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crimeronan · 2 years ago

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^^all really excellent commentary and GREAT stuff to think about if you're way past the 'learning what metamours are' stage of exploring poly representation, and/or if you're writing stuff that's very different from typical romance formula.

i've seen a couple people in the notes of this very good post about fictional polyamory by @thebibliosphere say things along the lines of "oh, i've been doing it wrong :(" or "how do i know if i did this right??" or "i should probably give up and start over, i wrote this badly :(" and. no!!!!

(i AM seeing far MORE people say "oh, this clarified and helped me so much, i think i know how to fix issues i've been having with my own story" which. YES!!!!)

listen. if you're a monogamous person who's writing a polyamorous relationship, and you've been focusing mainly on The Triad and All Three Together All The Time as the endgame, that's literally fine. that's a perfectly acceptable and strong starting point for your plotting, imo. you do not need to give up on a story that you've started like this.

but the things discussed in the post Can and Should improve your execution!

you can keep the same plot beats and overall relationship arc 100%. polyamorous relationships are infinite in their formations, every one is unique. "basically a monogamous romance but with three people" Does exist, as a relationship type. you're not hashtag Misrepresenting (TM) poly people with it

BUT i do think it will help to read up on some poly people talking about how their relationships Differ from monogamous ones.

so i have outlined some basic important concepts about polyamory.

MORE IMPORTANTLY though, i've broken down some questions that you can answer throughout the writing process to strengthen your individual dyad relationships, your individual characterization, & your characters' individual feelings/experiences. this is a writing resource have fun

future kitkat butting in to say i spent over two hours writing this and it definitely needs a readmore. it is also NOT comprehensive. but everything should be pretty simple to follow! feel free to reblog if you find it helpful yourself or just want to reward me for how gotdan long this took KSLDKFJKDL.

i've grabbed quick links for a couple of the important concepts, some have SEO pitches in them but the info largely seems to be good. (if i missed anything Egregiously Gross on these sites i should be able to update the links with better ones later, since they're under the readmore.)

sidenote: this is NOT meant to be overwhelming, despite the length. if you can't read all of this, that's Okay. you do not need to give up on your writing.

here we go:

compersion!

compersion is a BIG thing in a lot of polyamorous relationships. it's joy derived from seeing two (or more) of your partners happy together, or joy derived from seeing your partner happy with someone else.

compersion is really important as a concept because it highlights that every individual relationship within a polycule is different -- and that that's a GOOD thing. it's sort of the inverse of jealousy.

by the "inverse of jealousy," i mean that instead of feeling left out and upset and possessive, you feel happy/joyous/content.

i can use personal experience as an example: it's a Relief for me when my partners receive joy/support/sex/romance/etc that i can't (or prefer not to) give them. and i love seeing my partners make each other laugh and be silly together.

it's 100% okay for a poly triad not to be together 100% of the time, it doesn't mean that the third member is being left out or not treated equally when two people do things alone together.

(i have individual dates with my partners all the time! PLUS larger 3-and-4-person date nights.)

if the third member DOES feel jealous or left out, then the polycule can have a conversation to figure out what needs/wants aren't being met, and solve that. this happens semi-regularly in my polycule, as it will happen in any relationship (including monogamous ones)! it's just part of being an adult, sometimes you have to talk about feelings.

metamours!

a metamour is someone who is dating your partner, but ISN'T dating you. this may not be relevant for people writing closed three-person romantic sexual triads, but it's a super helpful term to know.

the linked article also lists different types of metamour relationships with some fun phrasing i hadn't heard before. the tl;dr is: sometimes you'll be domestic cohabitation friends, sometimes you'll be buddies with your own friendship, sometimes you might not interact much outside of parties, every relationship is different.

there's no one-size-fits-all requirement for metamour relationships. sometimes polyamorous people will end up dating their metamour after a while (has happened to me), sometimes polyamorous people will break up with one partner for normal life reasons, but remain friendly metamours.

the goal of polyamory is NOT for EVERYONE to fall in love. it is 100% okay if this happens in your story, it happens in real life too! but it is also 100% okay for characters to be metamours without ever becoming "more than friends."

(sidenote: try to kill any internalized "more than" that you have when it comes to friendship. friends are just as important and special and vital as partners.)

of course there are a million ways for messiness to occur with metamours within a complex polycule, exactly like with close-knit platonic friend groups. however this post is not about that! there's enough "here's how polyamory can go wrong" stuff out there already, so i'm focusing on the positives here :)

open versus closed polyamorous relationships!

i'm struggling to find an online article that reflects my experience without directly contradicting at least SOME stuff. so i'll give a quick rundown

google has a bunch of conflicting definitions of open relationships and whether open relationships are different from polyamory. the general consensus seems to be that an open relationship prioritizes one partnership (often a marriage), but that each partner can have extraneous flings or long-term commitments (most often sexual in nature).

this is not typically how i use the term wrt polyamory. the poly concept is pretty simple. a closed polyamorous relationship is one with boundaries like a monogamous one. there are multiple partners in the polycule, but they are not interested in having anybody new join said polycule.

an open polyamorous relationship tends to be more flexible -- it just means that IF someone in the polycule develops mutual feelings for a new person, it's fine for them to become part of said polycule if they want to! the relationship/person is open to newcomers.

some groups will need to negotiate this all together, others will just go "haha, you kids have fun." just depends on the individuals!

with open AND closed polyamorous relationships, the most important thing is making sure that there's respectful communication and that everyone is on the same page. but there's no one-size-fits-all way to do that.

i wish i could give you guys a prescriptive "You Must Do It This Way" guide, but that's.... basically the opposite of what polyamory is about, HAHA.

feelings for multiple people!

i was gonna tack this on to the previous section but decided it warranted its own lil bit.

a defining feature (....i'm told?) of monogamous relationships is that a monogamous person only has feelings for One individual at a time. they only want a relationship with one individual at a time. or, if they DO have feelings for multiple people simultaneously, they're still only comfortable dating one person at a time & being exclusive with that one person.

this is perfectly fine!

the poly experience is generally different from this. but once again..... polyamorous people all have different individual perspectives on this.

for me, i have never been able to draw hard boxes around romantic vs sexual vs platonic relationships, & i love many people at once. my personal polycule lacks many strict definitions beyond "these are my chosen people, i want to forge a life with them indefinitely, whatever shape that life takes"

some poly people feel explicit romantic or sexual attraction to multiple people at once, some poly people feel almost no romantic or sexual attraction at all. i'd say that MOST poly people feel different things for different partners, which is not a bad thing!

some poly people are even monogamous-leaning -- they have just chosen one romantic partner who is themselves part of a larger polycule. (so this monogamous-leaning person has at least one metamour!)

or alternatively, they might have one romantic partner AND a qpr, or other ways of defining relationships. (this is a factor in my own polycule!)

i made this its own point because if you're writing a straightforward triad, this is unlikely to come up in the story itself -- but it's worth thinking about how your characters develop/handle feelings outside of their partnerships.

like, is this sort of a soulmateship, 'these are the only ones for me' type deal? in which they won't fall in love with anyone else, and can be fairly certain of that?

that's pretty close to typical monogamous standards but you Can make it work. just be thoughtful with it

alternatively, can you see any of these characters falling in love Again after the happily-ever-after? and how would the triad approach it, if so? what would they all need to talk about beforehand, and what feelings would everybody have about the situation?

it's worth considering these questions even if the hypothetical will never feature in your actual canon, because knowing the answers to these questions will help you understand all of the individuals & their relationship(s) MUCH better.

i've been typing this for nearly two hours and there's a lot more i COULD say because... there's just a lot to say. i'll close out with some quick questions that you can ask yourself when developing the dyad dynamics within your triad

first, take a page and create a separate section for each individual dyad. then answer these questions for every pair:

how does each pair act when alone?

how do they act differently alone compared to when they're with their third partner?

are there any elements of this dyad (romantic, sexual, financial, domestic, etc) that these two people DON'T have with the third partner?

if so, what are they?

are there any boundaries or hard limits within this dyad that aren't shared with the third partner?

if so, what are they?

partner 3 goes out of town alone for a few weeks. what are the remaining two doing in their absence?

(doesn't have to be anything special, it's just to get a sense of how the two interact on a day-by-day basis without the third there)

what is something that each partner in the dyad admires about the other -- that they DON'T necessarily see in the third partner?

what problem do These Two Specifically need to solve in the story before their relationship will work?

how is that problem DIFFERENT from the problems being solved within the other two dyads?

doing this for ALL THREE dyads is VITAL imo. that way, you develop complex and nuanced and different relationships that all have unique dynamics.

those questions should be enough to get you started, i hope

then After you've charted the differences in relationships, you can start to jot down similarities in the overarching triad. what does one person admire in Both of their partners? what are activities that all three like to do together? what are boundaries or discussions that all three share?

but the main goal is to figure out how to Differentiate each relationship!

a polycule is only as strong as the individual relationships within it. if two people are struggling with their own relationship, adding a third person won't fix that.

(UNLESS the third person is the catalyst for those two to, like, Actually Communicate And Work Their Shit Out. i just mean that the old adage of "maybe if we just add a third-" works about as well to fix a miserable non-communicative marriage as, uh, "maybe if we have a baby-")

AND FINALLY.

if you're not sure whether your poly romance reads organically to poly people, you can hire a sensitivity reader with poly experience. if you can't afford that, you can read up on polyamorous resources like a glossary of terms & articles actually written by poly people. (and stories written by poly people!)

you can also just.... ask poly people questions, if they're open to it. i like talking about polyamory and my own relationships so you're welcome to send asks if u want, i just can't guarantee i'll answer bc my energy levels fluctuate a lot and i don't always have time.

polyamorous people are in an uphill battle for positive representation right now & so the LAST thing i want to see is authors giving up on their stories bc they're worried about getting things Wrong. well-meaning and positive stories that treat this kind of love as normal, healthy, & aspirational are So So So Needed. even if you guys end up with some funky-feeling details.

seriously, if you're monogamous then you probably don't have a full idea of Just How Nasty a lot of people can get about polyamory. i wish it DIDN'T mean so much for you guys to want to write nice stories about us, but it does mean a lot. and it means a lot that you want to do it WELL.

in conclusion. this is not a prescriptive guide, it's just a way to raise questions. and also, you all are doing FINE.

