#does not help that i have an existing character that would fit this mold incredibly well

[lumaspin]

@ur tags in the zombie reblog: REAL im obsessed, someoen needs to write a story with this

it’s the combination of so many things for me. you got the implied religious trauma. you’ve got innocence that isn’t a lack of capability. you’ve got a character who refuses to give up hope no matter what. you’ve got that childish wonder from someone who’s seeing it all with fresh eyes. you’ve got a true survivor who is ready to make hard decisions and have it truly be in the best interest of everyone. idk idk man it’s everything to me. i don’t even normally do zombie apocalypse media but ohhh my god

[neomedievalist]

as someone who hasnt experienced fate route yet it is really astonishing just how similar shirou and saber are. this is just going to be a general post of my thoughts so far with just random comments not really a thesis or anything, i have many thoughts of running themes to analyze that i want to do justice once ive finished the whole thing, so look forward to that.

ive said before the interpersonal conflict in fate is one of my favourite things about it. it is so incredibly realistic and emotionally moving every time even when its insignificant. every time characters argue you see where theyre coming from and what made them think that way and how theyre projecting and assuming things about the other. every single time anyone in fate says anything they are saying that because of 10 years of built up regrets and trauma and projection and avoidance and assumptions and it just leads to the biggest interpersonal mess in existence and i love it. one thing that is excruciatingly clear in fate route is shirou's hypocrisy. from his forced sexism (i'll probably make a whole post analysing this, which is probably really funny to someone who doesnt know fate, but i genuinely find it fascinating) to his whole ordeal of trying to protect saber. no one can have a satsifying argument with shirou because they refuse to believe he truly is that fucked up inside, and he never accepts what they say because he doesn't think he's capable of change. on the other hand, saber is in a similar position. i'm so glad i finished watching zero before this because WOW. you can see kiritsugu in her every action and how she overlays the image of him over shirou in every instance and is both pleasantly surprised and deeply disturbed with what he became...

saber saying this trying to make sense of his actions psychologically but also push the spectre of kiritsugu on him but also projecting her own regrets about the way the 4th grail war ended but also her own desire to see that never repeated again because of HER guilt over HER actions and her frustration at kiritsugu and not being able to tell him about it and then shirou in response hits us with THIS WHAMMY

and naturally. saber does not know how to react to that.

no one likes to hear "you are irreparably fucked up!" the thing is is that the wording really. i couldnt help but be reminded of

i find this so fascinating. the two characters who've done the deepest digs at shirou's character and saw through him the most were the ones that knew kiritsugu personally. not only that, but the ones that were directly present at the grail fire that shapes his entire being.

this bit was so fascinating to me. of course this gets resolved with the threesome, lol, but shirous conflict over having saber kill someone is so. this is the first time you can really see him disregard kiritsugu's utilitarianism. he doesnt even consider it or weigh the lives, its literally not an equation that goes off in his brain. he does not work like that but hes still forcing himself to fit in a mold that was not made for him. it goes without saying that kiritsugu would not have hesitated to make saber kill someone to restore her mana, as she is just a tool to be used first of all, and a tool must be in top working order, but also all deaths are insignificant when weighed against the lives saved by him winning the grail. saber KNOWS this and she is CONSTANTLY thinking about this while weighing shirous motives

weigh that against this. he says similar things all the way through the story but this one is astonishingly blatant. he is still weighing the cost of lives in his head but the scales are always tipped to make himself insignificant as if that would mean atoning somehow or making things right. ill get into this much later when i end up finishing reading ubw lol i have so fucking much to say about his self sacrificial tendencies and how he views himself and his body and the disconnect...

anyway this is just a fraction of what i read today ill make an effort to post more of my thoughts and im sure ill have plenty more once ubw starts

[utilitycaster]

Skill Proficiencies are the Bedrock on Which the Success of a D&D Party Rests, Monks are  a Utility Class, and Other Correct Opinions

This came up when I was thinking about the Cobalt Soul subclass and the discussion thereof, especially the dismissive way in which people sometimes treat the mystical erudition feature. I am also a bard player, in my longest-running game, and I prefer utility classes in general, so I decided to write a whole essay that maybe like 5 people will appreciate, two of whom are in my inbox (thanks for the encouragement, @ayzenigma and @agigabyte and one of whom is me.

In D&D, on a fundamental level, this is what happens:

A DM describes the world

You decide to interact with the world in some way

The DM decides if you automatically can do what you want, if you automatically can’t do what you want, or if there are a range of possible outcomes. If the last option, roll a d20.

The DM narrates what happens when you act or fail to act, ie, describes the new state of the world; the cycle begins anew.

The vast majority of those d20 rolls will be skill checks. Some will be combat rolls, which are a whole other thing, but most will be skill checks. Some will be incredibly important skill checks. Some will be relatively minor. Sometimes you’ll be aware of how important the roll is; sometimes you will not. Spells can sometimes guarantee or improve the chances of a success, as can some class abilities; but those are finite resources, and in the end a lot of D&D is resource management, and many of the choices you make in interaction are going to be influenced by what resources you have left.

Consider: the party comes upon a door with a single lock. The party is D&D four-person-party classic: a mage archetype, a thief archetype, a healer archetype, and a strength-based battler archetype.

The mage can cast knock to open the door. This does guarantee success, but it’s extremely loud and will not only alert anyone nearby but also uses a second level spell slot. They may be able to get around this if they or the healer also casts silence, depending on how you play it*, but that’s either another spell slot gone, or ten minutes wasted.

The battler can, for free, either kick down the door or attack it. This is also going to be very loud unless silence is employed, they might choose to use a finite resource (a once a day weapon ability, a rage) and even if this itself doesn’t alert anyone on its own, the big hole where a door should have been, or even the smashed keyhole, probably will.

The thief can, for free, pick the lock. Assuming they are specifically a rogue, because of their class build there is a very high chance of success, and specifically a high chance of quick, quiet, secret success even without additional help. And if they fail, well, the other options still exist and only a small amount of time has been lost.

Things like a single rage, or a second level spell slot, don’t seem like much on their own, but that is the other thing about D&D: usually you go to bed with some things left in the tank, but occasionally you do not, and as the resources get into the red line it is not terribly difficult to get into a death spiral of throwing your limited resources at a problem too large to be solved by them. When you’re in a game where, mechanically, there is no difference between having 100 hit points left and having 1 hit point left, but there is a vast chasm between having 1 left and having none, that extra second level slot worth of healing or damage can mean everything.

Or: at levels 5 through 8, with a cleric, the difference between an ally’s life and potentially permanent death is whether the cleric is left standing with one third level spell slot at the end of a battle.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t use spell slots to achieve things, especially if they’re important; just that there’s a balance, and sometimes a single good thieves’ tools check, investigation check, or persuasion check makes just as much of a difference in terms of the party’s success as a high level spell, even though it’s far less flashy.

The game designers realize this. Older versions had the idea of taking ten: if time is not of the essence and there is no significant penalty for failure, you could take ten and guarantee an average job (which does still require some skill proficiency to take that assumed roll of ten to “pretty good”). This still remains in 5e in the form of passive checks. It’s a core element of the rogue and bard classes that they are people who are highly skilled - both have more skills than most classes and access to expertise, which significantly increases their proficiency bonuses and therefore reduces the chance of failure - and both have additional class features that either improve the breadth (jack of all trades for bards granting them partial proficiency in everything) or depth (reliable talent for rogues granting them a guaranteed average job) of those skills. Frequently, and especially for bards, this is not seen as a significant help, possibly because it rarely comes up in combat. This is wrong.

Here’s the thing: combat takes a long time at the table but in terms of what the party is doing, two minutes of combat a day (20 rounds, total) would be considered an incredibly difficult day. The rest of the time, you’re not in combat.

Here’s the other thing: how did that combat happen? Did it happen because someone failed a check - that a better stealth roll or deception check, perhaps made by someone with expertise in one of those two areas, could have prevented? Or if this conflict was inevitable or necessary, was the party able to use that stealth or deception to get a surprise round? Investigation, nature, arcana, or history to know a little bit more in advance about what they’re about to face? Perception or survival to even find the enemy they need to stop? Persuasion to gain an ally? All of these can make the difference between a success and a failure.

When you come to the end of a long-running D&D game, you will probably think back a lot to combat moments and RP moments, and unless it was one of those few clutch ability checks where you knew how momentous it was at the time you probably won’t think back to the dozens of locks picked without issue, or social encounters navigated with relative ease, but they’re going to be there, and you would have felt the strain without them.

This isn’t limited to skill checks, honestly; it’s a problem with almost all so-called fluff/flavor abilities. It’s interesting, in that the words we use to describe a well-built character are themselves quite neutral in terms of the specific build (min-maxed, optimized) but in practice many people assume these fit into one of two categories: the tank, or the glass cannon. Of course, those are combat-specific abilities, and see above with regards to combat. And maybe you are in a D&D game that is very much about combat and combat only, but if you’re not, that so-called fluff is far too dismissive of utility.

And monks, in particular, are more of a utility class than one would expect. Sure, they get a lot of attacks and they’re sort of tanks of the ‘too fast to hit’ variety and they can stun, but monks are utility in a negative-space sort of way.They don’t need your buffs, and a monk in your party, like a rogue who can pick locks or a bard who can talk their way out of trouble, saves your resources. They are incredibly fast, and don’t need longstrider or jump cast on them. They don’t need feather fall or fly because they run up walls and avoid falling damage. They don’t need to be healed, if they just catch the arrows that were shot and evade the area of effect spell; they don’t need a magic weapon (or any weapon); they don’t need a restoration to end effects, they don’t need protection from poison or disease, they save you the need to cast comprehend languages or tongues, they’re less likely to need a buff to help them save against other effects, eventually they don’t even need food or water. A monk, like a skill check, helps the party by saving finite resources. The Cobalt Soul build merely makes it a little more literal by granting the monk themselves the ability to make those skill checks.

In conclusion: skill checks are cantrips that everyone gets, and if a class got 8 cantrips when most others got 4, and they had an extra bonus to hit, you’d absolutely notice.

*per a quick search it’s up for debate based on the ranges of the respective spells and whether the lock needs to ‘hear’ the spell or not and anyway if this is what you choose to fixate on in this essay I cannot stress this enough: you have the reading comprehension of a slime mold and the sense of relevance of a Republican congressperson.

[lunaticsandidiots]

God, the people claiming Adrian as allistic/neurotypical.... I got my results from an empathy quotient the other day (as part of the ASD screening process) , and positivity online about Adrian is one of the things that helped me when I started downing myself. idk, maybe its a lil weird to be completely comforted by this fictional 'superhero' being incredibly similar to you, and seeing people heap love on them. But it helps, and I feel like that's what matters.

Representation is important, even if it doesn't first seem like "good" representation to some people.

-🍃

not weird at all dude, thats literally why this blog exists.

it exists because i do have a hard time getting close to and being accepted by (and even just finding) people BECAUSE of the way my autism displays itself. so the way i comfort myself is by writing about all the interactions i would love to have, and usually its about characters i can relate to. on the inside i am a highly sensitive, highly emotional, highly affectionate person. but just like adrian, i can barely even supportively pat someone on the shoulder. it makes 0 sense to me and feels so foreign so i express my affection in other ways.

so here comes along adrian, who does this very thing (hes just like me fr), and so many people take to him and he gets all this love online and its all just so wonderful and reassuring to see people liking him because of those very traits i was raised to feel ashamed for and mask. and then people try to erase it, like its a bad thing to be neurodivergent. like its a negative trait. like its a character flaw that’s wrong, that needs to be fixed.

its none of those things. its not in the least. we deserve representation. as a society we need to stop trying to fit every single thing we like into a little allistic cookie cutter mold. truly, if reading my last post made anyone feel weird, it might be a sign that you need to go inwards and do some reflecting. its okay if your love language is words of affirmation or physical affection. its just not going to be everyone else’s, for whatever reason that may be.

[edda-blattfe]

Thoughts on OC Background?

I’m having trouble choosing a backstory for Blue and the my other ocs by extension. I’ve got a few ideas and no clue which ones the best. Subject is wide open for discussion, please don’t be afraid to offer other suggestions or give criticism where there could be an issue.

Prototype #1. - “Ancient Rivalry”

- Old Lady Blue

- In this version she’s like Malleus and Lilia; old af but looks ridiculously youthful and can totally pass as a highschool student.

- She and Mal-Mal are natural rivals due to the nature’s of their magical abilities (light vs. dark trope). Since he’s so powerful the fairy council were concerned by his decision to attend NRC, and so assigned the one fairie with a chance of taking him down if it really came down to it.

- The only problem is that Mal and Lilia aren’t doing anything that even resembles red flags. The ever energetic Blue steadily grows bored of the classes and simply watching her charges from a distance. Quite probably the reason she likes Rook and the more chaotic students.

- Ends up being way more mischievous and prone to swapping between childish actions and overly mature ones. Still sweet and motherly, just also comes off as pent up.

- Would props be a third year.

- No clue how Pennly would fit in. I guess he could be an adult in this version?

- Issues I have are the incredible age gap between her and the other students, her being “the light” and Mal the rival “darkness” is so flipping cliche it’s grinding, very little room for character development since she probably figured all of that out a loooong time ago, can easily be foiled by official lore.

- Can probably cut out the rivalry part, but then she’s just a slightly kooky but very doting grandma-in-a-baby’s-body who’s only real goal is to bug the hell out of Malleus. A little too much like Lilia imo.

Prototype #2. - “Runaway from Destiny”

- If the great 7 are believed to have reincarnated, is it not the possible for a powerful fairy to as well? Already kinda assumed this was the case, but in this version the fairy court is highly aware of the occurrence.

- After the passing of the og Blue Fairy the fairies searched far and wide for her successor as the youngling would inherit her abilities. They did, and immediately took custody of the little one. Every second of every day was used as training for the little girl’s mind and magic abilities. They never allowed her to leave the court without an escort, nor was she permitted to leave her room during visits from foreign visitors to keep her secret.

- I had this incredibly aweful idea that Malleus was the one who murdered the og Blue Fairy as part of his great plan, whatever that may be, because she was op and could’ve totally whooped his reincarnated baby ass in a “fair fight”. This would explain why the fairies are so protective of little Blue, they don’t want Mal to know she lives.

- Another aweful thought: the fairy court murdered the og Blue Fairy so they could mold her successor into their perfect little doll and use her as a weapon against Malleus.

- Either way, Blue escapes, lives with Jim-Peter and Pennly (after she gave him life) for a little while before going to NRC. Because the last place your “allies” would look for you is where your “natural enemy” lives.

- Pennly calls her big sister (oneesan), not mother. That dynamic has gotta change!

- Could actually fit in any year with this backstory.

- Upside: a lot of room for character development, isn’t op, being around only Fae for so long could make her interactions with humans more interesting particularly when she’s pretending to be one, Pennly and Jim-Peter visit the school on family day ☺️

- Downside: suggests that the Blue Fairy was an important figure in this world which can be easily disproven depending on the lore of the game, ngl getting Disney Princess vibes from backstory dunno if I like that or not, her general kindness could come off as naivety instead of nature because of her youth and being cooped up in one place throughout her childhood, the whole “I’m being hunted down by my own kind” thing kinda sets Malleus, Rook, or any friend/potential love interest up to play hero and I’m not too fond of that (again, Disney)

Prototype #3. - "Stick with what's there"

- Basically what I already have written, except that Blue is high school aged, Jim-Peter (twisted Gepeto) is alive and well, Pennly is more like a little brother than a son, and she's slightly less mature.

- Pros: I don't have to rewrite anything.

- Con: Idk, what I have written seems kinda bland as a backstory.

