#frankly it does a disservice to BOTH sets of characters in this case but

[marypsue]

pls elaborate on the realizations you had re: stranger things, characterization choices, and scooby doo? Is it that all/both easily freaked out characters are stoners, which is a common belief abt shaggy? (even tho shaggy is only a stoner in the live action movies 😒 and not the cartoons 😒 i will die on this hill 😒😒) Or something else? I am very curious 👀

Oh it was just. They took away Jonathan's entire personality and replaced it with 'weed joke', which I hated, and gave him a terrible haircut, which I also hated. And I didn't get the point of it (other than apparently they are bored of the Byers and can't think of anything interesting to do with them, which. Pick me. I have ideas. My hand is raised).

But then they also gave Jonathan a best friend who apparently is scared shitless of supernatural shenanigans but will do just about anything for his friends and a Scooby Snack, a brightly-painted logo-adorned van that the crew spend a whole season driving around solving mysteries in, and a personality transplant that's just 'weed joke'. And they do so many shot-for-shot recreations and lift so many production design and plot elements from classic films and television. And like.

They're doing an extended riff on Shaggy and Scooby. I get it. I don't like it, I think it was poorly done and that any time you have to change who a character has already been established as to make them fit into the mold of the thing you're riffing on, it's bad storytelling. But I get it now.

[blazeturbo102]

i find your point with buddie bond's growing for 5 seasons a valid point to make! it's true that buddie benefits heavily from the fact that both buck and eddie are main characters and thus automatically have a lot of screen time, individually and together.

but here's the thing... time does not equal quality and depth of a relationship, you know? if that was the case, it would automatically mean that my best friend whom i've know for 15 years will always and forever be more important and closer to me than anyone i will ever meet later on in my life, simply because my best friend knew me first. that is just not how love and friendships and relationships work, frankly speaking, and it's doing every other potential canon ship a big disservice by holding them to such unrealistic standards.

if relationships worked like that, that would mean that chim's relationship with maddie is doomed to forever be "weaker" than his relationship with hen. that would mean that athena's relationship with bobby is doomed to forever be "weaker" than her relationship with her michael. that means that hen's relationship with karen is doomed to forever be "weaker" than her relationship with chim. that would mean that chim's relationship with maddie is doomed to forever be "weaker" than his relationship with buck. do you see how this is illogical? and most importantly, how the show clearly does not support that take on relationships?

narrative-wise, i understand that we want characters to be multifaceted, deep, nuanced! i am totally with everybody who wants well-written love interests! i want to see buck and eddie with partners who are fully-accomplished adults themselves, who know buck and eddie, who support and love them. however, we simply cannot expect that minor characters to receive as much screen time as main characters. and we cannot demand to be given fully-fledged love interested when we first meet them. developing new relationships and characters takes time – both for us, as the audience, as well as buck and eddie. if you base everything on that argument, aka "how many minutes of screen time does [love interest's name] have in total?", obviously you will forever and always deem buddie superior because both buck and eddie are main characters with lots of screen time after all. however, outside of what we see on screen, that does not mean that they spend more time together than they do with their respective love interests. we have to remember that we do not see the majority of these characters' lives, often skipping even half a year of their lives between seasons!

karen is a good example for that – she is a minor character and barely has any screen time because she is also not a first responder. this is why maddie has had much more screen time and chances to grow as a character! 911 is a show about first responders, focusing on their work for the most part. this is why it has taken years, six whole seasons, to get to a point where we know a bit more about henren's relationship, how they started dating, their family situation, karen's work, and so forth. it takes time to build minor characters, much more so than main characters.

imagine if natalia and marisol were endgame (not saying that they are! only the producers can know what they have planned for buck and eddie) and stayed in the show for 6 more seasons until 911 ends someday. would you say it's realistic to assume that they (the love interests and the ships) will develop in those 6 years time? i think the realistic and fair answer is yes. that's why i say that we should set realistic expectations, enjoy the ride, be patient, and trust the show to tie things together logically in the end.

Oh yes!! Definitely!! I totally agree time doesn't equal quality AT ALL!! Sorry if that's what my post came across as!!

What I meant with Buddie is that, their bond has been always EXTREMELY deep and intimate, it's gotten to a point where it almost feels like an impossible standard to reach (for me); but not because of time!! Buck has known the whole rest of the 118 for longer than Eddie, and yet his strongest bond is with Eddie! So definitely it's not bc of time!

What I meant with the 5 seasons thing is, their bond was already SO incredible high, and yet it became even higher over the seasons! Like, if you start at the top, but still you keep going higher, you know!? (Idk if I'm explaining myself😅) Not saying they started at the top, ofc, but they did start very high and they've also gone through so much and stuff. (I also should have specified that in my mind I don't think they'll make many more seasons, I feel like a couple more would be enough, but it's true we don't know what they'll do, so that's my bad!)

So even if their endgames started at a high point, if your romantic partner is supposed to be your deepest/more intimate bond, I just find it hard to even get close to what Buddie has, especially taking on everything they've already gone through.

And I think it's especially important in Buddie, bc it's not only that their bond is extremely stronger, but that they already fill and compliment what the other is looking for and/or need on a romantic partner! I guess that's why for me it becomes a bit hard to see another partner, bc it's like the other already checks all the boxes, you know!? (At least the way I see it)

And don't get me wrong, I do find it hard to imagine them with other partners, but that doesn't mean I think they can't!! I'm sure the writers will do a great job if they give us new characters to stay!! (Even if they can't give them so much screen time, bc it's true that they'll never be able to show us the same as the mains)

Again, this is just my opinion, ofc!! And I meant what I said at the beginning of the post, I don't mind if they don't make them canon! Would I like it!? Ofc!(I actually do think they will) Will I get mad if they don't!? Not at all!!(as long as they don't forget their bond and they treat well all the characters!) Honestly, I'm just having fun hsgshagajshkaka

So yeah, thank you anon for your input and how respectful you were!! I'm sorry about the misunderstanding, but yeah, I'm definitely enjoying the ride and like, I still love all the characters, so there's definitely always gonna be smth I enjoyed lmao

Sorry for the long answer and hope you have a good day!!☺️☺️

[letteredlettered]

Hello! You already told us what you think about Ron, but what are your thoughts on Ginny Weasley? Pretty controversial figure in drarry fandom, yet you have a fanfic about her

That's one of the fics I'm prouder of! You can read it here.

This got long, so here you go:

When I first started reading HP I loved Ginny and wanted her to hook up with Harry. I really identify with youngest-girl-lots-of-brothers, so I could see the attention she wanted and the way Ron dismissed her was familiar to me. In the second book, I was a bit disappointed that she ended up mostly being a victim, but after I processed it I was happy she would have to face the darkness of being used in such a way. Ginny murdered chickens and wrote on walls in blood and was responsible for kids getting petrified; even if she was being possessed, she can remember her hands doing those things. I assumed at some point Harry would have to face a darkness within himself, and I felt like CoS positioned Ginny to understand and identify with him in a way others--who had not been possessed--could not.

Ginny wasn't a big feature in PoA or GoF, which was disappointing In OotP, I was disappointed at first that Ginny seemed to be growing up without much "screen-time", as it were, and seemed to have her own interest in guys other than Harry. I was a shipper! I'm ashamed! Once I had time to process, again, I realized I far preferred a Ginny who had moved on from Harry and could be her own person. That way, they could be more like equals when they eventually got together.

In HBP, I really rooted for her going her own way--but also began to feel pretty confused. I didn't understand how she could be Harry's love interest with so little attention paid to her. And then the romance did start, and it felt--completely out of the blue for me? Especially when it happened right after a very powerful scene in which Harry almost made someone bleed to death, and especially when it seemed to have more to do with Quidditch and Dean Thomas than Ginny herself. And then Ginny was barely in DH, which made me wonder why the romance even existed in the first place.

I think a big part of the problem for me is the love interests I enjoy in fiction share goals and are an important and equal part of both the characters' lives. Harry going camping to fight Voldemort while Ginny stays at Hogwarts feels a little to me like the fantasy of the wife you come home to, the one who waits. By DH, Ginny shouldn't join in the adventure; she has no place there. Furthermore, we all hope that Harry gets to move on and have a life after Hogwarts; Ginny can become central to him then in a way she wasn't earlier in life. People you end up with don't have to be the people who were the centers of our young lives--and in most cases, they probably shouldn't be!

But it doesn't make for a good story, and frankly, I have difficulty identifying with it. I have trouble understanding couples who seem to live in separate worlds. I don't mean that a person can't have their own friends and interests; having some aspects of your life that don't belong to your partner is good and healthy. But Harry starting a romance with Ginny when Ginny is never involved in anything he does is as weird to me as if I were to have a relationship with someone and never ever share my fandoms with them. That's just the way I am.

I do think this is a classic problem in Hero's Journey stories, in that the most important person to the hero is the villain they're trying to defeat. See Star Wars. Luke's most important relationship is with Vader, which is why it makes sense to discard Leia as his love interest by writing her as his sister. Aang's most important relationship is with Zuko and then Ozai, which is one reason Katara/Aang falls flat. I think a lot of this has to do with the propensity for creators (generally male) to make both the central hero and the central villain male, and an unwillingness to really tackle the homoeroticism inherent in the central relationships. The narratives I can think of with central female protagonists, like Buffy, are give male counterparts who function as both villains and love interests.

