#because narratively a sinking dynamic makes a lot of sense

[kacievvbbbb]

Okay so the thing with JayVik is that it’s really the juxtaposition of Viktor with Mel (Jayce’s canon love interest of a time and who he clearly still has some kind kf feelings for) when it comes to Jayce it’s always Viktor and Mel literally one after the other. When Jayne hallucinates into the fire it’s Mel that morphs into Viktor. Like that brings to mind such a specific connotation.

Like I’m not a die hard Jay Vik honestly think they should just be a threesome with Mel. But like why are people acting so suprised? Why are the creators acting surprised that people see them romantically? Like y’all are the ones that did that! Nobody made you do that!😭😭. If you wanted their relationship to feel more brotherly then the people they should have contrasted them with is Jinx and Vi. Like I know narratively they mirror each other but imagery wise it’s not there. Like they did this with Silco and Vander they damn well could have done it with a Jayce and Viktor if they wanted but no they choose to contrast Viktor with Mel…… and you’re suprised by the ship?

[ilynpilled]

Do u believe that Jaime might kill Cersei and then himself at the end of the series? I saw other page theorizing about him killing himself as a final act or something like that…

i think about jaime and suicide a lot bc i do think it is a permeating theme with him in many ways, and he does do a lot of passive suicidal ideation. he is one of the characters who does not fear death really and is reckless in a way that it is clear that part of him seems drawn to it because of his existential dread. idk bc the thing is that i do think that “what else can i do, but die?” passage indicates the opposite of an ending with suicide specifically, and i think there are themes relevant to him here that i think are more likely to be followed through rather than be tragically rejected:

nonetheless, theres a certain part of me that is morbidly drawn to him succumbing to despair anyway. like if he dies with valonqar, i think thats the only way i would actually like it. i was never someone that felt particularly moved by the “poetry” or “irony” of dying together because i always thought all of that is much richer if it is treated as desperate self affirming delusion that is bound to collapse. and we already see jaime reject dying with her once. there is a visible degree of acceptance of their fates not being entwined that is not feigned bc he did actually leave her to her fate and no longer feels the obligation to die with her, pretty clearly juxtaposed with his mindset in asos where he revolves his life around her “needing” him, and ofc cersei’s own desperate narrative rn. and i think george writing it so they can die exactly at the same time doesnt just feel unrealistic but also would hurt the weight of the scene to me because it would give me no aftermath. a wall falls on them both? valonqar doesnt even happen then. jaime killing cersei and then a wall falls on him or some shit? whats the point? double suicide? where is the ‘betrayal’ and irony and subversion of the jc dynamic’s narrative? cersei’s mindset is proven right. cersei kills him? idk if that works with cersei’s tragedy/betrayal/shock + how would she? he’s injured from something else and makes sure to bring down cersei with him? ig, still feel eh about it. if it happens, i wouldnt feel that much about anything thats not an actual suicide after a murder. and even then, it would make more sense for jaime to attempt suicide by rushing into the nearest battle/suicide mission based on his established characterization. that is the type of act that would be in character rather than just falling on a sword then and there ig. u can argue that the choice itself of him going back can be framed as a suicide attempt where he wants to go down with a sinking ship bc he thinks thats what he deserves, and ofc depending on when this happens the city might be beyond saving already, but still, the execution and circumstances matter to me. i also obviously dont want it framed as him being unable to live without cersei. i find that reductive of his character and boring on top of kind of incongruent bc he already made that choice of key separation once. he already proved himself capable of treating their lives as not entwined. i would only like suicide if it was about a complicated and ingrained sense of failure over not being able to triumph over reckoning with the world and the self (this is what makes the light go out in the weirwood dream too. cersei leaving is not where it ends), esp bc i assume the whole thing is playing on history repeating itself in the most ironic and dark way imaginable. ofc a bigger part of me wants triumph over that this time and for that flaming sword that he gave brienne to still burn and provide light in “his darkness”, replacing cersei’s torch that she takes with her in the dream as she joins tywin and joffrey and the lannister ancestors and leaves jaime in “the dark”, to represent some deeper purpose also embodied by brienne that allows him to continue past this point (the flames will burn as long as you live when they die so must you), and i also think it works better in a lot of ways. i have talked about widow’s wail currently being in the red keep, the twin swords set up, twftd foreshadowing, how i interpret the prophecies in the weirwood dream and how it works with the past and future etc, even how it all comes together thematically when it concerns knighthood and the cynicism/idealism synthesis. but still, a part of me is attracted to that kind of painful tragedy. im fairly open to a lot of things in general if they are not halfbaked and incongruent and dont make me feel empty in a bad way on top of being unsatisfied. but yeah, when thinking about the narrative as a whole, idk how it could work in a way that id like based on all that i have read.

to me, theres too much cost in terms of set ups, unless it happens at the very end of the story ig. but how would that work logistically? and when and how would he acquire widow’s wail? that sword’s a chekhovs gun for twftd that i think jaime has the most foreshadowing and set up with. what else would he do at the red keep? why put him there again when this part of the story could be wrapped up? like theres a certain order of events that seems to work and make the established pieces fall together much better in my head, but ofc i could be wrong.

[triviareads]

Tastes Like shakkar sounds so good! What are your top 5 books with brown or desi characters?

I enjoyed Tastes Like Shakkar a lot more than I was expecting, and have relentlessly been shilling it ever since. It's such a solid romance, the sex was good, a lot of the desi family stuff (the concept of being a "family manager") really hit, but it never took away from the main romance. Also, it's always nice to feel "seen" in the books you read even though it's pretty rare for me, but since this was specifically about Indian-Americans in the NY-NJ area, I really felt that.

Here are books with desi rep apart from Tastes Like Shakkar that are in my top 5:

Wrong to Need You by Alisha Rai: I debated putting my other fave by Alisha, Serving Pleasure, on here but Wrong to Need You portrayed a less-troubled desi family dynamic than Serving Pleasure so I'm picking this. Sadia is a widowed single mom grappling with her attraction to her brother-in-law, Jackson who's just returned after a self-imposed exile related to a mysterious fire. The restrained tension between these two is so hot (ok maybe not entirely restrained; she doesn't recognize him when he first returns and nearly has sex with him lol). Also, Sadia, like Jiya below, subverts the passive Asian woman trope on multiple levels, and based on the dynamic between her and Jackson.

I also liked how Sadia's large, close-knit Pakistani-American family was portrayed; they may not see eye-to-eye all the time, but they love one another and are willing to learn and compromise.

Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert: Zafir Ansari is truly a prince among men; him and Dani go viral for his rescue of her, and they start fake dating so his football charity can get some positive attention and donations. I like how Zafir was the romantic one among the two of them (and is a Bollywood romance fan, predictably), and is also great in the sack so... a winner, basically.

Also, Talia wrote this lovely exploration of grief (Zafir lost his dad and brother) and this really sweet relationship between Zafir and his SIL, and his family as a whole which I appreciated.

Sink or Swim by Tessa Bailey: I know Tessa has gotten a lot of flak for her portrayal of Latinx characters (which, deserved imo), and she's otherwise by and large stuck to writing white characters, but I can't deny she did pretty damn good job of writing Jiya and her family, who are desi, in this book. Here are my full thoughts on this.

The Roommate Risk by Talia Hibbert: Friends to lovers AND probably one of the only unrequited love books I'll ever recommend only because I love Jasmine so much (even while she's STRUGGLING to figure out that yes, Rahul has had feelings for her ever since she deflowered him on the... I wanna say library floor), and Rahul Khan is adorable and a stern, stern man who can absolutely get it. Similar to Zafir above, Rahul's dad also dies during the book (there's a lot of flashbacks) and Talia portrayed Muslim funeral customs and just the general family dynamics thoughtfully and in such an emotional way.

Hard Way by Katie Porter: lol my problematic fave because there are a few things that are just so weird in terms of rep: For one, the author keeps putting Sunita, the heroine, in "indian inspired" clothes, for example, some kind vaguely described professional suit inspired by a saree? Like, this woman is an attorney who works for a United States congressman. She's probably wearing a regular-ass suit like the rest of the people in that office. Also, her nickname in law school was the "Ice Queen of Bangalore" which was meant to be microaggressive, but the nickname literally makes 0 sense to me since she was raised in AMERICA, and considering half the Indians I know can't make the connection between being Kannadiga and possibly being from Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka, what are the chances these white mfs can, right? And the weird thing is, she narratively sort of "reclaims" her nickname, but it was such a cringe one to begin with and I don't even know why the authors bothered to put it in in the first place.

BUT Sunita is the only Kannadiga heroine I've ever read (I am. kannadiga, to clarify), she's a martial artist, she's struggling to work out her marriage with her husband (I'm a sucker for that shit), she's good with being kidnapped and zip-tied straight from the grocery store by her husband because it's a mutual fantasy, and she attends yakshagana performances (also very personal to me and my family)! Do you know how rare it is to see any of these things as far as brown heroines go? Maybe I have a lower bar for South Asian rep because there are so few romances that have South Asians who don't hate themselves/the culture AND have good sex scenes, but hopefully that will change as time goes on.

[erisenyo]

@louandharrybby - wanted to pull this out of the tags because I wanted to say it was my first fic but not the first novel-length thing I'd written, and from that prior experience, I learned how I write in a way that is sustainable and fun for me.

Like I knew I couldn't post chapters as I went, I had to write it all out first or else I'd start to not want to write because of the pressure of needing to update. And I knew I needed a plan, I couldn't just sit down with a blank page and write and have anything good come out. I knew I needed to be excited by the characters' various emotional journeys and growth, not just in the main romantic relationship.

Which is all to say--things were cooking for while, and its a canon rewrite which gave me a lot of good structure to fall back on if I was ever unsure about where the story was progressing (and These Things Written is a fanfic of a fanfic which is worth calling out), but it was absolutely worth the time to figure out an approach that worked for me. It definitely takes fits and starts, but even if the writing is frustrating or feels disorganized--that is something you're learning about your process and approach, and there's a lot of value in that long-term.

A bit of a figure of speech (I think of the beats "hitting," like this emotional moment needs to land) but there's definitely a sense of rhythm to it too!

Like some emotional threads are higher-intensity than others (the main romantic Zukka arc of These Things Written, for example, vs Sokka and Aang's developing friendship) and so the 'noise' they make in the fic is louder in terms of reader head-space and character head-space and fallout. They require in-fic space to come back down from, if that makes sense, in terms of processing and breathing room and letting the moment really sink in.

So something high-angst followed by something quieter and softer, and being conscious of not stringing too many high-intensity peaks back to back (the Fire Festival + Aang and Sokka convo + Katara and Sokka convo in These Things Written took like an entire chapter to breathe after). Or too many high-intensity peaks of the same sort, too--an emotional love declaration has a different feel than an emotional breakup and it requires different framing and setup and post-moment beats. If you're landing devastating hits they need space to actually land or else they lose their impact, and soft moments need space to live and sink in before the plot overtakes them or else they don't feel as substantial..

I also think about tying those lower-intensity emotional threads to the high-intensity ones, like Katara and Sokka working through their evolving sibling dynamic in part through the lens of the Sokka/Zuko arc. Or the slow build of quieter moments to give something weight in momentum, like all the "dating" moments in the Ba Sing Se arc of These Things Known that were softer and cuter but also just a little bit off around the edges because of the way reality kept breaking in (or being intentionally kept out), and how that built up narrative tension.

So not precisely a sense of music to it, but definitely a feeling for the emotional peaks and valleys and build up and drop off, and thinking about how those moments flow together and how to give the best lead up and space to land the really important ones, and how to pull through the quieter ones in the pauses for breath.

[rawwrrrvelociraptor]

I want to dwell on the “medicalized re-packaging of the American Dream” thing for a second, because in my post-diagnosis life (autism, not ADHD, but so much of this also applies to a lot of the stuff around my fellow late-diagnosed folks) I keep seeing a general sense that our lives were all ruined by the lack of support and recognition for our conditions in childhood. And without diminishing the very real struggles that we faced, I want to emphasize that so much of those struggles came from structures that harm Everyone. I saw a post recently of a classroom poster of the kind that I remember from my own childhood, picturing a cartoon child sitting obediently at a desk with labels identifying the key elements of good listening, which included sitting properly, keeping arms and legs still, and looking at the person speaking. Someone had labeled it anti-ADHD propaganda, and someone else pointed out that it’s not anti-ADHD propaganda, it’s anti-child propaganda. Kids move and fidget and are generally not designed to sit still and quiet for interminable amounts of time. Some kids are able to comply with this standard, and some kids will never be unfairly targeted for their failures because of assumptions around race and gender and whatnot. There are all kinds of dynamics that make this sort of thing worse for some than for other, but even in the best case scenario, as someone else put it, compliance is not thriving. We need to rid ourselves of the idea that there’s us, with our broken brains who are always disadvantaged, and them, for whom this society is working perfectly.

