#but i prefer the watsonian explanation

[touchlikethesun]

i love that so many of tsukki's clothes have like moons or stars on them like. like i like to think that he's secretly tickled that his name means moon and he leans into it on purpose like a nerd xx

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

Being someone who read Under The Red Hood and came out with the firm belief that, for Jason, it's not about killing Joker, it's about Jason wanting proof Batman would choose him over the Joker (bc shelia chose the joker). Makes seeing any other media where it's all about just wanting the Joker dead is a teeny bit frustrating. to be honest

Jason could've killed the Joker himself, really, really easily. Jason kidnaps the Joker before the confrontation. I can't open my comic for a reference right now, but it felt like he had the Joker for quite a bit before the confrontation. He had him. He beat him up with a crowbar. He had every single opportunity to kill the Joker himself, but he didn't because that wasn't his goal. Make no mistake, he did plan for the Joker to be dead by the end of it, but do you see what im trying to say here

Edit: If I knew this post was gonna get 1000+ notes I would've tried to word it better or something, this was a rant I made on the way to the grocery store 😭

It's not about making Batman kill either. When Batman says he won't kill, Jason adjusts and goes, 'Let ME kill the Joker or kill me to stop me' instead. The test is all about Batman choosing him. The whole final confrontation is Jason's first death again. The parent, The Joker, and the explosives. It even ends with Jason unable to move as a bomb goes off right next to him again because the parent didn't choose Jason. And instead tried finding an option that'd benefit them and (consequencely) letting the Joker walk, again, lol, lmao <-in agony

[villainvillain]

i mean genuinely i think sean rohani did a good job as prismo, i dont really want him to lose a role just bc of some agent-meddling that could POSSIBLY be fixed in a new season. but i will not lie when i say i really miss kumail nanjiani as prismo and would not complain either way if he was brought back. but i wouldnt complain if they kept sean. do you see my conundrum

[openphrase123]

watsonian vs doylist explanations

a watsonian explanation is how a character in a piece of media would explain a plot point, and a doylist explanation is how someone outside the universe would explain it.

so what's the watsonian explanation for why siffrin's left eye is gone?

well, first we can assume that healing craft can't cure disability - there are characters in chairs and without limbs in the game, so this makes perfect sense (and disability-healing magic is boring anyway)

second, why not his right eye? you could write a million what-ifs about this. maybe the sadness was trying to get bonnie on their left side, and when siffrin pulled them away, that's what was facing the attack? the possibilities for this are near endless because the game doesn't spend a huge amount of time on details of the attack past how it made bonnie feel

i prefer the doylist explanation for why it's the left eye, though, because it's a rare case where the doylist explanation is more poetic and thematic than the watsonian explanation.

siffrin's left eye is the one the sadness got because it's his downstage eye.

[nerdy-the-artist]

Batta, the Culture of the Zebesian Space Pirates

The Metroid Prime series has introduced the internal workings of the Space Pirates and expanded on it in subsequent entries. However, it is largely agreed upon by groups with the Metroid community (myself included) that the Space Pirates are a faction made up of many species. After all, the biology of the different enemy types in the Prime series alone is wildly different from game to game, aside from a bipedal, hunched posture. It can be assumed, therefore, that any discrepancies from game to game when describing the inner workings of the Space Pirates to simply be the culture of those individual species. For instance, the Urtraghians have far more brutal forms of punishment than the forces seen on Tallon IV. Now that then begs the question.

What about the culture of the Zebesians?

This exploration will, admittedly, be full of conjecture and fanons that I enjoy, but I hope you will enjoy either way.

The name Zebesian seems a bit strange to those who know the inner workings of Metroid lore, specifically about the Chozo, who were the residents of planet Zebes before the Space Pirates stormed the planet. The two big schools of thought as to the name from a Watsonian perspective are either that the Zebesians were driven off of Zebes in years past during the Chozo’s warlike past or that the name comes from their settlement upon Zebes that essentially became the way most of the Galaxy thought about the planet.

While I prefer the latter explanation, the former explanation does have some basis to it. Some of Dread’s many murals depict Mawkin soldiers coming into conflict with the Zebesian Space Pirates and defeating them. It is certainly possible that this is how the Chozo first settled the world. There was once a time when the Thoha Chozo were on good terms with the Mawkin.

Still, from both a Watsonian and Doylist perspective, I prefer that the Zebesian name comes from their takeover of Zebes, likely the latest conquest of many. From throughout the series, the Chozo are not seen to have been particularly active in galactic politics during the age of the Galactic Federation, mostly being relegated to advising more public figures. They are rarely mentioned after their demise, outside of their ruins. Therefor, with the Chozo mostly being dead and buried, their world conquered by the feared Space Pirates, the limelight would then be cast onto that world as the source of the Metroid threat, thus leading people to call them the rulers of that world. It’s not exactly how I will be situating things in my own rewrite of the manga, but it does fit better from a purely canonical perspective. Furthermore, from a Doylist perspective, there is evidence to posit this same position. (Special thanks to @sepublic for pointing this out) The internal data for the Zebesian sprite refers to them as Batta, the Japanese word for grasshopper/locust. While this can be attributed to their hopping behavior, it also fits to see them surrounding a planet, consuming its resources, and leaving barren rock behind, with Zebes being their latest, and most successful, operation. The manga displays them descending onto worlds, massacring populations, and enslaving the survivors. The origin of Samus Aran’s adoption into the Chozo comes from them massacring the population of a colony in order to steal its main export wholesale.

