#for maximum drama and catharsis

[discountalien-pancake]

The Double holds up upon rewatch, but there’s a caveat: don’t expect the logic to be perfect. The show is absolutely carried by the charisma, drama, and chemistry of the characters. In a lot of ways I think it works better than being wholly realistic in the plotting. Throughout the show, Xiao Heng and Xue Fangfei talk about how their schemes are plays—that is, everything Xue Fangfei does as Jiang Li is an act being tailored to the relevant audience.

I see that as a hint that we should also view the whole show as A Theatrical Drama. Things are portrayed for maximum effect and storytelling, rather than trying to show the most accurate sequence of events. You don’t watched a stage production of Romeo and Juliet and ask, why didn’t Juliet just marry Paris and then divorce him later? That’s not the point. Watching The Double is the same. We’re here to watch Xue Fangfei get her revenge, not quibble about why nobody came to see Jiang Li the entire 10 years she was locked in a convent in the mountains.

And thematically this makes sense! Xue Fangfei is putting on an act 24/7 except in front of a very short list of people. If you think about it that way, the entire show can be considered a theatrical production of her story—the logic will bend to make the story play out in the most entertaining and satisfying fashion, rather than the most reasonable.

In that sense, we can also view certain scenes as being ‘backstage’ or in intermission between acts. Xiao Heng is consistently portrayed as someone who enjoys watching plays—he’s the audience embodied. At the same time he is also an actor in Xue Fangfei’s production, and he could also be interpreted as an actor waiting in the wings for his cue, which we see happen throughout the show when he makes his absurdly dramatic and perfectly timed entrances.

What makes The Double special to me is that it has so much emotional depth that it wholly makes up for any flawed logic. We’re here for the catharsis, for the satisfaction of Xue Fangfei defeating her enemies and getting her happy ending. And because the show isn’t pretending to be perfectly realistic, it works.

[thewackypegasus]

idea: hollow knight arena pvp where you can play as any of the bosses against your friends

it can be a two person game or super smash bros style party battle arena

imagine pure vessel versus the radiance

or the hollow knight versus the radiance for maximum drama and catharsis potential

imagine getting to play as nkg! or, once again, the hollow knight or pure vessel (they are my favorite i love them so much)! or the mantis lords! or hornet!

imagine getting to inhabit the glorious form of the mysterious, powerful, gray prince zote!

idk i just think it would be really fun :)

[bisthefairy]

As fake Reddit stories slowly converge in content, optimising themselves for maximum drama, relatability, catharsis, etc, it's possible to see certain common narratives form. One I've seen a suspicious amount of times is "The Reddit Man Hero's Journey"

There is a good man

In a long term relationship, or marriage to a woman

Things are good

Until some bad influence enters his partners life (feminist best friend, ego-boosting promotion, new social circle)

And causes her to do a 180 from loving partner, to either distant and cold, or ungrateful and vindictive

She cheats

Then she does something suspicious (like suddenly showing interest in having an open relationship (which is *always* a confession of infidelity in these stories))

The man realises he has some way to undermine his partner's privacy, and does so (her phone plan in in his name, or she never logged out of Facebook on the old Ipad ETC)

And immediately what he finds is bad enough to vindicate him for snooping

So, despite being a kind and loving man, he is able to immediately shed all care and consideration he had for her wellbeing. Immediately recategorizing her as an enemy, or mere obstacle

He doesn't confront her immediately, and either pretends to be his usual loving self, or intentionally acts as cold and distant as possible while refusing to acknowledge anything is wrong (this often causes the partner confusion and distress)

He compiles a fuck ton of chat logs/other evidence, and puts everything in place for a grand master plan

The grand master plan is put into action, meaning...

Cheating partner is likely caught in the act

Evidence is sent to friends, family, employers

If there was a marriage, then divorce lawyers with air tight cases are deployed

Angry at being confronted/caught, the partner will often try to weaponize her womanhood at some point during all this, and/or turn into a double standard spouting straw-feminist

Despite any complications and hardships, the man will manage to swiftly and successfully disconnect his and his partner's lives/living situations

This will usually prompt an accelerated downfall to the partner's life

Family and friends abandon her due to her infidelity

Sometimes key members of her family will actually stay friends with her now ex, but not her

She gets sacked?? From work?? For what she did??

The corrupting influence either pulls her down to more depraved lows, or, being fundamentally unloyal, abandons her in her time of need

Whoever she cheated with, also abandons her, or ultimately ends up sucking in some way even she realises eventually

Now ex partner realises she fucked up and ruined her entire life

Suddenly wants the good man (op) back

Spams him with messages, begging him to forgive her

The man exercises his right to not reply or acknowledge any of this (but may conspicuously not bother blocking her number, making absolutely sure she's able to throw desperate pleas into the void continually)

Ex partner gradually gets more desperate, sinks lower and lower, tortured by the lack of response, until eventually

Ex partner commits or attempts suicide

The good man expresses some token sympathy

But feels absolutely 0 sense of responsibility for how tragically things worked out

Because his snooping was justified by her infidelity

His plotting and lies came after hers

It's not his fault what people thought of the truth he told them

It's not his job to show any care or concern for his cheating ex

It's a story where an everyman, gets betrayed by a woman who's just a stand-in for the audience's fears of betrayal

And manages to side-step all the messy mixed emotions

And go immediately into calculated revenge mode

And via a contrived series of events

Manages to entirely destroy the person who hurt him, but without ever *actively* doing anything, without having to be held responsible

(Obviously not all these elements are present in every example, but this is sort of, the platonic ideal of this kind of story, based on a load of stories I *mostly* remember) (Also clarifying, no, I don't think it's necessarily your necessarily responsibility to engage with an ex who hurt you, and it's not your fault if they hurt themselves. Just, this kind of story absolutely wants to have its cake and eat it, absolutely wants to imply that the man/op/protag's refusal to acknowledge the ex is causing pain and suffering, and it might even be intentional, but in a way that's technically within his right, so he has no social crimes to his name, while the ex is *a cheater* and thus very easy to demonise)

[veryintricaterituals]

Big Guillermo Meta ahead

Thinking about how this whole season's main theme is careful what you wish for. The vampires all get to live out their dreams and watch them fall apart in spectacular ways. I'm not even talking about the djinn wishes, though those explore the theme in even more obvious ways. I'm talking about Nandor and his search for love, Nadja and her search for having an impact, making something of herself in the afterlife, Laszlo and his wish to change Colin's nature. It all falls apart.

