#because that shit is so meta and fascinating to me

[fester-jester]

I feel like people don't talk about how interesting it is that padme is someone who is portrayed as an advocater for people's rights and believes in freedom and democracy and the well-being of the vulnerable people in the galaxy and those whose rights are being threatened and taken away, but at the same time turned a blind eye and forgave anakin for massacring a village of people (it was forgiveness you can't tell me it wasn't because how would you still be with someone after that, aside from her variety of reasons). We know why she chose to do that, she loved him (again, there's more than that. But that being the main reason). But I feel like we don't talk about that enough. Padme is portrayed as being deeply involved and caring about justice and the advocating of people, and also being someone who is willing to believe that people can change and be redeemed (luke got it from his mama). Yet for someone who believed in all that, and DID all that, she still went on to love anakin after the knowledge of the genocide he committed. She probably dressed it up however she did her mind, denial, justification of actions, etc. But I kinda don't believe that. I think someone who had all those traits stated before chose to simply.......block it out. Cause she couldn't be someone who was deeply involved in all that and be in love with a man who commits genocide. I find it so fascinating, and wished we talked about it more

[oriley42]

Thinking about how House and Wilson have complimentary (or is that awfully contradictory) modes of repression

House's repression is like a wall with seven million layers of paint on it, and he's adding to it fresh, each and every day. He knows damn well what's underneath it, but if he doesn't have to look at it, he doesn't have to deal with it. And this layering is extremely effective at keeping people out, because every time they think they've scraped through the last layer to the "truth," surprise, there's another coat of beige between here and genuine emotion! It drives people who try to love House crazy. (It is also part of why Wilson adores him--the eternal fixer upper.) But by the same token, trying to dig through those layers sometimes yields fragments of real feeling. Those broken, painful shards of admission, actual emotion sneaking through before being quickly painted over again. Lots of chances for the mask to slip, but also endlessly self-renewing.

Wilson's repression is a concrete bunker. He poured the foundations long ago and buried that shit so deep that no one, including himself, can ever find it again with anything short of a C4 detonation. This is why he's like "I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm normal there's nothing down there" and he means it because it's functionally true, he has built who he is on the absence of what he's locked away, until the pressure builds and builds and builds and then it's "AHH I'M THROWING A BOTTLE AT A MIRROR AND I NEED YOU TO TELL ME YOU LOVE ME" because the bunker has been breached and then. Among the ruins. Huh, was that me, I didn't know I was gonna do that?? Haha thank god you didn't take that seriously, because it was all a hoax. *Pours the concrete for a new foundation and buries those feelings like nuclear waste* This is what other people love about him (his smooth, well constructed surface) and what House loves about him (how much effort it takes to break, and how fascinating and unpredictable the results are when he succeeds)

At a meta level, I think the mis/match of these repression styles is a big part of what makes these characters' fascination endure. We noble netizens of fanficland have to do so much creative construction to stop House from frantically re-painting his vulnerabilities out of sight while also holding Wilson back from locking himself in the bunker, just to get them to have one (1) honest conversation, and that is just endlessly rich and interesting!

[thethiefandtheairbender]

Had a good chat with my partner about it today that maybe let me put a finger on what's always bugged me about "we're here to fix canon" attitudes being so prevalent in fandom (especially in the past 10ish years) throughout my life. This is not to say there's never a time or place for that (I've written fix its myself, or the occasional meta on how something could be fixed/improved) or that people are wrong to (we're anti fandom policing). It's also not an issue to me on the basis of "I love my blorbo in canon and fandom mischaracterizes them in the name of 'fixing' them" etc as it is just... coming from a fundamentally different perspective for story analysis / interaction than most (not all) people in fandom, I think.

One of the reasons I enjoyed getting my English degree was because I was finally being encouraged to and taught in alignment with what my brain had always be inclined to do: you always assume that there's a reason, and a good reason, for the story to do whatever it's doing. It assumes that the story is already exactly what it is supposed to be as it is supposed to be, and it's up to you to find the reasons Why.

The story was boring, or made you feel uncomfortable/bad, or you couldn't root for a character or relationship? All of that, at least at the beginning, doesn't really Matter. You assume that the story is paced fine, you assume the discomfort was intentional or part of something broader (historical shit that hasn't aged well) or that the dichotomy of "I feel invested or not invested" isn't useful. And in doing so, you replace all that with asking why.

An example I'll use is 1984 by George Orwell. I read that book in high school and I fucking hated it. Normally, I like the protagonist the most in anything I watch/read, but in that book, I loathed both the two leads and were actively rooting for them to be captured and tortured so the book could end faster; it was an actively miserable affair. I don't think that was necessarily the author's intention (certain amount of death of the author is baked in, but for a lot of the texts I was reading, we didn't even know the author or anything substantial about them, i.e. Beowulf) but, more importantly, I don't think any of those things are Flaws or downsides in the text.

Part of this is because 1984 is a dystopian novel (if a romcom book breaks genre convention that badly where you're miserable reading it, yeah, maybe something went wrong, but more on that in a minute) but even then it doesn't really matter on the basis of genre; I'm sure some people read 1984 and felt fascinated/excited while reading.

Rather, the focus becomes: what do I find so unlikeable about the protagonists? Why would they be written that way (on purpose)? What does it say about the society they live in? What does it say about their characterization, social stratification, etc etc? If a character does something that I think is non-sensical, why? Have I missed something? Should I watch retrospectively for clues? Is there another way to engage and to understand? Is what I label as confusion potentially a, or the, Point?

It is only after finding the reasons, and/or finding them unsuitable, that I let my subjective feelings into play. While a story can have great merit on the basis of relatability, relatability or "this aligns with my worldview / expectations / desires / etc." is not the be-all end-all of discerning quality

For example, I'm never going to be a fan of Jane and Rochester (she's 18, he's her 40 year old employer who routinely lies to her) but there are reasons, Good reasons, they get together in Jane Eyre (a book so subjectively boring I struggled through it twice) in response to both when the book was written and with the book's themes / symbols / their characterization. If they didn't end up together, it would be a fundamentally different story; it would not be Jane Eyre. So objectively, it's fine and an understandably massive influence on the western literary canon; subjectively, it's so fucking bad and I'm so glad I never have to read it again. But if I stopped there with my lack of interest or dislike of the main romance, I'd be missing out on what the text has to offer as well, the text.

This applies to more modern day stuff as well. I don't like Double Trouble from SheRa as nonbinary representation, and I'm nonbinary myself; however, I can acknowledge that the things I don't like about them were probably simultaneously empowering and exactly what the author (who is also nonbinary) wanted to be per his own experience of gender. Having a "I assume the text is right" mindset means that I can hold space for my own feelings/analysis (i.e. I also did not like Catra's arc, as I think she needed to learn other things / be written under a different lens) while holding space for the text as is (under the canonical lens of Catra learning it's never too late to be saved, I think her arc is conclusive and well done). And these two viewpoints aren't fundamentally opposed, but can coexist as analytical soup, being equally true / having equal value under the subjective (my view) and more 'objective' (the canon text's construction, or what I / the scholarly consensus, if it exists, believes it to be, anyway) at the same time.

Again, none of this is to say that you can't take issue with a canon text, or want to change something. I remember one time I was watching a show where their refusal to explore a romantic relationship between the female lead and her guy best friend was actively making the show worse; I understood their reasonings of wanting to put them with other people to explore their relationships, and wanting to emphasize a male-female friendship at the core of the story, and I still wanted them to put the two together as a Ship instead for various reasons. But that doesn't mean my line of thinking would've been Objectively Better—assuming if they had been paired together would've been executed in the manner I'd enjoy, or that them being paired with other people couldn't have been executed in ways I would've enjoyed more—merely that I likely would've enjoyed the series more per my own subjective preferences.

What I see in fandom sometimes is that people, understandably, aren't approaching at the start from a "the story always has a good reason" as much as they are speed-running from a "this didn't make sense to me or felt bad/off" and maybe examining why (which is supremely useful!) but not going back to examine the other side of the coin as to why the story would do it anyway.

Because sometimes the story—or a part of a story—is still 'bad' to us. It's just worthwhile to look at why it's 'good,' too.

[xxgothchatonxx]

So, I watched Joker: Folie a Deux, and i enjoyed it... but, oh boy, is this gonna be divisive...

The cinematography was still great, Hildur's score was hauntingly gorgeous, and the musical element plays into the theme of fantasy vs. reality.

This film gets meta as fuck because I'm pretty sure I heard every single "yikes, you missed the point" argument for and against the 2019 film said in this sequel. Yes, the fans who clearly didn't get that Arthur descending violent madness was a BAD THING... and the critics who clearly didn't get that Arthur was a damaged, abused victim and just saw a violent maniac. And judging by the "haha, fans are gonna hate this film, stupid incels!1!1!" reaction from the same critics who hated the first film... looks like they still don't fucking get it! Because the film "hates" them too! Does Todd Phillips have to literally pause the film and explain the plot a la Hitchcock- actually no, they still wouldn't get it.