The individuals we see in the manga are spiteful, remorseless, and cruel, happy to kill a child for fun. They also show fear and cowardice in the face of armed resistance from Federation officials, and Mother Brain describes them as inclined to capitulate to the highest power present. This cruel, despotic leadership style appears to be an inherent trait to Zebesian culture. Furthermore, the Space Pirates are displayed as having genetically altered themselves to withstand Zebes’s environment very soon after securing the world, suggesting an avid fascination with genetic manipulation, a trait that gets taken to the N’th degree in the Prime series, along with a fascination of mechanical augmentation. From Meta and Proteus Ridley, to the grafted metal implants of the Tallon IV pirates, to the exoskeleton apparatus used by the Urtraghians, the Space Pirates as a whole seem to love cybernetically augmenting themselves and their underlings.

One of my favorite fan interpretations of the Zebesians comes from @dappercritter and the fanfiction piece “No Other”. Quite frankly, I have to include the paragraph wherein the description of the Zebesian race lies.

“The chimeric splice-junkies who had the nerve to call themselves ‘Zebesians’ she wasn’t surprised by. Those ‘settler colonists’-a term which they use to feign altruism and keep the GDF from assaulting their new base, had always been a thorn in Samus’s side since they tried to take her and the Chozo’s old home by force. Of course, they’d come back for more at some point, even if they deserved every other beatdown.”

The Zebesians are described as “chimeric splice-junkies”, a term which I absolutely love for its descriptiveness and color. These guys love to juice themselves up on whatever science team has cooked up. They love genetic modifications, cybernetic implants, and anything to make themselves stronger and give them an edge in combat. The main villain of this story, Ganzer, is the apotheosis of a Zebesian. He has replaced his lobster claws with metal claws, he has wings on his back, chainsaw blades grafted to his arms, a shoulder mounted cannon, a visor in place of his eyes, extra armor over his exoskeleton, and even a reptilian tail. Additionally, there is an explanation here for the name of these Zebesians. These galactic jerks are not just genocidal maniacs, they are something far worse: lawyers. They have lawyered their way into exploiting the Federation’s rules of engagement. After all, orbital bombardment on a colony is illegal. So, as any good lawyer would do, they have designated their most valuable planet as their residential colony world. Doesn’t matter that they breed Metroids, produce weapons, and store their fleets there, cuz that’s where the children grow up, at least on paper.

Furhermore, given their distinctly crustacean design, I can imagine that their “splice-junky” lifestyle comes into play during a specific recurring period of their life; molting. When a crustacean molts, the new shell is soft and malleable for a time, in which time they are extremely vulnerable. Defensive claws and stingers are effectively useless, leaving them defenseless until their body hardens. This time could be perfect for Zebesians to how in the infusion tank to get ‘roided up on whatever DNA infusions they choose/have chosen for them, or to have cybernetic implants grafted into them, where the shell will then solidify and seal the implant on. You can just imagine some excited Zebesian chittering about how they ordered the new model of targeting armature, lamenting that they have to wait until the next molt to get it installed. It honestly opens up some room for a bit of downtime in their culture which I think could be explored further some time.

Hope you all enjoyed this one! I may make a similar post for some of the other Space Pirate varieties. I do have some unique fanons for the Urtraghians that could be cool to share. Let me know if you have any suggestions or fanons of your own!

[fadetouchedsilk]

like I get the feeling the need to defend veilguard as an initial response. There’s a decent crowd of ‘critics’ who are up in arms because of Gay People In Their Videogame (which kills any other valid complaints they might have had imo)

But also I think a lot of us are just. Really disappointed that the thing we Waited 10 years for isn’t even coming close to living up to what we were told to expect? Even I knew that this game probably wouldn’t be great—tbh I didn’t go in with any expectations really—but I didn’t expect to feel so deflated by what we got either. The fact that there’s so much untouched potential mixed with what we know to be irl production problems makes it a harder pill to swallow. I think I was hoping this would be another DA2 situation, where you could see there were obvious cut corners but the story that we got was compelling enough to have lasting power & we were still able to dig our fingers into the lore. Hell, people are still talking about that game to this day in some circles. What does that tell you?

We knew this game would be flawed and have some misses (they always do) but I don’t think any of us could have anticipated how gutted the actual end product would have been. People are upset because we’re not dumb. We know budget cuts & layoffs happened. Just say the resources weren’t there and you had to prioritize. Just say certain things were left behind to meet a deadline. As frustrating as that is, it’s an infinitely more preferable explanation than acting like we’re all too stupid to pick up on any of this happening.

