#character is not actually suicidal
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breaking the sign in two by how hard im tapping it
#im putting the word queerbait in a very tall box on a very tall shelf and none of you get it back until you actually learn the definition#sjonnies edits#queerbait#queer media#queer#queer issues#there are real queerbaits! a lot of them! but i am SO sick and tired of everything that's not explicitly stated be called queerbait#or when the focus in an action movie is not the full romance#would the hero and the girl have kissed in a straight action movie? sure. but even now more often than not that doesn't happen or the focus#is different entirely#the world doesn't change overnight. but you know what helps changing it? watching the media that's implying it! NORMALISING THAT MEDIA!#showing the studios that it isn't popularity suicide. encouraging actors to diversify and give them the respect they need without turning#every conversation an actor playing a queer character into what their sexuality is!#venom#deadpool and wolverine#loki#911#<- which. btw. fucking INSANE thing to say#also queer characters CANNOT be used for queerbait#QUEER CHARACTERS CANNOT BE USED FOR QUEERBAIT#they can be buried! but they CANNOT be used for queerbait because they. are. queer.
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remember when I did this?
well I did more
#deltarune#crossover#heathers#noelle holiday#kris dreemurr#pizzapants#susie deltarune#nooses tw#blood tw#suicide tw#hanging tw#death tw#art tag#first three were actually done a year ago but i never finished the fourth one until now#partially bc Background Hard but also i was like 'this might be too dark actually'#my friends were like its heathers of course its dark and then i showed them the sketch and they were like oh that IS dark#whatever its done i did it#ALSO this is important some people were confused with this last time: these are based on the MOVIE not the musical#like literally these are screenshot redraws from the movie but with dr characters lol#important bc since the musical makes betty and martha a composite character and in the movie theyre two different girls#and i wouldnt have put susie in the role of martha in the context of the musical. i probably would choose catti for that#and im also. not that fond of the musical. on the whole. for reasons#i do have like five of the songs from it on my showtunes playlist though LMAO#i may not agree with the story and characterization choices but i cant deny bangers
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Curly not immediately punishing Jimmy for assaulting Anya is something I don’t think a lot of people are viewing in the complex context for Curly as the superior to both of them and closest confidante they had.
Like I am in no way saying he didn’t under react or fail Anya by not being harsh or direct with Jimmy but it really is the case that he really couldn’t. Imagine being stuck in such a confined space with very little areas to genuinely hold someone if they commit a crime. It’s not like this was an event that occurred before they departed or that they have easy communication with The Pony Express to ask for how to proceed when something like this arises. Not to mention, Jimmy’s relative power in relation to Anya as the co-pilot and second in command, he has the knowledge and access to do something to her had Curly directly punished him in this setting.
They were also Curly’s friends. It’s not just the case of him mediating something between his subordinates but people he is personally invested in don’t want to see spiral further in Anya’s case while also not wanting believe his friend go that bad in Jimmy’s actions. They were both suicidal and Curly putting Jimmy’s stability first is both out of bias but also the fact he’s aware at some level Jimmy is a danger to himself and others if not constantly placated. Combined with the fact he was in denial or just not piecing together what Anya said it’s hard to say what he buying time for and what he had treat as urgent. This isn’t even saying he doesn’t care about Anya but he’s not going jump to the worst conclusions about his friends even if part of him acknowledges the evidence saying so. It’s a complicated thing but he’s still human and needed to process it on top of trying to keep a ship that already took on a lot of water from further sinking, metaphorically.
I just personally think that while Curly failed Anya, it was a scenario where there wasn’t much he could do to the best thing by her safely and like Jimmy, we are underestimating what a good leader would do in a very fragile and tense situation like he was in. By the time he may have been ready and had a plan, things were much too late.
