#but honestly with how its implied that he basically raised her as a single parent for the majority of her life

[bao3bei4]

girlbosses, male wives, and other lesbian genders

a post about jing wei qing shang. but also mostly about another unrelated movie. spoiler-free.

for a lot of people, mulan 1998 is their definitive “ohhh i’m a chinese woman dressing as a man for contrived reasons and i get absolutely nooo erotic pleasure from this” movie. 

however, because i am very special and unique, for me it’s the love eterne 1963. it’s the shaw brothers adaptation of butterfly lovers, the classic chinese folktale. here’s how i’d summarize the movie: 

zhu yingtai, an aspiring scholar, convinces her parents to let her dress as a man to attend school. on the way there, she meets liang shanbo, another prospective student, and they become sworn brothers. they study together for three years, growing closer, until zhu yingtai returns home. liang shangbo accompanies her for the eighteen-li journey home while she hints she’s a woman, but he remains oblivious. by the time he learns her gender, her parents have engaged her to another man. he dies of grief, and while she mourns at his grave, it splits open, and she buries herself inside with him. two scraps of her torn outfit turn into butterflies and fly away.

it’s worth noting here that like. this movie is made in the huangmei opera style. so both zhu yingtai and liang shanbo are played by women (betty loh ti and ivy ling po respectively). because of this, basically every level of the film is preoccupied with gender: if we take zhu yingtai’s male performance as credible (as the characters in the movie do) the leads bond through male homoeroticism; the text is ultimately about a heterosexual romance; it is acted out by two women, in a performance that is difficult to mistake as heterosexual or even feminine; and the dialogue of the movie can’t help but remark on this.

basically it asks: what if lesbians could be gay both ways? wouldn’t that be based? 

like opera was traditionally made by single gender casts, so roles tended to be genderless, in that the gender of the actor doesn’t determine the gender of the role they play. roles are instead typed into four categories: dan (fem), sheng (masc), chou (clown), and jing (painted face). it’s a sick gender quadinary. each of these roles has further subtypes that are represented through stylized patterns of singing, makeup, costuming, movement etc.

so in butterfly lovers, betty loh ti plays a dan, and ivy ling po plays a sheng. but because of the textual cross-gender play, you end up with a woman playing a woman playing a man who falls in love with a woman playing a man.

i’m going to make a brief digression here into talking about like.. acting theory. in the european tradition, you see it evolving out of early concerns (from stanislavski, brecht) about the fourth wall, and its permeability or lack thereof. in chinese opera tradition, the fourth wall didn’t ever really exist. and mei lanfang, the legendary fanchuan performer, claimed that his success wasn’t just due to his appearance, but rather, his mastery of some nonliteral feminine subjectivity. 

If I kept my male feelings, even just a trace, it will betray my true self; then how can I compete for the audience’s affection for feminine beauty and guile?

i’m not going to argue that there’s like, an essence to being a woman because i’m not a fucking idiot. but there’s something to be said for the idea that the gendered interplay between the audience’s perception of the actor, the actor’s perception of themself, and the character they play is a massive part of the appeal of fanchuan performance.

this is echoed by david hwang’s m. butterfly, in which gallimard memorably says, “i’m a man who loved a woman created by a man. everything else—simply falls short.” btw sorry for having the type of brain disease where i constantly reference chinese crossdressing related media. you already know why i have it. 

anyway. parallel to that (but far less morally detestably), jin jiang argues “young male impersonators in yue opera embody women’s ideal men—elegant, graceful, capable, caring, gentle, and loyal.” so, trivially, 1) the eroticism embodied by fanchuan performers is distinctly different from their “straight” counterparts, and perhaps less trivially 2) it’s way better. 

back to the love eterne for a bit. one of the many reasons it’s lodged itself into my psyche is because there’s something more interesting at play than just all that. normally in opera, to compensate for any perceived residual femininity in the sheng, the dan camps it up even further. so this is how zhu yingtai first appears, this bratty femme pastiche of womanhood. yet within a couple minutes she’s dressed as a man, which she’ll stay as for the bulk of the movie. they do however make compromises with the makeup--more gently lifted eyebrows than the steep angles of the sheng opera beat, and an improbably masculine smoky eye. 

that’s right. they performed girlbossification on her. 

i don’t want to suggest that she’s straightforwardly feminine. i could write an entire other thing on her relationship to masculinity. instead i want to highlight the erotic interplay not just between the “girl” and the “boss” but also between her and her counterpart: the male wife. 

liang shanbo is ostensibly straightforwardly male, but his relationship with zhu yingtai isn’t gay in the ahaha what if i was into my bro way-- it’s a what if i was into my bro and i was his wife way.

that’s right. they performed force fem on a cis woman-man. like when zhu yingtai tells him he can’t watch over her as she recovers from an illness because “boys and girls can’t sleep together,” liang shanbo asks “are you implying that I’m a girl?”

there’s a lot of shit like this that builds up over the course of the movie. it all culminates in that final 18 mile journey. along the way, zhu yingtai compares them to a pair of mandarin ducks, one male & one female. liang shanbo sputters “i am a man inside out-- you shouldn’t--” before graciously conceding, “you may compare me to a woman.” 

this is like. a simple punchline. but it’s incredible. it’s true! liang shanbo isn’t a man inside out in that he’s a man and only a man, but rather that he’s a man seen inside first, built for desiring, by a woman & for a woman. as a perpetual object, he becomes a more believable woman than zhu yingtai. and at least in his view, it seems more likely that he could be a woman than her. but beyond that, his permissive tone reads as a kind of wanting in itself--recast, if she wants, “for you, i’ll be a woman.” 

obviously this is a classic lesbian mood. who among us has not seen “no gender only lesbian” posts. and speaking of classic lesbians, you might ask. did you just tiresomely reinvent butches and femmes but with a more annoying name? yes. no. okay. well. 

first, like butch/femme dynamics have both historical specificity and a classed character such that it’s not rlly that appropriate to impose them on the love eterne. and i guess more importantly, i wanna talk about stuff that isn’t real.

we fight all day about people who confuse performance with performativity, (i use we lightly here. for instance, i go outside every day so i don’t care about discourse) but what if we actually wanted to talk about the former for once? something specifically, whether we choose or are forced into it, that we pretend to be? 

anyway. what the hell does all that have to do with jing wei qing shang. i’m going to start by first making the argument that there’s no such thing as a naturally occurring girlboss. i think, honestly, she’s a product of capitalism (“boss” should be the tipoff here) but because both of these stories are set in ambiguously historical china, i’m going to say, instead that she’s a product of uhhh primitive accumulation.

semantics so that i can be canon compliant with marxism aside, if girlbosses are made not born, can you choose to be a girlboss? sheryl sandberg says yes. i don’t disagree, i guess, but i will say: stop glamorizing it! humans only become girlbosses when they’re greatly distressed. 

you become a girlboss when you have no other choice not to be one. when your wants are too great to be a woman, when the things you want are not things that women should want-- whether that’s something that really no one should want, like being a ceo, or whether that’s just something like loving a woman (or, as it is quite often, both) -- you have to become something else. 

another important part of being a girlboss is that other people are not. your excesses mean that not only do you lose something in the process, but your bosshood comes at the expense of others. the girlboss necessitates a girlworker, or so to speak. 

now we’re getting to jwqs. i’m assuming that you haven’t read jwqs, because most people haven’t. that was me until like four days ago. in broad strokes, the novel is about a woman, qiyan agula, who was raised as a prince, and her quest for revenge against the kingdom who slaughtered her people. of course, this involves marrying one of the princesses of that kingdom. it’s all very exciting (lesbian). 

what’s striking about jwqs is that both of them seem to fit the girlboss paradigm, in vaguely similar ways. qi yan (agula’s assumed name) seems to follow the lineage of zhu yingtai, who pretends to be a man to achieve her goals. she’s forced to give up much in the process, and also sacrifices a, uh, lot of innocent people. similarly, nangong jingnu, the princess, is inherently a girlboss because royalty sucks. but also, qi yan girlbossifies her over the course of their relationship. 

but i wouldn’t say jwqs is girlboss4girlboss. there’s something a little more complicated happening. qi yan isn’t zhu yingtai in that she’s a dan pretending to be a sheng. it seems more like that she was a sheng all along. it’s something that the women of the novel return to often: qi yan seems to be better than a man.

for instance, nangong sunu, jingnu’s older sister, reflects on this. 

Nangong Sunu had seen many foolishly loving women who sacrificed everything for the sake of their husbands, but there were rarely any men who would do the same for them. 

(...) 

Thinking it through, Nangong Sunu felt that Qi Yan was truly becoming more interesting. She intended to observe discreetly for a while, to verify if such a man truly existed in this world. (ch 221) 

and i forgot to write down the citation for this, but nangong jingnu also seems to argue that not only is qi yan prettier than a man, but she also seems to be prettier than a woman. (it’s the bit where she’s watching qi yan sleep. help me out here.)

moreover, the way qi yan relates to nangong jingnu is suggestive. jingnu brings out the elements of wanting to be a woman in her. it’s jingnu’s body that makes her wonder what she would look like if she was more feminine. it’s jingnu’s happiness that she resents, wishing that her people could have that as well. it’s her desire for jingnu that makes her a woman. 