Of course, there are things that some people need that will come into conflict with what others need. I had a professor in college who had some unconventional teaching strategies that made my head spin and reduced me to tears in the bathroom after class more than once, but which others thrived on and described as the most engaged they’ve ever been. This professor was to some extent aware of this and tried to address it, but told me once, “The problem is, if I do what I need to do to keep So-and-So awake at 9am on a Wednesday morning, then I end up having to scrape you off the ceiling.” There are important conversations to be had about how we deal with needs that come into conflict with each other, and whose needs we’re most likely to prioritize. But so often I see those conversations pushed to the side in favor of a narrative that suggests our neurodivergent failures are not our fault and their neurotypical successes are just because the system is working for them. It’s not. It’s not working for any of us. 

I struggled pretty hard after college, which eventually led to someone suggesting that autism might be at play, may have always been at play. The lack of structure and direction were difficult for me, and I didn’t know what I needed to do to deal with life after school, the main framework I had organized myself around. Autism has been a useful framework for understanding the specific difficulties I had and for beginning to address them. But the more I think about it, the more it’s clear to me that I wasn’t destined to struggle with this because of my brain and more than anyone one else is inevitably going to succeed because of theirs. We’ve designed a world where people have to hit the ground running, to sink or swim, such that so many kinds of disadvantage can send life spiraling out of control in a second, and no advantage can ensure that you remain secure. It doesn’t have to be that way. 

My autism-style crash could have ruined me, but it didn’t because of relative economic security and a few understanding people. Plenty of other people don’t get that buffer zone, for issues with ADHD, autism, or any other neurodivergence. They also don’t get that buffer zone for dealing with their own or a family member’s illness, for dealing with debt, or just for not really knowing where they’re going with their life. We need to move away from a framework of understanding neurodivergences and the world’s treatment of them as the thing that’s keeping us from reaching our potential success in the way some fabled group of Normal people can, and start thinking about how maybe the standards we’re setting for what a successful life looks like is hurting pretty much everyone. That’s not to say we can or should avoid discussions of how autism and ADHD and everything come with unique challenges that need to be specifically addressed. But we need to be careful that we’re not accidentally valorizing the standard set by the American Dream via a medical framework that excuses some people but not others from achieving it. 

But at the same time, I felt uneasy at being thrust into an online community which I’d long considered kind of annoying: What’s really striking is the extent to which a disorder associated with garrulousness and substance abuse has been captured so utterly by nerds. To what neurodivergent urges would I now be subjected? Would I be tempted to start drawing pastel-colored webcomics about buying too many notebooks or set up a TikTok account with my boyfriend in which he is assigned the role of baffled but tolerant neurotypical and I am essentially a child? Would I start claiming that innocuous behaviors like “Googling stuff,” “using emojis,” “being able to concentrate sometimes but not always,” and “watching cartoons” arise directly from my newly confirmed condition? Would I begin to construct elaborate metaphors along the lines of “ADHD is basically like having a poltergeist that follows you around and moves your stuff” or “ADHD is having a werewolf that lives inside your brain: the secret is not trying to control the werewolf, but fully embracing that you are this creature”? I didn’t want to do any of those things, but I did start to consider what we are telling ourselves — and one another — about ADHD.

[inkskinned]

she trails one finger down my cheek, sighing. "I'm gonna miss you."

i roll my eyes, lying back against her uncolored bedspread, watching the room settle into the correct form. she always gets like this, right before an Assignment. she takes our Roles a little bit too seriously. my brain is already sloshing with the pacing of the Narrative - a little stilted, a little distant. I'd been in Close Third in the last one, and more poetic. her hands make shadow puppets on the bright pink walls; the room shifts and become covered in art; shifts and become covered in band posters. then back to pink.

she'd been my Best Friend Forever since kindergarten, usually. the oldest we'd ever met each other was in middle school, but that Assignment had been pretty bleak anyway, and she'd only been in-and-out of the picture. I'd barely seen her. i loved her, usually, from the moment i met her - she usually had done something Charming in some way, solidifying our bond for the Audience.

"you're gonna be fine," i tell her. "we'll be back here in no time."

she sighs and curls up next to me, turning so our noses almost touch. she smells familiar, like drying ink. then she smells like mint and mown grass. then she smells like herself, for a second, before she's back to peppermint. "well, you're gonna be fine," she says. "The Main Character always is."

"this again." i roll my eyes a second time. this Assignment feels like it is heavy in the eye-rolling. i had told her before: i'm jealous of her Role just like she's jealous of mine. the Best Friend Forever gets to be quirky, spunky, cute. she always has a personality like a firecracker - even if sometimes that firecracker had a harsh edge to it. in most Assignments, she'd run around, starting - or getting me out of - loads of trouble. she gets to have grand adventures without too much Character Development, which is always painful for me and kind of annoying. she is always Assigned cool interests and hobbies, whereas i can feel my singular Driving Interest crystalizing in my bloodstream. "i think this time i'm Interested in yearbook. Gag me." I mime choking, she wrinkles her little lopsided nose in a giggle.

"you just hate it from stuff that's leftover from your last Assignment, though." she looks up at the ceiling. "you'll be actually Interested soon. in this one i'm gonna have a secret thing about fashion magazines. now that is gag-me."

"remember when you were like, so -"

"like so into porcelain dolls?"

"and i was like, Interested in -"

"you were deep in the paint of effing biology." she wrinkles her nose again, like a little mouse, and i realize i love this new face, the way i love all of her faces. i like this tic she has. sometimes her tics are supposed-to-be-ugly; i love them every time anyway. she's my Best Friend Forever, I can't not love whatever she is. she bites her lip. "oh gosh. i'm already talking like the Assignment. that's quick."

"sounds Young Adult. I haven't been able to swear in, like, a millennia." i don't usually get to swear though, regardless of Audience, since swearing is a Best Friend Forever thing. although sometimes i would be Assigned to just-swear if it was a big-deal kind of moment, and those Assignments were fun. the words would pop out of my mouth like a soap bubble, big and afraid of themselves. and my Best Friend Forever would always look at me, shocked and awestruck.

i loved when she looked at me like that. it wasn't in every Assignment, but it was always so gratifying to be in her eye like that. to be seen, the way a Best Friend Forever sees you.

she takes my hand gently. she's usually a little bit bigger than me, but in this one, she's smaller than average. slim. we're probably going to have a Big Fight about jealousy - whenever she's slimmer, the Audience needs to know she's also Insecure about it. Usually it's the other way around - I'm slimmer, and Insecure that i don't have her curves. in those, she's always "better with boys." until, at least...

like she reads my mind, she sighs again. "I know. i just hate the part where you meet Him."

i'm not startled by how on-the-same-page (ha! maybe i'm Funny in this one) we are. she's my Forever person. the Him changes a lot, but she is a delicate constant. she knows me - even when i'm not-me. or not this me. whatever. "i mean, it might be different this time."

she sits up. i sit up too, disoriented by the strange violence of the action. she pushes the heel of her palm into her cheekbone. "it sucks, you know?"

i can tell by how she wrinkles her nose that she is understating it. i've known her Forever, after all.

nose wrinkle. "we're always the most dynamic and interesting part. you and i, and how we grow up together, and how we interact, and how we try to get over the same things. i know we have a lot of Big Fights, but we always end back up together at the end."

it's a sore subject. i betray her a lot for Him. i can't help it. "i know, but maybe this time - i mean, it's not always ..."

her eyes flash while she turns to me. "you just, like, get caught up in Him. every time. and i have to, like, watch you leave."

"i don't always leave." i feel pouty, suspicious that she is right. it is a Main Character thing to be Right in The End, not a Best Friend Forever thing. i don't always do it the Right Way, but I always end up back here, apologizing to her. she always ends up being okay with it, because i'm always Right.

"you do always leave. and it doesn't make any effing sense, because He never makes sense like we do, you know, like... you both are never - like, your Development with Him, is never like, actually...." she moves her hands around in the air as if trying to find the term, but gives up. "the Audience even thinks it."

I hold my breath at her blasphemy. "don't bring the Audience into -"

she grabs at the roots of her hair. "i'm right, though. you meet Him, and because you are a girl, and you are the Main Character, you love Him, and you forget about me." her hands drop to her lap and her thin shoulders pull forward as if she has been suddenly deflated. the anger all seeping out around her. she's usually not able to stay angry at me long - loving me is her Role.

the air feels heavy between us. thick of something unwritten. i don't know the rules of this one. in the space between Assignments, she can be a little wild. her Role doesn't sink her as deep into the Assignment - she has wiggle room where i don't.

i try to tease her, nudging her with my shoulder. "i didn't realize you had a jealous Assignment this time."

she looks up at me. biting the inside of her cheek. i can see her jaw working against the muscle. "i'm always jealous," she whispers.

"that's natural," i assure her. "it's a Best Friend Forever thing. I'm always jealous, too, just a little. you know that."

"it's because we actually see each other. because we actually know each other. because we're made for each other." she doesn't drop my eyes. her hands take mine again, warm and soft. again, that feeling that she is a familiar love - a long love, a deep love - comes sloshing up inside me. i was made to love her, and i was also made to betray her. in order for the Character Development to work, i have to love her hard, so it hurts when i choose Him. she has to love me hard, too. "it's..." she breathes deep, as if through a choke. i wonder how much longer before we'll be in the Assignment, and unable to talk like this. it can't be much longer at all. "it's just stupid. every time, you see Him, and for no reason, he's just better and you leave and -"

"you know i don't want to hurt you, though!" it's an old argument. i feel the pattern of it, glad to be back on script. "you know i never -"

"you just see Him, and it's like magic, and it doesn't mater that He makes no sense - "

"it's about growing up! it's about Character Development! it's not about you, you know that, i love you, i just always Love Him, and -"

"and i am jealous -" she grabs my face, desperate, her voice thick. the room around us starts to shift, and i can tell by how it is pulling itself together that it's solidifying into the Assignment. someone is writing us into a space. her words are garbled for a second, and i feel the hair on the back of my neck rise as she fights the Assignment.

"we're gonna be okay," i promise, "i'll love you the whole time, you know that, even if -"

when she kisses me, something happens in the pit of my stomach. i've been Kissed many times, by many Hims. it is sometimes electric, dizzying, powerful. it is sometimes cataclysmic. it is sometimes rushed, hurried, overwhelming - sometimes harsh, dominant. i have been Kissed until i saw stars, and Kissed perfect.

this is not that. i don't have words for this. i have no narrative. there is only her, and only me, and no story, her hands on my cheeks. i realize, in the seconds we have - she's crying.

then i am on her bed again, which is pink and purple patchwork, and she is across the room, lying on the floor, kicking her heels up while she reads a magazine lazily. we've known each other from preschool, when she punched someone for stealing my candy. we both got detention - who knew preschoolers could get detention - and we'd be inseparable ever since. she listens to loud music but loves fashion magazines; and i love her.

she's saying something, but my old phone pings, lying on top of the Yearbook editing i'm doing. i look down, frozen. she asks me something, but i can't hear her, staring at the notification on my screen. i don't even notice her getting up to investigate.

her hair tickles my cheek while she reads the phone over my shoulder.

she grins. "oh my gosh." she says. "you got invited to the party, holy guacamole. do you know who's gonna be there? baby, you need to go."

i know i need to. after all, after a little complaining, i am going to go. we will try on all her clothes first. and while i'm there, i'll be a Main Character, and not-quit-fit-in.

and while i'm there, i'm going meet Him. and it will be Magical. for some reason, there are tears pricking at the side of my eyes, even though i have no idea why. this story is funny, and light, and amusing.

she grabs my hand, and she is warm, and familiar, and i feel Insecure that she's so thin. i feel Insecure - and - something - a memory, or a -

"come on," she says, and, for a second, something in her eyes is deeply sad, and the time between us feels like fraying satin.

but then she breaks out into a grin. "i know just what to dress you in. i can't wait. you're gonna meet Him."

[give-soup-please]

Could you please write about a reader with parental abuse history being the adopted little sister to The Narrator? Like he sees them being gaslighted and verbally abused and is just: "No, you're going to have to go through me first", "I suppose you need a real elder figure to look up to and teach you things."