#like in my one Anya still respected Curly after he didn’t punish Jimmy so I assume he still respected her or reassured her he’d do something#it just was never enough because sadly Jimmy just needed to be removed from the ship and that’s not possible#cause no matter what Jimmy was going to do something stupid to fix it and Curly had to be thinking of a way to avoid that but also trying to#play the subjective role of friend and objective role of captain with two of the people he is currently closest with#not to mention how he’s a big picture guy and it’s not an excuse but those little detail and subtle behaviors are probably lost if the big#picture looks fine still and he admits he’d drive himself crazy trying to look for it#like weirdly Curlys character is only seen through the people he tried to protect and we judge him on his failures but we don’t get too much#on his insights directly as Jimmy is unreliable and he tries hard to be gentle with Anya#personal note is I don’t think Curly underplaying Anya’s trauma is a guy code protecting my bud thing but more a flaw in his personal#character in where he just wants everything and everyone to be ok in the end and taking responsibility that isn’t his to bare like he can’t#make up for what Jimmy did but he tried and that’s the problem really cause he’s just used to actually fixing it for him and it’s the case#this is the one thing he really couldn’t like I think he’s a good guy but he’s trapped in his and a bunch of other peoples worse moments#anya mouthwashing#mouthwashing#mouthwashing game#mouthwashing curly#curly mouthwashing#mouthwashing anya#jimmy mouthwashing#captain curly#nurse Anya#mouthwashing spoilers#rape tw#suicide tw#also last thought is how he like also was being emotionally drained by Jimmy constantly like Anya and his relationship with Jimmy parallel#each other in such a way that both him and Anya warily follow the words of the others abuser because they fear the physical or emotional#repercussions if they don’t like her not being able to really tell curly what happened and then curly not being able to do the same and how#jimmy assaults and dehumanizes both when they are no longer a service to him like god they are more adjacent than Jimmy and Curly like Curly#messed up in a already messy pile Jimmy mad it into a dumpster fire in a landfill they are not the same
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Still going through it emotionally btw. I've seen a lot of character death in anime but it's been a WHILE since I've seen one as brutal as Ace's, especially bc of Luffy's reaction to it. Character death isn't unusual but the trauma and PTSD that comes after it isn't really shown that often so Oda actually showing Luffy going through it is. Oof. That shit HURTS bro. And the fact that Luffy's immediate reaction is to just. Self destruct. To hurt himself and risk his own life?? Like it was never explicitly said but I could see the suicidal intent there and jesus CHRIST. Just sitting there watching him refuse to accept it and then mourn and grieve was absolutely brutal;; Not to mention the fact that like. We can see him having PTSD flashbacks. It was just written very well (too well bc I'm still a goddamn mess) and I gotta commend Oda even tho he's putting me through the fucking wringer
#A character death hasn't hit me this hard since Eugeo tbh. It's been a While#Actually thinking about it yeah Kirito's reaction to that was very similar to Luffy's#And Kiri actually. Did genuinely try to kill himself bc of it. Like it wasn't even subtle#Anyway. Woof. I'm fine ahaha (lying)#Do you ever just go through it emotionally and just need to lie down for a while. That's where I'm at rn#One Piece#One Piece spoilers#Suicide tw#Self harm tw#Monkey D Luffy#Luffy#Portagas D Ace#Ace#Ask to tag#Shima speaks
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Idk how to tell you this but it’s unreasonable to expect a novel written 3 decades ago to align with today’s understanding of representation and respect.
i think it's sleight of hand to suggest that the complaints many people (not just i!) have with sbb can be reduced to "representation and respect" rather than observations about the politics that informed its writing, but even if we grant this: why would anyone recommend a book that they agree is wildly inadequate by contemporary standards as first-line reading for lesbians? if there is such a failure to "align" with "today's understanding", what on earth makes it the go-to introductory text that it is so often shilled as? better to give it an honest elevator pitch—it is a semi-autobiographical historical document, with some interesting and compelling things to say but also with all the perspectival limitations that that entails, about one kind of lesbian experience in a few parts of the usa in one part of the 20th century.