You’re not a bad person if you had fun or enjoyed elements of the game. I did & so did a lot of other people who are being vocally critical. I probably Will end up finding aspects I feel like giving watsonian explanations for in my own canon like I have in the past. But I also cant just ignore the problems & im not alone. It’s not ‘fake da fans’ who are mad from what I’ve seen. It’s the opposite! It sucks to see something you love decline. There’s a recurring theme of grief I keep picking up on in so many of these critical posts. Of course no one actually assumed our personal headcanons would become canon, but there was a certain standard of continuity that I think was silently expected to be present & it wasn’t there.

I’m not even sure what the point of this post is tbh. So many of us wanted to like this game so, so badly. We wanted the next part of a franchise that’s been important to us to be able to stand up with its predecessors. And for a lot of us it didn’t manage to hit that mark, no matter how much we genuinely wanted it to.

Idk. As much as I can come off as pretty flippant and irate about this whole thing, in truth it’s just something that leaves me feeling sad in a really quiet, deep sort of way.

[saintsenara]

Also would love to know what you think of Lily/&Sirius as well! I can totally see the slight resentment on his part you mentioned but i loveee the letter Harry finds in DH. AND tell me your thoughts on jilypad bc I just need to dig your brain

thank you very much for the ask, pal!

i know this was prompted by me saying - while discussing jily - that my preferred version of lily and sirius' relationship is one in which sirius resents lily for stealing the love of his life [and i don't mean lupin!] away from him. so i think it's worth clarifying what i mean by this:

because i certainly don't think that sirius' resentment towards lily would be overt - i don't think he'd ever be openly hostile towards her, i don't think he'd do anything to undermine james and lily's relationship, and i don't think he'd ever be anything other than sincerely delighted that james was so happy. he evidently values the relationship he has with lily - enough to have kept her letters somewhere he could retrieve after his sojourn in azkaban [the most plausible date of the letter harry finds in deathly hallows is august 1981, which means that we know sirius wasn't living at grimmauld place when it was written. this is something he's stored deliberately, rather than something he had just lying around.] - and i don't propose that he was pretending.

what i think, instead, is that sirius' canonical tendency towards suffering and abiding would make him actively want to cheerlead jily's relationship. he's someone who clearly believes that it's honourable to make sacrifices and that his own happiness is subordinate to the greater good. and while this is all very noble, it's also an enormous - and somewhat toxic - burden for someone like lily to bear.

i like the idea of sirius - much like his narrative mirror, snape - having an extraordinarily idealised view of lily which the real lily struggles to live up to [which provides an interesting watsonian explanation for why he only mentions her once in canon - the doylist reason is just that the series needs to obscure lily's centrality to the mystery for as long as it can, but it's much more fun to imagine that sirius actually knows nothing about the version of lily he didn't construct in his head]. i also like the idea of him struggling constantly with guilt over how he secretly would like to see james and lily split up, so that he could comfort james with tender forehead kisses [and much, much more...]

when it comes to lilypad as something non-platonic, then, my preferred version of the ship is one in which sirius and lily end up together after she survives voldemort's attack [and is, therefore, able to exonerate sirius by revealing that wormtail was the secret keeper] as an extraordinarily unhealthy way of dealing with the earth-shattering weight of their mutual grief. this doesn't mean that i think it would be an abusive or toxic relationship - nor that it couldn't last - but that it would be a... strange and quite melancholy one, haunted constantly by james' ghost.

which means, i suppose, that it's also my preferred version of jilypad. i don't like it as a triad when it's just written as really happy and flawless [well-functioning polygamy takes introspection, and none of these three strike me as possessing that ability...], but i do like it as a mess.

[darkmodepls]

Selfish Heterodynes

And why that's a good thing for their people

One thing that is commonly known about Sparks is that they have extremely self centered worldviews and motivations.

Sparks find it very hard to care about other people, and when they do, they often treat them more as an object or a pet than as a sapient being.

It's the main reason why non-sparks are so afraid of them. If you are just another object, what's stopping the Spark from using you for spare parts.

So. What is it about Heterodyne selfishness that makes their people so fanatically loyal

to start with, Heterodynes are selfish about their people because they are people.

Any time Agatha is introduced to a new group of people, she goes out of her way to learn their likes, dislikes, and histories. While there is a Doyalist explanation for this (the audience needs the exposition) I believe the Watsonian explanation is that this is part of being a Heterodyne.

Heterodynes that grew up in Mechanicsburg probably knew the names and life histories of more than half the town. They would drink with their men and participate in festivals. *Even if part of the festivities included being chased by an angry mob.*

Because they care about the person, they care about their personality and goals. To damage a mind is almost sacrilegious to a Heterodyne.

One of the defining traits of Heterodynes is that they are vehemently against brainwashing and mind control. While part of it is the fact that such methods undermine any genuine loyalty, It could also stem from the way such things interfere with who the victim is as a person.

Think about how Agatha's horror over Dr. Vapnoople differed from that of other Sparks. They were mainly concerned with how it kept Dimitri from expressing his Spark, while Agatha was upset by what it did to his personality.

Heterodynes make space for their people to achieve their goals.