It happens to all of them except for Guillermo. Because we all know what his most fervent wish is, what he thinks he really wants above all else, and that is to become a vampire. I'm thinking about how that's going to fall apart completely for him just as all the other wishes did. He's doing exactly what Nandor did all season: trying to cover up the real problem, soothing it with a solution that's not going to make him happy in the long run.

He needs to realize he doesn't need to be a vampire to be happy, to be important, to have power, to be loved.

Guillermo needs to realize his self worth, he needs to learn to love himself as a human, he needs to see how important he is to his vampire family, how needed he is, how wanted he is, and he needs to see it as a human.

And he is on that journey already, we've been seeing it throughout the seasons and that's why his character arc and growth is so fucking compelling, and he's almost there.

But he's not quite there yet. If he's turned right now he's going to be miserable because after a few weeks, months, years even, he's going to turn around and see that he is still him at the end of the day. and all his problems are still there, all his insecurities, all his flaws. He's not magically going to turn into Armand, he's going to still be Guillermo, just now with fangs and probably even more murder. And just like the rest of the vampires he's now stuck, trapped.

Don't get me wrong, I still hope he gets turned, he deserves it. I just want him to not feel as if he needs it in order to be happy.

[maddie-grove]

My Top Ten Georgian (Ish) Romance Novels

Notes: I’m doing a top ten instead of a top five for Georgian, Regency, and Victorian romance novels, because I’ve just read way too many good ones to stop at five! Also, I’m using Georgian to mean the years from 1714 (when George I became King of Great Britain and Ireland) to 1803 (when the Napoleonic Wars started). Once a romance novel’s set in 1803 or 1804, it starts to feel less like “French Revolution hangover” and more like “it’s almost the Regency.” 

1. The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt (2007)

Exact Setting: 1760s England.

Premise: Independently wealthy Lady Georgina Maitland doesn’t care to marry, instead preferring to collect fairy tales and look after her rural estate with the help of her steward, Harry Pye. Yet she feels drawn to Harry, who is quiet and gentle and very good at carving small animal figurines out of wood. Their budding romance is threatened, though, by the growing hostility of their community, Harry’s complicated family secrets, and, yes, a series of sinister sheep-murders.

Why I Like It: Sometimes, the sexiest thing a man can do is make an exquisite little wooden hedgehog with his own two hands. Harry is a wonderful hero, kind and unassuming and ready to throw down the second some evil nobleman threatens the poacher’s son. I am also very fond of Georgina, an absent-minded folklore aficionado after my own heart. The rural setting is delightfully spooky, and the plot pulls together a lot of moving parts in a very effective way.

Favorite Scene: Harry and Georgina are reunited after he’s kidnapped and nearly murdered by said evil nobleman.

2. To Seduce a Sinner by Elizabeth Hoyt (2008)

Exact Setting: 1760s England.

Premise: When Jasper Renshaw, Lord Vale, is jilted for the second time in one year, unassuming Melisande Fleming offers herself as a substitute bride. Although Jasper seems like an ordinary and rather dry man, Melisande has secretly loved him ever since she saw his extraordinary kindness in a private moment. Jasper accepts because it’s convenient, only to be pleasantly surprised by their chemistry. Their marriage is going well...except that his horrible experiences during the Seven Years’ War are coming back to haunt him, both psychologically and in the sense that somebody is trying to murder them.

Why I Like It: Jasper’s combination of dry humor and hidden tenderness is pretty irresistible, while Melisandre’s gradual overcoming of her near-pathological reserve and self-denial is very moving. The suspense plot is exciting and carries unexpected emotional weight, plus there’s a nice side-romance between Jasper’s tough valet and Melisande’s enterprising lady’s maid. Finally, the sex scenes are super-hot.

Favorite Scene: Melisande flashes back to the moment she fell in love with Jasper.

3. An Unlikely Countess by Jo Beverley (2011)

Exact Setting: 1760s England.

Premise: After doing a good turn for genteel but desperately poor Prudence Youlgrave, directionless Catesby “Cate” Burgoyne thinks he’ll never see her again. Then he inherits an earldom from his estranged older brother. Not eager to return to his difficult family, Cate stops by Prudence’s village on the way home, hoping to check on the stranger he so fondly remembers. When he finds that she’s on the verge of marrying a lecherous old man at her shitty brother’s insistence, he impulsively offers to marry her instead...forgetting to mention that he’s no longer a cash-strapped second son. Prudence is prepared to deal with financial woes, but is she ready to handle the duties of a countess, a semi-dysfunctional aristocratic family, and murder?

Why I Like It: It should be clear by now that I’m a sucker for stories about creepy English country houses, and this novel certainly delivers. Beverley also takes a great deal of care in establishing the personalities of Prudence and Cate outside of their relationship, making the romance between them especially potent. Their consideration for each other makes me like them a lot, and it’s also weirdly sexy.

Favorite Scene: Cate and Prudence have a quiet moment together after he saves her from ruffians.

4. Thief of Shadows by Elizabeth Hoyt (2012)

Exact Setting: 1730s England.

Premise: Widowed Isabel, Lady Beckinhall, may be jaded and a touch hedonistic, but she’s also very interested in the welfare of the St. Giles Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children. In order to do this, she’s willing to teach Winter Makepeace, the middle-class proprietor, some social graces so he can help with fundraising. Winter disagrees that he needs to develop his networking skills, plus he has other reasons for wanting to keep this improper yet intriguing lady at bay...reasons that may or may not involve a secret crime-fighting identity!

Why I Like It: The contrast between Isabel’s insouciance and Winter’s severity is a lot of fun; it’s not uncommon for a rakish hero to be paired with a buttoned-up heroine, yet the reverse is rare. He’s more softhearted and she’s more interested in being a good person than their exteriors would suggest, but those exteriors add a little spice. This novel is also one of the best adventure stories in the genre, with plenty of skulduggery and derring-do to go around. 

Favorite Scene: Isabel discovers Winter’s secret identity (it’s sexy).

5. A Scandalous Countess by Jo Beverley (2012)

Exact Setting: 1760s England.