#thank you jade!! i love this. a much more in-depth and simultaneously broader perspective than in the initial post #the OP that sparked this was about how poly romance novels often use like.... two hot boyfriends and endless threesomes as #the ideal endgame; mirroring typical monogamous romance arcs #so the main thought behind the og guide was just to add some nuance and depth to that extremely specific scenario #therefore it is very limited in scope and advice. your thoughts here are GREAT SHIT that can be applied to any genre or project #and your thoughts about the additional complexity and tension are also. chefs kiss #polyamorous relationships are difficult to write! they require more energy than juggling just two characters! but also so fun #(hopefully it's obvious but. these are clarifying tags for myself not argumentative/correcting ones. this addition is So Good.)#replies #long post #polyamory #writing advice #relationships

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damienkarras73 · 9 months ago

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An essay on Furiosa, the politics of the Wasteland, Arthurian literature and realistic vs. formalistic CGI

Mad Max: Fury Road absolutely enraptured me when it came out nearly a decade ago, and I will cop to seeing it four times at the theatre. For me (and many others who saw the light of George Miller) it set new standards for action filmmaking, storytelling and worldbuilding, and I could pop in its Blu Ray at any time and never get tired of it. Perhaps not surprisingly, I was deeply apprehensive about the announced prequel for Fury Road's actual main character, Furiosa, even if Miller was still writing and directing. We didn't need backstory for Furiosa—hell, Fury Road is told in such a way that NOTHING in it requires explicit backstory. And since it focuses on the Yung Furiosa, it meant Charlize Theron couldn't return with another career-defining performance. Plus, look at all that CGI in the trailer, it can't be as good as Fury Road.

Turns out I was silly to doubt George Miller, M.D., A.O., writer and director of Babe: Pig in the City and Happy Feet One & Two.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is excellent, and I needn't have worried about it not being as good as Fury Road because it is not remotely trying to be Fury Road. Fury Road is a lean, mean machine with no fat on it, nothing extraneous, operating with constant forward momentum and only occasionally letting up to let you breathe a little; Furiosa is a classical epic, sprawling in scope, scale and structure, and more than happy to let the audience simmer in a quiet, almost painfully still moment. If its opening spoken word sequence by that Gandalf of the Wastes himself, the First History Man, didn't already clue you in, it unfolds like something out of myth, a tale told over and over again and whose possible embellishments are called attention to in the dialogue itself. Where Fury Road scratched the action nerd itch in my head like you wouldn't believe, Furiosa was the equivalent of Miller giving the undulating folds of my English major brain a deep tissue massage. That's great! I, for one, love when sequels/prequels endeavour to be fundamentally different movies from what they're succeeding/preceding, operating in different modes, formats and even genres, and more filmmakers should aim for it when building on an existing series.

This movie has been on my mind so much in the past week that I've ended up dedicating several cognitive processes to keeping track of all of the different ponderings it's spawned. Thankfully, Furiosa is divided into chapters (fun fact: putting chapter cards in your movie is a quick way to my heart), so it only seems fitting that I break up all of these cascading thoughts accordingly.

1. The Pole of Inaccessibility

Furiosa herself actually isn't the protagonist for the first chapter of her own movie, instead occupying the role of a (very crafty and resourceful) damsel in distress for those initial 30-40 minutes. The real hero of the opening act, which plays out like a game of cat and mouse, is Furiosa's mother Mary Jabassa, who rides out into the wasteland first on horseback and then astride a motorcycle to track down the band of raiders that has stolen away her daughter. Mary's brought to life by Miller and Nico Lathouris' economical writing and a magnetic performance by newcomer Charlee Fraser, who radiates so much screen presence in such relatively little time and with one of those instant "who is SHE??" faces. She doesn't have many lines, but who needs them when Fraser can convey volumes about Mary with just a flash of her eyes or the effortless way she swaps out one of her motorcycle's wheels for another. To be quite candid, I'm not sure of the last time I fell in love with a character so quickly.

You notice a neat aesthetic contrast between mother and daughter in retrospect: Mary Jabassa darts into the desert barefoot, clad in a simple yet elegant dress, her wolf cut immaculate, only briefly disguising herself with the ugly armour of a raider she just sniped, and when she attacks it's almost with grace, like some Greek goddess set loose in the post-apocalyptic Aussie outback with just her wits and a bolt-action rifle; we track Furiosa's growth over the years by how much of her initially conventional beauty she has shed, quite literally in one case (hair buzzed, severed arm augmented with a chunky mechanical prosthesis, smeared in grease and dirt from head to toe, growling her lines at a lower octave), and by how she loses her mother's graceful approach to movement and violence, eventually carrying herself like a blunt instrument. Yet I have zero doubt the former raised the latter, both angels of different feathers but with the same steel and resolve. Of fucking course this woman is Furiosa's mother, and in the short time we know her we quickly understand exactly why Furiosa has the drive and morals she does without needing to resort to didactic exposition.

Anyway, I was tearing up by the end of the first chapter. Great start!

2. Lessons from the Wasteland

Most movies—most stories, really—don't actually tell the entire narrative from A to Z. Perhaps the real meat of the thing is found from H to T, and A-G or U-Z are unnecessary for conveying the key narrative and themes. So many prequels fail by insisting on telling the A-G part of the story, explaining how the hero earned a certain nickname or met their memorable sidekick—but if that stuff was actually interesting, they likely would have included it in the original work. The greatest thing a prequel can actually do is recontextualize, putting iconic characters or moments in a new light, allowing you to appreciate them from a different angle. All of season 2 of Fargo serves to explain why Molly Solverson's dad is appropriately wary when Lorne Malvo enters his diner for a SINGLE SCENE in the show's first season. David's arc from the Alien prequels Prometheus and Covenant—polarizing as those entries are—adds another layer to why Ash is so protective of the creature in the first movie. Andor gives you a sense of what it's like for a normal, non-Jedi person to live under the boot of the Empire and why so many of them would join up with the Rebel Alliance—or why they would desire to wear that boot, or even just crave the chance to lick it.

Furiosa is one of those rare great prequels because it makes us take a step back and consider the established world with a little more nuance, even if it's still all so absurd. In Fury Road, Immortan Joe is an awesome, endlessly quotable villain, completely irredeemable, and basically a cartoon. He works perfectly as the antagonist of that breakneck, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote-ass movie, but if you step outside of its adrenaline-pumping narrative for even a moment you risk questioning why nobody in the Citadel or its surrounding settlements has risen up against him before. Hell, why would Furiosa even work for him to begin with? But then you see Dementus and company tear-assing around the wasteland, seizing settlements and running them into the ground, and you realize Joe and his consortium offer something that Dementus reasonably can't: stability—granted, an unwavering, unchangeable stability weighted in favour of Joe's own brutal caste system, but stability nonetheless. It really makes you wonder, how badly does a guy have to suck to make IMMORTAN JOE of all people look like a sane, competent and reasonable ruler by comparison?!?

…and then they open the door to the vault where he keeps his wives, and in a flash you're reminded just how awful Joe is and why Furiosa will risk her life to help some of these women flee from him years later. This new context enriches Joe and makes it more believable that he could maintain power for so long, but it doesn't make him any less of a monster, and it says a lot about Furiosa's hate for Dementus that she could grit her teeth and work for this sick old tyrant.

3. The Stowaway

Here's another wild bit of trivia about this movie: you don't actually see top-billed actress Anya Taylor-Joy pop up on screen until roughly halfway through, once Furiosa is in her late teens/early twenties. Up until this point she's been played by Alyla Browne, who through the use of some seamless and honestly really impressive CGI has been given Anya's distinctive bug eyes [complimentary]. It's one of those bold choices that really works because Miller commits to it so hard, though it does make me wish Browne's name was up on the poster next to Taylor-Joy's.

Speaking of CGI, I should talk about what seems to be a sticking point for quite a few people: if there's been one consistent criticism of Furiosa so far, it's that it doesn't look nearly as practical or grounded as Fury Road, with more obvious greenscreen and compositing, and what previously would've been physical stunt performers and pyrotechnics have been replaced with their digital equivalents for many shots. Simply put, it doesn't look as real! For a lot of people, that practicality was one of Fury Road's primary draws, so I won't try to quibble if they're let down by Furiosa's overt artificiality, but to be honest I'm actually quite fine with it. It helps that this visual discrepancy doesn't sneak up on you but is incredibly apparent right from the aerial zoom-down into Australia in the very first scene, so I didn't feel misled or duped.

Fury Road never asks you to suspend your disbelief because it all looks so believable; Furiosa jovially prods you to suspend that disbelief from the get-go and tune into it on a different wavelength. It's a classical epic, and like the classical epics of the 1950s and 60s it has a lot of actors standing in front of what clearly are matte paintings. It feels right! We're not watching fact, we're watching myth. I'm willing to concede there might be a little bit of post-hoc rationalization on my part because I simply love this movie so much, but I'm not holding the effects in Furiosa to the same standard as those in Fury Road because I simply don't believe Miller and his crew are attempting to replicate that approach. Without the extensive CGI, we don't get that impressive long, panning take where a stranded Furiosa scans the empty, dust-and-sun-scoured wasteland (75% Sergio Leone, 25% Andrei Tarkovsky), or the Octoboss and his parasailing goons. For the sake of intellectual exercise I did try imagining them filming the Octoboss/war rig sequence with the same immersive practical approach they used for Fury Road's stunts, however I just kept picturing dead stunt performers, so perhaps the tradeoff was worth it!

