#i am so absolutely insane about them and their narrative it’s actually ridiculous

[in-the-mists]

It Ends Or It Doesn't by Caitlyn Siehl

[amorphousbl0b]

Arcane does a fun thing with its narrative Darkest Hour.

Or: yet another post about how insanely smart this show is and how absolutely genius its writers are (and how jealous of them I am).

For the uninitiated, the Darkest Hour is the moment just before the climax in which the heroes are at their lowest point. When the Avengers are scattered and Loki opens the portal in NYC, when the Falcon has escaped the Death Star but lost Obi-Wan, when the Fire Nation is set to annihilate the Earth Kingdom, when Frodo fails to destroy the Ring at the Crack of Doom. The heroes must confront their flaws and change for the better for a happy ending.

Arcane’s darkest hour is, of course, in Act 3. One might place it at the very end of episode 9, and that’s certainly where the story is at its most hopeless. But I’d contend it starts as early as the end of episode 8 and carries on through the entirety of episode 9.

After all, that’s when Caitlyn and Vi have separated, lost all hope, and Cait is kidnapped by Jinx. Jinx’s mind is fully gone and throughout the episode everything falls apart around her. Silco is losing control of his chembarons and may well have lost his daughter, the thing most precious to him, and is only barely keeping his powerful façade in line. Zaun has realized how ridiculously outmatched they are in a war with Piltover and the revolutionary cause has become almost impossible. Viktor has manslaughtered his assistant and may never be cured. Jayce has manslaughtered a child and finally realizes how quickly he’s losing his morals. Mel and her mother are fully separating and she is struggling with her warlike destiny. Sevika gets the absolute snot beat out of her and limps to an empty office without a boss.

So yeah. Lot of personal Darkest Hours going on.

“But what’s the interesting thing?” I hear you ask in my ear. I don’t know why I hear you. Shut up. I’m writing. Are you even real?

Excuse me.

Arcane’s interesting twist on the Darkest Hour lies in part of the trope that I didn’t mention. That’s in the villain.

Most stories with a clear-cut villain have a plot structure something like this:

Whether things are going well for one side is inversely proportional to the other. During the Darkest Hour, when the hero is at their weakest, the villain is at their most dominant.

Wait… isn’t Silco the villain of Arcane? Not to be too blunt, but he’s having a shit time. Things are falling apart for him just as badly as for everyone else.

That's the trick. Caitlyn and Vi are suffering. Jinx is suffering. Silco is suffering. Jayce is suffering. Viktor is suffering. Zaun as a whole is suffering. There is only one party in the whole story that isn't suffering, that actually is benefitting from this horrid state of affairs...

EKKO AND HEIMERDINGER

Kidding. They're not really a part of this dance. A big part of Arcane's theming is that acting to help people without an agenda is simply more virtuous than fighting for any invariably-flawed nation that innately perpetuates the cycle of violence.

No, the side that is doing fine is the other that is conspicuously absent from my two prior lists. While the characters that make up its leadership are experiencing personal Darkest Hours, the organization itself is essentially on top of the world, having just scored a huge victory and getting set to bring the war to an end before it even begins. I mentioned how poor the situation for the Undercity looks, but not its counterpart.

Piltover.

Wasn't it so that Piltover started this whole mess? Didn't their oppression cause the revolt that orphaned Vi and Powder's parents? Isn't it their actions that drive Silco to ever greater extremes? Isn't it their normalized political backstabbing that causes Jayce to sacrifice his principles because that's the only way to get ahead? Isn't it their corrupt police force that lets Silco operate his drug empire with impunity?

Silco might look the part. He might be the most personally evil character, might be the one who causes the most misery for our main protagonists Vi and Powder.

But structurally, the shining city of Piltover, its political machine, and its Enforcers are the actual villains of Arcane.

[lovecolibri]

I feel presumptuous for asking but it's your fault. I'm bored and the buddie posts are wearing me down, any advice on getting started?

On watching 911?!?!? (Hopefully because that's gonna be the whole answer below and I'll feel silly if I fully missed the point of this 🤣)

I'm SO thrilled to be asked, but I'm probably the worst person to answer this, because my response will ALWAYS be "start at the beginning and watch the entire show" because my brain will not work any other way and it is INCONCEIVABLE to me to try and watch a show out of order or only in parts. If anyone else has advice to do this, please jump in (I will only slightly judge you 🤣)

Fair warning for a few things if you take my advice and just watch the show. 1) No Eddie in season 1. It is an important season for all the other characters including Buck though and trust me, you're gonna love all of them because it's impossible not to. 2) One of the main characters is a cop, so the copaganda exists and whenever they focus on that aspect of the show it is....not particularly handled well 😬 but all the other mains are firefighters so their rescues take more of the focus. 3) Buddie was shut down by FOX so be prepared to spend a lot of time watching them be forced into other relationships and looking at your screen like "why the fuck are we doing this?!" 4) Despite FOX shutting down Buddie, I walked into the show after s3 aired (because that's when s2 came back up on Hulu and I had to miss s3 until s2 was up) FULLY believing most of the Buddie edits were exaggerations, or incorrect quotes, but no actually they are just completely insane and in love with each other, FOX just wouldn't let the narrative go in the direction it was pulling. Which is DEEPLY frustrating to watch, but also a lot of wildly insane moments that are gonna pay off soooo well if (when???) ABC gives the story what it's been asking for. 5) I am fully a salt gremlin and hater so while I always welcome asks or messages to flail about this show, I'm not the person to be sympathetic about any of the past LIs though I absolutely use anti tags for any of my posts for easy filtering. I also unashamedly hate the showrunner shift in s5-6 so I'm a bench about those seasons and most of the choices made. Otherwise, I'm happy to chat, flail, and go back and forth like

(And if you wanna be a hater in my inbox or messages, I'm always down to talk shit 🤭)

Be prepared to get hit in the feels with moments of the good in humanity shining through, people pulling together to help while the music swells, found family, and ridiculous and impossible rescues because when this show is at its best, it's about hope, and healing, and the "good guys" saving the day and everyone going home. It's not perfect, but in the veritable SEA of procedural cop dramas about the constant brutalization and murder of women, and medical dramas that are more drama than rescue, this show (especially in the first 3 seasons) feels different in a way I have never quite been able to describe.

Good luck, please come join us, we're (currently) having a great time, AND, for all the shows faults and missed opportunities, the fic this fandom comes out with is *chef's kiss* SO good. (As long as you know how to filter in Ao3)

[pockyandsoda]

omfd s2ep8 spoilers & rant

originally posted to my twitter acc

i am genuinely so confused by the amount of pure vitriol some of you have towards izzy and izzy fans?? i get not particularly liking a character or agreeing with the way other people see them, but some of y'all are being absolutely disgusting towards others. what happened to cringe culture being dead, huh? insinuating people should be embarassed or ashamed to have a reaction to characters they like - having big emotions about media you love is part of being in a fandom! you're no better or less weird! oooh look at you being unwilling to forgive or accept character growth! wow! so morally superior and cool! just because you dont personally agree that a redemption arc was deserved or done well doesnt make it a fact btw.

ive been watching this season with casual viewers who are not a part of online fandom at all, and they have all very much enjoyed izzy's arc and him as a character, they are able to see the narrative importance of it, as are the writers and the crew. again, you dont have to agree. but dont act superior.

at the end of the day, this is a silly pirate show made mostly for 'haha's, and ALL of these characters have done HORRIBLE things, they're pirates ffs, that's kinda the whole point here guys! and those things are ridiculously easily forgiven (by our standards) again, because they are pirates and this is not a serious show.

izzy fans are sad, some are very very sad, maybe even a 'weird' amount! so? do you really need to dunk on them for lolz? make it out like they're insane for even liking a character that the show itself actively likes and supports and clearly wants the audience to like (in s2 anyway, and if you deny this then sorry but you're being willfully wrong)? idk why any of you are remotely surprised people like this character? starting to think some of you just wanna be edgy and seem sarcastic and cool and superior for your 'witty' twitter commentary tbh.

and of course sending any kinda negativity towards writers/cast/crew is disgusting and pathetic, but im seeing that from izzy lovers and haters alike on my feed, so dont you dare try and make it seem like a pro-izzy only issue here. and y'know what? it's also disgusting and pathetic to belittle and mock other members of the fandom, and im only seeing one side engaging in that behavior, please do humble yourselves and remember the times in your life when you have had a strong emotional reaction to things happening to your fav characters and ships. dont forget that you are also a loser with a fandom twitter/tumblr account.

and for the record, i thought the finale was genuinely good, as was all of season 2 in my opinion. all this immature negativity and faux superiority is making this fandom toxic. izzy is a popular character with viewers (casual & otherwise) and the creative team, who had a decent redemption arc. that is a fact, whether you like it or not. people should not have to feel hesitation about posting anything remotely positive about izzy out of fear of judgement or ridicule. save your cutting twitter remarks for actually problematic people.

im not even particularly attached to this damn character but the way y'all have been behaving has annoyed tf outta me.

[kylejsugarman]

I hate to be the one to do this (blatant lie) but what do you think about Jesse’s physical health in El Camino and what sort of treatment do you believe he may need to recover physically? I think about how likely it is that he is experiencing chronic pain and illness, repercussions of what he’s been through, for the rest of his life and it hits me right in the heart.

