#everything is diagetic and everyone hates each other

[networkunsupported]

[funnyscienceman]

so….arcane s2

i said/thought "that's a choice" way too much too often while watching and i highly doubt that that's a good thing. whether it's a reflection of me or of the show, though, remains to be seen djsjhd

ori certainly hasnt had her agency taken away but they sure did take viktor's! 😀👍

jayce has been such a bystander this whole arc

in all the craziness i somehow forgot mel and elora got kidnapped by the black rose

listen im all for sevika getting to have smth to do bc she rocks but please for the love of god dont make jinx a revolutionary

who the hell is the kid???

wtf is going on with hextech

oh my god i completely forgot about ekko and heimer

so much like. Happened? but this whole arc still felt like a nothingburger

idk if it's just that s1a1 left ginormous shoes to fill but like this whole act was just Strange

Sky. That's not sky. Where tf are her glasses. Viktor have you given any of this two seconds of thought? No. Obviously he hasn't. He woke up and kinda just sleepwalked through the divorce. Riot cant point at this and say this is the glorious evolution this is just Changes Happening Without Anybody's Input. this is just Stuff. it's just a whole lot of Nothing what the Fuck

literally the only unequivocally good thing abt these episodes so far is singed

SPEAKING OF SINGED the music box begins each and every one of singed's scenes. it plays all through to the end - except in the last one, cutting out when singed closes the locket. that is the only time it's being played diagetically. those two other scenes, singed didn't have the locket open, but he sure did have his kid at the back of his mind

ok well yknow for one thing im glad nobody so far has been made infallible. i cant think of a single major character who hasnt gotten their shit rocked in some fashion this act. Ambessa's scared of the black rose, Jinx is still vulnerable to stuff like the Gray. i guess viktor hasnt really had anything happen to him yet but i think im considering the whole Jesus thing 'getting his shit rocked' in a completely different way. like jayce isnt wrong to be suspicious of 'it does that to him but i get by without a scratch?'

I might have to rewatch that opening scene tho it was genuinely pretty neat. Just feels like a lifetime ago considering all the crazy shit crammed into three episodes

Overall, Season 2 so far has been such a tonal departure from Season 1 that, if nothing else… it's actually not that hard to just mentally stick with the fanon of S1 taking a straight shot to the 2014 lore 😂 cant believe this is the shit riot wants to make canon lmfao

Earnestly, i really do hope this season turns out well. I don't want to hate it, but so far…. eehhh…

edit: went scrolling thru the singed tag and saw someone mention the "jayce will understand" thing, which like, yeah i guess he did? everything just went by so fast, none of what happened even felt… real. everyone besides singed is so off-kilter it's hard to believe they're even the same characters. they don't even feel like evolutions of who they were in s1, this just feels like a straight-up AU that's somehow made it to the big screen. again, Viktor basically sleptwalk through the 'divorce'. it's hard to even call it that tbh bec it just… happened? jayce said some stuff and viktor said some stuff and it felt like they were going through a script, not that they were actually saying things they thought or felt. this whole act so far has just been bizarre, i struggle to even see it as canon. this is literally just an AU

i shouldn't make any edits after this. i should just go back to hibernation lmao

edit 2: ok one last edit i now no longer feel bad about having cait be a total cringefail protagonist in ccn lmfao that is Absolutely not the worst direction to take her character. this is literally just her own Battlecast. i cant believe they made their 'one of the good ones' cop a total martial law dictator wtf 😂

[cromcrux]

I return again to the world of Pathologic 2. Despite the frustration that fuels the persistence through each day, I am compelled to return.

I am fascinated by the two "good" endings and that the only bad ending, is to forfeit a resolution. There is no morally correct decision, only to know, or to forfeit knowledge (something I could never do).

But I want to talk about this maddening world, my views, and an outlook refined by a world where failures are more impactful than success.

The sound scape is intense. So often there is no music, but what music does exist feels diagetic, even when it is clearly not.

The sound of dogs barking in any world now put me on edge.

The sound the disease makes is... Unnerving.

I love and hate how hazy the world feels in the day, the sepia film that covers everything except when it rains so hard you can't see around a corner. It is a perfect visualization of the heady scent of herbs growing wild on the steppe and in the town, effecting everyone living there. Night is the only time of clarity and is the most dangerous.

When everything is a race against time, the only decisions that feel like they really count are the failures. Which feels like a brutal reflection of life. Every second must be accounted for, and the only reward for success is more opportunities to fail.

Even Artemy's friends are bitter and hostile. His kin turn on him in an instant. There isn't enough medicine to go around and he can't carry everything he needs anyway. Even with the sturdiest cloak.

Everything breaks so quickly, but especially the protectives. Clothing is decimated by the disease and offers precious little protection to begin with.

Despite his size and acclaimed strength, Artemy is a terrible fighter. It's not really his fault, but he's not very quick and unless he's using a shotgun or a rifle, he barely does enough damage to scare someone off.