I'm making some sweeping statements here; it's not true for all heroes journey stories, but I think it's why you see Hermione and Ron paired off. Harry's central relationship is Voldemort, and if you scale that down, you can make Draco Harry's central relationship, because Draco is a pawn of Voldemort. Now, I have argued quite stridently that Draco is only peripheral to Harry's life, and I stand by that statement most fervently--but that is according to Harry. According to the structure of the narrative, you can replace Voldemort with Draco under and umbrella of "evil/Death Eater/foe." By doing so, you can deal with issues that are very central to Harry's story.

As for Ginny herself, in the end, she suffers from the exact same problem as Ron, and so many other characters in HP. In other words, the set-up is there, but the execution is not. Ginny is the youngest of seven in a loving, magical family. In that way, she is a perfect counterpoint to the loneliness and negligence and Muggleness Harry experiences growing up. Yet, in such a large family, Ginny has to understand what it feels like to be overlooked and ignored--in that way, she's in a perfect position to understand and identify with some of Harry's isolation.

Ginny is the only other person in the book besides Harry to be possessed by Voldemort. (The only classmate to come close to having a similar experience is Draco, and his mind and body are not possessed at all, not like Ginny's or Harry's.) As such, she's also perfectly positioned to identify with a lot of Harry's trauma. She's also perfectly positioned to hate Voldemort with a very personal passion that's different from Ron or Hermione--Voldemort befriended her in the journal, and then violated her; it's very different than hating Voldemort on principle.

But in the end these aspects of Ginny just aren't utilized. We never see what she suffers in CoS really resonate. We never really learn the effect her family has on her, or even really who she is, other than that she is sporty, tough, and pretty. It's difficult to dislike Ginny Weasley, because the way she's written does her such a disservice, and she could have been such a brilliant character. She's just a lot of wasted potential, in my opinion, but those last two books certainly killed my whole Harry/Ginny shipper heart.

[franniebanana]

CQL Rewatch - Ep 23

Seriously, how useless are these two right now? The puppets all dropped dead around them, yet none of them run up to help Wei Wuxian. I think we saw Lan Wangji running, but he just had dramatic close-up shots for the first few minutes as well. Like, stop looking dumbfounded and stop just providing facial reactions to things, and get up there! Act like you're in a war, gdi! They're reacting to seeing Wen Ruohan stabbed, which I chose not to cap for obvious reasons.

So even though I knew the story from the book, I still think this moment is pretty cool when they reveal that it's Jin Guangyao who has stabbed Wen Ruohan literally and figuratively in the back. The last time we saw him, poor Nie Mingjue was getting the crap beat out of him by Jin Guangyao, so seeing this here--like, ooh! Double-double-cross! Triple-cross!! It's fun to see a twist that doesn't make you groan! Because, of course, you want to root for Jin Guangyao because he's a bastard and has always been looked down on everyone. Now you see that he was not a villain at all, and he was actually helping the good guys by double-crossing Wen Ruohan! Of course, we know he really is a villain and all, but most of that really doesn't come until later in the story haha.

I do enjoy the light parallels here between Lan Xichen and his brother. We see both of them willing to give their best friends the benefit of the doubt and protect them from those who are less willing, let's say. And both of them are even willing to stand up to other people they know and trust. Nie Mingjue is one of Lan Xichen's closest friends, and we see Lan Wangji stand up to his own uncle. If you're looking at CQL without the romance angle (which, why would you?), this parallel is a bit more striking. You basically have two sets of bosom friends. Obviously one set crumbles at the end, but there are definitely a lot of parallels and comparisons to make. And sorry, for a show that couldn't have any gay characters, they sure made it seem like Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao had a thing for each other (even though neither of them is gay in the book, mind you). A weird sort of change--I don't even ship them, but their early scenes seemed very shippy. Maybe it's my American lens, I don't know.

But speaking of weird changes, allow me to go on a tangent. Wen Qing's role expansion doesn't bother me, not really. I kind of say it does, but it's not really the expansion that gets to me. It's the fact that she was going to be a love interest for Wei Wuxian that bothers me. Wei Wuxian is gay. He's gay. Lan Wangji is also gay--if not gayer. Her being a love interest for either one of them means they are no longer gay. Bi, maybe, but what that would have done was erase their canon sexuality. It would have also turned their relationship into that horribly tropey brothers-in-arms or whatever name you want to give it--basically JUST FRIENDS who want to defend each other's honor. You can certainly read CQL that way, but if you are, I don't think you're paying attention to Wang Yibo's performance at all. And if you're not paying attention to the second lead, then why are you watching this show at all? So, changing their sexuality changes the whole show (which already is so tropey, from what I understand) into something so derivative, I wouldn't even want to bother watching it. One of the things I think you take away from CQL is Lan Wangji's, frankly, undying love for Wei Wuxian. If he goes and has a fling with Wen Qing at any point, that cheapens his character dramatically in my opinion. Lots of people can say this better than me, and probably have, but I'm very grateful to those passionate fans (and to Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo) for helping to change the script from the original drafts, which were frankly no better than a junky harlequin romance, having Wen Qing passed around like a piece of meat, which is so far from her character in the novel, and definitely a disservice to her.

Not gonna lie, it's adorable to think that Jiang Yanli and Lan Wangji have been talking over the past few days, maybe having tea together, while Wei Wuxian is in a coma. I feel Lan Wangji was a very calming presence for Jiang Yanli, because she was probably very worried and fretful over Wei Wuxian. I like the idea of him playing the guqin for Wei Wuxian, and then having tea and a quiet chat with Jiang Yanli before leaving. Also very cute that Wei Wuxian is half-heartedly trying to badmouth Lan Wangji, by calling him boring and uninteresting, but he can't even get through the sentence without smiling to himself. Obviously he's loving the idea that Lan Wangji has been at his side every day, worrying over him and slowly doing his part to nurse him back to health.

I love his expression here: shock and relief and joy, all mixed together upon seeing that Wei Wuxian has woken up. Obviously he knew he'd wake up eventually, but he didn't expect it so soon and I don't think he expected his heart to be in his throat and to be so indescribably happy to see Wei Wuxian awake.

Wei Wuxian, of course, can't really meet his eyes, and Jiang Yanli makes a swift exit (she knows what's up--these boys need to talk). And Lan Wangji just has love in his eyes: Heart-guang Jun. I mean, imagine how he must be feeling right now. He had just gotten Wei Wuxian back from what seemed like certain death, finally reconciled, and then Wei Wuxian is in a coma! He must have been terrified of losing him again. It's probably all he can do right now to not hug Wei Wuxian.

I seriously love everything about this scene. I love the colors, the cinematography, the longing glances Wei Wuxian gives Lan Wangji, the way Lan Wangji quietly scolds him while still playing the guqin because he's a professional. But really, I just find this scene very pretty and moving and emotional. I enjoy seeing Lan Wangji getting to take care of him and even more that Wei Wuxian lets him and puts up with it. I think most of us are quick to retort a good old, "I'm fine" when asked how we are, but in this case, Wei Wuxian is not fine, and he has no ground to stand on if he's trying to prove that. It's hard for Wei Wuxian at this point, though, to really lean on anyone, even Lan Wangji who is his best friend. He certainly can't lean on Jiang Cheng for reasons I don't think I need to go into again. He kind of leans on Yanli, but at the same time, he can't (and doesn't wish to) burdon her either. Lan Wangji is really the one person he should be able to lean on and seek comfort from, but he feels awkward and uncomfortable, because of the dark spiritual energy and giving up the sword, and Lan Wangji's crusade to help him.

"Who is good and who is evil?" Wei Wuxian is struggling with a moral dilemma: is it right to round up the Wens and kill them/hold them captive? The Wens did horrible things, after all, and this is the reality of war. Of course, we've just seen Lan Xichen struggling with it as well. Why capture the women and children and elderly, who have nothing to do with the war? He's only met with the fact that it's not just the male cultivators who are dangerous. Still, his mind is only placated by the lie that the people will just be interrogated and sent to a labor camp--then cut to the blood on the floor. So Wei Wuxian is not only struggling with what the Jin Clan and other clans are doing, but he's also thinking about his own deeds--how many people did he kill? How many did he brutally murder in the name of revenge? Because of the things he's done, is he good or evil? Is good and evil so black and white? Does it just depend on whose lens you're viewing it through?

Lan Wangji looks at Wei Wuxian with all of this knowledge and doesn't know what to think. He's afraid of what Wei Wuxian has become, afraid he'll end up like Wen Ruohan--he's afraid of losing him entirely. But the situation is not black and white, and good and evil is not so easily defined. You can only know once you know that person's heart, and Wei Wuxian isn't really letting Lan Wangji in anymore. He's trying to convince him with his words, but that is simply not good enough.

