#if they could all separate themselves from the stories and experience them as just narratives

[fancygremlin]

Arthur and John each have a moment in the narrative where one perform a "leap of faith" and the other saves them. Both moments are quite interesting and serve to help the characters realise thay are no longer alone and that they can truly rely on one another (full analysis here, if you're interested).

However, I think there is a third "leap of faith" that occurs way later on... however this time the focus is neither John or Arthur, instead the character being saved is Noel.

Just like Arthur and John, the detective was forced to learn to be independent and self-reliant to ensure his own survival. He was separated very abruptly, and subsequently lost his only friend before being stuck in the Dreamlands. He was completely on his own against the King in Yellow, who tortured him relentlessly and cruelly for months. Noel was then carelessly spit back out in Arkham, traumatised and alone, and had to rebuild his life back up without being able to rely on anyone else.

How could he ever hope to explain all the horrors he was subjected to when no one could ever even begin to understand half of what he had to endure?

But then, years later he meets John and Arthur, and it seems that they can and do understand him. Noel allows Arthur to share his experiences in the Dreamlands... and the detective allows himself to finally recount his story too.

Then, in Part 40, Noel infiltrated a cultist base with John and Arthur and everything goes sideways. His trust in the characters is momentarily broken when John's real identity is revealed to him. Noel is then weakened by reliving his experience in the Dreamlands and nearly loses himself as the King in Yellow once again controls his mind and nearly kills him...

Noel takes a leap:

Noel was the first character that not only knew about Arthur and John's sharing a body situation, but also the first that wholly accepted them and tried to understand them better. It's only right that both Arthur and John reached out to help him and save him when he nearly lost himself.

As a side note, I think it’s really interesting how Arthur kept calling him out using his real name (Charlie), while John tried to reach him using his chosen name (Noel) during this scene. It's such an excellent, little detail which I really enjoyed.

I like to think that the use of both names is because just as Charlie/ Noel accepted both John and Arthur both as a unit and as separate people, the two characters are doing the same by accepting and recognising both the detective’s (past and present) identities as well. They decide to accept and save any and all versions of Charlie/ Noel.

Of course this is not the only interpretation. For example, the use of one name or the other might reflect how John and Arthur are recognising core parts of themselves within Noel/ Charlie instead.

John is calling the detective by his chosen name because he is honouring Noel's choice to start anew. Noel had been hurt in every possible way and reduced to nothing after his experience in the Dreamlands. The detective found that the only way to move forwards was by leaving all the (too far) damaged parts of himself behind and try to create a new self. A clean slate and new name for a new beginning to start a better life somewhere new. He needed to leave his past behind and forget the parts of himself he didn't want anymore. That was what John did too when he dissociated from the King in Yellow and began forming his own identity.

On the other hand, Arthur is calling the detective by his real name because he is honouring the person Charlie was in the past. Charlie was the part of himself that he left behind because he deemed too damaged and too ugly to salvage. Arthur drags behind his past mistakes like deadweight, he carries all the guilt and sorrow with him wherever he goes. He wants to believe that all the hurt, all the damage and all the scars he deems as the ugliest parts of himself don't make him an utterly repulsive and unlovable monster. I think he is trying to demonstrate that Charlie is just as worthy of being saved as Noel is, weaknesses and broken parts included.

Hm, and I seem to have gone off a giant tangent here... I shall stop blabbering now before I completely lose track of what this analysis was supposed to be about.

[sepublic]

Luz Noceda 🤝 Miles Morales

            Afro-latine teenagers with pressure on their shoulders to figure out their future, and also save the world. They love their parents and want to make them proud, but also struggle with lying to them, afraid they won’t be accepted for their strangeness. Bright, wonderful kids who meet friends from another world, and whose chosen future is to continue to engage with those other worlds and the family they made there. They’re separated from those worlds and work hard to get there, feeling lonely without the ones who understand.

         They are regarded as anomalies, not fitting in with the world of others like them that they visit. They are born of chance and coincidence, and suffer a villain who is convinced of the connections and parallels they have; I made you, and you made me! But that villain wants to take away one of the families they’ve made. They question if they’re a real witch/Spider-Man with how unlike the others they are, but eventually embrace their unique identity and the unexpected advantages it has.

         They struggle with the narrative, from a meta sense; They know how the story goes, the hero returns home from their adventure, the captain dies. But they hope to defy that ending and make their own, do their own thing. This puts them at odds with an older man who insists things must go a certain way, that there must be a sacrifice of some kind, particularly with their parents; But Luz and Miles ask, why do I have to choose? Why can’t we, and everyone else, have it all? Why not choose the path of compassion, instead of making others lose in order to grow? Their kindness affects those around them, sparing them what they themselves suffered, or are afraid to experience.

         They’re kids caught between two worlds, but they’re also tired of being seen as just weak, ineffectual kids; They can do things too, they can fight and help! And make their own decisions! So when their mentor, a once-jaded person who got their life back together with the kid’s help, suggests sending that teen away for their own good… No, I’m staying here with all of you guys, because I love you, and I don’t have to lose my parents back at my other home either!

         One could argue that these kids, by being involved, created a tragic story, made things worse by sparking the conflict at all, and they doubt themselves for that; Luz helped Philip Wittebane find the Collector, Miles took the place of Peter Parker, leading to his death. But they’re here, so they may as well make the most of it, choose themselves, and forge their own destinies. It’s okay, they can forgive themselves, too. They’re gonna rebel against the status quo to deconstruct it and change things, by asking critically; Why does it have to be this way? Question the rules, as a punk friend tells them.

Amity Blight 🤝 Gwen Stacy

                    On another note; White girlfriends to the above-mentioned with undercuts. Because of their own mistakes, said girlfriends lost a meek, glasses-wearing childhood friend that they saw themselves as a protector for; That friend was tired of the bullying and their anger boiled over into something destructive (and green), wanting to be seen as just as capable. Amity and Gwen struggle with a period of loneliness and isolation because of the loss of that friend, blaming themselves for what happened. They meet Luz and Miles under less than ideal circumstances, but manage to open up because of them.

        Amity and Gwen struggle with approval and acceptance from their father, who works for the system and contributes to enforcing its oppression. But that father realizes he has alienated his daughter, who finds a different family without him, and chooses his child over the system, abandoning it to become a better person. Amity and Gwen both want to be with their loved ones, supporting them, and because of that break ties with the system and another parental figure. They make sure to rally the other friends their loved ones have made, to lift up the protagonist at their lowest points; They’ll answer the call to return the favor in their time of need.

[carniferous]

dil do you have any spare thoughts on jegulus 🤲🏼

jegulus is like a years-long social experiment i keep expecting someone from harvard university to pop out of nowhere and be like Jegulus was a an engineered mass-hallucination for the purpose of seeing if a harry potter yaoi ship between two characters that have never interacted on account of being dead for years at the start of canon could make it to the top 20 most popular ships on ao3

lmao no but in all honesty jegulus is my favorite… if you couldn’t already tell from. the 100k+ words of fanfiction i’ve written about them. they’re the doomed love affair of All time to me. and like… the doomed aspect is very important and compelling to me. not to plug my own fucking fic but this will always be a core part of my jegulus thesis:

He worries that he’ll always wish to be back there, waiting for Regulus’s call. Decades will pass, a lifetime, and the wish won’t fade. He could love a thousand people and nothing will ever compare to the frightening, purposeful way he loved the first time. No one will ever know him so bare and uninhibited as he was at sixteen. The thought scares him so much that he almost throws up again.

it’s the first love and the first end of love that changes you so fundamentally. you can never love like that again bc you’re no longer capable of it. you are a fundamentally different person now bc of that love. it’s this

jegulus is also the love story that wasn’t meant to happen yk? i joke about this all the time but also it’s so serious to me. in a canon setting their love story is always woven through the gaps in the Narrative. they love each other despite the story they’re supposed be living out… and they have no choice but to live that story out! regulus has to take the dark mark. he has to die. james has to marry lily and have harry. he has to die. all in all their love changed nothing about their story but it also changed both of Them so fundamentally. just not in ways that are apparent to anyone but themselves

we also cannot ignore sirius….. sirius!!! sirius might be more important to jegulus than james and regulus themselves. he is the inadvertent crux the accidental catalyst. he would never ever dream of james and regulus falling in love he would actively stop it if he could but he CANNOT bc he’s the reason it happened. regulus and james are only aware of each other’s existence because of sirius. they’re bound to each other by the fact that they cannot separate themselves from sirius.

