre portraying ‘might making right’, the truth is this is part of the ancient inspirational aspect of these figures and can be found in stories like Rama and Sita, Rama of course ultimately never giving up his quest to be reunited with his lover. Which was not a Western influenced story.

Yes the genre involves ‘punching as conflict resolution’. I’m sorry, but that is part and parcel of the genre and the wish fulfilment/fantasy/narrative entertainment value of the stories. If you DON’T like that then frankly it’s like complaining that a romance story involves kissing.

It has been claimed that a black hero wouldn’t punch someone but again, the genre is entirely about people with powers using them to help people by preserving their life. And if they have no other choice but to K.O. a mugger who’s going to stab someone then a black person, or any decent person, would/should do it. But examining the meaning and repercussions of that realistically given the fact that they aren’t white in a white society is something that could benefit the genre.

A common critique of the genre is that crime happens sometimes because of a racist system, therefore fighting crime innately supports racism. Look, obviously we should remove institutionalised racism from the law. At the end of the day though if someone of any race is committing a crime which HURTS people they should be stopped, the reasons which drove them to that should be taken into consideration, but Spider-Man shouldn’t NOT stop a mugger because they’ve been driven to do that through desperation. There is often no time for that and without being able to talk to or trust strangers he or other heroes need to act in the moment.

Superhero fiction on one level is childish, but on a deeper level they’re representative of universal truths and desires which are often boiled down to fairy tales or simple stories. The above shitheads also claims that superhero fiction is written and consumed by children, when the truth is that in the last 20-30 years the opposite has been more true. THAT is partially why sales have been dwindling over the years.

Superman’s values are innate to the heroic and altruistic desires and ideals ALL humanity has expressed throughout its history. They are not inherently ‘white’

Apparently superheroes are white constructs because they reinforce the ‘status quo’. To quote the Atlantic article (see part 1) again:

“What status quo do superheroes reinforce? These heroes fight because everyone is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The only fascists here are the supervillains who disagree.”

Also Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were created specifically to change the status quo of the fictional worlds they were created in. At the same time the entire Marvel pantheon were about changing the status quo of the genre by introducing people who were flawed and different and more human than the DC heroes

Superheroes, despite the assertions by the above fuckwits have at times interrogated the justice system. But generally their lack of interrogation is I think for the same reason their science is so wonky. They don’t know better. They just boil it down to the simplest terms. Muggings and villain threats abound. Hero prevents those. They don’t know enough to tackle something much deeper than that. This ties into the fundamentally flawed aspect of most critiques wherein they are looking to superheroes as intellectual pieces of academic and critical study when...that’s not what they are...at all…

One of the above douchebags once said:

An African American Superman, with kinky, close-cropped black hair, thick, half-reddened lips, high cheekbones, and wide nostrils all bathed in dark Lindt chocolate, resists White supremacist logic, negates Black inferiority mythology, and threatens the established order. Superman’s disconcerting physicality, tempered by his omnipresent cheerfulness calmed and invited White comic readers to imagine themselves as gaudy Caucasian perfection, the Anglo-Saxon ideal. Static in panel, without speech bubbles or thought balloons, Superman Black warps the absurdly developed skeletal striated muscle and eternal hopefulness fans rejoice into a clear and present danger to the American experiment, an unholy figure derived from Tea Party paranoia, Barack Obama’s calculation and Terry Crews’ musculature. Public Enemy’s prescience abounds – were Superman Black introduced on the game-changing Action Comics’ cover, White America would have yet another reason to fear a Black planet.

This entirely depends upon who is doing the perceiving. To someone of a different mindset a Black Superman could be just that. The same thing Superman is except he happens to have black skin.

Also, the author needs to take a major chill pill, Jesus Christ.

Here is another quote from one of them:

Only in White male power fantasies can people blessed with skin privilege and bodies carved from living marble wield heat vision or super speed or unbreakable claws against indigent criminals from broken homes who lack high school educations.

This is again grossly incorrect because the idea of individuals having superhuman abilities and using them to fight criminals predates American society, and if one accepts figures like the Hydra to be stand-ins for threats to human life then the superhumans have been fighting what the criminals represent for eons before the advent of American society. The criminals they use their abilities against are rarely stated to lack education or come from broken homes, but yes okay let’s say that they are that.

Having super humans go up against them and defeat them isn’t a white male power fantasy because their abilities are used to subdue and NOT kill. Injure perhaps but in real life sometimes force is sadly necessary and if someone is robbing a bank or holding a gun to someone in an alley it is justified no matter what skin colour anyone involved in is, or what society you find yourself in, for the perpetrator to be stopped in order to safeguard life. Just because the perp resorted to what they did due to social ills beyond their control, that doesn’t justify their actions at that moment. Stealing someone’s money or trying to murder them is never ever going to be acceptable no matter if we live in a white society or not.

Only in White male power fantasies would women display abundant porcelain cleavage or don starry microskirts to fight crime.

Yeah um, preeeeeeetty sure that actually that’s more of a male SEXUAL fantasy and less than a WHITE male POWER fantasy. That was never the topic of conversation.

Shuttle diplomacy or natural resource husbandry rarely bring metal-faced technological sorcerers to heel in superhero comics; superheroes often save planet Earth through fantastic violence judiciously applied.

Yeah, that’s part of the narrative FANTASY element of the genre that is intended to be escapist. Condemning it for being otherwise is asinine.

More than this, guess what, there are people whom Dr. Doom is a metaphorical stand-in for. And an awful lot of them legitimately can’t be negotiated with. I am of the belief that in the REAL world we should negotiate and use force when there is no other choice and even then only use what is necessary. But the Dr. Dooms and Lex Luthors of the comic book world represent grander themes of evil and social ills, whilst at the same time existing to challenge the heroes physically and mentally. They represent the unmovable types of evil that legitimately can only be dealt with via physical means.

This was the type of circular logic I talked about before. It is looking at the villains as stand ins for EVERY type of situation and therefore the super hero’s use of violence as ‘problematic’, when in reality the superheroes’ use of violence isn’t problematic because it is justified by the extreme circumstances they find themselves in.

Because those situations don’t exist in real life...like in World War II...which was literally about people using force in the face of failed negotiation to halt the advance of fascism…

I submit that the superheroic reflex to subdue evil with violence directly descends from Thucydides and Alexander, from Richard the Lionheart and Dwight Eisenhower.

Yeah...except it isn’t. Again...it came from the same place as Hercules and Sun Wukong, and those came from the natural human biological imperatives to survive.

Superheroic morality requires Western Civilization’s literary canon and political history to justify its callous disregard toward collateral damage. To be clear, superheroes routinely consider innocent noncombatants’ lives (if not their property) when they confront cosmic despots or sociopathic steroid abusers, but comics document the never-ending battle in colorful tomes largely sold after Nagasaki and My Lai, after the time when total ignorance of American military supremacy was vogue. When Wally West as the Flash pulls a hysterical single mother out of her overturned silver 2001 Honda Civic and carries her to safety from Apokoliptian cannons at breakneck speed, comic fans favorably regard his heroism; any dialogue from the frazzled thirty-something file clerk will remind readers how grateful she is to escape otherworldly horror with her life. Superhero comics don’t care about the destruction of this woman’s sole transport; when the gas tank explodes behind the Flash’s blurred strobe, this woman loses her credit cards, her driver’s license, her insurance documents, her six-year-old daughter’s vanilla birthday cake with its beloved artificially flavored strawberry icing. The comics don’t recognize the heroism of this brave woman’s seven-month struggle to rebuild her finances and maintain her identity following Darkseid’s incursion; all we know is for that poor woman, the Flash saved the day. He’s a superhero. Isn’t she grateful?”

Collateral damage and the disregard for it IS regarded. Hence the existence of Damage Control. Furthermore, that is AGAIN part of the escapism and fantasy element of it. THAT is the suspension of disbelief element of superheroes and taking it THAT realistically and criticising it for it is frankly just mean spirited and simply looking for an excuse to hate it.

Furthermore the reason the rescued woman isn’t focussed upon is because it’s not HER story. If you write a story about a protagonist THEY are your focus. Everything is for their benefit. That’s true of older non-white folktales as well.

And yeah readers are supposed to regard the Flash as heroic and the woman grateful because her kid’s birthday cake isn’t realistically as important as her life!!!!!!

This is criticising superhero fiction for being unrealistic even when it is being actively so The woman WOULD probably be grateful that she’s not fucking dead!

I wouldn’t mind seeing the survivors of something like this try to rebuild their lives. And superhero fiction has focussed upon that from time to time, but again...that’s not the point of the story. Criticising the genre fro this is like criticising Harry Potter for having the audacity to focus more upon Harry’s trauma in the wake of Cedric Diggory’s death than his parents’. Harry is the star. He gets the focus.

Superman is a White boy. Superheroes are White people. Superhero morality exacts the Melian Dialogue’s ‘might makes right’ overwhelming force realpolitik with every onomatopoetic Biff! Bam! Pow! gut punch and karate chop combo.

See what I’ve said before about how superheroes are not fascists and how force is often necessary

There exists no genetic propensity for group violence in the human genome. None.”

Er....yeah...there kinda is...that’s part of why wars happen.

racially-informed vigilantism.