(alright, this one went straight into wish fulfillment territory. And I hope I wrote the narrator as a big brother well, I don't have a lot of experience with healthy sibling dynamics)

Narrator as big brother figure to his adopted little sister reader

The narrator has been keeping a close eye on you for a while now. Ever since he broke out of his game, he’s been listlessly wandering from place to place. There are very few willing protagonists on this side of reality. Various humans occupy his attention, but never for very long. Not until he finds you.

There’s something familiar about you. The narrator doesn’t have any relatives, not as far as he knows, but he looks at your actions, the way you move through the world, and it all feels so… recognizable. 

He knows what this is, it’s on the tip of his tongue. It’s the fear he gets before a reset is forced on him. It’s the feeling of total despair whenever Stanley stops responding to him. He sees in you similar shades of emotions to what he’s gone through. Yes, the situations are different, but it makes him upset to see it happen to someone else. 

He watches the fear you have of your parents, the despair of going to sleep in a place that’s terrible for you. He realizes that you need help. So he begins to step in.

He doesn’t quite know why, at first. It hardly makes sense to him. He’s always tried to hold back from being invested in the lives of others, and yet, and yet…

He sees the person hiding underneath the abuse. The spirit, beginning to shatter. The heart, under the stress of cracking. The wonderful being that could be, if given a fighting chance.

He’s still just a voice for the time being, so he comes into your bedroom one night when you’ve been crying. He clears his throat, and you startle.

“W-Who’s there?” You ask, keeping your voice low. You’re too afraid that if you’re loud, your parents will come back. He adopts the same quiet tone. “I was wondering-” and here he pauses, trying to work out what to say next. He decides to start simple. “It appears to me that you could use some help. You seem as though you’re in need of-” What word does he want to use? He flicks through several in the span of a few microseconds. “-A… narrative guide.”

Well, if your mind had snapped, at least it had chosen a nice voice to begin the descent into madness.

“Yeah, alright. My name is reader.” 

And so begins a very interesting dynamic. 

He’s very protective, always trying to sooth you in the best way he knows how: storytelling. Even though it’s been a long time since he and Stanley last interacted, it’s part of his function naturally to talk and spin tales. 

He will tell you Stanley’s story, and then- recognizing that you’ll get bored quicker than he did, researches what stories to tell you next. He’ll tell them all, grandly. Fairy Tales, fantasy, and interestingly enough, he begins to enjoy telling mythology stories as well. There’s something about slightly different versions of the same story that’s really soothing to him.

You’ll sink into bed after another grueling day with your abusers, and he’s there to sooth you with his voice and stories. You’ve fallen asleep many nights to the comforting sounds of him talking.

He begins to document everything your parents do. For some odd reason, their version of the truth and yours don’t match up. Your parents tend to insult and degrade you and then pretend that they didn’t. It’s sickening.

“No, no, no, reader. Your mother definitely said something awful a few hours ago. I won’t repeat it, because I don’t think you need to hear it twice, but I am telling you, she was cruel.”

He watches them play this disgusting game again and again, making you doubt your perception of reality. He’ll do his best to keep you grounded. Now that you’ve got a second pair of ears and eyes, life becomes a bit easier to manage. 

He comforts you as best he can. “Reader, I know it’s difficult, but you’ve got to remember there’s a better life waiting for you outside this place. I can’t intervene, not directly, but I can help hold you together until you have the resources to leave.” 

He celebrates every small victory you have, every inroad to health you create. He doesn’t know when it happens, but he eventually starts seeing you as a little sister.   

He listens to you, whenever you need to vent or complain. You have a lot to complain about, given your current living situation. The narrator is always there to lend a sympathetic ear.

He’s always available to help when you need it, whether it’s encouragement, help with school/work projects, or motivation. The narrator’s skills at convincing people to do things are unparalleled.  

The narrator inwardly seethes at your treatment. He’s watched you suffer for too long. He begins to develop a plan. One of your parents is yelling at you about something stupid. For the first time ever, he speaks up on your behalf. 

“You know, your parenting skills leave much to be desired.” Both you and your parent freeze. It’s the only thing you share in common. He continues, “Honestly, I have no faith in a universe that puts people like reader in the care of a wretch like you, but luckily they have me to help guide them properly.”

The narrator’s voice curls around the room in a slightly sickening way. You’d feel much worse if the venom was directed at you. “Reader is under my protection now, so I suggest you leave before things get ugly. Well, as ugly as your heart is, at any rate.”

Your parent flees the room in terror. You’re somewhere between laughter and tears. The narrator rests his hand on your shoulder, and speaks softly. “Are you alright?” You aren’t sure. 

One day, the treatment by your parent escalates. The narrator watches them storm to your room and feels a spike of fear. He quickly pools his energy together, just in case. They’re screaming in your face. You’re terrified. The narrator is filled with rage. In slow motion, he watches your parent lean back, ready to strike you. And in one visceral instant, he manifests in the physical world and blocks their hand. 

“Oh, no you don’t.” He snarls. The parent gasps in surprise and fear. “Reader, do me a favor. Close your eyes.” You’re quick to obey. Even behind your eyelids, you wince at the flash of white. You wait a few seconds, then cautiously open your eyes. Your parent is gone. 

“Where- did you kill them?” You ask. The narrator sighs. “Unfortunately, no. I don’t have that level of power in this world. I just teleported their body somewhere else. Seattle, the Sahara, somewhere beginning with an ‘S’.” He crouches down to where you’re sitting on the bed. “It’s alright, reader. You’re safe now.” 

“But- how are we going to- I can’t live without their financial support!”

The narrator sighs. “I know. I’ve been working on a few solutions to that. It’s not perfect. The next few months are going to be very hard. Unless-” He looks at you, kindly. “I could bring them back.”

“No!” You say. “I mean- no thank you.” 

The narrator doesn’t know how to feel about what he’s done. But you’re his little sister, and he couldn’t bear the thought of not protecting you when it counted the most.                

[variousqueerthings]

I’m thinking about BJ and how I place him in the overall dynamics of the show (with the knowledge that there’s a lot I haven’t seen of him yet) -- a ramble

He’s obviously Hawkeye’s (best) friend, and overall a good guy, but I’m interested in his more traditional masculinity and the subtle... challenging thereof? Changing thereof? Corruption thereof? Throughout the show?

Basically I had to face the facts (and they were there from day one) that BJ is a golden boy jock, whom I don’t think was ever a nasty guy, but probably much less questioning of the status quo of the world in which he grew up, because there was no reason for him to think too hard about it. Decent, but naïve in that particular straight(ish, but maybe not so much) white well-off talented and handsome guy kind of way, and in the 1940s/early 50s!

I think about how he talks about the nurses doing work that he would never have associated with women before coming overseas (and he’s respectful of it, but was shocked at first), and about phoning home to Peg, because she’s learning (trying to learn) to do the sort of around-the-home stuff that he considers a husband’s job – and asks her whether she still “needs” him. His role – generally the roles he has unthinkingly associated with people – is coming apart a bit and something new is coming out of it

And then there was the episode with his asshole friend, whom he emulates/emulated when they were studying together. And the BJ-who-is-friends-with-Hawkeye, who is still a person I’m putting together in my head (I know, I know they’re very shipped, but I’m not actually there yet, except for on Hawkeye’s side). It’s not quite the same as with Trapper (yes-anding one another over the edge, because Trapper always had that somewhat dangerous feeling to him, someone who was deeply deeply unhappy – BJ seems like the kind of guy who hazed people in medical school and canonically was a popular guy who played sports!), but it’s also not quite as not-that as I’d originally been reading it as, in the sense that both Trapper and BJ feel more Traditionally Masculine than any of the other main guys at the 4077, but BJ is... changing... he’s got a moustache now!

And in both cases they’re being facilitated and egged on by Hawkeye, but he’s like this because his brain chemistry is [insert diagnosis]

Now of course anything I read into Trapper-and-Hawkeye vs BJ-and-Hawkeye goes deeply into headcanon territory and is really more about Hawkeye’s tendency to fall for unavailable people (solved in fandom by having Peggy go “yeah we could do with a third” but also wonderfully delicious to imagine from the perspective of Hawkeye consistently tripping himself up – after all he had a relationship that could have been good with Carlye, but he messed it up… maybe… what he needs from a relationship… is different… to what is expected…. in normative society.... in ways that cannot be defined in the 1950s... different meta..... may be challenged by the rest of the show... we’ll see)

BJ started out a Classic Leading Man in a story that’s not about the Classic Leading Man, but he’s very not bothered about it/fine to be a part of an ensemble – (here start to slide into real life considering how Wayne Rogers wasn’t quite so fine with it/playing second fiddle and how that can apply to Trapper-in-Universe never finding his place, despite how much Hawkeye adores and needs him). I guess that’s where the tension happens for me, because BJ has got all the makings of an insufferably obvious dull character, but he’s not trying to force the narrative to Fit Him, which means he’s interacting with the other characters just a hair to the left of my expectations, to the point that I didn’t even take in the Leading Man/jock element of him, even though it’s quite obvious in hindsight

And that comes from the story he’s in. In another story he’s never drafted and lives a blissfully nice acceptable life, in which he fixes the sinks at home and comes back at the end of the day to a great housewife (and a kid who comes out as a lesbian Marxist feminist in 20 years), and isn’t a bad guy, but simply doesn’t think much about the wider world other than the bits he inhabits -- a decent guy overall

In this story he arrives in Korea, as a Golden Boy in a fresh, pressed military uniform, only for his introduction to immediately be subverted when he’s greeted (corrupted) by a chaos bisexual who breaks the military hierarchy rules, helps him out when he vomits upon his first interaction with the extreme violence of war, and gets him stinking drunk – meanwhile his wife is learning how to fix the sink! Nurses are doing men’s jobs! People die because of inconceivable decisions made by people somewhere far out of harm’s way! In this story he gets to think about the wider world a bit more, and through that also maybe think about how he fits into that world…

Another reason I wasn’t taking in the bits about him that I Didn’t Think Fit (not because he was doing anything wrong, but because I Subconsciously Expect Things From Certain Character Types and usually his is the one that I am the least interested in – again, the episode with his asshole friend was deeply uncomfortable, but I am Taking the canon of it, because now I’m accepting it, it’s very interesting!), is that everyone in this unit is a misfit: Hawkeye, Margaret, Charles, Klinger, Radar (whom I’m sensing won’t be staying much longer) – even Mulcahy and Potter, due to their obvious differences to the others (Mulcahy being a priest, and Potter being older than everyone else + there’s the way he filters everything through his love of horses...)

All of these characters belong in this place with each other in a way that one cannot quite imagine them belonging in the outside world. Despite how awful everything is, they’re afforded a strange amount of freedom to be themselves. BJ is not a misfit, but by virtue of that distinction he “becomes” one in this place. Or, he can explore the misfit hidden inside of him, because maybe this whole veneer isn’t something he’s super attached to (so somethingsomething letting go of a masculinity that he wasn’t that interested in in the first place?)

I am not at a concluding place with this meta. I think BJ will be a character I’ll wait until the end to see how he ultimately fits together, because I think he’s constantly evolving subtly (unlike, say, Margaret whose changes you can point to more clearly). But I think “evolving/willingness and openness to evolving” is an important trait of his that means he’s quite slippery to read as a whole – who he is in s4 is a bit different from who he is in s6, but it’s in the little ways offscreen moreso than a big POV episode (there really aren’t many of those for him so far) he’s gone from Golden Boy to… whatever he’s becoming now. It’s in his attitude towards women’s work (women in work?). It’s in his worldview being broadened to encompass who-knows-what-else new ideas. It’s also that whatever seems to be happening to Hawkeye right now possibly isn’t registering with him, while at the same time setting boundaries when he thinks Hawkeye is being out of order or annoying, but also his compass seems to be set after Hawkeye, also if it were just him he might be much nicer to Charles, because he seems very good at shifting to accommodate people (usually) *takes deep breath*

(it’s in the way I don’t think he’d be as chill about maybe having a crush on Hawkeye/vice versa in the beginning as later on, because I don’t think he knows anything about that sort of thing before he comes to Korea, and he’s overwhelmed with new information anyway, but he’s also a fast learner so who knows…)

Now he’s got a moustache though! That’s a very definitive change! There is now definitely pre-and-post-moustache-BJ (I mean that seriously)

[pale-silver-comb]

So I know absolutely nothing about Leverage except what I've been seeing you post lately and I have to admit you're making it look tempting to watch! Can I ask what are some of your favorite things about the show/reasons you would suggest people watch it? And is there really a poly relationship that is canon?

Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I am going to do my best not to just “asdfghkjl” at you and answer coherently.