but i don’t think that james wants to save regulus because he saved sirius. i think james is aware of the fact that he Didn’t save sirius. sirius saved himself. and therefore james understands the differences between regulus and sirius and wants to save regulus himself. he wants to be the white knight rescuing the princess from the tower. he wants to give regulus a better life. and regulus wants that more than anything…. but he doesn’t believe in it. he can’t let himself hope that james is telling the truth bc if he is then it means that Sirius was telling the truth and regulus can’t bear that. it’s this endless misunderstanding……

i think a lot of jegulus fans make the point about how “love isn’t enough to save someone” and while i do think this is a correct statement… the only thing that can save regulus is love. there’s nothing else for him there’s nothing he’s been denied in life except love and connection and if he let himself believe he could have those things…. he could walk out!! james COULD save him!!! love CAN be enough

send me ships/characters !!

[ghostinthegallery]

But seriously necrons are queer AF...

I basically can't shut up about necrons and how they really lend themselves to queer theory/queer interpretation and I want to dive into that a little. I am not An Intellectual by any means, so someone else could definitely do this better, but an imperfect hero is better than none (there's a joke about Trazyn on Cadia here but I'm too lazy to flesh it out).

I'm more interested in how a) Queer Theory is all about challenging the default cishet lens through which the majority of media is created/analyzed/consumed and b) the fact that necron existence is basically 12 Queer Metaphors in an Trenchcoat

Necrons come to the table raising some interesting narrative questions: how does a being exist without a soul? What even IS a soul? What is mortality? How does all of that relate to the mind and to the body?

Biotransference, when you get right down to it, took the three basic parts of what we might think of as "the self" (mind, body, soul) and divided them. The soul vanished, while the body and mind remained, but the relationship between them was completely recontextualized. So all those big questions above can only be answered in that context. This ties so beautifully into themes of queer experience because queerness also invites a reimagining of the spirit/mind/body relationship. How the body relates to identity and vice versa. How that combination relates to other people. Any singular "default" answer of x body=y identity=z mental state does not exist for necrons. How can it when each individual deals with their own existence in such varying ways? From denial to distraction to euphoric acceptance, and each individual's character is largely defined by that choice.

This can be more explicitly LQBTQ-themed (my kingdom for a story about Anathrosis, the canonically trans dynasty Matriarch) or metaphorical. It can dwell on inner conflict or external conflicts. This separation was not something they chose, but it is a fundamental fact of their existence. You basically have no choice but to tell queer stories with necrons if you want to explore their nature/characters in any depth.

Tl;dr all the space robots are gay and also disasters and sorry that's just canon

[yonpote]

sorry i dont have anyone to talk to this about lol so it's going in your inbox but i'm in my mid-20s and only now for the first time in my life have i changed my mind on rpf specifically because of phanfic. i'm a returning phannie but like.... the last time i watched them was all the way back in 2012. and was very ani-rpf then and have continued to be through the years. and i think in a lot of cases i maintain that position. but after falling back in love with dnp and the phandom and caving into the urge to read some phanfic knowing that dnp themselves encourage and respect it im kind of shocked to find it's actually a really beautiful, metatextual, interactive creative outlet. i think youve talked a bit about how phanfic isnt really rpf to you and i kind of agree, because dan and phil to me are like.... an idea, a mythology, a narrative, that theyre aware of and have built as well as being aware that we're aware of. like the idea of dan and phil has been constructed by them and their fans hand in hand for over a decade. and i find that phanfic itself is very aware of this and exists to expand upon those ideas. lol. yeah that's it sorry for this ramble. i just find it surprising that something could change my mind on that in this day and age but it's been a very cool experience.

hello welcome youve come to the right place for this yap because i COMPLETELY understand you. like genuinely i am not this attached to any other "rpf" content like this? ok i had an egobang phase but honestly arin and danny have grown to share a similar but not exact same connection as dnp BUT I DIGRESS

but yeah i think a lot of it is due to the contrastive relationships between the brand of Dan and Phil™, their separate individual brands Daniel Howell and AmazingPhil (particularly dan), the Phanon dnp, and the actual real people dan and phil. i always go back to the fanfiction segment of tatinof but its just such a perfect example of what i mean. like, the entire idea to have a fanfic scene was ofc the real people's idea, and they used tropes they would see in the phanon to convey the audience interactive story, but at the same time had to keep it at least Somewhat appropriate for the Brand�� at the time being very pre-teen and teen focused. honestly idk how much you've gone back and watched of what you missed, but i would suggest doing that not just cuz theres some incredible stuff from those eras, but also seeing the intersection of the brand, fanon, and real people and when they split apart. you see it a lot especially in gaming videos imo where theyre unscripted, and once they got more comfortable in the gaming channel roles the energy shifting away from Brand but never too far... until ofc now where what even is their brand anymore just Chaos and Queerness i guess

OH ALSO go read some old fic and compare to newer ones like its not just that writing styles changed or that dnp themselves have changed, but the like. energy and intent put into fic has changed. i would say in the past it was more exploratory, putting dnp in AU's and imagines, or exploring what Could have happened. whereas now, yes ofc there are au's and fic for the purpose of exploring a concept or world, but also its a lot more introspective. exploring the inner world a bit more. idk i just thijk dnp are funny lil guys and they accidentally created some freaky lil creatures in a lab somewhere...

[farenmaddox]

What does it actually mean that Jack killed Felix the snake?

a.k.a. Jack didn't kill Mary, pt. 2

I wanted to make a separate post from my other post about how I think Jack didn't kill Mary to talk more about the snake. In that post, I brought up Felix only briefly, as an explanation for Jack's state of being at the time: "soulless, trying to do the right thing in spite of that, very in-control of himself and his powers." But I have like a million thoughts on the snake, so.

In-universe, Jack was doing what he thought was right. His three dads, whom he looks to for cues on right vs. wrong, were implicitly if not explicitly telling him the snake's life didn't matter. They gave zero shits about that snake. "hmmmm try feeding him this variety of foods that are comically inappropriate and keep him in this tiny box, IDC man." Like, at any time, Google and veterinarians were options, but none of them could be arsed to tell Jack about those options. Like, yes, Jack is a grown man, but also he's only been on the planet for two years and he doesn't know everything!!!

So clearly (to Jack, based on the messages he is getting), the snake's life/health have no real value, and since the suffering is caused by how bad Felix misses his original owner, the best option is to send him where he won't suffer anymore. Like... I get it. This is not how I (a person with life experience and pet ownership experience as well as possession of a soul) would handle the situation. But for Jack, I get it!!!

When it gets absolutely maddening is when you think about the snake symbolically, and what Felix might possibly represent:

Satan in the Garden, his father Lucifer, temptation toward selfishness and lies and away from Paradise and truth

the poisonous death caused by being in the closet/ashamed of one's own queer desire (14x14 is one hell of an episode and boy do I need to make a separate post about Jack's relationship to Cas and Jack saving Cas from being poisoned to death by his repression of his queer desire and Cas dying because he stopped repressing it while Chuck is still running the show, then [we're told, we don't see it, I'm so suspicious] Jack saving him again once Jack is God. ANYWAYYYYYY.)

the snake eating a chicken egg fable a.k.a. the entire narrative concept that Jack is either the snake who cannot help its nature or the bait they must use to rid themselves of their enemy

So you have the snake standing in for at least one but likely all three things. And then you have to just be like, "Actually it's incredible that he killed the snake. He has rejected his birthright, he has rejected repression of self, and he has basically said that he is the secret third thing that is neither the snake nor the egg." It seems like we should actually celebrate this?