Also the bit about court trials and the media not giving a shit about the actual people (ESPECIALLY the victims - that whole bit with Sophie made me go "wow, Harvey, you're a piece of shit") and just wanting sensationalism? Totally not relevant now(!)

Soooo... yep, depressing, kind of a chaotic mess, but I thought it was a pretty solid film. And a fascinating and hilarious meta analysis that's basically a PSA for media literacy.

[fuckyeahisawthat]

dropping in with a jayvik (or specifically Viktor) brainworm that won't leave me alone because I love reading your thoughts and meta: I adore the way the two of them become partners where Viktor falls in love with and is convinced by Jayce's hextech research and dream by reading his notes. but reading research notes often means very little if you don't have context for the subject matter to decide whether it's convincing or not.

I'm sure Viktor had some knowledge of material physics or crystalline structures or something that would have helped but to me it seems more likely that Viktor just ... also had done some thinking or reading about the arcane in his own time. enough to be convinced quickly that Jayce was onto something and see what he was missing. I doubt he was as single minded about it as Jayce but what if he also was sneaking in some light reading on Forbidden Knowledge during his time at the academy. so sue him. boys will be boys.

Ahh thank you! Oh this is a fascinating idea. Viktor seems like the kind of person who, if you tell him that just learning about something is Forbidden, he'll be like ok well fuck that, and will set out to learn everything he can about it. He also seems like someone who has the right mix of inquisitiveness and compassion where if something is considered scary or taboo or just ignored, he would be like, well, why? And get curious about it and try to understand it. And we know he doesn't have any qualms about breaking a few rules and/or laws if he thinks it's worth it.

So yeah I can believe he might have sought out knowledge about the arcane as an Academy student. And then once he becomes Heimerdinger's assistant, he might have access to books and other materials that aren't available to the general public, or even other stuff like Jayce's equipment that was confiscated for being dangerous or illegal. Heimerdinger's office looks like it has a shit ton of books in it, some of which are probably hundreds of years old, and what looks like maybe a vault?? where Jayce's equipment and possibly other Forbidden Stuff is being kept.

I'm always fascinated by the look on Viktor's face when Jayce first blurts out that he was trying to create magic.

It's not shock or immediate skepticism but awe and wonder and curiosity. I completely agree with you that reading Jayce's notebook is the moment he falls in love, but this is the moment he becomes interested in this guy.

I also think it's notable that the line they cut to Viktor on is Councillor Shoola saying "Arcane talents are something you're born with." And then we see Viktor, who was born with nothing and has been struggling to rise above the circumstances of his birth his whole life.

The arcane is power, right? It's the power to remake the world according to your will. And Viktor's not a power-hungry guy in the traditional mwahahaha evil villain way. But he has had plenty of experiences of powerlessness due to things he can't change (class, disability, illness). And here is this guy who is saying there is a way to access this power not just by being born lucky, but through science and technology, which happen to be what Viktor's good at. Of course he immediately starts paying attention.

[lunarriviera]

hi hey hello i have started watching a new crime drama and I AM OBSESSED. it's called 雪迷宫 or, for some reason, The First Shot, although it should be more properly Snow Maze. it's a period piece set in 1997 and it's produced by ZHANG YIMOU which must be why the production values are actually good??? anyway i am here to tell you all about it and why you should be watching it okay here we go

first of all there's a big hot dumb cop, zheng bei. yes that's huang jingyu and you might not like him because of his apparently quite sketchy personal life but all i care about in this case is that he's tall, and thoughtful, and a police captain who's protective of his people and a little bit of an idiot. my catnip tbh. (i guess he was in addicted too? somehow breaking the you-can-only-be-in-one-BL rule?)

(ETA that by "dumb" of course he's not dumb at all, only by comparison; cf. my own stupid meta on this fascinating topic)

then there's an effete genius consultant, gu yiran (wang ziqi), who knows everything there is to know about drugs. he comes from the south to help these ignorant northerners form an anti-narcotics unit. he's such a massive nerd, the team doesn't like him until they realize that he runs 10k every morning and can outrun motorcycles and is actually quite useful. then suddenly it's no longer "gu-laoshi" but is all "ran-ge" this and "ran-ge" that. he can't dance for shit. i adore him.

there's a superb seven-samurai style Assembling The Team sequence in which this cop is brought in as the muscle. Her nickname is mad dog yao and she kicks the ass of an entire club at one point. we love her. her only problem is that, not unlike zhang haixing in tibetan sea flower, she will in fact fight a wall. here's gu yiran's face after a drug dealer mistakenly underestimates her and she stomps on him.

one of my favorite things about this drama so far is how poor the police are. it's 1997 in a dinky northern precinct and these cops ain't got shit. no computers. rudimentary cellphones. barely any forenic analysis, and most of that is on pieces of paper. no bullpen. no interrogation rooms. they have to interview suspects at their desks.

captain zheng is so underpaid he can't even afford a real pointer for his situation board, he has to go outside and get a literal stick.

drives his dad's chicken delivery van. has to slam himself against the front door to open it. everything about this is absolutely perfect.

i'm only on episode 7 but this shit is already brotastic. please behold:

yes that is an actual line from the show. yes gu yiran has to live with captain zheng, they can't afford fancy accommodations for him. turns out there's a trundle bed made out of paper clips but that's okay, they still get plenty of cosy domestic time together.

and that's also what i already love about this drama—in spite of being about anti-narcotics, it's also very slice of life, very daily city life, with meals and neighbors and friends and family and did i mention food, there is so much eating in this drama. it's gorgeous. also i'm improving my colloquial chinese by leaps and bounds.

of course you are you stupid service top, now take care of the baby.

and those are just some of the reasons why you should be watching the first shot, which is funny and suspenseful and unexpectedly brainy and well-cast and has beautiful opening credits. there are 19 episodes on youku's youtube channel right now and the subs are shockingly high quality. i'm hooked, and also so mad at my day job because i can't just binge it, pls join me in this handbasket

[imustbenuts]

the hundred line coming of age route thoughts about the narrative and eito. (general spoilers)

the guy's officially multiplied inside my brain. anyway.

this route made me laugh a lot. thinking about how eito was defeated with the power of friendship that he helped curate gives me the giggles.

but thats not the real intersting bit for me. i found it interesting on a game mechanical level how much this route mirrors the beat of the 2nd scenario (that branches into truth and rebellion routes), but consistently refused to let me/the player pick decisions for takumi at the parts where he should.

in effect here, eito has hijacked the decisions for takumi and the latter willingly lets him subconsciously or not. takumi seems very happy to have the old eito back that he just. throws everything he knows about the actual eito out the window. sure he still wants eito to be happy but this isnt proper understanding, its one sided imposing of his will.

thanks to that whole dynamic though theres the very cool part of him coming up with the plan of cutting himself in half to banzai on veshy and also the not at all cool (and very evil actually what the actual fuck man!!) idea of brainwashing eito to keep him in check.

takumi does not see the real eito in this route and does not seem to meaningfully care about him here. this is like. mundanely evil shit. he does things just heroic enough to get the girl but in doing so makes everything (the truth, the reality, the nuance of the war) a farce for his shounen plotline.

takumi was this close to getting eito on his side if he just showed concern and understanding about his condition, but he just kinda went 'eh, sirei can brainwash this away no big'. the can of evil he just unleashed unto this route with that decision is so fucking absurd that im actually glad eito went final boss on takumi.

because fuck you takumi, you dont deserve the full good ending on this route actually. the friendship hardwork victory tropes? pweh.

understandable.

takumi ends this route either by mutually killing himself and eito, or he does the heroic thing and gets the girl but with eito just quitting the plot. i cant even blame eito for offing himself. ...i kinda feel terrible for him actually. this route is torture on the guy.

they also... do not make it to day 100, and the exodus project is probably still ongoing. they lack critical information that immunizes them to further manipulation from both sides. eito pulls off the ultimate pallete corruption here at least for me. its great.

with what i mentioned in my eito meta appreciation thoughts post im adding "eito can also be the judge jury executioner of the mc", but as a little bit of that as an extra at least in this route.

its very fun but also very fascinating at what happens if takumi just does his own things instead of the player braincell input

also me at eito in the final battle: "why are you here why are you even bothering to fight i can delete you in 2 turns!!! why did you engage in wave 3 like this?! what did you come here for?! go home!!!!!"

also also. shion saying "the power of hemoanima is omnipotent (万能bannou)", and then having takumi interpreting that as "erractic (出鱈目 detarame)" is killing me. detarame implies 'asspull' or 'complete bullshit' in this context.

EDIT:

this cg in the Best Friends ending is also. mwah. the way its framed is so one sided. the handle of the scythe seperates the two. interpretation ahoy but i see this as takumi's footing (social power context) being higher, and he can just force his ideals to eito, but doesnt fully go to his level to understand him. eito seems to be just on the ground waiting for death and dragging takumi with him. neither is willing to compromise their position to seek full mutual understanding

...until takumi lowers himself by giving in to his anger and hate, forcing himself and his whole deal onto eito

lowkey wondering if this whole plot was just some kind of long winded suicide plan by eito too.