Thoughts that I'm trying to keep in mind that might help with development:

- If the students are following a villain-centric point of view, then it's quite possible the blue fairy is viewed negatively, possibly in the way of a trouble maker considering the events that conspire after her gifts are given. In this case I've assumed that the fairy court does not share this point of view.

- Pennly exists in all cases, this is law.

- Tanner Bellman still gets to the school...somehow.

- She and Rook are still playing their little game, no worries there.

Any thoughts?

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

Psycho: The Characters

Perhaps one of the oddest things about Psycho is that there is no real, clear protagonist throughout the film.  As such, it can seem like the audience has nobody with which to really ‘see through’ and sympathize with.

Storytelling 101 will tell you that that’s a terrible idea.

Somehow, though, it worked for Psycho.

Psycho is seemingly a story without a clear protagonist.  The best candidate for main lead is killed less than fifty minutes into the film, leaving the audience wandering and wondering: who is this about again?

At first, that seems like a serious flaw in the script.  After all, as we’ve mentioned before, the most important part of any story is it’s characters.  It is the characters who catch the audience’s interest, and the emotional investment in a character’s story can make or break even the best (or worst) plots.  For Psycho to ditch the conventional style of investing in a character to see them through to the finish would spell disaster in theory.

However, as I’ve said before, sometimes decisions that seem like bad ideas in theory turn out to be good ones in practice.  After all, for a movie that did characters ‘wrong’, it had no trouble making an icon out of Norman Bates.

But still, the film seems to be a bit unbalanced in terms of characters.  With five main characters (a relatively small cast), not one of them really seems to fit the mold of ‘protagonist’, at least, not on the surface.  I’ll show you what I mean. (Spoilers below!)

Psycho appears to start out with a conventional enough (if morally ambiguous) main character: Marion Crane.  Within the first scene, (after a camera shot that looks in on her through the window, much like Norman would look in on her later) we learn who she is, what she wants, and the obstacles in her way.  We know about her job, her illicit meetings with her boyfriend, Sam, and her desire to marry him, as well as the financial problems that prevent that from happening.  Although we don’t necessarily agree with her actions, we understand them because we understand her.  Her actions, while not morally justified, feel justified

You see, one of the biggest, early shocks in 1960 was that the main character was not a good person.

Marion is a thief, and on top of that, she’s sleeping with someone she’s not married to.  In 1960, this was a big deal.  Add that to the act of stealing $40,000, and we have ourselves a morally grey protagonist.  But there are a few things that prevent her from going entirely over the line.

Marion may be a thief, but she isn’t a murderer.  Again, we are shown her motive for stealing, and though that doesn’t excuse it, it allows the audience to sympathize.  This is the start of Hitchcock’s manipulation of the audience, making us feel sympathy for characters through use of perspective and point of view.  But there’s something else used too:

Marion is an apologetic criminal, almost an anti-hero.  She regrets the wrong things she has done.

It’s even shown early on, after a tryst with Sam.  “This is the last time”, she tells him, expressing her desire to get married, to be a ‘respectable person’.  This serves as an early indication of her later decision, after stealing the money and hiding in the Bates Motel, Marion decides to return the money, feeling guilty for her moment of ‘madness’.  Marion really isn’t a good criminal, she acts guilty from the moment she takes the money, and, in her guilt, changes her mind.  She becomes a good person in the end, right?  Or at least, a less bad one.  She doesn’t deserve to die, does she?

But die she does.

Marion Crane turns out to be a Decoy Protagonist, set up for the sole reason of providing the catalyst for Norman’s killing.  She exists as an excuse for the viewers to become privy to the Bates situation, being the poor, unfortunate first victim,

At first, it seems like she’s the prototype for the idea of Developing Doomed Characters.  Why bring Marion into this at all if you’re going to spend most of the movie focusing on events after her death?  Just to surprise the audience?  Simply to establish her as the catalyst for the mystery?

On the surface, it seems like Marion’s existence is entirely for setup for the mystery.  Her ‘supporting cast’ (her boyfriend and sister) arrive as the detective characters, allowing the audience to uncover the mystery of the horror of the Bates Motel.  She’s nothing more than a Decoy, a way to fool the audience.

Or is she?

Like with all my articles, I do some research into other schools of thought on the films and television shows that I review.  In the case of the place of Marion Crane, I did find a few interesting ideas.  Theories have said that she is there as an object, so we as an audience become voyeurs, or that she exists as a mirror for Norman, slipping into the flipside, the darkness, of his reality.

I put forth a different theory.

Marion Crane exists, not only as a Decoy Protagonist, but as an experiment, a guinea pig, Hitchcock’s first attempt to push the audience slightly over the line, by sympathizing with a person who is morally grey.  She is the warm up, the preparation before she is murdered, replaced with another character that the audience is encouraged to sympathize with: Norman Bates.

My theory?  Marion was testing the audience, pushing them just a little bit to empathize with a not-good person before Hitchcock convinced us to empathize with the villain.

Marion’s story lasts nearly fifty minutes before switching perspectives, focusing on (mostly) Norman for the remainder of the story.  Where Marion’s initial inciting incident is hiding her crime, so is Norman’s, with camerawork and previous characterization utilized against the audience so that we find ourselves hoping they don’t get caught.  In Marion’s case, early on, before the audience is immersed in the story, it’s a more minor crime, setup with a motive so that the audience understands.  In Norman’s, it’s considerably more serious, but the audience finds themselves somewhat on his side, hoping he gets away with it, and that’s before we know the whole story.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about Norman.

At first, Norman seems like a good kid.  He’s mild-mannered, sweet, and shy, helping Marion sign in and even bringing her sandwiches, despite the berating from his mother.  He’s isolated, but he seems to be a cheerful guy, seeing no point in dwelling on the unfortunate things in life.  He is so caring, in fact, that he refuses to leave his abusive mother, saying that she needs him, and that he’s the only thing she has.

It’s a sweet sentiment, but Psycho has the habit of taking all of Norman’s ‘sweetness’ and twisting it around in hindsight.

You see, Norman is not all that he seems.

Norman’s mild-mannered, sweet nature isn’t for show, not exactly anyway.  His personality is intact, but it is smothered, hidden away by the surfacing of another personality: his mother.

Norman Bates has what we’d now call Dissociative Personality Disorder, and as such, has a split personality.  One half of his personality is Norman alright, but the other half is his domineering mother, who he killed ten years previously.

Mrs. Bates is the dominant personality of the two, completely swallowing Norman up to make his life miserable.  In life, she was a stifling nightmare, isolating Norman and making him entirely reliant on her, as well as abusing him.  When she found another man, in a fit of jealousy, Norman killed them both.  Plagued by guilt, Norman dug up the body of his mother, stuffed her (he was interested in taxidermy, remember?) and kept her in the house, literally becoming her at times as the split personality manifested after her death.

And now, he can never be rid of her.

Mrs. Bates shouts at and tears Norman down constantly, being incredibly possessive.  Norman admits to Marion that she’s ‘ill’, and seems to believe it.  He has so thoroughly convinced himself that his mother is still alive that when her personality takes over (and kills people), Norman cleans up the mess, genuinely believing that he is protecting his mother.

In short, even after Mrs. Bates has died, Norman’s life is still not his own.  It revolves entirely around his mother.  And by the end of the story, Norman doesn’t even have half control anymore.  He’s been almost completely wiped away, overpowered entirely by the Mother personality, who by now is more than willing to blame her son for the deaths they’d caused.

It’s hard to tell where Norman ends and his mother begins, and vice versa, because Mrs. Bates has been dead for a decade at the start of the film.  We never see her.  As an audience, we don’t know how much is ‘her’ fault, and how much is Norman’s portrayal of events.  There’s a lot of ambiguity there, and a lot of schools of thought over whether or not Norman is fully responsible for the killings.

Either way, it is Norman Bates who is our protagonist, and the one who takes over after Marion’s death.  But the way he’s placed in that role is very secretly and subtly done.

Like I said, after the audience has gotten used to rooting for a criminal, Hitchcock pulls a fast one on us, killing Marion and encouraging the audience to root for another criminal: The murderer himself.

It’s odd, and a little uncomfortable, to have the main character turn out to be a disturbed killer, but in a way, that’s what adds to the movie’s ‘horror’ factor.  It also seems to be rather on the unconventional side.  After all, as I’ve said in other character articles, the protagonist has to have a goal, a problem, to change throughout the film, and as far as we know…Norman doesn’t.  If anything, he loses himself, completely swallowed up by ‘Mother’.

While Marion had a distinct goal and problem (wanting to marry Sam and stealing the money to do so), Norman’s chief problem seems to be covering up his ‘mother’s’ crimes.  His ‘problem’ appears to be his mother’s control over his life, the ‘cage’ he was born into.  And while that’s true, the story of Norman ends in more tragedy: he is never freed.

But he does change.

Like I said, Norman loses.  He disappears.  His personality is overtaken completely, and ‘Mother’ wins.  

And throughout it all, he is the character the audience learns the most about.

Although we spend only half of a movie with Norman, it is his layers that are peeled away, revealing the secrets behind the Bates family.  Our understanding of him deepens, and so does our connection to the character.  It just so happens that we don’t realize he’s the main character until after the movie is over.

Psycho is a movie about two separate stories that interlap, affecting one another and, yes, in a way, mirroring one another, as Marion’s story starts and ends just before Norman’s does.  While there are no ‘hero’ moments, (naturally) there are wham moments, scenes where the viewer learns more, adding to the connection, and the shock, the viewer has at the end of each story.

Like I said, it’s not exactly Storytelling 101.  But somehow, it does work here, thanks to the vivid performances, clever writing, and genuine connection each character has to the story.

But there’s more to the cast than just Marion and Norman.

During Norman’s half of the story, after Marion has been disposed of and the audience has been introduced to the mystery of Norman Bates, a string of new characters enter the scene: The detective characters.

First up is Lila Crane, Marion’s sister.

In contrast to Marion, we don’t know a whole lot about Lila.

When she enters the scene, it seems natural that the story would switch to her perspective, allowing her to become front and center as the new protagonist.  She does have a problem (trying to find out what happened to Marion), and a drive.  She already has a connection to the story, and, on paper, seems like the perfect candidate for a replacement protagonist.

In practice, however, she comes across a little bit bland.

This is no fault of Vera Miles.  Lila is simply not given much of a meaty part, because she is not the protagonist.  She is simply on the scene to get the rest of the plot moving.  Her desire to find out what happened to Marion (the question that the audience already knows the answer to) pushes the rest of the questions into the light, answering the unknown as well as finding out the truth about Marion.

While at first, Lila seems to chiefly be ‘Not Marion’, just another in a long string of Hitchcock’s victimized blondes, (Most of Hitchcock’s best-known films starred blondes in peril, and he admitted that blondes ‘make the best victims’) she actually does have something to do in the story.  After sending Arbogast after Marion, Lila takes action, showing determination, spirit, and courage by going after Marion’s trail.  In another movie, a more standard horror or mystery even, Lila probably would be the protagonist.  We’d probably be following her story, her detective work as she uncovers the clues to find her sister.  Lila is not an interesting character, not because her character is bland or boring, but because she is not supposed to be the focus.

She is lined up to be another of Norman’s victims, in fact.

Lila’s spirit and intelligence formulate the plan to distract Norman while she goes and finds ‘Mother’.  Through her perspective, the audience discovers the truth about Norman, making her one of the many ‘POV’ characters throughout the story.  While she’s an interesting character in her own right, she merely has the misfortune of being in a different kind of story.  At least she survives, though.

Lila isn’t in this alone.  She teams up with Marion’s boyfriend from the beginning, Sam.

Sam, for all of his impact on the story, doesn’t have a whole lot to do.  

It is his relationship with Marion that kicks off the plot in the first place, his debts and financial troubles that prevents him from marrying Marion.  He is the reason that Marion commits the crime.

Does this make him responsible?  No.  But it does mean that he should affect the story.

And honestly, he kind of doesn’t.

Marion decides to steal the money and surprise him with it, and he remains unaware of what she’s done until much later.  After that, he doesn’t even get to do any detective work, that’s on Arbogast.  In the second half of the film, Norman’s half, he plays second fiddle to Lila’s Nancy Drew, enabling her to poke around and find Mrs. Bates.  He stands on the sidelines, passive to Lila and Marion’s active roles in the narrative, and on top of that, he’s not really good at it when he does get involved.  Sure, he stalls Norman, but then badgers him with super conspicuous questions, tipping Norman off and nearly getting Lila killed.  

Sam is there as a placeholder character, primarily to help kick the plot off and then help Lila, overpowering Norman at the very end before he can kill again.

But hey, at least survives.  Which is more than we can say for Arbogast.

Arbogast is another Decoy Protagonist, showing up just a few minutes after Marion dies.  He’s another fake-out, a private investigator hired by Marion’s boss and his client to try to find out where she’s gone.  He is the first of the detective characters to start investigating, and unfortunately, he never finds out.

Arbogast is a competent detective, cool and professional, tracing Marion to the Bates Motel and questioning Norman.  He definitely thinks there’s something up, but like the audience, suspects that ‘Mrs. Bates’ knows something.

He’s kind of right.

But when he goes back to confirm his hunch, he’s brutally and disorientingly stabbed to death, and hidden, just like Marion, throwing yet another monkey wrench into the audience’s expectations.

There are other characters, but in the grand scheme of the plot, they kind of ‘don’t matter’.  The sheriff, the psychiatrist, the boss, the client, the cop, even the used car salesman, all exist and play their parts, as side characters, largely sidelined.

Despite the fact that the characters in Psycho are very oddly presented, they work very well with the narrative they’ve been given.  The slightly ‘off’ feeling present in both them and their roles in the story perfectly sum up the feeling of ‘uncanny’ that the entire film presents, containing two story arcs in one, with the second somehow more shocking than the first.  It’s an experiment with sympathy, with no true ‘heroes’ to root for, which makes it a rather fascinating study.  

The brilliance of Psycho is keeping the audience off balance by never letting them know whose side they are supposed to be on.  In that sense, we are voyeurs, looking in on the stories of these people, and trying to find out the truth about them.  The movie is a mystery about horror, and the characters within reflect the twists and turns, as well as the scares, within.  It is this unusual setup that has made Norman Bates such an icon of horror villains: not only was he the first of his kind, he remains one of the best.

And protagonists haven’t been safe ever since.

Thank you guys so much for reading!  If you enjoyed it, stick around for more, as we discuss Psycho’s place in the culture of 1960 next time!  Don’t forget that the ask box is always open for questions, suggestions, discussions, or just saying hi.  I hope to see you all in the next article.