I think if Lan Wangji hadn't stopped him here, Wei Wuxian would have played that flute and tried to end all of the Jin "hunting party" (sorry, that was a little dark). His emotions were already high after the conversation with Lan Wangji on the cliff, and we've already seen him feeling disturbed by how the Wens are being chased and rounded up. I, for one, wouldn't have complained if Jin Zixuan's cousin bit the dust earlier. I think his name is Jin Zixun. Is that it? See, even I don't remember him.

I love how even though they are far apart, this scene still feels very intimate. It's very moving, and the music and the cinematography help to cultivate that feeling. I like how Wei Wuxian perks up when he hears Lan Wangji pluck the first few notes, and Lan Wangji does the same when he hears the sound of Wei Wuxian's flute. I feel like they are spiritually connected here as they play this haunting duet. And I think it's a connection they haven't felt for a long time. There has been so much tension between them for so long, and this scene feels like a big sigh from both of them. While I still feel like there is tension present, there is a bit of a release here--at least, that's how I feel as a viewer.

Ah, yes, the awkward period where Jiang Cheng has become leader of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect, wants to control Wei Wuxian, but doesn't know how. He's new at this, so I can't blame him for being a bit awkward as he figures out what he's supposed to be doing. As a young man, he basically nagged Wei Wuxian for doing inappropriate things, but now when Wei Wuxian misbehaves, Jiang Cheng is in part responsible for that behavior. At some point or another, the two of them grew up. Wei Wuxian's misbehavior isn't precocious anymore--it's serious and it has consequences, and just as in Gusu, Jiang Cheng sees that those actions are a reflection of the Jiang Clan. Only now, they aren't just a reflection of the clan, they're also a reflection of Jiang Cheng, himself, and his leadership (or lack thereof).

And speaking of awkward...Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have some...unresolved...stuff to deal with. But God forbid they actually talk right now. How can they? They're at this stuffy banquet that neither one of them want to be at. I feel for them both. Wei Wuxian is hurt because he thinks Lan Wangji doesn't trust him. Lan Wangji feels terrible because he wants to help Wei Wuxian, but the latter won't really let him in and allow him to do so. I feel myself just on pins and needles during these scenes with all these glances, but at the same time, I love it because DRAMA and ANGST! And they're just so in love lolol.

Nie Mingjue has to be that guy that always wants a certain table. The waiter leads him over and says, "Is this table okay?" expecting the answer to be yes, but nope--not Nie Mingjue. He'll request a different table. XD

I love this little conversation--it's like they're both measuring each other up. I think they each have a healthy distrust of the other. Although Wei Wuxian has always been kind to Jin Guangyao, I don't think that discounts the whole demonic cultivation thing in his mind. He knows Wei Wuxian is smart and clever and, most importantly, capable. And as for Wei Wuxian, I don't think the ease in which Jin Guangyao manipulated Wen Ruohan is lost on him.Essentially the downfall of this great cultivator and enemy of all the other clans was due to one man: Jin Guangyao. I think Wei Wuxian is thinking the same thing I am: he's extremely clever, devious, and potentially dangerous if you get on his bad side. His rise to power within the Jin Clan is kind of amazing. His estranged father admits to Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen that Jin Guangyao is his son, his station has improved drastically in a short amount of time. He sure as hell is dangerous.

Jiang Yanli can hardly contain her excitement when Jin Guangshan brings up her former engagement to his son. Just kidding, of course. I'm kind of horrified for her that he's bringing this up now in front of all these people. It feels very much like he's pressuring not only her, but also his son to get engaged again. First of all, Jiang Fengmian and Jin Guangshan agreed at the time to let the children decide whether they wanted to get married or not. Second, if you're going to talk about this, at least do it in private! Third, this is not letting the kids decide. God, this would be humiliating! And I also totally expected Jiang Cheng to speak for his sister here, so I'm glad he didn't do that. It's really none of his business either.

Lol! The weird cutoff here! Who's speaking??? I don't know!!! I mean, obviously, it's Wei Wuxian, but it's like they don't expect us to recognize his voice hahahahaha.

Other episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | Or just check out the #CQL Rewatch hashtag

[graphicabyss]

I watched The Falcon And The Winter Soldier and I liked it more that I expected, although frankly I didn't expect much. Overall, I love the setting, the cinematography and the character development. The director and the writers did an excellent job. But it also sent me down an emotional roller-coaster and that's the thing I really need to talk about.

I know there are countless rants about TFATWS, Endgame, queerbaiting and poor MCU narratives but I've never really been hanging out in the fandom until recently so for me it's my first one and I need to get it off my chest. It's gonna be long.

It was interesting to see where the show's gonna take things but start to end there was an elephant in the room. It doesn't sit well with me the way they completely sidestepped the Steve Rogers issue. Like, "we didn't make this mess, so we're not gonna go there". And it's just wrong. You can't just avoid the subject altogether and pass it on for future writers to handle. Also, you see Bucky so sad and lonely it breaks your heart. And this inevitably made me think about Endgame and Cap's storyline. I didn't feel like writing it all down after Endgame but now all these thoughts and feelings came up again and I need to get it off my chest. If they ended it all at Endgame, and I thought they did, it would have been fine, sort of. We'd forgive some loose ends. But they didn't end it there and that makes them fully responsible for this mess. I mean, I didn't hate Cap's ending. After all, it could have been worse. Steve could get together with Sharon like in the comics and they probably considered it at some point but the reactions were so bad they backed down and dragged Peggy along. Still, the ending just felt forced, no matter how you look at it. The thing is, if I knew about it after the first movie, I'd rejoice. But at this point, after everything that went down after, it just doesn't feel right.  I love Peggy and I can't deny the dance scene made me flutter a little but now I wish this was Steve's way to keep his promise before going back. In the end, Peggy would be fine without him. She had a good life, she made a career and a family. We know that thanks to Agent Carter. And we got many cues that Steve and Peggy's relationship, as important as it was, was over. Her saying goodbye to him by destroying the serum, him carrying her casket... Yet, Endgame effectively undermined that basically erasing all of these events from existence and making Peggy just a prize for Captain America.  On the other hand, Bucky needed Steve the most. And the show made it clear how bruised and broken he was. Bucky and Steve's relationship was the closest of any relationship in the MCU. At that point it was clear Bucky was everything to him, the only one who could truly understand him. Steve lost him many times and every time he fought to bring him back, no matter how impossible it seemed. When Bucky was captured Steve went into an enemy base alone on a suicidal mission and saved him and everyone else. That's basically how he became Captain America. Then Bucky got killed in the war and it devastated him. Bucky returned as Winter Soldier and there was hardly any Bucky left in him but Steve nearly let himself be killed because he needed to save him and he trusted that James would not hurt him. When Bucky finally got to his senses, there was an ultimate war going on and in the Snap James fell to dust in front of Steve's eyes. It took 5 years to get him back. And as soon as Steve succeeded, he left him, along with the rest of his traumatized friends and the world in deep chaos, to be with Peggy in 1940's, thus throwing 12 years of his life away. It just didn't feel right. That does a disservice to both Steve and Peggy's storylines. But it's not just about Peggy or Bucky. Steve going back and living his life to return to that park as an old man has opened a rift with a host of questions. I tried to get to the bottom of it but it got me nowhere.  According to Russo, when Steve went back he created an alternate reality. He also retired as Captain America. First off, I think he just made that up after to cover up the mess. If that was the case, Cap would return to the designated spot and not be sitting on a bench like he was waiting there all along. But, like, even if it was alternate reality, it could not be that different, right? He wouldn't just live in Peggy's basement, would he? He knew about the things to come like, you know, the HYDRA thing, and being the man that he was, he couldn't just sit and do nothing. Especially when Peggy was one of the founders of the SHIELD. Captain America or not, Steve would do everything to make this world a