If I can make it all the way through the twelfth day, I always find it difficult to choose. Because to lose the old magic of the Steppe feels like losing the culture Artemy was born into, and losing a bit of magic and mystery from the world

On the other hand, holding tight to tradition seems to be yolking the next generation of the town. The old ways threaten their future and so the future of the entire steppe. They need the freedom of choice without being beholden to tradition.

No matter the choice made, something of great value is lost. If there is a middle ground, I have not found it. The story leaves me with a feeling of melancholy.

[rorytelling]

"well I randomly burst into song so it is realistic" is also a dumb response. We get it, you're a theatre kid. Me too. But we only do that because musical theatre exists. You're mimicking the genre, the genre isn't mimicking you. That's not the reason the characters in a musical singing makes sense. Me singing in public is not the same as me singing in public while a bunch of strangers do a choreographed dance number with me.

The reason it makes sense is because the singing is usually non-diagetic. When everyone freezes in a musical and a spotlight shines on a single character and she sings her entire heart out, the other characters aren't actually standing perfectly still listening to her. She's singing to the audience while time has briefly stopped in universe. Because the audience can't hear her internal thoughts and feelings unless she vocalizes it.

It's exactly the same as an aside in Shakespeare. Do you think, when Iago walks 3 feet away from Othello and lays out his entire evil plan to the audience, that Othello just isn't listening or do you think he hears everything and decides to ignore it for fun? No, it's because this is a play and Othello can't hear Iago even though he's full on yelling about how much he hates Othello and likes making huge webs of lies. He's not actually saying this in-universe. This is when you read a book and a character narrates their thoughts to you. But since it's not a book and is instead people on a stage it's, you know, presented differently?

When Eponine dies in Marius' arms the real-life version of this is not two people singing while one bleeds to death, it's two people speaking normally and crying but they put it to music because it's a musical.

And when characters actually do sing to each other diagetically, it's usually obvious that this is happening. A character will have an instrument or a prop microphone or they will talk about the fact that they're singing. Christine and the Phantom obviously sing together because the phantom literally says "SING TO ME" and she's an opera singer at an opera house. Troy and Gabriella are obviously actually singing when they're on stage or near the piano because it's a musical about musical theatre, but not when Troy is on the basketball court or Gabriella is sad in the hallway. That's non-diagetic.

If you can understand movie soundtracks and fourth wall breaks and anachronistic jokes in movies but not singing in musicals I think you just made the active choice to not understand musicals at some point, because it's the equivalent of going to see Captain America and thinking "wtf there's no way he'd be alive after being frozen for that long!" No shit, dude. Superpowers also don't exist. You're probably smarter than this.

[mattandsaraproductions]

A Rant, or, problems with Supergirl season 2

Why I’m writing this I’m sure I don’t know, since thoughtful discussion seems never to occur on this website. But I think lack of discussion is terrible, so here’s me, wading into the morass of shipping (specifically, regarding Supergirl season 2, yay).

Firstly, you can like something and recognize it’s problematic. I suppose this isn’t too obvious of a point, or I wouldn’t be writing this whole thing. There exists a block list, of all the damn things, for anyone saying anything construed as anti-karamel. That’s ridiculous. I’m not claiming that everyone’s points are equally well-expressed, but there are problems with the way Kara and Mon-El’s relationship is written. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy watching them. I’m not saying you shouldn’t like their relationship. I’m saying you shouldn’t ignore the problematic tropes and toxic relationship norms at play merely because you ship them. Those are two different things.

My problem with the show is therefore largely extra-diagetic. That is, I think the writers err by presenting as unproblematic relationship norms that are in fact toxic. I have nothing against Mon-El as a character, except that his name should be Lar-Gand (but that’s another writing fail, and let’s leave it alone). So the “wah wah you hate the hot dude” – yeah, this is why I detest shipping. Also, “supercorp” isn’t canon either, so let me piss off the entirety of tumblr while I’m at it.

Still here? Let’s talk about Monday’s episode. The lesson that Kara is supposed to learn from Alex and Winn (and the power of musicals) is something like, “You should forgive him, I’m sure he has good reason for lying to you.” This fails for two reasons: 

1. As somebody who’s written a little bit on forgiveness (check out More Doctor Who and Philosophy for my essay on self-forgiveness in “Day of the Doctor.” Shameless plug, huzzah!), I can’t recall that much disagreement there is in the literature about owing someone forgiveness. Probably some philosophers do think that there comes a time when forgiveness is a duty, but that’s a minority opinion. Forgiveness is almost always seen as supererogatory. It’s not a duty; it’s above any beyond anything you ought to do for someone. So forgiveness isn’t something you owe to someone. Even someone who’s done far worse things to me than Mon-El has done to Kara, and redeemed himself far better, would not deserve my forgiveness. Why? Simply because forgiveness is not a matter of duty or desert. So it’s not that Mon-El doesn’t deserve forgiveness – It’s that he cannot deserve forgiveness, because that’s not how forgiveness works.