[umbillicalnoose]

i think that you would think im pretty and would like my poetry and i want to share it with you. im shy.

to be honest, im very apathetic these days. im not the nice “cutesy baby flower petal boy” i used to be. a lot has happened & im bitter & sullen & all in all, a pretty shitty friend/person to know. i used to possess some redeeming qualities, believe it or not, even if they were construed by the subconscious in an attempt to be likeable - a facade, even tho its only a facade, is still tangible, still there, is still something, even if not authentic. is poorer character forgivable in the name of presenting more authentically? but nah. that makes it sound like im putting effort into being a better person, which im not. im just sort of fried & done. its been a very long time since i played the role i built for myself on here of the “small fawn boy who wants to help girls” lmaooo. how embarrassing. altho, i was just a kid, & i guess, if you had a tumblr as a teenager, you went thru some cringe (i know the use of that word has fallen in on itself & adopted its own definition but for lack of a better one) ass phases, whether it was kinning or malingering mental illness or oh fucking christ, all that gender bullshit, etc etc. from what ive observed, tho, loosely following kids im still casually friends with that i met on here, i think we’ve all managed to Grow The Fuck Up, at least a little. most of us have jobs or r in school or have partners - growing up & moving on is a very surreal experience to watch/go thru. im moving at my own pace & ive accepted that - im still currently using & starving myself & concocting a suicide plan every day but at least i use clean needles as much as possible, i actively & honestly do strive for the bare minimum calorically, & um able to work with the mentality of “well ill have this when i need it but todays not that day” a lot more readily, in relation to suicide shit. ive finally found a therapist who Really Gets It, is a frontrunner internationally on ritual & extreme abuse & mind control. its pretty incredible what a few years with a good therapist can do. anyways. im sorry, i know you didnt ask for all this & im not even sure why i divulged. i guess, what tipped me off, was your attempt at sounsing “cute” - dude, cut that shit out, i promise youll be a lot better off. & i know everyone interchanges aspects of their personality based on who theyre talking to/who they percieve themselves to be talking to, but i feel like not a lot of people give enough credence to the internet & its hand in shaping/molding young people, kids, vulnerable dumbasses, especially tumblr (tho, i get that its a relatively new phenomenon) - u get a bunch of the “weird”, “alternative”, ““ostracized” kids together on a website, of course its gonna nurture a culture of hypervalidatoon & pretending to be sick in order to fit in to the point that its not an act anymore & exacerbation of symptoms & basically, just sucking each others dicks, sitting in ur own shit, & never ending coddling. & then, you have the older group of kids, who have played this game before but instead of helping or ignoring the Dumbshit kids, they indulge their own normally-buried-but-unleashed-by-internet-anonymity sadism/human instinct to just be fucking dicks & so now you have this vicious cycle of anger & hatred & fucking melodrama up the urethra. im sorry, i know im comig off as/am being harsh but god fuckin dammit yknow? also, this isnt directed at you, specifically, more of a generalized thing, @ myself included. so uh. i mean, if u still wanna share it with me after reading all this, id be happy to read ur poetry. i used to be over the top nice & then reverted to Major Asshole & am now trying to find that sweet middle spot - honoring & allowing myself to share my pain without putting it on others. which is really hard!! cuz becoming a Dick was difficult in that it forced me to be more honest with my true self & as such, more vulnerable - now in trying to become Kinda Nice again because despite being a pulsating scrotom, ive had the intense desire for friendship & human interaction, while simultaneously doing things that i was consciously aware was pushing others away - but then, if i pretend to be nice, where does that authenticity i worked for & was so scared of go? & i dont mean telling someone their new haircut looks nice even when it doesnt - thats just not being a dick. but i guess, those r the normal trials & tribulations of any relationship & adolescent developing identity. which is weird too - dealing with “normal” issues, i mean. whats the point if your life/limbs/breaking point arent at risk? whats the point when your best friends already dead. im sick of people calling "survivors” (despise that word, so fucking female-originated & overdramatic) “brave” & “strong” - surviving is not brave or strong. its just survival. you wouldnt call an animal brave for running for its life from a predator but you would call a dog courageous for going into a burning building to save its owner. premeditated action on the notion that you are probably going to be hurt is brave. being subjected to pain with no choice is not. theres no “silver lining” or anything “good” to be drawn from it either - sure it may have made x a more compassionate person or made y more introspective & gentle but you know what would have been even fucking better??? if the shit hadnt happened in the first place! let x be an asshole & y be self absorbed - the “benefits”, so to speak, do not outweigh the cost, not by a long fucking shot. its not only patronizing to hear garbage like that, but a slap in the face to know that anyone could possibly see anything good coming from that nightmare & that the characteristics, good or bad, you developed either in response to or as a result of, are worth praise. dont tell me im strong for doing what i had to to escape a torture chamber - tell me im perseverant for studying my ass off & passing that test last week. in the words of one of my dearest & most fucking brilliant friends, “pain doesnt owe me/you purpose - the need to intellectualize & assign meaning to pain & death is not only futile, but harmful.” & honestly, i think that it stems from weakness (in most cases - i realize theres a plethora of other reasons such as those who r just desperate for something to hold on to or r hyperintellectual & analytical or who have been pressured by external “support” systems to find the “good” etc etc) - while the majority of people view the person who “can find the good in everything” (strictly speaking only in relation to trauma/tragedy here & more in denunciation of those that celebrate this trait as opposed to vilifying “survivors” who respond this way, though in my experience, its very very very rarely the “survivor” that perpetrates this ideology ) as strong, i sort of see it as a weakness - their inability to sit with & absorb their own pain or that of others is so strong that not only do they have to frantically pull rainbows out of the teeth of a meat cleaver, they also have to exist within this strange (tho, not malicious - more subconscious) superiority complex. like, nah, dude, some times shit is just awful. you cant tell me anything fucking good came out of a four year old girl being kidnapped, gangraped, & tortured for two years, before being impaled & left to die on a stake. her mom opened a non profit organization? oh well thank fucking god for that!!! those that believe the latter to be more “enlightened” or whatever the fuck r the same people who say shit like “dying is easy - living is harder” & i get that that its supposed to be interpreted metaphorically for the most part - giving up is easy, trying isnt (which also.....isnt true??? admitting defeat & fully accepting the fact that ur fucking helpless is beyond hard lmao???) - but pretend youre somewhere, anywhere outside ur sunny little fucking yoga studio full of white women whos biggest issues r the pta & johnny whos failing math, & lets say your life is in real, imminent danger, a gun is to your head & i want you to not scream or cry or beg for ur life since dying is “easier”. if dying is so easy, why do the majority of ppl cling to it with such desperation - why is suicide illegal? why do some ppl go thru 100s of chemo treatments even tho the doctors say theyre just prolonging the inevitable, ppl who cut off a diseased arm so it wont spread, those who walk dozens of miles every day for food & water, etc? & i know & understand the survival instinct better than anyone, even when i wanted to die more than anything, my natural instincts would kick in with no conscious neural input & id do what i had to do. im not condemning those who cling to life (ok - a little. ur wasting resources out of ur own fear. but i also realize thats just me being a Fucking Asshole As Always cuz technically, im doing the same thing tho its more due to lack of opportunity rather than fear. i just think, societally, death should be more normalized, discussed, & not made out to be so unknown & scary), instead just reprimanding those who say shit like that (inspirational facebook quotes). especially cuz most of the ppl who do spew that shit have never gone thru anything even remotely difficult - their worst nightmare is a Big Scary Black Man grabbing them on the street, mugging them, & touching their tits. & i also know that these stupid ass sayings are to be applied to bullshit like exercise & fitness (“no pain no gain” is another one of my Favorites) & not fucking torture or even just ur run of the mill rape, even that would probably smash the rose tinted banana republic shades off their beverly hills tanned faces. but ive heard the no pain no gain one a handful of times in the last few weeks, specifically from doctors performing procedures in preparation for my bottom surgery. & i know its supposed to be encouraging & they have no way of knowing, but its just like, buddy, u have no idea who youre fucking talking to. & im starting to understand what THEY mean when they say it - pain with a reward is infinitely more tolerable than pain just for the sake of pain; like, a tattoo, it hurts, but u know, when its done, its gonna be sick as fuck. when u r able to fall back on the idea that its for something u rlly want, its A Lot easier to handle as opposed to pain thats Just Pain - theres no reward for it except, i guess, that the more u experience it, the closer u r to the end of it lmao. i mean, i still hate when ppl say it cuz for most of my life, pain was just pain, & the “reward” was the opportunity to go home at the end & so whenever ppl say that, my mind just immediately resorts back to that & im just like haha fuck u. but im trying to remember my experiences r definitely not universal & im starting to sorta understand what they mean i think. but, flipping gears here, & going back to the sentiment of “everything happens for a reason”, the base philosophy of psuedo deep Fuckwads - a girls dad didnt fuck her “for a reason”, everything doesnt happen “for a reason”. like ok, hypothetically, the kid he impregnated her with & that she was forced to have at 12 may surpass all odds & not become a homeless junkie & instead become a world renowned doctor who finds the cure for cancer. but she wasnt raped repeatedly from the age of six for that “reason”, no matter what anyone says & honestly, the liberation of the masses does not justify the suffering of one, especially a child. in my eyes at least. but again, im a bitter asshole. sorry i just Went The Fuck Off here oh my god.....if u read all this, thanks, pal. if not, thats cool too. but yea, send me ur stuff, id totally be down to read it. as for me potentially thinking ur cute, i have to look at my disgusting shitstain of a “face” every goddamn day so everyone else to me is fuckin aphrodite. but im also tryin to not put so much worth into physical appearance- its not something that should be complimented cuz its just smth a person was born with which is the same reason it shouldnt be insulted. this is gonna sound gay & stupid but i personally find that a persons essence & personality really permeates. you can meet someone who, objectively, isnt all that great looking, but once u get to know them, u really see their beauty - how the sun catches in their hair, their dilated pupils looking up at u from under long eyelashes in the dark, the birthmark on their right shoulder that they despise but that is so Them, the gap in their teeth, etc. & idk how to phrase this without it sounding like “well ur ugly but at least ur a good person”, cuz that only reiterates the societally indoctrinated emphasis on appearance & my kneejerk reaction to assure the person in question that thats not what im saying is only another result of that!!! its inescapable!!! but no, really, its not just a matter of “its on the inside that counts” - physically, they change or maybe, actually this is more likely, when i first meet them, my “default” eyes r just looking for features that i know im immediately attracted to (tall, blonde, sickly as in sunken eyes sticklike pale but still looks like she could & will beat the shit out of me) but as i fall in love or get to know them better, my eyes adjust & i notice & adore the beauty that was there all along. so uh. idk if ill think ur “cute”. but probably, yes, ill think ur an angel.

[repentingrph]

Creating Atypical/Original Characters

In my personal experience, it shocks me how many times I go into an RPG and see a vat-full of sarcastic "too-cool-for-school" type characters. One or two is more than enough to fill that quota, but the last RPG I was in, I'd say about 80% of the group were just that. I get it, though! We all secretly want to embody that vibe. The cool vibe of IDGAF, where you can say anything you want and be praised for it. Let me tell you, though, if those are the only characters around, you're going to wind up with annoyed players because there's always going to be that one person that's going to compete for the top-dog spot of the MOST sarcastic and MOST IDGAF character of all time. It's not cool.

So! I introduce you to alternative ideas or at least the process to your own alternative ideas!

Me? In spite of what I just said, I love those sarcastic bastards with all my heart and I have a few of my own. However, if you really love that brand, give them depth! Do NOT make them be a one-note. With that said, the go-to is adding in a tragic past like someone died. When I say depth, I mean in terms of personality, not just backstory alone. This is where we are going to start with creating our atypical/original character.

PERSONALITY

1. Find your dominant personality trait, and then sprinkle in some undertones.

Let's say you're going for someone who's outgoing. Are they going to be bubbly sunshine or talks just way too much, making inadvertent awkward conversation? Just because you choose one path does not mean there is only one way to travel down it. You can have someone who is outgoing but also terrible with social cues. They could have a good heart but they also make people cringe when they see them coming their way, and I find that beautiful. Mix it up! Sometimes throw in contradictions that shouldn't work, but somehow do. Why do you think anti-heroes are a thing?

2. Set a moral compass.

This is something I always think about when I'm creating my characters. On a scale of Ted Bundy to Mother Theresa, where do they fit? Sometimes it's not even as clear cut as that either. I have one character who is an absolute monster, a total sadist and manipulator, but he has an odd sense of civil justice. Characters, like people, will probably have a gray area somewhere in their moral compass. Tap into that, explore it. It can definitely shape their personality. Why do they think that way? What are their boundaries? How do they justify what they do? Are they a hypocrite? If you're creating a murderer, are they really executing it personally or dictating that someone should be killed? Would they have the moral backbone to do it themselves?

3. The Scales.

Humanity boils down to a few scales, in my opinion. You have intelligence, sexual/romantic prowess, class/manners, and temperament/stablity. For example, I have one character who is very book smart. He is mediocre in common sense. He is asexual with repulsion towards it, but he's an awkward romantic. He is highly well-mannered in a Victorian-esque way. Temperament-wise, he can be irritated but usually cowardly.

Some of these may sound as though they overlap, so think of it like this:

Intelligence is self-explanatory (and if you break it down to three sub-sections of book-smarts, street smarts, and common sense, it helps even more)

Sexual/Romantic Prowess is more or less like the sex-drive or the kind of forwardness they would have. Think of it as a scale from a prude to a professional and experienced escort. Even if your character is asexual, are they still flirty or are they reserved?

Class/Manners is related to how they present themselves. Are they crude or are they refined? You can have someone with a filthy mind actually be incredibly cultured, charming you right into their pants. On the flip-side, you can have someone super reserved with the crudest sense, cursing under their breath with words that'd curl your hair or eating with their unwashed hands. Uhg.

Temperament/Stability is more of an anger test. A good litmus test would be having your character stub their toe. Do they wince but move on after a moment? Does it bother them at all? Or do they fucking flip the goddamn table and yell at it for just existing? Think about how volatile they are or how utterly zen-like they are. Just like I mentioned before, you can have someone that is super crude be really chill. You can also have someone with fantastic class be ready to blow your head off. It's just all in how you play them to show that.

Remember, if you think of more scale-types, go ahead and add them! The more you expand, the more unique they will become! The ones I've listed are just the main ones I immediately go to.

BACKSTORY

I think all of us (and I am particularly guilty of this) tend to favor a dark backstory for their characters, and it usually revolves around some kind of deep, personal loss. There is nothing wrong with that, but it can be repetitive if it's something that frequently pops up in your character portfolio.

1. Try not to kill anyone.

Killing NPCs off is so damn easy. Having a hard time thinking of their family? Kill them off when they're too young to really remember them. Boom. Problem solved, right? Yeah, but then what? Now, I love a good orphan, self-made character. Love them to *bits* (especially since I have one of my own), but let's try something different if you've already done that. Why I say this is not only to deviate from the typical but also to put something away for the future. When you lose your muse, hit up that little bank of family ties. Once you've killed them off, there is no taking that shit back unless you have an elaborate plot about them faking their death. Maybe keep them around instead. Give them a strained relationship. Keep only one in the picture. How about an overbearing relationship, where they just love them way too much and still cry whenever they call them up? Are they an only child? The favorite child? Did they find another mom/dad replacement as years went by?

2. Create a different bad experience.

I can't help it. I'm a sucker for dark backstories, but we're going to keep going with the first suggestion and not kill anyone. Instead, we're going to focus on other solutions. Could be criminal, or personal, or even stupid but with meaning to your character. I don't know if anyone remembers Courage the Cowardly Dog, but there was an episode of a whale that was so hell-bent on revenge, and do you know what he wanted revenge for? For some guy cheating him out of his favorite accordion in a poker game. That shit blew my goddamn mind as a child, and as you can tell, it still blows my goddamn mind today. That's the kind of backstory shit I can get behind and make me want to learn more.

3. Look on the bright side.

So, enough about those bad memories. Maybe your character had a charmed life! Oh, how I hate that nice characters somehow equal boring characters to people, and this would be the same to backstories. Nice backstories don't have to be boring. Your character could have won the fucking lottery. They could have been class president by releasing an unhinged scandal against their opponent without remorse. They could be just lucky, which means that luck can definitely change when you play them. Also, as a bonus, how would they even handle a downfall when they've never experienced it before? What kind of dramatic fucking character arc could they fall into? Sign me the fuck up.

GENERAL ADVICE/FINAL NOTES

1. Every character should be forged from a part of your soul. Forget about the term self-insert because if you don't feel a personal connection to your character, that character has no life. End of story. You're playing an asshole? Don't tell me you've never had a terrible thought in your mind before, just funnel all of that into them. Any aspect of yourself that catches even you off guard is something to tap into and run with.