This phrase in one of the articles itself sums up it’s own contradictions. Racially informed vigilantism is just one type of vigilantism, a type the superhero doesn’t subscribe to. A superhero would sooner join the likes of the Joker than the KKK style vigilantes and would be all too happy to apprehend them.

One of the articles seems to be conflating basically ALL criminals super heroes fight with people who’re labelled criminals due to racial profiling. Yes superheroes operate to an extent like police officers but you can’t truly complete the analogy whatsoever.

Few of them have legal sanction, which is partially why so many refrain from actually killing anyone as officer’s are allowed to do under certain circumstances. More than this when they take down criminals their methods are entirely different from regular cops. Apart from very loud and overt super villains who may or may not be on a rampage, most of the time when they tackle regular criminals it’s due to them either being informed of a crime that is going to happen (like a hijacking or something) or they literally see something happening whilst on patrol. They don’t profile people beyond what their super sensory abilities or logical observations tell them. Which is to say if someone is following someone else a little too closely then maybe, just maybe they are planning something. If their Spider-Sense or super hearing or something alerts them to something they will act.

Taking that, ignoring it, and then supplanting the superhero for a regular cop who would racially profile people and/or supplanting the criminals they tackle for racial minorities because those are the people who (stereotypically in the real world) would be targeted as criminals is very inappropriate. Not least of all since superhero comics obviously don’t present a wholesale realistic depiction of the real world so what they present isn’t entirely interchangeable with that. And what is more, erasure of minorities was so prevalent that overwhelming majority of all the criminals they ever encountered were themselves white, so again exchanging those for racial minorities who’re profiled as criminals is highly questionable.

It’s all just such a MASSIVE reach!

But I think the panels also work to point out that Miles himself “does not belong” in the superhero tradition. He, like most black and brown superhero characters in mainstream comics, is an outlier. In other words, people like Miles or Trayvon are unfortunately more likely to be victim of a “heroic” vigilante than to be one.

This is conflating the superhero vigilante with the majority of real world vigilantes who are overly violent (and frequently hard conservative) individuals who do take overly simplistic views of the law and use those to profile people. And it’s doing so whilst taking superheroes too literally, bringing their own personal interpretations to the mix and then overlaying them onto the superhero concept before finally accepting it as fact.

Police officers use violence against racially profiled people who exhibit unrest due to a societal system stacked against them. Well shit, Batman punches the Joker. It must be the same thing obviously!!!!!

Look. Without our stories, without the true nature and reality of who we are as people of color, nothing about fanboy and fangirl culture makes sense. What I mean by that is, if it wasn’t for race, X-Men doesn’t make sense; if it wasn’t for the history of breeding human beings through chattel slavery, Dune doesn’t make sense; if it wasn’t for the history of colonialism and imperialism, Star Wars doesn’t make sense; if it wasn’t for the extermination of so many indigenous nations, most of what we call “first contact” stories don’t make sense. Without us as the secret sauce, none of this works, and it is about time that we understand that we are the Force that holds the Star Wars universe together. We’re the Prime Directive that makes Star Trek possible. We are… in the Green Lantern Corps? We are the Oath. We are all of those things. Erased, and yet without us? We’re essential. This is an incredibly important project, because it puts front and center, not only a community that has long consumed and given power to these practices and consumer categories, but it’s a community without whose suffering and struggles, none of [these narratives] would make sense.

I agree with a lot of this but there are some problems with it.

a)     X-Men makes sense also because they are a stand in for almost ALL marginalised groups. Racial minorities, disabled people, queer people etc.

b)     Actually Star Wars makes complete sense with or without colonialism or imperialism, at least the kind which directly relates to the issues of racism. Imperialism, conquest, these are things which are much older than American society, dating back to even before Ancient Rome. It’s about freedom fundamentally and freedom is a desire shared by ALL human beings innately because at the end of the day we are animals who wish to be free and not caged. Being caged metaphorically within a tyranny is thus something we abhor

c)     The Star Wars universe doesn’t begin and end with the story of imperialism. It’s about how Democracy can be turned into an dictatorship and how that has to be prevented, or re-addressed once it happens

d

When white comics readers claim that they did not need white characters to relate to and enjoy comics (as a way to argue against positive race-bending), that point to their love of Luke Cage or Spawn as evidence of their ability to enjoy characters across race, what they are failing to note is how black, Latin@, etc… identities in the superhero genre are framed by a system of white supremacy.

Again I don’t understand this one. I as a white reader can enjoy Luke Cage rescuing someone from a burning building because doing that is part of white supremacy????

It presumes a white power fantasy is inherently different to a black one. But the power fantasy element of the superhero relates to them having powers and using them to help others and defeat villains. A power fantasy by another race would still have that because it is inherent to the human power fantasy. Non-white power fantasies would logically have all that and more!

Much like Noah Berlatsky explains in his book Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics, 1941-1948, part of what made Marston’s original Wonder Woman stories so wonderful, was his expectation that girls and boys would identify with the heroine, to value and idealize her compassionate strength and victory through submission, rather than through cyclical and ultimately futile fisticuffs of male dominion.

Many female readers enjoy the action scenes. Action scenes are good because it enables us to have a healthy outlet for aggression without taking it out into the real world. It is also NOT an inherently male dominion thing. Again this is THEIR projection. Fighting and violence is innate to human beings because we are animals biologically programmed towards it for the sake of survival. That goes for males and females. Furthermore far from fisticuffs just being about male ‘dominion’ the Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman comics were a reflection of impending war. A war that sadly required violence to be solved.  That’s what the superhero typifies. Wish fulfilment action in situations where violence was (usually) a necessity. Diplomacy is good and should be our first resort. In life though sometimes things do come down to necessary violence.

There are many ways to craft a racial minority superhero, but if we consider racial authenticity as a foremost concern, today’s Hollywood is simply not prepared for that intellectual labor. The real diversity conundrum isn’t how to include the minority metahuman in the existing comic framework; that’s an art project, a casting decision solved by calling Michael B. Jordan’s agent. The real question is how to write that superhero in a way that moves the medium forward, past the Reaganomics antiheroes of Alan Moore and Frank Miller and past the hyper-emotive Silver Age redux of Geoff Johns and Brian Michael Bendis. Respectable, authentic diversity in superhero comics should redefine the nature of the meta-protagonist to his powers and his audience, with exhaustive attention to cultural detail. I’m not convinced that a Black superhero would wear tights. I strongly doubt that a Black superhero would solve conflicts with his fists. The Black superhero knows that his community watches him religiously, and that any false move will have public repercussions he cannot expect or control.  If anything, the Black superhero template plays out on our nation’s cable news channels at all hours. President Barack Obama, with all his clipped vocal inflections and measured language and natural equivocation and faulty dealmaking and perfect family and limitless patience is the closest public figure to a Black superhero America has yet experienced, an international celebrity unthinkable before his ascent. Watching President Obama today, one feels expectation crush into his bones like a gravity well. No matter the political stimuli, Republicans oppose him. The concept of the Obama Presidency struck American conservatives like a Bernard Hopkins’ kidney punch, and in return, President Obama absorbs the vitriol of our coarse public debates more than any President to date (and progressives never tired of calling his predecessor a National Socialist). The agony and the ecstasy of Grant Park has given way for many Americans to the sobering fact that American authority, her global military supremacy and international economic primacy, is controlled and represented by a Black man. Disliked, hated, or worse, the Establishment is Black.  I need the Black superhero in print and/or on-screen to reflect that paradigm shift. Superheroes in the popular imagination are Establishment figures; if the Black superhero I’m presented can’t interrogate what it means when the Establishment is Black, of what utility is her story?  

A minority hero wouldn’t wear tights or punch people...why?

What do tights have to do with anything? As for solving problems with his fists this is conflating the threats superheroes face with ANY threat, when they are almost always situations which legitimately do require necessary physical force to resolve. If the black superhero patrols an area and sees someone about to stab someone else, yeah he should punch the stabber to save the innocent person if there is no time for anything else.

This is basically asking for the core foundation of superheroes (which transcends racial constructs and is innate to human wish fulfilment and mythic tradition) to be scrapped in favour of something else entirely. Barrack Obama isn’t a superhero. He is many, many things but what Mr. Lamb here is asking isn’t so much for a different template but for something just wholesale different. He doesn’t actually WANT a superhero story in the first place!

Super heroes aren’t establishment figures. Superheroes don’t uphold the law regardless. They uphold the law in so far as a greater need to safeguard innocent lives. Conflating them as inherently establishment figures ignores their origins and over literalises what they do.

At the same time the utility of their story is first and foremost as a story: to entertain and inspire.

It is inherently worthwhile for a little black kid to sit down and open up a comic book where someone who looks like them is being a good person, is helping people, is defending the weak. I agree that minority heroes shouldn’t just be white heroes who happen to have different skin colours. I think they need to reflect the realities of what it means to be black or Asian or Pakistani in white society is necessary and a superhero should do that and should have that inform how they interact with their powers.  It doesn’t mean the whole genre needs to abandon what it fundamentally is or that those minority heroes should not do the things a superhero fundamentally do.