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

Top 10 Things I Love About the QL Tumblr Community 2023

I'm loving everyone's end of year lists, and decided to make up one of my own.

I haven't been on Tumblr for very long and was originally just lurking. 2023 marks the year where I finally started posting, after I read a take that made me feel compelled to come to a fictional character's defense. (Saengtai, my poor little blorbo).

So in commemoration of my first proper year of active tumblring, I present what I love about this community (in no particular order).

(Side note - Technically I know this is still primarily a BL community, but I like to say QL because I am trying to manifest more lesbians for us.)

1) The Gifmakers

Y'all are a good 70% of the reason I joined Tumblr in the first place. There are so many show moments that I want to relive, but without having to search through videos. Sometimes I want to appreciate the aesthetics. Sometimes I want to remember adorable or goofy moments. Sometimes I just want to see cute boys eating each other's faces. Our gifmakers give all of that to us, with the addition of so much creativity and style.

There's too many amazing ones to mention everyone, but I have to shout out @sparklyeyedhimbo, because the way your brain works makes me so happy.

2) The expertise

The other part of why I joined Tumblr was to learn more about what BLs were out there and what I might be missing. And holy hell. Y'all are putting in the work. Not only lists and resources for finding all kinds of QLs, like these fabulous monthly breakdowns by @gunsatthaphan, but also amazing posts that add additional context, like @absolutebl's incredibly helpful breakdown of Asian honorifics. There is so much research people do, for fun! And then they share it!

3) The meta analysis

I frickin love reading people's takes and analyses on series. I love learning, I love seeing perspectives from people with different cultural backgrounds to my own, it's all so fascinating! There's so much context we can miss due to our own privileges, or lack of knowing about various cultures, or due to whatever bubbles we've been living in. People here are just so smart, and nuanced, and willing to reflect and think about things, and also push back at each other, but generally with respect (except when you call out the dumb shit you see, usually on Twitter or TikTok, where people are being reductive and dumb about gender and sexuality).

And I've seen a few takes where people complain about analyses, and say that the director/production doesn't do everything deliberately, and we're all reading too much into it. To which I say, eh, lighten up. How people connect to and relate to media has relevance beyond what was intended. The point is we get to think and discuss and learn and grow. That doesn't happen if we don't analyze.

Special shout out here to @respectthepetty because colors mean things!

4) The wild theories

The other side of the analysis coin, the clown cars y'all drive around in with the wildest of theories. I have happily climbed into an occasional clown car, and usually I am utterly wrong (*cough* Saifah *cough*). But it's a super fun ride. I love seeing how people's brains work. I love it when y'all are wrong. I love it when y'all are right. It's beautiful.

5) Immediate acceptance

I am one of those people who knows that I have a lot of good qualities, and also, always kind of expect rejection. Blame the childhood bullies, I guess. Anyway, whenever I delve into a new space, I still feel like a total dork that no one will want to talk to. It's kind of a fraught way to move through the world, but I manage.

Anyway, I started posting my thoughts as they came up, and people are just totally cool with it. People even follow me sometimes. Even my silliest thoughts and dumbest jokes get at least a couple likes. It's so validating.

And my very silly joke about gay mafia in Kiseki has over 800 likes. I feel very seen.

6) Mutuals

I still kind of can't believe I have any. This ties in to the dork feeling above, but seriously - they are soooo cooooool. They're smart and awesome and funny, and they somehow find me worth following back, which is baffling yet wonderful. I want to squish their faces and give them many kisses (if they're into that kind of thing).

7) The self-exploration

I really appreciate how it's become more talked about how a lot of people are discovering queerness through BL, because that is so the case for me. I think it's both that I was in a bit of a hetero bubble before, and also that I'm evolving a bit as I age. I had figured out I was demi, and maybe a little bit gay, before getting in to BL, but being in this community, and seeing so many of you share so openly and freely, has made me realize it might be more than a little bit.

Either it was a new realization, or being around y'all has made me more gay. Win win, either way.

8) The weirdness

I'm weird. Y'all are weird. I love it.

9) The thirst

So many in this community are thirsty as fuck, and as someone who is in that same condition, I love that it's not just me. There are not many places where I can freely admit how horny I am as a part of my general existence.

Here? I could post about wanting to lick some random BL actor's face, and it would get a bunch of likes and some tags like #lickable, and it's just not remotely a big deal.

Also the gifmakers understand this, and give us beautiful cuts of our spicy scenes. They are genuinely too good for us.

10) The communal watching experience

There is absolutely nothing like watching along with people in the community. It is so worth the torture of having to wait week to week for new episodes. Seeing the show trend, watching the theories fly fast and furious, or the way everyone collectively loses their minds over particular moments. In a world that can feel very isolating, it's a very warm experience.

So there you go. Thank you all for being you. Here's to another year of QL shenanigans and losing our collective minds!

[lightningant]

not necessarily an ask - just wanted to say

you are 100% one of my favorite blogs right now. i found VoV on tiktok and decided to try a tomarry fic for the first time and genuinely fell in love with it - but more than that i ADORE reading all your takes. you have such an intrinsic understanding of the characters that is just absolutely fascinating and always bring up things i never would have even thought of

just wanted to say thank you for being wildly interesting and sharing all your thoughts with us!

Thank you! I am glad to be people's first Tomarry, especially considering it's been getting pretty popular within its own right.

I'm actually a bit of an Ulysses Ogre - my skill isn't in strong comprehension or observation, I'm actually a pretty shallow reader, but rather in applying information I'm given (both from the books and from Posts On The Internet) and extrapolating while adhering as close to the framework as I can. IDK how to put it...like I understood all the metaphors in the film Sinners very easily, the reading comprehension is there, but the foundational root of the allegory (vampirism = homogeneous WASP cultural values accessing minority communities through those deemed the most acceptable to white society, and rejecting vampirism is to reject making yourself palatable to white culture) was something I had to have explained to me by people who are smarter than I am. Big-picture analysis is something I'm very weak with.

This is also why so much of my meta is just making shit up that sounds interesting. Extrapolated too close to the sun. This is a really terrible habit of mine that often goes out of control but it does introduce a lot of fresh ideas because I'm too locked in on stretching the character like taffy to care about fanon.

[softantlers]

okay so travnatlot meta that is seriously so long & probably will be read by no one. love you guys bad!!

so i have been absolutely obsessed with the scene in the s3 finale where travis is crashing out over his berry wine and talking to shauna about how he feels javi's thoughts and jackie's thoughts. specifically, i can't stop thinking about the way taishauna lurch at him and lottie physically shields travis from them, saying "it's not him."

first of all, to focus on lottie here: her behavior is absolutely fascinating in this scene and courtney fucking killed the acting. it's hard to articulate, but there is something visceral and powerful in the way lottie redirects tai and shauna and orders them to "go hunt." if you rewatch and focus on her voice, you'll notice lottie is having a very hard time speaking here (is this a prelude to becoming nonverbal?). in fact, she is almost unable to say the words "go hunt," and they are delivered in this stilted manner, like she is working overtime to force them out.

lottie's trouble speaking becomes especially eerie when you consider the fact that she didn't seem to struggle as much counting for mari's hunt moments earlier. this could absolutely NOT be the case, but over the course of the season, i've had an interesting time wondering if these stilted-voice moments are an insight into the lucid lottie that's drowning beneath the delusions. when she speaks in this clipped manner--especially toward the end of the season--are we getting intentions that are separate from her service to the wilderness?

for me, there's something compelling in reading lottie's protection of travis here (because man's drunk and tbh taishauna could really fuck him up if they wanted to) as a parallel to her earlier protection of natalie after nat kills ben.

there's similar behavior here. the group is converging on natalie and there's a threat of physical violence. lottie intervenes, ostensibly in a manner that's still serving the wilderness (ie: "shauna will lead us" is a parallel to "go hunt"), but the offshoot is that she successfully protects trav and nat from further harm in the process. in both scenes, lottie says very little at all but she still manages to deescalate and redirect.

how does this relate back to travlot?

"It's not him."

this language is so interesting to me because we could certainly read the statement as saying travis is literally not himself in this scene--that he's being yuri-beamed by jackie or some shit, but i don't think that's the case lmfao. i personally suspect what lottie is suggesting here is that this version of travis, this version of him that's so supremely fucked up and drunk in this moment, is not a reflection of who travis is as a person.

to carry that thread back to the intervention over nat killing ben, i've always said that the biggest indication that this is in fact an intervention (beyond kevin alves's bombass interview where he agrees) is that lottie--out of everyone--should be furious at nat for defying the wilderness and killing ben as the bridge. i mean, lottie jumped in front of a loaded rifle in order to protect ben for that purpose. but she's not mad. she doesn't exhibit any anger or ill feelings toward nat, despite the fact that nat's committed a huge transgression against the wilderness.

what am i trying to say?