As small as Mechanicsburg is, it's divided up into a variety of districts where all sorts of industries take place. From medicine, to constructs, to engineering, and trade, if a citizen wants to work in a certain field, the town can accommodate them.

Additionally, the people have no fear showing their work to the Masters. The moment Agatha started Heterodyning, she had a crowd of people clamoring to offer her their skills and talents. There wasn't a any hesitation to brag about this skill or that talent or offer these services to their Master.

Why would there be? it was probably a very common sight to see a crowd of townsfolk proudly share their latest creations with the Masters, and the Heterodynes probably took great delight in their people's ingenuity.

Because the People, their Personality, and their Skill belong to the Heterodyne, any Outsider trying to harm a citizen is trying to Steal from the Heterodyne.

to the Heterodynes it's never just a servant or just a gaurd, or just a farmer. They know that the servant was named Molly and had 2 nieces and preferred cake to pudding. They know that Grant had been a Jaeger for 200 years and had been best friends with their grandfather's sister's husband. They knew the Farmer Mac was a minor spark who had been secretly crossbreeding orange petunias as a gift for their wife.

Every loss is personal, so that makes it vital that they protect their people with everything they have.

The core of my idea can be summarized with this Discworld quote:

"All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!I have a duty!"

Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men (Discworld, #30; Tiffany Aching, #1)

All that a Mechanicsburger is belongs to their Heterodyne, and the Heterodynes will protect them from all threats the way a dragon guards its horde.

[broodwolf221]

cole—spirit or human? 

this, like all my meta, is just my personal feelings or interpretation: I am not trying to claim any kind of objective correctness, or to dismiss those who feel otherwise. I remember conversations about cole being somewhat strained so I'm hoping ppl aren't going to be super weird on this post. 

so—cole. I've played both routes and I actually enjoy both of them, but I'm strongly inclined towards making him more of a spirit, and my reasoning comes down to three primary aspects: 1) respecting cole’s autonomy and his choices up to this point, 2) acceptance of an “other” way of being as equally valid to a “human” way of being, and 3) making him more human feels weirdly to me like asking him to replace the real cole in full rather than be himself

1—respecting his autonomy.

cole states early on that he became more of who he was and less human, and that it lets him help. that's a choice he made. on a personal level, even though he's just pixels, I find it deeply uncomfortable to unmake the choice he made about his nature. I understand that he's shown as happy and fulfilled regardless of which path you choose, which is part of why I like both, but this is why I prefer the spirit path: making him more human feels, to me, like the inky is making him more… palatable. or like the game is giving a “comfortable to the player” option. I felt this way when I first played dai when it was new, and I continue to feel this way now

he is happy in both and that's nice, and i like that there's no strong delineation of a right v. wrong choice. at the same time, i've always gotten the sense that cole wants to be more spirit—maybe not because it brings him joy or satisfies him, it could well be that he just believes he will be more useful/functional as a spirit, but even making "bad" decisions (which i don't think this one is, but for the sake of argument) is an individual's right and part of their autonomy

2—acceptance of an “other” way of being as equally valid to a “human” one

in a watsonian, in-text view (which does tend to be my approach), I think it's very important to accept the personhood of spirits, even when they're so fundamentally different. spirit!cole forgets things, can erase negative experiences, etc.—there's a lack of what we'd see as typical growth and maturity going on there, but I'd argue that we can't really effectively apply human (or “mortal” ig, bc elves, dwarves, qunari…) norms to a spirit. 

cole as a spirit of compassion is the way a spirit is supposed to be. the way a spirit is supposed to be is not the way a mortal is supposed to be. and to me, it does feel like his preference throughout the game is to act as a spirit. he stays "pure" and "clean," and that allows him to help without becoming corrupted or changed. it's tempting—and not wrong—to view this through a human lens and to find it unhealthy for him, but i tend to defer to solas' explanations of how spirits are in this case. they can easily be corrupted because they are a Single Thing. that is their nature. wisdom is wisdom; changed by perception, expectation, memory, or pain, it becomes something fundamentally different. spirits are malleable in a way mortals are not

3—replacing the “real” cole 

tbf, this one isn't really supported by anything in game, just a personal discomfort. but he “became” cole after the young man's death. honestly, I find that a little uncomfortable, but I can understand it: the textual “simplicity”/purity of spirits makes sense of that kind of reaction to compassion’s “failure,” its inability to help the real cole (according to its own standards where help=fix: it did help the real cole by being there) 

so, to me, it reads a little like you're confirming that direction when you have cole become more human. ik it's not presented that way, but yeah, personally just makes me uncomfortable bc it feels like I'm encouraging cole to view himself as a replacement of the real cole 

spirits can come back, but they are the sentiment that gave rise to it in the first place, not the individual being itself. compassion taking on cole's name in the first place feels like that to me, but becoming more human feels like it's taking it a step too far. bc then cole becomes a young man who's taken on the face and name of a dead man and it's… it's a lot. for him to grapple with down the line, for the people around him, for everyone. but as a spirit, that kind of behavior feels more like a way of recognizing and respecting the being that came before 

and of course, cole isn't 100% either—he's more human or more spirit. so it's fair to say that it'd still be a sign of respect and acknowledgement of the real cole even if he becomes more human, it doesn't turn automatically into a Bad Thing, and the complexity can honestly be fascinating to explore, bc i imagine as more-human he will develop some complex feelings about all of it

[sneezypeasy]

Watsonian vs Doylist Analyses - A Couple Points of Clarification

I just want to clear up a couple of misunderstandings I may have unintentionally contributed to in my previous references on the subject:

1. There can be multiple explanations (multiple Watsonian explanations, multiple Doylist explanations, multiple of each etc) of a given scene or character portrayal or plot point, and people can accept more than one explanation at the same time. It's just uncommon for people to accept or present multiple explanations at once because that's kind of how people people.