2. Look back at those that you've already created and see what you're missing. I do this all the time. I usually oscillate my moral compass between the wretched and the innocent just to keep myself in balance. I try to find something I haven't tried before and then build on it. If you have a ton of bubbly characters, try someone emo. If you have a ton of moody shits, go for the flower child.

3. Everyone creates their character from a different building block. Some will start off with an FC. I start with personality usually. On occasion, I will also start with a profession. This is especially true when I see an RPG I love and try to find my little niche to settle into. Go through masterlists like [x] or [x] that can help mold your muse into something that has your own spin on it.

[faelapis]

White Diamond & Homeworld

the watcher, the elder sister, and the shadow that lingers.

i got a longer message asking about the role of White Diamond, why she is shrouded in secret, why she founded homeworld society and its rules, and her general powers and personality.   

what i think White Diamond is like: an exploration of homeworld lore. 

ever since the mural in “serious steven”, the image of the Diamonds - as a unit - is molded after White, whose image serves as the default. ever since jailbreak, we’ve been able to guess that 3 Diamonds exist through environmental clues - jasper mentions “Yellow Diamond”, and we see an emblem on the floor depicting a white, yellow, and blue triangle. 

ruby and sapphire display their love openly, for the first time, dancing on the emblem of the Diamonds. it’s a symbolic mockery of their authority, and their rules of no inter-caste fusion. 

this symbology of the Diamonds is reinforced in “sworn to the sword”, where we see that Yellow and Blue are once again equally placed, with White above them. this time, a crumbling Pink Diamond is added to the bottom of the pyramid, which is reinforced until... well, now. she is the youngest, and has the fewest colonies. she’s basically treated “as a child”. inversely, this suggests White is the oldest. she is Pink’s opposite, just like Yellow is Blue’s. 

indeed, as rebecca sugar put it, “Yellow and Blue are equals and opposites”. 

Pink is White’s vertical opposite, just as Yellow is Blue’s horizontal opposite.

from this, alone, we can start to form assumptions about White, based on her very likely opposite-dynamic with Pink. as the four core crystal gems are based on stages of emotional development (steven->amethyst->pearl->garnet), i don’t think it’s stretching it to say that the Diamonds are based on the four temperaments. (more detail here).

basically, where Pink is attached, emotional, and impulsive, White is detached, serene, slow, and objective. where Pink is young, White is old. where Pink is extroverted, White is introverted. Pink is flexible, White is rigid. Pink is individualist, White is collectivist. 

whereas her slow, introverted nature explains her as a shadow above the world, rather than a participant in it, that “collectivistic” trait explains her rules. in choosing a real-world parallel, my mind goes to the concept of dharma in hinduism, and the subsequent caste system. as explained by crash course:

dharma is one’s role in life and society. it is defined by birth and caste. you’re better off fulfilling your own dharma poorly, than someone else’s well.  the social reason is obvious. dharma and caste combine for social cohesion. you get the exact right number of bakers, and the exact right number of warriors. everyone has a role, and because that role has a religious dimension, society stays in balance. 

that is, i think, the philosophy of White Diamond. as the founder, it becomes the philosophy of homeworld. i omitted some stuff that wasn’t relevant, but the main point is very clear: homeworld is collectivistic and socially oriented. 

interestingly, it took a war where that order was challenged for them to innovate - homeworld was a deeply stagnant society where not much changed, to the point where sapphire could follow the path of her life with strong certainty that it was fate, under the assumption that everyone acted within their role. 

and then - Pink Diamond’s war happened, and everything changed. homeworld experienced a resource crisis and technological boom. it was forced to change, to innovate on a structural level, even if its’ social hierarchy remained. 

this lead to an implicitly more inclusive society, however - gems like peridot are fitted with limb enhancers to perform their job, instead of being discarded or destroyed. they have to find a use for them, because of the resource shortage. even soldier-type gems like jasper don’t mind peridot, because despite her defect, she does her duty. as all gems must. jasper even implies peridot has “status” and “dignity”, as long as she contributes homeworld society. and jasper is no hypocrite about this stuff, either - when she loses her own usefulness, she would rather accept corruption than help. 

basically, these two are more like disgruntled coworkers than having any deeper animosity towards each other. jasper knows about peridot’s limb enhancers, but assumes she can still handle herself, claiming that peridot “doesn’t need her for this”. peridot assumes the same basic capability in jasper, despite knowing she’s a beta gem, and thinking she’s “made poorly” until proven otherwise. 

so what’s my point in all of this?

well, White Diamond is deeply collectivistic - and that influences homeworld society down to the individual soldier or engineer. as long as they are permitted to exist by her order, they tolerate each other on a basic level.

unlike the others, White will never stick her neck out for other individual gems, which is perhaps why she does not care to prosecute rose for “shattering” Pink Diamond. if there is no societal value to it, it is not on her radar. she does not get involved in the mechanisms of the clockwork, unless she absolutely has to. 

however, that does not mean she is necessarily void of emotion or completely unwilling to act. when something threatens the society as a whole, enough is enough. when Pink is shattered, she DID act. her “death” meant the fighting could have a far greater impact than just earth. when Pink is down, the rebels can advance to the next frontier. the battle could reach homeworld. 

the corruption blast would not have worked without her help - gems are beings made of pure light. Yellow Diamond can poof them, and Blue Diamond can affect their emotional state... but White’s powers seem to be that of pure light. the manipulation of light itself is what she contributes. she is the corruptor.

this incredibly dangerous power does, by its nature, disturb the status quo. you would think this would be counter-intuitive towards White’s nature - but the way she uses it is entirely in line with her (speculative) character. she is incredibly reluctant to act, but when she does, it is in defense of the big-picture status quo. she disturbs the order to set it back to its default.

it is fitting then, that her power excludes gems from society. any gem who is corrupted, is instantly freed from the hierarchy. they become beasts of pure emotion, who cannot function within it. this is what White Diamond sees as the alternative to homeworldian hierarchy - absolute chaos, where individualistic survival and subjective emotion is the only rule. 

flexibility, love, and trust terrify her. that is why she favors order.

[sennokami]

Do the name adjective thing for me, will you?

SillyThat is the first word that comes tomind, when he turns around and sees that boy standing behind him. He looks tobe the same age as Madara, but he was dresse in all soft greens and dyedcotton, looking as rich and full as a merchant’s child. 

Madara can’t be blamedfor not realizing he was a shinobi until Hashirama walks on water – he’s nevermet someone like him before, a shinobi child who can do everything he can butstill retain his soft, curving lines. Maybe that’s why Madara asks him to stay.Curiosity, from one child to another, for something previously unknown.

EndearingHashirama is easy to love, even as aboy. His jokes are always kind and he never goes too far when he teases. He’squick to apologize and quicker to offer a helping hand. And yet, he’s not apush over either. He’s talented and he’s smart, and Madara quickly learns tolike him, all of him, for these things. 

It’s not that he’s unused to kindness,but he unaccustomed to it from strangers. Yet Hashirama shares everything hehas and Madara shares back, and they both mutually agree to keep their secretto preserve this friendship.

NewHe has a new friend now. And sure,Hashirama is occasionally very easy to mock and sometimes he’s unjustifiablystupid, but Madara will forgive him that. He will forgive him everything,because standing next to Hashirama makes him sweat nervously now, and he wantsto try things that friends don’t do together. 

It’s not the first time he’s feltthis way, but it is definitely the first time his feelings lasted for more thanthree months. It’s the first time they got stronger after seeing his crush bean idiot. It’s new, it’s sort of scary because now he’s beginning to suspectthings about Hashirama, and it’s a terrible idea, but Madara can’t keep away.

JoyHashirama… Hashirama makes him happy.He makes him smile and he makes him laugh so hard that he can’t breathe. Justthe thought of him makes Madara feel like he’s on the verge of sprouting wingsand flying into the clouds. It’s addicting. It’s inspiring. Madara didn’t knowthat the human heart could contain so much joy for the memory of one person.His emotions are over-sized for him – sometimes he can’t help but grin atnight, curled up in his futon and thinking about his secret friend. 

Sometimes, he wonders if Hashirama does the same thing too.

UnityThey are dreaming, and they aredreaming together. Madara never knew that someone could feel the same as hedid, but Hashirama does and it’s like a dream, that they sit together and talkabout the way they want to the change the world. There is no laughter here.There is no mockery. They sit under the gilded boughs of evergreens and theyexchange dreams with completely solemnity. These are delicate, glass-spundreams, fragile outside the protection of silence, and they are breathtakinglybeautiful. Madara will always love Hashirama for dreaming.

Hope(less)“That boy is a Senju. He’s our enemy.”

One sentence broke the spine of Madara’shopes. For an hour straight, he listened to his father berate him, and then heran away into his tent and he cried into his pillow until he ran out of tearsto give. He made a mistake, he realizes, because he has been reckless. He ranheadlong into what he wanted without thinking about the consequences, and nowHashirama is going to pay for it.

He can’t let that happen. Even if hehas to leave his friend behind, he can’t do it completely. Father tells himthey will set a trap. Madara waits until he sleeps, and in the cover of night,he carves a word into his rock.

AngerThis world is unfair. All things areinherently unjust: nature is a machine without morality and humans are animalsin the dark. Madara will pay for existence with his flesh and blood, and hewill cut himself apart to feed the needs of his clan. He will become strongereven if he has to burn himself to the quick to do it; he will rip out the lightfrom his eyes so his family can see a little longer than he. So he will pick up his sword and he will fight Hashirama with his anger, and there are no rooms for dreams anymore, children, it’s time to grow up now.

Madara is a prodigy, they say. Madarawill lead us to victory. Give us more, Madara. Give us everything.

Never stop or you will fail.

SorrowThere is only so much anger one cancarry in one’s heart before there is no more room. And when that time comes, itwill all flood over as deep blue sorrow and then you can only weep it out.

Madara cries sometimes. Not whereanyone can see, not in a way anyone can hear; he cries quietly and unmovingly,breathing in and out and staring at the ground. He cries because he has had tobuild six different pyres for his kinsmen, and because he is a genius andgeniuses don’t need to be comforted. He cries because he misses his best friendand the last time he saw him, it was on a battlefield.

HatredThe Uchiha and the Senju warred forgenerations. But hatred does not feed hungry mouths, nor does it make clothingto wear. Hatred was a devouring creature whose appetite was limitless, and theUchiha didn’t even have enough to feed themselves.

Enough of it. Enough of war, and enoughof hatred. Madara grabs Hashirama’s hand before he kills himself because hestill loves him, despite everything, and he would rather follow his brotherinto the grave than see another precious person of his dead on the ground.

Enough, he says with only histouch. Enough of this.

InequalityPeople say that Madara hates Hashiramafor being stronger than him. They could never be more wrong.

Madara has never begrudged strength inhis life, especially not Hashirama’s. No, truth be told… he adores him for it.He enjoys the thrill of fighting him, he is proudto say that Hashirama is the only man who can defeat him. He is unashamed ofthis fact. There is nothing greater than a good fight with Hashirama, in hisworld. It makes life worth living. It makes his problems seem smaller. He willset aside his personal goals and plans to make time for a tussle with him,because Madara loves the entire process. It’s the one, endless dance he willalways crave, and it’s one of the many reasons for why Madara respectsHashirama so much.

RivalIf Madara ever had the misfortunate ofexisting in a world without Hashirama, then he would have never reached hisfull potential. He would have inevitably plateaued somewhere as a talented warriorwho nonetheless fit the mold of all his peers.

It’s only with Hashirama to raceagainst that Madara can flourish. Their youth was a perpetual race betweenthem, always trying to get an edge over another, always striving to be just alittle faster, a little stronger, a little betterthan their rival. In many ways, their rivalry could even be called anotherexpression of their abiding profound bond, because they were always pushing tobe the best for one another.

AdmireMadara admires Hashirama in a lot ofways. For his ideals, for his dreams, his strength, his body, the list goes on…but he also admires him for his kindness.

Unlike many who would wrongfully thinkof kindness as a weakness, Madara admires and respects the immense depth of howforgiving Hashirama is. This ability to move on from loss and the seeds ofhatred, in his eyes, is an example of an incredible strength of character. 

Hashirama is untouched by the cycle of violence – he will never fall prey tothe inherent weakness of humanity, in which the selfish desire for love evolvesinto hatred. While Madara will criticize his ideology for being unrealistic, hewill never, ever believe that so much love can be a bad thing. They both wantpeace.

MineMadara is a fiercely possessive person.He just can’t share – ever. He loves so much and he loves so hard, and hecraves to have that all reflected back on him. And most of all, he wants to haveHashirama. The tragedy of being ripped away from him deeply touched his heart –the constant conflict in him between his duty and his desires keeps Madara upat night. 

But it says something about how fiercely he loves Hashirama that eventhe full weight of his love for his brother and his clan can’t force him to letgo. When they’re together, they world falls away. Everything revolves aroundthem. He wants to have him, entirely and totally, to own him, possess him, todevour him, until they’re one being.

(In a way, you could say he accomplishedthat.)

AlwaysTheir bond is more than just emotion.Their bond is built on mutual respect, recognition of each other’s strength,protection of each other’s humanity, and sharing an impossible dream. Aroundothers, they walk as giants. Together though, they are simply two men who can’thelp but hold hands on one side and strike each other with the other side. 

Evenat the end of the world, Madara can’t help but talk about Hashirama – how greathe was, how good he was, how much better than everyone else he was – even whenhistory remembers him to be the hateful, envious shadow. At the end of hislife, Hashirama is the one to kneel over his dying body.

Over the course of a hundred years,three deaths, and becoming a god, Madara has never lost sight of Hashirama. Hehas always loved him and he always will, because there is no universe inexistence in which Uchiha Madara does not love Senju Hashirama.

[brawltogethernow]

Neutral Element - I Am Well

Installment Masterlist/what am I looking at here || Relationships: FINALLY; Characters: Tarvek and Gil, Agatha; Length: 2k; Content notes: Just when including this section was starting to feel overly precious - Medical stuff! Dissociation! Flashbacks! Body horror? Aaronev Wilhelm leaving sticky residue on things that persists after his death. All conveyed through experimental formatting. This segment was fun. Readmores are still broken on mobile and I’m still sorry.

Tarveka and Gil maintain a careful balance of, ‘Well, it would upset Agatha if something happened to you,’ and not addressing that they can feel each other’s lies of omission.

 *

“We’ve got to put her in a different head,” Agatha declares, staring into the dead eyes of Tarveka’s empty chassis with an air of diagnosis and tsking quietly. “This one’s no good.”

“We can maybe fix up some other things for her, while we’re in there....” adds Gil, pressing close to Agatha to look too.

I will not stand by while you — came the impression of Tarveka in her head, only to pause. Gil was reminded of a finicky bumacat deciding whether to put her paw down after sticking it outside her cave. Hm, that is a good idea. Zengil feels Tarveka shuffling through the half-formed ideas for improvements floating at the top of her mind, which manifests as them rising to precedence without her input. To someone with pretty strong mental control, it’s unusual and somewhat disorienting. Hm, I like that one. Oh, now that is lovely.

Gil wants to tease her for being as vain as a cat too, in this moment where she won’t have to explain the reference and Tarveka will understand and not be able to deny she’s joking, but Tarveka’s appreciation is more that of an enthusiastic connoisseur. Even Tarveka’s interest in clothing that Gil has noted  has surprisingly little of the covetous impulse that Ooh, that would look lovely on me. And Tarveka would know she knew that, and know she knew she knew, and...

Ack.

“Told you,” Gil settles on.

You’re such a mess, impresses Tarveka, plainly referring to the entire train of thought.

 *

I’ll have to commission a whole new wardrobe, of course,” Tarveka coughs. Being able to edit herself to fit clothes could certainly be convenient. The taste alerts her that blood is dripping from her mouth.