Ultimately, yeah these characters were created within a white context, but my point is fundamentally the same thing was created in non-white contexts as well throughout history.

Super Heroes are a HUMAN power fantasy Part 1

Master Post

[seilahsacress]

Everything Wrong With The Way Neji Was Handled

I'm in the mood so I'm gonna write something that has been on my mind for quite some time. Here we go.

1-) Neji vs. Hinata

Let's start with the most obvious offense: Why did people allow this match in the first place?

Gai, Kurenai, huns, exactly what were you thinking? Both Hinata and Neji are heavily damaged children, seriously what were you expecting from this fight?

And that's without saying Neji would get in a lot, a lot of trouble for defeating Hinata. Heyoo??? Hinata absolutely wouldn't activate Neji's seal but Main House elders would. Even if they didn't care about Hinata's well being at all, I'm sure beating a Main House member into a coma qualifies as a revolutionary act and I don't think slave owners would be fine with it.

I don't like how the narrative portrays Neji as the villain in the match too. Neji DID warn Hinata, he did tell her that he was gonna win this and she should give up. Hinata didn't, she chose to fight and even when it was absolutely obvious she lost, she still came at him. What was she expecting, to get out unharmed? No, Hinata knew Neji had understandable reasons to hate her and Neji warned her to give up at the beginning. This isn't to justify Neji's misplaced anger but to claim why Hinata wasn't completely innocent.

Besides, people do realize that Neji is a literal child slave, right? That stuff tends to slightly screw your mind up, do people know? It doesn't make Neji a horrible monster that he hated his owner's daughter who could exploit him and make his life a hell with just one hand sign, no matter how the said daughter was genuinely a good person. Neji was in the wrong and Hinata didn't deserve his hatred, a big yes to this but holy sweet, be a little bit understanding.

But nah, Neji is a bad villain and great Naruto will kick his ass. Hinata is so undoubtly good that even Neji's teammate supports her instead of... I dunno... realizing the "for the first time, Branch House shall win!" quote meant that the match wasn't just about a black and white hard work stuff and Neji did have his reasons too.

2-) Neji vs. Naruto

This match may be the most hilariously stupid thing I've ever seen in any form of fiction...

So... Naruto preaches about how hard work beats genius even though the one with one year worth of more experience and training among the two is Neji. Then, Naruto beats Neji by... using Kyubi?

??? :D

Hyuga's style was extremely disagventagous against a Jinchuriki since Bijuus essentially work as a secondary chakra battery which can re-activate closed Tenketsus. That's how Naruto beats Neji. Birth advantage. Neji has one more year of training and experience but it failed against birth advantage.

Hard work truly beats genius. Nice way to prove your themes.

And where was Gai during the match anyway? Kakashi has an excuse not to be there since Sasuke would have died to Gaara if he didn't complete his training but Gai? Couldn't he just carry Lee to the arena and watch his student's match?

Besides, a simple "I'm gonna change the Hyuga when I become the Hokage!" was enough to touch Neji because that quote meant someone actually gave a fuck about what he's going through. It meant someone else agreed that the slavery in his clan was wrong and his feelings about it were validated. It was that simple.

Question: Where tf was Gai during roughly one and a half year???

3-) Solution to Slavery

Credit: https://www.deviantart.com/purple-snowflakes/art/Caged-Bird-Neji-198284847

Neji is shaken up enough already after his match with Naruto. Then Hiashi, his owner, comes and...

"We didn't kill your father, he chose to die. That doesn't mean all that much since we were gonna kill him even if he objected anyway, he had no choice but to use that fake freedom of choice narrative. Anyway, that's not the topic at hand now. Your father escaped his destiny by dying to us so your feelings of anger are kinda invalid. Sorry, suck it up. Oh, and know I didn't object slavery at all during all this time, there's also an anime filler of me torturing a seven year old you, but heeey, I apologize so it's fine. Don't forget, your father wouldn't want you to be bitter about our house's unfair system :)"

Please tell me I wasn't the only one who screamed emotional manipulation at that panel.

What kind of bs answer is 'choose to die' to slavery anyway? Do they have a right to choose not to die when their owner asks them to die? No, they don't. Then, they're not free.

I also hate how later in the series, Neji's anger at the Main House was invalidated because his father had pulled the "well, I'm gonna die anyway, I may as well as trick myself into believing I'm finally free because I'm desperate and that's the only way I can feel some closure at death" card. Excuse me but Neji is still a slave to the Main House, he'll remain so as long as that mark is on his forehead remains - Hiashi's apologize be dammed. He HAS the right to be mad at the Main House and the clan's system.

4-) Later on...

Neji dies to some flying pieces of wood he absolutely should have been able to defend against cus the author needed a... uh... What's the word here? Anti-plot armor? The opposite of a plot armor? Negative plot armor? I dunno, send help.

Note: Hiashi's or whoever's words don't mean a thing. Neji SHOULD HAVE BEEN able to defend that attack.

His death is insulted with a ship moment that comes mere minutes after. We also don't get enough reaction from his teammates, one manga page is all.

And Naruto, the boy who lectured him about how destiny doesn't exist turns out to be a demi God and the child of the prophecy. And all that jazz.

Nice way to prove your themes again.

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Well, rest in peace my boy. You deserved a lot better with just about everything but look at from the bright side, at least now you're safe from SP!

Oh, H E L L N O !

[keepingupwithfundies]

I am honestly glad that you've found Dave Ramsey helpful! Sincerely. With that said, I have a different take on this.

I think this is am excellent nuanced take on Dave Ramsey and FPU from a mainline Christian, that addresses many of my issues with FPU, while also giving credit for the parts that work:

https://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2015-11/debating-dave-ramsey-s-financial-peace-university&ved=2ahUKEwi3go6m8f3iAhWm2FkKHeHaA64QFjASegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw2XVqPuuxQwm8IYWwdjwhGi

I have some serious issues with Dave Ramsey. He has gotten quite rich marketing himself to poor fundie and evangelical Christian families, who often face challenges that he doesn't account for. His almost single minded focus on elimination of debt does not take into account the reality of being working poor or even middle class in America, and leaves other aspects of financial planning underserved.

I am skeptical of any financial guru who uses a biblical basis for financial planning but cherry picks quotes from the Bible and fails to address poverty and economic inequality and its effects on many people.

I also think that, taken to the extreme, as many fundies do, his advice is downright dangerous at times. If you have 12 kids and your whole focus is that debt isn't biblical and one of your kids needs a new pair of shoes, or a cavity filled, or is going through a growth spurt and needs twice as much food suddenly, and you can't afford it that month, but you've been convinced debt is not biblical, guess who is going to suffer? Innocent kids, who didn't choose this way of life.

And that part isn't *really* Ramsey's fault, but it's a reality that fundies use his teachings to justify denying their children's needs. And I don't see him speaking up loudly to decry that.

Ultimately, a lot of people - some religious,, some not - have found Ramsey's teachings very helpful in getting their financial houses in order, especially after college, or marrying, or other big life events. I'm glad. But there are hundreds of other financial advisors who can do the same that don't come with that kind of baggage, from nationally known speakers and authors, to financial planners in your community who will sit down with you personally, to online bloggers. And, for me personally, I'd rather give them my money and attention, because they don't carry that baggage.

Also, you will literally never convince me the Dillards are in great shape financially. Unless I see actual financial records.

Plenty of fundies enthusiastically champion Ramsey and claim they are in great financial shape simply because they don't have debt. But not having debt doesn't mean you're in great financial shape. It just means you don't have debt. There are other indicators of financial position- do you have savings? How many months could you pay your Bills without incurring debt if you suddenly lost your income? Do you have insurance for your home, vehicles, health, and life? Are you insured sufficiently to provide for your spouse and children if you die suddenly? Have you done proper estate planning? Do you have a regular income or are you relying on friends or family to make ends meet? Have you begun to save for retirement? Do you have investments, and if so, what type? Is your home gaining equity? Are you saving for your children's educational needs? And the list goes on.

Also. Unless Jill and Derick had mad savings, their lifestyle is being supplemented somewhere. I don't know if it's JB, or a trust from show earnings, or law school loans, but law school is expensive, Derick isn't working, and Jill has small time sponsorships, and they aren't appearing on the show anymore. Following Ramsey's advice doesn't make money appear out of nowhere. So if you do the math on that one, either someone is helping them, they're living off of all of their savings or have a secret source of income (I'm skeptical...), or they're incurring significant debt. 🤷‍♀️

And now, since I've bored you with my utterly irrelevant opinions on this, have a gif!

- Mary

[carry-on-my-pretty-weeper]

Passing With Flying Colors

Author: carry-on-my-pretty-weeper

Character(s): Peter and Reader

Word Count: 2.6k+

Author’s Note: sorry for the long wait! It took awhile to figure out where i wanted to go with this. Hope it’s to your liking!!

Request: I’ve always thought it would be kind of cute to see a peter Parker x reader fic? Where the reader isn’t the best at school and doesn’t get the best grades, she’s super bubbly and kind though. So she asks Pete to tutor her and she gets like the best grade she’s ever had, and then she thanks him in a very public and embarrassing way but it’s kind of endearing if that makes sense? I don’t know haha thought it might be a cute idea 😊 

“I. Can’t. Do. It.” you grumbled as you thunked your head on the library’s table punctuating each word. How were suppose to get a good grade on your upcoming math test if you couldn’t even do the homework? Maybe I could just be a mime. Mime’s don’t need a high school education.