(all the furniture flies into the walls) LIKE. ok i acknowledge that my fixation on this part of the narrative is motivated by me being in med school and having been obsessed with pathology and treatment since forever, but its also like this little part of me who wants to fill in every detail and realistically approach EVERY aspect of the story, even the ones that aren't necessarily important to the narrative. like it was way more important to show how jesse gets the money together to escape than what kind of electrolyte solution he needs DFGHDFGH

but yeah :( its hard because i know there's not really a place in the story for this physical recovery to take place, but he would absolutely need intravenous intervention for dehydration and severe malnutrition, especially in the context of electrolyte loss (i am making the horrifically realistic assumption here that he was subsisting on scraps at the compound). he specifically needs sodium and potassium, so he would need ringer's lactate IV fluid or 0.9% saline for initial hydration and so he could actually absorb the nutrients of anything he eats. then we have the matter of all those scars we see at the beginning of el camino and although most of the ones we see are keloided, there could definitely still be open or half-healed wounds and the ones that are "closed" are more likely than not infected due to him Living In A Hole and not having sufficient nutrition or time to rest given jesse was probably still cooking for them up until the very end. even if he wasn't in sepsis from untreated infection, he would at least probably need to go on antibiotics and have his wounds irrigated, disinfected, and properly closed/sutured. if u look at the physical state jesse would realistically be in at the very beginning of el camino, it's insane that he was able to drive away (adrenaline probably) and survive the night at skinny's.

as for the fucking. longer-term :( we know that jesse was physically tortured, not just at the compound but throughout the entirety of the show. based on what we see in the finale and el camino, he didn't have adequate safety gear at all when he was cooking for jack's gang, not even fucking gloves. again (digging my fingernails into tabletop) he was living in a Fucking Pit with exposure to the elements, disturbed sleep, and limited self-maintenance, which is a recipe for general illness and infection. we know that he at least survives long enough to make it to alaska, but it's going to basically be impossible for him to live there for longer than a couple of weeks without medical care. he's probably breathed in a LOT of hazardous vapors that might trigger adult asthma. his immune system is going to be absolutely destroyed. the neurological ramifications of the (many) head injuries he sustained are going to require some kind of intervention and might lead to problems with coordination and walking and memory, as well as migraines. even if his wounds heal correctly and any broken bones/muscle strains are resolved, he's going to experience chronic pain from the injury to his nerves, especially in his back and limbs from the mechanical and nerve stress of cooking while in shackles. he'll probably have more cardiovascular problems earlier in life too.

LIKE. this is so fucking long already oh my god, but its not even like a. idk, its not a torture porn thing for me, its just where my mind goes and how i think about this stuff. jesse is such an important character to me and i know its like a meme that he suffered more than christ and it would be ridiculous and cruel to want to see him suffer any more, but the idea of him actually receiving adequate medical care and having the physical ramifications of everything he's been through properly treated is just as important to me as like him getting the therapy and psychological help he would also desperately need after surviving this. its important to me.

[icy-watch]

anyways oof. It goes pretty fast but by rapid pausing, you see Wukong has literally been dragging Macaque through the sky by the back of his clothes, and then when he literally yeets him like a soft ball across the ground 😭 he looks like roadkill. and stepping over him omg the disrespect, hilarious. I mean, maybe Wukong had some control to not step on him? I also love how the sun is shining so brightly on top of MK hugging Wukong and that joke of Macky dying in the background to them living their best life still applies lol. "uhh guys..." lmao pls put him in more situations with them. oh there's one, his face again when MK lands butt first onto Wukong's head XD hope you like your new found family ya fuzzball. this is an average tuesday in the monkie household. seeing him so worried for Bai He and all those instinctual jumps, yeah MK was right there IS a warrior in there when he's free of the henchman narrative and past grudges. Lmao, what is more ShadowPeach than Wukong smiling confidently and Macky hiding scared behind him /j I swear I have a reason for saying that. Falling so easily into the old ways oh, oh no its coming at us with a steel chair- WHEN THE MAGIC CIRCLE AND THEY JUST MAKE EYE CONTACT AND NOD IN SYNC WAHHH they DID THIS BEFORE ICY THEY DID THIS BEFORE- also Macky buddy, how come everyone else gets to have a cool pose and start glowing but you have to painfully yank a magic sphere out of your undead chest to help??? is that the power you took from MK or are you just Like That Now from being revived?? I love Red Son's "yeah I'm here too by the way" they are BESTIES NOW. this finale had such jolly music and insane sunlight at the end, you ever see a villain get so thoughroughly wrecked they needed all that? "Still the same Wukong, doing whatever he wants with no regard for others." aw I can't make jokes forever. Write this one down Icy. even if Macky didn't say it, that's kinda Wukong at the start of Jttw, no? also LOL at the way Wukong loses his balance and flails like that, he was learning on Macky lmao!! goofy monkey, did you miss cuddling? Icy I hope shadowpeach cuddles absolutely takes you out like it did us. "Somewhere where I can do a bit of scheming probably >:)" this little shit. and how Wukong moves his head on the word "cool" they are ridiculous and "I can always get another bowl of noodles" LMAO poor Wukong trying to have a heart to heart and XD "Sometimes I play dumb to lighten the mood" "me too bud, me too" owww ow okay, the way the laugh literally tears itself out of his lungs and how it looks like he's going to cry and the mutual understanding where most people take Wukong's jokes as him being an inconsiderate fool and UGH. Yes I AM thinking about Macky getting slapped with Tang's drawing of the gang during Benched as he is overwhelmed by the power of friendship magic speeches and then getting his own drawing. and finally looking at the SUN. yes there are previous parallels with the sky there, how'd you guess?

I was actually expecting Wukong to step on him. It was a little surprising he didn't.

I'm glad that Mackaroonie is kind of a part of the group and Red Son is now integrated into Team Monkie. They both needed it.

[hihopelessromantics]

The Learner Learns Nothing

In which the writing of Seven Deadly Sins expects us to believe that Merlin, the glutton for knowledge, is incapable of learning what really matters over the course of her 3,000 year journey. 

I wrote this inspired by @zeldriszezinho‘s comment on how Merlin was able to reactivate Elizabeth’s curse. The implication that Merlin at some point during the 3000 years gained the ability to break the curse and could have done it AT ANY TIME from that point forward absolutely blew my mind. 

If so canon Merlin is DEAD to me I swear that is so WRONG.

I've never seen a master manipulator character written like this before and I'm not even sure if this is a good way to write a trick villain or whatever the hell she was supposed to be. It sure is baffling so nakaba got that right. I was just as shocked and disbelieving as the sins were. Still am. Regardless of how well it fits her “canon” character and personality it is NOT consistent with the found family themes 😭 Plus it would make her RIDICULOUSLY overpowered... how would she have as much power as a god without serious consequences? And literately no one noticed, ever? Britannia started literately falling apart when Meliodas had that much magical power.

You know what I think I will jump on the hating canon Merlin bandwagon with you zeldriszezinho. I am stitching the Merlins from fanfictions together to make a better, healthier one as a present to the sins for all they've gone through together.

Merlin is just - ugh - it’s too sad. Everyone else gets to be, as the people who remember English class would say, a round character, including many of the antagonists! Tons of minor characters get memorable moments of growth, but Merlin, one of the major characters? She stays static for the most part. Trapped as a plot device until the very end. The narrative leaves her alone, torn away from her found family by an insane twist that I don’t quite understand.

 It’s like Merlin never gave a second thought to how the sins are acting. Ten years out of 3,000 isn’t a lot but someone as smart and observant as Merlin should have seen the way the other sins treat her. They knew close to nothing about her, and she constantly isolated herself emotionally and physically from them, but they never made a move to exclude her from the group, or pry too much, or question her origins. They just loved her unconditionally even though she wouldn’t let them in. There was so much raw potential for her character to have a unique and complicated bond with the sins as a group. Maybe it should have been the wakeup call she needed that the unhealed child inside of her could still learn to receive love. That it wasn’t too late to have a life outside her chaos obsession. Canon left us with a pretty unsatisfying answer as to why she acted the way she has. Like hmmm. Really?

Canon Merlin, you had 3,000 years to decide whether to seek help for your childhood trauma and learn how to love in a somewhat healthy manner and you want me to believe you didn't even try that route??? And that on top of that you effectively prolonged the torment of the only two people shown to love you unconditionally? Whom you supposedly loved in return?? Uhhh heyo! I don't believe you. And also I am holding a sword to your throat getting your shit together is no longer optional.

Sure Merlin can be seen as a character study of how obsession can cause someone to forsake all other aspects of life. We saw it in Frankenstein - saw what became of that whole spectacle and how quickly the perpetrator learned that they didn't actually want [insert here], they were just looking for that basic hierarchy of human needs and weren't ready for the responsibility that comes when using the pursuit of scientific advancement as a substitute for, idk, I think in Merlin's case it would be coming to terms with essentially being treated as a weapon due to her abilities. (meliodas and Elizabeth parallel anyone?? We were robbed of three child soldiers learning to love together and be a family smh thanks a lot gods ) anyway back on topic. What Merlin and Frankenstein have in common throughout their story there are a lot of opportunities that they didn't take, and friends that they kept brushing off, never confiding in them until it was crisis time. Frankenstein's story is a tragedy - he keeps abandoning the rational thought and commitment to ethics that make a good scientist. Any second during his story, while he was neglecting correspondence from friends, neglecting to sleep and eat and pay attention to his needs as a person that the obsession had tossed in the trash bin, he was free to say “hey actually I CAN spare a second from my neverending workload to breathe and think about what's important to me. Why I'm doing this? And how I could do it better. Have I learned anything in this latest deep dive into knowledge?” Instead he is ruled by his emotions, which in the end, keep him from properly emphasizing with other people and actually achieving what he wanted to do. I don't even remember if Frankenstein KNEW what he wanted to get out of his experiments. Probably not considering this the way he immediately freaked out when it actually WORKED. And then it was crisis time, so he goes to his friends, but does he confide in them what really happened? What part he had in it and how he feels about the whole thing? Don't think so. So they just think he's depressed as fuck and going a little crazy. They're completely unable to help him in any substantial way. 