2. Doylist takes aren't inherently "better" than Watsonian takes, and vice versa. People use both to engage with the text in different ways and for different purposes. Watsonian logic is fun for roleplay or immersing yourself into the story, and I imagine a lot of fanfic writers often start from a prompt like "I wonder what would happen next if I took x character and then put them in y scenario". Doylist logic is fun if you like examining the text from a more "meta" standpoint, trying to see what purpose various narrative choices serve (or undermine). Neither angle is intrinsically a more valid way to engage with fiction, and you might enjoy doing one thing one day and another thing the next - with different texts or even with the same text.

In litcrit, because I like to pick my brain on the subject of "what would have made for the best story here", I tend to be more interested in analyzing theme, character arcs, setup and payoff etc, which are Doylist interpretations. Some people focus a lot on authorial intent, which is also a Doylist perspective (just a different one). Some people like to try to get into the heads of the characters they're analyzing and discuss ideas like "what choice would make the most sense for x character given who they are as a person". That's a Watsonian take. There are contextual and individual reasons why some explanations may resonate with you more than others some of the time or even most of the time, but they're really apples and oranges. Which one you prefer will likely vary depending on the type of question being posed and what scope seems to be the most appropriate for it - and people are always going to have different opinions about that too... because that's how people people.

Of course, the opinions I personally care enough about to splash all over the internet are going to be opinions I hold with very strong convictions, which is why I can come off quite aggressive about them, but they're still just opinions and there's no such thing as "one true explanation", whether that's Watsonian or Doylist. If I make a Doylist argument and I dismiss someone else's rebuttal on the basis of it being Watsonian, that's not because Watsonian takes are intrinsically weaker, it's just because you generally can't use a Watsonian take to rebut a Doylist one or vice versa. You need to engage with someone's point in order to counter it, and you can't generally do that when you completely change the scope of the question, which is what tends to happen when a Watsonian perspective and a Doylist perspective comes into conflict.

(Of course, you can argue that a Doylist scope is situationally stronger than a Watsonian one or vice versa, but that's a different argument and usually context-dependent lol - point is just because a Doylist answer might fit one particular prompt much better this time, doesn't mean all Doylist answers will always trump all Watsonian answers in every single context all of the time, and that's not even accounting for the fact that you're never going to reach unanimous agreement about these sorts of things anyway.)

I hope that clears things up 😊

[princesssarisa]

I've been thinking of the different theories among fans of Disney's Beauty and the Beast about how long ago the spell was cast, and how old the Prince/Beast was at the time. Namely, how to explain the discrepancy between Lumiere's line "Ten years we've been rusting," which would mean that the Prince was only eleven years old when they were all transformed (the Prologue states that the magic rose would start to wilt in "his twenty-first year"), and the fact that in the painting in his room and in in the Prologue's stained-glass windows, the Prince looks like a a young man.

Of course the Doylist explanation is that different people in the creative team had different ideas for the backstory. Howard Ashman, who wrote the "Ten years..." lyric, wanted the Prince to have just been a child when he was cursed, but the directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale insisted that he be portrayed as a young man instead (allegedly much to Ashman's anger), because the idea of an eleven-year-old Beast reminded them too much of Eddie Munster.

But what's the Watsonian explanation? These are the different theories I've read:

*The spell was cast ten years ago, and the Prince was only eleven years old at the time. He was just tall and mature-looking for his age, as some preteens are, and/or the painting and stained-glass windows make him look older than he was, as art of royalty sometimes did.

*The spell was cast less than ten years ago. Lumiere, with his penchant for melodrama, is exaggerating when he sings "Ten years we've been rusting."

*The spell was cast less than ten years ago. It's been ten years since the Prince's father died and the Prince became master of the castle. The sour, cold-hearted young man never had any guests even when he was human.

*The spell was cast twenty-one years ago. "...his twenty-first year" means his twenty-first year as a Beast, not his age. For the first ten or eleven years, the servants stayed busy, keeping the castle clean and orderly because they had faith that someone would find them and break the spell. But eventually they all lost hope, gave up their efforts, and let the castle become a Gothic ruin – this state of depression is what's lasted for ten years, not the spell itself.

Personally, I think I prefer the first theory. It's what Howard Ashman wanted, and in the finished film, I think it shows. At the beginning the Beast acts very much like a man-child, who throws tantrums, has never learned empathy, and doesn't know anything about women or adult social skills, as if he was cursed as a boy and hasn't been able to mature in his isolation. Of course all of this can also be explained by (a) how spoiled he was, (b) his depression, and (c) the idea that the spell is slowly turning his mind bestial – maybe his "childlike" behavior is really just animalistic.