Lottie sees people

in specific, lottie sees travis and natalie. she has a profound empathy for these two people that brings her back to them over and over, even when they betray the wishes of the wilderness & even when her actions invariably end up harming them or they simply don't want her. to bring that back to the nat killing ben thing, i think lottie is not upset because she fundamentally understands how it happened, how much nat had suffered beforehand, and she doesn't have it in her to hold it against her. instead of dogpiling, she reorients the team to a different path.

why do i think lottie can see that? well, she's incredibly perceptive. the scene where lottie addresses natalie when the team is trying to leave demonstrates the dynamic really well:

this is not the kind of statement someone who isn't an empath makes. this statement reveals a perception of natalie's home life that someone with a fuckload of insight (and perhaps an ability to relate) would make. it's also terribly delivered and horribly damaging thing to say in the moment, and of course, it pushes nat away. but i'd still argue that this is a reflection of lottie seeing something in nat that perhaps isn't as apparent to the rest of their teammates.

Likewise, Lottie sees Travis

travis's trauma is quite a bit more up front than natalie's since lottie literally watched him lose both his father and his brother to the wilderness, but in the same light, she has massive empathy toward him. the way she talks to him in particular across timelines (therapy speak tbh) indicates to me that lottie has probably had similar crashouts and panic attacks, which allows her to notice & respond effectively in kind--she sees herself in what's happening when travis loses it.

in the teen timeline, when travis has a sexual reaction to lottie comforting him, her response is fairly mature for a high schooler. lottie doesn't seem put off by it--"it's not him" is coming to mind here--and she continues interacting with travis throughout the season at the same time as it's obvious imo she's not romantically interested (and neither is he). it's not altogether clear how much lottie might remember from doomcoming but you could even argue that she might have some thoughts (even if she can't articulate them herself) about her role in travis's assault that leads to more tolerance for what i tend to read as a trauma response in this scene. (will admit: could be reaching)

but in essence, i think she might see what's happening (and what's not) between them here and that's why she moves along and doesn't mention it again.

Lottie also sees Natalie

across timelines, s2 was a veritable feast for their interactions, but the one i'll always go back to is the coronation. throughout the season, lottie and nat have insane tension--ben goes so far as to ask natalie whether she's jealous of lottie & nat's response is that she doesn't understand how lottie can exert so much control over the other girls. why is she so bothered? well, the offshoot of lottie's growing authority over the yellowjackets is, of course, the team's casual dismissal of the role that nat is playing in hunting and keeping them fed throughout the winter. for her part, natalie grows so frustrated with being overlooked (especially when the others jibe her) that she eventually caves to the hunting game during episode 4.

meanwhile, lottie is not particularly trying to get one over on natalie imo. it doesn't seem that she wants to be a higher authority or to lead at all--she's simply following her instincts. but as the episodes stretch on, i think she begins to understand the effect that she's having on nat and to have possibly regretful feelings over it.

now, lottie's coronation is complicated and i wouldn't reduce her choice of nat as leader to this one thing, but a dimension that's fun to play around with is considering the coronation as an act of generosity. essentially, lottie is telling natalie that she sees her, sees her capacity to lead, sees what she's fucking done for them over the course of the winter. i also think it's so telling that the crowning scene becomes this pathway to all of the yellowjackets showing their appreciation for natalie--lottie set that up. and it's so meaningful for nat, who in the grand scheme of her trauma, has rarely ever been affirmed as being good and worthy and loved. maybe lottie realizes that she needs this.

Why does this fucking matter?

well, i think lottie's empathy and pursuit of travis and natalie is a huge factor in the travnatlot dynamic. i also think her ability to see their trauma and hold that alongside their actions is why, for lack of a better way of phrasing it, she lets them get away with a ton of shit.

natalie not only killed ben as their bridge, effectively destroying the hope lottie had placed in him as a symbol for the wilderness, she also has a few moments where she loses patience with lottie altogether following the murder of the frogger.

despite these rejections (and whatever else lays ahead), lottie still pursues nat in the adult timeline. keeps track of her and cares enough about her to send her heliotrope goons after her and keep her from killing herself. "it's not him" is just as much "it's not her" here -- in a way (more on this later) lottie uses her understanding of travnat's respective traumas as a way to sidestep their rejection of her and keep pursuing them--because fundamentally i think she loves them both, and she's willing to love them both despite them pushing her away.

"It's not him." - Part 2

jesus fucking christ, the pit. absolute batshit insanity to consider that this scene is only an episode before the scene where lottie guards travis against tai and shauna. while i maintain that i don't think lottie knows how horrific the pit is (she literally can't see the spikes), i have to assume that she suspects that it's terrible. there's some suicidality that we could talk about in the way that she walks across it (way too much to go into for this meta), but all the same the scene still has this profound empathy to it.

lottie seems to understand how travis got to this point--the fact that she speaks about javi, completely unprompted after he calls her "bullshit" is an indication i think--and i don't think she blames him for it, even as she has her own views on the wilderness & thinks this is the right path.

so if we ride with the idea that lottie is aware travis was trying to kill her, i think "it's not him" takes on so much more meaning, as a sort of protective mantra for lottie. when travis says something (pretty clearly antagonizing to shauna) about jackie in his fit of drunkenness, lottie's primal instinct is to say "it's not him" -- i imagine she's had to sort of overlay that concept for herself, as the truth that travis really tried to kill her sets in: "it's not him." i mean, this protective mantra is the only way possible to keep this relationship going, and lottie is committing to believing it for that purpose.

going back to natalie and all of her own rejections toward lottie, there's also an unspoken "it's not her" imo. to lottie, it's trauma. it's a reaction to trauma. it's lottie's inextricable place webbed within all that trauma. and she will overlook the violence and anger directed at her because she loves these people.

What's my point?

well, i guess my point is that i think the central tragedy of the travnatlot dynamic is that lottie sees travis and natalie. she sees them for what they've gone through, she seems to empathize with their behaviors, even when they basically fuck her over. and she doesn't let up. she keeps going after them and trying to show them care (to be clear, in SUPREMELY MALADJUSTED and not always helpful ways).

but the thing that really fucking sucks is that i'm not sure that travis or natalie ever really see lottie in return (or anyone sees lottie for that matter). they see her for the harm she causes in the teen timeline and then they see her for her mental illness in the adult timeline and they see her for the possible "truth" she was preaching at the end of their respective lives.

lottie effectively becomes her illness/her own trauma: "it is her." and the real lottie underneath that all... where is she? is she ever seen?

of course, there are moments that cut through the haze where you might say that travis and natalie discern a lottie that isn't just her own trauma (the coronation for nat; many soft scenes between travlot throughout s2; lottienat's death scene on the plane; nat turning back when lottie says she's staying), but they are incredibly fleeting. and it's really fucking sad because the tumult of trauma, delusions, and escalating stakes mean that those moments can never, ever last. the shittiest part about thinking about their respective relationships is considering the possibilities--what would have happened if travnat ever saw lottie, ever related their own traumas back to her and were able to see the human that she sees in them?

it fucking hurtttssss, your honor.

[sha-brytols]

fun little facts about my wardens

iloren mahariel: thank you complete bi overhaul for removing the weird gender restrictions from the origin mini romances. iloren and tamlen were very very close. they were basically the clan delinquents and spent literally every second of the day joined by the hip ever since they were liddol liddol. in my head they became close with merrill after iloren got in a literal actual fight with a clanmate that was bullying her when they were kids (tamlen was not at all involved in the confrontation before the fight but he still joined when iloren threw hands because of course), and since then merrill like. helped cover and lie for them whenever they snuck out at night to explore the forest and probably make out. oh also him and caleb are the ones with the most beef and anger towards duncan because he had to use to rite on both of them, so they obviously feel a little more like prisoners than recruits .

rourat brosca: i do think he was a little in love with leske but he also didn't trust him. at all. he doesn't trust anyone in orzammar besides rica don't worry about it. anyways in trisha's worldstate i imagine he probably actually Talks (he's mute) to leske for the first and only time as he's starving to death specifically to tell him to take care of his family, so when leske escapes he takes kalah rica and the baby to the surface. in my gay lil brain they're given heavy protection by the friends of red jenny, which endrin eventually joins once he grows up.