We see this with Merlin. She has to have complete control of the situation at all times so she tells no one. If she can get this ONE THING right finally everything will fall into place. That must be what she thought. But what the hell? Knowledge is and has always been collaborative. We know she was never learning just to learn or for the love of it - it was a poor substitute for the love and attention a child needs to grow up with a good understanding of how to pursue fulfillment. So she was always aiming to accomplish something with her knowledge and all around her were people working together to accomplish something. Hell, she worked together with the sins to accomplish her goal. 3,000 years. She stopped her own time. Physically, right? Or was it mental too? The science there doesn't seem to work with the brain literately rewiring itself as it gets new experiences so. We're just meant to assume she spent 3,000 years trapped in the same mindset while traveling all over Britannia and interacting with God knows how many people. Just out of pure necessity to survive and obtain the information and tools she needs she would have to interact with a LOT of people. That's not even mentioning the people she did research on. And we're expected to believe she didn't learn anything that would make Merlin- smart, curious, motivated little Merlin who tricked two GODS on the OFF CHANCE that what they give her will satisfy the hole in her heart - didn't learn enough about human behavior to give abandoning love and true connection a second thought? Or even TRY to engage meaningfully with anyone? It's not like she had never made that connection with anyone before. What about Meliodas? What about 106 Elizabeths? 

This twist that Merlin might have been manipulating the Sins all along, rather than blowing the reader’s mind with the clues and clever foreshadowing that were there all along, blows a hole in the overarching themes in the story. Merlin’s betrayal is a catastrophe of the highest proportions because it calls into question EVERYTHING they learned up until that point. What she did would cause extensive trauma to everyone involved - all this time they believed that hey, maybe fate brought us together, wasn’t it so good that we finally found people that could understand us? And now they are questioning all of it. So yeah, emotionally, the twist does what it is supposed to. It hurts. But... it doesn’t make sense.  Being in the Seven Deadly Sins causes every other member to learn how to reconcile with themselves, their pasts, their feelings, and their relationships. Why is Merlin the exception? This feels like disappointing writing and a huge waste of character potential. 

It's not like abandoning all emotion and other desires was remotely necessary for Merlin to achieve her goal. She's had fun along the way and that's shown to us. Why are we given ‘i used to have a crush on Meliodas’ as a reason why she would give up on connection or whatever? Merlin that was literally 3,000 years ago when you were 12(?). You didn't talk to anyone about THEIR childhood crushes in all that time? And it's not like Meliodas ever stopped loving or caring about her. Even after getting his emotions stolen bit by bit he only abandons her and the rest of the sins out of necessity. Here she's got a good friend to confide in. And he's EXACTLY the kind of friend she needs if she wants to resurrect an old god! Meliodas is trusting, supportive, willing to Go the Distance for anything he believes in, AND desperate enough to consider extreme courses of action in order to break his and Elizabeth's curses.

All Merlin has to do to potentially get Mel on board is say, "Hey, some of my personal research has turned up something I think you might be interested in. The existence of an old god that the Supreme Deity and Demon King locked away because they feared her power and didn't want her to interfere with their goals.  I've been curious about rumors like these since I was a child, and now I have finally found enough solid evidence to confirm that this god exists. It stands to reason that such a god would be able and even willing to help with the curse on you and Sis-sis. Not a timely solution, but a good plan B or C. I'll be looking into it, and I'll let you know if I find anything that could help you."

What's Meliodas going to say to that? Probably, "Thanks, Merlin!"

He was not afraid of potentially starting an "age of Chaos" when his father told him that is what killing him would mean. Chaos is a mysterious entity of both darkness and light, good and evil, creation and destruction. Previously worshipped by goddesses and feared by the demons. Its agenda, if it even has one, is even more mysterious than Merlin's was before the big reveal. As far as I can infer, Chaos (without the influence of fantasy racism) seems just as likely to bring balance as it could bring upheaval. Something that Britannia desperately needs. And since Chaos is the mother of life in this universe, why would it destroy everything it has created?

It makes sense that if he had known, Meliodas would have been wary of this god, and warned Merlin to be careful, but in the end... wouldn't he have as much reason to help his friend as he would to stop her? Why continue on to release Chaos after the curse is already broken? Fair question. But why not?

Meliodas just wants to live in peace with his loved ones. If releasing Chaos means an "age of Chaos" will occur, well, that just means going back to the beginning, before the eternal game between the Supreme Deity and Demon King. So. The same unknowns that he's faced in his life thus far, except the two dictators manipulating everyone into an eternal war are replaced with the creator of life itself? That would actually sound pretty good to Meliodas, right?

Chaos is disappointed with the weakness of humanity but acknowledged it as, hehehe religious parallels my beloved, "the race most like itself, that embodies its values." Now, this could be 4+ years of religion classes talking but Chaos's previous goal before the Holy War seems to have been to create a race "in its own image." And it did. The question is, now what? I doubt this god is capable of being truly evil because why would evil create creatures with moral compasses? Evil cannot create good and vice versa. We the audience know what happened in Four Knights of the Apocolypse thus far regarding Chaos's preference to humans, but Meliodas and the other Sins have no reason to suspect the entity of chaos would ever go full genocide mode on its own creations. A god that creates all life according to a set of intricate rules (physics, etc.) tends to have patterns of behavior that make sense. Creating everything just to kill it all off doesn't really make sense.

Merlin could damn well have told the Sins, or even just Meliodas, that her goal is to resurrect the original god of their universe that was locked away by the Demon King and the Supreme Deity, who play with people's lives for fun and obviously freaking suck - without making herself look like she has a) gone off the deep end or b) working toward an evil goal that they should immediately put a stop to by any means necessary.

Instead, she just tricks Meliodas and the Sins outright in the most painful way possible. Wtf?

She doesn’t have a solid reason to hurt the people who love her like no one ever has. Who, in their own messy way, have treasured her like her own parents and her people never did.

The twist that her true goal all along was to release Chaos would still work, both as a plot mechanic and for shock value. What’s not shocking about your friend actually being serious about releasing an ancient god, and doing it so soon after Britannia was nearly destroyed by a Holy War? The Sins would have been shocked and hurt all the same with how she orchestrated them coming together, trained Arthur for this exact purpose, and prompted Meliodas to confront and kill his father - all things which were ultimately for the best for all of the races, but with Merlin’s questionable choices, involved a lot more trauma for everyone. Hell, if Merlin got a character arc like the others, the Chaos reveal would actually hurt the Sins MORE. Instead of realizing they didn’t really know her, they would be realizing that the sense of warmth and belonging and the bonds they had forged with each other hadn’t reached Merlin’s heart. That whatever effort they had put into bonding with her wasn’t enough, it didn’t help her the way she had - the way they thought she had helped them. That they had been oblivous to their friend’s suffering and emptiness, that she didn’t trust them the way they trusted her, etc, etc. A deeper and more cutting reveal if you asked me. 

As it is, the reveal makes it so that they didn’t lose a friend and member of their found family. They lost a person who was just... there. Forgotten until it was strictly neccessary for her to be there. Who never truly cared (?). While that’s sad, it’s... not what it could be if she had gotten the chance to genuinely be a part of the sins, physically and emotionally. 

It seems to me that in the moment, Meliodas doesn't seem overly concerned about Chaos. He's angry that Merlin would be willing to blindside and manipulate him, making light of a friendship that's spanned over 3,000 years, for the sake of something that might not even exist. He's angry she seems to value that over everything she already has. Is this the only thing she truly cared about? Was he and his loved ones nothing but pawns to her, just as he was a pawn to his father? Same with the other Sins - they don't know what's going on, but they are angry and hurt at the prospect that their friendship with Merlin was a lie.

THIS, Merlin could have avoided entirely! She is an intelligent, powerful woman - a genius according to some of the most powerful demons alive - and she has BETTER OPTIONS! Choices. By all means, she could have had wonderful, meaningful times with the Sins for all of their journey together, and kept them as friends afterward, maybe finding true fulfillment in the process. All without giving up her pursuit of releasing Chaos. 

She could have learned. Why didn’t she? 

[emma-radfemcanu]

Please don't get me wrong, I LOVE Taylor but I'm finding this whole era exhausting and I really hope it calms down a bit soon. It's not Taylor herself so much but everything else if that makes sense?

I know some people in the fandom have always been a bit, uh, intense but it's got so much worse recently- constant demands for easter eggs and more content, ridiculous intrusive behaviour (like swarming the restaurant), going after anyone who has ever done Taylor wrong (in particular the people who have come up with the narrative of Joe being emotionally abusive that is based on absolutely nothing? Grow up, seriously)

Also because I don't know how it has happened. Midnights did huge numbers, I think because folkmore forced a lot of people to accept how amazing Taylor really is and that got people interested in her other music, and you think how many Eras Tour stadium dates there are and the demand still is insane- I just keep thinking where the hell did all these people come from? At the risk of sounding like a boomer lol I think TikTok has a lot to answer for, also for the ridiculous behaviour mentioned above

IDK it never used to be like this and I don't like it :( I really think we're approaching 2016 era overexposure and it won't be pretty. Like, I had no idea who Travis Kelce was until this started and while I am genuinely glad he and Taylor are happy, even I am getting sick of hearing about him (and if something does happen to them will all the people singing his praises turn completely against him like they did to Evil Controlling Monster Joe?)