better place. Also, if Steve went back after he crashed that plane, that means there's another Steve still locked in ice, which Russo confirmed. Even more importantly, in Steve's timeline Bucky is still with Hydra being tortured. There's no way he could leave him there. So much for the 'quiet life'. Then there are the writers of Endgame who claim that Peggy's two children are fathered by Steve. Really? That directly contradicts the earlier version that the father is a soldier Steve saved, which is shown in Agent Carter. Seriously, guys, if you're gonna make up random bullshit at least get your stories straight first.   Fans love to make all sorts of theories to try and patch up the holes but the truth is, MCU is not just one mastermind's creation and the comics weren't either. It's bound to be a mess because it's created by dozens of writers and directors and each phase gets increasingly messier because it has to fit in with the 547 previously released movies and shows. I get that and I applaud the effort of Endgame but they really can't expect us to get involved with the characters only to see them being treated as an afterthought. And the thing is, I thought that it might be just me but after a quick survey of the fandom I realized that a lot of people feel the same way. If you look at the comment section of nearly any relevant video, you're gonna get top comments saying all these things. If Marvel listened just once maybe things would make more sense. And all these thoughts aren't necessarily what I wanted to see, but what would be right for the characters. And while I do love Stucky, I'm a reasonable shipper and I really didn't expect them to be canon gay or anything, I just wished they had at least spent some time together not fighting, just healing and catching up on their lives. Honestly, I don't always like the way people ship m/m characters in every show but this time it was really more than justified. The whole storyline going through Winter Soldier and Civil War was just massive queerbaiting. It was undeniably a love story, romantic or not. "Why do you ship male characters?" some people ask. Idk, maybe if the writers put half the effort into developing m/f relationships as they do m/m ones and not just randomly throw them together I might care about them. And MCU was terrible with romance. That traumatic kiss Steve had with Sharon Carter? In the comics, Steve did love Sharon but who cares? In MCU they met, like, twice. Mostly after Peggy's funeral. Peak romance. If they had to pick a new love interest they could go with Natasha. They cared about each other, they bonded in TWS and they were both dealing with some difficult issues. But they became just good friends, which I loved. Instead, Natasha got together with Banner? And then there's Wanda and Vision, which seemed like the most random of pairings with no buildup whatsoever. The wonderful world of heteronormativity where a witch/robot couple comes before a gay one. And the thing is, I only recently learned that there's some legit leverage to portray Bucky as gay. Bucky is based on two characters from the comics. Bucky Barnes was Steve's teen sidekick, kinda like Robin, so this origin was too weird for MCU. Instead, the writers used the origin story from a character named Arnie. It was a boy Steve grew up with, a boy who protected him from bullies, and a boy who kept inviting Steve to these double dates. A boy who was gay. Which wasn't explicitly stated but was pretty obvious. And this was in 1984. So making Bucky gay would be neither woke nor against 'canon'. It would be way overdue.  So with TFTWS it was nice to see Bucky recover and bond with Sam but to me the whole ending also felt a bit excessively positive and this time the queerbaiting felt even more intentional, almost as if the writers wanted to distract the discontent fans with a new shiny ship so they forgot all the things they were mad about. Like, of course I want Bucky to be happy but also I hate the way the show's pushing the idea that he just needs to get over losing Steve and move

on with his life already because surely all his problems come from his inability to trust people and not trying hard enough, and not from being brainwashed and tortured for 70 years and then losing the only person who loved and cherished him.

[crossdressingdeath]

I know you'll probably disagree with me, but i rlly hate the Cloud recessess ending. It's just....

Those elders killed wwx. The Lans were 100% ready to murder both at Qiongqi path but also at the siege. They see him as the guy who corrupted their precious jade. They all preach righteousness, but the whole madam Lan thing is iffy at best and i do not believe that everyone there fully believes the rules. Hell, i have a special bone to pick with the " do not gossip" rule, seeing as gossip had been the main info route for women in patriarchal societies.

I just don't think that after wwx killed Lans in the siege they'd be all that willing to forgive him and take him in w open arms. The juniors and kids love him, yes, but people who saw the war....

Not to mention the whole " do not speak to WWX " rule. I've seen ppl say it's a joke but it's On The Wall. It's supposed to be followed. Even if it was intended as a joke - which i don't believe - it's very cruel for someone w rejection and trust issues.

I also hate it from a very personal perspective. I see Wwx as ND, and, as an ND myself, all those rules terrify me. From the no running and the proper posture ones, i can pretty well imagine they forbid stimming. The Lan curfew would fuck anyone with insomnia and there's smth deeply ucked up abt the " do not grieve in excess". I get that they're supossed to be a paragon of the best things at all time, and that LJY is very UnLan like, but for someone w anxiety who CAN'T follow those rules, it would be a nightmare.

...Some points:

First, the Lan elders did not kill WWX, nor did they attack him unfairly. They weren’t looking at him as the man who corrupted LWJ, either, or at least that wasn’t their primary concern (I will never forgive CQL for suggesting they were or it was); they were looking at him as a traitor to the sects who was raising an army to destroy them. Remember, that is the information the Lans had. Every source they had except for LWJ (who the people he would have gone to would have known was biased and who presumably everyone knew had recently been in close contact with WWX where he could have been manipulated or enchanted in some way), sources which included multiple sect leaders (one of whom was WWX’s brother) and LXC’s dear friend, swore up and down that WWX was a major threat, and let’s face it, WWX didn’t do much to dissuade people from thinking that! Acting like the Lans were maliciously targeting WWX is doing them something of a disservice, I’d say. They acted based on the knowledge they had available; note how the Lans are the first to offer WWX their help once they’re given reason to believe he may not be a villain! And even aside from that, saying they killed WWX (and not JGS and JGY’s manipulation or JC’s army) feels a bit like scapegoating, honestly. Of the four sects, the Lans are quite possibly the least responsible for WWX’s death. If it would hurt him to live with or around anyone who held any responsibility for his death his only option would be to live as a hermit, which would be far worse for him. And yeah, the Lans aren’t perfectly righteous all the time and some morally dubious things have been done by Lan sect members; they’re human, after all! Some of them will only be as moral as their sect leader demands they be! That doesn’t mean the sect as a whole is bad, especially with LXC, LQR and LWJ in charge. Certainly I’d say they’re still better than the other sects, all things considered. One ambiguous situation that may or may not have involved some members of the previous generation doing some fucked up shit doesn’t mean WWX would for sure be mistreated! 

As for gossip... there’s a difference between sharing information and gossiping. There’s no evidence that the Lan women are blocked from... y’know, freely communicating and sharing information between themselves. We have no reason to believe they are reliant on gossip. Also they presumably go out night hunting just like the men? Men and women are kept separate in the Cloud Recesses, but I get the sense that that’s more like... school stuff than anything else. The women aren’t exactly locked up, they can be cultivators! The society is still sexist, but that doesn’t mean they’re kept from going out and doing things. And I need to make this clear: there is a fair chance that the rule against gossip saved LWJ’s life, because it kept word of him defending WWX from the sects from spreading to people who would not be willing to let bygones be bygones. Gossip sucks! It hurts people! A lot of this story (and more to the point the suffering of the characters within the story) happens because of gossip! The Lans banning gossip is pretty clearly supposed to be a good thing, I’d say.

And yeah, maybe after WWX killed a bunch of their sect the Lans wouldn’t accept him with open arms as if nothing ever happened! And that’s fair! I can’t imagine where WWX could go where that wouldn’t be the case, unless he and LWJ chose to abandon the cultivation world forever. But you know what else the Lans won’t do? Try to execute him. Or from what we see in the extras even dwell on the past that much. No, the Lans aren’t going to immediately forgive WWX and bring him into the fold without a moment’s hesitation, but you know what? They accept his marriage to LWJ! They let him supervise the juniors on night hunts! They consider him part of their sect! Honestly, that is all WWX can really ask and far more than he’d get from any other sect. There are consequences for what WWX did, even though he wasn’t the villain or necessarily trying to hurt anyone, and frankly people not being entirely comfortable with his presence is very much reasonable.

The “do not speak to WWX” rule may not be a joke, but it’s also pretty clearly not a serious rule. No one takes it seriously. The juniors (the only people WWX really talks to anyway aside from LXC and LWJ) only pay it the minimum lip service of talking to him off the path. WWX himself sure as hell doesn’t care! He clearly finds it pretty damn funny. And I don’t think a guy who has never liked him once again proving he does not like him (in a way that is clearly temporary given how later LQR invites WWX to the Lan family banquet with... reasonable amounts of grace, thereby implicitly accepting him as LWJ’s husband and therefore his own family by marriage) counts as a rejection or a breach of WWX’s trust? Like, LQR has literally always hated WWX. He isn’t preventing WWX and LWJ from spending time together or shutting WWX out of the Cloud Recesses or even making a concentrated effort to keep people from talking to him; he’s venting his frustrations, but if he really intended to block WWX from taking part in life in the Cloud Recesses he would’ve done a hell of a lot more than just make a rule who no one WWX likes follows anyway. It’s a temper tantrum, that’s all, and clearly that’s what WWX takes it as. I mean, if nothing else you can’t ban people from talking to the sect heir’s spouse indefinitely. That’s just not sustainable.

As for the rules... banning people from running in the Cloud Recesses and demanding proper posture during lessons doesn’t suggest to me that they wouldn’t allow stimming? ‘No running’ at least is a common rule... most places. It’s distracting, and can be dangerous. And the rule about sitting properly doesn’t mean “Don’t move at all ever”; it means... well, “sit properly”. Don’t slouch or sprawl across the floor. I see no reason why that wouldn’t preclude means of stimming that wouldn’t be disruptive (and given this is in a classroom environment “not disruptive” is kind of important). I mean, those rules certainly don’t suggest that they’re any worse than other sects, and given this is the sect that has magic music for calming people’s minds if any sect would give allowances for neurodivergence it would be this one. Also I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a song to put people to sleep, or medication that can help; this is a world with magic, after all, and if there’s a song that can put spirits to rest there are probably songs for human medicine and care. And of course there’s an element of conflicting needs; maybe the rules would screw you over, but frankly firmly enforced rules keeping people from running around or sprawling out of their seats would’ve been a godsend for me in school, given how much trouble I had focusing with people making noise around me. At the end of the day, is it guaranteed that the Lans would make allowances for people with needs that conflict with the Lan rules? No. But I’d argue it’s more likely that they would than any other sect. This is ahistorical fantasy ancient China, too; you can only expect so much in the mental health department. Still, a sect that literally invented magic music for calming the mind actually seems like the best choice for people with anxiety and such. There’s a reason why there are multiple fics that essentially set the Lans up as mental health experts in the setting!