But we can only see the symbolism because we are outside of the story. Sam, Dean, and Cas are in the story, and what they see is a kid with no soul has just killed his pet, which as a storytelling device means he is going to escalate to worse things, and his three dads (who can't be arsed to find a vet) are right to be worried and take that a certain way.

But then you look at Jack's "escalation" and it's... accidentally hurting a girl who didn't trust his control over his powers, even though he had excellent control, actually, and then immediately healing her and being very upset that she's hurt. Hmmmm. We're then supposed to believe he randomly loses all control and kills someone he loves, for absolutely no reason, because in storytelling that's what happens after a character reveals they are soulless enough to kill a pet. And guess who the storyteller is??? (You don't have to guess. It's Chuck.) Chuck knows how the story goes, and he knows that a human death is what comes next in convincing them to see Jack as a threat, and he knows exactly who should die to ensure Dean does his job in the narrative (it sure isn't Nick! Whom Jack did kill and whom Dean would literally buy Jack a beer for killing in any other circumstances! Symbolically killing Lucifer as he was unable to do before!). It is wildly inconsistent with Jack's motivations and actions for him to fly off the handle and kill Mary, but that's the story Chuck needs to see, so he makes it happen.

So for the characters, who are stuck in Chuck's story, Jack is escalating his capacity for violence and killing loved ones. We, who are outside, can see the symbolic meaning and see that actually Jack is outside with us, rejecting the entire narrative. He literally killed Chuck's narrative! (But he didn't kill Mary.)

[bathroomtrapped]

ohmygod i literally just made an account on letterboxd bc i watched saw (2004) and loved it so much and ur interview was so inspiring to me and ive been on an absolute craze trying to reblog like every single saw post on tumblr and i somehow found your account what the heck?!!?!?! ur art is AMAZING and i absolutely love ur takes on saw as a franchise and its significance to the queer community. i hope to be as knowledgeable of this franchise as you are one day despite me only being a baby saw fan!!

i had a quick question; i found on the saw heritage post blog that they thought leigh/james/someone else confirmed that saw (2004) did not actually occur the day before 9/11 despite the phone given to them being set to that date. however, when i asked them if they knew where this source was from (bc im so curious!!! i want to know everything!!!!!!) but neither they nor i could find the actual source for that so i was wondering if maybe u knew??? just curious :3

regardless ty for taking the time to read this and dedicating so much time to this fandom!! i love that horror fans like you exist in a fandom that i previously thought would be weird and slightly disturbed film bros (i had a lot of incorrect preconceived notions about saw that have been quickly resolved i promise)

thank you!! im glad that people feel the same way about it as i do but even if people thought i was some crazy transexual making everyone else woke and pronouns, i wouldnt care. the story, especially lawrences but adams as well, really resonates with me as a trans person for so so many reasons, more than i listed in the interview. to me, i cant read his character without filling in the gaps with trans subtext. it not only explains but also enriches the personal experiences of these characters as well as their dynamics with each other. theyre both characters that are defined primarily by how theyre seen by other people, themselves, and eventually each other. the narrative is soooo focused on perception and masks and who u truly are, i find it hard to separate any kind of queer theory from that.

as for the 9/11 question thats such a dumbass pet peeve of mine. its one of the things that makes me shout UMMMM ACTUALLY at the top of my lungs. my blood pressure sours to inhuman levels when someone confidently says the movie takes place not just in 2001 but the day before 9/11. not because of some interview or confirmation from any of the crew because my knowledge of old fandom history is incredibly spotty. old sites and interviews r a mystery to me for the most part BUT! the reason it is for sure not before 9/11 is because during the flashback of pauls trap (during lawrences monologue about jigsaw) kerry tapp and sing are all at the scene with other officers and i believe its kerry who holds up an evidence bag thats labeled 2004. the scene takes place 5 months before the events of saw 1 so its not possible that it takes place 3 years before that. it just seemed like a funny (but insanely bold considering how 9/11 was only 3 years before) joke and easter egg for people to catch on to, not actual lore meant to be taken seriously.

if u want to look for the interview, i would honestly just listen to the commentary tracks bc it mightve been said there. i know in the one with leigh, james, and cary they discuss plot holes fans complained about, questions fans had online, the fanfic they read (briefly LOL). ive only seen that one (and once) but theres at least 2 other commentary tracks with different people that i havent gotten around to for fear of like. completing saw? idk i cant bring myself to watch all of the commentary tracks but theres a chance they discuss it there! i can only speculate on the reason, all i know is that saw 2004 takes place in 2004 based on actual evidence from the media itself

if u have any other questions let me know. i still have the original draft of the interview which had more questions and longer responses bc i couldve gone on for days abt the lore and saw queer theory and ill never shut up about it

[classpect-crew]

The Heir of Hope: Plurality and Personal Narrative

It took plurality, of all things, to realize that my greatest strength lies in Hope.

Hope is the Aspect of fantasy realized. Those who wield it are like the Magician of the tarot, capable of shaping the world according to their whims. With each thought, as Terezi wisely points out, we are helping to create our own reality; in the Domain of Hope, there is no greater truth. The Hopebound are storytellers and passionate consumers of media. They are the center of their own narrative, at times unable to conceive of anything outside of it. They may even strip other people of their agency—of their Life—in an effort to force them to make sense in their existing worldview. Dissenting allies become obstacles at best, and enemies at worst. And yet, should they yield ground to the autonomy of others, allowing the story to ‘write itself,’ they will find themselves swept up in a much more meaningful adventure than they could have possibly imagined.

Hope is the Aspect of the imagination, brimming with ideas and just waiting for an outlet to fully realize them in the material world. It is the Aspect of magic. It’s the reason I’ve been able to treat the Classpect system as a foundation for performing magic myself, seeing the world in terms of the Aspects, a bit similar to the way the ancient Greeks saw the four elements of fire, water, earth, and air reflected and embodied in all things. I now understand my recent obsession with restarting over and over in Baldur’s Gate 3 as an imbalance between Heart and Mind: in order to avoid addressing my latest identity crisis, I’ve tossed myself into a roleplaying game with a million different possibilities, and I’ve exhausted dozens upon dozens of hours trying to play every possible role, wearing every possible mask, creating every possible character.

I’m a storyteller—it’s in my blood. My father, and his father before him, and every relative of his that I’ve known have all been the same. Our family reunions were filled with wild tales sprinkled with half-truths, like the time my dad came across a particularly randy buck in the middle of the street—he swears he saw the buck stomp his hoof and wink—or the way my great uncle got his glass eye after a hunting trip when his own father mistook him for a turkey. My maternal grandmother is the same way. I named myself Taliesin in honor of that, and also to tap into some part of a greater legacy of storytellers, just like the historical and mythological Taliesin himself, and all those who have taken his name before me.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had more people in my head than I’ve known what to do with. I have a veritable menagerie of colorful characters, some going back many years, who have taken up residence in my brain folds. It never occurred to me that they could become more than just puppets for me to play around with, reflecting my own dreams, desires, and fears in a way that felt safe. Separate. That was before one such puppet, Vivienne, cut her own strings, looked me dead in the eye, and told me “I want to be real, too.”

She did so not long after taking control of my body when I was in a cannabis-induced haze, speaking to my girlfriend in a voice that definitely wasn’t mine. When I came out of it, she asked “was that an invocation thing, or a headmate?” (I’ve had a few experiences with invocation, when a deity decided I could help one of their followers by passing along a message that, frankly, could have been an email.) I determined fairly quickly that although it wasn’t mine, the voice was coming from my own head. Thus began a long and very weird journey navigating my plural identity that all began when a character I’d had for a dozen years decided she wanted a chance at experiencing sentience.

It was eerily reminiscent of Brain Ghost Dirk, a sort of thoughtform that becomes real for a while because Jake believes in him that much, but also because so much of Dirk’s journey involves splitting himself off into different versions of himself. The more I interact with Viv, the more real she becomes. It feels like the effort is mutual, as if she’s using our conversations—among other, more intimate interactions—to become a fully fleshed-out person, joining me in my head as someone with her own agency, rather than just a sort of ‘hack’ my brain was using to override executive dysfunction.