I'm not mad about the TIME Person of the Year thing though- it's impossible to deny Taylor's impact even though some people are trying very hard to 😘 and a lot of the quotes in that article made me cringe a bit but I say that with love because actually I think that's very on brand for her

[riot-of-robins]

What DC doesn’t seem to get with some of the absolutely INSANE nonsense they pull in their grim, edgy arcs is that if the key takeaway of the story is to undermine the very premise on which the story or franchise is founded then I??? Don’t particularly want to read it???

I am ALL FOR exploring a character’s darker side, or watching them fail, or make mistakes. I am all for letting relationships be messy. I love narratives that take some time to question their own premise a little (the hero-vs-vigilante, flexibility-vs-accountability, debate is a comic book classic for a reason and I love to see it done well). But at the end of the day, if you’re starting that discussion within the context of, say, a Batman comic, I’m kinda expecting, you know, as a Batman comic reader, who presumably likes these stories and characters, that the ultimate goal is to see how the characters’ personalities and choices ultimately handle that challenge (if not without struggle) and reaffirm at least some aspects of the story’s foundations.

And if the story gets so edgy and grimdark that the only possibly takeaway is one or more of:

“Actually the heroism has done more net harm than good to this person or others”

“People with interesting/important relationships you care about would actually be better off if they’d never met”

“We’re now telling you that the original conceit of the premise/character, that we asked you to believe in for the story to work, is actually, SHOCKINGLY, not true after all”

It just kinda feels like bad faith storytelling after a while, you know? Like getting invited to a costume party where everyone else takes off their costumes and starts talking about how ridiculous costume parties are, and says “but weren’t you SURPRISED? Didn’t this challenge your expectations and emotions??”

Yeah sure, but I was expecting like, you know, party games to do that. Apparently the hosts are so bad at game planning that they decided to just violate the conventions they put in place for this whole activity instead? After making me invest in them?

This metaphor got away from me here. But the distinction I think I’m trying to make, between interesting, complex, meta-aware plot lines, and frustrating plot lines that make me want to rage quit, is this:

When you plan this event you invited me to, is what’s happening there going to make me feel like we’re here to be interested in this thing we’re here to do on some level, or is it going to make me feel like you lied on the invitation?

If I’m supposed to like a character/dynamic in order to continue believing in an entire world built on their ability to make good decisions and/or do good, then maybe let me continue to like them. You know?

[thesuperiorlokiseries]

(1/2) You guys have renewed some of the hope I had lost in storytelling and people taking stories and characters like this seriously (thanks Marvel, Disney). The more time that passes and the more I hear people praising the Show in one breath and either ignoring or dismissing or sneering at Loki's characterization in Thor 1/Avengers/Thor 2 in the next breath, I can't help but feel that the Loki we got in those three films was a happy accident almost. Because it's obvious that outside of our

(2/3) outside of our (apparently) small corner of the fandom nobody actually cares about him or what he went through or that characterization, and it's disheartening. It just feels, every time I am reminded of the absolute retcon Loki's character went through and people just going along with it and the assholes who have shown just blatant disrespect and maliciousness towards him and his fandom get rewarded, (3/3) it feels like the universe is saying, "This thing that you have become so deeply emotionally invested in, and that you love, and you connect with on a fundamental level, this thing that has given you comfort and has been a source of strength and identity for years, yeah this thing is actually garbage and if you like it then you're wrong." It's just super hard so the fact that you're doing this project is amazing and... thank you. (okay im done)

Thank you so much for the support, sorry that it took us this long to answer, and by the gods do we all feel you. All I can really say, though is this: welcome to the hellscape that is late-stage capitalism.

There are a thousand tumblr posts that talk about this in detail and in multiple different contexts, but it probably cannot be illustrated any more poignantly than with the Loki Series: what we're getting in the name of movies/shows aren't stories, but content, and shitty content at that. Disney and the MCU simply do not care about character arcs or narratives - the sole motive that keeps them churning out project after soulless project is how much money they can squeeze out of each. And since it's the MCU - the most popular film franchise out there, and owned by Disney on top - they can and do pay critics to praise their trash relentlessly, and even if they didn't, there's always going to be far too many people blindly willing to eat up whatever garbage they produce.

They knew how massive and dedicated Loki's fanbase is, they knew exactly how willing far too many fans were to accept even the barest scraps of Loki content, and they knew exactly what to do to keep us willing to watch it - the sheer amount of manipulation that occurred in the trailers and the interviews is frankly insane, and most certainly very, very deliberate. Moreover, Loki is a queer, heavily-other coded, abused character whose most dedicated fanbase consists of women, queer people, neurodivergent people, and other minority groups - it is not a new phenomenon that showrunners actively go out of their way to sabotage characters whose fanbases don't consist primarily of NT cishet men, and are we really surprised the megacorporation still funding Florida's Don't Say Gay bill might torture, dehumanize, and humiliate a queer character on his own show?

In retrospect, it's ridiculous that so many of us - me included, I will admit - actually hoped that the MCU of all possible franchises might give us a decent show about a queer, traumatized, othered victim of abuse who's always represented deviance and rebellion against the status quo. Nobody could have expected the Larry Show to be this nightmarish, but a decent Loki Series... realistically wasn't going to happen in the hellscape that was the year of our lord 2021, not one made by Disney.

Of course, this isn't nearly limited to Disney - Amazon's recent Rings of Power series immediately comes to mind. The Peter Jackson movies had their flaws, but the LOTR fandom almost unanimously loves them because it's evident how much care was poured into the project. The Amazon series, though? HAH.

So while the universe isn't telling us anything, Disney - and Amazon and Netflix and every other corporation you can think of, really - and their bootlickers most certainly are. "Oh, so you want characters and narratives that represent and resonate with you? You want arcs that are satisfying and meaningful? You're dissatisfied with consuming and paying for our garbage content and actually want something that's fulfilling and impactful and made out of any motive beyond relentless profit? Hah, lol no."

Does that mean that they're right?

Hell no. What we all desire and deserve are not products but stories - ones where character arcs and themes actually matter, ones with messages and characters that truly resonate with us, ones crafted and told with love - because stories have connected us all since way before the dawn of human civilization, because stories are inherently a part of humanity, and because capitalism has no right to destroy that, especially not the story of the god of them.

This project is, and always will be, a gigantic fuck you to them all.

[inspiteallthedanger]

“Oh no, I’m insane. Paul didn’t even like John. What am I doing?” - SAME HAT!!! sorry to harp on this but I'm so glad someone else has the same experience, because my thought process normally goes something like:

"There are two wolves inside of you, one of them looks at the j&p mess and goes They are insane about each other, there is absolutely no way to read this as anything BUT some deeply repressed - likely romantic - tensions from both sides. I'm not saying they were fucking but I AM saying they loved each other and I have a pretty heavy bias, regarding what kind of love that was, but there is no way to argue that they didn't love each other in SOME way. Because why would they be LIKE THAT otherwise, why would Paul McCartney - billionaire, legend, music royalty, high enough up on the food chain that he doesn't NEED to pander to anyone if he doesn't want to - be LIKE THAT about John Lennon even 40 years after his death if there wasn't SOMETHING he's been repressing for years, why would he pretend to like John if he doesn't, why would he go out of his way to talk about him in interviews, even if the interviewer doesn't bring him up first, if he didn't actually like him?!

and the OTHER wolf is actually a little goblin that bangs on a VERY loud drum and goes Okay but what if Paul actually didn't like John and hated him, actually, huh??? Check and mate buddy!" This is then accompanied by my brain getting increasingly tangled in ridiculous justifications about why that is a reasonable argument to make and how that makes sense, actually, if you REALLY think about it.

That latter part is normally also the point in time when I know I'm absolutely in too deep and need to log off and go for a walk or to bed and maybe not look at social media for a week, because I really don't think taking 60s boyband relationships that serious is good for your health, but like... yeah I ABSOLUTELY get where you're coming from. I have never doubted John caring for Paul and that he genuinely loved him, the man was SUCH an open book, but Paul and his emotions on the topic are a huge question mark for me sometimes. Anyway, god I'm sorry this is so long, but again,

tldr; SAME HAT!!!!!

Paul and his emotions on the topic are a huge question mark for me sometimes

YASSSSS. I think this is actually the crux of the problem for me. Paul just doesn't talk about things in a way I understand. And for all his 'I loved John' he also drops in little digs at him and points out that John wasn't as smart of whatever. So... it's confusing.

Plus, we're fighting about the mainstream narrative that is 'Lennon/McCartney' weren't that close. I literally made my three best friends come to Liverpool recently. And, before we went, I went on a (very restrained) rant about John and Paul, and they were all floored. One of them said, "That is weird, because now you say it, it doesn't make sense that they didn't like each other. But, that's just what I always thought."

I do think/hope that's actually changing now, but I sometimes have to stop and go, "Wait, is this because I've been on Tumblr too long? Is there a much more simple explanation for this?"

Ultimately, I come down on your first thought. They were fucking weird about each other. Who knows in what exact ways/the underlying reasons for that. But it remains true however you paint it.

Anyway, yes. I feel you, nonny.