Premise: Georgia, Lady Maybury, used to be the darling of society...until her young husband died in a duel and rumors spread that she put his opponent up to it because she wanted to be with him instead. Now she’s out of mourning and trying to start anew, but someone has resurrected the old rumors. Prickly Humphrey, Lord Dracy, is willing to stand by her side, but could he have ulterior motives?

Why I Like It: Although I like the romance, the main appeal of this book is that it’s top-drawer melodrama starring a complex, charismatic heroine. There is no shortage of deliciously lurid nonsense, and Beverley builds a wonderfully constructed plot around it. I just luxuriated in the drama of it all the first time I read it. In addition, Georgia’s anguish over the loss of her husband (who was more of a best friend than a lover but still extremely important to her) and loneliness when she’s left behind by her friends gives the book a strong emotional core beneath the pulp. She also matures without having to flagellate herself for being high-spirited or making minor mistakes.

Favorite Scene: Georgia and Dracy try to solve her husband’s murder and deal with additional drama at a masquerade ball.

6. Heartless by Mary Balogh (1995)

Exact Setting: 1750s England.

Premise: Lucas Kendrick returns to London after years of exile to take over the dukedom he inherited from his estranged brother. He’s also looking for a bride and, instead of doing the expected thing and marrying beautiful debutante Lady Agnes Marlowe, he chooses her older sister Anna, who sacrificed her early youth to keep her family together through tough times. Charmed by Anna’s sweetness and maturity, he believes that this convenient marriage may turn out to be a love match as well. Unfortunately, Anna is being stalked by a traumatic past, both metaphorically and literally, that sows mistrusts between them and also puts them in physical danger. Plus, Lucas’s family relationships have to be sorted out and Anna’s deaf teenage sister needs to learn sign language! There’s a lot going on.

Why I Like It: In theory, I should dislike this romance. If Lucas had used a shred of understanding in the first act of the novel, he would’ve picked up on Anna’s traumatic past early on, saving them both a lot of heartache and enabling them to stop her stalker at least one hundred pages sooner. I think it works here because (a) Lucas’s negative reaction to Anna’s suspicious behavior is pretty measured (he withdraws emotionally and makes some stupid assumptions, but he’s not ever really mad at her and he still wants to make the marriage of convenience work) and (b) both characters are set up in such a way that you get why it takes so long for them to communicate (his default mode is to keep to himself, while she’s understandably reticent to talk about the horrible stuff she’s been through and stung by Lucas’s assumptions). Instead of frustrating the reader, Balogh wrings maximum angst from the set-up, making for great catharsis. 

Favorite Scene: As much as I love the angst, the unexpected initial romance of Anna and Lucas’s courtship was what truly reeled me in.

7. Duke of Desire by Elizabeth Hoyt (2017)

Exact Setting: 1740s England.

Premise: Proper widow Iris Daniels, Lady Jordan, is traveling home from a friend’s wedding when she’s waylaid by a secret society of evil aristocrats. Raphael de Chartres, the Duke of Dyemore, has infiltrated the society to bring it down, but he endangers his cover by rescuing Iris and throwing her in his carriage. Unfortunately, Iris thinks he’s just a regular evil aristocrat, so she shoots him, making it necessary for her to nurse him back to health at his secluded estate. She does a good job, but they still have to deal with the evil secret society and his all-consuming desire for revenge.

Why I Like It: Hoyt’s romances all have a fairy-tale feel, and she makes wonderful use of that atmosphere in Duke of Desire. Rafe lives in a dusty, disused castle, filled with old secrets and staffed by fiercely protective Corsican servants. Scarred and angry, Rafe has serious Beast-from-Beauty-and-the-Beast vibes, except he never kidnaps anyone and actually tries to deal with his serious mental health issues even before Iris brings a more sensible perspective into his life. I appreciated his family relationships, both with his sweet, disfigured maternal aunt and the monstrous father that he nevertheless loved.

Favorite Scene: I really like Rafe’s aunt, who could have easily been a Morality Pet but instead comes across as a capable, kindhearted woman who returns Rafe’s uncharacteristically gentle concern for her welfare.

8. The Pursuit of ... by Courtney Milan (2017)

Exact Setting: 1780s America (on a road trip from Virginia to Maine) and England.

Premise: John Hunter, a black Patriot soldier in the American Revolutionary War, finds himself fighting a white Redcoat who (a) won’t shut up and (b) outright asks John to kill him because he doesn’t want to go home. Instead, John gives the other soldier his jacket and tells him to start a new life in America. The last thing he expects is for the other soldier, Henry Latham, to show up at his camp post-battle and ask how he can repay John for saving his life. It turns out that John could use a companion on the long, perilous trip to his home in Maine, although he’s reluctant to trust a white dude who could choose to disregard his debt at any moment. As the trip progresses, however, they get to know each other and grow closer.

Why I Like It: When I read a Courtney Milan romance, I know that I’m not going to be bored. Her zippy dialogue, sense of humor, and use of interesting themes make even her weaker romances fun reads, and The Pursuit of ... is among her strongest. John and Henry are both engaging, sympathetic characters who interact with each other wonderfully; I especially enjoy how Henry’s incessant loopy patter bounces off of John’s deadpan remarks. The novella also balances its humor very well with serious discussions on what it means to live in a country whose reality falls so short of its ideals.

Favorite Scene: John’s reaction to hearing why Henry’s dad made him join the military.

9. Duke of Sin by Elizabeth Hoyt (2016)

Exact Setting: 1740s England.

Premise: Valentine Napier, the Duke of Montgomery, is a very bad man who goes around blackmailing and kidnapping his fellow aristocrats willy-nilly. Bridget Crumb, his housekeeper, is determined to stop him from blackmailing one lady in particular. They get along surprisingly well! Also, a bunch of crazy shit happens involving the evil society from Duke of Desire.

Why I Like It: I don’t know why, but Valentine Napier just cracks me up. He’s like a hotter, more sinister Dr. Doofenshmirtz, and I love him. He brags to Bridget about doing evil stuff that he doesn’t actually do, and then she goes behind his back and quietly undoes his latest scheme. Then he does something nice for her dog. Then he spouts a lot of flowery poetic nonsense (usually about how he has no heart and she’s a beautiful angel filled with integrity). Then they make out. It’s a beautiful, ridiculous relationship that’s propped up by a delightfully baroque novel.