When I discovered the practice of ‘tulpamancy,’ though controversial in some circles, it occurred to me that I could perform a feat like this willingly, given enough time and effort. Still, while the tips I found were helpful, I never really found them necessary for my own work. Hell, I was already doing it with Vivienne, working intuitively with her in ways that just made sense. It was something that came to me naturally, and still does. It feels like a natural gift—like an inheritance. I inherited the ability to dream up these stories, these characters, and make them real. Anyone who’s spoken with Viv, especially in person, can speak to the fact that she and I are distinct in a way that’s profound and meaningful.

There are many other connections I’ve made with the Heir of Hope: the soul-deep wellspring of faith and optimism that I’ve been able to draw from in the darkest times of my life, or the incredible effects of my religious journey as I’ve explored the vast reaches of conviction and doubt alike. Yet, those feel too obvious, too much like low-hanging fruit to write a whole damn essay about. That’s why I’ve written instead about the legacy my family has left for me, and the ways I’ve turned my storytelling into a source of personal power.

I’m not just the center of my own narrative, but also its author. At the same time, there are millions of characters, just like me, who are entitled to their own agency. They exist within my head and without it, living out their own lives, becoming more and more real with every thought, every word from their lips like cobblestones on a road to self-realization. There are times when I need to put down my pen and just take it all in, without trying to take control of the story or change somebody else by force.

I am a storyteller. I am a captive audience member. I am a character in a narrative as big as the universe itself. I am the Heir of Hope.

[that-ari-blogger]

Weaponizing Empathy (Mer-Mysteries)

She-Ra and the Princesses Of Power is, pretty fundamentally, a war story. It has psychological affectations and a cyclical narrative structure, but it’s a war story.

As such, there aren’t that many plots that it has access to, although the series is surprisingly good at weaving odd ideas into the central scheme. You want a prom episode? It’s a diplomatic meeting. You want a lone wanderer western? Exile. You want a romance?

One of the best examples of this approach to storytelling is Mermysteries, which draws on detective fiction and film noirs to subvert almost every convention that this season has going on.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD (She-Ra and the Princesses Of Power)

Ok, first up, let me explain my biases: Mermista can do no wrong and so any episode with her in it is a masterpiece. Best character. Fight me.

In seriousness, I like Mermista for reasons I have spoken about before, but I also have a deep love for detective fiction and slow burn stories. I am the type of writer who avoids writing dialogue at all costs, and that reflects in the stories I like reading.

I was guaranteed to like this episode.

But I don’t actually want to talk about the one true queen in this post. I actually want to talk about how this episode and the series as a whole handles Double Trouble.

This is a character who is defined as being the opposite of every other villain in the series, someone who is a threat the protagonists aren’t prepared for at all.

Shadow weaver is completely unempathetic, to the point where she is repeatedly blindsided by Glimmer, who is willing to bend her morals entirely around her care for others.

Horde Prime is also utterly uncaring. His motif is control through the absence of free will. What use does he have for empathy.

Catra, still a villain at this point in the story, is in that place because she seems unaware that there are actual people around her. She cares when she realises, but her trauma has made her self centred and selfish. She can’t comprehend anything in terms other than victory and loss.

Which leads me to Double Trouble, a character whose greatest strength is that they can read anyone like a book and then play that back to them.

They are an actor, a shapeshifter. They exist on replication and take great pride in the art of that. They are terrifyingly empathetic.

Which leads into the plot of the episode and reframes it slightly. Usually, a detective story focuses around finding out what happened, the audience learns about the relevant details along with the detectives.

Here, we all know Double Trouble is the spy. We know how they are doing everything, from the impersonation to the communication. There are no stones left unturned here.

So, instead the story hinges around that dramatic irony, and showing off how easily everyone can get twisted around. You know that Flutterina isn’t Flutterina, so you notice her discrepancies, and you notice how she works as a manipulator.

Hey look, our protagonists are divided by a wall, separated by Flutterina. Meanwhile, Angella hangs over both of them like a ghost.

“It's just that, everyone's so on edge after what happened in Dryl. Have you tried interviewing Shadow Weaver about it? She seems kinda untrustworthy.”

Double Trouble has identified a weak spot that they can use to drive Adora and Glimmer apart, so they use it defensively. The second they are asked questions that might reveal their deceit, they poke at the hole in these two’s armours, then exit the scene.

This carries over to when they are caught. They love the drama, so they strike at that wound a little more, with the question about drawing from experience. Double Trouble knows people better than they know themselves.

In any case, the central question has already been answered. We know who the spy is. So, is there actually a mystery in this story?

You could argue that the question of whom Double Trouble was impersonating functions like this, but you see two Frostas on the screen at once, and Flutterina turns directly to the camera at one point and does the weird blink thing just to let you know.

You could also argue that the true mystery centres around the attack on Saleneas, but I will contest that. This isn’t set up as a mystery, nobody is investigating it. It’s a Chekhov’s gun that gets brought up at the start then forgotten about before coming back. It’s not a mystery, it’s just a plot point.

This flips the season’s theme on its head. We have been focusing on tragedies subverting themselves at the last minute, but now we have everything going right until it abruptly isn’t.

This episode, more than any other, feels like it is being written. It’s not organic, it’s contrived. But this is the point, and it works because the person doing all that legwork to make the plot happen is a character within the story. It’s contrived because Double Trouble is contriving it in real time.

Control over the narrative is a signifier of power in storytelling. When everyone reacts to something someone has done, that means they are significant or influential. Double Trouble takes this a step further by looking the audience directly in the eye and saying “remember what story we are telling here”. They let you have your fun, and then remind you that there is a war going on.

Which brings me to a criticism I have about this character. Well, I have two, but one is more significant to me.

First up, Double Trouble is a flat character. They are a charismatic plot device who exists to cause trouble because they enjoy causing trouble. They don’t have a backstory or a motivation beyond selfishness, and this is disproportionate to their significance in relation to the plot.

This is actually not my criticism, but one I’ve seen online and want to examine a bit. This is based on the assumption that complex characters are more effective, and to that I ask the following question: “more effective at what?”

Is it engagement with the audience? Every early Disney villain would beg to differ.

Nuanced storytelling? I would argue that Rasputin from Anastasia is an incredibly simple character who doubles as an allegory for grief. Even if the film isn't the world's greatest, it's a nuanced story and part of that is its villain.

The key thing to understand is that, on a basic level, all characters are plot devices. They exist to serve the story. They are not real. They only need to do what the plot decrees and all you have to do as a writer is to create a motivation or quirks for the character that cause them to fill those needs.

In that case, complexity is a matter of preference, some people like one end of the spectrum, some people like the other. I would recommend a balanced diet, but what do I know?

The other piece of criticism is my own, and needs to be taken very carefully.

The fact is, Double Trouble is the only named nonbinary character in She-Ra, which steps into some tricky ground. Coding is a complex topic, and the idea that the only character who is nonbinary is a shapeshifter alien who plays both sides isn’t the healthiest. It implies that this is either a gimmick chosen for the character, or it has other, nasty connotations about nonbinary people being inhuman. Stereotypes have baggage attached to them that isn’t always obvious.

This is, I need to clarify, so obviously not the writer’s intention. I have no doubt in my mind that the coding was not intended. But it is still there, and it causes turbulence. It’s just something to be aware of.

But I’ve complained too much. This is a detective story, it’s all about the fine details. So, here are some that I really liked.

Every time a character looks away from the camera and out of a window or into a fire pit. They are silhouetted against it, their back to you, hiding their face and their motivations. Bonus points for Glimmer and the window especially because it alludes to her desire for freedom.

The lighting in this episode is brilliant. It’s soft enough to not be jarring, but its warm, framing the truth as welcoming and benevolent.

The camera pulls back here, stretching the scale even further and making it seem almost infinite. But that pales in this scene in comparison to the fact that Mermista doesn't speak. She's too stunned, too broken. She's had more lines in this episode than the rest of the series combined, and now she is suddenly and noticeably quiet.