I'd like to know which theory other people prefer.

There's also another question that begs to be answered: if the castle has been under the spell for ten years or more, then how was Chip born, since he's only about six years old? To that question, I think there are two possible answers. If the spell was cast less than ten years ago, then he could easily have been born already. But if it really was cast ten years ago, or more, then I think no one in the castle ages except the Beast, because only biological bodies can age. In this theory, Chip was six years old when he became a teacup, and has stayed six years old ever since. Either theory works for me.

[bthump]

How much do you think authorial intent matters in analyzing Berserk? Because I've seen your post on Charlotte and how you interpret her sex with Griffith as consensual because Miura usually does a good job portraying sexual trauma, and sex scene tropes in media are usually dodgy while being intended to be consensual. I always have a hard time with this way of thinking because it doesn't change what objectively happened in the scene.

I actually differentiate between authorial intent and narrative intent to an extent. To me narrative framing matters the most. What Miura may have intended can be important inasmuch as he successfully conveyed it in the story, but I don't think his word is the final word on the story itself. If he gave an interview where he said he intended X, but I think the story conveyed Y, then Y is more important to my interpretation of the story.

So to use the Charlotte sex scene as an example, the biggest reason I read it as consensual (if psychologically fucked up to an extent) is because that's the narrative function of the sex. A rape scene would have a different impact on the story. The sex scene furthers Charlotte's love for Griffith, to her it's a contrast to her father's subsequent attempted assault, Charlotte has no misgivings about it, and the king doesn't accuse Griffith of rape but of theft from him. If it was intended to be a rape scene, it would be essentially nonsensical as a story beat and a bigger failure of writing imo.

And yeah, in addition to that there's the greater media context where a lot of sex that should be rape is treated as consensual.

But yeah I get what you mean about having a hard time viewing things that way. I find the terms watsonian and doylist helpful when discussing stuff like this in fandom, where watsonian refers to discussing characters and events as though they really exist, as though characters have agency and lives and make decisions, and doylist refers to taking account of the fiction of the universe, the knowledge that it's written by someone who has a point to convey and might have biases and make mistakes.

So on a watsonian level you can't really argue that it isn't rape because Charlotte says no. If it happened in real life, it would be rape, the end.

But on a doylist level it doesn't fit the story, and there are better ways to interpret that scene to suit the overall narrative better, which we can understand based on the various context clues I mentioned above.

When I discuss stuff I'm usually doing it on a doylist level because that's just how I roll lol, I enjoy analysing media as a construct created by people attempting to convey a meaning. To me, characters/setting/plot/etc are first and foremost tools to futher that meaning. But a lot of fandom is really into the watsonian level, which makes sense because that's where headcanons and fanfiction thrives, and it's a lot of fun to explore and speculate about the characters as though they're real people with real psychologies, to explain away plot holes and bad writing with in-universe explanations, etc.

It's totally cool to prefer one over the other imo! But yeah I think it's always good to differentiate between those different types of analysis, because they're trying to accomplish very different things, and to be aware of what level you're interpreting the story on. I find that it's really easy to get into discussions where people just talk past each other because one person is discussing the story as a fictional construct and the other is discussing it as if it's a real event that happened. It's how you get arguments like ''the depiction of this character is sexist because she's naked for no reason except to titilate the het male audience' 'there's totally a reason though, it's because she breathes through her skin!' or whatever lol.

Thanks for the ask! I like getting the opportunity to explain where I'm coming from when it comes to meta.

[skylights422]

New X-Men '97 tomorrow! I am very excited! But I also had meant to make more posts reviewing the first three episodes. It was going to be multiple posts over different topics, but I am short on time and organizational energy, so I am just gonna make two posts over the biggest topics: The Romance Drama, and The Plot. Romance drama first! It got Long, so it's under a cut. xD (And a quick disclaimer that any negative opinions on the canon writing of couples doesn't mean I dislike people for shipping any of it; I almost never ship anything personally just as a matter of personal preference, but am very much a Ship And Let Ship/Don't Like Don't Read kind of person)

First, I will just say that the Jean/Scott/Logan drama was...always the most boring and confusing part to me in the 90s show? I just didn't feel like they did enough to show why Wolverine was SO in love with her when it seemed like they never spent any time together normally or had any major bonding moments? So I felt like he was just pining based on appearance and the fact they were teammates, which...is fine I guess but not the sweeping, dramatic unrequited love it was always portrayed as.