(another important distinction i suppose--while one person can’t be both a butch and a femme, because the girlboss and the male wife are things we pretend to be until we embody them / them us -- there’s greater slippage between the two.)

anyway, the girlboss/male wife dynamic is reversed wrt who’s actually dressing as a different gender. that suggests an inversion in the implications we see from the love eterne, if we are to take the love eterne as the paradigmatic girlboss text. which i do, for no reason in particular. 

so then, is qi yan pretending to be a man? under the opera framework, we’re forced to say no. she’s not pretending to be a man any more so than liang shanbo (as acted by ivy ling po) was. but that, of course, feels incorrect, just looking at the text. is she, then, pretending to be a sheng? i’d strongly say no. the things that others see in her, they authentically see; and she does authentically feel the same things as liang shanbo wrt femininity.

so it has to be the opera framework that jwqs is subverting then. if qi yan kept some trace of her once-womanhood, if qi yan reveals her true self, and yet she still can compete for the audience’s affection-- jwqs’s inversion of the opera framework seems to argue instead that it’s that true self that allows you to compete. it’s being masc that lets you be a desirable woman; it’s being feminine that lets you be a desirable man.

there’s an increased gender ambivalence to jwqs, which make sense, i guess, seeing as it’s not meant to be a het story the way that the love eterne was. for instance, nangong jingnu crossdresses to go out in public, and qi yan remarks that jingnu’s disguise fooled her on their first meeting. when qi yan and jingnu go out in public, both disguised as men, they’re repeatedly perceived as a gay male couple. there’s freedom in that: they could be gay women only privately, they could be straight officially, but they could be anonymously gay publicly. 

so it’s through the gay male pretense that they can be gay women; it’s through the qi yan pretense that agula can love women; it’s the qi yan caring husband persona that coaxes jingnu in caring for qi yan in return-- jwqs, more precisely, argues that you can’t be a woman if you’re going to love them, and even less so if you’re going to be loved by one. 

this is perhaps well-trodden ground for anyone who has read wittig & certainly many people who haven’t. but it’s the layer of pretense that for me complicates these two narratives. 

i think it’s a relatable feeling: wanting something anticipating getting something, or wanting something for yourself anticipating knowing that you already had it. that is, desire in itself being constitutive of that reality. 

or less abstractly, knowing that you’d want to be a lesbian if you could, knowing that you’d want not to be a woman if you could-- anticipating any realization of either. 

the dramatic excesses & wants of the girlboss, i think, are a decent literary stand in for being a lesbian. 

i wanna note here that this is rlly just based on my experience being a transmisogyny exempt nonbinary diaspora lesbian lol. it’s fun & cathartic to overread this history & place myself in the accidental implications.

i don’t think most of the things i say are literally true. and i don’t want to overstep & say any of this can be generalized. please lmk if something here doesn’t read right! ok kisses bye

[antiloreolympus]

5 Anti LO Asks

1. I understand getting rid of the incest, but she really went about it in the dumbest way and really just stripped Hera, Demeter and Hestia of any power. Hera, whose supposed to be basically second only to Zeus, now seems super less powerful than the brothers. Demeter got super shafted since she’s not even the main fertility goddess now and is easily pushed around by Zeus when she was one of the only gods he didn’t push around in the myths (and he bent to her anger when he tried with the Abduction of Persephone) and I don’t even know if Hestia has any power now in this version when she had been the oldest and arguably most respected (and only universally loved) Olympian.

Honestly though, Zeus and Poseidon don’t even seem that powerful either. Any other powerful god (Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite) either never shows any power or is not very powerful apparently. Heaven forbid Hades and Persephone not be the most powerful people in the comic.

2. I seriously don’t get how Webtoons doesn’t promote True Beauty and the creator more because her story is so inspiring. It turns out she’s actually a really young mom (only at most 23 when she had her child), and went through a nasty divorce to get away from her abusive ex and now raises her son as a single parent in an extremely socially conservative nation like South Korea, and was able to make her Webtoon by herself to where it’s an actual global hit and was able to take her and her son out of poverty. She’s also been very open about her mental health issues (which is also frowned upon in SK) and how she refuses to abide by their conservative standards and wants to live a life that is best for her and her child, helping young readers feel inspired to follow their own paths instead of what society tells them to do. Why wouldn’t you want to promote that as a feel-good story of success Webtoons was allowed to create instead of propping up an already well off white woman who speaks over rape victims and is super terfy and racist in her fifty shades rip off? True beauty isn’t perfect but at least the creator seems like a genuinely nice person with an inspiring life story, meanwhile Rachel just seems like an entitled asshole who thinks people not worshipping the ground she walks on to be a personal insult. Also it’s just gross to undermine a Korean woman’s hard work and actual success so a white lady’s mediocre product gets more attention.

3. the thing with kronos is in myth both zeus and ~*HADES*~ decided their father had atoned for his sins and freed him of tartarus and they both let kronos rule for the isle of the blessed. like?? they BOTH decided kronos had made up for his sins, and it showed that they were fair rulers who let people redeem themselves. Ouranos i can get making a dick bc he was one, but Kronos has actual myth proof telling us he redeemed himself? w/ zeus and hades agreeing on it? what a wasted opportunity tbh

4. On the topic of age, RS literally does not have to put an actual number for any of them but she did. (They're gods, ffs.) And with everyone else being thousands years old, emphasising that Persephone is 19 was weird af??? Also, another couple in this comic with the same age gap problem but wasn't fetishized was Eros & Psyche. Psyche being literally a mortal is likely around 20 but bc 1) Eros act with the same maturity 2) no one kept on hammering how YOUNG & WRONG that is, readers don't feel uncomfortable about their age. The only reason the age gap between H/P is so jarring was because ALL THE CHARACTERS keep telling us how wrong it is.

5. i really want to know the lo color choices bc 98% of them make no sense? like i can get athena being gray or hera being gold, but then why is poseidon green? shouldnt he be blue instead? or blue-green? why is ares colored like a creamsicle? wouldnt aphrodite be better as pink? why is hermes red? why hecate blue? and if its going off what color fits better in each setting, then perspehone sticking out so badly would imply she doesnt fit in the underworld? make her purple? or green? i dont get it

[transrightsjimin]

honestly class consciousness is one hell of a ride bc i didnt think abt it much until more recent years. i told my friend as a kid we were poor nd my mom got so pissed at that, nd i mean shes right that we rly werent as bad off as it could be, the family is just working class. but when you suddenly realize youre not on equal footing w middle class ppl, or ppl like my uncle who is one of the very rare few who started working class and not highly educated nd ended up becoming a millionaire in the US (im still coming for his wallet istg), its suddenly all... oh wait there are ppl whose reality is not this full of hurt and few opportunities.

like, being in a university in one of the most diverse cities in the country nd still having so few poc on it and most poc u meet are international students, and having heard some posh classmates talk abt studying "just like our parents" like it's the most evident thing in the world (while im the only person in the family that did college level, nvm university, and family was super proud, it's not a given to us that you do this!), hearing classmates claim that poverty and class are not really relevant for the netherlands anymore bc you now have the nouveau riche and art is less elitist now, so apparently class is less of a thing?? nd university is just such a wakeup call or a slap in the face bc my primary school was called ghetto, my high school was called ghetto, but then my art college prided itself on being very "diverse" while i had never seen this many white students in one place, and it's even worse for my university.

shit like my brother being in prison all the time when i was younger, my best friend when i was 4 having to move away bc her mom ODed on drugs, living next to a house that had 5 weed plantations in it over the years nd our greek neighbours even got pulled into that mess bc they needed money, living across a 'coffee house' tht stored rifles in it, someone across the street setting his house (and thus half the street bc dutch homes are often connected as one row) on fire, my dad working 50 hours a week as a parcel deliverer bc w less hours he doesnt earn enough, even if the fucking job means carrying 80 kilo boxes up stairs and other bullshit, his stress leading to two TIAs (strokes), my mom being super disabled by many physical impairments nd illness nd still not being granted help in the household bc she had a 'healthy daughter and boyfriend' nd also her being left w/o an income for 2 years, practically every high school friend's mom being disabled in some way, then at my mail delivery job where my coworkers complain abt another deliverer bc it took her 3 months to get back to work again nd they called her ‘lazy‘ for not working immediately despite having multiple illnesses and disabilities bc, and i quote, my colleague said “i’m in my sixties and have arthritis and i’m working too“ dude :// hes literally the person my other colleagues say has had it hard and needs a break, and then those coworkers too need a break nd have disabilities nd are nearing pension age and still doing this work while trying to do household work and all that stuff at the same time. my mom said my cousin’s job (in construction; scaffolder) pays��“really good“ (i wonder if its really that much bc it’s apparently around €1700-2700 on average) but that he already gets bad physical complaints from it while hes young nd formerly rly fit and might need to quit soon and then figure something out like studying for something else if possible.

the neighbourhood i used to live in as a baby was ‘too criminal‘ according to my parents so then they moved out to the town next to it into a neighbourhood that was eventually labelled among the top ranked ‘criminal‘ neighbourhoods of the country nd now i live in rotterdam south which is basically seen in the same way bc again, more poverty, more families with migration backgrounds etc. it’s like, you can never escape this negative image unless the whole bunch is gentrified or smth stupid and the poor are pushed to live elsewhere again. and just the whole thing of being at home, being at school, being at work, it’s such a trip bc university is so fucking different to me nd u see all these people there who are quite confident in getting good jobs nd u have business students with rich parents who are already some stupid fucking greenwashing entrepreneur aiming to become a CEO, nd even though ppl at my study w all these artsy ppl, they are generally not upper class, most still seem to be so used to the safety of being middle class and make these huge statements about poverty not really being a thing here.

nd then the whole stress nd anxiety tht my parents passed onto me, partially bc of their trauma nd them being fed up w my ‘laziness’ (executive dysfunction nd burnout lol), partially bc they believe strongly in this workers’ ethic thats strongly in line with capitalism (even if my mom used to be part of a socialist party nd still adheres to many of those ideas) but also with this calvinistic and Rotterdam ( / Rijnmond area) ideology that you need to work hard for the entirety of your life in order to be a decent person, so not so much for an economic payoff or ‘success‘; you just have to work hard. my parents always told me ‘you can rest when you’re dead‘ every single time i mentioned or even implied i was a bit tired and it was frustrating to hear. this mentality is what lead to my dad practically getting two strokes, and to my mom overworking herself nd being taken away by an ambulance on my birthday party, it’s the whole fucking reason i do not like the prospect of work bc it is just so associated w something awful you need to get done and that you need to exhaust yourself on it until you hopefully get pension money, if the govt hopefully doesnt raise the pension age even further than 67. and then you see ppl in uni talk abt fun future “careers” like what the fuck are you talking about? how are you gonna get a job in the arts and culture field in this pandemic? im already happy if im able to find a job and dont have to quit due to disability or a chronic illness that runs in both sides of my family. im sorry im being so negative but im stressed about jobs and i think i went on a tangent today all bc i saw one post abt being scared of PE classes nd my mind went to bad places. this is ok to rb or reply to btw, as long as youre a mutual

[bigskydreaming]

Beware: do not consume the following post in the belief that there’s a point being made with it or like. Any real reason to it whatsoever. LOL. Just something I’ve been pondering.

So, its interesting to me that there’s such a lack of fics about Bruce raising his kids with a partner. And by interesting I mean just that, lol....I’m not trying to imply anything, I’ve no specific opinions or conclusions on that myself, I’m just...thinking about it lately.

Literally just that. That I’m kinda intrigued by how rarely I see fics where Bruce has a co-parent that his kids would equally deem as much their parent as Bruce himself. There’s plenty of Bruce ship fics, with various of his children usually playing fairly large roles in the fics rather than it just being about Bruce and his ship partner. But not a lot that pursue or at least show that relationship through to the point where they’re effectively a co-parenting team rather than like...Bruce and his kids, plus Bruce’s new partner who likes his kids well enough but doesn’t really feel its their place to parent them.