[onebizarrekai]

I think that lucia di lammermoor is one of my new favorite operas not just because of the mad scene but because the opera makes no sense whatsoever

there are literally so many plot holes in the libretto. there are so many unexplained facets of the narrative, unresolved arcs, dialogues that mandate copious creative liberties, things that only happen off-stage, and some unsolvable problems that can only be fixed by cutting things or directing things a certain way. there’s so much nonsense it’s actually hilarious. if you read the source story of the bride of lammermoor the opera diverts quite a bit, but the bride of lammermoor is actually even worse, so let’s put that to the side.

let’s just start from the beginning of the opera, paraphrasing as much as possible. lucia’s evil brother, enrico, is the first lead to greet the stage, minutes after his goony normano. normano tells enrico the tale of how enrico’s archenemy, edgardo, saved the life of lucia, and he reluctantly admits that they are now in love with each other and are secretly meeting up all the time. enrico flips his shit and sings about how he’s going to kill edgardo or whatever. bide the bent (aka raimondo, but schirmir really said bide the bent, whatever the hell that means) exists and does priest stuff because he’s a priest. by the way, there’s this whole thing about how the ashton family (aka lucia and enrico) are protestant and edgardo is catholic and that’s why they hate each other and that’s why there’s a priest.

anyway they all leave, and then lucia and alice enter. lucia is, naturally, waiting for her illegal boyfriend: edgardo. she is very scared because enrico is a piece of shit and wants to kill her boyfriend. alice is like “yo man this is a bad idea” and lucia is like “where’s edgardo” but lucia is also perturbed by something else. she has a ghost story to tell about this nondescript fountain and tells alice about the girl who was killed by her lover at this fountain, and then suddenly goes like “by the way the ghost of the dead woman appeared to me” and like wow ok lucia. after singing about all of the water turning to blood in her hallucination, she proceeds to completely change moods and sing about how much she loves edgardo because she is crazy. after all of this, edgardo finally arrives and tells lucia about how he actually has to go to france to do ambassador stuff and disappear for an indefinite period of time. he says that they should finally tell enrico about their relationship. lucia completely shuts him down, and then edgardo cries about how enrico has killed his family and how she’s the only light of his life. they end up deciding to keep their relationship a secret anyway and then vow to marry each other.

act 2, enrico has ordered normano to forge a break-up letter from edgardo to send it to lucia. normano shows up to give it to enrico, enrico summons lucia into wherever he is to tell her that he needs to marry her off to some other guy in order to save their family. lucia is like “but I’m marrying someone else” and enrico is like “oh yeah? read this” and gives her the letter, and lucia naturally breaks down because it’s a big lie about how edgardo has found someone else in france. she cries about it until this big fanfare plays to welcome her new husband, arturo. at this point lucia is singing about nothing except how much death would benefit her right now. enrico leaves after being an asshole for a few more minutes, and then in comes bide the bent to lecture lucia about the invalidity of her previous marital vows. she leaves to change into a wedding gown.

enter arturo, this random loser that enrico wants lucia to marry. his lines are so cliché that he’s probably reading them off a sheet of paper (which is exactly how we staged the production I am currently doing). somehow arturo knows about lucia’s affair with edgardo because those two were actually horrible at being secretive, but also he doesn’t care because he gets to marry a hottie. enrico tells arturo about how lucia’s mother died and that’s why she’s crying about the wedding. lo and behold, lucia enters and she is crying. they hold the wedding right then and there under the Authority™ of bide the bent, enrico forces lucia to sign the wedding documents, and then everyone is like “wait who’s at the door?” and then EDGARDO BREAKS IN and he’s like “EDGAAAAAARDO” and they sing a whole sextet that borders a confusion ensemble except it’s a bel canto tragedy.

edgardo is like “yeah man! it’s my right to be here since I’m engaged to lucia!” and enrico is like “PSH” and bide the bent comes up like “sorry she just signed this Other Marriage Contract” and shows it to edgardo and edgardo is like WHAT and he comes up to lucia like BRUH YOU DONE THIS?? and lucia doesn’t even know what’s happening at this point, she’s just like “yes?? but” and then edgardo takes off his ring and hers and then throws a temper tantrum before he gets kicked out.

behold the wolf’s craig duet, the most stupid and pointless thing in this opera considering what happens later. enrico barges into edgardo’s house and they sing about how they’re going to kill each other and duel at the graveyard. that’s it. there’s probably sexual tension.

after that, there’s a wedding party, except with a Horrifying Twist. lucia goes upstairs with arturo and fucking kills him. having lost her mind, she comes out covered in blood and sings for like twenty minutes in a very impressive manor. she collapses on the floor at the very end.

there’s a random recit right afterwards where enrico, bide the bent and normano briefly talk about lucia losing her mind. while enrico is crying about lucia, bide the bent literally blames normano of all people, who did exactly nothing, for every bad thing that happened to lucia.

the final scene begins at the graveyard. now, I know what you’re thinking. edgardo and enrico promised to duel each other here, right? right! so where the hell is enrico? I dunno, not here. edgardo is here, and he’s crying and stuff about his dead father. he’s very sad and probably wants to perish. a chorus shows up mourning something. edgardo asks about it and no one wants to tell him. bide the bent appears in all his priestliness and tells edgardo that lucia is now in heaven. how did she die? beats me. she died of insanity or something. edgardo has lost the final thing in his life that matters to him, so he decides to “go see her” and stabs himself.

the opera ends.

welcome to lucia di lammermoor. now, some of these plot holes are resolvable through directing. for example, lucia’s insanity is inexplicable in the libretto. nobody is just sad about their boyfriend and commits murder–granted, her first aria had her singing about a ghost and a fountain of blood. why’s she like this, though? she’s probably not ok. so like, some people explain this by making enrico way way worse than just a big liar. in the production that I’m doing, enrico is being depicted as sexually abusive towards lucia, and like, yeah that helps do some explaining. but you know what it doesn’t help? the parts of the opera that normally get cut, like the stupidass wolf’s craig duet that exists for no reason and usually gets cut because it makes no sense. also, the scene right after the mad scene where bide the bent comically blames normano for everything even though it is clearly enrico’s fault and enrico is randomly mourning lucia even though he was horrible to her for the whole opera. unfortunately, when you have companies like the met, which do full operas with no cuts, you get the whole, nonsensical story in its full glory, not to mention the met tends to shy away from taking creative liberties with the directing.

so like, why do I say this opera is a new favorite? well, aside from it being fun to sing, since I’m doing it for the first time, it’s absolutely hilarious to consider who the real mastermind here is, since for some reason, the librettist seems to think that it’s normano. you have to make up so much subtext in this story in order to even make it begin to make sense, so how far can you take it? how much nonsense can you create?

easy mode is assuming the mastermind is enrico. he’s a horrible person. obviously bide the bent accuses normano because he’s trying to divert the blame from enrico, who may or may not kill him if he says the truth. however, enrico does not go to the graveyard to kill edgardo and tie off loose ends (which I personally think he should have). enrico just kind of disappears, honestly, in spite of being the main bad guy.

bide the bent is another viable option. he blames normano to divert attention from himself. he plays the role of the peacemaker between edgardo and enrico during the sextet, but it’s all a sham. the reason bide the bent appears in the final graveyard scene is because he’s the true villain here. he simply took advantage of everyone around him in order to make sure everything went according to plan. enrico’s bs towards lucia, lucia’s insanity, edgardo’s depression, normano loyalty, the whole deal. he wishes to rise in power… perhaps the reason enrico does not show up in the final scene is because bide the bent has already disposed of him.

what if it was edgardo? what if he and lucia devised a plan to create an opening that would allow them to run away? what if arturo was in on it? lucia pretends to murder arturo, pretends to go insane, and the plan was to finally flee with edgardo… but then they were INTERCEPTED. their plan was ruined. lucia was disposed of by the enemy off-stage and it was too late. they claim she died of insanity, but she was killed by normano under enrico’s orders, or whoever else is the designated evil one here.

in the met, for some reason, they decide to have lucia’s ghost come in during the final scene and silently “coerce” edgardo into ending his life, which sounds cool, but it was ridiculous. I just remember the blood bag being in the wrong place so he had to stab himself in the kidney and lucia actually pushed the prop knife in like she wasn’t literally a ghost. there was also a ghost during lucia’s first aria that totally upstaged her. this opens up many stupid doors for directing such as arturo’s ghost returning as well if need be. anyone’s ghost could be there. ghosts canonically exist at the met. arturo could be fortnite dancing during the mad scene.

behold, a terrible take. edgardo is having a secret affair after all, but he’s having an affair with enrico. enrico is enraged when he discovers edgardo’s relationship with his sister because he thought that THEY had a thing. he vengefully tries to break them up by marrying lucia off to arturo. enrico and edgardo sing the wolf’s craig duet as a not-tragic breakup song.

honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone in this goddamn cast was sleeping with each other. the possibilities are endless

during the staging period of the show, we all came up with so many stupid and hilarious ideas that we could stage an entire comedy version of this opera. maybe one day it could happen. maybe…

anyway it’s like midnight and I’m doing my cast’s performance of this opera in two days, and I just drove home a while ago from performance 1 today talking with my family about all of these stupid possibilities, so it’s all on my mind. at least the mad scene is fun to sing

[veilder]

For the ask thing you reblogged: 11, 20, 31, 39. No stress if you can't answer all of them! Even picking one out of the four is fine!