Favorite Scene: Val sulks because his heartless self can’t relate to his beloved half-sister now that she’s happily married. EVIL.

10. Promised Land by Rose Lerner (2017)

Exact Setting: 1780s America (New York and Virginia).

Premise: Some time ago, Rachel Mendelson left her home and marriage in New York City to disguise herself as Ezra Jacobs and join the Patriot Army. Now she’s a corporal, and the Battle of Yorktown looms on the horizon. And who should show up but Nathan, the husband she loved but couldn’t live with, working as a Patriot spy? As the battle approaches, they struggle to work out the reasons why their first attempt at marriage failed, as well as their future as Jewish Americans.

Why I Like It: Lerner fits a lot of complexity into one novella without ever descending into inelegance. Without a single flashback, she communicates the entire history of Rachel and Nathan’s marriage, which was marked by affection and sexual attraction as well as painful class tensions and family dynamics. She tackles Nathan and Rachel’s differing approaches to their religion in an intelligent, nuanced way. Plus, the battlefield scenes wouldn’t be out of place in Hemingway--like, top-tier Hemingway, not the kind you make fun of.

Favorite Scene: The battlefield scenes, or Rachel’s description of her planned memoirs.

Further Notes: The Leopard Prince is #2 in the Prince Trilogy (which are only very loosely related). To Seduce a Sinner is #2 in the Four Soldiers series, and I would recommend reading the also-very-good To Taste Temptation first. Thief of Shadows, Duke of Sin, and Duke of Pleasure are #4, #10, and #12 in the Maiden Lane series, respectively, and that’s a series that I’d recommend reading in order, because I started with #2 instead of #1 and that alone was confusing. An Unlikely Countess and A Scandalous Countess are both spinoffs of Jo Beverley’s Malloren series, but I enjoyed them despite only reading one Malloren romance proper and one other spinoff. Heartless has a sequel, Silent Melody, which is also very good in a bonkers way. The Pursuit of ... and Promised Land are both part of the Hamilton’s Battalion anthology, plus The Pursuit of ... is technically part of Milan’s Worth Saga, although you don’t need to read any of them to understand it.

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Gankutsuou, Episodes 19-21

In which I finally parse what’s been missing from my thoughts, as I consider the nature of 19th century melodrama and the ways it falls short of what I want melodrama to be.

This Corset is Too Tight

Well, whaddaya know, it happened again. After fumbling around my thoughts for far too long, trying to put into words some observation or opinion that just isn’t coming to me, something finally happens in the show to click in the missing piece and make me realize what’s been affecting my opinions all this time. Honestly, though, that’s kind of the fun of writing for this blog; that moment of discovery where I realize why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling always makes for such a powerful rush. At any rate, I came close to figuring my reaction to Gankutsuou out last time, when I talked about the dissonance between its Victorian storytelling sensibilities and its ultra-surreal anime presentation. At the time, I thought the odd contrast between the 19th century melodrama writing and the completely overwhelming aesthetics was throwing me off what to make of the story at large, and I think that’s still the case to some extent. Let’s be real, you don’t expect the interstellar future to be a time when illicit love children are still left for dead by being buried in the garden like something out of Edgar Allen Poe. But that’s only a branching offshoot of what’s really going on here.

The real stumbling block I have with Gankutsuou, as I’m finally now realizing, is that I just don’t like 19th century melodrama all that much.

See, what sold me on the show initially wasn’t the promise of what the plot or characters would deliver; it was the style and the feeling that style promised. It was that rush of the Carnival on Luna, of staring down the barrel of a vortex of sin and debauchery, rendered in garish surrealism, a promise that I was about to experience something overwhelming, chaotic, breathtaking, and completely unpredictable. I was right there with Albert, knowing I was getting myself into a dangerous situation but plowing ahead regardless because the promise of what wonders this road had to offer was too powerful to resist. I came to feel like I was drowning in an ocean of wine while hopped up on LSD, to feel that same kind of sensory rush I recently talked about with the Akira movie. And there’s definitely been some of that; Gankustuou’s style is too uniquely batshit not to appreciate when it’s filling the screen with countless unnervingly entrancing visuals. But ever since we left the clutter of Luna and returned to Earth, the visuals have taken a backseat to the development of the plot and characters, which are just decidedly not as enrapturingly indulgent. Those first couple episodes promised a level of thematic sensory overload that would leave me breathless and begging for mercy, but the show that followed was just an especially trippy take on an otherwise straightforward 1840s adventure yarn.

And look, I’m probably the biggest proponent of melodrama I know. There’s a reason Angel Beats was my favorite anime of all time for a good while; I live for huge outpourings of emotion and feeling. But 19th century melodrama, at least the kind which Gankutsuou emulates, is a very different kind of melodrama. Instead of the drama coming from emotional clarity, in which everyone expressed their feelings at maximum capacity in massive tidal waves of catharsis, this kind of melodrama relies on the shock and scandal of its plot above all else. And that results in a story where every plot turn is designed to make the situation seem as jaw-dropping and brazen as possible. Eugenie’s engagement is called off by a rapist asshole who comes out of nowhere and instantly turns the entire plot trajectory around! Everyone’s fucking everyone else! Dead children coming back to life to spite their unfaithful parents! That mom just unwittingly slept with her son! And when Albert shows up to save Eugenie from her wedding, he does so in a corny manner that feels far more in tune with a Hugh Grant romantic comedy than the bitter, black gall of Gankutsuou’s usual MO. It’s all about maximizing the shock factor of the “details” of the situation itself, to write a scenario where the given circumstances are as naturally heightened and explosive as they can possibly be so they can carry the drama all on their own.

The Literal Worst

But here’s the thing; the reason I love melodrama isn’t because of the scenarios themselves. It’s because of the emotions and ideas underpinning whatever scenarios they involve. Gankustuou’s here trying to shock and awe me with illicit love affairs and incest and rape and betrayal, and meanwhile Clannad After Story made me bawl my fucking eyes out with nothing more than an absentee father, a field of grain, and a lost robot toy. This style of melodrama works to overwhelm you with the basic premise of what’s going on, but it doesn’t matter how many levels of infidelity you layer on top of each other, if I’m not invested in the emotions underneath, it’s not going to leave me as stunned as you want it to. The best melodrama, in my mind, is melodrama that comes directly from the choices of the characters themselves. It comes from what they do in pursuit of their goals, how far they push themselves to achieve them, and how cathartic it is when they succeed or fail. It’s an active process, one that gets you invested in watching them struggle with every ounce of breath in their body. Gankustuou, in contrast, is a highly reactive show. The characters are always reacting to the awful situation, reacting to each new reveal, reacting to the constraints of the increasingly unfortunate scenarios. But I rarely feel like they’re actually acting on those reactions in any meaningful way.