4. Homeward

Around the same time we meet the Taylor-Joy-pilled Furiosa in Chapter 3, we're introduced to Praetorian Jack, the chief driver for the convoys running between the Citadel and its allied settlements. Jack's played by Tom Burke, who pulled off a very good Orson Welles in Mank! and who I should really check out in The Souvenir one of these days. He's also a cool dude! Here are some facts about Praetorian Jack:

He's decked out in road leathers with a pauldron stitched to one shoulder

He's stoic and wary, but still more or less personable and can carry on a conversation

Professes to a certain cynicism, to quote Special Agent Albert Rosenfield, but ultimately has a capacity for kindness and will do the right thing

Shoots a gun real good

Can drive like nobody's business

So in other words, Jack is Mad Max. But also, no, he clearly isn't! He looks and dresses like Mad Max (particularly Mel Gibson's) and does a lot of the same things "Mad" Max Rockatansky does, but he's also very explicitly a distinct character. It's a choice that seems inexplicable and perhaps even lazy on its face, except this is a George Miller movie, so of course this parallel is extremely purposeful. Miller has gone on record saying he avoids any kind of strict chronology or continuity for his Mad Max movies, compared to the rigid canons for Star Trek and Star Wars, and bless him for doing so. It's more fun viewing each Mad Max entry as a new revision or elaboration on a story being told again and again generations after the fall, mutating in style, structure and focus with every iteration, becoming less grounded as its core narrative is passed from elder to youth, community to community, genre to genre, until it becomes myth. (At least, my English major brain thinks it's more fun.) In fact there's actually something Arthurian to it, where at first King Arthur was mentioned in several Welsh legends before Geoffrey of Monmouth crafted an actual narrative around him, then Chrétien de Troyes added elements like Lancelot and infused the stories with more romance, and then with Le Morte d'Arthur Thomas Malory whipped the whole cycle together into one volume, which T.H. White would chop and screw and deconstruct with The Once and Future King centuries later.

All this to say: maybe Praetorian Jack looks and sounds and acts like Max because he sorta kinda basically is, being just one of many men driving back and forth across the wasteland, lending a hand on occasion, who'll be conflated into a single, legendary "Mad Max" at some point down the line in a different History Man's retelling of Furiosa's odyssey. Sometimes that Max rips across the desert in his V8 Interceptor, other times driving a big rig. Perhaps there's a dog tagging along and/or a scraggly and at first aggravating ally played by Bruce Spence or Nicholas Hoult. Usually he has a shotgun. But so long as you aren't trying to kill him, he'll help you out.

5. Beyond Vengeance

The Mad Max movies have incredibly iconic villains—Immortan Joe! Toecutter! the Lord Humongous!—but they are exactly that, capital V Villains devoid of humanizing qualities who you can't wait to watch bad things happen to. Furiosa appears to continue this trend by giving us a villain who in fact has a mustache long enough that he could reasonably twirl it if he so wanted, but ironically Dementus ends up being the most layered antagonist in the entire series, even moreso than the late Tina Turner's comparatively benevolent Aunty Entity from Beyond Thunderdome. And because he's played by Chris Hemsworth, whose comedic delivery rivals his stupidly handsome looks, you lock in every time he's on screen.

Something so fascinating about Dementus is that, for a main antagonist, he's NOT all-powerful, and in fact quite the opposite: he's more conman than warlord, looking for the next hustle, the next gullible crowd he can preach to and dupe—though never for long. For all his bluster, at every turn he finds himself in way over his head and writing cheques he can't cash, and this self-induced Sisyphean torment makes him riveting to watch. You're tempted to pity Dementus but it's also quite difficult to spare sympathy for someone who's so quick to channel their rage and hurt and ego into thoughtless, burn-it-all-down destruction. When you're not laughing at him, you're hating his guts, and it's indisputably the best work of Chris Hemsworth's career.

It's in this final chapter that everything naturally comes to a head: Furiosa's final evolution into the character we meet at the start of Fury Road, the predictable toppling of Dementus' precariously built house of cards, and the mythmaking that has been teased since the very first scene becoming diagetic text, the last of which allows the movie to thoroughly explore the themes of vengeance it's been building to. A brief war begins, is summarized and is over in the span of roughly a minute, and on its face it's a baffling narrative choice that most other filmmakers would have botched. But our man Miller's smart enough to recognize that the result of this war is the most foregone of conclusions if you've been paying even the slightest bit of attention, so he effectively brushes past it to get to the emotional heart of the climax and an incredible "Oh shit!" payoff that cements Miller as one of mainstream cinema's greatest sickos.

Fury Road remains the greatest Mad Max film, but Furiosa might be the best thing George Miller has ever made. If not his magnum opus, it does at least feel like his dissertation, and it makes me wish Warner Bros. puts enough trust in him despite Furiosa's poor box office performance that he's able to make The Wasteland. Absolutely ridiculous that a man just short of his 80th birthday was able to pull this off, and with it I feel confident calling him one of my favourite directors.

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maxwell-grant · 3 months ago

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Since he’s probably Oswald’s closest Marvel equivalent, being a relatively-unpowered crime-boss who semi-frequently becomes Mayor… any thoughts on Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime?

It's a comparison that's frequently made by Big Two fans and it's easy to see where it comes from, certainly they're the most iconic gangster/mafioso villains in their respective companies, but I don't think Kingpin is the closest Marvel has to Oswald because A: If anyone has a prior claim on Comic Book Gangster, it's definitely him, and B: They simply don't work in comparable or equivalent fashion. You can even boil down a key difference to the fact that The Penguin is inherently a small man trying to be bigger, and The Kingpin is the biggest man who ever lived. That's not a joke about their sizes, that's how they operate as characters and villains: Oswald is underestimated, ridiculed, diminished, and driven in large part because of it. He is the underdog, he slips under the radar, he slips through the cracks, he is a cockroach who lives to thumb his nose and pull the rug under the bigger bastards who think they can step on him. Wilson Fisk IS the bigger bastard who steps on people, he is the biggest bastard in the world.

He is an unsurmountable force of crime at the top of every possible advantage that a criminal can possibly weaponize, he is a titan of wealth and privilege as willing and capable of crushing your skull with his bare hands as he is of murdering your entire social circle with a phone call. He is "the ill intent", the biggest and strongest gangster of all time, and even if there are bigger and stronger bastards than him, they certainly aren't gangsters like him, they certainly aren't meeting him in his playing field of choice. There isn't really a DC equivalent to Wilson Fisk - there were certainly attempts to make Luthor and Cobblepot more like him, there's no shortage of imitators or knock-offs like Blockbuster and Tobias Whale, but the Kingpin is a league of it's own among comic book gangsters. Like Luthor and Joker and Doom, like the top dogs of the genre, he's become an Archetype in his own right.

I talked about his Spiderverse version a little while back in regards to how much I liked him in that movie and what his design represented about him, Fisk as this black hole obelisk who drains the color of every room he's in and suffocates the world visually as well as metaphorically, far from the most interesting character in the movie but one that you can pin all these other more interesting things on, and I think that's also applicable to a lot of what he does as a Spider-Man villain. Now, he's a GREAT Spider-Man villain, easily one of the best, his arcs in Ultimate Spider-Man alone should be more than enough proof of concept for that, but even if he's not necessarily the most colorful or intimate or dangerous villain to hang a Spider-Man story on, he is maybe the most villain to hang a story on - the entirety of Marvel's street level vigilantes and organized crime exists under his shadow, and you can blow up his scope to the moon and back as a way to build up all the other characters you can squeeze more dramatic stuff out of. Whether it's in TAS, where he is so undisputably atop the pecking order that everyone else is bouncing off his fixed presence, or in the Insomniac games, where he stood tall as Peter's main villain for 7 years until the game begins with his downfall as a way to kick off all the strange new threats he'll be up against, Wilson Fisk is The Crime Man to rule all Crime Men, as entrenched and emblematic and secure in his kingdom of Manhattan as Dracula is to Transylvania and Dr.Doom is to Latveria.

Unlike the vast majority of Spider-Man villains who regularly enjoy redesigns and rewrites and do-overs, official and fan-made alike, Wilson Fisk is practically the same character in every iteration, there's very little need to seriously rethink or readjust who he is and how he does things because he is perfectly simple and perfectly timeless - we have now two Ultimate Spider-Man comic runs that have brought significant overhauls and revisions and new spins to established Spider-Man characters, and in both of them, Wilson Fisk is a major character, and he is completely and utterly unchanged from how he already works in the mainline universe. Even if you don't want to use Wilson Fisk, you can't neglect Wilson Fisk, you have to show how he fits into things, you have to show what he's up to or how he allows or makes way for what's happening without him, you have to give him his cut. This imutability of his is another thing I'd say is a major difference between him and Penguin - Oswald demands change, he demands growth and adaptability, he demands different surroundings more suited to him, he wants to grow and grow and make a nest that's suitable for him, he can't fit into existing systems so he breaks them to remake them as his own. That is simply not the case with Wilson Fisk.

Unlike The Penguin, unlike some of the other great comic book supervillains, Fisk has no intention whatsoever to change anything about how the world works - as far as he's concerned, it worked just fine up until these costumed irritants arrived, and even they just became another part of his conglomerate in time. Fisk really doesn't have or need any kind of big philosophy to justify himself, rather, he takes it as fact that he's operating under the way the world works and under a merit he's achieved by being the man he is. He is content within society's morality, because he is at the top of society and therefore that morality will always bow to him. The legions of costumed enemies orbiting his life are merely dissidents going against the order of things that places him at the top, tools to be used and bugs to be squashed and little more.

And this is true even of those whose power and scope stands above his own - they are not players in his game, and if they are, they are distractions, diversions, things that he can deal with. When he loses to billionaires like the Stromms in Zdarsky's run, when he has to playy ball with bigger villains, when he is ousted in a power play, it is humiliating, and he doesn't deal well with humiliations - but he can take humiliations, he knows he can give back, he can ultimately rebuild his pride as he rebuilds his empire time and time again. Spider-Man is annoying and powerful and infantile and annoying and an enemy and really really annoying, but he is no existential threat. He is not terribly concerned about Spider-Man, which is part of what makes him such a fun Spider-Man villain, that he never sees it coming when Spidey gets serious and just brings him down (peak example of this being Back in Black), that he is this larger-than-life bully/shitty grown-up who actually can and must be defeated. And if a lot of what makes him a fun and great Spider-Man villain is contingent in the ways that he doesn't lose sleep over Spider-Man, part of what makes him a stronger Daredevil villain is the precise opposite: he desperately wishes he could be this dismissive towards Daredevil, who is for all intents and purposes weaker than Spider-Man. It's his relationship with Daredevil that brings out the best of him as a villain and the worst of him as a person alike.