For the Fanfic Writer Ask Game! Thanks for the questions! I absolutely will answer all of them! :D 11. How do you come up with your fic titles? Ah, great question! Okay, broadly, all my fic titles go into one of three categories: quote/song lyric, a word of phrase directly tied to the narrative, or something themed. In the case of the quote/song titles, I usually will carry through that naming throughout the entire piece if it's chaptered/part of a series? Those ones, there's always a certain vibe I'm going for. The ones tied to the narrative I try to make evocative. Whether they're a one word theme or a play on words or the main idea I built the fic on, I try to make them interesting enough to take a second glance and go in for the summary. And the themed ones, those usually have a repeating word/phrase/motif attached to them? For example, I have a whole series of fics where every title starts with "In." Don't ask me why, lol. But it establishes a sort of continuity I suppose. 20. What’s your favorite part about the fanfiction writing process? Damn, this is tough... I mean, actually conceptualizing and brainstorming an idea is always great? I love coming up with ideas and giving them a hard think and imagining the possibilities. Only a small fraction of those ever actually make it to paper, but it's still a very important step y'know? But if we're talking actually writing, then... Well, there are moments... Moments when I get swept away, especially when writing big, emotional scenes. And I'll write something that just kinda knocks me sideways for a moment. Tuning in to my own writing to see I just cracked out some banger line is just the best fuckin feeling, I swear. Especially if it's enough to make me actually squeal or gasp or vocalize at the screen, lol! That's definitely up there along with coming up with the perfect chapter ending, lol. 31. Of the characters you write for, which is your favorite? Has that choice been swayed at all by your followers/readers’ reactions to certain ones? Omg, this is such a hard question!!!! Because everyone I write for has such a distinct flair! Omggggg... Like, how am I supposed to choose between Hank's sarcasm and Gavin's feistiness? Between Connor's levelheadedness and Sixty's ridiculousness? Or Nines or North or Amanda or Kamski or... anyone? (And that's just DBH, too. I've written a few other things for other fandoms that are just as engaging, omg.) Guh... Okay, just on basis of ease, I guess I'll go with Hank. Hank is so fuckin great to write, he is very easy for me to slip into. We have such a similar sense of humor, it's always a great time writing him. (Although I think Sixty is a very close second, just because he's so fuckin insane, omg!!! He's a fuckin blast to write! XD) And also, no, I don't think this has been swayed by readers at all? I mean, Hank certainly provokes some fandom engagement, he's a fave character for the fandom. But that's not why I like writing him? (And if we look at Sixty, too, it's like the opposite reaction, lol. He's not very popular in the fandom, especially in the rarepair I love him in, but I still have a blast doing it anyway. XD) Yeah, I don't think my readers have swayed me whatsoever here. 39. What’s something about your writing that you pride yourself on? Oh gosh... Got me right in my Achilles' heel, didn't ya? Man, I don't know... My pacing maybe? I feel like I always have a pretty tight narrative with no superfluity. Mostly cuz writing exhausts me, lol, but my plots tend to be short and sweet and to the point. Simple but brisk, lol. But yeah, thank you for these questions! This was fun! Been a long time since I've did an ask game like this, lol. Cheers! :D

[maxwell-grant]

Have you read the short story Norvell Page wrote as a wedding present for a Big Name Fan about Dick and Nita's first meeting? Any thoughts on it? My main is that Page does not go where you expect him to based on that description.

I did! Actually it was one of the first Spider stories I read. And yeah, to an extent, it's absolutely not what you'd expect from something set in The Spider's world. And on the other hand, it's absolutely what makes the most sense for these two characters. Because, yeah, Norvell Page could have done what he usually does, and written some over-the-top action where Dick and Nita happen to meet during it.

But no, that wouldn't work. Because, for all the turmoil and chaos in The Spider, for everything that he and Nita go through, there are many times when, sturdier even than Dick's resolve is their love for each other, the deep understanding and affection that carries them through hell itself time and time again.

And so, when it was time to showcase how such a romance started, Page wisely deviated from his usual narrative style, and instead told a very, very intimate and personal story, a long and extended conversation between the two, and more importantly, between Page and the reader. Between The Spider, and You, peering into The Spider through the eyes of Nita van Sloan.

I think for a start, it's an interesting coincidence that this meeting takes place on a cruise ship, and it involves Dick rescuing Nita from suicide. I say this because Margo Lane's first meeting with Lamont Cranston, in the pulps, was stated to have taken place on a cruise ship, and of course, the first time we see The Shadow in the pulps, he's rescuing Harry Vincent from suicide, and both Harry and Margo are The Shadow's main supporting characters. I'm not saying it was intentional, but it's an interesting fact. And more so because Dick doesn't really rescue Nita.

Her scarf whipped in the wind on deck, and it blinded her... and a hand touched her arm, and a voice spoke to her.

"If it's intentional, don't let me stop you," the voice said, "but you're heading straight for suicide."

Nita looked then at the stop toward which, blindly, she was going, and it was a chain barrier beyond which was the sea. And she looked at the man who had stopped her and it was Richard Wentworth. And his words had been a shock to her.

"You wouldn't try to dissuade me from suicide?" she asked.

Wentworth's brows were tilted whit a hint of mockery, but his eyes were very grave. "Every man is master of his own soul, and hence of his body," he said. "And your eyes are wide open and awake. So it would be a considered action. I'm not sure, under those circumstances, that I would have a right to meddle in another's business."

Nita said, "I think you can help me."

Wentworth shook his head. "Only you can help yourself," he said, "but it may be that someone else could help you find the way."

The whole text is a great example of how wonderfully realized of a character Nita van Sloan is in ways so unlike the typical pulp or superhero girlfriends at the time, because the text is written from her perspective, and half of the text reads like an extended character breakdown of who Nita is as a character and person. And the other half of the text is almost entirely comprised of Dick Wentworth spouting philosophy and talking in-depth about his reading of her and what's upsetting her, talking about God and fate and so on. And like so many other attempts to explore serious theological/psychological/philosophical/etc concepts explored through pulp fiction, half of it is bullshit, and half of it is fascinatingly disturbing and thought-provoking bullshit.

"Self-contempt," Wentworth's words were very quiet now. "Is second only to self-pity among the greater sins. Self-analysis is a dangersous thing. You need so much charity. And any person who is advanced enough to think about himself at all is apt to be over-stern in his judgment of himself."

He said to her, "If you don't honor youself, who will honor you?" And, a few moments later, "There is conceit in ruling others, but none in mastering yourself." And, "There is no arrogance so great as self-righteousness."

Nita clashed with him violently, "You are being self-righteous in judging me!"

Wentworth laughed. "I am speaking only truism. It is you who judge yourself, not I." He was serious, then. "My dear," he said, "I would be presumptuous to try to teach you. No man can teach another. But one who has been along that same trail would be less than a man if he failed to mark certain signposts and certain places where there is water to drink so that another, traveling that same road, may know where another struggled and what he has learned. But, as no man can travel a road for another, so no man can teach another. You must work out your own salvation."

"That sense of separation between the inner and outer self," Nita rushed on, "between yourself and the world ... while you were talking, I could almost feel that difference disappearing. The feeling is gone now, but ..."

"All progress is three steps forward and two back," Wentworth said, slowly, "and this is good because thus all ground is three-times covered and triply learned."

And I should probably clarify by this point that, it's not so much Dick Wentworth talking in this story, as it's Norvell Page himself. In fact, he admits as much in another letter he had sent to his readers that he was prone to talking philosophy by this point.

There was a time when the burden of writing just one more Spider seemed too much to undertake. (After all, the magazine is in it's ninth year!) But I never feel that way any more. I know now that the Spider actually does help people; that there are those who appreciate his idealism even though it is expressed in violence.

Especially in the last half dozen Spiders, beginning with the 100th I believe, I have tried very earnestly to teach a little of the philosophy and faith, of which we all need so much in these days.

Here's the thing about The Spider: It's not that the character is mad. Well, okay, he IS mad, I don't pull these over-the-top maniacal cartoon meme descriptions out of thin air, but that's because he lives in a batshit insane disaster horror world where there IS no sane response other than joining the carnage to overcome it. It's not just that Wentworth who is a madman. It's that Norvell Page was a mad man, and Dick Wentworth was Norvell's Page alter-ego, by the man's own admission.

Friends have informed me that I moved about the company as one in a trance: there were some who were concerned about my health, so oddly did I behave. Of course, only my body attended that occasion. My mind was entirely engrossed in Dick Wentworth's big problem - back in my study on a sheet of paper stuck in my typewriter

I did not dream that night; in the morning I restlessly paced my floor thinking, thinking, thinking. I sat down at the typewriter, stared at the words and the keys. Suddenly, as if by magic, Dick Wentworth seemed to move of his own volition. My hands raised, my fingers literally flew over the keyboard.

No matter how ridiculous it seems, I will always feel that Dick Wentworth, creature of my own fabrication, guided me through that tough scene.

No two people can live together without being influenced by each other to some extent. So constantly has Wentworth been in my mind, it is as if we were roommates - partners in everything.

Page has talked about how close of a connection he feels to the character, about many ways he's emulated his mannerisms, even some pretty embarassing anectodes where he claims to have "accidentally" used the character's "indomitable will" to scare waiters or drawing connections between The Spider's cast and real people he's met. Others who met him remarked that he talked of the "Spider" characters as though they were members of his family, or drinking companions.

Even before I got into The Spider, I had heard of rumors that he used to present or discuss stories in his office by putting on a cape and jumping from desk to desk, swinging a yard stick in his hand, and I can't find any source that confirms it, but I don't doubt it in the slightest. A lot of pulp writers had really weird lives, and Page was no exception. He was a journalist who frequently dug into his newspaper clippings for grisly stories to incorporate into narratives. I mean, just look at the dude's eyes, he's seen some shit.