caleb cousland: okay fine bioware if you're so insistent on introducing casual mysogyny to the setting you literally introduced as equal treatment between genders i wanna actually Understand it. if i ever actually get around to doing a full run with him, caleb would theoretically be basically my way of exploring why and How sexism in thedas exists despite. andraste. he has the same weird mindset like 90% of the other npcs have if you play a woman ("damn you're a girl? you're a fucking woman? you're fighting and you're a chick? holy shit") and im hoping that like. roleplaying through that would give me a better meta idea of the religious and cultural attitudes behind it all. he would also spare loghain and marry anora in my brain and the entire landsmeet is going to make eamon go into another coma

trisha amell: omg ❤️ war criminal princess ❤️ not much to say that i dont think has already been yapped about, but i'll reiterate my entire thesis on her, which is trisha's character basically revolves around the idea of "innocence lost" and my personal favorite paradigms in dragon age's morality. like the warden is meant to be Young right. like they can't be any older than maybe 25 and even then i feel like that's a big stretch for most of them. and the magi warden has been raised in an extremely controlled and isolated environment all their life, and now suddenly they're thrown out into the big bad world and told they have to save all of it. they have the least experience and the least knowledge, and on top of all of that they're still essentially a child in the eyes of the world, and they are expected to lead armies and strategize against an enemy they know literally nothing about. how would that affect you, having your most formative life experiences revolve around war and suffering and death and betrayal and fear, all within the span of one year? you're gifted freedom, but is it really freedom if you've been forced onto a pedestal as an icon of hope, and all you've known since you've earned this freedom is violence? it makes for an extremely fascinating dynamic when she gets into politics that i'll always be a whore for.

brynne aeducan: ok i know gorim canonically gets married to someone else after the exile but i just think the idea of brynne being the wife he offhandedly mentions to the warden is cute. this means brynne actually never dies. don't ask how the hell that happens idk. i might write a little thing about that because that whole dynamic really does something for me. the power imbalance and rank disparity thats always loomed over their heads like a fucking anvil suddenly flipped and now they have to adjust and learn each others boundaries as equals. also she was named after her grandmother (brynhal aeducan) heart. her beef with trian is also tragic in that they were originally very very close when they were younger. he taught her everything he knew about combat and politics and she idolized him but their relationship got absolutely fucked up the older and older they got and he watched how beloved she was with the people of orzammar, until eventually bhelen saw the opportunity to exploit his envy and completely turned his siblings against each other.

dahlia tabris: iiiii'm still workshopping because. ok i'll be honest i'm mostly ambivalent towards the city elf origin so i kind of just played it entirely straight. but my mind does tend to veer towards making her the most cold out of everyone. she would probably have the most "evil" run because she grew up with a very "everyone for themselves" mindset. but by evil i mean like. she isn't cruel and she isn't going out of her way to hurt people, but she is very vengeful and ruthlessly practical. i would definitely have her side with the elves in nature of the beast rather than broker peace, probably kill connor, and i'd Consider siding with branka but the forced slavery makes me wonder so. i'll get back to you on that one .

[senlinyu]

Hiya— forgive me, this is a big one!

Something I really appreciate about your work on both Manacled and LTDI is your approach to the wizarding world’s oppressive systems. I recently read a bit about how the caste system in India parallels to Jewish and African American oppression (there’s a great film on this too) and it made me go back and re-read Manacled just to look at it from this perspective.

I’m not sure how this fandom usually talks about wizarding world oppression since I don’t really engage, so I apologize if this is rehashing old metas haha. I mostly only see the direct parallels to “wizard nazis,” but I like that your work is more nuanced and detailed. I think it’s fascinating how the blood purity systems of oppression basically operate as a form of caste.

And in HP canon, the statue of secrecy is also very interesting, but you made it so much more engaging. Came for the enemies to lovers smut drama, stayed for the intellectual commentary haha!

I really like what you did in LTDI by exploring deeper how oppression looks like in a magical world, and the history behind the witch trials and dark magic. I *loved* the way dark magic was forbidden for muggle-borns, and the sickening and so realistic rationale that pure-bloods are taught about it.

And HOLY SHIT!—— You do such a good job at showcasing every aspect of this on LTDI through Hogwarts, Dumstrang, the archives, bullies, the press, and especially our two leads! Your depiction of the casual violence of oppression with Hermione and her journey learning about muggle-borns is devastating. and Draco’s absolute misery through the very oppressive system that’s supposed to put him on top is so true and also so brilliantly written. And it doesn’t hit me over the head with a shovel either, it’s just…human. It’s well done!! It reminds me why I like Dramione, besides the tension and the subtext, there’s so much richness that canon simply doesn’t have.

Sorry for the ramble! What I’m getting to is that when it comes to positive societal values (education, riches, peace, access to water and resources) and negative ones (lack of education, poverty, lack of resources, vulnerability to violence, incarceration,) the oppressor class is always going to rationalize that they earned it, and the subjugated second class deserves their lot. Here in America, the rationale was that people of color deserved subjugation because they were dirtier, meaner, stupider than their white counterparts; and these beliefs were upheld by religion, politics and incorrect science. But all of these are rationalizations and fabrications, because there is obviously nothing inherently superior about race (or in the case for white Jews— and here in HP— caste.) I think you translate that so beautifully to pure-bloods; but I was wondering how this works in relation to muggleborns.

On my reread of Let the Dark, I saw that muggle borns that didn’t manifest into Obscurus and went on to become wizards almost always grew into mastering black magic when they have access into the dark arts, while native-born wizards did not. The records of the fic also showed that black magic was corruptive to pure-bloods who tried it, and very hard to achieve at all even when put in similar nurture conditions when growing up.

So I guess this is all a really long-winded way of asking haha—— is Hermione’s muggle-born proficiency in black magic derived from nurturing or nature? and does that mean it’s vice versa for half/pure-bloods? Sorry I know you had a passage on exactly this but I just didn’t really know what you meant.

Anyway, these two are soooo fricking stupid horny for each other, I love the way you write them. Kudos ++ and thanks for all the work.

Can’t wait to see what’s next for LTDI ! ! ! !

Hi, thank you for the long ask. Am I correct in guessing that you saw the movie Caste? It's based on Isabel Wilkerson's book by the same name, which is one of the books that I read that was partially responsible for my inspiration for LTDI. A few years ago now, I was on a sort of journey reading about historical systemic oppression, but I didn't want to be limited to only American oppression and discrimination. I don't feel comfortable drawing absolutely direct parallels from real world in literature just because I feel like a lot of the times such attempts can perpetuate the very things they're trying to deconstruct (looking at you Zootopia), but the story is influenced by various reading I've done on discrimination and oppression throughout various colonial and class heavy cultures.

So as a result, I really didn't want to actually create a 'rational reason' for muggle-born oppression that had a legitimate basis, I wanted it to be a nurture based distinction. Yes muggle-borns have a unique ability that results from the trauma of their upbringing altering how their magic manifests, but that's not because they're actually naturally different, and in fact there's a very simple solution to preventing Black Magic by pre-emptively reaching out to muggleborns and preventing that formative trauma from occurring, but that would necessitate wizarding culture giving up their false sense of superiority and entitlement, and so they won't, and they let Muggle-born children and their families die where they don't have to see it.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

https://www.tumblr.com/impossiblycolorfulpanda/775777438806556672/being-an-azulaang-hater-because-of-the-whole?source=share

I know you don't like azulaang, but what do you think about these arguments in favor of it? Do they hold any water?

Absolutely not and for the very reason that makes me dislike the ship: if falls apart if the characters are not being grossly mischaracterized.

They're right that Aang being a pacifist does not make him a push-over, that he needs to think like a firebender to master that element, that Azula not being a saint doesn't make her the devil, and that any good Enemies To Lovers ship doesn't just skip straight to the lovers bit, there's a lot of development in between. But everything else was nonsense.

"Azula was but a humble servant of her cause"

Azula doesn't have a humble bone in her body. She was a PROUD enforcer of her cause, from a position of great privilege. She was a TERRIFIED servant of Ozai, and Ozai alone, no other Fire Lord. Even post redemption, her ambition and pride would remain because these are not BAD things when combined with empathy for others.

She's a patriot through and through, and even if she were to grow to respect/care for the rest of the world, her priority would still be her own nation. She's a proud princess that very much LOVES that position of great power. There's a reason why, even on the ONE episode where she's trying to see if people would like her for who she is, without knowing she's a princess, she still lets her mask slip and goes on and on about world domination. Regardless of it being a result of nature, nurture or both, ambition and the desire to be better than others is a core part of Azula's character.

Meanwhile Aang is a humble, reluctant servant of his cause to the entire world, because he's completely uninterested in what it means. He wants to be a normal person minding his business and having fun, he would have gladly ran away from his role as the Avatar forever if it didn't mean innocent people would suffer. His role is a cross he has to bear, not something he cherishes and openly pursues.

This is quite the clash of goals and outlook in life - one so big that cannot be reconciled. I went from indifferent to Azulaang to actively hating it because every single "good" fanfic and meta that I was recommended about that ship either robbed Azula of anything that wasn't the "I'm sorry for the evil I've done and I want love" part of her character, or that completely re-wrote Aang's personality to make him some cunning, ambitious political figure.

"If Aang got around to mastering all sub-bending techniques, some non-bender skills, and basically became a one-man team avatar, Azula would be aroused or at least intrigued"

No, she would not, and the proof of it is that becoming the most powerful person alive was literally part of Aang's canonical arc and Azula did not give a shit about him because "He needs to die/be captured so my nation wins the war."