“Uh, Y/n?” a voice spoke out as you lifted up your head. And who else would be standing there but the school genius in all of his cute dorky glory, Peter Parker. Straightening up you brushed your hair out of your face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah I’m fine, it’s my grade that’s suffering,” you joked with a smile. That got a laugh out of him. He sat down next to you and started pulling out a notebook. “Whatcha doing there?” you asked as you tilted your head.

“Well, uh y-you said your grade was um suffering so-I mean, I just thought maybe I could help? L-like a tutor maybe?” he stuttered with nervousness coating his actions. The smile that graced your face could only be described as a thousand watt smile. You quite literally beamed.

“I’d love that! Thanks Pete!” you exclaimed excitedly. Scooting closer to him he explained out how to solve the problems. But you were extremely lost, everything sounded like a foreign language coming out of his mouth. He registered the lost look on your face and tried to simplify his words. When that didn’t work he started making analogies to things you knew, like cooking. He noticed you were constantly checking out recipe books and so he assumed that you liked to cook. Luckily enough you did and his analogies got through to you. Soon enough you zoomed passed all of the practice problems and finished with a real understanding of the material. “That has to be the first time I’ve ever understood math since like seventh grade,” you laughed as you started putting away your notebook.

“Happy I could help,” he admitted as he ran his hand through his hair. You both stood up but Peter hesitated for a second. “Do you think, I mean um if you wanted to, tomorrow you’d want to uh study again?”

“Only if it’s no trouble!” you expressed no wanting to be a bother.

“No! It’s no trouble! Ahem, no trouble at all,” he claimed as he tried to be cool like Ned told him.

So that’s what you both did after school for the last two weeks. Sometimes he had to leave early but for the most part he always stayed and helped you study. You even went to his apartment. Twice! You finally understood the material and that was something new. So walking into your math test on Wednesday you were nervous but also excited at the prospect of doing well. You took your time but actually finished every problem. Usually some of them you had to guess or leave blank but you finished the whole test. When the bell rang you left the class and saw Peter on the other side of the hallway.

“Hey, Y/n! What’s up?” he called out making his way to you. He almost tripped on himself but recovered quickly as a blush tinted his face.

“Well I just finished my math test and I feel like I didn’t fail because of my hero,” you joked gesturing to him. His blush reddened as you both laughed.

“I can’t take all the credit, you worked really hard,” he insisted as your hands brushed against each others. Peter, redder faced, immediately put his hands in his pocket and you fake coughed.

“Thanks, Peter,” you replied as a weird feeling spread in your chest. “I think I better get to my next class.”

“Of-of course! Yeah, w-wouldn’t want to be late,” he stuttered as he wordlessly cursed his heart for beating faster than normal. He wouldn’t be surprised if you could hear it. Mortified. But not surprised.

Friday after school when you were checking your grades and you noticed a notification in your math grade. Taking a deep breath you clicked on it. The seconds ticked by as the loading sign silently taunted you. Finally the grades loaded and you screamed. Your dad burst into your room obviously confused.

“What’s wrong?! Are you okay pumpkin?!” he boomed ready to fight off whatever made you scream.

“I got a 92% on my math test!” you shouted as you jumped on your bed excitedly. Your dad hugged you lifting you up like you weighed nothing and swung you around.

“Good job Pumpkin!” he yelled matching your excitement. Your little brother Tommy burst into the room and wanted to be apart of the celebration.

“Why are we yelling?!” he cheered as he jumped on your bed.

“Y/n got an A! On a math test no less! This calls for a victory dinner!” your dad exclaimed. He was right it did call for victory dinner but you felt the need to invite a certain curly haired genius.

“Can I bring a really important friend?” you asked with your puppy dog eyes. They worked 100% of the time and were a fool proof plan to get Peter here.

“Of course I’ll tell your mom to put out an extra plate,” he replied as he gave to a kiss on your forehead, “I’m so proud of you Y/n/n.” Happiness filled your chest as he left your room grabbing Tommy on his way to help your mom start cooking. Scrambling around your room you grabbed your mom’s old boombox and a blank poster from your art supplies then started your run to Peter’s apartment.

Peter was lounging in his room, wooden pencil twirling in his hand when he heard music coming from outside his apartment. Then he got a text from you telling him to look outside. Getting curious he went to his window and was surprised to see you standing with a boombox and a poster in the middle of the sidewalk out in the cold. You were surrounded by people but didn’t seem to care as you gave him an excited wave. On the poster it read “I aced the test because of you!” You mouthed ‘come down’ and he ran faster than a bullet down the stairs. Before he left he shouted “I’ll be back in a bit Aunt May!” Once he opened the door to the building you turned off the boombox.

Running up to him you hugged and squealed “I did it! I did it! I got an A!” He was momentarily taken aback before returning the hug. Letting go you began speed talking, “So my parents are going to be cooking me a victory dinner- it’s something they do sometimes, and I thought- that since you helped me, that maybe you would want to go? Butifyoudon’twanttothat’sfinetoo-” Looking at you he realized you were really nervous and that you were blushing a smidge, although he chose to believe it was because of the cold air.

“I’d love to,” he interjected before you could freak yourself out.

“Oh! Uh g-great!” you realized now you were the one stuttering. Pull yourself together Y/n!

“Let’s go shall we? Gotta get there before you freeze,” he joked as he took off his jacket leaving him in a sweater. He draped it around your shoulders as you began to blush even more. Over Thursday you may have realized that you developed feelings for Peter and that funny feeling in your chest was just that. Feelings. But you were trying not to think about him like that so they would go away. He’s doing this to be nice. He’s just a friend. He’s just a friend. He’s just a-

“You look cute like that,” he admitted with an adorable dorky smile.

Crap.

The walk to your apartment was filled with conversation. At one point Peter took the boombox from your hands leaving you with just the poster. You wished you still had it because now you didn’t know what to do with your hands. Once you got to your front door you stopped and turned to Peter. “Just a warning my family can be a bit...much,” you warned him with an apologetic face.

“I’m sure they’re great,” he reassured you before you opened the door. You saw movement in the kitchen and deduced that’s where they both were at the moment. Peter set down the boombox and it made a sound.

“Honey is that you?” your mom called out. Motioning for Peter to follow, you walked into the kitchen.

“Yeah mom it’s me,” you replied give her a hug.

“This must be your friend! Peter!” she said as she turned to him. She enveloped him in a big hug and you could tell he wasn’t expecting that. “It’s so good to meet you Y/n talked about you a lot!” Your face became red again.

“It’s nice to meet you too Mrs. Y/l/n,” he remarked giving her a sincere smile.

“Oh please call me Y/m/n,” she insisted before turning to you noticing the jacket that did not belong to you giving you a wink, “you kids runalong now, I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”

“Okay mom,” you squeaked as you felt embarrassed. As you were leaving the kitchen you ran into your dad. The moment he saw Peter he gave you a look that said ‘the friend was a boy?’ to which you quickly nodded. “Peter this is my dad,” you introduced him as he shook Peter’s hand.

“Nice to meet you sir,” he greeted trying to keep his voice from shaking.

“It’s wonderful to meet you Pete,” he said with a grin that made his whole face seem younger. Peter was relieved he wasn’t the kind of ‘I’ll kill you if you talk to my daughter’ kind of dads. Cause Peter really liked you and wanted your parents to like him too. Also he didn’t want to deal with another dad’s plot to kill him. He had enough of that from Liz’s dad. “So how do you know our pumpkin?” he teased knowing how that name embarrassed you in front of people.

“I’ve been helping Y/n with her math for the past couple weeks,” he answered more at ease. This widened your dad’s smile as he turned to you.

“Finally a smart one,” he whispered not-so-quietly as you grabbed Peter’s arm hauling him away from your dad.

“I think mom’s calling you from the kitchen-”

“Funny I didn’t hear her,” he said with a teasing look.

“Well she did so you should definitely go over there and help her. Away from here,” you insisted as you brought Peter to your room. Door open of course. “Sorry about that,” you apologized as you sat on your bed but Peter was wearing a genuine smile.

“No it’s okay it’s...refreshing,” he replied as a reminder washed over you about how he probably hasn’t been in a full family dynamic for a while. You felt guilt and at the same time someone passed by your room but stopped.

“Y/n has a boy in her room!” you heard your brother’s voice shout at the top of his lungs as he raced down the hallway.

“And a cute one at that!” your mom chirped.

“Mom!” You wanted your bed to swallow you up but Peter was laughing his ass off. “So if you couldn’t tell my mom really likes you,” you joked to take the attention off of your burning face.

“I didn’t know you had a little brother,” he observed as his laughs died down.

“Yeah his name’s Tommy and he’s a little pain,” you replied as Peter took a seat at your desk, “but I love him or whatever.” The two of you talked for a bit before your mom called you into the kitchen to help cook. Apparently your dad had ‘a bit of trouble’ with the cornbread.