#ask answer#i'm not even gonna publish the other ask because#calling me “babe” in the same breath that you suggest i can't do math is so comically transmisogynistic#that if you have arrived at this point in defense of a book by a tme person i can only prescribe greater self awareness#as for the actual claim raised in the other ask#i'm sorry that it doesn't register as very instrumentally violent to u when one of the few deaths written in the book#is of a Black character doing suicide-by-gun#like just genuinely sorry that this is your outlook simply because the white pov character also suffers
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if you are someone like me who has trouble processing life events/mental health stuff create an oc. like. make a guy who's entire story is yours, who knows every inch of your suffering b/c they are you but maybe all their troubles stem from being in an intergalactic war with goob noobs or something. hurt them in terrible ways so that you dont hurt yourself.
#spacie spoinks#fiction is a good way to explore things that are difficult to deal with i do it all the time with my ocs!!#i mean this wont work for everyone#but making an oc who i just constantly take my pain and suffering out on#is something i find very cathartic#also hes not real!!#i made him up!!#hes like just a vessel for my own suffering#a copy of me and what i think i deserve#but will never actually give myself#yk?#also yes make the character you essentially but also keep a certain distance from them in your mind so#that you know that they are you but not *entirely*#its a really hard thing for me to explain#but when i think about my self harm oc i feel bad for him#b/c hes me and we share the same story but different circumstances#hes me but also his own person#and when i think about what hes gone thru i feel sad and sympathetic#and so i end up feeling that way about me too#b/c we didnt deserve 2 go thru any of it#especially good for suicidal ideation#which is something i struggle with a lot
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i saw the tv glow is legitimately one of the stupidest, most tryhard movies i've ever seen in my entire life. absolute dogshit. and everyone is pretending it's the most lifechanging thing they've ever seen LOL give me a break! the gall to claim this is inspired by fucking DAVID LYNCH??? i can't
#fake 'deep' shit for ppl who watch steven universe every day#i truly didnt relate to anything onscreen despite it being sooo aimed at me in so many ways.#i'm also convinced the director is racist and ofc after reading hundreds of reviews. Not One mentions#the main character's race or the alienation of being mixed......... um.#i think people are getting Very Very Dumb overall.#and it;s no coincidence that prior to being embraced by actual trans ppl all i saw was a million NON TRANS ppl falling all over themselves#to be like OOOOOMGGGGG THIS IS THEEEEEEEE TRANS EXPERIENCE COMMITTED TO FILM!!!!1!!!#like god thank you so much for speaking on something you know nothing about !!!! <3#anyway the movie glorifies suicide more than pretty much anything ive ever heard of (including 13 reasons why)#and paints transness as Killing the Old Self. what a bleak and brutal thing to put onscreen and then CLAIM IS POSITIVE????#if this is aimed at kids (not sure if it rly is but it certainly would appeal to them and has the emotional maturity of a 14 yr old) then#its 100% going to inspire suicidal or self-injurious behavior. and it's insane and reckless as a filmmaker to craft this supposedly hauntin#and supposedly beautiful narrative where THE most important step is FUCKING KILLING YOURSELF. it's self hatred at the deepest level.#if anyone wants to shit talk this director with me lmk because that Worlds Fair movie is also some of the worst TRASH ive ever watched!!!#Amy Nicholson was spot-on abt it as always tho so i was vindicated by that
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oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT
oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.
SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)
so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!
so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.
the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!
now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.
here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.
but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.
so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.
anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.