In a nutshell, Leverage is about 5 people. 4 are criminals (Parker, Hardison, Eliot and Sophie) with different and unique skill-sets and 1 is an ex-insurance investigator (Nate) who, at one point or another in his career, has tracked down (or at least attempted to) the other 4. The whole show is essentially: man reluctantly reforms 4 criminals to use their criminal powers for good and 4 criminals move into man’s life and stubbornly refuse to leave because, goddammit, now they have morals. 

I’ve got a lot of favourite things about the show but the main ones are as follows:

1. Found family. And I’m not talking about loners who come together to fight crime and happen to co-exist to the point where they realise they happen to have found themselves a family. I mean, Nate and Sophie are the Drunk Uncle and Wine Aunt who somehow become Mom and Dad to 3 beautiful criminal children. Mom and Dad love their criminal babies and the kids love them (as well as each other, but we’ll come to that in a moment). You get amazing family moments such as: Mom and Dad packing the kids lunch before sending them out to kick corporate greed’s ass; Mom and Dad giving the kids ridiculously expensive and personal Christmas presents causing their most Grumpy Kid to go very very quiet and soft as he runs off to gleefully play with his new murder toy; the kids interrupting Mom and Dad’s big Movie Style Kiss to ask if they can please keep their new underground layer and huffing and puffing when Dad tells them no.

2. Found family: the OT3 edition. To answer your question, the OT3 is indeed canon, confirmed by the creator. Now, usually, “confirmed by the creator” infuriates me because most of the time it’s a way for a creator to be seen as “progressive” without doing anything to actually be progressive. That isn’t the case here. The OT3 are built up carefully and while it is obvious the creators didn’t originally intend for all 3 of them to become a relationship in the romantic sense, by mid-season 5 we are given a very clear picture of where Parker, Hardison and Eliot are heading in their relationship. There aren’t any kisses at the end to signal this but there are solid marriage vows in not only one but two episodes. (And by marriage vows I mean literal equivalents of marriage vows: “for better or worse” and “’til death do us part”. I’m not even exaggerating). The OT3 also doesn’t need explicit romantic narratives to convey how much they love each other. Their love is laced through the whole show, from the way they teach each other things to the way they respond to each other and work as a unit. The way they fiercely protect and admire each other. Like someone once said, if you need characters to kiss or say I love you to let the audience know they love each other, you are writing them wrong. 

Aside from that, each of the parings in the OT3 are just. Gah. They are so well done, with friendship being the solid basis for them all. The creators never expect the audience to assume anything about them or fill in the gaps. They give us their relationships on screen and reference many things off-screen to show us how these relationships continue to build in between episodes.

Hardison and Parker are a canon couple and date in the show: it’s approached slowly and they are so goddamned sweet. They are basically every fluffy slow-burn trope with a healthy dash of mutual pining in the mix. They are basically that quote “love is patient, love is kind”. (I would like to add their romance never becomes the focus of the show or overrides the importance of any other relationship they have with the other characters, especially Eliot.)

Hardison and Eliot are the Old Married Couple and from day one are already bickering and looking at each other/making comments that are found in every UST fic ever (not to mention Hardison has a very good knack for making Eliot grin like a little kid, when usually he’s basically an Angry Little Chef Man). They argue, they play, and love each other plain as day. 

Parker and Eliot are more subtle but every bit as wonderful. They have an unspoken connection and understand each other on a level no-one else can. Parker and Eliot are not good with giving themselves over to affection for different reasons (and Hardison plays a central role in helping them realise it’s okay to want it and have it- that boy has endless patience) but there is something so beautiful in the way the two of them come together on their own and develop their own special bond that works for them. Parker and Eliot are that trope where the characters don’t need to speak to understand each other perfectly. They just do. Their love language is a lot of the time non-verbal but speaks volumes. (Parker also likes to annoy the hell out of Eliot and Eliot....just.....lets...her. Because he’s soft. The softest, grumpiest boy.) 

I could go into so much depth for each pairing and their dynamics as a 3 but that's for another post.

3. Subverting stereotypes. There is the occasional hiccup in the show regarding stereotypes but ultimately, Leverage gets an A+ when it comes to writing characters and making them 3 dimensional people who are not defined by certain characteristics or events. Nate could so easily fall into the White Man Pain trope where he uses the trauma of losing his kid as a reason as to why he is entitled to act like a dick. Nate is a dick but he doesn’t use his pain to excuse it and I appreciate that. Hardison is a black man who is soft and nurturing. Easily the most empathetic and patient of the group. He’s nerdy, an actual genius, and has the biggest heart of all the characters. Nate is maybe the glue but Hardison is definitely the heart. Media’s usual aggressive, amongst other, racist stereotypes can fuck right off. Parker is canonically autistic (I am sure this was confirmed by one of the creators) and she is not defined by it. It’s not written as some kind of singular personality trait. It’s part of what makes up Parker but it’s only one facet of who she is and not once is her actions, thoughts or feelings treated like a joke. Sometimes people don’t understand why she does and says the things she does but it’s met with patience and fondness over the course of the show. Equally, it’s not met with over-caution. Parker is just Parker. No-one tries to change her. The other nice thing is Hardison, who always makes sure Parker knows she’s amazing because of who she is and not in spite of it. Finally, Sophie is in her 40s. She’s not treated like she’s past her prime. Ever. She’s sexy, smart and never is she pitted against or compared to Parker (who is younger) for anything. Sophie is amazing and there’s never even a conversation of “I may be older but I am still *insert adjective typically associated with younger women here*”. Sophie is possibly the first female character I’ve ever seen who isn’t just unapologetic about her age but has never had to apologise for her age. It’s a non-issue and that’s that. The women on the show are written so well, right down to secondary characters and it’s beyond refreshing.  

4.) It’s just fun. The show has a “monster of the week” type format. Except instead of a ghoul or a ghost, the monster is some corrupt wealthy and powerful individual or organisation. The show draws on real-life individuals to do this and therefore closely parallels real-life people and events. It addresses important political, economical, social and environmental issues while at the same time remaining fun and light-hearted. The characters constantly get the chance to play dress up and by GOD do they have fun with it. You get to watch Eliot beat up bad guys in the most delightful of ways, usually after a witty non-sequitur and with a weapon you’d never think could be a weapon. The dialogue and back and forth between the characters is everything. And finally - my favourite thing- the team can never resist striking a dramatic pose after they’ve taken down the bad guy, making sure the bad guy sees them. I mean, they COULD just walk away, satisfied they’ve taken the person down, but nope. They gotta be dramatic bitches 24/7 and pose like they are models for every single month of this year’s Criminal Calendar.  

5.) Competence Porn. So. Much. Competence Porn.  

Honestly, I could list a thousand reasons for why Leverage is amazing but to list them would to be spoiling so many amazing moments you’d get to discover for the first time on your own if you do choose to watch it. It’s the kind of show you can watch with an eagle-eye and sink your teeth into. But it’s also the kind of show if, you would prefer, put on in the background for something entertaining while you do something else. Each episode is about the job at hand but it’s made up of so many moments between the characters that show how much the creators and writers care about them. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll do whatever it is you do when something Soft and Wonderful happens that makes your heart melt. I am so beyond grateful for Leverage. It’s everything I always wanted in a show. Nearly every show I’ve watched in the past 10 years has disappointed me in some way, usually either because the writers run out of steam or characters who I love are treated poorly or given some kind of unnecessary “shock value” arc. Leverage doesn’t do that. Leverage is what it says on the bottle. Fandom isn’t something I joined because I needed canon fix-its. Fandom only enhances and celebrates an already excellent canon. 

[quwarichi]

heard from your mother au - The Ripple Effect

this is my early birthday gift for @schmuzz1 Ever heard of the ripple effect? you probably did but let's go over it once more; the ripple effect is like if you took a rock and threw it into a lake. Where the rock would hit and sink a ripple would be created, and from there it would only grow bigger and bigger, taking over more space, until the water settles again.

HFYM is the ripple effect ficsonified. The premise is simple, for those who watched the episode Despair in the last season of Supernatural. Castiel confesses his love to Dean, gets taken by the Empty. He wakes up in 2003 in a motel room, without his memories and only a memory saying “Don’t do this, Cas” which helps him figure out his name is Cas, and that he’s a hunter. Simple.

Then he meets Dean.

Now, we’ve all read various pre-series fics, haven’t we? It’s a token when giving fans a time-gap that we don’t know much about, they’d try to fill it as best as their imagination limitations will help them. So what is so special about HFYM?

In a word; Cas.

Meet this angelic being, who without his memories fully believes his humanity, and drives around the US not looking for answers, exactly, but just trying to help out to the best of his ability. By putting Cas in a setting pre-series, and letting the readers know that this Cas is their Castiel, the story already kicks into gear with a race to see when and how Cas will affect the story.

We didn’t know about angels until season 4. We didn’t THINK there was a better way to kill demons other than the Colt until season 3. Characters and themes that we would’ve taken years to get to know in the show are being used and constantly appear throughout what HFYM would call season 0 (or is that just me? make some noise). But Cas changes all of that just by being. For this next part, I recommend you stop reading this post if you haven’t read this fic, go read it in its entirety, and come back here after you’re done and had time to adjust.

We good? Good.

Pamela Barnes, the love of my life and a five-episode cameo in the Supernatural show. In HFYM, she acts as Cas’ best friend most of the time, teaching him the highs (hehe) and lows of having what they all figure is a really developed psychic ability. Bringing Pamela in chapter 16 was not only a brilliant use of character but a ripple effect. But I get ahead of myself. To understand why Pamela is suddenly there, we need to identify the biggest ripple of them all; Dean fucking Winchester.

Dean and Cas, from the start, develop a sort of kinship. It’s reminiscent of their first meeting in Lazarus Rising, where Castiel rescues Dean but also has its own charm. Here, Cas has no idea he’s an angel, and that’s why humanity is so strange to him. Dean views Cas as a weirdo that is not to be trusted, and later as a weirdo that he can kinda trust but make sure to watch his back around him.

In a way, they’re mirrors. Cas’ effortless way of creating acquaintances highlights just how isolated Dean is from people because of John’s influence. Whenever they’re together, Dean finds himself surrounded by others too, but apart it’s clear that Cas (to much of my, and probably his, surprise) is the social one.

Quoting the fic tags: “like maybe if he [Pre-series Dean Winchester] got a boyfriend he would have calmed down” is the very abstract explanation of the ripple effect. By being isolated for so long, without even Sam to keep him company, Dean couldn’t develop properly, resulting in the Dean we get in season 1. But ripples (courtesy of Cas) reach him and that’s where it all comes together. By meeting Cas pre-series Dean is given two things; one, no more isolation, time to grow sunshine. Two, a romantic subplot.

Now I don’t know how much you know about media - but romantic subplots are usually very character forwarding if done right. The best thing about the romantic subplot in HFYM is that it’s not immediate. Fuck no. It’s built on months of friendship and a bond forged in hunting, in putting each other’s lives in the other’s hands like it’s nothing. When they finally get together (I did the math, they get together when the story is like, halfway over. 52% to be exact) it makes sense because you watched them forge the bond and thus pushing their character development further. Romantic subplots are one of the best ways to push a character to their limits (looking at you, chapter 49) and then break those limits. So the biggest ripple was basically Cas and Dean thinking “huh, lemme smooch” and then doing it instead of eye fucking for twelve years.

But that’s not what I’m talking about, exactly. The biggest ripple effect that Cas did with Dean is that when season 1 starts (did I mentioned this was a canon rewrite? We love multitasking), when Dean goes to get Sam for Jericho and everything is put into hyperdrive, Dean is different. It affects how people around him act, especially Sam. The first season is very Sam-driven, but the main character will be changed by changing the “supporting” cast. It doesn’t help that Cas ripple effect number 2932#: Save Jess has definitely quelled the grief-rage thing that Sam has going on in canon since she’s not gone, and is actually around them for a while before leaving to work with Bobby and Jo. Sam immediately notices that something’s different about Dean, but he can’t put a finger on it. Requoting tags: “he would have calmed down”. Gone is the aimless rage and loss that makes him reckless and drinking too much. Gone are the women chasing days because he’s in a committed relationship. Heck Dean has a bit of self-esteem now, having bagged that (points at frog-shirt wearing Cas) and it affects the story in the way he and Sam interact.

Sam can feel that Dean’s hiding something from him (Cas) and it makes a rift between them because he doesn’t get who’s this hunter Dean hangs out with that is definitely replacing Sam in Dean’s eyes - the same guy who used weird powers to save Jess from a demon. Dean is still hurt over Sam leaving for Stanford and anxious about him finding out about Cas and John and everything. Basically, take season 1 brother dynamics and throw a live grenade in the mix. That grenade is Cas, btw.