When he was 3, his mother fell down a manhole while they were walking down a Chicago sidewalk. Norvell, terrified, thought she had dissappeared and never quite got over the experience.

When he was a little older, according to some family members, his parents had tickets for the Titanic and escaped disaster when Norvell begged them to cancel the trip for reasons unknown.

Norvell again played a hand in the family's escaping disaster when, one Christmas the family home caught on fire. Candles on the tree had been left burning. He quite arguably saved everyone's life. Waking first, he threw his mattress out of his window, grabbed his infant brother and sister and ran screaming through the hall as he went back to jump to safety. His screams woke his parents who then jumped to the mattress themselves.

Norvell lied about his age and experience to the Norfolk "Observer", claiming to have been writing for Richmond's "Times Dispatch" and was hired there.

His father managed Thomas Edison & Hugo Wurlitzer's ad accounts, and had always encouraged him to write, envisioning him as another Poe, whom his Great-Uncle had worked with as an editor

It is rumored that, in NYC, while at the "World Telegram", he became involved in fellow editor Varion Fry's effort to rescue artists and scientists from occupied Europe. President of the American Fiction Guild, he edited their newsletter for some time. Among his closest friends were fellow writers Ted Tinsley and L. Ron Hubbard and Surrealist painter Max Ernst.

WRITER'S REVIEW 35.08: Norvell W. Page, whose bloodthirsty Spider novels would do justice to Ghengis Khan, demonstrated his bloodlust the other day by accidentally killing a sparrow.

He wrote until 1943, when he abruptly stopped without warning. He dissappeared, for all intents and purposes, from both New York, the arts world and the pulp world for good.

His wife of 20 years, Audrey, had died and this, along with the U.S. involvment in WWII, led to his returning to VA where he would go on to be an intelligence worker in the Truman, Kennedy and Eisenhower Administrations.

He died suddenly of a heart attack in August of 1961.

Surviving family members do not know where he is buried.

I think this is a story that Page might have told differently had he written it earlier in his career, before he got tired, before he underwent his depression and loss of weight that caused him to briefly stop writing pulps all together, in a time period before the World War had cast an oppressive miasma on the world. In a time period where most of the horrifying nightmares he infused into the stories were really just that, nightmares, that he didn't live long enough to see turn into prophecies.

Because that's another thing about The Spider that makes the character more than just a batshit vigilante: As over-the-top as the stories were, a lot of them also inevitably turned out to predict some form of catastrophe in real life.

Written with an eye to the horrors festering in Germany at the time, The Mayor of Hell now reads as an infernal vision of the Homeland Security Act.

The poisoned products found in The Red Death Rain and The Pain Emperor call to mind the Tylenol killings of the summer of 1982, and the hundreds of poisoned products cases that followed.

Bio-terrorism plays large in the Spider mythos, with bubonic plague in Wings of the Black Death, rabies in The Mad Horde, and cholera in The Cholera King foreshadowing the Anthrax scare of 2001. The same could be said of the terror gases from Kingdom of Doom and Green Globes of Death and the nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subways in March of 1995.

Masters of the Death Madness unfolds as a nightmare meditation upon suicide, which has become one of the principal weapons of modern terrorists. One scene involves suicide bombers.

Another scene chillingly presages the Jonestown massacre of 1978: a grand procession lines up to drink from a bowl of poisoned wine while surrounding gunmen pick off anyone who refuses to drink.

The modern reader will recognize the psychological and sociological effects of a citizenry living under the threat of terrorism, so chillingly evoked by Page: the grating loss of safety, the imminent threats lurking in familiar objects, the way security can no longer be taken for granted, the kind of skittishness that empties a building at the first sign of an unknown white powder.

The eeriest of all the modern terrorist parallels appears in a novel called The City Destroyer, originally published in 1936. It features a set piece involving the collapse of a fictitious gigantic building, supposedly the tallest in New York City, called “The Sky Building.” When it fell, it wiped out five city blocks and claimed 1,000 lives. And perhaps it’s worth noting a further parallel that occurred in the 1970’s, when Pocket Books tried to revive the Spider; they repackaged him in a paperback series, striving for an image of what was then cool and thrusting Richard Wentworth into a contemporary setting.

When Pocket Books reprinted and updated The City Destroyer in 1975, the collapse of the Sky Building was replaced with the collapse of the World Trade Center - Stuart Hopen's essay on The Spider

Regardless of how much reality Page was infusing into his stories (because, again, he took a lot of his material from newspapers) or how much he foresaw intentionally or not, writing The Spider definitely took it's toll on him, and as the magazine neared it's final stretch with him on the helm, certain parts did began taking a more philosophical or religious tone, as more of Page's own beliefs, more of Page's attempts to use it as a vehicle to do good, began to bleed through the page.

And ultimately I think that's also what the story of Dick and Nita's first meeting is about, sort of an extended analysis not just of Nita, who Page himself said was a character he conceived as "the epitome of womanhood" and everything he thought admirable about it, but also of Wentworth's own character, and the things Page wanted to get through in his time.

Religion crept deeper into the series with each succeeding year. By all accounts, Norvell Page was a man of deep faith and spirituality who just happened to be writing the exploits of a hero whose idea of mercy was a bullet in the brain instead of the stomach.

In the 100th novel, Death and The Spider, Wentworth battles Death itself - or so it seems - and on Christmas Eve, he is shot so badly while protecting the President from assassination that everyone believes he's dead - including himself.

Dead or not, he forces himself to fight on, sustained only by reciting the 23rd Psalm over and over again.

Nita laughed and accepted a cigarette. "I don't know how to thank you."

"Don't," Wentworth's voice was sharp. "I told you I am only a channel. Don't confuse me with the Source."

It stopped words on Nita's lips, and it gave here a new respect and a new and sudden attitude toward this man beside her, this man who could laugh and jest with everyone about him, and who could teach like a very oracle ... and who carried about him such a sense of dedication to high purpose. He might seem apart from the world, but he was utterly and completely of it.

Nita said, half-laughing, half-serious, "May I like you? And may I admire your ... adjustment?"

"Don't envy my adjustment," he grinned at her. "Have one yourself." He snapped flame to her cigarette with his lighter, and his lean, strong hand was steady and sure as his eyes, as his voice. He was speaking to her but he was looking at the lighter. "I have found my mission," he said quietly.

[aimeelouart]

So I see you produce a lot of stuff (fics and art and ideas). Do you consume as well? Can you tell us some of your favourite fics or link to favourite fanarts etc?

That I do! I actually have something of an encyclopedic knowledge of the current body of FF7 fics on Ao3 because that’s...pretty much all I read over the summer (that’s a lie--FF7 fics were the ONLY thing I read over the summer). I’ll focus on FF7 here because it’s my current obsession but feel free to ask about other fandoms I post/write/have bookmarks for.

Top Fics that I would die for

1) The Best Laid Plans by Loralei_Dawson I cannot stress this enough. I would die for this fic. Cloud goes back in time but the process kind of scrambles his brain like an egg. He’s semi-aware of how absolutely insane he is, but also thinks he’s being perfectly rational while all the outside POVs are like “good god what the hell is going on with this child” as he unceremoniously installs himself in the Tower and repeatedly attempts to assassinate a baffled and concerned Sephiroth. Features Genesis the certified Cloud wrangler. I love it so much that I even made art for it

2) Terrorism and Anarchy by VarianN Cloud Strife is a badass motherfucker and this fic exemplifies that. He goes back in time to his cadet days and promptly yeets himself into the slums, much to Zack’s concern. He then proceeds to play a very amusing game of cat-and-mouse with the Turks and SOLDIERs by keeping them guessing about whether or not he’s the mysterious “CS Delivery” who’s exploding reactors left and right.

3) The Fifth Act by Sinnatious Cloud goes back in time (are you noticing a theme here?) and heals Genesis, but is unable to heal anyone else. He gets cornered into joining SOLDIER and kind of...wanders around in a vague haze completing missions and being forcibly befriended by the SOLDIERs? This poor boy needs a serious nap.

4) Angel in the Rafters by skadren (finally, an author who exists on Tumblr! ...that I can’t tag. Well then.) This one is in my bookmarks as “the one where Sephiroth is a possessive dumbass.” Cloud is also a dumbass. Everyone else is just along for the ride. Anyway, Cloud goes back, has wings, is around bby!Seph for a little while before getting slam-dunked back into his corporeal bby!Cloud body. A whole lot of shenanigans goes on as Cloud runs around avoiding Shinra and exploding reactors. Gen content is typically where my heart lives, but this one is Seph/Cloud (after they stop being MASSIVE DUMBASSES ABOUT IT >:I)

5) Son by @sheseesinthedark Am I biased toward this because she-sees is one of my co-authors on Saving Subject C? Surprisingly, no. She-sees is just massively talented at spinning up complexly interwoven narratives. Vincent goes back to rescue bby!Seph from the labs and raise him and OOF it is BEAUTIFUL. Things just keep escalating as what seems on the surface to be a relatively straightforward and simple narrative slowly becomes as complex and beautiful as a tapestry, all building toward a suspenseful zenith.

6) just be still with me by @rainbowcarousels

Excuse me how does this not have like 3,000 kudos??? ASGZC which started out as a cute and funny sort of get-together fic and then MORPHED into a masterful plot-driven fic. The characterization is just so delicious! I even made art for it.