#using the tags as a footnote system here but in order:#1. quentin MAY not be dead according to some theories but in the text he is a charred corpse#2. arianne is great and i love her but to be honest. my girl is kinda dumb. just 2 b real.#3. faegon is totally a blackfyre i think it's so obvious it may well be text at this point#it's almost r+l = j level man like it's kind of just reading comprehension at this point#4. relatedly there are some characters i think GRRM has endings picked out for and some i think he specifically does NOT#i think stannis melisandre jon and daenerys all will end up the same. jon and dany war crimes => murder/banishment arc is just classic GRRM#but i think jon's reasoning will be different and it'll be better-written.#im sorry but babygirl shireen IS getting flambeed. in response stannis will commit epic battle suicide killing all boltons i hope#brienne will live but in some tragic 'stay awhile horatio' capacity. likely she will try to die defending her liege and fail#faegon will die there's zero chance blackfyres win ever#now jaime/cersei I do NOT think he knows. my brothers in christ i don't think this motherfucker knows who the valonqar is!!#same with tyrion i think that the author in GRRM wants to do a nasty corruption arc + kill him off but the person in him loves him too much#sansa i have no goddamn idea what's going to happen. we just don't know enough about the northern conspiracy to tell#w/ arya i think he has... ideas. i don't think she's going to sail off to Explore i am almost certain that the show doing that was a cover#because the actual idea he gave them was unsavory or nonviable for some reason. bc like.#why would arya leave bran and jon and sansa? the family she's just spent her whole life fighting to come back to and avenge?#this is suspicious this does not feel like arya this does not feel right#bran will not be king or if he is it'll be in a VERY different way not the dumbfuck 'let's vote' bullshit#i personally think bran is going to go full corruption arc and become possessed by the 3 eyed raven. but that could be a pipe dream#the thing is he's way too OP in the show so the books have to nerf him and i think GRRM is still trying to work out#a way to actually do that.#i don't think he told them what happened with littlefinger or sansa. i think sansa's story is vaguely similar#(stark restoration through the female line etc)#but the queen in the north shit is way too contrived frankly. and selfishly i hope she gets something different#being a monarch in ASOIAF is not a happy ending. we know this from the moment we meet robert baratheon in AGOT#and we learn exactly what GRRM thinks of the people who 'win' these endless wars of succession#and they are not heroes#they are not celebrated#and they are neither safe nor happy
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This 70s pulp fiction book I picked up off the street awhile ago that had cigarette ads in the middle printed on higher quality paper than the actual book lol
#I read like 3/4s of it then put it in a little free library. it was really funny#hannah is talking#wiki describes this series/character as ‘one of many American James Bond clones’ but he was surprisingly way less racist and misogynistic#than Bond lol. way more miserable though. all this guy does is shoot people and cuss and smoke and then ideate suicide. and then decide he#actually wants to continue living for the thrill of shooting people and cussing and smoking
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A scene from Chapter 6 of "Haunting My Own Skin," written by @kirii-kitten
Here's a few warnings for the fic, read the tags on ao3 and read at your own discretion:
TWs: Suicide, Major Character Death, Alcoholism
#mp100#mob psycho 100#mob#kageyama shigeo#serizawa katsuya#reigen arataka#ekubo#dimple#tome kurata#comic#angst#tw suicide#tw alchoholism#tw major character death#i actually also wanted to draw the hug scene from the same chapter#i just think it would be fun to do so#but that will have to wait :)#ksjsksk ANYWAYS UH BYE#tws are for the fic the art has no mention of them
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i get so disappointed thinking about how close ff was to having another revolutionary female character with jill but they just had to fuck it up by taking away damn near all her plot relevance and screentime once her revenge arc finished 😭
#they benched one of the coolest characters and for what!!!#major spoilers in the tags for anyone who hasnt finished the game but#jill's arc about her killing her abuser was fantastic but the moment she kissed clive its like the devs stopped caring about her#excluding her from the final fight when she'd been right by clive's side since almost the beginning is so lame like actually#and excusing it by saying that she couldnt call on shiva anymore when dion was clearly still able to do summon bahamut was just. urgh. why#just bc doing so wouldve been dangerous and likely led to her death? as if clive and joshua werent obviously going on a suicide mission anw#i wouldve preferred for her to be present and dying with clive side by side on that beach as opposed to leaving her out of it completely#wildest part is she wouldve preferred that too but its like her agency just diminished after her arc#omg and it wouldve tied in so perfectly together with the whole thing about them watching the moon together uuurgghghghfggfhfgh#i cant believe the devs missed that opportunity just to leave her out of it like that#nothing is more annoying than a female character with potential getting the short end of the stick out of nowhere#final fantasy xvi#jill warrick#ff16 spoilers#ive been too spoiled with xiii ive got standards now
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lumax as a premature relationship
first: I don't mean any of this like "the show shouldn't have done it". what I mean is that with lumax, ST is telling the story of a relationship whose flaw (if it can be summarized into just one) is that it happened too soon.