And there’s no better evidence of this problem than Andrea, whose entire purpose in this show is to cause as much conflict as possible by fucking over as many people as he can in as many ways as he can. I swear, at least half of the drama in the back half of Gankustuou comes as a direct result of him showing up somewhere, creating an unfortunate situation for the characters, and the narrative contriving of an excuse for why they can’t just deck his sorry ass right then and there. He’s a narrative tool to make the situational parameters as heightened as possible, but not for any meaningful reason; he only exists to cause conflict where there might have been resolution, to raise already elevated stakes to the point of absurdity. And at some point, he just stops feeling real. He comes off less like a genuine asshole motivated by actual goals and more like a crutch for drawing out the arranged marriage subplot as long as he possibly can with more and more complications, more and more despicable deeds, and more and more outrageous character turns, all so his eventual defeat can theoretically be that much more satisfying. The artifice becomes too obvious to maintain, and I just grew frustrated that Eugenie wouldn’t just deck this punk-ass bitch in the face and end this subplot right then and there. His rape monologue would feel right at home in SAO, for crying out loud, there is nothing meaningful driving him that could justify him preventing Albert and Eugenie from getting together as long as he did.

When I think of characters of this nature, characters whose entire purpose is to be an asshole that makes life miserable for everyone, I always come back to Adam Taurus from RWBY as an example of how to do them right. Thanks to the time we’ve spent with his abuse victim Blake beforehand, we’re already intimately familiar with how destructive this asshole is before he ever shows up on screen. And once he finally arrives, the way he tries to dominate and destroy Blake is utterly gut-wrenching and loathsome, because we completely understand the context of this parasitic bond, how he exerts so much control over her, why it’s so hard for her to fight back against him. He’s easily one of the most hateable villains I’ve ever seen, but you understand how his actions take effect, what twisted logic he uses to justify them, and why his dark presence is necessary for the story being told. As a result, he inspires genuine fear and loathing whenever he shows up, and his eventual defeat is one of the most satisfying moments in the entire show. But Andrea isn’t a worthwhile asshole. His motivations are tenuous at best, the consequences of his actions don’t feel genuine, and there’s no good justification for why he had to be a part of this story. And yeah, I was definitely relieved when the wedding party was finally crashed, but it wasn’t a satisfactory relief of seeing a monster getting his just desserts. It was exhausted relief of finally leaving this uninteresting, aggravating subplot behind us. Andrea is the literal worst, and his presence in this show is representative of everything that’s holding Gankutsuou back from the brilliance it so often hints at.

Precipice

Which is frustrating, because in its better moments, which are far less frequent than its worse moments, this show still works. Franz and Albert’s relationship is still damn powerful even following his death; that gay-ass letter Franz wrote to Albert (”Think back to our childhood, when we could love freely no matter how many times we got hurt.” Boi, he thirsty as fuck.) was ten thousand times more powerful than anything involving Andrea and the wedding subplot. In retrospect, these characters have always been the most emotionally open with each other, so it makes sense for the catharsis of their storyline to be capable of the kind of raw honesty that the rest of this show doesn’t manage to achieve. This is the kind of melodrama I actually like, the kind that feels honest and raw and powerful. Albert’s arc of overcoming his grief for losing his close partner works in a way I want the rest of this show to work; the touching conversation he shares with his mechanic friend about how Franz was lucky to have someone like Albert always worrying over him gave a powerful sense of closure to every moment we’ve spent with them up until this point. Hell, even Peppo’s antics have consistently been a welcome beacon of positivity; that final shot of her walking down the street, whistling as she twirls her shoes in her hand, is about as fitting a send-off for her as I could imagine. With the story entering its final stretch, we’re starting to see some damn evocative payoffs to these emotional throughlines, moments where the heart and soul underlying this tragedy really shine through. And I wish there was more of this, less of Andrea spilling his Oedipus complex to the entire world.

But so be it. We’ve got one session to go, and the Count’s revenge has entered its final phase. Two of his three targets are dead, executed in nastily fitting ways, and now, only the former Mondego remains. I, for one, know I’m rooting for this monster to get his just desserts, for the last thing he sees to be the smiling face of Gankutsuou as his eyes tremble shut. Perhaps in the end, this revenge will make it worth it all. Only one way to find out: bide our time, and hold out hope.

Odds and Ends

-Yeah, sorry, Haidee, Albert already learned this lesson. You can’t trust that there’s still good in this guy’s heart.

-”If you want to blame someone, blame me. But you mustn’t think of little of yourself.” Mercedez is growing on me. The more we learn about her, the less culpable for these crimes she appears.

-”My, how fascinating!” Even in the midst of a depressing hallucination of good times gone sour, Peppo remains the best.

-”I’ll hate you. As long as you live, I’ll hate you.” I’ll give Albert’s subconscious this, it knows how to freak me the fuck out.

-When suddenly, live action TV monitors.

-”Good afternoon, Mr. Danglers.” ahahahaha he’s so good at this

-Not sure what’s going on with everyone saying the Count doesn’t really want revenge. Is that what they’re saying? Or am I missing something?

The hour of reckoning is here, friends. See you next time for the end of Gankustuou!

[dimples-of-discontent]

“Absence, darkness, death: things which are not”: 14x18 watching notes

“What’s Deal with Catharsis?”

Let’s talk about catharsis. 13x04 has been haunting me since it aired. I couldn’t get over Dean sitting on a therapist’s sofa asking “So what’s the deal with catharsis?”. I know it’s obvious but it is also a dramatic term and we are hardcore missing some catharsis in this show. Essentially, it’s the purging of negative emotions that are typically repressed which, in drama, enables renewal or restoration. One of SPN’s narrative problems, for me, is that it gives us precious little in the way of catharsis. There are notable exceptions (12x22 when Dean confronts Mary in his dream, for instance) but for the most part negative emotions are repressed, sublimated, and remain unaddressed. 