Ripples, man.

Cas affects the story - he gets Dean to get back in touch with Bobby because he’s looking for an explanation for why he heals from mortal wounds like it’s nothing, why he doesn’t need sleep, and why he’s never hungry. Bobby connects Cas to Pamela, thinking Cas is an odd psychic, and Pamela becomes inherently important in the way that she helps Cas control his powers and provides his first real… non-platonic experience (off-screen, dw they’re friends) that later helps him discern what Dean is to him. Through Bobby, he also meets Ellen and Jo, in the Roadhouse. He goes on hunts alone, and finds a knife that helps him save a possessed girl named Taylor who is later a part of an actual episode (Hookman) and there’s recognition, she’s not just a standby person and that connects with Jess’ storyline, that connects with Sam’s storyline that connects with Dean’s storyline. By being him, Cas creates ripples everywhere he touches because he’s not supposed to be there.

The otherwise undisturbed surface is broken because Cas is there to break it and create ripples that connect with each other, all unknowingly, and the way it’s constructed is incredible.

I could add more about Dean’s bisexuality journey or realization, or how lack of trauma makes Cas a lot more narrative-free but it could all come crashing down on him if he remembers the past, or how Sam and Jess are so interesting like yes girl flesh out the revenge reason we see in three episodes, but this is getting long and I could always make new posts about this fic that I love so much.

Happy birthday, Jenn, you’re an incredible friend and writer and I’m so lucky to have found you in this mayhem of a fandom.

Go read heard from your mother (she don’t recognize you) on ao3, you magnificent people.

[today-only-happens-once]

While everyone is throwing in their two cents about the Disney Cruella movie, here’s mine. 

The premise and framing of the trailer doesn’t strike me as similar to Maleficent, which is what I’ve seen it compared to here on Tumblr. The premise and framing of the trailer reminds me a lot more of Birds of Prey. And based on the comments in the Cruella trailer, a lot of people are seeing the same thing. And it’s a comparison that makes sense on the surface: a female antagonistic character labeled “psycho” is positioned at the forefront of her own movie. 

But I have the sinking feeling that Cruella is going to fail to do what Birds of Prey does so well from a thematic development standpoint. 

I am not, nor do I even remotely claim to be, a DC character expert. I’ve seen two DC movies (Wonder Woman and Birds of Prey), and have read none of the comics. But even I know that Harley Quinn is a character that is a victim of abuse at the hands of the Joker. I don’t say that because it excuses anything she does--Harley Quinn is a pretty terrible person, to be honest--but Birds of Prey, at its heart, is a story about women coming together. In fact, I’d argue that the overarching narrative theme in Birds of Prey is that women can be made to feel safe and protected from other women rather than a male savior complex. BoP centers on HQ’s dependency on the Joker for protection, and how other women help her to break free of that dependency (hence the subtitle about a “fantabulous emancipation”). And this narrative theme is, when you go back and watch the trailer, very much present there as well. 

I fear a little that Cruella is going to try to do the same thing, but will fall short. I get the feeling that they are going to try (if only because of that “I am woman, hear me roar” line in the trailer), but there isn’t a single frame of that trailer that shows Cruella alongside anyone that isn’t a man. In fact, it suggests that there’s maybe only two main women in the entire movie, and that it will only pass the Bechdel Test because those women are antagonistic towards each other. And that’s... fine, I guess? But it also strikes me as kind of boring.

I cannot fairly compare a complete movie against a single trailer. I know that. But I’m just worried that Disney is about to water down a well-constructed, dynamic ���the female character you thought was ‘psycho’ isn’t quite that simple” narrative that Birds of Prey did well. Except because it’s Disney, it’ll be some kind of smashing success. 

[highladyluck]

“Magic Dagger Curse Is My Middle Name” & Human Evil in Wheel of Time

Part 2 of a series of essays on the theme “Tuon is Mat’s Replacement Shadar Logoth Dagger”. (Part 1 was “Stealing Is The Way to Mat Cauthon’s Heart”.)

This discusses the many parallels Tuon has to Mat’s dagger on a symbolic level, covering both her and her role as leader of Seanchan. But mostly, I talk an extraordinary amount about how the Shaido, Whitecloaks, and Seanchan reflect the archetypal in-universe human evil of Shadar Logoth.

Magic Dagger Curse Is My Middle Name

Tuon Athaem Kore Paendrag (now Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag) has a lot of names, and I'd found puns or references in most of them. There's the "Lady Luck" pun of "Empress Fortuona". There's the very appropriate "Kore" (Persephone's and Tuon's pre-kidnapping moniker, meaning "Maiden") for a girl who gets kidnapped and dragged through both the human underworld (a circus, and a dive bar that's literally called a hell) and the death-related underworld (a literal ghost town full of ghosts, and the hell of guerilla warfare). There's "Devi", a reference to divinity, which replaces "Kore". Paendrag is of course an Arthurian legend reference.

But the one name I never quite understood was her only other permanent name- "Athaem". The 13th Depository Blog suggests it was meant to evoke both "athame" - a knife or dagger used in magic rituals - and "anathema" - a curse, especially one that exiles someone. Go on, let that sink in. Tuon's middle name is "Magic Dagger Curse". Tuon "Magic Dagger Curse" Paendrag. Fortuona "Magic Dagger Curse" Paendrag. I CANNOT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH THAT TUON'S ACTUAL MIDDLE NAME HAS ACTUALLY BEEN "MAGIC DAGGER CURSE" THIS ENTIRE TIME.

Basically that's all I actually need to say here to prove that Tuon is the symbolic return of Mat's sexy cursed magic dagger that isolates the bearer via paranoia and suspicion, but let's throw in some of the other parallels just for fun and so you have time to recover from the psychic damage I just dealt you. There's some fun ones just around rubies specifically and the color red.

The Shadar Logoth dagger has a large dark ruby on it, the size of Mat's thumbnail. Mat estimates it would buy a dozen farms back home, and when Mat first meets Tuon, he notices she's 'wearing a fortune in rubies'. Also, before she becomes Empress, Tuon's signature color is red; she's got red fingernails, red and a very dark green are the imperial colors as seen on the Deathwatch guards, she buys a lot of red silk in Jurador, and presumably the roses in the Raven and Roses imperial sign are red, as she treasures Mat's present of red silk rosebuds. (Interestingly, she starts going more blue once she becomes Empress- I'm thinking specifically of the blue nails and dress she has when she declares maritime Ebou Dar her capital.)

Tuon also has other physical similarities to edged weapons in general, and the dagger specifically. Like the dagger, she looks ornamental but could absolutely kill you. Mat describes her hands as "bladed like an ax" when she strikes a footpad in the throat to save him. She's also sharp, in the sense of being very intelligent and canny. Also, she could learn to channel, and in being a sul'dam is a conduit for magic, so she fits that aspect of the dagger as well. And, last but not least, like the dagger, Tuon is a fascinating and deadly artifact of a powerful civilization that embraces a uniquely human form of evil.

Shadar Logoth as Ultimate Human Evil

In the books, Shadar Logoth is our loadstone for what is described as a specifically human kind of evil, separate from the absolute, somewhat abstracted "evil for evil's sake" that is the province of the Dark One. The Dark One's ideology as practiced by humans ends up being nihilism, or rather, self-interested nihilism. (Ishamael isn't a pure nihilist, he's ok with getting worldly power while there's still a world.) In contrast, Shadar Logoth's downfall is a kind of corruption; evil things done in the name of, and for the sake of, good things. There are other cultures that do that, of course, but Shadar Logoth is the purest example of 'the ends justify the means', since their 'end' was fighting the Dark One.

"The victory of the Light is all. That was the battlecry Mordeth gave them, and the men of Aridhol shouted it while their deeds abandoned the Light. [...] No enemy had come to Aridhol but Aridhol. Suspicion and hate had given birth to something that fed on that which created it, something locked in the bedrock on which the city stood." -Moiraine, The Eye of the World

The goal of opposing the Dark One (an abstract idea of evil) at any cost led them to turn on and destroy not just their allies but ultimately each other.

Mat's Shadar Logoth dagger is a part of Shadar Logoth that has most of the powers of the whole. When carried by an individual, it can brainwash, induce (semi-justified) paranoia, kill via corruption, and infect others. These are all powers associated with Aridhol/Shadar Logoth. About the only thing the dagger can't do that we see other elements of Shadar Logoth do is shapechange or snatch bodies (#JustMordethThings) and move semi-instinctually on its own (like Mashadar). Shadar Logoth is established as Peak Human Evil, an evil so archetypal it has undergone a sort of dark apotheosis and become both a physical and metaphysical force.

Because it is so archetypal, we should expect to see aspects of it reflected in other Randland cultures that are antagonistic to our heroes, but which are not explicitly pledged to the Dark One.  We should also expect to see the same part to whole dynamic in those cultures' leaders. Rand is a great example of this part-to-whole dynamic; as the Dragon Reborn who is 'one with the land', he struggles against increasing paranoia and self-hatred, which leads him to act as his own antagonist for much of the series, even as he explicitly fights against the Dark One. It's the Shadar Logoth struggle writ large. Therefore, the leader of a corrupted, Shadar Logoth-esque culture will be a powerful and faithful representative of the traits of that culture; you could say they are the purest expression of that culture.

This is a tenet of Robert Jordan's worldbuilding and narrative, and applies to more than just the antagonist leaders; protagonist leaders also stand in practically and symbolically for their culture or group. Over the course of the series, nations and groups end up led by the 'best' people for the job, where 'best' is some combination of 'most representative', 'most competent', and/or 'best adhering to their culture's ethical tenets' (which often happen to be our protagonists). This has the possibly unintended/unconscious effect of justifying autocracy, monarchy, etc in-world because it's all adhering to aristocracy, 'rule by the best', where 'best' is rather culturally relative. It's also an artifact in-universe of the world moving to a wartime footing; anyone who isn't the best person for the job gets tossed out of the way in the name of prepping for Tarmon Gai'don, by some combination of The Will of The Pattern as well as actual effort on the part of our heroes.

On a more meta level, Robert Jordan's choice to use third person limited points of view means we get a lot of POV characters who are very embedded in their cultures and serve as an immersive cultural crash course for the reader. They tend to be either main or secondary characters who are movers and shakers in the plot (justifying the time we spend in their heads) or there to provide an outsider reaction to main or secondary characters (again, justifying the time we spend in their heads.) Robert Jordan's writing is concerned with the use, abuse, and fluctuations of power, but it's worth noting that he doesn't give us POVs of characters who are structurally and permanently without power.

POV characters often have moments of powerlessness, either in the beginning of their narratives or at the end, but if you happen to be a WoT character who never had power and never will, RJ isn't interested in showing us the inside of your head. For example, we don't ever get a POV from an ordinary da'covale who spends the entire series out of control of their own destiny, even though that could be a very powerful outsider perspective. Instead, we get POVs from sojhin, who are movers and shakers in their own right. (These are great POVs--Karede's POV in chapter 36 of KOD is maybe my favorite of the entire series, it's a work of art--but again, there's a bias here in who we observe observing.) In a series where people bemoan or celebrate being constrained by fate and consciously question if they have free will, we somehow don't hear from those who have never had worldly power; we only hear from those who do, or once did.

(I find this disappointing, and it's one of the reasons I find it difficult to recommend the Wheel of Time books- which are obviously deeply personally significant to me, and which I find fun, interesting, and more often than not, well-written- without caveats. The series is so obviously about power and choice and the ways they influence each other, and uses third person limited POV so skillfully, that it is surprising and disturbing to me that we are not exposed directly to the point of view of those who have been permanently and structurally deprived of power. We miss an opportunity to engage with the core themes on that level, and also uncover an authorial bias that hasn't aged very well and which makes me look at some of RJ's other choices with a more jaundiced eye. I believe WoT would have been stronger and richer thematically if it had grappled directly with the realities and perspectives of those who remained powerless throughout the events of the series. And whether it was an unconscious or deliberate choice to leave out those perspectives, not having them there lessens my trust and acceptance of Robert Jordan's takes on power and choice. But I digress!)

Heirs of Shadar Logoth: The Shaido

So, there are other antagonist cultures that we spend a lot of time with but which are not explicitly allied with the Dark One (though we are always shown their leaders being subject to the Dark One's influence, through their advisors and high-ranking coworkers, who are Darkfriend characters that have positions of structural power and influence.) Overall, the Shadar Logoth archetype means we are looking for structural corruption, fear, hatred, and the cultural belief that the ends justify the means. In-universe, that's what human evil looks like, and we expect to find it in our secondary antagonists.