There are a number of Batcat AUs where Bruce and Selina have a pretty established relationship from fairly early on in the timeline, but in general, most of them tend to have her take a pretty hands-off approach to the kids. They’re still pretty much viewed as Bruce’s kids. While she’s someone they might come to when they need to vent about Bruce and want a sympathetic ear, she’s not really front and center making the child-rearing decisions alongside Bruce. (In a lot of the ones I can think of, she usually doesn’t even officially live in the Manor herself, she’s more just a strong presence who will still leave to return to her own space when things get too chaotic around the house). 

And even in fics where she and Bruce marry, she’s usually written as the stepmother to his kids rather than....hmm, I don’t mean to come across as disparaging of step-parents or to imply that they can’t be just as fully a parent to a child as any biological or adoptive parent. 

Let me put it this way. Just to clarify, when singling out Selina, Clark and Talia as step-parents in fics I’m generalizing about here, the thing I’m really trying to get at is like....for instance, you might see plenty of Selina having a positive relationship with the Batkids, but you rarely see her being like...equally involved in the decision to adopt any of the kids. Either because they’ve all already been adopted, or the fic is set in a window where whichever kids are present have already been present in Bruce’s life when she officially begins a relationship with him, and the fic ends before any of the later kids come into his life. 

And same thing with Bruce’s other partners I refer to in this post. Like, there’s plenty of fics where you can certainly assume that after the conclusion of the fic, any later kids to come into their lives, Bruce and his partner/spouse decide to take in together, are equally invested in giving them a home and a family, etc....I literally just mean, this isn’t something you usually SEE in any of these fics, which is part of what I find interesting and have been kinda musing on.

Anyway. Then there are a good number of Superbat fics, that usually diverge from canon before Clark ever starts forming a family with Lois, but retaining all the Batkids. My assumption is this is because the Batkids as a family unit are more established and still the ‘preferred’ family overall, and if you feel you have to pick and choose because say, you have trouble picturing or don’t want to write Tim and Kon and Jon and Damian as stepbrothers, etc, then I can understand why a writer would go that route. 

But what’s interesting to me here is the way most of these are set timewise....there’s a number I can think of that have Bruce and Clark get together early on, when Dick is still Bruce’s only kid...but by and large, these ones almost always end when Bruce and Clark officially get together. Like, there may be plenty of Clark and Dick bonding scenes, but the fics themselves don’t normally progress past that ‘finally getting together’ resolution, so there’s no real delving into Bruce and Clark as actual co-parents for Dick and then the later kids. 

And then on the other side of things, there’s a lot of Superbat fics I know of where Bruce and Clark only get together at a point comparable to ‘current’ canon. Where basically all Bruce’s kids are already present, Dick, Jason and Cass at least are all adults and living on their own, usually Tim as well, and so of course, they’re all very much Bruce’s kids by the time Clark even comes into the picture. Their child-rearing officially done and over with, so even when Clark eventually becomes the cool approachable stepdad or whatever, again, its that angle where he’s involved, but it wouldn’t really be accurate to describe him as a full co-parent with Bruce.

(As far as Bruce/Clark goes, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Superbat fic that has them get together at some point in the middle of Bruce’s.....umm...child acquisition period, let’s call it. LOL. I just mean, there’s not really any fics I can think of where Bruce’s kids only include Dick and Jason so far, etc. Again, it tends to either be early on, when Dick is really young, or ‘contemporary’, where all the kids are around.)

Similar to the Superbat take is the BatLantern. I’ve seen a few of these, and again, you tend to see Hal and Bruce get together when Bruce has all his kids already and most of them are fully grown, or early on when its still just Dick. Actually, as opposed to Superbat, I think I have come across one Batlantern fic that was set when Dick was Nightwing and Jason was Robin, but that was it. However, there’s possibly a bunch of Batlanterns I haven’t even looked at, as I’m uh....not a Hal fan, so who knows what I’ve skipped over there. *Shrugs* 

And then we’ve got Bruce and Talia fics, which.....I confess aren’t my favorite, as my general impression of fics that have them officially get together, live together, the whole nine yards, is that pretty much all the ones I’ve come across tend to heavily prioritize Jason and Damian as ‘their’ kids, and Dick and Tim are usually just kinda...there, or more often than not, the antagonistic foils/sources of family drama. Which. Umm. Not my thing, obviously. 

And interestingly, a lot of Bruce/Talia fics I can think of, where they live and raise the kids together, like....there’s a lot of them that are full AUs, even No Capes/No Powers AUs, at least relative to how often Bruce’s other big ships go the No Capes route. My personal assumption there is because its the easiest way to separate Talia from being heavily associated with the League, even just in the fic’s past, whereas with Selina, Clark, etc, there’s less of a narrative concern how their comic-book pasts/origins might affect a relationship with Bruce and his kids. Who knows if I’m in the right direction there or not, its honestly just my gut theory, and doesn’t really matter, its just something I find interesting and worth noting.

But even in the full AUs here, even ones where Bruce and Talia are married, she’s largely written as the stepmother to his kids rather than someone who was already there and present as a co-parent throughout various kids’ adoptions or fosterings. Often she’ll be written as particularly close to Jason, or with a soft spot for him, but it tends to be kinda a ‘he’s her favorite of Bruce’s kids, aside from Damian, who is of course as much her kid as he is Bruce’s.’ 

Granted, there are some Bruce/Talia fics I’ve seen that come the closest to what I’d describe as them being full co-parents to several of the kids from the start of whenever they meet those kids in the fic. But lol, again, I’m not really a good source for delving into the specifics of those fics, as the ones I’ve come across IMO tend to prioritize getting Talia more involved early enough that Jason’s ‘hers’ as much as Bruce’s, and uh, most I’m familiar with aren’t too complimentary to Dick, who takes the role of the rude, resentful holdout who dislikes his wicked stepmother from the word go...which is when I usually go too, lol, so I can’t really claim to know how those fics handle later arrivals like Tim and Cass. But with maybe only one exception, I definitely don’t think I’ve ever seen a fic that tried to tackle Bruce and Talia co-parenting Dick as much as any of the others. Even the full AU fics where Dick doesn’t have his canon reasons for disliking/distrusting Talia, lol.

Anyway, that’s it, basically. That’s the post, the train of thought I’ve been pondering, though to what end...eh, I’ve got no clue. I rarely do, though. So, just putting it out there in case this is of interest to anyone else for any reason, lol. Hell, its not even that I particularly would like to see more fics of this vein myself - I’m honestly just not a huge Bruce shipper....I don’t honestly think I have a preference for any of his bigger ships, beyond just....disliking Hal, and refusing to give Morrison’s take on Talia (or on Damian’s conception) the time of day. Ugh. Morrison. Eww. Why is he. Just. Anyway.

Actually! One last interesting (to me) thought, lol....now that I’ve written this whole post and processed it, I can think of literally one and only one fic that I would describe as the Batkids being taken in and raised equally by Bruce and a co-parent....and the bizarre thing is its a Nolan-verse fic. The bizarre part is I hate the Nolan trilogy, like, with an intensity that burns like no other (look I know I say that a lot, and about a lot of things, but I swear its almost always true). 

Anyway, literally the only thing I like about the Nolan trilogy is I have a soft spot for Hathaway’s portrayal of Selina. Which is pretty much the only reason I ever read this one fic where after the third movie, Bruce and Selina ‘start over’ in Europe and end up taking in and raising Nolan-verse versions of Dick, then Jason and then Tim together. Its actually a pretty damn compelling Selina, and I found the boys and their dynamic completely adorable, so I mean, not like that was the point of this post but its worth a read IMO. I know I have it on my bookmarks page and shouldn’t be too hard to find as its literally the only Nolan-verse fic on there, lol. 

(Also, it was written over ten years ago, I’m pretty sure, which is why its just those three kids.....Damian hadn’t even been created yet at the time, and the author’s non-movie Batfam knowledge was mostly cartoon based, which is why Cass wasn’t present, which was pretty much my only complaint about the fic from what I recall).

Anyway, that’s it, that’s the post. These are my thoughts, I’m all done with them so here, you can have them.

[chimcharstar]

1 THROUGH 55 AND 1 THROUGH 30 GO GO GO

LETS FUCKIN GO

tumblr please actually make this a keep reading

55 interesting questions you should drop in someone’s inbox

1. If you didn’t have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time?

I ALREADY WATCH NETFLIX AND AGONIZE OVER MY STORY

2. What’s your favorite piece of clothing you’ve own/owned?

MY JACKETS. ANY CHEST OBSCURING, BROAD SHOULDERED, COZY JACKET

3. What hobbies would you get into if time and money wasn’t an issue?

DANCING, ID NEED TO GO TO CLASSES OR SOMETHING

4. What would your perfect room look like?

IM ACTUALLY PRETTY HAPPY WITH MY ROOM BUT IVE ALWAYS WANTED A LAVA LAMP, AND 1800 MORE PLANTS COULDNT HURT

5. Do you play sports?

NO

6. What fiction place would you love to go to?

SINNOH REGION

7. What Job would you be terrible at?

DEBT COLLECTION. I WOULD BE GIVING SHIT TO PEOPLE FOR FREE. I COULDNT BEAR BEING ENCOURAGED TO FORCE PEOPLE WHO CANT PAY FOR SOMETHING TO PAY MORE

8. If you could turn any activity into an Olympic sport, what would it be?

SERVING. HOW MANY PLATES CAN YOU CARRY AT ONCE

9. What’s the most annoy habit other people have?

WALKING IN MY SPACE BUBBLE WHEN MY SENSES ARE OVERLOADED

10. What skill would you like to master?

A SECOND LANGUAGE

11. What would be the most amazing adventure to go on?

THE ONE FROM MY DREAM WHERE I KISSED A GIRL DYED MY HAIR BLUE AND WE ELOPED TO BRAZIL TO RAISE SHEEP

12. What’s your favorite drink ?

THAT CHRISTMAS SHIT. PEPPERMINT MOCHA AT STARBUCKS. A FRIEND GOT IT FOR ME ONCE. NOW I ORDER IT A BILLION TIMES.