At no point do we see her being fascinated by him, or any bender, that isn't her father. At no point does she show genuine respect towards any kind of authority figure that isn't Fire Lord OZAI. Even her few attempts to praise strong, competent benders from other nations involved calling the Dai Li her souveniers and saying she loves the killer instinct that is "SO firebender". Even her attempt to date Chan has more to do with proving that she can get a popular guy (who is the son of a FIRE NATION general) to like her, but at no point does she seem to think of him as anything other than a trophy to win and go "See? Ty Lee isn't the only one popular with guys!"

Azula worships a very specific brand of power - the absolute, unquestionable, divine right to rule kind of power (with an openly racist, imperialist, elitist agenda), and ONLY when it applies to the relative that she (wrongfully) believes is the one person on Earth that actually loves her. Part of the reason she's still so obsessed with Zuko in the comics is because he's taking on the role that used to be Ozai's and Azula is actively trying to make him more like their father (on top already naturally looking like him since Ozai's design is based on Zuko's).

THAT is the kind of "attraction to power" that Azula experiences. It's very specific, freudian as hell, super unhealthy, extremely ego-based, openly racist and elitist, basically destroyed her life and is something she'd desperately need to have under control if she's to ever have ANY kind of healthy relationship, otherwise she'd either mistreat her partner or at most be condependent as fuck.

And, again, Aang wants to be normal. He wants to be seen for who he is. Even if Azula were to be attracted to him because Avatar = Power, he would just feel like this means she fundamentally doesn't understand/like who he actually is as a person, and he would also be worried about what this means for her mental health, and he'd be right to conclude all that.

And that ties into a thing I mentioned at the start: Aang needing to think like a firebender to master that element. That is true... but Aang thinks like a HEALTHY firebender. One that is aware fire is life instead of just destruction, one that wants to be careful with it to avoid causing unnecessary harm/damage, one that is based on spirituality.

Azula thinks like a SICK firebender. One that has been poisoned by ego and literal propaganda. She openly uses it to threaten people into submission, and she's all about suporting her dad using it to burn the world down so they can rule over the ashes. She's a prodigy with unbelievable raw talent, but her pursuit of "perfection" (aka an arrogant, harmful need to not have any kind of weakness) literally drives her insane and ruins every single relationship that ever meant anything to her.

Aang being a firebender doesn't automatically mean he thinks like Azula. If anything, Zuko is the character that can connect with both of them, since he is now a "heallthy" firebender like Aang, but used to be a "sick" one like Azula.

That's my main problem with Azulaang as a ship: you need other characters or radically different circumstances to bridge the ABSURD gap between them. The only things they have in common are raw power and a fuckton of trauma over being given too much responsibility at such a young age, and even their way of handling these are so radically different that the idea of them falling for each other is laughable. They are opposites with little to no common ground, meaning they don't compliment each other, they just clash.

And I won't even get into the nonsense rant at the end about "People only hate on this precious ship because EVIL Bryke talked shit about ZUTARA nearly two decades ago and I'm still bitter." Bryke literally gave you guys fanservice and hasn't said anything bad about this fucking ship in years even though zutarians literally tried to label them as misogynists and even pedophiles.

You don't have the moral high ground, you're not fighting against oppression, you're just attached to non-canon ships and because you're trying to make it your entire personality you take people disliking them as a personal attack. It's all in your head - get over yourselves.

[sl-walker]

Boldly Reading: Watsonian vs. Doylist Reads, Death of the Author and Exploitation

I apparently couldn't help myself. I dunno yet whether I'm gonna keep that in the actual review of Issue 3 on Boldly Reading (where I apparently go into the deepest possible dives on this stuff), but I think it's an interesting enough chunk of writing and meta that I wanted to share it anyway.

Especially if any of you Boosteroos out there have any thoughts on it.

(I didn't get into the queer reading of him here, but I also believe that's another factor that does come into play. Whenever I do the inevitable writeup about that, I'll likely include this, or at least summarize it, but you can bet that it was on my mind as I worked on this.

--

One of the reasons why it’s particularly interesting to view Booster (as a character) through both the Watsonian and Doylist lenses is there’s usually something intriguing about both of those and how they sometimes tie together. Or how what happens in-universe can serve as a commentary on what’s going on outside of it.

Most of the people who would end up reading these reviews of mine — which are some pretty deep dives — already know Booster’s backstory. In its earliest form, it was just: Highly promising college football hero gets greedy and decides to bet on his own games only to end up disgraced. As time went on, though, more and more interesting details got added in, most often by Dan himself, which completely change the framing of that story. The basic facts of it remain the same — Booster getting caught up in a gambling scheme and completely wrecking his own future — but the context and reasoning go from being somewhat simplistic (if unique) at the outset to some frankly brilliant character writing.

And all the more brilliant because of what it says about the creative process, in addition what layers it adds to Booster in-universe, too.

I know that very probably it wasn’t planned out in that fashion from the jump because any creative writer will tell you that stories often end up telling themselves, winging off in directions unexpected. Good characters essentially seem to write themselves. That doesn’t make the writing itself any less amazing, mind; this is still fiction, springing forth from the mind of an author, and therefore the author deserves credit for that excellence. But it does make for a fascinating look into the organic nature of character development, as well as what time can often lend to a story as it passes.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a merciless critic when it comes to professional writers. I don’t mean cruel (and generally try not to be) and I always believe in giving credit where I feel it’s due (and try to never forget that my opinion is still only an opinion), but I’ve been in this game myself long enough to not lionize anyone. Part of that is because I firmly believe you shouldn’t ever put people on pedestals; that you should always bear in mind that these people are people, no better nor worse than you. That way, when shit like what went down with Neil Gaiman happens, you’re not devastated.

Believe me, I do have a point I’m coming to with this, so you can keep reading to get to it, or you can skip to the rest of the review.

So back on the train — crazy or not — I sometimes try to take into account the author’s life (Doylist) when analyzing the character’s life (Watsonian) because the push-pull influences are neat as hell. Not always, though, because I believe there’s merit in the concept of Death of the Author; that a story’s meaning cannot simply be attributed to only the author, but also to the reader interpreting it.

Walter (owner of the legitimately comprehensive and fantastic Boosterrific) and I have discussed Dan’s writing some and our own individual interpretations, and I’ve even corresponded once with Dan himself, so my own opinion ultimately is that while Dan’s a perfectly fine writer — meaning that he can tell a competent story³, has some good ideas and you’re not likely to find yourself wincing too often — his spark of actual genius really was in the creation of Booster himself, and moreso, specifically in this volume.

In various interviews, Dan doesn’t exactly trash-talk his early work here, but he does make sure to include the caveat of how inexperienced he was and how much better he got over time. And as a writer, I can see that’s true. There’s a definite difference between early Vol. 1 and later Vol. 1. Dan’s skills improve with practice, just like the rest of us.

But again— there’s also a fundamental difference between skill and genius. His skills improved, but his genius — intentional or un — is on display in Booster himself, and how Booster interacts with the world, most evident here early on.

The evidence for this is in how Dan wrote Booster in Vol. 1 versus, say, when he took over the JLA. Dan does a better job in Vol. 1 by about three country miles. How he handles his own creation in JLA is just fundamentally bad at some points (specifically in making Booster a sexist asshole, which he never had been before); it’s almost as if he looked at how Giffen and DeMatteis wrote Booster (and well!) and then latched onto all the exact wrong things, some of which didn’t even exist prior, and pasted them over-top the lovely framework he put together himself, leaving both his writing and his character the poorer for it.

Dan might have been a more practiced and skilled writer in JLA, but I’d argue that — at least in terms of Booster as a character — he wasn’t actually a better one.

So, the point basically is:

(Doylist) Dan displayed real, shining brilliance in his creation of Booster, both initially and with the building revisions to Booster’s backstory.

(Doylist) The revisions of Booster’s backstory from ‘driven by greed’ to ‘desperately poor kid gets a taste of something better than subsistence survival and wants more’ to ‘desperately poor kid in a dire situation bets his entire future in order to save his mother and family and then gets a taste of having money and wants more’ in particular are absolutely fantastic from a character development standpoint PARTICULARLY because they’re doled out over time and actually build on each other. (Dan wasn’t the one who got to the ‘blackmailed by the mob’ part, that was Mark Waid, but that’s the one thing that brings it all together in ways that make me flail my hands.)

(Doylist) Seriously, I could write you at least 10K words on the brilliance of that psychology for storytelling purposes, and it’s made no less good because it probably wasn’t all that intentional.

(Watsonian) This also comes back to what I brought up last issue about the boy having some serious issues about vulnerability. Because once you get to the part where he got tangled up in all this trying to save his mother, in retrospect you realize that Booster himself must have given the harshest possible explanation for his behavior every time it came up prior to that. He had to have intentionally left out the parts of his story that would gain him at least sympathy from whoever was listening to it, which is polar opposite behavior from what one would expect from a young superhero looking to make it big. Booster doesn’t try to give himself a redemption arc. He basically paints himself as a villain. And that’s— incredibly damned interesting.