Against Spider-Man, the Kingpin is a very strong enemy, the figurehead of the kind of crime that is Spidey's daily routine, a powerful and oppressive force ruling over NYC who is nevertheless a step down from the Green Goblin or Dr Octopus or the Symbiotes and all those other genetic nightmares and obsessed masterminds that plague his life. No matter how clever or vile his schemes are, Spider-Man can still beat them, and Spider-Man can ultimately always triumph over him in a fight, and Fisk can always rebuild because Fisk builds empires as easily as most people breathe, and things rarely if ever get personal between him and Peter. Against Daredevil? There IS no bigger threat than Kingpin (well, The Hand I guess, but they're boring as shit), Kingpin is the mountain that Matt always crashes against in due time, and it is always personal. The Kingpin is his biggest and strongest enemy, able to run mental laps around Matt and someone that Matt cannot in fact beat in a fight, their battles are drawn out miserable slugfests where Fisk usually thrashes him around like a ragdoll with few conclusive victories and whatever victory Matt has is hard-won and usually via cheap shot.

Matt has an infinitely harder time dealing with Fisk than Spider-Man does, which is part of why it is Kingpin's appearences in Daredevil comics that made him comic book villain royalty: Matt has no real advantage against him other than his senses. He has no intellectual advantage, no physical advantage, and he can't even claim to be more determined or driven, Fisk is fueled by an equally horrendously powerful will and protectiveness towards what belongs to him, This City. There is nobody and nothing in the world that Matt hates more than Fisk, and there is nobody and nothing in the world that Fisk hates more than Matt. They've taken turns shattering each other to the point that those slugfests are the least of each other's offenses against each other.

Even besides the sheer accumulated history they have against each other, it's in the way they unforgivably violate each other's vision of the world. If the Kingpin was the invincible man of vision who loves the city and must steer it even if smaller people disagree with him, if he was truly so secure and untouchable at the top of the world, he wouldn't be having such a colossal hard time dealing with this one guy and he wouldn't be reduced to a base animal thug every time he shows up, let alone lose and be humiliated. If Wilson Fisk was as correct as he needs to be, if the strength of his love for Vanessa/the city/what belongs to him was as powerful as he wants it to be, Daredevil would never get the upperhand on him.

And if Daredevil is a man who dedicates himself 100% all the time to protecting the city and it's people, if Daredevil commits unlawful deeds to preserve human life and fight for justice, if Daredevil struggles with the innate contradictions and hypocrisies and nature of what he is and does but can nevertheless push past them all to do the right thing for others, every second the Kingpin lives, every second Fisk lives because he lets him, chips away at the assurance that he's doing the right thing, that he isn't just wasting time. If Daredevil's vision of the city was correct, if Daredevil was right about his beliefs and worldview, there wouldn't be a Wilson Fisk out there getting away with the things he does. They hate each other for that same fundamental reason: If the world was ruled by the principles I need it to be, in order for me to be who I am and do what I do, you wouldn't exist, and you wouldn't be in my way again and again.

As a Spider-Man villain, he is one of the greats, a core component of his world, a highly versatile and even necessary figure to have and an excellent villain to dictate proceedings. As a Marvel Universe villain, he is an indispensable facet of any criminal element, the Mt.Fuji that the streets of Marvel rest upon, someone who can be added to any storyline and be grafted into many characters to oppose or assist them, or even create and kill them. As a Daredevil villain, he is undeniable as one of the top supervillains, bordering on main character a lot of the time. An implacable unstoppable force of nature as well as a villain of history and brutality and drama and a character who brings intrigue and tragedy and even complexity, even as it all ultimately comes down to that raw hatred between them, the splinter in each other's eye, an infection in their world that just keeps taking and taking and taking without stopping.

It is an unforgivable offense to Wilson Fisk that there is a man out there so beneath him that he cannot break, cannot bend, cannot stop, and who makes such a mockery of everything he's built himself to be by existing, just as it is unforgivably offensive to Matt Murdock that there is a man out there named Wilson Fisk who thinks he has the right to be who he is, and do what he does. To be a man who not only cannot care about human life in any capacity other than what he thinks belongs to him, but whose continued existence attests to a world that validates him, that doesn't care about those lives either, where there is no accountability and no justice and no salvation that cannot be bought and sold. Fisk isn't just an embodiment of cruel, bottomless indifference, he stands for a world that agrees with him.

It would take too much work to defeat him, he just walks unscathed if you do, and even if you defeat him there will just be someone else to step in temporarily. And so it is with a heavy heart that the people of New York accept that the blood of countless runs through the streets, so long as the big man gets to give them their cookie at the end of the day for their hard work and agreeability. He is too big, too clever, too strong, and too invincible - and that's why Peter needs to stop him, that'd why Matt can never stop trying, that's why they can never let him be, otherwise Marvel New York would just be regular New York.

They'd have to accept a world where Wilson Fisk gets away with everything, and who could live with that?

#replies tag #daredevil #wilson fisk #the kingpin #kingpin #spider-man #marvel comics #marvel

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cherrycheolkat · 14 days ago

Text

• no blueberries, feat. mingyu, pt. 1 •

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁

pairing: kim mingyu x f!reader

mentioned: seungcheol, joshua, vernon, christian yu (dpr ian in part ii)

word count: 4.1K

genre: fake dating, college au, college student!mingyu, college student!reader, fluff, f2l, idiots, idiots in love, angst, pining, denial of feelings, etsablished friendship (reader & ian)

summary: mingyu was just your lab partner and study buddy for several semesters, but lately things seem to have changed, and maybe everyone else has noticed, but for the most part, neither of you even think about what you are to one another until mingyu asks you to be his 'fake' date for a long weekend trip so he can avoid an ex, the biggest problem is realizing that there's nothing fake about your relationship but when mingyu won't even talk about what you are to each other, you start to think things might be over before they even really start

warnings: explicit language, mentions of anxiety, sexually suggestive situations, drinking, established open relationship

a/n: they are literally idiots in love but they're so dumb they almost don't deserve a happy ending - i am screaming at them ;-; ooof writing part ii...and well, i need to update this with additional characters...oops (if you don't know - i am not a planning writing - i just go where the characters take me - they get their shit together - trust the process) besides it's named for a dpr ian song anyway, might as well include him for his dilf status and the accent

xx kat

[part ii] [part iii]

♡ if you would like to be tagged in my upcoming posts, go [here]

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁

“please, y/n,” he was definitely begging now.

she rolled her eyes, “dude, she’s your ex - you’re over her, just go and be normal, okay?” she was a bit annoyed at this point because he was over her, wasn't he, she wondered.

he whined softly, “seriously, just come with me, pretend you’re into me for like four days - i can’t deal with her, you know, alone,” she watched him stare at his textbook, looking fully embarrassed.

she blinked quickly wondering how she was the friend being enlisted for this - to her they were mainly lab partners and study buddies. she had no clue how he had decided they were close enough to even bring this idea up. but she did feel bad. even as lab partners, she knew his ex was genuinely horrible, as in her entire personality was “gaslight, gate keep, girl boss” - as though those were positive things no less.

she sighed, “i thought it was kind of a couples thing? since almost everyone is part of a couple,” she trailed off.

he nodded, “yeah, it is, but she’s going alone - she told someone her whole goal is to fuck me one more time,” he mumbled the last part, blushing hard, “apparently, she ‘misses’ that,” he rolled his eyes, looking miserable.

even she was shocked to hear that. it was certainly a new low.

“that’s - that’s really shitty,” she sighed, not knowing what else to say.

she watched him nod, still staring at his textbook, thumbing the edges of the page. she bit her lip gently, “can i think about it for a bit?”

he nodded, glancing up at her. she couldn’t help but notice how glossy his eyes looked - she worried he was on the verge of crying. she wasn’t equipped to deal with a crying mingyu. happy? sure. drunk? yes. whiny and ridiculous? no problem.

but to see him on the verge of tearing up because he was worried or stressed or whatever, that was beyond her friendship scope. but to be fair, fake dating probably was too. even if she knew some people did mistake them for a couple. that really wasn’t the point.

the point was the longer they sat there fake studying, she knew what she was going to do. she couldn’t sit back while he went off to a terrible trip to the lake where he might be the target of his ex’s sexcapades. she knew he hadn’t dated since her, which would just be a point againts him - she could easily imagine, ‘oh baby, you haven’t even tried since me?’ - gross, she thought. besides, if he were gone for the break, she wasn’t really sure what she would do anyway.

the standard was for them to study friday afternoon, and then they would usually met up at a party or something and would duck out for food when either of them got bored and go back to y/n's to watch tv and pass out. saturday was fairly similar, but sunday was more like study, and then they kind of always ordered food and watched tv or something. sometimes he slept on the couch - something her roommate would roll her eyes at whenever possible, espeically since ‘sometimes’ seemed to translate to almost every sunday.

she had finally told him to just bring clothes so he would't be late for monday morning practices anymore. her roommate had wondered loudly why mingyu didn't just move into y/n's room and get a tiny corner of the closet already. she had ignored that unnecessary commentary.

she groaned inwardly, “okay, fine - i’ll go with you, but you owe me,” you whispered.

he glanced up, “really?”

she ignored that he sounded a little too happy and nodded, “yes, if it means you can avoid her insanity for the long weekend,” she tried to feel confident about the decision.

luckily, she knew there was nothing between them. they’re only lab partners and maybe friends, at best, she tried to assure herself and ignore every other thought she had.

⋆˙⟡

she truly hated packing for anything, and this trip was no exception. the only slight difference was mingyu hanging out on her bed while she packed this time. she wasn’t sure if he was nervous or what, but he kept shifting around on her bed - it reminded her of a puppy rolling around in the hope that someone would rub its stomach. she tried not to laugh at the mental image of him rolling around in search of belly rubs. instead, she tried to focus on what to pack.

it was still warm enough to go swimming, despite the fact that it was ‘fall’ break, so she tried to decide on swimsuits. ultimately, she just packed them all - they were basically underwear anyway, she reasoned.