That final scene, with the shot of everyone looking over a destroyed Saleneas. I’ve talked before about the show’s use of scale, but it comes back here to highlight just how massive of a loss this was, and how devastating it is.

I also like that the purple lightning. I think that’s pretty.

In this one shot, Perfuma manages to be the smuggest here, despite not being that at all. She is nice, eternally so, and that's annoying in the best way possible. It's the "oh, did I foil your cunning plan? I am so sorry." It's such a fun character beat.

Final Thoughts

Why does Horde Prime smile at the end? Why is he in this episode? Like, I get that he got the message about the port, but why would that make him smile?

And what does it do for the episode and season? Are we just associating him with bad stuff?

You don’t need to remind the audience he’s there. They last saw him destroying a moon. He will show up when he shows up and the audience has already been given enough about him to care. This feels redundant.

However, because this episode is perfect and I will hear no word against it, I am choosing to ignore this criticism, because I said so.

Next week is Boys’ Night Out. Stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[justphilia]

Hi!!! I wrote something ^_^

Fandom: The Owl House (Cartoon) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Hunter | The Golden Guard/Willow Park Characters: Hunter | The Golden Guard (The Owl House), Willow Park, Gus Porter, Luz Noceda, Amity Blight Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Established Relationship, Fluff, and just a sliver of, Angst, just a little bit, at best, Hurt/Comfort, BUT PREDOMINANTLY FLUFF OKAY, School, Autistic Hunter | The Golden Guard (The Owl House), Lumity is established despite not being tagged, Hunter's Love Language is Acts of Service (The Owl House), Unreliable Narrator

Preview:

It has been precisely twenty-four hours since Hunter started officially dating Willow. He had made sure to take note of the time then, when Willow had gently tucked a strand of hair back and then took both his hands into hers, smiling up at him softly. 

He wanted to so badly memorize the callouses on her hands, trace every line out with his fingers. There was so much warmth in them, and in her eyes, that he felt like he was being consumed whole by her love. And how he loves her so much too.

“We should date,” she had put it very simply, so straightforwardly. He had misunderstood her countless of times before, she wasn’t going to add onto that number any longer.

And Hunter, ever so eloquent and intelligent with his words, replied with, “Heheheh, mmhughuh.”

She laughed, of course, squeezing his hands tighter, and though the Hunter at that time considered his response a total failure, the Hunter now marking their day-versary thinks her laughter from his non-words was a definite success.

From this point on, nothing matters more than Willow Park’s happiness. He will make sure to serve his duty as a good boyfriend and see to it that she becomes the happiest girl ever. Fortunately enough, he has prepared for this.

There’s nothing you can’t learn about through books. However, only a pathetic idiot would read a self-help book on how to maintain a relationship. They’re way too theory-based, and hardly provide any evidence on results. 

The best way to learn something is through experience, which is why Hunter has studied up plenty with romance books. After all, how could a novelist write about romance if they haven’t experienced romance themselves? The results are in the narrative, and they always usually end with a happily ever after.

(Now he’s glad he suffered through the embarrassment of being caught reading one by Darius. With Hunter now actually dating Willow, his initial explanation on wanting to be prepared, which Darius didn’t believe, will finally be proven.)

According to one of his favorites, ‘Aubade’, it’s important to be consistent with communication. The reason of conflict was that the main character, at some point in the story, ceased contact with the love interest, and though their time apart strengthened their love in a longing sense, it still inevitably hurt both parties.

To be honest, if Hunter was the main character, he’d never be wrapped up in that. He will never cease contact with Willow. 

“Ohh, looks like we’re going to be in separate classes for General Magic and History,” Willow cross references her letter with Hunter’s, which lists all their new class schedules and rooms. 

“Huh?!” Hunter practically smashes his face against Willow’s letter, while Luz and Amity cheer in the background about sharing all of their common classes. “Why would they do this?!”

[tarotandnonsense]

I reread the Heaven’s Vault novelization and had some thoughts. I’ll try not to spoil anything, because I want others to experience it for themselves.

When the game Heaven’s Vault came out, I jumped in headfirst, played it like 10 times in a row, made myself sick of it in the best way. Reading the novelization, even for the second time, gave me some of that same sense of wonder I had on my first playthrough. The team at Inkle created a beautiful world, one I sincerely wish more people get to see.

Of course, reading a novel and playing through a video game are different experiences. One of the draws of Heaven’s Vault (the game) is the way that the player’s choices shape the narrative: you can choose the order Aliya visits the moons of the Nebula, learn different things depending on how you interact with other characters. Unless you’re reading a CYOA book, a book only tells the one story. The medium of a physical book also doesn’t let you act like Aliya in the game, dragging known Ancient words into the text to translate it yourself. Unless you’re someone like me, who typed up the Ancient in a little txt file for translation, the non-English text is basically just a diegetic doodle that Aliya may or may not give a translation for.

The medium switch also meant that parts of the story had to change. In my playthroughs, I liked bringing my artifacts up to Tapi to trade, so I could get new scraps of Ancient to translate. However, those trips would interrupt the narrative, so the character of Tapi was written out. In a sort of equivalent exchange, another character was written in, and any more information than that feels like a spoiler. There are also instances where events from the story are merged together; two separate moon trips become one, different companions come to different moons.

One of the things I enjoyed was the way that the mysteries of the game were answered. Maybe I just wasn’t paying enough attention in my playthroughs to get a concrete idea of how the history of the Nebula happened, but the way the book told the story helped me pin things down much better in my head. Aliya makes conclusions, which either get borne out by the evidence, or new evidence leads to new conclusions, and the reader learns along with her. The game includes a timeline, but for some reason, the narrative structure of the book helped me out more. Not all of the mysteries are solved in the end, but those feel more like exercises to the reader, to see how well they understood the world shown to them.

This wasn’t my first readthrough of the book, and I don’t think it’ll be my last. Do yourself a favor, dear reader, and check out Heaven’s Vault.

[caninecomfort]

hello i heard you had feelings about lycanthropy and femininity. i would love to hear abt them (—canis-dentem, this is my main)

I am so glad you asked 😈 the inherent ties between lycanthropy and female biology are sooooo strong. I know it’s a theme that’s explored in the ginger snaps movies but I haven’t watched them oddly enough haha, I just realized it while working on a story idea a while back and did some research and found that other people have said it too.

basically the way that lycanthropy and the female menstrual cycle are both 30(ish) day cycles revolving around uncontrollable natural processes that happen to the human body. they both involve intense mood swings, physical pain, appearance changes (acne and oily hair etc for menstrual cycle, and obviously becoming a wolf for lycanthropy), and plenty of blood and gore. they’re also both something that is expected, no matter how much they affect a person’s life, to be kept quiet about because it makes other people uncomfortable or disturbed. even when you’re suffering you’re supposed to not talk about it for fear other people will judge you.

being a little girl and not understanding that getting my period was a sign that my body was healthy and thriving, I always felt so uncomfortable and ashamed of it even though I knew it was normal. I felt distinctly separated from other people when I couldn’t do normal activities because of something my body was affected by that I couldn’t bring myself to put into words. I think that’s such a tie into lycanthropy—a werewolf doesn’t usually understand their earlier transformations and is often in denial and refuses to admit even to themselves what’s happening. they have to skip out on their lives during the full moon out of fear people will see them for who they are. for both, the experience can make someone feel othered from society and their peers.

sometimes during my cycle I feel like my body and emotions are rebelling against me. my mood swings get so bad that I sometimes just have to isolate myself for a while so I don’t lash out at people. my cramps send me to bed for at least the whole first day of my period. this sounds all too familiar with lycanthropy, where werewolves often have to lock themselves up somewhere and suffer the pain of a transformation alone because they might hurt someone without wanting to.

then there’s the whole matter of a month-long cycle and different stages within it. the body preparing and gathering strength, then going through the big event of a menstrual period or werewolf transformation, then recovering physically from it.

since I was younger I have always liked to think of my period as a werewolf transformation. period cramps? no that’s just my bones and muscles shifting into my wolf form. mood swings? no i’m feeling aggressive because i’m a werewolf. etc. I still think about it this way and generally have always related to werewolves a lot as a form between humans and wolves.

the book such sharp teeth by rachel harrison turned my ears back toward this concept recently and got it bag on my mind! it was such a fun contemporary werewolf story with a cute romance and shockingly deeper themes about recovering from trauma.

for more on the topic…

thank you for asking!! I could ramble about this for ages. 🐺 🌕🩸

- jay

[sapphire-weapon]

Hi! Sorry if this counts as shitstirring... But you got me thinking... Do you really think that someone really needs to play the games in order to fully understand the story? Or is watching them and reading up on them enough? Thanks, and sorry!!!