Basically, a lot of your arguments seem to be issues that WWX would have in any sect. Unless he wanted to give up on the support of a sect altogether, they’re all things that he would have to work through or come to terms with. And of course... the most important point is that WWX is happy in the Lan sect. The extras make that clear. He has a home, duties that he enjoys performing, the love of his family and the support of his sect. He’s happy. I just... I do not understand why people keep feeling the need to try to make it angsty when the novel makes it clear that he genuinely enjoys his life in Gusu, and more than that that if he ever decided he didn’t enjoy it he could leave at any time. You have to remember that: if WWX wanted to leave... he would. He and LWJ would just go, and only come back occasionally so that LWJ could visit his home. Hell, LWJ would insist on leaving for WWX’s sake. So like... the Lan sect wouldn’t suit everyone, but WWX is quite content there and doesn’t want to leave. He’s happy and free to come and go as he wishes; there really isn’t anything to be concerned about there.

[trashcatsnark]

What’s your opinion on Kerry being available to only male V when it’s mentioned in-game that he’s bi (correct me if I’m wrong, I have terrible memory)?? I feel like they should’ve had bi romance options if they were able to implement both gay and straight ones.

Oh anon, oooooh anon. I love you dearly, but you intentionally or not might as well have thrown lit dynamite in my ask box. This discourse has been such a strange beast within this fandom and I have definitely shared some vague thoughts about it before. I’m putting everything under a read more, to help stave off some....harassment or putting it in people’s lives who may not want it. 

 I still remember I was frankly heartbroken and upset when I first learned Kery wasn’t romanceable by female V when the game first officially came out, but before I played it; River and Panam weren’t even really known about, cause they weren’t talked about much in the promo material,  plus Kerry was shown in romance scenes with what looked to be female V. So, if you go back far enough you’ll find me in December cope posting and being the saddest and angriest of beans, because other than Johnny who I knew was likely off the table. He was one of the only characters I wanted to potentially romance. Now, I’m further away from it, have  processed my feelings regarding it and am more rational I believe regarding the issue. 

But, that being said, a large issue of this sort of discourse is that; no matter what anyone says, someone somwhere is upset. I’ve been insulted, blocked, accused of fetishizing gay men, and so much over my opinion regarding this matter. I’m still currently debating if I even wanna tag this, cause the issue almost always brings negativity to my blog and to me. I have very little interest in being berated for this, so we’ll see how I feel after I finish typing this all out. I’m going to try to go through all my issues, my points, my troubles and feelings about the matter. But, at the end of the day, it is merely my opinion. If someone disagrees, fine, just don’t attack people or berate them over pixels in a video game. Just dont. That’s all I ask. Okay, so I’m gonna divide this into talking points and whatever, now. 

Firstly, Kerry is bisexual. Point blank, period. I’ve seen folks try to argue that his wife was like comphet, which if you dont know means that sometimes exclusively homosexual people will try to force themselves into heterosexual relationships because society has conditioned them to believe they have to be straight. While, I’m not negating the fact that this happens, as a bisexual/pansexual (I use the terms interchangeably to define my experience and feelings)  person I’ve struggled with it when making sense of my attraction to women. It genuinely is something that happens. This is not the case for Kerry; he doesn’t ever hide his attraction to men, between TTRPG lore and the video game he has had two wives , and he is stated by game developers and TTRPG creator to be bisexual.He is bisexual. Getting that out there, saying other wise, in my opinion is a level of bi erasure. That being said, I do still have my grievances with how the game chose to handle his bisexuality and bisexuality as whole, also imo, the game generally doesn’t seem...to treat players who are attracted to men well… 

But before I get into that, I wanna make clear, I feel like Cyberpunk 2077 should have had more romance options for every orientation. If you’re not going to create a player-sexual style of romance; ie where every romanceable character is attracted to the player regardless and wish to focus on each character having their own predetermined sexuality; only have one character for each sexuality is kind of bullshit. If you’re a lesbian player and you’re not into Judy, you get nothing, except a fuck around with Meredith (who I will get to later). You’re a straight woman, but not into River, shit out of luck. You’re a gay man who’s not into Kerry, sucks to suck bud. You’re a straight man who’s not into Panam (kind dont get how you wouldn’t be but who am i to judge), well, you can fuck Meredith… so woooo. Oh also, if you’re not attracted to women, you will still be forced to watch in first person pov a sex scene with Alt and if you want Johnny to like you, you gotta date a girl. Also, all the male love interests will be sidelined mostly…. Hooray… But I digress, either go in with all romance options bi/pan/player sexual, or give more options for romance. Cause now you have the issue of people not getting the partner they hoped for and not liking their only option. Now, you got people trying to make the Judy  bi, which is lesbian erasure and lesbophobic, along with people saying Kerry isn’t bi and can’t be with women which is bi erasure and biphobic. Whereas, if you had just gone in from the get go with either more options or a player-sexual romance system; we wouldn’t be here, CDPR. 

Okay, so next thing, now that I’ve addressed my issues with the entire romance system and that yes, Kerry is bi. Should Kerry have been able to be romanced as female V? Yes and no. Which sounds vague, but I’m going somewhere. With the current set up of it; Kerry being romanceable to a female V would have unfairly given female players an additional love interest over male players. Female V would have the option of Judy, River, or Kerry. And Male V’s would have the option of Kerry or Panam. That’s not fair. I get that, inherently. CDPR painted themselves into a corner, by only letting there be two romances for “each” gender, one for “each” sexuality, and then using a canonically bi character for one of them. They played themselves, they were either gonna have to give an unfair amount of love interest to one side of their gender system or make a bi character who will only pursue one gender. So, they went for the latter. 

Now, some people feel thats fine, because Kerry having a gender preference is fine and its okay for bi people to lean a certain way in regards to gender and its okay for them to not be attracted to people. And that is true. I am a bisexual woman who leans a little more towards men, I get that. However, I have only been given one reason for Kerry’s preference for male V over female V. And it was by a developer of the game who stated that Kerry pursues Male V and not Female V because Male V reminds him more of Johnny… And I hate that. I personally, hate it so deeply, because to me it does a complete disservice to Kerry and V’s relationship and Kerry’s arc. Because even with female V you see him being preoccupied with Johnny and V’s connection to Johnny, then you see him move past that. So, to then state, its still a deciding factor in him romancing V is so wrong to me. Like why???? Why would you do that to people who like Kerry??? Why would you put that in their heads, that Kerry on some level, subconsciously or not, was thinking about Johnny when he decides to romance V. Cause that’s not in the game, in the game you get the vibe he’s moving on past Johnny, like he’s growing, developing, genuinely likes V. But that stupid tweet, just radiates rancid vibes, whyyy???  

And then, outside of that nasty tweet, I have to ask what other reason is there for why he prefers male V over fem V.  They’re...the same characters essentially, just with different pronouns and body type. They also can look like whatever you want; they’re completely customizable. So, Its based off of what the game associates with  gender characteristics and nothing else, meaning, his attraction is rooted solely in their gender and he turns down fem V by virtue of them being a woman and nothing else. Which, yeah, bisexual/pansexual people have preferences but when that preference completely excludes a gender based on nothing but gender…. Uhh????? See my issue???? 

And I’ve seen people saying, well, its better than CDPR playing into slutty will date anybody bisexual stereotypes. But, the thing is...THEY STILL DO THAT which is what drives me up the god damn wall; they managed to do slutty bi stereotypes and I don’t even get kiss the boy, which again, I get the need for fairness but wow, just wow. And lemme explain. 

Meredith is the only character, other than joytoys, whom you can have sex with regardless of gender, body type, etc. She is the only character who shows that she is attracted to V on some level regardless of gender. 

She is a one night stand. Her sex animations are the same as joytoys. She treated like a promiscuous love phobic woman.  And having characters like that is fine, my own V is promiscuous and love phobic. But, we can acknowledge that in a video game by a AAA game company having the only character who is at least physically attracted to the player no matter what, be nothing but sex fodder...isn’t great bi representation, right? 

Oh, and Kerry himself still is a promiscuous bisexual man, he just won’t romance female V because apparently, according to a dev, they don’t remind him of Johnny enough. AND THATS THE DEVS WORDS, NOT MINE, I HATE THAT. Like, Kerry is shown to have people’s lingerie around his house. He’s stated by Johnny to be someone who fucks around. He gets a blowjob from a man in a stairwell. 

The two most blatantly canonically bi character in this game are promiscuous; one wont romance V at all and just wants sex, the other will only romance a male V because at worse, he’s comparing them mentally subconsciously to his dead friend and at best….because….reasons…. Literally, from what I understand for Kerry to romance V, they have to have the “male” body type and “male” voice. Meaning, fem V could literally by all appearances look like masc V, body type wise, but because she uses female pronouns and has a feminine sounding voice...no… the stars say no… 

In my honest opinion, it is bad bisexual representation and a not so well thought out romance system for a game. 