“are we sharing a room?”

“yeah, you know, since we’re together and ‘finally admitting it’ - is that really what jeonghan said?” he asked. he had been annoyed about that response for at least two hours.

“i literally showed you his text,” she mumbled as she hunted for friends-who-are-fake-dating appropriate sleepwear, aka her most oversized tshirts, sleep shorts that were as un-sexy as possible, and a few sweatshirts in case it was cold.

he sighed, “okay, but that’s such a flippant answer,” he complained.

she snorted, “‘flippant’?”

“yes!”

she grinned, wondering when he started using words like ‘flippant’ in normal conversations. mingyu was one of those guys who she hadn’t taken seriously when she first met him - he was fun at parties, but when he wanted to study together, she had been seriously skeptical. but then she saw their first exam grades post and realized how well he had ranked. she had wondered if it was just his personality or if he actively worked to hide the fact that he was that smart.

it hadn’t really mattered though since they had been studying together since then. something she distinctly remembered being an issue for his ex - katie had genuinely hated y/n and wasn’t quiet about it. it was maybe the only time she had seen mingyu fully lose his mind over something - she had never heard the words ‘get fucked’ said quiet so intensely, especially since that they were sitting in the library at the time.

she sighed, “don’t you think it might be a little obvious for us to show up together?”

“not really - she always said we had some weird thing, so why not let her be right,” his voice was concerningly normal.

she had been thinking about the fact that it was kind of a petty move. actually, there were loads of reasons she could think of for not going, including almost every scenario from a horror movie - she was not discounting serial killers in masks waiting in the woods. but her main concern was being confronted by katie - it just felt like a needlessly stressful way to spend her fall break.

“okay, but i mean, you couldn’t think of anyone else?"

he sighed, “like who? i hang out with you, i go out with you - you make sense,” his voice was soft, but he still sounded just a little disappointed that she was asking him…again.

she rolled her eyes, “we could just hang out like normal and avoid this.”

she glanced at him, watching him mull over what she had said and not for the first time either. to be fair, her anxiety was only growing. she left him to go pretend to be discerning about how much of her skincare she was packing, even though she was blindly grabbing everything from her counter. when she walked back into her room, he was sitting up.

“even if she’s there, the trip is just to have fun and not be on campus - you know, a break at joshua’s nice lake house,” he didn’t look at her as he explained.

she stared for a moment and turned back to her already exploding suitcase, “you only asked me because of her,” she felt like it was very obvious why she was going, but she heard him mumble something, which she ignored. instead, she violently jammed her clothes and toiletries into her bag.

she absolutely hated that knowing katie would be there made her feel a tiny bit competitive - she had purposefully picked all of her smallest swimsuits - she had even gone to get waxed for this, something she definitely would never admit to anyone. she had even dragged out her status luggage bag - the one her step-mom had given her two christmases ago that made her cringe. there was also the little, tiny mean voice in the back of her mind that had always thought katie had never been good enough for mingyu anyway - she wasn’t especially cute, and her voice drove y/n up the walls - not to mention she was kind of dumb and objectively sucked at beer pong. y/n would also never admit that she used to play them on purpose just to beat them because she was good at beer pong.

she jumped when mingyu touched her arm, “fuck, what?”

she hadn’t even noticed that he was lying on his side, watching her jam everything into her bag.

“you don’t have to go,” he whispered.

she swooped all of her hair off her shoulders in annoyance, mostly because there was something about the way he whispered, with this weird tenderness, that made her feel way too quivery. it wasn’t fair because she knew she never affected him like that. she just shook her head. she was totally fine with everything. plus, she didn’t believe him for a moment that she could just stay. she knew in her gut that she had moved something in their friendship past a boundary that she hadn’t even noticed, and now, she couldn’t just take it back without suffering the consequences.

⋆˙⟡

she was glad she was driving. she could at least focus on the road, plus they were the ones tasked with stopping at the liquor store, so she only had to deal with mingyu and seungcheol - she only wondered briefly why no one cared that seungcheol was solo for the long weekend. actually, it only annoyed her slightly that mingyu had left that fact out - she knew he could have spent the entire break with seungcheol, no problem, which only made her wonder why he really asked her. worse was her wondering why it seemed to matter that mingyu sounded disappointed at the idea of her not going, accepting but unhappy - not like he had been when she said ‘yes’.

she walked through the store, mainly looking for the things she wanted. her ideal party weekend was starting her day off with something bubbly and moving on to liquor by lunch. she wasn’t really paying attention to the cases of beer, tequila, and vodka mingyu and seungcheol were collecting. instead, she was in line to pay for her stuff and some edible gummy candies she noticed last minute - she grabbed several of those. she could’ve kicked herself for not asking her roommate’s girlfriend for some weed before she left. she waited next to her car for them to come out, answering a few texts. she ignored the ones from mingyu. she couldn’t help that she was from a family of people who completely avoided their emotions, plus she could see the message preview - it wasn’t anything life-changing.

when they came out, she wasn’t super shocked by the very full cart or the fact that they practically filled the back of her suv - they had to move their bags into the seat with seungcheol. it was like half the soccer team, their girlfriends, and friends for five nights, after all. the team wasn’t known for holding back at any of their parties - the rule was ‘no empties.’ she could only hope that the people getting food were grabbing enough to balance everything out.

the rest of the drive was uneventful. it was pretty though - even if it still looked like summer and not a bit like fall.

the house was a massive hunk of glass overlooking the lake. everything was very modern and sleek inside. she had been imagining something a little more cozy, less brutal. but that didn’t really matter, especially when they started divvying up the rooms - she and mingyu had a room that shared a bathroom with seungcheol’s room. and it hit her immediatly, mingyu was staying in seungcheol’s room. she wasn’t sure why it annoyed her, but it did, especially when she planned to be sharing a room with him.

she starfished out on the bed - her bed - and decided she would probably go home the next day. there was literally no reason for her to be here, and there probably never had been. also, sharing the bathroom with two whole ass guys just sounded miserable. she sat up after a few moments of moping, remembering the edibles she had - she ate three and dropped back onto the bed. she wasn’t planning on coming out of her room. mingyu could get fucked, she decided.

it was seungcheol who was leaning over when she woke up with a yelp, “what the fuck?” her heart was pounding.

he laughed, “sorry, mingyu wondered if you were okay, so i came to check,” he raised an eyebrow, “you seem alive, though,” he concluded.

she rolled her eyes, “thanks for the astute diagnosis, dr. choi,” she murmured and fell back onto the bed.

he laughed, “seriously though, you good?”

she exhaled loudly, “is he like standing in the bathroom or something?”

seungcheol shook his head.

“liar,” she groaned and rolled over, “i’m going home in the morning, so he can stop feeling whatever way he’s feeling.”

seungcheol looked surprised, “you’re just heading back? isn’t this like the first time you’ve like been somewhere together?”

she shrugged, “and?” your annoyance was definitely coming through, loud and clear.

seungcheol nodded, “right, you two have weird vibes, but look, i need him out of my room - my date is here, and i actually want to spend time with her.”

she could only roll her eyes, “so four people and one bathroom - this is only getting better,” she sighed, “i should just go home now.”

seungcheol shrugged, “whatever, just say it’s okay for him to come in here, so he stops whining in my room - it’s seriously killing my mood.”

“okay, whatever, i don’t care.”

this was truly going downhill as far as she was concerned. and why would mingyu be whining to seungcheol anyway, she wondered. she heard him come into the room, but she didn’t move. even when he sat on the bed, she stayed still.

“are you really leaving?”

she pressed her lips together, thinking, “probably not, but seriously, why did you even ask me?”

she had maybe run out of whatever annoyance she had felt before at being woken up out of nowhere, plus her edibles were wearing off. she sat up so she was next to him, “just tell me what this is - like i’m a buffer, right? but you didn’t tell anyone that i was just coming along, you told them we’re dating, and that comes with like expectations,” she trailed off.

“since when do you care about expectations?”

she wondered if smacking him would be too strong of a reaction.

this was all such a bad idea. she was going to have a shit weekend and probably lose her friend in the process.

⋆˙⟡

the rest of the night was uneventful, with everyone filtering in and no one eating at the same time. she grabbed food and something to drink and mostly avoided conversation, especially if it had to do with her and mingyu.

she also decided if she pretended this was like a retreat, she could just focus on swimming and hiking since, according to her phone, there were some great trails around. and obeying her fake retreat rules, she grabbed some extra water and headed to bed early - she needed to sleep if she was going to go for a sunrise swim. she was glad that she brought a sleep mask and ear plugs.

her only problem was mingyu’s texts. he hadn’t answered her question about why he asked her or explained why he went nuclear and told everyone they were dating. she had thoughts on what was going on, but she was as bad as he was. even lying in bed, in her not sexy at all clothes, her brain was in overdrive thinking about him in ways she didn’t want to be, especially since her phone kept going off. she knew he was thinking about her, even if it was this pretend, fake way - it didn’t matter. she pulled her pillow over her head to try to drown out the telltale buzzing. she refused to check her phone.

even when she finally heard the sounds of people going to bed. she cringed at the idea of seungcheol fucking. her gut reaction was that man would be loud.

she heard the footsteps outside their door, “come on mingyu - baby, just come to my room - you know you want to,” she sat up, knowing the voice immediately.

“no, i told you i’m not” — she heard the sudden wet sounds of a kiss.

“fuck, katie, stop - what are you not hearing?” she could hear the edge in his voice.

she sighed, she was technically there to help him avoid this kind of thing. she got out of bed and pulled off her sleep shorts, so she was clearly down to just her panties and tshirt, and tossed her sleep mask.

she walked to the door and opened it slowly, “gyu?” she made sure sleep was thick in her voice, as she pouted up at him adn tugged his shirt sleeve, “come to bed,” she whispered, biting her lower lip gently.

she didn’t even look at katie, just him.

he looked at her, “hey, baby,” he didn’t miss a beat, pulling away from katie as fast as he could and walking into their room after her, closing and locking the door.

she walked back over to the bed and flopped back onto the soft mattress, “helpful enough?” she asked.

the low light from outside was enough for her to see him nod, “sorry we woke you up,” his voice was soft.

she shook her head, “it’s fine, just come to bed - i want to swim in the morning,” she was already happily back under the duvet.

he was gone long enough for her to doze, but she opened her eyes when she heard him, “do you literally mean come to bed?”

she turned over and threw the covers back and patted the spot next to her. he still looked uncertain. she sighed and moved so she was on her knees - she grabbed his hand, “how much more of an invitation do you need?”