Soon she won’t be bothered by concerns like —

Zengil yanks herself out of the blood-red flash of recollection, reeling. Half of her scrambles to place when that happened to her, before it settles in that it never did.

I didn’t see anything?? she thinks at Tarveka, desperate and sheepish.

Tarveka, sick and sulky, doesn’t send more than a mild sense of irritation at Gil, but Zengil still retreats, embarrassed at having accidentally intruded on something so profoundly personal, to lurk sheepishly in the corner of her own head.

 *

Asking me to ride along like this... Tarveka begins eventually, out of the blue and awkward. I would think you of all people...

Gil, for once, is sure of what Tarveka is getting at. She’s kind of cheating right now. “You aren’t like Lucrezia, okay? I invited you in. So stop fretting.”

Gil, mercifully for the both of them, cannot actually see most of Tarveka’s thoughts, but she doesn’t need to to put together stories about Lucrezia with Tarveka’s own manner of conducting herself and see why the clank girl might be uncomfortable, snagged by hooks of misplaced guilt.

Tarveka’s presence retreats into a sulky, defensive ball, trying to shrink into itself and lash out defensively at the same time.

“Of course,” says Gil, voice growing irritated, “you could always just try being a better person instead of a manipulative sneak —”

Oh, don’t you start with me, you brutish, pathetic excuse for a diplomat! You wouldn’t know subtlety if it struck you in the face!

“That wouldn’t be very subtle of it, would it?”

 *

Tarveka considers her body, cracked open on a lab table, for the second time in her existence.

(At this point she isn’t sure she dares call it her life. It almost feels like she’ll jinx herself.)

For the first time, she’s doing so through another’s eyes. The optics of her clank were hers from the start, of course. And the eyes she saw it through were her very own, the originals, slightly myopic and a dull brown color she needs only look at Anevke to see these days, but still somewhat misses.

Her clank body’s first face didn’t move. She just didn’t have the skill or the time, and she would have needed at least one.

Tarveka had already studied the art of dollmaking before she sent her brother for the Muse, and applied those arts when she couldn’t replicate the incredible lifelike quality of Tinka, fighting her own body and racing to beat its inevitable shutdown, damn her father. She made the clank’s face so its expression could seem to change with a tilt of the head, or through association with subtle posture or a tone of voice.

Tinka’s help was invaluable with the more critical problems, before Tarveka’s father broke her too. Aaronev left the world scattered with broken women.

She is staring down at her own corpse and thinking, I don’t want to believe that I am dead, but what if —

Gil yanks them away from the memory with increasingly thoughtless ease — more of a nudge than a yank now, really, a gentle redirect — and tries not to mull on how she now knows Tarveka snuck her own body into her family castle’s medical waste.

She wasn’t bragging about knowing mental disciplines, so instead of letting herself start thinking about how she shouldn’t be thinking about things she shouldn’t be thinking about, inevitably defeating the purpose of the whole thing, she starts teaching Tarveka the Skiff alphabet. Then she moves on to their measuring system.

Base 9? thinks Tarveka. Really?

The number was sacred to an ancient simek—

Waͪrͤrͬiͦorˢᵖᵃʳᵏ, conveys the helpful impression Tarveka gets.

— so it’s sort of a thing. Don’t start. You count time by twenty-four. Twenty-four and sixty.

Yes, but that’s...

Normal here? Gil interrupts sarcastically.

Alright, touché.

 *

Gil is stripped open and vulnerable too, like this. There’s a kind of balance to it that settles the part of Tarveka that wants to be defensive. She’s shocked by the open, raw care the other woman feels, and the soft thread of doubt and hurt she put there.

 *

Tubing twists from the palanquin’s molded container like organs spilling from a fresh Coptic jar and isn’t it isn’t she dead so much to do trapped in this castle trapped —

They emerge with a gasp and Gil forces their attention back to the present project, which is strikingly reminiscent but not the same. It’s not you, you’re with me, please, Tarveka. If we don’t focus you will die.

We will die, corrects Tarveka. Suicidal idiot.

 *

Tarveka is getting better at taking the reins from Gil, remembering how to be flesh. Given all the factors, this is probably a bad thing.

 *

Gil fancies that Agatha is like one of her goddessess — a war queen who built herself wings of iron and sunlight, flew to the realm of the gods, and situated herself among them.

That is the best thing I’ve ever seen, says Tarveka. Really? Do you mind if I use that comparison? I’ve thought of her as like the sun before, you know, but we don’t have any sun goddesses.

She was reading associations out of Gil’s mind, then. Sometimes the queen was associated with Ishana, the punishing burning bringer of life.

Do you think —

That the legend could refer to some solar-powered vehicle? finishes Gil. Yes. I’ve incorporated that idea into some of my designs —

It says iron, but —

It must be from some old word that just means metal, I think.

Ah, like the “apple” of knowledge.

The what?

Now, fͭoͪuͤr of the sͫeͦvͬeͤnᶠᵒʳʷᵃʳᵈ ᵗʰᶤᶰᵏᶤᶰᵍ  popes disagree about this strongly, but...

 *

She grips her right hand with her right hand and feels for a pulse and this is the part where her heartrate should kick up but that’s the entire problem isn’t i —

“You two are spacing out again, aren’t you,” says Agatha, grabbing Gil by the chin and forcing them to look her in the eyes.

Focusing on Agatha is easy. “I’m not going to die on you, I — I  promise,” Gil reassures her. Or one of them does.

“Don’t you dare,” Agatha says, uses her grip to tilt Gil’s head, then leans forward and kisses them softly.

Then she bustles back to work. There’s still ever so much of it.

 *

Tarveka resents the ways the project of building a clank to puppet got away from her.

Tarveka has always placed a high value on her control over her own person. It is a representation of her personal strength which she feels, paradoxically, is both a testament to her indomitable will and an absolute lowest-bar basic achievement everyone should be expected to adhere to. After all, she does.

Tarveka administered as close to total control over her body as possible through the teachings of the Way of the Smoke. She controlled her own reactions. She controlled others’ perceptions of her.

But the incident of losing her body was a mad dash wresting control back from where the void devoured it from the very start, and she did not emerge entirely victorious|took heavy losses in her victory. Yes, she built her new body from its gears up, and it’s a masterwork, certainly, but she didn’t make it her new body on purpose. She didn’t mean to give that much to her father in her first move.

Overplayed her hand.

This single error is representative of a veritable cascade of them. She’s different, now, in ways she’s still only cataloguing. She was never as comfortable around biomatter as some sparks, but she finds she’s less fussed about it now. It took her months to connect that to a new aversive reaction to gutted machines and rust on old wires it takes a light fugue to push away.

Like many things, it’s nothing she ever constructed, not something she programmed. She’d very much like to put on airs and compare herself to Van Rijn with his famous bafflement at his own marvelous creations, but she would be more comfortable with this if she hadn’t created herself.

Is she even still herself?

“Did you know the fundamental components of an organic body experience a massive turnover rate?” says Gil.

“What?” snaps Tarveka, grabbing control of Gil’s own mouth to do it, which is becoming easier the longer she has to grow used to not being in a clank. She isn’t in the mood for a biology lesson.

“You know, the primary building components, uh, they’re round in animals and square in plants —”

“I know what cells are, Zengil.”

Instead of acting called out for being a patronizing know-it-all, Gil snaps her fingers and says, “Right, that’s what it is. Like little rooms. Thank you. I haven’t had reason to brush up on all the basic terminology in the local language. Didn’t usually have anyone to talk to about it, for one thing. Anyway, hundreds of millions —” She picks a flitting thought from Tarveka carelessly “— billions, thank you — of cells die off in a healthy person every day. On purpose! It’s great, really.” She finishes with a bit of the telltale distraction of a spark espousing on their specialty.

“...They do not,” says Tarveka.

“Well,” says Gil, “only some of them.” Tarveka gets a ghost impression, a diagram of the human body forged through in-depth understanding picked out in hot and cold spots. “We’re never the same for long, even if we’re sitting still. We’re not supposed to be. That’s what being alive is!”

Tarveka thinks about this. “Are you talking about necrosis?”

“I’m talking about apoptosis, you morbid little tit.”

“Seriously? You forgot ‘cell’, but you know that word?”

Gil mutters, but the impression Tarveka gets — a stack of secondhand books, at once familiar and foreign and exciting, stacked on a rock in an empty waste — is much more indicative than the actual words, which include “dare defy me”, “show them all”, and “then they’ll see, they’ll all see”, in an impressive but pat three-for-three.

Tarveka chews on a response. “If this is a clumsy attempt to make me feel better —”

“Who, me?” says Zengil. “Be nice to you? Never.”

“— Then it’s working,” finishes Tarveka. “But only a little. ...Shut up, don’t —” stare at me like that? No, that’s not right. This is getting very confusing. “Stop — stop having feelings at me, get back to work.”

“You’re not actually the boss of me, Sturm —”

“If you don’t connect that octave coupler it’s going to catch fire.”

“Ack!”

 *

“Do they realize how weird that looks?” asks Violetta, watching what appears to be Zengil talking to herself while they wait for someone madder than they are to hand them another task.

“They’re sparks,” says Moloch, shrugging. “Do they care?”

*

For a week Tarveka maintains the frequency of checking on her body she had when she’d thought something was wrong. (She’d been right.) She doesn’t have the opportunity to miss her heart pounding and her breath coming fast as she carries on the deception, because her gears whir and grind, and her vision shifts too amber, then too blue.

She goes through the motions of her normal routines, paring them down slowly. She doesn’t really know why she’s bothering when her audience is mostly the palanquin’s bearers. (Pallbearers.) She could order them away for maintenance and only seem like a snappish spark — she could bite, It’s a spark thing, get lost! when she doesn’t open the container, when she drops off the frequency of all her biological maintenance to a dead stop. But they avert their eyes and she doesn’t ever need to.

 *

Agatha grips them by the chin again but this time she just stares them in the eyes, whips out a flashlight and stares more, then says, “You’re integrating too strongly. You two can’t even be trusted to stay fighting?” She tsks. “Incredible.” Then she wanders off and begins writing out papers. They will only find out what’s on them later.

Si vales valeo is an abbreviation of si vales bene est ego valeo, which means “If you are well, I am well.”

[griancraft]

Over my 7 years of fandom and 2 years (almost 3) in this fandom I’ve noticed the fetishization and “fem and masc” portrayal of gay relationships. The way this translates to this fandom is interesting and little talked about. In order to make my point, I will be talking about Cbeeduo and DNF (general). I like both sets of people and am coming from the angle of a fan. I’m not comparing the relationships directly. Just how fandom views them.

If you disagree I’d love to hear why!! I’m not saying this is 100% true or that you even have to agree with me. Love u all :D

Cbeeduo in this fandom is so vehemently insisted upon as being /p despite the actual story having them pretty clearly romantically coded. They share a bed. They make jokes about the characters being in a relationship. They have a son. quite a few things make more sense when you consider the characters romantically written.

However, people hate it when they are portrayed as romantic in any way by others in the fandom. To the point of death threats, gore, and harassment.

You could argue this is because of cc boundaries but ranboo, at the very least, has stated he’s okay with character shipping as long as it’s not weird. Weird likely implying sexual content. I don’t know if any boundaries explicitly set out by Tubbo on the matter.

I think this dislike of /r portrayal is in large part also because they can’t sexualize the characters. Also, because they don’t fit into the box of “the guy one” and “the girl one” dynamics a lot of people insist that gay ships must have. CRanboo is tall yes, but they’re also a coward and selfish at times. They display character traits that aren’t synonymous with being strong and powerful. CTubbo is hard to woobify down to the “ohhh help me” damsel in distress. The character is very flawed, lashes out, gets angry, and is strong and smart.

The characters don’t fit the archetypes that a lot of (largely het) fans would want to see and write about. This is a pattern I notice in fandom a LOT. Especially when I was younger and into anime. This just isn’t how gay people exist though. And a portrayal of gay men shouldn’t have to fit this archetype.

However, dnf does. Mostly because the fandom made it that way. To be clear, I like dtqk+. I engage in dnf sometimes. This isn’t out of hate for DNFers or anything!! It’s just some light crit of some fandom portrayal.

Cbeeduo are, in my opinion, potrayed as a very normal queer couple when written /r. They are more similar to how I have experienced love, QPR or romantically. DNF is also very often portrayed in a way that makes me feel so seen and makes me so happy. However this is like. Maybe 50% of the time.

People are a lot more comfortable drawing George as skinny, fragile, and feminine. Despite the fact he is a man who was literally the British equivalent of a frat boy or whatever. He may be “smaller” but he’s also an incredibly intelligent computer nerd with a heart of gold and humour to match. He doesn’t fit the archetype of softboy gay man who is a twink. Im not saying George isn’t or can’t be feminine, I’m just saying that making him out to be JUST that in fanworks is reductionist and frankly a little bit homophobic. Giving him no muscles no body hair and fem features he may not have is really uncomfortable..? Especially if you draw Dream with all of that.

Dream is potrayed as a tall, big strong protective masculine man. While Dream is indeed tall, protective, and fit, He also doesn’t fit the mold exactly because he’s well. A real man. Often this half of the relationship is either aloof or an overconfident jokester. Dream is a very confident, funny man but that’s not all he is. He’s smart, kind, and would do anything for his friends. His personality is complex and shouldn’t be put down to a big strong protector and lover for George.

How do we fix this? I don’t know. It’s just something I’ve seen and talked to a few of my friends about IRL. I just wanted to talk about it because I think it’s really interesting.

Hmmm this post may upset people. Should I make it.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 06/02/2021 (Fredo’s Money Can’t Buy Happiness)

This is an odd, scattered week - a slow one thankfully for the day after my birthday - but we do have a bigger album bomb than I expected from Fredo, even if “drivers license” is still at #1 for a fourth week, blocking EDM remixes of sea shanties because of course, it’s the UK after all. Let’s just get back into REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

Now, I predicted last week that Fredo would have two songs debut high up on the chart from his most recent album, Money Can’t Buy Happiness, and the pre-release single “Back to Basics” would rise to the top 10. That didn’t exactly happen, as “Back to Basics” actually dropped out of the chart off of the debut for being one of the lowest-performing Fredo tracks, or at least less successful than the three songs that debuted, as that’s all the UK Singles Chart allows. Speaking of drop-outs from the UK Top 75, they’re all mostly inconsequential, made up of recent debuts like “Wellerman” by the Longest Johns and “Bad Boy” by the late Juice WRLD and Young Thug. In terms of notable drop-offs, we do have some arguably premature falls for minor hits, like “champagne problems” by Taylor Swift, “Body” by Megan Thee Stallion, “Lonely” by Justin Bieber and benny blanco, and, finally, “Diamonds” by Sam Smith. This is a slow week outside of the top 40, so we just have some spare oddities to cover outside of the drop-outs. For our fallers, we have “34+35” by Ariana Grande fading its remix boost at #14, “Therefore I Am” by Billie Eilish at #30, “SO DONE” by The Kid Yaoi at #52, “All I Want” by Olivia Rodrigo at #54, “Lo Vas A Olvidar” by Billie Eilish and ROSALÍA at #64 off of the debut and a couple real crashes at the tail-end of the top 75, those being “Holy” by Justin Bieber featuring Chance the Rapper at #71, “WAP” by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion at #72, “Notorious” by Bugzy Malone featuring Chip at #73 and “Dynamite” by BTS at #75. This may explain the otherwise inexplicable returns for songs that are always clinging onto the back half of the chart, like “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac at #74, “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran at #70 and, incredibly, “Mr Brightside” by the Killers at #68, the highest it’s been in a while (and that’s a feat considering how long it stays on the damn chart). For gains, we’re really not picking up much traction here. Sure, “Baby Shark” by Pinkfong is back at #73 for some reason, but otherwise we just have middling songs with middling gains, like “Martin & Gina” by Polo G at #61, “Take You Dancing” by Jason Derulo at #59, “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles rebounding to #44, “Your Love (9PM)” by ATB, Topic and A7S making a surprising and scary gain to #42 (and I’ll admit, I’ve warmed up to it quickly), “i miss u” by Jax Jones and Au/Ra clawing back in the top 40 at #39, “Friday” by Riton, Nightcrawlers and Musafa & Hypeman dopamine re-editing itself up to #24 (Please don’t make this a hit) and finally, “Streets” by Doja Cat continuing its rise up to #12. Oh, yeah, and “Skin” by Sabrina Carpenter is down to #41 off of the debut but everyone’s forgotten about that song considering how big “drivers license” still is, so yeah, let’s just get to our new arrivals, because we do have some interesting things to touch on this week.