But, that being said, I literally never romance anyone, because I’m a Johnny simp. So, the fuck do I know.

oh god do i tag this.... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[montagnarde1793]

Ribbons of Scarlet: A predictably terrible novel on the French Revolution (part 3)

Parts 1, 2, 4 and 5.

Style Issues

 Stylistically, there’s a great deal of “tell don’t show” in this book, especially as regards the actual politics. The only things that are really concrete are the characters’ romantic entanglements and scenes of violence. This is a flaw that runs so deep that correcting it would mean writing a completely different book.

 One thing that they could have done that would have made it somewhat more bearable, however, regards the use of language. In a book written in English but that takes place in France and where all the characters are French, please, I’m begging you, do not randomly (and often ungrammatically) insert whichever French words and phrases you half-remember from high school French class into descriptions and dialogue. It doesn’t give the characters a flavor of being French, it gives you a flavor of ignorance.

The key word here is “randomly”: note that I’m not talking about things like terms of address, exclamations, etc., for which there is an established convention, or terms for which there might not be an exact equivalent in English. No, I’m talking about this kind of thing: “[…] running a hand through his short-cropped noir hair” (p. 352). Please, resist the urge!

 Also, this isn’t strictly a style issue, as the grammar is the least of the problems with it, but I don’t really know where else to put it... Each of the six parts opens with an epigraph. Here’s the one for Émilie de Sainte-Amaranthe’s (p. 437) :

 “It was a sensual delight for l’homme rouge to see fall in the basket these charming heads and their ruby blood streaming under the hideous cleaver.”

—Archives Nationale [sic]

 I can’t believe I have to say this to a fellow historian, but just saying a quote is from the archives is bizarrely and baffling amateurish. It’s like saying a quote is from the library, or from a book or from the internet. Without further information, it’s about as useful a citation as saying it came to you in a dream. Why? Because it tells us nothing about the author or the date or any kind of context and therefore gives us no real way of evaluating it — though the lurid, sensationalist language doesn’t inspire confidence. Since the author of this section more than any other seems to take as a principle of novel-writing that whatever is the most over-the-top makes for the best fiction, I would say sure, why not, but as the authors also apparently want their depiction of “history” to be taken seriously… I mean, what is there to even say?

  Writing What You Want to Know

 There’s a problem throughout this book with characters talking about 18th France like it’s a place they’ve only read about in books rather than the only place they’ve ever lived and therefore the only reality *they* know firsthand. Now, obviously, the authors, like the rest of us, *have* only read about a 200+ year-old setting in books (or come to know it through various types of primary sources), but good historical fiction should be able to make you forget that, or at least come close.

I can’t entirely decide whether we’re looking at a failure of research here or of imagination — or just clumsy handling of exposition. I suspect it’s some mixture of all three.

 Allow me to explain. The clumsy exposition is a result of the aforementioned lack of trust in the reader as well, I suspect, of the few pages allotted to each author, which don’t allow for a more natural immersion of the reader into a world that is entirely alien to them but is made up of both new and familiar elements to the characters.

 The research vs imagination issue is more complex. I’m a firm believer in the updated adage “write what you want to know,” but if you’re going to do that, the intermediate step between wanting and writing is inevitably research. And well, there’s research and there’s research. For a novel especially, you don’t just want to be researching what happened, the concrete material facts such as who was present for what event or what a given figure’s relationship was to the people around them, but also people’s mentalities/sensibilities. To plausibly write from their point of view, you also have to investigate the reasons they might have believed what they believed and to take that investigation seriously, whether or not you agree.

 This was achieved better with some characters than others and again, I’m not entirely sure whether it’s for lack of research or lack of ability to empathize with certain points of view. Ironically, the chapter on Mme Élisabeth is probably the best handled. The author of that section says she wanted to be “fair” (back matter, p. 12) to her subject and I think she succeeds better than her co-authors, while showing that Mme Élisabeth, convinced of the absolute validity of the divine right of her brother, advocates at every turn for violently repressing the Revolution. She’s allowed to articulate her (frankly pretty abhorrent) beliefs in a plausible manner.

 Perhaps the author of this section is just a better writer than her co-authors, but I think there’s more to it than that. I obviously can’t read minds, but from the text of the novel itself as well as from the authors’ notes, I get the impression that we’re dealing with a dual problem of epistemology (i.e. how do you know what you know?) and politics. In either case, it’s not a coincidence if Mme Élisabeth is the best drawn character… and Reine Audu and Pauline Léon are the worst.

 First, on the epistemology side: whether consciously or not, it seems to me as if the authors largely started out with the assumption that they already basically understood their protagonists. Sophie de Grouchy is so ahead of her time she might as well be a modern woman, got it, no problem… Reine Audu is an avatar of the “mob,” (the author of her section’s words, not mine, back matter, p. 8), pitiable because of her poverty but with no real politics beyond that of hunger and resentment�� Pauline Léon is a “well-intentioned extremist” to use TV Tropes parlance — you would think that label would apply better to Charlotte Corday, but the latter ends up being so saintly she basically converts Pauline Léon (in what is quite possibly the most maddening moment in the whole damn book)… and so on. If I’m right, the authors’ assumptions about these archetypes made them not really feel the need to dig too deeply into the question of what made these women tick, either through research or empathy.

 We don’t know much about Reine Audu or Pauline Léon, but there has been a fair amount of research into the beliefs of the popular movement and revolutionary crowds from Georges Lefebvre onward (most of it tending to dispel the lazy stereotypes on display here). The authors either didn’t bother with it or made poor use of it (as is evidently the case with poor Dominique Godineau, who does figure in the bibliography).

 The book does Pauline Léon a disservice on both sides, mischaracterizing her beliefs for good and for ill. They make feminism as a contemporary audience would understand it her primary cause and her support for the rest of the popular movement’s program (in which we learn that women and people of color are to be included, but not actually what it consists of...) accessory and easily disposable so Charlotte Corday can be proved right and “radical” men can prove to be the real enemy.

 (Which… I could roll with it if the idea was just that men of all political flavors can be misogynists, but as usual, the message is all men are potential rapists (except Condorcet, Buzot, La Fayette and Louis XVI, of course) but the further left they are the rape-ier they get. That’s not how that works.)

 Anyway, the point is, these are characters the authors seem to have gone in assuming they understood, either because they found them relatable or because they thought they knew what archetype they corresponded to. The author of the section on Mme Élisabeth, on the other hand, writes that this was a character that it took some effort to understand because the character’s worldview was so different from the author’s and that of her presumed readers. This was also the case to some degree with the author of Manon Roland’s section, who writes about having to grapple with her protagonist’s not being a feminist (a position that this author bizarrely seems to think was rare at the time). Regardless, in both cases, the effort to understand, along with the existence of more sources produced by the character they were attempting to inhabit, produced better results.

 But again, I think there’s also a political element. Remember how I mentioned that this book’s main flaw is its feeling of artificiality? (I mean, to the point that the rest of this critique is really just about understanding why it feels so artificial.) One of the moments that felt the most authentic to me was Mme Élisabeth’s extravagant shoe-buying habit, her feeling bad about it and her confessor reassuring her that it’s fine because she hasn’t taken a vow of poverty, after all. And I don’t mean ‘authentic’ necessarily in the sense of ‘historically accurate’ — I don’t know enough about Mme Élisabeth off the top of my head to comment on her shoe collection. But I did think: there, consumerism and guilt about consumerism are in fact much more relatable to the middle class authors and their presumed middle class audience than hunger and privation — or activism relating to socio-economic issues, for that matter. Which is how we end up, here as in a lot of other media, with a relatable royal and revolutionary caricatures.

 This is also a good demonstration of how research and imagination or empathy play off each other. Marge Piercy didn’t have more information about Pauline Léon than the authors of this book. In fact, she had less: she writes in the preface of her book that she learned that Léon’s mother was in fact still alive at the time of the Revolution when it was too late to change what she had written. Credit where credit is due, once again, this new book corrects that error.

But in every other respect, Piercy’s version is far superior, because Pauline Léon’s views as well as her experience are taken seriously. This is no doubt due in large part because Piercy herself has been an activist for various left-wing causes. Her activism surely allowed her to relate to her characters, but far from writing a simple projection from her own experience, it allowed her, just as importantly, to entertain the notion that there was something there to be taken seriously. And therefore, that it was worth researching what precisely these figures were fighting for and not simply the question of why people get caught up in “extremism.” That’s why Pauline Léon and Claire Lacombe’s chapters are the best in City of Darkness, City of Light, while Pauline Léon and Reine Audu’s are the worst in this book.

Next time: inaccuracies big and small!

[petrawood]

About the hate for ACOFAS

I very, very rarely make statements in the Internet like this. But I feel like this situation has reached a point in which something needs to be said. I know that I am going to receive a lot of hate for what I am about to say, but I sincerely don’t care.

Stop complaining about what happens in ACOFAS. You can complain as long as you want about tecnical details such as the way it is written, how it has been edited, etc. But stop hating the way Sarah has handled the characters or the plot. Why? More under the read more, this will be long.