13. What state or country would you never like to go back to?

I HAVE NOT TRAVELLED MUCH EVER

14. What songs do you have completely memorized?

I DONT REMEMBER LYRICS SO MUCH, BUT I COULD PROBABLY REMEMBER HOW MANY SONGS GO COMPLETELY

15. Are you usually early or late?

LATE. IM GETTING BETTER THOUGH

16. What takes up too much of your time?

GETTING OUT OF BED

17. What do you wish you knew more about?

SWORDS

18. What are some small things that make your day better?

COFFEE. SOMEONE SAYING SOMETHING NICE TO ME.

19. What TV channel doesn’t exist but really should?

QUEER EYE BUT BY TRANS PEOPLE FOR TRANS PEOPLE

20. Who has impressed you the most with what they’ve accomplished?

YOU. AND ME. ITS GROWTH

21. What age do you wish you can permanently be?

21, SO I HAVE TIME TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE FUCKS GOING ON

22. What TV show or movie do you refuse to watch?

13 REASONS, THE BOOK WAS TRIGGERING SO I WONT RISK IT

23. What would be your ideal way to spend you weekend?

TAKING A WALK, HAVING COFFEE, WATERING PLANTS… IM HAPPY

24. What’s something in your life that’s considered a luxury?

I HAVE PERFUME...

25. Is there anything you’re too young/old for?

TO YOUNG TO NEVER DRINK. TOO OLD FOR POKEMON

26. What’s your favorite genre book or movie?

I DONT HAVE THE ATTENTION SPAN FOR EITHER BUT I SEEM TO LIKE URBAN FANTASY A LOT

27. How often do you people watch?

I THINK IM SO POLITE BUT HONESTLY, I QUIETLY SCRUTINIZE SO MANY PEOPLE ON THE TRAIN EVERY DAY AND GUESS AT THEIR PERSONAL HABITS AND SELF IMAGE.

28. What’s the best single day on the calendar?

MY BIRTHDAY, SAGITTARIUS SEASON RULES BABY

29. What are you interested in that most people haven’t heard of?

I DONT KNOW ABOUT ANYTHING PPL HAVENT HEARD OF BUT IM INTERESTED IN BLACK HOLES

30. Do you relax after a hard day?

FOOD. NETFLIX. DECOMPOSING ON TUMBLR

31. What’s the best book or series you’ve ever read?

I HAVENT READ A BOOK I REALLY LOVE IN AGES. HARRY POTTER AND ARTEMIS FOWL WERE MY FAVOURITES GROWING UP, BUT CORNELIA FUNKES BOOKS SLAPPED AND HIS DARK MATERIALS WAS GORGEOUS

32. Where’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?

IDAHO?

33. What’s the most heart warming thing you’ve ever seen?

LUCIFER WAS LIKE YOU DESERVE SOMEONE WHO CARES ABOUT YOUR BORING MIDDLE NAME JANE AND KNOWS THAT EVERY MURDER BREAKS YOUR HEART AND YOU SIMPLY DESERVE BETTER SO NO MORE MOMENTS WHILE THEYRE HAVING A MOMENT AND CHLOE IS WATCHING THIS FUCKING IDIOT AND IVE WATCHED THIS BEFORE SO I KNOW SHES GONNA KISS HIM AND THEN THEY KISS

34. What’s the most annoying question that people ask you?

ANY SMALL TALK QUESTIONS

35. Would you give a 40 minute presentation with no preparation?

YES. ID MAKE THAT SHIT RIGHT UP. SKILLS

36. What’s something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?

GIVE ME A HUG AND SOME CHOCOLATE

37. Would you rather go Hand Gliding or Whitewater rafting?

HANG GLIDING

38. Dream car?

SOMETHING I DONT HAVE TO WORRY WILL FALL INTO PIECES AT ANY MOMENT

39. What’s something so many people are obsessed with and you just don’t understand why?

STRAIGHT LOVE SONGS

40. What are you most looking forward to in 10 years from now?

HAVING A CAT

41. What’s something you’ve been meaning to try but haven’t gotten to it?

DECORATING THE DOLLHOUSE I RESCUED FROM THE BATHROOM

42. What’s the best thing that’s happened to you all week?

IM NOT VERY FAR THROUGH THE WEEK AND I HAVENT ENJOYED MOST OF IT BUT PEOPLE SAYING ADORABLE THINGS

43. How different was your life one year ago?

NOT A LOT DIFFERENT, IM JUST LONELY IN THE CITY NOW, MINUS A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP, ONE YEAR ON T

44. What/who would you rate 10/10?

MY CACTUS JAKEN. I DROPPED HIM SO MANY TIMES AN ENTIRE HALF OF HIS SPIKES ARE FLAT SCARS. AND LOOK AT HIM. THRIVING

45. What kind of art do you enjoy the most?

GENUINELY MADE ART

46. What do you hope never changes?

MY T PRESCRIPTION

47. What movie title best describes your life?

I LOOKED THROUGH NETFLIX AND I PICK TWILIGHT

48. What website do you visit most often?

TUMBLR

49. What’s something you’re looking forward to this year?

MY BIRTHDAY

50. What’s something you’d like to unlearn?

FINDING A REASON TO CANCEL EVERY SINGLE LITTLE THING

51. Where would you spend all your time if you could?

WALKING BY SOME RUNNING WATER

52. What age would you like to live to?

80. THATS MY MENTAL HEALTH ANSWER

53. What’s something you’re most likely to become famous for?

SOMETHING CREATIVE WOULD BE AWESOME

54. What’s something you’re most likely to be arrested for?

CRIMES

55. What’s something you really want but can’t afford?

A CAT

Lgbt+ ask game

What do you identify as and what are your pronouns?

I’m even a little shaken by a questioning state right now but for a while I’ve felt the best fit is the androgynous label -- I read a description of it being the purple on a pink to blue scale, both at once but not specifically either one, and something else by itself. I’m also happy with a cryptic masculine grey area. My pronouns are he/him.

How did you discover your sexuality, tell your story?

During the Puberty 1.0 nightmare, I was basically living someone else’s life, and any attraction I felt wasn’t in relation to myself. I felt disconnected from my body and gender and everything too, and I felt a lot of social pressure to experience a certain type of attraction, fit into a certain role, et cetera, and none of these feelings existed in me at all, so I used to identify as ace. When I realized I was trans, I was too caught up in the, transition safely, my life is a lie, stopping dysphoria drama to focus on this, but I had an idea I might be a gay guy judging from my gay creative writing until I caught feelings for a girl and realized this wasn’t the first time that had happened. Some bi positivity and nonbinary rage later, I am reminded that gender is a joke.

Have you experienced being misgendered? What happened and how did you overcome it?

Yes of course A LOT. Starting with my parents, who do it aggressively and maliciously. And plenty from strangers and customers, mostly after hearing my voice pre-transition. It used to hurt terribly because I was dealing with so much other stuff at the time, and one little thing could be the last straw, so I used to react strongly and harshly, to people you express yourself to anyway. On T, I’ve been so much more chill and confident, and it’s less painful to accept that some people just don’t know any better, although that doesn’t change its effect.

Who was the first person you told, how did they react?

I don’t remember, I think it was a high school friend. I vaguely remember texting someone in a bathroom during a crying session at work. My high school friends were all warm and supportive.

Describe what it was like coming out, what did you feel?

It was scary as hell. I’m sure coming out (with your gender specifically) is scary by nature because it’s a huge truth to be telling that can really change how the people you love perceive you, for better or for worse, but for me, I’m also thinking with the dread and certainty that my family would be too conservative and potentially dangerous. Coming out to my family was one of the worst, most painful things I’ve ever been through -- being kicked out and laughed at, a lot of drama, confrontations, Bible readings and being ganged up on at odd hours, trying to comfort my mom who took it as her personal failure -- I was shaking with adrenaline 24/7. I think of the “I’ll suffer through anything as long as it has meaning” comment that was about angsty fanfics, but knowing the truth about myself was a source of unshakable strength and it felt refreshing and even triumphant to say, like I was giving myself permission to exist for the first time. I came out a bunch of times, though...

If you’re out, how did your parents/guardians/friends react?

My family reacted mostly badly, my sister is a little confused but has the spirit, and my friends have been wonderful.

What is one question you hate people asking about your sexuality?

It’s more of a gender thing, but I hate it when people imply that I shouldn’t be on T or are subtly trying to talk me out of it with their questions. After all the disrespectful as fuck bullshit I heard from my parents, I’m tired of this.

Describe the style of clothing that you most often wear.

Zombie apocalypse denim? Gay Layers

Who are your favourite lgbt+ ships?

I’m not really emotionally invested in these “ships” you cool kids are talking about. I like canon, age-appropriate ones.

What does makeup mean to you? Do you wear any?

I’ve never really worn makeup. I brazenly never bothered to growing up, and if it had an effect on me socially, I was too tuned out to care. My sister always wanted to do my hair and makeup, but I wasn’t interested and wouldn’t let her, much to her frustration. I wore some for a musical once though, and I had no idea what I was doing and it was extremely uncomfortable. I felt what I know now is dysphoria and ended up using the lipstick to draw. Another aspect to this is my family forbade it (or my dad made the decision for everyone), not that it made my sister feel less pressured to wear it, so maybe it was some female presentation I could easily get out of. For that reason, I don’t have super strong feelings about it. Not understanding it probably resulted in me feeling left out a lot among my peers.

Do you experience dysphoria? If so, how does that affect you?

Yes. Before my realization, it was a numb horror I wasn’t consciously aware of, ruining nice things growing up to the point where I feel like I missed out on being a teenager. I remember it as feeling nauseous while sitting in a corner, feeling like none of my clothes ever fit for some mysterious reason. Living with my family in the closet, it defined my life, and I was obsessed with my presentation. These days, it does not bother me on that level at all, except a minor freakout now and then if I get really wild and wear feminine clothes. Or I still feel it in more subtle ways, when I default to customer service voice, or when guys my age are twice my height and I look aaaall the way up at them and wonder what gender they see me as.

What is the stupidest thing you’ve heard said about the lgbt+ community?

Trust me, I have heard truck loads of dumb shit and the winner is the Gay Agenda is R****a’s propaganda to weaken the integrity of North America. Considering what is happening over there, it was enragingly stupid.

What’s your favourite thing about the lgbt+ community?

I feel like I can be myself around lgbt+ people. I don’t feel like I have to hide stuff or put on a show, and I’m not afraid because it’s familiar territory.

What’s your least favourite thing about the lgbt+ community?

Aside from obvious problems like TERFs, ace discourse. Ace people are part of the community if they want to be and that’s enough on that, my skin is already breaking out.

Have you ever been to your cities pride event? Why or why not?