“you didn’t even check my messages,” his voice was so small - he sounded hurt.

she tried to find some answer in the way he was looking at her. but there was nothing besides the fact that she had hurt his feelings. ignoring him was the only thing she knew genuinely drove him nuts - he had told her when they were strictly lab partners how much he hated it - how much it annoyed him. she rarely ignored him. but she had tonight, mainly because her own thoughts were kind of fucked, seeing his stream of conciousness texts would have made it worse.

“so let me apologize,” she whispered, pulling his hand gently - it wasn’t lost on her that he was just in his underwear.

he let her pull him into bed, and she straddled him, reaching down to smooth his hair back from his face, “what hurts, baby?”

he touched his lips - she nodded, leaning down to kiss him softly. she held his jaw gently and kissed him slowly. she moaned faintly when she felt his hands ghost along her lower back and under her shirt. his hands were so warm, she shivered. she deepened their kiss, tracing her fingers through his hair as she did, loving how soft his hair was. they stayed that way, making out like it was the only thing in the world that mattered. even when she felt one of his hands slide down over the curve of her ass to trace his fingers under the hem of her panties, she didn’t break the kiss. she wasn’t worried about where his hands might wander. there were only so many things he could touch.

when she finally pulled away to breathe, she still played with his hair, “so, tell me what we’re doing, mingyu - so we both know, please.”

she could feel his hands on the backs of her thighs - he squeezed her thighs lightly, “what we do every weekend, y/n,” his voice was low.

she bit her lip softly, thinking about the weekend before, letting all her memories bubble to the top. her favorite part was the way he had held her back against his chest, leaning down to kiss her while he fucked her from below.

she shook her head gently, “just say it - tell me the way you told everyone else,” she murmured.

she waited for anything besides silence before sitting up and shaking her head. she moved to her side of the bed. she didn’t understand how they had gone so fluidly from one thing to another without really talking about it at all. but then again, that was maybe exactly how it happened - they hadn’t called it anything - it was just what they did. and she hadn’t cared about what it was anymore than he had until he brought it up - until he told people what they were. but somehow, that was the fake part - actually calling it a relationship wasn’t real, even though they had clearly been more than friends or anything else for months.

⋆˙⟡

she went to sleep purely for spite. and when she woke up with her alarm, she slipped out of bed, grabbed her swimsuit and went to change. it was when she walked out of the bathroom and by the bed that she felt him grab her hand gently, “are you really going out?”

she nodded, “yeah, why shouldn’t i do the stuff i want?”

“i didn’t say you shouldn’t,” he let go of her, sighing as he shifted around under the duvet.

she didn’t repsond, instead, she just grabbed her stuff and went quietly through the house and out the back. she walked along the dock, pausing at the end for a moment before jumping into the cool waters. even when she surfaced, she couldn’t get him out of her mind. she floated, thinking about the fact that whatever they were was only nameless when they were alone. she laughed to herself.

she got out when she started to feel chilly. she dried off and walked back to the house. she poked around the kitchen to find something for breakfast and some ice - she had kept her own drinks in their room, knowing they would be gone otherwise.

she went back to their room, bypassing the bed in favor of going onto the balcony they had. she hadn’t looked at it the night before. she only went back in to grab a bottle of champagne. she popped the cork, not really caring that it wasn’t chilled yet. she sipped it before sticking the bottle in the ice she had gotten. she ate fruit and some leftover steak she had found in the fridge. she scrolled through her socials.

a few of her friends had messaged to ask if she were really dating mingyu - her blanket response was easy, ‘no.’

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁

a/n: told you they are dumb af...trust the process, yes they're about to be messy af...but i only write happy endings

♡ kat

[part ii] [part iii]

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁

tag list: @syluslittlecrows

if you want to be tagged, go [here] my [master list] if you want to read more

#svt x reader #kim mingyu x reader #mingyu x reader #mingyu angst #kim mingyu angst #mingyu x y/n #mingyu x you #mingyu fic #svt angst #kim mingyu smut #mingyu smut #seventeen fanfic #kim mingyu fanfic #mingyu fanfic #seventeen x reader

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justin-chapmanswers · 4 months ago

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hi Justin! just want to say I ADORE ii and it's one of my favourite shows out there; actually inspired me to start my own!

which is a lame segue into my question- do you have any advice for someone wanting to make their own show?

That's so exciting!! Art makes art!

Oh golly uhhhh. There's so so much to say in so many different departments. So. I'll keep it broad and of course anyone can ask more specific questions haha.

My go-to advice tends to be for creators to start as small as possible early on. Even if you aspire to create projects that are huge-in-scale down the line. So much about becoming a great artist involves moving through the stages of your art (whatever type it may be!) from start-to-finish, every step of the process, over and over and over again. So say in show creation, idk if you plan to be hands-on in every department or if you have a lot of help, but that could mean breaking down stories and outlining, writing, recording, constructing audio scenes and boarding, character and prop and background design, animating, music assembly, mixing, finalizing and editing, etc, over and over again. Obviously not every step may be involved in your project depending on what your goal is, but whatever it is that you do, do it sooooooooo many times.

While there's nothing inherently wrong with jumping in and making your first project something say, movie-length, or something immensely complex in scope, I do find it can, for many (not all) be limiting when it comes to learning a lot of fundamental building-blocks in craft. As well, I see a lot of people get lost in an overwhelming project, trying to focus on quality>quantity right out of the gate. But spending the majority of your time just on adding some extra polish as opposed to running through the whole process again and again can only do so much for you. Obviously, a mentality of quality>quantity is great once you have a strong baseline understanding of production. But again, I think it's a huge plus to work on shorts and teeny-projects to start.

Since the above is pretty dry, I'll add an additional fun one. I've found that a lot of newer artists will toss away the concepts that make them joyous in hopes that they can instead create something that fits an objective perception of "professional." Nothing wrong with that, but I strongly advise artists of all levels of experience to toss everything they've love about the world and other media into their work. Their favorite genres and tropes, the stupid inside jokes that make them light up with their friends that they can invite the audience in-on, adaptations of stories that have made them cry. Create the things YOU love to experience. It's fine to let go of what you think the audience wants. Cause that's not easily guessable. But what YOU enjoy is something certain to you. It's sorta like how they say, it's better to go to the gym and do an suboptimal-but-fun workout that keeps you coming every day than a perfect workout that leads you to quitting. Share your joy with the world, and someone will resonate!

Be silly, be cringe, have fun!

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chillypowder · 3 months ago

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A Future Without You

Pairing: Ekko x Reader

Word Count: ~2,050

Genre: Angst, Tragedy

Summary: Years after encouraging you to leave the violence of the Undercity, Ekko discovers you’ve returned—as an Enforcer. Old wounds reopen as duty and ideology threaten to pull you apart once more. In the end, love may not be enough to bridge the divide between your worlds.

Warnings: Violence, major character death, emotional conflict

Ekko sat on the rickety railing of a Firelight hideout, the glow of the Undercity flickering below. The humming engines of passing drones were drowned out by his own thoughts—visions of a face he hadn’t seen in years but could never forget. The reader. You.

He’d told himself he had done the right thing back then, encouraging you to leave. “This place ain’t safe for you,” he’d said, his voice trembling under the weight of unspoken fears. Back then, you’d both known that staying meant being swallowed by the violence that consumed the Undercity. You’d begged him to come with you, but Ekko had stayed. He had a cause. A family. A purpose.

But what was the point of fighting for tomorrow if you weren’t in it?

He sighed, his thumb tracing the edges of the Z-Drive strapped to his wrist. It was a constant reminder of the choices he couldn’t undo and the moments he couldn’t relive, no matter how much he wanted to.

“Boss.” One of his scouts interrupted his thoughts, climbing up onto the railing. “You’re gonna wanna see this.”

Ekko leapt down, his boots landing silently on the metal grating. “What is it?” he asked, trying to push the pang of longing back into the recesses of his mind.

The scout hesitated. “Enforcers. We spotted a squad near the border. They’re armed, but they don’t look like a raid party. One of ‘em… they look familiar.”

His heart stopped for a moment. He followed the scout to a hidden vantage point. Through the scope of his makeshift binoculars, he spotted a small group of Enforcers patrolling the alleyway below.

And there you were.

You moved with confidence, your armor glinting in the sickly green light of the Undercity. The years had hardened you; the softness he remembered had been replaced with a sharp, almost dangerous resolve.

Ekko’s breath caught. It had been so long since he’d seen you. So long since he’d heard your voice. So long since he’d broken his own heart by letting you go.

The confrontation came faster than he expected. The Firelights intercepted the Enforcers before they could make it further into the Undercity. Ekko stood at the forefront, his mask hiding his face but not the determination in his stance.

“Enforcers don’t belong here,” he said coldly, his voice amplified by the modulator in his mask.

Your hand hovered over your weapon. “We’re not here to fight.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that?”

The tension crackled like a live wire. Ekko’s crew had their weapons drawn, and the Enforcers shifted uneasily. Then, you stepped forward, lowering your weapon—a gesture of trust.

“Please,” you said, your voice softer now, more familiar. “We just want to talk.”

Ekko hesitated. He could feel the eyes of his crew on him, waiting for his decision. After a moment, he gestured for them to lower their weapons.

The conversation took place in one of the Firelight hideouts, a dimly lit room filled with the hum of machinery and the faint scent of oil. Ekko removed his mask, and the shock on your face was impossible to hide.

“It’s you,” you whispered, your voice barely audible.

“It’s me,” he replied, his tone flat.

You reached out as if to touch him, but stopped yourself, your hand falling back to your side. “I thought you were…”

“Gone?” Ekko finished for you. “Yeah. I thought the same about you.”

The room seemed to shrink around you as the weight of everything unsaid hung in the air. Your comrades stood awkwardly in the background, but Ekko gestured for his crew to give you space.