So let's take a look at the Shaido, who are attempting to recapture a glorious (fictional) past by imposing a corrupted version of their original values on others; the Whitecloaks, who spread authoritative dehumanization and bigotry in the name of order and righteousness; and the Seanchan, who have the dubious distinction of doing *both*, which is why they win the door prize for Most Problematic Antagonist Who Isn't Literally Allied With The Dark One.

The Shaido are an example of a corrupted culture that imposes its corruption on others, especially others that do not meaningfully consent to be assimilated. Their corruption starts with suspicion and fear and leads to brainwashing; they choose to believe a lie because it is more palatable than the truth, and because they fear becoming powerless and losing their cultural identity. They and the Aiel that joined them cannot accept Rand's truth bomb about the origins of the Aiel as pacifists. It's an idea so counter to modern Aiel self-image and culture that the secret was carefully hidden and used as a test of character for Aiel leaders.

In the test, the knowledge that they had betrayed their original ideals to survive was presented in the original emotional and logistical contexts, which may have helped the Aiel who went through the test survive learning about it; it's easier to empathize and overcome fear and disgust if you know why people made the decisions they did. To survive, and to self-govern, the honor-bound Aiel leadership has learned to forgive themselves for their corruption, while not losing the lessons they learned from it, and empathize with people almost entirely unlike themselves. (How effective are they at that? Your mileage may vary.)

Normally, only those who could accept the information could reach the highest leadership roles. Sevanna, whom the Shaido exodus coalesces under after the death of Couladin, is the only Wise One who didn't go through that testing process (she got in on a technicality), which makes her uniquely qualified to lead the group that can't accept this information. Like that group, she lacks humility or the ability to accept unpleasant truths; however, she's self-confident, politically skilled, culturally competent, and has a clear vision for her people, which are the other qualities that the Aiel select for in their leaders. (I cannot believe that today I woke up and said nice things about Sevanna!)

She's presented as somewhat 'corrupted' by wetlander ways, greedy for wealth and power, but I think it's more that she's off the leash of strict Aiel morality; she goes on a reign of terror, taking more than she needs of any resource, and capturing non-Aiel and keeping them as permanent gai'shain. This is clearly slavery in a more modern sense. The Aiel proper have a sort of ancient-style slavery, based on taking prisoners of war, that is time-bound, highly regulated, and that everybody more or less consents to by living in that society. (I say more-or-less; not sure your average civilian Aiel precisely consents the way a warrior might consent, but then again, everyone in Aiel society is a little bit of a warrior.) Sevanna's unconsenting, permanent, non-Aiel gai'shain are a clear violation of all of these tenets, and resemble the bodysnatching and invasive nature of the Shadar Logoth evil. Fear turns into hatred of both kinds of uncorrupted Aiel (the originals, and the modern) and of those groups of people who are not like them. In the end, the Shaido dissolve, their corruption having weakened them so that they fall prey to outside forces.

Heirs of Shadar Logoth: The Children of the Light/Whitecloaks

The Whitecloaks are an obvious heir to Shadar Logoth, as they persecute channelers and anyone they consider a Darkfriend in the name of order, righteousness, and the Light. Whitecloaks represent the paranoia, assassination, and brainwashing powers of Shadar Logoth, and insofar as they have assimilated Amadicia and make forays across borders, they also cover invasion, though to perhaps a smaller degree than the Shaido (or the Seanchan). The Whitecloaks are also good intentions, corrupted; yes, Darkfriends are bad, yes, the Light is good, no, not everyone you don't like or who has power you want is a Darkfriend! They turn neighbor against neighbor, harrass, torture, and murder the innocent as well as the guilty, and generally do all the bad behavior you would expect of a military quasi-religious order that considers itself above the law. Also, Mordeth/Fain literally got his grubby hands all over the Whitecloaks early in the story and made them even worse.

Galad is a really good example of the 'best man for the job' ending up in it; Galad's extremely uncompromising morality is most likeable and practical when he's fulfilling a 'reformer' role in a group that really needs it, and when he's not in that role, his entire deal can feel excessive and alienating. (Although I will note that if you think about how his mom abandoned him to pursue what she was told was her duty, and his dad was a real asshole, you can kind of see why Galad has such a strict moral code and won't let something like family or feelings get in the way of carrying out his duty... anyway just having feelings about Galad, don't mind me.) When leading the Whitecloaks he recalls them to their original ideals and purpose, which is literally fighting the Shadow on an actual battlefield, and makes them hew to ethical standards from the original Lothair Mantelear text and his own personal extremely high standards.

He purifies the Children of the Light, insofar as they can be purified, purging the corrupt people and practices. This allows the Whitecloaks to ally with the Light, rather than sitting out the Last Battle or killing important Light-allied groups. But the Whitecloak channelerphobia is not going to be eradicated so easily, and that's mostly what Galad’s family was objecting to about him joining the Whitecloaks in the first place. And even Galad starts to succumb to it by the end of the series, although to be fair the White Tower had definitely done a number on his family by that point. Post-Last-Battle, Galad is really going to have to grapple with 'what is the practical purpose of a bunch of armed busybodies who think they're better than everyone else and who have a very deep-seated hatred and fear of channelers?' One hopes he'll convert them to a peaceable monastic order doing community service. If anyone can do it, it's probably Galad, but I think it's not going to be easy and it's also not clear to me if Galad is going to have the same opinion about the necessity that I do.

Heirs of Shadar Logoth: The Seanchan

So, now we come to the Seanchan, who are a rich, complex, fascinating culture that combines the best and worst thematic elements of both the Shaido and the Whitecloaks. Twice the fun, twice the flavor! Like the Shaido, they are the corruption of an honor-based culture that now assimilates other people and cultures without their consent. The Seanchan have a strongly-held honor system that uses public and private shame as a deterrent to unethical behavior, similar to ji'e'toh, but like the Shaido, they apply it to conquered peoples under duress; even if the Seanchan themselves are ok living this way, there's no real consent happening when they conquer.

Like the Shaido, the Seanchan claim to be the true heirs of an ancient legacy, the children of the child of Artur Hawkwing, but have spent enough time in Seanchan to absorb all sorts of concepts Artur Hawkwing never had (slavery, taming weird beasties, exploiting Aes Sedai rather than just avoiding or fighting them). Their culture is also built on convenient fictions; the knowledge that sul'dam can learn to channel, and that some can be held by the a'dam, is likely to produce a truth bomb down the line, one way or another. And the Seanchan are an imperial power, which means they automatically follow the natural growth and rules of empire; always be expanding, always be consuming, always be exploiting. They're Mashadar, baby!

Let's zoom in on the slavery, since that's one prong of what makes the Seanchan evil. It's a kind of bodysnatching and brainwashing, and there are some really interesting parallels here to the Shaido and Aiel. The Seanchan have three forms of institutional slavery; so'jhin, da'covale, and damane. So'jhin, hereditary upper servants of the upper class, have the most power and are analogous but not precisely equivalent to normal Aiel gai'shain. Like standard gai'shain, they are considered property that can be traded, have some level of autonomy and ability to direct their lives, certain rights and privileges, and in theory can be manumitted.

Unlike gai'shain, they actually can have more political power than free people. Also unlike gai'shain, they are not guaranteed manumission after a set time, and while I think the gai'shain consent issue is a little muddy (Aiel can't help being born Aiel and thus subject to Aiel raids) so'jhin are born into slavery and have therefore absolutely not consented to it. So'jhin appear to be based at least partially on Byzantine examples of high-ranking slaves, and slavery in other very complex and bureaucratic cultures where those in power needed highly competent administrators, but didn't want the administrators supplanting them.

Da'covale are equivalent to Shaido gai'shain; often (but not always) captured from other cultures, absent the rights and privileges of regular gai'shain or so'jihn, and bound to involuntary servitude for life, although they can in theory be manumitted. (Shaido gai'shain have the option of trying to escape, I guess.) They have very little autonomy and power to direct their lives. It may be possible for da'covale to become so'jihn, so again there is a kind of internal mobility/potential access to power that doesn't have an exact equivalent with the Aiel models, but that's offset by the lack of consent; da'covale can also be born into slavery. One can be made da'covale as punishment for defiance or anything else the Seanchan see as a crime, or born into it. It seems historically equivalent to ancient, prisoner-of-war-type slavery, mixed with the carcereal state; you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or you fucked up, and that's the justification for making you a slave.

Damane have some points in common with both regular Aiel and Shaido versions of dat'sang; they are all slavery in the form of the carcereal state/slavery as an outcome of the justice system. Dat'sang are 'despised ones', usually those accused of being Darkfriends or who have committed heinous crimes. It's a punishment that is apparently permanent and unrecallable, and they are sentenced to the most shaming labor in the worst conditions. They are cast-out from the community and forced to serve it in the most degrading way. Marath'damane, channelers with the spark who are not leashed, are treated like dat'sang are, in that they are cast out of their communities and shamed for their 'crimes'. Once they are leashed, though, they become integral parts of Seanchan society and are told to take pride in the service they can provide, which is very unlike the dat'sang cultural experience. Damane are enslaved and exploited for their talents, ostensibly to keep the general population safe from their magic powers and their potential political power, but also because they're an incredibly powerful military and infrastructure resource.

The first damane was created out of a combination of fear, greed, and hatred. One Seanchan-local Aes Sedai captured a rival and brought her to Luthair Paendrag, who she knew would be receptive to constraining the power of channelers. What she didn't count on was that solution being institutionalized, and that she'd eventually fall prey to it herself; a classic Shadar Logoth "do a shitty thing unto others and eventually you'll just be doing a shitty thing to yourself" move. Both the existing Seanchan population and Luthair's group had already othered, hated, and feared channelers, the Seanchan possibly for logical contextual reasons (seems like the Seanchan Aes Sedai were all independent Americans who didn't want to be governed by a universal code of ethics or subject to institutional oversight, which is not conducive to living in a society), and Luthair because of Ishamael’s original corruption of Artur Hawkwing.

In the end, the combined Luthair group/original Seanchan institutionalized their channeler bigotry, saying that the ends (preventing channelers from exploiting non-channelers) justified the means (exploiting channelers). Damane are never, ever freed and now the Seanchan think of channeling independently as inherently a corruption and a crime; something that makes the involuntary channeler evil and unhuman. They also break channelers, brainwashing them into thinking that this is for their own good (and not just for the good of the state).

(Another meta aside: Because involuntarily channeling is a genetic trait that the channeler has no control over, leashing damane feels to a modern reader, especially US ones, I think, very much like the race-based slavery of our recent past. Especially the idea that the enslaved person is enslaved as a punishment for a crime; this is something that would hit a US reader pretty hard, given that the US's booming prison population is the only legal slave labor force in the US and is also disproportionately made up of people of color. I am pretty sure that explicit parallels between racist slavery and the practice of leashing damane would be supported by Robert Jordan, especially since he literally put the Seanchan on post-apocalyptic North and South America. They have other influences, including Imperial Japan and Imperial China, and the Byzantine Empire, but in this way, and also because of the Texas accents, they are very, very American.)

The Seanchan are also similar to the Whitecloaks; they're both military groups who hate and fear channelers, and they are particularly susceptible to paranoia and assassination/extrajudicial murder. The Shadow didn't have any trouble infliltrating either the Whitecloak command structure (especially the Questioners) or the Seanchan Blood; there's a certain background level of 'the ends justify the means' going on in Seanchan and Whitecloak power centers that makes them fertile ground for recruitment. The Whitecloaks and the Seanchan both have a kind of secret police; Questioners and Seekers (they even have similar names!) who operate under certain strictures with respect to their upper management, but who can basically do whatever the hell they want to ordinary people. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you that secret police are PEAK Shadar Logoth; they were always judging everyone else, generating paranoia and mistrust.

The Blood and Imperial family are also a really great example of Shadar Logoth values creating a (somewhat) functioning society full of extremely fucked-up people; the more power you have, the more delicately you have to step and the harder you have to watch your own back. The higher up you go, the less trust you are able to have in others, until you reach the point where people are sending assassins after an imperial baby, and the imperial baby grows up thinking that's completely normal and fair and it's their fault if they are ever not good enough to dodge it. (Hi, sorry, please excuse me and my many, many feelings about Tuon.) That kind of thing makes you very, very sharp, assuming you survive; it also makes you very inured to violence and most comfortable when you've got a high baseline paranoia going at all times. It puts you in danger and it gives you the means to survive danger; it's very Shadar Logoth dagger, which attracts Darkfriends but also gives you the ability to sense the Darkfriends right back, and incidentally stab the hell out of them.