Don't be sorry. This is a valid question that deserves an honest answer.

There's nuance to this. This isn't just a simple "yes or no" question.

Do I think that you need to play the games to understand the story? No, I don't. Resident Evil's story is not difficult (though, you'd never know that, looking at the fandom). It's very easy to watch the games and movies, go "ok I got it", and move on.

Do I think that you need to play the games to be considered an authority on the canon? 100%, absolutely. And I'll tell you why.

We spend a lot of time talking about narrative direction and storytelling devices and the use of tropes and cinematography here on this blog, but the one thing that we really need to keep in mind at all times is that Resident Evil is a game first and a story second. This has been the design philosophy since the series's conception. This is why RE4 OG's story was slapped together in three weeks. This is why RE5 was the way that it was. This is why RE7 is what RE7 turned out to be.

The narrative of Resident Evil is not something that exists separately or divorced from its gameplay. In fact, the opposite is true. RE's story is not only influenced by its gameplay, it actually -- in some cases -- is directly written as a result of its gameplay.

I've talked about the story behind RE4's development before, but.

Was RE6's story borderline incomprehensible, and did it jump approximately sixteen sharks? Yes. Was that the main reason why RE6 failed? Absolutely fucking not. Not even close.

RE6 turned out the way that it did because RE6 was developed and released during a time in which the biggest moneymakers in the AAA game space were brown & bloom multiplayer shooters. Capcom wanted in on that gravy train.

RE5 sought to take the award-winning formula that RE4 developed and add a multiplayer element to it in order to initially chase that trend, and RE5 for a very long time was the highest-selling Resident Evil title ever made.

Capcom looked at that and took it to mean that it was RE5's added multiplayer element that made it so successful. They weren't exactly wrong, either. RE5, for a lot of people, was like a version of RE4 that you could play with your friends.

Wesker was not killed in RE5 because Capcom thought it was an appropriate time narratively to kill him. Wesker's death was a symbolic one -- it was the death of the "old" Resident Evil -- the death of the slow, plodding, single player experience that the entire AAA industry had convinced themselves was no longer viable monetarily and not what players wanted. This was especially true for RE, after the unprecedented success of the more action-focused RE4 changed the entire third person shooter genre forever.

By the time we reach RE6, Capcom is all on on this. Three campaigns, all with co-op, all of which play differently. Chris's story is what Chris's story is in RE6 because Capcom knew that most players were probably going to reach for his campaign first, considering he was the protagonist of the most recent release and, therefore, the most recognizable to players who maybe weren't necessarily super familiar with RE. They specifically wanted Chris's campaign to feel like a traditional third person shooter in order to get new players hooked, because Capcom was convinced that that's what a majority of gamers at the time in general wanted.

Leon's story is what Leon's story is in RE6 because it was designed specifically to cater to people who loved RE4 and would reach for him first over Chris. So, they gave Leon a female partner (Helena in place of Ashley) and a slower, more traditional horror setting (while still being action-oriented), and they tried to kill two birds with one stone by having Ada running around and also being the damsel in distress, so to speak, to replicate the "save the princess" plotline from RE4.

But the biggest issue with all of this was that it turned the design philosophy of the game into "how can we sell this?" over trying to just make a good horror game -- and it showed. Capcom cut a hell of a lot of corners in terms of pacing and level design and enemy design and enemy variety in favor of focusing on the combat system (which was never adequately explained and had its nuances lost on approximately 80% of the playerbase), the netcode, and making the game's story as easy to consume and digest as possible while chasing specific market trends.

RE6 didn't go super hard on Aeon because the writing staff was just so ~dedicated to the ship~. RE6 went hard on Aeon because they wanted Leon to look heroic and save the girl just like he did in RE4 but didn't want to create another Ashley after how universally hated she was. Knowing that is how I say so confidently that Remake is retconning Aeon -- it's because the ship itself was never the point. They used it as a gameplay contrivance that they thought would help sell RE6, and it blew up in their faces. So now they're trying something new.

The actual experience of playing Resident Evil 6 was downright miserable to a vast majority of the fanbase because it was a soulless, hackneyed mess that didn't even have the decency to bother giving itself a spooky atmosphere. It was an uninspired series of long hallways filled with bullet sponge enemies and literally nothing else.

So, when the story was stupid and fan favorites like Leon felt like they got screwed over on top of all of that because the same design philosophy of "make this as mass marketable as possible" bled into the story from the gameplay, that was just the shit icing on the shit cake.

People probably would have been much more forgiving of RE6's story if the game design itself was better. Or, conversely, people would've been much more forgiving of RE6's game design if the story was super compelling.

But RE6 was neither.

And so RE7 was Capcom's way of trying to re-learn how to do pacing, level design, and atmosphere. The gameplay was the most important thing. That's why they didn't even bother using the legacy characters and created Ethan and the Bakers. The legacy characters would've been a distraction. They had to fix things one step at a time: gameplay first, story second.

That's why RE7 is RE7 and why we have only seen Leon in CGI movies and not games since 6 (Remakes not withstanding). RE7 fixed the gameplay, and Vendetta, ID, and DI served to reconfigure and redefine Leon's character, and I'm more than sure that they're going to try to finally blend those things together in RE9.

And if you don't play the fucking games, and if you don't fucking understand how the games industry works, you're not going to have any of that fucking context going into your meta analysis.

That's why braindead motherfuckers in this fandom look at that stupid remark made about how the one director thought that Leon and Ashley holding hands during RE4make's gameplay made them look "too close" and they read way too much into it -- it's because the spoken words of the directors are all they have to go off of, and they don't realize what a bad gameplay decision having Leon and Ashley hold hands would have been.

If you don't play the fucking game, you don't know that the half-second it takes for Leon to switch from his knife to his gun can mean the difference between taking a hit or not -- and so you would have no reason to think of how annoying it would be to add yet another half-second delay to Leon drawing his gun if he had to disengage from Ashley first. If you fuck with the normal gameplay loop with something that only happens when Ashley is with you, it will make the player start to resent Ashley, and that's the opposite of what the devs wanted to do -- which is what the fucking conversation in the interview was about in the first place!

That is far more likely the reason why the handholding was cut. And while that decision was being made, it was probably pointed out that having them hold hands made it look like they were on a date -- and that's absolutely not the tone/atmosphere that this game was going for. That is far more likely what was meant by "too close."

It had nothing to do with ensuring that the players perceived Leon and Ashley's relationship as platonic. It had everything to do with tone and atmosphere and the pacing of the normal gameplay loop. It's just that "*juts a thumb in his direction* This guy thought it made them look too close" was a way fucking easier explanation of what they probably thought was a really fucking unimportant anecdote about a character animation that didn't matter.

But if you don't play the games, you won't know that.

If you don't play the games, Word of God is all you have to go on. That's why people who don't play the games insist on all Word of God being explicit canon. It's because they can't use the games themselves as a baseline -- and that gives them a skewed, fucked up perspective of what Resident Evil is trying to do and be and accomplish.

This kind of shit is constantly in my head when I'm writing my meta and trying to predict where a game's story will go next.

I pull my meta directly from the games, because that is what Resident Evil is. It is a series of games that are trying to be good games first and interesting stories second.

And if you don't understand that, you have no business calling yourself an authority on the canon.