(I mean Wolverine was so torn up about them getting married he REFUSED TO ATTEND and instead spent time trying to kill an illusion version of Scott in the Danger Room, that's. Very dramatic! And for what? Maybe they covered it a little bit in an episode I haven't re-watched yet but I remember Past Me at least not finding the explanation impressive enough lollll)

So, I'm not...super looking forward to more of it in this new show, but also expecting it since it was always such a feature. I'd rather not have Jean kinda date Logan just because she's mad at Scott and Logan wants to? But it won't shock me. By and large I have made peace with my dislike for that particular love triangle since I'm otherwise such a fan of both series. (And so far anyways Logan has been a little less weird about his unrequited feelings even if they're still pretty obvious)

THEN we have the Rogue and Magneto romance. This one I have had more mixed feelings on. My kneejerk reaction was confusion and dislike - I didn't know until I looked it up after the episode that they were together in the comics, and since they weren't in the previous show, it felt...really random. (Also I am just not much a fan of couples with large age gaps, obviously Rogue is an adult and can do what she wants, it's just not my cup of tea. Plus Rogue and Gambit is one of maybe, like...five? Couples in media? That I have any investment in AS a romantic couple lol, but mostly I was just not looking forward to more romantic drama in general since it's just not something I tend to enjoy much)

Now I have two opinions. One is simply that I am Over feeling bothered by it and just curious to see what they do with it, since Rogue and Magneto do have some compelling thematic reasons to have scenes together anyways. And Rogue and Gambit definitely COULD have a mature conversation about it, which would actually be pretty neat.

Now my main quibble is that it was introduced so suddenly, and with so little explanation. As a general rule, I do NOT consider 'it happened in the source material' to be a valid excuse for anything in an adaptation unless it also makes sense within the established lore/characterization/etc. of the adaptation itself. A Doylist explanation existing does not remove the need for a solid Watsonian one, and if there just...isn't a Watsonian explanation, then I feel it is lazy writing at best, actually terrible writing if done badly enough.

There's definitely still time for them to give some kind of flashback or explanation for Rogue and Magneto though! You can introduce new aspects to character's pasts, in general. So I am holding out my final opinion to see if they do that, and in what way.

On a smaller, technically still hypothetical note, next for romance drama we have: Morph crushing on Wolverine. I do agree that it's extremely possible, even likely, that Morph seeming Interested in Wolverine in this version is deliberate - I mainly say hypothetical because I have seen some VERY overtly queercoded stories/scenes/etc. be written genuinely by accident, and at this point I'm really not sure how it was intended (like, if it's meant to be anything bigger than the scene itself or not).

And once again, I have mixed feelings on it. On one hand, having an openly gay character in an X-Men cartoon is good! It's nice to see some diversity in orientation. And Morph makes sense since they are the closest to a blank slate as you can get with a pre-established character, only being in nine episodes total of the original series - very spread out ones, as well.

But well, there's two reasons I feel kind of egh about it. One is that nearly all the Established Duos that got a lot of attention in the original show were romantic ones, and as someone who is fundamentally more invested emotionally in non-romances, I really liked the thought of having a best friend duo to fixate on. (We do still have Magneto and Xavier but XAVIER IS DEAD RIGHT NOW SO IT ONLY HALF COUNTS)

The other is that it...would almost definitely be another unrequited crush. Which for one, is just drama that isn't interesting to me. But also I dunno if 'sad gay bravely accepts never getting with the love of their life' is amazing rep for...friendships OR gay people??? Like you could write it so that Morph is genuinely fine being 'just' friends, and maybe in an ideal world that would even kick Wolverine into considering he could maybe be More Normal About Jean. But I worry about their friendship falling apart or it being made out to be 'not enough' to Morph and ultimately just making everyone look bad (and also if they push too hard on the Sad Morph Angle I feel like it could just be another case of villainizing people for not returning affections which I just, REALLY HATE)

SO I'M ON EDGE ABOUT IT. Possibly they won't do much with the concept at all, which I'd frankly prefer. Possibly they'll find a way to write the one-sided romance that is actually considerate to both sides and doesn't destroy their friendship. Possibly they'll even introduce other gay couples somewhere in the show so the rep for it isn't all riding on Morph's shoulders! But I am also very aware how easy it would be to do this wrong. SO WE'LL SEE.

[utilitycaster]

Why do you think our new guests were teleported to where they are? I know that the cast is on the train of the ley line nexus points, but I personally think that everyone who was teleported was ruidus born. (and maybe was supposed to be teleported to the moon or be sucked up like imogen and fern were a little) idk that’s the theory I have what’s yours?

Ok so since this is 2 in 2 days I'm going to make a general request that if you want to hear my theories, that's fine, but please just ask that. I don't need to know your theories in order to tell you mine.

We know that the rest of Bells Hells aren't Ruidusborn so this premise at least is debunked, and the reason the guests were teleported to Issylra is, frankly, because Aimee, Emily, and Utkarsh are the guests and they are playing with team Issylra and these are the characters they made, which isn't like, a fun explanation but it is the truth. (As for why Team Issylra's half of Bells Hells was teleported to Issylra? Because we haven't seen much of Issylra before and possibly because of Hishari).

If you're looking for a Watsonian explanation I prefer the Nexus Point shuffle with some randomness explanation. I mean maybe Bor'Dor or Deni$e are non-Exaltant Ruidusborn, but it doesn't really matter to the plot so far, and Prism is not, because Ruidus is in the Shadowfell, and 11 people out of this town feels like a lot of Ruidusborn in one location, particularly because we didn't hear about any mysterious disappearances in Uthodurn.