7) N7 SOLDIER by @screamingvikings Actually you know what just go read literally everything by ScreamingVikings. She writes like (and is, iirc) a published author. N7 SOLDIER is, you guessed it, a crossover of Mass Effect and FF7 where Shepard ends up on Gaia post-ME3. Her Shep is delightful and I very much enjoyed watching that lady get really fucking offended at how Shinra runs its military.

8) Cadet Strife’s Adventures in the Big City by Munchkin47 Seph/Cloud soulmate AU that made me laugh so hard I literally injured myself. Cloud tries very hard to ignore Sephiroth after the revelation of their matching soul marks, but Sephiroth refuses to be ignored and recruits his friends into helping him seduce his hilariously avoidant soulmate.

9) The World that Never Will Be by @tocasia Kingdom Hearts/FF7 crossover (does that even count as a crossover considering Nomura’s fuckery? Whatever) that totally makes me ship Aqua/Sephiroth. They meet in the Realm of Darkness and everyone makes questionable decisions all over the place, honestly. But it’s so ridiculously well written and deserves WAY more love than it’s gotten so far.

10) Draw With Me by XpaperplaneX Cloud is in the labs with Seph and they basically adopt each other and become inseparable to the point that Cloud is with Seph in the OG plot while Zack is the protagonist. It’s really fucking cute okay. And also sad. But I love me some gen content.

11) Stick ‘em with the pointy end by @tyrantchimera All of AVALANCHE goes back in time...as tonberries. I think that’s all I really need to say to get you to go give this the amount of love it DESERVES. Prepare to laugh until you throw up.

12) Another Day, a New Dawn by MollyPollyKinz Zack is the one to go back in time here and he’s trying SO HARD but Angeal and the others cotton on pretty much immediately and are like “??? is he okay???” Spoilers: no. He’s not okay. I especially love Angeal in this one.

Ok I’ll stop myself at 12 recs. If you want more recs look at my bookmarks list! On Ao3! Most of them use my own tag system and have short summaries/commentary in the descriptions (except the ones I need to catch up on, oops!)

[funkymbtifiction]

How I Write, How I Dream: ESTP Edition

Mod: An ESTP asked permission to submit this, since she noticed I do not have an ESTP ‘How I write stories’ description in the archive to match this series. What follows is in her own words.

ESTP: How I Write, How I Dream

So this submission is like 6+ years late topically, I think, but it’s an understatement to say I get side-tracked easily. First I had to be self-aware enough to actually determine my type with confidence, and then I had to remember to write this up. Hopefully it’s an edition that’s better late than never – in any case, I thought it might be fun to contribute, given the frequent lack of Se-dom voices in things like this.

I’m aware that I might be in a comparatively small group as a regular ESTP writer, let alone one familiar with personality typology, but I wrote my first short story at nine for a 4th grade assignment, and then my first full story/intended book when I was eleven, (both of which I immediately proceeded to act out on the playground), so it’s sort of always been a part of my normal retinue of hobbies/coping mechanisms/diversions/distractions. Usually I find that I write the most when I’m bored or otherwise dissatisfied with my real life – sort of using it to spice things up with more exciting events, even if they’re regrettably fictional. I also suspect that I use writing to experience all the interesting things I find myself unable to physically do, at least for the moment – not unlike what your ISTP contributor described. I think sometimes that I use it to subconsciously work through certain concepts, too, until I understand them holistically. It’s like it gives me a way to actually engage and interact with a philosophical concept through tangible expression – through embedding it into [fictional] human behavior. Like how I understand the nuances of the concept of apostasy better for having walked through the plot of Silence (2016) with Scorsese than I would have if it was still just a definition in a theology textbook. Application helps me. (I also had a counselor a while back who told me that I used my writing to work through the emotions I hate to process in real life, but I was never wholly convinced of that or the connection of my plots to my real life events, so jury’s out, I guess.)

When I was a kid, I liked to read a fair-ish amount. Spies were oftentimes my favorite topic, but I also wanted eagerly to be one and owned probably every kid spy gadget ever manufactured for sale at the Spy Museum in D.C., to which I dragged my parents practically every weekend so I could crawl through air vents, etc. However, my favorite children’s series of all was actually the Ingo series by the late Helen Dunmore, which provided me with exciting, nature-based, and [mostly] emotionally satisfying adventures in my lifelong favorite unpredictable environment – underwater. (I also dragged my parents constantly to our local aquarium.) As I got older, the frequency of my reading dropped, and I now find myself usually pulled more towards nonfiction.

[Note – I just realized a lifelong quirk with me and books. I’m sort of ridiculously set on *seeing* the books I own. I mean, I know what I own, but I still constantly get out every book I own on a particular topic just to see them all at once. It makes the knowledge more cohesive for me to concentrate it visually, I guess. Even just the covers. Anyway.]

My writing habits are kind of awful – in that, like alluded to above, I pretty much only write when I either a) am seized by a great idea, or else b) have nothing better to do. I have little ambition to actually publish or anything like that, regardless of encouragement, and I prefer to think of my writing as just a diversion, an amusement for myself alone (though I do crave minimal approval, as I do in anything). In any case, as soon as the pressure of a schedule is attached to my writing, it drains of all joy for me. Much like your ISTP contributor described, I think I hover somewhere between plotter and pantser, depending on the story. Too much planning leads to my feeling like I have no incentive to actually write it, as I’ve already experienced it, and too little leaves me spinning aimlessly with no real direction. I write both prose and screenplays, and the rule seems to hold true for both, overall. Also, whenever I have a problem in my plotting or characters or whatever, I find that I have to step away, go be busy with something else, sometimes for a long while, and when I come back everything just falls into place. I guess unconscious Ti and/or Ni finding solutions? I’m not totally sure how/why that happens.

As my inclusion of screenplay format may suggest, I experience my stories in an incredibly visual way. I think sometimes that my narratives come across very much like movies, with all the requisite limitations and usual lack of character introspection. I feel like I pretty much focus on the observable actions of my characters – I find describing any kind of extended rumination highly unnatural, at least most of the time. Even my planning is highly visual. I have a tendency to graph, chart, draw, and plaster my options all over the walls. It’s ridiculous sometimes, but in many cases I just have to be able to see them all next to each other, even if there’s no other information provided. Like my books, mentioned earlier. It helps clarify my plot choices in my mind. It’s also a quirk/weakness of mine that I am often entirely dependent on outside images for descriptions. I need to find a real person, place, or thing to base my fictional ones on physically if I hope to have any kind of concrete knowledge to allow description. Again, it helps solidify them/it in my mind.

I have another weakness in my writing that often results in much incredulous laughter – I’m often entirely blind to any hidden meaning or symbolism in my own writing. I might get the vaguest sense of something being a good line, but be unsure why until my ISFJ friend starts praising my deep, archetypal references and crafting – and then staring at me when I clearly have no idea what she means. It’s happened several times by this point, and though it makes me laugh, I’ll just blame it on the subconscious inferior Ni. I pretty much never have any kind of goal of being symbolic or laden with deep meaning. If I were ever to try that, I think it would massively stress me out.

In terms of editors, beta readers, or whatever else we want to call those who give solicited criticism – that’s just what I need/want. Criticism. For the most part, I’m incredibly thick-skinned about my writing and would be absolutely fine if someone told me that it was utterly terrible and the whole thing needed revising down to the very concept. That may be because I think many of my concepts are lackluster to start with. But nothing frustrates me so quickly as readers unwilling to actually [and harshly] criticize. I always tell them that I want him/her to rip it to shreds. I mean, that’s the only way it’ll get better. (I’ve made mistakes before by assuming that other writers feel this way, too – my sister did not appreciate my input.)

I write almost exclusively dramas these days, I guess, though of varying subtypes. (I also maintain the availability/ready accessibility of about 10+ stories at any given time of active writing. I bounce between them sometimes based on what I’m feeling like at the moment or what I have a new thought about.) I have a sort of historical drama thing that takes place in the 1680s, a modern drama prompted by a premise of genetic engineering, a Most Dangerous Game kind of hunting/weapons thing, a detective story in the immediate aftermath of WWII, a classic deserted island story, a thing involving the phenomenon of stigmata… the list goes on and shifts constantly.

However, while I’ve typically enjoyed writing, here’s the omnipresent rub – engaging with it for any great amount of time makes me really unhealthy emotionally. I’m pretty sure that after like two or three days primarily working on a story without other overriding priorities, or like six or seven with those scattered distractions, (at best), I’m plummeting straight down to my inferior functions. My historical stories do this even more quickly, because they oftentimes seem to require more mental effort. I get super irritable, drown in self-loathing, start to think that everything real that I want is never going to happen – it’s really not good. The fact of the matter is that while writing is a fun diversion oftentimes, I go insane doing it for too long, because I need to get out and engage. (Thanks to my pesky Se-dom, daring to ask for more than just incessant fidgeting.)

When I do write, however, I’m known for my in-depth research, my character-driven plots, lines some people in my life seem to think are witty or something, and emotional depth, believe it or not. I’ve been complimented on it, as well as my tendency to accurately portray mental/emotional illness. I don’t know. I’ve never thought I was overly talented at such things, but then again, I never paid much attention. Even this write-up has been hard – analyzing my writing like this. It’s not a strength of mine to scrutinize my own habits.

After all, I’m busy – I have to go blast Maroon 5 as I jump off a 20-foot wall yelling, “Parkour!”

I am an ESTP, remember? ;-)