(Watsonian) The only reason I can see why he would do this, when it’s actually sabotaging him as a heroic figure, is because he can’t stand the idea of anyone knowing something that intimate (and likely sore) about him — meaning that he got on the path to wrecking his life because he was living in poverty and trying to save his mother — because of course they’d use it against him. This is the same dude who didn’t tell anyone his given name for at least several months in canon. Even more intriguing, it doesn’t seem to occur to Booster to invent a less lousy backstory, which is another fascinating twist of psychology. Booster’s a pretty unreliable narrator, but not for any fundamental dishonesty; whenever he lies — at least about big stuff — it seems to be mostly done in self-defense.

(Doylist AND Watsonian) The conclusion is: When you take all of these various factors in, you realize that Booster’s entire story — both backstory and in Vol. 1 here — is a hell of a tale of exploitation. And thus, the sociology (and psychology) in play.

The reason I’m saying all of that is because there are some things which are established as fact: Booster’s really fricken young here. Even in Vol. 1., Dan himself pointed out that Booster’s also pretty naïve, which certainly fits with his characterization, not only here, but also later in JLI. It dovetails neatly with those scenes I loved last issue, where Dirk is being controlling and Booster’s initial response is to try to appease and disarm the situation, and it’s only when pushed well past what most people on better footing would tolerate that he pushes back himself.

It also falls in line with the eighties in general, which was a mercenary time to be alive, at least here in the States. Reagan had dismantled a fair number of social safety nets, trickle-down bullshit was a thing, AIDS was killing people en masse, press secretaries were joking about gay plagues and everyone seemed to mostly be out for themselves.

While you can’t remove from Booster the fact that he was partially complicit in his own exploitation, you can also acknowledge that said exploitation was not only there, but a real thing: Everyone wants a piece of this kid. Everyone wants to figure out how to market him, how to make money off of him, how to manipulate him, and Booster trying to make money off of himself — which is why I said his evolving backstory is so damn genius — doesn’t actually make that any less reprehensible.

Tying it all together…! Thanks to his backstory, we know he was already primed for it, too. Because, as we find out later, everyone’s betting on him, everyone has a stake in this kid, everyone wants a piece of him. Add in that college football is rife with exploitation even today (I should know, I worked right next to a university football locker room and was heavily involved with every game), and young men are beating their bodies (and brains) to hell and back for an education or a shot at the pros, and suddenly, everything about Booster not only makes infinitely more sense, it also makes your heart ache for him.

So many of his experiences as a young adult are about his value to others as something more than as someone. Even, ostensibly, with the people who are nearest to him and should care about him as a person, with the exception of his family in his era, and Skeets and (partially, not totally, as we’ll get into later) Trixie. It’s little wonder he’s such a hot mess, one who has a deeply dysfunctional relationship with his own self-worth.

It doesn’t excuse his bad decisions, or those moments he acts like an ass and I wanna slap him silly, but it does explain them.

So, when you have people on the ground freaking out because his ‘bot got wrecked, not because it’ll hurt him but because it might either raise or ruin his earning potential, the sheer genius of how it all comes together in both the Doylist and Watsonian senses means Dan deserves a standing ovation, whether he intended to earn one or not.

And now back to your (ir)regularly scheduled review.

--

3. Unlike some people. (Tom King, for the uninitiated.)

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 407: Wait Why Are You Running Away

Previously on BnHA: Kacchan figured out how to control his quirk upgrade and was totally chill and normal about it. Definitely not terrifying at all. He actually spent the entire chapter smiling and laughing like the wholesome little boy he is. I don’t know why Kid For One is so freaked out about it. He even politely introduced himself using his childhood nickname. Clearly he just wants to be friends with you, KFO!

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “sorry to keep you waiting, here’s the AFO and Yoichi flashback you ordered at long last” and proceeds to serve a nightmarish stew of HUMAN MISERY and RATS and STABBING and CARNAGE and SO MUCH MURDER and THE SINGLE MOST FUCKED-UP CASE OF CODEPENDENCY ANYONE HAS EVER WRITTEN. I was not even remotely prepared for any of this, and if anyone else claims that they were, I will call you a liar to your face. If this chapter had a mouth it would scream. Or just sob, ceaselessly and uncontrollably. I’m really glad Horikoshi is on break next week because that man needs to take a fucking nap. My god.

okay WOW

anyone else read the first two words and just immediately say to themselves, “oh okay, so it’s gonna be one of those chapters”? I mean, I guess we were due for a darker chapter after last week’s Kacchan Comedy Tour. but idk, I just wasn’t expecting “homeless sick prostitute with a drinking problem” levels of dark

AND SHE’S PREGNANT?!

what exactly is this manga rated again? doesn’t this backstory seem just a little bit raw for the impressionable kiddos??

has anyone actually checked in on Horikoshi recently? you know, just to make sure he is okay??

what a fun and wholesome manga this is

the lil baby arm covered in blood with the AFO hole on the palm. lying next to the dead mom hand. what an image to sear into our minds. I guess it’s been a while since he killed any dogs. gotta keep us on our toes somehow

also wasn’t expecting AFO and Yoichi to be twins! that puts an interesting spin on their relationship, because it’s usually a closer bond than even regular siblings. especially with all of that delightful shared trauma from a young age!!

yes, exactly

ohhhh this chapter is gonna hurt me, isn’t it. okay. ooooooookay. let’s do this

OH I’M SORRY, THERE’S MORE?!

Horikoshi my dude. you do realize that their mom dying in childbirth and the two of them just barely surviving and growing up as street orphans would have already been MORE than tragic enough, backstory-wise. you did not have to turn this into a freaking horror show with RATS TRYING TO EAT THEIR NEWBORN SELVES jesus christ

and THAT’S where you chose to put a one year timeskip?!

what the fuck am I reading here, you guys. no please tell me, I am actually desperate to understand

so the narrator is saying that some of the quirks manifested later in life, in “pubescent and pre-pubescent stages”, which is interesting because it’s the first time I can recall hearing about someone actually manifesting a quirk that late. maybe Deku’s old OFA cover story was more plausible than I realized

anyway so eventually it occurred to everyone that they should maybe freaking study this shit, idk. and eventually the researchers concluded that the superpowers came from a new gene that apparently isn’t human. and upon hearing that, society apparently lost its freaking mind. which is fascinating to me because it implies that the turning point wasn’t actually the superpowers themselves, but the realization of what it meant

like, so they were apparently fine with it when they thought it was a “mysterious disease”, but somehow it hit different when they learned it wasn’t actually a sickness at all, but instead the Next Step in Evolution. and it became an “us vs them” thing, as opposed to a “we have to cure these poor people” thing. damn

anyway so now Japan is a dystopia and we’re cutting to a big crowd of merc-looking dudes who are getting ready to attack some “meta freaks”, how lovely

but who is this figure in the shadows

I ask politely, as if it wasn’t already beyond obvious that this is AFO about to wreck some people’s shit

ohhhhh my god lmao

hopefully Katsuki and Deku can take the present day AFO out before he winds up looking like this. because this little fella is clearly demonic and idk if anyone can stop him

you all don’t understand. you need to run the fuck away right now

oh shit it’s already too late for them

it’s too late for any of us. it’s over. it’s all fucking over

((((；゜Д゜)))

AFO I am putting the manga down. I am backing away slowly with my hands in the air. I mean you no harm. please for the love of god have mercy

holy

“you see, we told you he wasn’t human” okay Scientific Research Group, you know what?? you win this round I guess

“HE WAS LITERALLY EVIL FROM BIRTH” HORIKOSHI SERIOUSLY ARE YOU OKAY??

HE WAS BORN AN ARROGANT BABY is literally the most terrifying sentence I have ever read

what the entire fuck

it’s a gorgeous sunny mid-November afternoon outside my window. but no matter how hard it tries, the light cannot reach this place

what kind of moron would throw a can of soda at him. officially the stupidest person we have ever seen in this manga

OH MY GOD OF COURSE IT’S HIM LMAO

(ETA: how come baby Yoichi has clothes that fit him perfectly but baby AFO is just stomping around wearing a tablecloth.)