2. This sort of advice is gaslighting. It refuses to acknowledge the validity of Kara’s feelings, being hurt by what has happened, and angry at Mon-El. The writing does not let Alex or Winn accept Kara’s feelings, instead, the characters are subtlety written as telling her that she is wrong to feel this way, that there’s something about the situation she doesn’t understand, and that she would feel differently if she saw things “correctly.” No, none of this is explicit. But compare the scenes we get with someone saying, “You’re angry at him for lying and sad about breaking up with him? Yeah, it sucks. Here, have a donut.”

So is this abusive? I don’t think that’s a well-formed question when asking about the writing. In the real world, is stuff like this part of a system of relationship norms where women are supposed to accept men’s bad behavior? Yes. Does it contribute to a lack of self-reflection on the part of people in abusive relationships? Yes. Does watching fictional characters go through this teach women and girls watching to accept these sorts of things in their own lives? Yes.

The rebuttal from Karamel shippers is about how Mon-El grew up as prince of an awful place (a society where the queen laughs at things like treating people as people), and he’s learning how to be a better person (how to be a hero, even). Now, I think the characters are underwritten. I don’t know if we’re supposed to think Mon-El had problems with the system back on Daxam, if he’s reconsidering everything now that he’s on Earth, or if he’s faking being a better person to get into Kara’s pants. Any of those would be a likely scenario. Really, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, because it is not Kara’s job to help him along that path.

If he wants to be a hero, or redeem himself, or even just do better, it’s on him to self-correct. His every screw-up thus far has led to Kara dragging Mon-El back on the path. That isn’t her job. Have him go to Metropolis and shadow Clark for a while. Have him thrown into the future and train with the Legion. It’s not that I don’t expect people to see this as normal. Women are expected to do most all the emotional labor in a relationship, so of course people are going to see this as normal. Television reflects our lives, and in turn our lives are shaped by storytelling tropes. But our lives, and the stories we tell, are poisoned by sexist norms that tell us how people are supposed to act. Is Supergirl showing us these norms at play in the characters’ lives, as a way to inoculate us in real life?

Well, no. I have no faith these writers are aware of what they are doing. If this were written to teach, to show how these sexist relationship norms function, and that their subtle insidiousness can infect the relationships even of the Maid of Might herself, that would be one thing. But these are the showrunners who’ve given us Arrow season 3 and nonsensical time travel shenanigans in The Flash. They are not writing a complex show here. They aren’t capable of it.

No, what the writers are doing is writing relationships the way they now how. And what they know is the way relationships function both on television and in real life. On television, where complex functional relationships between adults is non-existent, instead giving us romance that lurches from one drama to the next. And in real life, where women are expected to do the lion’s share of emotional labour in romantic relationships, aren’t supposed to introspect, and are supposed to be forgiving to their male partners’ every failure.

That’s why, for example, they didn’t write that Valentine’s Day episode to show us how stupid Mon-El’s jealousy was and how his actions are the exact opposite of what someone who likes somebody else should do in that situation. No, we were just supposed to accept that the metaphorical dick-measuring between him and Mxy is what any guy in that situation would do. It’s also the reason I stopped watching Buffy halfway through season 1, because the writing wasn’t presenting Xander as someone whose behaviour needed to be called out as misogynistic crap; we were supposed to find it funny, typical guy stuff. Is this sort of behavior normal? Sure. But it’s not a fact of the universe that things are this way. It’s not because of gravity; it’s because of sexism.

I loved how in season 1, being angry didn’t negate Kara being Supergirl. It was such a breath of fresh air compared to the moronic New-52 comics (a Red Lantern, seriously?!). It served to flesh out the character as her own person (her anger being an expression of survivor’s guilt), instead of the gender-swapped Clark they started with. It’s apparently a bridge too far, though, to allow her to be angry at her boyfriend for lying about his past and ignoring her instructions in the field, at least for more than an episode at a time. Lately, however, it seems like all the characters, and Kara especially, do not have inner lives. They act, but they seem incapable of questioning their own motives and desires. I have no idea why she and Mon-El like each other, aside from “straight white people.” It’s not that I don’t buy that this is psychologically realistic. I know it is; I’ve seen friends go through this, and in more straightforwardly abusive relationships besides. People can be drawn to each other, and be stuck in a cycle of breaking up and getting back together. It isn’t healthy, but it happens. 

But this is Supergirl, for pity’s sake. I don’t want realism. I want someone we can look up to. That has always been the point of these characters. A better show, with better writers, would be able to deliver a Kara in relationships still being the emotional and psychological center of the show. Between the CW, the writing staff, and sexism, there’s no chance of that.

TL;DR – I don’t give a rat’s ass about Mon-El. I care about analyzing and ending oppressive social norms that prevent people from living well.

Maybe if I keep punching real hard, something will break. It always works in comics.