I finally went to a Pride event this year! I was surprised it was the first one I’d been to, then remembered my parents discouraged me from going anywhere, never mind to a gay where.

Who is your favourite lgbt+ Icon/Advocate/Celebrity?

I can’t think of many people right now, but Leslie Feinberg seems awesome, and some quotes from Stone Butch Blues are very validating.

Have you been in a relationship and how did you meet?

No. Technically I have been in one, but it was shitty and ridiculous, and basically platonic, and I don’t want it to count.

What is your favourite lgbt+ book?

I barely read… I read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe in high school and it was honestly so precious.

Have you ever faced discrimination? What happened?

Yes. I got kicked out (but then kicked back in again), had my stuff stolen and damaged, was verbally harassed… and I was indirectly fired by an employer, but We Will Never Know Why...

Your Favorite lgbt+ movie or show?

Queer Eye! I don’t know of many though, and some important ones, I just haven’t watched.

Who are some of your favourite lgbt+ bloggers?

My mutuals :D

Which lgbt+ slur do you want to reclaim?

I’m okay calling myself queer.

Have you ever gone to a gay bar, or a drag show, how was it?

No, but I did see some drag performances at the one (1) Pride event I went to, and they were jaw-dropping.

How do you self-identify your gender, and what does that mean to you?

I’m not sure what this question means, but I decide what fits right by what makes me feel the most alive and emotionally real and in the moment. What makes me feel the most attractive to be honest. There’s a post about dysphoria I saw going around, the things on it are basically what I use to figure things out.

Are you interested in having children? Why or why not?

I am actually! Not anytime soon, but I’m the responsible type for sure, and judging by the way I love growing plants and being around animals, I’m probably a nurturing person. I actually like kids too, lol, they’re just so high-energy.

What identity advice would you give your younger self?

You’re a boy. Go!

What do you think of gender roles in relationships?

I think people are going to have different ways of expressing themselves that make them happy, but… I don’t think they should infringe on basic human decency. When I hear “role” I think of acting a certain way because someone told you to, something I want to disagree with on the spot.

Anything else you want to share about your experience with gender?

People move out of my way on the sidewalk and take me seriously now. Privilege or self-confidence… I never want to forget what it used to be like, or get too entitled.

What is something you wish people know about being lgbt+?

That it’s simply living one’s reality. I think that trips up a lot of straight people -- that some people just come like this, and they don’t have to make it fit into their personal identity.

Why are proud to be lgbt+?

Because I worked hard to be alive and happy right now. I’m proud of choosing to get through those rough patches, take care of myself, heal, take walks, cook breakfast, learn healthy coping mechanisms, that was out of love for myself and a defiant conviction that I have a place in this world.

[randomnumbers751650]

So, I'm writing this because I'm trying to understand psychological horror, focusing on two animes from last year: Angels of Death and Happy Sugar Life. I wanted to write this because I got inspired by discussions on the Netflix's Ted Bundy show, Explanation Point's video on HSL (which made me watch it), and because I made the mistake of reading AoD's prequel manga Episode 0. Spoilers abound.

Due to way I was raised, I have difficulty in understanding stories that villains are the protagonists. Why would anyone cheer for them? Sure, there are many logical arguments, like the attempt to understand how his mind works and the cathartic feeling of being able to do feelings you know you'd be wrong. I have a RP blog and I once talked to with a friend on trying to understand how musing an utterly despicable muse could be so cathartic and she wondered if it's because it allows her to vent her stress and negative feelings on fictional characters, instead of real people. Logically, it makes sense, but I still feel odd about it.

I first watched Angels of Death because I really enjoyed the portrayal one of my best friends in the RPC had of the protagonist, Rachel Gardner. I honestly think it was a well-written anime, Rachel telling Zack that they weren't tools and the climax with the building on fire were my favorite moments. AoD also had a great advantage because it was self-aware, the banter between Rachel and Zack was pretty hilarious, and Cathy and Danny were also evilly funny. I always wondered how AoD managed to get to be an anime and Ib not...

Also, another thing that AoD makes sure to show is that every single named member of the cast is a murderer, and the man behind everything judges himself God for the sake of an experiment. It shows Zack murdering people in flashbacks and enjoying every single minute of it. In fact, the biggest plot twist is that the apparently innocent Rachel is probably the most dangerous murderer of them, the moment when she tries to kill Zack in her floor was a moment that actually got me on the edge of my seat (said event was properly foreshadowed).

When I say all characters of AoD are well-written, I say this in a "technical" sense - given their backstories, they act in a way consistent to what they are. Zack had a really crappy childhood and turned into a murderer; Danny was bullied and indirectly caused his mother's suicide; Cathy is subconsciously guided by a desire to punish sinners that caused her parents' death; Eddie was rejected so hard that he saw killing what he liked as the only way to preserve; and Rachel also had a crappy childhood, but parents who hated each other and killing her father in self-defense just broke her, her emotionless insanity is what guides her death wish (funnily enough, it doesn't seem that Gray has anything but a god complex). In other words, while they might be nearly a caricature, they still show to act on motives that make sense for them.

The question that guides the series is "what does it mean to be human?" In the end, we all want to avoid loneliness, as Gray says to Danny while the building explodes. Danny had a really pathetic death - he was a "love to hate" villain, even if he had a childhood excuse, nowhere implies that we should sympathize with him, on the contrary, he's one of the creepiest waste of air type of characters - if we showed his portrait in the game, one could put a sub "Most Likely to be a Pedophile").

But then I decided to read the prequel manga. I hated it. A lot. The characters are nothing but violent dicks to each other, in a grand scheme to get the role of "angel" in Gray's experiment (I used to muse Dr. Danny in my RP blog, it was fun to protray him as a pathetic peepermaniac, but I lost my drive after it). It doesn't try to be nuanced or anything else, but I guess if the objective was to remind us that the characters were murderous scum, it succeeded. The effect was so bad on me, that made me question the entire point of AoD itself.

I thought about this for a while. In Aod, we're basically siding with two murderers and Zack's popularity is immense, he's a Chad of murderers. The question is why?

It would be easy to dismiss his popularity as an example of the "bad boy fantasy", mostly associated with women who latches on a "bad boy" type in hopes of "fixing him", but that alone is insufficient to explain (and although it's usually recognized as a 'feminine fantasy', I want to avoid any implication of sexism, even though I don’t doubt this has been discussed in woman’s studies).

At point a friend of mine linked me Explanation Point's video on Happy Sugar Life. Why is Satou, a murderer and near pedophile (near pedophile because she doesn't engage in actual sexual activities with Shio, but it's not less disturbing), a sympathetic character? I won't recap the entire video here, but Satou is sympathetic because of many factors, such as the fact almost everyone around her is worse (arrogant rapist manager, sadomasochist actual ebebophile Danny's long lost brother, lolicon, an actual succubus in human form, obssessed copycat stalker, mad artist - the only developed characters that save themselves are Shoko and Asahi (and not 100% in his case, his determination was his downfall) - I honestly dislike Shio because she's annoying), had a crappy childhood, and that she seems sincere in her feelings for Shio.

The issue, in the end, it's about the way it's framed. Lindsay Ellis has a pretty good video on framing, on explaining how Mikaela actually had potential to be a well-written character in the first Michael Bay’s Transformers movie, but it was ruined by the way she was framed - as mere fanservice, instead of a strong character. The same principle applies to Happy Sugar Life, just pay attention to the way Satou is framed, as a strong character, in “pure” love, flowers appears on the screen when she’s thinking of Shio.

Framing is one reason why HSL failed or, at least, lost a part of its power as a cautionary tale. In the last episode, the way her imagination exploded with images of what her happy life with Shio could be, sprinkled by sappy imagery. Even if Satou killed herself to save Shio as a way to defy her aunt, it still gives a mixed message.

If we apply EP’s argument on Satou to Zack, I think we have even better “case” for Zack. Let’s count the reasons why one should sympathize with Zack:

Antagonists (Danny and Cathy) are worse people

Strong and powerful, to the point of turning into a shonen protagonist when cutting rocks in the last episode

Has a code of honor, only kills people who are laughing

Has standards, refuses to accept godhood from Rachel

Enjoys what he does, he’s probably the most sincere character of the cast

Has a twisted sense of humor

Has a sad backstory, that offered the chance of following another path (but the old man died)

Recognizes he’s messed up

Ridiculously loyal to Ray in the end

We never get to see the PoV of his victims and when we do, the frame actually makes Zack sympathetic - for example, the woman in his flashback, we see her lying to him and him killing her for it - it’s a bad thing, but the scene is framed in a way that Zack is the offended party (it was his PoV anyway)

He’s hot - granted this only works for the anime, because in the game he was some sort of tall mummy gremlin

As another friend of mine said, when I brought this to her, in the end you’re kind of cheering for them to escape police and continue murdering others. And, in the end, they do get away - Zack (and Ray, to some extent) is never punished for his crimes, even though the ending is ambiguous most people believe they escaped anyway.

In HSL we have a similar situation: even though Satou killed herself, Shio is still irreparably damaged, preferring to live her “happy sugar life” in her head than the real world. In fact, HSL’s ending is one of the most hopeless that I’ve ever seen recently, that the entire surviving cast is apparently beyond repair (as worse as Shio worse is Taiyo - it’s quite rare to portray female on male abuse on such a realistic way, any other anime would make a semi-hentai scenario on him, but here, I wouldn’t be surprise if he died starving himself to death in his room). HSL’s ending managed to be much more hopeless than AoD’s ending.

But, returning to Zack, the way his story is framed makes him a sympathetic character. However, while I argue that Zack is a well-written character, he’s not a very realistic one for one simple reason: he’s too conspicuous to be a successful serial killer, he’s too loud and messy; actual serial killers are methodic people, they plan a lot to not leave clues. Meanwhile, Zack is dumb as a rock, which might add him being an escapist character another trait of him.

And that’s where the comparison with Ted Bundy enters. It might be a stretch comparing a fictional character with a real person, but I still think it has some merit. While I haven’t seen the Netflix series, I read the debate on whether it glorifies Bundy or not. Basically the way the series frames Bundy is an argument for the glorification, but the interview with the victims who escaped him and loved ones of his victims is an argument against it. But the fact remains that both have their fans.

If we criticize Bundy’s fans for not noticing how much of a pathetic and deranged person he actually was, why can’t we do the same for Zack’s fans? Well the fact that one is real and the other fictional might be one reason, and being fictional he acts as an outlet for our own frustrations and tendencies just as I discussed with my friend above, but I feel that alone is insufficient, there must be a further reason... but I can’t think of anything else. Otherwise an argument has the danger of turning into the fallacy “videogames make kids violent” sort of thing.