Because this is a BOOK. It is meant to entertain us, to create tension or drama so the plot advances, or to have any plot at all. You can enjoy a perfect, happy story in which all wrong is righted, all wounds are healed and everybody lives in perfect armony with each other, always doing and saying what is right. The thing is, that perfect life is ultimately boring. It does not survive more that a few chapters. We have fanfiction for that. “acofas is a novella”, you say. “It is meant to be basically fanservice”. Wrong. Acofas is an interlude, yes, but also a set-up for the next books. Its job is to establish the foundation for the Next Big Danger, The Drama. If you expected everything to be perfect, you started reading this book blind.

Now, about Nesta, her ptsd and how it has been handled by the Inner Circle. Here, you have to take something into account. And this is the existence of POVs. That means that everything that you see has been filtered through the point of view of one character. I confess I haven’t finnished acofas yet, I’ve only had time to read fragments, mostly in Feyre’s POV. And what I have seen in them is this young girl (Feyre) knowing that something is wrong with her sister, inviting her to family events and the sister not coming, so even though she keeps inviting and inviting, she ends up taking her sister’s absence for granted. Therefore, when the sister is indeed with them, she does not know how to act, or how to help her. Even more, because Nesta does not let herself be helped. So Feyre gives her space to recover. In fact, it isn’t until the sneak peak at the end of the book that Feyre puts her foot down on Nesta. Now, this situation can be handled in a better way, of course. But, Feyre is not perfect, and is doing the best she can. And remember, we are seing this through her eyes, and she clearly feels sad for Nesta and wants to help her. She does not use her powers on her sister’s mind, so she doesn’t know what she is precisely going through. But she does have good intentions. So please, stop blaming Feyre for being a Mary Sue and then breaking hell loose on her when she is not perfect. All characters are complex, and this failure to help her sister is part of her. And, I repeat, you can’t expect a perfect world with no confrontation while reading a book.

Now, about the sneak peak. This is narrated from Nesta’s POV, the first time we see it. In it, she is portrayed like a person who is suffering from ptsd and receiving no adecuate help, so (of course) she is bitter. I am not trying to insult Nesta, I’m just stating a fact. This anger, mixed with her pride, translates itself in a very dark view of herself, her situation, and everybody else. Everything we see in her head is tinted black. So, take a person who is being auto-destructive but refuses to accept help and put her in a group in which there are people who want to help her. What happens in acofas is what would happen in real life, at least in most groups. Feyre tries to help her, Nesta doesn’t let her, Feyre grows frustated and Rhysand, seeing the person he loves suffering, grows angry with Nesta. Again, I must remind you that all characters are flawed and that Sarah must create tension for the next books. Rhys doen’s react out of character, not really. He has always been very fierce when protecting Feyre, and we know that he doesn’t really like Nesta. What did you expect?. This bad part of his character does exist, as do all the good ones (that frankly, I believe out weight the bad). The onslaught against him has reminded me of the time when only acotar was published, in which everybody focused on what we knew about him (what Feyre, somebody who hated Rhys, thought about him. Again, keep the POVs in mind). Of course, it was all bad. It wasn’t until we learned his motives (entered his “POV”, when everybody started to love him). By starting this witch hunt against him, you are behaving exactly the same way as everybody did during acotar, not wasting a second to think “why is he behaving like this?” “what could his motives be?” And, again, dismissing those of us who said “hold on, we still don’t know enough about him”. You don’t know enough about Nesta, either. In fact, what she does in acofas is more in character that how she behaved in acowar. And, trying to picture her as somebody who is not proud is lying to yourselves. So please, do not be disrespectful with her character, and accept her as she is.

The next novels are going to be about Nesta and Cassian. She is going to grow, he is going to grow. Accept that they were not going to get together in acofas and be a love-struck pair for the rest of their life. Accept that Nesta is a difficult, complex character, as are the rest of the Inner Circle. Accept that in a book, as in real life, people make mistakes and everything is not perfect. And accept that Sarah can do whatever she wants with her characters, and if she wants to dedicate the next series to Nesta is because she loves her. And this isn’t the first time she has draged a character to her darkest point to make her grow.

Lastly, I can see some of you thinking that I may be biased towards Feyre and Rhysand, or that I hate Nesta or don’t want her with Cassian or something along those lines. My favourite character is Azriel (another complex character that a lot of the fandom hates, both for his interactions with Mor and with Elain. Another case of people doing a disservice to three delightfully complex characters). So, believe me, I’m not biased.

[ourimpavidheroine]

I have a question for you but first I want to say that I'm not the Kuvira anon! I'm a different anon! You wrote that you thought that Mako, Asami and Bolin were getting shoved into the story. I think the same and I'd be interested in hearing more why you do, if you have time and don't mind that is!

Not the Kuvira anon! BLESS!

It’s no secret that Bryke only thought there was going to be 1 Season/Book of Korra. So the Krew made perfect sense in that location and time. The bending brothers, with their old connections to the Triads and pro-bending; the beautiful heiress to the one of the biggest companies in Republic City that had connections to the Equalists. The fact that they all came together to meet and help Korra in Republic City made perfect sense.

Then came Book 2. It wasn’t planned, and so Bryke had to do some scrambling to keep the Krew together. So Asami went to the South Pole to chase down Varrick for funding - eh, pretty weak, but you could get away with it, I guess. Mako went along with Korra because he was her boyfriend. (Or not.) And Bolin tagged along. Honestly, I think it was pushing the bounds of believable, but hey, it’s a work of fiction and that happens sometimes.

Book 3, though. Asami bails on her struggling business and just...takes off on an airship? I mean, who the hell is running that business while she is gone? It makes no damn sense and it’s so out of character for her. Asami is an intelligent, canny woman who is clearly devoted to that company, and to have her just take off like that is a huge character assassination. Mako states that he doesn’t want to go with them - he’s got a new job that he cares about and wants to do well in, he’s uncomfortable around his ex-girlfriends and, most importantly, he’s got zero reason to go around looking for new airbenders. I mean, he flat out SAYS that he’s not needed on the trip and he wants to stay home, and then he gets shoehorned into it anyhow. And Bolin? Well, Bolin I actually buy as going with Korra. He can’t pro-bend since the arena’s been damaged and his team fell apart; he can’t make movers because Varrick is on the run from the law. So why the hell not tag along with Korra and the airbenders? Bolin’s a tagger-alonger, so him I’ll give a pass. But Asami? And Mako? Nope. It’s just not credible and frankly, I think goes against character for both of them. Did I enjoy all of the flirting Korra and Asami were doing in Book 3? Oh my yes! Do I still think that Asami and Mako, at least, were shoehorned into that Book just so we could keep the Krew together? Oh yes I do. And I don’t think it did either of their characters any favors.

On to Book 4. Asami spends it in Republic City, devoted to her business (finally) and struggling to come to peace with her father and his betrayal. I actually think her arc in Book 4 is a beautiful thing and she finally comes into her own as a character. I approve of Asami’s Book 4 arc 100%. Bolin? I 100% buy that he’d go to Kuvira, tagging along with Varrick and trying to make himself useful. He’s trying to grow up and become independent of his brother and a military setting, where he’d be given orders and follow them without question, is a very, very believable choice for his character. Mako...eh. Not so much. I don’t know why he’d agree to being a bodyguard - he clearly hates the job - and when he just accepts Raiko’s decision that he’ll go with Wu to the Earth Kingdom I was like...what the fuck? That made no sense at all. For one thing, Raiko simply has neither the authority nor the power to force Mako to do anything, never mind send him to a foreign country without his consent. For another, the Mako we know would just quit. He’s never given any compelling reason to actually stick with the job of being Wu’s bodyguard, and I think Bryke did him a huge disservice by not giving him one. (In fact, I think Bryke did a lot of shitting on both Mako and Lin’s characters during all four books for the sake of the story; I have some pretty serious issues with it but that’s a different post.) I mean, lots of people can’t stand Mako, and who could blame them? I chose to have him stick with the job because he’s developed FEELINGS for Wu - not that he actually acknowledges or deals with them, because Mako, but they are there - but Bryke couldn’t be bothered. He just gets shoehorned into being Wu’s bodyguard because they needed a connection to Wu. And even his relationship with Wu is weird and poorly written - sometimes it seems like he’s been Wu’s bodyguard for a year or two at least but on the other hand there’s so much poorly executed exposition going on with the two of them especially (to get us caught up after the time skip) that it seems like he’s only been his bodyguard for a week. I just don’t like it, and that’s why I’ve re-written it.

So yeah. Maybe not Bolin, but I really do feel that both Asami and Mako got the shaft when it comes to being shoehorned into Books 2-4 and I think it is reflected in the oftentimes deep dislike I see people having for those characters. I mean, of course Asami comes off as flighty and frivolous when she just takes off and leaves her business behind! Of course Mako comes off as being fickle and having a huge and unexplained character change in the middle of the show when you have to quite literally give him a personality makeover in order to justify him being where you’ve put him. And that’s not even discussing Lin Beifong, who is either an amazing Chief of Police or the worst Chief of Police ever since Bryke just changes who she is every single time they need her to do something to help the story along. (DUDE! The Chief of Police also just up and leaves the goddamn city on an airship? Say what the fuck now? Her job isn’t to protect Korra, her job is to protect and serve Republic City! My fucking god, what Bryke does to her and her character is practically criminal.)