“What are you doing here?” he finally asked, crossing his arms.

“I could ask you the same thing,” you shot back. “The Firelights, the raids… This is what you stayed for?”

“This is my home,” he said simply.

“And look what it’s done to you.”

The bitterness in your voice cut deeper than you intended, and Ekko flinched. You took a breath, trying to steady yourself. “I joined the Enforcers to make a difference, Ekko. I thought… I thought I could help. But seeing you here…”

“Seeing me here makes you what? Guilty?” His voice was sharp now, laced with anger he hadn’t meant to show.

“No,” you said firmly. “It makes me remember why I left.”

The argument spilled out like a storm, years of frustration and heartbreak fueling every word.

“You don’t get to lecture me about choices,” Ekko snapped. “You think I wanted this? You think I didn’t want to leave with you?”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because someone had to stay and fight for the people who couldn’t leave!”

The silence that followed was deafening.

“You don’t understand,” Ekko said, his voice quieter now, almost a whisper. “You don’t know what it’s like to watch everything you love fall apart and not be able to do anything about it.”

“I do understand,” you said, your voice trembling. “Do you think leaving was easy for me? Do you think I didn’t hate myself every day for it?”

“Then why did you come back?”

“Because I thought I could save you!”

The words hung in the air, raw and unfiltered.(like the air😭)

The reunion didn’t end in resolution. You left with your squad, and Ekko let you go, his heart heavier than ever. But the encounters didn’t stop. Over the next few weeks, you crossed paths again and again—on the battlefield, in negotiations, in quiet moments stolen from the chaos around you.

Each time, the old feelings resurfaced, tangled with the new scars you both carried.

One night, you found yourselves alone in the ruins of an old factory, the only sounds the distant hum of Shimmer labs and the occasional drip of water from a broken pipe.

“I never stopped loving you,” Ekko admitted, his voice barely audible over the din.

You looked at him, your eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Then why does it feel like we’re further apart than ever?”

He didn’t have an answer.

In the end, it was duty that tore you apart for good. The Firelights and the Enforcers collided in a brutal skirmish, and Ekko found himself face to face with you once more.

“Don’t do this,” he pleaded, his weapon lowered.

“I have to,” you said, your voice cracking. “This is bigger than us.”

“No,” he said, stepping closer. “It’s not. It’s always been about us.”

For a moment, it seemed like you might lower your weapon. But then, a shout from one of your comrades broke the spell.

“Stand down!”

The explosion that followed sent you both flying. Ekko woke up to find the battlefield eerily quiet, the smoke and debris settling around him. And then he saw you.

You were lying a few feet away, blood pooling beneath you.

“No,” he whispered, scrambling to your side. “No, no, no…”

Your eyes fluttered open, and you smiled weakly. “Ekko…”

“Don’t talk,” he said, tears streaming down his face. “I’ll get you help. You’re gonna be okay.”

But you both knew it wasn’t true.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“For what?” he asked, his voice breaking.

“For leaving. For coming back. For everything.”

“No,” he said firmly, his hands trembling as he held you. “You don’t get to apologize. This isn’t your fault.”

You reached up, your hand brushing against his cheek. “I’m glad… I got to see you again.”

And then you were gone.

Ekko sat alone in the hideout that night, your words echoing in his mind. He stared at the Z-Drive on his wrist, the temptation gnawing at him.

He could go back. He could save you.

But no matter how many times he replayed the moment, no matter how many ways he tried to change the outcome in his mind, he knew it wouldn’t work. Some things couldn’t be undone.

Some things had to be let go.

Ekko’s grief became a part of him, woven into the fabric of who he was. But so did your memory. He carried it with him, a reminder of what he’d lost and what he still had to fight for.

And though the future felt emptier without you, he vowed to keep moving forward. For you. For the Undercity. For a tomorrow where love and sacrifice wouldn’t have to be the same thing.

Masterlist

#arcane season 2 #league of legends angst #league of legends arcane #league of legends #league of legends ekko #angst #angst with no happy ending #ekko arcane #arcane ekko #arcane #ekko #ekko x reader #ekko league of legends #ekko angst

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literaryvein-reblogs · 2 months ago

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How to write a secret society in historical fiction setup? Say, women-only?

Writing Notes: Secret Society

Secret Society

An organization whose members are sworn to secrecy about its activities.

Any of a large range of membership organizations or associations that utilize secret initiations or other rituals and whose members often employ unique oaths, grips (handshakes), or other signs of recognition.

Elements of secrecy may vary from a mere password to elaborate rituals, private languages, costumes, and symbols.

The term may be applied to such widely divergent groups as U.S. college fraternities and sororities, the Ku Klux Klan, and international Freemasonry as well as to similar phenomena in ancient or precolonial cultures.

Historical Fiction

A literary genre where the story takes place in the past.

Historical novels capture the details of the time period as accurately as possible for authenticity, including social norms, manners, customs, and traditions.

Many novels in this genre tell fictional stories that involve actual historical figures or historical events.

Characteristics of Historical Fiction

There is a wealth of accurate historical detail relating to setting (geography, customs, beliefs, culture, society, habits) as well as to characters and events.

Story lines may focus on a particular historical event or time period, or they may follow the life of a character (real or fictional). Novels may raise difficult social or moral issues through the plot.

Characters may be real or fictional, but they are portrayed in such a way that they fit the times. The historical setting shapes their lives and actions.

Historical novels are usually big books, with stories that unfold at a leisurely pace. Even shorter Historical novels are usually so densely written that they must be read slowly.

Language and style may affect a reader’s experience. Some readers appreciate an “authentic” style, while others find this distracting. Dialects and format choices (such as epistolary novels) also affect reader reaction.

The tone of Historical novels runs the gamut from rollicking to somber, and this tone may be a major, if unacknowledged, factor in reading choices.

Example of An All-Women Secret Society

Heterodoxy - a secret society that paved the way for modern feminism.

The female debating club’s name referred to the many unorthodox women among its members. They “questioned forms of orthodoxy in culture, in politics, in philosophy—and in sexuality.”

Born as part of the initial wave of modern feminism that emerged during the 19th and early 20th centuries with suffrage at its center, the radical ideologies debated at Heterodoxy gatherings extended well beyond the scope of a women’s right to vote. In fact, Heterodoxy had only one requirement for membership: that a woman “not be orthodox in her opinion.”

Heterodoxy met every other Saturday to discuss such issues and see how members might collaborate and cultivate networks of reform. Gatherings were considered a safe space for women to talk, exchange ideas and take action.

With 25 charter members, Heterodoxy included individuals of diverse backgrounds, including lesbian and bisexual women, labor radicals and socialites, and artists and nurses.

Meetings were often held in the basement of Polly’s, a MacDougal Street hangout established by anarchist Polly Holladay. Here, at what Berman calls a “sort of nexus for progressive, artistic, intellectual and political thought,” the women would gather at wooden tables to discuss issues like fair employment and fair wages, reproductive rights, and the antiwar movement.

The meetings often went on for hours, with each typically revolving around a specific subject determined in advance.

As the club’s core members aged, Heterodoxy became more about continuing friendships than debating radical ideologies.

By the early 1940s, the biweekly meetings of Heterodoxy were no more. Still, the club’s legacy lives on, even beyond the scope of modern feminism.

Other Examples. 19th Century Collegiate Secret Societies.

Organized women’s collegiate secret societies formed across America.

These societies were created with the intent of cultivating lifelong friendships with one another, encouraging passionate “sisterly” bonds with all members, and supporting an organized network of women that would encourage their own daughters to carry on this membership into the next generation.

Adopted a motto proclaiming values of boundless loyalty to their fellow “sisters”.

Below are examples of secret societies, their respective mottos, and the dates of their founding:

The Adelphean society (later ΑΔΠ) “We Live for Each Other.” 1851

The Philomathean society (later ΦΜ) “The Faithful Sisters.” 1852

I.C. Sorosis (later ΠΒΦ) “Friends and Leaders for Life.” 1867

Alpha Phi (ΑΦ) “Union Hand in Hand” 1872

Delta Delta Delta (ΔΔΔ) “Let Us Steadfastly Love One Another” 1888

Young girls at boarding school would be “adopted” by older girls who would play as pseudo motherly figures and role models for the younger classes to admire as well as emulate.

This same process can be seen in the pledging processes of collegiate societies.

Example: The Philomathean Society was originally created as a secret literary society, membership in one of these organizations was highly coveted, and the process of mutual selection between a potential new member and the respective society often caused a plethora of emotions to stir.

In their annual yearbook from the year 1900 is a story that was written with the intention to depict what life was like for a Philomathean, and detailed the secrecy and the high emotions that were involved in the pledging process.

Initiated upperclassmen were considered “the girls to be” and were admired by many freshmen for their demeanor and social presence in the school.

As these upperclassmen both from the Adelphean society and the Philomathean society sought out potential new members, there were secret interactions between potential new members and initiated members to try and connect more deeply with each new girl and sway her to pledge to a certain society.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Incorporate elements and characteristics of historical fiction in your story, and research more on which women-only secret society your work will center around. You may even take inspiration from more than one secret society from history. Do go through the sources above as I only included excerpts here. Hope this helps with your writing!

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wardensantoineandevka · 2 months ago

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I won't get around to writing a properly developed post on it, but speaking generally and assuming broad good faith, I personally think the anachronism in Veilguard is fine. I know it's a deeply held bit of style for a lot of people, and many hold the directive about no anachronism as important to things feeling properly Dragon Age.

Personally, I never felt it THAT important. I roll my eyes at nitpicking about historically accurate costuming too, and I pause to wonder what IS "anachronism" in fantasy. I think a lot of the style of the games leaned so hard on it that, in some places, it was a substituting this rule in place of developing stronger individual style or voice. I love this series, but I don't feel like characters (notably once you got past core cast), locations, etc. always and consistently had a strong sense of voice, both in terms of diction but also in visual direction. I feel like even the music gets this a little bit, since Veilguard feels more musically interesting to me than many of the prior tracks because, I think, the soundtrack is allowed to feel a little less like vaguely European medieval heroic fantasy.