One thing that has to consider is that both AoD and HSL are psychological thriller/horror series. If Zack, Ray and Satou got caught, the shows would be lesser works of art, because one function of psychological horror is to challenge our perceptions of justice.

Horror challenges our perceptions of safety and we are used to the bad guys being punished in the end, it’s a safe assumption. Instead, in horror, the bad guys get away and might be sympathetic, making us sympathetic to their getaway. It’s horror in the sense our own safe perceptions of morality and justice are twisted upside down.

I could go on and approach the thorny question of whether AoD glorifies murderers and HSL glorifies yanderes with children, but this essay is already getting too big, so I leave it for another occasion.

[safehavenofmonsters]

I’m just thinking about all the lessons my Tw/st OCs have to go through in their stories...

(💎) Like Majid!!! For example!!! His story arc centers around the theme of having to eventually confront reality.

Especially his fears.

Look, I’ve already said/implied SO many times that Majid would rather throw himself into the sun than willingly enter a conflict. It’s not like Majid would back down from a fight, but if he has the choice to avoid it, THEN HE WILL AVOID IT LIKE HELL. This is why he hides himself on campus, why he sleeps so much and purposely avoids contact with any other people. And this is where the running gag of Jamil being forced to directly summon Majid b/c he has no clue where he is comes in but that’s a different story :,) and just a reference to Jafar and the Cave of Wonders lol

The boy is filled with so much suppressed anger and grief at the world that he felt abandoned him. He hates that he had to grow up so quickly just to survive. He hates that he always has to come up with plans for every second of his life just to avoid facing conflict. And he’s so, so tired of trying to find his worth in this stupid life of his. Isn’t it ironic? The one who determines other people’s worth can’t seem to find his own. He buries himself in expensive items and shining jewelry to distract himself and others from how empty his life truly is. Majid doesn’t even think about giving away parts of his wealth to things like charity, but it’s more out of fear than selfishness. B/c these riches are literally all he has left. Take away his wealth, and who is he? Just another poor, orphaned boy living on the streets.

But when Majid’s story progresses, he starts to encounter more and more stuff that he needs to resolve. And through MC’s help, he slowly comes out of his shell, eventually coming to the turning point in his story where he faces his most significant confrontation of all... the one possibility that gave him anxiety every waking hour of his days...

Finally confirming his parents’ fates after they had left him so long ago.

I want Majid to finally live his life after his arc. I want him to finally make the choice to keep moving forward, and to not stay stagnant in his life out of fear of what he’s left behind and what’s to come.

(👻) Berenice is really similar to Majid in terms of being fueled by grief and spite from her past that led to her pre-arc self.

She believes that she is furious at the society that treated her friend and many others like dirty outsiders, that she should take direct action and kill the evil at its source, making the lives of the most self-righteous people she could find a living hell. All with a cheeky smile on her face.

But no matter how much Berenice boasts about herself, even if it seems like she has a huge-ass superiority complex, she is still very much her old self-deprecating self. Some habits are just too difficult to quit and this is one of them. Her rage is far more internalized than she thinks, and she can try all that she can do to hide this, but some parts of her true feelings will come through.

Berenice tries to convince herself that “yes, it’s the world that’s at fault!!! i must take action into my own hands b/c there’s no way in hell this selfish world will ever change!!!” instead of acknowledging that she once was an active part of this selfish world. And that she was simply too late in realizing how awful it was for people other than herself. She’s mad that it took so long for her to come to this realization, and that it cost her her life and the one true friend she’s ever made.

Basically, Berenice is going through the motions of someone who was disillusioned by the world at an older age and has horrible, horrible coping mechanisms to deal with it. She takes the concept of nihilism and cranks it up to 100. Maybe even more when she realized that she couldn’t die that easily after her curse anyway. She is both physically and mentally stuck in time b/c she chooses to be. She doesn’t believe that the people at Night Raven College can change for the better, no matter how many years go by.

But it’s more like she doesn’t want to believe they can change. Because then all that spite she built up over the years, well, what was all that for? All her plans for revenge on NRC fall apart if Berenice sees everyone becoming all buddy-buddy with each other, and it both confuses and scares her. This is why Berenice stirs up so much trouble on campus. If she causes just the right amount of chaos, maybe NRC will stay the way it’s always been. Made up of kids with harmful prejudices and stupidly high guards.

She feels like this isn’t fair. Why couldn’t she have been born in a more righteous time period? Why did she have to continue to suffer the consequences of her actions from so long ago? Berenice is so, so envious of all the students there, and it takes a long time for her to realize that.

So, Berenice’s story would be based around the theme of??? Letting go??? That just b/c she suffered in the past doesn’t give her the right to make others experience the same fate. What Berenice had been through was awful, yes, and she has every right to be angry at how she’s been treated. But taking out her spite on others, especially on others who have never wronged her in the present, just isn’t the way to go.

And once Berenice realizes it’s time for her to move on... then maybe she can see her friend again...

(🦑) Kodi may have the “least trauma” out of my Tw/st OCs, but he still has some stuff to sort through regardless.

He’s desperate for attention, and I’ve shown this side of him!!! Multiple times!!! Mostly for comedic effect!!! But you gotta understand why I made him that way.

One of the big turning events of Kodi’s life was realizing his father forgot about him and his mother. I may have light heartedly dismissed his parent’s separation as “lol it was just your typical cheesy romantic summer romance; it just wasn’t destined to last in the 1st place”. However, Kodi’s mother still lets it occasionally slip that she’s hurt that her partner left her. Especially with a child she had no idea how to raise. And Kodi can sense that grief from her and feels guilty that he can’t do anything to help.

He sees himself a constant reminder of forgetfulness. Kodi is technically an only child, but he grew up among so many relatives that he sure didn’t feel that way. You would think that with so many people it wouldn’t be hard to get some attention. Well ( ・∇・) you thought wrong. The adults already have so much on their hands with the farm (heck i still don’t know what kind of farm it is yet oh no), so it’s not like they have a lot of time for every single kid there. And Kodi always felt a bit isolated from his cousins anyway. No matter how much he tried to fit in with them, there were always those conversations where he could never find the right time to come in. Or sometimes they would forget about him during games and end up leaving him in the dust.

Kodi’s mom tries to help him as best she could, of course, but sometimes... sometimes it’s just not enough. Kodi always focused on the quantity and not the quality of his attention when he was a kid, so being a “momma’s boy” just didn’t sit well with him.

I know I always have everyone forgetting he’s there as a running gag (or at least in my head I do), but if you take a moment to really think about it, then Kodi’s circumstances just kinda :/ they’re just awful. The boy tries SO HARD to get recognition for anything!!! However his stupid unique magic nearly erases his existence every single time. Even if he’s not using it. Kodi honestly has a god-like patience to put up with all this shit, because if I were getting forgotten all the time, even when I made a conscious effort to get noticed, I would just give up and spiral into depression.

The theme for Kodi’s story arc would center on, *ding* *ding* *ding* you guessed it. Self-worth! similar to majid’s but not quite! Kodi grew up to be a huge people pleaser, desperately vying for others’ attention. He tried several ways to improve himself, but it was always for the wrong reasons. Kodi needs to learn to live for himself for once. That just because others wouldn’t recognize the stuff you’ve done for them doesn’t mean you automatically become worthless. Basically, boy needs to practice some hardcore self-love and grow that spine he’s been missing from his pre-arc self by the end of his chapter lol

[girlreviewsgirlmovies]

Sierra Burgess is a Loser

This movie could have been so much better, and that hurts more than if it was just bad. 

It opens with Sierra getting ready for the day, which is honestly so common in these types of movies it could be a trope. She has a moment where she compliments herself in the mirror in this bit which I think was well-placed seeing what comes next: we do see a single hint that maybe she’s not as confident as she’s about to seem for the next bit of the movie. We head off to school with her and meet the Plastics-- I know, I know, but that’s what I’m calling them for now, because it has that cliche trio of alpha bitch and two worker bees that is so darn common in teen movies these days. Veronica is shown to target Sierra right from the start, but then we come to Sierra and the movie’s first big “could have been good but wasn’t” aspect comes up.

Sierra is shown as quite confident in the face of Veronica’s bullying. She puts on a face like it doesn’t hurt her. I loved that! I found it so refreshing because so many movies in this genre show unpopular people defining themselves by the popular people. Despite that first interaction and what happens later, this bit of the movie establishes Sierra as not one of those characters. Veronica is an annoyance in her life, but not one that she ever seems actively hurt by. I loved this... right up until we get told by the movie later on that Sierra is not that person. Of course, just like Veronica, she can have her game-face, she can pretend things don’t hurt her... but the movie isn’t nearly as clear about what’s real for Sierra as it should be. They needed to pick a direction, and they didn’t. They could have shown Sierra confident in the face of her bullies but breaking down after, but nothing like this ever happens.

And this is a huge problem in light of how the movie progresses. Veronica gives a guy Sierra’s number, they text all night, they start to like each other, they call... I can only just buy this in light of the person Sierra was shown to be, even despite that first little bit of the movie, but only because we didn’t see the conversation and I told myself, “Okay, Sierra must have not realized he thought he was texting someone in particular right away.” Then she figures out it’s Veronica he’s texting, and things go a little wonky.

Sierra enlists Veronica to help her, and I think this is the strongest aspect of the movie. Actually, this middle bit with Veronica is almost worth the pain of the bad bits. I won’t talk about the arc in detail, but I will just say that there’s nothing that’s done wrong. There are places it could have gone for tell don’t show, and it didn’t. Veronica and Sierra start to have a wonderful friendship while tricking this guy and it’s adorable. They both make each other better. The only character development in the whole movie rests in these bits. If it weren’t for the romantic window dressing of the situation that pretends to be the movie’s focus, this could’ve been an awesome movie just based around how a situation like this brought these two girls together.

There’s a lot of little things in this bit that are so good to me, mostly between the girls. Veronica’s home life was given the exact treatment I think it needed, and just un-cliche enough that it felt fresh (she’s not the first popular girl from a broken home but the trend does tend towards rich popular kids, especially since Mean Girls), and her mother is shown as living vicariously through her daughters’ youth in a way that really criticizes “beauty before brains” mindset as coming from parents raising their kids wrong. I dunno, I just really think this middle bit is the strongest part of the movie. 