NEW ARRIVALS

#66 – “Higher” – Clean Bandit featuring iann dior

Produced by Mark Ralph, Grace Chatto and Jack Patterson

Well, they made a song with 24kGoldn, and that was awful, so... I guess it’s Puerto Rican emo-rapper iann dior’s turn. They might as well remix “Mood” while they’re at it. Instead of Mabel filling in for the singing where 24kGoldn couldn’t on “Tick Tock”, however, we have honestly a less charismatic singer in iann dior playing all the parts, without a rap verse to speak of. Okay, so this could work if he just fills in the spot of generic anonymous singer, and it fits exactly within that mold if he wants to, even though that’ll take away any of the character he had – not that any of that character was likeable or interesting, but hey, baby, he is not your dad, so maybe he’ll blend in well with Clean Bandit’s decreasingly unique production. This is a tropical EDM track where iann dior’s non-existent range and raspy, uncaring tone zaps the energy out of the touches of steel drums and orchestral stabs. This drop is nothing more than a vocaloid loop, and a pathetic one at that, with iann dior’s really gross falsetto proving that Auto-Tune can’t really fix bad singing, not that it needed to be proven. The lyrics here are nothing to write home about, wrapping a love song with ocean metaphors probably just so he can say “I’mma get her wet, oh, baby, then slide”... Gross. There’s like zero build-up to this drop at all as well, so there’s no stakes, no climax, and hence not a good EDM track. Come on, Dan Smith of Bastille wrote this, can’t he get the lead vocal? At least it would sound competent.

#63 – “Grown Flex” – Chip featuring Bugzy Malone

Produced by the Fanatix

Ah, my favourite duo. Apparently this is from a Chip album that I didn’t even know existed, thankfully because it’s 21 tracks, over an hour, with two consecutive Young Adz features. “Grown Flex” is another collaboration with Bugzy Malone, probably here because of the video and the sample of iconic UK bass tune “Heartbroken” by T2, one of the most popular songs in that wave of EDM and a pretty damn great song. It has been sampled before by people like DJ Khaled and Drake but no-one’s made a better song, so maybe these formerly feuding Londoners can make a good song with this sample as the base? That isn’t a question actually, but if it was, the answer would be no. They pitch up the (honestly ahead of its time) vocaloid loop, and put an obnoxious UK garage-adjacent drum loop over it that’s barely on beat with all of the chiptune sound effects distracting from Chip’s also off-beat flow. The chorus is really awkward, with him being off-beat and uncredited female vocal backing vocals with entirely different vocal processing coming in and sounding equally janky. This beat isn’t broken inherently, it could work but it’s too shrouded in these two rappers void of personality. Bugzy Malone is here but his rough tone does not work on this beat, regardless of how much he wants to pretend there’s any melody to his drawl with the Auto-Tune and multi-tracking. He’s still somehow the best part though because, yeah, this is just... incredibly awful. The production is onto something by the end with the horns coming in but they immediately fade out and eventually it just abruptly cuts to some pointless chiptune beeping sounds that have been there the whole time but play alone right at the end for no reason. This is aggravating, I know I’m pretty much nit-picking but there’s nothing of substance to pick apart here anyway. This is pure incompetence and a butchering of a good sample... that they should be allowed to use freely, though, by the way. Abolish copyright law.

#62 – “Ride for Me” – B Young

Produced by Mike Spencer and Pacific

Since everyone seems to have forgotten how to actually make music this week, at least we can always count on B Young... okay, no, but at least he’s given up on trying to be a rapper or R&B singer at this point, as a lane of generic guitar-pop probably would work best for the guy’s voice. I mean, we have an acoustic loop here that sounds like it’s jacked straight from a Shawn Mendes demo. At least the incompetence here is charming, with his rougher vocals being a pretty nice contrast from the otherwise kind of ugly mixing, especially on the flat percussion. I do like the lyrics here, as he’s simply love-struck and enjoys the company of this woman, for more than just sex and appearances. He just hopes that things don’t change and the relationship lasts forever. Sure, it’s shallow but it seems genuine. Sure, there’s some drug references and him being pushy to ask her for no make-up, though it does come off as just enjoying her presence instead of any stuck-up preference, especially since he offers his tracksuit and they end up watching some crap Netflix original film. Yeah, this is just a sweet track if nothing else. Since I did do a full song review for his song “Jumanji” years back, I feel a weird sense of almost parenthood for this guy, like I’ve seen him grow and finally he’s made a good song, even if it’s a bit out of his wheel-house. He’s never not been genuine, just only now that’s given him some more likeability, even if it’s just to make a cute love song. He sounds like a good boyfriend, and that’s really the appeal of the song, so, yeah, good job. I’m honestly kind of surprised.

#60 – “Gravity” – Brent Faiyaz and DJ Dahi featuring Tyler, the Creator

Produced by DJ Dahi

This is the most frustrating song I’ve heard this year so far, I’m almost fascinated by it. Before we get into that, I’d like to say that it’s good to see Brent Faiyaz finally debuting a song relatively high, and this is DJ Dahi’s first ever credited UK Singles Chart entry, although he’s produced top 40 hits before for Kendrick Lamar. Faiyaz has been a bubbling artist in R&B for the past few years, and honestly he might have had the most successful career off of the three artists that propelled themselves off of the back of “Crew” with GoldLink and Shy Glizzy. It was a minor hit that ended up producing no rising stars until around five years later, where we have a genuine hit potentially coming from the guy who sung the chorus, of course with some help from Tyler, the Creator. I do think this song is good but owes a lot to that to the production and charisma of our artists, as I can pick this apart way too easily for my taste. This beat is good, with some incredible guitar work from Steve Lacy as he would always deliver, but feels very aimless, especially with the pointless air horns in the background that if anything distract from Brent Faiyaz, who needs room to breathe. I mean, he’s an R&B singer, of course he does. The beat takes certain left turns during the verses that seem like meanders and if it’s not deflating any of its groove for the sake of guitar loops, it’s got this really tense percussion that does not work for the content or performances here, which are both pretty checked-out, especially Tyler, who’s as stiff as always but without any really interesting lyrical moments or a shift of flow. It’s one of his worst verses in my opinion, and he really goes in one ear and out the other with how short it is, which surprises me because of how Tyler usually either steals the show or meshes really well with his collaborators. So, our two performers are mostly checked-out with little to no chemistry, and the beat is awkward and unfitting for the content, which is about them being brought back down to Earth by their loved ones, hence the name, despite their travel habits due to touring – which isn’t a thing that’s happening right now at all, so maybe this’ll be a slow burn hit before it can really resonate. If we listen to these lyrics more closely, we also don’t get the sense that Brent Faiyaz is even likeable here, as we have no reason given for this woman to not feel uncomfortable that he’s paying little attention to her. Instead, Faiyaz just comes off a dismissive ass to this undeserving woman who is reasonably upset at the lack of time spent with him. It’s never made clear that she’s pestering him, so I honestly don’t get how Faiyaz wants to frame this. It doesn’t help that Tyler has the opposite reaction, longing for his partner when he’s on tour instead of feeling annoyed by her, but ultimately with no interplay so this means nothing. Oh, and if the songwriting weren’t janky enough, the chorus is barely catchy and covered in pitch-shifted multi-tracking that takes any of the focus off of Brent Faiyaz, who’s constantly crushed by backing vocals, being pitched down for no reason with unnecessary censor bleeps when they both swear freely at other points in the song. This type of maximalist production works but only when there’s any grandiosity to make it feel warranted, and if there isn’t that, the gunshot percussion is out of place and there ends up being a lot of empty space. There’s nothing smooth about this, and that’s frustrating as you’d expect these three to bring a really relaxed tune with some great 70s soul vibes and... I mean, that’s obviously what they’re going for here, but it is painfully over-produced and ultimately immensely disappointing. I can see people enjoying this a lot but no, this doesn’t work for me at all. Sorry.

#45 – “Dancing on Ice” – Yxng Bane featuring Nafe Smallz and M Huncho

Produced by Don Alfonso and Quincy Tellem

Oh, Jesus Christ, these guys again... and Yxng Bane, I guess. So, you know what the deal is with this UK ‘trap-wave’ type stuff, right? There’s a vaguely interesting synth loop drowned out by cheap percussion and crap bass mastering, as well as awfully processed vocals from everyone involved. They can trade verses, but more often than not don’t say anything that doesn’t embarrass themselves. You get a sense of really toxic masculinity, misogyny and materialism without any charm in their delivery, inflections or wordplay – which is usually non-existent. Here, it’s not any different. Yxng Bane has some good melodic flows – and I really like his line about his Rolex Presidential Watch being discontinued but since he’s “going Donald”, he wears it anyway – but he also threatens... presumably the listener with gay conversion therapy in the first line of the verse, so all good will’s lost. Nafe Smallz sounds better than usual but his nasal flow is still whiny and insufferable, and M Huncho is here to waste time and sound bad doing it, although he’s probably the least worst sounding vocally out of these three clowns. I misread his line about his rucksack being heavy as “nutsack”, and that’s all the positive engagement I could claw out of this. I ask this every time but honestly, who listens to this?

#21 – “Ready” – Fredo featuring Summer Walker

Produced by Mojam

Much like the end of a Morrisons sweet aisle, past this point, it’s all Fredo. Admittedly, I didn’t end up listening to the record but I have heard a select few songs, this being one of them, and I’m not really a fan. I do like the eerie loop but it seems a bit unfitting for a triumphant flex song emphasising a rags-from-riches narrative, especially since the mix really crushes both Fredo and Summer Walker in this blend of boring skittering trap percussion and the ambiance, making her hook impact a lot less. Fredo’s verses are pretty damn heartfelt, I’ll admit, and I really like his lines about pleading with God that he should be let into Heaven. In fact, Fredo’s bars are pretty consistently great, focusing on how his criminal past in the streets of London refuses to escape him despite his efforts to make it out using rap, and by the end, he sounds pretty defeated when he says, “Yeah, I’m lonely, but that’s just a player’s life”. Honestly, for a song that initially builds itself up to be a triumphant flex song, it ends up just being kind of sad, and that’s fine, more fitting for the instrumental but it really makes the hook feel even more out of place. Ah, well, the song’s fine, really, just a blend of ideas that never really stick the landing together.

#18 – “Burner on Deck” – Fredo featuring Pop Smoke and Young Adz

Produced by RicoRunDat and Yoz Beats

Now this is what I want from Fredo. Now, this is posthumous in Pop Smoke’s case but it’s far from an unexpected feature, as whilst this is one of his first UK drill collaborations, Pop Smoke was known for his pioneering of the New York style of London’s grittier, more menacing drill music, and even named Fredo and Young Adz as some of his favourite rappers. Okay, so he had questionable taste – I mean, Young Adz? - but Pop Smoke felt more of a connection between New York and London beyond just instrumentals, with a shared slang, street culture and arguably most importantly, inequality. This is all cited from a Complex interview, by the way, but you can tell even from his music what a great respect he had for British hip-hop, especially considering his main producer, 808 Melo, is from London. The song itself is pretty great too, relying on these spacey synth loops that build up with more eerie keys before finally crashing into an intense drill beat, with all artists sharing the Auto-Tuned hook, but Young Adz probably shining the most in how he plays off of Pop Smoke’s deeper, rich voice with his nasal whine. The lyrics may be generic gunplay and flexing, but the delivery saves it for me, with Fredo enthusiastically shouting out Gorillaz of all people, and the chorus being way smoother than it would usually be for a drill track, as well as being really catchy. Pop Smoke absolutely kills it here, going with his typical stiff, fast-paced flow for a verse that is really short but just as powerful as he usually delivers. You can tell this was made for this track as well from the interplay on the hook and him shouting out Young Adz in his verse. Fredo pretty much completes the second verse by chiming in and showing more of the charm I enjoy from him as he mentions coughing the bar before he coughs for basically an entire bar. It caught me off-guard at full listen and it still leads in perfectly to the oddly-mixed sombre piano that comes in for the final hook. With a better mix – and even then, it kind of works without it – and maybe some extended verses from both London and New York drill artists, this could bang even harder. Maybe for a remix, this beat could bring the best out of Swarmz, DigDat, AJ Tracey, Hardy Caprio, Tion Wayne, Fivio Foreign even... I could go on, this could be a great posse cut. As it is, it’s still pretty damn good, and again, rest in peace to the late Pop Smoke.

#3 – “Money Talks” – Fredo featuring Dave

Produced by Dave

At first, I was surprised this debuted at #3, which seems high for a British rap track, but then I remembered that the last time these guys collaborated on a single it debuted at #1 without an album attached, and it helped that “Funky Friday” is also a great song, admittedly something I didn’t think at the time. It does make perfect sense that this debuts so high, especially since this album was actually executively-produced by Dave, so given these guys’ track records together and alone, I did expect something great, and, well... okay, so instead of a drill beat as this pretty vocal sample would be fit for, as would the flows, we get a lightweight trap beat with odd vocal and bass mixing. Admittedly, the 808 slides here are pretty excellent, but that’s the only shred of intricacy I see here, which is usually commonplace in Dave’s production. There’s also simply not enough consistency or variety here to make it worth the four and a half minutes, with the chorus being awkward if anything. There’s less depth to the rags-to-riches stories here, with Fredo probably giving more commentary than Dave does, which seems odd but fitting for how checked-out Dave is here. There’s just a resounding lack of anything to this song other than a boring beat and performances that could be a lot sharper and interesting. Sure, Dave flexes his technical piano skill by the end but the beat had already run dry by about two extra minutes before that – this could have run through your second verse, Dave, or you could have added a bridge instead of repeating the chorus. I do like some of the lines here that are obviously more personal and introspective, like Fredo’s conflict with the justice system and Dave explaining how he got robbed when he was a child and to cope with the trauma of this, he started toting weapons. I guess the EastEnders reference is funny but it just reminds me of DigDat making a similar cocaine joke with arguably funnier source material on “Guten Tag”. Yeah, this could be a lot better but it’s not offensive and hey, it’s competent at least. I mean, it’s Dave, it won’t be anything less, just a tad disappointing. I mean, come on, “coochie freshly shaven, man’s got expectations”?

Conclusion

This week is so disproportionately male, huh? Ironically as I say that, none of the women represented here – in the form of soulless EDM production and boring guest feature – get Best of the Week, as that’s going to Fredo’s “Burner on Deck” featuring the late Pop Smoke and, yes, Young Adz, with an Honourable Mention to B Young of all people for “Ride for Me”. Worst of the Week will obviously go to Chip and Bugzy Malone for the pathetic “Grown Flex”, with a tied Dishonourable Mention this week going to both “Dancing on Ice” by Yxng Bane featuring Nafe Smallz (for being gross and offensive) and “Higher” by Clean Bandit featuring iann dior (for being remarkably inoffensive). Yeah, Brent Faiyaz and Tyler are safe there but that’s still a fascinatingly bad song, though I don’t think I’ll make any friends with that opinion. Anyway, here’s the top 10 for this week:

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed and want more of my cacti-branded rambling, follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank. I can’t make any predictions for next week that aren’t depressing, but we may have to discuss death and politics next episode if a certain song gets renewed traction. Happy times. See you next week!