A Part With the Power of the Whole: Tuon and the Seanchan

So, we have all the sins of Shadar Logoth united in the Seanchan; they're invaders, they brainwash and bodysnatch, they're paranoid, they assassinate and murder, they've institutionalized hate and fear, they're structurally corrupt in that power in their society is based on lies and exploitation, and they think that when it comes to dealing with their mortal enemies (channelers), the ends justify the means. And their leader, Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag, Empress of Seanchan, is indeed many of these things wrapped up in one efficient and deadly package.

She's a sul'dam and she enjoys her work breaking and training damane; she's had siblings assassinated and we've seen her kill onscreen; she's deeply suspicious, always second-guessing and skeptical (except about received values and information from her culture); she embodies and enforces Seanchan culture and power. She is all Seanchan in one person, and she'd tell you that proudly. She tries to assimilate *herself* into the state, because she thinks that's what she's supposed to do, to best serve her people. She wants to be the part that is an exact mirror of the whole, and she wants the whole to be perfect, so she wants herself to be perfect, too.

Do you see the shades of Galad, here? Like Galad, she has a strict and impractically idealistic moral code that makes her somewhat unpopular wherever she goes; she's too unpredictable, merciful, and flexible for her counterparts in the Blood (she's always surprising them with her unconventional choices) and too perfectly Seanchan for her allies (who are all horrified by the damane thing, or the da'covale thing, or the assassination thing, etc etc.) The things people grudgingly praise her for are sincerity, competence, compassion within the bounds of her ethical structure, and (sometimes) a willingness to consider new information or accept oversight, the last of which is only impressive because of how enormous her ego is and how thoroughly she's been indoctrinated to believe she's inherently correct and all-powerful.

She is the best of Seanchan, within the context of Seanchan: she survived, took, and kept power, making her the most competent imperial daughter; she's very ethical within Seanchan strictures, not striking first unless threatened, working to acknowledge and correct personal faults, keeping her word, showing concern and mercy for those she believes are suffering, being thoughtful and careful of consequences when she exercises power; she is most representative of all of Seanchan's flaws and virtues, as a sul'dam, Empress, and Lightside ally. (That said: is Tuon the most ethical Seanchan within a broader cultural context? Hell no, that's Egeanin, who goes through a long and painful process of realizing and rejecting the corrupt and nasty parts of Seanchan culture, after it rejects her.)

To conclude: just like Mat's Shadar Logoth dagger, Tuon is a fascinating and dangerous tool of a powerful, antagonistic civilization that embraces a uniquely human form of evil. Her middle name is literally "Magic Knife Curse", Seanchan is the most Shadar Logoth-y of non-Shadow-aligned antagonist cultures, and she also follows the very Robert Jordan pattern of leaders fractally reflecting the culture or group they lead.

[pynkhues]

What are your theories did the next few episodes? It sounds like Dave was asking Beth to get Rio for them which I'm guessing she may wear a wire?

I kinda would hate for her to cancel the hit only because the secret service wants him and thinks she can get rid of him that way

As much as she sees Rio as an issue, I don't think she realizes how dark crime can get and Rio gas kept her from that historically with some exceptions to it. I just don't know if she really has thought about the implications of putting him away or killing him.

I agree that Rio’s kept Beth from a lot of the crime world! I do think that’s sort of dually motivated though from what we’ve seen of it? I think he definitely wants to protect her (the dubby fight being the clearest example of that), but I also think he likes keeping her in her goldfish bowl because it gives him more control and power over her, and lets him use her in ways that he wants to, like inserting himself into the Boland Motors operation or taking over the Paper Porcupine one. I think in that sense, Rio’s complicated, and his motivation isn’t clear cut.

Which is a good thing! People are complicated, and I think the messy line between Rio’s self-interest and his genuine interest / desire to do right by Beth is always murky in a way I find really compelling. In a lot of ways, these are things frequently at war with each other after all – particularly as it’s been a while since Beth and Rio’s interests have aligned – and the ebb and flow of that teases out different aspects of their dynamic which can be good or bad or something in-between.

I also think the primary motivation for cancelling the hit is going to be because of the Secret Service investigation, yes, but I don’t know if that’ll be the entire motivation? We’re into narrative snowball territory right now where things are really building towards what would’ve been the s3 climax, and one thing that’s historically been true is that all the relationships on this show have a shift in the process of that.

Season 1, Beth and Rio broke up and then levelled up through the arrest + shooting, Beth found out about the cancer lie, Stan found out about what Ruby had done for Sara, and Annie and Greg reconciled.

Season 2, Rio kidnapped Beth and then Beth shot him, Beth and Dean decided to divorce and then hit a new stride, Ruby and Stan had a bittersweet end after a tumultuous season, and Stan asked Ruby to get out of crime, and Annie and Noah’s relationship ended.

These are really drastic shifts in relationship dynamics that are generally the culmination of what we’ve seen for a lot of the season, and most of the time they’re pretty satisfying or make sense narratively (one enormous, glaring exception amongst them, of course, haha).

Ultimately, I think we’re heading straight into that territory again – I think we’re about to see Ruby and Stan’s dynamic flip as he sinks into the Sweet P’s operation, I think Annie’s relationship with Ben is shifting into something that’s going to hurt a lot, and I think Beth and Dean are heading towards a separation if not a divorce, especially given Gayle’s about to make her reappearance.

And I think Beth and Rio’s relationship is going to have a dramatic shift too. What that looks like right now is anyone’s guess, but I think it’s going to be significant!

[thewebcomicsreview]

Homestuck 2 has updated! Christmas is ruined!

Previously, on Homestuck 2: Literally nothing happened, and a non-trivial portion of the patreon supporters gave up and quit. Can this update pull a Christmas miracle and right the sinking ship of Homestuck 2? Probably not, but let’s find out! 

We’re back in Candyland, having completely skipped over Karkat and John talking about Dave’s apparent death, because this comic is only interested in long conversations when they’re boring and not about anything at all. That’s alright, I got the gist of it.

When Karkat is finally gone, John still doesn’t move. It isn’t as though he has nowhere else to go, since there are quite a few places he might attempt to make himself useful, for better or for worse.

So, it appears to be morning now, meaning that John’s son has been missing in a war zone for almost 24 hours and I guess John literally forgot Harry existed?

Prediction: This conversation is going to end in some variant of “Where is our son?” “Oh shit!”

ROXY: hey john can u do me a quick solid

ROXY: actly idk how quick itll be but its definitely solid

ROXY: harry anderson says i just missed u being here but could u skip back on over?

What.

So, I went back and checked, and apparently nowhere is it explicitly said that Harry Anderson was also looking for the Vriskas, so I guess he....stayed home? Which makes sense, I suppose, but maybe a “Stay here I’ll go look for them” would’ve helped. I wasn’t the only one who thought Harry was out looking for Vriska too. 

ROXY: sup

ROXY: follow me

ROXY: well were just going to my room so i guess technically u know the way

JOHN: haha ok.

John follows, trying to shake the ominous feeling he got from what she’d just said. He’d been in and out of this house a lot in the past few days. Why should this be any different?

Is Roxy....horny? Is the solid she’s looking for John’s dick? I mean, that’d make her saying Harry wasn’t available kind of weird, but I think this framing is a fake-out.

...

What the fuck is that lamp, Jesus Christ it’s awful. Just a cat’s asshole, facing the door.

ROXY: r u kiddin me rn egbert

JOHN: i’m not? unless you were, in which case yeah lets say i was also kidding.

JOHN: oh my god, i’m sorry, i don’t know why this making me freak out.

ROXY: i remember our past boot knockin with fondness but that is a situation im not interested in revisiting

Oh hey, it was a fakeout. Good job, Homestuck 2. You successfully implied something just through the art. Art which, by the way, looks a lot better than the last chapter. There are backgrounds and everything. I wonder if Chapter 15 was rushed out due to Hiveswap and that’s why it was so weak?

He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced?

I’m not the biggest fan of the way the narration is going JOHN IS AFRAID OF SEX WITH ROXY LIKE HE’S A TEENAGE VIRGIN AGAIN (LIKE IN HS1!) AND IT DOESN’T REALLY MAKE SENSE PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IT’LL BE IMPORTANT LATER, but okay, noted.

ROXY: u said ur house is gone??

JOHN: yep.

JOHN: completely.

ROXY: jeez

Heh. I like Roxy, still. 

JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison.

If this comic actually uses the phrase “home” and “stuck” in the same sentence I’m turning this blog around and we’ll go right back to Winnipeg.

ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push

ROXY: we both got sick muscles

ROXY: no other adjectives necessary

I feel unqualified to talk about how hard Roxy is pushing the June Egbert thing.

....Is that the fucking portal from Hiveswap under a tarp? Also hi Candy Callie, appearing in HS2 for the first time. One of the Calliope’s is nonbinary, I think, but I honestly can’t remember and I think it’s Meat Calliope? 

JOHN: do i get to know what that big thing under the sheet is?

ROXY: hmmmmmm no

JOHN: oh ok.

JOHN: are you sure? i mean, it seems like a pretty prominent feature of the room.

JOHN: space.

JOHN: wherever we are.

ROXY: and a totally mysterious n COMPLETELY inconspicuous feature it will have to remain for now

ROXY: we r kinda in a hurry here fyi

ROXY: and by that i mean

ROXY: we are in precisely the amount of hurry that means im excused from having to a that specific q rn

JOHN: right, sorry.

JOHN: i will pay no attention to the object behind the curtain.

ROXY: u catch on fast egbert

Oh thing HS2 has not been great at is that it has a lot of plot mysteries that are supposed to keep us enticed but they don’t really get implanted into the audience’s head (Remember Vrissy mysteriously collapsing that one time? Probably not, she did it off screen and the boys kind of laughed it off). This one’s hard to miss.

JOHN: so... this is all downstairs?

JOHN: it seems like you had a lot of work done.

ROXY: well no not x actly

ROXY: were in the old meteor

It’s kind of weird how this meteor keeps popping up like this. 

CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr.

This is an unexpected but not unwelcome direction for Callie to have gone.

CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are.

CALLIOPE: how much do yoU know aboUt black holes?

Oh, wow, we’re going right there, then. This does seem like a bit of a reaction to complaints HS2 wasn’t shmoovin’ enough, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

CALLIOPE: no, i mean, what if oUr whole WORLD was inside a black hole.

JOHN: ok.

A’ight, that got a laugh out of me

JOHN: ugh, i fucking KNEW it!

JOHN: i'm so sorry.

JOHN: i'm so sorry that i put the earth inside a black hole everyone. ):

I like this conversation a lot. 

ROXY: iirc at least part of y u got so weepy was the fact that u couldnt believe a version of earth existed where ppl got 2 watch more mcconaughey films than you

JOHN: listen.

JOHN: i simply don't think you all appreciated the gift you were given.

Quite a bit, in fact.

ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love

JOHN: aw.

Roxy and John have a good dynamic. 

CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

JOHN: ...right.

John’s phone has very good coverage, since he was able to talk to Terezi in the epilogues, as we’re being subtly reminded of here with that ... before the “right”. I wonder if it still works after alt-Calliope left.

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval.

CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality.

CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u

Okay, so we are now being explicitly told that living in the black hole is fucking with the characters and is part of the reason they make such baffling decisions, like Rose not telling Kanaya about Yiffy, or naming her daughter “Yiffy” in the first place.

CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity.

ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point

CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more.

CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it.

CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself?

So, the plan is literally for Vriska to be such a Huge 8itch that the black hole itself gets sick of her and yeets Earth C out of its own event horizon to freedom.

This is actually a great plan. 

And that’s Hamsteak. This definitely feels like a bit of a reaction to complaints about HS2, but hey, I dig it, I guess? Definite improvement over the last chapter.

[gallavictorious]

11x01 Reaction Post

Random thoughts on and reactions to 11x01; no careful analysis or anything, just the bits and pieces that's not likely to make it into meta proper but which I still want to make note of so I can go back later and remember what my initial reaction to the episode was (since my impressions are likely to change as the season unfolds). Mostly Gallavich related, because duh, but there's disordered rambling on a bit of everything. Under a cut (God I miss LJ sometimes) because this got long.

Ian looks damned good as the homocidal muscle. I don't do AU:s, but if I did... On the other hand, Frank as a member of the Chicago “Eight” looks like a werewolf. Less interested in that AU. And listen, I get that they couldn't get Emmy Rossum for this, but I really miss Fiona showing up in a few random olden day pictures. She's gone, but she's still a Gallagher dammit! Carl at the slaughter house looked weird – and part of me thought that was appropriate because slightly off editing would be a sweet way of communicating that it's all bollocks, but the rest of shots looked okay (Debbie as a milk maid and Frank as the aforementioned werewolf) or good (everything else) so no.