probably out of comparison to milkvan, and the delay of canon byler, lumax gets lauded as the wholesome ship based on true friendship that slowly blossomed into romance. but that's not accurate. Lucas is a good friend to Max, but Max isn't to Lucas, and it certainly wasn't slow.
even platonic lumax should've been a slow simmer but was a speed run
the newly-introduced Max has high walls, which suggests anyone who wants to get close to her will have to take a slow approach. but then before you know it, Lucas is just kinda. in there.
yes, it takes him most of the season to earn Max's trust, which sounds long, but isn't. the first time Lucas and Max ever spoke was Halloween, Wednesday. the arcade I think is Saturday, and the junkyard is the day after that? so she broaches the darkest subject in her life... 4 days after meeting him. with like. zero prompting. "that fog looks cool! btw my parents are divorced and..."
Max's walls are only so high because of how badly she wants to let someone in, so it's understandable that the right person could get in relatively fast. I have no problem with that trope. sucker, in fact. but opening up here was CRAZY for someone with huge trust issues:
you have to be careful who you confide in about abuse because if your confidant mishandles it so that your abuser finds out you told, things could get MUCH worse. she simply doesn't know Lucas well enough to know he won't accidentally put her in more danger (which actually he already did: by following her out of the arcade after she said not to, and again by showing up at her house).
this talk was moments before Max saw a demodog, meaning she's gone along with the supernatural story without any evidence. I'm not criticizing that; she's a kid who likes fantasy, wants friends really bad, and isn't above playing make-believe in order to be included. what bothers me is she confided in Lucas about her abuse BEFORE seeing a shred of proof this entire outing wasn't the elaborate prank she feared it was. in the infinitely more realistic scenario that these boys are just messing with her, and will ditch her after they've had their laugh, this could so easily have led to a much darker situation at home.
the timing of that conversation was so objectively, stupidly unsafe that I'd call it bad writing if it was an isolated incident. but, self-preservation instincts so terrible they can sometimes be better explained as elf-sabotage - that's just classic Max.
romantic lumax seemed kind of forced because as a new kid in town, all Max wanted was friendship
the snow ball is about a month after everything else. Max and Lucas don't seem to be a couple yet. it doesn't even look like they're dates. so to kiss him suddenly felt like another jump way ahead. he sure looked surprised.
I guess a month is a while when you're 13, but the romantic aspect felt rushed to me because the whole season is full of indications that Max only wanted friendship. and that's made super clear by her constant focus on group friendship. her dialogue throughout 2 is consistently group-oriented.
her behavior is too: as of Halloween, Max has Lucas and Dustin in her pocket. if she's crushing on Lucas, or enjoys attention from boys in general, why on earth would she go out on such a limb seeking Mike's acceptance after she already has what she wants?
because that's not what she wants most. she wants to belong to the whole group, like she keeps saying. (I'm going to ramble much more about this theme in another post soon)
Max continues to prioritize friendship / group activities even after lumax becomes a thing
a few examples:
lumax's idea of "romantic time" can include their friends, in contrast to milkvan prioritizing alone time.
Max (and Lucas) drop 1 on 1 time (washing out his eyes is a scene that's an easy kiss opportunity for your standard tv teen couple) in favor of a long trek in the sun to build a radio tower so Dustin can talk to a girl she doesn't believe exists. Max and Lucas do skip off together, but again in contrast to El and Mike who leave early to make out, they only leave because it's time to go home.