[acsversace-news]

This is the second season of the FX anthology series American Crime Story. The first season was known as The People V. O. J. Simpson, which was about the murder of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman in 1994, as well as the infamous trial of NFL player O. J. Simpson that followed. That series featured an incredible cast giving incredible performances. It was also incredibly written to expose the issues of racism, sexism and media culture that the trial brought out. This season is attempting something similar but the way it’s going about it is different and more in-line with a Hollywood trend that I don’t much appreciate.

Hollywood over the past decade has output a lot of TV shows where the villain or bad guy is the protagonist. Specifically, there have been a significant number of programs where a serial killer is either the protagonist or main character who takes center stage in protagonist-like ways. Some notable examples are Dexter on Showtime, The Following on FOX, Hannibalon NBC, The Fall on Netflix, the recently cancelled Time After Time on ABC, and Bates Motel on A&E. There are other TV shows that fit into this mold like Breaking Bad on AMC or House of Cards on Netflix.

Each of those shows are exquisitely crafted, but each are problematic in their own ways. A lot of the time it depends how those shows ultimately end. A lot of those aforementioned shows can really revel in the gore and violence like Hannibal, much as a horror film would with the goal of disturbing the audience, but the ending can shape how all that revelry should be received, or what the takeaway should be.

The ending to Dexter was atrocious, but the ending to Bates Motel was superb. Therefore, my feelings about this series might change based on how it ends. Unfortunately, this series is based on a true-crime where the outcome is known. It’s not like Dexter, which is a fictional narrative. I can already guess based on how the first five of nine episodes go on how the ending will affect me.

In many of these stories about serial killers, the anchor is often the police or the detectives investigating. In The People V. O. J. Simpson, the anchors were the lawyers, specifically the prosecuting attorneys. If anything, the breakout stars of that season were Sarah Paulson who played Marcia Clark and Sterling K. Brown who played Christopher Darden. Clark and Darden were the prosecuting attorneys. Those anchors help to keep the whole thing from sinking totally into depravity. Those anchors as counterparts aren’t always required, but there’s got to be something to keep us from sinking into total depravity and I’m not sure this show has it, or if it does, whatever it is gets lost.

For example, The People V. O. J. Simpson never actually depicted the murders of Nicole Simpson or Ron Goldman. The series begins with them already dead and moves forward, never focusing or lingering on the corpses. There are five murders here. Three of which are particularly gruesome and this series chooses to depict all of them. It’s not as if we see Nicole Simpson getting stabbed to death and nearly decapitated. Yet, we do witness the murders as they occur here. Instead of moving forward, it goes backward. This show does also linger on the corpses. There’s a trade-off for that. On one hand, we get to know the victims here in ways we don’t get with Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman but at the same time, the victims don’t get the fleshing out where their lives are celebrated as much as their last moments alive are stewed.

Maybe this is intentional on the part of writer Tom Rob Smith and co-executive producer Ryan Murphy who has been the leading, creative force behind both this season and last. Both Murphy and Smith are openly gay, and in this country for decades, the deaths or murders of LGBT people, especially gay men or trans-women haven’t been treated with the same importance, or with the same care. Sometimes, it’s something as simple and as insidious as the police not mentioning or acknowledging that the victim was gay, even when it’s an element of the crime, as the third episode shows. By focusing on the corpses, lingering on them, maybe it’s Murphy and Smith’s way of forcing or reckoning with how gay victims have been dismissed or sometimes ignored.

That’s an extrapolation that can be gained from this series, but the structure and pacing, however, negate whatever homophobia this series might want to expose. The first, two episodes are fine and everything this series wants to say is said in just those two episodes. The next three episodes change direction and attempt to deconstruct the psychopath at the center, but it doesn’t. It mires him in a one-note mode of wickedness and insanity. It attempts to give voice or breath to the victims who are left in his wake, but it doesn’t. They are merely victims swept up in the wave of killing. Glimpses of insight are washed over with shocking acts of violence that undermine the whole enterprise. The exception is Episode 5, possibly.

Darren Criss (Glee) stars as Andrew Phillip Cunanan, a 27-year-old murder fugitive who shot and killed Gianni Versace, the famous Italian, fashion designer on July 15, 1997. No one knows why. Reportedly, the two met once at a night club in San Francisco in October 1990. No other connection is known or believed. Andrew is gay and had a pattern of having sex with older men in order to get money or luxury items. Versace was an older gay man who Andrew might have identified as a target, an obsession that he knew he could never have, so he snapped and shot him.

Initially, Criss’ performance is reminiscent of Matt Damon’s in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) or Will Smith in Six Degrees of Separation (1993). He’s a quick witted, smooth-talking, ingratiating, social climbing sycophant. He’s clearly a pathological liar with a desperate desire to be connected to the wealthy without doing anything to earn it. This series invites psychoanalysis of Andrew, but only in the first episode. By the second, he’s just on the run. The third and fourth episodes portray him as a sheer psychopath who’s mostly vapid. Surely, that changes in episodes six to nine as the chronology moves backward and we delve into Andrew’s childhood, but I already don’t care, which is why the show should have reversed the order of the episodes.

Oddly, the third episode has the least Andrew and is probably the best episode from a character standpoint. Unfortunately, the character is neither Andrew nor the victim, Lee Miglin, played by Mike Farrell (M*A*S*H and Providence). Actually, it’s not unfortunately because that character is Marilyn Miglin, played by the amazing Judith Light (Transparent and Who’s the Boss). She’s only present in this, one episode, but her performance of this woman who’s life is disillusioned after 38 years of marriage is worthy of every award you could throw at it.

Episode 4 is a prime example of sinking into depravity, following a horror scenario simply for horror’s sake. One can condemn the episode for being an exercise in pure conjecture, which would be fine, if it wasn’t needed. Episode 5 is better for supplying more of a platform to explore the characters who would be Andrew’s first murder victims, Jeffrey Trail, played by Finn Wittrock, and David Madson, played by Cody Fern. Jeffrey is the first person killed by Andrew, and if anything, Episode 5 is in part a tribute to him, as it underlines homophobia in the military during the 90’s, and it’s actually the most tribute one of the victims gets other than the titular character.

Edgar Ramírez (Joy and Hands of Stone) co-stars as Gianni Versace. Pop star Ricky Martin also co-stars as Antonio D’Amico, the partner and lover of Gianni. Unfortunately, both of them are virtually non-existent in the first, four episodes. When they appear again in Episode 5, it’s a surprise. Yet, they’ve been absent so long one almost doesn’t care to see them. The two of them aren’t given the due they should have, and their story or rather their kind of story in many ways was better told in Behind the Candelabra (2013).

[orphanblackzone]

Orphan Black was no TV Themyscira, having been brought to life like most things in show business: with two guys at the helm and a smattering of women populating a more traditional sea of men. Sure, it told the story of a sisterhood of clones upon that life-altering realization, but for all the representation happening in front of the camera thanks to Tatiana Maslany‘s riveting work, there was only one woman director ever in the series’ history, and the writers’ room was largely men until season five. But in creating a series about a sisterhood like no other, Orphan Black‘s men developed a space for the women that worked on it to bring their own stories and ideas and visions to life, and to make a more diversely characterized and nuanced show with women at the front of it.

Orphan Black, over the course of its five seasons, has told the story of a series of clones who’ve recently come to the realization that they are part of a shady science experiment with dire consequences. Through the plight of deadbeat Sarah, science genius Cosima, soccer mom Alison, angry vigilante Helena, and self-aware boss Rachel (and so many more, all played deftly by Maslany and her clone double, Kathryn Alexandre), the myriad shades of femininity and female personhood are put on display to tell a story of bodily autonomy, the struggles of women, nature vs. nurture, and so much more—all wrapped up in a thrilling sci-fi conspiracy package.

“There’s been such a fire in all of our bellies to tell a story that means something and is actually saying something.” – Tatiana Maslany

And by making space for the women in their orbit, series co-creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett ostensibly became feminist allies, allowing their women equal space in the conversation and creation of the series’ stories and ideas. The rising tide that lifted these women’s boats. So we knew, in honor of the series’ end, that we had to lift up these women’s voices the same way Orphan Black lifted up its female fans.

Because, as Maslany put it, “Women deserve basic rights and ownership of our bodies, and the show has always been about that. Whether it was aware of it or not, it was always about that.”

“The future is female!” P.T. Westmoreland asserts, subverting a phrase of empowerment into one of pure villainy in the hands of religiously fanatical sciencecult Neolution’s leader. It is a phrase he utters often throughout the series’ fifth and final season, a nod to the show’s feminist leanings. Coupled with its link to the science at the heart of the show, it’s a phrase that becomes all the more sinister. Much like Henrietta Lacks in real life, the clones’ biology is used to advance science in an unprecedented manner, with no say or consent on the matter. And out of science, a story is born.

While all the science you see on Orphan Black is “based on things actually going on in the world today and throughout history,” the series molds it to their advantage to “build a creative and exciting narrative … We have always used the science to buttress other kinds of commentaries,” explained Cosima Herter, a science and story consultant on the series. “Like the assumptions we make about how and why we value (and legislate) particular kinds of bodies more than others, or the role of biotechnology and bioengineering in our lives, or why we accept some kinds of technologies and technological interventions and not others … the kinds of assumptions so many of us seem to make about hierarchies of life. We can use the science to mobilize questions about who benefits, who is harmed, and what kinds of gendered and class related beliefs are actually deeply written into those kinds of techno-science.”

In many ways, Orphan Black would be nothing without Herter—not to be confused with her clone namesake: the scientific backbone of the sestras’ plight, PhD student Cosima Niehaus. “Real Cosima helps us with the science and the larger picture of where the science fits into society and the themes that we might be working with that we’re not even aware of—that’s a big part of the process,” explained Graeme Manson.

Herter’s been that big a part of the process since before day one, as a friend of Manson’s with whom he would wax philosophical about science and its power in storytelling. And it is clear in talking to Herter that hers is a voice instrumental to the larger themes that drive the larger story, or—as she dubs it—”The Conversation” the show is having with its audience.

“When Graeme first came to me with the idea, he and I’d already spent a lot of time discussing all the different ways one could conceive of what a clone is—not simply a human clone, but all the ways clones occur naturally in other organisms,” Herter told us. “We spoke about literal clones, allegorical clones, the ways we could draw metaphor from the idea of clones, etc. At the time I was struggling through my Masters degree, and preparing to go on to work on a PhD. So many of the ideas that Graeme, as a writer, was trying to explore were ideas and issues I had long been interested in and was already working on during my time in academia.”

Maslany added, “I think Cosima’s got such an incredible perspective on [the show’s themes] in terms of the science.”

“We spoke about literal clones, allegorical clones, the ways we could draw metaphor from the idea of clones…” – Cosima Herter

Though she didn’t foresee a place for herself in the series beyond those initial chats, after the series was picked up Herter was given a title—several, in fact, both as a Science and Story Consultant—and quickly moved beyond “simply checking the facts of the ‘hard’ science.” Though as she asserts, “certainly this is an essential part of what I do.” Still, for Herter, the focus of her time was far bigger than that: “I spent much of my time researching and bringing timely issues and ideas in the biological sciences to the table that could be spun into an interesting and active narrative.”

But for all its science, Orphan Black is also about power: who has it, who controls it, how do you get it, and what does it look like in the hands of a woman. And it was something that evolved as the series went on, doubling down as fan reaction and critical—and academic! and scientific!—dissection continued.

“Within all of us there is Juliet and there is Lady Macbeth,” explained director Helen Shaver (helmer of the episodes “Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est,” “Certain Agony of the Battlefield,” and “Ease for Idle Millionaires”). “All aspects of humanity are within each of us. Character is our choice of which aspects we move from, that we act from. And I don’t mean acting as in theatrical, I mean as in we take action from certain aspects of ourselves. And so if you took all the clones, really, where each of the women individually are complete, but together they are also one woman, which is literally what they are—they are Tatiana Maslany. This woman contains all of these characters, as all women contain all of these aspects. And circumstance and choice bring us in our individual lives to what aspects we live from and make our journey from.”

THE MASLANY FACTOR

The breadth of the show has always been embodied in the multi-adjective-able performance of its star, Tatiana Maslany. Within each clone, a different facet of femininity is explored and challenged, with its effect on the self and society transmuted by the clone in which it was embodied. (The possibilities are endless! As is the number of clones in the experiment, it seems.) No wonder the praise for Maslany from her colleagues, to say nothing of critics, has been unending, poignant, and comprehensive when discussed in the context of this piece and every other story about the series before and after it.

It’s not just because she’s passionate — it’s because she backs it up and is allowed to bring it.

“Tatiana is incredibly intelligent, curious, and conscientious woman,” noted Herter. “And she really does her research too! If there were ever anything related to the science that was unclear to her, we would talk it through so that she felt confident she understood what she needed to embody those ideas. But—and let’s be clear about this—while she and I would have many conversations about some of the hard technical aspects of some of the science, she is brilliant and hardworking and that extends to her learning much of these things on her own and bringing ideas to the table herself. Certainly we’d talk, and I did my best to give her all the information she needed and introduce certain concepts she wasn’t familiar with, but she also helped me learn through different ideas as well. The teaching and learning went both ways.”

So, too, is Maslany quick to compliment the myriad women with whom she worked. Because it’s true: behind her clone façade is a cavalcade of women who’ve helped bring the series to life. In addition to someone like Kathryn Alexandre—Maslany’s clone double who actually started out as an audition reader before even being considered for the part—there were the immeasurable additions of actresses like Skyler Wexler (Kira), Maria Doyle Kennedy (Mrs S.), Evelyne Brochu (Delphine), Rosemary Dunsmore (Susan Duncan), and Kyra Harper (Virginia Coady); there were producers and writers like Kerry Appleyard, Claire Welland, Mackenzie Donaldson, Andrea Boyd, Renée St. Cyr, Jenn Engels, Aubrey Nealon, Anika Johnson, Alexandra Mircheff, and many many more members of the production team (and beyond) who helped create and shape these characters with their input, teamwork, and existence in the fold.

But it wasn’t always that way.

CARVING OUT A SPACE FOR ITS (MANY) OTHER WOMEN

It’s important to remember: Orphan Black didn’t have to operate the way it did. Most other shows on air don’t, frankly, and up until this point in pop culture, no one would’ve questioned it or batted an eye. “It would have been easy for them to really stick to their guns,” explained Alexandre, who was critical in helping Maslany shape the clones in multi-clone scenes. “I know especially the last season, it felt like they were really taking extra measures to change the scripts based on what they were hearing from the women who work on the show.”

“We didn’t have that many female writers on the show [at first],” explained Donaldson, an integral member of the Orphan Black team who started as Manson and Fawcett’s assistant before ending her tenure on the series as a co-producer. “Season five we had the most we’d ever had before, but if Graeme and John hadn’t been open to hearing from myself, from Tat, and the other women that are producing their show for them or starring in it, I don’t think that the story wouldn’t have been told exactly as well as it was.”

And Donaldson’s talents and rise through the Orphan Black machine are indicative of how, when women are treated as equals by their male colleagues, they can not only survive but thrive in this environment. Donaldson’s talents could have easily gone unnoticed had things gone a different way. But, as she put it, “the coolest thing about John and Graeme is that they are so open to the best ideas coming from whoever. So even though I was their assistant that year, if I had a story idea or an opinion about wardrobe or casting, they were always open to hearing it. And they really let the best ideas come to the surface no matter where they came from.”