“I’ll be back in a bit. I’d say talk with my dad or brother but they’ll definitely embarrass me so…” you drawled out before popping into the kitchen. You helped your mom out but the entire time your mind was on Peter, you could hear conversation and laughing from the room over. Gosh I hope it’s nothing too embarrassing. You wouldn’t put it passed your dad to tell every embarrassing story while you weren’t there to defend yourself. As you put the cornbread in the oven you heard a key part of the conversation.

“That’s why she’s afraid of birds.” Oh geez. That means he told the story of how when you were in the fourth grade your dad gave you bread to feed to the pigeons but then they all swarmed you and didn’t leave you alone. Then you ran crying to your dad. He even got a picture of them all attacking you. Rushing to the living room you whined, “Dad! You’re not suppose to tell my friends humiliating stories about me.” But he just gave you a look that meant ‘oops sorry not sorry’.

“No, I like them. They’re cute,” he insisted as your mom walked into the room. For the next twenty minutes you all fell into easy conversation. Peter even got the Tommy seal of approval, mainly because they started geeking out over Star Wars. Once everything was ready you all migrated to the kitchen and started eating dinner. This is when your dad decided it’d be the perfect opportunity to start grilling him on his future. Peter answered all of the question with ease causing your parents to like him even better. You got the feeling that if you didn’t date him soon they’d be crushed. Wait whAT?! Why’d you think that? Where did that thought even come from? Date him? You didn’t even know if he liked you! Your face suddenly became very hot and you prayed that Peter didn’t notice. Unfortunately he did.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked as his eyebrows contorted together in concern.

“Yep! I’m fine. Just peachy!” you claimed as you took a giant swig of your water. You were starting to act weird and you knew it. Your parents knew it too which made it even worse. They were subtly teasing you the entire time. Poor Peter didn’t know what was happening and all the jokes went over his head. Finally the night started coming to an end and your family was saying their goodbyes. Tommy told him that he had to let him help with building Peter’s lego Star Wars set. Peter promised he’d come over with it sometime. You walked him outside of your apartment door, closing it behind you. Realizing you were still wearing his jacket, you tried to give it back to him.

“Keep it. You look better in it than I do,” he replied with a small blush on his cheeks. You swore your heart was going to jump out of your chest.

“Thanks Peter.” You both knew you were staring too long. Then Peter’s gaze slipped to your lips. After a short pause he spoke up.

“Y/n?” he whispered quietly looking back into your eyes.

“Yeah Pete?” you asked holding your breath. You were both so close to each other now.

“Can I-may I kiss you?”

“Yes.” And he did just that. He leaned down and kissed you. His lips tasted faintly of the peppermint cookies your mom served earlier. You kissed him back and he saw fireworks. His left hand came up to cradle your face as the two of you broke away. Both of your faces were bright crimson as expected.

“Well, I-I guess I’ll see you at school?” he stuttered out as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Yeah! I’ll see you then,” you said as you opened up your door, “have a good night Peter.”

“You too Y/n.” As soon as you closed your door he whisper-shouted excitedly. He just kissed you! And you kissed him back!

After tonight you knew Peter was definitely going to be coming over a lot more.

[themachiavellianpig]

Prodigal Son, Episode 13: Is this what they mean by “working holiday”?

Episode 13 of Prodigal Son, and I'm really late to this party but I am having such a good time right now because this was the most fun episode of Prodigal Son that we have had for quite a while. Holiday suits! Mockery! Monte Cristo themed elaborate demises! 

Full review and spoilers below. 

Seriously, guys, I am so glad I started watching this show. 

The episode beings with a fun look at Malcolm's and Martin's relationship from Martin's own perspective, something that we've been mostly missing up until this point. Given just how gosh-darned enigmatic Martin could be, the opportunity to peak at his subconscious was delightful. Dream!Malcolm was entirely unsubtle, as dreams often are, but it was interesting that Martin admitted openly that Malcolm probably shouldn't be visiting him - even if he can only admit that in his nightmares. 

Meanwhile, Actual!Malcolm is trying and failing to muddle his way through a yoga routine, with traumatic flashbacks really throwing off his balance. But it's fine, Malcolm doesn't need his yoga today - he's going on an actual holiday. Jessica bursts in with two gifts for her son - a new holiday outfit and a lift to the airport, courtesy of Gil, who is similarily thrilled that Malcolm is actually taking some time off. 

Given how well he knows Malcolm by this point, it really was a bit of an oversight for Gil to leave the police radio on, given that Malcolm has never met a crime scene he didn't want to profile over dinner. Gil's exasperated "Fine!" when agreeing to take Malcolm along made me actually snort with laughter, but not as much as the team's reactions to the white holiday suit - Miami Vice, Bond Villain, Coke Dealer, Colonel Sanders and Ivory Poacher are all suggested as new careers for the snappily dressed Malcolm. 

Malcolm brushes aside the gentle mockery to examine the body of a former district attorney who had been shot with a flintlock pistol and had the name of a character from the Count of Monte Cristo carved into his arm. 

The crime scene is immediately enlivened by the presence of Dr Tanaka (yay!) and a landmine (definitely not-yay!). 

Malcolm, in the first of at least three superhero acts this week, manages to catch the landmine's trigger before it fully activates, giving the coroner's team time to grab the body and hustle out, accompanied by the rest of the team at Malcolm's insistence that he had a plan. 

He did not, of course, have a plan when he said that, but fortunately our lead character is very good at thinking on his feet. I'm not sure it would ever have occurred to me to grab a flintlock pistol and use it to shoot my way out of a crime scene's window before a landmine exploded behind me, but that is one of many reasons why I will never be a consultant for the NYPD. I am, however, very sorry about Gil's car, and I'm reasonably sure that Malcolm is as well. 

And, of course, it's in that moment, sitting there with an actual landmine in front of him, that Malcolm speaks to his father for the first time in months. Martin is very unconcerned about the landmine, possibly because he's too delighted that Malcolm apparently wanted to hear his father's voice at such a time. 

We also get the chance to see Martin back in his normal prison routine, which apparently includes browbeating an inmate called Hector to pretend to be Malcolm in "therapeutic roleplay" so that Martin can practise his conversations with his son ahead of time. 

Bloody hell, this family, you guys. 

And then Martin calls the police station to share his thoughts on the case with Malcolm and the team. He's still apparently very desperate to know about Malcolm's life, wanting to be introduced to the whole team before he talks shop, and clearly on his best behaviour in front of his son's friends. 

I now desparately, desperately want to see him interact with Edrisa. Just, I think that conversation would be amazing and I will pay good money to see it. Please? But only if Edrisa comes out entirely and utterly unharmed. 

Now, one of the many advantages of Malcolm grabbing the flintlock pistol as he escaped an exploding landmine is that it made it far easier to trace the gun back to the man who purchased it - who they then find wired into an elaborate sword trap, because apparently Prodigal Son is leaning back into its Hannibal vibe this week. 

And then Malcolm gets the team to cut the man free while he catches the falling swords before they impale their new source. And amazingly no one really tries to stop him. 

Sidenote: I am so glad that both I and the show itself decided to stop take all this crime-fighting business so seriously. And the slide under all the tripwires was also extremely cool, I will admit. 

Once not-at-risk-of-impalement, their new source fills them in on the person he purchased the gun and the swords for - Mr Taylor, a member of the so-called New York royalty, who is about to get married in the social event of the season (which Jessica has scored an invite to and which Ainsley is reporting on, and I feel that having two Whitlys at any event surely infinitely raises the potential of hijinks. Surely.) 

We get a little bit of next backstory - a very suspicious "accident" in which Isabella, the daughter of the family's cook, was killed and which the drug-using Taylor heir had absolutely nothing to do with,thank you very much. 

Such a tale of woe, all neatly swept under the rug by the family's enforcers who are now being targetted, fits the Monte Cristo theme so neatly that the team immediately zeroes in on Cal Taylor as the third victim, and Malcolm and Gil head over to ruin a man's wedding day. 

And a good thing they did too, because they find Ernesto, Isabella's father, running around the old bootlegging tunnels, surely up to some sort of nefarious deed. 

With a really good suspect in custody, Gil does, to his credit, do his absolute best to get Malcolm to go on his holiday, even sending Dani along to make sure he goes to the airport. But Dani and Malcolm are increasingly thick as theieves and, when Malcolm admits that he doesn't want to go on holiday because he's scared of what he thinks about with no work to distract him, she agrees to go with him to visit Martin - Malcolm isn't convinced by Ernesto as the killer, and he wants a second opinion from someone who is not constantly trying to put him on an airplane. 

And this, not the dream sequence from earlier, is the first time that Malcolm and Martin really see each other since Malcolm learnt about the camping trip. Unlike the hallucination of Martin from two episodes ago, the real Martin doesn't admit to doing any such thing - not because he would have been incapable of killing his own son, but because he wouldn't have failed to do so if that was truly his wish. 

Which, you know, isn't a very comforting response, but it doesn't feel a lot more honest than a lot of the stuff that Martin says. 

It's enough for Malcolm to hand over the case file, at any rate. Martin agrees that Ernesto doesn't fit, claiming that such an ending lacks the drama surely required by the earlier crime scenes. Malcolm instead zeroes in on Isabella herself - what if she wasn't actually dead, but instead was back for revenge against the people who took everything from her? 