Eventually, Sierra starts calling Veronica “Ronnie”, it’s very sweet. They take lots of selfies, confess things to each other... this is the kind of content I really come to girly movies for, not the romance, not really.

And then we come to another problematic aspect of the movie: the kiss scene. I’ll be honest, I fast-forwarded through this bit because it was just so painful to watch. I haven’t mentioned this yet, but the catfishing came to a level where Veronica was faking a date with Sierra in the wings giving her lines, there’s a few good moments for their friendship where Veronica says that Jamie would like her Sierra and that Sierra’s presence in her life has made her finally consider her own future properly and says that Sierra should be a singer... and eventually Jamie leans in for a kiss. Instead of dealing with the catfishing problem-- we all knew that wasn’t going to happen-- the lines of consent are crossed and Ronnie asks Jamie to close his eyes, and Sierra kisses him. He tries to open them, and she shoves her hand on his face and tells him to keep them closed-- this was very uncomfortable and violent imo. Girl on guy consent-crossing is not any better than the opposite. I should have seen it coming with the catfish theme and the way things were progressing but I was not ready for such a violation from our “hero”. This is the first bit where I felt I was losing my suspension of disbelief regarding her being the “hero” of this story. Yes, even after all the catfishing, I was still with it. The circumstances were strange, but I could see this happening... you know how a lie gets bigger and bigger as you maintain it, that’s how I felt Sierra had progressed into this catfishing, and that was somewhat forgivable. I was on board for redemption for the bad things she was doing, but here I thought, “No. No way.”

Then we come to this party, Sierra gets drunk blah blah, Ronnie is told not to hang out with her blah blah... there’s this bit where Ronnie’s college boyfriend who she’s been studying to impress shows up. I definetly make a squeaking noise of excitement when he said, “I saw your post” and she just lit up and said “The Hamlet one?” Despite the fact her studying was driven out of impressing him, honestly I think that line sounded a whole lot like she was proud of herself for making that progress, that this is something she’s started to enjoy. Her character development is A+ here. Anyways, the guy takes advantage of her naiivity to sleep with her and dumps her over DM the next day, and Ronnie goes to Sierra for comfort (awww!)...

Eventually, we come to the third-act misunderstanding that everyone saw coming where the situation comes to a head. Well, I say everyone saw coming: everyone saw there would be a third-act misunderstanding, but the direction it takes manages to be both out of nowhere and unsurprising at the same time. The homecoming game (I assume) happens, Sierra is there with marching band, Veronica is here to be a cheerleader, and Jamie is there as the opposing team’s quarterback. Jamie obviously kisses Veronica when he sees her, she pushes him away but only after Sierra who was watching unbeknownst to them pushes Jamie away...

... and Sierra, who has shown very little cruel tendencies up to this point (besides the whole consent issue), decides to humiliate Veronica in front of everyone by hacking into her social media and showing the whole school Veronica got broken up with over DM. Nevermind the fact this would not be the social murder the movie portrays it as-- just humiliating for Veronica but I don’t think anyone else would have noticed... in the fallout, the fact that Veronica and Sierra have been playing with him is revealed to Jamie, and Veronica has this bit where she says to Sierra “you think I’m mean but you should look in a mirror” which seems to come from an earlier form of the script or something because it’s basically a rewording of Mean Girls’ “You Cady are a mean girl” and no movie attempting that theme will ever be as striking as the masterwork so they should stop trying. Besides the rip-offiness of it, it just doesn’t fit. The only mean thing Sierra has really done is the catfishing and the bad touch kiss, and she’s never really shown to hate Veronica for being mean and at this point they’ve been legitimate friends for half the movie. Where did Sierra’s cruelty come from?? Why is it getting this response? This scene just doesn’t fit the movie at all. It was like I’d switched channels into Mean Girls 2 or something, but I hadn’t. 

And then she gets home and snaps at her parents for being beautiful in a move that has no previous indication throughout the movie she feels this way. This movie needs to know the difference between showing and telling, because in the climax, it tells us one thing about the characters even though it’s shown us another for 50 minutes or so. 

And then comes my next complaint: Sierra writes her song (which was good, don’t get me wrong, if its use was terrible) and everyone suddenly goes “oh poor sierra she deserves forgiveness and a happy ending because her life is just so hard because she’s so ugly” (seriously, the song is about how she’s not conventionally beautiful and how hard that is for her and everyone just forgives her for playing with their lives), and gets off scott free. It wasn’t even a proper apology! Jamie takes her to the prom because Veronica explains on her behalf, and roll credits. 

There are a few other miscellaneous complaints-- we have a gay black best friend (yeah, couldn’t just chose one stereotypical minority type of best friend for their one-dimensional support character!), for some reason Stanford is implied to not be interested in a white legacy girl who has near perfect SAT scores and parents with money to pay her tuition (like, I know maybe she wouldn’t get a scholarship with her amount of community involvement but seriously her dad is famous and a Stanford graduate, she just needs the minimal submission requirement and she’d fucking get in!) And I was also not impressed by the whole “why does everyone think I’m a lesbian” joke. Like... it just... wasn’t funny... and they hit it three or four times. She never does anything lesbian-y and I was sitting here like, “Are you saying lesbians are unattractive girls?”???  A few other details here and there in dialogue and the like were weaker too.

I did laugh so hard I spilled a glass of water over when she signed her name is “Shit Pizza” though. So there’s that. 

There were so many individual aspects of this movie that I just loved, but as a whole it just didn’t work together. In my opinion, the whole movie needed refocusing to go from passable to actually good. Instead of the third-act misunderstanding going the way it did, I think the movie could have been saved by shifting the focus. Use the catfishing as a tool to connect the two girls and write a friendship plot. Let Sierra face the consequences of playing around with Jamie and have him not be interested in her because she hurt him, and let the real prize be the friendship she made along the way. And remove the whole “Sierra betrays Ronnie” bit because it came out of nowhere, have it be a more realistic confrontation between them for the kiss that doesn’t involve such an uncharacteristic behaviour, remove the Mean Girls shit, and then end on Ronnie and Sierra going stag together to homecoming. Or maybe turn it into a romance between them, because god knows we need more LGBTQA+ romances in film. Doing something that like that and doing another pass of the script for making sure what they show matches up with what they tell could have saved this movie.

But they didn’t, so it hurts to know that they almost made a good story but fell just short of doing anything truly noteworthy. Overall, the content was basically passable, but there were some problematic points that I think didn’t belong and the ending fell flat. 

[kn1ghthawk]

100 Questions

*OUT OF GAME* What do you want to get out of playing this character?

A character build focused around a single weapon (kiloton rifle)

What kind of play style do you want? Role play over roll play

What types of play are you interested in (combat, intrigue, politics, underworld, PVP, arcane/mystery, etc)? Intruige, problem solving.

Describe your character with three words. Careful, kind, calculating

*THE BASICS* What is your name? Victor Nathaniel Winters

Do you have any nicknames or aliases? Vic, blue, rifleman, tech, 'Fixer', 'general' 'private'

What is your race (or nationality)? White with some native too thin to claim.

What is your position in society (rank, social class, etc) Blue-Collar, Veteran

What is your profession? Repairman/mechanic

*FAMILY* Who are your parents or who raised you? John Winters, Locksmith, Jane winters, Writer

Do you have any other family? A sister, Jessica Winters.  A brother, Jason Winters, Marine, KIA.

Are any of them still alive? Is so, are they still involved in your life? His sister became a ghoul, but he is unaware of that. He might have even popped her as a feral and he would never know.

What is your relationship with them? Did you get along with them? She was a writer like their mother, a comic geek and she wanted to write her own works like 'mistress of mystery' and 'the investigator'. His brother and him always had troubles, he even suspected his brother slept with his wife.

Are you married? (Or do you have a significant other?) Obviously married to Nora once. He hasn't gotten married yet with those he is close to now.

Do you have children? Describe them. He isn't Shaun's Father, but he is his dad.  The time of Shaun's conception was too far off from when he was on leave. He will raise this new boy as his own.

How close are you to your family? Mostly good relations until the bombs fell, his brother often implied Nora and them had their moments while he was away.

If you’ve not started a family, do you want to? Why or why not? He has a family. The permanent child and Curie give him a family frozen in time, perfect for the man frozen out of time... Assuming he himself isn't a synth.

*PHYSICAL* Are you left or right handed? Left

What is your physical build? (Lithe, stocky, average━be descriptive.) Military athletic, able to carry more than he should.  It is a strong V-frame with a good back and leg-lifting build.

What does your voice sound like? Dark and warm like a smoldering campfire

Do you have any allergies, diseases, or other physical weaknesses? After the freeze, he has always been short of breath and easily exhausted. He is allergic to bees, but he hasn’t seen any yet.

*MANNERISMS* What phrases are you known for saying? 'If-Than-Else'

Do you have any quirks or odd habits? He is a pack-rat collector, he keeps keys for seemingly no good reason. He doesn't smoke, he hates cigarette smoke. But he loves the smell of a burning cigar and asks his companions to use those while traveling with him instead.

What do you do that others might find annoying? He zones out from time to time on a project. Loosing hours staring at a wall or organizing springs by size.

*PERSONALITY* Are you an optimist or pessimist? A pragmatic realist.

What are your religious beliefs? Heaven and hell are here on earth and up to us to make them.

What are your political views? Do what is right and benefits those around you, not the law.

What do you fear and what is your greatest fear? He is afraid of fire, having had part of his case and body burned.

Who do you admire and why? His commanding officer was a man worth following into the gates of hell.

Do you have any biases or prejudices? Those who demand respect or rank without earning it from him personally. How do you deal with stress? Tinkering. Playing games on his pip boy.

Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Introvert intellectual

Do you smoke, drink, or use drugs? Do you want to quit? Doesn't smoke, cannot stand cigarette smoke. But enjoys smelling cigars burning. Light and social drinker, mostly Nuka cola dark and other rum&cokes. Drugs are only good for caps with jet as an emergency situation.

What is your idea of a good time? Sex and sitting around a bonfire.

What do you do to relax? Tinkering with weapons and armor.

Are you neat or messy? (Organized or cluttered?) His workspace is organized but his clothes and residence is haphazard and messy collection of trophies.

Do you avoid (interpersonal) conflict? He is a man of conflict resolution, trying to fine the middle of a situation. Any problems between people under his command he cannot tolerate and even keeps a flowchart on who should not be assigned with each other unless its the most minor of missions to try and build them up.

Do you like to plan or do you prefer to wing it? Methodical to a point, preferring to plan for eventualities, but no battle plan survives first contact with the enemies. He tries to keep weapons and armors for every need.