BABY YOICHI. OH MY GOD. HOW THE HELL DID YOU GROW UP TO BE SANE AND KIND AND GOOD. THAT’S MY QUESTION THAT I NEED ANSWERED RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE LITERALLY A MIRACLE. YOU ARE AN IMPOSSIBILITY, DO YOU KNOW THAT

small and weak, but also so, so cute. all of the cuteness genes went straight to him. no wonder AFO was jealous

(ETA: just want to press pause for a second to speculate about what type of twins AFO and Yoichi are, since it has some relevance to the story, and especially to the OFA/AFO quirk lore. so! at first glance the two of them would appear to be fraternal twins, just based on the fact that they have very different appearances, and also the fact that Yoichi doesn’t have the AFO quirk – no holes in his hands, etc. identical twins are born from the same fertilized egg, so in theory they would both have the same sequence of DNA, which means Yoichi would have had the same quirk as AFO. but that doesn’t appear to be the case. so all of that points to them being fraternal, not identical.

on the other hand, there is one piece of evidence in this chapter that does support them being identical twins, and that’s the fact that per the narration, AFO absorbed most of the nutrients from their mother. a few minutes of google fu informed me that this condition is relatively rare, and only happens in cases where two twins share a placenta, which typically is only the case for identical twins. HOWEVER, for what it’s worth, there have also been rare instances where two fraternal twin placentas fuse together and become a single placenta. AND this apparently also increases the chances of one of the twins gaining more of the nutrients and causing the other twin to have a lower birth weight.

so based on the evidence here, my conclusion is that the two of them are most likely fraternal twins with a case of placental fusion. besides, you can’t tell me that stealing his baby brother’s placenta while the two of them are literally still in the womb doesn’t sound like exactly the type of BS that fetus!AFO would pull, lol.)

HEY!?!

okay?!?!?! well to be fair he did throw that soda at him

oh my god this is so fucked up. in like the best and worst way possible

I genuinely couldn’t ask for a better AFO backstory. it’s so incredibly twisted, and you actually do feel sorry for him. or at least I do. but it’s also beyond clear that this kid was FUCKED UP BEYOND ALL REASON right from the get go. zero goodness in him. literally doesn’t see other people as people. sees them as possessions only. things to rule over. not other thinking, feeling human beings. and that includes his own little brother

but. even if it’s not actually what I would call love, there’s still... attachment, there. it’s the closest he can get to actually caring about someone. guh. just, somehow they have both managed to humanize him, and at the same time made him less human than ever. this manga, man. this fucking manga, though

lmao and here we go. Captain Hero

you know, all those times that I made fun of AFO for not knowing how to read, I never suspected that the twist in his backstory would be that he LITERALLY DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO READ dfksjdlfkjslkdf

but seriously though. because Yoichi appears to be self-taught, and I can’t see AFO having the patience for that, and CLEARLY no one else was around to teach him, sooooo...

oh my goodness it’s actually getting wholesome up in here

what a good fucking boy. poor AFO. fuck me, I can’t help it. it’s not your fault you’re the world’s greatest monster you poor bastard

now we’re cutting to THREE YEARS LATER. okay

is he going to declare war on the glowing baby

typical teenager concerned about nothing but likes and view counts. AFO you would be so much happier if you stopped worrying about all of that and just focused on your own growth

oh, lol. well that was quick

(ETA: r.i.p. Damien.)

“this guy had more instagram followers than me. so I killed him” honey. sweetie pie. you need therapy

omfg

all this time I was wondering who AFO’s middle school lit teacher was who had failed so spectacularly at teaching him reading comprehension. and it was YOICHI ALL ALONG. omg

“and, presumably, that’s how it always was and always will be.” dude. can you imagine listening to AFO’s oral book report on A Tale of Two Cities. “ahem. it was the Best of Times. the end” buddy noooooooo

it was at that moment when Yoichi knew, etc. etc.

oh my GOD I scrolled down to the next panel right after this one and I just IMMEDIATELY DIED LAUGHING

“WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID” ffffffffffffffff I fucking can’t omfg

NOW THIS HUSSY IS STEALING HIS BROTHER AWAY FROM HIM NOOOOOOO

HE’S HIS!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!! THAT’S NOT ALLOWED!!!

oh my god the hands. so wait, is this just the standard symbolic BnHA handholding, or are there More Levels To This. when exactly did Yoichi pass OFA on to Kudou. like is that why the sudden close-up and all that? omg

WHAT!!!!

OH THAT’S THE END, HUH? THAT’S THE END RIGHT THERE, AND THAT’S JUST HOW IT IS. I SEE. OKAY THEN. EXCUSE ME WHILE I PUT MY LAPTOP DOWN AND GO INTO THE NEXT ROOM AND SCREAM INTO A PILLOW

oh my god. and break next week too. this is what you guys have been dealing with this entire time huh. I understand your feelings now. godfuckingdammit lmao

[eliotquillon]

what's your personal ranking of all the characters in house md that were there for like more than one season (just anyone relevant i guess)? i probably should've looked if you've done this before but if you have feel free to ignore this ask. anyway i'm curious because i agree with you A Lot (see i used capital letters and all)

TYY as much as i #dgaf about people disagreeing with me it’s always nice when people do agree…sniling so sneetly etc. anyway:

i find it really difficult to rank characters in a neat list of fave to least fave or whatever, both because a) this is a long show with a lot of characters, and i’m continually noticing new details and sharpening my analysis with every rewatch so it’s hard to be decisive (god that sounds so fucking pretentious but yknow what i mean), but also b) there is genuinely not a major character that i dislike. they’re all so messy and interesting and flawed. honestly the only recurring character i dislike full stop is lucas because the hidden spinoff pilot shit in s5 is so annoying and even still. girl that’s lucas. such small potatoes in the grand scheme of things lol. it’s easier (and quicker hahaha) for me to rank them in their respective clusters…so here goes i guess LMAO:

1) OG TEAM of cameron, chase, foreman: oh i bet you’re all so shocked aren’t you. it’s kind of a chicken/egg thing where i’m not sure if i like the first 3 seasons so much because of the original trio, or if i love the original trio because i love s1-3, but whichever way round it is…all three of them are so fucking fascinating. specifically their dynamic as a trio is fascinating—i love the fact that they don’t really get along, that there’s always some bubbling dysfunction with two of them pitted against the third. and not to be boring and meta but i think it’s relevant that this is the team we open the show with; they aren’t actually house’s original team of fellows, but they’re OUR original fellows for a reason. i think there’s a bit of house in all of his fellows (which is why he hires them, and why they’re susceptible to what cameron so nicely terms as him ‘poisoning’ them all) but especially the og three. i don’t even want to blorbo them i just want to sit down and have an academic discussion about how fucked up they are. which is why i’m on tumblr I GUESS!

2) DA ADULTS ie house wilson cuddy (and fuck it, stacy too i guess): i never really talk about them on here but man. i really love their dynamic. i know wilson and cuddy get memed on for i too am in this episode/also i have not spoken in a while etc but i think the show really strikes a perfect balance of letting us get to know and love them but equally making them a little bit unknowable. like with cuddy especially it’d be really easy to make her the sassy girlboss/annoying nag, and yet she isn’t at all. i think it kind of sucks that a lot of discussion about these 3 (AND STACY) gets boiled down to shipping stuff because i think the canon dynamic is way more interesting—all so up in each other’s business and yet simultaneously tiptoeing about their raw feelings. oh yeah and house himself: literal blueprint for snarky grizzled antihero tv protagonists. if this show is a tragedy (it is) then it can only be because it’s about him. i specifically find it so difficult to talk about house because he’s a really all encompassing figure yknow like inherently he gets dragged into any analysis i do of anyone else. mwah!!

3) NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK s4 gang thirteen, amber, taub, kutner: with the first two groups i’m specifically insane about how they all interact with each other and how rhat brings out parts of the individual; with this lot they feel more…idk…individualised. partly because they genuinely get along better than the og team and that’s unfortunately a bit boring and partly because they are all very very different. og trio are all united by the fact that they’re similar ages, at similar points in their careers—new gang are all crazy different. gonna specifically pick out amber and taub as my favourites in this group—amber because i love dead girl media and the distortion between her in s4 vs the s5 hallucination version is so, so fascinating, and taub because. how do i put this. taub is kind of normal and boring compared to everyone else in this freakshow and that, ironically, makes him extraordinary. even when his faillife is being played for laughs i think he has…idk kind of a grounding presence. i do really really love thirteen and kutner too, but they get a lot of focus both in fandom but also like. in canon. and therefore it feels a bit intimidating even now to really dig into the meat of them both yknow. BUT THATS A ME PROBLEM…

4) NEW FELLOWS 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO aka park adams and masters: even though masters was never on the team with park and adams i lump them together for similar reasons of ‘i’m not a super big fan of their seasons’ (for reasons unrelated to any of them) and also ‘you can’t really group them with their actual contemporaries because they’ve all been on the show for 4+ years’. the reason why they’re last in the ranking is just because…a lot of the stuff i would have to say about them would be wholly speculative and i like to base shit in canon yknow. ie a lot of what makes park and adams fun to daydream about is chase md stuff — buuuut that’s not technically in the purview of the show lol. what makes masters fun for me (aside from the insane fucking detail that she is based off a real person right down to the name) is imagining how she’d react to cameron, for instance. i still like all three of them but it’s less because of what we actually see and more about the what-ifs, and so they’re automatically behind everyone else as a result.

100) lucas. i don’t know whose idea it was to introduce him or make the second episode of s5 a closet pitch for a fucking spinoff pilot about him or make him date cuddy or design literally anything about him but let’s just say they should sleep with one eye open. once again he is the only character in this show i genuinely cannot stand. no hate to anyone who likes him he just makes my eye twitch in a way i cannot articulate i’m sorry