This is especially (haha, autocorrect turned that to “epically,” which is also true) for Dean and Cas. And it’s not sustainable. We need some purgation of their negative emotions, we NEED them to know crucial bits of information that reveal their true feelings instead of repressing them: Cas killed a million Deans but Dean doesn’t know! Dean was nihilistically depressed when Cas died but Cas doesn’t know! Cas sacrificed his soul (and happiness) to save Jack and Dean doesn’t know! The layering of dramatic irony is all very well and good, but we need to stop it at some point.

“A quintessence even from nothingness”: Absence and Negative Space

Do I actually think that will happen soon? No. I was interested in “Absence” being the title of this episode since absence is defined by the things it is not. Cas explains it in terms of Jack--not bad but the absence of good. And that’s kind of where we are with DeanCas too. It’s not definitively one thing (romance) but it’s the absence of any other convincing explanation. If they aren’t these other things--brothers, friends, war buddies--then what are they? “Absence” also refers to Mary, of course, who was absent from their lives once and now is again to be experienced not as a person but a lack. Their whole maternal relationship is defined by feelings of loss and absence so in a sad and terrible way it’s returned to normal. SPN is full of things that are not definitively one thing but which are NOT a bunch of other things and, in all cases, the slipperiness of the definition is itself the narrative problem.

SHAMELESS RENAISSANCE POETRY PLUG please go read this poem by John Donne on the winter solstice, which is all about death and renewal:

Study me then, you who shall lovers be At the next world, that is, at the next spring;        For I am every dead thing,        In whom Love wrought new alchemy.               For his art did express A quintessence even from nothingness, From dull privations, and lean emptiness; He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.

It’s called, “A Noctournal upon St. Lucy’s Day, being the shortest day” and I adore it. Also...it (along with a lot of Donne) seems so SPN-appropriate that I think he would have been a fan. (Donne is the preacher who wrote the “no man is an island” sermon and asked “not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”. He had a massive command of rhetoric, yo.)

Anyway, “absence, darkness, death: things which are not” is what the title immediately made me think of. Jack promised a new beginning, forged from the darkness that was Lucifer, and part of me is still convinced that this is what he’ll bring, despite appearances. We all predicted early on that he’d have a moment to go darkside and, yeah, this is it! His choices would also matter--because this is Team Free Will--but it would then be his choice to act evilly. Even if that happens, though, he can choose not to and part of me thinks he will. We don’t have other Big Bads on deck for the end of this season/start of S15 so I’m assuming episodes 19 and 20 will focus on the Jack problem until it reaches a crisis that carries us through to the summer. But how they will resolve it, I hope, has more to do with the power Jack holds to create as well as destroy. Or maybe Chuck’s reappearance will set this balance off? We’ll see.

Also, “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” which I’m going to keep an eye on as the season goes on.

Destiel is Pain

It’s fascinating that the promos were edited to suggest that this was an episode with MAXIMUM DEANCAS DRAMA OMG!! when it kinda...wasn’t. I know @occamshipper​ pointed out that they edited it just like a het romance drama, centering on the “you’re dead to me” and building up the angst and tension. And that was there, but it wasn’t everything. PR isn’t showrunning, yes, but it does mean something; it means they think the GA cares. And that’s kind of a big fucking deal at this point because what the GA cares about determines what we’ll see more of in the show. It’s not definitive at all. But it’s a trend and an important one that some fine folks have been tracking for a while.

The “you’re dead to me” was not not a big deal--and I had hoped very much that we’d get an apology along the lines of, “Cas, I’m sorry. What I said--I put the whole Jack thing on you and that’s not fair. I did the same thing. We all did. You didn’t fail us.” Let’s cross fingers and hope we hear that the next time they talk (since Sam stopped Cas from trying to give comfort in this episode...pray4Sam who was SUCH a brother-in-law/marriage counselor here). But it’s a Buckleming next so I don’t hold out hope. In any case, it’s a big deal because while Sam now knows that Dean doesn’t consider the whole thing Cas’s fault Cas doesn’t know that and will continue to go on thinking that a) he’s only good the Winchesters insofar as he’s “useful” and b) he’s a failure to Dean specifically. THAT’S TERRIBLE AND WE NEED TO CORRECT IT IMMEDIATELY!!

But we won’t correct it immediately because the show is riding DeanCas tension as basically the A plot at this point. Building angst to a breaking point surrounding Jack just emphasizes that. Jack caused our biggest DeanCas rift to date, both by Cas’s unwavering support in him that led to betraying Dean (running off with SOME WOMAN after stealing the colt from under his pillow after the mixtape scene, layering romance trope on romance trope) and by coming into existence the same day Cas died. Jack’s essential good or evil nature has been the biggest disagreement in their relationship for 3 seasons now so it makes sense to center a crisis on it. 

And Dean doesn’t even KNOW about Castiel’s deal with The Empty! He doesn’t know that Cas traded his soul to return Jack’s to earth...only to have it be destroyed. True, The Empty said it would only come when Cas was happy and the thick angst we have now doesn’t suggest he’ll be happy anytime soon, but I think Dean and Sam are about to find out about the deal and Dean’s about to be pissed the fuck off at Cas for doing something SO STUPID (so like a Winchester). Maybe in the same conversation where Dean apologizes we can have Cas tell him the truth about the deal? Like, can they talk please? The real villain was miscommunication all along though, right?

Zombie Moms

Just a little sidebar to tell myself to return to 13x12, “Various and Sundry Villains” (a Yockey ep) and the two witches who were able to get Rowena the Book of the Damned (crucial in this episode, as Rowena unwittingly leaves it with Jack) try to resurrect their mom and bring her back...wrong. Because necromancy is extremely tough (and why didn’t Jack need any victim blood to bring Mary back the way that the Plum sisters did??) what they bring back is just a murderous simulacrum that was, honestly, what I was afraid they were planning to do with Mary. I’m relieved that they didn’t.

Both episodes owe a great debt to the Buffy episode “Forever” (5x17) where SPOILERS FOR BUFFY after their mother’s death her younger sister attempts to bring her back, only to realize at the last second that it’s not possible and the thing outside the door is a horror. It’s a very intense episode about grief, following “The Body” (5x16), one of the most devastating TV episodes to ever air. It was obvious to me that Yockey et al. were using that episode in 13x12, though not totally clear how. They even cast the zombie Mom like Joyce!! 