What annoys you? Overindulgence to the point of liability (Falling down drunk). People who expect respect just by being in command. 

What brings you joy? Helping others and then seeing others help others.

*MORALS* Would you kill? Under what circumstances? Yes, in the army. Anyone who draws a gun on him goes down.  Honestly, he prefers to maim and wound, normally a wounded opponent stops the others from fighting to tend to the other... the raiders and synths do not have that compulsion so he has been laying down head-shots almost exclusively.

Have you committed any crimes? What and why? Murder and theft as a way to survive in the wasteland, in the army it was a way to gain and forcefully acquire much needed supplies.

What is the evilest thing you’ve ever done? When he took out the institute, he had dozens land mines and other explosives. He walked through all the areas his status allowed, setting them down on every table like a decoration or a gift. Then he pulled out a remote when the assault began. Bloody bits of innocents rained down from balconies as the assault started.

What is the best thing you’ve ever done? Saved a three generation family of Chinese citizens from a full village elimination. He convinced this CO that if they were going to rob the village blind for supplies, they would need people to carry it. 

What is the worst thing a person can do? Making others suffer for no good reason or for joy of making others hurt.

*INTERESTING TIDBITS* What do you have in your pockets? Screws, springs, tape, tools, clip of 10mm, 2 shotgun shells

What is your best memory? The night he met nora, she was locked out of her car and he popped her door in under a minute. She bought him a soda from drumline diner and they hit it off from there.

What is your worst memory? Aside from wife getting her head blown open like a pumpkin? Having to to assist in torture of a villager.

What are your hobbies? Building a motorcycle Bringing back things from the pre-war like butter and flushing toilets.

What is your favorite color? Black, and dark blue/red/purple

What is your favorite food? Before the war was berry pies, now its canned dog food because they remind him of army MRE's. He's still trying to make a mutfruit pie but it isn't going so well.

What is your most treasured possession? A rabbits foot charm he clips to his main guns on a mission. It was from the first rabbit he ever killed from a hunting trip with his dad.

Puppies or kittens? Dogs

Do you like to read? What? Science fiction novels and comics, the comics remind him of his sister.

What are your pet peeves? When someone takes the last anything and doesn't replace them if they can.

What does a normal day look like for you? Morning over eggs and steak followed by morning assignments with issuing any new weapons. A trip to the markets to see what's new in shipments and find a lunch before stripping found weapons and upgrading old weapons. The evening is an afternoon with his love until the sun sets and then into the garage in the evening for his bike before washing down for dinner and off to bed with a full belly and empty balls.

*BACKGROUND* Describe your childhood Dad was a locksmith; not a glamorous job, but important. Vic and his sibling used to play the unstopables in the streets, he was the silver shroud, his brother was grognak, his sister was the investigator. Mom wrote poetry and taught English at school. 

Growing up, what did you enjoy doing? He liked taking things apart to see how they worked, but his dad insisted on an immaculate work area with a towel on the bottom so nothing got lost.

Growing up, who were your friends? Johnny “guitar” Gonzales: A Los Verde neighbor who was willing to be Manta Man just so he could play with the others.

What is your earliest memory? Waking up to a snowy morning with a cup of hot cocoa, the drifts were a foot deep and school was closed so they ran reruns of the silver shroud all day.

What did you want to be when you grew up? His dad obviously wanted him to be a locksmith like him. He wanted to be an engineer.

How much schooling have you had? High school, technical engineering, electronics, mechanics, functional fusion comprehension, robotics.

Did you enjoy school? Yes. He wasn't the fastest or the strongest, but in school, only his mind mattered.

Who is the most important person in your life? No one person so much as his family of companions. Obviously his lovers are important, but its hard to place one over the other.

What do you regret the most? Not killing off all the nuka world gangs the first chance he got. Waiting until nuka world was operational gave the gangs time to escape and spread into the commonwealth. 

What do you consider your greatest achievement? Each achievement is good in its own way, but making a working peace in the commonwealth. The brotherhood handles the massive problems and the minutemen handle the more minutia.

*ROMANTIC* What is your sexual orientation? Bisexual, favoring feminine appearance, Top, Dom. Concupiscent, he has trouble forming longer relationships past fleeting friends unless he has sex with them. 

What is your gender identity? Male, very male.

What are your views on sex? As long as all parties are on board, everyone can have fun. No children, but people grow up quick in the commonwealth.

What do you look for in a potential partner/lover? Individuality and independence. They cannot depend on him for everything, but they can work with him to make something better than either of them could individually.

Have you ever been in love? Describe it. Its a slow thing, when sex isn’t involved; its the day to day familiarity that leads to friendship that leads to more. Otherwise its the fulfillment of a powerful intimate moment that bleeds over into the everyday moments, knowing that with every sip of a cup, you know where that mouth has been and what it can do.

Do you believe in true love or soulmates? Did you know that when a puzzle is made, they use the same stencil to cut the different pictures? The same piece three to the right and four down will fit any other picture made by the same stencil. Same for people, we are all puzzles with pieces that fit together even if its a different picture.

Who was your first kiss? His neighbor, Johnny.

Are you a virgin? If not, when and with whom did you lose your virginity?He lost his virginity with Johnny at the same time as his first kiss. Apparently Johnny got more than just slapped around by his dad, when Victor told the police what was happening, johnny broke his nose and jaw before social services took Johnny away to a home.

*RELATIONSHIPS* Who is important in your life now? Curie has been his bleed-off, someone he can express his mental and physical frustrations with. Handcock has been a constant companion, looking to him for his wisdom with age and insight when he expands his mind on drugs and the evening intimacies while on the road.

Do you belong to any groups or organizations? He is general in the minutemen, he was a Heavy in the Railroad, And sentinel In the brotherhood.

Who do you look up to and who do you respect? Desdemona is active in smaller missions as much as any other heavy or scouting as do Preston and other minutemen. That hands on level of interaction is what he respects.

Who has influence over you and how? Curie is a point of calm in his chaos, she is his favored lover in how she is so far from Nora in voice, hair and mannerism.

Who do you count on for help? Who would you turn to in your darkest moment? If it is an enemy to fight, Maccreedy, Danse and Preston come to mind. If it is social and emotional, then he goes to curie. If its settlement and group dynamics he looks to Handcock.

If you were killed or disappeared, who would miss you and why? If he went missing, Nick and Piper would begin hounding down leads with Cait and McCreedy breaking bones to kick ass and take names. Curie would stay and wait for any returns while missing him to the point of tears. If he was killed, Danse and Preston would keep the mission going.

*CORNERSTONES* What do you most want to accomplish with your life? To leave the world better than he found it.

What is your greatest strength? Heavy preparation and planing, innovations in technology and repurposing.

What is your greatest weakness? A weak constitution had him constantly short of breath and easily knocked unconcious. A fear of fire.

Do you like who you are? He accepts who he has become and what he has had to do.

What do you need to improve on? Better programing skills, learning more about the ghoul condition.

What is one thing you would change about yourself if you could? While the obvious would be to get rid of the scars, it would be to shake the ache in his chest so he can actually keep his breath.

How do you treat others, especially those worse off than you? Better than you? He likes to think he gives everyone a fair shake, but he was always taught to 'give back, plus one, It adds up in the end.' He always offers a job before just a handout, earning him a settlement full of grateful souls who know a skill they can take elsewhere. Farmers can see excitement as minutemen to sow the wild oats and the wounded can settle down on a farm for a bit.

Do you care what others think about you? why? He has to, too many people look up to him now as an ideal of what the world could be... The world could be better.

What would you give your life for, if anything? It has to be about the numbers, will his death guaranty more life for others?

Is there anything you’d refuse to do, under any circumstances? He refuses to torture innocents ever again, he'd rather crawl through the minefield than burn the map out of someone.

Do you hide your thoughts and feeling? How close do you let people get?Not really, he speaks his mind, even if it isnt what they want to hear.

When was the time you were the most frightened? The last time he was the most frightened was when the nuka-lurk queen exploded from the mud behind the bottling plant. He had to hide in the sewer tunnel and potshot until he was out of ammo.

When was the time you were most excited? When nuka world lit up and he got to ride on the ride, for just a minute the exhilaration without the life in danger of a bullet trying to bite him.

What is your most embarrassing moment? He had just nodded off after a good exhausting romp when the settlement was attacked. He came out running with furious sword in Grognak gloved hands and furry boots hitting the pavement. It was after the raiders were dead that he realized he wasn't wearing the fuzzy bottoms of the costume.

What is your vice? Lust, He loves the company of another and feels like he cannot connect with someone unless he's been intimate first. Sloth, he jokes he a sniper class rifleman cause he's too lazy to shoot twice.

What is your Virtue Charity, helping people who need it is an investment in a better world. Patience, Good things take time. Eat two tatos now and wait a week, or eat one and plant one to have four in a week.

Would you change anything about your past if you could? Why? If he knew then, what he new now. He would have buried some supplies in a time capsule. And he would have put the Nuka-gangs down first instead of playing along.

Who do you hate and why? Needless wasteful violence, there is nothing gained by making a demonstration of someone. 

What makes you laugh? Deacons 'impressions', only for Ada to just playback synthesized/spliced recordings of any conversation she can imagine.

What makes you cry? Dead animals, People can come and go, but fallen pets hits him where it hurts.

Are you a leader or a follower? Why? Leader, and he leads by example. Not commanding from the back.

What are you good at? (Name a few things.) Reading, its amazing how many are illiterate. Mechanics, take it apart, see how it ticks, put it back still ticking.

What are you bad at? (Name a few things.) Socialization/romance, with his gallows humor and fuggly face, he doesn't feel like any real romance can happen, but if they are ready to romp off the bat, then appearances don't matter to much.

What is the most important thing to ever happen to you? Clearly going into the cold.

Can you be vulnerable? Can you let others protect you? Who and why? Not counting combat. Staying hard can take too much out of you, it will drain your soul, lead you to break and making bad decisions. He often confides in Curie, using his robotics to express a compartmentalized section for her to use her medical psychology to talk it out.

How do you prefer to resolve conflicts? (Talk, violence, trickery, etc) He prefers to de-escalate the problems whenever possible, not having to be charming, just get them to the point of logic. But his pistol is always unfastened and ready for a quick draw. 

How would you like to be remembered after you die? By how better he left the world in his wake. 

How do others see you? (Or how would you want others to see you?) He wants to be seen as the guy who solved problems, not made them bigger.