There's always been anachronism, but I think the strict reliance on adhering to a particular conception of what A Fantasy Story looks and sounds like really hampered, at least for me, the development of style identity. Veilguard's voice and style broke from that in a way that did feel successfully more specific and striking for the story and characters it's trying to dress. I think being released from this directive does—because there's no longer what we bring ourselves to the table from our familiarity with the genre and pattern recognition—however, magnify flaws in how Bioware always has treated the setting as just the backdrop against which these dramas play out. But that's outside the scope of my thoughts here. I'll just summarize that with: that's a consistent Bioware problem, and I don't think it's inherently wrong to approach worldbuilding as merely dressing the set for your story, though perhaps that isn't always the most successful approach here and I know many fans are very invested in the setting itself and its development, so that would put us all at cross purposes.

Don't get me wrong. There IS a place for that sort of directive, a rule against things that scan too modern. But then, I think for it to work, you have to have a very firm idea of your own voice, of your individual style and direction working with that directive, and frankly, I don't think Bioware EVER really had a super strong grasp of it here.

I do think the character design especially, character voice, and visual identity suffered SO much in many earlier instances because of this directive. Meanwhile, I think it's interesting and striking to have things like, for example, Neve clearly drawing from film noir and how that informs how I approach and think about her as a character and how appropriate it feels that Lucanis and Illario end on the stage of an opera house. I feel like being released from having to worry about anachronism has, for me, produced some of the strongest instances of style and voice in the series in a long time.

And I know a lot of people feel the OPPOSITE, which is a matter of personal experience and taste, but for my own, it always felt like the series was weighed down by a notion of needing to properly emulate The Genre. (We've all looked at the infamous browns and muds of Origins, a game I am fond of. This is why it looks and sounds like that, in my opinion.) This fear of being too anachronistic or too modern often left the series not really feeling, to me, like it's really had a firm sense or idea of what its style or voice was, of what made it sound or look like itself, because it was always afraid of being too modern while also feeling afraid to not look enough like a heroic epic fantasy.

I think getting rid of that and no longer fearing it has done a lot for developing a stronger voice with a look, sound, and feel for Veilguard that feels more specific and conveys story and character so much better and more confidently. Because, in the end, that's supposed to be what this is all in service of: conveying character and story. I feel like Veilguard, in being released from this restriction, has developed a stronger voice with which to do it.

#DATV things #I've been thinking about it on the train

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obstinaterixatrix · 2 months ago

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Bit of an odd one here, but do you have any yuri/GL recommendations for people interested in learning how to learn and write the genre well? Stuff that fires on all cylinders and hits every target, even if it doesn't exactly break the mold (tbh I just want to write girls... no, I shan't say. But I want to do it WELL, y'know?)

YES, manga-wise:

Still Sick (3 volumes) is good for grounded but still silly office romance, the main character tables at cons selling yuri doujin and her coworker finds out her secret, the women are just some guys

Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko (3 volumes) is good for high energy high stupidity office romance (that still hits pathos, does explore internalized homophobia), ayaka is down bad for hiroko and hiroko is very ‘WOAH STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE SO SCARY… STAY BACK, TEMPTRESS’, the women are just some guys

5 Seconds Before a Witch Falls In Love (2 chapters + short extra) is good for short-form action-oriented romance with a witch hunter and a witch, the artist mainly writes BL, the women are just some guys

Hana to Hoshi (2 volumes) is good high energy high stupidity high school romance between table tennis ex-rivals, the gals are just some guy

my preferences skew towards romcom rather than drama/slice of life so if you’re looking for that I have some titles but not a lot to say (and I haven’t read all of these in-depth):

Run Away With Me, Girl where a woman reunited with her high school ex who is in a currently abusive relationship and they run away together. Good for distinct art style, heavier storyline that still wraps up in 3 volumes

Even Though We’re Adults, a woman hooks up with someone who turns out to be married; shimura is pretty prolific (I mean she wrote aoi hana), as far as I remember competent character writing and scope; good for long-form reference for heavier storylines (10 volumes)

How Do We Relationship, more coming of age than yuri imo but good for long-form messy college relationships

She Likes to Cook, She Likes to Eat, very slice of life, grounded to realistic emotions and experiences, definitely comes from a place of Wanting To Represent The Queer Experience, can be a reference for low-key romance

The Two of Them are Pretty Much Like This, age gap slice of life established relationship, good for slow atmosphere and conflicts beyond will-they-won’t-they

I have a couple webtoons to add to the list but this is eating up my snow frolicking time so I’ll add that in like 4-5 hours if I remember. also I have an ff recs tag

#ask #anonymous #I HAVE TO LEAVE NOW I’LL BE BACK #recs #ff recs

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gcballet · 1 month ago

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Just saw someone complaining about the Newhart ending from 0611 being mockery of people who ship Nandermo and frankly I can only imagine that account is someone who's under 20 bc that is not what mockery/rejection of queer ship fans looks like. You were in preschool when BBC's Merlin came out, you don't know. S6 and finale spoilers below.

The point of the Newhart parody ending was to provide an ending for fans who just wanted WWDITS to stay a goofy status quo sitcom. It's answering the black and white footage of the vampires in the 1950s. The sitcom status quo is a famously really hard trope to work with. The Simpsons is literally still struggling with it - decades of skilled comedy writers have never defeated it. It's a commentary on being satisified by the media we consume. The vampire can never fully be satisfied, no matter how many lives she consumes. The status quo can never be broken no matter how many episodes it attempts.

The 1980s trope of 'it was all a dream' happens in The Bob Newhart Show, it happens in St. Elsewhere, it happens in Dallas. They aren't mocking a queer ship, they're mocking sitcoms and how they've been hamstrung by format in terms of the story they can tell. Assume they did pursue Nandermo unambiguously, onscreen. It would be legitimately too dark for a sitcom. Or conversely, too hopeful for a documentary.

The other generic format choice restricting them is the documentary, because everything the characters do in the show is them being watched by a group of strangers with film equipment. None of their behaviour is wholly real. The entirety of the finale is Guillermo realising his behaviour will change when the crew leave. His behaviour has been influenced by the presence of cameras, and it will happen again. For the first time in six years, he's going to experience actual privacy, and there will be scope for him to express things he has deliberately suppressed with the cameras on. In the first episodes of S5, we saw him get increasingly frustrated with the crew, calling them vultures, as they tried to get the story on what happened with Derek. He's ready for his privacy back, and space to change, but the vampires live by sitcom rules. They aren't prepared to change, or at least, he isn't confident about it.

What We Do In The Shadows (2019-2024) is restricted by two specific genres and their conventions, and the first two 'endings' - the dream sequence and the switching off the cameras - represent exiting both of those genres before any significant radical moves can be implied for Nandermo.

It's a sitcom, therefore the central couple must be in perpetual will-they-won't-they (Friends), the gays must be physically chaste (Modern Family), and the status quo must be maintained (The Simpsons). Once the sitcom is ended via the Newhart ending (which positions Guillermo and Nandor as a married couple, that's not a small thing at all), the documentary tropes can close out.

Documentary tropes are a little harder to pin down, but generally the story should end with Guillermo truly moving on and leaving in a poignant and somewhat tragic way.

Guillermo's narrative thread throughout the documentary version of the show is about his identity and relationship with Nandor. He gives the cameras a big show of finally saying goodbye to Nandor, going on to be a new version of himself, and waits until the crew begin to derig before acknowledging again that a documentary is performative, and he intends to continue their relationship. The documentary format means intimate moments must be captured. When the documentary ends, the intimacy may be private. That's why we don't get a Nandermo kiss. It's allowed to be private now.

Guillermo is sad throughout the finale, yes, but I would argue he's actually mostly stressed, because on one level he understands that the show must commit to one of two trope endings. The sitcom, the repeating lives of the vampires where nothing matters and you can be hypnotised to believe there was nothing deep about it. Or the documentary, where he is forced to tragically leave forever, having learnt a valuable 16 year lesson, perhaps meeting again for a 'where are they now?' Twenty years later.

He thinks he has to choose in under an hour, between the endless sitcom cycle the vampires find natural, or walking away with the humans who made the documentary to capture something ephemeral and temporary.

They do both, and then Nandor and Guillermo get what is clearly the ultimate ending. It's not formatted in such a way that you choose between endings. They're not alternate endings, they're subsequent endings. It doesn't have multiple endings like Clue, it has multiple endings like The Return of the King.

And maybe Guillermo and Nandor don't kiss on the mouth and declare their love for one another, but the camera crew is still leaving the room. What they do do is agree to stay together and work together on something to make themselves and/or the world better. Then Nandor invites Guillermo to share his pseudo-bed and disappear into a private space he has created in secret for the two of them. Even phrased matter of factly that's romantic. Someone flippantly called it 'the gays getting sent to super hell' and wow way to deliberately miss the point. Nandor never follows through on big projects, but he built a miles deep tunnel under the earth so he and Guillermo could at last be alone away from a huge documentary crew and roommates with super hearing. That's beautiful. They don't owe you an onscreen kiss to prove they're in love. They (Nandermo and the show producers) don't even owe you representation, and if you think otherwise, you've not bought into the premise of the show. You are the voyeur watching the documentary, the fan watching the Ross and Rachel (Nandor and Guillermo have been compared to them by the cast).

The whole point of the endings is that they moved Nandermo outside the unreality of TV genres. Not a sitcom will-they-wont-they, not a tragedy within a documentary, just two weird guys in a coffin in a hole in the ground, doing whatever they want because nobody is watching and judging.

They didn't make Nandermo canon, they made Nandermo real.

#wwdits spoilers #yes i watched the finale a month after it came out #i was very happy with the finale basically #they had an impossible task and they basically won #they had multiple genres to conclude and a ship which was always confusing even before s6 #they had so much fun with genre in s6 and i really respect the writing #ironically s6e08 was quite weak and needed punching up a bit #and there were a few episodes which could have gone in any season #but i think that was sort of the point of the sitcom format threatening to reassert itself #the metatext was spot on #and the nandermo wasn't confusing you just lack media literacy #wwdits #what we do in the shadows tv #what we do in the shadows

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