“Within all of us there is Juliet and there is Lady Macbeth—all aspects of humanity are within each of us. Character is our choice of which aspects we move from, that we act from.” – Helen Shaver

Where some sets can be filled with ego, Manson and Fawcett permitted none, allowing the women to assert their place and their authority over the topic of the story they were telling. “John and Graeme really populated their show with a lot of strong females voices that really wanted to say something,” said Maslany. “To their credit, they were really open to hearing notes and adapting things to what we were feeling, what we were thinking. Especially this last season with the election happening and the world kind of imploding on itself. There’s been such a fire in all of our bellies to tell a story that means something and is actually saying something.”

Added Maslany, “It really felt like it was a joint effort on all of our parts.”

A group effort that strengthened not only the way the women’s stories were told, but also how they were shown on screening, giving rise to a new look at female power. And for all the positive ways in which the series lifted up women, it may surprise you to know that there was only ONE female director on the series the entire time: Helen Shaver.

THE FEMALE GAZE

Helen Shaver, in only three episodes, left a huge mark on the series’ approach to the female gaze, and its vitalness to telling stories—especially those about power. Filming some of the most iconic, character-defining moments for Cosima, Rachel, and Helena, Shaver’s presence looms large in several conversations about the show (particularly with Maslany). And it felt equally as thrilling for Shaver. It may not feel radical to some, but for women who so frequently have to fight for equity in these situations, Manson and Fawcett’s treatment of them as equals from the jump (and without patting themselves on the back for it) provided a more level playing field than most.

“They totally gave me my head, in terms of, ‘okay, come back with your ideas,'” explained Shaver.

This was vitally important to one scene in particular: a tense and commanding sex scene, between Rachel Duncan and her then-monitor/security dude Paul Dierden, that ultimately wasn’t about sex at all. While most sex scenes are informed by their relation to male pleasure, Shaver knew this was about so much more for Rachel and the scene itself: it was about female-dominant sex where control and her selfish pleasure is the only objective.

“It really wasn’t until I was involved in Orphan Black and the broader conversation it created … that I really started to realize how ingrained in our culture these kind of gender roles are.” – Kathryn Alexandre

“They’d written that in the script—it said that she pushes him back on the bed and gets on top of him,” explained Shaver. “And I said, ‘let me play with this for a little while, because pushing somebody on the bed and sitting on top of them, well, whatever. It’s not radical.'”

The dynamics of the scene had to change from the description on the page, both in location and execution, because simply having Rachel straddle Paul was not enough to imply what’s really going on for the character. “For me, it became like, ‘What does Rachel want? Rachel doesn’t care—she is doing nothing for Paul’s pleasure. This is all about her. He is an instrument.’ So how do we show that? How do we visualize that he is chattel to her?” said Shaver, whose inspiration came from a maybe the least sexy place imaginable: the dentist.

“I had just been to the dentist, and to me the dentist is the worst,” she continued. “The idea of somebody sticking their hand and a machine in my mouth is like, what?! No. At the same time the idea of looking a gift horse in the mouth and how you examine the horse’s mouth popped into my mind and I thought, ‘Okay, all right, in here is something.’ So I started working on this image of her opening his mouth and putting her hand in and not allowing him to touch her. All of those aspects. I just started playing with all those ideas, and brought them to Graeme, and then to Tat, and they both were excited by the concept. And so that scene evolved, which I think is remarkable. I think it’s a really cool thing.”

And for Maslany, it gave her a deeper understanding of the character. “I think that was what was so cool about opening up that side of Rachel and seeing her dom: In that sex scene with Paul, we see a side of this character that I’d never seen, that I’d never explored, and doing it with Helen, again … thank God I got to do it with her because she just understood it and was really willing to go to a deeper place than just sex and sexiness. It was about power dynamics and pleasure as power and it was really exciting to do and very vulnerable making and very empowering at the same time.”

Shaver’s understanding of the women on the show didn’t end with the clones, however. And it fundamentally changed the way the actors thought about themselves in a scene. “She’s so great,” added Kennedy, who complimented her ability to hone in on a essence or—when need be—distract an actor from themselves in particular. “She said, ‘it’s about feeling thoughts rather than thinking feelings.’ And I just thought that was such a perfect way to describe it, and I really held onto that and kept it with me ever since.”

HOW IT’S CHANGED THEM AND THE FUTURE

I sometimes have a hard time writing about Orphan Black. It’s a challenge to find a way to synthesize what the show is and means to me as a woman and a fan. So, too, do the women who worked on it in front of and behind the scenes. Throughout several conversations with myriad women who’ve worked on the series, the point remained the same—Orphan Black was lightning in a bottle, an opportunity for women to create a thrilling, allegorical story ushered in by two very supportive allies in co-creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett. The duo took chances not just on their story, but on hiring women who were passionate about the work, giving them the opportunity to contribute, thrive, and grow within the parameters of the show…but also in themselves.

“I think that I was kind of naïve to how women were represented in media before my involvement with the show,” explained Alexandre. “It’s kind of so ingrained in us, the stereotypes of how women have been portrayed, and because you’re so accustomed to seeing it, I never really thought about it in a broader sense and how that representation has affected my view of traditionally male and traditionally female roles and all of that. It really wasn’t until I was involved in Orphan Black and the broader conversation it created—about how it opened up all of those questions and the commentary on how these female characters were kind of challenging the norm—that I really started to realize how ingrained in our culture these kind of gender roles are, and how we represent both genders in media, and how that affects people’s development and views of the world and all of that. It’s played a bigger part in how I read scripts or look at other roles that are offered to me and think about projects that I’m creating myself and making sure that we’re moving forward in that discussion as opposed to falling back into these accepted boxes that we put female characters into. It was a really, really special thing.”

“Being a woman working with a woman is very different than being a woman working with a man. It’s like there’s a truth shared by women, children, and artists that men will never know.” – Helen Shaver

Through being allies, listening, engaging, collaborating, and taking a chance on the women that made up the series, Orphan Black created a family—not just among the cast but also its fans, one as diverse and multi-faceted as the series itself.

“It really was this microcosm for opening up my mind to the bigger issue that we have with portrayal in media—and even talking to fans,” Alexandre said.

“I’m not saying that we were by any means perfect, but we were trying to work towards something that was always interesting and provocative,” added Kennedy. “And that left some kind of residue of just a thought, even.”

“Being a woman working with a woman is very different than being a woman working with a man. It’s like there’s a truth shared by women, children, and artists that men will never know,” Shaver stated, matter of factly. “I mean certainly men who are artists are in touch with their feminine side, and so on and so forth, but there is just a place that [we] found—didn’t find, but just exists for us—that was a great place to work.”

“I’m so nervous about the next show I’m gonna work on—everyone has told me, ‘You don’t always get a cast and crew like this. You don’t always get a show like this. You don’t always get a group of women like this that are such serious fighters behind the scenes to make sure that we’re steering our show in the right direction, to represent women properly on screen.’ I’m gonna take all those lessons I’ve learned and try to emulate them no matter where I go,” explained Donaldson.

“I don’t think I’ll ever really process how much that means to me,” admitted Maslany. “It’s just, it’s just beyond. It’s beyond. It’ll be very hard to follow this feeling of collaboratively telling stories that meant something to us. It will be hard to follow it up.”

[linkkon-blog]

                                                   THE MONSTER WITHIN                                                               - part one

Just a note before I really begin: ‘The Monster Within’ is the title of a series of headcanons that I have about Lincoln kom trikru. Everything from this point on are  ideas I have been playing around with for a long time but have been, for the most part, too shy to post because I haven’t taken the time to collect these ideas and try and mold them to fit a character that I have grown to love interpreting. Part one in this series discusses his childhood, primarily about what makes him who he is at his core and why he is the character that he is. That being said, if there are moments where I don’t explain things well it is simply because my mind flies through things too quickly, so please feel free to message me with any questions.

The Lincoln that his family and friends would have known as a kid is drastically different from who he is now, who he was before he died. The best analogy I can think of when trying to relate to him is that he’s like a coin (thank you, Shadow Moon). He’s got two very distinct sides of him that have truly evolved with him, and I think it’s present in the show over the course of three seasons with the character arc that we see as well as the semi-hidden context clues we are given or are left to think about. I think, in too many ways, we were robbed from such a rich backstory that the writers could have offered us. It’s not to say that there weren’t things that were hinted at or eluded to but because of circumstances weren’t really shown. (I think it’s also evident, in general, that we are robbed of a lot of the information about grounder culture and the very skeleton of who they are which is something that, from what I’ve seen, a lot of the fandom has so graciously filled in and headcanoned themselves.)

In order to understand the Lincoln that existed as a child and the Lincoln that sees the monstrosities of the world he lives in and the culture that he’s grown up in, I think it’s important to understand who his parents are because it molds so much of who he is, which is true in so many ways in real life. I’ve always had the headcanon that his parents are two drastically different people and should not have, for a number of reasons, ended up together. But I think because of who his parents are, side a and side b of a coin that is constantly being flipped in his life, he’s developed into this person who possesses things from both of them. His mom, who I lovingly call Aldie (her name originates from a small town in Virginia as well as my fondness for ‘A’ names that have a very soft demeanor about them), has an interesting role in trikru. I think her profession, for lack of a better term, is something that serves her people. I think she’s very humble and really invests in the other people of their village. A huge part of her, in my headcanon, is that her people’s needs are her own and I think that is emulated so evidently in Lincoln. I think at the end of the day, she would always put her people before herself, especially the people that she calls her own. In my mind, it is likely that she helped with some small trading as well as helped prepare their village for winter which would include gathering food, preparing resources and making sure that everyone in the village would be cared for no matter what. So, in many ways, her side of the coin is mimicked in who Lincoln is at the very core. The beliefs for what is right come so much from his mother and I think as far as both his parents go, he learned that more so from her.

On a completely different spectrum and on an opposite side of the coin, his dad was so much different than Aldie. His father, Zarys (his name is modelled after the word karys which means warrior in Lithuanian. I’ve molded it to Zarys primarily because Z has such a contrasting and harsh sound in comparison to the ‘A’ in Aldie. Fun fact: I always knew that I wanted Lincoln’s fathers name to start with ‘Z’. However, it used to be Zulla after a place/area in Virginia as well), is a warrior for their village. For me, it was never a question of what his father would do. It was always a matter of fact. We know from what was presented in the 100 that when Lincoln was young, he found the dropship from the Ark with the injured man, the man that his father made him kill after he secretly brought him food and water for 3 days. It doesn’t offer much detail but I think, based on this, that his father was very reserved but strict. I think, much like Aldie, his people would always come first, but because of that he had flaws in his relationship with Lincoln. I think he knew that Lincoln held the same compassion for other people but felt it in a way that aligned more with Aldie than Zarys. So, basically, it means that there was a certain pressure that Zarys put on Lincoln to really embrace the ways of their people and ultimately this pressure is what led Lincoln to the mindset that the world, and notably his father, have always been trying to turn him into a monster.

However, the biggest effect that Zarys had on Lincoln, other than the aforementioned, was the way in which he served his people. I believe that because Zarys was a warrior, Lincoln trained as one as well. There is nothing incredibly concrete in the 100 world that says children adopt the same “jobs” as their parents but there have been two circumstances that informed this idea. We see the first indication of this when we are introduced to Niylah, who works at the trading post just as her father did (and does at certain points in the show). Secondly, which was more profound in my headcanon, the knowledge that Indra had meant for Gaia to be a warrior before Gaia chose a different path. Indra makes it sound as if her daughter was supposed to hold the same position as her (leading armies and leading their people). It’s arguable that this is the case for Indra and Gaia because Indra was of a high status among their people and having a daughter who would, ideally, be close to her and could serve as the (ultimate) second would be beneficial in the long run. Even if that is true, I think because Zarys had such a forceful hand in Lincoln’s life, that there was never an option for him to be anything other than a warrior.

Arguably, there are a few crucial things that happen to Lincoln prior to him starting training as a warrior that really mold him to slowly turn into the “monster” he later learns to fear. The first is the entire thing with the man from skaikru in the dropship. In too many ways, I think Lincoln felt powerless in that situation because he hadn’t started training as a warrior at that point which means he couldn’t speak English. Since there wasn’t a way for him to communicate with the man, he knew that he would eventually need to involve someone that did. Due to grounder culture, the only people that speak English (or at least are supposed to be able to) are their warriors. Thus, ruling out his mother as the obvious choice. I think he also knows that his mother might desire to bring him back to their village and, even at a young age, he would have realized that it would have been a terrible idea. So, with that, I think he turns to the only other person that he trusts which happens to be Zarys. At this point, there was an innocence to Lincoln that didn’t expect the outcome that would leave him killing the skaikru man. However, in his narrative with his father as he is, this was the only outcome there would have ever been.

Killing the man from skaikru created a twofold effect for Lincoln. For starters, it sent him on a path that ended up carrying him along to become a great warrior which is the path that his father urged him towards. Secondly, I think it also destroyed a part of him, destroyed the innocence knowing that he took the life of a man who didn’t deserve death, who did nothing wrong to their people. Also, I can’t say this definitively because I only know so much about grounder culture. But in my headcanon, this was the first kill mark that Lincoln received. (Kill marks are earned when a warrior kills someone in battle or combat. I don’t remember it being mentioned if this was strictly done during training and times of war or if other acts could warrant kill marks.) Zarys knew that by ordering Lincoln to kill the man from skaikru, Lincoln would have two options. He could refuse and disgrace both his father and his people. Or, he could do it and “prove” to his father that he could make a decision as a warrior, could choose his people over feelings. To Zarys, this was something that was seen as an act of battle because Lincoln would have to choose between two very different choices, thus leaving him in a battle of self. In this moment, Lincoln made the correct choice according to Zarys’ standards, earning Lincoln his first kill mark and, for this moment in his life, tarnishing the side of the coin he learned from Aldie.

The decision to kill the man from skaikru would always have a profound effect on Lincoln, no matter how he tried to reconcile with it. I think having to do this would have been weighing on him heavily, especially as he would then begin training as a warrior shortly after. When he was young, it is unlikely that Indra would have been as high ranking as she is when we first meet her in the show. I don’t have a headcanon for how much older than him she is but I imagine she would have been old enough to help with his training, along with the other warriors still learning. Working so closely with a small group like this, Indra would have known Lincoln well, understood what drives him and what makes him who he is at the time. It would have also given her the opportunity to see the way his mother’s death affected him.

For so many reasons, his mother’s death was tragic. In my headcanon, it happened shortly after he killed the man from skaikru and shortly after he began his training as a warrior. It’s likely she died of disease or by an attack from another clan. Either way, it would have been horribly tragic for Lincoln losing the only person that he would have trusted at this point. He no longer trusts his father for all the reasons above and I think he feels a certain amount of anger towards his father for turning him into the person that he is currently and for making him feel the way he does. At this point in his life, there is little he can do. He still depends on his father as much as he doesn’t like it. But, seeing this, I think Indra is able to offer him guidance and sort of channel the things he’s feeling into training him to be one of the better warriors. This is sort of the beginning of the relationship between Lincoln and Indra and is the ground work for why Lincoln choosing skaikru over trikru multiple times betrays Indra so much.

It also lays the groundwork for path that Lincoln is on. This path starts because of who he is, the decisions he makes because of the person he’s been formed into. Without both sides of the coin, without his parents being who they are, Lincoln would never be the warrior, the scouter, the grounder we first see him as in the show. His parents are essential in the formation of who he is at his very core. But it is their two drastic personalities, beliefs, and duties that leave him at war with himself and continue to leave him fighting against the monster that is within.

Part two of   ‘the monster within’    will feature a look into my headcanons of Lincoln as a young warrior, his training, and his skill level. It will continue to explore his relationship with his father and Indra.