After a brief pause to get Malcolm and Dani dress-code approved, the two gatecrash the wedding (with Gil's knowledge - I'm so glad Malcolm might actually be learning about 'backup' and 'telling people where you're going', I really am), 

They get another conversation with Cal Taylor, Isabella's former boyfriend, who admits to driving the boat, admits to loving Isabella, and admits that he begged his father to help find Isabella after the crash - and that his father refused to even call the authorities, valuing his son's future over a girl's life. 

And so the final victim isn't going to be Cal at all, but his very smarmy father instead. Realising at literally the last possible moment that Isabella was planning to shoot Taylor Senior during his speech, Malcolm grabs the microphone and fillibusters his way through several excuriating minutes about failed fathers and quiestionable choices before Isabella reveals herself - and the gun she stole to shoot Taylor. 

There was then a fantastic little moment in which Malcolm tries to talk down Isabella with a quote from Dumas - and for a brief moment it seems like maybe it worked, but then Isabella goes all shooty instead. In his third and final superhero act of the week, Malcolm tackles Taylor behind the table before Isabella can kill him, and Dani gets to arrest someone while looking absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. 

Jessica basks in a little positive social publicity as her son is revealed to be the saviour of the night - genuinely, the look on her face when Malcolm introduced himself as her son was adorable. And then she steals an entire bottle of champagne on her way out, because she deserves it. 

Finally, on the way out, Malcolm and Jessica check in with Ainsley, who seems delighted that she gets to report on an attempted murder rather than just a boring society wedding. And we get confirmation that Jessica was invited to the wedding because her daughter sneakily pulled some strings, just because she knew how much getting invited to an event like the Taylor wedding would mean to her socialite mother. It is perhaps the cutest thing Ainsley has done so far this season, and I love her a little bit for it. 

Previous Prodigal Son reviews are available here. 

[i-am-the-entertainer]

The Power of Ambiguity: When Some of RWBY’s Questions Are Better Left Unanswered

So, full disclosure: Volume 6, Chapter 9 “Lost” is one I have mixed feelings about. I think it fails to deliver on some major story threads this volume has introduced, and thus it stands out as a disappointing installment in what has otherwise been a stellar volume (I go into more depth about that in my full review).

But, paradoxically, I also think it contains the best scene in the volume, potentially in the show as a whole. And that scene is the one with Jaune and the Red-Haired Woman.

If upon her appearance you assumed that she was Pyrrha’s mother, you may have been left confused by her sudden disappearance and her credit as merely the “Red-Haired Woman.” I certainly was among that party, and there are still people who are unsure what to think: I’ve seen comments on the video from people who legitimately cannot figure out why the scene is framed so mysteriously.

It took me a little bit of time to realize the implications that there was more to the woman than you’d think at first glance. First up was that an autumn leaf just like the one Pyrrha saw in Volume 3′s “Destiny” was the thing that led Jaune to her statue; how does a leaf like that just magically turn up in the middle of the winter? Then there was her sudden appearance, right when Jaune was tempted to just walk away. Then we have her not introducing herself to Jaune despite clearly recognizing he knew Pyrrha, and then inexplicably disappearing right when Nora and Ren showed up with no apparent time to have left the flowers and walked away liked that. All in all, there were a lot of things about the woman that just didn’t make sense if we accepted her as Pyrrha’s mother or some kind of relative, unless she didn’t have a reason to introduce herself to Jaune: unless, and this seems almost unbelievable, she was Pyrrha herself, paying Jaune a visit from beyond the grave (or, well, dust).

Of course, you could also argue the opposite: if she’s Pyrrha’s mother then she absolutely already knows who Jaune is from watching the tournaments and presumably from Pyrrha’s communications, and she figures Jaune could probably put two-and-two together to figure out who she is. Additionally, we do hear her walking up to the statue, implying she didn’t necessarily just appear from thin air. Then you have the fact that she left the flowers on the statue, which is physical evidence that she had been there. But honestly it really could go either way. There’s nothing definitive going on here where you could say “She was Pyrrha’s mother” or “She was something supernatural.”

The thing is, it looks like some viewers are having trouble accepting this ambiguity. When I explained to one of the commenters that it was framed mysteriously to imply the Red-Haired Woman may have been Pyrrha’s spirit, the person flipped out. They claimed that having a ghost appear on a show where paranormal occurrences aren’t part of the established mythology opens a whole can of worms that would just complicate everything. In their view, the way the scene was framed implied Miles and Kerry couldn’t decide on who the woman was, so they decided to be lazy and not make a firm decision either way. That the ambiguity was an unintentional result of the writers’ indecision.

Although I understand why this commenter thinks this, they’re wrong. According to Jen Brown (the voice of Pyrrha and this mysterious woman) on her Twitch stream there is, in fact, a definitive answer as to who the woman is but she cannot give the answer and doesn’t know when or even if the writers plan to reveal it. Hero Hei speculates based on Brown’s phrasing that at least in the script, the woman is not intended to be Pyrrha’s spirit and is probably a separate character, and I would concur it does appear that Jen Brown does not agree with the “She was a ghost” camp. In their minds as the series’ writers, Miles and Kerry made a specific choice as to who the woman is.

But the thing is, on some level you do have to divorce the thoughts of the writer from the work, especially in something like visual media where changes may come in the actual scripting and direction of a scene. This sort of follows the “Death of the Author” concept of separating the writer and their thoughts from what they put down in the actual text: think JK Rowling stating all these “canon” facts about the Potter series despite not following through in the actual text she published (more info on this and the term “Death of the Author” in general in this excellent Lindsay Ellis video). Miles and Kerry know exactly who this woman is, yet they chose to write this scene in a way where her identity is not clear as written. Likewise, in film and television directors will make specific choices in how a scene is framed: Kerry and Connor chose to frame this scene in a way where the viewer cannot tell just from watching who the woman is. The woman having an answerable identity is a specific choice, but so is choosing not to give the viewer that answer.

So, you may ask, why did they do this? Well, to put it simply...it’s complicated.

It’s worth explaining that toying with the supernatural is actually quite common on television shows that don’t actively depict paranormal occurrences. It’s a trope called “Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane,” where an event is framed in a way that could lead the viewer to believe it is out of the ordinary or that it is a coincidence, and things are left just as that.

There was an episode of Bones called “The Hero in the Hold” where Booth escapes from a booby-trapped ship with the help of what he believes to be the ghost of an old army buddy who died on a mission years before: later in the season the incident is referenced when it turns out Booth has a brain tumor that is causing vivid hallucinations, and Booth’s belief that it was a ghost appears to become moot. Except in the case of this episode, this hallucination actually helps him out with escape methods that Booth could not have achieved by himself, like diffusing a bomb or retrieving a weapon that Booth cannot get to. Even Bones sees the deceased army buddy at the end of the episode without realizing who he is.

Bones has a couple of episodes where some happenings are implied to be paranormal, but the series remained to the end a procedural drama about forensic investigators––they didn’t become ghost hunters, they didn’t consult psychics on cases, absolutely none of that. And that’s the thing: writers don’t do this trope because they want to add a paranormal element. There are two things going on here:

1. It’s a narrative device designed to service the character more than it is a contribution to the series mythology

Basically, “It doesn’t matter whether or not it was magic or mundane.” With the Bones episode “The Hero in the Hold,” the fact that a ghost is haunting Booth is a framing device more than it is a plot device. Booth is kidnapped by a serial killer the team has been chasing for some time, and is left without their help. The episode is mostly about the team trying to outsmart the killer and Booth relying on his wits and resourcefulness to escape, while also dealing with the survivor’s guilt from watching his friend die years before. The ghost is there to give Booth the courage to continue, and to help him confront his past. Booth’s character development from this episode would have happened regardless of whether it was a ghost or a hallucination that spoke to him, because what happened felt real enough to him.

2. It gives the viewer something fun to think about

Think theory fodder. The writers are specifically leaving the decision in your hands––you have been granted power over a question they’ve left unanswered. How much fanfiction have you read or written about an unanswered question a show or movie or book or webcomic didn’t specifically tell you, like what happens after the story ends or where this character was when they weren’t the focus of the story? The ambiguity is trusting you to come up with your own answer. Your opinion is now an integral part of the story. Even The Twilight Zone, a show where paranormal occurrences were basically a regular thing, had one episode called “The Grave” with an ambiguously framed death which Rod Serling flat out asks the viewer to decide for themselves whether it was a normal death or caused by a vengeful ghost.

Let’s take a look at the scene of Jaune and the Red-Haired Woman again. What exactly did Jaune need in this moment?

Jaune never got any closure from Pyrrha’s death. She prevented him from helping her by forcing him to leave, and he ultimately did not witness it. He was told during Volume 4 that a choice was made for her that ultimately led her to confront Cinder. He was so torn about how she went down that he personally attempted to avenge her murder at Haven in Volume 5. Literally last episode he was told to his face that her death and everything that had led her to make the decision to fight Cinder had completely been for nothing. Seeing her statue in the park at a low moment, he is only reminded that she is not standing with the rest of her team, that she was killed in the line of battle for a hopeless cause. It’s an idea that viewers themselves have realized all volume, having learned Salem can’t be killed months ago from our perspective.