The sound of a baby crying is a horror matched only by persistent lack of sleep so I feel for Lip and Tami so much. Here's to all parents who managed to get through the first year without murdering anybody! I think that maybe you don't get enough credit... I, for instance, want to kill someone just hearing Freddie cry in the background for half a minute. Not sure it bodes too well for their relationship for them to be so ready to spend every night apart like Lip suggests, but a, what wouldn't you do for a good night's sleep, and b, love the thought of Lip spending more time at the old house. Could see them breaking up during the course of the season, though. Not sure how I feel about that – Tami's my favourite out of Lip's love interests, but having too many of the couples staying together all through the finale wouldn't feel quite right (for Shameless) and I don't see them breaking up Ian and Mickey or Kev and V. Don't really expect Sandy or Debbie to last either, but since it's more of a casual thing it might have more of a casual end.

Do you remember when the promo dropped and there was Concern about That Look on Ian's face after he kisses Mickey, and I tag theorized about it being because Mickey stole his coffee? Turns out there wasn't really A Look in the actual episode, but I sure as hell was right about the coffee, and I want noted somewhere. Maybe there should also be a small diploma? A golden statue seems a little over the top, but I mean, if you insist...

I appreciate that Ian is very adament about it being their money but when Mickey thinks it's their breakfast it's suddenly every man for himself. Do you share or not, Ian? Hmm? (Let the record show that I'm joking, please. Ian is damned right to take his toast back, and I say this as a “person most likely to steal their partner's toast right out of their hand”. I also love that Mickey completely gives up on breakfast when he can't have Ian's toast and just grabs a beer instead.) The kitchen scene is glorious and I just really like their dynamic here; the casual kiss, “I only make breakfast for husbands who have jobs”, how relaxed it is even when Ian's a bit annoyed, Mickey being so... Mickey. I do wonder what went through his head when Ian started talking about their wedding present money, though – he seems worried for a moment, but then shrugs it off, and that could be either bravado or just actual lack of concern. I tend mostly towards the latter, since Mickey quite genuinely figures this isn't a big deal (even though he still recognizes that Ian will probably think it one). Please note that he immediately offers to get money when Ian mentions that they need more of it coming in. Not his fault Ian vetoes his methods, right? (Also love that Ian's objection is due to him not wanting to be separated from Mickey, rather than any moral qualms about robbing stores.)

Okay, the gag ball. Would they really keep it like that if they were actually using it? Maybe either of them just tossed it there after taking it off, I suppose... Yeah, I don't know. Not what I'd imagined them being into, but that might be my own extreme lack of enthusiasm for gag balls and harnesses talking. Either they're into it and if so, you do you, boys, or it was a gift and they're keeping it around and semi-prominently on display for shits and giggles. (But if it was a gift, they did try it at least once, right?)

Mickey in the bath remains stupidly and surprisingly gorgerous. Incidentally, I really don't think his question about the meds is any indication of him not thinking them important, but there's little wonder that Ian bristles at the mention of them. Maybe not be an ass just to prove a point, eh, Mick?

I've already talked about how hard Ian is trying here but let's just take another moment to congratulate our boy on his persistent attempts at mature communication. Though he might have given some actual consideration to Mickey not wanting to save the money if he's really serious about them making decisions together... But he gets there! I think this whole situation – which would royally piss most people, including me, off – is actually particularly difficult for Ian, because he might well see Mickey's behavior as uncomfortably reminiscent of Frank and Monica's destructive habits and yeah, that would fuck him up. And still! He forces himself to calm down! He takes Mickey's hand! He refuses to let himself be distracted by Mickey looking SO INSANELY PRETTY I CANNOT EVEN UNDERSTAND IT! Ian, I salute you!

[starwars_eu_nerd_mode]KORRIBAN! YES! HA! TAKE THAT DISNEY! You take your new so-called “canon” and your “Moraband” and you fuck right off. I salute you, Bitcoin Boy![/starwars_eu_nerd_mode]

Ah, the porch scene... This one I do have a bunch of thoughs on that will probably make it into meta proper one day, so I'll leave it for now. It was the one that took the most thinking about for me to square (still not a lot, it should be noted), but now I'm actually very happy about it. (Full disclosure: none of their scenes feel quite right the first time I see them these days, because I'm just so very on edge about what's to come that I kind of miss the forest for all the trees you know? It's not a Shameless thing – it's always like this when I'm extremely invested in something and have waited for it for some time. Will it fit with how I see the characters? Will it be cringey? Will Mickey suddenly profess a love for hideous Hawaii shirts? Also, what are they saying because English is hard... But then I watch them a couple of times and they sink in and I start to get giddy over them. I guess watching actual canon unfold always requires a little bit of re-calibration if you've been busy fanoning while waiting for it to arrive, and while I love that sort of interpretative work, there’s also the fear that the show will veer off into a direction I cannot easily follow.)

Mickey's insistence that he spelled monogamy wrong does genuinely amuse me. Not to mention the whole “No more parking tickets for me!” - “You don't have a car, dumbass.” Also, Mickey being friendly with Carl kills me, in a good way. Family FTW!

Frank's storyline fails to stir even the vaguest hint of interest in me, as per usual. For all his talk of family in this episode, the lack of interaction with any of his kids is striking. If he's to have any value at all this season I'll need him to get involved in the rest of the Gallagher's storylines (which seems like it might be happening at least for a bit later on, so I'm vaguely hopeful?). I find but faint intrigue in Carl's and Debbie's stuff, but it doesn’t annoy me either so I'll call it a win. Kev and V are (almost) always a delight, but do anyone else feel like their kids are only props, even to them? I don't know... I just don't think there's a connection or sense of realness to their relationship, you know? Maybe it's just me... Anyway, here's to hoping V turning pageant mom changes all that! Oh, and I'll need Liam to have some more screentime and stuff to do.

The Tommy and Kermit thing was weird. Eh. Whatever.

Sandy is so gorgerous. I can't. The Milkoviches really be bringing it this episode.

This is only the second season I've watched episode by episode as it airs (other one was S6) and it's a curiuos experience. I think that by and large, and particularly in later seasons, Shameless works better when you binge it, but I love the delightful anticipation of waiting for a new episode and the feverent discussion that follows. Sometimes I also despair over the ferverent discussion that follows, but... you know. It is what it is. Admittedly, any attempts at meta this early in the season is a precarious venture at best, since we don't have the whole story, and it might be wiser to abstain but it's just so much fun, so I'm not very likely to stop.

All in all, I love the Gallavich stuff, am intrigued by Lip & Tami and Kev & V's lives, okay with whatever Debbie and Carl's got going on, hot for Sandy, bored by Frank, and missing Liam. It sets up a lot of promising things, but as an episode all unto itself it felt a bit empty – probably because there were no real plots and the storylines didn't intersect as much as I would have liked them to. Shameless is best when it's about family, which both the show and Frank seems to recognize, but there's little narrative follow-through on that realization in this episode; everyone is pretty much doing their own thing. Adored the Lip and Ian convo, and that house party scene was wonderful, but so short. Think we'll get more of all of them together going forward, though, and more actual plots too, so I'm very excited about it all. Can't wait for Sunday!

[ggyppt]

In my 372nd review I take a look at The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 1x03 "Power Broker"

Spoilers Below

This episode finally feels like this show has settled into the grove of the larger narrative. Most of that has to do with the additions to the cast, most notably Baron Zemo (played by Daniel Brühl from the Alienist). Though, these additions also add a major level of frustration to the proceedings as well, which again, most of this centers around Zemo, they are still very welcome additions that ends up making the dynamics of the group finally feel complete. This, in turn, once again makes the previous episodes feel worse, and makes me actively not want to views those episode again cause they do feel left wanting knowing the places that the interactions go as the show goes forward. That in of itself is a major issue that this show keeps on doing, as rather than feeling like each episode is an improvement on the last, each episode has continually showed that those opening episodes were so much worse than I originally viewed them as, simply by being so much better at the functional aspects of being a show while barely being a better complete product than the previous episode.

Now, all that being said, we have to talk about Sharon Carter (played by Emily VanCamp from Revenge and The Resident) who comes back into the MCU with a splash. She is the star of this episode, between her absolutely amazing screen presence to the way she both feeds into and feeds off of the larger world of Mandripoor that she is existing in. With how naturally she fits into the seedy yet captivating realm of Mandripoor, the shifts that her character has taken offscreen feel natural. On the other hand, the fact that she feels natural in the world as a pre-established character ends up making Mandripoor feel like a grounded place that exists in this world, despite being a completely made up place. This balancing act hinges on the symbiotic relationship between Sharon and Mandripoor, and this show manages to pull it off. On top of that, Sharon is such a better presence in the fight scenes that we actually have the first truly engaging fight scene in the entirety of the series, though that falls away when it becomes a strict gunfight rather than letting Jess Durham’s (Emily VanCamp’s stunt double) skill in the close combat action.

Then we have Zemo, who ends up also working to seal up the hole that has been felt within the action scenes, and some of that credit must go to Daniel Brühl’s stunt actor Caine Sinclair. The character, portrayed by either Daniel or Caine, has such a strong physical presence in the scenes that your eyes are drawn to him even when he isn’t speaking. Then he starts talking and he becomes a fantastic counterpoint for our leads, and in the end, a much more interesting presence. That in of itself ends up exposing a foundational weakness in this show, where the actual characters we are supposed to be rooting for are far less interesting to engage with than the side characters that we know from previous experience that we are supposed to be rooting against. Now, while it is entirely possible for them to do a full face turn for Zemo, I find that highly unlikely, but once again, this is going to be an aspect of the show that will adjust as the full view of the series comes into focus.

Now, I’m going to take a second to explain terminology that I use. Face and Heel are two terms that I have stolen from wrestling, as I have found them to be more useful descriptors than hero and villain when it comes to talking out storytelling. This is because they end up having much simpler meanings that are also devoid of the moral factor that can sometimes make hero and villain bad descriptors. Face is just the person that you are supposed to root for, and the heel is the person you are supposed to be booing.

Thus, when we get into this situation where Karli (played by Erin Kellyman from Solo and Raised by Wolves) who is currently being depicted as a heel, and Zemo, a character who has traditionally been a heel, are both making great points that are important to be heard. In Karli’s case, speaking about how violence is the only way to get your point even heard a point that is a little too true to ignore in the current state of the public news cycle. In Zemo’s case, it’s his small speech on how we make people into icons and forget their faults, something that this society consistently does from the level of influencers all the way up to basically every president we’ve had for my entire lifetime. In turn, by putting the words through the mouths of the heels, they are vilifying them. That in turn, makes me opposed to the viewpoint of the show, in a sense, thus, untethering me from the reality that the show is trying to present. I cannot sink into and just enjoy this show because of the way they present these things, and to be uncritical of these things, alongside other things this show has done like their costuming (which I will not be letting go of) is to be complicit in a non-functional status quo that this show is advocating in favor of.

Now, that isn’t to say that this show isn’t also above villainizing its representation of global power, in the fact that is has continually showed US Agent to be actively at odds with the common people, with the opening scene actively throwing shade at the United States and their habit of playing global police. Instead, the show seeks to push the perspective that the right way is to leave the deciding of global right and wrong in the hands of these symbolic people, aka superheroes, a thing which Zemo has already been actively criticizing in a compelling fashion. This ends up leaving the show at odds with itself in ways that are down to perspective and performance more than anything else, which has caused major issues for this episode.

Then we have the ending, which is the closest to an actually effective cliffhanger that this show has gotten to. While it doesn’t quite have the feel of the actively game changing cliffhangers that WanderVision created, it is still something that leaves a hook behind that will create interesting drama heading into the next episode. The implications of which end up being a lot more, ‘how will they get out of this situation,’ and less the much more compelling, ‘what does this mean and how do we need to reevaluate what we already know’. This show really has been suffering from being the follow-up to WandaVision as it hasn’t lived up in any regard, but this is probably the regard that it has fallen the furthest behind on.

Overall, this is a major improvement in the actual functional aspects of the show, making it feel much more cohesively an actual TV show, rather than just a long movie. Though, this episode ends up creating those improvements at the detriment of it’s previous offerings rather than making this episode an obviously better complete product. Add this too some of the questionable presentation of political ideas that this show has put forward, which don’t work for me but that quality will vary person to person. This barely feels like an adequate episode of television, one with some of the worst foundations of a show that I have seen function as well as this one does, since the two lead characters are the worst part of the show at this point. 7/10