[tomorrowxtogether]

TXT’s logo chronicles how they’ve grown up

The history and surprising depth behind the group’s animated logos

2023.03.07

One fan put it perfectly in a comment on The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION logo video that was released on December 15: “Only TOMORROW X TOGETHER could announce their comeback like this.” An animated logo is always one of the first reveals in the lead-up to their comeback. For every album, the group unveils a variation on their logo that functions as a hint toward the meaning behind the upcoming release. Unlike for previous albums, the undulating TEMPTATION logo represents a young man swayed by temptation.

Choi SeaYol, who works in the BX2 department behind TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s artist and album branding, went with a shade of green for the TEMPTATION background. He thought of it as a color that “has a sense of youth like a seedling, weakness, purity and yet peculiar like poison or liquor—and something somehow dark about it.” After losing everything, even love, in minisode 2: Thursday’s Child, their previous release, TOMORROW X TOGETHER is on the brink of being cut off from the world completely. In The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION, they shift their focus from their relationship with others and onto themselves. Unlike The Chaos Chapter: FIGHT OR ESCAPE days, when there was a clear choice to make, they now find themselves facing a world where it’s impossible to even differentiate good from bad. You can hear it in the way YEONJUN’s voice is warped in the logo video when he says the line, “It’s so sweet. But I should find my name.” They’re no longer waiting for someone to rescue them from this world; now they have to steel themselves against temptation without any help. “We’re focusing our efforts on making sure the TOMORROW X TOGETHER logo conveys what the artist is currently going through that’s allowing them to grow,” Choi explains, “and a bit of what they’re likely to face in the future.”

The Dream Chapter, TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s first album series, begins with The Dream Chapter: STAR, the animated logo for which is two geometric shapes, identical except for their colors, that move toward each other and then overlap. This reflects “a narrative about trying to figure out your own identity within the bigger group picture of being with your peers,” Choi says. Kim Yeeun, another member of the BX2 department, says the albums are meant to reflect each step of growing up as TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s peer group experiences it. “TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s story is all about growth, and it follows the same trajectory as other young people, reflecting them as a persona,” she says, “so the logo grows along with the narrative just as the artists do.” Choi adds that, “within this process of growth,” the logo videos for The Dream Chapter series show “the vulnerability of childhood and a sense of what it means to be a young boy,” while those for The Chaos Chapter series show “figuring out how to break free of the chains of chaos after meeting someone new.” The logo for The Dream Chapter: MAGIC changes into a sparkle representing places and times that are almost magical, reflecting lyrics like, “We gotta be together to get to the hidden 9 ¾,” from the lead single “9 and Three Quarters (Run Away).” But the brief flicker of that sparkle can’t last forever. In MAGIC’s animated logo, the two shapes come together to form an X and a plus sign; for The Dream Chapter: ETERNITY, the green X becomes a circle, splitting out into separate green and purple rings. That brief moment from before is over and the cracks start to show, showing that, paradoxically, ETERNITY is anything but. That’s when the boys’ fantasies of eternal friendship are shattered and The Chaos Chapter begins. And that’s why, in the FREEZE logo video, the letters “TXT” are trapped in place by chaos outside their control and even the sounds in the video sound like something frozen. The only thing moving is the beating heart right in the middle. Isolated and cut off from others, the boys enter a period of life where they experience the kind of love that makes your heart race even amidst chaos. Now that they’ve met this “one and only,” the design inside the X in The Chaos Chapter: FIGHT OR ESCAPE logo becomes more pointed and stronger, and the same change is seen in the boys, who want to smash through the frozen world and escape one way or another. “The animated logos for The Chaos Chapter series capture how this generation responds when faced with certain chaotic situations,” Choi says. “First they freeze, then they have to choose whether to fight or escape.” Altogether, this acts as a metaphor for the fears TOMORROW X TOGETHER and the generation they represent have no choice but to face and how they choose to confront them. 

As the shattered heart in the Thursday’s Child logo suggests, TOMORROW X TOGETHER gets their hearts broken. The album also “shows the ‘good boy’ group of the K-pop scene has ‘gone bad,’” Kim says—a stark contrast with what had been their signature zestful image. TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s main lineup of albums, the Chapter series, shows how they grow over time, shifting their focus from being a part of their peer group, to becoming one side of a couple, to discovering their true identity. By contrast, the minisode series reflects the realities they face, such as the opportunity for dramatic change they find in Thursday’s Child. The minisode 1: Blue Hour logo animation reflects the shift to virtual reality that took place during the pandemic through the use of pixel art to conjure up images of a game world. For the minisode 2: Thursday’s Child logo, brush- and pen-drawn X cover up a broken heart, suggesting a reality so broken that, like shattered glass, it can never be put back together. “We made the boys expressing the emotions they feel after experiencing first love and their first breakup in The Chaos Chapter the main focus,” Choi says. The logo shows emotional chaos—endlessly angry yet sad one day, then infinitely empty the next. The animated logos reflect how the Chapter series tells the major events of the boys’ life story while the minisode series gives a detailed account of the things that happen when reality steps in and causes their lives to change.

“The logos are a strong asset for TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s branding and serve as their identity,” Kim says of the animated logos. “They follow the artist’s narrative and serve to summarize the way they’re growing.” Each animated logo reminds listeners what the group was like during the corresponding period and the logos are as diverse and ever-changing as the group themselves have proven to be since they debuted back in 2019. You can tell how big that change has been just by watching the animated logos for The Dream Chapter: STAR and The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION back to back. Throughout that time, the members of TOMORROW X TOGETHER have passed through all the same stages of growth that everyone in their generation has gone through to arrive at where they are today. Youth is, after all, essentially a sequence of steps toward becoming a more complex person. And the group’s animated logos contain all that history and all that meaning in just three letters: TXT.

[romulusfuckingroy]

Completely unnecessary analysis of Shiv Roy and Skyler White under the cut

I feel like comparing Shiv Roy to Skyler White (saying she got the Skyler treatment, trying to draw parallels between them, etc) sort of does a huge disservice to Shiv’s character and development?

Because Skyler is a secondary character written in the aughts to be an obstacle for the main (male) characters to have to work around. Everything she does revolves around her relationship to Walt or lack thereof. She’s a victim of abuse who’s unable to escape, for in-universe reasons, but mostly because she’s just written that way. She’s written to be stuck to him so he can hurt her in new and interesting ways for the audience, because this is the 2000’s and that’s what tv dramas are. She “””cheats on””” Walt not because that’s what would make her character happy but because it would make Walt’s character upset. I love Skyler, and I think she deserves to be happy, but the narrative clearly repeatedly uses her just to angstify Walt.

Meanwhile Shiv is literally a main character of the piece. The two most important characters in succession as a whole are Kendall and Shiv (and that’s coming from someone with MY url). She’s a “bitch” because she CHOOSES to be, and the narrative adjusts itself accordingly. Her actions aren’t meant only to harm Kendall; primarily, her actions are to better her own position. Sometimes, yes, she hurts Kendall, but only when it directly benefits her. She cheats on Tom because she wants to, and while we do see how that affects Tom, it isn’t framed as if that’s the sole and intended outcome. She’s self-centered, cruel, and ruthless, all for herself. We watch her do horrible things because she wants power and she knows how to get it. And even more than that, the show empathizes with her. We understand her thought process, her trauma, and the experiences she’s had that led her to these actions.

Overall, I guess it just feels like Shiv could have her own show separate from all the men in her life, but Skyler could never have a story that doesn’t involve Walt. And even though misogynistic “fans” of the shows do tend to treat them similarly (blaming them for everything, believing they’re irredeemable bitches whose actions are all cruel and unwarranted), the writing of the shows themselves certainly don’t. Shiv has power over her own circumstances. Skyler never has.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

For the ask meme: Vio and 7, bc while I know you like the ship, I'm curious about the characters individually!