Yet the Red-Haired Woman suggests, without even needing to know everything about Jinn and Ozma, that this wasn’t really the case. “She understood that she had a responsibility to try. I don’t think she would regret her choice, because a huntress would understand that there really wasn’t a choice to make. And a huntress is what she always wanted to be.” Hearing this, Jaune adds to it: “Pyrrha never got the chance to graduate...but she was a huntress.” The woman, having needed to hear that, tearfully thanks Jaune for the words.

Now consider it: heedless of any debate of who the Red-Haired Woman is, through their conversation Jaune comes to accept that Pyrrha’s death doesn’t have to be thought of as in vain: she died as someone she had always wanted to be, a huntress who without question would fight to protect everyone, no matter the costs. When Ren and Nora arrive he shares with them this realization, and they all accept that Pyrrha’s choices were her sticking to her true self, and that they should continue their journey as she would by sticking to their devotion to be hunters and huntresses.

But now we’re back to square one. Was this woman really Pyrrha’s mother or Pyrrha’s spirit? Well, I’ll answer that question with a question: What interpretation makes this scene more powerful to you? That Pyrrha’s mother helped give Jaune closure and Jaune reassured her that her daughter was a hero? Or that Pyrrha’s spirit helped give Jaune closure and Jaune told her she died a hero? Which interpretation is the more interesting one to you?

Which brings us to a third variation of “Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane”

3. It’s both a narrative device and something fun to think about

Not only are you being provided a framework for a character’s development, you are also being given a choice to decide how you think the scene works. Whatever decision you make as to whether something is paranormal or not, it is your interpretation that maximizes the scene’s impact on you. The writer’s aren’t the ones who decide the answer, you are. And somehow, that kind of makes you part of the story.

This is why I consider this the best scene in all of Volume 6. Its main power is giving Jaune and the viewer some definitive closure over Pyrrha’s death, answers questions and conflicts over something that people have pondered about since the finale of Volume 3. And yet there’s an even bigger question posed over who the woman is. A question that the show has not answered and will not answer for sure. A question the writers have made the conscious decision to leave out of their hands.

The only person who can answer the question is you. Whatever answer satisfies you the most, that is your truth. And whatever your truth is, well, then let it be canon.

[sadprose-auroras]

‘About Time’ - Roger TaylorxFem!Reader (Part 1)

A/N: Hello my darlings! I can’t decide if I hate this or not, and I’m not sure if I’ll continue writing this, depends on the response. Please let me know if you want me to continue it (it would probably require way more parts, like a full on series). Hope you enjoy! - Also, this can apply to Ben Hardy’s portrayal of Roger. Whatever you prefer!

(This was totally inspired by a couple time travel fics I read a few weeks ago, I can’t remember the authors or the names but all credits to them for the time travel idea…. LOVE. IT. I just HAD to write my own, crappier version)

Find my other works here!

 You sunk to the floor, your knees giving out beneath you. You felt ridiculous, curling up in a ball, in your wardrobe, but you had reached your breaking point; everything had suddenly hit you. As you hugged your knees, sobbing, your jeans became tear-soaked. Your mind wandered, as your cheeks flamed in embarrassment and shame about your current state, despite nobody being around. How did you get here? A few months ago, your life was great. You had a great job, a great circle of friends and boyfriend, and you were pursuing your passion; studying fashion design. Then, everything began to crumble around you. All your friends turned on you, you got fired, and your studies began to slip as a result, causing you to fail an exam.  

 If all that wasn’t bad enough, you found out your boyfriend of two years had been cheating on you for a year and 11 months. Go figure. It was as if the universe was playing some long, cruel joke on you, just to see how long before you gave up on trying to pursue any kind of happiness. Just as you came to the conclusion that you really had nothing to fight for, leaning your head back on the wall behind you and closing your eyes, the strangest feeling overcame you. Your head began to spin, and pins and needles covered your entire body. You tried to open your eyes, to move your body, but you were frozen. Your heart rate increased rapidly, and you began to think that this was really it. Whatever was happening, you were going to die. Strangely enough, you couldn’t find it in yourself to care.  

 By some miracle, everything stopped. The pins and needles ceased, and, save a throbbing headache, you felt much better. You experimentally wiggled your toes, and you had feeling back again. Hesitantly, you opened your eyes, looking around you. It was dark, but you could make out the shapes of the clothes hanging around you. Oddly, you didn’t recognise any of them. The chair that was next to you when you closed your eyes was gone, replaced by a shoe rack.  

You stood up, closed your eyes again and rubbed your temples, trying to rid of the probable hallucinations. You racked your brain, thinking back to when you studied psychosis in high school. You couldn’t remember a thing. Was temporary paralysis a symptom? 

 You decided you needed to call a doctor. You pulled your iPhone out of your pocket, still in the dark, and opened up safari. You had no wifi, and no reception. Frowning, you opened the wardrobe door, the knob feeling unfamiliar, to be greeted by a figure doing the same. The door swung open suddenly, bouncing on its hinges.

 You both screamed loudly, and, without looking at the figure in front of you, you tried to push past to get away, however, a hand gripped you and pulled you back. 

 Your eyes became fixed on the man in front of you. You frowned, unable to tear your eyes off him. The hallucinations were getting worse; you were conjuring up images of people in your home. Hang on. You knew his face all too well; you had spent hours watching him drum and sing at concerts on YouTube. It couldn’t be, could it?

 “Who are you, and what the hell are you doing in my wardrobe!?” he asked, releasing his grip on you. You winced, rubbing where his fingernails had dug into you. This was all too much.

 “I should be asking you the same thing, why are you in my house? What’s going on?” you looked around the room, expecting to see your familiar bedroom; your posters plastered around the walls, your colourful duvet, and your plush white carpet. Instead, the walls were empty, the duvet was blue, and the carpet was grey.

 “I need to sit down,” you said, overwhelmed, perching on the edge of the unfamiliar bed. You glanced up at the man in front of you, his expression still shocked and wide-eyed, as he looked you up and down, his brows furrowing. 

 “God, you seem so real,” you laughed. “But there’s no way.”“What the fuck do you mean?” he replied. “I know I’m real, but I can’t say the same about you. I’ve never known anyone who can just appear out of thin air,” he shook his head in disbelief. 

 You frowned, rubbing your hands through your hair. “What do you mean, I appeared out of thin air?” your stomach began to sink. For reasons you couldn’t explain, something else was going on. Something much weirder than you initially thought.

 “Well, I don’t see how you could have got into my wardrobe without me seeing. I’ve been in my room for 20 minutes.” You glanced at his legs, frowning. What kind of person wears flared jeans anymore? 

 “I, um,” you began, a laugh escaping your lips despite yourself. This was all too ridiculous. You were actively avoiding eye contact with him. You figured if you acknowledged that it was him, at that age, in front of you, this would all go away. It was impossible. Suddenly, it all came together, as shocking as it was. It wasn’t him that was in the wrong place, it was you. This wasn’t your house. You had no wifi or reception. And, Roger Taylor, looking as he did circa 1972, was right in front of you. Had you time travelled? Your head span at the possibility. What else could explain these strange occurrences? 

 “What year is it?” you asked, this time properly meeting his eyes this time. Photos didn’t do the real thing justice; his baby blue eyes were maintaining steady eye contact with you, his lips were slightly parted, and his hair looked so soft and angelic. He was insanely beautiful. You internally cursed yourself. Now was definitely not the time.  

“1972…” he said, becoming even more confused. Your theory was confirmed. You’d watched all of the Back to the Future movies countless times, but you’d never imagined anything like that could ever really happen. Especially to you; plain, boring, old you. 

 “I know you’re probably not inclined to believe the crazy girl from your wardrobe, but I think,” you bit your lip, concerned at how he would take the news. “I think I’m from the future.” 

----------

 “So, you’re telling me you didn’t do anything for this to actually happen?” Roger asked. After trying to explain to him a million times, that yes, you were in fact just as confused as him, and no, you didn’t climb through his window, you tried to remain patient. He had every right to be confused as hell, you would definitely react the same if you were in his shoes. Despite this though, he was oddly trusting, allowing you to remain in his house and actually giving you the time of day to explain your side of the story. He even offered you a glass of water and something to eat, which you accepted gratefully. You were starving. 

 “Yes, I was literally just in my wardrobe, then the next thing I knew we were screaming in each other’s faces.” 

 “How do I know you’re telling the truth? You don’t seem very sane so far. I’m going to need some proof. You could just be a crazy girl who will do anything to sleep with me,” he smirked. You rolled your eyes. So the stories were true, he really was cocky.

 “Don’t flatter yourself, Taylor,” you retorted. “And no,” you said quickly, as he opened his mouth to speak, “I don’t know your surname because I’m a crazy stalker.” Your mind wandered to your extensive Queen record and CD collection. Okay, so maybe you were a little, but he didn’t need to know that. 

 “I know because Queen makes it big. I mean, massive.” You bit your lip nervously. If Back to the Future taught you anything, nobody should know too much about their own future. For the first time in your life, you had to think about what you said before you said it.

“How can I convince you?” you asked.