It makes me grouchy. In case you could not tell. Ha!

[hawk-in-a-jazzy-hat]

Anime Review: Gosick

In the year of 1924, in the fictional European country of Sauville, lies the prestigious Saint Marguerite academy; a place for students to reach the best of their ability. One such student is Kazuya Kujo; thierd son of an imperial soldier determined to make a name for himself away from the shadow of his two older brothers. Not that it’s easy, as due to his appearance he is quickly dubbed the Reaper that Comes in the Spring, as to a local ghost story, and his very appearance is made synonymous with bad luck.

On his first day at the academy, however, he makes a chance encounter. In the towering library on the ground, he discovers a beautiful garden on the top floor. And in there, he discovers a mysterious doll-like girl with beautiful golden hair; the Golden Fairy that supposedly steals the souls of men. He soon finds out however that this is no fairy, but a genius young girl called Victorique, who is kept in isolation at the academy for somewhat dubious reasons.

Kujo quickly takes a liking to her, and as they get involved in spooky goings on and grisly murder cases around the country, she soon takes a liking to him. But a storm is coming, and their happiness is threatened by the very forces that kept Victorique shut away in the first place...

The Reaper, and the Golden Fairy. Two terrifying beings, and two people totally unsuited to be with one another. Yet though the gale threatens to tear them apart, their hearts will always be together.

It’s time to consult the wellspring of wisdom and assemble the fragments of chaos once again.

Every time I start a ‘block’ of new anime series from my overwhelmingly large backlog, I’m always hoping for that ‘one’ series to come up. The series which seemingly comes out of nowhere, that I know very little about, and yet which somehow, inexplicably makes it onto my favourites list. A couple of blocks ago, it was Fate/Zero and Rozen Maiden. The block after that, it was Jormungand. And when I did my little Urobuchi retrospective, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet was the show which really stuck out to me. It’s a nice feeling when it happens; finding something excellent completely by accident.

In many ways it’s these kind of shows which essentially ‘save’ anime for me; there’s only so much stuff which is mediocre-to-average you can sit through before you begin to question why you’re bothering. I try and mix things up a bit; mixing the things I’m genuinely excited for with shows like the ones above that I’m practically going into blind. Perhaps it’s the lack of hype which makes them stand out, or perhaps I do, occasionally just find diamonds in the rough. It certainly doesn’t always work; shows such as Haibane Renmei or Requiem for the Phantom, while technically impressive, can fall a bit flat under an emotional scrutiny, whereas others like Aldnoah.Zero and Umineko are just plain crap.

But when these shows come along, it’s well worth the wait and the drivel I forced myself through to find them. I was slightly concerned with this current block; while it did give me Tokyo Ghoul and Eureka Seven, both of which are great, the latter I was kind of expecting to enjoy anyway and the former only really became great in its second half after a pretty dull first half. As for the rest of the things I’ve been watching, Ghost Hound was technically sound but ultimately a bit of a let-down, Clannad annoyed me for several reasons, Umineko, as I’ve stated, was pure crap, and we don’t talk about Elfen Lied ever again. I was beginning to worry that I wasn’t going to find my ‘undiscovered gem’ as it were for this block.

Then I saw Gosick; a show which has assuaged my fears and reinstalled my faith in anime once again.

It’s not perfect. It has problems, some of them rather major. But when you actually get down to what matters, Gosick is actually a pretty fantastic show.

It helps that the production is done by my absolute favourite of all anime studios; Studio Bones, baby! These guys can take on any genre and any art style and make it work, I swear. It’s funny, because by Bones standards Gosick isn’t actually that impressive on a technical level; the character designs, while striking, are simple, the direction is merely fine, and the animation is really quite restrained. Yet even a Bones show on a budget looks better than about 80% of other anime out there, and at its best Gosick is a really pretty show, really making the most of its gothic setting. The standout moments are few and far between, but when they come around they really make the most of it. Overall Gosick is just a really purty show; perhaps not with quite the sparkle and flair of a KyoAni or a P.A. Works show, but honestly, I prefer a style that’s a little more grounded anyway.

As for the music, you’re honestly not going to notice it. Aside from a couple of notable insert pieces and two really good ending themes (the opening looks pretty but the song is pretty meh), most of the music just basically does its job; accentuating the mood and blending into the background. I can’t fault it for that, though I can’t see myself revisiting the soundtrack like I do for, say, Eureka Seven.

So here’s a thing which took me far too long to figure out; the title Gosick isn’t a referencing to a plot point or a character in the series, but is in fact just a corruption of the word Gothic. I’m not making a point here, other than the fact that I feel silly for not working it out.

Although technically it is an important point, because when it comes to whether this show works from a story perspective, the important factor is literally staring at you right in the title. From the early episodes Gosick has a tendency to paint itself as a season long mystery show, which honestly is doing itself a disservice. If you’re watching Gosick for a good mystery, you’re probably going to feel rather let down. Even if you’re watching for a thriller or a crime drama or something, it’s really quite basic in that regard.

But if you’re looking for the best example of a purely gothic anime you can find, I can’t think of any better example than this.

(or Rozen Maiden, but...you know...one thing at a time)

It’s not just the visuals and the sound that lead to this. It’s the lore. It’s the setting. It’s the ghost stories and folklore playing along with politics, science and the occult. It’s a tension that never really goes away, and a constant feeling of dread for both our main characters at any given time. It’s pure black comedy mixed with goofy slapstick, and it’s genuine terror mixed with cheesy horror.

Good, proper gothic is a hard thing to get right. In the west, Laika and Tim Burton are probably the only ones who really know what they’re doing in that regard, and even then the latter has the tendency to overdo things here and there. Gosick however strikes the balance just right; it is one of the most consistently entertaining series I’ve ever watched. Even in shows I loved, I can generally point to moments that are better than others. Gosick is basically an extended anthology; two or three episodes a time dedicated to the current mystery, with hints thrown in now and again towards the overall plot. But the thing is, it works, because all the individual mysteries are seriously engaging, as is the main plot. Sure, not everything hits, and not every single plot twist is truly warranted (I am reminded of a certain late revelation which is highly uncomfortable and really could and should have been done another way) but honestly everything that needs to slot into place, really does.

It helps that the show has a strong cast. Again though, not strong in the traditional sense; most of them don’t really go through a proper arc or have much development at all. Even the main hero Kujo pretty much stays the same throughout the whole series, and if there is a weak spot to the show I’d have to point to him. He’s kind, charming and performs the every-man role fairly well...

...buuuuut he’s also a blithering idiot. Like, really. You wonder how he even managed to find his way off the boat.

Okay, okay, he’s not that bad. And frankly, I’ll take his idiocy and his many, many poor decisions with slightly more leeway given the fact that he is such a charming person. It’s not like Shirou from Fate, who is such a blithering moron yet is also so convinced he’s right that you just want to punch him. Kujo’s idiocy is harmless. Most of the time. I did want to slap him once. Maybe twice.

The rest of the supporting cast fill their roles well. The hyperactive teacher, the friendly cook, the flamboyant detective, the secondary love-interest who doesn’t have a chance at all; they’re all interesting and distinguishable in their own way, frankly fitting a gothic story to a tee. They don’t have to have fully fleshed out characters just so long as they’re instantly recognisable, which they are.

Also, props to the show for having a character with ridiculous anime hair, where, not only is this actually acknowledged in the show, but is also a vital plot point. That did make me chuckle.

But of course we’re just skirting around the edges here; the real reason to watch this show and the reason it is so dang entertaining is Victorique herself.

Victorique is basically the Sherlock for the show, but she has an awful lot of layers to her. She’s grumpy and stroppy, but also adorable with a childlike innocence. She can be badass when she puts together a mystery from the smallest cues, yet also badass when she fights for her own happiness. Her relationship with Kujo is what makes the entire series for me; they both fill each others weaknesses, and bring out the best in one another. It’s a deep, mutual respect and friendship that lies beneath the surface teasing and baiting, which honestly is the thing I think was missing from Spice and Wolf.

Honestly, I think Kujo and Victorique have one of the best relationships I’ve seen in any anime. And the show knows this, and is constantly threatening to wreck everything; I won’t spoil anything, but when the feels hit, they hit hard.

Gosick is a show that really shouldn’t be as good as it is, and in fact may not be. It has issues with storytelling, with characterisation, with a bit of major plot contrivance near the end and with the fact that one member of the main duo is, as I’ve mentioned, a complete blithering idiot. But honestly, it doesn’t matter; Gosick does so many things so, so right during its run that I can’t help but instantly love it. If you’re one for sweet, delicious Victorian gothicness or just want to see an adorable and really well realised relationship (which may or may not be romantic) between two very different people, I can’t recommend Gosick highly enough. And even if you’re not sure, give it a try. I did, and while I certainly wasn’t expecting anything truly fantastic, I most certainly got it.

My score: 8/10

Well, one more show from this block to go. Will it round it off nicely, or will it bring the whole thing crashing down. We may never know.

Well, we will. That’s why I do this stuff.

Next classic review will be RahXephon.