7- What do you like most about this character?

warning i went on an entire meta philosophical Thought Journey with this one and you will literally be able to SEE where it went off the rails. and then it just continued going off the rails until the rails disappeared from my field of vision and i have no idea if anything i wrote actually makes sense but here just take it

honestly i think part of why I love vio so much as a character is i did NOT expect to like or care about him, and then he ended up easily my favorite. the only thing i knew when i picked up the manga was that i would probably enjoy shadow as a character, which. of course i did. bc he's a very specific flavor of character i always gravitate towards, but vio was like... girl what? why are you in this story and doing the things you are doing? and by the end of my first reading i was just BLOWN AWAY by him and shadow and their entire subplot so i went to tumblr because i felt like i was hallucinating it and here we are now.

re: what i like most about vio... i go into it a lot in this post. vio is fascinating to me as a character from several perspectives, as a writer, a gay person, and just... having the philosophy and experiences that i do. there is such an inherent tragedy to his character that i don't think is lost on the authors--like i say in the post, shadow and vio both don't quite feel like they BELONG in this story, especially with how it ends.

like, i often write vio in particular struggling with the ways he deviates from the narrative set for him, both in canon and out of it. yes a lot of that is tied to queerness, but it also relates to themes of self-determination sub-textually tied to his arc. vio seriously just does whatever the hell he wants a good amount of the time, to like an eyebrow-raising degree. when he separates from the others and joins shadow he's on the Side of Good from the start, but i think he also realizes very quickly that there's more to himself than he'd expected. that doing what he had planned to do, especially to shadow of all people, was going to be shockingly difficult, and perhaps not even the correct choice at all. which is why vio's canon ending kind of falls flat to me, even though i can't imagine it could have ended any other way. this isn't to say he shouldn't have tried to betray shadow--it's an internal conflict he's going through, and a character usually makes the choice antithetical to what actually fuck i just boiled it down to the essentials i know exactly and fundamentally why i like vio as a character holy shit okay

SO normally a character in a story will start out Wanting something and Needing something else, and their entire arc is realizing, "aw beans, my Want actually sucks, i Need my Need" and then they pursue that instead. hero's journey etc.

think about the general premise of vio, and to an extent the other three: character is given individual consciousness to serve a specific noble purpose, and then cease to exist once said purpose has been served. and with the others, that's basically it, minor emotional and relationship arcs aside. but with vio? the premise GOES somewhere. oh no! character finds themselves drawn to the dark side by a "tempting" "evil" person or force, who CORRUPTS them into THINKING they WANT to defy that destiny! that they should be selfish, and bad, and turn their back on what they actually Need to do. so says the narrative, the character NEEDS to accept that they're not meant for anything but being used and discarded, because that's what good people do, and these are the Sacrifices We Must Make to Be Good. does your hero have any kind of unconventional or deviant leanings? well either that shit's getting straightened the hell out, or they are going to perish to save the Pure Good Guys, because that's all they deserve. that is a very common way to handle's vio's exact sort of character premise, and at first glance at the manga, one could argue that it's no exception. link still reforms, after all. arguably this kind of happens with shadow, but i think i like his ending a lot more outside of the shipping context. it says something more nuanced than above, but this isn't the post for going into that.

i would argue that almost every fiber of this manga pertaining to vio is actually trying to do the opposite of what i described above, even though it never is able to come to fruition.

quite simply, compared to the typical Needs and Wants of a corrupted hero type, vio's are like subverted. he's given a corruption arc, and it looks pretty basic at first, but it quickly becomes so... unconventional? and fun? and, dare i say, queer? i say it lot in reference to his whole turn of character once he joins shadow, but vio commits to the bit way more than is necessary to carry out his plan. shadow's not that perceptive and vio didn't need to be so close with him, so snarky and clearly enjoying himself, so bizarrely extra and innovative with the means by which he psychologically tortures his friends. his internal conflict, especially towards the end of his villain era, is less "i'm miserable because i'm a good guy and i want to save the world but i HAVE to pretend to be evil and like shadow," and more "i'm miserable because i'm actually enjoying a lot of these villainous theatrics and also i have become genuinely endeared to shadow, but i know i HAVE to betray him and rejoin the others because the world needs to be saved." i don't think it's a reach to say that that's what vio's conflict is, in the text. we see it in his expressions, his dialogue, and his reactions to things that happen.

i think this whole subversion was something the authors did with his character, whether accidentally or purposefully, REALIZED they did with his character, and didn't want to give up. but still, the story needed to end with vio rejoining the others and reforming the hero, because like. duh, of course it does, nintendo and source material and all that. but with the way a himekawa built up their obvious faves' (vio and shadow's) stories, it's like well shit, we came up with something we love but we can't really see it through. because within this brilliant subversion of the typical corrupted hero arc, the WANT is vio's sense of obligation to turn on shadow, reform link, etc, and his NEED is to say, "hey fuck this actually, i deserve to be a person and have relationships and do things i enjoy, and that doesn't make me any less of a hero. i'm smart and resourceful and there's definitely a way to both save the world and preserve who i am and get through to shadow."

self-sacrifice isn't inherently heroism. in fiction, it's often a deeply shallow and underwhelming resolution, especially when the character spends so much time growing and becoming who they truly are. i didn't grow up with religion, but i have a slight suspicion it plays a huge part in this entire attitude, and it sucks how much that permeates into media culture. doing good isn't something you can just phone in at the last second; it is a constant and ever-changing way of life, based on a moral system you develop for yourself as you grow. pretending to be someone you're not, acting solely under a prescribed ethical code especially as a grown-ass adult, makes you hollow and spineless, as well as unhappy, resentful, and unfulfilled.

doing good is hard. staying alive is hard. making decisions and forming connections and constantly being challenged are all very hard. but when you choose to embrace life, to accept failure and flaws but still try to be good, make meaningful connections and allow yourself to be genuine and happy and queer? that, to me, is the Goodest of the Good. and it's unique to each of us, while being something we all have the ability to choose for ourselves. and it's never too late for that. until the narrative tells you to jump off a cliff because that's, like, way too nuanced to be sustainable, and sure the story's resolved and it ended happily for the purest of heart, but what a bleak happiness that is. fuck that.

like, compare to vio to adora from she-ra. adora got the ending revelation i wish vio could have gotten. the whole, "i am worth more than my usefulness to others, i deserve love and self-determination" thing, and THAT's what really saved the day. adora saw her future, living happily with catra and the others, not dead or used but just LIVING, and said "hey, maybe the real answer here? the key to being a hero and saving the world? maybe it's loving, and letting myself be loved, and not sacrificing myself because someone said it's what i'm meant to do." and holy shit, she was right. and the narrative rewarded her for it, with a kiss from her catgirl gf and also destroying Big Evil and saving the galaxy or whatever.

fucking IMAGINE if that could have been the thing to save the day in the manga, just for a second. if you isolated just vio and shadow's arc and made them the Main Characters, like how adora and catra are in she ra. if it was truly allowed to be Their Story, if it was able to transcend the source material, if if if. it wouldn't even have to be just vio and shadow's story, honestly -- the four could realize, each for their own individual reasons, that maybe they can't unring the bell of their own existence. that they can protect hyrule better as themselves, that they deserve to continue the development they're been experiencing for the past 300 pages. and maybe vio would be the one to set that line of thought in motion, because has it not been set up exactly so he could?? if you've read my main au, you know exactly what i'm picturing here. and while i like some of the manga's canon ending, there's a reason most people who love these characters engage most often with alternate resolutions.

i think i like vio so much because he surprised me, and that's because he surprised the fucking AUTHORS OF THE MANGA. even more than a decade after publication, they made a point to say in their note that they appreciated the way people "got" what they were trying to say with shadow and vio specifically. i can't speak for them, and i will concede that i am mostly overthinking just for fun and none of this is that serious, but... come on. do you not see what i'm seeing here. they did something so fascinating and tragically unfulfilled here, and that all hinges on vio. and it's also just. so resonant to me as a gay person, in the same way she ra was.

obviously i could say more, and this is embarrassingly unhinged and maybe delusional, i don't know. i just wrote a lot of words about something so silly and arbitrary, but i took the time to write them because i care and can't get that time back now. so i might as well commit to the bit like gayass purple boy and post anyway