^that's the same Max who tagged along and earnestly participated in armoring up a junked schoolbus to fight monsters without any proof.
despite downsizing for trailer living, she kept the Michael Myers mask in memory of the first night she felt like a part of the party.
unlike others who yell for their loved one from the UD, Max calls out for Lucas and Dustin.
her life-saving montage includes many platonic as well as romantic moments.
alright killjoy, if Max only wanted friendship, how's it make sense that SHE initiated all the romantic stuff?
ST is not a universe where grabbing someone's hand in a tense moment is necessarily an indicator of romance. Dustin said he could feel "the electricity" when Lucas and Max held hands on the bus, but then, Dustin also ships stobin.
the kiss, I could actually come closest to calling a writing misstep because.. it wasn't written. it feels forced because it was, as a last-minute unscripted thing - not because the Duffers decided it fit Max's characterization, but purely because they thought it was funny how uncomfortable Sadie was with filming her first kiss. <- this interview is actually so gross.
but, that kiss is canon regardless of how I feel about bts lore, and it fits and it works in the sense that this is the story of a flawed relationship. Max initiated it despite not being ready for it, simply because she thought she was.
Max's childhood fears about bad relationships have made her overeager to prove a good relationship can exist. so the first time a boy is actually kind to her, she's like OH SEE LOVE IS REAL I DONT HAVE TO GROW UP TO BE MY MOM LET'S GOOOO and hurls herself into something she's not mature enough to realize she's too immature to execute well.
if that kiss was so misguided, how's it still Max's happiest memory?
there's no conflict there.
she grew up around terrible relationships and probably feared she was destined for the same, so to find a nice boy like Lucas must have given her such incredible relief and hope. in her young mind, that dance was her happily ever after. you never forget how good a moment like that felt, regardless of how well reality lived up to it.
that said. can I point out that reality hasn't lived up to it?
Max choosing the moment lumax began, as opposed to any moment from the year-and-change of its actual contents... might be less good the more you think about it. like. she doesn't describe this as her favorite memory. she says it's the time she was happiest. in other words, she hasn't been as happy before or since.
that kiss marked lumax's moment of greatest potential, which I think is what made Max so happy. not the relationship she's actually gotten so far.
mmkay and then what do I do about the fact Max STILL wants to date Lucas?
once again, Max is the one who makes things overtly romantic by doodling a picture of them holding hands. but as you may know from my recent lumax diatribe, I don't see how the ship is seaworthy at present.
so the top layer of my interpretation is that Max is still operating under the same ideas that caused her to kiss Lucas in the first place. she's not thinking about how it'll work; she just wants. this is fast-forward Max again. it's a similar moment of hope to the snow ball kiss. romance with Lucas once again looks like her lifeline out of an awful situation.
the layer underneath that is less fluffy:
Max might've accepted this invite in as much an "I might die tonight so it won't hurt to make some lighthearted plans for the future, he did just save my life so why hurt his feelings for no reason" way as anything else. I don't mean her affection is fake. she just might consider the movie date a pipe dream.
consider that her attic monologue happens only a couple minutes after the doodle, and shows that her suicidal ideations are barely behind her. like, the wanting-to-die part is just bait at this point I think, but the deserving-to-die sentiment still feels fresh and sincere.
consider that Max so recently scolded Lucas for assuring her things would work out because that's "never true" in her life... and now here she is drawing a doodle of things working out.
sure, this could be a girl who's thinking "yes!!! ✅ Attending Event! I genuinely expect to be alive, deserving of love, and in the mood for romance this Friday!" but to me, it honestly seems more like a girl thinking "God, I wish."
btw the doodle would've been perfect as the advent of romantic lumax, imo
if lumax had grown slowly out of a healthy mutual friendship, Max really could be ready right here.
imagine: s2, Max earns her place in the party, but to grow especially close friends with Lucas takes a year; the bus talk happens in s3. we can tell their friendship is starting to want to become more. depression interferes in s4. but their bond helps pierce the fog, and they protect each other from Vecna/Jason.
you hit me with the movie doodle after THAT buildup? adorable, precious, showstopping. at that point, that date could've been their happily ever after. <- this is what people think it is already!
lumax is one of many flawed relationships (and that's okay)
another sign that lumax is supposed to be flawed is its place in the larger pattern of flawed relationships: parallels with other characters and ships.