In any case, in 13x12 the sisters’ refusal to let their mom go was an example of the toxic sibling codependency that Rowena used to kill them (as they beat each other to death, one using a hammer just like demon!Dean). In 14x18 Jack’s desire to bring Mary back is an example of his being unable to cope with the reality of his actions and his fear of losing the Winchesters. That’s not toxic codependency, but it is a refusal to go through the stages of grief. There’s definitely something going on here--and going on about Moms--that I can’t pick apart now but want to (or hope someone else will!!).

On which note, my chemo fatigue has found me so I’m gonna sign off. Apologies for typos or lack of clarity. I have really missed doing episode notes, though, so maybe I’ll be back to it soon. I’m psyched to see how this season wraps up, how about you?

[kara]

so i know i don’t talk much about my personal life on here, but i honestly feel the need to vent/gloat about something i discovered today that still has me smiling from ear to ear, even an hour later. it’s nothing but relationship drama, so if you care enough to read it, everything will be under this read more:

so, my ex boyfriend whom i had been friends with for two years prior to the start of our relationship recently posted on social media that his ex girlfriend (who isn’t me) had “cheated” on him and broken up with him last new year’s eve. he made sure to mention how “betrayed” and “awful” he felt over the situation, bemoaning the unfairness of life and how he couldn’t believe that someone could do this to him.

now, either he has some form of amnesia, or he’s just so far up his own ass that he has somehow conveniently let it slip from his mind that he literally did the exact same thing by either cheating or planning to cheat on me with this aforementioned ex girlfriend of his around this time last year. when we broke up, he didn’t bother fighting for me and just never spoke to me again, which i was pretty broken up about at the time, but now i realize just what kind of bullet i’ve dodged. 

see, i had a fleeting suspicion even while we were together that he was being unfaithful or at least on the verge of it; we had began to talk less and less, and the overwhelming majority of the time when i would check up on him, he was playing league of legends. more than half the time, he would be in a premade duo with a girl whom i had never met and whose existence he never bothered to mention to me. normally, i wouldn’t care TOO much, being that i’d already known he had been an aspiring professional league of legends player (it’s as pathetic as it sounds, lmao) for ages, but the fact that they played together for literally hours at a time daily threw me off. on top of this, might i add, he could easily go for days without speaking a word to me or messaging me. you can imagine, then, how valued i felt at that point in our relationship.

i never want to return to these days when i felt restless and anxious every waking hour of the day while i checked up on his online status every few minutes, a million questions racing through my head. “is he cheating on me with this mystery girl at this very moment? who even is she? why hasn’t he talked to me for three days straight...again? is he even going to bother coming down to see me for valentine’s day like he promised?” 

every time i would bring up my concerns to him which was hard to do as i’m generally not very confrontational with those i care about, he’d apologize, say he didn’t realize how much his behaviour was bothering me, and vow to change. now, this wouldn’t be a problem if he actually followed through with his words, which--surpise!--he didn’t. he’d make more of an effort for a maximum of two days and then revert right back into his old ways. 

i have no idea if his ex girlfriend knew about me. what i do know is that she tweeted sometime in january that she was glad to be rid of her ex boyfriend, and that she had been unhappy with how he had ignored her for three whole months to spend time with the true love of his life, league of legends. she said that the game shouldn’t be someone’s priority, and that she’s doing much better with her current boyfriend who treats her much better. and honestly, i’m relieved and happy for her as well. nobody deserves the misfortune of being with my lowlife of an ex. even though i didn’t receive closure from him directly as he never bothered responding to me when i broke up with him like the coward he is, to know that he had treated someone else the same way he treated me is, as petty as it may sound, a form of great catharsis. i know for sure now that i had done my part, and what led to our downfall was entirely on him, because he treated me the only way he would ever treat any girl he dated: like trash. 

so i’m proud of myself for being the one to initiate the breakup, just as this girl did. whether she cheated on him or not isn’t something i’m particularly concerned about; i don’t condone the act, but i can’t say he didn’t have it coming, considering he was stupid enough to pursue her while he was already in a relationship. and i’d be lying if i said i’m not feeling mad schadenfreude right about now. i guess the lesson to be learned is that what goes around comes around, huh?

[theoldgods]

CAOS 2 thoughts/reactions/spoilers I guess?

That was at least 50% stressful nonsense, so much so I attempted to spoil myself for the end after about 2 eps because I could not continue watching if Blackwood was going to get even slightly away with it. Which he sort of did but I’m ok with him being on the run for drama in season 3 as long as it means Zelda is well and truly done with his ass. I can’t take a third season of Zelda being weirdly dickmatized by this dude. (I did like how she explicitly was like “I’m not in love with him, I just want power and maybe an occasional dicking and whipping,” which is valid, but c’mon, Zelda, you didn’t seriously believe he really would ever share power with you, did you? That was somewhat unbelievable as a character move and made her seem pretty dumb/naive.)

Other shit I wasn’t wild about

The compulsory heterosexuality that underlies so much of the witchcraft in this world that’s sort of being dismantled but not quickly or explicitly enough for me, really. There will be great moments like Lilith’s speeches or Zelda and Prudence teaming up against Blackwood but then also a continued overall focus on heterosexual romance. How often do these women have to learn that the straight men around them are 150% garbage and not worthy of them until they get their male asses in order?

Relatedly, the continued absence of any f/f romance and the fact that Ambrose lost his male lover and got a female one instead (pansexuality is all well and good but, weird optics when he’s still the only really openly, detailed-ly LGB character in any sense beyond “yeah sure I’ll do an orgy with the same sex”) and the fact that the extremely gay Dorian Gray turned out to be rather evil (or at least a dark shade of traitorous gay, which is always side-eye-worthy if it doesn’t get developed further in future eps)

Shit I liked:

Nick/Sabrina, overall. He’s a messy dumbass but he’s mostly just there to look hot and prop her story and agency up so I’m okay with it for what it is.

The handling of Harvey/Roz and the Harvey/Roz/Sabrina triangle. I always like seeing teen romance being handled with a modicum of emotional maturity and a lack of jealousy, and this was good on those fronts. I’d prefer Harvey and Sabrina to stay broken up for good but I won’t be surprised if they end up back together anyway eventually.