I guess the best way to put it re: questions of why they teleported to where they did is that I think people sometimes forget that the DM cannot just write a book - they can't control what the characters say or do or where they go under their own power - but yeah, a DM can in fact, rather than rolling a D100, decide precisely where the MacGuffin of Random Teleporting goes because they have plot hooks somewhere specific. That's well within their purview, and that's what I think happened.

[akawestruck]

I watched The Labyrinth again. It is now 2am 3am and I have more Thoughts on the nature of the Labyrinth. So this is part 1, a reflection on what the characters' roles in the story and in Sarah's coming of age journey are, and how those are related to the nature of the Labyrinth.

I feel like this should be an 'In this essay I will...' but I don't really have a thesis statement, so... more under the cut

There are many ways to interpret the Labyrinth and the residents therein, but I'm going to start with the interpretation that the whole thing is a manifestation of Sarah's coming of age and all residents are parts of her. Specifically, the 'childish' parts. In which case it would go:

Hoggle: Her selfishness. The most prominent part of Sarah we're shown in the outside world. Causes problems and easily controlled by her fantasies (Jareth) but ultimately wants what's best for her

Ludo: Her naivety and magical thinking. Introduced as being besieged on all sides, simple but powerful, and gets attached to people easily. Sarah immediately has a strong affinity for him, and defends him

Sir Didymous: Her sense of fairness/duty. Reckless and overzealous, can't be convinced to change his mind or himself but willing to go with loopholes (accompanied by Ambrosius, her cowardice)

Jareth: Her fantasies. An escape from her responsibilities, seemingly seductive and controlling her life, but actually subject to her own desires. A standout line from his introduction is 'this isn't for an ordinary girl', because what girl like Sarah doesn't dream of being extraordinary?

I could go into a full analysis with evidence on each of them but I think if you are willing to go along with this interpretation it's not a stretch. Honestly, the more I think about it the more elements of the story I can fit, even aspects that I first dismissed as extra trappings to round out the characters, like Jareth telling Toby that he 'has my eyes'. Either because Toby is literally related to Sarah and Jareth is part of her, or because Sarah loves Toby and is working on internalizing that he is family despite him being new and not having the same mother.

The obstacles of the Labyrinth can somewhat be fitted into this as well, so honourable mention to the Fire Gang: Peer pressure. Doing harmful things like they're normal, trying to get her to join in. Plus the Bog of Eternal Stench: Toby's diapers (and the exaggeratedly inescapable influence of his existence on all aspects of her life the moment her entered it, the ultimate fear of her selfishness, traversable only by a healthy dose of magical thinking, and guarded by her sense of duty).

On a Doyalist level this is sufficient in itself. The characters in a coming of age story reflect aspects of the protagonist as they come of age, duh. But on a Watsonian level it's interesting because the characters are parts of Sarah's psyche, and they look like toys from her room or, in Jareth's case, play the role of the villain from her favourite novel but look like her mother's new partner (though the Vibes between Sarah and Jareth personally make me prefer to think of that as an Easter Egg rather than a real resemblance).

I keep knawing at the question of the nature of the Labyrinth. To be clear, on a story level I'm fully satisfied without an explanation. I love the blurred lines of fantasy and reality. However, I want to play in this world myself, so for myself I want to establish an explanation that follows canon but also expands the world. The Labyrinth is too much dictated by Sarah and what she needs to grow up, I can't interpret it's existence as fully independent of her, much though I enjoy various fae!Jareth fics. At the same time, I personally don't enjoy playing in the 'it's all in her head' explanation. I don't want the moments of magic in the real world to be purely her imagination, I want Jareth to have really burst into her house and her friends to have had a dance party in her room. So I prefer the hybrids like that the Labyrinth exists independently but shapes itself to the Runner (or it's her fanfic come to life, my previous post from immediately after watching for the first time).

Anyway, maybe more parts of this essay will manifest. I also want to ramble about Jareth's lines at the end and how they're related to Sarah's relationship with her stepmother. And the nature of Jareth more generally.

[gascon-en-exil]

"I don't think of them at all". Why you never though of one of FE Awakening's biggest headscratchers ??

What headscratcher? Am I really going to have to look this up?

Never mind, I don't care enough. I've never thought of it because I find FE13 immensely dull for the most part. The first thing that springs to mind for me when it comes to Morgan is that 3rd gen is better for minmaxing but makes some players squeamish - although if you're really minmaxing I would think you would be fine with reducing these characters to bundles of stats and so think nothing of Robin banging his friends' children. The second is that Morgan is optional and thus irrelevant to the plot outside the DLC campaign.

Also, if you haven't picked up on it I've never cared for complicated, Game Theory-style Watsonian explanations for bad/lazy writing. It just doesn't interest me. That's why it's been so frustrating to receive dozens of anons trying to puzzle their way through how the Engage dragons are or are not related when I know I'm never going to care - and that the thought of why the writers would create a scenario where pairings can either be or not be incest depending on your preferences is more entertaining to me than the in-universe explanations they came up with to make that happen.