Max and El in particular share a similar stumble into their relationships: both bond with the first boy to treat them with kindness, and throw themselves into a relationship that actually costs them the friendship they should've had with that boy.
and all the party relationships illustrate different friendship/romance progressions:
lumax is the story of a romance that should've been a friendship first/also and isn't going to succeed til it gets this right
byler will be the story of a romance that was a friendship first and will succeed by remaining one also (or so the themes and patterns suggest)
mileven is the story of a romance that should've been a friendship instead.
literally all of ST's relationships, including the endgame romances, have flaws that are intentional and meant to be explored. in fact that's like... most of what the show is. and most fans can readily admit that about all of them, until they get to lumax, which they think is uniquely meant to be perfect and is flawed only in its writing. this view strips lumax from its broader context and ignores many lessons it's there to teach us about ST's overarching themes.
understand: my aim in pointing out lumax's flaws is not to persuade anyone to enjoy it less or stop shipping it!
flaws don't mean you aren't allowed to like a thing. if anything, it makes them way more interesting to discuss, and more compelling to root for/against. we don't have to pretend our characters are perfect in order to enjoy, ship, and learn from them.
more on all this coming soon in another post exploring different types of love in the Max plot!
#lowkey lumax is getting away scot-free with credit for work only byler has done#givehimthemedicine analysis#max mayfield#lumax#tw suicide#character analysis#take your blorbos and ships off the pedestal and acknowledge their flaws... for the first time in your life you will be free#an actually perfect relationship would be so boring they wouldn't put it on tv
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was reading the original saw script and:
WHAT THE FUCK THIS HURTS MORE THAN THE LINE THEY WENT WITH
#lawrence ‘you wanted to die’ gordon count your fucking days#glad that they made his character kind of more empathetic in the actual film#even if his lack of that was why he was in the trap in the first place#genuinely if they’d kept adam being suicidal in the film i don’t think i would’ve been able to cope#saw#saw franchise#adam stanheight#lawrence gordon#chainshipping
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My post about Anya is making like a little ruckus on Twitter and I think it’s crazy how many people like have a problem with it.
Like you don’t have to agree with how I characterize Anya and her actions but it’s more like, why are you focused on only one aspect of her character? Why are you removing nuance from the situation? I don’t see it as giving Curly the benefit of the doubt when it comes to doing better for Anya, but as exploring his character and hers relationship with a the very little authentic facts we get about them. In truth, there’s a lot more I wish Curly did, even if it wasn’t pragmatic but I realize the issue there.