Most of Prudence’s overall story. Frustrating as hell to watch her be continually desperate for Blackwood’s love but they finally acknowledged it wasn’t worth it at the end and I like the idea of her and Ambrose teaming up to get his ass and save the twins.

Hilda getting a bit more development, killing people for Zelda, and a getting a surprisingly nice offbeat but sweet midlife romance with what’s his face the incubus

God!Sabrina was visually very cool to me with the explicitly Jesus-esque and saintly imagery in the church, the Weird Sisters’ emotional reaction to her in that role, etc. Not wild about her just magically curing Roz’s eyesight but eh, it sort of came back to bite her in the ass? 

I love a good “fuck it, let’s kill God” storyline, so I completely dug the HDM-esque storyline there for the last ep. I’d really like a more explicit exploration of what Jesus and the Abrahamic God are in this world, though, since they appear to really exist--is Jesus just another witch/magic user? Is the Abrahamic God just another fallen angel setting himself up as a deity a la HDM? If so, can we please kill him too?

Lilith, like Zelda, had a messy road to “actually, fuck men”-ville. Sort of reminded me of an abusive relationship and finally being able to escape Lucifer by the end? I’d like this independence and antimale attitude to stick around and not just be a passing fad on her way back to some sort of “proper” heterosexuality again. Michelle killed it, though, as always, and her crowning herself (and crying watching the play of her life, and using her rib to make Adam) made me actually quite emotional.

I’m not trans, but I thought Theo’s story was handled about as well as you’d dare expect from a melodramatic teen drama. I liked mandrake!Sabrina’s patronization of him being called out for what it was and also how his midseason prophetic vision shit was all about dysphoria but in a thematically appropriate way? Idk.

What I want in the next season:

Seeing what Lilith is up to in hell, preferably still in Michelle Gomez’s body. (Can we get both Mary Wardwell on Earth and Lilith using the body of Mary in hell for maximum Michelle content?) Seeing her interact with other women somehow (ideally Zelda as her new high priestess).

Zelda and Hilda working to reestablish a coven and church (FOR LILITH???!) and hopefully reform the shit out of it. I’d absolutely love to see witchcraft move away from explicit monotheistic-ish religion/worship and into a more free will type thing, or at least go way more polytheism. You have fucking magic, babes, you don’t need to worship various demons playing dress-up as gods, especially with Lucifer currently imprisoned. (What are the other covens going to do, like....do they even know Lucifer is currently out of service? Could be interesting.) I also want to see what Dorcas and Agatha are like without Prudence and just in general what the remnants of the coven do and how they work with Zelda. 

No more Blackwood/Zelda unless it’s her literally killing him. Just. Enough. Give Zelda someone truly worthy of her thirst. (Preferably a woman, ideally Lilith, but u kno.)

Blackwood fucking dying in some appropriately painful and ignominious way. Yeah, sure, Richard is hot, but he’s a fascist fuck who’s had his run of it. We need catharsis.

Sabrina and co doing cool shit in hell I guess en route to finding Nick. Ideally, them killing Lucifer for good, but I’m assuming he’ll somehow get out of Nick’s body and continue to be an antagonist, especially since IIRC there’s also gonna be a season 4.

Some sort of f/f romance. Sabrina exploring it would be cool, and of course my holy grail is Zelda doing gay-ass shit, but at this point I’ll take just about anyone.

[marvelingjules]

A, B, S

A: Of the fanfic you’ve written, which is your favorite and why? 

Hmmm, hard to decide honestly! There’s ones I love for different things, and so picking a favorite is hard.

I’ll admit I’ve had a blast writing my Blood and Fang verse here on Tumblr. It’s big and not entirely cohesive because it’s drabbles I wrote non-chronologically. But I’ll admit to loving writing about werewolves, and right now I’ve got the start of “Hope Romance Plot” which will basically be cutesy get-together fluff.

I also absolutely adore Pretend We’re In Love (The Heartache Still Hurts). I wrote it because both @27dragons and I wanted to read fake-engaged AUs from a post that was going around, so we wrote them for each other. It definitely spiraled beyond what I’d expected, and a lot of it was a kind of catharsis for me; a lot of what I saw the year before, when my nana passed, I used in that fic (but with less of the family drama stuff that was still going a year later, when I wrote the fic). It’s also Tony/Rhodey and definitely one of my favorites I’ve ever written. I spent so long plotting it, talked with a bunch of people about it when I’d get stuck, and I’m honestly proud of it, as well as love it.  

B:  What was the first fandom you read fic in?  Which was the first you wrote fic for? 

Hmmm… I wanna say it was Maximum Ride, tbh. Before that I wasn’t sure I even know fanfic existed. I think I was on the Maximum Ride website, trying to find out more about upcoming books or something, and there was a link to fanfic.net? I didn’t realize what it was at first, but it was tons of fun.

Now, if we’re counting fanfic I published? That didn’t happen until high school, when a friend (I’m half-convinced she was part Fae) snatched my writing notebook out of my hand, read the fic I was writing just for myself in there, and gave it back with the very strong demand to “write more.” It was Twilight fanfic. If we’re talking anything I wrote, even if I didn’t publish it anywhere? Good lord, I was writing fanfic, despite not knowing that’s what it was, back as far as I can remember. Might have been LotR fanfic. I have a vague memory of writing fanfic for the Inheritance series (you know, Eragon?) too.

S: How do you feel about fan art inspired by your writing?

I feel fantastically excited even thinking about it?! I’ve had fanart drawn for Sandbox verse Steve/Bucky/Tony, with their poodle puppy Peggy, and sometimes I like to just go fawn over it all over again lol. I’ve had someone make two aesthetic boards for Blood and Fang - one for the series in general, one for Sam/Steve. Oh, and beir once drew some fanart for a fic I wrote for her for one of the Winteriron Exchanges!

I think fanart inspired by fanfic is just one of the most delightful ways that two different mediums of fandom get to interact, you know? We’re all playing in the sand sandbox, but then we start playing in each others little corners of it, and that’s just making everything all the more fun.

Plus, it’s absolutely flattering to me? That someone would be so inspired and excited/touched/delighted by something I wrote that they drew something because of it? I’d never say no to it, that’s for sure.