“I don’t know,” he sighed. “What year do you claim to come from, anyway?”

“2019,” you bit your lip. 

His eyes widened in disbelief. “Shit,” he mumbled. “Am I….?”

 “Still alive? Yeah.” Suddenly, you had an idea. You pulled your phone out of your pocket, thankful it was still charged. You turned it on, the time and date you had left still displayed on the screen (18th January 2019, 11:00), in front of a picture of Queen from 1975. You turned the screen towards him. 

 “Holy shit, is that me?” he gasped, leaning forward. “2019.” He looked up at you, and you shrugged and nodded. You were thankful he didn’t know the implications of having a picture of somebody as your lockscreen. 

 “There’s something else,” you unlocked your phone, opening music and searching for ‘Doing Alright.’ You pressed play, the song pouring out of the speakers.

Yesterday, my life was in ruin

Now today, I know what I’m doing… 

“Oh my god, that’s our song! We haven’t even released it yet.” He chuckled. You couldn’t help but grin at his excitement, encapsulated by his gorgeous smile. 

 “Wanna hear more?” you smirked. It’s funny, you had never felt so comfortable around somebody so quickly. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it, but something about him relaxed you. 

----------

 “Have you noticed I haven’t asked about that thing you’re holding, ‘cause I’m too scared to?”

 You laughed, covering your mouth with your hand. You’d spent the last half an hour playing Roger a few more Queen songs. A small nagging voice in the back of your mind was telling you to stop, to not reveal anything about his future, no matter how small. But Roger’s pleading to hear more won.

 “It’s actually a phone,” you said, to answer his question. “Well, that’s its main purpose anyway. You can use it to take and store pictures, play music, and use the internet. Which, well, you’ll find out about in approximately 18 years.”

 “I’m intrigued, what’s the internet?” he asked. You thought of all the unspeakable things you had come across on social media, and shook your head.“You don’t want to know.” He raised an eyebrow at you, and you tried to suppress a blush.  

You cleared your throat, averting your eyes from him as you straightened up in your seat. “What’s the time?” you asked. He glanced down at his watch. “3am,” he laughed in disbelief. “We should probably get some sleep. I’ll sleep on the couch.” 

 You shook your head rapidly, taken aback by his utter kindness. “Oh my god no, please, I will. It’s your house,” you said, getting up from the chair you were sitting on. He did the same. You both stood awkwardly, basically staring at each other. You couldn’t help but think of the times you watched a Queen documentary on TV, with the Roger of your time’s commentary. It was hard to believe the man in front of you was the same person.  

 He cleared his throat, tearing his eyes off you, and going into his bedroom, mumbling something about getting something for you to sleep in.  

 As you awaited his return, you couldn’t help but wonder why you were so focused on how flustered you were around Roger, and not worried about the fact that you were literally stuck in the wrong year, and had no idea how to get back. The funny thing was, you had no desire to. You hadn’t felt so at home in a long time, than when you were laughing and talking with Roger. He made you feel so safe, so quickly. And that feeling would only grow stronger when you both gave up on convincing the other to sleep on the couch, and ended up sharing his bed. 

PART 2: BONUS CONTENT THAT I WROTE THE SAME DAY AS PART ONE. I’M NOT GOING TO CONTINUE IT BUT WHAT’S THE POINT OF HAVING IT IN A WORD DOC N NOT POSTING IT?

When I was writing this, I couldn’t stop imagining rom-com moments. Like, the outfit section? A cute montage with a cute song. Damn I wish I could express the images in my head more clearly, in words. My writing sucks. 

“Y/N, wake up. Y/N!!” A familiar, yet foreign, voice startled you. As you came to your senses, you realised your usual soft, silky sheets were replaced with cotton ones, and an unusual smell wafted around you. You slowly opened your eyes, to be greeted by Roger leaning over you, a slightly annoyed look on his face. Fuck. It was real. He must’ve read your disappointment on your face, and he smiled sympathetically and nodded.

“Yep, you’re still here,” he mumbled. You couldn’t help but sigh; you’d hoped it was a really long, unusual dream.

“I have to go to rehearsal for a gig tonight. Do you wanna come?” Of course you didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to meet the rest of the band, and literally see the magic happen, you couldn’t help but feel like you were invading. But then again, who could say they had the chance to sit in on an early Queen rehearsal, especially knowing how successful and impactful they were going to become?

“I don’t – I don’t want to intrude,” you mumbled, sitting up in the bed and clutching the duvet around you, suddenly feeling exposed in Roger’s white shirt.

“Well it’s your choice, I understand that you probably don’t want to sit around with us when you could be finding a way back home or finding your parents or something,” he said.

Although you would never admit it, you wanted nothing more than to go with him. Not only was it literally history in the making, but the absence of your birth parents in your life, leading to a childhood of foster families who couldn’t care less about you, gave you a sense of independence at a young age. You knew how to be alone, seeking solace in music. Music created by the greats like Queen made you feel less alone, as silly as it sounded. It was your escape from the struggles in your real life.

“Wait, no. I want to come. If you don’t mind. But I need something 70s appropriate to wear,” you chuckled, glancing over at your high-waisted skinny jeans and cropped knit jumper folded neatly on a chair.

“I think that can be arranged.” Roger grinned at you, and you were struck with yet another wave of disbelief. Roger Taylor was going to lend you come of his iconic clothes.

After spending a couple of hours going through Roger’s clothes, which was your absolute dream, you finally settled on a pair of pants that were a little too short, and a shirt that was slightly too tight across the chest. You tried to spice up the outfit with a few of Roger’s necklaces, much to his dismay.

“Do I look okay?” you asked when you stepped out, twirling around with your arms out.

Roger, standing with a pile of clothes in his arms that you had rejected, furrowed his brows and looked you up and down. You couldn’t help but stifle a giggle at the sight; he was taking his job as your stylist very seriously.

“You’ll almost fit in,” he said, “although, the shirt is too tight,” he finished bluntly, gesturing to your chest. You folded your arms instinctively.

“Don’t worry, I won’t look at your boobs.” You frowned at this. Was that meant to make you feel better? Why did you feel slightly disappointed?

“Um, thanks?” you scoffed. “What should I do with my hair?” you tugged on each of your French braids. Roger walked towards you without warning, and pulled out your hair ties, running his fingers through your hair.

“Just leave it loose.” He said hoarsely, his face dangerously close to yours. Your heart was beating rapidly, and you couldn’t take your eyes off him. He was biting his lip in concentration, his eyes squinting as he adjusted your hair. It took everything in you to not lean into his touch; his fingers were so delicate. As he pushed a strand of hair out of your face, his eyes met yours.

“Perfect,” he almost whispered, his breath sending shivers down your spine. You knew you should pull away. You knew this would get way too complicated. Your rationality was telling you to snap out of it. But as his hands smoothly came to rest around your neck, bringing you closer, something else entirely was driving your actions.  Just as you began to lean in, he pulled away, clearing his throat loudly.

“Let me get you a coat,” he said, quickly rushing away from you. You bit your lip, cheeks flaming. You were humiliated. What were you thinking, trying to kiss him? He obviously wasn’t attracted to you; the weird, pathetic crazy time-traveller. You didn’t even belong here anyway, how could you possibly think he would want you? Your eyes began to well up, you just had to get out of there.

As you quickly began to gather your clothes and phone, furiously wiping the tears from your eyes, Roger returned with a fur coat in his arms.

“Here, this should fit – wait, what’s wrong?” he asked, realising your state.

“I’m just gonna go. I’m so sorry to have invaded your life like this, you shouldn’t have to deal with my weird ass problems. Thank you for everything. It was nice meeting you, I guess. I’ll never forget you,” you rambled, becoming increasingly embarrassed, trying to walk past him. He gently placed his hands on your upper arms, turning you to face him.

“Hey, hey, I don’t have to help you, okay? I want to. If you’ll let me.” he said, a surprisingly vulnerable look on his face.

“But, I’m burdening you too much! You can’t have me holding you back from living your normal life. You don’t want me clinging to your side like some kind of….” You paused, struggling to find the right words in your frazzled state. “Some kind of leech. I mean, I’m just annoying. For God’s sake, we have nothing in common! I’m technically young enough to be your daughter!”

Roger laughed softly. “Okay, first of all, you’re not a leech. And yes, it’s weird that you’re from the future, and I’ll probably never wrap my head around it, but so what? We shouldn’t get along, but we do.” You hoped he couldn’t notice your blush at this.

“And, lastly,” he said, a cheeky smirk on his face, “the thought of you being my daughter is gross, but me being your daddy on the other hand…”

“Oh my god, Roger! No!” you couldn’t help but laugh, as you rapidly shook your head. You couldn’t tell if he was joking or not; you secretly hoped he wasn’t.

“So, do you still wanna come to rehearsal?” he asked, all joking aside.

You sighed, hoping you weren’t being a burden. “Okay, give me that then,” you grabbed the coat off him, pulling it on.

“Do I look normal?” you asked.

“No,” he smirked, and you raised your eyebrows at him. “In a good way, though. Come on,” he said, grabbing your hand. You tried to ignore the jolts of electricity you felt from this sweet gesture. You never thought simply holding hands with someone would give you so many butterflies.