The first psychological horror game in a while that’s real intricate in its storytelling and makes you need to really need to address the morality of intentions and its already getting torn asunder smh 😔
#I don’t know if it’s the case of people who hate curly and think he should’ve just killed Jimmy won’t accept anything else#but I really am trying to get the idea that they were stuck for over a year in space together on a ship barely kept together with wildly#different and conflicting personalities who also got more hostile because they know they are going home to unemployment#it sounds heartless to say and he should have prioritized her more but in his head that’s not the only thing he has to manage and he has to#fit the necessary actions to take in his head with all that including his perception of them as a friend vs as a boss#idk I just don’t believe Curly was comforting Jimmy with the intent of helping him get rid of Anya. he wanted to help both of them he went#about it horribly like the game is literally about realizing how misguided you can be and that responsibility#and how to be responsible look different even if there are better options like it’s just weird just block my ass dawg#also I think the argument of how could the situation be worse if he stopped Jimmy is stupid cause it’s under the guise that Curly would#assume someone he trusted would just try and commit murder suicide or he’d get degloved and all his crew directly#or indirectly killed by that friend like sorry if that’s a reach statement like adding#your supplementary thoughts is how analysis is born but adding facts about events we don’t know happened and treating them like character#truths is lame is a cop out from actually engaging with parts of the story that adds grey areas to characters you wants to see in black#this is just a stupid like thing to me but it makes me sad cause I don’t even hate seeing depictions of Curly as more aware and#accommodating to Jimmy purposely but I need you to understand he thought he was doing the right thing for both his friends and his closest#friend but the key point is he thought he was doing right for both of them like what game were we both watching???#mouthwashing#like just block me pls like Anya would not share ur mindset or hold ur hand like do more than just pity her if you like her so much
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excuse me for a second. *picks up cynical sci-fi men whose optimism was crushed by the injustices of the universe and snorts them like heroin*
#personal crap#star wars#han solo#red dwarf#dave lister#cowboy bebop#spike spiegel#trigun#nicolas d wolfwood#doctor who#ninth doctor#cyberpunk edgerunners#david martinez#feel free to add more these are just some of my personal faves#the best part is most of these series have at least a couple of other characters like that these are just my favourites#actually the best part is technically steven is this by the end of su i just didn't include him bc he doesn't fit the aesthetic too well xD#also sidenote but it's funny how lister is accidentally a parody of this bc so many sci-fi protagonists are cynical about the universe#and it makes them like. self-centred or suicidal but lister just got class consciousness and a sense of humour out of it
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The majority of sejanus analysis I see falls into this trap of simply critizing characters for not being completely rational actors which happens a lot with media analysis. Think "they both could have fit on the door!" brand of almost cinema sins-esq story analysis.
Which I could get into how I absolutely hate that style of media critique because it so often boils to asking "why is this story happening at all!?"
"Why does gothel keep Rapunzel so close to her kingdom why not run away to a different country" because then this story wouldn't be happening at all, man. I don't know what to tell you.
But to keep this focused on Sejanus and how so much criticism is just "he's too irrational" I think miss completely miss the mark. Obviously I think there's a lot of misinterpretation of characters (their motivations, emotions, intent and so on) due to Coriolanus beings an incredibly unreliable narrator, and people tend to just skim over how young and vulnerable Sejanus is. (He is 17-18 and actively suicidal to say the least.)
But Sejanus isn't irrational, or well, he is, but no more than anyone else in the story. I often see "he should have changed the system from within" as a critique for his character, and sure you can absolutely think that. But the issue wasn't he wasn't thinking ahead or that he was just too emotional and irrational to see the merit in that. Thinking he couldn't understand the value of playing along fundamentally misses what asking to play the long con is asking Sejanus to do.
He would have to stomach going along with the games, staying silent, working in a city with slaves, and watching every year as children get massacred. Asking him to wait it out until he has enough power is asking him to not just stomach capitol cruelty but actively participate within it. Sejanus doesn't make choices out of just pure emotion but a sense of right and wrong. He is a character completely guided by his morals, and one that is constantly punished because of it. People say "He should have used his money to change things" He tried to, in the story, explicitly. And Coriolanus killed him for it.
Yes, using only his morals as a guiding light resulted in his death. Yes, if he played along he might have been able to change things for the better. But what it really comes down to is this, Sejanus refused to play the capitol's game, refused to let them make him something he's not. And he died for it. Kind of reminds you of another character in the franchise huh.
#:v#sejanus plinth#tbosas#SEJANUS WAS AN INNOCENT!#and here's the thing you can think he's stupid for that!! But think he's stupid for what he actually did#and this isn't really getting into the just absolute mind numbing horror of the situation sejanus is in#like he's forced to become a cop.#he's literally forced to brutalize the people he desperately wants to help.#he's also actively suicidal! which I touch on but it really is a huge aspect of his character#he is desperate and cornered and can't let himself play along#even for a moment#and sure maybe he's stupid for that#but he died as himself and not something the capitol made him into and there's something righteous in that I think#nothing you can take from me and all that
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